“Everything Belongs” is the title of a book written by Richard Rohr. I enjoy his writing immensely because it is so thought-provoking. He’s one of those authors I read and think, “I don’t know if I agree with this,” but then I keep reading and he brings it around in such a unique and thoughtful way that it just makes me say, “Ohhhhhh, wow. Yeah.”

I was sharing with a friend last week that I believe the reason I’ve so enjoyed shocking people over the years by ridiculosity is not only to get a reaction out of people, though that is very gratifying, but deep down I want authenticity. I want people to think. I want to be provoked to greater depth. To be jolted out of the doldrums of the cliche and mindlessness of conformity.

Talking with my friend Jim yesterday, we were sharing with one another how easy it is to go a little numb via our readings, as good as they can be.

“Just talk to me.”

This is what Jim and I hear God saying to us sometimes. Not “Stop reading” necessarily, but just “Don’t ever stray from talking to me, from hanging out with me, from spending every moment together and experiencing all of life with me.”

When in this healthy mode, you see that “everything belongs.” By this I mean, you are not ego or agenda driven so much and can actually see God working in the minute and ordinary of everyday. You’re not living in that numb pragmatism, and therefore, you’re able to enjoy whatever comes your way, taking the time to converse with God about every interruption and see what He may be showing you or doing in it.

Maybe everything does belong, and it is our limited vision that drives us to frustration and madness, thinking things like flat tires or cancellations don’t belong. Well perhaps those are the very places God has something not only for us, but for those around us (through us) in the midst of those “frustrations.” Could those be the very places of healing and blessing that we are constantly missing because of our egos, and seeing only through the lens of my self-serving itinerary for the day?

Oh that I would be single-mindedly focused on You in the present moment, listening to what You are saying in it.

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

You know, sometimes you just gotta stop analyzing, and pull the trigger.

Just pick something and do it.

It’s not going to be perfect.

Be at peace with that.

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

“Credo ut intelligam” is a Latin phrase meaning “I believe so that I may understand,” and is a maxim of Anslem of Canterbury. It’s based off of a saying from Augustine of Hippo–crede, ut intelligas–“Believe so that you may understand.”

Anselm wrote that it is faith that enables us to understand, not understanding that enables us to have faith.

Good old fashioned belief.

Will we ever really understand? Can we understand God through reasoning alone anyway? Isn’t it only through love and faith that we can even begin to grasp the tiniest aspect of the mystery of God.

Trying to understand first seems to be a false premise or foundation for approaching the Almighty. It’s like we’re on the wrong channel trying to tune in to our favorite show. YHWH is on channel 7, the Faith and Love station, and here we are on channel 92, the Intelligence and Reasoning station exclaiming, “Why the hell aren’t they showing ‘I Love YHWH’??!?!?”

Jesus never said, “Figure this out, comprehend all of this mystery, and then come to me.” Thankfully, He said, “Come to me if you are burdened, worn out, at the end of your rope.” This is key. So key. A broken and contrite heart He will NOT turn away (Psalm 51:17). C.S. Lewis said that a man dying of thirst in the desert does not need to understand the molecular workings of H2O in order for it to restore him to health. He needs only but to drink it.

Reading Psalm 107 this morning, I was taken with this pattern of getting to the end of all options, calling on YHWH, and being rescued. There’s a belief that there is, in reality, only one option anyway. Some of us just need to exhaust more options than others before settling in on the true one.

Maybe we just need to switch over to channel 7. The protected channel (or path) of trust. Could it be that simple? True belief is abandonment. Surrender. Trust. Reliance. Confidence. Dependence.

Confidence that He will answer. Abandonment to His choice of how He will answer. It is eager anticipation for His response. HIS response.  His deliverance. Trusting in His mercy. It may not look how we think it will look or even want it to look.

At any given moment of our lives, we are trusting something. This is irreducible reality. We are always tuned in to some channel, some voice–be it the fear channel, the History channel (obsessed with our past), the apathy channel (if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice)…We can channel-surf ourselves to death.

Is the point of our life to understand everything? Or is it to share in the Life of God via trust in Him, and then to grow in our understanding?

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

Our daughter Zayra turns eight years old today.

It’s funny how people always use the old cliche, “It goes by so fast doesn’t it?” I’ve shared this with some of you before, but I always want to answer, “Well, no. Not if you’re paying attention.” For me, it’s not gone by very fast at all. In fact, we’ve been teasing Zayra lately that she has been seven for like three years now! I can’t believe our girls are only eight and nine.

Much of this I chalk up to being introduced to Brother Lawrence about 15 years ago, and making a concerted effort to live more in the moment. To pay attention to NOW. The more present you are, the more you appreciate at a given moment in time. It does not have to fly by. And anyone can do this in any situation, some situations may just require more work than others. It also helps that children start planning their birthday party approximately four months in advance, bringing it up every single hour of every single day of those four months.

From what I have studied, there are three ways to slow down time:

1. Travel close to the speed of light. Albert Einstein found that the closer you approach the speed of light, the more time actually slows down. The problem here is that light travels about 670 million miles per hour, and the fastest thing I know of that humans have constructed is a satellite/telescope thing that goes about 34,000 miles per hour. So we have a ways to go on that one.
2. You could stand on the edge of a black hole. This edge is called the “Event Horizon.” This would definitely slow time down, maybe more than you’d like. For every minute you stand near the event horizon of the black hole Sagittarius A, a thousand years goes by on earth! (It has to do with the fact that gravity trumps time, but that’s not important right now.) Again, from what I understand, we cannot stand on the edge of black holes yet. Anyway, I’m not sure you’d want to slow time down there, as there’s probably not much to do, and I’m guessing it would get pretty darn lonely.
3. Practice the Presence of God. This one, by far, makes the most sense. No rocket ship required. Simply live in the present moment, aware of God with you, paying attention to the fact of His love and care for you in it, as well as all the beauty He offers within each moment. I like to call this the “Marian Moment Mindset” as each moment, like Mother Mary, is impregnated by the Holy Spirt, birthing God. Will we pay attention to the delivery?

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

Frank Laubach is the twentieth century guy who really practiced the Presence of God, reaped the reward of it, and wrote of it.

Do you know this man? Pretty incredible dude. At one point, he set out to make the rest of his life an experiment to see if he could live every moment in conscious awareness of God being with him. Or, as he wrote in his journal, “But this year I have started out trying to live all my waking moments in conscious listening to the inner voice, asking without ceasing, ‘What, Father, do you desire said? What, Father, do you desire done this minute?'”

He came up with and wrote his Game With minutes–“to call Him to mind at least one second of each minute.” This was his way of growing this ever blessed habit of abundant living.

He had gone on mission work to the Philippines, and after much frustration with others and himself, he decided to just live each moment to please God, paying attention to Him moment by moment, listening to His voice.

Everything changed.

God gave Laubach a system of literacy, along with the motto “Each One Teach One,” and he is credited with being responsible for 100 million people learning to read! No joke. No misspelling. ONE HUNDRED MILLION (say in Dr. Evil’s voice–except it’s the opposite of evil)! Because he was obedient and listened to God.

His little book Letters by a Modern Mystic has been one of the great blessings of my life. It is his collection of journal entires in the 1930s. Inspiring, incredible stuff. I love Frank Laubach and cannot wait to meet him and hug him.

Closing his little book The Game With Minutes, Frank Laubach says, “You win your minute if during that minute you either”:

1. Pray.
2. Recall God.
3. Sing or hum a devotional hymn.
4. Talk or write about God.
5. Seek to relieve suffering of any kind in a prayerful spirit.
6. Work with the consciousness of God’s presence.
7. Whisper to God.
8. Feel yourself encompassed by God.
9. Look at a picture or symbol of Christ.
10. Read a Scripture verse or poem about God.
11. Give someone a helpful hand for the Lord’s sake.
12. Breathe a prayer for the people you meet.
13. Follow the leading of the Inner Voice.
14. Plan or work for the Kingdom of God.
15. Testify to others about God, the church, or this game.
16. Share suffering or sorrow with another.
17. Hear God or see Him in flowers, trees, water, hills, sky.

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

Oddly, something that can distract us from God’s Presence, is the very practicing of God’s Presence.

It is easy, because of the subtlety of it, to be more focused on the practice than on God. 

We want to be extremely clear that it is our hope that these daily meditations are a catalyst to bring you closer to the person, Jesus Christ. We never want or intend to bring more focus on some discipline than on God. Every rhythm suggested has the point of unity with God. That is the end to which these means point.

Turning the mind to God. Turning your heart toward Jesus, your soul to the Holy Spirit. There is nothing greater than this! May we never get caught up in terminology or “things we have to do.” May we get caught up in Christ alone. It is all about seeking Him.

If, let’s say, I am focused more on the order or method of Lectio Divina then on God Himself within it, then I have missed the point, and it has become a notch above pointless. I say a notch above because hey, you’re still reading the word of God, am I right?

Someone has said that nothing can take us away from the love of God like service to God. We can be so into the service that we are not into God–this is the danger to watch out for.

I love love love Thomas Merton’s picture of this. Contemplation (connecting to God) is the spring, action is the stream. The stream always flows from the spring. The spring is, therefore, much more important. Without connecting to God, it is just a matter of time and willpower before we burn out.

And may we never forget the wisdom Yoda gave when Luke asked if the dark side was stronger:

“No! No. No. Quicker, easier, more seductive.”

One of the “101s” of prayer is to check yourself to make sure that, during your prayer, you are thinking more about who you are talking with (God) than the actual content itself of what you are saying. Again, this is just subtle enough to easily throw you off track.

To make this extremely simple for myself, I make it my goal each day to think about and talk with God more than I think about or talk with anybody else.

I Love You!

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

I recall having a conversation with my dad when I was probably in my late teens or so, and it culminated with me confoundedly “accusing” him with, “You act like every single thing we do is suppose to glorify God!”

“Well, yes,” was his simple and rock solid reply.

Not quite what I expected back. I thought I had made a fine statement pointing out the ridiculosity in his thought process.

Reminiscing on that now, I see that he was likely the incredulous one thinking, “What have I been trying to tell you all along? Is that such a foreign concept to you–to do everything for the glory of God???”

Inside, I was probably defensive because of my love for metal shows and movies, thinking I could not possibly do those things to the glory of God. Doing something for the glory of God meant going to church, or participating in ministering in the form of what we called “visitation” which, to me, was some uncomfortable interaction in which we try to convince people of what they should believe.

My thinking was off.

As I use to tell my personal training clients who were concerned with their lack of strength, “It’s not how much you do, it’s how you do it.”

I still go to metal shows and movies, but with different eyes, ears, and heart. I go with God, in His Presence, listening to Him, looking for Him, as well as the needs of the world. I’ll never forget going to an Avenged Sevenfold show with my buddy Todd, and having three incredible opportunities to share the love of Jesus with people hurting, in need, or looking for some sort of answer to life’s woes. We were blown away by how they were slow-pitch served up to us. We were simply paying attention, open to God, His leading, His glory.

By the way, what the heaven is glory anyway? Sometimes we throw around words or phrases in Christendom, and I wonder if we even know what we’re talking about. So I looked up “Glory” in a few of the many large, heavy, intimidating-looking books on my shelves to find that glory refers to honor, praise, dignity, reputation, as well as opinion, conjecture, and expectation. So we are seeking to bring attention to God’s reputation, not our own. His praise, not ours. To honor God, not ourselves. In the OT, glory referred to God’s tangible Presence in creation full of splendor and majesty, unapproachable because of its pure awesomeness. It was shrouded in the cloud on Mt. Sinai so as to shield humans from it’s terrible greatness.

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

This practicing the Presence of God stuff is really great, but only if it emanates from that which is constructed upon a solid foundation of belief in some basics.

Starting with the general and working toward the more specific, we begin with the need to believe there actually exists a transcendent supernatural Being. That this mysterious Being brought into existence the cosmos. The cosmos is the whole body of everything we observe. Existence and reality was brought into being by this Being.

We believe this (our) Creator has revealed itself to us in different ways. We Christians believe the ultimate revelation of Creator is Jesus Christ–the human form of God. So we can actually know what God is like. What is God like? Just like Jesus, the image of the invisible God. Other revelations are Holy Scripture, Nature, and the Holy Spirit, who reveals herself thru a variety of means: people, pain, dreams, books, and on and on. (Tho we can know God partly, we of course cannot comprehend God fully. We can know what He reveals and allows us to see, but the rest is mystery or else not God.)

Getting more specific, and closer to home you might say, we believe this God who has revealed Himself is the very essence of Love itself and desires to be in close conversational relationship with us. This is clearest in the ultimate act of selfless love of Jesus around A.D. 30. God’s desire to be with us culminated in this act of incomprehensible agape. All through history, God communicates with humans, wooing them to Himself to be one with Him.

This all has many implications for what we are to believe about ourselves then.

We are worthy of love.

We are loved right now exactly as we are.

We are cared for by our Creator.

We are worth communicating with.

And all of this just because. Just because you are you and were made for love. God is the great Initiator. We love Him because He first loved us. This is an uber important basic belief: God has initiated relationship with us already, and even has made and revealed the way to Himself so that we may be connected to Him in oneness.

He has already done His part in complete perfection, and patiently waits for us to say yes to Him. And He rewards those who diligently seek after Him. That is a promise.

Will we choose to participate in the Life that really is life which is life lived in His constant loving Presence?

I’ve always been moved by these words by Henri Nouwen:

We’re basically here on earth for twenty, forty, sixty, or eighty years to say to God, “I love You too.”

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

My spiritual director reminded me the other day that “I am third.”

When priorities are right, when I am loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, I am at shalom–considering God first, then others, then myself.

How often though I consider myself first and how something is going to affect ME, and then making decisions accordingly. Mostly, it’s “How much time will this rob me of doing what I want to do?”

This is a bastardized and self-worshipping version of “counting the cost” in my estimation. Always counting the cost to me. Me. Me. Me.

But when I am allowing God His rightful place on the throne of my heart, when I am practicing His Presence, my considerations look like this:

• “How will this bring glory to God?”
• “How will this encourage someone?”
• Then, maybe, “What is the cost?”

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria

I’ve been thinking a lot about Jesus saying He is the Bread of Life, and more specifically the promise that whoever eats it will never be hungry.

It hit me this week with deep meaning. Something I have experienced is that when I am feasting on God Himself, when He is my sole source of food for my soul, I have need of nothing else.

I am not hungry for anything from anybody. It’s as if I am so satisfied with this bread of life that nothing else sounds remotely as tasty. In this state, you don’t go off into apathy toward people, but you begin to need very little from them. Less and less you need things to go your way, for people to think you’re awesome, to treat you well, etc.

Though, when eating the Bread of the Presence for your soul’s nutritional needs, chances are you’ll see with your new set of eyeballs as more things going “your way” because of your enhanced trust of and rest in YHWH. People may even think you’re awesome and treat you well, but you don’t require it any longer. And some people will think you’re a total dork.

Emancipation.

Feasting upon the Presence of God frees you from being so needy because so many of your needs are literally forgotten due to being stuffed on the Bread of Life.

“Take that dessert away, I’m so full, it looks disgusting!!!”

In the Name of Jesus,
Soli Deo Gloria