Busted!

Go and read this.

Are you busted?

Weekend affair

I just got back from a 3-day conference in Charlotte put on by Mahesh Chavda. All sorts of stuff now needs to be sorted through in the head and the heart.

One thing that was a big plus — Kevin Prosch. He turned my worship perspective upside down! Never, ever have I worshipped like I did under his guidance. Totally new perspective… totally. Radically… dang it! Way too difficult to classify what it did. Like I said, I’ve got to sort through much.

Two things that are clear: Charlotte needs to be moved at least an hour and a half closer to Wilmington and US 74 between Wilmington and Maxton needs some visual stimulation added to it.

Still correct

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.”

—Cicero, 55 BC

Does God use Twitter?

With all this “stuff” about talking to God rolling around in my little brain, it dawned on me that God uses a type of celestial Twitter when he wants to talk to me for a moment during the day.

Huh?

Some of you are thinking, “Twitter? What’s a Twitter?” Others of you are thinking, “Where’s he going now?”

For those of you who number among the uninformed, “Twitter,” according to Wikipedia, is

a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends.

Its like an email, only shorter. And it is instant. And, if they are “following” you, others can see the same thing on their computers or cell phones. They can also chime in, if so inclined.

The whole premise is based on the question, “What are you doing?” The logical response is “I am _________ing right now.” But it really goes far beyond that.

When you are directly referencing someone or something they have tweeted, you use the “@” symbol followed by a person’s Twitter name; e.g., @joe where do you want to eat?

Back to God’s tweets…

At any moment God can “tweet” you: “@ joe what are you doing?” Or, “@joe, you need to think through how you’re going to respond to that person’s question. Don’t just give her what you’re thinking — it won’t work.”

God tweets all the time. We should be, but we don’t. The better we become at it, the more entertaining/useful it becomes. With the “earthly” Twitter, you soon discover that you’re hooked on it and communicate with others through it all the time. Being addicted to tweeting with God could prove to be lifechanging.

@God please keep tweeting me. I’m beginning to catch on…

Does God talk like Charlton Heston?

If God were going to talk to you, how would he do it?

Would it be in a Charlton Heston, surroundsound, amplified, booming voice? Would it knock you off your feet like a lightning bolt striking a tree? Would it be so overwhelming that you’d turn into a bowl of quivering jello?

We often hear about the “small, still voice.” Would that be how God would speak to you? A quiet, raspy whisper, almost inaudible? How could you hear it if you were listening to the radio, at a ballgame or carrying on a conversation with someone else?

Does God even bother to speak to us today? Yes, I know that he speaks to us through the Word, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m referencing what you and I would call real talk. Does he do that today?

If so, how would he do it?

Disconnect

She came into the office visibly upset; and, she wasn’t the type who’d be easily upset. In fact, if I were going to use a word to describe her, it would be “tough.”

This hardened, world-wise gal had just finished reading a book called “The Shack.”

It was tearing her apart.

She hates God, Christianity, church, etc. When I say “hate,” I really mean hate. “It’s a farce, a lie, hypocritical. God doesn’t care. Jesus is a joke. The devil was simply invented to scare people into submission.” Statements she’s made over the less than one year I’ve known her. She is really good at rolling her eyes when the topic comes up.

But on this day, she was struggling.

“There’s only been three people who have convinced me that Jesus is real and you guys are two of them!” She almost screamed it as an accusation. “And now, this!” in reference to the book. “How can I explain this?”

You know what is ironic? Many in the church have been lambasting The Shack as a godless piece of poorly, and heretical, written theological treatise. I’ve read pieces condemning the poor, unsuspecting believer to hell if they so much as thought about reading it.

And this book is on the verge of convincing this gal of the possibility that a loving God exists, that Jesus is real and the Spirit is available to help us. She says she sees it playing out in us, just like the book portrays it. That intrigues her.

But she is terrified of the church.

Hmmm…

Deenie and God Talk

When I was a little tyke, I had an imaginary friend named “Deenie.”

Deeinie and I were inseparable. We went everywhere together and did everything together.

My mother would ask me how he was doing and would pretend to see him and talk to him. But she never looked at where he actually was, she always looked in the wrong place. Deenie and I would laugh about that. I suppose that happens alot with parents when they talk to “imaginary” friends.

One place in particular we loved to hang out was in a stand of woods close to my house. We built forts, beat back attacks by wild indians, searched for lost gold in the Amazon jungle, hid from hungry dinosaurs and planned the overthrow of civilization as we knew it.

One day Deenie told me that he had to go and that he wouldn’t be back, at least in the way he had been. I don’t remember why he said he had to leave, but I do remember that it made sense.

Then he was gone. I told my parents that his house burned down and that he left.

As I grew up and had my own children, I began to understand how silly a child can be with their imaginary friends. I understood that it was just their imaginations developing in a rational manner. Once sufficiently at ease in dealing with the world around them, they would jettison the “tool” that was helping them adapt and step into it on their own.

Really?

What if Deenie wasn’t imaginary?

Five decades later I find myself thinking about Deenie again. Often.

Could it be that something else occurred?

Dead men tell no tales…

Working up his courage, he went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate questioned whether he could be dead that soon and called for the captain to verify that he was really dead. Assured by the captain, he gave Joseph the corpse.

–Mark 15:43-45

God Talk

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to have experienced God in the manner the early church did?

What happened?

The book of Acts really gets me excited. You read through it and you say, “I want to go to those churches!” The first church was an instant mega-church and every day brought something new and exciting. They lived in absolute expectation that not only was God going to show up but that he was going to interact with them–not in the way we let him interact with us today, but really interact.

I suppose there are three possibilities as to what happened:
a) God decided he doesn’t like us as much as he liked them
b) We decided we don’t like God as much as they liked him
c) We forgot/never learned how to “experience” him

What if our over-emphasis on reason, following the holy “scientific model” of cause and effect and rational extrapolation, has caused us to “forget” how to deal with the “irrational” or, heaven forbid, the supernatural?

What if we can experience church like the early Christians did? What if God does speak to us today, really speaks to us?

Living expectantly

Joseph of Arimathea, a highly respected member of the Jewish Council, came. He was one who lived expectantly, on the lookout for the kingdom of God.

(Mark 15:42)