Joy to be fighting

Today has been one of those days where I am so incredibly thankful for God's grace in not only saving me, but putting me around Godly men that encourage me with their examples. Tomorrow is a seminar being put on by the church as a lead-in to the upcoming men's Bible study; the seminar is being put on by Mitch Maher, a preacher out of Houston, and is called Clarifying the Bible. Maher shows how the whole Bible is linked together as one narrative, and I'm excited to go there and be a part of it, and to spend time serving at the same time. I recall days of my youth where the idea of getting up early to help with anything would have been met with annoyance and anger, but thankfully that man is dead, replaced by a spirit of willingness and love of service, one modeled by my own father.

I'm also incredibly thankful and prayerful for my pastor, Matt Chandler, who I've written about below. Matt is in the middle of the initial intense treatment for his cancer, and has a new update posted:



Matt and his family have been through so much, but at the same time it's amazing to see how God uses this time where he has been somewhat incapacitated from many of his normal activities to raise up other people in the church, and to demonstrate that this church is not a work of Matt's but one of God's.

Seeing all this gives me strength to fight my battles with my own sin, and lets me rejoice in the midst of painful times. Seeing the examples around me allows me to preach to my own downcast soul and call it out of self-pity and despair; it allows me to fight even when the enemy tries to convince me I'm not good enough to stand my ground. I thank God for days like today, where struggles are coupled with strength, and I'm so incredibly glad that He's always providing the strength to fight each day.

2010 prayers and thoughts

Father, I'm tired...please let me rest in You.
Father, I'm weak...please let me be strong in You.
Father, I'm a sinner...please make me holy in You.
Father, I'm alone...please let me be with You.
Father, I'm hungry...please let me eat at Your table.
Father, I'm thirsty...please let me drink the water of life.
Father, I'm falling...please don't let me fall away.
Father, I don't deserve anything...but Your goodness shines so brightly I can desire nothing else.

I am such a broken and sinful man, yet You have proven to me that Your love is greater than anything, and Your forgiveness surpasses the strength of all sin. Father, I beg you for the strength and the will to live as a man who is free from that. On my own I can do nothing, with You there is nothing in Your will I cannot achieve.

Help me to remember than when sin looks so good.

Off to war: fight because you've already won

These past few weeks, the very public turmoil caused by my pastor Matt Chandler's tumor discover, subsequent surgery and revelation of a malignant biopsy, has brought a lot of love and prayerfulness out of so many. As I wrote the other day, it's caused me to become, if not introspective, than it's made me spend a lot of time holding myself up against what Matt's going through. The question that rolled through my mind a lot was: if this was dropped on my lap today, would I be as strong as he's being?

But that was the wrong question. Firstly, it's not me--it's Matt. And was Matt strong enough? Well, no--if he was trying to do this on his own steam I doubt he would have made it this far, almost a solid month later, without cracking. It's been with the support of his family and the church, those both close to him and those who just hear him, that God has mustered strength for Matt. God was not surprised by this development, and while to many this may sound horrible, but it's true: God was not surprised because it was a part of His will for Matt's life, and He'll undoubtedly use it to work in so many others. As John Piper tweeted a couple days ago, "God never does only one thing. In everything he does he is doing thousands of things. Of these we know perhaps half a dozen."

But that question: it's not what I should be concerned with. God hasn't cast me adrift with no control. He's demonstrated to me over and over, in so many ways, from just the way things work out in a day to the way He delivered me to this place, to this job, to this church and to my group of men, that He is in control and working. Through the Word and through the Spirit, working in tandem to open my eyes to His hands at work, I know He's in control. And He won't throw something at me that He won't also provide the strength to endure. I have my own personal sufferings; the pain I've endured the past two months has been a trial, but it brought me to a place where I was more mindful of God on a daily basis. And in this time where the whole body of the church is facing the fear of loss, God brings a powerful reminder: we cannot lose when He's already won.

I'm not talking that "total victory" nonsense, nor am I going to turn this into another extended discussion on the prosperity gospel. But I will say that in the way I see Matt Chandler living today, I see the balance God has struck between the fact that He's already won every battle in Christ's death and resurrection, and the fact that each day we renew our battle with the spiritual enemy both internal and external. It's why Paul describes the life of a believer in 1 Corinthians 9:24 as a race, one we are to run in as though we want to win. I want to be a man who is as strong in my faith as Matt Chandler is, but even in that desire I have to recognize that coming to that point is something to be ordained by God. I look forward to that day, as I pray for renewed strength each day leading up to it, that I might fight my battles with His might and not my own.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.--Philippians 1:6

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.--Philippians 1:19-26

Victory is the end to war, and seems like a fitting way to end this little blog series. I'm sure I'll return to the idea again, but for now I'll set it to rest. The men around me who serve as my own band of brothers and I spent today praying for Matt and his family, and for our body; I pray that this leads me and all of us to renew our efforts to reach out to all around us in love, and that it sparks a revival in our community.

In closing, check out the new video from Matt.

Off to war: did I choose the right side?

That's a question I think crosses the mind of everyone who believes, especially since I am relatively young in my faith and inexperienced in dealing with that "dark night of the soul." God has done so many amazing things, but as the Bible demonstrates in the history of both the Jewish people and the early church, people pressed by the world are quick to become fearful, and forget the good things God has done for them already; I am no exception.

Every morning I spend some time with God, early on while it's still quiet and peaceful and my mind is fresh. Reading the Word, studying it, and meditating on what God has done for me in prayer, these are all key to setting me up for a day where I look to Him. It's hard, though, to know when and how to carry the banner of God forward in life. I live in the proverbial Bible belt, yet there are so many around me who have no regard for God. There's a part of me left over from older times that wants to retreat into the American evangelical style of Christianity where I snipe at everyone else's faults while setting myself up as a moral paragon, but two things stop me: the work God has done to pull me out of that mindset, and my own memory of what I have done and still am capable of. But how do I carry out in my daily life what is seen by all others as pure foolishness? I was even amused to look at a comment on a Driscoll video I was watching and see it proclaim "You Christians are all FOOLS! Yes, YOU, m#$^@f$@&%s!"

I am, and I am a fool joyfully so.

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.--1 Corinthians 1:20-25

The only way I can carry that banner is to live as that fool. And the only way I can know what that means is to continue my meditations on God, seeking from Him the way that He's set down for me, the way to love Him and obey Him. Why do I do it? Because I was a kid and got told so in Sunday school? I've been on my own for years, it would have been a small matter to jettison such history, and I've seen such things many times over the years, people who came up through church who now are indistinguishable from the world. It's because God changed my heart, He made Himself unmistakeable to me, and He still does. Because of that, I will gladly embrace what is to the world foolishness, because I'd rather have God's foolishness than the wisdom of a world that's dying more every day.

Do I reject the world? No. Even God does not reject the world--He sent His Son because He loved the world. I pray that God would make me a man that loves my fellow man deeply, but I also know that such love is a byproduct of loving Him--and so, I seek God's continued transformation of my soul.

I have had a good last few months. In spite of a month of pain, in spite of an unknown future, God has proven that He is so much better than all that. When the world and my own sin set about to attack, to press on me and break me away from Him, I hold on that much more firmly. I dig in tight and reach for the Word. There is joy in Christ, true joy and hope, and if my faith enrages another to the point that they'll call me vile names, then my only prayer is that I might be there to witness the point that God changes that man's heart, should that be His will. I pray it is.

He is better

It's 6:30pm tonight, and I'm crying in the freaking car as I drive home. Crying! Can you believe that? I know I can, and I'll tell you why: because Matt Chandler loves God more than he loves anything else, and I want that.

They released his pathology report today: the tumor was malignant and uncontained, but the language seemed to indicate the doctors were still pretty optimistic about the whole thing. However: this is brain cancer we're talking about. Probably one of the worst two-word combinations there is to hear, let alone about yourself. Especially after you've just had your head dug in and now they tell you it's not over yet. Yet Matt has heard this, and he digs in with his family both personal and church around him and says "God is better." And it hits me because that's what I want.

I want my heart to be in a place where God is always better. Rich or poor, He's better. Sick as a dog and on the verge of death or having another normal healthy day? He's better. Hugging my first son on the day of his graduation from college? God's still better than that. Standing at the funeral weeping and holding my wife because our child passed before he could even crawl. God is still better.

My heart craves that sort of strength, that combination of my will with His that leads me to always seeking my joy in Him. Always. Not when the day has been pretty good and I've managed not to do bad things. In all things, at all times. This is Christian hedonism, and it's what I pursue.

Father, I pray to You that if it is in Your will, that You will bring healing to Matt, whether it's through Your miraculous work or through the skilled hands of a doctor. If Your will is that he should return home, however....I pray for strength and healing for all of us. I ask that You would not allow this to become an embittering moment for anyone, but rather that You would let Yourself be glorified in all of us reaching out to each other in love and support, that we would be filled with the Spirit to the point that corporately we do exactly what we have been seeking to understand through Matt's words all these years. I pray that You would give us the strength, the will, and the wisdom to live as real Christians, to live out Paul's words of Philippians 1:21 when he says, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." I know this is going to hurt...but help us all to keep looking to You through the pain, to see Your beauty and remember what we are running for.

All we have to fear

Every other day or so I will get in a conversation with another believer in the area in the course of daily life. For example, the other day I was getting lunch during a normal work day, so I headed to Subway to get me a sammich. I saw a guy probably a couple years younger than me with a Bible and a book on Paul on his table, so I engaged him and we spoke for a bit. As soon as I told him I went to the Village, his first question was "How's Matt Chandler?"

It's a little weird to have a celebrity of sorts for a pastor, and all the more amusing to me to think of where the church came from and how it has arrived where it is. It's one of those situations where only a fool would dare try to claim it was anything other than God that created this situation. And so we have a situation where a church of about 150 or so hired a brash young man who was on fire for Christ to preach the Word, now swollen to nearly 8,000 and still growing across 3 campuses. When faced with one of the most unthinkable situations--the discovery of a small tumor in Matt's frontal lobe--the church dug in and prayed hard, and all the more amazing to me, around the world people joined in. Through Twitter I was able to keep track of people in Africa, Europe and Asia who were praying for Matt, for his healing, and moreso that God's will would be seen in our words and deeds, no matter the outcome.

Before going in for surgery, Matt recorded this video, which was played in all the services the Sunday after his surgery. My campus' pastor, Beau Hughes, spoke right to the heart of the matter in addressing the struggle with anxiety that so many face, and that has in fact colored my own life in the years since leaving home. Even the music that night collaborated in the effort to speak the truth of God's sovereignty in the face of my own lack of control. Yet it was the Holy Spirit moving and revealing the truth of all of it in relation to my own heart that moved me most. The foolishness of our post-Enlightenment rejection of the supernatural does not discourage me from saying that in that fully spiritual moment God spoke to my heart and baptized me again in His Spirit, and the joy felt there was moving beyond speech's power to describe.

You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.--Psalm 4:7

There is not a conclusion to this story, not yet. Nor am I its author; I'm just a character, going where the Author wills it so. But I won't worry about whether He will have writer's block, or run out of ink, or get bored with me and decide to just destroy me for grins. In joy and in pain He has been forging me and in both I will take Him.

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

"Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."--Matthew 6:25-34

I will worry again. There will be days and circumstances that send me reeling, but all I can do is live my life a day at a time. I'm writing this more for my own benefit than anyone else's, so that on the days when I'm feeling pressured by life I can look back and be reminded. I have nothing to fear from life's pain, for all it will serve to do is lift me closer to Him and remind me that this is only temporary.

Off to war: the battle for my mind

Since returning from a trip out of town, I've been in a lot of pain. I am thankfully scheduled to see a doctor today, but for the last few weeks I have been limping around with a lot of pain in my left leg. Sitting relieves it some, but in other ways just shifts it. Pain can, as I've written before, be a motivator, but it can also be very distracting. Pain can make one turn inward in self-pity. Even sitting here writing this is something of a burden on me, as I'd much rather be doing something that involves less working my mind and more just absorbing entertainment to distract me.

A consequence has been that it's been difficult to sit down and study the Word lately. I end up turning to it trying to find comfort but studying it has gone out the window. In the end, I find myself struggling with maintaining a grip on even basic truths, because my mind is willful and doesn't want to focus on God. It's given the enemy openings to exploit my fears and doubts, to amplify my sin before my eyes and darken my sight of Christ and His sacrifice for me.

I've had quite enough. To hell with this pain. I am not going to let it get between me and God, and I am sure as hell not going to let it drag me into some pool of despair. I am going to dig in on Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." God is the one who is doing work in me, changing my heart. I am responsible for my mind, what it is fed with and where it's focused, and I am not letting it take the easy road to destruction.

Last week was the final week of the men's Bible study for this season, until it starts again in January. A speaker came to give his testimony, Dr. Willie Peterson, a man who has been a big influence in the life of my table leader. Listening to him brought two important lessons to me. Well, one was a reinforcement of a previous one from our last speaker: all the Godly men I've met always point outward, they are always quick to give credit for where they are to others, and it was no different with him. There was no self-aggrandizement, only "oh, this wasn't me, this guy and this guy, they're the ones who led me out of where I was and showed me the way." In the same way God has convicted me where my own pride has held me up, and I seek every day to give it up, to surrender it, and it helps when I find real joy in being around men who lead me to be this way.

The other lesson was a practical one: find someone in the Bible that you feel kinship with in some way, someone that's similar to you, and study their lives. Contrary to popular misconception, the Bible is not full of Ned Flanders types that do nothing but float around while God dumps wrath on the rest of the fools around him. Time and time again, God picks up unlikely people and sets them up high. It is His way. It's mentioned explicitly when Jesus speaks on the Beatitudes in Matthew 5: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." That's absolute craziness to normal human thinking, but God shows His hand by working contrary to how we think things should work. The man I feel has the most in common with me is my biblical namesake, David. There are three reasons in particular: 1) He was a musician; 2) He was a leader; and 3) He struggled with lust. Granted, there's much more to him than this, but these are pretty big points in his story, and they're pretty big points in mine.

So, I'm pursuing the renewal of my mind by looking at his life as it's written about, from the beginning. I'll write about it some here, especially as I find parallels with my own walk. The biggest thing I notice about him right at the beginning, that I strive for: he has absolutely no fear of anything earthly, but knowing more about him, he has total fear of God. I am digging in here so that I may push forward with that as a goal.