Burning Trash and eyes for Africa

I know I'm in right line of work when burning garbage makes me nostalgic. A crisp morning with the smell of burning brought me right back to Africa today where between the cooking fires, fields, and trash heaps, something's always burning. I remembered how much I love that continent and how much I long to invest and make an impact there. I can't wait until I finish raising support and can start my regular work of teaching and mentoring in Zambia, the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, and (hopefully someday) Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, and beyond.

I have a vision for whole-heart transformation there... catalytic, missional, Christ-centered wholeness: Jesus-style. But right now that vision is still inside my mind, gathering steam, waiting for the right time, for financial backing, for a critical mass of experience and networked relationships. I'm eager to get going.

But for now, my job is support-raising. That's exciting too. I enjoy kicking ideas back and forth with people, connecting, casting vision, gathering a team to accomplish that vision. As long as I can keep in perspective the fact that I have no wisdom or power within myself to make this thing work.... That if I'm gonna make the right connections and accomplish my goals it's gonna have to be the Lord's strength working on my behalf.... well, then support-raising is fun... it's really just cultivating relationships in the context of mission.

So I suppose I'll do my best just to relax and enjoy the season now. But when I smell burning rubbish, I'll dream of the season to come.

Testing... testing... 1... 2... 3...

Since I got back from Florida, I've felt a bit off. I hit the ground hard here and found myself reverting to patterns of judgment and irritability. Bizarre thoughts, like "you think it's God's presence but really it's a coffee buzz," started running through my head. There's this sense of an old Enemy scratching around outside my defenses, looking for a place to get in.

Confirmed: dropping open my bible (not a recommended tactic), I landed on Matthew 4. The Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. As I read about the temptations (feed your body, seek power, test God), I felt God was telling me that it is now time for some of His lessons to be tested. Here are the lies I've tried to supplant with truth. These are weak spots for me:

A: Productivity determines my worth.
B: God will not ultimately take care of my heart.
C: I can make my own way in life.

As a confirmation that I'm not schizophrenic, the bathroom devotional (those dorky one-line inspirational daily calenders you read while you pee) said, "God gives us his Spirit and then lets the tempter come." Right....

So for each lie, I've been collecting scripture to refute it. That's the tactic that Jesus used, so I won't try to improve on it. Good news is that I don't have to succumb to lies or temptations. In the past, each of those has seriously cripple me. That no longer needs to be the case.

I'm hoping these truths can be set in concrete: God accepts me unconditionally. God knows how to take care of my heart and meet my deepest needs. My wisdom and power is insufficient, but His is infinite....

Okay. I'm going to stop before I start writing a daily devotional calendar of my own! ;)

Unity. Love. Intimacy.

How many days have I read John 14? And today, I’m beginning to see that everything in Jesus’ mission is deeply rooted in the intimacy he experienced with the Father. Day after day, the Father poured out his love, his will, and his words on Jesus. When Jesus said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” I believe he was referring to the unwavering experience of God’s presence with him all the time. To feel the love and power of God with you at all times would dispel all loneliness, make people-pleasing seem ridiculous, and give enormous self-confidence.

It’s that same unity of heart and purpose that Jesus came to offer me. His whole mission was reconciliation to the point that “My father will love them and we will come to them and we make our home with them.” I know Jesus wants that relationship and intimacy with his followers because he says, “I will come back and take you to be with me that where I am you may be also.” That’s what Jesus is all about. Total union: his heart to my heart. Intertwined for eternity in an open channel of affection and worship.

Knowing the connectedness Jesus must have felt with the Father sheds light on his experience of the cross. In a single moment, the Presence was gone as the “Lamb of God” took on the evil and ugliness of sin. Being holy, God turned his back to Jesus for a single moment and the feeling of total isolation rushed into Jesus for the first time in his life. The soul-crushing power of that aloneness prompted him to cry out in agreement with the psalmist, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?”

If we could experience God’s love and presence each day, I think life would be a lot better for us. Suddenly it wouldn’t feel so bad to be single, poor, unattractive, sick, disabled or whatever state of being we may be stuck in. The power of That intimacy flowing into our hearts as love and out of our hearts as worship would cause all things temporal to pale in comparison.

The only thing that can block the free exchange of love is sin. Disobedience. Disbelief. Self-reliance. That’s why Jesus said, “If you love me, keep [listen to, apply, obey] my commands.” Because disobedience and disbelief are like umbrellas deflecting the love of God. I may desire to feel the love and presence of God, but as long as I cling to an orphan heart that insists on caring for myself, living in fear, and disobeying Jesus, I’ll only experience His grace as a temporary phenomena. I’ll see everyone else getting soaked and wonder why the rain is falling off the edge of my umbrella.

As for me, I choose to let my guard down… To invite the presence and love of God to pervade me and reject the accusing, judgmental, skeptical heart that blocks the constant outpouring of God’s daddy-love. I want that experience to bleed through every layer of my daily experience. From mornings on the porch, I want to start experiencing him everywhere and all day. I’m starting to believe that may actually be possible.

Daddy's love

 Sure. I’ll be transparent on the internet. Why not? 

I’ve gotta say that the daddy-love of God has been totally overwhelming to me lately. This morning, I was dancing around my room grinning like an idiot until Debra gave me one of those what’s-gotten-into-you looks. I know what’s gotten into me. For the last 3 weeks since we arrived in Minnesota, I’ve been waking up feeling the desire of God to meet with me. It usually pulls me out of bed before I’m really ready to wake up. I go upstairs zombieish but drawn by a strange impalpable sweetness and anticipation. I make coffee and sit on our porch. I close my eyes and before I can even breathe a prayer, a tingling warmth rushes through me and I start to hear God’s voice speaking to me with strength and clarity: Words of affection, affirmation, and sometimes challenge. Often, he gives me a bible reference to read and meditate on. Usually, he just encourages me to soak in His presence as waves of His affection for me as His child wash over me, softening what had been critical, cynical, and judgemental.

It’s starting to change my marriage. I’m quicker to cry, quicker to encourage, slower to judge. One day God asked me, “can you love a woman you can’t fix?” Then I experienced the amazing freedom of not having to change my spouse. As I experience God’s unconditional kindness and acceptance towards me, I’m suddenly free to accept my wife and appreciate her exactly where she is. I never expected NOT judging to be feel so liberating.

Not judging others frees me also to not judge myself. That’s good news because I’ve waged war against parts of my own identity for so long: meek, imaginative, sensitive, tender, timid. And… I’m realizing that the person I ultimately want to become (a man of disarming gentleness and warmth) is the person I swore never to be. Now I want to learn to be tender without fear, to have a soft heart with strong bones and an unshakeable identity rooted in the experience of God’s love and presence one morning at a time.