Autumn Trek Pt. 2: The Sabbath Drive

“There is a joy in the journey. There’s a light we can love on the way. There is a wonder and wildness to life, and freedom for those who obey!” (From “Joy In the Journey”, Michael Card)

     I pulled out of the drive at Muddy’s house at 6 A.M. on Friday morning. The sky was still dark. Even as the sun rose, purply mists hung all over the rolling hills as I pushed up the Mohawk trail into Western MA.

    I felt the Spirit pushing me to take the day slow… to see the road…to enjoy the ride. I worried that sight would be socked in by the clouds; But by the time I reached the French King Bridge God had pulled back the veil to feed my soul on His glory.

     One of the lessons I learned more deeply this week is that we humans are made to follow a rhythm. Life is supposed to be a regular pattern of music and rests. Life         

can’t be just sound and fury. Somewhere along the pathway there has to be some stillness, some silence. In fact really good living like really good music is a balance between sound and silence, loud and soft, work and sabbath.

     Now sabbath is a tricky thing. At it’s root it is unplugging, stepping back from the work of your hands and breathing. I’m coming to understand, though, that sabbath is not just about giving ourselves time for  rest and recreation. Sabbath is an absolutely essential part of our work.

    Sometimes labor becomes like a cloud on the mountains, a curtain that covers the forest of our purpose for existence. We get going, start working and before we know it we don’t even remember why we’re doing half the stuff on our plate.  

     Sabbath gives us a chance to pull back the covers so we can see what our work is really producing. By it we are giving the ability to evaluate where we are going, why we are going there, and how effective we’re being on the journey. 

      Joy in the journey depends on being able to see the road. Sabbath gives us the ability to stop and take a look!

Have you given yourself a real break lately?

Irene and the Seven-Fold Hedge

     Let me start by thanking all of you who prayed: for me, my family, and the church here in New England through Hurricane Irene. God was merciful to us! 

    Y’know, I believe that when we pray, our starting place is not requesting but abiding. For Jesus said,  “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. ” John 15:7

    For this reason I seldom ask God for something, until I have what I sense is His mind on the situation. I must first spend time in His presence and get His command for the particular situation that concerns me. Then and only then can I pray in faith believing.

    When I knew Irene was coming up the East Coast I was mindful of the fact that perhaps our turn had come to experience the wrath of God. I don’t mean to sound bleak but I do believe our nation, as disobedient as it has been, is beginning to experience God’s judgment.  Massachusetts certainly has no ground to stand on to say we should be exempt from what the rest of the country is experiencing. So as the storm approached I knew we could really be in for it.

     I began by asking God what He wanted for me out of this situation. Was He saying this was it? Was He saying to me “Head for the hills?”

     I didn’t get the sense that this was going to bring about destruction for me or my household. I felt the Spirit telling me to pray around the borders of my house seven times in the Spirit, a seven-fold hedge. On Friday I did just that. I started by the blackberry hedge and began to sing around my mother’s property in tongues. The first time around I sensed I was praying for the trees to stand. The second, I was praying for the ground to drink deeply of the rising waters. I prayed over a dead tree that if it fell it would fall straight down and not come near the house. I prayed that no flood would come to destroy. I asked that the gardens would be spared. I prayed over the transformer at the corner of our property. I prayed a shield of Holy Ghost protection over the walls of the house and the vehicles. I asked God to use the storm to cleanse the land of pestilence. I asked God to prosper us. On Saturday a group of us prayed over the church.

      Early Sunday morning the storm arrived. The rains fell thick and heavy as I walked the dogs at 6 A.M.. We were soaked to the skin in under a minute. The vernal brook that wraps around our house quickly swelled . Debris washed down from the upper pond. By 7 A.M. the brook had swollen to the top of its banks.  By 8 it had risen out of its borders and had taken command of the woods and back yard. It poured over the culvert below our house and into the street flooding our basement and those of our neighbors around the corner. By 9 we had eight inches of water in our cellar and could swim in our backyard. My mother, my sister and I headed to the cellar and began to bail in order to keep the furnace from being submerged. We bailed for a while and then called the town barn to ask them to come clean the culvert.

       A  beech tree loosened by the swelling waters fell over directly between the apple and plum-tree and didn’t break either! 

    The storm winds blew through the night and knocked over one more tree by the brook. The waters receded quickly once the town came and cleared the debris out of the culvert.

    As I watched the news this morning, I realized how blessed we truly were here in Winchendon. God chose to spare us and answer our prayers. Not one of our fruit trees was damaged. The waters are gone and left no sign of the flood.  We now have wood down for next winter and all we have to do is cut it up! And my mother has decided after a decade of haggling with her it is time to get a sump pump! As I see the footage of New York, New Jersey, and Carolina I realize His answer to me when I sought Him could have been far different. The pathway of protection was mine to walk in this instance. For that I am grateful. But I am also mindful that should my pathway have been different God would still have been with me and He would still have provided even if it had been through loss.

You Choose the View Pt.5

“How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. ” James 4:14 NLT

      At some point we all tumble to the truth that Keith Ward Wrote about in his famous hymn, “The Solid Rock”,

      “On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand.”

      Nothing in this life, except Jesus, is exempt from change…NOTHING and NO ONE!  I used to think differently. I used to believe that there were some things some relationships which would remain unchanged forever. I was wrong.

      I think change is most painful when it affects our intimacies. We were made for community and fellowship, but that created purpose is hard to achieve when all around us the people we know and love are going through life-change just like we are. Circumstance takes the ability to control our relationships out of our hands. The happenings of life take our connections and turn them into fluid things that run in and out of existence like rushing waterfalls: children grow up and move away, jobs change, friends get busy, people die, passions cool,divorce breaks up, babies are born, relationships blossom, new co-workers edge their way into our lives, people marry and the process starts all over!

      So what do we do? Give up on relationship? Hide in our closet for the rest of our mortal lives? Well that’s a choice…one I sometimes make; But it’s not the best choice; It’s not the God choice!

     The way to live successfully in a world where everything and everyone can change by tomorrow morning is not to hide; It is to find solid ground in a relationship with Jesus and address the rest of your changing relationships from that stand point. So many of us have pinned our hope, our joy and our faithfulness on a fallible person rather than on Jesus. Unfortunately, when that person falters in the process of their own changes we are blown to psychological bits. I can promise you no man woman or child will ever be able to meet all your personal needs. At some point people are going to come up short and turn into the “sinking sand” that Keith Ward talked about.

       This isn’t a blog about ending relationships; It’s a blog about keeping your relationships in proper perspective: Trust Jesus and love people! 

Maybe just maybe that is the point of some change you are going through right now. Maybe Jesus wants you to make Him the solid rock so that you can love someone else through their difficulty!

What do you think?

You Choose the View Pt. 4

     Liza Minnelli once said “Man plans and God laughs.”

     It feels that way sometimes doesn’t it? We set our plans in order. We write down our vision statements, set our long-term and short-term goals, only to have them seemingly slip through our fingertips because of some unforeseen life-change.

      It’s in those moments we can say with Solomon, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. ” Prov. 16:9

     So often those steps are not anything like what we planned. Truth be told, as much as we want to say, “It’s always better than we planned!”, in the moment it sure doesn’t seem that way to us!

     Change generally brings with it a reordering of our goals. In the midst of change some goals remain untouched; some are altered  in time-frame, scope, or purpose; And some just evaporate altogether like a brook in August.

     When life change comes our way we are forced to see that life is not really about the finish line. It’s about the journey. We make a mistake when we make faith about “gettin’ to Heaven” or about “gettin’ to” anything. You see, Christianity does not come with an end in mind; It’s supposed to be an unending journey with Jesus; So it is the pathway that matters most. When we focus on the moment by moment walking, the temporal finish lines promise to take care of themselves.

“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. The LORD works out everything for his own ends–even the wicked for a day of disaster.” Proverbs 16:4,5 NIV

      So maybe you’re in the midst of a goal-destroying life change just now. Hold on, I know with your limited vision you cannot see how it’s all going to work out. With what you understand, I know it’s almost impossible to see how this could possibly be right. Give God time to reorder your goals. Trust Him that the goals which should remain will. Trust Him to show you what goals need to be altered. Trust Him to take away the goals that never should have been yours in the first place. Trust Him to make it all right!

     

You Choose the View Pt. 3

     What did the deep black waters see

      Before they found me?

       Were they sent?

       Did they decide to melt

       From some mountainside

       To come tumbling down into my life?

       Am I just the lucky one?

       Maybe it’s all three.

     

       What did the deep black waters see

       Which made them come to me? 

     Did they flow

     To the call of God above?

     Did they choose to help my cause?

     Will they wash away the black

     Deep in me?

     Every change gives us an opportunity to check what’s going on inside. With God the internal trumps the external every time. God’s more interested in our holiness than He is our comfort. In fact, He will often arrange a little discomfort to bring out the attitudes which really dwell inside us…the ones we try so hard to deny until they pop out in some moment of stress and become undeniable.

     Our circumstances are not our main problem. How we respond on the inside to our circumstances, that is the primary issue at hand.

    In your current set of life-changes ask yourself:

 

1. Is my attitude through this change pleasing to God?
2. Do I blame my attitude on my life? If so that has to change. You not your circumstances should control your attitude.
3. What is the real reason I feel the way I do? Most circumstances only bring an already existing attitude to light; Where did yours start?
4. What are some steps I could take to change my attitude even before I change my circumstances?

Here’s to change!

You Choose the View Pt. 2

“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten…” Joel 2:25 KJV  

 Life seldom asks our advice; It just sort of decides what’s next for us. Some things are beyond our control. We don’t begin them and we will not be the ones to make them stop. We can only decide how we will respond as we are forced to take the ride.

     What is it you’re facing right now? a deadly diagnosis, the death of a loved one, divorce, the empty nest, a chronic illness, financial ruin, job promotion, recovery after surgery, a child’s return home, a new marriage, a new course of treatment: All change can be daunting because it requires something of us. So often we wish the change away. We forget that God would use it to hone who we are. We don’t control life’s twists and turns, but we do control our responses to them. Our responses determine what we become: Godly responses reinvent us into the image of God; Ungodly responses reinvent us into something less than we were to begin with. Either way we are reinvented.

      God’s point in change is to restore what has been taken from us by the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have to let Him in if that restoration is to begin.

     One area He would right and restore within us is our ability to commit. Every change is an opportunity for us to examine our commitments. 

     I’ve taken many opportunities in this blog to talk about the crazy, complicated lives we Americans live. God did not invent or intend the 24/7 lifestyle; That was all us.

    At the root of this life of complicated rush is a problem with commitment. Somewhere along the line someone told us we could do anything if we were just committed enough. That’s a lie. God can do anything. You can successfully do what God has made you to do. The problem is that some of us have confused ourselves with God. We’ve begun to think that we have an infinite source of commitment; So we just keep committing to more and more, complicating our lives until we are half mad with weariness.

     Sometimes change is God trying to make us realize we need to detach from some of our commitments so that we can become what He really intended for us. Such change is never welcomed at first. It requires us to admit that we can’t do it all. We have to tumble to the fact we aren’t God!

    If you are in a major life-change now why don’t you take some time and reevaluate your commitments to see if they are in line with what the King wants. Ask yourself:

1. Am I over-committed in any area of my life?

2. Is there something I am doing which I was not called to be committed to?

3. Are my current commitments keeping me from something else God really wants me to be doing?

Here’s to letting the Lord restore us in the area of our commitments! May you find the path of peace!

You Choose the View

         Last Sunday I pulled a muscle while leading worship. Remember how I said my life was ironic? I couldn’t pull a bicep while playing baseball or by saving a baby from the jaws of a vicious dog….Ohhh nooo! I had to pull a neck muscle while hitting a high f! I’m pretty sure no one is going to give me a medal of valor for that one…Hah!

     Anyway, this series of posts has been dogging me for about two weeks and I haven’t known how to start it. I guess this is as good a beginning to my story as any.

     My head hasn’t let me forget my sissy wound since that service. On Tuesday after two Tylenol and an 800 milligram Motrin failed to calm my complaining grey matter I decided it was time to try taking a nap.

     As I laid my aching head on the pillow in my room a heavy rain began to fall outside my window.

     God asked, “What do you see?”

     “Rain.” I said.

     “You choose the view.” He continued.

      As I look at this picture, I am amazed that I did not see the trees that sloped so gracefully skyward or the elegant curve of the red-tiled roof outside my daughter’s window. I saw only the rain, the one thing my camera didn’t really pick up as I look at it now.

     Life-change is sort of like rain. It draws our attention. It would have us focus all our energy on itself to the extent that we lose our view of everything else that is going on in the background. If we focus on it too much life-change can bring us down. 

     Change itself is always unsettling because it steals our rhythm. It makes us feel uncertain and afraid of what lies ahead. Yet God is always working behind the change. If we can just look through the heavy mists we will see a world of blessing that is being washed and nourished by the very thing that is making us so nervous.

    Changing your view doesn’t make change less difficult. It just helps you to see that the difficulty has a purpose…a reason. It’s not all for nothing! God has a plan.

    In the next few days we will be talking about how change effects attitude, commitment, goals, relationship, and health. It’s not set in stone. Remember you choose the view!

 

 

1,000!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrVmW-pWdv4

     So I know today the next installment of “Pastor Wrinkle’s Chapter Charts” is due. But I just had to take a post to celebrate breaking the 1,000 comment barrier.

     When I started “Reinventing the We’ll” I was a much different person. I hardly recognize the guy writing this blog today. So much has changed. Yet I can honestly say, I have learned that no change (even a negative change) spells the end for a follower of Christ. For those of us who walk the way of immortality each situation of reinvention becomes a new beginning drawing us closer to that ultimate beginning!

    Thank you to all of you who have been so kind with your thoughts and words over these last two years. I remind you, “When God is in it, there are no limits. When God is in it, it’s not over!”

JE

Raising the Temperature Pt. 3

      So the question has been raised, “How do I raise my spiritual temperature?”

     The answer is, “By relating to God.” 

    Now that seems relatively easy but God is not some slob off the street I can just walk up to. Relationship with Him is based on the fact that He is God and I am not His equal. Relationship with Him is based on the premise that I love Him by giving Him everything: heart, soul, mind and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). That means I turn over all my decisions to him. All my emotions are put under His control. All my understanding is sold out to Him. If He thinks a certain way about a certain thing then I do too even if I disagree. It doesn’t matter what I think; it’s what He thinks that counts. Finally all my life force is turned over to Him. I will do what He says. That’s called obedience and it is the primary way I relate to God. Lots of obedience equals temperatures rising through the roof. Little obedience equals temperatures like Alaska in January. Half and Half obedience means I am  about the temperature of potato salad that’s been left out for eight hours in the hot sun. 

      I hear a lot of people say things like “Well I asked Jesus to forgive my sins. But I don’t go to church because I have a very busy life.” 

      I hear people say “I asked Jesus to come into my heart, but I just don’t like worship, reading the Bible or praying I guess that’s for other people.” 

      I have heard “ Jesus is my Lord but we’re in the New Testament God doesn’t require me to tithe anymore.” or “I will give to missions when we stop giving to all those people over seas. My money is staying in America.” 

     Some say “I ask Jesus to forgive me everyday. I know my lifestyle is wrong, but God just has to accept me the way I am because I can’t change.”  

     These statements all stem from a heart of disobedience. The Bible commands us to join ourselves with the body of Christ. We are commanded to study, pray and worship. We are ordered to give even sacrificially. Finally we are told we have no choice but to declare war on sin in our own lives even if we think we were born that way.

      Now I just lost some of you because you have now said “That’s impossible and I guess I will never raise my spiritual temperature.”

      Please give me another moment or two and let me win you back. Yes obedience is a requirement to raising the spiritual temperature and having relationship with God. But God also knew it would not be possible for us to do it ourselves. THAT IS WHY HE SENT JESUS TO DIE AND RISE FROM THE DEAD FOR US. 

      Jesus did not just die to forgive your sins. He rose from the dead so that you could be free of them; So that you could obey and have a relationship with God that would raise your spiritual temperature. But you have to decide to let Him do it. You have to give him control and let Him begin to help you defeat sin. And this is how He does it.

“The LORD your God will drive those nations out ahead of you little by little. You will not clear them away all at once, otherwise the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you.” Deut. 7:22 NLT

     Jesus is not asking you to win the battle today. He’s asking you to start it. You start. He’ll finish!

Raising the Temperature Pt. 2

     As you go through this study you might want to open your Bible to Deuteronomy 6 and 7 and give it a quick read through as well. We’re going to be talking about obedience for the next couple of blogs; It’s pretty important to the life of faith.

    Moses uses the word “obey”10 times in Deuteronomy 6 and 7 and several of those uses link obedience with loving God and Him loving us in return. So what’s that’s got to do with raising the spiritual temperature of the church? Let’s find out:

    excerpted from sermon notes 8-1-11

     We are talking about raising the temperature of the church today. I have to tell you, that is a thing sorely needed. A spirit of lukewarmness is descending, trying to put out the church’s fire. We must not let it! Further we do not have to let it! We do have a choice because the Bible declares, “Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.”  I John 4:4

      Satan doesn’t have any more power to make us lukewarm than he has power to knock God off the throne of Heaven. The difference between us and God is that when Satan came and tried to kick God off the throne, God fought and won. He used His power.

     Too many times when Satan comes and tries to cool down the fires of the Holy Spirit in us, we sit down and say “Cool down? No problem. Just don’t hurt me.” We don’t rise up with the power of God inside us and fight. 

     It’s time to raise the temperature of the church and we have a say in that brothers and sisters! 

     I want to tell you how to raise the temperature. But first I think it’s important that we look at some things that will not raise the temperature:

 More People in attendance at church will not raise the temperature. How do I know that? Well because a lot of people attend Lady Gaga concerts. She’s attracting more and more people every week but it doesn’t matter how many people go to her concerts even as repeats the spiritual climate of those concerts is still going to be ice. Because Holy Spirit is not invited there!

More money will not raise the temperature of the church. Money is not bad. It’s a tool. As such it has no more spiritual temperature than a hammer and we would never think of saying “More hammers will make the church more on fire for Jesus.” That would be ridiculous. 

Greater fame or approval in the world system will not raise the spiritual temperature of the church. In fact raising the temperature of the church usually makes approval of the world system go away. You don’t believe me? Let’s talk to the fastest growing church in the world in China. Declaring yourself a Christian doesn’t gain you approval there…. It could get you sent to jail though.

  Benchmark success will not raise the spiritual temperature of the church. This is a big trap for us. This is the mind-set that says “Set your goals for attendance and reach for them. Raise up excellent programs and the spiritual temperature will rise”. 

      I can tell you right now that won’t work. Setting and meeting goals will make us successful and if we get good enough at it we might become as successful a church as McDonald’s is a restraunt. Maybe we’ll even be able to hang out a sign that says  “1.000.000.000 served communion” but bench mark success will not raise the temperature of the church.   

     Don’t get me wrong more people, more money, fame and approval, success all nice things but they don’t raise spiritual temperature. They are by products of a rising spiritual temperature! They are like the carbon emissions from the tail pipe of your car. When the engine is hot the fumes pour out. But too often the church has been guilty of confusing spiritual temperature with the fumes. 

     What raises the spiritual temperature of the church then? It’s the RELATIONSHIP THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH HAVE WITH THEIR GOD!

     The problem today is not with our programs, our money, our popularity, or our cultural relevance. What kills the temperature of the church is our individual intimacy with God. The church goes into revival when its people live in revival by getting into relationship with God! Until that happens the church can get grants, build buildings, and offer programs and services but the temperature will only be lukewarm. It will remain so until the people stop going to church and start going to Jesus!

Now you tell me what do you think we need to do to grow in intimacy with our God?