A few powerful and sobering photos from the Chile earthquake
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Archive for February, 2010
Author Gore Vidal once confessed, “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”
Admit it…you know that feeling. Maybe a coworker gets the promotion you were hoping for. Or a colleague receives all the credit for a project you worked on together. Where it’s a slight on the work site or a career-altering incident, it gnaws at you. But why? What makes us fume when others get ahead?
Consider Aaron and Miriam. They could only stand by and watch as God lavished favor on Moses, their humble brother. All those private encounters with the Almighty on Mount Sinai. The power to perform jaw-dropping miracles. Escalating influence. Growing acclaim. Moses enjoyed all these advantages and more. Why him? Why not them?
So, in a desperate attempt to build themselves up, the siblings tried to take their brother down a few notches. They ragged on him and bragged on themselves. They recited their own spiritual resumes to all who would listen. Quickly God stepped in. Sternly he reminded them that he alone decides what blessings people will enjoy and where they’ll serve.
If we’re not wise, we’ll learn from Aaron and Miriam. Pride is like a spiritual cancer. Unaddressed, it spans envy. Unchecked, it consumes our hearts and minds. Don’t be deceived. If you think too highly of yourself you run the dangerous risk of thinking too little of God and others. Jealous people accuse God and attack his chosen servants.
Instead of obsessing about others—his calling, her gifts, their advantages—focus on your own God-given resources and roles. What gifts, talents and opportunities has God given you? Take inventory. Stop comparing yourself with others. Quit competing. Fight the urge to question God’s wisdom. Then start serving with all the strength God gives you. Let him promote you, if and when he chooses, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James4:10)
“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something; only out of having more of it than the next man…It is the comparison that makes you proud; the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” C.S. Lewis
This is a blog that Pastor Craig Groeschel of Life Church in Oklahoma wrote that goes along with this…
I’ll never be as a great a leader as Bill Hybels.
I’ll never be as deep as John Piper.
I’ll never be as smart as Mark Driscoll.
I’ll never be as creative as Ed Young.
I’ll never be as passionate as Steven Furtick.
I’ll never be as funny as Perry Noble.
I’ll never write like Erwin McManus.
I’ll never preach on one point as amazingly as Andy Stanley.
I’ll never have as big of arms as Bishop Eddie Long.
I’ll never be as Purpose Driven as Rick Warren.
I’ll never be as positive as Joel Osteen.
Thankfully, I’m not called by God to be any of those people!
And neither are you!
Although I can’t be them, God has created me with the ability to:
* Cast a compelling vision and move people radically toward Christ.
* Recognize talent and gifts in people most overlook.
* Reach people for Christ who are far from God.
This world needs to see YOU!! You’re the best you that’s ever been created!!
We’ve got to start completing one another and stop competing with one another!
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn’t slept in 36 hours and she won’t for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she’ll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn’t ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of “friends” offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write “FUCK UP” large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.
She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I’ve known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she’s beautiful. I think it’s God reminding her.
I’ve never walked this road, but I decide that if we’re going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes
Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando’s finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.
She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott’s) Travelling Mercies.
On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I’m not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.
Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We’re talking to God but I think as much, we’re talking to her, telling her she’s loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she’s inspired.
After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.
She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She’s had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn’t have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: “The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope.”
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we’re called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she’s known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don’t get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won’t solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we’re called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
Have you ever been in a situation and thought there’s just no way this can happen but I’m going to give it everything I have? Ever faced an insurmountable wall that you didn’t think in a million years you could topple? A guy by the name of Henry Blackaby did!
When the World’s Fair came to Canada back in 1986. Blackaby saw an opportunity to reach more than 22 million people with the message of the gospel. You know that sounds great but ya see there was just a few problems though: The association of churches that Blackaby served in Vancouver had just about 2,000 members and a budget of less than $9,000 a year. Still convinced of God’s leading, Blackaby set a budget of $202,000, prayed and trusted God to do the rest. God didn’t disappoint!! By the end of the year more than $264,000 had come in from all over the world and some 20,000 people began personal relationships with Christ through the efforts of a small but faithful band of believers.
The Israelites had their own wall to topple before they could enter the promised land. The wall they faced surrounded Jericho, a forfeited city with “walls up to the sky” (Deuteronomy 9:1). When the Israelites arrived, Jericho’s residents had just completed the spring harvest and the city’s wells were brimming with spring rain. Archaeological experts estimate that the inhabitants probably could have held out for several years. Defeating the city was one of the history’s most unlikely and humanly impossible victories. Yet the people of God accomplished it–not with trumpets and shouting but with obedience to God’s directives.
Perhaps you find yourself staring up at an insurmountable wall that God is calling you to conquer–a wall that seems as frightening as it is large. Maybe your wall is a task that seems impossible or a goal too incredible to imagine. I’m sure the Church Planters who are still in the beginning stages can definitely relate. Or Maybe your wall is a repeating pattern of sin you haven’t been able to overcome on your own (Lust, lying, unforgiveness, masturbation etc).
Many things in life look like Jericho’s wall–obstacles that stand in the way of what God wants us to accomplish for him. But guys in the hard times we have to trust our God and claim his promises! When we realize the power we have IN CHRIST we will be able to move forward with faith, topple our walls and walk victoriously over the rubble!
“The future belongs to those who set their sights on what is humanly unattainable”
Wilbur Howard
Some more info on Henry Blackaby
http://www.blackaby.org/
I don’t say this lightly…
Pray before watching this!!
Heartbreaking…
Broken…
Humbled…
Disconsolate…
I could go on and on but honestly I can’t even put into words what I felt after seeing this the first time…
These Brothers and Sisters in Christ are literally being beat to death for the sake of sharing the Gospel.
They’re putting their fears and every other selfish thought aside to spread the word of God.
But they don’t even ask for anything other than prayer!
They don’t complain.
They don’t run away.
This totally makes me look at life in a different way.
Makes me feel bad when I’m afraid to walk across the room to share the Gospel with someone.
Living in this country sometimes I think we’re blinded to how blessed we truly are! It’s so easy to see the bling and let the lights fool us into thinking its about living the comfortable or flashy life! But it’s really just about living for Jesus and carrying out the mission, The GREAT COMMISSION!
So guys no matter how bad things seem in your life realize that we have a God who is Mighty to Save, who is full of grace and who is a provider! He holds this world in his hands and he orders our steps.
2 Timothy 1:7
For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of and of self-discipline.
Matthew 5:10-12
Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, since the kingdom of the heavens belongs to them.
Cathy Nguyen and Gabe Bondoc did an awesome job on this cover!
This has been my favorite song for the past two weeks…
What’s yours???
After reading Francis Chans first book “Crazy Love” and having my world rocked, I’ve been wanting to dive into his second book “Forgotten God” for awhile now.
I’ve heard tons of great things about this book and after only reading the Intro and Cover section (which is about 3 pages of Francis explaining how the cover came about) I’m hooked! Me and my boy Sam Kidwell are going to be reading through this and we’ll be blogging our thoughts from each Chapter!
One of the first things that I loved was how Francis broke down the difference between Exegesis and Eisegesis! For those of you who didn’t go to seminary like myself and have no clue what the difference is it’s this…Exegesis is an attempt to discover the meaning of the text objectively, starting with the text and moving out from there. Eisegesis is to import a subjective, preconceived meaning into the text.
I had always wondered about that but usually when it was brought up, everyone else in the room seemed to know what it meant and I didn’t want to be the one guy who didn’t! Lame I know but true!
I also love the way that Francis is reminding us that lately some Churches have been seeking attendance rather than a move of the Holy Spirit. Sad but for a lot of Churches I really think that’s true. At times we get caught up so much in stage design, having the “new” series or cool lights with Worship that we forget to rely on the Holy Spirit!
I’m not saying that having nice lights, cool ideas and things are bad and I don’t think Francis is either. But I do believe that when people encounter the Holy Spirit things can be accomplished for God that no lights or other human creation can compare to. That’s why it’s so important to rely on the Holy Spirit to be our guide.
If you look at the Disciples and people through out scripture, there wasn’t anything special about these guys. They were ordinary men who just made a point to walk with Jesus and wait on the Holy Spirit.
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)
I had the opportunity to sit in on a private screening of a new movie that’s coming out called “Letters To God“! I’m always a little nervous about going to “Christian” movies because to be honest I usually leave thinking they’re too cheesy! I love the intentions of most of them but they usually lack a lot of things.
Letters To God was different to me though. It had great acting, a good story and it definitely lifted up Jesus but not in a cheesy way! The movie comes out on April 9th, make sure to go check it out!
Here’s an interview of one of the main actress, Bailee Madison as she shares about Jesus and life and how Jesus is her life.
I love these quotes from Bailee. It’s obvious that she gives everything she has to God.
I think we can all learn a thing or two from her.
“It’s not about me, it’s about God”
“I don’t want it to be about me, I want it to be about God! That’s the most important thing! I just want everyone to know that I’m Bailee, I’m 2nd and God is 1st!”
He’s shattered Big Ten Conference records…
He’s won numerous College Football awards…
He’s an NFL Pro Bowler…
He’s now also a Super Bowl Champion…
Most of all he’s an Man of GOD and he loves to share his faith!
I love when Athletes use their platform to give Glory back to God!
It’s that time, SUPER BOWL SUNDAY!!
I’m really not much of an NFL fan but I’m going to pull for the SAINTS!!
Who’s everyone going for this year?
A school shooting, and a suicide in the first 15 minutes of the film. A sex scene, drinking games and a keg in the first 20. It doesn’t take long to figure out that To Save a Life (out January 22) is not your typical Christian film.
The good news is, the movie doesn’t have big shoes to fill. From the pure silliness of 1970’s “end times” films to Kirk Cameron’s phoned in performance in 2008’s Fireproof, Christian films are rarely enjoyable, even to the market they’re marketed to. To Save a Life wastes no time setting up the story. Childhood pals Jake and Roger do everything together, until Jake hits the social “big time” with his exceptional basketball skills and sun-bleached hair. When it comes to picking his best friend or the hot girl, Jake goes with his hormones, leaving Roger to limp around school alone, on a leg permanently disfigured from saving Jake from an oncoming car.
For Jake, things are great until senior year, when Roger walks into school, and commits suicide with a hallway full of peers to witness it. Jake’s initial defense is to ignore the situation, but a fight with his girlfriend and pressure from his overbearing father lead to some serious questions about the life he’s leading. After the cops bust a keg party and his girlfriend runs off with his truck, Jake calls a local youth pastor for a ride. Conversations about faith and meaning ensue.
No, Jake isn’t converted on the spot. But the seeds of doubt about the shallowness of his “basketball and beer” existence do lead him to check out church, and to alter some of his decisions.
The most pleasing thing about watching To Save a Life is that it feels like a genuine story is being told, instead of the usual Christian move to make a film where the characters spend a solid hour setting up a Sunday school lesson at the end. Leading man Randy Wanyne (Jake Taylor) and his girlfriend Amy Biggs (Deja Kreutzberg) do act like teens you’d meet at your local high school. Friendly and energetic, even if they do party and engage in casual sex on the weekends. Even the film’s “quirky youth group girl” and the “conniving pastor’s kid” hit pretty close to the mark on how comprable teens in real life would act.
However, for all of director Brian Braugh’s courage to show teenage life as it actually is, he stumbles in a few places. While the writing moves the story along, this isn’t a movie you and your friends will be quoting next year, or even next week. The hip-hop songs used in the party scenes just aren’t very good, and it’s noticeable. There’s a scene that is more or less stolen from the real-life events of social-networking help guru Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love on Her Arms, that will assuredly make the audience groan at it’s fakeness.
But all the story ultimately shines through the minor scuffs. By the time the movie nears it’s end, binge-drinking, casual sex, cutting, loneliness and the shark tank that is the high school social scene have all been grappled with in an authentic manner. And as the social groups within Pacific High School clash with their own decisions and each other, it becomes very clear that, for once, a Christian film isn’t going to wrap up with an overly simplistic moral lesson. Rather than a story of a bad kid who becomes good, the plot is layered with teens in a variety of social situations who are forced to wrestle with why they act, judge others, and believe as they do.
The biggest question surrounding To Save a Life is not whether it’s a movie worth seeing. It is. It’s by no means the best movie you’ll see this year, but the film does wrap you in a compelling story. The biggest problem the movie faces is whether or not it can gain traction and reach the audience that needs this message. Because of the content (the 10 second sex scene, three swear words, and one beer keg) some Christians have already complained to the Christian radio stations currently supporting it. And teenagers and twentysomethings, even the ones who are in church two or three days a week, aren’t normally going to pay eight bucks to watch a “Christian movie.”
Still, a day after watching it, I can’t shake the feeling that this movie will change something. It’s got the potential to do what Switchfoot and P.O.D. did in music circa early 2003; to show mainstream culture that some Christian-generated media is worth taking seriously.
Why messing up sexually doesn’t have to be the end of purity.
In a sexually charged culture like ours, it’s hard to not experiment sexually—especially if you are attracted to and have deep feelings for someone. To not go there sometimes threatens the relationship (many expect sexual expression in romantic contexts) or causes you to look like an out-of-touch prude.
Let’s face it: sex is a powerful thing. We become completely vulnerable, open, engaged and yielded to another. We lose ourselves in the “other” in a way we would never dare in any other setting. But powerful things can be destructive.
It is here that we find the genesis of the sexual ethics espoused by the Bible. God doesn’t want us to be reticent about or afraid of sex (remember, it was His idea), but He does want us to be careful when we explore it. Just like a loaded gun needs to be carefully handled, sex needs boundaries. The primary boundary at the heart of Christian sexual ethics is marriage.
Many of us (including Christ-followers) have made some very bad choices in regards to our sexuality. When we sin sexually, it brings guilt, pain and shame. The good news is that God is able to heal our broken sexuality and restore the innocence we have lost. We can, in essence, return to facing our sexual lives like a virgin.
Second Virginity
Some groups say God can give a person a “second virginity.” That He can, in effect, restore one’s virginity. Cool thought. I love what they are trying to do—to show that God can redeem things and right what has gone wrong in our lives. But I think there is a degree of fantasy associated with the notion that one can miraculously be made into a virgin again after being sexually active. And I don’t think faith is about fantasy. I think faith helps us face the harsh, cold reality of our past and then seek God’s healing and grace in spite of it—it is called “faith,” not “fake.”
This is particularly true in stories like Sarah’s.
I had watched Sarah grow up. I was her pastor. She was beautiful. Smart. A college grad.
“I have herpes,” she blurted out to me in my office as tears streamed down her face.
She had great parents, though they were rather strict. And once she experienced the freedom college afforded, it wasn’t checked with wisdom.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she muttered. “I started hanging out with people who loved to party, and I started drinking a little to fit in.”
The “big party” had promised free alcohol and cute boys. After a few drinks, one of these boys started hitting on her. One thing led to another, and before she could grasp the gravity of it, they were having sex in one of the upstairs bedrooms. They only did it one time—her first time—but she contracted incurable herpes.
She had lived with her dark secret telling no one for more than three years. Now she was telling me only because she had fallen in love with Sam, a great guy in our church (who was a virgin), and he had popped the marriage question.
She hadn’t told him about the herpes.
“I need to tell him,” she said.
“Yeah, you do,” I responded, and we talked a little about the where, when and how of approaching it with him. Then I prayed with her, holding a dim hope that Sam might be okay with it.
But Sam wasn’t OK with it. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her; he did. He just didn’t want to deal with all the complexity a sexually transmitted disease brings to a relationship. Their wonderful relationship ended. It was destroyed.
Horrible story.
I think there are some losses that remain losses. I recently had a parent die. Really hard. Though I know God has a way of bringing good out of the most horrible scenarios imaginable (this is why we can have faith in the middle of incomprehensible evil), it still hurts. When one has been broken sexually, there is pain and a deep sense of loss. It can be tormenting. But that said, there is a way to experience healing from what has happened to us in the past. When healing dawns, the past may still be our past, but it will not be able to keep us from living a wonderful, robust life of innocence and joy.
Redeemed Brokenness
God is a Redeemer, a Restorer. And faith in God has a way of bringing resolve to the pain of a failed past. Jesus Christ came to this planet (entering into the limitations of creation) to take away our failures and sins, and found a way to break its power. As we open our lives to Him, He begins to overcome the evil in our lives with good. Paul wrote, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). He also said we don’t have to “be overcome by evil,” because God made a way to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). This is hopeful indeed.
I watched as Sarah processed the pain of her loss and openly trusted God with her mistakes and incurable disease. She found grace. She ended up using her experience to help others make better choices. She eventually met a man who understood and accepted the risks of loving her and ended up happily married with a boatload of cute kids. God brought an amazing level of healing into her life. I have seen Him do the same for those who keep moving toward Him.
It turns out that God is faithful to turn the worst things that happen in our lives into good if we dare to trust Him. He has an amazing capacity to turn human pain and weakness into strength, ugliness into beauty and our failures into foundations to build on. The Bible calls this redemption.
Redemption is about our Creator processing the wounds of our lives, the scars on our faces, the evils we have endured and turning them into an even grander story of grace. That means God takes what should have destroyed us and does more than fix it—He redeems it. Redemption does such a number on the bad things that happen to us that it is tempting to look back years later and think we are better off for having gone through the loss. (I’m not suggesting that God ever wants pain or loss for us, but simply that He is so good, even evil things can’t stay evil when we lay them before Him—evil gets untwisted back into good as our lives come under God’s control.)
Those who have lost their virginity don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen. Each of us should embrace our own personal story and bring it to God to see what He will do with it. The good news is He will give us grace that will have the same impact as if we had never been broken. Our sexual innocence can be restored.
I have my own story of sexual brokenness. I was part of the “damaged goods” crowd. I wish my grace story was that God prevented me from making wrong sexual choices. It isn’t. My grace story is that I made a mess of my life, but God recovered and restored me. No matter which story is yours, a life formed by grace is still the best life one could ever live.
By Ed Gungor
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/20278-more-than-qdamaged-goodsq
