The Simple Secret

I wrote this several years ago. It appears in my second book, Lessons along the Journey. You can also follow this link to my various strategies for prayer.
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My secret is quite simple: I pray. – Mother Teresa

Lord, teach us to pray (Luke 11:1)

 

 

            I relish walking into a kitchen warm with the aroma of fresh-baked bread. I savor the fragrance of honeysuckle when it blossoms outside my window. I make a point to walk down the coffee aisle where the scent of roasted beans lingers near the decanters. But chocolate . . . there's nothing like stepping into a specialty shop where the fragrance of fudge, toffee and truffles saturate the air.

            Many fragrances attract us each day – and because God created us in His image, it shouldn’t surprise us that our Creator has His favorite fragrances, as well. One of them is prayer.

            The psalmist wrote, "O Lord, may my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice" (Psalm 141:2). Later, in the New Testament, the apostle John saw a vision of four living creatures and twenty‑four elders around God’s throne "holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints" (Revelation 5:8).

            God loves the fragrance of our prayers, so why, when prayer or praise begins to flow from my lips, do I cut it short before God has a chance to catch even a whiff? Because I talk myself into believing I have other (more) important things to do.

            How sad is that?

            You might be familiar with the names of prayer giants in church history such as St. Augustine, St. Therese of Lisieux, Pope John Paul II, St. Padre Pio, St. Theresa of Avila, and Mother Teresa – men and women who knew what it meant to spend hours in prayer.

            Hours? What could anyone pray about for so long? My mind tended to wander after only a few minutes. I doubt my prayers during my first thirty-two years walking with Christ lasted ten minutes at a time. Most ran less than five. So, when I discovered how long some men and women in church history prayed, I was forced to ask myself, what did they have that I didn’t?

            I pondered that question a long time before finally admitting to myself the truth – a truth I didn’t like: I left the prayer closet so quickly because I'd not fallen in love with Jesus as much as I liked to think I had. I left because I wanted to do something more interesting or enjoyable – like watching television, eating, or taking a nap.

            That's not at all easy to admit – to you or to myself. It’s as if, for thirty‑two years, I stood on a beach, holding a glass of water and believing I held everything I needed to experience a maturing love for Christ. Hadn’t I read the Bible dozens of times? I shared my faith, taught Sunday school, memorized long passages of Scripture, and had daily devotional times with the Lord. How much deeper into the faith could a person go?

            Then I felt water lap at my feet. When I turned, I saw an expanse of water as deep and wide as the Pacific Ocean stretching to the horizon.

            In his Catechism on Prayer, St. John Vianney wrote: “Prayer is nothing else than union with God . . . In this intimate union God and the soul are like two pieces of wax melted together; they cannot be separated. This union of God with His little creature is a most beautiful thing. It is a happiness that we cannot understand.”

            I'm sure St. John Vianney’s concept of “intimate union” involved more than five minutes on his knees before God.

            So what's the point? During my three-decade journey with Jesus, holding my glass of water, doing all the right things I'd been taught to do to "know" God – I forgot God is a person and my relationship with Him needs to be nurtured on more than rituals and how‑to's. For too long, God longed to catch a whiff of my prayers while I satisfied myself with tossing a few words in His direction.

            What is the solution to finding intimacy with God? I think it is simple. Until we tire of holding a stupid glass of sea water, until we weary of chasing elusive dreams, until we beg the Holy Spirit, "Stir within me a longing to come to Jesus," our minds will shut down after five minutes of, "Lord, bless me, mine and ours."

            Relationship‑nurturing prayer, entering into His presence with that fragrant aroma He savors, is not something we do by our own strength, will, or self‑imposed schedules. The Lord Jesus said those who would worship God must do so in spirit and truth. Aromatic prayer is a supernatural event, a sacred and mystical communion with the Almighty, enabled only by and through His grace. "Unless the Lord builds the house," the Psalmist recognized, "its builders labor in vain" (Psalm 127:1). Unless the Lord revives our hearts to love Him, to seek Him as a deer pants for water, we will content ourselves with ritual and form.

            That's why I am convinced it's so vitally important that I continue to ask, seek, and knock at heaven's gate until the Lord draws me deeper into those ocean waters. That kind of prayer – prayer to grow more in love Him every day, is my answer to a long history of self‑satisfaction with rote and form. It's my answer against choosing other things I often believe more important than to sit like Mary at the Master’s feet (see St. Luke 10:39-41).

 

On Whom Will We Rely?

I posted this in 2009. I thought about again it during a recent reading through 2 Chronicles.
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So I'm reading through 2 Chronicles and I come to this verse in chapter 16: In the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign Baasha king of Israel came up against Judah . . . . (verse 1).

What happens next is (for me, anyway) confusing -- and instructive.

But first, some back story. In chapter 14, Asa ascended the throne of David in Judah. Ten years later a million-man army from Ethiopia attacked Judah. When Asa prayed for help The Lord routed the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled.(verse 11)

Think of it. The entire Ethiopian army -- chariots, horsemen, soldiers -- the whole million-man army fled before Asa's army which was half the size.

But twenty-one years later, we are at chapter 16. This time Asa is besieged by another army, but instead of relying on God for help, he paid a foreign king to come to his aid.

I put the Bible down for a moment and wondered what happened in the intervening 21 years between the million-soldier rout and chapter 16. Scripture is silent, so I can only make an assumption based on human nature -- and I know human nature pretty well. I've lived with myself for more than 60 years.

I believe Asa forgot Whose he was, and to Whom he belonged. During those two decades Asa stopped praying, stopped worshiping, stopped reading God's word. And his slow drift away from his anchor bore spoiled fruit when he faced a situation he could not handle alone.

His turn from God didn't happen overnight. It occurred by degrees, over the years. I know it happened that way because in my 40-plus years with Christ I've watched many Christians slowly lose touch with God. They stopped, by degrees, attending Church. They left their Bibles closed for a week. And then three. Then years. Their prayer life slowed to a halt, and they exchanged Christian friends for non-believers. And to no one's surprise, when difficult situations fell across their path, they relied on anything else but God.

I know it happened that way because I remember the many times the spiritual desert loomed around me, and I nearly forgot Whose I am and to Whom I belong. The temptation to leave my Bible closed, or toss a quick and nearly mindless prayer toward heaven, or to sleep in on Sunday whispered its seductive arguments at me, almost quite convincingly.

Christian, listen to me. All of us are at risk of following in Asa's footsteps.

And all of us can learn from his error.

Every Thought Captive

Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.  (Luke 7:39)

 

They knew her only as the harlot. The outcast. Pariah. Even as she wet her lord’s feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, they despised her as ‘a sinner.’

 

But they didn’t know what she knew. They didn’t see what Jesus saw. And I wonder if they would have even cared. Jesus changed her from the inside out. She knelt before her Lord as a new creation. His beloved and precious possession. She’d been born again. Mary was, as St. Paul would later describe, “Washed . . . sanctified . . . [and] justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

 

Do you think she might still have had her detractors until the day she died? Did some always call her ‘whore’? Human nature being as it is, I’m sure Mary heard the whispers and caught the glances for the rest of her life. Some never will see what God sees. They never will know the change God works in the heart of the penitent.

 

Of hers. Of mine.

 

Or of yours.

 

“You can’t.” “You won’t.” “You’ll never.”

 

We are today – now -- each in a deadly spiritual battle against the Father of Lies who, then as now, has many to do his bidding. He has many who wag their tongue at the Lord’s beloved, who rip at our confidence in God’s wondrous promises and His unfaltering love for us. He has many who labor with him to destroy our souls, who insist we are who we were -- and who will never accept who we have become in Christ.

 

Christian! Turn your eyes again and always upon Jesus. In prayer, meditating on the Scriptures, and in receiving the Eucharist, gaze into His wonderful face. And you will find the slanders of earth-minded people grow increasingly muffled in the light of Christ’s glory and grace.

 

Oh, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as St. Paul tells us, "The weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ." Teach us, Oh Lord, to take every thought captive to Christ. Amen.

And amen.

God in the Shadows

This is probably my most favorite essay. It appears in my second book. I post it again to the blog and hope it is of value for you.

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I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you . . . Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. – John 14:18, 27

 

           Live long enough and you'll discover life can pitch a mean curve ball. Just when you think you know what the next one will look like, it slices past the radar gun at 110, and all you end up doing is batting air. Or worse.

            Serious illness. Financial ruin. Divorce. Any number of pitches can break toward us and send us diving for safety. But of the hardest pitches life might fire at us, rejection has to be right up there with the worst.

            I understand rejection. I met it when my father left my mom for another woman. I was five at the time. He seldom bothered to visit my sister and me afterward. When I met briefly with him thirteen years later, I asked why he left his children.

            Today, after fifty years swinging the bat, I still remember his answer: "Because I wanted to."

            I'm sometimes surprised how good can come from that memory. My father's rejection helps me empathize with others who never knew love and acceptance from those closest to them.

            Like Leah.

            If you remember the story (Genesis 29-30), Leah lived in the shadow of her younger sister's beauty. When Jacob visited the family, Rachel's beauty captured him. I suppose it's fair to say her beauty consumed him - so much so, he agreed to work her family's farm for seven years as payment to marry her. But on the eve of the seventh anniversary, Rachel's family pulled a classic bait and switch. When the new groom awakened the next morning, he found himself lying next to Leah. If Jacob still wanted Rachel, he'd have to work another seven years.

            He did, but it's not difficult to imagine how Leah felt – unloved, unattractive, unwanted, knowing her family had to trick Jacob into her marriage bed.

            Yet, the story grows more poignant. Scripture tells us: “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb . . . and (she) gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, for she said, ‘It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now’" (Genesis 29:31-32, NASB).

            I can almost hear the wistful yearning in her voice, "Now my husband will love me."

            Leah was not the first woman to hope, "If I have his child, he will love me." But that's not the way love works. It didn't work for Leah. It didn't work for my mom. It won't work for anyone.

            Ever the optimist, though, Leah conceived again. And then again. "Now at last my husband will become attached to me," she said, "because I have borne him three sons."

            Yet even after six sons, it was Rachel who remained the light in Jacob's eyes. Leah hungered for her husband's embrace. She longed for his touch, a kind word and to know in the core of her being she was loved. Yet, Jacob was deaf to her heartache and blind to her sorrow.

            God, however, knew it all – and that is the wonderful message of this story.

            I've read this chapter in Genesis dozens of times, but this time my eyes froze at the list of Leah's sons, and then refocused on two.

            Levi and Judah.

            Not only was Leah unaware that God was with her in Rachel's shadow, but she didn't know eternity would measure life and death through her offspring – not Rachel's.

            Levi and Judah: ancestors of Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Ezra, Ezekiel, Zechariah. All of Israel's religious and political leaders would spring from her womb.

            Including Jesus the Messiah.

            The apostle Paul tells us the things written in Scripture are for our benefit, that through the encouragement of God's word we might have hope (Romans 15:4). And that's what Leah's story is all about – great, ineffable hope. It's about God in our shadows, about God who never rejects us and who can turn the rejection of others into something of eternal value for a world longing to be touched by God's love.

            "For I know the plans that I have for you," God tells us through Jeremiah - another of Leah's descendants, "plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11, NASB).

           

Hope. St. Paul tells us the things written in Scripture are for our benefit, and that through the encouragement of God's word we can have hope (Romans 15:4). That's what Leah's story is all about – great, ineffable hope. It’s about God in our shadows, about God who loves us, and who knows our deepest hurts.

            And it’s the story of how God can turn the rejection of others into something of immeasurable value for those of us yearning to be touched by God's love.

 

 

Pearls of Great Price

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5) 

 

 

 

No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway. The priest – an ordinary man given an extraordinary privilege – holds bread and wine aloft, speaks a prayer of consecration, and the Holy Spirit supernaturally transubstantiates them into the body and blood, soul and divinity of our God-who-took-the-form-of-Man.

Jesus.

 

 

Sunday Morning at Mass

A mixed-media creation by Nancy Maffeo
 

 

No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway. During that time of the Mass, our time intersects with eternal time, a time in which time does not exist; certainly not as we understand time. And we are there, at the whipping post, two thousand years ago as we count time. His blood oozes from strips of flesh across his back and arms and legs and buttocks sliced open by the Roman whip. Blood oozes and drops to the pavement at His feet. 

 

No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway. God carries the cross laid across His bloody shoulders. Soldiers push Him along the Via Dolorosa, flogging Him again and again with their whips. Mocking Him with their jeers. Wetting Him with their spittle. And His blood continues to ooze and to drop onto the pavement beneath His feet.

 

No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway. He stops at the top of Calvary’s hill. Soldiers throw Him down onto the cross He carried. They grab His hands and feet – they grab God’s hands and feet – and hammer spikes into His battered flesh.

 

No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway. But at each Mass the faithful can follow with their eyes of faith the drops of blood, like pearls of great price, glistening along the path from whipping post to splintered cross, the path which only the God-Man could walk, which only the God-Man could transform from a place of death to a throne of eternal life.

 

No one sees it happening. Not with our natural eyes, anyway. But it happens at every Mass.

He Ascended into Heaven

This essay is taken from my book of Nicene Creed meditations (still under revision). You can find the older version here (link).

 

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Creed Statement: He Ascended into Heaven

 

While meeting with them, He enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem . . . but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." When He had said this, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him from their sight. (Acts 1:4,8,9)

Fear -- probably terror -- overwhelmed the disciples when the soldiers captured Jesus in the Garden. They fled before they could also be led away with their Master. Peter, following at a safe distance, denied three times he knew his best friend.

When Pilate crucified the Lord, their hopes derailed, only to rekindle three days later as Mary Magdalene shouted, “He’s risen! He’s alive!” – only to collapse again when they raced to the tomb and found it empty.

When the Lord appeared in the upper room, their hope soared once more – and plummeted forty days later as they watched Him leave. Surely, by now the disciples were weary of the emotional roller coaster.

Do you know about emotional dips and swerves and lifts? I do. I know how it feels to scan heaven in vain for answers to prayer. I know what it’s like, even in the midst of what should be a glorious celebration of the Mass, to fixate on my family losses, broken relationships or financial reversals.

I’d do much better to focus instead on the miraculous event taking place before my eyes as bread and wine transform into His body and blood. I should drop to my knees in awe, in fear and in reverence as He appears before me. I should, as the writer to the Hebrews encouraged his readers, fix my eyes on Jesus, “the author and perfecter of faith.” (Hebrews 12:2)

What must it have been like for the disciples to fix their eyes on Christ as He ascended, to see earth lose its hold on Him? What were they thinking? I think if I’d been there, I’d have dropped to my knees in awe, in fear -- and in sorrow to see Him leave. I’d have wondered how I could go on.

When we recite, “He ascended into heaven,” God gives us opportunity -- especially during times of loneliness and sorrow -- to go on. He beckons us to look with eyes of faith to the heavens, from where our help comes. The Holy Spirit trades our emotional derailment for His encouragement, our loss for His sufficiency, our defeat for His victory.

That’s a critically important point, and we should take care not to miss it. Sorrows, overwhelming as they may be, last only for a time, but the shout of victory is ours come morning (Psalm 30:5). Just as earth’s gravity could no more hold Christ than death could, sorrows hold us only to the extent we give them permission.

He is risen. He is ascended. He is sitting –now, at this moment – at the Father’s right hand. Unless and until we look beyond the bottom of our ride, we won’t recognize the personal significance of Christ’s ascension to the Father. We’ll settle for emotional derailment and defeat instead of the victory we have in the risen and ascended Savior.

“Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!” (Psalm 24:7)

Prayer: Hallelujah to the crucified One. Glory to the risen One. Adoration to the ascended One. Who is like You, Oh, Lord? Perfect in majesty, ever in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit and ever present at our right hand. Amen.

end

God Died

He who touches you touches the apple of His eye.

(Zechariah 2:8)

 

God is love.

Scripture says it so often

so we can't miss it.

 

It is of love,

 

as well as

holiness,

and justice,

 

that He emptied himself

of inexplicable splendor,

took the form of a man,

common dust of earth,

and endured hunger,

and thirst, and pain.

 

And death.

 

It is why He let us spit at Him,

punch His face,

slice His back

into bloody shreds,

hammer spikes

through His hands and feet.

 

Love let us do that.

Love for you. And me.

Our families and neighbors.

Friends and strangers.

 

God died as he died

to take on Himself

the penalty of our sins

so His love,

 

as well as His

holiness,

and justice

 

could declare us

blameless,

guiltless,

spotless in His sight,

that we could be with Him

forever.

 

But sin . . .

 

To do what we want,

when we want,

for as long as we want,

because we want it –

 

Sin turns us away from Him

who loves us

more than His own life.

 

Yet worse:

our sins influence others,

encourage others,

persuade others

beloved by Him

more than His own life

to rebuff His love.

 

Oh! How great must be

God’s sorrow over sin.

 

No wonder He pours His wrath

against sin,

and against those who persist in sin,

for sin –

and those who love it –

 rob God

of His most special delight:

To hold each of His beloved –

you and me,

our families and neighbors,

friends and strangers –

to hold each of us

close in His arms

forever.

 

God is love.

And holy. And just.

 

And zealously protective

of His beloved.

 

 It is reckless

and dangerous

to spurn His love;

 

And to our peril

 we cause others –

each for whom God died –  

to do the same.

Amen

This is the last essay in my first book (currently under revision). Perhaps you will find it valuable.

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Creed Statement: I believe . . . . Amen.

Today’s Focus: Amen

Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:2-3)

“I believe . . . I believe . . . I believe . . . “ The ancient summary of Christian faith flows from my tongue like a poem’s comfortable and regular meter. I recite declaration of faith after declaration, each as important as the last, none more necessary than the next – not even (it would seem) the “Amen” at the end of the Creed.

But that should not be the case. I don’t think there is any word in the vocabulary of Christian faith more powerful than that “Amen – Yes. I believe.”

The longer I live, the more convinced I become that the recitation of the Creed, word after word, statement after statement, is like our walk through life. We move from day to week to year, year after year, in what might be compared to a melodious poetic meter. We hold jobs, sign agreements, build businesses, get married, make vows, have children, make promises . . .

But every now and then, something breaks the cadence. A tragedy bolds the font, underlines the memory, italicizes the sorrow. Our very being -- body, soul and spirit – sees nothing, hears nothing, beyond the moment when time stands still. Our gut churns at the physician’s diagnosis. It writhes to the cacophony of, “I want a divorce.” It convulses at the fresh gravesite of a loved one.

I wish life always flowed in harmonious rhyme and meter. But it doesn’t. Prayers go unanswered. Families shatter. Finances evaporate. And heaven seems silent.

Heartache always leaves a choice in its wake – What do we do with our affirmations and vows when life’s rhythm unravels and melody falls into disharmony? What happens to “Amen. Yes, I believe” when our foundations split apart? What shall we do with “the Father Almighty” when He seems oblivious to our tragedy? What shall we say to “He came down from heaven” when hell appears triumphant? Can we say amen to “the giver of life” when death rips a loved one from our arms? Do we believe in “the resurrection of the dead” when despair surrounds us?

Do we say, “Amen. Yes, I still believe” to our statements of faith, or turn and say nothing?

The prophet Isaiah urged, “Seek the Lord, while He may be found.” (Isaiah 55:6) St. James encouraged, “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.’ (James 4:8) Christians with seasoned faith understand there is no shortcut to spiritual maturity, the kind that answers life’s agonies with a resounding, “Amen! Yes, I believe.” That depth of faith is possible only by God’s grace, nurtured as we seek the Lord – day by day – while He may be found; drawing near to Him – day by day – while we have opportunity.

Each time we recite, “Amen” at the end of the Creed, we have a choice. We can say it as part of our religious meter, or we can say it prayerfully, asking God’s grace to enfold us, to help us seek Christ above earthly pleasures, to draw closer to the Savior, to trust Him through variations of life’s meter so we might fully trust Him through its cacophony.

Prayer (from Romans 8): Father, I know nothing can separate me from Your love. Yet, I ask for Christ’s sake, that the confidence in my mind become confidence in my heart. I ask that I – that the Church – shout “Amen” with the apostle Paul’s declaration that neither death, nor life, angels, nor principalities, things present, nor things to come, powers, height, depth, nor any other created thing, will separate us from Your love, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord. Amen.

And, amen.

 

My Very Own Frankenstein Monster

I published this essay in my book, Lessons Along the Journey.
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I think that if God forgives us, we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as higher tribunal than Him. – C. S. Lewis

          The  shadowy figure darted behind a tombstone and peered steadily into the darkness. When he was satisfied no one had spotted him, he thrust his shovel into the fresh grave – again and again. Soon, his spade thudded against the casket. A few minutes later, he lifted the corpse onto his shoulders and grunted.

          Dr. Frankenstein would be pleased.

          I'm surprised I still remember the 1950s horror film. Dr. Frankenstein zapped the cadaver with a bolt of electricity and brought the dead back to life. Unfortunately, the monster ended up terrorizing the countryside.

          Have you noticed how our culture seems preoccupied with death? Surf the TV most evenings or browse the sci-fi section in online streaming sites. The titles may surprise you. Even some Christians seem preoccupied with restoring life to things that ought to stay dead.

          Robert is a good example. He has a bad habit of digging around in graveyards – mostly his. He called me some time ago in a state of depression, "How can God forgive me?" he pleaded. "You don't know what I've done."

          That was not the first conversation I’d had with him over the same theme. I've lost count of the times Robert has called for assurance of God's forgiveness. And each time I remind him of Scripture’s promises, he responds with his characteristic, "Yes, but.”

          As he spoke, a mental image of the Frankenstein monster formed as Robert again dug up his past – a past covered by Christ's blood. I watched him piece together one old sin after another, assembling them into a monster that terrorized him and his family.

          This time, though, I could not find fault only with my friend’s needless despair. With seamless precision, my thoughts propelled me toward my own graveyard where "Yes, but” is etched on several tombstones.

          Like Robert, I know Scriptures that assure me of God's forgiveness. So why do I dig around in my past, piecing together my own monster? Why do I permit the creature that Christ put to death be resurrected and wreak havoc on my life and hurt my relationship with God and with others?

          I know why. Sometimes I doubt our Father’s trustworthiness. I am skeptical that Christ’s sacrificial death could cover my despicable sins. So, I revive my past, lifting each sin onto my shoulders as if to say, "Lord, if you really knew what I’ve done, you would never forgive me."

          On the other end of the line, Robert's litany of reasons why God was angry with him gained momentum. With each passing thought, he dug himself deeper into the Yes, but pit until I couldn't take anymore.

          "Robert," I interrupted.

          He stopped talking and I reminded him again – myself as well – of the promises which stand more sure than Earth itself, of promises more secure than any anchor, of promises that transcend all of our "Yes, buts":

          “So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). “[Therefore], now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

          Scripture after Scripture, promise after promise swirled though my mind and slipped across my tongue. I don't know if they helped Robert, but I know they helped me to once again place my monster back into the crypt. By God’s grace, I will leave it there. Life is too short, and the laborers too few, to waste time and energy carrying a dead man around on my shoulders.

God says to the penitent: Forgiven. Satan whispers: Guilty.

Whom will we believe?

 

 

 

The Way of my Fathers

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock (Psalm 40:2)

I would have gone the way of my fathers, Al, and Tommy. 

Al contributed to my genes, and was rarely in my life after he left Mom a few years after my birth. He left because he wouldn’t stay out of other women’s beds. I’m told he had a brilliant mind, so much so that he worked on the nuclear bomb project during WW2. But after the war he chose to drive a cab for a living. He tossed away his life’s rich potential for the impoverished call of wine and women. He died at 75 in his sleep, lying next to his fourth wife.

Then there was Tommy. He married Mom when I was twelve and adopted me and my sister shortly afterward. I remember him for his explosive temper. We never knew what would set him off. He never hugged me, rarely spent time with me beyond the time it took to eat dinner together. I don’t remember him even speaking a kind or encouraging word to me.

But despite the rejection of my fathers, knowing myself as I know myself, I know I would have followed their examples, become as they, focused on my lusts, my pleasures, my whims. My trajectory began early in my teen years. The allure of drugs and sex without responsibilities wooed me; and I gladly followed. I lived for the moment because it was always ‘my’ moment. I didn’t care about my future because I chose to live only one day at a time. The future could wait until I was ready.

As I write this, nearing the age of 63 and remembering now who I was then, I know I would have become as they became.

But God . . .

Oh, how I love that phrase: But God.

In one of my rare sober moments when I was 22, I projected my life 25, 35 years into the future. That projection frightened me and I felt trapped, locked into a path I could never change. Spiraling into depression, with no hope for self-rescue, I called out to the God I’d for so long spurned and denied.

And He heard my cry.

People have told me God is a myth, a fable created by the weak, the needy, the desperate. But those who say such things have never met my God, have never felt His presence so close you can almost hear His heartbeat, have never heard Him whisper: “Even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you. I have done it, and I will carry you; I will bear you and I will deliver you.”*

I know who I was and where I was headed. But God changed my life. Thoroughly. Completely. From the inside out He recreated me. And best of all, through confession of my sins – some of which were very dark and very evil – He cast them all as far from Himself as east is from the west.

People ask why I am so passionate about my God, about my Jesus. There are many reasons, but I will mention only a few. First, He is the only Father who has ever loved me. Al wanted nothing to do with me. Tommy barely put up with me.  But Jesus. Oh, my Jesus has been my Daddy ever since my conception. He never left me, never rejected me, even at my worst.

Then too, He reached out His nail-pierced hand and pulled me from my trajectory toward certain self-destruction. He saved my life even when others might have thought my life not worth saving. And then, in addition to it all, He filled me with hope and purpose.

Why else my passion? Because I have seen it again and again. What He did for me, He wants to do for anyone. My Jesus has never refused the desperate cry of any penitent.

Yes, I am passionate in my love for Him. How could I be less?

*Isaiah 46:4

 

 

What Will We Say?

This appears in my second book, Lessons Along the Journey. I adapted it for this blog because the message is so timely in our current culture.

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes . . .  (Romans 1:16)

        When I was four, my family lived near the Atlantic Ocean. "Close enough to enjoy the water," my mother used to say, "but far enough that we don't have sand in the house."

One afternoon my father brought me to the beach to escape the blistering summer heat of our apartment. I still remember splashing in the water, squealing as the gentle waves surged and ebbed around me.

I suppose he was only a short distance away when he turned his back for a moment. But during that moment, a wave knocked me off balance and plunged my face beneath the water. Frantic, I fought to regain my footing as each successive swell threw me under again and again. Panic grew into terror as the current swept me deeper beneath the waves.

Then, from nowhere, strong arms suddenly pulled me free. Within moments, I found myself safely on the warm sand. The lifeguard had come to my rescue.

"Hey! What are you doing?" My father ran toward us, shouting angrily at the man who saved me. "I was watching him. He was okay." Then he looked at me. "You were okay, weren't you?"

I remember it was more a command than a question. Embarrassed and confused, what could I say? I stared at my feet and whispered, "Uh‑huh."

Vindicated, my father led me back to our beach blanket. I didn't feel like going into the water any more that day.

Years passed, and I discovered different waters in which to revel. Swept along by swells of ideas and temptations, I drifted from one immoral or rebellious pleasure to another. Life ebbed and flowed gently around me.

Then a wave knocked me off balance.

I fought to regain my footing, but each attempt met powerful and successive waves that pulled me deeper toward sin, desperation, and finally, despondency. I knew intuitively that my future promised little more than ever-increasing bondage to those very things I once thought gave me freedom. I knew I could no more stop doing what I knew to be wrong than I could prevent the ocean's currents. But oh, how I longed for forgiveness, cleansing – and rescue. In despair, I cried out to the One I had for so long ignored, and begged Him to deliver me from myself.

I still remember His rescue. The Holy Spirit led me to friends who told me of God’s promise of salvation and the power to change direction. All I needed to do was ask God for mercy.

Suddenly, from nowhere, strong arms pulled me free from sin's grip. Overwhelming guilt and fear gave way to assurance and peace. I’d been rescued. Lifted onto the Rock. Oh, how glorious was the sense of freedom, to be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

But within days, friends and family rushed to my side. "You were okay, weren't you? You weren't really in trouble . . . .”

What could I say? What would I say?

It’s not surprising when pressure from friends or parents prevent a child from choosing right over wrong. But how should an adult react in the face of truth? Despite my self-assured façade, I desperately needed help, and the Lord Jesus so graciously reached down to rescue me.

What could I say? The choice could not have been clearer. It was time to put away childish things. It was time to shoulder my responsibility and admit that the gospel is the power of God to rescue from sin’s bondage everyone who turns to Christ.
 

Could I – could anyone –say less?

Guilty. But . . . .

Lent, 2013. Somewhere into the third week I read through the Revelation. I paused at this verse:

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. (20:12)

As I pondered the Final Judgment my thoughts wandered to what it might be like when the books – the books that record my life – are opened before the Great Judge. And Scripture texts cascaded across the images forming in my mind.

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I am dead.

I don’t know how I know it, but I am dead. And I stand before the Judgment Seat of God.¹ The Accuser ²  stands next to me, accusing me of the many crimes I’ve committed during my life. Murder. Perversions. Treasons. Rebellions. The litany seems to never end. He cites all of them.

Each in order.

I don’t remember most of them, but my prosecutor holds aloft his dossier of dates and times and places.  And with each accusation the memories of my forgotten sins flood my mind. They overwhelm my mind. With great shame – and fear – I try to push them from my mind. But to no avail.

Then almost from nowhere, He appears – my advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.³

He waits for the accuser to finish. And then He looks soberly at the Judge. “These accusations are all true,” Jesus says. “But Father, I ransomed  him with My blood. ^{4, 5} He entered the waters of baptism. He confessed his sins with each offense. ⁶ He followed Me and served Me these many years.⁷ And You promised I would not lose any whom you have given Me.” ⁸

The Judge listens in silence. Then He looks at my Accuser. He looks at me. He looks at my Advocate. He raises His gavel, and I wait for what is about to come next.

“Guilty,” the Judge says with a solemnity I shall forever remember. “I declare you guilty on all counts.”

Panic – unrelenting panic grips me. And then I hear Him add, “But I hereby pardon you of all counts for the sake of my son, Jesus.” ^{9, 10}

His gavel falls to the Bench with a crack that echoes throughout the chambers of heaven and of hell.

Dazed, I look at my Advocate. His eyes smile back. It is true. Gloriously, wondrously true. I am pardoned. Forgiven. Redeemed forever because of the blood of the Lamb.

(All scripture from Revised Standard Version Catholic edition)

¹ And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done. (Rev 20:12)

² And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. (Rev 12:10)
 
³And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1)

⁴ And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. (Rev 5:9)

⁵ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. (Ephesians 1:7)

⁶ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

⁷ If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also; if any one serves me, the Father will honor him. (John 12:26)

⁸ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. (John 6:39)

⁹ But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole . . . and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6)

¹⁰ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)