Not Just for Sunday School Any More

January 11, 2009

If you follow my professional blog, you’ll know that I did an interesting project with my class this week. We explored comments left at the website 1000 Things That Matter by people around the world, analyzing them to see if there were any patterns or recurring themes. Besides the academic results, I was struck by how the students’ analysis exactly mirrored scriptural principles.

Let me first say that there was no mention of religion, God, or the Bible during our discussion, and the web site had comments from a very broad variety of people. In fact, there was only one comment that overtly mentioned God, and I actually left that one out of the list I gave to my students.

The first group I worked with was second and third graders. I had absolutely no preconceptions about where the discussion would go, but as they discussed their observations, I started to see that there were some themes running through the posts. I was curious if the students would notice them.

As they wrapped up their study, I asked them to name the common themes they saw. I was amazed as they named, in this order:

  • Love
  • Joy
  • Peace

I’m certain that the class had no idea they had just named the first three Fruits of the Spirit.

They also identified “Relationships” as a fourth theme, something which I believe any reader of scripture would agree is an essential part of being a Christian.

A couple of thoughts occur to me as I ponder this. One is how scripture may seem irrelevant or out of date to someone who isn’t familiar with it, yet when they are asked about what matters most to them, they name the things that the Bible also describes as priorities.

But even more than this is how so many people—and I should include myself in this—desire the same fundamental things and work so hard to achieve them in their lives. They just want better relationships, to love and be loved, to enjoy life, to live in peace. All they are missing is the only thing that can make them a reality: a relationship with God. Scripture is very clear that these are not things we are entitled to, and they are not things we will ever accomplish on our own. They are all a result of allowing the Holy Spirit to live in us, work through us, and change us.

I think this can also be an encouragement to those of us who are reluctant to share our own faith with others. Maybe one way to approach it is to start by asking them what matters most to them. Then you can introduce them to the one who can provide it.

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Under the Tissue Paper, Another Gift

December 26, 2008

As often happens during family holiday gatherings, we started reminiscing yesterday about Christmases past. One story that made us all smile was about my wife’s grandmother. One year, when we asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she simply said, “Just give me all your love. I don’t need anything else.” So each one of us gave her a box that had a piece of paper that simply said LOVE. When she opened the first one, she saw the paper and asked what it meant.

“It’s your gift, Grandmom. You said you just wanted our love. So that’s what we gave you.” She smiled and was obviously very touched. Then she looked under the tissue paper and said, “No, really, where’s my gift?”

As I was watching my children and my nephews opening their gifts yesterday, I realized that are layers to my own understanding of Christmas, and it’s reflected in the progression of my attitude towards gift-giving. Each time I looked under the tissue paper, I found another meaning to Christmas.

When I was a child, it was all about the getting. All that mattered to me was whether I got cool stuff and how much I was accumulating. I’d rip open one package, and had hardly even seen what was inside before I moved on to the next box. I was so engrossed in my own pile of loot that I hardly even noticed what everyone else was opening. And sometimes, I’d look under the tissue paper and wonder, “No, really, where’s my gift?”

As I got older, though, things shifted. As much as I still enjoyed (and enjoy) receiving gifts, it was more about the giving than the receiving. I got so much joy from seeing the pleasure that other people received when I had given a particularly appropriate gift.

Yesterday, I lifted yet another layer of tissue paper and discovered that it’s about the receiving again. But what matters to me now isn’t the gift, it’s my response to it. I have had many different responses to gifts over the years, some verbalized, some kept to myself:

“OK! What’s in the next one?”
“Is that all?”
“It’s just what I wanted!”
“It’s not exactly what I wanted…”
“Maybe I can exchange it.”
“Well, it’s the thought that counts.”

And for most of my life, my response has revolved around what I wanted or thought I needed.

But a gift is more about the giver than the receiver. The giver chose the gift believing it was a good match for me. The greatest expression of love I can give back is to accept it, open it, and use it. It may not be exactly what I thought I wanted, but if I allow myself to appreciate it—and I mean honestly appreciate it, not just obligatory lip service—the value of the gift is fully realized.

This thought process naturally brought me around to the original Christmas gift: God’s grace and forgiveness. He gave me His son’s life in exchange for mine. So many times the meaning of this gift has been lost on me. “Is that all? It’s not exactly what I wanted. Maybe I can exchange it…. Well, it’s the thought that counts.” And I truly felt that the thought was what counted, and all I needed to do was acknowledge the thought. “OK, God, I really appreciate you thinking of me. Thanks!”

But it’s not.  The gift counts, and the giver counts. What good is it to get a gift card if I never spend it, regardless of how much I “appreciate” the thought? God wants me to do more than take his gift and appreciate it. He wants me to do something with it.

So for me, this Christmas will be about responding more deeply to God’s gift than I ever have. Not just appreciating the gift, not just appreciating the thought, but loving the giver and giving my whole life back to him. Because God’s real gift to me is that if I give him my life, he’ll also take responsibility for making it a worthwhile one.

At one point I was contemplating titling this post The True Meaning of Christmas, but quickly realized that besides being a cliché, I’m not nearly old enough yet to have figured it all out. I’m certain that when I look under the next layer of tissue paper, there will be yet another meaning to the gift. I’m looking forward to discovering it.

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Who Do You Follow?

December 7, 2008

Follow JesusI’m a big fan of blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Through them, I’ve been able to expand my “PLN” (Personal Learning Network) and connect with interesting people around the country and the world who share my profession and interests. The conversations I’m having enrich my life and stretch my thinking on a fascinating and eclectic variety of topics.

As I get to know new people through the Internet, most of whom I’ve never met in person, I’m realizing that just as with face to face relationships, there are levels to the connections I have with people, and there are parallels to my relationship with Christ.

  1. I subscribe to their blogs. These are people in my network who I know have ideas that reflect my own point of view, or who can challenge my perspective in ways that grow me. They have no idea who I am, and on a given day I may read what they write or ignore it, depending on time and my mood.
  2. I comment on their blogs. These people have ideas that resonate with me to the point that I want to respond. They are now aware of me, but they may or may not respond back, and from their point of view I’m likely just one of a crowd of people who make up their audience.
  3. I follow them on Twitter. I’m intrigued enough by these people that I want to know more of the experiences, conversations, and raw thinking that eventually lead to the more thoughtful and polished blog posts. These glimpses into daily life give an interesting perspective, too, and help me to see more of the context around their blogs.
  4. I engage them in professional conversation. Through Twitter and blog comments, I pursue a two-way conversation about topics of mutual interest. We respond to each other and generate discussion that extends and expands over time.
  5. I engage in personal discussion. These are people who I have let into a more exclusive corner of my world, and who have invited me into theirs. We know and care about the little details, not just the big ones.
  6. We seek each other out. These are the people who are always on my radar. They are the ones whose Tweets I specifically look for, whose blog posts I make a point to read daily, and with whom I won’t hesitate to share when something interesting happens to me. These are the people I will go out of  my way to help and to celebrate with.

There are people who subscribe to Jesus’s blog—they attend church, maybe even read the Bible—but that doesn’t mean they know him, and there is certainly no relationship to speak of. Then there are those who comment on that blog: they shoot up the occasional prayer, hoping that the comment will make it through the spam filter and wondering if the blogger even reads all the comments that come in.

Of course, there are plenty of Christ followers. In Twitter, you can follow someone simply by clicking on the Follow button. Click, done: they’re in your list, and now all of their tweets come into your personal collection. Following Jesus really is that easy. Ask, done.

The problem is, too many people are satisfied to stay there. It’s not what God wants. The whole point of discipleship is to take us deeper, to bring us to the point where we converse and eventually seek each other out. If I’m honest with myself about my own relationship with God, it’s probably closer to the Follow level than it is to that deepest level.

But when I consider this long enough, I come to an amazing realization. I didn’t suddenly come to God’s attention by clicking that Follow button. Christ was on my list of followers long before I was on his—in fact, long before anyone else was even on my list. God has followed me from the day he created me, and he has patiently sought me out. It’s not up to me to somehow say something relevant or witty enough to get his attention. I already have it. I just have to listen and engage in the conversation with him, open my whole life up, and seek him out, to develop the depth that he desires.

@jesus Welcome to my PLN. Thanks for following me! Sorry it took me so long to return the favor. I guess we have some catching up to do...

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Stepping Into Grace

November 11, 2008

The more I learn about God, the more I realize that it is our active participation that keeps His plan moving. We are the gears and wheels and engine of the vehicle He designed. As long as we continue to function the way the Engineer intended, the vehicle works perfectly. And like a car that needs maintenance, when some of the parts aren’t working right, the car can still function, it just may not be quite as efficient.

This morning during my devotions, I came across this verse in Romans:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:1-2 (NIV)

As often happens, I’ve known this verse for a long time, but today I specifically noticed the end of verse 1. Grace is not something that is handed to us. It is freely given, but we have to do something to receive it. Faith unlocks the door, Christ opens it, but we have to step into it. This doesn’t mean we have to earn grace–that’s impossible. It just means that unless we claim the gift, it will stand empty and out of our reach.

Let me never forget that I cannot spend my life just praying and hoping and waiting for God to change me. He will, but it’s going to take work on my part to make it possible. It’s my obedience and the work that I do that activates the promises and starts them working in me.

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The Pure Simplicity of a Child’s Faith

October 26, 2008

I love to see people in our church get baptized. It lifts my faith to see people making that public commitment to following Christ, and the testimonies they give encourage me and remind me of the beauty of the gift we’ve been given by God.

This is most evident when children are baptized. They have a refreshing way of explaining their decision with simplicity and straightforward innocence that cuts to the truth of God’s love. Today, a child stood before the entire congregation and said, “I’m getting baptized today because I love Jesus and want to be one of his workers.” Wow.

We can take a cue from these children. So many adults when asked to talk about their faith or explain why they are believers tell their whole life story. I’m guilty of this. The journey that I took to get to where I am today is so complex, with so many subtle turns and small decisions, that it takes quite a while to tell, and to me, it’s all relevant and all important. The fact that I’m still living it doesn’t help, because almost every day God does something to impact the direction of my life, adding to the tale.

A pastor friend of mine heard me tell my testimony once and said that if I wanted anyone else to pay any attention to my story, I had to be able to tell it in under a minute. It took me quite a while to pare down the story of how I came to know God to its basics so that I could do that. As much work as it took to get the story down to that brief a telling, I’m beginning to think that should be the long version of the story.

I think everyone needs to have what I’m going to call a Ten-Second Testimony. Boil your entire life story to something you can share in literally ten seconds or less. While that sounds impossibly short, there were a couple of things I noticed during the service about the stories these children told. First, the shortest, simplest statements were the most powerful ones. They touched me in a way that the longer, more detailed testimonies didn’t. And second, I know every one of those kids has troubles and difficulties and has overcome things that, to them, are as challenging as anything I’ve dealt with. But they don’t clutter their faith with all of those things. They love Jesus. Period. And the simplicity of their faith and their stories makes me want to find out more.

So I’ve written my Ten-Second Testimony:

God has been faithful and carried me through my best times and my worst, and I am so grateful that He loves me no matter what.

Is my faith and my journey really that simple? Well, yes and no. There is of course so much behind each part of that statement. But it’s the essence of why I follow Christ, and maybe if I get ten seconds to share my faith with someone else it will lead to a deeper conversation where I can explain the more subtle reasons and the more complicated stories.

I challenge you to write your own Ten-Second Testimony, and I invite you to share it with me in the comments.

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