Advance To Abandonment

Lent compels us: advance to abandonment.  Whereas we often confuse abandonment with passive inactivity, the Lenten season insists that we take action, cutting erroneous ties and re-lashing our moorings to Christ.  With the Prodigal, "I will arise and go to my father..."  I will arise-- I will wake up, get, up, grow up, and climb up.  I trash and discard the garbage piling up in my heart and mind.  Ruthlessly, I inventory motive and attitude and address each in desperate fashion.  I recalibrate my attention to Christ each day with savage intentionality.  "Reckon yourselves dead to sin..."  This is no valley of ease; this is a summit to scale under harrowing and hellish conditions.  Lent places me precariously on a rocky crag with no safety net below, and bids me ever higher.  "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)

What's Up Doc?

(12:56 am) It's either much too early or much too late to be writing, but either way I'm much too awake to avoid the urge.  My teenage daughter was invited to see a late feature with friends which meant a 20 minute drive into town at 9:20 pm, the same back home, and all over again at midnight to retrieve her. Such are the parental moments that add purpose to the thinning & greying hair, and discoloration to the bags suspended and inflating below my eyes.  I've somehow reached a stage of geriatric limbo--I fall asleep in my chair while "watching" TV, then can't find my way back to lala land after a midnight paternal run to town.  This somehow reminds of Paul's words in the New Testament, something to the effect that I do the things I don't want to do and fail to do that which I should--call it a kind of senior disequilibrium.  Now, if only I can summon the 'umph' to translate insomnia into productivity.  Whoever said you're only as old as you feel wasn't old or he wouldn't have said it; he would either have been drinking coffee to stave off the dropsies or been hitting the fridge in search of a slumber-inducing combination.  What was it Bugs Bunny used to ask, "What's up Doc?" Perhaps understanding this is too much to ask and I should self-content with knowing that at least I won't have long to toss and turn before bracing for another round of life.

Open Letter To President Obama

Dear President Obama:

As your constituent, and on behalf of the nonprofit organization I represent, I urge you to oppose limiting the deductibility of charitable donations - whether in deficit reduction legislation or funding for jobs programs. The donations we receive are used to help those in our community who are most in need. Tax deductibility of donations to charities is an important incentive for Americans to invest in the works of charities who benefit fellow citizens of our country and those around the world. That incentive makes it possible for charities to return much greater benefits to those in need. Americans historically have given a greater percentage of their income to charities than most other nations, and our government has encouraged and fostered those efforts. The gifts we receive - whether in good or in difficult economic times - reduce the burden on government to assist citizens in need. In turn, the deductibility of charitable gifts helps charities reduce the demand for government services, helps us invest in our communities and helps us improve the lives of our fellow citizens.

I appeal to you not to support removing this important incentive for charitable giving. Do not increase the demands for government assistance because charities must pull back their programs. Do not end the long-standing American commitment to encourage supporting nonprofit programs that help those less fortunate than we are. Placing the burden of deficit reduction or funding for jobs programs on the backs of the neediest Americans is not the direction our country should take. Please oppose any attempts to undermine our work and hurt our beneficiaries.

Sincerely,
Dane W. Fowlkes, Ph.D
Director of Major Gifts
East Texas Bapttist University

More Than What I Need

Resist the tendency to define God by what you need. We often hear, "God is all I need." While that sounds pious, the truth is that God is far more than what I need and what you need and what the whole world ever has needed or ever will need. When I self-prescribe blinders so that all I see is my need or hurt or wish, and then err by understanding God only according to the light of my own experience, I reduce Him to a shadow of myself. Does God care? Absolutely! Is God the solution? Without a doubt! But the Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer cannot be contained by my imagination or confined by my despair. Instead of asking God to act the way you want at any given moment in order to meet any given need, bow before Him and surrender yourself unconditionally to Him, then allow Him to reveal His glory and plan in your situation.

Consumerism to Generosity

When will the American Church awaken from her narcissistic coma and return from consumerism to generosity?

Leadership Is Like...

Leadership is much less like Captain Horatio Hornblower shouting commands to those below while scanning an open horizon, and much more like explorer Allan Quatermain slashing his way through dense rainforest with a mere two feet of visibility.

Expectations

Always exceed expectations, especially those you have of yourself.

The Arc of Our Lives

I love the quote I heard yesterday from Dr. Dub Oliver, president of East Texas Baptist University: "God wants the arc of our lives bent toward love and justice and mercy."

Invest Your Love

The most profound quote, in my opinion, from today's Willow Creek Summit is a line from a song: "Where you invest your love, you invest your life."

Be The Miracle

"Never pray for an easier life--pray to be a stronger person! Never pray for tasks equal to your power--pray for power to be equal to your tasks. Then doing your work will be no miracle--you will be the miracle" (Phillips Brooks, Harvard graduate and prominent preacher, 1835-1893). The role of suffering in the Christian life remains a mystery, yet it holds enormous potential for molding our response to human agony in the world as well as to our own upward climb. Robert Kruschwitz, Director of Baylor University's Center for Christian Ethics warns, "We must be very careful how we assent to suffering, for it's as difficult and dangerous as walking on a knife-edge. We must avoid, on the one side, the wrong sort of passivity that glorifies suffering as something good in itself and, on the other, the wrong sorts of activity that would eliminate suffering at all costs."

Perhaps our greatest help in getting a grip on this slippery subject is in revisiting an extremely familiar and oft quoted Scripture passage in the New Testament Book of Romans, the eighth chapter and twenty eighth verse: "All things work together form the good of them who love God and are called according to His purpose." Frequently this is invoked as a sort of Christian talisman. If I belong to God, here's my insurance against extended suffering and ultimate disaster. But is that its real meaning and proper application? According to Henry Blackaby, "God's primary concern for us is not our position on the corporate ladder, our retirement benefits, or our comfort. His ultimate goal for us is Christlikeness. He will allow whatever is necessary into our lives so we become like Jesus" (God in the Marketplace).

So, what does Romans 8:28 promise to us? Stated simply, regardless of how difficult and demanding our circumstances, by relying on God and responding toward Him rather than away from Him, God will see to it that we emerge on the other side of our situation more like Christ. When we decide that Christlikeness is more important than momentary ease and comfort, we are the miracle.