Bacon sizzling in the frying pan;
chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven;
fresh cut grass;
summer rain on hot pavement.
These things stir our memories, senses, and emotions.
God’s words of love, forgiveness, and hope;
An image of Jesus suffering on the cross, for us;
A sense of His Spirit’s presence within our heart;
A wave of love crashing over us, flooding us with emotion.
These things stir our soul, and breathe fire into our life.
And I’m so grateful.
Another lunch hour when I’m able to free myself from the hungry grip of work and grap some time alone. But not really alone. I drove to the nearby office park with the half-empty parking lot. My usual tree-shaded parking space is open. It takes a few minutes to quiet my mind and flush out all the work noise. But soon, here comes the Holy Spirit into my thoughts, here to share my lunch with me, and my writing time. I enjoy taking these writing breaks in the middle of my workday, when I can.
Oh, here come those two women who like to walk the loop around this large parking lot. The dark-haired one is doing the talking, as usual. And she’s whining again about something. She’s always whining, at least every time I see her. I feel sorry for her. She seems to have so much to complain about.
Dear Jesus, please help the dark-haired woman find peace. Please help her find freedom from complaining. I suspect you won’t remove her problems, the things she likes to complain about. But she could find true joy in the freedom that comes from letting go of her problems.
Lord, you’ve opened my eyes to this freedom and joy. Oh, I still complain, but not as much as I used to, before I let you into my heart. Thank you for coming in and healing my self-inflicted wounds. I’m so grateful.
My hearts desire is to write, but I’m stuck in my engineering job, shoveling stress and trying to cope with corporate “junk.” Sometimes I fail and let the stress consume me – I just can’t shovel as fast as they pile it on.
Many times I’ve asked God, “Why am I here? I look for meaning in my job, but can’t find anything that matters. I feel like I’m wasting so much time of my brief life. Why am I at this meaningless job when my hearts desire is to surrender to You and devote all my time doing whatever you want me to do? Well, I guess you want me in this job.”
Today I was thinking, what can I do for God while in my “meaningless” job. Well, I could try to find joy in every moment, knowing and trusting that in that moment, I’m where God wants me to be. I could strive to be like Brother Lawrence, who found joy and peace in everything he did, because he was always in the presence of God.
Then it hit me: maybe the reason I’m in my meaningless job is because my feelings about the job make me crave more closeness with God and Jesus. If I didn’t have a stress-pit of a job, I would not be so hungry for the presence of Jesus in my life. The more stressful the job, the more I look for Jesus to help me. I think I’m now sincerely grateful for my job, and for more than just the financial security, which I’m always grateful for.
I know I’m weak and this joyful feeling may be fleeting, but I sure am grateful for my time with the Spirit of God and Jesus, no matter what I’m doing.
Religion is complicated; Christianity is simple.
Religion is often burdensome; Christianity is freedom.
Religion is often false; Christianity is the truth.
Religion is manmade; Christianity is God-made.
Where religion is rules, Christianity is a relationship, built on a foundation of love.
Religion should be considered as a set of tools, not rules. Religion should work for you, not you for it. Yet sadly, man’s prideful ways have turned the table and created a religion that oversees the followers.
A “religious” Christian is like Pinocchio, a puppet manipulated by strings. The strings are all the rules, traditions, and obligations. Yet, God can cut your strings, and the Holy Spirit will fill you with His presence, making you truly alive and free.
This morning I looked up to see the Catechism of the Catholic Church sitting on my book shelf. It came from my parents house, after my father and stepmother had passed away. It had been my stepmothers. The thicknesses are almost the same. But I believe the contents are different.
I’m a de-churched Christian. I’ve been reading the book “Churchless,” which contains lots of research data the Barna Group has collected about the various aspects of Christianity. Did you know there are about 18 million born-again Christians who no longer attend a church? The Barna study calls these people “de-churched.” It felt weird when I realized I’m one of the 18 million.
I haven’t attended church for almost five years. And what adds to the weirdness is, I can’t clearly tell you why. Oh, I could come up with surface answers easily enough. But none of them feel to me like they are the real, deep down reason I don’t go to church. And I want to know why.
It occurred to me; maybe some of these 18 million de-churched born-again Christians hang out online somewhere. So please help me if you know of any such hang-outs. Are there any Facebook groups? What other sites might the de-churched like to visit? Are there blogs for the de-churched?
My hope is that maybe by connecting with other de-churched people, I might learn why I have no desire to attend church. And if you too are a de-churched Christian, please share some of your story. It may help me, and it may help others. Thank you.
I just got back from the grocery store. Got my leg ‘o lamb for our Easter dinner. And, check out this picture of the magazine rack in the check-out line…
At first I didn’t know what to think about it. Jesus, next to a wine tasting mag, and right across the little isle was another magazine rack, next to the candy and gum, filled with glamour model’s cleavage and movie stars cellulite. At first, it all seemed odd to me… a bit edgy.
But what would Jesus think about hanging out with wine lovers, glamour models and movie stars? I think He’d consider that tame, especially compared with some of the crowd He used to hang out with. While He walked the roads of Israel, Jesus seemed to spend more time with lowlife’s, prostitutes, hated tax collectors and other sinners. Jesus lived on the edge of “acceptable” society. So I think Jesus would be okay with the placement of His manmade image on a magazine in the grocery check-out isle.
I hope you all have a great Easter. CJ
The Bible makes it clear what God thinks of homosexuality as a life style – God despises all sins, including homosexuality. Yet the Bible also makes it abundantly clear what God thinks of sinners. Though God despises sin, He loves sinners… as His children. Though God despises homosexuality as a life style, God loves homosexuals… as His children.
Look, I’m a sinner. I happen not to be homosexual, but I have plenty of other sins that I seem to daily re-visit. These sins are just part of who I am as a person. But my sinful personal nature does not affect God’s love for me. Even in the midst of my sinning, God loves me just as I am.
Are you homosexual? God loves you just as you are. The pain comes from too many of us focusing all our attention on the sin, and forgetting about the love. Let’s all hold onto God’s love, a love that heals all pain.
Did you know that most of the people who don’t go to a Christian church had earlier in their life attended church? This is most apparent with the young adult generation, like from 18 to 30 years old. They attended as a kid, probably because their parents dragged them there, but they followed a different path when they gained their adult freedom.
I’m reading “Churchless,” by George Barna and David Kinnaman. It’s a book based on survey results of those who don’t go to a Christian church.
I just finished reading a chapter that describes the reasons young adults no longer go to church. And then this idea slipped into my mind: instead of the traditional brick-and-mortar church, what if there were an on-line church? Maybe it could be a Facebook group, where people go to talk about Jesus. Would this be more appealing than a traditional church? Might this type of church be able to avoid the turn-offs of a traditional church?
Please let me know if there is such an on-line church. What do you think of the idea? Thanks.
I didn’t expect to start my Friday with a sad discovery. But that’s what I found as I again picked up the book I just started reading, “unChristian; What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity… and Why it Matters,” by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. This book is based on extensive research by the Barna Group, where they conducted studies to find out what “outsiders” feel about Christians and Christianity.
I’m struggling to find the words to convey what I’m thinking, without coming across as judgmental. By the way, 87% of young adults see Christians as judgmental.
Anyway, the results of one particular survey question left me feeling sad… sad for Christians and Christian churches. The surveyors asked born-again Christians to describe what the most important priorities are for being a Christian. The top of the list was being good and not sinning, followed by discipleship, evangelism, worship, relationships with others, service and stewardship. What made me sad is that I don’t see the most important thing about being a Christian.
Yet who am I to say? I’m no expert. I’m just a flawed human like everyone else. How do I give my answer to this question about being Christian without sounding snotty and arrogant? I don’t know, so I’ll just go for it.
I believe the most important priority for being a Christian is a personal and intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. I believe the most important good deed or form of worship is to give your life, to surrender your “self” to the Holy Spirit, to give control to the Spirit. As Paul said in his letter to those in Rome…
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)
The entire Bible is about a personal relationship with God, especially the New Testament. But it looks like Christian churches have not made that clear. And Christians suffer because of that. This too makes me sad.
A typical morning: coffee mug warming my hands, Jesus Calling devotional opened to yesterday (I’m usually a day behind), and my mind ping-ponging between the book on my lap and the Spirit of Jesus within my mind. And of course, my mind often takes a side trip and finds something to be anxious about.
This morning it was the idea of eventually publishing the book I’m writing. The marketing piece of this project isn’t very appealing, though it’s something I feel comfortable with. But like most would-be authors (I suspect), I would rather spend my time writing than marketing. The accelerated blogging, more time on Facebook, and whatever other opportunities make sense at the time – all this was feeling more like a dark cloud on the horizon than something to get excited about.
Then Jesus broke into my anxious thoughts. He immediately reminded me that it’s not up to me whether the book gets published, or up to anyone else. It’s God’s decision. And that’s just the way I want it. Having God in charge of this book project removes all of my self-induced stress. Jesus broke into my anxious thoughts, and the anxiety melted away. And I’m so grateful.
“Every year, 2.7 million church members fall into inactivity. This translates into the realization that people are leaving the church. From our research, we have found that they are leaving as hurting and wounded victims—of some kind of abuse, disillusionment, or just plain neglect! From 1990 to 2000, the combined membership of all Protestant denominations in the USA declined by almost 5 million members (9.5 percent), while the US population increased by 24 million (11 percent).” *
Are you one of these wounded Christians? Some wounds go unnoticed, for a while anyway. For the past four years, I haven’t gone to church – I have no desire. I had stopped attending church because I was disillusioned by the messages coming from the pulpit. As I step back and look at myself as an outsider might, it now clearly looks to me like I’m a wounded Christian.
Are you wounded? If so, consider checking out the Facebook group, “For Wounded Christians – a Place for Healing.”
* From an editorial in the July 2012 issue of Christian Computing Magazine, “Why the church is dying in America,” by Steve Hewitt
I was a bit trouble-prone as a young boy. Like the time in my bedroom when I nailed my blankets and sheets to my dresser, the walls, and anything that would hold a nail. It was the most awesome tent ever. And then several years later, there was the New Years Eve when I blew up the neighbors mailbox with a barrel bomb. It was so cool how all the rivets blew out, but the swollen shell still stood on the post. Though my mom was always disappointed and usually angry about my fun-filled pranks, I never doubted her love for me.
The most loving parents feel love for their child no matter what. Such is God’s love for His children. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)
I thought I had found it. I thought I had discovered the underlying reason for our often-damaging natural human pride. But the flaws in my theory soon made themselves seen. Yet there are still parts of the theory that make sense to me.
They say that ego and arrogance come from insecurity – I believe this. I also believe that our mortality can feed our core sense of insecurity. Our life is short; we have little time to experience life – this can feed insecurity. Our mortal future may not be clear; we are uncertain of what waits for us on the other side of death – this gives more food to our insecurity. For those who are certain of heaven, they may feel uncertain of how God will judge them; and the insecurity gets bigger and stronger.
I don’t believe that pride and ego originated as a result of the insecurity that is fed by our mortality. But I do believe that our mortal insecurity feeds the pride that is already part of our natural humanity.
I constantly struggle with my own pride, striving to make it go away. Well, though I can’t make it go away entirely, maybe I can starve it and weaken it a bit… by living past my mortality and instead living for eternity. By faith, I want to accept my immortality that waits for me on the other side of death, and also accept the love and forgiveness already given to me by Jesus Christ. My eternal future is certain and bright.
I believe that accepting our bright immortal future will starve our insecurity, weaken our prideful human nature, and strengthen our humility. What do you think?
Life can be wretched sometimes. Work can be a place of misery, feeling more like a prison; we don’t want to be there, but we must be there, we have no choice, for we need the money in order to pay the bills and make a living. “Living”… that’s almost a cruel joke, for it sometimes doesn’t feel like much of a life.
And then there’s our life outside of work, sometimes filled with relationships in turmoil. And don’t forget the mundane things, like the car that breaks down, the leaky faucet, the broken light fixture, the computer virus, with new problems always ready to replace those that get fixed.
And the worry list gets longer as sleep gets shorter. Is this how life was meant to be?
As most of us see it, we have two choices. Some choose the path of total escape… suicide. Most of us choose to not give up, but rather trudge our way through life, trying to make the best of what we have. Yet there’s a third choice. We can surrender.
Surrender your life to Jesus. Let Him have your life. Let Him deal with your problems. Let Him go to work for you. Let Him take on your worry list. Let Him have your mind, body, heart, and soul. Let Jesus live your life, through you.
The great irony is, once you surrender to Jesus, that’s when you will truly live. That’s when you will find true joy. Surrender isn’t easy, but it’s easier and better than the other two choices.
The idea for a new writing project has been growing in my mind over the weekend. Though I feel pulled toward this project, taking hold of it right now would take time away from other things. So I’ve been asking God for advice.
I often go to God, asking Him to make decisions for me. I trust His decisions far more than my own. Yet most times, I already have a preference. And with that preference burning in my mind, I feel I can’t fully trust that the answer that comes to me is solely from God. Maybe it’s my preference, making too much noise for me to hear God’s answer.
Though my heart hungers to trust completely in God, my mind often gets in the way. Yet God is patient with me, and I’m so grateful.
As a kid, when I would run out the backdoor to wander the hills behind our house, my mom liked to shout, “Don’t fall in a hole.” Even now, as a much older kid, if I tell mom that my wife and I are going on a hike, she’ll end the phone call with, “Don’t fall in a hole.”
Well, I recently fell again in that same old hole of my own digging. While on the journey of writing a book, I started over-planning my next steps. The revision I’m now working on will be followed with a good cleaning up by an editor friend of mine. I need to finalize the proposal. I will then follow the path of trying to convince a traditional Christian publisher, by submitting the proposal to the Christian Manuscript Submission website. And if that doesn’t get anyone’s attention, I’d turn to the path of self-publishing, likely with the help of Westbow Press. And I could ask my artistic niece to create a cover design – I really like that idea. These, and more tasks, started crowding my thoughts. And of course, I started dreaming up a schedule for all of this.
I was deep in the hole now, over my head in the stress-pit of my over-planning. The fun was dying from my book project.
But thankfully, Jesus reminded me of my folly. He reminded me that it’s His plans and schedules that are important. He’ll take care of the timing. All I need to do is make myself available to Him, to write when He wants me to write, and to do all that other stuff only when the time is right. The stress is now gone… at least until I start digging my hole again.
I’ve been reading The Good and Beautiful Life, by James Bryan Smith, just finishing the chapter about judgment. I learned a seismic truth while reading this chapter and then talking about it in our small group last night.
Smith gives a quote by Philo of Alexandria, who said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” Being judgmental can come so naturally for me. It’s often irresistible. But when I look at my target, and realize that the behavior I wish to judge may be battle scars – my judgment melts into compassion. And given time, compassion feels a lot better than judgment.
Where judgment can lead to criticism, compassion leads me to prayer. And from my experience, prayer is far more helpful than judgment. Where feelings of judgment eat at my soul, compassion and prayer feed my soul. And my hope is that prayers will lead to healing of battle scars.
Behind the business park where I work is a ragged forest. Not much of a forest really. Mostly low brush, scraggly naked trees shivering against the winter cold, and scattered patches of mud.
And a homeless encampment. Peering through the trees, you can spot signs of life. A white plastic chair, a blue tarp tent, wooden pallet flooring to protect from the mud.
I believe if Jesus were here, rather than hang out at the church down the road, He’d go into the homeless encampment. I believe for Jesus, church is not a building, church is not a place. Church is hanging out with homeless people. Church is wherever you are. Church is the Spirit of Jesus within you. Church is you.
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? … for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)
“And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:22)
“But Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. And we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.” (Hebrews 3:6)
Yes, my resolution is still alive, strong, and growing within me. How is your resolution (if you’re into that kind of thing)?
My resolution is to let the Spirit of Jesus become a greater part of my life, and have my self-centered self become a lesser part. As John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must become greater; I must become less.” (John 3:30)
Am I doing any better at letting Jesus become a greater part of my life? Well, I’m not sure. My selfish ego is pretty stubborn, wanting all my attention, all the time. And lifelong habits are hard to change. But I take comfort in God’s promises, which are scattered generously throughout the bible. One of my favorites is…
“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)
God will work my resolution within me. Can you trust God with your resolution?
CJ Penn's Online Writing Hangout 