GLORY IN THE ORDINARY

"Midnight in Paris" and Foolish Nostalgic Fantasies

2012-01-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

It is good to be back doing this after a hiatus. Happy New Year!

As I continue seeking to tune into present opportunities to see God and His glory all around us, that includes being able to see and hear His voice sometimes in popular culture. A surprise movie hit by Woody Allen this fall was his fun comedy called “Midnight in Paris.” Cindy and I watched it on a date night in December and it was interesting to me how it fit with the theme that I have sensed the Spirit of God impressing upon me. The message to me has been simply “live in the present.” When I succeed in living in the present I am able to experience so much of what God has for me. For me the problem is glorifying or over-idealizing the past. I can fantasize about the future unrealistically too but I would say I major on the past.

“Midnight in Paris” stars Owen Wilson as the protagonist. He is a writer for Hollywood who makes a good living but who dreams of being a “real writer” in the genre of his heroes Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He and his fiancé visit Paris where the Jazz Age of the 1920’s drew such famous artists as Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Cole Porter.

Gil longs to be in Paris during this time period and every midnight he magically is granted his wish as he is transported to 1920’s Paris with a cast of characters that makes you feel like your 20th Century American Literature class has come to life. Without giving the movie away too much, let’s just say that Gil came to somewhat of an awakening where he realized that his heroes were not much different than himself except they were longing for the 1890’s—a better past.

When we fantasize about a time in the past or if we view our past as better than the present we are being just as foolish as Gil. As wise old King Solomon lamented, “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.” (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

By putting energy into this way of thinking we are only crippling ourselves from being fully alive in the amazing present we are in...to see the glory in the ordinary. This is what I ask myself as the new year is still young: “Am I present to my loved ones, friends and new people who come into my life? OR am I allowing my energies to be drained away like a leaky pipe by yearnings for what has never been or will never be in this present life?”

These ARE the good ole’ days!

Jamie

What's Right About Things Going Wrong?

2011-07-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

This has been quite a last couple of weeks in our family. It seems like several people in my extended family are going through trying circumstances. For example, my dear older sister, Lynda, is recovering from a very serious two-month hospital stay and is beginning a long recovery at home. There are other situations within my extended family that are very painful to watch, which we have tried to be encouraging in through whatever means we can, offering our home, prayers and support. It just seems like we are in a season where a number of things seem to be going “wrong,” or at least not as we would have hoped for, in the lives of those we love.

I know that there are popular Christian speakers, authors and pastors who give the impression that the Christian life is to be lived on a constantly high plane of radical faith and celebratory joy. And yet another strain of Christian teaching says that if certain principles are followed then certain results can be expected. Both of these teachings are popular, I think, because in our fallen-ness we crave for formulas to find a way to be relatively in control of life.

Both of these approaches leave those who suffer high and dry. The first emphasis causes the sufferer to feel deficient in faith and the second causes the sufferer to feel deficient in obedience. Both heap on feelings of shame.
But what if suffering, things going “wrong,” though not good in and of themselves, and though the inescapable consequence of living in a fallen, sinful world, what if they were somehow gloriously used for the good of the sufferer who simply turns to God in simple child-like faith?

Here’s something that I read recently that resonates with me. “Troubles, misfortunes, disappointments and handicaps, if they but throw us back upon God, if they merely give us opportunity of bringing into play our God-directed imagination and our heaven-blessed sense of humor, may become converted into marvelous good fortune. For trouble, if it merely turns us to God and hence renews our strength, ceases to be evil, and becomes good; it becomes the best thing that could possibly come to us, next to God himself. For our growth in power and happiness depends upon the number of seconds out of each twenty-four hours that we are resting in God.”-From The Soul’s Sincere Desire by Glenn Clark

In each of the extended family situations I have alluded to I have seen those involved turning to God as never before. I have seen His reality be displayed through others who care for them and their faith and gratitude to God shine amidst the pain. I have seen my own apathetic attitude change and a prayerful concern activated. I have seen Christ exalted and His kingdom advance in our extended family in new ways.

The Apostle Paul said it this way: “And we know that in ALL THINGS God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Learning To Interpret Things Going Wrong Rightly,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

Freedom From the “Unholy Hamster Wheel”

2011-07-06T11:49:00.001-07:00

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July. I did. It was a great time for gratitude for our special nation and the freedoms and blessings we often take for granted. My thoughts today go from external freedoms to the quest for internal freedom and a picture in my mind from one of my summer vacations. Each summer I visited my cousin Tommy in Sierra Madre, south of Santa Barbara, where my family lived. Besides almost choking to death on the smog and chlorine in my lungs, I have great memories of my times with him.

I remember one summer he had a hamster in his room. That little rodent would hide from us under the wood shavings at day and drive us nuts at night, when we were trying to sleep… just running and running on his wheel, like a terror. Every night this listless lump of fur ran furiously. The faster he would run, the faster he would have to run. He was, of course, in a cage and this was maybe his only form of legitimate exercise, and it was probably good for him, but it reminds me of how I often feel -- enslaved by a drivenness to keep going and never getting “there” (wherever “there” is!)

One night the cage was quiet. The hamster had suddenly died and was no longer making his nocturnal trips to the wheel. That was his way out of his futile existence. Death. I think of the “unholy hamster wheel” I have been caught up on, with the collaboration of my “false self,” my perceptions of what others think about me, and my inaccurate view of God. It all just keeps me running and running…

It is the propping up of my false self that takes so much energy. The false self is that person we try to present to the world, the image that we enjoy so that others don’t see the real self -- and we don’t have to face it ourselves. The harder we run the faster we have to run. In watching Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew there are some very clear examples of how living for the false self is literally killing this season’s patients.

On the wheel, my relating to others is all about confirming this image of the false self. It is exhausting to keep doing this and it strains relationships.

God, on the unholy hamster wheel, is one I think I can use for my own purposes. I see my activities as ways of keeping the guilt at bay, or pleasing a very hard to please Master, or trying to use Him like some kind of magical genie who will grant my wishes. But eventually I tire of it all and slowly, but surely, move away from Him, disappointed, discouraged, and eventually defeated.

What does it look like when I choose to just step off this futile, enslaving wheel like the hamster that died? It must start with God. I focus back upon who He is and His amazing love poured out on me through His cross. Nothing I can do will make Him love me more or love me less. I bask in His love like a warm Seattle summer morning. I choose not to be overwhelmed at the steady revelation of my faults in contrast to His holiness, as they too can become avenues to know Him, to love Him more. “God will know how to draw glory, even from our faults. Do not be downcast after committing a fault. It is one of the marks of true sanctity.” – Dom Augustin Gillerand.

Others? They are not to be used to prop up my false self but to encourage, showing them a glimpse of God’s love that He has for them. They may reject my efforts, they may accept them, but that is not my issue. I tune into others as divinely placed in my path, as glorious opportunities in what is disguised as ordinary. This may be words or actions or both, but I walk in trusting obedience, no longer running in insecure fear, or allowing other’s reactions to define me.

Myself, I still am “self-focused” but now I examine my heart, my motives, being quick to ask forgiveness, and careful to be teachable. I have nothing to hold onto now, to defend, because I am not defined by the image I need to protect -- “I” have died and now Jesus lives in my place. (Galatians 2:20) You can’t kill a dead man. He’s already dead. It is Christ who now is my life (Colossians 3:4) and as the song says “there is nothing good in me but Jesus.” I truly live in freedom, not oppressive drivenness. I learn to look to Him and rest in Him even as I carry my God-given load. (Matthew 11:28-30)

This is what freedom from the “unholy hamster wheel” looks like for me. But unlike that little hamster I must choose to stay off my wheel everyday (Luke 9:23) and apply daily, by faith, the spiritual exchange that the Bible says occurred through my faith in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.

Free From the Wheel Through the Cross,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

Redeeming a "Southwest Airlines Moment"

2011-06-22T10:17:00.001-07:00

I love Southwest Airlines and I love their commercials. You know the ones when someone says or does something really awkward and the announcer comes on and says, “Do you want to leave the country?” I am the king of those kinds of moments in our family. I don’t know what it is, but I have a special talent for saying awkward things at times and these moments become part of our family lore.

For instance, I was ordering a coffee from a “pregnant” barista one time and I noticed that she was about seven months pregnant. Wanting to strike up a conversation I said, “So, when are you due?” Her steely eyes pierced right through me and she replied, without a smile, “I’m not pregnant.” I didn’t know what to say. We shared an awkward silence and I kept waiting to be let off the hook but no such luck. I grabbed my coffee and slunk back into my seat at the movie theatre and vowed to never, ever, ever, ever assume someone is pregnant…even if she is dilated 10 centimeters and starting to push! No more assumptions on my part. I had learned my lesson—for life.

So flash forward to this Fathers Day. I was driving with Holly and my two nieces, Maddie and Sydnie, to a church Fathers Day worship service at Tolt-MacDonald Park in Carnation. As we drove towards the park I cashed in my Fathers Day privilege and asked Holly to buy me a coffee at a coffee stand on the way.

As we drove, I asked if I could pray for the day, for the service, etc., but as we drove up to the coffee stand Holly said, “Put the prayer on pause.” We approached the barista and encountered a somewhat cheerful college student as we ordered the coffee. While waiting for my drip coffee, just making conversation, I asked, “So, did you call your dad today?” She just looked back at me like a deer caught in a headlight and said, “My father died about a year ago.”

Holly gave me the look that said, “You did it again, dad. Awkward!” But being the veteran of awkward, Southwest Airline moments, I asked her name. She told us her name and I said, “(Her name) we were just praying before we drove up here. We are going to pray for you, that you will have God’s peace and comfort today in a special way.” She looked back and I could feel the awkwardness dissipate and she said, “Thank you.” And we were back on the road again and, of course, we prayed for this young woman who had lost her father at too early of an age.

Why do I share this story? Hurting people surround us and we will step into awkward moments like this if we choose to engage with them. One of the things I am learning on my journey is the idea of being “radically abandoned to God and radically available to people.” This moment was redeemed because we were in an attitude of prayer before we met this young woman and it was completely natural to simply incorporate the unexpected situation into our ongoing prayer. As we did this we experienced God gloriously at work in this quite ordinary (and a tad awkward) moment.

Not Wanting to Leave The Country Quite Yet,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

Taking the Low Road

2011-06-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

I have been reflecting lately what it means for me to be part of the Body of Christ, the feet and hands of Christ in our world. I thought about this in the most recent retreat that Cindy and I attended with the Transforming Center.

I also think about this quite a bit as I am taking my masters program at Northwest University in Social Entrepreneurship. I am about half way through both of these two-year programs but far from really grasping the mystery of being Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

As I see it, the glory of God lives in the ordinary, everyday lives of His people living out His life in the world. He especially is seen where human needs are the greatest. A rabbi was asked why so few people seek God today and he wisely replied, “Most people don’t want to look that low.”

I have sought out lately where I can serve in a simple and “low road” way, a style I may not immediately be attracted to. I am beginning to volunteer by helping immigrants and foreign nationals learn or improve their English in order to get better jobs and have greater opportunities. They just need someone, some BODY, to help them practice this strange new language.

Where I get off track is thinking too much about it. “If I volunteer in this way does it really make a difference in the big scheme of things?” I ask myself. Or “I may never see these strangers again, what difference could giving my time make in their lives?” Or “Is this the best use of my time?” But I think those are the wrong questions.

More helpful questions might be, “Can I bring the presence of Christ to this individual today?” Or “Can I help them as I would want to be helped if roles were reversed?” “Can I alleviate their burden a little bit and help them feel a little less alone in this strange new land they now find themselves in?”

As I intentionally do this I believe I will see Him, know Him and experience Him as I follow Him by being engaged in the places He is at work in our world. Thanks for listening to some of my thoughts while on my journey. I hope it is an encouragement to you on yours.

Learning how to take the “low road,”

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

Czech Reflections & American Applications

2011-06-01T16:09:00.000-07:00

Cindy and I have been back from the Czech Republic for over a week now. I have had time to reflect upon this country and glean what I feel I am to take from this experience that I had with Northwest University’s MBA program.

To see another culture from the outside looking in can be helpful in more accurately seeing our own culture, as we are stuck on the inside looking out. When it comes to Europe, we see societies that are less God-conscious and even more “politically correct” than ours. It is like seeing what the U.S. will ultimately become as we increasingly embrace an unbiblical worldview.

The Czech Republic, along with Denmark, is one of the two most secular countries in Europe. There is reason for this in the Czech Republic. For about 300 years they were objects of spiritual oppression, I would say abuse, by the Catholic Church, as it was used by the Hapsburg Austrian-Hungarian Dynasty to institute the Counter-Reformation. It wasn’t about personal faith but about forcibly Germanizing the peoples in the name of the Christian religion.

The Hapsburgs were trying to stamp out the Protestant faith of the reformer Jan Huss among the Czechs and they did a pretty good job of it. But as they did, it created a sour taste in the mouths of Czechs about all religion.

Perhaps trying to counteract the dogma of the Counter-Reformation in Czech lands, the Protestant faith became accommodating to other beliefs and compromised so much that eventually there existed no viable picture of genuine Christian community in the land.

The Czech’s not only suffered under the Nazis in World War II but also literally jumped from the frying pan into the fire in becoming totalitarian and Communist from 1948 until 1989 and the “Velvet Revolution.” Under Communism the people were taught atheism and to not trust in what you cannot see. That lie resonated with the Czech people, as that was what their history had clearly taught them to believe.

As I see it, the greatest need in the Czech Republic is for Christians to be willing to humbly serve in order to give the Czechs a different picture of who Christ is. There is no other way that they will discover what a genuine Christian looks like. For that, the Christian must be seen “up close and personal.”

Are we in the United States much different? We must be willing to be friends with non-believers even if they are never interested in our religion. We must love them, as they are, not for what we want them to be, and leave the judgment up to God, where it belongs.

This is counter-intuitive. To care about another with an agenda falls into the same stereotype that we have been characterized by, sometimes unfairly but sadly, other times accurately. If that has been our attitude we need to confess it, repent of it and change course. I know I have needed to do that and continue to need transformation in this area. How about you?

A Slow Learner But Still On the Path By His Grace,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

Seeing the “Ladybug” In Others

2011-05-18T13:14:00.001-07:00

Recently, Cindy and I attended a special retreat at the Transforming Center (no we’re not “transformed” quite yet, this takes time…like a lifetime) at a Franciscan monastery just outside Chicago. We heard great speakers like Ruth Haley Barton and Robert Mulholland speak on “For the Sake of Others.” The focus of the teaching was that spiritual formation or contemplative practices are not so we can be “navel gazers” but rather “radically abandoned to God in order that we can be radically available to others.”

Mulholland taught on the concept of “cruciform love,” that the true character of God was expressed more powerfully through the cross of Christ than any other event in history. As we gaze upon the cross, we will see God more clearly and be able to see others more like He sees them.

I returned to my room after the morning session on Monday and noticed some little bugs that I had not taken the time to “see” since I was a child full of wonder at the world. It may have been a “coincidence” but in my new way of seeing things I choose not to believe in coincidences. This little bug with “her” (not all of them are female) companions had come into my room uninvited.

Almost without thinking I wanted to pick the ladybug up, put her in my open hand and say, “Ladybug, ladybug, fly, fly away.” Why didn’t I want to squish this bug like any other species of bug I would find in the room?

As a little child I was taught that these little creatures were “good” and they deserved our respect and support on their life journey. They were to be appreciated with their bright red bodies and black spots. They were to be watched with joy as they flew away.

A little curious now, I decided to go online and find out something about ladybugs. I discovered that they eat harmful soft-bodied bugs that suck the juices out of plants. A ladybug can eat up to 50 aphids a day! There are almost 500 species of ladybugs in North America and over 5,000 species in the world! In Europe during the Middle Ages they were experiencing a pestilence of bugs destroying their crops and the Catholic farmers cried out to God and the Virgin Mary for help.

Soon ladybugs appeared and came to the rescue and the crops were saved. They were since called “Beetles of Our Lady.” The wings represented the Virgin’s cloak and the black spots her joys and sorrows. They saw in every ladybug “a little savior of their life-giving sustenance."

So, I reflected about the way I was taught to see the ladybug as opposed to other bugs. I didn’t ignore them or abhor them. I valued them and respected them, even sent them on their way with a gentle puff on the palm of my hand. What a picture for me in how I need to see others who come into my life uninvited. I instinctively often ignore, see as insignificant, or I criticize, judge and seek to distance myself from them.

This is not how Jesus sees them or me. I want to see others more like that. I can’t manufacture this change in myself but I can admit that I am not there yet and ask that He lead me progressively into His perspective. I am a slow learner but I long to follow Him on this joyful journey.

Looking to the Lord of the Ladybug,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

Glorying in What My Mom Couldn't Do

2011-05-05T21:49:00.001-07:00

It has been twenty Mother’s Days since my mom died. I had no idea on that Mother’s Day in 1991 that so soon the breast cancer she had been battling for about three years and appeared to be kept at bay, would return with a vengeance in the fall, and by February of ’92 she would be gone.

Today, Thursday May 5th, is the National Day of Prayer and this Sunday, May 8th, is Mother’s Day. So I am feeling a need to remember my mom but also to recognize the power of her prayers on my behalf.

My mother lived her life as the ultimate “glory in the ordinary” person. Like many moms, she stayed at home with her kids and gave up more prestigious or lucrative opportunities so that she could be there for her children.

Being a child of the fifties and sixties I took for granted what most children today are not able to experience--a mom who was simply “there.” Being there meant humble service as a nurse, cook, clothes washer, chauffer, teacher, tutor, counselor and advocate. I read somewhere a study that put a monetary value on all the things moms do and it came up to something like $100,000 a year. I think it is more like the Visa commercial that says, “priceless.”

It must have been so frustrating for my mom when I hit my late teens and I was making some stupid choices. Skillfully combined with that I had an attitude of entitlement and ingratitude for the years of sacrifices she had faithfully made for our family. That wasn’t easy but I did my best. I worked hard on it. Then to create even greater distance between us, she was beginning to follow Jesus Christ as a real disciple and I know I wasn’t. Conviction.

She would let me know occasionally her concern over the direction I was heading and I had learned to “tune her out.” However, what I had no defense against was…her prayers--especially when she ganged up on me with her praying friends. Now that really wasn’t fair.

So now these twenty plus years after her death and some forty years after my self-centered, self-destructive later teen years, I honor my mom not so much for what she did for me (though I am truly grateful!) but especially for what she couldn’t do for me.

She called upon a Greater Power who could work on me from the inside out, not from the outside in, as she tried to do before she learned the secret power of prayer. She pleaded with Him to reveal Himself to me, for me to know Him myself as she was coming to know Him.

My mom’s life powerfully speaks to me today as a father and grandfather who finds myself increasingly looking at my children’s and grandchildren’s lives from “the sideline.” I often want to run in there and get in the game with them but know I can’t. (As a football fan I can remember that not working out so well for old Woody Hayes when he stuck out his foot from the sideline, tripping an opposing player!)

The irony that my mom’s life has taught me is that when we realize the need to pray and call upon the One who can do what we can never do for our loved ones, then we through our prayers, offer to them what they really need the most, the Living God Himself.

Thanking God for the Legacy of a Praying Mom,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life you may just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey.

God’s Glory In Our Ordinary Relationships

2011-04-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

“It is finished.” Such a simple, ordinary phrase. But what unfathomable meaning! The cross of Jesus Christ is the ultimate “glory in the ordinary.” In the Roman world criminals were executed in this slow and cruel manner frequently. It was a harsh, brutal punishment that had become “ordinary” or normal throughout the empire. Rome used it to keep people in line and to fear the authority of the state.

But Jesus reveals that his death on this torturous instrument of execution would glorify God. Before He went to the cross He told His disciples, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him, God will glorify the Son in Himself and glorify Him at once.” (John 13:31-32) Do you think He said “glorify” enough in that sentence?

The cross of Jesus glorifies, or reveals, the character of God, the essence of who He is, more than any one event in human history. We are made to wonder and marvel at the length that God would go to bring His wayward children back to Himself.

“It is finished,” He cried from the cross. He completed, paid in full a payment that none of us could pay. I could spend an eternity in the agony of separation from God and it still would not be paid.

As I read and reflect this Easter season on what took place I notice what Jesus says right after He speaks about His cross. He tells us to love one another. “A new commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

How can I make this message of His cross best known to others who do not see the wonder of what He has done? It will be through the quality of relationships that I have. This is ordinary, everyday stuff but it is how the Triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit-a Divine Community) is most revealed today through His people--through the way we live with each other.

As I am fully forgiven I can forgive. As I am fully accepted I can accept. As I was fully sacrificed for I can sacrifice for others. As I was fully understood in my need I can seek to understand. This is where the power of the cross of Christ will shine through the most in our relationships, especially when they get difficult. Especially when we are wronged.

Just Beginning to Learn to Love as He Loves,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

If you are receiving this and would like to receive my blog, “Glory In The Ordinary” sent to your email about 2-3 times a month on the theme of seeing God in the “ordinariness” of everyday life you may just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com) and I would be happy to have you join me on this journey!

Remember Your Leaders

2011-04-14T11:32:00.001-07:00

Earlier this month Cindy and I had the privilege to stay a week in Assisi, Italy (yes, that Assisi, where St. Francis came from) and besides getting out of the Seattle rain and enjoying the warmth of the Umbrian Spring we had time to reflect upon the life of this remarkable man who lived some 800 years ago.

What is the value of looking at a person’s life who has been dead and gone for so long? I think it is important to look at his life and see what we can imitate from his faith that applies today. St. Francis was born into a wealthy merchant’s family and was caught up in and attracted to the glory of battling the Perugians across the valley for material gain and city honor.

He came back after one military campaign, having been captured imprisoned for months, a broken man. Out of his “death” sprang forth a kind of resurrection, rebirth in his life. He encountered the true Christ in his convalescence--not the one who had been so poorly portrayed to him through all of the religiosity of his parents and townspeople. He then stripped himself naked, gave all of his clothes back to his father and walked out of Assisi to follow Christ in a way that he was feeling led to do.

He descended down the hilly side of the mountain that Assisi was built on and went to a broken-down, forgotten church building called San Diamano. There were a few lepers and outcasts living there. That is where Francis heard the Lord say to him, “See how my church is in ruins. Build my church.” At first thinking this to be only literal, he set himself to the task of rebuilding, stone by stone, the broken-down structure, a skill he had learned in his youth as the walls of Assisi were being built at that time.

The lesson I learn from his life is to listen to what God is saying to me personally and then simply to do it, one step at a time. I have to admit as I was in Assisi, I recoiled a bit from all of the adulation and reverence that was being given to this man. A whole tourist industry is built around him! Especially coming from the Protestant tradition my guard was up against “saint worship.” But to consider the lives of those who have gone before is a very biblical and healthy thing to do.

The writer of Hebrews says it this way: “Remember your leaders and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:7-8) I used to see that verse about Jesus being “the same yesterday, and today and forever” just hanging in the air by itself but it is in the context of honoring those who have gone before. It is so tempting to say, “that was then and now is now” and dismiss the lessons of their lives as irrelevant to today. But the writer of Hebrews is saying, that same Christ who was so real for those who have gone before (St. Francis for instance) desires the same quality of relationship with us today. It may look different but it is the same Christ.

As I consider the legacy of this one man, he still speaks to people today, Christian and non-Christian alike. It is really good to remember him and consider how I can adopt more of his simple, childlike faith, loving those who are forgotten and discarded (lepers in his world) loving God’s creation, and desiring to build bridges among people rather than walls that divide.

Thank you, Lord for this little man with such a big faith. In his last words he said, “I have done what was mine to do, now you do what is yours to do.” May I take those words to heart and seriously consider today “what is mine to do.”

Remembering a Leader Worthy to Emulate,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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He Will Serve Before Kings

2011-03-25T13:31:00.000-07:00

“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men.” (Proverbs 22:29)

The winner of the Academy Awards Best Picture this year was about a little known “ordinary” man named Lionel Logue who served King George VI, the king of England, in a crucial juncture of world history. The movie masterfully shows the growth of relationship between Lionel and “Bertie,” the king. Seeing the film reminded me of my friend, Cali Magallenes, who serves as the chaplain for the New York Mets.

To be a chaplain among major league baseball players is like serving “kings.” In our society, to be a major league baseball player is like being royalty; glorified in the media, players with multi-million dollar contracts can become bigger than life in the eyes of adoring fans.

But Cali knows the other side of the glory as he interacts with players, conducting chapels for both the Mets players when they are home and the visiting team. Last season a player from an opposing team told him, “Cali, you do more than you think you do and it means more to us than you think it does.”

The players respond well to being respected but not fawned over. Cali confesses that he often will not know (or care) who a player is or about his celebrity. For players who are always being asked for autographs by strangers this is refreshing.

Though chapel before games is a key time for Cali to share the word of God, the most significant opportunities to speak into these “kings” lives is when they call him with a problem or issue and ask for counsel or prayer. The players have the same problems as anyone else – depression, life struggles and family issues.

Cali is bilingual. He was born in Mexico and grew up in California. I met him as a 19-year-old Marine Corporal at Kaneohe Bay Marine Base back in 1986. I had the privilege of helping him grow in his faith with The Navigators in Hawaii and gave him a vision for how God wants to use him in his life. Even then there was something about this guy that I knew was special. We invited him into our family and gave him a break from life in the barracks once and a while. Those were special memories with “Chico” (as we called him back then) that we still treasure in our family history.

What I love about the way Cali approaches his chaplain role with the Mets is that he doesn’t play favorites. He sees his ministry to the parking attendant, vendors, security guards and umpires as equally important as his role in the major leaguers’ lives. He sees the “glory in the ordinary.” He will often approach those who work at the stadium and ask them, “How can I be praying for you this week?” He has yet to be turned down on that offer.

When he speaks to the players he often reminds them that God has a greater purpose in their lives than playing baseball. He challenges them that they have two “families”–their biological family and their team family. These men are really bonded together as they travel and go through the ups and downs of a grueling 162 game schedule together. He challenges those who know Christ to be a light for the glory of God in the clubhouse and to use their platform for God’s glory, not their own.

One player I know Cali has had a big impact upon is Mets star outfielder Carlos Beltran. Beltran writes on the Baseball Chapel website about his faith. “It is difficult to play in New York. Every time I take the field I think of my favorite verse–‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me’ (Philippians 4:13). I tell Him, ‘I’m doing this in Your name.’ I don’t worry about so many things, I play to please God and if I have a good game I give the glory to God. If I have a bad game I continue to give Him the honor and glory because He has control over everything.”

Cali is married to Marinelva, whom he met on a Baseball Chapel related trip to the Dominican Republic. They have four sons, Daniel, 6, Samuel, 5, Ishmael, 2 and Gabriel, 7 months. Marinelva has her hands full with four active boys but she supports Cali’s ministry and stays available to the wives of players. Cali also pastors a church in Brooklyn and loves to preach God’s word.

As I reflect on how God has raised up “Chico” to such a place of strategic influence, I am reminded of how God wants to use “ordinary men” like him to make an extraordinary impact. Cali may not be a major leaguer himself but because of his faithfulness he is able to serve many major leaguers and multiply the influence of his life upon their lives and the lives they touch because of the unique platform they have been given.

Serving Before THE King,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Most of the Noise Is Coming From the Shallow End

2011-03-18T12:41:00.001-07:00

Ruth Haley Barton said something at our first retreat at the Transforming Center that I loved. “The church today is a lot like a swimming pool. Most of the noise is coming from the shallow end.”

The humor in this quote is imagining a bunch of noisy, splashing kids making a big ruckus in a pool while the adults quietly swim in the deeper waters.

Unfortunately, much of what is propagated in Christendom today appeals to our most shallow desires for greater health, wealth and success. As this is true corporately, sadly, it is also true individually. We keep our lives busy, noisy and distracted and we ourselves become “the shallow end.”

As I have sought to practice more quietness and silence in my spiritual journey I have discovered that within my own mind often there is much turmoil, distraction and confusion that I was unaware of before. As long as I surrounded myself with external noise I was not confronted with this reality. I found that when I shut that all down then I begin to hear disturbing “voices” in my head. (Not real audible voices; I don’t have that problem as of this writing!)

The external enemy has an internal ally. I have a reason to keep my world noisy with the various distractions. They all serve to protect me from feeling things in my soul, often painful, that would draw me into utter dependence upon the Savior. Part of me doesn’t like this vulnerability.

I have found that distraction can only be overcome by a greater attraction…this attraction is to be caught up in the wonder of Jesus Christ and who He really is. I make conscious choices to take in less new information so I can have more transformation, more intimacy with God. Less is more in this case.

I do this by choosing the narrow road to think about Christ and His presence through my day rather than taking the broader, destructive road and frenetically thinking about what floods into my mind through the various media.

H.A. Ironside said it this way, “The secret of holiness is heart-occupation with Christ. As we gaze upon Him, we become more and more like Him. Do you want to be holy? Spend much time in His presence. Let the loveliness of the risen Lord so fill the vision of your soul that all else is shut out.”

And King David said it this way, “…I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Psalm 123:2)

If I am filled with the external noise which delays me from dealing with the internal noisy distraction I cannot allow the quiet attraction to Christ, planted by the Holy Spirit, to be at work in me. My life will remain noisy and turbulent in the “shallow end” with nothing of depth to offer to those who are thirsty.

Little by Little Learning to Quiet My Soul,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Focus on the Small Hinges and the Big Doors Will Open Wide

2011-03-03T20:18:00.001-08:00

“Never despise the small things in your life. Never spend so much time reaching for the high-impact acts of ministry that you neglect the minute details of service. The massive doors of God’s kingdom swing on tiny hinges of our faith and obedience. Focus on the hinges, and you’ll see the doors open wide.” –Chris Tiegreen.

First, an interesting tidbit about how I got this quote. I love Chris Tiegreen’s devotional books. I have been using them for the past few years in my quiet times. Often I will jot down a quote in the reading or something he says himself. I write it on a 3 x 5 card and put it in a little file.

Today, as I was rushing to find a car seat for my granddaughter, Sadie, before going to the gym together, I was also trying to feed our cat, Stormy. We were out of cat food (this cat eats like a large mountain lion!) so as I was looking in the garage for it, I saw the 3 x 5 card with this quote lying on the concrete garage floor.

What was I doing? I was kind of rushing but I was doing something small and ordinary (feeding the cat) so I could get to doing something else small and ordinary (go to the gym with my two granddaughters) and here was this quote on a tattered little card that reminded me that the very things I was involved in were significant.

I was choosing to invest in my granddaughter’s lives. It is a fleeting privilege to have six-year-old and three-year-old granddaughters who love to do something with their grandpa-especially if it ends up at Dairy Queen! Today when I picked them up I found out that they were both about to get a couple of little swats from Sky for their behavior. Grandpa to the rescue! Amazing grace bestowed by their dad this time.

Cindy and I are about mid-point in our “2-20” plan (this is a two year focus that we believe will impact the next twenty years and beyond). We travel to our fourth out of eight retreats shortly, as we invest these two years through involvement with the Transforming Center out of Wheaton, Illinois, as well as my masters program at Northwest University in social entrepreneurship.

We will be able to develop, God willing, through research and personal interaction with others, a ministry to those in leadership of nonprofits, churches and businesses. This endeavor will emphasize learning and practicing the ancient practices of spiritual formation that have been neglected in our noisy, fast-paced, high-tech world. We are calling it “Sound Leadership Partners” at this point. We are excited to see it begin to unfold as we continue to meet people in the community with whom this resonates.

We have needed to be intentional about this because we are clearly in a period of ending one thing (parenthood with kids in the home, my fathering ministry, Cindy’s lay counseling ministry) to beginning something else. These next two years are about discovering what that “something else” is and how Cindy and I can really operate as a team in the process. For years this has been my dream-to team up with Cindy in serving people.

Okay, back to the quote about small things, the little decisions to obey or trust. As we are about at the halfway mark in our program with The Transforming Center I really thought I would be much further along in learning these rhythms and disciplines. Old habits die slowly. In a lot of ways I am “a contemplative dropout!” But what I am learning is that the way to tackle changing life patterns is “little by little”--much as how God drove out Israel’s enemies when they came to the Promised Land. (Deuteronomy 7:22) He said He did it this way so that their gaining of new land would be SUSTAINABLE.

So, at the year mark of this process, though the changes have been small and slow, I can still be encouraged, and so can you if you relate to the slowness of my progress. When I drive I don’t fill the time with talk or music, I keep the radio off. When at the dog park with Griffey, I leave my ipod behind and am quiet and I listen to God in the quiet and beauty of Marymoor Park. When I open my Bible I don't just barge into the reading, I sit and wait and sense God's presence with me to speak to me and realize this is not an academic exercise.

These are small things but they are good things that are becoming rhythms I am practicing--not just reading about or thinking about doing something about them someday. These are the “hinges” that are swinging open doors for me in this season of life. Like that little card I picked up in the garage, seemingly small and insignificant, but in reality brim full of life-transforming, door-opening power!

Celebrating the Small Things,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Facebook: Never Too Late To Face Myself

2011-02-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

There are so many great things about being on Facebook. It has helped me stay connected with my kids, with old friends and with extended family members. It is an incredible tool. But on the other hand, I have found it pretty addictive. I have wasted too much time with it. So it is a little bit of a “mixed bag.”

One significant benefit I have discovered is as more people my age have Facebook accounts it is easier to reconnect with people from my past. This new ability can also be a bit of a “mixed bag.”

As I get older, I find my long-term memory getting sharper but my short term memory getting…well you know, kind of fuzzy. (“What is that guy’s name?”) This can be kind of frustrating but in the case of having more clarity about the past I have found that God can use Facebook to do something in my life that may not have been as possible before.

Over the years I have tried to make things right with people I have offended…most of the time. There are some people when the relationship doesn’t end well, we go our separate ways and if we run into each other? Awkward! It has either been my hurt feelings, my pride in being “right” or my hardness of heart toward the person wronged that will keep me from pursuing forgiveness or reconciliation. Besides, I reason, even if I wanted to do something about the relationship how would I ever get in contact with the person? (Thanks to Facebook this excuse doesn't work very well anymore!) And why cause further pain by making contact again? Can you hear the rationalizations?

So recently I found myself thinking about a relationship that ended several years ago on a very sour note. Where before I felt completely in the right by my deluded self-justification, now all I could thing of was how wrong I was and how I needed to ask this man for his forgiveness.

Next comes the internal dialogue, the back and forth in silent prayer. “It has been so long. He has probably forgotten.” The “voice” (no, I don’t hear audible voices from God!), this inner voice comes back with a question, “You haven’t forgotten have you? Neither have I. I have been waiting for the right time to bring it back up to you.”

The inner argument continues, “What good would it do to contact him and ask forgiveness? In his mind he will have ‘won’ and my admission of guilt will validate every judgment he has ever made of me.” The voice replies, “So what? Why are you seeking to justify yourself? I paid the price for your justification on my cross.”

“But, Lord, this is embarrassing and shameful. Can’t we just let this go?” The reply comes again, “You have been ‘letting it go’ for many years. How well has that been working for you? Let’s put it on the cross. That’s where the shame and embarrassment belong.”

So, I write the message to this person whom I found on Facebook. I don’t ask that he be a “friend.” I just send him my heartfelt apologies via the “send a message” option. I finally push “send” after what seemed like an eternity of hesitation. No excuses. No rationalizations. No stinging barbs. At the end of the message I extend an offer to get together sometime if he would so desire.

I don’t know if he will ever respond. But in a certain way it doesn’t matter. I feel free and my conscience is clean. Not because of having done anything particularly noble. I am just weary of having to be “right” and wary of my own self-deception. I simply want to cling to the cross of Christ’s forgiveness and do all I can do now so I am no longer a stumbling block on this man’s spiritual path. Thank you Father for your amazing patience. Thank you for your merciful cross. Thank you that though this feels painfully late…as long as I breathe…it is never too late.

Because I Have Been Forgiven So Much,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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"Jim" - Now Commandant of The Marine Corps

2011-02-08T12:51:00.001-08:00

Last October a man whom I knew simply as “Jim” as a junior and senior in high school was named the commandant of the United States Marine Corps. This is the highest position a person can attain as a Marine Corps officer and the commandant becomes a member of our nation’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Gen. James F. Amos, an aviator (jet pilot) becomes the first ever commandant who has not come from the “ground side” of the Corps.

Jim and Bonnie Amos were our youth group sponsors from 1972-74 at International Baptist Church in Honolulu. When the youth group traveled to Maui on spring break to help plant a new church, Jim and Bonnie were there. When we had our youth meetings, they were there. They were there to encourage and to listen as they modeled a loving marriage. I appreciated that they just hung out with us and seemed to care. Pretty ordinary stuff with very extraordinary impact.

We reconnected again in 1985 when Jim and Bonnie’s growing family returned to Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station and Cindy and I were beginning our ministry with The Navigators on that base. Bonnie then confessed to us over dinner one night that she didn’t think we would make it as 19 and 17 year-olds getting married. I’m sure glad that she kept that to herself at the time!

I followed Jim’s career a bit through the internet and apparently, serving Marine Corps families was a habit the Amos’ continued long after their days in Hawaii.

Why am I writing this? I hope not to impress anyone that I know the commandant of the Marine Corps or to glorify celebrity or career success as some kind of ultimate value. I am really feeling something quite the opposite. Please hear me out.

As I watched the State of the Union address a couple of weeks ago and saw the familiar, though now older face of Jim Amos in the front row, I was reminded that my life is filled with people whom I have no idea of the opportunities that God has in store for them either in this life or in the life to come.

Jesus was emphatic that the people whom we think of as “ordinary” or even insignificant He sees as glorious to him now. Only a relative few that this world exalts become followers of Him. (I Corinthians 1, James 2) In other words, there are not a lot of “Jim stories” where we see exaltation in this life of a humble servant of Christ.

Jesus Himself is the Supreme Example of this. He was glory disguised in the ordinary - a humble carpenter from Nazareth. For those who did not witness His resurrection appearances and have not believed, his life ended in a shameful criminal’s death.

But this is what I am learning: That same wonder of the incarnation needs to also be extended to the ordinary people He puts into our lives--beginning with our own family members whom we are most likely to take for granted. EACH of those He puts into our lives are of infinite value to Him.

How we are eventually exalted will not be according to how many people we are superior over or responsible for (in Jim’s case almost a quarter of a million people and their dependents) but how faithfully we have served the people God has put into our lives--whether that be many or few. (Mark 10:43-45) This is clearly what Jesus says and someday we will see forgotten servants exalted and those whom this world exalts seen for what they are. (Colossians 3:1-4)

Paul, by the Holy Spirit said it best, “So from now on we regard (see) NO ONE from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded (saw) Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if ANYONE is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17, NIV with emphasis, explanations added.)

Only Beginning To See This Ordinary Glory All Around Me,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Seeing My Old Home Through Tourist's Eyes

2011-01-27T08:47:00.000-08:00

Some people who know me ask if I ever miss Hawaii after moving here to the Northwest 21 years ago. The answer is YES!...especially around this time of year. I have some great memories growing up in Windward Oahu and in North Kona at PuuWaaWaa Ranch. Hawaii is where I first came to surrender my life to Christ, where I met the love of my life, Cindy, and where we started our family together.

But as someone has said, “you can never go back home.” I think when my mother died in 1992 it began to become more difficult for me to go there. Slowly but surely the places that held the most memories (and where we could stay for free!) were sold and the past became owned by strangers. So, much to our kids’ disappointment, we have not visited Hawaii as much as one might expect over the past several years.

However, earlier this month Cindy and I went to Kona with our granddaughter, Ellie, and played tourist at the Keauhou Sheraton Hotel. Rather than obsessing on my past there in Kona I decided I wanted just to be present with Cindy, Ellie and our little tour group of about 12 people from the Seattle area.

In all of the years I had lived there I never went whale watching before. I did that with Ellie. Cindy opted out due to her tendency towards seasickness. When we drove around the island, we drove through what used to be my family’s former ranch at PuuWaaWaa., the tour guide indicated that Hawaiian chiefs were buried on the west side of the hill, where we used to live. They liked to be buried on that side facing the sun. I did not know that. I had heard that King Kamehameha the Great was probably buried secretly somewhere on the ranch but didn’t know that it could be as close as that furrowed hill where we lived and would horseback ride upon.

I have always been fascinated about how God prepared the people of Hawaii for the arrival of the missionaries. I was able to do more reading this trip and I realized that the abolishment of the kapu system in 1819 that kept the people in a sure bondage didn’t come without a fight. The forces loyal to King Kamehameha II who wanted to abolish the system needed to defeat a coalition of chiefs who wanted to keep the status quo. That decisive battle took place right near where our hotel was in Keauhou! Within just a few months of this event the first missionaries arrived with the people of Hawaii experiencing a spiritual vacuum that would make for a much greater receptivity to the message.

Coming back as a tourist, with more objective wonder, I could see with fresh eyes the whales off Kailua-Kona, PuuWaaWaa hill with its connection to Hawaiian chiefs and the rocky beach of Keauhou with its importance in Hawaii’s spiritual history. Why couldn’t I see these things as clearly before? I think it is our tendency to stop seeing things after awhile. Stop wondering. Stop being curious.

We don’t want to be considered ignorant novices or “tourists” but that is where we can live in joyous discovery. That is where we can grow in wonder. We usually don’t want to be referred to as “beginners” but that is such a liberating place to be…nothing to prove…no reputation to protect…no image to project. Lord, as I walk with you in your world help me see it all through the eyes of a tourist. Only then will I be able to see the glory in the ordinary!

Embracing My “Tourist-ness” ~

Jamie

P.S. Correction to a previous blog involving Hawaiian history: The quote I attributed to Queen Emma, “we need to make room for the living” was actually from her aunt, Queen Liliuokulani.

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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"Ordinary" Hero of the Faith Graduates to Glory

2011-01-20T22:35:00.000-08:00

What does remembering a friend like Connie Jacobsen have to do with “Glory In The Ordinary?” Connie, who died earlier this month after a six-month fight with pancreatic cancer, exemplifies to me a man who lived an extraordinary life disguised in ordinariness.

We live in a world that worships celebrity and sadly the Christian sub-culture is not much different. The big name mega-church pastor, multi-staff non-profit leader, multi-million dollar corporation founder, best-selling author, internationally known speaker/guru, etc. get all the ink it seems. Someone has said that the church today is like a swimming pool, “all of the noise is coming out of the shallow end.”

So when a man like Connie Jacobsen passes and I am able to hear story after story about how this ordinary man impacted so many lives to love God and to love others, I quietly pray, “What, Lord, would you have me to learn from this man’s life?”

Connie was a faithful and loving husband, father and grandfather. He worked with kids as a Young Life leader since high school and he founded a Seattle men’s ministry called “Teleios” in 1980.

What drew me to him as an older man and mentor was the humble way that he walked with Jesus. When I met with him he made me feel like I was the most important person in the world. He gave me his full presence. He often quoted a mentor of his about his philosophy of meeting with men: “Be with men at their convenience with no agenda.”

Connie listened and he also shared with me his own struggles with sin. He never pretended to be perfect or have arrived. The Bible studies that he, Art Kopicky and Shawn Petree started around the Puget Sound area under the Teleios banner bore the mark of his spiritual DNA. I have been involved in starting and facilitating a couple of men’s groups under his guidance and they are nothing like I have been involved with before.

Both groups that I lead genuinely care about each other and I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t continue, like other groups Connie started, until we are old men together. We simply read, discuss a chapter in the Bible together, share with each other where we need prayer and then actually pray for one another. It is that simple. And that powerful!

Some may be offended in my referring to Connie, such a great leader of the faith in Seattle, as “ordinary.” One thing I know is that he would not have been offended by that designation. I believe that what he wanted most to be seen through his life was not his own intellect, spirituality, or gifting, but Jesus. He wanted Christ to be accessible to all he was in contact with. He wanted “the cookies to be kept on the bottom shelf.”

He would quote often when referring to himself, “He (Jesus) must increase and I must decrease.” (John 3:30) And when he knew the cancer would likely be taking him home he would quote, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

I was not able to attend his memorial service due to being out of town, but I heard that around 2,500 people attended at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle last Friday. Those who were there and those like me who could not attend, honor this quiet “ordinary man” who lived a life of extraordinariness for Christ. May God multiply the impact of your faithful life, dear friend, for His glory, many times in the days ahead.

Grateful For 21st Century Heroes of the Faith Like Connie,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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JESUS' BIRTH - Glory in the Ordinary!

2010-12-22T17:08:00.000-08:00

If we ever needed proof that God reveals Himself through the ordinariness of everyday life we don’t need to look any further than the story of the birth of Jesus.

Sure we see supernatural miracles: His divine conception by the Holy Spirit, the star that guided the Magi to Bethlehem, Gabriel’s appearance to Mary and the angelic choir singing to the shepherds, just to name a few.

But, also, there were some pretty ordinary events that God used extraordinarily: The census by Julius Caesar that forced Joseph and Mary to go to Bethlehem from Nazareth, fulfilling the messianic prophesy; the laying down of Jesus into a feeding trough showing He was the Bread of Life sent from heaven; the tradition of a baby dedication of Jesus at the temple where Anna and Simeon were able to see Him and prophesy over Him; the gifts from the Magi (their visit likely occurred months after his birth) that no doubt made the trip to Egypt and back to Israel financially possible for this poor young couple; the jealous murderous rage of Herod after he had been fooled by the Magi after their visit, not returning to Jerusalem, again fulfilling prophesy by killing all children under two years of age.

These were all very “ordinary” events that can, for the most part, be explained by normal human reactions and motivations intertwined with the more supernatural occurrences that surrounded His birth.

These commonplace events were what God used to do something glorious—send His only Son into the world. Those who were ready to receive Him—Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, John the Baptist (in the womb, making him the youngest believer on record!) Anna, Simeon, the shepherds, the Magi—they were all full of JOY at His birth.

But for those who were not ready or willing—Herod, the crowd at the inn, the townspeople of Bethlehem—they missed the wonder of what God was doing right in front of them. Jesus’ glory to them was disguised by the ordinariness of the events they lived through. To these people Jesus was either ignored or attacked. Two thousand years later not much has changed in how most people respond to Him.

They were too distracted by other things to see what God was providing for their GREATEST need—a Savior from their sins.

What about you and me? May we open our eyes to see HIM and welcome HIM when He is present through the sights, acts and people we experience every day. He is STILL to be seen for those who have eyes to see.

Have An Extraordinary CHRISTmas!

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Sorrowful Yet Always Rejoicing

2010-12-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

Before I traveled down to Arizona for a family reunion I watched a film from my Netflix account about Princess Kaiulani. The movie focused on the turbulent time in the history of Hawaii when American business interests overthrew the monarchy during the late 1800’s. It was a well-done film that was apparently an especially accurate snapshot of what occurred in Hawaii at that time.

One quote that stood out to me from the film was one that was taken from Queen Emma. The princess took the queen’s words to heart in a way that empowered her to make some courageous decisions in her short lifetime. What Queen Emma said was this: “We need to make room for the living.” The queen modeled for the princess how to live with joy amidst inevitable sorrow and disappointment. The princess was instrumental in guaranteeing Hawaiians the right to vote, a right not yet given to women or African-Americans in the U.S, even as she was losing her power as a future monarch.

This quote rang in my mind as I gathered with about 30 from my family-father, wife, sisters, nephews, nieces, their spouses and children. In situations like this it is easy for me to go to one of two extremes. I can easily allow the sadness of those who are not at the reunion¬-my mother and brother-in-law through death, my youngest sister through estrangement, three of my four children through economic practicality-to ruin my time.

On the other hand, I can live in complete denial and not even recognize any of my legitimate sadness and live as if they were not now or never were a part of this family. That wouldn’t be a wise choice either.

I believe what I am called to do, and last weekend thankfully actually succeed in doing, was to live in the “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10) tension that Paul writes about. I think it was healthy for me to be conscious of the sorrow of the situation and yet live presently and joyfully with those who were able to be at the reunion.

As I stayed present I had some special conversations and noticed others doing the same. Around the tables silly stories were retold for the umpteenth time by us older ones. Little ones were seen laughing about who knows what and their young parents were commiserating about the rollercoaster of parenthood.

I brought my “best self” to the gathering and tuned into those who were there.

This also has application for me in the broader context of my life. I can spend an inordinate amount of time missing the absent, to the point I become blind to the people of my present. I do need to “make room for the living.”

I need to learn to live in this tension of “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” learning this art in a present world that will never be ideal and YET is still full of the glorious presence of God.

Rejoicing in His Glorious Presence,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Greater Debt...Greater Love

2010-12-01T13:12:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been struggling with a sense of my sinfulness…and a sense that I am not progressing at all in my spiritual journey. In fact, I often have a sense of going backwards. Do you ever feel like this? If you do, read on.

Most of us are familiar with the story of the woman who extravagantly anointed Jesus with perfume–a sinful woman whom Jesus wasn’t even supposed to touch. The story is found in Luke chapter 7, verses 36-50.

The great thing about Scripture is that every time we read it we bring a little different person to the story or passage. This particular morning when I read the story I came as a frustrated sinner, one who is not feeling any real progress in my growth in overcoming sinful habits and tendencies that I thought would be long dead by now.

I didn’t come to the passage “at the top of my game” feeling that my Jesus must be so pleased with me today. That is why the story and the parable that Jesus told Simon the Pharisee became so meaningful to me. He said to Simon, “Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” (vs. 41-42)

Simon was honest and said it was the one who had the bigger debt cancelled. Jesus then lifted up the prostitute for her love for Him as one who realized she had been forgiven the greater debt.

Jesus concluded His story with this: “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven–for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” (v. 47)

So here is what I believe Jesus is saying to Simon, me and to anyone else who will listen. “This woman is in touch with her sinfulness. Even though she has lived an immoral lifestyle, she gets it. She knows her great need for me and my cross. But you still have a belief in your personal moral uprightness. You don’t get it yet. When you can understand your sinfulness and debt then you are on your way to whole-heartedly loving me as she does.”

The further we go in this relationship with Jesus the more it will seem like we are going backwards. We go from being 50 to 500 denarii in debt. Is it because we become outwardly greater sinners? Hopefully not! It is because we become more acutely aware of our heart, our sin and our utter hopelessness without Christ and His cross.

The Apostle Paul, who was arguably the greatest Christian leader of all time called himself “the worst” of sinners (I Timothy 1:15) and cried out in his letter to the Romans, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)

This truth is a paradox. It reminds me of an optical illusion that I saw every time I drove from the north shore of Oahu back home to Kaneohe Bay where I lived. As I entered the bay from the north I could see a little island, called “Chinaman’s Hat,” framed by trees at the end of the road before it veers to the right. As the car approached closer to the island, the trees would peel away and I would see the island no longer in the closed context of the framing trees but now in greater context of the wide open sky. The illusion is this: the island becomes smaller and smaller in size the closer you come to it.

I think this is what growing in relationship with Christ is all about. We do get closer but our context changes so we seem further. We no longer compare ourselves with our own arbitrary standards but with Christ Himself. As we do this we become increasingly aware of our sinfulness and desperate need for Him and His forgiveness through His cross.

We go from 50 to 500 denarii in debt as the trees of denial, self-justification and comparison to others are peeled back and we see the limitless sky of His righteousness. We increasingly see ourselves as we really are and HIM for who He truly is and the price he paid on our behalf.

So back to the Pharisee and the prostitute. In this situation the sign of progress in the spiritual life was not perceived as external righteousness but rather actual inner worship. This humble, grateful love by the prostitute is manifested outwardly towards Jesus in a visible way. Genuine love always finds ways to express itself.

Jesus wants to focus me away from my self-righteousness onto His righteousness and His cross. This is counter-intuitive. This is a “cross”-current way of being, a going against the natural self-justifying, self-promoting human grain. This is moving from 50 to 500 denarii in debt, further away in one sense, but actually increasingly closer and more fervently in love with the One, “who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

Moving Closer While Seeming To Move Further,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Ellie, Thanksgiving and the Little Fish

2010-11-19T12:28:00.001-08:00

Cindy and I were driving Ellie, our six-year-old granddaughter the other day over to her parents and we talked to her about how things were going in first grade. Cindy asked her “Are there any boys that you like?” Ellie replied with her two-front tooth-missing smile, “Yeah, I like Jake S.”

“What do you like about Jake S.?” Cindy followed up. “When the other boys don’t want me to play with them, he tells them that they need to. That’s what boys are supposed to do-take care of the girls.”

We both laughed and I replied, “That’s right, Ellie. It sounds like Jake S. is a real cool guy.” She then said with a serious look on her face, “Yeah, I’ve got to find out where he’s going to college ‘cause that’s where people get married.”

This little exchange happened just in the five-minute drive between our house and her house.

The next night we were able to have her and her two-year-old sister, Sadie, over at our house. Cindy and Ellie had previously spent hours putting our Christmas light village up. They then played a game where Cindy would take a character from the village, hide him or her and see if Ellie could identify the missing piece. Amazingly, she was able to quickly identify just about anything that was missing from the village.

Then later in the week Ellie and I had one of “our little traditions.” We went to the indoor pool at Gold’s Gym and afterwards to Dairy Queen for a cheeseburger and ice cream cone. As we drove in the dark from DQ I said to her, “One of my headlights is out, Ellie. I used to get mad at people when one of their headlights was out but now I realize that it’s not good to judge others for something that they really can’t help.” I then explained to her that when you have one finger pointing at someone, three are automatically pointing back at you.

Ellie then spoke up, “Yeah, when we do bad things, bad things happen to us, not always, but most of the time.” I was impressed with her wisdom.

“Wow, Ellie, when I was young I didn’t think like you do. I was trying to do everything my own way.” Her reply was classic, “Yeah grandpa. You should be more like me.”

You get the picture. These are just little snippets that Cindy and I are able to have with our granddaughter as she is growing up so fast. As Thanksgiving approaches these little moments of watching a little girl grow up to become a young woman who will love God is what I am thankful for. These “extraordinary ordinary” moments I am learning to celebrate as real gifts from God.

This reminds me of a story about a little fish that was trying to find the ocean. He swam up to a larger fish and asked, “Can you help me find the ocean?” The larger fish replied, “You need to try harder, swim faster, do more good deeds-then your will find the ocean.” The little fish kept swimming frantically until he finally found the oldest, wisest fish of all. “Please, sir, I am trying to find the ocean. Can you help me?” The old, wise fish just sighed…and smiled.

Swimming In “The Ocean” With Ellie,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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What's More Ordinary Than Dirt?

2010-11-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

“Dirt cheap… Dirt poor… Common as dirt …”

This is how we see dirt or soil—very ordinary and of little intrinsic value. We are programmed in our minds to look at dirt as so ordinary that we see it as just about the most worthless thing on the planet.

But Jesus sees dirt differently and He uses the metaphor of soil for what He values the most, what He sees as extraordinary in this world—a good heart.

“But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.” (Luke 8:15)

Good soil in the natural realm contains the right combination of minerals and nutrients from dead, decaying plant material to provide food for future seeds and plant life. It has a rich aromatic smell that an expert gardener or farmer recognizes as ideal for productivity.

When a seed is planted in this good soil and the encased shell is broken open by the soil’s moisture the miracle of life begins to grow and shortly after reproduce. When the seed of God’s word is planted in the heart of a good-hearted person who has experienced wounds and “deaths” in his past, God’s life bursts forth.

A good-hearted friend of mine named Tom loves to race dirt bikes on weekends as a hobby. (A pretty dirty hobby at that!) He felt led to pray for a particular man he met on the track and that man opened up to him and shared some deep pain. Tom spent over an hour telling the man his own story of wounds and what God has done through a couple of healing ministries he has been involved with and fellowship with some other Christian men, to produce God’s Life in him out of the many “deaths” of his past.

Months later he saw his racing friend again and the man’s countenance was different. Tom’s transparency and willingness to share some deep wounds of his past encouraged his friend to seek out similar help. He was no longer in the despair over his past but had discovered the same hope for himself. Tom had simply told his story and kept this man in his prayers.

As Tom relayed this story in our men’s Bible study group, his face was filled with joy that God could use him, an “ordinary guy” to have such a significant impact upon another, simply by being himself, inside and outside, “dirt” and all!

As Tom shared this with the other men in the group, he didn’t realize the impact his story had on the rest of us. I felt tears starting to well up in me. This is what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of “good soil.”

This dirt is gloriously ordinary but enriched by the things considered worthless and full of death. These things could be abuse, addiction or some darkness from the past. When these experiences are put into the hands of Jesus they become places where His resurrection life can be planted, take root and be wonderfully displayed.

Celebrating God’s Glorious Dirt,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Coming Out Of "The Institutional Shadow"

2010-10-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote a research paper for a class in Organizational Theory at Northwest University. It was about how a couple of organizational theorists impacted The Navigators management style. The whole process I went through triggered some thoughts about individuals and organizations that I hadn’t thought about for awhile. Then I “coincidentally” received a sheet from a good friend of mine, Gary Glenney, called “The Worth Of The Individual” by Kent Humphreys.

Gary was my staff supervisor with The Navigators when I moved to Redmond, Washington with my family in 1990. One of the things that I have always appreciated about Gary is that I always felt valued as an individual by him—even when I moved off of staff and was no longer “a Navigator.”

Here is a quote from Kent Humphreys, “For what are you exchanging your life? If it is not for people, then you are paying too high a price. When we give ourselves to invest in other people, then we are investing for eternity, but if we give our lives for an organization, a job, an institution, a cause, or a program, then we are focusing on the temporal. I have always loved my job, my church, and many fine organizations with which I have served. But when I put the success of the cause or the activity above people, then I am misguided.”

Then also “coincidentally” I had the privilege to spend about 90 minutes with a man whom I have grown to greatly love and respect who is currently battling pancreatic cancer, Connie Jacobsen. We talked about life and ministry. I have had the privilege of facilitating a couple of Bible studies that his organization Teleios helped launch.

I expressed to him that there was something about these two groups that I can’t explain, that makes them powerful, something I look forward to, that I treasure in my life. I shared with him the hope that I will be able to walk with the men in these groups for the rest of my life, Lord willing. The groups carry with them Connie’s heart for the individual.

I know what it feels like with individuals like Connie or Gary who make me feel valued as an individual and NOT because their job description calls for them to relate with me. In other words, I see or feel NO “institutional shadow” when I am with them. And I think shadow is a good metaphor. A shadow is dark and cold while insidiously attaching itself to us wherever we go.

Obviously, it is only individuals who are eternal—not institutions but it is always the institutions that swallow up the glory of “ordinary” people and make us all feel subordinated to the cause or the church or the organization or the business. My friend, Connie, facing a particularly uncertain earthly future, sees this so clearly. Why can’t I?

I remember the man who influenced my early faith more than any one individual. Dr. Jim Cook spoke to me in 1984 when I was a 29 year-old working for the very Bible college that he had founded. I was representing the college to a convention of Conservative Baptists in Portland, Oregon. My view of what God could do through me then was low and my view of the institution I currently represented was high.

I can still remember how “Pastor Jim” looked me in the eye in that confronting but totally affirming way only he could and said, “YOU are more important than this college.” He was calling me to lose the institutional shadow I was hiding behind and step out into the light of my call to shepherd Christ’s sheep. Shortly after I did just that and moved into some great years of ministry with the Navigators in Hawaii and Washington.

Kent Humphreys continued in his short article, “Governments, companies, educational institutions, and even religious organizations will all eventually end. But the experiences that we have with people in these organizations will live forever. Therefore, although I greatly enjoy the business world, my church involvement, my community concerns and my own personal activities, I should never put these worthy causes above people.”

Dear Lord, keep me aware of the cold, dark institutional shadow I can easily hide behind OR can be attached to without me even realizing it. Please allow me to clearly see the glory in the individual as my friends Gary, Connie, Jim and a few other of your choice servants have modeled to me!

Grateful For His Individual Care,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Ordinary Cop - Extraordinary Impact

2010-10-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

As I continue with writing about “Glory in the Ordinary” I want to talk about a friend of mine who now is a police officer in Michigan. Stories like Kevin’s are a passion of mine to tell because I believe we are being sold the lie that if we stumble and fall in our Christian journey we are somehow out of the race. No way! That is a lie from the enemy of our souls. God will use our pain to fuel our passion. He will use the tests to become our testimony. As Erwin Lutzer said “We forget that God is a specialist; He is able to work our failures into His plans.” This is Kevin’s simple story:

Kevin was a young man that I met when I was a Navigator Rep in Hawaii. A Marine MP at the time Kevin gave his heart to the Lord after a fellow MP (Military Police), Rob, shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. Rob and I encouraged him in growing in his new faith until he left the Marine Corps.

As many who spend time in the service, Kevin struggled with making the transition from military to civilian life; however he did not lose his love for the Lord. Kevin met his first wife, and after going through an unexpected divorce, wandered away from his first love.

Having lived in the world for a while Kevin met his present wife and was married in his current church; however he was just going through the motions in his Christian faith.

Many years later Kevin was faced with the reality of death. Three close friends were diagnosed with cancer and Kevin’s conversations with them turned from talking about fishing and hunting to talking about God and family. It was at this time that he realized that his relationship with God was not right and he wasn't prepared to face his Maker.

Through months of asking God to search his heart and repenting of his waywardness, Kevin was restored in his relationship with God. After having studied the Word for several months he desired to make a difference for God.

Kevin struggled with his desire to serve the Lord as a full time police officer and with a crazy schedule he had a difficult time plugging into a ministry at church. It was at this time Kevin invited a few fellow police officers from his community to join him in a Bible study of the book of Ephesians.

At this same time Kevin struggled with the issue of trying to climb up the ladder at work (which would have hindered him in this new Bible study venture). Through time in prayer and study of God's Word he found a sense of peace, knowing that he was in God's will, to not pursue a promotion and stay right where he was. He continues his police officers’ Bible study with ten other men and is finding contentment in knowing that he is doing God's work right where he is.

His favorite verse has become Psalm 106:3 - Blessed are those who maintain justice, who constantly do what is right.” This verse reminds him that his police work of maintaining justice is part of God’s work, His glory on the earth.

A quote that he holds onto is "It is never too late to become who you might have become" George Elliot.

Glorying in the Ordinary,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Mary Town

2010-09-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

Cindy and I were in Chicago last week for the second of eight retreats we are doing with the Transforming Center over the next two years. It is held at a beautiful Catholic monastery in a Chicago suburb.

We decided to fly in a day early and see her brother, Don and his wife Sherry, who were in Chicago for a fundraising conference. We attended Willow Creek Church in Barrington on Sunday morning. The music was uplifting, Bill Hybel’s message was timely and relevant but what most impacted me was what GOD clearly did EXTRAORDINARILY in through an ORDINARY person in the pew---my wife!

We were sitting there at Willow Creek with thousands of people on Sunday morning. To be honest, when I am at a large church with thousands of people I tend to feel insignificant and distant from God. It is probably only me but I feel like just one among the teeming masses. (I hope I get over it before heaven ‘cause I’ve read there will be big crowds there!) Anyway, towards the end of the service I noticed my wife, Cindy, turn to the woman standing to her left, put her arm on her shoulder and say something to her. Before I knew it the woman was sobbing uncontrollably.

I thought to myself, “Great! What could Cindy have said to this poor woman that would upset her so much?” As the service ended this is what I found out: Cindy, not knowing this woman’s situation at all, received a strong impression from the Holy Spirit that she was to tell her, “God wants you to know that He loves you very much, He is with you and He will comfort you and is with your loved one.” This message unleashed a flood of comfort, sorrow and joy all mixed together for this woman.

“We just buried our 12-year-old handicapped daughter this past week. I wasn’t going to come this morning but I am so glad I did!” As timely as Pastor Hybel’s message was for this woman, it was the message from an ordinary woman from Seattle that she really needed to hear that morning. This was her own personalized message delivered right to her seat! The fact that Cindy came thousands of miles from Seattle and didn’t know her from Adam (or Eve!) made the message all the more impactful to her. The woman turned to her husband and asked for one of their laminated memorial service cards with her daughter's photo on it to give to Cindy.

Cindy gazing at the photo assured the women that she would be praying for her this week. “What is your daughter’s name?” my wife asked. “Mary” the woman replied. “That’s really interesting, we are on our way to MARY TOWN,” Cindy said with a smile.

Glorying in the Ordinary,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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A "God"incidence At The Redmond Gold’s Gym

2010-09-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I have found as I have walked on the journey with my youngest son in his recovery from addiction is that God has been so gracious in reminding us that HE is in control, that HE has a plan, that HE has provided all that we need to “turn what the enemy has intended for evil, to use for good, for the saving of many lives” (paraphrase of Genesis 50:20).

There are many things that have happened these past two years that we could either say, “Wow, what a coincidence!” or we could say, “Hmmm, that is something only God could have orchestrated. Thank you, Father.” Thankfully, “most” of the time I have chosen the latter.

Jeremy lived in Dallas for about 5 months in a transitional living home, before he launched out on the Appalachian Trail. This was a place where he worked to help pay for his room and board and learn the life skills that would help him to be successful on the “one day at a time” path of sobriety.

I had heard that his roommate’s (a one out of 16 chance to be paired with him) parents “just happened” to lived in the Seattle area but honestly I made no effort to make contact with them. Here is where the “God”incidence part really comes in. I work out with a trainer at Gold’s Gym in Redmond where there are 25 trainers. Steve, (not his real name) the father of Jeremy’s roommate, who lives in a town outside of Redmond and works in Bellevue decided to take his wife’s training appointments at the Redmond Gym and whom does he get as his trainer? Yep! My trainer. A one out of 25 chance on that one. They get to talking and figure out that both of our sons were in Dallas and at the SAME transitional living facility.

I was convinced that Steve and I were supposed to meet and we did. We have since had several lunches and he has taught me much about recovery as he has walked his own recovery journey as well as with his son. He also sees his own need for more biblical understanding and is planning on joining a Bible reading group that I am a part of in Bellevue (near where he ”just happens to be working.”)

Why do I share this story? This is an example of seeing God show up where we would never expect. This spurs me on to continue to open my eyes to look out for more “glory in the ordinary.” The Father is ALWAYS at work! (John 5:17) It really takes more “faith” to believe that He ISN'T!

Thankful He is Sovereign,

Jamie

Note: Do you have any stories of God’s Glory showing up in the ordinary? I would love to hear them and share them with a larger audience if you would like! Just email me at (JNBohnett@aol.com)

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Quarters From Heaven

2010-09-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

It was a sunny late summer morning and Cindy decided that she was going to spend some time enjoying a little rare morning sunshine (this summer sun has been rare!) at the outdoor mall at the Redmond Town Centre. She bought her Starbucks double shot, extra hot non-fat vanilla latte and set herself outside near the golden bear statue in the center of the mall. (Bears are pretty rarely seen around Redmond these days so statues remind us all what real bears look like.)

My wife has been on her own “glory in the ordinary” journey lately. In fact, she is my mentor in this way of living. She sat in her chair enjoying the morning sun and decided to make a couple of cell phone calls. As she did this she noticed two thirty-something men sitting near the bear statue with a kind of ADD hyperactive little boy, about 8 years old, restlessly sitting with them.

Her heart went back almost two decades when our oldest son, Adam, was that age, full of wonder, creativity and spunk.

“Can I have a quarter?” she heard the boy ask his father. He looked at him a little annoyed and replied, “Why do you need a quarter?” The boy answered quickly, “So I can buy some candy.”

Cindy said she was expecting the father to give the boy a buck to shut him up and leave him alone for a while in order to continue his conversation with his friend. But the father probably aware that his son needed more sugar like another hole in his head denied him. “No, I’m not going to give you a quarter.” The boy was not easily deterred. “Okay, I’m gonna ask somebody here in the mall for a quarter.”

The father, getting a little more irritated then said to his son mockingly, “You don’t want people to think you are some beggar do you?”

It was then that Cindy decided to make something glorious out of this ordinary father-son interaction. Without looking at the boy she took out a quarter from her purse and flung it his direction. The boy not knowing where it came from looked up and every direction, never suspecting the middle aged lady sitting nearby seemingly engrossed in her cell phone conversation.

Cindy was amused at how that little quarter caused this boy so much wonder and so much joy. So the game was on. When he wasn’t looking she flung another quarter his way. The boy was now even more perplexed. He looked in every direction and exclaimed, “Dad, this place is magic! It’s raining quarters here!” The boy continued to look in every direction to try to discover where these quarters were coming from.

Cindy was seeing that the game was becoming a little expensive so she began to fling dimes and nickels his way. This went on for quite some time. The boy forgot about being bored, about needing to buy candy. He was filled with wonder. Soon the father and his friend’s conversation finished and it was time for them to go.

“Dad, I don’t want to leave this place. It’s magic!” At that time, Cindy got up to go and asked the boy about what all the commotion was about. “This place is raining money!” The boy exclaimed. Cindy then calmly replied, smiling at him as she walked by, “You need to watch out for crazy ladies who like to throw money away here!”

Why do I share this story? Because my wife taught me that if we will approach our days with a little playfulness and are able to slow down and tune into what is going on around us we can bring some unexpected joy into the life of another. This brings some glory into our ordinary days.

Jamie

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Glory in the Ordinary

2010-09-01T12:08:00.000-07:00

I want to share with you a change in the theme of my blog and why the change in its name. I have become aware lately of how God wants to speak to us through the ordinariness of everyday life.

Ordinary sights. The things that we see everyday and…He is communicating through these pictures but we fail to slow down, to really see HIM in the wonder of the world around us.

Ordinary acts. Jesus tells us that to give a cup of water to someone in His name is something He will reward. Yet we belittle, minimize, trivialize small acts and don’t recognize the glory, the reflection of the heart of God in them.

Ordinary people. Children, men and women. Those who may be overlooked, these are the ones where God’s power and presence shines forth the greatest because they don’t hog the spotlight.

These are the things I want to write about. For me to do this I must slow down, quiet down, watch, listen and reflect. I invite anyone who would like to read this with me to do the same. We live in a time where we are moving too fast, are flooded with too much information and too many choices, we have too much noise and visual imagery coming at us.

The side effect I believe is that in order to adapt we shut down our ability to see God, to hear God in the ordinariness of our lives. As those around us look at the world and can’t see God I want to be, as C.S. Lewis described himself, one who looks at my world and “cannot NOT see God.”

We worship celebrity and live vicarious, passive lives through their lives. This is happening in the church as well as the culture at large. We become spectators and admirers of a very small number and applaud a few “super saints.” This is killing our vibrancy, our aliveness to God. We are compartmentalizing our faith and idolizing a few.

We forget that so much is eternally at stake when the least of us makes a choice to trust, to obey God. As Chris Tiegren writes, “Never despise the small things in your life. Never spend so much time reaching for the high-impact acts of ministry that you neglect the minute details of service. The massive doors of God’s kingdom swing on tiny hinges of our faith and obedience. Focus on the hinges, and you’ll see the doors open wide.”

I am going to write these believing that many of you who have read my “Father Power” blogs will stay with me on this journey. (If you don’t want to you can always unsubscribe.) I invite you to share your stories, to dialogue with me and others about where you see God showing up in your life in the day to day. I think this is going to be an adventurous journey. I hope you choose to join me.

Jamie

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

AVAILability: That Underrated Ability

2010-07-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

When someone asks me, "How are you doing?" my almost instinctive answer is "BUSY." It makes me feel more important, more in demand, more significant than if I said, "I'm AVAILABLE."

That is what Timothy said to Paul in the early church. Listen to what Paul wrote about young Tim, “I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:20-21) Timothy was extremely valuable to Paul and to the people Paul was trying to reach because he was AVAILABLE.

I find myself having increasing freedom now to make my own schedule so I have tried to consciously be available to help my daughter and son-in-law with their two girls...it may be driving Ellie, my six year old granddaughter, to school one day a week or taking her to the pool one afternoon a week or going to the dog park and McDonald's with my two year old granddaughter, Sadie.

These moments create special memories...like the time after Ellie had gone hunting with her dad and I was driving her to school and started talking and she says, “Quiet grandpa, I’m looking for elk!” That was pretty funny since I think the last time elk has been seen in Woodinville was... NEVER!

Fathering is not just for our biological children. We have fatherlessness all around us. As I look at my extended family I see that I need to be available to be a father figure to my nieces and nephews. In my extended family I have figured out that I have five different families who are experiencing father absence of one kind or another – from divorce, death, estrangement or whatever. My nieces and nephews need my AVAILability. Does that mean I will be close to all of them? Of course not, but I can be available to them.

My two youngest kids are going to college in the fall. Will I be talking to them everyday? No. But I still can be available to them. Cindy, who has been a stay at home mom for 32 years, will be for the first time without a child in the home. We are both going through transition in this. But am I going to allow my schedule to fill up so I don't feel the loss and sadness or will I choose availability to Cindy? I hope you see the point I'm driving at.

And why is AVAILability so underrated? I don't think it is any accident. I think it has something to do with our sense of importance especially in our culture. If we fill our agenda with what we want to do then we feel in control, we feel important, we feel in demand. When we are available then we have to give all those things up and SERVE another's agenda.

Maybe it is like the person who said, "I don't mind being a servant, just don't treat me like one." This is an ability that Cindy and I are working on developing. It means saying "No" to some good things. It means disappointing some people. It means being seen as a little irrelevant. But it could be our most important "ability" we can offer to God in this season of our faith journey.

"Before we can pray "Thy kingdom come," we must be wiling to pray, "My kingdom go." - Alan Redpath

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

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"You Don't Know Who You Are"

2010-07-13T19:12:00.000-07:00

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” - Benjamin Disraeli

The above quote is so true. The people we seek to help, family members or not, often don't know the wonder of their identity and the amazing treasure they possess within themselves.

Perhaps more than any time of history, our media-saturated culture bombards us with messages of not measuring up. I believe it is our irreplaceable calling to remind our children, grandchildren and others the wonder of who they are, of the treasure they are to God, to their family and to all those their lives will touch.

I remember when I was 13 years old and had moved to Hawaii with my family. After the "buzz" of moving to Hawaii had worn off I was feeling alone, insignificant and disconnected from the southern California family and friends we had moved away from.

After sending a letter to my grandmother I received a priceless message back from Grandma Vi, (not knowing it was just a week before her death!) The letter was one of encouragement that reminded me of the good qualities she saw in me and who I was as a treasured family member. It opened my eyes a little bit to how God saw me when all I could perceive in myself was faults and failures.

That experience changed my life. I believe in the power of believing in another today because I personally was a recipient of it and was greatly impacted by encouraging words at a critical juncture of my young life.

A few years ago as a tired thirty something husband and father struggling with depression, I was told by a brash young counselor, "You don't know who you are." The words, not coming from someone I yet trusted, stung as an indictment. I interpreted them to mean, "you are not authentic and real. You are a pretender." It felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Now, not only was I a depressed person--I was a depressed person who didn't have a clue who he was (and 65 bucks poorer!)

As I chewed on that counselor’s message a few days later, I was able to listen to it again with different ears. I believe I heard my heavenly Father speaking the same words but with a completely different meaning for me.

I heard: "You don't know who you are… If you did you wouldn't need to wallow in depression and self-doubt. You would rejoice in your incredible high, exalted and beloved place of simply being my son! The enemy just wants to obscure your amazing identity from your soul. Don't let him, son. Trust what I have said about you in My word. Choose to believe it. THIS is reality. Let it sink in My beloved son."

Same words different message. What made the difference? One message was spoken by someone I perceived as a distant, critical professional. The other was spoken by a committed, "believing the best about me" Father. One messenger seemed to see me as a person burdened with a history but my heavenly Father spoke to me as one blessed with a destiny. My Father's words whispered to my spirit "sounded" familiar to me in my late thirties--kind of like Grandma Vi's words I had heard at thirteen.

I'm sure my grandmother had no idea when she scribbled down those words to her young grandson the reverberating impact they would have upon me and those my life has been able to touch. She sowed those seeds not knowing of the great harvest of fruit they would bear in my life.

Though in heaven now, she still inspires me to do for others as she did for me. Why? Because I am surrounded by people just like me, "who don't know who they are."

Crucified, Buried And Raised With Him,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

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Every Marriage Needs Renewal

2010-07-07T13:48:00.001-07:00

The divorce rate rises 16 percent for parents nearing and during the empty nest stage. Claudia Arp, author with her husband David says of this phenomenon - that husbands and wives “look around at the other bird in their nest and think they don’t KNOW them and they’re not sure they LIKE them and not sure they want to spend another 30 years in the marriage.”

In a recent online article from the UK the author said that the number of divorces in Britain had fallen for a third year in a row BUT the number of over-60’s choosing to end their marriages has increased by more than a third in the space of a decade.

In this same article, a divorce attorney said that they had seen a noticeable rise in couples after 40 or 50 years of marriage. One couple chose to separate at age 92. I don’t know about you, but I think if that was me, I could probably have hung on another 2-3 more years in the marriage---even if it was just for the sake of the kids!

I have learned that there are groups such as “Adult Kids of Divorce” who express that divorcing parents is not any easier for adult children. Listen to some comments of these adult children of divorce:

“Whether I’m 7 or 27, I’m still my parent’s child and it’s still my family that’s breaking up.”

“It rips your whole world apart. Everything you thought you were sure of, suddenly you’re not sure of.”

“It was a terrible time. I went through all the pain and grief that any child does when this sort of thing happens, but I had the added bonus of having zero support because I was an adult.”

Interesting. What these adults are saying flies in the face of the idea that adult children are better equipped to deal with the divorce of their parents. What their comments reveal is that their adult pain is just as real as children's pain except that they don't have the benefit of the resources of support made available for younger divorce victims.

Cindy and I are coming up on our 36th anniversary in August. We are both seeing the vital importance of marriage renewal as we go through this period of transition in our family. We work on our relationship not only for our sake but also for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

I hold no judgment on those who can’t make it the whole way together. And clearly there are situations where it is best for a couple to go their separate ways. But I know for me (and thankfully Cindy) a lasting, loving marriage is an important part of the legacy we want to leave behind us. We want our family to see that their mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, really did love each other.

Here is a quote from a Father's Day letter from Capstone Treatment Center in Arkansas. It encouraged me because I know I haven't been by any means a perfect example to my kids as a husband or father. The writer speaks of what he believes is the greatest gift a father can give to his children:

In my opinion, "humble authenticity" is the gift good fathers give by changing for the better. To honestly take a look at ourselves in the mirror includes hard crucibles, God's mysterious ways, frustrations, injustices, difficulties, finally "putting the dots together", and more - then making sustained efforts to change for the better. This process must include owning our mistakes, expressing our remorse and regret, asking for forgiveness, and committing to do differently. It must be the most difficult aspect of human life, one reason it's such a special gift to our children.

Thankful For His Mercy And Grace,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

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"Grieve It So You Can Leave It"

2010-06-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

We were sitting around a large table at Spazzo's in Redmond for lunch on the day of our daughter Holly's graduation. We decided to give family advice around the table to the graduate. One thing I said to Holly was to "grieve it so you can leave it."

What I was trying to say is that amidst the excitement she was feeling that day, of finally being done with what seemed like a forever part of her life, she needed to take the time to feel the sadness. The fact is that this chapter would now close and she would never again be at this place; she would need to lay the temporal gift of being a high schooler down.

I was really speaking this advice to myself. So far I have not been very good at grieving life changes. I have a pattern of just moving on and getting busy and not allowing myself to mourn the loss. It seems to be the more efficient and practical way to deal with losses, but it does catch up to me eventually.

You know if we don’t mourn the losses of God's more temporal gifts, the things we can’t hold onto (i.e. our youth, children in the home, fleeting experiences, etc.), then we can become extremely demanding of others to meet our needs or we can move towards futile fantasizing of our pasts that didn't really exist. I think it is so easy to try to run away from the uncomfortable feeling of these losses and try to fill up our lives with activities in hope we won’t notice them so much.

The thing that I am beginning to learn is that I need to grieve the "deaths" so that I can embrace the "resurrections," the new life that Christ has for me in the new season of life. If I don’t grieve the death of the past...that I will never be a young newlywed again, or a father of young children again or doing the type of work I used to do with young fathers as a young father myself, then I am unable to be fully alive to the present and the future of the wonderful things God has in store.

These times of major life transitions are opportunities to draw close to God in our pain and be reminded that we are not "home" yet, that the longing to be together forever with loved ones will one day be fulfilled – but not in this life.

This life is a JOURNEY for us as parents and for our children whom we know need to leave in order for their individual destinies to be fulfilled. These are short and fleeting earthly lives we have been given. A road will always be a disappointing place...actually, a really lousy place to make a home.

"If I truly believe the past is totally forgiven, the present is supplied with power, and the future is bright with hope, how can I be anything but completely happy?"- James Smetham

Because I belong to the Eternal Gift-Giver I resolve in His strength to be forever grateful to Him and remember to be...

Holding His Temporal Gifts With An Open Hand,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

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Bonds vs. Griffey

2010-06-15T10:24:00.001-07:00

The recent retirement of the great Ken Griffey Jr., age 40, sent sad shock waves around Seattle after 22 seasons in the major leagues. When my family moved to Seattle 20 years ago, Junior was known as "The Kid." My two sons, Adam and Jeremy, grew up idolizing him. When he was in his prime he played the game with an effortlessness that was an amazing thing to watch.

He was truly "The Natural." Whether he was chasing down a fly ball, throwing a runner out, smacking a home run or stealing a base, Ken Griffey Jr. seemed to be able to do it all with boundless joy. In these last two years back with his original team, age, injuries and surgeries had sharply eroded his baseball skills. His decision to retire was preceded by this proud super star for two weeks sitting on the Mariner's bench.

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that he will be remembered as among the very best who ever played the game. Griffey's retirement reminds me of another player, Barry Bonds, who recently retired. Bonds extended his career well into his 40's breaking records, including the single season home run record of Mark McGwire and career home run record of Hank Aaron. Both of these men had All Star major league fathers, Bobby Bonds and Ken Griffey Sr. And both of these men enjoyed careers that surpassed their fathers' greatness.

Yet, Barry retired under a huge cloud of suspicion for the illegal use of steroids. Ken Jr. retires now with what appears to be a clear conscience and great appreciation for what he accomplished without the help of banned steroids.

Barry's relationship with his father from his own account was distant. "I was a momma's boy. I didn't get anything from my dad, except my body and my baseball knowledge. The only time I spent with him was at the ballpark." His father, Bobby, died at age 57 of lung cancer and a brain tumor.

On the other hand, Junior's relationship with his dad was close. "He's not only a great player," Junior said of his dad in 1990 when he played alongside of him in the outfield, "he's a great guy."

I remember 20 years ago watching Junior and Senior in left field and center field and seeing them hit back-to-back singles at home and then back-to-back homers on the road that year. You could tell they really enjoyed being out there together.

In Jeff Pearlman's book, "Love Me, Hate Me," about Barry Bonds, he records a very telling 1998 dinner conversation between Barry and Ken Jr. This conversation reveals why the legacies of these two great ball players will be so different.

Barry is quoted as saying to Griffey, "As much as I've complained about McGwire and Canseco and all the bull with steroids, I'm tired of fighting it. I turn 35 this year. I've got three or four seasons left and I wanna get paid. I'm gonna start using some hard-core stuff, and hopefully it won't hurt my body. Then I'll get out of the game and be done with it."

Griffey reflected on that dinner conversation to Pearlman, "If I can't do it myself, then I'm not going to do it. When I'm retired, I want to at least be able to say, 'There's no question in our minds that he did it the right way.' I have kids. I don't want them to think their dad's a cheat."

There it is. One great was thinking selfishly of his immediate benefit future and the other had in his mind others and his long-term legacy. One was thinking of the money and the other of what money can't buy, the respect of his children.

What made the difference between these two incredibly gifted athletes? The difference, I believe, was in the fathering they received. Bobby was a distant dad and Ken Sr. was a committed father who overcame a difficult, distant relationship with his own father, Buddy, to be tuned in to the hearts of his two sons Ken Jr. and Craig.

Ken Sr.'s legacy speaks to me today through the way his son has honorably finished his career. In contrast to Bobby Bonds, he passed onto his son not just his genetics and baseball wisdom, but his father-heart. Ken Jr. learned from his dad to make his decisions with his children in mind. It served as a type of moral compass for him. And because he learned to see through the grid of responsible fatherhood, he was able to resist going down the steroid path that promised the "gold" of riches, fame and broken records. Today that gold is clearly seen for what it is---"fools' gold."

Thank you, Ken Griffey Sr. and Ken Griffey Jr. for your father and son legacy that will last through the generations.

Happy Fathers' Day!

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

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"Sunrise, Sunset"

2010-06-02T12:41:00.001-07:00

Holly (right) and special friend Melanie

Sunrise, sunset
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly fly the years
One season following another
Laden with happiness and tears (from the song, "Sunrise, Sunset")

Cindy and I were able to attend "The Fiddler On The Roof" play at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle this past week. At the wedding of their oldest daughter, Tzeitel, Tevye and Golde sing the classic, "Sunrise, Sunset." The song reminded me of the relentless passing of time and life's transitions that we are reluctantly "forced" to walk through. I say "forced" because there is something in us as humans that longs for things to stay the same and never change.

The latest transition for Cindy and me is watching our youngest daughter, Holly Violet, graduate from high school and soon leave home to go to college. The "leaving" began months ago as any parent with a high school senior who drives can attest.

My mind goes back to the circumstances that surrounded Holly's birth. Of all our children she was the only "surprise" of the bunch. A very pleasant surprise but a surprise none the less. Sadly, another surprise hit our family: the breast cancer of my mother and her death on February 2, 1992. Before Mom became too sick she was able to learn that a little girl, Holly Violet, named after her middle name Violet, was on her way. Holly arrived March 19, 1992.

I have always seen my mother in Holly. The lively spring in her step…her happy facial expressions…her love for people and most importantly, her love for God. My mom was an oldest daughter and Holly is our youngest but we have always said that she was "an oldest child in a youngest child's body." She has always carried herself with such confidence and strength, holding her own with two older brothers. Also, her relationship with her sister, Heidi, 14 years older, is an amazing sister-to-sister relationship of equals…a beautiful thing to see.

Her faith journey's beginning was even caught on tape from one of our family vacations at Lake Chelan. The night before, Heidi had just led little Holly through "the sinner's prayer" that of asking Jesus into her heart. We asked Holly while filming, “Where is Jesus?” She replied, "He's in my tummy now…and look, He wants to come out!"

Because of the providence of God in Jeremy's journey that led him to Capstone Treatment Center in Searcy, Arkansas, Holly became familiar with a school in the same town, Harding University. She is heading there this fall.

Do I feel sad and nostalgic at this time? Those of you who know me don't even need to ask! But this is a time for me to celebrate a life that is on its way to make a difference in the world for Christ. Maybe what she said at four was prophetic. He does want to "come out" although not to leave her but to live through her in a world that so desperately needs Him.

I'm so proud of you Holly. Grandma Tutu is too as she smiles down from heaven at her namesake. Mom and I are going to miss your presence in the home but you will always be in our hearts and prayers.

Gratefully,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

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Cursing The Darkness Or Lighting A Candle?

2010-05-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was a kid I used to watch a religious program occasionally on television, I think sponsored by the Lutheran church, that opened up with a person lighting a candle and the narrator saying, "It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness." I didn't know what they were getting at but I thought the hand lighting a candle in a dark room thing was pretty cool, nonetheless.

I have never forgotten that little phrase but I have often forgotten to practice the message that phrase conveyed. I have been focused a lot lately upon the growing darkness of our culture. It seems no matter where I turn, whether it is on the television, radio or Internet, the darkness seems to be creeping in like a relentless flood. As a dad I worry about what kind of world my children and grandchildren are going to have to live in.

This is not good for a person like me to dwell on. I tend to see things from a negative perspective naturally--I don't need any encouragement to think more in this way. I start sounding like just another "grumpy old man." But here is a portion of Scripture that convicts me of this pessimistic, glass half empty kind of attitude. "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life."
(Philippians 2:14-16a)

It seems to me that this whole thing comes down to perspective. Can we really expect a culture that has rejected God to become anything but increasingly "crooked and depraved?" Or have we ever thought that in God's redemptive purposes he has strategically placed His people who can stand out in the darkness and point the way to Himself? In fact, when times are their darkest His light stands out all the more. That is exactly what happens in both the physical and the spiritual realm.

We live in a suburb of Seattle and most of the time we can't see the stars because of the clouds. On those rare cloudless evenings the stars are visible but because of the city's lights they are not as visible as in other areas, such as the eastern part of the state. This is because in the less populated areas the artificial lights from the ground don't obscure the magnificent display of the stars shining in contrast to the darkness. The darker the sky the more glorious these lights shine!

I can remember a time that eerily reminds me of where we are today. It was the late 60's and early 70's. It seemed like our nation was in the midst of multiple convulsions of a heated up cold war, the Vietnam war, violent protests, social upheaval, RFK and MLK assassinations, a middle east oil crisis, Watergate, growing inflation all sandwiched by two key Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973.

But something else happened during that time. The secular media called it "the Jesus Movement." This was the largest ingathering of souls in North America in my lifetime. When disillusionment began to set in with what before had seemed so trustworthy and solid, many from my generation turned to Jesus Christ.

It was the very darkness of that time that made the light of Jesus stand out and be seen as desperately needed. There were definitely religious counterfeits, theological confusion and those who fell away after following a short time but that doesn't negate the genuine work of God that did occur during that period.

The Spirit of God led this move and the leaders He raised up were those who recognized that the darkness that had befallen America was a fresh opportunity to present the light of Jesus Christ to a "crooked and perverse generation." They saw the need to place contrasting communities of light in the midst of an increasingly dark culture to draw people to Jesus.

The word of God, the message of the gospel, was simply held out to my generation without political correctness. We Christians were dubbed "Jesus Freaks" during that time much the same way the early Christ-followers were mockingly called "Christians" or "little Christ’s."

It can be argued that we are entering an even darker period at this time. Could God grace us with an even greater spiritual revival today? I pray so. Also, I wonder, could "this present darkness" be what is needed for this Light to shine brightly once again through His people? I don't know. But I do know that it’s still better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Thankful for the Light,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

My Father's Rescue From Above

2010-05-12T19:36:00.000-07:00

As a young boy I was always curious about what my dad did in World War II. He was a decorated Marine Corps pilot fighting in the Philippines and was later recalled to fly in the Korean War. He fought in the Philippines as a young single man who had memorized the color-blindness test so he could be accepted in the Marine Corps flight program. (I'm colorblind too; it is a hereditary thing.)

He tried unsuccessfully to do all he could to avoid the Korean War as a married father of two. To no avail he smoked two packs of cigarettes and guzzled down several cups of coffee before the blood pressure test, as well as confessing that he had cheated on his color blindness test in the previous war.

As a child I thought I was alone in wanting to talk to my dad about his war exploits and not being able to learn anything until I realized that this was a common response of most of that generation of war heroes. (I have been reminded of that recently through reconnecting with a high school classmate who had a very similar experience with his dad.) Perhaps their way of coping with the pain of the war was to simply try to bury the memory of what they endured.

I remember asking my dad as a young boy, "Did you ever kill anyone in the war?" or "Were you close enough to see the enemy when you were bombing?" Those questions were usually answered, "No." Or if I followed up with, "What did you bomb then?" he would impatiently answer, "Rice paddies."

Disappointed, I walked away and thought to myself, "Great, Uncle Joe got shot in the stomach while fighting a bunch of Germans in hand to hand combat at the Battle of the Bulge and my dad killed...rice…from the air!"

As my dad has aged well into his 80s I have found, as many other baby boomers have found, he is now more willing to talk about the war. In my last blog I was able to share a nugget of a story from my dad regarding his co-founding of Sambo's Restaurants. I learned of a story on that same day together about one of my dad's WW2 bombing missions that he feels most grateful for---first for surviving it and second, for what was accomplished in the saving of American lives.

The Japanese Imperial Army had brutalized the Filipino people in their occupation of their islands and had been very cruel captors to American prisoners. Dad was part of the American effort to drive the enemy out of the Philippines. The Americans had received intelligence that the Japanese were executing American prisoners before they abandoned the prisons. They knew the location of one such prison where the Japanese still held Americans captive.

His mission was to bomb the walls down in this prison, which would also eliminate the machine guns placed upon the walls facing inward. This would make possible a way of escape for the prisoners. To destroy the walls with gun emplacements would be a "twofer." The advantage of a dive bomb attack is that they could come somewhat unexpectedly from the air, fairly accurately drop a bomb and then "hopefully" pull up in time to escape enemy fire. Easier said then done.

He recalls, now 65 years later, "It was just like in the movies. I dropped down on them, dropped the bomb and as I pulled up to look back I could see those little guys flying up in the air as the walls collapsed. My tail gunner was so excited by the direct hit that he almost shot the tail off our plane as I jerked it abruptly upward."

Why did this story stir me when I heard it? I think it was because I could imagine myself as one of those frightened, starving POWs knowing that my life would be taken at any moment by my vengeful, fleeing captors. For a moment I could taste a little of what they must have felt when they saw one of our planes take out, in one fell swoop, what was holding them captive–those machine guns stationed on the walls. Deliverance from certain doom with one well-placed bomb!

Isn't this a little bit of a picture of what Jesus did for us? He came from above not as roaring plane laden with guns and bombs but as a baby in a manger and later as a grown man dying on a cross. We were hopelessly and helplessly captive awaiting certain death until He came down from above. With His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave He shattered the walls and destroyed the weapons that held us in a state of a living death–now and forever.

I know the analogy is flawed but just the same, as I think about dad's bombing mission that day some 65 years ago in the Philippines, I gain a new dimension of gratitude for my heavenly Father's divinely conceived rescue from above.

Forever Grateful For My Father's Rescue,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

When My Dad Rolled The Dice

2010-05-06T18:46:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was able to sit down with my dad and just spend some relaxed time together. This kind of opportunity doesn't come about too much and at almost 87 years old I know that these times together are "precious and few." So I asked him about things I have always been curious about. Since Sambo's Restaurants made such an impact upon my life as a young child and as an adult I zeroed in on that topic.

So I asked him, "How did you and Sam really do this? Tell me about how it happened. I have always heard your story in general terms. Can you tell me how this really happened? " Dad then proceeded to tell me a story that was quite fascinating.

He was 35 years old and selling restaurant equipment. He was just starting to make some money at this. It was strictly commission sales. He had just put away $5,000 in the local bank. For the first time since returning from the Korean War he had a little bit of cash in the bank.

One of his customers was a man named Sam Battistone, who owned Sammy's Grill and operated it with his wife Ione. Dad spent time getting to know Sam, stopping in from time to time. He watched the way he ran his little restaurant and admired how he and his wife Ione operated Sammy's Grill.

My mother was pregnant with their fourth child, my youngest sister, Vikki. Dad was feeling nervous that the family's income depended fully upon the sales commissions he earned. He thought to himself, "As long as I'm healthy we'll be okay but if I would become sick or unable to work with four kids now, we could be in financial trouble."

That same year, in 1957, Sam Battistone was talking with about 10 men whom he would go into business with on a new venture at a location that was now available on the beach in Santa Barbara. He invited dad to come to a meeting in Hope Ranch (a prestigious community in Santa Barbara) to discuss the investment opportunity. On the drive back Sam asked Dad what he thought about it. My dad's reply was, "I'm not interested in going into business with these guys, but Sam, if you ever want to do something together let me know."

About two months later Sam called back to ask dad if he was still interested as the Hope Ranch group had dropped out of the picture. "How much are we talking about?" dad asked. Sam replied "I think we can do this for about $10,000. We each can put in $5,000."

Coincidentally dad had his $5,000 he had just put into the bank. He immediately withdrew it in cash and handed it over to Sam. In a sense he bet his future with all he had in liquid cash on what he knew and believed about Sam's ability to make a restaurant succeed.

It was important for him to keep this secret for a period of time as he was still selling restaurant equipment and didn't want this to be seen as a conflict of interest. As Sam came to the bank with my dad's wad of cash the teller remarked that Newell Bohnett had just come in and withdrawn $5,000 of cash. Sam's response was quick on his feet, "Yeah, that Newell Bohnett is the worst poker player I've ever seen!"

That is how it began. The restaurant adopted the Sambo's story, which would create a fun atmosphere with the murals for children to look at while eating their pancakes. (They would change their logo and murals in 1964 from an African looking character to a light-skinned turban wearing Indian.) The restaurant name, before political correctness of the late 60's and 70's took hold in the U.S., seemed to be a perfect combination of the two men's names "Sam" Battistone and "Bo" Newell Bohnett.

The one little restaurant would twenty years later be a national chain of over 1,000 restaurants, traded on the NY stock exchange, with over 250,000 employees until it's eventual bankruptcy in 1984. Sam and my dad were able to retire in 1968, my father being only 45 years old.

A little became a lot. There is something that is fascinating about these kinds of stories. We love to hear about them. It gives hope to everyone of us who start with something small and believe it can become something big. Jesus taught that his kingdom would grow like this – big things would happen from small beginnings.

My dad had to know and trust Sam and then he had to be willing to risk his $5,000, "die" to other purposes he had for that money and then entrust it all into Sam's hands. Jesus said in John 12:24 that it is only the seed that falls to the ground and dies that will produce many seeds.

In another place Jesus said it like this: "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable should we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade." (Mark 4:30-32)

My dad was richly rewarded back in 1957 when he risked his $5,000, all of the cash he had at the time. Soon after that many others were positively impacted by this partnership he made with Sam, including yours truly! That is a picture of what happens when we trustingly and sacrificially risk "partnering" with Jesus (the analogy breaks down here a bit because He is far more than a business partner but He is our Lord and God!) We are blessed to become a blessing to others–the birds can perch on our branches!

If we are involved in doing what Jesus would have us to do day by day, little by little we can be assured that He will take what little we invest and see it multiplied. We don't need to be discouraged to think of the scope or progress as insignificant. If we are involved in growing His kingdom, even if it is leading our little family to love and serve Jesus or encouraging a friend to trust Him with a concern–a little WILL become a lot. You can bet on it!

"All In" With Jesus,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

Impressions From Nicaragua, April 2010

2010-04-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

It is pretty hard to summarize my impressions after spending more than a week in Nicaragua with a team of 10 men. Every other time I had been to the country I had traveled with family. I found myself missing my family this time more than normal as the family memories flooded me from past trips there.

The house project went well as we built with some Nicaraguan workers a house for a single mother who has served faithfully in her church. Most of the men on our team were sponsoring a student at the Havila School that Northshore Baptist established in the community in partnership with a local church. It was a real joy to see these kids do so well in this K-6th grade school. It was bittersweet, however, knowing that their road out of poverty will be a very hard one in a country that now has an unemployment rate of 80-85 percent!

The highlight of the trip for me was being involved in putting on the first men's conference for the community of Los Cedros for about 60 men in the community. Three of these men gave their lives to Christ for the first time. I had the opportunity to speak to the men about marriage, using my story of the last couple of years and my "school of hard knocks." One man came up to me after and said through an interpreter, "I am thirty years old and I have never gone to anything like this before in my life. Can you come back next year?" There is much work to be done among the men of Los Cedros. I hope another Northshore Baptist team goes back next year and continues the focus upon the men.

One thing that made this trip really special was the sharing of our stories with one another. We had enough time together to allow each of us to give our story of our faith journey and then be prayed for by the group. This was a powerful addition to the experience of the trip. As a friend of mine reminds me, "Every man wants to tell his story but there are few who are willing to listen."

It was interesting to me to hear how many of us were feeling that we were in a season of "transition" in our lives. There was something very faith building about both hearing one another's and speaking our own stories thousands of miles from home.

One thing I am committed to doing before I go back to Nicaragua: learn the language better. I know enough Spanish to get into some really awkward and exasperating situations. With sustained effort I know that I will be able to become much more conversant. One time, I got so frustrated I threw up my hands and said, "Tower Of Babel!" Being an all good, all wise and all loving God the perils of having one world language must far outweigh the problems created by having so many different dialects in the world.

The week came to close with our leader, Todd Fredrickson, challenging our team and the congregation of Los Cedros with the truth that we have been blessed to be a blessing. (Genesis 12:1-3) That just kind of says it all.

Blessed To Be A Blessing!

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

Resurrection Reflections From Nicaragua

2010-04-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

I am out of town as this blog comes out and the celebration of Easter has come and gone. I have been in Nicaragua, the hottest and most humid time of the year here. I am with a group of men from my church, Northshore Baptist in Bothell, WA. We have adopted a village, Los Cedros, which is just outside Managua. We have named our group "Hammers and Hearts." It is a fitting name as we came to practically serve, by doing home repair projects for some widows and single moms and then conducting a men's conference.

As I reflect on the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what it means for us today, I believe the story of the two disciples who walked dejectedly the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus after His crucifixion has much to say to us today. They were in a place of despair - Jesus walked alongside of them in their despair. Isn't that just like Him? Jesus brakes for the broken! He is close to the broken-hearted.

Why were they so discouraged and downcast? They had just seen their hope crushed. Jesus had been crucified and they didn't understand why He had to die or that He had to die for them. They didn't see the suffering of the Savior predicted in the Scriptures and were fixated on Him coming to be a political savior, king and ruler who would liberate them from the oppression of Rome.

Jesus opened up their eyes to Him, first explaining the Scriptures to them and then after they had sat down and broke bread together, He revealed Himself in His resurrected but pre-glorified state--before He disappeared from their sight.

How does this story at the end of Luke 24 speak to me today? I am like Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple. I am easily discouraged when God doesn't do what I expect Him to do. I put my hopes on Him, but for Him to do what I desire and expect Him to do.

So where do I go when I, like them, feel all hope is gone? Just where Jesus led these two followers...into the Scriptures and into community to see Him. Seeing Jesus in the Scriptures and in community builds our hope in Him. It was significant that Jesus appeared to these men when they were walking together in community and when they offered him hospitality.

What is my tendency though? To do the opposite. To not see Jesus in the Scriptures and withdraw from the community where He will be seen. That's one of the reasons I am here in Nicaragua with nine other men just simply seeking to live out God's word. I am here not because I am unselfish, but because I am selfish.

To be in this heat and doing uncomfortable things physically and culturally is selfish? Yes! Hopefully in a good way I am being selfish. I know that I need to do this kind of thing regularly or my faith will shrivel up and die from malnourishment. In Nicaragua I know I receive much more from the people whom I serve than I actually can give to them. They who have little materially are rich in faith as James wrote (James 2:5) and they have much to teach me.

Raised Up With Him,

Jamie

P.S. Read Jeremy's latest blog and Join Jeremy's Journey through prayer, pledging or donating by going to payitforwardsa.org

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

Marriage: Regaining The Gratitude Leads To Fervency

2010-03-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago I had the privilege to speak/teach at a men's retreat for North Creek Presbyterian Church. I agreed to do it months ago. The topic would be marriage and I would draw from my book, "Like Father, Like Son." No sweat. Except I found myself in a situation of now needing to talk about "The Things I Have Learned About Marriage Since I Knew It All." I didn't entitle the retreat with that title, though I really could have!

As I struggled with what I could say, I became more and more desperate as the time drew closer. I was almost panicking. I sent out an email to my prayer partners and asked them to pray. As I looked at my four messages I decided that I would use my two-year journey with Jeremy as my opening talk, since I learned so many hard won lessons in that experience. As I looked at the next three talks I noticed that the messages flowed out from what I learned. I wrote about them in my book, but kind of like Job, I had HEARD about the lessons but now I had SEEN and really experienced them.

"I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.
I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” (Job 42:5-6)

Without going into the specifics of the talks to the men about marriage, the "big picture" message was that we will gravitate towards an attitude of entitlement in our marriage if we are passive and let the natural current of things have their effect. We are battling our own sinful, selfish nature, our world system and the one behind it all--Satan himself. To not guard against the attitude that I deserve this or that from my wife, or I am entitled to (fill in the blank) in this relationship, will ALWAYS lead to complacency. What makes this so dangerous is that we aren't even aware that we have become complacent until we begin to experience pain from the Father's discipline on one of His beloved sons.

“I used to wander off until you disciplined me; but now I closely follow your word…
My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.” (Psalm 119:67, 71)

So what is the antidote to this entitlement/complacency problem? It is just the opposite kind of spirit that is given by Christ Himself that puts our eyes upon Him and what He has done on our behalf. Once that occurs we begin to grow back an attitude of gratitude and that is translated into fervency in loving my wife. Here are a couple of Scriptures that come to mind that show how this works.

“You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.” (I Peter 1:22)

“He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.” (2 Corinthians 5:15)

“Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.” (Ephesians 5:2)

Of course this is more easily said than done. To do this will be to swim against the current that I already mentioned. But this is the way out for us as men who are struggling in our marriage. The way out is not to quit. Our loving Father will have to use something else to teach us this lesson; He wants to teach us in our marriage relationship. The way out is not to control. If your wife is strong she will fight and the marriage will be a battleground. If she is weak, she may not fight back but she will bury the hurt and resentment and true intimacy will be lost.

But if we can confess our entitlement that has led to complacency and shift our focus upon what HE has done for us through His sacrificial love, then I will become gripped by gratitude. Out of that will flow fervency, a passion to love our wives that we have lacked. It starts with redirecting our source of love away from our wives and onto Christ. As great as our wives may be, they cannot ever be our "Source." Only Jesus can be that. I respond to His love for me through initiating love to her.

Gratefully,

Jamie

Go to payitforwardsa.org to check out Jeremy's Journey's latest blog. Remember you can help homeless addicts in San Antonio, TX get off the street and into recovery through either pledging per mile or giving a straight donation. It will soon be interactive and will have an accurate picture of amount pledged/donated so far.

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

We Become What We Believe We Are

2010-03-23T17:59:00.001-07:00

Now that Jeremy's story is out there, I can reveal some insights that I have learned on this journey these past two years. The first few weeks of learning of his addiction were, to say the least, a nightmare for all of us. I remember being in a daze going to an information meeting for parents of the kids in a particular outpatient program that he was going to participate in. A smiling lady met us and offered us pizza and people in the room were friendly and I thought, "This is weird, are these parents of kids with drug and alcohol issues?” It turned out that it was actually a "net users support group" we accidentally walked in on. I just heard the words "users" and "support" and assumed it was for us. I told Cindy that someday we would laugh at the mix up that gave us some free pizza! She wasn't amused and I think she still doesn't think that was funny.

As I attended the parents' week, where I was to educate myself about the problem of addiction, I did learn much that was helpful from this secularly based program. But one thing I could not accept that was being taught and believed: One of the instructors referring to our kids called them "your little addicts." How demeaning and how wrongly defining of our kids! I refused to believe that, though my son struggled with addiction, he was going to be defined for the rest of his life as an "addict." Was I in denial here or were the Spirit of God and the Father-heart of God in me rising up and saying, "Jeremy is my son, whom I love, whom My Son, Jesus, died for so that I can forever be well-pleased with him."

Shortly after this, I talked with a man in Arkansas who directs Capstone Treatment Center and told him of my problem with what I heard there. He was a Christian man who understood the power of addiction and I was impressed by the way he described it as a struggle and not as an identity. As Jeremy has journeyed and moved from treatment into transitional living, he has come to refer to himself as a "recovered alcoholic." Now that is not to say that he doesn't need to walk the God-dependent steps, stay sober and recognize that he will always have a pull towards addiction. It just means that he will not be defined by it.

I have a friend who has a ministry to men who struggle with same sex attraction. He doesn't refer to them as "gay" or "homosexual" because those are identity words and once a person allows himself to be labeled with an identity, then behavior will naturally flow out of it. In other words, it is legitimate to admit a struggle in a particular area but it is harmful to allow that struggle to define who you are as a person.

A verse that is helpful in this regard is I Corinthians 6:9-11.
"Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you WERE once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."

Paul acknowledged that the Corinthians had in the past indulged in some terrible sins but because of what the Lord Jesus Christ did by the Holy Spirit they were changed. This identity was past tense. The particular sin would no longer define them. Identity is a powerful thing for evil but also for good. Because of Christ's death and the Holy Spirit's work the believer's identity can never be the sin he or she did, no matter how habitual, addictive or destructive it was. Once we grasp our true identity as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father our life, our behavior WILL flow out of that.

I am so thankful for that passage of Scripture that affirms the check in my spirit that I had when that well-meaning lady called our kids "your little addicts." That is not my son. Not now, not ever again.

The link to Jeremy's blog with an opportunity to pledge or donate is up and running. He started in Georgia and is now in North Carolina. He is doing really well and is enjoying his hike. If you want to follow the progress of Jeremy's Journey, click here.

Becoming more and more of who I am,

Jamie

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

Giving God the Pen

2010-03-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

The story that Jeremy and I told last week was scary, at least for me, to tell. I confess that I want to portray myself as a much more competent father than I actually am. But the thing about this “long and winding road” of recovery that both Jeremy and I are on now is that there needs to be a continual recognition that we are powerless in ourselves, in our own strength, to overcome addiction. This is a story that highlights our weakness rather than our strength. But hopefully, it is a story that proclaims Christ’s forgiveness, restoration and sufficiency above all.

If you are thinking, “Did I miss something - does Jamie have a drug and alcohol problem, too?” No. I don’t have a chemical dependency problem but alcohol and drug addiction is a “family disease” and I can, with the 20/20 vision of hindsight, now recognize my “co-dependence.” In the past I took more responsibility for Jeremy’s life than he did for himself. I identified with him so much that I allowed our relationship to impact the vitally important husband-wife unity. I can see this clearly now and am on my own recovery road.

As I became aware of this and saw what Jeremy had to go through to find his own way, I was driven many times just to pray. I didn’t have the words for the helplessness, hopelessness and confusion I was feeling. I wanted to fix something that couldn’t readily be fixed. Answers from the “experts” were unsatisfying. Heaven seemed to be silent.

However, I did receive during that time some clear “impressions” (about as close to a vision a Baptist can get!). In one of these impressions I received I saw myself writing in a journal. It was time to write the next page and I was stuck. I was writing a story, Jeremy’s story, and the journal written so far seemed to symbolize for me doing my best as a father to Jeremy. I realized that I needed to now hand the pen over. I had taken the story as far as I could. I needed to give it over to God to finish, edit and redeem.

The One who took the pen was a far wiser, far more loving and capable Writer. This handing over happened repeatedly throughout this journey as I kept trying to wrestle that pen back out of the Lord’s hands.

Now Jeremy is poised to begin a 2,175-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail for the next five months. He will do this for the Pay It Forward drug and alcohol recovery program in San Antonio, Texas. This venture, I believe, has come from the finger of God. It is a chapter I sure didn’t see coming but I can now see it unfolding, like a surprise in a well-written book. It will be a true delight for me and for many others to “read.”

Pay It Forward has experienced some challenges in getting Jeremy’s blog up on its site. When it is finally up we will be able to go to the link and make a pledge or a donation to the cause if we so desire. I hope to send that information out to you next week. I plan on, for the next five months, putting the link up with our blog to remind you to go to Pay It Forward and follow his progress.

Until then we can…

(Watch Jeremy's YouTube Video)

or shoot him a quick email to give him your best wishes before he hits the trail on Monday, March 15th.

“The Lord will watch over your life, He will watch over your coming and going both now and forever more.” (Psalm 121:7-8)

Trusting In The Author And Redeemer Of Our Stories,

Jamie

If you desire to interact with Jamie without going to “comments” on the blog or if you wish to sign someone else up to receive this blog, let Jamie know and he will add their email to the list. (JNBohnett@aol.com) A recipient may unsubscribe at any time.

THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD

2010-03-04T16:51:00.000-08:00

Young people are dying everyday because of drugs and alcohol addiction. And if they aren't dying their dreams and futures are dying because the addictions are destroying them.

“Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Any way you’ll never know
The many times I’ve tried.” – Paul McCartney, The Long And Winding Road

Two years ago, my youngest son, Jeremy, was a high school senior trapped in addiction to drugs and alcohol. Addiction had isolated him from his family and those who cared about him. It had crushed, one by one, each of his athletic dreams and cast a dark cloud over what had once been a bright future for him.

He had given up on believing that he could ever follow the Christian path, as he had repeatedly tried, failed and believed God had “given up on him.” Little did he know then that his utter helplessness in this area of addiction would become THE way for him to truly come to know Christ as His personal Deliverer.

The last two years have been a “long and winding road” for Jeremy and our family but a necessary journey for us all to experience and grow from. This road has led him to his own path of recovery. His recovery process has prepared him to be a true blessing to others-not through his many strengths but ironically through this one particular area of weakness.
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Through God’s grace, the prayers of many, and of course, his own faith choices, he recently has celebrated six months of sobriety. Now, two years after those dark days of his high school senior year, Jeremy, 20, will embark on a different kind of long and winding road that will begin in Georgia and end in Maine.

Yes, he has decided to hike the Appalachian Trail, all 2,175 miles of it, as his special way to celebrate the recovery journey he is on and at the same time raise support for others who are seeking recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.

As his dad, I am VERY proud of him and what he is aiming to do through this journey, to not only take on this challenge but to serve others in the process. He has chosen to do it at this time of the year so he can return to college in time for the fall semester. He plans on getting off the trail on August 17th - at his one-year mark of sobriety.

I want Jeremy to tell you his story in his own words. If after reading it you would like to join him on his journey through reading his blogs and seeing his photos and videos (and perhaps by pledging support), you can follow the links provided.

Jamie

Jeremy’s Story:

My whole world came crashing down on me in February 2008 when I got kicked off my high school basketball team as a direct consequence of my alcohol/drug addiction. I had just been named All-State First Team and was looking forward to helping our team win the 1A state basketball championship. Unfortunately for me, consequences and humiliation alone weren't enough to get me to quit harming myself and my loved ones through my alcohol and drug use.

For the next ten or so months I continued down the destructive and progressive path knowing full well that I had a problem but not wanting to face the truth and make any changes. In December of 2008, after my family decided that enough was enough, I went to Capstone Treatment Center and made a decision to change the way I'd been living but still thought it was something I could do through my own will power despite being warned that freedom from addiction needed one’s total abandonment to God.

I had many misconceptions about God and Jesus, the main one being that I had to be perfect in order to be a Christ follower. I would occasionally recommit myself to do my best to live the Christian life only to fail miserably at it and then end up each time being more discouraged about it than the last. This is something that had haunted me almost my whole life.

So once again, after I got out of treatment this first time, I tried to stay sober and live my life on my own but shortly after relapsed and left home. My alcoholism and addiction only got worse and in August of 2009 I had a moment of clarity where I realized that I was either going to die doing what I was doing or I would do things differently and live a purposeful and fulfilling life.

I was in a very hopeless and lonely spot at that moment. I decided I was willing to go to any lengths to recover and not experience pain like that again. And so I checked myself back into Capstone Treatment Center for the second time on August 21, 2009. I came into treatment so confused about whom I was - I just knew that I no longer wanted to be who I had become. Knowing I needed to do things differently, I decided to put my misconceptions about God aside and let Him take over at my lowest point.

This was a totally different way I had come to God than in the past. Unlike previous times this was no “mountain top experience” but rather it was meeting Him in the valley and beginning to walk with Him there and allowing Him to lead me step by step.

As I began this new walk I reflected on how the drugs had sucked out every bit of passion from me and I had given up on everything that I used to love and enjoy, even my scholarship to play college baseball. But I did know two things that would still get me going if given the chance. I had always lived for competition and adventure and so, when a couple of young staffers at CTC started talking about some of their own adventures I was instantly drawn in.

One of them began to tell of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail that goes from Mexico to Canada and the other had hiked the Appalachian Trail, the one I’m going to do! I was hooked.

First of all, I was excited just to be excited about something, other than drugs and alcohol! It was like my spirit had just woken up. It was a really cool feeling. I had already turned my life and my will over to God and so I guess that’s what happens when you do this, you wake up! So at this point, normally what I would have done was just strike out on the trail, needing to get what I want right away, but this time I didn’t. I waited. And I began to pray about it. I began to pray that if God wanted me to do this that he would show me by opening the right doors and if he didn’t that He would show me that, too…a big difference from the way I lived in the past.

But sure enough, one day He DID speak and what I heard made me so excited I could hardly stand it. I felt He was telling me that hike was a dream I was supposed to follow since after all He gave it to me in the first place. And so I decided to do this thing right. I made a sober living plan for when I left treatment and followed it through. I went to a sober living home in Dallas called Gaston House that’s run by a guy named Chico West. It’s a great place to go when you’re new to sobriety to learn how to live sober with God's help and get your feet under you. That’s why I’m doing this for Pay it Forward, because I want others to be able to have this same great shot at a new life that I was given.

While living in Gaston House, God sure enough started rewarding me for doing things His way and not mine. For example, one of my new friends in the house told me that he had almost all of the gear that I will need for my trip. Wow! Chico hooked me up with Brad Duphorne, who directs Pay it Forward and told me that they are a charity that is doing exactly what I want to support. They help people afford to move into long-term sober living who could not otherwise pay for it. All of this just fell in my lap. God has just flat out delivered.

One important thing I feel the need to point out is that I’m not doing this hike to “find myself.” As far as I’m concerned I’ve already been FOUND!

Here is a verse that my dad prayed over me before I was even born. It now has a new personal meaning to me: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit, fruit that would last.” (John 15:16) and another Bible verse I feel God had for me concerning becoming clean and sober so I can help others who struggle with addiction: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4)

That’s it. I’ve been rescued from a dark and horrible pit, and now, by doing this thing that I’m dying to do anyway, I can serve out my life’s purpose now, to serve God and others in response to all that Christ has done for me. God is good!

To check out the mission of Pay It Forward click on www.payitforwardsa.org Jeremy's Blog will be available on this website next week, as well as the opportunity for you to support the journey. Hope you will take a look!

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I've Only Just Begun

2010-02-18T16:08:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or has Valentines Day become more and more of a hyper-sexualized obsession for our culture? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, as everything in the media seems to be going that way. And for sure, sex and romance are a legitimate and blessed part of a healthy marriage. But when it is glorified to be seen as being all there is to marriage, then I think we can be deceived to believe that, well, that is all there is to marriage.

As Cindy and I enter our “empty nest” season of marriage and as I walk alongside men who are entering this same season, I find that this over emphasis upon the sex and romance creates unrealistic expectations that neither husband nor wife can fulfill.

When Cindy and I were married 35 years ago we adopted the Carpenter’s song, “We’ve Only Just Begun” as our lifelong theme song. It was a great song that we interpreted to mean that no matter how long we are married we will be able to say “we’ve only just begun” because we have entered a covenant with an Eternal Partner, the Lord Himself.

But as I think about what being married has taught me about God’s love for me and Cindy, I can honestly say that “I, not just we, have only just begun!” Every time I come to a place when I am called to love my wife and she is not able to reciprocate, every time I must understand, even if I am not understood, every time I try to lead but am not followed, I get a new taste of Christ’s love. This isn’t criticism of Cindy, but simply the reality of a husband trying to learn to love as He loves.

“I’ve only just begun” to learn of God’s love that He poured out so lavishly upon me through the cross. I have only just begun to love responsively to His eternal love for me rather than to love in a way where I only love reactively according to how I am first loved by my wife. I have only just begun to plumb the depths of His love that desires to be loved but never demands it in return. Now this is a kind of love that is worth obsessing over!

Jamie

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The Father's Favorites

2010-02-12T00:09:00.001-08:00

Once in awhile I am privileged to catch a real glimpse of what delights the heart of God. For me this usually comes in the most surprising places…like on the Puget Sound last Sunday that started just when the Super Bowl was coming to its exciting conclusion. The amazing thing for me is that I was actually okay with not watching the Big Game’s conclusion because what I experienced that night was far more significant than what the Saints and Colts were doing in Miami. Something good but unreal in my life was replaced with something better and real.

It was several weeks ago that Blaine Clyde of Young Life Open Door Seattle and I discussed the Valentine’s Day Cruise (February 7th) he coordinates for the kids with special needs he and his staff serve. They did it last year and it was a big hit and wanted to do it again. We talked about our foundation possibly making a grant that would lower the cost per family to attend or send their child, as well as the fact that he was looking for a live band. I suggested the band my son Adam plays in, Jericho, led by vocalist Andrew Southwick.

About 25 kids, along with several Young Life staff and parents, gathered to eat at the Red Robin restaurant by Pier 55 before embarking on the Argosy Cruise. Adam’s band set up and was ready to rock when we all arrived. Jericho filled the Puget Sound with classic rock dance tunes that started with the Beatles, “I Saw Here Standing There.”

One of the attendees was a gentleman I have just met recently, Greg Schell, whose daughter Christina had been part of Young Life Open Door when she was in high school. Greg directs the Father’s Network, which promotes support groups for dads who have kids with disabilities. The divorce rate of parents with a child with a disability is sadly around 80 percent. This makes the work of Young Life Open Door and the Father’s Network so vital in supporting these families.

I have to confess that one of the greatest fears I had when we were in our child bearing years is that one of our children would be born with a severe disability. This would strike at the heart of my pride, comfort and freedom. As my youngest daughter is getting ready to fly the nest, I realize that most of the parents of these kids will be taking care of them in their home for the rest of their lives.

As I watched the young people on the boat that night I was impressed with the joy in which they embraced the moment. They lacked self-consciousness when they danced—not like me for sure. They didn’t worry about trying to look cool. (Okay, maybe a couple of the guys who turned up their collars were trying to look a little cool!)

I shook hands with one girl in a wheel chair who spoke with some difficulty. She asked me how old my son was. After telling her that he was 25, she said, “Oh you mean he is 13 times 2 minus 1? My dad is 17 times 3 minus one. He’s old!” As I complimented her about her math skills she laughed and hugged her dad and said to him, “Sorry for being such a CMG—a Crazy Math Genius, Dad!”

Each of these young people I met were real characters with unique personalities. One guy with Down syndrome introduced himself to me with his full formal name and proceeded to say that he is the grand nephew of one of the original founders of Seattle and the son of a late Seattle media personality.

Let’s be honest - these young people are often pitied because of their disabilities and because they look and act different than others. But I am convinced that they are the “Father’s Favorites.” Why? Because God has favored them with the abilities that are indispensable for receiving eternal blessings–the abilities to possess childlike faith, celebratory joy and unconditional love.

Praising The Father For His Power Perfected In Weakness,

Jamie

Jamie

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Seattle Father-Daughter Summit Reflections

2010-02-02T19:34:00.000-08:00

“I got to see that my Dad isn’t that bad.” – 16 year-old daughter
“Now I have a better relationship with my daddy.” - 11 year-old daughter
“Me and my Dad can do anything if we take one step at a time.” - 15 year-old daughter

This is just a little sampling of what the daughters felt about their dads after the Seattle Father-Daughter Summit this past Saturday. Each of the first two years we had 25 pairs show up. Now in our third year our number jumped to 55 pairs.

For me it was a huge blessing to be able to lead our team and to emcee the event with my two daughters, Heidi and Holly. The Seattle team that is now assembled in my mind is made up of a group of All-Stars. Rick and Kelsey Johnson of Better Dads, Marvin & Jeanett of DADS are excellent presenters. Dave Irish did a great job with worship and special music and we have solid small group leaders in Heidi, Holly, Terome and Ronda Fulmore and Jean Lewis. Will Hughes provided much needed technological support. Steve Hall served as our prayer coordinator, helping under gird this whole event in prayer.

It is my hope we can keep this team together and correct the “glitches” that occurred this year and build the event into a more effective instrument in God’s hands to connect the hearts of fathers and daughters.

The thing I rejoice in, in addition to seeing what happened with the dads and daughters, is how this event was able to bring different ethnic groups together. That was the dream that Marvin Charles and I had in November of 2006 when we met in Kansas City for a National Center for Fathering event for fatherhood advocates. Soon after that event Marvin and I formed a Bible study group and this event is another practical step in co-laboring more closely together.

Who knows…we may next look into what we can do for fathers and sons. Stay tuned.

Jamie

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Fathers Be Good To Your Daughters

2010-01-21T15:12:00.001-08:00

A few years ago popular recording artist John Mayer came out with a song that has resonated with our culture. It is a song about the vital relationship between fathers and daughters. The research is overwhelming that a positive, healthy relationship between fathers and daughters is vital for a daughter’s success in future relationships and all of life.

With so much emphasis upon father-son relationships, Mayer hits on with his lyrics why paying particular attention to the father-daughter relationship is so vital. These girls will grow up to marry men and these men will need women who have grown up secure in a father’s love. So just as raising sons secure in dad’s loving acceptance blesses their women, raising daughters honored by dad in their femininity will bless their men.

Fathers be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers be good to your daughters too

Boys, you can break

You'll find out how much they can take

Boys will be strong

And boys soldier on

But boys would be gone without warmth from

A woman's good, good heart

When it comes to my relationship with my daughters the underlying feeling I have is “pride.” I am not saying that because of any great impact I may have had upon them but rather I am proud of THEM, how they have grown up despite me, their dad, often saying the wrong things or doing the wrong things. They have both become beautiful and godly young women. Holly is almost 18 and Heidi is 32. I am grateful for my wife, Cindy, who has encouraged my involvement with them from the very beginning.

On January 30th we are having our third annual Seattle Father-Daughter Summit. I am excited to have Heidi and Holly up front helping me with the emcee job. It should be fun to see fathers and daughters spending the day connecting and re-connecting in their relationships. (If you are reading this and you have a daughter in the 11-25 year old range it is not too late to register! See below.)

So, as I look at my children and my “hands on” season quickly coming to a close, I need to remember that as I still influence my sons (more through modeling of my marriage and prayer for them now) that what is at stake is not just their own lives but the women they will someday, God-willing, marry and the daughters they may be raising.

What is at stake in my ongoing relationship with my daughters is not just the quality of their own lives but the blessing they can bring to their current husband (Sky for Heidi) and future possible husband for Holly. Out of those marriages will come forth children secure in who they are and ready to know the Savior, because they have tasted and seen His love already in their parents.

As I write this, I am sitting my two-year-old granddaughter, Sadie. Who knows what lives she will touch as she grows into a woman of God like her mom. She is not a fearful, tentative girl. I see her zest for life. It is clear that her dad, Sky, is being good to his daughter.

So, here is my encouragement to you, Sky (with some help from John Mayer) to keep on loving and leading your daughters and my granddaughters.

On behalf of every man

Looking out for every girl

You are the guide and the weight of her world

So fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do.

Celebrating The Wonder Of Daughters And Granddaughters Today,

Jamie

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When "good things" Become "god things"

2010-01-14T18:07:00.001-08:00

Last week Cindy and I were able to get away to Wapato Point at Lake Chelan. We have a timeshare condo there that we can go to up to three times a year and that week after the holidays worked out good for us this year.

We have been going to this place for the past 15 years or so and have many great family memories. The snow gently fell as we arrived and that took my mind back to the time when we outraced a snowstorm and got into our motel just before the blizzard hit the little town of Manson. What a family adventure!

As I gazed out at the snowy field I saw a dad with three kids walking across the open space. I spotted a couple of kids running ahead of their dad with a little toddler being pulled behind in a sled. That little family looked a lot like me with the younger kids just those 15 years ago.

When Cindy and I went to dinner at the resort’s restaurant a song played over the sound system that we hadn’t heard since our honeymoon 35 years ago. The song, “What Are You Doing For The Rest Of Your Life?” brought back those very early marriage memories.

Later, as I walked past the park area, I visualized several summers ago my bowl-cut elementary school age boys catching fly balls and very patiently trying to catch trout out of that over-fished little pond.

As Cindy and I were enjoying our time I found my mind going back 35 years to our honeymoon and then 15 years to the height of our active parenting years. Memories of the dreamy days of early marriage and of the wonders of “hands on” active parenting of young kids flooded my mind. I grieved because I knew that these days would never return.

This is where I get snared. Rather than being thankful for the good gifts from the Father, I grasp for His gifts to remain as I helplessly watch them slip through my fingers one by one. The creation to me becomes more important than the Creator. The good memories become my little idols, gods that I glorify beyond the reality of the actual moments themselves. (For example, I am never anxious about my future when I remember my early marriage or tired when I remember parenting young kids.)

This is how I think this works on me and on others who struggle with this kind of idolatry. I am self-centered and I tend to measure things according to how I recall the experiences made me feel. For example, in the early days of our marriage I loved the exhilaration Cindy and I felt in launching our young lives together, “just you and me, simple and free.” And that walk in the snow with my children was something I wanted to savor because I knew it could never be repeated in quite the same way again.

So why do I turn the “good things” from the past into “god things,” idols that are hard to let go of? I allow the good things the Father both gives and takes away to become more important than loving the Father Himself. His very nature is to be self-giving, to lavish blessing on top of blessing upon His children. Rather than these things enabling me to love Him more I become wrapped up in the blessings themselves, becoming deeply disappointed when inevitably they don’t last.

I forget that I am on a journey towards home and have not arrived at the Father's House. I forget that these “good things” are meant to be God-given memories now pointing me back to remember His faithfulness. I forget that these moments are only meant to be foretastes that are to increase my anticipation of what He and His Son have in store for me to enjoy throughout eternity.

All Praise To The Father From Whom All Blessings Flow,

Jamie

A "Cross-eyed" Vision For 2010

2010-01-06T10:20:00.000-08:00

This New Year of 2010 brings lots of things into clarity for me. (Ironically, eye doctors consider 20/10 vision even clearer than 20/20 vision). I can reflect back upon 2009 and this time provides a kind of fresh start, a “re-set button” that can be pushed for the fresh New Year.

The problem I have had in the past with New Year’s resolutions and sayings like “today is the first day of the rest of your life” is basically this kind of thinking doesn’t really work. It doesn’t do anything for me other than reinforce that my self-effort and will power are pitifully weak in bringing about any lasting change. It is usually only a matter of time before the “resolve” part of my resolution fails. That is why I am increasingly seeing the importance of looking at my life “cross-eyed.”

How does this work practically? In my nitty-gritty relating with my wife and kids, where I can easily become harsh, critical and unforgiving, I need to apply the cross. I can’t change bad habits through mere will power, but I CAN through Christ-power, His life in me exchanged at the cross, the “not I but Christ” life.

Also, I don’t need to hold onto my guilt or grudges. My favorite devotional writer, Chris Tiegreen puts it this way, “Imagine winning a billion-dollar lottery and getting all steamed up about a 10 cent short change at a convenience store. That’s a monetary image of our spiritual outrage (when we hold grudges).”

When it comes to looking at my past mistakes, failures, inconsistencies and compromises with evil I don’t need to allow them to define me. I need to LEARN from my past but I don't need to be DEFINED by it. That same devotional writer says, “…You are not shaped by your history contrary to what psychiatrists have preached. You are shaped by your destiny. You are a child of God with an eternal inheritance.”

As I launch into future opportunities and challenges I don’t need to avoid embracing the crosses that the Lord has chosen for me to carry as His follower, whatever they may be. I can live with risk and adventure because I know at my core, because of my Savior’s cross, I am deeply loved by the Heavenly Father. As a beloved son I don’t need to live any longer in fear, anxiety, insecurity (or that dreaded “f” word, failure!) I can face the future with a “holy recklessness.” I can be like that 20-year-old fallen soldier from Afghanistan whom I heard quoted to say before his death, “My prayer is that I stay in harm’s way because if I am not, then I am not doing my job here.”

By looking at 2010 cross-eyed, I can move into the year with the joyful confidence of Charles Wesley, who said, “O for a heart to praise my God, a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free; a heart that always feels Thy blood so freely shed for me.”

So what is my “cross-eyed vision” for the New Year? I choose to see my past, present and future and all of my relationships with the cross of Christ clearly in the foreground, framing and re-defining all of my “reality.”

The cross and the resurrection of Christ is the key to staying in right relationships with my loved ones. It is the key to not being burdened by my past or paralyzed by fears of my unknown future. It is the key to keeping joyful when there is much depressing news hitting us each day from every side. It is the key to boldly going forth to do His will this year with fresh enthusiasm, joy and zeal that comes from the One who was pleased to freely relinquish His Son at the cross and raise Him up for each one of us, The Father Himself.

“Christ has turned all our sunsets into dawns.” – Clement of Alexandria

Simply Seeking To Follow Him More Closely This Year,

Jamie

He Was "Home"Less In His Humanity

2009-12-17T19:20:00.000-08:00

I am sitting today (Sunday, December 13th) in beautiful Santa Barbara, at the airport waiting for my plane. I am heading home from a family gathering in nearby Solvang. Whenever I go to Santa Barbara I go through a strange déjà vu, that “I have been here before” kind of experience. Maybe it is because I have been here before—for the first 13 years of my life! But it is eerily different to me now. People have moved away, died or I have lost touch with them.

The next 22 years of my life were spent in Hawaii. I go through similar feelings there. Like Santa Barbara, I love the beauty and do still have some friends there but it is no longer the same after spending the last 20 years in Redmond, Washington. The recurring feeling I have about all three of these places is that none of them are “home.” I don’t really belong in these places. I have lived in three different places but they are like stages where my life’s drama has played out and rapidly passed through.

Maybe this is what Neil Diamond was feeling when he wrote the lyrics for “I Am I Said,”

Well I'm New York City born and raised

But nowadays, I'm lost between two shores

L.A.'s fine, but it ain't home

New York's home, but it ain't mine no more

It is a feeling of “home”lessness. Not physical homelessness but an emotional/spiritual phenomena of not having a “place” that feels like home. As I continue to contemplate the coming of Christ into the world, I am drawn to Him, this God-Man, who experienced the same thing but much more extreme.

You would think that he would have been at home in Bethlehem. This was prophetically the birthplace of the Messiah, a “suburb” of Jerusalem. But Herod tried to kill him. He didn’t belong there. His parents took him to Egypt having been warned in a dream. Egypt could never be a permanent home as he was destined to be the deliverer of the Jews in Israel. Raised in Nazareth, surely this would have been “home.” It was close but whispers of his mother’s pregnancy out of wedlock made him always feel as if he didn’t belong. Later, during his three and a half years of ministry, he said that “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20)

Capernaum was close to being a “home” for him, but it was not his home. He even grieved that Capernaum would be judged ever more harshly than Sodom and Gomorrah because they had seen greater "light" (Jesus) and had rejected it (Him). Then Jerusalem, the place that He will one day reign, was the very city that rejected Him and condemned Him to the cross.

I know He was gloriously raised from the grave, proving His deity and He will come again in great glory. Also it is an amazing comfort that He is truly “home” at the Father’s right hand and that He is preparing a lasting “home” for all who love Him right now.

But I don’t want to skip over the significance of His suffering humanness and “home”lessness. In the past when I have felt that “ache” of not belonging anywhere in particular I have brushed it off too quickly. “You have no right to feel this pain, what about those who are actually homeless, or destitute.” It doesn’t drive me to Christ but into denial of the pain, to minimize the pain or to even feel guilty for feeling pain.

But we were created to belong. Jesus entered this world with that same human longing and He felt from birth the pain of being “home”less, of not belonging. That makes Him able to deeply empathize with my weaknesses. That makes Him a God who truly understands and whom I can go to with this pain. This makes me love Him all the more, that the Creator God was willing to suffer this weakness, this indignity, to become my Savior God.

That makes Him “Immanuel” (God with us), a God who is with us through the pain of our journey here and now, on our way to be at “home” with Him forever, there and then.

Rejoicing in my heavenly “home,”

Jamie

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The Manger, The Cross, and The “Christmas Spirit”

2009-12-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

I am having a difficult time “getting into the Christmas spirit” this year. Maybe it was hearing about my oldest daughter’s miscarriage on Saturday. Or it could be that all day trip Cindy and I took Sunday to go to a memorial service for a good friend’s 22-year-old nephew on the Peninsula. I think I feel a little like my Grandpa Jim Nickoloff used to feel. In his later years he would bemoan, “People are dying like flies!”

For me, all the glitter and lights just seem to be a little superficial this year. The things that used to excite me don’t really do it for me anymore. The wonder and the anticipation for that big day is not the same. I know retailers are depending on a big December but it all just feels too commercial.

My daughter Holly and I decided to get a little “Charlie Brown” kind of tree while my wife, Cindy, was out of town. But we couldn’t find the lights and couldn’t reach Cindy to ask where she is “hiding them” in the garage. (She doesn’t actually hide them she just puts them in a place that is logical for her.) So for now the tree is left undecorated. It is just a plain green tree.

As I stared at the tree I began to kind of like it just as it is—not only because I was getting out of the sweaty work of decorating it, but because to me this little tree symbolized getting back to the basic unadorned truth of Christmas.

The tree represents a manger made of wood (I know it could be stone and we don’t know for sure but let’s just say it’s wood for the sake of the comparison to the cross, okay?!)

The Christmas tree also pictures for me the cross. As I look at our little tree I notice something I never saw before. The very top of the tree looks like a man with arms stretched out wide like he is on a cross. That man-made star we would always hang up there has always hidden this simple God-created picture at the top of the tree.

The manger was a place of rejection. Jesus and his parents, Joseph and Mary, could not go to the inn. There was no room. The cool, the popular, the achievers were there but the cave with its manger was the place for the rejected, the outcast, the homeless.

The cross was also a place of rejection. Only criminals were executed on the cross. It was a place of humiliation, to be stripped of clothes and to be hung on a cruel instrument of torture. “He came to His own and His own received Him not.”

The manger was a place where sheep ate. The cross was where the Lamb of God, Jesus, offered Himself in obedience to His Father for the sins, my sins, of the world so that we, His sheep can feed upon Him, the Bread of Life.

The manger was likely inside a cave of some sort that was used for animals to feed under cover. These caves were also used for burials. The cloths that Jesus was swaddled in were likely Joseph’s swaddling clothes that he kept for burial purposes if that should be necessary on their journey. The Jews were fastidious about burial, always carrying some swaddling clothes with them, just in case.

After the cross Jesus was laid to rest in a tomb hewn out of the rock like the cave he was born in.

Maybe in allowing myself to reflect upon the reality of death through recent experiences of those close to me I am zeroing in on the true spirit of Christmas. This makes me yearn for something that gives real, lasting hope in a dying world.

The true wonder of the Christmas story is that the God of all creation became a baby boy who was born to suffer, bleed and die to buy rebels like myself, my family and the whole world to His Father, to be his beloved children, even His brothers and sisters—forever and ever.

So, maybe by slowing down, screening out the clutter and focusing on the manger and the cross I am actually getting into the “Christmas spirit” after all.

Savoring the Spirit of Christmas,

Jamie

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Reflections of Thanksgiving 2009

2009-12-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

This past Thanksgiving my highlight was seeing my adult children really enjoy being with each other. As we went around the table my two daughters, 31 and 17 years old, expressed how much they treasure their special relationship. My son-in-law said he has grown to appreciate my oldest son in a new way this year. This was the first Thanksgiving that our youngest son could not be with us but he is on a good journey. The sadness is mixed with joy of knowing he is doing well in Dallas, Texas.

As I reflect on my relationship with my heavenly Father I know that thanksgiving cannot be just a once a year or a periodic expression, but rather needs to be a 365 day a year lifestyle. I am impressed at how Paul emphasizes the giving of thanks as much as he does. It seems that he wants our lives saturated with gratitude no matter what we are going through.

Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be THANKFUL in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. (I Thessalonians 5:16-18)

I wonder why the development of the habit of gratitude is so important in my relationship with God. I have a few ideas:

First, it helps me affirm that the Father is at His work always (John 5:17) and makes me aware of His continual presence even when it may be hard to recognize Him other wise. It elevates my concept of God. Thanksgiving takes Him out of whatever box in my mind I contain Him in and it helps me see that His power, wisdom, sovereign grace and mercy permeate my life everywhere.

Second, It draws me close to Him, never taking Him and His kindnesses for granted, protecting me from falling into an attitude of entitlement.

And third, gratitude prevents me from being “problem centered” moving me to becoming more “Person centered,” that person being the triune God. It builds up my confidence of what He will do in the future by remembering what He has done in the past. I learn to thank God for the answers even before I actually get them. I try not to do this with presumption but with a confident trust that God will answer as He best sees fit.

Here I’ve got to get REAL with you my reader. I am not naturally a grateful person. I was born with a kind of melancholy personality that kind of sees the glass have empty. (I lamented to my dad on my 6th birthday because the first five years of my life were gone forever!) I have grown up in an environment of abundance where I can easily feel entitled to have more…always just a little more! I live in an American economy that is actually fueled by perpetuating consumer discontent.

But I can’t afford to use my natural tendencies, family background or the American “Super Size Me” culture as an excuse. I will only pass onto my children and grandchildren what I become in my character. Character is formed by consistent choices. I must choose gratitude not only for my sake---but also for theirs!

Heavenly Father, teach me to make gratitude, thankfulness my lifestyle. Even when I struggle with gratitude for things I don’t understand, I can be thankful daily for Your Son and the cross! “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He also not, along with Him, freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

Forever Grateful For The Cross,

Jamie

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You Don't Need An Apology...

2009-11-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

This week I received an email from Sylvia Gunther who does a weekly email like mine called “The Father’s Business.” This particular issue’s title was “You Don’t Need An Apology, You Need God.” The article’s first paragraph reads, “It is inevitable in a fallen world that offenses will come. Each time we face a choice to nurse unforgiveness and bitterness or receive the offense as an opportunity to grow in God. Too many of our prayers are about fixing some person or situation to our satisfaction. God says, ‘You don’t need to fix the person or circumstances. You need Me! Put your hand in Mine! Commit to seeing Me in this. I am inviting you to go to a deeper place in My heart.’”

Wow! This past week I had the opportunity to speak to a group of people about a time in my life when I experienced some deep wounds and betrayals. With the perspective of a few years to look back on that time I can see more clearly my own sin and pride amidst that whole ordeal.

I can remember my judgmental, critical spirit. My anger towards those I felt were doing an injustice often wasn’t a “righteous” anger. I cared too much about my reputation. I longed to be vindicated. I wished ill on those who had wounded me. I was slow to forgive. And above all of these things I longed to hear from someone, anyone…an apology. I mistakenly believed that was necessary for my healing. But as Ms. Gunther writes, “I didn’t need an apology, I needed God.” And God in His merciful wisdom never allowed one to come to me.

I don’t think there is anything like betrayals that can better lead us to depend upon the cross of Christ. If He went to the cross to pay for our worst betrayals of Him and allowed Himself to be betrayed by His close friend to go there, then He can enable me to extend the same forgiveness I have received to others—no matter how unfair the treatment or how absent of apology. For nothing was more unfair or unjust as the cross of Christ, perfect Man paying for the sins of each of us in our helpless, hopelessly condemned state. It was there that His perfect justice and mercy met.

Whenever I am wrongly treated, wounded, hurt or betrayed it is an opportunity, a test, to see how much I am growing in my understanding of the gracious wonder of the cross of Christ.

So whether the offense comes to me from outside the home or within, I need to choose forgiveness in His strength. The choice is mine. Will I become deformed or transformed, bitter or better? To boldly choose to forgive is a process. Sometimes I just “need to be willing to be willing” to forgive. If I don’t learn this lesson it will not impact just me but my family and all others I come into contact with!

“Guard against turning back from the grace of God. Let no one become like a bitter plant that grows up and causes many troubles with its poison.” (Hebrews 12:15)

Forever Grateful For The Cross,

Jamie

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Barnacles On My Boat

2009-11-13T11:14:00.001-08:00

Early in his retirement in Hawaii my dad owned a sailboat. Maybe more accurately it could be said that it almost owned him. He kept his beautiful 50-foot teak covered ketch in Kaneohe Bay. “The Moonraker” gave our family some wonderful memories. My favorite times were when he took the boat to the outer islands. (Except for the violent seasickness I experienced in actually getting to those islands.) To be able to sail along the lush white sandy beach shores and camp out on that boat was as close to “living in paradise” I think I ever have experienced.

I know he enjoyed working on his boat at first, but he eventually did tire of it. (Hence the saying, “the two happiest days of a boat owner is the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it!”) Dad didn’t have to only make sure the blistering Hawaiian sun didn’t damage what was above the waterline but he had to be concerned about little shelled creatures that attached themselves to the submerged areas of the boat’s hull.

These creatures, known as barnacles, are a shell species that release millions of larvae. The animals attach themselves to solid, non-moving objects, such as docked boats, where they can absorb nutrients that float through the water. Boat hulls are also fertile grounds for algae and other growth—which barnacles also feed on like cattle eat grass.

It was important for him to keep his boat’s hull clean because the barnacles would make it more difficult to steer the boat and could bring extra weight, causing it to sit lower in the water. The chemicals secreted by the organisms could also cause damage and add drag to the hull, reducing its speed and efficiency.

So my poor ole’ dad would constantly have to concern himself with these little boat-fouling freeloaders, either through putting on a snorkel and mask to scrub the hull while docked, or taking his boat out of the water and putting it into “dry dock” for scraping, sanding and repainting.

I have been impressed lately of the importance of not allowing anything to attach itself to a simple trust in Christ for me. If I add ANYTHING to Christ for my right standing with God then I am actually subtracting from my trust in His sufficiency alone. I am allowing “barnacles” to form, to slow my progress, weigh me down and hinder myself from being directed by His hand.

How much of my sense of “righteousness” do I gain from how I am DOING as a husband, father or leader? I rely upon my subjective circumstances, my feelings, others’ feedback rather than the simple trust in Christ and His righteousness on my behalf alone. These things that attach themselves to me so naturally, so insidiously, are MY barnacles. They are hidden areas where I trust in “Christ Plus”…Christ plus my reputation, Christ plus responses from my loved ones, Christ plus feedback from others. They are areas of my heart “below the waterline” that I need to continuously bring into the “Son light” and allow His special cleansing blood solution to be generously applied.

Seeking To Sail “Barnacle-Free,”

Jamie

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Believing is Seeing

2009-11-05T08:43:00.000-08:00

How many times have we been in a situation where we have to “believe” before we “see?” The motto we all have grown up with is “seeing is believing.” This pragmatic, scientific, materialistic, skeptical worldview leads us to only trust what we have already verified with our own eyes. In this way of thinking only fools believe before they see. But if I am a follower of Christ this is exactly what I am called to do throughout the journey.

Lately, I have known men who have lost their marriages due to unfaithfulness in the relationship. I have walked with men whose young adult children have chosen to head down the path of self-destruction. And I have felt the frustration of friends who are not able to find the job they need to support their families.

As I have encountered Christ in community with men like these, it has dawned upon me that we are each being “graciously compelled” to learn to believe before we see. This is not a once and awhile kind of a thing but for men of faith it is the norm. Jesus taught that believing is seeing when He said, “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” (John 7:17) He later told Thomas after His resurrection, “Because you have seen me you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:28)

This is the challenge facing us as men who follow Christ: we live in the land of “seeing is believing” but we follow a Lord who insists, “believing is seeing.” The things that are instantly visually available are often worthless things. But the things that we cannot see yet and are of the greatest value to us – a healed marriage, a restored relationship, or a child who turns back to God – we must wait for and believe God to do and “see” now only through the trusting eyes of faith.

I remember an illustration that Dr. Walt Henrichsen gave to a group of us young disciples several years ago. He said that most of our faith walk is spent where we are like the audience in a theatre and the hand of God is at work behind a closed curtain. God is training us to walk by faith, to grow in our trust in Him without seeing exactly what He is doing. But there are times, to encourage us, and knowing our weakness, He graciously will pull back the curtain and give us a glimpse of what He is doing. Almost immediately He will then close the curtain and gently say to us. “Okay, you’ve had a glimpse of what I am doing. Now continue to walk by faith.”

So this is where we are most of the time – in a dark theatre with the curtain closed. But what encourages me about this is the following:
• He IS at work behind the curtain. I can be sure of that.
• I am not alone in the theatre. He is with me there and he has placed me with others who also must believe before they see.
• Someday the curtain will be pulled back for good and my believing will become sight all the time and that will be forever!
• This time of waiting for believing to turn into seeing is a very short sliver of time in light of eternity.
• This believing before seeing lifestyle is developing in me Christ-like character and spiritual overcoming “muscles.” In other words, it has purpose for me both in this life and the life to come.
• Most importantly, to believe, to trust, to confidently rest in God before I see what I hope for Him to bring about, brings glory and honor to God.

“Believing IS seeing.” I am not alone. God is working. This is temporary. I am growing. He is being glorified. I believe I am beginning to see what He is up to!

Jamie

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Home Alone

2009-10-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

Some 19 years ago the family movie “Home Alone” became an instant hit during the holiday season. If you recall, the film is about a precocious eight-year-old boy named Kevin McCallister played by Macaulay Culkin. Kevin is accidentally left home alone while his family, late for their flight, madly rushes off to Paris for the Christmas holidays. The fun of the movie is watching little Kevin use clever booby traps against two bungling burglars who are trying to break into his home.

For the past three years I have given talks on Monday nights in the basement of my church before we break up into recovery and support groups. The ministry is called Monday Night LIGHT. Last Monday I began a short series on the issue of “loneliness” and decided to use the opening scene of Home Alone to introduce the message. Interestingly, I pointed out to the group that Kevin was already “home alone” even when the house was full of people. As Kevin was clearly alienated from his siblings and his parents it reminded me that loneliness is not about being physically alone but rather it is a condition of the soul.

This loneliness is something we inherited spiritually from our great grandparents Adam and Eve who chose to assert their own will above God’s and disobey His command. In the process they became alienated from God, from each other and the mortal time clock began to click towards their eventual return to the dust. They became the first couple to be “home alone” and we have been living out that lonely curse ever since.

As a man I know I have looked much too primarily to my wife and secondarily to my children to fill the void of my loneliness. Our families give us the closest thing to experiencing heaven on earth I think is possible. On the other hand when family relationships turn sour they can produce a kind of loneliness that is clearly unmatched on this earth. Even the best of marriages are ultimately destined to end through the death of one partner. Children grow up too quickly leaving the home empty and void of their chatter and laughter. So, for a man, what a wife and children provide is even at its best insufficient and temporary to fill the void of our loneliness.

This is where the idea of accepting being home alone becomes helpful to me. If I don’t really believe this, I will continue to foolishly see my wife and children as sources to fill a loneliness hole only God can ultimately fill. I become demanding upon them to give to me what they are not able to give. The more I demand the more I can drive them away and the lonelier and frustrated I will become.

Unlike Kevin in the movie, my greatest enemy is not a couple of bungling burglars wanting to come into my home but rather one fully competent thief who is already there—myself. To be specific it is the “old me” who wants his selfish needs met first who is my greatest threat. I am slowly learning to turn away from this seemingly very much alive me whom the Bible says actually died with Christ. I am also seeking to increasingly look to my Savior to meet my deepest longings. He is the one who frees me to begin to see my wife and children as gifts He has entrusted to me to love and treasure. I will see family life as part of the journey and not a final destination.

When I begin to do this, I can bring a greater sense of the Savior’s presence into our home. Home alone? Though I really do love my wife and kids it helps to realize that ultimately I am. Also, when I don’t try to fix my loneliness through my family members but just seek to love and serve the–then being home alone doesn’t feel so…. lonely.

Not Really “Home” Yet,

Jamie

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Frogs, Lizards, Celebrities and Ordinary Guys

2009-10-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

The celebrity worship of today, the lifting up of a few people with the rest of us teeming anonymous masses idolizing them, disturbs me. Why? Because every person is uniquely created in God’s image to worship Him alone. This reality is even mirrored in our evangelical Christian sub-culture. And that bothers me even more. Why? Because if our God has any favoritism at all (and He really doesn’t), He has shown an amazing preference for the ordinary, the small, the weak, the wounded, the neglected, ignored, disrespected, the damaged goods, the down and counted out. He really is into those kinds of people—people like most of us.

This is Jesus’ way. As Abraham Lincoln said about common people, we can say about ordinary Christians, “He must love us as He made so many of us!” This is God’s way of spreading His presence and glory through every nook and cranny of this world—by taking ordinary guys (and gals) and filling workplaces, schools, recreational teams, neighborhoods, etc. with HIM. And He shines best through the ordinary.

I heard a story second hand from a worldwide mission conference several years ago that I have thought of many times. The speaker talked about a frog and a lizard. They both had different ways to hunt and get their food. The frog stayed in one place and waited for his food to come to him. If he tried to track all around the pond or along the shore he would starve. He was just too bulky of a presence. The lizard friend was different. He could squeeze into every place imaginable to get his food–in palaces, shacks, fields, rocks–every nook and cranny he could go to find food.

Which animal was most visible? The frog. But which animal covered the most ground? The lizard. We live in a Christian culture that glorifies frogs, those who are the up front, gifted, crowd gatherers, and downplays lizards. Frogs do have an important and legitimate place in God’s economy. But the lizard is the one who slithers into places the frog could never go. The lizard is the “ordinary guy.”

I feel passionate about reaffirming in my life and ministry the importance of the ordinary guy. Ordinary husbands and dads are key in pointing their families to Christ. This is still important after the children leave the home as I am finding out. He has the privilege of learning to love one woman for an entire lifetime.

Ordinary guys at work and throughout the week show Christ to an unbelieving world that is tired of hearing but is open to “seeing” the difference he makes in how he handles stress, conflict, temptation, success, failure, disappointment and everything in between. He can be seen up close and personal. He goes and carries the light of Christ into dark places—where HIS light is needed the most.

Accepting My “Lizard-ness” And Lovin’ It,

Jamie

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Detecting the Lie

2009-10-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I had a magical afternoon with my good friend Brad who is vacationing here from Hawaii. We decided to “biyak” (paddle down by kayak and pedal back up by bike) the “yoyo stretch” of the Green River. The air was fresh, clean and the temperature just perfect as we paddled down the sparkling clear river on this lazy early fall afternoon.

As we glided down the river Pink Salmon were coming back up from the ocean, thousands of them right under our kayaks. Salmon coming back to spawn (lay their eggs) is truly a miracle. How these fish can go out into the sea from a stream and several years later swim all the way back through every conceivable barrier to spawn and die at the same spot they were born to me is one of the amazing wonders of God’s creation.

Brad, an avid fisherman, was fascinated by a river so full of fish. I asked him if it was legal to try to catch them and he informed me that these were already “humping,” forming an ugly hump on their back indicating they were not good to eat, kind of mushy I guess. But down the river, before they got into this condition, they could be caught with a license as long as a fisherman kept to his limit.

The second question I had for Brad was, “How do you catch these salmon; do you just reach your hand or net in and pull them out?” That apparently isn’t legal (nor "very sporting”). But the normal way of catching fish, using bait that is an attractive food does not work for these salmon. The reason is that they are coming up to the river to spawn and die and they are not interested in eating at this time. I guess food doesn’t have the same appeal when you are getting near death–maybe like offering peanuts and crackers to passengers on a sinking Titanic.

As I am facilitating a men’s group right now where we are working through the overcoming of sin in our lives, I thought about this image of fish biting on a hook. Generally, when we are attracted to sin, we are fooled to believe that what is before us will fulfill a hunger we have–just like a hungry fish lunging at the deceptive promise of a fisherman's bait.

As I seek to live free from the baits that draw me to sin, I need to “detect the lie” that is packed around the deadly hook like a tempting morsel of food. I find that once I can detect the lie that is overlaying the destructive habit or harmful behavior it is easier for me to not keep falling for it. And, by God’s grace, I can grow up to be like a bait-wise fish who learns to pass on those little “happy meals” that are really just a little too good (and costly) to be true.

Happy To Be Hooked On Jesus,

Jamie

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Becoming a "Cross-eyed Guy"

2009-09-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

I recently launched a new men’s group on Monday nights at Northshore Baptist Church in Bothell called “Cross-eyed Guys.” We are studying the temptations that men face and learning how to apply the power of the cross to our lives. (It is still open and you can email me if your are interested in joining us.)

What happens in the physical realm when we become “cross-eyed?” Basically two things: we look a little bit foolish (see photo on the left) and we see double.

The foolish looking part of this is something that the Apostle Paul said would happen. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (I Corinthians 1:18) When you think about it objectively, it does sound foolish, that millions of lives throughout history would be radically changed by the Roman execution of a Jewish rabbi nearly 2,000 years ago in Palestine.

Contrary to the physical realm, spiritually when we see double we begin to see clearly. We rightly see ourselves crucified, buried and raised with Him reigning in heaven as He is seated at the Father’s right hand today. (Romans 6:4-6, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:1-4, Ephesians 2:6)

So how does being a “cross-eyed guy” impact how I am going to see my past? The very things that cause me the greatest guilt or shame can now become the things that generate my deepest gratitude and praise. The broken road I may have had to walk to get where I am today is now the blessed road. The unfortunate tragedies are not random accidents or things to become bitter over but the very tools that God used for my deliverance as well as for my equipping to help others. Just as the cross of Christ, a humiliating scandal from the human perspective, becomes the surprising means for my deliverance and His and my future glory.

Joseph was a “cross-eyed guy” (See Genesis 50:20) as was Paul (see Philippians 3: 7-12). You and I can become one, too. It’s not too late. It just takes practice to increasingly “see” our life in this way. This is a progressive thing we need to work at.

How would becoming “cross-eyed” impact my present? I would live with the immediate, conscious awareness the “He loved me and gave Himself for me.” I would experience more joy in my “belovedness” and see my life as a blood-bought gift from my Heavenly Father and not some random right gained from the advantages of human evolution. I would walk with the awareness of Christ’s Spirit in me, flowing through me to those around me. I would have more divinely inspired confidence to reach out and touch others in His name trusting that He (not me) would make a difference in each encounter.

What if I could rest my future in the fact that “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain?” I would face my future with a hopeful expectation and less fear of growing older and dreading the inevitability of my death?

I am learning to become a “cross-eyed guy.” But I am aware that everything in this Christ-rejecting culture is pushing me away from the clarity of this double vision. I often find myself seduced to see my past as only painful and random wanderings, my present as lonely and futile and my future as vague and uncertain.

But the truth is that in my past He was there all along working “all things” together to bring me to His cross for my deliverance. The reality is that in the present I am never alone and He is using me to display His resurrection life even when I am quite unaware of it. And regarding the future, because of His cross, I can rest in the peaceful assurance of His faithfulness to fulfill His promises throughout eternity—and there is nothing foolish about that!

Because of the Cross,

Jamie

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The Parable of the River

2009-09-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite summer activities is what I call “biyaking.” This is simply what I have named kayaking down a river and shuttling back with a bicycle. It is a full body workout and a great way to enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Pacific Northwest. A couple of weeks ago I took my good friend, Tom, along for the adventure. As we drove together to the river I felt the need to process with him some of the things I was going through at the time. He is a great friend who simply listened and didn’t try to fix me.

But one thing that he was impressed to tell me about was an article by the late Henri Nouwen. As I reflect on that article, ironically the very activity we were doing, paddling down a river, without realizing it, connected us to a powerful illustration of the message that Nouwen had given through his article. (Read the Nouwen article)

Nouwen talks about three things that are essential for our spiritual health and growth…solitude, community and ministry.

He uses Jesus as the Supreme Model of what we each need to do. Jesus went into the mountainside to be alone with His Father. Solitude was essential to Him. Just as a river’s very life begins in the solitude, in the quiet of the snow-packed mountain ground, so does our spiritual life. This element of solitude is so vital to us as men today. If Jesus, the God-man, found it necessary to live in solitude, early in the morning time with His Father and regularly getting away from the crowd, even more so do we! He did that, I believe, to be regularly reminded of his “belovedness” by the Father.

As I talked with Tom I became newly aware of how much I needed to retreat in solitude with the issues I had been carrying, that were causing so much turmoil and confusion in me. As we paddled I gazed back at the beauty of the snow-capped mountain realizing that I was experiencing on the river direct outflow of that melting mountain snow pack.

Right after solitude comes community. Jesus came down from the mountain and engaged with his disciples (his spiritual family). He rejoined the community. Community is messy. It can be turbulent at times. This is like the upper areas on the river where the water cascades through the boulders, creating dangerous rapids. This portion of the river is both treacherous and gushing with life.

There are dangers, conflicts and thrills in this community. This is where we have disagreements, misunderstandings and brokenness. This is also where we are forced to practice forgiveness, forbearance, kindness and patience for community to survive and to thrive. For most of us this community is experienced in the context of our families.

Out of vibrant family community flows ministry. Jesus and his disciples walked out and touched those of the crowd who came to them. It just flowed (super) naturally from Him. As a river moves through the more turbulent portion of the narrow valley it broadens out to the distant plain to give its life to the land below. It must flow downward to the thirsty and needy land that awaits its life giving presence. That is just like our lives. We must flow outward and farther from our families to reach those who are thirsty for God’s presence.

Vibrant spiritual life originates in solitude, is channeled through family community and broadens out flowing into ministry.

As Tom and I rode our bikes back up the road paralleling the river that we had just paddled down I could look up at the mountain and the river that flowed from it. Solitude. Community. Ministry. It was all there as a visual aid of what I needed for my spiritual life to keep it growing, flowing and outreaching to those in need.

To HIm From Whom All Blessings Flow,

Jamie

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School Daze and the Comparison Trap

2009-09-08T13:08:00.001-07:00

School started for millions of American kids this past week. I remember how sad I was when summer was over when I was a kid… AND how HAPPY I was when I was a tired young dad! As this school year starts I am reflecting on the impact that school had on me (and my children) when I was younger. What I am thinking about today is “the comparison trap.”

School is all about comparison from the get go. As I see it, comparison takes place in four broad categories at school: academic performance, athletic ability, physical attractiveness and social standing. The problem with that is that these 13 years, from kindergarten through 12th grade, set us up for compulsion to compare well into adulthood. This isn’t just a childhood issue.

I have experienced both sides of this trap. I believe it is a problem when we gain a sense of identity that is rooted in what other people think of us -- whether it is positive or negative. This is “the fear of man” that Solomon warned about in his proverb, “The fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe.” (Pr. 29:25)

Let’s start with the easiest case, when we think LESS of ourselves if we compare ourselves academically, athletically, physically or socially with another. It is obvious that we are allowing another person’s strengths to rob us of the joy of being who God created us to be. We secretly root for their failure when we should be celebrating their success with them. We don’t see our own growth or improvement because we are comparing to someone who is more successful, gifted or blessed in a particular area.

The other side of this danger is when we allow strength in a certain area to create pride and a sense of superiority over others, to think MORE of ourselves and less about our need to depend upon God. This is just as dangerous but is not warned against much in our self-esteem obsessed culture. It is not the success itself that is the problem but it is how that success is interpreted in the soul of the young person.

Once we begin to believe that we need to be “successful” to feel good about ourselves then we become addicted to the approval of others. We are not able to be genuine and reveal our true selves with others. Like Moses veiling his fading glory we work very hard to keep up a front while we are slowly dying on the inside. We also tend to accept others on the basis of their performance or appearance not on the basis of their innate worth.

Okay, talking about “keeping it real,” I confess to you that I have struggled with the comparison trap throughout my life. I know much of it was rooted in believing the childhood lie that I am not a unique, one of a kind child of God who is unconditionally loved by God despite my failures or successes. My temptation throughout my half century plus has been to be a “people pleaser” and base how I feel about myself on how others react to me, affirm me or appreciate me.

I have found the best thing I can do to escape this comparison trap is to redirect my focus upon what God has said about me in His word and allow those truths to slowly soak into the depths of my soul. Here are a couple of passages among many in the Bible that I have found to be helpful:

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. (Galatians 6:4-5 The Message)

Let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t. (Romans 12:6 The Message)

I know that avoiding the comparison trap has implications not just for me but also for my children and grandchildren. If I can, as a dad and granddad, derive my sense of identity from God rather than from others, I will be able to pass that onto them. (I cannot give them something I do not first possess myself.) And if that is what I am able pass onto them -- then they will have received an inheritance of INCOMPARABLE worth.

“The greatest good you can do for another is not to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.” Benjamin Disraeli

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A House Too Quiet

2009-09-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

I sit outside my house on a crisp late summer Northwest afternoon and listen to the quiet sound of an empty house. I am sitting under the crab apple tree the boys used to eat crab apples from (and use as slingshot ammo!).

My wife is on a retreat, our older three children have left home for good and our youngest daughter is starting her senior year of high school. My oldest granddaughter is even in school now, launching into half-day kindergarten this year. Today it is just me and my dog, Frosty, outside soaking up the afternoon rays and listening to the quiet of the house.

I decided to leave my office and spend the afternoon at home to have some extended time in prayer and Bible reading, a time for personal renewal. But I become distracted by the quiet of the house imagining just a few years ago that this place was so noisy I found it necessary to lease an office space outside the home to get work done. Now it seems just too quiet in there.

I look around to the backyard and I can see me playing catch with the boys there…and kicking the soccer ball with both of my girls. On the other side of the yard is the basketball hoop. I can remember the hours of shooting baskets with the boys there. Then there is the garage that the boys made into the Sonics Key Arena and dressed in Shawn Kemp and Detlef Schrempf jerseys when they were about 9 and 5.

I am now having second thoughts about trying to have this time here as I seem to be haunted by the ghosts of my children playing in the house, garage and yard. I can imagine that I hear their high-pitched voices and silly laughter.

So this is what “empty nesting” is going to be like? Is it just perpetual sadness over the days that will never return? Or is it just something I have to go through, to grieve, so I can joyfully embrace the next chapter of my life? I think it is the latter. At least I hope so. So I lean into the sadness and let the tears come.

I seek to listen to that still, small voice of God’s Spirit and remember why I decided to spend the afternoon in this way in the first place-not to get melancholy over my past but to tune into His presence. I believe that I hear Him say to my spirit. “My son, I gave you these children to raise for a season. They are one by one flying from your Redmond nest. As their heavenly Father I love them infinitely more than you can love them, can you entrust them into my hands? I know you are feeling their absence but I am ever present with you. Will you let me be enough? You are entering another stage in your journey. You had to trust me when your house was too noisy. Can you now trust me when it is too quiet?”

As I am hearing this voice within me I am startled on the outside by Frosty’s bark as he races through the open back door, into the house, and to the front door. My granddaughters, Ellie and Sadie, have arrived. Heidi, my oldest daughter, is helping coach Holly’s school’s soccer team. This is my youngest daughter’s last year of soccer and my oldest needs grandpa to cover for her. Sadie, the one-year-old, toddles right down the steps towards the crab apple tree, puts a crab apple right into her mouth and makes a sour face just like my kids used to do.

Smiling, I pray, “Thank you Father for this ‘new normal.’ Thank you for the privilege of being a grandfather and that my daughter’s family lives close by. Thank you that I see my daughter’s face in the faces of her daughters. Thank you that I can make a difference in my granddaughters’ lives just as my grandmother and grandfather made a difference in mine. Amen.”

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Commitment Just Isn't Enough

2009-08-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about an illustration I had heard from Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott on what makes for a successful marriage. They gave a picture of a healthy marriage having three sides -- passion, intimacy and commitment, with commitment being the most important, foundational side.

A friend, who has experienced divorce twice before his current marriage, gently reminded me through email that even if a man (or a woman) holds to commitment, if the other partner doesn’t, then one person’s commitment to the marriage will not be enough to preserve the marriage.

I have walked alongside several men recently who have undergone divorce and they had done all they humanly could to preserve their marriages but to no avail. Tragically, their former wives did not share their commitment to the marriage.

So, if I wrongly communicated that one spouse’s commitment was sufficient to hold a marriage together, I apologize for that. Clearly it takes both partners to make a marriage work no matter how committed one of them may be!

Besides this, on another level, I believe commitment is not enough to hold a marriage together. This is something I also failed to communicate last week. Throughout my spiritual journey I have learned to distrust my will power to be sufficient to produce any lasting behavioral change in me.

At seventeen, for the first time, I came to realize that I had previously been trying to live the Christian life in my own strength, under my own power. It wasn’t working for me. Before that time I had falsely concluded that the Christian life just didn’t work. What I discovered, was that “Christianity” without Christ was just “I-anity” and that sure doesn’t work!

I discovered that “I” died with Christ some 2,000 years ago and that He now lives in me. He is my power source. (see Galatians 2:20) I still put forth the effort (commitment) but it is with trust in HIM who is at work in me as I do it (dependence). That has radically changed how I see the idea of “commitment.” Commitment is important but insufficient. And I don’t know of anything better than marriage to really help me learn this truth.

For example, I can “commit” to love my wife as Christ loved the church, sacrificially and unconditionally, but can I really pull this off? No! As my oldest daughter would say, “Are you kidding me right now?”

But I can commit to that truth, or maybe better, submit to that command knowing this takes me beyond my natural human affection for my wife. As I do this, I depend upon the Holy Spirit and trust Christ’s power to work through me.

I have discovered that it is not my "willfulness" but rather my "willingness" that He is looking for in my marriage, parenting or anything that demands me to do what does not come natural for me to do.

Because of His commitment to us, Jamie

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2009-08-17T19:36:00.000-07:00

Last week while on vacation, I sat up one night with my two favorite daughters (I only have two!) and watched “Jon and Kate Plus Eight.” I have to confess that I was more interested in watching this since I knew that Jon and Kate were no longer together. I wondered how they were going to navigate their lives with these eight kids, now separated and evidently heading for divorce. How weird is this and let alone how potentially scarring for these kids to have this all played out on national television!

Jon and Kate are very bright and competent people. But the most important relationship in their lives is broken for the whole world to see and there doesn’t seem to be much hope expressed for reconciliation. Whenever they talked together it was just toxic. The hole they have dug just gets deeper. I can imagine Dr. John Gottman, at the University of Washington, with his notepad, jotting down every comment from each partner that validates his predictors of marital failure. One that I could see was total lack of respect from both sides and the pain of father absence already experienced by the children.

I could really empathize with this couple. Cindy and I have been there before…more than once. But that can’t be the end, can it? A marriage, eight kids together and that’s it. It’s over? What about the covenant before God and the community of witnesses? What about the commitment to each other “for better or for worse?” And I know this sounds so old fashioned, but what about the kids? Aren’t they worth fighting for?

Drs. Les and Leslie Parrot best articulate one concept of marriage that has helped me these past 35 years. I am a visual guy and they give a simple illustration (simple is good too!) of a triangle for marriage. One side of the triangle is passion, the other side is intimacy and the other is commitment.

Our culture glorifies the passion side of the triangle. It is so common, whether it be television, film, music or Internet, that the number one determination for relationship success is sexual, or physical attraction. We are obsessed with this side of the triangle. This is a very good and healthy part of a marriage but should this be the determining factor of whether a couple stays together or not? If this is it, then we are relying upon a very weak foundation. We all know that passion comes and goes like an ocean tide. Besides that it can also be easily led astray towards unfaithfulness, covetousness, discontent and comparison. So no, clearly this side of the triangle CANNOT be the foundation.

The second side of the triangle is intimacy or friendship. This side is much more stable than the other side but it is still untrustworthy. It is a better foundation than passion for a long-term relationship but it can still be fickle. How many times in a marriage does one spouse look at another and think, “I don’t even know this person anymore?” This sense of oneness, closeness, “soulmateness” (not a word, I know) is wonderful and glorified in eHarmony.com commercials but is this reality?

Cindy and I have experienced this kind of intimacy many times throughout our marriage. But there have been times when we have not. I think there are particular times when couples are at risk of losing this intimacy/friendship…after the birth of a child…teen years…empty nesting…difficulties or tragedies involving children…whenever things in the “family mobile” shift and changes. This is when we really need the third side of the triangle to persevere. This third side of the triangle has to be the foundation a marriage.

According to the Parrots, the third side of the triangle is commitment. This is what has been lost in our culture. Tragically it has been forgotten even within the church. (Apparently Jon and Kate are professing Christians). I know many times in our marriage we have had to cling to this side of the triangle alone. During that time we know we need to go to work not on fixing the other partner but in looking at our OWN part. The commitment side of the triangle BUYS TIME! It buys us time just to be able to work on our issues, our stuff, without quitting too early. And this is what we have discovered: when we have clung to the commitment side, no matter what, in time the passion and intimacy DO return!

Then we can look at our kids, including my two daughters I watched “Jon and Kate Plus Eight” with last night, and know that as imperfect as we have been as parents, we have at best given them a great gift: the gift of dad and mom committed to each other for life.

When you combine that with the passion and the intimacy that eventually does return to the relationship, well, as the late Jackie Gleason used to say, “Ohhhh, how sweet it is!”

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"We've Only Just Begun"

2009-08-09T19:20:00.001-07:00

35 years ago on August 3, 1974 Cindy and I were married. By today’s standards it was a very simple Hawaiian wedding. There must have been many skeptics in that church that watched a skinny 19-year-old kid marry a blue-eyed blonde 17-year-old on that humid Honolulu August afternoon.

Our theme song was the Carpenter’s “We’ve Only Just Begun” played skillfully by Ohta-San on his ukulele. The first few years of our marriage it was probably our young love and stubborn pride, to prove those skeptics wrong, that motivated us. But in the majority of these past 35 years it has been utter dependence upon God that has pulled us through. After four kids and many ups and downs our love has grown far deeper and stronger than it was on that day those 35 years ago.

I recently read something that really encouraged me about the power of marriage for personal transformation. Martin Luther, who came from the monastery into marriage wrote, “When it comes to our sanctification, one year of marriage is worth 10 years of the monastery!” I have never been in a monastery but I have been married and this must be true (no offense to you monks out there!).

Why has marriage been so good for us and for all who can stick with it? Marriage is about two selfish human beings forced to learn much that we couldn’t have learned as effectively in any other way…to give, to serve, to sacrifice, to forebear and to forgive.

Last Sunday, the day before our anniversary, our oldest daughter, Heidi and her family came over for the afternoon to beat the heat and have dinner with us. Afterwards we all watched an old video of our family from about 17 years ago after the birth of our youngest child, Holly. I was feeling pretty nostalgic after seeing that. I was feeling the best years are behind us. “If we could only have just ‘frozen time’ wouldn’t that have been great?” When I brought that up to Cindy, who was sleep deprived through many of those years, she thought I had gone a bit crazy. She reminded me that as we are facing our empty nest years we still have much to look forward to…like each of our children starting their own families and seeing our grandkids grow up (and not being too tired to enjoy them!).

She is right. But I have to admit that there is something in me that longs for even more than seeing our kids find their way in the world and hopefully seeing our grandchildren multiply someday. As I am increasingly aware of the acceleration of passing of time and one generation giving way to another, I am reminded that our family life is just a foretaste of what we are destined to enjoy throughout eternity. In our heavenly home there will be no more sad goodbyes.

I also know that even if our marriage or family life here on earth is deeply satisfying it still cannot meet our deepest longings. When I remember this, no matter how many years of marriage I have already experienced with Cindy, I can still expectantly say, “We’ve only just begun.”

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What A Dad Desperately Needs To Go The Distance: Another Focus (Part Three of Three)

2009-06-30T09:13:00.001-07:00

“Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.”

Parenting seems to go through pendulums, each generation reacting to the last. When I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s parenting was still pretty much authoritarian, “because I told you so” was usually the stock explanation kids received. Empty authoritarianism, which de-emphasized the parental relationship with their kids, was not the ideal. But what is happening today across America in families may be worse.

I have just finished reading a fascinating book entitled, “The Narcissism Epidemic: Living In An Age Of Entitlement” by Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, which has helped me understand that if past generations were all about the parents this generation has been all about the kids. And this is not a good thing.

Here are a couple of excerpts from their chapter on parenting: “More than at any time in history the child’s needs come first. Parents routinely ask their children–even those too young to answer, what they want…Parenting is always a struggle of one sort or another, and these days it’s often the struggle of concerned parents against an overwhelming tide of narcissistic values….It’s good that we don’t always expect blind obedience anymore, but we may have veered too far toward obeying our children instead of them obeying us.”

The authors offer some practical suggestions to counteract the narcissistic tide (the obsession with the SELF) that we are swimming against, but the one thing that they didn’t mention, which I think is so necessary, is to give the family another focus, something greater and higher than ourselves. In my opinion this is the only lasting way to move from selfish living to self-giving. When we become a family with a common goal to please and follow Christ in our relationships then we begin moving in the right direction.

As a dad I am to be the pacesetter and initiator in this, in the way I love my wife, first of all, and then secondly, how I lead my children. This doesn’t mean giving everybody what the want in any given situation. Sometimes it is making unpopular decisions and saying “no.” It is not always clear and easy to discern and this takes dependence upon God’s Spirit to figure it out as I go. This is a walk of ups and downs, trial and error (a lot of error on my part!)

So what is “another focus?” It isn’t what I want. It isn’t what my wife necessarily wants (though it often is!). It certainly isn’t what my kids want. It IS what God wants. It is a focus I believe that you and I as fathers are called upon to keep holding up before the whole family and reminding them that this is what our family is all about.

Because He Chose The Father’s Will,

Jamie

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What A Dad Desperately Needs To Go The Distance: Another Father (Part Two of Three)

2009-06-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

Last week I kicked off a three part series, “What A Dad Desperately Needs…” I forgot to mention where these three ideas came from. They come from a very familiar passage, one that you and I have probably memorized without even realizing it. This is from the very first part of The Lord’s Prayer, probably more accurately called “The Disciple’s Prayer.”

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” When I said that we need “another family” I based that upon the word “Our.” We desperately need each other on this fathering journey. The next idea is closely related and is even MORE important…we need Another Father, this Heavenly Father, whom we are able to know intimately as “Abba” (Daddy!) because of the cross of His dear Son.

We have just come off of Father’s Day, the rightful honoring of our fathers and being honored by our children. The longer I live, the more convinced I become that I and my children both desperately need to know the Heavenly Father, really know Him, if we are going to “go the distance.”

I was talking with a colleague who is a consultant with children’s ministries in churches, to help them become more faith-at-home based, and we were talking about the startling lack of multigenerational ministry, that is, the passing on of faith from parents to their children, that is occurring today.

She said something I will never forget: “I think that we have taught children to become ‘good for God’ rather than ‘to know God.’” She continued, “We seem to be raising up good little Pharisees.” We discussed how this could be a big part of why we are not seeing, generally, the next generation of Christians take the faith as their very own. We talked about how children learn that a relationship with God becomes a type of bargain that involves them doing good and then God coming through and doing good back for them. When life gets hard, and when God doesn’t “come through” in this self-centered, shortsighted, narcissistic “agreement,” the deal is off!

I know I need to know with increasing intimacy my Heavenly Father, through dependence upon His Spirit He has placed within me (Romans 8:12-17, Galatians 4:4-6). As our children leave home this is increasingly clear to me – my greatest work as a dad is to entrust my kids into His hands. (John 6:29) I know that the most important thing I can do for my children is to point them, with everything that I am, to THAT Father.

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What A Dad Desperately Needs To Go The Distance: Another Family

2009-06-16T12:07:00.001-07:00

What does it take for a father to “go the distance?” I am increasingly convinced that we need “another family” that will help take us to the finish line. I have walked alongside men who have lost their marriages…who have had their children turn away from how they have taught them to live…who have been rejected by their families of origin. If they did not have “another family,” their brothers and sisters in Christ (particularly brothers in the case of these men) they would have lost all hope. They would not have any chance to go the distance.

The greatest honor in my life was bestowed upon me three months ago. The man who gave me this honor is a big part of “another family” for me. His name is Marvin Charles. Marvin and I have been friends for almost 10 years. Marvin and Jeanett had a child just three months ago, a little girl, in a life stage when most people are done having children. When Jeanett was pregnant, Marvin told me that this child was going to be named after me. “What if it’s a girl?” I asked. “Jamie will still work,” I believe he replied. I knew this “can go either way” name of mine would come in handy at some point!

So this spring, Jamie Michelle Charles was born to the Charles family. She is a beautiful, healthy girl with a loving family around her. Around the Charles family is another family, the family of Christ, who have grown to love, support and be inspired by Marvin and Jeanett’s powerful story of redemption and reconciliation. This family is black, white, brown and yellow. The organization they founded, D.A.D.S., is having huge impact in Seattle and I believe soon will be reproduced nationally. (www.aboutdads.org)

It is hard to articulate to people why my relationship with Marvin has become so meaningful to so many others and me. As Marvin and I have grown in friendship and seen an expanding network of relationships that build bridges from black to white and white to black, I have continued to say the mantra, “we need each other” without being able to articulate anything more specific than that.

But HOW do we need each other? Marvin and those who are in the urban community are fighting against the powerful generational curse of “fatherlessness.” They are overcoming obstacles through their genuine faith that we in the suburbs, with the current explosion of divorce and cohabitation, are just beginning to encounter in full force. In the white, suburban culture we are dealing with a subtler, but I believe even more deadly, foe--the generational curse of “faithlessness.” We have made our selves too big and our God too small. In other words, we have lived with self-confidence, self-sufficiency and self-dependence with a little expectation for God to come in as “back up” once in awhile.

Chris Tiegren writes, “Usually we approach crises as though God is dependent on us to do the work while He supports us in the background. We need to turn that around. We must depend upon God while we are behind the scenes believing in Him.” Marvin and my urban brothers teach me what it looks like to trust God like this. What do they learn from us? I am not sure, but whatever it is that I know, it is not us but Christ in us just as we can see Christ in them. That’s what breaks down the walls, through the cross of Christ opening the way to our common Father through His Spirit.

I am so thankful that God has given to me “another family” and it took a relationship with someone as ethnically different as could possibly be in order to teach me the importance of this need. If I am to go the distance as a man who will love his family for a lifetime, I know that I desperately need another family!

Because We Have The Same Father, Jamie

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Father Power or Father Weakness

2009-06-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

As I think about the above title of my blog, “Father Power,” this name mocks me. ”Keeping it real,” I am not really feeling the “father power” at this point in time. One of my adult children is making some choices that I do not understand or agree with. At this moment I feel “father weakness” and helplessness much more than I do “father power.” When I was a younger dad it all was much more simple and clear cut to me. Do “A” plus “B” and then the result will be “C.” For those who did not get the desired results in their parenting they were either a. not fully believing in the formula, b. believed in the formula but were not properly applying the formula, c. using some other “wrong formula,” or d. throwing the whole formula thing out all together and were just “winging it.”

Now that Cindy and I have most of our kids into adulthood we have come to see that the parenting formula thing just doesn’t “work” as we thought it was supposed to. I know that this view of parenting will be looked upon as “defeatist” or compromised somehow, but I’m sorry, kids do not come with guarantees. They aren’t appliances. When we are going through a rough “time” with one of our kids the problem for us is just that, the “time” factor. We don’t know how long this is going to continue or how the story being currently played out is going to end. We are out of control and that just feels so…out of control!

One of my good friends whom I confided in emailed me, “Be strong for your wife and weak for God.” That was helpful. As this is something that parents go through together, I AM called upon to support my wife through the inevitable parenting challenges we must face together with strength. But it has to be a strength that comes from God or it will be a false bravado. In my weakness, which I feel at this time as a dad, He has promised to give me His strength when things get tough. “And He has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9a)

I heard a Christian speaker recently say that we need to learn to sit with God and “only have questions.” Sometimes on this family journey, that’s all we have. Questions. When Job was going through his stuff he never learned the ”why” or the “how long” regarding his suffering. Doesn’t it just seem inconsiderate that God wouldn’t fill him in with what was going on behind the scenes and how He planned to make everything to come out as it did? Apparently our God finds answering the “whys” and “how longs” counterproductive when He is teaching his children important lessons of trust.

Recently I have been reminded of what I put my mother through as a rebellious teen. I was pretty immune to my mother’s pleading and cajoling but I could NOT resist her prayers. I can remember feeling some kind of invisible rope pulling me to Christ, even as I tried all I could to move away from Him. Little did I know at the time that my mother and a few of her friends formed a commando-like band of Christian sisters who prayed down the strongholds that held me captive by the enemy’s hands.

My mom used her “mother power” through her “mother weakness” by simple pleading prayer with a small group of other women to produce what her parenting efforts alone could not—a genuine change of heart in me, her one and only wayward son. That valuable lesson from my departed mother I can cling to today. No, our impact as fathers does not need to be limited to what we can do, what we can control or what we can see. When things get tough, we need not fret and ask ourselves “father power OR father weakness?” Rather we can confidently affirm what past generations of parents have learned in community with other parents: “father power THROUGH father weakness.”

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The Blame Game

2009-06-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

Plaque in my office:
MY WIFE SAYS I DON’T LISTEN TO HER
At least I think that’s what she said

Isn’t it weird how easy we can fall into the trap of the “Blame Game?” My wife had given me the assignment to take our six-month yellow Labrador Retriever puppy to be neutered (castrated-ouch!) last week.

She was out of town so I figured I could handle this task just fine. Feeling for Griffey, who was going to undergo the transformational surgery in the morning, I took him to our vet. When we arrived the receptionist looked at us with a puzzled look and said, “Who is this dog?” I replied, “The dog you are supposed to neuter today.” They didn’t even have him in the computer system. Things were going from bad to worse for Griffey. First he was to lose his manhood and now he was said to not even exist. We both left, tails between our legs (figuratively), but somewhat relieved.

Believing this must be some kind of sign from God, I put him in the seat next to me in the car and assured Griffey of God’s great mercy, “You really dodged a bullet today, buddy!” I told him as I nuzzled his face. I then decided to call Cindy to ask her what in the heck happened. She was a little bit agitated at me and informed me that I had gone to the wrong vet. As it turns out, Griffey was scheduled for his “procedure” to take place at PetSmart, of all places. PetSmart? The place that sells pet supplies does this kind of surgery? Since when did they get in the castration business?

She then calmly reminded me that she had told me that this was to be at PetSmart all along and those words I hate to hear… “You must have not been listening.” I let her know that I am sure that I would have remembered PetSmart. If she had said PetSmart, a little red flag would have gone up, PetSmart? Neutering? What?! I thought they just sold dog toys! But no such red flag went up in my head, so I just heard, “Griffey... neutering... Friday... vet… blah… blah… blah… blah.”

After I dropped Griffey off at PetSmart for the surgery that would change his life forever, I decided to call Cindy back and apologize. How quickly I had jumped to the place of BLAME. How my frustration with the breakdown of communication went to examining HER lack of clarity in telling me that this surgery was going to be at an illogical place like PetSmart and not focusing upon my lack of LISTENING. This is the “Blame Game.” We all do it. I believe the important thing is to catch ourselves when we do, and then humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness, and own what we must own!

What do YOU do when you catch yourself doing it? (Please share your comments below - we can all use some encouragement!)

I John 1:8-9 in The Message: “If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.”

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"Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda, Part Five - Nothing is Wasted"

2009-05-18T21:07:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt that the "fire" you or your family members are going through are only for the purpose of destruction? We have a lying enemy who is counting on us to believe exactly that.

Lie # 5 - We believe that our suffering that we have had a part in causing is wasted in this life and the life to come.

We ask ourselves, “What possible “good” can come from my or my family members’ mistakes, failures, embarrassments or difficulties in this life or in eternity?" We hear what the Bible has to say about suffering for Christ or sharing in His sufferings as only relating to a narrow band of suffering that we could label as “spiritual.” I think Paul Billheimer says it much better than I could ever say it.

Mr. Billheimer is a writer who has greatly impacted me with his perspective on suffering. He is now with the Lord. I don’t think he would mind if I generously quote from his book, “Don’t Waste Your Sorrows.” (Pg. 59 - inexpensive used copies of this 1977 book are available through Amazon ,by the way.)

“We usually think of the afflictions which Paul says are “working for us an eternal weight of glory” as probably in the last twenty-five years more people have suffered serve persecution and martyrdom for Christ than in any similar period of history. Some of us may yet be called upon to prove our faith and love by accepting a martyr’s crown. But at this point, in the United States, the adversity to which most believers are subjected is not the danger of martyrdom or other types of persecution practiced in Communist lands. Today the American believer’s afflictions are mostly physical, financial, or in the area of personality conflicts. Is this type of suffering included in “these light afflictions” which Paul said are working for us? In this what he meant when he said, if we suffer we shall also reign” and “if so be that we suffer, that we may be glorified together?

The answer may be that it is not always the character of the affliction which determines its spiritual value but rather the length of its continuation and one’s reaction to it. Whether the suffering is for and with Christ may be determined not so much by its nature and severity as by the quality of one’s spirit in which it is faced. For example, to live sweetly with a brute of a man, or a contentious faithless woman, or an ungrateful, contemptuous wayward son or daughter, or to live self-sacrificially with a helpless, hopeless invalid for years or for a lifetime, may provide the opportunity to develop martyr strength and a deep dimension of love as truly as severe persecution for Christ’s sake.

All affliction is intended to drive us to God. It is intended to work a fuller submission, a more utter devotion, an increasing patience, a greater beauty of spirit, a more selfless love toward both God and man. When it accomplishes this, then it may be classified as suffering with Christ and for His sake because it has enabled Him to achieve His end and purpose in that one. It may require a lifetime of dealing in discipline and chastisement to produce the true martyr spirit. When suffering of any character is allowed to work in one a deeper dimension of agape love, is it not indeed “suffering with Christ?"

We can take heart! Nothing we go through in our family life needs to be wasted in this life OR in the life to come!

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"Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda" - Part Four

2009-05-11T09:33:00.001-07:00

Lie #4 - We “connect the dots” to believe that since we made a decision that is now understood, with the clarity of “rearview mirror 20/20 vision,” to be “out of God’s will” then our present sufferings, which may at least partly be a result of that choice, are perceived as unfortunate, unnecessary and “out of God’s will.”

A speaker last summer at Canon Beach Christian Conference Center challenged me when he said: “Do you want to know if you are in God’s will right now? Where are you right now? You are HERE. So you ARE in God’s will.” He went on to explain, “You are in your current situation or circumstances right now because either God planned it OR because He allowed it—there is no third option.” Hmmm. No third option? If I truly believed this then I no longer would see myself a victim of my own poor choices or the choices of others, but as a victor by God’s gracious choice.

The enemy has worked me over with this lie that being completely in God’s will depends upon ME making all the right choices. I admit there have been times Cindy and I have struggled in our 35 years of our mostly happy marriage (you don’t stay married for 35 years without struggling now and then!). I was married when I was 19 and my wife was 17. We were awfully young. As we say to our kids and other teens, “Kids, don’t you try this at home!” How could such a young couple make such a momentous lifetime decision? How could we have known for sure God’s will for us at that time? We couldn’t.

Also, we have times here in Washington State that get dark, cold and dreary (and I’m not even talking about the weather!). Looking back to our move here in 1990 I am tempted to longingly look back to the gentle, warm breeze of our former tropic home in Hawaii—especially since I am no longer with the Navigators organization today–the very reason that brought us to the Pacific Northwest in the first place. Or what about when I found myself in church eldership to deal with a very devastatingly painful pastoral leadership situation? Did we make the wrong turn in going there with our family in the first place and not discerning the pitfalls there that became obvious with 20/20 hindsight?

Another example from my very imperfect life journey was my decision to leave seminary, after just a few months in Denver, back in 1978. We stayed there only long enough for Elvis to die, our first child, Heidi, to be born and see the Broncos play in and lose their first Super Bowl. Looking back I think I violated every principle of how one is to make a mature, wise decision when we moved back to Hawaii from Denver. When things inevitably got tough back in Hawaii after a few years it was easy to believe that I was being “punished” for my lack of faith and “abandonment of the call ” to leave Denver as I did.

This also happens with us when we see our children struggle. And they WILL struggle. We can go back over past decisions, even decisions that we would do differently with our current understanding, and we get caught in the trap of believing that because we made a particular decision through our immaturity or even disobedience to God–that we have now condemned them to whatever difficulty they are experiencing with their faith.

The idea that we belong to a God who works His perfect plans even through our foolishness and our sinfulness is woven throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. We just have to look afresh at the story of Joseph and the deliverance of Israel through the tragic chain of events or the story of Moses and the children of Israel seemingly needlessly wandering in the wilderness because of their rebellion, yet being transformed as a nation from slaves to conquering warriors who would eventually settle and rule Canaan. Or what about the writing of the inspired Psalms by a broken King David who showed through his Psalms how to get back into fellowship with God despite sin and moral failure? The New Testament is the same, with the cross being an amazing combination of tragic, sinful human choices leading to the rejection of a national Messiah and yet scriptural fulfillment of our Savior’s mission to be the “Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.”

Whether we are going through a tough spell in our marriage, in our job or with one or more of our kids, what comfort it is to know that we belong to a God who, though He won’t SUSPEND the laws of the harvest (sinful sowing that will cause painful reaping) He will mercifully TRANSCEND those laws. He does that to produce His glory through us and His very best in us. (Romans 8:28-29)

This truth is wonderfully freeing to me and I hope it is to you. Our present life circumstances do NOT equal the sum of our past choices. But they do mean that ordinary, imperfect people like us can place ourselves into the extraordinary, perfect hands of an all wise, all loving and all sovereign Heavenly Father and know that we are at this moment EXACTLY where we are supposed to be!

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"Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda" - Part Three

2009-05-05T15:37:00.003-07:00

Lie #3 - We believe that our suffering and our children’s suffering is a sign of God’s displeasure rather than a sign of God’s loving discipline and training. (Hebrews 12:5-11, Proverbs 3:11-12)

Why does it feel like when we go through tough times or our children struggle that this always means that we did something wrong and that God is punishing us for it? This misconception is so common that the Lord specifically addressed it as did Paul, James and Peter in the letters they wrote to the churches. In our culture, where popular Christian teaching has much “how to” emphasis that gives the impression that following certain formulas provide guarantees to parental success, this wrong thinking is rampant. So, on top of the real suffering our children or we may be experiencing, we take on the added burden of false guilt and feelings of isolation and failure.

This lie can be even more easily swallowed if the relationship with Dad growing up was either one of physical/emotional detachment or one of abuse. Then we have no personal experience of seeing discipline as the loving personal training of us as children. We cannot see our failures or tough times as opportunities for His intimate involvement and teaching in our lives. And we naturally transfer our feelings that we have about our fathers to our heavenly Father.

I know that I have learned much more of God’s heart during my tough times. I have felt His closeness and heard His voice speak from His word much more loudly. As C. S. Lewis has said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures but shouts at us in our pain.”

Thank you, Father, that when I or my children go through times of difficulty, even when those times are of our own making, you don’t withdraw and reject, neither do you shame nor punish in judgment. You poured all of the judgment that we deserved upon your own Son on the cross. I can face whatever difficulties so much better when I know you are faithfully using them to shape me and my family to become more like your Son, Jesus.

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"Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda" - Part Two

2009-04-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

Last week I wrote about how we as dads can often fall into feelings of regret as we look back on missed opportunities of when our children were in the home. I know that I am increasingly aware of how we are quickly running out of time with our youngest two about to fly the nest.

I have wanted to be a good dad to my kids during the 18 plus years each were in our home and for the most part, I think I have been. But I am often pestered thinking about the time lost, the opportunities never to return, things left undone or unsaid. Granted, I am a little more introspective and “rearview looking” than most guys (I grieved on my 6th birthday because “the best years of my life” were already behind me!), but I don’t think I am totally alone in this “woulda, coulda, shoulda” struggle. So stay with me here.

At the end of “Eight Seconds,” a film about bull rider Lane Frost and his tragic death, Lane’s father grieves over never having told his late son that he loved him. As a dad I can relate to that scene. Though I consistently told my children that I loved them, I have other regrets over “sins of neglect.” As Harriet Beecher Stowe said, “the bitterest tears over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”

So as we glance in that “rearview mirror,” here’s another lie that old devil will try to harass us with:

Lie # 2 - The grace and mercy of God is NOT able to transcend our wrong/sinful/foolish choices to produce His glory and our good.

Now if this is a lie that we tend to fall for, what is the attraction, the “bait” for us to bite down and take that deadly hook? What is the appeal of the lie to our sinful selves? For us to believe that God IS able to override and transcend our wrong choices or our children’s wrong choices takes FAITH. The bait is that it is easier to believe the lie based upon what I can see than it is to trust God whom I cannot see. It is easier to trust in the idea that life is the sum of our choices rather than to entrust ourselves into the hands of a transcendent and sovereign Father God. This God tells us that He is always at work on his sons and daughters’ behalf for His Son’s glory and our good. (John 5:17, Romans 8:28-29) To not trust Him allows us to keep a sense of “control,” and we like that.

To combat this lie God has given us the Apostle Paul to be His “Poster Boy.” Nobody better counteracts the lie in both his life story and his teaching. He was a murderer of Christians before Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus. Though he was forgiven for his past sins this was a shame that he chose to remember. It was a pain that fueled him with a passionate love for the God of mercy who would save and use such a man with his sordid past. (See I Corinthians 15:8-10, I Timothy 1:12-16)

It is clear from those passages that Paul had an elevated concept of God. He saw a God who was far greater, far wiser than the sum of his own wrong, sinful or foolish choices. He saw how God was even using his past to display the character of His mercy to those he was called to reach. He did not see himself as the “star” of his story but simply as a grateful actor in Jesus’ story of saving broken and wayward people - such as himself.

So what is that lie again? The grace and mercy of God is NOT able to transcend our wrong/sinful/foolish choices to produce His glory and our good. Brought into the light of God’s truth it doesn’t have quite the same “pull” does it?

I choose to believe that God truly does work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) I choose, like Paul, to become more passionate in my present through being in touch with the pain of my past. I choose, when reminded of my past by thoughts planted by the enemy, to remind him of his FUTURE - not so bright!

And I choose, when telling my story and the story of my children to others, to lift up God’s loving wisdom through His Son, Jesus, not my own feeble defense of me having “done things right.”

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"Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda"

2009-04-20T17:42:00.000-07:00

The great baseball hitter Ted Williams said, "By the time you learn all that you need to know you are too old."

As we move through our life’s journey, particularly as a father, there is a tendency to live with regret over what we “woulda, coulda and shoulda” done. This regretful introspection is healthy if it leads us to some kind of action but it can be enslaving and lead us to a kind of despair if we are not careful.

As I have reflected upon this idea of regret it seems to me that this non-productive regret is fueled by some lies that, if we don’t confront head on, will continue to plague us, particularly as we have more of our earthly road in the rearview mirror than is before us.

Lie # 1 - “We see our pain as partly or fully caused by our own choices, which may be very true, BUT we believe there is no place for us to take that sorrow/pain/failure except upon ourselves.”

I think the textbook comparison of this is between Judas and Peter. Both failed miserably during the crisis of the cross of Christ. One could argue that Judas’ failure was greater than Peter’s as the Lord’s betrayer whereas Peter only "denied" Christ. That may be true but Judas was still not beyond recovery. He just refused to put his shame, his failure, and his regret in the very place that his betrayal helped to bring about—the cross of Christ. He knew his sin was so foul there was no way out but death. But he took his failure upon himself rather than going to the One who could forgive and restore by His own payment He made on his behalf.

Peter, on the other hand, was able to recover because he came to Jesus with his anguish. He was humbled from his pride and self-sufficiency and he went on to become a leader of the first century church. He found there was a place to go that would lead to hope when his own choices only caused deep regret.

As a husband and father I often think to myself, “If I knew then what I know now.” My youngest children are quickly leaving the nest and my oldest ones are busy establishing their lives outside of the home. My daughter Heidi and her husband Sky have two girls. My son Adam is out of college and busy finding his way in this challenging economy. As my children struggle with their choices, the enemy puts the lie in my face that says I didn’t adequately prepare them for what they are facing now.

The answer is, “Of course I didn’t, but I did the best I could at the time.” I can put my failures upon the cross of Christ. I can follow the example of Peter who learned to lean into his past failures and allow them to teach him dependence upon Christ, his Lord and his grace. For Peter, Christ became increasingly his heart’s desire and delight. He looked forward, not backward. And his hope-filled, glory-anticipating heart is what truly blessed all of those who would follow his example-even us today as we read his 2000 year old recorded letters to the church in our Bibles.

It is not about what you or I have done but it is about who we are right now by HIS grace and what He is making us to be throughout eternity for HIS glory.
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Next week we will look at “Lie #2."

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"The Elder Brother Syndrome"

2009-04-07T19:14:00.001-07:00

Last week I wrote in my blog about the benefits that a certain amount of failure brings to our own and our children’s faith journey. I read a book a few days ago called “Prodigal God” by Timothy Keller that has reinforced that idea for me, as well as given me a new perspective on the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15.

I think we have all been conditioned to read this story as a story that demonstrates God’s compassion and mercy for the younger brother. The younger brother is the one who selfishly squandered his wealth (younger brothers in that culture received half of what the elder brothers were entitled to) but after reading Keller’s book I believe that Jesus is aiming his story to each of us who have elder brother tendencies.

The two brothers represent two wrong ways that we try to find happiness. The younger brother represents self-discovery and the elder brother represents moral conformity. Our western society is deeply divided between these two approaches. The obvious foolish way is the younger brother’s self-centered, self-discovery. He told his father, “I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t even want to wait for you to die. Just give me my stuff and I will go and do my own thing.”

But we are not able to see as easily the error of the eldest son, who really was the target of this parable. Remember one thing, that the elder brother had a “right” to be angry, in a sense. By the father taking back his brother and restoring him to full sonship after squandering his inheritance, he just got his inheritance cut in half! (Some of us can relate to that these last six months or so.)

In a very real sense his younger brother’s gain was his loss. He had done everything right and now he felt he was being unfairly treated because of his father’s forgiveness and welcome of his wayward brother.

The elder brother represents the religious, those who jump through all the hoops, people who believe that by being faithful and doing their religious duty God now owes them. At the end of the story the elder brother’s heart was revealed as just as self-centered as the younger brother with one important difference—he was blind to his own sin of self-righteous pride. He was blind to the heart of his father and the distant relationship he had with his father. He was blind to the fact that he had become a judgmental, critical moralist.

How do elder brothers respond when things don’t go their way?

• They feel cheated by God. They deserve better!
• They want A + B to = C. They want those who hurt them to pay NOW and they want their reward for doing good NOW!
• They feel insecure in being loved by God. They feel that other’s hurtful actions diminish them.
• They obey God to get from God not so they might know God Himself, to become like Him, to delight in Him.

Churches are full of elder brothers. That is why many younger brothers have been turned off to churches. They feel judged and criticized rather than supported and accepted. I believe that most of us have elements of both the elder brother and the younger brother in us. We can easily recognize the younger brother qualities but we tend to be blind to this “elder brother syndrome.” This blindness to our condition is what makes it so dangerous.

“But go and learn what this means, I desire compassion and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)

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Temporal Failure, Eternal Success

2009-03-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

I have been involved with faith-based parenting ministry for the past 17 years or so. During this time, I have noticed a subtle error being taught in many forms. I am myself guilty of both believing it and teaching it, though this is painful to admit. The error, as simply as I can put it, is this: If parents raise their children “right” --according to a set of biblical principles, proscribed teachings or proven practices -- they are guaranteed to successfully raise them to become committed Christian adults.

I do believe that chances improve for our children to embrace our faith and become “successful” adults when we follow biblical principles in our parenting but I don’t think there is any way the Bible can be twisted to provide a guarantee.

The problem with this guaranteed-success parenting mindset is that it creates a double bind for us as Christian parents. If we happen to “succeed” as parents with a child or two, who then will get the credit? Who will receive the glory? We will, of course, because we were the ones wise enough or faithful enough or disciplined enough to follow the principles. We did it “right” and in this uncertain world we proved the Bible really works when it comes to childrearing. Our children are the living proof! Ugh. Can you hear the pride?

Then, when we see other parents struggle with their children, through rebellion or substance abuse or immorality, rather than feel compassion we feel judgment. When we remember that teen as an indulged toddler throwing a fit on the floor of the bakery section of Safeway, we seem to instinctively sigh, “We could see that coming!”

Or what if we “fail” with a child or two? Parents then experience a cruel and lonely guilt. The faith community (church) becomes not a place of prayerful support but rather a place of gossip, criticism, guilt and shame for the parents and their children. It is as if they had a highly contagious disease. Can you see how this can destroy a community that is supposed to be full of compassionate grace?

“There aren’t any guarantees. These aren’t appliances,” Gil’s wife said with exasperation about her children in the movie Parenthood. That’s what I am increasingly convinced of. As we raise our children the best we can as parents, introducing them to our faith, there simply aren’t any guarantees that they will embrace it as their own.

Here is the paradox that I don’t think is emphasized enough in today’s Christian parenting ministries: Our children, if they are to fully embrace Christ for themselves, must come to a place in their journey where they must “fail” in some way. There, I said it. The “F” word…fail. For some, this failure will be subtle and almost imperceptible; for others it will be BIG and dramatic. But I believe some failure is absolutely necessary in order for our kids to seek Christ out of real desperation. Temporal failure can create a hunger for the “success” that is eternal.

Why must this be true? Because for them and for us, for our stories to give any accessible hope to the broken of this world, Jesus must be the “Star.” If we didn’t fail, if they didn’t fail, who would be the stars of our stories? We would, in our parenting wisdom and skill. They would, in their ability to follow the straight and narrow. Our churches would, in their way of teaching our families. Or our Christian schools would, in the values they instill in our kids from K-12.

What may be going on when our children fail is that God is orchestrating the circumstances that are necessary to bring them to the end of their own resources so they may cry out for Christ in utter neediness. Our children must have their own stories of rescue just like we have. If they turn to God in their pain then they will have a story where Jesus is truly the Star, not them. When Jesus is the Star, then whatever failure or setback they have experienced, their life stories will bring comfort and hope for others who hear it. And isn’t that the real, lasting eternal “success” we yearn for our children to enjoy?

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