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had this been an actual emergency…

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i know that the Big O’s Blog is all Whacked!

i’m trying to fix it…

but when a monkey works with technical things…

It’s back to work at the Zoo!…

Please be patient…and don’t feed the Animals!

~Iron Maiden

The older I grow in spirit the more I find myself seeing people different from me as just being different and not necessarily wrong. And in years past as a baby believer, and even after, I have tended to see people I thought were wrong as not loving God as much as I do or being blessed with God’s presence as much as I was. I would question their motivation and heart.

Twenty-five years deep in this Life I no longer am able to make that the explanation of people believing things differently. In fact I have found myself being just like them. Let me explain.

I have been around too many people who clearly love God very much – as much as I do (and I am convinced that I love God), and yet they think quite differently.

And we both seek God. We both spend time seeking to learn more and grow deeply and experience the truth of God.

But we both seem to do the same thing with what we come to see as truth.

We make law out of truth. We take some thing that we have come to understand and turn it into a “should” for everyone right here, right now. “If this is my experience with God, then it should be everyone’s experience with God”. “If this is what I understand, then it is what everyone should understand.”

The problem is this – The law kills. Rom 7.

The moment that we take some experience that we have with God and turn that into a universal should then we create law. We suppose that what God is teaching us He desires to teach everyone right now. My experience is the only thing God is doing.

Like apples of gold in settings of silver

Is a word spoken in right circumstances.

Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold

Is a wise reprover to a listening ear.

                                                Solomon (Prov 25:11)

She sat in her living room.

She was godly and good and somehow still “cool” although a widow aging.

I sat in her living room.

I was in seminary and sin, having fallen to “youthful lust” at a dumb twenty.

My memory is a dirty haze, probably a self-defense mechanism. I do remember the fear and humiliation and condemnation my rebellion delivered to me, all under the guise of true love. In some manner of wording I broke the silence to tell her, “Nanny Ruth I am very sorry, but Jayme is pregnant. This is not how I wanted to ask for her hand, but I am asking to marry her and I love her.”

I can still feel the air of my shame colliding with her righteous anger. She only had one grand-daughter and they had something I don’t even understand. I had entered like a thief and stolen plans and wedding glory and the ultimate grandmother – grand-daughter shopping, and far more…

I had stolen dignity; the kind grandmothers revel in at the Bridge game as they rejoice in the only thing that really matters to the aging mature – family righteousness.

So she said her piece.

And she did so with such refinement that she would never have to regret a word of it. I can only remember one sentence and I remember it like it was just spoken.

“You don’t love my grand-daughter like you should”.

The words stung me and hurt deeply. I had a twenty year old maturity which meant I thought I knew all about life and love, certainly my own. What could she know about me and my love? Rock stars my age sing about “real love” and if they know, I know. But I took it because I deserved it. The only thing I could say was, “I hope to prove my love for Jayme.” She said nothing more.

Twenty-two and half years have passed since then.

I could never shake those words, they banged like a maddening gong for more than twelve of those years – I hated them. That’s what happens when you try to prove the truth wrong.

The last twelve have been different. As I began to grow and see things more as they are, I came to embrace those words not as condemnation, but challenge. She said “should”, “You don’t love her like you should”. She was talking about a kind of love, a quality and quantity. Given how I led in our relationship at its start, Nanny Ruth could only be right.

It was “a word spoken in right circumstances”. And though it took a long time, I developed a “listening ear”.

She changed my life forever and in doing so gave me direction for my most important relationship.

Nanny Ruth died Monday morning.

Thank you for the Apples. I’m still listening. I love your grand-daughter.

Don’t know if you’ve seen the new stat that is shaking the church world – In a recent poll (by Barna I think) 86% of christians believe you can have a good relationship with God without the church.

I just left the church. Jayme and I go every Tuesday morning at 5:30am to pray with anyone who wishes to pray and spend time together with God. It is a highlight of the week for me. This morning we prayed Psalm 36 and together with Lynn (a really cool spiritual buddy) got hung up musing on the verse that says something like, “In your house we have abundance (fatness) and you have let us drink from the river of your delights.”

As I read that I could only think about my experience of spirituality which for 25 years.

So Joseph’s master took him and put him into the jail, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; and he was there in the jail. 21 But the LORD was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, Gen 39:20-21

 How often do you meet people who came to Christ looking for the easier life? And how often do you have those same thoughts,

“Why is life so hard?  As a Christian I thought it would be different”?

This thinking leads us to approach decisions with the question, “Which is easier”?  And this is the wrong question.

The truth is that life is hard.  Paul said,

 “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of heaven.” Acts 14:22.

Would that mean that seeking the path of least resistance is like looking for the road to hell?

Real peace and happiness come when we cease looking for easier and start focusing on companionship.  The question to ask is: “If I make this decision, who will be with me?” You see the difference is whether you will be alone or accompanied. Easy Street is a lonely walk. In fact, the state of “alone” can only be achieved through sin. Wouldn’t you rather endure the worst with Jesus than have the “best” without God.  Remember this week that only the walk of obedience and willingness to suffer for Him will bring the assurance that “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…”

Do you remember the next five words from Psalms 24?

After over a year the day has come. I have fasted for periods of 3 to 5 days before. But this doesn’t compare. In my mind it is a little surreal. When you just finished the night before one amazing meal prepared in honor of “pastor appreciation” month by Lisa Mentzer (and you know she can cook), you really can’t connect with what it means that you will not eat again for 40 days.

It has also become very clear that I must tell the Church. Just hearing how the Enemy is beginning to tear at other people in this congregation is troubling. I cannot fast and allow them to be blindsided by Satan. They have to know that the decision that I have made will put them at risk. There must be a high degree of alert for this Body during these days. I don’t know what will happen but I know the Enemy will come for my family and the Church.