Mongolia - for all the joy!

I am one week back from my trip to Mongolia and still trying to find the right time zone and still processing an amazing journey.  I returned with both my head and heart filled with wonder at what God is doing.

In the coming days I’m going to attempt to post a few reflections on the trip (try in part because I’ve been such a reluctant blogger of late). 

Perhaps the most lasting impression (beside the taste of airag – fermented mare’s milk) was the beautiful hearts of the V.E.T. NET staff.  I was humbled as I watched them care for some of the least of God’s children and inspirited by how boldly and naturally they shared the gospel.

On our last night in the countryside I chose a section from 1 Thessalonians as a final devotion together and as I return home this has become my prayer for our Mongolians ministry partners:

How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?  Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.

Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.  May He strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones.

My journey to Mongolia was a witness to God answering that prayer as His love increases and overflows to touch hearts – even mine!

Advice

Last night a friend invited a group of men to j a dinner to celebrate his son’s 13th birthday.  Each of us was encouraged to share our experiences, wisdom and advice with his son as he continues the journey into manhood.  It was a fantastic evening and I suspect that those of us who received the invitation were blessed as much (if not more) than my friend and his son.

Here’s the advice and wisdom I shared with him – some of which comes from my dad to me.

1. Never buy cheap shoes.  Dad’s theory was that you spend a lot of your day on your feet so you want good shoes.

2. Never buy a cheap mattress.  Dad continued that you spent the rest of your day in bed so you want a good night’s sleep.

I added the following to Dad’s wisdom.

3. Whenever you get a chance to travel – travel.  We live in an amazing world and we should take every opportunity to go out and see it.   It doesn’t matter if you are sleeping on the floor or on a train – travel.  

4. Take more risks.  Study after study and life after life confirm that our deepest regrets are always the risks we didn’t take.  Ask out someone way out of your league.  Apply for a job way over your head.  Try out for a team you have no hope of making.  Run for an office you can’t win.  You never know what might happen.  The girl way out of my league said “yes” and “I do!”

5. Don’t wait.  Back in 1981 we traveled to the Orange Bowl to watch Clemson play Nebraska for the National Championship.  We were broke – so we slept of the floor at a hotel room provided for the band and I have no idea how we ate (I think by crashing tailgaters).  If we had waited until we could afford it to attend a National Championship Game for Clemson – we would still be waiting (though I have hope hopes based on our last couple of recruiting classes)!

6. Live generously.  More and more I am discovering that wealthy people don’t become generous.  Generous people become wealthy.  Start living generously with whatever you have now.

7. Make loving God and loving our neighbors more than just a phrase.  A life built on love is the only kind of life worth living and Jesus meant it when He promised that when we get loving God and loving our neighbors right everything else falls into place.

Tigger or Eeyore?

If you know Winnie the Pooh then you likely know the difference between Eeyore and Tigger.  Eeyore is pessimistic, depressed, and deflated. He has no self confidence and doesn’t think he does anything right. Tigger is energetic, joyful, enthusiastic, and positive.  For Tigger everyday is a new adventure filled with promise, potential, possibility and fun!

Eeyore’s favorite book of the Bible is Lamentations:

People have heard my groaning, 
   

but there is no one to comfort me.

Lamentations 1: 21

Tigger loves passages like those in Psalm 66:

Shout for joy to God, all the earth! 
 

Sing the glory of His name; 
   

make His praise glorious.

Come and see what God has done, 
   

His awesome deeds for mankind!

Psalm 66: 1, 2 and 5

What’s your approach to life?  Tigger or Eeyore?

Something Beautiful

We are just about an hour away from Day Two of Prime Time.  The theme is Boom:  Hearing God’s Voice in a Big Way and in the midst of teaching this week I’ve been trying to do just that and listen to what God may be saying to me.

Our virtue is Obedience and our theme verse is James 1: 22.  We don’t want to be just hearers – we want to be obedient doers of God’s Word. 

This afternoon I attempted to grab a quick energy nap before a high-energy evening.  I put on Needtobreathe to help me relax and as I listened God spoke through their song Something Beautiful especially in these lines:

Hey now, this is my desire

Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful

To touch me, I know that I'm in reach

'Cause I am down on my knees.

I'm waiting for something beautiful

Oh, something beautiful

Last night I was given lost of glimpses of something beautiful as I watched generations laugh and love and learn together.  So my prayer tonight is to let that beauty consume me like a fire and touch my heart.

We are on with the Prime Time version of Boom Boom (and yes I was in the recording studio this afternoon doing my best Doug I Am drop the beat now…_).  A bit nervous about the wake up video (and I know Hezekiah is not a book in the Old Testament….) so better head downstairs.

Here are the entire lyrics to Something Beautiful.  If you haven’t discovered Needtobreathe…. You need to….

In your ocean, I'm ankle deep

I feel the waves crashin' on my feet

It's like I know where I need to be

But I can't figure out, yeah I can't figure out

Just how much air I will need to breathe

When your tide rushes over me

There's only one way to figure out

Will you let me drown, will you let me drown?

Hey now, this is my desire

Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful

To touch me, I know that I'm in reach

'Cause I am down on my knees.

I'm waiting for something beautiful

Oh, something beautiful

And the water is rising quick

And for years I was scared of it

We can't be sure when it will subside

So I won't leave your side, no I can't leave your side.

Hey now, this is my desire

Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful

To touch me, I know that I'm in reach

'Cause I am down on my knees.

I'm waiting for something beautiful

Oh, something beautiful

In a daydream, I couldn't live like this.

I wouldn't stop until I found something beautiful.

When I wake up, I know I will have

No, I still won't have what I need.

Something Beautiful

Hey now this is my desire

Consume me like a fire, 'cause I just want something beautiful

To touch me, I know that I'm in reach

Cause I am down on my knees

I'm waiting for something beautiful

Oh, something beautiful

Fool With A Fancy Lyre

I love the way song writers can capture exactly what I’m feeling and how God often uses music to soothe my heart – sort of the way in the Old Testament that David would take up the lyre and play and in the music would bring relief to Saul.

Anyway, Andrew Peterson’s Fool With a Fancy Guitar has brought relief to me this afternoon – so why not post the lyrics - but it’s even better to listen to – so right now go download Counting Stars!

It's so easy to cash in these chips on my shoulders

So easy to loose this old tongue like a tiger

It's easy to let all this bitterness smolder

Just to hide it away like a cigarette lighter

It's easy to curse and to hurt and to hinder

It's easy to not have the heart to remember

That I am a priest and a prince in the Kingdom of God

I've got voices that scream in my head like a siren

Fears that I feel in the night when I sleep

Stupid choices I made when I played in the mire

Like a kid in the mud on some dirty blind street

I've got sorrow to spare, I've got loneliness too

I've got blood on these hands that hold on to the truth

That I am a priest and a prince in the Kingdom of God

I swore on the Bible not to tell a lie

But I've lied and lied

And I crossed my heart and I hoped to die

And I've died and died

But if it's true that you gathered my sin in your hand

And you cast it as far as the east is from the west

If it's true that you put on the flesh of a man

And you walked in my shoes through the shadow of death

If it's true that you dwell in the halls of my heart

Then I'm not just a fool with a fancy guitar

No, I am a priest and a prince in the Kingdom of God

Alive Again

The highlight moment of Easter morning for me was the opening of our 9:30 worship service. We used an awesome video by Igniter Media.

Instead of the audio track on the video our band played a live version of  Matt Maher’s Christ is Risen.  Just as on Thursday night the lyrics overwhelmed me:

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake, come awake

Come and rise up from the grave

Christ is risen from the dead

We are one with Him again

Come awake, come awake

Come and rise up from the grave

 I am reminded again of how blessed I am to serve with a group of musicians who love Jesus more than they do worship.  That love lifts music into worship and made this Easter come alive! 

In the Night

At last night’s Life of Christ our team closed with Andrew Peterson’s In The Night followed by Be Still My Soul with readings from Matthew’s version of the Garden of Gethsemane and ending with:

…may Your will be done….

There’s a verse in Peterson’s song (and all the lyrics and the video are below) that goes like this:

I remember how they scorned the son of Mary


He was gentle as a lamb,

gentle as a lamb


He was beaten, he was crucified, and buried


And in the night, my hope was gone



My part was to give a few last words and then blow out the last candle.  Inspired by that verse I had thought through exactly what I wanted to say:

And then after He prayed

He was betrayed and arrested and denied

He was beaten and ridiculed and spat upon

And the next day they nailed Him to a cross

Where He hung in shame and humiliation

And from noon until three there was darkness across the land

But even in the darkness hope lived on

Until Jesus cried out:

Eloi, Eloi,

Lama sabahthani!

And gave up His spirit and our Hope was gone

(at which point I blew out the last candle)

That’s what I planned to say – and mostly what I said – but when I got to “they nailed Him to a cross” the weight and the reality of it all (that we’d been building toward all evening) got to me and I could barely get the words out.

I drove home (and I’ve spent a good bit of this Good Friday) thinking about the reality of it all.  So often I am consumed with white papers and staffing strategies and budgets and all the “stuff” of ministry.  It’s easy to lose that which is of first importance:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried [and] that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…

1 Corinthians 15: 3 - 4

On this Good Friday – in the midst of white papers and budgets and staffing strategies I am reminded again of what is of first importance.

The rulers of earth could not control Him


They did not take his life

He laid it down


All the chains of death could never hope to hold Him


So in the night my hope lives on



In the night my Hope lives on.

I am weary with the pain of Jacob's wrestling


In the darkness with the Fear,

in the darkness with the Fear


But he met the morning wounded with a blessing


So in the night my hope lives on



When Elisha woke surrounded by the forces


Of the enemies of God,

the enemies of God


He saw the hills aflame with angels on their horses


So in the night my hope lives on



I see the slave that toils beneath the yoke unyielding


And I can hear the captive groan,

hear the captive groan


For some hand to stay the whip his foe is wielding


Still in the night my hope lives on



I see the armies of the enemy approaching


And the people driven, trembling, to the shore


But a doorway through the waters now is opening


So in the night my hope lives on



Like the son who thought he'd gone beyond forgiveness,


Too ashamed to lift his head

but if he could lift his head


He would see his father running from a distance


In the night my hope lives on



I can see the crowd of men retreating


As he stands between the woman and their stones


And if mercy in his holy heart is beating


Then in the night my hope lives on



I remember how they scorned the son of Mary


He was gentle as a lamb,

gentle as a lamb


He was beaten, he was crucified, and buried


And in the night, my hope was gone



But the rulers of earth could not control Him


They did not take his life

He laid it down


All the chains of death could never hope to hold Him


So in the night my hope lives on



I can see the Son of Man descending


And the sword He swings is brighter than the dawn


And the gates of Hell will never stand against Him


So in the night my hope lives on.