Having Done all to Stand

Paul told his beloved friends at Ephesus that one day evil would come. It would be so great that they would be pushed to their limits. He told them to prepare for it, but remain true to the elements of the Faith, particularly the reading of the Bible (such as they had at the time) and prayer. He concluded the charge with "and after this stand firm."
We have a tendency in Christendom to make superheroes out of normal believers and especially out of the early fathers. Paul was heroic, no doubt. But obviously, Paul also knew the heartbreak that went along with the Christian life. We're told on numerous occasions that Paul and Silas sang while in Jail. But we don't know whether they started off their jail experience with a song. I'm sure Paul cried out as the whip fell, or the rods crashed across his back. I'm sure that in the fevered pain of infection from the filthy conditions, and the open wounds on his body, Paul cried out...maybe even in anger.
We've focused on Paul's singing and assumed that's all he did. I can't say for sure, but I have my doubts.
Paul, at times, reveals loneliness in his writings. Sometimes desperation. Sometimes anguish over his chains. His frequent calls to be remembered in prayer tell us that Paul was a man as we all are. He was likely weary from the hard life that his calling demanded. He poured himself out again and again and dealt with heresy, and spiritual divisions, and laziness within the Church...and beatings and threat of death from without. That will break any man. Even Paul.
Ten days ago I was offered a job. I was as excited as I have been in a long time...probably since graduating from college in May 2012. I allowed myself to plan. Morgan and I went to the new high school she is transferring to (once I got a place) and she could barely contain her happiness. My smiling daughter was back.
Monday -just 48 hours ago- I got the call that the company has frozen hiring. The job was withdrawn. This has been the way it has gone for five years now. Five years of hopes deferred.
The last seven months especially have been hard. My Faith has lagged. I force myself to read the Bible. I never pray, at least not for myself. Why? God has known my need for five years now, and has yet to answer those desperate prayers for a restoration of my life, and a home for my daughter.
I have trudged through this wasteland while bearing the whispers -and often the shouts- of ruthless, mean-spirited people who would look me in the eye and tell me that somehow, in some way, this is all my fault. "Everyone who wants a job has one" they say. But that's not true. What is true is they have a job. (Or they no longer need one)  They have one and the few people they actually care about have one so to hell with the rest of us. Write it off as laziness. Chalk it up to failure.
The only words they offer -save those words of hurt and damage- are the same old tripe about "God is in Control" or "When God closes one door He opens another!" Well...God has been shutting door after door and nothing is open. Nothing.
They will tell me to find solace in worship. Yeah...right. Some go so far as to suggest certain songs or artists that help them in some particular way. None of these songs effect me spiritually at all. They do, however trigger my gag reflex. They make me ill. I am angry. I am hurt. I am wondering why. I am scared. I am very alone in this walk. I am frustrated. I am very very sad. I feel like an abysmal failure. I can literally feel time rushing past me like a freight train and I am powerless to stop it. What's far worse...I can't assign any value to the time that rushes by. I can't look at it and say "I filled it with something great". It's just time. Day after day of dreams that die, progress that stalls, and a sweet, wonderful 15 year old young woman who I treasure and haven't been able to offer normalcy to in over five years.
God knows all this already. I need to remind him? Write THAT in a praise and worship song and maybe I'll sing it.
I have come to the point in my faith where I think I know what Paul was really saying to the Ephesians.
He was saying this: "Get ready. Get acquainted with Jesus, and know His words, and the elements of your Faith. Because there will come a day when no more songs will come from your lips. No more prayers will pour from your heart. You will face days when there will be no words, no prayers, no songs, no comfort, no joy. You will face times when God will become an abstract. You will have only your determination to not quit. What you know of God in those darkest hours will only be what you can vaguely recall. You won't see His face shining on you. You will only remember that it once did. That memory will be all you have."
I am there now. I cannot abandon my faith because I still know it to be real. I know God is never caught by surprise. This does not have Him back on His heels. He is not stumbling for a quick fix to my situation. He is the same God He was when things were going well. I am exhausted, out of words and repulsed by even the effort it takes to play the Christian game. I can't bring myself to go through the motions of raising my hands, swaying with glazed eyes, shedding tears of adoration, or "Shouting Deuteronomy at the Devil" as Rich Mullins used to mockingly say. I am beyond broken. I am shattered. The pieces are jagged and I have cut myself time and again trying to hold them together while waiting for the Cavalry.
But having done all to stand...I will still stand.
I can't abandon this faith. I have a daughter watching me and I have yet -in all this hardship- to assign blame of any kind to God. I try my best to tell her that God knows what He is up to. He is working a plan. I want her to remember her dad as a man who refused to quit on anything...including his faith in Jesus Christ. Even when that Faith seemed to be of no effect.
What would I abandon to? Some other faith? Something false and fraudulent, or non-existent altogether?
I can't. I won't. God doesn't owe me explanation. But I, in turn, don't owe the Christian voices a certain behavior when the chips are down.
I have learned, in all this, that faith is sometimes ugly. It's not always glorious and beautiful. Sometimes it's at it's best when it is silently taking just one more halting step forward...and another...and another. Faith is most glorious when the sun rises and the damaged warrior is still there. Having taken no new ground, neither has he ceded any. He did all to stand, and then he simply stood. Fists clenched, spit flying, not pretty and packaged and Tweet-worthy. He's nobody's hero. But he should be. Because he just stood.

Defining Brotherhood...The Laffing Devils Series

Okay...so you take your inspiration where you can find it. Sometimes God speaks to us in a voice that only we hear. Where others see madness we see beauty. That's where this post is going to start...
About a year ago I came across a show on Discovery Channel, called "The Devil's Ride". It follows the lives of a motorcycle club in San Diego who go by the name "The Laffing Devils".  I was fascinated by the show and by who these men are both in the club, and in their personal lives. I saw guys battling their own demons, guys trying to balance their marriages to their wives and their family lives with the marriage to their "colors" and their family in the club. Mostly...I saw brotherhood. Real honest to goodness brotherhood.
So I noticed a few of the guys post on Twitter and I started following a few of them. Now, I'm not one of those people who thinks that because a famous (or notorious) person "follows you back" on Twitter, you are their friend in the real world. Usually it means they recognize that you aren't a twitter troll or some jackass who wants to try scoring some personal tough-guy points on the internet. I've seen this with lots of people, not just the guys from the LDMC.
But last summer, I happened to notice a "Tweet" from one of the Laffing Devils guys that I follow. He goes by "Bonez".  Apparently some Christian folks had decided that being a Laffing Devil somehow meant you took the name so seriously that you had no recognition of God whatsoever in your life, and they were trying to hammer him pretty good.  I imagine they were doing their share of twitter evangelism, and making the guy's skin crawl. I can't remember what Bonez posted that made me ask him what was going on, I just remember feeling like I needed to apologize for the way some Christian folks behave. He was appreciative of whatever it was I said and not much else transpired.
While they were filming the current season, the LDMC guys all went silent on social media. I imagine it was part of the deal with DC so that nothing leaked out about the upcoming episodes. The show returned a few weeks ago and with it, the LDMC guys were posting with more regularity.
So last week I said hello to Bonez and asked him if the "faithful" were still giving him a hard time. He was nonplussed about it and I told him I was developing a Bible study about Christian brotherhood based on what I saw when I watched "The Devil's Ride". I guess Bonez saw that I was serious and he told me the analogy was actually perfect. "It's a great parallel example" he wrote back. Bonez is no dummy. None of these guys are.
I watch the show and I find things that I know I would miss if I looked through the lens of legalistic Christianity. I see things I wish I could experience. I see guys living out MY faith sometimes better than I do and--that I am aware of--none of them claims to have any particular relationship with Jesus. But they sure live like they do. At least where real brotherhood is concerned.
I was thinking about how these guys really love each other. There is politics, and anger, and arguing and sometimes violence amongst them. But all that existed within the 12 Disciples while Jesus was alive on Earth. Peter was loud and bragadocious and appointed himself the leader. He swore he would never betray Jesus and he lopped off the ear of the servant who came with the soldiers to arrest him. He lived with Jesus every single day for 3 1/2 years and then as soon as the heat was on, he denied he even knew Him and did so with a mouth full of vile obscenities. Jesus forgave him and there is no record that the other disciples ever held it against Peter. Because he was a brother.
They lived together, worked together, and learned about this new way of living from the son of God Himself.  They had a special bond that their years of being together had forged. They were brothers.
I grew up in a home where brotherhood and family were never really embedded in our hearts. I became a Christian when...after growing up in church...I had my head-on-collision with Jesus at age 27 and never looked back. I saw in the Church a family, and I sought out other Christian guys to be my brothers. I sometimes found great brotherhood. Sadly...sometimes I was disappointed.
We Christian men talk openly about being "Brothers in Christ" but are we? If you are my brother, the same blood courses through our veins. If not literally than spiritually. If you lose, our entire family loses a little. If I don't have your back, who does? Brothers love each other. They laugh at each others jokes and at their mistakes, but they help them overcome those mistakes. They love each other with toughness sometimes but tenderness under it all. They love each other with integrity. They are honest.
I watched TDR last year and I frequently thought how much I wished I could have that here in Nashville where I have lived since 1999, and can only point to maybe one guy as a real "brother".  Last year the club had to have a long heart-to-heart with a guy who had a serious chemical problem. They did what brothers do...they were tough as nails until they made their point. Then they were loving and offered to help any way they could. When this man lost his battle with some health issues, his brothers were visibly hurting and they vowed to watch out for his family as long as they lived. I'm guessing they have kept this promise.
They have had serious splits in their group, they have had ego driven arguments, battles for prominence, and disputes over who was running things.
...just like the Disciples did on the night of the Last Supper when two of them were arguing with Jesus over which one should be the greatest in the Kingdom. It was embarrassing then and it is embarrassing now two thousand years later. Two or three guys arguing over "sitting at the Right hand of God" while Jesus was washing their feet and serving them. Years later and there was never any evidence that those men ever had that argument again. They fought and then forgave. They argued with each other and then prayed together earnestly. They disputed doctrine and rules and then broke bread together in peace and loving friendship.
Just like brothers.
I see this every week when I watch "The Devils Ride". I see guys who are very very human. Very loving and very harsh. Very tough and very gentle. They are brothers. Their brotherhood is messy, and difficult and real. I share a common thread with my Christian brothers...the blood of Jesus. These guys share a common thread too...the blood that makes their "Cut" something sacred to them. They are different men indeed but that Cut makes them all the same.
I went through five years of hardship and loss when I lost my home and my career and even my pets. I missed time with my daughter and I worked so hard to rebuild my life. I was watching these men thinking how if this happened to one of their group, they would have done anything possible to help them fix it.
Their brotherhood is far from perfect but it's so darned real. The brotherhood I've experienced has been so careful. So cautious. So very dependent on my being perfect. Where the Laffing Devils care about each other without limit...we Christians tend to only care about those exactly like us, who do it our way, and who pose no threat to our neat little lives.
Inside, I think we all wish we had battle-hardened friendships like these guys do.
I'm going to continue this in the coming days and weeks. I hope my readers will maybe tune in to "The Devils Ride"  see the guys and what it is that inspires me about this show. And maybe you'll find some inspiration from an unusual place as well.
If any of the LDMC guys stumble across this blog...be safe. Keep watching out for each other.

Faith, Works, and Love...

Often I find myself embroiled in controversy and arguments about legalism, “old time religion” Baptist Theology, fundamentalism and assorted other topics concerning modern Evangelical Christianity.  Some say we need the rules and regulations.  That the command to be separate from the world is also a command to act separately.  That any discussion of obedience to Christ begins with a change in manner of lifestyle.

I suppose there is some merit to that argument.  A heart change will always yield an action change.  Nevertheless, an action change is not always indicative of a heart change.  You can follow rules simply because you were told to, trained to or guilted into following them.  You can perform for the sake of performance and never have a real change of heart.  You might not even know why you are living a certain lifestyle except that someone in authority over you told you this was “right and proper” living.

These folks contend that living for Jesus requires behaving like others who are living for Jesus…as they define living for Him of course.  However, aping someone else’s behavior doesn’t mean you’ve had the same experience that caused that behavior.  “Acting like a Christian” doesn’t mean you’ve actually encountered Christ.  It could mean that someone simply told you that this is what it looks like if you have.  And this person holds enough sway over you to induce you to act this way.  You could even convince yourself that you have had this encounter with Jesus if you follow the code closely enough.  If you were just like all the other Jesus followers in your circle, why would you ever question whether you had a head-on-collision with Jesus?

The other side of this, of course are those who claim that there are no requirements to the Christian life.  That since Grace covers all; we are bound to no performance standards at all.  That to even suppose that we could bring God happiness by behaving in a certain way is heresy.  I understand this.  I held this position for a long time after leaving the legalism of my youth and young adult years.  And to be honest…this position is more Biblically sound that those demanding lifestyle performance as a sign of my love for Jesus and the depth of my relationship with Him.  However, they too, take this too far.

As I approach my fiftieth year and my 24^th year of knowing Jesus and having this relationship with Him, I find myself grasping the truth of both Ephesians and James.  “For by Grace we are saved…not by works.”  Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8.  However, James wrote, “Faith without works is dead…”  James 2:14-26

The Biblical principle is both.  Faith without resulting works is not really faith.  Not in a life changing way.  And believing you have Faith because of your works is just as wrong.  The truth is your life yields works because you have been given faith.  And that faith yields works.  They are inseparable.

So what is the real motivator for a real lifestyle change?  What constitutes “Godly” living?  Is it rules made by one man governing another man?  Doesn’t this eliminate the need for change and reduce it simply to the need for obedience?  Doesn’t this change the impetus for change from internal to external and from loving obedience to Jesus to grinding obedience to the Law?

Of course it does.  The truth is that the only real change…the only change that will take root and never fail is the change wrought by Jesus as a result of an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus.  I can never please Him by any action of my own, save one…that of letting Him love me.  He does this when I let Him come close to me as I am, and let Him stay there.  When I let Him draw closer each day and in the proximity, He changes that which He desires to change.  Not my Pastor.  Not my Theology professor.  Not the TV preacher.  Jesus.  Whose blood was shed to purchase that right.

My focus has shifted from trying to do this or that to get Him to approve of me to trying nothing.  Spending more time quietly in His presence letting Him walk around the hallways of my heart, springing the trap doors and sweeping the cobwebs out from under the furniture.

From this depth of relationship comes an obedience that takes almost no effort.  When you love someone who loves you it’s easy to make them happy…because you already do.

From this depth of relationship come the changes that mold me ever closer to the image of Christ that He has for me.  Close to being called by that special name He knows me by…a name I have yet to hear.  (Rev 2:3)

Is it effortless?  No, of course not.  But it’s a labor of love instead of a grinding effort of my flesh or a shameful frolic through the world with the attitude of someone with a “Get out of Jail Free!” card.  Neither resembles the reality of a lifelong walk with Jesus of Nazareth.  A walk where every step draws closer to His until quite often only one set of footprints is visible.  Instead of the sweet sentiment of the old Christian illustration that says, “That’s where I was carrying you,” the truth is that “That’s where you were so close to me in every step that we took them together”

I hope someday that is true of me.