Speed

In a church conference several years ago, like a galaxy far away ago, I kept thinking the whole time this particular presenter was speaking; 'what makes me uneasy about what this cat is talking about?' What he was saying was familiar, so that's OK. What he was talking about at least in concert with the way humanity moves, was even logical.

He was talking about how Christians drag their feet, and God has to often wait for us to catch up to Him all the time and how we needed to move faster to keep pace with the dynamic move of God.

So what was my problem?

I started getting edgy, fidgety .. restless. I was having a hard time reconciling my internal ledger about the presenters assertion regarding speed, it wasn't sitting well in the place where the word of God sits in you - for some reason I was having a negative reaction. I should insert here, it's during these times when the familiar voice of my wife internally recorded in my memory bank - and honestly for good reason - will say; 'Dan you don't always have to be you'.

Rightly interpreted, this means I should keep my unrest to my self until further notice or at least until there is more substantiated reason for concern. So, that day I stayed in my seat and took mental note of my disagreement.

By your own experience you know the presenter got it wrong. The tendencies of our humanity, the result of having free will and the way we are wired - by God - is for speed. To move fast. Even the people you judge as moving too slow are moving fast - their just moving in the opposite direction of you.

Please observe:
God moves at a much slower speed than us.
He sees at a much slower speed than us.
He responds at a much slower speed than us.

We would do well to learn and practice at least two vital components to be successful in our followership of God: We must slow our own shutter speed down and we must realize that the significant issues of our lives cannot be solved at the same speed by which they were created.

Slowing the shutter speed down, like in a camera allows you to significantly take in more light, which gives you greater exposure in truly capturing what you're looking at. Slowing the shutter speed down gives you the visual 'speed bump' to take in more of the panorama of what God is really doing in your moments.

Crisis happens like a rogue wave; fast and sudden. The real, I mean the real and true problem with any crisis is not the crisis itself but the speed by which it happens and equally more disastrous the speed by which we attempt to respond to it or worse yet try to solve it.

God is a slow/fast God. Undisciplined followership of Him is fast/slow.

Whatever your facing today that can be under the heading of crisis - slow down. There is something in the landscape of your crisis that God sees as vastly more interesting and important than the crisis itself.

Dan
A Runner

Being Too ...

He was perturbed.

More than upset, which can be an easily gained or lost emotion, on this day something deeper inside him was rumbling … perturbing, making his senses and sensibilities uneasy and hard to reconcile.

His friends became uneasy as well. Not because they knew what was eating at him and not because he was saying much. There is a transference of that kind of perturb from one person to the next without a word spoken … you’ve been there, having walked into a room and knew there was tension.

He became resolute in what must be done and began to ready himself for the task. A few of his friends tried talking him out of it and some of them remained silent because they had never seen this side of him. In either case, his friends who had long been accustomed to ‘this is just the way it is’ kind of living and thinking, weren’t yet qualified to understand the deep side of his trouble.

And so with every movement of his hands he became more perturbed, concentrating now on the task at hand he was past the point of reasonable reason and past the point of what was sensible. On that crisp morning, his sensibilities no longer in tact, the distance between his steps now widening and his heart racing with intention – tables were being flung everywhere, people were screaming in disbelief, running for safety and the money was scattered on the floor of the temple portico.


When it was all over, he stood there like a man stands when he has made a point, and dared anyone to challenge the new status quo.

Jesus was being too ….
… too radical
… too insistent on things holy
… too zealous
… too quick to make a judgment
… too violent
… too perturbed
… too unreasonable
… too Jesus.

We live in the same ‘this is just the way it is’ world Jesus’ disciples were living in. That kind of living, which is the old status quo, puts a think into people’s minds like a heavy wool veil covers a face; its heavy, hard to see through and suffocating.

Before the veil was ripped in the temple on the day of His great sacrifice, He took away the heavy wool veil covering His disciples faces that day in the temple. From that day forward none of them, save one, would ever be the same.

All because Jesus was being too …

Here's today’s question: ‘Could we be accused of being too …?’

Perhaps the smaller questions may be; 'Are our faces yet veiled with the old status quo of 'this is just the way it is'? 'Is it getting hard to see through the heaviness'? 'Are the plans, purposes and intentions of God in us suffocating'?


Find yourself being too ...


Dan
A Runner

Still the Most Powerful Certainty

I'm sitting on my front porch this morning. It's a large expansive porch attached to my wife's house. This particular porch is the reason I chose to live in the Old West End. I often tease Crystal that we bought the porch and the rest of the house came with it.

The porch faces a great neighborhood filled with real interesting people. Just four doors down a fellow minister and good friend Steve North and his wife Jan have a house. These are just a few reasons why this is a great spot for me to reflect, think, plan and blog. In just a few minutes the morning bells from Glenwood Lutheran will start playing old hymns ... calling neighbors to gather as it has done for years in this part of the city.

Even though I'm fully dressed for church this morning, which for my family is New Life Church of God in Christ on Oakwood where Bishop E.T. Cook is the Pastor [I think I've got the lingo down], there's a part of me that would just as soon stay home.

I know I'll not meet God in church this morning much more than I've already met Him on this very porch already today .. so to go to church to receive something isn't very motivational.

So - why go?

My wife Crystal has this great teaching - one I've used more than once - on the difference between journey and migration. The basic premise of her presentation is that a journey with God, while good, is about what He's doing in you. A migration on the other hand is what He's doing through you, because of you and yes ... in spite of you.

If you've hung around me for more than a minute you'll hear me say; 'The Church is The Most Powerful Certainty on This Planet'! The church, just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, is not the place I'm going to this morning - or the place you're going to. The Church, the one God has established through Jesus Christ, is people.

God's people are the most powerful certainty on this planet. YOU are the most powerful certainty on this planet. That's migration.

So - I'm off to New Life in a moment. Off I go, not with obligation. Not with compulsion. Not with a set of expectations or rules.

I go for reasons I don't expect. I go because the mysteries of following God make me curious. I go, hopefully for the same reason you go - I'm on a migration. I believe down to my socks that what God is doing in me will impact the world around me, so if I remain on this porch and enjoy the bountiful pleasure of His provision ... I've kept it to myself. I've become the sum of me, when I could become the exponential of Him.

Gotta go.

Dan
A Runner