reflections

why do the wicked have all the money?

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:35:18 -0500

And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong—you want only what will give pleasure.
James 4:2-3

I have a friend who is the COO for a biotech company that has an effective one-time treatment for HIV and AIDS.

That’s right. I didn’t stutter. They have an honest-to-God effective, one-time treatment for the HIV/AIDS virus that has shown zero side effects. In fact, in clinical trials, they have documented more than 1,000 cases of souls healed from the suffering wrought by that terrible disease and have successfully treated more than 10,000 others. It has been used with 99% success in a number of different countries (including our own on a limited scope) for more than a decade now. Many of those provided with this treatment were in the very late stages of their affliction, yet viral loads on all patients treated were non-detectable after they took the serum. Several patients even had multiple other diseases like TB, West Nile Virus, Malaria and so on, and all viruses were undetectable after treatment. The treatment seems to have an effect on all viruses due to the nature of the serum and its impact on infected cells in the body.

Why haven’t you heard about it? The very short answer is that the “Powers That Be” don’t want a cure for AIDS and clearly have no desire for a serum that could potentially cure most other viral diseases. Pharmaceutical companies, for instance, want the endless revenue from drugs that treat symptoms of diseases rather than the diseases themselves. Certain governments covet the population control that these diseases afford, particularly in Africa. It’s been my friend’s deepest heart desire for years now that this cure be offered to everyone the world over free of charge—a gift of healing from the Lord. But in his quest for private funding, he has met only greed, resistance, and obstruction both from those who have the means to help and from those who have the power to intimidate them and freeze and/or confiscate their funding.

Don’t believe it? That’s ok.

I have another friend—a few of them, actually, that work for a ministry that drills water wells in the third-world where more than a billion people have no access to clean drinking water. Moreover, double that number live with no infrastructure for basic sanitation. It doesn’t occur to most of us that the abundance of resources and opportunity we’ve inherited simply by being born in America are largely hoarded and wasted by an ignorant and gluttonous populace. Consider the following excerpt from Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty:

“Americans, for example, believe that they earned their wealth by themselves. They forget that they inherited a vast continent rich in natural resources, with great soils and ample rainfall, immense navigable rivers, and thousands of miles of coastline with dozens of natural ports that provide a wonderful foundation for sea-based trade. Other countries are not so favored…. More than eight million die a year because they are too poor to stay alive.”

Or try this fact on for size: in a purely financial sense, if the money we spent on perfume in just one year in this country was used instead to fund the drilling of water wells, Americans could by themselves resolve the world’s water crisis.

Most of us, though, have resigned ourselves to the idea that these problems are just too big, that they’ll always be with us. The deck is stacked against us. We tell ourselves that we can’t fight the “Powers That Be,” that these are the consequences of living in a fallen world.

Or worse, we question the skies, shake our heads, and say, “God, how can you let it be this way?” Why, God, do my friends have to practically beg for money to fund these life-saving ministries? Why do I have friends that have to come home from the mission field because they don’t have enough support to continue their missions? Why do those that have giving hearts often have so few resources from which to give?

I found myself asking those very questions the other day. I had been thinking about my friends and the injustices in the world as I was driving through downtown Houston. I looked up at the skyscrapers around me and imagined the “deals” being brokered in posh offices between greedy and powerful men and corrupt politicians, and I practically shook my fist at God when I asked Him out loud, “Why do the wicked have all the money?”

Knowing my heart before I even opened my mouth, the Lord fired back at me the same question. “You tell me,” He said. “Why do the wicked have all the money?”

The Lord’s words revealed something to me that I can’t help but share: there is no good reason that the world should continue to be as it is.

As I’ve sought the Lord in these matters over the past two weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two answers to the question He asked me, at least as it relates to the Church in America today.

The first is this, that in rejecting and condemning the pervasive deceptions, abuses, and false doctrines of the Prosperity Gospel (in other words, the “Name It & Claim It” or “Believe It & Receive It” sputum that has infected the American church for years), many believers have in effect abdicated their legal position in the heavenly realms as co-heirs with Christ and are missing out on their rightful inheritance as Sons of the King of Kings.
Because of what amounts to cautious unbelief, we either content ourselves on living paycheck to paycheck, probably racking up our fair American-share of credit card debt to get the stuff we want along the way, or worse, we become self-righteous and think that “choosing” to be satisfied with a meager income—not lifestyle, but income—somehow makes us more pleasing to the Lord. We are better than (yet still in some ways jealous of) our brothers who have been blessed with great material wealth. In either case, the result is that we have stopped asking the Lord to pour out His wealth on us and on His church.

The second answer to the Lord’s question is to me even more heartbreaking. Those of us that do ask the Lord to bless us with better paying jobs and more money are motivated not by a heart that longs to give what we have to remedy the injustices in the world, but (if we are honest with ourselves) mostly by a desire to make our own lives just a little more comfortable. Sure, we tell the Lord that if we had more, we could tithe more, but in our hearts what we really want is a little bit bigger house, a little nicer car, a few more clothes to choose from in our wardrobe, or a couple more gadgets to feed our voracious appetites for diversion and entertainment.

The same is true in our churches. We tell the Lord that if He would bless us with more resources, we could expand our ministries to reach more and more people. So we have capital campaigns to raise money for bigger buildings, more programs, better sound systems, or as a friend showed me the other day, flat panel TVs mounted above the urinals in the men’s restrooms. Brothers and sisters, in regards to money, the American church is in a state of ruin. We are in a state of ruin.

Don’t believe it? That’s ok.

But consider the words of the prophet, Haggai:

Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Consider how things are going for you! You have planted much but harvested little. You have food to eat, but not enough to fill you up. You have wine to drink, but not enough to satisfy your thirst. You have clothing to wear, but not enough to keep you warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!”
This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Consider how things are going for you! Now go up into the hills, bring down timber, and rebuild my house. Then I will take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You hoped for rich harvests, but they were poor. And when you brought your harvest home, I blew it away. Why? Because my house lies in ruins,” says the lord Almighty, “while you are all busy building your own fine houses. That is why the heavens have withheld the dew and the earth has withheld its crops.”
Haggai 1:3-10

Until we get this right, the Lord will take no pleasure in our offerings or in our ministries. He will continue to withhold His hand of true blessing from His people, and the wicked will continue to get rich.

I believe though, that the day is coming very soon—very soon—when the Lord will right these wrongs in His church. Very soon, the Lord is coming to bring blessing to those who rectify their hearts concerning these things. For more reasons than I can discuss now, I am convinced that a transfer of wealth is coming to this generation the likes of which the world has never seen. But with it will also come judgment upon those of us who refuse to turn loose of the many toys that usurp the Lord’s right to rule and reign over our finances.

So then this is my prayer. Lord, help us to change our hearts. Take our desire for more stuff and exchange it for an insatiable appetite to give. Put in us an ever greater desire to take back the wealth from the wicked; not that we may use it for our own selfish pleasures, but that we may increase Your kingdom and hasten its coming on the earth. Raise up an army of givers, and then honor us by giving us more and more.

If the Lord has already been moving in your heart regarding these matters, please let me know. I have more to share with you about how I believe He is moving in His church even now to fulfill His promises to the righteous and to bring transformation to this generation.

somewhere in the middle

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 13:29:28 -0600

Somewhere between the hot and the cold
Somewhere between the new and the old
Somewhere between who I am and who I used to be
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Somewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You're making me
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control

Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle
Are we caught in the middle

Somewhere between my heart and my hands
Somewhere between my faith and my plans
Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves

Somewhere between a whisper and a roar
Somewhere between the altar and the door
Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more
Somewhere in the middle You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control

Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle

Fearless warriors in a picket fence, reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end and we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences, the God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His or are we caught in the middle

Lord, I feel You in this place and I know You're by my side
Loving me even on these nights when I'm caught in the middle,
caught in the middle

courage under fire

Tue, 6 Nov 2007 12:13:54 -0600

It’s been more than six years... Even now I can’t find words.

It may seem odd that I would post this article today. Today is no different than yesterday. There’s nothing significant or memorable about today’s date, at least not in my life. It’s pretty much like any other day.

Maybe it’s that it’s a Tuesday... A perfectly clear and crisp fall morning. Or maybe it’s precisely the fact that it is like any other day, just as that day was. Or maybe it’s just that the events of that day so profoundly changed me that rarely does a day go by that I don’t consider them... that they don’t effect the decisions I make for my family or the way I look at the world... that they don’t reach down inside of me and stir up that thing in me that longs to be truly selfless and heroic.

The events of that Tuesday forever redefined my notion of The Hero, and no one has captured it better than Peggy Noonan in an article she wrote just a few short weeks after September 11, 2001.

Courage Under Fire
The 21st century’s first war heroes.

Friday, October 5, 2001 12:01 a.m.

Forgive me. I'm going to return to a story that has been well documented the past few weeks, and I ask your indulgence. So much has been happening, there are so many things to say, and yet my mind will not leave one thing: the firemen, and what they did.
Although their heroism has been widely celebrated, I don't think we have quite gotten its meaning, or fully apprehended its dimensions. But what they did that day, on Sept. 11--what the firemen who took those stairs and entered those buildings did--was to enter American history, and Western history. They gave us the kind of story you tell your grandchildren about. I don't think I'll ever get over it, and I don't think my city will either.
What they did is not a part of the story but the heart of the story...
We all of course know the central fact: There were two big buildings and there were 5,000-plus people and it was 8:48 in the morning on a brilliant blue day. And then 45 minutes later the people and the buildings were gone. They just went away. As I write this almost three weeks later, I actually think: That couldn't be true. But it's true. That is pretty much where New Yorkers are in the grieving process: "That couldn't be true. It's true." Five thousand dead! "That couldn't be true. It's true." And more than 300 firemen dead.

Three hundred firemen. This is the part that reorders your mind when you think of it. For most of the 5,000 dead were there--they just happened to be there, in the buildings, at their desks or selling coffee or returning e-mail. But the 300 didn't happen to be there, they went there. In the now-famous phrase, they ran into the burning building and not out of the burning building. They ran up the stairs, not down, they went into it and not out of it. They didn't flee, they charged. It was just before 9 a.m. and the shift was changing, but the outgoing shift raced to the towers and the incoming shift raced with them. That's one reason so many were there so quickly, and the losses were so heavy. Because no one went home. They all came.
And one after another they slapped on their gear and ran up the stairs. They did this to save lives. Of all the numbers we've learned since Sept. 11, we don't know and will probably never know how many people that day were saved from the flames and collapse. But the number that has been bandied about is 20,000--20,000 who lived because they thought quickly or were lucky or prayed hard or met up with (were carried by, comforted by, dragged by) a fireman.
I say fireman and not "firefighter." We're all supposed to say firefighter, but they were all men, great men, and fireman is a good word. Firemen put out fires and save people, they take people who can't walk and sling them over their shoulders like a sack of potatoes and take them to safety. That's what they do for a living. You think to yourself: Do we pay them enough? You realize: We couldn't possibly pay them enough. And in any case a career like that is not about money.
I'm still not getting to the thing I want to say.

It's that what the New York Fire Department did--what those men did on that brilliant blue day in September--was like D-Day. It was daring and brilliant and brave, and the fact of it--the fact that they did it, charging into harm's way--changed the world we live in. They brought love into a story about hate--for only love will make you enter fire. Talk about your Greatest Generation--the greatest generation is the greatest pieces of any generation, and right now that is: them.

So it was like D-Day, but it was also like the charge of the Light Brigade. Into the tower of death strode the three hundred. And though we continue to need reporters to tell us all the facts, to find out the stories of what the firemen did in those towers, and though reporters have done a wonderful, profoundly appreciative job of that, what we need most now is different.

We need a poet. We need a writer of ballads and song to capture what happened there as the big men in big black rubber coats and big boots and hard peaked hats lugged 50 and 100 pounds of gear up into the horror and heat, charging upward, going up so sure, calm and fast--so humorously, some of them, cracking mild jokes--that some of the people on the stairwell next to them, going down, trying to escape, couldn't help but stop and turn and say, "Thank you," and "Be careful, son," and some of them took pictures. I have one. On the day after the horror, when the first photos of what happened inside the towers were posted on the Internet, I went to them. And one was so eloquent--a black-and-white picture that was almost a blur: a big, black-clad back heading upward in the dark, and on his back, in shaky double-vision letters because the person taking the picture was shaking, it said "Byrne."

Just Byrne. But it suggested to me a world. An Irish kid from Brooklyn, where a lot of the Byrnes settled when they arrived in America. Now he lives maybe on Long Island, in Massapequa or Huntington. Maybe third-generation American, maybe in his 30s, grew up in the '70s when America was getting crazy, but became what his father might have been, maybe was: a fireman. I printed copies of the picture, and my brother found the fireman's face and first name in the paper. His name was Patrick Byrne. He was among the missing. Patrick Byrne was my grandfather's name, and is my cousin's name. I showed it to my son and said, "Never forget this--ever."

The Light Brigade had Tennyson. It was the middle of the Crimean War and the best of the British light cavalry charged on open terrain in the Battle of Balaclava. Of the 600 men who went in, almost half were killed or wounded, and when England's poet laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson, learned of it, he turned it into one of the most famous poems of a day when poems were famous:

Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them  Volley'd and thunder'd: Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell  Rode the six hundred.
I don't think young people are taught that poem anymore; it's martial and patriarchal, and even if it weren't it's cornball. But then, if a Hollywood screenwriter five weeks ago wrote a story in which buildings came down and 300 firemen sacrificed their lives to save others, the men at the studios would say: Nah, too cornball. That couldn't be true. But it's true.

Brave men do brave things. After Sept. 11 a friend of mine said something that startled me with its simple truth. He said, "Everyone died as the person they were." I shook my head. He said, "Everyone died who they were. A guy who ran down quicker than everyone and didn't help anyone--that was him. The guy who ran to get the old lady and was hit by debris--that's who he was. They all died who they were."

Who were the firemen? The Christian scholar and author Os Guinness said the other night in Manhattan that horror and tragedy crack open the human heart and force the beauty out. It is in terrible times that people with great goodness inside become most themselves. "The real mystery," he added, "is not the mystery of evil but the mystery of goodness." Maybe it's because of that mystery that firemen themselves usually can't tell you why they do what they do. "It's the job," they say, and it is, and it is more than that.

So: The firemen were rough repositories of grace. They were the goodness that comes out when society is cracked open. They were responsible. They took responsibility under conditions of chaos. They did their job under heavy fire, stood their ground, claimed new ground, moved forward like soldiers against the enemy. They charged.
There is another great poet and another great charge, Pickett's charge, at Gettysburg. The poet, playwright and historian Stephen Vincent Benet wrote of Pickett and his men in his great poetic epic of the Civil War, "John Brown's Body":

There was a death-torn mile of broken ground to cross,
And a low stone wall at the end, and behind it the Second Corps,
And behind that force another, fresh men who had not fought.
They started to cross that ground. The guns began to tear them.
From the hills they say that it seemed more like a sea than a wave, A sea continually torn by stones flung out of the sky, And yet, as it came, still closing, closing, and rolling on, As the moving sea closes over the flaws and rips of the tide.
But the men would not stop:

You could mark the path that they took by the dead that they left behind, . . .
And yet they came on unceasing, the fifteen thousand no more,
And the blue Virginia flag did not fall, did not fall, did not fall.

The center line held to the end, he wrote, and didn't break until it wasn't there anymore.
The firemen were like that. And like the soldiers of old, from Pickett's men through D-Day, they gave us a moment in history that has left us speechless with gratitude and amazement, and maybe relief, too. We still make men like that. We're still making their kind. Then that must be who we are.

We are entering an epic struggle, and the firemen gave us a great gift when they gave us this knowledge that day. They changed a great deal by being who they were.
They deserve a poet, and a poem. At the very least a monument. I enjoy the talk about building it bigger, higher, better and maybe we'll do that. But I'm one of those who thinks: Make it a memory. The pieces of the towers that are left, that still stand, look like pieces of a cathedral. Keep some of it. Make it part of a memorial. And at the center of it--not a part of it but at the heart of it--bronze statues of firemen looking up with awe and resolution at what they faced. And have them grabbing their helmets and gear as if they were running toward it, as if they are running in.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal. To read the article in its entirety, click on the link below:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=95001272

teachin’ in Kansas

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:51:13 -0500

This school year in Kansas has been unlike any other, not just because I was teaching on a military instillation and had kids with parents leaving for and returning from Iraq. I was blessed with a beautiful school, a state of the art classroom, amazing kids and the most supportive parents I have ever encountered. I even had a parent that specifically asked me to let her put up and take down my bulletin boards next year, even though her son will not be in my class anymore. I will miss that. I will also miss my kids tremendously. I was blessed with twenty-one kids that I will never forget. I tear up just thinking about them. I have built relationships with all the kids have taught in the past 5 years, but this year was special. I had one boy who brought his Bible to school with him several times and specifically asked me if he could share the gospel with the class during our read-aloud time one day. He was also the one who led our end-times discussion another day in class and gave an example about King Ahab during a history lesson. I also had a student this year that transferred into my room in the middle of the first quarter from another 4th grade class. Lack of motivation was only one of his issues. By the end of the year he was participating in class, turning in his homework and making A’s and B’s on his schoolwork. He even made a B on his report card, for the first time, the 4th quarter. As for the girls, sweet and helpful only scratch the surface. They all had their moments, of course, but all I had to do was ask and I had volunteers coming out of the woodwork. One of my girls started out the year very sweet and friendly, but I could tell she was an approval seeker and if she continued on the course she was on she would become a follower who because she wouldn’t stand up for herself would end up getting hurt or used or both. About half way through the year a situation arose with another girl in our class who was being dishonest. When my little follower told the truth about her friend I decided it was time for a little talk in the hall. I challenged her to keep telling the truth and standing up for what is right no matter the cost. I affirmed her leadership in our classroom, as all the other girls in the class wanted to be her “best” friend, and I encouraged her not to worry about what others think and to be confident in who she is. On the last day of school I had the kids write me letters detailing their likes and dislikes about the year. In her letter, she wrote two pages thanking me for that conversation we had in the hall that day and how it changed her life. Those little hallway discussions are why I teach, they are why the Lord put me there and they are what I will always remember. I could, as a proud teacher, tell endless stories about all my kids this year, but I’ll leave it at that. If you would like to hear more, all you have to do is ask!
This year, however, was not without its challenges. I was faced with an opportunity to grow in communication and professionalism with my 4th grade team and with the school staff as well. It was a bit like living in an apartment with 4 first born girls. We had 4 ways of making tea, 4 ways to load the dishwasher and 4 ways to resolve conflict. My team this year was no different. Despite our different backgrounds and teaching experiences we grew in respect for each other and when we sat down on the last day of school for our final meeting, we could all truly say that we needed each other and learned from each other this year. In my summative conference with my principal she began to apologize for the difficulties that I had encountered. I politely informed her that I was exactly where I needed to be and that it had nothing to do with her. This week I will meet with her one final time to discuss the year and my prayer is that I would be His mouthpiece once again. I knew going in that I would be a catalyst for change at Eisenhower. He has used me to bring about that change and I can say with a whole heart that I invested myself here. I think that is why just the thought of not returning makes me sad. I know that I will miss it so much.

prayers

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 04:34:57 -0600

At times I find that I need help expressing my heart to God. For whatever reason, I'm not able to put into words everything that stirs within me. The following prayers do not contain magic formulas, nor does their eloquence make them any more pleasing to God than the simple and honest prayer of a child or the desperate plea of one in need. I've included them here because they have at sometime interpreted for me the language of my heart before God. May they somehow do the same for you.

To Jesus, the Crown of my Hope,
My soul is in haste to be gone;
Oh bear me, ye cherubims, up,
And waft me away to His throne!

My Savior, whom absent I love,
Whom not having seen I adore,
Whose Name is exalted above
All glory, dominion, and power,

Dissolve Thou the bond that detains
My soul from her portion in Thee,
And strike off the adamant chains
And make me eternally free.

When that happy era begins,
When arrayed in Thy beauty I shine,
Nor pierce anymore, by my sins,
The bosom on which I recline,

Oh then shall the veil be removed
And round me Thy brightness be poured.
I shall meet Him whom absent I loved;
I shall see whom unseen I adored.

And then never more shall the fears,
The trials, temptations, and woes,
Which darken this valley of tears,
Intrude on my blissful repose.

Or, if yet remembered above,
Remembrance no sadness shall raise;
They will be but new signs of Thy love,
New themes for my wonder and praise.

Thus the strokes which from sin and from pain
Shall set me eternally free
Will but strengthen and rivet the chain
Which binds me, my Savior, to Thee.
~William Cowper :: “Longing to Be with Christ”

My Redeemer and my Lord,
I beseech Thee, I entreat Thee,
Guide me in each act and word,
That hereafter I may meet Thee,
Watching, waiting, hoping, yearning,
With my lamp well trimmed and burning!

Interceding
With these bleeding
Wounds upon Thy hands and side,
For all who have lived and erred
Thou hast suffered, Thou hast died,
Scourged, and mocked, and crucified,
And in the grave hast Thou been buried!

If my feeble prayer can reach Thee,
O my Saviour, I beseech Thee,
Even as Thou has died for me,
More sincerely
Let me follow where Thou leadest,
Let me, bleeding as Thou bleedest,
Die, if dying I may give
Life to one who asks to live,
And more nearly,
Dying thus, resemble Thee!
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow :: “A Prayer”

In me there is darkness,
But with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways,
But you know the way for me.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You were poor
and in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am.
You know all man’s troubles;
You abide with me
when all men fail me;
You remember and seek me;
It is your will that I should know you and turn to you.
Lord, I hear your call and follow;
Help me.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer :: “Morning Prayers”

Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you.
Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: “Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.”
Lord, give me this seeing faith, then my work will never be monotonous. I will ever find joy in humouring the fancies and gratifying the wishes of all poor sufferers.
O beloved sick, how doubly dear you are to me, when you personify Christ; and what a privilege is mine to be allowed to tend you.
Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
And O God, while you are Jesus my patient, deign also to be to me a patient Jesus, bearing with my faults, looking only to my intention, which is to love and serve you in the person of each one of your sick.
Lord, increase my faith, bless my efforts and work, now and for evermore, Amen.
~Mother Teresa of Calcutta :: “Daily Prayer”

I summon today all these powers between me (and these evils): against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul, against incantations of false prophets, against black laws of heathenry, against false laws of heretics, against craft of idolatry, against spells of witches, smiths and wizards, against every knowledge that endangers man's body and soul. Christ to protect me today against poisoning, against burning, against drowning, against wounding, so that there may come abundance in reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ in breadth, Christ in length, Christ in height, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
~St. Patrick :: “The Deer’s Cry”

Lord, you know what is best for me; let this be done or that be done as You please. Grant what You will, as much as You will, when You will. Do with me as You know best, as will most please You, and will be for Your greater honor. Place me where You will and deal with me freely in all things. I am in Your hand; turn me about whichever way You will. Behold, I am Your servant, ready to obey in all things. Not for myself do I desire to live, but for You - would that I could do this worthily and perfectly!
~Thomas a Kempis :: The Immitation of Christ

Ah, Lord God, my holy Lover, when You come into my heart, all that is within me will rejoice. You are my glory and the exultation of my heart. You are my hope and refuge in the day of my tribulation. But because my love is as yet weak and my virtue imperfect, I must be strengthened and comforted by You. Visit me often, therefore, and teach me Your holy discipline. Free me from evil passions and cleanse my heart of all disorderly affections so that, healed and purified within, I may be fit to love, strong to suffer, and firm to persevere.
~Thomas a Kempis :: The Immitation of Christ

Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe. Delight me to see how your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his, to the Father through the features in men’s faces. Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all.
~Rabbi Joshua Abraham Heschel

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going, I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.
~Thomas Merton

Lord, I would trust thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing presence and to hear Thy speaking voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thoughts may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the words of Thy great servant of old, “I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee.” And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen.
~A.W. Tozer :: The Pursuit of God

Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart. Here is the citadel of all my desiring, where my hopes are born and all the deep resolutions of my spirit take wings. In this center, my fears are nourished, and all my hates are nurtured. Here my hopes are cherished, and all the deep hungers of my spirit are honored without quivering and without shock. In my heart, above all else, let love and integrity envelop me until my love is perfected and the last vestige of my desiring is no longer in conflict with thy Spirit. Lord, I want to be more holy in my heart. Amen.
~Howard Thurman

Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine on it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there.
~A. W. Tozer :: The Pursuit of God

quotations

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 04:10:13 -0600

The following quotations are shared with the hope that you would discover the goodness and power in the craftsmanship of wordsmiths that have at some time either spoken to me or spoken for me. This page is dedicated to the person who taught me the value of its treasures. Thank you, Randy!

Sometimes God wants us to do the hard thing.
~My Mother

Christ is the great peacemaker, but before peace He brings war...
Better a brief warfare and eternal rest than false peace and everlasting torment.
~Charles Spurgeon :: “War and Peace”

Life is a temporary assignment.
~Rick Warren :: The Purpose Driven Life  
The greatest tragedy is not death, but life without purpose.
~Rick Warren :: The Purpose Driven Life  
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
~Edmond Burke  
When you go [on a mission trip], the Holy Spirit comes into your life and rearranges all the price tags.
~Matt Barnhill  
Eternal separation from God is the result of a lifetime spent telling God to “Leave me alone.”
And when you die, God will leave you painfully, eternally alone.
~Matt Barnhill  
For it isn’t to the palace
that the Christ-child comes,
But to shepherds and street people,
Hookers and bums.
~Bruce Cockburn :: Cry of a Tiny Babe  
The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.
~John Milton   
We can’t be expected to understand him; he’s so far above us. We’re like…ropes on the Goodyear blimp.
~Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) :: What About Bob?  
I tell you, friends, some people’s prayers need to be cut at both ends and set fire to in the middle.
~D.L. Moody  
Love gives you wings. It makes you fly. I don't even call it love. I call it...Geronimo.
~Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson) :: Conspiracy Theory  
If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you're doing tomorrow.
~ Rev. Mychal Judge   
Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.
~John Gardener  
...and behind this splendour, as behind a curtain of flame, you caught a glimpse of God, the millionaire of stars.
~Victor Hugo :: Les Miserables  
Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches, but wings.
~Phillip Brooks  
The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.
~Henry David Thoreau  
The test of our worth is the service we render.
~Theodore Roosevelt  
We know God will do good things. We are fearful of how painful the good will be.
~C.S. Lewis
 
"Safe?! Of course he's not safe. But he's good."
~C.S. Lewis :: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe  
"It is nothing to die; it is frightful not to live."
~Jean Valjean :: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables  
"I'm not anxious to die, sir. Just anxious to matter."
~Raif McCaulley (Ben Aflec) :: Pearl Harbor  
Suffering in others is relieved in so much as we are prepared to enter into it ourselves.
~Leonard Cheshire  
Love has its childlikenesses, the other passions have their littlenesses. Shame on the passions which render man little! Honour to that which makes him a child!
~Victor Hugo :: Les Miserables  
And He was like the laughter of children.
~Kahlil Gibran :: "In Remembrance of Him"  
In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it.
~Oswald Chambers :: My Utmost for His Highest  
Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.
~Victor Hugo :: Les Miserables  
A man is raised up from the earth by two wings -- simplicity and purity...Simplicity leads to God, purity embraces and enjoys Him.
~Thomas a Kempis :: The Immitation of Christ  
Since man is weak, let him cease to strive; let him surrender himself to the being and the love of God. The new life...calls for a period of preparation which consisted in overcoming all the assertiveness of the ego, all arrogance, pride, self-seeking, everything connected with the I, the me, and the my. Luther's very effort to achieve merit was a form of assertiveness. Instead of striving he must yield and sink himself in God. The end of the mystic way is the absorption of the creature in the creator, of the drop in the ocean, of the candle flame in the glare of the sun. The struggler overcomes his restlessness, ceases his battering, surrenders himself to the Everlasting, and in the abyss of Being finds his peace.
~Roland H. Bainton :: Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther  
You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.
~Victor Hugo :: Les Miserables  
The soul which loves and which suffers is in the sublime state.
~Victor Hugo :: Les Miserables  
I dream my paintings, and then I paint my dreams.
~Vincent Van Gogh  
As iron cast into fire loses its rust and becomes glowing white, so he who turns completely to God is stripped of his sluggishness and changed into a new man. When a man begins to grow lax, he fears a little toil and welcomes external comfort, but when he begins perfectly to conquer himself and to walk bravely in the ways of God, then he thinks those things less difficult which he thought so hard before.
~Thomas a Kempis :: The Immitation of Christ  
The delight we inspire in others has this enchanting peculiarity, that, far from being diminished like every other reflection, it returns to us more radiant than ever.
~Victor Hugo :: Les Miserables  
Laughter is sunshine; it chases winter from the human face.
~Victor Hugo :: Les Miserables  
The good news of the Gospel of Grace cries out: we are all, equally, privileged but unentitled beggars at the
door of God's mercy!
~Brennan Manning :: The Ragamuffin Gospel  
"The most beautiful of altars...is the soul of an unhappy man who is comforted and thanks God."
~Mon. Myriel :: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables  
All thou needest to make thee blessed, supremely blessed, is to be with Christ.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon :: Mornings and Evenings   
I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term, than to gain a distaste for it, because of a superior satisfaction in God.
~John Piper :: Desiring God  
"When you wear the weed of impatience in your heart instead of the flower Acceptance-with joy, you will always find your enemies get an advantage over you."
~The Good Shepherd :: Hannah Hurnard's Hinds Feet On High Places  
The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things...We dare not try to bypass it if we would follow in this holy pursuit.
~A.W. Tozer :: The Pursuit of God  
"Let him, the priest of God, weep too, and he will see how the hearts of his listeners will be shaken in response to him. Only a little, a tiny seed is needed: let him cast it into the soul of a simple man, and it will not die, it will live in his soul all his life, hiding there amidst the darkness, amidst the stench of his sins, as a bright point, as a great reminder. And there is no need, no need of much explaining and teaching, he will understand everything simply."
~The Elder Zosima :: Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov  
The laborious pastor, the fervent minister, the ardent evangelist, the faithful teacher, the powerful intercessor can all trace the birth of their zeal to the sufferings they endured through sin and the knowledge they thereby attained of its evil nature. We have ever drawn the sharpest arrows from the quiver of our own experience. We find no sword blades so true in metal as those which have been forged in the furnace of soul-trouble.
~Charles Haddon Spurgeon 
"See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work."
~Isaiah 54:16

the problem with God

Sat, 5 Nov 2005 05:05:25 -0600

My sister mentioned to me the other day a story in the news about a man in Los Angeles who shot his wife (from whom he had been separated) and then turned the gun on their four-year-old son who was at that moment strapped in a car seat. Apparently a picture of this precious little boy with his puppy was being broadcast all over the news.

The question that is always inevitably posed in the wake of stories like this is, “How can God allow something like that to happen? How can you believe in a God who seems to turn a blind eye to so much evil in the world when He’s supposed to have the power to prevent it?” There are so many answers to those questions, but more often than not, it seems that the ones that are offered are shallow attempts to somehow get God off the hook.

There’s the philosophical answer, for instance… the one that goes something like this: without the presence of evil in the world, we would never recognize just how good God is. If evil didn’t exist, we would all live as Adam and Eve first lived in the Garden of Eden, taking for granted the perfect relationship they had with their Creator because they were completely ignorant of just how bad things could get without Him, and as the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss. It’s a neat little package of apologetics, but hardly will it satisfy the serious skeptic.

Then there’s the one where I tell you that even if we don’t see it now, all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). I could even echo what Joseph told his brothers in chapter 45 of the book of Genesis when after they sold him into slavery, an act which eventually led to his being falsely accused of the rape of his master’s wife and thrown into prison for more than two years, he finds favor with Pharaoh (through an extraordinary set of circumstances) and becomes second in command of all of Egypt. Years later, after saving the people of Egypt from a great famine, he is reunited with his brothers and given the opportunity to exact his revenge. Yet with incredible mercy and forgiveness he tells them instead:

“Do not be distressed, and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.”

In other words, I could tell you that we don’t see the big picture when it comes to stories like these, but God does, and He can work it so that good always eventually comes out of evil.

If that doesn’t do it for you and you really seem to have God backed into a corner, I could spit back the one that God, Himself, fires off in the book of Job. You see, Job was a righteous man—a man who God even said was without equal. One minute Job’s got the world by the tail—a big beautiful family, lots of land and money—and in a single afternoon, God allows Satan to take everything from him. Yet it’s not Satan that Job confronts with this awful injustice. He takes his case straight to the Source. He challenges God, in fact, for thirty chapters of the Bible, all the while maintaining his own innocence. And how does the Almighty respond?

“Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” God says to him. “Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me.

“Where were you,” God continues, “when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy…

“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?”
Job 38:2-7, 40:2

And there are so many other angles that people try to take to get God out of this mess He seems to have made for Himself. I see things a little differently, though. I don’t believe that God is the one who is on the hook here. I don’t believe that God is the one who needs to be rescued or who needs to give an account for His actions.

There’s another story in the New Testament (the eleventh chapter of John) that I think illustrates where I’m coming from. It’s the one where Jesus finds out that his friend, Lazarus, is sick. In fact, Lazarus is dying, and Jesus knows it, but he refuses to go to heal him. Two days later, Lazarus does actually die. When Jesus finally gets around to paying a visit four days later, he is met with bitter sadness and a total lack of understanding. When Mary, one of Lazarus’ sisters, goes out to meet Jesus, she challenges him with a glaring reality. “If you had been here,” she cried, falling at his feet, “my brother would not have died.”

It’s a powerful observation, don’t you think? I mean, really, isn’t it the same thing that we’re saying about this little boy and his mom? Aren’t we really saying, “Hey God, if you had been there, this would never have happened. In fact, God, if you really exist, how can stuff like this happen at all? How can there be things like murder and rape and incest? How can people suffer the ravages of diseases like cancer and AIDS? How can there be children starving in China and Africa and right here in America? How can hundreds of thousands of people be swept away by a single rushing wave of water?”

I love how Jesus responds both to her and to us. He was deeply moved in spirit, the scripture tells us. He was even troubled, it says… so much so that he wept. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine God weeping over the suffering and evil in the world? Can you imagine, better yet, God weeping over our lack of understanding regarding suffering and evil in the world?

But that’s not even the end of the story. He doesn’t just boo-hoo a little bit, say I’m sorry, and call it a day. What Jesus does next is absolutely astounding. He turns the tables.

“If you believe,” he says plainly, “You will see the glory of God.”

You see, it’s easy to sit back and criticize a god who allows evil and suffering in the world… who allows bad things to happen to “good people.” It’s easy to say, “I just can’t believe in that kind of god.” It’s easy because if we choose not to believe, then nothing further can ever be required of us.

If God is good, then He has to do something about the problem of evil in the world. If I say that I believe in a good God, then I am also obligated to be good in the sense that He is good. If I’m not, then I’m a hypocrite. So if I say that I believe in a good God, then I have to do something about the problem of evil in the world.

I have to pray for the lonely, the hurting, the angry. I have to visit the least, the last, and the lost. I have to give comfort to the widow and shelter to the homeless. I have to care for the orphan and clothe the naked. I have to be willing to enter into the suffering of others, to identify with them just as Jesus did, in order to have any hope of relieving their suffering.

You say, “Well I can do all those things without believing in God.” This is true, to an extent, but
1.) what hope do you then have to offer those who suffer, and
2.) what then will you say about the problem of evil as it exists in you?

The real truth of our condition is that evil infects every one of us. Not only is nobody perfect, but every one of us is fatally flawed. In my heart, I know that I am just as guilty of offending the goodness of an infinitely holy God and falling short of the standard of His perfection as a man who would use a pistol to take the lives of his wife and four-year-old son. In my heart, not only am I capable of murder, adultery, perversity, slander and gossip, covetousness and thievery, drunkenness, and all other kinds of immorality, I am also guilty of them by my thoughts if not by my actions. I am part of the problem.

You see, if we choose not to believe in a God who is perfect in His goodness, then we’re off the hook (at least in our own minds). If there is no God, then there is no universal standard of good, and if there is no universal standard of good, then I’m “not so bad.” And if I’m not so bad, then I never have to acknowledge the true depths of my own depravity—not that I am evil to my core, but that every aspect of my existence is in some way corrupted by the evil things I think and do.

But if there is a God, and He is good, then I am in an awful predicament. It’s so much easier to believe otherwise and live in either ignorance or denial.

The God in whom I believe, the God I serve, is a God who hates evil and suffering in the world. Oh, but He’s also a God who loves us enough to give us the freedom to choose whether or not we will love Him in return… to choose good or evil, to choose life or death, to choose to join with Him in fighting evil and suffering in the world by overcoming it with good. The God I serve invites us to help clean up the mess that we have made of His creation by first taking responsibility for our part in it, and then by receiving the redemption that He provided for us through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus. Finally, He further invites us to experience life with Him as we share His message of redemption not just with words, but ultimately with our lives.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good,” the psalmist wrote. Check Him out. Put Him to the test. With Him, there is hope in the midst of sorrow. With Him, there is joy in the face of despair. With Him, there is peace in the chaos of war. With Him, there is nothing—nothing that is beyond redemption. He told us that in this world we would see trouble. But He also told us not to worry because He has overcome the world.

Every one of us has to make a choice. We can sit back and criticize and scoff, live life on our own terms, look out for Number One, and continue to be part of the problem, or we can taste and see that the Lord is good, surrender our lives to Him and become a part of His solution.

If we believe, we will experience the power of God changing us from the inside out. If we believe, we will see Him bring redemption and new life even out of death, destruction, and evil. If we believe, we will see the glory of God. If we believe…

so there is never a doubt

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 16:31:17 -0600

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don't use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that's how freedom grows.

~Galatians 5:13 :: The Message

It's been reported this week that a "somber milestone" has been reached as the number of American casualties in the war here topped 2,000. It's been reported that our Commander-in-Chief's approval ratings are now at an all-time low due in large part to "escalating public impatience with the war." After months of criticism from politicians, journalists and protesters demanding a deadline for the withdrawal of our troops, now even some of the most faithful patriots and supporters are losing faith and "looking for a way out."

To be sure there is never a doubt, I want you to know that I will not be one of them. I will not look for a way out. I will not lose faith; I will not cut my losses. I will not cheapen the freedom that God has given us through the sacrifice of heroes greater than ourselves by expecting to purchase it at a discount for others.

Instead I will believe that our offering, however great or small it must be, will be used by God to bring hope and peace to those who have so long lived in desperation and fear. I will believe it not because I am naive or idealistic as some may accuse me. Neither do I pretend to be so brave or courageous as others might make me. I will believe it because I know the One who has called me is faithful, and He who purchased my freedom by His own blood determines how costly a gift true freedom really is.

The video posted below is an expression of my faith in Christ, in the price of freedom, and in the service of freedom's heroes. A few of the photos are mine, but most are from a number of different sources on the web (forgive me for not citing them all).

I love you all and serve you proudly.

Grace and peace...

monday night at morton's

Sat, 20 Dec 2003 15:17:24 -0600

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?
Ben Stein at Hollywood’s A-List Table

As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started.

Lew Harris, who founded this great site, asked me to do it maybe seven or eight years ago, and I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

But again, all things must pass, and my column for E! Online must pass. In a way, it is actually the perfect time for it to pass. Lew, whom I have known forever, was impressed that I knew so many stars at Morton's on Monday nights.

He could not get over it, in fact. So, he said I should write a column about the stars I saw at Morton's and what they had to say.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars.

I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie.

But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened. I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model?

Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails. They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer.

A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament. The policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive. The orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery. The teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children. The kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse.

Now you have my idea of a real hero.

Last column, I told you a few of the rules I had learned to keep my sanity. Well, here is a final one to help you keep your sanity and keep you in the running for stardom: We are puny, insignificant creatures.

We are not responsible for the operation of the universe, and what happens to us is not terribly important. God is real, not a fiction, and when we turn over our lives to Him, he takes far better care of us than we could ever do for ourselves.

In a word, we make ourselves sane when we fire ourselves as the directors of the movie of our lives and turn the power over to Him.

I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin—or Martin Mull or Fred Willard—or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life.

I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.

As so many of you know, I am an avid Bush fan and a Republican. But I think the best guidance I ever got was from the inauguration speech of Democrat John F. Kennedy in January of 1961.

On a very cold and bright day in D.C., he said, "With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth...asking His blessing and His help but knowing that here on Earth, God's work must surely be our own."

And then to paraphrase my favorite president, my boss and friend Richard Nixon, when he left the White House in August 1974, with me standing a few feet away, "This is not goodbye. The French have a word for it--au revoir. We'll see you again."

Au revoir, and thank you for reading me for so long. God bless every one of you. We'll see you again.

the Lord is...

Fri, 18 May 2001 16:26:10 -0500

• in this place, and I was not aware of it. (Genesis 28:16)
• in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. (Exodus 9:27)
• fighting for them against Egypt. (Exodus 13:25)
• my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. (Exodus 15:2)
• a warrior; the LORD is his name. (Exodus 15:3)
• my Banner. (Exodus 17:15)
• greater than all other gods. (Exodus 18:11)
• a jealous God. (Exodus 34:14)
• slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. (Numbers 14:18)
• with them; the shout of the King is among them. (Numbers 23:21)
• a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Dueteronomy 4:24)
• a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you... (Dueteronomy 4:31)
• God; besides him there is no other. (Dueteronomy 4:35)
• God in heaven above and on the earth below. (Dueteronomy 4:39)
• one. (Dueteronomy 6:4)
• a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. (Dueteronomy 6:13)
• God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. (Dueteronomy 7:9)
• among you… (Dueteronomy 7:21)
• a great and awesome God. (Dueteronomy 7:21)
• the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. (Dueteronomy 9:3)
• going to drive them out before you. (Dueteronomy 9:4)
• their inheritance. (Dueteronomy 10:9)
• God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. (Dueteronomy 10:17)
• testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
(Dueteronomy 13:3)
• the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory. (Dueteronomy 20:4)
• your life... (Dueteronomy 30:20)
• God in heaven above and on the earth below. (Joshua 2:11)
• God. (Joshua 22:34)
• Peace. (Judges 6:24)
• our witness; (Judges 11:10)
• a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed. (1 Samuel 2:3)
• witness against you... (1 Samuel 12:5)
• witness between you and me forever. (1Samuel 20:23)
• witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.
(1 Samuel 20:42)
• my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; (2 Samuel 22:2)
• God and...there is no other. (1 Kings 8:60)
• our God, and we have not forsaken him. (2 Chronicles 13:10)
• with you when you are with him. (2 Chronicles 15:2)
• gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.
(2 Chronicles 30:9)
• God. (2 Chronicles 33:13)
• great and awesome... (Nehemiah 4:14)
• from everlasting to everlasting. (Nehemiah 9:5)
• a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day. (Psalm 7:11)
• a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. (Psalm 9:9)
• known by his justice; (Psalm 9:16)
• King for ever and ever; (Psalm 10:16)
• in his holy temple...on his heavenly throne. (Psalm 11:4)
• righteous, he loves justice; (Psalm 11:7)
• the refuge of the poor. (Psalm 14:6)
• at my right hand, (Psalm 16:8)
• my rock, my fortress and my deliverer...my rock, in whom I take refuge...my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. (Psalm 18:2)
• enthroned as the Holy One...the praise of Israel (Psalm 22:3)
• my shepherd, I shall not be in want. (Psalm 23:1)
• Good and upright; (Psalm 25:8)
• my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? (Psalm 27:1a)
• the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1b)
• my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. (Psalm 28:7)
• the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one. (Psalm 28:8)
• enthroned as King forever. (Psalm 29:10b)
• good; (Psalm 34:8)
• close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)
• the one who sustains me. (Psalm 54:1-7)
• a sun and shield; (Psalm 84:11)
• upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him. (Psalm 92:15)
• robed in majesty and is armed with strength. (Psalm 93:1)
• mighty—mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea. (Psalm 93:4)
• the great God, the great King above all gods. (Psalm 95:3)
• great and most worthy of praise; (Psalm 96:4)
• great in Zion; he is exalted over all the nations. (Psalm 99:2)
• holy. (Psalm 99:9)
• God. (Psalm 100:3)
• good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
(Psalm 100:5)
• compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. (Psalm 103:8)
• good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 107:1)
• gracious and compassionate. (Psalm 111:4)
• exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. (Psalm 113:4)
• gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. (Psalm 116:5)
• with me; I will not be afraid. (Psalm 118:6)
• with me; he is my helper. (Psalm 118:7)
• my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. (Psalm 118:14)
• God, and he has made his light shine upon us. (Psalm 118:27)
• your shade at your right hand; (Psalm 121:5)
• righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked. (Psalm 129:4)
• good; (Psalm 135:3)
• great...greater than all gods (Psalm 135:5)
• my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge... (Psalm 144:2)
• gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. (Psalm 145:8)
• good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. (Psalm 145:9)
• faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. (Psalm 145:13b)
• righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. (Psalm 145:17)
• near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. (Psalm 145:18)
• great and mighty in power; (Psalm 147:5)
• far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous. (Proverbs 15:29)
• the Maker of them all [the rich and the poor]. (Proverbs 22:2)
• the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread, and he will be a sanctuary; (Isaiah 8:13-14)
• my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. (Isaiah 12:2)
• mustering an army for war. (Isaiah 13:4)
• about to take firm hold of you and hurl you away, O you mighty man. (Isaiah 22:17)
• going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; (Isaiah 24:1)
• the Rock eternal. (Isaiah 26:4)
• coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. (Isaiah 26:21)
• a God of justice. (Isaiah 30:18)
• exalted, for he dwells on high; (Isaiah 33:5)
• our judge...our lawgiver...our king; it is he who will save us. (Isaiah 33:22)
• angry with all nations; his wrath is upon all their armies. (Isaiah 34:2)
• coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; (Isaiah 66:15)
• the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. (Jeremiah 10:10)
• with me like a mighty warrior; (Jeremiah 20:11)
• about to destroy the Philistines, the remnant from the coasts of Caphtor. (Jeremiah 47:4)
• a God of retribution; he will repay in full. (Jeremiah 51:56)
• there. (Ezekiel 48:35)
• merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; (Daniel 9:9)
• righteous in everything he does; (Daniel 9:14)
• his name of renown! (Hosea 12:5)
• his name. (Amos 9:6)
• coming from his dwelling place; (Micah 1:3)
• calling to the city – and to fear your name is wisdom - ”Heed the rod and the One who appointed it.” (Micah 6:9)
• a jealous and avenging God; (Nahum 1:2)
• slow to anger and great in power; (Nahum 1:3)
• good, a refuge in times of trouble. (Nahum 1:7)
• in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him. (Habakkuk 2:20)
• my strength; (Habakkuk 3:19)
• is with you, he is mighty to save. (Zephaniah 3:17)
• with [every ruler from Judah]... (Zechariah 10:5)
• our God. (Zechariah 13:9)
• Great – even beyond the borders of Israel! (Malachi 1:5)
• acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. (Malachi 2:14)
• with you. (Luke 1:28)
• Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him... (Romans 10:12)
• able to make [the servant] stand. (Romans 14:4)
• the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)
• faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. (2 Thessalonians 3:3)
• near. (Philippians 4:5)
• full of compassion and mercy. (James 5:11)
• good. (1 Peter 2:3)
• not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)
• coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him. (Jude 1:14-15)

blessed are the tears

Fri, 14 Jan 2000 15:18:15 -0600

"Blessed are the tears that fall." The words of that song are a powerful reminder of the hope to which I cling. "Blessed are the tears that fall...that clean the windows of the soul." What a wonder it is to know a God who collects our tears and calls them blessed. I don't think I fully realized the blessedness of my tears until I encountered a people who have suffered beyond what most of us will ever experience or understand.

In Kosovo, tears are despised. They are signs of weakness and cannot be shed without embarrassment or shame. Imagine never being able to release your sorrow, or regret, or suffering through the shedding of tears. The windows of the soul become plate-glass dams shoring up reservoirs of heartache, anguish, and despair. How profound it is to me now that the gospel tells us we have a Savior who wept—a God who resolved the misery of man by first making Himself vulnerable to it.

So when the dams give way and a flood of tears sweeps over a Kosovar woman whose husband, having disappeared during the war, is presumed dead, there is comfort in knowing there is a God who doesn't just measure those tears, He shares them. And when her oldest son, barely sixteen, breaks under the burden of being the sole provider for his family, and when his precious little sister, missing her daddy terribly, buries her face in her arms and sobs, they have a Daddy in Heaven who is intimately familiar with their suffering.

And when a 14-year-old girl returned from a day at the market to find her mother, her father and her five brothers and sisters slain in a field, butchered by Serbian police, I can only imagine that Jesus wept again. I can only imagine that as she sat at their graves, alone in the world, shaking her fist at God and crying, "If you had only been here..." the Prince of Peace sat there with her, waiting to gather her face so tenderly in His hands, to kiss the tears she could not show the world, and to say to her the words He spoke to Martha after the death of her brother Lazarus:

"I am, right now, Resurrection and Life...If you believe, you will see the glory of God."
~John 11:25, 40 :: The Message

There is but one hopeful remedy to the plague of suffering that curses us, and it is found in the One who endured and defeated death itself, the One who said, "You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you" (Matthew 5:4 :: The Message). I can't tell you how many tears I have shed for the Kosovar people. I can tell you, though, that tears are not enough. If we claim to serve an infinitely powerful God who has made Himself vulnerable to our sorrow and pain through the humiliation and execution of His one and only Son, then how much more vulnerable ought we to make ourselves? If my time in Kosovo taught me anything, it's that my life is not my own. It belongs to the One who wept, and bled, and died for me.

still they echo

Thu, 30 Dec 1999 15:03:36 -0600

What’s it like to walk in the footprints of Jesus? And how is one affected by identifying with the poor and the oppressed? Looking in their faces – harassed and helpless people, sheep with no shepherd – and being overcome with compassion? What does it mean to see the kingdom of heaven in the eyes of children? To hear them shout your name from the hills and see them run through the fields to greet you? If I could craft words that quieted the echoes of those and similar questions, I could etch out a living as a poet or master of prose. Those words would paint a picture of what it is to meet Christ in a little village in Kosova, to watch Him bring joy to hurting people and revive hope where it lay dying. Even now, though, the words are elusive, and the questions only linger as evidence to the mystery of Christ in me.

I could tell you stories of the oppression and murder of the Albanian Kosovars that would break your heart and make you question if the Lord truly is loving toward all He has made – stories of loved ones lost, families broken, and children robbed and shot. But I can’t lead you into the distance I saw in their eyes as they withdrew to another place, unknown and even more foreign to me than the country, itself, as they relived those experiences in sharing them with me first-hand.

I could tell you of the hospitality and love of the Albanian people, so many of whom are now homeless as a result of the war; how they gave to us who have so much while they, themselves, were left with so little. I could tell you of being a celebrity in the little village in which we stayed outside the capital of Pristina; of being the hot topic of conversation in a hundred households and the spark of fascination and wonder in the eyes of everyone who saw us. But I can’t express the unworthiness I felt in being given the place of honor among people so warm and generous. Nor can I describe the humility with which I am struck knowing that I will be spoken of among these people for generations to come, hoping only that they would remember the One by whom I was sent.

I could tell you about my brothers, Driton and Gezim, our translators, both of who embody the meanings of their names: Light and Joy. But I can’t package the faith of a seventeen-year-old man who prays as he stands between two Serbian soldiers, the muzzles of whose assault rifles were pressed to either side of his head, “Father, Your will be done.”

I could tell you about my friend, Shemsi, who must live and work in Pristina, separated from his wife and his seven children, in order to support them and the family of his brother who has been missing since the war. I could tell you how his family is outcast, considered cursed by Allah, because all but one of his children suffer from some form of birth defect or deformity. I could tell you how he lost a full day of wages, bought us drinks and candy, and made the bus trip from Pristina to Orllan when he found out that we were building him and his family a new house on land the village had donated. But I can’t identify the color of his eyes as he dammed up tears of unutterable gratitude when he was told why we came - to share the love of Jesus.

I could tell you about the K. L. A. commandant who managed the building in which we slept – a man in his early thirties who carried heavy bags under his eyes because his nightmares forbade him sleep. I could tell you that he was considered the most devout Muslim in the village of Orllan and that the only Christians he had ever known were the ones whom he had fought, feared, and hated. But I can’t retrace the furrows in his brow as he, having witnessed the love of Christ and having heard the Gospel of peace, confessed a wavering faith in Allah.

I went to Kosova completely ignorant of what God wanted to accomplish in and through my life. I went knowing that although the war was over, it was still a dangerous part of the world. I went because I couldn’t reconcile the idea of destroying lives to making peace. I went because I wanted to know if it is in me to give my life for a friend, a neighbor 5,000 miles away. I wanted to know if I possessed the greatest love. What I have since discovered is that the Greatest Love possesses me, and it is for Him that I am giving my life every day.