Grace

Rivers of Living Water

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Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"
—John 7:38 ESV

It's funny how synchronicity strikes at the most opportune times. I'd planned on writing about rivers of living water today, but never had any indication I'd experience it so personally.

During my hiatus, I lined up about a half dozen good topics to discuss when I got back to blogging. The first was the post on labels, the second being about John 7:38.

My son and I read that passage together during our mutual quiet time. We've set apart a few minutes in the morning to read the Bible together and pray for the day. No one sweats great drops of blood or tears down demonic strongholds; it's just a dad and son spending time before God.

While reading through Chapter 7 of John, I read v38 to my son and God hit me between the eyes.  I stopped at the end of the verse and let it sink in. I've heard the passage hundred of times in my life, but on reading it this time I started thinking. And I've not stopped.

Last night, my wife and I attended my 25th high school reunion. I'd originally not planned to go. My 10th had been a blast, I was out of town for the 15th, and was sick as a dog for my 20th (one I was dying to attend.) But for some reason I'd gotten in my head that the 20th had been a huge one and the 25th promised to be lightly attended. I'd not heard from any of the group I'd hung with concerning the reunion, so that only reinforced my assumption.

I'm one of those people who looks back on high school fondly. Though I was by no means a jock, I was popular, with high school being a sort of "glory days" time for me. My drumming opened up doors into sub-groups within the school, and I was fortunate in that I crossed into groups that ordinarily didn't converge. The jocks, band geeks, honor society, and stoner groups knew me and I knew them.

Some personal confession now: I've been down in recent months. A lot of dreams have died in the last year or so and uncertainty is our daily bread. Financial insecurity lurks in every electrical, water, and mortgage bill. (Just paying for the reunion and a babysitter gave me pause, one of the reasons I'd elected not to go to the reunion.) The sheer speed of life has left me drained, longing for some simpler time when I didn't stand in the middle of a room, thoughts surging, unable to figure out what I'm supposed to do next. The idea of attending my reunion discouraged me more.  

At night, when the house is quiet and shadows fill the crevices of my office, I wonder how I got off track. That whip-smart young man of 1981 witnessed a lot of promise go out the window for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. I'd sucked from the stream all through high school, but now those waters appeared dried up and so very long ago.

No one wants to be the "What ever happened to…" person people talk about at reunions. I didn't want to think that  people would join me in wondering how I'd missed the obvious glory road ahead of me.

But the Best Man from our wedding colluded with the girl I'd dated my senior year, and together they got me to change my mind, so my wife and I went. The evening was great fun. I connected with a lot of old friends. Finding out that people were doing well raised my spirits.

Toward the end of the evening, a classmate who'd grown up in my subdivision walked over. I'd been having trouble recognizing a few people all evening, and I didn't immediately put her face with a name. A stream in the desertThe second I saw her name tag, I did a mental brain slap (Duh! How did I not know right away?) and we started talking.

Donna told me right then that she'd been reading my bio in the reunion update. Her comment: "How wonderful your life has turned out for you, Dan. We always knew you would be someone important, a doctor, or someone who helps others. I'm so happy for you." Donna then pulled over another classmate, who agreed with what Donna had said.

I thought about my bio and wondered what Donna had read that I'd missed. I'd written the bio and it sure didn't sound as wonderful to me as it did Donna. But when she told me that she'd become a Christian since leaving high school and was now teaching Sunday School, it all made sense. 

You see, out of Donna came rivers of living water. God put Donna there with a healing word at a healing time. She spoke into the desert, and from that stream came life.

There was nothing fake about what Donna shared. She spoke with the love of Christ and meant what she said. She can't possibly know what a blessing her words were. They may not sound like anything extraordinary, but I needed to hear them. Later that night, driving the babysitter to her place, I spent the return trip home in tears, thanking God for all He's given me.

Are we speaking words of blessing into other people's lives? Are rivers of living water perpetually flowing out from us into the lives of people who are thirsty? 

How easy it should be for us to dispense grace! Yet for some of us, judgment and correctness fall off our lips faster than the Holy Spirit's life. How sad that we live in a culture longing for a drink of the Eternal, yet we turn on each other so quickly and without care for the death we inflict with our words and attitudes.

What does it mean for us who have the Wellspring of Life, the Zoe life of Jesus, living in us? How are our days different because we can offer drink to the thirsty that never fails to refresh?

Right now, people around us are dying for a drink of what we have welling up inside. In what ways would their lives be different if we broke down our internal dam that held back Living Water? What words of life can we speak into the dry desert that is a hurting person's daily existence? How can we be known as an oasis for the parched, whether they be lost or found?

I've met a few people in my life—only a few—who live each day as oases.  That's the kind of person I long to be. Maybe if we did a better job allowing more of Christ's living water to stream out of us, we'd mutually help each other to become the oases that Christ longs for us to be.

Be blessed. And be a blessing to others.

Because We Can, We Should?

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I'm not into today's CCM. The worship leader at our church must think me a pagan because I have a blank look on my face whenever she brings up the latest hot Christian band and their equally hot quasi-worship song that's blazing up the Christian charts. Who? What song? Let me guess; it has the same beat as all the others….

Today, I had one of those crazy days of endless errands. Oil change, allergy shots, soccer practice, a ten-item grocery list that necessitated trips to three different megagrocers just to get common items any ONE of them SHOULD have had. You know the drill. So desperate for a little spiritual refresher, I turned on the big Christian radio station in town to hear one of the afternoon teaching programs. Instead I got an earful of tedious music. 

Whither the teaching? Well, the station's booted all its teaching in favor of a non-stop music format. I guess every station wants to be just another vapid K-LOVE clone. In some corporate roundtable, station management decided to give the people what they want rather than what is best for them, thinking that 24/7/365 of the Pablum that passes for Christian music today better enlivens the masses than Ravi Zacharias talking about techniques for witnessing to Muslims.

Ugh. Maybe I'll call 'em up and request Keith Green's "You Love the World (And You're Avoiding Me)."

It's symptomatic of a gigantic problem. 

One of the most worldly concepts you'll find in our culture is this idea that "because we can, we should." Name a moral failing or a political ambition and I'll bet "because we can, we should" empowers it. Abortion and fetal tissue cultivation are the sick offspring of that thinking. You can probably come up with a million more.

Christians are not immune to this mistake. In fact, we rationalize a lot of  "because we can, we should" under the guise of redeeming things. Kids love Saturday morning cartoons? Well, let's make Christian cartoons! Your son wants an action figure? Why not give him a brand-spanking new Jesus action figure complete with a whip to drive out moneychangers and a glow-in-the-dark sword that springs out of his mouth to slay the wicked?

Almost all "Jesus junk" hatches from "because we can, we should."

Truth be told, I feel queasy walking into Christian bookstores. They're so utterly derivative and reactionary that if I were an unbeliever plunked down in one, I'd guess the first stage of being born again is losing one's sense of beauty, creativity, and charm.

Yet for all the WWJD paraphernalia floated over here from Shanghai, a more soul-killing expression of "because we can, we should" exists.

Mysecret.tv is a recent addition to the Web. Some Christian organization thought there weren't enough avenues for confession for Christians, Confession or Gossip?so because the Web exists and is (somewhat) anonymous, it's the perfect medium for confessing one's sins. 

Except it's not. Not in the slightest. Instead, Mysecret.tv stands as a warning to us all, the epitome of "because we can, we should"-ism in the American Church.  

The site raises my ire for a number of reasons:

1. It's pornography. Like some lurid afternoon TV talk show, the site parades sin as entertainment. By offering verbal voyeurism (consider the domain name), it's no different than a hardcore porn site. One click and you can read the details of someone else's failure before God. "But doesn't the Bible show great believers failing?" Sure, it does. But if anyone here's calling for adding Mysecret.tv to the canon, well….

2. It usurps the role of the local church. No doubt, Evangelicals have dropped the confessional ball. Too many Evangelical churches would rather judge than offer grace after a confession. But building a site like Mysecret.tv actually circumvents local churches improving their dealings with confession, sin, and grace. It provides a cheap excuse NOT to fix the problem in our local churches. It asks for none of the commitment inherent in a Christ-centered community, cheapening how we relate to each other in an age when real community in the church is already on its deathbed.

3. It asks for no repentance. Enough said. 

4. It offers no grace. Real grace doesn't come with a disclaimer. Jesus Christ gave us a model for how to dispense grace to the repentant. It's the church body of real people who hear confession, cry with the sinner, and offer grace by the Holy Spirit working through people. But Mysecret.tv expunges all face-to-face restorative human contact. Therefore, by removing the links in the chain of how grace should be dispensed, it offers no grace at all.

5. It offers no accountability. After people confess on Mysecret.tv, what follow-up occurs to help them work through the ramifications of their confession? None that I can see.

6. It offers no restitution. How does one walk out the end product of a confession on Mysecret.tv? Well, if nothing is asked of the people who confess on the site, then no restitution occurs. How that benefits the one confessing is beyond me. 

7. It demeans the death of Christ on the cross. If Mysecret.tv angles to be a Christian-sponsored site that takes confessions, yet offers none of the hallmarks of true Christian confession, repentance, accountability, and restitution, then it's not Christian in the slightest. That mocks the Lord.

I could name a half dozen more failings in Mysecret.tv, but its concession to "because we can, we should" speaks for itself. When considering this site's premise, it appears no one asked if it undermines everything the Church should be. They just plowed ahead and slapped it up on the Web. Alakazam, now you can confess to boinking your kid's babysitter and feel better about yourself for doing so. (And yes, all you grammar mavens, I intentionally wrote that last sentence for maximum {read ironic} ambiguity.)

Is anyone else disturbed that so much of what passes for Christianity in America displays the same hollow core as Mysecret.tv? A group sees a need in the Church, but instead of pursuing tough answers that might require a complete overhaul of how our churches live out the Gospel, they settle for the cheap and meaningless—because they can.

Cerulean Sanctum exists to find ways to better our churches and the people who comprise them. For this treason, I loathe cheap answers to the pernicious problems we face as Christians in America. I see a site like Mysecret.tv and my blood boils. When another blogger told me about the site, and I checked it out myself, my jaw dropped at the utter lack of discernment behind this online confession booth.

(If you're a regular reader of this site, you know I almost never single out a particular ministry or program for scorn. I don't like to name names because so much out there needs to improve, even on good sites. I know that Cerulean Sanctum lacks in some areas. I also know I'm not satisfied with cheap and easy.)

I pray this post gets us thinking about finding the narrow path, rather than the wide, destructive one behind "because we can, we should." Too many Christians trudge down that "because we can, we should" superhighway leaving the rest of us to wonder if we're the ones going the wrong way.

Our response to the problems of our day will cost us something precious. When we're not prepared to pay the price, we'll settle for the path of "because we can, we should."

But Jesus won't be waiting at the end of that road. 

My Hope for What the Church Will Be, Part 1

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As someone who revels in the outdoors, most of my hobbies get me out into nature. I've been birding since I was fourteen, taught outdoor education in zoos and camps, and would rather spend a night out under the panoply of the heavens than any stuffy old bedroom.

When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars that Thou hast appointed, what is Man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou dost care for him? Every time I catch a glimpse of the night sky, Psalm 8 rolls off my lips from out of my heart.

I recently added geocaching to my arsenal of outdoor activities. Together, my son and I have found 55 hidden caches in our area in our first six weeks. It's a challenging activity and a whole lot of fun.

Geocaching presents another intriguing benefit. Not being in the typical workplace, I've witnessed my personal network dwindle to only a handful of names. Since I have no hobbies that require other people to make them happen, I decided to attend a geocachers meet-up to broaden my contacts and get my face out there.

Last Friday, my son and I met up with our fellow geocachers. About 33 people showed up. Curiously, I knew most of them by their "cache name" nicknames as I'd already come across their log entries in the caches and in the electronic logs at Geocaching.com .

I was new. No one knew me. Everyone greeted me and my son. We were immediately welcomed into the greater body of local geocachers.

Time ticked on, but none of us noticed. People shared their exploits. Stories about hard-to-find caches abounded, including one notorious one that had sent my son and me sliding along with trees and rocks for about a hundred feet when the hillside we were standing on collapsed. (Yes, very scary, but God was faithful and we were remarkably unhurt.) When I got engrossed in the conversation, the lady presiding over the get-together spontaneously watched my son so I could hang with the veterans and soak up the geocaching wisdom. And while the meeting felt like a throwback to the kinds of engineer parties I remember in Silicon Valley (I now know the hot sport for techies in my area), everyone was glad to have me there. They clued me in to insider talk, showed me their collections of treasures harvested from various caches, and made me feel like I'd been a part of their little cadre forever. We had to leave a little bit early, so we didn't get to see the gifts handed out to those geocachers who had achieved certain milestones (like 1000 caches found). That would have been nice to witness, though.

Driving home, I couldn't shake a few thoughts about that meeting:

  1. Though I was a sheer beginner, no one looked down on my lack of experience and feeble knowledge. They respected me for how far I'd already come.
  2. People made sure my son and I felt included.
  3. The wise among them wanted to let me know their secrets.
  4. The host looked after me, took care of my child so I could learn more, and dropped me an e-mail later to say how glad she was that we'd been able to attend.
  5. People there were genuinely excited about what they did and shared stories that bolstered comraderie and the activity itself.
  6. Anyone who shared in the love of the activity was welcomed. Old people, families with young children—it didn't matter.
  7. If people didn't immediately grasp all the rules, that was okay. Questions were eagerly answered and without judgment.
  8. The very best among them were esteemed for what they'd accomplished. 

You can probably see where I'm heading, so I'll just say it:

Wouldn't it be great if all our churches in America were like this?

Honestly, a geocache box is nothing in the scheme of things. Geocaching will pass away like all things in time. But why then do we Christians, the ones who are ambassadors of the Living Christ, seem far less excited about Him than these geocachers do about a piece of Tupperware hidden inside a hollow log in the woods?

Wouldn't it be great if our meetings were filled with people talking about what Jesus meant to them? Unity, Mercy, LoveWhat He'd done in their lives today, yesterday, and the day before that? If people can get excited about finding a 35mm film canister wedged in a woodpecker hole, why do we seem so bored with Jesus, who is Lord of the Universe?

We wonder why it's harder and harder to get the lost to take notice of Jesus. I can say with all honesty that if we were as excited about Him as these geocachers are about their sport, and we conducted our meetings as welcoming and as informative as that geocachers get-together, our churches might be packed—or at least people wouldn't write them off so easily.

If you're a Christian, then you have a built-in network of people who should be on your side for eternity. Yet all too often that network suffers in comparison to some of the networks the world has to offer.

When his buddy upchucks the evening's revelry, the barfly cleans him up. When the drug addict has no place to sleep, he calls another addict who lets him crash at his place. The bartender, out out on the town on his own for once, leaves his waitress a big tip because he knows how it is.

The Bible says this:

For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light.
—Luke 16:8b ESV

The sons of this world get it. They know they have to fight for everything because they have nothing else to back them up. That's why a real friend means something. A real friend will cover your back.

We take for granted what the Lord bought for us when He created the Church.

That's where we'll pick up in the concluding part of this pre-hiatus series. Look for it before the week is out.