Blog with Matthew

Walk the Dog

I have noticed something interesting about our dog, Buddy.  Very simply, the less he walks, the less he wants to walk.  A typical day for buddy involves six to ten hours of resting, napping, lying up-side-down legs outstretched - mostly on the couch he is allowed to lay on.  He gets up just to change resting

positions.  This is especially true now, with our kids back in school.

 

When I am home, I do my best to take him on one fast and vigorous walk of at least a mile, often two.  Here is the catch, when he misses a day or two he gets even more lazy.  When we force him to be active, he gets even more active.  He can go through a whole day, only occasionally getting up to bark at a chipmunk, without showing any interest in being playful and energetic.  But take Buddy for a walk, and as soon as were done, he wants to play ball, tug-of-war or “chaise my tail.”

 

Energy breeds energy, laziness breeds laziness.

 

Now I know where you think I am going with this.  It has been so long since I have written a blog…  but I hope that is due to maximum activity in other areas not laziness – but your thought would be more than justified. 

 

I have been thinking about Buddy and walks and I guess my point is just this, when we do the things we were created to do, when we get the spiritual, emotional and relational exercise we need it makes us crave more.  Doing what is good for us gives fulfillment and energy and makes us realize our need to get out and live.  Doing nothing breeds doing nothing.

 

So when I think of taking a day off from working out my body, feeding my mind, or meditating for my soul I need to consider Buddy.  Is this getting needed rest – if so great; or will I be gaining energy and momentum by doing the thing that seems to require more of me?  More often than not, if I get moving it creates the energy to keep on moving.  And for those all-important spiritual disciplines, this lesson from Buddy gives me a good reason to continue to set the alarm to get up in time to read and pray.

Is the process the point?

I read both these quotes on the same day and was struck by them.  Is God trying to get through?  I am a task completer, want closure, need to have attained the goal.  But as life goes on, I learn how impossible that is in the total picture – the ebb and flow keeps ebbing and flowing even when I want to get done and get off.  The trees I trimmed last year, branches piled high by the street, need trimmed again this year.  But this time I cannot reach the branches covering my garden, I will need a ladder. 

Martin Luther found the same thing: “This life, therefore, is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness; not health but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise.  We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.  The process is not finished but it is going on.  This is not the end, but it is the road.  All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”

The modern profit of spiritual formation, Dallas Willard has found the same.  “Without the gentle through rigorous process of inner transformation, initiated and sustained by the graceful presence of God in our world and in our soul, the change of personality and life clearly announced and spelled out in the Bible, and explained and illustrated throughout Christian history is impossible (Renovation of the Heart, 79).”

Take a deep breath, was that all one sentence?  Hold on for the run-on sentence, where was the editor for this one?  Or is that the point?  The run-on of the sentence is illustrating the process, its keeps going and going when we think we should be done.  Maybe I need to stop wanting to be done with this or that phase of spiritual growth and start resting in and enjoying the process.  When God says he is working all things for our good (Romans 8:28), maybe the good is not always a destination, as I think of – a good place to be - but rather the good of the process; who he is making me to be.  It is a good journey, a good process, a good path for me, even when I do not reach the good destination I thought I was headed toward.

Obedience and feeling ... good, bad, indifferent.

"If you love Me you will do what I command ... My command is this: love one another." John 14 & 15.  "If your child comes to you disobedient, troubled, irritating ... love him/her; if a muslim walks into your church, love him/her ... " PastorCarl Buffington, New Covenant Church.  "The least remembered of the 10 Commandments is 'Honor your mother and father'", Dennis Rainey, Real Family Life.

So what does it mean to be obedient, to honor, to love?  To follow "my Father's commands"?  Listen to that 'nudge' and follow through...follow directions...do what my spouse asks in a timely manner...do not lie, ever...do not cheat, ever. Be kind to that irritating person or love that irritating person? And what about the 'white lies' or the sarcastic, goofing around kind of cheating or the bending of the rules like '7 miles over the speed limit is okay'?

Obedience is no easy task ... simple maybe, but not easy. Since 2006, I have felt compelled to start a skate boarding minisry in honor and rememberance of our son Luke.  For those of you who do not know, Luke died suddenly in 2005 from Ehlers Danlos (VEDS). Luke was a skater, I was a fearful "sk8 mom" and was blessed when a Christian Skate DVD fell into my hands. We were successful in teaching Luke about being a light in a dark world; we trust that Luke is skating with Jesus eternally.

I do not look like a skater, nor does my husband.  I have picked up a few words here and there like 'sweet', 'sick', 'dude' (still works), 'gnarly' (yep, that word is still around), and 'cool' (of course).  But only a few, I do not dress like a skater, and sometimes all the tatoos find me staring too long at an arm or leg.  And yet, I have heard from God that we are to "love even these"...I have heard to "build a fortress (community)to protect our youth (skaters)" ... obedience, honor, love. 

So for over 3 years, we have been trying to build something to love and protect.  There have been many days where I have questioned this command, I have ignored the stuff I was being nudged about or have pushed hard to do it my way and not wait for God to provide the way. I have been discouraged, ignored, laughed at (bad feelings) ... I have ignored, put on the back burner, 'not now'-ed (indifferent feelings) ... and I have been encouraged, supported, built up, helped (good feelings).

Yesterday we successfully had our first "free sk8" ... we provided free everything for any skater that showed up.  Admission to the skate park, free hot dogs, chips, water, energy drinks, gatorade, t-shirts, decks, stickers ... really, not one thing did we charge for ... we just smiled, shown brightly, and gave a day of fun. And this morning, filled with mixed up feelings, I am preparing for a meeting with our team and board to discuss, pray about and discern 'just how often can we do this?'

Being obedient does not always feel good.  Being obedient often stinks. Especially while we are making the decision to be obedient ... and yet, "if you love me, do as my Father commands".  "Feel" is about dealing with good and bad feelings while following His commands. It is about learning to use our emotions (good or bad) to become a light in our dark world. To make our dark world a loving and beautiful place for others...to be in relationship with others, to love one another.  So when have you struggled with obedience and feelings, good, bad or indifferent?

Bad Day Blog

This was an unusual morning for me – pack lunches, take kids to school through really bad construction traffic where we were held up for :20 as they grind down the road bed for repaving, try to help Laura who is sick in bed.  Get home, and there are still dishes from last night.  Why are there dishes from last night?

There are several answers to that question.  Laura came home cooked dinner, wonderful marinated chicken for me to grill and broccoli casserole …  and promptly got sick.  She is now up in bed, OK?  I am giving Evan his spelling test, grilling chicken, having the kids set the table outside as it such a beautiful day.  Chicken was done and I had the casserole in my hands being held by the small handles through pot-holders.  The thought crossed my mind, “I should have Cailin get the door open for me.”  I promptly decided I was up to the challenge and reached for the door handle.  The slippery dish fell out of my hands with no problem smashing to the floor - broccoli casserole and broken pottery are now all over, right down into the floor heating vent and onto a floor rug.  I spend the next :30 cleaning while the kids eat – taking the long way around to the front door to get in and out of the house as the back is totally blocked by the mess.  At lease my boys had their first unsupervised experience in grilling chicken.  First load of laundry is Laura’s clothes from being sick and floor rug.

Jackson is to have his first experience putting Cailin to bed as Laura groans from the other room while I go off to swimming for Evan.  I come back late, after 9, only to be told by Jackson that our dog Buddy has thrown up as he was eating rabbit droppings in the back yard – and I thought our dog was smart.  Second load of laundry goes in the washer, no time to do dishes.

Thankfully, at swimming, I read Renovation of the Heart.  One of Willard’s points was that we sin because we are sinners.  It isn’t that we just happened to do one bad thing, but that we are bad – it comes from who we are.  I can tell you that some of the thoughts that went through my mind and attitudes I had through the evening proved that point very well.  I did not blow up, I did not swear, everything looked okay on the outside.  But my spiritual reality was not what it should be because I am not who I should be.  Perhaps God refined me through a sick wife, rabbit dropping eating dog, and huge kitchen mess more than 2.5 Bible studies and 5 praise choruses.  That is spiritual formation, God wants to point us to who we are on the inside so he can remake and remove and reform.  Am I totally surrendered to God, seeking him above all else - my own pleasure, status or ease?  Did I clean and drive kids and all that remembering that God plans my days, that God was in control or was I thinking of all the things I would rather and should be doing instead?  When nobody sees, do I live to bring glory to God even in the midst of frustrating circumstances?

Getting Mad, Jealous, or Upset with your Spouse and Numbers 5

My wife read these words to me from Numbers 5 early this morning as we both took some time in God’s Word.  This may just be the most unusual passage to write a devotional on yet – for me anyway.  It goes against our western sensibilities.

“Then the LORD said to Moses,  “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act),  and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure — or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure —  then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder offering to draw attention to guilt.” …

The passage goes on for some time to describe a ritual that is meant to bring the matter to conclusion for both parties, proving guilt or innocence.  It is a protection for the accused and the accuser.  If the woman is not guilty the jealous guy need to put the jealousy behind him and move on, the whole community will know of his false accusation and he will be more careful in the future.  If guilty, a curse is pronounced on the unfaithful spouse and the man is vindicated.

My wife and I talked about the passage, and she pointed out the implications for our understanding of emotion.  Look how seriously God takes jealousy, there is a good chance it is pointing to the truth.  There is no brushing aside the feeling without a thorough analysis.  At the same time, there is room to prove the emotion and the man wrong – emotion can show the truth but does not necessarily show it.  There is also resolution, there is not to be a stewing, an incessant dripping, a holding on to doubt.  The matter and the emotion is to be confronted and dealt with right away in the strongest terms.

Kind of an unorthodox and strange passage to find truth about emotion but there it is.  A few simple truths shine through clearly, especially as we work to build strong marriages and relationships:

1) Confront what seem to be hard and even dangerous emotions head on, do not sit and stew.

2) Involve your spouse and even your community when dealing with them.

3) Both parties need to be ready to either find truth in the emotion, or if it does not line up with the facts, to forgive and move on.

These are the steps that build relationships.  Pushing down hard emotions, holding onto negative feelings, or letting them out violently without taking steps toward a final resolution are all bad ideas.  If we learn to handle hard emotions in a relationship well, that will go a long way toward building a great relationship.

Dr. David and a Story about Spiritual Gifts

Many years ago while hanging out with friends I met a very interesting Christian.  He told me he had the spiritual gift of understanding fear.  My immediate reaction was to ask about the other super powers he had, but I held my tongue and asked him to describe this gift.  He explained that he had the ability to sense things that were dangerous and should be feared or avoided in the Christian’s life. 
“Very unique gift”, I stated. 

I could have ignored this whole interaction, yet I pursued and explained that I had not heard of anyone else with this gift.  He proclaimed that it was real and attempted to describe how the spiritual power worked.

God used this unusual interaction to spur me on to study the gifts in the church.  Although there is no exhaustive or complete listing of gifts in the Bible, I poured over the scripture and read scholars on the subject, and became aware of many exciting and powerful things God gifts His people with.
One of the more powerful examples of gifts comes from 2 Timothy 1:7 which states that God did not give a spirit of fear; but of power, of love, and good judgment.  The Bible provides many examples of Christ filling people with abilities that go beyond themselves, thank God he does.  These gifts are particularly comforting and empowering during trying times like Timothy was in, and we are currently experiencing.

What I especially like about this passage is that Paul describes three distinct things God’s Spirit provides for the Christian:

1.    The Spirit provides us with power.  This power helps us overcome obstacles from our broken world, our sinful tendencies and our enemy.

2.    The Spirit provides the ability to emotionally connect with others, described as love.  Although love can be faked - and can be robotic - I believe this passage reminds us that God’s emotive connections are fresh and charged by the power of the Holy Spirit.  How else can someone love and even die for people who hate him – as Jesus did?

3.    The Spirit provides sound judgment, or the ability to calmly reason through a problem.  God has provided us with the ability to think clearly despite confusion and chaos found in our world.

Although I still wonder about the special gift described by my spirited friend, I know that God does empower us to do great things.  I have also realized that if God can make a donkey talk why not provide a special spiritual gift just for us, to meet a particular need at a particular time.
What do you think?

People Matter (Faith Proved by Fact of Feelings #2)

In my devotions this morning I was struck by these words from 1 Corinthians 3:

The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves. Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you.  Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.

Then I read this from EM Bounds, "The trend of the day has the tendency to loose sight of the individual, or to sink the individual in the plan or organization.  God's plan, however, is to make much of his people, far more of them than anything else.  People are God's method.  The church is looking for better methods, God is looking for better people."  (Power Through Prayer)

I am a plan guy, a build the organization guy, a strategic planning "Good to Great" guy.  That is not all bad, but it leads to a lot of unneeded stress and unmet expectations and is not the center.  To Paul, people are the center, and that is all to do with how we feel and treat others.  Paul was not into proofs and building organizations as much as was into changed lives.  That is the standard he lived by - "Is God using me to impact those I see and know and touch?"  That is what mattered to him.

So we go back to how we prove the gospel from my last post, by facts or feelings?  Paul argued strongly, he knew his Old Testament practically by heart.  God's word and proving truth mattered in every synagogue he visited.  But the proof to him that it was working, that it was worth it - changed hearts and transformed people.  People around us know that is true as well and they look to our feelings to see if we believe what we say we do.

Buddy and God’s Love

Laura and I have talked about getting a dog from time to time for years.  We have always come down on the side of the dictates of logic: Evan has allergies that set off asthma attacks, we travel and cannot be tied down, we have no extra time…

About three weeks ago, I had a weird thought out of the blue.  It was almost a statement of fact in my mind, “It is time to get a dog.”  About the same time, unknown to me, Laura felt the same way.  After a conversation where we both found to our surprise that we both thought it was time for a dog, she began looking for rescued dogs on the internet.  She found a dog that was supposed to be the least likely breed to cause allergies to go into overdrive, just over one year old – completely trained, right size and look for her.  

Out of the three hundred dogs she looked at that needed rescued, she only wanted one – Buddy.  She requested information only to find that Buddy was already adopted.  It has not been the easiest couple of months for us, not much is working like we would like it to.  She closed her laptop, went upstairs, and thought “Okay, Lord, not even a dog.  But I guess if that is how you want it to be then so be it.  I don’t understand all the no’s recently but alright.”

So three days later, she gets a call that Buddy has been returned and out of the more than a dozen people that were still lined up to bring Buddy home, they had chosen  to call us.   Somehow they felt we were the right family for him. Two days later, we welcomed Buddy into our home for a “test run.” 
That was over a week ago, and Evan has no symptoms of allergies and Buddy has found a home.  From day one, it was like Buddy was always here – I never expected such a thing.  He is totally obedient, totally at home with our kids, totally good with not destroying anything, totally trained, and totally content.  If I were to send him back , still being in our trial period from the dog rescue, I think my wife and kids might never look at dad the same way again.  They would always be thinking, “that is the guy that made us give Buddy back.  We had a chance for happiness and he ruined it.” 

Buddy is “the best Christmas present ever,” a great lover of tug-of-war even at his small size for our boys, adored by Cailin, and loves Laura – she is not the world’s biggest dog person.  Now I have no idea why God wanted us to have a dog, but I cannot get around the fact that He did.  The creator of the universe, somehow, wanted to bless this family and these precious kids with the cutest, most lovable, least trouble dog imaginable – and we did not even need to train him to be like this.

Maybe God gave us Buddy because we needed some more laughter and fun, maybe our kids needed to learn some responsibility – probably not, maybe it was for some reason in the future we cannot possible understand today.   What I do know is that Buddy is a sign to me of God’s provision and care in every little area of our lives.  A very special “Merry Christmas.”  God shows love in some of the same ways that we do – in the little things, by reaching out a hand to touch and say I care about you in the very details of your life and will provide all that you need.  Thanks God for Buddy!

Focus on the Fundamentals: Thanksgiving 2008

My wife was over at a woman’s house from our church who had just lost her job last week to pray and support.  Yesterday I talked to a guy who for maybe the first time in his engineering career at a major manufacturing firm – they build really cool guy stuff – has some worries about his future.  Many of us seem to find a little less to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  Maybe joy is becoming a bit harder to find.  That is no surprise as in harder times, life can hurt.

As I studied through joy in the Bible one thing struck me again and again: the simplicity of the “because”.  In FEEL I talk a bit about because joy, how God gives us good reasons to have joy about real stuff, how joy is not this spiritual state that God just blesses us with when we spend enough time in prayer and fellowship – although I do believe that there are those time when God just comes close with his presence and brings a fullness of joy that cannot be explained.

Most of the time, we find praise and joy in because, in thinking on the good things that God has done in our lives.  There are not many commands to have joy in the Bible that are not connected to something.  Most Christians in the first century were not affluent, they were not powerful,  they were not well connected.  The because joy for them could not be what many of us have come to rely on like buying something new, finding some success, or even going to a movie or on a big vacation.

Real Christian joy is joy that lasts and joy you can have even in hard times, that James chapter 1, “whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy.”  The reason for that is “the because” cannot be taken away for those who have made a connection to God.  As Paul writes:

    All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.  Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. (Ephesians 1:3-8, NLT)

There is not one thing in these words that can be taken away from you by anything you are facing… sickness, financial chaos, loss of job.  Again and again the Bible takes our joy back down to the ground level, to the bedrock stuff we gained the day we put our trust in Christ. 

So my word to you is to focus on the fundamentals in order to find your voice to be thankful this year.  Absolutely, start with some great stuff in your life like good or improving family relationships, your kids, living in a country that is very blessed, gas that is once again under $2.00, and the fact that you have some really yummy pie to eat.  But when it comes down to it, get back to the best stuff, the truest stuff, the up there stuff, the things that Jesus did for you to give new life.  The hope we have from his promises even on the darkest nights, the joy in how he takes the really tough stuff and uses it for good in our lives, the love he is growing in us.  That is truly enough to bring great and heart-felt thanks into every Thanksgiving – enough to make it a real celebration of gratitude.

Mario Kart and Life

I told my son Jackson that I would split the cost of a video game that all of us – Jackson, Evan, and Cailin and I - could play together.  He choose Mario Kart for our Wii.  It has become the boys’ new favorite game.   You can choose to be plumbers, or dinosaurs or bad guys or Princess Peach and race around on a hot motorcycle, dirt bike, cool muscle car, or even a turbo baby buggy.  Then you get to race in a shopping mall or a volcano, a water world, or cityscape. 

Once, yes only once, I got first place of the 12 human and computer racers.  My biggest obstacle to placing well is falling off the track.  Some tracks are just tracks and you can drive off the road without doing much harm to your speed or standing, but some have wild cliffs and drop offs into fiery graves if you stray over the edge.  I am especially good at turning short or long and falling off the edge.  There is this one mushroom level where you jump from shroom to shroom and that gets me out without fail.  While I am dying and coming back again, I fall back into 12th place as often as not.

I have been reading through the book of Judges and it has reminded me a lot of Mario Kart.  You know many of the stories – Sampson and Delilah, Gideon and his 300 men with lamps and horns, Deborah the woman who won battles.  It is all about the cycle Israel lives out as fallen people: following hard after God doing well, falling away from God, repenting before God, and God rescuing them from their enemies in compassion and hope. 

As I thought about falling off those mushrooms in Mario Kart it made me realize that Judges was maybe not as far away from my life as I might like to think.  The cycle of Judges in the Bible takes years and years to complete, many times Israel stays true for 10, 15, or 20 years through the lifetime of their Judge.  But I think part of the lesson for us today, part of the reason God allowed us to see the pattern of Israel in this book was to show us ourselves.

We are racing around the track in our frantic world and too often we find ourselves falling off.  We pick up an old sin, we get lazy, we stop loving God like we need to.  The result is trying to pick ourselves up again, feeling like we are back in last place;  totally dependent on God to pick up the pieces and rescue us from our own mess.  We are human, it is going to happen at one time or another.

One more lesson from Mario Kart and the book of Judges – there are power-ups.  If you run over these spinning block things you can get speed-boosting turtles or better yet a supper bullet.  You press go and the bullet takes over, sending you to hyper drive with no skill required.  You can go from 12th to maybe even 5th or 6th in a flash.  I live for those moments, and if I am in 5th or 6th I might even make 1st and beat my boys.

Mario Kart’s cycle takes a few minutes, the book of Judges’ cycle might take 50 years, and usually our lives fall somewhere between.

Do you find yourself at the end today, through your own rebellion or maybe just the harsh realities of life?  Did you think you could take a curve really fast and just fall over the edge, maybe even into the lava.  You have fallen off the track again – maybe you are like me in both Mario Kart and life.  For both of us, if we come back to him again his grace is strong and power is real.  God wants us to desperately need him, where the only way through is the hyper drive bullet.  When we forget that we are already into the downward part of the cycle even when we think we are on the way up and are needing God less and less.  The cycle of Judges and the cycle of our lives, teaches us that we really need him desperately all the time.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

“Come Thou Font of Every Blessing,” Robert Robinson, 1758