Speaking about longing…The Long and the Short of it.

 
  All of us come into this world with deep and rather intense longings (discovered over time of course).
 When in growing up, we don’t connect them to God (as most of us are prone), we soon come to grips with the fact that they cannot be realized, not fully and not satisfactorily. So we either shut down that area of our hearts or medicate (anesthetize) it…the former resulting in deadness, the latter in addiction.
  Ecc. 3:11 says that God has placed eternity in our hearts. Why?  So that we might seek after him throughout our pilgrimage on earth and one day receive forever all and more that our hearts deeply desire.
  Don’t settle for less…for the quick fix, the immediate. Our longings are a gift, telling us there is more. Don’t shut down, don’t medicate them…befriend them. They will help get you home.  Proverbs 16:26
    *If we don’t acknowledge our longings, we’re only shorting ourselves.  
             

I’ll Follow Jesus Thanks.

Not to disparage any of the world’s religions, be they ancient, recent, popular or vague (including christianity), but Jesus never offered us religion. He didn’t live and suffer and die so we could add a little (or lot as the case may be) religion to our otherwise worldly, materialistic lives. His offer is, and has always been quite simply ‘life’…to the full and everlasting. 
I could add freedom, beauty, love, intimacy, wonder and adventure, but of course these are essential aspects of life to the full. Sounds good to me. People can have their religion, I’ll follow Jesus thanks.

A Single Man’s Take on Marriage

Okay, so what do I know? But just came across an old marriage lecture tape, and thot maybe I’d listen thru it, and great advice as I expected, agreed with most of it, but it was what the guy didn’t say that bothered me. I mean I have heard a zillion times, that marriage is work, work, work…and either spoken or implied that it’s not about the romance. Okay, I get the first part…a marriage based alone on romance may not survive, but, and here’s my 2 cents worth, a marriage without romance will certainly not survive, and if it does technically, certainly there’d be nothing appealing or remotely attractive about it. Here’s to keeping it alive! (and that may well be where much of the work comes in).

All For Love

Love, that one quality which best describes God, is the one thing that he most desires of us. Indeed, he is jealous for it. He desires intimate allies, not cringing slaves; lovers, not religious puppets.
He is jealous for us, not of us. He isn’t after what we’ve got, he’s after us.

True Treasures

It is those who have trained themselves to slow down and disconnect from the mad pace of life; who take time to be quiet; who stop, look and listen…these are the ones who get to hear the voice of God, see his reflection, and experience his wonders…and are transformed. All earthly treasures pale in comparison.

HEART CONNECT

One of the great tragedies in the church today as I see it, is that for most, there is a wide disconnect between the deep desires of our heart and our faith. Yes, God is good, the Word of God right and true, and Jesus the correct answer (mental ascent), but it all has little to do with the true longings of our heart, it would seem. Or does it? Who gave us all those universal longings for love, beauty, adventure, wonder and intimacy? Who created us this way? These are what I consider to be eternal longings. We don’t want just a taste, we long to have this and never lose it…ever! Ecc. 3:11 says God placed eternity in our hearts.  
  So having this disconnect, we end up with a quasi-christianity of duty and obligation, while trying (unsuccessfully) to find some fullfillment for  the deep cry of our aching hearts, outside the realm of God and our faith. It’s not enough, it never will be. Eventually we shut down our hopes and settle for what crumbs we can find, or turn to addictions. Either way, our hearts are dead. What futility and what a great deception!
   Duty and obligation will take you only so far, but not that far at all,and certainly they will not take you all the way home. They are not to be dismissed, they are just woefully insufficient without your heart being central in our journey of faith. That is to say, without your true and deep desires driving us on toward Jesus and our eternity with him. 
    It is difficult enough to live the christian life from your heart and with desire, but it is impossible without them. 
   –Rob Berg 

Love Changes Everything

Love changes everything.  The gospel, in fact the whole word of God is a love story, and when we finally see it as that, as opposed to merely good theological instruction, principles, and tips and techniques, everything changes. Good parents would readily lay down their lives for their kids not because they read it in a instructional manual, but because they love them. Who knows where your love for God will take you in this world…but let it take you. This I do know…in the end it will take you home to where you long to be.

FAITH IN GOD. Is it really such a stretch?

   A lot of people equate christians’ believing in God and the Bible with fairytales and folklore. But is it really such a stretch, even for our secularised, materialistic society?
   We live in a magical world, a world made for romance. We’ve just become so overly familiar with it, and therefore blinded to the breathless wonder of it all. But come on…butterflies and bumble bees, peacocks and porcupines, starfish, rainbows, snowflakes, weeping willows, mangoes, pumpkins, stallions, giraffes, gazelles, hummingbirds, the moon, white sand beaches and blue lagoons, mountains and deserts and waterfalls, the wind in the poplars, music, a kiss…are you getting the picture?
  That’s just a smattering, a tiny sliver of the magic and beauty of the world we live in everyday. All by chance? All an accident? A big explosion? Now that’s a stretch. And that would have to be one pretty big explosion. I experienced a 7.2 earthquake in New Zealand in 2012 (from a safe enough distance thankfully) and the scope and power of that was way beyond me…a shaking of land and sea and everything and everyone on them for almost 2/3 of the country (that’s a ‘whole lot a shaking going on’). Try an explosion that spits out our univserse…in perfect balance and with such staggering beauty yet. Unthinkable! And some would consider us idiots and naive, who believe in a God who designed and created it. I’d say it’s a far bigger stretch and completely illogical to believe the alternative.
   Besides, any explosion you or I have ever witnessed or seen the effects of, big or small, have resulted in demolition and destruction, not the opposite. Adding to that, even for an explosion, you got to start with something…something from nothing is impossible and unscientific. And if you’ll notice there’s a whole lot of something here, and most of it, even after mankind’s repeated attempts to ruin it, is still pretty damntastic. Now I’m no scientist or theologian for that matter, but I am gifted with a pretty fair amount of common sense, and that leads me to no other conclusion, than that there is an amazing personality called God who’s responsible for all the world of wonder around us. Let’s face it, isn’t the main reason that many of us dismiss the God explanation is that we don’t want to be accountable, or deal with the ramifications of that?  Because it’s really not that much of a stretch.

A Serendipitous Moment

A Serendipitous Moment…Okay that was my sister’s favorite word for years, so she’ll love that I used it …Hi all on a rainy Monday nite near Jakarta.
I was restless (and so hot) being home too much of the day, and so at 5:30 just as getting dark, left the place, and with rain about to come, I went for a walk to Malabar (local market, a few minutes away) and after such a sweltering day, was enjoying the cooler wind before the rain. I bought some mandarins and mangosteens (a lovely little number), and then the rain started down hard, so I took shelter under some tarps in a little lane to back alleys and more market stalls…I was just enjoying the moment with rain pelting down…and noticed an older man with a beat up old guitar in the stall beside me, so I gave an approving nod as he was strumming and singing somewhat. After some moments, he motioned to come sit down beside him to give me a break…I did, and listened as he sang a song…nice voice, terrible guitar and strings…then I asked for guitar and sang a song…and within 30 sec.’s broke a string, whooops…I felt bad but he was unphased, and I kept playin and singin’ and he yells for some guy across the road to come over, pulls out some money and sends this guy out to buy him a new string (after quite some discussion), upon which this guy returns a few minutes later with string, and between the two of them, eventually get it on the guitar, which was I noticed, tuned way way too high…so he’s winding the snot out of this string, and I’m thinking it’s gonna bust eventually, and wondering how can I communicate to him to lower all the other strings first…and in the meantime…snap went the brand new string. Again, unphased, he yells again for this guy, whips out some cash and sends him down the street on the same errand…so we’re having a deja-vu moment, only this time, I asked for guitar once they loaded the string, and lowered all the others first…so after all this, he hands me back the guitar, and tho it was painful to play, hammered out a few tunes, some he knew (like ‘You are my Sunshine’) and all the while rain bucketing down. So was rather enjoying the spontaneous meeting and subsequent little sing song. Merry called worried I couldn’t get back in the rain…(I would’ve just come when I was ready, and when it broke), so she came with umbrella and feet soaked and eventually found me. This guy didn’t want me to leave yet…Merry was somewhat distressed about me in the market at night on my own…but really was okay.
Told him I’d be back another night, (might bring my guitar next time) and gave him a CD. I so enjoy these unscripted moments and meetings in peculiar places…and as the rain and cooling breeze refreshed my body, I found my soul refreshed as well. 
But that guitar was painful to play. 
Love and prayers, rob

THE MOST ROMANTIC PERSON

    God is not a cheap harlot, chasing after the first passerby who winks at him. He’s not hard up, and we shouldn’t peddle him as such. We’re not his last resort, we’re his true love, the only one he has eyes for. The Cinderella of the story. He has pursued us as the ultimate Lover, and we are the ultimate Beloved. At the same time, he is jealous for our love. (Ex. 34:14 says his name is jealous). He is romancing us, always. Not just at the outset, not just as a guise for his real agenda. He is the most romantic person in the universe.  And this sacred romance is the point of everything. Not just a sideline to the story, not just for the romantics and poets of the world…but for every heart, that cries out, or has cried out, to love and be loved…the deepest cry of every person on the planet.  A desire God himself placed in our hearts, that we might seek after him.  (Ecc.3:11).    
     Jer. 29:12-14  says if we seek me with all our hearts, He will be found by us.
    He wants to be pursued, like a woman wants to be pursued, and then rewarding her trusted pursuer with her treasures.  Heb. 11:6 says He is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him.
   We were created in love, by love and for love.  God makes himself vulnerable by loving, as love does to anyone who chooses it. 
   This is the love story of all time, between God and mankind. It involves romance, jealousy, betrayal, action, adventure, adultery, and a future wedding and happy ever after. It is the oldest and most enduring story of all, and the one we were born for.  It is the only story worth entering and living in.  Come home to love today.