The Living Dead: My Year of Darkness and Transformation

1979 was the hardest year of my life. I was 20 years old and living in Anchorage, Alaska. I had a challenging job working as a Medical Lab tech for the U.S. Air-force at Elmendorf Air force base. The toughest part was the shift work. I worked from around 3:30 p.m. till 7 a.m. the next morning. That is a long shift. Since I was single, our Senior Master Sergeant had the idea that having me work nights would ensure the married guys had a better quality of life..... I sure hope they did... it was killing me.
Over time I became more and more tired and disgusted by my life. I didn't mind being a lab tech. I just minded not having any thing else in my life. The military doesn't guarantee a 40 hour work week. They "own" you. Yes, there are benefits. They provide housing, food, educational benefits etc.... and 30 days vacation a year.... if they can spare you. Really my problem wasn't with the military. It was with me.
On the inside at the tender young age of 20 was a dead soul. I really had everything that I needed to live. Food, housing, meaningful work( perhaps too much!). But my soul was dead. At one point I remember going to the cafeteria in the hospital where I worked and remarking that I felt like the food was 'killing' me". I was sitting with a bunch of my co-workers and they looked at me with consternation. The main course that night was 'liver' and it tasted like rubber. After a while the food just didn't seem to taste like anything at all. I was dying from the inside out.
I gradually became more and more cynical and rebellious...and arrogant. I was a scary guy to be around. When people saw me heading to work in the evening they would sometimes cross the street to avoid coming face to face with me. If you had access to some old photos of me you would be surprised to see my face. In the summer and fall of 1979 I looked at least 35 and not 20. I was hardened. My heart was stone cold dead.
Once your heart stops beating and your lungs stop breathing you have approximately 4 minutes until your brain begins to suffer irreparable damage. If you are fortunate enough to have someone do CPR and provide advanced life support you might just survive. But there is another kind of death and its far too common. It's a sad reality for many that death is already close at hand. The living dead are those who get up in the morning and move around on the outside but are dead on the inside.
Every single person on the planet lives in 3 dimensions: Body, Soul & Spirit. We are taught to eat right, exercise, search out purpose and meaning in our work etc.... But there's more. We are meant to connect with something eternal... someone eternal. I'ts not about religion. Religion more often than not will kill you before it heals you. Religion lays down rules, regulations and restrictions designed to bind you to others in a prison of control. No, what we need is life itself...which comes through an amazing display of love in Jesus. Grace is something we must embrace before we can really live in this world of the living dead.
To be free on the inside....to be forgiven and to forgive is to come fully alive. That feeling of dissatisfaction and emptiness you're experiencing right now is something I can remember too well. It's a heavy load to carry through life for even one day. For me the backpack of boulders fell off on August 2nd , 1980. On that day I found out about a forever love that accepted me, forgave me and ultimately saved me. It's good to be alive. Jesus is real.

Jim

Transition: Coping with the Stress of Change

If one word could characterize the reality of the times in which we live, it would be 'transition'. We are all being moved from where we were, to somewhere we've never been. It makes for some unique challenges as we face the uncertainty of unfamiliar places. When the world changes rapidly around us, our emotions, our thoughts and our beliefs get shaken to the core. While we scratch our heads in bewilderment, we feel our 'gut' grow queasy and our jaw tighten.  Just what in the world is going on?

The cliches of 'positive thinking' and shallow faith don't cut it in times of raw adversity and fear. Just what is real and stable when the world you know comes crashing down around you? We often don't realize just how shallow we really are. When we try to condense truth into a top ten bestseller, we realize that the world doesn't publish the best of advice for real word brokenness and pain. Sometimes the truth just won't sell. Uncertainty and hard questions seldom make it to the publisher.

While we try to figure out where we're going, we forget to look around and see "WHO" we're travelling with. The reality is that the who is more important than the where on this pilgrimage better known as life. We're all on a journey to a forever place. The passages, the transitions, the things we do are all so temporary that if they become our focus we might just miss the reason for it all. What a tragedy to live and never know the awesome reality that life is all about relationships.

While we seek for greatness, meaning and significance we might just miss the One relationship that is meant to define all others. The invisible everlasting Father.... the God of the universe waits for us to open our hearts, our minds, our ears to the voice that makes sense in the midst of confusion.  Three words call us continually from the place just beyond the horizon. The Father speaks them in an ongoing chorus of certainty and persistence, "I love you". While we seek for a job.... a place, a title, a mate, a retirement plan, a whatever...... God offers us to himself and we often spurn that everlasting sustenance for a drive through mirage made of sand. How terribly sad!

So often we waste our sorrows. We expend our depression, our grief, our disappointment on a temporary high or experience that can never substitute for a forever love. The God who created us displayed his love in an unconditional abandonment that can never be equaled or surpassed. He took your broken soul and laid himself on a cross to heal you..... to forgive you.....to restore you.

While the world trembles and fears change, God offers himself to hold onto through the turbulence.... the pain, the tears and the fears. Transition isn't meant to destroy us. It's meant to cause us to look beyond the face we see in the mirror. Yes, we're broken. But the God who loves broken people is looking out through the other side of the mirror with a face of acceptance and not condemnation. He's smiling.... and waiting for us to come home to the place that never changes.... to his house. Sit down and rest awhile. He's got time.....lots of time. He's got forever in his hands and plenty of room for you.... for me.... for all of us. Welcome home to forever.

Jim

Intimacy Killers: The Spirit of Control

To be loved for who you are is the most essential human need. The development and growth of intimacy in our relationships demands maturity and selflessness. It's difficult to find deeply satisfying relationships, but easy to have shallow and frustrating 'friendships'.

 Due to our own insecurities and fears we often resort to ineffective and fatal behaviors in our relationships. Perhaps one of the most fatal of all is the manifestation of a controlling spirit. True love inspires, enables and empowers freedom of choice. All true love is rooted and grounded around the ability to move forward and maintain the relationship based on freedom and trust.

When we try to take control of another persons choices in relationship, we ensure the death of any possibility of true intimacy. A spirit of control closes the human spirit and damages the soul. We were not born to be 'controlled' and manipulated....we were born for real love.

The worst form of counterfeit love and intimacy is rooted in a horrific mutation of love known as narcissism.... the pathologic love of self. The narcissist doesn't love the other... he or she seeks to smother...to suffocate....to shape the other into whatever brings the ego the greatest pleasure of the moment. The root cause of a controlling spirit is the worship of self. The controller must be satisfied above all else...above all others. The partner of a controller is a slave of whatever they want: sex, attention, adulation, conversation, money or someone to hurt deeply.

The tragic end of someone dominated by a controlling spirit is the destruction of all their relationships and ultimately themselves. When we don't allow others to be free to love or reject us.... to set up boundaries in relationships based on trust and the natural patterns of growth over time that intimacy demands... to that extent we enslave ourselves to faux relationships based on lies and deception.

The more we attempt to squeeze others to conform to what we want....the more we dishonor them. People are made in the image of their creator who describes himself for us with three simple words, "God is love". God's image in us is honored and respected when we allow others to choose in relationship. God's great love doesn't demand a response....it wins a response through proving his love. You can't love someone you don't trust. You can't be intimate with someone who seeks to use you for his or her own selfish desires.

Intimacy demands freedom. Do you seek for deeply satisfying relationships? Begin today to set others free in your life. Stop demanding what you want and start giving who you really are... no strings .... no chains. Real love is both a choice and a gift. You can't demand it...but you can give it and receive it from a God who is true love personified.

Mission to Nepal!

On October 31st, Mary and I will travel with several friends to the beautiful country of Nepal. It will be my third trip to Nepal and Mary's second. Since 1999 we have developed great friends from Nepal right here in Mobile, Al through our ministry to internationals known as Friends of Internationals. We made our first trip to Nepal in the summer of 2007. Each time we have traveled we have ministered with our friends Sudip and Anne Lise who oversee Compassion for Asia (www.compassionforasia.org) They have an amazing ministry that cares for widows and orphans and also provides spiritual care through churches, Bible training and related outreaches throughout the nation of Nepal. We are blessed to be a part of a team of 10 people with varying gifts to offer in service to the people of Nepal. This year we are bringing two medical physicians who will be providing some medical care but also surveying  and preparing for future medical outreach. We will also minister in local churches that are affiliated with Compassion for Asia and participate in a leader's conference. We also hope to visit with some family members of students we have met over the last decade here in Mobile. To put it simply, we love Nepal! The Nepali people are some of the most kind and endearing people I have ever met. By God's grace we are able to be with them for about 10 days in early November. Will you pray with us about this trip?
In going to Nepal our goal is to undergird and support the Khada family. Sudip began his ministry in 1999 as a young single man but was blessed by God to marry Anne Lise who is from Norway. They met while studying in Pensacola, Florida for ministry. They now have two children and have dedicated their lives to blessing the people of Nepal with the good news of Jesus Christ and humanitarian assistance.  Nepal is a nation of 30 million people with 1/3 living on less than $1 a day! There has been tremendous political instability over the last decade and a horrific civil war that left so many people displaced and 13,000 people killed. Nepal's population is one of the world's youngest and fastest growing. Most live in rural areas, deprived of education and opportunity. Illiteracy is widespread.  Young people are vulnerable to exploitation, sex trafficking, drug abuse and radicalization. We are praying  for opportunities to offer hope and a future. A ministry like Compassion for Asia is offering real hope and vision for the next generation of youth in Nepal. The ministry has huge potential but it needs support and increasing partners to get behind it. This is one of the main focal points for our travel to Nepal. By bringing this team we hope to become ambassadors for both the nation of Nepal and the very vital role of service that Sudip and Anne Lise play in that nation!  Every student who graduates from Sudip's bible school is equipped to communicate hope and vision to the people of Nepal. Attending church in Nepal is thrilling! You see such a fervency and dedication to make a difference! Mary and I would like to ask you be in prayer for us for this trip. We believe God has called us to go but we recognize that we are in need of help from people who have a  heart for the nations. We have for years been dependent on God's people to lovingly pray and give to meet our needs while we serve him. Thanks for standing with us as our partners in the ministry of God's love and mercy!
We love you;
Jim & Mary and family

Support the Mather family:
All Nations Community Church
By Mail/ P.O. Box 8617  Mobile, Al 36689
Give online at www.allnationsmobile.org/give



A Surrendered Life

Surrender can be a scary word. It means to abandon oneself to an influence, to give into, to yield control to another. We need to be careful to whom we might yield ourselves in life. Not everyone is worthy of trust or surrender. In our search for direction and in our desire to meet our own deepest human needs we often yield control to people who can harm or injure us for their own selfish interests. We do need guidance and direction in life. There are just so many choices we must make in life!  But in the process of seeking direction and guidance we need to exercise caution and develop the gift of discernment to help us know whose voice to trust and whose to run from. The word discernment means the ability to judge well.  Discernment is exercised with the goal of obtaining direction and understanding. There are so many voices calling to control the direction of our lives. Those voices are often contradictory and confusing. Just which way should we turn at a critical juncture in our lives?
  For many years now I have worked with college age young adults from all over the world. I have found that it really doesn't matter if you're from Iraq or Illinois....we all have the same basic needs and desires for life. There are two fundamental needs we have as humans that relate to how God has shaped us and formed us. We all have a need for significance. We all have a need for security. Our significance is rooted in becoming someone who can make a difference... whose life is more than a sand castle washed away by the next wave. We were made to make a mark on eternity.  Our security is rooted in our need for being loved for who we really are.....right now....unconditionally. So much of human love is conditional and  transient.... and thus insecure.  I will love you if..... you lose weight....get a better job....make better grades.....change your eating habits......move to another state or country..... you name it the conditions are numerous and often inconsistent.
  But what if you had a relationship with someone who loved you right now....right where you are and that love promised to be forever? How would that impact your sense of security? Is there such a love available? Many profess love. The world is full of romantic song, poems and stories. We never tire of hearing about love. Worldwide our cultures are saturated with tales of love. But there is one love story that reigns supreme. It involves sacrifice, passion and even sacrificial death on your behalf.... and mine. We are told an amazing story of beauty being exchanged for ashes at a critical time in human history. God took upon human form and spoke out about a never ending love in the clarion call of the gospel of John, " For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
  Our need for security and significance drive all that we do. We don't want to die... to perish.  We were made for love.  We were made for relationship. We were made to live and enjoy love forever. And God comes to us and offers us just that kind of life. When we connect with that love and begin to believe in it, we go from existing and taking up space to living and making a difference.
  Faith is a reality we all are immersed in. We all believe in something. What we trust....what we yield ourselves to ..... what and whom our lives are guided and steered by helps us understand our destiny. Our choices day by day determine the direction of our lives in the here and now and ultimately in the there and then beyond our human comprehension. Who do you trust?
  When we open ourselves up to the love of God we begin to discover a life of surrender is actually a path of joy and peace.....not an absence of conflict or difficulty....but the presence of a real and tangible love that never leaves us....ever.
  One of the wisest statements I have ever read about surrender comes from the Proverbs of the Old Testament chapter 3 and verses 5,6 " Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him,  and he will make straight your paths."
  When you surrender to a faithful and ever loving Savior you're set free from so much fear, strain and uncertainty.  A surrendered life is a beautiful life. It's not a life without sorrow....but is a life where not a single tear drops goes unnoticed and not a single sorrow is wasted. Today, I encourage you to begin to ask God reveal himself to you for who he really is. He is love.  He is faithful.  He is worthy of your trust.
It's time to surrender....it's a wonderful life.

Jim

Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

 When tragedy strikes our first emotional response is to ask the question, Why? Pain and suffering produce a loss of control that we desperately want answers for. When the answers are hard to find and uncertain it breeds an increasing pressure and emotional pain. The prevailing assumption is often that we suffer as a result of wrongs we have done...that there is a direct correlation between our sin and whether or not we suffer in this life.

  In trying to answer the why questions in life we often wind up with more worries and frustration. It seems as if the trials, tragedies and turmoil of life leave us searching for easy answers. There has to be an answer to the problem of suffering....doesn't there?

  I have long struggled with whether or not I should in the midst of a catastrophe or trial to ask the question why. Counselors are almost unanimous with their advice to not ask the question.... at least initially. I tend to agree. But I want to dig a little deeper today. Just because a question is difficult to answer does not mean it should not be asked. I think it's more important to probe a little deeper and ask, "Why, do I need to know why?"

  I think I have an answer for the motivation and consuming desire to know why we are undergoing suffering and tragedy in life. The answer lies at the heart of who we really are. When we look in the mirror we see our physical self (for better or worse) but inside of all of us lies the real person. We are made up of body, soul and spirit. Our spirit and soul connect with an eternal reality that was created to live forever in harmony with God. We can't articulate that eternal consciousness in words but when we are ill or broken in any dimension of our lives we feel a disconnect.... we simply know, "something isn't right."

In the beginning God created us..... and it was good.....all good. Something obviously went wrong somewhere. The Bible clearly tells us what happened but we wax and wane in our actual belief in that revelation. The devastation wrought by sin is immense. We are all being deeply impacted by a cosmic rebellion on earth. So why should that effect me? I want to do the right thing. I believe in God..... I love people......I want peace in the world!

  John Donne the poet put it this way, "No man is an island, entire of itself.....". Our lives are deeply intertwined. Your suffering, your brokenness, your happiness, your blessing, your wealth, your poverty.....are all mine as well. Truly, not a single one of us is an island cut off from the other. No matter how high the walls we build around our castles of prosperity we are all subject to pain and suffering of every conceivable kind. So in the light of this truth, how do we then respond when tragedy strikes?

In the gospel of John chapter 9, Jesus was asked by his followers about a man they saw who had been born blind, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" What a tragedy to walk through life being judged for something we have no control over. In our broken world we have to be careful we don't put people into categories and write them off based upon what we can see with our limited and finite human senses and resources. Jesus answer to this question should bring you great liberty and freedom in dealing with our own faults, trials and uncertainties.... listen carefully to his response. "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, Jesus answered.  This came about, so that God's works might be displayed in him. We must do the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

  Jesus then proceeded to heal the man born blind and the rest of the chapter shows him dealing with the deceptions and hardness of heart of the prevailing religious culture of his day. The truth is that God is light. In the midst of a broken world he is wanting to heal, restore and bring hope. Religion keeps people in boxes of guilt, despair and darkness. The religious mind set wants to have an overriding simplistic approach to suffering in this world that is grossly and tragically wrong. The rain, Jesus said, falls on the just and unjust. In our times of brokenness, the only proper response is to allow God to come in and work his will into our lives. When we surrender to God in the midst of the unknown outcomes of tragedy, light begins to dawn in amazing though unpredictable ways.

  In case you haven't realized it yet, we are not in control. No matter how intricate and detailed your preparations and plans, life throws curve balls! In tragedy, the most simple and heart felt prayers produce the best results. I find that crying out, "HELP!" has been quite effective in my life. I know it is not the most profound prayer but it places me in line with the deepest understanding of God and myself I have received thus far, "God is big..... and I am small."

  Are you struggling with a personal tragedy in your life?  Perhaps you or someone you love is ill, depressed or in a serious financial crisis. I have heard it said that we are all either moving in the direction of a trial, in one now, or just coming out of one. May God grant us the faith to understand that when bad things happen to us he has not stopped loving us. Tragedy can either embitter us or make us better. The choice before us is one burrowed deeply into the will of our soul. The one word that determines everything in our times of trial is SURRENDER.  Surrender of control needs to be based upon a revelation that is both profound and deeply moving, God is love. I cannot reveal that to you. But I can tell you that I have known and experienced that love in the midst of dark days and sleepless nights. Weeping may endure for the dark night of our souls.... but joy comes in the morning.

Much love;

Jim

When Love Calls Your Name

A lonely place, a hidden hope. A distant thought, A broken part.

From deep within I listen hard, for one true voice to touch my heart.

I'm hoping for a brand new start, I need to know there is real hope.

A whisper speaks, it calls me out. I know your name, I know your heart.

The broken place begins to stir, it hears His voice calling out in love.

Come alive, I know your name, it's love I hold within your frame.

I feel the pain, I shed the tears, but still I hope, I hear my name.

The truth becomes a part of me, I am loved in spite of pain.

I begin to stir in places deep, I feel the power of love's pure rain

I come alive, I grow within, in spite of pain, I hear my name.

The beauty of his deep pure love sets me free from where I've been.

I'm coming out of my dark cave, I hear the voice that knows my name.

He sees inside my darkest place and still calls out, I know your pain.

The choice is his to love me still and call again, I know your name.

The light begins to dawn within, I'm coming out to trust again.

The hope we need is not for sale. We can't buy or grasp what heaven gives.

The purest love is what we need, to set us free from life's dark hate.

We all can be, what we desire, when heaven calls our souls alive.

The secret place, the hidden faults, the pain and brokenness of all our hearts

Is healed, when love calls our names

Jim