Don't Just Do Something, Stand There: A Future Without Me

"Anxiety is a result of envisioning the future without me." - Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

I don't know about you, but this quote hits me right between the eyes, and it speaks directly into the story of 1 Samuel 3. Eli was promised in the previous chapter a world without him. In fact, even the future he found in his family would be taken away. This anxiety must have greatly disturbed Eli, and drove him into a place of resignation and apathy. Samuel, on the other hand, represents a non-anxious world. He becomes more well-known, and God blesses Samuel. None of his words fall to the ground, which means that all of Samuel's words are infused with meaning and hope.

I find myself in the shoes of Eli sometimes. A lot, in fact. One of the processes I have been undertaking in the past several months is to ask the painful question: "What am I really afraid of?" If my worst fears come true, what will happen?

Answer: I'm alone. I'm in a world without me; or perhaps better put, a world with only me. That's a scary thought. And the fear of being in a world without me drives some of my actions. I get apathetic when I should be fired up, I resign myself to a lesser way of being because I am afraid that to risk a better way of being will lead to isolation. One of my favorite groups, The Bravery, has a song called "Believe." In that song, these lyrics haunt me:

I am hiding from some beast
But the beast was always here
Watching without eyes
Because the beast is just my fear
That I am just nothing
Now its just what I've become
What am I waiting for
Its already done...

Fear is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I fear isolation, I will not risk vulnerability and the possibility of being abandoned, which will lead to my isolation. "The beast is just my fear that I am just nothing, now it's just what I've become..." is a perfect description of the power of fear.

But in Jesus Christ, there is a perfect love that drives out fear (1 John 4). In Jesus Christ, there is the promise that we will never be in a world without us (John 14). In Jesus Christ, there is strength for today and hope for tomorrow. So how is that love going to drive out our anxiety and fear?

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There: Laying in front of the Ark

Frankly, no image from this passage strikes me just the way Samuel laying in front of the ark does. What did you want most when you were 10 or 12? If you are anything like me, you craved comfort. Knowing your parent or guardian was right around the corner, being safe from all the sounds a house can make, and one's favorite blanket (maybe I'm channeling Linus from Peanuts fame). Somehow, I think Samuel craved the same things. And to be honest, what more comforting place could there be than the place where God is?

There is a danger in approaching this side of spirituality, the side of finding refuge in God. That danger is that our emotions can sometimes control our sense of spirituality. If we don't "feel it," then we are in a bad spiritual place or disobedient. When we do "feel it," then we are in a perfect place beyond reproach. And so we become dependent on our feelings to dictate our spiritual health. Emotions are important in spirituality, but not as a controlling force. To be honest, if I only laid down before the ark (took time to be with God and God alone) only when I felt like it, I wouldn't do it very often. And if I gauged my "quiet time" on my emotional satisfaction afterward, I would be a horrible Christian. I might be anyway, but it won't be my emotions that tell me that.

All in all, laying in front of the ark and desiring closeness with God is not about emotional highs and satisfaction, it is about a lifestyle of nearness with God. And if a 10 year old can cultivate that kind of nearness with God, I think I can too.

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There: Open Them Doors!

There is a ton of contrast in 1 Samuel 3. One of my new favorites is the light in the tabernacle. The tabernacle was designed that the room where the ark was would be completely sealed off- it would be dark. It was meant to be dark, with only a small lamp to light the room. This was the lamp of God that was going out. That lamp was a symbol- Israel's faith was about to go out and it would be replaced by total darkness. It was on the eve of the end that Samuel went to sleep in the Holy of Holies (or the Holiest Place). But while sleeping, Samuel is called by God and everything begins to change. A new day is born, and hope has been reborn. And so Samuel throws the doors open to the tabernacle, flooding it with light.


The opening of the doors has a couple meanings. The first meaning is that light has now re-entered the tabernacle. God has "come back" in a pretty big way.

But the other meaning, the one that tugs at my heart, is that now the Word of God can explode out and into the world like a rushing wind. It calls to mind this prophecy of Isaiah 2:
In the last days

the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.

3 Many peoples will come and say,

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

5 Come, O house of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD.

The light is meant to go out. The Word is meant to travel. God's presence is for the sake of the world. It is not contained in cathedrals or house churches, chapels or coffee shops. The light is meant for every dark place, beyond the comfortable and into the tragic, beyond the easy and into the complicated, beyond the safe and into the adventure. You are the tabernacle now. The Kingdom of God is in you now. Open them doors, and unleash a wild and crazy Kingdom of God on the world.

The LORD your God, the LORD is One: It's a process

I have a longstanding relationship with patience. It is not a healthy one. Patience is always nagging me, and I'm always telling patience to stop talking. If we were two people in a relationship, we'd need counseling. However, Deuteronomy 6:4-9 calls me to reconcile my broken relationship with patience. Following God, it seems, is a process. In waking, sleeping, traveling, staying home, having a family, on my doors and gates, faith is a process that is fairly consuming. This means, if I am truly to believe it, that I am on a pathway that leads closer and closer to God. Perhaps nobody reading this today struggles with shame, but I do. When I make mistakes, I think to myself "Why can't I be better than this!?!" Believe me, it's not helpful. I see my mistakes and disobedience as completely bad and as things that lead me farther from God. But are they? If it is true that my errors lead me away from God, then I am usually one step forward, two steps back. I'm farther from God than when I first began! But if my sin, my errors and my mistakes can be used to draw me closer to God, then everything's different. Then I can celebrate my learning, I can celebrate God calling me to a higher place- a better place. I can celebrate that God draws near to me in those times and, through the Holy Spirit, speaks clearly into my life at those times. Christians over the centuries have practiced various kinds of confession- and sometimes confession leads us to the guilty places and makes us feel that we are drifting farther and farther from God. Imagine if confession looked like this, "God, today I celebrate that in spite of my impatience, you teach me that you have a plan and that to you a day is a thousand years. Thank you for the grace to make this mistake and the encouragement to live life differently." This still takes our disobedience seriously- since we recognize that there is a cost to disobedience. And it takes forgiveness seriously- since we recognize that God is more interested in our growth than our guilt. What do you think?

The LORD our God, the LORD is One: There's an app for that

Confession: I have an app for everything. Apps, or smartphone applications, have recently become the thing that has overcome my life. Now, many of them are good. I recently paid a bill the moment I remembered it from my Huntington app. I can add stuff to my calendar even when away from my computer. I even have swap meets with other iPhone users (some of whom read this blog regularly... you know who you are) where we compare the newest and greatest apps. As for me, I mostly get the free ones, but there are so many good free ones! I have 500 Bible translations in one app, a devotional, three or four news sources (everything from ABC to BBC) a few games, and social networking apps. My current favorite app is TED- which provides great ideas and new thoughts. It's fun. The fact is, there is an app for just about everything. In the four months I have owned an iPhone, apps have affected most aspects of my life. Even as I write this, I am texting on my phone and it is providing me live updates to my social networking (not that I am a huge fan of the live updates... but that's another conversation). And the weird part is, I am usually very excited when a new app comes along that fits into my life and makes it easier. Then I come back to Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Sometimes I wonder if I don't treat God as my iPhone, finding new ways that God can fit into my life. And then God is my newest and favorite app. But as I read Deuteronomy 6, I find that God does not fit into my life, but I fit into God's life. And how cool is that! Seriously! My life is one small existence, the Bible emphasizes that my life is like the morning dew. But God's life is an epic life of creation and redemption, of reconciliation and justice, of holiness and awe-inspiring intimacy. And although God is perfectly content in the Trinity, and is perfectly capable of running the universe without us, God invites us into that life. God invites us beyond ourselves and into something eternal. And so what would my life look like in God's? Now is as good a time as any to reference Robert Webber, author of "The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life." He has a whole chapter on our life in God's life, and he connects the life-in-God to a disciplined life. And at first, that could be off-putting. Isn't a disciplined life just another way of saying "you have to earn your place with God?" He argues it isn't. After all, we are all fairly disciplined people. We are just disciplined to the life we are currently living. Every day we live out promises that we have made, consciously or unconsciously, of who we are going to be. Transformation, therefore, is changing to promises and disciplines that we live by. It is not simply adding tasks to our day, it is slowly, subtly and powerfully changing the kind of person that we are. How is your life lived in God's?

The LORD our God, the LORD is One: My Greatest Treasure

This will be another confession post. On Sunday morning, I preached on the shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) and I described God as our greatest treasure, worthy of our heart, soul and strength. And as the sermon sat (and continues to sit) in my belly, I am stuck on that word treasure. I will confess that it occupied much of my run yesterday afternoon- I sang songs from childhood about treasuring God. And yet, something about that phrase "treasure" rings hollow. It's not that I don't believe that God is our greatest treasure- I do. I just examine my life and wonder what it would mean to treasure God. You see, when I think of the word "treasure," I imagine a child opening that one gift they really, really wanted on Christmas morning. I was totally that kid. I'd go nuts, jumping up and down excited for the one toy I really wanted. Here's what is also true- my "treasured" gifts were given to Goodwill or sold in a garage sale long ago. My jumping up and down was always a precursor to the inevitable disappointment when all the gifts were given and opened, and there were no more treasures for me. Perhaps I need to re-think treasure. When I think of treasure today, I really think of people. I think of my wife, whom I treasure. I think of my family and friends, whom I treasure. I don't jump up and down, per say, when I think of them. I think of our history, of the difficulties we have overcome, of our great moments together. And what I think of most is that they are never too far away- either a phone call or a walk home. And if that is truly treasure, then God is my greatest treasure. When I am really excited, I share my joy with God. I occasionally dance- but not in public. When I am grateful, God shares in that moment with me too. When I am frustrated, you better believe that God hears about it. When I am disappointed and burned out, God is the refuge I collapse into. Now certainly, I do not do these things perfectly all the time. But when I can go to God with anything, I know that God is my greatest treasure, beyond any material or spiritual blessing God could give me.

The Lord our God, the Lord is One: Love and Times of Recession

It is no secret that times are tough for a lot of people. My situation is unlike that of many people. Whereas 2008 marked severe disruption in people's careers and livelihoods, 2009 marked the beginning of my career. Thus, I have been insulated from the harsh reality that a lot of people have now experienced (and are continuing to experience). I can pay my bills, put some money away in savings, and I view significant drops in my retirement account with a certain amount of *shrug*. After all, I probably won't draw on that until after 2050. We will probably be ruled by the apes by then, and I won't need to worry about it. But I know that my experience is a limited one. For many, as exemplified by Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, these times are ruled by bitterness and cynicism rather than hope and trust. I will admit my own cynicism contributes as well. The bitterness and cynicism has been amplified by the fact that people are busier. Being laid off or unemployed is hard work. Navigating a support system, finding new and meaningful work, handling the stress and pressure is a full-time endeavor. For those who are still working, and trying to do twice the work as before, life is becoming busier and busier. Doing what we love, frankly, is becoming a luxury. And when we give up the things we love to support the people we love, we add just a little more bitterness and resentment to the pot. Movements begin to give people a united cause- blame. Children absorb this bitterness and resentment, leading to bullying (a different form of blame) and a rise in child/teen suicides. It should shock and disgust us that children are even aware of suicide- but now it's just a headline, like all the other suffering. And we get more bitter, and we blame more. And in the middle of all of this, the clarion call echos from Scripture- love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul and strength. What if our heart is broken, our soul is crushed and our strength is running out? Does God possibly want this busted offering? This would be a good place for me to turn on my "pump up" music and encourage us to follow the words of Nike and "just do it." But the reality of life is that you're told every day to "just do it." The God of the Bible doesn't seem to me to shrug off difficult circumstances and say "buck up and do it." Instead, the God of the Bible comes to us in our brokenness and our bitterness, our resentment and our resignation, and seeks to be our refuge. Sometimes, loving God with heart, soul and strength is found in service; other times, however, loving God with heart, soul and strength means collapsing into God. In all things, as it says on the door of a chapel in Stauton Harold (England), it means "to have done the best things in the worst times."