Churchill and the Lion

Sipping Peete's coffee this morning from Market Street, I'm finally back in the office and able to put together coherent thoughts to send out into the blogosphere, in hopes that maybe someone will find a nugget of wisdom in here and put it into use in their life. That's right, after a short hiatus to celebrate little Laura Kate and to attempt to get in somewhat of a rhythm with being a daddy and everything else, I'm finally hitting a groove.

In my personal and ministerial reading times, I've been devouring quite a few books over the last few weeks. I continue to plow through Keller's "The Reason for God," as well as Thomas' "The Beautiful Fight," downed Carson's "Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson" in 13 hours, am smack in the middle of Mark Batterson's "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day," and am picking up my reading on "The Shack" (although I'm a little wary of some of the stuff it's saying) and Doyle's Sherlock Holmes anthology. It is Batterson's book, though, that I really want to talk about.

Batterson obviously has a good imagination, because he takes a relatively unknown Bible story (that of one of David's mighty men, Benaiah) and turns it into a book. Granted, the premise is that there are plenty of lions that we face in our everyday lives, the question is whether or not we chase them into pits and struggle with them. There are plenty of other epic struggles in the Bible (Jacob wrestling the Lord, David and Goliath, etc.) but Batterson does a good job of bringing them all together to focus on one thing: when it comes to life, are we bold enough, in our faith, to step out there and attack that which we are most fearful of... usually trusting the Lord as Guide and Provider. This book, as well as a recent article in "Men's Health," really hit home with me.

The story of Benaiah was pretty much unknown to me before I heard about this book. Basically, Benaiah was an extremely valiant guy who was a soldier and is known for several endeavors: 1. fighting two Moabite warriors at the same time; 2. killing an Egyptian warrior who was close to 7-feet tall with the Egyptian's own spear (snatching it out of his hands!); and 3. chasing a lion into a pit on a snowy day and killing the animal with his bare hands. All of these incredibly brave feats would eventually culminate in Benaiah being chief of David's personal guards and then head of the entire army of Israel under David. Batterson points out that, in every situation, the warrior ran to that which most normal folk would run away from. There are many lions in our lives, are we running away, or are we matching it roar for roar and bite for bite?

This was also an issue brought up in a recent "Men's Health" article where a particular reporter was doing a story over a group of Navy SEALs in Iraq and how they are mentally prepared to the point where they actually run towards a fight. The author actually recounts an instance where the base they were at began to be shelled by militants and everyone was headed for cover. As he ran, he noticed that the SEALs were calmly walking towards the bunker with purpose. Once inside, a shell exploded over 100 yards away, but the reporter recalls feeling like it was right on top of them. As he looked around in the flashlight-illuminated darkness, he noticed that all of the soldiers had a crimson hue to their faces, as though the fear was actually bringing them even more to life. When he asked them to shine the light on his face, he asked them what color his face was. Without even knowing the real meaning behind the question, the SEAL to his side said, "Really white, why?" The reporter concluded that, in all of their mental preparations, these soldiers had literally prepared for everything that could happen, not just the best scenarios.

One of my all-time greatest heroes is Winston Churchill. This was a man who, although not terribly deep, had faith in God, was a great speaker and motivator, had great intelligence, and who I sometimes wished, growing up, was my third grandfather. I've been listening to his speeches for the past couple of days, and I think Churchill was a guy who definitely understood what it was to stare the lion in the eyes and never back down. "Never never never give up!" he charged the British people as Hitler hurled bomb after bomb at their island, trying to break the heart of Europe's hopes. He defied all of Nazi Germany's pride, as well as many of his own people's fears. He stood up and simply would not sit back down. He knew the lion, and he wanted nothing else than to strangle the beast with his bare hands, until every last breath of the juggernaut had been squeezed out and the blood of the monster had become cold in its very veins. How I pray that I might be someone who stands up like Churchill. But, also, in a day and age and nation where everyone wants to be so politically correct and not hurt anyone else's feelings, I pray for leaders who actually do this same thing... in politics, in business, and in the Church.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you..."

Acts 1v.8a

We, God's children, have power through the Holy Spirit to chase those lions, to stand up to the despots, and to do battle with the enemy in our lives. We have the strength to stand up against the flow and speak out for what we truly believe in. If called to it, we even have the might to speak out against entire nations; we just have to trust in the Lord for the words. We, as Believers, must stop being so apathetic and chase down the lions in our lives, trusting in God to give us the strength to push through and bring them down, that we might glorify Him through our conquering.

Out of the Loop

It is weird to get rocked out of your element.

Let's just say that last week really rocked me out of mine. 

I can't think.

Enjoy.

www.synerjack.com

Father of Lights

I never really think about how quickly your world can be changed, whether through incredible gifts or hardships. In a whirlwind of emotion, activity, prayer, and thought, Laura Kate Wiley made her way into the world yesterday (Monday, May 12th 2008) at approximately 1:46pm, weighing in at 7lbs.12oz. and creating quite a stir among nurses, doctors, and other newborns in Covenant Lakeside's Labor & Delivery Section, not to mention her family and families loved ones. And now, as I sit here and look out across Maxey Lake (is that its name?), baseball parks, and a pre-summer thunderstorm-esque cloudbank rolling across Lubbock's skyline, and then back into this hospital room that has been our family's sanctuary for the past day and a half at the two most important and beautiful women in my life, I praise my God. I praise Him and my heart cries out from within a resounding "THANK YOU, LORD!!!" for these precious gifts of love in family and friendship.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."

James 1:17

A lot of my posts over the last few weeks have focused on this struggle that Carrie and I have endured on over the course of these last few months, in preparing to leave our jobs and follow the Lord to the mission field. This means stepping away from family and friends here in Lubbock, away from the church that has been a home and an employer for the last three years, and away from really all that we have known. Yet, tonight, I can see that this is one of those "perfect" gifts that the Father of lights has given to my family.

I have such a great gift in my beautiful bride, and another great gift was given to me earlier this week. The Father of lights has been the one who has opened my eyes to how incredible these two women are to me, and how my life will be focused on serving them. He is unstoppable in completing His will, and this is such a blessed part of that. 

My prayer, for Believers everywhere, is that the Father of lights might give us the eyes to see when He is raining down His blessings on us, and we brightly and joyfully give Him praise for what He has done!

Culture Clash

Most people tend to think that I'm exaggerating when I say that I read anywhere from four to six books at a time. I can remember my friend from Texas A&M, Alexa, wondering how in the world that was even possible. There is just so much great literature out there that I greedily eat up as much as I possibly can. Usually, my consumption focuses on tomes of theology and things like that, but I'll occasionally have an Ian Fleming or Robert Ludlum novel thrown in for some adventure, as well as classics and a few magazines, to boot (not to mention the blogs that I frequent out in the ether). I'm smack dab in the middle of one particular C.S. Lewis classic, right now, as well as Timothy Keller's "The Reason for God," but, spontaneously (I guess because I'm just so "crazy"), I picked up Gary Thomas' latest, "The Beautiful Fight," and began reading.

In Ch.2 of "The Beautiful Fight," Thomas' main focus is on the need to actually experience something when it comes to the Christian life. His sole focus isn't on that one thing, though... he does a pretty good job of describing how, in order to really grow as a Believer, one must have depth in both the experiential side of faith, as well as the intellectual. One particular quote hit me, though, as it was pretty much a punch in the face to the more liberal-leaning "Emergent" trend.

"We cannot compensate for being strangers to God by becoming friends with the culture."

As we see a growing trend of churches and even people who would claim to be Believers or Christ-followers (because the word "Christian" is just such a faux-pas when it comes to reaching people) leaning towards the mentality that "in order to engage culture, we must look like them!" and proceed to delve into the murky depths of a society bound for the bottom, we must remember that the acceptance of that which we know is wrong cannot happen. More and more of us are being inundated with the idea that social activism, politics and all other sorts of outlets are the places for Christians to really "live out their faith." But, more often than not, these same people have no real intimacy with the One they claim to serve.

In order for us to truly make an impact, we must have an intimate relationship with the One who redeemed and saved us in His life, death and resurrection. In that intimacy, the overflow is what carries us to do great things in different sectors of society. Our faith isn't in our political campaigning for the most PC candidate, getting all sorts of body piercings and taking up smoking to get along with a particular culture. Our faith is lived out through the overflow of joy that comes with knowing Christ as Saviour, and letting that joy take hold of every single thing we do.