Liberating you from bad ideas about God
Want to plant a church? Forget the books, seminars, and conferences. Just watch this video and follow the simple instructions. Thanks to Steve Addison for posting this.
To see a similar video about How to Invite Someone to Your Church, see the post at GraceGround.com.
In one of my posts of infamy, I mentioned that I knew my thinking was changing because I started agreeing with authors I used to despise. Donald Miller was one of those authors. He is most known for Blue Like Jazz, but one of his other great books, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, is also a great read.
One of the things I am also looking forward to is Blue Like Jazz: the Movie. It is directed by my favorite musician of all time – Steve Taylor. But I will have to talk about this in a later post.
For now, check out this video from Donald Miller about choosing which story you will live, rather than just letting your life story happen to you. It is a principle I first heard from him about four years ago, and am trying to live it out in my own life. If what he says in the video tugs at you, you can read more about it in his book.
Henri Nouwen worked among AIDS victims in San Francisco. He writes of young men who are dying, many of them banished by their own families, forced to hustle on the street. Many of them have had hundreds of relationships. But they are dying. Cast off from society. Rejected.
Nouwen says that all they want is to be loved. They want a safe place. A safe relationship. A place to call home. Someone to accept them. Someone to love them.
Henri Nouwen has also worked among orphanages in Peru. Here is what he writes:
How little do we really know the power of physical touch. Those boys and girls only wanted one thing: to be touched, hugged, stroked, and caressed. Probably most adults have the same needs but no longer have the innocence and unself-consciousness to express them. Sometimes I see humanity as a sea of people starving for affection, tenderness, care, love, acceptance, forgiveness and gentleness. Everyone seems to cry, ‘Please love me.’
Lonely? Welcome to the Crowd
I don’t know about you, but that is my own cry. I believe that is the cry of my wife, my children, and pretty much every person I have ever met. Also, I think nobody is more lonely than the person who gets into a relationship to quench their need for love, only to find out that they are still just as lonely. It is not really comforting to realize this, but we are all lonely together. We all feel lonely, but knowing this doesn’t help us feel any less lonely.
So I believe that one goal in life should be to find someone to be lonely with; to find someone who can hopefully take the edge off the loneliness. Marriage can be good for this, and so can children and friends. But some of the loneliest people I know are married with kids, and have lots of friends.
As for myself, I am married to a wonderful woman, and have three beautiful children. But they cannot always be there for me. Even when they are, they do not always know everything I am thinking or feeling. And so sometimes I feel separated from them. I feel lonely.
Lonely? You Don’t Have to Be
Call me crazy, sappy, or just plain weird, but one person I have found who is always there for me, who listens when I yell and scream, who doesn’t judge when I fail, and who loves me no matter what, is Jesus. I try to converse with him throughout the day, talking to him as I drive to work, as I face problems, encounter joys, eat my food, or whatever.
Back in a period when I experienced great doubt and fear, I yelled at Jesus almost every day. I said some very bad things to him. Looking back now, I am so thankful I yelled at him instead of my wife and children. I think they would have forgiven me, but it’s possible I would have damaged them forever. But not Jesus. He took it all in. Suffered through it with me. He never left. He never said, “That’s it! I’m outta here!” Why? Because he understood.
A French proverb says, “To understand all is to forgive all.” Jesus understands, and so he forgives all, which means he will never leave us nor forsake us. If we have Jesus, we will never be alone. We can converse him with him, talk with him, and walk with him.
I think this is what Brother Lawrence described in his classic, Practicing the Presence of God. Jesus is not somewhere out there, sitting on a throne, listening to our prayers from the other side of the universe. No, I believe that he is right here, with us and by us. Though we cannot see him or feel him, we can interact with him as with any other human. He knows my deepest secrets and blackest sins. He sees all, knows all, and forgives all.
I am fully known by him, and yet he loves me still. That is why he helps remove my loneliness when no one else can.
What is your experience with Jesus? Is it something like this, or do you think I am just crazy?
I posted another article over at GraceGround.com today called, “Bible Study or Church?” Once criticism people sometimes have of house churches is that they are nothing more than a Bible Study.
I take a stab at answering this question in that article. Head on over there to weigh in on the subject.
By the way, if you already have a blog, and want to start another blog at GraceGround.com just so you can repost some old articles of yours or provide “incoming links” to your blog, feel free. The only thing I ask in return is that you put GraceGround.com on your Blogroll.
The next edition of the New American Bible, the preferred translation for millions of Catholics, is removing the booty from the Bible.
And just when people were beginning to think the Bible was fun to read…
Actually, all they are doing is updating their translation to more modern wording. According to NPRs News blog, here are some of the swaps included in the new Bible:
Ironically, a woman named “Mary” reported that “virgin” in Isaiah 7:14 should no longer be translated as “virgin” but as “young woman.” Mary Sperry, who oversees Bible licensing for the bishops, told Reuters that “The bishops and the Bible are not signaling any sort of change in the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus. None whatsoever.”
So I guess Mary is still a virgin. There was no midnight booty call.
