love

When Hate Rules, Our Children Fall

Laurie Russell — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:48:49 -0800

Last week, we passed the 1-year anniversary of the horrific day in Tucson, Arizona. On January 8, 2011, a lone shooter shot U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people. Six died, including 9-year-old Christiana-Taylor Green.

Recently I read the book As Good As She Imagined by Roaxanna Green and Jerry B. Jenkins. It’s a wonderful book that portrays the life of this 9-year-old, Christina-Taylor. My heart mourned for the victims and their families but especially for the Green family. No one wants to lose his or her child.

Green and Jenkins share stories from Christina-Taylor’s short life and I couldn’t help but fall in love with her and her family. It’s reminded me of the importance of community, love of family and how enduring challenges develops the perseverance needed to survive later trials.

It encouraged me to enjoy each moment with my loved ones. Not to sweat the small stuff and to avoid passivity. Christina-Taylor did a lot in her 9-years on earth and she left us with her mark and a smile.

The book does a great job not to glorify the shooter, however, part of me kept going back to him and wondering, “Why did he do it?”

Years ago, when we were preparing to go as missionaries overseas, Mark studied five common traits that start a movement. One of the greatest unifying factors was a common enemy. People normally at odds bond as they fight and, at times, are pushed to do things they normally wouldn’t do.

We don’t know why the shooter went on a killing rampage. Maybe it was politically motivated.

A voting year is upon us. Emotions are already flying and people are bonding over a common “enemy”. Adversaries are being named and their reputations are being destroyed.

However, when we view another as an enemy, hate is born. It brews and boils and moves us to action(s) and ones we often regret.

Jesus told us to love our enemies. It’s a pretty radical request and not always easy to do. We shouldn’t look at our neighbor as the enemy, even if we disagree or dislike what they say or do.

When we pray for our enemies, God’s power is at work in both them and us. We’re able to love and find real peace.

Before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed that we’d be united. Politics by nature divides us but at the same time it puts his children in each party. Perhaps this is God’s strategic way of shining his light on all sides.

As the debates and campaigns continue, think of Christina-Taylor. She was not at Giffords’ meeting to promote hate, rather to do good. We need to make sure we’re not working to defeat the enemy in the other party but to find the next man or woman God has chosen to lead our country.

Hate blurs our vision but love helps us to see clearly.

Do you have people in your life who are hard to love due to political affiliation?

How do you handle it?

Have you read Green and Jenkins’ book As Good As She Imagined?

The Wonders of His Love

Stan Jantz — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:47:24 -0800

There is a reason we call this the most wonderful day of the year: Christmas is truly filled with wonder. Or at least it should be. Somehow over the course of 2,000 years our wonder has become somewhat diluted, if not downright negative.

We consider the miracle of the incarnation--God taking on human form--and we pose a question we might ask of an illusionist: "I wonder how he did that?" Or worse, our wonder is more like doubt, mainly because we buy into the notion--on a practical level, at least--that Jesus was a wise teacher and a social justice advocate, but hardly the supernatural being Scripture makes Him out to be.

Neither of these senses of wonder--speculation or doubt--is anywhere near the wonder that Jesus should incite in us. We should be ashamed when we settle for a pedestrian kind of wonder. Our wonder at Jesus and the day He was born should rise far above our normal human emotions to the place where we are literally frightened at the very idea that the most holy God has identified with us in such a personal, self-sacrificial way.

Whenever the word wonder, or wonders, or wonderful is used in Scripture, it refers to the supernatural. "And His name shall be called wonderful" is no sweet prophecy. Isaiah was foretelling a miracle far beyond human comprehension. When David wrote, "Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done," he was pointing to things too high for the human mind to conceive.

When youi look at wonder in this way, it changes the meaning of the phrases we so flippantly use, especialy today, on Christmas. When we sing of "the wonders of His love," we should think, not of ordinary love, but of a love so incomprehensible so inconceivable, so earth-shattering and humanity-invading, that our knees should buckle at the thought.

I'm afraid in our desire to fit God into our busy lives, to work Him into our story rather than joining the miraculous adventure of His story, we have forgotten the wonder of our God and Savior, who loved us so much that He gave us His only Son, so that our relationship with Him could be restored...forever.

Now that's a wonderful thought!

A Story of Forgiveness

Carrie Nye — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:48:11 -0800

Earlier this week I read an article on CNN's belief blog that threw me into a stewing pot of thoughts. At the core is one simple word that seems so complex to live out, even in the shallowest of circumstances.

Forgiveness.

Celebrity Portrait Photographer Jeremy Cowart set out on a mission with filmmaker Laura Waters Hinson (As We Forgive) to produce a photo series project called "Voices of Reconciliation." Cowart and Hinson went to Rwanda. They wanted to give Rwandans the opportunity to make their own statements to the world about the 1994 mass killings and uprooting that took place in their backyards.

In the article Cowart says, "I grew up in the church and am a practicing Christian. I've heard "love your neighbor" and "forgive others because God forgave you" my entire life. But I don't recall my church ever discussing the idea of forgiving killers."

With the season of Thanksgiving and Christmas knocking at the door, I have been thinking about the gifts I'd like to give to my friends and family. I'm beginning to wonder what this season might look like if I gave the gift of forgiveness where I need to with others and with myself.

"He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love." MLKJ

"Without forgiveness, there is no future." Desmond Tutu

"Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again." Saint Augustine

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." Lewis B. Smedes

Cowart goes on to say in his blog, "While incredibly difficult to accomplish - especially if the offender has not admitted their wrong and asked for forgiveness, it’s a force that has the power to tear down walls and free hearts."

In terms of those in Rwanda who are the forgivers, Hinson said, "“For the victims, forgiving their offenders is a way of setting themselves free from the chains of anger and bitterness.”

Forgiveness is a powerful act. One that cannot be divorced from that of love. I'm incredibly touched by the radical grace these Rwandans have extended to each other despite the cruelest and most horrifying circumstances. I am humbled by their acts of love and forgiveness towards each other. It takes a lot of courage to snuff out the darkness with a ray of light.

Cowart touches on the fact that this type of radical forgiveness is not part of our culture. In fact, it's counter-cultural on every level. Forgiveness of this magnitude is Kingdom forgiveness. It's the kind of forgiveness that turns the ground over and sifts through muck. It up roots and replants. It seeps in deep and transforms from the inside out. It's redeems and it heals. It offers second chances and it sets us all free.

I hope this season of thanksgiving and Christmas gift giving is full of kingdom type radical love and forgiveness.

Check out Cowarts photo series of those Rwandans who have courageously chosen to forgiveness and love and who are now teaching the world to do the same; starting with me.

America and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:20:38 -0800

It’s no secret that journalism thrives on nasty bacteria more than life-giving oxygen. But this week’s relentless coverage of Very Bad People is making me want to wash my hands every five minutes.

Kim Kardashian’s faux-marriage reminds me that, at least in Celebrity-America, marriage equals marketing. Justin Bieber and Herman Cain, whom I would never place in the same sentence at any other time in history, both face sordid charges of power-groping. Conrad Murray (Michael Jackson’s unprincipled physician and convict-of-the-week) showed us all that the Hippocratic Oath means about as much as Kardashian’s Oath. And finally, the entire Penn State football program appears ready to implode over horrific charges of a pedophilia cover-up.

Just when I’m about to take up drinking, I realize that these are only the national stories. My hometown (and yours) has little celebrity symbolism but all of the same stories: the trivialization of marriage, the misuse of power, the abuse of innocent children. The two-dimensional news stories have real people behind them--people whose sins infect the entire world.

How does a follower of Jesus Christ find light and hope in the midst of such sorrow?

My answer is so surprisingly simple that you might never want to read another of my essays again. It’s an antidote to darkness so effective that we miss it entirely. It’s a push-back that keeps me from losing my freaking mind in the middle of all the teeth-gnashing. It’s the cheesiest answer on the planet.

What’s the answer?

Love.

No way, you might say. Love sounds too easy, too obvious, too wussy. You’d rather I call for righteous anger and butt-kicking justice. You’d rather I rally everyone to political anger or legislative action or vague national outrage. You might rather I drop hate into internet comment threads and let the infection spread. But I will suggest that none of these have ever changed a heart or healed a victim.

I am encouraged by the mind-bending truth of my Bible: And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:14) Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8) This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (I John 3:16) Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth (I John 3:18) Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (I John 4:8)

What does love look like for me today? First of all, vague Christian love will not counteract vague national outrage. Love takes care of a community’s children and supports lifelong marriages in daily, relentless consistency. It works its way into small conversations about God and man. It resists corruption by following the principles of Jesus Christ at our jobs and in our churches. You and I are the million news stories that are made of flesh and blood, the bigger story that contradicts America’s ugly front page.

When I write, I like to be smart and current and edgy. I like to make people think of things they haven’t considered before. But today, in the middle of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week, I have nothing clever to say, nothing rhetorical that can heal a marriage or restore a life. I can only offer what Jesus Christ tells me is the single most important antidote to sin and hopelessness.

For every life-sapping, spirit-draining thing you read this week, push back with Jesus Christ’s love. Meditate on it. Dwell on the hope of salvation. Tell your children that Jesus’ love is more powerful than man’s despair.

Salacious journalism might seem to have the edge, but children of God can spread a viral hope faster than any news story. That said, I think I’m ready for my Wonderful, Beautiful, All Good, Very-God Day.

He Makes You Matter

Rick Bundschuh — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:03:49 -0700

You may think that you don’t much matter.

Few know you.

Few would miss you if you were gone.

Your talents are minimal.

Your funds are limited.

Your skills are pedestrian.

And in the big picture you are probably right. The world will go on just fine without you. Your absence will not make the lights dim or the earth slow its revolution.

Within half a century you will be absolutely forgotten and photos of you merely a curiosity.

This is true for every kind of human being with the exception of one: the one who Christ lives in.

He makes your small seemingly insignificant act of love or kindness an eternal milestone for someone.

He keeps your prayers forever. Selah (Pause, and think about this)

He makes your life fit into a larger picture that show his Grace and Goodness.

He celebrates always what you give, no matter how small.

He crafts His majesty in our commonness.

He speaks His words using our mouth.

He uses our hands to touch someone else.

He makes you matter.

Now.

Forever.

Grace, Love & Murder?

Christian Buckley — Thu, 26 May 2011 10:52:54 -0700

Grace, Love & Murder?

May 20, 2011

Christian Buckley

Some questions, or rather problems, are too big for my head to get around. I try my hardest to work through and dissect them – but my mind just gives out. It is like when you ask an old computer to do too many things at the same time and it just locks up and stares at you with indignation. That’s what happens to me when I try to figure out something like how Grace, Love, and Murder - a specific murder – fit together. Brain lock.

A couple of preface notes to what follows are in order.

-- This is a horrible post and will unsettle you – I hope – assuming you have a soul.

-- I, unlike I would venture to say 99.9999% of you, have first hand deep experience in this topic. I go to death row in California every couple of months because I represent men there who have murdered people. That work takes me through dark places, lives, and realities I didn’t know existed and still wish I didn’t. That doesn’t make me special – it just gives you some background and probably gives me a different view of the topic.

-- I have no answers at all so you won’t find one at the end if you are looking.

The story.

A thirty-two year old girl, Emily, and her father, Russ, are murdered.

Emily is a wife of two years and the mother of a seven year old daughter and a three month old son. After years of fighting her first husband, Robert, Emily is finally given custody of her daughter by the court and takes her father Russ to get her from Robert’s home. The door opens and Robert, her ex-husband, begins firing. The daughter isn’t there because he sent her to get ice cream with his second wife and as Emily and Russ run back to the car Robert chases them, firing and reloading, until he finally kills them both – shooting them in the backs of their heads while they lie on the street. Emily’s three-month old is in the car waiting for his mom – hearing the gun shots. Emily’s seven year old special needs daughter is eating ice cream. There is a day care center across the street from the home and shots spray across the scene hitting anything and everything, but not another person. The police arrive and the madness draws to a close.

My connection.

As horrible as this may sound -- people, lots of people, are murdered every day all over the world and I don’t think a thing of it.

But when my wife came sobbing into my office early last week it was different. Emily Ford went to college with us, and while I didn’t know her, my wife did. Emily was Bridget’s “little sis” in their sorority – the girl you take under your wing and help become part of the family. She danced at our wedding and, thanks to Facebook, was in touch with my wife from time to time. So this murder was different.

I listened silently to the story through my wife’s tears and then began to try and make sense of it.

The Reality.

Lives were destroyed on the 3^rd of May. Nothing that will happen now, or ever, will bring Emily and Russ back. The lives of Emily’s mom, husband, and children have been forever devastated. The hundreds of friends and family connected to the children have been forever marked.

Robert’s second wife – her life was destroyed. And nothing will redeem Robert’s life. Robert will die in prison, as he should, one way or another. Robert’s parents, whoever they are, are now the parents of a murderer. His friends, or former friends, are the friends of a murderer.

Murder changes everything.

Homicide is killing someone. But murder, this kind of murder, is killing someone with planning, deliberation, and reflection. It’s not killing in rage or a drunken stupor. It’s not killing in a gang fight or a robbery gone bad. It’s killing with such soberness of mind and desire that you send your wife and daughter out for ice cream before you do it and reload your gun to make sure it is done. We have a death penalty, right or wrong, for this kind of murder. It is as bad as it gets.

The Problem.

While I stood in the back of the church last Friday during the funeral for Emily and Russ, I couldn’t help thinking about Robert sitting alone in a cell; probably knowing the funeral was taking place for the wife he once loved and her father.

The word murder was never mentioned at the funeral and the event wasn’t even hinted at, but it was there.

Standing there, the word “Broken” just kept running through my head over and over again. Everything was so broken. Not just because of the murder but because of what happened before it. Lives were broken for years before that. A short marriage ended in divorce and then a fight for a child. I can’t tell you why Robert did what he did, but in a perfect world he wouldn’t have. Our world is so broken that this happens. Things are not okay.

But the real problem in this story is figuring out how Grace and Love and Murder somehow exist together. How Evil of this magnitude can be reconciled with Good of God’s magnitude.

We all know that God so loved the world that he gave His son for Emily and Russ and Emily’s kids, and Emily’s husband, and Emily’s mom. I pray that God sends a special angel to love those kids in the ways that only God can and in time bring them redemption for their lives and eternity.

But we also know, as much as we might not like it – even hate it right now – that God so love the world that He gave His son for Robert as well. Robert had a chance and still has a chance to accept that love – to accept eternal redemption.

This is the truth.

Jesus died for the murdered and the murderer. Grace exists for the murdered and the murderer. We are commanded to love the murdered and the murderer. As Christ hung dying on the cross he looked down at the very men that nailed him to it – the men that literally murdered him – and asked God to forgive them. His body and heart were breaking at the same time.

For God - Grace and Love and Murder can and do fit together.

But not for me, at least not yet.

For more information on Emily Ford:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/06/local/la-me-costa-mesa-murder-20110506

When the Will of God is Scary

Carrie Nye — Sun, 01 May 2011 14:47:23 -0700

True or false? “God yearns to rescue people so that they know God is good.”

Awhile back I visited a mini conference in the Los Angeles area with Gary Haugen as the speaker. Gary Haugen is founder and president of International Justice Mission, a DC based organization that works in a number of countries to combat slavery and ultimately wipe it out completely.

Immediately following the quote above, Gary said, “We are called to help rescue people.” I agree with Gary. As I continue to seek in the Bible what God would have of me in this life, I am more and more convinced that it is the work of justice. In fact, God doesn’t even want my offering and worship to him if I’m not obeying his commands to care and serve those in need. Read Isaiah 58 and you'll see what I mean.

So then what keeps us from taking passages like Isaiah 58 and Micah 6:8 and Amos 5:21-24 seriously? FEAR. Ugh!

Gary then threw out a doozie. He said, “Do you want to be brave or do you want to be safe because you can’t be both.” Personally I was really hoping I could be both and that way I could choose when I felt it was ‘safe’ to be brave and when it wasn’t. Gary also said, “there’s nothing more unattractive than a coward.” Crap. That’s true too. We exalt courageousness so really there isn’t room to be a coward in our society.

Take Shadrach Meshach and Abednego for example. Now they were definitely brave and I’m sure the ladies were lining up to bat their eyes at them after they escaped some serious flames. They were brave. But to be brave, they had to choose not to be safe. God wants us to choose not to be safe and to be brave.

Gary also said, that “doing the will of God in a fallen world is inherently dangerous.” Actually, Jesus said we will suffer because we follow him. Suffering is not God’s will. But in a fallen world, suffering is part of our lives. See 1 Peter 3: 13-17.

There are two things that are always God’s will and always dangerous. Gary said they are telling the truth and loving people. Loving people in need is exactly what Jesus was all about. Loving people is dangerous work and it’s hard work. 1 John talks about how we can’t love God who we can’t see if we can’t love the people we see all the time face to face. Loving needy people will make us feel uncomfortable, yet Jesus says our joy is found when we do love needy people. We’re called to do what’s not safe because that’s what’s needed.

Why is it so hard for us to live in the uncomfortable and love the needy? Gary thinks it’s because our society values success and education to look smart. He said, “choosing brave over smart will be threatening to those who choose smart over brave.” Serving the poor doesn’t look smart or successful. Frankly, rescuing victims of slavery will never look successful in our society. But it is significant to our Heavenly Father. Gary asked us if we “seek success or significance.” Luke 9:24 pretty much sums this up in a few words.

What keeps you from being brave? Gary said there are four things that keep people from being brave.

Comfort – we don’t want to leave the comfort of our lives in this society

Security – we like having freedom from danger

Control – obviously

Success – we have such a high regard for success

So what would it look like to replace these four things with four others that reflect being brave? They might look something like this:

Adventure

Faith

Miracles

Deep knowledge of Jesus

Who doesn’t want those four things?!

The problem is we can’t have the first four and the last four together. We actually have to choose to let go of the first four and only then we can have the last four.

But really, how we can really do this when we have jobs, families, responsibilities, etc?

We could do less. Yea you read that right. We could do less and spend more time reading scripture, taking the time to reflect on it and pray a lot more. Reflect on the life we are living and where we are heading.

We could also search the promises of scripture and take a risk. Take Christ at his word and see if he’s being true. Is God trustworthy or not? Live lives that reflect that scripture is actually true.

We could embark on a lifelong journey of spiritual formation and renovation of the heart. We are called to train to be brave.

So what do you think? Do you want to be safe or do you want to be brave?

From Chronicles of Narnia: Lucy (asking about Aslan), “Is he safe?” “No, but he is good.”

Learning to Hope

Holly Ordway — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:00:43 -0800

I am cautious with my heart, not by nature but through experience. Yet Trust has been a recurring call in my journey with Christ – trust, and pain, and hope.

The first call I heard from the Lord was: Trust Me to make you whole. I had accepted Christ as my Savior, but I was anything but whole. I didn’t know how healing could happen; I could not imagine any world in which I did not carry this pain with me. Persistently and gently, though, the Lord called to me: Trust Me to heal you. Like the woman who reached out to touch merely the hem of Jesus’ robe, I hardly dared ask for His attention – and He turned and gave me the fullness of His healing grace. Even now, I am staggered by the power and grace with which Christ worked in the dark places of my heart.

The second time I heard that call was in the context of writing my book and – even more so – doing publicity interviews this past summer. I was forced to confront the agony of my own vulnerability. Would I be respected? Would I be liked? Or would I be a failure? And here, sharp and clear, came the Lord’s call: Trust me to lead you.

Moving forward in the dark, trusting that the Lord knows where all this leads, has become easier with practice – honestly, in large part because the Lord has had mercy on me, weak as I am, and has graciously showed me some of the ways that my work has borne fruit.

As I have trusted the Lord with my pain and my fears, I have discovered peace: no longer fearing the loss of the good things in my life, no longer to try to hedge against a dark and unknown future, but rather giving thanks from a grateful heart to the Lord who has so abundantly blessed my life.

I thought I had learned all I needed to learn about trust. But I hadn’t.

I had still not trusted Him with my hopes.

In this new season of my life, this springtime after a long dry spell, I have begun to hope and long for more – and the awakening of hope bites deeply, with its own peculiar agony.

To reach out means the possibility of rejection. To love means the possibility of being hurt. To speak means the possibility of getting tangled up in words and saying the wrong thing.

And so the pain of hope can mute the heart that wants so badly to sing out.

In my old life, I had learned to hope for nothing. Having been hurt, my hopes not just shattered but trampled on, I had learned to settle for as little as possible; after all, one cannot be disappointed if one expects nothing. But now, in this new life (and what a gift, what an unmerited and gracious gift is this life!) all that was changed: I was being called to not just life, but life in abundance.

Here was the third and most difficult call: Trust me with your deepest hopes.

I realized that I had only been willing to trust the Lord with those hopes for which I had a backup plan to address by my own efforts. For the things I hoped for that are out of my control – my desire for deep and meaningful connections, for love - I was afraid to even pray.

Part of me thought I was a fool: how was it possible that I should deserve such hopes? And deep down I feared that if I admitted to the Father that I longed for more, He would certainly deny me the very thing I hoped for.

I had it all wrong, so completely wrong. It is not a question of my own merit, for I have none. “I am not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.” It is not a question of negotiating with the Lord over how many good things I am allowed to have – as if I were allowed to be blessed to a certain extent, and no more. No.

It is a question of who I am.

By the grace of God, I know who I am. I am the daughter of the Father, the adopted sister of the Son, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Unchangeably so. Not through anything I did or could ever do, but because of what Christ did for me.

I had been reflecting and praying about this for months, all through the fall and winter. It all came into focus at the beginning of this year, late one afternoon when I knelt at evening prayer.

I realized – fully and deeply – that God’s love for me is not an abstract idea, but a living and present reality. In holding back my hopes, I was failing to trust the One who loves me more deeply and fully than I can comprehend.

I wept. I repented of my own failure to trust. Turning to Christ, I asked my Savior to bring me, prodigal that I am, into the Father’s presence; to cover me with his righteousness, to set my hopes and dreams – all of them – before the Father on my behalf.

It was as though something shattered, something transparent that had yet stood between me and my Father’s love. For the first time, I was able to say Mary’s words with joy rather than resignation: “Let it be to me according to your word.”

And I find, to my surprise, I that knowing who I am – knowing my identity in Christ – has set me free in a way I never expected. Given me not just freedom from fear – but also freedom to hope. Freedom to love.

Hope is hard, I have found; I suspect love is, also. But as I pray each day in this new season, I discover that it is hard in a good way, the same way that disciplining oneself as an athlete is hard: it takes practice, and it doesn’t happen all at once. Everything I have discovered about trust is just the beginning: an invitation to take a chance, to be vulnerable, to step out into that future of God’s plans as yet unknown to me. No longer in fear, because I know who I am and I know that I am secure in Christ’s love. So here and now, in my own halting, awkward way, I lift my hopes – all of them – to the Lord who loves me.

Two Porches and the Moon's Special Honey

Abbie Smith — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:24:39 -0800

For a while I wondered why Jesus went to the cross. Seemed a little extreme. I was a decent person, relatively speaking, and quite liked the idea of being judged based on my rule following. A gifted Pharisee seems to have no fear of morality. What she fears, rather, are things like love and forgiveness and living by faith alone.

Someday maybe I’ll write a book about the characters that line our street. Today I’ll simply mention two, and how they’ve been gnawing away at my Pharisee-prone compulsions.

We live in a transitional community, so it’s constantly lending lessons and paradigm-shifts to concepts like “family,” “wealth,” or “the Gospel.” A neighbor and close friend of ours, whose name I’ll leave concealed, knocked yesterday at 8am. As far as we knew, he’d been sober since February, aside from an alcohol binge last month, which stuck him in jail for seven days. Micah has been friends with this fella for years, gleaning from his carpentry skills, among other talents.

I remember the first time we had him to dinner, and how oddly glamorous—sickeningly virtuous, even—was the sensation of having an ex-convict in my home. The glamour wore-off quickly, however, as meal upon meal, plus prayers and rides and encouragements and lendings of petty cash added up to what seemed like nothing. Addictive patterns remained and this neighbor’s growth seemed neutral, at best. But most days my capacities of hope and serving this troubled neighbor remained. He didn’t put me out any and sometimes would even bring over a home-cooked meal, or lend a hand around our house.

But yesterday hit a roadblock.

Our friend had been on a three-day binge—in a matter of minutes, smearing his latest record with drugs, alcohol, stealing and shacking-up with at least one prostitute.

He arrived at our door shaking and ashamed. His car had been stolen, his cell-phone dead and his pockets empty. What had been a delightful and tidy Thursday morning quickly went sour.

What did forgiveness mean as we stood on the porch? What did it mean to love this neighbor of ours, granting him stains of the Gospel and Cross, by which we had been touched time and again?

Punishment told us to close the door and go our own way.

But Forgivness said, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven,” for you, too, are forgiven at such lengths.

I lent our neighbor my car and phone for the “hour” it would take to unclutter some of the mess he’d made. He returned in closer to eight, petitioning for food and another ride. What an inconvenience to my day—what an annoyance to my expectations of November 18^th—what a lesson toward understanding forgiveness. Apparently giving, and forgiving are a lot easier when they don’t require anything. But apparently ease, along with glamour, tidiness, or convenience, are not ways to true forgiveness, at least if we’re going the Jesus way.

Neighbor #2 as my latest teacher is Marcus. Marcus is seven and lives about a stone’s throw away, in the house diagonal from ours. He’s one of five children, each from a different dad and raised by the care of a drug-addicted mom.

Upon returning from our honeymoon, one of the first things we did was visit Marcus and his sister, America. He was playing on his porch and welcomed us with a tender grin (minus two teeth that, “the tooth fairy’d stole without asking when we went away”).

“Guess what, Marcus? The wedding countdown for Mr. Micah and me is done. We got married and went on our honeymoon, and now I get to be your full-time neighbor!”

“Gettin’ married means you go all the way to the moon to eat special honey?”

“No sweetie,” I said with a smile. “A honeymoon is a vacation after a wedding. And getting married means…well…that I get to live with my best friend and learn about things like love and forgiveness and living by faith alone.”

“Oh. Do you wanna see the fort I made while you went away?”

“I’d love to, dear.”

Lover or Fighter or Both?

Mark Russell — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:15:58 -0700

A recent post of mine on whether we should love God or fight for him, got some push back from a friend on my facebook page.

His primary arguments are that:

1) the biblical warfare worldview is basic to all biblical revelation and prescription.

2) I created a false dichotomy between loving God and fighting for Him i.e. surely we can do both.

3) I was "fighting" against the "fighters" as I tried to promote love

Here are a few quick thoughts:

First, the Bible makes quite clear that we battle not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6), therefore any biblical battle motif cannot be construed to apply to human interactions.

This is further seen in Christ's refusal to fight, his rebuking of Peter when he cut the ear off the Roman soldier and embodied by the early church who did not fight eye for eye or tooth for tooth and instead followed Christ's example and command and turned the other cheek.

Second, agreed that two apparently contradictory things may not be in contradiction i.e. fighting and loving. For example, I love my children but I discipline them. However, that is a "paternalisitc" relationship and it not necessarily appropriate to extend that to all relationships. However, as a society we still need judges, courts, etc.. and in church we need boundary enforcers to root out evil doers (abusers of children, powermongers, gossips, etc..) and protect innocents even though our call to love the evil doers is not lessened.

Nevertheless, saying that disciplining, boundary enforcement or even fighting is consistent with love takes a lot of nuancing as they are not clearly always consistent with love. In fact, I do not think it is too audacion to say that they are rarely consistent with love and are generally consistent with humanity's desire to control one another.

Even when there is a necessary confrontation or speaking against, it shouldn't be attacking and it should be done in love and most importantly, we continue to see more fighting than love so we need to just get love on the agenda as much as we can.

For love to get on the agenda, we will need to start talking about (the reasons for my blog posts) and be willing to give concrete examples of how we can do it and that involves pointing out the error of the culture war/religious warfare framework that is so detrimental to the cause of loving God and others.

It'll be a great day when evangelicalism is more identified with love than it is with fighting or 'being right.'