God’s Spirit spoke through me, His words took shape on my tongue.
2 Samuel 23:2

David was famous as a warrior-king, but he was also a writer. In his dying prophecy, he reminisced about his writing accomplishments, just as he did about his victories in battle.

I am not warrior-like, nor royal, nor even particularly accomplished, but I am a writer. And I offer up my words as a praise sacrifice to the Divine Author and Creator of all things.

So… on the 21st-century digitized altar:

All the words that I possess,
Words to bruise or words to bless,
Have neither strength nor tenderness
Apart from God Who speaks them.

Words of power, words of grace,
Words let loose, words in place,
Words that kiss, yet leave no trace
Begin with God Who speaks them.

Words that plod, words that dance,
Words that poke, words that glance,
Words that touch as if by chance
Flow from God Who speaks them.

Words of caution, words that teach,
Words for all, a word for each,
Words that lift up or impeach
Sent from God Who speaks them.

Words that judge, words that spare,
Words that elevate despair,
Words that rend and then repair:
Almighty God is speaking.

Word that’s spoken into being,
Word that’s spoken into seeing,
Word that’s spoken into freeing:
One with God Who speaks it.

Words of joy and words of praise, words that soar on voices raised,
Words of worship all my days…These words to God I’m speaking.

In His teaching, the Carpenter used simple, everyday observations to help His listeners wrap their minds around spiritual and eternal realities. English majors call this the use of metaphor–implied comparison between two unlike things that actually have something important in common. A metaphor expresses the unfamiliar  in terms of the familiar. Metaphors are powerful because they help us think about difficult abstract stuff that seems hard or complicated in terms of easy concrete stuff we already understand.

There is a problem with metaphors, though. When you hear a metaphor over and over, its original rich meaning can become diluted.  Over the centuries since Jesus first taught about fruit, “spiritual fruit” has become a very common term, especially in Christian circles. The term has come to refer to a person’s actions or activities–the things you can see. And fruit is certainly something you can see. BUT… we have dropped huge chunks of the metaphor; a tree’s fruit is what you see, but the fruit comes as a result of the tree’s nature. In other words, an apple tree is planted, cultivated, and grown into an apple producer. You can’t hang apples on a pecan tree. Well, maybe you can, but those apples didn’t come from that tree.

Look at this discussion of a tree and its fruit in Matthew 7:16-20 (NIV):

By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

In the same passage from The Message, Eugene Peterson sums up the metaphor like this:

Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character.
Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say.

Jesus’ metaphor of a tree and its fruit is multilayered, dense, and question-provoking.  Does a tree “work” to produce fruit? Do all fruit-bearing plants flourish in the same kind of soil? How is it that some plants can filter out impurities that change the taste of the fruit, while other plants die in the presence of the same contaminants? Are “good works” fruit? Is morality fruit? Our goal is to develop true spiritual fruit by deepening our relationship with Jesus; He is the source of fruit-producing life. He said:

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
– John 15:4 (NIV)

What the heck does that really mean? We’re going to do a little exploring and digging, praying and studying to find out.

I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.  I make known the end from the beginning,  from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand,  and I will do all that I please.’  Isaiah 46:9-10

Our God, who is like no other, who is all-powerful, all-wise and all-loving, offers us the opportunity to enter into relationship with Him. He offers it to us in an incredible expression of grace and love.

He allows us to choose Him.  How can we NOT love a God like this? How can we not be grateful for His over-the-top, unfathomable gift of choice?

Open, giving, praising, living? or closed and grasping, grumbling, shriveling?
A spring-fed fount with sparkling flow? or a closed-in swamp, where slime-things grow?
My life, my choice; my choice, my life. God’s loving gift: a two-edged knife.

Life or death: the gift and responsibility of choice.

Me;  frustrated and angry! Then puzzled by the complete irrationality of my anger. Then saddened, because irrational anger and frustration are certainly not characteristic of the Christ in me, now are they?

Of course, an all-powerful God is not frustratable (is that a word?). After all, He can do whatever He wants, so where is the possibility for frustration? But think about this.

God:  all knowing, all powerful, yet limited by His own choice:

• When He created us. He gave us free will, allowing us, because of His great love, to operate with a degree of autonomy, so that we can choose to grow in character and capability. Real potential for frustration there, no?
• Then He wrapped Himself in the flesh he had given to His frustrating creatures, thereby limiting himself profoundly  in another way…again simply because He loved us. Because He loved me.

So God: inherently not frustratable (that non-word again), allows Himself to be frustrated in some ways, simply because of His love for us.

Yet I have the temerity to be royally ticked off because some of my calls are not returned…or because the clean sink I expected to find in my kitchen is full of dirty dishes…or the meeting I prepared for has been postponed.

But (again because of the love of God) I can do better. After all, the complete life-giving, empowering, energizing, and long-suffering love of Christ is all in me and through me. And I’m pretty sure “frustratable” is not even a word.

It would mean that the paralyzing indecision that seems to dog my steps would not hobble me as it has in the past and does to this day.

It would mean that my “lizard brain” would not have veto power over every idea I have.

It would mean that the habits that restrict my choices (staying up too late, sleeping in too long, wasting time online, wasting time looking for things, wasting time dithering) would no longer keep me in one place.

It would mean that the fear of looking like an idiot would not keep me from sharing and implementing my ideas.

It would mean that my way, way-down-deep doubts about what I can do would lose their power to inhibit what I actually do.

How do I find and actuate this freedom? The apostle Paul pointed the way:  Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Cor 3:17)

So…does this mean that freedom, like all the good things that come from God, is the inevitable result of, and ONLY of, a continually growing and deepening relationship with the Father? That it is not possible to become free by power of will, or by following specific self-help procedures, or by visualization?

It all goes back to the same theme:  Not by power, not by will; not by potion, not by pill;  only Jesus.Nothing but the power of Christ can free me from dependence on my “lizard brain” and my almost-, but not quite, subconscious fear of failure.

Yesterday, most of those hundreds of millions had never heard of Hans Christian Ørsted. So what happened? Google Doodle.

Google Doodle is a date-, season-, or event-specific variation of the logo on the Google home page. Doodles are original, interesting, attractive, irresistible link-magnets. No Flash, no blinking animations, no scrolling banner ads, no annoying sound effects, but compelling. You gotta click, or at least mouseover, the Doodle to see what it’s all about.

OK. Crazy statement alert. If we believe in and follow Jesus, we are called to be living Google Doodles:  irresistible magnets that by nature and demeanor (not annoying sound effects) attract and connect people to Him.

Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it. (I Cor 3:3, The Message)

Google Doodles for Jesus? OMG. Still…think about it.

The thing about love is, it’s tricky. Most of us, when we talk about love, have no idea what we mean, or even what we want to mean. Just last Sunday, our five-year-old granddaughter threw herself onto a pink and white and multi-pastel pile of new school clothes, wrapped her arms around the whole lot, and screamed, “I love all these!”  Easy as ABC.

But grown-ups have to go a little deeper into the alphabet. This year, I”ve learned that, for me, getting to real love–love as a way of life–means a backwards trip through my Ps and Rs. It’s been an interesting education.

The Three Rs

I’ve lived a lot of my life by following rules. Or, sometimes –disastrously–by breaking them. Rules. Regulations. Religion. Add recrimination. remorse. And retribution. These rolling Rs are good for managing behavior, for maintaining civil society. But not so good at tending to wounds or managing pain. And absolutely useless for restoring wholeness and learning to love.

Then why bother with  the Rs? Because God did. See, there’s this progression. The Rs  are not the point; they’re just the pointers. That whole bundle of Rs–called “the Law” in the Bible–was “our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Gal 3:24), The Rs bring us face-to-face with the Ps and the love of God.

A Whole Pod of Ps

Over the Fourth of July weekend, I heard Pastor Fred Luter (of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans) wrap words from God around the lessons God has been teaching me in the laboratory of my life. The words and the lessons–the Ps in my backwards trek through the alphabet–center around Jesus. (Who else?)

• His promise.
  I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. (Jer31:3)
  Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt 11:28)
• His presence.
  I am with you always (Matt 28:20)
  Abide in Me, and I in you (John 15:4)
• His power.
  [Jesus] said unto the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.(Mark 4:39)

The promises, presence, and power of Jesus: more than a clever use of alliteration to punch up a sermon, these Ps are central to life. Here’s the process:

1. Take in His promises (they’re in the Bible).
2. Spend time in His presence (that’s what prayer is about; asking for stuff , again, not the point.)
3. His power builds bone, muscle, and capability in you to live a life of love that blesses you and everyone around you.

That’s how easy love can be.

Then I fall into a conversation with God.

Maybe not exactly a conversation, more a sitting-together quietly, enjoying each other’s company, like old friends on a porch swing communing silently, just being together. And after a few minutes, the sheer wonder of this moment hits me.

The God of the Universe, the Almighty, the Creator of all things, Who was and is and is to come .. is willing to slice out a piece of Eternity to spend with me. The eternal Word is willing to have a word with pipsqueaky, pissant, decidely mortal me. Not only willing, but delighted. He calls me friend.

I think about the magnitude of that. About the grace, the extravagant love that fuels our relationship. And there are no words to describe the joy, the peace, the sense of right-being that flow over my spirit.

Mother Teresa reportedly once said, We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. I’m no Mother Teresa, but I’d like to amend that a little. God could not be found at all, had He not revealed Himself, emptied Himself, and, as my Grandma would have said, gone way out the way to reconcile us to Himself.

I can almost hear my Friend and my Redeemer speaking to me:

When your spirit’s overwhelmed with grace, then you know what I created you for. You think I’ve loved you all I can? Oh no…I’m gonna love you a whole lot more.

Then I fall asleep.

Ain’t God good?

I’ve watched folks doin’ dirt and keepin’ their hands clean.
I’ve seen good folks hurt while praise gets heaped on folks who’re mean.
I’ve looked at folks climb to the top by trompin’ others down.
And then I’ve wondered, “Lord, O Lord, when does it come back ’round?”

I’ve heard mommas curse the kids they carried in their wombs.
I’ve seen kids whose evil drove their mommas to cold tombs.
I’ve talked to folks in desp’rate need whose blood kin let them down.
And then I’ve wondered, “Lord, O Lord, when does it come back ’round?”

But when I see the soft, sweet smile that lights a gen’rous face;
When I share the peace of folks who thank God for His grace;
When I’m helped and then I help folks get up off the ground;
Jesus tells me, “Look here, child! Love always comes back ’round.”

Close your eyes. Relax. Picture yourself in the middle of a huge, black asphalt-covered parking lot. It’s mid-August, about four in the afternoon, 97 degrees Fahrenheit. Feel the wicked-hot sun. No breeze. Mostly empty lot, and your car appears to be miles away, at the edge of the asphalt, barely visible through the shimmering waves of heat. Now start walking.

Feel the punishing rays. Wilt in the scorching heat. Almost unbearable, huh?

Now look at the strip of land adjoining the lot–a grassy ribbon untouched by the bulldozers where a large leafy maple tree spreads its branches. Walk over to the welcome shade. Feel relief from the blazing sun. Rest for a moment against the broad trunk. Let the tree take the heat.

Sometimes kindness means that I become a tree, interposing myself between a weak soul and the white heat of oppression. Or a blanket wrapping myself around a neighbor whose heart is chilled by evil. Or a barrier, stepping in to shield another soul from the fury of a tormentor. Kindness is not passive “niceness;” kindness is active Love.

In this ServantBlog post, Andy White describes kindness that can change the world:

Kindness encapsulates every single fruit of the spirit, and when we serve another in Kindness we become a vessel through which the fruits flow. We bring hope to the hopeless, faith to the faithless and love to the unloved. We start to challenge structures, confound stereotypes and become agents of change. We begin to introduce a sense of justice in a life trapped by injustice.

We don’t need to be ˜nice” to serve: we need to be focused on Kindness and bent on Justice. Want to change the world? Let’s go to war for the disenfranchised, the trampled upon, the forgotten; let’s confront the weasels. And let’s allow our weapon to be Kindness, our strategy to be unconditional serving, and our victory to be Justice.

Jesus hasn’t called me to be nice; He calls me to follow Him. His mission (and mine) is  not to commit “random kindness and acts of senseless beauty,” but to ... preach the gospel to the poor … to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised (Luke 4:18).

Active kindness motivated by love is THE rule of engagement for Christian mission. The $64,000 question is this: How does that play out in my life?