I love food. I guess that would be an obvious statement to anyone who knows me; but I do. I can quite honesty say I am involved in a passionate love affair with food, which has been quite scandolous at times. Food has quite honestly shaped by life. From my daily schedule to my monthy budget, food and the consumption of food has a huge influence on the way I go about my day.
What’s more, there have also been individual meals that have changed my life as well. This one time at a very popular chain resturant I had a sandwich that came on a Ciabatta bun. The main attractions was a grilled chicken breast, but it was what accessorized the chicken breast that made it life changing. Melted brie, prune chuntey, slided apples, spinach. The simple ingredients of positive life change. This is how food changes lives, and shapes entire cultures.
You can see food in two ways. My brother, the kineseologist would see food as the essential fuel for your body. The gasoline for the V-8 engine inside of you. Food is divided into fat content, calories per serving, disected down the grams of fiber, iron, potasium and protein. How to eat, what to eat, and when to eat it. The formula for a healthy life style. Then…there is me. To me food and formulized charts do not intersect. I know that fat makes food taste good…everyone does. I know that cheese can make anything that normal tastes bad, taste good…everyone does. I see food as an experience. Food has the ability to bring an entire family fued together at one table, something even the UN cannot do. Food can spark the beginning of a life long love relationship, the beginning of a successful business partnership or cement a friendship that will years later be classified a “best friendship”. Food is the essential pause in an otherwise hecktic day. Food makes you forget about how crappy you are feeling, how screwed up things are and how far you are away from home. Either way, food is essential to a healthy lifestyle.
I think about that as I read the Bible. I guess there are also two different ways to read the Bible. You can take it apart, verse by verse, analyse it and break it down into its parenthetical structuring and rebuild it hermenutically until you have each Greek or Hebrew verb in its original context. The problem with that is it leads to viewing the whole of Christianity on a flowing grid chart. The entire Christian experience ends up in formula, it ends up in rules, ending up in regulations, ending up in obligations, ending up in sitting in a church Sunday after Sunday with no real idea of why you are there outside of obligations, regulations, rules and forulmas. Reading the Bible is simply reading the rule book. It’s devoid of life, of love and most of all relationship with the Author.
Christianity, all along, has been about the relationship with the Author. Memorizing verses of Scriture, while all good, as I have found it, has really been about skimming over love poetry and only ever reading selected lines, until I get to the bottom and realize that the poem was exclusively written for me.

, Chad

Hi. It’s been a while.

As a Christian you are constantly striving for a higher level of devotion to Christ. Sometimes, things happen, decisions are made that can destroy any sense of closeness, and leave you in a world of regret and and heartfelt anguish. You are left in a lonely room of you’re own guilt and shame. In that time of solitude, accompanied only by your memories of your actions, and the fear of what is to come, you cry out to God for forgiveness. Looking for any sign from above that God is still willing to call you a child. You don’t know what He’ll say, but you plead for forgiveness and wait for a response. And it comes in the late hours of the moonless night.
Forgiveness from God comes in an instance. The sacrifice Christ made to secure our salvation and forgiveness was an eternal sacrifice that covered the sins of an entire mankind for all eternity, and through confession and repentance we can live inside of that eternal forgiveness.
However, it is the internal forgiveness that is like walking the long road home. Sometimes it takes years to overcome the guilt and shame and truly forgive yourself for the things of the past. This is the hardest part of the Christian life–knowing that Eternal forgiveness is already granted, but that internal forgiveness is the long road home.
, Chad

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love…

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

- Robert Robinson, 1758

Come now, my fount of many blessings. Make sense of this mess.
Yet when tomorrow comes, Your name still I will bless
Find me not outside your glorious will, find me in no sin
but now, I need a miracle, and find us friends again

Though you are above all else, and I underneath
My heart breaks daily at eye thy crimson sheath
Nye hour is upon us, the night standing still
for I find your grace again in the stroke of the quill

Find a way, give it air–Find a way to draw ‘er near
for here on my knees again, I consult every tear
lift my head in the time of thy angelic deed
and lift my heart in, O, my time of need

Come now, oh Father of every blessing, come in glorious splendor
Thou who was, and is–work as my glorious mender
Fall as snow once more, thy hour is near
And I will praise your name again, for you are here

– Chad

 “And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.” Matthew12:41-42 (KJV)

The offering plate passes. The silver reflects the house lights back into your eyes, as your hand reaches out to receive it from the family of four you have never seen before. The silver steel brings a sudden cold surge through your fingertips. The fresh polish feels smooth, your fingerprints leave evidence of your greasy fingers, making you feel guilty for ruining the shine.

You have been preparing all week for offering. Normally, offering doesn’t warrant a second thought during the grind of the day to day, but this week was different. Something was different. This week, you looked around and saw some things laying around that you’d like to get rid of, so you brought them all to church with you. This week, there were some things that started getting in the way as you went about you’re business, so you brought them all to church with you. This week, some things started to make you upset, so you brought them all to church with you. This week, you ran into something, hitting it hard enough you actually cried, you brought it to church with you. Yesterday, you came across something that broke your heart into pieces, so you brought it to church with you.

So this week, you walk into church with bags full of things you’re going to put into the offering plate. It’s a little unorthodox, but there’s nothing that stops you from your intent. First, you write a check, just a few dollars, all that wasn’t going to room and board. But then, you grab from underneath the pew the multiple bags of endless things that accompany you to church today. You reach inside and begin placing items, the previous one always leaving room for the next.

In the plate, you place your regret, that time it went to far, the words you can’t take back, the promises that lay shattered on the floor. You place your hurt, all the things that people have said that you haven’t been able to wash off. All the times you’ve been pushed to the floor, unable and unwilling to stand back up. You place your hatred, for yourself. All the scars on your body, on your heart, from the times when the pain was too much. Into the plate goes your mistrust, of others, of God. In goes your resentment towards your friends, your family and the church. In goes your addiction to pornography, your struggle with lust and your thoughts about the next door neighbor.

The bags empty, they get lighter and lighter and then empty. Somehow they all fit, though it seems like you could have filled stacks and stacks of plates by now. The tears roll down your cheek and into the offering. As if a seal. “Wow, do I not have the words to say”.

Jesus, please please take it. Take my offering. I know it’s not fair. Two mites, and then all of this. But I can’t have this stuff anymore. Please, take it. It’s all I have to give, it’s everything I have to give. I’m so sick of this stuff lying around.

The offering plate. I think, in adding to my previous entry…we’ve missed the point. I don’t know what else to say, besides the fact that the offering plate, is the offering plate.

, Chad

To be honest, here at the blog I strive for a certain level professionalism. When making certain assertions I use narrative to develop my statement, instead of coming right out and saying it, embarrassing myself in the process. This blog, while an expression of my relationship with Christ, and a tool in our journey together as Christians, is also an expression of my love and talent for writing, and so I do my best to integrate all three of those things when doing so.

However, it all flies out the window with this one.

Two words. Jesus Camp. It’s sad…because it’s true. This documentary from American film makers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, travels with American children’s evangelist and pastor Becky Fisher through America’s Heartland, ending up at “Kid’s on Fire” Children’s Camp. Like fat camp for Pentecostals, Kid’s on Fire, held in North Dakota, represents a branch of Christianity that has absolutely missed the point. They have missed the point of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they have missed the point on children’s ministry and they have missed the point of church altogether, in their blind affirmation of the Republican Party. They represent a facet of faith, completely out of touch with reality.

The devastation of this movie is two fold. The first is that the filmmakers portray this tiny faction of charismatics as the whole of evangelical Christianity, which is certainly not true. Yet, I could understand how they could come to such conclusions, and be lead to make such a film. Because, unfortunately, wacky charismatics are usually the most loud and proud about their faith.

Yet the second is more troubling. That is, that though there was a bias presented in the generalization of all evangelical Christianity, the film’s depiction of this particular sect of charismatics is fairly accurate. Though this brand of ubber-charismatics has existed since the great Pentecostal revivals, it stands as a great example of Christians missing the point.

The whole point of this entry is to point to one thing. Our ability to find relevance within our culture. Gaining the right to be heard by those around us. This was essential to Christ’s message to us.

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ’sinners’?”” (Matthew 9:10-11)

The religious leaders didn’t get it. They didn’t understand. How could a religious teacher be with sinners? Doesn’t he understand the ramifications of his actions? He’s completly desecrated himself by being with these people! It was a completely counter-cultural action, and a mind blowing sight to see a Jewish Rabbi, such as Jesus was thought of, flying in the face of God’s law. Yet it was the religious leaders who didn’t understand. They were the ones who missed the point. Christ found relevancy with these men, the very men he came to save.

He knew that the only way He could do any good for them, the only way he could accomplish his task was this way. By being in their lives, by being relevant to them. By going out and reaching them and meeting them where they were, in their everyday lives. Jesus knew that there was no way he would reach this people by merely sitting in the synagogue or in the Temple court and teaching all day long.

In order to do any good for anyone, if took reaching across the universe, reaching across the cultural norms, across the accepted application of the Holy Scriptures themselves, to touch the shoulder and change the life of the lost people He came to save. In order to have a voice into people’s lives, to really make a difference, Christ broken all the rules, ate with the people he loved so dearly, cried with the ones that cried, laughed with the ones that laughed.

Something I didn’t expect to see in Jesus Camp, was the face of a man who was made famous for his evangelicalness, and even more famous for his fall from it. Ted Haggard made an awkward appearance in his former role as lead pastor of his megachurch in Colorado. Ted Haggard is an example for someone without relevancy. Now, before you turn your computer off at that comment, let me finish. The nicely packaged, press suited Ted Haggard had no relevancy, even more so after what happened. Yet, I think, the Ted Haggard that openly struggles with his own sin nature could have, in the appropriate setting, had tremendous relevancy. Tremendous relevancy in a society full of people struggling with their own sin nature. Don’t miss the point. Maybe God can do something with where we’re at.

, Chad

“As soon as the meal was finished, he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.
Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them and they were battered by the waves. At about four o’clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. “A ghost!” they said, crying out in terror.
But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Courage, it’s me. Don’t be afraid.”
Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.”
He said, “Come ahead.”" (Matthew 14:22-33 MSG)

Nothing was out of the ordinary. The disciples had proceeded across the Sea of Galilee to the other side in order that they could prepare for ministry again the next day. They were simply following their teacher’s instructions as they started across, well into the night. They thought everything was going according to plan. They were in a situation that their master had put them. They acted in obedience, they weren’t afraid of anything, because they trusted Jesus, they trusted the calm of the Sea, they trusted the boat they were in, they trusted the skill of the people directed the boat along its course to their destination. They were comfortable with the way things were going, nothing was out of the ordinary. Nothing was wrong, in fact so much was right. They were in line with their Rabbi, their God and their plans. Everything was right. They were doing exciting ministry. They didn’t even fully understand how cutting edge they were in their faith and their obedience to Jesus. And in a second that all changed. In a single moment, there was a massive gap between where they were, and true faith-filled obedience. The movement they recognized Jesus walking on the waves, smoothly gliding to the other shore wasn’t quite enough. Yet, Peter was the only one to recognize it. In that moment, where he was wasn’t close enough to Christ anymore. Simply, because it wasn’t as close as possible. So, there was a decision to be made. Do I leave the comfort of this ship, the safety I have in this place, to go and be closer to Jesus. I’m confident in where I am. I know that this ship, if it maintains it’s present pace and condition, will arrive when and where I want it to. I am secure here, because I know that I’m wanted and respected and required in this place among my friends. So, am I willing to leave all of that, to risk on Jesus? Do I know it’s really him? How do I know that I won’t be leaving to my death among the waves? What if I lose my friends and all that I’m leaving behind, if only because I look stupid doing what I’m thinking about doing? What if I fail? What if I’m not good enough to be supported on the water? What if I’m not the one Christ wants? I bet he’d rather have John come to him. He loves John so much. Is this worth it?
I don’t think it’s much support to Peter, that thousands of years later, the fact that he began to sink in the waves still discredits him amoung Christians. Don’t you hate when your friends don’t let you forget your most embarrasing moments? But the truth is, for that moment in time, where he was wasn’t close enough for Peter. Removing the space between Christ and himself was worth the risk.

Your going along just fine. You’re comfortable in your situation. You have safety and security. I know when and where things will take place. I have the confidence of the people around me. In fact, all I’m doing is what Christ told me to do in the first place. I’m just following instructions. And yet, in one moment, when Christ appears, and asks me to leave a situation behind in order to follow him in a new direction, is it worth the risk? And I willing to follow? There are no guarantees*. It is worth leaving a situation behind, maybe a loved one, maybe a job, maybe an opportunity, in order to see what Christ will do if you have the faith to get out of the boat?

* “Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5 b cf. Deuteronomy. 31:6)

, Chad

Two feet closer to the door
I stop and wait for you to speak
Nothing’s coming out, but I know
there’s so much on your mind

Why don’t you say
Why don’t you speak
Get it out into the air
if they saw the sun and died
but you don’t know to share
your words do more inside

The night is still, there is nothing making any noise. An air of anticipation rises as a gentle hum on the air and comsumes the senses. Chills run down the spine, but you dare not make a sound for fear of ruining the silence. This time is so special, everything you ever wanted it to be, and yet nothing of what you expected it to be. You close your eyes, but it’s so dark iit doesn’t make any difference. Questions surround your head, about what He will do next. You take one last deep breath, but stall as you realize that he is moving. He leans in. You can feel his breath as it warms your face. It smells as sweet as the grass after a gentle summer’s rain. Drawing near to your cheek, he places one last kiss.
Before the beginning of the world, of Father had placed a simple kiss upon the cheek of his creation, His Children, mankind. It was simple. It was soft. Yet for the rest of history it would define His relationship with us. It’s something we will never forget. Before we were created, God kissed us and said his one last goodbye. One last goodbye before we had to be placed on Earth, to chooce whether or not to call Him Father anymore. Saying goodbye crushed him inside. He felt as though He was willing to die, if only he wouldn’t have to say goodbye to a single child ever again. Yet, He knew that true love is only possible when we have the choice to love or not. Knowing that as soon as we take our first breath we would forget all about our Father, he kissed us goodbye one last time, and in so doing created in us something missing. In that one action, we were made incomplete without the kiss.
Nothing was the same after that. The colours weren’t as bright, the sounds of music felted muffled and blurred. Food had lost its taste, water didn’t quench your thirst as it did before saying goodbye… that is, before the kiss. Something is was continuallly lacking in our lives. As if something were calling us continually back to the presence of our Savior. We were made incomplete at creation, God’s way of continually reminding us that He is still needed in our lives. As if, when he kissed us goodbye that one last time, it was accomplanied with the words, “Please, don’t forget about me. I love you.”
Something is not the same, living life apart from our Father. It doesn’t quite do it the way that life inside of obedience to God does. Incomplete at creation, we are made complete once again, in Him. By allowing him to once again, place his face against our cheek, everyday..
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
God has written himself on everything around us, on every part of our daily lives, as a way of saying, “Don’t forget about me.” When was the last time you took the time to pause and look for God’s fingerprints on our daily lives? When was the last time I paused long enough for Him to place a kiss on me all over again? We were made lacking a certain comething from the very beginning, relationship witht the Father, the one complete one. Live in the constant reminder of the Prsence of Jesus Christ.

, Chad

The rain, gently falling, leaving shadows on the windowpane. Making little noises, only reminding of the world outside the shade. Quite whispers, quite sniffles and a face to match the pain. Mascara blurred, standing witness and mimicking the shadows on the glass. Huddled in the corner she gasps for breath in a world devoid of air. Clenching her knees to her chests, her mind struggles to understand the hurt she feels. She lays her eyes on the bed and wonders if she still feels. She feels unclean but the running water can’t make her clean. All the soap in this world won’t change anything. She feels a thousand eyes starring at her in shame, through the silence all alone. He said he loved her, he was the first one to really care, but now she’s a billboard standing above the city square. No more life, no more hope, her dreams washed away in the shadows. No more color, just a smile posted for all to see. The stage was set, but it seems the act is done, and now it’s all over, but for the memories of what was, and the nothing yet to come. She cries for days, she doesn’t move. She can’t find the strength to make it back to stand. She thinks about her mothers words, she thinks about taking it all. Finding no way to make it back again. She sees a million smiles, but doesn’t feel a single person’s warmth. Unable to find a way to see the sun. Dark days and hopeless thoughts. How does she get back something she didn’t know she lost?

Does it need more explaining? Could an explanation even add to the scene? There are times in life when it seems like the train comes to a screeching stop. Bags go flying, you hit your head. The lights go dim and all you know is that you’re in the middle of nowhere; the wheels have stopped. All hope is gone and you struggle for life, something to get the train going again. It’s in those times when only God can get us back on track. And even then, the memories stop us from getting back on track. The Apostle Paul struggled with it, a lot actually. Even long into his conversion and his ministry, the thoughts of his past come into his mind. He remembers the faces of the people that he tortured and killed, as if it were yesterday. The faces of the crying children, as he dragged their mommy’s and daddy’s away to be executed for the simple faith in Christ that he was now professing himself. What a waste. How on earth could God use him? Most days, he wished that God wouldn’t. How can he look people in the eyes and talk about the love and grace of Jesus, when he brutally murdered so many innocent people for doing the same. The answer is simple. Because he had experienced in himself. It’s obvious that Paul struggled with the memories and guilt of the past. He constantly reminds his churches and Timothy that the old life is behind, and that the new life we live in Christ lives on in our stead. Galatians 2:20 Philippians 3:13 “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” No place is this struggle more evident that in 2 Corinthians 12:1-12.

2 Corinthians 12:7-12 “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Satan was using guilt to get to Paul. He saw the man of God that Paul has become, and his obedience in being used, and tried to take him down again. It would have worked if it was for these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In Paul’s struggles, in his disappointing himself with his own actions, God shows him the true source of his power. It was God through it all. I’ve grown up my whole life in the church, as a self proclaiming Christian. I’ve spent the last two years in a comprehensive Christian Educational Institution. That means that not only have the worst things I have ever done happened while I was a reborn believer, but also while in Bible College. How do I move on from that? Paul had a conversion experience that marked, with a huge milestone, the difference between the old life and the new life. He had a ‘before Damascus’ life and an ‘after Damascus’ life. I don’t have anything. I have no excuses to hide behind, the shadow to veil the shame, the guilt or the blame. It’s in realizing that my salvation doesn’t come from within me, from my merit, but from Christ who died to give my life merit. I don’t surprise him. I spend a lot of time wish some things didn’t happen. Times in the summer. Things that have been sworn to secrecy in the band of Brothers. Things that I can’t wash away even if I tried.

Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Good Bye Self

, Chad

People make decisions every day. Big decisions that impact the future of other people, and small decisions required to function in that moment. Decisions for good, decisions for evil, but that’s non-consequential in saying that as humans we make decisions hundreds of times everyday. Most of the time we make them without much thought, and absolutely no idea of the end result or the long term consequences. Our ability to make decisions and be in control of our actions and our lives is a key distinctive of God’s human mechanism. The fact that free will has been built into us as a divine right is the key to unlocking the purpose behind our life. God has given us the right to choose, not only to be in relationship with Him, but the subsequent factors as well. We can choose what our relationship with God looks like, what church we attend, what our devotional life looks like, what kind of Bible translation suits us best. For this reason, I’ll refer to it as the ‘First Will’.

The ‘Second Will’ is the will of God for our lives.  Whether you believe that God’s will is based on predestination, that there is an exact will for your every decision, and so you aim to seek God distinct purpose for your every action, or you believe in God having a will that is generalized to His law, and whatever we decide that fits into the guidelines of scripture and the characteristics of God that we see without is a decision based on the will of God, both sides would agree that God has a purpose and intent for our daily lives. Jeremiah 29:11 would give warrant to such a belief. The God we see through the thin pages of the Bible is a God very much in seek of an intimate relationship with His Creation, longing to be very much a part of our daily lives. This is the Second Will—God’s desire to interact with us on a daily basis. To be intimately involved in our decision making process.

However, the First Will is recognized as the First Will because through God’s divine act of assent to His creation, the First Will supersedes the Second Will. We have the capacity to make decisions apart from the Second Will. The First Will can never be fully subjected to the Second Will, simply because our sin still acts as a barrier between us and the full revelation of God, and secondly, that’s the way it has to be. God needs us to make the decision in view of a broad view of options, in order for us to ultimately choose the Father.

People have free will. It’s a person’s free will to love. It’s a person’s free will to forgive, to heal, to cry and to be held. It’s a person’s free will to except the love another has to offer. And in that free will come pain, rejection, heart ache and the capacity for true love. The First Will is not perfect. The First Will brings pain, but only through the First Will can love exist in human form.

This is when the Second Will becomes the foundation of the First Will. God’s will is the foundation for our choices and decisions on the daily basis. Sometimes we mess up, we don’t get it quite right, but through it all God Will prevails. The Second Will is perfect. We must ask ourselves, in the pain of the First Will, is God trustworthy? The Second Will prevails, as the foundation of the world. This is the mysterious wonder that makes no sense. That though we walk through the shadow of the valley of Death, the death of relationships, the death of opportunities, the death of our dreams or visions, “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Is God trustworthy?

Though the First Will may say, “my free will is not to love, my free will is for this marriage to be over, my free will is for this baby not to be born, my free will for this business partnership to end, my free will is for this relationship to be over” the Second Will says “I have you in the palm of my hand, and I’m not letting go.” The First Will may have the first word, but the Second Will has the last word.

Even when the First Will brings pain, brings destruction, God’s will, the Second Will forms the foundation of the two wills. We know that in the end, The Second Will Prevails. There was a time, when things were not well, and I had responded to the situation in bitterness and condescension, that, in brokenness, I asked God, “Dad, can you still love me, even though I’ve turned away from you.” After a few moments, the only response I heard was, “Chad, I knew exactly what was going to happen, I knew how much it would hurt you, and I still let those things happen. Can you still love me?” Is He trustworthy?

Dear Dad, you know my heart and my mind. You know that I don’t trust you sometimes when things don’t go my way. But Dad, I still love you. Help me to trust you. Help me see that you have the world in the palm of your hand. Help me see that you’re Will is perfect, and that you have you’re best for me.
, Chad