He came for the destroyed

Luke 19:10 is one of those examples of how our English language and translation did a disservice to a particular scripture meaning. Its not inaccurate, its just not as rich as it would have been if translated in a direct way. Luke 19:10 says "For the son of man came to seek the lost and save the what was lost". However, I'm not sure we can say that God was trying to find us, I'm not sure he didn't know our location, I'm not sure this word "lost" was the best one to use. Maybe if you look at it from a view that we were lost, meaning couldn't find our way home, that makes sense. But as enemies of God, I'm not sure if we were lost or just going our own way.

But when you look at the Greek, the word lost means "Utterly Destroyed or Decimated beyond recovery". Wow. That verse I've heard a million times just got rich, real and deep. If you think of God's as someone who designed us then you must then conclude that the fall twisted that design, or rather, destroyed it. We start out our pre-salvation moments as an utterly destroyed being, incapable of doing good without Him. If you sit with that for a while it makes the whole process of sanctification and salvation seem so different. Think of it this way, a car that has been utterly destroyed doesn't look like it was designed to look right? It doesn't operate as designed either right? A house that has been decimated can't be lived in right? It has become inoperable, useless and without purpose. Before Christ came into your heart, you were all of these things...but simultaneously He came to know you, Love you and save you, He created you....my point is, even while destroyed He saw value in you and worth in you as a daughter and son of the most High and did what was necessary to take you from utterly destroyed to a prince and princess in the High Courts...

The direction this has taken me is that without Him I am just "doing my best" which in my fallen, destroyed state is still sadly short of good. But we have a King who came to find our destroyed selves, to breathe life into our bodies and make us capable of doing what we were intended to do from day one, to glorify Him and to have fellowship with Him in Rest. And He did it, He salvaged this decimated creation because He saw something of value and worth.....

Now Entering the Kingdom of Self

I am sitting in my living room after a week of seclusion. I took time away from twitter, friends, clients, running, my family, people in general. I have had nothing left to give. I usually make contact with clients who text or email me non-emergency questions during the week just to let them know that I care for them, that they are on my radar screen, but even this was difficult. It seemed that lots of success lately has made it very difficult for me.....which is a strange thought. I have been training for a marathon in December, my practice has grown and things have been going well...so why am I so drained?

We rule our own hearts. Simple thought but complex as to how it plays out in our lives. Few of us allow unfettered access into the deeper places within us, but that is what God has designed us for. Deep connection. But this is far too disturbing. God would ask that we not protect our hearts from the things that happen. Now, let me clarify, He would ask that we not protect our hearts from what happens, this is different than allowing anything into our lives. The distinction is that we control what affects us by denying the reality of how events affect us. I'm suggesting that if someone hurts you in someway, most of us will "stuff it", deny it, or act like it never hurt us. But this isn't living in Truth, hurtful things hurt and God would want this to be true when it happens to us. And God is certainly asking us to allow Him to transform and work in our hearts all the time. We reject this because we still want to rule our own hearts apart from the King.

But, why am I so drained while things are going well? I'm in control of my heart. I didn't cause the growth in my practice, I can't. My field is based so heavily in referrals that much of a counselor's growth is up to God. He brings me clients not me. Bad events or good events all point to the one thing that all of us are afraid to admit, we can't make it happen. When my practice grows and it has nothing to do with me it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. When we lose our baby and there was nothing we could do, it reminds me that I'm at His mercy. I would much rather control my own heart without waiting on my King to show up in the good or the bad. If I rule I get to make rules, what comes in, what goes out. God never designed our hearts this way. We all live in some sort of spiritual dissociation where we decide what has happened to us and what is true, what is to be forgotten and what is painful or not. But if we do this in the hard times how do you stop doing that in the good times, a filter is a filter not easily taken off.

Let me clarify one more time. In my heart, if I'm king, I would choose to grow my practice in a way that I knew I would always be successful. God isn't interested in this. God being King makes Him interested in me showing up and caring for clients. His prosperity isn't about money, its about what happens inside of me that changes me into what He wants me to be. If I'm king I show up with clients that are easy with easy presenting problems. If I'm king I choose people needing advice about what cat to buy or how to make a good queso-dip. Since He is King I am given wounded people who need to understand what it means to be Loved, to see that others are willing to pursue their hearts, that they have value and that someone is willing to bleed for them. Its like the realization that people have when they finally understand that their marriage isn't about their happiness but more about learning how to Love their spouse without regard to themselves. It turns from blessing to a place where even in the good times we MUST LOOK TOWARDS HIM or we will hopelessly fail at it.

We are either okay with God moving in our lives either way, good or bad, or we are not. We can't have it one way and then another, we love it when He moves and hate it when He moves in hard ways, the position of our hearts simply doesn't allow this. When He moves He moves, when He acts who can reverse it? We are ultimately at His mercy. Success calls us to look towards Him if we are honest, if we look at it Biblically. Look at the story of Job, success isn't a right, it is something He gives. So if you find yourself where I am, drained and tired after really great things happening, just remember that this might be a sign pointing to something in your heart. "Now Entering the Kingdom of Self" and under this might be something in your heart that asks "Do I have what it takes, and if not will He take it away".

Ministering to others while WE are in suffering?

Jesus did so much more on the cross than die. I mean the most important thing He did for us was on the cross for sure, dying, but to not look further is to miss something important. I am not saying, more important, just something important. Look at Jesus and the rich young ruler, there is more to that story than a man who didn't follow. The story of Zacchaeus has much more to hold than where Jesus ate. The story of the adulteress woman holds more than Jesus being equitable to sinners. The story of His birth holds more than just a baby being born. In all of these stories is a store house of commentary by a God who wanted us to know Him and His heart. The cross is no different. This story is the linchpin that holds everything together for us to be sure, but in it are many invitations to our hearts. The obvious is that we can receive salvation because of this amazing and loving sacrifice. But to look closer, there are other invitations that lay at the foot of the cross.

In His most dark hour Jesus was caught in the grip of the very thing He asked the father to remove, suffering. From the garden where Jesus' request was not filled to the cross where He was covered in it, suffering, like never before, entered Jesus' story. The One who was sinless became sin, He who was our ultimate blessing became a curse, hanging from a tree. However something else was happening as He hung there for us, something that had nothing to do with His beautiful act of salvation. He began to Love and care for others in the midst of being broken spiritually and physically. As He was becoming sin He was living out perfect Love. As He was receiving all of God's fury He was living out perfect Mercy. As He was unable to be comforted He lived out giving perfect comfort. All of this in the midst of suffering.

"When Jesus saw His mother standing there, He said "Mother, here is your son" (speaking of the disciple John) and to the disciple He said "Here is your mother." In His suffering Jesus was taking care of those around Him, speaking Life into what He was witnessing as He died. He was engaged so fully with those at the foot of His cross that He was moved to invite them to be comforted and to be taken care of upon His leaving. The thief who hung next to Him was comforted while dying when Jesus said that He would be in Heaven with Him. The soldiers who were stealing His clothes were prayed for by Him that they would be forgiven. All of this happening simultaneously in His greatest day of suffering. He was always moving towards people as He lived out Love, Truth, Mercy, Grace, all despite what was happening around Him. So, what am I trying to point out here?

Suffering has a purpose for us and others. Suffering is much like Truth, it never comes back void. In the hands of the Master, suffering avails much in our hearts and lives, as well as in others' hearts and lives. But the problem is none of us are willing to sit in suffering for any extended period of time. We wiggle and wriggle our way out of suffering as quickly as we can as if it were an acid bath eating away at our skin. Oddly, I guess it is, eating away at our old flesh to make us new, but we are far too busy getting out than sitting in it. In our suffering we find Him. There is no question that He is always present in the very place that we wildly run from. Always. And in suffering and loss we have the opportunity to be stripped bare and find a place where He is all that matters and all that seems to make sense. This is where Christ lived all the time, all that matters is Him. To move into the lives of others effectively to live out Love, True Love, it takes us to a path none of us want. Suffering, loss and brokenness are the very road He calls us to when He wants us to invite others to the Deep, so they can call others to the Deep. But get this, we most effectively call others to the Deep when we are living in the middle of suffering.

Exactly! We are far too engrossed in our own lives and heart protection to give of ourselves from the deeper places, until we find brokenness. To the degree that you have experienced brokenness and have suffering in your story is the degree that you have compassion for others. Compassion without brokenness is sympathy at best. Compassion as a result of broken places in our hearts is an offering beyond us of Him. Broken people who are in pain often shock us because of their passion for Him during the loss. I see it each week or month on twitter, someone praising the King in the middle of pain, glorifying Him as they hurt...all the while our hearts are stirred to move towards Life with Him because there is something in our hearts that can't deny what they are saying. To speak that He is all I've got because it is text book, means little to me. But to hear a mother in agony over the loss of her child speak those words, that is where we see Him. When we move towards suffering we must be engaged in our story. This means we must be engaged with those in our story. And if we do these two things we can not help but speak Truth and Life to others while our world is shattering. We have no choice, if we submit to suffering, we submit to His plan in it. His plan will ALWAYS be to glorify and praise Him in ways that make others want to know more about it. This is what Jesus did on the cross and this is what we are called to each time we face suffering.

Sheep that bark like wolves

This week my heart has been so heavy. So many people I have meet on twitter and people who are in churches all across the nation have been duped by wolves. Of course they don't look like wolves, they are kind, politically correct, tender, grace filled people, which gives them the sheep's clothing...but they have teeth. They speak well, they write even better and they film these awesome trendy short films that make everyone say "have you seen...this or that film". I'm thinking about filming a short series named "TRUE-MA", to offset some of the lies of this growing emergent church.

It seems some from the realm of Jesus based churches have stepped up their response to this growing cancer in our midst, but I think far too many people frankly feel rude if they do say something. These are seemingly good, nice men. But really? I don't think this can be true, they are leading generations of young people right into the toilet, one QUESTION at a time. Is Jesus really the only way to get to heaven? (bell) If you take away the virgin birth, what have you really lost? (bell) The Bible isn't an inspired text, its just a cultural commentary that doesn't all fit our culture. (bell) To a man who teaches at a liberal seminary in Seattle, Mars Hill Graduate School, who had his students take communion, YES COMMUNION, from a MUSLIM CLERIC, yes, do I need to repeat it? (McClaren) Do I need to add that this week he is fasting with the muslims during ramadan? (mcclaren) They question whether homosexuality is a sin, why? The Bible speaks to this. They question whether or not Jesus is the only way to heaven, why? The Bible speaks to this.

I think the only way you can pull this off is to put doubt into the minds of our children as to the inspired nature of the Bible. If you can pull that off, then the rest is easy. Take a Holy Document, make it human and then place it into the context of CULTURE. Our culture isn't theirs they say, our culture is thousands of years older they say, we are in a post-modern culture they say, the Bible isn't totally applicable to use anymore, so now we get to pick and choose what we believe from it. APOSTATES! The drool from their wolf fangs drip out under the kind little sheep's face that they show all of us. This is not about mega-churches for them, its about polluting Truth to make it "truth", its about taking Holiness and making it relative, its about taking the divine and making it human, its about taking words of Life and twisting it just slightly to make it death in disguise.

The first "person" to try this method did so successfully and pulled it off many, many years ago. The use of question, the use of "dialogue", the invitation to "wrestle", the charge to continue the "conversation", all used once. The question about what is widely known as Truth is sometimes veiled in an "invitation to dialogue" or "to wrestle", but why wrestle with things that are known to be BIBLICALLY TRUE? There is always an agenda hidden in the emergent church's dialogue, just like when Satan said in the garden, "surely this day you will not die?" He used the same device, a question of God's Ultimate Truth, to bring all of humanity into sin. His invitation seemed to be good, but lead to death. He didn't rage at God to Adam and Eve, he simply questioned God's Truth. This is the emergent church, simply questioning God's Truth for the sake of dialogue.

Bell was quoted in an interview along with his wife that they didn't believe the Bible was a Holy inspired text, how can so many people be reading books from this guy? His invitation is just the same as Satan's, death. Bell doesn't deny Jesus, he just slightly twists Jesus to make him NOT JESUS, so when he offers "him", its not really Him. McClaren is a full on apostate as well, inviting a Muslim Cleric to give communion, this is nothing short of Apostasy! Jesus himself gave instruction on how to give communion, why, and what it signifies. Who is McClaren to change this, pervert this? To dirty this beautiful symbol of the cross?

Be careful those who have read the lies within the pages of these men's books, and others who are coming out of the emergent church movement. They are wolves, apostates, men who would deny Truth so that they can deal out "truth", a post-modern compromise for political correctness and tolerance. Satan invited Adam and Eve to question Truth and said that God didn't want them to "know what He knows"...he invited them to death, but also to be "gods", to be able to create their own "truth" so that they could act as they wished. This is the heart of the liberal emergent church movement, we are all miniature "gods" who get to co-lead with God to create something.....no offense, I lose my car keys twice a week, what can I do to co-lead with God? He DOESNT NEED ME OR YOU, HE WORKS THROUGH me and you, we are not CO-LEADERS, CO-GODS or CO-ANYTHING, we are to be Truth filled, broken vessels that He chooses to use or not. Culture does not bind God, He isn't SUDDENLY irrelevant, HE IS GOD, to be sold on the fact that because we live in a post-modern culture that God is in need of our help is crazy, dangerous and is laden with agenda. A Holy God that is in need of our marketing efforts is a truly WEAK GOD, this scares me if this is the True God that I've always served, that He has failed to anticipate a post-modern culture and has become bound by it so severely that He is in need of me. I am not a god or a God, and can certainly recognize that He is, but not true for many emergents, be careful sheep, be careful, there are those in this pen who do not know His voice and question His Truth, look for teeth my friends, look for teeth.

Bella's Service

We had a service on Saturday for our daughter, we named her Bella Rest Hamilton. I spent a lot of time trying to post this blog and realized that I can't do the service justice. It was just Julie and I, completely alone in a beautiful park. No one single person was there, it had been raining all day. We were glad. This was our time, just two parents mourning their daughter. We wrote letters to Bella and I wanted to post mine. The details of our time in the park is ours, but my words to my daughter, I want to share. I hope these speak to you as well, I hope they might call you to deeper places, that they might mean something.

Letter to Bella:

Lord you have searched me and you know me, you know when I sit and I rise, you know my thoughts from afar, you watch my going out and my lying down, you are familiar with all my ways, before a word is on my tongue you know it completely O Lord…..My sweet daughter Bella, this part of scripture gives me peace and a rest in my heart for I know that our God knew you before He put you into your mom’s womb. He knew you, your heart, he knew who you were, before you ever took your own breath. Comfort is only a part though, only a small portion of what I have felt through this time that we lost you, our sweet baby girl.

I was excited about you even before I met you, before I could see you, I was excited. I so wanted a daughter that I could hold in my arms and snuggle with, to have you sit in my lap and hold your little face in my hands. I was excited about that. I was excited to get to meet you and see what your face looked like, to see what your hands looked like, little baby hands are so sweet. To have you be a part of our family, to be a part of our little family, would have been so sweet Bella, I was excited for you to be with us.

I was excited too for Nate who would have made you such a great big brother, he would have gotten to see you grow and help you learn all of these great things he has learned. He would have thought it was fun to help you say words, to walk, to play with toys, to eat….Nate is your big brother and I am I know he will meet you someday. I hope you love him.

I have also felt hope. Hope is the thing that we get to do here on earth before we see Jesus face to face. I know that hope isn’t needed in Heaven, where you are, God is completely there with you, completely engaged and surrounding you! You get to see Him each minute of each hour of each long day there. We only get glimpses, but hope allows us to glimpse Him in ways that we can’t otherwise. Hope has allowed me to do many things for you even before I met you. It allowed me to know how much I loved you, how very much I loved you and how much your mom and I would have done to save your life! You were precious to us, and we had never met you! Hope allowed me this. Hope also allowed me to know that you were important and real, valuable and worthy, that you were lovable and a gift. Hope allowed me to experience you and your impact on my heart before you were born, Hope allowed my heart to be touched by you Bella! I would not trade those days.

I felt tremendous loss. I lost years of hearing your voice, feeling your little hands reach for me, hearing your feet run around the house. I lost years of time, yes, but years of experiences with you as my daughter. This loss was and is, will always be a huge loss, you will never be with us here. I will never see you married, I don’t get to walk you down the aisle, I don’t get to watch you grow up from Barbie dolls to makeup. I will never get to pursue your heart as only a daddy can pursue his daughter’s heart. I will miss you Bella. I will always miss you.

But let me say this too, I would not change the fact that God gave you to your mommy and I. I can’t say I wouldn’t change having you leave us, but I can say for sure that I wouldn’t change getting to know you were ours, for a very, very short time. You will always be a part of the family and we will tell Nate about you someday. We will always remember you and the day of 09/09/09, the day you left us here. I love you very much Bella, you were not lost on us, I am glad God gave you two parents who would miss you, I think its important! You were a person! You brought meaning to our lives in such a short time, you meant something to me, you truly created so much in my heart from the moment that your mommy saw the pink line……….that pink line. I was so grateful for it…..it lead me to you, and you lead me to Him in ways I had forgotten could be true. Thank you Bella for being my daughter, for being a part of our family, thank you for making a huge impact on my life and heart, you were worth it, even this loss, you were worth it.

We love you very much and I hope that one day, someday, when we are in Heaven we might get to see you and meet you. I do hope to be able to do this. You will never be forgotten little girl….I would have loved to have protected and known your heart, to have gotten to pour into your heart what I have to give, but it seems it happened the other way around for us. You matter to me little girl, you matter to me!

Asleep in the Bottom of the Boat

What do you do when the storm is still raging and your boat is falling apart? Its strange, waves crashing, wind is howling, thunder rolling, and I'm asleep in the bottom of the boat. I know that life, real life, is about encountering things that allows us to understand Jesus, to become more like Him. Think of the feeling of powerlessness and envision the cross, think of rejection and think of the crowd choosing the murderer over Jesus, think of loneliness and think of Jesus in the garden. Countless situations call us to experience what Jesus did while here for us. But asleep in the bottom of the boat? This is not usually me. I'm likely the man standing on the tip top of the mast during a hurricane screaming and shaking my fist at God, daring Him to kill me. But asleep? During a storm? This is just not me. What a strange place I must say again, to be humbled in front of the One I've done battle with all my life.

Now this doesn't mean I don't feel sadness, wave after wave of sadness hit, loss will always be with our family now, and this is okay, it must be okay for I can't change this. I have found peace in the middle of a raging hurricane for the first time in my life. My feet have been planted under me by something beyond me. But this is not so for my wife, an ever growing sadness, depression, a beginning bud of anger, all chaotic for a woman who has lived so controlled her whole life. My wife said yesterday that "I have always done what is right, what is controlled, I don't want to do this right." Now that is a HUGE statement from a woman who has done right for right's sake, all of her life.

It never ceases to amaze me that God can use the same event to call our hearts to be transformed in totally different ways. 10 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago, it would have felt like death to me to move into the place I have found myself. This peace and rest in the midst of a boat destroying storm. The bottom of the boat might as well have been a coffin, it would have been DEATH to me to be there. But my wife, has always been able to find this place, the place where calm reigns and outbursts or anger had no place. She has never fought the storm. Although, she has never been in one this huge. "I've never had loss to this magnitude, nothing even close". So what is going on? It feels like we are walking through this in separate spheres, I can see her and she can see me, but we are definitely not experiencing the same event. God is showing Himself as amazing, showing His commitment to two people separately and together, to transform them separately and together.

For a man who has been so terrified of powerlessness it has been freeing to be powerless in this. For a woman who has been so controlled all her life, God used something far too big for her to control, the life of a baby. (whatever your belief, God either used it, didn't stop it etc) It would feel like death for my wife to feel deeply any emotion, especially rage towards God, overwhelming loss, uncontrollable tears. She would wonder where it would stop, how far would it go, she is moving into uncharted territory. Uncontrolled, uncharted territory.

My heart is moved towards my wife but I know that God is in control again, moving us towards something we can't know or understand. He will work in my wife what He will, He will finish what He has started. Same with me, this work of being asleep in the boat, will perfect something in me that has never been there. Hope in the midst of the unknown, to an acceptance that He is God and I am NOT His peer. I have demanded that position far too long. We are both moving into places seldom seen by each of us, the only thing I have to hold onto is that He has to be there because I would not have chosen this path.

Julie spoke to that yesterday. "I would not have chosen this." My eyes burn with tears right now as I type those words. It is the hardest thing life offers us. These places in our stories where loss has affected us so deeply we would never have chosen. Those things have happened to us, no matter our choice to be a part of that story. These are words deeply rooted in pain and suffering, "I would not have chosen this." And there is nothing I can say. I sit in this boat, asleep, watching my wife staring at that mast, wondering if she will climb, shake her fist in His face. Will this be the thing that frees her heart to be at rest as a sinner in front of the One who loves her most? Will she see that He would love her anyway, whether she chooses cordial rightness or anger filled accusation? I hope she climbs the mast.

Her Name Might Be Rest

Last week we got possible bad news from the OB. This week this news was confirmed. My wife's hormone levels didn't go up after four days, we both knew what this meant. The nurse asked us to come in for a sonogram. I met my wife at my office and we drove together. It was a strange journey down to the hospital. We chatted, we laughed, I told her a story about getting on the radio today to argue a political point, but in our hearts, a growing feeling that God was leading us from Hope into Loss. As we drove we texted, Facebooked and Tweeted for prayers, we made phone calls, but again, in our hearts was an acknowledgment that God was in full control now, prayers wouldn't change this part of our story. I liken the feeling of the drive to a small child waiting in line for a roller coaster. This underlying fear that can't be shown in the line, this frantic feeling building the closer we found ourselves to the hospital, but little shown on the outside. It was polite more than calm, surreal but engaged. So hard to put into words.

The sono-tech showed us the baby this time. This tiny little pea. This really helped me. In my wife's womb was a tiny little being, God spared me the fear that we would see blackness where a child should have been. Hard to grieve blackness. Maybe it will be harder still to grieve the little pea, so much loss attached to such a little baby. We couldn't see an arm, or toes, not a face, just a little pea, mine, it was my little pea. We left the doctor's office, a practice full of Christian doctors, all who know that saying "God is in control" doesn't take away pain. They invited us to loss. God used these men.

We drove home, went to eat down the road, and took a walk with our 1 year old and our huge dog. Quivering in our hearts and working its way into our words was this feeling that grew as we walked as a family. This feeling, this loss mixed with pain yet Rest, a true humble moment in my life. It made words to my wife so hard. I wanted to tell her that I wanted to say this baby was a girl, I really want a little girl. I wanted to tell her that I want to name this little girl, Emily or Bella, or maybe Truth, something that makes a statement. Rest sounds good, her name might be Rest. But these words couldn't find their way out, much to much inside waiting to come out. The pond in our neighborhood wasn't the place.

We made it back home and I got dressed for a jog. We were trying to slowly allow loss to show on its own, I was okay if it showed while I jogged down the road. It didn't, God wouldn't have it that way. This was much to important. It hit as I read my twitter posts, people posting such amazing things, so much concern, Love, Grace, from people I've never met. God can create community within any structure, I've seen this. What took me down the road to full blown, heaving tears was a surprise. One person, Last Trumpet Living, said "Jesus is holding your baby right now." I say it caught me by surprise because I'm a counselor and I fully believe in the suffering, the pain, the loss. But this comment took me directly into, through and beyond this place of suffering, to a place of Hope that I can't put into words. This might sound cheesy but for the first time I think Heaven became real to me. In my life I have found it difficult to get the concept because I often say "it seems to good to be true for me, I believe in Heaven but it just seems to good for me." But for my baby, this tiny little baby that I've only seen on a black and white TV screen, Heaven is a proper place...she deserves that place.

Now I will find suffering in all of this and I am so glad to have lost it tonight with many tears, many hope filled tears. He was in that. But suffering must come....I have lost 50 years of time with this baby. Its funny what God uses to remind you of what you lost. My 1 year old was running down the hall on our wood floors, and what I have heard a million times suddenly stopped me cold and made me realize the pain that will come...the sound of his little bare feet. That is loss. He giggled as he chased the dog....that is loss. He hugged me before he went to bed, that is loss. I will never feel that with her...I will never hear her feet, her name, this little girl, might be Rest...I will let you know later. I will never hold that little girl. This will always be loss and I am at Rest in that, she is mine, but not to hold and see, to touch and laugh with, to tickle and pat her head. I hope He continues to lead me into this.

I will post more here, I hope that you don't mind that I work through this on such a public forum, but I believe in this, to be out there with what it is that God is doing in me and my wife. He has lead us into loss, but in this place is still Rest....what a Kind King we do serve. What a Kind King.......