Weathering the Storms of Life

If you live in Texas, then you know a thing or two about Texas weather.  Even as I’m typing this, the temperatures have plummeted a good 30-40 degrees from yesterday and I’m clearly not prepared in my short-sleeve shirt.  The bottom line – Texas weather is unpredictable. 

Life seems to mirror Texas weather.  It can change in an instant leaving us unprepared and vulnerable.  If we’re not prepared, we are likely to capsize.  If we are certain that storms will come in life (which scripture makes clear if we are obedient followers), shouldn’t we try and prepare.

When I think about storms in life, the first place I go in scripture is to the book of Job.  Yet in a place where I traditionally focus in on suffering, as I was studying to teach this go around, something about the text gripped me in a new way.  The past week we camped out in chapters 1 and 2 of Job. 

I’ve struggled with the text and why God let things go down the way he did…but then it struck me.  Job’s response revealed to me the glory given to God in the fact that Job would not curse him.  First, he takes away his possessions and his family.  These are things that surround his life.  Second, he takes away his health and wellness.  These are the things he needed to carry on in life. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I would have had a few words for the big man upstairs.  Job doesn’t sin (1:22) and in a profound way accepts adversity (2:10).  Accept adversity???  I’ll be honest; I’m not the best at suffering.  I seek my own personal comfort.  But there’s something so powerful about accepting adversity.  It says we trust and value God and that our adversity is short-lived, like a vapor. 

Job sums it up like this…Naked I came and naked I’ll return (1:20-21).  He stands before God naked and stripped of everything yet he lacks nothing.  If Job is as righteous as he appears, then Satan is wrong, in which case the prosperity doesn’t matter anyway.  If righteousness is all that Job ultimately values, that cannot be taken away from him. 

The aim of Satan is to destroy Job’s joy in God.  Putting Job on display, God gains an open victory over Satan and is glorified.  Job loses everything, but responds in a profound way that makes us realize he lacks nothing.  The most probing questions here really is this, “If you lost everything, would Christ be enough?”

We don’t like the story of Job because we fear we might be hit with what he was hit with and that makes us question God and makes us a little bent out of shape…but God, even more than Job, knows what deep loss really feels like. 

The superior worth of God becomes known in Job’s response.  We now become aware of what God was aiming for…the revelation of the value of God himself.  This isn’t about downplaying the storms of life.  Job grieves his loss in a gut-wrenching way.  It’s about realizing that the only way to survive the coming storms is placing supreme value in your relationship with God.

WEATHERING the storms of life really comes down to WHETHER or not you value God the way you ought to. 

FaceTime

FaceTime is changing the way people are able to communicate.  It was so awesome this semester to be able to FaceTime my family while I was in Honduras.  Those little snippets of familiar faces and the people I love most helped me stay focused and work hard while on mission in Honduras.  Texts or phone calls just wouldn't have been the same for me.  It was the best form of communication I could have had even though we were separated by miles.

What if we could FaceTime God?  What if we could sit in his presence and see his face?  How might that change us?  And if we can, why do we settle for other means of communication that just don't keep us motivated and able to stay the course?  I think there are moments of FaceTime in scripture that reveal quite a bit about our communication with God and how we settle or disengage in our relationship with him.  We have been walking through this idea of FaceTime the last two weeks on Sunday nights with our students.  This past Sunday night, we camped out in Exodus 34:28-35.  This passage reveals quite a bit for us as we think about FaceTime with God.

First and foremost, when you're face-to-face with God, nothing else is needed.  For 40 days and 40 nights, Moses was God-sustained.  Kind of sheds light on that whole "man shall not live on bread alone" statement huh?  This is the result of intimate, uninterrupted communion with God...that we would be God-sustained. 

The second thing we see here with Moses while he is face-to-face with God is that he desires nothing else.  His hunger was not for food, but his hunger was for the very words of God.  When we are in the presence of God, the desires and pleasures of this flesh we live in seem to get drowned out by the overwhelming sense of awe we have for the Father.  But this discipline has to be developed.  You don't just one day decide to have some FaceTime with God and end the call 40 days later on your very first try.  No, it takes someone who is in good shape spiritually to have the stamina and endurance to let go of earthly desires and sit patiently with God. 

The result though is that we come away with the greatest treasure we could ever have.  Moses comes away with the very words of God.  The true test of the heart is whether or not God's word actually is our greatest treasure. 

The third thing we can catch here is that after spending time face-to-face with God, we come away reflecting more of who He is.  Some people just have the glow.  You can identify them just by how they live and love.  I'll never forget my youth minister's wife telling me that my girlfriend (later to become wife) had the glow.  I respected her opinion so much that I was sold.  I knew she was the one.  Some of us try to manufacture the glow...hours in a spiritual tanning bed...but it just doesn't seem to come out right.  You can’t manufacture holiness.  It comes only from being in and remaining in the presence of God, face-to-face.  Moses walks in such humility that he seems oblivious to his own glow.  When Moses figures out something is going on, he puts a veil on.  Holiness isn't about us.  It's about God and his perfect holiness.  Any chance we have to sit in with him ought to humble us and remind us of who we are.  We shouldn't become proud.  How awesome was it that Moses was with God?  He had all the bragging rights, but he walked in humility. 

Finally, we see something really important about Moses and ourselves.  When he goes back into the presence of God, to meet with him face-to-face, he takes the veil off.  Every veil in our lives is removed when we stand before God.  This is true FaceTime.  It is the unveiling of our hidden lives, our secrets, and our sinful nature...at the same time, it is the perfect measure of grace in that God allows us to stand in his perfection, knowing our shortcomings, and still return us to do his work. 

You can't manufacture the glow.  It's time for some FaceTime!

Shazam and The Acoustic Fingerprint

For a lot of people, accepting the possibility of a God isn’t that big of a deal. They do, however, want to know what he’s like if they’re going to consider the idea of relationship. They need some specifics.  They need to understand how life with God is played out in this life.

When I was in high school I had about a 30 minute drive to school in the mornings.  Every morning I would listen to the radio during my drive.  It would always frustrate me when I heard a song I liked, but had no idea what the name was or who it was by.  I would always hope the DJ would give me that info instead of a weather or traffic report that just reminded I was going to hit traffic and be late for school.

Fast forward to today. On the iPhone there is this awesome little app called Shazam. Shazam recognizes almost any song, tells you what it’s called, who it’s by and even gives you a link to download it. Now, whenever I’m listening to the radio and an awesome song that I don’t recognize comes on, I open up Shazam and BOOM! I have the specific information.

Shazam identifies songs based on what its makers call an acoustic fingerprint.  The fingerprint is made up of patterns of different variables identified by the App.  Those variables are frequency, amplitude, and time.  As I began to reflect on my relationship with God, I realized the questions I had about God could be answered through Christ.  It’s as if Jesus Christ is the fingerprint of God.  And since Christ dwells in me, I should be his fingerprint in this world too.  Furthermore, I realized in my relationship with Christ that frequency, amplitude, and time are big factors.  When people listen in on my life are they directed to the Father?  Does a glimpse into my life lead others closer to identifying God?

Frequency in music is about measuring sound waves.  It is about the rate of occurrence of those waves.  In my life, I need to be spending time with the Father frequently.  I need people to be able to see the results of my frequency: the rate of my occurrence with God the Father.  Secondly, amplitude is about the breadth and width of those sound waves.  Amplitude measures just how big something can get.  I hope when people listen in on my life, they experience the breadth and width of God’s love.  It’s about the greatness found in Him.  It is the full measure of his abundance.  That is what amplitude is all about.  But amplitude isn’t where it stops.  As I thought about this idea of an acoustic fingerprint, I realized it’s my job as a Christ-follower to amplify His kingdom!  To amplify means to make larger, greater, or stronger.  People have to see me decreasing and God increasing in my life.  Finally, Shazam uses time to match acoustic fingerprints.  Time in the sense of music really comes down to staying in rhythm.  To walk with God, to stay in step, I have to feel the rhythms of his heart.  In our spiritual lives, frequency, amplitude, and time are good measures of where we stand with God. 

But…it doesn’t stop with the acoustic fingerprint.  The people of Shazam have taken it a step further.  They have orchestrated the App to be able to identify songs even in the midst of background noise.  Even in the midst of background noise there should still be something so distinct in us that it remains identifiable.  It isn’t drowned out, but because of distinct patterns and identifiable markers, the App is able to recognize exactly what song it is.  With so much noise in this life, it is so important for Christ followers to remain distinct, to have identifiable patterns in their life that point back to God.  The question for us to answer is, “When people listen in on my life, are they able to identify God the Father?”

Google: Search Results

There were an estimated 5,134,000,000 searches per day on Google in 2012.  Over 5 billion people searching for something every single day.  Searching…searching…searching…

It seems many of those people were searching for answers about God and Christianity as well.  The thing about searching on Google is you immediately get some kind of results.  As people searched Christianity the results didn’t come back the way I had hoped they would for the sake of Christ’s bride.  In fact, it was upsetting to say the least. 

If you know anything about how Google works, search results are generated based on what has been previously searched.  In other words, Google is actually working to predict what you are searching based on what others have most commonly searched for previous to your search.  Watch this video to see how Christianity shapes up on Google.

I was left frustrated after watching the video.  I wondered why someone would manipulate a video to show the church in such bad light.  So, I went and did my own investigating mimicking the searches shown in the video.  Much to my surprise, my search results and the results from the video were one in the same.  That struck something in me that was devastating.  It was a painful reality check, and it reminded me of two passages in scripture:  Matthew 7:1-5 and John 13:34-35.

In the first passage, Jesus is saying something rather emphatically about discipleship.  The true disciple shows mercy.  The true disciple forgives because he has been forgiven.  The true disciple shows grace.  True disciples who have been impacted by mercy will exhibit mercy toward others.  Because true disciples have received forgiveness, they will forgive others. 

In other words, to fall into a pattern of judging others is to show that we are not true members of the kingdom.

To judge is to place yourself in God’s place.  Only God has the power to judge.  To be judgmental is to remove God’s authority in the matter.  Interesting Jesus uses this analogy being the son of a carpenter.  Have you ever had a speck of sawdust in your eye?  It is painful and blinding.  You really can’t function or see correctly until you remove it.  Though it is small and hard to find, it is plaguing.  All you really want is someone to carefully help you remove it.  People who are struggling in life don’t need our judgment.  They need someone with steady hands and clear vision to help them restore their vision.  After all, you wouldn’t let someone who is blind try to get something out of your eye or allow a child to go digging in.  People in this world are searching for help as they look for answers.  However, they want those with steady, gentle hands to help them. 

Jesus is saying we need to be self-critical in order to be his hands and feet, the same hands that can carefully help restore the sight of others.  After self-criticism takes place, relationships are based on redemptive empathy rather than condemning detachment.  Our gratitude should be the motivation for our expression of mercy and forgiveness in this world.  The further we move from Christ, the closer we move toward becoming judgmental, harsh, and unhelpful for those who are legitimately searching. 

Isn’t it interesting in the Sermon on the Mount that a passage about worry is right before this passage on judging others?  After telling us not to worry, I’m struck by how much I worry about how others are behaving.  Following this passage is a passage on what we can ask God for.  Shouldn’t we be begging God to intercede in the lives of people who do not know him?  Shouldn’t our heart’s desire be that God gives us steady hands of faith so that we can help others see Him more clearly?

Wonder what the search results would be if people looked in your home?  In your church?  In your youth group?

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

Text Messages: Text and Drive

We all know the problem with texting and driving.  Chances are, you’ve seen one of those commercials that warns of the dangers of texting and driving.  I’d say it’s an epidemic.  I’ve told our students if I ever catch them texting and driving the first thing I would do is let their parents know!

Texting and teenage life seem to be quite the pair.  Studies estimate teens send about an average of 4,000 texts a month!  They’re having conversations and placing heavy emphasis on communication in their relationships.  What about communication with God?

A few weeks back we talked about God’s text message.  Simply put, we tried to challenge students to make God’s text the authority in their lives.  And how did we challenge them?  Well, oddly enough, we challenged them to text and drive.  Spiritually, you can’t make it on the roads of life without texting while you drive along the journey.

So many students are caught off guard by sharp turns, bumps in the road, and are trying to swerve at the last minute to avoid big collisions in this life.  The problem with the road they are on is that it seems dark, fast paced, and treacherous.  So many of them are driving through the darkness of this life simply hoping that something they do will be enough to help them arrive. 

Remember that song about the Bible being a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path?  Truth.  Simple truth.  However, our teens are missing it.  Authority, direction, and guidance seem to be coming more from culture than from God’s text message.  The value of scripture has been replaced by facebook, instagram, and snapchat.  No wonder so many teens are surprised when they collide with life. 

We’ve got to challenge students to make scripture the authority for their lives.  How do we do this?  We have to make it the authority for our lives as parents and adults.  We need our kids to see us in the word.  If God’s text message isn’t changing us, how can we expect it to change our kids?  Secondly, we’ve got to use scripture to in our prayers and in our correction of our children.  Finally, our families need to be memorizing scripture.  When Jesus was faced with a few speed bumps in the desert, he quickly cited scripture as his defense against Satan.  He knew the promises of God would protect him because he knew the promises of God. 

Text and drive.  If not, expect a collision.