The Weary Traveler (part 1)

I’m going to tell you a story.

You are alone in you car and it is deep into the night. The radio has lost it’s signal you hear nothing but static. It’s been a while since you’ve seen any road signs but you know you are up in one of the plains states, maybe Nebraska or Montana, far from anywhere in particular. You know this because that is where your trip has taken you, as you’ve known for some time it would. You also know this because as far as you can see in any direction there is nothing. It is as if the night itself has become a living breathing thing surrounding you, only parting reluctantly for the white arc of your headlights and glow of red behind. You realize how much you have come to need this car. If it were to fail, if a fuse blew and the lights were to go out… there would be nothing left but darkness.
After some time off, in the distance you see a glow. At first it’s nothing more than a slightly different shade of black, but then it becomes something more, a glowing line on the horizon. You’ve no doubt now there is some sort of place ahead and as you approach you see that it is of all things, a dinner, small and long with a row of windows unending from one corner to the next, and out of these windows issues light. Maybe it is just your eyes adjusting after so long in the dark, but this light seems almost brighter, more golden, than any you have ever seen. There are people inside and although it is not time to eat you know it is time to stop. You find that you’re more anxious to be in this place than you’re been to be anywhere in a long long time.
As you park and walk inside you see that the place is full of people. It’s immediately clear that you’re going to have to sit with someone else. Normally you wouldn’t do such a thing, but that’s just what you begin to do and as soon as you pull the chair back you know, you can feel that they have all done just the same thing. None of these people knew or cared about each other before tonight.

The Weary Traveler (part 2)

What you notice most of all though is the man behind the counter. He’s dirty with smudges and stains on his white apron. He even has that little white hat they used to wear and it’s clear immediately that all eyes are on him, that He is the reason why they are all here. He’s not tall, not beautiful, but in His eyes is love, a love that you have never seen in anyone before, a love you have never felt before. Then at that moment while you were busy looking at Him you realize belatedly that He is looking at you. You want to look away, but you can’t because you know that it is as if you are being seen for the first time. All you pretenses, all your efforts to be strong, all your fears so long and so well covered up, your misdeeds… all is seen. You had always feared and hated the thought of being truly and completely seen, but now that it is here you love it. It is as if you had waited all your life just to be seen completely and fully. You had never ever dared think that the first person to see and know you fully would also be the first to love you completely and truly. All you want is to never have to look away and in a strange sense you realize you are now ready to die because this man has found you, and even more strangely you realize that because of this you are now ready, for the first time to really live.
Then suddenly people are standing up and beginning to leave. Some go and speak a few words to the man privately and you can see that He is speaking to them. Some smile at what they hear, others seem hard pressed, but all are peaceful all are content.
You decide that you will not leave, that you just arrived, that you will explain and the man will understand that you must stay here now. Soon the last two people walk out the door and it’s simply you and Him. You look up ready to explain why you cannot leave but when you look at Him it’s as if you have already said what you wanted to say and He has already listened. Then He speaks, “It’s time to finish your trip.” And you know He’s right. Your journey is not complete; there will be miles to go before you rest.
You rise and walk out the door and into the night again and it’s hard to imagine how much darker it all seems now, now that you have met the Man, now that you have seen the light, but as your eyes adjust you realize that there is something there, something you had not seen before. In the distance, all is not dark. As the last of the people drive into the night you see that around them is a glow, so much less, yet so much the same as the light that is now within you. You turn and look through the door and you know that you will be back and you know that you are not really leaving this place or this man for you are now, his disciple.

Your Life is a Sentence

If you could say only one thing to God what would it be? If you knew that in your lifetime only this next statement would make it through the switchboard, what would you say? Would you ask about some great mystery? Would you ask for a favor? Would you dare to give Him some advice? Or would you ask anything at all.

I think its funny and somewhat hope giving that the most conservative traditional Christians I know and the most radically minded, for all their differences, seem to agree that a Christian is to be a worshiping being. Perhaps that’s the essential difference between a Christian and the world. We are strangers to it because we worship.

I worry that the vast middle ground of evangelical Christianity has lost this worship awareness and built in its place something more like a monument to ourselves. But that is another story for another day.

So. You have this one moment of true connection with the Creator. Would you ask, would you advise, or would you worship? Would you find that for you, for your soul in its present place, there could really only be…worship?

Take Care
Aaron

Misplaced Love?

Kirk and Riley, our two dogs, ran off from the house yesterday afternoon and the rest of our day and night was just ruined. They have been missing before, but never overnight. We searched and searched, for hours, on into the night. Several people said they saw them, but always long before we arrived. I had taken for granted how much they mean to us and how much they are a part of our family. Worst of all, it was my fault. I had been the one to cease paying them attention, while I was busy elsewhere.

Amy and I went to bed last night so tired. I slept a guilty sleep. We left the gate open and the garage door cracked in case they found their way back, but I had little hope. They had never run so far and been gone so long.

I woke early this morning and checked the garage…nothing. Then the back yard… and there they were greasy, dirty, and by the looks of things exhausted. I let them in and we went running to our bedroom yelling “They’re back!” “They’re back!” I cried, just for a minute, but now two hours later I still feel emotionally worn from the experience.

It’s special, and sad, how much our pets can mean to us, much more than they deserve. They're given so much more love than many human beings ever receive. Much more than I give to others on my bad days. I wonder... did Jesus ever love a pet? We don't lavish treats and special possesions on our pets, but we do buy the "good" dog food in the green bag. Sometimes we have to stretch to provide some medical treatment or medicine. Did Jesus ever feed a pet food that could have gone to a person? I know I would never feed my dog, let alone myself while a truly hungry person was in view, but then again we've learned to live far from those people these days. I don't plan on giving up our furry companions, but I'll feel a little better when I've come to some ideas about what God thinks of me and my pets. What do you think?

Take Care
Aaron

A Relevant Challenge

The web site reads: Have you given up on the church of your parents? Come to Grace Place and discover a faith that's relevant to your life!

The billboard reads: Deer Valley Community: We serve Him by serving You!

and Jesus said, Go ye therefore unto all the world and be... relevant?

No not quite, but Jesus was very relevant. How much then shall we be?

We now live in a culture where the individual reigns supreme, each to his own, each living by the dictates of her own conscience. The individual has risen, and would we really want it any other way? I like living in a world where one person can change things. I love the challenge that my Creator places on me each and every day to live up to my soul's Holy Spirit empowered potential. And I want to tell others about this God that loves them individually.

But the pressure's on for those of us that do feel compelled to bring individuals to the Son of God. Does Hell shake the soul of the woman with the ipod in her ears? Increasingly not. Do teary eyed descriptions of Jesus' sufferings?... less so, it seems, every day.

What does unlock the heart of the individual, of millions of individuals, that have built few bridges to the concepts of spirituality and the precepts of God? The answer of churches increasingly is this: ministries that are relevant to their life without God, things they need or like already, filled with people that are only always just like them.

I am, and always have been one of those that believes we must be relevant, not become relevant, but show that Christ already is relevant. Driving down the road, surfing the web, this Christian is begining to wonder how far is too far. One of the key tenants of the Christ life is the radical challenge He presents. He never feared the thousands that walked away trusting that those that did stay were truly those given to him by God. He was loving. He was relevant, but his was a relevant challenge to life as they knew it.

I'm just going to assume and hope that the church "that serves you!" is serving up a relevant, loving, joyful... challenge.

Take Care and let me know if you agree or disagree!
Aaron

Here I Stand, Get Off My Lawn

Martin Luther stood before Charles and declared that he simply would not budge. Luther had come to believe, as had many others in his day, that the individual with the Bible before him or her trumped every authority on earth. Kings may rise and churches may fall, but for the Christian reality is shaped and normalized by words from God called scripture.

We say sola scriptura, but is that completely true? Did the Bible rise in the minds of men on that day? When Luther stood as he did he was doing far more than standing on the scriptures, he was also representing a change that was spreading across Europe and the world. In that moment Luther Symbolized the rise of the individual.

Today we live in a world where the individual has truly risen. I am writing a blog and you are reading it. (Thank you by the way) My neighbor is a Jehovah's Witness, another is a charismatic Christian, yet another is busy building a life without any god, and I, of course, am Ward Cleaver. In a few weeks we will all go and vote, that we may constitute a governed society to our liking.

So my question is this. Should we thank Luther or not? Should Christians be thankful for the rise of the individual? Tomorrow I'll be posting some of my thoughts, but I'd love to hear your's first.

Take Care
Aaron