Getting Untangled

Oliver is a funny kid. At 18 months he has a well established personality and preferences. His mind works in strange and mysterious ways. He’s a thinker. But let the driving wheel from his parents’ wii game get tangled up with his foot and the frustration comes out. 

My son, Jody, was videoing his daughter, Emma, making some presentation when in the background Oliver is on the floor struggling to get his foot out of the steering wheel. In a desperate moment of frustration, he lies down and yells.

Ever been there? Captured by a moment where something had a hold on you and it wouldn’t let go. If so, you understand how a trapped animal feels. You sense freedom all around you but can’t get to it because something is holding you back.

Hebrews says we are to lay aside the sin that so easily encumbers us so we can run the race unhindered. What is the sin? Honestly, sometimes it’s an attitude or action against God’s intentions. We have stepped into disobedience and walked away with residual clinging to our feet.

At other times it’s the refusal to let go of stuff that attaches to us because of the actions of others. Words they’ve said. Hurtful things they’ve done. Rejection they’ve caused.

Both require forgiveness. The first by letting God take away the stain of what we have perpetrated against Him. The second by us letting go of our hurts and disappointments by forgiving those who have perpetrated against us. Either way, we have to shuck off what has entangled us and that can happen when we take the matter to God.

How did Oliver come out? He got up and waddled over to his daddy who pulled off the wheel. He wanted his freedom back. To get it he needed help to become disentangled so he could live unencumbered. Once the wheel was off he could resume conquering other mysteries that fascinate the attention span of an 18 month old.

If you are stumbling today, see what’s got you tangled up and take it to God for release.

For Those Who Are Broken

I always wanted to be a pristine vase, a treasure sitting on the shelf, perfect and without blemish, useful for holding beautiful flower arrangements to enhance the moment and decorate the table. But I have cracks. I didn’t want the cracks. I never asked for the cracks. But there they are.

They distort my smooth finish. They distract from my flowing curves. They draw attention away from the purpose for which I was made. To some they devalue me.

On the day I fell, in the time it took for me to roll off the table and hit the floor, I imagined the end had come. My usefulness was over. All that was left was for the broom to whisk me into the dust pan and from the dust pan deposited into the trash can. A lot can go through your mind in a short space of time.

But instead of the briskly strokes of the coarse straw, gentle hands carefully picked up each broken piece and placed me again on the table. I was complete but undone. Glue was applied to my jagged edges and meaningless fragments rejoined to make me whole again.

Soon after the glue set, I was back enhancing the table, holding the flowers, beautifying the moment, but now there is more. Now I live as a testimony of how brokenness can be healed, how regret can be rescued, how usefulness can be restored. Each crack tells the story.

I will never be pristine again. Who needs pristine when you can be used to tell others the answer to the prayer for wholeness. I show the scars of grace, the evidence of mercy, the glue of love that holds me together. And in this I will rejoice!

My broken life demonstrates the compassion and purpose of One who declares me worth the effort it took for restoration. My cracks are not a reflection of my faults. They are a message of hope to all who are shattered.

Ragamuffin Faith

I guess it’s the romantic in me but I want happy endings. I’ll watch a movie or read a book or deal with a problematic life situation anticipating the moment all the loose ends to get tied up and the crisis is resolved. That’s why I don’t particularly like Nicolas Sparks novels/movies because one of the main characters is going to die. That’s not how I want the story to end.

The movie Ragamuffin: the Story of Rich Mullins, just came out. I enjoyed Rich’s music back in the 80’s and 90’s. In fact, the boys and I went to a concert in Las Vegas a couple of years before he died and considered it one of the best we had or have ever attended. The variety and quality of the music was incredible.

But the movie was about his life—a very hard, emotionally dysfunctional, substance controlling life. He had a father who pushed him away and gave him haunting, negative messages that he could never get away from. He became a binge drinker, who even after a concert would go back to the hotel room and waste himself.

His brother, being interviewed in the extra material on the DVD, said he had been questioned about all the smoking, drinking and cussing in the film. He said that was Rich—always fighting his demons.

Yet, in the midst of all the emptiness that surrounded him, he wrote some of the most incredible songs—Our God is an Awesome God, Give Your Praise to the Lord, Hold Me Jesus.

As I watched the move, I kept waiting for the happy ending. The moment when he fully embraced how much God loved him and broke free from the chains. It never came. He died still struggling. I’ve yet to get over that. I wanted him released. I wanted the testimony of victory. I wanted the power of God to overcome. I wanted that for him and wanted it for me.

You see, often, we who struggle with accepting God’s forgiveness and love, try to live out our hope of a happy ending in the lives of others. Somehow, our gnawing disappointments get soothed when we vicariously see others resolve their struggles. After watching Rich, I’m still waiting.

If I cannot embrace the truth, maybe seeing someone else do it can give me hope that one day my happy ending will come. That what God has done for others, He’ll do for me.

So, I will repeat what I have told myself thousands of times: God loves me, I am forgiven, He has accepted me, He doesn’t create junk, He will accomplish what concerns me, nothing can separate me from God’s love for me.

A Ragamuffin is one who desperately trusts God whether or not they ever get their happy ending. Today, I declare myself a Ragamuffin.

Living with a Target on Your Back

When we were kids we sang Oh be careful little eyes what you see…be careful little hands what you do…be careful little feet where you go. It was quite catchy back then but had a powerful message—the result of living an unguarded life always ends in disappointment.

This week we discovered another significant pastor admitted moral failure. Although only a few of the ramifications have been announced—disqualified from leading his 20,000 member church—many more are churning in the background. His personal life as well as his ministry are now ship-wrecked. Major restoration is the only hope.

So many scriptures come to mind that speak of temptation, trials, testing, refining. James speaks of how Satan creates a lure to attract us to sin. He also prowls about to attack us. It’s as though we live with a huge target drawn on our backs at which the enemy chunks his darts. All of his attacks are designed to destroy the work of God within us or through us.

But I also realize how faithful God is to make a way of escape. Joseph had that moment to decide if he wanted Potifer’s wife or wanted to maintain his integrity before men and holiness before God. He ran. That moment is our gift from God to overcome the temptation.

No temptation comes to us that is beyond resisting. Jesus proved that. To guarantee our victory over sin, with each temptation is a way of escape if we choose to use it. We can say no. We can walk away. Choosing not to use the way of escape is evidence that the desire to sin has established a stronghold in our heart.

Sin cannot establish a stronghold with a glance, or an invitation, or a suggestion. Sin can only establish a stronghold when it has weakened our desire to resist. This takes time and thought. In other words, we see it coming and don’t get out of the way.

Temptation is never irresistible in itself. It becomes irresistible when we take delight in whatever it is offering. That delight can make us blind to the consequences.

If we will be careful what we see, touch, and where we go, we may keep ourselves from sin by not allowing the temptation to become irresistible. Anyone can give in and anyone can resist. I wish that pastor had done so. I hope I do so. Even now, I'm feeling another ring on the target on my back being drawn.

Making a Mess

I’m messy. I’ve always been messy. I can’t open the hood of my truck without getting grease on me. When I’m building things in my garage, I make a mess. Sawdust, scattered wood, tools, coke cans litter the floor. I can’t create without mess.

Okay, blame my mother for not disciplining me to clean up after myself. Blame me for being lazy. Bottom line: I don’t let cleanliness interfere with creating.

Solomon said, Where no oxen are, the manger is clean, but much revenue comes by the strength of the ox. If you want the advantage of the ox, you’re going to have to deal with (well) his messiness.

Sometimes God gets messy with us. Since faith is developed by trials and tests, things have to get messy for us to learn to trust Him. Nobody learns significant lessons of truth simply by taking notes in a Bible Study. We haven’t learned anything. We’ve simply noted something significant.

For those truths to become a part of our lives they have to be worked in. Like reading a book on working out and noting the importance of certain exercises but never going to the gym and doing what we read. God doesn’t grow us by information any more than a coach can strengthen us by lecture.

I can check out projects in books or on line all day. But if I'm going to make something that had only existed on paper, things are gonna get messy. Growing faith gets messy. But we won’t grow without it. Just be sure and clean up after you’re done.

 

Why Can't I Feel God?

Forgiveness is the means by which God removes the hindrance of our wrong choices. Those wrong choices are like debris between two magnets. God has established a permanent, attracting relationship between us and Him that can only be minimized by the junk we allow to interfere with that attraction. Like magnets made for connection, God has programmed us to want Him and desire to walk with Him. It’s what Adam knew in the Garden before the bite.

Whenever we chose some other activity, attitude or advice for how we live, contrary to God’s intentions, debris settles between us and God. It diminishes the sense of the attraction. God is still drawing us to Himself but we have lost interest in the drawing and become obsessed with that that is hindering the connection.

To reconnect with God, John said we must we confess our sins. If we do He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The cleansing mechanism for removal of the junk between us and God is forgiveness. Confess means calling it what God calls it. Acknowledging its interference in our lives and asking God to remove it.

When God removes that interference, the magnets reconnect. It’s automatic. The power of their attraction never went away, but the debris blocking the energy kept them separated.

David sensed the debris in his live and said wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. He had lost the power of his connection with God. By that confession, God cleared the obstruction and reconnected with His child.

The debris was gone. God removed it. He chunked it into the deepest caverns of the ocean. He separated it from David forever. The hindrance was gone. In God’s eyes it was as if David had never sinned in the first place.

That same freedom awaits us today. What a great day for reconnecting with God!

Let It Go

No one starts out to become bitter. Bitterness shows up when we fail to handle our disappointments. Something happens that we wish hadn’t and we’re Disappointed. If we can’t let it go, it turns into Discouragement where we live fearing it will happen again. Discouragement turns into Disillusionment where we become obsessed with always feeling Discouraged. Disillusionment becomes Defeat where we live with no hope of ever being free from this Disappointment.

Bitterness is like a seed planted in our soul from some painful event that will grow into a plant that overcomes our life if not removed.

Kudsu was introduced into the South to help prevent erosion on bare hillsides. It is a fast growing ground cover plant. Only problem it grows like crazy in America and has literally taken over huge sections of southern states.

It seemed innocent enough when first introduced but soon it took on a life of its own and took over. Bitterness does the same thing.

Esau’s dad recognized his son’s tendency toward bitterness and stated a blessing over him to deal with it. Isaac said: But it shall come about when you become restless, that you will break his yoke from your neck. Esau was bitter toward his brother Jacob. He had good right to, but right or not bitterness comes with consequences. He was consumed with anger to the point of intending Jacob’s death.

The answer was in his father’s blessing. When you get tired of living a defeated life, disconnect yourself from the disappointment. How? Forgive the one who caused the event that produced the disappointment and trust God to turn the pain into joy. Both steps are essential!

One tribe had an interesting punishment for killing someone. The killer had to carry the corpse, tied to his back. He could never get rid of or away from his crime. It was a constant reminder of one moment in time.

Often we carry reminders that haunt us about a past event. Because of how badly we were wronged we justify becoming bitter. After a while that bitterness starts to stink, but we hang on to it anyway. Thinking we’re punishing the one who hurt us, we’re creating our own defeat.

Tired of hurting yourself? Break the connection. Disconnect from the disappointment. Forgive and move on. Let it go.