Uncool Worship Music

I have been more involved in the music of the church lately, and so I have been thinking about these things again.  Here are a few thoughts about music in the church.

We should aim for something higher than cool

I think that aiming for cool in church music can bring disunity both culturally and generationally.  The kind of people Jesus reaches are often not welcome at the cool table.  His love falls on the poor in spirit, the weak, the nobodies.  But when the church is built on the culture of cool, it can easily become exclusive along those lines.  The lines of exclusion from cool are very different than the lines of exclusion from Jesus.

But it can also be divisive generationally because cool has to be a moving target.  If you don't change quickly enough, you miss the bus.  For example, how cool is worship music from the 1980's?  The 90's?  Even the last decade (what do we call it, the ot's)?  Anyone still worshipping to Petra and Audio Adrenaline?

It grieves me the way we create and perpetuate a generation gap in our churches with our music.  If you can't keep up, then you are left behind and out of touch.  Rather than a rich, diverse, family of people gathering in the Spirit of Christ, we divide up decade by decade, each with our own gathering and our own music.  We need a music that expresses the unity we have in Christ rather than further serving our fragmentation.  We should sing ancient songs that have stood the test of time.  And we should sing new songs that are good, true, and beautiful.  

And what about style?  As Doug Wilson has pointed out, folk music is a music of the people.  It is not mass-produced throwaway pop, nor is it inaccessible elite art.  It is carefully crafted and accessible.  Folk music is inter-generational, and multi-instrumental.  It is music that fathers can play with their sons, music that is always evolving in freshness, but has a rootedness.  It is a music that we can unify around.  It is a music that invites others in, to pick up an instrument and grow as you play.  This is not just another cool thing to try, this is an opportunity to own, repent of, and reverse a massive evangelical trend of fracturing the church along cultural and musical lines.  We have the opportunity to work out musically the unity we have been freely given in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.  

This kind of thing takes time.  It takes musicians and artists who catch the vision and root themselves in the community of the church.  It takes people with the love and humility of Christ to listen to each other, to learn each others' styles, and to work together to cultivate something organic and beautiful and lasting.


Worship music should be music of the people

I was struck a few years ago when I attended a fairly typical evangelical church and embarrassed myself by standing and singing during the worship music time.  I wasn't trying to be that guy who has to sing louder than everyone to draw attention to himself, I just love to sing and was standing and singing in a loud voice like King David told me to.  People were looking at me.  Probably a majority of the other people were sitting down.  Some were singing faintly, I think, though I didn't actually hear anyone else singing.  Most people were gently swaying while watching the cool band up front.  
It reminded me of a Coldplay concert.  The musicians were singing for us, and we were enjoying it, and maybe softly singing along if we really liked the song.

I like concerts as much as the next guy, but they are not the same as what we are doing on Sunday morning.  On Sunday morning, the people are gathering to offer the "sacrifice of praise" together.  We don't gather to slaughter bulls and goats, but we do gather, and we do have sacrifices to bring.  Hebrews 2:11-12 tells us that Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers, saying "I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing your praise."  This is what the worship music is to facilitate, singing God's praise in the middle of his gathered people.  Songs of praise should rise from the whole people.  If what we do with instruments dampens rather than ignites the singing of the people, then we have taken a wrong turn somewhere. 

This is part of what we have inherited in the New Covenant.  Before Christ came, worship was something the priest did for you.  You went through him to get to God.  But we don't need an earthly priest, because we have a High Priest at the right hand of God that gives us access directly into the presence.  The music guy doesn't usher us into the presence of God, Jesus already did that.  For some reason, the church is always trying to slide back into a more mediated approach to God in worship.  We are content to pass notes through someone else, when God is welcoming us to behold his glory in the face of Jesus Christ.  This is part of what we recovered in the Reformation, but we give it away so easily.  When we gather for worship, we are not attending a concert that gives us the feels, we are engaging in a robust act of worship of the people, facilitated and lead by a group of musicians, aimed at the glory of God, inhabited by his Holy Spirit.  One of the specific things the Bible says people full of the Spirit do is sing.  It is easy to have a concert, but on Sunday morning we are doing so much more when we gather and sing together to the God of all grace. 


Worship music should strive to be joyfully reverent

God's presence calls forth a certain kind of response.  We have an entire book of Psalms, a rich heritage of worship music that will help to train us in what is fitting.  Psalm 2 tells us to "serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling."  Rejoice with trembling.  Have you ever experienced anything that brought about that kind of emotion?  Trembling rejoicing.  Happy fear.  Joyful dread.  Awful, awesome, reverent gladness.  Hebrews specifically tells us to worship with reverence and awe since God is a consuming fire.  Do our songs reflect who we are singing to?  C. S Lewis said it this way, 

You asked for a loving God: you have one.  The Great Spirit you so lightly invoked, the 'Lord of                 terrible aspect' is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate,  nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests,  but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds.

  
There should be a dominant note of praise and celebration in our worship.  We are approaching the God who loves us, who conquered death, the devil, sin, and hell through the sacrifice of his Son.  This should move us more than it does.  We don't need to be all composed, like David wasn't when he danced before the ark.  But we need weight to our worship.  Celebration without weight is a pop concert or a pep rally.  It is not fitting for the worship of the God of the Bible.  On the other hand, weight without celebration is like a funeral procession of people who forget that we are free and glad children of light  We want weighty gladness, and as the Spirit fills us more and more, we will continue to grow into this.

More Empty, Nagging, Unrest

Friend: Hey Christian, how have things been going since the last time we talked?

Christian: Quite a bit better, thanks.  I have been working on daily confession, and finding a lot more freedom.  

Friend: Great.

Christian: I have been enjoying the experience of a clean conscience through confession, it is an amazing thing.

Friend:  It really is.  It is worth chasing after.

Christian:  I agree.  And I find that I do have to chase it.  It doesn't just automatically stay.  

Friend:  Haha, no.  Our acceptance with God through Christ's blood never changes, but our experience and enjoyment of it seems to get eclipsed by unconfessed sin.

Christian: Yeah.  When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

Friend: Exactly.

Christian: Working on my soul like this has been really refreshing and eye-opening.  I find I am starting to sort out some of the things I feel but have tried to ignore.

Friend: Great.

Christian: It seems like there are other things at work in my unrest too.  There are things that bother me that are not directly my sin, but that trouble me.

Friend: Like what?

Christian: I guess they are things that are happening to me.  Things in my life that I worry about.  Situations where I don't know what to do?

Friend: What do you think the Bible calls what you are talking about?

Christian: Hmm.  That is a good question... I guess worry, and being anxious.

Friend: What kinds of things are you anxious about?

Christian: Different things at different times.  Sometimes my work.  Sometimes relationships with people I care about, or the future, or something else.

Friend: And what do you do with the anxiety?

Christian: I go around in circles in my mind about whatever it is, and don't really know how to get out.  I get nervous when I think about it, so I try to stop thinking about it.  I try to distract myself from it and ignore it.  I try to tell myself that worrying doesn't help, so I try to think about something else.  This puts me back in the constant search for a distraction, and the anxiety stays on the back burner with a constant faint nagging.

Friend: Is that what God says to do with your anxiety and worries?

Christian: No, he tells us not to worry, but I'm not sure how not to.

Friend: I know that he says not to worry, but I mean are you dealing with the temptation to anxiety in the way he tells you to?

Christian: Well, I am trying not to worry.  And I guess trying to think about other things.  Is that not right?

Friend: Well, think about what God calls you to do.  What does the Bible say about what to do with your cares and your anxiety?

Christian: Well, I remember "Cast all your cares upon him."  

Friend: That is a good one.  What do you think that means?

Christian: Not to worry.

Friend: I think it says more than that.  Think about what it says specifically.

Christian: Okay, I guess like throwing all our worries on God.  

Friend: Yeah.

Christian: So I guess like trusting in God.

Friend: Exactly that, but be careful you aren't reducing this to a Christian platitude.  How would you do that experientially?

Christian: I don't really know.  I guess by praying.

Friend: Okay, praying what?

Christian: I guess praying about the things I am worried about.

Friend: Yes.  Imagine a child trying to carry a backpack full of supplies that are too heavy for him.  He keeps trying, thinking that is what his dad wants him to do, but he is getting really tired.  He keeps stumbling and falling down.  Imagine his dad tells him to give all the stuff in the pack to him.  What should he do?  

Christian: He should give the stuff to his dad.

Friend: Right.  He should talk about it with his dad.  But he should also take off his pack, sit down, and put each individual item into his dad's pack.

Christian: Okay, so prayer is not enough?

Friend: I'm not saying that.  But I am saying God has more freedom for you than only talking to him about how heavy the pack is.  I am saying that - in prayer - you should sit down and unload your pack onto God.  You should sit quietly and ask yourself what is bothering you.  You should think about it, consider what it is, and then pass it off to your father.  

Christian: That sounds almost too good to be true.  Part of me feels like I need to be carrying the things I worry about.  Like it would be irresponsible to empty my pack.

Friend: Some of that is pride.  Have you ever noticed the first part of the verse you quoted to me?

Christian: I don't think so.

Friend: It says, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."

Christian: Huh.  So casting my cares on him is part of humbling myself.

Friend: It is.  And you can see it now, right?  The kid who won't listen to his dad and unload his pack is thinking he can do it on his own when he clearly can't.  His father never asked him to.  Your Father never asked you to carry the weight of the world.  

Christian: Thankfully.

Friend: He carried it for you.  He took so much of your trouble on himself that it crushed him.  But he is not the kind of God that can stay crushed.  

Christian: And that is the last part of the verse: "because he cares for you."

Friend.  Yeah.  He really does.  So every day, like with confession, unload your pack on him.  Open your pack, see what is weighing you down, and give it to him.  Then you can run with endurance the race that is set before you.  

Christian: That sounds amazing.  I'm going to try that.  But I guess I have a lingering question, I don't want to be argumentative.

Friend: Ask.

Christian: Well, does this mean I don't do anything?  I mean, I am thinking about worries I have in a specific relationship.  Should I not try to make it better?  Should I not work at it?

Friend: That is a good question.  What do you think?

Christian: Well, it doesn't seem right to not try.  I mean, I love this person, I want to labor in love for their good.  Jesus loved me and gave himself up for me.  And I want to learn that.

Friend: That is beautiful.

Christian: But how does that fit with what you said?

Friend: Yeah, the backpack analogy maybe fails us a little at this point.  The supplies in the pack are not the things themselves, but our worry and anxiety about them.  We don't give up on life and on people, but we give our worry to God.

Christian: Okay...

Friend: I will tell you what I do when I am taking my own advice.  I get alone with God and I look at each thing I am worrying about.  I ask God what I can do in the situation.  Is there something I need to confess or repent of?  Is there something I can do to help that is within my reach?  I then commit to try to do that thing with God's help.  Then I ask God what part of the thing is out of my hands.  The answers generally seem pretty clear.  I entrust that to him, acknowledge to him that it is out of my hands, and spend some time praying that he will work good things in it for his kingdom and for righteousness.  And then I set it aside.  I do this until nothing else comes to mind, and my soul feels unburdened, and then I rejoice in God's care for me.  I rejoice that I have the kind of Father I have, and I enjoy the freedom and gladness of a child of God.

Christian: That sounds great.  Do you think if I regularly confess my sins and unload my worries on God I will be free from the empty, nagging unrest?  

Friend: Maybe.  It is a good place to start.  God promises that when you bring your requests to him with thankfulness, his peace will guard your heart and mind in Jesus in a way that is beyond what you can understand. 

Christian: I like the sound of that.

Exactly What Our World Needs

In order to get where we are trying to go in this post I need you to engage your imagination for a minute.  I want you to imagine yourself as a victim of oppression.  (I don't mean a victimista of our American culture; you know, the guy complaining that a few of the down feathers in his mattress topper sometimes poke through and irritate his skin, or the girl who thinks that her mild occasional headache or bloaty feeling entitle her to being coddled and catered to because of her "serious medical condition.")  I mean a real victim.  Imagine you are someone forced into slavery, or someone imprisoned by militant Muslims.  Imagine you are a journalist in a North Korean prison camp, catching and eating rats to keep you alive so you can keep suffering and carrying out difficult and meaningless tasks for the next twenty years.  Or imagine you and your family are painfully hungry every day because wicked rulers have seized control of everything "for the good of the people." 

Got it?

Okay, now imagine what your heart is longing for.  Imagine your prayer life.  Does it have to do with your nephew's cold, which blend of coffee to choose, or wanting to feel #blessed?

What do your prayers concern?  Love, perseverance, hope, justice.

It is the last one I want us to think about.

In this thought experiment, do your prayers include a longing for God to make things right?  Do your prayers sound like many of the Psalms? 

"How long, O Lord, Will you forget me forever?"

"How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?"

"Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man."

"Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?  In arrogance the wicked hotly pursue the poor; let them be caught in the schemes that they have devised."

"For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.  Arise, O Lord!  Let not man prevail; let the nations be judged before you!  Put them in fear, O Lord!  Let the nations know that they are but men!"*

The Psalms are full of prayers for God to arise and judge, because the oppressed rightly long for judgment.  But sometimes when I read these Psalms I get a little uncomfortable.  Do you?  We hear about God's judgment and we don't like it, or at least it makes us feel funny.  It doesn't seem very...nice.  After all, isn't the greatest command to be nice to your neighbor?  Something like that.  Can you imagine Rob Bell and Oprah sitting on her patio rejoicing in God's judgment?  They actually came kind of close.

I think part of the reason we are uncomfortable with longing for God's judgment is because we don't identify with the oppressed.  We don't really like to think about the oppressed.  We don't really think about abortion, because, what a downer!  We sometimes think about sex trafficking.  It is horrendous, and it is important that it has been brought to light.  But I wonder if we like talking about that one because we can still think about sex.  If the wild success of 50 shades is any indicator, we kind of like thinking about that sort of thing.  We don't think about real hunger and poverty and war, and when we do, we start thinking that something has gone wrong with God and we don't know what to do with all of this.  We don't make a practice of praying for those in prison as though we were in prison with them.  We don't like the idea of going to Jesus outside the camp, thrown away, rejected.

But when we identify with the oppressed, or when we are oppressed ourselves, we rightly begin to long for God's judgment, for God to make things right.  This is not a childish vindictiveness, it is a built-in longing for righteousness and justice.  This is a longing for a world in which things are upright.  This is a longing for people not to be taken advantage of, and for those who take advantage to be stopped.  This is a refusal to make peace with the rampant wickedness in the world, a refusal to acknowledge that this is how it will always be.  We need a judgment day.  We need a God who is powerful enough and just enough to rise up, to step in, and to set things right.  And we have such a God, but we are often embarrassed to admit it to ourselves, or to talk to others about this aspect of God's good character.

This path of thought raises (at least) one more serious question.  Once we realign our hearts from embarrassment about judgment to longing for judgment, another troubling question arises in us.  Why hasn't God done this yet?  Where is he?  Why is he waiting so long?  This is quite a different, but a related question.  If God is so good, then where is he in the midst of human suffering and oppression?

One answer is that he is prolonging his judgment in mercy.  Peter tells us that people will start asking this question: where is the promise of his coming (to judge)?  And the answer is that he is waiting because he has  made a way for the wicked to turn in repentance and be saved from their own wickedness through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  He has a plan to fix us with love, to remake even the vilest of us.  He is incredibly patient.  If you don't know the gist of the passage I am referring to, I encourage you to go read 2 Peter 3 again.  It will only take you a minute or two.  The point is that God is delaying his judgment in mercy.  God will fully and finally judge the earth because he loves the oppressed and he loves righteousness and justice.  God hasn't judged the earth finally and fully yet because he is the kind of God who loves the wicked and oppressors, and because he delights to show mercy even to us, by granting us repentance from our wickedness.

We twist this all in our rebellion.  We say he is going to judge because he doesn't love mercy.  And we say he hasn't judged yet because he doesn't love justice.  When we think this way we have it all backwards.  God is just and merciful, and that is exactly the kind of God our world needs.  If he isn't merciful, we will all be swept away in the judgment.  If he isn't just, things will never be made right.  

Praise God, he will uphold his justice and his mercy perfectly.  He will make all things right.  The King has come, the kingdom is coming, the gates are wide open.  Come in and find hope and pardon in Christ.





*These quotes are pulled from Psalms 9-13ish if you want to follow them up.

Empty Nagging Unrest

Friend: Hey Christian, its good to see you, how has your week been? 

Christian: Oh, its been okay, thanks. 

Friend: Why just okay?  Anything going on with you?

Christian: Oh, no.  Nothing major.  I'm not sure why I said okay. 

Friend: Well, is something minor bothering you?

Christian: I guess, yeah.  It's hard to describe.  I just live with this background noise that's like a nagging feeling in my stomach.  I feel mildly agitated and don't really want to live like that.

Friend: Yeah.  What do you do about it?

Christian: That's a good question.  I don't really do much about it.  I think I try to ignore it.  If I keep myself pretty busy and distracted then it kind of just fades into the background.  

Friend: Like a background noise?

Christian: Yeah.

Friend: So you distract yourself?

Christian: Yeah, I try to stay really busy, or occupied.  You know, when I am not busy with work I habitually check my phone, scroll through Facebook, read blogs, watch TV.

Friend: Anything else?

Christian: Sometimes religious activities.  Reading theology, serving in ministries, reading and sharing blog articles.  Or sports and activities.  Or food.  Either eating it, or worrying about not eating it, or what to eat, or how I feel from eating it.  Sometimes I wonder if the problem is nutritional or dietary.  Maybe I have one of those intolerances everyone talks about.

Friend: Maybe.  How does the distraction thing play into that?  If you are constantly distracting yourself, you must be distracting yourself from something. 

Christian: Yeah.  I am distracting myself.  I don't like that nagging feeling.

Friend: Does it work?

Christian: What?

Friend: The distraction.  Does it make the nagging thing go away?  

Christian: No, it doesn't.  I mean, for awhile.  If I really focus on other things then it kind of recedes for awhile.  Sometimes really working hard at exercise and diet seem to give me some level of relief, which I have to settle for.  

Friend: Do you?

Chrsitian: Do I what?

Friend: Do you have to settle?

Christian: I guess not.

Friend: If you had a dog in your yard that wouldn't stop barking night and day, do you think the best solution would be to try to distract yourself from the sound?

Christian: Haha, no.  I would tell it to go home.

Friend: Yeah.

Christian: Okay, so distracting myself is the wrong way to deal.  But what do I do, how do I send it home?

Friend: I think that depends on what it is.

Christian: How do I figure that out?

Friend: Well, I think it would be good to start with the basics.

Christian: That makes sense.  What are you referring to?

Friend: What is your deepest need?

Christian: Food?

Friend: Think like a Christian.

Christian: Okay.  I guess my deepest problem is sin, so my deepest need is forgiveness and freedom from sin.

Friend: Good.  And have you been given a way to deal with sin?

Christian: Yes, Jesus dealt with it.

Friend: Most true!  And what are you then called to do with your sin?

Christian: Um... confess and repent?

Friend: Right.  Do you do that?

Christian: Well, sure.

Friend: Regularly and deeply, as a practice?

Christian: No.  Honestly, it is pretty sporadic.  

Friend: So could feelings of guilt for unconfessed sin be what is bothering you?

Christian: I suppose so.  Does guilt work like that?

Friend: Think about your closest relationships: parents, siblings, spouse, kids.  When you wrong them does it affect the relationship?  Does it affect the way you act and feel around them?  

Christian: Yeah, it does.  I try to avoid them, I have a nagging feeling that things aren't right.

Friend: How does it get better?

Christian: When I admit what I did wrong and apologize.  It is amazing how restorative that is to the relationship and to me.

Friend: Do you see what I am getting at here?

Christian: Yeah.  But confession is hard.  How can I confess every sin?  

Friend: Start with the ones you remember.  Start generally.  Ask God to reveal more that is in the way.  Do you think he wants guilt to stand between you?  What lengths has he gone to in order to remove it?

Christian: Yeah.

Friend: Confess every day.  As you fall, rise through confession.  Ask him to forgive the ones you don't see.  And do it all purposefully.  Consider your sin.  Consider the guilt of it.  Own it all the way to the bottom, without excusing, justifying, or blaming. Then plunge it fully in the blood of Jesus, put all your sin on him, and rise with a clean conscience, knowing it is finished.  If guilt nags at you, remind it of Christ and his sacrifice.  Do you know the joy of a clean conscience?

Christian: Kind of.

Friend: It is a treasure worth digging for.  It is freely yours in Christ.  Seek it.

Christian: Will this solve all my problems.

Friend: I don't know.  But if you are not in the practice of daily confession this would be the place to start.  Christ promises rest to those who come to him.  

Christian: Thanks for talking to me about this.

Friend: Go in peace.

Trading Fear for Wonder

There is a common struggle among Christians who want to know God's will for their life.  Rightly understood and pursued, this is a great thing.  Wanting to do whatever God would have us do, and to sift out of that any measure of sinful desire is beautiful, it is seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.  When we are seeking this well, that is--by faith, it will help us and keep us moving forward.  But often we hang up at this point and become paralyzed by uncertainty and filled with anxiety.  What is going on here?

I think part of what hangs us up in the desire to "know God's will" is a desire to control the future, to know and determine it exhaustively, to insist on making choices based on all the possible information.  But this is not how we were created, and it is to agitate against our creatureliness.  We don't have all the information; we were not meant to have all the information.  We are given all the information we need, and we have a Father in heaven who loves us and promises to guide us and go with us.  He delights to call us to walk by faith in him, to trust that we are in his hand.  

God called Abraham to go to a place that he would show him.  He told him to leave everything he knew to go to a place as yet undisclosed.  Where am I going?  What will the provisions be like?  Will there be enemies?  Don't I need a pro and con list?  You have all the information you need.  Trust me, and go.

God called Abraham to sacrifice his son, the one he had already promised to use to make Abraham into a great nation.  How will that happen if Isaac is dead?  You have all the information you need.  Trust me, and go.

How did Abraham know it was God's voice?  That is a good question.  Jesus tells us that his sheep know him and they hear his voice, and they follow him, and they will not follow another.  The question is crippling in the abstract (how might I know), but when the time is right, you know.

Walking by faith in God, moving forward even when we don't know for sure, is part of what it means to seek his kingdom and righteousness.  God is an active part of the story.  He doesn't call, and send, and then not accompany.  If you check your heart, and by his grace you set yourself to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, you should not worry that he will abandon you along the way.  You have a promise that when you seek his kingdom and righteousness first, he will take care of the details.  Your Father knows that you need these things.  Is he the kind of Father who would send you on an errand and not supply you with what you need?  Is the the kind of Father who is able to make people's sandals not wear out during long treks through the desert?  Is he the kind of Father who withholds good things from you?  What has he given you already?

Following God by faith means passionately pursuing future possibilities with an excited realization that God could decisively change our course at any time.  We don't see everything, but he does.  We want to see everything and then act.  He wants us to realize that he sees everything and trust him.  All of this adds excitement, wonder, and mystery to our story.  I don't know what is around the next corner, and that creates dramatic tension.  It could be a chest of gold, or it could be a dragon. It could be a smooth section of path through a quiet glade, or it could be a dangerous, rocky ascent.  This shouldn't make me sit down and look for a map that I know I don't have.  I should feel my heart thump, feel the blood course through my veins, say a prayer, and walk forward.

The price of this excitement, wonder, and mystery; what we have to give up in order to embrace it, is control and a demand for exhaustive knowledge which we can never have.  Not a bad trade.

Did You Have Your Loud Time Today?

When I really need to pray about something I go for a drive in my truck.  

Driving has the right amount of distraction.  It requires enough focus that I can't be doing anything else, but is automatic enough that I can freely talk to God about what is on me and in me.  

The other good thing about it is that I am in a little box, sealed off from the outside world, so I can get loud and people don't think I have lost it (which I have in some senses).

So I drive around, gesticulating wildly, shouting my prayers to God, and sometimes crying.  I am sure it is quite a spectacle.  The danger of it is a lack of reverence.  Any time you start raising your voice with God you have to be careful that your heart is right.  I try to be careful to say something like "I know you are right, but it feels to me like..."

Fill in the blank.

"you are not there."
"I don't have the strength, patience, and love to do what you are calling me to do."
"it is all death and no resurrection."

You get the angle.

That first part about knowing that God is right is crucial.  It is deep folly to assume that I am right and God is wrong.  Nevertheless sometimes I have to wrestle with him to get to seeing things right side up.  These kinds of prayer times are almost always wildly beneficial and overdue.

I was encouraged today when I read and was struck by a description of Jesus' prayers that sounded an awful lot like my loud times in my truck.

"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence." Hebrews 5:7

Well, the loud cries and tears part.
I try really hard to imitate him in the reverence, and I see there in Hebrews how crucial it is.  It is why he was heard.  Jesus' reverence is also why I am heard, and I really want to imitate him in it.

I don't think I usually associate loud cries and reverence.  I think I usually think of reverence as quiet and still.

I don't always have a quiet time.  When I do they are usually far less helpful than my loud times, so long as they are clothed in reverence.    

The Secret of Parenting

I have found the secret to parenting.  

It is contained in the phrase "the law says do, the gospel says done."
Along with that is an understanding that commands do no good to help us obey, only the promise does.

So now when my kids don't want to eat their vegetables, instead of telling them to eat their vegetables (do) I tell them about how sure I am Jesus ate his vegetables for them (done).

When it is bedtime, I don't tell them to go to bed (do), I just tell them how Jesus slept the sleep of death for them (done), and sit back and wait for them to run and jump into bed.

When they want to play in the street, I don't warn them of the dangers, nor do I tell them they are not allowed (do).  I just simply tell them that Jesus died for them (done) and I am sure they will make the proper connections.

Anything else is legalism that I have happily gotten free from.  I feel so much better now, so free.


Just kidding, I don't do that.
That would be a bad idea.
I love the gospel centered movement.  I poke fun at parts of it here because small gospel thinking doesn't show a deep love for the gospel.  If I objected to my favorite song being turned into muzak, you should not think I had decided to be against my favorite song.  In fact, the more I love it, the more offended I will be by its hollowing out.

Apart from Christ's work we have no hope.
The gospel is the good news about God's work for us in Christ's death and resurrection.
We are accepted by God purely on the work of Christ and not on our own work.
We grow by the power of God's Spirit at work in us as a result of regeneration.
God has lots of good means for our growth.  The promises, commands, and warnings of his word are part of those good means.
Apart from faith and regeneration none of them will do us any good because our hearts are in rebellion against God.  
If you stumble over that, ask yourself what God told us the Scriptures are for in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.