Pizza With Jesus

My bride and I were young and optimistic. A long, long time ago, we'd signed up for an extended missions trip to a land far, far away, to tell the locals about Jesus. Since we grew up in a church that had never preached the gospel until the Sunday that I preached it myself, we didn't know much at all about sharing the good news of Jesus. 

We also didn't know much about rest. We were only there for a few months, and we were encouraged by zealous leaders to give ourselves to the job at hand, and keep nothing in reserve for the trip home. We bought into that value. 

We were on different teams. I was on the street preaching team and she was on a team that presented the gospel through song and dance. We were going hard, 18 hours most days, six or seven days a week. 

We were tired. We were also flat broke. We couldn't even buy a cold beverage of indeterminate origin at the Golden Arches place (they're EVERYwhere!!) and sit in their air conditioned space for a couple of hours. 

And even more than burgers and carbonated beverages, after many weeks, I missed pizza. But that was completely out of the question in that culture: they had no cheese of any sort (I was afraid to ask what yellow stuff was on the “cheeseburgers” that my wealthier friends had from time to time). 
 
I had been practicing what is now called Lecto Divina in my time with Jesus, and during these weeks, I had come to really value that hour or so in the wee hours before the rest of the dorm woke up. It appears that God's strength shows up particularly well when we're completely dry of our own strength. Who knew?

One morning, I'd been reading about God's provision of his disciples (probably the feeding of the 5000 miracle), and if I'm honest, I was whining about how broke we were. It was true that all of our needs were met, but it would be nice to do something special with my sweetheart once in a while. 

I felt something vaguely resembling faith (or maybe petulance) rise up in me, so I got specific: “I'd really like some pizza, please!” Ha! Fat chance of that! 

I spent the morning preaching on the streets within walking distance of the dorm, while my bride was making her way across town (in a taxi driven by someone who apparently idolized Mario Andretti!); we'd see each other at dinner for yet another plate-full of rice and corn. 

Mid-day, I headed back to the dorm (I never knew how wonderful siestas could be!) to relax a minute. A moment later, the building shook as the pack of 20-something young men stampede to their end of the dorm. Then quiet descended (relatively speaking). Another day in paradise. 

Then the single mother, on the mission field with her two young children hollered down the hallway. “Does anyone want some pizza? We've got too much!” It turns out that she'd found a Shakey's Pizza franchise in town (I told you this was a long, long time ago, didn't I?), and had bought some for her kids, but they had not been very hungry. 

My mind raced as I waited for the pack of hungry young men to speak up, but they never did. So I tiptoed down to the single mom's door and asked if she was serious? It turns out that she was. I have no idea what kind of pizza it was; it was round and flat and it had actual cheese on it. 

I spent a fair bit of time that afternoon marveling at God's tender provision, and while there wasn't enough for me to share with her, I was looking forward to telling my sweetheart my story. 

When she made it home (wide eyed at what a Formula One taxi driver could accomplish in the tiny streets and alleys of that town!), she told me her story about harrowing drives, mixed up ministry appointments, “But Sally-Ann bought us all pizza for lunch!” 

So even though we were on opposite sides of the city, God gave us both pizza for lunch, in different ways, through different people. On the day that I had asked in the morning for pizza. 

Please don't try to tell me that God is not attentive to his kids. I won't believe you. 

Promises Bring Trials. Or Do They?

It’s a commonly held belief, and one that isn’t spoken out loud all that often:

“People that get awesome prophecies get the worst trials!”

I think of the apostle Peter, back in the day. He’d just received a heckuva prophetic word: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. [Matthew 16:18] Dang. That’s a pretty big promise.

And not long after that, Jesus warns him of his impending failure: “And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren." But he said to Him, "Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death." Then He said, "I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me."” [Luke 22:31-34]

I was reflecting on this story recently, particularly in the context of “Lead us not into temptation” [Matthew 6:16, Luke 11:4], and I realized that there are three parts to this conversation.  
 
Part 1: Jesus warns Peter of the upcoming trial. There is no failure discussed yet, though recovery is.

Part 2: Peter boasts that he can take anything, that he won’t actually fail.

Part 3: Jesus warns Peter of his impending failure.

It seems to me that Peter didn’t take Jesus’ warning all that seriously. I’m embarrassed that I recognize Peter’s hubris.

It seems to me that inherent in Jesus’ warning is an invitation. “I’ve prayed for you. You probably need to pray about this as well.” He emphasized this a little later, when he told the boys, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” [Matthew 26:41]

I probably need to note at this point: I have a strong belief that when God gives a warning prophetically, he’s very seldom saying, “This is inevitable, brace yourself.” Since his goal is our maturity in him, I figure that a prophetic warning, like what Jesus said to Pete here, is more along the lines of, “This is what’s coming down the track; you can face it, or you can change what happens to that track.”

I believe that Peter was not destined to fail, until he responded in the flesh a couple of times:

First, he boasted that he could take it. Then he slept instead of watching and praying. And because of that, he tried to stand on his own strength when faced with the reality of the unexpected trial [Matthew 26:69f]

And as a result, he did fail [Matthew 26:75]. And then in his grief and shame, he gave up and went back to his old life (of fishing), from before Jesus had called him [John 21:3]

Fortunately, Jesus followed up, fulfilling the “when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren” part of the prophecy [around the campfire in John 21].

The place that my meditation has taken me is this: I think I don’t accept the curse (and yeah, it kind of works like a curse) that says that any time I get a good prophecy, a good promise, that I therefore need to go through hell, that I must be thoroughly (and painfully) tested.

In place of that, I want to substitute the truth that I need to stay snuggled up with Jesus, I need to stay up-to-date in my intimate communion with him, I need to stay humble.

Maybe I’ll get sifted by hell. More likely I have the option to short-cut that trial by staying plugged in with my King. But in the end, I need to stay with him, rather than stand on my own in the face of the trial, rather than run off to the old life when I do fail.

Stay close to Jesus. That seems like pretty good advice for pretty much all the time.

The Throne of Grace

Think with me a minute here. . .

Jesus sits on the Throne of Grace [Hebrews 4:16].

We are encouraged to "come boldly" before him. And, oh yeah, we sit on that throne with him [Ephesians 2:6].

I'm reminded that this is the throne of the God who is love [1 John 4:16], so everything he does there is done in his massive love.

And in the same paragraph, I'm reminded that there is no fear in love. So there is no fear in what happens on this throne.

And my mind wanders to Revelation. "At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it." [Revelation 4:2]

And God is "immutable" (he doesn't change [Hebrews 13:8]), so the throne on the sea of glass that John is marveling at, where the elders are throwing their thrones [Revelation 4] is still the Throne of Grace, where we may "receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need," where the Love of God is administered without any fear.

And the throne a few chapters later, described as a great white throne, is still the Throne of Grace, is still the throne where the selfless love of God is administered, and is still without fear. That's not saying that there's no judgment there: it's saying that anything done during that judgment is from grace, with its foundation of love, and is completely removed from fear.

I think I need to understand the goodness of God better.

Eat the Meat. Spit Out the Bones.

There's an uncomfortable truth about the human species:

Ain't a single one of us that's perfect. Well, except the Creator God who became fully man; He is and was perfect, but other than him nobody is actually perfect.

"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." [Romans 3:10]

And that means that it is inappropriate (and a waste of time) to expect perfection from any member of the human species. Excellence is good (and there is a lot of that), but don't waste your time looking for perfection in people.

• None of our leaders (political or religious) are perfect leaders.
• None of our teachers teach perfect truth.
• No book or class or video is perfect in all its content.
• No fellowship of humans will be perfect; there will be mistakes and failures in 'em all.

Does that mean that we should give up on leaders, teachers, fellowships, and just go solo, "Me & Jesus, and nobody else"?

That won't work. You're not perfect either. (Me neither.)

So we quit expecting perfection, and we look for the good.

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." [Philippians 4:8]

Pay attention to the good. Overlook the imperfect. Which, of course, means the need to test things, to discern truth.

(Does this mean we never strive for improvement? Heck no.)
(Does this mean we overlook persistent sin, our own or our brother's? Heck no.)

Eat the meat. Spit out the bones. "Even a dumb ol' cow knows enough to eat the hay and spit out the sticks."

Testimony: God the Electrician

Some of the lights in the living room stopped working suddenly. Testing showed they had no power to them. No circuit breakers were tripped. No wiring had changed in the past several months. And they didn't know an electrician they could call on for help.

So they prayed. She heard the phrase, junction box. He saw a picture of a junction box in a particular place on the attic floor.

Sounds like a clue, he thought. So he crawled up into the attic, flashlight in the hand, looking for the junction box on the floor that he saw as he was praying.

But there was no junction box on the floor, and no junction box that looked like what he saw in prayer. But there was a different junction box on a post nearby, and it did what the junction box in his vision look like it would have done.

So he fiddled with some of the wires, jiggling them carefully, and when he did a light in the attic flickered on. Aha! A clue.

So he fixed the loose wire nut, made sure it was tight, and headed back downstairs.

Sure enough, everything was working fine now.

Lessons learned:

1. God is a pretty good electrician (although this is much less voltage than he usually works with).

2. He is willing to help homeowners with electrical problems in their homes.

3. Spiritual gifts are useful for practical matters, too.

4. A word of knowledge may be correct in its content, but incorrect in some of the details.

God Reveals His Secrets

“Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” [Amos 3:7]

I woke up with this on my mind recently and I’ve been chewing on it for a while.

The phrase, “his servants the prophets” suggests there are some prophets who are not submitted as servants to him. He apparently doesn’t reveal his secret to them. The gift is not enough; I need to be fully on-board with him.

Application: I don’t need to listen to prophets who are not God’s servants, whether they’ve anointed themselves or they’re servants of something else (Money? Sex? Power?), or they’ve just fallen off the wagon. Discernment (personal & corporate) is a big advantage here.

The same phrase also suggests that there are some servants who are not prophets. In the days of Amos, there were just a few who had God’s spirit and spoke for him; in our days, well he’s instructed every believer to earnestly desire to prophesy [1Corinthians 14:1].

Application: being fully his is not sufficient; prophets need to speak what God says and when he says to. They need to be called for the purpose of speaking his word to the community. More than that, I need to not pay attention to the “prophecies” from God’s people who are not actually anointed by God to speak for him at this time. Discernment is a big advantage here, too.

I'm going to over-simplify this and say that there are things that he doesn’t reveal, except to people who are comfortable hearing his voice and who are fully committed to him.

The other thing that’s captured my attention is the Hebrew word “sôḏ,” which is variously translated “secret,” “plans,” “counsel.” A couple of translations render it “secret counsel” in this verse, which I think is pretty interesting.

Hold on, this might get nerdly for a minute.

Strong defines H5475 (our Hebrew word “sôḏ,”) as “a session, that is, company of persons (in close deliberation); by implication intimacy, consultation, a secret,” and

Gesenius points out that outside of the Bible, the word speaks of a couch, cushion, triclinium, on which persons recline, hence, (1) a sitting together, an assembly, either of friends or of judges, (2) deliberation, counsel, (3) familiar conversation, or (4) a secret.

In any case, this strikes me as a complex word; no wonder there are so many ways to translate it.

But the imagery in Amos is getting clearer: he invites individuals who are fully his and who are comfortable hearing his voice into a quiet place with himself, where he discusses what’s on his heart. And the imagery is pretty clear: this is not one “big guy” dictating what’s going to happen; this is peers in conversation, in dialog, in deliberation together.

And according to Amos, he doesn’t do anything apart from this sort of counsel, without discussing it with these people in this setting.

It could be argued that he has required that it be this way. In the Psalms, he declares that "The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind." [Psalm 115:16] If he takes that seriously, then he has delegated authority for this planet to us, and no good leader delegates authority to someone else and then steps in, usurps the delegate, and does things on his own authority.

So for God to take action in the affairs of Earth, he needs to first discuss his secret counsel with his human friends, who now carry the authority for action on the Earth.

Moses the Hot Mess

I was talking with God about Exodus 33, one of my favorite conversations in the Old Testament. And if I’m honest, sometimes one of the most confusing.

I was observing that God wasn’t particularly answering that Moses was asking, and then I remembered that Jesus was pretty famous for that, too. “You and your Son don’t like answering questions head-on, do you?”

And to my immense surprise, he didn’t answer my question head-on either. Instead, he took me inside Mo’s heart, inside his soul, and we looked at some of the stuff going on there. And maybe for the first time, I realized how much Mo was a wounded soul.

I mean, look at what he’d been through:

• He was essentially kidnapped by the king’s daughter [Exodus 2:10], raised as a grandson of the maniacal king who was slave master of his entire family [1:11], and appeared to be in the midst of trying to commit genocide on his people’s race [1:22].

• It appears that his genocidal grandfather didn’t know he was actually a member of the race he was trying to exterminate: he lived with a (shameful?) secret his entire life. Some people think he was being groomed to be the next genocidal king in the land.

• He figured out that he was really part of the slave race, presumably from his wet nurse, who was his birth mom, and it appears that he wanted to use his position of power to free them.

• He makes his first attempt toward their freedom [2:12], which a) fails, b) reveals he favors the slave race over the existing power structure, c) alienates the people he’s trying to save [2:14], d) turns his maniacal grandfather against him [2:15], and e) scares the piss out of him [ibid]. He flees for his life.

• He meets strangers in the desert who mis-identify him as a member of the genocidal ruling race [2:19], and he doesn’t correct them.

• He gives up on doing anything important with his life, marries into a family of nomads and settles for being a shepherd on the backside of the desert, for 40 years. (Sounds like a real “death of a vision” to me.)

• On day 14,600 (approximate) of his life as a hopeless and helpless shepherd, he stumbles on an encounter with a God he’s not known [3:2ff], who gives him a quest [3:10] to do the very thing that he had tried to do 40 years earlier. He’s too broken and still too scared to go back, too intimidated to attempt anything that important [3:11].

• So he argues with God, putting up obstacle [3:11] after obstacle [3:13] after obstacle [4:1] after obstacle [4:10] as to why he shouldn’t be expected to do that job.

• He experiences a couple of undeniable miracles [3:2, 4:3, 4:6] there on the mountainside. He believes his fears more than he believes the miracles.

• In the end, he flat-out refuses to comply with God’s instructions. “Send someone else!” [4:13] He pisses God off [4:14], who adds his older brother to the deliverance party.

We could go on. But I began to better understand the whiny tone in Moses’ voice [33:12-16]. And it was at that point that God pointed out that Moses was an 80-year-old broken man, with a lot of un-healed wounds in his soul. He was kind of a dysfunctional mess. An old dysfunctional mess.

And THAT is who God chose to deliver millions of people from arguably the mightiest nation on the planet at the time.

And you know that God made it personal. “If I can use a messed-up man like that (and I heard the tender affection in his “voice”), I can use you just fine, too.”