I heard that Donald Trump is running for president.  It will be an interesting presidential election campaign!!
I suspect that many strong opinions exist about someone like Donald Trump.  He is a very public person and a person of strong opinions himself and great financial success.  I also suspect that not many of us reading these words have actually met Donald Trump.  I want us to play a little game together to illustrate a point.  Suppose that you are a person who has never met Donald Trump and you have formed some very strong opinions about what kind of person he might be.  You consider him to be arrogant, selfish, egotistical and filled with pride.  But then imagine that your car is broken down on the side of a busy freeway and Donald Trump just happens to come by.  For some reason he is by himself and not being driven around in a stretch limo and he stops and very kindly, unselfishly and humbly helps you.  Do you suppose your opinion of him would change?  Mine would and that would be a conversion of sorts.  We would be changed.  We would have a radically different view of this person than the one we had created in our minds based on what we had seen in the press.
This picture ran through my mind as I was reading about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus in Acts 9.  Think about the view of God he had built in his mind.  God was distant, cold, angry.  And then he had a personal encounter with the living Lord Jesus and he was literally knocked to the ground.  He was converted.  
Not all conversions are as dramatic as this.  But it at least must start  when the gods we have created in our own image come face to face with the living and true God revealed in His Son Jesus.
Regeneration, the new birth, being born again is solely and in the first place a work of God through the Holy Spirit.  But I suspect that because of the reality of the day to day struggle with the power of sin in the world and in our own hearts that there are daily, even moment by moment conversions that need to take place as the gods of our own making discover how weak they are in comparison to the living God of creation.

Often, talking with a new person reveals the things that are closest to our hearts.  After initial 'getting to know you' bits of information are exchanged, like family and where you live the conversation moves to the next level.  It is here that we discover those matters that are important to us--hobbies, a sports team, a good book we've read recently, a particular period of history we are interested in, our job.  The first thing we talk about at this point in a conversation can be quite revealing this way.
This is not a criticism or a judgment in any way.  It is just an observation.
What got me thinking about this was reading in Acts 8.  In the history of the early church, Stephen an early leader just got killed.  Severe persecution against the church breaks out under the direction of Saul.  Homes are broken into.  Residents are dragged out and thrown into prison.  Many who aren't arrested we are told are 'scattered'.  In verse 4 of chapter 8 in Acts we read this about the group that has exiled:  "...those who had been scattered went about preaching the word...".
I don't know about you, but if many of my friends and maybe family members had been put in prison, and I had been forced to leave behind my home and all that was familiar to me, I don't think the first thing I would do would be to go about preaching the very word that was getting so many people put in jail.  I think I would probably hunker down and keep my mouth shut.  And in private conversation I would more than likely have many not so nice things to say about that jerk, Saul and other religious leaders.
I find it fascinating and quite frankly, convicting that these people had been so captivated by the Lord Jesus, their lives so transformed down in the depths of their being that the first response in their new circumstances is to go about preaching the Good News!
I pray that today, the Holy Spirit will so fill me fresh with Kingdom energy and so captivate my heart with how much I am loved by my Heavenly Father, that it will be the natural and spontaneous response to go about preaching the Good News with my very presence on this earth!!

Our culture and time is one of the worst in history in preparing people for the inevitability of death and dying and pain and suffering.  Consider the euphemisms with which we talk about death.  I remember as a young seminarian talking with a woman from our church who's young husband had died.  In my naive, well-intentioned, caring way I asked her, "When did you lose your husband?"  She looked at me and with a small amount of irritation and quickly replied, "I didn't lose him.  He died and I know where he is."  This was my early and rude introduction to a world that my culture had ill-prepared me for.  
We are insulated from death in our lack of involvement even in the caring of the bodies of our loved ones who have died.  In times past it was the family who cared for the bodies of the dead, dug the graves and put them in the ground.  This didn't necessarily ease the pain but it did make death more a part of life.
In addition to this there is our cultures idolization of youth and physical attractiveness and the corresponding lack of respect for our elder population. We go to great effort and expense to prolong life and to stay looking young.  We also have way less respect for the wisdom of age than do other cultures.  Ernest Becker's book, "The Denial of Death" was and is prophetic.
I was thinking about all this as I read again the amazing account of Stephens death in the Bible in Acts 7.  Here was a good and innocent man, falsely accused who went unflinchingly to his death.  The vision given to Stephen, "...(he) looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God..." (Acts 7:55), was a great gift.  It speaks of the deep transformation that can and does take place in a person's heart when God claims that person for His own glory.  When that happens, then it is possible to have a radically different view of death and dying and pain and suffering.  When this happens is is possible to view life's circumstances through the lens of a loving Heavenly Father's ultimate care rather than viewing that Heavenly Father through the lens of life's circumstances.
May it be so!!

The responsibility of caring for a lawn is not a high priority for me.  Part of the reason for that is there has not been a lawn to care for.  Now there is and unfortunately, last year I did something that reflects great ignorance, on my part, in the field of lawn care.  I sprayed some Roundup weed killer directly on quite a few spots in our grass.  Most of you who read this will smile because you will know the result.  As I look out the window at what was a lush green patch of grass when we bought the house last July, now it looks like it has a disease!  Earlier this spring, we put some seed down in those spots but we haven't seen much result.  The concern, of course, is that the Roundup takes awhile to leach out of the soil.  I'm hoping to consult a 'lawn professional' today and maybe get some good advice.
Those patches of dead ground surrounded by lush green life look like a living illustration to me of the Church.  The Church is still God's chosen vehicle for communicating the life changing message of the gospel.  In spite of all it's faults and failures there is no plan B.  The lush green living grass that is there depicts to me the living Church.  The dry dead patches, depict both struggling and dying churches and those who have not yet been drawn to our Heavenly Father's great love for them.
Our Father is a God of redemption and it is Him and Him alone by the power of the Holy Spirit who brings life both to the Church and to those He is drawing to Himself.  We need that power as well and so each morning we ask the Holy Spirit to fill is again and empower us in big and small ways to bring a little bit of the kingdom of heaven down to kingdom of this earth.
Ephesians 3:14-21 is an amazing section of Paul's letter to the early Christians in Ephesus.  He prays for them, and us, that we might be "filled to the measure of all the fullness of God".  
What difference would it make in our lives today if we really felt full from all of the fullness of God?  I have to believe that those dead patches of grass would come back to life and that life would spill over into the lives of others.  May it be so for us today!!

Happy Mother's Day!!  I got thinking about my mom yesterday.  She has been enjoying her reward since December of 2001.  Wow!!  That seems like a long time ago.  A memorable transition took place in my relationship with her.  Driving home from Uncle Gene Jordan's memorial service--1991 I think--it occurred to me and saddened me that all kinds of nice things were said about someone after they were gone.  About this same time I had been re-reading a little book entitled, "Making Peace With Your Parents".  I realized that I still got irritated with my mom when she would remind me to put a hat on when it was cold outside.  Clearly, I had not yet made the transition to relating to her adult-to-adult rather than child-to-parent.  An 'ah-ha' moment flashed for me.  Almost at a moment in time, I began to see my mom in an entirely different light.  Certainly, she was not flawless.  But I began to see with greater clarity and appreciation her great qualities:  her COURAGE, she pretty much raised four children by herself.  Married off her only daughter and watched her oldest son go to Viet Nam in the same summer; her HOSPITALITY, she was a gracious and welcoming hostess (even when the Vikings were playing.  She was highly skilled at positioning herself with sound off on the TV able to see what was happening while entertaining Sunday guests.)  She had friends all over the country.  Her Christmas mailing list was somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 people.  Many people have told me personally how welcome she made them feel in her home; her GENEROSITY, with her limited financial resources but also with her home and with her time.  She mentored young moms and volunteered in youth programs at her church.
Her memorial service truly was a celebration of her life, attended by a wide variety of ages from children who she had been with in the youth program, to those young moms she mentored, to her peers.  She was 78 when she took her last breath of this earth's air.
Earlier, I referenced the drive home from Uncle Gene Jordan's memorial service.  That night in St. Paul was the beginning of the transition of my relationship with my mom.  I began to tell her then how much I appreciated her.  Thankfully, ten years remained in her life for us to foster an adult-to-adult relationship.  It wasn't perfect.  But it was pretty much all right!

Thought a lot about heroic courage this week as I read Acts 5:17-42.  It prompted me to think about the heroic courage of John and Betty Stam, my maternal gandpa's brother and his wife who were beheaded because of the fact that they were foreigners and because of the fact that they were witnesses for Christ.  We don't need exactly this kind of heroic courage, at least right now.  Hopefully, we never have to have it but the fact is we do need heroic courage just to live life the way we know we should live it.  The big question is 'how do we get it'?
It is a big question and I won't pretend that I can give a conclusive or a comprehensive answer in the space of these few short lines.  I would, though, like to share an insight I gained from Timothy Keller.  In Acts 5:31, Dr. Luke uses an unusual word, a title really, for Jesus.   He refers to him as 'Prince and Savior'.  (NIV and NASB)  The RSV renders it 'Leader and Savior'.  It is the word translated 'prince' and 'leader' that is the unusual word in the Greek.  It is only used four times in the New Testament according to Keller.  One of the other places is Hebrews 12:2: "...looking unto Jesus the author and perfector...".  'Author' is the word. Interestingly, it is the same title that in other ancient Greek literature is used of Hercules and other heroes of Greek mythology.  Thus the connection with the notion of heroic courage.  Jesus had heroic courage. It was courage of a different kind than Hercules had but courage nonetheless.
One of the ways we can get heroic courage is by looking to Jesus.  Do you remember the scene in the movie, 'The Patriot', where the character portrayed by Mel Gibson in the climactic battle scene rallies the colonial army by picking up the flag that had fallen and charging back toward the advancing British troops?  The fleeing colonial army looks at his courage and it gives them courage and slowly, one by one, they turn and follow him and the tide of the battle is turned.
In the battles we face, as our courage falters, we can look to Jesus, and then one by one we too can have our courage renewed.
 

I hope that Uncle Howard and Eunice will get word that they were the topic of the blog this week.  To me the love they showed to Alan was a remarkable example of the voluntary, radical generosity that the first century Christians showed each other.  In Acts 4:32 it says, "...All believers were one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of his possessions was his/her own, but they shared everything they had..."  This was no law.  It was done because the Holy Spirit motivated it, so that they were not 'possessed by their possessions.'  Too many and too much we have it the other way around.  We are defined by what we have rather than by who we ARE as children of the king.
Howard and Eunice voluntarily out of love for Alan dramatically altered their lifestyle to provide a safe and happy environment for a special needs young man after his own parents were killed in a car crash.  Our whole extended family benefited by their example.
The beautiful thing about it is they probably didn't even think about it as being some kind of amazing act.  They just did it without any thought of any kind of recognition.  Alan lived the last few years of his life giving and receiving a simple and authentic love, surrounded by cousins who doted over him.  I can still see his beaming face smiling up at Howard.
Thank you Howard and Eunice for giving us a tangible example of the Father's great unconditional love for us!