Poor in Spirit Lecture

Remember that the Beatitudes are not attitudes which we can create ourselves. They are not a new “10 commandments” or laws. They are the inner contentment and joy that results from a transformational personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They are the fruit of the spirit expressed in different words and the gifts of the kingdom of God enjoyed now and evermore.

Also remember the important principle that “scripture interprets scripture.” That is why I use so many texts which we refer to as “cross references.”

Mt 5:3 NIV “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Mt 5:3 AMPLIFIED “Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous— with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the poor in spirit (the humble, who rate themselves insignificant), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!”

To be “blessed” (blest) is to be the recipient of God’s generous provision.

To be “blessed” (bles’ id) is to be “happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous— with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions.”

Poor in Spirit

To be “poor in spirit” is to be spiritually poverty stricken, powerless to enrich, unable to rescue one’s self

Martin Lloyd-Jones

• Poor in spirit is the fundamental, foundational characteristic of a Christian of a member of the kingdom of heaven
• Poor in spirit is an emptying of before there can be a filling of…note words of Jesus in Revelation

Rev 3:14-17 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

Matthew Henry

• Conviction precedes conversion
• The world’s emphasis is on self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-expression
• The people of this world compare themselves to one another, while the Beatitudes would have us compare ourselves to God.
• “Poor in spirit” is not:
  • popular
  • a personality type
  • poor me
  • false humility
  • groveling
• “Poor in spirit” is:
  • uncharacteristic
  • unconcerned about the world’s measure of things
  • being unable and accepting of the inability
  • a complete absence of pride, of self-assurance and of self-reliance
  • we look to God in utter and complete submission and dependence upon Him and His grace and mercy.
  • described for us in Philippians 2

Phil 2:1-8 “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

Matthew Henry

I. The poor in spirit are happy, Matt. 5:3. There is a poor-spiritedness that is so far from making men blessed that it is a sin and a snare—cowardice and base fear, and a willing subjection to the lusts of men. But this poverty of spirit is a gracious disposition of soul, by which we are emptied of self, in order to our being filled with Jesus Christ. To be poor in spirit is, 1. To be contentedly poor, willing to be emptied of worldly wealth, if God orders that to be our lot; to bring our mind to our condition, when it is a low condition. Many are poor in the world, but high in spirit, poor and proud, murmuring and complaining, and blaming their lot, but we must accommodate ourselves to our poverty, must know how to be abased, Phil. 4:12. Acknowledging the wisdom of God in appointing us to poverty, we must be easy in it, patiently bear the inconveniences of it, be thankful for what we have, and make the best of that which is. It is to sit loose to all worldly wealth, and not set our hearts upon it, but cheerfully to bear losses and disappointments which may befall us in the most prosperous state. It is not, in pride or pretence, to make ourselves poor, by throwing away what God has given us, especially as those in the church of Rome, who vow poverty, and yet engross the wealth of the nations; but if we be rich in the world we must be poor in spirit, that is, we must condescend to the poor and sympathize with them, as being touched with the feeling of their infirmities; we must expect and prepare for poverty; must not inordinately fear or shun it, but must bid it welcome, especially when it comes upon us for keeping a good conscience, Heb. 10:34. Job was poor in spirit, when he blessed God in taking away, as well as giving. 2. It is to be humble and lowly in our own eyes. To be poor in spirit, is to think meanly of ourselves, of what we are, and have, and do; the poor are often taken in the Old Testament for the humble and self-denying, as opposed to those that are at ease, and the proud; it is to be as little children in our opinion of ourselves, weak, foolish, and insignificant, Matt. 18:4; 19:14. Laodicea was poor in spirituals, wretchedly and miserably poor, and yet rich in spirit, so well increased with goods, as to have need of nothing, Rev. 3:17. On the other hand, Paul was rich in spirituals, excelling most in gifts and graces, and yet poor in spirit, the least of the apostles, less than the least of all saints, and nothing in his own account. It is to look with a holy contempt upon ourselves, to value others and undervalue ourselves in comparison of them. It is to be willing to make ourselves cheap, and mean, and little, to do good; to become all things to all men. It is to acknowledge that God is great, and we are mean; that he is holy and we are sinful; that he is all and we are nothing, less than nothing, worse than nothing; and to humble ourselves before him, and under his mighty hand. 3. It is to come off from all confidence in our own righteousness and strength, that we may depend only upon the merit of Christ for our justification, and the spirit and grace of Christ for our sanctification. That broken and contrite spirit with which the publican cried for mercy to a poor sinner, is that poverty of spirit. We must call ourselves poor, because always in want of God’s grace, always begging at God’s door, always hanging on in his house.

Now, (1.) This poverty in spirit is put first among the Christian graces. The philosophers did not reckon humility among their moral virtues, but Christ puts it first. Self-denial is the first lesson to be learned in his school, and poverty of spirit entitled to the first beatitude. The foundation of all other graces is laid in humility. Those who would build high must begin low; and it is an excellent preparative for the entrance of gospel-grace into the soul; it fits the soil to receive the seed. Those who are weary and heavy laden, are the poor in spirit, and they shall find rest with Christ.

(2.) They are blessed. Now they are so, in this world. God looks graciously upon them. They are his little ones, and have their angels. To them he gives more grace; they live the most comfortable lives, and are easy to themselves and all about them, and nothing comes amiss to them; while high spirits are always uneasy.

Isa 53:4-6 “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. I6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Ro 3:10-12 “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’”

Ps 25:16-18 “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. 18 Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins.”

Ps 51:16-17 “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Ro 5:6-11 “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

Kingdom of Heaven

Matthew Henry

(3.) Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of grace is composed of such; they only are fit to be members of Christ’s church, which is called the congregation of the poor (Ps. 74:19); the kingdom of glory is prepared for them. Those who thus humble themselves, and comply with God when he humbles them, shall be thus exalted. The great, high spirits go away with the glory of the kingdoms of the earth; but the humble, mild, and yielding souls obtain the glory of the kingdom of heaven. We are ready to think concerning those who are rich, and do good with their riches, that, no doubt, theirs is the kingdom of heaven; for they can thus lay up in store a good security for the time to come; but what shall the poor do, who have not wherewithal to do good? Why, the same happiness is promised to those who are contentedly poor, as to those who are usefully rich. If I am not able to spend cheerfully for his sake, if I can but want cheerfully for his sake, even that shall be recompensed. And do not we serve a good master then?

The “kingdom of heaven” (see comment on 3:2) belongs to such people; it is they who enjoy Messiah’s reign and his blessings. They joyfully accept his rule and participate in the life of the kingdom (7:14). While the rewards of vv. 4-9 are future (“they will be comforted,” “will inherit,” etc.), the first and last are present (“for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”). Yet one must not make too much of this, for the present tense can function as a future; and the future tense can emphasize certainty. There is little doubt that here the kingdom idea is primarily future, made explicit in v.12. However, though the full blessedness of those described in these beatitudes awaits the consummated kingdom, they already share in the kingdom’s blessedness so far as it has been inaugurated (see comment on 4:17).

Eph 1:1-14 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9 And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”

Col 1:10-14 “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

1Pe 1:1-9 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, 2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to
sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him. [and we understand Him to be the God of scripture and history…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit]

We cannot truly look at Jesus without feeling our absolute poverty
and His abundant provision.

This is crazy, because outwardly I’ve got it all… family that says they love me, friends that encourage and support me and say they love me, a church that I’m so fortunate to pastor (well, maybe I should say that I’m glad to have a job) with people who say they love me, appreciate my preaching, and are thankful I’m there (except for Mr. X, and he doesn’t like anybody, Mrs. Y, and she complains about everything, and Miss Z, and we can’t seem to do enough for her, and some of the elders, and some of the deacons. The 10% use up 90% of my energy.)

My wife loves me and I love her, but…
My children love me most of the time, respect me some of the time, but…
My friends say they love me, and even correct me kindly, sort of, but…
The church was literally “given to me by God” to serve, and I really want to love them, but…

“Yes, but…” You fill in the blank. There are all sorts of people, places, and things that suck me dry, exhaust my body and soul, and though there are people around, I’m all alone. Oh, you tell me Jesus “will never leave me or forsake me.” Thanks, but I know that scripture too, and Jesus is silent, has gone on vacation, or grace applies to you, but not to me.

“So I say to myself, ‘Self, the pain, the loneliness, the exhaustion are so overwhelming and Jesus is no where to be found, what can I do to get a little relief?’”

Unfortunately, most of the relief that comes to mind is going to feel so good and then cost so much… sin is that way. It brings comfort, good feelings, and relief for a little while then comes the truck load of consequences and shame and our dark hole just got deeper and darker.

Try “thinking through the relief,” the road you’re thinking about going down and the experiences of consequence, pain, and shame you’ve suffered in the past when the relief you desired came in a small, short dose, but the consequence and pain came in a dump truck.

And then, hold on. Fake ‘til you make it. Live with the pain, don’t drink, drug, rage, use sex, or work or power or control unless “your ass falls off.” Remember our Jewish brothers and sisters, 400 years in slavery in Egypt. Now that’s a long dark night. Remember Moses trying to lead them to the promise land, and all they did was complain. Sound like your church? 40 extra years in the desert. Then the exiles, all because relief and being liked by those around them was more important than being “liked by God.” Sound familiar. I see a guy like that in the mirror every morning.

Well, maybe this will help… Who are you really trying to please? Me, it was my Dad. He said, “you don’t have what it takes” so I’ve spent my very long life trying to prove I do. It was also my wife, but I can’t be who she wants me to be, or fill the needs she thinks I ought to be able to… no matter how hard I try or how many marriage seminars we go to. It certainly was the church, but trying to please everyone resulted in pleasing no one and getting fired. (Side road: When I criticize the church the way I can criticize the church, Jesus says, “She may be ugly, but she’s my wife, so be careful.”)

And then there is trying to please God. Now grace may apply to others, and Jesus may say about you what the Father said about Him… “You are my brother, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” But as for me, I’ve got to be better and do more, before He is going to be pleased with me. So I’m “sucked dry, bone tired, and all alone”.

Guess what, your feelings don’t match the facts and you’re trying to please all the wrong people, including God. He is already pleased with you, because of Christ. No, we don’t sin that grace would abound, and we don’t use our freedom to indulge the flesh, but it is no longer I who do it, it is sin living in me. The “I” here, is not the “I” in sin, but the “I” as in the new me, the new identity, the born again one, the precious son of the Father, bought by the precious blood of “The Son”… my brother.

Pleasing everyone = pleasing no one, including your self. Pleasing God to earn points is just as exhausting and futile, because Jesus has pleased Him for you. So just enjoy… if you can’t get to the joy yet, just hang on, don’t go for the relief, wait for Jesus, I promise he’ll come, he did for me and if he did it for a screw up like me, I know he’ll come for you. Use the anger as energy to hang on and the exhaustion as an opportunity to go take a nap.

“Love your neighbor as yourself.” The liberals went too far with self-love, self-actualization, self-esteem, self-help, self-confidence, self-assurance, self-indulgence, self….self…self…me at the center of the universe. The conservatives went too far with self-deprecation, self-flagellation, self-lessness, self-denial, self-righteousness, self-abasement, self-effort, self-sacrifice, self…self…self…me at the center of the universe. Guess what, I’ve lived in both extremes and shorter descriptions would be “an egomaniac with an inferiority complex” and “an outwardly humble egomaniac.”

The truth is, both “of us” hate ourselves.

For the first one, the world and its values are the empty efforts at giving ourselves value and love. For the second, we can’t really believe/experience God’s grace; we don’t really believe Jesus paid it all, that we are completely and totally forgiven, and that God loves us no matter what. For the first one, if god (small “g”) or the world won’t tell us how great we are, we will tell ourselves how great we are. For the second one, if God won’t punish us, if Jesus is going to take our punishment for us, we will punish ourselves and call it humility.

I’ve heard Steve say it so many times, “The unbeliever hopes the Gospel is true, and the believer is afraid it’s not.”

I wish I knew how to experience, how to feel, God’s forgiveness. To know that the sins I’m going to commit tomorrow are already paid for, without letting it be a license to sin, but the freedom to fail…like a child who knows they are loved. Many of us grew up where doing something wrong, committing sin, even just being childish was not acceptable. Well, not just unacceptable, but reason to be crushed, unloved, physically and emotionally abused in order to “make” us lovable. It’s no wonder that unconditional love just doesn’t compute where it counts, in our hearts.

There were a few moments when we first became Christians that God’s love and forgiveness were overwhelming and overflowing. The joy of being loved was so real that we could taste it. Then came religion, then came church, then came seminary, then came the ministry, and there went love, freedom, and peace.

Steve started me on the road to recovery “of my first love” and my first being loved, but as we say in AA, unfortunately an old bed of nails is more comfortable than a new mattress. By the way if you want to really learn about the Christian life, find a good AA meeting that is committed to sobriety not just being dry. Or maybe you’re one of the lucky ones and are part of a church “that gets it” about this grace thing…then go and pray for the faith to believe it.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer that in its short form has been made most popular and well known through AA and is called the Serenity Prayer. It seems that the earliest known version of the prayer, from 1937, has been found in a Christian student newsletter (“The Intercollegian and Far Horizons”), which claimed to reprint the prayer from an earlier edition of the newsletter, and attributes the prayer to Niebuhr in this form:

“Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.”

The most popular version, whose authorship is also attributed to Niebuhr, is:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can change, and Wisdom to know the difference.”

The longest version has these additional lines:

“Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen.”

Let me share what’s been painfully revealed recently…my greatest pain, my greatest sin, my greatest flaw, etc….self-hatred. My wife asked me, “What would it cost me to give up this self-hatred?” As I thought about her question and continue to deal with the answer to the question other questions surface. What would it cost me to give up a lack of forgiveness of myself, especially in light of the facts: that Jesus loves me, the Father loves me, the Holy Spirit indwells me, I am righteous by faith not works, by grace through faith, I am forgiven, Christ died for ME (not just everyone else, but for Lea), he paid the penalty for my sins 2000 years ago…before I ever sinned, and He knew then what sin and blasphemy I would commit as an unbeliever and as a believer. I would have to give up my “self-righteousness”, my good deeds, my bad deeds, my “having what it takes” (my father told me, I didn’t have it, and I’ve spent my life trying to prove I do), my successes, and my failures. I would have to give up everything/anything that gives me credit, recognition, glory, self-worth, fame, importance, pride, etc., etc., …..

So this morning for me, and maybe for some of you, I dare paraphrase/re-write a classic prayer:

“Father, grant me the grace to forgive myself for the things/sin I cannot change, the courage/grace to live only for your fame/glory, not mine, and the wisdom/enabling power of the Holy Spirit to worship and praise you alone and not the things of mine or man like reputation, importance, power, self-confidence. Lord, help me believe and feel in my heart what I know to be true in my head.”

God bless you guys,

Lea

The war was over and he had lost. He was tired, wounded, but most of all ashamed. It was the wrong war, and his Dad had asked him not to go and his Mother wept as he angrily left. Oh he fought hard, did everything his drill instructor had taught him, he had watched those who seemed so successful as warriors and tried with all his might to be just like them, but…it just didn’t work out the way he thought it would. The fight was exhilarating but exhausting because he had to hide so much fear. The weapons were unbelievable but very complicated and he wasn’t very smart. Plus they were for killing people, even though they were bad people and needed to be killed, a little of him died every time one of them died. In the darkness of the nights, on guard duty or even trying to sleep, the haunting whispers of home, a compassionate father and loving mother, would bring an almost overwhelming sadness and regret. But, his pride…his pride, his manhood, his way must not be questioned. He couldn’t be wrong. They couldn’t be right. He was going to prove to them and to everyone else that “he had what it takes.” He was going to show them, even though he knew how scared he was, how weak he felt, how ashamed of himself he was. But no matter how many times he did succeed, it was never enough to make up for the few times he fell short. The demons of failure, no matter how few, were always louder, deeper, more painful than the voice of success, acceptance, and courage in the face of fear. The noise in his head was like the roar at the foot of Niagara Falls, and it was sewage, not beautiful, refreshing water crashing down on him…beating him, laughing at him, threatening to sweep him away in a torrent of darkness and despair.

But now the war was over. He, and all those like him, began either their walk to the grave, the bottle, the drugs, or the lucky few, the walk home. He tried the grave, and as he stood looking over the edge, he was too much a coward to jump. He tried the bottle, but the temporary relief from the pain was always followed by a hangover and consequences that multiplied the pain, so that he drank again and again, until the pain got greater than the pleasure. Drugs, legal or illegal, only brought fog. The fog hid the pain, dulled the senses, counterfeited ecstasy, but there was always the day after. The damn sun came up, or the rains poured, but tomorrow was now today and the demons raged on.

Home? Why not go home? No. They wouldn’t understand. They would join the chorus of the demons, laughing at “doing it my way”, ridiculing the failures, shaming me for my choices, telling me “I told you so!” No, home wasn’t a safe place…but maybe, just maybe, the long walk home would give me time to clean myself up, be all that I could be, straighten up and fly right, and if that failed, I would just live in the valley across the hill from home and smell the smoke from the home fires and smell the smells of childhood and find a little peace in the cave of failures. So near home, but not worthy to go home.

The walk home was long. No one offered him a ride, except some circuit riding preacher, but he was too dirty to ride with the religious man who sat so straight, so rigid, and had all the answers. The ride would have been nice, but it was only so the preacher could tell me what I already knew, and give him another story of a lost soul he had saved. No, I’ll walk, I smell too bad anyway, and there wasn’t enough Bible soap to clean me up.

The days, maybe they were weeks, one foot in front of the other. Alone, dirty, ragged, ashamed, and beaten. A “dead man walking”. Then I recognized that last hill before home, but the creek was dry, so I couldn’t clean up. I would have changed clothes, but the smelly rags were all I had. I would have given anything to shave and wash my hair. The dirt matted my beard and hair so thickly that a week’s worth of washing wouldn’t begin to make me clean, anyway. Oh, that last hill before home. Should I stay on this side, where the mud and filth were so familiar, even comfortable compared to the threat of saying “I’m sorry, I was wrong” and then being laughed at and kicked back out and over the hill. Maybe I’ll just stay on this side, and smell supper cooking, not ask for any, not eat any, even though I’m starving. It’s just so hard being a failure in everyone’s eyes, especially my own.

In that quiet few minutes between sundown with birds chirping and the crickets, frogs talking in the darkness, I heard His voice. He was singing, just like the days of my childhood, when I was “innocent” though not perfect, When I was His and I knew it. Before my fall. My rebellion. My rage. My way. When I trusted Him and followed Him even when I wasn’t sure He knew what He was doing, something in my heart said “Trust Him, He loves you.” Could it be He was still singing that same song? That song that was just for me, his son.

What harm could it be? Take a peek over the hill. Don’t let Him see you, if it’s even him or some cruel joke my mind is playing on me. Maybe I’m having delusions…but then again maybe not. I’ve got to look, just in case it’s Him.

Now from the crest of the hill, behind and in the midst of a horrible thorn bush, I look. It’s almost dark, so it’s hard to see. My shame is so great that my eyes almost won’t let me see, but it is Him. It is my Father. He is singing my song. He is “calling me home” by singing the song He sang when I was a child. Only now, he was singing with tears flowing down his cheeks. Could it be that the really misses me, and isn’t mad at me? Could it be that He won’t say “I told you so, you stupid kid.” Could it be that He loved me enough to let me go, find my own way…no matter how destructive to me or painful to Him, and that he has been singing with tears all these years hoping I would hear Him and know I was loved. Know that I could come home! Know that He was “a safe place of peace and rest not anger and reproach.”

……..so many questions, so much fear, so much disgust, so much shame. The demons told me not to go, but I thought, “What have I got to lose? If he rejects me, tells me to get out of His sight, I deserve it. It will only confirm what I already ‘know’ about myself. But maybe, just maybe He’ll hug me?” So with more fear than in any battle of the war, over the hill I went to see if He really loved me or was it just too much to hope for. If the Gospel is true for outsiders, maybe it’s true for sons.

Well, what do you think? Is it true for you?

It was for me. I came home, and He was so glad, the tears of waiting and singing became tears of joy, forgiveness, and thanksgiving. “Son, my son, I have missed you so much.”

PS Come home. He told me to tell you, it is true for you, too!

…but we call her “Lucy”. (Her favorite bedtime story was “Lucille, ladies don’t eat their hats!”)

My wife, Jeane, and I had two wonderful little boys, but the love I should have had immediately at their births just didn’t show up until I had already done a lot of damage. Then Jeff was born, January 24, 1974. In those days, the “new thing” called Lamaze was popular. It included classes where the husband and wife prepared for the birth of a child together. I was going to be in the delivery room helping my wife breathe, rubbing her tummy and her shoulders and back. Being a real support and part of something which I would never have volunteered for in my life…but then it happened, the miracle of birth. WOW! What an incredible experience. The Lord has made women so amazing and men such wimps. Ladies, I’m sorry it hurts so much, but I’m so grateful that the Lord has given you a joy that makes you forget the pain.

For me, the instant love that a father should have, every dream of being the dad I ought to be…all of it came together in that magnificent moment. Jeffery Robert Clower, named for my two best friends who went through the hell of Navy flight school with me, opened my heart to loving a son the way a father should love a son, and I was undone.

Twelve short days later, Jeff was dead…coarctation of the lower aorta, ie. a birth defect in his heart which they now correct quite easily with surgery. We weren’t Christians, but I believed there was a god, so he either punished me by “killing” my son, or didn’t care enough to save his life. Angry, drunk, bitter, and selfish, I swore we would have no more children. Jeane got pregnant again right away, I told her how stupid she was, that she knew I didn’t want any more children, and I was furious…like I didn’t have anything to do with her getting pregnant. She miscarried 3 months later, and tried to go to the hospital without me, because she knew how glad I would be. And I was glad and told her so.

Three months later during a near mental break down, Jeane was “visited” by the Lord in such a powerful way that she began following Him and loving me in a way I’d never been loved before. One year later, while in the North Atlantic, flying A-7’s off the USS John F. Kennedy day and night, and hiding a Bible under my Playboy magazines, the Lord “visited” me. He “said,” with incredible love, not anger or spitefulness, “Lea, I’m in charge. You many not understand what I’m doing, but I don’t make mistakes.”

The next morning I sent Jeane a telegram that said simply, “I want to be baptized with our next child.” Well, I was home for only three weeks and then back to the Mediterranean for a six month deployment. Guess what, Jeane got pregnant in that short three weeks and our daughter Jenny was born when I got back home and we were baptized together. I was there when Jenny was born, but we were so scared. We had already had one baby die and Jeane’s labor and delivery did not go well, but when Jennifer Jeane Clower “popped out” everything was OK. At least until she found herself growing up in the home of an angry…not drinking, but not changing alcoholic.

Her first of many major traumas occurred when she was 3 years old. I won’t tell you who or what happened, but it damaged her for the rest of her life, and it began a life of multiple traumas and poor choices. Jennifer is now 34 with a mixed raced daughter who we “helped” raise for 7 years until Jenny’s oldest brother and his wife and three children legally adopted her. The “father” of the child is not involved at all which is a good thing…he was already married when he “went after” our daughter. Therefore, Jenny has no husband, she has schizophrenia and limitless “issues” and is now currently enrolled in a residential mental health facility in hopes that she can some day live on her own.

Now remember, Jenny is the only child we had as Christians…prayed for from conception to completion…and she is God’s “gift” to us. So, if God is charge and if God answers prayer, then Jenny is God’s perfect answer. Just as she was and is…beautiful, gifted, traumatized, diseased, dysfunctional, and ill. My problem is that I prayed to God and “knew” what that perfect little girl was going to add to our family. Sometimes I feel like AA has taught me more about the Christian life and the Father than I learned in the church. A “want to have” has become a “have to have”, and therefore “my expectation” becomes the road to disappointment and resentment. “Life is what happens when you’re planning something else!” “You want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

Conclusion…God is teaching me to love my child the way He loves me….with the disappointments, narcissism, dysfunctions, disease, disorders, failures, repeating/doing the same old things expecting different results, pain, heartache, sense of failure, exhaustion… when do I get to rest, you never stop being a parent…this is part of the supernatural life…OMG…what have I prayed for?

In the world’s words, the name Jennifer is Welsh in origin and means “fair and smooth, white waves” and is the root for the name “Guinevere” from King Arthur fame. In a Christian bookstore you’ll find a book mark, at least we did, that said Jennifer means “the servant of the Lord is gentle” or “a gift from God”. And Jenny has been all of those things at one time or another, and still is on a good day, but her schizophrenia, for the most part, has stolen much of that from her and us.

Then the Lord visits me again, the way we visit Jenny in her new “home” with other mentally ill patients, and He says again, “Lea, I’m in charge. You many not understand what I’m doing, but I don’t make mistakes.” I don’t like the school the Father has sent us to, as we learn to cope, love, and encourage the way He does, but I wanted a few of you to know about us because some of you are dealing with a very similar situation…with a child, spouse, parent, or….and we understand. It’s been the “best of times and the worst of times” but the Father still shows up.

I have to remind myself that what I once thought as a trite, the Christian phrase has become part of my limited, part-time sanity… “Regret looks back… Worry looks around… Fear looks forward… Faith looks up!” …and I’ve got a real crook in my neck, and sometimes I don’t see the rainbow, only the clouds.

God bless you guys,
Lea

PS NAMI’s “Family to Family” program has been more help or almost as much help as prayer.

I must admit that I have learned more useful information about living the Christian life from AA than I have at church. But when my “stinking thinking” became transformed by other “successful” alcoholics, those who were not only dry but more importantly “sober”, it has been amazing to realize that the principles learned were Biblical grace…towards others and towards self.

Some of you are about to discount everything I say because the third step of the 12 Steps states: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” In the early days of AA they operated with only two books, The Big Book (which is the guide book of AA) and The Big, Big Book (which is the Bible). Now let’s be real honest, don’t you tell people about “God as you understand Him?” With that said, give me a break and keep reading, and as Steve says, “If you don’t, you’ll get the fever and die.”

Back to expectations…for most of us, expectations are actually demands. When we expect something to happen, or a person to respond/act in a certain way, we actually have “planned an outcome”. Our expectation has moved from a “hope so” to a “have to”. We have asked God to do something when we’ve actually expected Him to answer in a certain way. Making plans is a good thing. Planning outcomes is a bad thing. As a matter of fact, it has also been said, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” When a “want to” becomes a “have to” then we are in trouble!

My good friend, Jim Suddath, and I were talking just the other day about this very thing, and Jim said, “I just have to lower my expectations.” My response was “No, you need to have no expectations.” Al-a-Non teaches that “Expectations are pre-meditated resentments.” Think about it…if in my heart of hearts, my expectations are really demands or planned outcomes, and the expectation is not met, then resentment is usually my first response. So it is really in my best interest, and it “gives God the freedom” to answer our hopes and prayers anyway He wants to.

The next objection is usually, “Can’t I expect good things to happen or at least hope they will?” “Won’t lowering my or having no expectations, let people off the hook of their responsibility?” The answer to both objections is yes. Yes, you can expect good things, and hope for them, but most of us have moved the expectation to a demand…a want to a need. And secondly, yes, you need to let that person off the hook, because you are not a policeman, only the Holy Spirit can fill that role. We are encouragers, not watch dogs. And if I put my hope in someone rather than in the Lord, then I WILL be disappointed more often than not.

Another way to look at expectations has a lot to do with my “daily experience with God” and the “hind-sight of His hand at work”. Said theologically, it begs the question, do I believe in my heart, not my head, that God is sovereign and that God is good…at the same time? I have found in so many situations that we worry and are anxious because we pray about something or someone, but don’t really “leave it with the Lord.” I figure out how I want Him to answer, the ways He can orchestrate my answer, and then get about the work of making my answer come true. This is a two fold issue: 1] I don’t trust God because I know bad things happen to good people, and 2] if I don’t worry, agonize, and/or do something, then I’m not doing my part. In response to issue #1, after years of experience, including alcoholism ( it’s been 30 years since my last drink, but only 20 years of sobriety), the death of my third son, near divorce more times than I can count, and being fired from most jobs I’ve had in the ministry (it’s more politically correct to say that I have been offered the “opportunity to exercise my gifts elsewhere”), I don’t trust God to do things my way, but I do trust Him to do things the best way. And in response to issue #2, doing nothing is called waiting which is often times doing the most important thing you can. There’s an old say that, “Nothing is often a good thing to say, and more often a good thing to do.” It doesn’t feel like the American Christian, culturally appropriate thing to do, but it is Biblical to wait and see God show up in His time and in His way.

Finally, I want to quote my pastor, Eric Reaves. “The thing going on in your life is not the thing going on in your life.” It is so much deeper and more important than what is right in front of you. God’s “severe mercy” is often His greatest teaching tool…but it takes time and pain. Is God sovereign and is God good at the same time. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you hang in there. Someday it will.

“What is in your life that is beyond the scope of Christ’s power?” The answer is simple, nothing. Living through, surviving the answer is what is hard.

“What part(s) of you need to die and be raised in the power of Jesus?” The answer is I, my agenda and my expectations need to die, Mt 10:39 “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Quite amazing; living my life results in death, putting my life to death results in life. But also quite amazing, though God “seems backwards”, He’s right and His way works.

Eric helps me a whole lot, but he does make me think and look at things more and more from a kingdom perspective. My expectations keep me thinking in a personal perspective, and for me that’s not very healthy.

Hope this helps!
Lea

There, I’ve said it out loud…well, obviously, I’ve also said it to all of you, too. From John 3:16 to “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”, and all the scripture the Navigators told me to memorize, the root issue for me is that what my mind knows is a long way from what my heart believes.

Intellectual truth does not fill an empty heart. Oh, I know He loves you, and my heart embraces His grace in your life, and I weep for your pain, and pray that you will accept His acceptance, and feel His arms around you, and know the tender touch of “nail scared” hands. But as for me, well, my stuff, my pain, my ministry, my sin…it all is so much deeper, louder, stronger, and more real than the truth. The flesh is so much stronger than the spirit, the battles in the war have so few victories. Living, knowing in my head that in the end, we win…well, it just hasn’t been enough to relieve the exhaustion of my efforts to be a “godly man” and therefore believe that He really loves me. I know it’s “spiritual pride” to think “I’m too ugly for Him to love me”, but even that knowledge doesn’t fill the void.

On another “dark night (day, life) of the soul” I was reading again with gratitude that Paul couldn’t get it right either.

Romans 7:15-20 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

“It is no longer I who do it…” wait a minute, is my new nature, new creation in Christ really that “distant” from my behavior? “…but it is sin living in me that does it.” Does that remove responsibility…no, but it does lead to the reality of Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,…” The voices in my head, the accuser and his condemnations are nothing but lies. That’s great, but again, what my head knows and what my heart believes are so far apart.

So then I head to I Corinthians 13 to see if love can help me with my pain. We all read it at weddings and tell Christians to love each other this way. Because we are proud of our Greek knowledge we get to explain that this is “agape” and only God can love like this, and will through us. But you know what, I still see it as something I have to do. And not necessarily something that applies to how God feels about me.

Then one especially dark morning God led me to see this “agape” as not only the exegetical truth about God’s love, but a description of God’s love for me.

So lets try this starting with I Corinthians 13: 4-8a:

4“[God’s] love [for Lea] is patient, [God’s] love [for Lea] is kind. [God’s love for ________start putting your name here] does not envy, [God’s love for ________ ] does not boast, [God’s love for _______ ] is not proud. 5[God’s love for _______ ] is not rude, [God’s love for me] is not self-seeking, [God’s love for me] is not easily angered, [God’s love for me] keeps no record of wrongs. 6[God’s love for me] does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7[God’s love for me] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8a[God’s love for me] never fails.”

As we know repetition and application are two of the most powerful elements of teaching. So almost every morning, I read the “paraphrase” to my heart. When my mind gets in the way, when the voices shout “it’s not true for you”, I tell them to shut-up and leave me alone. I tell them to “be quiet because God is speaking to me…his son, in whom He is well pleased.”

Hope this helps some of you; it’s making a difference in my life, maybe it will in yours.

Love and pray for all you, whose names I don’t know, but who names and hearts God knows and better yet, who God loves.

Who learns more, the teacher or the student? The teacher does. Who gets more strength, pain, and experience, the players on the field or the spectators in the stands? The players do. Who experiences the “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” more than any others do? It’s those who are in the battle. Who grows more, the struggler or the straggler? The struggler. How do we ever learn that Jesus is enough? When Jesus is all we’ve got. What “success” have we had trying to keep everyone happy, when the only One we need to please is Him. Even though pleasing “Him” will definitely not always please them.

I remember well my “call into the ministry.” God was really going to make a difference in the church and the world through me. The church, the bride of Christ, was getting a new worker, with energy, ideas, exceptional gifts, great leadership skills learned in the Navy, great courage from flying jets off aircraft carriers, and tremendous convictions about who God is and what He wanted me to do to change people, churches, and the world.

My “ideal image” changed from “John Wayne, Blue Angel” to “Billy Graham, Evangelist, wonderfully faithful servant, beloved by so many.” Then I found my self in a very ugly place…the church.

By the way, Jesus constantly reminds me, “Lea, she may be ugly, but she’s my wife. So watch your mouth!” Of course He says it with great love, but also with great conviction, real clarity, and a not so subtle threat!

I thought nothing could be more wonderful than to teach God’s people, God’s word. Then I found out on a good day, they just wanted more knowledge, but not change. On a bad day, they wanted the world more than the kingdom. I learned that they wanted an employee to do “church work” not a spiritual leader to blaze the trail to the mountain of transfiguration. They could say, do, spit out anything they wanted to, but I was suppose to take it, and be more mouse than man. My obedience to Christ would not make them happy, and instead of talking to me, they talked about me.

“Come on Lord, you didn’t tell me this was what I was signing up for!” Now, I knew why every pastor I asked about going into the ministry said, “If there is anything else in the world you can do and be satisfied, then do it.” At the time, I was underwhelmed by their backdoor affirmation of the “glorious call of God.” Then I learned, they were right, and so I repeat the same thing to young men and women who are considering the ministry.

With all of that said, and there is more, like “God needs me,” “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few,” “Lea, you’d be such a good pastor,” and the most subtle lie of all, “the church really needs someone like you.” After being called to the ministry and many years of effort for the good of the church and finding my life more difficult than it was before I became a Christian, He told me a secret.

Now, this was just what He “said” to me and it may not apply to you, but then again, it may. “Lea, I called you into the ministry for your good, your learning, your changing, your struggle that will make you stronger. I haven’t trusted my bride to you, I have trusted my bride with you. You were a long way from “the garden” when I got you, and the best and fastest way home, the most effective way to shape you and mold you, is to put you in the grinder…ie. the church. You may think my bride is ugly, and she can act ugly, but she is beautiful and she is my body doing kingdom work, not only around the world in general, but in and on you personally.

You see, Lea, I want you to look like me. And looking like me, means living for, with, and loving my bride the way I do.”

Like so many, I prayed early on “Lord, let me save the world,” but as I grew older, I prayed “Lord, let me help a lot,” and finally my prayer has been, “Lord, I hope I didn’t hurt too many.” And you know what he said, “Lea, I love you. You did help some, you didn’t hurt too many, and experienced what I experienced, some victories and a lot of disappointments, and so that you would ‘weep over Jerusalem’ as I did.”

Somewhere in the New Testament, doesn’t it talk about, being like Christ,”
“suffering like Christ,” “persecuted like Christ” and on and on. Well guess who caused Him the most pain, it was the “church.” And then my oldest son reminded me one day, “Well dad, at least they haven’t crucified you….yet!”

So, “Thank you Lord …. I think.”

What do you think? Could He have called you for your sake and not theirs? Maybe so. Just thought I’d ask.

This AM I awoke with a heavy heart again, but the Lord revealed to me that it was not my depression but the “burden of being right”. I have not handled situations-some situations-well, but I was right in _______, at _______ about _______ and _______, and here at _______.

The gift this AM is that I feel the pain and tears of Jesus as he wept over Jerusalem-right before they killed him. I feel the pain of Moses trying to lead a grumbling people whose anger kept him from the promise land on earth, but not the promise land of heaven. I don’t feel like “I told you so” which is real growth for me, but I feel affirmed by the Lord, his quiet but clear confidence, and sad that I want more for people than they want for themselves. I am reminded of the incredible joy of salvation, the thrilling reality of his lordship, and the overwhelming relief that there is a God (no, a loving Father) whose grace and mercy oversees his sovereignty…that I don’t have to fix, correct, control, or run the universe or other people’s lives.

O Lord, let this be an emotional/psychological feeling that lasts because at this moment my theology = my psychology…I feel what I believe.

It is humbling to know “being right”. It is painful being attacked by Satan and others for “dong what’s right”, but it is also a privilege to be, dare I say it, treated like Christ…knowing the pain that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit must feel as they are rejected, ignored, scorned by the very world and people the created and love so much.

God bless you who are on the front lines,

Lea

PS It’s not my fault that they didn’t, or responsibility to make people hear and understand. Only God can give them ears to hear and a heart that’s willing to obey.

PPS My desire for “pastoral success” was definitely part ego and sin, but the other part was God’s desire in me for renewal of the old, maturing of the new, and salvation for the lost…that the church would be healthy AND grow, spiritually first, numerically second.

As a recovering alcoholic, Pharisee, rager, perfectionist, people pleaser, addict of all sorts, one driven by his feelings and not the facts, an “investor” of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in treatment facilities, psychiatrists, psychologists, recovery groups and literature…I’m tired. “Sick and tired of being sick and tired!”

My new favorite book is Valley of Vision: A collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions. My humble opinion has become that the Puritan heart, like mine, was in such pain over their spiritual poverty and sin, that they first beat themselves, before they allowed themselves to run into the arms of our loving, forgiving, accepting (because of Christ) Father. And like Rahab and our dear friend Hester Prynne in the “Scarlett A,” grace and forgiveness are seemingly bargained for and/or earned.

Reading again, “Living Prayer” (pages 266-267), this morning, I was struck by the conclusion “…that there is no wrath like the wrath of being governed by my own lusts for my own ends.” Searching for love in all the wrong places. Believing the lies of the accuser and the committee in my head. Trying anything and everything to make the pain go away, only to find that only He can do that. One drink was always too many, and one hundred was never enough. One angry explosion certainly gave me power and control, but it also made me the king of an empty castle.

I am so grateful for the Lord’s patience and his servants, both Christian and non-Christian, who have helped me drain the swamp even while I was up to my eyeballs in snakes and alligators. Those who helped me tame those killer dogs that I thought would eat me alive if I stopped running, only to find out that when I turned and faced them, they had no teeth.

My personal comment at the conclusion of the prayer reads: “Psychology can help reveal, uncover, and deal…Theology can forgive, cleanse, remove, and renew.” If there is a science of the body, there is therefore a science of the mind. Though a wounded heart is infinitely more complicated than a broken leg, the “truth (really) will set you free”…analysis, not blame, will uncover the wound, rather than continuing to put pitiful band aids on an infection that must be exposed to the light to heal. And the theology, the study of God, must be more Hebrew than Greek. To study God is to know God, not just know about Him.

It may take you years, but don’t give up until the sun shines, or should I say the Son shines, and you can see His light in the dark pit of your sin and despair. He’s been there all along…right there in the midst of what we know as life…our “cesspool of sin and sorrow.”

Don’t get me wrong, my favorite bumper sticker is still, “Life Sucks, Then You Die,” but not so much any more. I’m just beginning to feel what I believe…when you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father, and He sure is kind and cool.

Take what you can use and leave the rest, or leave all of it, I just wanted a few of you to know, I understand. “Been there, done that, got the tee shirt and the tattoo…’read, tattoos and scars’ but they are fading and healing because His grace made me willing to do whatever it takes to get to the real Him.”

So called “humility” in the Christian community is really a mask for “pitiful me” pride. The “self deprecating personality” is often an artificiality of the worst kind. “Oh, it wasn’t me, it was God” is often used as an opportunity for the speaker to compliment me again.

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.

“I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.”

The old woman smiled. “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?”

“That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to embrace who God made you to be and how He wants to use you, warts and all.

So, to all of my “crack pot” friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!

Self loathing, Satan, and critical Christians often attack especially pastors with similar feelings, thoughts, and accusations of “I’m a failure.” That just isn’t true, and as our friend Steve says, “That’s from the pit of hell and smells like smoke.” You and your weaknesses/inabilities are part of your wonderful uniqueness so that Christ will be revealed in and through you. And, get this, you are filling a place in the universe and history that only you were designed to fill. Go with the peace, grace, and new “obsession” that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Jesus is always Jesus, but He relates to each one of us uniquely. Each of us has an individual perspective/perception of Him. I must not try to have the same relationship with Jesus that you do, even though it is with the same Lord, savior, brother, and friend.

Years ago, I was in Orlando staying with Steve and Anna…”behind every great man is an even greater woman!” Steve married “way up!” If you haven’t met Anna, you need to. Anyway, I asked Steve if I could go to the office with him the next morning and just be with him, watch him, get a feel for his time with the Lord. The kind, compassionate, gentle friend said with such mercy, “NO, you can’t go with me. I don’t share that time with anyone!” You always love a friend even when they tick you off, so I was gracious, forgave him, and left town…not because I was mad, but because it was time to go home. Now that I’m a lot older and a little wiser, Steve (as much as I hate to admit it publicly) was right.
 
Let me illustrate. Let’s say we all have a friend named “Bill”. Bill is always the same guy. when we all get together we make sure Bill is included, because we all like him, and he likes all of us. He just kind of completes the party. But, each one of us has a unique relationship with the same guy. For me, he’s just plain funny, and likes me even when I tell bad jokes. For you, he’s just plain Bill, what you see is what you get, and he accepts you just the way you are. For another, Bill is a “secret” mentor. That person watches Bill’s life and learns from him. Yet Bill is not a “life coach”, he’s just a friend whose walk speaks louder and clearer than  his talk, and he says he likes to be around me too! That feels good.
 
Jesus…we know about him. We passed our licensure and ordination exams or are preparing for them, so we know all that the Bible says about Him. We know what Calvin said about Him, what the Westminster Divines said, what our denomination tells us about Him, how our “circle” of friends or Book of Church Order tell us to worship him. While that information is helpful, it can be a prison that walls out the person of Jesus. We try to have times of quiet like everyone or someone else does. We hope to have a relationship with Jesus just like they do. Guess what, that’s not what He wants. It would be like everyone telling you about “Bill” but never getting to meet him…to never sit down with him yourself and have a cup of coffee with him. Your heart doesn’t relate to information fully, it must relate to another heart.
 
I was amazed when I realized Jesus wanted me to be me and not someone else. I was amazed that I am the only Lea Clower and you are the only ______(your name) that God has ever made in the history of mankind and He wants me/you…loves me/you…wants to spend time with me/you, and have a unique relationship with me/you. He is the same, but we are all different, and therefore He relates to each of us differently/individually.
 
Steve, is a praying man, and has a wonderful relationship with the Lord, but I don’t want his relationship with the Lord anymore, I want mine. Beware of “following the crowd” into the prayer closet. It gets so crowded with methods and mantras that Jesus gets crowded out. Go into the closet alone. Alone with Jesus. You’ll be amazed at how much He enjoys spending time with you…just you.

My good friend Jim Suddath played basketball for Duke in the early 80’s when they went to the final four. We worked together on the same church staff for 13 years and had a lot of fun, especially since I graduated from North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I used to call Duke, “Durham Community College” and he would say, “At least I did more than drink my way through school!”

Anyway, I will never forget the time I said, “Practice makes perfect” and Jim corrected me by say “Perfect practice makes perfect.” I’ve thought a lot about that over the years, and it is so true. If you practice bad habits, you simply perfect what’s wrong. I was a Navy flight instructor, an LSO (Landing Signal Officer) in Pensacola, FL teaching jet students how to land aboard ship for their first time. Every single landing at the field in preparation for going to the ship and every arrested landing aboard ship was graded, critiqued, and debriefed. This was true for the rest of their career as carrier pilots. “Arriving alive” wasn’t enough. It had to be done exceptionally well, and especially at night. Interestingly enough the grading system still let you know you weren’t perfect and that there was always work to be done. A “perfect” approach and landing grade was an OK. OK, underlined, with no comment. A near perfect pass was still just an OK. For a perfectionist like me, basketball, carrier landings, life, and “quiet times” can be real bummers.

Now Jim understands grace a whole lot better than I do. For example, when Duke loses to North Carolina, Jim knows it’s not the end of the world as we know it. But when Carolina loses to Duke I am miserable for at least three days, like my mother had died or something.

You see “perfect practice” does make “perfect”, but it’s not going to happen in this world. Carolina is not always going to beat Duke. Only a few carrier landings in any pilot’s career are graded OK. Perfect practice and perfect games are just not going to happen in my life or in yours. But grace is always greater and always enough. Like the concert pianist told the boy playing chop sticks…”you keep playing what you can, and I’ll fill in the rest.”

I’ve tried to have a perfect quiet time, because that means I’ll have a perfect day, right?… wrong! But I have found something that works for me. It is what I call an “honest” quiet time. Every time I spiritually “check boxes” especially in the morning, He is silent. Equally true, every time I’m honest with Him in that “time of quiet”, I “hear” Him speak. Such things as: “I love you.” “I love you anyway.” “I forgave you yesterday, the first time you asked.” “I’m glad you admitted that, I’ve known it for a long time.” “Not only do I forgive you, but you need to ask their forgiveness. And no matter their response, that will please me.” “I know. The fall messed up My plans too, but I’m fixing it, even though you think I’m slow.” “A pity party is OK for a little while, but if it goes on too long, you’ve forgotten how much greater my grace is than the pain.” “Come here son, let me hold you. Everything really is going to work out. I promise.” And, I’ve even heard Him “say” (and this is my favorite) “Yes, Lea, your favorite bumper sticker is right – LIFE SUCKS THEN YOU DIE! – but don’t forget, when you die the party really begins!”

Guys, when it comes to your “quiet time”, there is no such thing as a perfect one, but there is such a thing as an “honest one” which will be enough for today. And maybe it would help you, like it has helped me, to call it a “time of quiet” rather than “quiet time”. There is just too much perfectionism in the old “check the box” name and too many expectations that it will be a “lucky charm” for the day. Remember: shredded wheat without sugar may not be as exciting as Shoney’s breakfast bar, but it is just as nourishing. So “eat” your spiritual breakfast with a time of quiet with our Father. It’s more filling, fulfilling and nourishing. And He told me that He enjoys it more that way too!

This stuff is only for the sick, screwed-up, dis-eased, and dysfunctional. If you aren’t any of these, you are (1) wasting your time reading (2) in denial or delusion, and (3) going to write me a nasty letter, please don’t, I’m doing the best I can here.

These are my opinions, experience, insanity, and thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in seminary, the pastorate, and therapy (and some time with the Lord) to become so “brilliant” and make such outrageous statements.

My hope is to help a few, or at least let them know there is someone “out there” who is just as out there as they are. Like Alcoholics Anonymous, my favorite friends with whom I share a similar fate, one drunk helping another drunk stay sober (not just dry) one day at a time…sounds a little like the Christian life doesn’t it?

Finding the Perfect Place…My Obsession with Externals

If I had the right job/church, then…
If I had the right officers, then…
If I had the right car, then…
If I had the right answers, then…
If I had the right house, then…
If I had the right quiet time…
If I had the right wife/husband…

I’m in transition. Retired from the pastoral ministry, but not the ministry (‘cause God told me to) and waiting on what’s next (‘cause God told me to). “But God, shouldn’t I be doing something while I wait?” As if waiting wasn’t doing something!

Maybe it’s time for me to start writing…my good friend Steve Brown has been trying to get me to write for 20 years, and I quote, “Lea, if I can do it, anyone can!”

Well, to write I need a desk in a quiet place apart from everything and everyone else. Now, because I’m in transition this will have to be a “sanctuary” within the “sanctuary” called my house. So I’m going to “transform” the grandchildren’s nursery into the birth place of the next great Christian author.

I’ve got a desk. It’s in the garage gathering junk and dust. I’ve got an office chair that’s in the way where it is now. I’ve now got the perfect place in view. Ordered and arranged, all in my mind, and it’s about to become a reality.

Interrupt theory with reality. While surveying the nursery I look up and see an attic access panel which I decide to check out, because we’ve lived here seven years and never looked up there. A small side-road on the way to “writer’s nirvana.”

Now, imagine with me. I remove the two foot square access panel, stick my head up in the attic, while holding one of those orange, plastic encased “mechanics” lights for working on engines.

This is what I see. The louvers to the outside for air circulation at the peak of the roof, which is only two feet above my head, the wire screen “designed” to keep varmints out torn to shreds, a sea of insulation (the pink kind and the “blown” gray cellulose stuff), and a pile of squirrel sh–, four feet by six feet by six inches deep. Can you believe we’ve let our grandchildren sleep in the room below? Duh, it’s been there for seven years and no one knew, cared, or got sick. The previous owners had put poison up there, and the squirrels quit using it as their cozy dumping ground.

Well, by God, if I’m going to have the perfect sanctuary/office/creative space, within an adequate sanctuary, my home, then I’ve got to clean all this mess up and repair the torn screen. (My eyes are burning and all I can smell is squirrel crap while I write this…in another room.)

Right here I’m going to leave out a lot of hilarious details just to save time and so you don’t quit reading.

So, picture this…Ichabod Crane, 6’4”, 220 lbs, on a six foot wobbly, wooden ladder, with only his legs showing ‘cause the rest of him is “up in the attic” with a “shop-vac” strapped to the ladder so the hose will reach the “pile” and mine the rich deposits left by happy squirrels.

When I was flying jets off of aircraft carriers, the honest though still arrogant pilots had a saying about screwing up. “There are those who have, those who will and those who lie about it!”

While I’m hard at work, to the roar of the shop-vac at my feet, like the honey truck sucking your septic tank dry, I was doing a great job of emptying the attic of more than ten pounds of poop and spreading a fine coat of “poop dust” over the entire room…walls, ceiling, rug, furniture, and toys. You know, the wonderful white dust that covers everything when you cut or sand sheet-rock.

I had not put the air filter back in the shop-vac after a previous job. I was sucking up the big chucks, and covering my perfect place with a layer of my “good intentions,” until the fire alarm went off, I never knew there was a problem.

The perfect place is right where you are.
The right job is the one you have today.
The right situation is the one you’re in now.
The right church and officers are the ones you have now.
The right wife/husband you have is the one you have now.
(Notice I didn’t say the most fun, enjoyable, or comfortable.)

“Be still (and stay put) and know that I am God.”

PS Guess where I’m writing this…in my old chair in my old spot. I sat at the desk in my new perfect spot this morning, and even after six hours of cleaning, spraying, and burning scented candles, the smell was so bad, I immediately felt sick, got a headache, and had to leave.

PPS Pray for my grandchildren’s next visit.

PPPS I married way-up, so my wife didn’t kill me. She remembered the bathroom remodeling in our last house where the only way to remove the bathtub/shower was to cut it up right where it was. So with that wonderful “Tim, the Tool man, Taylor” roar of a chain saw in the bathroom, I covered our bedroom with fiberglass dust. “There are those who have, those who will, and some of us that will do it again.”