Leaving Me...

I kept your scarf;
It was the only thing that I had left of you.

Alone, I was abandoned;
There was no console in your absence.

I wanted to come to you,
To ask you to open again your heart.

But I hurt you too deeply,
And you promised yourself never again.

So here I remain alone,
Leaving me with only your memory.

"Radical" by David Platt

"Radical" was given to me from a friend via Amazon.com.  What a gift from a friend.  I had been talking to this friend about some frustrations that I am having with my own life.  I was expressing how desperately I want my life to bring God glory but how fearful I am in stepping out, risking it all for Jesus. My friend said, "I have a book you must read."

David Platt is the pastor of the Birmingham, Alabama church, The Church at Brookhills.  Brookhills is a very large, mega church in one of the richer areas of the Birmingham metro area but Platt has encouraged his church that they are so blessed so they can be such a blessing.  The have taken what many would call drastic steps to make sure they're living radically for Christ.

"Radical" is one of those books that has rattled me, no, to better describe it this book has disturbed me greatly.  I've thought so often, arrogantly I might add, that in the area of Christian living I do okay.  But this book has the keen sense of using God's word as a mirror to show us where we fall short... no, where we fail miserably.  It is easy to get ease in Zion as the scriptures say.  The tendency to live life business as usual is just second nature to us. We become so concerned with all things earth that we give little to no attention on where are citizenship is supposed to be as Christians.  Our life given to Christ should be just that... given to Christ.  That means we are no longer our own.  We no longer follow our own will or desire.  We hold nothing back from Him. We surrender all sensibilities to live comfortably upon this cursed earth because we've been enjoined to Christ eternally.  We have stared our sins in the face, seen how we are corrupt and wicked and miserable and have seen full face the grace purchased for us through the glorious Christ.  To live as though nothing much has changed is to make a mockery of Christ's wonderful gift.

What if we lived radically?  What does radical living look like?  Christ was a radical.  He lived radically.  He was hated vehemently by the religious establishment and was killed.  If our lives aren't hated by the world, then we're living safely... not radically.  Radical living is peculiar living.  It's holy living.  Peculiar holiness will rile the comfortableness of a world violently opposed to Christ.  He calls us to live radically... radically opposed to the world's way of selfishness and giving up every worldly comfort to go and spread the gospel.

This is a wonderfully challenging book that I recommend anyone wishing to shed stagnate religion to pick up and prayferfully read.  The book is rad, dude... (okay, I couldn't help myself!).

Thank you friend for your Amazon gift...

Communion at Emerge... "On the night of His betrayal..."

Emerge is our twenty-something college and career Bible study we have on Thursday evenings.  We meet at various places in our metro area, normally McAlister's Deli, Fool Moon, Chick-Fil-A or at my home.  The group has grown so much over the last year in our common unity, so last night was our first time to share the communion meal together in our home.

It was an awesome night of hanging out and thinking about our lives and purposes for which can only be properly seen through the body and blood of Christ.

As I read the various passages where Christ shared communion, a thought occurred to me in how Paul referenced this shared meal.  He said, "On the night of His betrayal..." and it made me think: Here was Jesus with the disciples and they were sharing this most intimate holy rite.  What other communion could rival the one that Christ Himself served so symbolically moments before He'd be betrayed and actually shed the blood they were at that moment, in that meal, honoring?

The irony of how near they were to their salvation, their Savior, and yet the meal is marked by being the night of His betrayal.  In just moments after eating and drinking, Judas would slither off to the shadows to purchase his eternal fate.  In mere hours, Peter would be marked by a renunciation times three of ever having known Jesus.  The other ten would abandon Jesus in the garden at the sight of the temple guards. And even with that foreknowledge, Christ was the common-unity that brought them all together and would ultimately bring each of them together again in forgiveness.

With this in mind, I remarked to the Emerge group that we were about to share the same meal and we too are each on the eve of our own betrayals of Christ.  It may not come Thursday night or even Friday, but if given enough life (it really won't take much life sadly) upon this earth we will miserably fail Christ and in a sense abandon Him as equally as the disciples had.  Yet on that same evening... the evening of His betrayal... the evening of our own betrayal of Him... they were holding in their hands the elements that would wreck any such betrayal of lasting any longer than the deed itself.  In the body and in the blood is our own forgiveness...  And as we shared together in the communion with each other, and with Christ ever so present, we are to keep Him in rememberance until He comes... until He comes.

Great is the faithful forgiveness or our Christ and Lord despite our faithfulness to rebellion and sin! 

Marcella and the Moon...

Marcella is a duck that paints the moon each night while other ducks go to swim in the moonlit lake. She isn't well like by the other ducks as she is seen as an outsider and not like them. She paints the moon each night in succession and she notices that each evening the moon gets thinner. Finally, the moon isn't visible at all and the other ducks don't know where the moon has gone (these ducks are apparently only 28 days old). They go to find Marcella to see if she knows where the moon might perhaps be. She explains to them that they shouldn't worry because the next evening the moon would return (Marcella must be 30 days old). And just as the duck prophetess predicts, the moon does return and the ducks are all relieved... and of course live happily ever after.

"Marcella and the Moon" reminds me of what Paul discussed with the Christians that gathered at Corinth. "Can the body all be an eye," he asks? He responds to his own question: "Of course not, what an odd thing it would be."

Marcella's love was to paint. The ducks that wouldn't be friends with Marcella all loved to swim instead of paint. Once the disappearing moon dilemma was resolved due to Marcella's... uh, gifts (see where I'm going?) they invited her to swim in the lake.

Like Marcella, God has given each of us gifts or talents that benefit the group, i.e. body, as a whole. Our desire to paint the moon is His desire to equip the body for the task at hand. We often quote the text, "God will give us the desires of our hearts" as a spiritual key to get all the toys we've ever dreamed of getting. While He does desire to give us good gifts as the perfect Father, I think I can make a decent case, from Psalm 37, that those who delight themselves in the Lord will be given the desires of (or implanted into) their heart. In other words, a life God orders will have His desires at heart. It's almost like a quid pro quo relationship, yet one we cannot earn by returned favors. He delights in our heart as we delight in His heart.

Even though Marcella wasn't well received, and just because you are willing to follow God by using your gifts and talents for Him, doesn't mean you'll be well received. Your desires and talents may be weird in others' less discerning eyes, but God uses a few of us odd birds (pun intended) to benefit the whole duck group here on this universe's big moonlit lake.

So follow His calling... paint the moon. Some freaked out ducks are going to need you!