The Psalms are love poems, complaints and laments full of exuberance and pain, written by people who got knocked down, depressed, soaked their pillows with tears and chose God anyway.
What if that was our approach to Coronavirus? What if we complained and railed and had freak-out meltdowns with God AND expected Him to deliver us into something better and deeper on the other side of the madness.
Read MoreWhen I sit, with my orange socks on, an arms length from the highest point in Europe, it thrills and pains me equally because I know, after a time, I have to leave. Down there my mind isn't this still, I don't feel this rapture, I'm not so overwhelmed by the extreme majesty of God's vast and creative expression.
But up here I am, and I can barely breathe. I'm overwhelmed. Desperate. Taken.
Read MoreWe run harder and faster, furiously comparing, plotting and driving ourselves - to what? To that place where we have no worries? Sorry to tell you but that place doesn’t exist out there - it’s an inside job.
But when we choose to go placidly amid the noise and haste, we find God doing the work and not us, and He has been all along.
I forget this. Sometimes it takes a migraine to remind me.
Read MoreOn Friday, I was lying on my couch icing a pulled psoas muscle and crying when Sam called and said,
"Hey, a poster tube came in the mail for you."
I stopped crying, bolted upright, cried again and said, "there's only one place sending me a poster."
Sure enough, in the tube were the two posters I asked for with note that said, "Thanks for liking our wine!"
Whoa. Jesus. More crying.
Read MoreI admire teachers like Chris because I came to Jesus as a skeptic and a doubter, so for better or worse, my b.s. meter is super low tolerance. Even a hint of game or manipulation or bad theology from the pulpit and I'm out.
So when people preach the gospel, as Chris does - straight up, double shot, no chaser - it burns so good, and I'm reminded how revolutionary Jesus actually is. Truly, the gospel, properly rendered, is crazy good news.
Read MoreIf I'm being honest, the last few months have at times felt like a hurricane or, worse yet for me, a vast snowy desert, but they are neither. They are just new lands along on the path I chose when I decided to follow Jesus like I mean it.
Truth is, Jesus told the disciples, before they got in the boat, they were going to the other side. So they were going to make it. Dead calm was a bonus.
Jesus was gracious enough to show a bunch of terrified fishermen just who they were dealing with. It was a lavish gift given to a bunch of skeptical, anxious humans who did everything possible to not deserve it.
Read MoreI think Jesus wanted to expose the central issue behind our fear: We don't know God's love for us. If we think God will be disappointed if we rush out ahead and fall down, we're unlikely to move very much.
But if He's your good father, won't he scamper up behind you, giggle a little at your daring, pick you up and brush you off? Then place your feet somewhere more suited to your skill level?
Doesn't it feel better to believe that about him?
Read MoreAgain and again, God repeats his promise to help us, to extend his righteous right hand to go before us, to make a way, where there seems no way. He promises to do that for anyone who asks, but if we remain hermetically sealed inside a world we can easily handle, we never give him the chance to prove it.
If you're bored with your life, it might be that you're twiddling your thumbs inside a life you finished crafting long ago. Quit redecorating it. Knock some walls out. Or maybe even sell it and move.
Read MoreKeeping the mind in the realm of the supernatural, is the business of the creative individual. Many people don't even know you can do that. But you can.
When I live and work with the mind of Christ, which the Apostle Paul said I could do, I am incredibly powerful and dangerous to the gremlins - and they know it.
Read MoreCould you use to be carried close to the heart of your Lord? Are you running too fast for him to catch you?
WE CONFUSE DUTY WITH DEVOTION.
Duty is when I have to. Devotion is when I am dying to.
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