Which means I’m writing . . . Take a look.

“All good things . . . ” Isn’t that what they say? Then again, God is the Supreme Good and He never ends. But, that’s probably why all “other” good does. Of course, some might not agree this blog is good. That’s okay. If I’ve really been faithful, and I pray that I have, that’s irrelevant. In the end, there is only Him. As it should be. Come.

In the meantime, I feel a bit like Thomas Aquinas these days. Thanks to Brennan Manning — and I mean that sincerely . . . he packs a punch with his writing and I appreciate it so much — I know that Thomas never finished his final work, Summa Theologica. After a mysterious encounter with the Presence, he simply stopped. And when questioned about it, he replied with the quote below. I’m no Thomas, but I think that at least at some level I understand these words and they could be mine. Today they are:

“I can write no more . . . everything I have written [is] straw.”

Now, I know myself better than to think I won’t write. If I’m breathing, I’ll write. What, where and when I’ll write, He knows. As they also say, every ending is really a beginning.

Stay tuned . . .

“It is a grievous fault in our thinking when we set reverence against relevance.”

“. . . relevance that is truly creative is on behalf of and not against a great tradition.”

- Richard John Neuhaus, Freedom For Ministry

A little tidbit that gets right to the point today. I’ve often thought about my blog title: “Captivated Bride” and wondered why exactly I settled on it. I just remember that’s what came to me when I first started to blog, so I stuck with it. Today, I read — for the second time so far — A Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola. Thank you for sharing, Gary! Well, one line reminded me or confirmed, I guess, why I’m the Captivated Bride . . .

It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love.

If you haven’t already, I highly encourage you to read the full manifesto . . . just click  here.

(Note: I wrote this entry yesterday. I left it sitting on my computer screen all night because I couldn’t decide whether to post it. It’s raw, and I might wish in a few days or next year that I’d kept it to myself, but I don’t think so. There’s no resolution today. But, there is trust that the God who gave me a heart that hurts for these things can give me comfort and peace about it all.)

Yes, I’m quoting Rodney King today. Yes, it’s been ridiculously overused. Yes, I’m doing it anyway. Today, it’s the cry of my heart, and the cry of my soul . . . and if I think about everything too long, I think I will cry.

This probably won’t be as much of a blog of spiritual insight as it will be a general rambling about spiritual crisis. The kind that sneaks up on you all of a sudden or slowly creeps in over months and years. It’s the kind of lament that builds when you wish there wasn’t so much division among us Christians, when you can’t find a suitable explanation for why we have sliced and diced this shared body into all these different churches where nobody can really agree on much of anything, so we end up staying apart instead of together.

Why is it we’ll wear a common cross, read a common Book and pray to a common God, yet we’ve determined it’s better to spend our Sundays across town from one another because we can’t come to an understanding about which songs are best for worship, what the dress code should be, when services should end, or how often we should have communion? And that’s just the short list.

There are days, and this is one of them, when the pain of being apart really seems to overrule any greater conviction I have about the weekly practice of my faith. I start to wonder if we can really fulfill the admonition in Hebrews not to “forsake the fellowship” when we are only doing it in little circles where the members more closely resemble those of high school cliques than followers of Jesus. Didn’t He pray, “May they be one”?

Two weeks ago I saw a new billboard posted near the downtown bridge. It read, “Why another church in Tuscaloosa?” My first thought? Catchy. I’m sure it has people talking. It probably is getting folks through the door of that little fellowship on Sundays.

But, as I read it again and again as I passed by several days in a row, my thinking shifted. “Why another church in Tuscaloosa?” Exactly. Why? Just another group of believers who whether they think they are or not (and according to their website — which the billboard prompted me to visit — they don’t), are proclaiming that they’ve got the Christian thing figured out, and it can’t be found at any other church in town.

I’ve even heard it said about my own church that the reason we exist is because “God wants this expression of His body in our city.” Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if He really wants any more expressions of a broken body. Like it or not, and no matter how you sugar coat it or justify it, what we continue to represent is division. I think what we the church appear to be to anyone on the outside looking in, is a hemorrhaging victim of a brutal attack by ax. Limbs separated from one another, entire segments missing. Gasping. Dying.

Today, I don’t want to be a part of any of it, because that feels like choosing sides, and I just want to choose Jesus. I wish we could all just choose Jesus and that would bring the unity He prayed for us to have. I’m boiling things down to a ridiculously simple level, I’m sure. And it seems like a pie in the sky dream considering the state of the situation, but it is my dream. How can it not be when that was His desire for His body?

Will and I had the wonderful, amazing, fantastic opportunity to see Eddie James and some “kids” from his ministry at a local church last week.

The thing that struck both of us most, aside from the incredibly annointed worship, was the testimonies of transformation spoken by so many of the high school and college youth that make up his band and dance troupe.

These were young people from desperate situations, most having suffered with one form or another of addiction, praising God and testifying to the redemptive power of Christ by the Spirit to pick up the pieces of broken lives and put them back together again.

Not only were their stories inspiring, but the very lives of these youth were proof that we don’t ever have to remain as we once were, and more than that, there is always hope. Let me say that again, there is always hope. But, there’s one important detail that we can’t forget. While God has all power to transform us internally because of the sacrifice made by Christ on our behalf, we have to walk out, “work out” the internal change in the external day-to-day, in the small things, in the little moment-by-moment choices of our lives.

In my own life, there have been times when I’ve felt in desperate need of intervention, of Christ to save me from myself. And there have been encounters, ones that I can name by date and time, with Christ that set the stage for dramatic change in my life. But, that change would never had happened from the encounter alone.

One of our biggest mistakes as Christians, I think, is that we think we just sit back and wait for God to turn us into a new thing. We don’t want to take any of the responsibility for our part in the process. Granted, as I’ve blogged before, our part is surrender. But surrender includes intentional choices toward what God is doing and away from what He is not.

We can pray that God “set a guard” over our mouths and that He “keep watch over the door(s)” (Psalm 141:3) of our lips, and He can and will, I believe, honor those prayers. He will be faithful to inwardly reshape the desires of our hearts. But, He is not the grand Puppeteer. We maintain responsibility for holding fast to the promise and spiritual declaration that we have been changed. It is our part to continue in His work, because it is easy to turn away and follow Him no more (John 6:66).

What sets us apart and confirms our unity with Christ is our obedience to walk in what He has done.

Our obedience, our faithful choices, show that “God’s love is truly made complete” in us. “This is how we know we are in Him. Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.”

“To the degree that our prayer has become the prayer of our heart, we will love more and suffer more, we will see more light and more darkness, more grace and more sin. More of God and more of humanity.” (Henri Nouwen)

This quote, discovered just this morning as I perused Amazon’s collection of Henri Nouwen books, has felt so true in my life over the past year. I’m learning daily, sometimes gruelingly, that the closer God draws me in, the sharper and deeper are the highs and lows in my life.

Reading Nouwen’s quote confirmed what I have suspected about this spiritual truth and comforted me because I realize that it is what is to be expected. When we come closer to God and nearer to Christ, there is peace, free and abundant peace. Yet, our very desire for peace is intensified because we feel ourselves encountering greater internal and external conflict. We discover there is so much more to look beyond now and to see into with God-given eyes because our awareness is heightened in all things, both the joyful and the desperate.

We come to realize more often than not that understanding eludes us. So, we can only rest in the peace that passes and surpasses all understanding, or lack thereof. And I thank God for such peace. Without it, I don’t know how any of us could bear the weight of the revelation of the relentless love of God against the tragic reality of ourselves.

There is such hope for what may be, but with hope comes recognition of how far we’ve yet to go!

I’ve been a bit, okay utterly, discouraged lately at the thought of our inability as Christians to truly forgive. We are steeped in a faith that has a cross as its cornerstone, yet relationships in the body of Christ are some of the most broken and hopeless you’ll find. I don’t get it. And I hate it.

Let me make it clear that in talking about forgiveness, I don’t mean a meager attempt to recognize at a surface level that nobody’s perfect and to superficially extend grace (a.k.a. avoidance) to the unperfect people around us as they go along their way; secretly praying that they continue on a way that leads far from us.

And I’m specifically talking about forgiveness between Christians, because I’m becoming more and more convinced that we have a desperate sickness in this body that is mostly ignored.

Want to know why people hop from one church to another, why Christian families disintegrate, why Christian friendships fall by the wayside, why non-believers often look on believers with disdain? We can’t forgive; therefore, we can’t love. And if we can’t love, we can’t begin to fulfill the calling of Christ. Our authenticity is shot.

I blogged recently about how ministry starts in the home, and I believe we actually impact the world most effectively when we start there. I want to expand that thinking one step outward and say that if we can’t minister in forgiveness (which is the deepest love) within the body of Christ, we simply cannot do it in the non-believing world, no matter how good our intentions or sincere our efforts.

1 John 2:10-11 says that he “abides (lives) in the Light” who “loves his brother [believer] . . . But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother [in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

What this means is that any other attempt at ministry in our lives is incapacitated by our unforgiveness, our unwillingness to love our Christian brothers and sisters as Christ loved us.  

Jesus said that there is no greater love than he that lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). What has anyone done to you that is worse than what was done to Christ, who so readily and fully forgave? Are you willing to lay down your own hurt, pain, disappointment and disillusion in forgiveness toward your Christian brothers or sisters? If you can’t love like that, you can’t really love at all.

I’m not going to sugar coat things. I’m not going to suggest that this is easy or even that it gets easier every time or with time. I’m not going to imply that if you’ll just do it, you’ll like it. I’m not sure that you will. I do believe, though, that the peace, the restoration and the wholeness to follow will convince you that it was worth it and it was right.

Remember that this is the way that Jesus did it. I didn’t make the standard. Take it up with Christ.

“Yes, I too must go beyond justice. To triumph over the sickness of victimisation I  must go beyond it. Like Jesus and in imitation of him, I must wearily climb again the slope of my pain, and throw myself courageously in the decent towards my brothers and sisters, above all towards those whom the short-sightedness of my sick eyes sees as the cause of my evils.

There is no other solution. There is no true peace and union with Jesus without it. As long as I waste time defending myself I get nothing done and I am not truly Christian; I do not know the depths of the heart of Jesus.

To forgive, really forgive, means convincing ourselves deep down that we merited the wrong done to us.” (Carlo Carretto, Letters from the Dessert)

I got hooked on Hannah Whitall Smith’s The Christian’s Secret Of A Happy Life on retreat in North Carolina one month ago. I was recently handed another of her books, Living Confidently in God’s Love.

I personally don’t think she’s gonna top herself with this one, at least for me. But even early into this read, I’ve found a nugget of gold worth holding onto.

Many times when I’ve read verses in the Bible where God states His nature by simply saying “I Am,” I’ve walked away less than inspired, certainly less than comforted. On one hand, this declaration stirs in me awe that He always has been and always will be, Alpha and Omega, the One Before and After all things.

On the other hand, it has always seemed to stop short. I’ve wanted to say, ”Wait, God. You Are . . . You Are What?” Then, Hannah reminded me clearly and simply that in an amazing way, God did the exact opposite of stopping short when He said, “I Am.” He actually left Himself wide open to us in every way, for Him to be everything.

This apparently unfinished name, therefore, is the most comforting name the heart of man could devise. It allows us to add to it, without any limitation, whatever we feel need of, even ”exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” (Ephesians 3:20)

Just a few days after reading this insight, I was able to see Rita Springer at a nearby church. She was absolutely wonderful, and I was completely taken in by one of her newest songs, I Call You.

Her lyrics capture the heart of what it means to find refuge and comfort in I AM and to know Him in reality as the fulfillment of every longing of the human heart:

I call You Maker, I call You Savior, I call You Mighty, I call You God

I call You Father, I call You Faithful, I call You Everything that I’ve got

I call You Jesus, I call You Healer, I call You Mercy, and I call You Mine

I call You One Who Always Will Come Through

You are the Love Who captures my heart

http://www.ritaspringer.com

 

 

“The life of a good religious person should shine in all virtue and be inwardly as it appears outwardly.” (Thomas a Kempis)

I’m not very fond of the word “religious.” It generally holds negative connotation for me, and goes hand in hand easily with “Pharisee.” Yet, Thomas a Kempis uses this word freely to describe all believers. He simply designates that it is possible to be either good or bad in your religious state.

Those who are good are transparent and consistent in both word and deed. The rest are the people in the body of Christ that say one thing and do another, that appear outwardly as saints but are inwardly in rebellion.

Frankly, we’re all hypocrites from time to time. But there are some who live in perpetual disobedience, masked by a carefully crafted outward facade. They may actually accomplish both good words and good deeds in some circles, but they do not live in transparency in all of life, in all relationships.

This morning, I read Christ’s harsh words in Matthew 23 to the “whitewashed tombs” of His day, and it struck me that He was addressing men who considered themselves part of the church, in fact considered themselves the best the church had to offer and the example which others should follow.

” . . . you also outwardly seem to people to be just and upright but inside you are full of pretense and lawlessness and iniquity. Woe to you . . . pretenders!” (v. 28)

Not only does it grieve my heart that there are “vipers” (Matthew 12:34) in the body of Christ today that perpetuate a mythical Christianity that stops short of authentic and complete surrender, but that whenever I fail to guard my own heart and mind, I can quickly become one who “pursues and persecutes” (23:34) others in the body.

How much I desperately desire not to be one of these who causes so much pain and confusion in the body. I dare not be judge and jury for other believers, empty of grace and quick to condemn.

And as I search my own heart’s intentions and desires, I must question where I compromise Christ’s standard that “whoever wants to be great must become a servant.” (20:26 The Message) The line may be finer than I want to think.

I need to ask myself honestly, daily, am I seeking personal acceptance, recognition and “places of honor” (20:21; 23:6) through my acts of service? Am I motivated by the sense of fulfillment attained in my Christian duties? Am I controlled by my own sense of purpose or by a passion for Christ Himself? Do I simply make myself available to God and to others or do I manipulate myself into positions and situations to minister in order to feel important and useful?

Even in the context of “ministry,” it is possible to blur the separation between serving and being served. We can be humble, surrendered vessels unto the purpose and plan of God in the lives of others, or we can be exploiters using others for our own spiritual satisfaction.

I pray we find the balance by the Spirit to follow the example of Christ Who “came not to be waited on but to serve.” (20:28).