Clay in the Hands

We find ourselves today living in the wake of Easter.  It is easy for us to celebrate the empty tomb and then get back to our daily lives – our schedules and commitments and all that life brings.  But I want to remind us that the resurrection changed everything.  In one wonderfully cosmic event, life as we know it changed.  Jesus overcame death securing for us the assurance of our own eternal life.

Jesus taught that if we will be first we must become last and if we are to truly live we must die to ourselves.  When we surrender our desires and plans to him, we are, in a very real sense, dying to ourselves and being resurrected to live for Jesus.

Easter should be a reminder for us to live resurrected lives each and every day.  We must seek to encounter Jesus each day not just at Easter.

One of my favorite accounts in scripture is the Emmaus Road encounter.  Two of Jesus’ followers were reeling from the events of his passion.  They had heard of the women who had gone to the tomb earlier that day and found it empty.  They were talking to each other trying to make sense of it all as they walked the road.  As they walked, Jesus joined them on the journey but they did not recognize him.

He spent time with them, instructing them on how the scriptures had foretold what would happen to the messiah but even through his teaching, they did not recognize him – at least not yet.  It wasn’t until they sat down to eat together that their eyes were finally focused on who was sitting there with them.  When they realized this stranger at the table was Jesus, he vanished from their sight.

As the two of them discussed all they had just experienced, they asked each other, “were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened scripture to us?”

There is so much power packed into that simple question!

When we encounter Jesus, our hearts burn within us.

When is the last time you experienced an encounter with Jesus that rekindled your inner flame.  Jesus is in the business of igniting passions within us to make a difference for him.

That is what it means to live a resurrected life.  It is to live a life of passion for the King!

May our hearts burn within us today because we have encountered Jesus!

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In one of my readings this morning, I ran across a reminder that should inform and shape each day of our existence here on Earth.  In Luke 10, Jesus sent out 72 of his followers in pairs to prepare the way for him in the towns he would visit.  He gave each of them authority to heal and cast out demons.

When they returned they were exuberant with excitement over being able to cast out demons.  While Jesus rejoiced with them, he cautioned them and reminded them to keep a proper perspective.  He said to them in verse 20, “do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

His words remind us that what happens here on Earth does not matter nearly as much as our eternal destiny.  We can have great “success” here but it will not matter much if our eternity with the Father is not secure.

As I have reflected on this thought I realized that the opposite is also just as important – even when things go terribly wrong here and we experience struggles and tragedy, we need to remember that our eternal destiny far outweighs what we endure here.

We tend to live with blinders on but we need to expand our perspective.

My reflection moved me to write this note to myself and I share it with you in hopes that it can serve as a reminder for you as well:

We must strive to gaze at the eternal panorama and not allow ourselves to stare at the temporal snapshot.

Remember that today!

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One of the most popular brands these days is LG.  You find the brand name on televisions, sound equipment and appliances.  Many may not realize that the letters LG stand for Life Is Good.  The brand name speaks to their mission to make life better – to help us see that life is, indeed, good.

We often forget that fact, do we not.  It is only a few steps from the top of the world to the lowest valley.  Life is good but it can become a grind if we are not careful.  Without proper perspective, the busyness of life becomes one big obligation and instead of living in the realization of the joy life can bring, we see only responsibilities and feel only pressure.

I have found, over the course of my journey, that the pressures of life are the most stifling when I let the tasks of my day take precedence over my time with the creator.  Something we need to foster within our hearts is a desperate longing for God’s presence.  When we yearn to be present with God we make time to make ourselves available.  As believers, when we are available to God we realize God is always with us.  And if God is with us, what on earth can overcome us?

At the most base level, what we need is love.  If we love God, we will make time to be with him.  And as we spend time with him, we realize that our capacity to love God is monumentally insufficient.  With that realization, our desire should become to learn to love him more.  It is in loving God that we live in the reality that life is good.  It is good because God offers it as a gift.  It is good because God is good!

So here is a simple prayer for us this day:

Holy, and loving Father.  I do love you.  At least I think I do.  At least I try.  Please help me to love you more.  Amen and amen!

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This morning I was up early for a meeting.  I arrived early to have time to reflect on the day and spend a little focused time with God.  One of my readings today took me to the Gospel of Matthew.  In chapter 19, one of the stories we find there concerns a young man who approached Jesus to ask about how he could get to heaven.  In verse 16, the young man asks Jesus a question that at first glance seems like a logical, heartfelt question.

He asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

Based on Jesus’ response, we know that he was able to see through the question to the heart of the individual.  At first, Jesus played along with the train of thought.  He offered several commandments that should be kept.  But the young man was quick to respond that he did a pretty good job of keeping all those requirements.

So Jesus cut straight to the point and said, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

We are told that the man went away sad because he had great wealth.

As I have reflected on this passage, I see myself in that man, and I think, if we are real about it, we can all relate to what the man was after.  We all want a simple formula.  We want to cut to the chase and find the quickest, easiest route to heaven.  But Jesus reminds us, it is not like that at all.  There is no secret formula or insider information.  The way to eternal life is stunningly simple and yet overwhelmingly difficult.

The way to eternal life requires following Jesus with our entire being.  We must not allow anything in our lives to rank higher than our relationship with Jesus and our devotion to him.  That is what Jesus was saying when he instructed the man to sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow him.  Jesus could see that what stood in the man’s way – what was more important to him than eternal life – was what he had gathered here on earth.

What stands in the way of eternal life may be different for you and for me.  But the principle is the same for us that it was for the young man standing before Jesus that day.  We must not allow anything to be more important in our lives than Jesus.

What will you need to “sell” today to follow him?

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This morning, I had the opportunity to speak at our school chapel.  The subject I had been assigned was honesty and the Biblical character I was asked to use as an example was Thomas.

Most associate doubt with Thomas rather than honesty.  When Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection, Thomas was not present.  So later, the disciples were relaying their experience of seeing the risen Jesus but Thomas struggled with trusting what they were telling him.  In fact, John 20 tells us that he went so far as to say, “unless I see him for myself and touch the wounds of his crucifixion, I will not believe.”  Thus he has been dubbed Doubting Thomas.

But I think if we are real with ourselves and God we should ask ourselves how differently would we have responded?  Don’t we have doubts and fears when it comes to circumstances we don’t know how to navigate?

I think we should give Thomas a bit of a break.  He was real and transparent.

In John 14, when Jesus was preparing his disciples for what was to come – his death and resurrection, Jesus made the statement that he would return and take his followers to be with him.  Thomas was the only one to ask a question.  I think he was not the only one with questions and doubts, just the only one willing to be honest about them.  He asked, “Jesus, how can we know how to get to where you are going?  We don’t know the way.”

He was honest.  It was not that he doubted Jesus’ truthfulness, he just wanted to understand and he was willing to show his struggle.  In fact, one of the greatest and concise statements of faith in the New Testament came from the lips of Thomas in John 20:28, “My Lord and my God.”

The reality is that God already knows our thoughts, our fears, our doubts.  Why would we try to hide those from him – – that would just be dishonest!

Today, let Honest Thomas be an example of being real with God – and with each other.

Be blessed today!

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Yesterday, we began a new series – Dreaming God-Sized Dreams.  As we begin a new year, we have the opportunity to think toward what might be different in 2018 – somehow better than last year.  We think toward possibilities.  We get to dream of what could be but isn’t.

In Ephesians 2:10, Paul tells us that we are God’s creation – his workmanship carrying his artistic touch.  And not only are we physical products of God’s creative efforts, as believers we are also being created and transformed through Jesus in order to fulfill the plans God imagined us carrying out.  Just as a father dreams of a future for his children, God dreams of a future in which each of us live into the potential for which we were created.

The exciting, and maybe a bit frightening, aspect of this text is that we are reminded that we were created to carry out good works but we are not told how exactly to do that.  Jesus has shared what it looks like to live as his disciple.  We have been given a mission – to make disciples, but how we actually carry out this mission is left to us.

In other words, we are invited into this creative process.

Just as God paraded the animals past Adam and told him to name them in Genesis 2, we are invited, and even called, to be imaginative in the ways we carry out our mission.

We are invited to dream!

What God-sized dreams will you dream today?

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The reading guide I am following for some of my devotional reading has me reading through the book of Revelation to end the year.  Today’s reading was Revelation 4.  The opening of verse of this chapter gave me pause this morning.  The verse says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven.”

As I meditated on this passage, the image that kept coming to my mind was an open door in heaven.  I imagined a door that had been left cracked open just a bit – probably by accident.  I imagined my desire in wanting to sneak a peek inside – to get even a glance of what might be on the other side of the door.

I began to pray that God would allow me to have a glimpse of him today and experience his nearness – even for just a moment.

And then it dawned on me like the sun that was rising outside my window – God left that door open on purpose – – for me!

God gives each of us the opportunity to experience his presence each and every day.  The question is, do we take the opportunity when it arises.  Or are we so preoccupied with getting things done that we fail to even see the chance when we have it?

God is leaving the door to heaven open for you today.

Take a peek!

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In all my years of sharing my thoughts and my heart here in this way, I have never gone as long between posts.  I began this ministry and personal pilgrimage in 2009 with a personal commitment to write at least three times per week – recording in this format a little piece of myself each time.  There have been dry spells in my pilgrimage over the past eight years but never have I stepped away from this discipline for this long.

On August 25th, my life and daily routine was altered.  When hurricane Harvey hit land on that evening, I did not realize the way it would affect the days to follow.  Please understand that my family and I, our church family and most of Corpus Christi were hardly affected physically by the storm.  But those just over the bridge were greatly impacted.  So I am not referring to any real damage that I have had to deal with personally but rather in how we have chosen to respond to the devastation our brothers and sisters to our north have been living through (and will continue to do so).  In the coming posts I will attempt to unpack the experience of the last month.

But for today, I feel compelled to share what God reminded me of this morning.  My reading this morning came from 2 Timothy 1.  In the beginning lines of Paul’s letter to his protege, he challenged Timothy with this:  “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you.”

The reminder coming from God this morning was this – as believers we have received God’s spirit and his calling on our lives but we are tasked with fanning what we have received into flame.  It is so easy to let the fire go out.

I am not suggesting that we can lose the Spirit or the calling but we can lose the passion and the intensity of living out this calling with our entire existence.  Life happens – storms come our way that move us off course and before we realize it, the flame has died down.  It is our responsibility to tend the flame.

Today – tend the fire, fan the flame and live into the calling God has placed on your life!

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