Africa! No! Not Africa!

Africa?

It was a quiet day. I was a quiet evangelical man, doing my quiet evangelical duty: I was in the middle of my "quiet time" with God, something I did every morning, because that's what good evangelical men did.

I had dutifully read the appropriate chapter in the epistle I was working my way through, and had dutifully opened my journal to record my dutiful response when it happened.

God spoke.

"What would you do if I told you to go to Africa?"

I sat there, frozen; stunned.

First of all, God didn't speak to me. Didn't he know I was an evangelical?

But Africa? Don't be ridiculous. I hated Africa. It was filled with jungles and deserts and diseases and dirt. It was completely untidy.

Africa? Don't be ridiculous. What on earth would I do in Africa? I worked for a giant department store, selling fine china and luggage to wealthy residents of our community. I was painfully aware that these were skills that would not serve me well among lions and tigers and bears in Africa!

Africa? Don't be ridiculous. I had been taught - I had taught others - that God's direction always confirmed what was in your heart anyway. "He will give you the desires of your heart!" I had not one iota of desire for Africa.

But the question still hung there, in my soul, resonating. It had only been that "still small voice" that everybody talked about, but nobody (among my tidy evangelical friends) ever actually heard. The fact that the voice wasn't actually spoken into a marble cathedral did nothing to still its startling echo in my soul.

God asked me a question! Ohmigosh! WhatamIgoingtodo? (I had never known that it was possible to so completely panic while sitting quietly in my big "Papa chair" in a quiet house. This was a new experience.)

Ohmigosh! Ohmigosh! I have to answer him! Ohmigosh! What am I going to say?

It was (painfully, oh so painfully) clear to me that the one thing I could not say with any integrity was, "No, Lord." If nothing else, it's an oxymoron, but I was afraid if I told God "no" that I'd burn in heck for all eternity. (Dutiful evangelical men don't use that other, coarser word.) I couldn't say, "no."

But Oh! how I wanted to say no. I wanted to jump up on my comfortable chair, there in my comfortable living room, before I walked to my comfortable job in the comfortable store! I wanted to jump up and shout in God's face, "No! Not Africa! I won't go to Africa! You can't make me!"

But the problem was: he could make me. And besides, there's that "Lord" thing. You don't tell your Lord and King, "No." It's just not done. Especially, it's not done by dutiful evangelical men who dutifully tithe to their dutiful little churches.

I sat there, stewing in my own juices, until it was time to go to work, and I left God behind as I rushed out the door to go to work. I told myself that I needed to focus on selling fine Lenox and Wedgewood china, and fine Hartman leather luggage to fine local dowagers.

I didn't forget his question, try as I might. I very seldom pulled it out of the shadows and worked intentionally on it, but I knew it was always there, reverberating in my soul, waiting patiently for my submission, like a vulture waiting for me to die in the desert.

It took weeks, even months, for me to get fed up enough with the tension. One morning, I determined to face the cursed question head on. Let's do this! You’re going down, buddy!

I was out of bed before my alarm rang, teeth violently brushed, hair disheveled, and I slammed myself into that chair, and slammed my Bible and journal on the arm of the chair, and I addressed the One who had confronted me, me! with such an outlandish question!

His presence was there, and instantly, I cowered before him. A dutiful evangelical man does not get in God's face like that. What was I thinking?? It was all clear to me now. It was all over.

And as I cowered in my chair, alone in the dark room, I whimpered my submission. "OK, Lord. You win. I'll go wherever you send me. Even." I took a deep breath. I let it out slowly. "Even.." I shuddered. This was hard! You can do this! "Even.. . even Africa."

And now it all suddenly all relaxed. The pressure hadn’t been him, anyways. The war had never been with God; it had all been in my mind, and now it was gone.

But he wasn’t gone. I felt him waiting there, waiting for my attention. I gave it to him.

“Thank you.” I felt the words as much as heard them in my spirit. There was healing in his words.

“Thank you. Now go to Hawaii.”

And I kid you not: he sent us to live in Hawaii for a season.

And do you want to hear the funniest part? While we were living in Hawaii, a love for Africa began to grow inside me. And now I’m looking forward to the day that he really will send me to Africa.

Thoughts About he Word of God

In areas subjects of theology, even a small change is formidable, and I believe we’re encountering the beginnings of such a change in how the people of God (or at least, for many of them) see the Bible.

And I’d appreciate you hearing me out

before you start picking up stones and coming after me. I’m reporting what I’m seeing. If you’re not seeing them, that’s cool. (Now, if you’re not willing to look, that’s another story, perhaps.)

Now before we talk about what the Bible “is not,” it might be best to remember what the Bible IS.

First, let’s acknowledge that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and IS  profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the servant of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” The Bible is the profitable foundation for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction so that we may be complete.

It is our only Sword of the Spirit, and is the best conceivable weapon against the enemy: it was for Jesus, and it is for us. It is a pillar of our faith, the indescribably precious treasure to all who walk in faith.

But there are some things that the Bible is not, which we have let it become. It seems to me that Father is correcting some of these errors in these days.

The first thing that I’m seeing happen is that the Bible is being removed from its traditional place in the Trinity. I know several denominations who have behaved (not taught!) that the Trinity was made up of Father, Son, and Holy Bible, that the Bible is itself, divine. They spoke and behaved as if their primary heavenly relationship was with the Bible, not with the person of God.

That’s actually a mistake, of course, and stopping to think about it will reveal the truth is that the Bible is not a person of the Trinity; it is not in itself, God. Rather, the Bible is about God, it leads us to God, and it speaks for God, which is to say that God speaks through it.

The Bible says of itself, as quoted above, that it is “given by inspiration of God.” Another translation reads “God-breathed.” Theologically, we say it’s “inspired writing.” Another way of saying that is to say that the men who wrote it were inspired by God when they wrote.

But let us acknowledge that while it is “profitable for teaching,” we might want to be careful what we teach and how we teach it, when we teach from the Bible.

There’s a fair bit of the Bible (most of the book of Job comes to mind) are accurate, inspired, infallible records of what people said, but the things that they said, though accurately recorded, are foolish lies about who God is and how he works. I advise not teaching theology from the lies that are accurately recorded.

A friend of mine – and probably some of yours have done this, too – once tested the “profitable” status of the Bible. She opened the Book randomly and plopped her finger on the page (I call this “Bible Roulette”), and read the verse she was on. It read, “and Judas went and hanged himself.” (Matthew 27:5) Since she couldn’t find anything useful in that, she flipped some more pages, and dropped her finger again, this time on Luke 10:37: “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise’.” She didn’t try that again. The Bible is not a fortune teller.

The point is this: while all of the Bible is inspired, and all of it is profitable to teach, it’s not all profitable to teach all things. My friend figured this out, and, fortunately, she chose not to go and hang herself.

I’m going to use a politically incorrect analogy. I am a huge fan of the glory that is embodied in the female half of our species. I’m constantly amazed by the richness of the difference between men (well, at least this man) and godly women. Women seem to have a better handle on gifts of mercy, of discernment, of encouragement. I’ve learned mountains from women pastors, women prophets, women intercessors, and at least one woman apostle. We could go on and on.

But there’s a phenomenon in our culture that does to women what much of the church has done to the Bible: we’ve objectified them. In our culture, the objectification of women shows up in glossy skin magazines, in a thriving porn industry, even in the use of unrelated pretty faces to get our attention in movies, advertisements, and the like.

If I may take a stand on that trend, I will say that this is NOT the right way to treat women, and for a whole lot of reasons. Not least of which, is that it completely denies the vast majority of the magnificent riches that women have and are. Brethren, it ought not be so!

But we do pretty much the same thing with the Bible. We look to the Bible to be our “quick fix.” We paste out-of-context Bible verses on pretty pictures and cover our Facebook walls. When we’re feeling needy, we look for fast answers from its pages; when we want direction, we search those pages for answers with the same attention that the followers of horoscopes search their own pages. Brethren, this, too, ought not be so.

It is not actually heresy for me to declare that the Bible is not a destination. God never planned that we’d use the revelations of his written Word as a replacement for a relationship with himself! That’s actually idolatry, or if you prefer, Bibliolatry. It’s a serious error.

The Bible is always a means TO an end. It’s a roadmap to understand God’s heart. It’s a love story from him to us, drawing us to him. It’s a garden, where we can sit with him under the apple tree and gaze into each other’s eyes. It’s a treasure map, showing us where to search out the treasures that he’s hidden, like Easter eggs, for us to find. It’s full of instructional stories, showing how many our brothers and sisters, our forefathers and foremothers discovered the riches of relationship with their eternal lover, or how they failed and fell short. All these are for us to learn from, not to be studied or memorized as a substitute for our won love relationship with God.

It is my hope that we’ll catch ourselves when our search stops merely at his Book, as wonderful, as powerful, as necessary as the Book is, and use the rich treasures of the Book to lead us to deeper relationship with its incredible Author.

Beggars Can’t Be Choosers. But We're Not Beggars

There’s an old saying: “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

Sometimes, it’s actually right. If you’re living on hand-me-downs, you don’t get to choose what kind of fashion statement to make. Whoever’s handing it down to you got to choose that. You’re stuck with their decision. If you’re begging for food on the street corner, then you can’t choose if people will give you something, or if they do, what they will give. The most you can do is attempt to look more pitiful than other mendicants, so that you’ll get more donations, but you still can’t choose.

I’ve known a number of people who have “lived by faith” and it’s looked like that. Heck, I’ve done it myself.

But that principle is only true for beggars. It’s only true for people who have no provision themselves, who must depend on the generosity of others for their food and drink and the roof over their head. It’s true for slaves, too: a slave only gets what his master gives him.

In fact, it works as a test. If I hold the perspective that I’m stuck with whatever someone else will give to me, then that’s a good indication that I consider myself a beggar or a slave. If I believe that the only way that I’ll ever be provided for is if I can persuade other people to provide for me, then that says that I see myself as a beggar.

And of course, that suggests that some of the TV preachers – those who are regularly asking for money – have the heart of a beggar inside them.

There are alternatives, of course. Being a beggar isn’t the only choice before us.

We could choose the Older Brother Syndrome: “I have to work for anything I’m going to get.” We all know (heck, some of us ARE) people who expect that nobody else will provide for them, so if it’s going to happen, they’ve got to make it happen. But this isn’t the choice I want to recommend.

I think the place we need to get to is the place of sonship. Galatians 4:7 says, “Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” We are not beggars, not slaves, and not even employees, working hard to provide for ourselves.

We’re heirs to the Kingdom. And as heirs, the wealth of the Kingdom is ours to use for the purposes of the Kingdom. (A son of the Kingdom doesn’t spend the Kingdom’s wealth on his own pleasures, but provision for the sons and daughters is a major purpose of the Kingdom’s wealth.)

That is not to say that we never work. Sons of the Kingdom work! We just don’t work in order to be fed. We work to administrate the Kingdom. In fact, Paul indicated that work is a principle of the Kingdom: “If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10) And this is not just talking about “ministry work.” Paul’s own example was building tents for a nomadic people (Acts 18:3).

And of course, there’s the difference between theory and practice. There’s the minor detail that, as Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world.” So there will be a correlation between how much we’re in touch with the Kingdom and our ability to draw provision from that Kingdom to this world.

Beggars can’t be choosers. But sons are required to choose.

Handling The Power of the Tongue

One of the reasons I teach Hebrews 12:2, Philippians 4.8, Ephesians 1:18, Matthew 6:22-23, etc so very much is because I experience them so powerfully in the everyday. (The Philippians verse will illustrate the theme: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”)

The wisest man in the history of the planet once said it this way: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” That's not a metaphor.

If I am involved in a conversation that's filled with reports of problems, of failure, conversation that’s focused on the work of the devil, then that conversation wounds me, like a knife or bullet would. The closer I draw to the heart of my Father, the more these reports hurt me, rather than the opposite.

I've figured out that there's a terrible and powerful reason why Jesus and the Boys teach us to guard what we see, what we hear: it’s the difference between life and death.

This is one of the reasons that when I teach people to prophesy, I teach them to prophesy the solution. “Anybody can prophesy the problem in this day and age. Even the evening news does a pretty good job of that.”

If we’re prophesying, and we hear of a sin in someone’s life, Holy Spirit did not tell us that so that we could accuse them of that sin. Accusing the brethren is someone else’s job, and our job, like Jesus before us, is to destroy his works. So we prophesy the solution. We don’t pretend, and tell the adulterer “You’re faithful.” We declare God’s heart, “God’s call on you is faithfulness. He’s given you an anointing for that.”

And if we have a vision or a dream of destruction, then our job is not to prophesy death and destruction, panic and mayhem. Our job is to change the future. Speak to the storm: “Peace, be still.” Don’t shout, “Aack! A storm! Run for your lives!” There’s no faith in that, and as Romans 14 declares, “whatever is not from faith is sin.”

This is also one of the reasons that when people want to know how I’m doing, I don’t immediately barf on them about the things that are not going my way. (Or I try not to. I don’t get it right every time.)

Sometimes, I’ve been accused of not being in touch with reality, because I won’t follow the evening news, because I don’t want to hear all the reasons for every “prayer request.” I want to ask these accusers, “Which reality do you want to be in touch with, anyway?”

For myself, I live in the physical world, but I am a citizen of the Heavenly one. I choose to be more in touch with, I choose to extend the reign of, the Kingdom of Heaven.

Which means that I will listen to the news from Heaven’s point of view, not from the accuser’s perspective. I will choose to respond to people from the perspective of Heaven, not from the accuser’s view. And I choose to fill my mind with the things that Heaven’s Instruction Book tells me to fill my mind with.

I choose to see Heaven manifested. I can't do it all, but I intend to do my part.

A Cold & Delicious Lesson in Trusting

Very recently, I had a series of strange experiences.

It began when I was getting ready for my work day. As I was picking up keys and wallet and such, I saw a $20 bill on my nightstand. That’s not the strange thing; I knew why it was there; it had been there for a few weeks.

But now, all of a sudden, I had a clear sense, not a strong one, that I needed to pick up that $20 bill. I didn’t understand why, but I picked up the bill, kissed the treasure of my life, and went to work. This day, I was working on some incredibly technical things: complex calculations, complex systems design. And I was working away, “in the zone” (the nerds among us may know what I mean), and I was suddenly distracted. “You know, good ice cream is getting awfully expensive in the stores.” What?? Where did that come from?

A little later, another thought hit me out of the blue: “And you never know what kind of things they put in your ice cream.” Hunh? Wha?? Back to the calculations.

Smoke was beginning to pour from my ears when the third interruption came: “Wouldn’t some ice cream with dinner be really good tonight?”

Well, He had me on that one. I do enjoy good ice cream.

“You need to buy a small ice cream maker.” No I don’t! We have a big ice cream maker. Somewhere. We haven’t used it for years because it’s big and awkward and messy, but we already have one. “No you need a small ice cream maker. Go look on Craigs List.”

Well, ice cream for dessert did sound good. And what harm would it do to just look? 

And there was a brand-spankin-new ice cream maker on Craigs list: the quick and easy kind (you know: 20 minutes from “Doesn’t ice cream sound good?” to “Would you like seconds?” That kind of easy!). And what do you know, they were asking exactly $20.00. And the seller was almost within walking distance of my home.

I felt set up. But I stopped by after work and bought myself an ice cream maker. And you know, it really was delicious with dinner that night.

But the whole thing confused me: why in the world would God put me through such a runaround to get me an ice cream maker? Wouldn’t it be easier just to tell me “Go get one,” or to send someone to give me one?

I was sharing the story with my friends this evening (er… as we were eating fresh and delicious ice cream, of course), and one of them said, “Oh. God’s teaching you to trust his voice, to follow in the little details, even when you don’t understand!” And I heard Papa smile: “Now you’re getting it, Son! Good job!”

So I have an ice cream maker. And I have a daddy who loves me.

And not all the lessons involve ice cream, but I’m thankful that this one did. 

Who Is the God of the Bible?

I’ve been thinking about the God of the Bible. Particularly God as he is revealed in the Old Testament.

Who is this God? What is he like? No, what is he really like?

I’ve done my homework here. I understand that the right place to establish my foundational theology of who God is comes from the clearest revelation of God’s nature and character in the Bible: we always interpret the less articulate passages from the more articulate ones. And of course, the best revelation of who God is and what he’s like is in the person and the teachings of the incarnate second Person of the Trinity: Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” In other words, “I’m like him. He’s just like me.” The author of Hebrews describes Jesus as “the express image of His person.” In other words: this is the best picture of who God is that we’ve ever had. And Jesus is undeniably, relentlessly, unswervingly good. He never once hurt anybody, never smote anybody, never spoke harshly to his mommy, never stepped on an ant. He didn’t even damage the guy that he knew was stealing from him and his friends, the guy who was the direct cause of his own torturous death.

The only people he did speak harshly to were the religiously self-righteous, but he didn’t even smite them. He just got in their face about their stubbornness, hypocrisy, and inability to see the answer to their prayers who was right there in their faces.

The lesson is clear: God is undeniably, relentlessly, unswervingly good. The Bible is remarkably clear about that. God doesn’t, according to the stunningly clear revelation of God-in-the-flesh, hurt, maim or kill people.

He clearly has no patience for religiously self-righteous people, but he doesn’t even smite them.

So I take this understanding, this clear knowledge, that God is good, and I go look at the God of the Old Testament, the guy with the Bad Reputation.

People tell me over and over about this God’s judgments, generally describing him in vocabulary that justifies their particular vitriol against their particularly hated sin. When God’s people sin, they tell me – forget that; when anybody sins – they can expect a good smiting. (I have to admit, some (not all) of the people telling these horror stories sound a lot like the Pharisees that Jesus was so consistent about castigating; but perhaps that’s not the real issue here.)

One of their favorite stories is Sodom & Gomorrah, for example. There was a particularly bad night in Sodom (Genesis 19) that gave the town a justifiably nasty reputation. But a thinking person, while acknowledging that it was a serious sin, could not reasonably justify destroying two cities in fire and brimstone.

I don’t throw out a doctrine, any doctrine, just because it doesn’t make sense. But in this case, the Scriptures don’t actually describe that particularly sinful night as the cause for the destruction. God himself, talking with Abraham (Genesis 18:20) declares the reason for the visit to the place: the second reason: they have a reputation for sin, but the first reason: “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great…”

Somebody has been crying out about the cities: this destruction did not start with God getting fed up with sin, as I’ve been taught repeatedly. It started with someone, presumably a human someone, crying out to God. This is the result of humans speaking against the city, not the result of an angry God.

In fact, the biggest judgment that God proposes as he’s talking with Abe: “I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to Me; and if not, I will know.”

That’s it. “I’ll know about it.” That’s the judgment proposed. That’s all the “smiting” that God proposed for the city with the great reputation for sin.

And we all know about Abe’s negotiation with God over their sin: Abe assumes a greater judgment, and tries to talk God out of it, but chickens out before he finishes the job. That passages teaches well about prayer, but most of the time, people are either implying, or outright declaring that God was out to kill ’em all! No! That’s not what the Book says!

We build our theology on the clear passages, not on our assumptions from the very earliest understanding of God’s nature. God says the judgment comes from someone’s outcry, not from his own “righteous anger.” (I’m not saying there’s no such thing as righteous anger. I’m saying that’s not what went on in Genesis 18!)

There are indeed other passages, stories told later, where God is named as the source of that destruction, in contradistinction to God’s own declaration in Genesis 18. I have heard the argument that “The people of that day didn’t understand that God & Satan were different, so they attributed Satan’s actions to God!” and frankly, I find that to be quite the compelling argument.

Change of venue: By now, most people know about the parallel accounts that describe David’s numbering of Israel (found in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21). There’s a serious problem here. We have to ask, “Why does 2 Samuel 24:1 state that God ‘moved’ David against Israel, while 1 Chronicles 21:1 says that it was Satan who ‘stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel’.”?

It’s the same thing. In our day, we understand a decent bit about the creature, Lucifer, sometimes called Satan. Our greatest source for that knowledge is found primarily in the gospels and epistles that were unknown in earlier times, and so the one event is described by one author as from Satan, and from the other author, not knowing any better, as from God, who ignorantly equates the two.

But we know better. We have the revelation of the life of Christ. We’re smarter than that! God is not, as demonstrated by “the exact representation of God,” in the smiting business.

But some people still go there. “What about Ananias and Sapphira! [Acts 5] God killed them! And that’s New Testament!”

That shows me how little some people actually read their Bible. Read that passage again. Yes, the passage is in the New Testament. But nowhere does it even hint that God did this. From the text, it’s possible that they were killed by the power of Peter’s curse against them. It could be that Satan did the deed, having gained access to their lives through their sin. Only if you haven’t done your homework, only if you believe God is a killer, could it be God who did it. The passage is anything but clear! And unclear passages are not what we build theology out of.

But you and I have done our homework. We come to this unclear passage, having already settled ourselves on the matter of God’s goodness, which we’ve gotten from the clear passages, from the example of Jesus: God is good. Therefore, their murderer couldn’t be God. So do your best with your guesses, inventions, imaginations and assumptions: the Bible doesn’t actually identify the murderer, but we know from previous study that it ain’t God!

Then someone will bring up the story of Elymas the sorcerer who was smitten blind in Acts 13. Again, I suggest people actually read the passage, and read it remembering what we already know about God’s good character from the unmistakable revelation of the Son of God.  The passage says, “Paul said” and then it happened. Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit when he said it, so some people assume that it must not have really been Paul who said it, because when you’re full of the Holy Spirit, you can’t say anything on your own. Really? That’s kind of a stretch, isn’t it?

But the reality is that the text never says that God did this; it says Paul did this. And we, having done our homework, already know that God is good, because Jesus, who was revealing God’s nature, was always good, know that this unclear passage is not consistent with the clear passages, and therefore must be representing something other than an angry, vengeful God, because we know that God is not angry or vengeful.

We could go on for hours. Let’s not do that. Let’s learn the lesson: Jesus is the best representation of what God is like, and Jesus always did good; the worst he did was get in the face of the religiously self-righteous. So God, who presumably is also not pleased with the religiously self-righteous, is nonetheless, consistently good.

It’s the enemy who is consistently accusing God’s nature before us. Let’s not fall for his accusations. We know better. We know Jesus.

The Judgment of God on His Children

This may be my favorite picture of the terrible judgment of God:

In the book of Exodus, when the Hebrew children chickened out, rebelled against God, when they steadfastly refused to go into the Promised Land, God had to judge them for that rebellion!

And this is how he judged them: He supernaturally fed them miraculous meals that nobody else on the planet got to taste, for more than 14,500 consecutive days, because they were helpless to feed themselves in a desert.

He led them safely through the most dangerous desert in the region, continually keeping his presence in the middle of them, in a pillar of cloud guiding them by day, and a pillar of fire warming their feet and scaring off both mosquitoes and desert marauders by night.

Sure, people died. Over the course of a generation's time, a generation of people died and were buried, and life went on. That would have happened even if they had followed him into the promised land, so we certainly can't call that judgment!

But as part of his judgment, "They lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell." (Nehemiah 9:21) That'll show em!

Wow. This is my Father. This is the family I'm adopted into. 

Romans says that we should "Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God." If this is his severity, then what on earth is his kindness like?