Donald Miller's Benediction

I was proud of Donald Miller's benediction after Monday's DNC Convention. He is influential, thoughtful, and represents a new evangelical Christian. Social justice will take a lot of us out of the GOP this year. The Republican party will have to answer for its missteps and the Democrats will have to live up to their rhetoric. The new Christian majority has a broader platform and is actively leading in setting things right.

Video: Jesus People

This is a pretty good parody of too many of us in the church

Tempting Fate

A friend of mine has had a really rough year. The doctors amputated her right leg a few years ago. She has been doing a pretty good job working her way back in the saddle. The past year, though, she has had disappointment after disappointment. Each time she has said God has a plan.

The past week I have been following the play-offs closely because I had a pair of front-row conference tickets on the line. Unlikely as it was, I had picked the final four, two, and Memphis to win. There was no assurance of winning it all. None the less, all the playoffs I held out hope those tickets were meant for me.

We live day to day with little control over our lives. Things happen we do not necessarily understand. We hold out hope they will end up our way. When they do we rejoice. When they don't we are disappointed.

Fate is a concept from the mythology of the Romans which attributed certain deities control over the lives of humans. Destiny is a similar concept that one's life-path is predetermined and unavoidable. Providence is the belief in the unseen hand of the Almighty directing the lives of people. Somehow, these answers don't cut it.

Sometimes I wonder if God really does have everything under control, or if this world just goes on its weird way and he sustains us. This viewpoint puts our emotional roller coaster in perspective. In my highest highs, God is glad with me; in the lowest lows, he hurts too. When I rest in him and face everything with the assurance he will sustain me the peaks and valleys aren't so dramatic.

inspired: Notes about my sabbath

Saturdays are my sabbath. Somebody came up with the idea that people should take a break from work and rest on Saturdays. I think it's a great idea too many of us overlook in this hustle-bustle society. Okay, I know this audience never worries themselves with busy-ness, but some people do *wink.

With the computer and TV turned off, I spent much of my day outside my apartment savoring the wysteria across the walk. The solitude was wonderful. Princess (my Lhasa Apso) and I listened to birds, watched bees, and visited neighbors who passed by.

The most amazing part of the day was that wysteria. Oh, to bottle up that fragrance and share it with you all. Its blossoms were a soft sweetness that complimented the delicate purple flowers. Insects hurried about enjoying the nectar, surely returning to the university nearby with its honeybee boxes.

I need a day of rest. It inspires me with the simpler things. I revert to pen and paper to write out ideas and paint the natural world around me. I listen to the songs of the birds and the breeze in the trees. I am revived and ready to face another week.

There's a lot more about creativity at Water Cooler Wednesdays. Join the conversation at http://randyelrod.typepad.com/ethos/2008/04/watercooler-wed.html.

Sweeter as the Days Go By

A guy is born. He gets his first tooth, walks, goes to kindergarten, loses his first tooth, first girlfriend, first heartbreak, sports, prom, homecoming, graduation, car, college, marriage, children, career, house. The list goes on. We have many firsts in our lives. It's all part of growth.

For the first thirty years of life we're anticipating the next step. After forty people tend to look back. It seems like most of our life is spent in the future or the past. For some reason we neglect now.

In the Baptist churches I grew up attending we often had a testimony time. I don't know where the tradition started, but wherever the church, it was usually the same formula. We start with a hymn or two -- always singing the first, second and last verse -- then two or three people would stand up to say how good God had been to them; it sounded something like this:

"Jesus saved me when I was (fill in the age). I asked Him into my heart. When I lost my (fill in the blank) I leaned on Him. Through all of my pain He's been there. God is so good!"

It was followed by a few hearty Amens and a similar testimony.

In all of those testimony meetings, rarely do I remember hearing someone talking about God -- or Jesus, or the Spirit, for that matter -- like they would a close friend they had just run into that afternoon. Really, we tell people they can have "a personal relationship with Jesus" then freeze up when put on the spot to talk about our own "personal relationship" with him.

Throughout Scripture the relationship between the Lord and us is as a groom and his bride. Now, I know some couples who aren't close to each other as they ought to be, but really healthy couples have intimate moments over the years and special moments amost every day. They are, well, intimate. Too many of us -- myself included -- don't have an intimate relationship with the Lord.

For most Christians, we got hitched to the Lord some time in the past and go to church and do stuff here and there because we're Christians. It's not really much of a personal relationship when I think about it. If I spent my Christian life working around God and for God but never really with Him would that be a "personal relationship?"

I hear people talk about their Christian walk getting sweeter as the days go by. As I think about some sour-looking and mean-sounding people who call themselves Christians I wonder whether they have that daily walk with the Lord. I wonder what it would say to people on the outside looking in if people who call themselves Christians really had a "personal relationship" with the Lord that was growing sweeter each day.

Spring Cleaning

This week has been the annual (if I'm so inclined) spring cleaning around my house. Going through boxes, sweeping cobwebs, and sanitizing the bathroom has been very rewarding. With my physical limitations come huge blessings; friends have helped sort (and dispose) and do the hard-core scrubbing and dusting. Working together (my job is to keep up with where everything goes) we are almost finished. All that's left are the odds and ends.

Ecumenical churches have a kind of spring cleaning: Lent. Growing up Baptist, all I knew of this strange ceremony was folks living it up on "Fat Tuesday" at Mardi Gras then giving up a bad habit for the forty days before Easter. Honestly, a lot of church traditions didn't make sense to me back then. I thought it was hypocritical to give up something you know is bad for forty days, then pick it back up. Doesn't the Bible warn us about doing naughty things and presuming on God's grace?

In my enlightened thirties, some of the old rituals make more sense. Lent, like other church holidays, is a commemoration of significant Biblical events or principles in tangible human ways that help us identify with our spiritual heritage. We recognize the significance of Jesus' imminent suffering at the hands of those he came to redeem. Before the celebration of Easter Sunday (in the western tradition) the believer solemnly ponders our own sin. Lent, like spring cleaning, offers believers the opportunity to get rid of spiritual clutter let the Lord renew us.

With Easter around the corner, it's not too late to participate in the observance of Lent. Let the Spirit lead you how you should respond, but find some way to reflect on the significance of the season and address those dusty, cluttered corners you've neglected the past year (or so). We could all use a little spring cleaning every year in our houses and hearts.