Tag: live with hope

Posted on

Love Songs

Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,
Ephesians 5:19

LOVE

I was recently at a worship concert with Bethel Music . Bethel is one of my favorite worship bands in large part as they penned my life soundtrack. As the anthem worship song “No Longer Slaves” hit the chorus, the 8 year old off key little voice in front of me lifted to heaven an anthem I could not out sing.

In his 8 year old heart abandon of song, his passion surpassed all 39 years of worship I had in me.

Read why “No Longer Slaves” is my life song here.

I am a hopeful (or hopeless) romantic. While lots of people love the melody or beat of the music, I am mesmerized by the message tucked in the lyrics. I find meaning in the narrative of each carefully crafted syllable.  The song has is courier of emotions and connection to the heart. Yet, in this snippet of a moment, was the simple reminder that in the collision of melody and lyrics a heart has to be married to it.

Mattie, as I call him, did not have one concern about key, timing or pitch. His only desire was to sing a love song to the one who loves him. His head was not simply connected to singing the song, but his heart was married to it in an abandoned belting out of the chorus. It was his love song.

As the final power chord of “No Longer Slaves” pierced the April night sky, the band softly sang the words of the next worship song:

Jesus, we love you
Oh, how we love you
You are the one our hearts adore
Our hearts adore

And Mattie never missed a beat. His voice breaking over the star filled Tennessee sky. He was in love with the subject of the song. He embodied what Paul wrote the church at Ephesus:  Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord. 

It was my reminder that I am in a marriage to the one who first loved me. And married folks sing love songs. Paul encourages us as the bride of Christ to sing melodies and make music to the lover of our hearts.  It more than simply the melody or lyrics. It is a heartfelt love song.

It is often said to sing like no one is looking…Mattie sang like Jesus was the only one looking.

#lovesongs

Posted on

Going Through HELL

If you’re going through hell, keep on going.
Country song

going through.png

I am a classic over-stater of a situation.  Case in point: I hate sleeping in socks. My feet get all hot and sweaty.  The sock gets all twisted and crooked.  And someone testify with me, there are very few things in life as uncomfortable as a twisted sock while your trying to find your comfort zone. Then based on my discomfort, I will make some incredible overture like “oh that must be what Hell is like.”

In truth Jesus never describes Hell as twisted socks…continual weeping and gnashing of teeth yes, off centered hosiery, no. Yet, we (maybe just I) make comparisons of our discomfort to eternal punishment.

While I want mama to rest assured, I am not headed to Hell, I do think we face some “hells on earth”.

Jesus look dead in the eye of the 12 with dagger like statements of “take up your cross and follow me.”  Jesus always with the key literary foreshadowing was pointing toward his eventual journey toward his Hell on earth.  Jesus, beaten and bloodied, exhausted and worn would be forced to drag and pull his own device of death to the hill of the skull. Where those same hands that carried the cross would be nailed to same board.

(And I complain about socks.)

While most likely most of us will never endure a cross, we do endure hell on earth.  The words of Jesus penned in the red across the pages promise provision and protection but often in the face of trial and trouble.  He said this to his closest friends on earth:

 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Seven little words that sometimes feel much bigger than life itself…”you will have trouble.”

“Um, thank you Jesus.”

Truth is hell on earth will happen.  Hurt will come. Despair will be delivered. Grief will be well worn like a familiar tattered hoodie. It is certain.

For whatever reason we think coming to faith in Jesus exempts us from heartbreak. But in fact, hurt still happens even to Jesus loving, church going, bible believing, filled with the Holy Spirit followers of Jesus. The hell on earth happens.

Sandwiched around the certainty of hell on earth is one reminder and one promise.

The reminder: Jesus is the giver of peace not the hurt.

The context of this passage of scripture is Jesus unpacking his plans for the future. It is a far cry from the social and political overtaking of the kingdom his disciples anticipated. It was an announcement of his departure. It was a save the date for his death.

It was as if the first nail was driven into the heart of his friends. Hurt, misunderstanding, uncertainty, confusion, I imagine to be what flooded the followers of the Messiah. I am sure Andrew or Matthew chased thoughts of “it is not supposed to go this way.”

 In that moment, it seems like the proclamation of the plan is the very thing that steals the peace of the disciples. And Jesus, as only Jesus does, reminds them that he is giving them a glimpse of what is ahead not to create fear, but to give them peace.

The paradox of life and seemingly the message of the Passion is that going through Hell leads to peace. The cross of his suffering is what is our peace. He in a literally sense was pierced for our peace.

The reminder is he is the Prince of Peace even in the center of our hell on earth.

The promise: he has already overcome this world.

Hell on earth sucks. It is miserable, painful, and devastating at times. We walk through it with a belief head-shaking of “this is not what I signed up for.”

As hard as it may be and so often it seems nearly impossible to believe he has already overcome your hell. It was nailed the cross, it is overcome in the scars found in his hands and his side.  The scar story of Jesus is what brings the overcoming our hell on earth.

READ MY SCAR STORY HERE

So in the center of the fires of life you can truly “take heart” or as another translation states “be of good cheer” in the center of your situation because he has already overcome.  He beat it back by his death and resurrection. He remains the overcomer of death, hell and the grave.  So I read these words of the apostle Paul with a side-eye sigh and final acceptance:

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4:17

Greater glory. Simply, there is still something ahead for us. These troubles, these hells here on this planet will pass. And if we faithfully walk in places of peace and places of trouble we will receive the promise.

Friend, we share an address. I live where you live. I walk through the hells of life, too. I have hurt, I have faced devastation and been journeying down the road. As cliche as it sounds in a country song, there is an element of truth to it.

If you are walking through hell, keep on walking. You have this reminder: he is our peace. You have been given a promise: he has already overcome.

Keep on walking…

Posted on

Accidentally On Purpose

“Direction, not intention gets you to your desired destination.”
Andy Stanley

True confession: I am terrible with directions. I have been known to pull out of my driveway the wrong way. A lot of that is the process of habit.  I turn left out the drive because most days of my life I turn left out of my drive.

My kids will attest that sometimes we end up somewhere “accidentally on purpose”. Let me explain.

“Accidentally on purpose” is where you set out to a specified destination. Get lost. Arrive at another completely different destination and turn to your kids and say “we are here.”  And “here” is not where you set out to end up at all.

Life has been a constant arrival of “heres” in my life.  Outside of few rare occurrences, many of my arrivals have been by accident lacking purpose. Not to negate the reality that life is part adventure and part of the adventure is the discovery of the unknown.  But too often the unknown has been found because there was not a clear direction to where I was going.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote the captives what God was speaking.  It was “I know the plans I have for you…”  God in his usual banter with me says “Jeff, if I have a plan for you, how come you seem to live by accident?”

Oops.

I won’t “accidentally on purpose” become who God has intended for my life to become.  I won’t “accidentally on purpose” arrive at the destination God has for me. I never seem to “accidentally on purpose” live the life laid out for.

Those things only happen when we have purpose. What I have found in my life is when I have misplaced purpose I end up with misplace passions. The passions of my life never change. The passion to communicate, to help people, to live a life full. Yet what happens is when I lack purpose those passions get placed in areas that do not directly get me where God’s plan is leading.

And where I end up is “here” accidentally on purpose.

So the shift is to live with purpose.  Purpose requires decision making, not always my favorite activity.  Purpose requires choosing myself while loving and serving others. Purpose means moving past good intentions to live with action. Purpose means facing fears and opposition and standing strong in the face of both. Purpose means picking a destination and then setting a course to get there.

Otherwise you just end up “here” accidentally on purpose.

Posted on

In a Moment

But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 4:29

I was 19 and recently divorced.

Not from a marriage, but from my faith. I was one year removed from high school.  After one year in the labor force, I was entering my freshman year of college.

I remember the day of separation vividly as the movie reel ticks in my memory.  I was packing for my first year of college. Brown boxes and duffel bags held my most precious possessions outside of my Ryne Sandberg rookie card which remained on my childhood dresser.  As I held the hardback book that was handed to me by my pastor upon high school graduation, I slid it into the box as an appeasement to my mama.  But in my mind I said to myself “I won’t be needing this.”

And in that moment the great game of hide-and-go-seek began.

I spent the majority of my first semester hiding.  He spent most of those four months seeking.  In the most precarious of positions and places God would interrupt my strategically designed new life without him.

On a cold December night home on break, a praying mama drug an unpraying son to church.  Near the back row seated on a wooden church pew in a classic “pentecostal revival” service I was attempting to do my best hiding, while God was doing his best seeking.  If the preacher who was preaching that night every reads this, I hate to say I don’t remember a word of your sermon.  Not that it was not good, it may have been. It was just I was mid-discussion with Jesus and his voice was louder than yours no matter how much you shouted.

And my 19 year old stubborn insistence was broken down by his unfailing pursuit.  In that moment God reconciled the covenant that I had broken. He redeemed the distance I had created.

In the irony and divinity of God, it was from that Bible I packed up with no intention on using, in that church I had no intention on attending that December night that I preached my first sermon.  That bible now tattered from use and covered in pen and highlighters sits on my shelf with a duct taped spine as the reminder that we are never too far from God.

It amazes me how I spent most of my freshman year hiding and in a moment he found me. I had fought so hard to have life my own way and he reminded me that my life was never my own. I had freedom to choose, but my choices had left my life shackled with sin. In that moment, the hider was found the by the seeker. The marriage of my life to the master was reunited.

I recently heard Pastor Erwin McManus explain it this way: “I was searching for love and crashed into Jesus.”

If you know Jesus, you have had your one moment. If you are far from him, he is seeking you so that your heart and his can be united. It happens in just one moment.

Even in your hiding, he can find you. Crash into Jesus.

justbeingjeff

error

Stay Connected!