Category: Devotions

Trying to Understand Lenten Traditions

Read Luke 22:42,44

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,” -John 3:14 NIV

I had never really understood the tradition of giving up something for Lent. In one sense it sounded like fasting, and another sense sounded like a New Year’s resolution. Those seem like good things to do, but why for Lent?

One thing I do understand is how I dread going to the dentist for a filling. Honestly, it is a minor amount of pain and discomfort. It looks incredibly petty compared to the discomfort of the cross and the pain of bearing all of humanity’s sin. In the days and weeks leading up to the first Good Friday, Jesus felt apprehension and dread about what was to come. We see this in His prayer recorded in Luke 22:42. Jesus asks, if possible, that he wouldn’t have to go through the crucifixion he was about to experience. Yet, in the same sentence, Jesus surrenders His will over to His Father. He knew it would hurt, and He was willing to go through with it for my sake, for your sake.

I can use my apprehension to better understand what Christ did for me. And I can use self-denial or fasting as a daily reminder of Christ’s sacrifice. A sacrifice made in order to complete His greatest work on this earth, a work that saves us from the pain of eternal separation from God.

Recognizing the Risen

In a devotion a co-worker gave last week, he was sharing from a chapter in Ravi Zacerious‘ book Jesus Among Other Gods. One minor point really jumped out to me: Jesus’ enemies seemed to understand some of His teachings better than the Apostles.

Matthew 26:62-66 tells about the chief priests and Pharisees who asked to have guards placed by the tomb because they remembered Jesus saying He would rise again in three days. They were afraid the disciples were going to steal His body, so they could pretend He had risen. Yet when the disciples saw Him, they thought He was a ghost (Luke 24:37). Can you imagine the disciples practically falling out of their chairs, “Ahhk, wha…what are you doing here?” And it is not like the disciples had never seen anyone raised from the dead before either.

I think sometimes we are too close to a particular situation for our eyes to focus. I hope you don’t miss seeing God work right under your nose this spring.

If someone takes your tunic

This morning in my men’s group we read and discussed Matthew 5:38-42, part of the Sermon on the Mount. Reading it is hard, applying it is even harder. But then on my drive into work from small group I heard an awesome story on the radio about a man who was robbed at knife point when he was getting off a New York subway. He handed over his wallet thinking “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money.” As the robber was walking away the  man called after him, “If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.” The rest of the story is a perfect example of why Christ tells us to love our enemies. Listen for yourself.

Katrina: Back to the Pass

It has been seven months since the storm. The images are less vivid, its fading from memory and no ones wondering where their next meal will come from anymore. But the Gulf coast is still very much reeling from Katrina. Two weeks ago I became the first to utilized the new Cre8tive Group Missions Trip Benefit™ (except for Andy I guess, whose trips showed the need for such a policy). I went with another group of 75, again mostly students from Asbury College plus the wonderful addition of my hot fiancée Jen.

Arriving back in Pass Christian, it was remarkable both how much work had been done and how much work there was still to do. One house would be mere weeks away from being ready to be lived in again, while the one right next to it had not even been touched since the storm, still filled with rotting fridges and mounds of mildew that were once called “couches.” What an amazing psychological strain for those who are living in town; those who are trying to rebuild their homes and lives. If and when they get everything back in order, they still have to drive by the devastation each time they go to the nearest grocery store a town or two away. The remaining residents have gotten used to living in a trailer with less space than my office.

So what did I learn? People need hope. People everywhere, in every situation, need hope. Seven months after a major hurricane, they need hope to fight off depression. Hope that things are going to get better, that life will return to normal, that they will one day live in a building that doesn’t have wheels. So what if I helped build a couple sheds, cleaned up a yard and painted a house? In the grand scope of things, that’s really not all that much progress. But, what we really did was build a little hope, show them a little love to know that they’re not forgotten about, and get to know the residents of a little town where we’ll likely celebrate our anniversary some year.

Katrina: Baywood House

So we saw a lot of damage down in Pass Christian. But one thing that was truly baffling was how much water this water front town had to deal with. The second to last day there my group joined Julie’s on what turned out to be a house that was in much higher water then we could really imagine.

Get this, the house was up on stilts, I would say the stilts were 8 feet tall. This house was on stilts because it was right next to the cannel. So it was on stilts so it wouldn’t flood, but it was not prepared for Katrina. There was 1 foot of flooding…on the second story above the stilts. There were giant holes in the roof. The house hadn’t been touched in the three months since the hurricane and when we got there. There was stuff everywhere. The bed rooms litterally had feet of toys, muck, clothes and drywall on the floor. When we got to the floor, we didn’t even know it was carpet or hardwood. The floor looked like the bottom of a pond. And in the cannel in the back yard, there was a house.

Twenty feet of water does really amazing things.

Katrina: My Best Thanksgiven Yet

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that you spend with your family. But not this year for me, I spent it with a bunch of people that I wouldn’t have known if it were not for this trip.

If ya’ll have been paying attention then you already know that this trip was over Thanksgiving break. Of course that meant Thanksgiving Day as well. Our fith full day down on the Gulf Coast was Thanksgiving. It had always been a question as to what exactly we were going to do that day. It was decided that we would’t work a full day, but we were so excited about finishing our projects that there was no way we were giong to take the whole day off. We started the day by heading over to the next town, Long Beach, MS. That town was so bad off that you had to have a special pass to get in. We somehow managed to scrounge one up, and went to a church that was practically dead before the storm, but the hurricane destroyed the inside and it doesn’t look like the congregation was even big enough to make it worth rebuilding. But another group was down there trying to rebuild it, praying with a “If we build it they will come” mentality. Around noon we were headed back to Pass Christian. On the way back we saw a cross in the clouds, that was a nice reminder on Thanksgiving day. Not long after we got back to the church 80 Thanksgiving meals were delivered in styrophome “to go” boxes. It was tasty. After we finished that we made a quick turnaround to get out to our job sites. We went back to the Alicia St house we had been working on, we were hoping to get it done so we could do one more house before we left town on Saturday. So we all worked quickly to get most of tht done. A few stayed back to spray bleach to kill the mildew while the rest of us went to start on another house.

By how we were all tired not just from working a hard half day, but after five days of work, I know I was starting to drag and can only imagine that others were too. Someone from Steve Thorson’s group had heard about a fire station the next town up that was serving thanksgiving. While the official plan was just to eat at God’s Katrina Kitchen, our group, Steve’s group and Dr. Olsen’s group were willing to give it a try. And why not, we had heard that there were going to be lots of pies. Keith and Michelle also joined us. So we head there. Now this fire station was considerably smaller than God’s Katrina Kitchen, so I got out of the van and asked if they had room for 21. They assured us they did and would not let us entertain thoughts otherwise. It turns out they really did, because besides us, only a family of four showed up. As we were walking in, they started moving everything around, they had pushed a bunch of tables together so that we would all sit at one big table. They ditched their plan to serve buffet style and instead set the food, in large aluminum cooking trays, in front of us. This group serving was made up of students from Lancaster Bible College, who had met up with a congregation from Maryland and had teamed up with the fire department. Those from up north had travled down with the primary goal of serving Thanksgiving Dinner. The bunch of amateur waiters and waitresses did a great job. The smile on their faces as they got us more tea and instisting that we had not had enough pie yet, really rejuvinated me. They were interested in all our stories and it seems like everyone found something in common with someone in our group. It was also one of the best tasting thanksgivings I had had, the sweep potatoes and stuffing we’re particularly delicious. It was so nice to be served after a week of serving other. That thanksgiving dinner, with what a week earlier would have been 20 strangeers really rejuvenated me and I could have worked for another week. And I count that as my best Thanksgiving yet.

Katrina: Keith & Michelle’s Story

On monday, the students from the trip shared a little bit about the trip in Chapel at Asbury College. A lot of good stories, prayers and fashion.

Caroline, one of the girls in my group, shared about two people, Keith & Michelle, we met while down there. She sums up their story very well. If you have six minutes and some speakers, take a listen.

Katrina: Sunday Service

Our first full day in Mississippi was Sunday. We needed to get the trip off on the right foot and since half of us were staying at a church there was no way we could pass up on the service.

Our home base for the entire week was The First United Methodist Church of Pass Christian. All the girls from our group were staying there. A great guy by the name of Mike Zimmerman had come down from the Mercy Center in North Carolina to lead, and most of all organize, a variety of projects for the stream of groups that would be helping in Pass Christian. Now this was a small church to start with, but luckily the Lord spared it from the worst of the storm. It had only two feet of water inside during the hurricane, and that may sound like a lot but compared to everywhere else that was the least amount of water I heard about. All of the walls, including the interior ones, were made of cinderblock, so besides having the carpeting pulled up, half the pews and everything in the extra rooms destroyed, it was a working church. But because there are so few people who are living in Pass Christian, now the already small church only had a handful of parishioners showing up for sunday services. So it was about a dozen locals and 80 of us from Wilmore on sunday morning.

And it really got to me. Seeing the locals who had been through so much, having virtually everything they owed destroyed, still there praising God, its was truly something and brought a tear to my eye. The songs were good, and there were ones I had sung so many times before, but I saw them in a new light. “On God the solid rock I stand”, has such a literal meaning and makes Matthew 7:24-27 more than a parable. “It is well with my soul” cause it sure ain’t well with my house. To believe that “great is thy faithfulness” when you look outside and couldn’t really object to a non-believer thinking “how can God be good if He let this happen?” Truly amazing and reminded me of a similar reaction I had this past Easter. Commonplace songs breaking through the monotony of routine.

Thursday morning, being Thanksgiving, we had another service. It was in the next town over, Long Beach, were the destruction was even worse. To illustrate my point, we drove by a sign for a “Kangaroo” (how the sign was still there I don’t know) but someone in my van asked what’s a Kangaroo? It was destroyed so bad we couldn’t even tell it was a gas station.

After the service we were ready to get started. There is something about meeting the people who’s town you are going to be helping. It pushed me over the edge and not made me willing to “just take it easy before tomorrow”.

As for the work on sunday (which the trip was not about, something you’ll hear more about later)? The one time I needed the measuring tape I brought, I didn’t have it with me. I built some shelves at a distribution center and got eaten alive but what we would soon dub “F’ing Gnats”. Did anyone knew gnats bite? Well I sure didn’t, but I did end up finding the big dipper on my arm.

Brownies, Brownies Everywhere

There is something about being around missionaries that kind of leads you to think like them.

We were at the ol Wal-Mart. Looking to pick up some items that would make a good little dinner, and we were fancying some brownies for dessert. While we were there deciding if we wanted double chocolate chunk brownies, or deluxe fudge brownies, or brownies with frosting or maybe just get the cheap ones of on the bottom shelf, I realized that this is a uniquely prosperous problem. That was our big dilemma for the night; which pre-packaged, just add eggs, oil and milk brownies to buy for dessert. There we were, standing and staring at a wall of brownies, 3 six footers looking from our toes to over our head at brownies. At this point I realized there are countries that don’t have huge mega stores like Wal-Mart selling a 100 of everything. Even other well off countries don’t have the kind of insane selection that we do here in America. We get used to being the most prosperous country in the world. Then I went on to realize that there are people all around the world who haven’t had a brownie before. Even more then that, there are a billion people who are just lucky if they have something to eat tonight

Now, we bought some kind of brownie, I don’t remember which, but it was darn tasty. I’m not planning on giving up desserts anytime soon. But the G8 Summit and the Live8 concert, have really brought the situation to the forefront of everyone’s mind, lets remember those who haven’t been as blessed as we have. Be thankful for what you have, don’t complain about what you want.

Gifts

With the extra time available to me not having to work due to the Christmas holiday I have had some great time to do things such as read. So I opened up “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer, the chapter I am on is titled “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing” . “Ah oh” I thought to myself, “this isn’t going to be fun”, which traditionally in these types of matters means, “this will be good for me”. Tozer starts out that before sin God gave Adam all sorts of gifts, and it was good, but now, in the post-fallen world these “things” can cause problems. We cling to them. The words me and mine “are verbal symptoms of our deep disease”. I find it interesting that it is now the day after Christmas, where we rejoice because of the piles of things we have just received. Today, definitely doesn’t help to cure this disease. Just as God’s gifts to Adam were blessings, having things/gifts isn’t bad, the problem comes when we try to possess these things.

I was watching one of Christmas gifts and on it Jerry Seinfield said in one of his interspersed standup bits that he has had stuff stolen from his apartment several times. The first time was the worse, a “they took my stuff” attitude. But after that you don’t even bother calling the cops about it. I think we have to get to that point. Abraham had to learn that lesson a very hard way, he had to be willing to sacrifice his son in order to obey God. Afterwards Isaac was safe and Abraham had a wife, a son, sheep, camels, and descendants as numerous as the stars. “He had everything,
but he possessed nothing.” Everything we have is on loan from God. Tozer has a great suggestion for when his readers begin to examine themselves on this issue, I think it’s a great suggestion for whenever we examine anything before God: we “should put away all defense” and not resort to excuses. That really hit home for me, because I immediately want to make defenses when being confronted.

I think a former pastor of mine, expressed the attitude our hearts need to have in regards to stuff very well when he said something along the lines: we need to let things rest in the palm of our hands, making them easy to remove not trying to hold them tightly with our fingers clinched around them. Then it won’t be so bad if they are taken away, at least they weren’t ripped out of our hands and heart.