AS THEY WERE GOING...

(8/2/10)
(At Home in Concord, NC)

Hi God. Everything is quiet here now. It’s 10:00pm and Kim has just gone to bed. The TV is off, and the only things I hear are the sound of my own breath and the low “whoosh” of our central air conditioning (for which I am ever so grateful on this hot, humid summer night!). I am sitting here in our great room on our old worn-out sofa… the one that swallows you whole when you sit down due to the sagging springs underneath the cushions – which is why we should probably call it sitting “in” our sofa, not sitting “on” our sofa. Buster is sleeping in one of his favorite spots… just above my left shoulder on top of the sofa cushion.

I have wanted to sit down and write in my journal for several days now, but this is the first time I have actually taken the time to do so. A few days ago, as I was preparing Sunday’s multimedia slides for our guest speaker’s message, one particular phrase from a Bible story he mentioned stood out to me as I read it.

The story, found in the gospel of Luke, is one that I have heard many times – and have even taught on it a few times – throughout my life. It’s the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers. It goes like this (my paraphrase):

Jesus was walking toward Jerusalem when ten lepers yelled out at him from a distance. (They had to do everything from a distance, since they were considered societal outcasts due to their disease.) They called out, “Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus instructed them to go and show themselves to the priests… which they did. As they were on their way, they noticed that they had been healed. One of the ten stopped in his tracks, ran back, knelt at Jesus’ feet, and thanked Him. Jesus asked (rhetorically, of course), “Weren’t there ten of you? Where are the other nine? Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

Now, here is the phrase that jumped out at me – it is a small detail of the story that I had never noticed before now. Luke 17 says:

14 He looked at them and said, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy.

Did you catch it? The verse says that “… as they went…” they were healed. When they took those first few steps toward the village, they were still lepers… still outcasts… still hopelessly stricken by the AIDS of their day. If a miracle of God hadn’t intervened, they would have looked completely foolish. They no doubt would have caused quite a commotion in the village. They would have been ridiculed, cursed, and screamed at as they made their way through the town on their way to the temple. And in addition to that, they probably would never have made it to the priests at all – the temple guards would have surely lost their jobs if they had let ten diseased lepers anywhere near the priests that day. But they didn’t let their "fears of the worst” deter them. Why? Because they were in a state of total desperation. I mean, what could have been worse than this life they were forced to live? Thrown out of town due to leprosy… even required by law to verbally announce their approach by crying out “Unclean!!” And so this desperation drove them to risk looking foolish – to risk ridicule and embarrassment – if it meant finding a better life than the one in which they were hopelessly trapped.

And “while they were on their way,” so the Bible says, they were healed. In other words, they had to step out in complete faith – even at the risk of looking like complete idiots – before they received their answer from God. I think that Jesus painted a beautiful portrait of the kind of faith that He asks of us – the kind that drives us to simply step out and go where He asks us to go, swallowing our pride and casting aside any worry about “what people might think” or “whom we might offend” or “what if Christ doesn’t come through this time.” It is the kind of faith that says simply (as Jesus said to the one leper who returned to thank Him in verse 19), “Stand up and go.”

This kind of reckless faith is conceived and incubated only in a desperate heart. Like the Prodigal Son, we must come to the end of ourselves… i.e. the death of any naïve notions that we can accomplish anything at all by relying on our own intellect, wiles, and resources. When we realize – like the lepers did – that Christ is our only hope, then we also realize that the path He points us toward is the only path toward true contentment and healing for us. And that drives us to “stand up and go…” even if it doesn’t seem to make sense… even if we can’t see a good outcome ahead… even if we can’t see anything at all.

God, my desperate heart cries out to You. I will go where You are pointing, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense… even when there is a distinct risk of looking completely foolish. I will be Your fool, O God. I would rather be God’s fool than anyone else’s sage.

PERSPECTIVE

(4/26/10)
(Site B53, Wilson Creek Valley Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway)

I’m sitting here in my SUV at this overlook, watching a storm pass over the mountain on its way east toward the North Carolina piedmont. (This is the same storm that chased me down from Beacon Heights about a few moments ago!) I am looking over into Wilson Creek Valley, where just a few moments ago there were only light gray clouds visible. You could barely make out the outlines of some of the low-lying hills through the clouds. But now the wind has blown the clouds further down the mountainside, and more and more of this amazing vista is emerging from beneath the gray.

It shows me once again Your perspective, O God. You look down on all of it. You see what is coming, what is here, and what has passed. You see in detail and you see panoramically. Nothing escapes Your gaze. Thank You for seeing me and knowing me. Thank You for choosing to love me and to be interested in my tiny little life.

Over the past two weeks, I have heard three references to the Bible story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. I have begun to think that perhaps there is some significance to that “coincidence.” So I just finished reading the story again – one that I have heard hundreds of times since childhood – and the words seemed to leap off the page and spring to life again as I read it. Here is the way it is told in Mark 6:

35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.” 37 But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” 38 “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” 39 Then Jesus told his disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 SO they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. 41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. 42 They all ate as much as they wanted, 43 and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. 44 A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!

Here are a few things I notice about this story:

(1) The disciples don’t immediately turn to Jesus and expect a miracle. They begin by thinking in finite terms – which, I must admit, I probably would have done also. I have a tendency to turn to supernatural intervention as a last resort instead of a first option. And I think God wants us to use the good brains He gave us sometimes. I think it pleases Him when we do, actually. But in some instances – 5,000 hungry men and their families, for example – I think it actually seems more logical to turn to the guy that just a little earlier had calmed a storm with His voice!

(2) Jesus says, “You feed them.” The disciples say, “With what?” And then Jesus answers with another question (and I paraphrase), “What do you have?” God wants us to use what He gave us: compassion, organizational skills, imagination, drive, brains, sense of humor, artistic talent, wealth, etc. When we are willing to place these in the hands of Jesus, then the miracle can commence.

Just think about it. Jesus could have quickly solved this dilemma by having fish sandwiches magically appear before each person there. With just a word from His lips, He could have turned the rocks on the hillside into bread – even Satan himself knew that Jesus could do that trick. But He didn’t. He used the disciples’ work. And here’s some more food for thought: do you think it was easy to get 10,000 people (remember: 5,000 men and their families) organized into orderly groups of fifty and a hundred… without a P.A. system or a megaphone? I can just picture the disciples organizing the crowd… spreading the instructions by word-of-mouth… calmly answering bewildered questions and resolving disputes… entertaining the hungry children until the baskets of food arrived. These ordinary men used what they had and rose to the occasion. And Jesus used what they had – not just the food that they found, but also the skills that they possessed – then added what only He could do; and through this collaboration, they accomplished the extraordinary. And He wants to use us – our finite, flawed, fleshly selves – to accomplish the truly remarkable and inexplicable. The equation is FINITE + INFINITE = MIRACLE.

(3) In the end, there were twelve basketfuls left over. Jesus provides more than enough to help us help others and accomplish His purposes. He will give us courage, wisdom, strength, and compassion enough to do whatever He instructs us to do (just like He instructed the disciples that day on the hillside). All we have to do is obey Him.


The first time I heard this Bible story referenced was last week when I attended a worship service at All Souls Church in Knoxville, TN. The pastor pointed out that this story exemplifies how Jesus will help you finish well anything that He calls you to do. The disciples didn’t come back after feeding the first 1,000 and say, “Ummm, Jesus? This is so embarrassing, but... we just ran out of food.” Jesus will provide more than we need. He will totally provide for us if we are doing what He instructed us to do.

The second time I heard this story was when Mark Batterson referred to it in his encouraging book, “In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day.” He is talking about trusting God even when the odds are stacked against you. Batterson quips that the odds against Jesus and His disciples were 5,000 to 7! He says:

The truth is this: “To the infinite, all finites are equal.” There is no big or small, easy or difficult, possible or impossible. When it comes to God, there are no degrees of difficulty. There are no odds when it comes to God. All bets are off. (1)

Batterson asks a few sentences later, “How big is your God?” (2) My answer to this challenging question? Well, most days it is this: “God is big enough to handle anything, empower anything, and fund anything He calls me to do.” It is all a matter of perspective – and I can achieve the extraordinary when I see things through God’s instead of mine.

The third reference to this story was toward the end of Batterson’s book where he quotes an email he received from one of his church members named Kim:

What limits are you listening to? “I’m too old.” “I have a family to think about.”… “What if I fail?” “It’s too expensive.” The list goes on forever. Remember this: we serve an unlimited God with unlimited resources. A God who looked at a few loaves and fishes and saw a banquet for five thousand people. (3)

God can fund my “big idea,” whatever it may be. He can provide everything I need. I just need to trust and follow Him.

I will trust You, O God. Thank You for Your provision, Your presence, and Your power. My declaration of total faith in You is the same one that Paul wrote in Ephesians:

13 I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

ENDNOTES:

1. Mark Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2006), 33.
2. Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, 34.
3. Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, 156.

SOLITUDE AND CAMARADERIE

(4/29/10)
(Site B53, Linville Falls Campground, Blue Ridge Parkway)

I have reached the end of an amazing eight-day vacation here in the mountains. It has been just what I needed! I feel so much better – more rested, more grounded, more patient, and more eager than I have in a long while. And as I sit here in my tent now and reflect over the past eight days, I can see that I have made a significant discovery during my sabbatical here in the North Carolina mountains. More about that later…

I must be really honest right now. As I was preparing to leave, I counted up the days that I would actually be by myself up here in the mountains (due to my wife Kim, my stepson Michael, and his friend Huan coming up for the weekend; and my twenty-two-year-old son Nate coming up for a couple of days later in the week), and I must admit that I had mixed feelings. While I was genuinely happy they were all coming up here, I was just a little grumpy about it, as well. “Only three days to myself out of eight? That’s not enough! I need more time alone!” (Actually, it ended up being about four days total – half of the total time. I don’t know why I was being such a grouch about it!)

Kim and the boys arrived about a day later. It was so great that first night when they arrived – watching them all (Kim included) having fun throwing various things into the campfire just to watch them burn… and the boys chasing each other around the campground shooting Nerf darts at each other… and Kim happily relaxing by the fire – I soon found that all my grumpiness had melted away. The next day we went out and explored. We visited Grandfather Mountain, walked across its famous “Mile-High Swinging Bridge” (which thankfully – or sadly, depending on your perspective – doesn’t really swing all that much anymore) and scrambled out onto the rocks to enjoy the incredible view. Later, we returned to the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway, and the boys and I hiked up to Beacon Heights, a massive rock outcropping with a panoramic view of Wilson Creek Valley… one of my favorite spots. I enjoyed the scenery and the crisp breeze while Michael and Huan staged a video-game-like “battle” with their walking sticks, waging war to see who would rule the rock.

We capped the day off with a drive to Valle Crucis, NC to shop at Mast General Store – a must-see if you are ever anywhere near Boone. Mast is “a blast from the past” (please pardon the unintentional rhyming slogan) – the quintessential general store situated in a hundred-year-old building; complete with creaky, uneven floors, ice cold sodas sold in real glass bottles, and a bottle cap checkerboard perched on an old barrel next to a pot-bellied stove. Don’t be mistaken, though… this isn’t like the “corporate nostalgia restaurants-slash-gift shops” that you find scattered around interstate exits… this is real nostalgia. Stepping through its doors is somewhat like stepping back in time – its sights, smells, and sounds transporting you back to a simpler, slower life… with the illusion only broken when you have to whip out your debit card to make your purchases!

When we awoke the next morning, a rainy Sunday greeted us. We decided to take the boys to Linville Caverns just a few miles away. We were all prepared to hear the typical twelve-year-old complaints, like “Awww… do we have to?” and “Man, this place is lame!” However, we were surprised to find that the boys were really excited when they found out we were going there. Kim and I exchanged smiles and winks as we witnessed the boys’ wonder and genuine enjoyment of the caverns. And just a few short hours later, instead of breathing a big sigh of relief, I found myself really sad as they drove away that afternoon. The campsite seemed so quiet. I felt a dull, empty ache in the pit of my stomach. It took me the rest of the evening just to reset and begin to enjoy myself again.

My son Nate arrived late Monday evening. The next morning ended up being mostly rainy, but we didn’t let that deter us. We just threw on our ponchos and had fun anyway, beginning our day with a hike up to Linville Falls. After lunch, even though the weather forecast was still a little “iffy”, we decided to hike up to Rough Ridge near the Linn Cove Viaduct (the oh-so-photogenic S-shaped bridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway). On the way up the trail, the weather was really chilly, but the view of Wilson Creek Valley was stunning from up there. Nate had never been all the way up to the upper view before, and he just loved it.

We sat there for a while, enjoying the spectacular view and a healthy snack. Then we noticed some thick gray clouds rolling their way over the mountainside behind us, coming closer and closer. We decided to pack up, put our ponchos back on, and get moving. Just as we got back on the trail, the precipitation began… but it wasn’t rain… it was sleet! It began slowly, but then the storm intensified to the point that the ground became white with the sleet and snow (yes, snow had begun to fall, as well). We found ourselves caught in the middle of an all-out winter storm… in North Carolina… the last week in April! But instead of complaining, we laughed and yelled and acted like complete idiots! We chuckled, “What a great story we will be able to tell now every time we hike this trail!” It was one of those amazing moments that you just can’t script – and we were living it. We finished that day with a late-night visit to a nearby laundromat to wash the mud out of our clothes.

The next day, we arose early and drove the expressway through Asheville to access the southern end of the Parkway so that we could enjoy a few of our favorite hikes there. After a detour due to ice, we finally arrived at Graveyard Fields, one of the most atypical and unusual features found on the entire Parkway system – a stark open area of fields and trails, right in the middle of lush forests on all sides. We hiked a total of three miles there, visiting both the lower and upper falls (both beautiful) of Yellowstone River. The sky was an amazing shade of blue, with no clouds in sight. We had a wonderful, refreshing time there.

I then took him to one of my new favorite Parkway views, Black Balsam Bald, which looms 6,214’ above and just behind Graveyard Fields. We enjoyed a half-mile hike to the summit, and were blown away by the 360-degree view. We couldn’t have picked a more perfect day to take this hike! During that entire morning, a U.S. Forest Service plane had been circling overhead, dropping fire retardant material on some mountainsides on the far side of the Parkway. While we were standing there on the summit of Black Balsam, we looked over to our left and were startled to see the plane headed right toward us – we were both at the same altitude! We actually gazed down on the airplane with wonder as it swooped below us and dropped its payload of fire retardant on the trees.

After hiking back to our SUV and heading south on the Parkway a few more miles, we hiked up to Devil’s Courthouse (a tough hike!) and ate a quick lunch at a picnic table there, overlooking the incredible view. We continued south from there, past Richland Balsam, the highest point on the Parkway (6,047’ – milepost 431.4), wound our way back to the expressway and drove back to Linville Falls. That night, two tired adventurers pulled back into the campsite and quickly retired to the comfort of their tents!

The next morning (well actually, this morning), Nate had to leave by 9:00am to get home in time for work. As we hugged goodbye (yes, the Hunters are “huggers”), I told him I was really glad he could come up – and I meant it from the bottom of my heart. Those two days had been truly legendary. (Or in the current lingo of a twenty-two year old, EPIC!) Moments like these are priceless treasures – you don’t get many of them, so you must savor them and lock them away in the deepest recesses of your heart and memory for safekeeping. I fought back tears as he backed out of the parking space, glanced back and smiled sadly as he threw up a final goodbye wave, and drove away.

It was at that moment that I realized something really huge. While solitude is important – even crucial – to one’s well-being and spiritual health, life was not meant to be experienced alone; I have found that companionship can be just as invigorating and refreshing. While I have enjoyed some truly amazing times up here alone with You, O God (and will again), the absolute sweetest, holiest moments are the ones we share with those we love. I see now that, like so many other components of our complex lives, there must be balance between solitude and camaraderie, silence and laughter, reverence and raucousness. And I have just enjoyed four fantastic, unforgettable days of each – exactly half-and-half! Thank You for Your love and Your amazing presence. But also, thank You that I am not alone. I get to share and savor a truly rich life with some truly amazing people. I can’t wait to get home to them tomorrow!