Mommy, Daddy, Sammy

I was sure God was going to answer our prayer.

• Our leadership team, all abiders in Christ and claiming John 15:6, begged God to rescue our budget with a huge December.
• Following our Lord’s instructions on prayer (Matthew 6:5-13; 7:7-11; Luke 11:1-13; 18:1-5), we prayed specifically and persistently.
• We prayed alone, as couples, as families, in groups, and in community at all of our Christmas leadership events.
• Most of us fasted and prayed multiple times during December.

I was so sure that God would say yes to this prayer because usually He says yes when a request burdens our community in this way.

God Said No

He said no. Emphatically no. It wasn’t that He was testing us some to see if we would trust Him enough to move forward with a more robust budget in 2012 by giving us a partial yes. Our December giving didn’t even come close.

I’m devastated and my faith is shaken.

Like you, I don’t know what to do with no answers to my purest prayers when it seems I did everything right. I started doubting whether I really was abiding, if I was asking unselfishly enough, if maybe I was foolish to be so bold and public in leading our church in this prayer.

I came up with strategies to explain away the no. Some of that I’m sure was to protect the “reputation” of God, but a lot of it was simply to try to make sense of it myself.

And then, my grandson Zachy taught me a lesson on prayer.

Jesus rejoiced in the childlike faith of His disciples. Their excited reports of what God had done for them after their first missionary journey, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name” (Luke 10:17), elicits this response from the Master:

“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your gracious will” (Luke 10:21).

Zachy

Zachy was spending the night with us for the first time in his almost three years on earth Friday night. He had moved from a world of a lot of no’s (too many if his parents were to consult Judy and me!) to a world of yes’s. He got just about everything he wanted that night. Okay, I admit it. He got everything he wanted that night.

But then, when it came time to go to bed, his little heart broke. He cried and cried, saying only, “Mommy, Daddy, Sammy” over and over again. Finally, after an hour of comforting him and stroking his little back, he fell asleep with the whispered whimper, “Mommy, Daddy, Sammy.”

The next morning when mommy and daddy and brother Sammy came to pick him up, he ran into their arms and immediately asked them for something he couldn’t have.

They told him no. He protested. And then he asked again.

Children don’t care as much about yes’s as they do about relationship. They protest and throw fits when daddy says no, but what they most fear is being away from daddy…and mommy…and Sammy.

What a child wants most is the secure love of a parent and the familiar surroundings of the community of the family.

But they never stop asking!

The Measure of Faith

There’s my lesson. We tend to measure faith by adult behavior. God measures faith by childlike behavior.

I’m still begging my Father for more money to do the things we want to do for His Kingdom in 2012, but I’m not going to try to fine tune my prayers.

He’s given me what my redeemed heart longs for most: His unfailing love and strength, and a community of faith where I feel safe.

Just like Zachy, what we really want is the presence of our Father rather than His yes.

Question: When God says no to your prayers, do you tend toward more adult behavior of explanation or the childlike behavior of running to His arms and protesting His no?

Throw-Away Week?

I use to think of the week between Christmas and New Year’s as a throw away week. It was a time to decide to somehow stop eating everything in sight and try to put together a few New Year’s Resolutions I knew I wasn’t going to keep.

Or Year In Review?

Then I got an idea that changed my mind about this week. I now view it as maybe the most important weeks of the year.

Instead of watching and listening the mindless dribble of television and radio reviews of what happened on earth last year, I spend time with God thinking about what heaven thinks about my life last year.

Since I’m addicted to journaling, I dedicate this week to reading through the pages of my spiritual journal from the year before. Using a red highlighter, I underline and make notes asking God to help me condense the pages into the one lesson He was teaching me last year.

At the end of the week I complete this sentence and write it on the first page of my journal for the next year: “Last year God taught Ed…………………………………”

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In his Letters to Marc, Henri Nouwen says, “Success has isolated a lot of people and made them lonely. It seems sometimes as though meetings between people generally happen on the way to something or someone else.”

We live in a world where we’re all on our way to something else and someone else.

Just last month I asked Judy if there was any way I could love her better. She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Eddie. You could put up that stupid iphone. Sometimes I feel that I’d get more of your attention if I were an app on your iphone”

Ouch!

It’s true, isn’t it? We’re hardly ever present with the one we’re with. We’re always on our way to someone else or something else.

The message to our hearts from early on is, “Nobody really has time for me. They’re all on their way to someone else or something else more important than me.”

“Stop interrupting me, can’t you see I’m on the phone…or watching the game…or on the computer? Go in your room and play, or put on a video. Just find something to do!”

Message to child? “I’m on my way to someone or something more important than you.

Those messages just keep on coming for the rest of our lives.

And then we meet Jesus.

Who is never in a hurry, never preoccupied, never impatient.

In fact, what He wants most of all is to spend time with us.

He gathers us in communities called churches.

And what do we do?

We turn church into the busiest place on earth where everyone is on their way to something or someone else…more important, more spiritual, more significant, more worthy of my time.

Just one more place where lonely people gather wondering, “Does anyone have an app for me?”

“Instead of being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity, each of you should, in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself. Each of you should be concerned not only about your own interests, but about the interests of others as well. You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had” (Philippians 2:3-5).

Question: Can you remember a time when you felt alone and isolated at church? What would you have wanted to say to your leaders?

Last week, I taught Galatians5.1-6 for our faith community–Church of the Open Door. We talked about the importance of reading the warnings of these verses in context. These verses warn us against losing our grip on grace by resubmitting to works-righteousness. They are not warning us against losing our salvation–the free gift of eternal life given to all who believe in Jesus Christ.

Since so many Christians have been abused by the false teaching of legalists, I thought it would be important to explain why this paragraph does not teach loss of salvation. I offered 5 reasons:

1. This would revoke the promises of God (John 3:16; John 6:47; Ephesians 2:8-9). Romans 8:29 tells us plainly that this will never happen.
2. Paul calls the readers brothers and sisters (v 11) even after telling them that those who are submitting to circumcision have “fallen from grace.”
3. This is describing two contrasting systems of righteousness—law/grace; works/faith—not two states of being (saved/unsaved).
4. The verbs speak of losing our grip on something (grace) or rendering something useless (our resources in Christ). They do not speak of God losing His grip on us because that will never happen (John 10:29-30).
5. Logically, this would mean that even the slightest submission to legalism would mean loss of salvation.

Question: Do you know someone who lives in fear of losing their salvation? Why not forward this to them? 

It was after midnight when we finally pulled to a stop at the end of the road. We had been watching the fire rip through the high country for over an hour as we drove next to the Kings River.

Our crew truck passed others looking up as the flames devoured acres of ponderosa pine and manzanita brush a dozen miles and several thousand feet up the steep canyon wall. Some of the on-lookers seemed afraid but all were impressed with the power of the blaze and the glow that lit up the night sky.

One huge difference set our thoughts of the fire apart from the on-lookers. They were wondering if this fire would interrupt their vacation plans camping in the Sequoia National Forest. We were calculating how difficult it was going to be to walk to the fire’s edge and how scared we would be when we arrived.

They were tourists; we were the Fulton Hotshots—one of a handful of elite firefighting crews from Southern California. The hotter the fire, the more dangerous the terrain, the more sure we were that we would join the other hotshot crews of the west on the fire line.

Bill

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Ricky

Ricky was the most popular guy in our fourth grade culture—smart, admired by all the girls, good in sports, and hip in that grade school kind of way. Everyone wanted to be Ricky’s best friend.

And I was…for about three days.

I remember how great it felt living in that wonderland of being the renowned Ricky’s best friend. We did everything together and he consulted me on every decision or opinion.

• “What do you think, Eddie?”
• “Ask Eddie. He’s really smart.”

It seemed that the other boys and girls admired me almost as much as him. When Ricky and I walked onto the playground we were important. I was living a dream until the day I rode my bike into the schoolyard and noticed “him.”

Randy.

Where did he come from? Suddenly Ricky’s world was all about Randy and I faded back into the crowd—a regular nobody.

And then Ricky turned to me and called me “Underwood” instead of “Eddie.” That did it. I screamed in Ricky’s face, “I don’t need you!” I shouted it again and again as I ran from Ricky’s fan club to hide my tears.

My Wounded Heart

It wasn’t the last time I said that to somebody: “I don’t need you!”

With six decades of life behind me now, I’m beginning to understand what I was really saying to Ricky and to everyone else on the receiving end of my desperate claim to independence, “I don’t need you!”

“I don’t need you” always expresses a wounded heart. It really means, “I cannot trust you, and therefore I determine not to need you. Your love is self-centered, conditional, disappointing, and hurtful. I long to need you, but I will not! Better not to need at all than to need and be hurt.”

Could it be that you’re thinking of someone you have determined not to need? A father who used or spurned your innocent love? A mother who let you know you would never measure up? A pastor whose love always had more to do with what you could do for him than what God could do for you? A spouse or friend who betrayed you? A prodigal child? A family member who just won’t let you in?

Your heart will never heal in the shadow of a lie. It isn’t that you don’t need these people, it’s that they have hurt you so badly that it takes your breath away.

A Healthier Option

May I offer a healthier option to screaming, “I don’t need you” and running across the playground of your life?

Run to Jesus. Run to His throne of grace and scream in your heart or at the top of your lungs, “Jesus, I need you!”

And stay there as long as it takes to trust and feel His healing love melt away the bitterness and relieve the hurt.

His is a love that will never disappoint because it’s a love without an agenda, without conditions and all about you.   It’s a love you can trust that won’t ever say to you, “Wait, I’m busy with the more important people. Can’t you see I’m talking to Randy?” His arms are always open to you because you are His special concern. He is the only One who knows what you need most…Him.

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love” (John 13:9).

Question: How can I help you trust the love of Jesus more? Write me.

Do you ever find yourself longing for the next season of your life, the resolution of a hurtful problem, or some pleasant future event?

• “As soon as the kids get out of school, or go back to school, or we retire, or we move to this new neighborhood….”
• “I can’t wait until this is over. I just want it to end.”
• “Just one more week until vacation, or Christmas, or summer, or winter, or….”

This morning Judy and I were talking about how these thoughts and yearnings must grieve our Heavenly Father. What we’re really saying is, “Okay God, this is a lousy way for you to order my life, but I’m going to be happier as soon as things change.”

But He knows and we should know that we’re not waiting for a “what,” we’re waiting for a “Whom.”

He orders our steps, controls history, and cares for us as His special concern. We’re not waiting for things to change; we’re waiting for our Father to change something.

And until then, our responsibility is to trust Him, regardless of our circumstances, and even if we’re waiting for His plan to unfold.

I’m realizing that my loving Father wants me to view today’s now as yesterday’s until then. It’s called living in the moment of His love and care.

Questions: What are you waiting for? How do you think it makes your Heavenly Father feel when your hope is in what you’re waiting for rather than the One who is asking you to wait?

Is Ed an “antinomian”?

As soon as someone hears that I’m teaching through Galatians, they feel compelled to warn me against the excesses of antinomianism.

Before you google “antinomianism,” let me give you the definition: Antinomianism teaches that the Christian is not bound by the law.

No, I’m Pro-nomian!

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I couldn’t believe I was really boarding a plane headed for Vero Beach, Florida. All my life I had been talking about meeting a lifelong friend to see our beloved Dodgers in their spring training home—Dodgertown!

I was telling the Lord how thankful I was to be finding my seat on the overcrowded plane when I saw a man sitting in my window seat.

“Sir, I’m in 27A.”

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Want-To’s

Being around professional ballplayers during Spring Training a few years ago reminded me of one of the toughest lessons I had to learn growing up: I will never play for the Dodgers.

My problem wasn’t that I didn’t dream of playing for the Dodgers. That was just about all I thought about during my little league years. I took extra infield practice, worked on my hitting, and may have been the most enthusiastic and dedicated little blossoming first basemen ever.

But, by the time I went to high school, it became very obvious. I would never play first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Shoot, I couldn’t even play first base for the South High Rebels.

I didn’t have a “want-to” problem. I had an “able-to” problem—a capacity problem.

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