What Are YOU Waiting For?

“Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.” Acts 9:8-9

We probably know the story.
Saul was a Pharisee, who lived out his religious convictions by punishing members of “The Way”. He was a devout Jew, and was very popular amongst his peers. He did what he thought was right…he did what he perceived to be God’s will. But he was wrong. On his to Damascus, God intervened. His truth was the light that blinded Saul but it also seared his heart. A divine course correction took place, and the person known as Saul died on that road. No, he didn’t die physically, but the road marked out the conclusion of that identity, that mission, that chapter. To many of his devout followers, he would be dead in their eyes for he was set on a new path by God, that of which they could neither follow or believe in.

Those with whom Saul traveled with led this now blind man into the city of Damascus where we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Whole sermons and sermon series’ have been preached on with this story – mostly focused on that road and God’s intervention and even Ananias when he arrives…but what about the waiting period between the two chapters? What happened within the span of those three days? I believe the soul searching that took place with this blind man once named Saul is just as important and has a lot to teach us. This is not necessarily reading between the lines of the text, this is merely speculating, extrapolating and mulling over this human metamorphosis. A blind man named Saul – Christian persecutor and sometimes executor went into Damascus, a transformed man on a mission named Paul exited that city with divine purpose, intent and a new found passion in life.

BUT…
What happened in those 3 days between blindness and commission?
What changes transpired there?
Is there something teachable in this narrative for you and for me?
I believe there is, so please allow me to share this with you now.

“METAMORPHOSIS”
3 Lessons from 3 Days of Blindness

1st Lesson: Sometimes Spiritual Correction Hurts and We Must Do Some Deep Soul Searching
Saul thought he was doing what God wanted him to do.
He was fighting for and defending his faith…but he was, in fact, persecuting Christ. He had passionately taken up his cause with vim and vigor and knew he was in the right…then God turned his whole world upside down. He was confronted with his own failures…he was confronted with his own mistakes, and it must have hurt. Saul spends three days of blindness not eating and drinking. It is a sobering response to the Theophany he had just experienced. Within the words of Jesus, there was a course correction and for three days Saul had to have replayed that scene over and over in his head. He must have prayed and fasted. He must have explored every action that had led him to this place, like a movie playing in his head for three long days.

I find it interesting that 3 days pass.
3 Days that seem like a real death and a real resurrection.
3 days of emotional and philosophical death until God’s messenger arrives to offer new life again. In a very real sense, Saul is in his chrysalis transforming and arriving at a new physical place.

Do we have chapters like this in our lives?
Has there ever been spiritual correction in your life that has hurt?
God doesn’t enjoy hurting us, it is more for our benefit and growth that these corrections take place. There’s an old phrase – “no pain, no gain” and I think it applies here. If we don’t experience some discomfort in life from time to time we might remain stagnant and planted in incorrect spiritual patterns. God doesn’t want us to remain there, He sees in us the potential for something better, greater and far more substantive that what we have settled for now. He wishes to adjust our paths, and help us grow into maturity within our faith. But we have to be willing to accept these corrections which, hurt, but are meant to help us grow…and sometimes set us on a new, more holy path than what we have settled on.

2nd Lesson: There is Growth that Takes Place that Only Happens in Our Waiting on The Lord
Abraham was an old man before God’s promise of being the father to many nations was actually fulfilled, and certainly Abraham tried to speed up the process with his wife’s handmaiden Hagar. But the waiting was necessary.

David was anointed as king and successor to king Saul, but he did not become king right away, he had to endure hurts, the loss of his best friend when he had ran for his life. But he did not stop being faithful to God – he persisted and eventually the waiting produced the crown in God’s appointed time.

Waiting on the Lord can be tiring and frustrating, and we may sometimes question if God will really show up in our lives and our situations, but in those moments of waiting we grow. These times of waiting produces in us perseverance, endurance and fortitude. You might not believe that you can wait on the Lord. You may question your own strength, but rest assured you are not alone – the Holy Spirit is with you giving you the strength that you need. When we wait, we must recognize our finite while we wait for the Infinite to enter our stories. Saul waited for the appointed time. He wasn’t told how long it would be. He wasn’t told who would show up as God’s ambassador…he just simply waited.

Are you waiting right now for God to show up?
Are you growing frustrated with the “waiting game”?
Maybe we will someday declare as David did in Psalm 40:
“I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
²He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
    out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.
³He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
    and put their trust in him…”

Maybe we can declare this today!

3rd Lesson: There is a New Chapter in the Future to Embrace, but First We must Embrace the Present.
Have you ever visited a doctor’s office?
I am sure that you have.
Most of the time there are two places that you find yourself waiting. First, you have to wait to be seen by the nurse on duty at the front desk as they take your insurance card and all of your vital information. Sometimes they even take your blood pressure. Then they call your name and the nurse takes you through the waiting room door into a hallway which leads to another, more intimate waiting room. Sometimes the nurse asks you to take off your clothes and put on a gown…and then wait. This is sometimes the longest wait that you may have at the doctor’s office. That uncomfortable time dressed only in a thin paper gown, sitting on an examination table while some elevator music is droning on and on in the background. But we cannot speed up that time. We have to simply wait, even when it’s not comfortable or the most desirable thing to do – we still wait. Finally the doctor in a white coat comes in and then we get down to business and the present can then be moved into the future.

If we believe that God sent Jesus to die for us, that Jesus resurrected and went to prepare a place for us, then we already understand what it means to wait. We aren’t in some doctor’s waiting room or anything but we must acknowledge that Jesus promised to return one day – and so His people anxiously wait for his return

But what about the little things of life?
What about the prayers we utter in the hope that God will answer them?
What happens in the in between time of God encounter and fulfillment?
We wait.
Sometimes we wait and wait.
Saul didn’t eat or drink for 3 days.
This parched, blind man waited for God’s fulfillment.
He didn’t know when it would happen, but it WAS going to happen.
He didn’t know WHO God was sending, but in the present moment he waited.

Many times we might feel stuck in the present while we wait for God.
We might grow frustrated and even weary in our waiting, but let me encourage you today: The present waiting room of your life IS where God meets us.
We might not yet know it yet, but He is already present and with you right here and now. We do not need to pine for the future in a “some day” mindset when we understand that God is sitting with us in our present waiting rooms.

Saul met God, then we he had to wait, then when God’s appointed ambassador arrived the commission was given and a much transformed Paul emerged to do the will of God.

Are you waiting right now for God?
Remember this while you wait:
-Sometimes Spiritual Correction Hurts and We Must Do Some Deep Soul Searching.
-There is Growth that Takes Place that Only Happens in Our Waiting on The Lord.
-There is a New Chapter in the Future to Embrace, but First We must Embrace the Present.

Something more to ponder today.
God Bless you!

October 26, 2017 0

Walking at Midnight on the path of restlessness.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

I have another confession to make – I am restless…like pit of my stomach-aching restlessness. Some days I can put my finger on it, while other days it is as elusive as an honest thief. I am usually successful at pushing it back down, repacking that box that it lives in and stowing it away in that shadowy corner that I seldom travel to. Still, I know it’s there…and it weighs on me as if an elephant had decided to perch its rotund bottom on my chest.

I wonder if you feel this way sometimes?
Do you have to push it back down as well?
Do you have to re-tape that worn-out box and pretend that dark corner doesn’t even exist? Does it keep you up at night – blinking at the ceiling fan, counting the rotation of its blades as shadows dance off reflections of streetlights lit only for 3rd shift workers and insomniacs out for a stroll? I repress the urge to join them, to open the front door and walk barefooted down the now cooled, uneven sidewalks as I imagine myself trying to avoid the spiny round pods that fall haphazardly from the large gum tree in our front yard. I have stepped on these awful spiky seeds a time or two while walking barefoot down our path and even in the cool darkness of the night thoughts of the surprise pain causes me to recoil my feet from the lower spaces of my bed.

I wonder if David ever felt this way? The pre-murder and adulterous David…the one that tended sheep and slew predators to the flock. I wonder if he ever felt restless in his heart? I am sure he did when, later he was being pursued by jealous King Saul and his men. As David hid from cave to cave and village to village, I imagine him laying down on an uncomfortable uneven floor hoping to rest his weary head. I can picture his deep sadness as he yearned for his best friend Jonathan. Yet David trusted in God…but I would venture a guess that there were moments in which he was restless and he too had to push it back down and re-tape his box.

It is said that there is a season for everything…and yet Jesus told the people of his day not to worry about anything, yet I can’t help but find myself in the season of worry from time to time. Doe that mean that I am not heeding His words? That, despite my best efforts, I am not trusting in Him? Perhaps you have thought this also> I worry, but Jesus said not to, and here I am still worrying.< What do we do with these seasons? How do we find the glimmers and glints of hope in the mess of our minds? Sometimes we do believe the lie. What lie you ask? The lie that Jesus wasn’t really talking to us when He said those things, that it was just for the disciples and people around Him right then and there… The lie that we are broken people beyond fixing, and that the restlessness that we feel in the pits of our stomachs and the weight of our hearts is what we deserve for being fallen, sinful people.

Don’t live there.
Don’t wallow in that muck and believe that damning lie.
The son who turned his back on his father and spent his entire inheritance on partying, prostitutes and comfort found himself feeding muddy, fetid pigs. Day in and day out he was covered in mud and pig excrement. He definitely smelled as bad as they did. He had lost everything – squandered a small fortune on foolish, regrettable things, and the stink of his life went much deeper than clothes and skin. He lived there. He wallowed there. That pen of stench became his home for a period of time, until he came to senses. As Jesus told this story of prodigal son, I imagine some who were listening felt that he was telling their story. The prodigal son came to his senses, got up and devised a plan to return to his father. He formulated a plan in his mind, he believed he would be unwelcome to return as a son, but maybe, just maybe his father would let him return as a servant. Can you imagine that restless journey home; The endless loop of things he would finally say to his father in order to stave off the reprisals and chastisements? As each dusty step led him closer and closer to the home he once knew, thoughts of doubt and fear must have crept in. “Master, just let me work for you.” (For surely he would never be worthy to call him father after what he did).

And when this beaten-by-life man, who had squandered everything and had hit absolute rock-bottom crested that last hill, and his home was in view…he saw someone running towards him. Perhaps it was a servant instructed to chase him off. Perhaps it was a warning not to come any closer…he would have deserved such a welcome. Instead, it wasn’t any of those things…it was his father that he had wished were dead, running to embrace the son he thought he had lost.

Don’t live in the home of restlessness.
Don’t believe the lie of shame and guilt.
Be forgiven, let your Father embrace you and welcome you home…and when you are finally hope, re-tape that box and then throw it away.

The prodigal son is me.
The prodigal son is you.
But once we have been embraced,
once we have witness our Father running to us,
Once we have been forgiven and returned to our home (where we belong)
don’t even entertain the lie or the box any longer.

But sometimes…we still walk at midnight, say hello, I’ll be waving.

Something more to ponder today.

September 29, 2017 0

Dear Salvation Army, The Voice of Dissonance?

Is there such a thing within our ranks as a dissonant voice?
Is this even something considered?
Sometimes I wonder if individuality can be present within a quasi-militant organizational model such as ours.
Is there ever a place for such a voice?
Can iron sharpen iron without healthy friction?
Is punishment instantly doled out to those with a conflicting voice?

By dissonant I don’t mean a voice of extreme dissent or open rebellion, I mean one who has constructive things to say to the organization as a whole…is this possible? Does that voice really matter? Does the Army still need dissonant voices? Will those voices really make a difference? Or does it sort of resemble this:

I do not wish to throw gasoline onto a fire.
I do not wish to lick an open wound (I know, gross euphemism…sorry).
But I do wonder what sort of place these dissonant voices have in an army that often times spurns abnormal or divergent (sorry book/movie series) soldiers?

Worst Case Scenario of Dissonance:
Divergent, dissonant voices are expelled, sometimes publicly, sometimes quietly with little to no fanfare.
They are driven further and further away from sources of influence and squeezed until they either capitulate or comply to the common “group think”. Hence the “my way or the highway” leadership model. Decisions made by leadership within this scenario do not handle constructive criticism of any kind, and will lash out and punish anyone who raises pertinent questions that challenge the present leadership and its decision.

Best Case Scenario of Dissonance:
Divergent/dissonant voices are listened to, constructive criticism is welcomed in order to make the Army better. Leaders still lead and make the decisions but welcome other voices to help make the organization better. One can still agree to disagree but without the fear of retribution of faulty, insecure leadership. The best case scenario is not the easiest for the organization, but would preserve its constituency while providing ownership to the “group”. BUT…Pick Your Battles!
Dissonant voices can become just like traffic noise if not careful on what battles are waged through constructive criticism. Traffic noise is loud and indicate when someone is coming, but if you constantly live with the noise, it will eventually become tuned out and ignored. If one constantly challenges authority and argues with every voice of reason and “unreason” that voice will eventually lose all power and credibility. If you must challenge authority and leadership…pick your battles and make sure you look for traffic!

Organizational Questions to consider:
Are there times when the voice of dissonance is needed in our Army?
What can one do to ensure dissonant voices of concern are listened to?
How can we tell when we have become the one in need of listening instead of speaking?
Does this army have room to grow and to become better defined and equipped?
How does one know which battles to pick?
When does pride become our blinder and prohibit us from seeing the “big picture” or the “other side”?

The Resonating Dissonance…
In the grand scheme of things, The Salvation Army was born from such a voice.
William and Catherine Booth began this mission because it seemed that no one else would.
They moved from the “accepted” group think into something new, and the transitional go between was this voice of dissonance. Jesus was a dissonant voice in His day. He, at times, upset the “group think”. He challenged the “law”. His way was obviously divine, life saving, deeply personal and yet salvation for the whole wide world. How can we become a resonating voice of dissonance in our world? How can we bring into the focus the need to become better aligned with Christ? How can we align our harmony with the orchestra of God? Can this army thrive within THAT voice again? I believe that we can. I believe that it isn’t too late for that. May we strive to be an ever forward moving army! May we guide the wounded hearts to Christ. May we never stand in the way of His Holy Presence and His moving in this body of Christ! May we use our voices both as individuals as well as an Army to make the name of Christ resound, so that hope is given, love is shared and joy, unspeakable joy is forever dispersed among His people.

Something more for this Army to ponder today.
To God be the glory!

March 23, 2015 5

Dear Salvation Army, The Walking Dead…

Are you disillusioned?
Are you worn out?
Have you found yourself hanging by a thread at the end of your rope?

Are you the walking dead?
I’m not talking about a television show about Zombies…I’m talking about real life…real people…real issues…real hurts…real burdens…real walking dead.

There are moments when we are not able to provide the salve of healing for others because we ourselves are in need of healing.

There are moments when we need the saving instead of us donning our uniforms and reaching out to save others.

There are moments when we must go back to the well of refreshing and allow the Holy Spirit to replenish our dry and empty reserves.

Are you there today?
Are you the walking dead?
Are you in need of that well?
Are you in need of that salve for a burdened, hurting heart?

Don’t feel guilty…this isn’t selfish…this is necessary for you to carry on.
We cannot be self-sufficient apart from Him.
We cannot rely on our own sources of strength and power to carry us through the pathways of ministry that we are called to. We need help. We need to recharge. We need to recognize that we were never meant to become super soldier in this Army of Salvation. We were called to be faithful…and in this faithfulness we must rely on His strength and His direction.

Is this easy? No!
Do we constantly want to go our own direction, take the reins back, fight tooth and nail on the pathway He has led us? Yes!

Dear Salvation Army Soldier,
If you are the walking dead today…be resurrected! The Almighty can restore your life and give you hope in the midst of even the most hopeless of situations. Do we trust Him with everything?

If you feel all alone on your pathway in ministry…be assured you are not alone!
His holy presence longs to fellowship with you every mile of the path. He desires your fellowship and your conversations…even the most mundane. We come from all walks of life and yet we are bound together by this cause which is to meet human needs in His name and to live and desire Christ’s likeness in our lives.

Dear Soldier,
If you are the walking dead today be encouraged! You can be restored, reconciled to Him and your strength renewed! I do not know the struggles that you are facing right now but rest assured the Lord does. That may sound like a simple answer but it is no less the truth! He can bring you back to life. He can restore your ministry when you feel that it has flat-lined. He can rescue your passion and sense of purpose once again. Walk close to the Savior. Seek Him out. Be prepared to move from a place of death and barrenness to a place of fertile fields and rushing waters of rejuvenation of ministry, love, compassion and joy.