The Angle of Pursuit

I have played and watched lots of football in my days. Those of us who have kids will also understand this terminology easily. My son Caleb reminds me of the angle of pursuit technique that is taught to beginning football players on day one of practice. It is the principle of open field tackling used while trying to catch the opponent. You see this when a running back or receiver breaks loose from the coverage or line and is running in the open field. Most times he will not be caught by someone running from directly behind him. He is usually caught and tackled by someone from clear across the other side or near the middle of the field. How can that happen? The angle of pursuit.
The defensive player cannot simply run straight at the offensive player or he will be long gone by the time he arrives at that spot. Most offensive players will also out run anyone who is chasing them directly from behind. So the intelligent defensive player must take an angle on him in order to catch and tackle the player before he reaches the end zone for the score. The defensive player must make a mental angle in there head which judges where they and the offensive player will likely meet based on the current speed they are going. Hopefully that spot is before the end zone! I also use this strategy when my son is trying to sneak past me or when he bolts to try and get away from me because he wants to go somewhere he is not allowed to be. I cut him off using this same method!

How does this relate to spiritual things? God has the ball and knows the plays. We are the defender. Often times His will is running amok in the open field of our lives and we are shell shocked and confused as to what it is. We can continue to lie on our backs after Satan has laid us out, or we can chase after the Lord and try desperately as Jacob did in the old Testament to wrestle Him to the ground and figure out His will for us. Many times we try and run sideways and hit that spot that was once where we were supposed to be but is now five steps behind the ball-carrier. Sometimes we try and run him down from behind, but are we really faster then the Lord? We have to take the "angle" on the Lord. We try and close the gap so we can figure out how to get His will for our lives. We draw close spiritually by prayer, Bible reading and spending time with other believers in accountable relationships. He wants to be tackled by us! He wants us to catch Him! But time cannot stand still while we sit by and watch our divinely planned out lives sprint by us. Take the angle of pursuit! Pursue God by engaging in the spiritual disciplines, then we will be able to catch Him and walk with Him to the end zone. For in reality, it was an interception and we are trying to block for Him so we can be one of those running into the end zone with Him as we triumph over the opponent. He has intercepted our lives. He acquired us as a costly free agent. He paid more then the market value. He wants to have us by His side. Take the angle so you can walk stride in stride with Him into the end zone which is His will for us. WHAT IF we all committed to seeking to walk stride in stride with Him into the will He has for us instead of sitting on the bench while He has to fight off would be tacklers on the opposition?

Does it feel like 9-10?

Wow its been awhile, my apologies summer can get busy...

The Cross Movement had a song on there last CD called 9-10. The premise of the song is that we love living in 9-10. That refers to 9-10-2001. The day before the terrible terrorist strike which occurred on 9-11-01 and will forever be etched in our memories. I first heard this rap song about a year ago and it has rattled around in my mind ever since. Here is one lyric sample from the song; "we pray every day that it won't happen again, but then we celebrate sin and it feels like 9-10, over and over and over again".

When will the church get it? Our God is bigger then a day on the calender, a crisis, a tragedy or a pandemic! He is in complete control, we are the ones who are out of touch. We pray frivolous and selfish prayers hoping to appease God so bad things won't happen, then we go one living life the same way as if it was 9-10. 9-11 was a horrific tragedy, but has deep spiritual connotations. If you did not ever think that was true, rethink. God does not bring tragedy to see His sons and daughters injured or killed. I believe it comes as a result of our reckless 9-10 like attitude toward our lives and sin. As we stand now almost 7 years removed, does anyone who did not have a direct connection to 9-11 think about how it changed them each day when they awaken? We should, because everything happens for a reason and God is not some tiny God who would allow such a huge tragedy so that only those directly involved would be touched and impacted. We have all heard the "fire and brimstone" sermons, the "turn or burn" messages that are so hollow and unsympathetic and cast God as this Holy Bug Zapper waiting to zap anyone who does wrong. There is truth to those sermons though. If we continue to celebrate sin, He will continue to send more wake up calls such as 9-11. If we fall to the same 9-10 sins over and over again, don't think he won't drop a personal 9-11 on your spirit and life. Just like some children only need a look from their parents to straighten up, others need a much more public sometimes embarrassing action before they will listen to their parents. Don't wait for a personal 9-11 attack from God. Tune in to Him and listen to what He is saying. Don't live a perpetual 9-10 life. WHAT IF 9-11 changed everyone for good and not just for a month?

Blogging From Below?

After my return from classes at Fuller Seminary and the Urban Youth Workers Conference, I decided to put in practice a little about what I have learned this week. Slowing down the Scriptures is a radical concept for some of us. We have become accustomed to speeding through familiar passages and skipping or skimming perceivedly boring or unfamiliar ones. When we slow down and read these for new content, we almost always will find something new.

We place a lot of emphasis on Jesus' Divinity, and rightfully so. But do we place much significance on His humanity? What IF we read Scripture more in light of his humanity instead of always reading the Bible from above, with Divinity in mind. Society has incorporated a lot of our own thoughts into a lot of the Biblical accounts by reading the Bible from the dominant perspective (or from above). A perspective where the people in power control and dictate what is read, said and interpreted rather then just letting the Scriptures speak for themselves. A primary example is how we have been taught to share the gospel. We always stress sin and our need to be forgiven, when in reality a good gospel presentation should begin with Creation. He created us in His image and it was VERY good, not just good or OK or alright, VERY GOOD! We all too often camp out on the "don'ts" of the Bible, beginning with the ten commandments and then working in our own dominant opinions of what "the Bible says" we should not do. In reality the Bible started out giving 3 positive things (do's) and then a fourth thing to be careful not to do. I will get back to the fourth thing in a minute.
God commands Adam and Eve to DO the following in Genesis 2: Be fruitful and multiply (sex), have dominion over the world (responsibility), eat freely (literally EAT, EAT). So God gives blanket permission for human kind top have sex, have power, and indulge in the fruits of the land freely (spending spree?). Sounds like the kind of party most of us would be down for of course. Sounds like a spousal relationship (remember only 2 humans at this point) we would all love to indulge in. This was the perfect plan the Lord set up for human kind in a perfect world. He also makes one warning, much like a parent might say "hey son make sure you don't touch that burner, if you do you will get burned." By saying, do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will surely die. Notice he doesn't say "I will kill you", or God's vengeance will fall on you! No, he issues a statement that this one thing should not be touched without natural consequences.

God set up this world to be a PARTY! It was all good, until the serpent put doubt into the mind of Eve. Then she adds in Gen 3:3 that they should not even touch the tree! Even the serpent did not add to what the Lord said in the prior verse. Eve adds to it, she embellishes the God of the NO and forgets about the God of YES that had given them everything they could possibly want or need.

So what about you? Have you ever added to the Word? Maybe just embellished a little to help your cause or argument? Be careful. It can be costly. Young people today and even many adults live in the God of the No. We should be preaching more on the God of Yes, because that was His original plan. WHAT IF we all leaned more on the God of the YES (his calling, his blessings his promises) then on the God of the NO (don't do this or that)? I believe we would be drawn more appropriately to do things that are righteous if we did so out of love for all He has done and how he has blessed us, then by living in fear for the righteous lightening bolt to zap us, and then from fear come crawling meekly to His will like we have been taught to do. Can we change? Let's try!

What IF Jesus blogged?

Lanny Donahoe has a book titled God's Blogs, great great title and excellent book I suggest you pick it up. But what if the Son of Man blogged daily about what he saw in your life? Would you be embarrassed? Would you be humbled? Or would you be excited!? I wonder. Think about that today and remember He is writing down the history of your life to be revealed and discussed when you meet in Glory, if you have accepted His free gift of eternal life. He is ever watching and listening. Someday He might get to share His blog about you, it sits in some eternal dashboard right now, except unlike me, He is making notes and posts on a frequent basis, many times a day. What does your eternal blog look like?

Spiritual Vacation

Last month my family and I went on vacation for a week in Myrtle Beach SC. During the trip we decided that it would be a totally stress free trip where we were basically be free to do what we wanted without demands and pressures from family, time or work/school. Anytime someone reverted back to the old ways of worrisome clock watching or trying to over plan things, one of us would say "its okay we're on vacation!"

My oldest son who is seven really milked this phrase "we're on vacation". Eating ice cream for breakfast, its ok we're on vacation. not working on his homework packet...we're on vacation! Laying around watching TV til mid afternoon, its ok, we are on vacation! We even planned an extra day in between vacation and when we would be back to work and school so that we would have a gear up day to get ready for a return to the life we normally live.

This led me to thinking about spiritual things. I have thought about the many times I and others I know have taken a spiritual vacation. A time where either by accident or by design I chose not to follow God or at least to withdraw from the spiritual routines I have developed and tried hard to keep with much discipline. During these vacations from our friendship and walks with God I have found that I get into the most trouble. Temptation is as great as that all you can eat buffet that is in abundance in Myrtle Beach. I think, why I believe it would be nice to try some of this today, or maybe that. Why do I like eating this all the time? It doesn't really taste that good anymore. Or we see an old favorite we haven't had since the last vacation, and we indulge with a vengeance. Just like after vacation from our lives here on earth usually results in our need to lose a few pounds or remember how to accomplish things before 7 AM when we return, when people take spiritual vacations far worse consequences abound. Do I need to state some of them or can you fill in your own blanks?

So I leave you with this thought: WHAT IF a spiritual vacation was what we did to escape from the daily grind and not what we did when we were fleeing from God? We could turn this negative concept into a daily positive routine that was used to get us closer to the Lord and further from the stress that comes with living in a fast paced America culture. WHAT IF...?

Bush-Whackers

A few years ago I had an addition put onto my house. At the same time as that addition was being done, my neighbor moved and someone else bought her home. The former tenant was elderly and was the original owner of the home since the 60's. Her husband had passed several years earlier. I mention these personal details only because they are relevant to the state of her home, you see it had become an overgrown jungle of bushes! You could barely see the front door of her home and the mulberry and thorn bushes had grow half way up her house and about four feet into her yard. There were more bushes then grass in her yard. It had become a sore thumb in our middle class neighborhood.
Well the new owner did great things, the first of which was tear out all of the bushes! Wow what a difference! The house looked great now that you could see it! They were not finished there as they basically replaced everything inside and out of the house a la Extreme Makeover: Home Addition. But it is the bushes I want to talk about, because they are the most relevent to me. You see much like urban sprawl drives out wildlife from its home, much had been driven out of these bushes. Not only a multitude of trash and refuse, but lots of rodents and other animals. What do these things do when they lose a home? Why they try to find a new one! Needless to say for the next year or so I set off many rodent and bug traps in and around my home which were largely due to the open access (my own construction) and to the survival need of these creatures. I am proud to say I think I have won the battle!

So what's in your bushes? What kind of trash do you need to get rid of that is so tightly wound around your life that even the strong wind that is the Holy Spirit is struggling to blow it out? What is living in your bushes? What undesireable things are crawling around in your life that need to find a new home? Secrets that no one knows exist except when they peek out to get a little taste of your life. Creatures that are perfectly willing to stick with you where it is comfortable but will be forced to leave if you rip out there surroundings. That is the hard part. You see that is alot of work. I watched the men who tore out those bushes sweat and bleed for days chopping down the bushes, it was hard work I was glad I didn't have to do.
But in reality, we should be pruning our lifes bushes every day. They need to be clean of trash and animal lairs so there are no secret places. If it means we have to tear out the bushes from the roots and start over, then do it! Do it for yourself! Whatever you have living in your bushes, from trash to wild life, set it free. Chances are your neighbor and friend will be better equipped to kill it then you, but as long as you let it live with you, they can never help you. WHAT IF we all commited to cleaning out the bushes of our own personal lives, what a difference we could make.

How's your Ninevah?

Jonah was a great man for all of us to study in today's world. Many lessons can be learned by his simple act of disobedience. Not that we are ever disobedient. I'm sure we all pick up the phone everytime the Lord calls our name, right? Yeah RIGHT! Jonah is like us all. Unwilling to comply unless threatened! Why do we do that? I believe sometimes He just wants to see if we will be obediant. Sometimes it is only about that. WHAT IF we were always obedient? We expect it from our children don't we? When our child is disobedient we scold or punish them. So why is it we get angry with God when he does the same to us? We sometimes ask our children to do things that we probably could do ourselves, partly just because we can and also to see if they will obediently comply. Surely I'm not alone on this one am I? So why should God not do the same?

I believe God had a heart to see the people of Ninevah saved. I believe He wanted Jonah to do it. I also believe he asked Jonah because He was testing him to see just how serious a man of God he was. To see if he would comply to his Father's directions. Jonah did not. The Father in heaven went ballistic! He sends a huge storm after Jonah all because he did not listen, He sent a whale to swallow him because he would not listen, He broke Jonah down inside of the whale until he unhappily complied.
I believe God does this to us as well. I think He has well made plans for us that He wants us to comply to, but we sometimes ignore. Sometimes there are intermissionary steps that He asks us to take to get to the major goal, just to see if we are really being obedient or if we are going through the motions. I believe He tests our obedience so we can have the best plan that He has for us not a substandard secondary plan that we often accept due to our unwillingness to go the extra mile out of obedience. What IF we all acted obediently no matter what the cost or the action? No matter how we would look to others or who would not be our friend anymore. WHAT IF we showed a little more trust through obedient service? Jonah reached the entire community of Ninevah once he complied to God's request and did it willingly. Could we all reach our personal Ninevah's if we just acted as we wish our children did, with obedience. WHAT IF?

Broken Buildings

There is a great Christian song by the band Seventh Day Slumber with the above title. It has spoken to me richly over the past few months. The crux of the message is this line of the chorus: "what did you see in me?, you found beauty in these broken buildings!"

I love that! I think about not only the ghetto of broken down buildings that represented my life before I met Jesus, but about the dilapidated state that a find my life in at times even now, but yet He looks at the broken buildings and sees the wonderful mansion he is preparing. It is simply marvelous to think that anyone can have vision like His. We cannot. I must challenge myself to look at "the projects" of my life and figure out what wonderful house he is going to construct in the neighborhood that is my life. But not only mine but others. We love to look at the messy rundown areas of others lives and wipe our brow and say "Thank God I don't live there!", but in reality we should be reaching out our hands and saying, "how can I help you fix your broken building?" WHAT IF we all worked on building mansions instead of throwing another rock through an already broken window?