UUURRRGGGHHH!!!---The Unforced Rhythms of Grace

I am now 50 years old. Unbelievable, 50 years old. Just yesterday I was the overachieving kid on the block. Now I'm the guy with six daughters, salt-n-pepper hair and wisdom lines around my now droopy eyelids. I've discovered in, what I refer to as midlife, that I am more irritable than I used to be. I am less tolerant and yet I find myself at times more, dare I say it, liberal than days gone by. Okay, I just lost 50% of my Baptist friends. I don't mean theologically. I mean socially. I'm frustrated that we care more about a golfers infidelity than Haiti's starvation, are more passionate about an ice skater's triple lutz than homeless people and more caring of our pets than we are of single parents. And then I realize that I am the problem! I have become like far too many Americans. Comfortable in my irritability of my own comfort. Like all irritable people, I am often hard to love and have a hard time loving others. My attention is often consumed by being aware and driven by my circumstances. I find myself in a constant state of agitation, frustration and disenchantment by what is happening outside of my control. I feel heavy, burdened, stressed and weary. I don't like being that way and hate admitting it to you. It makes me feel like the spoiled brat I probably am. When life doesn't go my way, which seems to be often, I get fearful and it displays itself as irritable. My gray hair and wrinkles also reflect some good news in that I now recognize that God invites me to abandon all those fears and irritability - He invites me to leave my self and come to Him for rest in Matthew 11:28. Jenny and I were reading The Message this morning and I was so captivated by Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Matthew 11:28 - "get away with me and work with me-watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." I can now leave my fears, my irritability, my frustration and my foolish self with Him because He promised that He came that I might have an abundant life in John 10:10, not a life filled with fear, pain and irritability. He set me on a path completely free from the dependence of circumstances for my joy. I now can bank on each day being filled with more joy and less irritability because of Him. That's very cool. That is also a reminder that I am to redirect the personal energy that was once directed toward irritability and fear and direct it toward caring for others with a passionate heart of service and love for those that might be the most unlikely recipients of God's love working through me. I recently became aware that God will often allow my life to cross paths with a need that He desires me to meet and that I missed that blessing for decades in my irritable selfishness. May your day be filled with the blessed crossing of paths with those that you and you alone can bless. Peace, Chuck

I'm Ticked Off!

It's hard to manage anger.

I find it so easy to be angry. Angry at other drivers, airport employees, the President, the DOT, friends, family...you name it. Occasionally it makes me feel , well, it makes me feel correct-even superior, and at times righteous. Then there are times I don't feel like being angry; I am ashamed of losing my temper and aggravated that my feelings become public and I have allowed my weaknesses to be exposed.

Has it ever occurred to you that the bitter root of anger is really disappointment? Let's face it, there is plenty of disappointment in this earthly life. When I examine my disappointment I realize that it typically boils down to things not going my way, and that's just my pride! When my life doesn't go my way, I get frustrated, moody and difficult to deal with.

I really wish I could say that I get angry on other's behalf or that my anger is always a righteous anger...well it's not. As a matter of fact, I doubt if it's ever righteous unless it's truly self-righteous.

All that might be true of you too, but what if we were a people that could allow our frustration to be directed toward evil and trust God to run this world His way? What if I could set myself apart long enough for God to do His thing and allow grace to to wash over my disappointments without engaging my futile anger. What a massive relief, believing and trusting that God is really in charge allows me to dilute and dissolve the anger that at times consumes me.

How about you? Does He consume you?

May we be filled with the grace to see that this world's creator knows best, and He alone can turn the world right-side up.

Peace, Chuck Micah 6:8

forgiveness

I taught on forgiveness today and felt as though I was speaking to a mirror.

In the book of Genesis, Joseph is such an awesome example of forgiveness. If anybody had a reason to be bitter, jaded, angry or resentful, it was Joseph. He could have been angry with his Dad for not reeling in his 12 brothers who sold him into slavery, left him for dead, and harassed and hated him as the favored son. He could have been angry with Potipher's wife for accusing him of rape, or Potipher himself for not investigating the accusation. Maybe it was his cellmate who he simply asked to remember him after assisting him and of course he was not remembered. Maybe he could have been mad at God for allowing him to suffer, even though he had been faithful...even through all the pain and betrayal.

When given the chance to "get even" with his dastardly brothers, Joseph aided tham, he loved and helped them. He forgave them.

I'd like to think I would do that, but my first reaction is to think, "I'll get them". I too often think of how I'll build a wall around them or get even or simply discard them.

Jesus taught us to forgive 7 times...NO...7 X 70 times. But is the real issue to forgive 490 times or is it to simply forgive. He said that He is faithful to forgive if we forgive others. This isn't just the big things that are offenses against us, it's also the little things that we harbor in our heart and remain unforgiven and unresolved.

Harboring bitterness, anger or resentment is like swallowing a poison intended for the one who offended you...it's eating YOU up from the inside out.

Forgiveness isn't natural or easy. It isn't part of our human makeup. It is a process that begins in your head and concludes in your heart.

May we be a people that choose to forgive, so that we may thrive in the joy of Christ and in the peace that comes through forgiveness, heartfelt, God-honoring forgiveness...even in the little daily issues we all face.