While I’ve never been much of a great creative genius when it comes to cooking; I am partially able to tell the difference between teaspoons and tablespoons, the difference between baking soda and baking powder and the difference between forks and spoons. Although there are still a few items and techniques that I don’t understand, somehow I find myself researching meat tenderizers.
It seems that it can be multiple different things from an enzyme, which breaks down the connections of the proteins in the peptide bonds that blah blah blah… Or other options which include a hammer or an old cudgel like instrument that you use to beat-down a steak with. Still other options include a small gadget that looks like an “As Seen on TV” special. It has multiple blades on it and you use it repeatedly to pulverize a harmless pork roast. Regardless of which option someone chooses, the result usually comes out the same: a beat-down, helpless and surrendered, tenderized piece of meat. Which is about the correct definition of my heart.
A few months ago I got a surprising yet short phone call. My brother who’s been married for over four years now called to tell me my sister-in-law is pregnant and due in March. As this seems to be a very natural part of the marriage, growing-up and continuing the human species type event, I was kind of prepared for the day that I would get that call. However during a recent trip home something was very different about the whole event and how our family would be changing. The enzyme had started working.
Now the obvious part of the whole thing, which was explained to me recently when I related this story, is that because she’s pregnant she’ll start to have a little bump for a stomach. Which I guess I wasn’t really ready for until they met us for dinner one night. Suddenly the reality of my mom’s grandma status, my extended uncle status and the weirdest part of Micah being a Dad helped continue this strange tenderizing process. I think it was the cudgel.
A few days later as I’m driving and thinking about the new baby I start getting all glossy and watery eyed. (I had the windows open so it could’ve been some dust or a bug or something that just happened to get into both eyes at the exact same time) But I think it was something much deeper. I felt God opening my heart to an understanding and to feeling love and connection to someone that I’d never felt before. I began realizing that this small child that’s not even born yet, probably doesn’t even weigh as much as my wallet, has somehow captured my heart already. Somehow this young life is introducing me to a new way of knowing God’s love. It was definitely the hammer.
“Your heart is being tenderized” my Pastor told me recently as I related this story to him. I hadn’t thought of that. I had come home from the visit feeling that now more than ever I wanted to move back to California so I could be a part of this event. So I could be there when it happens, not actually be THERE in the delivery, but to be around. A life is being brought into the world and not that it hasn’t ever happened before to anyone else in the world, but for some reason this pregnant lady is different. For some reason God has taken all these cooking utensils and begun to unlock new places and new understandings of not only what love means, but also to continue capturing my heart for Him. The movement of His spirit isn’t so much focused on my physical location, but focused more on the status of my heart.
Whatever feelings of love, excitement, connection, anticipation or whatever else I’m feeling, I’m beginning to see that the only reason I’m able to feel or experience this is because a Creator placed it there. While made in His image, we must also be made in His likeness, which would then lead me to believe that we also carry His emotions.
What other avenues or areas is God waiting to open or explore in our hearts? How much more of Him can we begin to experience as we experience life and just let Him move in us? Is it really possible for God to love us and like us even more than we’ll even be able to know?
And yes of course I’ll be a good uncle who appropriately spoils this kid. Maybe not with all kinds of material possessions or things, but maybe I can spoil her or him with an unlocked place in my heart full of love, affection, encouragement and amazement. With how much I feel is in there, I wonder if it’s even possible for God to have more.
The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying:
Yes I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.
Jer. 31:3
10.13.2009
5.08.2009
Ziplocked Legos
I’d like to say that many years ago as I was growing up I used to play and build with Legos. Being truthful though I’d have to add that even today there are still a few sets to be found laying in various parts of the house with a bin full of them in the garage. My brothers and I would strategically place castle, medieval and pirate characters around a base or a fortress of some kind. Like they say “You can take a kid away from Legos, but you can’t take Lego’s away from a kid…” Or something like that.
Tonight after I locked up the church ministry center I got a phone call. One of the fellow staff members was hoping I was still inside and hadn’t left yet. Unfortunately I said, I’m already on my way home just heading out of the parking lot. “Is everything ok?” I asked. As it turned out a small meltdown was taking place.
Apparently one of the young kids that night had left his Ziploc bag full of Legos in the church and the lady was wondering if we were still in the building to check for them. I’m sure she had gotten a call from a mom who was trying to console a panicked kid about his (or her) favorite Lego collection. At the time I was already leaving and was advised not to worry about it, that she would call one of the other staff members to see if she had found the missing multi-colored bricks.
I guess I kind of laughed a little at the thought of the kid at home having a “meltdown” about some toys. Here it is past ten-o-clock at night and I’m sure he’s sitting up in bed in his pajamas crying his eyes out. Amazing the importance these small toys have on his life.
And then of course, in God’s simple and gently ways, the spotlight is turned on me.
Tonight, for a second week in a row, one of our pastors read from Haggai 2:7. If you had asked me three weeks ago whether Haggai was a book in the Bible, I would’ve had to think a long, long time about that.
The verse speaks about God saying He will shake all the nations. He will shake them to fill His house with Glory. An interesting verse, an interesting thought and an interesting way that I see it being applied to my life.
There’s an allure to the “stuff” I can have in my life. An attraction to having something “newer” or “better” or “bigger” or “faster” things. All these things that I’m told I need in my life. All these things that everyone seems to have and they seem to bring happiness. All these things that can somehow become a priority over God in the amount of money, time or resources we give to them. Legos.
What are the things that I have in my life that God is going to shake? What things do I invest too much time or resources in? What things in my life do I take comfort in? The stuff that I have in my life that will someday be in the back of my closet in a Goodwill bag, does it take first place? Have I placed my comfort, security and peace of mind in something that will never last forever?
When I put all these things; careers, jobs, house, car, family, money, health on one side of the scale and put a righteous pursuit of God’s Heart on the other, which weighs heavier? Which side takes priority? Honestly?
When I look at the boys’ (or girls’) meltdown I think how trivial, they’re crying about Legos. How insignificant is that? To that child though, those Legos are comfort and security. What are the Ziplocked Lego bags in my life? The things that if God were to shake up a bit it would cause me to sit up at night crying in my pajamas in bed.
I want to desperately seek His Heart and intimately know His Love. To find security, comfort, peace and rest knowing who my safety and who my Father is. Knowing that whatever Legos are given or taken away from me in my days, none will match His smile on my life.
I contemplated turning around and going back to search for the lost treasure. However I was assured that it would be ok and I didn’t need to do that. Now as I sit at home writing this, I have a feeling the lesson the boy (or girl) is learning is soon to become my lesson as well.
Haggai 2:7
“…and I will shake all nations. And they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts”
(page 832 in my Bible, I checked the Table of Contents)
My prayer is that God would shake things out of me in order to bring glory to Him.
Thanks for reading
Tonight after I locked up the church ministry center I got a phone call. One of the fellow staff members was hoping I was still inside and hadn’t left yet. Unfortunately I said, I’m already on my way home just heading out of the parking lot. “Is everything ok?” I asked. As it turned out a small meltdown was taking place.
Apparently one of the young kids that night had left his Ziploc bag full of Legos in the church and the lady was wondering if we were still in the building to check for them. I’m sure she had gotten a call from a mom who was trying to console a panicked kid about his (or her) favorite Lego collection. At the time I was already leaving and was advised not to worry about it, that she would call one of the other staff members to see if she had found the missing multi-colored bricks.
I guess I kind of laughed a little at the thought of the kid at home having a “meltdown” about some toys. Here it is past ten-o-clock at night and I’m sure he’s sitting up in bed in his pajamas crying his eyes out. Amazing the importance these small toys have on his life.
And then of course, in God’s simple and gently ways, the spotlight is turned on me.
Tonight, for a second week in a row, one of our pastors read from Haggai 2:7. If you had asked me three weeks ago whether Haggai was a book in the Bible, I would’ve had to think a long, long time about that.
The verse speaks about God saying He will shake all the nations. He will shake them to fill His house with Glory. An interesting verse, an interesting thought and an interesting way that I see it being applied to my life.
There’s an allure to the “stuff” I can have in my life. An attraction to having something “newer” or “better” or “bigger” or “faster” things. All these things that I’m told I need in my life. All these things that everyone seems to have and they seem to bring happiness. All these things that can somehow become a priority over God in the amount of money, time or resources we give to them. Legos.
What are the things that I have in my life that God is going to shake? What things do I invest too much time or resources in? What things in my life do I take comfort in? The stuff that I have in my life that will someday be in the back of my closet in a Goodwill bag, does it take first place? Have I placed my comfort, security and peace of mind in something that will never last forever?
When I put all these things; careers, jobs, house, car, family, money, health on one side of the scale and put a righteous pursuit of God’s Heart on the other, which weighs heavier? Which side takes priority? Honestly?
When I look at the boys’ (or girls’) meltdown I think how trivial, they’re crying about Legos. How insignificant is that? To that child though, those Legos are comfort and security. What are the Ziplocked Lego bags in my life? The things that if God were to shake up a bit it would cause me to sit up at night crying in my pajamas in bed.
I want to desperately seek His Heart and intimately know His Love. To find security, comfort, peace and rest knowing who my safety and who my Father is. Knowing that whatever Legos are given or taken away from me in my days, none will match His smile on my life.
I contemplated turning around and going back to search for the lost treasure. However I was assured that it would be ok and I didn’t need to do that. Now as I sit at home writing this, I have a feeling the lesson the boy (or girl) is learning is soon to become my lesson as well.
Haggai 2:7
“…and I will shake all nations. And they shall come to the Desire of All Nations, and I will fill this temple with glory, says the Lord of hosts”
(page 832 in my Bible, I checked the Table of Contents)
My prayer is that God would shake things out of me in order to bring glory to Him.
Thanks for reading
3.12.2009
Start with I
I was asked a question today that I wasn’t prepared for. A question that years or months ago there would’ve been a simple answer for, a simple unquestionable response; this evening though I stumbled to formulate my thoughts.
A friend of mine asked me to help out a friend of his who had to interview a missionary for one of their mission’s classes at school. One of the highlights of doing what you do is that people sometimes ask you lots of questions and you get the impossible task of trying to put years of experiences into linear thoughts and attempt to combine them into reasonable answers. The question wouldn’t have been too difficult to answer just a year ago.
For seven years I worked overseas with Book of Hope. I served faithfully in different aspects of the ministry in about 40 countries. I raised my own support, put aside dreams and careers and family and friends. Leaving the familiar for the unknown, saying goodbye to the American Dream for the Missionary lifestyle; leaving the normal and the semi-predictable for places of weakness, loneliness and desperation. It would seem that I’m patting myself on the back, but I’m not, I’m realizing that I was wrong.
The question went something like this, “What aspects have you learned from Missions that I can apply to my own life”.
Two words immediately came to mind. Two words that I could think of that have signified my work in missions and ministry. Two aspects came to my mind that I’ve actually taught as ministry essentials to new interns. Integrity and Servanthood. I used to teach two classes and even have the interns do a fill-in of key words and thoughts. As I began explaining myself and what those two words or aspects meant another word that starts with “I” began to invade my thoughts. A word that suddenly made me reflect on my seven years and whether I had missed the purpose of being in ministry or in service to God.
When you think about it. All the other words or aspects that you could name really flow from this one thing. Heart for service, joy, peace, patience, integrity, wisdom, servanthood, being all you can be. Integrity and Servanthood were things that marked my actions. But God isn’t interested in our doing. The word continued to plague my thoughts. Intimacy.
As I look back I can see that of all the work I’ve done, all the places, all the trainings, all the books, all the teams, all the sleepless nights, all the long plane, train and bus rides, all the foreign languages, all the schools and everything else to go with it doesn’t mean anything without an intimate relationship with Christ.
It’s just stuff. It’s just work, the same as someone sitting at a desk all day, the same as someone digging trenches all day. Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything without knowing Christ and His heart.
All these years of service haven’t meant anything without knowing God’s heart. All the doing means nothing without the loving. Perhaps the most “human-mind-boggling” part about the whole thing is that God desires this intimacy with us.
As the world careens towards the end times the most important thing in our lives will most likely not be which career we choose or where we live. The most important thing to fuel our existence will be an ever-increasing intimate knowledge of God’s heart. Intimacy with Christ will be what sets us apart and what saves us from being misled.
When I look back at pictures and stories from the past seven years there are some regrets and some places that I wish I would’ve had more integrity or I wish I would’ve served more. But in every single instance, I wish I would’ve searched for a deeper relationship and love of God and His heart.
I won’t carry the weight of regret or sulk about time lost or time given. I will however choose to put one thing in the forefront of everything else. To desperately pursue and passionately seek an intimate relationship with the Lover of my heart.
How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake I am still with you.
Ps. 139: 17-18
Thanks for reading
A friend of mine asked me to help out a friend of his who had to interview a missionary for one of their mission’s classes at school. One of the highlights of doing what you do is that people sometimes ask you lots of questions and you get the impossible task of trying to put years of experiences into linear thoughts and attempt to combine them into reasonable answers. The question wouldn’t have been too difficult to answer just a year ago.
For seven years I worked overseas with Book of Hope. I served faithfully in different aspects of the ministry in about 40 countries. I raised my own support, put aside dreams and careers and family and friends. Leaving the familiar for the unknown, saying goodbye to the American Dream for the Missionary lifestyle; leaving the normal and the semi-predictable for places of weakness, loneliness and desperation. It would seem that I’m patting myself on the back, but I’m not, I’m realizing that I was wrong.
The question went something like this, “What aspects have you learned from Missions that I can apply to my own life”.
Two words immediately came to mind. Two words that I could think of that have signified my work in missions and ministry. Two aspects came to my mind that I’ve actually taught as ministry essentials to new interns. Integrity and Servanthood. I used to teach two classes and even have the interns do a fill-in of key words and thoughts. As I began explaining myself and what those two words or aspects meant another word that starts with “I” began to invade my thoughts. A word that suddenly made me reflect on my seven years and whether I had missed the purpose of being in ministry or in service to God.
When you think about it. All the other words or aspects that you could name really flow from this one thing. Heart for service, joy, peace, patience, integrity, wisdom, servanthood, being all you can be. Integrity and Servanthood were things that marked my actions. But God isn’t interested in our doing. The word continued to plague my thoughts. Intimacy.
As I look back I can see that of all the work I’ve done, all the places, all the trainings, all the books, all the teams, all the sleepless nights, all the long plane, train and bus rides, all the foreign languages, all the schools and everything else to go with it doesn’t mean anything without an intimate relationship with Christ.
It’s just stuff. It’s just work, the same as someone sitting at a desk all day, the same as someone digging trenches all day. Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything without knowing Christ and His heart.
All these years of service haven’t meant anything without knowing God’s heart. All the doing means nothing without the loving. Perhaps the most “human-mind-boggling” part about the whole thing is that God desires this intimacy with us.
As the world careens towards the end times the most important thing in our lives will most likely not be which career we choose or where we live. The most important thing to fuel our existence will be an ever-increasing intimate knowledge of God’s heart. Intimacy with Christ will be what sets us apart and what saves us from being misled.
When I look back at pictures and stories from the past seven years there are some regrets and some places that I wish I would’ve had more integrity or I wish I would’ve served more. But in every single instance, I wish I would’ve searched for a deeper relationship and love of God and His heart.
I won’t carry the weight of regret or sulk about time lost or time given. I will however choose to put one thing in the forefront of everything else. To desperately pursue and passionately seek an intimate relationship with the Lover of my heart.
How precious to me are your thoughts, oh God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake I am still with you.
Ps. 139: 17-18
Thanks for reading
1.10.2009
A Natural Alarm
The last couple nights the moon has been full. I hadn’t really noticed it that much until this morning around 3am when I woke up to what I thought was someone turning on the light in my room. Actually I had left my blinds open a bit and moonlight was now pouring into my small space and illuminating the unpainted walls of my room. After laying there for about an hour unable to sleep and unwilling to get up and close the blinds, I finally rolled over and grabbed the binoculars.
I should probably explain that a little better. I don’t keep spying equipment at my window for any other reason than watching the wildlife; a few days ago I had been watching some raccoons play in the trees behind our house so the binoculars were still sitting on the window sill.
I stared up at the moon now through the binoculars. Everyone always says that there’s supposedly a man in the moon. Or his face or something like that. I’ve never been able to see that. As I looked up there all I saw was something that looked like a footprint, or the African continent or something, definitely no man. Maybe I was on the wrong side, or the man is upside down or something.
Of course my mind began wandering to what it would be like to walk there on the moon. To have been one of the two or three people to ever step in a place no other human has ever been. To place a footprint that will never be disturbed or moved or placed again. In some ways I’m sure it’s a frightening, exciting, strange, ethereal and breath-taking moment. It would always be the one story your children and grand-children ask you to tell.
I closed the blinds, laid back in bed and soon began to think.
How absolutely incredible that the same hands, mind and heart that dreamed such a foreign and other-worldly planet also dreamed me. The same creator and designer whose hands carved the surface of the moon also lovingly traced my features. My nose, eyes, feet, hands, knees and even all the inside stuff.
And as thoughts of a master designer fill my mind I soon find myself the astronaut. Walking onto a surface that’s never been touched. Taking steps in life that no one else will ever take and then turning to look behind you to see your mark in the universe that will never be changed. Stopping and standing amazed when you reflect at the places you’ve been and the place you are. In every way possible it’s a frightening, exciting, strange, ethereal and breath-taking moment. At some point stopping and thinking to yourself “Wait a second, how did I get here?”
We all find ourselves in these places. Through life we find ourselves walking into the unknowns, the untouched and the unseen. We have moments in our lives when we don’t know the terrain, we don’t know the answers or we feel like we’re on another planet. In those times I have to remember who created the place in the beginning.
As overwhelming as my problems and challenges are, my God is so much bigger. My problems only seem too big or too heavy when my view of my Father is too small.
As I face this year, I want to remember that as my footprints are placed into unknown areas, the One who designed it all is much bigger, much more loving and much too concerned to forget any details. And it’s always a smile to remember that He knows which planet I’m making footprints on.
Thanks for reading
matt
I should probably explain that a little better. I don’t keep spying equipment at my window for any other reason than watching the wildlife; a few days ago I had been watching some raccoons play in the trees behind our house so the binoculars were still sitting on the window sill.
I stared up at the moon now through the binoculars. Everyone always says that there’s supposedly a man in the moon. Or his face or something like that. I’ve never been able to see that. As I looked up there all I saw was something that looked like a footprint, or the African continent or something, definitely no man. Maybe I was on the wrong side, or the man is upside down or something.
Of course my mind began wandering to what it would be like to walk there on the moon. To have been one of the two or three people to ever step in a place no other human has ever been. To place a footprint that will never be disturbed or moved or placed again. In some ways I’m sure it’s a frightening, exciting, strange, ethereal and breath-taking moment. It would always be the one story your children and grand-children ask you to tell.
I closed the blinds, laid back in bed and soon began to think.
How absolutely incredible that the same hands, mind and heart that dreamed such a foreign and other-worldly planet also dreamed me. The same creator and designer whose hands carved the surface of the moon also lovingly traced my features. My nose, eyes, feet, hands, knees and even all the inside stuff.
And as thoughts of a master designer fill my mind I soon find myself the astronaut. Walking onto a surface that’s never been touched. Taking steps in life that no one else will ever take and then turning to look behind you to see your mark in the universe that will never be changed. Stopping and standing amazed when you reflect at the places you’ve been and the place you are. In every way possible it’s a frightening, exciting, strange, ethereal and breath-taking moment. At some point stopping and thinking to yourself “Wait a second, how did I get here?”
We all find ourselves in these places. Through life we find ourselves walking into the unknowns, the untouched and the unseen. We have moments in our lives when we don’t know the terrain, we don’t know the answers or we feel like we’re on another planet. In those times I have to remember who created the place in the beginning.
As overwhelming as my problems and challenges are, my God is so much bigger. My problems only seem too big or too heavy when my view of my Father is too small.
As I face this year, I want to remember that as my footprints are placed into unknown areas, the One who designed it all is much bigger, much more loving and much too concerned to forget any details. And it’s always a smile to remember that He knows which planet I’m making footprints on.
Thanks for reading
matt
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