Ten Minute Musings

Well, I guess this is the last installment on this subject, at least for a while.  My heart is pricked and I realize that the biggest thing that keeps me from sharing my brokenness is my pride.  My, what a shame, to miss out on so much love, victory, and power because I want others to think well of me.  Am I actually that deceived to think that they don’t know I make mistakes?

I guess the church could use some rawness.  Ideally a place where we invite Jesus to be among us to deal with real people and their real problems in real time.  A sort of celestial reality show without censorship.  What is that church like?

I love that about Togo and worship among the Watchi people.  It is raw, untamed, unrefined, and rather pure.  The praise time is rather chaotic, there is always the stray goat that wanders through and you can sing whatever song you like.  It is flexible and could go on for two or three hours, just the singing that is.  As for being open to confession, they studied the word with me and said, let’s start doing that.  That is a good idea.  We should share our burdens, and it began.

It seems so simple.  It is so simple.

I love the promise of I John 1:7, it is a healthy church:  “But, if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

Truth, exposure, revelation, love, fellowship, healing, encouragement, and grace being born from a willingness to be vulnerable to my family of faith as I share my weaknesses and struggles and you share yours.  I hope you are part of that kind of family.  If you aren’t then maybe God will use you to get the ball rolling.

We don’t like even the thought of it, do we? Confession sounds so ancient, so archaic.

But, we hear David as he says he wasted away while keeping silent.

Are we all wasting away in our silence as we refuse to share with our family in Christ the struggles of our lives?

Jesus said that God wants us to worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). I took this growing up to be relating to “form” as in the right way to worship, but now I see that it is a matter of telling the truth. There is this thing about being in the light from John 3:18-21 that catches me, about how those who reject Jesus don’t want to come into the light because of potential exposure. Truth revealed. It sets us free according to John 8:32. So, then John restates his point a little more clearly in I John 1:5-10 and he really begins stepping on my toes. To be in the light in fellowship with each other and God we must confess, or should I just say tell the truth about our struggles, weaknesses, challenges, failings, in other words … sin. James even commands us to do it in chapter five of his letter.

So, who wants to get the ball rolling? Any volunteers?

Times up.

Blessings.

Since returning to Togo, there has been a common thread consistent through all my prayers, studies, teachings, and conversations.  It is the desire for God’s presence here among the Watchi.  I am not sure as to the root of this desperation; maybe it is the reality of our last year among them; maybe it is because the presence of other forces is so evident; or perhaps it stems from a renewed zeal of mine to walk with Him.  I am not really sure.  All I know is that I want to see Him and know Him here, as I never have before.

I must ask myself at this point in my musings, why hasn’t His Presence been more evident?  What has kept Him?

As I look around at the Watchi, I see a people who are living poorly and fearfully.  Foolishly they are fearful of everything but God.  As you pass by the idols of each village and compound, it is apparent that the Watchi don’t fear God.  As Proverbs teaches, this fear is the beginning of wisdom and truly wisdom is what is needed among the Watchi.

My ten minutes is almost up.

I long for God to show up among the Watchi and in my house as well.  Reverence and devotion are born from the fear of God.  Love comes as well, deep love that explodes within us at the realization of his mercy and forgiveness for us.  Passion for Him consumes us as hope invades our heart, that we could live a different, bolder, and more significant life with Him … forever.

In the middle of it all is confession; a willingness to admit fault and verbalize failure as we ask to be pardoned.  It is humbling.  It is the opposite action of pride.  We resist it.  We hate it.  To confess is to admit our continual need for Him.  It is the realization that we, although having improved substantially, have still quite a distance to go.  Repentance follows and both of them happen in reaction to the fear of God.

Am I wise enough to fear Him?  Do I realize who I am praying to?  Can I possibly conceive how great He is and how much He loves me?  How can I possibly help the Watchi to grow in this?

out of time.

There are days, you know the kind, when things just don’t go as planned. Like when the electricity starts flowing into the house at around 300 volts instead of 220 and lights begin to pop and suddenly the microwave has lost the will to live. Death by electrocution. This comes as an acute shock as your supply of propane gas for your stove has just run out at the same time as the rest of the entire country, literally. Then you begin the hunt for the last remaining bottle of propane in the country, you find it, and they say it is not really there. You say, “What?” It is before your very eyes within your reach even, but, denied. They refuse to sell it to you. Then you go home to watch your wife cook on the hot plate, and your thankful the electricity hasn’t gone off, yet. The water is still on, so while you are cooking the fourth course on the one hot plate you dash out to fill the washing machine, and you forget. You proceed to fill the entire laundry room with three inches of water, but the machine is full now and the kids get to earn extra x-box time if they mop up all the water and if there is still electricity and if the x-box survives 300 volts. Sometimes it just takes a lot of energy to live.

You consider simplification, but think it would be too boring. You might actually have time to pray. You might not have so much stuff that is susceptible to electrocution. You might even throw a ball with your son or look into your wife’s eyes and remember how much you love her. You might have time to see the sights, smell the roses, and do all the other unregrettables, that we don’t have time for now, because of the maintenance of our so very complicated and cluttered lives.

Sometimes we almost consider a change, but then again, why would we want to do that? We would have to give up so much.

There are many ways to be overwhelmed by God’s beauty and underwhelmed (that should be a word, shouldn’t it) by your own strength or lack of thereof. In those moments of smallness face to face with God’s greatness, vocabulary becomes limited to things like wow and primeval yells. There is really nothing like it.

Had that today here in Togo as Tucker and I strapped ourselves to parachutes and ran off the side of a mountain. Watching Tucker go was … wow. Going myself was … WOW. Incredible and so refreshing to be loved by such a great God and enjoy his beauty in such unexpected ways. The mountains, valleys, clouds, wind, birds, trees, rocks all screaming in unison, “GLORY!” And then there you are, sailing along with nothing between you and a very long fall to earth. WOW, the parachute really works.

Faith is the WOW of our lives. It is faith and hope coming together bound by our weakness and his strength, and love. Then, WOW, he comes in and rescues, saves, intervenes, heals,

and we cry,

GLORY.

Cool thing was that we did it for $30 each.

We’ve got our hard hats on and we are well into it. After being away for eight months in America, we are back in Togo and the work is … different, more Togolese. In our absence some things went by the wayside, some things were modified, and some things disappeared altogether.

We had thought about this prolonged absence and what would come from it. We thought it would be a good test. We thought God would use that time to bless them with maturity and surety of faith. We thought that some things and some people, even trusted friends, would fall and fail. We thought that others, unlikely candidates would rise to the occasion.

We were right.

All of that came to pass.

So now what do we do. We are thrilled.  We are disappointed.  We are encouraged.  We are holding onto hope.

We reconstruct. Some things we trash, with the help of our Watchi leaders, altogether. Others we modify. Even others we tweak. Through it all, though, we pray.

That is what the hard hat is for. The prayer. The prayer is different from others I have prayed. The prayer is that which was done in the flesh, burn it up and that which is of Spirit, bless it. If it is from me, God, bring the house down around me, but if it is infused with and based on You, God, bless it to thrive.

We are leaving. What will be left? He who was here long before we arrived.

Psalm 127:1 Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.

from our eight month long furlough in the states, I am observing that it is not an easy, laid back, ten step program.  In fact it will take many miles of steps to undue the damage from Tostitos and Rotel having reestablished themselves in my life.

Furlough made me fat.  Well, the heat of Togo and the overall low fat life is doing a number on that.

Furlough made me weak.  Living for that long and just speaking one language can make you a bit lazy.  Each day now it is back to at least four (Eve, French, Kinyarwanda, and then of course English).  Did I mention the heat?  Average house temperature is at 95.  I think we usually kept the thermostat at 74.  Did I really go skiing in New York?  Please someone remind me about when I fell into a snowdrift of four feet.  Maybe it is because I ran over Frosty in my front yard.

It is really hot here.

Weak, out of shape, fat, and sweaty missionaries back from a fur-long in the good old US of A.  Back to the life or maybe I should say back to life or at least back from a coma of sorts.  America puts me to sleep.  It lulls me into a spiritual stupor.  I forget my commitments to pray and intercede.  Everything gets kind of fuzzy and gray.  I get full of pop theology and hip philosophy as the distance grows between me and those I’m serving.  Then … wham, we are back.  The airplane door opens and the heat of West Africa almost pushes us back onto the plane.  The alarm goes off and we wake up.  Complaining, of course, but deep inside … there’s a smile.  Real deep joy.  Satisfaction from being useful again.  Contentment from knowing what we’re about and living purposefully.  Failure is there as well, for we are so very weak and pitiful.  Hope floods in, my if he can use us then what will he do with them?  Joy and peace and grace wash over us like a waterfall, cold and clear.  Refreshed.

Rehabillitated and refreshed, because we are here, where He wants us to be, doing what He wants us to do.

Prayer is like the air we breathe.  We are desperate for it.  Desperate to communicate with God.  Desperate to hear his reply.  Desperate for his intervention.  We intercede with desperation.  We are desperate for intercession.  There have been times when I was desperate for air.  Just recently I was showing the boys how you could blow all your air out and lay at the bottom of the pool.  Well out of four boys, you know that at least one is going to give it a go and stand on Dad, making sure he stays at the bottom.  Desperate… to breathe.  Air is just one of those things you can’t get enough of.  It is also one of those things you take for granted until it starts getting a little thin or tainted.  It’s absence is noticeably unhealthy, affecting us to the core.  Prayer is like the air we breathe.  To live is to breathe, to live with God is to pray.  God listens.  God hears.  My son Taylor is convinced of that.  Just last night he prayed that rain would come today for the farmer’s crops in Togo.  We had to go pick him up from school this afternoon because the rain was too heavy to ride his bike.  Please pray.  Please breathe.  Thanks.