15 May 2009

I know why you’re reading this…

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Paul the Apostle:  The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Cor 4:4 NIV

Morpheus: You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I know why you’re reading this.  You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something, on the tip of your mind, just out of reach.  You know if you could reach it, remember it, see it, suddenly all the pieces would fall into place.  Not only would life begin to make sense, but all the things that seem to be missing would arrive.   You look around and long for something; you are not even sure what it is.   If you turn off the electronic stimulus long enough your awareness grows. Something is just not as it should be.  Why can’t we fix it?  Worse, why can’t we see it?

Adam and Eve could see what we cannot.  The natural world and the spiritual world together.  We are flying blind.  But not as blind as we fear.  The world we cannot see, the world intertwined with our daily life is not entirely invisible.  It is simply “visible” (perceive-able) through a different channel of input.  The visible world is full of distraction.  Focus.  Not your eyes…not even the ears you are thinking of.  Use your eyes that see.  Tune in your ears that hear.  You sense it…stop, still your heart, focus, and tune in.

What if you could see the hearts of men?  What if God were communicating about a set of events yet to transpire?  What if the real meaning of the moment you’re in were being broadcast on AM and you had the FM tuned in?  Slow down.  Ask the question at the most unlikely times, “God where are you now, what are you saying now?”  Don’t just ask during your quiet time, ask during the argument.  Ask in the middle of the businees deal.  Ask at the electronics store.

I know why you are reading this…a part of you longs for something more than you have.  What if you have it, but you didn’t realize it.  What if the thing you are most hungering for is in the room with you, but you are using the wrong senses to search…

Think differently.

14 May 2009

Up Periscope

The Bible is a most unusual book, that ,by its’ own claim, was written by God Himself through the hands of men.  Similarly, by its’ own claim, the words contained in the Bible can be used to bring life, or misused to bring death.  Here is the trap.

We purchase a new gadget, machine, or assembly-required product, and we all know that somewhere in the box is a set of instructions.  Depending on who we are, this piece of paper can be a rigid step-by-step guide, a set of possible suggestions, or one more scrap of paper to leave for someone else to pick up.  So from these varying persepectives, we approach the Bible.  God has included instructions with this life He has given us, and we bring our personality and opinions to bear on our reading.  What if that is the least helpful way to approach the Bible?

I remember reading “The Lords of Discipline” by Pat Conroy, as a senior in High School.  As I read, my mother asked me why I was suddenly becoming so sarcastic.    The main character was a cynical athlete, always quick with the cutting comeback.  He looked at life as if it were there to serve him.  Without realizing it, I was beginning to see the world through the eyes of this character.  I had begun to think like the author.

israel-day-10-182

What if learning the information in the Bible, studying it’s implications and applying our, will, our personalitites and our desires to what we understand is a lower level of reading scripture.  What if we read it for the purpose of trying to see and think like the author?  What if the things we read do not just build up the content of our minds, rather, the way the author views things informs our view of the world, the nature of reality, and our perspective on people.

Several significant  shifts would have take place.  The Bible views reality as both a material and spiritual fabric.  We would have to open our understanding to a dimension that is less concrete, and less measurable, than the one we engage with our five senses.

What if the Bible could be viewed as a periscope, or night-vision goggles,instead of an instruction manual.  It is a tool which allows us to look into things unseen, and…see.

israel-day-10-270

What if the Bible could be viewed as a Walkie-Talkie, and not just a rule-book?  It is a mode of communicating that allows us to hear new things in real time, from a Source who wrote to us long ago.

What if instead of seeing the Bible as a book of instructions we saw it instead as a doorway.  A portal through which we can move from one place to another, or at least inhabit two realms at the same time.

What if , while we try to learn what the Bible says, we also try to see and think the way the Author does?  It would change your mind.

13 May 2009

Teaching as One who has Authority

The people marveled at Jesus’ teaching and ministry saying, “He teaches as One who has authority!”

When you listen to, or read a “teaching” it triggers something in you.  Do you feel guilty and hopeless, or empowered and freed? Do you feel encouraged, and refreshed, seeing things differently, or do you feel it is time to strap the weight on one more time and try harder.

When one who has authority teaches, you realize He can handle the things that have been handling you.  If you feel again, overwhelmed, or powerless, if it seems you have been told again to “work it up”, consider this possibility.  Perhaps  this teacher is delegating responsibility, not speaking with authority.

Jesus’ said ,”The Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.”  This does not mean Jesus will bring you a glass of tea when you are thirsty.  It does mean He will give you Living Water, because you do not have it within you.  He came to do for us what is impossible for us, and He has the authority to do it.  Let Him do His Job, and don’t let someone else delegate Jesus’ job to you. Rest.

12 May 2009

Me, Unplugged

“I need to write something today for bobhamp.com,” I thought.  And then I had a funny feeling.  A little weighty sensation, a tinge of dread or frustration.  Weird; I love writing here.  So, I turned my attention to that weird feeling.  What was it?  It was all rooted in that one word, “need”.  You know, synonymous with “should”, “ought to” or “supposed to”.

It’s a funny but significant phenomena that happens in our soul when we sense obligation.  It triggers us to respond out of a different part of us.  We may still follow through, still perform exactly the same task.  We may even smile when we do it.  But the source, the root in our soul is somehow different, and as a result the ensuing process is somehow different.

I heard a good friend say the other day that when we function out of our identity, the thing we are made for, it triggers the release of certain hormones and we get a “legal buzz” from it.  When the “obligation” response is triggered at the very least we lose that charge.  At the worst we plant the seeds of future resentments.

I think this is what gets so many professional ministers in trouble.  Suddenly our love affair with our creator becomes our job.  Time sheets are distributed and ways to measure our performance are instituted.  What begins as heartfelt passion becomes expected performance.  It can happen to anyone.  In fact, let’s consider for a moment the first time in recorded history that this happened.

Listen to the words of the serpent in the garden of Eden.

“…if you eat this (performance) then you will be (identity) like God.”

Wait just a fruit pickin’ minute here…at this time in history who was more like God than the ones created  in His image?   Did the sneaky snake just say that if you do a certain thing then you will be who you already are?  This has been his ploy from the beginning.  Loving and being loved by God causes us to act spontaneously from the core of who we are.  We get a legal buzz.  Switch to “if you will do” as the motivation and it makes our soul the source of our actions instead of His love.  Subtle but deadly.

This subtle but deadly shift is at the root of the historical struggle between law and grace, and at the foundation of every dissolved marriage.  When we act out of our identity we tap into an endless source.  When we act out of “should”, “must”, “ought to”, etc. we run the risk of becoming our own finite source and eventually drying up.

Today, I wrote because I love it!!! I had to.

11 May 2009

Words and Thinking

By the time we are 3, many of our neurological pathways are already firmly in place.  Ways of processing sensory input are all but locked in.  So as we grow and start learning language, we must realize that words connect to these pathways and ways of processing data.  It only takes one session of marriage counseling to realize that two different people can assign radically different meanings to the same word.  While husband and wife may share the same definition of a word, the emotional charge attached to it can be 180 degrees different.

Words are the bits that program our minds, as they connect to real objects and experiences.  The word “dog” can create physiological reactions in someone who has been bit by one.  It does not necessarily matter if an actual dog is present, the word is sufficient to create experience.  For another person (hello Robin) the same word, “dog” can produce peace and calm.

So as we try to learn about the central and anchoring issues of living life, as we pursue God, and His plan for us, the words we use have incredible power.  Words that are healing to one, may frighten another, while words that bring life to one, may produce guilt in another.  Is it any wonder God found it necessary to make “The Word” a person.

Is it any wonder The Person spoke in stories and said things like, “you have heard it said….(religious tradition) but I say to you…(the heart issue)”.   He had a lot of neurological pathways to re-route.  Even the word “repent” which refers to the change of these ways of processing, has come to mean something completely different to many.  Many people are put off by the word, because of what it has come to mean.

I might say, “you have heard it said that “repent” means to feel bad and clean up your life, but I say to you, repentance is a way of opening your mind to a whole new way of seeing the world”

Today open your eyes, slow down, breathe.  If you were still and peaceful how would you see the world differently.  Consider that some words contain life but they have seemed undesirable to you.  Like green beans.

Listen to my friend Kevin Weaver, who does an awesome job of re-programming some over-used, or misunderstood words. Click on his name to hear.

9 May 2009

See no Evil?

The life you are after is not just difficult to find, it is viciously opposed.  It is easier for us to discuss searching, engaging, understanding, pursuing, seeing, and even awakening.  It is easier because we can engage all of these parts of the journey on our own, at our own leisure, or our own level of motivation.  Acknowledging that we face an enemy is a little like the girl in the scary movie who suddenly realizes someone else is in the house.  Everything changes.  It is time to make this change on purpose.

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In a world filled with beauty and hope, in a place of childlike trust where families love and give and live a life of generous sacrifice, it is difficult and sometimes feels a bit sacriligious to talk about evil.  It is in fact these very evidences of God’s nature that make it imperative that we talk frankly and directly about evil.  In his excellent book, Waking the Dead, John Eldredge proposes several tenets for laying ahold of the life we are created for.  One of them is this; know we are at war.

If we are not careful we can fall into the trap of believing that if we just took care of the needs of people, and got the imbalance balanced, all would be right with the world.  Our enemy is crafty enough to know how much we would like to believe this.  Our “happily ever after” mindset sometimes kicks in prematurely and we want our birthright to begin now.  We would love the Lion to lay down with the Lamb today.  The time is not here yet, so don’t throw away your Lion repellant just yet.

Our enemy knows enough to not overplay his hand most of the time.  Apathy, bitterness, judgment, are all effective weapons in his arsenal he can engage without ever showing his hand.  Life throws sufficient circumstances at us to keep us overwhelmed and disengaged.  We think we don’t have time, energy, or need to engage in the war.

Josh an Israeli Soldier and Zach a Worship Leader

A Warrior and A worshipper

Then we see a documentary on human trafficking (great job, Sower of Seeds), or a man in our neighborhood murders his wife and children and turns the weapon on himself.  Or we catch the news about the overwhelming mass murder going on in nations all over the world in the name of religion.  Something in us stirs and we begin to think that evil might have a face, and a personality.  It might even have an intentional agenda to destroy all that God loves.  We are at war.

On September 12, 2001 we woke up to a new world and a new way of seeing.  America as a nation seemed galvanized.  Not just angry, but alert and unified.  Our usually divided government gathered in unity and sang a song of patriotism.  Our collective population seemed intent on standing up and pulling together.  It just felt different.  Do you remember? It lasted about three months.  Then we began to drift off to sleep again. Today perhaps we are more divided than ever.  The opposition need not play his hand, as he has us playing against one another.

In this world of beauty and hope, when we see no evil we slide into apathy.  Because we were made for dominion and not apathy, the apathetic find someone or something to fight against and men begin to try to conquer one another.  It is the goodness of the world that makes it so important we acknowledge and withstand the evil.  Not disorganization, not imbalance, not injustice as a passive state; evil. Real evil.  The devil has not yet satisfied his agenda, and if we are passive or disengaged he is cool with that.  Try to stand up and fight for right.  Rescue a sex slave, feed the hungry, get involved and it will become clear;  the life we are created to live is opposed by a vicious enemy.

One last precaution.  The cause of this enemy is not the cause of a man or an organization, or a nation.  He opposes love and joy and, and kindness, and goodness and gentleness, and meekness, and mercy, and self control.  Anywhere he can sow the opposite of these attributes of God, he is at work, even if it is in your own heart.  Stand up and fight for the nature of God in your life today.  As we win this battle we can begin to invade the darkness all around, bringing light into the darkest places in the world.

Todays post in honor of Sower of Seeds.  Bringing light to very dark places.  Click on their name to check them out.

8 May 2009

Lessons from the Olive

Nazareth

Nazareth

In the first of many eye opening moments in Israel, our tour guide made a comment as we drove past a green freeway sign marked, “Nazareth 20 Miles”.

“Nazareth comes from the word “Netser” meaning “Olive shoot”, he continued, “this is the same word used in Isaiah 11:1 when the Prophet predicted Jesus’ arrival by saying a Shoot will come from the stump of Jesse. This reference to Jesus was fulfilled in double portion when the actual Shoot came from a town named after the olive shoot.”

“Fascinating”, I thought and tucked this idea away.

Then we walked through the archaeological site which was once the city of Capernaum.  It was in this city where Jesus performed the most recorded miracles of any geographical site in the New Testament.  This is also where Jesus made His second home once His ministry began.

Olive Press First Press

Olive Press First Press

Here we saw a fascinating stone instrument, like a round table with a trough and a wheel-like stone that fit in the trough.  Our guide explained to us this was for the “first press” of the olive.  In the trough, one would place both water and olives.  As the heavy stone rolled over the olives, the oil was released and came to the top of the water.  It was the “first press” creating “virgin olive oil”.  It was the most pure oil, and it was used to make incense and burned in lamps.
Olive Press Second Press

Olive Press Second Press

Then we saw another stone instrument.  He told us that this was the second press for the olives.  What was left of the olives after the first press was placed in burlap bags, and they were stacked next to the stone pillar.  Heavy stones were placed on top to press more oil from the husks.  The oil ran into the basin at the foot of the stone pillar.  It was a bit more coarse, and so it was not used for incense and lamp oil, instead it was used in the baking of bread.
The third and final “press”, we were told, took place when the bags were laid out on the ground, where a trough in the ground occupied the lowest spot.  The burlap bags were beaten with sticks or stones until what was left of the oil ran out.  This oil, even more coarse was not fit for incense or cooking so it was used as the base for soap.  Fascinating stuff.  Again, I tucked this information away.
It was a few days later that it all came together for me.  On the side of the Mount of….olives…you guessed it, there is a lovely garden known as Gethsemane.  It commemorates the spot where Jesus prayed the night before His crucifixion.  It was here He sweat drops of blood,  bringing His soul in submission to the task at hand and preparing for the excruciating day ahead.  We walked around the garden itself and then approached the church in this solemn spot.
The Garden of Gesthemane

The Garden of Gethsemane

As we prepared to enter the church the tour guide uttered the words that made the whole picture burst forth in my mind.  “This church is dark, and heavy feeling”, he said, “it was designed to convey the atmosphere of this garden, Gethsemane means oil press or olive press.”
Suddenly all the pieces connected and I was overwhelmed by the great lengths to which God would go to say “I love you” to the human race.
Jesus’ prayers in the Garden that night, lifted up in the heaviness of the Garden, were the incense of the first press.   The weight of our sin piled on top of Him as the burden of the human race, pressed again, making our Lord the true Bread of life.  And finally the Roman centurions beat Him again and again bringing His blood to the surface and eventually squeezing out from Him all that was left of His life. In this act He became the cleansing agent that washed away the sin of all who would believe.
I was stunned, and overwhelmed.  To a people whose very livelihood and commerce was the olive, God had foretold and then sent the Olive Shoot that would grow from the stump of Jesse and be both Food and Forgiveness to God’s people.  God the Father, Master of multi-media communication was in full array for any who would hear.  How could they miss it?
Today, God’s multi-media communication is on full display for all who will hear; don’t miss it.
7 May 2009

Can we really be Free? (Pt 4)

Steering our soul through life is difficult without a map to guide us.  Regret, frustration, tedious attempts at transformation, all these obstacles can seem to be the rule and not the exception.  Though I usually resist formulas, I want to describe here how our will functions, so we can most effectively begin to alter our experience.

Here is the path:

Perception>Desire>Choice>Action>Experience>Impact

Don’t read over this too fast.  Look at it again.  The advertising companies understand this as a science.  We act and experience based on our desires but our desires come from our perceptions.  If we want to change a person’s action, we begin by discovering their desires.  But hidden below their desires is perception: the thing that drives us all.  (see @walansmith).

For real and lasting life change, we must begin to examine our perceptions. (also see earlier post; Ways of Seeing: Contact lenses and Sausage machines).  If I want to affect your behavior I must get you to see in a new way.  The Bible calls this “repentance”.  This does not mean feeling bad enough to change, it means seeing in a new way.

Something appears desirable, my desire engages, I decide and then act.  Once I have acted, this begins to shape my experience, and then it shapes how others experience me.  It can also affect how others experience themselves around me.

If I see everything through the eyes that my life experiences have given me, it is possible, even likely that I will reproduce my life experiences.  Is it possible to have new eyes?

Every day, I pray this:  ”God open up the eyes in my heart and give me Your Spirit which allows me to see differently, if you do, then I can see and know (experience) the amazing things you have done, are doing, and continue to do in and around me. If that sounds like a clever prayer, I cannot take credit for it.  Paul prayed this very thing for the young church at Ephesus.  Try it on today, it looks good on you.

You can know the Truth…and guess what it will do for you.

5 May 2009

Abundant Life does not mean a full Calendar

“I came that you might have life and life abundantly”  

Jesus makes the above statement as a part of His declaration regarding what He came to deliver to mankind.  Aliveness; not busy-ness, not excited-ness, alive-ness.

Unfortunately we have come to measure life as a “yes or no” proposition.  Either we have it or we don’t.  Alive.  Dead.  Only two options.  It would seem Jesus views life more as a measurable resource, one that can increase or decrease.  What if we saw it the way He sees it?  We wake up in the morning with a budgeted amount of life to spend.  What if we spent it all by noon?  We might come home and make a statement like this…”It’s been a rough day, honey, I am just dead”

We spend a lot of thought trying to figure how to manage our time.  I wonder if we saw life in this measurable budgeted way, if we might not focus more on managing our life, instead of our calendars. How much life we are willing to give away to strangers, or how much life do we receive from friends?

Adam and Eve had a tree from which they could daily ingest more life…running low?  Stop and fill up.  What if that same tree is available now and we walk by it?  We avoid it.  Or worse we try to serve it…

Do you know where to fill your tank?

3 May 2009

Can we Really be Free? (Part 3)

I have been at Gateway Church for over four years now.  I can only remember two times I heard our worship band make an actual mistake.  Amazingly, one of them was my fault, and I was sitting in the auditorium.  The guitar player had borrowed a vintage guitar from me, and it had some fret problems. In a song featuring a single note lead, the guitar line just died.

Gateway Worship

So…Four years , three months, two mistakes, one of them the fault of some guy in the congregation.   I began to think one day…and this is what I pictured.  The worship leaders must show up every week-end and talk about every single mistake they can anticipate.   They must point out to each member of the team where they are likely to blow it, and point out multiple ways to avoid this potential mistake.  Don’t modulate downward, don’t count eight here…they must painstakingly line out a whole range of the pitfalls that lay before them each week-end and rigorously plan how to avoid each and every train wreck.  You think?  I don’t.  I can’t think of a more destructive way to plan a rehearsal.  Focus on the pitfalls, plan to overcome them.

Amazingly, this is how many live what we have come to call, “the Christian life”.  Lessons on how-not-to-sin.  Lessons on what to do-when-we-sin.  Dallas Willard refers to this as the Gospel of Sin Management, which is of course no gospel at all, and certainly not the message of Jesus.

So picture this; each person shows up and is given their song list.  If they do not already know their part, they talk through each persons role, function and contribution.  Only acoustic here, screaming lead guitar there, soft keys and a gentle female vocal, then build to the crescendo.  As each person is encouraged to know their role, and given clear direction, the complexity of a group of individuals becomes a single entity.  Rough spots may be noted and overcome, but the focus is on each person fulfilling that purpose and role that they fulfill in the band.

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We are here to be re-presentations of the Nature of God, deposited in us.  I guess we could work hard at avoiding sin, but somehow it seems much more freeing to learn how to become the person I was created to be.  Focus on the target, not the obstacles.  Relax a little, enjoy the ride.

Once again all photos by the Amazing Jillian Hamp, who plays her part well!  Click her name to see more of her amazing work.

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