"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." That verse has been dominating my mind for a week. Someone shared during our church gathering that it is tempting to doubt the promise that God allows us to be tested according to what we can bear, and he will always provide a way out. This verse - "I can do all things through Christ..." - is the answer to that doubt.
I don't know if you followed boxing in the eighties or if you remember much about Mike Tyson, but he was possibly the most powerful speed-puncher of all time. I won't gush his whole story here, but it is an amazing story; and one aspect sticks out. Tyson figured he'd be dead by his mid-twenties. He never imagined that by then he would have smashed the record books as a unified boxing champ. One knockout - in the Olympics, at age fourteen - came 8 seconds into the match. A knockout in 8 seconds!
He ascribed all of his success to his manager and trainer (during his early years), and the man who would become his legal guardian, Cus D'Amato. Cus loved Mike, took him in, invested his life into the young man. At one point he made the comment that Mike was "keeping him alive." He was an older guy while training Mike, but felt Mike gave him a purpose - and Mike said the same thing about him. Beautiful story, right? I think so.
But there is a problem with stories like this, and the problem isn't subtle, and the problem is so definitive that - I would humbly suggest - it taints the good thing. The problem: death. If I wrap up my life, say, in my wife, or my mentor, or a prof from college, and I am one of the rare few who receives the same kind of investment from the other - free of charge, full of love - I'll experience a life-changing (maybe a life saving) relationship.
But when death comes, and the availability of that one person is lost to us, what then? You've heard Tyson's story. You know about his marriages, the rape conviction, the drugs and the partying, stating openly on ESPN that he ONLY fought to pay his bills, his tatoos - which he said he got to intimidate people (He's Mike Tyson! Why would he need tatoos!). When he speaks of this collapse - and he calls it a disaster - he always returns to Cus. His life saved Tyson's. His death was, in a way, Tyson's death. And no one ever filled that gap again. For Mike, it was "I can do all things through Cus who strengthens me..." Until the end, I think Cus would have said the same about Mike.
One really cannot generalize about a church family, but I can say here that this is kind of where Nomad is at. We are all realizing we make terrible saviors. Our weaknesses are legion, and any kind of pretense to self-based strength is merely cleaning up the outside of our cup. The month of December has been a transitional time and a learning time. God has blessed a few of us with a renewed desire for Christ-like compassion for those who are in collapse. I'm seeing incredible fruits, and yet there is a long journey before us. Sometimes the intensity of the harvest can create moments when we long for the shade of the barn, especially when we see Tyson-like collapses in the lives of those around us and we lose sight of Jesus walking ahead. Our minds wander, "Can I help this guy?" and the answer is a conditional, "In a way..."
We want the impossible. Total help. Total transformation. A renewed heart. We want back the years the locusts devoured.
And God is able to do the impossible; and he is not far off. Jesus literally walks with us; his Spirit is perfectly available; and in the midst of a sea of weaknesses his strength and presence hushes storms and clarifies our vision. When our Life Transformation Groups gather, he shows up in a palpable, almost freaky way. He sits at the table. Our discussions of the word become - believe it or not - more powerful than any podcast. It's like our hearts are opened, and the impossible change we long for happens live, right there.
Maybe you imagine a chasm of weakness between you and God - as if he has died and you are now on your own. But there is no chasm. Make no mistake, Jesus died. But he rose again. And he rose to be with you, and to lead you out. You are not alone.
Perhaps you have become so habitually disobedient to the Great Commission that any 'sense' of God's conviction instantly morphs into guilt. In your mind, well, there is no breaking the cycle. You are not alone. Maybe if you would stop relying on your own strength, and begin being simply obedient to Christ, things would change. Resurrection is tough, man. You gotta go to a graveyard, push and leverage away the tombstone, pray to God (from your heart), and then even after you are raised again there is the matter of getting out of the grave, losing the grave clothes, and getting back to the process of living. The good, good news is that Jesus provides all we need for each stage. We need nothing in ourselves. He gives us all we need.
Nomad has been gathering in a few homes and locations, and then at Westchester Park. The Park meeting has been at nine AM on Friday mornings. Comment on the blog if you want more info. Love to you all.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Weakness Works - More on UAE
When you fly east, you lose time. I get kind of sad about it, actually, even when it's just a flight to Denver or Houston. When I flew to the UAE, I lost a day. Left on a Friday, got there 12:30 am Sunday morning.
Walking off the plane I saw my friends, Jacob and Amy. Jacob has been a brother of mine for a long time, and Amy is the Youth For Christ front-liner who helped make all of this possible. She came up with the Desert Challenge idea years ago. She also designed the theme I spoke on, as well as basic themes for each talk. The title of the conference was WAKE UP. The talks looked liked this:
1. Wake up to God's presence in the universe and to the majesty of his creation.
2. Wake up to the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection.
3. Wake up to who you are in Jesus.
4. Wake up to Jesus as the Eikon or Image of the living God.
5. Wake up to the cost and mission of being a disciples of Jesus.
The story I want to tell you right now has everything to do with waking up, though it doesn't necessarily delve into the talks themselves.
I had trouble sleeping on the planes.
In fact, I couldn't sleep. I think I dozed on the first plane, falling off when Harry and Dumbledore finally recover the true memory of Voldemort and then waking up t0 the quietly spoken words, 'I am the half blood prince," at the end. The food was great, the flights where great, and at 12:30 am I was feeling great. Walked off the plane, there were my friends, we drive out of the airport, and the car breaks down. Overheats. That makes me nervous. I've split a block driving an overheated car, and that happened in freezing winter. We're in Dubai, in the middle of severe desert, and though the temperature was kind wonderful, I was very happy when we pulled over to a fuel station and spent then next couple hours drinking orange juice and quoting The Office.
Finally, we made it to the church facility where Desert Challenge was going to happen. We had a 4:30 am staff meeting - no joke. And yes that is early for people in the middle east. The computer guy, Jim, said, "No one would call a meeting like this...except Amy."
Around 5:45 - 6:00am, I was on an air mattress. I woke up around 8:30 am.
The first talk was around 1:30pm. The second talk was around 7:30 pm. I was so completely dead during the second talk, I never stated my thesis. My thesis was (and is, yo): Jesus did not come to make bad people good; he came to make dead people live. Thankfully, this guy, John, a local youth pastor of awesomeness asked me, "Hey, how would you sum up all your talks, in one sentence..." and he asked me that during this late night interview thing when all the students were gathered, and, thank God, I was able to then state the thesis. The thesis IS my answer.
Now, I was also supposed to lay down a verse in a rap competition that was going to be so intense young people would be like running out into the desert screaming my name....but I never did the rap. I had it all figured out, but John later told me that when he looked at me, he saw I'd "done enough that day." Whew.
Let me tell you that God's strength is perfected in our weakness. Even now, at home a couple weeks, there is so much stuff I need to get done because I am behind, unable to finish for x reason and y reason, and that can cause nuclear stress. It can just slay you mentally. But there is a real beauty and grace-infused peace in allowing God to perfect his strength in our weakness.
The Desert Challenge experience was on Thanksgiving weekend. Trust me, folks, I could NOT HAVE PARTICIPATED and have missed Thanksgiving with my family. I had to leave when I left, no sooner and no later. The entire thing was designed from the ground up to exhaust me, and the folks I worked with there were also totally exhausted, running on God's strength. The second day was an epic day - huge responses to the gospel, huge responses to the challenge of making disciples, and an overwhelming sense among all involved that God was coordinating everything each individual had planned into this intensely beautiful textile, something more wonderful than the (pretty awesome) scarves I picked up for Manda at the mall the last day.
There is a tendency in me to have everything worked out, premapped. In fact, Desert Challenge was, pretty much, premapped and worked out. But there were enough variables and enough gaps one could needle away at until numb with worry.
Didn't happen.
Afterwards, I was amazed at how congruent everything felt. I have not listened to any of the talks after the fact - I don't have copies of them - but unless I'm delusional, the Holy Spirit granted us this powerful cohesive unity which wasn't build on sameness but a rich diversity of perspectives and obedience-centered giftedness.
I'm going to write more about this time on this blog so all, what??? four of you (ha ha :) ) can read about it, and I'll have a record laid down. Listen: even my mistakes were blessings. Those of you who know me know I struggle to accept that any mistake I make can be a blessing! But God really did use every moment for the building of his kingdom and the furthering of his purpose: to set the world free from the power of sin and death through resurrection life we are given freely through Jesus' death and resurrection. I know that's a mouthful, but that is the message. These students RISK THEIR LIVES when they share Jesus with others. They are steeped in a culture that tells them to earn. The UAE free market culture is built on similar values our Western 'earning' culture is built on. And there are is a prevalent spiritual ethos that perpetuates a sense that we earn what God gives us; that our strengths determine our success.
I thank God that this was not the case for me in Dubai as he really showed up and perfected his strength in my weakness(es).
Walking off the plane I saw my friends, Jacob and Amy. Jacob has been a brother of mine for a long time, and Amy is the Youth For Christ front-liner who helped make all of this possible. She came up with the Desert Challenge idea years ago. She also designed the theme I spoke on, as well as basic themes for each talk. The title of the conference was WAKE UP. The talks looked liked this:
1. Wake up to God's presence in the universe and to the majesty of his creation.
2. Wake up to the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection.
3. Wake up to who you are in Jesus.
4. Wake up to Jesus as the Eikon or Image of the living God.
5. Wake up to the cost and mission of being a disciples of Jesus.
The story I want to tell you right now has everything to do with waking up, though it doesn't necessarily delve into the talks themselves.
I had trouble sleeping on the planes.
In fact, I couldn't sleep. I think I dozed on the first plane, falling off when Harry and Dumbledore finally recover the true memory of Voldemort and then waking up t0 the quietly spoken words, 'I am the half blood prince," at the end. The food was great, the flights where great, and at 12:30 am I was feeling great. Walked off the plane, there were my friends, we drive out of the airport, and the car breaks down. Overheats. That makes me nervous. I've split a block driving an overheated car, and that happened in freezing winter. We're in Dubai, in the middle of severe desert, and though the temperature was kind wonderful, I was very happy when we pulled over to a fuel station and spent then next couple hours drinking orange juice and quoting The Office.
Finally, we made it to the church facility where Desert Challenge was going to happen. We had a 4:30 am staff meeting - no joke. And yes that is early for people in the middle east. The computer guy, Jim, said, "No one would call a meeting like this...except Amy."
Around 5:45 - 6:00am, I was on an air mattress. I woke up around 8:30 am.
The first talk was around 1:30pm. The second talk was around 7:30 pm. I was so completely dead during the second talk, I never stated my thesis. My thesis was (and is, yo): Jesus did not come to make bad people good; he came to make dead people live. Thankfully, this guy, John, a local youth pastor of awesomeness asked me, "Hey, how would you sum up all your talks, in one sentence..." and he asked me that during this late night interview thing when all the students were gathered, and, thank God, I was able to then state the thesis. The thesis IS my answer.
Now, I was also supposed to lay down a verse in a rap competition that was going to be so intense young people would be like running out into the desert screaming my name....but I never did the rap. I had it all figured out, but John later told me that when he looked at me, he saw I'd "done enough that day." Whew.
Let me tell you that God's strength is perfected in our weakness. Even now, at home a couple weeks, there is so much stuff I need to get done because I am behind, unable to finish for x reason and y reason, and that can cause nuclear stress. It can just slay you mentally. But there is a real beauty and grace-infused peace in allowing God to perfect his strength in our weakness.
The Desert Challenge experience was on Thanksgiving weekend. Trust me, folks, I could NOT HAVE PARTICIPATED and have missed Thanksgiving with my family. I had to leave when I left, no sooner and no later. The entire thing was designed from the ground up to exhaust me, and the folks I worked with there were also totally exhausted, running on God's strength. The second day was an epic day - huge responses to the gospel, huge responses to the challenge of making disciples, and an overwhelming sense among all involved that God was coordinating everything each individual had planned into this intensely beautiful textile, something more wonderful than the (pretty awesome) scarves I picked up for Manda at the mall the last day.
There is a tendency in me to have everything worked out, premapped. In fact, Desert Challenge was, pretty much, premapped and worked out. But there were enough variables and enough gaps one could needle away at until numb with worry.
Didn't happen.
Afterwards, I was amazed at how congruent everything felt. I have not listened to any of the talks after the fact - I don't have copies of them - but unless I'm delusional, the Holy Spirit granted us this powerful cohesive unity which wasn't build on sameness but a rich diversity of perspectives and obedience-centered giftedness.
I'm going to write more about this time on this blog so all, what??? four of you (ha ha :) ) can read about it, and I'll have a record laid down. Listen: even my mistakes were blessings. Those of you who know me know I struggle to accept that any mistake I make can be a blessing! But God really did use every moment for the building of his kingdom and the furthering of his purpose: to set the world free from the power of sin and death through resurrection life we are given freely through Jesus' death and resurrection. I know that's a mouthful, but that is the message. These students RISK THEIR LIVES when they share Jesus with others. They are steeped in a culture that tells them to earn. The UAE free market culture is built on similar values our Western 'earning' culture is built on. And there are is a prevalent spiritual ethos that perpetuates a sense that we earn what God gives us; that our strengths determine our success.
I thank God that this was not the case for me in Dubai as he really showed up and perfected his strength in my weakness(es).
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