Everything's going to be okay

So, if you read this blog you know already: I am the eternal optimist. When it rains the flowers and plants grow (and I love food), when someone hurts me (generally!), it's just an opportunity to forgive and reflect upon how much I have been forgiven, when things don't go according to my plans, it's another reminder that God is in control and I am not. Sometimes it takes me awhile to get to these conclusions, but I usually crawl there eventually.

We have just completed another holiday that cause us to look back (they all cause us to look back!) with a somber heart. The more we remember, the greater our appreciation is for today. But the by-product of looking back to consider yesterday's effect upon today is generally pessimism about tomorrow. Our days can become full of talk of how great things used to be and how bad they are becoming. Consider the way that this president's (or the previous one, or the one before that) policies are messing things up. While I concur that decisions have impact and there are right and wrong ways to think and live, I officially reject the idea that our best days are behind us. Maybe as a country they are, maybe they are not.

But as believers, even if pain and trouble lurk in the future, I will never sulk and simmer about the absence of the what I think were the "good ol' days."

In these new days our personal freedoms may diminish, our taxes may skyrocket, our stuff could be taken, churches may go out of "business," and Christians may be imprisoned. So what?

If we believe that our chief calling and value is Christ and His gospel, then poverty and imprisonment will heighten it's glory (fame) and "our" message. The new days may be personally painful (maybe not), but they may better announce the gospel and prune the church. No matter how dark the situations we face feel, ultimately we can never depart from our understanding about who is manning the dimmer switch that decreases our perception of the light.

I write this blog entry in-between funerals and just days prior to a funeral for a close relative who took his own life in misery. If you read the posts below you see lots of pain in my world--and I know you live with the same pain. Hatred, brokenness, divorce, pain, and death? It's all part of the story.

In the title of this entry, I said everything is going to be "okay." Let me define this as I close. Okay= "God is using pain and trouble in this world to accomplish His appointed plans;" and "All history is marching toward God's intended end." I do NOT mean to say that everything for North American Christians will be comfortable. They won't--especially if God intends to do a great movement of marching against the gates of hell using us.

God used David and Solomon and Lydia (rich and influential people), but they did not accomplish God's purposes without lots of trouble. God also used Abel (in death), Joseph (in slavery and broken family conditions and famine), Joshua (through war), Samson (in death), Jonathan (by taking away what was lawfully his), Daniel (in kidnapping), Josiah (his parents died way early), Jeremiah ("weeping" prophet as Israel was "exiled"), Jonah (did he EVER believe???), Hosea (married a prostitute on purpose!), John the Baptist (lost his head), Saul/Paul (God would actually have to SHOW him how much he would have to suffer for His name's sake), Timothy (what was up with his dad??), and many others who were used in the midst of their broken lives and while they had to give up all conception of what their worlds deemed "normal."

I certainly don't pretend to say I know how things are going to turn out--for our comfort or pain. I do know that everything is going to be okay. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Oh death, where is thy sting?

This week is painful and sweet. Memorial Day is here and it represents everything to many and nothing to some. What is it for you?

A couple of years ago Memorial Day took on new meaning for me because I buried a student who had come through our church and gone off to serve his country in the Navy. He lost his life during active service, but in a tragic and completely horrifying way. While serving in a place that is in the heart of true peace, he was murdered by a fellow soldier--a co-worker, in fact that he knew pretty well. Since "Memorial Day" is about soldiers who have lost their lives in the service and defense of this country, my friend's death hit hard that Memorial Day.

Last year on Memorial Day weekend my wife and I were ministering to friends who had lost their precious baby. They had known for some time that their beautiful son was not alive, but he wasn't born until near Memorial Day. This is now the one year anniversary of his going home. Most days, it still does not make sense. Some days it still feels like he is still here somehow. And as I wrote the first sentence in this paragraph I have been reminded that it is often our friends--this precious boy's parents--who are ministering to Nikki and me, not us ministering to them.

So these two deaths are both hard to understand, out of "order" and troubling in my spirit. I know you could tell me stories just like these and we could wonder and reason together about why these things happen.

But then we come to Memorial Day. Not Iwo Jima, D-Day or Normandy. The ultimate expression of a soldier giving his life so that others could be free has nothing to do with armies or America. Don't get me wrong, I stand in awe and thanks of soldiers who have given their life so I can type my thoughts and put them online (and live freely and drink clean water and, well I could go on forever . . .). I LOVE Memorial Day. But truth be known, one day America will look nothing like it does today. Freedoms will be different--maybe gone altogether. This country could stand as she is for another 800 years (like the Roman Empire) or be unrecognizable in 8 years. So celebrating that Memorial Day which makes us proud to be Americans is good and right--but temporary, at best. It's just for us who live here now.

But there is an eternal and perfect symbol for freedom you will never lose.

It's the cross, right? The eternal and perfect memorial which symbolizes a once-for-all sacrifice to actually pay for the sins of every person who trusts Christ alone for forgiveness. This is not a dying or fleeting or temporary freedom that allows me to live how I want. It's a permanent and eternal freedom that compels me to live--forgiven--in the way that God wants. We cannot use this freedom as a license to sin, but must allow it to be a motive to hate sin.

This Memorial Day, I encourage you to make veterans prominent in your hearts and thinking, but to make Christ pre-eminent. Death came for Jared and Owen when we least expected it. Physical death will come for me, too. I honor people who bring freedom for a little while on this earth, but I RUN to the one who delivers my soul forever from the prison of hell.

If you live as a free person for 80 years and then find that Memorial Day was insufficient for the freedom of your soul you will be a miserable and wretched soul forever. My greatest desire as that we each find permanent freedom and a true eternal escape from death itself. That has happened in Christ.

Happy Memorial Day!

love always hopes

Most of my disappointments have come in life because of my own expectations. I guess that comes as no surprise. If you don't expect much you can't get hurt, right? The lower my expectations of others, the less they can hurt me.

But the longer you live in the land of low expectations, the more you pull inside yourself (and that's no treat, either, my friend). If you don't expect, eventually you learn to live without, and that's not Christlike at all. Love "always hopes."

The Christ-follower is forced to ask, "always hopes" in what? We could never be so small as to say that we "always hope" that everything will work out, or that we "always hope" that someone will finally do what they should do to make us happy. No. We don't hope in hope, or expect our spouse to be "god" to us.

Love always hopes in God.

But what does that mean? "I hope He'll work things out"? To some degree--after all, he does work "in all things for the good of those who love Him." But it means much more than that. Here are a couple of thoughts as we move into this Labor Day Weekend regarding "hope in God."

• We vote our heartfelt conscience knowing that whoever is the next President of the US, God reigns over our conscience and soul.
• We work with our hands knowing that our chief need--the need for forgiveness from sin by the holy God is D-O-N-E.
• We work toward peace in our homes remembering that peace with God is complete.
• We wrestle with expectations of our spouse or children, but quickly recall that God's expectations of us were settled in His Son on His cross. He speaks peace over me!
• We actually have strong encouragement of heart when we connect with people in this world in friendship, but, glory of glories! be encouraged! in Christ, you are a friend of God.
• We are actually happy when income exceeds outgo, but hope is constantly pressing on to understand that God supplies our every need according to His riches in Christ Jesus.
• We are happier or more sad depending on feelings and days, which change. God never changes and calls us to rejoice in Him (it's really not a problem for me to say that again: rejoice in the Lord!).
• No one likes physical pain and bad diagnoses, but we will all die. That's no reason to "mourn like those who don't have any hope." Hey (Revelation 2, church at Smyrna), God will call some to be known for persecution and poverty. It's gonna be rough. But the second death won't hurt a bit.

This Labor Day weekend I am absolutely basking in the knowledge that God has done the Labor which has won freedom for my soul forever. No matter the circumstance of life, God is life. When we hope in him, there is no circumstance that will rob our joy.

Simply happy

What makes you happy? What "floods your soul with joy"? I have met people that would struggle for long periods of time to answer this question. The inspiration of my wife is what makes me stop and think about this. Otherwise, I would just walk through life with a smile on my face. She inspires me to think hard about what it is that keeps me happy. Here are a few thoughts on the subject . . .

• Living a life of genuineness and authenticity with my beloved wife. No secrets. No fear of confrontation. No avoidance. All of me all the time for all of her. We share everything. While I love sharing lots of things with others, too, I love how much that is just between us and God.
• Even more than that (imagine!), is knowing that I walk daily in right relationship with God. He has paid for my sin and calls me to live boldly within the relationship that He established and maintains. I glory in the grace of God! I can only have right and healthy thinking as my thinking dwells on His truth. Where I have emotional and physical health it is an echo of His mind and a gift from His hand.
• My children are amazing. I know there will be roads and bridges that we travail together in deliberate fashion. I know that I will have to be become weaker and weaker to depend more on God through prayer. I even know that there is heartache ahead--whether through "owning" hard moments or just letting go. Bring on the pain! God will be there with me in it. I embrace God's order and live with an understanding that they belong to Him (at least I think I do--talk to me in 8 years!).
• The simple list (random order):
  
• My favorite: pushing myself to surge in mile 4 of a 6 mile tempo run and feeling the air burn in my lungs in resistance to what I am forcing them to do. Push harder? Absolutely--throw the hammer down in mile 6. I love it! The only thing better? Finishing uphill and into the wind.
• The first cup of coffee of the morning. When I walk into the kitchen and my wife has the coffee ready. The first ingredient in her coffee is sacrifice, and it makes that coffee so rich and bold. Coffee store coffee pales in comparison to Nikki's!
  
• The colors and climate of fall. Monday: 85 degrees. Today: 55 and very windy. I cannot wait until the first frost, the first snow and my first sub-zero run.
  
• Sweet Tea. I don't want to brag, but I make the best sweet tea I've ever had (it's my blog).
• Correcting my kid's math homework. I love checking up on what I've told them to do. I especially love the look of security on their face when they delight in doing what they understood that they were supposed to do. It's like them saying everyday: I know that my place is with you dad--you're showing me how to do it. Thanks.
• My drive home along the Lake. I live along a Great Lake. When I drive home up our hill and see the Lake's mood of the day, I always wonder at God's creativity and generosity. Every day. I have lived near the same spot on this Lake for over 20 of my 37 years and it never gets old.
  
• When my wife has a hard issue to talk over. I love seeing and knowing her heart. I love that she would trust me with the inner-most places of her being. I love knowing her better than anyone. I love that Scripture (and God!) has already arrived in this place and gives us all we need to deal with hard stuff.
• My sister turns 50 today (edited, 10/12). Wow. I was born into a family of 7 kids. We're all still here, including my parents. As I read that, it looks morbid. I am reminded of a message I heard from James MacDonald this week: "The doctor cannot tell you 'if' you have a terminal disease--you have a terminal life. He can give you a handle on 'when' you may die, but not 'if.' You are going to die."
  
• "Every second of every day is a gift of life from God until He justly decides to stop giving them."
• My other sister delivered a baby boy, Nolan Thomas, into the world this week (her ninth child). Wooooooo! Praising God with her and her family.
  
• The depths of the wisdom of God. Every time I study the culture more I see that God has already spoken His truth to us and it it still the thing that every person needs. Whether it's a broken leg, a broken mind, or a broken family, God's Word says what you need and how you need it. God's Spirit makes it all real.

In closing, let me say that I believe you can only chose moment-by-moment joy when you stand right before God, and if you stand right before God you will choose moment-by-moment joy. I have a long way to go, and life is always moving. As God as my help I way that nothing will ever separate me from the love of God--not things past, present or yet to come.

Happiness

Is happiness different than joy? I have always heard people say that the two are different. Happiness is positive emotions that may flow from some recent circumstance. You know, the Brewers won again, the Custard Stand is serving my favorite as their "Flavor of the Day," you got a promotion at work and Grandma's cancer is in remission. That's happiness.

But joy, they say, is that positive mindset that you keep even when things go bad. This all used to make sense to me. Maybe, in general, it still does.

But the older I get, the happier I become. I'm not talking about an internal mindset, I am thinking about the gladness of heart that comes all the time because of my relationship with Jesus Christ and the certainty of my position in Him. I am forgiven. Let that sink in. And God has given me the privilege of knowing the most incredible woman in this world. I can hear from God through His Word and by His Spirit. God has opened my eyes to His fame and made me see how pitiful my attempts to get fame for myself have become. When I fail this afternoon or next week, God will hold me in His hands.

Let me include a list of things that I am happy about that I wrote in my journal about a year ago. They all come because of His resurrection. Happiness is:

• God created me from nothing. He saw my "unformed substance" and knit me together.
• God allowed me to experience an upbringing that centered on Him.
• God has forgiven my sin and helped me place my faith in Him. What if I died today? God is still good. He owes me nothing except death--he gave me life in His Son.
  
• God uses my little light to tell this world that He is reigning on His throne.
• God has chosen ME for good works (and he prepared them for me "in advance" of me even being here).
• God is granting an increasing measure of grace to constantly put to death the "flesh," and walk with Him in obedience.
• God has granted me the ability to see and comprehend literature and inspires me with the literary works of His servants through the ages.
• God has blessed me with an amazing wife and family. Though I often choose selfishly, He also empowers me to prefer their needs over my own and serve them.
• God has blessed me with the incredible privilege of embracing things that this world calls foolishness. Creation? I believe it. Miracles? I serve the God of them. Heaven? My hope is there with the Promise-Giver Himself.
• God matured my faith along the way from a timid "hope so," to a tenacious mature belief in His Son. I know that I utterly need the Body of Christ.
• God has opened my eyes to the joy of giving stuff (money) away.
• My life has purpose and meaning.
• Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, when I die I am guaranteed a place in heaven with Him forever. One day I will posses a new body(as Christ was raised from the dead, I will be too!) and be physically present with Jesus Christ. What will that be like? This is reason to celebrate!
• God will use the life of the obedient believer (even mine) to bring more and more people into His family.

I have actually had people say to me that they "don't know what God ever did for" them. What!? Start with the above list and then add your own! How has God shown His love for you? The list is never-ending.

So we can haggle about joy and happiness. I can't imagine the two are very far apart. If the Brewers lose; if my job contains things I don't like, if my childhood was painful, if the tumor is malignant--blessed be the name of the Lord. I choose gladness.

So today, I remind myself again . . .

Glad heart

I have always been the eternal optimist. My wife calls my state of mind, "Jonny World." You tell me that someone is going through financial distress and I think of it as their opportunity to learn. I hear about someone's cancer and I am thankful that we have opportunity to deal with hard issues before they die. You tell me the bread is burned and I remind you that "That is my favorite part."

I am a Youth Pastor by trade. This week has opened my eyes to deep personal struggles that many of "our" former students have faced as they left our ministry and went on to early adulthood. Their struggles have made my optimistic heart soar with joy.

What is my Jonny world spin on their struggles? It's two-fold. First, for those who will return to their faith with all their hearts at least some of their painful experiences that God will eventually use to turn them are behind them. Yes, they will have to deal with the shame, the regret and the awful pain of utter brokenness before a holy God. But they aren't going to get there the easy way. So let the hard times roll. In fact, the harder the times become the more they are feeling the REAL love of that holy God. If God loves them He will expose them to utter pain and brokenness that will lead them to repentance before it's too late. That's love!

Second, there are some students who continue to fight the fight and walk with Christ. I could tell you the stories of Pete or Paul or Zach or Scott. It's so natural for us all to walk away, why did God bestow His loving hand on these students in such a way that they have not wandered away from their faith? Why has He graciously tethered them to His Son? How good is that God?

My heart rejoices that God chastened me. Through the hard and choppy waters of doubt and selfishness (which I still wade into all too often) God has siezed even me.

I cannot make choices for someone else, and I am not God. So I will leave the cosmic things in His care and do what He asks of me. God, open my selfish eyes to see how I might proclaim you to the students we have today. Keep them in your care. Guard the steps of this year's graduates and next year's seniors. Have mercy and help them be utterly captured by Your beauty, Your goodness, Your peace!

Christians having a good time

Sorry for the hiatus.

I have often heard that people need to see that Christians know how to have a good time. I agree that many sour-faced Christians have made it seem like the Christian life is only slightly better than perpetual root canal. They can take something that they have struggled with in the past, make a new rule for themselves (and everyone else) and then judge everyone in sight. Sometimes I catch myself doing that, don't you?

So some well-intentioned grace-lovers swung the pendulum as far as possible and came up with the idea that if the world just saw Christians having a good time that people who felt judged by religious people would convert to Christ in droves. It almost seems to make sense (because I want it to). But it doesn't; and it is runs completely contrary to Scripture.

But alas, we have now seen the truth that this "good time" principle is actually an embarrassment to Christians everywhere, and an offense to Christ Himself. Will I really affect someone with my "good time"? I am trying to imagine the moment in my life when that happened, and it's not coming. When I went to the amusement park? Saw the Team win? Shot a low round? Ran a fast time? THere can be glory for God in some of those moments if I am focusing on caring for others through these moments, but I don't think that anyone cares if I am having a good time.

Instead, I believe that the world will take note of our Savior when they see that we rejoice in Christ no matter what kind of trial we are facing today. So many times I find that I want to hide my pain inside a stupor of "having fun" instead of dealing with the problem with Christlike humility and choosing to rejoice in Him (read: "taking my faith seriously").

I would say that the world around us is sick of observing Christians who mostly want to "have a good time," and would rather see them "continually happy because their joy comes from Christ."

This is not a rant against fun. It's a soul-searching effort to get to the core of reality. I don't expect to change the world by having fun in their presence. I expect the world to keep hating my Savior (doesn't it pain you to read that?). At every turn where they hate Him, I will love Him deeper until the world sees that I am serious about loving Him whether I live or I die. Oh that I would choose joy again today.

Now that is a good time!