T. David Beck: The Simple Way of Jesus

"Most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of absence or distance from God" -- agree or disagree? I have to agree. I have been very serious about my life with God for many years, and I will struggle with feeling distant from him. Can you relate? I tend to think this says more about us than it does about God. In other words, when we feel distance from him, it isn't because he has gone somewhere. It's because we have not been paying attention to his presence. To sharpen the point, Martin Laird writes,  “God does not know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of absence or distance from God is the great illusion we are caught up in; it is the human condition” ( Into the Silent Lands , p. 15). Think about how it changes the way we approach all sorts of daily situations when we live out of the illusion that God is absent or distant. Now try something today. Chew on this thought -- that "God do...

Want a window into Jesus' psyche? Want to know what made him tick -- his thought processes and how he made decisions? Check out two stories early on in the Gospel of Mark, both having to do with the Sabbath. The first story is Mark 2:23-28. Jesus and his disciples are walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath day, and Jesus allows his disciples to pick the heads of wheat and eat. The problem is that "processing" the kernels, which amounted to picking them and separating the edible kernel from the rest of the head, constituted working on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were watching, and they caught him and his disciples red-handed, so to speak. The Pharisees questioned him on it, and Jesus' reply opens a window into how he thought and why he was so different from the Pharisees. The issue to the Pharisees was that Jesus was breaking the law. The code and the system were the paramount concerns of the Pharisees. They believed that God would most want to see the Israel...

Snowpocalypse. Snowmageddon. Tyrranasnowus Rex. That is what people are calling the Great Blizzard of 2011, which has raged through the Midwest while I have been in Chicago for the Covenant Midwinter pastors’ conference. Well, maybe not that many people are using such totally awesome terms for the Blizzard, but I think they should. Great blizzards need great names. We pastors have survived the blizzard, mostly because we have hardly gone outside. Thank God for large hotels with great amenities.

For now, this is my final post on Nouwen's Prodigal Son and the journey toward God... In the Prodigal Son , Nouwen articulates what the spiritual masters of the Christian tradition have been saying for centuries. We are not in complete control of our own spiritual transformation. There are certain things we can do -- like cutting out certain sins and taking up constructive disciplines like praying and serving and internalizing the Scriptures. But there is a hunger deep within us to live in close communion with God -- to know his heart and be caught up in his love for us and the whole world. Sometimes God allows us to visit this paradise, and we long to live there. But we cannot simply pack up our things and relocate. God has to bring us there. We have to surrender to a journey we cannot control or "make happen." Here is how Nouwen describes the critical juncture in his journey when he moved into a deeper relationship of surrender to God... Each little step toward the ce...

As disciples of Jesus, we want to learn from what he did, especially when it comes to prayer. Today I offer a couple of quick observations about Mark 1:35. It's one of the more famous verses in Mark's Gospel, because it describes Jesus stealing away in the pre-dawn hours to go pray. The verse says, "And having risen early in the morning while it was still dark, Jesus went out and went away to a deserted place, and there he prayed." (My translation.) Some background... In Capernaum (or any of the other towns along the Sea of Galilee), it would have been impossible for Jesus to find any place to be alone. He was instantly famous because he had healed so many people the day before. In addition, people lived in very close proximity to one another, and families shared small spaces. Hence the need to go outside the town to find a place to be alone. Also, laborers started getting up at sunrise to start their work days. Hence the need to get up while it was still dark.  L...

Craig Groeschel, always a refreshing voice, wrote a post a while back on The Death of the Five-Year Plan . After years of trying to construct and live off of strategic plans for his church, it sounds like he is changing horses. He writes  in part, "We are creating margin and planning to respond quickly to ideas that we don't yet have. Speed, agility, flexibility, and financial margin are far better than a detailed road map. We are in the ready position. Instead of asking God to bless our carefully crafted plans, we're trying to be prepared to move when he speaks and guides." I really like where Groeschel is going. I am currently preaching a series at Sanctuary on  being a Fit and Ready church. I think I have given up trying to construct a vision from the conventional methods. It felt contrived and man-made (probably because it was). I have gravitated toward readiness, prayer, and listening for the story God seems to be wanting to tell through our church. This does ...

More on Nouwen's  Prodigal Son  and the journey toward God... Nouwen made a well-known, life-changing transition from teaching at Harvard to caring for souls at the Daybreak L'Arche community for the mentally disabled. During that same transitional period, he had a deep encounter with Rembrandt's painting of the Prodigal Son. The painting and the parable spoke deeply to Nouwen, and they became touchstones for his personal journey with God. He encountered many trials and difficulties during those years, but the end result was that he grew into an immersion in God's love that he had only glimpsed before. Maybe it would be like visiting a lush paradise and describing it to others, and then later enduring an extremely difficult trek to make your home there. Nouwen wrote Prodigal Son after that land became his primary residence. He was still prone to wander, but it had been settled for him. His heart had found its home with God. As someone who has hungered for many years...