A Strange Sight

A few years ago I saw something uncanny. I was at a local warehouse store when I saw an elderly man running across the parking lot. It struck me as strange and to this day it begs an answer,

“What would make an old man run?”

It isn’t that common to see someone of years trucking full speed. It could almost make a bystander winch as brittle bones hit the pavement. Yet something DROVE this man to defy the norm and risk injury to RUN?

I am not sure in this specific case, but one answer to the question "what would make an old man run" is love. Love causes people to run at airports for homecomings, after cars during an outgoing, to catch a falling child, or even risk life in a war zone to save a friend. Love is truly a powerful force.

There is a beautiful story in the Bible of an old man that ran to his son who had just come home from a deeply shameful and humiliating situation. His father was old. His father was dignified. His father RAN! Too many times we can skip over that powerful imagery. Picture it…

"When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.' But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.” Luke 15:20-24 (MSG)

If the power of love could make an old man run to embrace his wayward son, I wonder what it could do for us today… in our relationships. There are many emotions that cover and cloud the object of our love on any given day. Maybe it is an argument with a spouse, the disobedience of a child, or the pain of the past. Maybe you just can’t forgive that one thing they did.

If you allow these things to outweigh your love, then as you age you will find yourself becoming less able to show it.

Take a moment today to look past the present circumstances in your relationships and show love to someone who needs you most. Maybe they need to see you run to know it's true.

< Letting Go of Church >

I've decided to let go of church...

My mind drifts to Jonah, who ran from God because he feared telling the people about God's judgement less they repent and and God relents his anger. Jonah's pride would have been hurt. So he ran. God is so cool though, because after getting Jonah's attention (through a whale of a story) the very thing Jonah thought would happen... happened.

Jonah declared, "The judgement!" > the people repented > God relented > Jonah gets mad and pouts up on a hill. God then turns the tables on Jonah and sends a plant that covers Jonah.

Jonah 4:5-11...But Jonah just left. He went out of the city to the east and sat down in a sulk. He put together a makeshift shelter of leafy branches and sat there in the shade to see what would happen to the city. 6God arranged for a broad-leafed tree to spring up. It grew over Jonah to cool him off and get him out of his angry sulk. Jonah was pleased and enjoyed the shade. Life was looking up. 7-8But then God sent a worm. By dawn of the next day, the worm had bored into the shade tree and it withered away. The sun came up and God sent a hot, blistering wind from the east. The sun beat down on Jonah's head and he started to faint. He prayed to die: "I'm better off dead!" 9Then God said to Jonah, "What right do you have to get angry about this shade tree?" Jonah said, "Plenty of right. It's made me angry enough to die!" 10-11God said, "What's this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can't I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?" (The Message)

Why do I think about this? Because for me, maybe you too, there is plenty of opportunity to get mad at God or despair because things don't "go my way" or even the "way that seems right" in church planting.

Trusting in the love of God releases me from building the church upon myself and allows it to really be His. If it is really HIS, He can open or close any door He chooses.

It's not my job to open the door, but to turn the handle and see if it is open. This is faithfulness. This is trust.

Sometimes it's easy to imagine what's behind "door #1" and think of all the prizes that await, but if the door is locked by God, then maybe it isn't all that great and glorious.

Maybe it isn't a trip to Bermuda... or a new car... or a new crockpot. Maybe it's destruction.

The Bible says, "there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is destruction". (Proverbs 14:12 & Proverbs 16:25 BAM-double whammy)

So, I've decieded to let go of church. It's God's anyways, not mine. Besides, the church God is building is not a building... the church He is building is a PEOPLE.

[ zack ]

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"The man invited to pray is asked to open his tightly clenched fists and to give up his last coin. But who wants to do that? A first prayer, therefore, is often a painful prayer, because you discover you don't want to let go. You hold fast to what is familiar, even if you aren't proud of it. You find yourself saying :"that's just how it is with me. I would like it to be different, but it can't be now. That's just the way it is and that's the way I'll have to leave it." once you talk like that you've already given up the believe that your life might be otherwise, you've already let the hope for a new life float by. Since you wouldn't dare to put a question mark behind a bit of your own experience with all it's attachments, you have wrapped yourself up in the destiny of the facts. You feel it is safer to cling to a sorry past than to trust in a new future. So you fill your hands with small clammy coins which you don't want to surrender."

~Henri Nouwen "With Open Hands"