Month: October 2016

It was a typically cool, comfortable Fall Friday evening in East Texas. My son Brian and I threw our overnight bags and bedding into the jeep and took off to meet a friend (about Brian’s age) who was catching a ride with us to a church men’s retreat. It was to be the first one our church had done in quite a few years. I was looking forward to getting away for a couple of days with some other men and do manly things like sitting around a fire telling stories and fishing.

We picked up our buddy and headed east to the camp which was about an hour and a half away. We began to talk about what anticipated the weekend being like, which was of course fishing, sitting around the fire, or just relaxing and doing whatever the heck we wanted to do. We wanted very little structure and no “agenda.” Having been to quite a few of these type events in my life, I knew better than to expect that.

We had whipped ourselves into a frenzy of excitement with visions in our minds of driving into the camp to find a fire already going and join right in. We were running late due to waiting on our friend who had just gotten off work. I decided to give my friend John a call. John was the one in charge of the retreat and he and most of the guys were already there. As soon as he answered, I asked, “There IS going to be a fire, right?” “Uh, no, we hadn’t really planned on it,” he said. “What? No fire? You can’t have a men’s retreat without a fire!” I could tell he was taken back by my response. Then he proceeded to tell me that they were going to have a session of praise and worship and then a little teaching.  I’m usually content to join right in and go with the flow, and some of the most powerful and deep workings of the Holy Spirit had happened to me at men’s gatherings, but this night I had succumbed to murmuring and complaining. What was worse, these two young men who looked to me as an example were brought into it with me. The remainder of the trip was nothing but a big gripe session.

We finally arrived at the camp, parked, and walked inside the room where the meeting had already begun. There were some guys with guitars and some percussion leading worship. And there we stood in the back with our hands in our pockets. This wasn’t the kind of retreat I had in mind and I wasn’t going to enter in. Or was I?

After standing there a couple of minutes, I felt the urge to go lay down on the floor behind some chairs. This is not anything out of the ordinary for me, but this time was different. This time I didn’t really want to, but seemed to be compelled by a force greater than me or my rotten attitude.

I walked over to the back of the room and laid face down on the floor. I felt nothing, but somehow knew that was where I needed to be. After a few minutes, I felt as if I was the only one in the room. Then suddenly I felt what seemed like an electrical current go through me in wave after wave. My entire body was shaking. I don’t know if anyone else saw me, and didn’t really care. It felt like warm liquid waves of love going through me. This went on for at least half an hour.

God spoke some things to me that night, but I won’t share them right now.

What I learned more than anything that night was this – Jesus wants an encounter with me more than I ever could.

That night made no sense to me at all. How could someone who had spent the entire trip to the camp complaining, whining, and acting like anything but a man of God, walk in with a scowl on his face and then have such a powerful encounter with the love of God?

 

I don’t know.

 

But I do know this – He loves me because He is Love. He wants me more than I could ever want Him.

 

He wants you.

He doesn’t love you because of anything other than He loves you because He loves you because He loves you because He loves you!

 

This kind of love is beyond my understanding.

 

Oh, by the way, we built a fire later that night and went fishing the next day.

 

Letting Him love me,

 

Kevin

One of the things I love about writing this blog is the ability to pick you up, so to speak, and take you for a little ride on this journey I’m on of changing the way I think. Hopefully, as you come along with me, you’ll choose to venture out into this new territory and recognize areas of your own thinking that must change.

God has a variety of means He uses to speak to people. With me, I see pictures and images most of the time. Sometimes it’s like a video playing in my mind. These seem unusual to me when I consider the fact that I love being a wordsmith. Nevertheless, this is the way it happens with me most of the time.

This past Sunday morning was no exception for me as we were engaged in an intimate time of worship. As I stood there I saw a movie playing in my mind of an atomic bomb exploding over a city, obliterating everything and everybody for miles. Mothers, fathers, children of all ages, people going about their day, gone in an instant and yet others dying a slow, agonizing death. Then I saw the name “Hiroshima” written across the top of the picture. I saw another movie again of an atomic bomb exploding over a city, this time the name “Nagasaki” was written across the top. Over 220,000 died in those two cities. It moved me to tears. As the tears flowed, I heard Jesus say “That’s how I feel about it.” Then it occurred to me that I had never really considered how Jesus might have felt or thought about those horrible events. I know how I felt about it most of my life. Thoughts like this:

 

Those Japs deserved it.

 

They started the war, we needed to finish it.

 

Sometimes innocent people die. That’s just the way it is.

 

Ask any Christian you meet and he or she can recite The Lord’s Prayer or at least most of it. It is one of the most quoted and recited passages in the entire bible. I’ve known it for most of my life, yet until recent years, I had never looked intently into what is being said. Especially those words, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  

At this point, you’re probably asking, “What do atomic bombs have to do with The Lord’s Prayer?” Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That is my point. In heaven there are no atomic bombs. In fact, there are no weapons at all. Only love. Only peace. Only Jesus and His ways. When we say those words, “on earth as it is in heaven,” we are saying this: The way it is in heaven should be the way it is on earth. We Christians can be very good at compartmentalizing our theology. For example, if you asked any Christian if God condones the killing of innocent people, the answer would be “no, of course not”, and yet violence seems to be our default response to violence most of the time.

What if our default response would instead be to ask, “Father, how is heaven responding to this attack?” Or is it easier to just resort to violence? The “what if” questions always come when advocating for non-violent response, like “What if someone attacked you or your family?”, or “How else were we to end that war?” I wonder if Jesus thought about that before He said all that “love your enemies” and “turn the other cheek” stuff?

I’m pretty sure He did. He is God, you know.

What if there was a government that operated from a heavenly perspective and when faced with a violent attack, instead of responding violently, asked for God’s intervention in the matter? There is one. It’s called the kingdom of God. Her King is the Prince of Peace. I wonder how He got that name?

 

How different would our world look if we who believe in the Prince of Peace also believed that He is the better way?

 

Peace,

 

Kevin

 

 

Recently, I made a decision to turn off the talking heads. No, I’m not talking about the popular rock group of the 80’s. I’m talking about the ones you can find on popular TV news networks and all over the AM radio dial. I used to be addicted to these talking heads. I had my favorite TV news network that most closely represented my political views and they were always right. I also had my favorite radio talk shows. Just to be clear, I still tune in every now and then, but they don’t have the same influence on me that they once had.

I came to the realization about a year and a half ago that allowing these voices to shape my thinking had caused me to become cynical. A cynical person is deeply distrustful of others and usually pessimistic. There is a conspiracy behind everything and nobody is to be fully trusted.

A wonderful truth was uncovered in my mind. God created me with the marvelous ability to think for myself, to come to my own conclusions. I started to see with new vision what it means to live and think from a renewed mind. That is why I named my blog site “As You Think.” Its purpose is to make you think.

It is very amusing to watch the news networks after a presidential debate. They will tell you what you’re supposed to think about the debate you just watched. If you’ve learned to think for yourself, you won’t need them to tell you. More importantly, if our mind is being renewed by the Word of God, we’ll know how to form our thoughts based on that. Here is a good rule to use:

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious – the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. (Philippians 4:8-9 MSG)

One of the typical responses you’ll hear to this is “you’re being very naïve.” No, we’re being naïve when we allow our thinking to be influenced by voices that don’t pass the Phil. 4:8 test. We can’t simply compartmentalize this truth and somehow separate it from our political opinions. I have a hunch that if we could have a face-to-face talk with Jesus himself, we might be surprised at some of his political views.

I have narrowed down my spiritual quest to this one sentence – I am simply after His heart. I’m steadily losing interest in anybody’s opinion but His. If yours’ is in line with His, then that’s just icing on the cake. It’s good to be informed by paying attention to current events in the news, but always filter it through the Good News. If you’ve found yourself becoming cynical like I was, here’s some advice: Turn off the talking heads of cynicism and when you get up in the morning begin your day by thanking God for something good, and then remind yourself of it throughout the day.

 

Cynical no more,

 

Kevin.