The Measure of Success

I have yet to meet anyone who would not desire to succeed in life. We were born and created to achieve and make a difference with our lives. But what is the best measuring rod of success? What does success look like?
The world is full of various views and beliefs about life. What would be success to Mother Teresa the Saint of Calcutta would be viewed as abhorrent disaster to the Donald Trump's of our world. I have been deeply impacted by the biography "Bonhoeffer" by Eric Metaxas. This book tells the story of a theologian from Germany who lived during the era of the despot Adolf Hitler. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a brilliant thinker, writer and Pastor who during his lifetime was challenged to confront and resist evil at a high price. Though offered the chance to spend the war time teaching theology at a seminary in America, he heard God's call to return to his native land.
  Bonhoeffer had to take his beliefs, values and thoughts about God out of the classroom and live them in the most trying of times. His faith was refined by the fire of horrific evil and his measure of success was altered forever. Bonhoeffer as a man called by God to resist evil (he was implicated and eventually executed for his role in an attempt to kill Hitler) believed that success for the Christian was inseparable from obedience toward God.
  Have you ever asked yourself the question, "What would God have me to do with my life?" Do you choose you own way in life? Do you believe that there might be a greater purpose beyond your own individual comfort and ease? When you see suffering are you unmoved and indifferent? Would you say you are pursuing a meaningful vision with your life? What is it? How do you plan on achieving it? Would it take faith for you to achieve your life goals..... or could you achieve your goals apart from any beliefs at all?
  Life is so brief. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a single man in his 30's when his attempts to resist evil was found out by the secret police of the Nazi era. He endured torture and suffered the same fate of the Jewish people he desperately sought to protect and assist. He was willing to die so that others might live. He died two weeks prior to the end of World War two.... a last desperate act of revenge by the madman Hitler ensured his death by hanging.... he failed.... or did he?
  Bonhoeffer obeyed an inner call from an unseen God and defined success for those of us who say we believe in a God of love and justice. How do you measure success?

Jim

Becoming You

Becoming.... to be in the process of being who we were meant to be. My wife told me she was speaking with a young mother recently who had seen the latest 3-D ultrasound images of her developing child. She was fascinated with the intricate details now visible to her even while the baby was still in the womb. Children's development is utterly fascinating and rewarding to watch. We are drawn to their development of facial features, body types, language, motor skills etc.... And if we know their families we are equally fascinated and careful to make note of the similarities or differences. But there is an aspect of becoming that goes far beyond the visible. Inside of all of us  is the everlasting reality of the real YOU that outlives our frail mortal bodies. Our Spiritual self was created to develop and mature in line with our physical body. We were born for love and relationship with one another, but also with God. When our faith life remains undeveloped or lacks nurture and care we become malnourished. While our mother and father give birth to us physically, God almighty deposits in each of us the marks of eternity. God is as fascinated with you as your mother and father are. Look at Psalm 139:17, "God, how difficult your thoughts are for me (to comprehend); how vast their sum is! If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you."
  All of us are born with both a physical and spiritual DNA that marks our uniqueness....from our fingerprints to our dreams and desires, we are all created by an amazing God to show forth his beauty in creation.  When we are not fostered and developed spiritually our inner core becomes weak and damaged. Our flesh grows and matures but our ability to really know purpose, vision and destiny are hindered. Even when our father and mother fail us we are not removed from divine purpose. Again Psalm 139, 13-16, "For it was you who created my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you, because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began.
  You are remarkable. You are wonderful.... and your days are planned. Have you ever had that spoken into your life? For too many of us we feel a sense of confusion when we think about issues like identity. Who am I really? Those sort of questions become very difficult for those raised in broken or abusive homes where the uncertainties of daily life are so intense. Becoming you is a challenge when you don't have a guide along life's journey. We hit roadblocks like peer pressure and the challenge of conforming to other's expectations and demands. We give up on finding out who we are and 'settle' for becoming like everyone else. Instead of celebrating our uniqueness, we struggle wearing another's 'clothes' and dreams.
  So much of discovering who we really are flows out of walking in the garden of secure and unconditional love. A simple prayer can often help us discover who we really are: "God, open the eyes of my heart!" Your creator longs to unlock the mystery of why you're here, who you are and how much he loves you. The first step on the pilgrimage of self discovery is a conversation with the one who made you. He's ready to listen.

Jim

The Fuhrer Principle

I am reading the biography, "Bonhoeffer" about a courageous German Pastor who stood up to Adolf Hitler during the horrific Nazi period of history. Early in the book  my attention was captured by a phrase which described the cultural expectation of Germany at the time. The nation and people were beaten down by the horrific loss in World War One as well as the treaty of Versailles reparations being paid out while the economy tanked. The national mood was said to be demanding a new kind of leader who would forcefully advance German interests to overcome  the present level of pessimism and despair. The nation was in need of a strong and forceful leader. Onto the scene came as we know one of the most evil and diabolical leaders in history. Adolf Hitler was a powerful and charismatic speaker who knew how to play to the "Fuhrer principle". In public he carefully crafted an image of both power and willingness to compromise for the good of the 'Fatherland'. In private, he worshipped power and nothing else. Many religious and social leaders of the day fell for his deception early on and once power was quickly and  totally in the hands of the Nazi party they were forcefully removed of any significant influence. How did Hitler arise so quickly? Could it happen again?
  In desperate times of economic turmoil people are more prone to deception. Abusive and power hungry leaders play on their people's insecurities and promise much for so little.... the surrender of individual will and liberty. Every dictator knows that fear is their friend. If you can strike at the uncertainties during times of tribulation you might just create a revolution. The trouble with the Fuhrer principle is that it creates dictators and despots who speak of unity and nationalism while solidifying power and control.
  No man or political party can ever be your savior. We must be careful during this ongoing world wide recession that we listen carefully to those who ask us to surrender invididual freedoms for the sake of 'security' or national well being. Freedoms surrendered are seldom if ever reinstated apart from revolution or war.
  We need wisdom, discernment and a measure of skepticism toward leaders who promise much with no practical means to deliver on their word. Be careful who you relinquish power to in your personal, family and national life. I will leave you a famous quote to put the "Fuhrer Principle" in perspective, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." (Lord Acton)

Jim

The Prison of Religion

  Religion is defined as a specific set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of person, sects : the religion of Christianity, Buddhism etc.... Religion can contain elements of inspiration, morality, truth and great good. But religion if often used as a means of enslavement, control, manipulation and abuse. How do we navigate religious belief without being imprisoned by the downside of faith?
  My personal story is one of being raised in a religious home. I attended Mass every week for 18 years (except for missing one Sunday due to a high fever at age 9). A Mass is a religious service conducted in the Roman Catholic tradition. There was much good in my religious upbringing. I was taught the immense value of the 10 commandments as a foundation of moral law and truth. I was taught much about Jesus Christ and the importance of doing good in response to God's goodness to us. Like all religions being Catholic had cultural and religious expectations of what it meant to follow God in this life. I was expected to take regular communion, attend mass, confess my sin to a religious priest, do penance for my wrong doing etc.... My family and I believed in God....but I can't say we really knew him nor did we have the peace, joy and assurance that Jesus spoke so much of.
  Religion can be shaped, constructed and built upon the ideas and thoughts of men. It's a system of beliefs shaped over time and it can stray far from the original intent of the God it is meant to reveal. I am drawn to the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus. There is so much raw boldness, life and confrontation of religion by Jesus. To hear him call the early disciples to "Come Follow Me" seems so startling and refreshing. What Jesus didn't say was just as important as what he did proclaim. He didn't delineate a specific form of prayer, diet, pilgrimage, dress code or other external behaviors as a way to draw nearer to God. The invitation of Jesus to enter his kingdom was a personal invitation to relationship. The great command was not a behavior.... it was a relationship of love with God... and with people. The entire moral law was clearly summarized by Jesus in the gospel of Matthew chapter 22 and vs 37, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets depend on these two commandments."
  Religious beliefs and traditions can breed pride, false assurance and separation from others. We can become so unloving when we practice our 'faith' to cover our brokenness and sin. Prisons are built to control and punish people. Religion devoid of the love of God and the revelation of the call to relationship puts us in a prison of control and bondage so far from what Jesus intended.
  Jesus came to earth as a revelation of what God is like. He is described in the gospel of John as 'full of grace and truth'. There is so much freedom in knowing that you don't have to conform to man made religion to be in love with God...and to love others. Religion that is man made always focuses on external behaviors: Touch not, Taste not...... get in the box of our own making and close the lid....hide from the world around and don't dare engage people who are not like you.... so unlike Jesus himself. It's a prison that God never wanted us to live in.
  Jesus came to 'give us life.... and life more abundant'. You can't really live an abundant life when you close yourself off in a prison of your own or others making that has nothing to do with a loving God. The power to be holy.... the power to be pure, the power to be in relationship with God is all a gift from him. You can't earn his love from some perverse rejection of your humanity. You were born for love. You were born for relationship. Your ability to please God, to love him...and to really love people is born of grace and the finished work of a loving Savior. "By grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift---not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his creation---created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them."
 Religion promises much but delivers nothing except anguish, loss of freedom and broken relationships. God is drawing near to you today with a key in his right hand..... the key to freedom. It has a word etched on it in red, "Grace". When you take hold of that key you can walk free from the prison that is religion. It's time to be free from control, punishment and condemnation. It's all about love....it's all about relationship.

Jim

Desperation

A desperate prayer, A sudden plea
A broken heart, A mystery
I'm digging deeper, toward the great unknown
I can't go forward, until I know
Is there someone out there, in this land grown cold?
A voice of hope for a darkened soul
Through sleepless nights, it's hard to hear, the voice of love I really need.
"Peace, be still", I hear him say, the storm won't last.
I'm here to stay.

The Father Heart of God

  It's that time of the year we celebrate 'Father's day'. It doesn't have the same powerful impact on our culture as 'Mother's day'. If we polled people  and asked which parent had the most impact on their lives I would guess that most people would tell us their mothers. Personally, I was always much closer to my mom than my dad though I know my father loves me very much.
  How we relate to our father's can have a deep impact on our view of God. Our parents and particularly our fathers are such powerful authority figures in our formative years. When our parents fail us in significant ways, our ability to trust and believe is scarred and damaged. When we hear as Christians that 'God is our Father' we shudder and draw back from faith. When our parents are nurturing, supportive and protective we can better relate to the concept of God as Father.
  Sadly, our heavenly father is being slandered all over the world by men who abuse their power and authority. For too many children, an abusive father figure can only instill fear and not faith. A deep chasm develops when we assume that Father God will be like all the other imperfect authority figures in our lives. God has all power and authority but he doesn't force it down our throats and demand love. Our heavenly Father reveals his love and kindness and woos us into a relationship of willful surrender and trust.
  When our parents are unfaithful in their care for us....when there is deep inconsistency between what they promise and what they deliver, we doubt God and his promises. We need to be honest and reflective of how we got to where we are in our faith.... or lack of faith. God's word tell us, "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you...I am with you always even to the end of the age". (Heb. 13:5; Matt 28:20) But a question we often ask is "But if God loves me so much, then why  haven't I felt him or seen him?" It isn't God who has failed to reveal himself. The failure lies in those who claim to know him and yet don't become his hands and feet in a very dark and broken world. Jesus is drawn to hard places and broken people. Alas, many of his followers prefer comfort and ease and refuse to go to where the Spirit calls them.
  This Sunday is Father's day. All this week I am reflecting on my own performance as a father. I have two adult son's and one soon to be adult daughter. I know my weaknesses, failures and inconsistencies. But I don't lose heart because I know that the love of our Heavenly Father is so present in our lives together. The power of faith and the power of his amazing love in our lives brings healing where otherwise there would only be regret, bitterness and anger. The tragedy of disconnecting ourselves from the perfect love of God the Father can never heal the wounds of abuse, betrayal and disappointment.
  Who will go to the hurting and lonely individuals and families who know only brokenness and pain in their relational world? For so many of us our view of 'mission' is distorted and incomplete. Jesus commands us to go into all the world with his love and the romance of foreign lands and culture spur many onward and outward. But what of the broken relationships and broken people in our own families. The soul that is near is not of lesser value than the one in foreign lands.
  There are so many teachers about faith....but so few true fathers and mothers of faith. It costs much more to love purely and sacrificially the people near to us than those on the other side of the world. The grind of daily life responsibilities reveals more about who we are than any spectacular acts of service 'for humanity'.
  Instead of condemning those without faith, I want to live my life in such as way that it will be less likely for someone not to believe in a God of love. How can we do that? The only way I know is to allow the extravagant love of Father God to overwhelm me with his amazing grace....grace of provision, grace of forgiveness, grace of purpose, grace of tender care and protection. I have a Father of perfected love and on this Father's day and onward I want it to show in how I live.

Jim

Healing Rain

I live in Mobile, Alabama. We are normally one of the rainiest cities in the U.S. For the last few months we have had very little rain. The temperature and humidity is soaring with very little relief from the expected rains of late spring and early summer. There's something about rain that brings a sense of relief in so many ways. Rain brings life, cleansing, growth and refreshing. In a spiritual sense, rain represents the coming of God the Holy Spirit into our lives. When God comes with his presence we are revived, restored and healed. God's Spirit draws near and brings the life we so desperately need. Our daily lives drain us and we all experience times of spiritual dryness and even long standing periods of drought. We lose the sense of freshness that rain brings. Trials produce heat, friction, tension and fatigue. We become worn down....and often worn out. We need to pray for healing rain to pour into our lives. You were meant to be dependent on God for life itself. That thirst your experiencing on the inside is proof that you need a deep and ongoing connection with God. The Holy Spirit is God's great comforter and counselor and he comes to us in the midst of our ongoing struggles and hard times. We need to pray for God to pour out a storm of His presence in our lives.
  After long periods of drought and dryness we can begin to lose hope for rain to come. We need to wait until he comes.... wait in prayer, wait in contemplation, wait in expectancy. We learn much about ourselves when we are not hearing and obeying God actively. Life without God is a barren dessert of progressive danger and distress.
  You were meant to be refreshed by an ongoing revelation of God's love to you. God's rain comes in so many diverse and wonderful ways. A still small voice telling of his love.... an unexpected provision in a time of desperate need.....a kind word from a stranger.....a good report from a Doctor when all seemed lost.  All of these and more are the rain of God coming into your life.  Your body, soul and spirit need a daily 'bath' in God's rain of love and inspiration. God is deeply in love with you. His words tells us that his thoughts about us are innumerable....they can't be counted.....they outnumber the sand! (Psalm 139: 17,18)
  It's time for all of us to cry out in expectancy for God to 'let it rain' with healing refreshing and encouragement for our lives. The world breeds pessimism and death. Heaven breathes life, hope and love. Breathe it in and open your face upward into the rain storm of God's unending love. He loves you, he really does.

Jim

A Short Goodbye

  Some of my fondest memories are of our family visits to our grandmother's home on the bay in Avalon, N.J. We would make the annual trek ( Parents and 5 children) crowded into a station wagon in anticipation of time on the beach and more importantly time with our grandmother who was a widow. My mother lost her father to cancer when she was 5 years old. My grandmother became pregnant with my mother over the age of 40 which was very unusual at that time. She hid the pregnancy from the neighbors. Since my mom was the youngest of her siblings it was hard for my grandmother to let her go when she married my father at the tender age of 19.
  As children we didn't understand the depth of the family dynamics of our parents and how they related to their families. At the end of our vacations I remembered that my mother would always get very teary eyed and almost break down. My mother understood something that we all need to remember and learn deeply, life is all about relationships. Having lost her father at the age of 5 she knew more than most just how precious time with her mother was. As we packed the station wagon and began the task of readying to leave Avalon, a dramatic and important ritual would take place. My grandmother would stand at the top of the porch and hold back the tears as my mom struggled to leave. They would wave in an exaggerated and prolonged semi-circular wave. My dad who was always in a hurry would attempt to pull away. My mom would quietly but firmly let him know.... not yet. We would linger. You could feel the emotion. I didn't know what it was. I felt it nevertheless and understood that there was no one or nothing more important to my mother right then than to fully embrace that moment. My mother understood that the time she had with her own mother was precious and needed to be savored.
  At the age of 10, tragedy struck in the midst of our annual traditional trip to Avalon. One very warm day I was asked to look outside for my grandmother since she was not in the kitchen where she was needed. I went around the side of the house to find my grandmother prostrate on the ground and unresponsive. I froze and felt sheer fear strike me. My precious grandmother.... always strong, always doing, always loving was now helplessly lying on the ground. Something came into my mind that I struggled with silently for years..... a sense of guilt. In a few twisted seconds of incomprehension I thought somehow that something I had done had caused my grandmother to collapse on the ground. In a few seconds I realized I needed to get help and ran around to summon the adults.
 An ambulance came. My grandmother had suffered a massive stroke. I never saw her again. Whispered conversations among adults made decisions regarding what to do. We were not allowed to attend the funeral. The goodbye never happened for me. We were handed a "Mass Card" with a picture of Jesus on it and a few details about the life of my grandmother (she was Catholic) and told we should light a candle and pray for her soul...that she would make it to heaven. We were all devastated. My grandmother was poor. She lived on a pittance of Social security income...but she was rich in her relationships and the void left behind was immense. My mother was devastated. When we left Avalon that summer there was no one to wave goodbye to. Grand mom was gone!
  Years later as we aged and left home my mother restored the tradition of the lingering wave whenever we would visit and later leave our childhood home....until her premature death in 1995 from Leukemia. The last time I saw her was in the driveway of our home. I was taking my family back to Pakistan to serve in a mission hospital. In spite of her suffering from Leukemia and knowing she might never see me again she told me to go back and do what God had called me to do. I wept. Her wave pierced my soul. I knew somehow deep in my heart that it was the last time on this earth that I would see that wave. That wave symbolized not a forever good bye...but an acknowledgement that the pain of goodbye... the tears... the feeling of separation won't last forever.
  The Bible tells us about a forever place where the long goodbyes of death are forever transformed. Faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross enables us to see beyond the overwhelming grief of death. In Revelation chapter 21 and verse 3, "I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more deaths or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever."
  When we put our faith and hope in Jesus all our goodbyes....even the ones involving death are short ones. There really is a reunion coming of those we love and whom we miss so much. Soon and very soon it will be time to laugh together again.... and remember those precious times of relationship which God gave us as a foretaste of what was to come.... a forever love and place where we'll never have to say goodbye again.

Jim