THE COMPOST PILE OF LIFE

Looking back over my life

All I see is one big compost pile

All my writings

All my thoughts

All my studies

All there in a pile decomposing

And then composing

My temporary life.

Looking back over my life

All those important things

All those unimportant things

All those significant events

All those insignificant events

All there in a pile decomposing

And then composing

My temporary life.

Looking back over my life

All the joyful times

All the painful times

All the celebrations

All the sufferings

All there in a pile decomposing

And then composing

My temporary life.

Looking ahead to my death

All my hopes

All my goals

All my dreams

All I wanted to do and be

All there in a pile decomposing

And then composing

My eternal life.

LIFE-DEATH-LIFE

Genealogies are a written proof of the life death life cycle.  We are all just recycled people.  Life is a mystery and a miracle.  The farther away from nature that I wander, the less I appreciate that.  I get haughty and think I am way more important than I truly am.  I try to rule and reign over everything, build great things as a testimony to my greatness, things that will last long after I am gone so that others will remember and honor me.  But those memorials are made of brink and stone and will, like me, simply return to dust.

One who kneels close to the ground, daily connects to the dirt, and is watchful of the life death life process, knows the humility and the preciousness of the dust from which we all came from.

I work so hard to be more than I am, even though what I am is declared “very good by my Creator.  God created everything to be as it was meant to be and all of that creation was a delight to Him.  But human beings succumbed to the temptation of wanting more, wanting bigger, wanting better, and went off on their own to find it and accomplish those things.  Unfortunately I often continue in their pattern.

I take what I was freely given, leave the One who delighted in who I am, and went out on my own to be better, do better, and live life in my own glory.  In trying to find myself I lost myself and squandered all I had been given.  Way too often I abandoned the fountain of living waters and ended up in a self made cistern that was broken, deteriorated, and empty.  I left the Garden where every plant and tree yielding fruit was given as food for me to feast on for a world of famine, where even the pods pigs ate were kept away from me by those who fed their pigs but ignored me.  I left a Garden of beauty, harmony, and peace for a world of arrogance, chaos, mean spiritness, lawlessness, violence, hatred of God and His creation.

Will I come to my senses?  Will I humble myself and return Home?

Will we as human beings of God’s Creation come to our senses?

God is waiting for our return.  He is waiting for us with the best robe to cover us, with the fattened calf on the grill, ready to celebrate our return.  He created us and delights in us, in all our imperfection.  He is waiting with open arms and a compassionate heart, to run out and meet us as we find our way Home.  We are His children.  BEHOLD what manner of love He has given and continues to give us.  How can we do anything else except return to Him and be all that He has made us to be?

IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD

“In my integrity you have upheld me,

And have set me in Your Presence forever.”

Psalm 41:12

(1)

All the searching, all the seeking

All the doing this, all the doing that

All the listening, all the learning

All the going here, all the going there

All the queries, all the study

After all is said, after all is done

There You are, sitting and waiting for me

To stop and simply BE in Your Presence.

(2)

The seed does nothing but hide itself in the earth

And there in the hidden place all that is to be done is done.

The fertilized egg who did nothing but hide in the womb

And there in the hidden place all that was to be done was done.

I am Your child who can do nothing but hide myself in Your Presence

And there in the hidden place all that is to be done will be done.

(3)

I listen to You for You are Truth

I follow You for You are the Way

I dwell in You for You are the Life

I trust in You for You are Trustworthy

You are faithful in Your Word

You are steadfast in Your love

You alone are the Shepherd of my soul

You alone are the Healer of my heart

You alone are the Lover of my life

You alone are the Wonder of my wandering.

SIMPLY FOLLOW JESUS

Those who are on a Spiritual Journey keep their eyes and ears open for those to follow.  There are lots of folks ahead of us who have figured things out that maybe we haven’t, so we catch up with them and begin to follow them.  I have done that for most, if not all of my Christian walk.  There are many paths to take and many folks willing to help us by showing what they have discovered along the way.  More than once I accepted their invitation, becoming a part of this group and that group, this church and that church, this cult and that cult.  Eventually I discovered that most if not all of these adventures made me a part of other people’s empires and not, as they promised, closer to God and His Kingdom. 

Some of these folks were good, honest, and true to the vision they were putting forth; at first.  But eventually the organism died and disintegrated into an organization that needed human intervention and maintenance and something important was lost.  This is not a new concept.   It has been ongoing throughout the history of Christianity.

          “I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you

            cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call

            themselves apostles but are not, and discovered that they are

             impostors.  Moreover, you have endurance and have not grown

             weary.  Yet I hold this against you; you have lost the love you had

             at first.  Realize how far you have fallen.  Repent, and do the works

             you did at first.  Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your

             lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelations 2:2-5).

How is it possible to do everything right, get a glowing report from Jesus and then in a blink of an eye be so wrong?  The organism that died and disintegrated was the initial working of the Spirit of God Himself and was to be the life itself.  It needed no human intervention or maintenance.  Once the thought of saying, “Thanks God, we’ll take it from here” entered in and human minds went to work organizing and interpreting God’s plan went into effect the result was a golden calf.  As good looking and finely constructed as that golden calf is, it is still an idol and God speaks clearly about idols being avoided by His people.

I have been on this Spiritual Journey for a long time; I have gone down many different side paths that attracted me at first with the ideas that I resonated with but ended up following the men proclaiming those ideas.  Most of our churches are named for the men; the ones who aren’t named for them certainly hold in high esteem certain leaders who become popular and likely to be followed.  It’s not that they are bad or evil men.  But I have learned that “the best of men are men at best” and I need to beware of that and walk accordingly.

I can enjoy good teaching and preaching but I need to be ever aware that the call to “Follow Me” comes only from Jesus Christ Himself.  I also need to be ever aware that the work I am called to do along my Journey is simply spoken by Jesus Himself when His disciples asked what they must do to be doing the work of God.  He answered them…

“This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”

John 6: 29

          

JUDGING IS GOD'S JOB

There isn’t anything in any other human being that isn’t in me; the good, the bad, and the ugly.  What I do with all that stuff is up to me.  God created human beings out of dirt but He also breathed a bit of Himself within us.  His design plan for us was that we would be His image bearers and reflect that image in our lives.  Part of that image was a freedom of choice.  He didn’t make us simply to dominate us.  He made us to be in Relationship with Him, just as He was One with His Word and His Spirit.  “Like US we were created…to be like them.

Right out of the box Adam and Eve chose to abandon God and strike out on their own, with the help of the serpent who tempted them, not to be like God, but god themselves, doing their own thing and disregarding God’s command and warning of the consequences of not listening to Him.  Human beings have been doing it “My way” ever since.  God continually tries to help us back to where we should be ever since.

          “If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well

           sin is crouching at the door.  Its desire is for you, but you must

           rule over it” (Genesis 4:7).

          “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.

            Therefore choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:11-20).

          “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me

            The fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns,

             Broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

          “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming to the world…

            Some did not receive him.  But to those who did receive him”

            (John 1:9-13).

All people have that choice.  I can choose to follow God through receiving and believing in Jesus of I can live my life following the lusts of my heart, my dishonorable fleshly passions, and my debase mind practicing all manner of unrighteousness.  That choice is up to me and only me.

The temptation that comes after I have made that choice for myself is to get haughty in my choice and try to do what even God didn’t do…MAKE others choose what I chose.  This is not God’s way, Jesus’ way, nor is it to be my way.  When Jesus was telling Peter what his life would be like by following him, Peter immediately turned to John and said, “Lord, what about him?  Jesus responded, ‘What is that to you?  You follow me” (John 21:20-22).

Judgment of others is God’s job and His alone.  Only He knows what is in the hearts of people.  Only He knows how He is working in the lives of others.  My job is to follow Jesus and mind my life.  I can be a witness to what Jesus taught and did.  I can share what God did and continues to do in my life.  But I am never to judge another person for their actions or behavior. Jesus teaches this in Matthew 7:1, 2 and Matthew 13:24-30.  Paul teaches this in

Romans 2:1-11.

There will be a time of Judgment.

But God is the only One who is in a position to be the Judge.

INSTITUTIONAL GOLDEN CALF

Exodus 32

Institutional failure is the fruit of a faulty foundation.  The Israelites exchanged God and Moses with a golden calf when Moses failed to return from his meeting on the mountain with God.  Christians may be just as guilty by exchanging Jesus with the institutional church when Jesus failed to return in a timely manner.  Both of the exchangements were for forms that could be seen with the eyes and touched with the hands.

“Make us gods who shall go before us.”  The golden calf was made of all the gold that God let them bring from Egypt.  (Exodus 12:35,36)  The very things God gave them were used to replace God as the One they were to look to for deliverance.  The same was true throughout church history and is true today. 

Money, time, and energy go into building huge buildings and ministries, even after Jesus said the Temple and Temple system would fall and He would replace it with Himself.  Spiritual gifts and abilities are used to set up systems that take the form of worldly power, control, and lordship, a form that Jesus clearly rebuked his disciples for desiring when he said, “But not so with you.”  (Luke 24:30)

Jesus was building his church when “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”.  He was building his church as he became One with his disciples as he was One with God.  He continues to build his church with those who respond to his call to come and see by following him; with those God gave the right to become children of God by receiving him and believing in his name; with those who respond as Peter and recognize that indeed, Jesus “is the Christ, the Son of the living God”.

These are his church and continue to be his church throughout eternity.  He is the rock that the gates of hell shall not prevail against.  Anything else is idolatry and will not stand in God’s Presence.  There will be no institutional failure in his church.  People will stand on a firm foundation and will bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit to a hungry and thirsty world.  They will be His people and God will be their God, forever.  This is the church I want to be a part of.

BLUE SKY THOUGHTS & IDEAS

It seems to me that we live in a time of Institutional Failure.  The political institution, educational institution, and religious institutions are all in a state of failure.  This is nothing new; it’s a continuous pattern.  But at some point we need to stop and examine the pattern as a whole and question why this keeps happening again and again.

I sit and wonder about these things as I watch the world replace faulty systems with faulty systems and then wonder why things didn’t get better.

I have experienced this in the church realm so I can speak to that realm as I “blue sky” some ideas and thoughts.

Things get too big, too many, too scattered.  Rather than self control we default to external control which never works.  It either falls into the wrong hands or things get top heavy, causing the institution itself to become the focus rather than what it was created to do.  The power go to a few, leaving a majority of folks uninvested and uninvolved, which usually leads to discontentment, grumbling, and eventually desertion or revolution.

A close second to that is we become accustomed to being told what others have learned rather than learning how to learn for ourselves.  The true treasure of teaching is the work involved in digging and discovering the facts and information and then assimilating them into a lesson, not just the lesson itself.   It’s where the brain is worked out and grows stronger.  Listening to the lesson someone else has all figured out may be temporarily interesting but probably won’t be internalized and assimilated into one’s life.  But how much preaching and teaching is just that…hearing what someone else has learned?

The teachings from Paul’s letters about the church are used a lot in church matters.  Some of his writings are about that but I find a majority of his writings are more about Jesus and his relationship with Him.  I am drawn to those writings because they make me hungry and thirsty for God and they act as a spring board to find and feed that relationship in my life. Maybe if the church focused more on those teachings our churches would not be in crisis and forever stuck in organizational forms.  I believe Paul was more focused on Jesus than church affairs.  He didn’t credit the church for who he was.  He credits Jesus directly. (Galatians 1:1,10-12, 15-24; 2:1,6)

Paul clearly was taught by Jesus.  The disciples were clearly taught by Jesus.  They were commissioned to tell others how to be taught by Jesus.

My posture as a believer is to be a disciple, an apprentice of Jesus:

          through the witness of those he taught

          through his teachings

          through being in relationship with him myself

The result of that is to encourage and invite others to accept that posture for themselves.

Jesus didn’t look at numbers.  He kept it small so the time spent could be meaningful, focused, and not scattered.  Jesus kept his focus on loving God and loving one another.  He also wanted people to follow Him, not his disciples.  Paul was clear about that as well.  Those in the church are to be One with Jesus Christ and follow him alone.  No man is to say “follow me, learn from me, yoke yourself to me, and build a church around me.”  That is how institutions develop and that is why they fail.

My solution for institutional failure is to do away with the institution and get back to the people themselves.

To the church:  Preachers, make folks thirsty for God

                         Teachers, show folks where to go and how to quench that

                                          thirst.  Don’t just give them a glass of water.

To schools:  Teachers, inspire kids to want to learn.  Give them the tools to

                                    dig and discover for themselves.  Teach them how to

                                    think for themselves.

To politics:  Go back to the beginning of “Of the people…By the people.

                   Our only involvement should not be choosing who to do the work

                   of creating a better world to live in.  We all need to be involved

                   and invested in living well together.  Decentralize the institution

                   and let people be involved and invested in the work to be done.

Leaders shouldn’t be external extremities.  They should be in the middle of the crowd inspiring and including all people in the conversation and the work.

Those are my “blue sky” thoughts and ideas.  Who knows…It could work!

WE DID IT OUR WAY

 “God made man simple;

Man’s complex problems are of his own devising.”

Ecclesiastes 7:29

When I read the consequences of not acknowledging and listening to God, I wonder if it was worth the price.  The news is loaded with man’s complex problems and the world is suffering on every level; environmentally, politically, and socially.  Was it really worth it just to be able to say, “We did it our way?” 

The Scriptures are clear about the warnings and the consequences.  Humanity has no excuse and must take the responsibility of putting the world in the condition it is in today.  Abandoning God and building our own cisterns was not the way to go, and now we are reaping what we have sown.

What are the consequences of leaving our comfortable home and striking out on our own?  They are many and they are huge.  “They shall call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me but will not find me.  They shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices” (Proverbs 1:25-31).   “They will become futile in their own thinking; their foolish hearts will be darkened.  Claiming to be wise they became fools…God gave them up to the lust of their hearts, dishonorable passions, to a debased mind; they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness” (Romans 1:21-32).  There is a list of the unrighteousness mentioned and it looks like the contents of what fills our newspapers and TV news.  All humanity is guilty of one or more things on this list.

So my query is, would it have been so bad to keep God around and actually live as He wanted us to live?  I for one don’t think so.  I find this world to be a very sad and scary place to live, even as one who has not abandoned God and delights to follow His ways.  So many folks surround me who are in such bad straits and sad circumstances.  The environment suffers greatly from man’s greed; our political situation is a laughing stock and the same time a danger to the world; society suffers on every level from the violence and hostility we show to one another.  I believe God had answers and solutions that would have affected all of these for the good.

Was it really worth the price we are paying just to be able to say,

“We did it our way?”