Lenten Lessons: fasting, integrity, and really dumb ideas

It has always seemed incredibly ironic to me that while fasting, of all the spiritual disciplines, drop-kicks me into dependence on God faster than anything else, it does, at the same time, bring out the absolute worst in me.

I suppose it's fitting - fasting being a physically cleansing activity - that it seems to do the same thing spiritually, but good golly gosh - it's neither pleasant nor pretty.

Two unexpected things (both related to finances) have happened in the past twenty-four hours that have shaken my trust - and showed some serious flaws in its foundation.  It seems I've been building my trust on the wrong things again, instead of on the solid rock of God's Word and character.  To say that God is faithful and in the next breath freak out about something that may or may not happen is to build on sand.  To choose the easy way (depending on credit) at the cost of integrity (even if no one would ever know) is again to build on sand.  And houses built on sand can't stand.

Today had some really tough moments.  Moments when the fruits of the Spirit were scarcely visible and the muck of my sin, pride, and extreme lack of faith dominated the scene.  It was horrible.  I cried - a lot.  I cried because I felt abandoned and unheard, because I could not see how God would come through.  I cried because the consequences of past sin (in regard to how I've handled/viewed my finances) justly affect my present reality even though those wrong choices are covered by grace, and it feels unfair, although it isn't.  And I cried because I know that God is faithful and true to His word and His promises, because I know that trying harder isn't what earns grace - that you can't earn it; it's a gift, and you have to receive it, and that sometimes life is just life and you can't control it and it is - somehow - all going to be okay, and that accusing God of not caring enough about you to give you what you want is one of the dumbest ideas ever.

And God, in His goodness and His grace, waited until I was done with my fit, and then spoke quietly:  "Go buy yourself some Cadbury eggs."

Permission to splurge.  To do something kind for myself.
To stop dwelling in the negative, and to choose hope.

So I bought the eggs.

They are sitting here on my table - Easter eggs: a symbol of life - and better still, chocolate, which inevitably makes me happy.  They remind me that the God of the Universe, who knows the deepest cries of people who live in far worse circumstances than I do, heard my cry and answered in a way that He knew I'd understand.  He knows me.  He sees.  He hears.  He cares.

And He waited until the muck of my sin was out in the open and then patiently began cleaning it up.  "You can't control everything.  But there are things that you can."  So I folded my laundry and did the dishes.  Sorted thru the junk mail and recycled a ton of clutter.  And caught up on a few of Andy Stanley's leadership podcasts - including one on Integrity (from July 2012).

A woman of integrity doesn't take the easy way out.  She does what is right, and God blesses it.  By the end of the podcast, I had chosen not to take the easy way.  And within minutes, a solution to one of the problems presented itself.  Whoa.  The other one (if it even exists) is more complicated.  It'll take time.  But it is not impossible - not for God.

And I don't have to see how He will be faithful to know that He will be.

Ironic, that I could forget that, while practicing a spiritual discipline that is meant to bring me closer to Him.  And yet - in the end,  I guess it did.  And I shed some things along the way that will leave my spirit lighter, provided I don't try to pick them up again.

Andy Stanley tells of a prayer he's prayed daily for years, and I think it's one worth adding to my personal liturgy:  "Lord, give me the wisdom to know what it right, and the courage to do what is right, even when it's hard."

It just goes so much better that way.

And this Cadbury egg I'm having for dessert?  It's seriously sweet.



Related posts: 
Fasting Makes Me Grumpy - February 2008
Fasting, Repentance, and Freedom - February 2008
Lenten Journeys: Learning to Breathe - February 2010

joy in the wilderness: a closer look at Lent

Forty days is a long time.

Almost 6 weeks.

But they could be forty of the most significant days of your life.


There are some days in life that you really wouldn't write home about.  But then there are seasons like these:

 - "And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights." (Genesis 7:12) - Noah

- "When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water." (Deuteronomy 9:9) - Moses

- "For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand." (1 Samuel 17:16) - right before David showed up with his slingshot

- "....he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God." (1 Kings 19:8) - Elijah

- "Jonah began by going a day's journey into the city, proclaiming, 'Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.'" - (Jonah 3:4) - but all in the city of Nineveh repented during that time instead


And then there was Jesus:

"...for forty days He was tempted by the devil.  He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them He was hungry." (Luke 4:2)

"After His suffering, He presented Himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that He was alive.  He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God." (Acts 1:3)


Forty days can be amazingly significant.


For centuries, the Church has celebrated (yes, celebrated! ) a season called Lent.  Lent is the 40 (actually 47) days before Easter, beginning today, Ash Wednesday.  It is a season of repentance, a season of wilderness wandering, a season of remembering that without Christ we would still be completely lost and dead in our sin - and celebrating (on those seven extra days especially!) the reality that our sin has been forgiven, our debt has been paid, and we have - if we've proclaimed Jesus as our Lord and Saviour - been made right with God.

6 days of repentance.  1 day of celebrating.  6 days of repentance.  1 day of celebrating.  (etc.)  - until Good Friday - the darkest day of the Christian year - gives way to the glorious light of Easter Sunday.


The idea of fasting during Lent might be totally new to some of us, but many of us have either come from or heard of traditions that encourage "giving up" something for Lent.  If you're tempted to do it just because you think you "ought" to - I'd challenge you to go ahead and give up something anyway - but re-evaluate why you're doing it.  Fasting is a very appropriate form of worship and repentance - but God makes it clear in Isaiah 58 that the state of our hearts when we fast is what matters to Him.

Fasting alone isn't enough.  It's just a ritual, empty of meaning, if we're not bringing our hearts into our activity.  But if we give up something we love - be it television, social media, or some sort of food - for Lent, and we do it as an act of worship, and seek Him instead...  Well.  Just imagine what could happen.  (Read Isaiah 58!)


The next 47 days of your life are packed with promise.


Are you willing to journey with Him through them?  Are you willing to take a good hard look at your own sin and repent for it?  And are you ready to receive a new revelation of the depth, height, breadth, and length of His grace?  Because this is what we celebrate, as we willingly enter a season of wilderness, fasting from things we could have but choose not to, because we know there's something so much better on the other side of this season, if we will wait on Him for it...




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If you'd like to explore this season of Lent a little more intentionally, or even just add a little more structure to your quiet times, we would love for you to join us in a daily online devotional study from now until Easter Sunday.  We'll send you an email every day with a list of suggested Scripture readings and a devotional thought for the day.  To sign up, just email me at happy (at) torchchurch (dot) tv.

(cross-posted on the pastor's blog at www.torchchurch.tv)

a new venture

As I grow into my role on staff at Torch, every now and again, I find something new on my plate.  This month, it's blogging.  :)  Our website's been under construction for awhile, and now that it's (mostly) finished, there are all sorts of new features, including a pastor's blog.  I've been asked to contribute, and this week, my first post went up.

Let me tell you - blogging for someone else's blog is challenging!  :)  Writing for our church blog is way different than just coming here to my virtual "room" and sharing my heart.  But it was a really good stretch for my shepherding skills and my writing.

And since it's all I've got right now - here it is.  :)

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Stay Dependent On Your King

Have you ever gotten to the end of your day, only to look back and realize that you were pretty much the worst version of yourself you could have possibly been?

• Maybe you snapped at people left and right, for no particular reason, or over-reacted to situations that would have gone better if you’d just taken a minute to think (or to take a deep breath) before dealing with them

• Maybe you cut someone off in traffic, or left that file on your desk at home in spite of the fact that you were supposed to give a big presentation - on all the info in that folder

• Maybe the printer jammed (again) and you swore in front of your boss - who isn’t a believer.  

Whatever it was - the sun’s going down, and all you want is a do-over.  You know you’re not going to get it, but in the midst of all the guilt you feel over the myriad of ways in which you’ve screwed up, you’re resolute: tomorrow will go better.  You will make better choices; you will keep your temper; you will get it right.   And maybe, somehow, it will make up for today... 

Except that it won’t.

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.” - Isaiah 30:15 (NIV)

Ouch.

Suddenly, that resolution you just made seems a little ... well, ridiculous.  Because honestly, without His help, there isn’t a whole lot of hope that tomorrow will go much better.  Most of today went the way it did because you weren’t depending on Him; you were doing it on your own, and it didn’t work.  You weren’t quiet, you didn’t trust Him, you felt guilty (but you didn’t repent - you didn’t do a 180 in your heart or with your actions), and you weren’t even slightly at rest.  You were anxious and tense; your tone of voice was sharp when you spoke.  You were - to sum it up - knee-deep in sin for most of the day. 

Trying to do better might seem like the right thing to do, but the truth of the matter is, it’s not going to go any better tomorrow than it was today if you don’t get some help.  No matter how genuinely you want to go into tomorrow representing Jesus - the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, it’s not going to happen if you try to do it on your own.

So what do you do?

Well, first, you repent for your sin, and admit that you can’t save yourself.  Let’s look at that verse again, this time from the Message paraphrase:

“Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.  Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me - the very thing you’ve been unwilling to do.”  - Isaiah 30:15b (The Message)

Did you catch that?  Your salvation requires you to turn back to God and stop your ridiculous efforts to save yourself.  

The Bible says: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” - Ephesians 2:8-10

It is by grace you have been saved, through faith... not by the things you do.  Better still - the very faith you have in His grace?  Even that isn’t yours; God gave you that, too!  Your salvation is completely a gift, and all you had to do was ask for it.  It wasn’t free - it was incredibly costly - but it was given to you as a gift, completely paid for, when you asked for it.

Now as Ephesians 2:10 points out, God does have things for you to do.  Being kind to your coworkers, modeling a godly character in front of your kids, and living an upright lifestyle on campus are all important - but doing those things in love and obedience doesn’t save you.  Jesus does.  Did.  Is.  Will.  Salvation and sanctification (becoming like the One who saves you) go hand in hand - but you have to stay dependent on Him.  Jesus promised, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in Me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.” (John 15:3-4)

Stay dependent on your King.

Cease striving, beloved.  Be still, and know that He is God.  (Psalm 46:10a)  He is sovereign; He is your King.  And as your King, He tells you: “In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength.”  Don’t allow yourself to be counted among those who “would have none of it.”  And if those five words convict you, then ask yourself:

• What is it that keeps me from repenting of my sin?   (Is it my pride?  My stubbornness?  Too much self-reliance?)

• What keeps me from resting in the knowledge that it is by grace that I have been saved?  (Do I still feel like I need to prove my worth somehow to God?)

• What is filling my life with noise, drowning out the still, quiet whisper of His voice to my heart?  (Am I spending too much time watching movies, or reading?  Is my schedule so full that I don’t have time to simply stop and wait on Him to speak to me?)

• What is keeping me from completely trusting Him?  (Am I afraid that He will let me down in some way?  Or am I afraid of what people will think if I follow Him more openly than I do?)

Take some time today and wrestle with those questions.  You might be surprised by some of the answers.  You might even already know them.  But once you’ve gone there, all that’s left to do is to tell Him, and to settle down in complete dependence on Him, putting your faith in His incredible, unending, limitless, and amazing grace.

It is yours.  All you have to do is ask.


(cross-posted on the pastor's blog at www.torchchurch.tv)

advent: stillness

The verses for our devotional study today are Isaiah 2:3-4.  In Verse 2, God says that "He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths."  The Message paraphase of this verse says that "He'll show us the way He works so we can live the way we're made."

There's so much security in that, isn't there?  We were created to live life God's way, and He's promised to teach us everything we need to know to do that.  No more running around, trying to figure out what it is we're supposed to be doing that we're not doing that's leaving us with this empty, unsettled feeling that there's got to be more to life that "this" (whatever it is).  It is far more simple than that.  All we need to do is follow the directions that He's given/gives/will give us.

But here's the thing about directions: you actually have to listen to them and do what they say for things to go well.  I have a set of bookshelves I've put together myself, and let me tell you - the one I didn't read the instructions for is extremely unstable!  And life works the same way - if we're going to live it well, there's a set of instructions to follow, and we need to listen to them.

Listening for God's voice takes time, patience and practice.  It's possible to read His Word without actually understanding a word of it on the heart level where it's meant to instruct us.  It's possible to pray frantically for help in a situation for which we need specific direction and then rush off without waiting for an answer, still trying to figure out what we're supposed to do, on our own.

But God's Word says there's a better way:

"...In repentance and rest is your salvation; in quietness and trust is your strength..." - Isaiah 30:15

We need to get quiet.

Quite some time ago, a good friend of mine picked up the phone and made a reservation for me at a retreat center.  I was leading a song at church that weekend, but there was something in the way - something that was blocking my ability to lead it from my heart.  And so my friend packed me off to a retreat center for 5 hours, to sit quietly with God, and find from Him the wisdom and instruction I needed.

The first 1/2 hour was painful.  I had about eighteen million things I was thinking about other than the task at hand.  Getting quiet, internally, seemed like an insurmountable task.  But my friend, far more seasoned in this sort of thing than I was, had warned me it would be like that, and I'd taken with me, on his advice, a notebook.  Every time something came into my head that could be labelled as a "distraction" (for example: things to add to the grocery list, emails I needed to write, phone calls to make, etc.) - I just wrote it down, so I could deal with it later.  And finally, all the head chatter faded, and I moved into silence, and waited.

And He spoke.  Through His Word, through the beauty of creation all around me, directly to my heart - and even through the nap I ended up taking that day.  And 5 hours later, I was so at peace, and knew what I needed to do to live the way I was made to live, instead of the way I'd been trying to live instead.  I'd confessed the sin I needed to, and walked straight out of the barren wilderness of it into the rich, full mercy of God.  It was beautiful.

And it began with being still.

Sometimes life can be so overwhelming.  It's busy, frantic, fast-paced, and loud.  It's tough to hear anything in an environment like that.  But if we could just be still...

"The Lord is my light and my salvation - of whom shall I be afraid?.... I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Be strong, and take heart, and wait for the Lord." - Psalm 27:1, 13-14

But how do we do that?  How do we "be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord"?

Well, we repent for what we need to.  We slow down and rest (even when there's a million things to do, because they will still be there later).  We get quiet.  We choose to trust Him (no matter what).  And we listen.  We listen for the Voice that will always speak truth, whose words are life and light to all who hear them, and who promised us that all we see is not all there is.

And we keep on waiting on Him, day after day, because we know, no matter how dark things may seem some days, that there is always hope.

"Do not be afraid, for I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be for all the people.  Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:10-12)

this delicate dance between grace and love

Over the past week I've had a lot of tough conversations, and read a few things that have profoundly disturbed me, and it's gotten me thinking about this delicate dance between grace and love.

"...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24) This is the truth and the gospel - we have all completely screwed up on any number of levels, and worse: we, without Christ, are "by nature objects of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3) - but there is grace and redemption and forgiveness and reconciliation because of Christ's death and resurrection, and this is good news!!

But sometimes I fear that in the name of love we do not speak the truth as clearly as we ought. That in the name of compassion we adopt this "I'm okay and you're okay" philosophy that looks and sounds so nice and kind, but is actually full of hell, because it's a lie. We are not okay, and we have never been okay - it is why Christ came and died for us. There was a price paid for our freedom! And to deny that we have needed that ransom is to deny love...

Hebrews 4:15-16 tells us that "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

He gets it, this God of ours, that temptation to sin comes at us in a zillion different ways, because not only does He see it, but He's been there, on the receiving end. He didn't give in to it, but He knows what it feels like be in those situations, and He knows how to help us in our time of need. We can come to Him in confidence, knowing that we will find mercy and grace. Romans 8:26: "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." His heart is filled with compassion for us, and He receives us as we are.

But He does not leave us that way.

The Bible tells us, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." (Romans 12:2) This is a process that takes cooperation between the Spirit at work in us (sanctifying us and making us more like Jesus) and we ourselves (choosing to allow Him to do it). It is not always easy, this becoming holy - it requires us to die to ourselves, and we do not always want to do that - and sometimes we want to but we don't want to but we do want to...

I love the way Peterson paraphrases this in the Message: "It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different." (Romans 7:21-25)

And that's the thing - He acted to set things right. Because there were things that needed to be set right. And there are things that still do...

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. - 1 John 4:7-9

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

God is love - and love rejoices in the truth.

I did a word search on Bible Gateway, looking for that verse about speaking the truth in love, and it turned up a number of verses that taken together make it very clear that there is a deep correlation between truth and love. Not surprising, as the Word tells us both that God is love and that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life... (John 14:6)

Love will always tell you the truth. Paul tells us that "...speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ." (Ephesians 4:15)

I want that. I want Truth-speakers in my life who will tell me when I am getting it wrong, so that in all things I will grow up into Christ. And I want to be a Truth-speaker - not because of some self-righteous "I'm right and you're wrong" mentality - but because I love people and because I want to spend eternity with everyone.

The goal is godliness... the heart is love... and love does not lie to you and tell you that something wrong is okay when it isn't. It does not tell you, as you are walking into sin, that it's fine that you're doing it, because that's just where you are right now, and that everything's going to work out, and not to worry about it. It does not tell you that just because your situation is atrocious, that just because something horrible has happened to you, that you are justified in responding to it in an ungodly manner. Love turns and looks straight at that which would destroy it and continues to be love. ("Forgive them, Father, for they do not know what they are doing.")

God is love. He is also the source of life. And love values life - always.

About a week ago we started talking about "the abortion issue" at Torch, as we began praying for the upcoming election, and for God's kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. It has been a week of hard conversations and fervent prayer, and I have debated saying anything at all... but I cannot be silent. More than 50 million babies have been robbed of their destinies in this nation alone, and it is time for the bloodshed to stop. It is time for the Church to repent of her indifference and to do something about it. Our God can move mountains. He can heal our land.

He can also heal people.

There is grace. There is always, always, always grace. But "what shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Romans 6:1-2)

I had the incredible privilege of watching /participating in (via the Internet) a prayer meeting in San Diego, CA last night, led by Lou Engle. At one point in the night, we prayed a prayer together that many involved with Bound4Life have been praying already for months:

"Jesus, I plead Your Blood over my sins and the sins of my nation. God, end abortion, and send revival to America."

It is a simple prayer, and it is heartfelt. And I am so humbled to be allowed into God's throne room, to repent on behalf of my nation, and to plead for the mercy He so freely gives.