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no excuses

no excuses

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There are no excuses, only choices.

I shared that observation with our church family this last Sunday as part of the report given by our mission trip team. We had just returned from eleven days in West Virginia — we, being four adults and six high school students. That observation was underlined once more for me by what I saw and by what we did. We spent five days painting and repairing a home in a town in southwest West Virginia and spent several more days enjoying the West Virginia mountains and the challenge of play in the mountains.

One of our students, limited from birth by cerebral palsy, joined several of us in leaping ten feet from the top of a rock into the waters of the New River. He did not let his physical limitatations provide him an excuse, but did what he very much wanted to do!

Another student, skeptical of camping and her ability to “survive” the rigors of rafting and rock climbing and hard work, did just fine. She did not stay home; she did not hang back; she did not excuse herself from engaging these new experiences, but chose to go over the edge into the unknown … quite literally!

I have said many times to my own children that family history or genetic history may provide a reason or an explanation for certain behaviors, but not an excuse. We make choices. We do not choose what we are or what befalls us, but we do choose what we will do with what we have and how we will respond to what befalls us.

Too many of us are limited by our own lack of vision, our own lack of courage … our own lack of faith. Don’t give up! Don’t beat yourself! Embrace life and all its possibilities! Embrace God and all God is ready to do for you and with you!

something worth waiting for

something worth waiting for

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We are impatient people. We are used to solving problems, not living with them. If we can’t solve the problem, we move on to something else. If we can’t “fix” the relationship, we move on to someone else.

But sometimes, things take time. Things like raising children, building character, growing faith, building trust. Sometimes, you have to wait to see how things turn out. Sometimes, in the long run, you see that all the pain and hard work and frustration and seeming failure were worth it after all.

And that’s just from our limited perspective! But what about God’s perspective? We fret about everything in our world that is not as it should be, and question God’s goodness in “allowing” such evil to persist. Is it possible that God is waiting … waiting for us to grow up, waiting for us to get it right, waiting for us to learn virtue and justice and love, instead of doing it for us? Is it possible that what we sometimes interpret as God’s indifference is really God’s patience?

That’s what faith is: taking the long view, seeing things from God’s perspective, putting trust — complete trust — in God’s wisdom and goodness, believing that the power that raised Jesus from death is indeed even now at work among us. We may not always see the results we want when we want them, but faith believes that God’s power is at work and will one day bring to us and to our world new life — a new life, a new existence, a new way of being, a new way of being with God — that will last forever! Now that’s something worth waiting for!

a road in the wilderness

a road in the wilderness

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Prepare in the wilderness a road for the Lord!
Clear the way in the desert for our God!

The Lord comes from the wilderness. God comes to us out of the desert … not from the midst of our cities and towns. God is not domesticated, but wild! The Lord is not confined to or defined by our religious edifices and symbols.

We would do well to get ourselves into the desert, to follow a road into the wilderness, to meet the Lord there. It is not that God is not present in our cities, in our houses, in our schools, in our offices, in our theaters, in our churches. It is just that surrounded by everything that we have fashioned with our own hands, our imaginations may fail to recognize the God whom we did not make.

It is a good thing to make retreat from familiar and comfortable places, to clarify our vision, to clear our minds, to open our hearts to the God who comes to us!

who am I?

who am I?

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Who am I?

I may spend an inordinate amount of time and energy and worry trying to “make a name” for myself … when I already have a name. God has given me my name: my name is “child of God!” I am a human being, made in God’s own image, and my highest calling, indeed my only calling, is to reflect that image as best I can.

We need to remember our true names! We need to remember the true name God has given to each person we encounter. It is only when we forget that we lose ourselves in depair or become engulfed in great battles over politics or values. Remembering keeps things in perspective and reminds us we have nothing to lose … because everything that matters is already ours and will be ours forever.

about a comma theology

about a comma theology

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“Never place a period where God has placed a comma.”

That phrase, coined by Gracie Allen, serves as the byline to the StillSpeaking identity campaign of the United Church of Christ. It a memorable line, effectively communicating our core identity as a people who believe God IS still speaking, that there IS yet light and truth to break forth from God’s holy Word, that God IS not finished with any of us yet. We are a people on the way, with much to learn and much to do, a people continually being re-directed and re-formed by a God who is still at work among us, opening our minds and hearts to the wind of the Spirit that blows in ways we can neither control or predict.

“Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” But that is not to say that God ONLY uses commas …

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, when God looked at all God had made, when God said, “It is good” … what punctuation would you imagine God might put at the end of that sentence? A comma? “It is good, but we’ll have to wait to see if it stays that way, it may not be as good as it seems,”

Or does God put an exclamation point? “It is good!” All that God has made is good! All of creation bears the imprint of God’s own Spirit. All men and women bear the likeness of God’s own person. It is good!

And when God speaks to us in the words of the gospel: “In Christ, all are made alive” … what punctuation might God put at the end of that sentence? A comma? “In Christ, all are made alive, … with the following limitations and conditions? A question mark? In Christ, all are made alive, maybe?

Or a period? “In Christ, all are made alive.” The gospel is good news because it tells the story of what God has done for us in Christ, what God HAS DONE, PERIOD. The grace of God comes to us as a gift, a completed gift. God’s period is what allows our lives to have commas … and one day, to be brought to completion with an exclamation point!

first words

first words

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I’m a believer. Of all the things that define who I am, this comes first. My faith in Jesus affects the way I think about my identity, the way I think about what I do, the way I think about the world. Perception, interpretation, motivation, action — all are processed through the eyes of faith.

But that is true of any of us. You believe something. Your belief may not be in Jesus, but you too have some core belief, some core value, through which you filter everything else.

The purpose of this journal is to give opportunity to discuss our core values, to look together at the world through the eyes of faith, to share with each other what we see and think and feel. The goal? Transformation! Thinking deeper and broader than the boundaries of conventional wisdom. Do not conform yourselves to the standards of this world, but let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind!

Feel free to register and join the discussion!