Faith is Daily

I just completed six months of cleaning in two days. I washed the basement floor and steps--even the utility sink. I dusted the blinds and pictures in the living room and took swipes at the spiders loafing in their hammocky webs. Once I got going, I didn’t sit down for fear I’d never get up again. At one point, as I slid a yardstick under the basement couch and watched the un-popped popcorn kernels roll out, I got to thinking that my cleaning marathon is the way that many people, myself included, sometimes live their faith. We drive north for a weekend retreat in a pristine setting, Bible in tow, and spend every waking moment focused on hearing God. We read Psalms next to a crackling fire, or hike the trails with another strong Christian and talk deeply about our Christian life.

Or it’s Christmas and we get all caught up in the Christmas spirit, planning our personal Advent devotions complete with candle-lighting, and going out of our way to inconvenience ourselves for others. Then, as the New Year wanes and the “Renewing Your Faith” retreat is a distant memory, all those good intentions of keeping a personal devotion time lose traction and six weeks go by without our ever picking up our Bible. The on-going argument we’ve had with our spouse, children or in-laws is the same as it was before we left on our retreat and that one woman in church bugs us more than ever. Our boss is unbearable, our car still has 197,000 miles on it with a permanently lit “check engine” light, and we’re back to wasting time on the Internet.

Just as six months worth of cleaning in two days isn’t going to keep the house clean indefinitely, a weekend retreat or 25 days of Yuletide cheer in and of themselves won’t fuel our Christian walk for more than a few days. Just as the spiders will be back at work weaving dusty chandeliers in distant corners and crumbs of cheese and chips will collect under the table, the issues of life will quickly close in on us, testing us every day in our faith.

Oswald Chambers, who has much to say on the drudgery of daily life, said, “After every time of exaltation, we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they really are, where it is neither beautiful, poetic, nor thrilling. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there.”

Faith, like cleaning, is a daily thing.

My friend and I were lamenting the other day that even though we buy Windex and Lysol, our windows and bathrooms are still dirty. As if buying the products precludes our having to actually use them!

It’s just like the Bible. Having one in the house doesn’t make us mature in our faith, nor does merely attending a church service once a week. Chambers said that it requires “the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint…It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God—but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people—and this is not learned in five minutes.”

Yet many folks don’t want faith to be daily or to put in the time required to make it so. That’s why we have church upon church ramping up the “experiential” worship service. They want pinnacles of passion and exotic worldly crises to intervene in all the time. They don’t want to go home and work on the marriage, take out the garbage, and spend yet another Monday night at the kitchen table with a child in tears over math homework.

Oswald Chambers said, “It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God—that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Most of us can do things if we are always at some heroic level of intensity, simply because of the natural selfishness of our own hearts. But God wants us to be at the drab everyday level, where we live in the valley according to our personal relationship with Him.”

I have struggled with slovenliness most of my life. It was only after becoming a Christian that God showed me that maintaining a clean home, when I did it for Him, was a Holy Act and High Calling. Although I can’t say that I enjoy cleaning (although once I stop procrastinating and get to it it’s actually kind of fun and always very gratifying), I can say with absolute confidence that it is pleasing to God and I find joy in that.

To quote Chambers one more time, he said, “I must realize that my obedience even in the smallest detail of life has all of the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I will do my duty, not for duty’s sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ."

That, to me, is a daily reminder of how drudgery can be turned into a privilege.

If our faith is to be real, it must be lived in reality. What is reality? It’s right where we’re at, at this and any given moment.

“See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.” Hebrews 3: 12-14

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3

“But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.” Jude 20

Christian Book Recommendations

Barb Harwood, photo

Some books are truly a gift that keeps on giving, and this is especially true of books that rightly handle the Word of God. I’ve put together an informal list of books that impacted me in my walk with God and that I refer back to often, if not daily. Perhaps there is a book here that would make a nice gift for the Christian or lost soul in your life.

I must begin this list with the Bible. I can’t stress enough that the Bible must be read first and daily. Other books are great, but if they replace Bible reading, they come between God and us. Books on Christian living and theology must never take the place of Scripture, and everything in a book must always be tested against what the Bible says. The Bible is our authority, written by the Author of all Creation.

With that, here goes:

For Daily Devotions:

+My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. If I skip my time in this book for even one day, I regret it. There isn’t one book other than the Bible that has had as much of an impact on my spiritual maturity as this book. I know I’m not alone in saying this.

+Morning and Evening, the classic devotional by Charles Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg. Another daily read of mine, Spurgeon is poetic, passionate, encouraging and convicting. He’s the only theologian I’ve read who can write a sentence like this: “Sweet is the cool twilight, when every star seems like the eye of heaven and the cool wind is as the breath of celestial love” and yet in the next breath reveal a truth such as this: “Satan can climb housetops and enter closets, and even if we could shut out that foul fiend, our own corruptions are enough to work our ruin unless grace prevents it.”

For the high school and college set:

+Stand Strong in College by Alex McFarland. I heard Mr. McFarland speak at the 2007 Southern Evangelical Seminary Apologetics conference. McFarland is a young, perhaps 40-ish-something who would be a great next-door neighbor. He’s funny and down to earth, but serious about his commitment to the Lord and about encouraging our young people to be equally committed to standing firm in their faith while in college. This is a really excellent book and I wish someone had given me a book like this when I was in high school.

+The Naked Truth by Lakita Garth. When I heard Garth speak at Judson University in February of 2008, I wanted to hug her for her abstinence message! She is the only—I repeat only—Christian woman that I know of who is an unashamedly confident advocate for the liberation of women from giving themselves away sexually. (I say women here because I’ve always said that true “women’s lib” is to say “no” to sex before marriage and all the physical and emotional baggage that comes with premarital sex). Every girl and guy on the planet needs to read this book and hear Garth speak. She is a committed and joyful Christian who walked the abstinence path herself before marriage and who is wonderfully exuberant about conveying that awesome freedom in Christ to young women and men.

For Christian Growth:

+The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith: I will have to write a complete blog post on this book. Suffice it to say that it was the first book I read (sheepishly, I might add) when God began tugging at my heart and mind to seek Him. Let’s just say I credit this book and the Bible for the beginning of my becoming a Christian.

+The All-Sufficient Christ, studies in Paul’s letter to the Colossians by William Barclay

+The Extraordinariness of the Christian Life by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

+The Letters of John Newton (author of Amazing Grace)

+Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

+Real Christianity by William Wilberforce (abolished the British slave trade in 1807)

+The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. This book should be on the syllabus of every college psychology course.

+The Apologetics of Jesus: A Caring Approach to Dealing with Doubters by Norman L. Geisler and Patrick Zukeran. Loaded with Scriptural references to support Jesus’ use of testimony, miracles, reason, parables, prophecy, etc.

+The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Series by John MacArthur. I love anything and everything by John MacArthur. Along with Oswald Chambers, the work of MacArthur has been indispensable in my, and many other folks, daily Christian life. I currently am reading his commentary on 2 Timothy.

+Faith Undone by Roger Oakland. This is a must-read for any church, pastor or congregant who is dabbling in the emergent church movement.

+Man in White by Johnny Cash. This is Cash’s first-person fictional account that brings to life the ministry of the Apostle Paul. Cash was a devout Christian, a man who knew what it was to be forgiven much. I once heard Larry King ask Cash, towards the end of his life, if Cash was mad at God (Cash had just lost his wife June and was now struggling with his own health issues.) I’ll never forget the look on Cash’s face as he answered the question, saying, “No, No, I’m not mad at God. Why would I be mad at God?” He went on to say how humbled and grateful he was for all that God had done in his life. It was a true and exceedingly rare reverence for God that I saw in Cash that day. That reverence comes through in Man in White. (Unfortunately this book may be out of print. Check online used bookstores).

I’m sure I’ve left off a book or two. And I have many waiting in the wings to be picked up and explored. I’ll have to write about those next time.

May God richly bless you with His Word this Christmas~

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15

A Little Christmas Music

"Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel,

praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth

peace to men on whom his favor rests."

Luke 2:13-14

It's All About the Shopping

And so it begins: The “holiday” or “Christmas” season, often accompanied by the word “shopping.” The Thanksgiving edition of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel landed at my door this morning filled with an inch or more of sale inserts whose purpose it is to lure me into stores at 4 and 5 a.m. on Black Friday with “door-buster” deals and “one-day-only” specials.

As a Christian and recovered shopper myself, I understand the psychology behind exuberant shopping at Christmas.

Christmas is the only time chronic shoppers can binge in stores guilt-free. After all, they’re shopping for Christmas. Is it so bad that a few items land in the cart that aren’t gifts for others, but gifts for themselves? It’s still Christmas shopping, right?

I read a survey that said 66% of people shopping on Black Friday will be shopping for themselves. I take that to mean what it says: for themselves; not for others. So the whole premise that Black Friday is a gift-shopping day is quickly becoming a myth, replaced by the reality that it is just a day off work to go fishing for great deals on yet more stuff for oneself.

For others, shopping at this time of year is exhausting because gift-giving, for them, is their ticket to recognition: they hope to find love and acceptance through the gifts they buy. So they frantically roam the stores seeking that perfect gift--and I do mean perfect--that will wow and impress the receiver and all who are in the room when the gift is opened.

I remember buying gifts for my extended family gift-exchange and thinking that the gift absolutely must reflect positively on me: it couldn’t be too cheap or too common, had to be exquisitely wrapped and ultimately the hit of the family gathering. The gift was more about me than the other person. Under that mentality, Christmas shopping becomes a competition with other gift-givers, the stakes growing higher each year. This is exactly what the Bible admonishes against: “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them.” (Matthew 6:1). Yet for many, gift giving is their way of not only attempting to be seen, but to be loved, befriended, accepted and affirmed.

William Gurnall, born in 1616 in England, is the author of the Puritan classic “The Christian in Complete Armour.” In volume one of this classic, he writes:

“We lose the good of material things by expecting too much from them. Those who try hardest to please themselves with earthly goods find the least satisfaction in them.”

I would say the same is true for gift-giving. I’m not at all against giving gifts. I am, however, wary of the motivation and expectation that lies behind much gift giving, be it gifts to others or so-called gifts to ourselves. When we expect gifts to do things they can’t, we become disillusioned at the result and vow to shop harder next time.

Gurnall has the solution for this vicious cycle of emotional and physical bondage to gifts, gift-giving, and shopping, of which I can personally attest: “All of our frustrations,” he writes, “could be easily avoided if we would turn away from things and look to Christ for happiness.”

This Christmas, I’m not suggesting people stop giving gifts entirely. What I am suggesting, though, is to start with the only true and perfect gift that never disappoints: Jesus Christ Himself.

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

Walking the Narrow Path in China

Today's Wall Street Journal writes about Christians taking their churches underground in China. Like I said in my last post, the powers of darkness can attempt to stop and silence faith, but have never been successful in doing so. And even if people were ever to be silenced, we remember again Jesus' words that even the stones will cry out.

Here's the link to the WSJ article written by Leslie Hook:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574539120649781240.html

"And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." Matthew 16:18

"Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it." Mark 16:20

FFRF Hits New Low

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is at it again, this time unconscionably attacking UW-Whitewater because a campus religious organization sent out an email invitation for a prayer vigil for Staff Sgt. Amy Krueger who was killed in the shootings at Fort Hood. Krueger was a psychology major at Whitewater.

FFRF, once again, has spoken out against a freedom that is guaranteed by the Constitution, and they spoke out in a way and at a time that shows their true colors at their darkest.

FFRF went ballistic over the word “prayer” in the campus email and immediately penned a frigid letter to UW-Whitewater chastising them, completely forgetting (or not even seeing to begin with) that a young lady had just died.

FFRF’s Annie Gaylor engaged in her traditional kindergarten tactics, bullying the UW with the implication that the UW must change the wording of “prayer vigil” to “memorial service.”

UW-Madison’s Badger Herald calls FFRF a “nontheism” group, which is a laugh. FFRF is anti-theist. A non-theist would graciously and maturely decline religion and mind their own business without being offended by every religious icon, word and practice.

FFRF is not content with taking the stance that religion is a non-entity to them. No, they go much further, turning their personal opinions on religion into a public vendetta in the hopes that they can wipe religion off the map. (One wonders what “injustice” they’d entertain themselves with then?)

The audacious attempt to restrict the mourners at UW-Whitewater is the height of self-centeredness, completely lacking in compassion, love, integrity and goodwill towards Amy Krueger, her family and the staff and students of UW-Whitewater. At a time calling for humanity’s kindness, FFRF answers with an egregious display of narcissism.

Deep down inside, I think FFRF knows that a moment of silence or a sanitized memorial service can never substitute for prayer. Which is why they try to do it, because they know there is power in prayer. Which would admit there is a God. Which gets back to what FFRF is most fearful of and the reason for all their actions.

Prayer can never be a “moment of silence” because prayer is never without sound. Prayer, contrary to what many people might want to believe, is not “silencing the mind.” Prayer is alive and active as we cry out to God and listen to His words back to us. In times of tragedy, God hears our very heartbreak through prayer, even when we don’t know what to pray.

Romans 8:26-27 tells us, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.” This is not passive silence--as if one can silence inner heartbreak! The fact that FFRF thinks a sanitized memorial is possible only shows how ignorant of prayer and the human and Holy Spirit they are.

Prayer will continue to offend and set off agendas. And the powers of darkness will continue to roam the earth looking for people to silence. However, Jesus Himself, in Luke 19:40, gives us this assurance, “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

“I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes. Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my cry for mercy; the Lord accepts my prayer." Psalm 6:6-9

"Over and Out"

I was telling my son Nick how, when my friends and I were little, we used to hang out in the fort my brother built and play detective. We’d hide behind trees and communicate via imaginary radios, ending our communique with “over and out.” We said this because that must’ve been what we heard in the many war movies we’d grown up watching. But Nick didn’t get what it meant, so I Googled the phrase and found out we’d been using the lingo the wrong way. On one website, a person posted the following:

“As for 'Over and out,' you would be shot out of the water if you used the phrase on marine radio. 'Over' means 'I have finished speaking and am awaiting a reply.' 'Out' means 'I have finished the communication.' 'Over' and 'Out' should NEVER be used together in serious radio communication.”

I laughed at how I’d been misusing those words. But then again, it didn’t surprise me. Isn’t that how much of the world operates? In conversations across the globe, people are talking, but they are "over and outing" each other, putting in an appearance of listening or wanting to hear, but then saying “out” before the other person can respond to the “over.” We all know what it’s like to try to convey a thought to someone whose mind is already made up regarding what they want to do or to think. And we’ve been in situations where we’ve been guilty of thinking about where we’re going to have lunch or when we’re going to do the laundry while someone else is talking to us. We portend a stance of “over” while practicing “over and out.”

This happens to me with God. I remember “praying” once about getting involved in a ministry (I put praying in quotes because I’d already made up my mind). I was so sure it was something God would approve of, but just to be safe, I took a couple days to go through the motion of “seeking God” about it. Not hearing anything from God on this (which Oswald Chambers says should be taken as a red flag) I remember one day decidedly closing my Bible and thinking, “God will bless this, even if I haven’t really heard from Him.” Oh, God did bless it, in that He taught me never ever to plunge ahead without His call again!

See, I was in “over and out” mode. I pretended to be in “over” mode, awaiting God’s leading, but in reality, I jumped right to “out” mode, essentially shutting God out. That is, until mopping up and bailing out time came: ever notice how, after we’ve made a real mess of things, we’re suddenly ready to listen to God? We’re ready to be in “over” mode only?

So often in prayer I’m restless and I pray about something, but then move on to another request, or go on to do my Bible reading, or hurriedly finish up with my quiet time anxious to get to other activities. I’m praying “over and out” prayers. I pray and then tell God that my communication is over before He has a chance to even speak to me. I put down the radio and go about my day, leaving God waiting on the other end.

Oftentimes people say prayer doesn’t really accomplish anything: we do. I’ve felt that way sometimes. I want to just jump in and “do” and not wait for God. But it’s that very act of “doing” without God that is the hindrance—the prevention—of prayer taking an active, accomplishing role in our, and other’s, lives. Prayer doesn't accomplish things because we hang up on the author of prayer before He can give His answer. Instead of ending with “Amen,” we close with a self-centered “over and out.”

Just as “over and out” should never be used together in serious radio communication, it should never be used in serious God-communication either.

"Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. 'Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?' he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." Matthew 26: 40-41

"Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 'Abba, Father,' he said, 'everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'" Mark 14:35-36

"When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. 'Why are you sleeping?' he asked them. 'Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." Luke 22:45-46