Friday, May 18, 2007

Shells

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
Matt 7:24-25
You have a God who hears you, the power of love behind you, the Holy Spirit within you, and all of heaven ahead of you. If you have the Shepherd, you have grace for every sin, direction for every turn, a candle for every corner, and an anchor for every storm. You have everything you need.
Max Lucado
http://www.maxlucado.com/
(Check out Max Lucado’s website, he has a simple and powerful message of hope and grace for the church today.)

I brought home some shells from our last beach trip, something I would not normally do. I felt like a kid exploring the sands of my youth, looking for a jewel of color and symmetry. Frankly, they were hard to find. I noticed something almost immediately when collecting these shells; the smaller, plainer ones were always intact, while the larger, more colorful ones were frequently broken. I began to examine the texture of these different sized shells. I found that I could easily break the larger ones with my hands as they were brittle and thin. But the small ones…wow! I could not even chip them. They were thick, hard, and tough as nails.

I gazed at the breakers, especially in spots where a large deposit of shells had gathered on the beach. I could actually see the larger more fragile shells tumbling in the foamy mixture, riding violently to the beach sand. There was no way they were going to make it to the shore intact, the churning waves saw to that. The smaller ones, almost impossible to see in the turbid tide, magically appeared on the sand, intact, none worse for the wear.

In my years as a believer, I have seen plenty of the big beautiful shells, those people who make sure the attention is drawn to themselves…but who just seem to have big chunks cracked off from a character standpoint. Yet, church folks seem to not only tolerate some of these so called leaders, they treat them like rock stars, embracing any ‘revelation’ that comes forth from their mouths. The crowd actually feeds those character flaws. I have said this before, when I see a ‘ministry’ that is named after the particular leader of that organization, I have a tendency to stay away. There is usually some chunk missing. Not always, but most of the time.

In my later years as a Christian, I have noticed many more of the smaller shells with the tough hides. They are the people who magically appear in my life. They are the saints who have weathered the waves over the years. They are those, who like the small shells, are hard to identify in the breakers. And frankly, they don’t want to be recognized. They are the people who I have written about frequently in my blog; all one has to do is take a quick review of my pasts musings to see that the small shells with the tough hides are the ones that have meant the most to me.

And I have found characters in the Bible who jump out at me but are generally overlooked. For instance, Ananias, in Acts 9, is a great man of faith, and doesn’t get a lot of airplay.

Think about it. God tells him to go to a specific street, and lay hands on one of the worst persecutors of the faith so he will receive his sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So Ananias, after a healthy bit of skepticism, says, "Yes Sir, I will go."

When he encounters Paul, he does something amazing. He addresses him as ‘brother’. (Paul later mentions him in his great defense and testimony in Acts 22 as a devout man who was well spoken of by all who lived in Damascus.) This guy was a small shell. One who magically appeared at the right time, obeyed God, fed and strengthened his new brother, and just as quickly disappeared back into the sand.

He probably had more satisfaction in being someone who was well spoken of by his neighbors, than wanting to be known as the man who healed Paul from his blindness. He was a small shell with his Godly character intact, no chunks missing in this guy!

I thank you Lord, for the 'small shells' in my life who have done big things.

Mark

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

A Deep and Gentle Sigh


Godliness with content- ment is great gain.
1 Timothy 6:6

Continuing with the same thought…contentment. Knowing that our lives are good, pleasing to Him. Not striving, wondering, am I holy enough? Am I doing enough?Am I good enough?

At some point in life, one has to come to the conclusion that His grace is sufficient. I can do nothing to make myself presentable to God, except by clothing myself with His redemptive robes of grace.

And yes, it produces contentment. This is a word that may conjure up a meek, tame, definition, yet, personally from a spiritual perspective, it is more powerful than words like “overcomer, more than conquerors, victorious over sin”. I realize that these too are Biblical terms, but to me, these are action words, and sometimes we have a tendency to take those action words and make them into “works”.

I opened my Everyday Blessings devotional by Max Lucado today and he had this to say:


When we surrender to God the cumbersome sack of discontentment, we don’t just give up something; we gain something. God replaces it with a lightweight, tailor made, sorrow resistant attache’ of gratitude.
What will you gain with contentment? You may gain your marriage. You may gain precious hours with your children. You may gain joy.

Contentment yields a certain ease of mind, a gentle sigh, a resignation to the fact that God is the One who has done the work through the cross for us. It has taken me a while to get to the point of contentment in my life. It is a feeling of : “Here I am Lord, and this is who I am. And You still love me? Yes! You do! And I love You back.”

And that is more powerful than any realization of 'working for a living' in the Kingdom of God. I have tried that before; it was no fun. But now, sharing His grace with others is natural, peaceful, with no hint of punching that religious clock or putting on some religious hat.

Contentment. A deep and gentle sigh. It sounds pretty simple, yet for me it is very substantive and very profound.


The Hatter

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

How Big is Your World?

...and you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.

Acts 1:8

I was visiting with old some friends recently and we were reminiscing about our college days. A certain minister came up and we remembered one of his pet sermonettes, which was meant to appeal to our youthful idealism and mobility. Looking at it now, it appears highly manipulative.

He used to say, “How many of you just want to get married, get some job, have kids, settle down in some little town like your parents and have no impact on the world for the Kingdom of God!?”

“No!” he would bellow, “God has much more for you! You are the head and not the tail! You will be overcomers all over this world!”

It was funny, thinking back on how different people reacted. Some longed for the small time life and an existence away from the frenetic college world. Others bought into the manipulation, and have told me that they have lived for years in, what would be considered by this man, a mundane existence always wondering if they had fulfilled their ‘destiny’.

Another more subtle lie was planted in the minds of young folks in my demographic, those from two parent families, Mom cooking every night, Pop working hard to provide for his family, setting the example for the kids...somehow this was second class in this man’s eyes. More than a subtle lie, it was a damnable lie.

Many years have passed since those idealistic days, and I have come to my own conclusions about my world around me. Bottom line, it is pretty small. And I like it that way. Hear me out.

A friend and I were talking recently and I asked him if he knew how much ‘geo- graphy’ Jesus covered while He was on earth. My friend told me that, taking away the trips to Egypt , it has been said that Jesus covered about a much territory as a New England state.

It is astonishing, given what we take for granted with technology and the information highway, that our Savior’s message spread from a relatively small mound of earth that became the spiritual epicenter of the Good News of the Gospel of Christ to the world!


It is a pattern that I really think we should imitate, one that is really liberating, because in actuality, many of us do leave college, find jobs, marry, have children and live in some locale.

Our ‘worlds’ may not be much larger than the one Jesus trod upon. But His influence, our influence...it is not limited in terms of geography. When Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world, I don’t think many understood then or now.

I wonder...when Jesus told the apostles to be a witness for Him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even the remotest part of the earth...could it mean that our influence may need to start in our own “Jerusalem”? Mine would simply be my home. My family. My friends. My job. Have we missed opportunities to share the love and grace of Christ because some manipulative preacher has planted a false idea about what is good, what is right, what is pure?


Give me my world any day. I embrace the ‘mundane existence’; I embrace it for its diminutive simplicity, as it also encompasses something of unbounded infinity, the Kingdom of God.

Finally, for anyone still reading my blog, you have noticed that my entries have become fewer and further between. With summer approaching, I may have more time to write, then again, there were a bunch of stories that I wanted to tell, and I told them. So check in from time to time. Only time will tell if I keep tapping the keyboard or move on to building ships in a bottle. Thanks so much for reading!


Mark
Prov. 17:22
Keep that heart merry!