A Bit from My Mind

Let me tell you what’s been on my mind lately. Recently I’ve come to the knowledge that several people with whom I have or have had varying relationships with have fallen on some hard times. Their relationships with God have all been on the decline which, in my mind, has led to the poor decisions that they’ve made that brought them to their predicament. Granted, there were other circumstances at play that also led to the difficulties, but the positions in which they find themselves can be directly tied with the decisions they’ve made as a result of those other circumstances. This knowledge of their predicaments has bugged the hell out of me.

I have found varying degrees of guilt festering in my mind along with anger and sorrow. The idea of people I know or have known suffering really makes me sick. For one, I look back on the time I was able to spend with these people and realize all the opportunities wasted that I had to strengthen the relationship that might have led to better decisions from these people in the future. I look back on the times when I thought the person’s decisions problematic for the future and neglected to say anything. These things weigh heavy on my mind.

I struggle now with what my response is to these situations. Some of the people I have not talked to in several years and I fear what the reaction might be if I attempt communication. Others, our relationship has never been one that’s open to struggles and triumphs, but rather a casual friendship; still, I feel I can do something. Also, I’ve been struggling with the limited time I have to be available to these people. I am scheduled to leave for service with OM August 16^th which is a little under one month away. I have moving to do, people to see, and loose ends to tie up, where am I going to find the time and energy to concern myself with these people?

Then there’s God trying to teach me a lesson in all of this. Jesus says in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” It’s God’s want, desire, passion, whatever overly used descriptive word you want to use, to see lost people come back to Him. Not lost as in they haven’t spoken the secret password of “Jesus, I’m a sinner” and come to “salvation”, but rather, lost in the sense that they’ve, with words or with actions, told God, “I’d rather you be dead,” and gone off to do their own thing. Lost in the sense that the shepherd has left the other 99 sheep to go and find the one that ran off into the woods. It’s something almost poetic God seeking the lost; not formulaic where we pray and God takes us in.

I’ve taken this lesson and I’ve taken these people that have been on my mind to God and said, “Well God, you want them back, and I want them back. What is it we can do to get this done?” In this question, I again struggled with guilt (Maybe if you did a little more, they wouldn’t have run off in the first place?), anger (God, why did you let them run off in the first place?), and sorrow (I really miss them. I wish they wouldn’t have run off in the first place.), and I’ve struggled with my limited ability to physically do anything. However, in this question, God has given me the answer; prayer.

Cue the cheesy music, cue the “Oh come on’s”; I realize how clichéd that sounds, but that’s the answer. God wants those people back and I want those people back with Him as well. But, I’m not the one who is capable of bringing these people back. I’m not even responsible for bringing these people back, God is. If I want to be involved in this rescue, as it were, my first investment is to bring to God my desire to see these people returned. Partition on their behalf how much I’d like to see them come back to right relationship with God, and things will start moving.

Quite often our response to situations where we want to see God work is, “All right, what where should I set up; what should I do?” looking for some role to play physically. But really, we need to step back and allow God to do the work; letting Him know how much we’d like to see the work done. Then, further along in the process, a position might open up where God will allow us to take part. After investing in prayer, I believe, we’ll easily be able to step into that position.

All of this to say, I am now fervently invested in bringing these people back to God. He and I have been in conversation quite frequently about these people and I look forward to seeing what role I might be able to play in the future.

Report: Both Hitler and Mussolini Experiencing a Cold Front

Somewhere deep beneath the earth’s surface now lives a giant frozen wasteland. It seems hell has frozen over and I have taken interest in a pair of political candidates. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have struck me as interesting and it’s making things a bit difficult. Allow me to explain.

See, about a month ago I had the genius idea of getting to know each of the new American presidential candidates a little better. I was growing apathetic toward all the sound bites and political bickering I was hearing on the news, so I went to my local library and proceeded to check out books written by each of the candidates. I fell upon Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope and John McCain’s Faith of My Fathers. I then proceeded to read both of them simultaneously as to gain a better perspective on each of the men who I am to choose who will potentially become the next leader of my country.

The idea seemed innocent enough. I would gain more knowledge on each of the men which would in turn better inform my decision on who to vote for in the coming November elections. Whether it was the books I had chosen or the men who wrote them, I’m unsure, but nevertheless after reading both books, I feel less able to choose now than before I had read the books.

It seems that both Barack Obama and John McCain are very interesting people. Mr. Obama has very ambitious ideas and high hopes for the future of America as was spelled out in his book and Mr. McCain has a very long family history of influence in America (both for good and bad, but more for good it seems) and wishes to continue that influence (for good I’m assuming) as President. After reading these books I couldn't help but think what good people these men really are.

That’s the problem I now have. After reading these books and learning about these men, I can’t help but see them as people. Before, people in politics, for me, always represented ideas. Ideas that I could easily agree with or disagree with without much thought or concern for the impact they would have on me and the people around me. Politicians never seemed human to me. They were more like statues in a museum representing an ancient culture. These statues represent real people that lived at one time, but when you see them in a museum you can’t help but think of the time period they represent rather than the people they represent.

However, now when I look at the election coming up in November, I have to choose between two people (two really good people in my opinion) rather than two ideas. It makes the whole decision a little more difficult. I see the winning candidate being really joyous of his victory and I can even feel some of that joy with him, but I also see the losing candidate being really heart-broken about all the hard work and dedication amounting to essentially nothing and I can feel some of that heart-brokenness.

What’s really troubling though is that I should have been thinking like this all along. When it comes to people, thinking of them as people always beats not thinking of them as people. I think this exercise really helped solidify that idea in me. I’d recommend it.

Hope Springs Eternal

I enjoy flying by the seat of my pants. My overly analytical brain tends to overheat in the process of planning; then blows a gasket in the analysis of the potential success of those plans. So, I find it much more comfortable to plan as little as possible so as to keep any little brain functionality I already have.

This past week is a fine example. I took a trip out to eastern Tennessee to visit some friends and do some hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains with my friend Ben. Before arriving in TN, the hike was planned out as far as we both agreed to go hiking in the Smoky Mountains. After I arrived and after some much needed sleep, food, and Nintendo Wii time, Ben and I sat down to pick a route to follow. We both wanted to follow part of the Appalachian Trail (AT); so, we found a route that met that criterion. We found out we needed reservations on some of the campsites on the AT so we did that, and our trip was planned.

Upon arriving at our campsite the first night, it had become abundantly clear that we had left out one crucial aspect in the planning of our route. The very key to life, what scientists are searching for on Mars, the element of water.

See, in planning hikes in the Cascades where I’m used to hiking, the idea of water does not cross your mind. Snow is year round, so rivers and creeks are usually running at some capacity and lakes are rarely dry. However, in the Appalachians, the water situation is different. Rivers and creeks are dependent on springs which are dependent on ground water which in turn is dependent on rain fall. The southern states are currently experiencing drought. The creek that was supposed to be about a mile and a half from our campsite was dry. We had no water source for our first night of the hike. The day of hiking prior to our stop for the night was warm and quite an uphill battle, so we were thirsty. We had to conserve what water we had left since we were unsure where the next place to get water would be.

The next day there could be no hot breakfast as we were still in conservation mode. We each had a liter of water to get us to the next campsite, Double Spring Gap, where we hoped one of the springs was producing. This portion of the hike would take us on the AT and over Siler’s Bald. Bald meant an uphill climb, higher elevation, and no trees which spells disaster when it comes to dehydration and you are already low on water.

Signs of dehydration were already setting in before we reached the AT; headaches, nausea, and muscle cramps, and still no sign of water.

We reached the AT and within one mile of our entrance, we came across another pair of hikers; a young couple. We exchanged hellos and I asked where they had stayed the previous night. They said Siler’s Bald Shelter, to which both Ben and I asked if there was any water. They said there was a trickle, but not much. That was good enough for us. That’s more water than we’d seen in at least 12 hours (not counting the water we were seeing in our dreams).

Now, when it comes to human anatomy and the ability of the human body to do certain things or whatnot, I know very little. That being said, I feel as though I’ve experienced the physical effects of hope on the human body. Before Ben and I met this couple on the trail, dehydration was rather rampant. After they told us there was water not three miles away, I felt slightly energized. The headache I had? Well it didn’t go away, but I was slightly number to its pain. The nausea I was experiencing? It was still there, but I felt I could endure it. The cramps I was getting in my legs? I found a way to walk where they didn’t bother me. How do I account for this?

Well, hope is a good thing. People say, “Don’t get your hopes up.” Why not? People can do some pretty courageous things fueled solely on hope. People get these kicks of adrenaline and all of a sudden they’re lifting cars. All this from the hope of saving whomever is trapped under the car. It seems what I’ve learned from this whole experience is that hope is a powerful thing. One of my major ambitions for the next two years is to be able to offer people hope. What’s truly exciting is to be able to witness what this hope stirs in people.

The Lord Our Healer Part II: God Does Some Healin'

Previously on The Clay Has Something to Say . . .

I’ve been thinking recently about healing. People getting sick, people getting well, that sort of thing . . .

Now, if you’ve ever seen footage of Harry Caray leaning out of the press box at Wrigley field leading the North Chicago crowd in a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch at a Cubs game, then you have a pretty good mental picture as to what the lead pastor of this particular church sounded and acted like. (If you’ve only seen Will Ferrell’s portrayal of Harry Caray on SNL, you’ve got a pretty good mental picture as well, and a pretty hilarious one at that.) . . .

"I didn’t know there was a bomb! How was I to know there was a bomb?" yelled Tony in desperation. He was trying to buy some time. See, he knew there was a bomb. How could he not? He planted it. Now he was just waiting. Waiting for the little red, digital numbers to find their way to zero . . . or five; he could never remember if the timer ran up or down. But, when it reached zero, or five it would all be over . . .

Now, it should be understood that the room wasn’t full of people on stretchers, people with missing limbs looking for them to be reattached, but rather people with aches and pains looking for relief, older people looking for relief from different ailments . . .

"We the jury finds the defendant . . . guilty!"
Gasps filled the room; they just pushed the stagnate, humid air out of their way and set up camp. Obviously the verdict wasn’t a surprise to anyone, but everyone was just so excited to show they could act surprised, they couldn’t help but be a little shocked. How could they pass up the opportunity . . .

Healing = a smearing of oil on the forehead (anoint the sick with oil can be found in the Bible somewhere) + putting hands on the afflicted area (this would prove a problem if the ailment were prostate cancer or breast cancer or something) + shouting ‘hallelujah’ at the top of your lungs whenever you feel so inclined (shouting ‘Jesus’ at the top of your lungs would also suffice) + shouting some tongue-like language also at the top of your lungs (Imagine Harry Caray singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” on Novocain) + More yelling of anything that comes to mind (‘Look how loud I can yell!’) . . .

So, that leads me to the question: what does healing look like? Can it look like what I saw that Sunday night? Does it look like something different?

And now The Lord Our Healer Part II

Jehovah Rapha: The Lord Our Healer. That’s what the little slip of paper they handed me had written on it, and I was supposed to think about what that meant. What it was supposed to mean in the greater context of God and what it was supposed to mean in the greater context of myself.

The story is that during a mission trip to Vancouver my team and I were welcomed to worship our God with the YWAM staff. One part of the "activities" we were participating in was that we were each given names of God and asked to sit and think, ponder on what those names reveal to us about God. Being one who likes a good thinking exercise, I thought it was a good idea. I received the name Jehovah Rapha: The Lord Our Healer. Now, being the smart, alert, recent college graduate that I am, I had completely forgotten that I had scheduled myself to go to a healing service in two weeks. So, I thought nothing of the name and proceeded to write down whatever thoughts came to mind.

I asked the question "What is the role of a healer?" The obvious answer would be to heal the sick; I went with that one. I then asked "Who are the sick?" A better question with a less obvious answer to it. I concluded that we are all sick in a way be it spiritually or physically. Some have physical ailments that they would like healed, but all of us have some spiritual sickness that we need to get taken care of. Then I asked the most difficult question of the exercise "Are all who are sick healed and if not, does that make God a poor healer?"

Ultimately, this is a question that many people struggle with (including myself) in one way or another. It boils down into the question "If God is good and all-powerful, why do people suffer?" To attempt to answer that here would certainly leave some wanting a more sufficient answer (including myself); so, I’ll just focus on the healing aspect of the question.

Where I had my "ah-ha" moment was when I was focusing on the English translation of the name I was given. Now, I have no idea where this translation came from or the accuracy of the translation, but nevertheless it’s what I had. The translation is The Lord Our Healer. The emphasis and important aspect I focused on was 'our.' The Lord Our Healer is a very personal name in that it’s what a group of people who were healed by God would call God. It’s only natural is it not? If someone heals you, would you not refer to them as a healer? Therefore, The Lord Our Healer, Jehovah Rapha does not refer to God as a healer who will heal all people, but rather the source of healing for those who have been healed.

The Lord Our Healer only reveals that God has healed; never does it claim that He will heal everyone. This fails to answer the question of why God would heal some and not all, but I cannot answer why for God just like I cannot answer why for anyone other than myself. Either God is a sadist (possible) or God has a pretty darn good reason not to heal someone (also possible).

It was about a week before the healing service that I finally put two and two together; I finally realized that I had already prepped myself for the service with the little thinking exercise in Vancouver. So, going into the service, I looked into how I could reconcile the name The Lord Our Healer with the healing that I was going to witness.

After thinking it through and considering what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced, and what I know, I’ve come to this conclusion. God heals people both spiritually and physically. I’ve witnessed spiritual healing in myself and in people I hang around with. I’ve heard witnesses to physical healing from people whose word I trust. What I witnessed on that Sunday night may have been healing and it may have not been healing. People who were sick may get better or they may not. What I believe my reaction to Jehovah Rapha should be is that He has healed in the past and I can only hope He will again in the future.

The passage I was given where the name The Lord Our Healer was taken is Exodus 15:26. The context of this passage is that Israel has just been miraculously led out of Egypt and has just miraculously crossed the Red Sea to escape the repercussions of miraculously escaping from Egypt. Prior to verse 26 in chapter 15 both Moses and his sister Miriam have given beautiful songs of praise to God for His saving His people from the Egyptians. Now, when we come to verse 26, Israel has started their tour of the desert and they’ve been without water for three days. They come across a pool of water, but it’s bitter with minerals and cannot be consumed. Moses cries out to God (probably because he’s thirsty) and God shows him a stick to throw into the water to make it drinkable. Then God tells the Israelites this:

He said, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do
what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all
his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the
Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”

-Exodus 15:26

What’s essential about healing is that it does not matter what it looks like. God heals different people in different ways. However, what does matter is what the person who was healed looks like afterward. Israel had not changed and would not change even after God would continue to deliver them again and again from situations where there appeared to be no hope. Our ability to believe that God is a healer depends on the ability of others to act like they’ve been healed once they’ve been healed.

Guess what. We have been healed! Should it not completely change the way you view and express life? If you recovered from a heart attack, would you not be completely grateful for a second opportunity and completely overhaul your diet and exercise routine as to prevent another one from happening? If you we to just go back to sitting on a couch and stuffing yourself with cheetos and coca-cola, we’d start to doubt if you even had a heart attack at all. God has healed us from our spiritual infirmity and our lack of enthusiasm and lack acknowledgement of that healing is causing others to doubt that God can heal at all. So, let’s acknowledge Jehovah Rapha and allow others to know there’s hope that He might heal again.

The Lord Our Healer Part I: Harry Caray Sings a Song

This post is like an episode of Seinfeld. Like Seinfeld is a show about nothing, this is a post in which about the subject I know absolutely nothing. I’ve been thinking recently about healing. People getting sick, people getting well, that sort of thing. I hear stories about people who know people who have some miraculous experience and I don’t know what to think about it. Obviously, I’m happy for whoever got better; I’m happy for whoever told the story, but I never know what to feel after that point. Most of the time part of me thinks the miraculous gets a little too much emphasis in the story (I know that sound heretical, but it’s honest). Here I stand; someone who claims a supernatural God yet who cannot find it in himself to believe the supernatural healing. So, I decided to pay a visit to my good friends the charismatic church; witness myself a real healing service, and I did.

For those of us who are not exposed to this sort of thing on a regular basis, we have a preconceived notion as to how the whole process works. We see a man standing in front of a large crowd with a line-up of people in front of him waiting to be smacked in the head, fall down, to be picked back up again, and to be healed. Essentially, this is not what happed at this particular healing service.

The service was held on a Sunday evening in a small sanctuary with approximately 30-40 people present. There was a box of tissue in every Bible rack on the back of every pew in the sanctuary. If you’re preparing to use that much tissue at one time during a service, you’ve got more than the Holy Spirit moving through you (try a few million microscopic bacterium). Guess what else was in the Bible rack along with the tissue. If you guessed a Bible, you’d be wrong. There wasn’t a single Bible in the back of any pew. They’d all been replaced by tissue boxes. I guess when people started blowing their noses and wiping their brows with Psalms and Proverbs, the church got the hint that tissue was a little more of a commodity than God’s word. (Just for the record, I’m not saying every church needs to have Bibles in the back of their pews; I’m not even saying churches need to have pews. But, I found it peculiar that where Bibles usually are, there were tissues.)

The service started out like any North American church service would start, with upbeat, somewhat repetitive praise music. Now, if you’ve ever seen footage of Harry Caray leaning out of the press box at Wrigley field leading the North Chicago crowd in a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch at a Cubs game, then you have a pretty good mental picture as to what the lead pastor of this particular church sounded and acted like. (If you’ve only seen Will Ferrell’s portrayal of Harry Caray on SNL, you’ve got a pretty good mental picture as well, and a pretty hilarious one at that.) Honestly, if you gave the guy a pair of big, black rimmed glasses and stood what little hair he had up on its end, you couldn’t tell the two apart. So, at least that was entertaining and if I lost it in laughter, I’d have plenty of tissue.

After the mandatory, Spirit-lead praise music, some guy came up to preach. He wasn’t Harry Caray and, to my knowledge, he wasn’t someone who regularly attended the church (made me wonder why they didn’t ask me to preach), but rather some guy who, since he kept asking if he’d told this or that particular story before (no you haven’t! Just move on! (It wasn’t annoying or anything)), I can only assume had been to this church to speak before. He talked about John 5 and the man who would wait by a pool that was sporadically stirred by the angels; when it was stirred, the first one in was healed. His point was that the man was good in his desire to be healed, but his method was a little off. Instead of seeking for the pool to heal him, he should have been seeking Jesus. Now, I agree that Jesus can heal people (it’s mentioned a few times in various texts), but if someone doesn’t know that Jesus can heal, why would that person seek him out to be healed? This then tied in of course to everyone who was at the service to be healed. It was used as an encouragement to say you’re in the right place.

Now, it should be understood that the room wasn’t full of people on stretchers, people with missing limbs looking for them to be reattached, but rather people with aches and pains looking for relief, older people looking for relief from different ailments. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to see any blind people see or deaf people hear or lame people walk. So, after the preacher quit his preaching (It should be noted that the preacher was looking for healing as well. He had pain in his shoulder.), people were invited up front to be prayed for by the pastors and elders of the church that were present. This is where the show took off.

I had never found the formula for healing in all my Biblical studies (this is not to say there were or are a lot of them, that is Biblical studies, but there were some), but apparently it goes a little something like this. Healing = a smearing of oil on the forehead (anoint the sick with oil can be found in the Bible somewhere) + putting hands on the afflicted area (this would prove a problem if the ailment were prostate cancer or breast cancer or something) + shouting ‘hallelujah’ at the top of your lungs whenever you feel so inclined (shouting ‘Jesus’ at the top of your lungs would also suffice) + shouting some tongue-like language also at the top of your lungs (Imagine Harry Caray singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” on Novocain) + More yelling of anything that comes to mind (‘Look how loud I can yell!’). Calling upon God for the removal of the ‘spirit of infirmity’ is a popular method as well. What is a ‘spirit of infirmity’? In all seriousness, is it suppose to be some kind of demon? At any rate, this is what healing looked like for this particular healing service. And despite all the obvious distractions, the band continued to jam through the whole thing. As if all the shouting and the yelling weren’t enough, there was a little background music in case it ever got awkwardly quiet.

To be completely honest (and you know when I do that, there’s going to be trouble), after attending the healing service, I had no idea what the hell I had just done. Is this what healing is? What really gets me is that this event that just took place would never leave the walls of the church. No one who acted like they did in the service would act like that around other people they know. No one’s down on his knees with his hands over someone’s foot yelling at the ‘spirit of infirmity’ to get out. If they are, people think they’re mentally deranged and they throw change at them. So, that leads me to the question: what does healing look like? Can it look like what I saw that Sunday night? Does it look like something different?

To Be Continued . . .