GOD/DOG

I read through Ephesians with a friend this week, and we talked it over together last night. It was cool! It's really insightful to hear other's perspectives on biblical truths--how they read it, process it, and what it means to their life. We all glean something different because we are so different!

Anyhow, I'm not sure if we were talking about the second chapter where it talks about "His great love with which He loved us" (vs. 4) or towards the end of the book where we're instructed to "walk in love" (5:2), but something about God's love prompted my friend to share this little tidbit with me.

He said that when he thinks about GOD, often he'll think about a DOG. After I jumped aside to make room for the imminent bolt of lightning that would snuff out his existence (ha!), I asked the only logical question: "Why?!" His answer was awesome.

No matter how you mistreat a dog, it always loves you. Even when you ignore it and act like it doesn't exist, it still meets you at the door with tail wagging and eyes begging for affection. It is thrilled to see you and be with you, regardless of how you feel towards it. When all your other friends are nowhere to be found, you can count on that one friend--your dog.

When he put it that way, I had to agree wholeheartedly! How true it is. I think the main difference is that God's already housebroken (hardy-har-har!)...but that's one analogy that'll stick with me. Sometimes I get so fed up with myself that I think God's fed up too, but when I just come to Him, I find that He always takes me just as I am.

Maybe there's a reason that GOD and DOG are made of the same letters?

Everyday Worship

I find great comfort in the fact that we can engage in worship anywhere at anytime. Growing up in church I had the notion that real worship only happened on Sundays and Wednesdays when we came together to sing songs and have a service. But if that was true, how could we live out a Christian life in worship of God without looking like an idiot? (singing & clapping as we go throughout our day, kneeling in the middle of the office by the water cooler...what?)

Worship is everything we do...done to the glory of God. When we give our best effort at work because we recognize that God provided us with that opportunity to provide for our family, that's worship. When we eat healthy and work up a sweat at the gym because we're thankful for the body that God entrusted to our care, that's worship. When we love our kids and give them the time of day even when we don't feel like it because we know that God's never too busy for us, that's worship.

I'm all for corporate worship...I mean, I love it! (good thing since I'm a music pastor--ha!) But if that's the only avenue of worship that we engage in on a weekly basis, we're missing it BIG TIME! Our everyday life is meant to be lived out in worship...from work to play to church to marriage to talking, eating, drinking and laughing.

Thank God that He doesn't live only in the church, nor does He only take notice of our lives when we're singing songs about Him. Truth is He's interested in every facet of our being; after all, He made us who we are anyhow! I think He's overjoyed when we reciprocate that interest by seeking to live out the life He gave to us in perpetual worship of Him. All it takes is a decision on our part to do so!

Holy Love

Driving home on the highway the other day, I suddenly found myself thinking about my wife...specifically about how I've been loving her lately. I started replaying recent scenarios in my head where she asked me to do something, and I did it, but if I'm honest, I had a pretty sorry attitude about it! If she could've heard the unspoken phrases inside my head, it woulda been on like Donkey Kong!!

Anyhow, for some reason that passage from Ephesians came trickling into my cranial cavity: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her." (Eph 5:25) I started thinking about what that meant--to love my wife "just as Christ also loved the church."

Christ loved the church SO much that He gave His life for it; He died for all people, in the hope that they would put their faith in Him as Lord and Savior. BUT here's the kicker: He did it without any promise or guarantee that ANYONE would ever put their faith in Him. He went to the cross willingly out of love for us knowing inside of Himself that it might not be accepted by any. That is a love that I do not possess or understand, but I want to.

The word "holy" has come to mean something more to me in the last few months. I used to think that it meant "exceptionally good, better than the rest," and that somehow I could achieve more holiness in my life by living well (following the rules, doing what I know I should, etc.). But I think there's a lot more to holiness than that. When we say God is holy, I think it means that He is altogether otherly; everything about Him is on a different plane, a higher dimension, a level of purity and goodness that we can never fully comprehend in this life.

So as I drove that day, I started to ask God to help me love with the holy love that He has already shown us. The kind of love that doesn't act out of any kind of selfish ambition, but simply seeks to love because I want to...because I love my wife, and I want her to know it everyday. And when I reach the end of my life and stand before God, if I can be proud of nothing else, I want to stand there in humble and reverent pride knowing that I loved my wife "just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her."

Have you taken a love inventory lately?

Be

Which matters more: to be or to do?

Here lately I've found myself so busy doing that I've had moments where I wondered if it really even matters. It's this internal duplicity of loving the busy-ness of accomplishment, yet waning in dissatisfaction with the overall results. Not that the results aren't good...just not at the level that I ultimately want to achieve.

No doubt, I'm a task-oriented person; I love checking the little box in my planner beside each action item after I've finished it. But I've had to ask myself (again) if I'm more concerned with doing all that I do than I am with being all that God wants me to be...as a husband, a father, a leader, a musician, a worshiper, a man, a child of God.

Sometimes when I do, the rush of accomplishment makes me forget about how broken I am. For a moment, I'm the man, and it feels good. But just like any emotion, it doesn't last forever, and I'm soon looking at the same ol' guy in the mirror who doesn't have it all together.

But something happens when I embrace that brokenness, when I reject the facade and decide to be transparent with myself and with God. I discover that in no way, shape, or form is His love for me dependent on my performance, my accomplishment, or my track record. His love is His love, and it never changes...it's always been amazing, and it will always be! There's nothing I can do to earn it, or to make myself unworthy of it.

Not that I'm gonna cease to do, but I'm gonna make more time to be. To be broken, to be vulnerable, to be brave, to be real, to be loved...because I am, regardless of how much I do or don't do.

When was the last time you took time just to be?