Decoding Grace

Since my church's new website launched this week and the class describe below is what started my redesign of it, It's appropriate that I have this devotional running at Exemplify Online. I hope you'll join me over there.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God…” Ephesians 2:8, NIV

Recently I took a class to learn the basics of HTML—the programming language that makes websites work.

To my untrained eye, HTML code looked like a mish-mash of brackets, symbols, odd words and strange spacing. I couldn’t imagine anyone would ever make sense of it, let alone me!

However, during the course the instructor broke this gibberish into understandable chunks. He “decoded” the code and amazingly I started to understand it. At first we learned to write simple commands to add things like a line or italicized text. By the end of the class, we could create a simple website.

After making one frustrating mistake after another, I learned one important fact: HTML code must be written precisely. One misspelled word, forgotten bracket or incorrect term and your idea won’t execute—at all. When it comes to coding, close isn’t good enough.

Sometimes Christianity can seem as difficult to understand and demanding as HTML. It’s easy to believe we must follow a specific list of should’s and should-not’s to make our faith “execute.” That if we correctly line up a prescribed combination of good things like prayer, Bible reading, church attendance and good deeds, and avoid a set list of bad things like gossip, slander, excess and idolatry then all will be well between us and God.

When our faith feels stuck or God seems distant, it just means we need to perfect our “faith formula” and make adjustments.

But Christianity offers one very important thing that computer programming doesn’t—grace.
Grace means our faith cannot be attained by executing a precise list of thoughts, deeds, actions and eloquent prayers. It’s a gift. Sound too simple? Ask the Pharisees. They tried to write the perfectly formatted “code” that led to God. And, the more precisely they wrote,  interpreted and executed it, the farther away from Him they got. In fact, they ended up so distant that when Jesus appeared right in front of their noses, they didn’t recognize Him at all.

Actions like prayer, worship, works and Bible reading certainly enhance our faith, but these things, done on their own, aren’t the “code” that gets us to God. When we are followers of Christ, they become an extension of our relationship with Him and not a requirement of rituals.

On the cross Jesus did the work for us. In this one eternity-changing act, God told us we don’t need a list of do’s and don’ts to make faith work. Perfection is not required. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace. Nothing. All He asks is that we receive this gift.  

Receive it and follow Him.

Love Lockdown

I wrote this over at Exemplify Online. I hope you'll follow me there.

Comfort.

I love it. I seek it. I strive to maintain it.

I want comfortable shoes. A comfy bed. Comfort-controlled climates. Comfort foods. Cups of comfort. Comfort zones. And comfortable relationships.

Stress? Conflict? Affliction? Suffering? No thanks.

In suburban America we place a high value on things that make us feel safe, secure and contented. We avoid, eliminate, alleviate and medicate that which causes us discomfort. And it’s not just that we want comfortable lives, we feel we’re entitled to them. When our comfort gets breached, we get protective, frustrated or angry.

The problem is that Jesus doesn’t promise circumstantial comfort for His followers—at all. In fact the Good News seems to promotes the opposite.  

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20)
“In this world you will have trouble…” (John 16:33a)
“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” (Philippians 1:29)
“If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.” (Proverbs 21:13)

Jesus didn’t spend his ministry in the comfy digs of his four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath suburban Jerusalem home and expect folks to come to Him. He didn’t pen volumes to educate His students. He didn’t form committees to debate social reform. He didn’t sit on His throne and order His subjects to serve Him.

Jesus was a man of action and compassion. He brought His anointed touch, loving spirit and words of truth to where the masses didn’t want to go. To the sick, the lame, the brokenhearted, the cast out, the prisoners, the small, the weak and the marginalized.

And to His disciples He said, “Follow me.”

He says the same to us. When I read between the lines, I hear Jesus asking, “Will you follow Me even if it means leaving the confines of your comfort? Are you willing to step out of your self-made sanctuary and enter into uncomfortable circumstances, places or relationships in my name? Into the dirty, pungent, unknown, unfamiliar, strife-filled, potentially embarrassing and sometimes scary.

Am I? 

For a long while I replied, “Lord, I want to follow you, but can I stay close to the safety and familiarity of my own life?”

This past year God’s answer has been a resounding, “No!” As a result He’s led me off my map big time. He has taken me into a hospice, a prison, a chemotherapy suite, a slum, the mission field and most recently a Haitian refugee camp. Each situation was emotionally and physically far from my comfort, experience and qualifications; yet in each,  Jehovah Jirah ("The Lord will provide"), gave me the ability to do what He called me to do. Sometimes doing nothing more than loving in His name.

These experiences leave me awe-filled and thankful because in them I saw God—and His children—far more vividly and powerfully than I ever had in the comfort of my middle-class life.

Jesus says, “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8) Unleash your fears and trust me.
Our Savior is in dark corners, in the messy, the broken and the ailing. When we follow Him there, He will break us. Fill us. Use us.

And we will never be the same again.

Are you willing to follow Jesus where He calls you—wherever that is? If not, what's holding you back?

The Hard Facts About God: Understanding What We Believe

Hello my sisters and brothers! Thanks be to God for a wonderful trip to Haiti. I have more to say than words can express and have struggled to write a cohesive story. Hopefully by tomorrow clarity will come. I have a feeling you'll be hearing about Haiti and its people for a while to come. 

Thanks for your wonderful comments and prayers while I was away. And thanks for your support of Dan's takeover of the blog. He's a far better writer than I and I, for one, was thrilled to read his writings. Although he got bit by the stats monster and swears his life can't handle the stress of a blog!

As a saving grace for my lack of writing, I have a devotional running over at Exemplify Online.Here's an excerpt. I hope you click over to read it in its entirety. 

The Hard Facts About God...


“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

“Mom, did ya know no one’s ever seen a black hole?”

“Really? I had no idea,” I said.

My son is learning about space at school. He comes home excitedly talking about never-ending black holes and nebulas shaped like butterflies and gases that travel 4,000 feet per second. His enthusiasm is contagious and I find myself pondering the wonders and vastness of space with him.

He is, and always has been, an asker of “why?” and “how come?” But when he asks me the hows and whys of the heavens, my non-Nova watching, Stephen Hawking-reading self weakly replies, “Go ask your father.” The quest for the understanding of space, and the search for its beginnings and endings makes my head hurt. It’s too big.

My son’s also of an age where he’s looking into the expanse of the Godly realms, measuring his Sunday School education against his sixth grade learning. In the process science and religion, faith and intellect are colliding. He’s at a crossroads. I can see in his head it’s not adding up—heaven, hell, creation, eternal life.

He’s thirsty for answers. For the hard facts about God.

Recently we drove in the car and he talked again about some amazing space thing he’d just learned about. I sensed an opening and said, “Think about how big space is. The smartest scientists in the entire world can’t know a fraction of what they want to know. Space is just too vast. Now imagine if God created all of space how big He must be. We can try to understand God, but it’s just not possible for our minds to comprehend all of Him. But, just like we know things in space are real, but can't completely explain them, God is real even though we can't completely understand Him.” I said.

We talked about heaven and hell. And dying and Jesus. And faith. I saw a small light go on in his mind.
“Wow!” he said with new-found understanding, “Talking about heaven makes me want to die.”
“I know. But I want you stick around here for a while,” I chuckled.

God created us with intelligence, personalities and passions. Some folks trust and never waver in their faith about God. They’re comfortable where they are. Others wrestle with their intellect and set out in search of big answers and hard facts. I belonged to the latter category and I see my son does as well. It’s how we were made.

The struggle and the searching can be a wonderfully restorative process. God promises, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) God wants us to seek Him, to find Him and to know Him. If our questions lead us to Him, I believe He wants us to ask and wrestle and contemplate. But intellectualism can batter faith. The enemy lurks ever-ready to turn our seeking into the dark realms of doubt and cynicism—into a black hole. Residing in such a place leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit.

We can have confidence that our faith need not be blind or based on whims of fancy. It can be explored, defended and withstand an intellectual test. However faith, as science, cannot be completely explained. No matter how many questions we ask or doubts we have satisfied, we will never fully know and understand God. He’s just too big. There comes a point where we must make a choice—believe. Or not.

When we choose to take a step (not a leap) into faith we find the most amazing thing occurs—we don’t understand to believe…we believe and then we understand.

Who, Me?

I'm posting at Exemplify Online today where you can read this entire devotional. 
 

“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:12)

Missionaries. For most of my life I pictured them toiling away in the deepest, darkest jungles of the Amazon basin converting savages. They’d spend their days in hostile environments, eat bugs and monkey brains, sleep in huts, dodge piranhas and risk their lives to spread God’s word. Honestly, I wondered why anyone would say “yes” to such a job.

Then I became a Christian and started looking at life differently. Phrases like “finding your purpose” and “following God’s will” suddenly crept into my reality. I wanted to live a life that pleased God and wondered how I might serve Him. Then one day a shiver of dread put the brakes on my enthusiasm as my greatest fear sprang to mind, “What if God calls me to be a missionary?!”

For a while I packed my schedule so full that I made sure if God called, I’d be too busy to answer. Yet, the more my faith grew, the more missionary experiences intrigued me. For one thing, I found out they don’t just work in the jungles; but serve all over the globe (even in the United States!). And the ones I’ve met fascinate and impress me. Their stories speak to my wanderlust and passion for the gospel.

Each summer our church sends a group of missionaries to the Dominican Republic. For years I sat in the pews on Mission Sunday and heard their testimonies. Each time I said, “Some day I’m going to do that.” Yet, although my husband joined the past two trips, the time never seemed right for me. Until this year.

This past January when organizers asked for commitments to the 2009 trip, it seemed God cleared the way not only for me, but for my husband and children to go as well. The fact that I might go on a mission trip was a hope—that we will go as a family is a dream come true.
For months we’ve hurdled passport, immunization, planning and most of all, fundraising obstacles. And now, in two days we’ll be in “the DR” working alongside our fellow missionaries.

During our time there we’ll start construction on a church, hold VBS, run a medical clinic, and worship with our Dominican brothers and sisters in a community very different from our own.
Our days will be long and our work tiring. Am I nervous? Yes. But I trust God has a plan to grow, stretch and take each of us deeper into his love. Because that’s how God works. He doesn’t need us to do any of the things we’re setting out to do (He is all powerful after all), but instead wants us to be part of the process. He gives us the glorious opportunity to build His kingdom, one brick and one soul at a time—dispensers and recipients of His amazing grace.

Turns out, as followers of Christ we’re ALL missionaries called to “love one another” (John 13:34) and “go to the people of all nations and make them [Jesus’] disciples.” (Matthew 28:19) God’s call may indeed take us to remote locations, but more likely our mission field is no further than our own backyards—the playground, our workplace, the bus stop, our book club, a homeless shelter, a tutoring center or even the Internet.

It’s not where we travel, but that we do. And that when God nudges, prompts and plants thoughts that just won’t go away, we say “OK, Lord. I’ll go.” And don’t be surprised if what you end up doing is the very thing to which you once said, “Who, me? Never!”

God’s funny like that.

To what mission field is He leading you?

Lord, give me the courage to share the Good News boldly and passionately through my words, but especially through my actions. Give me ears to hear your call, feet to follow and a voice to say, “Yes.” Amen.


P.S. Thanks for your warm response to my very first post. It was such a blessing to see old friends and meet new ones. I look forward to traveling this journey with you.