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A Reflection

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Paul writes, “Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:] (Philippians 2:5 AMP)

Your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks. This was on a picture in our house growing up and I always thought it was a cute little saying but now realize how deeply scarring it can be when we don’t take it to heart. When we profess with our mouthes our Christianity (our talk) but live in such a way as to denounce Christ (our walk) we reflect a version of Christianity to others that undermines the very reasons that Christ walked this earth. This is destructive behavior in a world that is hungry for something to believe in. These “Christians” are driving a wedge between the world and a loving, merciful God.

Mother Teresa shares this. When our sisters were in Ceylon, a minister of state once told me something very surprising. He said, “You know, Mother, I love Christ but I hate Christians.” So I asked him how that could be. He answered, “Because, Christians do not give us Christ; they do not live their Christian lives to the fullest.” Gandhi said something very similar. “If Christians were to live their Christian lives to the fullest, there would not be one Hindu left in India.”

The fullness of our heart comes out in our actions. This isn’t about being pious and condemning. This isnt about religion and rules. This is about opening our eyes to see as Jesus did and then opening our hearts in love. Jesus says, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ (Matthew 25:40 NLT)

Mother Theresa goes on to say “None of us has the right to condemn anyone. Even when we see people doing bad and we don’t know why they do it. Jesus invites us not to pass judgement. Maybe we are the ones who have helped make them what they are.”

My heart is convicted by this thought. I am challenged not be a stumbling block for others, to live in a consistently loving manner, especially when I don’t feel like it. That is when Christ’s love has the opportunity to shine through.

Jesus Friend of sinners we have strayed so far away
We cut down people in your name but the sword was never ours to swing
Jesus friend of sinners the truth’s become so hard to see
The world is on their way to You but they’re tripping over me
~Casting Crowns, Jesus, Friend of Sinners

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Everything we needed to know we learned from Grandpa in Michigan

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Our family shapes us and molds us. Their fingerprints are on the very fabric of our souls. George Campbell Brotherton was a leader in his family, his church, the community, a successful businessman, but to me and 15 others, he was Grandpa. Three years ago today, he passed away after succumbing to a brain tumor. Today as I stand in northern Michigan a place rich with family memories I want to share him with you.

Michigan was a place that held many precious memories for Grandpa. From family vacations with his own parents when he was boy to his honeymoon with Grandma, loading up the station wagon and camper, taking his children, then grandchildren and great-grandchildren on Michigan adventures, celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary with his wife and children…what Michigan meant to him was magical, indescribable. With grandpa we have camped, boated, and biked our way across most of the state. This legacy is one that he has passed on and now even his great-grandchildren have come to know and love. And so it was, on Saturday night, three years ago, as we neared the cabin in Michigan, that we received the news that Grandpa was gone. His chains of illness no longer bound him. He had been set free and he was home with his Lord, and Savior. Walking into the cabin that night I was surrounded by reminders him, his voice in my head, and his things just as he had left them, blissfully unaware the year before.

Grandpa taught us, his family and his friends so many things. The following are some of those lessons.

Everything we needed to know we learned from Grandpa in Michigan.
Family matters.
Nothing made Grandpa happier than having his family around him.

Share everything.
His cabin in Michigan served as a vacation spot for many families and he loved being able to share this spot. He felt it a privilege to be able share this place.

Appreciate the finer things in life…like a good meal.

Work hard and play hard.
Grandpa was a hard worker and a perfectionist. Growing up with very little he understood early in life the value of a hard days labor and made sure each of us understood that as well. He also understood the importance of rest and took time to enjoy the fruits of his labor, be it boating, camping, or relaxing on the back porch of the cabin.

Take risks.
It was only last year (now an unbelievable four years ago,) at 79 years old that Grandpa was in a kayak battling the Sturgeon River and playing tour guide.

Compete.
Everything in life is a competition, mealtime is no exception. And along those lines, always pick the fastest go-kart and show no mercy.

Plan ahead, as in dinner.

If its worth doing, its worth doing well.
Grandpa spent countless hours sanding the back porch of the cabin and then applied at least 7 coats of sealant. If one if good, 7 is better.

Take good care of your stuff.

Ivory soap floats.
You will never feel as refreshed or sleep as well as you do after a night swim in Lake Michigan and Grandpa always remembered the soap.

Enjoy a good laugh, even if it’s at yourself.
Try as hard as he might Grandpa wasn’t always the smoothest. Once he welcomed a new cabin visitor to his “humble commode” and on New Year’s Eve just as the ball was beginning to drop he decided to change the channel and find better reception. Needless to say, the group huddled around the tv missed the entire thing. He always enjoyed a laugh afterwards though. Grandpa was also the victim of a practical joke or two. As easy as he was to rile up it was often difficult to pass on the opportunity to stir things up. Whether it was a spoon with fake melted ice cream left on his prized piano or a geo-cache with the cache actually hidden by his barn, he was always a good sport about being on the receiving end of a joke or two.

Finally, the greatest lesson is this. Be strong in your beliefs and don’t apologize for them. Grandpa’s faith was fiery and he shared it with anyone, any chance he got. You never know when something you have shared will make an impact on someone. It may be years later but it’s important to plant a seed. It’s okay to be afraid but hold fast to your faith. Know that God’s hand is in everything and when the waves of life come crashing down, we may not understand why but we know that God is in control and He has a purpose and a plan.

A remarkable man, a remarkable legacy…

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Heaven stands

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imageI have unanswered prayers
I have trouble I wish wasn’t there
And I have asked a thousand ways
That You would take my pain away

When my world is shaking
Heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave Your hands

I do have unanswered prayers and I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed that God would take the pain, physical and mental away. But what a comfort to know that heaven, God and a host of angels, are standing for us, behind us, beside us, as our world is shaking. And even more, to know that when it does shake and our heart is broken in the process God never let’s us go.

George MacDonald says “Trusting even when it appears you have been forsaken; praying when it seems you words are simply entering a vast expanse where no one hears and no voice answers; believing that God’s love is complete and that He is aware of your circumstances, even when your world seems to grind on as if setting its own direction and not caring for life or moving one inch in response to your petitions; desiring only what God’s hands have planned for you; waiting patiently while seemingly starving to death, with your only fear being that your faith might fail – “this is the victory that has overcome the world“; this is genuine faith indeed.”

Have you been there, feeling forsaken and unheard? Are you in the place where you faith is thin and if it fails, you know with certainty that you will crumble under the weight of all that you carry? I understand, I have been there. As I faced a future with Takayasu’s Arteritus I was afraid, and I prayed over and over that God would rescue me and He did. Maybe not in the way that I thought He would or should but He has given me more strength, more sanity, more of Him, than I ever had before I was sick and I wouldn’t trade any of that for the busy that I had before. I have come to a place where unanswered prayers begin to take on a different meaning, a place where I can begin to see the good in Romans 8:28. (Read When The Last Thing You Need…)

This is where heaven stands…

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More than a Sunday morning Christian

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20130721-095555.jpgI need a Christianity that is more than Sunday morning pomp and circumstance.  My desire is for a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday love, real grace and mercy for when we need it most.  I believe this is what the world is looking for as well. The challenge is to be more, to live a real Christian life. The Word of God is unchanging, immovable, the same today as it was yesterday and it will remain just as rock solid tomorrow.  God is not swayed by the changing social culture, the current president, or the wayward winter winds that blow.  But it’s easier and less confrontational to just go with the flow.

John Piper explains it this way. “…it’s the lack of a sense of desperation for God that is so deadly. If we don’t feel desperate for God, we don’t tend to cry out to him. Love for this present world sets in subtly, like a spiritual leprosy, damaging spiritual nerve endings so that we don’t feel the erosion and decay happening until it’s too late.”

“This environment can be deadly to faith. It allows false faith to masquerade as real faith very easily. And its power to dissipate zeal and energy and mission-focus and willingness to risk is extraordinary because it doesn’t come to us with a whip and a threat. It comes to us with a pillow and a promise of comfort for us and our children. The former makes us desperate for God. The latter robs our sense of desperation.”

It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away
It’s a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away
People never crumble in a day
(Casting Crowns, Slow Fade)

Welcome to Sunday morning Christianity. Aren’t we called to be more?

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

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What does a miracle look like?

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20130716-074832.jpgJust after being diagnosed with Takayasu’s Arteritus, I kept telling everyone that I felt like I was awake for the first time in a long time.  Why?  My Christianity was in hibernation, only to be awakened in crisis. I have learned that if we don’t use our “faith muscles” everyday they will be sluggish and sleepy when we need them. We will have to dust off our Christianity like a long-forgotten tool and hope that we remember how to use it and pray that it
will “start on the first pull.” I see so many people in the same place that I just was and want to scream at them to wake up! I have come to think of the Holy Spirit as caffeine for a drowsy spiritual life. Today, I am living my life steeped in God’s word and close communion with Him. But it’s only because it took a crisis to wake me up.   The problem that I know I struggle with is that I get too easily complacent and self-sufficient. It becomes a slow fade from utter dependence to “Oh yeah, hey God I could use you today.”
Let me break down my walls of pride and tell you that God isn’t interested in my eloquence as a speaker or a writer. He is only interested in my surrendered life. I am no good to Him, my message holds no weight, unless He, and He alone, is the author of it. And if I am brutally honest, with myself as well as the rest of you, without a diagnosis of Takayasu’s Arteritus, and the continuation of battling an incurable disease (which means no miracle) my pride and self-sufficiency would still be running my life. And my fear is that with a miracle, those worldly crutches would begin to eventually, over time, creep back in to their supreme position.
Life hurts sometimes, no doubt about it. When it does I have learned that I need to step past my pride and self-sufficiency and have the confidence in my weakness to ask for help when I need it and then have the humility to receive it on God’s terms so that his perfect strength can be displayed. I don’t need to understand it, I don’t need to agree with it. In fact, I don’t have much choice in the matter if I am going to be obedient.

Helplessness and weakness…I used to hate them but God loves them and because of them God is able to use me. Maybe this is my miracle…

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It’s A Bird. It’s A Plane

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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly? Not in a plane, or on an amusement park ride but fly like superman. I think that would be one of the most amazing experiences ever! The freedom, the exhilaration of soaring above the trees, the view from the air! But I have to confess I am terrified of heights. It isn’t so much being up high
that scares me it’s the idea of falling. So if I ever wanted to fly I would have to let go of that fear of falling. I can promise you I will probably never know the experience of skydiving because I don’t know that I would ever be able to get past the door of the plane, let alone the free fall at the beginning. Isn’t that what holds so many of us back, fear? A fear of falling, a fear of failing? What if you didn’t have to be afraid? What if you could let go? I will never be able to fly if my feet stayed planted on terra firma. If I want to know what it is to fly, I will have to let go, I will have to jump.

I am only truly beginning to understand what the cost of being a true disciple of Christ is. This is where you begin to move from one in a crowd of nameless faces to someone who stands out, stands up, and says “Hey wait, there has to be more than this!” It is where you begin to move from what can God do for me to what can I do for God.

I love how Joni Ericson Tada relays this idea…
“God extends His hand and offers you life abundant and joy unspeakable, for here and eternity. But do you ever wonder how much it could cost? The answer is short, simple, and painful. “It will cost you everything,” God replies.

To understand life abundant, joy unspeakable, you have to be ready and willing to lay everything, everything, down and walk away. You have to be ready to stand on the edge of a cliff and jump, with no Plan B. This is where it is so easy to get tripped up. I am a sucker for Plan B. Plan B represents safety but another way of saying that is that Plan B is your failure plan. It is where you say, okay God Plan A is yours, but just in case you let me fall, I have my back-up parachute packed. How easy does it then become to pull the emergency cord as soon as we jump. We never get to experience the freedom of flying because we react to the fear of falling. I love how Woody puts it in Toy Story when he is talking to Buzz Lightyear (for those who are familiar) “that’s not flying, that’s falling, with style.” I, for one, am tired of living this way. Tired of hedging my bets, tired of looking over my shoulder, tired of living afraid to fall even if it is with style.

Joni goes on to say, “Most of us trifle with the cost of Christianity. We slap our sins on the table and, for the price of Somebody Else’s blood, happily walk away with an asbestos-lined soul and a title deed to heaven. With “eternity” taken care of, we get back to living life as usual, offering the obligatory gestures to God on Sundays and holidays.”

Will that work? It’s definitely not Plan A. Jesus said, “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:38-39)

We are creatures of habit, creatures of comfort, and that too easily becomes the driver of our daily lives. I have begun to understand that I need to get over the idea that Christ died for me so that I could live comfortably, allowing Him into my life on Sunday during church or when I find myself in need. We need to understand that we cannot live however we want day to day, knowing that we have our insurance policy of salvation covering us when we die. We will never know life abundant and joy unspeakable if this is the route we choose.

God has a great plan for all of us and I am pretty sure it doesn’t involve the view from inside the plane, the comfort of the couch, or the safety of the sidelines.

Do you want to fly? I do! So, no more being afraid of failing, for greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world. If God is for us who can be against us?

If you want to fly, first you have to jump! I think its time.

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“I used to pray…

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“I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.” Mother Teresa

This week’s challenge…be the change.

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An Undignified Runner

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There are a lot of songs I love to run to. One song in particular is called Undignified and is always sure to get my feet moving a little faster when it comes on. The version I run to is actually from the children’s worship team cd at our church. The first time I heard it I couldn’t help but want to sing along, and maybe even (gasp!) dance. It is very simple in lyrics but the message is a good one.

I will dance, I will sing, to be mad for my king.
Nothing Lord is hindering the passion in my soul.
And I’ll become even more undignified than this.
Some would say it’s foolishness
But I’ll become even more undignified than this.

This song is based off of what David has to say about dancing in front of the Lord in 2 Samuel 6:22, “Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!”
When I run to this song I can’t help but think of the Friends episode, The One Where Phoebe Runs. Here is a quick clip

We all need to be a little more Undignified in our walk (or run) with God but being undignified can also mean being embarrassed. I don’t like to be taken out of my comfort zone let alone going even further, as David says, to humiliated in my own eyes. But outside of my comfort zone is where I can find God because I stop relying on myself and begin relying on Him. This is the reason we don’t like to run with the Phoebe’s of the world. It is embarrassing to us, as fine upstanding formal “runners,” and people are certainly watching us and the fear that someone might see us and then judge us for our unorthodox style, is very humiliating. That isn’t how “runners run,” so instead we opt for the straight laced approach and avoid those “free spirits,” just like Rachel did. We have taken God and religion and made it clean and neat and in a much larger sense unapproachable to the Phoebes. That is what we have done though, not what Jesus did on his days here on Earth.
The disciples didn’t always get this either so we are in good company. They were found throughout scripture saying get these kids out of here, get these sick out of here, get these sinners out of here. They completely missed the point of why Jesus was here in the first place. When Jesus was at Matthew’s mingling with the “scum” of that time period he was rebuked by the Pharisees, and Jesus’ response… “Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do.” Then he added “Now go and learn the meaning of this scripture. I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices. For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” (Matthew 9:12-13)
We often have the spirit of the Pharisees. We shush those “Phoebe runners” shouting for the help of Jesus, we look the other way when they run by, because we are so caught up in ourselves and appearances, so caught up in our own “Jesus thing” that we are missing it! And not only that, if we associate with them we might be confused for being one of them. Totally missing what we have been called to do. Go and make disciples…Be the salt and the light.
So here is to running with a little less self-consciousness and a little more self-confidence in how we are called to run the race in the first place, flailing arms and legs and all! Here is to getting undignified!

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My name is Ashley Cunningham and I am a control freak.

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20130709-172317.jpgNow that we have that out of the way, here is the deal today. I wanted to post something and had nothing. I also was past due for my scheduled run and have been wanting to hit the roads but it’s HOT so I started up my hamster wheel (aka treadmill) and instead of being struck with inspiration I hurt. Every step of the first two miles.

Before I even made it through the first mile, through gritted teeth, I said “Ok God. I have nothing here. Please pour your Spirit out and fill me. ” I had nothing to give physically and no divine inspiration. I was ready to quit and then my mom’s favorite song came on and I closed my eyes (you can do that when you are running on a treadmill) and just took a deep breath and let the song wash over me. It was like a fist that had been wrapped around me was releasing and when the song was over I played it again.

As the miles continued to pass my brain was lighting up with ideas like fireworks on the 4th of July and I was trying to type and run and be sure I didn’t forget any of them. I had been trying to force this, trying to do it on my own and I should know by know that every time I try to do it that way I will fail. This is what happens when I try to take the reigns. But as soon as I stopped and asked God He was right there. When we ask for more of Him, He will never disappoint us.

Today I just want to encourage you, take a deep breath, then close your eyes and let the grace of God wash over you from the song that saved my run (and my writing) today. I hope that it blesses you as much as it did me.