Today, is a day for love. That’s the way it is explained, anyway. Valentine’s Day is billed as a time to celebrate love and those in love. In spite of its historic foundations, it is a nice sentiment, but sentiment is part of the challenge.

It is far too easy to substitute sentimentality for real love. Numerous people will be making stops today to grab something fast so they have a gift for the one they love. It will be one more thing to check off of the daily action list, or even delegate to someone else. A token and a card and everything will be covered for another year, but is that what love looks like? Can love be reduced to a gift, a dinner, or a card?

Several years ago, I asked a man I knew if he was ready for Valentine’s Day. He responded, “I don’t participate in that. Once you start, they come to expect it.” I suggested that was a little harsh and he silenced me by saying, “If my wife doesn’t know that I love her every day, then a gift doesn’t help, and I am failing to do what I should do.”

There is certainly nothing wrong with celebrating today, and nothing wrong with sharing expressions of our love, but if we reduce love down to a heartwarming verse or a fancy dinner, we are missing the point. Real love is an investment. It is sacrificial, and can never be relegated to a few kind expressions. Love requires work, and sometimes, the work is hard.

Often, when I perform a wedding ceremony, I am asked to include a reading from 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter. It is an appropriate passage, but it is not just for weddings. It is the definition of what real love looks like. Consider these words once again:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Love like this takes effort. It is an intentional action, not a sentimental feeling. Love puts the other first. It patiently cares and easily forgives. Love believes in the possibilities of what is yet to come and presses on until those possibilities become reality. Love does not find pleasure in self-seeking, but in the truth. Love does the hard thing and expresses itself in integrity. This real love is so much more than making someone feel good. Instead, it is a deep desire to help someone experience goodness.

So, on this day when we celebrate love, give the chocolates, flowers, and cards. Enjoy a dinner out. Tell the people that matter that you love them. Then, after the symbols are shared and the sentiment expressed, choose to actually love. Be deliberate, persistent, and hopeful. Resolve to love with intent and integrity every day. Rejoice in the truth as you humbly consider others ahead of yourself, and always remember, “Love never fails.” (13:8)

The post Love Never Fails appeared first on Thinking Faith Cafe.

Boring is often only a matter of perspective.

I remember taking my grandson shopping. My wife and daughter were trying on clothes, so he and I made our way to a sporting goods store. There was a play area for children outside, so we spent some time there before we went in the store to shop. I should say, before I went in the store to shop. There was nothing in the store that interested him.

I tried to look around, but he kept asking, “When we will be done?” and, “Can we go play outside again?” I asked him to be patient and wait, promising to go outside and play again. I looked in one of the display cabinets and when I looked up, he was gone. I panicked. After a few minutes of searching, I found him sitting behind another case with his head in his hands. “What are you doing? I asked. Without looking up he responded, “trying to wait patiently.” I took his hand and we went outside to play.

In the store, I was excited and deeply interested. He was bored. What I enjoyed was almost tortuous for him. What bored him, excited me. Boring truly was in the eye of the beholder.

Some of our shared Christian journey can seem boring. The worship music may not be our style. The pastor may not preach to our preferences. The readings may leave us uninspired, and the service may seem too long. It is easy to feel bored and disinterested. It is especially challenging in a culture of significant customization, where we can special order exactly what we like. Mingle that with the ever-growing consumer mentality and we begin shopping for churches that tick all of our boxes, and become disengaged from activities that don’t move us.

It this context, it is wise to ask the important questions. Is everything supposed to move me in the same way? Must everything meet my emotional and intellectual expectations? Does boring equal bad?

My grandson lacked the maturity to reflect on those questions while we shopped, but as adults, we can challenge ourselves to look at things through different eyes. I was not particularly excited by the outdoor play area, but I was excited to watch my grandson enjoy himself. The play area wasn’t made for me, but it was created for him, and it was no problem for me to sacrifice my desires for his joy.

What if our spiritual life was embraced with similar eyes? What if, instead of judging experiences based upon how they met our personal desires, we beheld them through they eyes, and needs of others, including God? What if our focus was on the blessings others received? What if our deepest question was, “Does this bring joy to God? Is it possible that what we find boring is what God loves, what others need, even what we need without knowing it?

I once shared a conversation with a woman who sat nearby in a coffee shop. She shared the she was Roman Catholic and attended the 7:30 am Mass at a nearby church. I asked why she chose that service and she replied, “Because the priest can get it done in 15-20 minutes.” After a brief pause she reflected, “That might not be the best reason. I just don’t find it interesting, so I am glad to get it over with.”

We all have things that we want to get through because they do not impact us the way we wish they did. Maybe we don’t fully understand them, maybe we don’t comprehend their significance, maybe we just need to behold them a different way. The fact that we are bored may say more about us that it does about the experience.

Certainly, we should offer God our best in everything we do, and I have endured experiences where the lack of investment was obvious. However, even those moments can yield beauty and blessings if we are open to receive them. If we change our desire from entertainment to encounter, then we begin to open our eyes to behold the One we love and who loves us.

The time with my grandson was immeasurably valuable. I don’t get as much time as I would like to be with him, and I can always shop when he is not around. My goal was not to shop, but to be with him, letting him know that he matters to me and that he is loved. Could it be that, if we approach our spiritual life in the same way, we might behold more than we imagined? Maybe what we find most boring will be the place we behold the greatest vision of God.

The post Bored and Beholding appeared first on Thinking Faith Cafe.

We have a choice. In almost every part of our lives, there is someplace where we posses the power to choose. We may not be able to choose what happens, but we always possess the decision of how we will respond.

The insights of Victor Frankl speak deeply to me, especially regarding this issue. Imprisoned in a Nazi Concentration Camp, enduring great evil, and experiencing great pain, he realized that his oppressors could control his environment and much of what was done to him, and those he loved. He also discovered the one thing they could never control was his response. No matter how powerful they were, he always retained his ability to choose. It was a challenging, yet liberating revelation.

While our circumstances may not be that extreme, we are no less able to decide. The power to choose our response is always ours. On one hand, this is a deeply frustrating insight because it dismantles our ability to blame our circumstances, or others, for the choices we make. We can hold people and systems accountable for evil and injustice, but we cannot abdicate our responsibility for our decision.

At the same time, such revelation is profoundly liberating. It removes us from the deceptive myth that we have no control. It may not be the control we are looking for, or even the control we want, but we are never completely powerless. There is at least one area where we can act and change our experience.

This is a challenging revelation for me. While I know it is true, I frequently find it difficult to practice. Like so many others, I frequently hear myself say, “I’m offended,” “I’m hurt,” I’m angry, frustrated, and unhappy.” Yet, I know that those statements are only partially true, because, when I speak them, I am implying that my emotional response was someone else’s decision. I’ve worked for years to change my wording, not as an expression of semantics, but as a means to more accurately define my reality, for as I do so, I gain more control over that reality.

Now, when I hear myself say those, and similar words, I work to immediately speak the truth, “I choose to be offended,” “I choose to be hurt,” “I choose to be angry, frustrated, and unhappy.” I choose. My response is my decision and when I accept that, I gain the power to claim a different reality. I choose to break destructive cycles and open myself to other possibilities.

We are made in the image of God, and that is a profound truth. It declares we have intrinsic value; our worth is not found in the judgement of others, but in fact that we exist and are loved by God. The image of God also means that we have the power to choose. We can choose good or evil, blessing or curse, even God or self. We can also choose how we respond to life and others.

As people of God, loved by God and empowered by God, we are never completely powerless. How we will live and how we will respond to our circumstances is always our choice. In a world that often seems out of control, we are grounded in God’s truth, and God’s reality. In a culture filled with angst, where being angry and offended seems to be a competitive sport, we can live in, and share, God’s grace and peace.

So, as always, we come to our lives with the God-given power to choose this day who we will serve, and how we will respond. What will you choose? For me, I choose God, and the grace and peace that flows from the Spirit. Now, I just need to put that decision into practice.

The post Decisions, Decisions appeared first on Thinking Faith Cafe.

Gravity, it is the weak force of physics that keeps us strongly rooted to the ground and affects everything from the lightest feather to the grandest sun. It is something we depend upon for life to remain ordered, and it is surprisingly difficult to overcome.

We see that difficulty every time we watch a rocket launch. Massive amounts of fuel are needed to create the thrust energy needed to lift the rocket from the ground. At first it barely moves, and slowly develops forward momentum. Still, that momentum would be almost instantly lost if the thrust were cut off. However, once free of the strong pull of the earth’s gravity, very little energy is needed to change direction or increase speed.

Like the rocket that exerts great energy to free itself form the gravitational force pulling it back to earth, we must also exert great energy to break free from the things that pull us back in life. If we stop too soon, or back off from the effort, the pull of the former things will quickly drag us backward.

The Hebrew people were slaves in Egypt. The Bible tells us the lived in subservience for 400 years. Generation after generation being born and dying in slavery. They dreamed, prayed, and cried out for freedom with a vision that one day they would be free from oppression.

Enter Moses, the man God chose to be the tool of God to liberate the Hebrew slaves. The story is lengthy, but as God moved powerfully through him, Pharaoh relented and set the people free. In the process everyone saw the supreme power of God, and rejoiced that they were delivered from their bondage.

Early in their journey away from Egypt they encountered an obstacle, Pharaoh was coming after them and they were trapped. Having seen the great power of God to set them free so recently, you would expect their faith to be high as they called out to God to deliver them again. Instead, the gravity of their previous life took hold and they began to complain to Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die? We were better off as slaves in Egypt!” It was a complaint spoken repeatedly in spite of God’s continued deliverance.

Jesus’ apostles were not immune to this pull. After all he taught them; after three years with him; after seeing him manifest the power of God and then doing the same themselves, the shock of his death led them to return to fishing, the vocation many of them possessed prior to his call to follow him.

We are not immune either. The Psalmist said, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to in and are saved.” Yet, all too often, when the struggle hits, we run the other direction, right back toward where we came from. It happens in individual lives, in families, and in churches. When faced with adversity, unknown outcomes, and obstacles that seem dramatically bigger than our abilities, we try to fall back to what we once knew, before we were walking in the Spirit. We try to solve things in our own strength, or we try to run and hide. The pull of what we knew and where we were is a powerful force to overcome.

Of course, adversity, unknown outcomes, and substantial obstacles are also the foundation for great adventures. They are often the source of grand tales and the stuff of legends. It is when we push to overcome the pull of our past and our fears, we break free from what holds us back and are able to soar with Christ! Imagine the possibilities and discoveries that await us when we break free and pursue the adventure of a lifetime with Jesus. Let that nugget sink in and give you a little more hope, and power to persevere.

In my next post we will look at some forces that draw us back. What do you find tends to draw you back from living the adventure with Jesus?

The post Gravity appeared first on Thinking Faith Cafe.