Tentacles

Once I saw a time-lapse video of a vine growing. The plant sent out frail little tendrils, extending them into the air. The tiny tendrils swirled in a circular motion, reaching for something to grasp.

When the tendril at last made contact with something, it curled around it in a spiral, growing longer and embracing the object more and more securely. Eventually, the vine would thicken and strengthen and tighten its grip on whatever it had encountered.

I have seen this process at work in my front yard. We have a wisteria plant that takes over the handrail leading to the front door. We call it our monster plant because if we don't trim it regularly it seems to reach out to our visitors, seeking to trip them up and keep them from our front porch.

I've been out of the country for ten days, away from my job and office for a two full weeks. As I drove to work this morning, I mused at how 'separated' I felt from my job. The challenges of the office seemed sort of removed from my heart.

I reflected that it has been good to strip the tendrils away for a period of time. Only by clearing away the entanglements of my job did I recognize how intertwined with it I had become. Only by stepping away from the demands of my position was I able to see myself separated from the identity of my job title.

It also made me think that this is the way we are overtaken by the world, by worldliness . . . not by a vicious onslaught, but by tiny creeping tendrils that seem harmless. Frail little ties to the cares of this earth. Daily tasks and responsibilities that supplant God gradually but surely.

Perspective

When I'm trying to see something clearly and understand its shape, I often look at it for a while from one position, then move to another position to look. By looking at the object from more than one perspective, I can get a better sense of it.

This principal is played out in all sorts of everyday experiences. When I look at sculpture. When I look at a historic site. When I look at a building.

I realize that I've just had that same opportunity to see -- only on a larger scale.

I usually see God from the perspective of my life, my culture, my upbringing, and my part of the world. Recently, I had a chance to see God through a very different culture in a different part of the world.

The change in perspective was amazingly helpful. By viewing Him from the position of people very different from myself, I learned a lot about Him. I have a clearer understanding of His "shape" and a better sense of His enormity, His essence.

By seeing Him from another angle, I understood a different dimension of God's nature. What a blessing! What an encouragement.

Community

Riddle: How can you travel 8500 miles and 12 time zones and still be at home?

Answer: Find the church.
Truly, the unity of believers is an amazing thing.

Relinquishing

Lately there have been an unusual number of big issues going on in my life. Things I might be inclined to worry about. Things I could obsess about.

But it occurred to me that I could simply choose not to go that route.

I could "hand it all over." I could turn it loose. I could let it go. I could just simply choose to let God handle these situations. I could leave it in His hands.

What a relief.

And how logical.

After all, I can't really make things happen. I am not in control of things, other than my own reactions to circumstances.

God, on the other hand, is powerful and able to make things happen.

So . . . I'm in the business of handing things over these days.

Tour guides

When I travel, I'm the person who reads the guide book. When I arrive in a new place, I know the lay of the land. I know where the historic sites are. I know what shouldn't be missed.

When they were growing up, my kids learned to just assume that I would know all sorts of things about our vacation spot. Weirder than that, however, strangers in the places we would visit would stop me and ask for directions -- and I could usually help them!

I tell you this story because it will help you understand why -- as I prepare to travel to Kazakhstan -- I was strangely comforted by a segment of Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis, where he says,

"Missions is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there. It is almost as if being a good missionary means having really good eyesight. Or maybe it means teaching people to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn't realize it. You see God where others don't. And then you point him out.

"Perhaps we ought to replace the word missionary with tour guide, because we cannot show people something we haven't seen.

". . . So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst.

". . . Tour guides are people who see depth and texture and connection where others don't. That is why the best teachers are masters of the obvious. They see the same things that we do, but they are aware of so much more. And when they point it out, it changes the way we see everything."

Bell then mentions the woman who anointed Jesus with expensive perfume -- how some thought it was a waste of money, but how Jesus offers such a different perspective. He's a tour guide, pointing out the reality/beauty others missed.

I'm glad to have this lesson before we travel to a land far away.

I'm glad my job isn't to haul Jesus over there. I'm much more comfortable with being a tour guide to point to the God who is already there.

Parables in life

This morning I woke up early in my hotel room. Working out of town, away from familiar surroundings is disorienting.

I noticed that the window of my room -- with its spectacular view of the city -- was foggy and hazy with condensation. The view I had enjoyed the night before was hidden.

Eventually, just before I left the room to begin my day of work, I walked over near the window and sat down to pray.

Much to my surprise, when I sat down, I had a perfect view of the early morning downtown cityscape. I had to chuckle.

God never misses an opportunity to teach me. I love that about Him.

It was a perfect parable: My vision is often clouded, obstructed, short-sighted -- just like the window in my hotel room. The only way for me to gain a clearer view of all that surrounds me is for me to stop and pray.

What a wonderful lesson He provided -- and I enjoyed it throughout the day!

And perhaps even better, although I was in a city away from my family, I didn't feel alone.

Holy Bible

When I was a kid, we handled the Bible with great reverence. It would have been unthinkable to toss a Bible into a back seat of a car, for instance. It was always placed gently and always face up.

When I went away to a Christian college, I learned a much more casual approach to the Bible. I was encouraged to mark in my Bible -- horrors! And many of the male Bible majors -- they were all male back then -- carried small testaments around in their hip pockets. Dear me.

That casual or familiar approach to Holy Scripture was good in one respect: it helped me feel that I could approach the text, debate what I found there, and apply it to daily life. The Bible took on the mantle of a textbook for my Bible classes. My relationship with the Bible became a largely intellectual one. I was challenged by -- and fascinated by -- all I could learn from its pages. I developed a love of Bible study.

As years passed, I was intrigued that there was always something new in scripture to catch my attention. I joked with my friends that 'that verse wasn't there the last time I looked!' and 'I guess that's why they call it the living word!' Ha ha. But laughing aside, I was fascinated that no matter how much I studied the Bible, I found it fresh and startlingly pertinent to my life circumstances.

And then there were those times when a verse -- that I had studied many times before -- would suddenly stand up off the page and turn from black and white to technicolor. (If this has happened to you, you know what I mean.) Suddenly the meaning would transform from two dimensional to 3-D or maybe holographic. (Side note: and when this happens, you can't tell someone else about it because they look at you like you've gone bonkers and say things like, 'yes, of course that's what it says...') This has happened to me often enough now that I recognize the work of the Spirit and take joy in the certainty that God is actively revealing something to me.

As years passed -- and life became difficult from time to time -- I discovered something else in those same pages: the intimate support provided by God's Word. In daily devotional Bible study I found the incredible comfort and amazingly personal voice of God speaking in great specificity to my struggles. I was stunned by the nearness of God, by his almost palpable presence emanating from the pages when I was so in need. No longer was my relationship with the Bible a solely intellectual one.

My experiences with the Biblical text over the years have led me back to a greater reverence for the Bible. It's so much more than just a textbook. Maybe it's like a textbook written specifically for me. Maybe it's like a guidebook that is updated every morning and continually serves up advice for my latest struggles.

It's like a hole in space/time where I can catch a glimpse of God and He can reach through to surround me with His comfort. And His correction.

The Word of God -- in all manifestations -- is an awesome gift from our Father. It really is "living and active" (Heb 4:12) and is worthy of our reverence and lifelong study.

Ordinary

More than a decade ago, I read Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God. Today as I worked on an upcoming lesson, I sought out a memorable passage:

"When you believe nothing significant can happen through you, you have said more about your belief in God than you have said about yourself . . .

He goes on to say: "An ordinary person is who God most likes to use. Paul said God deliberately seeks out the weak things and the despised things, because it is from them that He can receive the greatest glory (see I Cor. 1:26-31). Then everyone will know that only God could have done it. If you feel weak, limited, ordinary, you are the best material through which God can work!"

Makes me think of that old refridgerator magnet I saw one time: the only ability you need to have to be used by God is availability.

Rebuilding

Ten of us are traveling to Almaty, Kazakhstan at the end of this month. While there, we will conduct a youth retreat campout in the mountains outside of town. They have asked us to prepare four lessons from Ezra and Nehemiah. The working title for the series is "Rebuilding the Walls of Faith."

Toward the end of the book of Nehemiah, the priest Ezra reads the law to the people, and they weep when they realize how they have failed to keep God's commands.

Have you ever been in that spot? I have.

From time to time, God reveals to me -- often in technicolor -- where I have failed in an area of life where I thought I was doing well. When that happens, it breaks my heart (which is a right response!) It is easy, however, for me to become ashamed and embarassed. At that point, it's easy to start beating up on ourselves, and that's when Satan will whisper, "You just aren't good enough. You might as well quit trying."

But God's whisper to me is very different: "I have a plan for you, a plan prosper you, to give you hope."(Jeremiah 29:12) "There is no condemnation." (Romans 8:1) God's message to us is good news. A message of healing and power. A message of blessing and joy.

That's why Nehemiah tells the people who are weeping, "Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." (Nehemiah 8:10)

Like them, I have an invitation to move forward with renewed purpose and dedication. I can offer my life as a living sacrifice because of the joy of salvation and forgiveness and God's generous love.