Os Guinness believes this is an exciting time to be alive. He believes America is at a crisis greater than any since the Civil War. And he believes that what America needs is what you and I have: truth, true freedom, love for those who are different, and a prayer connection with God.
“Here’s to fragility and recognizing the treasure that can be found living in the lowlands in the place where faith and doubt, courage and fear, surrender and struggle, bravery and timidity and belief and unbelief happily intermingle and coexist quite nicely without needing to cancel one or the other out totally.”
The quote above came from Robin Frost, one of our regular readers who sends me comments from time to time, and I always think when I glance at the name that I am getting an email from a great American dead poet. But that’s Robert Frost. There must be something in the name, though, because Robin waxed poetic in this comment that I think captures the reality of where we all live most of the time.
On the Fischer Garden Tour
We’re having some pretty strange weather right now for Southern California. When I got up early this morning, the house was 58˚. Marti likes to sleep with the heat off and the windows open, but it’s 52˚ outside right now which is pretty cold for us here in May. I’ve got the heat cranking now to warm up the house, but I’m wearing my black hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. The top of my head and back of my neck are cold, so the hood helps. But if someone sees me through a window walking around the house right now with my hoodie up, they might think we were being robbed.
It also rained this weekend. That’s unusual, too, for May. When Albert Hammond sings “it never rains in Southern California,” he means from May to September. Our new flowers will be so happy. We just planted a few flats of impatiens. The red ones are especially beautiful. They’re a deep velvety crimson.
There is a chain of fast food burger stores that began in southern California, and so far has spread to Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Texas, called In-N-Out Burger. They are Chandler’s and my favorite fast food place. The nearest one is about a 20-minute drive and I will think nothing about going out there at nine or ten o’clock at night if we’re hungry. Their claim to fame is that they don’t cook ‘em up until you order ‘em. Plus they pile on the lettuce and tomatoes, and the fries are cut fresh from potatoes you can see stacked in the back of the kitchen. It’s a little longer wait than most other fast food places, but since each hamburger is made to order, it’s worth the wait. The kitchen is clean and in full view, the cooks and servers are all up-beat and friendly, and the choices are few: single or double hamburger, fountain drink, shakes and fries. That’s it. It’s been that way since the first store was founded in Baldwin Park, California, in 1948.
And there is an in-n-out principle that permeates the teachings of Jesus about the gifts of God like grace, mercy and forgiveness. It basically says that what comes in, to be legitimate and real, must go out. The two are so connected that one presumes the other, and you can always work it both ways. For instance, the best known of these qualities, because it is a part of the Lord’s prayer that most of us know by heart, is: “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Notice it doesn’t say: forgive us and then we will go out and forgive others. It says “as we forgive,” which indicates a simultaneous action. One presumes the other. A person who receives forgiveness will be forgiving. Likewise, a person who receives mercy will be, of necessity, a merciful person.
Angela walked off the Greyhound bus in downtown Los Angeles near skid row with a paper sack of belongings and $200 minus her bus fare that got her there from prison. She was dusty and scared, with nowhere to go and no hope of changing the circumstances that put her in prison in the first place. Everyone she passed on the street knew she had just gotten out of prison, and she tried to avoid their eyes because she knew there were any number of drug dealers and sex traffickers among them ready to relieve her of her $200 in exchange for some kind of coping mechanism or security. Angela was about to become another statistic — another of the majority who come out of the criminal system only to be ushered back in in less than a year.
I have set before you an open door which no one can shut. Revelation 3:8
Today I’m going to talk about the resurrection. Today … seventeen days after Easter, we’re going to think about the resurrection of Jesus. I can’t think of a better time. To free the resurrection from Easter is to make it real. No more metaphor. No new life, no chirping birds, no rising sun, no new beginnings, no Easter songs, no pastel colors, no bunnies, no eggs, no “The Lord is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!” chants. It’s seventeen days after Easter. Either the resurrection affects my life today or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t then pack it in with the left over pastel grass and the colorful baskets until next year. If it does, then walk through the door.
The plight of teenagers who have run away from home without any resources and become homeless has come home to us in the form of one Miriam, who is the granddaughter of Tim and Cindy, MemberPartners of the Catch who live in Indiana. For the last few days we have had a Catch Alert out for Miriam because we have Catch readers all over the country and you never know how God might work to put one of them in Miriam’s path.
Miriam left her home in Virginia and ended up with grandparents in Kansas City, but has since left there with little or nothing but the clothes on her back — no money, cell phone, credit card or ID. When we heard there was a rumor she might be headed for Colorado or California, we called our good friend Robbie Goldman, head of Dry Bones, Denver, a team of people reaching out to the homeless kids in the downtown section of that city, to alert him to be on the lookout for Miriam. Robbie said an amazing thing. He said if she gets to Denver, there is a very strong chance they will find her.
“Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Acts 2:7-12
When God moves in our lives, it’s usually for someone else.
This is where we often get off track with spiritual gifts. We think the gifts are for us, when they are not. God’s gifts are always given to help advance His work in other people’s lives.
God’s gifts are to be used more than received. Something only received stops with us but God’s gifts, as they say, keep on giving.
The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. (Proverbs 29:7)
A quick perusal of the use of the word “justice” in the Bible reveals something that is key to the nature of God. “For I, the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing” (Isaiah 61:8). Numerous times He is called a God of justice. Now about half the time this is tied to championing what is right and the judgment of wrongdoing, but half the time it is tied to the innocent, the poor and to foreigners — in other words, people who are not likely to receive fair treatment. “Do not pervert justice or show partiality” (Deuteronomy 16:19). These things are high on God’s list of national concerns, and since we are a democracy as well as followers of Christ, they should be our concerns as well.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
Jesus made this comment in a discussion with His disciples over how hard it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. He likened it to a camel passing through the eye of a needle. To which one of the disciples responded, “Who then can be saved?” That’s when Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
I’m getting pretty comfortable with the fact that we thrive in the realm of the impossible — that that is where faith lives. Furthermore, the impossible is not some huge catastrophe that happens to us once in a while, but something we live with every day, and often don’t notice.
John Fischer The Catch 