I’ve screwed up again. I know You’ve got to be tired of hearing this crap over and over again, but I can never seem to get it right. Every time I take two steps closer to Your embrace I stumble and fall away. I’m afraid though that this time is different. I didn’t just get my usual scraped up knees and bloody nose. I have serious internal injuries. The brunt of the damage seems to have been taken by my heart. My passion, drive, and even faith have all suffered. I’ve had one of those earth-shattering moments. You know the kind. I feel like I may never be myself again.

Maybe that’s a good thing. I’ve never really been too fond of myself. I’ve always liked it better when I managed to resemble Your Son just a little bit. More of Him and less of me, I suppose.

I guess what I’m really writing to tell You is that I’m weary. I’m tired of making stupid decisions and then blaming You for the lackluster results. I no longer have earthly desires. They’re too fleeting; too easy to lose. I just want you. It’s weird. I’m a grown man and all I want is for my Father to lift me up into His arms and hold me. I want You to tell me it’s all going to be okay; that You’re going to protect me from myself from this moment on.

I want an army of angels.

I want to understand Your Word with the clarity that has too often evaded me.

I want the Holy Spirit to zap me like lightning.

I want Your Son in His glorified flesh to sweep down from the Heavens and establish His Kingdom.

I’m sorry God, but I want it now. I know things work in Your time and according to Your will, but I’m afraid that if You don’t move soon I may destroy things down here beyond repair.

Please Lord consider my request.

Thanks,
Clark

 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Our emotions often fail us. If we wish to experience love with all the qualities Paul speaks of, we must move beyond our emotions and choose to love daily. Once you’ve separated love from emotion, it even becomes possible to love someone you dislike. The Bible teaches us that our perfectly holy God hates sin. God detests sin, yet Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Even though God hates sin, Christ died for sinners.

This is the most perfect example of love. If love was based simply on emotion we would be left with nothing but God’s wrath. For the wages of sin is death; however, God gifted us with the love of Christ (Romans 6:23). Because of God’s example, we can love our spouses even on those days we don’t feel like it. Our relationships can survive any bump in the road when love exists beyond our emotions. With a proper understanding of love we may even find that it’s possible to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).

The best gift we can give our spouses, children, friends, and even our enemies is the unconditional act of love. It is an act not based on emotion, but rather on the example set by Jesus Christ. It is an example that calls His followers to a higher form of love. A sacrificial love, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

Is there anyone on your life you are willing to unconditionally love? Is there anyone you are willing to love today even though your emotions tell you otherwise? Is there anyone you are willing to lay down your life for?

Choose to love today. It is the best gift you can give another person.

There is a curious way that each of the commercials ends. It ends with the gentleman described as, ‘the most interesting man in the world’, holding a Dos Equis and saying, “Stay thirsty my friends”. I find this closing tag line to be profound. In the context of the commercial it means, ‘live your life in such an active, extroverted, and interesting way, that you are always thirsty for more of the nectar that feeds this existence’. And the concept is typical of most marketing, by linking the drinking of a particular type of beer with amazing things, as if these things are only possible by drinking this beer.

Allow me to make a simple confession, I despise marketing. I think it is a particularly craven fashion to entice people into doing something that they might not otherwise be interested in doing. And this commercial is no different than any of the rest. This particular closing tag line hits me in a different place though. It strikes me as a clarion call to a different sort of life. When separated from the context of the commercial, it sounds almost like something our savior might say, something we might hear from our God.

I can almost imagine those words coming from our savior, our creator, and our God, ‘following me is a tough task, and if you do it right you’ll always be thirsty, so stay thirsty my friends’. The life we are called to by our savior is and should be viewed in the context of ‘the most interesting man in the world’. The tasks we are called to in this life are no less garishly over the top when viewed from a God centered context. The long and short of it is this, we are charged with being the light in a very dark place. We are tasked with being the salt that preserves all that it comes in contact with. We are tasked with the redeemer kinsman for those that have fallen down and can’t get up.

And viewing that kind of life and tasking allow me to heartily say, “Stay thirsty my friends”.

The last few months of my life have been a transition from a theoretical understanding of this principle of the activist God to a more genuine understanding of this principle.  I don’t say that as a point of pride, or as something of which I am proud.  I didn’t set out to end up here, and I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to come here, but I am here nonetheless.  The transition from theoretical to practical can be summed up in a single word, uncertainty.  A life in which the things that were certain before become uncertain now, is the definition for this.

Before this period began, I could say with some measure of confidence what the immediate future held.  I could say that our bills were going to be met without difficulty.  I could say that our healthcare was assured.  I could say that I was a valued member of a team that made a difference in state government.  Today, none of that is true by default.  Each day carries with it a direct measure of uncertainty.  Today, and every day since this period began I am forced to confront the uncertainty that is incumbent in this situation armed only with the convictions of my faith.

I enter each day and have to reaffirm my faith that God is my provider, and that he cares for me and those he has entrusted to my care.   Each day I have to believe that this activist God has a plan, and that his plan is what is best for me.  Each day I have to accept, sometimes grudgingly and sometimes not, that God’s timing is perfect and that my timing isn’t his.  I have to dwell in the moment, and know that the God of Genesis 1:1 is working on my behalf for my best end, and I have to accept that no other end than this is what’s best.

Some days, like today, I find myself struggling with what God has promised and his timeline for fulfilling that promise.  I find myself, not unlike Sarah in the Old Testament, wondering when God is going to fulfill his word.  I find myself wondering about my value before and to this activist God.  And sometimes, I wonder if my prayers are breaking through the ceiling at all.  And on my worst days, I wonder if God has forgotten my number. 

And so it is on my worst days, like today, I have to struggle to believe in the activist God.  I have to struggle to believe that the God of the Bible still works that way today.  I have to struggle to believe in anything at all for that matter.  In a situation that from the outside looks bad trending worse, I worry, and I fear that it will never get better.  And the sum of those worries and fears become a smothering flood that threatens to drown me.

In the midst of those days, my solace, my comfort, my guide has become the knowledge that what I am experiencing is not uncommon to the human condition, and the human experience.  People before me have suffered this, and people after me will suffer this.  I have to recognize that this is a time in the crucible of life.  I am being exposed to intense heat right now; my distaste for this status quo notwithstanding.  I have to recognize the value of this time.  I have to somehow; as the writer of the book of James puts it, rejoice when I fall into trouble of various kinds.

And it has been in finding the joys of this time in the crucible that I have found relief from my fears and my worries.  It has been in being reminded of all that I have and how dear those things are to me, that the flood is swept away.  It is in participating in the simple joys of family life, that all that weighs upon me is relieved.  It is in watching my children find joy in playing cards, or watching a movie, or riding their bikes and scooters that I realize that things aren’t so bad.  It is in realizing what a wonderful woman I am married to, that I find the man I was meant to be.  It is the journey to becoming this man that God deemed it important to bring this time of woe upon me.  This activist God led me to this place.  And this activist God has deemed it important that I dwell here for a time, the exact duration of my stay is as yet undetermined.

I have found my place in the domicile that God has built up around me, and I relish it.  I have become actively involved in it, and it is a wonderful thing.  I have my good days, and my bad ones, but I love it for what it is.  And in all honesty, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Recently, I witnessed the power of prayer up close when my wife was undergoing some scary medical tests. This wasn’t the first time prayer has played a critical role in my life, but it is certainly one of the more recent.

This event concerning my wife, coupled with a growing desire to pray for my friends, has caused me to ponder prayer extensively over the last few days. What is it about prayer that God likes? What types of prayer does He prefer? What does the Bible mean when it instructs us to pray without ceasing? (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

I’m reminded of Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy, where he teaches that prayer is basically a request of things we want from God (see 1 Kings 8:22-56). Willard suggests that many of us have been taught that we are only to pray about big things like world peace or hunger (Willard calls this ‘heroic prayer’ but I prefer the term ‘Bono prayer’ coined by a friend of mine). Willard has the following to say about ‘Bono prayers’:

“Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about “good things” that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start praying for what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow in the largeness of God’s love.” (Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p. 242)

It’s not that we shouldn’t pray for the big necessities of this world. However, if we are praying for the big things because we think God prefers them, we are mistaken. God wants us to pray for the things that really matter to us. Consider the Lord’s Prayer for a moment ( Matthew 6:9-13). The prayer opens by acknowledging the “bigness” of God ( Matthew 6:9-11). It is quickly broken down into things that really matter to us … daily food, forgiveness, temptation, and protection ( Matthew 6:12-13). Not many of us are in a position to cause world peace or end hunger, but we all have a small sphere of influence where we can help advance God’s Kingdom. If we all pray for God to put the little things of our lives in order, it will go a long way towards addressing the big things. God desires us to be honest and to pray about what really matters to us. If I may borrow from Willard once more:

” … [T]he most adequate description of prayer is simply, ‘Talking to God about what we are doing together.’ ” (Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p.243)

What are you in the midst of doing with God? For me, I immediately think of my marriage and our children. I have a vested interest in praying for my wife and kids. They matter to me. I pray for my friends and their families – those people who mean something to me. I pray for my schooling. I pray that someday God will be able to use what I’m learning for His glory in some small way. I am learning that as I consistently pray for the most immediate issues in my life it is inevitable the Spirit will lead me into some of those “Bono prayers.”

If you find your prayer life is growing stagnant, I highly recommend that you take a personal inventory in an attempt to discover what matters the most in your life. Once that discovery is made, dedicate yourself to a daily pattern of prayer. Keep your focus on those specific issues that you are most passionate for and stick with it. Eventually, you’ll find yourself praying for multiple issues in a variety of situations.

The more I stick to this routine, I am continually shocked by the blessings I have received. God is good!