Too Much Too Little

You are too much.  Could you be less?  Less passion. Just less. You are overwhelming. Less confrontational? 

You are too little.  Could you be more?  More present. More available. You are too allusive.

I have heard both.  Have I said both to God?  Maybe at times.  These are his sufferings, he hears them a lot.  Sometimes I hear them too. 

We want him to be silent when He speaks.  We want Him to speak when He is silent.

We also want a God of our own making, instead of the One that He is.

We want people of our own making.   Me too.  Sometimes I wish to script, block, and emotion coach the world.

“No, don’t say that- say this…”, or, “Don’t say it that way, say it this way…” , and “Don’t stand like that, or walk that way, or hold that countenance- do it like this instead.”

I disappoint and I am disappointed.  Too.

Plank eye.

So, next time I hear too much or too little- I will say, I know…me too.

A Crowd

Why would anyone want a crowd?

I see it.  Colorful, bustling, loud, pointing, aggressive, energy.

Why do we desire crowds?

Why have I wished they would look this way, or that way?

I guess to harness their focus, and voice, and energy toward whatever cause mattered to me most at the time.

I guess because when a crowd arrives, it seems like what you are doing is important and matters. I guess because I believed the crowd made me or my effort seem valuable because so many people were ‘following’.

I don’t even know what ‘following’ or ‘friending’ means any more.

I have seldom had crowds, very seldom, and if I had them it was only for a borrowed moment for a certain purpose.  The crowd was never mine.

I have never pleased them.  From when I was little- I wasn’t familiar enough.  When I was older- I wasn’t pretty enough or rich enough.  When I launched out on my own, I wasn’t main stream enough.  I have always been reaching for the few who would listen and that has been heavy and frustrating at times.

I have never been packaged well.

The crowd likes a package to take a hold of and open up and understand and fit inside their pocket. Pleasing colors, clever slogans, eye appealing design. I have never had that.

My colors have always been black and white.  My word was choice, and it has mostly always been confrontational.

Now I am wary of the crowd, no thank you- Jesus is plenty enough.

When the crowd turns toward you it can be intoxicating with its adoration, I have seen many slip into stupid.

Almost without exception, I see the crowd lift the adored up into their hands and celebrate this life, this idea, this product, this thing….for a while….sometimes a long while….but it never lasts.  The crowd will turn its gaze to something new, either because they found a fault in the formerly adored or they lost interest and grew bored.  I have watched the adored one fall to the ground over and over again and either be left behind or worse, be trampled beneath crushing judgement.

It is in those moments through the years that taught me to thank God for the ‘lack of crowd’ in my life.

Jesus finally did have a crowd.  The pressed in so close he had to sit in a boat to talk to them.  They really wanted him for a little while- his bread and fish and healing.  His words were confusing and his followers were weird, but crazy stuff always happened when he was around.

This was not lost on Jesus, he knew exactly what was in a crowd.

I love what Oswald Chambers says about the Mount of Transfiguration.  He said that Jesus could’ve gone home that day.  He could have returned to the Father with Elijah and Moses, but if had, he would’ve gone home alone.

He left that mountain and returned to the crowd knowing they would betray him and kill him and knowing that in doing so- He would be opening up the way to the Father for them.

If I am ever called to a crowd Daddy- give me the courage that you gave your Son because I am certain they will love me for a little while and then kill me too.  Let love make me brave and willing.

For God so loved the world. Amazing

Popularity & Prisons

I know someday the crowds will come, just like they eventually crowded around Jesus when he was popular enough and important enough. They will come to see the show, the popular, the flavor of the month- but very few of the hearts will be deeply loyal and the mouths who shout hosanna on Sunday will shout crucify him on Friday.  That is the nature of the crowd and I have understood that for a long time.

The enemy is the prince of this world and he hands out popularity chains and prisons, I am so sad as I watch so many enter into them and remain tortured under the stares and opinions and mocking magazine crowd…popular carries a heavy price tag.

It isn’t to be desired or trusted, only endured.

Jesus is the King of Kings- and His Kingdom isn’t of this world.  The meek will inherit his kingdom, and the persecuted and the poor in spirit- and those who are hungry and merciful- and only the pure in heart will see it.

This Story is known, loved and despised.  It doesn’t matter what we think about- it is TRUE.

It will remain in unlikely hearts and unlikely places and the meek will inherit the earth.

I am looking forward to telling it again tonight.

Unlikely Shepherds

Last night during the Story of God show, in the back of the new space at The Gathering in Carmel, Indiana- we poured out God’s Story to the 40 hearts who came; old and young, an ADHD 1st grader on the first row who loves the Boston Red Sox,  Congolese refugees, elderly friends, neighbors, and kind hearts who gathered closed to see.  I loved it.  I loved them for coming. 

As we shared the Story last night I understood something that I have always wondered about.  Why did God announce the arrival of His Son to shepherds on a hillside nearby?  Why not announce it to Kings, or VIPS, or the bustling city where all the action was?

 I think I understand now….he knew they would come.

They weren’t too busy or preoccupied with weighty important matters. They didn’t say, ‘that sounds wonderful, but unfortunately we can’t accommodate you at this time.”

Jesus stayed in the outskirts of town a lot.  The misfits, and ragamuffins, and the ‘over passionate’ came to him there.  The ‘ones who had it all together’ didn’t come or if they did, they stood on the outside of the crowd gathered around Jesus and measured him, but never came close.

Perhaps it is wrong of me to draw this parallel, but regardless, I found myself doing it last night.

Sometimes God interrupts.  He changes things up.  He announces new things suddenly.

He often pours out His best stuff on the least likely.  I am glad.

On this Story of God journey we have been welcomed mostly by the small and weak, the ones who didn’t know how and weren’t sure and just tried.  The powerful and organized haven’t had time for This Story- they can’t make room or as they say, ‘accommodate it at this time.’

I am concerned for us and I have been for a long time that we don’t let God interrupt anymore because we would rather know months in advance so we can be organized and laminated.

 We just need a room.  The Story of God just needs a room- but where there are many rooms available in great big efficient buildings-many times the rooms sit empty, organized, vacuumed, and locked.  Or stuffed with programs and resources and ‘business as usual’ and the ‘way we have always done it’.

I think God sometimes does new things.  Where can he put those?

Perhaps that is why we cram into the least likely- perhaps like a stable- and we share The Story poured out in unlikely places.

And the simple draw near.

Our little ADHD 1st grader friend who can’t sit through movies, sat mesmerized through the whole Story of God last night. He didn’t look away- and when it was over he wanted all of his new cool friends (The Story Cast) to sit with him in the middle of the floor and share ice cream and everyone obliged him this request.

Our Congolese friend had 1000 words- he SAW it all and his artist heart drank in the beauty and celebrated the story and although he was ‘shy to cry’- he knew the Story merited his tears.

Our elderly kind friends nodded their heads with deep affirmation of the familiar and Holy Words of God as they raced by in the 2 hours.  They welcomed them like old friends and celebrated how they came forth from young hearts with such power and freshness.

And as I watched all this transpire, I couldn’t stop thinking about those smelly shepherds on that lonely hill and it made me smile in my heart as I understood why God chose them to hear the words first.

He knew they would come