Inhale the Cure

So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living person”; the last Adam became a life- giving spirit. (1 Corinthians 15:45 NET_FL)

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.” And after he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:21-22 NET_FL)

I turned 360 degrees, analyzing each piece in the modern and contemporary art pavilion of the Seattle Art Museum. Above me cars tumbled through the air, beside me boxes of breakfast cereal rested on silk inside a glass case, and around me thought-fragments were regurgitated onto canvas then hung under lights for examination.

Art touches our emotions and the effect that room had on my feelings was shock. I was shocked how easily I identified with chaos, and sickened that we put a frame around our fractured reality and extol it. It didn’t matter that the collection was housed in a bedazzling skyscraper, or that the expenses were underwritten by the richest man on the planet (Gates), it was a brazen display of mankind’s brokenness, and without a remedy in sight.

No human or institution can return what we've forfeited since Eden. Only Jesus will do that. The first Adam received life when God breathed into him, now the last Adam breathes a second chance at life into us. Jesus breathes out, and I breathe in with childlike faith. When we both do our part, peace floods my squirming mind, my world makes sense, I know why I’m here, I’m ready to be sent out.

The choice is re-made with each new day. I can join the world’s homage of our disfunction, or inhale the breath, words, and life of Jesus. What will it be for today?

Prayer: Spirit of Jesus, breathe your cure into me.

Radical Trust

Give us today our daily bread. (Matthew 6:11 NET_FL)

The biographies of Hudson Taylor and George Muller planted a bomb in my heart. These revolutionary Christians took God literally about depending on him for daily bread. I couldn’t ignore the ticking—I had to confront my own lack of trust.

Transportation was a good place to start. For thirty years, when I wanted to go somewhere, I never depended on supernatural intervention. I jumped in my car and went. This would be my experiment of radical trust.

I sold my snazzy yellow truck and bought a bicycle. Whenever I needed to go beyond the range of my bike, I prayed. God answered, and with bonuses.

An arranged ride left me waiting in front of the church. Then a family confrontation exploded around a dear friend and he randomly fled to the church. There I was sitting on the curb. We prayed. He healed. With a car I would have missed that divine appointment. My ride came and we got to our destination to find the people there were behind schedule. So we were right on time.

A few days later, I realized there was an important meeting the following day.

“Well, Lord, I guess this is your sign I need to get wheels of my own,” I prayed.

Not ten minutes after the amen, I discovered a note from my wife. If you need my car tomorrow you can use it because I’m working from home.

Every time I pray I get one of two results. Either A) I don’t really need the trip or, B) a means of transportation is available.

Rather than defuse the bomb, my transportation experiment made it tick louder. What other areas in my life have I missed seeing God’s provision? Now that I know it’s possible, I have to find new ways to trust.

Prayer: Father, lead me to the next level with you.

No Comparison

For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:17 NET_FL)

“Tell them for me. Tell people what happened,” ten-year-old Tanaka rasped out her dying wish.

At age four, Tanaka was sold by her mother as a prostitute. When she was eight, she was rescued to a Zimbabwean orphanage. The fair-skinned girl died of AIDS two years later.

My dog had a better earthly life than precious, beautiful Tanaka. So how do I reconcile the hell-infested existence of a four-year-old daily rape victim to my soft life of ease? To pretend suffering is not real, or to think God ignores it, is to misunderstand reality. Pain is not initiated by God nor is it permitted in his ordained future for his followers. It’s an aberration conjured by Satan and fallen humans. 

God, however, is not bested. He transforms our earthly misery into opportunities for eternal glory. Jesus experienced both the pain of suffering and the glory of paradise and the two did not compare. Crucifixion pushed him down an inch, resurrection lifted him up a mile. The same exchange is planned for us.

Our God deals in justice and equity. Tanaka suffered in the strength of Jesus and now she is rewarded a thousand-fold. God never forgot her torment, instead he used it for her glory and his. Hallelujah!

Prayer: Merciful Father, honor the downtrodden throughout eternity.

The Bridge

“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the one against whom the Lord will never count sin.” (Romans 4:7-8 NET_FL)

My life is broken. It cycles like this—sin, languish, repent, back to sin. The truly dangerous part is languishing. That’s where sin multiplies. Wallowing in the swamp of self-defeat, thick with guilt and disappointment, I hate myself and figure God must be repulsed too. The mud sucks at my feet and holds me back from repentance. I feel too weak to ever leave the bog. I may as well stay and give in to sin.

A bridge gleams with rays of gold over the sulfurous mire. Its name is Grace. It was the most expensive bridge ever constructed, and also the most useful. I’m invited to skip directly from sin to repentance. I don’t have to spend another minute in languish.

The bridge is proof that I was wrong about God hating me. Even at the height of my rebellion, Father-God loved me. As I still love my two-year old child when she misbehaves, God, too, never pulls his love back. He wants me near him, even after I sin. That’s why he paid for the bridge—to carry me from sin to himself as fast as possible.

Jesus was over-qualified for the job on the cross. His death excessively cures my sin. After transference to him, I’m not only clean but I have a brilliant shine. I’m ultra-hyper-extra-free of any and all sin—free to begin over with new rules.

The rules of the bridge are simple. After I cross over, stop condemning myself and start thanking God. Stop acting self-sufficient and start expecting Jesus to get me out of sin. Stop living for temporal pleasure and start living for eternal love.

Above all, when I sin (and I will sin), be an adult about it. Get up, dust myself off, and run across the bridge to repentance—bypassing languish altogether.

Prayer: Father, when I sin, help me return to you.

Personal Fit

Peter turned around and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them. (This was the disciple who had leaned back against Jesusʼ chest at the meal and asked, “Lord, who is the one who is going to betray you.” (John 21:20 NET_FL)

Knowing that Jesus was God incarnate, he shocks my notion of a distant Creator. I’m astounded he took children in his arms, let his feet be stroked with a sinful woman’s hair, and invited disciples to lean on his breast. I didn't expect this penchant for intimate contact. It reminds me of the ancient stone architecture found in South America.

The Incas built walls using one-hundred-ton angular stones that interlocked like jigsaw pieces. How the Indians maneuvered, shaped, and fitted the monoliths so closely that a razorblade can’t fit between them remains a mystery. About four kilometers away, archeologists have identified the quarry from which the blocks were hewn in the rough before transport, final dressing, and fitting.

God found me buried deep inside the stone mountain of the world system. His generous eye measured out some potential in my raw form. By the work of the cross, he cut me free from the carnal mass in which I was forged. I was born anew, a being with a holy destiny, however, I was jagged and crude. Only God knew where I needed chipping and chiseling so I might one day fit against the Cornerstone with absolute contact.

My edges and corners still prevent me from nesting against my soul’s lover, and so the refinement continues. However, the Lord is not forcing me into some mass-produced cube so I’ll fit with all the others. He knows the exact dimensions and beautiful angles of his own stone, and he knows the true me will fit perfectly against that surface. 

Jesus wants every unique facet he created in me to completely interlock with him, for therein lies ultimate joy. He craves a heady surface-to-surface bond, so close no razorblade of un-fulfillment can slip between us. I yearn for that, too, and so I submit to the chisel.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for creating me for intimate contact with perfect you.

Addicted

But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:6 NET_FL)

I’m addicted and I need my fix. Everyday I sneak away for one-on-one time with the Creator of the universe. How could a frozen wanderer give up that patch of sunshine? Should I let deadlines, or travel, or guests invade our intimacy? Call me obsessive, but I’ll contrive a way to get what I crave.

It’s not that I’m disciplined—I’m desperate. When it comes to fighting temptation I’m as fierce as a trembling schoolgirl. Without a daily breath from the Lord, I’m sure to faint. So I draw near to him and inhale every morning, then I pray that puff will stay inside me.

Some years ago the Lord led me to two books by Christian role models who told how their lives changed when they had devotions at 5:00 a.m. I groaned and made a half-hearted commitment to try it. I didn’t set an alarm. The next few mornings I found myself awake at 5:00 a.m. and rose for my devotion time. Previously boring Scriptures now rang in my heart. On-my-face prayer emptied me of self then filled me with the Spirit. Abba Father honored a sacrifice of time set apart while the world slept.

After several years, a new threat crept in. My mornings became disciplined for discipline’s sake, not for the Lord. Jesus wants obedience in joy, not habit in drudgery. He knows I can’t live without our meetings so now he sets the day’s schedule, which sometimes includes more than one quiet time.

That’s the secret compulsion I can’t shake. Inside my prayer closet, God gets on his knees, puts his mouth to my ear, and whispers his message. It’s an addiction I’ll never fight.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for coming to me each day.

Pain Vs. The Presence

He will restore us in a very short time; he will heal us in a little while, so that we may live in his presence. (Hosea 6:2 NET_FL)

The cold tile of the hotel bathroom was poor consolation for being too sick to crawl back to bed. I had food poisoning extraordinaire. It’s a cherished memory, however, because as I curled up by the porcelain convenience, the Lord led me to an experiment. I invited his Spirit to join with mine. His presence spread across my heart and I leaned into it. As each wave of pain washed in, I matched it with exerted concentration on the nearness of Jesus.

That experience changed me. My heart declared my Savior was bigger than my pain. Suffering by itself couldn’t accomplish this. I had to take the beauty of God’s felt presence and force it into the teeth of suffering. It allowed me to witness love and pain in face-to-face combat, and to see love win.

That was a minor trial, but any hurt, big or small, will yield to the reversal. Everything, from rejection to the death of a dear one, can become time in the closet pressed against Jesus. In fact, an injury not processed in his presence will leave an open wound in the soul. Only an embrace of the Holy Spirit can cover our exposed nerves with scar tissue that is stronger than the original skin.

Where was my spirit molested? Through meditation I must re-live that moment and, at the height of the devastation, turn to the Lord’s presence. His peace wafts through my soul. Then I shove the victory of God’s greater love into the face of my memory monster. This exercise reveals a truth missed during the original trauma—Jesus, the Comforter, was with me. The force of his presence drives the beast out of my heart.

The event is a nightmare I can shake off because the love of Christ is my waking reality.

Prayer: Jesus, let me process every trial by the power of your presence.