The Hollow and the Holy

Ageless and imposing they stand - magnificent in their grandeur.  They are the cathedrals, the hallowed monuments of men designed to elicit awe towards the celestial.  Upward their columns climb vast heights, vaulting impressive distances.  Glass artistry designed to transport the worshipper to the divine regularly penetrates imposing stone and masonry superstructure creating pockets of welcome illumination and color in otherwise immense and daunting sanctuaries.  Sculpted forms of angels, saints, men, and demons adorn as silent guardians, some climbing atop columns and transepts, others marking reliquaries or the resting places of those long deceased.  Each of these structures required generations to envision, formulate and construct.  Inestimable expense was brought to bear in the realization of each "House of God".  And yet, each of them is a shell, a hollow building that, by themselves, is no more sanctified or holy than a stable, a school or a market stall.   

These works of men were designed to bring to bear the presence of heaven on earth, but in many of them a true heavenly presence is found lacking as those within fail to realize we each carry God's Kingdom with us when we embrace our Lord and Savior and his Holy Spirit indwells each of us.   Many of those who make such proclamations have not fully embraced the calling to "be holy as I am holy".  Few are truly willing to follow their Savior into the mire of sin-laden humanity, willing to expose themselves to the desperation of searching and yearning hearts starving for significance, worth, and purpose.   Fading from their remembrance is the fact that they too, were once embroiled, helpless, and set on a path of aimless destruction. 

Comfortable in our modern-day sanctuaries, many are content to witness God's working through the hands and feet of others.  Some are moved to the necessary act of sowing funds into those works, but Jesus' words were never a calling to permit acts of financial support to substitute for the laying down of one's own life for others.  We are each of us called to these words by our Savior and Master:

^"Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it."
Mark 8:34-35 NLT

And what does this "taking up your cross" look like?  Is it being burdened down and weighted with additional holy commands and platitudes?  Is it continual self-chastisement and a down-trodden demeanor?  Are these the paradoxical expectations of the author of a book that is permeated with exhortations to walk in joy and love - a book where many are commanded to "fear not" and to "be glad"? 

"This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear."
1 John 3:16-17 MSG

Without God's love we are empty, our actions are empty.  We become hollow - we become the cathedral's shell.  We are each fearfully and wonderfully made, but without the substantive indwelling of God's love in our hearts and the resultant actions it produces (faith without works is dead) we are the embodiment of sanctuaries built to house the holy but echoing its vacant emptiness.  We become nothing more than tombs, pleasant to behold on the outward yet decaying from within from a lack of holy substance.  Jesus encountered many in this same state as he walked this plane.  His description of them?  "Whitewashed sepulchres" (Matthew 23:27). 

"But that was addressed to bigoted self-righteous religious leaders".  No, it was addressed to men who, like many of us, had all of the pedigree of a spiritual upbringing, circulated well in many social circles, and very many of them had the spiritual well-being of their culture impressed upon them.  Yet, they failed to notice the lowly, the hurting, those ground under the wheels of society, those barred from their circle by either economic, social, or racial walls.  They failed to give second glance to "the least of these", convinced that there were others who would care for them, there were institutions and ministries who would tend their needs.

How many sit in our modern sanctuaries in a similar state - content to display the outward but unwilling to transform the internal.  Unwilling to engage "the least of these" among us within our church, beyond its walls to our homes and work, beyond our borders to the world?  There is sterility in rote obedience in putting funds in an offering plate or teaching Sunday school, but God never did want or need our sacrifices or our money.  He desires that we support our churches and vital ministries but more than this, he desires our hearts that we should put footsteps to knowledge and hands to convictions as we take up our crosses and follow. 

In this, the church is filled with love's holy purpose and empowered to transform the world around it.  Oppression is lifted from those under demonic weight and and worth is instilled such that we begin to see the value in each other and ourselves that the Creator has placed within.  Walking out this "love one for another", each of us transitions from the hollow to the holy.

Seasons

A chill wind is blowing.  Tendrils of cold tug at layers bringing realization that heavier clothing is desired.  Deep into this winter I survey a barren landscape bereft of foliage, greenery, or color.  Needled trees offer only a dark contrast to the browns and greys of fields and lawns.  The hardened ground is uneven and unpleasant to walk upon with gnarled soil pushing back at soft soles with knots and rocks forcing many to seek the round-about paths of pavement and concrete.  Snow, a welcome reflective blanket of illumination and a source children's wonderment, has rarely fallen to blanket this beige landscape these months past.

I am weary.  I am weary of this season, this winter, this continuance.  But this is simply the external response to a deeper weariness.  There is a winter upon my mind and heart that brings weight to the soul.  I do not suffer the anxieties of Seasonal Affective Disorder as I spend a great part of each of my days traversing between buildings and experiencing the outdoors of my work.  Nor would I label this "depression" as I daily find new joys in my bride, my children, and my Father.  Rather, I find my personal weariness extends from a heightening frustration endured in finding the balance of laying down one's life and picking up our cross as instructed by our Savior and simultaneously finding such actions brings one into the arena of actively engaging in a war against hellish forces for others' well-being, lives, and even souls while others pass by with indifference.  Too often such is the fate of the wounded, the fatherless, the downtrodden.

I am currently aware of two young men being ravaged by the enemy of our souls, attacked in every manner; in their sense of self-worth, moral compasses and in the directional pull of others.  With one attempting to end their life only weeks ago, I desire to mentor these young men, to speak words of life and truth into their lives and yet I am one piece of the puzzle, limited in the effort and frustrated at the lack of supportive groundswell around both of them - a groundswell of love, affirmation, valuation, and movement towards them and their families by the redeemed as these families are in the fight of their lives for these young mens' very lives and eternal futures.

At home, a six year old girl is far too wise for her years and very astute, despite often play-acting the child.  She is beginning to reconcile a conclusive reality that her birth mother may have parental rights permanently terminated in a matter of weeks.  This child's heart is torn between fears of varying natures; a fear of returning to a home which has previously known violence, a fear of being permanently removed from that home and losing birth parents, a fear of losing relationship and contact with beloved siblings, even a fear of retaliatory harm towards us.  The resultant internalization of emotions as she seeks to protect everyone displays itself in tantrums, bathroom accidents, and misbehaviors of varying types and severity.  Her four-year old brother often follows suit, having less emotional attatchment to his birth parents and suffering greater loss in the severing of relationship with previous foster parents as the upheaval in his life often comes to a head in frequent disobedience, lying, and other misbehaviors.  Firm words and discipline are paired with love and affirmation resulting in a chaotic storm of tears as small ones seek to find their identity while always bracing themselves for anticipated blows of emotional and physical abandonment.

Weary.  This posting is not an endeavor to impart wisdom or mirth but rather a snapshot of winter winds howling through a storm in process.  Some will say "where is your God in these times, these storms of your life?"  As always, He is my ever-present comfort and source, never failing me or faltering as he leads me.  Never was a path around the difficulties promised but a companionship through them was covenanted.  And this is but a season. 

A truth even those living in the most desolate of regions on this sphere comprehend is simply this: change comes through the seasons.  We have seasons in our marriages, seasons in our families, even seasons in our faith.  Our lives are the culminations of seasons; snapshots of beauty, pain, triumph and even defeat but ulitmately when we lay our lives down in service to our Lord, and the snapshots are taken for His glory, then the portfolio takes on meaning and we inexplicably find we have something of worth within us where we previously doubted ourselves, doubted others, and even doubted Him. 

The winds are still blowing cold, both outside and inwardly, but I know that warm breezes kissed with gentle fragrances are gathering on the horrizon of the near future.  I also know the inward exhortation to "Weary not in doing good" is daily moving me, not only towards a brighter future, but towards a return on the effort that is beyond my limited scope of reasoning to reconcile as hearts and minds of this sphere are transformed eternally for Him.

"To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven"
Ecclesiates 3:1 AMP

"And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up."
Galatians 6:9  ESV

Milestones

The turn of the calendar has me pensively pondering a great many things.  Chief among them is simply "where did it all go"?  I scarce remember celebrating a winter birthday when I was next celebrating a spring wedding anniversary.  Before long I was unpacking summer clothing.  I've little recollection of those brief months of heat as adoption, fund raising, and a visit to foreign lands swept my family through the calendar.  And hardly did I return from a dark continent to turn and find small brown faces in my own home looking to me for security and a father's love.  The last few months have furiously marched forward, carrying our chaotic and sometimes messy love and heartache in tow as we seek to heal small hearts.  Before I knew it, the holidays were upon us.  Just recently I found myself hauling bag after bag of discarded and torn wrapping paper and boxes to the trash as children played with new gifts from loved ones. 

Each of these partitioned cycles seems ever to burn away more rapidly than the one previous and I am, once again, thrust forward into another year of promise filled with uncertainty, plans, hopes, and aspirations for myself, my bride, and our children.  But in the disorientation of the loss of one year and the rapid entry of a another, one can feel lost without bearing - uncertain as to next steps.  Before me is the great "promised land" of my life, yet at times, the direction or the sheer magnitude of the horizon is daunting.  It is here that I am reminded of Abraham as he sojourned towards God's promises for his family and the generations to come.  Next to his unshakable faith, one of the most poignant things about Abraham that stands out in my mind is that he never forgot where he came from and where he was going.  He was a builder of milestones.

Throughout the book of Genesis we read that Abraham built altars for various reasons.  Some altars were built where he received a word of promise from God.  Some were built where he sought the Lord out.  Some were built where he simply wished to praise Him.  Some were built as tokens of remembrance.  All were milestones.  All marked a time, an event, a critical point of contact between the divine and the terrestrial in which God was present and He moved.  One was even built where God tested his faith by instructing Abraham to offer his only son - a picture of events yet to happen. 

These altars/milestones were not points that Abraham stopped and ceased moving forward at.  He did not take up permanent residence next to the location where God spoke a promise to him or moved in a certain manner to bless him.  Rather, each of them was a marker, a point of reflection.  Further, each of them pointed to where he was headed.  Each of us has probably heard the saying that if you want to know where a man is going, simply look where he has been - this was no more true than with Abraham and he had the markers to prove it.  So do you.

I've been inundated with top ten lists of 2012 and frankly I was hesitant to venture down this path - but for me, I need to remember some of the altars/milestones of 2012.  The following are highlights and teachable moments from my own writings and experiences that are intended for my reflection.  They are my altars, for my benefit, my stones of note.  If they bless others, I am happy for this, but if they simply act to cause me to reset, refocus, pause and be thankful then they have achieved the intended purpose.  These are my top ten of 2012.

"Every one of us has empty bowls.  They are the unfulfilled notions or dreams that we were certain to be the direction and calling of our lives...Empty bowls are a reminder of blessings stolen, of plans destroyed, of dreams killed...So we stack them, silent reminders of the unfulfilled...God doesn't want us to keep our cupboards filled with our trophies of defeat.  He wants us to let Him show us how to use them for His glory."
- Empty Bowls

"What kind of children are we if we ask for abundant life and provision and then demand that this all powerful and unstoppable God who knows our hearts better than we do, knows our capabilities better than we do, and knows the ways in which we need to grow better than we do - what kind of children are we to say "PLEASE PROVIDE" and then slap His hand away when He does just because it doesn't fit our preconceived notion of what that provision should look like or our timetable?"
-Peace on the Roller Coaster

"Victory doesn't always get a parade.  Wars won don't always get a celebration.  But this does not diminish the true eternal value of the effort nor the necessity of our following after our Father with reckless abandon because we're not living for just this "here and now".
- Silent Parades

"This is the wreckage of realization that most people in our society, even within our churches simply acknowledge Jesus' words as good ideas without acknowledging Him as the Lord who is commanding obedience to follow His example...Our greatest potential and fulfillment is in Him"
-Re-Entry and Wreckage

"To tell children who have recently lost their parents to AIDS 'your problems are momentary but they are producing an eternal glory' is hollow if I cannot carry that back to my life...God's Word requires a paradigm shift when witnessed in action"
- Corduroy and Trust

"When I see the thorns...I am reminded that...If we only love safely, if we only risk little, if we only live sparingly, if we only stay on the 'safe paths', then we will lose the beauty of what God has in store for each of us."
- Beauty in the Thorns

"When we learn to...lay down ourselves for others, learn to love others as Christ loved, we will find our vision sharpened, our horizons expanded, and our perceptions of reality much more clear."
-A Broken View

"Many of us have scars on our hearts.  Many are closed over festering wounds that plague us still...Some have kept us from approaching a risen Savior and Holy God for the shame of what lies beneath.  Jesus understands what it is to to turn heartache to victory, pain to triumph.  Forgiveness is His model for the release of infection, confession His antiseptic for healing."
- Trophy Scars

"When His Word proceeds from our mouths, life is brought forth, hearts are restored, people are met in their lack and their lack is overwhelmed by His provision and love...When our words flow from the abundance of fear, frustration, or anger the sword cuts viciously...creating further damage in accordance with Hell's designs.  In our strength and limitation, we bring destruction,.  in His we bring life."
- Sharpening the Sword

"There are sure to be gifts in the opening and healing of damaged hearts...It is a difficult and challenging road to embark upon and expectations have a way of forcibly changing in the journey but the reward of rescuing hearts and seeing a future brought to life in small eyes where only dull 'survival-ism' previously existed far out-ways the risks"
- Family Tree

May God keep you and richly bless you in 2013.

Heart of a Father - Part Two

  Like an angry virus the news spread throughout the land.  Young children murdered, innocents slain, lives cut short.  News agencies commandeered airwaves.  Online news services refreshed, updated, and rewrote multiple times an hour - all clamoring to bring forth the latest facts, the most recent unaccounted snippets of truth.  Many of us found ourselves shackled to the grief and senseless nature of a tragedy unfolding as it pulled us down, bringing us face to face with the most hellish of human depravity.  Shocked, captivated, and saddened most gave pause throughout the day as we pondered the nature of such demonic actions, such hell-bent fury upon the most precious and innocent of us all. 

Of less notoriety here in the United States, but of no less senseless nature, simultaneously 7500 miles away across the globe a man attacks nearly two dozen school children with a knife, seeking to kill and slaughter those who are no less precious.   He succeeds in severely injuring several before being subdued.  Again, our minds struggle to grasp the depravity, the depths of chaotic wickedness that would drive men to such action. 

It is comfortable for us to pin the labels "insane" or "unwell" on these men.  We yearn for the clues that link the unraveling of their sanity, the breaking of their threads to reality, for certainly no rational individual would contemplate such actions let alone carry them out.  The spiritual among us will go so far as to mention "God-less" or "demonic" and all of these prognoses carry truth.  But in so labeling do we seek to distance ourselves from these men and their mental/spiritual plight?  Isn't it easier to diagnose them with some mental or spiritual malady and then write them off as "lost" rather than seeing their actions as symptomatic of the spiritual state of our nation or of the world around us as hell encroaches and darkness enshrouds men's souls?

Today, while waiting for my doctor's appointment, I saw the faces of  the victims for the first time.  Most of the photos captured sweet young children, faces filled with hope, laughter, and joy.  Some eyes twinkled in the slight mischievous light that only a young energetic and "creative" child can generate.  All were filled with life, promise, and beauty.  All said goodbye to parents, friends, and loved ones for the final time a few days ago before being violently taken from this earth.  As a parent I found my throat constricting as grief and sorrow clutched at my chest and my eyes starting to burn at the thought of trees with gifts that would remain unopened and birthdays that would never occur.  The "embarrassment" of tears was averted as I was interrupted by a nurse calling me into my appointment, but this sorrow brings weight upon the soul for all who would ponder the light that has been lost in this world for these small ones taken.  Such musing brings an overwhelming desire to hold my own six year-olds, my four-year old, and my ten-year old. 

Yet I am moved as a father and by my experiences as a parent.  And though I love my children in a manner that is beyond my ability to put into words, I am assured there is One who loves each of us infinitely greater still.  So often our Bibles seem to us to exemplify a God that sits distantly on His heavenly plane weighing the wickedness or holy intent of men's actions while dispassionately monitoring affairs of man as the whole of creation marches towards the prophesied ending of all things as spelled out in the last book.  The cross is our ticket to board the "life-train" and other than this, we pretty much simply need to follow some core guidelines and do our best to help others get on board as well.  Yet in this thinking, we fail to fully comprehend the heart of One who cherishes us above all else, who calls us His masterpieces - beyond the intracies of the smallest molecules or the churnings of the brightest galactic clusters.

I am certain the God who is called Love, the God who has promised that he knows the depths of our sorrows and the heights of our joys, the God who loved us so passionately He gave even his own Son as a ransom for every one of us so we could have the opportunity to be reconciled to Him and join Him in His family - - I am certain my Father was infinitely more moved by the events of a few days ago than I or any other being on this planet was.  Where was he during this?  I recently heard a commentary that I feel speaks very well to this question by Mike Huckabee entitled 'Where Was God?'

We are children of a Father who is moved by our sorrows, has compassion on our grief, and takes joy in our joys.  He loves us infinitely more than we know how to love each other or ourselves.  I was recently reminded of this in a post by Sammy Adebiyi centered around the shortest verse in the Bible.

"Jesus wept." - John 11:35

Consider the context.  A friend, Lazarus, has died, maybe thirty years old - far too young.  Sisters and other family members are grief stricken, hearts torn.  Jesus has known his friend is dead for days, knows what he is going to do, knows what is about to transpire - yet he is still moved with compassion and grief, he is still moved by the sorrow of his beloved friends and the families, the loved ones gathered.  He doesn't stroll into town with a smirk on his face and a "I know something you don't" demeanor.  His love for each of us, his ultimate compassion that puts him in the moment every time and causes him to be "God WITH us" moved him to weeping in spite of the fact that he alone knew what was about to occur.  He wept.  He still weeps.

He is Immanuel - God is with us! 

God is with the families of those savagely and violently taken just days ago - His heart breaks for them.

God is with small children who witnessed atrocities and their families as they struggle to put their world back together in a sensible manner - his heart aches for them to let Him comfort them.

God is with the families of 30,000 children who, today alone, have died from preventable diseases and hunger - His heart yearns for us to act.

God is with us - even when we don't reach for Him, He is with us longing for each of us to pursue the heart of the Father.

"I will not leave you as orphans comfortless, desolate, bereaved, forlorn, helpless; I will come back to you."

John 14:18  AMP