It’s been a rough week, health-wise, in the Russell household. Anastasia’s been dealing with the coughing funk the past two weeks and I finally had to take her in (to the doctor, not the house, even though at times I was tempted to leave her outside at night, but I fear I’m sharing too much right now) last Thursday.

Noah’s cough started up this past week and today it was his turn to head to the doctor. When I signed him in at the doctor’s office, I swear the nurse looked at me funny, as if I were using my kids to get drugs or something.

Maybe I’m just being sensitive. Either way, I’m sick of the sickness and long for life to be back to normal.

However, I’ve noticed something different in Noah today…he’s talking with me more and even cuddling! He’ll turn eleven next week and each day he seems to pull more away from me and more towards his friends and his room.

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A year ago I was preparing to travel to Nicaragua.  In the last few weeks I've found myself recalling that trip and the people I met there. This is a reflection I wrote soon after returning:

I am at my writing desk, looking out my window at the bougainvillea and geraniums blooming in my yard. I hear toddlers calling my dog and watch her eagerly look for them, their little bodies and voices hidden behind the rose bushes. The kids in this neighborhood love her. She looks a bit wily right now with her summer haircut. They shaved off all her cute fluffy fur and she looks more like a svelte coyote, not so cute.

It reminds me of the dogs I saw in La Chureca, the dump in Managua, Nicaragua. There were dogs everywhere. They were scrawny and limping, ears drooping and noses rummaging through all the trash.  Right now my dog looks like she belongs there, but she doesn’t. I went with a group to visit the school in this dump community.  We took the kids out on a field trip to the zoo. The kids wore old, faded, stained clothes and shoes that were too big for them. They looked like they belong in a dump, but they don’t.  Nobody belongs in a dump among discarded, old, ruined trash. No one belongs there no matter how they look.

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Carved in to the façade of the Nelson Atkins Art Museum in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, is a quote credited to Victor Hugo. The first part of the quote is this: “the human soul has still greater need of the ideal than the real.” These words face the rather famous Country Club Plaza and I noticed them all over again as my children and I milled around the sculpture park that decorates the green space in front of the museum recently.

Approaching Easter, my thoughts naturally (and supernaturally for that matter) turn to resurrection and then to the pressing global needs that cram airwaves, news tweets, and editorial blogs. Will Iran spiral in to a war with Israel? Has the rise of the Western economy stopped and it’s now the rise of the rest that will dominate the future? Is there a ‘new world’ being developed somewhere on earth with immigrants looking for a home for their family and faith? Does anyone notice that the tomb of Jesus is still empty?

Back at the sculpture park, my children are racing from one piece to the next and we’re playing a game that I unapologetically started.

My friend walked up to me weeping. I asked him what was wrong. He responded, "I just read the Gospel of Luke. I think I need to sell everything and follow Jesus. ... But that's not what makes me sad; it's that I am so far from Christ. All these years I've been following Him and I'm just now realizing what it means to actually follow Him. He was willing to give everything for me, and I must give everything for Him."

I cried too. It changed my life. I wanted to respond with some scholastic copout about metaphors or hyperbole, but I knew that wasn’t the truth. Christ has called us to give everything for Him.

But I must tell you that God is still working this great work in me. And as for my friend, I recently brought this story up to him, and he said that God is still doing the great work in him as well. What we share in common is that Christ has seriously transformed both of us since that day.

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Pain is something I work hard to avoid. It hurts and seem only a negative. A pain in my legs after exercise means an injury. A scratchy throat is the beginning of an illness. A broken heart represents losing at love.

Even though pain is not fun, there’s positive that can come out of it. The pain in my leg is my body adjusting to a new workout that’s making me stronger. The scratchy throat is due to long phone conversation with my loving mother. And the broken heart was God’s separating me from a bad choice until the right one came along.

My survival instinct many times causes me to flee pain.

Growing up adults repeatedly shared the famous quote, “When the going get tough, the tough get going.” However, the only “get going” I wanted to do was away from the pain.

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It’s been one of those weeks where life is just not turning out to be what I had hoped it would be. Curve balls were thrown, disappointment moved in like an annoying houseguest who just won’t leave and expectations were unmet. Ugh, ugh and more ugh!

Does any of that change who God is?

I believe the answer is no but I have to be honest and admit that it’s pretty tough not to think that when things just don’t go like I want. I know God isn’t exactly a genie in a bottle that grants my every wish and fulfills my every desire. But the world I live in tells me that if I work hard and do well, then I’ll be rewarded for that and good things will happen to me. This doesn’t surprise me since I also believe the ways of the Lord are opposite than the world I live in. The way God thinks is different than I think (Thank Him!).

Knowing this doesn’t exactly alleviate the disappointment. It makes it understandable, but not disappear.

I know I come from a long line of Christian family members who have also been thrown off by the course God set before them.

Take the Israelites wandering around in a dry desert for 40 years for example. I don’t think that was their idea of freedom. And the food? Oh, forget about it! Talk about disappointment!

Or what about David who was told he’d be King and rule the land, yet ended up running for his life and cave hopping to escape Saul’s sword?

Elijah had an all out show down with the false god Baal and Baal’s followers on a mountain called Carmel and saw victory over Baal by the mighty hand of God up close and personal. And yet, after all that he witnessed God do on Carmel, he runs away from a woman named Jezebel who threatened him. I doubt he expected that after the Baal butt whipping he experienced.

Hannah was faithful to the Lord despite not being able to have children. God heard her cries for a baby and answered. She finally got her baby and then gave him up to live in the temple to learn to serve God all his life. That could not have been easy to do.

And then there’s Mary, the mother of Jesus. There’s no need for a lot of explanation here. Her life turned out 180 degree different than I’m sure she ever imagined for herself as a young girl.Talk about things not going your way! Yikes!

J.I. Packer once said, “God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly — that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak — is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace.”

The issues I faced this past week are relatively small compared to larger issues the world faces today and yet, on the small scale of my life, I am experiencing pain, loss, disappointment and all the emotions that come with unmet expectations for my life. My heart is sick and in pain and because of that pain felt, I’m finding myself seeker my God on a deeper, more personal level.

I feel sad. I feel weak. My brokenness is on the surface.

Jim Cymbala said "God is attracted to weakness. He can't resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need him."

Sometimes God allows us to be broken so that he can patch us back together again. This is what smarty pants theologians like Packer mean by sanctification. Paul wrote to the Colossians that “we should put on a new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Packer and Paul, or P&P, agree that God desires to give us a new self, which can only be found in him. God has greater things designed for us than we can ever imagine.

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In literature and mythology, Shape Shifters are deceptive characters who cross boundaries at will, moving between worlds to confuse the sacred and the profane. Sometimes a character even finds its shape changed by someone else through a curse or spell. The transformation may or may not be voluntary. 

And so goes the tragic story of Trayvon Martin, the newest Shape Shifter in a long history of American journalism. 

In this world, some things are pure and innocent while other things are evil. Racism and bigotry are transcendent evils, while defending the innocent is universally just. But Trayvon’s tragic death--and its chaotic aftermath--teaches us that perception is often a Shape Shifter. Under the spell of one version, Trayvon teaches us that trigger-happy racial profilers are alive and well. Under the spell of another version, Trayvon teaches us that young black men often contribute to their own violent downfall. 

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As Passover and Easter are fast approaching I have been reading the account of God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from the yoke of Pharaoh and the Egyptians.  My purpose in doing this has been to go back to the root, the foundation of Easter, for it is rooted in the Passover, and the Passover, finds it root in the Exodus.  Reading the book of Exodus these past couple of weeks has just been awesome!  God has taught me much about himself through studying this book.

One I would like to share with you is the Sabbath.  On Friday I participated in my first Shabbat dinner.  Shabbat is the Hebrew word for Sabbath, meaning a day of rest.  It was such a wonderful occasion for me to participate, as I gained a new appreciation for this weekly Jewish custom.  For instance, one of the duties of the father at the Shabbat dinner is to say a blessing over his family, starting with the wife first, quoting Proverbs 31 as his blessing over her.

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In the introduction, I outlined several segmented groups and divided them into two broad categories. Then I posted a video outlining two principles in general strategy: (1) strategy is not inaccessibility and (2) unity is not uniformity. 

It's important to remember that the God of the Bible is a God who takes initiative (and His followers who reflect Him also take initiative). God created humanity, but humanity has since categorized itself along ethnic, socio-economic, and rate of change. What is important is that God reaches each with the same message, but with methods that are unique to those groups. Jesus didn't talk to a centurion the same way He spoke to a Pharisee. Paul had a different approach in Athens than in Corinth.

So in this sense, then, it is perfectly acceptable to recognize where different groups are and utilize different methodologies. In business terms, this isn't about advertising, but true marketing (ie. connecting with the customer in a way that is meaningful for the customer). I'll admit I'm a little uncomfortable with the business terms as they apply to a transcendent God, but truth is truth regardless of context. God longs to connect with people - but never at the price of warping His truth - and that, I think is the line that often gets crossed in Christiandom. In trying to connect with others, we try to make the Gospel message easier to swallow or harder to understand. But God allows room for neither.

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