Why God Doesn’t Talk to You

Recenly, I knocked out Dallas Willard’s Hearing God and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence.  Both books deal with communicating with God, and have a lot of insight on the barriers and benefits to it.

Willard suggests that rather than asking the question, “Why doesn’t God talk to me?” we should ask the question “Why should God talk to me?”  As he always does, Willard breaks these mystical concepts into clear relational processes.  We never ask the question, why would a stranger, who I have no interaction with talk to me?  Rather, we will here from God, as we do life with him in the kingdom.

Although I have some struggles with the image of piety that Brother Lawrence projects, he offers an excellent example of how to do life with God.  He spent much of his life in a kitchen.  He would start his time there with prayer, asking God to be with him as he made omelets.  Afterward, he would review his day, what went well, what did not, and share that with God.

Maybe God just wants to be treated like everyone else who is a major part of your life.

Tags: 40 Books in 2010, Dallas Willard, Hearing God, prayer, The Practice of the Presence of God, Willard

Being a Christian is Not License to Be a Jerk

In my retail gig, my culturally Jewish manager recently encountered a person who identified himself as a Youth Pastor for a well known parachurch organization.  The pastor wanted a discount that he did not qualify for, and rudely nagged his salesperson, until the manager was called in.

The pastor continuing to be push, became belligerent and insulting.  The manager calmingly told him no, but was so bothered by the man’s behavior, he added that he was surprised that a person with the title of “pastor” could be so rude.  The pastor’s response was “I have to be intense in my job.  It’s the only way to keep kids off drugs.”

There are so many problems with this, like the unloving way the pastor treated a non-christian, or a philosophy of ministry that shows that a pastor’s role is to keep kids of drugs.  It’s simpler than that:

There’s no way that following Jesus gives you license to be a jerk.

This is my struggle with two large and influential segments of Christian thought.

1) Christendom-Minded Christians.  Theses are the people that believe the church’s role is to enforce their morality.  Not satisfied with teaching and baptize in the name of Jesus, they create bumper stickers, picket abortion clinics and strip clubs, and become overly involved in politics.  Their righteous intentions lose ground and inevitably create an “us versus them” mentality. This is the first step to becoming a jerk.

2) Grumpy Calvinists, and Mean Spirited Liberals.  Calvinism, often appealing to heady thinkers with rigorous personal standards, can easily become an Us vs. Them religion.  When concepts like especially the Limited Atonement and Predestination become more central than grace, theology creates excuses to be mean to outsiders.  Liberals do this too, with their constant jabs at those who do not rally to their causes. They can be more known for who they are against than the good they want to see done in the world.

Jesus wasn’t a push over, and he wasn’t nice to everybody.  But he did love the world enough to die for it. He poured his life into cultural outsiders, and called the insiders to account for not living up to their beliefs.  Jesus wasn’t a jerk.

While there is much good to be done in developing our theology or making social change, here is an easy question to help us approach our thoughts and actions: Will doing this make me a jerk?

12 Plans for 2010: August Check In

At the beginning of each month I’m sharing about some plans I’ve made, with the hope it will hold me accountable.  What are your plans this year?

1.  Read the whole Bible. Stalled out in 1st Kings.  Got a lot of work to do.

2.  Run a full marathon. I’m going to try to get back to running a few times a week this month.

3.  Climb a 14,000′ Mountain. Although I hate to give up on any of my plans this year, I don’t see this as a financial possibility in 2010.

4.  Visit somewhere I’ve never been. I’m going to count my week in the mountains of California towards this one.

5.  Find a full-time job. Got another interview coming up!

6.  Take at least one graduate course. I’ll have a concrete date on this soon.

7.  Read 40 books. I’m about to knock out Hearing God, Practicing the Presence of God, Rework and a novel called The Dreaming Void.

8.  Volunteer at least 1 time a month. Made dinner for the crew at Foundation For the Homeless last week.

9.  Pay off all debt, except school loans. COMPLETED! I am free of all non-school debts!

10. Share my faith regularly. Some cool stories are coming together.  Hope to share them soon.

11. Begin leading and/or hosting a regular gathering for skeptics and Christians to study the Bible. See #11.

12. Write daily, including journaling, blogging and working on a book. I’m working on a new project that I’m pretty excited about.  I’ll be posting a link here soon.

Tags: 12 Plans for 2010

Inception Isn’t That Difficult

Christopher Nolan’s latest mindbender focuses on the way that our subconscious ideas shape our waking life.  The basic idea behind Inception is that if you can get inside someone’s dreams, you can steal what’s important to them, and maybe even force them to think something that goes against their beliefs.

The fact of the matter is, Inception isn’t nearly the three-level-dream-near-impossibility that the movie makes it out to be.  Everyday, ideas are planted in our heads that are not our own.

Constant sexual billboards reshape our own personal self images or ideas of what’s attractive.  Advertising makes us think that the newest gadget or service will give us satisfaction.

More insidious are the messages we pick up from those around us.  Constantly being bullied as a child, or growing up in an unhealthy home teaches us lies that can shape what we decide to do with our lives.  Repeated failures can convince us that it’s not worth taking risks.

Beyond what we see, there are spiritual forces at work, whose main weapon is lies.  Trying to distract us from what matters.

Perhaps the role of the Church is to call out the lies of society, and to form a community that demonstrates what it means to live in Truth.  And perhaps the role of the individual Christ follower is to dig out the deeply planted lies within, and discover who they truly can be.

Tags: Christopher Nolan, DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nolan

Camp Review

I’m back in Austin after a great week with the crew from Wildside at Daybreak Camp in northern California.  It was great to be in the mountains, hang out with old friends and make some new ones, and talk about our Shepherd.

The theme of the camp was Epic, and it is modeled after the book Hinds Feet on High Places.  Each morning, the campers would visit an “altar,” where I shared a portion of the allegory, and they had a time of prayer and reflection.  In the evening, they revisited a changed altar, and I shared about some corresponding topics from scripture.  (That’s me speaking in the “Valley of Humiliation.”)

We talked about pride, loneliness, peacemaking, giving up your burdens, dying to self, and being a new creation.  May sound heavy for middle schoolers, but the kids handled it well.

Props to the directors for an incredibly imaginative Camp, and letting me be a small part of it.