Find Your Johnsonville

To put down thoughts regarding our mission trip to Liberia resembles telling people of a great painting by only showing them one square inch of that painting. But words and stories are all I have to hopefully inspire and drum up more interest in what God is doing in Liberia. It is in this feeble attempt to express what God did that I hope His Spirit intermingles with our souls and brings vitality and passion where our souls too often slumber.

I'm going to deal with the biggest achievement of the trip. But in doing this, I realize that God often turns what we thought was an insignificant moment into the most significant event, while the things we thought were great and amazing become a passing footnote to our lives.

Don Winters (left) and John Bennett (right)

Last year, our small Hope 2 Liberia team of four people, traveled to the Heart of Grace school in Lower Johnsonville, outside of the capital city of Monrovia. What we saw there was amazing. This place was different. It was kept up. It was clean. We are part of Hope 2 Liberia, but this place, on the outskirts of Monrovia, was really a place of hope for Liberia. Something was happening here. It was a city on a hill. It was a beacon of hope in the darkness.

But there was also a great problem. A problem we wouldn't have known about except for a random, divine encounter in the airport that eventually led us to Heart of Grace. The school and the surrounding community lacked water. The school had been given a well by a Rotary Club out of Lafayette, Louisianna, but the well had dried up. A man in the neighborhood had spent days hand digging a new well, only to never hit water. The only water they could get was down a steep cliffside. A journey they would make every day, bucket after bucket, because water is life.  

So we saw the situation, but we did not have the pumps and equipment to do something incredible. I remember the feeling in that small group that something would be done. And one of our group members, Jon Bennett, said, "I'm going to come back here and fix this problem." So he went home, 5,000 miles away from Lower Johnsonville and the Heart of Grace school, but that community stayed on his heart. He worked out a plan. His passion to help Johnsonville and his commitment to work hard to meet the needs of those who did not have the ability to meet their own needs, combined with the engineering know-how of John Pierce, brought eventual change. As you are reading this, someone from the community in Lower Johnsonville is probably filling her bucket with safe, purified water. Water that was unsafe to drink at the bottom of the cliff, that traveled through lines laid, and was filtered prior to reaching a spigot at the top of the hill.

Eric Wowoh

Eric Wowoh, a Liberian, founder of the Heart of Grace school, the executive director of Change Agent Network, and a servant of God of the sort I have never before encountered had this to say:

"We now have plenty of water flowing through our school and community here in City View, Lower Johnsonville. Water has always been a major problem for us in this community, especially during the dry season or summer months. We have never had a public system for running water, which has meant everyone had to travel many miles for their water.  In our case, this has meant walking up and down a very challenging, rocky hill to get to a well. Heavily pregnant mothers journeying up and down to fetch water each day has been very normal since people have lived here."

"This is now history as God sent twenty-four members of the Hope 2 Liberia team to help bring an abundance of fresh, safe, clean drinking water to the thirsty in this 17,000 strong community of Lower Johnsonville, including all of the students and staff that use our school, the Heart of Grace."

"Thanks for your continual support and prayers! We are very grateful to all who have helped. This is a huge moment for us - real development and real change. Water is, indeed, life. May God water and refresh your life as you have helped to water the lives of others in such need."

All of this challenges me. And I hope it challenges you. All too often we see the world off kilter from what God has designed it to be, but we just turn a blind eye and unleash our apathy. We say it's a fallen world and things will be this way until Jesus returns. But those teachings weren't given to us so that we could be complacent. They are an acknowledgment that we will always have a mission to accomplish.

People from the Johnsonville community
waiting in line for water.

But do you see what happened here? Thousands of people now have clean drinking water because of the passion of one man. John Bennett - not a pastor, not a plumber, not an engineer - founder and owner of Cool Cayenne Authentic Printed Shirt Co. in Muncie, Indiana. He made a difference. He would be the first to say that he couldn't have done it by himself, but what is happening in Johnsonville right now, as we sit in the comfort of our own homes, wouldn't have been accomplished without his faithfulness to Jesus. When John stands before Jesus and Jesus says, "I was thirsty and you gave me a drink." John will humbly say, "When did I see you thirsty? When did I give you a drink?" And Jesus will say, "Johnsonville."

May we each find our Johnsonvilles. May we each strive to make a difference. Instead of pretending we don't have to do anything and that God's plan will magically get done, may we take seriously God's call to be His hands and feet. We have to get busy being faithful. We are surrounded by the hungry, the thirsty, the immigrant, the naked, the sick, and imprisoned. And in loving them, we love Jesus. Let's love Jesus. Let's love our fellow man.

Bad Thoughts - Theology That Leads Us Astray

I hate the phrase, "Well, if it is God's will, it will happen." A phrase like that would mean that the growth of Islam was God's will. Mormonism, God's will. Constant war, God's will. The shootings in Connecticut, God's will. The list could go on and on. How asinine. Saying that what has happened and what is happening is God's will ignores the Bible, ignores our reality, and is really a device that will cause us to ignore God.

Two weeks ago, Tim Tebow, who was signed by the New York Jets in the offseason, was leapfrogged for the starting quarterback job. He had been waiting behind Mark Sanchez all year to get a start. The coach decided to not start Sanchez, but he also decided to start the third-stringer instead of Tebow. So Tebow is still the backup. Unfortunately for him, he became the backup to the guy who was his backup.

Tebow said, "I don't have regrets. I believe everything happens for a reason, and it's a learning opportunity for me and there's a lot I've learned, good and bad."

"Everything happens for a reason." That sounds all good and spiritual. It's nice that he has a good attitude, but the bad theology drives me nuts. True, everything happens for a reason, but when that is uttered in spiritual circles it usually implies that everything happens as a result of God. He's the "reason" they are implying. Lots of things happen due to reasons that are terrible. A kid gets killed in a drunk driving accident, not because God wanted that, but because we live in a fallen world and a person decided to be stupid, drink too much, and decide to drive. Kids get shot in a school, not because God wanted that, but, again, because we live in a fallen world and something went terribly wrong in a young man's head. God is not a puppet master, and we are not His puppets. God will use everything for His glory, but that does not mean that everything happens as a result of a God reason. Every day, things happen that are not what God wants to happen. Outside of His will. Outside of His plan.

I want to propose another phrase today. It's not as catchy as "everything happens for a reason" or "if it's God's will, it will happen," but it contains more truth than those two statements. "If God wills it, then we need to join in and make it happen. Or it won't." He is the solution. He has a plan for humanity and each one of our lives. But we, the church and His people, are the delivery method of that solution and are given the privilege to bring his plan into our reality.

We are free will beings. Just like the coach of the Jets could have chosen to start Tebow. Just like a drunk driver could have chosen to call a taxi. Just like the shooter could have chosen to not be a monster. They weren't being micromanaged by God. He's not in the micromanagement business. Well, at least not all of the time. He's in the prompting business.

We need to be careful to never let those words - that "everything happens for a reason" or " if it's God's will, it will happen" - ever exit our mouths or control the way we live. Try not to even think them. Those thoughts disempower. They belittle our importance as free will beings. They cripple our prayer lives. They stifle evangelism.

God doesn't need us to be puppets for Him to be great. He's already great. He's amazing in the way that He is patient and waits for faithful followers to bring about His will. And we don't need to be forced to be faithful. We need grace to be right with God; our own works cannot do that. But that grace is available to everyone. Each one of us needs to acknowledge that God knows the solution, the best plan for our lives, and He is waiting for us to be faithful. We have the choice to respond to His plan for our lives by surrendering to His will, loving Him, and loving others. God will use everything to bring about His will. But He is patient. If God wills it, then we need to join in and make it happen. Or it won't.

God knows our passions and our desires. He didn't create us to be a puppets, but to listen to Him and be a doer of His will. I once talked with a friend who is a talented artist and involved in church. I asked him, "So have you ever used your art skills for your church?" And he had never thought about it. That broke my heart. Somewhere we strayed off course and designed a church that didn't have room for each individual's creativity, passions, and dreams. Molded into bringing glory to God, of course. Every gift, every blessing, every talent is an opportunity to be used by God. Don't let the thought that you are a puppet prevent you from dreaming and doing what is on your heart from God. You aren't a puppet. You are a loved creation that has been blessed with passions and abilities.

If God wills it, then we need to join in and make it happen. Or it won't. And I don't want to live in a family, a community, a church, or a world where His will isn't happening. It starts with us. In the morning, when we rise, do we decide that we are going to live this day to bring about God's plan or are we going to spend investing in a plan that will eventually turn to dust, our plan. The choice is ours.

It’s God’s Fault

Have you ever noticed the tendency that we have to blame God when bad things happen?

Now that is not to say that He is not partly liable. He is God after all. If he can turn water into wine, protect Daniel in the lion’s den, or part the Red Sea, then He is powerful. And if He has the power to stop a tragedy yet allows it, then we cannot just say that He is not partly responsible.

If we did not want to lay the blame at His feet, we would have to say that He is not all-powerful. But if God is not all powerful, then is He really God? Or we could say that He doesn’t care. But if He doesn’t care, then is He loving? We could just say that we live in a fallen world and that the tragedy around us is just the consequences of the fallen state of everything. But then why does God intervene and do miracles at some times and not others?

Imagine that you were walking down the sidewalk and saw a toddler playing in the road. You looked around and did not see the kid’s mom or dad anywhere. Further down the road, you saw a semi-truck going full speed. You had plenty of time to safely get the toddler out of the road and to safety, yet you also know that the semi would not be able to stop in time to avoid hitting the kid. So you decided, despite having the power to stop the situation, to just stand there and enjoy the gory show. Would you be at fault for that kid’s death? Is God at fault for the suffering in the world?

Yet we read in the writings of John, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” [1 John 4:7-8 (ESV)].

How can we reconcile all the pain in our lives and the suffering in the world with a God who is loving? How do we watch footage of the Japanese tsunami destroying house after house and still say that God is loving? How do we see starving children in Africa and say that God is loving? How do we deal with the personal pain of the death of a loved one and say that God is still loving?

Often, we don’t. We ignore the question. As if by ignoring the difficult dilemma, everything will be the way it was before the disaster or tragedy struck. We continue to go through the religious motions, saying all of the right religious sayings while inside we no longer truly believe that God is good. Oh, we continue to give lip service to that religious supposition, but, deep inside, we have stopped believing it. The idea that God is good has just become an intellectual concept that we utter without meaning while ignoring the life changing impact that truly believing it can have on our lives.

Other times, we don’t ignore the question but conclude that the best course of action is to hate God or pretend that the God we blame for causing our tragedy does not exist. After all, if God is powerful even to stop tragedies yet allows them to happen, we know that he shares responsibility. Maybe not direct, but at least indirect. What can we conclude about a God who allows tragedies to happen all around him - tragedies of the worst kind - yet has the power to stop them?

Maybe we are looking at it all wrong. Are we being bamboozled by the physical while ignoring the spiritual underpinnings to everything that goes on around us? Could tragedy, suffering, and pain actually be good for us?

God is working out things behind the scenes that we cannot see. When we ask why God intervenes some times and does not at other times – even if we were given the answers, we would not be satisfied. No answer could ever make me happy with some of the tragedies in my life, and I am sure the same could be said for some of the tragedies in yours.

What are we going to do when tragedy strikes? Are we going to ignore that the bad happened? Are we going to distance ourselves from God? Are we going to justify away how God does not hold any responsibility? Or are we going to totally give ourselves over to God, seek His will and plan, and allow Him to work the terrible situations toward good through us? The choice is ours. We can try to change our perspective.

Viewing Our Sorrow and Sadness Differently - The Story of Thomas Nast and a Landscape Painting

The famous Thomas Nast, so famous that we no longer know him over a hundred years after his death, lives on in the creations he made.  He gave us what we think of as Santa Claus (jolly, fat, red outfit with white trim, and fluffy white beard), the Republican elephant, the Democratic Donkey, and the goatee of Uncle Sam.

At a public exhibition, he awed a crowd with his drawing skills.  He took a landscape canvas, approximately six feet long by two feet wide, and placed it horizontally upon an easel before his audience.  On it he worked from left to write and rapidly painted a landscape.  In quick succession appeared green meadows, with cattle, fields of grain, the farmhouse and surrounding buildings, with orchard near, while over all the bright sky, with fleecy clouds, seemed to pour heaven’s benediction upon the scene below.  At the time, and for some still, it was a scene of all that the human flesh desires, a house on a piece of farmland flourishing in bounty.

When he reached the end on the right side of the canvas, Nast did not need to touch up anything. The artist held his brush, stepped aside to show the crowd his work, and received a hearty applause from the amazed audience.

At the end of the ovation, Mr. Nast stepped back to the canvas.  He apparently was not done.
Taking darker colors, he applied them most recklessly to the canvas. Out went the bright sky. “Did you ever see a picture like this?” he asked, as he blotted out meadows, fields, orchards, and buildings. Up, down, and across passed the artist’s hand, until the landscape was totally obliterated, and nothing but what appeared to just be a glob of colors, such as a child might make, remained.

Then, with a more satisfied look, he stepped aside, laying down his brushes, as if to say, “It is finished.”
No applause came from the perplexed audience as they did not know how to respond to Nast ruining his beautiful picture in front of them.  Nast then ordered the stage attendants to place an elaborate frame around the ruined work of art and to turn it to a vertical position. The mystery was revealed.  Before the audience stood a painting of a beautiful waterfall, the water plunging over a precipice of dark rock, skirted with trees and lush vegetation. It is needless to say that the audience burst into rounds of applause.

And in our lives a greater Artist is at work. We paint our landscapes. How beautiful we make them! All manner of earthly prosperity, with bright skies above. We imagine our sketching perfect, but an unseen Hand finishes more grandly our crude designs.

Houses and yards, cars and material goods, disappear. Yes, our portrait of loved faces is blotted out. We cry, “Hold, hold!  Stop, please Stop!” but the Hand that applies the darker colors moves relentlessly on. We weep and mourn over our ruined paintings because we have not the true angle of vision.

At last God turns the canvas, and there appears a work not for time but for eternity.

While Mr. Nast was spoiling the landscape to produce the falls, he might have echoed the words of Jesus to his disciples to the mystified audience, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand” John 13:7 (ESV).  What puzzled the audience was plain to Nast. In each destructive stroke upon the landscape painting he saw a stroke creating a new painting; and what might appear strange and troubling to us, is most clear to Him who desires to save us from being “conformed to this world,” and will help us be transformed by the renewal of our minds, that we “may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” Romans 12:1-2 (ESV).

**

This story, The Ruined Painting, is from Signs of the Times, February 7, 1895; via November 2005 Signs of the Times E-mail Newsletter.  I found it here.  I could not find the painting described, so I cannot even verify if the story is true.  But the point is true nonetheless.  I took liberty in modernizing the language, adding, and removing sentences.

Jim Wallis on the Republican Party, Health Care, and God's Will

A few excerpts from Jim Wallis' recent post.

 Let’s Get Theological on Health Care and Warfare

"The tax cuts that George Bush pushed through the Congress overwhelming benefited the richest people in America....But many Americans haven’t really calculated that the cost of those tax cuts for the rich was literally twice what health care reform is projected to cost. Twice. Yet, there was not even a mention from Republicans, then or now, about the fiscal cost of such enormous tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America...How does that square with the biblical emphasis on the priority of the poor? There is simply no way to justify the habitual behavior of the current Republican party’s clear preference for the rich over everybody else."

 "The largest single government discretionary expense is for the military, for fighting wars. Military spending is also, historically, the most wasteful form of government spending with cost overruns, fiscal abuse, political corruption, and shameful pork barrel interests all standard operating procedures. So why is there a continual refusal from Republicans to apply their concerns about waste, fraud, and abuse about government expenditures to those expenditures? How does that square with the biblical call to peacemaking and the Christian doctrine that is, at least, suspicious of war as the answer to the problems of human conflict, which should either be outright rejected or very reluctantly accepted as an absolute last resort. There is simply no possible biblical mandate for giving the military a blank check as the current Republicans almost always do now."

 "Certainly, there are different and legitimate points of view among Christians and others about how best to fix the broken health care system, and there is no theological mandate supporting only one set of policy options. But the Republican alternative ideas for health care reform would cover only three million more people, unlike the President’s plan which covers ten times that many—30 million people. Again, how is that justifiable from a Christian perspective?"

"But the Republicans are not being truthful here. They are not really against government spending and for fiscal responsibility. They simply think the government should in its tax, spending, and regulatory policies do all it can to benefit the rich, over low- and middle-income people, and to uncritically support the business of war. Again, there is just no way to theologically defend that commitment. Sorry. I am making that as a theological statement and not just as a politically partisan one. Anyone care to provide a theological foundation for the Republican policy preferences for the rich and for war? I would really like to see it."

Miracles, Mary, Perceptions, Getting Scared, and God's Plan for our Lives

Seeing an angel appear at the foot of my bed and speak to me would be terrifying. I’m a little paranoid and am scared to death of certain things. This year, while mowing, I encountered a garter snake and screamed like a grown man. I was riding my mower, noticed a snake crawling beside me, and screamed at the top of my lungs. I didn’t even know that I was scared of snakes, but I guess I am.

During my freshman year of college, I would go to bed before my roommate, Josh. He would stay up and watch Letterman, Conan O’Brien, or work on homework. I was usually in bed by 11. He had a tendency to leave the door unlocked. One night I woke up from someone tapping me on the shoulder. I rolled over, expecting it to be Josh, and looked to see what he wanted. What I saw was not Josh. Instead, I encountered a big, giant, scary mask staring me in the face and was greeted by a loud, “Boo!” I sat up in my bed and screamed at the top of my lungs. That night the two big 6’10” linemen - that’s the big guy position in football for those who don’t follow football – decided to sneak into all the unlocked rooms and scare people. As I was laying there in my bed, trying to calm my heart beat down, I could hear screams of fellow students previously asleep behind unlocked doors echo down the hallway.

Apparently Jesus’ mother Mary had a similar reaction to Gabriel, for Gabriel’s initial response to Mary was, “Do not be afraid.” Encountering an unexpected person in what is supposed to be a safe place would cause some fear. But Gabriel was there, not to terrify her, but to tell her that she had found favor with God and would be blessed by him.

So what was the big blessing. You know it. Mary, being a virgin who was engaged, would become pregnant. Imagine the conversation between Joseph and Mary. “So Mary, you say that you are pregnant from the Holy Spirit? Sure.” As we see in the book of Matthew, he was going to divorce her over her pregnancy. It took an angel of the Lord to convince him not to. Now, he was left to decide whether Mary had some very good friends talented in special effects or whether the message from the angel was the real thing.

A lot of times, God’s blessings can be viewed either positively or negatively. Here was Mary, pregnant and a virgin. If she had a negative outlook on life, she would have said, “I can’t believe this. It ruins my wedding night. I was saving myself from Joseph, now he won’t even believe me that I am pregnant because I found favor with God. What kind of blessing is this anyway? Now, all my neighbors and friends will also think I’m a slut.” Even after Joseph received the message from an angel, I am sure the neighbors and friends still thought Mary was unfaithful. Who, in their right mind, would believe that God impregnated a woman?

But Mary did. Joseph did. Miracles are seldom seen by others as being miraculous, but those who experience them know what they are. We can sit around, be Mr. or Mrs. Negativity, and condemn all of the great miracles people believe that God has done in their lives. We can say miracles are no longer done because we don’t experience them, but that would be allowing our experience to speak rather than Scripture. A respected professor and minister in the non-instrumental churches of Christ made a comment to me this year: “We have made the mistake of saying miracles were gone with Apostles.” I know Lindsay and I have experienced tremendous blessings from God. The same with the church we are part of. People outside of God would just say that they were coincidences. I am baffled by how many “coincidences” Christians, who are willing to give their lives over to God, experience.

Jesus would be the result of Mary's sacrifice; a sacrifice she would view as a blessing. The king of the long-awaited Kingdom of God would finally come. The Messiah that the Jews had been waiting for and that the world needed. And this blessing would come through Mary, a woman who had her world rocked. She was pregnant before being married, Jesus' arrival would not be painless, and raising him would change her life. But in the process, her sacrificing her own rights allowed the world to be changed. That is an essential characteristic of those who are used by God; they have to be willing to be a sacrifice.

I think Mary’s story tells it best. She sacrificed her plans for her future for the sake of God’s plan for her. When we encounter God and allow him to direct our lives, that is usually what happens. We cannot go on living the way we have always lived if we want to be who God wants us to be. And that is true whether we have been following God our whole life or are just starting to take our first steps. God’s plans will crush our own plans, but that’s okay. When we allow that to happen, our lives, and our world is a better place. We have to realize that. God’s plan for our life is better than our own.

Behavioral Science, Following God, and Sacrifice

Behavioral Science is the study of human behavior and what influences people to make the decisions they make. By understanding what makes people decide how they use their resources and what they do with their time, politicians, economists, marketing experts and their cohorts develop theories which translate into practices to try and mold us into what they want us to be. People usually make decisions based on three prevailing thoughts.

1. Will it help me in the present? We want instant gratification. A better future at the cost of the present is not worth a less comfortable present for a better future.

2.What is the chance of failure or have I experienced failure trying it in the past? Failures outweigh success and prevent many from moving.

3.Will it mean that I have to change? If I have to change, I don’t want to do it.

These prevailing thoughts that typically shape our decision making will cause us to make decisions that will inevitably lead to stagnation and death. And our natural tendencies will be exploited by those who want us to be what they want us to be.

When we make decisions, we need to not ask, “Will it help me in the present? What is the chance of failure? Or will it mean that I have to change?” Instead of letting our human tendencies dictate our decisions, what we need to ask is, “What does God want me to do?” God plans long-term, and sometimes his plan might not coincide with the worldly view of success. I might have to sacrifice today to be who he wants me to be tomorrow to bring about the changes that he wants to bring about. I need to realize that success is intimacy with God rather than bigger toys or more entertainment, although we might be blessed with those things. But we must realize that success will come with failures. We will have setbacks. And to continue to grow into the person that God wants, change is inevitable. We cannot be more of who he wants us to be and remain who we are. Those who do not continue to change their lives are on the way to spiritual death. We are either growing or dying. Life is about consistent change. And God is a God of change.

The Bible is a book of changes. In reading it, we get front row seats to see God attempt to shape people, nations, and churches into who he wants them to be. We see faithful people who follow him. We see villains who refuse his guidance only to follow their own desires. The truly faithful discarded the concerns of the moment, their worries about failure, and the human tendency to be hesitant about change, so that they could become who God wanted them to be.