Older than the Rain

"Falling tears from fallen eyes
Our faces with an unaccustomed stain.
"We were driven from the garden beneath a cloudless sky
For human tears are older than the rain."

- Michael Card, "Older than the Rain"

Last night, a group of about twenty of us headed over to Keene to experience God through Michael Card's ministry. I can't say he performs because despite his incredible talent, the entire focus of his concerts is God. I firmly believe that if there is a humbler, more God-honoring man in Christian music, I've never heard him.
He played a few songs off his new album "The Hidden Face of God" and the one that really caught me off guard was the song "Older than the Rain." He introduced the song by simply saying, "Tears are older than the rain because the Fall came before the Flood."

What struck me about the song was the simple truth of it all - we are not made to sin. God did not create us to know tears. Perhaps that is why pain is so...painful. It hurts because we are not supposed to endure it. God wanted us to have a life free of pain, but we brought it into the world and now we sin, we hurt each other, we weep over loss. We are a broken race.

Perhaps that is why God must one day wipe away our tears. [Revelation 21:4] He will take away this curse we all carry, leaving us as we were meant to be - unstained by tears. [Revelation 22:3]

I don't know about you, but that gives me a measure of relief. The day-to-day struggle with my sin which I do not always win is the one thing about me that grinds down my hope and my joy. I can put up with just about everything else in my life, but my sin and the pain it causes to me, to those around me, to my God - that just wears me down. I find myself in the midst of thoughts and even actions, and I look around with tears in my eyes asking "What am I doing here? How did I get here anyway?"

"Older than the Rain"

Since You Mention It...

Why is it so hard for us to pray for one another. I don't mean make some kind of cursory mention of a person's needs during prayer or check their requests off on a list we have on our refrigerator. I mean really PRAY for them.

Paul wrote: "First off, I challenge you to make supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving for everyone...This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."I desire to see everyone everywhere praying, lifting up holy hands without anger or doubts." [1 Timothy 2:1, 3, 4, DiVietro paraphrase]

Something fueled Paul's desire. He had an intense attachment to praying for others. There was something deep inside who he was that shifted his focus immediately onto the needs of those around him. One way or another, the barriers that kept him from praying were broken down in his life. And when they were
broken down, Paul became a praying machine. If we could figure out his prayer secret, maybe we could break through to.

I'm not sure I understand all of it, but I think that the driving force behind Paul's shift to praying for others came from his shift from selfishness. Now most of the time, when people talk about shifting from selfishness, they want you to focus on others. They dredge up some quote from Mother Teresa and try to prove that you must focus on others in order to be any good to God.

I think that is backwards. Paul did not shift his attention from himself to others. He shifted his focus from himself to Christ. "I determined that I would not be known for anything except Christ and him crucified." [1 Corinthians 2:2] He did not focus on others; he focused on Jesus.

Maybe true Christian prayer really is otherworldly. It is totally and completely alien. The passion for others comes not from focusing on them but specifically from not focusing on them and instead dedicating ourselves to, as Thomas a Kempis put it, The Imitation of Christ. I mean imitation not in the "do it like him" way but the "become like him" way.

When we draw so close to Jesus that our lifeforce is literally merged with his, we feel his passions. His heart begins to beat in our chests, and we truly and genuinely feel his love and desire for the good of other.

The Wrong "They"

I was at the Vision New England conference yesterday, and Ed Young Jr. challenged the gathered pastors and leaders to consider the they who surround them. You know how people say thinks like: “they are saying” and “they may not like that”? He challenged us to figure out who they are.

They are the very few people who want to be comfortable, want to be pleased and taken care of. They don’t want us to minister to each other and the community around us. They want me to be a chaplain to oversee their services, entertain them with preaching (SHEESH, do they have issues if they think of preaching as entertainment!), and do weddings/funerals. They are the virus that destroys the work of Christ.

We have such a phenomenal church, and I’m not saying that to please they. Our people are not perfect, but there is an honest environment of caring and love. We probably don’t do enough, but then again, can you ever do enough for each other?

When I first came on board as the pastor of HBC, one of the deacons shared with me, “As long as it is biblical, we’ll follow you.” That is a tremendous amount of trust, isn’t it? These men – everyone of them an established business man nearly my father’s age – were placing the steering wheel in my hands and saying, “You drive. We’ll make sure we stay on the map, but you take us where we’re going!” What a wonderful burden!

Can you pray for me? I want to be surrounded by the prayers of the right they. We have to join together in order for me to stay true to the Word as I lead. There is no greater joy for me than to see people reached – healed by the power of our God. But if the wrong they gets in there, telling me how to do things and how to minister, I may lose sight of the real burden.

I will be praying for you. I want you to be the right they. I want to know that you’ve got my back, and you’re supporting our ministries. You won’t necessarily LIKE every ministry or every direction we go. That’s ok. God doesn’t call us to like the direction we’re going; he just calls us to go. Everything in your human experience is going to scream out for things to be the same, predictable and reliably mundane. When we give in, we become the wrong they.

Honesty

I just finished reading a book, Blue Like Jazz. It was an interesting read. The author, Don Miller, had a life that pretty much shadowed mine. He experimented with a lot more and acted on some impulses I suppressed, but I could identify with him. For a time, he turned on Christianity even though he kept going to church and kept up appearances. He was even speaking in churches and working in Christian camps – all the while really just seeking after God.

He’s not my type of Christian – a little too earthy-crunchy for me. He likes Democrats, radical feminists and Green Peace. I have no problem with him having his own beliefs though. He’s free to believe as he believes and as long as he doesn’t tell me what to believe, that’s cool with me.

He did teach me something though – something radically, spiritually sideways. I was surprised to find that I thoroughly believe God really likes him. God likes me too, and that was a realization I had to remake while reading the book. While Don might enjoy living in Portland, Oregon (a sure sign of insanity), and going to protest rallies, he is not the enemy. He was; but then he came to Christ and found forgiveness and acceptance in Him. Now, I cannot judge Don’s differences of opinion or appearance from me. And if I could, I would question my own sincerity.

We have got to learn to accept that Christians can vary politically, philosophically and in appearance. God doesn’t do cloning. If he wanted clones, he would have given the apostles the technology to just clone themselves rather than reaching individuals with the Good News.

Reality vs Ideals

Realities are often very different from ideals.  The difference between a visionary and a dreamer is the ability to turn what you see into reality.  When God takes a dream and makes it a fact, we know where the credit lies.
Consider this one person – Joseph, the dreamer.  He was a visionary of the highest caliber, because his vision was not his own.  He got a vision from God and got excited about it, but others called him a dreamer.  He was persecuted; he was sold as a slave; he was unjustly imprisoned.  His life went through a number of major “bumps” that most of will never experience.  He suffered a great deal for his vision, but he was able to see it through because it was not his to see through.
When you get a hold of a tiny piece of God’s vision, you will see it through, no matter how dark the valley of shadow is that you walk through.  When the vision is your own, it leads to despair.  When it is Christ’s, it leads you THROUGH despair.  It’s all a matter of the source, not your implementation.  God gives us ministries and gifts.  When we’re working on God’s terms instead of our own, they blossom.  When we’re trying to do our own thing, our gifts and abilities are stifled and we stifle others.
Be a Joseph – get a vision from God and rely on it.  There’s really no other way to go.  

Do the unthinkable

“Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.”
- Douglas Adams

It is not often that I let one area of study overlap into another.  Actually, it happens all the time, but that’s not important right now.  One of the great discoveries in my recent reading has been Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  His sardonic wit brings to light some things that are so painfully obvious that we should have seen them long ago and to point out the absurdity of not seeing it in the first place.

Here is a perfect example.  What does it mean to eff something anyway?  Adams took a word that those of us who would use it wind up using it incorrectly anyway (ineffable actually means “not expressible in words”) and uses it to highlight just how doable the undoable really is.  If it has been presented to us to do, then it can be done.  Rather than wasting our time talking about how impossible it is, we might as well just get to work.

Insignificance

There are a lot of people in the world who want to tell you how important you are.  Improving your self-image is a multi-billion dollar industry.  Improving your look (through diets, fitness fads, etc) dwarfs that.  When you boil it all down, it is the search for significance.  The world screams out: “I want to feel important!  Where do I fit in?”

What if I told you that you’re insignificant and you should be thankful for it?  What does it mean to be significant?  It means to be responsible – ultimately to be Atlas with the world bearing down on your shoulders.  It means that you cannot afford to fall asleep in the garden because you’re the reason the other eleven men are there.  It means you have to give up your home, your profession, your comfort and become a persecuted itinerant preacher.

I am kinda thankful that I am insignificant.  The weight of the world rests on much more capable shoulders and I am relieved.  I have let someone else carry the weight, and He takes care of it without my interference. [Psalm 55:22]  

Contentment is way more important than self-image. [1 Timothy 6:6-7]  Fitness is not a bad thing, but if it is all we live for, our lives are empty. [1 Timothy 4:8]  My self-image is that I am an insignificant, worthless sinner who has been redeemed by the only Savior of the world.  By myself, I am nothing; but with him, I am everything I am supposed to be.