Faking Grace

  Grace is such a beautiful word. It's a word that is spoken by poets, lovers, theologians and the broken. It's meaning though often misapplied and misunderstood, is the basis for all the virtues of life. The grace of God is as the famous song tells us plainly, 'amazing'.

  God knowing who we are.... and being who he is, knows that apart from his choosing to pour out his favor on our lives we would have no hope. We desperately need all the unmerited favor that God has to offer us in this often tragic drama we call life.

  For those who have been humbled and broken enough to see their need of grace there is a deep vein in heaven full of the river of grace. When we cry out from the center of our souls, God meets us with all that he is. Grace is a river fillled with the fullness of God's person and power for life.

  Tragically, grace has its imitators. For many people grace is a 'work' to be imitated and faked by a lifestyle of outward conformity without inward transformation. For the 'grace fakers' it's all about the do.... the actions which can be imitated for exterior show and human rewards. The realites of grace are never known without an inward new birth. We have to 'die' to our own attempts at religiosity and appearances to receive the miracle of new life.... the grace life.

  For many of us the opinions of others rule supreme in our decisions, desires and ultimately our destinies. We are so insecure that we can never fully grasp the liberating freedom of amazing grace. We choose to remain in the 'outer court' of religious conformity.... we know nothing of radical trust, intimacy and healing. If Jesus is not at the center of our soul we ensure our bondage and imprisonment to a cheap imitator....fake grace.

  After Jesus rose from the dead he confronted a wavering disciple, Peter. Peter had always struggled with relationship. He was intensely jealous of John's intimacy with Christ. Jesus didn't scold him for what he hadn't done.... for how he had betrayed and left him..... no, Jesus called Peter back to grace....back to relationship. In John 21: 15-19 we see an amazing interchange between the risen Jesus and Peter. Jesus wanted to know one primary thing from Peter, "Do you love me?"

There is no deeper reality of grace than to experience and relish the love of God. If love is our aim....our center.....our everything, then grace has done its deepest work in our hearts.

  When we fake grace, we look for our identity in what we do for God.... we want titles and recognition...more than we want God himself. Jesus wanted Peter not to do for him primarily..... no Jesus wanted Peter to be with him, "Follow Me!" were Jesus final words of this dramatic conversation. The God of the universe.... the God of all grace is calling you and me to himself. We need to stop faking grace.

Jim

Welcome Home

A lean soul, A barren hole
A cry for something more
There lies within a maddening cry for love and something more

A tragic life knows little of the deeper things in store
It only feels the hunger pangs and longs for something more
The soulish gaze, the hidden maze, leads farther from our home

When love engages, new life stages, hope begins to come
You hear a voice, you feel the warmth, pure love has called your name
You take a step, you turn toward light, the womb of trust is born

A warm embrace, a song within, your hunger slowly fades
A fullness comes, a songstress hums, love's anthem leads you home
You know it now, the light is him, He's calling you by name

You take the step, you walk toward light, the darkness moves aside
The voice calls out, it resonates, it finds a home in you
Right here, right now, your soul is well within
Welcome home.    

The Bridge of Trust

 Love builds the bridge that trust learns to walk on. To yield yourself fully to another person is an act of faith. Intimacy and complete satisfaction in relationship are uncommon. No matter how much we seek to rely on outward beauty and techniques of emotional, physical or intellecutal bonding, we still fall far short of achieving true intimacy.

  Love in all its richness and depth is built over a lifetime of quality materials: patience , kindness, selflessness, hope, endurance, forgiveness and a strong foundation of TRUST. Trust is the ability to fully disclose all of who you are to someone without fear of betrayal, deception or denial of affection. Trust is the profound experience of allowing yourself to be known in totality: all your goodness, successes, dreams, failures, weaknesses and fears.

  Trust is something that is built over time. It demands consistency and reliability. The love that satisfies is not built on fantasy or image. No amount of 'makeup' or wardrobe changes can alter a defective character. You don't love the mirror image of a person.... which can be easily manipulated or 'air brushed'. You can only love a real person whose character is revealed by how they treat themselves.... and how they treat you.

  Do you want to experience true love? Do you long to be known and to know another in truth and pure love? Are you worthy of another's complete trust? Are you reliable? Are you a man or woman of your word? Does what you say match up with how you treat those closest to you? A love deficits root cause is most often a character deficit. We attract and draw people to us who are most like us. Are you looking to obtain and 'get what you want' in relationships? Are you a TAKER? Then most likely you are a magnet for other self centered and immature people.

  Satisfaction in love is founded on becoming who you were born to be, before demanding what you think you want. We need to be transformed on the inside ......we must be born from above by God's grace. The bedrock stone of trust is found in knowing our Savior Jesus Christ. He proved worthy of trust by giving everything in dying for our sin....our inner brokenness. Are you a giver? What are you willing to sacrifice on behalf of the one you claim to love?

  When you're changed on the inside, you can become satisfied on the outside. Relational intimacy is rooted in inner transformation. Are you at peace with yourself?  Are you at peace with others?  Are you at peace with God?

Love trusts...... and trust loves. It's time to start believing.... and its time to start loving. That's where life begins and that's the life you know you want. 

Jim

Innovation: Making way for the future

  Innovation can be defined as the the introduction of new  ideas, original thoughts or methods.
  It's hard to be creative. We resist change more than we realize. The distance between what is and what will be is often greater than our minds and wills can handle. We resist the 'not yet' even when the 'what is' is less than satisfying.
  People often don't change or embrace the new ideas that can make their way of life better. We are controlled by a spirit of fear that lies to us about the danger of embracing the new and unknown whether it be in relationships, technology or even work place opportunities.
  Stress is often the best friend of innovation. We run out of money. We are forced out of a job. We are forced out of a relationship. And so when our physical, emotional or spiritual needs begin to scream louder than our fears....we are forced to innovate... to think 'outside the box' for a real life solution in the here and now of daily life
  Innovators and creative people are actually quite rare and thus very valuable to our lives. Recently we have heard of how Steve Jobs the famous innovator of Apple corporation has had to step aside due to his illness. Stock markets wobbled as they questioned the future of a powerful industry giant minus his creative and innovative genius.
  Most of us don't even come close to tapping the creative genius inside of each one of us. We are all created with potential to innovate and problem solve the issues that are so prevalent in our broken world. The gravest temptation is to simply copy others ideas and reproduce what others have done.  What a great shame that when given the opportunity and freedom to 'think outside the box' we resort to becoming a 'box factory' of others ideas minus the creativity.
  Faith meets a problem and leaps at the opportunity to discover a creative solution. Fear meets a problem and cowers in a corner of despair and hopelessness.  Life's gravest problems and crisis are meant to spur us on towards our finest hours of accomplishment and satisfaction. Are you feeling stuck? Dissatisfied? Now would be a good time to walk outside the framework of what you currently know and become an innovator! With faith you can explore the realms of the not yet to make our world a better place. God already has the provision for the needs in our life we have yet to encounter.  Your future problems, disappointments and frustrations are not designed to destroy you.... no, they are meant to draw you closer to a loving God who is waiting for you in the future he has prepared for you. See you there!


Jim

Searching for Lasting Intimacy

This year, Mary and I celebrated our 26th anniversary. 26 seems like a small number when I think of how quickly the years have gone by. On the evening before our wedding, I can remember being unable to sleep as I anticipated our wedding and the reality of the commitment I was making. During our engagement, Mary had repeatedly asked me the same question, "Are you sure?" Just prior to meeting me Mary had been engaged to someone else who on Valentine's day had backed out and asked for the ring back. This would leave anyone feeling insecure and in need of affirmation before moving toward marriage. I repeatedly reassured Mary that I was sure I wanted to spend my life with her. But in fact any human being knows that in and of themselves the idea of a life time commitment is both intimidating and challenging.
In the United States we have the highest divorce rate in the Western world: as many as 60 percent of men and half of women will have sex with somebody other than their spouse during their marriage. In spite of the infidelity, Americans remain committed to searching for their 'soul mate'. We spend $72 billion a year on weddings alone! There is this push and pull between "happily ever after" images of marriage and an inability to commit to anyone in the here and now. To put it simply there has never been a bigger disconnect between what what we say we want and what we actuate in our daily lives.
The percentage of married Americans has dropped each decade since the 1950's and the number of unmarried but cohabiting partners has risen a 1,000 percent over the last 40 years. At 28 for men and 26 for women, the median age at which Americans are marrying is at the highest point ever!
Having children outside of a marriage commitment is common now. 41 percent of children born in 2008 in America were to unmarried moms.
While Hollywood and romance novels are replete with plots involving searching for the "one" who will bring ultimate fulfillment, our society has left us wondering how to make choices at all. We have produced a generation that loves choice but hates choosing.
The expectations that we place on any future soul mate can seem to border on the Super Hero of Romance: best friend, business partner, hot lover, companion, soul mate etc....
Perhaps on our search for the 'perfect' husband and wife we might just be looking for something else. The first 'marriage' was arranged.... by God. Genesis 2: 18-24 recounts for us the reality of the need that God saw in his created Adam for an Eve. The God given need for an Adam or and Eve in our life does not actually substitute for our need for God himself!
And yet that is what we have done. We have compartmentalized our sexuality from our spirituality. We have substituted a pseudo spirituality of marriage ritual for the God ordained reality of covenant relationship. In the phrase "Happily Ever After" we reveal our naivety and selfishness. A relationship designed for intimacy and longevity can never be based around a goal of 'happiness' at its core. The goal of marriage must go far beyond temporal mood and the insecurity of worldly happiness alone.
Certainly marriage will have moments of deep happiness and seasons of abject pleasure and fulfillment. But the stages of every married life involve just as many seasons of trial, tragedy and temptation. There has to be something deeper and more sustaining than temporary 'good times' to sustain and fulfill an empty heart.
God 's call to intimacy in the covenant of marriage goes deeper than our society currently embraces. The traditional vows of marriage of 'in sickness and health... in poverty and wealth.....till death do us part.... seem quaint and dated to a culture that demands personal gratification above all. If we're not happy.... well why go on? We bail out and repeat the cycle hoping for different results.
Could it be that the "God" kind of marriage is more about holiness than happiness? Sacred marriage and true intimacy depend on a commitment that goes beyond transient feelings and emotions. Perhaps God's call to be Holy (whole in body,soul and spirit) is a serious one indeed. Marriage that is lived apart from God's call to intimacy with him and with one another is a failed enterprise indeed.
One of the enduring anthems of the sixties Rock and Roll generation was an anthem made famous by the group, The Rolling Stones. The lyric refrain repeats over and over, "I can't get no satisfaction". That my friend is the song that the world must sing over and over when it denies the truths that marriage so definitively depends on. 
Satisfaction in intimacy demands that our creator be involved at every level of our relationships. We are sinners and we cannot ultimately achieve forever love without him. 26 years of marriage with Mary have left me much more than "happy". I am full of satisfaction at every level of my life... and more importantly, I am more aware of my need for God and his love than ever before.I have searched for lasting intimacy and found it, with Mary and with God.

Jim

Making Failure a Friend

  Failure. It's a word we dread. We don't want to confront it, talk about it, or be defined by it. But failure is a reality we will all experience on our journey of life. How we respond to failure will in many ways define how we respond to its counterpart: Success. Failure is an inability to perform to an expected outcome.... at its root it is a fracturing of who we are ....under stress. We break down and we are unable to complete what we are assigned, called to or expected to achieve. To fail at something we deeply desire leaves us feeling broken at every level: relationally, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

  To achieve, to attain and to complete is a very human reality and desire. We don't exist to survive....we exist to create, to build, to relate and to change our world for good. But along life's journey we don't always get to where we want to go, when we want to get there and with whom we would like to travel. We are not as in control as we would like!

   Our deepest human need is relational. When we have satisfying, intimate and meaningful human relationships we have inward peace. When we FAIL in our relationships, our soul suffers an almost inconceivable level of pain and discomfort. We were born for love and not hatred. When things don't go well in our relationships, it can begin a series of responses and reactions that only confuses the sense of direction and purpose in our lives.

  Peter was one of Jesus closest and most trusted friends. Peter was a risk taker.... a leader whom others admired and respected. But Peter was deeply flawed on the inside.  Peter achieved much due to his boldness and willingness to literally 'get out of the boat'. But boldness is no subtitute for knowing our places of weakness and vulnerability. Jesus knew where the 'stress points' were in Peter's character. He loved Peter so much that he warned him in advance of Peter's greatest failure in life.  At the time of Jesus greatest need for support relationally, Peter denied knowing Jesus. Peter remembered the warning too late and failed his Lord.... and his friend. Later, Peter was restored to relationship with Jesus because he knew deep within there was nowhere else to go with his failure.  Peter failed forward in the direction of relationship. He fell back in love with the Jesus who came looking for where he knew he could find him....fishing. We were made to do certain things in life. We are shaped, formed and prepared to accomplish 'certain' things in this life (See Ephesians chapter 2 vs 8-10). But we are not meant to do them alone....or for our self aggrandizement or glory. Everthing we do well is meant to reflect well upon him who made all things and called them good. When we falter, when we fail, when we deny and when we betray there is a God of love who proves his great mercy and love by taking us back into relationship.  The cross upon which our Savior died is proof for every one of us that failure need not be final. We can be restored back to relationship.  Peter's great denial did not mean that Jesus would deny him....instead Peter became what his name called him to be the great rock of testimony..... Jesus saves, Jesus forgives, Jesus restores.

  In contrast to Peter's restoration is the life of Judas.  Judas was also one of Jesus closest confidantes. He walked with Jesus during all of his active ministry. He saw the miracles and the amazing love of Jesus at work on a daily basis. He walked with Jesus  and knew him intimately. But like Peter, Judas was deeply flawed on the inside. Judas had an agenda that was unspoken but ever present. Judas wanted to WIN at all costs. Judas had a destiny in mind for himself. He was tired of 'taking it' from the Man (Rome) and wanted to turn the tables on his oppressors. He wanted it all.... and he wanted it RIGHT NOW. He admired Jesus the revolutionary, but was deeply concerned about his heart for the poor and the broken. It would cost too much to care for all the destitute.  Judas wanted to make sure he 'got his share' and finally grew sick of all the talk of a cross. If Jesus wasn't going to get aggressive with his agenda perhaps he could sell out and at least get something from all his 'devotion' and effort on Jesus behalf.

  30 pieces of silver later, Judas woke up and realized that money would not satisfy him. He threw the blood money away but alas fell backwards in failure. He fell on top of the lie that he could not be restored to Jesus. He forgot that the cross was meant for even the worst sinners.... those who would ultimately deny and betray him.  Judas like all of us failed miserably at a crucial point in his life but unlike Peter, Judas fell backwards upon himself instead of in the direction of grace, mercy and forgiveness....forward facing Jesus.

  Have you failed?  All of us will at one point or another in life will fail miserably. Perhaps right now you have deep regrets because of broken relationships.  I urge you to fall forward into the embrace of a God who won't just forgive you... he will restore, use you and ultimately fulfill his purpose for your life.... don't give up. Let his love cover your broken places.  He's calling you back to himself...back to relationship....back to your destiny.  Don't give up, make failure a friend.

Jim

Learning to Love: Listening

  Life's deepest meaning and fulfillment is found in relationships built on love. Life is meant to be a shared experience of self giving and receiving from others. One of the key skills that make relationships satisfying is the ability to really hear one another. To really 'know' one another we first need to hear one another at every level of reality. Who are you really? Who am I? Listen, really listen and you discover the deeper and more profound layers of reality that is the person you seek to know and love.

  When we really want to know and love someone, we develop an intensity and focus that moves us beyond casual observation. Distracted and selfish people make poor lovers and horrible friends. The selfish man and woman demand that the universe circle around their own demands and desires. The ability to really hear is dependent on seeing the value in the object of your desire and love. When we lay aside the mirrors focused on self we begin to see the reality that self satisfaction is dependent on relationships of sacrifice and giving. As St. Francis has said, "It's in giving to all men that we receive, and in dying (to self) that we are born to eternal life."

  The ability to perceive and enjoy beauty is dependent on being immersed in truth. Lies distort beauty and bend it to the will of lust and the externals of appearance.  When we begin to love others in purity, we begin to hear things others ignore and belittle. The beauty of a child's laughter, the whisper of wisdom from a grandfather, the unspoken hopes of a youth in transition, the poetic desire of blooming love, all serve to open our hearts to what really matters: love in all its forms, ages, shapes and realities. We were born for one another in an endless circle of relational love.

  Listening takes time. It says you are worthy of waiting and straining in the direction of knowing who you really are.  It says, "Tell me your story, I really want to know you, I am not in a hurry, you are worthy of my time....my life and my all." Are you a good listener?

  Do you want to know love in all its depth and beauty? You will have to learn to listen! You cannot love, really and truly love someone that you don't have respect for. You cannot respect someone that you're not truly listening to. Love listens carefully for what has been said, what isn't being said and for what needs to be said.

Love Listens.