grace, n.

The freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.

There is no other doctrine, I believe, that is simultaneously the most difficult to understand and yet the easiest to receive than that of grace.  Denominations are split over it, pastors argue about it, cultures ignore it, and only a few ever embrace it.  Why is this one little word, this small, yet overwhelmingly powerful concept, so difficult to embrace?

I meet people every day who are weighed down by the burdens of life.  Many of them have suffered abuse and terrible trauma in their histories.  They were beaten, molested, used by others for sexual gratification and other unspeakable acts.  They have scars and pain that runs deep.  Most have since learned to use their bodies in some addictive manner to seek relief from this pain, only to realize that their addictions simply lead to more pain (for themselves as well as their friends and family).  Their lives are then held up by many in the religious world as examples of decadent, self-indulgent living that Scripture clearly denounces.  They are ridiculed, rejected, and run over by the very people entrusted to share the beautiful news of grace with them.  Many of them already know God, but run to the dark corners of life in a useless attempt to hide from their shame.

What kind of response do you think I get from these individuals when I tell them that God loves them?  Since many of these folks have grown up in religious circles, their response is often one of scoffing or disbelief.  They snort, turning their head aside with a mocking grin stretching across their face, as if to say, “Yeah, I’m sure God loves a guy who cheats on his wife and regularly thinks of killing himself.”  It is as this point that I bring up the topic of grace.

“Yes, God does love that guy.  And you know why?” I ask.

“Probably because He has to.  He’s God, after all.”

“No, He loves that guy because He chooses to.  He loves that guy because of grace.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you couldn’t earn it, so you can’t lose it.  It’s a love that is constant, pure, perfect, and eternal.  And it matters not a wit what behaviors you commit as to whether or not it is given or present.  Grace is a one way street of favor and love based solely on the prerogative of the one giving it.  The only thing you can do with grace is reject it.  And even then, it doesn’t change.”

About half the time, people want to hear more.  Some, however, have been so hardened by the difficulties of life they choose to remain locked in their shame, unwilling to even entertain the notion that there is Someone who is constantly and perfectly in love with them - every minute of every day, regardless of how imperfect and broken their lives have become. 

Why is it so hard to embrace grace? 

I believe you don’t have to go any further than the definition of grace to understand why it is so difficult to fully embrace.  Grace is defined as the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.  Let’s break down this definition to see why grace gives us such trouble in our daily, broken lives.

First, grace is freely given.  No obligation, no payment for it, no way the person receiving it could demand it.  It is freely given, not in a begrudging, obligatory manner like we see so often when human beings give gifts.  We are prone to attach strings to our gifts, fully expecting a return on our “investment.”  Not so with grace.  It is freely given, no strings attached.  It is a gift that demands no response and expects no return.

Next, grace is unmerited favor.  Unmerited simply means we don’t deserve it and we can’t earn it.  Merit has to do with my abilities or giftedness.  But grace never takes those qualities into account.  They don’t matter in the economy of grace.  Whether the most talented or the wealthiest or the smartest or the strongest, grace never sees those characteristics.  Neither does grace evaluate the most broken or most wicked or most abused as disqualifiers for receiving favor.  It is unmerited.  Grace is not given based on the “qualifications” of the one receiving it, otherwise it stops being grace and it becomes merely a wage, something earned or forsaken based on the merit of the individual.

Finally, grace epitomizes the love of God.  The Bible tells us that God is love.  Love is an essential attribute of God, it is part of what defines and separates God as God.  Perfect love, not defiled by sin or brokenness.  His love does not waver or wane.  And grace is the vehicle God uses to remind us of His perfect love, this one way street of undying, permanent affection the Creator has for His beloved creation, mankind.  The Bible reminds us that God does not deal with us as our sins deserve, and that we can find salvation and eternal life through simple, childlike faith in the finished work of His Son, Jesus.  And this salvation comes through grace, the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.

Unfortunately, this truth of grace is hard for many to embrace.  It requires a humility that is unnatural.  It means we must look in the mirror and say, “There is absolutely nothing I can do to earn favor with God.  It is completely His work of loving me, redeeming me, and changing me because of His good pleasure, not mine.  Grace is not about me, it is simply given to me.”  This is hard to say.  We want to think we can bring something to the table when it comes to grace.  We may believe we are saved by grace, but then falsely assume we must then work to “keep” God’s favor afterward.  But grace is grace.   God doesn’t change.

Another reason it is so hard to embrace grace is because we think it is limited.  We believe we might be able to actually reach a point at which we have sinned so much or so grossly that God will eventually throw up His hands in exasperation and declare He is done extending grace to us.  But if we believe this to be true, we have changed the definition of grace.  Because, remember, grace has nothing to do with the merit or worthiness of the one receiving it.  Grace is NOT about the recipient, it is about the Giver. 

One of the greatest deceptions that has entered the church is that a person could lose their salvation based on their behavior (i.e. if you sin enough, you will lose your salvation…or you probably weren’t saved to begin with).  Heresy, I say!  This is just another way of bringing works (something I could do, or not do) into the equation that has nothing to do with grace.  And it cheapens the magnificence of God’s beautiful grace.  It elevates man to a position of judge, determining another’s salvation based on how well they are performing.  This is understandable, as the doctrine of grace is scary for a preacher to preach accurately.  After all, it might mean there will be some carnal believers in his flock, thus displaying to the rest of the congregation that he has lost control of his church and they may choose to worship elsewhere.  But God says that He will not lose a single one of His children, even the carnal son or daughter who continues to choose their will over His.  Grace is freely given and never revoked.

Is this a hard truth?  Yes.  Is it an essential truth?  Absolutely!  God’s grace has the power to change our lives into something beautiful, something of value in this life and the life to come.  But we must always remember that it is HIS grace, beginning and ending as His gift, His favor, and His love.  We are simply the wretched, undeserving sinner who happens to have the unspeakable joy of receiving such an unmerited gift.

“Amazing grace how sweet the sound…”

Embracing grace,

jonathan

I’ve been thinking lately about friendship and what makes it so powerful, so I thought I would share some thoughts rattling around in the tin cup of my mind.  Friendship is a unique bond, somewhat hard to describe in academic terms or even to contain with words.  To define friendship requires you to use words like “feel” and “kinda like” and “imagine.”  But that is part of what makes friendship so powerful, it connects with a part of us that is unseen, a deep immaterial place where souls collide, yet in such a collision we find peace and rest and comfort.

Friendship has a spiritual quality to it that is also quite hard to explain, yet we have all (or most of us have) experienced this.  And what is most fascinating to me about friendship is that we really can’t be everyone’s friend.  Oh, we try and pass this idea off as if it is possible, but let’s face it, it’s not.  And you and I know this because we have people we call friends and then there is everyone else (acquaintances, co-workers, strangers, etc.).  There are special qualities that make our friendships different from our other relationships.  What then are these qualities?

First, I think friendship starts with commonality.  It is very difficult to be friends with someone with whom you have nothing in common.  While you may not be enemies with them, you can’t really be their friends.  Something draws us together with other people of similar interests, similar age, similar backgrounds or careers or culture.  We connect first on what is common.  In fact, it’s impossible to even meet someone without first sharing common space!  Whether we meet at a church service, the gas station, or a rock concert, we must first connect on something common before friendship can emerge.

What about the idea that opposites attract?  

Well, that’s all they do: attract.  While someone with a different personality might catch your interest initially, you ultimately only become friends because you find common ground.  A “friendship” without common ground is nothing more than a regular acquaintance, at best.

The most important shared interest to a friendship is time.  You simply cannot become friends with someone without spending time with them.  The depth of your friendships is directly proportional to the amount of time you spend with your friends.  The term “quality time” has absolutely no meaning or relevance apart from the commitment to “quantity time.”  You only get those quality moments as brief flashes on the timeline of spending many, many “lesser” times together.

Can I even develop friendships with the pace of life what it is today? 

Only if friendship becomes a life priority.  It’s true that we live in a very fast paced society, with seemingly barely enough time to eat and sleep, let alone develop friendships.  But when friendships begin to become a priority, you might be amazed at how little value other activities hold (like “having” to watch American Idol; it’s OK to keep eating).  When you prioritize being a friend, you get a double blessing in return: less stress and a person who truly cares about you.

The second fundamental virtue of friendship is loyalty.  True friends don’t bail out.  In fact, you can usually determine whether someone is truly your friend by whether or not they stick with you through thick and thin.  Unfortunately, loyalty is losing ground in the post-modern world.  As individualism becomes our god, the mantra of society screams, “Me, me, me” without regard for fellow brothers and sisters.  And thus you see fewer and fewer people in the world who taste the sweet fruit of real friendship.  This saddens me because we all need friends.

I have to admit that loyalty is tough for me (but I’m getting better at it!).  It’s just so easy to think of myself first and self-protect, even if it hurts those I love.  But friends look out for each other, thinking of the other more highly than themselves.  And what this sort of loyalty produces is powerful.  The Bible even talks of such loyalty, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)  Loyalty fans the flames of friendship.  And if you’re wondering where the flames of friendship come from, they ignite with conflict.

Real friends disagree at times.  No true friendship (of any real value) is without conflict.  Conflict is the test of the friendship.  When you disagree with a friend (about anything) you have a test before you.  Will you press through the fires of disagreement and come out the other end refined and stronger because of it, or will you jump ship and decide the friendship isn’t worth it (probably because you have the false belief that friendship should “just happen”).  When you learn to argue well, to graciously concede, to fight respectfully, then you have a real good shot at developing some lifelong friendships.

Finally, the most important virtue of true friendship is love.  “Friendship love” grows over time.  It is rare (impossible, really) to love someone you just met.  You meet because of commonality, you grow in your friendship through time and testing, and then love blossoms.  This isn’t romantic love (necessarily), but rather a deep affection for someone with whom your soul has been intertwined.  You’ve faced battles together (some even against each other), you’ve cried together, you’ve laughed (until you cried), you’ve shared your deepest, most intimate thoughts and struggles.  Out of such a journey of friendship comes love.

It’s interesting to me how we all (and, yes I mean ALL) long for friendship, yet we often don’t believe love to be so integral to the process.  It’s almost like we say, “I love my wife, but Karl is ‘just a friend’” as if Karl can’t be loved too, or that love isn’t necessary in the journey of friendship with Karl.  But it is necessary!  Karl needs “friendship love” as much as my wife needs “romantic love.”  Love is key to building friendships.  And because it is key, you really can’t have a whole lot of friends.  Love is deep, not something you offer to every person you meet.  Love is reserved for those cherished few who connect with your heart and choose to even love the unlovable parts of you.

So, what makes friendship so powerful?  I don’t really know. (How’s that for a huge let down?!)  But I believe it has something to do with a need God has placed in us for connection.  We just can’t do life alone.  We need at least one other person who can walk this road of life with us; potholes, blind curves, and all.  Because with such a friend by our side, the road seems less frightening and the burden is much lighter.

What are you waiting for?  Go make some friends…

Thankful for my friends,

jonathan

I know a counselor who recently approached a local church to ask if they would host a conference to help homosexuals learn about God’s best regarding their sexuality.  The pastor of the church simply stated he wasn’t interested.  This, unfortunately, is not uncommon.  There is such a fear among many well-meaning, evangelical churches of how their church fellowship will appear to others.  In many ways, it is politics as usual in the church.

I was thinking about one of our favorite modern hymns lately, Amazing Grace.  There doesn’t seem to be any bloodshedding debates among churches concerning this beautiful song, unless of course the words were actually read and embraced.  You see, there is one line in particular, RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SONG, that just grips my heart and conveys such an important truth that is being lost on some of our churches today.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me…”

This song was written by John Newton who spent much of his early life doing wretched things, especially pertaining to slave trading.  But I find it hard to believe that as this song began to circulate among churches that everyone singing it were all to sing it with John Newton in mind as the only wretch it could be referring to.  No, the truth is we are all wretches before a holy God, desperately in need of His saving (and so amazing) grace.  But it seems in the modern church that we have begun to close the doors to certain wretches, while gleefully embracing others.

When a church door is closed on one beggar by another beggar (who just happens to be standing inside the door wearing a cleric’s collar), something has gone terribly wrong in Christ’s church.  We all come to God in a state of wretchedness, of need, of unworthiness and filth.  Even the best we could bring, our most righteous acts, are nothing more than dirty rags before Almighty God.  Yet, in His mercy, in His kindness, in His magnificent grace, He invites us in by way of simple faith in His Son, Jesus.  The wretched welcomed at the table of the King!  Amazing!

So, let us not close the door on the homosexual, the drug addict, the adulterer, or the lost.  Instead, may we extend the same hand of grace, mercy, and love that God has extended to us.  May we offer the hope of Jesus Christ to the broken, beat up, and rejected.  We do not have the right to reject anyone for whom Christ shed His blood, for by whatever means we judge another, we ourselves will be judged. 

Forgive us Lord for our arrogance and unkindness toward our fellow wretches.  May we look in the mirror to see the great wickedness and pride You have miraculously and graciously covered by the blood of Christ.  And in our humility, we welcome - no, we invite those who are lost, broken, confused, or abandoned to come in so they too might taste and see that the Lord is good.

Welcoming fellow wretches,

jonathan

My father died in 1992.  I face every Father’s Day with mixed emotions.  I am sad he is gone, I miss him so much.  But I also love the memories, I love this time of year where I can reflect on the things my dad taught me, the investment he made in my future.

My dad was born in 1937, near the tail end of the Great Depression.  His family was poor and epitomized the grit of the working class.  He grew up in a small town in central Texas where everyone knew each other and the newspaper headlines regularly included such important stories as Mrs. Smith’s tomato garden yielding a bumper crop or the town doctor’s latest fishing triumph (OK, so I may be poking a little fictional fun here, but it was a lot like Mayberry!).  My father learned the value of hard work, keeping your word, and understanding that God was sovereign over all.  It was in that community of family and neighbors that Daddy met the Savior.

Later on Daddy enlisted in the Army and began what would be a 20 year military career followed by a civilian medical career as a nurse.  Early in his life he learned to care for others more than himself.  I don’t know if it was seeing the effects the Depression had on his family and small town or if this desire to help hurting people came from his growing relationship with God, but it was part of what defined him.  I imagine his caretaking nature was a combination of many factors.  Regardless, he was always ready to work, ready to help anyone in need.  I remember this as a defining characteristic of what made Daddy, well, Daddy.

By the time my sister and I came into the picture (early 70’s), Daddy had quite a bit of life experience already behind him.  He was 37 when I was born.  Therefore, he brought a lot of wisdom into his role as a father, maybe more than most men who might have started their parenting “careers” in their early 20’s.  He was really proud of his family, as if he was regularly conscious of the fact that he had been given the most prized possession a man could gain.  He gave of his time, energy, money, and wisdom.  He had his share of faults, but they seemed to be more than balanced by his unrelenting desire to do whatever it took to provide and protect.  I wouldn’t understand what all those seemingly mundane, “regular” days with Daddy would mean until years later, years after he was already gone.

I became a first-time father in 2000 and ever since then it has amazed me how often I find myself telling my kids the same things Daddy told me.  Things like, “Turn off the lights when you’re not in your room!”  Or, “Shut that front door before you let all the cold air out.”  But also comments like, “I’m proud of you.  Do the best you can.  You did a great job.”  Daddy invested himself in me and the fruit of that investment is being harvested even in his absence, a harvest that will continue on in his grandchildren.  I am grateful I had a father who was present and active in my childhood.  It made a difference then and it is still making a difference today.

I must confess that I don’t always take my responsibility as a father as seriously as I should.  Life has a way of wrapping its tentacles of urgency around me, inviting me to believe that there are a thousand other things more important than listening to my daughters tell me the latest saga concerning their extensive (and growing) baby doll collections or watching my son climb to the very top of a tree (without falling off).  I don’t always drink in these moments, enjoying the energy and innocence of youthfulness or looking for opportunities to teach them (or model before them) about how much their heavenly Father delights in them - continually!  I hope to improve on capturing these moments and resting in them.

As I think about Father’s Day this year, I am taking a moment to look back and remember the rich heritage of godly manhood that my dad modeled for me in my childhood years.  But I also press in to this moment right now, looking intently at the three precious children God has given me, realizing that my time with them is short (and getting shorter!).  In this season of their lives I want to plant seeds; seeds of faith, honesty, integrity, love, loyalty, hard work, and trust.  I want to lead my children in such a way that when they one day look back over their lives they will smile and possibly even say (or think), “Thanks, Dad.”

Enjoying the terrifying journey of fatherhood,

jonathan

My son, Ethan (at right), loves superheroes!  His favorites include Superman, Spider-Man, and Aqua Man.  Bending the laws of physics is a regular habit of these superheroes.  They fly, shoot spider web silk out of their hands, and all other sorts of things “regular” human beings can’t do.  For little boys (and even us “big” boys) there is an attraction and even envy of these larger than life superheroes.  Why is that?

Human beings are like no other creature on planet earth.  Plants cannot think, reason, or argue.  Animals do not have a soul or the ability to operate outside of mere instinct and survivalism.  Water, rocks, and clouds can’t even move without outside forces acting upon them.  But we humans possess an “otherness” about us, a distinct characteristic that vastly separates us from all others.  This differentness can be summed up in the fact that we are the only part of creation that bears the very image of God.  Plus the fact that we are the only creatures into which “God breathed the breath of life.”  We carry in our being something of the essence of God.  Don’t ask me to fully explain this, but it is there.  And this is why I believe we are drawn to superheroes.

My son doesn’t just like superheroes, he becomes them.  Let’s say Ethan watches a movie with Superman in it.  When the movie is over he isn’t just content to talk to his sisters or to me or his mom about Superman.  No, he leaves the room for a few minutes and then returns with cape flowing behind him as he flies through the house.  He IS Superman.  The superhero characteristics which he saw displayed on the TV screen about Superman are the characteristics he wants to adopt as his own.  For Ethan, the idea of superheroism is not merely intellectual or philosophical, it’s personal.

This is how I think bearing the image of God works in our lives.  There is something inside us (the “stamp” of God Himself) that draws us to that which is beyond our natural lives, beyond what we can see or even imagine.  This pull is toward God.  Some people search for what this pull is drawing them toward and they ultimately find God through a relationship with Jesus.  Others reject or ignore this pull and spend their lives in varying degrees of dissatisfaction and hopelessness.  Regardless, the pull is still there.  But for those who do find God, something incredible happens.  God actually comes into them and resides within them through His Holy Spirit.  He awakens the human spirit, brings it to life, and empowers us to become like Him!  We get to exhibit the characteristics of the Creator, the “superhero” of our souls.

Ethan may not realize right now that his desire to become like the superheroes he watches on TV is actually a spiritual thing, a desire God planted in him the moment he was conceived.  But my hope is that over time he will follow that pull, that desire that is calling him to find God and receive the indwelling gift of His Spirit.  Because when he does he will finally be fulfilled and “being” Superman will seem unnecessary compared to his faith in the Almighty.  (But it is still fun to run around in a cape.)

Grateful for superheroes,

jonathan

I think that the fear of failure is one of the biggies for men. I mean, even the word, fail-ure slides downhill, like your heading for something bad. We don’t read the instructions, we won’t ask for directions, we don’t dare ask for help to fix the garbage disposal. What is it about men and failure? Why is it that failure is so hard and admitting it can be even harder. For me, failure reminds me of the words my Dad used to tell me in frustration when he and I would be working on something together, “Never mind, I’ll do it.” It is like you don’t even get a second chance to succeed. You may have heard similar words from your father or someone significant in your life. Even as I am writing I am feeling that nervousness in the pit of my stomach reminding me that “you better do it right or he isn’t even going to give you the chance to do it at all.”

I think that is what makes most of us guys susceptible to the pride of “don’t ask don’t tell.” No, no I don’t mean it like that, I mean “I won’t ask for help then I won’t have to tell them that I don’t really know.” Have you ever just wanted to throw your hands up and acknowledge that you really don’t know something or that you don’t know how to do something. It’s okay, try it… Now doesn’t that feel better? Just because you acknowledge that you don’t know or that you failed at something does not mean that your a failure. I think however, that failure sends an all too familiar message about who we are and how we want others to perceive us. See in todays dog eat dog, rat race world, we aren’t supposed to fail or need help; we’re just supposed to know.

I admit I have a hard time with failure. I don’t want to fail, I want to succeed. I want you to think that I am good at what I do and look at me with awe and wonder. I want my wife to always think great things about me and remind me of how great I am in meeting her every need. However, many times I fail miserably and then I feel like that little boy running into the house, hurt and angry because my dad would not give me a second chance. I feel that way towards God sometimes… maybe you do to. I have failed again God, what do I do now. What? You want to give me a second chance? Third? Fourth? Fifth?

That is when I discovered the word “re-parenting”. God is a great parent and He loves to re-parent us. Oh, our earthly dads were just living out of what they were taught - “Do it right the first time, or don’t do it at all.” Wow, I can’t live by that - I don’t know how. But God says that when I am weak He is strong (2 Cor 12:10); He says come to me all of you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28) …even when you fail come to me and I will give you rest (that’s my paraphrase). I think that is exactly what He says, not to mention the other great things that He “sings” over me (Zeph 3:17), like He loves me (John 3:16), He honors my trying, He rescues me when I make a mess of things (2 Sam 22:20).

God is disappointed when I fail because He sees the potential that He has placed in me. When I mess up, hide my mistakes, fall into sin, say the wrong thing or make the wrong move, I believe that God is grieved because He offers me the right thing. It is just that sometimes I do the “don’t ask don’t tell” thing with Him as well. I don’t go to Him, I don’t ask Him for what is right or what will get me through, what instructions He has for me. I again, don’t want to acknowledge that I don’t know or that hey, again Lord, I’ve failed. He is a God that never holds our failures against us, but asks us to strive to the next success. He won’t let me stay in my failure, and He doesn’t want me to fail again, but He will help me to find Him and find His way which never leads to failure. So the next time you fail remember that God is the God of second chances, and thirds, and fourths…

Failing, trying, and succeeding,

Lee

My wife and I were recently hiking a nature trail through the hill country (that’s in Texas, by the way) when an interesting insight struck me.  We were on a getaway (that means no kids!) and so we were just talking and enjoying the beautiful scenery along the trail.  About halfway through our hike we decided it would be fun to search for some rocks to bring home to the kids.  Each of our three children have started a rock collection.  This particular hiking trail was near a river, so there were lots of rocks to choose from.  From that point on we were intently focused on the ground right in front of us, searching for the perfect rocks for the kids.

After about 20 minutes of searching for rocks (and finding some pretty cool ones) we looked up and realized we weren’t on the trail anymore.  In fact, we didn’t even know where the trail was!  We were lost.  I stopped, looked around for a minute to get my bearings, and proceeded to lead us back to the trail and eventually out of the woods.  As we were coming out of the woods I realized what got us lost: we didn’t look up.

If you are not careful, life will grow increasingly filled with urgency as you get older.  More responsibility involves more work and more deadlines and more people placing greater expectations on you.  It is easy in this environment to gradually drop your head (and eyes) and begin to focus only on what is directly in front of you, directly on whatever is most urgent.  The problem with this is that it removes those urgent things from the context of your life, your direction, your purpose.  Focusing only on that which is in front of you can cause you to forget that your life is “more than food and clothing and shelter.”  Real life always goes beyond mere urgency.

It isn’t that the urgent things in life are unimportant (some are, but that’s for another time).  But when the urgent becomes our focus, we lose sight of the bigger picture and how our lives fit into it.  For example, we have all had car problems (assuming you’re at least 25 years old).  A flat tire, a dead battery, an accident, whatever.  Something happened to your car that threw a wrench into your plans for that day.  That is an urgent matter.  But if you chose to focus on that urgent event, without putting it into the context of life being bigger than that, you probably found yourself anxious, angry, or afraid.  Your car needed to be fixed, but it cannot be compared to your life or your purpose.  It’s just a car.  If you don’t look up from the urgent to take in the grander view, you miss seeing how that bump in the road fits into your life and the ultimate direction God wants to steer you.

I still get distracted with the urgent, and it’s not always a crisis.  It may be something that I really love (ahem, maybe golf, for instance).  I get so locked into whatever it might be that I see nothing else; work, family, friends, etc.  My wife and I wanted to do something fun for our kids on that nature trail.  That was a good thing.  But even a good thing can distract us from the path, from the direction and purpose God has for us.  When we don’t look up we must blaze our own path, and nothing good comes from such an endeavor.  We must see life from God’s perspective if it is going to make any sense in the moment, in the here and now of everyday living.

What appears bigger than life to you right now?  Are you unable to see the path because you have locked your eyes on to the urgent?  Are you wrapped up in a habit or addiction that is keeping you lost in the woods?  I invite you today to look up.  Ask God to give you a new perspective on that most difficult area in your life right now.  He wants you to see that nothing is too big for Him to walk you through.  In fact, God doesn’t even have the word “difficult” in His vocabulary.  Will you allow Him to take your hand and lead you back to the path He has for you?  You don’t have to wander around lost in the woods any longer.  Look up!

Looking up,

jonathan

God has been tearing down a few more walls in my life lately. It’s funny (sad, really) how I can think I have come so far on my journey only to look up and realize I haven’t moved an inch on the timeline of eternity. One of the walls God seems to be keenly focused on right now is pride (probably one He will be chipping away at for some time). I have come to the sober realization that I have not fully embraced my insignificance. God really doesn’t need me. I don’t add anything to Him that would complete Him or enhance His essence in any way. Sadly, I often think God couldn’t do “purity ministry” without me. He is breaking me of the lie.

As I am coming to fully accept my “nothingness” I am feeling emotions on a deeper level than I have in years. It is almost as if my pride (even as a minister) was numbing my heart, my emotions. As God knocks down this horrible wall of thinking more highly of myself than I ought, my heart is waking up a little more. It is softer, more receptive to the Holy Spirit.

This week I was praying and thinking about John the Baptist when he stated, concerning Jesus, “He must increase, I must decrease,” and I got it! I mean, I understood his statement on a personal level. I felt a desire to decrease, to truly become nothing so that Christ is everything. I don’t know if I had ever desired to be nothing before. It’s not a concept we are taught in our culture or something that comes naturally. But I felt it in a way that was almost tangible, like nothingness was a beautiful goal.

Ironically, God is doing all this work on stripping my pride just as our ministry (http://www.bebroken.com/) is on the cusp of some pretty significant publicity events (Possible Nightline interview, my newest book release, etc.). A year ago I would have relished the opportunity to be on TV promoting the ministry, but not necessarily because I hoped to help more people break free from their lust. My pride would have wanted the spotlight for me. So, I pray that God keeps smashing through my pride, breaking me down to dust, ensuring that anything of worth or value that comes from my life can only be attributed to His might, His mercy, and His will.

Will you join me in my pursuit of decreasing? I pray you will, because I am finding it is a fantastically rewarding journey…

Embracing my insignificance,

jonathan

Brokenness is not a condition we usually desire. We typically associate brokenness with weakness, being incomplete, or something is out of order. We don’t strive to be broken. We don’t pursue brokenness like we would wealth or fame or love. Yet, we are all broken. We are all weak, imperfect and in need, regardless of economic position or social status. Brokenness is the common denominator in all of humanity. We all come up short of perfection or wholeness. But no one seems to admit their brokenness. This is truly sad because I see such beauty in our brokenness.

The world seems to be getting worse. Hate, envy, greed, and lust seem to be overtaking us in profound, encompassing ways. Morality has become relative and God is being pushed away with blatant arrogance. The more we elevate ourselves, the more our crevices of brokenness widen. As our brokenness worsens, we once again turn to ourselves to find solutions. We scramble around for something to make sense out of our growing emptiness and frustration. We turn to sex or money or fame or power or anything that will cause us to appear less broken than we really are. And it seems to work, but only for a short while. The emptiness and loneliness and fear never goes away. So we chase after more money, more sex, more power and so on until our brokenness is then accompanied by fatigue or illness or death. Where is the beauty in that?!

I suppose the beauty isn’t so much in the brokenness as it is born out of brokenness. Brokenness is God’s agent (and sometimes God’s doing) for causing the broken one to acknowledge need. We don’t acknowledge need very well, at least not in America. We acknowledge want, but need is very different. To need is to require dependence, to recognize our own inabilities, our weaknesses, our shortcomings. We are so quick to live out of our pride, believing we have within us what it takes to be whole, complete, and unbroken. But we do not possess this because none of us were born with it. Instead, we were all born with the same inherent quality of need.

I find it fascinating that when God created man He breathed into him the breath of life. In other words, man was the only part of God’s creation in which the Creator placed the essence of Himself within it. All the other creatures and plants and water and such was simply spoken by God into existence and then perpetuated after its own likeness. But man, human beings, were breathed into by God, our spirit uniquely tethered to the spirit of the Creator. We come from God and are only sustained by God. We require total dependence on God (whether we acknowledge Him as Lord or not!). Need, or dependence on the Sustainer of life, is fundamentally common to us all. And it is out of this need that beauty can be found in our brokenness.

Because God made us to need Him, we can only be complete in Him. In other words, whatever we attempt apart from dependence on God will ultimately fail. Even the most basic of needs will fail apart from God. For instance, if I chose to prevent myself from breathing (this would be attempting something apart from dependence on God) I would soon die. This is an obvious example, but it is true of other aspects of life as well. If I chose, even now as a believer in Christ, to live my life however I saw fit, without regard for God’s Word or the prompting of the Holy Spirit, whatever I sought to do (regardless of how godly it may appear to onlookers) would eventually burn up as worthless deeds. To be whole, effective, and fulfilled requires utter and total dependence upon God. This sort of absolute surrender is truly a beautiful thing, even if it is unpopular and seems unnatural.

Our brokenness, or state of need, is what can draw us to God, the One who can fulfill and surpass all our needs and desires. The key to finding beauty from brokenness is to quit trying to repair yourself and instead allow God to touch your deepest hurts, fears, and longings. God made you and He made you to need Him. God knows what you need even more than you do. Brokenness is God’s pathway to Himself, inviting the weary wanderer to find rest and purpose and peace in His presence. Stop trying to fix your broken life! Fall on the mercy of God and allow your brokenness to bring you to the end of yourself and your ineffective solutions. God wants to add unimagineable beauty to your life - through your brokenness.

Broken and beautiful,

jonathan

P.S. To get Mark Schultz’s album, Broken & Beautiful, click here.

The following is the first chapter of the unedited book manuscript I just finished last month. We are in the process of editing and seeking out a publisher, but thought you faithful blog subscribers should get a glimpse at what I’ve been working on. I hope to have the book published and available sometime later this fall. Let me know what you think of this first chapter by emailing me directly at jonathan@bebroken.com.

This is longer than my normal blog posts…so grab a cup of coffee before you start reading.

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I wish it never happened.

I remember the day very well. It was 1986 and I was twelve years old. A friend and I were playing in the woods behind his house. It was a hot, steamy summer day. We were pretending to be Rambo, saving captive villagers and waxing the enemy. It felt like boyhood innocence at its best. Then it happened.

“Hey, Jonathan, are you thirsty?”

“You bet I am.”

We headed off through the woods, back toward my friend’s house. We swung our play rifles by our sides, kicking rocks along the way, heading from one point to another in a zigzag manner as adolescent boys are prone to do. My friend was walking a few paces in front of me when he stopped suddenly, turned around, and with an expression on his face like he just calculated the square root of pi, said, “Oh, I just remembered something I wanted to show you.”

At that, we changed direction and began marching out into an open field covered with tall alfalfa grass. I still remember the musty smell of that grass, so thick I felt as if I could choke on it in the air. The grass coarsely slapped at our jeans as we waded our way out into the field. I remember how hot it was as we walked out from under the cover of the trees. I felt the sun beat down on my neck and sizzle the beads of sweat as they formed there.

As soon as we entered the field, my friend picked up the pace of his walking. I, however, maintained my slower pace, content to take my time, not thinking there should be any hurry to what we were going to do – whatever that might be.

As my friend went on ahead I could see that he was walking toward a tree stump in the middle of the field. My innocent mind began to imagine what “treasures” that stump might hold. Maybe it contained the carcass of a raccoon or wild dog. Or maybe there was some hidden jewelry or other loot left by gypsies. (Sure, gypsies in central Texas. Who knew? This is the way my twelve-year-old mind worked.) Nonetheless, I simply kept walking where my friend was leading.

My friend reached the tree stump first and turned to make sure I was still following. He waited for me at the stump, and as I got closer I noticed a wry smile slither across his lips. I thought nothing of it, but when I reached him I got more excited as I anticipated the unveiling of the hidden treasure that lie beneath the stump.

“Are you ready?”

“Sure, I guess. Ready for what?” I said.

“Ready for this?”

My friend reached his hand down into the tree stump, feeling around for something. All I could hear was what sounded like dry leaves crackling. Then, triumphantly, he lifted his hand out of the stump, grasping what looked like a tube of glossy paper. I couldn’t quite make out what it was. It appeared like it might be a magazine or binder of some sort. He turned toward me, stretched out the cylinder, and opened what he held.

- - - - - - - - - -

There are moments in life that define a person, either positively or negatively. You can’t always see these moments coming. They just seem to ‘appear’ without warning. And when such a moment arrives, if you are unprepared to deal with it, you simply get swallowed by it. And, thus, the moment changes you, or at the very least changes your direction. In my case, my direction was certainly about to be changed.

I am sure my friend had no idea that what he was doing would impact my life the way it eventually did. He never could have imagined in that instant how this seemingly ignorable moment in history would obsessively drive my life for the following 13 years. Moments do matter. And some matter more than others. This moment crippled me in ways I couldn’t realize at the time.

In order to understand the magnitude of this moment, I need to share an incident from earlier in my life. I was six years old. My family was visiting my mom’s parents. I loved my Granny’s house. It always smelled good, like something sweet was around every corner (except the bathrooms, where it always smelled like old people).

One day I was playing in the corner of the living room while my parents and grandparents were talking. I don’t remember what toys I was playing with, but I remember becoming interested in the grownup conversation on the other side of the room. I heard words like “heaven,” “hell,” and “Jesus.” Periodically, I would toss a question their way, not so they would direct their attention toward me, but so I could understand this story they were telling. What they said sounded so real, so attractive. They spoke of all the bad things people did, and called this sin. They talked about God loving us, His precious creation. They shared how God’s heart broke because of our sin, but that He had a plan to fix it. The plan was Jesus paying the penalty we deserved for our sin by dying on a cross and coming back to life. Then they explained how anyone who believed in Jesus would live forever in heaven. I wanted in.

Without drawing attention to myself, I slipped out of the living room and hurried down the hallway. I darted into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. My heart was beating fast, I was nervous about talking to God. But I wanted to go to heaven. I wanted all my wrongs to be covered. I walked over to the toilet and knelt down. With my left arm draped over the seat and my head bowed just below the rim, I prayed.

“God, this is Jonathan. I know I do bad things that you don’t like. I heard my parents talking about the plan you made to fix my bad stuff. I don’t want to go to hell for being bad. I believe Jesus died for all the bad I’ve done. Will you save me?”

Nothing happened. My heartbeat did slow down a bit, but I didn’t see angels or hear voices. The only sound was coming from water slowly dripping in the toilet. I then realized where I was, the smell of old people jolting me back into the moment. I unlocked the door, walked back down the hallway to the living room, and continued playing in the corner. I had no idea of the significance of my seemingly inconsequential moment in the bathroom. I didn’t realize I had just become the newest citizen of heaven.

For several weeks after my bathroom conversion, I prayed every night for Jesus to save me. I kept thinking that I was doing something wrong. I just knew I was supposed to feel something. But each time I prayed, I didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary. I eventually told my parents and they were very excited for me, smiles from ear to ear. This helped. I didn’t figure they would be that excited if I had “done it wrong.”

If there was anything I did notice change, it was my awareness of right and wrong. It seemed I became more sensitive in recognizing when something was wrong, like there was an internal nudge or twinge when something in life wasn’t lining up quite right. While I didn’t recognize it immediately, or even know that it had anything to do with what happened in my Granny’s bathroom, it was there.

And it was this change that caused the moment with my friend in that field as a 12-year-old kid to leave such an indelible mark on my life.

- - - - - - - - - -

Pornography.

That is what my friend pulled from the tree stump and so gleefully presented to me.

“Pretty cool, huh?” my friend beamed.

I thought my heart stopped when he cracked open those pages. The image printed on that first page I saw was immediately seared into my brain. It is still locked away in the dark recesses of my mind, and could probably be recalled if I chose to pull it up again. I had never seen anything like it, and it caused some very strange reactions in me.

Immediately upon seeing the porn I felt the urge to look over my shoulder, as if I knew I was getting away with something. Guilt seemed to spring to life in me and push me toward a “run for the hills” response. But I didn’t run. I stared. I wanted to look, even as the guilt pounded at my mind. I felt a rush course through my body that felt amazing, exciting, and arousing (even though I didn’t know what that meant at the time). What my body was feeling quickly overpowered any sense of guilt I had, and I craved to see more.

“Yeah, pretty cool,” was all I could utter in response to my friend’s question.

We thumbed through the magazine for another few minutes, trying to make out images on some pages that had been rained on. I tried to play it cool, responding to the pictures by taking cues from my friend since this was all new territory for me. But what I really wanted to do was shout Holy cow! This is the wildest feeling I have ever had! My head is spinning, and I’m teetering on the line between vomiting and ecstasy, but this is amazing. How can I reproduce this rush tomorrow and the next day? Instead, I coolly nodded my head, giggled when my friend did, and focused on keeping my jaw from dropping too closely to the ground.

Eventually, my friend rolled up the magazine and stuffed it back down inside the tree stump for some other neighborhood kids to find. We then began to walk away from the stump, through the field, heading in the direction of his house for something to drink. But I wasn’t the same. Something changed. As we marched off that field, I was oblivious to the grass brushing against my jeans or the sun scorching my neck. Instead, my mind was spinning with the naked images I had just seen. In that moment, innocence was lost. A door to another place had been opened and I walked through it. I possessed something I did not have before: a secret. And it was a big one.

I wish it never happened.