Tag: live with hope

²³ As they sailed, he fell asleep.
Luke 8:23

The smell of black coffee and cigarette smoke stained the table where I ate.  It sat just juxtaposed to the kitchen where the sweet sound of hymns were sung by a small and frail godly woman I called grandma Jacobs.  The memory bleeds through like a holiday dinner, but in truth it just may have been a regular Saturday night at the Jacobs house.

Hords of people coming and going.  Food out to eat on at random and the largest coffee pot I had ever seen.  That kitchen table was filled with men and their smokes telling stories of days gone by.

We didn’t spend many weekends there as child, but the ones we did became unforgettable.  And not because of typical grandparent fashion .  No, I am one of 33 or 34 grandkids. I lost count at some point.  So rather than propped on grandpa’s lap, I got an ear tug as he passed to get another cup of coffee.

The stickiness of the memory was the stark contrast of life lived in the Jacobs house.  My grandma was a stalwart Jesus following faith filled woman.  She paced the floor praying in tongues and shouting down the devil. My grandfather was a cigarette smoking, cussing black coffee black topper.  He was about as warm and fuzzy as a Brillo pad.  His affection spilled out on to my little frame of boy through his gruff voice that sounded like exhaust from one of my uncle’s muscle cars.

It wasn’t until my teen years that I really got to know the Jacobs’.  We had always lived quite a distance from them.  That changed after the divorce of my parents and mom moved us closer the Windy City family.  What my childhood summation proved out was that Grandma loved Jesus and Grandpa liked her going to church.

For many, many years my grandfather would drive the pretty little lady dressed in Sunday best to the church down the street.  Drop her off, pick her up once the service was done.  The woman who’s faith was bigger than her frame probably survived more of life’s storms than her words would ever expressed.  The mother of 11 had probably chased off more days filled with thunder than I will ever walk through in my life.

I have often wondered on those days as a God-fearing woman who had a husband who was a bit of roughneck how many days she felt like the disciples in Luke 8.  Some of these men were more than likely gifted on the water.  They had previously made their living hauling in nets full of fresh fish.  But this particular three hour tour had the Skipper and Gilligan a little overwhelmed.  And there was Jesus…asleep.

As I reflect on my Grandma Jacobs, surely in the storms of marriage and raising 11 kids there were days that she felt Jesus was asleep in the boat of life.  I can’t verify this was the exact occurrence, but I imagine her prayer was much like the disciples on that night.  My grandfather’s hard living ways had caught up to him and left him hospitalized.  I am unsure of the prayers prayed in the midst of that storm, but I am betting it was a prayer to awake Jesus.

In the midst of the storm the disciples faced “the disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!”  Jesus “got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm”.

Grandma went and woke up Jesus.  Life was overwhelming.  Her husband of many years was seemingly on the edge of death.  Then Jesus walked in to my grandfathers room and calmed the storm.

The story passed down from the gruff man is that “a man dressed in all white called him by name”.  The next time Grandma went to church, Grandpa parked the car and went in with her.

Maybe the storm has felt like forever.  Maybe you feel like Jesus is sleeping through your life situation.  What I learned from the little lovely lady of faith is when you call out to Jesus, he calms the storms.  Sometimes we just need to go to the back of the boat and ask him to calm it for us…

justbeingjeff

³¹ The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,and he was limping because of his hip.”
Genesis 32:31

 I grew up in an era where MTv actually meant “music television”.  My suppressed Pentecostal roots informed me that MTv was of the devil.  To mama’s credit, she has more than likely been right.  But the enticement of the melodies put to moving pictures was too much to avoid.  And besides Bon Jovi talked about praying and Stryper was on the Top Ten Videos.
But it was the collaboration of Run DMC and Aerosmith that struck my fancy.  I wanted to do nothing more than “walk this way.”  My nine year old mind had no comprehension of what the lyrics actually meant.  Again, mama was probably right about the devil of MTv.
But the hook had me hooked…”walk this way, walk this way”.  You’re welcome, now it is stuck in your head too.
If Jacob had a melodic hook that was his theme song it may have been the melodic beat of “walk this way, walk this way”
Jacob had the ultimate cage match with the Lord of Lords.   In one of those it can only be in the Bible stories, Jacob finds himself alone and the bible says “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.”
A couple of questions: where did the man come from?  Is it normal to just wrestle a perfect stranger?  And what were they wrestling over?  The rabbit trail of questions is long, so we will leave it there.
What we do learn is that this mystery luchador could not or did not over take Jacob.  And in that moment the scripture tells us the grappler without a name simply touched the hip of Jacob and it wrenched.
Spoiler alert: the story jumps ahead and we find that the man was the Lord.  And Jacob is renamed Israel.  And Jacob walks away from his Royal Rumble with royalty walking different.  In fact he limps his way back to his family and into the arms of his brother who he had deceived.
From that point forward, Jacob (now named Israel) walked different.  The limp was a reminder that his life had been forever touched by God.
I have wrestled with my own limp.  Broken relationships created broken places.  A broken home and a broken heart of childhood left hurt and hiding.  A marriage of my own that has dissolved and been shattered into a million pieces left me a lot like Jacob, grabbing for anything to hold on to.
What I have learned is that when God touches something in your life you never quite walk the same. Today I limp.  I limp not because I am hurt, but because the God of the universe has touched the place of hurt.
I have often tried to hide the limp and walk “normal”.  I have tried to walk like everyone else.  When I do, I rob God of the very thing he wants most – the GLORY!  God is healer of hurt and helper of those in need.  When we encounter the healing, helping God we are left different.  We are so changed and transformed by the touch our lives never really return to normal. (Or at least never should.)
Our limp is a reminder of God’s touch, but also a testimony to others that God has the ability to change our walk.  Our very limp is resounding recognition of the hand of God touching our life.
Because of the places God has touched, I will forever limp and “walk this way”.

“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Apostle Paul

I was cooler than John Cusack in my 1984 sun bleached Blue Pontiac Sunbird. The hot summer rains made the steamy concrete slick like ice.  As I hit the brakes for a sudden stop, I suddenly hit the back of the car in front of me. Who hit the car in front of them, who hit the car…well you get my point.  I had caused a short stack like pancakes at the IHOP.

After my only second time in the back of a cop car combined with the panic of “my mom was going to kill me”, my young faith filled memory recalled the words of the Apostle Paul’s to be thankful in “all circumstances”.  So as I soaked my soreness away in the tub I simply thanked God for sparing my life.

The simplicity of sixteen has passed and “circumstances” in my life have continued to come.  The crash of youth was easy to be thankful in.  I was able to drive my car home.  I was still alive.  No one was majorly hurt. It was easy to find thanks in the chaos.

But not every chaos is so clean cut.  Chaos comes in cancer, divorce, the loss of a child.  Circumstances mount in a job loss, division with family members and facing trials that we never signed up for.  Which begs the question: “how can you be thankful in the middle of the mess?”

I think “thanks” comes in two parts: thankful in it and thankful for it.

The first is not so complicated. Being thankful in the midst of the chaos is not overly complex because we tend to find things to be thankful for outside of the situation.  The divorcee says: “thank you for the wonderful kids from the marriage.”  The cancer patient says: “thank you for another day to see the sunrise.”  The stressed out parent says: “thank you we have enough to eat and a roof over our head.”

Being thankful in all circumstances is not quite as challenging as being thankful for the circumstance.  Honestly, who says “thank you for the worst possible pain I have ever experienced”?

No. One.

As Paul points out, the will of Christ is that we be thankful in “all” circumstances.  What most of us struggle with is our “all”. Your “all” and my “all” are not the same at all.  In truth, most of us keep our “alls” pretty well hidden.  They are the tucked away termites that often are eating away at the structures of our lives.  Most people never reveal their crumbling many times until after the house is rebuilt.

But we are challenged in these terrible moments to be thankful.  The greatest challenge is to find thanksgiving for them.

I don’t have the answers to why we face the storms.  But often the perspective we take is what creates thanksgiving.  In the worst of life moments, we often find the best of ourselves.  We find faith we didn’t know we had.  We find prayers we weren’t sure we could pray. We find God closer than we ever imagined.

While it is ridiculous to invite chaos into life, it is necessary to be thankful for it. For it is is the worst of life’s moments we are to be most thankful for the God that reminds us “in all circumstances” give thanks.

“There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.”
Genesis 28:13

 I have pretty well documented the man of God I call Gramps.   You can read all about him in this post.  So I won’t labor the point, but just make mention that the small North Carolina native was a called pastor and preacher.

Now the conjecture of my family falls squarely on the man I call dad.  As a young child my eyes saw a classic 80’s stache on a man in a grey suit speak as if God had spoken to him.  Where that road forked I am unsure.  I have a great love for my dad, but it has been decades since that pulpit potential was put on display.  While more than likely not the space for family debate, there is a truth that shined in his eyes on Easter Sunday that reflected a man with a calling still.

Enter the picture me…at 19 tangled in a mess of life where God found me.  In my heart stirred an emotion that can only be described as a have to…I had to preach.  I had to speak. I had to…

The man that would mentor me through the season of “have to” simply said if you can do anything else other than ministry go do it.  If then you realize you can do nothing else, you know you are called.”

What I have come to realize is the God is a god of generations.  We didn’t play house in my house, we played church.  While most of our childhood behaviors surfaced out of the fact we spent as much time in church as we did school (quite possibly an exaggeration, but felt that way at 6) this was more than just a hand-me-down way of acting.

A story that is not told very often in my family is the redemption of Gramps.  As best I remember, as it was told just a handful of times, my grandfather was a bit of a “card-shark” while in the military.  He served in Korea during the time of war.  As relayed to an eager eared youth, Gramps had just step away from his campsite, at that very moment his camp was hit with a bomb of some sort.  In a Ron Howard war movie fashion, my Gramps watched his buddies face death.

In that moment, Gramps committed his heart and future to Jesus.  I am not saying instead of typing inspiring words I would be sitting at a table in Vegas running cards if Gramps hadn’t had a very literal “come to Jesus” moment. But I honestly believe his life transformation transformed my future.

As Moses stood on the mountain with God penning the words on tablets, God said this:
“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments”.

I am not contending that I am accountable for the sins of my fathers, but I am affected by them.  In the exact same way their choices in God affect my future and my calling and my journey with Jesus.

There has to be a moment much like Jacob had in his encounters with Yahweh.  The lying, cheating, tricking Jake had to have a God encounter for himself where the Lord went from the God of Abraham and Isaac to the God of Jacob.  I have intersected that point in my life where God moved from the God of D.A. (gramps) and the God of Chuck (dad) to the God of Jeff.  And while I looked the calling in the face at one point and said “I would never…”, I have come to place where the calling of Gramps and the calling of my father has become not their hand-me-down mantle, but mine to pick up.

We serve a God of generations.  What I am doing today will have an affect on my kids, grandkids and even as far reaching as my grandkids grandkids and beyond. While we think in the moment, God works through the magnificent miles of many generations.

My prayer is that each of my kids will say that the Great I am is the God of Chuck, the God of Jeff and also the God of…

#justbeingjeff