A Proclamation of Hope

This post is dedicated to a dear friend, mentor, and teacher.  His lessons of love, compassion, faith, justice, reconciliation and ministry will forever and always impact my life.  I know you are face to face with Jesus, Richard.  But we miss you already.

This past week I had the opportunity to be the speaker at Covenant Park Bible Camp in Mahtowa, MN.  It was a privilege to share the gospel with a bunch of junior highers and see how God was intersecting and impacting their stories.  Throughout the week I kept reiterating the truth, “We were not meant for brokenness and we were not made for death!”  We experience both this side of the Eschaton, but that is not the end of our stories.  We are not defined by death because there is hope for wholeness, reconciliation, healing and life found in Christ.  As one theologian once put it, “We experience the full brunt of death in this life.  We feel the pain, loss, and outrage.  But the gospel points us towards hope in the midst of that heartache.”

There were times this week when I was overwhelmed by the pain and suffering that these young people had or were experiencing.  Parental suicide, cancer, substance abuse, broken families…so much death and brokenness woven into their lives.  And what about God?  Where is He in all this?  Why the brokenness?  For these questions I want to speak against the standard Christian responses that try to explain away pain.  God is not a crutch in the midst of this hurting; He is not allowing these afflictions as part of His divine plan.  It is not His will that we experience death.  NO!  God is outraged at their pain!  He is weeping for their suffering.  It was NOT His intention to stick these kids into shitty situations and see how that would impact their faith.  He never created us to experience brokenness.  His plan for our lives was and has always been life and life with Him.  He sent His Son to die on the cross so that redemption could break into the reality of death and transform the fallen nature of this world. 

God has given us the freedom to walk towards Him or walk away from Him.  In that autonomy brokenness entered the world.  We experience brokenness we choice for ourselves and the consequences of others brokenness.  But Christ was never a backup plan.  God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, always intended a way for all humanity and creation to come back into relationship with Him.  Back to life and life to the full.  But in the midst of the plan of redemption and the Kingdom of life coming near we still experience the full brunt of death.

But death is not the end of our story.  God is with us in our pain, our loss, our outrage, our suffering.  There is hope for the present, but ultimate hope for all that has been broken to be set right.  That is the message of the gospel.  That is the hope I pray those kids take home with them….Then today, as I prepared to reflect on this past week I received the news that my friend Richard passed away.  Instantly I was filled with outrage, pain, a sense of loss as an amazing and faithful man was taken too soon from this world.  I know he is with God.  I know death does not define his ultimate story.  But today I am again overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.  I weep for the loss of a friend.  I weep and am outraged that death is part of our human experience.

I pray for Richard’s wife, for his children, his family, his friends, and all those who are impacted by his death.  I pray that God would meet them in their pain and give them peace and comfort.  I pray that hope would break into the reality of death.  We are not meant for brokenness…we are not meant for death.  Our story will one day be defined by life, redemption, healing, reconciliation, and wholeness…in the meanwhile I pray our stories would be defined by the hope and promise of life found in God.  In the face of death I proclaim hope…not to nullify the experience of death, not to explain it away or lessen the loss, but to remember that this is not the end of our stories.

A Proclamation of Hope

This post is dedicated to a dear friend, mentor, and teacher.  His lessons of love, compassion, faith, justice, reconciliation and ministry will forever and always impact my life.  I know you are face to face with Jesus, Richard.  But we miss you already.

This past week I had the opportunity to be the speaker at Covenant Park Bible Camp in Mahtowa, MN.  It was a privilege to share the gospel with a bunch of junior highers and see how God was intersecting and impacting their stories.  Throughout the week I kept reiterating the truth, “We were not meant for brokenness and we were not made for death!”  We experience both this side of the Eschaton, but that is not the end of our stories.  We are not defined by death because there is hope for wholeness, reconciliation, healing and life found in Christ.  As one theologian once put it, “We experience the full brunt of death in this life.  We feel the pain, loss, and outrage.  But the gospel points us towards hope in the midst of that heartache.”

There were times this week when I was overwhelmed by the pain and suffering that these young people had or were experiencing.  Parental suicide, cancer, substance abuse, broken families…so much death and brokenness woven into their lives.  And what about God?  Where is He in all this?  Why the brokenness?  For these questions I want to speak against the standard Christian responses that try to explain away pain.  God is not a crutch in the midst of this hurting; He is not allowing these afflictions as part of His divine plan.  It is not His will that we experience death.  NO!  God is outraged at their pain!  He is weeping for their suffering.  It was NOT His intention to stick these kids into shitty situations and see how that would impact their faith.  He never created us to experience brokenness.  His plan for our lives was and has always been life and life with Him.  He sent His Son to die on the cross so that redemption could break into the reality of death and transform the fallen nature of this world. 

God has given us the freedom to walk towards Him or walk away from Him.  In that autonomy brokenness entered the world.  We experience brokenness we choice for ourselves and the consequences of others brokenness.  But Christ was never a backup plan.  God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, always intended a way for all humanity and creation to come back into relationship with Him.  Back to life and life to the full.  But in the midst of the plan of redemption and the Kingdom of life coming near we still experience the full brunt of death.

But death is not the end of our story.  God is with us in our pain, our loss, our outrage, our suffering.  There is hope for the present, but ultimate hope for all that has been broken to be set right.  That is the message of the gospel.  That is the hope I pray those kids take home with them….Then today, as I prepared to reflect on this past week I received the news that my friend Richard passed away.  Instantly I was filled with outrage, pain, a sense of loss as an amazing and faithful man was taken too soon from this world.  I know he is with God.  I know death does not define his ultimate story.  But today I am again overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world.  I weep for the loss of a friend.  I weep and am outraged that death is part of our human experience.

I pray for Richard’s wife, for his children, his family, his friends, and all those who are impacted by his death.  I pray that God would meet them in their pain and give them peace and comfort.  I pray that hope would break into the reality of death.  We are not meant for brokenness…we are not meant for death.  Our story will one day be defined by life, redemption, healing, reconciliation, and wholeness…in the meanwhile I pray our stories would be defined by the hope and promise of life found in God.  In the face of death I proclaim hope…not to nullify the experience of death, not to explain it away or lessen the loss, but to remember that this is not the end of our stories.

Hope for the Hopeless

Ask any of my friends, I am a verbal processor.  Probably annoyingly so…but regardless, it is how I decompress and gain perspective. Therefore, for the purpose of dealing with life this post is about seeking hope in the midst of the unknown.  Thanks for the space to process.  You may not have signed up for the job of sounding board, but hey, you are the one reading!  May my ramblings be relevant to your ears and your heart.

Okay, this week I was struck by the sheer number of unknowns in my immediate future.  For example…where will I sleep in a month?  Where will I call home?  Where, if anywhere, will I do ministry?  Job? Finances? Future? All are unknown…the last eight years of my life have been characterized by a series of leaps.  Jump first, trust God, and ask questions later.  After all, God said to Abram “Go and I will show you…”  Obviously there is faith involved in following God and not blind faith in the sense of lemmings following to the unknown…but trusting that He is a good God and we don’t need to know all the details to be obedient and follow where He is leading.  Even when we think we know the details, God could be leading us somewhere completely different and the adventure lies in trusting Him and His sovereignty over the grand scheme of things.  So again, I have little hesitation to leap headfirst into the unknown.  Because I follow the Known God.

Yet…this week…I don’t even know where to jump.  One of my life verses is Proverbs 16:9 “Man makes plans in his heart but God directs his steps.”  Again, our faith is worked out as we follow God. All I can do is follow where I believe He is leading and have the peace and understanding to let dreams go and change as they do and pick up new dreams and venture down paths that are opened to me.  But this week I felt as if all doors were slammed in my face.  Plans, contingency plans, and contingency plans for my contingency plans all fell through.  Job search is still in a holding pattern.  Personal life is, well, hard.  It seems like everything I am dreaming for, hoping for, and planning is out of my control and out of reach.  My heart is burdened with the unknown and I do not even know what direction to face, let alone jump towards…

But again, the truth that keeps resonating with my heart is this: in the unknown I am loved by the Known God.  In Him there is hope for the hopeless and peace for the weary.  All those who are burdened and heavy-laden can come to Him and find rest.  I guess I need rest.  Peace.  Patience.  And hope.  I want to plan out the future, but I can’t.  I want to be in control, but I’m not.  That in and of itself should be reassuring…do I really want to be the one in control?  Perhaps not.  All I am saying is that life is hard, but even as it is hard I will continue to look towards God.  I will continue to seek peace and hope for what’s next.  And I will trust that the Good God has good plans ahead.

Life is hard, but God is faithful.  It is the cry of my heart to ask for more faith and peace for the process.  So Lord, hear my cry.

We are NOT made for death!

Hello again dear friends.  It has been a while and for that I apologize.  Update? My time in Nebraska has sadly come to an end, I “walked” at my seminary graduation, and am currently completely the last requirement for my degree, CPE (clinical pastoral education…hospital chaplaincy).

People keep asking about CPE but it hard to put into words or convey in a passing conversation.  “So you pray for people at the hospital?” I am often asked.  “You’re a doctor now?” NO!...But I do get to wear a white coat which makes that fact confusing for patients.  The best I can describe it is this: I am privileged to be invited into people’s space.  Into their joy.  Into their sorrow.  Into their mourning.  Into their pain & suffering.  It is humbling, heavy, sorrow-filled, and also an experience that teaches me much about God every day.

In the face of great suffering, the failing of the body, and death, God continues to burden my heart with His truth. WE ARE NOT MADE FOR DEATH.  Here is the harsh reality: this side of Christ’s return we experience the full brunt of death…pain, loss, suffering, heart-ache, grief…But we also have hope.  We have hope because we know death is NOT the end of the story.  In the unknown we are loved by the KNOWN God.  In Christ there is redemption, reconciliation, and ultimately LIFE.

Yet, what does that mean for death in the here and now?  The other day I watched a man die.  Just forty-five years old.  The father of small children.  Loved by so many people there was not even space for them in his room as they pulled out his breathing tube.  He was brain dead, the family had made the decision to end his suffering, it was his job to stop breathing and go with God.  But no one told him that.  Everything in this man fought for life.  The beautiful, intricate, masterpiece that is the human body fought death with everything it had.  There would be moments when this man’s breathing would dissipate and the family would draw near thinking it was that end.  But then his whole body would convulse, grasping for air, fighting for one more breath.  It took him three and a half hours to die.

As a chaplain I was invited into this space with the grieving family…as a human I fought back tears at the tragedy that is death.  THIS IS NOT WHAT WE WERE MADE FOR!  God made us for life and life with Him.  We experience death because of the brokenness in the world.  We often choose death for ourselves every day.  The blessing of chaplaincy is the reminder that God is present and healing even in death.  That grief reminds us that we SHOULD feel the injustice of death.  Loss, pain, suffering…it is all injustice because this is not the way the story should be.  Though the suffering may last for the night, His joy comes with the morning (Psalm 30:5). 

As I weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice I turn my eyes to God and the hope that death will NEVER have the final word.  Even in the muck, in the full force and reality of death, it is not what triumphs.  Christ is.

Call Process, schmall process...

I apologize for the lack of posting as of late.  My colleague has been on maternity leave for seven weeks and it has been seven weeks since I last posted…coincidence?  If I am honest, in this temporary gig of pseudo-solo pastor I do not think I have done an excellent job of maintaining boundaries in terms of rest.  In fact, as I donned the new set of responsibilities all sense of self preservation went out the window!

But alas, I am here once again indulging in a practice that never fails to bring me life: writing.  As I look into the future and hope for what God has in store I know that if I indeed plan on a lifetime of ministry I need to be diligent on self-care.  Writing, running, reading, friends….that is what gives me life and if I hope for a full one, I cannot let those go to the wayside every time I am given more responsibility.  In fact, the more responsibility I am given the BETTER I should be at self-care.  That is what a life time of ministry is all about.

Anyways, confession number one merits confession number two.  These past few weeks have not only been a new experience as a pseudo-solo pastor, but it has also been the official start of my call process.  The call what?  Yeah, I know, what am I talking about?  Well, in the Evangelical Covenant Church, the process of finding a position in ministry is known as the call process.  It begins with an extensive profile which combines your resume, theological perspective, and location preferences into one central place.  From there individuals in the call process interview with 20 denominational leaders and conference superintendents.  The point behind all these interviews is this: the conference superintendents already know the churches, now they want to know the candidates.  That way they can give referrals that fit the church and fit the individual.  It is actually a pretty exciting process.  But here is what I need to confess…

I think I can somehow have control over the process.  My friends often joke with me, “Trust the process.”  Why?  Because it is crazy to think that 8 months from now I have no idea where I will live and no clue in what role God would have me serve.  It is my default to be able to plan out my future.  But now more than ever I know that while I make plans in my heart, God directs my steps (Proverbs 16:9).  So here I am, trusting the process, and daily laying down my desire to control it all.  I confess to you because I need to confess to myself.  I need to trust the process….whatever that means and whatever that looks like, at least I know that God is in the process.  I know I trust Him:-)