Aftermath

Preface
Some of this story is me. Some of it is not me, it's fiction. My hope and prayer is that it will meld together to demonstrate the power of God when He invades a life with His mercy and grace. I hope it will encourage just one to believe that God wants to, can, and will change a dead life to a new life no matter how despicable that life has become. The cross and empty tomb point the way...they point the way to Jesus Christ....He and He alone.


Aftermath
Peering in and steaming up the small windows in the doors that led to the sanctuary, I nervously wrung my sweating hands....waiting....asking myself what on God's earth was I doing in such a place! I didn't go in until after everyone was finished greeting each other with handshakes, hugs, and smiles. I didn't want to be touched by anyone for fear the dirt, filth, and yuck of my miserable life would rub off. To keep them away I wondered if I should enter shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!" like the lepers had to do in biblical times as they navigated through the masses. I felt as a single drop of black, polluted oil in a pool of pure, clean water....as a convicted criminal on the run hiding in a crowd of people with squeaky clean records....feeling severely out of my element. And would my dismal presence contaminate what was going on inside that holy place?

I sat in the very back, in the far corner of a pew that no one else was in. I didn't want to be noticed and I certainly didn't want to be recognized. In that room full of people I sat there in my isolation. And I sat with my head down, staring at the patterns in the carpet so hard they began to move. I dared not even look up, make eye contact. My hands, still sweating, were now shaking almost uncontrollably. I clasped them together with such a grip it looked as if my knuckles would burst through the skin. I didn't belong there....but then I didn't belong anywhere. At one point I almost got up to leave and in that instant was strangely drawn to stay. What could it hurt anyway? Perhaps I could get some reprieve from the thoughts that constantly tormented me. Yes, just some rest, if just but a brief escape from a life littered with losses, shame, regrets, and hopelessness. I sat there....still...motionless.....staring at the moving patterns of the carpet.

I never intended my life to end up as it did. As a young boy my dreams for myself were lofty, noble, respectable, and had purpose. My upbringing wasn't harsh. My parents were good parents. They showed me love at every turn, even in their discipline. I lacked for nothing. I was supported and encouraged to go conquer whatever corner of the world I was placed. I was taught to consider others before myself, to love the unlovable, to be merciful, kind-hearted, and caring toward my fellow man.

I grew up in church. I wasn't a total stranger to places like the one I was sitting in. At one time, I even felt comfortable in such places. I knew the bible. I learned it from my Sunday School and pastor at church and from my parents at home. I saw my mom and dad live out in daily life what they confessed they believed. I had such deep respect for them because of that. In crisis their first thought was always prayer to and faith in a God who cared and acted on their behalf. I had good friends...some of my closest friends went to the church I did. I remember a better past with more pleasant memories....they were faint memories....but I remembered them.

I grew up....life happened....circumstances I didn't want or ask for happened to me. I got angry and then bitter....and what was once a life headed for success became a downward spiral of bad decisions. I didn't want to hear from anyone...not from my parents, siblings, children, friends, and certainly not from God. I ignored all those caring voices until I could no longer hear them at all. To cope....I drank. The more difficulty I invited into my life....the more I drank to cope. I lost all. On the outside it was job after job, driving privileges, apartments, marriages, financial stability, upward mobility, and tragically...friends. That network of love and support was gone. On the inside it was self-respect, vision, hope, contentment, peace, joy, and even the will to live. I became the shame and embarrassment of family and friends. No one wanted me around. I had successfully managed to remove myself from any hope of recovery. When the bottle was no longer enough to numb my depression, sense of failure, self judgment, and other hellish torments in my mind, the last answer of true escape was death.

That is where I found myself...sitting in that pew with my head down....a dead man walking. My life had sunk so low I saw death as my only hope. Death was the only way to be truly released of this excruciating misery. Imagine the irony....my only hope being death. There I was sitting in that pew with all hell breaking loose on the inside of me.

I noticed though, even with my head down, I was listening. Listening to what was being said and what was being sung. I didn't realize until it was mentioned.....I entered that sanctuary on Easter Sunday. That revelation made me think of last Easter....I was so drunk I couldn't get myself dressed to go anywhere. Last Easter I sat in my Lazy Boy, drinking vodka and Coke, trying to numb the overwhelming hopelessness that had invaded my life and taken control. It was like I was drinking to get the hopelessness drunk so it would loosen its grip on me for just a little while and give my weary brain some rest.

The pastor, an elderly, distinguished looking gentleman with the kindest eyes, walked forward and read from the bible these verses: "...But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God's grace that you have been saved!)" -Eph. 2:4,5 When I heard those words I raised my head and really started listening. Hearing that I was dead, which I was....or at least felt like I was, but could be given life again intrigued me. This wonderful preacher began to tell of Gods' grace and mercy that spanned the centuries starting in the Garden of Eden and culminating in the death, burial, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. He said God did what he did though history to establish again relationship with his creation that was broken in the Garden. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, his death, and resurrection ushered in a means whereby we might be restored completely in relationship with God once and for all.

I began wondering how this could be done. What did I have to do? I was desperate, my whole being cried out for relief. Suddenly within me was a thirst for something more. I actually was beginning to hope for something more.....not an assured hope, but a "hope so"; that somehow what was being said could happen to me. Perhaps the downward spiral of my life could be turned around. The preacher continued to say that my sins were nailed to the cross of Christ . He took upon himself my sin that I might live in a new life. He spoke of the hideousness of the cross. He painted such a picture of Christs' blood soaked body being broken for me that I could see him hanging there, dying, staining the cross with his blood and covering the cross with my sin. It moved me someone could love so much. It moved me deeper still someone could love me so much. Lastly, the preacher spoke of Jesus' victory over death and that because of that victory death no longer had a choke hold on those whose faith is in him. Wow!.. death no longer my only hope of escape? Instead of that dead man walking I was seeing hope in a dead man coming alive through this life preached about. But how?

The preacher sat down and the choir stood up. Music started playing and the choir started singing the words to the song, "Hallelujah! Praise the Lamb". Intently I listened....still wondering how....how can I go from walking death to life? As that little country choir sang in that little country church, I became overwhelmed with such a deep appreciation of Gods' great love for me! I bristled because I felt the words of that song were speaking directly to me:

From the moment man first disobeyed the Father
We were then held captured by our sin
The law of God demanded a sacrifice
Restoring to himself His own again

So the Lamb, His Son so freely offered,
Atonement for our sins forever made.
The innocent and holy still God and God only
Would ransom and redeem us back again

So to the cross they carried Him
With all our guilt and all our sin
The Lamb of God was slain for our transgressions
And on the cross those nail pierced hands

Reached up to God and now to man
And just as if I'd never sinned
He took me in His arms
Embracing me he willingly forgave

For mercy, grace, and love that knows no bounds
Though guilty and condemned I now am free
Forever I'm forgiven for Christ the Lord has risen
And risen with Him we shall one day be

Hallelujah praise the Lamb
Hallelujah praise the Lamb
My heart sings His praise again
Hallelujah praise the Lamb

I began to weep as I saw all that Christ did....for me. Me-the three time loser in love; Me-the failure as a son, brother, father, and friend; Me-the loser of jobs; Me-the drunk. His great love for me moved him to leave eternity and enter time and history. He left riches, royalty, and majesty and took upon himself the weakness and frailty of human flesh. For me-he bore my sin that I might be clean and have relationship. Me-this outcast was drawn near and made a son because of him. Me-once homeless, living out of my car, he gave a home in heaven.

My miserable life was flooded with hope! I was still wondering how to leave this death I was living and move into that new life, when that wise and loving pastor got up again. He answered my question with two other verses from the bible: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved." -Rom. 10:9,10 That was it?! No training? No college work? No special certifications? No written recommendations from city officials? No elaborate monetary gifts to the church? No installment payments? No pain? It seemed so easy it couldn't be true! Surely after what Christ did on the cross, I would have to go through some suffering of my own in order to qualify even becoming a candidate for this new life! The pastor said this new life was a gift simply to be received. Nothing in me that I could offer would make a worthy trade for this life. God gave it because he loved me and for no other reason. So I confessed and I believed. I prayed right there in that pew....and his grace and mercy through Christ's love overtook me as a tidal wave!

The aftermath of a tidal wave usually is remembered for the vast amounts of damage, the millions of dollars required to repair the damage, and sometimes the tragic loss of life. This tidal wave was different. My life was already damaged; my life was already tragic. This tidal wave swept over me and transformed my sense of worthlessness into something of value. I may not have been a person of worth in the eyes of many, or even in my own eyes, but in God's eyes I was....I was worth redeeming to him....and he spared no expense to make that happen.

In the aftermath of this tidal wave hopelessness was turned to hope, and not just a "hope so" like I thought earlier....but an assured hope. Hope in him, a knowing that he had invaded the deepest parts of me and eradicated the last bastion of hopelessness....his great love for me routed that life taker completely. And how can a man truly live without a real hope, a right hope....how can man truly live without God?

Isolation was replaced with the hunger for fellowship. I now wanted to receive the handshakes, hugs, and smiles I adamantly avoided in the beginning....I wanted to give them too! I wanted to forgive those who hurt me and I wanted to seek forgiveness from those I hurt. I wanted to love again....everyone! I who had become unlovable wanted to love again!! I was amazed at these things....all happening inside me the moment I confessed and believed....I was new instantly....there was no waiting period. When Christ became mine and I became his, everything that made me...me....changed! I left that holy place different than when I entered it. I still didn't know how my life would turn out, but I knew the Author of my life hadn't finished writing my story....there were still many chapters ahead for me. I had an assured hope of a happy ending. I didn't have to be a slave any longer to hurts, addictions, and failures. I was free....truly free!! I found that freedom in Christ and him alone. All because of Jesus....what a wonderful Savior....praise to his glorious name!!!

Bunnies and Eggs

The season of spring enters our lives in March....on the calendar anyway. But for many, spring isn't officially realized until the "season" of Easter is upon us.....that's in early April for those who may be date challenged. The chains of a cold winter are shaken loose and we walk into the freedom and pleasure of a warmer sun and brighter skies. We transition from hibernating in our caves to stepping outside to enjoy greening grass, budding trees, blooming flowers, and we marvel at a sleeping earth waking up to a newness of life once more.
Easter, as I have observed, is celebrated by the masses much in the same manner as Christmas is celebrated. At least there are parallels. Christmas trees with all their decorated splendor of brightly colored ornaments and flickering lights transition to Easter trees filled with brightly colored eggs, bunnies, and chicks.....and flickering lights. Gifts under the Christmas tree transition to Easter baskets filled with goodies, toys, and often an eclectic special treasure or two. I know of a loving wife who thoughtfully made an Easter basket for her husband that contained a Braun cordless shaver.....among other things....it was the one thing he requested for Christmas and didn't get.
At my house these gift and goodie laden baskets were set at the foot of my children's beds the night before Easter Sunday morning. They would wake up in excitement and anticipation of what the Easter Bunny brought them just in the same way they would wake up Christmas morning to see what Santa Claus brought them. And didn't I relish the bright smiles on their faces and the happiness in their eyes as they tore through those baskets "oohing and awing" at each item discovered....just like Christmas, as I would watch them tear open each gift with the same "oohs and awes".
The music of the holiday transitions from "Here Comes Santa Claus" to "Here Comes Peter Cottontail". The colors of our dress transition from the deep reds and greens of the "Holley and the Ivy" to the light and bright pastels of newly blooming flowers, the colors of spring. Even that classic Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon transitions to an Easter theme entitled "The Easter Beagle". In fact, animated Christmas specials about Santa and Rudolph transition to animated Easter specials about Peter Rabbit.
Easter does have a few frivolous traditions of its own however. I should like to point out two. We don't color eggs at Christmas, nor do we hunt them at Christmas...we do that only at Easter. I remember, as a boy growing up in a pastor's house, sitting at the table with wild-eyed joy as my mom prepared all the colors in the Paas egg coloring kit so me and my siblings could color the eggs for the hunt the following day. Preparing the eggs in many ways was more fun than hunting them ....and what makes it memorable for me today is the laughter, love, and togetherness of it all. My brothers and sister all making a wonderful mess of color at the table having the time of our lives....such memories are priceless....and I treasure them. My older brother and I were always given the honor of hiding the eggs for my two younger siblings. They would stay in the house as we tried our best to position each egg in an impossible to find place....but baby brother and sis found them....maybe with a little help...but they found them. Ah, such wonderful memories!
In a more somber vein, Easter brings with it the same gnawing question Christmas does. To quote that beloved Charlie Brown, disillusioned by the Christmas holiday being so commercialized, he cries out from his anguished heart, "Can someone tell me what Christmas is all about?!". Easter cries out with the same question,"Can someone tell me what Easter is all about?!". A relevant question I think. Like Christmas, Easter has gotten commercialized. Retailers market Easter Sunday attire on their racks well before Valentines Day merchandise has a chance to sell. We hunt for that one unique dress that will set off a flurry of compliments from others who participated in the same hunt. Sometimes I wonder if Easter Sunday worship is more about comparing and contrasting what each is wearing and pridefully answering questions like, "Wherever did you find such a beautiful dress?" or "Your kids (or grand kids) just look adorable in their Easter clothes." Other questions asked at church on Easter Sunday may include,"What are you doing after, going out to eat somewhere special or staying home?" "We're having brunch at such and such, you know those tickets were $50.00 a piece!" "Hello Mr. so and so, haven't seen you here since the Christmas musical."
If the true meaning of Easter were nothing but bunnies and eggs, there wouldn't be a point redeemable in any of it. Easter would be just an excuse to dress up and look our best, provide fun and entertainment for our children, and gather with family members after church for an Easter feast. I am glad Easter is so much more than that.....

"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die

for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made

right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save

us from God's condemnation. For since our friendship with God

was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies,

we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son." -Rom.5:8-10 NLT

As Linus, that wise old sage and friend of Charlie Browns', quoted from the book of Luke to explain the true meaning of Christmas, here, in the book of Romans...Paul summarizes the true meaning of Easter. Easter has two distinctive parts that make up one miraculous whole. One: Christ died on a cross....that cross was stained with his blood and covered with our sin. Two: Christ rose again from the dead....revealed by an empty tomb and verified by many witnesses who saw and conversed with him after.

In considering these facts, I wonder what it means for us.....here are a few thoughts:

1. God had to take initiative to restore a relationship with us that was broken in the Garden. He sent his Son to dwell among us. God pitched his tent through Jesus smack in the middle of all humanity.

2. This initiative speaks of God's desire for that relationship with us. He spared no expense to close the gap between him and us. Sparing not even his only Son.

3. There is nothing in us that merits his friendship. Paul even says that while we were God's enemies, he provided a means by which we could relate rightly to and with him.

4. It speaks of his deep love for us....in that while we were still sinners (separated from him), Christ died for us..a death we deserved to die...the bible says.

5. Christ became our sin on the cross and suffered God's rejection at the moment he did. No greater love in all of history has ever been demonstrated, nor ever will be.

6. Jesus' victory over death is our assurance of the same victory. We have hope of something so much more than just the ups and downs of this life.

7. Because of his death, burial, and resurrection, temporary life becomes eternal and death no longer carries any finality but ushers in a new beginning.

Standing on my own good deeds is not enough.....even my good deeds are dirty in the sight of a holy God. However, clothed in Christ's blood, that robe of righteousness (Christs' righteousness, not mine), I can stand before this holy God who now has become Father and he sees me as a child, his child. I come to him with nothing to offer that earns me an audience....I come to him with Christ's clothes on and become family. This strips me of my tendency to want to earn my own way, chart my own course. All I can do is receive in faith this wonderful gift. And that is all that is required. In Christ and Christ alone do I find a peace that goes beyond my own understanding.

Easter is a time to rejoice in these things, and Easter is so much more. I write this feeling inadequate to do so. Who am I to expound upon the glories of Gods rich and deep love for us and the grace he demonstrated toward us through his Son? I simply know I have life eternal because of this wonderful God who spared no expense for my redemption. I weep with gratitude and awe that all of this was done for the likes of us.

May you and yours discover the real Easter, the one that goes way beyond bunnies and eggs!

Seasons

We are just on the threshold of Spring, roughly more than a week into it. The weather in that time ( a little more than a week mind you), has produced everything from a late snow to "sitting on your balcony and smoking pipes, or writing, or both" warmth. The seasons of nature....you gotta love them! They are a quartet of wild and crazy guys...and prove to be very unpredictable.
In my part of the country, sometimes some of the seasons don't show up. Summer all of a sudden changes to Winter. It's blistering hot one day and teeth chattering cold the next and you're scrambling to find that one box in the attic you packed your sweaters and coats in so you won't freeze to death. Unpacking that box wasn't penciled in your Daytimer "To Do" list for at least another two or three weeks. Leaving Fall out of the loop even throws the best laid plans and forecasts out of their proper symmetry.....And furthermore what happened to Fall anyway? Did Fall take the short bus to nowhere? Did he show up twice in another state? Did he forget to set his alarm clock? Maybe Fall went on a bender and was just too hungover to show up...if that's true, I know of some great support groups Fall should attend....
Another thing about these guys....you can't figure them out no matter how much you study them. I had a good friend I was stationed with in the Philippines. He was the commanding officer of the meteorological station there. He invited me to go with him one day to help him and his team launch a series of weather balloons. Along the way he gave me a "Meteorology For Dummies" lesson.....and being the "dummy" I was, I still didn't understand what he was trying to teach me about the purpose of the balloons....but I kept nodding my head with a "yes" motion and saying, "Uh huh" and "I see" as if I did. All I know is that the balloons had these transmitter devices attached to them and some measured wind currents, some measured temperatures, some measured pressures, and others measured moisture in the air, and so on and so forth. All worked together to help the experts forecast future weather patterns for the area.
I only knew one thing about weather in the Philippines, it was either hot and dry, or hot and wet. The findings of this particular launch indicated that the island of Luzon would probably not fall victim to any typhoon activity that particular season. Three weeks later the air base got hammered with one of the worst typhoons in base history and it took about seven weeks to clean up and recover in the aftermath. As I said earlier, you just can't figure these guys out! They almost come off as the mischievous imps and sprites you read about in fairy tales. How they love to confound and confuse!....and these once sharp, talented, analytical, brilliant, scientific meteorologists are broken down to wearing wrap-around white tuxedos and placed in rooms that are padded and have no sharp corners. They are to be pitied and understood, but we can do neither because we're too busy complaining about how "they" got it wrong again. Sometimes I think trying to predict what these guys are gonna do when they show up is nothing more than a crap shoot.
Seasons, they come and go, sometimes they don't show up, and sometimes I think they do what they do just to push our buttons and give us something to talk about around the water cooler at work. They break into our lives with an unpredictability that shatters our otherwise fairly ordered world.....and in the spirit of one of my personal heroes, Forrest Gump, they are like a box of chocolates....you never know what you're going to get....
In life, we go through seasons. In fact, life is nothing but a constant flow of changing seasons. Solomon agrees with that. In Ecclesiastes 3:1 he states, "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven."-NLT Some seasons in life bring rejoicing, laughter, dancing, riches, and joy....other seasons bring grief, death, hardship, poverty, tears, and sadness. All of these seasons work together to make up the whole of our life....the whole of our existence....and these seasons of life, like the seasons of nature, are unpredictable. No matter how much we plan in one season of our life, another season shows up and destroys what we've carefully thought through.
Solomon is touted as being the wisest man who ever lived. Kings and Queens from other nations all over the known world would come and sit at his feet to hear his teaching. Yet, for all his God-given wisdom, he didn't have the ability to forecast life. He knew of its seasons and he knew the God in control of them, but he couldn't tell another how their life would turn out. He could only teach that life would happen and it would happen for a season. He knew that at times life would be easy and light, and he also knew that life would hit hard and with an unforgiving vengeance at other times.
If you have lived for awhile you have already experienced several seasons in your life both good and bad. If you are reading this, you have to this point, survived them. I don't know why but it seems for me the good seasons are shorter than the bad ones. I can only figure the reason is because in the good seasons I have a tendency to forget Who they come from. At times I have taken sole credit for the good seasons in my life as if I had something to do with it, as if in my own "brilliance" I laid an invulnerable plan that got me there, a plan so perfect even God Himself would dare not interrupt it. Perhaps this is one reason our Lord spoke of the difficulty the rich (successful) had in following Him. When it's good for me I have the foolish whim that I created that good. I want to take credit for the blessing that I made for myself. It is not only foolish thinking; it is arrogant and prideful thinking....and we all know the end result of pride.....that's right.....a fall is coming.
Bad seasons are longer for me. They are miserable and at times seem hopeless. A bad season is like living in a pit with no ladders or ropes. When the season of bad came to my doorstep, life hit hard from the blind side and my response was not turning to God, but rather to a bottle of escape. I was knocked in the pit through no desire of mine and was stuck. The only thing worse than being in a pit for a season is being in a pit for a season with a bottle of escape thinking that will help make the pit more comfortable. No matter how many L-shaped couches or Lazy Boy recliners you outfit the pit with....it doesn't stop being a pit.
I lived in a season of alcohol abuse, numb to the fact that there were lessons to be learned while going through a difficult season in my life. School was in session and I was too drunk to show up. The more I drank the deeper the pit. People got hurt, people I dearly love. I lost any sense of self-respect, there was an absence of dignity. I had a self-loathing and even for a season, a death wish I think. No hope for me, no peace, no joy, no dancing, no love, no help, nothing....it was all gone and I felt I no longer deserved those things anymore anyway. The more I despaired, the more I drank....the more I drank, the longer the season of bad. I got to the point that I was convinced I had entered a harsh winter in my life and it was here to stay.
However, when I truly came to the end of me....and you know, that's what we have to do, come to the end of us....before we can move on into the healing God offers. I came to the end of me and found God present. He was with me in the pit....in fact, He never left when I fell into it....He was always there. I take comfort in the fact that the Bible promises God never leaves us nor forsakes us. He is present always whether we feel His presence or not. In that season of bad, that pit....I found Him to be the one constant I could depend on.....he is the only constant in my life when I think about it. Circumstances change, seasons change....some are good, others are difficult; people change...some walk away, others stay; but God never leaves....whether we're up or down! He is in control too. Our seasons never blind side Him like they do us and He always knows what to do. Afterall, He's seen it all before.
I am not saying I now live in a constant state of blissful seasons. I still endure seasons in my life that bring difficulty and tests....I just don't drink over them anymore. I trust my Constant, I can count on Him...and I learn and grow....and I have clear eyes and a clear head....even living through a difficult season. Life happens, life is great at times and life sucks at other times...you can't count on life....however, you can count on God.....He never changes....He is the Constant. This is the reason the Psalmist refers to Him as a rock....He is unmovable....and when typhoons in life hit us....we can go to that Rock for shelter. You won't find that kind of security in a bottle, a needle, or from a conversation with even the best of psychologists...only in Him and Him alone.
Blessings!

That Elusive "High-Life"

If you, like me, have walked with the Lord for any length of time, you no doubt know firsthand what it is like to revel in His glory. We truly enter into a high-life that compares to nothing else we've known before. It isn't that we enter into a "pie in the sky" life, but into a relationship that is so overwhelming it has the ability to change how we view our world, our problems, and those around us.
And....if you've walked with the Lord for any length of time, you also know what it's like to walk away. I don't know what it is about me but I have a tendency to want to create a "high-life" of my own. Every time I do, I always end up in a place I never intended to be. That place is always worse and I end up getting hurt and hurting others. It is like exchanging the freedom I have in Christ for the chain, muzzle, and leash ensemble of enslavement. My pursuit of a "high-life" of my own making turns me into a low-life every time.
I often wonder why I have a bent toward chains. Christ went through so much, endured so much, and conquered so much for my complete freedom. He wants me to experience the reality of a high-life only He can offer and I still want to create one of my own. Perhaps it's because I lived in chains so long they became habit....sometimes it's easier to deal with what you know than change everything you think about or do. Maybe His freedom just simply scares me. I don't understand it and I certainly don't deserve it. Why is it we humans always feel that the good we receive we have to earn? Maybe I simply tend to shy away from something freely given because the skeptic in me always thinks there's a catch, a fine print, a hook.
There is one thing about me I know. I'm selfish. I want to be in control of my own destiny. From that I think perhaps my leaning toward creating my own "high-life".
Paul addressed this in his letter to the church in Galatia. After coming into Christ's freedom, they were being duped into following the law. So they placed the Christ, who utterly saves, in a cage in order to follow the law that had no power to save at all. Paul, in a word, called this crazy! I identify with the church in Galatia though.....following Christ and walking in his unmerited freedom was less familiar than living out a faith they could control by observing and attempting to keep the law.
If you have never strayed from your beloved freedom in Christ in pursuit of going your own way; if you have never selfishly and foolishly attempted to create your own "high-life", the following is not for you. If you identify with what I am referring to here, then read on.
This is my first stab at rhyme. After reading, you may ask me to never "busta' rhyme" again. I do hope you get the message....I simply thank my God He never leaves or gives up on me, even when I try to put Him in a cage so I may trail off and ultimately fail in creating my own "high-life".

Lion in a Cage

Placed Him in a cage deep within,

Had to walk my own way, live in sin again.

A life of separation, isolation, and despair,

Thinking of the "high-life" being just around the corner, but always there.

I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,

Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.

Pushing and pressing against the bars,

He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.

Now neck deep in the stench of my choices,

The "high-life" is still around the corner, I can hear its voices.

Blind to my situation, in a pit, unaware of my desperation,

Pressing forward to selling myself away,

wrapped in chains never again to see a free day.

I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,

Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.

Pushing and pressing against the bars,

He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.

Captive now to what I hate, never dreamed of such a fate.

A puppet on a string, a slave to everything.

No freedom, no joy, no power,

Losing myself to the "high-life" by the minute, by the hour.

I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,

Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.

Pushing and pressing against the bars,

He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.

Where am I?, Who am I?...wanted life on the high,

Exchanged His truth for a lie and the life around the corner has passed me by.

Stuck in the mud at the bottom of this pit I'm in,

How could I walk away and choose a life of sin again?

I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,

Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.

Pushing and pressing against the bars,

He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.

Gonna set this Lion loose inside of me, free to roam every part,

even into the dark corners of my heart.

Gonna set this Lion loose, from around my neck remove this noose.

Make me the me He wants me to be,

Fill me with His power and roar, to go my own way again nevermore.

I have a Lion in a cage deep inside of me,

Pacing the floor, wants to take control and break free.

Pushing and pressing against the bars,

He weeps over my selfish stupor, wants to overtake and heal my scars.

Well...hope and pray you will choose to live His high-life. It is the only one that's real. Blessings....Richard

A Day in the Sun

I love spring. It seems the sun shines brighter in spring. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because with spring there is newness of life breathed into the earth. Dead, brown grass begins to wake up after its long winter slumber and becomes green. Maybe the grass thinks the sun shines brighter in spring too...and turning green is its way of saying thank you. Naked trees that lost their clothes of leaves start to bud and new clothes of leaves begin to grow. It must be embarrassing for the trees to be out in front of God and everybody naked all winter. I would be if I had to stand outside all winter naked in front of God and everybody. I wonder if the trees, while their buds are popping through their branches, whisper to the sun and say, "You know, I'd like something in a pastel plaid this season."....or, "Sun, it doesn't matter; outfit me in something new and different! Surprise me!"
Spring is like a "do-over". All the bright and beautiful colors and hues break forth in spring. Most of them carry on through the summer. Nature seems to celebrate the burning warmth of the sun in spring. All the colors that come out is its way of tanning I suppose. I almost envy that because I don't tan well, I just turn a darker shade of white when I attempt tanning. When I tan too long at one time, I go from white to lobster red in a blink. Lobster red is a bad look. My kids tan well. Thank God they got their pigmentation from their mother! Anyway....what was once dead and stripped bare becomes alive with activity and excitement. This resurrection, if you will, in nature affirms the tenacity of life in its fight to overcome death. And overcome it does!
All of humanity comes alive as well. We come out of our homes, condos, and apartments....our cocoons...and take flight in the freedom of warmer days and brighter skies. I don't know of anyone who ever got "cabin fever" in spring. That disease is usually epidemic in the dead and cold of winter. I like to observe how life outside seems to crescendo from us being trapped inside during winter, protected from the cold, sometimes bitterly cold, elements to venturing out on a warmer day to walk, or work in the yard, or play catch with our children, or whatever we do outside. A trickle at first, then days get consistently warmer and longer and more go outside to explore their freedom until it seems no one is inside anymore. That's the beauty of the coming of spring.
Winter on the other hand is just the opposite. It almost seems winter has no heart. It steals away the beauty of changing colors and the Indian summers we enjoy in fall and springs on us with a vengence. It pounces on us like an unseen mountain lion. No matter how we prepare for the harshness of winter, when it comes it is as if we didn't prepare enough. When it hits, it kills everything in sight like a nuclear explosion.
I love snow when its falling. It's beautiful really. I like how it quiets the earth, how it seems to make everything still. But there is an ugly and nasty side to snow that has fallen. We have to plow it away from our sidewalks and driveways so we can maneuver in and through it. We have to clear it from our vehicles so we can travel to work or the local market. Work crews contaminate the roadways with salt and sand in order to melt it away. Snow melts and turns to slush, slush sticks and freezes to our fender wells and builds to the point it rubs against the tires. Regardless of the color of your vehicle, chances are your vehicle endures a layer of brown, salty yuck throughout significant periods of winters' grip.
I survived a blizzard this past season. Drifts as high as the eaves of the roofs of my apartment complex in some places. We were all trapped in our caves for days in the aftermath. Thank God I went to the grocery store just before the onslaught of the storm. That's how winter can be...unpredictable, relentless, vicious, and well....heartless. No respecter of persons or landscape this sometimes wicked and cruel season is.
The contrast of these seasons help me to reflect on my journey in life. I lived a harsh winter when I was in the grip of alcohol abuse. Those were dark, cold nights that went on forever. They were unpredictable...sometimes I would have a few belts and be done, sometimes I got hit with a blizzard of one after another....waking up the next morning wondering what happened the night before and questioning who I hurt during the white-out. There were many I hurt while enduring that season of winter in my life. Those who wanted to help were pushed away. I wanted to be left alone in my cocoon with my bottle....hibernating away from the world around me.....and I felt alone. Nobody really cared, nobody understood.....I floated in an icy river of self-pity and shame. I felt winter had come to stay. I felt I would die in its grip and I felt I deserved nothing more than death. My winter, the hell and cruelty of it, was that there would never ever be any spring and I would never spend a day in the warmth of the sun again. I was buried under an avalanche of hopelessness.
But I didn't die. And while I hurt many, there were still those who never left, never quit believing, and never stopped praying that my winter would turn to spring. At my ugliest, they held on in faith that the God, who they knew was bigger than my drinking affliction, could and would melt away winters' choke hold on my life and resurrect me to a newness of life found only in spring. That transition came through a series of incidents both negative and positive. Painful this transition. Spring didn't suddenly appear for me like it does in the part of the country I live. Where I live it seems there's winter snow on the ground one day and the blooms of spring the next day. Spring comes suddenly here....but not for me. Spring came slowly, in spurts, but it built steam and force with each little burst.
The hardest part was coming to terms with my responsibility for my own winter, admitting I created it and admitting it was my choice to live there. I had spent so much time blaming others and life circumstances for the winter in my life it took awhile for me to realize it was all me, and only me. I think many like me do the same. Who truly thinks it natural to take sole responsibility for the darkness of their self-inflicted winter? That first confession though started the process of spring overcoming my winter. Little by little color started replacing the brown, greys, and blackness in my life. The sun started shining brighter and clouds gave way to bluer skies. A step at a time, a day at a time. With each step and each day came more color. Shame started to give way to respect. Dying fell to the will to live. Hopelessness surrendered to a calm assurance that tomorrow would be different and worth living. Isolation died at the hands of needing others and wanting others around.....until finally I was able to step completely out and enjoy a full day in the life-giving warmth of a spring sun.
"Is it always spring?",you may ask. It isn't. I still fight to keep winter at bay. The difference is I choose to fight and I am doing what I need to make sure I am equipped to fight successfully. Those I hurt during my season of winter? Some have forgiven me completely, some haven't at all, and some sit watching to see if winter will return or if I will live consistently in spring. Regardless, I love them all. For now I will bask in the sun and revel in the colors God has brought back to my life. One aside, I think I enjoy this season of spring, this do-over in my life, after having fought for it and after having taken ownership of the winter I made for myself.
If your season is winter, regardless your addiction, affliction, habit, issue, or hurt....there is a spring for you ahead. It really is your choice what season you live in. Living in a season of spring is so much more satisfying. There are those who haven't left. Even if you feel alone, you're not. Take the "do-over" waiting for you and come with me for a full day in the sun of springtime!

Living a Less Than Life

I recently viewed a movie about a man who traveled the country holding seminars on grief and the grief process. He helped other people navigate through their grief positively and successfully. His seminars developed on the heels of a book he'd written based on the subject. It was a national best seller. He was a popular author and much in demand. He wrote the book from his own experiences as a result of losing his wife in a fatal car accident.
I bought this movie for $9.99 plus tax. I thought it was going to be a romantic comedy. After all Jennifer Aniston starred in it. She doesn't do anything but comedy and the television show Friends right? I was expecting witty dialogue that made you laugh out loud, comedic tension between the two main characters (hereafter, Burke and Eloise), and the effect on others their relationship impacted. I was expecting to see myself in the movie....mostly due to the fact that some of my romances from the past played like comedies....or rather I should say, played like tragic comedies. Initially I simply thought my better half would enjoy it....I'm more an action movie guy myself....so I got the movie.
The plot was much more dramatic than comedic, much to my surprise and initial disappointment. I immediately apologized to my significant other and offered an optional viewing of Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. She declined that option....still trying to figure out why.
The subject I thought was handled with gentleness and dignity. I mean it was about grieving the loss of a loved one. Not exactly a topic to make a romantic comedy of. The twist came when we realized that Burke, doing all these grief recovery seminars, was also still grieving his loss because he lied about one small detail of the incident. In his book and testimony in the seminars he shares that his wife was alone in the car and lost control when she tried to avoid hitting a dog standing in the middle of the road. The car slammed into a tree on the drivers' side killing her instantly. In actuality, he was driving the car, and it slammed into the tree on the passenger side. For years he blamed himself for her death. The irony was, while he was helping others heal, he hadn't experienced any healing for himself....he hadn't moved one step beyond the battered car and the broken body of his wife....due to the denial of this one specific fact. From that point forward he covered it up, lied about it, wrote a book about grief, went on a book tour, then a seminar tour and still carried that spec of denial with him. It haunted him like a spectre. And all his success couldn't fix him.
Denial is debilitating, it paralyzes....keeps us from moving forward, keeps us from coming clean. It keeps us stuck....in a rut.....of living a life we were never intended to live. It sticks us with a "less than life". Denial tells us what we want to hear and shields us from reality. I drank alcohol; denial told me I didn't have an alcohol problem....that I was fine, that I could hold my licquor, that nobody could even tell I was drinking when I did. Even when I lost jobs, relationships, respect, and driving privileges.... denial kept telling me I didn't have a drinking problem. I believed that. It was easier to believe I didn't have a drinking problem than it was to face it and fight it. Facing and fighting just seemed too strenuous and exhausting. I was stuck in a "less than life" and even denied that!
When my world shattered it was everyone's fault but my own. Denial, you see, will lull you into thinking your problems are because of someone else or something else. Denial is an expert at conning you into placing the responsibility for your issues, addictions, and faults on circumstances or people. "If it weren't for the promotion I didn't get...", "if my wife hadn't left me....".......these are the kinds of things denial teaches us to say. And we stay stuck in that "less than life".
I didn't want to live a "less than life". I hated living at that address. In the deepest part of me I knew the truth, I just didn't want anyone else to. My problem was a shameful one. I was ashamed every time I drank to drunkeness. I buried that shame and kept on drinking. I was afraid of coming clean, of confessing my problem. I just wanted to keep it to myself. I did this mostly because I feared what everyone else would think of me. It was like I was living two separate lives or something. The fact is everyone around me already knew. Isn't that a pip? They already knew! My children knew, my parents knew, my siblings knew, my co-workers knew, my friends knew, and even people I went to church with knew. I was the only one who didn't think anyone else knew. Denial is a very strong deceiver.
Denial went out of its way to keep me from coming clean...convinced me that coming clean would be much harder than drinking. Denial also lies. After a horrible incident with one of my children, happened when I was drunk of course, and with strong encouragement from my best friend, I came clean. I admitted my problem, that I needed help. In that confession the weight of the world fell from my shoulders. We make confession out to be the bad guy. You know, like when we confess something we've done that isn't positive; we think everyone is gonna walk out of our lives and we will be alone to face the music of our mistakes. I am finding most people walk away from us when we deny our problem and continue to live at the address of a "less than life." They walk away because they are exhausted from trying to show us and help us through the problem we swear we don't have. When I confessed my problem and started getting help, God surrounded me with a host of people, angels, that brought encouragement and friendship. They drove the U-Haul to my address of a "less than life" and helped me pack up and move to the right side of the tracks.....to the address of "the life God intended me to live". I like living there. The sky is bluer, the air is fresher, and the lawn is greener. It isn't always utopia, but it is living in the Land of Oz compared to that "less than life".
"What about Burke in the movie?", you ask. "What happened to him?" Well, he met a girl, Eloise. She had a way of making him look at his reality of denial, of seeing into the parts of him he made unavailable and that were dark.....and she stayed, like true friends do, as he struggled to come clean. He did, publicly, at one of his seminars. It was his beginning in freedom. He kisses the girl at the end...... coming clean you see, sets you free to move forward with your life...and you get to kiss the girl. Happy endings always make me cry!
We have choices, we always have choices in life. If you are in denial and deep inside you know it, as I did....come clean....it will free you to see your tomorrows differently and you'll be amazed to find that many in your world are praying to come alongside you and help you move to the right side of the tracks to "the life God intended you to live."

You've Got a Friend

"There are "friends" who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother." -Proverbs 18:24 NLT

I have always been a huge follower of James Taylor. To this day I still get lost in all of the work he recorded decades ago. In 1971 he released an album,..... (yes....they were actual albums (vinyl) back then, real discs, huge discs requiring a turntable to play)....., entitled Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon. It was the first James Taylor album I ever purchased. On that album was the song, You've Got a Friend. It swept the nation. A simple melody with endearing lyrics and sung in Taylor's laid back, easy-going, unforgettable style. You felt he was actually singing the song to you and if you had trouble and his phone number, you could call him up and he'd be right over!
I was in the 7th or 8th grade when that song released. I was also discovering and developing a singing style of my own. I loved that song and wanted to sing it so badly....but I wanted more importantly my voice to sound like James Taylor when I did. Sadly, my young voice was probably at least 2 octaves higher and I would have sounded more like Carole King, who actually wrote the song, than James Taylor. I didn't want to sound like Carole King singing, so I never sang You've Got a Friend....ever....well, maybe in the shower or my car, but never in front of an audience.
I think about what that song says and it actually reflects the central meaning of Proverbs 18:24... ..."There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother". The first part of 18:24 speaks of so called "friends" who dawn the mask of pretense. They appear to be "friends" but really aren't at all. When the party is on they are there with their arms around you, especially if you're the one buying. Such "friends" usually seek to take what they can get from you, not what they can do for you. Their pretentious masks are deceiving. They prey on the knowledge that as humans we all want and desire friendship, it truly is one of our basic needs. They will do what they can to take advantage of that before they are found out. They lull us to the point of complete trust and after we are spent, and there's nothing left to give, they disappear under the cover of night and we don't even know they're gone until the sun rises.
I look at the last part of 18:24, the main thought of the verse, and ask," How does one determine the false friend from the true friend?" My only answer is this: real friends can be discovered by how they respond when our circumstances are less than positive. When my world is caving in, falling apart, shattered, when all hell is breaking loose in my life.....real friends show up, they stand with me, sit with me, pick me up when I've fallen, clean me up when I'm dirty. They feed me if I'm hungry, pour in the oil and the wine of healing when I'm sick, encourage me when I'm so depressed the only thing I look forward to is death. Regardless of how adverse the circumstances in my life or how ugly my life has become, real friends stay...they don't run away....they stay.
My best friend, (I will call The One Who Should Have Always Been) has been with me when my circumstances were dismal, hopeless.... she has seen loved ones and others walk out of my life because of the ugliness of it....and yet has stayed. At my very worst and lowest, The One Who Should Have Always Been has done nothing but love without the expectation of anything in return. She believed in me when no one else would, when no one else could. She poured her life into mine when it seemed I had no life at all. She looked beneath that turbulent layer of my life and saw a heart that beat for God....just like God! That's what best friends do....they see beyond the crap and focus on the real in your life, the good in your life, and they stay! She has become my significant other, a rock, a shelter where I can run and find acceptance, peace, and rest. Forever grateful to a merciful God I am for her!
I am also re-discovering friends from days gone by. I am remembering the bond then and finding that bond is still as strong today. Decades have passed and it amazes me how you can just pick up where you left off with a true friend. I know now that it has to be a God thing. I am facing uncertainty because of a layoff from work in February. About that same time I started re-connecting with these old friends....they were coming at me out of nowhere on facebook and I wondered why. It strangely makes sense in one way.....at the point where I was in need of a word of encouragement, where I needed significant someones to stand with me, pray for me, hold me up....God started bringing them in. It was like he was sending angels to minister to me. These are friends who, if I called, would come running...... just like James Taylor...if I had his phone number.
The sidebar here is I have been less consumed with and grinding my teeth to powder over finding a job. The encouragement I have received from these significant others has made me realize I don't go it alone. They are there walking with me and they will see to it I come through. That's what true friends do, they get you through. I am discovering how rich I truly am. I am grateful. I have true friends, real friends, and there are a host of them.
To all my true friends, old and new, thank you for selflessly pouring your life into mine, for making a bumpy trail smooth, for making me laugh when it would be so easy to cry, for pushing me forward when it would be so easy to quit. Thank you for believing in me! Thank you for not giving up on me!! May God find me as faithful a friend to you as you have been and continue to be to me. To you all, I love you!