Exclusion Is An Old Hurt

23 Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed. 24 Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.  - Galatians 3: 23-24

 A friend of mine once gave me a documentary to watch about fans of the TV show, Star Trek. It was called Trekkies. The last 10 minutes of the film is filled with people talking all about how Star Trek has been the one place in their lives that they have felt included, accepted, embraced, and even loved for who they were. To a person, they talk about how as goofy as they can be, or as rejected by their family, or for all of their quirks and faults or mistakes, they have always found acceptance and inclusion as a Trekkie. That’s why they do what they do and why they are as fanatical as they are. It’s why they dress in full uniform and try to live by the ideals of Star Fleet. It’s why they go to conventions. It’s why they call each other by rank at their club meetings as they’re making their fan-films. One cast member of Star Trek: The Next Generation actually said in the documentary, “The reality is that Star Trek fans devote more energy and finance and loyalty to the object of their affection than just about any other group of people I’ve ever seen.” If you’re in the church, or you’re a Christian… I mean… does that sound a little bit familiar? Why is that?

 Maybe it’s because it reminds us how how far we’ve gone for the same things. How far would you go to be included in community with other people at a deep level and find a sense of friendship and purpose just as you are? How far have you gone?

 It’s been my experience that’s something people will go to extremes for.

People will stay in bad relationships for that. They will continue unhealthy habits and behave in ways that might seem strange to have that experience. They will engage in activities that are inappropriate or ill-advised – even unhealthy. They will even dress up in uniform and go to conventions. They will have surgeries to alter themselves, make lifestyle decisions they know are unhealthy and unbalanced; all for the sake of finding someone, somewhere that will accept them and include them in community just as they are.

 In the early church, this was a point of huge debate from the very beginning – who’s in the club, and who’s out of it? Who are God’s people, and who aren’t? How do we know? Is THE CHURCH a Jewish-only club? Is it open to Gentiles – people not of Jewish decent? Can women be in the club? Can slaves be in the club? How far does this Jesus group really go? What’s the uniform we should be wearing? How should people be dressing? If you dress like THIS or THAT are you in or out? This is one of the very first controversies in the early church –

 And then along comes Paul in the book of Galatians, and he says – IN CHRIST there is neither Jew, nor Gentile, slave nor free, male or female. Jesus said, “For God SO LOVED THE WORLD that He gave His only son…” In other words, we’re talking today about the fact that God loves His people, and yet one of the first questions Christians tend to get hung up on is: WHO ARE GOD’S PEOPLE? To which Jesus and Paul both say, “There are no people who are not God’s people. Everybody is God’s people…” And that’s something a lot of people have a really hard time with.

Can I tell you a secret you might not know about yourself if you’re a Christian?

 You can laugh all you want about Star Trek fans, a.k.a. “Trekkies,” calling themselves by their rank as they go to a convention or attend a club meeting that’s based on made up space-stories, but here’s the hard truth: The world doesn’t look at the church any different than you look at Trekkies.

“Oh you’re ‘deacon’ on the ‘board of stewards’ at your church?? Ok…”

“…Oh, you’re a part of the ‘tech team’ or the ‘connections team’ at your ‘somebody rose from the dead club’? Rock on, brother…”

“You put art on the walls of your house based on this? You decorate with this stuff? You give it your time, affection, and your money? You go to conventions… Oh, I’m sorry – I mean Christian conferences?”

The world does not see a real distinction between us and Trekkies. They think the story of Jesus is just as silly, just as made up, and just as insane.

And part of the reason they don’t see the difference is that the church hasn’t always done the greatest job of helping them to see the difference. Because they come to church and they feel just as excluded, just as alienated, just as picked on, just as rejected in the church… as they do in the world.

 In Galatians, Paul says, for a long time, we lived under the law – and that’s what the law did. It placed access to God under guard. It put God’s people into a kind of protective custody – the law said, “These ones are my people, and these ones are not…” And Paul says that we needed that until the way of faith came – until Jesus. It was important that we have that until Jesus came – and when Jesus comes on the scene, He makes a new way for us to have a relationship with God, which is through faith in Him, not the law – not the stuff that was rule-based. Inclusion now isn’t based on rules, looks, cosmetics, or even the law – it’s based on a relationship with Jesus, who fulfilled the law when we couldn’t. So, Paul says that the fact that you’re still trying to define who’s in the club and who isn’t is really kind of a YOU problem. You think we’re still under law and not under grace, and as a result, you’re excluding people, you’re overlooking people, you’re dismissing people you shouldn’t.

 Now… I don’t know if you’re feeling it while you’re reading this… But even in using the words inclusion and exclusion – I know some of us might be getting a little tightly wound right now. The reason is that these are trigger-words in the culture we live in right now. When I’m not at church on Sundays, I teach in the public school system where the idea of inclusion, tolerance, celebration of differences – these are real buzz words that can have very strange applications. What you’re feeling is the is the tension we live in – Who is the gospel for? Who is Jesus for? Who’s allowed to be one of God’s people that John says He loved so much that He gave His only son for? We live in a day and a time when people are D E S P E R A T E to belong to something. Desperate to feel included. Desperate to feel seen. Some people make up clubs based on space stories. Other people make up clubs about people who think they’re cats. Other people think they follow someone who rose from the dead 2,000 years ago – what’s the difference. …I need to belong somewhere… to something… to somebody… I need community – I need connection…

 The number one most common question I get about my church from people, often times before they will even attend a service at our church, is some version of, “Will your church accept someone like ME?” And then they’ll go on to describe the circumstance that’s left them feeling excluded from the church. It could be something they’ve done, a preference, a belief, could be something else entirely.

 But what Paul reminds us of in this passage is that this whole idea of feeling excluded, on the outside, feeling out of the club – this is a very old hurt. It’s a very old feeling that a lot of people have. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that’s the number one question people want to know: “Your church – is that a place I will feel loved? Will I feel accepted? Will I be embraced for who I am just as I am? Is this going to be a community that I can find relationships in? And be loved in?” This isn’t new to 2024 America – we didn’t invent exclusion. People have felt this for a long time. And it’s why they love things like Star Trek. Because feeling excluded is a real old hurt for people. Even the Bible says, “It is not good for man to be alone…” Everybody needs a place to connect, and most of the time we have a really hard time finding it.

 So Paul reminds the church that yeah – there was a time when we defined ourselves by who was in and who was out, and we had a way of doing that called the law. As a church, as a people, as a club, as a group, we’ve had some pretty severe ways of reminding each other of that through the centuries. But now we have something better. We have grace. We have the way of faith through Jesus. And because of that, we know that all people are God’s people – and THEY ARE!!! BUT – before everyone starts jumping up and down saying, “THAT’S AWESOME! The church is all about grace! I can be a part of the church and do whatever I want!” We need to understand a few things about grace. More on that in my next post…

Why Your Greatest Pain Will Come From Relationships

“This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:12

Jesus says that the commandment is to love like He loved. That’s not the same thing as, how well others are loving us in return. I’m not saying that’s unimportant. I’m simply saying how well you love others and how well you’re loved in return are not the same question – one is completely within your control and is a decision you have to make, the other is less so.

And I point that out not to discourage anybody – but to simply say that to most people when you talk to them about loving people and being in loving relationships, we think about romantic love, don’t we? We think about the flowers and chocolates we want someone to deliver to us because we deserve it. At least that’s what Facebook and Instagram want us to believe, isn’t it? How many posts have all of us seen where in the wake of a break-up someone was declaring to the universe, “I DESERVE TO BE LOVED THE WAY I WANT TO BE LOVED. I WAS THE GREATEST THING TO HAPPEN TO THEM! I DESERVE SOMEONE WHO PUTS ME FIRST! WHY? BECAUSE I DESERVE IT!” People talk a lot about love, and when they do they tend to talk about what they deserve and what they think love is supposed to feel like. Anybody who’s going to be with me, they just better know that I’m the greatest thing that has ever happened to them…

Well… You might be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to them… But that’s not the measuring stick of love in Jesus’ view. Jesus says that the greatest love, the real test, isn’t about the love you receive. It’s about the love you give. It’s about whether you can love people like He doe. And the way he loves people is sacrificial. It’s bottomless. It’s unconditional. The person who loves well, lays down their own life for the sake of those around them.

In describing love in 1 Cor. 13, Paul says you want to love well? Here’s what it looks like: Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. That’s the definition of a successful life, says Paul. Do that. That’s laying your life down for those you love. Jesus says, you learn to do that,and in God’s eyes, that’s success.

Now, in Jesus’ case, laying down his life for his friends was a literal action. Nobody is calling you to go out of here today and die a literal death – either emotionally or physically. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone, especially in an abusive situation, is to lay down a boundary and protect it. But jJesus knows something here about how love works that we don’t like to talk about on Facebook or Instagram, or ANYWHERE ELSE – that loving people well is going to be the cause of the greatest pain in your life.

It'll be your greatest sacrifice. It’ll be your biggest hurt. It’ll be the hardest thing you ever do. You’re going to have to choose to do it, because it’s not going to naturally choose itself. In fact, your nature is going to fight against it – not because you don’t want to love the people in your life – but because loving them well means that you’re going to have to do things you don’t want to do. You’re going to have to face things you don’t want to face. You’re going to have to name things you don’t want to name. You’re going to have to work through conflicts you don’t want to work through. You’re going to have to dig up stuff from your past and work through it that you would rather just blow past. You’re going to have to disrupt your habits of mind and your thought patterns and redefine everything in the world you think of as NORMAL. Because for you to love people well, it means that not only do you need to let them into your heart and make yourself vulnerable to them – which can be a huge source of pain all unto itself when that doesn’t go well – it means that you need to remove the stuff within you that prevents you from loving them the way you should.

When I went through the hardest years of my life – roughly 2013-2018ish – I was massively depressed. I got on medication that caused me to become overweight and unhealthy. I was getting handed to daily by my anxiety and insecurity. I was a shell of myself – and I knew it. It affected my thinking, it dominated my feelings, it wrecked my identity – It was awful. And here’s the thing – you can’t experience these things and have them NOT affect your relationships.

I reached a point where I had to decide a few things – and I had to decide them not for me. I had to decide them for my kids. We went through some stuff as a family, and I knew that if I’m going to be even kind of the dad my kids need me to be, if I’m serious about loving them well through it, then that means a few things need to happen –

I’ve got to go to counseling 2x per week for a period, not because I want to, but because I need to get to the bottom of this stuff so I can be better for them. They need me as stable and consistent as possible, so loving them well means manning-up and get to the bottom of my issues and finding some healing. Nobody said it’s going to be easy. But that’s the job.

That means unearthing some things that aren’t pleasant to face. That means falling on some swords I didn’t want to fall on. It means I needed to put in the time and the work and the discipline to lose the weight I had gained. It means I need to make a decision to choose a new thought pattern when I old one’s were pulling me away from them. Again – if I love them, if they matter to me, if they are important to me, if these are the people that God has entrusted to me, if this is who He’s given to me to love, then my attitude towards them needs to be: love them like Jesus – I need to die to self, pick up my cross, and follow Jesus.

Do you know how hard that is to do? That’s like difficulty level 10,000! It’s unrelenting! But my kids need a dad! And my grandkids are going to need a grandpa! And my family needs a brother and a son. The best gift I can give them is the healthiest version of me. And I can’t give them that if I won’t face the pain of getting myself there. This is why the Bible says it isn’t good for man to be alone – because when you work through this stuff in relationships, THAT is when you’re going to become the person you’re supposed to be. This is your discipleship. This is following Jesus. You want to get to the victory of the empty tomb? AWESOME! Pick up a cross and follow!

And this is to say nothing of the fact that once you’re there, the hardest conversations you’ll ever have are about relationships. The toughest conflicts you’ll ever work through are in your most intimate relationships. That argument with your boss at work? It’s child’s play compared to the conflict in your marriage.

Nobody says this stuff on Facebook – you know why? Because we think love is supposed to feel good ALL THE TIME – and it can feel good. But to get to the good you have to work through the pain! You don’t get Easter Sunday without Good Friday. Greater love has no one than he that lays down their life.

Your greatest pain will come from loving people well. Ask Jesus about the scars in His hand the next time you pray. He’ll tell you about the pain. But he’ll also tell you why it was worth it. He’ll tell you about the joy that was set before him. That’s what the bible says drove Jesus to the cross – because it’s true: Relationships will be your greatest and most intimate souce of pain. But the pain we experience in them now is a part of the joy and the victory we come to know in them later on.

Don't Stay Tied To What You Thought It Would Be

John begins his gospel in such an interesting way. “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed... God created…, and nothing was created…The Word gave life... It’s all past tense and talking about what’s already happened – what already was. It’s almost like John is saying, “If I’m going to tell you the story of Jesus – if you’re going to understand how hope works – I have to start at the beginning. And by “the beginning,” I don’t mean Mary and Joseph and Bethlehem and all the stuff you heard in Sunday School. I have to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the beginning of creation. The beginning of TIME. That’s where the story really begins.

John wants us to understand that hope is not a new thing that we came up with all on our own. Hope is something God had in mind for you to live in from all the way back at the beginning of time. And as he’s writing about it, John knows that it was ALL the way back there… that hope was lost. That’s where the need for hope developed. Hope is a lot older than you think. John isn’t talking about hope like you HOPE to get a new bike at Christmas. Or you HOPE you get a big bonus check from work at the end of the year.

 God created human beings with certain longings for connection at our core – connection to Him and to one another. As John begins his gospel, he’s saying that those longings come out of us as individual hopes… I have a longing for connection and relationship… so… I hope I can find someone who won’t reject me. I have a longing for joy… I hope I can find it in a way that’s life-giving and not life-sucking… I have a longing for purpose… I hope I can find my calling… Do you see how this works?

 Here's the reason John connects hope with the beginning of time and not the beginning of your job, or the beginning of your relationship, or the beginning of anything else in your individual life: It’s because he’s trying to tell you that real hope is older than you are. It comes from something eternal, ancient, and deep. Real hope comes from the ancient past. Everything about this passage is in the past tense… until verse 5 – where John says –  The light shines (PRESENT TENSE) and the darkness can never (FUTURE) extinguish it.

 That’s good news because most of the things I hope for in my life are based on what I’ve known and what I’ve seen and what i’ve experienced. My capacity for hope is very much limited by the context of my life. I’ll prove it to you:

If I’m in a relationship, and it’s not going well – could be a marriage, could be a friendship, whatever – but if I’m going to hope the relationship is going to get better, then I probably have a specific idea of what that better looks like based on the context of that relationship. I HOPE we can overcome this conflict. I HOPE we can get through this season. I HOPE we can work through these issues. What you’re hoping for is tied to what you’re struggling with! I HOPE I can overcome this addiction. I HOPE I can make it another day. I HOPE the money lasts. I HOPE I don’t screw up parenting my kids and they turn out to be ax-murderers – hope is always contextual. What I’m hoping for in my situation is dependent on what I’m struggling with.

John says that if you want to really live in hope – stop tying your hope to YOUR past, YOUR EXPERIENCE, YOUR KNOWLEDGE, AND YOUR IDEA ABOUT WHAT’S POSSIBLE IN YOUR LIFE AND START TYING IT TO SOMETHING DEEPER! HOPE COMES FROM THE PAST, BUT IT DOESN’T STAY THERE! Hope isn’t limited to what you’ve known – it’s based on what God has already done!

 Some of us, we don’t even know what to hope for in our life because our hope is tied too hard to our context. You grew up in a dysfunctional home, so you’re worried you’re going to create one in your family. You struggle with an addiction, so your greatest hope is just survival to get to the next hit or high. You struggle with insecurity, so your HOPE someone will validate you and there’s no limit to the length you’ll go to in order to get it – because your hope is tied to what you’ve known in the moment. Your hope is tied to your context. John would say – you want to talk about HOPE? YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO HOPE FOR YET!

 God’s idea of the kind of hope you can live in is bigger than what you’ve known so far! John says, “I’m not even going to go through the whole genealogy of Jesus! I’m not even going to try to recount most of the prophecies about Jesus. I’m not even going to start this story with Bethelehem. WHY?! BECAUSE HOPE CAN’T BE TIED TO THE HUMAN PAST. THE HUMAN PAST IS STORY AFTER STORY OF ONE JACK-WAGON AFTER ANOTHER WHO LOST HOPE AS THEY WERE SEARCHING FOR IT! THEY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR! If you want to know where HOPE comes from? It’s not from you’ve experience! And it’s not from anything YOU know. And it’s not from anything YOU THINK IS NORMAL!

 John says hope goes ALL the way back – we’re going to tie our hope to what we’ve known because what we’ve known hasn’t worked. And if you tie your hope to the past, if you’re going to limit your hope to what you know today about your life… then you’re going to live a much smaller life than you were created to liv. We’ve got to connect hope to God’s imagination about our lives, not our own. We’ve got to get our hope out of our heads, and our broken hearts, and our shattered dreams, and our hurting spirits – because if that’s going to be the origin of our hopes, it’s going to hold us back from what we can become. If I anchor my hope, LIMIT my hope to just what I’ve know, then my hope stays small, and it ties me to a specific context and a past – something like:

 I THOUGHT MY MARRIAGE WAS GOING TO TURN OUT THIS WAY… I THOUGHT WE WOULDN’T STILL BE STRUGGLING WITH THIS BY NOW… I THOUGHT THEY WOULD NEVER LEAVE ME… I THOUGHT THAT’S WHAT BEING A GOOD PARENT LOOKED LIKE… I THOUGHT THAT I’D NEVER LOSE THEM… I THOUGHT I’D NEVER STRUGGLE WITH THAT – HOW MUCH LONGER ARE YOU GOING TO STAY TIED TO WHAT YOU THOUGHT WOULD HAPPEN IN THE PAST? HOW MUCH LONGER HOW MUCH LONGER ARE YOU GONNA BASE YOUR HOPE ON WHAT HAS BEEN INSTEAD OF ASKING GOD WHAT COULD BE!?

 Wouldn’t it be better to tie your hope to God? Because if God is really with me in my hope, then I can ask –

God, what would this relationship look like if YOU were putting it back together?

God, what would my purpose look like… if I believed YOU were calling me?

God, what strength would I have to raise my kids, or beat my addiction, or overcome this situation… if I tie my hope not to what I know… But to what YOU do?

I can’t anchor my hope to my past. It’s going to weigh me down and hold me back. I need something that’s going to pull me forward.

The Comfort Is In The Fade

 I want you to listen to the way Isaiah 40 begins… and then I want you to hear the way the passage ends – when he’s announcing and prophecying the bith of Jesus, this is how Isaiah begins and ends the passage – “Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. …7 The grass withers and the flowers fade beneath the breath of the Lord. And so it is with people. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.”

 The passage starts by saying, “HEY, EVERYBODY LONGING FOR STUFF! I’VE GOT COMFORT FOR YOU!!” and then it ends with, “WE’RE ALL GONNA WITHER, SHRIVEL, FADE, AND DIE!!!” How exactly is that comforting?!?! Even in the middle of the passage – v. 6 says 6 A voice said, “Shout!” I asked, “What should I shout?” What do you want me yelling about?? This doesn’t seem comforting ATL ALL!! In fact, it’s kind of the opposite! This seems terrible! How is the fact that we wither and fade COMFORTING!!!!!?????

 It's comforting because God knows. How is it comforting to have longings in me that are unfulfilled? It’s comforting because God sees them and speaks to them. How is it comforting that whether it’s today, or tomorrow, or next week, or 50 years from now that my life is going to end and that you can be going along fine in your week and then something can come completely out of the blue and cut you down like a lawnmower cuts the grass?

 God says, the comfort isn’t in the cutting. The comfort is in the connection. He says, you’re right – people do wither. People do fade. But I don’t. And now I’ve made a way for you to stay connected not to the withery, fady stuff – I’ve made a way for you to be connected to me. The Word of the Lord stands forever –  Jesus is the Word made flesh – His Spirit is the breath of life – they stand forever. So, listen to me – as you fade out guess what else fades out? Longing fades out into fulfillment. Desire fades out into purpose. Hurt fades out into healing. Anxiety fades out into hope. Depression fades out into victory. Disconnection fades out into intimacy.

How are longings fulfilled at Christmas? They’re fulfilled in you learning to trust the fade. You need to let go of yourself and all the ways you try to fulfill longings outside of Him, and trust Him with everything you are, everywhere you go, and in everything you do.

You know, when I was laying there in that bed – you know what I wasn’t thinking? I wasn’t thinking, “Man alive… I’m sure glad I acquired enough stuff in my life… I sure wish I would have visited Australia… I always wanted to visit Australia… I sure wish I made more money… I just wish I could have driven a newer car… I’m sure glad I successfully avoided my problems all the way to the end… Man, I sure had everyone fooled. I had so much stuff, and I had so many experiences – that’s how you know I had a full life – by what I had and what I did.” Nobody thinks that when they’re laying in that bed. Nobody does.

You know what I was thinking? I was thinking, “My kids – my family – my friends – Did I love them well enough… Did I get enough of my blockages out of the way that even if this is where I fade out – would they know… I trusted God enough to allow myself to be loved so he could get it through me to them?

 That’s Isaiah 40 – that those in the hospital bed can take comfort – you’re never in the room alone. I’m never in a relationship alone. I’m never in church alone. I’m never at a family gathering alone. I never face an addiction alone. I never face a problem alone. I never have a longing alone. My comfort is in my ability to fade. Because the more I fade out, the more He fades in. And I know I am someday going to lay on a bed like the one I was in on Thursday, and all that’s going to matter – all that’s going to matter – is was did I find real the only real comfort??

Jesus says that the one who loses his life will find it – that’s what Jesus came to do and to show us how to do – I’m only fine because God was urgent about my separation from Him when I wasn’t.

You know what my comfort is? My comfort is that in learning to trust God enough to allow myself to fade out and Him to fade in, I will become more of myself than I ever could on my own. I’ll know more love in Him than outside of Him. I’ll know more rest in Him than I will without Him. I will know more peace and happiness and joy and intimacy and purpose… laying on that bed… if I trust that my comfort… is in the fade.

Can I ask you? What’s swelling up in your spirit today that it’s time you had looked at? Why aren’t you urgent about it? Why are you doing what I did – telling everyone you feel fine and you don’t need to be seen… when that blockage, that longing, is killing you?

Embrace the fade. Lean into it. Those longings you have running around in you – those aren’t bad things. They’re just reminders that hey – you’re not going to fulfill those on your own. So you can stop pretending… You can stop being scared of facing them… You can stop avoiding them, telling everyone you’re fine when you’re not – God knows you’re not…

That’s why there’s comfort at Christmas – because even though it feels like you’re in that dark room knowing your blockage but not knowing how to treat it – reminded that your life is fragile… there’s a light that has overcome the darkness that isn’t fragile at all – it’s already at work in you – and it’s so strong. And so bright. It fades out the darkness and brings perspective, it brings peace… It brings love and it brings joy. You’re lucky you came in today…

The Life You're Longing For Is On The Other Side Of The Work You Haven’t Done

Isaiah 40:3-5 says “Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.”

 What’s the good news? The good news of the announcement of the birth of Jesus is that your sad days are over and sin has been dealt with. That’s what God has done.

But then Isaiah says that we’ve got this other stuff that’s a problem – we’ve got obstacles in life and stuff that needs to be cleared out! There are things that are crooked that need to be straightened. There are valleys that need to be filled – mountains in the way that need to be leveled. We’ve got rough spots that need to be smoothed out. Who’s job is it to do all of that?! Who gets that job? That’s us!!

 This whole passage in Isaiah 40 is all about the announcement of Jesus coming to earth. It’s all about Jesus’s birth. Sending Jesus and forgiving sin – that’s God’s part. Who is all of this straightening, leveling, moving, and smoothing stuff aimed at? That’s us! God sais, I can give you the gift – but you have to prepare yourself to receive it.

 I can give you the connection you’re so deeply wanting. But you’re going to have to get into prayer and counseling and therapy and self-awareness to be able to receive it. I can give you the intimacy you’re longing for – but you’ve got a clot in your system that if you don’t clear that out, it’s going to travel to your heart, brain, or lungs and it’s gonna give you a relational heart-attack and a spiritual aneurism. You need to get rid of the blockage. You need to do the work in you. You need to figure out what the problem is, and stop being so afraid of dealing with it, stop blowing it off like it’s no bog deal, stop thinking you can wait the weekend to get this thing looked at and get yourself into the urgent care to clear that junk out! Your deepest longings are only going to be fulfilled to the extent that you break down the blockage!

 When the Bible says about the birth of Jesus, CLEAR THE WAY IN THE WILDERNESS – It’s not a metaphor like God’s way of singing “Make way for Prince Ali,” like the movie Alladin!” It’s a literal command – if you want the longing fulfilled, then there’s work you have to do! You don’t have to work to earn it. The gift is free! That’s why it’s grace! But you do have to work to to live in the grace deeper, and deeper, and deeper in your life – because being given the gift of grace and living in the gift of grace are two entirely different things! Are you with me, church??

 How many times in a state of longing do we look at other people and think things to ourselves like, “Must be nice…” Must be nice to have that kind of life… Must be nice to have that kind of family… must be nice to have those kinds of friends… must be nice to have that kind of marriage – and we get it in our minds that the reason we don’t have those things and that others do is because they’re just lucky, or God loves them more than us – and it drives us more into hiding, drives us deeper into covering up our core longing with lesser desires…

 It is nice to have those kinds of friends. It is nice to have that kind of family. It is possible to have that kind of marriage – you know how those people got it? The only reason they have those things is because the people who have them removed the blockage. They smoothed out the rough stuff. They straightened out what was jacked up and crooked inside them.

When you really realize how short life is and how fragile it is, what becomes crystal clear to you instantaneously… is that from the time you wake up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night – that kind of connection is your one and only job. That is your primary purpose. The life you’re longing for is on the other side of the work you’re avoiding… So stop thinking you can give that blockage the weekend – because that sucker is gonna travel on you – and it’s going to affect your thinking, and it’s going to affect your heart and your emotions… it’s going to seize you up and you’ll know ABOUT God’s grace and the freedom that comes with it – and you’ll be envious of people who really do live in it and walk in it… But you’ll never live in it yourself.

You Can't Fill Eternal Longings With Temporary Things

Isn’t it amazing how fast your priorities, and your ideas of what’s important, can shift when you’re in a hard situation? It’s incredible how fast your perspective can change – it can happen in a heartbeat sometimes. Last week, I found myself laying on a ben in an Urgent Care getting an ultrasound on my leg, and finding out that I had a blood clot that stretched the entire length of my leg that needed immediate treatment. Needless to say, my day and everything I longed for in it changed in a hurry.

You know, when pastors preach on longing – and they say things like ETERNAL LONGINGS ARE NEVER SATISFIED WITH TEMPORARY THINGS – USUALLY what follows next is a little talk about how to not get caught up in chasing the “pleasures of this world,” and don’t go chasing expensive toys like lamborgini’s and big houses – be content, be humble – yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s a lot of warnings about chasing the things of this world. And don’t get me wrong – a lot of that is true! But here’s what I remembered as I laid on that hospital bed this past week…

When I was faced with the fact, and I mean really confronted with the reminder… of how fragile my life is… And how at the thought of losing it, all I could think about were my family and my friends and how my absence would affect them… How I just wanted them with me in that moment… What I realized is that all the other stuff I thought was important in the day – none of it really was. In fact, most of it is just stuff that I use, like all of us do, to cover up the deeper longings for connection, for meaning, for intimacy – so much of it is just covering up that longing with lesser longings that make me feel less fragile than I am.

Maybe the way to say it is that what I was reminded of is that we have a sneaky way of trying to fulfill longings by mixing up our intentions and our outcomes in our lives. There’s nothing wrong with having nice things – a great house, or a nice car, or improving your situation financially, or material blessings – nothing wrong with it – even if they are temporary. But those things are great outcomes of a life. They’re horrible intentions of a life.

If I try to fulfill my longing for connection, and intimacy, and meaning, and significance with STUFF, if I let myself get caught up in that kind of thinking – there will never be enough stuff to fulfill it – there’s always someone who has more. If I think that having more money is the answer, there will never be enough – it’s going to drive me to a place of insecurity – because when your money is your intention instead of an outcome in your life, it’s just a horrible task-master that’s going to drive you into selfishness and greed. If the accumulation of things, or accomplishments become your intention instead of an outcome in your life, you will never measure up – there’s always going to be one more thing to do, one more hill to climb, one more level to get to – and all of it is going to take you away from becoming the person you’re meant to be – the healthiest version of yourself where the outcomes of your life flow from the purpose you were created for.

You know, people go through different phases of life in what they value – when we’re kids, what we value in life is getting things. And when you reach adolecense, life becomes more about getting, or gaining experiences. But then as you reach maturity in life, what you realize is that what’s valuable is people – it’s about relationships. The problem a lot of people have is that even though they get older, they never really develop in what they value – so they’re getting older, but they’re still about aquiring things. Erwin McMannus says that they’re no longer about legos – they’re about Lamborgini’s. Right? Or they get stuck in adolacence – and the reason they may be 35 and they keep churning through relationships in their life is that it LOOKS LIKE what they value is people, but what they really value is experience – and once they’ve had the experience… they don’t know how to deal with it. Don’t know how to steward it. Don’t know how to make it last or take it to the next level.

It says in Isaiah 40:2: 2 “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned.. Why are her sad days over? Because her sins have been pardoned. What does sin do? What’s the primary effect of sin? It separates us from God and separates us from each other. Sin is first and foremost a relational problem. It’s the relationships in life that are most deeply affected by it. That’s why Jesus says that if you learn to love God and love each other, you’re gonna get pretty much everything else right along the way –Because every longing you have, the longing to be seen, the longing to be known, the longing to be loved, the long to be accepted, the longing to be connected, the longing to have a purpose, the longing to be whole and healed – these are longings that God designed us to fulfill in relationship to Him and relationship to each other –

So when you go to the family get together for Christmas and you feel sad… or your sitting alone on New Year’s and you feel that twinge of longing – like there’s a disconnected piece of you that’s just kind of flailing like a loose wire in the wind and you feel unseen and unknown and unloved – that’s a longing that can only be fulfilled in relationship… That’s why the bible says it’s not good for man to be alone – because you’re longings that are hard-wired into you can’t be fulfilled outside of relationship. When I was laying on that hospital bed on Thursday, nothing else mattered other than the relationships – the people – in my life. Instantly, I no longer care about what year my car is, what the details of the Christmas services are at church – all I care about is being connected to the people I love and having them connect with me. It happens that fast. All that other stuff is just layers that we pile up on those core longings…

Jesus coming to earth as a baby means our sad days are over – we now have the grace to connect with God and each other. God is showing us the way to strip it all back and cut down to the core longings underneath all the stuff and experiences we pile onto it and make it about. Your saddness isn’t about your lack of stuff and experience – it’s about a lack of connection and a longing for intimacy.