I’m enjoying a book by Bill Dallas on second chances called Lessons from San Quentin. At one point he asked a veteran prison guard what would happen if an earthquake hit and all the walls crumbled.

The guard said, “Every short-timer in here would run for the hills like there is no tomorrow…. Death row guys would be shufflin’ out of the gates in their ankle restraints as fast as they could…. And the Lifers who have made peace with themselves would stay right here. They wouldn’t run. In fact, I’d bet that most of them would immediately search through the rubble to help the injured. They know they‘ll leave this place when their time is up. They’ll walk out the front door with dignity.”

I love how he says the Lifers have made peace with themselves. These are second chance people. And after spending years in San Quentin himself, Dallas makes a point that the short-timers are often so focused on getting out, and on what they hate about their surroundings, that they don’t really experience change from the brokenness. But the Lifers are broken by it. In San Quentin they become the life-givers, encouraging others, caring about others and many experiencing transformation through a relationship with God.

How about me? Am I allowing my own struggles to drive me to God to see his transformation and grace? Or, am I so focused on getting through it and blaming others that I receive no real benefit from the experience? How about you?

Why is it that people expect you to fix in minutes what took them days, weeks, months, or years to break? I often find myself initially feeling hopeless about a person’s willingness, or lack thereof, to work on the areas of their life that put them in the position in which they find themselves. I often rhetorically ask, “Why am I doing this?” While if I was on the bus pictured above I’d want out as soon as possible, but I’m pretty sure the events leading up to the bus being in this position may have taken weeks.

I’m not suggesting that the bus crept through the hole in that amount of time. I’m suggesting that the bus driver was preoccupied with a passenger whose child was being a distraction. The passenger, let’s say it’s a single dad, distraught by the recent loss of his wife has been unable to figure out how to help his child behave and is on the way to get some help. The bus driver is at the end of his shift and is looking forward to watching the World Cup at his favorite pub, but he has to get to his last stop on time to make that happen. So, the reason the bus went forward instead of reverse took weeks not moments.

When this happens I must remind myself of a few things:

1. Patience is a piece of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. When I lack it, then I’m forgetting something.
2. I need to be patient with others lack of patience
3. I should not expect others to be patient with their brokenness, especially when the Holy Spirit is absent from their lives. If they don’t know Jesus, then why should I expect them to act like they do?
4. My schedule cannot be determined by the chaos generated in others context.

It took a while for them to find themselves homeless and my immediate response to fix their situation may actually impede my ability to minister to their need for Jesus. Ever wonder why the people Jesus healed had to wait so long for God to finally heal them? Ever wonder about those who got a quick fix from Jesus? Did their lack of misery now lead them away from God instead of toward Him? I wonder if this is what happened to nine of the lepers. While I fully agree that my presence in the world should lead to more justice, mercy, grace, and love I also must recognize that suffering is used by God. So, when one chooses to buy cigarettes and comes up short on rent money maybe the only way to learn not to do it again is point out the choice to smoke over shelter and not provide shelter…at least not immediately.

Moving into a residence that they could afford if they didn’t smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.

Staying in a residence as long as possible until they receive a seven day eviction notice at which time the scramble begins.

They either miraculously coming up with the funds to pay the back rent or

Move into another more affordable shelter only to repeat the same thing a month later.

They have either had their electric or water cut off at least once, and typically receive multiple cut-off notices in a given year.

What I have discovered is they didn’t just decide to live this way, but saw their parents do the same thing. They were children who have had 25 different addresses who in Mrs. Thompson’s second grade class couldn’t remember their phone number, because it had changed again. Most of them know no other way to live.

They have used the church as a financial means to rescue them from circumstances because the church most likely refused to do anything other than just pay their bills. We’ve allowed them to play the victimization card instead of changing the game because writing checks is far easier than holding them accountable. So, we’ve become enablers instead of change agents when it comes to the poor.

In reality, these people need freedom from a cycle of living that has proven oppressive and hopeless. They need freedom from being consumed with what they want and given a chance to see what they need.  They need a friend who is willing to say, “No. I’m not going to give you what you asked for, but I’m going to dig deeper into the crap that is your life in order to shine the light of Jesus on that which is broken and even wicked.”

We, the Church, need to risk being their friend even when much of the time it ends in rejection, or it involves time, effort, money and risk. We, the Church, need to be willing to invest in their conversion.

“The lame man looked at them eagerly, expecting some money. But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” – Acts 3:5-6 NLT

I wish this approach had multiple success stories, but the truth of the matter is that if there is change it is not immediately obvious. This leads to the temptation to just write checks and dismiss the people as hopeless. However, when I look at the life of Jesus Christ the Nazarene there is no evidence of “easy grace.” So, why then do we expect it to be easy? Especially when we’re not Jesus…

The phrase is a marriage of Romans 8:37 and 2 Corinthians 12:10. It is the mysterious fusion of two opposites, conquerors and losers; strength and weakness. Life sucks, but yet it is glorious all at the same time.

It is imperative for someone to be converted to realize just how big of a Loser we are apart from Christ. We go about winning a lot of small meaningless battles without Him. We really bring Him nothing worth bragging about other than our brokenness, so that He can be glorified in putting us back together as He intended us to be while looking forward to the eventual finish of that work on the other side of death. It’s the death of Christ that makes us worthy. Without it we are worthless. It’s this admission of our Loserdom that keeps us from really being converted. It’s why time and relationship and truth and love and conflict is necessary to help people not only go from life to death, but to live in the reality of this new life.

Because it is also imperative to realize that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God shown to us through Jesus Christ in order to enjoy the converted life. Nothing can overcome His love. Even if we are led as sheep to the slaughter and it looks as if we should be pitied the reality is that our suffering can produce an immeasurable amount of joy and because of this we more than Conquer fear, failure, and death. In fact, those aren’t even battles for us to win anymore.

Weird, right?

But awesome!

So, what are your losses? Do you feel like sharing them here?

Have you found a way to rejoice in the midst of your loserdom?

“35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?36 As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

37
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Part 4

Might it be more cruel to live in a sin infected world without pain?

I follow a few folks that you may have heard of and if you haven’t then you should check them out. Not because I agree with every bit of their theology, but because each of them believe in a powerful, advancing, and beautiful Church led by Christ and gifted by God. If you wonder why we suffer, you are not alone. Why does God allow it? Is it possible to have hope in the midst of suffering?

Take the weekend and check each of these out. We have a great God!

Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in and around Dallas, is a 35 year old husband and father and unashamed Calvinist and Southern Baptist. I first heard him last year preach one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard at a conference put on by Desiring God. Matt, over Thanksgiving 2009, had a seizure and was eventually diagnosed with brain cancer. His response to that uninvited interruption in his life gained national attention. His blog is worth checking out and his sermons are rich. I’m not a sold out Calvinist, nor am I a sold out Arminian, but I agree with Matt far more than I disagree and I love to be challenged and he does not fear telling it like it is.

Mark Driscoll, is a Catholic turned Calvinist and pastor of a multi-site church based in Seattle. He started a church without seminary training or another job in ministry. He has appeared on Nightline with Depak Chopra and with a converted stripper in order to discuss the reality of Satan. He is preaching through the book of Luke and this week was the story of raising the dead son of a widow from Nain. Two weeks ago his sister miscarried and last week his wife miscarried and he preached quite possibly the most thought provoking sermon on suffering I have ever heard.

Tony Morgan, a United Methodist turned Baptist executive pastor in Georgia shared on Twitter that his friend had just died and linked to this video. It turns out that New Spring Church showed it to their congregation, which was Zac’s congregation 12 weeks ago.

Try using pain as a new lens…NEVER doubt the purpose of your pain…NEVER!

Mike Foster posted this over at potsc.com

My question is should the Church put its resources toward the areas where Jesus is searched for the most or the areas where something else has the attention of the culture?

What do you think?

I was fascinated by this. Floating Sheep generated this graph which represents online references to one search term more than others.

EXAMPLE:
Green circle represents more references to Allah than Buddha, Hindu, Jesus or sex.

WHAT THIS GRAPH SHOWS:
1. America is more interested in sex than Jesus. Same with Europe.

2. India is searching for Hindu more than anything else.

3. Africa doesn’t have the internet yet. (just kidding)

4. South America is searching for Jesus.

Your thoughts? Are you surprised?

Those were the words shouted by my enraptured 8 year old around 10:30 am this morning. Now $60.00 doesn’t seem like a whole lot of money, but to an average American 8 year old it was everything.

You see the $60.00 had been missing for a Y E A R. That’s right 12 months, 365 days give or take seven or eight. It had long been considered lost in her mind. Written off and tucked away as a life lesson. We had deduced that she had put the money in her wallet, which she left in a great barbecue restaurant, Smokey Bones, in Bowling Green, Kentucky while attending her sister’s soccer tournament. It took us a week to deduce that, and so we never bothered calling the restaurant. Instead we just instructed her to never carry that much money around, but to put it in a safe place.

She was devastated by the loss, her whole savings.

A whole year has passed and Mallori just had her 8th birthday last month. She is saving for a cell phone or a laptop, and the loss of the $60.00 put her behind so she planned to save every penny of birthday funds this year. That was until she was listening to the radio two weeks ago. The radio station KLOVE was having a pledge drive, and our area in Central Kentucky was only 95% funded. My wife had the radio on while picking up Mallori from school, and Mallori heard the news. She was determined to give a one time gift of $40.00 to help keep them on the air. “Daddy, I just can’t let them go off the air.” There was no talking her out of it.

Mallori gave her life to Jesus almost three years ago. So, when it comes to spiritual things we tend to let it ride regardless of how foolish our children’s choices may seem from a logical perspective. We trust that the same Holy Spirit can speak in loud ways whether adult or child. So, in this case, while thinking in the back of my head, “Wow, Mallori that’s a lot of money. I’m sure KLOVE will eventually get funded, so why don’t we wait and see what happens,” we just kind of shrugged our shoulders and said with a smile, “Okay.”

Kristi called and handed Mallori the phone and she pledged “her” money. We received the envelope last week and sent in the money.

That brings us to today. She was looking under her bed for a pair of shoes. And there it was…The Wallet. Mallori immediately thought, “I think I found my $60.00.” She couldn’t reach it and got her sister to come help. Baili, in true form, looked inside the wallet and exclaimed. “There’s nothing in it.” – long dramatic pause – “Just kidding.” And out she rips, yep you guessed it, $60.00. Can you imagine how Mallori felt when Baili pulled out a wad of cash? Man, if I could have had a camera at that moment! It was lost, but now it’s found!

She had let that $60.00 go and never really fretted about it after a week or two. She heard a need and responded with 1/3 of her cash. No, second guesses, no regrets there either.

Then today she received one of the best stories an eight year old could ever tell. God moved her to spend the $40.00, helped her find the $60.00, so in reality she’s ahead $20.

Now I’m no where close to a health and wealth guy. I don’t even believe in the rapture. I fully believe that we will suffer up until Jesus returns. Following Jesus doesn’t exempt us from anything except Hell, the penalty of sin, and the power of evil. However, I’m also fully confident that God is sovereign, and that He can orchestrate anything for His glory.

I heard a scream and a, “I found my $60, Dad, I found my $60!”

“What?!” I yelled back.

Mallori, from the top of the stairs, “Dad, I found my $60!”

Still in disbelief I reply, “What?!”

Mallori held that money to my face this morning and after making her say those words, “I found THE $60!” four or five times she exclaimed, “Boy am I lucky!” Immediately, I recounted the events over the last few days and I gave her a hug and simply said, “You need to just praise the Lord because you released $40, He may have helped you find $60.”

I’m sure that they said that they believed, but in practice would they be obedient? I think God wondered the same thing, which is why He doesn’t tell them where the weak point was in the defense, nor does He give them a secret weapon. Instead God has them do something completely ridiculous. (I think Veggie Tales got this one right!) Just march around the city seven times and blow your horns. Prior to the “battle”, it is recorded, “Then the LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.”

I wonder how often we refuse to hear or see the victory, the healing, the miracle, the impossible made possible because we just can’t admit we don’t believe it. It’s like a great golfer or gymnast who before attempting a difficult shot or routine fails to visualize the success. In despair we continue to plead with God when praise is required to give us new eyes and ears.

I found this little video as I began trying to de-clutter my Google Reader after a Lenten Fast from reading blogs. I find great encouragement as we wait for the opportunity to double the size of our family, and as we wait for the cancer in mom’s lungs and the rest of her to miraculously disappear.

Mom and Dad, Kristi, Shelbi, Baili, Mallori, Kamri, Lucas, Lilli this is for you. Be encouraged Our God has delivered us!

Seth’s Blog: Who judges your work?

Who judges your work?

Here’s the mistake we make in high school:

We let anyone, just anyone, judge our work (and by extension, judge us.)

Sue, the airheaded but long-legged girl in Spanish class gets the right to judge our appearance.

Bill, the bitter former-poet English teacher gets the power to tell us if we’re good at writing.

And on and on.

The cheerleaders are deputized as the Supreme Court of social popularity, and the gym teacher forever has dibs on whether or not we’re macho enough to make it in the world. These are patterns we sign up for, and they last forever (or until we tell them to go away).

In high school, some people learn to ship, they learn to do work that matters and most of all, they learn to ignore the critics they can never possibly please. The ability to choose who judges your work–the people who will make it better, use it and reward you–is the key building block in becoming an artist in whatever you do.

People of the Second Chance

ITS OK TO SAY THE F-WORD
April 25th, 2010 8:07:23 pm

f-word-grace-people-of-the-second-chance Posted by Mike Foster: Follow Mike On Twitter

The F-word is a dirty word and people don’t like to hear it.

Just understand if you dare mention it, respectable people may not like you.

God help us if we ever say it in church or in staff meetings.

It’s critical that we shield our children from experiencing it.

The F-word is used in the gutter and foul places.

Sometimes it slips out after throwing back a few beers in raw conversations with our friends.

Now I’m not talking about the four letter F-word but the other word we shouldn’t say. The word is….FAILURE.

In our success addicted culture it’s just not cool to bring it up. We dare not say such things.

But I’m not willing to censor my language anymore. And you shouldn’t either.

Just plan on the F-word to pop out when I talk to you.

I’m really sorry if you’re bothered by this but I just can’t help myself.

I curse like a prodigal.