Barney Wiget's Blog, page 51
May 14, 2018
The Prodigal Father
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God is not sitting on his hands, waiting for people to discover him. As the ultimate missionary, he passionately pursues people and circulates invitations to friendship in every possible place. He’s patient for those he loves to bow the knee, but he’s not at all passive about it. He’s obsessed with bringing his children back home.
The idea that God sits back and hopes that people will take advantage of his invitation to friendship is unworthy of him. He’s as relentless in his quest for people to enjoy his redemption as he was eager to send his redeeming Son in the first place. I suggest that it is as difficult to run away from God as it is to run away from gravity. He keeps pulling us back to him.
He’s wrapped in mystery and often “hides in darkness,” yet he is a God whose personality it is to reveal himself to the people. His mercy is wide, his love is stubborn, and his hospitality is prodigal. He’s determined to be known and to be enjoyed.
– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends
May 11, 2018
Speak to the Spark!
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I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen that the Spirit has clearly been at work in someone’s heart ahead of my meager efforts to show up and share with them about Jesus. The grace-clues that the Spirit concocted converged to ready Rahab for rescue remind me of Philip’s arrival at the precise moment the Ethiopian was charoting by, reading one of the Bible’s profoundest prophecies of Jesus’ crucifixion (Isaiah 53). That’s what I call a divine appointment!
God, in his passionate pursuit of people, is way out ahead of us. He’s always first on the scene. He’s on a friendship-making frenzy, instilling seeds of purpose in people’s hearts. There’s nowhere we can go that he hasn’t already been, preparing people’s hearts to take hold of his love. Over the years I’ve been taken by surprise by thousands of divine appointments with Rahab-like “closet pre-Christians” who secretly harbor a hope of Someone watching and caring.
Speak to the spark inside them, with which they were born. It’s the precursor to the flame that Jesus wants to ignite inside them. That spark consists of the same thing that is ablaze inside you. You’re acquainted with it, so speak to it, blow on it, and see what happens!
– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends
May 9, 2018
Critical Thinking For Christians
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“When I was a child I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man I put childish ways behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11
I mentioned to a close friend that I was writing about “Critical Thinking For Christians.” Partially in rhetorical jest he asked, “Isn’t that oxymoronic––Christians and critical thinking?” We’ve exchanged barbs like this before. I’ll get him next time around.
Unfortunately there is some truth to what he said. Viewed as a whole, we Christians are not often known as the most objective critical thinkers on the planet. I think we should think more about thinking.
It’s not that we Christians are stupid, but sometimes we just don’t use our full intellectual faculties. Critical thinkers do not have to be beneficiaries of higher learning or be fortunate enough to have been born with a high IQ. We just have to use what brain cells we’ve been given for the glory of God and the good of people.
In this writing I’m not so much talking about the kind of thinking necessary to defend our faith to the skeptic, but the kind that helps us develop a biblical worldview that informs our sociopolitical opinions. Though we’ll never all come to the exact same conclusions, at least we’ll come from the same general premise.
A couple of decades ago historian Mark Noll began his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by saying “The scandal … is that there is not much of an evangelical mind. . . American evangelicals are not exemplary in their thinking.” It’s a shame, really, when you think that God gave us a brain to steward for his glory:
Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. 1 Corinthians 14:20
Be made new in the attitude of your minds. Ephesians 4:23
To Socrates’ adage that “The unexamined life is not worth living,” I would add that combined, a lot of unexamined lives produce a world hardly worth living in! Socrates attempted to foster the “examined life” through asking his students (he called them “disciples”) probative questions. He didn’t just teach them what to think but how to think so they could think for themselves and not be dependent on their teacher or anyone else.
I fear much of our Christian community has largely lost the art of thinking for themselves and are, in many ways, lazy thinkers. Maybe it’s because they know they were made for another world so they don’t invest enough effort into this one. Or maybe they’re afraid to think too deeply about the world they live in lest they lose their faith, as though God and his Word aren’t capable of standing up to honest examination.
Anyway I want, in the next few posts, to encourage us all to better thinking, a critical form of thinking. It’s not that I expect everyone to think the same way I do––though I’m pretty sure the world would be a better place if they did! (Ha ha!) I just want us to think better than we do.
Until next time let’s think about thinking better.
“This calls for a mind with wisdom.” Revelation 17:9
May 7, 2018
Tell Your God-Sighting Stories
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If you’ve seen God in something, tell the story! Your God-sighting stories have an impact on others. Tell the stories of whatever Red Seas he’s parted for you. Those you tell may or may not rush directly into Jesus’ arms. It might take some time for them to get around to it. But in the meantime they might pass the story on to someone whose spirit is ready, which is what happened to Rahab. You just never know the circuitous path your story will travel. But it won’t travel anywhere if you don’t tell it.
Originally published in: Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends
May 4, 2018
Made To Be “Feelers”
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I don’t think that God is as offended as we might think by our honest-hearted rantings, the ones plump with pain. Emotions are part of the human condition. They’re neither good nor bad, they just are. Granted, some emotions are more pleasant than others. Give me glad over mad or sad any day. He’s the One who installed in us the “feelings chip” when he made us in his likeness. He’s a God who feels and he made us to be feelers.
What matters is not how I feel, but what I do with how I feel—how it affects my journey and how I affect those with whom I journey. Whether I am angry, sad, terrified or worried, I was endowed with these capacities at birth. They’re reactions to human circumstances, and if I’m human I’ll experience them. But how will I deal with these feelings? How will I keep them from bullying me?
When fears begin to bury me, I look up and pray: “Come quickly, Lord, and answer me, for my depression deepens. Don’t turn away from me, or I will die” (Psalm 143:7).
– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway
May 2, 2018
In His Eyes
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I was stressing out on some stuff the other day. I sat on a park bench to pray and a picture came to mind of what was happening. I claim that Jesus is my “Center,” but rather than looking at him, I was looking past him at the things about which I was tensed.
I guess you could say that I was turning my back on him––my supposed Center––and trying to deal with my difficulties that lurked around my perimeter. Every circle has a center and a circumference. You can probably guess where God and our difficulties belong in this figure. I was bypassing the Center on my way to the circumference.
Being the spiritual giant I am, once I’ve sufficiently run my stressers through all the files in my own mind, I nearly always go back to God for him to sign off on my solutions and help me implement them going forward. That’s not exactly treating him as the Center.
Weird, don’t you think, that we so easily look past him to deal with worries, decisions, doubts, relationship problems, health issues, temptations, personal problems, world problems? I guess we think we’re spiritual because we eventually do return to the Center and ask for help.
It’s a “utilitarian faith” that uses the Lord more than trusts him with our lives. We look to him when we’re in need rather than keeping our eyes fixed on him at all times whether in need or not.
If he’s actually “the Center”––try to visual this––then he must be situated somewhere in between us and the things that cause us to worry or fear. Problem is, instead of looking in his direction we either look past him or worse, turn our backs on him in order to deal with them in our own way in our own strength.
“Perfect peace” is promised to those whose minds are “stayed on” him, that is they stay on him instead of wandering off to find solutions of their own.
I propose that, more than just looking in his general direction, we look right at him, that is, look at him in the face, and better yet, directly in his eyes. Could this is what it means to “seek his face,” where, rather than focus our attention on the challenges that surround us, we turn our gaze toward him and see what’s on his face?
“Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” Psalm 105:4
Isn’t this the way we must make our decisions, quell our worries, repent of our sins, and love our enemies––by peering into the face of Jesus? It wasn’t until he exchanged looks with Jesus, that Peter was convicted of his betrayal.
You can tell a lot about what a person thinks and their disposition toward you when you look in their eyes. Sometimes words don’t even need to be exchanged. You can see it in their eyes. You know. “Be still and know…”
His pleasure or displeasure, his comfort or conviction––we can see in his eyes. In his gaze we can find everything we need to do or think or say, or cease our doing, thinking, and saying . After all we are the “apple of his eye.”
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
You can read more of my own vacillating trust in “The Center” in The Other End of the Dark.
April 30, 2018
“Jobian”
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If I had my way, everything would fit a predictable pattern and be nailed down with precise definitions. Yet we can’t fit God into our patterns or definitions, and so it takes spiritual maturity to live with the ambiguity and the chaos, the absurdity and the untidiness.
Accepting the ambiguity of God’s ways is a huge part of living by faith—especially when pain and suffering are part of the mix. As Oswald Chambers writes: “On the human side the only thing to do for a man who is up against these deeper problems is to remain kindly agnostic.” (That is, admit you don’t know). I also agree with Anne Lamott’s assessment of a neatly packaged Christianity when she says, “Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horses**t.”
Job gets an encounter with God instead of an explanation. For my money, I’ll take one encounter over a thousand explanations. I may not wind up with tidy answers to all my queries, but I’ll encounter God. Faith doesn’t mean that I have God all figured out, but that I’m learning to live with him without having him figured out. I can desire answers and even ask for them, but I no longer assume that I deserve them—nor will I presume to demand them.
– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway
April 27, 2018
Jesus Prioritized Rahabs
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Twisted and confused by their inherent bent toward rebellion, humans are at the same time stamped by God as divine image bearers, his one-off work of art. To focus on one or the other exclusively either demonizes or deifies them. They’re neither demons nor divine, but lost sons and daughters––seldom as bad as they could be, but never enough good to not need a Savior.
Jesus prioritized the Rahabs of his day, the most defective individuals in Israel: the five-time divorcée from Samaria, the Canaanite widow, blind Bartimaeus, Zacchaeus the extortionist, the thankful leper, and the demonized Gadarene to name a few. He gravitated to people who needed him most, ones whose hearts were primed for his intervention. Rahab, a woman of the night and believer in Canaanite idols, was just such a person.
How fortuitous that the two scouts who are reconnoitering the impermeable city of Jericho would come to her house––her house of ill repute. Of all people, God reaches out to her, and she reaches back.
– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends
April 25, 2018
Acquiring A Quiet Soul (Part 3 of 3)
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My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore. Psalm 131
HOW COUNTERINTUITIVE that the best pilgrims are those most childlike! But the kingdom we serve is an upside down one, that is from the vantage point of an incorrigibly upside down world.
In Part 1 we talked about the importance of humility and staying out of God’s chair. He’s the only One big enough to fill his throne. Remember that and you’re half way to a Quiet Soul. Then in Part 2 we introduced the similarity between the calm soul and the weaned child who simply chooses his mother for herself and not for what she provides for him. The childlike pilgrim is satisfied with simply being near his/her God. He doesn’t clamor for food on demand. Whether or not she gets her way in her time she is content to commune with her God.
“Contentment,” someone said, “is understanding that if I’m not satisfied with what I have, I will never be satisfied with what I want.”
Please note that the faithful pilgrim has a part to play in the weaning process: “I have stilled and quieted my soul.” When it begins to whimper, we have to shush our soul.
It’s called self-talk. David does it throughout the Psalms:
“Bless the Lord, Oh my soul… Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God… Awake, my soul… Yes, my soul, find rest in God… Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits… Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you…”
In this prayer poem he says in effect:
“Soul, no matter what you’re feeling at the moment, God still loves me… He hasn’t abandoned me… Like a good mother with her young child, he may be letting go in a way in order to help me mature in some ways. So just calm yourself…”
Notice also that a weaned child is very much still “with its mother.” She hasn’t discarded her baby. In fact, he may be right in her arms, happy as can be.
Similarly, if he’s weaning us from a previous method of dispensing nourishment God is just trying to help us grow up. For his own reasons, he remains just as nearby, but in a different way than we’re accustomed to. Mature childlike pilgrims (oxymoronic as it sounds) aren’t addicted to God’s former ways. They’re always willing––to change the metaphor––to drink new wine from new wineskins.
Like the weaned child who wants his mother, not as his own personal milk machine, but for her, the mature and quiet soul sidles up to the heart of the Father just to be near him.
“I’ve cultivated a quiet heart. Like a baby content in its mother’s arms, my soul is a baby content.” (The Message Bible)
The apostle, called “Beloved,” rested on the chest of Jesus not so he would get first dibs on the food. He simply liked being close.
When did you last rest your head on Jesus’ chest not because you wanted something, but just because? Can he hold you, without you wondering what he is up to––what gift he wants to impart? How we’ve forgotten, or never knew to begin with, that he’s the gift. He is our portion.
In conclusion, is your soul inside you noisy and demanding? Admit to him and to yourself that there are many matters too great and things too wonderful for you to concern yourself with. Quiet your whiny soul and put it to rest in the Father’s strong arms.
The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway tells my own journey toward a calmer, quieter soul. If you know “someone” with a noisy soul, consider getting it for them. The profits from the book go to Freedom House.
April 23, 2018
“Plain Old Witnesses”
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Not everyone is specially gifted for the good news-bearing task. We call those people “evangelists.” I love evangelists. I’m not one, but I love being around them. I’ve known a number of evangelists over the years, those with a God-installed aptitude for attracting people to Jesus. You can’t go anywhere with these flaming friendship-makers without having to peel them away from conversations with everyone they encounter along the way.
The rest of us are gifted in areas other than evangelism, yet we use those gifts to evangelize in other ways. Most of us are just plain old witnesses for Christ.
In some people’s minds evangelism is designed exclusively for extroverts––salespersons-of-the month-types. Which pretty much counts us ordinary people out. But you don’t have to be brave to share your faith. For every one time I share my faith I wimp out at least ten times. I agree with Jim Henderson, “Boldness is overrated.” Even if you identify more with Woody Allen than Jason Bourne and suffer from acute “Evangelism Stress Disorder,” welcome to the land of the ordinary witnesses.
If offering Jesus to people takes great boldness and super faith then just write a check for the next evangelistic event our church is putting on for Christmas and call it a day. No doubt, the cantata will be great and a good thing to invite our friends to, but writing a check and playing Mary (or Joseph as the case may be) is the very least we can do to help them find Jesus.
– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends
