The Main Point (Do I Have to Be Good?)

Trick question:

You see a cross standing in a Christian church. Whose crucifixion does it represent?

Jesus?

Sometimes!

Sometimes there are three crosses, as you have no doubt seen. That is, there are two other crosses, in addition to the cross of Jesus. Perhaps there is a white cross flanked by gray ones, or a tall cross flanked by shorter ones. Three crosses symbolize the fuller scene of Jesus’ execution, in which he was crucified with robbers on either side (Matthew 27:38). Such a display thus memorializes two people whose names we do not even know. What little we do know is that one of these men turned to Jesus in that moment and asked for forgiveness. Jesus gave it to him, promising a place in Paradise. Luke 23:40-43 records the exchange.

This exchange is among the most radical scenes in all of the gospels. In this one scene, Jesus decimates the prevailing religious belief of the time. He decimates what might still be the prevailing religious belief in our own time. In this scene, he lays to rest the notion that good people get into heaven.

Instead, the message to the thief—the message to us all—is that bad people get into heaven.

After all, that robber had no chance to “make good.” His limbs were secured to wood. He was breathing his last breaths. And he was guilty—he said as much (Luke 23:41). In short, there was no opportunity for this man to commence a righteous life that might be pleasing to God.

However, faith is a substitute for being righteous. Paul’s letter to the Romans explicitly makes this point. Indeed, this point is arguably the main take-away of the entire Bible. None of us has any hope of actually being righteous, but we do have the hope of exercising faith. We can lay our burdens before the Christ and ask him to pick them up. And if we do that, then that very act of heart is allowed to take the place of the righteousness we do not have.

God gave his Son so that whoever believes in him can have eternal life. John 3:16.

By contrast, God did not give his Son so that people who are at least 10% as good as Jesus can have eternal life. Or at least 5% as good. Nothing like that. God opened a door, and bad people are invited to walk through. See Matthew 22:10, in which both the bad and the good are explicitly included.

Jesus provides more than this as well. He provides more than what he could give to the robber. The kingdom of heaven does not have to wait for death. Eternal life starts now.

But there is also, as Jesus said, Paradise. There is the realm and the state of higher existence that transcends earthly life completely.

If anything we could do in our earthly life could ever earn us a place in Paradise, then surely we would have squandered that privilege. Each of us would have already missed the chance. Therefore, the loving God does not even ask us to earn the way. Forget it. He just asks for a choice: Turn to him and believe. Turn to the incarnation of the infinite being who made the world. Turn to Jesus in love, to whatever extent your beaten-up human heart is still able to love.

Stare into the eternal in surrender. Give the eternal your attention. Look to this, and look away from other things. Believe. Do this much, and you are free.

This is the choice represented by the three crosses. Love won for all time not just with a double-cross, but with a triple-cross. God was betrayed into death, death was defeated, and along the way, during the last moment of suffering breaths, the idea was finally refuted that anyone has to ever worry about being good enough to qualify.

Unfair! (Thank God)

The God who watches over us is the like the shepherd who watches 100 sheep, said Jesus. When one of them goes astray, the shepherd goes after that one, and upon finding it, he rejoices over that sheep most of all. See Matthew 18:13.

My question is: How do the other 99 sheep feel about this?

This parable doesn’t address that question directly, but other parables do.

For example, the kingdom of God is likened to a vineyard. The men who work in it all day long get paid a full day’s wage. Yet the men who did not begin to work until evening also get paid a full day’s wage. When the former group complains, the vineyard owner asks, “Are you jealous because I’m generous?” After all, the all-day workers did get the wages they were expecting. The vineyard owner asks, “Can’t I run my business the way I choose?” Or to paraphrase, “Can’t I run my kingdom the way I choose?” (Matthew 20:15).

Then there is the parable of the prodigal son. One son lives foolishly, squandering the wealth he is given and rejecting the prospects available to him. But he repents, returning in full humility. This son is welcomed home and invited into his father’s celebration.

Meanwhile, his brother, the other son, is also invited inside. But this other son refuses. He had stayed and obeyed. Rather than joining the celebration now, and being just as much a part of it as his brother, he withholds himself. He remains outside to seethe (Luke 15:28).

These parables seem to offer a message that we might imagine our sterner grandparents saying. Namely: Life is not fair. Insisting upon so-called fairness is insisting upon something that is different from the way of God. In fact, “fairness” is an idol that points to a false god, and that false god we are revering is ourselves. When we claim that our portion is “unfair” compared to another’s, we are presuming that we ourselves ought to judge what the correct portions should be. Do we have the right to make that judgment? Do we even have the capacity to make that judgment?

If we really do believe in eternal life, then the search for fairness ought to be irrelevant. Within the life that spans eternity, the extent of this worldly portion is just the minutest sliver. We see something of this kind of belief in Jesus’ encounter with a Greek woman. She seemed to understand that worldly status is fleeting, while the Lord is supreme. In this seemingly strange episode (which has a historical context outside the point of this post), Jesus refers to the woman as a dog. Her response is essentially to embrace this premise. If the Lord of all creation assigns her the status of a dog within this world, then she has the status of a dog (Mark 7:28). Such complete acceptance and surrender may sound shocking. However, an authentic faith in the authority and mercy of God both permits and entails this acceptance—the acceptance of our allotment, whatever that allotment might be. For the extent to which this woman stood on her faith in this way, she saw her afflicted daughter cured.

Alongside Jesus, we are all unworthy. We are all dogs, no matter how highly we might wish to regard ourselves. If life really was fair, then the Divine would not have died as a human so that humans could come alive within the Divine.

When a stern parent or grandparent says Life isn’t fair, we know they are warning of the potential for loss and unexpected pain, and the way this world is hard.

However, when Jesus says in his parables that Life isn’t fair, he means something altogether different. In the kingdom of God, people get something more and better than what they have coming to them. The unfairness of Jesus does not consist of undue suffering. It is the way to undue joy.

***

Photo: Scott Liddell

Back Then

“Nothing exists beyond what can be measured or observed.” That’s what I used to believe. I got a note from a friend, and a member of the e-mail list, who found himself in a polite argument recently in which he confronted this very assertion.

In other words, the universe is what it is only by accident—or so the assertion goes. It is not that God definitely does not exist. Rather, whether God exists is irrelevant, because no God is involved. We might not know all of the precise mechanisms by which the universe accidentally arose, but that is what happened. The beginning of everything was just a vastly unlikely event that, in a vastly unlikely moment, did occur. Then, over time, the random collisions of particles eventually lined up in just the right way to produce self-sustaining life. Then, over still more time, the random accumulation of circumstances affecting that life gave rise to a machine-building and civilization-building lifeform—us.

In all of this, God has no place in the conversation, no matter what your scripture says. God is not needed. Again: So the assertion goes.

However, my own scripture says that—in this conversation—it is the scripture itself that is not needed. Really. That is: God is so obvious from what we know of the material world that no scripture is required to see him.

Personally, I find this to be a wonderfully self-effacing fact for a scripture to make plan. Using that idea as a starting point (specifically, Romans 1:19-20), I pursued the question of how we can know God is real. I hope you enjoy the argument. You can find the series of posts on that subject starting here.

In a way, though, that argument is beside the point. We all do need our arguments for why we believe in the God we do. We all need apologetics—see I Peter 3:15. Yet back when I believed the assertion at the very beginning of this post, no argument by itself could have shaken that belief. Our beliefs do not begin in the place that argument touches. Our beliefs do not take root in our thinking brains—much as we would like to think this is the case. Our beliefs instead begin elsewhere. In my own case, I had read the gospels before without meeting God in them. I had read them solely as literature. The breaking point in my system of belief came when I made the seemingly small choice to accept helplessness, admit vulnerability, and allow my heart to be changed. God swept in through this space. Only after that did I read the gospels with different eyes.

This is why, even though I have spent paragraph upon paragraph on arguments in this blog and elsewhere, I also know that we should not put too much hope in the weight of our arguments alone. I do not think the weight of just our arguments can reach people. Over top of the arguments of the thinkers, we also need the prayers of the faithful. In the end, it is not the sheep who save sheep. It is not even the lost sheep’s own bleating that saves sheep. A lost sheep is saved when the Shepherd moves.

I was not merely being “logical” when I committed to a godless worldview. In fact, I was not being “logical” in any way. The assertion at the beginning of this blog post actually fails by its own standard. The claim, “Nothing exists beyond what we can observe” is an example of a negative statement—and it is logically impossible to prove a negative. Therefore, this seemingly “logical” assertion is one that cannot be tested by logic.

In other words, it’s not just that my logic was incomplete. It’s not just that I needed to add something else to the structure of my thinking. That was not the extent of it. To cling to and insist upon an assertion that is fully unproveable is a commitment—and a different sort of commitment than we imagine we are making when we presume the cover of logic.

Back then, I was pretending to be logical, though at a deeper level I was holding a particular assumption in a place more sacred than logic. Back then, in other words, I was exercising a faith. I was staking out the bounds of a religion.

Try Surrender

In the book of Acts there is a magician who tried to purchase the power of the Holy Spirit. He wanted to buy it for a price, through a cash transaction (Acts 8:18-19). His proposal sounds absurd. And yet, don’t we sometimes seek to do the same thing?

I do. The Spirit provides love, joy, peace, and other fruits (Galatians 5:22-23)—fruits that I often feel are missing. The Spirit provides an informing, uplifting, transforming power, and when I feel that I am lacking in that power, I want to more aggressively go after it. I want to figure out the steps or formula for finding, chasing, and capturing the Holy Spirit, just so I can willfully follow through with that formula. I want to bottle the Spirit like a jar of fireflies so I can take it back with me into my own darkness.

Yet the language of scripture is more passive than this. We are to “be filled with the Spirit.” That phrasing—very familiar to many—implies a couple of things. First, it implies that the pouring is already being done. We just have to “be filled.” Second, it implies that we already have the capacity. We just have to see our own waiting capacity get filled with the right thing. Indeed, this second point is more than just implied; it is explicitly stated. Scripture cites being “drunk on wine” as an example of something to get out of the container so that the Spirit can more completely fill it (Ephesians 5:18).

In other words, finding God via the Holy Spirit is not a matter of striving. It is not a matter of active and energetic attainment, and not a matter of paying a sufficient price. It is not a matter of these things—no matter how much I might like the exchange to work this way, during the times when I am so sullen and closed-in that striving and paying prices are all I can think to do. Rather than what we actively attain, the Spirit is found in what we passively deny. It is found in what we give up. Indeed, I seem to relearn this each time I finally do reach the bottom of despair. Hitting the bottom one more time again, I give up.

I give up.

That is, I give up on seeing the aims of my personal pride realized.

I give up, finally, on the hope of seeing the slights against me avenged.

I give up on expecting the various rewards and indulgences to which I feel I am entitled.

Once I reach the point where these things are no longer the demands I revere, then more space is left for the Spirit to fill me. Try it yourself. Try surrender, and when you do this, see if love and peace do not find you as if by accident. God is doing the pouring.

***

Photo: Pedro J. Pérez

Becoming a Tree

The blessings of Jesus Christ extend even to those who do not give much thought to Jesus Christ at all—those who are (so it is said) “as free as a bird.” That is my reading of the parable of the mustard seed, in which Jesus says (according to Matthew 13:31-32):

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made the point that God provides for the birds of the air—taking care of them though they don’t seek or notice this provision. God loves not just human beings, but also the smallest bird (Matthew 6:26). Now, in the parable above, we learn that the kingdom of God starts as something even tinier than a bird. Indeed, it starts as a mustard seed, a seed that is tiny alongside other seeds. But just like the mustard seed, the kingdom of God flourishes.

Mustard grew wild in Jesus’ time, a ragged bush that was regarded more as a weed than as a crop. Certainly it did not grow in cultivated rows planned by men. Like this bush, the kingdom of God advances in unpredictable ways. It grows “greater than the herbs.”

But there is something else, a further stage. The parable offers another striking detail. This flourishing spice that is greater than the herbs goes on and “becomes a tree.” In nature, a mustard seed will never produce a tree, yet this mustard seed does. The very nature of the plant transforms, the plant making a (literally) supernatural change. Through this change, it becomes something different than the wildly flourishing spice. Now, it is an organism strong enough, stable enough, and tall enough to be a comfort and a shelter to the birds of the sky.

Oswald Chambers wrote, “The final stage in the life of faith is attainment of character.” That word, character, offers the sense of a reserve of strength great enough that some of it can be offered to others. Character implies stability, the stability of being rooted, just like a mature tree.

By contrast, to be unrooted, like a bird, is not to be free. Not really. Birds can fly, but their flight is a physically demanding effort that the birds must perform in order to find safety and food. Birds also sing, but many of the songs you hear through your window are actually bullying assertions of territory. Smaller birds are hectored by bigger birds. To be any bird except the very largest is to live a life circumscribed by fear. It is in the very midst of this flying and crying that we are called to serve.

Specifically, those who have heard the call of Christ in their lives understand that it is indeed a call—a call to play a role, to continue the work that Jesus began. We aspire to provide the branches, somehow—stable perches for those among us who might otherwise be lost in the sky. We aspire to be the tree.

The reason to do this is not because we expect anything in return from the birds. We do so instead because we have been invited to love as Jesus loved. He was God come into the world. He was God come to serve. The Lord on earth was simultaneously humble and tall, just like the tree. And his life and love both continue to advance for as long as the forest continues.

You

During a recent period of rest and solitude, I went a different way. I made a right-angle turn in my heart.

It simply occurred to me that, throughout the course of my belief so far, God has always been beside me or above me. That is the place I’ve assumed for him. I have been focused on my challenges and aims. I would call out thanks to God for the victories, or I would call out to God for help when I felt in peril. Either way, I have called out to God.

The right-angle turn consisted of looking at God instead. Making him the focus.

The turn consisted of seeing my life such that those challenges and those objectives are now to one side of me, not him. He is in the front. My challenges might not be overcome in this world. My aims might not be met. Yet he is in control. He has a plan, he has somewhere to take me in this world, he has things he wants to impart—and I am less interested, now, in being distracted.

With this turn, with this shift in focus, certain verses now make more sense than they ever made before. “Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17) is one of those verses. The Lord, I realize, is continually creating—making everything around me, every part of my experience. If I look for him, if he is my focus, if I am attentive to his active choosing of what he wants to show me, then we are unceasingly communicating.

“Seek my face” (II Chronicles 7:14) is another such verse. That sphere of experience all around me is part of God’s face. It is part of the expression God wears on his face—the expression God wears toward me. Such a face is at least as rich with expression as any human face could ever be. Think of how people’s faces communicate. Facial expressions are so subtle, so nuanced, that they send meaning right into our hearts that words cannot contain. Now consider how much more elaborately expressive the face of God must be.

I find the most basic consequence of my turn toward this face, the Lord’s face, in the softer and simpler way I now address him. I used to call him “God.” I used to call him “Lord.” I still do. But when you look at someone, they know to whom you are speaking. More often now, I find myself simply addressing him as “You.”

“I AM” is Present Tense

The Lord is not just eternally everywhere but also eternally now. His name, “I AM,” is present tense. Jesus emphasized this with the most profound violation of grammar ever spoken. In John 8:58, he said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

Yet the present tense is also the presence of tension. “Your word is a lamp to my feet,” says Psalm 119:105. This is as much a challenge as a comfort. All we are given to see is where to step next—nothing more. Is this enough?

The phrase “eternal life” consists of two words that deserve to be unpacked. “Eternal” means unbounded in time. “Life,” by definition, involves development and growth. Every living thing is changing. To have “eternal life” is to have eternal change. To have eternal life, in other words, is to have boundless becoming—the state of forever turning into someone new.

Alongside such a promise, the finiteness of earthly life is just a paltry threat. Earthly life will end, but we will not. Nevertheless, most of us still live as though the ticking clock contains us. Many of us still worry as though the passing of each year’s calendar diminishes who we might be.

We who have experienced forgiveness can appreciate that walking with God means leaving the prison of the past. However, the walk with God just as truly involves leaving the shadow of the future. God is now, and it is God, right now, who invites us to know him. It is God who invites us into the joy of joining with the fresh and flourishing work that I AM is doing today.

To seek God, we turn away from our fascination with past and future alike.

To discover the gift of God, we open up the present.

Get the Basket Out of the Way

...and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 1:4 NIV

...who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 1:4 NASB

...and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
—Romans 1:4 NKJV

Was the Holy Spirit the One who raised Jesus from the dead? That is at least the implication of the verse above. The act that fully and finally revealed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God was (it would seem) performed by the Holy Spirit. To be sure, other verses of scripture suggest that Jesus raised himself from the dead—see John 2:19-21 and John 10:17-18. With these latter verses, though, Jesus might have spoken from the Spirit’s perspective. I do not know. Suffice it to say: One possible picture painted by Romans 1:4 is that the Spirit released on the cross (John 19:30) turned right around and released Jesus from the tomb.

That picture is profound not just theologically, but also in a personal way. Most or all of the Holy Spirit’s roles in a human life are internal. The Spirit liberates, instructs, guides, intercedes, and so on—see this list. However, right here at the simultaneous low point and high point of Jesus’ mission, we see the Holy Spirit expressing its utmost impact on a human life. Here is the Holy Spirit physically, materially, and literally remaking the man. Accordingly, here is the reason why inviting more of the Holy Spirit into our lives presents a visceral challenge to every one of us.

A “visceral” challenge? Yes. Our resistance is bodily and instinctive, because we sense where this is going. The Spirit’s concern is not to exalt us personally. The Spirit’s concern is not to give us greater power for the sake of our own thrill in being powerful. Rather, the Spirit’s concern for each of us is to make us purer agents of God’s will. The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, says Proverbs 20:27. That lamp is lit by our own spirit touching and getting filled with God’s Spirit. And the way of God, when a lamp is lit, is not to allow that lamp to be concealed. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, says Matthew 5:15. The way of God is to get the basket out of the way of the light.

The Spirit gave Jesus a new body. The process of transformation was not pleasant. It entailed a crucifixion. Our own suffering almost certainly will be tiny by comparison. But still: In the process of letting your light shine, in the work of revealing the fullness of who you might be, what if the Spirit transforms your “body” as well?

I put “body” in quotes here, because this body of yours might include any of your outward worldly aspects. It might be your flesh that is touched, or it might be your wealth or reputation. As Francis Chan wrote, “The Spirit may lead me into total sacrifice, or he may lead me toward humiliation in the opinions of other people around me.”

As I say, we sense where this is going. We resist and brace against the work of the Spirit in our lives because we still, all of us, succumb to the error of thinking that our passing earthly lives are really where life is located. Yet we only sense part of where the Spirit is going with us, the fearsome part, the brief part—the transition point along the way to something eternal. The aim of God is that your joy might be complete (John 15:11). The fruits of the Spirit’s work are abundant, and the list begins with love and joy (Galatians 5:22-23).

Yes, God will get the basket out of the way. But imagine this: Alongside that light that has been revealed there is now this basket—at last inverted, at turned up the right way, at last able to hold all of the fruits that remain eternally sweet.

The Heart is the Hard Part

....that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
—Romans 10:9

The famous verse above offers a one-sentence summary—actually, just a half-sentence summary—of two conditions that are necessary for obtaining the renewed and reawakened life that Jesus gives. Those conditions are: (1) confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and (2) believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Which of these two conditions is harder to satisfy?

It would seem as though the second condition is easier to meet. The heart is (seemingly) a safe and secret place in which to entertain faith. Presumably, a person could just believe there, muttering the belief only to himself, whispering the belief in his thoughts. The first condition, confessing out loud, is different—that involves exposure. More, it involves almost certain humiliation. People will turn away, smirk, and judge you naïve.

However, the ordering of the verse above suggests that condition 2 must be something more significant than just an easy follow-on to condition 1. There is the sense of a progression here, a stairstep ascent toward “you will be saved.” What if condition 2 is actually the greater commitment?

Peter (portrayed by El Greco in the painting above) met condition 1. He confessed that Jesus is Lord. He confessed it aloud, just as the verse says. In a powerful moment, in fact, Peter was among the very first to perceive and proclaim the divinity of Jesus in an inspired and genuine way (see Luke 9:20). At this point, Peter had committed to following Jesus and he would soon find himself empowered to heal and drive out demons in Jesus’ name. But did he believe? As it turned out, not yet.

Of course, while Jesus was with him, Peter could not believe God raised Jesus from the dead—that hadn’t happened yet. Still: Jesus was with him. And Peter’s confession showed how he recognized who Jesus was. But in spite of this, when a crucial moment came, Peter denied his association with Jesus. He lied to cover it. He denied Jesus aloud—repeatedly. Luke 22:54-62 tells this story—the moment when Peter’s belief was revealed to be just skin-deep, just voice-deep. Belief had not yet fully entered his heart.

From time to time, I re-examine why it is that I believe. I ask why I made this choice.

Getting into heaven was not the reason. Life after death held no fear for me. Heaven must be an accepting and welcoming place, I assumed. If there really was some special requirement for getting into heaven, then I assumed God would understand why I didn’t meet that requirement—why I apparently got confused and missed it during this life. If God did exist, I reasoned, then I could talk to him when I saw him. I could learn the truth then. Indeed, scripture shows a picture of something like this very thing. A criminal appeals to Jesus with his few remaining breaths, and the criminal gets into to heaven on the basis of only this appeal (Luke 23:42-43). I didn’t know about that story back then, but still I assumed I’d have some similar chance to offer up my case—if and when it mattered. I didn’t give much thought to heaven then. And I still don’t.

Now, however, the reason why I don’t give much thought to heaven is different. The new life, the life after this world, has begun already. The adventure within freedom has begun. And the reason why I have chosen belief, why I chose to believe in the way of the resurrected Son, is because of this very adventure—the journey of stepping out, facing fears, and walking on the waves.

Yet first there is a choice. I met people who confessed God and I decided to join them—but still there was a choice.

I called out to God, to the Son, and I came to recognize the ways in which he answers—but still there was a choice.

Finally, I opened my heart to Jesus. I did this not upon discovering the reality of Jesus, but later than that—upon discovering the reality of my heart. There is a real and vital center to each of us that is more than just an abstraction. Rather than being unreal, the heart is hyper-real—because it has the potential to be bigger than this world.

A person could be forgiven for not knowing that—not knowing that he or she has such a heart. Unknowingly, I gave my heart to pride, approval, income, and other temporary comforts. These things left me cheap and starving and small. Setting my heart free entailed releasing it from the prison of such submission, the submission to tiny things. The only problem was: I was in love with this prison. I had fallen in love with walls and bars. My heart had become this prison. Each of our hearts, in fact, consists of many such prisons. And each time we lose one of the most confining and defining prisons that contain us, we initially experience this change in our lives with a feeling of pain or tragedy or loss. Indeed, the world often cannot see anything else, anything of value, in the sorts of changes that accompany faith.

Peter did not believe, not after all the time he spent with Jesus. He did not have faith. He did not find this faith until he came to the end of who he had imagined himself to be.

Peter lied to protect himself. He lied to deny Jesus. He failed publicly and profoundly—and he watched himself do it. He was shattered by a self-inflicted blow to the spirit, and when it was done, he fled back to his old life as a fisherman (John 21:3), not knowing what else he could do.

But the resurrected Jesus forgave him. And over time, Peter accepted the forgiveness. He lived the life of the Spirit. He stood up from the self-inflicted blow.

To believe is ultimately to know this transformation, and on some level, to choose it—to choose the rising up so completely that we also choose the fall that precedes it. There is, of necessity, a demolition that precedes rebuilding. I gave my heart to Jesus once I found this heart. And I made the discovery of my own heart—I began for the first time to feel my heart’s depth and fullness and potential—only after that heart had at last been sufficiently broken.

The Doormat

I wrote about how the man or woman who walks by faith in Christ still looks a little like this world—because we are called to treasure the value of people in this world, and called to continue to serve them.

Oswald Chambers said it even more starkly. We are “called to be the ‘doormat’ of other men,” he wrote.

Jesus was the doormat first, giving up his divine rights and divine nature for the sake of those who had yet to care at all for what he had done. If we are so attached to our own pride and our own privileges that we are not prepared to be doormats after the model of Jesus, then we are in the wrong faith. Or, at the very least, our hearts have not yet grown into the faith we have chosen.

Again: The Son was the doormat first. In your own life, consider how far you have been from Christ at some point. Consider the inattention or lack of regard you gave him during some past (or recent) time in your life.

Now, consider the fullness of who the Son is. Consider who he has been for you—whether you appreciated it or not. As the one through whom all things are made, the Son is and has always been the one who sustains you. This aspect of God, the one who became human for a time, is the one who fills you with thought, breath, and life. He is the provider of every blessing that has ever relieved, comforted, or enriched you, and he is even the one who measures out and tailors every suffering for you, giving you some of the insights you now know the most deeply and fully. What have you given him in return?

That is, how long do you go, or how long have you gone, without giving the Son—without giving the Lord—any more than your passing acknowledgement or thanks?

It is a loving part of our fleeting human life that we get to taste a little bit of the same humility that we presume to expect of our God. The world was made, and we did not make it. Therefore, the Son is always the one we have lived in and rested upon, whether we recognized it or not. When at last we do begin to see this, the recognition gives special significance to the fact that when Jesus healed the lame, he told them to carry their mats. He told them, in other words, to keep hold of the mat you sat upon for so long. Keep touching that which has always cushioned you, and do not let it go.

This is Not Just a Guitar

My wife has had something on her heart for a little while now. She would like to learn to play the guitar. She told a few friends about this wish.

But we don’t own a guitar. Further, money is tight in our house. She decided against buying one. One day last week, she included a humble item in her prayers:

“God, I don’t see that we should buy a guitar just now. If you want me to play one, show me a way.”

I was home from work the very next day at lunchtime, when my wife answered a knock at the door. It was a friend stopping by unexpectedly. The friend had a spare guitar. She had come to give it to my wife—knowing nothing about the decision or the prayer the previous day. It’s all true.

My wife held back most of her tears until the friend was gone. Our friend might have been uncomfortable—too many tears just for this! But the gift was something more than only a guitar. It was another reminder of who God is, because we desperately need to be reminded.

For any of us, the reason why we look to Christ is to find God—the real God. Jesus was a man because God is personal. We forget this. The knowledge is too precious to hold. We look away.

The sophisticated world offers a picture of God that is easier. God is vast, but nothing more. God is indefinable. The word “God” is thus an icon for an abstraction—as bloodless as an infinity sign.

The cross shows something different from this—and someone dearer. In Jesus, we do not just see the God who created, producing the world long ago and far away. Instead, in Jesus, we see the God who creates, the God who is close. Nothing exists except that God made it (John 1:3), and that includes every new and present moment still breathing to life around us. God is still unfolding a plan—a personal plan. In Jesus, we see God as not only vast and indefinable, but also knowable and even small. Here is the God willing to become the size and scope of a man. Here is the beating heart of truth that lies well beyond the infinity sign.

In Jesus, God put on human finiteness. He put on the dependence and lack that we know so well. He found us and showed us his face. He struggled as we do, suffered as we can, and died as a brutally tortured human being would die. Then, he kept going—because God is not contained in a tomb.

“I am with you always,” he said, at the end of his worldly mission and the end of Matthew’s gospel (28:20). Always. Meaning: I am with you, even though they take my physical body away. I am with you, even when they take your physical body away. He is with us—in person. This is who God is.

God is not Santa Claus. My wife and I love the guitar, but we hope we will be just as true to Christ whether he gives us material gifts or not.

Rather, God is revealed in Jesus Christ—this is the important point. This is the point about God that is just as important today, just as vital, as it was when Jesus wore sandals on his feet.

The guitar is not just a guitar. It was God speaking to my family as a person can speak. God, the infinite Father, is also the knowable Son. He love fits our hearts, and his life unfolds within our lives and houses.

The one who constantly creates is still creating, still surprising us, still walking and working alongside us the way a person would. He is with us. This is God. And just like a person, sometimes he reaches out to us. Just like a person, sometimes he responds.

Am I Really That Different?

I don’t know if people see Jesus when they look at me. On many days, I’m pretty sure they don’t.

We are being remade. We are to believe in this. I just got done with a thought exercise of trying to honestly identify what changes I have seen in my life and in my nature that might be attributed to the Holy Spirit, the one who performs this remaking. I cataloged a brief list of the changes. Yet as I looked at the meager inventory and considered sharing it with others, I worried that I was insulting my Savior with faint praise. What if, actually, I am not really that much changed at all?

Some writers have seen similar shortcomings in the body of Christ overall. Os Guiness wrote in The Call about an Australian business leader sharing his faith with a Japanese CEO. The response from the CEO was dismissive: “Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man in touch with another world. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager at home only in this world like I am.”

Francis Chan writes in a similar vein in Forgotten God. “What disturbs me most is when we’re not really bothered that God living in us has not made much of a noticeable difference,” he says. “Most churchgoers are content to find a bit of peace rather than a ‘peace of God, which surpasses all understanding’ (Philippians 4:7). We want just enough peace to survive the week (or perhaps even the day).”

One more Christian author, Oswald Chambers, is unflinching in seeing a possible meaning of this. “That is not salvation, that is conversion,” he says. “I do not think it is too sweeping to say that the majority of nominal Christians are of this order; their eyes are opened, but they have received nothing.”

I wish to take nothing away from the challenge of what Mr. Chambers is saying. But I also note this verse, 2 Corinthians 3:18:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image ... just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

We are, in the end, being transformed into the image of Jesus—into precisely the person Jesus would be if he were you or me. That being the case, we shouldn’t compare ourselves to other people. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to other people’s expectations. The only comparison we should make is between our own self and Jesus Christ. Of course we will fall short in this comparison (Romans 3:23), but when this is the only comparison we make, then there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1).

As believers in Christ, each of us has a common calling that is also unique. We are to love other people. We are to share the gospel message. That means we are to remain connected to other people—invested in them. This makes the nature of the calling unique to every individual, because each of us is unique not just in how we are gifted, but also in whom we will meet.

Recall that Jesus came to earth for the benefit of human beings. Recall that he put on human flesh, lived within the world’s ways, and spoke in the world’s languages. His mission required this. Our mission is nearly the same as his.

Seeking to measure the extent to which we are externally and visibly transformed is legitimate—we have been told that we will be changed. But we are being changed from inside, by a Spirit who dwells within. Seeking entirely after visible change might therefore miss the point—because we are not to be changed for change’s sake. Rather, we who believe in Christ are to remain with other people, and to remain accessible enough to serve them.

Jesus laughed, wept, got tired, got angry, and expressed exasperation. He was one of us. This should be a comfort as we seek to be one with him.

The outward change we are seeking is not the whole story, and it’s also not the end of the story. How great is the change that is building, the change whose power will be revealed? How extensive is the change within you, the change that you do not (yet) see?

What Has the Holy Spirit Done? (The Spirit Makes Me Weak)

I have been writing about the Holy Spirit, about the Spirit’s transformative power, so it would be fitting to describe how the Spirit has transformed me. I sought to do that—writing about the love I find, about the guidance I receive, about giving, about dying to self, about faith. But my draft of that essay rang false. It sketched a picture of a man grown stronger by God. I threw that draft away because I see that the truth is this: Rather than making me stronger, the Holy Spirit has made me weak. We are “strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16), but that qualification—in the inner man—is stark. The outer man is where we usually seek our strength.

In the story of Moses, we see God actually hardening the heart of Moses’ oppressor, Pharaoh (Exodus 7:3). God himself increases the villain’s tolerance for villainy. That God would do this seems strange. Yet out of my own life, I can well understand the meaning of this. God allows each of us to choose, and God accepts the choice—loving us all the while. A man who chooses against God will need a hard heart and will need human strength. So God blesses the man with these paltry things, since the man won’t accept any better. I can understand, because I was a tiny pharaoh myself at one time, swaggering within a minuscule zone of comfort which I rarely left.

Now, my heart is more often fractured and more often soft. Paul said (in 1 Corinthians 9:16), “Woe to me if I don’t preach the gospel”—meaning he had to do the work God put in front of him to do. I can relate. The imperative to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33) is no longer just good advice, but a requirement. The day is frazzled and the week descends into misery when I do not give time to this seeking. Yet when I do set my pride and worries aside, when I do lay my energies and attention before God, then joy, rest, and peace all ripen from within.

This personal imperative to submit marks the most apparent change I have seen in myself since turning toward God. Simply put, I have become more fully and obviously dependent upon him.

The world is bigger now. It is more rich with adventure, and with mysteries that lead to understanding. But I am small. More, I am incomplete. The heart I bring with me on the adventure is lacking—it is practically nothing, in fact—unless I allow it to be filled with him.

The Sacred Privilege (Each of Us Is Significant to the Story)

....that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
—Romans 10:9

The eight-year-old in my life has been asking innocent questions about Jesus and his story, and I have been answering with the facts I believe—about Jesus’ life, his death for our sins, and his bodily rise from the tomb.

But something leaves me uncomfortable about what I am telling the child. Something is missing from what I am saying.

The discomfort is enough to lead me to re-examine my own faith. Do I really believe the gospel story?

I do.

However, I have always believed something. Whether I recognized it or not, some framework or another has always been the lens through which I saw the world.

Belief systems already compete for my child’s attention. I don’t necessarily object. We live in a world of ideas. One cause I do find for objection, though, is when conjecture is presented to a child as fact. To give a small example, I think I see a specific case of this in the modern idea that our earth or ecosystem is imperiled. Children hear exaggerated and speculative ideas of environmental calamity presented to them with the same weight as if they were known articles of geography or math. Yet this is a child—someone who trusts adults to provide reliable training about the world. If reasonable causes for doubt are not acknowledged as part of the teaching, then the message is incomplete.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not, technically, conjecture. It is rather an assertion. It is an assertion made by witnesses. I treat the event as fact. I see the supporting evidence for this fact in the imprint of history. Even so, this event is a different kind of fact.

The nature of the difference is made plain in scripture. The resurrection of Jesus cannot be conclusively and analytically “proven,” because God did not construct the event that way. Each of us is significant to the story. Each of us has a vital, personal role to play. We are to make the conscious election of choosing God—and choosing him in our hearts. That is, we are called to believe.

In the Bible, the first to report on the empty tomb were women. The detail is telling. If the story of the resurrection was fabricated, then the fabricator would not have told the story this way. Women, within that culture, would have been too easy to disregard. The gospel account itself makes this plain; the women’s story at first was not taken seriously (Luke 24:11). From the very beginning, in other words, belief required this willingness to accept—this courage to brave the fear of being seen as foolish. From the beginning, there was this need for an exercise of faith.

A young child who hears only the facts of these events from a grown-up is not likely to be building on faith, but instead building on his or her trust in the authority of the grown-up. By itself, that is not enough. The trust in grown-ups won’t always be there—nor should it be. Therefore, though I need to tell my own child the facts about Jesus, I think I also need to say more.

Specifically, I will add to the account that plenty of people reject this story. Plenty of others refuse to care.

I have done both.

The Bible says, “believe in your heart,” and I do. I have chosen this belief for my heart, and I can tell you all the reasons why.

You will get to make the same choice.

You will give your heart to something, because everyone gives their heart to something. Whether they know it or not.

This is a sacred privilege you will exercise—this privilege of making your heart’s choice.

You will get to decide what belief is rich enough to keep you. No one else can choose for you. You will get to go to the belief that is worthy of you. You will get to decide just what belief deserves to have your heart.

Personal Pentecost (Did I Do My Baptism Wrong?)

When I write this way, like I am doing here on this blog, I feel like I am following the Holy Spirit. That is, when I do this work of trying to search out lessons from the walk of faith to see if they can be fit into useful paragraphs, I feel the Spirit bearing fruit. The fruits of the Spirit are named in Galatians 5:22-23—a list that includes love, joy, peace, and patience. When I seek God through this kind of composition, I experience all of these characteristics in greater measure. The people who have to deal with me are among the beneficiaries.

Yet the skeptic might argue that there’s nothing spiritual in this. The effect is purely material. The effect is endorphins. Writing just triggers the good chemicals in my brain.

Maybe. I’m not much moved by that argument. The fruits of the Spirit can have a physical component—God is more real than my body. The argument that “it’s all purely physical” still does nothing to explain how an election on my part—the choice of one pursuit out of many I might have chosen—could drive these material shifts in the physicality of my body.

However, there is another objection the skeptic might raise that does give me greater pause. Namely: Writing has always been with me. It was a part of my life before I believed in Christ. I have found something new to do with my writing, but I have always derived love, joy, peace, and patience from the attempt to try to capture ideas in paragraphs.

So if I have always had these fruits, where then is the Spirit?

The Line

The question is meaningful, because scripture suggests there ought to be a clear line of demarcation involving the Spirit’s relationship with us. Peter draws the line in his speech at the Pentecost in Acts 2. “Repent and be baptized,” he says, “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

I believe I have repented. I have also been baptized. However, there has been no personal Pentecost I could discern. At the time of my baptism or later on, there was no wind rushing in, and nothing like the flame or foreign language discernment that Acts 2 described.

Therefore: Did I do something wrong?

The clear line of division can be just as elusive if we ever try to distinguish which people have the Holy Spirit. Since love is first among the fruits of the Spirit, the believers in Christ ought to have more love than those who do not believe—correct?

I do see professing Christians who are profoundly loving. Their love is part of what persuaded me to join them. But not all are this way. Then, I take note of the wonderfully loving people who apparently have no interest in Jesus Christ. I know a person like this; I bet you do, too. What are we to make of the discrepancy?

Does the indwelling of the Holy Spirit have a meaningful impact or not?

All these questions feel a little like elephants in the church. We believe in the Holy Spirit, but we’re not necessarily sure what that belief means. Yet the questions are worth exploring for that very reason. One of the teachings of Jesus that remains the most startlingly profound is that there is this other facet of God—this God who comes to live with us. We are to seek God, and that includes seeking the God who is both mysterious and powerfully near.

He Reveals Himself

I think the beginning of an answer to these questions can be found in a distinction—a seemingly small difference that actually has profound importance. We tend to confuse the Holy Spirit with the manifestations of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is everywhere. See Psalm 139:7-8. It is therefore meaningless to say that we could ever “sense” or “detect” his presence—that presence is ubiquitous. However, the Holy Spirit does sometimes assert himself in ways that we do sense, or can perceive. When he does this, he does it for one reason. He manifests his presence for the “common good” or the “benefit of all” (1 Corinthians 12:7).

The Pentecost of Acts 2 was for the benefit of all. Jesus had just left. He went to heaven. The church was left behind, and it is difficult to imagine what this loss must have felt like. A profound loneliness must have set in, the loneliness that God is gone. But then, as if on cue, the Holy Spirit showed up. He showed up vividly—uniting the body of believers through a common language, and spiritually igniting them with tongues of flame. This was the Pentecost, and it would be hard to argue that the event did not serve the common good.

The situation is different today. We have the scriptures. We have the testimonies of those who have come before us. If every one of us today obtained a clear and predictable sign at the moment we “joined,” then we would not be part of Christ’s body by faith, but by validation.

Imagine also what we might do with this information. If all believers had some mark of the Spirit in their lives that was both clear and predictable, then it would be easy (easier than it already is!) to pigeonhole people according to a view of who is “in” and who is not. Perhaps the common good is better served today by a situation in which Christians are sometimes challenged by the sight of non-Christians who seem to be bearing more of the Spirit’s fruit.

Back Then

As we have already seen from the reference to Psalm 139, the Spirit was apparent to people in the Old Testament. Indeed, Psalm 51:11 offers a plea: Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. The Holy Spirit was present back then—and I think something similar is true for the “back then” of my own life. The Holy Spirit was with me, even manifest, before I believed in Christ.

How could this not be the case?

Yes, I was rejecting God. But God kept calling.

Yes, I was rejecting the One whose love and authority should have been obvious—but this is the God who pursues his lost sheep (Luke 15:4). This is the God who showers blessings on believers and nonbelievers alike (Matthew 5:45).

Of course his Spirit touched me and of course his Spirit even came to my aid! His Spirit showed me what more I could have had, if only I had welcomed him. Instead, back then, I simply took the blessings and indulged in them before I turned back again to going my own way.

Do Not Take Your Spirit Away

Something decisive did happen at Pentecost. As discussed in a previous post, there is a statement from Jesus (Luke 11:13) that makes little sense unless the Holy Spirit is something of which it is possible for us to have “more.” That is, the Holy Spirit within us can increase. Consider this in light of what Peter said. He did not speak of the “arrival” of the Holy Spirit. He did not make an introduction. Rather, he spoke of a gift that had been given, a gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift that changed the nature of the Spirit’s relationship with us.

Something decisive happened at Pentecost, and something decisive happened with my own baptism and belief. I have been searching for manifestations of the Holy Spirit in my own life of faith—ways that the Spirit has reshaped my life and character. I think I have found them. However, I do not include these fruits I experience through writing as part of this list. I was fortunate enough to have those before I had faith.

Rather than the Spirit appearing for the first time at my baptism, I believe the decisive thing that happened is this: The plea of Psalm 51 was heard. God did not take his Holy Spirit away. He did not take the manifestations away.

In fact, God took away the very fear that the Holy Spirit would be taken. This is the fear that the nonbeliever lives with, without even knowing its name.

At Pentecost, the current and future believers in Christ got something that was genuinely new. They received a door in their hearts, a door at which they could always search and knock. This door will always open—so long as we truly want the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives.

We do have to seek, we do have to ask, and we do have to knock. But the connection—the way by which we can invite God to enter our hearts and lives—remains ours. From the first day of faith forward, the amount of the Holy Spirit in our lives can only increase.

What Does the Holy Spirit Do? (Here is Where God’s Answers are Already Yes)

If [even you] know how to give good gifts to your children, then how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!
—Luke 11:13

In chapter 11 of Luke’s gospel, a disciple asks Jesus how to pray. Jesus gives him a model prayer—Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. This response should have been sufficient to answer the question.

But the answer didn’t speak to what the disciple really wanted to know—or so I gather. Jesus elaborated on his answer in a way that suggests he saw the further question on the man’s face. If that disciple was anything like me, then what he really wanted to know was, How do I pray effectively, Jesus? How do I pray so that my prayers will work?

Jesus perhaps paused a moment, and perhaps noted the others who were also listening.

He said there is something God wants to give you—he just wants you to want it. If you do, he will give more. “Keep asking and it will be given to you,” Jesus said. “Keep searching and you will find. Keep knocking and the door will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9).

What is this gift that will be given in proportion to your asking? The gift is actually a person—the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, the words of Jesus quoted at the top of this post imply that the Holy Spirit is a person who comes in quantity. That is, the Holy Spirit is someone of whom we can receive more and more, provided we continue to ask, seek, and knock. The gifts that the Holy Spirit provides are the gifts that God the Father desires to give, and we can have those gifts in increasing fullness.

So what are those gifts?

What, specifically, does the Holy Spirit do?

It is not an idle question. The Spirit is not portrayed in scripture to the same detail as the other two members of the Trinity. The Spirit is mysterious. We tend to overlook him. Francis Chan’s book about the Holy Spirit is aptly titled Forgotten God for this reason.

I wanted to understand specifically what it is God wants me to ask for, what gifts he wants to give. What follows, therefore, is a composite picture of the Spirit. I am grateful to Mr. Chan’s book for helping with this. Nearly all the verses of scripture below are cited in the book’s third chapter.

Here then are roles the Holy Spirit fills—or at least my attempt to describe them. To the extent that these summaries are correct, God wants to do more of these things. His Spirit wants to do more of these things. Assuming you want these things, too, then all you have to do is ask. The answer is already Yes. God wants the Holy Spirit to fill all of these roles. He wants the Spirit to be these things for you:

● Freedom and Life

The Spirit transforms who we are. Your outward life might change, but even if it doesn’t, he will give you a new life within that previous life. He will liberate you, producing a freedom that is unfazed by the outer trappings. (Romans 8:10-11, 2 Corinthians 3:17)

● The Instructor

He teaches you. The Spirit instructs you about the Son, and about all manner of things that couldn’t be known by earthly knowledge. He provides insight to specific challenges you face. In all these things, His way is to walk with you, illuminating the truth one step at a time. (Many verses: Psalm 143:10, John 14:26, John 15:26, Acts 13:2, Acts 15:28, 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, Ephesians 3:18-19, 1 John 5:6)

● The Guide

The Spirit steers you rightly through this world of moral and spiritual confusion. He guides you in the matter of sin (because the world has a sense of good and bad that is not informed by Christ) ... in the matter of righteousness (in the same way Jesus would point out the righteous if he were here in the flesh) ... and in the matter of how to regard the world (because the kingdom of this world has already been judged). (John 16:8-11.)

● The Intercessor

He prays for you when you don’t know what to pray. (Romans 8:26)

● The Outfitter

He reveals abilities—gifts that are particular to you—so you can exercise these gifts for the benefit of others. (1 Corinthians 12:7)

● The Voice

In the hour when you are called before authorities because of your faith, he gives you words to speak. (Mark 13:11, Luke 12:12)

● The One Who Makes the Infinite God Our Dad

He also lets us know we are God’s chosen sons and daughters. The fear of God is coupled to this profound comfort. Through the Spirit, we see God the all-powerful as God our Father, our Abba, and we have the assurance that we are his beloved children. (Acts 9:31, Romans 8:15-16)

● The Creator—Your Creator

The Spirit is making you more like Jesus. He is making your nature more like the nature of God, so that you think, act, and live in ways that are in harmony with God’s Law—even without a need for the written law to keep you in check. (Genesis 1:26, Romans 8:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Galatians 5:22-23)

● The Emboldener

He gives you courage and personal power. He gives you hope. He will give you these things out of love. He will give them to you, also, so that you might act as the Lord’s witness. (Acts 1:8, Romans 8:26, Romans 15:13, Ephesians 3:16, 1 Thessalonians 1:5)

Related post: What has the Holy Spirit done?

Rededication

When my grandfather talks about World War II, he talks about North Platte, Nebraska.

He came from Wisconsin and he was sent to Hawaii. That means he took a train ride across the country. In fact, because he was allowed to return home one time during the war, he crossed the country by train four different times. Each time, the train stopped for 10 minutes in a small Nebraska town of 12,000.

This town had dedicated itself to making those 10 minutes count.

North Platte residents were there to greet all the trains that arrived. Even trains coming in the middle of the night were met by townspeople who warmly welcomed the soldiers and sailors for the course of their brief stay. The men (as practically all the military personnel were) got sandwiches and free magazines. Many were teenagers—many homesick and frightened. They got attention and loving encouragement. A piano played; ladies would join the men in brief dances. And as they left, the men were given popcorn balls with the names and addresses of North Platte young women who would gladly receive and respond to their letters.

My grandfather was awed by the humble power of the reception he was given in this town. Long after the war, after his four children were all grown, he returned to North Platte just so he could track down someone—anyone—to whom he could express his thanks. He found a lifetime resident of the town, a woman who graciously welcomed this visitor one more time. My grandfather’s trek to deliver his thanks indicates how deeply the town’s gesture affected him—and no doubt how deeply it affected other soldiers and sailors as well. The impact is all the more striking when one considers that the efforts of this town, the gifts that they gave, were completely unnecessary.

After all, the soldiers and sailors were going to get fed. The military would see to that. The town’s sandwiches were not needed. Ditto with the rest—there would be various stops along the length of the train ride. Magazines would be easy to obtain, and it’s fairly certain that people at these other stops would see the troops and happen to say a kind word. That is why, when the people of this town first asked themselves what they could do for the nation’s struggle, when they saw that their gifts consisted entirely of hospitality and 10 minutes per person, it would have been easy to say, “It just doesn’t look like there is all that much we can do.” As far as I know, some of them said this very thing. Fortunately, they poured themselves anyway into the effort of doing what they could, no matter how small it seemed.

No doubt, as I say, other men were affected by this town as deeply as my grandfather was. How many others? How extensively? North Platte managed to greet 6 million military men over the course of the war. My grandfather went to Hawaii, but obviously other train riders went farther. Some went to Midway. Some to Guadalcanal. How many turning points in how many battles could be credited to the increase in morale, the strengthening of spirit, that resulted from a stop in Nebraska?

And how many men, in how much personal darkness, found extra courage to keep fighting bravely simply because of a letter they had recently received from a woman they knew from a popcorn ball?

The effort was huge. Six million was a lot of popcorn balls. The sandwiches alone required round-the-clock production. The entire town had to be organized to provide this greeting to the trains, sometimes 20 trains per day.

Those people just two generations before me certainly weren’t very different from me. They heard the same voices I hear, including the voice that would have told them it is a foolish thing to invest so much effort into a 10-minute stop. But God uses and chooses the foolish things of this world (I Corinthians 1:27).

The town painted a picture of how we are to use the gifts God has given us. It’s true—others might already be doing the very thing that you can do, and others might even be equipped to do it better than you can. Does that matter? We are to proceed anyway, choosing faith instead of doubt. I used to wonder what God’s special purpose for my life was, but my mind is quieter about that question now. Finding the Lord’s purposes for our lives is difficult only when we make it so. We are to do what we can see to do, within the opportunity we see to do it, even when the prize for this effort is difficult to point out. Let God secure the prize. We are to serve. We are to show up! A great and powerful Love flows through this simple commitment—the commitment to continue making sandwiches, the commitment to keep on meeting the train.