helpful words

I found Oswald Chambers very helpful today:

"He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord —2 Samuel 23:16"

"What has been like “water from the well of Bethlehem” to you recently— love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing ( 2 Samuel 23:16 )? Have you taken whatever it may be, even at the risk of damaging your own soul, simply to satisfy yourself? If you have, then you cannot pour it out “to the Lord.” You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God— something that your common sense says is an absurd waste.

How can I pour out “to the Lord” natural love and spiritual blessings? There is only one way— I must make a determination in my mind to do so. There are certain things other people do that could never be received by someone who does not know God, because it is humanly impossible to repay them. As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out “to the Lord.” Then these very things that have come to me will be poured out as “rivers of living water” all around me ( John 7:38 ). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out “to the Lord.”

If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything “to the Lord,” other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you."

brokenness

This morning I was reminded by an article a poem written by a man centuries before mine, broken before God:

"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise" - Psalm 51:16-17

Why is this what you want God?

Am I broken? I am.

But why this? What about this brings you pleasure?

God delights in the the healing of the innermost parts of us. He does not work from the outside in, but from the inside out. Before the world began the salvation story started with the hope and glory of Jesus being able and willing to be everything, meet every need, and be all satisfying forever.

God if what you want is my brokennes, then here I am.

I don't know how to not be despised for that brokenness, because I have despised it in myself.

But this is your treasure when I present it to you.

A vessel willing to be pieced back together, mended, and filled.

some men

I am thankful that God helps other men see me.

"There have been men before now who got so interested in probing the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself...as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave thought to Christ" - CS Lewis

camus

In the midst of studying for a sermon on the attributes of God I ran across an essay by Albert Camus titled "The Unbeliever". Camus added to a philosophy called absurdism, which opposed nihilism, but to no distinct end. The soul of Camus had longing and that gave him a small boat to ride above the sea of nothingness that was nihilism. He was certain that there was meaning, but could give it no specific name. He, like the woman at the well, only knew that they did not have the ability to personally draw eternal water themselves. Camus wrote this as a speech to present to a group of monks that asked him if he would tell them what, according to his view, Christians should do or do differently. Here is part of that response:

“What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man. That they should get away from abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today. The grouping we need is a grouping of men resolved to speak out clearly and to pay up personally. When a Spanish bishop blesses political execution, he ceases to be a bishop or a Christian or even a man; he is a dog just like the one who, backed by an ideology, orders that executions without doing the dirty work himself. We are still waiting, and I am waiting, for a group of all those who refuse to be dogs and are resolved to pay the price that must be paid so that man can be something more than a dog.”

Hold out the hope you have. Speak in love and speak loudly.

Savannah

"No man can stay alive when nobody is waiting for him. Everyone who returns from a long and difficult trip is looking for someone waiting for him at the station or airport. Everyone wants to tell his story and share his moments of pain and exhilaration with someone who stayed home waiting for him to come back" - Henry Nouwen in Wounded Healer

Tonight is my last night in Savannah, Georgia (imagine me saying that with a southern accent. It catches on very quickly). A wedding yesterday of two people that look forward to each other. He was stable and strong and she commanded his attention with sweet glances. The parents exchanged prayers over their new children and the pastor shared some words about the parents prayers over the children being answered. With only a few words my mind was find with thoughts of how my parents have always and still do pray for me. Prayer is true and I will be proof. The grooms family made me one of their own many years ago and I am included me in their family photos. Savannah has made me new in many ways. Verse for the week was Philippians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." We cannot be dishonest with this verse. It asks for complete trust. The kind of trust that holds the heart in the fire long enough for shaping. We feel the desperate heat, but do not known what shape it will take. By God's grace these wound will heal to become a tool for the healing of others. Lord, I pray for grace in the shaping and songs in the night. And sometimes known, often unknowingly, all along Joy holds us.

Went alligator hunting for the bachelor party...

to perceive and live

"No person can consistently live in a manner that is inconsistent with how he perceives himself. You must see yourself as a child of God in order to live like a child of God." - Neil Anderson

Conan

Here is an article from Kitsap Counties homeless newspapers edited by Sally Santana. The article was written by Major Baker, a good friend who is the charge staff of Bremerton's Salvation Army.

From “Conan” as told to Major Baker

His parents were heavy drinkers and pill takers.
They abused him sexually, mostly through his
mother’s insistence and threatened to kill him if
he told authorities. His mother loved to manipulate
people. She would beat him with bamboo canes
until he was bruised from mid-back to his knees,
causing severe back problems. They made him feel worthless. He was terrified of authority because all authority was abusive in his eyes.
He began drinking at age 10 and got into drugs at age 12. He ran away from home
three times. When he was 15 his parents said if he tried it again he would be dead because he “embarrassed them.”
He was sexually molested by men when he was a 14-year-old runaway and again when
he was 23. At 18 he moved to Oak Harbor lived with a brother. He washed out of Navy boot camp because of a near nervous breakdown. Meanwhile his brother was trying to convert him to Christ through threats, manipulation and “holy roller” style preaching. He stayed four years trying to gain his brother’s approval and feeling brainwashed. He got married during that time but the relationship was mostly physical and immature. It ended when he discovered that she had been cheating.
At 23 he got deeper into drugs and alcohol. He would get jobs and then quit abruptly
and hitchhike to another town and another job. He drank and used drugs heavily for 30 years to medicate and quiet the memories.
As a homeless person he was constantly looking out for the cops and for the “jocks,” who liked to beat up “bums.” He has been shot at, robbed and molested. “The world is full of sharks,” he says. “[On the street] you cannot show any weakness. There is no security at all.” To survive he sold drugs or had a “sugar momma” or did fortune telling.
He learned how to set up a campsite from Vietnam vets. He kept his camp clean, had a
large backpack, 6’ x 6’ brown dome tent, fire pit, latrine and quicklime. He always bought food with his food stamps and never sold them for drugs. He only stayed in a campsite 3 weeks, because the cops would find it by that time.
His father died 5 ½ years ago and he was torn up. He loved his father because his
father taught him many work skills that enabled him to get jobs. But his preacher brother did not even call to tell him his father had died until two days before the funeral – not enough time to attend.
When his mother died of cancer, his only wish was that she had died more slowly.
“Conan” has made some good choices over the years. He used to steal but quit because
he knew it was wrong. Although he can’t hold a job he has never wanted to go on disability. He prefers to volunteer rather than ‘take.’ He has quit drinking and taking drugs because now he wants to face his demons instead of medicating them into oblivion. He is eating healthier and living better. And maybe, just maybe, he will be able to finally exorcise those demons.

taste and see

On a closed road beside the Coffee Oasis drive-thru we hosted the first annual Coffee Oasis Block Party today! It was hugely successful. Beautiful people of all shapes, sizes, looks, and colors came and ate together, watched together (3-on-3 basketball), listened together (very gifted rap artist from Seattle), and played together (traditional street games). In the music and conversation I heard Jesus spoken of and shared. I would guess around 350 people tasted the delicious BBQ.

Here is a effort at hymnody that I wrote today:

Jesus, Savior of the trembling hearted
Needing to hear Thy voice again
Daylong nights and dirty passions
Left too weak to love renew

Jesus, God in flesh abiding
Walk not by my sinking heart
We hold dim vision of Thy coming
But what Thou has none other can impart

Jesus, insatiable joy of man’s desire
Creation groans to release Thy name
Infant laugh and aging fondness
Morning dawn to evening flame

Jesus, Savior of all who call upon Thee
These rescued now proclaim
Infinite praise to King Immortal
Be celebrated now into eternity!

renew me

This life affords many strange feelings, strange experiences. One of those is the feeling of having to constantly catch-up, as if life has left you behind. Writing a blog affords that feeling. There are a thousand stories I have not spared the time to share and there is no way to regain them for you. Perhaps one day when someone goes through the scraps of our lives they will put the pieces together and tell the story, but no late night, sniffly nose, surveyed landscape, or humbled sinner waits for camera crews. Real life shared is irreplaceable. So I will try to share more with you, if...you share with me.

The lesson of the past blog-less months has been: renewed holiness. Though I was an athlete my memories of high school are not lettermans jackets and American made muscle cars. I remember holiness. A commitment to keep myself from worldliness. I knew I could not invent holiness, I simply must obey. And I enjoyed it immensely. Renew to me joy, O Lord.

Upon his brothers voyage to Peru Jim Elliot wrote his mother: "Remember we have bargained with him who bore a cross....Our silken selves must know denial. Hear Amy Carmichael:

O Prince of Glory, who dost bring
Thy sons to gory through the Cross,
Let us not shrink from suffering,
Reproach or loss."

more again soon...

O blog how I miss thee!
Thou raiment is of threaded word,
and thy path along a pleasant brook.
Mayest I walk thine way again?

I am studying for a 15 page paper that is due in...11 hours! I must begin! Wanted to write and thank Mr. Lewis. I have read nearly 11 books and 7 journal articles--thousands of pages--for this paper and find in Jack's writing more clear thinking than most other Christian and non-Christian sources. God bless that man! I do not agree with everything and that is part of the beauty. We are both worshippers. That is evident in the way he writes and the way my minded-heart works.