Michael Kelley's Blog, page 240

Facebook – A Branch of the CIA

Glad for hard-hitting reporting like this. We must be unafraid to tell the truth.

(HT:Z)

Thank You, Endorsers (Part 3)

This is the third week I've had the privilege of posting a thank you to some of the endorsers for Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God.

First of all, there is Dr. Thom Rainer. Dr. Rainer is the President of Lifeway, and continues to have a profound influence in the evangelical world. He is a man who can step into a variety of environments – academics, statisticians, pastors, and Sunday school teachers – and do so with great humility and yet be an encouraging voice all around. I'm thankful for his leadership of the company I work for, and am grateful for these words he wrote about the book:

Michael Kelley is a gifted communicator and offers the church in this generation much promise. I am pleased not only to recommend this book, but also to commend this faithful servant of the Lord. These pages are filled with the life-changing experience of his son's cancer diagnosis and treatment. The relational and spiritual insights you'll read about are hard-earned and precious. Michael pulls back the curtain on faith and hope during times of difficulty. He does so with honesty and transparency, allowing us to hear his questions and doubts and to feel the weight of the struggle alongside him. But he also gives us the chance to hear profound truths that God taught him in those moments—truths about God's character, purposes, and love.

Over the course of the past year, I've also had the chance to interact with Dr. Jeff Iorg, the President of Golden Gate Theological Seminary. When you think of a seminary president, you might be tempted to picture someone so steeped in higher learning that he or she has lost their ability to relate. But with Dr. Iorg, I found a genuinely funny, compassionate, and radically intelligent man who does not flaunt his intellect in the face of the dumber (that's me). I'm humbled by what he wrote about the book:

What a moving, honest memoir of real people facing the horrific nightmare of a life-threatening childhood disease!  It pulsates with raw emotion, frank questions, and deep spiritual resolve.  My friend Michael Kelley tells his family's story with transparency and authenticity.  No sugar-coated, pseudo-spirituality here!  Just the truth about finding God's grace in the midst of genuine pain.  An inspiring story for all – a life-changing story for those who are facing a similar situation.

Finally today is Dr. Ed Stetzer. Dr. Stetzer has a profoundly important voice in evangelicalism. He has the uncanny ability to take information, which can be dry and dusty, and translate it into not only understandable nuggets, but also speak with a firmness and conviction about the mission of God that continues to spark life in the hearts of all who hear Him. He's also really, really funny. That's probably why he has about a million twitter followers. Grateful for his endorsement:

A heart-breaking, thoughtful, and profoundly encouraging book written from real life experience. For everyone who has ever wondered why bad things happen, Michael's book doesn't answer the question. It does something better – it points all of us who know what it means to hurt to a God who is both passionately loving and still divinely sovereign."

I'm excited next Wednesday to share endorsements from Pete Wilson, Jon Acuff, Mark Batterson, and Margaret Feinberg.

You can pre-order Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God here.

We Are Rich

John Piper recently wrote about Paul's usage of the word ploutos which is translated "riches." Here are some examples:

The riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience. (Romans 2:4)
The riches of God's glory for vessels of mercy. (Romans 9:23)
The riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! (Romans 11:33)
The riches of God's grace. (Ephesians 1:7)
The riches of God's glorious inheritance in the saints. (Ephesians 1:18)
The immeasurable riches of God's grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)
The unsearchable riches of Christ. (Ephesians 3:8)
The riches of God's glory. (Ephesians 3:16)
God's riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)
The riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)
The riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ. (Colossians 2:2)

In light of this list, it makes you realize that the fuel behind Paul's exhortation to contentment (Philippians 4:10-13) wasn't about settling for less. That's typically how we think of contentment though – it's about knowing that you might have more, and yet you train yourself to be satisfied with less.

Not so.

At least, not so in terms of the gospel.

The fuel for contentment isn't settling for less; it's realizing how much you already have in Christ. Paul looked deeply into the grace of God at the cross, and He saw treasure. Value. Insurmountable riches. Such incredible wealth that it made everything else seem like rubbish in comparison.

Contentment, then, isn't fueled by willing yourself to settle for less. It's fueled by remembering, over and over again, the great riches of what we have been given in Christ.

"I'm Smarter Than God."

Ridiculous, right? No one would ever say that… at least not out loud.

But as is true with so many things in life, our true belief system is not measured with our words; it's measured by our actions.

So how do you know if you think you're smarter than God? You measure it by your reaction when things don't go as you think they ought to.

You work on a project at work that fails despite your best efforts. No matter how hard you try your child can't seem to read at the level she should. Stuff starts breaking in your home and there's not enough in the budget to fix them. You are passed over for a promotion that you (and everyone else around you) know should have been yours.

What does your reaction to those moments say? What testimony does your anger and frustration give? What statement does your obsessing and lack of joy make?

That reaction screams out, "This is not how it's supposed to be." And it's in those words, "supposed to", that we find the truth.

At some level, we all think we're smarter than God. That we know the way things are supposed to go.

Oh, to move toward a different reaction. One that is based not on my supposed knowledge and plans, but one that is rooted in the gospel-soaked love of God in Christ. One that recognizes the surprising and intimate work of God in life. One that trusts without seeing. One that is still disappointed, but one that fights disappointment not by comparing myself to others or by rationalizing why things went wrong.

One that recognizes that in Christ, God is not only with me. He's FOR me.

Fridays Are For One Question

I came across a fascinating list of things that the next generation will never experience thanks to the development of technology. It includes:

1. Taking a typing class.

2. Paying bills by writing countless checks.

3. Buying an expensive set of encyclopedias

4. Using a pay phone or racking up a big "long distance" bill

5. Having to pay someone else to develop photographs

6. Driving to the store to rent a movie

7. Buying / storing music, movies, or games on physical media

8. Having to endlessly search to find unique content

9. Sending letters

10. Being without the Internet & instant, ubiquitous connectivity

I remember a couple of years ago, walking through Target, when my 3 year old daughter stopped in front of the vintage toys section. There was a rotary style phone sitting there, and she picked it up, examined it, played with the cord, and then asked, "Is this a phone?" And then giggled with glee like she had just found the blueprints for the first wheel.

For today's question, think about the list above. Think about how things have changed in the last decade.

"What is one thing your children will never do or use thanks to technology?"

The Electric Fence and the Abuse of the Law

When I was 8 years old, I went to visit my grandparents on their farm. My grandfather had at that time not only cows but an old nag of a horse he got specifically for the grandkids to ride. In order to keep the horse from waddling off (since it couldn't really run very well), he put up an electric fence.

He took me and my brothers out to show us the horse, and then after pointing out the mare, turned to give us instructions: "Boys, this is an electric fence. That means it's hot, and if you touch it, it's going to shock you. Don't touch the fence."

I remember the immediate feeling inside me:

How bad will it hurt?

Why can't I go in there with the horse?

That piece of grass inside the fence looks so much more fun than the thousand acres outside the fence.

I'm 8 years old. I bet it might hurt my 5-year-old brother, but not me.

Such is the case with the law. We are given a boundary, and even as children, we immediately begin to think of the benefits of crossing it. We have the ingrained, fallen notion that boundaries are an infringement on our freedom. That somewhere, someone wants to make sure we don't have all that we could, and so we want to rebel. We want to cross the line. We want to grab the fence just because someone told us we shouldn't do so.

Surely there has never been an 8-year-old, when confronted with such a choice, actually thought to himself, "Thank God for my grandfather. If he had not told me about the fence, I would have grabbed it. My grandfather could have let that happen and then laughed his way into the house at my pain. He must love me greatly and deeply, and I know it precisely because he gave me this boundary not to cross."

Boundaries don't reflect lack of love. They reveal the depth of love.

But, like an 8-year-old in on a Texas farm, we still love to see what it feels like to grab the electric fence.

And by the way, it hurts.

Thank You, Endorsers (Part 2)

Last week, I started a series on the blog that will appear each Wednesday in February in which I get to thank the endorsers of my book, Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God. Today's installment features a group of fantastic authors in their own right who have inspired and challenged me.

To begin with is Trevin Wax. I started following Trevin's blog a number of years ago and found myself enriched at almost every post. Now, having gotten to actually know him, I find myself feeling the same way after most every conversation we have. He has a discerning eye and an unwavering commitment to the truth that is so badly needed in the world today. Because of these characteristics, I'm moved at what he wrote about the book:

Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal is about personal faith forged through the fire of suffering, and the all-encompassing grace of a God who won't fit into the boxes we try to construct around him. This is not a sentimental memoir or another theoretical look at suffering. Instead, Michael leads us to the intersection of faith and life, of God's love and our pain, of God's plan and our questions.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan Leeman several months ago and almost immediately resonated with him. Jonathan helps leads 9 Marks, an organization that has a huge influence in the local church. Scarcely can you have a conversation with Jonathan that doesn't eventually come back to the church and his love for her. I love this about him. And I'm thankful that he wrote these words:

You're asked to blurb a book–I assume–to bring something to the book, like credibility. But reading Michael Kelley's book I couldn't help but think I am the one being honored to associate myself with it. It presents the picture of a man both walking with God, like Enoch, and wrestling with God, like Jacob. It takes you down a road where love and tragedy and wisdom and hope all merge. It is a genuinely special book, at once deeply personal and transcendently godward.

And then there's Jared Wilson. Words drip from Jared's pen in a seemingly effortless way. I'm constantly moved when I read anything that's been through his hands, for here is a man who is daily encountering the God of the gospel in a real, personal, emotional way. Through his influence, Jared has moved me, along with many others, to look more deeply into the riches of Jesus. Here's what he wrote about the book:

Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal is not a 'cute kid overcomes the odds' or sentimental story of suffering; it shows us the intersection of Christ's gospel with the realest of the real. With wit, insight, and power, Michael Kelley reveals the promises of God's Word found in the very wounds he allows. Joshua's story won't just move you, it will move you forward in your faith.

I'm excited next Wednesday to share endorsements from Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, and Jeff Iorg.

You can pre-order Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God here.

The Largest Star Ever Discovered…

… is pretty big. Especially when you compare it to other big things, like, oh I don't know… the sun.

 

The Day No One Came to the Father But Through Him

His disciples had seen Him angry before, but not like this. His fiery arguments with the religious leaders and naysayers had always been tenuous, but He always seemed to measure His words. But here, today, He had released Himself.

The day had been an emotional one. It started out on a high note with people singing the praises of Jesus as they laid their robes on the ground for the donkey to trod over. Then, as Jerusalem came into sight, He was overcome with emotion and began to cry. His disciples marveled at this, even more than the show of support, for they had all been to Jerusalem before. This time, though, seemed to be different. It was… heavy. Weighty. But then the mood changed as they went into the city.

It wasn't that they saw something surprising. There, in the temple complex, in the court of the Gentiles, they saw the same thing they expected to see. Because they expected, they were neither shocked nor angry. But Jesus was.

There were sacrificial animals being sold at ridiculous prices. Exchange booths necessary for foreigners to pay the tax in temple shekels (with a healthy markup, of course). But Jesus exploded into rage. He physically picked up the money-changers and threw them out. He turned over the tables and swept away the money falling to the ground. And when the dust cleared, He stood there. Resolutely. His arms crossed.

Jesus took up a place in that outer court, the court that served as a barrier to those who had come to worship. It was symbolic of the restrictive nature of the temple, a place that ensured only ethnic Jews could go further in, and only those willing to deal with the unjust financial burdens of doing so.

No doubt tomorrow, when Jesus was gone, the same tables would be set up. There would be the same exchange booths, the same animals being bought and sold. But for a few minutes, anyone who wanted to pass beyond the outer court into the inner recesses of the temple complex where God was said to dwell, had no choice but to pass by Jesus.

No one came to God except through Him.

Perhaps that image burned into the minds of His followers. The man, so powerful and emotional, equal parts compassionate, joyful, and angry, standing there as guard to the presence of God. Serving as the gateway to the inner court. And maybe they remembered that image as they prayed, years and decades later.

Once again, no one coming to the Father except through Him.

Fridays Are For One Question

I'm typing this from Myrrle Beach, SC while my children are on the balcony squawking at sea gulls. I told them to hold up a piece of bread and see what happens. Perhaps that was a mistake.

Regardless I have heard there are two kinds of people: mountain people and beach people. I think I may be slowly moving toward beach but that's the question for you today:

"Mountains or beach?"