Live IN the Future, Not for it

We spend our lives trying to get to the good moments. When bad things happen we strive to overcome and repair. It’s often about getting back to our happy places.

Pain is not just inevitable, it’s a guarantee. It’s a promise wrought on by a fallen world desperate to take it all. Where is the hope? There are glimpses here and there, but in its fullness we won’t see it until we have nothing left. Death, for instance, doesn’t cost different things for different people… it’s the same price for all and it simply costs everything. This can be difficult to understand whether we fear our own or lose others we care so much about.

We take nothing with us. Jesus knew this and yet stayed on mission. His task was not to find Joy only to lose it in the end when all is left behind. He didn’t amass wealth or accolades that would be stripped from Him as He passed on. His death was how He returned to the Father and it’s also how He saved us. And so He locked on to that moment and bee-lined straight to it.

No time to waste, no distractions, ‘I’ve got a death to get to’. Why me? Nope he never said those words, ‘why me?’. How silly would it have sounded for the only person equipped to live out his life and death for us to ponder if someone else not capable could take His place… and how ironic as His task was exactly that… to take our place.

You are expertly equipped and placed into your life circumstances unlike any other. Others know pain, but no one knows YOUR pain. Why you? You are the only one who can. You can wallow in regret and pity or you can embrace the inevitable and bee-line through destiny knowing the truth of Jesus.

Life isn’t the relationships we make in this world. It’s not about getting back to the good moments or experiencing the peace and calm… it’s about that mission that takes us from one rocky moment to the next… the ones we were trained for… the ones we have been made and prepared for. And when our mission is complete, it’s not about what we leave behind or are left without… it’s about what is ahead.

Whether we lose children or parents or struggle with illness and debt and loneliness and many other things… it’s never, why me? Why NOT me? Who else could do this? Getting through this moment with eyes on God, thinking eternally… that is exactly what Jesus came and showed us how to do.

COVID, school, jobs, sickness, death, despair, heartache… we have the tools to look up. It’s not about getting back, it’s about getting up. We can stand up and face any day that we give to God. Not through our strength, but with His.

The enemy offers consolation in grief and utter loss. His cure is stagnation. His goal is doubt and confusion. He will whisper that you deserve more, he will dangle sad memories and terrible challenges through your anxiety and frustration. He wins when we give in to ‘why me?’.

It means we have lost sight of the Savior who constantly chanted, ‘it HAS to be me’ while He sacrificed beyond all understanding. You have the power to do the same. His name is Jesus and He gave it to you. You can look the doubt and fears and turmoil square in the eyes and giggle with the faith of being created to be led directly through the storms and into the hope that awaits you.

You can do this. You were made for this. It’s not about the people around you or the weakness within you. It’s not for the stuff or the memories. It’s certainly not for posting and sharing… It’s about getting through while looking up. Eyes on the Father. That is how Jesus did it. That is what we have been prepared for.

We get to live in the future. IN the future. Normally that isn’t possible. You might think I meant to say, “FOR” the future. No. For the future is planning ahead. You exercise today to be buff tomorrow. You study today to be smart tomorrow. That is living “FOR” the future.

Living “IN” the future is being aware of when eternity begins. It’s knowing God who is omniscient (all knowing). It’s doing things today BECAUSE of tomorrow. Crazy things that don’t build you up at all. Sacrificing money and food, or even just being kind to someone that will still hate you after. That is living IN the future. It doesn’t better yours, it betters theirs.

Living IN the future knows the score. It knows how things have already turned out thanks to the death of Jesus Christ. It exclaims, “I’m there!”. I want in on that! I receive the gift of Jesus. And everything I do will be with that gift in mind. It’s not building a better tomorrow, you already have the best tomorrow! It’s accepting and knowing what your tomorrow will be no matter how terrible today seems.

You will be tempted to look out on life and try to get back to some point, some moment, or maybe even some feeling. This is where despair comes from. Trying to get to something that you were never meant for. Try living each moment as though God is leading you through to something fantastic… because if you let Him, He will. The confusion comes from temporary fantastic and eternal awe and amazement. Living IN the future will help discern between the two.

The Three Tombs

If you read your Bibles closely, you might be surprised to know there were 3 tombs that are extremely significant to us.

The first one was the tomb that Joseph owned. In Luke we read that no one was ever laid in this tomb. This tomb was the grave of anticipation. It’s job was to lie in wait completely empty. It’s very purpose is to house the dead, but until Jesus’ mission was complete, it’s aspiration was unfulfilled.

The second tomb is the one Jesus was laid in. This is the tomb of defeat. When Jesus slept here, the world wailed in disappointment. The only thing worse than having a messiah is to get one and then lose Him. Was Jesus simply crazy… or did they kill their only hope? Men’s hearts hurt deeply when this tomb was occupied. Everything was questioned and nothing made sense. How could the man that raised the dead succumb to death himself? This was one of history’s darkest days. Three of them, in fact. Men sobbed, demons cheered, and the great I Am was seemingly buried having not yet fulfilled all of His promises.

The third tomb still exists to this day. It’s the one that the women and the disciples and the soldiers all found open and empty. In it rests neatly folded burial garments. This tomb has many names. Hope! Victory! God lives! This is my favorite tomb, because it’s not just an empty one, but it’s one whose purpose has been fulfilled.

You might be thinking, these are all the same tomb! Please understand, they are each very different from the other. Each could not be without the other and each one gives birth to the next.

We too are three different people. Not at the same time of course, but each one is a possible us. Just like the first tomb, without Jesus, we are empty. We have no purpose other than to hope something somehow happens to us.

Just like the second tomb, if we reject Jesus, or ignore His pleas for too long, He will leave us to lead a life without Him, should we Choose. Of course, we still have Jesus… He doesn’t actually leave. But… rather than keep Him in our hearts, which were prepared for Him, we wrap Him up and seal the door. What makes this tomb the saddest is that, just like the guard at the cross, we don’t realize what we are doing. We think we are ‘living’, but all we are doing is wrapping our Savior in the clothes He is to be buried in… away from our active lives.

The last tomb is by far the most amazing. It sits empty. But not like the first tomb. The first never had anyone lay in it. The third tomb has. It’s purpose is fulfilled. How many bodies don’t need their resting places anymore? How many times can you resell a full burial plot? You can’t. There is no value in an occupied grave. And all the unoccupied graves are waiting on time to fulfill their destinies. But what about this strange anomaly? This one tomb in all of history that both served its purpose and sits open and empty? This is our tomb if we have Jesus. We serve a risen Savior that defeated death. Not just for Himself but for us too.

To reach our full potential we each die to self. Through Jesus we exit the tombs of our past and arise victorious with Him. We leave fear, uncertainty, condemnation and defeat behind and take on hope, peace and love. This third tomb is a crucial part of God’s plan. He planned for His Son to take the tomb so that we could follow and arise. It’s important to remember all three tombs. But of greatest importance is to make sure we fulfill our purpose. To fill that tomb, take on Christ, and exit a new creation.

Three tombs. One who has no Savior at all, one who has a Savior but hides, rejects, or ignores Him, and the last one… the one that lets you enter a sinner and walk out redeemed.

It’s not JUST about remembering Christ. It’s not a story to be told about a man that deserves our respect on Easter. It’s about opening our own tomb doors and leaving dead end lives behind. It’s about emerging with Christ out of the grave and in our hearts where He Has always wanted to be. And it’s about living each day for the one that did this for us.

This day, more than any other, is about where you put your Jesus. have you never met Him? Is he banging on your heart’s door never to be answered? Or have you followed Him to a new life?

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Image by Jeff Jacobs from Pixabay

Roads Vs. Oceans

I feel like many of us have been living in a certain sort of turmoil. The picture that comes to my mind is trying to turn out of a parking lot onto a busy street. You pull up with your blinker on and wait your turn. But the cars keep coming. Not just one or two, or perfectly spaced apart… but as you look in each direction you see an endless line of headlights slowly dimming over the horizon. And the words exasperatedly enter both your mind and your soul… “I’m never getting out of here”

A terrible feeling for sure, but an easy problem structure to have… at least for most. The problems are many… seemingly infinite, but as you likely have experienced, they still only come one or two at a time. And, if we end up patient enough, they pass us by and we can eventually pull out of our ruts and struggles and make our way to the road of our journey.

Some now have a different kind of pain. The picture that comes to my mind is an ocean. Far out into the massive expanse of water, you are treading over unexplored depths. It’s dark, it’s cold, and you can’t see anything in any direction that you look, save the waves that keep bouncing past your face reminding you that your small world just became a tiny piece of hay hidden in a massive needle-stack.

Sharks don’t attack in single file lines, they swarm and circle. There are jelly fish too, and sting rays, eels, piranha’s, whales, and all sorts of other deadly creatures. There are currents, undertows, and storms. But even if nothing actually and physically attacks you… you are getting tired and as you gasp for breath, each time a little more salt water finds it way into your mouth.

Where before, our problems seemed huge and life altering… we can look back now and sense that those were the good ole days. Single file problems in the highway of life that would mildly detour us, but eventually gave way and let us back in our lane. Now we have been dropped in the ocean.

Whizzing though our minds are thoughts of loved ones, travel plans, jobs, bills, food, shelter, civil issues, panic, and the uncertainty of how everyone else’s behavior could change. The store shelves are empty, the news won’t stop with scare tactics and dramatics… and we might just think exasperatedly… “I’m never getting out of this”. We might even long for the days when our terrible problems seem so much simpler now.

What strikes me is how differently Paul prayed. “get me out of this!”… nope. Not him. He said “to live is Christ, to die is gain”. He explained that if he was allowed to keep on living that he would just use his life to continue sharing Jesus with others, and if He died, that He would be with Jesus and his mission would be accomplished.

While I think this would be a great, albeit morbid application here, that isn’t the point I want to make. For Paul, it wasn’t about living or dying because he always lived his life in such a way that it didn’t matter what happened next.

When the roads backed up and he couldn’t make progress… he would, effectively, minister in the parking lot he was stuck in. When the ocean swelled around him and the sharks closed in, He prepared his mind for the eternity he had been living for all along.

There was no, “why me?” or “how come”… it was always, “Lord, I serve you”… even in situations much worse than we see today. And at the crux of it all was what He kept His eyes on. He didn’t see the road, or the cars, or the water, or the fear, or the panic… He just saw Jesus. When eyes are locked on the Savior, you get saved. That doesn’t mean yanked out of problems, but it does mean eternal life with a Savior that defines love and peace.

I’ve always been perplexed by the phrase, “meet your maker”. To most that means death. Paul lived his life every day with his maker… and it was wonderful. David sang in caves while in hiding for his life… he sang about his wonderful, magnificent maker. Jesus, when sacrificing himself for us, was in constant communion with His maker.

What I have learned is that if we meet our maker now… we aren’t afraid to meet him in the end. A relationship with God now, means we understand and even appreciate the end. Forfeiting that relationship now, is what gives so much fear and panic to such a phrase and possibility.

That relationship is hope. It is light in the middle of the struggle. It is peace in the storms of life. It brings balance, courage, and sense into the chaos.

This isn’t about having morbid thoughts of despair today, tomorrow, or even the next few months or years… It’s about acknowledging that men and women who faced such situations didn’t know fear when they knew their maker. This is true for pandemics and it’s true for surgeries and marriages and relationships and jobs. When you know Jesus, you live for Him… and that may not pull you out of the water, but it makes you fearless, content, and able to live strong, proud, and for Him in every situation.

Paul knew, he would either look back one day and see how God lead Him through, or He with be with God soon… either way was a victory for him. And that is how he lived out every day. Every wonderful, God created, Spirit-filled day where he communed with His creator no matter what the Devil came up with for that day. Today we can dread the unknown, or we can meet our Maker. He answers to God, Father, Lord, and many other titles. He wants to know you, He wants to fellowship with you. He wants to restore those who used to know Him…

Speak those words… ‘God, I want to know you!’ Perhaps speak them again if you don’t know Him well. And find where the bravery of Paul came from. Learn what hope means and why fear is trivial in the most extreme circumstances.

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Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Two days, No Hope

For two days we had no hope.

For two days we had no Savior.

For two days our king was gone and the kingdom He promised with Him.

For two days the healer was dead.

For two days there was confusion, weeping, and mourning.

For two days sinners in need of salvation were devastated and lost.

For two days believers hid in fear and quaked with uncertainty.

For two days evil laughed, mocked, and taunted.

For two days our Messiah and Lord was a man in a tomb.

Can you imagine the range of emotions?  Witnessing miracles, hearing stories, laying eyes on this man who is so different.  The heart tugs, the stomach produces butterflies, and you just can’t shake the urge to follow this man.  What He claims is absurd, but what He accomplishes is even crazier.  The dead are rising, the sick are healed, and the powers of the world want to stop Him.  It all lines up and you start to believe.  Not just that He can open blind eyes or get rid of a nasty cough… but that He is who He says He is.

Can you imagine Letting go of logic and letting your heart take over to what you know to be true?  To allow yourself to feel the freedom of FINALLY receiving a just and kind king?  He isn’t corrupt, He isn’t selfish, He isn’t greedy.  He doesn’t desire power and He doesn’t want wealth… your wealth.  Unlike any ruler before Him.  As this becomes your new truth you envision life with grace, peace, and happiness.  You don’t know fully how it will all work out, but you have seen His power.

Who could stop a man that raises the dead?  Who would want to?  You have backed the wrong horse before, but not this time… not with this man.  You sell possessions, you get the family together, you make life changing decisions because that is what followers are called to do.  And just when everything couldn’t be better… it all falls apart.  How could someone with that much power die?  Just like that, He is gone.  For two days, He is dead and buried and in the eyes of man, all that He promised is buried in the dirt with a man, who was either going to be as great as He claimed, but killed before He could do so… or He was just a fraud.

Either way, now your life is in shambles.  You put everything into the promises of this man.  You put your faith and hope in this man.  And you watched them bury this man.  I can’t comprehend the thoughts racing through their minds.  We know they mourned.  We know some were scared and hid.  But how do they come back from that?  He WAS their hope.  Now they have none.

I catch myself living life like this.  Grumpy in traffic, angry at online interactions, furious with horrible customer service.  Bad days at work, kids make bad choices, food tastes bad.  I can choose to make life as frustrating, horrible sounding, and pointless as I want to.  Some days I feel lonely, sad, and like everything in the world is out to get me.  I covet parts of my past while abhorring other parts of it.  I fall in ruts, or sometimes cannonball into them with steadfast determination.  And at the end of the day I just sit back and feel sorry for myself.  Like I have no choice.  Like I have no hope.

On the third day, something happened.  For us, we know the story, but they hadn’t documented it quite yet.  It started as a rustling of guards.  I’m sure there was finger pointing and great defenses laid out as to why it wasn’t their fault.  Then rumors started spreading and dreary eyes started to open.  Rumors turned to sightings and wobbly legs began to stand.   When all the pieces were put together and the full story told there was praise, worship, rejoicing.  Hallelujah!  He arose!  It was all true.  It IS all true.  It will all be true.  Now there is hope again.

From the third day on, there will always be hope.

From the third day on, we have a Savior.

From the third day on, we have a King, a kingdom to look forward to, and salvation to complete the story.

Lets be third day on, Christians.  The evil one celebrated for two days… lets not give him any more than that.  When the lies start to spread and you begin to feel tired, burdened, sad, alone, empty… remember day three.  The stone was rolled away.  The tomb was empty.  The tomb is empty.  The throne is not.  Praise God for day three, let us never again live like our ancestors did in days one and two.  We have the hope.  We have a Savior.  He is coming back.

It’s a New Day!

Something happened last night.  You were sleeping.  Perhaps you were awake and pondering life’s uncertainties?  Maybe you were in the ER waiting for news?  Could you have been driving down the road of despair?  We all were in different places, experiencing a moment of life completely separate and apart from each other.  But it happened all the same.

The sun rose.  Dawn happened.  The light came up and forced back the darkness.  And now each of us… all of us… every last one of us, faces a new day.  Whether you roll out of bed and curl your toes on fresh, clean carpet… or if you stand drenched in rain as an outcast in the world’s gutter… we all get a new day.

What is a new day?  Hope.  Opportunity.  Wounds will scab over.  Spoken words will sting less.  Perspective will settle in.  Deep breaths will draw attention to purpose.  Heads may dare to look up.  It’s a chance to roll up yesterday and mark it forever where it belongs to live… the past.

When your fingers clinch the dirt you can push yourself up knowing that today isn’t a mock-up of anything you have experienced before.  The fresh smell of this new day confirms one thing to each one of us.  Days aren’t templates spit out by machines forcing us to jump from day to day, learning patterns of life and accepting the mold dealt out to us.

No, we know better.  Days are born.  We get to mold them.  And a new day… a fresh day… a morning untainted by yesterday’s mistakes is the best time to realize that we get another chance.  A fresh start.  A new beginning.  We are not bound to yesterday’s mistakes.  We are not condemned to the folly of our youth.

Today, on this new day, we can explode into a life that we cherish.  We can create moments that we love.  We can push forward out of trials and into tried.  Learned from our experiences and ready to conquer.  Today… we can.  We get to.  We have.

Pity is weak.  Regret is banging on the locked door of the past.  Lets take this new day and write out new legacy’s for ourselves.  We can charter in a new era of positive thinking, success, and good memories.

The biggest mistake you could make is to assume this day isn’t yours.  That it isn’t for you.  That you can’t participate, NAY!  Commandeer the day and make it perfect.  Or… you can roll over, close your eyes, and see if maybe another one comes along tomorrow.  It might.  It might not.  Today is at hand.  Grasp it with yours and own it.

Hope, you need it too.

Hope is something that we each have, but yet can’t benefit from all on our own.  It’s like blood.  We have our own, but in emergencies, should we lose it, we can’t replenish our own supply.  We need a transfusion.  Someone else has to provide the blood for us, even though our bodies can make our own.

We all possess hope.  But we all need hope.  The message the world needs to hear is one of hope.  If we all give freely of this gift, we all will prosper in its benefits.

I know too many Christians who spiral into depression or worse because they feel embarrassed over losing hope.  We all NEED hope.  We need to both give and receive.

The message of hope isn’t just for the lost.  It’s for all of us.  And what a wonderful message it is.  If you have hope, I pray you will share it.  If you need hope, I pray you will unashamedly seek it.  It’s far too important to try and live without.

Peace on Earth

Peace on Earth.

For some, that is a wish.  For others it has fairy tale implications.  Some will immediately associate it with Miss America pageantry.

For Christians… we know that it is a responsibility.  We don’t hope for peace while clinching fists and kicking sand every time we witness despair, pain, or injustice.  We bring peace.  We have seen the hope of Jesus Christ and His gifts to us.  And on an earth that is wounded, we bring the peace.  By our actions, our words, or maybe even our silence when appropriate, we usher in the peace of Jesus.

Dear brothers and sisters, don’t let those opportunities get explained away.  Show the peace of Jesus.  Be the peace of Jesus.  Share the peace of Jesus.  While you may not know your role in life, I can tell you one part that is certainly true.  God didn’t intend for you to be a spectator.  Bring peace on earth.  Be the light on the hill.  Be the lamp on the lamp stand.  Pat shoulders.  Listen intently.  Pray.  Love the cranky.  Smile with the disagreeable.  Respect the insane belief systems.

Don your heavenly names and attributes.  God-loved.  Saved.  Christ-example.  Peace-bringer.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. – John 14:27