Covered in Manure

One of my favorite movies scenes occurs near the beginning of Les Miserables. The main character, Jean Valjean, a convict, steals from and attacks the bishop who offered his home to the wandering stranger. When the authorities catch Valjean and bring him back to the bishop, the bishop actually testifies that he gave Valjean everything and insists that he take the silver candlesticks as well. Valjean is undone in this totally unrequested act of forgiveness. In his confusion he looks at the bishop and asks why he is doing this. The bishop responds, "Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil. With this silver, I've bought your soul. I’ve ransomed you from fear and hatred. And now I give you back to God."

In this season of Lent, I have both failed miserably and yet also seen moderate success in my attempts to speak with a good tongue. So much of what I am learning is found not in specific commands but in the everyday language of Jesus as he travels to Jerusalem. Just as Jesus is preparing for the events of the Passion week, I too am preparing. Jesus has taught me the humility and community-creating power of asking questions and being silent, the commonality in which we are to approach our God in prayer, and the freedom found in not boasting. Most of this has been seen in his stories, his parables. These illustrious stories often cause deep reflection and even shock despite their simple garb. One such parable is found in Luke 13:6-9:

Then he told them a story: "A man had an apple tree planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find apples, but there weren't any.He said to his gardener, 'What's going on here? For three years now I've come to this tree expecting apples and not one apple have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?'"The gardener said, 'Let's give it another year. I'll dig around it and fertilize,and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn't, then chop it down.'"

Here Jesus is teaching us to not do something. So much of what Jesus commands involves action and this appeals to us, it feeds our sense of control and power, but here Jesus is teaching us that patience and waiting should define our relationships with those who "waste good ground." A recent book has come out by a prominent pastor that before it even reached publication caused some to decry him a heretic and to bid him farewell from the community of God. Yet despite the validity of these claims, Jesus seems to warn against our swift judgments, even against judgments based on years of observance. We are to not be so swift to chop it down, chop him down, chop each other down. The gardener's response "let it be" is the same Greek word Jesus uses when he himself is chopped down and nailed to a cross, "forgive them." Too often in life we desire the role of judge, jury, and even executioner. We leave little room for God, let alone forgiveness. Perhaps we should heed the gardener's advise and give it a year, spread it with manure. It is hard work, undesirable work, but desperately needed work. In the process we cover each other in manure, in forgiveness. 

Interestingly enough, in both of these examples, the one being forgiven has done little if nothing at all to deserve it. The tree is barren and, if a tree could be such a thing, unrepentant. Jesus prays for us all as our horrible choices and voices were responsible for his death. It is our very ignorance of our error that gives the cause to Jesus' pronouncement of grace, "forgive them, for they know not what they do." 

Perhaps it is not the ones I encounter day-to-day that need forgiveness so much as it is me. I am precise in my judgments on another, quick to tell anyone who will listen of the wrongs I have been wrought. What if I had the audacity, the patience, the grace to keep my mouth shut or better yet, to pronounce forgiveness. What if I was just as quick to tell the listening ear of my forgiveness, not in a boasting way but in a sincere and vulnerable way.

"I forgive you."

And in the midst of these simple words perhaps lives will change. Forgiveness not only frees the offender from the burden of his debt but also the victim from the burden of his own debt, hatred and pain. Forgiveness brings healing in a way no drug could hope to duplicate. Jean Valjean leaves that Bishop's presence a new man, given to God. He changes the lives of those around him sacrificing much for not only the noble but prostitutes and their daughters and ultimately it is his unceasing capacity for grace that breaks the hardest heart of all. Jesus looks out from his bloody brow and whispers a prayer that will and has changed us all. The one who will himself wipe away all of our tears, cries himself not for his pain but for our's. He is ever patient with us and is quick to tell anyone who will listen: "I forgive you, now go and do likewise."

Sounds good to me.

Empty Together

I wanted to share what my dear friend  (and house-mate) Cliff had to share with our local congregation out here in Denver. I resonate with his feeling of emptiness and need for community.

I sat in front of my blank computer screen for about two hours searching myself for something of value to offer. My mind wandered about to other stresses taking place elsewhere in my life. The longer I sat, fewer ideas came to mind. What seemed to be such a simple task slowly became more and more daunting with each scattered thought. Why was it that I couldn’t find something to share with my community? Something encouraging. Something uplifting.  Something… spiritual.

I was spiritually dry. I am spiritually dry.

I remember hearing Eugene’s message on hoarding both the good and bad. That I can relate to. Sure there are things in my life taking up my time that aren’t good wholesome things, but most of what I give my time to are good things. They really are. Work, Church, my music, my friends, all quality time well spent. The simple fact is, rarely do I just sit with the Father. Rarely do I spend time sitting in the presence of God soaking him in for all he’s worth.

It was through community, through relationship that I was able to verbally process the stuff in my life and become aware of my spiritual drought. I believe it will only be through community and relationship that I heal. Growing up in the South, attending a Baptist church as all good Southerners do, I’ve never participated in Lent. This being my first Lenten season as a participant, I’m anxious to set out on this journey of rediscovering God. I wouldn’t dare begin this journey alone. Come with me?  

Thank God for friends like Cliff how do not remain silent in their struggles but through their honesty offer hope. I think many of us could sign our names to the bottom of this, filling our time with seemingly good things all the while leaving no room for the Good Thing. As I have taken a break from some of the filler this season, God has led me to a place of emptiness, a state of poverty. This is indeed a good thing; Eugen Peterson has this to say, ‎"Only when we stand emptied, stand impoverished before God can we receive what only empty hands can receive."

Abba, lead me and my brother Cliff into this abundant life in you. Lead us not only together but with all your children. Lord, make this world right, starting in my heart. Feed us, forgive us, and keep us safe. Grant us the guts to be empty and to be ok with it all. Be our God and help us to be your people. Amen 

Providence in Pavlov's

Broken glass, spilt beer, and cigarette butts
fill the field of my vision.
My gaze is upon 
the tread-upon.

Some may have a lofty eye
yet mine sighs a lonely "why?"

Peering down on the scarred tile
undeserving of even that home.

Lost, dead, blind, alone
these adjectives are mine, I own.
Inadequete, devoid, these words lack the fill,
they lack the fullness of my emptiness, my seal.

How did I ever get so far?
How did I find my home in Pavlovs Bar?

Everywhere I look I see illusion,

my heart overcome with confusion.
Is today tommarow?

Yesteryear now?
Is up down?

Horse cow?

I feel like truth was once a friend of mine.
In the playground of my youth, it's beauty I'd find.
Innocent and alive, no sense of worry,
caught up in an my own life story.

Then...
Providence arrives.
And by Grace alone, 
my soul survives.

Sent as an angel with beer in tow,
came and gave ear to my groans of woe.
This word and that word, it really didn't matter,
just a taste of concern, even a smatter.

Okay truth, 
here I come.
See ya lies,
I'm done.
Maybe truth is in this bar,
maybe truth is in a home afar.

I partake on my Exodus, seemingly aware that I'm alone,
Yet my flight is guided by the Chief Cornerstone.
Unknowing of my Divine Guide,
until later when I have died.

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound,
I once was lost, but now I'm found.
Melodious, haunting, and yet inviting I find the hymn,
the words come alive as does my heart so dim.

Then my past I must face.
And I feel unworthy of even dirty grace.

Broken

Awoken!

Tear upon tear, wash away each fear,
Grace upon Grace, gives my soul a face.

Words fail me
My God avails me...

Big Shoulders

What does it mean to grow up? I often ask myself this question. As I probe my heart and mind, to this one word I keep returning: responsibility. As a child I had little responsibility outside of a few chores that I always undertook begrudgingly. Then, if I didn't finish unloading the dishwasher, the worse consequence would be a spanking; now, I don't have anything of which to eat off.  When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to grow up because I could do whatever I wanted. Little did I realize the freedom I experienced as a kid would never be matched again. This wasn't a freedom that allowed everything, but a freedom that because I was my parent's responsibility, I had no need to worry and could simply have fun. While I was limited in the available actions, I was limitless in freedom of spirit. Now that I am experimenting with this whole grown-up thing, I realize that while I have limitless options, my responsibilities limit me. I cannot stay up all night because I have to go to work in the morning. I cannot eat lobster everyday because I have to pay rent at the end of the month. Being a grown-up is not quite what I imagined. 

Responsibilities are great things, they give us passion, purpose, and direction. But they can also deliver worry and stress. All my life my actions only seemingly affected me, but now there are several people at least partially dependent upon me keeping it together and to be honest, I'm not so sure I'm capable. And yet, I find the courage to get out of bed each day and at least attempt to be productive, to put on a happy face that betrays the heavy-laden condition of my soul. I fear less that I will fail as that I will be found out. And with each day a new role or task or worry or fear adds to the mountain upon my shoulders. How can I hold it all, how can I, of all people, be that strong.

I can't.

What being a grown-up has taught me is that it is about responsibility but not just my own.  I share my load with you and you share yours with me. Each of us was meant to carry each other. And above all, I believe, God is there, not to heap more on us, things like shame and guilt, but to carry our burdens. This is perhaps the hardest thing to not only believe but to live. Somehow I make it up in my mind that I have to be perfect, not let God down. But I am reminded that I do not hold Him up but that He holds me up.

Jesus taught His disciples to pray as such: "Father, Reveal who you are. Set the world right. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil." This is not a prayer that assumes much at all on behalf of the one praying. We see a simple series of commands, not flowery requests but demands. We go bold before the maker of all things and demand that He make this world right, that He feed us, forgive us and protect us. We will settle for nothing less. But core to this is that we need Him at every level and at its most basic. Our lives as grown-ups are not about making sure we take care of our responsibilities, but rather coming to a point where we not only know but live by the truth that we are utterly incapable. It is in this moment of of emptiness that we are filled. It is in this confession that we find strength. When we release our responsibilities to the only one capable of shouldering them, we finally have that same freedom we knew as children, to be free in our souls. And it is in this freedom that we can truly live, that we can truly shoulder the days ahead.

Questions of Silence

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. -Abraham Lincoln

I was born to talk. 

My dad, when he had enough of my rambling, would say to me, "you could talk the ears off a brass monkey." I'm not sure I knew exactly what that meant but I knew it was his way of telling me to shut up. I spent so much time in the principal's office for talking in class that the principal from the local high school where my mom taught thought I was the office assistant at the elementary. As I've grown older, I have learned that I am a verbal processor, that I have to talk things out to understand them better. This often looks like a spew of unrelated mutterings and apologizes as I chase rabbits only to realize that everything I was trying to say made no sense at all. See, processing.  And yet, it is in the act of speaking that I find myself most fully connected with others and even with God. This deep connection has forced me to contemplate how I use my words, to dig into the meaning and power of speech. One of the scriptures primary lessons on on how to speak is to not do it. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes warns that we are human and thus our words before God must be few. Jesus' brother James also commands us to be slow to utter a word, but instead to speed to listen. Jesus himself warns that merely calling someone a fool can bring fiery judgment upon us. But, as one born to talk, learning to be silent is rather hard. 

Jesus showed excellent skill in public speaking. His proclamation of ministry intent at the synagogue, the sermon on the mount, the sermon on the plain, the pronouncement of woes against hypocrisy, and his various parables all exemplify a person who not only had something rather valuable to say but also wielded the power to say it well. Yet there are these times when Jesus is oddly silent, especially before the Sanhedrin. With his life on the line, he offers no great rhetoric to prove his divinity or even his innocence but merely remains silent, save a few choice words. Even though I know the ending, that He must die, I still read that story and just want him to stand up and tell them off, but he remains silent. He had the wisdom to know that no matter what he said, the end would remain the same and so he used his silence as a witness.

But this scenario is not likely for my daily encounters. How did Jesus speak in his day-to-day conversations? One great example is found in Luke 10:

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life? 

He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" 

He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence-and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." 

"Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live." 

Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?" 

Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead.Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side.Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man."A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him.He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable.In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill-I'll pay you on my way back.' 

"What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" 

"The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same."

Here we see a conversation dominated by questions. These are not integrating questions but ways of opening up, disarming one another. I recently watched a movie in which a teenage boy and girl try to get to know each other better and they play a game where they can only ask questions. The interesting thing is that it works, the questions spoke of a desire to not promote oneself but to know the other. Jesus here knows that the religious scholar wants to know what he's about and Jesus turns the question right back. Jesus seems less concerned about "preaching" the truth here as he is about connecting with this man. Even though Jesus speaks the most in this encounter, He never makes any commands other than supporting the conclusions the religious leader makes himself.  Jesus could have simply explained all this without the use of leading questions and story, but by doing so, He let himself be silent and listened to the answer that was already inside this man, and inside us all. 

In our conversations we should be quick to listen and slow to speak. And in so doing we may find less and less need to defend ourselves and our beliefs but to nurture the truth that is already in those around us. And just maybe, the act of listening will nurture the truth within us as well. The religious scholar challenged Jesus to find justification for how he treated his neighbor but in listening to Jesus' story he finds no defense of his definition of who his neighbor is, only a plea to be a neighbor. He finds not the answer to his question but the answer to a much more important one. And perhaps, he finds what he asked about in the beginning, eternal life.

What, I wonder, will we find?

???

I normally post on Thursday nights, however St. Patrick had other plans. I want to explore the question of, well, questions tomorrow night, but for now here are some of the questions Jesus asks in the Bible:


"Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"


"Who do you say that I am?"


“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 


“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 


 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things?"


 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” 


 “Will you give me a drink?”


"Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?"


"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"


What are some others that have challenged or encouraged you?

Let My Words Be Few

As I continue to explore and practice a renewed speech ethic this Lenten season, I hope that scripture will guide my path (and my tongue). While I am learning about speech by studying how Jesus spoke, there are places where the scriptures speak directly about a framework that should support the use of our words.  Here is a sampling of these that merely refer to the tongue itself.

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Psalm 34:13


Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation,and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Psalm 51:14


The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, Proverbs 10:20


There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts,but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Proverbs 12:18


Death and life are in the power of the tongue,and those who love it will eat its fruits. Proverbs 18:21


If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. James 1:21


Whoever desires to love life and see good days,let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; 1 Peter 3:10


Jesus came, among many reasons, to show us that our words were not the problem but our hearts that produce them. So, perhaps I am a bit misguided in my attempts to tame the tongue, for James says this is impossible. But we must also remember that nothing is impossible with God. Lent is a bit of a quandry when you think about it, we "do good" and "cease bad" so that we may be more like Christ? Is not the heart of the Gospel our utter lack of ability to save ourselves? Yet also in the heart of that same gospel is a plea to be changed. So perhaps the the greatest speech ethic I can learn this season is that of prayer.

My God, take this heart of stone and make it new. I am afraid of the chiseling you must do, but Lord do it please. Teach my heart to give worth to my words. Tame my tongue to not speak folly, lies, slander, and even death, but praise, joy, healing, and especially life. May Your Son, the Word of life give life to my words and defeat death in my heart. Thank you God that you have granted me, a man of unclean lips, the privalage to proclaim that you are holy, holy, holy. Amen

Help, I Need Somebody

I have been a little under the weather recently and have succumbed to the woe-is-me regiment of sleeping all day, taking drugs, and whining.  I, like most men, revert to a two-year old any time my temperature even flirts with triple digits.  More than anything, what I desire the most is for someone to take care of me.  Michala does an excellent job of this, rubbing my forehead, bringing me blankets, and always offering them with a smile. Sometimes I wonder if I have a secret longing to be sick just so she can fly to the rescue. Even though I feel as if I just got out of the ring with Mike Tyson, everything is OK. Perhaps I am not alone in this longing to be cared for, I can see this desire manifest itself in other places than merely my sickbed. When the responsibilities of being a grown-up pile up and I  feel as if I could be destroyed under the pressure of it all, I merely want someone to share my load, to hold me tight and tell me it will be alright. Maybe I am just weak or maybe just honest. Yet it is in the moments where I admit my desperate need for help that I fell the greatest peace, the most acute sense of hope, and a faith that I can make it.

I think that our DNA is wired in such a way that we operate best when we operate together. This game called life is a team sport. Yet we often live in a way that does not showcase this fact, in fact we often live in away that shouts "It is all about me!" We want to be the strongest, the bravest, the smartest and we want to do it alone. But as someone once said, "Its lonely at the top." What if we redefined our ideas of what it means to be fulfilled, successful, or even happy. What if intrinsic to all these was a sense of connectedness, that we need one another.  I think we would find ourselves more fulfilled, more successful, and even happier. But beyond this we may just find ourselves.

One of my favorite area of theology is how Orthodox Christianity portrays God, as the three-in-one. Instead of a simple monotheism, we instead have this difficult idea that God is one but also three. I will not risk the cramping of my brain in trying to articulate how all this works, but I will bask in the glory of a God beyond comprehension but also in a God so very accessible. In the beginning, God made everything and it was good, everything except for one thing.  Man was alone. I find this to be haunting that God looks around at all He has made is left scratching His head by this one thing. But in His head-scratching, He is teaching us. God made us in His image, in His image of togetherness, in His image of wholeness found only in community. God wrote His unique love in our hearts: we are only complete, only human when we have and love one another. We are most alive when we depend on each other. Jesus would later affirm this idea by stating that the sole purpose of our existence is to love God and man, in no particular order. His friend John would later write that in fact our love of God was so deeply rooted in how we loved one another that we could not claim one love without the other.

This season of Lent, we seek to grow closer to Christ, to share in his sufferings so that we may share in His victory. When we look at the cross, we see how deep Jesus believed in sharing with us the fullness of being alive. He so desperately wanted us to be alive that He died. With one of his final cries he felt the pain of our isolation, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" If we are to share in Christ's sufferings then we must be honest with our isolation; we must admit that we think more highly of ourselves than we ought, that we think we can do this on our own. In this admission, may we begin to share in his victory too. May we find a new life in the death of ourself, a life of togetherness, a life that not only finds peace in another's helping hand, but also finds the courage to give our hands back. May we be a people, plain and simple, truly a people, one although many. And perhaps we will find life there, a life unlike anything we have ever seen or known before.

Communion Prayer

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen. -The Common Book of Prayer

Fat Tuesday 2011-Tell it Slant

As the festivities on Bourbon street come to a halt in the wee hours of the morning, the few faithful will file into their local church to receive an ash cross upon their forehead as they enter the season of Lent. Although my Fat Tuesday lacks any of the pageantry of Mardis Gras, I still have a sense of excitement for this season in my life. Last year Michala and I were encouraged and challenged as we experimented with this thing called Lent. This year, I have bought into the idea of my local church to view this season not as a time of denial but of embrace. Instead of denying some random thing like chocolate in hopes that this will somehow deepen my connection to Jesus, I have decided to simply feast upon Him. This season I will not try to put out little fires of things I should not do, but to focus instead on the fire of God.

One of the primary ways that I hope to embrace God this season will be through a reading of Jesus' words, specifically his parables and prayers. I have enlisted Eugene Peterson's Tell it Slant to help me soak in the language of God, to listen to how the Living Word spoke. So each Thursday during Lent, I will post some insights, reflections, struggles, prayers, or stories that have been influenced by this time of embracing. I hope to honor God's words with my own words. The power of life and death reside in the tongue and I hope to align my words in a pattern of life-giving. Peterson senses the power of our words, especially in telling the Truth but that in the pattern of Jesus we see a truth-telling that was often gracious and gradual, a truth telling that embodied the idea behind this Emily Dickinson poem:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightening to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind---

I look forward to this season of embrace and I hope to engage you as well.

My Prayer Today

"By faith we understand, if we are to understand it at all, that the madness and lostness we see all around us and within us are not the last truth about the world but only the next to the last truth.  Madness and lostness are the results of terrible blindness and tragic willfulness, which whole nations are involved in no less than you and I are involved in them. Faith is the eye of the heart, and by faith we see deep down beneath the face of things - by faith we struggle against all odds to be able to see - that the world is God's creation even so. It is he who made us and not we ourselves, made us out of his peace to live in peace, out of his light to dwell in light, out of his love to be above all things loved and loving.  That is the last truth about the world." -Frederick Buechner

Amen.

God, The Beloved Enemy

"Power, success, happiness, as the world knows them, are his who will fight for them hard enough; but peace, love, joy are only from God. And God is the enemy whom Jacob fought there by the river, of course, and whom in one way or another we all of us fight - God, the beloved enemy.  Our enemy becauase, before giving us everything, he demands of us everything; before giving us life, he demands our lives - our selves, our wills, our treasure." -Frederick Buechner

Tonight, on the eve of my 27th birthday, as I dream and worry about the next year of my life, I am faced with the reality of my motives. So often, I disguise my cravings for safety with holy masks that resemble wisdom.  But if I am honest, if I take my mask off, I am rather afraid of tomorrow.  This tormentor of mine, fear, has been wrecking havoc in my soul for far too long. The odd thing is that I am far from being certain just what it is that I fear. Is it failure? Rejection? Pain? Death? Of course it is these things, but it is also something else, something that I cannot name no matter who hard I psychoanalyze myself.

FDR said that the only thing worth fearing is fear itself and he may be quite right.  He said this in the face of the Great Depression, not just an economic disaster, but also a crushing of the nation's collective will.  Roosevelt stood firm in his bootstrap-pulling mentality and demanded that his country not bow to this cowardly enemy called fear. Yet I am afraid that I cannot live up to his level of courage.

The reason FDR cautioned us against giving into the demands of our terrors is that fear is a crippling foe.  It stakes claim over one's decisions and taunts us in the midst of our conflicts.  Fear calls to us to consider what we will lose if we truly turned our back on him.  Fear reminds us that he keeps us safe and illuminates the dangers in our paths. But too many of us know that a path lit by fear is a highway to hell. We put on our blinders and fall in line with the other cattle being led to slaughter. But every so often one of us wakes up and shouts at the top of there lungs, "Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."  A clarion call no doubt, a prayer too. Because what do we really have to lose?

Jesus once said that in order to find our life we must first lose it.  In other words, the things we fear the most will be the death of all our fears. Yet Jesus said the goal was death, nothing less, yet in that dying we find life. This is heady stuff. But it is also powerful stuff, words of life even.  And the beautiful thing about these words was that Jesus not only spoke them but He lived them. This is a rare combination today, when what we say actually lines up with what we do, but Jesus was the rare type. He not only took on death itself but all of our fears, failures, insecurities, and mistakes, even our blatant sins and he let them do their worse.  And the funny thing is that he was right all along, he defeated our fears for us, he died for us, for me even.  And it is this rare feat that gives me courage.

The United States rebounded from the Great Depression and emerged not just better, but as the most powerful nation in the world. The people rallied around their leader who had the courage to spit in fear's face and to convince the nation to follow his lead. They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and exceeded their wildest goals. But in our quest to defeat fear, we must first be defeated. We, like the starving masses of the 30's, have right to fear. But we also have a courageous leader who has not only named the enemy but defeated it and has the scars to prove it. His victory did not come through will-power or hard work but through submission, through a God-forsaken cross. And our own way through is through defeat.  But we do not stay down. He did not stay down but got back up again and as the scarred man stumbled forth, he staked his claim over all the lands ruled by death and fear for He now holds the keys. The grave was overcome and we can finally believe Him when He says, "do not be afraid..."

God of Jacob, just as you wrestled Jacob and defeated him, defeat us too. It is not in courage that I overcome fears but in death. So take my life, but I will not let yo go til you bless me, change me, give me a new name and a new life. I have no clue how this happens but let it be. Defeat me Lord so that I may be victorious. Amen