40 Day Fast

When my kids were young, I used to give them rules before leaving them home with babysitters. Simple rules. No more than five. Always written out and read to them (since at 3 and 5 them couldn’t). Rules like these:

1. You may watch one video
2. Put away your toys
3. Brush your teeth
4. Go to bed at 8 pm
5. Have FUN.

Always Rule #5. After the stern admonitions, the don’t forgets, the responsible stuff, there was always Rule #5. It was a wink, a Mommy loves you, and early instruction on understanding that good rules are for our good and aren’t always hard to keep.
 
That was the mom in me at work. Or more accurately God at work in the mom at me at work – aware that most of the time as a parent I was making it up as I went along.
 
Years later, however, Rule  #5 still applies—to my grown children’s lives in school, with their friends, in their work. I’m also learning that God applies it to me—my work, my ministry, my life.
 
Have fun. Sounds shallow, superfluous, self-centered—downright sinful when there are so many things to be done, people to be helped, causes to advance, trees to be saved, lives to be rescued from poverty, prostitution, pornography, pollution. And yet, the question, “Are we having fun yet?” has become one of my criteria for measuring the value of my labor.
 
One of my criteria, not the criteria, “fun” is an everyday colloquialism for the theological principle of Joy. Joy characterizes the inner life of disciples of Jesus Christ. It is one of the fruit or by-products of walking with, working with, reveling in God’s Holy Spirit. Joy ranks in Paul’s list in Galatians 5:22-23 when he writes, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
 
There is no law (rule) against joy (fun), so why not make a law (rule) for it? Why not look for it, anticipate it, wait for it? And why not measure our lives with it—not for fun and games but for evidence of the life of Jesus operating in us.

• Joy is the feeling I have when God gets me through prolonged, trying situations – often by changing me.
• Joy is the reward in working with others, pooling our gifts and talents, in a God-designed project that none of us could do alone.
• Joy is in the laughter resounding among friends amid the tears of our shared lives.
• Joy is the kernel in humility that makes me able to laugh at my faults and foibles.
• Joy is God’s shot of energy that fuels my creative process and prods me forward, forward, forward—a tantalizing motivator and not a cruel taskmaster.
• Joy is God’s pat on the back in doing something worthwhile for others.
• Joy is the gold and diamonds deposited in my heart vault in the love I receive from others.
• Joy is a memory and a promise, the reminder that the Holy Spirit is at work in me even when I can’t see or feel it.

Life is hard. There’s no getting around it. We do hurt, we do make mistakes. We have faults and we fail others. We will be betrayed and misunderstood, maligned, mocked, misrepresented, and maltreated—even as followers of Jesus Christ, maybe especially as followers of Jesus Christ. Living longer under Jesus’s lordship, gaining more experience and growing wiser doesn’t necessarily make life any easier. But where ease comes up short, joy fills in.
 
That joy, as all the fruit of the Spirit, comes out of relationships, first with God and then with others as the Spirit works in us. We cannot enjoy the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control—outside of relationships. These are only experienced within relationships. And when we do experience them, even in the hard stuff, you bet, we’ve got Rule #5.

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If my spiritual wu shu could only look like this!

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I love a good kung fu movie. Step aside, Quentin Tarentino and Kill Bill, Steven Seagal, and Jean-Claude Van Damme, I’m popping my corn for the Chinese genre: Jet Li, Ti Lung, Donnie Yen, Michelle Yeoh, Jackie Chan, Yuen Woo Ping choreography, flicks like Wing Chun, Once Upon in China, Iron Monkey, Hero, Kung Fu Hustle, and, yes, even Kung Fu Panda.
 
In my book, a good kung fu movie has to have amazing martial arts choreography, never seen before stunts, household items used as weapons, strong women holding their own, and humor, lots of it.
 
The best kung fu has a great deal of dodging and fancy footwork, flipping, leaping. Hands quickly deflect a battery of blows, a single pole skillfully handled will hold off teams of attackers. Way before Obi Wan Kenobi whispered, “Use the force, Luke” kung fu films accessed the life force of qi to scale walls, leap over buildings, and levitate.
 
Gotta love those kung fu movies. A good model for what we can do when we are spiritually fit—deflect, defeat, defend.
 
Say what?
 
Like kung fu practioners, when followers of Jesus engage in regular, disciplined spiritual exercises, we acquire “secret moves” for managing the stories of our lives. Kung fu students learn sets and forms, stances as well as rigid routines that begin with boring repetition (remember Karate Kid and “wax on, wax off?”) but over time merge into graceful, flowing dances. Kung fu starts as basic fighting skills but at its highest form becomes wu shu 武 术 — martial arts.
In Matthew 5, Jesus says:
You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. [vv 38-42]
 
Sounds like wu shu to me. However, what Jesus teaches are not athletic practices for defeating our enemies but relationship moves that help us roll with the punches. We might be able to dodge a bullet once or maybe twice. But life has so many zinging arrows, landmines, and ticking bombs that we have to be trained in how to respond in ways that defuse situations instead of escalating them. Moves like these don’t come easy or naturally, and mastery doesn’t come through practice hitting sessions at home.
 
To get to the place where we can offer our cheek, give someone the clothes off our back, go the second mile, we have to learn how to walk differently, train ourselves in new reactions, and develop new muscle memory.
 
We have to plug ourselves into God's operating system, the one guided by His force, the Holy Spirit. That only comes by taking part in a spiritual exercise programs involving disciplines such as prayer, worship, Sabbath, study, confession, accountability, service, giving.
 
Little by little, over time, slowly with practice, God transforms our feeble efforts, small prayers, obedient giving until we have a new outlook on life. Equipped with gifts and skills from God that we know how to use, we can walk through chaos, mend failed relationships, restore lost paths, resurrect dead hope, and cure diseased mindsets. We can feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and bring home the lost. We can rebuild our families. We will find we can do what Paul instructs us in Romans 12:14-18 and:
 
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

The Christian life is not one without pain, hardship, trial, suffering, betrayal, or injustice. In fact, the longer I live and the more I grow as a believer, the more hurt, sorrow, disappointment, loss, and failure I encounter. It never goes away.
 
However, as I train with God, He develops within me the spiritual fitness to get up when knocked down, to duck the swings, tumble to safety, protect my heart, laugh at my follies, and roll with the punches. And that’s far better than even the best kung fu movie.

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Day 35:  The Final Stretch
 
Five days to go in the 40-Day Fast. I can be tempted to view the remaining days as the final moments before relief, a “just hold on a little longer, you can do it” frame of mind—survival mentality as it were. That would be an expected and respectable response to 40 days of any kind of increased rigor whether spiritual, physical, mental, or dietary. Discipline can be tiring, boring, unrewarding and even masochistic.
 
But I am discovering something different that catches me by surprise. Rather than this being the beginning of the end, I think this could be the best stage of all. A final stretch that has me not just reaching for the finish line but accelerating past it.
 
5 weeks with 5 days to go
I’m no athlete but I am a dedicated lap swimmer, slow but steady in my workouts. The first 100 is easy: I’m fresh, energized, my muscles aren’t tired. The next several hundred, however, I feel myself tiring. I have to breathe a little more often and concentrate on pulling my hands through the water, keeping up my kick. However, by the time I reach my 800- , 900-meter mark, I’ve found my groove. My heart beats hard but strong, my kick has found the rhythm to match my stroke, each slice of my arm through the water brings a feeling of more power as I finally settle into ideal aerodynamics. Sometimes the feeling is so good in the final stretch, I don’t want to stop and switch into the next part of my workout.
 
It’s near to feeling that way now, not that the past 5 weeks have made me a superior follower of Christ, increased my virtues or performance, or made me any more holier. Rather, it’s the feeling of finding a new groove, of finally putting the mechanics into place so that what used to feel hard has lost some of the fatigue of the trying, replaced instead with a new conscious level of understanding of who God is and how his kingdom works.
 
When I swim, throughout my routine I’m in the same water, operating under the same conditions, using the same equipment. I don’t pop a few steroids or stop for an energy boost in the middle. Nothing changes from the beginning of my swim to the end. The longer I swim, the more nothing changes. But as I swim and push against the resistance, I slowly find my stride, and that takes me to a new level.
 
Dark horses
This summer I went to the racetracks for the first time. Our friends have a box at Arlington Park in the Chicago suburbs where you can watch the horses race live on Arlington track as well as watch live feeds from other premier racetracks like Churchill Downs, Pimlico and Belmont. The box is under the eaves and right in front of the finish line. From there you can see the horses rounding the final corner, pounding down the home stretch, jockeys astraddle, tails flying, heads, necks, hooves galloping to the finish.
 
My favorite races are the ones where a horse comes from behind, creeping forward through the pack, and with a final unexpected burst of acceleration eclipses the leader to win the heat.
 
What impresses me is not so much that the horse beats out the winner as the energy, strength, and muscle these colts and fillies gather in the final stretch to sail home. Somewhere in that final stretch, the jockey working with the horse knows when that horse can accelerate to a level of performance that has the horse using more of its potential.
 
That comes with practice. It comes form a jockey knowing his horse. It’s a combination of diet and exercise, healthful habits, rest, and, yes, ability, too.
 
Homestretch
In my homestretch I feel like I’m finally getting it. God as my jockey is using the feeble practices of this fast to take me to a new level, to give me a new awareness of His life in me.
 
What does that look like? For me, it’s discovering His hand in my everyday life, not just looking for intervention through the miraculous. Instead of backing away with excuses, it’s accepting and engaging in the exercise – the hard work – of wrestling with thoughts, ideas, perceptions, and questions, and not just settling for what I thought I believed or what others have told me to believe.
 
It’s a growing openness to the likely possibility—okay, to the growing certainty that my idea of happiness falls short of God’s. It is acknowledging my sin (see Day 32) and all the ways that I am not God. It is a re-gathering of all that I am in the direction of God.
 
I’m reminded of what Paul writes in Romans 12:1-2 about being transformed and renewed, quoted here in  Eugene Peterson’s translation, The Message:
 
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I’m looking at the final stretch to be a good stretch in every meaning of the word: a time to not wind down and relax, but to let God use the new elasticity He’s creating in me to not huff and puff to the end but to send me soaring past the finish line.

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Leave it to Oswald Chambers to cut through the spiritual posturing and say it’s okay to be shallow.

Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God —1 Corinthians 10:31

Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all— the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, "A disciple is not above his teacher . . ." ( Matthew 10:24  ).

We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.

November 22 reading | My Utmost for His Highest | Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional

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Sigh.

That last posting on sin really took a lot out of me. I struggled over every thought.

Sometimes when I write, it comes spilling out like ink from a jar. I know where God is moving me. Other times, I wrestle, thoughts pulling me one way and another, words painfully executed, then excised, edited, erased, then reiterated—and not able to rest until I have pushed through all the way to discover where God wanted me to go.

The gift of this blog during this 40 Day Fast is that, number one, it’s forced me to write. But more than putting words to paper, it has, number two, forced me to think, to exercise the muscle in my brain that can clearly and joyfully articulate God in my life. Sometimes I get it well enough early enough to just write it down. Other times, I am learning as I write.

Number three, the exercise – the discipline – has helped me to grow. There is nothing like disciplined exercise for helping us grow in any area, whether it be an athletic activity, a musical instrument, reading, or thinking. Thank you, God, for pulling me up the ladder a little higher.

The older I get, the more I understand the need for discipline. And that’s why it’s helpful to regularly engage in spiritual disciplines like fasting, journaling, giving, worshipping. The gain is so much more than the perceived sacrifice. Fasting, as I said on Day 28, is feasting.

As to the Other S Word. Not sigh, but Sabbath. Rest. Feeling God as we rest in Him. Not working for Him, not sacrificing for Him, but taking long deep breaths of God. So, maybe sigh after all. And that’s what I need, we need.

This is all to say that if I take a break in the next day or so, it could be me getting a good Sabbath, getting in a good sigh with God.

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My friend Mitch got me thinking about sin this week. We were at an open forum where I was interviewing him about being a follower of Jesus Christ as a business leader. I had the easy job.
 
The thing is, he mentioned the “S” word—SIN, in a public setting. At least it was in a Christian  setting where everyone in the room was on the same page. But it also felt so very public, meeting in a private room of a popular entertainment center, awash in loud, driving music, rapid fire video games, mounds of food, beer, beer and more beer, and ka-chink! It could have been a casino, except gambling isn’t legal here.
 
The “S” word can be jarring. No one uses it in public except “religious” people and those in the other S-word industry, the Sex Industry, where sin is star. Sin is either really, really bad, or oh so good!
 
Is there a happy medium? Oh that’s right, we’re talking about sin, the idea of wrongdoing. And that’s the problem. How does one talk about it without feeling judged or judgmental, without feeling ashamed or confused? It’s an uncomfortable word because, frankly, it admits wrongdoing and that’s just not a good feeling. We live in an enlightened society, we hold tolerant values, we are a compassionate people, and whether we believe in Jesus or not we like Jesus’ words to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. Don’t tell us we’ve sinned. We won’t tell if you don’t.
 
And yet, if we do follow Jesus’ words—all of them and not just the convenient ones—if we believe in a God who is not just good but perfect, just and righteous, if we want to have a relationship with Him, we have to come to grips with the fact that we are not like Him.
 
We have to spend serious time considering not just what makes us different but what separates us from Him. That is what I think sin is. Sin is the difference between God and us. It is everything that He is not.
 
The Greek word for sin used most frequently in the Bible is hamartia which literally means “missing a target or mark” —as when the Apostle Paul wrote, “For all have sinned [hamartano], and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We can then say that everything that is outside of the bulls-eye is outside of the glory of God. Anything that falls short of receiving the adulation that God deserves, anything that is one iota less magnificent than God—is not God and is therefore sin.
 
Therefore, to know what sin is, we have to know God. When we know God, we will recognize what is not Him. We will understand what falls short, where we miss the mark, how we sin.
 
The S-word is still not something I want to flash around in public. But I can understand it more if I see it through the light of God rather than dig for it in the darkness of my heart. If thinking about sin actually gives me more freedom to think about God’s goodness, greatness, awesomeness, incomparableness, His grace towards me, His tenderness, His love for me—I feel empowered, I feel liberated. I actually feel okay about making a long list of how I am not like God.
 
And that is a good thing. When I can see how desirable God is but at the same time see the distance that lies between Him and I, how much more do I understand my need for Jesus. Only Jesus who is fully God and fully man can cover that chasm. That was and is God's plan for all the S words: sin, sacrifice, sanctification, salvation.
 
Paul writes in Romans 8:31-39 —
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
   "For your sake we face death all day long;
      we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

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Here with us 1986 – 2008 | Home with God November 15, 2008

Article and video on Luke’s untimely passing at: http://kgmb9.com/main/content/view/11552/40/

“Friends” written by Michael W. Smith, sung below by Na Leo Pilimehana

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When we pray, we’re asking for it. Literally.

Prayer is many things and has lots of different forms and functions, but the one function that is most familiar is prayer that asks for something. The technical term would be “supplication” or asking God to supply.
 
Now after a while, some of us begin to realize that much of our relationship with God is asking for it. It’s a pretty one-sided conversation. When was the last time in prayer that we turned to God and said, “And what about you? What can I do you for?”
 
We don’t because we know even before we start asking that we can’t do much for God, not really. After all He IS the Creator of the Universe, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, All-Holy, Almighty, Omnipotent God. Pretty hard to have a reciprocal relationship with someone like that.
 
But does God mind? Does he mind all the asking?
 
I remember when my daughter at not quite 3 years old was getting into her stride talking and launching into “conversation.” We were trapped on one of those long car rides between LA and San Francisco, and were pressing on non-stop through the more boring stretches that have you begging to just get home.
 
But my daughter didn’t notice it was boring. She was conversing, using her words, learning the fine art of social relationship with her mom, the “connection thing”—and asking one why question after another. She had a lot to ask: Why this? Why that? And what about that?…with no stopping to pause, ponder, pout or play. After about two hours, I had to say, “Honey, can you just be quiet now and not talk to Mommy for a while?”
 
She had exhausted me. It’s not that I didn’t like talking with my daughter. I just didn’t have the answers.
 
That’s the difference between God and I: He does have all the answers. And because He does, God delights in our asking. Our asking opens the doors to Who He Really Is.
 
In Matthew 7:7-11, Jesus tells us:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
 
The invitation to ask doesn’t go only for the pretty, neatly wrapped things that can be easily packaged and tidily put away. That’s how we humans would have all our answers. The invitation takes on new dimensions when we give God something hard. I wonder if God loves these prayers best because it gives us the opportunity to see what God can do.
 
Let me repeat that: It gives US the opportunity to see what God can do. Asking God the impossible removes the limits we place on the possible. Asking admits that God has powers beyond human capability, thought or genius. When we ask the impossible, we turn the corner on who God is—from a neatly boxed God, to not what I thought he was, and then even more. That, in itself is a miracle within us that changes everything.
 
Every prayer is a crack in the wall between heaven and earth, a wall not put up by God, but our wall of little imagination that prefers to gaze at the limited things of earth than  wonder at the limitless things of heaven. Ask for it.

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This evening, my daughter and I learned that one of her friends died in a car accident last night. He was 22, finishing college, a nice guy, good person with a future full of hope. It’s what you don’t want to hear. One of those things that you wish were a bad dream and not true when you wake up in the morning.
 
Something happened that caused the car crash. No one knows exactly. We can only speculate: Was it the weather, the roads, the car, the driver? Was there a distraction, a slip, blinding light from oncoming traffic?
 
And even if we knew the exact reason, the detailed cause, we can only second guess how it could have been prevented: If he had this, if he had that. If he hadn’t this, if he hadn’t that. If only…
 
If only what? If only he had known? If only someone else had changed the circumstances? If only God had stepped in and un-caused it?
 
Here, “if” is not a useful word because it dares to entertain that we are capable of always making the better choice, exercising better control, seeing and sidestepping danger with the flick of a steering wheel.
 
“If” is a conditional word offering a fork in the road that is just one intersection in a complex decision tree.
 
We cannot build our lives on IF.
It’s too shaky, too fragile to have every branch break off into more and more branches. We cannot hold steady in the uncertainty that maybe we made the wrong decision. With IF we always second guess.
 
We can only build our lives on IS.
The only way to have peace in our lives is to build on something Absolute – where there are none of the proverbial if's, and's, or but's—only IS. We need a permanent stability that moves us forward through change while remaining immovable, invariable, inalterable, unshakeable, unchanging, uncompromising, unconditional.
 
Jesus told us where to find that Absolute. He describes the differences between the surety of IS and the uncertainty of IF using house building. He says in Matthew 7:24-27—

Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.

Building our lives on IF is like building our house on sand— a million little particles shifting with rain, flood, wind. Sand does not hold its ground, cannot hold its form but flees. IF is the same way: you can’t pin it down.

But when we build our lives on IS, we build it on rock. Rock has integrity, shape, certainty, mass; rock is the foundation of the earth. Jesus says we can depend upon his words and shape our lives around them. Jesus IS the Word of God, the Great I Am. You can’t get anymore IS than that.
 
And for those of us who need it simple, can’t remember big expositions about anything, let along theology, Jesus’ words boil down to just one thing: I love you. The Absolute is nothing less than God’s unconditional love. Love that is pure, without reason or motive, without season or expectation. Love that never goes away.
 
Tonight, I thought about my daughter’s friend who knew Jesus' words and practiced them. He is on the other side of time where there are no longer any "if's" to second guess his life, and where he knows without condition the sure love of God. I then went into my 13 year old son’s bedroom as he lay sleeping, and laying my hand on his head said a prayer that went like this:

May you always know the absolute love of God.
May you know His absolute love through me, your dad, your sister, your brother.
May His Love protect you, because I cannot.
May it guide you, because I cannot.
May it redeem your present and your past, because I cannot.
May it be your future, because I cannot
May it be your peace, because I cannot.
May you know that it IS.

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