Updating the Sparrow

I am in the process of updating my blogs, and it seems only fitting that I begin with this blog. From the very beginning, the Sparrow’s Perch was intended to be a deeply personal blog about my faith life. I wanted the opportunity to share those wonderful moments of divine peace that can only be found in the Presence of God. The Sparrow’s Perch is a wonderful outlet for me, but I find myself wishing for more time to complete other endeavors. For a long time, I've been promising to let you know how the idea for the Sparrow's Perch came about. So, here it is. The idea for the Sparrow’s Perch came to me as I began to think about the end of my days upon this mortal vale, and whether I’d done anything to advance the Kingdom of God. Writing the blog has allowed me to empty myself of regrets, share experiences that might help someone else, and to declare the awesomeness of God. Most of all I wanted to impart the knowledge that there is a place in Christ where we can live in peace with this life, and the life to come. The title is based upon Psalms 91. Our Pastor encouraged us to read the Psalm as part of our daily bible reading as an encouragement to live in the peace of God. I haven’t always lived in the peace of God, and I haven’t always liked Psalms 91. As time went by, I actually began to despise the Psalm because it didn’t ring true with me. The promises seemed empty, and hollow against the harsh realities of my life. I watched in horror as people who I knew loved the Lord, suffered, became deathly ill, were left destitute, and saw their mortal tent swept away by unending storms. I became completely disheartened, refusing to read it anymore when a dear brother in the Lord fell victim to a brain tumor. I wanted to believe the promises, but battled with the reality. Then…I went to Nicaragua, and everything changed. It would take a book to explain what happened to me in Nicaragua. Suffice it to say, I was overcome with love, passion, and a sense of helplessness in the face of so much need. The circumstances in my life hadn’t changed. A matter of fact, when I came back, I came back to a home that was falling down around me, with little chance of ever having the money to repair, or build another one, but I didn’t care, because I’d seen people living in conditions much worse than mine. I came home to my wife’s vehicle refusing to start no matter what we did, with no financial means to repair, or buy another one. I wanted to be upset, but there were pastors in Nicaragua who didn’t have a vehicle at all. I also came home to a mass of credit card debt so daunting, I didn’t know if I could ever pay it off. The stuff I owned felt like chains to me, especially in light of what I saw in Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, many pastors live day to day, without many of the things I’d sold my soul to buy. It was in this moment of profound internal conflict, that I saw my own life measured in the mirror of those whose lives seem less encumbered. I had a realization of what I’d been missing for so long. I went into my office at the church, opened the window, and heard the song of the sparrows as they danced in the water on the flat roof. The undeniable truth was, I’d chosen the comfort of this life over the presence of God. It was in this moment I cried out, “God either kill me, or let me feel you once more as a raging fire in my life.” Instead, He did something I was unprepared for. He filled me with the most amazing peace I’ve ever known. The struggle was over. The sparrow had meaning to me. I understood Psalm 91 better than I ever had. So, without going verse by verse and boring you to tears, let me say this. Just imagine Moses sitting outside the Tabernacle watching the procession of offerings, which are the business of forgiveness, and spying a tiny sparrow flying into the Holy of Holies. Within the courtyard of the tabernacle, it has no fear of the fowler, it has no fear of the arrow, it has no fear of disease, or pestilence. The presence of God is not a place, it is a mindset. We can go there no matter where we are. The world may be falling down around us, our bodies may be racked with pain, wars may rage, evil may abound, but there is a place of refuge, a tent for shelter, and a fortress from the storms of life. There is a place we can live in peace with everything around us, and that place is called the Presence of God. I don’t care how long you’ve lived for Christ, or how much you think you know, if you’ve not found the place in your heart where the Presence of God is, then you are missing out on the best promises of God. Since that first trip to Nicaragua, God has continued to provide in miraculous ways. I still have a home that is falling down around my ears, my wife has a vehicle that barely runs, but we did manage to pay off all of our debt. I’ve made four trips to Nicaragua, and my wife has made two. Last year, in a moment of weakness, I questioned the need to go again. The money it takes to go is substantial in ways that I don’t want to address in this blog. As I drove home one afternoon, shortly before our last trip, I was grousing about a sudden drop off in my business. “I’ll just stop going.” I muttered. “It’s just becoming too hard.” The reply leapt into my spirit, “NO, I’ve propelled you to love, don’t shrink back.” There are so many wonderful people there, who mean so much to me. There is still work to be done, and I believe that we are still going to be a part of the work there. So, I’ll continue to go, until God impresses on me that I no longer need to go. I will run this race until my legs can’t run any longer. Now it is important to me to finish stronger than I began. There are people who need the love God has given me. There are people who need to know the meaning of the Sparrow’s Perch. At the end of our days, all that we have earned, and everything we valued is left behind. It is only what we have inside of us that will go with us through the veil. You see, that is what Moses saw, the little Sparrow could go boldly before the throne of grace, flying easily into the presence of God. The Sparrow’s Prayer; May you know the presence of God, and the joy of grace as I know it. May you know the full salvation of Christ Jesus, and live in the light of His love, free from the cares of this world. May you live in the Presence of God, and know His tender heart as I do.

Do You Not Care That We Perish?

As I'm writing this, storm clouds are brewing, the wind is whipping, and my weather radar is showing a broad band of thunderstorms racing across the state. It reminded me of one of my favorite stories in the bible. In Matthew chapter eight, and verse 25, Jesus had finished teaching, and needed to get away.  What better place than to hop in a boat, and cast off.  The rocking of the waves, the warm sun, and suddenly your asleep.  While the Son of God slept within the fragile bowels of a tiny boat, a fierce storm comes up, and before you know it, the boat is about to sink.  I love the reaction of the disciples, "Master, Master, we perish."   Jesus slams them for their lack of faith, and calms the storm.  End of story, Jesus is God, rules the sea, and commands the winds.  What I love about the story is the unsaid dialogue.

Jesus never invited, nor demanded the disciples to get in the boat with Him, they followed Him.  We who follow Christ, seek always to be in His presence, that is why we FOLLOW Him.  I love the Presence of God.  He is everything I long for.  What we often don't take into consideration is the price of following Him.

I've heard many sermons on this passage, most dealing with the issue of faith. That would be my logical choice for teaching about faith.  I've heard it taught, He was rebuking them for not rebuking the storm themselves.  I've heard it taught, He was rebuking them for waking Him.  I've heard it taught, He was rebuking them for not having faith in Him.

It's hard for us from our vantage point to see the unsaid language that was happening.

Jesus got in the boat to be alone, to get away.
The storm arose while He was sleeping.
HE WAS IN THE SAME BOAT, THEY WERE IN!!!!!!!!
He was sleeping through the storm, but it was such a fierce storm, seasoned fishermen feared for their lives.
They had to wake HIM in order to save themselves.

In the midst of our storms, there is a tendency to forget that Jesus is in our tiny ship.  He is inside of us.  The storms that buffet us, buffet Him.  Still, the overriding point is; Jesus is in the midst of the storm with us.  We are going to be in storms in our lives.  These mortal frames, temporary tents, tiny ships, are subject to the storms around us.  Still, in the midst of them, we can have the peace of God.  Why?   Because, we have the Presence of God, His precious Spirit abiding in us.  It is our natural tendency to find a reason for the things that happen in our lives.  As Christians we especially want to make our trials, and tribulations have some kind of purpose.  We'll evaluate the storm, look at what came out of it, and then proclaim the lesson we learned.

LIFE ISN'T ALWAYS ABOUT LESSONS!  Sometimes it's jumping in a boat, and following this guy named Jesus even when it takes us to the point of physical death.  We miss the entire point of the voyage, we wanted to be with Jesus, so we followed Him.  Death is death, financial ruin is financial ruin, illness is illness, life is life.  The only difference between how a Christian goes through it, is that Christians have Jesus in the boat. What you do with that knowledge is what determines what your life will feel like.

The Presence of God is all that I long for, so I would jump in the boat with him, I'd probably be just like the disciples when the storm came, except hind sight being 20/20, I'd have at least stood upon the prow of the ship, raised one arm toward the storm, pointed toward the bowels of the ship with the other, and yelled out: "Hey, shut up you silly storm, don't you know the Master is trying to sleep."

TOO MUCH DRAMA

This rant came about from a statement made by a good friend of mine.  I love this man with all of my heart.  He is good, a giver, and has helped me in many circumstances that he has no idea of.  However, yesterday after someone broke into one of his businesses, he declared how hard Satan was working against him.  It made me cringe, because I knew the person who was feeding him the lie.  This person loves drama. Actually, they seem to thrive on drama, which isn’t unusual in this day, and age. Drama, disaster, doom, and despair seem to be all the rage in today’s world.  If something terrible isn’t happening directly to us, we’ll search for it in the newsfeeds, the television, or the newspaper.  As an American, my generation, hasn’t known a day without some cataclysmic event that didn’t threaten to destroy life as we know it.  I went to elementary school during the Cold War, and sat huddled, frightened, and unsure of what was happening to me during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I can still remember the unending images of the carnage of the Vietnam War being the staple of the evening news shows.  The days of my adolescence were marked with unspeakable acts of violence committed by men to enslave, destroy, or subjugate one another. I could make an unending list of conflicts, disasters, and continuing sagas that fill my days.

Still, as Solomon would say, there is nothing new under the sun.

When we grow weary of glorifying our ability to be cruel beyond any monster ever imagined in Hollywood, we turn to the news media so we can become enraptured with our ability to destroy our environment, waste our earth, and ignore the delicate balance of our eco-system.  The media loves to propagate fear, but rarely offers solutions to the source of those fears. Our fascination with gloom, doom, disaster, and mayhem is as old as we are. Some of the oldest surviving communications from our history, consist mostly of calamity.

We love our fears, because they make us feel alive. 

Over the last few months, I’ve been thrust into a ‘drama’ infused environment that caused me to dread doing my job.  I didn’t realize how bad it was, until I had a chance to step out of it for a couple of weeks.  It took me about 2 or 3 days to ‘detox’ from the opiate of the drama, but once I was clean, and sober, I could see I’d allowed myself to become addicted to it. The primary source of the drama has an uncanny ability to make their cataclysm yours.

Once I began to de-tox, I realized how difficult it was to enjoy the presence of God during this time of drama.  I WON’T HAVE THAT!!!!!!   Jesus suffered, and gave up so much to restore my relationship with the Father, I won’t dishonor Him by allowing fear, drama, and despair to rule my life.  Those are the very things Jesus overcame.  He never promised us we wouldn’t go through things that tested our faith, or challenged our commitment.  He did promise He would be with us in them. In that promise, is another unspoken promise; our drama doesn’t have to be someone else’s drama. Unless, of course, you’re one of those people who just have to share your drama.

Hello, Facebook.

 

Through this time, I’ve learned one valuable thing; we are the source of all drama on this earth.  It doesn’t matter whether the conflict is with nature, or with other men, you will always find a human being somewhere in the drama.  Without humans, the cycle of life goes as it always has.  Our obsession with ourselves becomes comical when we place it in the context of eternity. Only humans can put themselves into a state of terror over the stupidity of how we look, talk, or behave.  Without us, those things that seem so disastrous, and devastating on TV would simply be the machinations of a planet in its course through the universe. All great drama has a conflict, and we are that conflict.  With all of our knowledge, we still haven’t observed the course of life around us.  Life comes, life goes, the sun rises, the sun sets, we are born, we die, we either add to the good of others around us, or we take everything we can take.  It is my desire to have left this earth, or just my small part of it, a better place for having consumed so much good.   

To the sparrow, the sparrow’s perch is a place of safety, regardless of the storms of life.  Within the shelter of the Creator, the sparrow knows that it has all it needs because of the creator.  If all that it needs should be taken away, the Creator remains.  This is insulting to most people, who want to believe everything is about them.  They are like little toddlers who believe all things happen for, and to them.  Actually, I’ve come to realize that all our drama is the glorification of ourselves over the love of Jesus our savior. As a Christian, I’m blown away when a Child of God will advertise how the ‘Devil’ (I hate even typing it) is working against them. We give the enemy of our souls the credit for things he had no power to do, and fail to see the evil we inflict upon one another in our search for drama.  

We wallow in self-importance by assuming that ‘Satan’ personally orchestrates every evil or tragedy inflicted upon us. 

If you want to feel self-important, remove your corn-fed butt (Yes, I said butt) from its throne of self-indulgence, and make a difference in the plight of those less fortunate around you.  I personally know of five or six places on this earth (yes, there a thousands more) where $1 a day can feed a family that is really suffering.  I can show you abject poverty on a scale even the homeless in America can’t begin to attain to.  If you want drama, real drama, drama that challenges you, something that will make you feel powerful instead of powerless, find a church that is really feeding the poor, sending doctors to the backwaters of the globe, rescuing orphans in the midst of man’s inhumanity to man, and begin giving to them.   Even better yet, join them on their next ‘love mission,’ and go see what real drama looks like.  You don’t even have to leave the United States.  Donate to “Operation Christmas Child” and send a shoebox to a child who has never seen a toy in their life.  Give $20 dollars, and buy a goat for a family in Africa.  A goat can be an endless supply of milk.  Donate to the numerous Presbyterian charities that are putting in water wells in the most remote places on earth.  Our nation’s economic downturn is a warning of what happens when we forsake the calling to greatness our Creator has called us to.  Our vast wealth, resources, and uncanny ingenuity were meant to bless mankind.  If we waste it on us four and no more, we’ve done nothing. 

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the Sparrow’s Perch, the comfort of my office, the familiar blue glow of my monitor, heat in the winter, air in the summer. At the same time, I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoy the pleasure of ministering the love of Jesus to those who face true drama.  I go to work with the joy of knowing that some of what I’m earning is going to lift someone out of hunger, or even better yet, give them the love of Christ.  Find a way to love beyond yourself, your family, and those who can repay you.  Don’t let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.  A joyous life will replace your dramatic one.