Surrender

For much of my adult life, I have gladly listed the things I have survived.  It was a pretty heavy and substantial list, honestly.  I was kind of proud of the stuff I survived.  Here is a peek at the list for those of you playing along at home.

• I developed a slight paralysis in my left arm my senior year of high school
• dad comes of the closet during my second year of marriage and seminary
• mom and dad divorce (see above)
• my youngest son has Down syndrome and a major heart defect
• my son had heart surgery at 2 months old (heart defect corrected)
• I have preached a friend's funeral who committed suicide
• been there as friends and family have committed themselves into mental health hospitals for depression and suicidal thoughts

Yep, this is a glimpse.  For years I wore these and other things in life as badges of honor.  I had survived.  I realized over the last few weeks, I do not want to survive so much any more.  Eventually the mountain of survived events will crush me if I continue to try and carry them around with me all the time.  There will be something that comes along that I cannot survive.  That is the nature of life itself; in time none of us survive it.

I want to surrender.  I want to surrender to God's will in my life, not just accepting a call to ministry, but as a husband, a father, a brother, a son.  I want to surrender not just to say I survived, but that I learned and grew through the events of my life.  I want to surrender in the little ways, the right ways, the things that no one else will notice, but I will know.

I guess the best way to put it is, "Christ bore the weight of the cross so I do not have to bear the weight of the world, even my world."  When I surrender fully to Christ, I do find the saying to be true, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)  Surrendering is much easier and life-giving than merely surviving.

Temptation

Yesterday evening I read these words on a friend's Facebook status: "Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him." (James 1:12)

We are all subject to temptation. It comes at us every day. It comes to us as a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke. It comes as the big office in the corner. It comes as the office flirt who stops by too many times to say, "hi." It comes as the house that the realtor says, "Yeah, you can afford it." It comes as a cheat sheet on a final exam. It comes as another hour of TV. Temptations are never the same for every person because as James says, "One is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when fully grown, gives birth to death." (James 1:14-15)

I know this reality all too well. I gave into my temptations. I let them grow within me and gave into that which did not produce life, but rather death. I did not endure temptation. It almost destroyed me, it almost destroyed my marriage, it almost destroyed much of what I really love. My temptation had grown into sin and sin was giving birth to death. I even could justify my actions to myself biblically using St. Paul's words, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (Romans 7:15) I did exactly what many people do and pull the one verse as my justification and did not take the full lesson. He continues, "Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me." (Romans 7:20) Again, I find that I was being consumed by my temptations, my desire, my own sin.

For those of you playing along at home, we Christians are in the middle of Holy Week. This is the time where we remember and celebrate Jesus' last days before his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. I am here because I participate in Christ's death as a sinner. I was not strong enough to resist temptation and sin on my own. He died because I was not enough on my own. Under my own strength, I simple find death. Paul found himself in the same position and said, "Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25) It is Christ who rescues me from this body of death. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the many saints in our daily lives, who help fulfill the prayer, "deliver us not into temptation."

Every day, as I find myself again giving myself to the will of God and the strength of the Holy Spirit, I find myself being recreated and resurrected in and with Jesus. Yes, temptations still abound. Yes, I am still weak. Yes, I cannot make it on my own. Yes, this change still scares me (see last week's blog). But not changing, not growing, not finding life abundant, that would only mean death.

Land of the Dying

When John Owen, the great Puritan, lay on his deathbed, his secretary wrote in his name to a friend, “I am still in the land of the living.”
“Stop,” said Owen. “Change that and say, ‘I am yet in the land of the dying, but I hope soon to be in the land of the living.”

What a thought as we come running into Holy Week! We are in the land of the dying. It is true for everyone of us who takes breathe. It is with this great reality that we came to Ash Wednesday several weeks ago, "From the dust you have come and to the dust you shall return." We watch over the next few days how even Jesus when faced with the reality of mortality breaks down in tears in the garden.

Still, ours is not the land of the dying. Our future and our hope lies in the land of the living that waits on the other side of the viel. With that in mind, what do we have to fear? Why do we continue to be held by fear? Do we not believe? Have we not faith? Have we not hope?

If we be Christian, if we truly believe that ours lies in the land and time God will make home among mortals, and God wipe away every tear and death will be no more and the covenant will be fulfilled, "I will be their God and they will be my people," then let us no more live as people who are going to grave, but live as people prepared to enter the land of the living.

Death

A little girl, 4 years old, stopped me this morning as I was coming into the church. "My doggy died," she said. I knelt down and she came over for a hug.

Death is a harsh taskmaster. We are all caught up in its clutch from the moment we are born. We participate in it. We are affected by it. As much as we do not like death, it is always there. The ultimate pink elephant in the room.

Lent, these 40 days before Easter, are a season of self-reflection. Many Christians begin the season with a smear of ashes on their face and the words are said, "From dust you have come. To the dust you will return." A morbid moment really.


Yeah, death. Cold. Harsh. Real.


And there behind death is Christ. Laughing at the vain attempts to keep us in submission.


"Daddy said, 'Our doggy has gone to heaven,'" she said.


"Yes. And someday you will get to see him again," I said. And I thought of my favorite dog, Danny Boy. And how someday, after I have become dust, I will sit in a swing under a live oak tree, watching the late summer sun set with Tammy by my side, Danny boy at my feet, and a baseball game playing on the radio.

WHY?

"Why?" This is one of the hardest questions to answer. Think about talking to a two-year old who has just discovered this time-perplexing and mind-numbing question. They ask, "Why do I have a belly button?"
You say something cute like, "Because it is where God kissed you."
"Why?" comes back again.
"Because God loves you."
"Why?"
"Because God loves everybody."
"Why?" "Because God is love."
"Why?"
Well you get the picture.
Giving a close to scientifically correct answer, "You have a belly button because when you were growing in mommy's tummy before you were born, that is where you and mommy were connected." Well, you know the "Why?" is coming and there are details here that you are not really sure you want to explain to a two-year old.

Today, I am struggling with "Why?" I am not two-years old, but the question is haunting me. A 21-year old man died this weekend in a local swimming hole. He is a friend of a member of the congregation where I serve. They met working together for a company that hires adults with learning problems.

As a parent of a child with learning issues (my younger son has Down-Syndrome), I know the family has asked "Why?" many times over the course of 21 years. "Why is our child not like all the rest?" "Why does it have to be so hard?" And now the question for this family has changed to something even more profound, "Why is he gone?" "Why did he have to die?" "Why has God done this to us?"

To try and explain, "Why?" is useless. There is no good answer to this question. If we knew why, it might be more painful than we could endure. And knowing why does not take away the loss. But this does not remove the reality of God's all encompassing GRACE and LOVE. Yes, it still hurts, and yes the questions will still come in the night, "why . . . why . . . why . . . why?" And still God is there with us, holding us, keeping us, weeping with us and for us.

I have no answer to the "Why?" this morning. I can only look to my faith and to the mercy of Christ, who loves us in all things. Being a Christian, a follower of Christ, does not insulate us from the many hard things in life. It does remind us that the hard things are not the final answer. The story does not end with a child being born with learning disabilities. The story is not finished at the bottom of swimming hole. The final word is not death. As a follower of Christ, I know the final word is hope for all God's children, life abundant, resurrection is the face of death, future with no limitations.