Heart Tracks - The Gap

"I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't have to destroy the land, but I found no one. Ezekiel 32:20

If you're involved on any level of social media, you're likely aware of the debate going on of late concerning the declaration of someone being "in our thoughts and prayers," especially as concerns those who've been victims of gun violence. On the one side are those who claim that saying such is tantamount to doing nothing, and so the statement is worthless. On the other are those who see that such a response nullifies not only the power of prayer, but the power of the Father Himself. I get that, I do, because more than I believe in the power of prayer, I believe in the power of the Father God who answers prayer. But here's the thing; I understand the frustrations of the first group. The culture abounds with those who tweet "thoughts and prayers," or post it on their Facebook page. Yet, the question must be asked; just how deep do our thoughts about it all go? How intense are our prayers?

All this reminds me of a cartoon I saw in the Leadership magazine some years back. There's a head and shoulders picture of a man standing in church, who sees another man, "Bob" approaching. The first man thinks to himself, "Oh, here comes Bob. I promised him last week that I'd be praying with him about that request he shared, but I forgot." He then quickly prays, "Lord, help Bob!" He then calls out, "Hey Bob, been prayin' for you." We could likely laugh if the same were not so true of us, and so often as well. The needs, burdens, and cares of others can so easily slip through our thoughts....and our prayers. It's not hard for this to be so as we are so consumed with our own needs, burdens and cares. Most of our energy goes into telling God, and anyone else who will listen about them. There's little room for anything else. We pray a lot, but I think that we rarely pray effectively. As someone said, we need to ask ourselves just how much will we personally benefit if He were to answer our prayers in the way that we ask? How much self-interst is there? If we're honest, there can be a great deal of it present. Husbands, wives, fathers and mothers pray for unsaved mates and children, but so much of the motive can be that in their coming to Christ, the personal lives of those asking can be made so much easier and better. Pastors and leaders pray for souls to be reached and added unto the church, but a large part of the motivation can be, with that result, the pastor, leaders, and church become more noticed, applauded, and admired. There can be so much "mixture" in our praying. A mixture of the flesh with His Spirit. The result is a weakened prayer life and weakened prayers.

These are not the kinds of lives that He calls us to in Ezekiel 32. We are skilled at asking Him to come alongside us. Here, He calls us to come alongside Him. To stand with Him....in the gap....on behalf of a culture, and yes, a church....unnoticed, unheralded, oftentimes completely unknown to all...except Him. Interceding for a nation, a community, a neighborhood....and His Body. With our thoughts and our prayers anchored in and upon Him. Such thoughts and prayers see miracles, birth awakenings, transform cultures.....and it all begins when one, just one, will come alongside Him....and stand in the gap.

We will all this day, week, and time, think thoughts and pray prayers. Of what kind will they be? The vapid, empty, self-absorbed kind that bring about the contempt of the world...or the type that unleash all the might of heaven? There are gaps everywhere today. He seeks for those who will stand in them...with Him. Will you and I be among them.....or does He need to look elsewhere?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Road Home

Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. Ruth 1:6-7

As I write this, the day after Thanksgiving, I'm thinking about how much "home" will be in the thoughts of so many over the next 30 plus days. Thanksgiving and Christmas bring so many memories to all of us during these seasons. Whether we can make the journey or not, so much of our thinking is centered on what has been, or what we hoped had been "our home." There's great emotional and human value in this, but in our thinking, we most often miss the truth of where and in who our home really is and is found. In His Word, the Father say to His people continually, "I Am your home." Have you and I ever truly found that to be so? Have we ever really taken the "road" that leads to Him?

Naomi and her husband and sons had left Judah during a time of famine, and went to live in Moab, though surely it had been the Father's will that they would never do so. In Moab, her sons married local women, of whom Ruth was one. Over time, Naomi's husband and both of her sons died, leaving she and her daughters-in-law destitute. At that point, Naomi realized that if there was any hope at all, it would be found back home in Judah, the land of His promise. So they took the road that led back home. Though the three began, only Naomi and Ruth continued. If you know the rest of the story, in Judah, living by faith, God eventually restored them not only materially, but Naomi's hope and joy as well. And Ruth became part of the family line that led to the coming of Christ. It all began with taking the road that led back to their home. And in the journey, I believe they found that their home was never really "here" at all. It was in Him.

I think the greatest problem and snare for a believer is to fall into the trap of believing that it is this realm that is our home. It is far too often where we not only invest all our resources, but tragically, most, if not all of our heart. We are so at home here, that we can't believe we could ever be at home anywhere else. The Father gave the Israelites a rich land of promise, but He never intended it to be their real home. That was to be Him. It took 1500 years for them to realize that was so. How long will it take us? How long will our hearts go on being tied to all that goes on in this world, so focused, so obsessed with it that we are blind to the world we were made for. C.S. Lewis said that if we find in our hearts a yearning for something more than this world, than perhaps we should realize we were not made for this world at all.....We were made for His. But we've become so deadened to the reality of His Kingdom world by our total investment in this one, that the yearnings can be, are, faint indeed.

There's one more element to all of this. This world we physically live in is composed of many road choices. All of them wrong but the One, Jesus Christ, that leads to Him. Like Naomi and her family, we easily choose the wrong road, and end up being very far from His heart...our home. The prodigal son that Jesus spoke of ended up there. The people of Israel, through their sin and rebellion ended up there in their captivity. You and I, and on too many occasions, can end up there through the same. Maybe you're there right now. In another land....far from His heart...and from your home. It is never too late to take the road that leads back home. You are never so far from Him that He cannot bring you home to Himself. Whatever the reason is that you have ended up in "Moab," the road that leads back to Him lies before you. Take that road...the road that leads home....and come back to His heart. It will lead you into a life that lasts for more than a season. It is a life filled with His eternity. And it's forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Roadside Distractions

13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13-14..."His is a narrow way that leads to a wide life." Unknown

I'm old enough to remember traveling before the nation's interstate highway system was as advanced as it now is. Most of our family trips were made on highways that led through lots of small towns and places. Most everyone traveled in that way. One of the things we all experienced were what were termed "Roadside attractions." These were usually flamboyant signs or displays that were meant to get the traveler's attention, to get him to pull of the road and see what it offered. Most often, the results were underwhelming, but the owner still reaped some profit as most passerbys would either pay to see the attraction or purchase some small token remembrance of the place. Then it was back on the road to continue the journey. I'm thinking you might be seeing the spiritual parallel here. Except, in the spiritual journey, things that disguise themselves as attractions are at best, distractions, and at worst, deadly ones.

I think most of us fail to allow His Spirit to reveal the depths of the meaning of Matthew 7:13-14. We just take it to mean Jesus is only talking about those who walk the road of His Life into the rewards of that Life, and those who don't, and who then walk to their spiritual destruction. It has that meaning, but it carries so much more than that. First off, we tend to think of the narrow road as one filled with lots of rules and regulations. A life where the Father is always watching for a slip-up, and ready to pounce on us when we do. It's a narrow road that seems easy to fall of. While the wide road offered by the devil and the world does invite one to a far ranging variety of sins, in reality, the life it offers is very narrow. In fact, it isn't life at all. The narrow road is only narrow in the sense that there is room only for Christ...and us...upon it. Yet to enter into it is not to begin a life of tightrope walking, but to embark upon a life that offers an ever widening variety of joy, peace, abundance, healing, and victory. Our focus, a narrow one fixed solely on Him, leads to a Life whose only limit is our humanity here, and one day, even that will be removed. Satan, our enemy knows this, even if we don't, and so he makes sure that he puts up plenty of signs pointing to his "Roadside attractions," which are really distractions, and many of them can and do lead to death and destruction.

These "attractions" entice our flesh in many ways. There are the obvious ones that appeal to our various lustful desires for wealth, power, influence, success, and sexual pleasure. These are obvious, and to visit them will surely bring death and destruction. There are also the everyday distractions like stress, anxiety, and seeking control of our situations, but I think it's the less obvious ones that are the real danger. The distractions that seem good in themselves, but end up drawing our hearts away from Him. Busyness. Working for Him rather than abiding and living in Him. Finding our identity in what we're doing for Him, rather than who we are in Him. Commitment to a ministry, a fellowship, a person, rather than a union with Him. All of these can entice and distract us from Him and our journey with and into His deeper life. And all of them, no matter how "good" they may seem, will bring a certain level of destruction to us when we allow them to distract us from the life highway He seeks for us to travel upon with Him.

So what are your roadside distractions? You may have dealt with the obvious ones, but what of the much less obvious? What is succeeding in getting your eyes off of the real purpose of your journey.....abundant life in Him? Today, what will draw your heart from Him....and all the fullness He has for you on the journey? Or, will you continue to linger there, suffering destruction to some, even all areas of your life?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Against All Hope.....Believe?

"And Abraham, against all hope, in hope, believed." Romans 4:18...."And always be ready to give a reason for your hope." I Peter 3:15....."To live without hope is to cease to live." Fyodor Dostoevsky...." Oh love, that will not let me go." George Matheson

There is something I have come to know after more than 35 years of walking with Him. If you are truly yielded to, bound to Christ, He will lead you to a place, indeed, places, where there is no hope. None. At least none that can be seen or discerned by our natural senses. He will lead us into places that will completely fit the world's definition of "hopeless." In some aspect of our life, including ministry for Him, we will come to this place. In that place we have only one thing to cling to; the promise of His Presence. In that place is nothing tangible to our flesh. We only have His Word that there we will have Him. He doesn't promise us "proof" of that. He simply tells us it will be so....and then He asks that we believe Him. He asks that we believe Him when every fiber of our being hears the screams of the enemy telling us He's a liar. We are in Abraham's place, the place where all visible, tangible means of delivering ourselves is gone. All we are left with is His promise that He is with us, that He will not forsake us....and that He is not finished with us yet.

I always hesitate to share some aspects of my journey with Him. I do so because I don't want to appear to see myself as a great man of faith. I'm not. I've walked in fear and doubt. I've felt like He had abandoned me, and felt the accompanying anger and despair as well. It's just that in those places, I also experienced the very love that Matheson wrote of in his great hymn....His love that would not let me go. And in the experience came Truth about Him that I've tried to share, though likely, not nearly as well as I would want to. Even so, I'll try.

Twenty eight years ago, I found myself in the place of hopelessness. My wife was gone, and what I called "home" along with her. A ministry calling I knew was from Him was gone as well. I could fit all the material possessions I had into a small Japanese import. I didn't know where to go, and I didn't know what would become of me. More, a Church that I had given all of myself to, didn't seem overly anxious to give a lot of itself to me. I'm not saying that with rancor, and I also know that was not fully true, yet it is what seemed to be at the time. In the midst of it all, I knew this; He had promised to never leave me or forsake me, and in the emotional and spiritual quagmire that was my life, I chose to believe that. I also clung to the promise that His gifts and callings were irrevocable. I believed that I was still to be a pastor and minister of His Truth, though few were giving me any hope of that being so. Almost all the voices I heard, including that of my own family, were telling me that I needed to let it go and get on with my life. But I couldn't, because the one voice I never heard telling me the same was His. So, against all hope, in hope, I believed. His love would not let me go.

Space doesn't allow me to begin to share with you all the miraculous works He did for me over the next few years and all those that followed. Doors opened that only He could open. Doors that some had tried to shut, couldn't be because of Him. Step by step, He rebuilt my life....and my calling. And in the process, did deep spiritual surgery on healing the many wounds, even the deepest, that I'd experienced along the way. The scars of those wounds may remain, but they bear the name of Christ upon them. And the healing goes on. It always will...for all of us.

I've shared before how, for a time, I lived upon the very Church campground where I was ordained. Each day I would walk past the Tabernacle where that took place. Each time, I would hear the voice of hell shout in my ear that what took place that day was gone for me...forever. That what happened then was finished. And each time in response, His answering whisper was, "Don't believe the lie. Believe Me." Against all hope, in hope, I believed. In His time and way, He raised me up and established me. Not because of my faithfulness, but because of His.

No, I didn't become one of the much heard voices of the Church. But He placed me where He desired, and by His grace, I have sought to stand my post in and for Him. In the doing, He has given me a greater and more wonderful life than I ever thought possible. Circumstances gave me no hope. Many voices gave me no hope. He gave me hope....because He Himself is Hope. He can be nothing and no One less.....Is He so for you today? Wherever you are.....against all hope, will you, in hope.....believe?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living Solo

"My prayer for all of them is that they may be one, just as You and I are one, Father - that just as You are in Me and I am in You, so they will be in us, and the world will believe You sent Me." John 17:21....."We whisper, 'You are never alone,' to frightened children. We offer 'God is with you,' to grieving souls. We affirm, 'Your Savior is near,' to the lonely. And then proceed to live alone in our heads.......God invites us to a continuous duet, but in practice we live most of our lives as a solo." Alicia Britt Chole...."My goal is God Himself: not joy nor peace nor even blessing, but Himself my God." Oswald Chambers

So many today look to John 17 as a call, a plea, for unity within the Body of Christ. Certainly, there is a deep need for that. We are so at odds with each other over so many, at root, trivial things. Yet we seem blind to the reality that though we want to see us be one with each other in Christ, we don't seem able to live as one with the Lord Himself. Chole says that "we live alone in our heads," and that we "live as a solo." The truth of this is seen in how we deal with the day to day challenges, pressures, obstacles, and impossibilities of life. When we're faced with these things, our response is generally to start searching for an answer, or a way out, or the means to get through, get out, or get over. We exhaust ourselves looking for solutions, answers, and deliverance, and we miss Him in most all of it. We may have a vague sense of His Presence, but He is not a living reality for us in these places. Watchman Nee used the spiritual illustration of a boat floating upon a river suddenly encountering the obstacle of large rock blocking its way. The human response is to find a way to get past the "rock." Nee said that the way of the Lord is to seek for the water the boat travels upon to rise above the height of the rock. The Father is not nearly as concerned with solving our problems as He is in raising the level of our Life in His Spirit. When we live solo, the burden is upon us, and it crushes us. When we live in what Chole calls a "duet" with Him, where "God Himself" is our end, as Chambers says, we live in the power of a life that Scripture says, "cannot be destroyed." This is the inheritance of those that are His. This is the inheritance that is for you and me. Have we entered into it.....or are we to go on "living alone in our heads.....living solo?"

Jesus said that when we live as one with the Father, Son, and the Spirit, we will give proof of the life and ministry of the Son sent by the Father. The fruit of His life is seen in and through ours. Scripture says that "In Him we live, move, and have our being." We're one with Him. Chris Tiegreen said that we are to live lives that are rooted in eternity, and that in doing so, we're "signposts pointing to eternity." We are not floundering about, trying to survive the constant batterings against all the "rocks" that stand in our way. We rise above them in His Life. They're still there, and they need to be faced, but faced in union with Him...who gives songs in the night....and victory as well.

If you are His today, then you are His while living in a completely fallen and hostile world. Will you seek to navigate through this world in your own, or even another person's strength, understanding and ability, or upon His? Will you live alone in your head, and so at the mercy of the endless darts of satan? Or will you live in Him, with the ongoing renewing of your mind, having more and more of the mind of Christ, as you live more and more in Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - A Living Sacrifice

"And so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a holy and living sacrifice - the kind He will accept." Romans 12:1

Roman 12:1 is a much quoted, memorized, preached and taught upon Scripture. Yet what does it really mean for you and me? How fully do we live it out? Indeed, how willing are we to live it out? In a culture that offers an endless multitude of idols for us to live for, how do we live for Him with all of our hearts?

The idea of a sacrificial offering to Him is very alien to our modern, western mindset. It was not to Paul. That which was offered to Him on His altar was given to Him completely. It was fully His and no longer theirs. This was so no matter how precious the offering was to them. When the offering left their hands, it was placed in His. And that was where it remained. His altar was holy and sacred. That which was placed upon it became so as well. The offering was freely given to Him, and it was received by Him in all fullness. It is still so today.....for those who hear and answer Paul's plea.

So...what does it mean then to live, to walk as a holy sacrifice to Him? Just what does that look like for you and me? One of the best and simplest answers to that is found in something I heard Sheila Walsh say; that it is a matter of "handing all of ourselves in all things, over and over again to Him." Think on all the things that affect our lives....the great and the small. Somehow, it seems easier to us to give Him the thing that crushes us, yet hold back the smaller weights that the enemy convinces us we can handle ourselves. Those we hold onto, and as the weight of them grows all the greater, we reach a place where we can't go on. The load of all the small things turns out to be more destructive that what we thought was the greatest need. Instead of handing them to Him, we grip them with all our strength. Relationships, or the lack of one. Financial need, loneliness, the sins and failures of the past, fear of the future. Whether great or small, He commands us to bring them to Him, He who is the Altar, and hand them to Him, nothing held back, in trust....in surrender.

In my life, I have discovered the great cost of not handing all things over to Him, most especially as concerns my ministry, but in relationships, attitudes, frustrations, and yes, hopes and dreams as well. As someone put it, whatever it is we let live today, will return even stronger against us tomorrow. So many things about my life and ministry were being held in my hands, and not yielded up to His....and they lived on...to my great harm. Only when I came to that place, and still come to that place, where I hand over everything....over and over again, do I find the peace, joy, and strength that He makes mine. That He will also make yours. And in the doing, you, we, discover what it is to be living sacrifice, made holy not by what we do, but by what He has done, and continues to do in us.

What things, great or small, weigh you down today? What is it that you continue to hold on to, that you can't hand over to Him? James Robison said that he once heard the Lord speak to his heart concerning an issue that he couldn't bring himself to surrender to Him. The Father asked him, "If you can't entrust it to Me, who will you entrust it to?" He asks us the same question; if we cannot take and give the thing(s) to Him, who will we give them to? Who will you give them to?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Watering Thorns

"The seed falling among thorns refers to someone who hears the Word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the Word, making it unfruitful." Matthew 13:22...."Watering thorns: Who would do such a thing? Me." Alicia Britt Chole

In her excellent book, The Sacred Slow, Chole tells of the time she and her husband were walking about their Missouri property when she noticed a particular cluster of bushes. "Those are pretty," she told her mate. "Yes, but look at those thorns," was his reply. He warned her that they needed to keep an eye on those bushes, which they later discovered were called Honey Locusts.
Some time later, she called in a professional to look at a tree that was struggling, and he noticed the Honey Locusts around it, and advised her to get rid of them, which she intended to do, but didn't. What she discovered to her deep regret was that these trees grew everywhere and at a remarkable rate. Soon, their property was marked everywhere by clusters of these trees, and their thorns made going anywhere near them a real threat to one's well-being. She said, "It is sobering to know that I contributed to their infestation. I nurtured the thorn trees by omission. When I first saw them, I decided to do nothing. And doing nothing is a choice."

Thorns grow into our lives and hearts in every kind of way and in every kind of type. Besides the very real outward kind that come through temptations, attractions, and misguided focus, there are the even more deadly ones that reside in the mind and in the heart. When we choose to allow them to stay there, to linger and grow, we are in effect, watering them, nurturing them, and increasing their power in and over our lives. We do nothing, and as Chole says, nothing is a choice.

What are the thorns you and I water? What kind of thoughts, attitudes, mind-poisons have we allowed to go on unchecked in our lives that choke out the Life of Christ? What self-destructive thoughts and actions that on the surface may seem minor, but in reality are killing His Life within us, do we water and give growth to? Many of us give attention to the obvious outer thorn varieties, they're a lot easier to identify and deal with. It's the inner thorns, the ones that nobody else sees that lay down deeper roots, and ever sharper points. We continue to minimize them and they continue to grow, until it is impossible to maneuver through our thought life without sustaining cuts and bruises from our thorns. And giving them to those around us too. Their power continues to grow, and "land" that is to be filled with His Life is now controlled by thorns that can only bring death. And they just keep spreading and growing as we continue to water and nurture them.

It seems most of us learn to make peace with our thorns. Like in Chole's yard, they find a home, take root, and are a constant problem, but they live on. And His Life within us is smothered. We speak of living abundantly, but aren't really experiencing it at all. Outer distractions and inner obstructions go on....and grow....and choke out His Life....and our hope of experiencing it in all of its fullness.....Watering thorns. Who would do such a thing? You do. I do.

Blessings,
Pastor O