Not My Will

This Easter, I have had the privilege of participating in a riveting stage production centered on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ called SHEPHERD OF LOVE. The story closely follows the scriptural account of Jesus' birth, ministry, miracles, betrayal, crucifixion,and resurrection. Having been exposed to this story for many years, it is easy for me to gloss over certain aspects of who Jesus really was and what He actually experienced for me. There is one particular part of this account that has begun to consume me: the prayer of Jesus as He struggled in horrific agony in the garden before He was led away to be murdered for us. His humble and submissive declaration of, "Not My Will, but Thy Will" in the midst of facing the most gruesome torture to pay for my crimes is beyond my capacity to process. But the phrase is sinking into my spirit as I am facing some potentially critical issues in my own personal life. I want things to be comfortable and happy. I want everything to be peaceful and calm. I want...I want...But what does GOD want? What is HIS "want" for me? Quite often, the paths He calls me to walk are the polar opposite of the colors I work so hard to use to paint my life. He chooses difficulty, while I scream out for ease. He calls me to walk through loss, while I work feverishly at times to hold on desperately to how things are. In my spirit, I want to humbly say, "Not my will, but Thy Will, be done." And sometimes in my life, I sincerely offer up that same prayer. Sometimes in my life, though, I find myself fighting and grasping to keep control of how I see I want my life to be. And yet God my Father continues to work out His best in my life, even though His best doesn't always come packaged the way I want it to. My only recourse is to utter the words my Lord did, knowing that our Father always DOES know and do what is best: "Not my will, but Thy Will, be done." Amen.

If you think of me, maybe you can ask God to help me to continue submitting to Him. Maybe you can join me as we bow to His Will.

Just Another Manic Monday

Ah....the Monday of Dress Rehearsal Week. This week, my high school theater department will have our Dress Rehearsals for our upcoming production of THE KING AND I. For those of you who have never been in a high school stage production, you surely have missed out on an experience soon not be forgotten: relentless hours of toiling to correct endless lists of technical challenges, cast members who choose to spazz and go Diva on you, endless and needless delays that you prepare for months to avoid but happen anyway, lost keys, late parents, broken set pieces (of course which are BORROWED from other theater groups), ripped zippers on- you got it- borrowed costume pieces, students who flit back and forth beyond your wildest imagination (but who can never seem to be at the place they should be for their set changes), skipped meals, unwanted visitors who want to get in on the "fun" backstage...the "fun" seems endless.

But then, miraculously, Opening Night comes and sets begin to move smoothly between scenes, actors actually project, become their characters, and tell the story you've been drumming into their heads for months, props appear out of nowhere for the first time at the right time, cast members actually are quiet backstage, and audiences again are moved by seeing their children become Story Tellers who take them to places impossible to visit in real life. They are touched by the truths their Story Tellers reveal and discreetly wipe away tears of pride and joy as they see their Story Tellers bow in recognition of their months of effort. They suddenly no longer resent the director who demanded so much of their Story Tellers and actually smile and speak warmly to the director in the thrill of the afterglow of a successful production (although earlier that week the director's picture had been drawn with horns on his head and was riddled with dart holes). The Story Tellers experience the thrill of goal-setting, endurance, persistance, and success, and realize that anything in life worthwhile demands our very best effort for a long time.

And the director gets to go home to his wife!

Appointments

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven."
Eccesiastes 3:1

Appointments. We all make them, keep them, break them, forget to keep them. The difference with God is that once He makes appointments, they simply are NOT broken. This week, two divine appointments hit me like a ton of bricks.

The first divine appointment came to me quite unexpectedly as I was performing hall duty at school. While watching red-clad gang members streaming by me noisily on their way to first period, one of my theater students came to me with a panicked look on her face. She asked me if she could speak to me privately. "Oh, no!" I thought selfishly. "She's going to drop out of our show (which is in 2 weeks)." As it turned out, she handed me a copy of an e-mail written by another student of mine, with whom I have worked hard to cultivate a positive relationship. The email
was a plea for me to get her some help with her secret eating disorder, which was consuming her and making her consider some drastic options.
After I made the necessary arrangements for the help she so richly deserved, I realized that had not I been diligent to shower this student with God's kindness, she would not have felt that she could have approached me for help, which could have led to disastrous results for her health (and possibly her life). I was overwhelmed with the fact that God has indeed placed me exactly where He wants me to be, that His appointment for me at my school was truly His Will. Talk about being humbled. I grew teary when I considered His Grace in this situation. Please be in prayer for this student. God truly intervened on her part to spare her life. We need to intercede for her.

The second divine appointment took on a very different form. A friend of our family, only 35 years old, passed away unexpectedly after suffering complications from medication he had been taking for several years. His wife, 27 years old, is now left with a grief beyond imagination after sharing just four years of marriage with her husband. God's appointments are not suppressed by our earthly construct of justice and equity. His Ways shatter our notions of what should and should not happen.

He spares one and calls another home. He heals some and allows others to walk through horrendous suffering and loss. He loves all of us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) and yet He maintains His right to order our lives.

He is GOD. And we are not.

When The Going Gets Tough, Where Do The Tough Go?

Over the recent weeks, I have come to a personal revelation. For many years, I have looked at missionaries who have visited our church or have written me and have sighed deeply with regret or remorse as I considered my lack of mission experience. I watch the heart-tugging videos that are played at my church during the offering which compel us to "go into all the world...." I see the missions displays in the church lobby with the intriguing color photographs of sites around the globe that beckon believers to boldly go. I read the announcement in our bulletin about the upcoming meetings for those called to participate in the multitude of mission trips currently being planned by our church. I read articles online about the draining but inspiring real-life experiences that are endured by many faithful missionaries who are on the frontlines around the world, working to spread God's love to a hurting and decaying world. "Ah", I think to myself. "The crowns those brave warriors must surely be accumulating for the Kingdom of God...."

And then I go to work. I teach at a gang-ridden, violent and grafitti-worn high school bursting at the seams with an inner-city student population, many of whom only attend school so that they can participate in the rampant drug trade that funds their lives of crime, profanity, rampant promiscuity, and hyper-violence. My school has even earned the reputation as being a mecca for high school lesbians, some of whom have now brazenly formed their own gang, replete with bright orange shirts declaring their lifestyle and defiantly daring anyone to challenge their "rights" to public same-sex demonstrations of "affection". Students are arrested weekly for gang fights, which often stir sudents up to a level close to a riot. The use of the "f-bomb"among my students is such a regular occurence that my ears are no longer shocked at its casual and continual utterance. In case you think I exaggerate about the state of my school, just ask my daughter Rachel, who used to teach at the same school I do. She will sadly but quickly confirm all of this. And God, in His wisdom, has sovereignly placed me right in the middle of all of this. In all honesty, I have tried to undo His placement a few times with job opportunities at more affluent safer schools, but I realized with humility and sobriety that God has actually called me to serve Him and advance His Kingdom at this school. So I walked away from my attempt to undo His Will.

And so I get into my beat-up, tiny little thirteen-year old car (I don't dare drive anything nicer to school, as I risk vandalism) with no sound system and a film of mold on my dash board that won't go away and drive to my school. Maybe there will be a broken heart that needs a listening ear. Maybe there will be a student who desperately needs me to affirm their need to belong. Maybe there will be a student whose mother threw her out (again) and who is sleeping on her aunt's sofa. Maybe there will be a student who needs a place to go during lunch because the rejection and taunting that awaits them in the cafeteria is just too much to bear that day. Or maybe there will be another fight, another string of f-bombs, another student violently resisting any attempts of mine to get them to behave in a reasonable and civilized way in class. Whatever my Heavenly Father allows to come to me, I will get in my little car and go back to my school. Because I just HAVE to.

So some go to Nepal (Rachel), some to Equador (Christy), and others to other corners of the earth to proclaim God's love. I go to my school, only twelve minutes away. May God see fit to use me to show broken students that He is Who He said He is. May they see Christ in me, the hope of glory.

When I Am Gone

Our pastor gave a sermon last week on how to die as a Christian. Accompanying the sermon was a nicely laid out funeral guide in which a person could express exactly what he or she would like to have said and done during his/her funeral service. This got me to thinking. As unpleasant as a topic as death is, it is one of the great realities in this life. So how do I want others to think of me when I am gone? What do I hope is the measure of my life? I hope...that others will look past the many significant failures of my life to the great grace of God that I have received....that others can point to how God redeemed my failures and repackaged them for His Glory...that others will smile when they remember me....that more than one person can tell others how God actually used me to point them to the Cross....that my family and close friends look back and remember just how much I truly loved them.
It is up to me today, and from now on, to live in such a way that it will be very easy for others to recall all of the things that matter so much to me for them to recall.

It's A Small World After All!

This week, we have had the privilege of getting to know a member of the Liberated Wailing Wall Team, which is a ministry of the organization, Jews for Jesus, a Messianic outreach to spread the Gospel to Jewish people. We had volunteered to host a member of this team, which was coming to our church on Sunday evening. Little did we know that we were going to run intoa person on the team named Michael Chadwick who had actually gone to school with our daughters up in Lima, New York, several years ago. His older brother, Dan Ross, had performed in our first production at Lima Christian School called CATACOMBS. We were flabbergasted at this coincidence. We were fortunate enough to arrange for Michael to come and stay with us, which gave us a great chance to catch up with old times and to get an in-depth understanding of Jews for Jesus. We were so blessed to learn more about this fine organization! I invite you to check out their website at www.jewsforjesus.org to learn more about this crucial ministry.

Sacred Influence

I, like so many Americans, have been bombarded with the onslaught and rush of the primary campaigns, debates, pundits, media biases, etc. that accompany every Presidential election year. Being the "good citizen" that I thought I was, I jumped into the race myself, carefully reading candidates' websites, sifting through several online articles, and weeding through the media coverage of the candidates vying for the White House. I began to form opinions about who would be "fortunate" enough to receive my vote. I even courageously engaged in a lengthy discussion with my daughter and son-in-law about this topic while we returned from going to a family event yesterday. I was very impressed and grateful that the four of us (Christy, Kenney, Janice, and I) could engage in honest dialogue about politics, which is often a recipe for familial disaster. Even though the four of us have varying outlooks politically, one point that my wife made was that this election was one in which we have to make a absolute stand at the polls in terms of our faith in Christ. Especially with the Presidency. As I pondered that today, I thought of a book written by Gary Thomas called SACRED INFLUENCE in which the author discusses the impact a godly wife can have on her husband. It hit me that each Christian can have an equally sacred influence on this generation and generations to come at the poll by voting for a candidate who will pursue righteousness for our nation. No, I am NOT a Huckabee Committee Chair or even a volunteer, nor am I even convinced that he is worthy of my vote. What I AM convinced of is the fact that we as believers in Jesus Christ MUST seek God as to who He would have us support. Our faith MUST have a sacred influence on our lives in every aspect, including politics. If not, what good is our faith?