The Relational Mission

"... take up their cross daily ..." —Luke 9:23 Jesus said that those who would be his disciples—those who would be shaped by his life—would develop a way of cross carrying. When I was praying through the labyrinth (See previous entries here ), I came to the center which was marked by a cross. At that point, I stopped and just gazed at the cross formed by rocks lying on the ground. Here is where a great exchange occurred in my encounter with God. All the pain, disappointment, failure, etc.  that had arisen within my soul as I prayed through the first half of the labyrinth I fell off me. It was like I had a new found freedom to let go of tons of stuff that had been weighing me down. In exchange, I was given more than "new life" or "abundant life" which is often the focus of conversations about the exchange that occurs at the cross. I was given a cross of my own to bear, one of sharing in the life of Jesus, for the sake of the world. My imagination abou...

I finally entered the labyrinth. (See yesterday's post about my hesitancy to enter.) As I walked, I realized something deep was going on inside me. All my logical walls were trying to go up: Why would walking through a labyrinth help me open my heart to God? But I pushed aside logic and walked. With every turn through the maze, more things arose within me. Within ten steps, I was pouring out my heart to God. I was recounting pains and disappointments, frustrations and even bitterness. As I walked toward the center which was marked by a cross, all this stuff was coming up in me that I needed to release at the cross, things that I did not even realize were weighing me down. This experience reminds me of Jesus' words about discipleship in Luke 9:23-24: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.   For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." Admittedly, I...

Two weeks ago, I sat in a recording studio for a day and a half. After recording 24 segments of teaching, I was wasted. I found myself at the end of my emotions. So I told Kendall, the guy directing the project, that I needed to go to the prayer garden located on the church campus. As I walked around, I noticed a labyrinth week. I had read a lot about praying through a labyrinth but I had never done so myself. So I walked toward it. I had read and heard from others that when praying through a labyrinth, things come up within you that you don't expect. This made no logical since to me. I had walked and prayed many times. What's the difference? But as I neared the entrance, which at first I could not locate, I found myself not wanting to step in. I wanted to just keep walking and get back to work. It was not that I was afraid of meeting with God or that I was full of pride and self-sufficiency. I was so tired that I had no pride left. I had gotten to a place of having nothing...

  "But our citizenship is in heaven."—Philippians 3:20 Recently, while I was reading on my front porch, I noticed the sounds of East Indian music playing from a house four doors down the street. I overheard conversations between parents and children that I could not understand but obviously came from the second largest country in the world. This caused me to reflect further upon the reality that Jesus followers are called "foreigners and exiles" in 1 Peter. ( See previous post on this topic. ) My neighbors from half way around the world have been socialized to live in a certain way and now they are surrounded by a totally different way of life, that of Houston, Texas. For three years, I lived in Vancouver, B.C. When I arrived people told me that I would experience culture shock, that I would find it hard to connect with the way of life common to Canadians. I could not understand this. After all, we look very similar, we speak the same language and we share a ver...

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, —1 Peter 2:11a Ever felt like you don’t belong? You know that first day of school experience where we assume that everyone else fits but you don’t. You are a foreigner, an exile, who is different from everyone else. But that experience changes. After a week or so, most of us found our place, our group of people who were like us and school became less scary. We no longer felt like foreigners because we learned the rules about what it meant to fit in. This verse challenges us though. It is not referring to how we feel. It is referring to who we are. As Jesus followers, we are foreigners. We are exiles. If we feel this way, it’s because it’s who God has made us to be. We belong to a different kingdom, and we cannot fit in . We swim upstream because we are following the leading of the Spirit. We rub against the grain of the way life is supposed to work because we are going with the grain of God’s call on our lives. We find that the ...