"Look For Signs of the Kingdom"

This statement seems so simple, but it was revolutionary to me at a time I needed it most. I have to share it with you.

A few weeks ago, I went to a new friend to ask for his counsel on how to handle "planting a church" in Seattle. The week prior had been discouraging and it was obvious to both my wife and me that we were missing the point. Asking questions like "why is it so hard to connect with people?" and "what are we doing wrong?", Adrienne and I both knew that our outlook was short-sighted and full of fear. 

My friend heard and empathized with my frustrations. He didn't try to wow me by being profound, but pointed me back to a simple truth: we did not move here first a foremost to "start a church," but to be a part of how the King of heaven is working to make the world "right" again by transforming people. He reminded me that faithfulness doesn't simply mean building a new religious organization, but working in the power that God provides to see people flourish because of a restored relationship with the God who gave his son Jesus to rescue us from ourselves.

Its simple. Seek God's kingdom and look for signs of that kingdom. Signs like a man who had never heard that there is a personal God who created him hearing that truth for the first time and being overwhelmed by it. A woman who grieves for restored relationship with her son seeing the Father bring him back home to her. A man who anxiously brought his family to a new city resting again in the truth that the God he trusts can (and will!) do exceedingly more than he can imagine in the lives of people around him. These are signs of the kingdom.

 Another friend recently reminded me that when God shows himself to us it is not for us alone, but to share that joy with others. So, as I recognize signs of the kingdom around me, I need to share with others.

The King of heaven is at work in the hearts of the people of Seattle. He is showing us signs of his kingdom.

They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to make known to the children of man your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. (Psalm 145:11-12 ESV)

Always Bigger

My imagination must have a leak and I don't think I am the only one who has that problem.

Our neighborhood is draped over two of the highest hills in the city which means that, on a clear day, I can see a LONG way into the distance. Most importantly, looking southeast, Mt. Rainier is in our direct line of sight. Always drawing our attention, we can overlook the Seattle skyline and the expanse of the Puget Sound for the mammoth mountain that seems to quietly hover on the horizon, acting like a giant overseer of the city.

Because my imagination leaks, as soon as I close my eyes or turn my back, I forget just how big it is. The next time I turn around to look, it is bigger than I remembered.

Out walking with Adrienne one night last week, we came over a ridge and got a clear view of The Mountain as the oranges and pinks of the setting sun reflected off of it. Amazing. Even from around 100 miles away we were amazed at its immensity and the detail we could make out in that light. One of the two of us said to the other (my memory leaks so I don't remember who said what), "That never gets old." We both marveled, not just at the fact that gazing upon that expression of God's beauty never gets old, but that we have an insatiable hunger for it.

My imagination leaks, but we were made to hold it all in. We were made to soak in the memory of every detail of the glory of God he reveals to us. For me, all I have to do is turn my back for a moment and I will forget what I just saw, but there will be a day when my leak is healed and I will grow bigger in treasuring the glory of God. The more I will see of Him, the "bigger" I will get. The bigger I get, the more I will be able to hold in.

But, ultimately, this picture isn't about how much bigger I will get. 

The joy that we had in being reminded how big Rainier is is the joy of remembering again. When we see Jesus face to face, there will be a deep, resonant joy in knowing him in a new way every time we look on him. In his presence our imaginations won't leak The bigger the picture of his glory we hold in, the more capable we will be to hold in more.

We will get to see Jesus for everything he is and realize he is always bigger than we thought he was. The joy of heaven will be to gaze upon his beauty and, not only never grow bored, but always grow more hungry to know him...always know there is a depth of himself that he will gladly share with us for our joy. We will drink deeply of his glory and find that we are not only satisfied, but that every drink is as pleasurable as the first- or more so.

Our God will always be bigger to us. We will always be surprised. We will always want to go, as C.S. Lewis put it, "Further up and further in." 

God help us to see you like that now...and not leak!

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11 ESV)

Unafraidness

Jesus wasn’t ever afraid to express the way he was affected by people and his circumstances. He wasn’t ever afraid.

Thursday of this week was our last day traveling to Seattle and our first day arriving. My emotions were at times boiling over with fear and frustration and other times bottled up behind fear of who I know I can be when those emotions take over.

So, after 2200 miles plus driving, a week of being in different beds while longing for our own, missing heart friends and seeing only unfamiliar faces, and looking forward to an unknown (and often scary) future, I almost broke down completely at Palouse Falls State Park in Washington.

I am with my favorite people in the world in some of the most beautiful places in the world and I am emotionally stunted, frustrated and not present. The reflected Beauty of the falls can’t move my immovable heart. My wife and daughter pick up on how I am feeling and decide just to let me be so I don’t overreact towards them.

The hardest thing of all: I am completely aware of all of this. I am completely aware of my sinful self-absorption and how my faith-drained thoughts are fueling my emotional disconnectedness.

These are not my finest moments.

On my mind the entire time is Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

If I am “crucified with Christ” and “Christ lives in me” then why am I still a man who can get to this place?  Where is his power not to live this way? Where is his power not to be afraid and, even better, to live in Jesus’ unafraidness?

I guess you call that “faith.” Unafriadness is called faith.

Somehwere between Palouse Falls and the Columbia River on I-90, considering these precious words from Paul’s letter, the Spirit took me to the heart of it: I know how much we need the Father to come through in so many ways, but I do not always believe he will come through. Desperation with out the feeling of hope.

I turned to my sweet wife and shared these things with her and, for the first time in too long, I started to cry. Not the kind that makes our faces look different the rest of the day, but the kind that helps me express the deepest part of what I am feeling: I want to live trusting Jesus.

The kind of trust that sees the deep need in front of us and rests in knowing that, if the Father didn’t spare his Son, how will he hold back anything else that is good? (see Rom 8:31-32)

What if I could stop striving (especially on the inside) and willfully let go and hold on to the One who made promises to us because of who we are in Christ?

What if the crucified life is not even a life of trying to stir up preciously small amounts of faith, but living out Jesus’ very own faith?

As missionary to inland China, Hudson Taylor once wrote to his sister:

“All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was-how do I get it out…I knew full well that there was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness, but how to get it in my puny branch was the question…I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has not He promised to abide with me- never to leave me, never to fail me?”

Jesus was never afraid to express himself because he knew, not that he had it altogether (which he did, but that’s another story), but because he knew the Father was with him. He trusted the Father by the Spirit to shape his responses to people and to circumstances.

He knew he wasn’t alone in engaging the world and loving people. 

So my heart question is “what would our lives look like if we lived Jesus’ faith and didn’t rely on our own?” How would we feel waking up and what would we see in people as we passed them on the street? How would my words be more gentle…or more confrontative?

I want the kind of life where I no longer live, but I know Christ lives in me…and can rest in that. Where all of life is rest, and that is where my Savior shows his glory in ways that make us all marvel.

Unwelcome, but Invited

In our training a few weeks ago, one of the presented said something profound that I had never thought of...but I wish I had: "Church planting is spiritual warfare."

Oh. Yeah. He is absolutely right.

The first night of our trip to Seattle in October of last year we had a profound sense of "You are not welcome here" as we walked around downtown. Crazy feelings like "the people of this city will never take you seriously" and "you are not good enough for us" were almost crippling.

The funny thing was that every person we had encountered was very gracious to us. There was something else.

In C.S. Lewis's masterful satire, The Screwtape Letters, the author comically writes in a demon's voice calling God Almighty "the Enemy." The entire set of letters from an experienced demon to his novice nephew describes God as the Enemy of everything darkness and deceitful. In the same way, the more we do not follow the prince of the power of the air (see Eph. 2:1-3), the more we are a threat  to the culture he works to create.

Just because we are in Christ, we are a threat. Not just because Lewis said so, but because Jesus did:

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:18-19 ESV)

Before I write about how "the world" will hate us the more we are like Jesus, I want to remember that there are maleficent powers behind that hate. We are unwelcome. We are always unwelcome to darkness.

We are unwelcome, but we are not uninvited.

We are invited into a life where things will not be "safe," but in which we will know that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we don't have to fear any evil.

We are invited to a life where we may be intimidated, but never alone.

I long for the day where my heart isn't weighed down in believing the lies of the real enemy, but until that day comes I will hold to this precious truth:

"My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:26)