As the Father Has Loved

 Last week was just one of those weeks. A backpacking weekend with men from church was providing some much-needed restoration as we rested and connected next to North Georgia’s beautiful Jack River. Around 11 p.m. on the final night, we were all saying goodnight when one guy said, “Hey guys, my phone is forecasting 3 inches of rain at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning.” We took a look at the rushing river 20 feet from us and the canyon walls around us and made a quick decision to hike through the night. We packed up, and I fell into bed at home at 7 a.m. Sunday morning.

Our midnight hike past Jack River Falls

On Monday, Juniper and I flew to Washington, D.C. for the fun trip we gave her for Christmas. Washington is wonderful but also exhausting. We arrived at Dulles Airport on Wednesday to discover our plane had been pulled into security to investigate a strange beeping sound! Five hours later, we boarded the plane and taxied to the front of the runway—when the FAA grounded us, since the crew had been on duty too long. Thankfully, a young family we had been chatting with through the ordeal invited us to their home, where Juniper and I slept in the playroom after a late dinner and were up again at 5 a.m. the next morning.

I came home Thursday, and Levi was so excited to see us. Debra and Annabel had just left for a weekend college visit, and Levi had been home with Debra’s parents on call, feeling bored. That afternoon, he asked Juniper to watch the front flip he had been working on on our trampoline. As he dove headfirst into his flip, he rotated his hands and fell hard on them. I was making dinner just 20 feet away and heard the blood-curdling scream, thinking at first that he was playing around with his sister. By the second scream, I knew he was injured. I opened the sliding door to see Levi looking terrified, his forearms looking like they had developed an extra elbow. “Get in the car right now,” I barked, my brain switching to emergency triage mode.

I drove fast, my heart aching, my mind calculating what I would do if the police tried to pull me over. We got to Piedmont Hospital and, thankfully, were called back quickly. Levi was given morphine and finally relaxed. X-rays showed a clean break of the radius and ulna on both forearms. The right arm was worse, and a dark red spot under the arm showed where the bone almost came through. 

We were then sent to drive one hour through an appropriately dramatic lightning storm to Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital. A team of doctors worked, with little success, to get an IV into Levi’s foot. That was perhaps the most painful part to watch. Then I was graciously kicked out of the room while another team tried, again with little success, to reset the bones. After an hour, I was called back, and the doctor was visibly upset with himself for not being able to reset the bones properly. Nevertheless, they put him in a cast with instructions to follow up with the orthopedic surgeon after the swelling had gone down. The latest news is that the surgeon wants to operate on both arms, temporarily inserting a long rod to scaffold the healing process. This will put him in two long casts for three weeks, followed by another few weeks in a short cast or splint. If all goes well, he will be swimming in time for our family vacation in June!

For the last week, a new normal has emerged in our family. I’ve been home as Levi’s constant companion, helping him eat, bathe, and use the bathroom. Respecting the privacy of a 13-year-old boy while changing his underwear has been an interesting puzzle to solve. My work has given me space to figure out how much I can do, even from home. Levi’s little private school gave him the week off and even helped organize a meal train for us. I was supposed to be in Kathmandu in 12 days, but I’ve had to cancel that. After an intense year of globe-trotting and ministry growth, my world just got a lot smaller. For the next six weeks, Levi’s ability to both heal and finish school will be my main focus.

In the midst of bubble baths and playing phone tag with the surgeon, I remember that yesterday was Good Friday, a day that Christians worldwide celebrate the death of Jesus to reconcile humanity to God. The Father watched as the body of His Son was beaten and crushed under the weight of human cruelty. In the old days, when something terrible happened, you would cry out and tear your robes. When Jesus died, the earth shook, the sky turned black, and the massive curtain separating the temple’s “Most Holy Place” from the rest of the world was torn in two. I suppose the darkness, quaking, and tearing show us a picture of God’s emotion and empathy—having to watch the destruction of the person He loved most.

The day Levi was born, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride. To me, he was perfect. I imagined the bond we might share for many years to come. The next 13 years would invest countless memories into the substance of that bond: the toddler years, the big asthma attack when I was in Ethiopia, the first day of kindergarten, endless fights and reconnections with his little sister, that epic camping trip to the Tetons, and the road trip around Lake Superior... all of it reinforces the growing friendship between me and my son.

If you’ve had those experiences with a child and then had to see their body broken, their brain flooded with pain you can’t fix, or their eyes filled with panic you can’t comfort, you know the feeling in your chest that your heart might physically tear in half. Your stomach becomes a knot of iron, your mind races in a thousand directions while a single thought captures your attention: You’ll do absolutely anything to help this child, and you are willing to destroy anyone who stands in your way. It is a wrathful sort of compassion.

So I can only imagine the Father’s emotions. My son isn’t perfect. He is flawed like all of us. But when I look at him, he seems perfect—just like the day I first met him and felt that profound pride. But Jesus literally was and is perfect. How much can a limitless God love a truly perfect Son? I wonder how, then, this God could stand by while His perfect boy was crushed beneath the weight of other people’s sin—marred beyond recognition—to restore our godlike image. If I were God, I would have scorched the earth, sent in the tanks, dropped the bombs, scooped my son into my arms, and held him close. But Jesus chose this path of brokenness. He chose it not once, but over and over again: before the Incarnation, in the wilderness, on the road with the disciples, at the Last Supper, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. The Son resolutely chose this path. So the Father also chose the path of standing by helplessly. Why? Because both Father, Son, and Holy Spirit wanted the prodigal race of humanity to be restored to their place of dignity, humanity, and connectedness to God. The whole Godhead endured pain that day. And while the Father’s full battalion of warriors awaited Jesus’ command, He kept going, kept enduring, and finally cried out, “Father, forgive them.”

It wasn’t like sin was so impressive that it could triumph over God. Rather, His love was so impressive that He willingly endured the trauma of sin and then overcame it through resurrection. My friend Paul shared his reflection about it with me yesterday. As he reflected on Christ’s suffering, an impression emerged in his mind: “Paul, your sin did not do this TO me; rather, My love did this FOR you.” Sometimes I imagine my sin somehow got the better of Jesus—victimized Him against His will. But rather than being impressed by the power of my sin, I’m feeling more amazed at the endurance of His love.

Here is another layer from John 15. Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, I have loved you.” That little word “as” is a common word for Jesus. It starts a simile and refers to an exact comparison, a mirrored reality. “As” can mean “same in measure, quantity, quality, and substance.” Jesus doesn’t say He loves you like the Father loves you. That would leave some ambiguity about the strength of the love being offered. Rather, Jesus loves you as the Father loves Him. If you don’t think you deserve to be loved by God, know that you are lovable simply because Jesus loves you, and you are worthy because He made you. This love isn’t exhausted, distracted, reserved, or conditional. It is the kind of love a perfect Father would feel for a perfect Son. That is His love for you.

One final amazing thing: Jesus commands His disciples to love one another in exactly the same manner, measure, and quality with which He loved them. That means, exactly as the Father loves Jesus, we are to love other humans. In fact, this is the essence of His “command”: to love others as the Father loved Him and He loved me. That means nurturing an internal greenhouse of positive regard toward others and an eager willingness to work for their good. In some ways, it is easier to remember that one command than to memorize lists of rules. But in another way, that one simple command reveals my heart and shows me how little I understand the love of the Father. I wonder what it would be like to see my neighbor when I’m out for a walk and, instead of feeling scared that they are judging me, feel an upsurge of focused compassion—gladness to be with them and passion for their well-being. I wonder how it would feel if my anger against my enemies was replaced by a hatred for everything that stands in the way of their blessing and belovedness. How would it be if the emotions I’ve felt toward my son were the same emotions I felt toward those who annoy, intimidate, or overwhelm me?

I look inside my heart, and that reality still feels like an alien planet. But much of why it still feels so foreign is because judgment still festers in my heart, choking out the little love seedlings Jesus keeps planting. It isn’t Jesus’ fault. His love is whole. His command is, “Now, remain in my love.” But daily, I go looking for peace, absolution, and justice outside His heart. What if His love overwhelmed me daily? How would that change my capacity to both receive and give that Father-to-Son love that is so rich and so compelling?

Should You "Picture" Jesus?

The following excerpt from my book, Spirit Led Discipleship: Intimacy and Identity in the Training of the Twelve, is an introduction to the practice of interacting with God through mental pictures. For more on this subject and the art of developing a growing relationship of intimacy with God through interactive connection, please pick up a copy of the book from Amazon. Enjoy!

As I have gone on the journey of getting to know Jesus, I have fallen in love with him again and again. I just love His personality. I love the stuff He does. I love the way His voice sounds, the way He does miracles, and the way He destroys demonic strongholds. I’ve been shocked by His tenderness, attentiveness, and compassion. He loves each person individually and He longs to be loved in return. He is so different from the God I grew up hearing about who stands at a distance and only speaks in old English. The God I have come to know is both a warrior king and a tender lover who wants to be known by his creation. He never condemns His children. He cares for our every need. Yes, He demands obedience. But He always acts in our best interest. If such a God exists, I firmly believe it is worth doing whatever it takes to experience Him for ourselves.

One of the most helpful methods I can offer you for experiencing Jesus is to picture Him mentally. By experiencing Him through mental pictures, we can interact with Him directly and get to know Him as we would get to know a friend. Through these interactions, we can build a library of relational data points that teach us what He is like through His posture, facial expressions, wardrobe, words, and actions. By picturing Jesus, we can get a feel for what He actually is like rather than building our relationship with Him on an abstract set of principles and attributes.

This will raise objections in a world where mental imagery has become associated with self-centered fantasy and eastern meditation practices. It may even trigger warnings about the dangers of idolatry and “making images” found in Exodus. Nevertheless, the Bible is full of pictures representing God. The dreams and visions of Ezekiel, John, Daniel, and others demonstrate the willingness of God to be seen in the minds of His people in various forms. The visual representations of Jesus in the book of Revelation as lion, lamb, and Ancient of Days demonstrate that God can appear in different forms that correlate with the attributes He wishes to display in a particular context. My ability to see Him as a lamb in one moment need not hinder my ability to revere Him as a lion in the next. Finally, sanctification in the New Testament involves building a relationship with God through mental sight, leading to inner transformation (Heb 12:2, 2 Cor 3:18).

I will be careful, however, to use the language of perception and picturing rather than that of simple human imagination. Imagination plays an important role in spiritual growth. But to “imagine something” connotes conjuring the image of something which is not really there. Yet picturing or perceiving something indicates that the thing is real. You are not creating the image per se, but simply perceiving what is being revealed to you. It is possible, of course, to construct an image of Jesus based on clever guesses about His appearance. We could put words into His mouth and make Him an accessory to our self-delusion. But a conjured image of Jesus is as recognizable from the real thing as a puppet is from a real human. Ultimately this deus ex machina will not lead to any meaningful relational connection or spiritual growth.

When we “picture” or “perceive” Jesus, our minds are projecting the real activity of the Holy Spirit in a tangible form that displays His character in visible ways. If you believe God is hesitant or unwilling to be seen by His children in this way, then your efforts to see Him will be mostly contrived. If, on the other hand, you believe He is willing and eager to be seen (at least in representative forms), then your perception of Him will be based on His generosity and not on your creativity. This same principle also applies to hearing God and practicing His power. Our experiences with God are not based on our spirituality but on His ability and willingness. When we come to Him in faith, believing that He loves to be known, we will be surprised by just how willing He really is to reveal Himself to His children.

The With God

 “I am with you” seems to be a recurring theme in my life as I grapple with what it means to live well in this world as a man, a dad, a Christian, a leader, etc. The word “with” seems to be the missing skeleton key for everything I’m trying to understand and it is surprisingly missing in the books, sermons, and podcast that try to teach me how I should live. I notice it now more than ever. I keep hearing descriptions of what it means to be happy, humble, holy, free, loving, and powerful all by myself. But most people seem to silently believe this comes through some kind of boot-strapping self-actualization. God provides the narrative framework, or worse; a set of non-relational principles we can use to help ourselves.

Actually, I wonder if in fact I cannot self actualize by myself. Maybe the point is relationship. It’s like… how do I do this with God? Or more like…. how do I let him do it with me?

Sometimes I wake up from a Sunday nap and I hear the voice of Jesus say, “let’s make coffee together.” I feel a warm presence around me and I say, “sure, let’s do it!” I imagine Jesus holding the porta-filter with me as I grind the beans. Our movements are slow and deliberate. We watch together as the creamy espresso drips into the cup, we cut it with hot water, and I sip happily, feeling it warm my body and wake up my brain. It is so much more fun to do things together, to have someone to share beautiful experiences.
It is one thing to “know” that God is with me (because duh, God is everywhere). It is another to feel Him moving through my thoughts and movements, to really feel open to Him.

We have a relational gospel; a gospel of reconciliation, a gospel of intimacy. Relationship with God means becoming one with him. It’s a crazy thought. But it happens as we learn to do everything with him. This is why “gospel” means good news. Let me give a couple examples of how this works:
God seems to have impossibly high standards for people. Forget the law of Moses. Have you read the Sermon on the Mount? He literally says, “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” So how does that work? The problem with the law wasn’t that it was a bad idea. The problem was people tried to keep it all by themselves. They built rules around the rules so they could feel secure that they might not break a rule and become “unclean”. 

But Jesus’ invitation is that if we do stuff with Him, we will hit the nail on the head every time. Yes practice is required. But the heart of God thrills in every earnest attempt to partner with Him. Not because he loves our effort but because he put that idea in my heart and he loves that I let the idea bear fruit in co-laborative action. David’s confidence to kill a giant wasn’t birthed by self-will or desperate desire but by the burning fire of indignation God gave him along with a certainty born of intimacy and experience that God would certainly be with him.

How do you understand God’s power to heal for instance? Why do some people experience miraculous healing while others continue to suffer? I’m no expert but my working theory is that Jesus wants a deeper relationship with people and that may give us a clue. Belief is relational and it can manifest in both suffering and breakthrough. Unbelief is non-relational but it can also manifest in the same things. What is the tension between radical acceptance of my circumstances and radical belief that God can and will do amazing things on my behalf? I’m not saying that intimacy guarantees results. But I am saying that intimacy with God shows us which way to point our attention because we know that value system of the one we love. So if I know God’s main goal is to love me and to love others through me, then I won’t spend time protecting myself from Him. Instead I’ll get curious about what He is doing because I have a good taste in my mouth about doing His will. This morning I prayed with a friend who suffered from sciatica. It wasn’t because I felt I had any healing to offer or because it was her greatest need (there were probably more pressing needs in her life) but because when she was talking, my mind wandered to God and I got curious about what he might want to do. I felt His beautiful willingness to heal not just her nerves but her heart as well. After I prayed there were tears in her eyes and she told me about some emotional challenges God had been addressing with her and a desire to go deeper with God to find healing in those areas. Healing is God’s playground: it is where he creates and recreates things for better connection to him whether it is bones, nerves, or hearts.

On the other hand, if I am not healed, He is still good. Things get in the way of our healing, but those things are never connected to God’s good heart for us. I’m convinced His desire is for healing (otherwise Heaven would be full of a bunch of really sanctified sick people) but he knows how to work with illness, suffering, and death so that even those things work in our favor. I can accept the mystery of pain, and even appreciate the good things it is doing for me only because he is with me in it. The goal of my life is not to escape pain. It is to be wherever Jesus is. That’s why Paul even wanted to know the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings. He was not a masochist. He was just a sucker for doing stuff with Jesus. I suppose that is where he felt the most meaning; the most indescribable love in the universe.

I once invited a group of Indian leaders to picture Jesus being with them right now. It was a total experiment but to my surprise, a number of people had powerful physical and emotional encounters with Jesus, describing a warm and cathartic sense of His closeness and love. One woman came up to me later that day looking radiant. She said, "you know for so many years in ministry, I have been working hard for Jesus. I never once had the idea that I could work WITH Jesus!"

I think it is good news that everything comes back to relationship with the Father. He is “With” . The world is a confusing and disorienting place. I never know how I will be treated and often I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing. Should I even be writing this right now? But when I picture the face of Jesus, and say “okay Lord, what’s up?” I get the overwhelming sense that He loves me, that he is delighted to do this with me, and the he is taking care of all the heavy complicated stuff. 

What drives me nuts about Jesus

I want to say that sometimes Jesus drives me absolutely bonkers. The more I get to know the guy the more exasperated I get. But something has shifted in me over the years. Now when I think about Jesus, I don’t just think about someone sitting in heaven waiting for me to figure things out or someone who did lots of cool things long ago. I think mainly about the guy who sits with me in my living room with that knowing look in his eye, listening to all my thoughts and feelings. I think about the wrinkles around his eyes, about the way he cryptically quotes scripture to me or pithy little phrases that carry an ocean of meaning. I think about the way he sometimes invites me to do uncomfortable things, the way he helps me examine my heart without ever condemning me, the way he sends people and circumstances into my life with a smile and a nod just to remind me that he is here. Almost every day I accidentally glance at the clock exactly at 11:11AM. When I do, Jesus just smiles and says, “I love you.”

So I guess what is driving me nuts about Jesus isn’t his judgments or his harsh demands. It isn’t his seeming distance or hesitance to act. Actually what makes me the most crazy right now is his patience with my flaws and the flaws of others. I wish Jesus would just rip the cancer out. I only have one life to live. Doesn’t he know that I really really (read: kinda sometimes) want to live fully sold out for him? Sometimes my mind is shouting, I need you to shoot straight with me Jesus! What am I missing? Hit me. I can handle it. And then Jesus says something insane like, “I’m working it all out. You are doing a good job. I will show you everything you need to know in time. Don’t be afraid.” I suppose he knows I’m trying to medicate that bit of insecurity in our relationship with something I can control (i.e.. “doing my work”). Actually I take it back. I think he just likes me too much to do anything that would hurt me. And I suppose on one level that is extremely healing to me. But the fine print is this: If I believe Jesus offers limitless grace to me, then I must believe that he is extending the same grace to others. That stings. Sometimes it is hard to forgive others. Gosh, sometimes it is hard to forgive myself. But radical grace teaches that both are possible... and required. Jesus alone gets to define your lovability. Spoiler: the outlook on that one is extremely good. But I think right now what is really eating at me isn’t just his patience, or even his grace, but his pursuit. Here, I can prove it with the bible.

After the resurrection, Jesus carefully folds his laundry (Jn 20:7), maybe takes a stroll in the garden or chats with the angels. It seems right that after paying for the sins of the world and securing the keys to death and Hades, he would enjoy a relaxed sunday morning. I would have had a mimosa. Then some of his friends show up. Mary came first. She is someone I imagine he was happy to see. After all, she stuck by his side the whole time, right up to the end. Even in death, she comes to tend to His needs. Here is what I would have said:

“Ah Mary! How good to see you. You are my one faithful disciple. Come sit with me and enjoy this beautiful day. Then let’s talk about what to do with my other unbelieving disciples. You know they really let me down. I warned them they would be tempted and look what happened. Do you know how traumatizing it was to be sweating blood while my best friends slept? But you know, I’ve been processing it a lot and I’ve decided to forgive them. In fact I’m going to give them another chance. I’m going up to Mount of Olives to pray for them. I also just want to make sure I’m in a good place emotionally. When they are ready, just let them know where they can find me. But I hope to God they work through their issues first. I’m not sure how I can trust them again otherwise. You know, I’ve been thinking about the mission I have for them. It is a really big job. And honestly I’m worried they will do the same things to others that they did to me. Please make sure they take a good long look in the mirror before they come find me. I really want this to work out.”

Thankfully, Jesus has a different response. He sends Mary ahead of him saying, “Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Without a shred of repentance from the 11 disciples, Jesus calls them His “brothers.” He goes so far as to assume that His Father is still their Father and his God is still their God. It gets better. That very night, Jesus comes to dinner. His disciples are huddled up in fear, wondering if they are next. There is no mention of remorse or a change of heart. This whole crazy week didn’t grow them. It terrified them. They were triggered, on edge, probably snapping at each other and making anxious plans to save their own skin. But Jesus literally walks through a wall to be with them. When he shows up he has one thing to say to them: “Peace be with you” (Jn 20:19). No mention of their weakness or betrayal. It doesn’t seem to matter. Instead, Jesus reiterates what he had just said. “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Those trembling, preservation-minded disciples don’t just get a pass. They get a proclamation Peace from Jesus himself. 

The Bible says Jesus, “came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near” (Mph 2:17). This means Jesus didn’t just figure out a way to be “okay” with us. He went to the ends of the earth and walked through any wall to get to every weak and trembling heart to speak a message of Peace to us. There are no locked doors Jesus can’t go through to offer his Peace. As the angels prophesied about Jesus, “on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests” (Lk 2:14).

Here is the crazy part: Jesus sends the 11 disciples to offer the same unconditional Peace to others that he is offering to them. He thinks they are ready. Well, almost. The only thing they still need is the Holy Spirit. In other words, Jesus knows that when they have a relationship with him through this indwelling Presence of God, that everything will work itself out in the context of that relational connection. That drives me nuts. I suppose it betrays that bit of insecurity in me: do I really trust my simple, relational connection with Jesus to do the heavy lifting when it comes to the quality of my spiritual life? Can I really receive his Peace as an unconditional gift? Will I let him say “I forgive you” before I can even get the apology out of my mouth? If I can accept that, how would that change my internal realities? Maybe I would relax more. Maybe I would pursue people more. Maybe my relational circuits would be resilient even when people hurt me. Maybe my need for other people to “do their part” wouldn’t feel quite so urgent. If I’m honest, I suppose grace still bugs me a bit. Maybe it just doesn’t make sense to me. But the more I think about it, the more it sounds like freedom.