I Believe, I Believe

I Believe, I Believe

 “I believe, I believe, Oh Lord help my unbelief,

Help me trust in your plan, help me truly understand

I believe, I believe, doubt is such a subtle thief

Help me trust who you say that I am.”


“You are God, I am not, and my life is in your hands

You have chosen me, you have chosen me

I’m your child, I am secure

In your arms, I’m safe for sure.”

 

“Your love covers me, your love covers me

Your love covers me, I’m safe for sure”


Words and Music by Steve Herl

 

Chapter One

In about 1961, when I was 10 years old, I was bouncing a tennis ball off of the front steps of our house at 5212 Mt. Vernon Memorial Hwy in Alexandria, Va.  Nearly every evening, from about 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM, I would pretend to either pitch or play shortstop for the Washington Senators, while waiting anxiously for my father to get off the bus that stopped in front of our house.  The bus was scheduled to stop at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30.  Every time I would hear the bus coming my heart would race, wishing that my dad would get off the bus.  Most of the time the bus would just drive right by and not stop because my dad was not on the bus.  You see our stop was the last stop and he was the only remaining passenger on the nights that he was on the bus, so if he was not on the bus there was no need to stop.  My heart would sink each time the bus just raced by.  My dad had a problem with alcohol and would not come home for weeks at a time while on a binge. 

On this particular night, after the 8:30 bus drove by, I sat down on the sidewalk with tears in my eyes.  I laid back and stared up into a star filled night.  I had never felt so alone.  As I laid there staring into the vastness of the night sky (in those days living near Mt. Vernon was like living out in the country) I became terrified.  I could see an infinite number of stars in the sky and I had just learned that the earth was a rock whirling around in something called the Milky Way.  The Russians had orbited the earth with a satellite called Sputnik and our new President, my hero, John Kennedy had promised we would go to the moon very soon.  The more I stared, the more I felt alone and the more afraid I became.  I began to worry about flying off the rock on which I was lying and being launched out into infinity and forgotten.  I began to think about the absurdity that I even existed because life apparently began by sheer chance when thousands of random events all occurred exactly at the right time.  I thought about how before the first thing existed there had to have been nothing and therefore something had to have come out of nothing.  And now I was more afraid.

Suddenly a peace settled over me.  I knew the answer.  As I laid there I knew I wasn’t alone.  I knew how I came to be and I knew that there never was a time when there was nothing because if there had ever been a time when there was nothing there would still be nothing.  “Some” thing cannot come out of “No” thing.  I sat up.  I knew there was a God.  I didn’t understand anything else about God but I knew there was a God.  And I knew in my heart that he was for me.  I believe God is real and I believe He loves me.

Chapter Two

I grew up in the Catholic Church.  I made my First Communion at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Old Town Alexandria.  I was confirmed into the Catholic Church at St. Louis Catholic Church near Hybla Valley in Alexandria.  The awe and reverence (incense, bells, candles, stained glass windows, chimes and organ music) of the Catholic Church helped me to understand the holiness of God, but it wasn’t until much later that I learned that holiness means “otherness”.

In fact the most important thing I learned about God from my Catholic Church days was learned on Sundays, but not at mass.  My mother’s mother, my grandmother (“Mom Mom”) served as a housekeeper for a house full of priests in downtown Washington D.C.  Many Sunday afternoons we would drive into Washington D.C. to have “dinner” (an early afternoon meal) with Mom Mom and some of the priests.  When we had finished eating in the little kitchen we would go out into the living room and watch NFL football on the little black and white television.  There would be several priest sitting on the couches and chairs, drinking beer and yelling at the television.  Occasionally a cuss word would be spewed and even a racist comment or two.  The very same men who said mass in a chapel off the front hall of the house were just like all the other men I had watched at our other family gatherings.  I learned that the priests had no special relationship with God and that we didn’t need to use an intermediary to talk with and relate to God.  I believe I can pray to and speak with God directly.  I believe that God forgives us of our sins without any need for intercession from anyone other than his son.

When I was playing baseball for the Blue Bombers, Martin’s Hardware, Mt. Vernon High School, and basketball and football for Mt. Vernon High School I would talk with God constantly.  I would thank him for every good thing that ever happened to me.  I believe God is real and that he loves me.

Chapter Three 

My four years at Va. Tech (1969-1973) were my wilderness experience.  I went to Tech on a football scholarship without a plan or any level of maturity or emotional stability.  I was the most ill prepared person that had ever shown up on campus anywhere in the world.  My family was in shambles back home.  My dad had moved away, my younger brother was left with no male in his life and my mother, God bless her, was broke but would still send me 10 dollars about every other month.  My scholarship paid for everything (room, board and books) and the 15 dollars a month we got as football players for our laundry money was all the spending money I had until the money from mom would show up. From the moment I arrived on campus (Miles dorm, 3rd floor) I was afraid and lost.  The other players seemed like men.  They had lifted weights, they drank beer, they were confident with girls and they had experiences in football and life that I had never known.  My first roommate was from Mt. View, California and he smoked pot and played a guitar on his bunk.  I had no idea what marijuana was. 

I hated every moment of football because it was the most dehumanizing thing I had ever been part of.  I played football and all sports because I enjoyed playing.  Football at Va. Tech was about proving how tough you were and how strong you were and how fast you were.  I prided myself on having fun and outthinking my opponents in sports.  I wasn’t prepared for mortal combat, neither physically nor emotionally.  But I couldn’t quit because I couldn’t afford to go to college without a scholarship and I had no alternate plan.  I was stuck in Blacksburg, Va., without a car, without any money and without any hope.  My high school girlfriend starting seeing someone else shortly after I arrived at Tech and once I found out I was devastated and even more alone.  I tried to read a Bible that I found and as I have said many times since, “it might as well have been written in the original Greek for as much as I could understand of it.” 

I muddled through four long years of college, miraculously graduating with degrees in Mathematics and Political Science.  My personal life was an absolute mess for the entire four years and I never matured emotionally enough to truly have a real relationship with anyone, particularly with a female.  I was so insecure and lost that I had nothing to offer another person in the area of intimacy.  I thought love was something that you earned by serving the needs of another and that if you shared your true thoughts and fears, rejection was the only possible outcome.  I never understood that intimacy involves vulnerability and honesty.  I had absolutely no understanding of love or relationship and I knew nothing about the female mind or body.  I was an utter disaster. I still believed that God existed and would thank him when things went well, but I did not know God nor have any  relationship with him.  I felt like he loved me but I was sure he was disappointed in me.

Chapter Four

And yet, one year after graduating from Va. Tech I was engaged to be married.  I had taught math and coached football, basketball and tennis at Gar-Field High School in Woodbridge for a year now and decided that getting married was the next logical step in life.  I married someone I didn’t know, mostly because I had never really been vulnerable enough with them to allow them to know me.  I was totally ignorant of what a relationship was and how intimacy worked.  I thought love was to be earned so in my mind providing a house and a car and being told what a great teacher I was and what a great coach I was and what a great shortstop I was in slow pitch softball was enough to earn my wife’s love.  Everyone else thought I was really special so, of course, she should have as well.  I was still as immature and lost as the day I stepped onto the Va. Tech campus in the fall of 1969.

I love children so I thought that if we could have some children everything would be fine because we could raise our children together.  We struggled to have children which only added to the stress of our non relationship but finally one day we had a daughter, Lindsay Maureen.  In 1981, when I held Lindsay, I knew that love was something I had never known but I knew I had it for her.  I knew that love was something more than an emotion, I knew that it was something bestowed upon someone as an act of the will.  I didn’t understand it, but it wasn’t something earned and I had never never been the object of it as far as I knew.   But I had it for Lindsay from the moment she laid in my arms.

Now that we had a daughter, my wife and I decided we needed to find a church.  As I said earlier, I was raised Catholic.  She had been raised Presbyterian, in fact we were married in the National Presbyterian Church in downtown Washington, D.C. by a Presbyterian minister and a Catholic priest.  We had attended the Presbyterian Church in downtown Fredericksburg but one Sunday the minister that I had come to appreciate died of a heart attack in the pulpit.  I played in softball tournaments nearly every weekend until Lindsay was born, so I never became very involved in the activities of the church.  I figured that I had been as good as anyone and I thanked God whenever something good happened, so if anyone was going to heaven I was.  My wife had begun spending several nights a week out and telling me she was going to “bible studies” or “prayer meetings” or “worship services.”  I was sure she was doing something else.

Chapter Five

But now that Lindsay was born and I had stopped playing softball nearly every weekend we decided to find a church.  One of my wife’s friends suggested to her that we try an Episcopal church in Fairfax, Va.  The thought was that an Episcopal church would be a compromise between the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church.  It was a Protestant church but it had priests and liturgy.  I, of course, asked why we needed to go all the way to Fairfax to find an Episcopal church since there were at least two Episcopal churches in Fredericksburg (we lived in Fredericksburg, Va.).  I never got a sufficient answer but it came to pass that we visited Truro Episcopal Church in downtown Fairfax, Va. on a Sunday.

Truro is an old colonial church and the setting was and is beautiful.  When we got inside, we found a beautiful sanctuary with pews and kneelers just like the Catholic Church in which I grew up. The Church had become so popular that they had built wings of pews out to each side to expand its capacity.  We sat in the left wing towards the back of the church.  I was very comfortable because of the kneelers, the hymnals, the cross, the stained glass windows and the priests.  The priest presiding over the service came down the center aisle processing behind the acolytes carrying the cross and the Bible.  I felt very much at home.  We sang a hymn out of the hymnal and when he arrived at the altar we responded to the liturgy led by the priest.  Then a small worship team made up of two guitars and a piano began to play music as the congregation continued the liturgy.  That’s when it happened.  People began raising their hands in what appeared to be real worship, adoration and surrender.  I was confused but interested.  The liturgy set to music was beautiful and the words seemed to truly have meaning.  I enjoy singing so the service was very comfortable and actually inspiring. 

When the time for the sermon came, the priest presiding over the service ascended the steps to a raised pulpit.  When he began to teach it was as if the veil had been lifted bringing us into the very presence of God.  John Howe, a Yale University graduate with a Master of Divinity, 1967, taught with an enthusiasm, perspective and intelligence that I had never heard before when it came to the Bible.  It felt as though we were really there when he taught about the events and teachings of the Bible.  I was amazed and my heart was drawn to his teaching.  When he finished I was actually disappointed.  I wanted more.  The service closed with an uplifting song and as the acolytes led the priests back out the center door people were singing and worshiping God. 

When the service ended, my wife and I walked to our car without speaking at all.  I did not know that she had been to Truro before on one of her “worship services” nights out so I thought she was digesting what we had just experienced as well.  Once we began driving south on Rt. 123 towards Fredericksburg she asked me, “What did you think?”  I hesitated and then said, “I’m not exactly sure what we just saw, but I do know that for the first time in my I just saw people really worshipping God.”  That’s when I found out that my wife had been there before on a Friday night.

Chapter Six

After attending Truro for a few more weeks and being enthralled by the teaching each Sunday, I was talked into attending a Friday night “worship service.”  I went with much fear and trepidation, not sure exactly what I was getting into.  The meeting took place immediately below the main sanctuary at Truro and involved John Howe playing his guitar and leading a group of about 150 people in several songs that for the most part we had sung during the Sunday services.  As I said before I enjoy singing and I very much enjoy singing songs led by an acoustic guitar that sound like folk music or the Everly Brothers.  As we were singing about the fourth or fifth song, and just before the teaching (which I was very much looking forward to), John Howe stopped playing mid song.  Because people were raising there hands and because as is my habit I was standing in the back of the room, I could barely see John.  But when he abruptly stopped playing I moved so I could see what had happened.  He stood up straight and said, “God has a word for a man that is here tonight.  God says to you, ‘I don’t need you!  I love you !”  When he said those words I knew I was that man.  I began to tear up a little as I absorbed the depth of what I believed that God himself had just said to me.  I had always connected love with earning.  I thought love was the currency earned by meeting the needs of another.  I had spent my entire life trying to satisfy others desires in order for them to accept me, maybe like me, and even maybe love me.  God had just said to me “I DON’T NEED YOU.”  “ I LOVE YOU!”  How could it be? 

I am not sure I heard another word or song the rest of the night.  I drove home almost in silence.  I’m sure my wife thought I had not enjoyed the service thus my silence.  Our lack of relationship kept me from discussing my experience with her because I thought she would say I was too new in my faith to have been the person John Howe was talking about.  I was afraid of rejection.  And yet I knew that I knew that I knew that God had just said to me, “I don’t need you!  I love you.” 

Over the next several weeks I spent nearly every waking moment pondering those words.  When I held Lindsay in my arms I understood more and more.  Lindsay didn’t need to do anything to earn my love.  I loved Lindsay just because she was mine.  Lindsay was and always has been perfect in my eyes and heart.  My love for Lindsay was and is unconditional because of who she is in me.  It never wavers based on her actions or inactions.  She is fully accepted by me because of who she is in me.  When I let that resonate in my heart in regard to me and God, I was set free.  I believe God loves me not because of anything I have done but fully and intentionally because of what he has done and who I am in him. I believe that God exists and that he loves me unconditionally because he has chosen me in himself.  I believe God said to me in the basement of Truro Church, “I don’t need you!  I love you!”

Chapter Seven

Truro had a wonderful bookstore in its complex of buildings.  I discovered that nearly every teaching series that John Howe had done since he had become rector at Truro was available on audio tapes (I know, I am old).  He had done a teaching series on nearly every book or group of books in the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.  I bought every series that they had in stock and ordered the ones they didn’t.  I couldn’t get enough of Rev. Howe’s teachings.  I would listen to them in the evening and in the car whenever I drove anywhere.  His teachings were not doctrinal instead they were more expository in nature which means a verse by verse exposition of the Bible.  As I said earlier, when John Howe’s teaches the Bible you feel like you are part of the story.  When he teaches about the Gospels you feel as though you are walking with Jesus and his disciples.  When he teaches Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians you feel like you either live in Corinth or you were with Paul on his missionary journeys.  When he teaches the Book of Revelation you come away hopeful and reminded that God is in control.

By now I was a real estate developer and much of my day was spent in my car driving to meetings or looking at properties.  I reached a point where I actually hoped for more red lights because it gave me the chance to listen to more of the tape I had in my car’s tape player.  It didn’t take me very long to make it through the entire Bible by way of John Howe’s teachings.  I felt like I now had a general understanding of the flow and message of the entire Bible.  But I knew something was still missing.

That all changed one day on a drive to just outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  Our company had been promised by a customer whose offices were near Gettysburg that we would receive a rather large check for work we had done for them.  After many failed promises of a check I decided to call their owner directly and inform him that I would drive up and pick up a check.  When he agreed I was thrilled for two reasons.  One, it would be good for our company to finally get the check and two, I could spend 3 1/2 hours each way listening to John Howe.

I left Fredericksburg early one morning and was heading up Rt. 15 just north of Haymarket, Va. enjoying my time listening to Rev. Howe.  As I was listening to the tape I believe I heard a voice saying to me, “Sit quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things.”  I thought, “Wow, I better listen very carefully to what comes next on the tape.”  But nothing special was said.  Just below Leesburg, Va. the voice repeated but in a more deliberate tone, “I said sit Quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things.”  In my heart I said, “Oh, I see.”  I turned off the tape player, completed my drive to Gettysburg and back to Fredericksburg with nothing playing on the radio or from the tape player.  I didn’t hear any more voices and nothing profound was revealed to me at all in the approximately 6 hours of driving.  I dropped off the check at my office and drove home.  I didn’t tell anyone about what happened because quite frankly I thought maybe I was going crazy.

Chapter Eight

Two Sundays later, while my wife was on a ladies retreat as I remember, I was sitting at church just below the raised pulpit at Truro.  At some point in the service, in a time when people would share prophecies or words of encouragement, a woman stood up in the center of the sanctuary and said she had a vision to share.  She said she saw a man in the presence of God and the Lord was saying to him, “Sit quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things.”  I slid forward onto the kneeler in front of me and became flush. How did she know that had happened to me?  I was flabbergasted!  Another woman stood up to share something else and John Howe stopped her by saying, “the Lord is speaking to someone right now in this place and we should wait.”  For what seemed like an hour (it was probably a minute) I knelt with my head in my hands, sweating and confused.  How could this be?

Not many Sundays later, I was laying on my bed in the early afternoon.  I had gone to church in the morning and had plans to attend a Washington Bullets game at the Capital Center with one of my best friends, Barry Sale.  Barry was my banker, my golfing buddy and had played second base when I played shortstop for many years in slow pitch softball.  Barry was a diabetic, drank too much, ate too much, gambled too much, and several other vices we didn’t share.  But we would laugh and laugh when we spent time together and we both loved to compete and appreciated cerebral athleticism.

The house phone rang and my wife said Barry’s brother in law was on the phone.  That was very odd.  When I answered the phone he said, “Are you supposed to be going to the Bullets game with Barry this afternoon?”  I said, “Yes!”  He said, “Barry won’t be going.  He just died!”  He went on to explain that Barry had been down by the river (Rappahannock) with his kids and began to feel bad.  His father and mother lived just up the hill from the river so he walked up to their house to rest.  Apparently when he got there he sat down on their couch and had a massive heart attack and died immediately.  I was stunned, speechless and tearful.  I dropped the phone.

As I laid back in my bed, with tears rolling down my face, I stared at the ceiling.  Barry’s parent’s house wasn’t very far from where we lived.  I thought how close he had been when he died.  I wished I could have been there for him.  But then God interjected something even more challenging to my heart.  He reminded me that I had been with Barry numerous times since the night that God had revealed his unconditional love to me and I had never found it convenient to share my new found faith with Barry.  I felt like he said to me, “I am revealing myself to you so that you that you can be a light into the darkness.”  I was profoundly challenged and exhorted.  At Barry’s funeral I felt like the Lord said to me, “I want you to share me with all of your golfing buddies.”  “I want you to start a Bible Study.”  “I have given you insight into my word for a purpose.”

I believe that if God is God he can certainly enter into his creation at his pleasure just like an author of a book can choose to write himself into the story or the narrative of his book.  I believe that if we have ears to hear and eyes to see we can hear from the Lord and see the Lord at work even in this earthly realm.

Chapter Nine

Within a couple of weeks of Barry’s funeral, I told my wife that I felt like God wanted me to start a Bible study in our house.  Her answer was, “You haven’t been a Christian long enough to think that you can lead a Bible study.  She was right, I hadn’t been a believer for very long and she had every right to question my motives since I often jumped the gun on things because of my I can get it done attitude.  When you grow up trying to earn everyone’s approval you learn to operate with just such an attitude.  Our relationship had deteriorated to such a point that instead of approving of anything I tried to do, her default position was to believe I was being prideful and arrogant.  The truth was in this case I was actually terrified.  I had no idea how I was going to lead a Bible Study.

The Lord wouldn’t let me forget his exhortation to share the Gospel.  Finally one night, after several more rejections, I said to my wife, “If I invite Wayne Moore (one of my best friends and golfing buddies) and Weldon Higgs (the golf pro at Fredericksburg Country Club) to a Bible Study at our house will you believe that God has called me to do this.  You see as far as we knew Wayne spent every weekend drinking and playing golf and Weldon worked from sun up to sun down every day so neither of them was actively involved in any church.  When I presented my wife with these two hurdles she said, “Yes, if you can get Wayne Moore and Weldon Higgs to agree to come to a Bible Study at our house I will agree that God is involved.”  I assume she thought it was impossible.

Now I had to well up the nerve to ask them.  On the day I decided to take the leap and ask them both I invited Paul Bottorf, a friend who worked with me, to go with me to the Country Club.  Paul and I arrived about an hour before Wayne could get to the club.  We decided to play a few holes while we waited and when we got to the 13th tee (near the clubhouse) I decided to practice my approach to inviting someone to our Bible Study.  As we drove in our cart towards our tee shots I said to Paul, “Would you and Beth be interested in being part of a Bible Study at our house on one evening each week?”  To my shock Paul responded, “I think that’s a great idea.  Let us know what night.”  No arm twisting.  No uncomfortable or awkward discussion.  Just a simple yes.  Amazing.

Paul and I played two holes and then rode back to the pro shop to pick up Wayne and Weldon to begin our round in earnest on the 1st hole.  When we got to the 3rd hole, I jumped into the cart that Wayne was riding in (Weldon had to attend to a need of another club member) and decided now was the time.  I asked, “Would you and Joyce have any interest in attending a Bible Study at our house on one night each week.”  Once again, to my great surprise, Wayne said, “That’s sounds like something we would enjoy.” Just then Weldon returned from his discussion with the other club member and I thought while I’m hot I’ll ask him as well.  His answer was just as quick.  “That sounds great.  What night?”  I told them I would get back to everyone after I spoke with my wife.

Upon arriving home I informed my wife of the answers I had received.  She was shocked.  We decided to begin the following week on Wednesday night.  I called the guys.  Everyone agreed.  Now I was terrified!  I had to lead a Bible Study and had no idea what to do.

Chapter Ten

I had one week to prepare to sit in my living room in front of three of my best friends and their wives as well as my wife who was sure I was being foolish and arrogant and “teach” a Bible Study.  I didn’t know the Bible like John Howe did so I wasn’t going to be able to copy his teaching style.  I didn’t even know where to begin.  Every night I asked God, “Where do I start?”  Finally one night I heard him say, “Start in the beginning.”  I had no idea exactly what that meant but at least I had an answer.

On Saturday as I was listening to one of John Howe’s tapes, I felt like I knew what I was supposed to do.  The word Genesis means beginnings.  I would start in Genesis.

Genesis Chapter 1:1-3
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

In the first three verses of the Bible all three persons of the Trinity are introduced.  In the beginning God (the Father).  And the Spirit of God was hovering (the Holy Spirit).  And God said (the Word of God, the Son) let there be light.  We were going to cover just three verses of the Bible and discuss the concept of the Trinity.  I was ready.

On Monday I was asked if I knew whether Wayne or Weldon were members of any church and if so what denomination.  I had no idea.  I was warned that different denominations had different beliefs and understandings of the concept of the Trinity.  All I knew was what God had revealed to me about the Trinity through my Catholic upbringing and the teachings of John Howe.  I didn’t yet fully understand that when God had said to me, “Sit quietly before my feet and I will teach you of all things” that he was going to give my insight and understanding beyond what I knew in this realm.  But I was ready.

On Wednesday morning I was informed that Wayne and Joyce couldn’t come to our first study.  They said they were sorry and promised to come next week but they just couldn’t be there.  Shortly after lunch I heard from Weldon that he and Susan couldn’t make it either.  But Paul had assured me that he and Beth would be there.  I was a little disappointed but still I was nervous and excited.  The Lord gave me a quiet confidence about my first teaching.  I spent the afternoon anxiously awaiting the study.

Beth and Paul showed up around 6:50 and after getting some water in the kitchen we all went into our living room.  My wife and Beth were old friends so they spoke freely enjoying one another’s company.  Paul and I chatted about work and golf and whatever else came to mind.  Then it was time.  I asked my wife to open us in prayer and my first Bible study was off and running.  This was over 35 years ago and I have taught a weekly Bible study in my house for more than 30 of those 35 years.

After the opening prayer I introduced the topic of our study.  I said that we were going to start in the beginning and for us that meant Genesis Chapter 1 Verse 1.  Beth and Paul laughed.  It seemed like a unique place to start a Bible study.  We read the first three verses out loud.

As I began to discuss the Trinity Paul interrupted me and said, “This is amazing.  As you probably know, Beth and I are Catholic and the Trinity has always confused me.  I just don’t understand the reason for Trinity.”  To be honest, I had no idea or at least didn’t remember that Beth and Paul were Catholic.  As it turned out, Wayne and Joyce were Baptist and Weldon and Susan were Methodist so the fact that they had not shown up this night was orchestrated by God.  If they had been there Paul would have never had the nerve to admit that he had a problem with such a basic concept and we certainly couldn’t have discussed it from the Catholic Church perspective because of the doctrinal differences between the Baptist and the Catholics.  As it was we had an hour long discussion and in the end Paul and Beth had a new and more complete understanding of the Trinity.  I said things and explained things that were not from my head.  As has become common place over the past 35 years, God spoke to Beth and Paul through me (he works through donkeys (Balaam’s, Numbers 22:21-39)) and if I had been asked to repeat what I said I couldn’t because it had bypassed my brain.  I believe God speaks to and through people who acknowledge that he exists and that he is God and we are not.  God is merely looking for people who will humble themselves, who will glorify him as God and will give him thanks. (Romans Chapter 1:21).

Wayne and Joyce and Weldon and Susan (along with Paul and Beth) showed up the following Wednesday and for many Wednesdays for about a year.  Every Wednesday afternoon I would sit in my office at Chatham Square and prepare for the night’s teaching.  Every Wednesday God would give me something to share and other people began to come.  At some point my wife and I decided to attend Church of the Messiah (an Episcopal Church plant near Five Mile Fork) in Fredericksburg and the Bible Study began to be affiliated with the church.  So it evolved. But God was faithful throughout, speaking through a donkey, a sinner saved by grace.

Chapter Eleven

After our Church of the Messiah days we attended Grace Church of Fredericksburg and our Bible Study grew to about 20 to 25 people.  God continued to faithfully give me teachings to share and my understanding of God’s unconditional love grew exponentially.  I have always said that I learned much more while preparing for my teachings than I was ever able to share with the people who came to the Bible Study.

In 1990, we adopted a little boy.  Bobby was 13 months old when we went through the lengthy and sometimes frustrating process of a private placement adoption.  Bobby had been born to a homeless lady in downtown Fredericksburg and we never saw him until the process was completed.  And even after he was legally our son, I had to drive to a previously unknown location in Breezewood subdivision in Spotsylvania, Va. to bring him home.

Bobby (whose name was then Brandon, although he didn’t know it) had been living with the boss of his mother’s sister for sometime and she wasn’t sure that we really had the right to have Bobby.  God was faithful however, because when I arrived to pick Bobby up and take him home (my wife was at Lindsay’s school for her Thanksgiving Day Party) the lady who was caring for him said, “He is afraid of men, he will never go with you.”  I asked to see him and when I saw him for the very first time he was sitting in a playpen in the middle of the living room with his back turned away from the entrance into the room.  I walked over to the edge of the playpen and said, “Bobby, it’s your dad.  Bobby I’m here to take you home.”  He turned his head around, stood up and as I reached down to him he extended his arms to me and we were off.  He had the extended belly of a child who was almost malnourished, but I had a tiny shirt and a diaper and some shorts for him to wear.  We bounced out the door and into my car.  After securing him in his car seat in the back we drove straight to the nearby Dairy Queen.  We’ve been best friends ever since.

In contrast to the instant lesson of Agape love that God revealed to me in the birth of Lindsay, the adoption of Bobby showed me the truth of our adoption in God.  The Bible says Jesus is God’s only begotten son, meaning I believe that they share the very same essence, whereas we are adopted into the family of God by an act of God’s will in mercy and grace.  My love for Bobby is every bit as unconditional as my love for Lindsay and yet it is different in that I paid a price to bring Bobby into our family and I chose him  before I even saw him.  He had my name (Robert is my middle name) before I had ever met him and he was mine before I even knew him.  I had set my love upon him before he had done anything good or bad so his sonship was by my election of him.  I believe we are children of God by his will, not because of anything we have done.  His love for us is secure because of who he is not because of who we are except for who we are in him.

Chapter Twelve

As God was revealing more and more to and through me about the nature and substance of his unconditional love (Agape), my marriage was coming to an end.  As I have now come to understand knowing about something has no effect in your heart until you believe.  In Isaiah 41:20, Isaiah writes, “that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.“  The Hebrew words translated see, know, consider and understand form a pattern by which we are to be changed through revelation.

To see means to behold, to hold up and look at from every angle, to examine.  This is how we study things.  To know means to become familiar with, the spend time with, to know relationally.  This is how we know each other, this is what we mean when we say we know someone as opposed to know something.  This is how we know a hobby such as golf or knitting or painting.  We don’t just know it intellectually, we know it internally.  It becomes part of who we are.  To consider means to hold down until it leaves a mark in us, to make war with, to allow to challenge.  It is much like taking our medicine even when it tastes bad and swallowing it so it can heal us.  We have to let it have its way in us in order to be changed.  In the days in which we live, with such divisions, very few times do we consider what the other side has to say.  We just spew it out and refuse to be changed.  Our pride and insecurities won’t allow us to consider another point of view.  We have to destroy the other side because we want to be right more than we want to be changed.  To Understand means to know well enough to teach, to become an expert, to have been changed at your core.  The purpose of revelation is to be changed into the image of the creator.  And having been changed to change everyone and everything around us.  Changed hearts change hearts.

The problem in my life at this point was that I knew all about love but I didn’t know love.  My relationship with my wife was dead because I had nothing to give, because I had never believed.  I intellectually understood the concept of God’s unconditional love and God sovereignly allowed me to reveal his unconditional love to others, but my pain, insecurity, pride and selfishness kept me from choosing to love.  I was sharing the knowledge of God’s love with others while I was dying inside, gasping for air, in search of love in this realm.

Chapter Thirteen

But God is a God of redemption.  God is a God of mercy.  God is a God of forgiveness.  God is a God of new beginnings.  God is a God of restoration.  God is a God of resurrection.  When I reached the end of myself, totally disgusted with my own sinfulness, I found love. And because of how God put the pieces back together in my life I finally understood the depth of his love and the purpose for his love and connection between his righteousness, his justice, our sinfulness and real love.

I believe that God is love.  I believe that love is an act of the will and it always involves a choice.  Because it always involves a choice, when God created us in his image he had to give us a choice other than him.  Since God is love any creature that he would create would be an object of his love and would have the ability to and a predisposition to love. But there would have to be a choice.

So I believe that when God created man he gave him a choice.  The choice is expressed in the Book of Genesis as the choice between believing and trusting God or believing and trusting in our desires and understandings.  I believe that sin is unbelief.  I believe righteousness, which means right standing with God (acceptance) is belief or choosing for God (trusting him).  I therefore believe sin (unrighteousness) is unbelief or choosing against God.  So to love God is to believe (trust in) God and to choose against God is to sin (unbelief).  The things we call sin (lying, murder, hate, gossip, stealing, adultery, greed, coveting, etc.) are just tentacles hanging down from our cloud of unbelief.  Our good works and the fruit of the spirit are tentacles hanging down from our cloud of belief (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, etc.).

When Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they chose against God (unbelieved, sinned) and upon revealing the existence of good and evil to all creation they also revealed guilt and shame.  They had been naked in the presence of God unashamedly until they learned of the existence of good and evil and then their nakedness made them ashamed.  I believe that when we choose to believe God we rest in our righteousness (acceptance, love) in him and when we choose for ourselves (unbelieve) we live with guilt and shame, become selfish and prideful.  I believe without God we spend every day establishing our own righteousness (acceptability) and every day is a new day in the courtroom of self righteousness.  The fruit of self righteousness is either pride and judgementalism or despair and depression based solely on the outcome of the trial.

Chapter Fourteen

The 1990’s were a concentrated period of maturation in my life both emotionally and spiritually.  God used so many people to speak truth to me and to reveal to me the idols in my life and the surety and depth of a God’s love.  And each of the people God used as a vessel revealed the depth of his love for me, even the ones who pointed out sin (unbelief) in my life or accused me of sins that weren’t true. (My unbelief was so much worse than anyone knew that false accusation was easily forgivable).  Love always involves discipline.  But it never involves punishment because the punishment for all of our unbelief was paid for by God himself to show us how forgiveness works.  True forgiveness always involves the offended party fully absorbing the pain of the offense so that there is nothing left to project back onto the offender.  Hanging on the cross Jesus said, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” (They were acting in unbelief)  When we trust God (believe, acknowledge that he is God, thank him) we don’t accuse, slander, or judge because we know that yet for the grace of God there go I and we forgive.  And true forgiveness doesn’t involve forgetting because the pain of the offense has been absorbed and there is nothing left to remember.

I had a business partner, Mel Meadows, who, after watching me get overly excited trying to drive a theological point home to a visitor in our conference room, took me into the hallway and said, “Relax, the truth will still be the truth tomorrow.”  I had a pastor of a local church who was a real scholar of the Bible and who was a staunch defender of God’s law and deeply opposed to divorce, come into Shoneys with his Bible full of bookmarks.  I knew that he was going to point out to me every passage of scripture that spoke of God’s disdain for divorce and I felt like a person on death row as I waited for him to sit down.  When he did, he set his Bible on the table, took my hand and said, “I know you and I know your heart and I just want you to know that I love you.  And I will love you no matter the outcome.”  Howie Holmes and I prayed and cried together.  Mike and Terri Jones included Lindsay, Bobby and me for every Thanksgiving and were such a life line for me.  God taught me what love is in the lowest place I had ever been.

Chapter Fifteen

In 2000’s God gave me the most tangible evidence of what love is in this realm.  In his book, “The Four Loves”, C. S. Lewis discusses four Greek words that are translated love in English.  The words are Storge (pronounced Store-Gay), Philia (pronounced Phil-e-uh), Eros (pronounced Air-os) and Agape (pronounced A-gap-a).

Storge is the love of the familiar, is most often thought of as the love of a mother for a child, a dog for her puppies, a cat for her kittens.  It is also the love we have for our favorite shoes, our favorite sweater or even our weird Uncle Harry if he comes to live with us for some period of time.  It’s the love you have for your coworkers even if you don’t like them.  You see that when weird Uncle Harry finally leaves you will miss him even if he drove you crazy while he lived with you.  He had become familiar to you and you had unknowingly developed Storge for him.  The same is true for your coworkers.

Philia is the root of the word Philadelphia, so of course it means brotherly love.  It is the affection for a friend.  Philia most often grows out of Storge when two people realize they share common interests.  In fact, it has been said that Storge serves as the bedding from which all the other loves come forth.  When two people spend time around one another and become familiar to each other and then realize that they share common interests (golf, science, politics, religion, schools, interests) Philia is born.  When Philia has matured it involves commitment and covenant which makes it a springboard to Agape.

Eros is the root of the word erotic and is the most selfish of the loves.  Eros wants the best and the most beautiful for itself right now.  Eros is the lust for a feeling of satisfaction, or of excitement, or of victory, or of conquering.  Lewis uses the example of a cigarette.  A smoker says, “I need a cigarette!”.  But he doesn’t really desire a cigarette.  He is lusting for the feeling of smoking a cigarette not actually for the cigarette.  In fact when he “finishes” with the cigarette he disposes of it.  He is finished with it because he has no further use for it.  He has gotten out of it everything he wanted from it.  Eros is only appropriate when enveloped by Agape, because otherwise it will look for newer and better objects from which to find its pleasures.

Which brings us to Agape.  Agape is the most unselfish of the loves, in fact it is always other looking. “To love at all is to be vulnerable,” Lewis says. “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”  Agape love is the love of God and is put on full display in the atoning death of Jesus on the cross.

Agape leads us to die to our own self interests and to come alive to the interests and needs of others.  In Romans Chapter 12, after Paul lays out the complete exegesis of the Gospel in Chapters 1 through 11, Paul writes, “Now I plead with you, in response to the love of God revealed in the Gospel (mercy) I beg you to offer your lives (all that you are) as a living sacrifice (the hardest form of sacrifice) knowing that because of the Gospel you are Holy (set apart for his purposes) and Pleasing (you are the righteousness of Christ) which offering is your only rational response to the truth.”  A living sacrifice is one who has given up the right to be right, the right to be powerful, the right to be worshiped and adored in exchange for becoming the righteousness (acceptability) of God in Jesus Christ.

Agape is the only of the loves that cannot spoil and degenerate.  Storge can be ruined if it becomes the purpose and reason for ones life.  A mother who only lives to raise her children will be ruined by rejection or by abandonment by her children.  Or if her Storge is overdone for her grown children than the death of a child can become the end of her life.  Philia goes bad when it becomes a consumer relationship which means I will be your friend so long as I get a return on my investment in you. And obviously Eros can go bad because it is selfish by its very nature.

Chapter Sixteen

In 2000 I was finally ready to be involved in a true relationship.  I finally understood that love was an act of the will.  I finally had gone through all the steps required to truly love someone and to be married.  I was three weeks short of 50 years old and finally I was ready to be in a relationship.  And yet I was still afraid.

Karen and I had been through the Storge stage of love.  We had worked around each other, we worked together and we became familiar with one another.  We discovered that we had common interests and common beliefs and common goals.  Storge became Philia over several years.  It didn’t happen because we had planned it.  It didn’t happen because we wanted it.  True friendship cannot be made to happen.  People who say they are looking for friends are missing the point of friendship.

Philia is always focused on something outside of itself.  Lewis says that Storge can be pictured as a litter of kittens with their mother or a worn pair of slippers.  Eros can be pictured as two lovers staring into one another’s eyes.  But Philia is pictured as two people walking side by side staring ahead at the same thing.  It is always focused on something outside of itself.  True Philia never makes demands on the other but stands secure in knowing that the other is beside.  That is why friends can be away from one another for so long and still come together and act as though no time has passed.  The common interests and focus have never changed.

As should be, Eros was the third step of four in our relationship.  Eros when sprinkled onto Storge and Philia is the spice that brings the relationship to the brink of fulfillment. I believe that Eros, when it is in its rightful place in a relationship, is the spark that the Holy Spirit is to a believers relationship with God.  It can never be the foundation or focus of the relationship because it is at its core selfish.  Learning to be other looking in Eros is only possible when a relationship has reached Agape.  That’s why it’s such a slippery slope outside of not just marriage, but a marriage grounded in Agape.

I believe Agape love is only possible once a person has accepted and trusted in (believed) the Agape love from God because God is not just the source and creator of Agape – He is Agape.  Without having received the Agape love of God, we are incapable of having Agape love for God or any person, even ourselves, because by nature we are self interested.  Inherently there is nothing wrong with self interest, because God created us with self interest so we would survive.  However, self interest easily becomes selfishness, narcissism and egomania.  It is only when we receive the revelation of and believe in the unconditional nature of God’s Agape love that we are equipped with the necessary internal (heart) changes that are required to be able to be other looking.

Without the reality of God’s Agape for us we are too busy trying to prove our value to ourselves and to others and therefore not just self interested in a healthy way but we are self reliant and self focused.  Then when we feel we have done enough to be held in high esteem we expect, even demand that others acknowledge our worthiness and importance.  When Eros becomes part of a self centered life, the object of our Eros becomes nothing more than a means to an end – a cigarette that is tossed aside when the nicotine is consumed.

Chapter Seventeen

God brought Agape into my life when he brought Karen into my life.  And at the same time he made sure that she knew exactly how steep a price one must pay to Agape another human being.  The 1990’s had taken such a toll on me emotionally and physically  that shortly after we were married, I began suffering from panic attacks.

The irony of me suffering panic attacks would not have been lost on Barry Sale had he still been alive.  Once during a softball tournament in Richmond,  Barry and I were driving to get some lunch between games.  As we were racing across town to find the place we liked to eat in Richmond, Barry turned to me and said, “‘World’ (that’s what he called me), I have never seen you nervous in all of the years I’ve known you.”  Little did he know that I was insecure and afraid right below the surface at all times.  He had only seen me on the field or on the course or on the court and remember those were places of comfort for me right from my childhood.  Now that I had become a believer, I was also secure in the presence of the Lord, but I didn’t take that peace and comfort into every aspect of my life.  I was still trying to earn people’s favor and earn my own self esteem.

The most strange way that my panic and anxiety truly manifested itself was at our wedding.  On the evening before the service, Mark Caulk warned all of us, “When you are standing up at the altar during the vows and prayers, be sure not to stand with your knees locked because it could cause you to pass out.”  All I could think about all night, all morning and right up to the time for the service was, “you could pass out.”  Fear overwhelmed me.  I had suffered from a bad back for several years prior to our wedding and my back would cause me to feel dizzy at times.  Now with the addition of my fear of passing out, I was a basket case.  Karen knew from that moment that she was in for a real battle.  And she has been proving her heart of Agape ever since.

Chapter Eighteen

In the nearly twenty years of our marriage, we have been through a lot and we have grown in every way imaginable (some of you are thinking, yeah you have grown to be twice the man you once were). We basically lost everything because of the economic collapse in 2008 however God made provision for us in a man named Bob Schwartz.  We found a great little church but even there the enemy attacked and tried to destroy a family of God.  But God has been faithful.

I now believe God is revealing to me the most important truth that I have ever come to know.  As with most profound truth, the simplicity beyond complexity is the treasure.  Karl Barth, a renowned theologian, was asked during a question and answer session after a teaching at the University of Chicago what he thought was the deepest theological truth revealed in the Bible and he said, “Jesus loves me.”  Simplicity beyond complexity.

My simple treasure is this: “We are the righteousness of Christ.”  I spent my entire life trying to prove my righteousness.  And not just to God.  I spent my whole life trying to prove my righteousness (acceptability) to you.  I spent my whole life trying to prove my righteousness to everyone.  But most troubling and debilitating I have spent my whole life trying to prove my righteousness to myself.

Chapter Nineteen

You see righteousness doesn’t mean being good.  Righteousness means acceptability.  The opposite of righteousness is not immorality.  It is rejection.  I have been using this example of what it means to be righteous.  Larry Hogan is the Governor of Maryland.  He is also my first cousin.  Our mothers were sisters.  We are very close.  On the day of his first Inauguration as Governor, Karen and I were invited to the Prayer Service at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in the morning.  We were also invited to the Inauguration Ceremony at noon.

When the Prayer Service was over, as Larry and his wife Yumi were leaving the church, we had the opportunity to speak with Larry and give him a hug.  As we hugged he whispered in my ear, “I’ll see you up at the mansion.”  I, of course, said, “Ok.” and turned to leave.

Once outside we now had a problem.  Karen and I had no idea where “The mansion” was.  So we looked around.  All of Larry’s half brothers were getting into limos no doubt heading to the mansion.  I moved up to one of them and asked, “Where is the mansion?” His answer surprised me.  He said, “You’re not on the list.”  I said, “OK, but where is the mansion?”  He repeated, “You’re not on the list.”

I turned around and asked someone else for directions to the Governor’s mansion.  I was told again that I wasn’t on the list but finally someone pointed up the hill to the left and said “walk up the street for 5 blocks to the east of the church.”  Karen and I took off up the hill on a cold winter’s day.  We said to each other, “Well if we don’t get in we will just walk back down the 5 blocks and wait in our car until the Inauguration around noon.”  One thing we were sure we knew to be true – “we weren’t on the list.”  The testimony of the majority had made that clear.

When we completed the march up the hill we discovered that the beautiful Governor’s mansion was surrounded by a black wrought iron fence protected by a security detail of State Police officers and plain clothes agents.  We figured out that the very few people getting in were going through a single gate to the front of the mansion.  I decided to walk up to the largest man in the security force hoping to convince him that we should be allowed in because of our verbal invitation personally from the Governor.  I said, “I know I’m not on the list.  But I am the Governor’s first cousin and at the Prayer Service….”.  He cut me off.  He said, “How do you know you’re not on the list?”  I said, “I was just told ‘I was not on the list’ 10 times down at the church.”  He said, “What’s your name?”  I said, “Steve Herl” and he ran his finger down the list.

As he reached the bottom of the list he said, “There you are!  You are on the list!”  On his way back to the mansion, Larry had stopped his limo at the gate and he had written my name at the bottom of the list.  I was on the list.  I was acceptable.  I had right standing in order to be received.  I was righteous.

Not long after we had arrived inside the mansion, Larry took me aside and said, “You won’t believe what just happened.  A very important person in the eyes of many people in the Washington DC area (He used his name) is at the gate throwing a fit because he can’t get in.  He is making a scene and saying ‘Do you know who I am?’  I told them not to let him in.  He’s not family.”  Larry and I laughed.  It’s good to be family.  It’s good to be acceptable.  It’s good to be righteous.

Chapter Twenty

I didn’t do anything to be righteous in Larry’s eyes.  It wasn’t about my looks, my money, my accomplishments, or my good works.  It was about being family.  I was acceptable in his eyes because of who I am.  That’s exactly how it is with God.  You see, God knows I can’t earn his righteousness.  He’s God and I am not.  He doesn’t want me to stand at the gate of acceptability and yell, “Do you know who I am?”  I’m cute enough,  I’m good enough.  I’m clever enough.  I’m rich enough.

I believe there are two altars from which to choose.  At one altar we try to measure up and we compare ourselves to whatever we’ve learned from our upbringing, or from commercials, or from our friends, or from our fantasies makes us good enough or accomplished enough to be worthy enough.  We spend every day in the courtroom of self esteem and every day we pass judgement on ourselves.  If we determine that we are doing well we either become prideful and arrogant or we become judgmental and angry because others are not living up to our standards and not giving us enough credit for just how good we are.  Or we decide we are failures and we sink into despair and depression or we lash out at others because in order to dispose of our shame and guilt we make ourselves out to be victims.  We blame others for our failings and when confronted we attack and condemn.  I lived my whole life at this altar bouncing back and forth from arrogance and shame,  judgmentalism and condemnation.

But there is another altar and it is the altar of the righteousness of God.  At this altar I am righteous because of who I am in Christ because he lived the life that earned me the prize and he paid the price for all of my moments of unbelief.  I am now on the list because of who I am and I can rest in the arms of God, safe and secure, loved and protected, now and forevermore.  I don’t have to measure up.  I am being changed from the inside out by the power of the truth of relationship.  I am being changed by the power of Agape.  I am being changed by the power of the Gospel.

To repent means to change your mind or turn around and head in the other direction.  At the altar of effort, I was trying to be God and that is a tough job.  “God never slumbers nor sleeps.”  Jesus said at the beginning of his ministry, “Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”  God is saying to me, “Repent, (Turn around and walk the other way) the altar of the righteousness of God is at hand.”  Accept my free gift.  If you will choose to trust me, you are on the list.  I love you.

Chapter Twenty-One

We are living in a time when the purpose of God’s call for repentance can be clearly seen.  We are all being told that by social distancing we can keep a virus from spreading.  In other words, if we stay to ourselves, we will not be infected or affected by things on the inside of others.  In our current situation that is a good thing.

In understanding God’s purpose in repentance it is enlightening.  Here’s what I believe.  When we worship at the altar of self righteousness (where I spent most of my life) we tend to become more and more self focused either because we determine ourselves better than most others and become aloof and or we determine that we do not measure up and thereby unworthy.  But when we begin to worship at the altar of our righteousness in Christ, we become ambassadors for and vessels of the very life of Jesus Christ into the world in which we live.  We become the light in the darkness.  We don’t cover our light with a mask, no we let it shine.  We are filled with an infectious love of God and we take it with us wherever we go.  Let you light shine!  Be who you are in Jesus – a child of God, righteous and holy because you are in Christ.

 

 

 

 

Repent and Believe in the Gospel – A Righteousness of our Own or the Righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ

Jesus began his ministry with these words.  (Mar 1:14 – 15)  Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

It seems reasonable to ask, “Repent from what and believe in what?”  And while we’re at it, “What does repent mean?”  Let’s take a look.

To Repent means to change your way of thinking or of travel.  In other words it means to turn around and head in the other direction.  The prodigal son repented when he turned back in the direction of his father’s house.  (Luke 15:11-32)  That’s when the father came running to meet him.

As to the question, “Repent from what?”, I believe Paul tells us in Romans 10:1-4  “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them (his Jewish brethren) is that they may be saved.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.“

Paul felt terrible for his fellow Jewish brothers because he knew that they were zealous followers of what they thought was the way to God (adherence to the Law).  In contrast to their confidence in their own righteousness,  Paul reminds them that even their own scriptures state clearly that no one will be found righteous by adherence to the Law.  In fact Paul redefines the concept of righteousness.

Righteousness has nothing to do with the Law or morality. Righteousness is a word which means “Right-Standing” or “Acceptable”.  The opposite of Righteousness is not immorality.  No, the opposite of Righteousness is Rejection!

An example of Righteousness which may be helpful occurred on the day of my cousin’s inauguration as Governor of the State of Maryland.  On January 21, 2015, in Annapolis, Maryland, Inauguration Day began with a Prayer Service at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.  Karen and I were invited to attend the Prayer Service and as Larry was leaving the church to return to the Governor’s house to await his swearing in as Governor, he stopped to talk with us and whispered in my ear, “I’ll see you up at the Governor’s house.”  I said, “Ok” and he went out.  Karen and I had no idea how to get to the Governor’s house from the church and when we got out on the sidewalk in front of the church, family members were getting into vehicles provided to take people to the house.  We assumed we were not included on the passenger lists for vehicles so I turned to one of the Governor’s half brothers and asked, “How do we walk to the Governor’s house?”  His response was, “You’re not on the list!”  I said, “Ok, but how would one walk to the Governor’s house from here?”  He repeated, “You’re not on the list!”  So we asked someone else.

Once we received directions, we walked up the streets in Annapolis until finally we arrived outside the Governor’s house.  The property is protected by an iron fence and on this day there were dozens of state police and plain clothes agents of several types guarding the house.  I decided to walk up to the biggest of the agents and I said, “I know I am not on the list, but at the Prayer Service, the Governor, who is my first cousin (our mother’s were sisters) told me to come to the Governor’s house to wait for the swearing in ceremony.”  The agent said, “You are sure you are not on the list?”  “What’s your name?”  I said, “Steve Herl.”  He took his finger and scrolled down the list while mumbling, “So you’re not on the list” until his finger came to a hand written note.  The Governor had written my name on the list.  The agent said, “Here you are, you’re on the list!”  “Have a good time.”

Karen and I walked in and we were on equal standing with everyone else on the list.  When the Governor saw us he was thrilled and he introduced us to all the dignitaries in attendance.  We were declared righteous by relationship.  We did nothing to earn it.  It was all about who we were.  In fact, not long after we arrived, a very well known local celebrity arrived at the front gate and insisted he be let in.  He said to the guards, “Don’t you know who I am?”  And they said, “You are not on the list!”  He did not have right standing.  We did.  We had the righteousness (the Right Standing) of the Governor and we were in his house because we were in him.

The celebrity rejected at the gate was rejected because he was trying to establish a righteousness of his own – being acceptable based on his standards.   Now here is the rub.  Nearly all of us, atheists, agnostics, Christians of every denomination and belief system, Jews, Hindus, Muslims and whatever live by the standards of our own “righteousness.”  That is, we have an internal list of requirements for ourselves with which we determine how we are doing or feeling or succeeding or progressing.  It has been said that we spend every day in the courtroom of self approval.  Psychologists and counselors often call it self-esteem.

We judge ourselves (and therefore others as well) by how we look (are we thin enough, are we big enough, are we pretty enough, etc.), whether we have or make enough money, are we the right ethnicity, is our family special enough, is our degree adequate or is a degree even necessary, are our politics correct, is our job something I am proud of, have we achieved enough, are we considered smart enough, are our sins respectable enough, do people respect us and give us enough credit for just how much we know and just how important we are, are our children representing us well, etc., etc., etc.

We each have a list and our individual list has layers of factors.  The closer a factor resides to the foundation of our beliefs, the more power it has in determining our self fulfillment.  If we were raised to value education we find great comfort in our degree or degrees.  If hard work was the mantra of our family then anyone who doesn’t get dirty working is less of a man.  If we are a people pleaser than affirmation is critical to our well being.  If we fear dying than symptoms of underlying health issues can control our lives.

So what does any of this have to do with Repentance and Righteousness?  Well this is the Good News – the Gospel.  Most of us, if we have ever heard the Gospel, have been taught that the Gospel is something like this – God created all things.  God is a Holy God which is said to mean he is perfectly righteous and just.  When he created man, he gave man a set of rules which to follow and either man surprised him by not obeying them or God created man in such a way that he couldn’t obey them.  Then when man failed, God became angry and in his wrath he forced man out of a perfect garden and made man toil to work to regain God’s favor.  God, in reaction to man’s inability to obey, sent his own son to earth as a man to be punished for man’s sin in order to allay God’s Holy wrath.  Anyone who chooses to trust in the finished work of Jesus on the cross receives eternal life in exchange for honest belief.  That is the Gospel for many people with almost infinite variations and elements.

However, I have an alternate understanding of the Gospel to explore.  First, I believe God is God.  I believe the wonder and order of creation shows the evidence of God’s handiwork.  I believe our conscience tells us by nature that there are things that are right and things that are wrong unequivocally and therefore God is a God of goodness and order.

I believe God is a God of love (Agape) which is unemotional, instead it is an act of the will.  I believe love (Agape) always involves a choice because it is an act of the will so I believe that God, in love, created man with the ability to choose – that is, to love.  In order for man to have a choice, God expressed his character in a set of “laws” which were never meant to be a way for man to earn his right standing with God.  The “laws” were given for our good as an expression of God’s love and in order to afford us the opportunity to trust God, that is choose for him – to love.

The other purpose of the “laws” was that we would clearly perceive the Holiness (otherness) of God in comparison to us, his creatures, so that our only reasonable response to God’s love us would be the offering of ourselves as living sacrifices to the glory and worship of our creator.  In humility we are transformed into vessels of the otherness and the love (Agape) of God, allowing the light of the Spiritual realm to shine into the darkness.  (Romans 12:1-2)

We are credited with righteousness because “he who knew no sin became all sin, so that we could become the children of God”.  Now the question is will we repent (turn away from) our efforts and desires for self righteousness or will we fully accept and believe our righteousness in Christ?  We can see the evidence of self righteousness in our prejudice, our arrogance, our greed, our lust, our selfish ambition, our back biting, our pride, our judgmentalism, our insecurity, our unforgiveness, our hatred, our anxiety, our depression, our envy, our covetousness, our low self esteem, and our victimness and entitlement.

We can see the evidence of our righteousness in Christ in our virtue (walking with your head up), in our knowledge (our willingness to see the truth), our self-control (the ability to turn away), our steadfastness (the ability to withstand), our godliness (reflecting the light of God), our friendships (brotherly affection), and our Love (Agape, other looking), our Joy (knowing a secret), peace (settled contentment), patience (able to withstand), kindness (beneficial to others), goodness (like an apple is good for you), faithfulness (complete so can be counted on), and gentleness (softness as to never harm).

We don’t need to be better.  We don’t need to follow rules.  We need to just be who we are in the
righteousness of God and of Christ.  We need to repent and believe.  The Kingdom of God is at hand and we are the children of the King.  Stop running away from God and turn back, trusting your acceptability in Jesus.  You are righteous and holy in Him!  Repent and Believe!

 

 

 

 

Once Hope Gets in your Blood

NCIS is one of my favorite television shows.  The characters and their relationships have always been consistently entertaining to me.  As I have discussed in an earlier post, I actually played catch with Mark Harmon when we were both about 10 years old.  He was quite an athlete even then and also are very nice young man.

I recently watched a rerun of an episode from Season 16, Episode 19.  In what I believe were the last two scenes in the episode, Gibbs (Mark Harmon’s character) reveals that being human involves feelings (which is against Rule 10 and against all for which he has fought his entire life) and a land lady says to Ellie (one of the agents on Gibb’s team), “The funny thing about Hope, once she gets into your blood, she never leaves you.”

Ever since I heard that quote I have not been able stop thinking about it.  I don’t generally go to NCIS for spiritual or philosophical insight, but the more I pondered the land lady’s wisdom, the more I was sure there was a deep, even eternal truth revealed through it.  It has been said that “life is in the blood.”  That is to say that physical life is in the blood.  The oxygen we need flows through the blood.  The nutrients we need flow through the blood.  Without blood we are physically dead.  

But there is something more than physical life.  There is real life.  Real life is life with a purpose.  Real life is life with contentment.  Real life is life filled with rest and peace.  Real life focuses outside of itself.  Hope is to real life as blood is to physical life.  Hope is the source of real life and a “Funny thing about Hope. once she gets into your blood, she never leaves.”

A few days from now I will celebrate my 69th birthday.  For well over half of my life I totally misunderstood Hope and I thought the source of real life was hard work, diligence, winning, making people happy, having and making more money, being liked, being appreciated, getting ahead, being in power, having stuff, and controlling people and events.  I wore myself out trying to find what I thought was real life – happiness.

I finally came to the end of myself.  I exhausted all of my sources of fulfillment.  Competing and winning at sports didn’t do it.  Teaching and coaching didn’t do it.  Making and spending money didn’t do it.  Being the boss didn’t do it.  Developing subdivisions, shopping centers and medical facilities didn’t do it.  Happiness turned out to be an illusion because happiness is based on “haps” and a “hap” is a chance event over which you have no control.  I couldn’t work or play hard enough to get all of my “haps” lined up just like I wanted them to be.  I finally collapsed.

What I needed wasn’t happiness.  What I needed was Hope.  And I didn’t even know what Hope was, much less know that I needed it or where to look for it.  Amazingly, I was a Christian and I thought my faith was just not strong enough.  Just like I had always done, I thought the way to dig out from the bottom of the pit was to try harder.  If only I had more faith everything would be better.  My pit only became deeper and darker.

Then one day I heard that Hope didn’t mean, “I hope the Nationals win!”  That kind of “hope” is just another “hap”, a chance event over which I have no control.  To say, “I hope the Nationals win!” is to use “hope” to say that if everything would go as I wish it would go, in order for me to be happy, the Nationals would win.  Real Hope, however,  at its essence means, “Confident expectation of good.”  It means that I know that I know that I know.  I now had a elementary understanding of the concept of Hope but I had no idea where to find it.

In the Bible, in Romans Chapter 4:18, I read, “In hope, he believed against hope……” and for the first time I understood that this passage about Abraham, the father of all three great world faiths (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity) contrasts the two uses of the Word hope.  What it says is that Abraham in confident expectation of good (Hope) believed in the face of the evidence (hope as in wish) and God called it faith.  Now if Hope preceded faith what if anything preceded Hope?

In 1Corinthians 13:1-12, the Apostle Paul defines and describes Love (Agape).  He convinces us that Love can only come from God, is initiated by God and in fact is God.  The only way we can ever know Love, be Loved or Love ourselves or another is to receive the revelation and the reality of Love from God.  Agape Love is always other looking.  God is Love.

1Corinthians 13:13, the final verse of Chapter 13 (The Love Chapter) taught me the source of Hope.  It says, “Now these three remain, Faith, Hope and Love.  But the greatest of these is Love.”  Because I had become convinced that Hope came before Faith I now understood this passage.  Love precedes and begets Hope just as Hope precedes and begets Faith.  I had been trying to well up Faith when what I needed was to know the Love of God.  Once I knew the unconditional Love of God, revealed to us through the sacrificial Love of Jesus, I was filled with Hope.  Love allowed me to Love and Hope allowed me to take my eyes off of myself and to serve others because I now had Faith in God knowing that He loved me and promised good for me because I am his child.

In Galatians 5:22, we read, “Now the fruit of the Spirit is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.”  Once again, Love is the precedent and Hope (Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness) comes before Faithfulness and Self Control.  Knowing and receiving the Love of God fills us with Hope and Hope is the Blood flowing through and enlivening a Heart of Faith.  Ezekiel 36:26, “I will remove yourself heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” “The funny thing about Hope, once she gets into your blood, she never leaves you.”

 

 

 

Your Two Clouds

Jesus was talking about the work of the Holy Spirit when He said, “And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”” (John 16:8-12)

In this passage Jesus gives us a definition of sin which may be different than the one many people have been taught.  Most people think of sin as something we do that we call wrong or evil, or something that we fail to do that we call right or good.  Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will convict us of sin because we don’t believe in Jesus.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense that sin is unbelief.  The Bible establishes in the Old Testament that Abraham was reckoned to be righteous because he believed God.  Righteousness has always been a matter of belief.  We are not made righteous by our actions.  We are made righteous by our faith, that is our belief that God is God and we are not and the only way to approach God is through His plan and not by our performance or efforts.  And our faith is grounded in our belief – Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

I like to use the example of each of us having two clouds hanging over us, one a cloud of unbelief and another a cloud of belief.  Whichever cloud we focus on grows and when one grows the other shrinks.  We focus on our cloud of unbelief whenever we live as if there is no God or as if we are God.  An example of this would be living as if there are no absolute truths, morals or ethics.  Living as if we are God includes living in our own strength and trusting in ourselves for our righteousness, worth, success, safety or satisfaction.

When we focus on ourselves instead of God our cloud of unbelief grows.  Our cloud of unbelief grows not because we are actively trying to rebel against God, but because whenever we focus on ourselves, our environment, our enemies, our happiness, or whatever else other than who we are in God, our cloud of belief shrinks from lack of attention and our cloud of unbelief grows to fill in the void.  The fruit of the Spirit in our lives hang down from our cloud of belief and the things we think of as sins (anger, lust, stealing, selfishness, pride, etc.) hang down from our cloud of unbelief.  The bigger the cloud the more stuff hanging down – fruit or “sins.”

Now here is the secret to the battle.  This is the primary truth that Satan does not want you to know.  If you are not yet a believer of course you have a very small cloud of belief based on whatever you have gleaned about God from His revelation about Himself through creation and conscience.  Your small cloud has very little room for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (the fruit of the Spirit).  Your cloud of unbelief of course has lots of room for “good” things but ultimately they will be revealed as self focused attempts at trying to earn favor, reputation, status, respect, or even heaven.  In the end pride will show its face.

Once you have become a believer, the struggle is even more difficult and subtle.  Since as an unbeliever you had become comfortable with a large cloud of unbelief and a small cloud of belief, Satan will whisper in your ear that you need to clip off the “sins” hanging down from your cloud of unbelief and staple on some artificial fruit to your tiny cloud of belief so everyone knows that your are a Christian.  This is Satan’s greatest weapon to keep Christians, and therefore the church, from being effective and overflowing with hope and joy.  You see if Satan can keep you focused on getting rid of your “sins”, he can keep your eyes off of who you are in God because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross and your cloud of belief continues to either shrink or remain small and your cloud of unbelief grows.  And as your cloud of unbelief continues to grow, your “sins” increase in coverage and your work of clipping them off becomes never ending.  And the viscous cycle perpetuates itself.  Unless you can break out of the cycle of unbelief you will never be effective and joyful.

Now here’s the secret.  Stop focusing on your cloud of unbelief.  Start focusing on your cloud of belief.  How so you say?  Stop focusing on what you are doing and stop focusing on your circumstances, needs, desires, and efforts.  Start focusing on who God is, what He has done for you through the Gospel and His Son, and on who you are “in Him.”  Just like Noah was safe from the flood because he was in the Ark, you as a believer are safe because you are in Christ.  You are not just safe but you are His child.  And as His child you are complete “in Him” and loved by God unconditionally and forever.  You are complete and secure.  You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, you just need to believe in God and in His faithfulness, mercy and love.

As you focus on who you are in God, your cloud of belief will grow and your cloud of unbelief will shrink.  As your cloud of belief grows, more real fruit will hang down and you will be more filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control naturally and not by your own efforts or desires.  Reciprocally, your cloud of unbelief will shrink and your “sins” will fall away because there is no room for their roots – not because you are constantly clipping them off above the root.  You will be less tempted to take credit for your improvement because it will not be by your own efforts, instead it will be the result of God’s mercy.

So you see that we each have two clouds.  As Jesus said, when He sends the Holy Spirit, He will convict each of us of sin, because we do not believe in Him.  Sin is unbelief.  Righteousness is a matter of belief.  The cloud you choose to focus on will grow.  If you focus on yourself, your cloud of unbelief will grow and so will your discontent because being god is a difficult task.  Remember God never slumbers nor sleeps.  If we choose to be god by focusing on our cloud of unbelief we will ultimately wear out because there is no rest.  But if we focus on who we are in Him, beloved children of God Almighty, saved by Jesus’ completed work on the cross, our cloud of belief will grow and destroy our cloud of unbelief and we will enjoy a life of hope and joy, secure in the love and mercy of God.  It’s that simple.  Which cloud will you choose to be your focus?

The righteous shall live by faith!”

 

The Overflowing Power of Joy

Tom Harmon was a star running back for the University of Michigan from 1938 to 1940. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1940.  Harmon served as a U.S. Army pilot in World War II and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.

Around 1960, Tom Harmon was a presenter at an awards ceremony at which I received a trophy for my Little League baseball team.  Traveling with Mr. Harmon for his visit to our ceremony was his son, Mark, who like me had been born in 1951 and who like me loved sports of all kinds. Mark and I played catch both before and after the ceremony and it was obvious to me that he was an incredible athlete.

Little did I know that Mark Harmon would go on to play quarterback at UCLA while I was playing (mostly sitting) wide receiver and defensive back at Virginia Tech in the early 70’s.  After a successful college career, Mark went on to fame as a television and movie star.  He is best known as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, “Gibbs” on the hit show NCIS.

Which brings me to the concept of joy.  As I have written before, joy and happiness are not the same thing, in fact, they are not even related. The root word of happiness is an old English word, “hap”.  It is also the root of the word “hap”pen.  A “hap” is a chance event over which you have no control.  That is why when someone asks, “Who is to blame for the broken vase?”, it is appropriate to respond, “No one, it just “hap”pened.” We mean, it was just a chance event over which no one had control therefore no one is to blame.

Happiness is the state of being that exists when all of our “haps” are lined up exactly the way we desire.  The problem is of course that since “haps” are chance events over which we have no control, “hap”piness is fleeting at best.  The pursuit of happiness is a race without a finish line because the line keeps moving uncontrollably.  By definition, happiness is focused on circumstances over which we have no control.

Joy on the other hand is the sense of well being that springs forth from a settled truth which resides on the inside and is not affected by the ever changing phenomena of life. The only way joy can be capped or forgotten is for the underlying truth to be ignored or disbelieved.  In many cases, joy is simply knowing a secret.

In at least two episodes of the television drama “NCIS”, produced and directed by Mark Harmon, joy is revealed as incontainable and powerful. In one episode, Agent Ziva David is captured and imprisoned by the enemy.  Agents Anthony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee allow themselves to be captured  by the same enemy forces, all the time knowing that their boss, Agent LeRoy Jethro Gibbs is tracking their exact location.  Gibbs is a decorated sniper and the plan is that DiNozzo will get himself placed in the interrogation room by the enemy causing the leader of the enemy to be positioned perfectly for a sniper shot from long distance.  As the enemy leader is torturing Tony, including slaps across open wounds on his face, DiNozzo continues to mock the leader and endures the brutality.  During the entire ordeal he has a gleam in his eyes.  Why you ask?  Because he knows a secret.  He knows that the man standing over him is a dead man.  He knows he is a defeated enemy.  Agent DiNozzo has joy and it wells up from within allowing him to face incredible pain with a smile in his heart.  He knows the truth and as long as he focuses on the truth, he overflows with joy.  His circumstances are not in control because he is not looking for happiness.  He is filled with joy.

In a more recent episode, Agent Sloane must come face to face with the man who killed her team in front of her as an act of psychological torture against her.  Her torturer has kidnapped her boss, Leon Vance and she purposely allows herself to be captured in order to save Director Vance.  In the closing scene of the episode, Agent Sloane is tied to a chair next to Vance and is being told by her former torturer that he is going to slowly kill the Director in front of her just like he did to her team members.  His goal is to renew the effects of her PTSD that had crippled her for years after their first encounter.  Instead, as he is explaining what he is about to do to Leon Vance, she begins to laugh out loud.  Even Vance is concerned as he cannot understand her reaction.  He is sure that she has cracked and she is losing her grip on reality.  But the truth is that she is the only one in the room that knows the truth.  She has joy.  She laughs again and then she cannot contain the truth.  She shouts, “Do you think I came here without letting Gibbs know where I was going?”  “I am laughing because any second now, Agent Gibbs and his team are going to bust down this door and all of you are either dead or under arrest.”  Then she laughs again.  Suddenly Gibbs and his team rush in and her torturer is taken into custody.

As her torturer is about to be escorted out, he says to her, “Now you will get your revenge, you will torture me!”  She replies, “Let me tell you what is going to happen to you.  You will be safely escorted to a jail cell to await trial.  You will be fed three meals a day and protected until your trial.  You will receive a fair trial and a just punishment.  You will not be tortured.  You are the monster.  We are not like you!”  That is how joy responds to favor.  Joy holds fast to the truth and does not return evil with evil.  Joy is not controlled by circumstances, in fact, joy is the shield of faith against the schemes of the enemy.

These two episodes of a secular drama express a very deep understanding of what joy really is.  The Bible tells us, in Hebrews 12:2, that “For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame…….”  Jesus was filled with the joy of knowing the truth.  That joy gave him the strength to face the mocking and the pain of the cross and his heart was protected until the Father raised him from the dead.  Galatians 5:22 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.”  Joy is only inferior to love when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit in believers.  We know a secret that many others do not know.  We know that we are saved by grace and grace alone and that God is rich in mercy, slow to anger and abounding in love.  We know that God has the power to do what He has promised.

We are not prisoners to our circumstances.  We are not creatures in pursuit of happiness.  We are joyful, secure, and unconditionally loved children of God set free from our selfishness and perfected by the certain work of God through His Power, Word and Spirit.  Even if we are tied to a chair being tortured and threatened, mocked or scorned, abandoned or rejected, we have our Father who is the Judge standing right outside the door about to enter the room.  We know a secret.  The world does not know the truth but we do.  “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Let you reasonableness (your soundness of mind, your understanding of the truth) be known to all.  The Lord is near.  Be anxious for nothing, but in everything through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving (because you know the truth) let your requests be known to God.  And the peace (Love, Joy, Peace) of God, which surpasses all understanding (its not controlled by circumstances) will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”    (Philippians 4:4-7)

In the Bank President’s Office – Learning to Rest in Hope

Php 4:4-7. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

You are in a bank, sitting in the bank president’s office, who also happens to be the person in whom you have the most confidence in all the world. He is the wisest person you know, has seemingly unlimited resources, has an arsenal of weapons in his office and on his cell phone he can speed dial the Governor, the sheriff, the state police, and anyone else you could ever need in an emergency. And better yet he loves you unconditionally and you always feel safe in his presence.

Over the years you have come to him many times, sometimes for bank loans, sometimes for advice, sometimes for tickets to events, and sometimes for help. He hasn’t always loaned you the money you have asked for and he doesn’t always have tickets to everything you want, but he always does what he thinks is best for you. Sometimes when you ask for help he asks you to participate in the work and at other times he asks you do something either before he helps or in response to his help. But he always does what is best for you.

Now while you are sitting in his office, the alarm goes off in the bank. The tellers can see into the presidents office through bullet proof glass, but you cannot see into the lobby where the customers are from inside the presidents office. You have no idea what the alarm means. Are you going to be anxious? If not how will you avoid it?

Well, here’s what Paul would say according to the verses in Philippians – Be glad that you are in the presence of the person in whom you have the most confidence in all the world. Remind yourself of who he is and what resources he has at his disposal. Remember that he has sensors on his desk and on his phone that have informed him of why the alarm is sounding and where the trouble is. If it’s a fire he will lead you outside to safety. If it’s a robbery he will tell you what to do. (Rejoice always).

You notice that he is calm and not surprised or anxious. You wait for him to speak. You can ask him questions or even make requests but most importantly you just remind yourself of who is in control. You remember his unconditional love for you. You remember his faithfulness and wisdom. You remind yourself that he is near. The tellers are watching you so it’s important that you show them your trust and faith in the president by staying reasonable and calm. (Let your reasonableness to evident to all). There is no reason to be anxious because you know the one who knows everything, has everything that is needed to respond, loves you unconditionally, and always has your best interest at heart.

Becoming anxious will not benefit anyone, it will only make the crisis seem longer and make other people doubt your relationship with the bank president and his faithfulness. So you rejoice because he is near, you remain sound in your thinking and you ask him what you should do. You can ask him for a gun or a drink of water or for permission to run and scream, but you trust him enough to ask and then wait for his response and then obey. (Which means to listen attentively). You are anxious for nothing because you are covered by who he is. You are Noah inside the ark, waiting for the waters to subside.

He tells you to stay in your seat, don’t move, stay away from the windows and he will be back. You ask for a gun and he says you won’t need one. He hands you a bottle of water and a book by Tim Keller and reminds you to stay in your seat and wait. And he leaves the room. Now you have a choice. Are you going to take over, become anxious, try to escape and save yourself or are you going to have Hope.

Hope is confident expectation of good. The evidence of real Hope is Joy.  Hope always has an object. The bank president is your object of hope. You can hope in him. So you sip your water, read your book and wait patiently for him to return. You rejoice in who he is and who you are in Him. You soundly reason that because he loves you unconditionally and knows all things that he will be back and everything will be ok.

You are anxious in nothing. You are safe in him, even when you don’t understand, even when he seems to be gone, even when he doesn’t give you everything you ask for. And when he returns, he will love you unconditionally and not be surprised that you had times of doubt while he was gone.  He will understand that in those moments you had to fight through some anxious thoughts. But you will have learned how to just let those anxious thoughts flow down the river of your thoughts without enlivening them by focusing on them. You will have learned to let the truth of who he is and who you are in him set you free from doubt and anxiety.

Be still and know that he is God.

At the Resort – A Question about the Vine and the Branches

Here is a great quote about selfless living….”the essence of Gospel humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of your self less.” Tim Keller.

Imagine for a minute that you find yourself at a resort when suddenly the entire kitchen staff for the resort falls ill and needs to be removed from the resort for six months. The owner of the resort has always made it a habit to look over the guest list periodically, making note of anyone staying at the resort who has any cooking ability or experience. He has your name on just such a list. At just the right time (now) he chooses you to be part of his team. He calls you into his office and tells you who he is, what has occurred, who you are in his eyes and what he needs you to do. He tells you that he will make everything that is his available to you (kitchen, recipes, procedures, dishes, etc.)

The owner also tells you that he has summoned his only son to run everything and be responsible for everything. All he asks of you is that you remember who you are in his eyes, doing whatever he believes you are capable of doing in his kitchen, with his cookware, energy and utensils.  He will also supply all the food and ingredients.

He knows you are going to sometimes fall short of perfection, maybe most of the time, but when you do he wants you to do three things – 1. Remember who you are in Him. 2. Remember that his son is in control. 3. Repent, which means turn around and head in the other direction or have a change of heart about who you are in Him. He will ask you to believe in him and in his son and trust that in doing exactly what he knows you already have in your heart and in your mind you will be doing all that he expects you to do.

The owner will be as it were the vinedresser, his son will be the vine and you will be one of the branches. The owner supplies and applies all that is needed for the vine to perform the function that the owner intends for it to do. As one of the branches you just need to remain connected to the vine and the life of the vine will flow through you and accomplish the owner’s (vinedresser’s) purposes.

Notice that you are not to focus on pleasing anyone, not the customers, not your friends, not your family, not even the owner or his son. You are simply to believe in who you are in his mind and heart and trust that in him you can all things he intends for you to do. By believing the truth about who you are in Him, you can be content and complete by accomplishing what he gives you the ability to do and you can focus on others, not to please them or to be validated by them but simply to love them and lift them up no matter how they respond to you.

When you catch yourself worrying about what other people think or in simply being self focused, you just need to repent (change your mind about who you are in Him, or turn around and head in the other direction). The more you remember who you are in him because of who he is, the more you can get over yourself and truly lift other people up. Don’t think less of yourself, think of yourself less!

 

Creation and Conscience

1963

In 1963 I was 12 years old.  My self image was based entirely on my athletic ability and my stage was Henry and John Long’s backyard for neighborhood football, basketball or wiffle ball games nearly every afternoon. When it rained we would compete in ping pong, pool or shuffle board in their basement.  My security was based solely in how well I competed every day.  Creation and conscience had not begun their work in my heart. Less often I would take my self esteem on the road and I would compete against players from other neighborhoods at Bryant Field, or Woodley Hills Elementary, or other fields where Little League baseball was played.  I still did well for the most part but chinks in my armor were revealed to me along the way.  Richard Lamb, a hard throwing left handed pitcher was one of my chief rivals and truth be known he scared me to death.  No one else was aware but every time I faced him I was afraid.  We became high school teammates at Mt. Vernon High School in football, basketball and baseball and very good friends.  But creation and conscience were not yet at work. The Beatles In 1963 I first became aware of the Beatles.  I was a Beach Boys fan, although I knew very little about music, I loved their songs “Surfin”, “Surfing Safari”, and “Surfing USA”.  But then the Beatles invaded and everything became about the Beatles.  I was very disappointed but there was very little impact because everything that mattered to me involved competing with some kind of ball.  Still creation and conscience had not begun to work. The Fallen Hero Then in November of 1963, my hero and more importantly my father’s hero was assasinated in Dallas, Texas.  John Fitzgerald Kennedy was gunned down and we saw the shooting on the nightly news.  The handsome, young President had been killed.  I will never forget being at Walt Whitman Junior High School (currently Mt. Vernon High School) shortly after lunch and hearing rumblings in the hall.  I was asked to run upstairs and verify what had happened and I cried as I returned to my classroom to report the tragic news.  Creation and conscience were beginning to work. A Family Destroyed Our family life never recovered from that day.  I know none of the details but the death of President Kennedy was the most significant event in the downward spiral of my father’s self esteem and mental health.  His reaction to the event led to him losing interest in work (Department of Defense, Pentagon) and to begin to drink excessively and for days at a time.  We eventually lost everything and my mother had to go back to work in order for us to be able to keep our house.  My self image was shattered and my life became a life of hiding the truth from everyone and lying when necessary in order to not be found a fraud.  Athletics were my only lifeline.  But creation and conscience were now hard at work. The Bus Stop and the Ball Because we had lost our car, when my father was home, he would take a bus to the Pentagon.  The bus stop was conveniently located right out our front door on Mt. Vernon Memorial Highway.  I would watch him get on the bus and my stomach would immediately go into knots, afraid that he would not come home for days or even forever.  Nearly every evening, I would stand outside our house, usually bouncing a tennis ball off our side wall just below the picture window in our living room, waiting and watching as the successive buses came and left our stop.  Eventually the last bus would come around 8:00 PM and if my father was not on that one we would probably not see him again for several days or weeks.  Every night I bounced the tennis ball against the wall and waited.  Creation and conscience were about to break through. One evening while I was waiting, it became so dark that I could no longer see the ball.  I went out to the end of our sidewalk and laid down on my back.  My heart was sinking inside me as it was time for the last bus.  It came and went and no one got off.  I cried again as I stared into the night sky.  I was afraid and angry.  I was confused and ashamed.  I was lost.  But on this night, creation and conscience were about to break through. A Starry, Starry Night As I stared into the sky I was amazed.  It was one of those nights when I could see a million stars in the sky.  As I gazed at all the stars I became afraid.  For the first time in my life I thought, “How is it possible that I am even here on this rock, swirling through the universe and not flying off into oblivion?  And now I was more afraid.  I literally froze in fear as I considered how minuscule I was compared to whatever I was staring at in the night sky.  I never felt so alone.  And then it dawned on me.  THERE HAD TO BE A GOD!  On that night, alone and afraid, I knew that if there were no God I couldn’t be laying on a big rock spinning about in our galaxy.  Without a God everything couldn’t possibly hold together.  From that moment going forward I thanked God for every good thing and I talked to God in every circumstance.  My most alone moment became my benchmark moment of belonging.  My most afraid moment became the place where I found the essence of security.  Creation and conscience revealed the truth about God. Isaiah Chapter 6 I now know that I was having an Isaiah 6 moment.  In Isaiah Chapter 6:1-8, we read, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”  Creation and conscience were at work in Isaiah’s life. The parallels in Isaiah’s life and my experience on that star filled night are incredible.  Isaiah had his moment of utter fear in the year that King Uzziah died.  I had mine in the year that President Kennedy was killed but more significantly, in the year that I lost my father.  King Uzziah was the man in whom Isaiah found his security and his significance.  President Kennedy and my father were those things for me.  When Isaiah felt most alone God revealed himself to him.  God had done the same for me.  God had revealed himself to me so that I could honor him as God and give him thanks.  To honor him as God is to simply acknowledge that he is God and I am not.  To give him thanks is to thank him for who he is in all things. Romans Chapter 1 This is exactly what Paul tells us in Romans Chapter 1.  Romans is the most complete exegeses of the Gospel in the entire Bible and it begins with an interesting thought about how many people to whom God has revealed himself.  In Romans Chapter 1:18-21 it says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth for what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Man has No Excuse Notice that men are without excuse because God has revealed himself through at least two things – Creation (the things that he made) and conscience (his divine nature).  There is an interesting connection between God’s revelation of himself through creation and his revelation of himself through conscience.  Once you have become aware of God’s existence through the things he has created (in my case the stars in the sky) you become aware of how far short you fall with regard to his holiness.  You see that if there is no God then we would not have a conscience.  If there is no standard by which we measure right and wrong intuitively there is no way we can have an internal voice within us that condemns us when we are rude.  And if we are simply a random set of atoms who have against all odds become living beings then there is no standard of right and wrong.  Especially an internal governor.  If right and wrong is relative then there is no conscience.  But because we all have been shown the reality of God by the things he has created, we must acknowledge that there is a God and listen to that still small voice inside us that we call conscience.  Let creation and conscience have their way in your life.  I did. Atonement and Shame When we surrender to the creative power and the holy nature of God, he promises to change us from the inside out by his power through the finished work of Jesus on the cross.  Look what happens to Isaiah after he has his moment of revelation and conscience in Chapter 6:6-8.  “Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.  And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.  And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me!”  Notice that his sin is atoned for and that his guilt is taken away.  In Jesus we are not just forgiven.  Our shame is removed. Nearly twenty years after God revealed himself to me on that starry night, I responded to the good news of the gospel and acknowledged that Jesus is who he claimed to be.  Creation and conscience had their way in my life and at just the right time an angel took coals from the fire and touched my heart by which my sin was atoned for and my guilty conscience was removed.  Then God said, “whom shall we send?” and I replied, “Send me!”  Let creation and conscience have their way in your life and find the peace that passes understanding.  

Don’t Give Away Your Joy

Recently I have been trying to remember to not give my joy away. Yes you read that right – not give my joy away. Let me explain. Joy is that feeling inside that springs from a contentment in who you are, not in what you have or in what you have accomplished. As a Christian I am content in who I am because God has accepted me just as I am in his son. Therefore I have joy. No one can rob me of my joy because no one can change who I am in God’s eyes. No thing can rob me of my joy – no circumstance, no political post, no one cutting me off in traffic, no problem. The only thing that can take away my joy is me giving it away. If I choose to give my joy away by how I react to the circumstances of life, it’s my fault. But if, when faced with whatever circumstance, I choose to stay focused on who I am, I will remain in joy. As Christians we are supposed to overflow with joy and in that way of course we are to share our joy with everyone around us. However, we are not to give it away and forget who we are in God’s eyes. When I am walking my dog, Barnabas, and he becomes agitated by a circumstance of life, all I have to do is quietly call his name. When he hears my voice he is immediately reminded that he is in my presence and his peace and contentment returns. God has been reminding me of his still small voice, reminding me of his presence and restoring me to the joy of his salvation. Don’t give away your joy.

PURPLE – The Color of Leadership

Purple through History

Throughout history, purple has been the color of royalty.  Purple dye was expensive because it was harvested from a special sea snail and was desired because of its rarity and longevity.   Purple was a sign of position, privilege and power.  In fact, Queen Elizabeth I would not allow anyone except close family members to wear purple.

Purple in the Bible

Purple is not even one of the primary colors.  Blue, red and yellow are the primary colors and orange, green and purple are simply the results of mixing two of the primary colors.  In the Bible, however, beginning in Exodus Chapter 25 and continuing throughout the rest of the book, purple is mentioned as one of the significant colors in the building of the tabernacle. The tabernacle was the place where God’s people would come to worship Him and the place where He would dwell among them throughout their wanderings the wilderness.

The order and relationship of Purple

In nearly every case, the list of colors in the tabernacle is given in the order blue, purple and scarlet (or crimson).  This makes perfect sense and is exactly as they appear in the spectrum of color.  Purple appears between blue and red because it is the blending of these two primary colors.  The order of and relationship between these colors is not only naturally significant, but it is spiritually and effectually important to our understanding of what it means to be in authority.  Let’s see how.

The meaning of Blue

From the website, Color-Meanings.com,  “Blue is a cool and calming color that shows creativity and intelligence. The color blue is a popular color among large companies, hospitals and airlines. It is a color that symbolizes loyalty, strength, wisdom and trust. Blue color meaning is also known to have a calming effect on the psyche. Blue is the color of the sky and the sea and is often used to represent these images. Blue is a color that generally looks good in almost any shade and it is a very popular color, especially among men. For your info, the color blue is my favorite color!

Blue is sincere, reserved and quiet, and does not like to make a big deal out of things or attract too much attention. Blue hates confrontation and likes to do things its own way. From a color psychology perspective, the blue color is reliable and responsible and radiates security and trust. You can be sure that the color blue can take control and do the right thing in difficult situations. The blue color needs order and planning in its life, including the way it lives and works.

Blue seeks peace and tranquility and promotes physical and mental relaxation. The color blue reduces stress and creates a sense of calmness, relaxation and order. Try and lie on your back and look up at the blue cloudless sky. Blue lowers metabolism. The paler the blue color, the more free we feel.

Blue is known to be good at one-way communication, especially communication with your voice – it’s the teacher, the public speaker. The color blue is your helper, savior, your friend in need. The blue colors success is defined by the quality and quantity of its relationships. It’s a giver, not a taker. Blue likes to build strong, trusting relationships, and is deeply hurt if the trust is betrayed. The blue color is not a good color when applied to food, since there are too few blue food items in the nature, and that suppresses the appetite.“

Blue in the Bible

Biblically speaking, blue represents heaven (the sky is blue) and love because it evokes trust, protection and faithfulness.  Blue represents the love and mercy of God in contrast to the pure radiant white and glowing gold of His holiness.

The meaning of Red in history and in the Bible

Red, throughout history, has always represented war, passion and blood.  In the Bible, red has always been associated with sacrifice, especially a substitutional atonement (sacrificing an animal) or a blood covenant (walking between the halves of a slain animal in the blood).

Leadership in the Bible

When Jesus walked on the earth he embraced the the position of authority.  When he called his apostles he said to them, “Follow me.”  He spoke with authority.  In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

The Apostle’s understanding of Authority

The apostles thought that by authority Jesus meant power, privilege and position.  They had the historical view of the color purple, knowing that if he truly was the messiah, he had come to overthrow the Roman government and set up his kingdom on earth.  Purple robes would certainly be distributed to each of them and the perks of position would be theirs.

Jesus’ example of Authority

But then Jesus announced the unthinkable.  Shortly after asking the apostles who they thought he was and commending Peter for answering that he was the messiah, the Son of the living God, he revealed the essence of true authority.  In doing so he redefined the meaning of the color purple.

What did he say?  Just after commending Peter and then saying he was going to give them the keys to the kingdom, Jesus said, “Now that you know who I am, let me tell what I must do -I must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, be beaten and then killed.  And on the third day I will be raised from the dead.”  He redefined purple.

But because Peter thought purple meant position, privilege and power he said, “God forbid, Lord, that shall never happen!”  In Peter’s mind purple couldn’t involve suffering and death.  Peter did not understand the order and relationship of the components of purple and therefore he misunderstood authority.

When Peter uttered that amazing phrase, “God forbid, Lord, that shall never happen!” Jesus replied, “Get behind me Satan!”  He wasn’t calling Peter, ‘Satan’, he was speaking through Peter directly to the spirit behind his arrogance and pride.  Arrogance and pride never accepts the fact that purple is a mixture of blue and red.

Jesus, who said that all authority in heaven and on earth was given to him, then proceeded to show us what it means that purple is the perfect blend of blue and red. Jesus, who came down from heaven (blue) because of the love (blue) of God (God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son) mixed the blue of love with the red of suffering and death and became Lord of all.

Jesus showed us that authority of any kind (Boss, Parent, Pastor, Elder, Mayor, President, Senator, Police Officer, Judge, etc.) begins with a heart of love and then mixes the blue of love with the red of death to self and even physical death if necessary.  The true purple of authority always has to be born in love (always other looking) and mixed with self sacrifice (laying aside your self interests for the good of others) knowing that this kind of purple is submitted to out of trust and not out of fear, out of desire and not out of manipulation.

The Founder’s understanding of authority

The founding fathers said that our leaders should be “disinterested men of leisure” meaning men who were not serving for their own interests and didn’t need money, acclaim, fame, adoration or anything because they were assured in who they were and their motives were truly pure.  Purple is not the color of position, privilege and power.  No it is the color of love and sacrifice.

Love

In Corinthians, Paul says, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  (Blue mixed with red)

Death to Self

In Philippians Paul wrote,  “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Blue mixed with red)

The example of Husbands

In Ephesians, Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”  (Blue mixed with red)

True Leadership

True leadership is rooted and grounded in love and is mixed with the blood and sweat of self denial and sacrifice.  True leadership wears the purple robes in humility and love and doesn’t serve for gain, admiration or adoration.  When scorned, true leadership says, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do” and rests in the comfort of knowing the truth of the Gospel – the exalted shall be humbled and the humbled shall be exalted.  Purple is the color of true leadership, the perfect blend of love and sacrifice.