faith

The best you can do is good enough.

Carolyn Moore

The Israelites did not complain. I don’t know how I missed it before but in the lengthy and detailed story of the building of the tabernacle, there is no record of complaint ever by the Israelites.

I’m not talking here about their day-to-day existence; I’m talking about when they were constructing the tent that would stand as a sign of the presence of God in their midst. The Israelites — who complained about everything; who wanted to return to Egypt and slavery so badly that they might as well have walked through the desert backward; who required a system just to hear the arguments they had with each other — do not seem to have complained at all through the entire construction of the tabernacle. The story says that when they were asked to build it, they gave out of their hearts freely, more than was needed, for the materials. And they seem to have organized amiably under the leadership of two lay persons who would direct the work. Through that whole process, they never complained, or at least no one complained enough to deserve mention.

Let me just say that again: There is no record of a complaint during the world’s first church construction project.

Talk about a miracle.

And just as noteworthy is how God and Moses received their work when it was done. Keep in mind that this was intricate, high-level craftsmanship directed by meticulous instruction and under the guidance of regular guys who had probably never built a tabernacle before. Yet, when they were done Moses’ response rates one verse (Exodus 39:43): “Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the Lord and commanded. So Moses blessed them.” No tick list of change orders, no tweaking, no discouraged gee-I-wish-we’d-done-that-part-differently comments. Moses simply inspected it, saw they’d done their job faithfully and then blessed it.

This one verse is bigger than we may realize because here’s the thing: It isn’t possible — we’ve all been in enough construction projects to know — that they did everything perfectly. The work was too meticulous (God gave instructions right down to the design of the curtain holders) and the people were just not that bright. But at the end of the day, according to how the story is told, the best they could do was good enough. In other words, obedience trumps perfectionism. Every time.

After Moses blessed the work, God filled the tabernacle and completed it with his Presence (Exodus 40:34). This is also a profound point. Without God’s Presence, a perfect building would have been useless weight in a desert setting but with his Presence, an imperfect building became holy.

The tabernacle, then, becomes the Old Testament visual aid for being made perfect in love. God didn’t demand perfection in the details but seemed to grade on faithfulness. They did everything as the Lord commanded, the Word says, and my suspicion is that they were graded not on accuracy of detail but on the spirit of the thing. And on the spirit of it, they passed.

Which means that our call is not to perfectionism, but to perfect love. A good spirit. No judgment … just a commitment to being in community under the Lordship of a holy God.

So this month, our church begins in earnest a construction project that will take several months to complete. If God is consistent, and if he tends to act currently as he has in the past, then we will be graded in this project not on accuracy but on the spirit of the work. By that standard, I hope we pass and when we are done, I sure hope we will take the example of Moses,  accept the finished product as it is and move on to the work of leading people through deserts and into the promises of God.

In his book, The Beatitudes, Simon Tugwell writes,

God loves who we really are – whether we like it or not. God calls us, as he did Adam, to come out of hiding. No amount of spiritual make-up can render us more presentable to Him … His love which called us into existence, calls us to come out of self-hatred and to step into his truth. “Come to me now,” Jesus says. “Acknowledge and accept who I want to be for you: a Savior of boundless compassion, infinite patience, unbearable forgiveness, and love that keeps no score of wrongs. Quit projecting onto me your own feelings about yourself. At this moment, your life is a bruised reed and I will not crush it, a smoldering wick and I will not quench it. You are in a safe place.

This is a good word about a creative God who does not poke around in our souls for deficiencies. He does not look for the flaw, nor does he grade us as we do one another (or worse, ourselves). We know this because when God himself entered into the original construction project (creation), he called all of it good. There is no record of tweaking, just enjoyment of the process. And then when he was finished, he rested and that rest is proof that our Father is at peace with us, his creation. He can look at us and be at peace not because everything is perfect, but because He is perfect.

His example is our directive: Do your best, then rest in Jesus. Rest is how we demonstrate trust in the goodness of God. Rest is a willingness to trust God with the questions and to believe that the best we can do is good enough for him.

When is the last time you rested in Jesus an act of trust in God?

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What you believe matters.

Carolyn Moore 7 Comments

I am more and more convinced that biblical literacy and theological grounding is now our critical need.

I was reminded of this a while back while working out at the gym. I was on a machine watching television but without the sound on … just reading closed captioning. The story being typed onto the screen word by word was some news piece about Pope Francis. And somewhere in the story, this phrase crossed the screen: “a message from Bob.”

From the context, I could tell they meant to type, “a message from God” but God never got the credit for whatever that message was. That strikes me as significant. How many people in the world are getting their messages from “Bob” (any popular speaker/ writer/ influencer) while God goes unnoticed?

When the movie, The Passion, first came out, a big group from our church went to see it together. Afterward, we adjourned to my living room to discuss what we’d seen. In the midst of the dialogue, someone asked some kind of technical question about the way God works and a guy who happens to have been in professional ministry had this response: “Frankly, I don’t have much use for theology. I just want to know who God is and what his heart is.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that pretty much the point of theology?

“I don’t have much use for theology.” Really? I bet that guy would have cared about my theology if we had been worshiping cows in my living room. I bet he would have cared if we were all there to discuss the message of Bob rather than the message of God. It must be fun to sound like a renegade in a group of people talking about religion, but it can also be theologically dangerous.

What you believe matters. And this is why I hold that biblical literacy and theological grounding are the critical need today. Otherwise we won’t have the compass to discern the direction of those who seek our endorsement. Those of us who trust in Christ have a poor record of talking theologically in public, with integrity (we do it, but not well). But to have a Kingdom-shaped influence in the marketplace, as Dr. Gregg Okesson says, we must learn to talk theologically in public about issues of public interest.

Theology matters. True, it has no life without the stirring of the Holy Spirit but nothing can be said about the nature of life, God or ultimate meaning without talking theologically. Indeed, nothing of any importance can be said of sports, politics, family systems, sexuality, or buying habits unless we learn to think and talk theologically. It would be like learning to play the piano without learning music theory. Without theory, it is just notes.

Nor can we discuss with respect the differences between religions or properly respect contrasting belief systems. Without theological grounding, how do we discuss the fact that the Mormon Jesus leaves significant questions about the nature of the Trinity, or that the Muslim Jesus is respected and revered but not crucified? How do we talk about Wesley’s systemic teaching on grace or Calvin’s take on God’s sovereignty?

Without deep theological reflection, how do missionaries learn to share the whole gospel without adding a layer of cultural bondage to the top? How do pastors influence culture and change systems?

When we’ve not grounded ourselves theologically, it is remarkably easy to get drunk on tweetable lines. It becomes far too tempting to redefine Christianity based on the trajectory of culture. We ask questions like, “Who are you to decide what orthodoxy/ Wesleyanism/ holiness/ Christianity means?” As if any of those are decided by vote.

On the other hand, it is tempting to blame thinking Christians for the suppression of the Holy Spirit. Experience has made us book-shy. Far too many wanna-be pastors have marched off to seminary while their friends at home warn, “Don’t let school ruin you!”

Spiritual thinking ought not rob us of our energy for the full gospel. To the contrary, to think theologically — to reason out a very distinctive set of beliefs — is to honor the depth and glory of God. Theology trumps experience every time and leads us toward the Holy Spirit, not away from Him.

As I listen to the fodder of news shows and sort through the various discussions that surface among well-meaning people within the church and online, I am more and more convinced that biblical literacy and theological grounding are our critical need in this season of the Church’s life. We’re allowing pop icons and an unanchored culture to do for us what thoughtful, Spirit-inspired study should be doing. The Kingdom won’t be ushered in on tweetable lines or emotional appeals. It will come when the good news of Jesus Christ is unapologetically learned, preached and practiced in all its power.

To hell with the message of Bob. The world is starving for something more.

 

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A word about unfulfilled promises

Carolyn Moore

Another post by my friend and collaborator in ministry, Angel Davis. This week, she shares deeply and mystically about the holy discipline of waiting: 

I know I’m not alone in the years of waiting and praying for promises of God to be fulfilled for my loved ones and those with which I have the privilege of ministering. So many are hurting and lost, searching for true identity and in desperate need of healing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have seen countless and countless answered prayers — exceedingly and abundantly more than I could have ever dreamed or imagined (and I still have years to go). I know there will be more to come. And yet there remains a yearning, a deep groaning at times, for those unfulfilled promises of God that have been prayed over for years and years.

The temptation is to pepper God with endless “whys.” “Why, God, haven’t you answered my prayers?” It is a very human thing to question what we don’t understand but that question can work against us. It keeps our eyes on our circumstances — on us — and that limits us. As long as I confine my faith to what I can understand, it will be a small world, indeed.

Perhaps a better question might begin with “what.” “What, God, are your purposes being played out as I wait?” “What do you want me to see and learn?” These questions put the emphasis back on God and his work. They open the door for us to enter into “the more” with God.

And what is “the more”?

Here are a few things I’ve learned about “the more” in my years of waiting, yearning, and praying.

  • Waiting helps my faith grow.
  • Waiting helps my hope grow.
  • Waiting helps my love grow.

Examine that list. Are these not the very things the Bible tells us will remain and never fail? (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Of course, not all waiting is holy, but the ordained waiting to which I’ve been assigned (my cup and my portion) has been the greatest expander of my faith. Waiting does the sometimes-painful work of prying our fingers off of fear, the kind that hinders faith. Waiting gives time for God to search my mind and heart (Psalm 139:23). Waiting allows space for God to teach me how to move forward fearlessly, and to empower me to see things from his vantage point (focusing on the solution rather than hyper-focused on the problem). Waiting also causes me to cling more deeply and surely to His truths and promises. This is “the more” that makes the struggle worth it.

In that transformation, hope rises. My hope is banked on Him and not the circumstances or the one for which I am interceding. God Himself is Hope. I come to know Him (His true character) more through the waiting, through the desperation, through the seeking, asking and knocking.

And hope rises …

From it I receive more and more of His heart of love. At times it seems like glimpses or trickles; other times it feels like a flood into my soul. And sometimes, it sure doesn’t even seem like love. Yet as I consistently bring my feelings to His throne of grace, as King David did, then I get to exchange fear, frustration, yearnings, groaning’s, heartaches, for Him — for His grace and love. And as I receive that from Him, then I have it to give back to Him as an offering. In turn, He enables me to love more deeply and purely. He takes our sacrifice of waiting and all that He accomplishes in it and will do exceedingly and abundantly more than we could ever dream or imagine.

In the process of holy waiting, we get glimpses of the story of God. He is behind the scenes working things out in ways we couldn’t imagine much less carry out. And like those giants of faith in Hebrews 11, we may not see the full fruit of answered prayers on this side of Heaven, but this we can bank on: If we allow God to grow our own faith, hope and love, we can leave an indelible mark on this earth for His glory that will carry through into eternity.

That, my friends, is worth the wait.

Angel H. Davis is a Christ follower who lives in Athens, Georgia and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in healing prayer. Read more from Angel in her book, The Perfecting Storm: Experiencing God’s Best Through the Trials of Marriage. This is an exceptional resource for those who want to see transformation in their marriage.

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Real Prayers for Real People

Carolyn Moore 1 Comment

I didn’t immediately fall in love with the psalms. I found them to be hard to understand and a little dusty. Then some hard things happened in my life and I landed on a few psalms that became prayers when I didn’t know what to pray. When my mother died, Psalm 42 became my lifeline. Psalm 116 was my testimony in a season when things got bad then got better. I’m embarrassed to say how long it took me to find the profound assurances embedded in Psalm 23.

The psalms challenge us to pray as if God is real. These ancient prayers give us a fresh vocabulary for prayer. In the library we call the Bible, The Book of Psalms is the prayer book and as examples of how faithful people have prayed through the ages, they can help us all find a better prayer life. Here, we find the all-too-human wrestlings of David (who wrote many, but not all, the psalms), a man after God’s heart. We hear honest cries for help and deep, worshipful devotion. We get the full spectrum of emotions, not the least of which is anger. I’ve never had the guts to ask God to kill someone else’s child, but it is in there — an assurance that God can handle it even when we are broken, raging or irrational.

What we don’t hear in David’s conversations with God is anything remotely rote. No recitations. No empty wish lists. No shallow musings. No generalized litanies of what we vaguely hope for the world. David Thomas, in his teaching on travailing prayer, writes, “The Bible seems utterly unfamiliar with casual prayer, prayer of the mouth and not of the heart.” In this, the psalms resonate.

The psalms are real prayers for real people. They challenge us to think deeply and honestly and give us permission to cry out, to feel, to get close, to give our whole heart, to be rough around the edges, and even to be wrong-headed and stubborn.

But real. Always real.

In Lynn Anderson’s book, They Smell Like Sheep, the author offers several practical tips for those who want to learn how pray the Psalms.

  • Choose a psalm to focus on. If you don’t know where to start, try googling your feelings — i,e, “psalm for anger” or “psalm for discouragement.” The psalms are so well researched and commented on that you’ll likely find several articles or references that send you to a starting point. Don’t get sidetracked with the article; go to the psalm.
  • Read it through aloud — slowly and thoughtfully — to get its sense. Make it interactive. Reading scripture aloud can make a huge difference in how you hear it.
  • Pray it aloud slowly, reflectively, in the first person (as your own prayer for yourself). Don’t hurry. Wallow in it. Savor it. Mean it. Feel free to stop here and journal what is revealed, or make notes in the margins.
  • Pray it aloud slowly, reflectively, in the second person, as an intercessory prayer on behalf of some other person.
  • Stay there until God shows up. I realize this isn’t great theology. Of course, it isn’t God who doesn’t show up, but us. But from an experiential place, we can admit that when we don’t have patience for the waiting it can feel as if God is nowhere to be found. It isn’t that he doesn’t show up, but that we refuse him entry by rushing too quickly past the moment.
  • Don’t end your prayer when the psalm ends. Let this psalm springboard you into the rest of your day’s prayers for current issues and persons that the psalm has brought to your heart. Let the psalm shape the day’s prayer list.

Even if it isn’t theologically accurate to say it this way, I stand by this good advice: Stay there until God shows up. If he doesn’t show up immediately, he will show up eventually. How do I know? He promised!

Stay in the place of prayer. Jesus himself said the fruit of an abundant life is in the abiding. May you find your stride, your purpose, your anchoring and your fruitfulness in that place of abiding, travailing, real prayer.

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Jesus is a friend.

Carolyn Moore 2 Comments

December was a hard month and its effect continues to creep into my days and the days of many I love. We lost a friend, so we are all learning together — again — that grief is exhausting. Complicated. Soul-stretching.

I have learned that in the midst of loss, Jesus is often the one friend wise enough to simply be present without comment. Although, I have to say I wish he’d speak up a bit more. Some days, it frustrates me, his quietness. I interpret it as rejection because I am a broken person desperate for someone to fix my pain, to clear the fog, to say something in 280 characters or less that will make all the rest of it make sense. But no matter how much I beg, manipulate or argue, Jesus keeps his posture — quiet, but solidly present. A faithful friend. Which, of course, is what I need most even when I don’t know it.

Years ago, another friend of mine lost her husband. They met in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and became followers of Jesus. I never got the sense Christian life was easy for them; it was so different from what they’d lived for so long. When you’ve lived a lifetime trying to fill an emptiness with alcohol, all your relationships incubated in the petri dish of addiction, it is reasonable to wonder if Jesus is just another way to be disappointed.

But hard as it was, my friend and her husband discovered Jesus was the one thing that worked. He saved them from self-destruction and fed them a kind of healing nothing else had been able to offer. He was the only one patient enough, kind enough, to hang in through the valleys to the feasts on the other side. And Jesus was the one who taught them to be friends with each other. When my friend’s husband became ill, they leaned on Jesus together and discovered he was enough. Just days before he died, my friend’s husband, laying on his deathbed, turned to her and said, “You know, it really is true: what a friend we have in Jesus.”

Yes, and amen. Surely it is no coincidence that it was precisely in his death that Jesus taught us some of the more profound lessons in friendship. Among his final words to his followers were these: “I no longer call you servants; I call you friends” (John 15:15). And then he picked up the cross and pointed it at all humanity — like a kid on a playground choosing his team — inviting all who would choose him in return to become his friends.

Not servants, but friends.

Christ’s friendship is an act of grace. Brian Edgar, in his book God is Friendship, writes, “It is a profound, unexpected, gracious and powerful promise” (p. 28). It is richer than servanthood, beyond what we can earn. The friendship of Jesus offers the joy of intimate presence, one to another, deep calling to deep. It is Jesus being willing to be with me in my grief without words — unjealously, unswervingly, peacefully there. And it is Jesus who teaches me to be a friend to those around me.

But I’m a pastor. Subtlely and not so subtlely, pastors are taught to detach from personal relationships for the sake of building the Body of Christ (this may be especially true of itinerating pastors). Books upon books indoctrinate us in the art of boundary-making as a mark of good leadership. Jesus, meanwhile, says things like, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Maybe both things are true. Maybe there is a place in healthy leadership for giving our hearts to those in our communities.

Perhaps it is not just okay but a mark of holiness to discover the place of friendship not beyond but in the midst of ministry.  

Indeed, that also has been part of my grief — that I haven’t learned sooner how to be a better friend to those who have chosen to live in community with me and to do so as an act of ministry in the best sense of that term. As Edgar says, “Christian friendship is to be transformative. It is a loving ministry that transforms us into the image of our friend Jesus, and enables us to be friends and reflectors of Christ’s character to others” (p. 172).

As he so faithfully does, God is redeeming this season by teaching me things I could learn no other way.  He is revealing the power and beauty of friendship as he offers me his whole heart and proves himself a faithful friend. And he is modeling the kind of friend I can also become, so that in the valley of shadows there is beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning.

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40 things followers of Jesus do

Carolyn Moore 2 Comments

One night I sat down with my Bible and a notebook to search through Luke, chapter 9, this action-packed, day-in-the-life snapshot of a disciple of Jesus. This is the chapter where Jesus sends out his disciples, feeds five thousand people, foretells his death (twice), sees Moses and Elijah, heals people and explains the high cost of discipleship. Jesus, of course, is riveting … but so are the disciples. It is stunning to think just how far out on the edge they lived, how unsafe their lives were as followers of Jesus. There were no perfectionists among those followers, and no wimps. So much of what they did was accomplished in the crucible of doubt, fear, uncertainty — a kind of hopeful, messy, edgy adventurism.

Reading Luke 9, I started a list and ended up with forty things followers do — or at least forty things those hopeful, messy, edgy followers did in a season when they were remarkably fruitful. If you’re swimming in the question, “When I follow Jesus, what do I do?” maybe this list of habits from imperfect-but-faithful followers will both encourage and inspire you:

1. Followers come when Jesus calls.
2. They accept power and authority given by Jesus.
3. They go where he sends.
4. They talk about the Kingdom of God.
5. They heal people.
6. They depend exclusively on his resources (and don’t get side-tracked by their own needs).
7. They follow Jesus’ instructions.
8. They talk to Jesus about what it’s like to follow his lead.
9. They go off with him to rest after serving.
10. They come to him with ideas and questions.
11. They have conversations with him.
12. They tell him what they have and don’t have.
13. They do what he says, even when they don’t understand.
14. They pray with him in private.
15. They talk to him about how they see the world.
16. They talk to him about how they see him.
17. They express their belief in him.
18. They keep quiet about things he shares with them when he asks them to.
19. They listen when he talks about the future.

Around verse 28, Jesus takes three of the apostles up onto a mountain. So I learned that not all of Jesus’ followers, but …
20. Some of them will get away with him to pray.
21. Some of them will see him in his glorified body.
22. Some of them are enveloped by God’s glory.
23. Some of them are afraid of what they experience when they are with him.
24. Some of them hear the voice of God.
25. Some of them have dramatic spiritual experiences they don’t talk about.
26. Some of them will experience dramatic spiritual things, but will be asked move on from it.
27. Some of them will attempt to drive out demons and fail.

28. Followers see Jesus get frustrated by perversion and unbelief.
29. They step aside and watch Jesus heal people.
30. They hear Jesus but don’t understand.
31. They are afraid to ask Jesus questions.
32. They argue among themselves.
33. They compete with each other for greatness.
34. They try to stop people outside their group from doing things in the name of Jesus.
35. They are admonished by Jesus when they try to stop people from doing things in His name.
36. Some are sent ahead of Jesus to prepare the way for him.
37. They ask Jesus for permission to be vengeful. (note: permission denied.)
38. They walk with him.
39. They promise to follow Jesus wherever he goes, without fully understanding the cost of that commitment.
40. They hear his call to follow, but tend to put conditions on obedience.

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This year: Migrate from “Why Me?” to “What now?”

Carolyn Moore Leave a comment

Simcha Bunim was a Jewish rabbi who lived in Poland in the 1700s. He is best known for what might be called the parable of the two pockets.

The parable begins with two slips of paper. On one slip is written, “I am dust and ashes.” On the other slip is written, “For my sake the world was created.” These two slips of paper are meant to be carried around in two pockets.

Rabbi Bunim said, “Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: ‘For my sake was the world created.’ But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: ‘I am dust and ashes.’”

The rabbi’s point was that we are at once both things. We are both sinners and saints, dust and treasure, limited but with tremendous potential, fallen but loved. And we ought to approach our goals and lives with that mind set. Christians would say we are fallen people for whom Christ died.

Dust, yes … but dust so loved by God that he gave his Son.

What if you entered into Rabbi Bunim’s exercise? Write these two statements on slips of paper, then spend time with each of them. Begin with the one with which you are less comfortable. Which of these two statements resonates with you?

Are you more of the mindset that the world was created with you at the center? Many of us live there a bit too comfortably, whether we admit it or not. We are the center of our universe. We will make sure our own interests are served and we will let pride keep us from learning the hard lessons. We are the ones who need a little more time with our dust-and-ashes reality — to understand that our value isn’t self-generated. It comes from God. And because our value comes from God, we have a certain responsibility to steward our days well, because even if we hit the ball out of the park today, we’re still going to die. Our time here is a gift, and our assurance of a life beyond this one rests not on our merits but on Christ’s.

Not all of us need more dust and ashes. Some of us have lost sight of the fact that we bear the image of God. We live in too much self-condemnation, self-hatred … self. We live self-protectively because we have not yet owned our value and strength. We short-change ourselves by low-balling our value. We who live too much in dust and ashes need to remember that we are not here simply to exist but to make a difference. For our sake the world was created. God thinks highly of us! In light of that, our challenge is to stop making excuses for why we can’t do more and decide that even if we can’t do everything, we can do something.

Let me say that again: Even if we can’t do everything, we can do something. 

This is the mindset of abundance, which is at the heart of the good news of Jesus Christ. His victory over sin and death are my assurance that I don’t do any of this on my own effort, skills or abilities. I do all of life in partnership with God, the creator of the universe, and if God is in it then anything is possible.

Which is your mindset? Dust and ashes … or abundance? Dust and ashes … or image of God? Limit, or possibility?

This is the shift I want for you this year. I want you to move from “why me” thinking to “what now” thinking. Maybe you can’t do everything you’d like but you can do something. What will it be?

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Dealing with the unsaved parts of your life

Carolyn Moore 2 Comments

A friend who counsels through healing prayer shared a story a while back of working with a middle-aged woman who had a form of dissociation (we used to call it multiple personality disorder). Significant dissociation is an effect of significant childhood trauma. In simple (and probably inadequate) terms, it happens when the part of the brain that is wounded sequesters itself, creating a separate personality and resulting in  something like another person inside your head.

This woman being treated by my friend had a six-year-old child living in her head who had been hiding there for decades, ever since the trauma occurred in her life. My friend said that as he prayed with this woman, the six-year-old would come in and out. It was as if he was talking to two different people. This wasn’t a demon; this was a dissociated or fractured part of this person’s personality.

In the course of the prayer, a problem surfaced. As it turns out, the adult had come to Christ in recent years but because that happened after she was six, the child didn’t know Jesus. This was a point of contention. The adult would tell the child, “You need to find Jesus so we can get together.” That sounded reasonable enough to an adult mind but not to a wounded child. The six-year-old was afraid; there had already been so much hurt and distrust. Even between the adult and child living in the same body there were hurt feelings and resentments.

What eventually broke the stalemate? The adult decided to act like an adult. Instead of telling the child, “You need to go meet Jesus,” the adult embraced the child and the two of them walked toward Jesus together. My friend says it was like watching a six year old girl get saved. When she accepted Jesus, he spontaneously integrated them. But to get there, the more mature side of this person had to go after the healing.

Good healing starts with a decision to go after it. It starts with a choice to act like an adult and walk the unredeemed parts of myself out of the darkness and toward Jesus.

I wonder if there are some parts of you that need to challenge other parts of you to get up and go after God? Is there is a conversation inside of you waiting to happen so you can move through the broken places to the next rise?

A while back, I wrote the following in my journal on a day when I was challenging myself on the shallowness of my personal Bible reading. I wrote: “It is tempting to read the Bible only for what it might reveal to me today about myself or my circumstances. I begin looking for nuggets of hope or support. I read into the lives of the Israelites — harassed by the Babylonians — slivers of truth for my middle-class life today. I compare apples with automobiles, bowing to the tempting belief that some of the most profound moments in history are really just bits of advice for my day. The Word of God becomes a fortune cookie, and my part is to believe that whatever snappy phrase I can uncover is my destiny.

“But what if that isn’t God’s best for my relationship with him? What if, instead, I’m to be looking for the life of God rather than my own?

“Lord, forgive me for treating your Word like a fortune cookie and for allowing it to suffice only for how it can improve my immediate circumstances. And Lord, pour through me today your cleansing and renewing power. While I’m praying for folks and listening to stories, I need your power to cleanse me. Make me kinder, gentler, more loving, forgiving, pleasing to you. Bend my character toward your will. Kill all the unsaved parts of me. Jesus … circumcise my heart.”

This is what it means to seek after the life of God, and to bring it into my life so that my faith becomes an expression of Jesus being lived out in me. It means seeking out and embracing the unsaved parts of me, so I can walk them into the redemption of Jesus.

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Eat this scroll (or, how to become earthly good).

Carolyn Moore 3 Comments

You’ve heard it said that a person can be so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. Sounds catchy enough to be true, doesn’t it? It ends up being terrible theology, not to mention indefensible. I would argue that if you want to be any earthly good at all, you are better served by a mind that fixes on higher things. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say that the world is better served by those who spend their lives looking for signs of the in-breaking Kingdom than by those who don’t have eyes to see beyond this world.

Being heavenly minded is precisely what makes us earthly good.

Some of the greatest influences on humanity have been heavenly minded. In his classic Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis famously wrote:

A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in;” aim at earth and you will get neither.

Being heavenly minded is the point. It is what Paul meant when he instructed new believers to set their minds on things above. It is what Ezekiel was called to when he was told to eat the scroll, on which were written the lamentations of God. Those words were the very heart of God for his people. When God instructed Ezekiel to eat the scroll, he was saying, in effect, “Unless you have internalized my heart for my people, you won’t be any good for them. If you have any hope of following through on any of the weird stuff that is in your future, you’re going to need to operate not out of an external word but out of something rooted inside.”

In leadership, the quickest way to kill a great idea is to ask someone to do it before they own it. Hannah Whitall Smith (Quaker theologian) wrote that it is our nature to rebel against laws that are outside of us, but we embrace that which springs up from within. She was right. How often have you resisted someone else’s idea until you decided it was your own? God’s way of working in us is to get possession of us, so he can make his ideas our ideas.

This is how we become heavenly minded. Eat this scroll, God said. Gain the heart of God for people. Internalize it. Own it. Let it do its work in you. This could well be the most powerful word in the Bible about the Bible. Only as we steep in the Word are we able to internalize and own the very heart of God, allowing it to change the way we think.

If being heavenly minded is the only way we can do any earthly good (and I am convinced it is), then the path to that posture runs through the Word of God. Not counter to it.

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Four Questions to Gauge Your Relationship With God

Carolyn Moore 2 Comments

“The desperate need today is not for a great number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep people.” – Richard Foster

The desperate need in the American Church today is for people who are fed up with the superficial, who are hungry to see the Kingdom of God come in all its glory and fullness. Are you among them?

1. Are you among the deep people?

Sherwood Eliot Wirt, author of The Inner Life of the Believer, writes, “Deep within every soul stands a meeting place, a castle, where the believer and God can commune. For some believers, the castle is filled with warmth, joy and laughter. For others, it is empty, lonely and virtually non-existent. The choice is yours: Cultivate a rich, fruitful inner life with the Lord or let it remain stagnant and barren.”

Wirt’s challenge is to go where God is, to get in line with a God who has all the power in the universe at his command. God deserves that attention precisely because he is God — bigger than everything we can see and everything we know is out there that we can’t see and everything that is there that we aren’t even sure about. He wants us — men and women — to be this close, this trusting, this much under the care and love and grace of that Presence. This is what it means to go deep.

2. Do you thirst for time alone with God?

There is a place in the book of Luke where Jesus says building a relationship with God is like building a foundation for a house. He says a good builder will dig deep and set the foundation into rock, so it can withstand storms and floods. And then he follows that little object lesson with a question, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46)

It is almost a spiritual sucker punch. Jesus makes a rational point, then brings it down to our reality. Why don’t we build our relationship with him on something more solid than thin air, promises, good intentions or flat ignorance? We talk about God without talking to him (“If only God would show me what to do.” Or, “I don’t see what God is doing in my life right now and I’m so confused.” Or, “I feel like my prayers are not going any higher than the ceiling.” Or, “God just feels so distant and I feel like I don’t know who he is or who I am or how to do this Christian thing.”); meanwhile, God is right here.

(Side note: Third-person language about God is just one step removed from no-person language, which is actually called worry. First-person language is called prayer.)

Wally Armstrong, author of Practicing the Presence of Jesus, says, “The amazing truth is that Jesus is standing right beside each one of us, offering us the life-changing gift of his friendship and the promise of transformation from the inside out.” Hunger for time alone with God acknowledges his presence in a deeper, more real way, and trusts him to show up.

3. Do you use knowledge to keep you at a distance from the heart of God?

Dallas Willard defines discipleship as being with Jesus learning to be like him. It is both things. It is being with him and learning from him. Not just about him but from him. Having great theology and knowing the Bible and knowing the character of God are admirable goals (most of my work is around these very things)Å but at the end of the day, what most affects us and what is most valuable is knowing God himself. Not just knowing about him, but knowing him. Isn’t this what destroyed the Pharisees spiritually? They were unable — for their obsession with proving Jesus guilty of rule-breaking — to absorb the miracles and awaken to the supernatural presence in their midst. Can you imagine the hardness of heart that can have Jesus right there … and still miss him?

We too easily forget the intimacy to which the Father calls us, and the daily guidance he promises to give through deserts and enemy territory. Our Father longs to be present with us, longs to be Lord over us, longs to be what we need him to be.

4. Are you avoiding God’s influence in some areas of your life?

This piece of art hangs in our foyer at Mosaic. It tells our story and proclaims our theology. The circles are about community. Notice there are vines running through the circles with thorns on the vines. The thorns represent wounds, and remind us that the place for wounds is inside the church. By the time those vines reach beyond the circles, they are sprouting leaves. This is a beautiful vision of what repentance, renewal and recovery can be.

The place for wounds is inside the community. If we as a Church are going to build a new society, I believe it begins where Jesus says it begins. Repent and believe. Or in other words, bring your wounds into the community of faith.

The truth is: there is no shame in Christ. When we find the courage and conviction to speak aloud the names of our demons, we change the spiritual climate. The enemy no longer holds power over us. Avoidance is a lack of trust in the power of the cross; repentance is claiming it.

Are you swimming in the shallow end of faith, or heading into the deep? How would it change your life today if you committed to practicing the intimate, constant presence of the Father?

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