lamentations 3

--Lamentations 3:1-18

Oooooof, what do you think? How do you respond to something like that?

Hear again to what he says about God….

--made him a prisoner

--refuses to listen

--chased him—tore him to pieces

--shot arrows, broke teeth on a rocks

Is that God? Is that our God?

How would you describe this person? A believer? Someone with strong faith? Or Someone who has confused notions at best of who God is?

Here’s the thing….these words are from the bible. They are written by one of the great men of the bible, the prophet Jeremiah. They are inspired by the same Holy Spirit that gave us John 3:16, and Psalm 23.

Jeremiah wrote these words at an incredibly devastating time in his life.

His homeland had just been invaded and destroyed by the Babylonian Army.

He was walking around what used to be the great city of Jerusalem but now just a pile of rubble.

He was stepping over bodies.

He was watching foreign soldiers desecrate his peoples most sacred places.

He was dirty, he was tired, he was alone, he was sacred. And as he was seeing and feeling all those things, he wrote the Book of Lamentations. Which is where you will find this passage.

It’s my favorite chapter of the bible.

Some folks think it shouldn’t be there. That it doesn’t sound like bible stuff. But this passage has taught me so much about who God is and how we are to approach him.

I love the raw emotion of this passage. You can’t just read it, you’ve got to feel it.

I am one who knows…

I AM ONE WHO KNOWS!!!!!

Jeremiah is hurting and he’s letting everyone know. He’s holding nothing back. This is how I feel right now!!!

Now what Jeremiah says, is wrong, isn’t it?

God doesn’t rub peoples faces in the ground. He doesn’t break peoples teeth on rocks. If Jeremiah wrote this stuff on a theology test he’d fail. This passage is full of bad theology and profound misunderstandings of who God is, but that’s not the point. That’s not the important thing in this passage.

For me, what’s important is God’s reaction to Jeremiah’s rant.

Does God reprimand Jeremiah?

Does he yell at or punish Jeremiah for saying all of those bad, untrue things.

Does he shut him up or sue him for slander? Hi,dad

What did God do?

I’ll tell you what He did. He took those words that Jeremiah said, and he put them in the bible. He chisled them into granite so that every generation, every culture, every person who walked this earth would have the opportunity to read them for themselves.

He memorialized them for eternity. That’s what he did.

Whether you like it or not, Lamentations 3:1-18 is in the bible. And this isn’t the only instance where something like this happens. Unflattering, unaccurate rants about God are all over the psalms. They’re all over the book of Job. You see stuff like this throughout the bible.

God not only allows people to give him the badmouth, but he seems to reward them for it. “I’m gonna take what you said and I’m gonna put it in a book about me and people who live thousands of years after you will read your words and know your story and trust you to be their spiritual father.

Whats the point? Why does God include this, these venomous rants in his bible?

The point of this is that it is OK to be honest to God about what is going on in your heart.

“God, this is how I feel right now. It might not be right. It might not be rosy. It might not be Christian, but it is where I am at. I am not in a good place.”

I think God would rather have that than some smiley faced, cheerleader throwing rose pedals and gold dust when inside they are broken up.

I think a lot of people think they need to chipper and positive because they think that that’s how good, spirit-filled Christians are. That anything less shows lack of faith.

In other words, I’m going to pretend I’m better…..

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a soldier. I found his story remarkable and asked him if I could share it with others. He told me if anything positive could come from it than fine.

He sat in my office, told me that his dad committed suicide when he was 8, his mother drank herself to death 3 years after that, and his brother, his only living relative was killed by a drunk driver when he was 16.

He ended his life story by telling me that right now, he hated God. He said he hated God, but felt guilty about hating God and wanted to know what to do. He said he hated God, but something inside was telling him that God was his last best hope.

So I did two things for this guy.

#1 is that I showed him this passage. We read Lamentations 3 together. I said, “man, I don’t know what you are going through, but Jeremiah seems like he does, and his reaction sounds a lot like yours. It’s ok that you feel that way. That’s where you are at right now. It’s ok that you have questions for God….concerns, even frustrations. Don’t ignore them. Don’t fake it. God can handle it. As a matter of fact, the bible says there is healing in it (Ecclesiastes 7:3).

Your life has been hard. It’s all right to be sad, to be mad, to feel the way you do.

So the first thing I did was show him this passage. To let him know that it was ok to be honest with God.

The second thing I did was show him the rest of this passage (Lamentations 3:19-27)

In the midst of his agony, surrounded by destruction, Jeremiah has a revelation, a close encounter of the divine kind

He’s going off about how bad God has treated him, than he turns on a dime and breaks into perhaps the most beautiful song about the faithfulness of God in the entire bible.

Hope returns when he remembers/when he calls this to mind

Looking at a wall up close….taking a step back

1. where you are is temporary

2. transformation is possible

Rest of the story: temporary—where you are at right not, not where you will be forever

That transformation is possible. Where you are now is just that—where you are now. It’s not where you have to stay. As a matter of fact, God doesn’t want you to stay there. He understands you’ve got anger, he understands you’ve got fear, confusion, hurt, but they were never meant to be life sentences.

Though he puts up with it for a time, God really doesn’t want you thinking that breaks teeth on rocks and rubs faces in the ground.

For Jeremiah the turnaround was a mind thing—his circumstances didn’t miraculously change between verses 20 and 21—nothing changed—except what Jeremiah was focusing on.

Our battlefield is in the mind. When Jeremiah took control of his thought life, its there he found victory---that is where transformation took place.

The devil is so good at convincing, at throwing lies in our ears and (_______) us that things will never get better, that now is all that there is, that no one cares, that we’re all alone, that we’ll die like this.

He’ll take our anger, our hurt and he’ll tell us to make a house and live in it.

But Jeremiah says no. That there’s more to life than that. I might not see it now—but God is in control/this/here/with me.

Standing close to a wall---limited vision/can’t see…this is all that there is

Take a step back—things change, see more…Jeremiah did this and that is where he saw God. That is where things began to change. That, in his own words, is where he rediscovered his hope.

Love v. 22

Faithfulness v. 23

Enough v. 24

This passage is the whole picture.

A God who accepts us where we are---how we are—as we are. We don’t have to lie—don’t have to pretend—GRACE

But at the same time it is a love that doesn’t leave us where it finds us. It desires to bring us to a better place.

from John 1:10-18--Jesus rejected

A few years ago, Keri and I went to a weekend parenting seminar. The title was “Shepherding a Child’s Heart“ and the presenter was Dr. Ted Tripp—expert on Christian parenting, author of tons of books, one of the best in his field. His book, Shepherding a Childs Heart is one of the greatest books on parenting you could read.

We were late in getting to the first session—so as Keri took care of the registration stuff, I tried to find a couple of seats in the sanctuary.

The place was packed, hundreds of people filled the sanctuary. The only place I could find seats was the immediate front row. So I sat there and asked the guy next to me when they were starting. They were running late so we had a couple of minutes.

As I was waiting for Keri, that little guy next to me starting asking me questions—did I come alone, how many kids did I have, was I staying for the whole weekend. This guy had nerd written all over him: he was short, bald, big thick glasses, a thick sweater straight out of the 80’s, and a birthmark that covered the left part of his forehead.

And while I wasn’t exactly rude, I made it clear to him that I was more interested in flagging Keri than I was in becoming his best buddy.

So Keri makes her way to our seat, she’s all sorts of psyched because this is her thing, the pastor steps up to the pulpit and begins introducing the speaker. Author, expert, tv shows, yadda yadda yadda, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters in Christ I present to you Dr. Tedd Tripp.

Who do you think gets up and walks to the pulpit? The bald guy sitting next to me. The guy that I ignored. The guy that I pretty much told to keep quiet. I just sat there for the first 15 minutes saying to myself that I couldn’t believe I just dissed Tedd Tripp.

The thing was, he didn’t look like Tedd Tripp. Or at least how Ted Tripp was supposed to look. He wasn’t tall, scholarly looking, he didn’t have a suit on, and famous authors don’t have birthmarks like that on their faces.

For the next day and a half, he absolutely blew my doors of with some of the best parenting advice you could hear. Yet if I saw the guy on the street, I wouldn’t have given him the time of day.

I could have been Ted’s buddy, but I whiffed because he didn’t meet my criteria of what a famous author should be.

I think a lot of folks, a lot of Christians sit right next to God just like I did with Tedd Tripp, but fail to pay attention or get close because of their idea of who or what God should be.

This is the heart of the gospel lesson I just read. Let’s start at v. 18 and work our way backwards and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

In v. 18 we’re told that Jesus came to earth to reveal who God was

vv. 12-17 tell us what it was about God that Jesus revealed to us…a word you see 4 times in those verses is the word grace, another word you see a lot is the word truth. Jesus came to show us that Lord God almighty is a God of grace and a god of truth. In .vv 12-13 it tells us that Jesus showed us that God was a Father who wanted us as his children.

But then there’s vv. 10-11. V. 11 tells us that Jesus was rejected, people listened, and said “ahhhh, he’s full of garbage”. V. 10 tells us that he was unrecognized, some folks didn’t even bother to listen, they didn’t even give him a chance to share who he was and why he was here.

Jesus came as God in human form to reveal who God was to us. In some ways his mission was a failure. He was rejected and unrecognized by the very people he came to help.

Well what went wrong and how will it impact you in 2011?

Was it Jesus’ fault? Did he just not do a good enough job in revealing God?

Probably not.

Well then was it the people of Israel’s fault? Were the folks back then such space cadets that they were unable to see God when he was standing right in front of them? Maybe. Probably.

But before I poke my finger in somebody’s ribs, I need to remember that I’m not very different than the Jews in Jesus day. We might wear different clothes and speak a different language, but our heart issues are the same and as they failed to see the God sitting next to them we do the same thing today.

John 1 isn’t just an account of a group of people with an epic fail. It’s a snapshot of the heart of man in general.

When it says that the world did not recognize him and his own people did not receive him—that’s talking about us.

What has God placed right before me that I’ve missed because of a preconceived notion of who God is and how he should act.

How have I missed God as he’s tried to reveal himself to me?

What do you think it was? What do you think it was that Jesus revealed about God that caught the folks off guard and caused them to miss out?

Could have been a lot of things—but let’s focus on our passage in John.

The bible says that the word became flesh and dwelt among us and that he was full of grace and truth. Let’s look at those two things.

Jesus revealed a God of grace. A God who would rather redeem than judge—who would rather forgive than punish. Jesus developed a reputation for hanging out with political enemies, moral enemies, and religious enemies. The religious folks in his day wanted a God who would judge the wicked. They wanted a messiah to come and overthrow the godless Romans. They were the good guys. They were the ones who stood for God. And they expected God to come like a body guard, pat them on the back and eliminate all the villains who were making their lives so hard.

A God of justice and vengeance. A God of the law.

V. 17 tells us that this is the God Moses revealed and it’s true. God is a God of justice. And vengeance IS his. But Jesus came to show us that there was more to God than that, than just the law.

Jesus loved the Roman soldiers that treated the Jews so poorly.

He forgave the prostitute and the addict and the corrupt politicians who exploited the Israeli economy.

These things drove the Jews nuts.

Perhaps they did not want to hear about forgiveness and mercy.

Perhaps they wanted a God who would treat the enemy just as they would.

Perhaps I do.

How would I feel if Jesus started hanging out with those folks who’ve hurt me, who’ve left scars on my life?

How would like watching him extend his arms out to those whom I think are monsters?

What if I knew in my heart that I was right?

How great would it be for God to come down and smite the Taliban, smite the drug lords, and smite the New York Yankees?

That’s the visit from God that the Jews expected. And to be honest, there’s a large part of me that expects a similar visit as well.

Sometimes it’s hard to see a God of grace. Oh, I’ll get mine. If it’s me who needs grace, than I’m looking hard for God. Anyone else he’s giving it to…hard to see.

What about a God of truth, who really wants a visit from a God of truth? Maybe a God who tells the truth about my enemies or my competitors-but what about me? Do I really want to come face to face with my hidden motivations, my fears, my weaknesses, my heart?

Some of you might think you’re brave, and you’re saying “yeah, I want that. Show me my fears, my hidden motivations, I want the truth.”

You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!

I’m a good guy. All right I’m a halfway decent guy. Gimme a god who will pat me on the back, tell me I’m doing the right thing and I’m good to go. But that’s not Jesus. And it’s not because he’s the unpleaseable parent. It’s because he cares so much for us.

I’ve heard it said before, Jesus receives us just as we are, that’s the God of grace. But he loves us too much to let us stay there, that’s the God of truth.

There’s a good reason why 12 step programs save the fearless moral inventory until the 4^th step. Cause hearing the truth can be difficult.

Look at this prayer, Psalm 139:23-24. There are a number of what I like to call “I dare you” prayers in the bible. Prayers where God says “I dare you to pray this way…” this is one of them:

²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

--Psalm 139:23-24

What would happen if you really prayed this prayer?

What would happen if God really answered it?

I think of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah had a face to face encounter with God. What do you think the first words out of his mouth were as he looked at the Almighty?

“Wow, he’s so big?”

“Wow, he’s so beautiful?”

No.

How about, “oh my goodness, I’m so dirty”

“Woe is me. For I am a man of unclean lips.”

In looking at God’s purity, his sinfulness was highlighted.

The presence of God served as a mirror for Isaiah, and it wasn’t exactly a pleasant image.

This is what Jesus revealed. To the Jews back then. And to us today.

Grace and truth.

They missed it—missed a God interested in their growth, their healing and wholeness.

But He didn’t look like the God they were looking for.

And as Tedd Tripp reached out to me, God reaches out to us.

I ignored Tedd Tripp because he wasn’t what I thought an author should be.

Jesus was rejected and ignored for similar reasons.

Back then…and today.

I need to stop assuming I have God figured out.

I need to let Jesus tell me who he is.

I need to be humble enough to receive this God of grace…and bold enough to receive this God of truth.

Happy New Year

gonna attach a sermon pretty soon. I think I'm gonna use this as a storage for sermons and such. We'll see. If you are reading this, well, uumm, "Hi!"

suicide training and the NE Patriots

Tomorrow is day two of my ASIST training. ASIST is a suicide intervention program used by the army. I'll be certified to teach it to my battalion leadership. My presenter looked and talked and had the mannerisms of David Letterman. Sometimes I laughed to myself as I imagined Dave doing the presentation. Helped make the day go faster. Doing it all week. At least we get to wear civilian clothes.
What is hard about the training is that it takes me away from my soldiers for a week. I am feeling more and more "part" of the 2nd chemical battalion "red dragons" now. I am beginning to recognize faces and names and am at ease going just about anywhere I want. I have the authority (and expectation) to stick my head in any office and say "hey, hows it going?" Sometimes that leads to a longer conversation, sometimes nothing comes of it. I will say that more than once I've had a significant conversation after fighting the temptation to not go the extra mile or take the easy way out...kinda like, "eh, I don't feel like walking across the field to check on the 44th company, I'll just head back to my office..." This followed by a gentle, but firm feeling of conviction (God speaking). That, sometimes, followed by my obedience. The other day that exact thing happened and when I walked into this particular office I heard, "Chaplain, I'm so glad you are here...."

It was truly a privilege to be there as a young man earnestly asked Jesus to forgive his sin and give him new life. He prayed "the prayer", I prayed after him and at the end got up to give him a high five. He was hesitant, which made me assume the worst, but I had to laugh when he said he had to go back and finish the prayer because he forgot to do the "forgive me of my sins part". I gave him a bible study book on transportation, no transformation ( I was talking to Keri as I was typing) which he went through. He also made an effort to go to church on Sunday. I'd like to connect with him this week but see above about the suicide training.

The Souzas went to a carnival on Saturday night. We had fun, but the days of enjoying rides that spin me around 100mph are slowly fading. I had fun but round 2 of the spider nearly knocked me out.

I'm trying not to think about the Patriots. I was watching it in a deserted bowling alley on post. Some loud, friendly, obnoxious guy who innocently doesnt realize how obnoxious he is came in right as Bill made his fateful decision and made no bones in expressing his opinion. He was especially proud to call Reggie Waynes name before he caught the winning TD.

Spiritual Fitness

Came home an hour early to an empty house. I like the quiet. I can even see out the window and know when the van full of Souza's are heading this way. I have no excuse for dropping a line on the grace blog, so here goes.

Sometimes, often, I come home exhausted--physically and emotionally. I've got enough to be around the family in a meaningful way, but thats it. That is why I've been lax in blogging and calling mom.

Today I counseled a soldier who was absolutely despondent about his likely divorce. I could do nothing to help him. He left my office as miserable as he entered. I felt somewhat useless as I watched him go. Sometimes, often, we need to trust that God is capable enough to handle situations without our help. The soldier had no spiritual background and wasn't open to hearing a sermon with a salvation message. He did allow me to pray over him. This is the second time in two days I've had tough soldiers weep in my office as we prayed together. It makes me believe even more that the presence of the Holy Spirit is strong when we pray.

Next week our battalion goes out for a field exercise. I'll be out there all week camping and learning all about the chemical\biological\nuclear operations that go on in warfare. I'm kinda dreading it and looking forward to it at the same time. I'll be conducting a field service next Wednesday which will include a mini sermon. Looking forward to it. Still in the pray/seek mode, but I might preach on the passage about Jesus, the coin and "render to Caeasar" stay tuned for details.

The Army throws around the term "spiritual fitness" a lot. If the chaplain is gonna be relevant, he needs to figure out what spiritual fitness is and how to implement it into the soldiers lives. I need to find out how God wants ME to do just that.

Here comes the Souza van. From quiet to chaos in 5 seconds. Can't wait to see them.

5-4-3-2-1.........

4 day weekend

One of the fringe benefits of the Army is the 4 day weekends. Every holiday that produces a three day weekend in the civilian world, produces a 4 day weekend in the army--meaning we get Friday and Monday off. I am in the middle of one of those right now. Kinda nice.

Work has been going good, though it sometimes seems like I'm not doing a whole lot. I'll spend a good chunk of every day walking around and visiting soldiers and having small talk. It's all about establishing relationship and letting the troops know that they have a place they can go, even if they don't need to go there at the moment.

One thing I do need to do is to put a list of classes together to at least offer to the company commanders. I will put it out there and let them choose what they think will best help their soldiers. Some things on the list will be high-maintainance relationships, conflict, pornography, love languages (relationship issues are big here), and the morality of killing. I'm not quite ready to teach that class yet, but I feel it is an important issue for soldiers to wrestle with. I'm of the camp that believes that this unresolved issue produces much inner struggle (PTSD) in soldiers as they come home from war.

I also need to plan a marriage retreat and bible study and prayer breakfast. And also services while we are out "in the field" from Nov. 2-6.

Self-disclosure time: I'm kinda nervous about planning all the above. Not because I don't think I can do it or that I'll suck cause I know I won't. I'm nervous about planning something and having bad turnout, like no one showing up. That would seriously bum me out. I'm having flashbacks now........ Whatever, gotta do it anyway.

I preached this morning at the Killeen Salvation Army. I met the head officer this week at the garrison chaplains office and he invited me on the spot. It was a great experience and i was glad to be preaching again. I was rather unfocused and was less than stellar. I actually felt like I did not have a word from the Lord, which probably became evident. I prayed tonight that God would speak to me "like He used to". But now I'm like, was that a good prayer? As my kids grow, I change the way I speak to them. I don't speak to Emily the same way I speak to Ally. Perhaps I'm moving to a different place with God and He's chosing to alter His delivery. I don't know fer sure. What I do know is that I am not studying Gods word the same way I used to as a pastor. I'm reading, but not studying, theres a big difference. God used to speak to me about a passage after I read it 100 times and meditated on it a day or so. Now I'm reading it devotionally and it's not the same...........God is faithful and we are only taking the first steps on this leg of the journey so I'm not overly anxious. By the way, I preached on Moses.

I'm sad because both the sox and pats lost tough games today. Amazing how that can affect your mood. I hope to be able to actually watch a game this year. Itll be a treat.

gotta run, well not really but time to move on for now....

grace & blessings......

notes on the first week

wow, a lot to say...one week of actual chaplain duty under my belt.

In an attempt to be low-key, I'm pretty encouraged. I felt very comfortable counseling the soldiers who came (a lot of marital stuff). I loved the chance to address the soldier formations (I did this twice). I endured the times where I had to just "butt-in" to soldiers hanging out and introduce myself to them.

But overall, I did a good job and have a number of ideas brewing about the future.

One of the cool things was that I was able to lead a soldier to rededicate his life to Christ on my second day there. It was so cool. At the end of the session, I told him that we should pray, but that I wanted him to pray. He was uncomfortable, but I did feel led by the Holy Spirit that this was an appropriate task.

On Friday, I addressed one of the companies before PT. tangent-----I am chaplain of the 2nd chemical battalion. The 2nd Chemical Battalion is about 800 soldiers. The battalion is divided into 7 "companies", all with an identifing number (where the number comes from I dunno): the 13th, the 46th, the 44th, the 172nd, the 181st, and HHD (headquarters). Each company has around 100 soldiers. The companies are divided up into platoons (abut 20 soldiers). And the platoons are divided up into squads. The army pretty much stole John Wesley's class system in organizing their soldiers. (I know thats not true, I can't even believe you thought I was serious..)

So I was addressing the HHD company before PT on Friday morning (6:30AM). tangent--My first day of PT we did a 4 mile run. I was unable to keep up with the main group and ran the last half by myself. The bright side is that I did finish and that I was not the first person to fall out. I'll do better and better as time goes on. On Friday I ran with the C group. We all had to finish together. There was one soldier who was HURTING about 1/4 of the way through and it really slowed us down, almost to a quick walk. So I was able to finish quite easily. The solider toughed it out and did finish, which was a major accomplishment for him cause he was really struggling. I did the chaplian thing after the run and went up and gave him a good pep talk.

So I was addressing the HHD company before PT on Friday morning. It was an opportunity for me to allow the soldiers to see me, more importantly, it gave me an opportunity to set the tome for my ministry among them. My words were very important cause this was to be my first impression. What I said had mixed reviews among the Souza family, but I think was recieved very well by the soldiers (after they got over the shock). I counseled one of the soldiers later on that day and he said he liked it a lot.

Well, ummm, I'm kinda sheepish writing this, but.....on the way to PT that morning, I was NOT even thinking of saying anything but as I was driving I realized that the run this morning was gonna be extra challenging because I did not fully umm, er, uh,....get rid of all my poop before I left. I.e., I was gonna be running while holding it in. I knew that I'd be focusing on that instead of the run and it was gonna effect my overall performance at PT. Than, the Holy Spirit put it all together and told me to share my lesson. We all have stuff that we are holding in...sometimes it is indeed in the stomach (or intestines, or whatever), but sometimes it is in the head or the heart. And we end up focusing on that instead of the mission we have been given. We're less effective and at risk of failing. In the army, failing mission is not an option cause that means people die. I went on to say that the answer can be as simple as "taking a dump" and I invited the soldiers to think of my office as a toilet where they could take take that dump. The soldiers were laughing. My hope was to disarm the soldiers in such a way that they felt comfortable around me. I outrank them all and there is always this distance between officers and soldiers. A good chaplain perfectly balances the line between the two. It's kinda like being in the world and not of it.

At the end of Friday, I did close out formation with the 44st company. I wasn't sure if I broke any rules or not, but I brought my entire family to the motor pool and lined them up before the soldiers. I told them that I bet that many of them thought that we had a perfect, squared away family. After all, my wife and kids are good looking, they seem well behaved and I am the chaplain and the chaplain MUST have everything ideal. I told them that that was not the case at all, and that we had problems and issues. To Keris dismay, I told them that we had a big fight the night before (true) and that there were even times that we had to find someone else to talk to cause we couldnt fix things ourselves. The point was that life is not about being perfect. It was about working on and working out your issues and, if need be, going for help when you needed it. I told them that I was here to serve and help them when they needed it. When I was done they all applauded and a 2lieutenant ran up to me and asked me for my number. It was cool. Then we went out to Mexican food with one of our neighbors. Her husband is currently in Iraq.

Much more I could write, like my dealings with a Wiccan soldier (and a Muslim one too). But I'm going to bed.

.....