Tag Archives: Jesus

God is listening (even if Wendy Davis isn’t)

Posted on by
Reply

A friend of mine told me last night that he doesn’t talk to God because God doesn’t talk back.

Well…

He does actually.

In fact if you cultivate ears to hear He can be quite specific. The problem is we tend not to listen (sort of like Wendy Davis, apparently…where is that woman?!)

I know. You think I am a nut. But whether you believe it or not I blame some of that on God listening.

Let’s take the pink sneakers for instance. I was pretty disgusted by the way the media co-opted the story of five month old unborn babies getting torn from life itself and made it a cozy-cute story about footwear.

I kept thinking about all the dead children who will never wear their pink sneakers. So I prayed–God, if you want me to do something about this help me find a pair of tiny pink sneakers.

I think I kinda upped the ante because I went to a single resale store and prayed again–ok, God, I need the perfect slippers. I had to hunt a bit to find the kid’s shoe section. There were only a handful of shoes there, but the ones I had prayed for were sitting on the shelf. God listening.

Every story changes if you believe in an interventionist God. It changes again if He is a God of love. Again if justice is in His strong right arm. And finally if you acknowledge He expects something from you.

He does. Are you going to listen?

Don’t know how? Not that hard. Try this–

Read something from the Gospel every day.

Turn stuff off. Candy Crush may be great, but God takes focus.

Look for signs of His presence, power, and love–you know, sunsets, kittens, Leonardo da Vinci. Stuff random and senseless can’t do.

Ask Him.

I have known God personally for years, some of them tough and effacing. In all that time there has not been one question He hasn’t answered.

He is worth the trouble, the quiet, and the separation from the herd. Let’s face it sometimes the herd can get a little noisy, pink sneakers and all.

Authentic Friend

Posted on by
Reply

I imagine the room is in a church basement. Worn wood, a coffee pot on a table, styrofoam cups, a rows of folding chairs.

Sparsely attended. I cannot see the faces of the other attendees. I know like mine, theirs will be worn, washed of something. Artifice. No room for that here.

I stand and tell them my story. All of it, unadorned, shocking. Only here, in this circle of (imaginary) truth it will not be held against me–my pushy honesty, my tenacious insistence on the whole story. Uncomfortable, impolite. I know. I got it.

Most places now I tell myself, shut up, you know now they don’t wanna hear this.

That is why I return to this picture in my head–a simple circle of truth, where every secret thing is revealed. So no one is shocked when the truth is what it is—

We all
Underestimate
Jesus.

Finding

Posted on by
3

Pretend you are just a wisp of a thing
Standing in a maze
But…
Someone you
Love is looking out for you.

He says–

Mark 8:34-38 (NIV)
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [35] For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. [36] What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? [37] Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? [38] If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Which can be translated–follow Me. Trust Me.

He can see the whole maze so I do. I do trust him. Sometimes in my life I have hoped there was an easier way through. I have always known that others wandered through their mazes and had to slay monsters…or be slain by them.

The ultimate question for me is not how?

He answered that when he came back from hell with my life in his hands.

No. The only question is when?

When will we all
Walk into the Light?
Glorious Light.

Rev. 22

Me: The Prequel

Posted on by
Reply

So the woman’s little girl is suffering so she travels to a man reported to be different, miraculous.

When she finds him she begs.

And he calls her a dog?

Not promising, unless you know the man.

Know that he is love
Know that he is incisive
Know that he will give more for her life than anyone else.

Give it all, in fact.

J. taught me that words only matter when actions buttress them.

He taught me I was allowed to distrust empty words.

He is, after all, the word of God made real to us.

So he challenges the woman’s pride, nationality, and assumptions. He calls her out. And her answer has been the foundation of my motherhood for the past 17 years.

Don’t matter how you look
Don’t matter if you are pretty
Or even smell good…
Being a mama means you sacrifice your pride to keep your little ones safe.

No one safer than Jesus.

People: not so sharp

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 7:14-15,17-20 (NIV)
Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. [15] Nothing outside a man can make him `unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him `unclean.’ ” [17] After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. [18] “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him `unclean’? [19] For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) [20] He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.’

Oh, the Jews were serious about their dietary laws. Asking if they were dull was a bit of a slap. But Jesus has impeccable aim.

I read recently that my own navel is swarming with bacteria. Yuck! But they are my bacteria and I remain surprisingly calm.

The devastating upshot of Jesus’ rebuke focuses on the ease with which we humans can obsess over our navels and bludgeon our neighbors.

Justice is coming. The long arm of the Lord will fall on each of us. At that point our kinship with righteousness will matter far more than our lunch.

Clean is clean
Holy is fierce
And we?
Are dull indeed without him.

Who is this guy?

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 6:14-16 (NIV)
King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” [15] Others said, “He is Elijah.” And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.” [16] But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, the man I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!”

Jesus was becoming a celebrity, but not by choice. He knew that his kind of renown led to crosses and blades, not black tie events.

People speculated about him. Who is this guy? Who raises the dead? Who heals our diseases? Who takes away my sin? God. Just Him.

Don’t forget it.

The Strong Man’s House

Posted on by
Reply

Some memories are picture clear. It is a day in late October and we are traveling in the van with my in laws to the Aransas wildlife refuge. I am attempting to school a known pedophile on the need for repentance.

We have reported the abuse. We lock doors at night to make the children feel safer. We are waiting and terribly broken.

The pedophile is merely annoyed. Sullen. We are discussing the human heart as though it were a house. A house Jesus could walk through, clean, excavate.

I remember this whenever I read

Mark 3:25-30 (NIV)
If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. [26] And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. [27] In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. [28] I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. [29] But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” [30] He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit.”

… because Charles is the one who taught me…about the strong man’s house.

This parable can and will go either way. Either the strong man is hell plundered by Jesus or He is the strong man robbed on the cross.

Which is it?

You can guess my opinion. I put my money on Jesus.

But for years I lived in that divided house, torn by my adopted children’s violence and anger.

Don’t wanna go back. Don’t wanna live that way no more.

Divided house; broken heart.

The cowboy and the judge

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 2:1-12 (NIV)
A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. [2] They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. [3] Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. [4] Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. [5] When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” [6] Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, [7] “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” [8] Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? [9] Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? [10] But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, [11] “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” [12] He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

I love this story and I especially love the way it is portrayed in the movie The Miracle Maker, so I have been somewhat puzzled by why I could not finish this story. I have talked about it numerous times. It is not that complicated.

This is a story about waiting with or without hope. It is a story about faith and urgency. It is a story about love, value and forgiveness. And it is a story about willfully refusing to see.

Someone I love has a prominent tattoo on his chest. He likes to go shirtless a lot so it is easy to see. It says,

only God can judge me

His tattoo is true, but somehow incomplete. What it is missing is any understanding of love, fear, and holiness.

Love carries the man to Jesus
Love pushes through the crowd
Love punches through the roof
Love lowers the mat
Love forgives the man his sins
Love heals the man on the mat
Love never fails
But…
When love shows his power and his judgment.
You better duck.

Because the guy who crushed the gates of hell and death for us?
He don’t play, cowboy, he sure don’t play.

Celebrity Perils

Posted on by
Reply

Mark 1:38-45 (NIV)
Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” [39] So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. [40] A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” [41] Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” [42] Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured. [43] Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: [44] “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” [45] Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Jesus came to seek and rescue people. He is a superhero, the only real one…

The guy could have been anything, done anything. He could have ruled the world. Instead he wandered the lonely hills of an agrarian outpost casting out demons?. Curing skin diseases?

Yep. He loves people so he helps us with our sadness, our loneliness, our hunger. But for him that is not enough. He came to take away our curse–death itself. He came to restore the kingdom of life.

So the strong injunctions to varies entities to shut up about his superhero identity make more sense.

He did not want us to be so blinded by his bling, his miraculous events, that we lost sight of his heart.

Jesus is in love with each of us
I am afraid not all of us get close enough to him to love him back.