Tag Archives: Jesus

Faith, Family, Marriage

Revolutionary Heat – the August eNewsletter

I live in Arizona in what is affectionately called the Valley of the Sun. In the middle of August, it actually does seem like the sun itself has come to sit right down inside our little valley. Sometimes it can be too hot to even go swimming because the sun has warmed up the water in the pool to an uncomfortable degree. When it hits 118˚, you run from your car to inside your house as fast as possible for fear of the soles of your shoes melting to the pavement. Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but I do still make a mad dash for the air conditioned house because the heat is so oppressive, so exhausting, so debilitating.

No one likes to be sitting in the middle of the Valley of the Sun in August…

 

FAITH

…but sometimes, that is exactly where God meets you. In the dead center of the oppressive heat.

Heat is an interesting thing. It warms us when we are cold. It cooks our food. It sterilizes our water. Those are all good things. But, heat can also make you hot – unbearably hot. It can burn your food and dry up your water.

The right amount of heat seems like a blessing. Too much heat seems like a curse. Perhaps that is true when we are talking about the physical body. But, don’t be so quick to judge when God turns up the heat on your spirit. There are times when God allows us to get unbearably hot emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. There are times when God allows our metaphorical food and water to be dried up. He wants us sitting in the middle of the Valley of the Sun in August.

Why?

Because sometimes things need to be burned down to ash before a new thing can spring up. Forestry people know that small forest fires are necessary to maintain the health of the overall forest. The trees that have been growing for a long time develop a canopy of branches and leaves that block the sun from reaching the forest floor. With little sun light, not many plants can survive there, leaving hardly any new growth. There are even some plants with seeds that will only germinate after a hot fire and will then use nutrients from the fire to begin to grow.

If you find yourself in the midst of unbearable spiritual heat, look around and find those things that have been growing for so long that they are preventing any new growth. Allow God to clear out the old things to create something new, perhaps even something that needs this heat to take root and to grow.

Jesus began His ministry by reading a passage of Scripture from Isaiah 61 and declaring it fulfilled by His presence and the work that He had come to do. One of the things that He proclaimed is that He had come to give His people beauty for their ashes. But first there needs to be ashes from which the beauty can come. What is it in your life that needs to face the oppressive heat of August?

 

MARRIAGE

“Those who marry will face many troubles in this life…” – 1 Corinthians 7:28, NIV

Nobody ever reads those words in a wedding ceremony yet they are the reality of married life. We will face many troubles in life and in marriage. Things will go wrong. Times will get hard. The heat of passion will, at times, become a heat of oppression. Heat is inevitable because your spouse is married to a sinner. And you must have some empathy for that because you are married to one too.

Bring two sinners together for a lifetime and things are bound to heat up. And when things heat up, tempers usually flare. In those times, it is essential that you take a look at what is fueling your temper. Did you set up expectations somewhere along the way that have yet to be fulfilled and have now turned into something your spouse owes you? Do you sense some sort of injustice taking place in your relationship? Have you experienced some sort of loss, whether it is real or perceived (e.g. respect, power, identity, security, affection, trust)? Maybe you haven’t lost it yet, but it is being threatened or endangered.

Anger is always fueled by an unpaid emotional debt, injustice, some sort of loss, or fear of a loss. Always. One or more of those things. Without fail. Meaning, take another look at that list instead of blowing off this part of what I’m saying to you.

You cannot solve anger in anger because the problem lies behind it. You have to solve the problem at the problem. When the heat rises and becomes unbearable, look for what lies behind your contribution to this potentially combustible situation.

 

FAMILY

If Paul thought that those who marry will face many troubles in this life, then he had no clue how compounded that statement would be for those who have children. Take a situation that already has two sinners in it and add more to it. It’s like adding fresh kindling to already glowing embers. Little fires pop up all the time. There isn’t a day that goes by without my two little boys getting into some sort of a roe with each other. And there are plenty of days where parenting my children creates some heat under my collar.

What I have come to realize is that it never does any good for me to lose my cool with my kids. My agitation makes my kids more agitated. They bicker even more and are in worse moods when I project negative emotions. Not only does my anger distract them away from the real issue, but it’s like I am adding lighter fluid to their already heated exchange. Everyone remains in a bad mood and the negative energy just seems to simmer before boiling over again.

So, how do we parents remain cool in the midst of the oppressive family heat? Step 1 is to take deep breaths. They are calming. They add oxygen to our brains which will help us remain clear-headed.

Step 2 is to talk to yourself. I recommend doing this part quietly in your head, but it’s up to you. What should you say to yourself? Whatever you find calming, centering, or encouraging. I like to say things like, “Smother the fire,” “Give them a good example,” “Be the adult,” or “Lord Jesus, please calm me down before I go and take this child that I brought into the world out of it.”

Step 3 is to assess yourself and the situation and do the best thing possible at that moment. If you are calm enough to address the issue, then go ahead and do it. If your children are too worked up to hear you, separate them until they calm down. If you are too worked up to do anything other than contribute to the heat, separate your children as a temporary reprieve while you go and calm down. If this is a recurring issue that you have already talked about with your children, then separate your children until you have had time to decide upon a course of action (aka think of something better than what you have already tried with them).

Step 4 is to plan a time, preferably in the very near future, when everyone involved in this negative exchange can enjoy each other. You have to replace the debit that this negativity had upon the family’s overall atmosphere. Maybe you make cookies together after dinner or go rent a movie that everyone can watch or head to the park for a bit of outdoor fun.

That’s it. Breathe. Talk to yourself. Do the best thing you can in the moment. Plan some fun.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

I think I can get an “Amen” when I say that nobody likes going through the Refiner’s fire. It is uncomfortable. It is oppressive. It downright sucks. But we are always better for it. We appreciate its effect. We revel in the closeness that we feel with God that only comes on the other side of the fire.

I may be literally sitting in the Valley of the Sun in August as I type this letter to you, but we all find ourselves there emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and relationally at one time or another. Perhaps you find yourself there now. Find comfort in the knowledge that God has not forsaken you. God is not punishing you. God is using this time to refine you, to purify you, to make you holy because He is holy.

Zechariah 13:9 says, “I will put [them] into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’”

When silver is refined, the Refiner places the silver into the center of the fire where it is the hottest in order to burn away all impurities. He has to sit in front of the fire with His eyes on the silver the entire time because if the silver is left in the fire for even a moment too long, it would be destroyed. He watches the silver because He knows that it has been refined only when He can see His image reflected in it.

In ancient times, in order to test for the purity of gold, it had to be heated. If it retains its color when heated, then it is pure. If it pales, roughens and hardens, or softens and blackens, then it contains impurities.

We will face many troubles in this life, whether married or not, whether parents or not. And it is in these heated troubles, that God refines us like silver and tests us like gold. He burns away the impurities and looks for His reflection. He heats us up and looks for our reaction to see how pure we have become.

May the heat that you next face be a revolutionary heat that purifies you and draws you closer to Jesus.

Faith

Just Breathe

Take a breath.

A deep breath.

Draw the air in through your nose and bring it down into your belly space, expanding it like a balloon.

Now let it out slowly.

Like, super slow.

That breath is life.

That breath is a gift.

Your next one is not guaranteed.

Breathing is something that we do without thinking. It is a simple in and out exchange of air in our lungs. We usually don’t pay much attention to it unless we are somehow deprived of it.

Yet breathing is something that we can control, to a certain extent. We can choose to hold it, release it, restrict it, free it, make it shallow, make it deep, make it fast, make it slow, make it quiet, or make it noisy. We have some choice in what we do with that little gift of life we receive every few seconds or so.

Even down to our very breath, God instilled in us a choice of what to do with the life we have been given. We get to choose what we do with our breath, with our life, and with our connection to God. God is in our breath because life is in our breath and God is life.

But, as believers, we have also been given a deeper kind of breath – the breath of the Holy Spirit. In Hebrew, the word ‘ruach’ is translated as breath and as spirit. The Spirit of God is Ruach Elohim, so it could also be translated the Breath of God. With this different sort of breath, comes a different sort of life. Everlasting Life.

Take that breath again.

Draw it in nice and slow through your nose, all the way down to that belly space.

Feel the fullness of that breath.

Now let it out slowly.

Feel the hollowness without it.

You have received the breath of life for your body and you have received the Breath of Life for your spirit. You have a choice about what you will do with your breath, with your life, with your spirit. Will you hold it, release it, restrict it, free it, make it shallow, make it deep, make it fast, make it slow, make it quiet, or make it noisy?

Savor your next breath. Find the life inside of it. Feel God inside of it. Connect to the Ruach Elohim within it.

It reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies of all time, “A Walk to Remember”. I know it’s a Mandy Moore film, but it’s based on a Nicholas Sparks book so it’s good. She plays a Christian girl dating a boy that goes to church with his mother, but doesn’t yet believe in God for himself. My favorite scene is when he asks her how she can believe.

She says, “It’s like the wind. I can’t see it, but I can feel it.”

Ruach is sometimes translated as wind, too. It is air and spirit in motion. Don’t we create a kind of internal wind when we breathe? So, that’s how I picture the relationship that I have with the Holy Spirit. It’s like a wind that I create inside of me. I can’t see it, but I can feel it.

I, for one, choose to take my breath of life and make it deep and noisy and free. I choose to draw it out and experience as much of it as I can.

What will you do with the gift that is your next breath?

Faith

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The revolution about which I speak, the revolution about which I advocate, and the revolution in which I live deeply entrenched was started by a carpenter, turned rabbi, charged criminal from Nazareth from a couple millennium ago. His life, his death, his resurrection changed everything. Utterly. Completely. Without equal.

And that change is still reverberating through history. It is still calling us to choose sides. Will we side with the man that died on the cross and then rose again after 3 days in the tomb? Or will we side with those that rejected him, humiliated him, and crucified him? To quote Joshua 24:15, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We have chosen our side. We are deeply committed to Jesus.

Everything that Jesus did was revolutionary. God come to Earth in the form of a baby – revolutionary. God living the life of a carpenter in Nazareth, a podunk town from back in the day – revolutionary. A Jew from Galilee teaching with authority, going among tax collectors (aka traitors) and prostitutes, speaking to Samaritan women who have been outcast by her own people, touching lepers, and performing miracles – revolutionary. God allowing himself to be falsely accused, mocked and ridiculed, tortured and abused, sacrificed and killed for the very people perpetrating these vile acts against him – revolutionary. A dead man rising back to life after 3 days proving true every crazy thing he ever said and fulfilling a mind-boggling amount of prophesy before rising up to heaven fully corporeal – revolutionary. God giving his Spirit to live inside and thereby transform those that choose him – revolutionary.

And this revolution was passed on to us – his people, his followers, his believers. We are to follow his example and live by his Spirit. We are to be transformed in our being and our doing. Our faith is revolutionary because we have God living in us. We have a direct connection to our God. Abiding in Christ and living by the Spirit changes everything. It changes how we do marriage. It changes how we raise our kids. It rearranges our priorities and then molds our lives around those priorities. It gives us a different calling and way of living than the rest of the world. That’s what makes it a revolution. It turns everything on its head.

So, now’s the time that you must make your choice. Are you with us or against us? There is no middle ground in this revolution. The two worlds are incompatible. The revolutionary puts others before himself. The revolutionary loves his enemies. The revolutionary gains strength through humility. The revolutionary finds power by surrendering everything to God’s will. The revolutionary seeks rewards that are eternal and often unseen to humanity. The revolutionary has a forever mindset in his faith, in his marriage, and in his parenting.

Sounds crazy, I know. But so did Jesus. It’s why he was crucified by his own people. You may very well be crucified by your own people too; branded a crazy person for joining this revolution. It’s not an easy road. But it’s worth it. This revolution is worth everything – the very price that was paid to start it. The door is open now. The cover charge has been paid. Are you ready to walk through it? Are you ready to join the revolution?