Free stuff :)

In lieu of actual thoughts for the week, I thought I'd take the chance to share 2 resources that are free to download tonight and tomorrow all day on Amazon.com.

Second Story
     Alex Cunningham's recent motorcycle accident changed his life - now he sees every day as a mission to share the good news of the gospel. But his long-time girlfriend, Annie Russo, just doesn't understand. And if that isn't enough, every time Alex opens his mouth to say something about God at work, everything backfires: his co-manager Drew rarely even looks at him now. But help comes in the form of Sara Locke, an ex-missionary widow with wisdom to spare. Together, Alex, Annie, and Sara discover how to see people's unspoken emotional barriers to faith in God. Along the way, Alex and Annie explore how to engage those barriers in natural and nonjudgmental ways as they begin to talk about their Christian faith with their friends. But one of them has more success than the other, and the stress on their relationship might just be too much. A blend of fiction and evangelism training, author Anna Rapa uses narrative storytelling to communicate key truths about evangelism in today's postmodern world. Dive in to the story of Alex and Annie, and let this story show you how to reach people in today's culture with God's transforming story of rescue.

Encounter Jesus
    Have you ever wondered what it was like to meet Jesus? This book is a set of imaginative stories based on seven important dialogues Jesus had with people in the gospels. Written in first-person, they invite you to experience Jesus as these people did. There are also discussion questions and questions for reflection if you want to discuss the stories with others.

These resources were created out of my own experiences walking beside people for the last 10 years or so.  They're based on things I've learned and observed and felt like I would've wanted when I was first starting to analyze what it looks like and means to live a life of faith in front of people who may or may not have any interest in that type of thing.  Hope they're helpful!  If you want more information about the resources, there's some good stuff at Da[w]bar House--the publisher's website.

The long view

I often wonder what it is that brings a person to finally surrender their life to Christ and begin to follow him.  Especially when I have been praying for a person for a year--or years--and I don't see any discernible effect.

And sometimes when I hear people talking about evangelism and transformation, they equate it with convincing someone to come to church with them.  Somehow, we have the idea that if we can just get someone inside the doors of the church, something magical will happen.  And many times, if we ask a friend or neighbor to church and they say no, we drop it forever.

When Jesus talked to Nicodemus about people entering the kingdom of God, he talked about how those who will find the kingdom of God must be born again.  And he described the Spirit of God as the one who brings this about.  So as I pray for my friends, I often pray that God will awaken the spirit of the person I am praying for--so that he is able to hear the voice of God and see God's interaction, so that the words of Scripture will come alive, so that the person will find that he is hungry to know the God who created him.  Sometimes I even pray this song, that calls out for people to awaken to God's activity and presence.

As I've done a lot of reading about the conversion process, I've also noticed the pattern that there is almost always a person of faith who is part of that process.  In the last book I read, Prof. Rambo called that person of faith the "Advocate," and explained that it's a dynamic and unpredictable process where information is shared and a person is invited into a new way of thinking and believing.  The advocate plays the role of an ambassador, illustrating what a life of faith looks like and being there to answer questions about how and why and what is going on.  So as I'm waiting and praying, I'm also trying to be that person of faith who is that ambassador or advocate.

For example, I do my best to live my life according to kingdom values.  This raises a lot of questions, like why I'm driving that old white mini van that I got for free instead of something a little more like what a lawyer would normally drive.  And when people ask, I am prayerfully prepared to answer and explain how God's example of selfless love motivates me to give a lot of time and money away.  This may ultimately lead to more conversations and more opportunities, or it may just be a visual example day by day.

Bottom line--it takes a long time to see someone come to follow Jesus.  The process is complicated and mysterious.  And yet, Jesus invites us to be involved.  He invites us to pray for the Spirit to transform lives--may his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  But he also invites us to get involved, to be there sharing live with those who are not yet followers.

What about you?  What kinds of prayers do you pray for your friends?  Do you see yourself as an ambassador or an advocate?  How do you persevere even when you don't see immediate signs of interest in spiritual things?

Before the Conversation...

When I read stories like the one we talked about on Sunday--Philip walking up to the Ethiopian guy and being able to just jump right in and say all the right things so that he was immediately ready to follow Jesus--well, it feels a little bit intimidating.  Of course someone who walked and talked with Jesus, who ate with him and watched him talking to thousands of people, who could ask him all the questions that I always have rolling around in my head--of course Philip would know what to say.  But faith feels so different when it's not based on that kind of tangible interaction.

But over the years that I've been hanging out with people who are not yet following Jesus, I have learned that there are a whole lot of things I can do to prepare for the opportunities I might have.  In fact, if I'm really paying attention to what my friends are doing and what they're experiencing, I can often prepare ahead of time for conversations that may come up.

For example, I think that there are certain times in a person's life when he or she might become more spiritually sensitive--like the birth of a child or a marriage or a death.  If I see that coming on the horizon, I can begin praying weeks and even months ahead of time (1) that the Spirit would be working in that time to draw the person to Jesus, (2) that the Spirit will show me the questions of the heart that my friend might be asking, and (3) that the Spirit would show me what stories from Scripture or from my own life might connect to those questions my friend might have.  So when I get to the actual conversation, I've been thinking and praying for weeks and months about what I might say.

So much of evangelism, at a practical level, is about being watchful and prayerful.  It's about looking for what God is already doing in the hearts of the people around you.  It's about being willing to say something when the time is right.  It's about praying for wisdom and God's leading so that you say something that will help rather than hurt.

Here's a link to a page of questions that you can prayerfully think through as it relates the friend or friends that you're praying for right now.  I hope you'll take some time this week to begin the process of preparing to be there, at the right place and the right time with the right heart.

More than words

Charles Kraft wrote some 30 years ago that "God himself is the message [of the gospel], and we respond to a person."  He then argues that "if the message is life, only life is an adequate vehicle for its transmission."   Charles Kraft, Communication Theory for Christian Witness, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press 1983), 59.

 I've been kind of chewing on this idea for the last week.  A lot of times I think we feel like the most important thing is to introduce people to the vast narrative of Scripture--to be able to tell the whole story in a nice little elevator-sized speech.  We feel a lot of pressure to say the right things at the right time or to have all the right words.

But God himself is the message of the gospel.  When we invite people into faith, we are inviting them into relationship with a living Being who happens to be the creator and sustainor of all life.   So he is the message.  Relationship with God is the theme.  And relationship with God is something that permeates the whole of life.  Therefore, the message is too big for words.  It's too big for explanation.  It's not simply an idea.  The message of the gospel actually requires a person's whole life to communicate and demonstrate and illustrate what it looks like.

I think this is a freeing idea.  It frees me up to genuinely seek relationship with God, day by day.  It frees me up to chase after God's heart and try to hear his voice and try to build that relationship the same way I would any other relationship in life.  And while I'm doing that, I am illustrating and demonstrating and communicating to everyone I come into contact with the message of the gospel.  My life is a picture of what transformation and surrender looks like.

That's not to say I don't explain with words.  I think that's an important part.  But it is only part of the gospel message.  My life is the rest of that message.

What is your life saying to others about who God is and what he invites us to?  What has he transformed and renewed in you that demonstrates or illustrates what the gospel is like?

quilting connection

I spent the weekend working on piecing together a quilt.  It's got 900 pieces and 2 borders.  And no matter how I try, I can't sew a single piece on straight.  But I like quilting because first you cut up pieces of fabric, and then you put them together to make something even more beautiful than you started with.  In a life full of criminal law and other craziness, I need tangible beauty as a part of my everyday life.  And quilting speaks to me of the kind of restoration and reconciliation God is doing in the very broken world around me.

But my friend Mary can think of nothing worse than quilting.  We were actually sitting around a table a couple of weeks ago, talking about how we're connecting with people around us to be light in the world and share our relationships with Jesus, and she actually said something like, "thankfully, I don't have to do something like quilting!"  Instead, she has a monthly book club with some people in her neighborhood where she's intentionally and prayerfully building relationships with people around her.

What struck me in that moment again is how God has created us to be who we are on purpose.  Mary hates quilting, but she loves books, so she uses her love of books to reach out to those around her.  I connect with other women over quilts.  And both of us have opportunities to minister to those around us as we're pursuing the things that we love to do.

That's not to say, of course, that God couldn't (or doesn't) ask us to go beyond who we are.  Sometimes he does.  He asked Moses to speak for a whole nation.  He asked Jonah to go to Ninevah.  But even when you don't have a clear calling from God to do something outrageous, he wants to use you right where you are, right who you are, to reach the people that you're naturally going to want to be around anyway.

What are your interests or hobbies?  Who is in your life who shares these interests that you might be able to hang out with while doing what you love?  How can you pursue a relationship with that person through the activity that you both enjoy?

praying for change

"Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."  Matthew 17:20

"The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."  James 5:16

When I was growing up (and admittedly, still in the concrete stage of thinking, developmentally), I read the verses about how if we ask anything in Jesus's name, God would do it.  And I believed it.  So I remember one time in my room just laying there on my waterbed and praying that God would make me float in the air, in Jesus's name.  

As you can imagine, he never really answered that prayer.  And I know now that I didn't really understand what it meant to pray in Jesus's name--or to pray according to the things that are in his character and that would accomplish his purposes and his will.

But as I pray now for my friends, it often seems like my prayers are just as ineffective as those prayers that I would float.  I pray daily that the Holy Spirit would break through into my friends' lives--that he would pour out his spirit on them, that their hearts would soften, that they would come awake spiritually, that the wounds caused them by Christians would heal.  And I have no idea if those things are happening--sometimes I just can't see a bit of difference.

I think though, that although we are invited to rest on the promise that our prayers are effective and that God can (and does) move mountains, there is no sense of time in those Scriptures.  We aren't told that if we pray today, the mountain will be gone tomorrow.  And in a world of instant gratification of lightening-speed internet and microwave ovens, I don't think we have to wait very often.

But I think it takes a long time--years even--to melt a heart of stone.  I think it takes a long time for people to change and be transformed.  And I think those changes are made up of microscopic changes over a long period of time.

This is one of those areas where we have to have faith.  We should persevere because we know that God is hearing our prayers, and if we are praying that God's will would be done, that his name would be glorified, and that his kingdom would come, we know that he will answer those prayers.  He is answering those prayers.  One day at a time.

Staying Connected

Where I live in West Michigan, there's a huge cultural divide between people who go to church and people who don't.  And there are so many religious people that the religious people rarely hang out with those who aren't part of their faith community.  Sure, they go to work with people of all different faiths, but all their time outside of work is spent with family (who all live nearby) or the people from their church.  So talking about evangelism in this context is a little tricky.  It often seems like a huge, scary, unknown thing to walk outside of the familiar to branch out to those who don't know Jesus.

Yet Jesus modeled the incarnation for us.  He left his place of comfort and security and perfection and came to earth to demonstrate the love of God.  Not to say that church or faith community is always comfortable or secure--and it's certainly not perfect!  But still, we should be following in Jesus's footsteps and looking outside the comfort of hanging out only with those who share our values and beliefs.  We should be building real, sincere relationships.  But how? 

Kevin Harney writes in this weeks Outreach Magazine some tips for staying connected to people outside your church community.  What do you think of his ideas?

Fencing God in

I've started reading The Message translation of the Bible--just as something different.  And there are things that it says that just really stand out.  Like the first chapter in Hosea.  It says,

    "The first time God spoke to Hosea he said:

     'Find a whore and marry her. . . .'"

I just about dropped my Bible.  I mean, I know the story of Hosea.  I know what it's supposed to teach us about God and his faithfulness even in light of our unfaithfulness.  But really.... the first time God spoke to Hosea, this is what he said?  And Hosea just went out and did it?  Incredible.  There aren't even words that could contain all the thoughts and feelings I have about that.

So many times we put God into nice and neat parameters that we've created for him.  We dissect and explain and sanitize and fence him in.  We make an object of him in our heads so that we can have a sense of control--so we know what to expect.  And when we talk to others about God, we introduce them to that god--the one we made up and put in our own minds, the one we think we can control like a puppet.  Is it any wonder that so few people seem interested?

What if, instead of that, we introduced people to the Person of Christ--this being who exists apart from us and outside of our own minds?  What if we modeled prayer and submission to this Person, but we let our friends get to know him themselves, as we would if we introduced them to any other person in our lives?  What if we prayed for Jesus to show up through the Holy Spirit and touch their lives in a real and personal way?  What if we demonstrated what radical following looks like?

When we talk about Jesus, it's so easy to slip into the abstract, to talk about our beliefs about who Jesus is like our beliefs define him.  They don't.  Jesus exists whether I believe in him or not.  Jesus is who he is whether I know that about him or not.  And if he is alive, living, and active in my life, then I can expect that he is working in the world around me as well.

What about you?  What kind of fences do you put up around God?  How do you communicate that to others when you talk about God with others?  How might you be able to introduce people to Jesus as a Person instead?

Tough Questions

I had a frank conversation with a friend recently that I wasn't well prepared for.  We were hanging out talking about other things, and somehow his emotional barriers to faith came up - he was struggling to understand how good people could be condemned to hell just because they don't believe in God, or if they believe in the wrong God.

This is a question that comes up fairly regularly with various friends, but I still wasn't prepared.  I didn't have a neat answer to share.  I didn't have any books in mind to recommend.  All I could do is speak from my own experience with God in trying to answer that question in a way that I can live with.  But even as I was sharing from my experience, I could tell that it wasn't actually hitting him where he was struggling.  The answers that I've come to within my relationship with God that allow me to be close to him didn't reach him where he was at.

So I left that conversation feeling like I'd missed an opportunity.  But even after I had time to reflect on it, I wasn't sure what I could've said differently.  I felt like maybe I needed to listen more, to hear more about the deeper issues behind the questions as he presented them.  I definitely came away feeling like I needed to keep talking to him and walking beside him.  I've also been made aware of the tip of the iceberg on his barriers to faith, so I'll be praying that the Spirit will show me what stories to tell or how to help him take the next steps.  Most of all, I'll be trying to model what faith looks like in my own life, even when there are doubts and difficult things.

What about you?  Would you have been discouraged by the conversation if you'd had it with a friend?  What are the things that you would be praying for as you continued in relationship with this friend?  What would you hope God would show you?

the problem of evil

One of the biggest questions we come up against, when we're talking with friends about faith, is the problem of evil in our world.  This is fresh in my mind, of course, because of all the violence that we've seen in the last week.  Only today there was another murder-suicide right down the road from me.  How on earth can we even hope to answer people's questions about this?

The first thing I think we have to understand is that there are different kinds of questions.  The first type is a more rational or intellectual question - can a good God allow evil?  Does God create evil?  If evil exists, does that logically mean that God must have intended for it to be here?  And these questions could use a logical response.  I could give someone information, point him to an apologist, talk for hours about the philosophical options we have to understand evil.

But there are other questions.  There are questions that come more from our emotional response to the evil and pain in the world.  How could such horrible things happen?  How could God let them happen?  How can I trust a God would would allow them to happen?  How could I love a God who would allow them to happen?  And these require entirely different responses.  An intellectual or logical response is never going to be enough.  But this is often how we handle it.  In the wake of the most recent school shooting, I've seen lots of theological responses.  I've seen people giving a whole history of sin and calling this evil a natural consequence.  But those responses don't go to the heart of the matter.  They don't really reach the heart at all.

And at the heart of the emotional question are 2 really important questions.  The first is who is this God you're talking about, really?  What kind of God is he?  What is his character?  What are his values?  Is he worth knowing?  The second is related to my own ability to trust that God.  Can I personally choose to trust him?  Would I even want to?  And Christians definitely have a role to play in helping people find answers to these questions.

Once I have taken the time to listen to someone's heart and their questions, then I have opportunities going forward.  I can share with them my struggle with those same questions about God, and how I made my way through them.  I can challenge their perceptions of God by sharing who I know God to be, and share lots of examples of why I think God is actually not that way.  I can introduce them to Jesus, and invite them (and model for them) how to take those questions to God.  I always want to be encouraging or inviting people into relationship with God.  Even if that relationship is based on questions and frustrations, that's better than leaving the questions in the abstract.  A question of trust or of character can only really be addressed within a relationship.

Have you or your friends had these types of questions this week?  Were they primarily intellectual questions, or emotional questions?  How did you dialogue about them?  If someone were to ask you a question about evil in the world, how would you respond?

Telling your story

Let's say you were sitting at a table with a sort of acquaintance after lunch.  As you're preparing yourself to leave, she says to you, "So you're a person of faith.  How did you get to be that way?"  What would you say?

This happened to me recently.  I was out to lunch with a person I know from work.  We'd get together for lunch maybe 3-4 times a year.  Our previous lunches consisted mostly of conversation about law and teaching and all the other things we have in common.  So the question about my faith caught me off guard.  I struggled to remember a specific time I'd said something about God or my beliefs to her, and I couldn't.  But somehow, she knew that it was important to me.  And I think I spent another 30-40 minutes sharing my story with her.  What an awesome opportunity!

This might happen to me only a couple of times a year--where I've got a specific invitation to share my life story as it relates to faith.  But I've given a lot of thought to how I would want to share it when the time comes.  I've taken the time, ahead of time, to think about the highs and lows of life and how to weave in God's actions and activity in to where my life has come from and where it's going.  Because I always want to be ready with an answer about the hope and faith I have inside.

Whenever we're living kingdom values in our everyday lives, truly allowing Jesus to lead us as we go,  questions like this come up.   So what about you?  Are you ready to share your story if and when you're asked?  What are the major ways that God has intervened in your life?  Why is faith important to you?  How does it affect your life?

Paul's unknown God

Some of you will remember the story about the Apostle Paul in Athens, having a conversation with people about the "unknown God" they were worshiping.  The story is in Acts 17, and I've always thought it was interesting.  Here Paul sees all of the worship of other gods in the city, and he gets upset.  So he's wandering around talking about Jesus to anyone who will listen.  Eventually, the people become curious enough to bring him to the place where things like this are discussed, and he's invited to speak.  And instead of criticizing their belief system, Paul looks for the truth in it.  He sees that they have an alter to an unknown God.  And Paul names Yahweh as this unknown God and speaks to them about Jesus and his resurrection from the dead.

Why didn't Paul tell them that the other gods weren't alive?  The Jewish belief system was strongly monotheistic, having no room for any God but Yahweh.  Why didn't he tell them that their worship of idols was worthless and that to have salvation they had to give up their own gods and follow his?  Why didn't he try to change their whole culture and belief system first?

Instead, Paul explained the resurrection and introduced the person of Jesus and Yahweh and invited people to follow.  And I think we can learn a lot from this.  I often feel the message that I get from churches or from the Christian community is that a person has to become culturally Christian before they can follow Jesus.  They have to believe everything I do about morality and theology in order to take that step into the kingdom.  But I don't think this is true.  Jesus took people where they were, invited them to follow, and then he gave them teaching so that they could grow into believing who he actually is.  Even the disciples believed that he was a political (rather than spiritual) savior when they first followed Christ.  But what was important was that they followed him--they learned to hear his voice and to obey and follow, and all the rest of it came later.  I would argue that morality and theology are a result of following Jesus not a prerequisite to it.

What do you think?  Is your invitation for others to follow Jesus normally cluttered with expectations about what they believe or how they behave?  What would happen if you just introduced people to Jesus and then let Jesus and his teachings challenge their morality and theology?

what my clients have taught me

Sometimes I have really difficult clients.  This probably isn't a surprise, given that I do mostly court-appointed criminal defense.  The most difficult ones are the ones who are ruled entirely by emotion.

I've developed some strategies over the years I've been practicing law.  I've noticed that in order to reason with someone rationally, I have to let them express their emotions.  Usually I have to validate their feelings and frustrations.  Only then, after both of those things, can I begin to advise them on what the courts and rules of law say that we can do and what I think we should do.  It takes a significant amount of  relational investment and patience to work through these emotional barriers to the situation.  Mostly what it takes is a willingness to listen and an empathy about the emotions expressed.

I've noticed the same thing about spiritual things over the years.  Our culture is becoming increasingly more based in the emotions.  In order to help someone to meet Jesus, we've got to help them move through their emotions about God and the church and everything in between.  It takes a significant amount of relational investment and patience to listen as someone expresses their emotions about these things.  It takes an empathy and compassion so that our friends feel listened to and validated.  And it takes sensitivity to the Spirit to know when to take the next step and share from our hearts what God has done in us and what he is inviting them to.

I know that I talk a lot about emotional barriers to faith, and that's because this conversation is not really happening anywhere else.  But there is a time when it's appropriate to share rationally about who God is. There is a time for testimony and for information.  We just need to be really careful not to miss the other stuff as well.  All the information in the world is not going to get my client from point A to point B, at least not until he feels like I care about him and have listened to him.  I have to earn the right to be heard--I have to earn his trust.  And I have to do the same thing in the lives of my friends when I am hoping to share Christ with them.

Can you identify in your own life or someone else's how emotions are primary and rationality is secondary?  Can you reason them out of their feelings?  How do these same emotions affect a person's spirituality and relationship with God?

What would you say?

Imagine if you were a part of the following conversation with someone you know is not following Jesus:

Al:    Yeah, my friend and I went on this church retreat one time.  She’s seriously the nicest person in the whole world.  And they told her she was going to hell because she’s an atheist, can you believe that?

Bryten:    Well, the Bible does say that if you don’t believe in Jesus, you won’t be going to heaven when you die.

Al:    Yeah, but that doesn’t even make sense.  I mean, I know lots of Christians who are mean.  They hurt animals, they hurt people.  They want us to go to war.  They’re rude and horrible.  It doesn’t make sense that they would go to heaven, and people like my best friend and my dad would go to hell.  They honestly are the best people in the whole world.

What do you say? 

Do you say, "Here, let me show you in the Bible - it says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is death.  But if you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved."

Do you say, "Wow, I'm so sorry to hear that was your experience.  What did you do?"

Do you say, "Wow.  I'm so sorry that you had that experience.  That must have been really hard.  You know... I think Jesus might have told a story about something like that.  This really rich guy who did everything right on the outside came up to Jesus and said, "Teacher, what must I do to make sure that I have eternal life."  And Jesus said, "You know the things God commanded--do not murder, do not steal, etc."  And the guy said, "I've done all of these since I was young... is there anything I'm supposed to do?"  And Jesus said, "sell everything you have and follow me."  What do you think about that?

Each of these responses will have a different effect on your friend's thinking and even their experience of your relationship.  The first engages Al's intellect and comes from a authority-down approach.  Basically, here's the Bible's answer to your question.  But if you're coming from this perspective, Al has to share your assumption that Scripture has authority in your life.  If Al doesn't, then you're not going to get anywhere with your argument. And even if Al does share your assumptions, you still haven't answered the questions of Al's heart.

The second response invites further relationship and further information from Al.  But it doesn't really engage his intellect or the emotions.

The third response gives some information through a story that invites further reflection.  It could engage Al's emotions, and it invites him to look deeper than someone's outward actions to the heart, because that's what Jesus was looking at.  It might even open opportunities to talk about how hearts are transformed by Jesus and what that looks and feels like.  It could be followed up with personal examples of how Jesus has changed your heart.

I certainly don't think there's one right way to interact with every person.  But if you look closely at the original conversation, you can see how much emotion is tied up in the discussion.  It's not just the Al's best friend he's concerned about, it's also his father.  And an emotionally based question needs a response that engages a person at the heart level, not just at the intellect.

So what would you say?  Do you have a personal story about God transforming your heart that you could share after the story of the rich young ruler?

Combat-ready

^"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should."  Ephesians 6:18-20 (NIV).

Just before this exhortation to pray, the apostle Paul explained to the Ephesians that we do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of the spiritual world. 

So much of the spiritual life is invisible.  We pray for God to transform people's hearts.  And sometimes we can see the fruit of that, in the transformation of a person's actions, but the primary work is done inside, where we can never go.  We experience spiritual oppression and resistance, but that too often shows up only in our hearts or our emotions or our minds.

I know that I've written to you before about spiritual darkness and times of absolute travail and how deeply I have sensed the spiritual warfare over the past five years, since I started talking about emotional barriers to faith and how to be an ambassador of Jesus in everyday life.  But this week I've been reminded again of the need for prayer.  And not just prayers of personal deliverance, but community prayers that God would break through into the lives of the others in our spiritual community.

These past weeks, since my near car accident, have been times of incredible spiritual oppression for me.  For me, this often looks like an emotional apathy, questions about what I am doing and what I am writing and where it's all going, if anywhere.  It's the inability to see God at work.  It's a complete exhaustion and a desire to withdraw from relationships and activities.

But at the same time, God has provided.  He's provided a community of people who will pray with me and for me.  He's provided good friends who will speak truth to me.  He's provided the encouragement of a random dear friend writing to tell me that she was praying for me this week as she was trying to go to sleep.  He's provided the encouragement of a glimmer of where things might be going and what God is longing to accomplish through my life and ministry.

I don't know how you live life in the kingdom, praying and laboring to see the Kingdom of God come and people re-made into true followers to Christ, without a community of believers who will pray for you and support you.  You have to expect that you will face spiritual resistance.  And you need to be meeting that resistance the spiritual weapon of prayer.  But you can't do it alone.  You need to find others who will walk alongside you.

Who do you have in your life who will pray with you and for you as you seek the Kingdom of God?  Who are you walking beside and praying for as they learn to follow Jesus?  Where can you go to find the spiritual support that you need to survive?

a miraculous deliverance

This week I had a traumatic car non-accident when the wheel of my car flew off while I was driving 70mph on the highway.  I spun around a couple of times, but I didn't hit anyone and no one hit me.  When my passenger explained what she saw during this non-accident, she said it seemed like the cars around us were just melting away.  I know I was mere inches away from a cement wall and almost slammed into it head on, but somehow the car shifted directions at the last minute and I ended up sliding parallel to it instead.

When I began to talk about my incident, I was quick to share with everyone that I'd been miraculously delivered from harm.  I shared that God had supernaturally intervened and kept me safe.  But even as I made the choice to say those things, I thought about how careful we have to be about what we claim to know about God.

Because even as I was saying that I was miraculously delivered, I wondered why my roommate's dad was not delivered from his fatal car accident a few years ago.  I wondered why my younger brother suffered from cancer or my own dad passed away after a pulminary embolism.  The minute I make claims about God's supernatural intervention in my life, that same minute I invite the question about why God didn't intervene in another time and another tragic situation.

Formal theologians have several different answers to this question, and each of us who lives with faith in God has to wrestle through those same questions.  Some claim the ultimate sovereignty of God and rest in his goodness.  Others speak about the already-but not yet aspects of the kingdom of God where sometimes it is breaking through and other times it is held back.  Some say that we simply can't know but they are content to rest in the mystery of it all because they trust that God is good.

Whatever your belief about that issue, I think this brings up a really important point, which is that what we say about God has a real affect on how others perceive him and relate to him.  If I walked into a funeral home where the guy had died in a car accident and I told my miraculous story of deliverance, I might unintentionally create an emotional barrier in the mourners' hearts to believing and trusting in God.  If I claim that I know God and he has this character trait or that one, I might cause people to react emotionally before they ever get to know God at a relational level.  What I say about God can profoundly impact another person's life and his ability to relate to God in the future.

So as I was sitting on the highway, waiting for the police car to arrive, I thought and prayed about the story I would tell about the accident.  Was it fair to attribute my deliverance to God?  Who should I tell this story to?  Should I declare that it was a miracle and give thanksgiving to God?  Of course.  But maybe not in every context.  And if I do, and when I do, I think it's important for me to acknowledge that I might be wrong.  That my perception of God and my relationship with him is based in part on my experience, and I'm an inherently limited being.  Yes, I want to praise God and thank God for his salvation, but I also want to respect where people are at.  More than that, I need to be prayerful and sensitive to God's leading about what will be helpful in a situation and what may harm those around me.

What things have others said about God that created an emotionally negative reaction in you?  Did that emotional reaction affect your ability to relate to God?  What things to you tell or claim about the character of God?  Might those things be appropriate to share in some situations and not appropriate in others?

unanswered prayers

About once a year, usually in December, I head off to a silent retreat place to pray about the coming year and try to get a sense of where God is leading and what he wants to do in and through me.  Last year was no different, and I sensed God leading me to pray faithfully for a few specific things.  Among them were prayers for six people that I'd been investing in.  Three of them do not know Christ, and I've been praying for God to break into their lives, that he would reveal himself to them, and that other Christians might come into their lives to demonstrate the kingdom.  Three of them are Christians, and I played a part in helping them to know Christ.  For them, I prayed that God would give them a vision for their lives that goes beyond just an interest in comfort and self, but that they would truly come to know what it means to follow Jesus and be inspired to give their lives to bring his kingdom.

Ten months in, five of the six have disappeared from my life.  They're gone.  Some I can't even find to get a hold of, and some have just moved on to new people and new experiences.  And for those I still talk to occasionally, I can't see any evidence that God has answered my year-long prayers for them.  As for the sixth, though we still hang out, I can't even remember the last time we had a conversation about faith or spiritual things.

So what went wrong?  Maybe God is still working in ways that I can't see.  If so, I don't want to give up too soon.  But maybe my influence in their lives has just come to a natural end so that I should focus on building relationships with and praying for others who've come into my life this year.  Or maybe there's something I didn't do and should have or did do that I shouldn't have.  I don't know.  If it wasn't true that God has been answering some of the other specific prayers for this year in miraculous ways, I would wonder if God was even hearing me...

So this is one of those challenging things about living with a kingdom mentality.  I have to stay sensitive to how the Spirit is leading and be willing to keep pursuing or to move on, as he leads.  And even when I follow him where I think he's leading, I don't always see what I expect to.  If you'd told me last December that I'd lose all these relationships, I don't think I would've believed that was even possible.

I should say that I think it's really important to build relationships with people that are real and genuine and not just based on me trying to get them to meet Jesus.  I mean, I really want to know them and care about them as whole people.  So even when I can't see the Spirit working, that's never a reason to abandon ship.  That said, where I'm trying to build mutual relationships, sometimes the right thing is to let someone walk away.

I should also say that we can't discount the power of evil in the world.  For all that God desires to do in peoples' lives, there is another who desires to prevent people from fully surrendering to God's reign in their lives.  Perhaps the answer to my dilemma is simply that the powers of darkness are holding back the work that God wants to do.  And if that's what's happening here, then I would want to dig my heels in and seek the prayers of my Christian community for my friends.

What about you?  Have you ever prayed for God to move and seen what seems to be the exact opposite happen?  What has that done to your faith?  How do you think God wants us to respond in these circumstances?

Practicing the Kingdom--living generously

After almost a year of writing these updates for my church, I'm sensing the need to move on to a discussion of some more of the practical aspects of missional, kingdom living that allows me to naturally share my faith with those around me.  For me, one of the hardest parts of living this way has been to figure out what it looks like at a practical level.  One of my goals for this blog has been to create a place where the practical issues can be discussed.

The challenging part is that there's no real formula to faith discussions or kingdom living.  I can't tell you in seven quick steps or five quick tips how to reach the people around you.  For every person, there is a unique set of barriers to faith in God.  For every relationship you have with someone, there are different relational dynamics.  And everyone's life is at a different point, so the questions that they have about God and faith come in no predictable order.

One more caveat and then we'll jump to a practical example:  The invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to be a part of his Kingdom.  And his Kingdom is the rule and reign of Christ as people are transformed by him and begin to see their lives changed.  In addition, as Christ-like people engage in the tasks of everyday life, God is present with them and is working through them to restore and redeem all things.  So if we hope to be "evangelists," we have to be able to both explain this and demonstrate what it looks like.  For me, the demonstration usually comes before the explanation, and there are often thousands of little demonstrations as I practice the presence of God in my world before I ever get to share verbally about what my faith is and where it comes from.

So... let's go back to last week, where I explained I had some money that clients owed me that I sensed God leading me to waive.  It was quite a lot of money, so it was a big deal to tell them not to pay it.  So how did my following Jesus lead me to forgive this debt?

I was working on this particular case with another attorney.  He's actually one of the most generous attorneys I've ever met.  He routinely gives time and money away to people.  I can't see inside his head or his heart to know what motivates that generosity, but suffice it to say that this is not normally what I see in the attorneys around me.  So anyway, I agreed to do this case for a certain amount of money.  The other attorney was going to be making the same amount in legal fees--so we split it up 50/50.  A month or two ago, he sends me an email and says that he's going to give me his second half, so that I'd be making 75% and he'd just take the 25% that he already had.  He was impressed with the job I'd done, recognized that the amount and quality of work was much more than he was expecting, and wanted to see me compensated.

I wasn't sure how to respond at that time.  It made me uncomfortable to take his money, knowing he'd been working just as hard as I was.  It made me thankful for his generosity.  Eventually I just said to him that it was very generous and let it drop (I've been working hard on learning to receive gifts and blessings from other people).

But then we get to the end of the case, and it turns out that my client was innocent--really and truly innocent.  He'd been charged with a serious felony, and he'd had to mortgage his house and take money from his retirement to pay his bond and our legal fees.  And this other attorney and I had talked a lot about justice and our broken system and all the ways we try to hold back the injustice that we see.  And he knows I'm a Christian and that I do what I do (representing indigent clients) because of my beliefs.  And I just kept thinking about how justice is bigger than getting my client a dismissal.  It's unjust that the client had to go through 10 months of turmoil as the case meandered through the system.  It's unjust that a false accusation led to a huge financial burden of legal fees and court costs.  And I can't do anything about the first issue, but I don't have to take more money from the client than I need.  So I began to pray about the fee I was still owed - both the money I originally agreed to take and the money that I was going to get from the other attorney's share.

And then I thought about the other attorney's generosity.  Whatever his motivation, how could I not be as generous to other people as he was to me?  Hasn't God been generous with me by inviting me to share in Jesus's inheritance?  How could my actions related to this money best demonstrate the character and generosity of God?  How could I show what it means to live in God's kingdom and according to his values?  How could I show that my faith is real and affects every area of my life, not just what I do on Sundays?

And as I prayed over these questions, I really only had one option--taking no more than what I needed and forgiving the rest of the debt.

The challenging thing, going forward, is that the kingdom of God is invisible.  It's like yeast working through a whole batch of dough.  You can't really see what each grain of yeast is doing, but after a while, you see their combined effects.   Similarly, I may never be able to see exactly how my actions affect the Kingdom of God.  I think it gives a validity to my faith--I'm not just talking about Jesus, I'm living like he'd want me to.  But will that ultimately transform peoples' lives?  I don't know.  Maybe it will be one thing that makes my attorney friend interested in knowing more about Jesus.  Maybe it will be a huge blessing to my client so that he can bless other people.  Maybe it'll lay the groundwork so that other Christians will have the opportunity to share their faith.  Maybe someday soon I'll have the opportunity to tell more of my story to my attorney friend or my client.  It's not for me to know the end, only to follow Jesus wherever he leads.

the first step

"And he said to all, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.'" Luke 9:23 (NIV).

There is nothing easy about taking that step across the line and following Jesus where he leads.  Because, before we go anywhere else, Jesus leads us to sacrifice.  We must sacrifice our dreams, our expectations, our desires.  We must sacrifice our time and our resources.  We must daily look at Jesus and choose his way instead of our own.

Tonight I sat with a friend who is struggling to follow Jesus into a sacrifice of unconditional love.  She knows that that is her calling, but those first steps are always the hardest.  There's so much risk that's involved.  If I sacrifice all those things, will I get anything in return?  Jesus promises reward and inheritance of the kingdom--but will those things be worth what they have cost me?  And what will it cost me in my deepest soul to give the things he is asking me?

This week I also had the opportunity to forgive the debt of some clients.  They owed me money and I really sensed God leading me to let it go so that the message that he is a God of justice and compassion would be experienced by them and another attorney.  And in those moments when I struggled to let that money go, I thought of the things I might like to do with the money--the home-repair projects and the comfort-inducing things I might buy.  Even the charities I might like to give a percentage to.

But in the end, it always goes back to this.  Do I love Jesus more than I love myself?  Do I want to see his kingdom carve new paths as the water of life flows out of these sacrifices?  Do I want people to meet the Jesus that I know and follow?  Do I really want to bring him to my place of work and my home?

Each of us will have to answer these questions in life time and time again.  This denial of self for the sake of Jesus--it happens daily.  But it really is an invitation rather than a command.  Because what comes after the sacrifice is amazing.  Nothing compares to seeing God transform your very heart as you walk in faith in the direction he leads.  And nothing compares to seeing other people coming to know Jesus.

As you walk with Jesus, how has he invited you to take up your cross and follow him?  What have you seen him do in response?  And what is he asking you to deny right now for the sake of the kingdom?

preparing to share

Preparation.  It makes all the difference between doing well in court and doing mediocre.  I've been preparing for a big trial for the last couple of months, and you wouldn't believe how many hours I've spent working on it.  I've spent even more time just thinking about it.  I simply can't hope to represent my clients even adequately if I'm not prepared.

I don't know why we don't give as much thought to the evangelism and other ministry that we do in our communities.  For example, I wouldn't consider putting someone on the stand if I hadn't had a personal conversation with him and talked through all the questions that might come up.  I need to know what they're going to say and how they're going to say it.  Similarly, if you're going to effectively minister to your friend, you've got to know where he's at or what he's thinking and feeling.  You've got to figure out what the things are that make faith easier for him and what might make faith more challenging.  You've got to know what sets him off and what makes him happy.  If you do, you'll be able to prayerfully consider how and what to speak about to challenge that friend to know and follow Christ more deeply.

Or what about research?  If I'm going to trial on a case, I've got to know the statutes and case law inside and out.  I have to know what issues might come up and how to direct the court to the rules it's supposed to follow.  Similarly, I think you have to prepare for conversations you might have with friends by thinking ahead of time about the relevant issues that might come up.  What are the things in her life that she's considering doing or has been doing that she might ask about?  What life questions is she trying to work through?  And what stories from Scripture might model how to work through that question?  How did the New Testament church work that issue out in their lives?

A lot of times we think about spiritual conversations with fear and trepidation.  We don't want to mess up or to say the wrong thing.  Or what if someone asks me a question I can't answer?  But I think we really can prepare for these conversations by praying and asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the important issues in our friends' lives and then by thinking and praying through what we might relevantly share.

How about you?  When was the last time you brought a friend to God in prayer and asked for wisdom about the issues they're facing?  Where might you be able to look for stories or ideas about how to walk through their questions with them?