Daddy, are you talking to God?

Daddy, did you ever do drugs?  Yes, baby, I did.
Daddy, have you ever been drunk?  Yes, baby, I have.
Daddy, have you ever stolen something?  Yes, baby, I have.

There are a host of questions which my daughter might ask me that, much to my shame and in keeping with my promise to always be honest with my daughter, I would have to answer in the affirmative.  I can see these questions coming, a little down the road, and quite frankly, they scare me a little.  I must find a way to be honest with my daughter and to provide her with the guidance that she will need to avoid those pitfalls which I was unable to find my way around.  The life I have lived, and the struggles that I have faced, have left me with a laundry list of things that I wish I had not done, and I know that when she is old enough to ask, I will have to swallow my pride and admit to her that her father and his past are anything but perfect.  These were my choices, and part of the price that I will have to pay is the look in my daughter's eyes as she comes to terms with her father's imperfections, but all of this pales beside one of her first and most recent questions.

At two years old, my little one has just entered into that stage of life where everything becomes a question.  She wonders at the leaves on the trees, marvels at the stars in the sky, and questions the smallest of things.  And she watches.  She watches her mother and I as we move about our daily routine.  She notices little things to which we no longer pay the slightest attention.  She watches and understands more than I often realize.  Recently, I was wondering around the kitchen, engaged in one of those habits that has become so routine that, unless someone calls my attention to it, I don't even realize that I am doing it.  Suddenly I felt a sharp tug at the leg of my pants, and looked down to see a set of smiling blue eyes looking up at me.  In the sweetest voice imaginable, my daughter asked, in all seriousness, "Daddy, are you talking to God?" At that moment (and now, even as I write), tears came to my eyes, because lost in that moment, my daughter heard what I hadn't even realized I was doing.  Crying, grinning, laughing, I reached down and scooped her up in that hug that only a Daddy can give and I had the sincere privilege of saying, "Yes, baby, I am."

Yes, baby, I am.  Those four simple words were, for me, like a pat on the back from Papa.  I knew, even in that moment, all of the questions to which I might, one day, have to answer "Yes,"  but, thank God, the man that was standing in the kitchen holding the second most precious gift God had ever given him is not the same man that lost himself those years ago.  That man, that addict, that drunk, that thief is dead, and those sins are covered by the most precious gift ever given by God to fallen man, the life, death, burial, and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ.  Because of that sacrifice, and a grace that has never, in 35 years, failed me, I find my self in a position where my daughter can, on some random Tuesday, tug on her daddy's pants leg and wonder, "Daddy, are you talking to God?" Yes, baby, I am.  I'm talking to him about the wonderful life he has given me.  I'm thanking him for you and for your Mama.  I'm thanking him for our home and for our jobs, and for the love of our family.  I'm thanking him for rescuing me from the place where I used to be and bringing me to the place where I am now.  I'm asking him for forgiveness for the (many) ways that I still fail him, and telling him how much I love him.

Yes, baby, I'm talking to God, and so can you.

Night Seasons

There comes a time, several times, in the life of every believer when darkness seems to descend, those things that bring us the most joy seem obscured, and our walk seems infinitely more difficult.  These times often descend without warning, and often come at the moment when we feel that, finally, we have earned a well-deserved rest.  If we are lucky, the darkness lasts for the briefest of moments before Christ steps out on the bow of the ship and whispers peace into the storms in our lives.  There are those times, however, when the darkness seems to last and we find ourselves alone in a crowded room, distant from those we love and from the joy that the presence of God brings.  These times are not some momentary faltering, easily overcome and just as easily forgotten; these are our night seasons, and as we continue our walk, we must learn to recognize and then respond to these desolate moments or risk finding ourselves lost, adrift, on a sea of endless storms.

Job, perhaps more so that any other biblical figure, recognized the true agony of night season. In Job 30:17, this model of patience and perseverance wrote, "In the night season my bones are pierced in me, And the pains that gnaw me take no rest."  Beyond his health issues, beyond his loss, the feeling that God had withdrawn his protecting hand hurt Job more than he cared to admit. The pains of loss paled beside the distance from his source of joy.  Then, as usually happens, the problem was compounded by the betrayal of friends and the goading of enemies.  Caught in a storm the likes of which most will never see,  Job describes the feeling of a night season perfectly when he says that he is assaulted by terrors, his dignity is in shreds, and he feels like his salvation is up smoke (Job 30:15, MSG).  How many times have we felt this way?  Afraid of what might come, afraid of what others might think, afraid that we have, somehow, strayed too far from the mark and lost our way indefinitely... It is for this very reason that we must identify the night season and allow God to light our path.  

In scripture, we find that a night season often descends for one of three reasons: as as method of correction, from a need for consolation, or in a time of all-out spiritual warfare.  It was in the latter that Job found himself, attacked on all sides by an enemy that had been given only one restriction: he couldn't kill him.  In Job's case, death might have been merciful, but as with all spiritual attacks, the end result for a believer who perseveres is the glorification of God and a life where blessings are "pressed down, shaken together, and running over" (Luk 6:38)  In this (and my greatest failing is often here), perseverance is the key.  We must continue to war throughout the darkest of nights, knowing that no matter how we feel, we are not, and never have been alone.  We must fight with those weapons provided us (prayer and praise, worship and works, fasting and favor) until the enemy is driven back.  As always, our path follows directly the footsteps of Christ who had to suffer his own night season in the wilderness and again in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Each time, he held fast to the love of the Father and to those words that provide a "lamp unto our feet" even in the darkest of times.  

Perhaps even more prominent in our day to day spiritual walk is that night season brought on, not by an attack, but rather through discouragement and fear.  Very often, especially with Christians who are rooted in their faith, it is neither necessary, nor even prudent, for the enemy to send a direct attack.  These are often recognizable and, as such, many Christians find that they are able to resist them much more easily.  So, at least it seems to me, the fallback position of the enemy is a steady campaign designed not to tempt us from the path, but rather to get us to stop somewhere along the way.  Using a seemingly innocent comment here, an unsound piece of advice there, satan wages a covert war that causes us to begin to make excuses.  For Elijah, it came from Jezebel.  This man, who had seen over 400 false prophets of Baal consumed by holy fire, allowed a threat made by one angry woman to stop him in his tracks.  There was a goodly amount of fear, certainly, but I do not believe that it was fear alone that gave Elijah pause.  The path was difficult; his allies few, and due to this fact, Elijah, for forty days and nights, hid from the world and from the responsibility that God had given him...

  (If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll pause here while Papa uses my own words to give me a fatherly smack across the back of the head.) 

...God himself recognized that "the journey is too great" and so he allowed Elijah a moment to sulk before stepping in and asking, "Elijah, what are you doing?"  No matter the person being asked this question of God, the answer here is always the same: "Not what I am supposed to be doing."  I have come to love this story and to love God's solution to Elijah's night season.  Papa didn't just give Elijah a swift kick and send him on his way; he provided him with the one thing that made the rest of Elijah's journey possible: Elisha (1 Kin 18, 19). We must not undervalue the support of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Moses took Aaron, David had Jonathan, even Christ himself gathered together the apostles.  It is in the small groups of fast friends that we find the support and encouragement we need to continue the journey.  

The final night season is perhaps the most frightening and the most dangerous.  We have all taken that step back, turned briefly away from that which we no to be right to chase after that which we (at least at the time) think will serve to make us happier, more popular, more well-to-do, more... something.  We take that step back, and the next follows more easily, and the next, until we, through our own choices and our own desires, have allowed sin and our own sinful nature to separate us from God.  We hide this separation in dark rooms and darker silence, we drown it in the nearest bottle or dull it with the nearest pill, and yet, even in that haze, the unhappiness and uneasiness of separation from God is present and alarming.  David stepped too far away and it cost him a son.  Jonah spent three nights in the belly of a great fish.   The children of Israel walked for years around the same mountain and missed a trip to the promised land.  This night season is different for each who must endure it, but our time there can be greatly shortened if only we remember that the Light didn't move, we did.  And just as David rose, washed himself, and returned to the House of God, or just as Jonah cried our from the belly of the fish, we must turn back, cry out, and allow the mercy and the grace of God to provide us that redemption and peace which comes only from the Father through the blood of Jesus Christ.  Then, as we continue our journey, we must come to recognize these night seasons, whether they come for correction or instruction, and ultimately realize, just as David did, that even though darkness surrounds us, we serve a God in "whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (Jas 1:17).

Psa 16:7-8  I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons.  (8)  I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

My Biggest Battle

My biggest battle.  Prior to the last few weeks, I might have listed any number of things had someone asked me what is the biggest battle I have faced.  Addiction (to any number of things) might have topped the list.  Depression might have been there as well: that feeling of despair that seems to sink into me every so often and from which I must continually pull myself.  Lust.  Lying.  I have fought, and in some cases, continue to fight these things, but recently, God, through the use of my pastor, my friends, and the leaves on the trees in my front yard, has made me aware of a deeper issue, one that, time and time again, has taken me away from his work for me.

I suppose it really began on Saturday, two weeks ago, as I was mowing the lawn.  The leaves on our wooded lot have begun to turn, and the colors, this time of year, are startling.  Reds, golds, silvers and greens all seem crown the trees in a palette that dwarfs the imagination.  I was marveling at the change, and the colors that this change brings, when I stooped down to pick up a newly fallen leaf.  It was that shade of red that is only seen in fall, and really was quite beautiful as it fell, but as with everything, I suppose, as I began to look more closely, the color did not seem as bright as it had when it fell, and there were dark spots there that more-than-hinted at the shades of brown decay that would soon come.  I thought at the time that there was a sermon there, some little nugget of wisdom, along the lines of "Don't look too closely" or "If you are searching for a fault, then you can be sure to find one."  As usual, when Papa is trying to tell me something, I'm a little slow on the uptake.  

Though my relationship with Papa is, as it has always been, more a product of his patience than my ability to do as I am told, I could tell (and in all honesty, have been able to tell for quite some time) that things were not quite as they should be.  On the surface, everything was fine and, in some instances, more than fine.  I was in church, if not as frequently as I had been. My prayer life was good.  My job, which I firmly believe to be part of my calling, had never been better.  But, on Saturday night, as I began praying in earnest for the service the next day, wanting and needing an outpouring of his spirit, I heard Papa whisper, "Look closer."   I didn't even have to think.  My heart dropped into my stomach and I knew.  Oh.  The leaf.  And there, in a moment, my biggest battle, one that I have faced countless times since first surrendering to the call to preach His Word, was laid bare.  

There, on a life colored by the Master's hand in the blue of a little girl's eye, the brown in the hair of my loving wife, and the greens and golds of the home he has given me, lay dark spots of hurt and resentment with which I had never truly dealt.  There is that thing in me, in all of us I believe, that wants to be well-liked, and it is that thing which the Devil, time and time again, has used so effectively against me.  Since I was first called into the ministry, there have been those, who, at just the right moment, managed to speak some hurt or criticism in my life that would, ultimately, lead to me sitting like Elijah, sulking, under a juniper tree waiting on that still small voice to tell me to move.  This is certainly not to say that anyone is at fault, other than myself, and I am struggling to come to terms with the reality check that Papa placed before me.  Ecclesiastes 7:21 says, "Also take not heed unto all words that are spoken, lest thou hear thy servant curse thee."  And, as always, this little gem finds its way effectively into more modern phrasing: "What people think about me is none of my business."  Sitting thereon that quiet, prayerful Saturday evening with this thought in mind,  I took a moment to read about the juniper tree and the prophet who ran from the words of another.  Then, when my pastor referenced the same scripture the next morning, I made a decision; I chose a path, a path which I pray that God will give me the strength to walk.  Neither my service to God, nor the church that I feel led to attend, can be based upon the opinions of others.  I must, in this and all things, choose to follow God without any consideration to what people might think or believe about me.  What others think of me is none of my business, and their opinion (good or bad) cannot be allowed to shift me from my determined purpose.  I am, and I know this now for certain, exactly where God wants me to be at this moment in my life and until his voice says move, it is there that I will stay.  For too long I have let the words of false friends, foolish leaders, and church members frustrate me, condemn me, and provide me with an excuse to walk away.  No longer. This, then, is my prayer, from Psalm 16:7-8,  "I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons.  (8)  I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved."