Broken

There’s a passage in Deuteronomy called the “Shema,” or literally “Pay attention.” It’s a passage that’s prayed through several times a day by Jews all over the world. It starts like this: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”Another way to say it is “the Lord is whole.” It’s a passage about God’s unity. It’s a passage about God’s perfection.
Lawrence Kushner in his book Five Cities of Refuge describes this passage like this:
“We were more than part of it: we were of it and it was of us. Then we were born and everything began to fall apart, mothers and children, fathers and mothers, siblings, lovers, families, villages, nations. Earliest childhood is living in the unity; adulthood is surviving the brokenness.”
He goes on to say, “…what has come to be called spiritual maturity is remembering the ancient unity and trying to reassemble the shards.” (pg. 140)
I’m constantly reminded that the world I live in is broken.
Brokenness is in the news.
Should we be more concerned about 200lb eight year olds or Jennifer Hudson’s Academy Awards, or the fact that those stories made the front page and the atrocities in Darfur go overlooked?
Brokenness.
We can find brokenness is in our television shows. In our workplaces. On our computer screens. In the 76lb fashion model our daughters long to look like. In the so called, ‘war on terror.’ In our conversations with our spouses. In our response’s to our children. In our families and in our homes.
How do we live in the midst of this brokenness and try to reassemble the shards?
How do we grasp the reality that God is whole?In my brokenness, it’s hard for me to even recognize or understand that which is whole. As much as I long for wholeness, I can’t cling on to it without wondering how long until it breaks too. Yet God is one. God is whole. God has stepped into our brokenness and begun to pick up the shards and piece them back together, and the next time I experience brokenness he’s there once again sweeping up the mess and reassembling the wreckage. Sometimes I’m the source of the brokenness that chips away at the lives of others, and then there’s times I feel like the windshield that slowly spiders to the point where the next pebble, or the next stone, or the next word, or the next look, or lonely feeling, inadequate thought, or embarrassing moment might shatter me to pieces. Yet God is one. God is whole. God never breaks, but is willing to be with me when I’m broken. This is some of the comfort and the wonder and the confusion of the Shema, you can read it in Deuteronomy 6:4

Read More......

Smelly Feet

So last night I was sitting on the couch watching CSI (yes…one of my many TV addictions, I'm working on it though).
Anyway, I'm watching with Amy and she starts to smell something really bad. Now, usually I'm quick to admit it if it's me. But I was pretty sure I didn't do it.
Amy has like this super sniffer, so she can smell anything from anywhere and if she can't figure out what the smell is or where it's coming from, it drives her nuts. So she smells this smell and starts walking around the room sniffing everything. She's convinced that somehow I did something to make the stench. So as she's walking around sniffing the couch, the kitchen, the trash, the dishwasher….she leans over and smells my feet, which were propped up on the sofa right next to where she was sitting.
At that point, her gag reflex kicks in, and she plugs her nose and makes a really funny face and points at my feet.
Now, I've never really had smelly feet. I wash my feet. I always wear clean socks. My shoes don't smell bad. Yet she was convinced my feet were the source of the smell that was now making it's way to my nostrils, so I knew she wasn't kidding around. I'm not really that flexible, so as hard as I tried I wasn't really able to get my foot anywhere near my face to smell myself, so I had to take her word for it. So I jumped in the shower and started washing my feet and that's when I noticed it. I had this huge blister on my foot from my toe rubbing against the side of my shoe while I was running. This blister, just so happened to have popped, and I'm sure the stuff that oozes out of those things can't smell that great. So yes…the source of the stench was my foot, which is clean now, thanks to my wife's great sense of smell. (I still had to sleep with socks on though…:)
I thought I'd share something kinda funny, and I guess kinda gross, and if you end up reading this and would like to read bits and pieces of my life (as real as it is) some thoughts on the scriptures, my struggles with prayer and how I strain to understand God, post a comment and let me know. (just click the comment button below).

Read More......

hooperatay

The ships were the largest, most sophisticated, elite ships of the first century. They were made for battle, defense and to show off the greatest empire in the world, The Roman Empire. At the very base of these colossal boats, at the waterline, were dozens of small portholes. Protruding from these portholes, oars rhythmically plunged into the water, back, and into the water again.
Inside, convicted felons were forced to spend the rest of their lives chained to these oars. The dim light that managed to work its way through the cracks in the wood from the upper deck and sometimes past the oar through the porthole was the only glimpse of daylight these slaves could ever hope of seeing again. Slaves died daily. Roman soldiers walked down the isles with whips and rods to motivate the rowers. Food was scarce. Rowing for days on end, sleeping little if any, fed the minimum to survive, these slaves lived for one thing only, moving their oar back and forth. This lowest level of the ship, the galley, was dark, hot, musty....unbearable. The slave would receive no pay, no recognition, in fact most likely they would die holding their oar...yet...they were the ones who provided all the power for this massive ship to move. Without the work of these slaves, these ships would be useless!
Paul, a writer of a large portion of the Second Testament, uses a Greek word
pronounced, “hooperatay,” in 1 Corinthians 4:1:
“So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ…”
This word in English, normally translated as "servant," literally means "under-rower" or "galley-slave." In Paul's day, a person who heard this word, or read this word, would immediately think of the Roman Empire and their fleet of massive ships powered by these under-rowers or galley-slaves. Then this writer, Paul, takes an amazing twist. He says, “you know those galley-slaves? Those under-rowers? We are to be just like them for Jesus Christ.” It’s so crazy when I begin to thing about what that means for my life on a daily basis. How am I to be a slave for Christ? What does this look like from the time I get up in the morning, till I get up the next? What does it look like to be a slave for Christ at the grocery store, or when I’m mowing my lawn, or pumping gas?
Paul simply says the life of a Christ follower isn’t always easy. Our devotion to proclaiming the truth to those who haven’t heard it, isn’t always easy. He says that we are to voluntarily chain our wrists to the oar of truth. Just as these slaves lived for one thing only, and everything they did, they did chained to an oar, we are to have that same devotion in serving Christ. Paul says that sometimes, being a galley slave in ministry for Jesus Christ is hard, and when it gets tough, and when you feel like quitting, remember why you are serving...1 Corinthians 4:1-2:
“So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”
We are serving because we are spreading the secret of Jesus Christ to the world, and most of all, with this trust, with this truth, with this secret, we must be faithful. Don't give up. We have been entrusted to power this massive ministry ship to spread the truth of Jesus Christ to the world and if we give up, if we get tired and leave our oar, the ship may lose speed...so don't give up, be faithful.

Read More......