Keeping Christmas Well

"He knew thereafter how to keep Christmas well." -Charles Dickens from the end of A Christmas Carol.

I'm so silly at Christmas time. I think it's the expectations that lure me in. You want to be in the Christmas Spirit, whatever that is, and as I thought about this more I began to realize that I was making all of this more complicated than it really is. I look back on past Christmas times and I remember wonderful times and magic in the air. And so I think to myself, I want to feel like that I again! How can I recreate? Hmmm...well, I remember when I felt the Christmas Spirit before there was a Christmas tree with lights, I was with my family, there were lots of gifts, and good food, and a lot of other things. Yet somehow with all of these things in place every year, the Christmas Spirit still often proves elusive. Where is it?! Did it run off? In all my recreation I am learning that all these things I put into place every year are either fruit of the Christmas Spirit or decoration for the Christmas Spirit. Here's what I mean. I think the Christmas Spirit is love and that the two are interchangeable. When it comes down to it, you can't simply recreate love by putting things in place. Love has to be real and love has to be a gift.

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed an in truth." 1 John 3:16-18

I really think 1 John is what I need to hear over the holidays as I think about the Christmas Spirit and spend time with those I love. Those words from 1 John are not soft or easy. The Word is a sword and like C.S. Lewis noted in the The Weight of Glory, "Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has laid upon us for nearly a hundred years.” The passage from 1 John 3 has the power to break my enchantment.

I just finished watching the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol and probably cried more at the end of it than I have all year. To see Ebenezer Scrooge unhindered, wreckless joy and blessing spilling out onto others at the end of the movie, I find myself laughing with a deep mirth as the tears well up. Something real has happened to Ebenezer. His heart has been transformed and there is love overflowing onto Cratchett and Tiny Tim. It appears he has become a child again.

I want to be one who keeps Christmas well like Scrooge did. This isn't easy though. To have the wells from deep within your heart loosed, a digging has to take place. Wells do not spring forth any other way but by digging. That's what happens as Ebenezer Scrooge encounters the three spirits of Christmas past, present, and future. A gradual digging takes place. After the second spirit, Ebenezer says something to effect of, "I know what I have done and I am sorry but I am too old to change! Find someone younger to redeem who can do some real good." The Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come appears and the digging must go deeper. And as Ebenezer see the Cratchetts mourning over Tiny Tim's death, his fortune come to nothing, and as he clings desperately to his gravestone, he finally cries, "I repent. Please let this not be a vision of what must be but what might be." The digging has reached the bottom of his heart and a place has been prepared. It is just as the Spirit of Christmas present said, "The Savior born in Bethlehem does not live in men's heart but one day of the year, but all three hundred and sixty-five." Such a place has been prepared in Ebenezer's heart. He was, in fact, not too old to redeem.

If we were to be visited by the spirits this Christmas, what would the spirits have to show you and me? Sometimes the necessary digging can take place just by stopping to think and ponder on such things and let them have their effect on our hearts.

I love all the wrappings of Christmas. I love having a tree with lights. I love having family to spend time with. I love having lights shining on houses. I love having delicious food. And what I love most about these things is that they are the overflow of the Christmas Spirit. They are the overflow of love. The Christmas Spirit flows out of love. And love was consummated in the gift that God gave in Jesus. It was consummated when he laid down his life for us. It was further consummated when he rose from the dead. As I think about the Christmas Spirit and wanting to experience it once more, I realize that this love will be the overflow from my very own heart. That was part of the gift of Jesus, that his love would be able to live in and overflow out of my very own heart. As I lay down my life to spend time with God, to give of myself for others, and as I think that this love will ultimately consummated as I rise from the dead to be with Jesus, the love of Christ during this time of year is able to flow full freshet out of my heart. And the love of Christ lives out of our very own hearts, not in word and deed, but in truth.

You and I can't recreate love. But you CAN let the Spirits of Christmas visit your heart. The Christmas Spirit isn't very complicated per se though it may take you coming face to face with your gravestone and clinging to it, pleading. When we consider how to deep to go, we should also consider how deep we want our well to be and how much joy we want to overflow from our hearts. Take time to dig deep for the wells of joy and join Ebenezer in wreckless, abandoned, unfettered, raw joy. Let it spill over to others, both friend and stranger, poor and rich alike. God has given us all people in our lives to love this Christmas and thankfully he has not done so without giving us also a well from which to love them.

Learning To Hope

How do I get from here to there?

As a never-ceasing idealist, I have imaginative pictures of where I should be. I am constantly thinking on these terms. Here to there. Here to there. I get very excited when I have a new picture of "there" and then I get kind of down when I realize I haven't made it too far and am still basically "here" just like before. I'm learning that's not true though. I am constantly changing. Francis Schaeffer once said that he reminded himself that waking up next to his wife every morning, he was waking up next to a different woman. No, I say. I wouldn't go so far as to say that although it is a nice thought. And so I admire Schaeffer's statement as nice and cute and even romantic but not quite realistic. Is it not realistic though? Was this great thinker merely being cute and romantic? "He who began a good work in you, will carry it to completion" Now if God has begun his work in me at some point in the past and he promised to bring it to completion at some point in the future, does it not follow that he is currently carrying it out presently in this very moment?

Ah, so Schaeffer was right. He was waking up with a different woman every morning just like he was waking up with a new Francis Scaeffer every morning. Just like I am waking up every morning with a new Patrick. If the Spirit of Jesus Christ is living inside of us, then we are being changed as we speak.

I don't really want to believe this though. I don't want to get my hopes up. I don't want to be disappointed. I am becoming a professional at keeping my hopes at a moderate level of realism. There's a deep cynicism in my heart that is poisoning and clogging the fountain of my hope. Cynicism wakes up every morning and thinks, "Today is just another day. And as another day, it will be just like most days and nothing too wonderful is likely to happen. I might as well just look forward to my cup of coffee and that nice new jam I bought at the store." Cynicism disguises himself as someone who "enjoys daily pleasures" and meanwhile keeps his head on straight. Cynicism limits his hopes to the smalls joy like a cup of coffee in the morning and getting by until the weekend. Excitement is limited to daily television programs and football games. Cynicism sees the new Christian who is filled with this crazy joy and hope and says, "Don't worry, you'll calm down soon enough. Enjoy it while it lasts." Cynicism hears of someone getting healed and says, "Those crazy charismatics, always trying to stir up some excitement and never settling for the true Holy Spirit work that comes from reading my Bible." Meanwhile cynicism sips his cup of coffee in his reading chair and reads the Bible with a moderate sense of hope before heading off to the next thing. I'm making a point to read Acts 4:1-22 and to think over it this week and I hope you will join me in this. After you read it, ask yourself these questions. How clear is the miracle that just happened? And how palpable is the hope is that rising up within the hearts of people? And yet these brooding men stand and say, "...we cannot deny it, but in order that it may spread no further among the people..." Miracles are happening right in front of them and that is their response? There is a miracle happening every morning when I wake up. There is a different person looking back at me in the mirror. There is a heart lodged within my chest and there was a point in time when God made it beat for the very first time. And every beat since then has led to this one. That truly is a miracle. My pastor preached on that passage from Acts last Sunday and one thing he said has stuck with me. It was this. "Cynicism refuses to see the miracle that is right in front of its' eyes." I am like the brooders in the passage. My hearts says, "I cannot deny it but let's not let it spread any further. I don't feel comfortable about that."

Maybe some of my cynicism is right. Maybe the charismatics are crazy. Maybe many of their hearts are in the wrong place. But...maybe God's grace is so much bigger than mine, that he chooses to pour out his healing on them anyway. If one thing could be said, I know some of them are at least daring to have hope in a miracle and that's more than could be said of my coffee-cup-sized hope. I am learning that my belief and my hope can't be a reaction to charismatics or anyone else. My belief and my hope must be rooted like a tree in what God says is true. God's Word says that healing does happen. God's word says that I have every reason to hope! God's word says that he is carrying on a work within me that is going to be completed one day. God's word says that God is mighty to save. And then I think of walking in this truth. I immediately get cynical. "Yeah, mighty to save...my grandma hasn't been saved for 80 years..." This is what I have been struggling with lately. I go to pray and there is so little hope within my breast. The Bible in front of me is screaming out possibilities and hopes and miracles and my cynicism cannot deny it but is not willing to let it spread further. In my little apartment here in Buffalo, I am learning to have hope. I am learning to get on my knees and confront whatever dark thoughts are plaguing me that day with the hope of what is true. There is so much that is true and most of it seems too good to be true. Healing? Peoples hearts changing? The praises of God being such in the streets? Okay, let's settle down here. I know we're Christians but let's at least be realistic...

I talk of being realistic. One short oversight. The Bible is my reality. What God says is reality. He is the one who opened his mouth and spoke forth things into existence. He created reality. I know we're Christians but...I need to get a grip and realize that as a Christian, if I don't have hope, I need to learn to hope.

To Know God As True

The conclusion of the following writings in this. God is true. He is not true for me while for you something else remains true. Truth exists outside any person. Truth can never depend upon the human mind for this universe continues to exist whether the human mind exists or not. God is true apart from me and it is only because he is true that I can experience him as true. The great question of my life will always be, "Is God really true?" And the great answer that I will continue to discover is, "Yes, he is true."

My life has been brought low lately. Not in a self-pitying way. I don't need any pats on the back. I need truth. I need to know God as real. What I mean by real? Well, like I can feel my heart beating in my chest right now as I type this. That is real. I want to know him as real like that, not just some thought that I try to think and believe sometimes and convince myself is real.

I began having doubts and questions recently, the kind that you are ashamed to tell people about. You know, questions like whether this is all made up and what would I really have to say to someone who asks me, "Why do you believe in Jesus?" Would I even have something real to say or would it be something like, "Well, I feel him close to me sometimes or he answers my prayers sometimes." If I wasn't a Christian and heard that, I would probably say something like, "Cool, that's nice. I answer my own prayers sometimes." I want to have something real to share with people who don't believe in Jesus and something that I am confident in from the bottom of my heart. I was reading Francis Schaeffer's biography and I was encouraged that he actually spent time asking these questions of God years into being a Christian. His reasoning was that if God was real and true then such questions would find a place to land on. They would ultimately find that God is true and real. So I have been asking those questions honestly from a heart full of doubts and I am here writing you today telling you that He is real and He is true. Here is how.

Shortly after these questions surfaced, I fell into temptation and sin. The aftermath of it all is part of what answered my doubts. I have shared details with close friends of mine and been encouraged but if you are curious about my sin, then just go ahead an imagine the worst. I could tell you it all but it would not come close to the sin that I now know is in my heart. The only possible hope for me is that Jesus really did take all my sin on himself and that He himself will change my heart. If that is true, then it changes everything. In the days that followed, I came to God in prayer and I was almost in horrified disbelief. After all of that, He was filled with love for me and wanted me back?! No, no, no...that could not be. But it was and I could not escape it. I felt my heart being changed just coming back to God. I never wanted to go where I had gone again not because of fear of punishment but because of his LOVE. I deserved to be punished and to die but instead I was loved. I now understand why the hymn says, "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear." Not only does it relieve fears but it instills this fear. Fear of forsaking such amazing love for something so cheap. I sold him for nothing. And then he loved me. If I understand this, then I will give my life away to Him.

So what shall I say to the person who asks me why I believe in Jesus? I would say I believe in him because he is TRUE. That is my starting point. Even the new believer knows this. He has experienced God as true in some way, in some facet of his life. Maybe it was some experience having to do with an addiction. God was true in the midst of his addiction. That is his testimony. Now he goes on following Christ and begins struggling at his job or in his marriage and he is faced once again with the question, "Is God true? Is all of this made up or is it real?" He must now experience God as true and real in his job and in his marriage. Now he has more testimony that God is true. I obviously had not yet experienced God as true in the midst of my sin in a certain place in my heart. That is why EVEN THOUGH I had experienced God as true in the midst of my childhood life, in the midst of friendships, in the midst of school, in the midst of depression, in the midst of heartbreak, I struggled with doubts once more because I had not yet experienced God as true in that area of my heart. Now that I have, I have a testimony to share. I can say to anyone, I believe in Jesus Christ because he is true, because he is real, because he is still alive, and because he is the one who created me. And you can experience him too. I know those I meet in the future will have doubts and unbelief. But I can tell them, there is a real place you can go. And IF he is true, then you will find him there. In the meantime while they are seeking, I will tell them my story and love them as I have been loved.

I have done things that I would be much ashamed to tell you. And in telling you, Christ would be made to look completely beautiful and amazing because his love is the reason you are even reading these words right now. That is why Paul ends in those prayers where he says, "To him be all glory and dominion..." and basically everything.

I had a long drive home through the mountains last night to think about all this. There were a number of songs that I kept listening to. I'm going to put them on a cd and if you want them, just email me back with your address and I'll send them someday. Okay, not someday:) but hopefully sometime soon. They aren't the best songs as far as style goes but when you are brought low, it seems like it's those times that the style of music doesn't really matter as much. You just want to listen to music that's true. So that's just to tell you what the cd would be more like. You might even think some of the songs are cheesy and to be honest, I thought some of them were last night too but I didn't care. It just made me smile and laugh a little bit as I sang along. Meanwhile the sun set with heartbreaking beauty over the mountains as it will continue to do long after I am gone, bearing continuing testimony to the truth of who God is...

The Ownership Issue

It's different living in the city. It's different because there's such a disparity between people. In the suburbs, yeah there is a little bit of disparity. Some houses may have pools, hot tubs, or trampolines and some may not but everyone's basically on the same level. Everyone pretty much shops in the same places and eats at the same places. In the city, there's very poor people and very rich people all walking down the same street. At least that's the way it is here in Buffalo. There was a a man who came into the cafe I am sitting in. He went table by table asking people, "Excuse me ma'am, no disrespect, but can you spare 95 cents please." No one gave him anything including me. When he came to me, I honestly didn't have any money on me, just my debit card. I told him I was sorry. Later I thought to myself how I easy it would have been to drop what I was doing and I take him across the street, buy him a slice of pizza and talk to him for a while. He's a person. He was created just like me and is more than worthy of 30 minutes out of my Saturday. It wasn't until I moved into the city that I really had to deal with this issue. It's there every time I leave my house and walk down the street. People have a lot of views on this issue but I think it's less complicated than I try to make it sometimes.

Settle the ownership issue. That's how the pastor at my church opened his message last Sunday. He told everyone that we can't move forward as a church until we settle this. Who is in ownership? Is it God? Or is it us? It got me thinking that I can't move forward as a Christian until I settle this issue. Who has ownership of myself? Who has ownership of my belongings? I can't move forward in following Christ until I settle this. Christ says to leave everything to follow him. If I've already done this at some point then there are are two conclusions that can be true about the things that I now have. Either I took them for myself or they were given to me by God. The goal obviously is to have everything placed in the latter category and once everything is given over to God, you can see how it would begin to change everything. If everything belongs to God, including myself, what happens when another one of God's creature comes asking for something. I'm not own. My time is not my own. My money is not my own. So what do I do?

I feel a little odd walking around the cemetery here in Buffalo but mostly that's because I know what most people would think. It's not normal. It's depressing. You're going to spend enough time in one after you die so why walk around one now. I understand all that. I understand that death can be depressing and I know it's not normal to just visit cemeteries because most of the time when I go, I'm the only one there. I'm not saying I would recommend it for everyone but I do want to just share some thoughts I had while I was there.

There's so many graves. So many of them spread out row after row. Some have ornate gravestones. Some have flowers on them placed by delicate hand, expressions of beautiful memories so deeply rooted in themselves like old trees. What I always think about though is what's beneath all the gravestones. There are bodies just like you and me are inhabiting right now. I look across the cemetery and I imagine all the people who walked the earth and lived their lives. There was a day in each of their lives when, like me, they were 25 years old. They all had different worries and cares and dreams for their lives and they all seemed so important. And now every one of their bodies is in the same place more or less. I start getting depressed when I go down this train of thought because it makes everything seem meaningless. It's cause I spend all this time caring about what I'll wear today or what I'm going to do with my life or what people think of me and when I look across the cemetery it all seems so trivial. The only thing that can change this is the ownership issue. That person's name on the gravestone, did they give ownership to Jesus or did they not? The cemetery is a place a great sadness and joy. It's the same feeling for me of moving to the city and being confronted with the reality of things. I come to the cemetery and confronted with this great reality. Every person's life laid out in stones before me - they were all of valuable. They were created and formed by the Father and Creator of everything. He, personally, breathed life into each one. It makes me feel desperately sad to think of such value thrown away as ownership was taken by people for themselves. And then it makes me feel so divinely happy to think of those people who gave ownership to their Creator and gave themselves and everything they had to him. So much joy and sadness in one place. I honestly don't know what to do a lot of the time except to settle the ownership issue for myself and try to help others settle it as well.

Pray for me. Sometimes I feel like I'm writing all these things and maybe some people think they are really spiritual. But these are just my thoughts! None of it matters unless it actually happens. So pray for me and I will pray for you. Ownership must be settled. And then everything will be changed.

Where To Find Christian Poetry

I was browsing in the poetry section of Barnes & Noble one day and I thought, “Wouldn’t be just so nice to find a good book of Christian poetry.” And then as I was driving away it came to mind, “Wait a sec, there are books FULL of the most amazing Christian poetry ever.” You can find them in a lot of churches all over the world – tattered and worn books sitting in the back of pews – and even though most of these poems were written without music, there were other men and women who wrote music for the poems and they have been sung for hundreds of years. I would like very much to write a poem one day and eventually have it be called a hymn. Sometimes I feel like it can be such an underappreciated thing to write poems as a Christian and that the pinnacle of Christian poetry would be to have a well-known blog where I post my poems and people post comments raving about how amazing they are. Now I’m starting to think that pinnacle of Christian poetry would be to write a poem that is sung and brings comfort and conviction to believers long after I am laid in the grave. You don’t have to be able to write music to write a hymn and perhaps the quality of the words and the mixing of truth and beauty will increase in our songs when the poets in churches begin focusing their gifting on writing hymns rather than the some less poetically-gifted musicians trying to come up with words for the awesome melody they just came up with. I think it’s pretty cool to think about. I’m pasting a verse from a poem-become-hymn below. It’s neat to think that this guy was sitting one day on his porch or his study – and perhaps it was raining like it is now – and he took out his pen and started writing. Now a hundred years later we are signing on to The City and reading his words. And perhaps some of us will be sitting on our porch one day with a pen and begin writing just like he did.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Frederick M. Lehman, 1917

First Days In Buffalo

Revive once more my beloved blog...

Happily sitting in the Elmwood Avenue Starbucks and looking forward to my time in Buffalo. This is probably one of my favorite Starbucks. Some homeless guys hang out here; just talk to one of them for a spell. He saw my Bible and wanted me to pray that he finds a job. He seems as if he has a few screws loose in his head but then again, so do I. His name is Wayne. Pray for Wayne. Pray that he would find a job AND that God might tighten a few of his screws...
It’s nice to imagine what might be in store here and all the possibilities. I feel like I start this new season of my life with a more keen perspective on how my life should be lived and the people I should surround myself with. I am excited to grow in my faith and in my love for God. All of this brings thoughts to my mind and those thoughts are not without fear. I AM afraid of certain things. One of my biggest fears is that my life is meaningless. I know this isn’t true of my whole life but it’s easy for me to doubt in the day-to-day that life on a particular day is meaningless, that the things I am doing aren’t making a difference. I was reminded lately that how far this really is from being the truth; quite the opposite, in fact. You see, the seeds I show every day bear fruit and that fruit yields more seeds which yield more fruit, and so on all the way into eternity.

…Into eternity…

Did you catch that word? Eternity. Every day is filled with eternity. Read that again. SO HOW ON EARTH COULD LIFE BE MEANINGLESS? HOW ON EARTH COULD A DAY BE MEANINGLESS IF EVERY SINGLE DAY IS FILLED WITH ETERNITY? It’s impossible. It’s insane. It makes absolute zero sense.

SO. Every day is full of meaning. And it IS that way because God MADE it that way. He jammed every single day plum-full of meaning, so much so that we are literally SWIMMING in it whether we realize it or not.

I guess that’s the point of this post and a fitting thought to carry with me as I enter into my days in Buffalo. Let me swim and swim and SWIM in plum-full days...through trials and joys and the mixture of the two...swimming into eternity. Every day is filled. FILLED.

Sowing To The Flesh: Its' Effects

“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Galatians 6:7-8

I’m tired of being deceived. And I know the reason that Paul says not to be deceived is because he KNOWS how deceptive sowing to our flesh really is. It FEELS good and even when we hesitate, often the FEELING is enough to cause us to come up with any excuse to maintain it. Anyone who’s been addicted to anything, even something like coffee, knows how this works when you try to quit. Anyone who has been in a fight with someone they love knows that you stop caring about the relationship and begin caring more about being right and FEELING valued. When our flesh craves a FEELING, we in turn sow to it to keep that feeling alive. Paul says such sowing to the flesh, although it is natural because we love the feeling of it, leads to a harvest of CORRUPTION. I heard a guy say recently, “If you don’t like what you getting in life, then take a look at what you are sowing into it!! Do you have a relationship that’s messed up? Take a look at what you are sowing into it. Do you struggle with loving God’s Word? What are you sowing in to it? Do you struggle in sharing the Gospel? How are you sowing? It’s just a principle that will never change. You will reap a harvest depending on what you sow.”

A few weeks ago I started having all these doubts about God. I KNEW there were things I needed to repent of in my life but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to let go of them. I began wondering why I was having all these doubts and struggling with repentance/giving everything to God. Then I remembered what the guy had said about how if you don’t like what you’re getting in your life, take a look at what you’re sowing. The doubts I was having seemed like valid points at the time especially from the perspective of worldly wisdom. So I told myself, “Patrick, you may not understand everything right and you may have doubts and you may struggle repenting, but you ARE going to stop sowing foolishly! You’re going to sow to the Spirit and stop sowing to the flesh and then wait and see what happens to your harvest.” AMAZINGLY ENOUGH, I began reaping a harvest FROM THE SPIRIT just like the Word says. Now I realize that the doubts I was having may be things I never fully understand the answers to but such doubts can only be silenced BY THE SPIRIT. The power I needed to silence my doubts and give me the desire and power to repent could only come from the Spirit (never from me) and it wasn’t until I started sowing TO the Spirit that I began reaping a harvest FROM the Spirit. My heart began growing in TRUSTING God and DESIRE for repentance and restoration with Him. I found out it’s actually true! You actually do reap what you sow! My sowing to the flesh can be easily described by just living for ME, MY OWN PLANS, MY OWN DESIRES, MAINTAINING MY OWN COMFORTABLE LIFE. It doesn’t have to be something we view as serious like drugs or sex. It’s always a matter of the heart. Was my heart desiring my own comfort most or was it desiring God no matter what? It was desiring my own comfort and carrying out my own plans. It began corrupting me and my life began to be filled with doubts and I found myself not trusting God at all.

I remember well the feeling of not wanting to repent. It’s SO scary to be in that place and I don’t want to be there again. I felt my heart being hardened and it wasn’t until the harvest from the Spirit came, that I had the power/desire to repent. If any of us has doubts, we have to realize that these can only be answered by the Spirit and we have to willing to exercise FAITH by just plain SOWING SEEDS to the Spirit! Then we can wait and see what HARVEST we will reap and our faith will end up growing!

This harvest from the Spirit is grace and what I'm learning is that GRACE is like a precious cloak and it’s not meant to be WALKED ON like it’s nothing. When I sow to flesh in a cavalier manner, I'm just walking on the cloak of grace like it’s just cheap doormat. The cloak of grace is meant to put on daily with fear and trembling because of HOW PRECIOUS IT IS! I haven’t been wearing grace like this. When I trample on grace – when I know a certain sowing to flesh is wrong but I don’t care and do it anyway – I GRIEVE the Spirit and my heart begins being hardened.

BUT. If I sow the Spirit, I WILL reap a harvest that is LASTING! ETERNAL LIFE will come alive in my heart and in time will be birthed a desire for God that cannot come from anywhere except FROM THE SPIRIT. This is a PRECIOUS GRACE.

Where Is Your Context?

You are part of a story. And just their are characters in the stories you read, you are character in a story. Characters have gifts and weaknesses but think about it - do these gifts and weaknesses ever come to light unless the characters face struggles and come into contact with other people? Those are the kind of stories that no one reads. The best stories have the most meaningful interactions and take place within this context of something. The best stories involve pain and at the end, you look back on the four hundred pages you just read with tears in your eyes because you're standing on the other shoreline now and looking back at all the characters went through to get where they are now. And if this is true with the books we read - if it's what makes them meaningful, is it any less so with your life? Think of the word context. Characters don't shine brightly or flicker or crumble unless they are within context. You never really see any type of gifts come to life in a character who sits on the couch all day and plays video games or in the person who just gets by in life and saves up for his retirement. Couches and video games and comfortable lives are weak contexts.

So where is your context now? I have been asking myself this lately. There were gifts that came to life within me at certain times in my life like when I went through the Naval Academy and became a leader for one of the campus ministries and when I moved to Virginia Beach and became a part of a church. My gifts of mercy and giving and encouragement rose up within me without me even asking for them. It was because I had placed myself in a strong context. Without that context, my gifts lay dormant. Perhaps you're wondering what gifts God has for you and you've even prayed about it. Where is your context? I can guarantee when you place yourself in a strong context your gifts will come to life and you won't even have to pray really hard for them or jump through any other spiritual hoops. I'm not saying not to pray really hard but maybe it's kind of silly for us to pray really hard for gifts when we're not even in a context where we can use those gifts.

Where is my context? Take a quick look at when my last post was before this. Months ago. I'll be honest - I have been out of context. I'm starting to see that one of the Enemy's biggest strategies is to take me out of context. He doesn't want me involved in church. He doesn't want me going to men's Bible study or serving or doing outreach with others. He knows that without context, I'll be a weak character in this Story that is taking place. A lot of Christians buy into this idea that they can be Christians on their own and not be part of a church. Where is their context? Christians are meant to be people who take action with the gifts God has given them but how are they going to do this when they have taken themselves out of context? I remember Pastor Mark Driscoll saying that 80% of being a man is just showing up. That thought has kept me showing up for things for a while simply for the reason that I felt my manhood was at stake! But really, isn't Driscoll just saying that 80% of being a man is putting yourself in context? It makes sense.

All of us have gifts. We love watching movies because we get to see peoples' gifts in action, facing conflict and overcoming and falling in love and losing friends but still moving on. We watch these movies and our hearts are stirred and we laugh and we cry. Maybe all of this is because we are meant to live out our own story and use our gifts, face our demons, and persevere through overwhelming odds to take hold of the prize. We all want to stand on the other shore and look back at our lives and have tears fill our eyes because of the story we have lived. Where is your context right now? If you're sitting on the bench, God is ready to put you in the game. It's not going to be easy but you'll be part of something beautiful. There is a context waiting for you. God has placed them all around us. Join a church, go on a missions trip, start a book club or a Bible study. Show up to these things even when you don't feel like it. Don't let yourself fall out of context. Keep yourself in the story. Your gifts will come to life and maybe you'll even start learning that your gifts and your story are really more about loving others and loving your Creator than you had thought. And for all the joy that is found there, I think you'll be okay with that.

Do Not Wait - The Time Is Now

A note to encourage myself to actually apply today and to pursue God with all I am today. I always wait and hold things back and I'm feeling the emptiness of that.

Patrick, you cannot wait to apply. You must apply now. Did you hear something worth applying? Did it stir your heart? Did it feel as if though your heart knew that this was worthy of living for? Then you must apply now. There is no other way. If you wait until later, you will not apply. The preacher has been kind enough to till the soil of your heart and make it ready. Apply while the soil is freshly tilled. Apply today. If you wait, the soil will settle and you will apply only in part and the effect of the application will only be in part. If you have waited to apply, be encouraged! Till the soil once more and awaken your memory to what was spoken and then apply today in the fresh soil.
Did you feel stirred to pray more? Then start now. Did you feel stirred to have more time of meeting with the Lord? Then purpose a plan today and begin following it through today. Did you feel stirred to take a step of faith? Go to God today. Surrender to Him. And then step out in faith today. It must be today, Patrick, or else it will not be. God has spoken to you today. He did not wait until tomorrow to speak to you. No, he spoke to you today because he loves you today. Apply his words today for he is worthy of your heart today.

How Does One Change?

What does it take to change? What does it take to turn from the steps we tread day after day until we almost walk them again without thinking? A day comes and we realize we have to change. How do you all of the sudden begin forming a new trail?

I hear talks sometimes at church, like this past Wednesday, where I feel this desire spring up within me to change and I know that in my heart, this change will bring me the joy, fulfillment, and closeness to the Lord. And then I wake up the next morning and even without thinking I am on my same trail. I `get out of bed just like yesterday and I begin walking and thinking just like yesterday. It’s frustrating and it makes me feel fake and weak at heart. Yesterday I said I wanted to change and here I am walking the same trail a week later. I need to do some thinking on this.

Here is how I naturally start thinking. I could say that I just need to start taking steps off the trail and walking. I’m not walking where I want to be and so it seems like I should just start walking off the path in the direction I want to go. I could come up with a list of the ways I want to change and start putting them into practice. And so I leave the trail and start walking off into the woods and eventually I get weary of this new trail. Without really much thinking, I end up back on the old trail because it’s so much more comfortable, especially in the midst of my weariness.

As I was praying about all this, I was shown what the problem is for me. My heart is connected to the trail and the steps that I take. No wonder it is so hard for me to form a new trail because I am forming a new trail for my heart. It’s not just a change in action but a change in heart.

So what does it take for my heart to change? I am drawn back to the day when the Spirit of the Lord first came upon my heart and breathed life. I was awakened and gave my heart to him and told him I wanted to be his. This was the first time I really prayed. And it was the Spirit that actually wrought the change in my heart, not any action of my own. So I wonder what should be different now as I long for heart-change? I can change myself on the surface, true, but I am powerless to change my own heart. To have my heart changed by the Spirit, I need to pray. I need to spend time with the Lord, before him, my heart and his heart. Then I need to take intentional steps off the trail, listening to him as I go, letting him awaken new desires for these new steps, and letting the old desires for the old steps die however much it hurts. My heart is left asking, Who is sufficient for these things?

"Not that we are sufficient in ourselves as to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God."

A Note To Self On My Birthday

"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: 'Why art thou cast down'-what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: 'Hope thou in God'-instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: 'I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God'."
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

First of all, Happy birthday Patrick! Now get out of bed already! Quit lying there and go enjoy the day! And above all else, do what the Lord told you do when you were praying this morning-enjoy Him today! Wasn't it wonderful to hear the Lord say, "Enjoy your birthday Patrick but most all, enjoy Me today!" All your springs are in Him and everything you have is from Him. You are not hopeless like you sometimes think Patrick but you have more hope than you could ever ask for because He has placed His own Spirit, Himself, inside your very body! You have hope and you have joy today Patrick and so be encouraged. Most days you would just try to stumble along in that hope and joy but today, Patrick, be encouraged to not only walk in it but to run His hope and joy! Don't think about what other people think and don't listen to the dumb voices in your head that try to calm you down and distract you. Look to your Father who rejoices over you today with singing and dancing! Strip off whatever clothes you are wearing and clothe yourself in the ones He gives you today. Now seriously, Patrick, get out of bed and let your heart be filled with a song!

Having Your Heart Held Together

"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17

I remember when I was going through a time of depression what it felt like. Thinking about it now feels like remembering a nightmare you had and even though it's daytime now you still feel a tinge of its' darkness touching you. I talked with a friend once who had been through depression. I remember her saying that God is letting you experience your own darkness. At the time, I merely thought that I am going to have think about that for a while. A year later, I think she was right. Coming out of depression is a strange thing. I think it's like a sunrise but not how you would normally think of one. You see, when the sun first starts coming up you don't feel anything at all. You know intellectually that the sun rising in front of you is supposed to be beautiful but still you don't feel anything. Then it comes, in little pieces, like little touches of electricity are starting to actually connect. There are little bits of pleasure and felt beauty but then it goes away again and you are afraid things are going to go back to the way they were. But then you feel it again and again until the sun actually makes you smile for the first time. You've smiled before in the midst of depression but it wasn't a real smile, the kind where you can't keep yourself from doing it. And as you are filled with this smile, it's like you are seeing a sunrise for the first time.

In the coming months, there are so many times like this. The first time you have a meaningful conversation again and the first time a friend makes you laugh. You can remember that these things used to happen before the depression but it doesn't matter. It all feels new.

It's not just that things are restored to the way they were before depression either. It's not like you used to laugh, then you stopped laughing, and now you laugh again. No, it's more like you used to laugh, then you didn't, and now you are truly laughing. You feel like you are laughing from the depths of your heart. Now you laugh with understanding, not only intellectually but with a heart-understanding. Now you understand why you are laughing--not just because what your friend did is really funny but because it's beautiful and they are beautiful and you know that it doesn't have to be beautiful but it is. Let me say that again. It doesn't have to be beautiful but it is.

You see, somewhere along the way in the midst of depression, you realize how weak and helpless you are. I've learned that I shouldn't shy away from that thought. If something is true but it's hard for us to face up to, that means we should think about it even if it hurts because the truth changes us and sets us free. Sometimes getting set free hurts. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I remember driving to work and making my foot press the gas pedal down but every other fiber in my being wanted to turn around and go hide under my covers. And even hiding under my covers, all I could think was that I wanted some place deeper to hide. Each day there was nothing to look forward to, only things to dread. The only hope was that some day all this would go away but nothing in my day encouraged me in that hope. Somewhere in all this I remember thinking of that verse in the Bible where it talks about how Jesus holds all things together, that in Him all things hold together, that He is before all things, the firstborn from the dead. I remember feeling like I used to be held together but now in certain ways I wasn't being held together at all. I knew that if there was any hope for me of being restored, it would have to be in Him somehow. I knew that if He was firstborn from the dead, that maybe I could be one of the secondborn.

In my depression, I knew the truth could set me free-or atleast I hoped it could-but I didn't feel like it could. So I had to make a choice. This choice didn't have to do anything with feelings. This choice simply had to do with knowing and hoping in something I could neither see nor feel. It would be really nice if this depression was a one-day thing or even a week thing where you subject yourself to it and then it's over and you can talk with your friends about how interesting it was not to feel anything but still to make decisions you knew were the right ones. It's not like that though. You don't subject yourself. You are subjected. And it doesn't just last a day or a week but months. Months of waking up every morning, going through your day, and going to bed at night. You don't feel anything. You can just know things and it's hard because you could know you have to rip a band-aid off but once you feel it pulling against your skin, you start think that maybe you aren't supposed to rip the band-aid off after all. Your feelings are everyday trying to trick you into just leaving yourself the way you are. You'll be just fine in bed here all day. But you have to rip the band-aid every morning for months and get up. And it hurts.

I started realize somewhere in the midst of all this that I was actually being subjected by someone and that someone was God. Now that may sound really cruel and like I am accusing God for my pain. It might help if I tell you that now I'm not mad at God for making me go through all that but am actually thankful to Him. You see, I started realizing what God was doing. I had been making decisions prior to the depression that told God that I didn't really need Him. I never would have said that out loud and would have thought I was doing wonderful things like going to church and reading my Bible. I was doing these things but it was all on my terms. He didn't have my heart like someone who loves you wants your heart. Someone who loves you wants all of you heart and they don't want you to tell you how much you love them and then to spend your day loving and getting excited about other things. So He, in what I see now as kindness, let me see what I was like without Him holding me together. He still held me together in some ways. My body didn't fall apart and my mind still functioned but it was like some parts, namely my feelings, He stopped holding together. I got to see what it was like to live months of not being held together by Him.

There's a little term we use every so often called "taking things for granted". It usually happens when we used to treasure something, and even though that something or someone never lost its' worth, we stopped seeing that worth. We use the expression fairly freely and usually shortly after realizing we take something for granted, things drift back to the way they were. Things were different though going through depression. First of all, what I now see as treasure, I never really treasured to begin with. I never really treasured being held together by Jesus Christ every day. Then through depression, I realized day after day, week after week, month after month, that the only reason I used to feel stuff and laugh and cry was because He had been holding me together. So when the sunrise finally came and I started feeling little bits and pieces and then drifting back into the numbness again, I knew in the bottom of my heart that the only reason I felt any beauty from the sunrise was because it was Him holding me together. It was from Him. The smile I smiled felt like the first smile I had ever smiled because it was the first smile where I realized why I was smiling. It was completely from Him. And so in the coming days as the sun rose, I smiled for the first time, laughed for the first time, and had tears of joy for the first time. I knew in the core of my soul that I deserved none of it but He was giving it to me. This is what grace is. We use the word grace a lot and sometimes we wonder what it actually means and it just confuses us so we give up thinking about it. This is what grace is. Things don't have to be beautiful but they are. I used laugh, then I didn't laugh, and I now I laugh with grace filling my heart. I look around me and I know that this doesn't have to be beautiful but it is...because Jesus Christ is holding it together and that same Jesus Christ wants not part of my heart but all of it.