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Category: Faith (Page 12 of 24)

God Always Finishes What He Starts

June 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.” ~Philippians 1:6

God always finishes what he starts. Always. That’s why Paul can look back on what looks like a really lousy time in Philippi with gratitude and joy. Because God had started something in Philippi. And God always finishes what he starts.

God started something in Abraham when Abraham was a hundred years old and married to a barren old lady; and he finished it by giving Abraham more descendants than the sands on the shore. God started something with Joseph in the bottom of a well; and he finished it by feeding the whole world. God started something with a baby named Moses who was ordered to be killed by the most powerful ruler on the planet; and he finished it by rescuing his people out of slavery. God started something with David, the youngest and least impressive of all the sons of a shepherd in Judah; and he finished it by blessing his holy people with more peace and prosperity than they had ever known. God started something in Peter, a middle school flunkee fisherman, working the graveyard shift on the smelly nets at the Sea of Galilee; and he finished it by making Peter and his words a foundational pillar of his eternal Church. God always finishes what he starts.

What has God started in you? I’m not asking what God has finished in you — he’s not finished yet; I don’t care who or where you think you are, God is not done with you. But what has he started in you? Was it thirty years ago? Was it just a couple of weeks ago? What has God started with you?

Maybe you’re thinking, “God has not started anything in me.” Maybe what you remember, maybe your past, is so troubling and so difficult, maybe your present is so bad, you don’t feel like God’s done anything.

No. God has started something in you. He has. I don’t know where you’ve been. I don’t know all the people and places and events in your life. But I do know that our God has never, ever left you. Never.

I would also say that just the fact that you’re reading this post, that you’re right now hearing the word of God and considering his eternal promises means he has started something with you. And you can trust. You can know. He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion.

Abraham lied about his wife and had a son with Hagar instead of Sarah; but God didn’t quit. Joseph was rotting away in an Egyptian prison; but God didn’t give up. The Israelites built a golden calf and brought idols into the Temple; but God didn’t stop. David intentionally broke half of the Ten Commandments in one terrible weekend; but God didn’t throw in the towel. Peter publically denied the Christ, Paul was ruthlessly killing Christians, the evil powers of this planet and beyond had conspired to murder Jesus on a cross; but that didn’t slow God down one bit.

God has started something. Something in you. And God always finishes what he starts.

Peace,

Allan

Shine!

June 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Vacation Bible School began today at Central with the simple and powerful theme of “Shine!” Yes, there are strobe lights and glitter and sparklers all over the worship center today and a giant disco ball hanging over the stage; everything is pointing the kids to the idea of “Shine!” It reminds me of a Stephen Curtis Chapman song, See the Glory. It’s a song about being fully awake to life in Christ, fully alive to what God is doing all around us. One of the stanzas, I think, really captures the idea that sometimes we’re just kind of sleepwalking through life:

I’m playing Gameboy standing in the middle of the Grand Canyon;
I’m eating candy sittin’ at the gourmet feast;
I’m wading in a puddle when I could be swimming in the ocean.
Tell me, what’s the deal with me?
(I know the time has come for me to)
Wake up and see the glory!

Of course, the apostle Paul said it first: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!” (Ephesians 5:14)

Open your eyes. Pay attention. Don’t be lulled to sleep by the monotony of the sameness in your daily life. Don’t be distracted by the noise and activity and flashing lights of the world. God is fixing things. God is restoring things. God is re-creating everything to his eternal praise and glory. Including you!

Pray today that he will open your eyes and show you clearly what he’s doing right under your nose. And then jump in!

Peace,

Allan

Out of Control

June 5, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Another reflection or two based on Stanley Hauerwas’ latest book, “Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life.”

One of Hauerwas’ favorite lines goes something like this: “Being a Christian means undergoing the training necessary to know how to live out of control.” We do live under the illusions that we are mostly in control of what happens to us and around us. Especially here in the United States, we like to think that very little is out of our control. And, that flies in the face of our Christian theology, yes? We follow a Lord who gave up all control, who put on the shelf every bit of status and power, who emptied himself of all mastery and prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

And he taught us to pray and to live in that same way.

Hauerwas makes the point in one of the last essays in this latest collection that sickness is one way God trains us to rely on him.

Because of the staggering advances in technology and modern medicine, our approach to sickness sometimes betrays an attitude about sickness that might be close to the same attitude non-Christians have about sickness. (Go ahead and read that sentence again if you need to. Sorry.) Sometimes the God we pray to when we are sick is only a “god of the gaps.” He’s the “middle-man” between us and the doctors and experts, the MRIs and CT Scans, that do the real job of healing. Praying to God that way makes him to be a deistic God whose existence is not much more than an insurance policy for us against disaster. But a god like that is not the God who came to us in the flesh and suffered with us in pain and death.

The God we worship taught us to pray, “Not my will, but yours be done.” We’re all going to get sick. We’re all going to suffer in this life. We’re all going to get hurt, to get disappointed, to get injured, and die. But those are not the kinds of things that fuel our prayers. Our prayers should be motivated by the eternal and right-now presence of God. Hauerwas writes:

“The story that determines the Christian body is the story of Emmanuel, God with us. This is the story we were baptized into, which means we have already died. Therefore, the hope we share is ultimately not a hope to get through life unscathed, but a hope to remain faithful until the end. It is the hope of the resurrection.”

“Illness usually comes as an unexpected guest, threatening to disorder our routines and make our lives incoherent. The stories that constitute our lives are meant to give us a sense of control and to assure us that we know where we are and in what time we live. Yet the stories that we may actually be living may not be the ones we think we are living, but our illusions are dear to us. Illness often destroys our illusions as well as our confidence that we are in control.”

When we get sick, we realize that we are not in control. We acknowledge that God is in control and we lean on him more. We depend on God to sustain us, to give us life, to bless us with breath. When we’re sick, we need God. We recognize our powerlessness and our inabilities to fix the situation. We’re reminded that we are out of control and that we really, really need God.

And isn’t that where God wants you?

Peace,

Allan

Don’t Be a Horse

May 1, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”
~Psalm 32:9

I won’t be like the horse or the mule. Every day I will come to you, Lord. Every day I will sing to you. I will pray to you. I will listen to you. I will talk to you every day. I will look for you, God. I will obey you. I will submit to you. Lord, I will follow you. I will come to you.

God, in your mercies, give me the power to keep these promises to you.

Your undeserving and grateful servant,

Allan

The Kingdom Beyond

March 26, 2014 / / 0 Comments

“It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts: it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is the Lord’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No sermon says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted knowing they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that affects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very, very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.”

~Oscar Romero

Because the Lord

February 10, 2014 / / 1 Comment

In one of the last stories about David before he is crowned King of Judah in Hebron, he and his nephew, Abishai, walk through the middle of three thousand of Israel’s mightiest soldiers to find Saul sound asleep on the ground. David and Abishai make it past all the guards, all the men, all the horse and chariots, all the spears and swords, right into the very center of the army’s camp, right next to Saul’s sleeping bag. These two are standing by Saul’s head and having an argument about what to do. Abishai’s adrenaline is rushing and he’s ready to kill the enemy king. David is holding his young nephew back and waxing theological about what God is and isn’t doing this night. So they eventually decide to grab Saul’s spear and water jug and leave camp the way they came in.

“No one saw or knew about it, nor did anyone wake up.” ~1 Samuel 26:12

How is that possible? I’m a fairly heavy sleeper; I can sleep through almost anything. But I know what it’s like to sleep on high alert. When two little girls are throwing up and the other one has a fever, you go to bed on high alert. In the dead middle of the night the least little sound from the other end of the house causes both Carrie-Anne and me to jump straight out of bed and grab the mop! Recently, we’re going to bed more and more often with one or two of our girls still out on the town. We go to sleep knowing they’ll be home in a couple of hours. And I promise I can hear Whitney exit Bell Street three miles from our house! I’m wide awake before the garage door opens!

The king and his bodyguard and three thousand trained soldiers. How did not one single person wake up and catch David?

“Because the Lord had put them into a deep sleep.” ~1 Samuel 26:12

Because the Lord.

God causes three thousand men to fall into a deep sleep so David and Abishai can slip into camp, discuss what they’re going to do, take the royal spear and canteen, and get away undetected. Do David and Abishai think it’s because of their own skills they’re able to get away with this? Are they aware at all of the miraculous nature of what just happened? The writer is very clear: God is personally involved in protecting and defending David and keeping him safe. But I don’t think David knows all the details of God’s involvement like the writer and reader do. Yes, David is growing in confidence that God is working to bring Saul’s reign to an end and put David on Israel’s throne. But the comment about the deep sleep is between the author and the reader. Yes, David is more convinced than ever about the truth of God’s activity in his life, but he’s unaware of the specifics.

Get the picture: David is working his way here in the dark, on the run, under attack, picking his way through the nitty and gritty details of the task at hand, and not fully aware of the very specific way God is intervening to help him and make sure the mission is accomplished.

Same with us: We walk through this life in this place where God has put us, doing his will, sometimes under attack, occasionally on the run, trusting God to provide, putting faith in God to deliver, totally convinced that God loves us and he’s involved in our lives, but not fully aware of the specifics.

Because the Lord.

I am breathing today because the Lord. You are where you are right now because the Lord. I am typing this post because the Lord. You are reading this at home or at work or in traffic because the Lord. I can show patience and restraint because the Lord. I can show compassion, I can demonstrate love because the Lord. I don’t worry about enemies or the economy or the elections because the Lord. I am fully protected against any one or any thing that could ever do me harm because the Lord. My sins are forgiven, my future is certain, my past is redeemed, and my destiny is decided because the Lord.

Peace,

Allan

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