Be Joyful..! Oh, Really?

O tidings of comfort and joy..! “Oh, really?” you say, “What about the bad news I just received that a friend is stricken with cancer?” Joy to the world the Lord is come! “Amen!” And yet your mind secretly wonders about the only thing that has come of late—another bill.

During the holiday season, there is a phenomenon that sociologists and psychologists call the “holiday blues.” It’s a feeling of inertia, depression, and even cynicism, that plagues people when they should be excited about all the festivities happening around them. Too often the holiday season reminds us of what we don’t have or what we have lost, rather than the blessings that we do have. Perhaps that’s why the message of having joy can seem so unattainable to the cynical or sorrowful heart. But ironically that’s exactly who the message is tailored for!

When the prophet Nehemiah stood before a grieving community who had just returned from exile to find their beloved city in ruins and who were recovering from the back-breaking task of rebuilding, he probably knew that his message would sound comforting to some and callous to others. “Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the LORD is your strength!” (Nehemiah 8:10)

The upside of the story is that the people left that sad assembly to celebrate with great joy because they understood the “words that had been made known to them.” In short, they got it! And now they were ready to throw a REAL party! They understood that the joy that Nehemiah was talking about is not the awe one feels at a beautiful sight or experience. It is not even the joy that is implied in rejoicing or celebration, though he encourages them to rejoice and celebrate. It goes beyond merely throwing a party to cheer oneself up. The joy that is used here is a very rare usage of the word. It is only used two times in scripture. Here and in 1 Chronicles 16:27 when it says: “Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his dwelling place.”

All the other usages of the word “joy” have to do with human emotions and actions: rejoicing or celebration; shouting for joy or giving a battle cry.

This joy is different. THIS JOY COMES FROM THE POSSESSION OF GOD HIMSELF. And because YAHWEH is STRENGTH, if you are abiding in YAHWEH, in times of sorrow and stress, his strength becomes your strength and therefore you can be joyful. Sounds like a formula, doesn’t it? Hardly. It has nothing to do with one’s effort to be joyful. Although that has great merit, the only secret to achieving this kind of joy is surrender.

I surrendered to this “joy strength” a few years ago around the holiday season. I was dreading the thought of another Christmas without my beloved mother, who had recently passed. In those moments of despair, the words of a song that I had been casually playing suddenly came alive. It said, “Be of good cheer.” In other words, “Be joyful.” It is not a suggestion. It is a command given to us by God who has placed the Holy Spirit within us to help us fulfill it.

You see, joy is a fruit of the Spirit. It cannot be produced by human beings. In other words, THE DNA OF JOY IS NOT HUMAN EFFORTS OR ACTIONS; IT IS GOD’S STRENGTH. That Christmas I surrendered, and made God’s strength become my strength, and it was one of my best Christmases ever!

In both uses of the word joy in scripture, it is accompanied by the word “strength. “So when it says the joy of the Lord is your strength, it literally means a place of safety, protection, or refuge. So joy is really a PLACE in God you find when you admit that you are too weak to save yourself. It is when God’s strength is made perfect in your weakness.

This joy is not necessarily the kind you need on Sunday mornings when you get together with your friends in the euphoria of corporate worship. And you probably wouldn’t have much use for it in the midst of a big party or celebration. However, it is certainly the kind you need when the lights are turned down… those alone times… those challenging times at work… when facing financial hardship and uncertainty… those times of grief and despair.

So, my friend, this holiday season, remember that true joy is not a feeling, nor an activity. IT IS A PLACE OF SECURITY IN GOD. Make God your habitation. Let his strength be your strength. And be joyful!

Letting Go But Not Giving Up

As a child I wondered why my parents would sometimes ask of me to “Behave and sit still.” What do you mean sit still? I would think (wouldn’t dare say it to their faces!) But you don’t understand, oh parent, born a thousand years before me… Sitting still meant boredom and missing out on all the late-breaking activities. And for those of you who were put on “quiet time” or “time out” whenever you did something wrong, you certainly know how excruciating it was to be still! But then again, in my arrogant opinion, it trumps having a sore butt for a whole week… but that’s a whole other point! Being still, for any reason, seemed impossible because it is the opposite of everything that it means to be a child—which is carefree and expressive.

But it’s not just a kid problem. As adults it’s often hard for us when God tells us to be still.

 ”Be still, and know that I am God;
       I will be exalted among the nations,
       I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10-11)

We think, What do you mean be still, Oh Ancient of Days, who clearly doesn’t understand the meaning and dire consequences of my time-sensitive deadlines? With stress levels at an all-time high, we know that ultimately we need the calm assurance that “being still” can bring, but in a society with more and more noise and activity, including Youtube sound bites, communication gadgets and mediums that call for our constant attention, not to mention our personal agendas that need our wholehearted involvement, who can really do that? This idea of being still is nice, but it doesn’t seem reasonable, let alone achievable in 21^st century reality.

But coming to think of it, it doesn’t even seem reasonable and achievable in the context and time in which it was written! God is telling folks to BE STILL, not in a time of calm, but during the impending threat of natural disasters (earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanoes)!

God is saying to his people BE STILL in the chaos of political turmoil (folks were angry; governments were being shaken; wars were ensuing).

Could this same God be saying BE STILL to us in the personal crises of our 21^st century reality? The answer is yes. He is saying it to me, and he is saying it to you too, whatever your situation may be.

The stillness that he is calling you and me to is not the “stuck places” we find ourselves in because of our fears or insecurities. Being still is not passivity or giving up. After all, God wants us to take initiative. He wants us to boldly move forward in our lives. Try asking God to do everything for you… but don’t hold your breath, because you’ll be waiting for a long time!

So being still is not the lack of progress. God is really speaking here about a heart attitude. He is speaking about a new kind of positioning of ourselves.

I’m learning every day…  much slower that I would care to admit… that to BE STILL literally means to slacken my grip or to let my hands drop. It means LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD. What am I letting go of? My own agenda and accepting God’s plans that may look very different from my own. Yeah, I am learning to trust his heart, and not just his hands.

It’s excruciating sometimes. But I’m learning how to let go without giving up.

Extreme Environments and the Life Forms that Thrive in Them

The news headlines saturated the media, causing a national frenzy: “A pastor of a small Florida church threatens to burn the Koran…” Fortunately he reneged on his plan.

Whether you think that Pastor Jones was merely exercising his constitutional rights, or a nutcase who was given way too much air time,  or both, it’s probably fair to say that he is a product of his environment—more specifically speaking, an extremophile.

In many ways, 21^st century life is like living in an extreme environment, and I don’t just mean scientifically speaking either. Let me explain. Over the past decade, scientists have discovered that tiny life forms—microorganisms—have the capacity to survive and even thrive in the harshest of climates and physical conditions. Whether it’s living in acidic hot springs or the polar regions of the Antarctic, they are able to adapt and “beat” nature at its own game. Science calls these remarkable life forms extremophiles.

Ironically, many of us who dub ourselves Christ-followers are also becoming extremophiles. The question is— is living life on the extremities for good or for evil? In other words, are we barely surviving or are we thriving? Are we adapting or are we simply coping? Are we acting or merely reacting? It is true that desperate situations call for desperate measures, but we cannot thrive, adapt or act by becoming extreme ourselves.

God never called us to become reactive; rather we are to proactively respond to the needs and crises in our world with the love of Christ. And if our response is to be relevant and life-changing in the lives of others, we must adapt to life on the edge… and I don’t mean we compromise or simply fit in either! Adapting is more like discerning our extreme conditions in order to overcome them. But more on that later…

When we act like detonators waiting to explode, we fail to discern the good things that God is doing—that He is indeed at work to bring his plans and purposes to pass. When we press the panic button, we inadvertently and arrogantly assume that human beings, and we ourselves, have the final say in the course of this world. When we as faith leaders use words irresponsibly to stir up anger or fear, or when we beat people over the head with the Bible, or as my Mom used to say, “fight fire with fire,” we are giving the impression that we haven’t read the back of the book. The back of the book says that God wins and we his people overcome through the blood of Jesus! Yeah, Google it sometime!

Does that mean we sit passively by and wait for the apocalypse? Absolutely not! Does it mean that we don’t stand up boldly for the cause of truth and justice? Wouldn’t be living out our Christian faith if we don’t. But our words and actions should be seasoned with grace. After all, grace without truth compromises, and truth without grace condemns. And God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn it.

The “Us vs. Them” approach makes us feel like heroes and gets us media attention, but it just won’t work, especially in today’s political and social climate. Truth is, God did not call us to be against the world to the point that we are not able to compassionately and effectively engage in it. We are not to be so spiritually minded that we are no earthly good. Too many of us are spending way too much time and energy being against the world, rather than overcoming it.

For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. (I John 5:4)

Overcoming means thriving, adapting and acting, rather than surviving, coping and reacting. The specific word “overcome” used in that verse doesn’t mean “to prevail against” as it does in other places. Rather, it means to hold fast to one’s faith even to the point of losing one’s life for it. It has more to do with inner victory, rather than some rhetorical gun battle that does nothing more than create a culture of fear, and, brings to birth more extremophiles.

Like I said, not all extremophiles are bad. In fact, most are good. They show impressive resilience and strength as they thrive on the edge of life, living out the true expression of the gospel. These spiritual microorganisms are not often visible, but they are the stuff that overcomers are made of.

Faith versus Fate

Last week, Britain’s most famous living scientist, Stephen Hawking, contradicted his previous assertions and declared that the universe was not created by God. No motivation was given for his change of mind, but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that reasoning and logic cannot completely explain the mysteries of the universe—it takes faith. In fact, it makes me wonder how many who call themselves believers and even creationists  in 21^st century America have traded in faith for fate… Have we become a “stoic” society? I don’t mean stoic in the purely modern sense of the word. In that regard, on the contrary!  We’re a society of celebrations—parties, concerts, ball games, and a whole list of other ways to express our passionate convictions and emotions.

I’m just wondering if we’re like the ancient Stoics when it comes to spiritual things. Stoicism was a philosophical belief that was rampant in the first century Greco-Roman society. In the Stoic mind, there is nothing a human being can do to change his or her fate. Everything that happens to that person has already been fixed, and the world is in a downward spiral towards doom and destruction. The Stoics would reason that the laws of nature or the ordering of the cosmos is inescapable, so a person should just go ahead and accept his or her lot in life. One should just resign oneself to the fact that there is nothing that an impersonal God can do to change a person’s awful destiny.

That might explain why everything for the Stoic was material, even God. Maybe that was their desperate and futile attempt to get their hands around spiritual reality. So God was associated with nature—because if something could not be seen, explained, handled, or proven then it could not be real. You could understand how crazy Christianity sounded to the Stoic mind. They couldn’t understand the ridiculous notion of accepting the message of Christ through faith.

After all, faith is the confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. And it is a belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

Faith is not passive and inactive. It involves the spiritual senses of hearing, seeing, and speaking. Faith involves all of who we are, which was unthinkable for the Stoics who had no tolerance for emotions. Emotions were seen as unnatural. The intellectual life was of highest importance. A stoic dealt with pain and joy in the same way—mind over matter. That’s why we use the word “stoic” today to mean a lack of emotions. Can you imagine a world where nothing moved you? Where you were taught to suppress your emotions as a sign of spirituality or intellectual sophistication? Where you needed a logical explanation for everything? It is unthinkable. And yet, so many apply these same principles to their spiritual lives. And, of course, quickly shed them at football games when they’re rooting for their favorite team!

It’s easier than you think to trade in faith for fate, because it happens ever so subtly. Perhaps it’s even justifiable… after a divorce or losing a child, or some financial devastation, or that terminal illness that took the life of your loved-one… It’s easy to resign yourself to the fact that life is on a downward spiral and there’s nothing you or God can do about it.

On the other hand, you may not see your life leading to doom and destruction. But the problem is that you feel that the charting of your course is totally, or at least mostly, up to you. And for all your good intentions and hard work, life has not given you the payoff you think you deserve. And, frankly, the future doesn’t seem particularly bright either.

How does one restore faith when fatalism has crept in?

Medical science tells us that when someone is dying, the last sense to go is the hearing. I think that is significant. Hearing is what inspires faith. And faith is what sustains life. I came to faith in Jesus Christ because I heard his message, and as I keep on hearing that message, my faith is strengthened and I am able to live and grow in my walk with Christ.

“Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).

 

In the movie, Lorenzo’s Oil, Lorenzo Odone is a five-year-old boy who has been diagnosed as having a brain disease known as ALD. It is a condition so rare that no medical agency has even attempted to research the disease and develop a cure. The doctors tell Lorenzo’s parents (Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon) that there is nothing that can be done, and that their son has only two years to live. Desperate, the parents embark on a search for a cure and battle the medical establishment when they make astounding progress using humble olive oil…

In one scene, Lorenzo has miraculously lived to fourteen years old, but his brain has deteriorated to the point that he is in an almost vegetative state. Although the oil has helped to preserve his life, it would take a miracle for his full recovery. Well, faith triumphs over fate, and Lorenzo is able to live well into adulthood. However, Lorenzo’s mom had to first put faith in action through the power of hearing, seeing and speaking.

I particularly like the part where she whispers into the ear of her dying child: “Tell your brain to tell you arm to tell your hand to move your little finger.” Lorenzo’s mother’s words were simple. But they were accompanied by faith. Skeptics reject faith because it is too simple. It is the same reason why the medical establishment rejected the olive oil. It wasn’t something they manufactured in a lab; therefore it couldn’t cure anybody from a life-threatening disease. It is not very different in spiritual matters. People reject matters of faith because they cannot prove it logically. Furthermore, skeptical people dismiss the power of words of faith to heal.

Words of faith are not just words uttered into the wind. It is not even the power of positive thinking or positive confession. And I am not speaking about the “name-it-and-claim-it-blab-it-and-grab-it-gospel” either! Words of faith come from a heart that desperately clings to God despite the outcome of the situation. Truth is, God does use medical science to bring healing, but the problem comes when we attribute the power to human beings rather than to God.  

Faith is an action word. Unlike fate, faith does not wait passively by to see what life is going to hand you. Nor does it take matters into its own hands, nor draw conclusions about God’s ability based solely on reasoning.

Furthermore, faith is not a denial of feelings or emotions. It is when your broken heart dares to trust God even when you can’t trace him. It is taking a firm grasp on to the intangible when the logic of your situation tells you there’s nothing there. Contrary to popular belief, faith is not for cowards. Faith is staring death in the face and declaring that it ultimately has no power over you.

This past spring, a precious ministry couple and friends of our family, Darryl and Martha Rodman, experienced a devastating catastrophe when Darryl simultaneously suffered a massive heart attack and stroke. Given only hours to live, Martha and her team of prayerful supporters dared to speak life into Darryl’s lifeless body. Five months later, Darryl is showing remarkable signs of recovery!

The truth is, faith doesn’t have to see to believe, but what is equally as true is that faith does believe to see. Can faith change the downward spiral of life? Millions have proven that it can. And I am one of them.

Choose to live by faith, not by fate.

What’s God Got to Do with It?

The song, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” was a mega-hit of the 1980s—winning two Grammies, topping the charts for almost a year—and could be credited for the “remaking” of Tina Turner. Not surprising. Her music video performance was riveting as she strode across the stage in diva-like confidence belting out these words…

Oh-oh-oh, what’s love got to do with it?
What’s love but a second-hand emotion?
What’s love got to do with it?
Who needs a heart
When a heart can be broken?

I remember my cousin Sharon putting up an almost convincing argument that the image was, in fact, Turner’s body double. She couldn’t have had such great legs at her age, Sharon reasoned. Well, the rest of us weren’t buying Sharon’s theory, but the real issue was bigger than that. After more than a decade of Tina living in oblivion, it was hard for many people to believe that anyone could make such an impressive comeback. But come back she did, and we were yet to learn all the facts of Tina’s resurrection.

Perhaps this song was so successful because it was Tina’s testimonial. Whatever the reason, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” survived a decade and spawned the movie by the same name, starring Angela Bassett. It was a no-holds-barred depiction of Tina’s marriage to Ike Turner, who managed and controlled her career and life through years of abuse, ultimately driving her to emotional and financial ruin. With all that had been leveled against Tina, people joined her in asking the question, “What’s love got to do with it?” If love made Tina vulnerable to abuse, perhaps she was right to avoid the risk of love at all cost.

Who among us, after all, hasn’t been in one way or another burned by love?  Who hasn’t at some point experienced a failed relationship? Whose heart hasn’t been broken, if not in a romantic relationship, perhaps through the betrayal or rejection of a friend or family member? Or what about disappointment in God’s love… oops! More on that later…

I remember the high level of energy in the audience as, fixated on the screen, we watched Tina’s story. We admired her strength, sympathized with and excused her weaknesses, rooted for her in her struggles, and celebrated her victories. This was no girl flick. No ethnic-exclusive drama. Male or female, black, white, yellow, brown or red, it was every survivor’s story. Growing up in a world ravaged by AIDS, “safe sex” without love and living together without marriage were all-too familiar mechanisms of survival. When it came to real intimacy, fortified guards were up. Love and commitment were no longer synonymous.

By the turn of the 21^st century our society had become more fragmented as the values that once united us were giving way to a pervasive cynicism that crept even into the pews of the church. Yes, we Christ-followers are good at masking, but truth be told, at times we, too, have questioned if God was really in complete control of the universe, let alone cared about our seemingly defeated lives. When confronted by the bitter realities around us—a world at war, rampant poverty, hatred and violence, unparralled natural disasters, and economic hardships, we can be made to question the relevance of our faith, and even the power of God. “…What’s God got to do…? We quickly stifle the aggravating voice, knowing all too well that it will never really go away until appeased.

Unarguably many of us have experienced the unconditional love of God and some of us have even seen his powerful miracles, but even so, far too many of us have had our idea of a loving God put to the test by the deep wounds of real life in the real world… wounds that we suffered at the intersection of Main Street and Church Street. We have been shaken to the core by the struggles within our families and our own personal traumas, and dare I say, unanswered prayers, and they have made us ask, “Who needs a soul when a soul can be shaken?”

If being a Christ-follower is about having all the answers to life, then we must admit that we have sorely lost the doctrinal debate battle. If it’s about masking feelings and touting triumphalism, then God’s strength revealed through our weakness, vulnerability and authenticity should never define the paradox of the Christian faith.

But if it is about the know that is deep in your soul that you can’t explain, that faintly whispers, “God is still in control,” even when the ground under you is crumbling; if it’s about allowing life and its complexities to challenge and change you without a panicked rush to pat answers; if it’s about embracing a messy, senseless kind of love that made God send his Son to die a cruel death for the redemption of humankind; yeah, if it’s about a faith that causes you to rise out of the ashes when everyone, including yourself, has counted you out, then let’s begin the conversation…

What’s God got to do with it? Perhaps not much as we peer blindly through a dark glass, trying desperately to find answers to our broken hearts and shaken souls. But in the end, everything.

 Marion Skeete is the host and producer of a new talk show, Living Legacy. The 2-part launching episode,  “What’s God Got to Do with It?” brings together Christ-followers in their 20s and 30s to discuss the relevance of their faith in the 21^st century and how it speaks to the controversial issues of our day. For clips and to get more info about the show, visit: www.livinglegacyshow.com.

 

Hands Down… Confessions of an Idol Worshiper

I’m no idol worshiper. Or so I thought. Of course I’ve always known that idols are not necessarily those ornate statues made of gold or silver… I knew that. My definition of an idol worshiper was someone obsessed with anything NOT God. And that was not me. I was, and still am, by any definition, a passionate follower of Jesus Christ. Idol worshiper and passionate follower of Jesus Christ are mutually exclusive. Or so I thought.

Well, I discovered a year ago that they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, much to my surprise, I came face to face with the naked truth that idol worshiper and passionate follower of Jesus Christ could actually dwell side by side in a vicious yet subtle competition that eludes even the most spiritually “mature.” And with that discovery, I had to shamefully admit that I was a “mature idol worshiper” who was still passionately following Christ, though with increasingly less passion.

What was even more disappointing and shameful was identifying the idol that was in a knock-down-drag-out competition with my “christ passion,” and believe it or not, winning hands down…

It was my computer.

Yes, Her Majesty Herself, who has saved me time and time again by gratifying my “right to know,” who has put me in touch with otherwise unknowable people and facts, and who has delivered me on a daily basis from the devastating consequences of information deficit, had earned my unwavering loyalty. She had now gained the power to set my agenda for the day and keep me inundated with news, views and dues. I rationalized that I was directly and indirectly using my computer to advance God’s purposes. Shouldn’t that be a commendable thing? Sure nuff. But the “worth-ship” that I was giving to my computer had increasingly become more than the “worth-ship.” I was giving to God himself.

“Worship” communicates the idea of a slave bowing at his master’s feet, heeding his every beck and call.  Well, God showed me ever so graphically that that was exactly what I was doing by prioritizing my computer over him. Like a slave, I was responding to my computer’s every beck and call.

It was a bit humorous to visualize myself bowing to the computer with my hands down on the keyboard in a posture of servitude and humility. But the visual was also immensely convicting and I immediately repented, asking God to give me the grace to put him back in the place where he rightfully belongs: FIRST.

You see, I learned that putting God first is not the same as keeping God first. God as PRIORITY in my life is not the same as the status on my facebook page that attempts to define my entire day, when the reality is that feelings and priorities can change in a moment. Rather, putting God first is a choice that I must make moment by moment, as I am faced with difficult challenges that call for Christ-centered decisions vs. political correctness; the tyranny of the urgent; and the many media messages that can easily distract me and neutralize God-given purpose and passion.

Of course I’m not hating on computers. Second to Godiva chocolate, they’re the single most important modern invention. Quite recently God miraculously provided me with a Dell laptop, which promises to increase my productivity by 100% percent. “Yeah, right!” I think to myself—a little jaded.

Honestly, I am grateful for this advanced piece of technology, but every morning I wake up, my prayer to God is to “have no other Dells before him.” He is first, and must remain first. Hands down.