Category Archives: Loved

Will you be my Valentine?

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will_you_be_my_valentineDo you remember asking the question, often with an accompanying small, awkwardly sized card and a box of tasteless, sugar hearts?

“Will you be my Valentine?” It’s a pretty vulnerable question to ask when you are in grade school and your heart is on your sleeve (I still remember the 4th grade when Dalene Whitney told me yes then no then yes again all in the same day).

It’s even more vulnerable years later when you ask a variation of the question: “Am I still your Valentine?”

Today is the 22nd year that Jessica has been my Valentine, and I’m desperately hoping that I’ve been a good Valentine for her. I hope that her years of having me as her Valentine have reinforced in her the reality of God’s overwhelming love. When she stops to count her blessings I hope she has overwhelming evidence that God—through me—has been good to her.

And this isn’t just a post about Jessica and me! It’s a question for all of us to ponder as we think about our many sweethearts today. Have we made them better? Have we been agents of healing? Have we lived and loved so well that our children, students, friends, family members, and loved ones have evidence of a good and gracious God? God is good and gracious and loving and kind; the question is: have our lives highlighted that reality?

One of the most remarkable things about the Gospel story is that God allows us humans to represent Him to our world. Sometimes we do it well, sometimes we fall down on the job. If you’ve fallen down on the job it doesn’t mean the story is over. Valentine’s Day is a perfect day for refreshing resolutions and charting the courses in life that we truly want to follow.

Poised

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poisedAre you a poised individual? Would anyone use the word poise to describe your mien and air, your manner and your bearing?

Poise is a word that refers to elegance and grace in a person’s carriage. It is the state of composure that allows one to remain centered and upright in any given situation. Older uses of the word described balance and equilibrium in a person’s core.

The opposite of poise is discombobulation, the state of being confused or disconcerted by external forces, and when we get discombobulated we make up for it by posing. Since we don’t have a natural composure flowing from within us, we wear external masks and strike external poses to compensate. Which one best describes you? In a given day are you more poised and composed or posed and discombobulated?

Our level of poise and composure is directly tied to our confidence—the more confident we are the more poised we become. Conversely, as our confidence ebbs our fear, confusion, and distress increases.

So how do we shed our posing and grow in confidence that leads to ever-increasing poise and composure? Two thoughts. First, stay close to Jesus Christ, who always modeled poise and equilibrium. He moved through the storms of Roman oppression and religious persecution like an eye of a hurricane, ever-poised and composed. Second, remember that confidence flows from the presence of God. The more we cultivate the presence of God in our lives the more our confidence grows and poise becomes our posture.

I know it can take time to overcome our fears and grow in poise and confidence, but it changes everything when we attain it. Let’s set poise as a goal, and learn to bring the peace, hope, and composure of Christ wherever we go every day of our lives.

Triple-kept by triune love

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smile-at-the-rainShade, shelter, stronghold…buckler, shield, and bulwark. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we are triple protected by triune love.

I think you will love the following sentences from a Celtic devotional that I have recently been pondering:

“God the Father is the shield beneath which we hide our fragile souls. He comes both generous and large to cover us when troubles rain down upon us.

God the Son made of His own cross a place for our hard times and the wood He chose now serves our wounds.

God the Spirit lives within us like structured steel with welded braces so the pressures from without can never crush us.

We are triple-kept by triune love, shielded by the three in one.”[1]

Know you are loved today!

 

[1] Calvin Miller, Celtic Devotions (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 27.

 

The subtle brilliance of humanistic thinking

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starsChristianity presents the highest, noblest view of the dignity of man (male/female) of any other worldview or belief system. According to our Scriptures, we humans are not merely the products of unguided evolution. We aren’t simply “dancing to our DNA” as Richard Dawkins claims.

We are not simply the latest, upgraded installment of the evolutionary chain, animals 2.0.

We are carriers of a divine spark. We are made in the image of God, loved by Deity, and we carry an intrinsic value and worth that is unique among all of creation. That’s our starting point. And yet as brilliantly and wondrously as we were made, we aren’t God. We submit to God. We worship God, but we ourselves are not divine.

In contrast to this Christian perspective is evolutionary humanism that starts from a very different place. In evolutionary humanistic thinking, humans are not intrinsically special or unique. We aren’t loved by Deity and destined for a significant life or eternity. We are biological impulses. We’re just the latest version of evolution, today’s manifestation of natural selection.

How interesting it is then to see that although humanism begins with man as no more significant than animals, it ends with man essentially enthroned as God. This is inconsistent reasoning. Humanistic philosophy both reduces the sanctity of human life while simultaneously elevating man’s prowess and genius as the greatest force in existence.

How does that happen? How do we begin as nothing more than animals, but then end as essential deities? It’s a brilliantly subtle belief that divests us of accountability and responsibility, while promoting our independence and pride.

I like King David’s exclamations from Psalm 8 verses 1 and 4: “Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Then “What is man that you are mindful of him?” God is mindful of us—that makes us special. But it is His name—not ours—that is majestic in all the earth.

Loved When Unlovable

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love the unlovable

Do you know that you were loved in your most unlovable moments? Do you know that God loved you even when you couldn’t love yourself? Has the weight of that truth ever worked its way into your soul?

You were loved in the exact time when you were the most difficult to love.

God loved you when you hated Him (or when you were coolly indifferent to Him).

He loved you when you pulled a Jonah and sailed in the opposite direction.

He loved you before you surrendered your life to Him and began morphing into who you are today.

He loved you in your confusion, your brokenness, and your shame.

He loved you when you cheered for the wrong sports team (sorry Clippers fans).

God loved you when you were far from Him. That’s what Romans 5:8 is all about. It says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

If those words are true, how have they affected our closest relationships? Do we love our loved ones in their less-than-lovely moments? Or do we only love them until those moments?

Certainly, it’s easier to love our loved ones when they’re modeling all of the things that we love best about them, but what about when the other stuff peeks through? What about those times when their lesser nature flares up? Do we love them still?

We don’t have to love their lesser nature, and we certainly don’t have to endorse what they do with it, but I hope we have enough of God’s love in us to continue loving even when it’s difficult to love.

Indeed, those are probably the only moments when love can truly be called love.

God is easy to live with

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAEnjoy this powerful Easter reflection from A.W. Tozer’s book The Root of the Righteous.

“The truth is that God is the most winsome of all beings and His service one of unspeakable pleasure. He is all love, and those who trust Him need never know anything but that love.

He is just, indeed, and He will not condone sin; but through the blood of the everlasting covenant He is able to act toward us exactly as if we had never sinned. Toward the trusting sons of men His mercy will always triumph over justice.

The fellowship of God is delightful beyond all telling. He communes with His redeemed ones in an easy, uninhibited fellowship that is restful and healing to the soul. He is neither sensitive nor selfish not temperamental. What He is today we shall find Him tomorrow and the next day and the next year. He is not hard to please, though He may be hard to satisfy. He expects of us only what He has Himself first supplied. He is quick to mark every simple effort to please Him, and just as quick to overlook imperfections when He knows we meant to do His will.

He loves us for ourselves and values our love more than galaxies of new created worlds.”[1]

 

[1] A.W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous (Camp Hill, PA: Wing Spread Publishers, 1955, 2006), 15.

 

Unexplainable but not Unknowable

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cosmosThere’s a difference between things that are unexplainable and unknowable.

I can’t explain exactly how love works, but I’ve been deeply in love with Jessica for twenty years now.

I can’t fully explain how a daughter is able to utterly melt a father’s heart; however, all Maddie and Amber have to do to get their way with me is play the daughter/daddy card.

I would fail miserably if someone asked me give a technical explanation for the law of gravity, and yet I could demonstrate it perfectly, simply by standing still.

Some of the most complex things in life are beyond adequate description—they can’t be fully articulated in the human language—they have to be known.

I can’t explain God to you.

I can talk about Him. I can tell you my experiences. I can point to creation and some things that could only have come from His limitless imagination. I can quote Scriptures and preach sermons, but at the end of the day, God must be known.

He isn’t an idea or a hypothesis or the Jedi’s impersonal “Force.” He is a person—He is THE person—and Jesus showed us what He looks like.

The Apostle Paul said, “In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.” (Colossians 2:9)

The Apostle John said, “The Word (Jesus) became flesh and made His dwelling among us. And we have seen His glory.” (John 1:14)

The Apostle Peter said, “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” (2 Peter 1:16)

And what about you? What would you say? I know you can’t explain Him, but who do you know Him to be?

He is waiting to be known, and those who seek Him find Him.