Purpose

Authentic Fruit Is What Happens When Parents Pour Into Kids, Creating Spiritual Desperation

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

After gabbing it up with my teenage daughter as they waited in line that day, the stranger grabbed my arm and whispered, “You did a great job with her. She is so kind. Well done, Mama.”

After I picked my ego up off the floor, where it has been the last two decades, trampled by societal expectations for a productive life (Hint – Homeschooling is not a candidate in this employment contest), I pinned my self-esteem back onto my chest, and thought, “Yes! You are right! She IS amazing!”

But the thing is, she didn’t come out of the womb this way

Even after 10,893,231 conversations in which I turned blue in the face and explained how to fit into society (i.e. NOT by wearing pasta in our hair when in a restaurant), she STILL wasn’t that easy to be around.

The POINT is that homeschooled kids are often well-adjusted because:

(1) Parents KNOW what is going on, in terms of that naughty behaviour we would rather not deal with, but that we have to address because we are spending 10,000 minutes (almost all the time) with them again this week,

(2) Parents can’t ship them off on a bus every morning, even BECAUSE they know what is going on (They would say “Thank God” if they would go on a bus SOMETIMES), and,

(3) Parents are confronted day after day, hour after hour, minute after long minute some days with the FACT that they are spending INORDINATE amounts of time with unsanctified humans.

Worse, parents are confronted with the reality of OUR need for sanctification, and this is humiliating for us. So, we run to God and beg for help on our knees BECAUSE we are ALL such desperate losers. But the sweat and tears of our prayers eventually sanctify our kids BECAUSE they receive this message of grace through our lives, as God sanctifies us.

Translation: We ADMIT we parents are losers, and then we gently reveal the truth to our child that she, too, did the wrong thing again when she smacked that kid on the head with her firetruck because she wanted HIS cupcake too.

But this grace in our lives, this deep understanding of our need for forgiveness, softens our speech a little.

do not provoke your children . . . by the way you treat them

Ancient Text

And this broccoli seasoned with the melted cheese of our own desperate need for forgiveness becomes a food our kids can swallow.

And we both grow a little more today, our plant’s roots grasping a little more of the water that truly satisfies, and so fruit in our lives and our kid’s lives will begin to grow.

It’s a law of nature.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.

The Message

And when they compliment you again for having kind kids?

You can sit back, relax, take a sip of a cold summer drink and know that the path of life you chose was a good one, which is bearing fruit in your life, too.

Pick some fruit from the tree of your life and enjoy it today.

Well done, Mom and Dad.

God sees your investment in your kids. His praise that you followed His lead is the food that truly satisfies. Nothing good comes without sweat and handing over our fears to God.

How are you choosing to invest your life?

Homeschoolers Heal Us By Modelling How To Shake Fear And Blossom

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

We were discussing the more profound things of life, unearthing the cultural assumptions that keep us in bondage.

And this is what she said: “Homeschooling gave me the confidence to try new things.”

She said it matter-of-factly, confidently, as if she believed it. She was homeschooled, and then homeschooled her kids. So she had many years to mull over homeschooling.

I was struck by her confidence and creativity to try new things, but she brushed me off, attributing these traits to being homeschooled. For example, she is a self-taught photographer and took these photos of our daughter, assuring us that her red dress would “pop” in the pictures at this location. She was right.

She explained her homeschooling philosophy to me as her camera clicked, “When you are homeschooled, there aren’t as many kids hovering over you, making fun of you for trying something different. So I felt free to try new things.”

She painted her family’s camping trailer with flowers and a mountain scene and then was commissioned by her city to paint a mural.

“I’m mostly self-taught,” she explains, but she’s having fun, exploring the talents God endowed her with, instead of burying them in fear, as so many of us accidentally do.

“I was afraid I might disappoint you . . .”

(Jesus) was furious. ‘That’s a terrible way to live!”

The Message

But we’d rarely seen another way.

She reminds me of my kids, who are also homeschooled.

For example, today, our family is in Salt Lake City, Utah, attending a “Reborn” doll conference.

Our 15-year-old daughter had the confidence and time to explore the God-given gifts endowed to her, too

Last week, she sold one of her dolls overseas for over $400.

“I didn’t know you could do that!” I exclaimed from my public-schooled worldview.

She didn’t know either.

But she’s not afraid to try.

Our other daughter wrote and self-published a novel by the time she was 15 years old.

What would we do if we weren’t afraid to try?

I would keep writing even though you may laugh at me. How is God calling you to awaken? What do you imagine the next step is on the life adventure He has mapped out for you?

Ready to take another step, friend?

Let’s hold hands because I’m afraid, too.

I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.

Ancient Text

The definition of courage is NOT “Not being afraid” but “Doing it anyway.”

What is God whispering to you?

What’s the next step?

Let’s go!

He’s waiting.

The Eye-Opening Way To Soar Like A Bird Over The Desert Of A Wasted Life

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I was flying one day, soaring like a bird. I could see for miles around. I could hear God whisper, even though I doubted I heard correctly or well.

He said He was pleased with me.

I had a life the world scrunched up like used paper, ready to toss in the garbage.

But God saw a world of possibilities on the horizon of my life as we soared that day above the clouds.

I had invested my life. I had spent my life, out of the world’s horizon of possibilities, in one tiny area. I had invested most of my health and youthful vitality into two small children.

Homeschool them, He had whispered that day.

And through my tears, and hopes, I obeyed, never imagining how far into the horizon of my life this journey would take me.

And again, He said, year after year.

And when I look back now, with my hurting back of older age and the gray hairs that crown my face, it was a worthless life, one the world throws away.

“Heaven always recognizes the fathers and the mothers who pay the price and create momentum for following generations. Fathers and mothers, in eternity, always receive benefits (if you will) from what their investment provided in future generations . . .

Be willing to be the first in your family to break into something.

Be willing to pay the price to get a breakthrough that the rest of your descendants will benefit from because heaven applauds those whose . . . anointing is less, but they created the momentum so that another generation could inherit it and take it to a place they never had time to go.”

Bill Johnson in The Test For Promotion

“She threw away her talents!” they exclaim. My national government, the university and others had thrown money at me in my youth. “Study and take this valued position,” they offered.

And I did, for a while.

And then I homeschooled my kids for many, many years.

Why?

I don’t know.

I’m following my Saviour, and this is where He led me.

He seems to be leading some others there, too.

I am not a chess player, but only one of His pieces.

I must trust that my life, rightly lived, opens the door to the wind of the spirit of His work in the world.

And where is He leading me next?

It doesn’t matter.

Because in His arms, I can place the stewardship of my life. I feel alive there. I pray for you, too, to be set free from the snares of the approval our society offers, entangled by the search for ever more wealth, when we have enough food for today.

I pray for the strength to invest in little people if He calls you to set aside time for this.

And not everyone is called to homeschool, of course.

But wherever He calls you, I pray you follow.

And in each season of our lives, may we lay down how we thought life would be and pick up the strange reality of His life at work through a group of people ready to join the adventure.

Where is He leading you in this season?

Need some water for the journey? I hold out my canteen to you. And come on, let’s rest in this cabin we stumbled across before we start again, journeying tomorrow.

A little rest will do us good.

“Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest . . . Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

The Message

Have any food to share?

And may you have the strength to journey on again tomorrow, friend.

May the food God sends you be enough for today.

God then told Elijah . . . “You can drink fresh water from the brook; I’ve ordered the ravens to feed you.”

The Message

God, may we be awakened to see with Your eyes we pray.

Value The Comfort Of Fear More Than Freedom?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

That meadow in the sunlight. The place where we dance and feel free. The place outside that smells of wildflowers and the freshest air.

Where is it?

I lost it in the busyness of life.

Instead, I am inside, head down, working on my computer. Was that a rat scurrying in the distance? I didn’t have as much weekend time to deep clean as I would have liked.

Where did my dream of what life was supposed to be like vanish?

I live in this tiny apartment created by my fear.

What if?

I don’t have time to wander outside with my backpack, eating the apple I distractedly packed along the way. How can we stumble upon life’s meadows if we don’t have time to look for them? What does it look like for my eyes to search the most distant horizon?

I forgot.

Jesus opens the door in this stuffy room. The open door beckons me outside. Come for a walk with me, He offers.

And the pile of to-dos stays on the desk as I walk and then run outside with my friend, Jesus.

My legs felt weak, and I stumbled as I laughed, breaking into to run.

I haven’t used my legs for a while.

All that sitting and worrying has caused my muscles to atrophy a bit.

But as I run with Jesus in that place of rest, I feel my legs, arms and lungs growing more robust.

The Lord replied, “I will personally go with you . . . and I will give you rest

Ancient Text

I can see further when He beckons me to look at the far, far distant horizons. My eyes hurt from the strain. I hadn’t lifted my vision beyond my overwhelming concerns for a while.

I can sense my muscles are more substantial, my bones sturdier, my thoughts sharper. I feel more like the human I am meant to be after spending time in the spiritual clouds.

And it’s going to be okay.

Because when I walk, hand in hand, back to that tiny apartment with Jesus, he holds a button attached to a long cord that snakes to my apartment. The button can ignite the fuse attached to the dynamite that explodes the tiny apartment I used to live in, the one confining me by my fears.

It’s not that my fears have left me but that I have left them.

Jesus gives me enough food for today to live in freedom.

And I’m snatching up this food and eating my fill.

I’d rather fly.

You?

Don’t Attend Church Looking Bad – How To Look Good!

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

As you know or can presume from the style and classiness of these posts, I have excellent taste.

Ahem.

And I hesitate to point out, most reluctantly, that in this post, the exact BRANDS and style of clothing I was wearing were noted for interested readers! (I mention that cautiously and with true humility, of course.) In this post, I describe the fancy hat collection I am developing for use in my old age.

So yes!

I CAN EASILY advise on how to look good!

So, HOW do we look VERY GOOD at church, you ask? Great question! I’m SO glad you asked! Ahem!

First, set aside your pride and go ahead and have a big ‘ol ugly cry at church. Seriously! I describe my own (rare) undignified moment here.

You’re welcome.

But wait, wait, you ask, “How does ugly crying make us look good?” It seems the opposite would be true! You hang on my every word, waiting to discover how to lock and seal this seemingly disparent advice into a philosophically coherent indisputable argument.

I’ll explain.

The more we air our neuroses (sorry for the analogy, but it’s like flatulence), the less we smell bad! Seriously! Now, you know that I never even like to MENTION the word flatulence, as described here. However, the analogy fits SO perfectly.

When we hold in, er- what SHOULD be aired – the inside of us smells terrible, though the outside has no odour. Okay, this analogy MAY be breaking down a bit, but you get my point, I think? If we HOLD IN our neuroses, and pretend everything is okay when it isn’t, the inner neuroses pick away at us, and the rotten stench that all of us carry around with us festers there, though often we are the only ones who can smell it.

(If you think you always smell good, have you ever wondered – “AH! What IS the meaning of my life?” – JUST before you fall asleep? If so, that’s a case in point. You are more messed up than you let on, too!)

So, let out the uglies! A little cry at church is just the thing. You’ll find that people who love you bring you a Kleenex and a pat on the shoulder.

They may not be able to help you much, but they genuinely want to, which counts for something.

You see, at church, God COMMANDS others to love you. Now, granted, NONE of us are that good at loving others, but some have figured out how to channel a morsel of God’s love for us through their arms into compassion.

These are the people we can be honest with, and -no surprises here – they have already taken their turn in the ugly seat.

They are not surprised by your big cry!

And somehow, expressing what we feel is enough to keep the evil dragon at bay for a while.

Knowing that someone is praying for us helps too.

Add a little time with the Father to ask Him a bit more about WHY we were neurotic freaks at church last week and He gives us the Kleenex that is the softest kind that dries all of our tears because His Kleenex is fragranced with hope.

At church, they will read to you from a book, and it may say something like this:

For everyone. . . fall[s] short of God’s glorious standard.

Ancient Text

And this will put a bounce in our step and hope in our hearts.

We’re not as neurotic as we thought!

Well, we are if we dig deeper, but that’s for next Sunday.

The point is, we’re not sucking in our guts anymore, pretending our way through life.

‘May it be the real I who speaks. May it be the real Thou that I speak to.’

CS Lewis – Letters to Malcolm

Whatever we bring to the light can be healed.

Whatever we hide infects us, rotting away at our insides.

So let’s let our neuroses out!

And maybe after we’ve let out some of the uglies, we may shift the direction of the ship we are sailing a little closer to true north.

And as we go about our week, we’ll find we are starting to smell better!

We’ll look better, too, through God’s eyes.

When Seeking a Simple U-Turn From Drowning To Delight

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Homeward Bound, Again

A cacophony

My head explodes from the noise

Quiet!

The mundane and the repetitive and the

Scrambling over one another

The pressing down of the other

Must STOP

At last

It is quiet

My boots crunch the spring needles

And I finally feel peace

Alive

Look!

A spring visitor with her mate

Chirping at us, welcoming us to

Our own home

A home we forgot to visit

“Come hither!” she beckons

We remember our true home

And journey deeper

Into the forest

Your heart and mine

Beat as one now

I left my idols at home

My schedule

My dominion

My distractions

My crutches

I am a vulnerable beast

Among others

Walking

Remembering my true home

You

Guide me

Comfort me

Show me what you see

Give me a glimpse through

Your telescope

Of the distant mountains

Snow melting

Rivers filling

It is spring

Get ready

Forget about what’s happened;
    don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
    It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?

(Says God) in The Message

How To Find The Faith To Be Set Free (Hint – It’s Under Our Fear)

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Our pastor is unusual.

And one aspect of his life, the part he doesn’t notice, points at the reality of what my life could look like.

If I can only find my freedom.

I look desperately in my closet for a flying suit.

For something to make me look like one of those flying squirrels.

Flying squirrels DON’T, in fact, fly.

They take longer to land because of the large flaps of skin under their armpits.

But even counterfeit flying is more than I have the strength to hope for.

No luck.

No squirrel costumes were tucked away in my closet or my mind.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fly.

I sit down to my lunch again and to my thousands of notifications online. I’m busy. I forgot that I lost my hope.

And then, through his example, this pastor opened the window in that stale room where I placed my discouragement.

Maybe there is hope I can shake this fear after all? Fear follows me when I try to fly like a rock tied to my foot. I try to shake it off.

When I don’t rise very high on the spiritual adventure God bids me to take with him, I shrug my shoulders and move on.

Because we all carry rocks, don’t we? Time to sit back down and enjoy my lunch and … wait! What did the pastor say?

He told us, “Be careful walking to your car. There are some interesting characters out.”

He warns us to be careful in our sleepy, mostly nonviolent town. There are indeed some guys on bikes doing who knows what. But these ruffians are harmless for the most part when they interact with strangers passing by.

The surprising part is this pastor’s grace extended to OUR fears compared to his OWN freedom in response to fear.

On the one hand, he warns us, protects us, and wants to ensure we feel comfortable in the most minuscule place of danger.

On the other hand, he just returned from another lone trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo last week, where civil unrest and bloodshed are as commonplace as the birds singing each morning here in our tiny town.

He is genuinely concerned about our fears – real or imagined. However, fear is not a significant factor in limiting his obedience to the voice of God. The opposite extremes startle me.

The “I don’t want you to feel unsafe” and “I travel to nutso places 99.999% of us wishy-washy first-world types would never dream of going of our own volition” is jarring.

He’s not a cowboy type, swaggering his bravado and making fun of us skinny wimps in the corner, afraid to speak at the high school dance. He takes our fears, real or imagined, seriously.

Kind of like God does with us.

And, of course, this pastor is a human, and so he is also annoying like us. But this one aspect of his life is an enigma that gives me hope.

Can I take my fears seriously and still not be imprisoned by them?

It feels like the rock is about to fall off my foot, allowing me, finally, to be light enough to learn to fly.

I can smell freedom, like fresh air, in a stale room.

Do you need help untying that rock from your foot, too?

I wonder how high in the spiritual realm God will lead us.

Come on! Let’s give it a try, friend.

Our destinies are waiting for us. Wearing this layer of hope, like a parachute, is enough to give us strength to rise into a spiritual adventure. And what do you sense Holy Spirit nudging you to begin?

There’s a big pile of rocks or fear that we’ve placed over there on that table.

Ready to untie the rock of fear still attached to your foot and place it on the pile, too?

Jesus is comforting you as you do this, like our pastor is, through his example.

How are you an example in another’s life of how God can use an ordinary person to soar?

What is He saying when you have time to listen and through the community that encourages you?

It sure beats eating more snacks and waiting for text notifications to BING again.

Ready yet, friend, for the adventure of a lifetime?

Can’t find a map? Let’s talk about that next time.

Are We Firefighters Ready To Snuff Out Danger (And Hope)?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

I woke up this morning, and couldn’t find the fire within me.

It had been smothered again.

I dug through the ashes and discarded dead branches, frantically looking.

I know there is a spark somewhere inside, still burning.

I couldn’t find it.

I looked to heaven, asking for His fire to fall on my life again, to ignite the areas around my life so that I could see the smoke and notice the clues. So I can see where I need to remove the wet branches of our best ideas and where we can lie on the ground, blowing to life that which You have begun.

I called in a friend to help and we took turns, one keeping watch. Dangers lurk nearby. This beginning fire will be snuffed if our backs are turned even momentarily. That is how fear works.

I take off my backpack and my firefighting suit. I was never meant to wear it anyway. But I like to be safe.

It’s cold out here without my extra layers on. I don’t have enough to feel comfortable. But shedding the outer layer has increased my urgency to get this fire burning brighter.

Will you help me?

Our very lives, our joie de vivre, our hope, depend on it.

Can you take a turn blowing on these embers while I do some jumping jacks to get warm? Following His way is not the path of comfort. Our discomfort draws us to Him, to the flame, hoping for some heat from these smoking embers.

When our lives turn to desperation, breakthrough is near.

Why had I ever been satisfied with less?

You?

Do you need to take off your firefighter’s suit, too, the outfit you wear just in case God’s fire will break out of the boundaries we established for this campfire?

Are you, too, afraid of being so close to fire without the necessary tools nearby to snuff out anything beyond the boundaries we establish as safe?

Have you put God in your box?

Do you stand nearby, fully dressed in firefighter’s gear, back to the embers, standing alert to open the fire extinguisher on the embers lest real flames burst forth? It’s dangerous having our backs to the fire.

How is your heart? Do you explain away the unexplainable? Do you say, “I’ll ponder that later,” to the hints of the divine you encounter in another’s life, in your own life?

Are you, too, one of the ones standing watch, back to the fire of what God wants to do through your life? Do your ankles quake, and your whole body shake as you stand, back to the flame, prepared for the inevitable? How are you doing, deep down?

Did our diligence with the fire extinguisher, smothering fires from heaven as they leap outside the bounds of a campfire, leave you exhausted and weary?

Come, friend. Come and sit by this fire. Let’s take off your firefighter’s suit, too.

You don’t need it anymore. Yes, you will be cold and uncomfortable. Let this discomfort push us closer to the embers, to the fires of where His spirit is moving as we seek our and each other’s breakthroughs.

And when you find some warmth, let it spark the kindling in your heart afresh.

Only then does real life begin.

[Jesus] will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.

The Message

Roll A Dice or Ask God?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

What is the best way to make decisions? Does God play a part in our future decision-making? And if so, how?

Do we sit alone in our bedroom, eyes tightly closed and hope for a magic genie or an angel to answer questions about our careers or other important life decisions?

Or do we say a quick prayer and then do what seems right in our eyes, ignoring God until Sunday morning?

Or is there a middle way, where He sometimes speaks and where we sometimes hear Him?

I choose the rolling a dice option.

Roll the dice. My degree major is . . .

Four years later, I exited college, holding that degree certificate and wondering whether to turn left or right at the next fork in the road.

Can I borrow your dice?

We expect to make decisions this way.

This is mostly because we’d never heard of strolling through life any other way.

The chatty stranger I met yesterday recalled that when he was in his late teens, his mom announced that she wouldn’t have a son of hers playing video games in the basement! (There may have been an interesting story there, but he skipped that part.)

Regardless, it was time for him to find a job.

He flipped through the local college career guide like a Sears catalogue and chose “Millwright.”

The term had a nice ring to it.

Thirty working years later, he was sitting in a local coffee shop recounting this story to me.

It was time for his daughter to flip through an updated Sears catalogue, close her eyes, point to a career option and . . . BINGO! What career lay under her finger when she opened her eyes? Better dedicate the next 40 years to that option….!

What if there is a better way?

There is.

I recently chatted with two local teens from our church at a sledding party. We discussed their futures between the “Yahoo!” and crashes.

For a few minutes.

I had been thinking recently of offering to pray for discernment with her, to sort out the youth’s fears from her passions, to think through whether red herring motives, such as a desire for excessive money, praise of others, or prestige, were the sneaky drivers in their car, leading eventually to a crash when these idols failed 5 or 15 or 20 years later.

To pray and listen together.

We didn’t make the time for that, but it was on my to-do list. Way, way down on my to-do list. But on my heart.

When I spoke to one of them yesterday, I felt Holy Spirit guiding the questions.

And then, as she spoke about something else, Holy Spirit whispered, teacher. She’s a teacher.

I was startled.

So was she.

Fear of being good enough at explaining things had been holding her back. However, she was offered a part-time teaching assistant job at a local school she hadn’t applied to yet. I encouraged her to update her resume, apply for this part-time job and check it out.

She had been procrastinating, letting fear hold her back.

Then the teen confided that many years ago, while praying, a young girl told her that she thought God was saying she would be a teacher, also.

Hmmm . . . maybe God IS like the potter, shaping us, moulding us, knowing who we are.

It sure beats rolling a dice.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help.

The Message

Whether she chooses to work through her fears is her decision. My role was only to plant a seed. She may dig up the plant and toss it aside or water and nurture it if she senses God also guiding her in this direction.

And if I was wrong, then she can slap me in the face and we move on! (Actually she doesn’t slap me in the face. She has to love me!) But if I got it wrong, as I strain to understand and practice listening to God with my broken ears, I chalk it up to a learning experience and try again tomorrow.

We’re learning together how to walk in faith.

And sometimes, when we pray for and love one another, what He says is amazing.

Like the time God directed my career through the prayer of a friend.

Thank you, Jesus, for loving to answer us when we call to You! Help us let You steer our cars. We pray you blow your healing wind on our ears so the muffled sounds make sense to our hearts with broken motives and unhealed desires.

Anger, Not Indifference, Expresses Love

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

The bible story pictures tend to most often portray Jesus sitting on the grass, Buddha style, with some children frolicking nearby, spewing truths that people fell over themselves trying to catch.

Which would be true.

But Jesus also got angry.

Anger fueled by love that erups within our souls like a volcano sometimes contains the seeds that can eventually heal culture.

TED: How To Make Peace? Get Angry by Kailash Satyarthi

Examples of the rumble in my soul:

  • Smartphones and other devices distract us from the search for God that stirs our souls. We yawn, and these devices sing us a lullaby and tuck us into bed. Hours and hours of these distractions put the raging monster, capable of transforming an entire cultural landscape to sleep with its soft coos and gentle caresses.  Sleep, little babe, sleep.  And we obey.
  • For those of us who claim to follow Jesus, which almost one-third of the people on earth claim to do, we are told we are part of God’s army of brave warriors. But we too often look at the armour next to us on the ground, asking “Isn’t it too heavy to lift, and how does one fasten these garments anyway?” We lamely look around and see some using their swords with skill, defeating the evil of the mind, and they beg us to join them in the fight. God whispers to us but we don’t hear Him. We are looking for something – our ears.
  • A generation of tots lined up in rows, and we calmly watch as they march in neat little rows, each one off the edge of the cliff. “What can we do anyway?” we mourn a bit to each other amidst sips of tea.  And so, a generation is led to the pit of pornography addiction and masochistic internet violence as a common cultural pastime.  They spend the next decades trying to struggle out of the steep-sided, sand-covered pit of secret sexual addictions*.  And we turn our backs so that we can’t see them fall.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM

Are we ready, yet, to wake early and cry out from the fetal position, begging for wisdom, ears to hear, and a living heart in exchange for our hardened coal-shaped ones?

And as we are comforted by Jesus, is He asking us to comfort or to challenge our secular or church culture or to change our actions? He gives us a drink of His medicine that hurts us and then heals us of the diseases caught by our culture. Anyone thirsty?

What mountainside is He asking us to allow to be transformed by righteous anger spawned by love for God, ourselves, and others? 

How does God want to transform our righteous anger into love in action?

And volcanos affect others. And so another person picks up the ash-laden, dirty piece of paper spewed from one of these God-inspired volcanos.  Can they make out the letters, which are dirty and half missing? 

Yes, they read it . . . “Climate injustice is linked to poverty,” says one scrap of paper. And with a gentle nudge from our Saviour, a rub on the back, telling her it is okay to be angry, another explosion, and another and another, for the ash from one volcano encourages the next to explode. 

Love for God, for our fellow human sheep, those both lost and found, beget love in prayer and action.

And are we afraid?  

Afraid of who we would be, of what we would do if we stopped holding in our anger, stopping sucking in our stomach like a weightlifter, stopped smiling to show off artificial, TV-worthy teeth? 

What if we didn’t care what they thought of us or what we looked like?  What if we looked more like John the Baptist, eating whatever we distractedly found along the way, dressed in ripped rags from our fierce single-minded pursuit of God, and covered in ash from being so close to the explosions? 

Because when God looks at us, sometimes He is looking for the fruit that the seed of anger produces in our lives.

So we can exchange our anger for love in action.

And that is how culture is restored.

Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, “Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!”

The Message

Blogpost Footnotes:

*For a secular example, see Chapter 4 of The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge