see-through prayers

Sometimes, early in the morning when the sun’s rays are just beginning to stream through the stained glass, I come to the altar. I know I can pray anywhere, that God’s sense of hearing is not confined to a sanctuary. But here, I find something reverent in the stillness and the solitude.

 

Out of habit and respect, I take off my shoes. I remember Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush and that of his apprentice, Joshua, standing face-to-face with the commander of heaven’s army. “Take off your sandals,” they were told. “[F]or you are standing on holy ground,” and, “the place where you are standing is holy (Exodus 3:5, Joshua 5:15; NLT). Shoeless, I stand before God; I’m not walking away from him.

 

Next, I drop my satchel. It houses my laptop, flash drive, planner, and notes. It represents my work – not only what I do for a living but, more broadly, my labors for the Kingdom. Yet, here with God, all of those are secondary. He is my provider, so I need not think of how the bills will be paid. (If I have my wallet, I drop that, too). And in his eyes, my exertions are not nearly as important as my heart.

 

Reaching into my left pocket, my cell phone is next to go – and with it, all of the text messages and phone calls that will be sent and received today. At this moment, I am speaking with the Creator of the universe; any other conversation can, for a few moments, be put on hold.

 

My keys are in the other pocket, and I take them out, too. Those keys open many doors, both within the church and outside of it. One might rightly say they represent my authority. But for now, the only door I need to walk through is the one leading into God’s presence, and I require no other power than that which he offers: “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it” (Hebrews 4:16, NLT).

 

Finally, I remove my sunglasses. They are both functional and fashionable, protecting my eyes from the sun’s radiation and offering me that “cool youth pastor” look. But in the light of God’s radiance, the sun pales in comparison; no polarized lens can shade my eyes from his brilliance. And bowing before him, my trendiness is but a pretense; he sees past trends and into the depths of my soul.

 

For a few all-too-brief moments, before facing the grind of daily life and ministry, all is well with my world. Alone with God, divested of earthly status symbols, I am where I was always meant to be. This is home. And someday, I will shed these veneers for good. But for now, I steal a few moments to be alone with God in the morning.

spiritual amnesia

We live in a world beset with an acute case of amnesia. We forget that ours is a dual reality – that beneath the skin of physical existence is a spiritual realm. We forget that Satan is not the villain in a bedtime story, but a very real antagonist possessing very real angelic power. We forget that he is hell-bent on our destruction. We forget that we are freedom fighters in an all-out war for the unclaimed souls of humanity.

 

And we forget the strength that lies within us. Perhaps we need a reminder.

 

It is far-too easy to lose sight of the battle which rages just beyond the reach of our senses: We cannot see it, nor do we hear it, and we have never touched it. But it is there. The hater of our souls would have us believe that all such talk of combat is purely metaphorical, or that it is confined to the spaces of heaven and hell; certainly it never touches our lives. Oh, the master of deception, the father of lies, the spinner of stories! It is a fatal fiction we believe. This is why Scripture tells us – in no uncertain terms – that we walk “by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7, NIV).

 

I constantly witness this devastating naïveté in my students. It is painfully evident as they speak to me of their heartaches and problems. Of course, some of this is simply the product of a fallen world. But it goes without saying that the accuser capitalizes on every human weakness, every insecurity, every fracture within our homes and relationships. He lurks in shadows, sowing the seeds of discord. The cunning snake, he smells weakness and coils himself, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Our first line of defense, then, is to recognize what is really going on.

 

As John, beloved friend and confidant of Jesus, said, “Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world” (1 John 4:3, NIV; emphasis mine). John, like his fellow apostles, operated under the belief that the spirit of the Antichrist – i.e. Satan – was already at work. We would be wise to do the same.

 

And yet, we need not fear, for the record does not end there. “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than that one who is in the world” (4:4, NIV). It is true that Satan stalks our earth like a predator, hunting the weak and the sick. But his ferocity is more than matched by that of Judah’s Lion: “I’m the Holy One and I’m here – in your very midst… I will roar like a lion – Oh, how I’ll roar!” (Hosea 11:9-10, MSG). He is right here, standing shoulder to shoulder with us, fighting on our behalf.

 

In Jesus, the outcome of this battle is already assured. “Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:38, NLT). God did not merely edge out a win over Satan; there was never a deadlock between the forces of good and evil. The triumph is overwhelming. Consider the words of Paul, writing to the church at Colosse: “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (2:15, NIV). Jesus shamed our adversary, making slaves of the slavers, binding them in the very shackles which once bound us. It is ours to stand in this victory.

 

We must remember that we are coregents with Jesus himself: “If we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17, NIV). We bear the mark of his signet, which means that we bear his authority (Ephesians 1:13). We are the spiritual successors of Peter, to whom Jesus said, “I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19, NRS). We speak on behalf of the King when we align ourselves with the purposes of his Kingdom; we voice the full authority of Jesus when our words echo his Word.

 

Let us remember.

solomon & samson

When he woke up, he thought, “I will do as before and shake myself free.” But he didn't realize the Lord had left him. So the Philistines captured him and gouged out his eyes. They took him to Gaza, where he was bound with bronze chains…

– Judges 16:20-21, NLT

Is there anything so tragic as one unmistakably marked for greatness who throws it all away?

 

Such is the story of Samson, a man “like the sun” – so named because he would fracture the darkness of Philistine dominance and usher in a brighter era. He was, without question, born to lead, hailed by God himself to be the liberator of a nation (Judges 13:5). Yet, the mighty Samson is remembered as a washout, a letdown, a fallen hero. Falling for a pretty face that belied treachery, the man who routed myriads ended his days blinded and bound by chains. How sad. How ironic. And how prophetic.

 

This planet is filled to the brim with modern-day Samsons: Young men and women destined for great things. Theirs is a generation of would-be freedom-fighters, born to break chains. But following in the missteps of their predecessor, they sell themselves out, spending their strength on the very things that will steal it: drugs, booze, dead-end relationships, and cheap thrills. Suckered into bondage, they cheat themselves – and others – of liberty.

 

We must reach them before they are shorn of their priceless gift. It is ours to train, to stand between them and the Delilahs that would sell them into captivity. Who will teach them of the true source of strength if not us? Who will instruct them of the sacredness of their trust if we do not?

 

Solomon tells us in Proverbs that, “The glory of the young is their strength; the gray hair of experience is the splendor of the old” (20:29, NLT). Youthful vitality must be tempered by the wisdom of years. Herein, O Church, lies our calling and the underpinning of our might. Unity within the Body of Christ is not a nicety but a requisite for survival. As Jesus has it, a house divided is doomed to fall (Matthew 12:25). Generations must cross the cultural chasms which divide us so that prudence might harness vigor, that energy might animate insight.

 

Solomon and Samson: Now there is a dynamic duo.

the problem of evil

In a recent conversation, a friend of mine posed a question: If God knew from the very beginning all that would happen – the insurrection of Lucifer and humanity’s subsequent choice to rebel – why did he continue on with creation? I knew immediately what he was getting at. Why didn’t God do something to stop it? It is a dilemma that haunts us, gnawing at the edges of our faith: Why does God allow evil?

 

We see its effects all around us, filling up our world with pain and suffering and death. The remnants of broken hearts and broken lives litter our existence like refuse. Boldface headlines scream to us of war-torn nations, innocents used and abused, natural disasters ravaging the already-impoverished. Subconsciously, we find ourselves asking, “How could God let this happen?”

 

The devout and the deviant alike have brooded over this for millennia. More than a few skeptics have, for lack of satisfactory answers, dismissed all possibility of God’s existence: “A loving God wouldn’t…” And as many believers have for the same reason stagnated in their faith. But perhaps we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps we need to reframe our inquiry: “How could a loving God not allow evil?”

 

Ever since Lucifer’s expulsion from heaven in the wake of his failed coup, a question mark has hung over our universe: Is God good or is he merely powerful? That is, does he rule from a beneficent heart or is he an iron-fisted dictator? Herein we find the reason for our free will. If God had not given us the capacity to choose, we would be puppets, moved by the whims of a superior power. But God desires more of us. His heart longs for relationship. He craves our affection and love. These, by definition, can never be the product of coercion; they must be given freely, for love that is compelled is not love at all.

 

And so God presented to our first parents a choice – to live in a utopian state of innocence, free from all defect and blight, or to choose independence. We know how the story goes. Humanity inclined its collective ear to the sibilant whisperings of a wayward serpent as he revived his seditious mantra: “Is God good? Can he be trusted? He holds out on you! Rise up and take for yourself what he will not give.” We hear echoing in his words to Eve – “eat from that tree [and] you’ll be just like God” (Genesis 3:5, MSG) – his own duplicitous ambitions:

 

How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning. You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. I will climb to the highest heaven and be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14, NLT; emphasis mine)

 

To prove once for all his intentions and in hopes of winning our love, God did the unthinkable; for a second time, he exposed his heart to be broken, knowing that it indeed would be. For the prospect of love, God permitted the possibility of hate. And in true turncoat fashion, humanity chose the latter, siding with Satan and the fallen angels. That decision, freely made, held untold consequences: War and murder, poverty and injustice, famine and death. These are the repercussions, not of a loveless God, but of our choice. Could God speak the word and mend our broken world, erasing all traces of suffering? Of that there is no doubt. But to do so would be to overturn our capacity to choose and thus, our ability to love.

 

And yet in steadfast devotion and tireless love, God pursues us. The resolute romantic, he would win back our hearts from the enemy who stole them. We see in Jesus, not the annulment of our choice, but one who offers us the opportunity to change our mind, to return to that fateful moment in Eden and choose rightly.

 

Just as we reframe the question, let us also reorient our vision, learning to look at this world through God’s eyes. What he saw within the epochs of eternity past, we must see today: Missteps and the molestations of evil do not negate the goodness of what God created; each is an opportunity for redemption. “Oh your cross, it’s where my hope restarts – a second chance is heaven’s heart.”