Tunes Tuesday: 1 Love

So Good.

God the Show-Off

...your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

And the award for Most Obvious Theological Principle goes to…Jesus?

Of course God knows what we need.  He knows everything, right? Created the universe (stuff from nothing?!?!), knows the hairs on our head (weird) and holds our cells together…of course He knows what I need. Of course.

So then why the freakout?

Why the panic?

Why the anxiety?

Why the rush?

One of the major things we have been praying about for Hopesprings in Sioux City is our meeting space Sunday mornings. We have been meeting in the offices of STEMM (check them out here!), which is great, but we are feeling some growing pains and a bigger spot would be a huge help.  

Well, last week a spot opened up and we are meeting there for the first time Sunday! Also the price is right (and by right I mean…well, if you know me you know exactly what I mean). 

One of the things I love about the STEMM office is that the location is perfect. Well guess where we are moving? Same block, TWO DOORS DOWN. Also there just happens to be a parking lot available in this new location. Downtown. Our Heavenly Father is a show-off. 

When we were praying about a new space I didn't know exactly what we needed.  Not sure about space, about growing, about parking, about location. I had some ideas but could not really have asked for a more ideal spot for the next leg of our journey together. 

He knows what we need before we ask Him. So let's ask big and chill out. 

Flare for the Fatherless

Yesterday I met a 4th grader who had the words "a ray of sunshine" spliced into her name. This person exists.  Heaven is real.

A couple people from our community group hung out with some elementary school kids yesterday, and it was equal parts hectic, fun, and emotional. The community center is located in the heart of neighborhoods that are pretty rough, and the kids who are coming have some pretty tough stories they carry with them. 

I would describe the kids I met yesterday as hungry. In every way. They clamored for attention, for time, for structure, for words, and for food.  One of the most moving parts of our time there was during the meal the community center provides for the children...children who have a need for better nutrition. After a wild, loud, crazy time, the kids got their food and were immediately silent and feasting. They fought over seconds and thirds. They took whatever was left-over home. 

After I the time was over some of the staff mentioned that whenever a male figure is there, the kids act differently. Most of the kids do not have their dad in their lives, and their need for a father is obvious and overwhelming. 

I left the community center pretty emotionally devastated.  I left there wanting to come back. Wanting to get to know these kids and their stories better. Wanting to help.

If you want to press my tear-button, ask me to think of kids who don't have parents. Or have one parent they don't know or spend every day with. There are many fatherless (and motherless) folks around us, and God beckons us. If we are going to do anything meaningful, one of those things must be to share the great love of God with the fatherless around us. To give those who are hungry for time the time we have. To give those who are hungry for food the food we have. To give those who are hungry for love a little of the unconditional love we have from Our Good Dad in heaven.

This flare request is for the fatherless. The motherless. Anyone who doesn't know unconditional, weighty, love-with-teeth-and-tears-and-truth. Pray we would have the courage to see, to sit with, to give to, to get to know, to love, to equip, to befriend and extend hope and help to the fatherless in our community. 

Turn Gloom to Noon

¹⁰ And if you give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.

These words haunt me. In a good way. (like Casper) In this Scripture the cure for gloom isn't more stuff, more noise, more church gatherings. It is serving people who are hurting. The cure is getting up and giving some love away.  

I love to try all kinds of other things to cure my gloom.  Almost anything will do in a pinch, to shove down the sad. To quiet the disquiet. But when I engage with the Scriptures, and with Jesus, I find I am challenged to turn the focus outward and love someone else. 

I do not understand this. I struggle to live this. Often I don't even struggle...I just wallow in the not-living-this. 

But I do find hope in Isaiah 58 with the challenge to love and serve. To share my things, my time, to give something to someone afflicted with anything. 

¹¹ “And the Lord will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
¹² “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins;
You will raise up the age-old foundations;
And you will be called the repairer of the breach,
The restorer of the streets in which to dwell.

Some Scriptures are like a meal. The richness of the poetry is dwarfed by the enormity of the kingdom of heaven pressing down on all the small things, snuffing out any vanity or futility of a life spent chasing anything else but a part in that kingdom.

Hopesprings in Sioux City has this way of life at the center of who we are, of who we are becoming. Today it looks like sharing some time with some kids at an after-school program that is centered in a low-income neighborhood. We hope it may grow into a partnership...into a place where relationships are built and maybe even some streets get restored.

May we give ourselves to anyone hungry around us, realizing we get a meal for our deepest hunger in the process.

Tunes Tuesday: Say It To Me

This is how you fall in love with a movie in the first two-and-a-half-minutes:

Feels Like 13

My "day job" often requires me to work outside. In the winter I will be inside most of the time, but we have been in that middle place between fall and winter, and there is still quite a bit I have to do outside. I have been doing pretty well with preparing as far as clothing is concerned.  Multiple layers, several pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks…most of the time I have been just right or too warm. 

Today was my wake-up call.  

We worked outside today, doing manly things, and it was snowing.  With the wind chill, my phone said the air felt like it was 13 degrees.  It felt like it was well-below zero, and my carefully planned layers amounted to nothing in the face of that wind.  

Temperature is relative (tell that to the North wind), and if you just gear up for it and ignore the weather, most of the time you can get through with little whining. But there comes a point (I believe it is when the temperature feels like 13) when the wind wins and you are reduced to a chattering popsicle.  

I need more layers.
I need better preparation.
Being tough is not enough.

When we made the decision to move to Siouxland, to love this city and its people, we knew it would be hard. I made up mock schedules and planned and prepped my mind and heart for the transition, and I knew it would be difficult.  But the last couple weeks have served as a wake-up call on just what is before us and just how little our tough is.  

We need more layers.
Our tough is not enough.

The last couple weeks I have had several days of cowering, of feeling unwound and overwhelmed and completely out of balance.  My hands, head, and heart have foot completely empty at times.

But today the Scripture reminds me: ...my God will supply all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

According to my gifts, talents, abilities?
According to my effort?
According to my preparation?
According to my creativity?
My resources?

According to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. In Jesus is the preparation, ability, patience, consistency, strength, and resources.  In Christ Jesus.  

May I have a better handle on who handles things. May I sort out what everything is according to.
Also may I get some long underwear ASAP. 
Amen. 

Flare Request Friday

It is pretty easy to make excuses. To justify. To hide. It is literally a practice as old as Adam. God shows up...where are you Adam? Where are you really?

Naked and afraid.

Why? How could you know you were naked? Where did this self-obsession come from?

The woman...whom YOU gave to be with me...she did it.

Insert the rest of human history.

There is a lot you can pray about regarding Hopesprings.  You can pray for our involvement in our community, that we would build strong relationships and discover opportunities to love and serve people well. You can pray for our financial situation.  You can pray for a bigger meeting space for us Sunday mornings. You can pray for the people we have simply invited, for the people we have loved and served, for the many we have yet to meet. You can pray for our leaders, our logistics, and for anything else.

But as I sit down at 5:15 in the morning to write this, I want all your prayers for myself.  Horrible, I know...I just feel incredibly weak, tired, ineffective, and out-of-balance. I am struggling to put things into their healthy perspective and I think the crazy of the last couple months is getting to me a bit. I need to sit with God. I need help loving my family in the midst of this transition. I have been hiding behind excuses of busy and tired and justifying a pretty poor attitude at times the last couple weeks. In short, I need to remember something I have written on my arm: you are dead...and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 

Life is not found in me convincing myself or anyone else my excuses are good. That my reasons for being stressed or tired justify a poor connection with my family. It is not found in work or success or money or preaching or anything else. My life is hidden with Christ in God. In Jesus I have found a life that swallows up all my excuses...an unconditional love that is poured out regardless of the circumstances...a reason to be who I was created to be that swallows up all the reasons I have to be anything else. 

Thanks for the flares.  I can't tell you how much they mean to us, or how important they are for this journey we are on.  

TBT: Kitchen, Sewers, and the Armpit of Jesus

In our kitchen, to the right of the sink, directly in front of the cupboard, is heaven. When I am there, for a moment, for an instant, everything melts away into a peace I can hardly wrap my mind around. It isn't the rack of baby bottles drying on the counter, nor the plans I have for consuming a snack. It is not the gorgeous 70s orange countertop, or the hum of the refrigerator. It is the smell.

I don't know the makeup of the smell. I think it is a subtle mixture of soap, food, and cleanliness...but it may be just plain magic.

Some memories we have seem to be carried in our very DNA. Hard-wired. And some of the most powerful are related to our sense of smell. I am sure many can relate, but growing up there are a few smells that I can immediately recall, and, if smelled, transport me instantly to the time and place I experienced them. The entryway of my elementary school. A skinned knee. And my grandmother's kitchen.

That kitchen...I have no idea how she did it, but that smell traveled across the country and across my childhood. It was a smell that meant a haven for me...great food, kindness, and a sense of profound peace.

Sioux City is famous for an entirely different kind of smell. Some refer to it affectionately as Sewer City, though the city is working to address the sometimes foul oder that greets visitors to Siouxland. I have heard many hurting folks who didn't like they community refer to the smell in a way that made a statement about the community itself.

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? 2 Corinthians 2.15-16

That is admittedly a strange passage and a hard one to fully grasp, but apparently our words and lives have a smell, a feel, a rhythm, a vibe to them. Our lives can smell like Jesus. As God wafts out the stench of greed, self-righteousness, fear, and guilt, our lives take on a different aroma. His love, His life, His grace and truth in harmony...they can emanate from us like smells from my grandmother's kitchen or a city in need of good news.  

And who is adequate? Great question, Paul...always asking the hard ones. Too many times my life has stunk of death like the inside of a middle-school armpit.

I would settle for smelling like Jesus'. [Note: In order for Jesus to be fully-man, His armpits had to stink to high heaven. That's theology, yo!]

Who is adequate?!?! Only Jesus in us. Only by our connection with His life, death, and resurrection can our lives be salt, light, and an air freshener to the places we live. To the relationships we have. To the city God sends us to.  

What does your city smell like? What does heaven smell like for you?

Tunes Tuesday: Torches Together

It was just a matter of time:

What to love about this song:
...EVERY. SINGLE. THING.
...STRUM THE GUITAR!
...Please just love mewithoutyou. Your life will be better for it.

The Lyrics:
Why burn poor and lonely?
Under a bowl
Or under a lamp shade
Or on the shelf beside the bed
Where at night you lay turning
Like a door on its hinges
First on your left side
Then on your right side
Then on your left side again

Why burn poor and lonely?
Tell all the stones
We're gonna make a building
They'll be cut into shape
And set into place
Or if you'd rather be a window
I'll gladly be the frame
Reflecting any kind words
We'll let in all the blame
And ruin our reputation all the same
So never mind our plan making
We'll start living
Anyway 
Aren't you unbearably sad?
Then why burn so poor and lonely?

We'll be like torches
We'll be like torches
We'll be like torches
We’ll be torches together
Torches together

We'll be like torches
We'll be like torches
With whatever respect
Our tattered dignity demands
Torches together
Hand in hand

Why pluck one string?
What good is just one note?
Oh one string sounds fine I guess
But we were once one note
We weren’t lonely wheat
Quietly ground into grain
One light and momentary pain
So why the safe distance?
This curious look
Why tear out single pages,
When you can throw away the book?
Why pluck one string when you can
Strum the guitar?
Strum the guitar
Strum the guitar
Strum the guitar
With no beginning
With no end
Take down the guitar
And strum the guitar
Strum the guitar if you’re afraid
And I’m afraid
And everyone’s afraid
And everyone knows it
But we don’t have to be afraid
Anymore

You played the flute
But no one was dancing
You sang a sad song
But none of us cried

You played the flute
But no one was dancing
And you sang a sad song
You sang such a sad song

The Bad Part of the Good News

I wonder what I would have done.

I think I may have done different. May have been able to avoid the same mistake, the same weakness. 

I could have made it. I could maybe just maybe have been the one to not choose what He chose. 

Or if not me then someone else...anyone else.

I replay the scenario a thousand times with a thousand heroes...couldn't one of them have been better than the first one?

But then I look at my choices. At my tendencies. At my weakness. 

And I realize his choice is the same one I've been making in too many ways for all of my years.

The choice to do nothing, when I should do something.
The choice to listen to the wrong voices.
The choice to put something else at the center of who I am.
The choice to forget the best in favor of the fleeting present pleasure.

...just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned...

All. Every last one of us. Brokeness in billions of different directions, all pointing the same direction: death. It is a heavy thing to consider the ramifications of the bad news. The news that we are broken. The news that me and all my friends have made a mess and need help. 

But there is help. And everyone I meet needs it. (Including the one I meet in the mirror.)

...if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One...

One sunk the ship. One can right it. 

Fertilizer Flare Request Friday

The parable of the sower has been on my heart and mind for the last few weeks. On repeat, like a record you can't put down or a dream stuck in your head.  In the parable, seed is sown indiscriminately and yields different harvests depending on the kind of soil that receives the seed. 

I have been thinking about all the harvest around us.
I have been thinking about all the prayers I've prayed for people in Sioux City over the past few years.
I have been thinking about the dozens of people that have been invited by people connected with Hopesprings in Sioux City.  
I have been thinking about the dozens of people we have simply and tangibly shown the love of God to in the last few weeks. The people who's leaves we raked.  The hundreds of people we briefly interacted with during trick-or-treating last night.  Our friends, neighbors, and the people who we will interact with in the coming months. 
About the opportunities, and the challenges we are facing in every area of our lives.

I want to ask you to pray that the seeds we've sown with words and deeds will grow.  This has been and will continue to be a common request over the coming months. Central to this journey of faith is asking, seeking, and knocking, trusting God at the center of this story and His power to do the things we cannot do. 

(Which is a lot of things.) 

He authors.
He finishes.
He sows in and through us.
He makes the soil.
He makes the seed.
He brings the weather.

We are in control of little-to-nothing. But we need to do everything we can.  It is a beautiful paradox, and we are living in the middle of it. We need the strength to do the things God has put right in front of us while not succumbing to the delusion that we can make things happen in the hearts and minds of people.

Throw up flares!