The Miracle of the Moment: When Faith Flexes

Late one night in March my son Ethan was born. It was an incredible day. The culmination of months of prayer, joy, nervousness, faith, and preparation. Jamie and I didn’t know how to be parents. Four kids and nine years later I often wonder if we still don’t. But it didn’t really matter at Saint Mary’s hospital in the infant delivery ward the day our Ethan arrived.

Like many first-time parents we were waiting expectantly for the day to come when we would be able to hold our little prince in our arms. Our friends and family celebrated the onset of our parenthood with gifts and parties. It was a season of incredible joy as everyone in our lives gathered around us. A heightened sense of anticipation descended on our circle of friends, close loved ones, and faith family. Ethan’s due date came and went with no small amount of nervousness on our part.

Jamie’s doctor departed for a family cruise and we were introduced to some new guy. He was not the kind lady we had spent the last nine months learning to trust. He seemed capable, sure, and kind, and all the kinds of things you hope for if the situation arises when you need another doctor to perform the baby-delivering equivalent of pinch-hitting.

A week passed. Jamie and Baby Ethan were perfectly fine according to all tests, but I was getting super nervous. Still, this was nothing compared to my dad. Finally, the substitute baby doctor guy announced early the next week he would need to step in and help the process along. Allowing nature to delay much longer would begin to cause opportunities for major complications. We trusted this guy because we trusted who invited him into our lives.

So, on a Monday morning we showed up at the hospital with all our bags packed to begin the process. Boy was it a process. All day tests were running, conversations were had, and doctors seen. It was a day of waiting, praying, and trusting. Like never before, and rarely since, Jamie and I both felt the muscles of our faith flex as if to say, “don’t be afraid.”

We shared the news of what was happening, first with our loved ones, and then the world at large across social media. The love poured in. It was as if dozens and maybe even hundreds of people were lending us their faith because each one knew this was new territory for us. With every passing moment we drew closer to the miracle we had prayed and waited for. As all those moments crept by, we could feel the reassurance of love.

It was like this incredible substance was propping us up. It was a palpable gathering of the unseen activated on our behalf. What one writer in the Bible described as faith via the evidence of things not seen. We couldn’t see it, but we could feel it. The ramifications were evident as our souls were encouraged.

The long day stretched longer. Someone, I think my mother, brought my favorite hamburger and a chocolate shake. I wasn’t hungry. How could I be hungry awaiting such a monumental miracle? But I ate the entire thing and remained not hungry as I drank down all forty liquid ounces of the superb chocolate shakey goodness.

The long day stretched, and yawned, and winked into night as a sliver of the moon rose above our small town as if to say it was almost time. Just like another man in the Bible described the arrival of a baby in a barn—it was the fullness of time, our time, and my son took his first beautiful breath on this earth.

I cried. My wife cried. It was faith made manifest. It was trust personified. It was the full range of the miraculous in motion and thrust upon our family with all the majesty of the moment. Faith was flexing big right before my eyes with the full force of the love God has for all of us.

Ethan was a promise given. A promise born. It wasn’t just a baby born that day, but it was a mother and father, a grandmother and grandfather, an uncle and cousins. A ripple of life echoed across everyone meaning anything to us and we were all changed. We were all made to mean a little more. We were all together in this and it was lovely beyond imagination.

Faith is a muscle we flex across a myriad of moments, but it is also a miracle that resounds with the finality of lightning. It is both ethereal and ever present. It is surmounting and inescapable in its subjugation of the right now and its dance across our unknown.

We can know, and we can hope, and we can see, and we can trust. Even when we don’t feel it, especially when we don’t feel it. Even when it seems elusive and illusive. When our faith seems deeply inadequate, we can borrow some from a friend.

There have been plenty of times when my faith was not enough. I had to look beyond my own hiccups and draw deeply from the reservoirs of a friend. My mentor, pastor, and close friend Mark is a continuing source of this for me.

Mark likes to joke that he is Iron Man because he has a mechanical heart valve. I’ve never done it, because I don’t make a habit of putting my ear to grown men’s chests, but his wife says she can hear it ticking away at home in the silence of the night. Every flicker of Mark’s heart is a faith moment as he trusts in what he can’t see. He’s lived a full life of putting Jesus at the center, loving people well, and leading and serving with great integrity. He is without a doubt one of the greatest men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Mark had been my family’s pastor for a while. He loved us through some big changes in our life. He led us through even more changes. And he helped launch us into our dream of becoming pastors of our own new, growing, and healthy church family. All of it came with a lot of bumps, talks, prayers, conversations, and confidence. His faith muscle is even bigger than his biceps (which are gigantic). I know when my faith is flickering I can borrow some from him.

There was a guy like this in the Bible who met Jesus one day. He needed help. He needed a miracle. Jesus asked him if he believed and he said, “Yes! But help me with my unbelief.”

This guy’s story demonstrates what way too many people are being silent about in their own faith journey. We’ve spent years communicating (intentionally or otherwise) you can’t experience both faith and doubt at the same time. I’m not buying it. The faith in our life flexes so much more when there’s uncertainty to face down first.

Ethan’s first breaths weren’t the normal baby breaths doctors expect to be greeted by. There was something much different about them. Something alarming to the people who know what to look for.

So, after a moment of celebration and wonder the well-meaning doctor pulled our son from my wife’s arms and whisked him away to another room. Suddenly, here at the end of an already long and emotional day we found the depth of raw emotions butting up against our years of working faith. We prayed. People we love prayed. Friends, family, and our church prayed. Heaven was on the receiving end of a barrage of people flexing together. The culminating trust of so many echoed big along those hallowed corridors.

Part of me wonders if those who went home before us jumped in to lend their faith as they heard the echoes pass them by. It might sound like wonky theology, but I can just imagine Grandma and Grandpa King picking up the clarion call as they mustered their faith from their remarkable perspective. Jamie said it best from the midst of her confused and longing heart, “I want my Ethan.” Love wants what love wants. It wasn’t just a cry of desperation. It was a statement of faith echoing across eternity as it was repeated in the mouths of praying loved ones.

Ethan’s birth was the culmination of something hard to articulate in a few paragraphs. The sudden alarm for his well-being was something altogether different. As the combined prayers of the many continued in petition of our Heavenly Father the strange breathing normalized. Ethan was returned to mommy’s embrace.

Just like that God showed me how good the experience of our faith at work can be. He didn’t show it to me once. He didn’t even show it to me twice. He showed me twice in the same day.

Faith flexed the moment Ethan was born. It was the bright miracle of a new life entering this world for all to see. It was the holy awe of what it feels like to love a living creation of your own soul. Faith also made itself known as the alarming moments of misunderstanding fell away before complete trust in our amazing Father.

Faith is practiced. It is work. It is art. It is a muscle we hone, and it is also a miracle. The miracle of faith isn’t only a progression of movement between moments, it is also a sublime experience of the miraculous in the moment.

There will be plenty of moments throughout our lives when we must lean deeply into faith in the private spaces of our day-to-day decisions. There will also be those penultimate circumstances when a loved one, friend, neighbor, or son needs us and our faith.

Our faith is a beautiful thing when it stands on its own—trusting Jesus like the guy in the story I mentioned. Our faith is a glorious thing when it stands together as it did for us the night Ethan was born. Those are amazing moments of holding, helping, and hoping within a community of people all believing and trusting for the same thing. Such a myriad of personalities coming together and bombarding heaven with a joining of faith catches the attention of heaven in an entirely different way.

Faith is the substance of our hope. It is the evidence of what we don’t see. It is the everyday stuff, the working it out stuff, and it is the miracle happening just when we need it most.

There Is A Place Only Love Can Go

Photo by Brandyn Morrow

When I first met Jamie, she was dating someone else, so at first, she was just another girl to me. I don’t mean that to sound ugly, nasty, or misogynistic in any way whatsoever. What I really mean is she was a young woman in a world full of them at a time when I was interested in none of them.

I had been through nothing short of relational disaster two years before. The entire thing had unceremoniously short-circuited most of my future in a way best described as a train wreck. That’s exactly what happened as a result. It left me an emotional wreck.

God had done a big work in me over the preceding months. During that time, I had begun serving college students through an organization that had helped me so much during my early college years. I had learned a lot about giving back and was excited about new adventures taking shape.

One day we took a big group of people to a nearby mountain. It is a great spot where people go to watch the sunrise and sunset. We gathered on the side of the mountain in the light of a setting sun and I played some songs on my guitar for a while. We sang together and shared laughter and stories. It was a lot of fun.

As we got ready to leave, I tripped, and as I pitched forward the full force of my guitar case smashed Jamie right in the top of the head. I felt awful. I had just gone full on caveman on this poor girl I didn’t even know yet. As I walked back to my car feeling forlorn and jerkish this inexplicable thought popped into my head. I will never forget it. “If you ever married her that would make for a really funny story.”

I don’t know what made the thought pop up. Being totally honest here. There were still no romantic feelings between us, but the thought came just the same. And well, we did get married. I’m not sure how funny the story from the mountain actually is. But the strange random thought turned out to be quasi-prophetic musing.

Jamie and I started spending a lot of time together. Not alone or anything. There still wasn’t any romantic interest anywhere on the canvas. But something beautiful happened. We got to know each other in the company of each of our best friends. We would all go out and hangout as one big group. We would run together. We hiked together. We watched movies, went swimming, and did all kinds of things.

This was all happening at a time when a bunch of religious people were making a big deal out of the idea of “group dating”. It was supposed to be this big thing where people who thought they might like each other would go hang out in groups and do things exactly like Jamie and I had been doing. We weren’t trying to do this at all, but over the course of time we got to know each other.

Eventually Jamie and her boyfriend broke up. A while later we were hosting a large group of young college students at the family farm for a weekend getaway. Something clicked in me that weekend. Something I hadn’t paid attention to in a long time. I realized I had feelings for this girl. Maybe the time at my home in the company of so many good friends had emboldened me. Perhaps it was something else entirely, but I decided to invite her to the movies, and she said yes.

The next week or so was kind of a blur. Those moments opened a part of my heart I had written off as unwelcome territory. Places that were a No Man’s Land of emotions I didn’t want to acknowledge or address. Somehow, someway, Jamie gave me the courage to walk into them, and she still does.

When I realized there were legitimate feelings for her I did two things I will never regret. I talked to my friends Heath and Christie, who were also my pastors, about it. Heath high-fived me and said, “go for it.” That night I did maybe one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I sat Jamie down on my front porch and told her every bad thing I had ever done in my life. All of it. I held nothing back. I finished, and she was still sitting there. Just the fact she hadn’t ran away screaming at some of the finer details of my story was a good indicator of just how special she is.

Jamie did, and still does, for me what all amazing women do in the hearts of the men who love them. The potential of her affection drew me into new places. It helped me go to God and find forgiveness and grace for a lot of the old places too. She came into my life during a time when so much of it felt like it was a recovering disaster. Large swathes of the land of my heart were still full of the wreckage and devastation of the previous two years.

It didn’t take me long to love Jamie. In fact, we had only been a real couple for just a few months. One Saturday night we were at a church we had travelled to with some friends of ours. We all enjoyed going to these small churches to share songs and stories to encourage the people. I was just about to walk on stage to lead the small gathering in some singing when I looked over at her and said the three words that always elevate every relationship to new places when they are sincere. I said, “I love you.” I’m pretty sure she was speechless. Or maybe I only remember it that way because about thirty seconds later I was playing my guitar and singing songs in front a few hundred people.

That was the weekend I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this wondrous woman God had put in my path. This amazing person who makes me better on every level. Isn’t it just like God to do that? To take two imperfect people and help them find each other.

There’s a cool story in the Bible about a guy named Boaz and his bride to be Ruth. Like Jamie and I, Boaz was much older than Ruth. Ruth entered his life by means of circumstance and surprise—at a time when Boaz was not really looking for anything romantic. Ruth invited Boaz into the places he almost forgot were inside him. Boaz took care of her. They grew together, and God used their family to fulfill a host of promises.

I often hear religious folks talk about putting God first in our lives, and I understand what they are trying to say. Or at least I think do. They are really saying God should be a priority.

I have never liked or identified with this idea that God is first in that sense. It probably sounds like terrible theology. I don’t know. Maybe it is. None of my degrees are in theology.

I think what God really wants has nothing to do with us segmenting our lives into schizophrenic religious weirdness. He doesn’t want a bunch of people stumbling through their days with a heart beset by a segmented organizational chart, quick to give God top billing, yet not access to any of the rest of them.

I’ve met a lot of people who live this way, and they are almost always incredibly weird. If you think about this for a moment you might realize you’ve known some of these weird people too. If you can’t think of any weird people like that, chances are you’re the weird one.

No, the older I get the more convinced I am God never intended for us to chop our lives into pieces and serve him the first chunk. Because usually what happens is we give him some small insignificant part that helps us sooth our conscience but rarely does much to change the rest. Instead, I am absolutely convinced we find the full goodness of God at work in our lives when he is invited to work in every area of our life.

I don’t know if God makes just one right person for everyone. It sounds romantic and wonderful, but also scary. What if you were supposed to marry Susan, but she chose Bob instead? You would be in trouble. I don’t think it really works like that.

I do however know I’ve gotten it right by God’s grace. I have found his grace in my misgivings and mistakes. Somewhere along the way I happened upon a different kind of grace in the form of a five-foot nine brunette I affectionately call Wonder Woman. I’m reminded of this every time we hear a song from our favorite band Needtobreathe:

 In my heart you'll always know
There is a place only love can go
There is a place only you can go

 There is a place only love can go. God goes there first if you invite him in. This place, the place where love goes, it isn’t solitary confinement. It is the rich part of our soul waiting to be shared with another soul out there somewhere who’s also had the courage to extend God the same invitation.

Not Even A Little Bit

 How much does God want to see you suffer? Not even a little bit.

He is for, beside, around, inside you. A lot. It's his peace that carries you past the point of understanding the incomprehensible. His joy that flexes in the face of the frailty of our fear.

How much does God want to see you fail? Not even a little bit.

His Word is the way that lights up our every possible step. It shines into our every season. His Spirit is the still the small voice that pierces uncertainty and calms the raging of tumultuous emotion. 

How much does God want to see you quit? Not even a little bit.

His hope is our help. His Son is our sure thing. His favor our final word. His Church is our cheerleader. His mission is our motivation.

God wants every bit of who you are to love and lean into him. How much is he willing to leave to you for yourself? Not even a little bit.

Loving People On a Not-So-Lonely Mountain

 I hear crickets. Dogs call to each other across the ridges. A turkey gobbles off in the distance. The huge leaves of the banana tree my hammock is perched in on the side of this mountain rustle with the never ending breeze. After a scorching week in the sun the coolness of the continuous flow of wind borders on miraculous. It has been a week of weeks. Our team has been outstanding. They work and play with an energetic tenacity on par with their vivacious faith. Grace drips from these people like the sweat they have shed for seven days.

We have been to school after school playing with kids, performing skits, praying, speaking, loving. We have visited small churches, in the remote places of the Guatemalan Mountains where our people have preached the love of Jesus. We have given away food. We have built a wall. We have built a road. We've been busy. It's been good.

Busy and good are not always words I like to put together—but accomplishing the work, sharing the good news, and serving my friend Greg's ministry are both. Because busy can be good when it is purpose driven.

As I lay in my hammock staring out across the expanse of darkness at the closest ridge I can see the humble twinkle of distant village homes. The places that house the beautiful people of Guatemala.

I can rest full of faith in the one who sent us. I can sleep soundly satisfied in our pursuit of purpose. I never enjoy leaving my family behind—and under different circumstances would probably bring them—but even in my homesickness I can rest in the peace of God.

In Matthew 5:14-16 Jesus declares his followers to be as a shining city on a far dark night. That's our job. To take hope with us. We partner with powerful people of God in needed places. We are Gondor in the midst of Mordor. We are beacons among burdens—and bonfires among chilling darkness.

I have burned in my heart the desire to go to far places and far people because, as A.W. Tozer penned, "if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame."

The 3rd Lament: Hold On To Hope

When I think of Lamentations it's not usually a go-to source for encouraging scripture. But Lamentations 3:19-24 paints an incredible word picture of the beauty of God's love for us. I want to visit this wonderful passage over the next few days in hopes that it will encourage you as much as it has encouraged me.

... there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope... (‭Lamentations‬ ‭3‬:‭19‬ MSG)

Remember this, there is one constant, God loves you. It helped Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet credited for penning the Book of Laments. He went through some really crazy stuff. But he held on to hope.

We go through some crazy stuff too sometimes. To others it might not seem so bad, but for the person experiencing the turmoil it's never a fun to place to be. The wildness of the ride this life throws our way can catch us off guard. It can blast the wind from our lungs, the strength from our hearts, and the opportunity from our fingertips—but it can not change the way God feels about us.

Even our own reckless personal choices can cause tremendous pain and heartache, but they don't affect the way God feels about us. He loves us deeply. And for those of us who choose to recognize that love for what it is, and abide in it, it is our constant.

When life gets shaky we can hold onto Him. We can hold on to hope.

December 25 - The Other Christmas Story (Invading Enemy Territory)

Read: Revelations 12:1-17

She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne (Revelation 12:5 ESV)

Christmas is awesome. By far my favorite holiday. I love the festivities. I love the traditions, and the time with my family. But, more importantly, I love the reason for the season.

The story of Jesus' birth is amazing. Many miraculous events surrounded, and preceded it. But it is so much more than the cutesy candy coated Sunday School story we all know and love so much.

The Christmas Story is a story about invasion. It is the beachhead for the divine campaign to reclaim Creation, redeem humanity, and restore the Kingdom. God had set events in motion to become a man. He would walk the Earth. He would feel dirt beneath his feet and oxygen in his lungs. He would work, sweat, eat, love, and even die.

The Apostle John had a unique relationship with Jesus. He was almost like Jesus' kid brother. And he lived long after the rest of the disciples. Having been exiled after surviving several attempted executions, John was visited at his island prison by Jesus. The Holy Spirit worked in John and granted to him a supernatural vision full of wondrous things—many of which are nearly impossible for me to comprehend. He wrote them all down in a book that has come to be called The Revelation. It is the last book of the Holy Bible, and it includes a passage that always rings so incredibly for me at Christmas time.

Jesus was born into tumultuous human times, but it was happening alongside epic supernatural events. Jesus invaded enemy territory. He stepped into death and brought life. He stepped into defeat and brought victory.

I like the Christmas Carols. Silent Night and Joy to the World are beautiful songs. But I imagine that first Christmas to be something more like D-Day than the latest Christmas Special. And all these centuries later, Jesus is still invading enemy territory to restore families, mend hearts, and breathe hope into hopelessness.

Merry Christmas.

The Missing: Light

In the years before laptops, e-readers, and iDevices dominated my technological library, reading most often required possessing actual physical books. I would lie in bed at night snuggled deep in my blankets, with my lamp on, book in hand, consuming the paragraphs, pages, and principles being communicated through the written word. My wife and I are completely different when it comes to our lighting and lamp preferences. I would always point the lamp above my head so that the light might reflect off of the wall and illuminate the object of my concentration, whereas Jamie prefered the light to shine directly on whatever she was reading. Recently we decided to rearrange our bedroom to accommodate the impending birth of our firstborn son. A result of this new arrangement is that my side of the bed is now right next to a window. A window covered by a curtain. A window covered by a curtain that doesn't reflect light very well. I found this out firsthand tonight as I crawled into bed with an old book I've been revisiting. It was too hard to read in that light, and considering earlier in the night I had spent a significant amount of time in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, thoughts of light were fresh on my heart and mind.

And it hit me. Not for the first time. That a lot of what we're missing in our "modern" worship gatherings is light. The Light. Capital L. The kind of Light that John writes so beautifully about in that first chapter. The same John which the authors of the other gospels label as the "disciple whom Jesus loved." The same John which wrote three incredible epistles. The same John God chose to author the Book of Revelations.

John, above every other human author of scripture is uniquely qualified to describe Christ as the Light. We know light as this miraculous wave of energy which radiates from a high energy source and reflects off of stuff, and is then interpreted by our eyes, and processed into what we see. John knew light as the Light. He knew him by name, Jesus, by the sound of his laugh, the heft of his handshake, and the depth of his incredible love for the wayward and marginalized. He witnessed his wisdom, marveled at his miracles, and basked in his presence. For us light is a description of electromagnetic energy whereby we see, but for John Light is a description of his friend, teacher, Savior, and God. We see via the reflection of light. John saw via the experience of Light.

I can't help but feel like a lot of what is going on in many churches today, or at the very least, many of the ones I have attended, is way too similar to me trying to read by the poor reflection of my little lamp shining upon the curtain. We need more of the Light, and less of our feebly manufactured substitute. We need to be a people of the Light, living in Light, shining forth the incredible love and truth of Christ to the darkness around us.

The best and easiest way for us to become that kind of people and for our churches to change into launching points for light bearers instead of bomb shelters where we attempt to hide from darkness, is for us to experience the Light for ourselves. Not a manipulative, crocodile tear inducing, guilt driven experience that happens around the front of a sanctuary after someone gives a stirring (or not so stirring) oration; but a day-by-day exposure to the absolute truth, person, power, and love of Christ. Miracles can happen in a moment, but disciples take time. John knew the Light because the Light was the Word and the Word became Flesh. John loved and lived in the context of Christian community with Christ.

We need a return to Christ-centered discipleship that offers a context of authentic Christian community. We need to see the Light of God, experience the light of God, and be the Light of God for those around us; anything less is unacceptable.