Category Archives: Grace

He Runs to Us

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walkingIt’s funny – in reading your comments, I’ve seen many of you looking forward to this part of Luke 15 as much as I. We know it by heart. Reaching verse 20 is like arriving at your favorite line in The Empire Strikes Back or hitting that favorite song in your old Newsboys album. But better. Chills of delight. (And I’m talking the Newsboys good ol’ days – Entertaining Angels at the very latest.)

(While I’m at it, God, can’t we have just one more DC Talk album? Pretty please? Asked another voice in the throng, never to be satisfied…sigh…)

ANYWAY…

Part 1: Be Careful What You Ask For

Part 2: Sex Isn’t Making Anyone Happy

Part 3: All The Wrong Reasons?

Part 5: Goodies and Godliness

“So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

Oh.

Oh.

Tears tonight.

I need this.

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Not By Works: The Calling Card of Christ

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cardI had a Muslim housemate a few years ago, a transfer student from (if I recall) Saudi Arabia. I got to sit down with him a couple times and hear about his life. He was discombobulated, a devout follower of Islam living in a Christian area. Hypercharged homesickness. I felt for him.

But that was nothing next to what I felt after hearing about his faith.

This guy had no idea whether his religion was “breaking through”. He practiced, as best he could, the Five Pillars of Islam and their attending rituals – a dizzying mass of minutiae including five daily prayers at proper times, even kneeling in a specific manner. Charity work. Fasting. He hadn’t yet made a Mecca pilgrimage, though he hoped to. But he admitted that all these observances were doing nothing to reassure him that God accepted his work. He was “flying blind”, as the saying goes.

I couldn’t help but think, “that’s an awful way to live.”

Then I read something today from a Catholic…: “If I take off my scapular prior to surgery and die on the operating table, will I still go to Heaven?” A scapular is a ceremonial apron that Catholics believe will grant you eternal life if worn at one’s death. I was like…good gravy! The sheer paranoia if such a talisman carried that kind of weight. Forget it in the morning and forget about heaven! I’m bad enough at remembering to pick the right shoes for the day.

You’re probably thinking, I’m glad we Christians don’t go there.

If only.

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Forgive Some Liberals Today

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forgiveForgive some liberals today.

It might seem a little facetious to treat holding different political opinions as something that needs forgiving. But we can be bitter even towards someone who has done us no objective wrong, like a manager who turned you down for a much-needed job.

So I will say…forgive some liberals today.

Is that hard to hear?

It’s probably safe to say that liberals – the media, whiny celebrities, Portland protestors, entitled college students and their PC safe-space police, and the outgoing president you never really prayed for – are amongst the closest thing to real enemies we have in this country. At least, that is how they exist in our minds. Isn’t it? Forgiving them feels like sponsoring their mindset, yielding ground, or “letting them get away with something”. It feels, for lack of a better word, a little dangerous.

It isn’t.

And it’s a good thing, because Jesus doesn’t give us any exception clauses to the command to forgive. For he forgave us. There are a lot of decent people like you on the other side of the aisle who are disappointed this week. We’re supposed to be salt, not salt in the wound. Who’s “right” doesn’t matter. Godliness matters. (And it might even have power to win them over to our cause.)

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If God Could Change Saul, He Can Change Donald Trump

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lightCongratulations, Mr. President-Elect. The odds have proven to be in your favor after all.

You all know that a few weeks ago I posted about my personal reluctance to vote for Donald Trump. I laid out my convictions as best I could; I made clear that we each had to do what we each thought was right. Well, we did, and here we are. (How I voted will remain private to me.) Yet I think I am still safe in saying that some of us retain concerns over Trump’s character. There remain unanswered questions.

So now our question is how a Christian responds to his election in the midst of this fog.

Well, we show respect befitting the office. Hence the formality to open my post. God told us to honor governments and officials, and if I’m going to talk of character, I have to follow God’s commandments about mine. We also remember that God is the only one who really knows where all this is going; he’s the one holding each man’s destiny. It was that thought that led me to think of the Apostle Paul. It was a reminder of HIS life that broke open my fog and revealed a staggering vista of the ocean of God’s grace, compelling me to break an earlier no-more-Trump-on-this-blog promise and write this post.

If God can change Saul, he can change Donald Trump.

This is serious business, folks.

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A Contentment Story that Won’t Stay in Vegas

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You know the saying “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?”

Not this time. You’re hearing it.

Don’t worry, it’s not tawdry.

A couple years ago, I was acting as chaperone for a senior trip. My students had chosen Las Vegas for the destination, and despite their penchant for mischief, the week had gone well (i.e. nobody arrested or kicked out of the hotel). Perhaps it was just the desert heat sucking all the energy out of them; after all, they were northern kids. But whatever. They’d had fun, seen things they’d never seen before (water park, amusement park, strip, restaurants, taxi rides), and there we were at the Vegas airport ready to fly home. My trip leader’s only regret was that she hadn’t been able to see the “Old Strip”; apparently there was a former Strip before the current one we’ve all heard of.

But a problem struck. One of our students was not being allowed past airport security. Vegas TSA was apparently deciding that his ID wasn’t sufficient – even though Montana’s TSA had found no problem with it.

So one of our students was stuck in Vegas.

And since the student was male, and I was the only male chaperone on the trip, guess who had to stay with him?

This guy.

The trip leader handed me a benjamin and an apologetic grin. I had to escort an antsy, somewhat reckless 18-year-old back home, across the country, by bus. And to make things better, it was 7 in the morning and the next Greyhound north to Salt Lake City didn’t leave until 10:15pm.

Did I mention that I was already missing the wedding of two good friends – including a former student I’d mentored for four years – to go on this trip?

Sigh.

So the student and I grabbed a taxi to the city Greyhound station, plunked our butts firmly down in some highly uncomfortable seats, and settled in to wait. For 14 hours.

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Unbeliever – Is There Anything You Need Prayer For?

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pexels-photoI just spent a work shift hearing about people’s lives – tossed and spun and beaten like the pizzas.

Many of my coworkers do not believe in Jesus. Yet their stories have me compassionate. Have me wanting to ask anyone within reach – including unbelievers – is there anything in your life for which you’d like some prayer?

Most likely you’ve got something. Some current crisis, some ancient ache, where you’d be grateful for some help. (It’s a fair guess – we’ve all got something.)

I want an opportunity to lift that ache up to God for you. That’s it. No agenda.

Well, alright. I have an agenda. I want to demonstrate that God cares about your life.

I can almost see your eyes narrow in suspicion.

There’s some catch, right? Do I have to agree to repentance or church attendance? All for the God who spews demands and judgments, breeds wars and hatred and angry people, through a book he expects me to trust on faith?

Let me tell you a Jesus story.

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Jesus in the Bleachers: What I Learned About Grace from a Girls’ Basketball Game

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Basketball_ball385428_9836

Girls’ basketball games can be tough to watch.

A few years ago, the school at which I was serving experienced a tough playoff loss. Our girls had pretty much cleaned up in their first game, but sloppy play caught up to them in the second. The star player fouled out by the third quarter; two others would follow. You could tell the moment the downward spiral started: they started playing panicky, their shots becoming wild, turning the ball over, committing more fouls. By the fourth quarter, we were putting in eighth graders.

It was a 73-34 loss and the end of our tournament hopes. There were a lot of tears on our bench, and exhausted athletes are tough to console. I couldn’t do much but watch.

But that wasn’t what bugged me the most. What really got to me was the other teachers who left the stands and went home before the fourth quarter even started.

The reason wasn’t our girls’ performance; it was our crowd. Even by rural standards, some of our school’s traveling fans were absolutely horrid the entire game. They booed the refs, mocked them openly, questioned every single call, when clearly our girls weren’t doing themselves any favors.

Later, one of the teachers told me, “I left because I didn’t want to be seen as part of that crowd.”

I was reminded of the previous season when teachers made a point of skipping our boys’ games entirely over their poor play – ugly technical fouls, constant unsportsmanlike conduct. The teachers were trying to send the same message: “Right now I’m embarrassed to be associated with this school.”

But that night as our girls’ season faded, I stayed in the bleachers.

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We Have Some Enemies to Pray For, Christians

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Let our prayers for their salvation rise even if the bombs must fall.I stared numbly at my laptop this morning, watching reports of terrorist attacks in Paris Orlando fill the screen

Immediately the chatter began. Discussion of whether our nation’s leadership is doing enough, whether these acts truly represent Islam, how to respond going forward…all those arguments that you either want to flee or are all too eager to join.

Instead, I took refuge in praying for the families of the victims.

But later, I logged on to my Facebook account, hours after the tragedies…and was hit with an entirely new wave of grief.

At pictures.

Pictures of American military equipment assembled in rows with captions like “ISIS is doomed”…cartoons of American power symbols making their way overseas…snapshots of U.S. troops offering ominous proclamations to the Islamic State. The grim ill will echoing from the post-9/11 era, the hyper-patriotism that seems to go so naturally hand-in-hand with American Christianity.

Perhaps I have changed over the years, for I found myself aghast.

And struggling to reconcile it to the words of Jesus:

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