The Prodigal – Independence

As I sit here musing on the story of the prodigal son, I can’t help but think of what started the whole story. One man’s foolish, headstrong little boy, anxious to be out and about in the world, asks his father to give him what will be his upon his father’s death. In other words, the son who turns his face towards the great wide and wandering life he envisions for himself is considering his father a part of his past. There’s a whole lot still to be had here, looking at it here, but it’s time for a change. I may come back to the story sometime in the new year, but this is going to be the last of the posts for a while.

As I was saying, our independent young lad sets his sights out yonder, turning his face away from his father and towards himself (You have forgotten the face of your father…sorry, Dark Tower analogy. Couldn’t resist), seeking to be free of anything that he considers to be locking him down or tying him up…even his family. Even his dear father, wanting only the best for him. I can see him stepping out the door; whistling, maybe, pockets heavy with currency that he thinks will get him everything he needs and then some. “I’m going to make something of myself” he says, “I’m going to go it alone – I have nothing left here.” And so, in all ignorance, he’s out and about, wining and dining the women, driving all the new cars and buying things left right and center. Seems like a great life.

Then there’s the famine.

He’s hungry, unemployed, broke and on the down, can’t even feed himself, hasn’t invested wisely. He thinks “Life sucks for me. I’ve spent all of my father’s money, ate and drank it away, and what have I to show for it? A beer gut and a patchy beard. I’m really not worth the ground I sit on, and I’m certainly not the man I could have been if I’d only paid attention to what I needed to learn.”

Now, the reason I’m summarizing all of this is because, as in all mistakes we make, we make them because we don’t listen to the Father’s guidance. We don’t let Him speak through His Word, we don’t let Him act in our lives to do His work, and we certainly don’t consider ourselves dependent upon Him. Sure, we may say it, but we really don’t live it. Sometimes circumstances prevent us from doing it, sometimes we feel as if we should be getting quicker answers, sometimes we figure that He’s going to bless anyway…

But that’s all just excuses.

What’s really at stake is the fact that we can’t go it alone. We can’t pay our way, we can’t feed ourselves from our own meagre portions, and we can’t, ultimately, do anything without God.

I’ve got a lot of pride to suck up to go back to my Father, and I hope that I’ll be able to start taking the steps back home to His arms come the new year.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Christmas

My apologies to those of you whom I’ve left hanging with that tantalizing ‘one more to go’ at the end of the last post. I had meant to finish the series before Christmas, but it’s now been over a week since last I posted, and in the intervening time I have been without appropriate access to the internet. But I was home for Christmas, and that makes all the difference in the world. I don’t quite remember what it was that I was going to finish with, and I’ve been lax in my disciplines for quite a while, so I need to recover some of that. But in the meantime, think on what Christmas meant to you this year…what you were feeling as the time drew near, what special moments stuck out from the holiday. For me, the singing of ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’ at the annual candlelight service sticks out incredibly. I haven’t been so struck by the haunting images and impressions of the song before, and this year, for some reason, it really meant a lot to be singing it, and as I think back on it, I make it my prayer, mindful of its message. I’m going to scour the ‘net looking for a copy of the words to post here, which I will use to finish the posts for 2007 along with the last in the series on the prodigal. As 2008 approaches, so too does a new perspective. New Year’s Day will be spent putting my house in order, as it were, addressing the past and planning for the future.
The last few years, it seems that New Year’s Eve and the following day have been more meaningful to me than even Christmas has been in the past. There are a number of reasons for that, but probably the single most important one is that it is a time to calm myself before God and spend some deeply necessary time with Him. I look forward to it with a deep desire this year, and a sense that it really does begin something new. I’ll be posting again very soon, so do keep visiting. Regularity is a priority for me this year.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

The Prodigal – Farsightedness

One particular phrase in the parable of the prodigal sticks out to me just now, and it’s important to think about it with a little more clarity. I’m going to reiterate the verse here, and then think about it a bit.

Luke 15:20
“So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.”

But while he was still a long way off…I have heard this story and read it many times; it’s been applicable in a few different situations. But only recently has that particular verse struck me with its potency. While the repentant son was still a long way off, and while he was still on his way to meet his father once again, probably lost in the regret and sadness of humiliation, his father saw him and ran to him. How powerful a picture this is!

Father God, filled with compassion, sees us in our repentance from a long way off. While we’re still getting there, He’s overwhelmed with love and runs to us, hastening the comfort and welcome that we don’t deserve and are often too blind in our own sorrows to see. He throws His arms around us as we are prepared to abase ourselves absolutely before Him, unworthy, we think, to continue be called by the name of His child. Even as I write this, I’m struck with some of the incredible meaning of this compassionate act. And with the absolute forgiveness and love that our Father brings to us in our pain, not anything that we bring to Him. If you think about that, too, you run into some pretty amazing stuff. There’s nothing that we can bring to Him. Even our repentance is as naught. How many people do you know that take the time to hear you speak your pain and then act to comfort you and demonstrate that all is forgiven in an embrace? How many people do you know that don’t hide a grimacing mind behind a smiling face? I know I can certainly say that I’m guilty of this thousands of times over. But even in that, God comes to us. He sees us from a long, long way off, and runs with all haste to comfort us in sorrow and in shame.

One more to go;

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

The Prodigal – Foolishness

When he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in the land. Lack of foresight, combined with a liberal dose of greed.

Who are we to squander our inheritance on foolhardy living? Our prodigal did…where did he end up? Here, in this passage, stands a condemnation for those who waste their blessings, and then, because God is faithful, there also stands a tremendous hope. He was welcomed back in to his father’s house despite his wastrel life.

I’m not advocating poor stewardship to receive greater grace at all. What I see here is a warning to those with foolish and wastrel hearts. There are reasons why I get called judgmental and arrogant. Not all of them…in fact probably none of them are without merit. But there are Biblical bases for the condemnation of transient pleasure through intoxication or promiscuity, and I see nothing wrong with trusting them to be the true Word of God. Lest we get into isegeting ourselves into the text, however, we must be careful to test and approve.

Again, I say that our foolishness is still acceptable to our Father in heaven, if we come before Him and truly repent of it. So much in the world depends on the essential, genuine heart of the follower of Jesus Christ that we cannot hope to conceive of it, and repentance is one of the characteristics of a heart working for His glory. So let us repent of our foolishness, keeping in mind 1 Corinthians 1:25 – For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men”.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

The Prodigal – Pride

It’s been days since last I posted, and I’m exhausted. Five days seems like a long haul yet, but something comes…something comes. Forgive me for not revisiting this sooner.

Humility receives the gifts of the Father. True humility, that is. ‘My son, who was dead’ comes back from the death of self. Here is the beginning. ‘My son, who was lost’ is the helpless man who cannot find his way without guidance, without the hand of the Lord. Here is the beginning.

Pride comes in many shapes, many forms. It can be overt, in arrogance, or insidious, in self-sacrifice because ‘I can’. Grumbling at grace, fighting with everything in us against mercy and generosity.

Do you know what I mean?

Selah

Jealousy is wounded pride, hurt selfishness. The brother who was faithful is not feted, as the brother who was unfaithful is. Forgiveness brings reward; abasement in contrition of heart is worthy of the Father’s greatest blessings. ‘My son, you are always with me, and everything that I have is yours’ is a gift, unheeded and unnoticed. Are you…are we…really able to dare to hope such a thing? Do we live it?

These are the elementary truths of this great story. Pride brings sorrow, grief and destruction. Hope comes in repentance and contrition, bringing nothing before the Father and coming away with everything. Imagine the face of the unworthy and once-arrogant man as he sits at his father’s right hand, as he eats of the bounty increased in his absence. Imagine the tear of joy, the single bright gem of love that trickles down his face when the bearded and haggard face of his father presses to his neck and the cries of rejoicing come muffled from a fleshless shoulder.

Selah

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Return – Fathers and Sons VI

I’ve been threatening to post this, so here it is. Walk with me in these verses over the next few days as I look at some of the rich meat of the passage as it relates to fathers and sons, as it relates to the gift of grace to we undeserving sons and daughters, and as it relates to right mindedness in our days. I’d rather start this on a clean slate with a new post, so stay tuned to see the mining.

Luke 15:11-32

And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”‘ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Conviction

This is a blog about beliefs, absolutely.

It’s also a blog about questions, mine and many others. Representatives began to cover that.

It’s a blog about the tenuous things of faith, why they seem to make no sense in a world that has moved inside of itself, isolating one from another. We’re not solitary creatures, despite whatever conspires to make us that way. But by the same token, we’re creatures that seek community.

Somewhere along the way, we lost what it meant to sit by an oil lamp and share the closeness of a storm with family. We lost the support of friends, brothers and sisters in arms who want to bear our burdens with us. And we lost the greatest treasure of all.

The knowledge that there is more, that this is not the way it’s supposed to be, that there is something greater.

We lost what it means to have Christ. For many, such a treasure has never been in their lives. For some, the rank and file of a consumed life has dulled and deadened the keen edge of faith. I certainly include myself in the mass of men at work, lost in the morass of more, and out of a sense of the renewed waiting upon Christ the advent season brings to Christians I’ve been struck by how important it is to stop, to assess, the reflect, to act in love.

The most important thing to have is a sense of task, of purpose, of project. Not the mindless labour of the undirected soul, nor the busyness of the soul lost in service. I began the Fathers and Sons posts because I was touched by the Lord’s charge to Solomon to build His house for Israel, but I have not recently revisited that initial passage, and as I think about it now, I realize that what strikes me about that passage, in addition to the test of manhood, the charge of a father to his son, and of a Father to his child, is the simple fact that it is purposeful work, and it is work blessed and ordained by God. He will support it; he promises David and Solomon that Solomon’s reign will be one of peace and rest.

In all of the hustle to work, we sometimes forget to do, to act as the Lord commands. In fact, to be honest, that is the default mode of our lives. To simply fill our days with stuff, with things that are going to have no significance in the long run. They will not last.

So what this blog is really about, then, is the need to accomplish, to connect with a greater and more hopeful sense of work, and an ever more crucial need to hope for the Lord’s mercy and grace to a culture lost in its own purposelessness.

I wrote these words when I ushered in blog 2.0. I revisit them now with an understanding that these…these are the purpose of what I do here:

“I write to bring the Word to a culture where words define life, where life defines truth, rather than Truth defining life.
I write to a culture that has given itself over to a search, an endless search for meaning in words, in thoughts, in actions, in deeds.
I write because I know there is more.
I write because I know that there is a hunger in the minds and the hearts of those who are being turned out into a wild world without any understanding that they are not alone, and that that hunger can be filled.”

I write for myself, yes. I believe that in this sharing I glorify my Lord in one of the ways He has gifted me to do. But I write because hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and being satisfied, are a promise. And they are a promise to this generation, and to this time, and to me. They are a promise that I need to share.

I hope you will see it too.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Reboot

Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of what it was I was trying to do here, and so I need to take a day to re-orient. This is ministry, and I need to be sure where it’s heading now, and what I may need to focus on.

Stay tuned.

Legacy 2 – Character

I mentioned last time that part of my concern was going to be the form that posterity takes, and part of it was going to be about generational sin, the inheritance of sinful man. I’m going to take up those threads tonight, and start weaving the tapestry that I want to weave.

The most important thing that our fathers pass on to their sons is character…the ability to be the man that one needs to be, so that Christ is truly reflected in us. Sadly, many in this generation are both fatherless and Fatherless. They do not know how to be men, nor how to be fathers. Worse, they live in patterns of sin that destroy their sons and their daughters. They cannot offer the truth of what it means to be a child of God because they do not understand it themselves.

The lives, too, of fathers prepare their sons for later in life…what happens if a man lives a life poorly? And what happens, too, when fathers lose sight of what it is that they are meant to do, Who it is that they are meant to resemble? The importance of this cannot be underscored enough. The pain of a fatherless life is not an easily understood pain. I can’t comprehend it because I have been spared it, in some ways. But I know a few friends who suffer that pain, and I can’t help but think of the directions that they have gone because of it.

But in the end, the cry of a father for his son outweighs it; the love of a Father for his Son fulfills it. By looking into Jesus as the Son of God, blessed with a voice from heaven and affirmed in his life’s ministry, we are able to comprehend more clearly the love of the Father for His children.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Legacy I – Inheritance

As Esau did, so too do we. We have sold our birthrights for a poor and humble meal.

Genesis 25 : 29-34 convicts us

I want to look first at legacy; what we have been left, what form we see posterity take, the sins of the fathers and the grandfathers visited on the sons.

I look around me, and I see a culture in which fathers are alienated from their sons, and sons from their fathers.

I imagine feeble hands reaching out in hope and being turned away by careless gestures, fathers abandoning their children because they cannot bear the responsibility of family and sons cursing the names of their fathers because they have not been given the gift of integrity.

I bless and I praise the Lord that I have been spared this, but the pain it holds is not something I can ignore. I can think of times where to approach Daddy has been a difficult thing at best, and times when it’s the thing I want most to do. There is a great ambivalence in the lives of sons when they think of their fathers, for the most part, and that ambivalence corrupts the understanding of “Our Father” that we possess.

In short, the legacy a father leaves his son is made of memories just as much as it is made of material. What we have seen our fathers do, so to do we do.

But that’s not the inheritance that we’ve been promised. No, that is so much more:

John 14:13 – Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

John 15:16 – You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

John 16:23 – In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

We are the inheritors of promise, as sons adopted of God. But we mustn’t let such promise get to be too heady, and so we must remember Matthew 21:22 – And whatever you ask in prayer you will receive, if you have faith. To ask of the Father is to have faith in His provision. It’s what we do with it that matters. The prodigal son is a life study on this, and I’ll post it in its entirety, so that we can deal with it in some of its larger and more revolutionary meanings, a few posts down the road. In the meantime, tomorrow will take up the threads left dangling here.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.