Control

"And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you."

- 1 Samuel 24:12

This verse is imbedded within a dialogue between David and Saul, the king of Israel at the time. In the chapters preceding this, there was quite a bit of drama taking place between these two men. Even though he was king, Saul had been jealous of David because the people saw him as a more able bodied leader than Saul. So, Saul set out to kill David. Nice guy, huh?

It would have been very easy for David to retaliate, but he doesn't. He gives it over to God. He basically says, "Saul, your life and the decisions you've made are not in my hands. They're in God's. Let Him deal with it."

I think it's very easy for us to take matters into our own hands...to play the role of God in our life. I'm sure David was tempted to do that. I've been tempted to do that. I'm sure you have as well.  Deep down, to some degree, we're all fighting for control of our life.

The myth that is often times put out there is that if WE gain more control of our life, we'll have freedom, joy, happiness...all of the things we're striving for.  Our culture promises these things. I think of Verizon's latest ad campaign: "Rule the Air" or Burger King's "Have it Your Way". Now, I don't have huge issues with cell phones or fast food, but it does point to the fact hat in our culture we have this desire to control aspects of our life...we want to rule and have it our way much of the time.

The truth of the matter is that this mentality doesn't lead to what we're striving for...the more control we have over our life the more we become stuck in patterns, routines and habits that hold us back from living life to the fullest.




I mean, c'mon...does this look like the face of someone who's truly happy and fulfilled?

I didn't think so either. :)

But let me ask this. What would it look like to give up control? What would it look like to entrust all of the details of our existence to someone who's bigger than our existence? David did it, and it paid off. Because David said, "It's in God's hands" Saul came to the realization of what he had done. He realized how poorly he had treated David, and how well David had treated him.

If we want to see change in our life, maybe we need to start by giving up control of it.

Snow

DISCLAIMER: This is a late blog post, so forgive my lack of grammatical cohesiveness in the following paragraphs...I just gotta get this stuff out! :)

I was driving on the thruway earlier this week, and it happened to be during an incredibly snowy expedition as I was returning to my apartment in Fillmore. What really got under my skin was that the roads were very poorly plowed causing my car to slide, skid and fish tail every which way along the road. As I was making every possible attempt not to let my car drive head on into a snow bank, a thought popped into my head. The thought was this: "At this moment I do not like snowplows at all!" You see, I expected the snowplows to do their jobs when the snow hit the streets...and when my immediate need of having a plowed street so that my car wouldn't skid and fishtail everywhere wasn't met, I became a little miffed because the plows were not out there doing what I expected them to be doing in that moment.

All I can say is a deep truth hit me as I was driving that I hadn't realized before. We tend to become bitter and resentful towards anyone/anything that isn't meeting our immediate needs in a particular moment in our life. Obviously a few heated words directed towards a snow plow isn't the best example. But I think the concept rings true. How often do we have deep immediate needs that we're expecting to be met by someone, whether it's a friend, family member, boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife? And if that need isn't being met by that particular individual, how do we chose to respond? Will we chose bitterness/anger and close ourselves off? Or will we seek reconciliation/forgiveness among those people we know have been put on this earth by God to meet our deepest most heartfelt needs?  

You see, I think flip side is also true...we have been placed on this earth to meet the immediate needs of people. Do we ever wonder if our choices to become bitter, angry and closed off towards people prevents us from meeting someone else's need in particular moment, and consequently preventing us from having ours met?

I think Jesus words of loving your neighbor as yourself most definitely rings true in moments like this. If we expect others to treat us a certain way...to meet an immediate need of ours, we should expect the same of ourselves when responding to others.

Love Wins Trailer...initial thoughts

Not very often do you get branded a heretic for something you wrote BEFORE it even hits the bookshelf. For this, I commend pastor/evangelist Rob Bell. Much controversy has been generated over Bell's upcoming release, "Love Wins" which is slated for a March 29th release. Countless blogs, video posts and tweets have been spun into the world wide web, all of which condemn, praise, or remain in the "middle of the road" on what little we know of Bell's latest work. I thought I would join the bandwagon and put in my two cents.

Anyone familiar with Bell's literature, mega-sermons and NOOMA videos knows that this man is no stranger to controversy. In his upcoming release, Bell tackles one of the most pervasive and controversial topics in not only Christianity, but religion as a whole: what happens after we die?

Let me be honest in saying that I really look forward to reading this book. I have been a fan of Bell's work ever since I was first exposed to it in youth group roughly 10 years ago. He is an intelligent, charismatic and entertaining individual, and the above trailer highlights this, and the topic of the book very well.

At the beginning of this video Bell shares a story of a note attached to an art piece containing a Ghandi quote. This note makes the assertion that Ghandi is in hell. Bell's response was simply, "Really? Someone knows this for sure, and felt the need to share it with everyone else?" To me, Bell is simply raising questions that others in Christian leadership have simply been too afraid to ask: What is the central message of Jesus' gospel? What do we believe about heaven & hell? How does this affect how I see God? If we take our faith seriously, we can and must ask these questions without being afraid of what we'll find. After all, don't we serve a God who's big enough for those types of questions? Or is God so insecure that He can't handle something like that?

I suppose I should take this time to mention that I do, in fact, believe in the existence of hell...but not as some have previously understood it. I diverge in the traditional sense in that I don't claim to know what it looks like...I've never been there, nor do I plan to! What I do believe is that eternal life doesn't start after we croak. It starts right here, right now. So, we have the opportunity each and every moment of every day to either help bring heaven or hell to earth, to our current existence. And how we consciously choose to live out this life day to day is going to have profound implications for what our lives look like for the rest of eternity. I truly wish I could say hell doesn't exist, but the eternal, resting truth that what we chose to believe, do, say, and how we treat others simply do have consequences. My only reservation in Bell's book is that he may try to overstep that truth.

With that said, I think "Love Wins" will be thought provoking, informative, inspiring and yes, a little controversial. But I refuse to make any pointed judgments/arguments without having read it. To me, it is simply in poor taste and un-Christ-like.

Surround

People play a big role in how you and I grow in our faith. Plain and simple. I want to share two scriptures with you that I think illustrate this best.

“He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”

-          Proverbs 13:20

When I hear this Proverb my mind immediately jumps to a poster I saw pretty regularly in the halls of my school when I was in grade school. This poster had several colored pencils neatly lined up one next to the other. All of these pencils were sharpened to the point, except for the pencil in the middle. The pencil in the middle was dull. And up above the picture it said, “Surround yourself with who you want to be.”

This proverb in a lot of ways says the exact same thing: Surround yourself with who you want to be. And when I look at this scripture honestly and truthfully, I’m forced to take a step back and ask myself, “what kind of person do I want to be?  Who do I want to be like? Who do I surround myself with...and do I want to be like that?"

Positive relationships can do amazing incredible things for our walk with God, but the flip side is true as well. 

“Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” – 1 Corinthians 15:33

There are some "grey" areas that I believe are open for discussion for some things in faith, but when it comes to relationships, in my opinion, there's no middle ground. The relationships you and I are currently in at this moment are either growing our faith, or they are choking it. They either go one way or the other. There’s no middle ground…either their helping or hindering our walk with our creator.

So who are the people/persons who have had a positive impact on your life? What was it that made this person influential? What kind of influence have you had on others?

The+Destitution+of+Service

Jesus Christ actually "out-socialized the socialists" (Matthew 23:11). Oswald Chambers hit the nail right on the head when it comes to the role of the Christian church in relation to who Jesus is. This is a great read. Check it out!

The+Destitution+of+Service

Engine

The question of motivation has to pop up into our minds from time to time, no matter where our allegiance lies. Whether we claim Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or if we don't subscribe to any religious belief system at all, the question of why we believe what we believe, why we value what we value has to be addressed.

As a Christian pastor, I claim to follow Christ in His life, death and resurrection, and I make every effort to live that out in word and deed...but what is the prime motivator for why I've chosen to follow Him? If I'm going to live life to the fullest I have to ask that question...otherwise I start to follow Christ with a personal agenda.

And I would pose the same question to anyone who cares to read this. Why do you believe what you believe? What pushes that? What is the driving force, the engine that fuels your faith?

When our beliefs are marked with an agenda, it changes things doesn't it? When we believe just because it's convenient for us, or just because our parents believe it, or because we're just ticked off and angry at something or someone is that a worthy engine to fuel our faith? Will that last?

For the record, let me clarify that this isn't a sermon. This is merely me typing out loud. Whoever cares to read this, I'd encourage you to entertain this question in your mind: what do I really have faith in? (Because we ALL have faith in something) and what fuels that faith? What motivates that belief?

Take a few minutes to ponder these questions. I'd love to get some feedback.

Grace & Peace,
Mike