Torn.

So, I just finished reading the book Torn by Jud Wilhite, and I’d give it good marks.

It’s so hard to stay strong and continue in faith when you feel like your life is tearing apart at the seams. Yet, that’s the reality we live in. Sin has marred our world. Sometimes, we find life difficult at the hand of others’ sinful choices. Sometimes we find it difficult because of our own. And sometimes, for reasons totally unrelated or unbeknownst to us, we just find life crashing down all around us. And then, we are torn… looking for a way to bring the pieces back together, and trying to figure out how faith fits into all of it.

Wilhite really does a good job of forcing us to get beyond the why question and to start asking the question that can really help us pull out of pain: Who? Who are you going to trust in? Yourself? Or are you going to bring all you have to God and trust him to make up the difference? Asking why is okay for a season. But if we never move on to focusing on who we trust in, we’ll never come out of a “torn” type of season. Instead, we’ll just be faced with a load of bitterness, angst, and anger toward God, others, and whoever else might find themselves in our path.

Torn is a great book to read, especially when you are journeying through a rough patch and looking for answers. I’m glad I got the chance to read it, to hear some of Wilhite’s wisdom and story, and most of all, to be directed back to a God who helps us piece things together through it all.

Want to learn more? Check out one of these links:

• More Info
• Read Chapter One
• Author Bio

Note: I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Giving Up Your Life.

As part of the Bible reading plan I’ve been going through this year, I’m in the process of reading through the book of Revelation. And while I’ll be the first to admit that it’s often confusing and a little weird to say the least, I ran across this verse earlier this week that really got me thinking.

“They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Rev. 12:11b, NIV).

This little phrase comes in the midst of John describing a battle between the armies of God and Satan himself. At the end, God’s army overthrows the devil, throwing him down, and a voice from heaven says this phrase, commending those who fought alongside Michael the archangel and his whole team.

I’m sure it’s partially just some of what I’m walking through personally right now, but I believe that the pathway toward God is always paved by surrender. Surrendering our time. Our money. Our resources. Our wants, dreams, desires. Our ideas about how things should work. It’s not to say that we never get our time, money, wishes, dreams, hopes, or any of that stuff. It’s just to say that a person whose life is truly centered on Christ will surrender all of those things to God when our will is not in alignment with His. I’m not there yet, but I want to be that kind of person.

And I think that’s why I found this verse so relevant. In the gospels, Jesus asks His followers to die to themselves; essentially, He asks them to surrender everything they hold dear to follow Him. I think that when John penned these words, certainly the overarching meaning here was a literal death. The fighters are being praised for not valuing their lives above the cause of the kingdom.

But I think there’s another meaning here for us… that we shouldn’t love our lives and our way of living so much that we shrink from the death that Jesus calls us to. Not a physical death, but a death to ourselves. A death to my way of living so that I can embrace His.

In some ways, I think that’s almost harder. But oh so necessary.

My Favorite Passage in the ENTIRE Bible.

I’ve never done well at choosing a favorite verse in the Bible. Some people have their “life verse” that’s like the whole verse they live their life by, but I feel like I’m never able to pick just one.

Regardless, these verses are ones that have really helped me through thick and thin in the past year. But I think more than anything else, these verses have begun to serve as the total foundation for my entire prayer life, because they contain one of the greatest promises that God has ever made (in my opinion) in the entirety of the Scriptures. They give hope, comfort, and even a sense of peace, even when things may not necessarily clear up the way I’d hope.

So without any further ado, here’s Hebrews 4:14-16:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Here are the three things I love about this passage:

1. I have a Savior who empathizes with my weakness. There is an incredible amount of relationship that comes just from knowing that my God has gone through what I go through. Crushing temptation? Yep, He’s been there. Loss of a loved one? Been there. Unbelievable stress with what You’re going through? Yeah, He’s been there. In the person of Jesus Christ, God has experienced everything that we could possibly experience. He doesn’t just sympathize with us… He can empathize. He knows what I’ve gone through, and He knows what I’m going through. That gives me a lot of comfort and peace, even if it doesn’t just magically make everything better.

2. I can approach God with confidence. Don’t get me wrong. God is huge. He is a king. He deserves our respect and reverence and awe. But here, God promises us that we can come to Him with confidence. Confidence that He will hear us. Confident that He will be there for us. Confident that God is going to be present in whatever we’re going through, whether that means He’s going to fix everything or whether He’s just going to give us some peace. But we don’t have to worry that God is offended at us asking or that He’s just busy with other things and doesn’t have time for us. We can approach God with confidence.

3. God promises grace and mercy when I call on Him. In the words of Hebrews, in the time when we need it most – when we approach God in joy, sadness, anger, misery, and even desperation or as a last resort, God promises that we will receive grace and mercy from Him. It might be a tangible answer to prayer. Or it might just be a quiet confidence in Him or even just the peace that comes with knowing our God knows about what we are experiencing. But regardless, over the past year, I have seen God be true to this verse time and time again. When I need it most, it always seems that God gives the mercy and grace I need to make it through the tough times.

This passage of Scripture has really given me a ton of hope over the past year or so of my life. Hope it does for you too!

Humility in Action.

Last night I got the chance to help out with a ministry that happens at our church every Monday night called Celebrate Recovery. It’s a cool ministry, designed to help people who are recovering from addictions, hurts, past issues, and all that kind of stuff find some hope, some healing, and some restoration through Jesus. It’s a closed group to provide confidentiality for those who attend, so normally, I am not present.

But on occasion, I get the chance to play or lead live worship at CR with some friends from our worship ministry at Suncrest, and it’s always a good time. I get to play some music and worship together with some folks at our church who are really passionate and grateful for their relationship with Jesus, because they’ve seen Him offer His saving grace in some of the most dire situations imaginable. It’s a cool experience.

Normally, I just play and hang out for the service, and then I’ll head home. But this week, I decided to stick around, have some food, and sit in on what Celebrate Recovery calls their “Gratitude Night.” Everyone sings some worship songs together, and then they all sit down together and have some food. When folks are finished eating, everyone goes around and shares something that they are grateful for in their life at the moment. It was great to hear some of the responses that people offered up, and I was glad I stuck around.

As I was leaving last night, I was thinking about my experience and I was struck by one thing: the incredible humility of all the people there. At CR, no one was proud or felt any pressure to put a mask on and act like nothing was wrong. A lot of people shared openly about their struggles with some really tough stuff like alcoholism, drug addiction, divorces, loneliness, abuse, and the like.

I’m sure it struck me because it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, but one of the issues God is working on with me is my pride. I have a ton of friendships in my life that are relatively shallow, and if I’m honest, they are shallow because I am afraid to open up and really share the stuff (often ugly stuff) that’s happening in my life and my heart. By not opening up, I’m able to “save face.” I can convince people that I have everything together when I really don’t. The problem is that that’s a form of pride in my life, and that pride separates me from true Biblical community that God wants me (and all of us) to experience.

Tonight as I got a chance to listen in at Celebrate Recovery, I was just overwhelmed by a group of people who are honest and open about their struggles, and who live at a level of humility that is so much greater than mine. Some people told me tonight they were grateful for the opportunity to have some live music as they worshipped together, saying that I really got a chance to minister to them. But I can assure you, I was served in a much more powerful way than the people there tonight. I was shown a true example of humility in action, and what it looks like when broken, fallen, sinful people (aka all of us) come together to confess to each other and team up to follow Jesus. It inspired me to do the same, and to live with the same humility that I saw exhibited by so many of the awesome Celebrate Recovery people I met last night.

What To Do When You’re Top Dog.

I was reading through something recently as part of a devo time that I was doing, and a verse that I have no doubt read hundreds of times took on a whole new meaning for me all because of one little word. Take a look:

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:3-5)

As you can see from above, the word I got really pumped about the other night was “so.” This passage starts off with a declaration of Jesus’ power. Who he was. The Bible says that God put everything under Jesus’ power. Jesus would be returning to God. You’d expect that proclamation to be followed by Jesus’ rights.

Wishes.

Dreams.

But it’s not. It’s followed by the story of one of the most humbling (and humiliating) acts of service that could be performed by a person within the culture of the New Testament.

If you are a follower of Jesus and truly believe He was who He said He was and did what the Bible says that He did, then there is no doubt that in this situation, Jesus was clearly top dog. He was the big guy in the room. If anyone had reason and means to force His will on others, it was Jesus. Yet that’s not what He did.

Jesus used His power as a platform for service.

That’s a really convicting example to me as a Christian leader and I think just to all of us as followers of Jesus in general. Chances are that in one situation or another, we have a position where we have some power and influence. Our culture says that we need to use that to abuse those under us and take more control, more prestige, more money, more everything.

Instead, though, the way of Jesus teaches us that when we have power, when we have the cash, when we have the prestige and the eyes of everyone in the room, that we need to leverage that for service of others and service of the kingdom of God.

That’s just what you do when you’re top dog.