thoughts along the way home

INCENSE

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:41:27 -0400

I heard this preacher on TV the other day…and he was basically telling me that I could have all kinds of wealth, and perfect health if I’d just pray a certain prayer with him. And he had this really expensive watch, and suit to prove it. God to him was like a holy ATM – just put in the prayer card, and get out what you wanted. That’s what we think of prayer a lot of times, isn’t it? But for me that just hasn’t been reality. Yeah, sure, I’ve received some of the things I’ve prayed for – but a lot of times it’s more like playing a slot machine than using an ATM. Put in the prayer card, and hope against hope to hit a good payout. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. One of the questions people ask me the most is – “what’s the deal with prayer? Why didn’t God answer my prayer? I asked him to heal my sick father, and he died. I told him if he blessed me financially I’d give 10% of it away.”

But what if there was something more to this prayer thing than being just a ‘holy ATM’? I mean what if there’s something so much more to this thing than just being a way to talk God into giving me what I want?

I have a friend, whose young teenage daughter just moved hundreds of miles away from him. And the one thing he’d love for her to do is just call up and talk, like a daughter to her daddy. I mean that would be his delight – to have an emotionally connected and deep conversation… But when she calls, all she wants is to ask him for money. And it breaks his heart, because he has so much more to share with her; he wants so much more from that relationship.

What if in my relationship with God I’m missing out on something deeper, more meaningful, more soul connecting? What if prayer were actually nothing like what we’ve come to make it – what if it were more like what I see described in scripture?

Scripture talks about prayer being like incense. In the book of Deuteronomy, God is just beginning to reveal himself to the people, and he wants to teach them something about himself, and so he develops this grand metaphor. He tells Moses to build a tabernacle – basically a big tent. And he tells Moses to follow His instructions perfectly, and build the temple exactly the way He describes because this tabernacle was the physical representation of a spiritual reality.

So this tabernacle is rich with metaphors representing all kinds of spiritual truths. But most importantly, in the middle of this tent are two small rooms, divided off by beautiful, thick, amazingly well crafted curtains. The first room is the bigger of the two and they call it the ‘Holy Place’. You had to be one of the priests to go inside this Holy Place where they have certain symbolic duties to perform. The second room is just a little room, about 15’ by 15’ and they called it the ‘Holy of Holies’ or the Most Holy Place and in that little room is where God said He would make His presence physically manifest. And right at the entrance to that room is an altar for burning incense, and one of the duties of the priest was to make sure the incense was continually burning. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week this special incense would burn in that Holy Place, right in front of the presence of God.

Now to teach how holy of a thing it is to stand in the presence of God, He says there’s only one guy – the High Priest – who can go into this Most Holy Place, and he can go only one time per year, and only after he’s done all kinds of rituals and sacrifice to make himself spiritually clean. So when that one day comes…when the priest is going to go into the Most Holy Place and stand in the presence of God, the first thing he does is stop at that Altar of Incense, take some coals and put them in a censer, and then light some fresh incense in the censer. Then he carries that incense into the Most Holy Place, and he burns it before the presence of God. And the smell of that incense was so beautiful it was pleasing to God. So right there, at the center of everything that happened in this place of worship…in the Most Holy Place, before the presence of God, the incense is burned. See everything in that tabernacle was designed to get to this inner place, this place where the incense could be burned before God, where this sweet aroma could be sent up before God’s presence.

Now that whole ritual might have seemed very strange…but God was teaching them, teaching us, an amazing spiritual truth through this ancient ritual. And the truth is simply this: God loves it, God takes great pleasure in us, when we pray. See when Jesus was crucified we’re told that the curtain that blocked the way to that Most Holy Place was torn down, and we are all invited into that Most Holy Place…to go to that intimate place with God through prayer. Our prayers are just like that sweet, sweet incense going up before him. The book of Revelation describes a scene in heaven which is a lot like what used to happen in the tabernacle. God is on His throne, and there are beings standing there holding these censers that burn incense. And this sweet smelling incense is going up before God on His throne. But the person who’s describing the scene says this incense is the prayer of all of God’s people back down on earth, and it’s rising up to God like a sweet fragrance. And God is breathing deep – breathing in this beautiful, sweet, sweet aroma.

“This” God says, “is what’s at the center of my heart. This is what pleases me: A deep relational connectedness with my people. This is why I created you, this is why I died for you: so you would come in prayer and connect with me.” And in the end, isn’t that what we long for in prayer too?

So on your journey toward God, today, may you step into the richness, and the deepness, and the mystery of God himself, and may you set your prayers continually before Him like incense burning in the tabernacle.

Brokenness

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:40:52 -0400

The other day I was on the couch flipping the channels and I came across this show, an antique show. You know, the one where people bring in all of their old junk, hoping it’s secretly worth all kinds of money, and then the appraiser looks it over, and tells them the price they can expect to get. And this one guy brings in these two really cool looking glass bottles, like vases, and he has no clue where they came from, but he wants to know if they’re worth anything. So the appraiser points out a few key things he notices, and it turns out these are like glass vases from China that were made in the 1700s!. So the guy is thinking he’s really going to bank on these things. But then the appraiser notices a few other things. The bottom of one of these vases, which isn’t even really visible anyway, has a few chips, and is kind of rough and worn – you’d expect that after 300 hundred of years wouldn’t you? And on the other one there’s a chip out of the lip on the top. To me it hardly seemed like much, but this expert is telling this guy that this greatly reduces the value of these beautiful, old vases. A few little chips, a few little imperfections destroys the value of those old vases. I guess no one would want to put their flowers in these less than perfect vases.

Kind of like life in a way, isn’t it? I mean, nobody wants anyone else to see their broken places; their flaws, or their imperfections. I mean I hate to even look inside, at my own, let alone let other people see them. Maybe it’s just part of life in our image driven culture, – you know, “Never let them see you sweat.” I want everyone to see me as that perfect container, the beautiful vase that’s just all put together, ‘cause if there’s a chip or a flaw, then what does that say about my value? I’d much rather just cover up those ugly places; put some kind of decoration over top of the cracks. And we get pretty good at that don’t we – we get pretty good at decorating our jars, managing the image we put out there for everyone to see. It’s like there’s just something deep down in us as humans that makes us want to be seen as acceptable, valuable enough to be embraced.

But have you ever had one of those times, though, when it’s like you can’t fake it, or cover up your brokenness anymore? Despite everything you’ve done to build your beautiful vase, you take a hard look inside and there’s this painful realization…that the vase is just cracked – it’s broken. And some of these cracks are deep, and this brokenness is really painful; it’s kind of like every thing is collapsing around you, and like nothing’s ever going to be put together right again.

There’s a really profound scripture in the Bible that says God makes his light shine in our hearts and that this light is like a great treasure. “But…”, “but…” it says, He pours this treasure into clay jars. God puts his treasure into clay jars. Now think about this – God’s treasure is beyond anything we can imagine. Another scripture says that it takes every single atom of this incredibly huge universe to tell the story of how beautiful this treasure is. In fact, it says, God’s treasure is more beautiful than we can even dream up. Now I like to think I have a pretty big imagination. And I can imagine some incredibly beautiful treasure. But God’s treasure goes way beyond whatever I can imagine. And so like if you’re God, and you had all of this amazingly beautiful, amazingly valuable treasure wouldn’t you want to put it in the best possible container you could find? I mean when they wanted to display the hope diamond – one of the biggest blue diamonds in existence – at the Smithsonian a company built this huge, beautiful display area and case. It’s the state of the art in security, but it’s beautiful too – it fits the kind of treasure that it holds. So if you’re God and you have this outlandish treasure don’t you want a vessel that’s equally beautiful to hold it? That’s the way we think about God sometimes isn’t it? That you have to be really good, perfect, and all put together in order to be acceptable, and loved by him. One woman said to me the other day, “I’m not good enough to go to church.” But that’s not the way it is. Scripture says it’s like if God were at that antique show that day he’d pass by all of those perfect, mint condition jars to find the one that was chipped, and worn, and rather ugly. And then God puts his most precious treasure into it. It says God puts his treasure into people who are like simple clay jars.

In that day clay jars were like the cheap, everyday tableware – you know like how most homes have the fine, expensive, beautiful china that gets used maybe twice a year, and then the common everyday stuff – it’s not specially beautiful, or expensive, or fancy. That’s what the clay jars were back in the day. That – simple, non-fancy, chipped, cracked clay jars – is where God puts His treasure! God, what are you thinking? That doesn’t make sense does it? Not the way we do things in this world. Why would God do something like that?

Maybe…it’s because He wants us to actually see his treasure. So every time a piece chips off from that clay pot, or when a crack splits down the side of the pot…that’s when we’re able to catch a glimpse inside the jar – that it’s no ordinary clay jar anymore; there’s a valuable treasure inside of it. Do you have some brokenness in your life? Something that you just can’t stand to look at? I do, we all do, and it is hard, it’s painful to look on the ugliness of our clay jar sometimes, isn’t it? And sometimes we cry out “God why does it have to be this way?” But maybe it’s all this ugliness in our lives that invites us to look beyond the jar, beyond ourselves, to receive the treasure, and see the beauty of God. Maybe it’s in our brokenness that we get to see God most clearly.

You know, the best thing about that scripture, though, is that the brokenness isn’t the end of the story. It goes on to say that once we catch a glimpse of this light…this treasure of God…the clay jar of our souls is transformed – it’s changed. It says that the treasure inside – the light – takes that weak, easily crushed clay pot, and gives it an amazing strength so that even though it’s being chipped and cracked from pressure on every side…it will never be completely crushed and destroyed. And then we’ll know for sure the only way it could be surviving is because of that beautiful treasure of God inside.

So do you want to see God? Do you want to see his beauty? God’s beauty is seen most clearly through the ugly brokenness of our lives. So may you invite God to fill your clay jar with His treasure.

GOD AND FASHION

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 16:38:43 -0400

The room is black, the air tense, as techno music begins it’s assault on the senses with a pounding felt deep inside. If only it could pound out the nerves. Preparations finished, the moment to shine arrives. Precisely on cue the lights strobe, the music blares, and the stunning model steps on to the runway, assailed by a hail of illuminated bursts of xenon gas from hundreds of camera flashes.

Peering anxiously from behind the curtain the designer plays cool. Will his work be praised by the critics, or will it be torn to shreds? Has her vision captured the fancy of wealthy clothing buyers, or is it off to the discount rack at Wal-mart?

I don’t really know much about the fashion industry. Oh, I know it generates a ton of money. I know that in some way even that “high fashion” stuff eventually affects me as the trends work their way down the channel to the rack at my local Gap, and Old Navy stores, where I pick them up for still too much money.

And I do know this. Clothing design is the one human profession that God himself took a stab at doing. No, I’m not talking about Mr. Armani. I’m talking about God. Yes, that God…the one in the Bible. Genesis 3:21 “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” It seems earlier Adam & Eve had tried to make clothing for themselves, but couldn’t quite master the art. Can you picture that scene? Adam comes out from behind the trees:

Eve looks Adam up and down, from behind the tree where she’s still working on her outfit. She shakes her head and mutters under her breath. “Oh. Um…were you planning on wearing THAT?”

Adam, defensively: “What’s wrong with this?”

Eve: “Well, nothing. It’s just that…well, you know…kinda got some holes in it. And that top leaf doesn’t match the bottom leaf. I mean it’s just plain ugly!”

Adam: “But…I mean…it’s really comfy.”

Eve, stepping out from behind the bushes finally: “So…?”

Adam: “So…what?”

Eve: “Well, do you notice anything different?”

Adam: “Ummm…I’m not a mind reader here.”

Eve: “The leaves! What do you think of the leaves I’m wearing!”

Adam: “Well, if you ask me it’s not as good as what you were wearing before!”

Eve: “But I wasn’t…Hey!” (belts Adam.)

Eve: “So…does this outfit make me look fat?”

God: “Don’t answer that Adam.”

Eve didn’t like Adam’s new suit, and even God wasn’t about to tell Eve the leaves made her look fat…so He went into the business. God - fashion designer extraordinare. “Garments by God.” It’s got marketing appeal, maybe. Ever wonder what God’s fashion style was? What did garments made by God look like? And how durable were they? Did they hold up well after 1,000 washes? (Well, 1000 washes for Eve…Adam turned them inside out and got twice as many wears out of them.)

I was reading Isaiah today, and it seems Adam & Eve weren’t the only people to wear Garments by God. 61:10 “I delight greatly in the lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness…”

I guess we won’t ever know God’s fashion style, but it’s great to know his design is perfect for me. Garments by God do everything for me that I can’t do for me. I can relate to that feeling Adam & Eve must have felt just moments after that first sin changed their lives, and the world, forever. Desperate. Alone. Alienated. Screaming from the pain of brokeness they couldn’t fix. No matter how hard they tried, no matter how great their fashion sense, they couldn’t cover that feeling. They couldn’t fix the mess, or ease the pain that comes from being cut off from the one true Life Giving Source.

And I can relate to the fear Adam must have felt when he heard the rustling in the Garden, and then the voice: “Adam, where are you?” He knows. He knows everything. He knows the things that shame me most. He knows completely my guilt. What’s he going to do to me now?

But instead of Adam the sinner being destroyed by the holy God, God turns fashion designer. “I see your shame. I see your guilt. I see your nakedness, Adam. Come here. Let me design a cover that is adequate for you.” Adequate. More than adequate. Could Adam, could Versace, could I, design a cover to not just hide my inadequacy, but to take it away? Could Eve, could we, design something so beautiful, and wonderful, and thrilling to the soul? For he has clothed me with garments of salvation - garments that take my ugly sin and selfishness and hide it from His sight.

Thank you God! Praise you God, for the beauty of your salvation covers me.