Find Rest

"In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength."  (Isaiah 30:15)

Have you been moving at a pace lately where the "next thing" is already crowding into your present?  Have you said (perhaps with a sense of pride) things like: "there just aren't enough hours in the day"! Or "I'm so busy I just don't have time to..."

Why do we feel like it's a good thing to so crowd our lives that we have no time?  Do we think it is pleasing to God to not rest, or to so fill every hour that we proclaim that He hasn't given us enough in a day?  Do we think our strength found in personal exertion is what God is looking for?

I've fallen into the trap many times of finding my worth and value in keeping busy.  But make no mistake, it is a trap.

God is not exalting in your strength and might.  He is inviting you to recognize your limits, your weaknesses and to trust in His Spirit.

"Not by might nor by power but by My Spirit says the Lord!" (Zechariah 4:6)

When is the last time you have stopped and just returned to rest in the presence of the Spirit?  I mean really rest--not just squeeze in a moment or two for a prayer or Bible reading.

When is the last time you have just been silent with God--trusting Him to fill you and be your strength?

If it's been a while -- no guilt -- but take some time TODAY, to free yourself from the trap of not resting.  Take some time just to soak in a passage of Scripture, to go for a walk in nature, to listen and let God speak and pour into you.  This is where we find salvation, He will be your strength!

O weary soul, find rest from your toil and breathe deeply the Life of the Spirit!

A Hint of God

There is a verse in Job that each year when I come to it, I just have to pause in order to ponder the incredible statement it is making:

"These are just the beginning of all the He (God) does, merely a whisper of His power.  Who, then, can comprehend the thunder of His power?"  (Job 26:14)

The "these" this verse refers to is the creation that we observe in the heavens and on the earth.  A profound statement about who God is when you consider how little we really know about our own universe or even the earth that we live on.

There are some different numbers out there, but it seems safe to say that humans of only EXPLORED less than 5% of the waters on our own earth.  In that 5% we don't yet understand much of what we are seeing and discovering.  And there is yet 95% of the waters that we have not even explored!  WOW!

If that is the case with the water on our own earth -- imagine how minuscule the amount of the galaxy we live in has been explored -- not to mention the billions of galaxies of our universe!

Are you starting to feel "small" yet?  I do.

Yet in the book of Job, which many consider the oldest book of the Bible--and which probably found its setting around 2200-1800 BC--we are told that all of this, which can cause us to stand in such wonder is just a HINT of who God is.  WOW!

Look out your window --- or better yet go for a hike today through the snow.  Look at the sun beam through the snow covered branches, listen for the birds chirping, stare off into the sky tonight, try count the stars--imagine the wonders this universe holds...and then consider--these are just whispers from God of how great and marvelous He is!

Let His creation turn your attention to Him the Creator -- be silent, listen, for His Spirit is whispering.

Good Wine, the Cross, the Return

What follows is a fairly random journal entry on Jesus turning water to wine (John 2:1-12).  Perhaps a different way of looking at it.

The best wine.
It was not yet His hour
When water from His side & blood from His brow would bring healing to the nations.

For now it was six pitchers of water transformed to the best of drink that caused the disciples to believe.

Soon Jesus would call for all who believe to eat His flesh and drink His blood.  No longer six pitchers of water poured out--He spoke of His very Life being given.

The water from His side marked His death, and with its flow our sin began washing away.  New Life sprang up wherever that river of Life went--issuing forth from beneath the alter of sacrifice.

But the hour is not yet.
A wedding feast is yet to come for the Bride who will be made ready and the Lamb who was slain.
Water and blood has been poured out.
The best wine is yet to come.

Darkness & Light

John 1:5
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not over come it."

At times the world can seem as if all light has gone out,
only smoldering wicks, and puffs of smoke remain,
 bearing witness to light we thought so secure and comforting
 swallowed by what now seems an impenetrable gulf of darkness.

We are are smoldering wicks, puffs of smoke magnifying darkness.

In moments of pain, sickness and loss
the gulf somehow seems to grow
In stories of tragedy, abuse and neglect
the darkness seems to cackle...as our wicks smolder, the smoke puffs

Look into the eyes of
the lonely
the broken
the hungry
the left out and forgotten.
DARK...even the smoke has long past.

But look deeper.  Deeper into the gulf, penetrate the impenetrable dark with a steady gaze.
you will see a shimmer like a fish turning in a current
a flash, like a lantern swaying deep within a forest.
It grows brighter, stronger...closer to your gaze.

Light begins to illumine dark caverns once thought to be painted the deepest of black
revealing colours of hope & Life jumping forth out of the crevasses long ignored.

The light is like breath of Life to these stale forgotten caves
Darkness flees with the speed of a gale forced wind, the Light ever on its tail
Light is overcoming, ever brighter, richer, fuller.

Darkness will not over come
In the Light there is
Hope, Breath, Healing, Beauty, Redemption and Restoration
In the Light is LIFE.

Loving with Underwear

A gentleman walks into the Roxy this morning and exclaims: "Kellen, I'm not wearing any underwear today!"

When I asked him why that is, he goes on to tell me that the group home he is living in threw them all out, or else someone took them.  It's not by choice that this man is going around commando in the midst of a breezy day and it is a sad example of what many around us are going without, while so many of us live in excess.  But more than that--it's a great example of how easy it is for many of us to care for and show love to others around us who are in need.

Very quickly those sitting around me put money on the counter, and I said to my friend that he would not have to go without underwear anymore--we headed to Giant Tiger and picked him up some underwear.

He must have thanked us 10 times over the next 3 minutes for getting him underwear.  He also came back about 20 minutes later to inform us that he put them on and they fit well!  (which is important when it comes to underwear!).

In a previous blog I posted about loving others...on Sunday I challenged people of Crossings to do at least one simple thing to show people around them love this week.

 Maybe it's as simple as underwear...but more likely it's even simpler than that!  Keep your eyes and ears open--there are opportunities all around us to love others, and so display the love of Jesus to our world!  Don't over-complicate what it can mean to love another!

I'd love to hear your stories--how is God using you to love others this week?

WHAT IF? Love that changes things...

"Let love be genuine...outdo one another is showing honour."  (Rom 12:9a, 10b)

What if you did this?  

Imagine a community of people who all loved each other genuinely--without fakeness and pretense.
Imagine a community where each person was trying to be better then the next in the kind of love and honor that they were showing to another!
I don't know about you--but I would love to be a part of a community like that!

What if you decided to begin to do this?

As long as human beings are involved in a community on this earth it will never be perfect.  Even today I sat with a woman who shared the pain of words said by others who ought to love her that instead tore her down and judged her for past sins in her life.  Yes, this was within the church community.  It makes me sick.

But I have hope.  I have hope when I consider Jesus and how He loves us.  I have hope because we are told that the life (and therefore the love of Jesus) dwells in His followers.

And this is how Jesus loves:  He loved us before we ever loved Him--in fact He loved us even when we were still sinners and far from perfect.  He loves us still even when we mess up--when we are faithless He is always faithful!  He bears with us in our weakness, He strengthens us by His grace--He has sacrificed all for our good because of LOVE.

What if you let Jesus' love take over more and more everyday?  What if when you feel like judging you stop and ask Jesus' love to pour through you?  What if when you feel like looking down on another--you think of Jesus and instead serve the other with honor just as Jesus served you?

WHAT IF?  I desperately want to see Jesus' love overtake my own life more and more.  I want to be a part of a church community...that though we are not perfect...will let the love of Jesus control us and move us forward day by day.

What about you?  

CONCEALED --def. to keep from being seen, found or observed.

Have you ever been reading something in a public place and when someone walks up to you for some reason you feel the need to slyly hide the title of the book or the article you were reading?

For instance--it's not a big secret that I love the Anne of Green Gable books (go ahead and laugh, but it's true and I don't care!)  And yet, even as I post that here, I can remember times when I was reading that book at a coffee shop and I held it very strategically so that people around me would not be able to see that I was reading Anne of Green Gables.  I concealed my love for Anne!

While concealing my love for Anne of Green Gables is one thing--I've been contemplating a more disturbing concealment I find myself making at times--that is, my faith in Jesus.

Before you judge me---have you ever been there?

Perhaps there is an opportunity in a conversation to very plainly speak about your love for Jesus, and you stumble on your words and your faith comes out as one of the most awkward sounding things in the world?  What's up with that?

Or perhaps your reading your Bible or a Christian book of some sort and as someone walks up you calmly flip it over so as to conceal what you are reading--without making it so obvious that they will ask what your hiding of course!   Isn't that a little weird?

Or maybe, your a pastor and you'd rather people know your a barista than a pastor.  Ok, maybe this one is unique to me.

I used to (as in up until this day) excuse these types of "concealments" by saying things like:
   
 "I don't want my faith to make others feel uncomfortable."  (But maybe they are more uncomfortable with how awkwardly we try to speak about who Jesus is to us instead?!)
or
"I don't want people to think I'm some religious nut who brings my Bible everywhere!"  (But why not?  yeah I get we are sensitive over the whole "religion" thing these days--and I've been with the rest of you hip Christians who say--"I'm not religious and neither was Jesus!" --But maybe it's time we stop fighting against the word religious (which by the way can simply mean "having or showing belief in and reverence for God" according to The Free Dictionary---well that is not so bad of thing now is it?) and embrace the fact that to follow Jesus means we will be misunderstood and seen as strange by many in the world.
or
"I don't want to create barriers by having people immediately think of me as a pastor" ---ok, I still think there is some merit to this, BUT---again I need to be less concerned about that label and instead model what a pastor (and follower of Jesus) should really be.

I have far too often concealed Jesus.  And when I type it like that it makes me feel sick.  I have confessed, and preached of a Life Abundant and a love that cannot be matched by anything else--and yet so often I have concealed Jesus as if somehow people are better off just seeing "me".  How foolish!

Now you probably won't see me put a Jesus Fish on my car.  Nor will you see me wearing the latest Jesus t-shirt, nor am I going to buy a "ministers collar".  And you probably won't even see me on the corner pushing tracts and Bibles into every passer-by's hands.

BUT -- I will make it my aim and my goal that Jesus always be the most recognizable thing about me.  If nothing else when people see me, I hope they will see the love that I have for Jesus because I am one who is incomparably loved by Him!
 Those who know me--I invite you to hold me to this--and I invite you to join me in making Jesus the most obvious thing about our lives!