Tag Archives: Balance

When Did the Right Way become the Old Way?

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This is what the lord says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls. But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’ I posted watchmen over you who said, ‘Listen for the sound of the alarm.’                                          Jeremiah the Prophet just before Jerusalem fell

I am an early adopter. I love new stuff and even if I can’t afford it, I want it and admire it from arm’s length. At the same time, I have this unexplained affection for the person who uses a flip phone. And if I stumbled across someone with a phone bag I would think, “how cool is that! I wish I’d saved mine!”

New, improved, next, unveiled, upcoming, and words of this ilk draw me in. But so do phrases like, that works, it’s good, and always right. Just because new is attached to it, doesn’t make it better than right or good.

Jeremiah addressed this when he called the Judahites to follow the old way, the right way. They had chosen a new god and a new morality, and it was me-centered. And the consequences were at the gate.

Every day, I am at a crossroads. I can go “me,” or I can go “God.” I can listen to the lure of the Garden (God won’t mind if you want His spot on the throne) or I can honor the call to decrease while Jesus increases in His expression through my life. I can do what shouts “look at me” (and my life, my way, my ministry, my call); or I can be one of the invisible saints that selflessly impacts today and that one day shouts “Yeah, God” to the field of saints seeking to make Jesus Lord.

If I choose poorly, I trust that the alarm will sound and wake me up.

Alert in Christ,

Rick

Day One – Mathematician and Faith

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Most people don’t place mathematics with the Creative Arts – mainly because of traumatic algebra tests or unmemorized theorems. But the classical studies planted arithmetic squarely in the midst of seven primary liberal arts. Medieval philosophers so valued numbers that they declared “arithmetic to be pure numbers, geometry to be numbers in space, music to be numbers in time, and astronomy to be numbers in space and time.”

Boethius, a Roman during the last throes of the Empire, popularized math as a coveted discipline through his writing while waiting on death row as a political prisoner in the 6th Century. Though all he had to work with was the cumbersome Latin letter/numbers, he showed the West the value of studying arithmetic for it’s on value. Math became more than a tool for counting things; it became an art that influenced all the other disciplines.

Math and Church don’t mix well. Numbers equal counting, and counting (nickels and noses, especially) gets in the way of real Christianity. Christ-followers don’t think of faith in terms of numbers. but Jesus certainly did. Some of his best promises were math equations.

Read Mark 4:8-9. He promises that, if we keep our soil (Jesus says this represents us and the texture of our lives) supple and yielding to His Word, it will multiply in our lives and into the lives of others around us. It’s math.

Now, read the whole story (from verses 1-9). My ears hear what I shouldn’t do – no rocks, no weeds, no shallowness. I get the shouldn’t’s.  In math terms, we should add soil where we are shallow, subtract the weeds that distract us, and divide the rocks from our good soil.

But the promise is multiplication. Every truth I let sink through the crusty surface impacts my life in Kingdom benefits thirty or more times.

Out of the Comfort Zone:

1)Plan a game night with study – one with math involved like dominoes or Uno. Discuss the questions below during the game.

2)What truth from this chapter is God trying to get you to trust in?

3)Where in your life will you begin to apply this truth right away?

4)Who will your faithfulness impact?

And let God bring math back to your faith.

Argos logos

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The Stoics millenia ago invented a maxim to justify inaction, called “argos logos,” or “the lazy argument.” If it’s going to happen, there’s no reason to act against it, is the basic premise. It’s fated. Let it be. Que sera sera.

If that’s the case, why fight feelings or stand against temptation? Why repent? Why bother with choosing godliness over… well, all those other things we could choose, want to choose, and would if no one is looking.

Paul said to the Roman Christians, “Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” The sub-text to his plea is, “Don’t give up! Pursuing God and the life and adventure He offers is worth it! Turn to him and choose life!”

The alternative is to drift toward the rocks of self-centeredness and sin, or it’s dangerous opposite, self-righteousness and judgmentalism. The wreckage of relationships and soul-emptiness are in either choice’s wake.

Rome’s Christ-followers felt the tension, and from Paul’s words, gave in to “argos logos.” And I know the same tug and say to the soul drifting toward rocks, “Choose His Kindness.” Choosing Kindness!

Cracked Logic

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Few times do crackpots become more visible than presidential election year in America. Jonathan Maxwell ran some years back as the candidate for the Vegetarian Party. Vermin Brewer is a candidate again, always campaigning with a large rubber boot on his head (haven’t gotten that metaphor yet). And a guy named Tim wears his Santa Claus hat while promising to cut taxes – because that’s what his spirit guides have empowered him to do! Oh yeah, it does get a bit crazy.

The clearly crazed aren’t the ones who scare me, though. It’s the undercover insanity that causes the real problems. Candidates promise to deliver the very gifts that we value in the US – freedom, provision, relationship, happiness, security – while ignoring the very God who gives these things. That should be the wake up call.

A prophet from the Old Testament named Jeremiah gave a wake up call to his nation:

“For my people have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me—
the fountain of living water.
And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns
that can hold no water at all!

His nation had chosen to install in the place of the God who really provides, a system of wells and holding tanks that would provide water in times of drought, war, and want. The problem? Nearly invisible cracks would leak out the life-giving water into the surrounding dirt. The illusion this gave? You can have all the good stuff God promised (safety, quenched thirst, water for crops, etc.), but without the need to follow after God! Just trust in my system!

I’m not on a rampage against irrigation systems or crusading against preparing for future problems. But, laying systems of safety and provision apart from acknowledging God as the one who provides and is our safety? That’s cracked logic.

Oh, the dangers of building security apart from reliance on the God who secures. Jeremiah called it two evils. Departing from God, and trying to replace God with a system. Can we see the cracks in this logic? Do you see the dirty ground water rising around the cisterns?

Filled up and spilling over,

Rick (John 7:38)

Changed by Simple Choices

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I talked to a couple a few weeks ago, and they found our church because of a traffic snag. It was one of those events – car show, fun run, softball tourney, etc. – that sent cars all over the beach roads to get north or south. We do church right in the middle of the action, so they turned left to go right, and there we were. They worship with us now.

What matters most often is the result of simple choices. I’m not just talking about personal randomness like what dropped into these guys’ lives. The simple choices of how to spend a few minutes, or who to call just to say I’m thinking about you, or whether to turn left or right at the juncture of a dilemma, can literally transform your life.

I saw this today in Jesus’ life once again. And if anyone didn’t do randomness, He didn’t! But it sure seemed like it sometimes in Scripture; that is, until we got the rest of the story. (Ask the lonely guy at the Pool of Siloam how, out of all the sick, he was healed, if randomness figured into the plan. Or the lady with the issues who touched Jesus’ robe in the midst of her own traffic jam, if she was healed randomly. It may look random, but Jesus chooses very personally who to touch. But, I’m off topic…sorry.)

Mark writes his account of what we’ve come to call The Transfiguration (Mark 9). If you’ve read it before, and I asked you “why did he go up the mountain?” what would be your likely answer? To meet with Mose and company? To be Transfigured? To give a glimpse of His glory to the three disciples with Him?

From Mark’s pen, it was the result of a simple choice. The intro goes like this: “Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone.”

He wanted to rest, pray, get away from the noisy crowds, and have some alone time with His best friends and His Father. He knew that, being quiet for a time settles things deep down inside. It can clear the fog and cause the main things to rise to the top of the list, above the “not-so-main-things.” And it did just that – the Transfiguration account is all about the Father’s plan coming about through Jesus! It’s about the Father’s voice and the Father’s glory being seen in His Son! (Not to mention the very important cameos from Moses and Elijah to affirm the the mission!)

Simple choices just don’t get enough credit, but choosing wisely instead of poorly, or thoughtfully over impulsively, can cause us to land right into those important crossroads in our lives. There is a “default” perspective at times in the thought processes of follower’s of Christ. It starts with something like, “It must be God since I want to do it” and ends with “OK, it will somehow work out in the end” when the results skew a different direction. It’s almost a baptized fatalism that can rule our choices.

Take your choices before the Father, and make your choices based on His wisdom and His mission in your life. And, of course, it’s always a good choice to get away with your Father for some alone time with Him! Doing this as a simple daily choice will lead to your own personal transformation, and who knows? You likely will find yourself standing right in front of a far greater adventure than you could have chosen on your own!

On the Journey – Rick