A Mattter Of Perspective

I was wresting in my mind lately about a situation that troubled me. I prayed and asked the Lord to change the circumstance for months and nothing changed. One morning this week, with a troubled mind and heavy emotions, I asked the Lord, "Why won't you do something about this?"

Then a thought came into my mind. "What if the situation doesn't need to be changed? What if the problem isn't my circumstances right now, but my trouble is caused by the way I'm looking at it?" The thought stayed with me throughout the day. As the day progressed, slowly, but surely, I began to understand that those thoughts had been the Holy Spirit showing me the truth. It wasn't the details of my circumstances that was the problem. It was the way I looked at the circumstances.

Once I changed the way I looked at the situation, I began to experience a genuine sense of peace about it. Nothing had changed in my circumstance. I had changed.

Look at the picture above this note. Maybe you've seen this before, because it has been around since the late 1800s. What do you see in the picture? An old, haggardly looking woman? A young, well dressed woman? How you look at it will determine what you see there.

I can see either the old woman or the young woman in this picture. I choose how to focus on it, and what I choose determines what I see.

What do you see when you look at "your situation?" It's your choice.

(If you're having a problem seeing both the old and young woman in the picture, the old woman's nose is the young woman's jaw and chin.)

A New Ministry: Grace Walk Video Devotionals

Isn't modern technology wonderful? Using my video camera at home, and some movie editing software, I put this short devotional video together. My plan is to produce and upload five of these each week. THEY WILL NOT APPEAR ON THIS SITE, but can be found at www.gracewalkdevotionals.blogspot.com.

I put the first one here just to make you aware of it. It remains to be seen if producing and uploading five per week will be too much of a demand, but I think I can record all of them at one time, so I'll give it my best shot.

Let me know what you think of them. The problem with blogs like this is that you don't know if anybody is reading/watching.

One Of My Favorite Songs

Andrea Bocelli is by far my favorite male singer. Melanie and I went to hear him in concert in Atlanta a few years ago and it was one of the most transcendent experiences I have ever had.

This song is The Prayer with Celine Dion, another great singer, though my favorite female singer is Sarah Brightman. This performance was at The Grammys in 1999.

I have all of Andrea Bocelli's CDs. My favorite is Romanza. The man is amazing, as evidenced by his worldwide popularity.

Winstons And Grace Walking

Here's a commercial that was on TV when I was a small boy. Nowadays, everybody knows that this kind thing was just wrong. I mean WRONG! Back then nobody knew any better though. Everybody thought there was no harm in smoking, so why not market it to kids in an attempt to line up customers for generations to come?

Have you ever considered that there might be other things that you were taught growing up that were wrong? I grew up in church and am thankful for my heritage. No family is perfect, but that doesn't negate the value of the nurture and love we received there. The same is true of our childhood church families. I am thankful for mine.

Having said that, I learned some things there that were just wrong. Things like "We are saved to serve." "You should rededicate your life to live for Christ and try harder to do better." "To become holy, you need to read your Bible and pray every day, come to church every time the doors are opened, etc."

Everybody in church believed that kind of thing back then, just like the general population believed smoking couldn't hurt you (though that was an unpardonable sin at my church). Folks were sincere about a variety of subjects about which we now know they were dead wrong.

Just as we learned that the message that smoking Winstons was not a good idea, there must come a time when we learn that other messages we received growing up were off base too. Nobody meant to do us any harm, but there comes a time when we need to rise above our upbringing and respectfully say, "Wait a minute. That's WRONG!"

A Great Fiction Trilogy

I've never been a big fan of reading fiction. I'd rather read nonfiction books, but a friend recommended these three books to me with such enthusiasm that I decided to give them a try. Am I ever glad I did.

These books are in Ted Dekker's series called "The Circle Trilogy." Once I was a hundred pages into Black, I absolutely could not put them down when I had a single free moment. I consumed these books and enjoyed them more than I've enjoyed anything in a long time.

Black hits the ground running and never lets up. The hero, Thomas Hunter, is living an insomniac nightmare. Every time he goes to sleep in one world, he awakens in another. Hunter learns, in one world, of a plan to unleash a deadly virus by a pharmaceutical company that owns the only vaccine; from the other world he tries desperately to prevent the annihilation. When I finished this book I picked up Red, as if I were turning the page to the next chapter. I couldn't help myself.

In Red, Hunter finds himself again torn between two realities after a 15-year respite from his dreams. Pitted against the New Allegiance, which has intentionally spread a deadly virus known as the Raison Strain that threatens to destroy the modern world, he launches a desperate search for the scientist who can provide the vaccine. In Hunter’s other world, the savage Horde with its loathsome skin disease is on the brink of overpowering the Forest People, who hope for Elyon’s deliverance. But the Forest People’s "Great Romance"-love of Elyon-has degenerated, and when the controversial, messiah-like Justin proposes a truce, things quickly disintegrate.

In White, Thomas Hunter has only days to survive two separate realms of danger, deceit, and destruction. The fate of both worlds hinges on his unique ability to shift realities through his dreams.

Now leading a small ragtag group known as The Circle, Thomas finds himself facing new enemies, never-ending challenges, and the forbidden love of a most unlikely woman.

Enter the Great pursuit, where Thomas and a small band of followers must decide quickly who they can trust--both with their own lives and the fate of millions. Dreams and reality quickly bleed into each other as time runs out. And neither the terror of Black nor the treachery of Red can prepare Thomas for the forces aligned against The Circle in White.

If you like fiction, or even if you don't, I can almost guarantee you will love these books. They are filled with metaphors that communicate spiritual truths in a unique and powerful way. I found my eyes filling with tears when I read about the crucifixion of Christ in Red. The amazing thing is that neither Christ nor the cross and crucifixion are ever mentioned. You just know what you are reading.

You can get the books at almost any local bookstore or buy them online.

Growing To Know Less

When I was a young man, I knew everything. At least I thought I did. I have often said that back then I held the office of “Doctrinal Deputy.” I policed what others believed and stood ready to indite them if there was as infraction of the law. When it came to doctrine, knowing truth from error was a simple thing. The truth was what I believed. Otherwise, why would I believe it? If anybody needed to know the definitive answer to any theological question, all they had to do was ask me. I had the answers. I even had answers to questions that nobody asked.

As I’ve grown older something has happened that I never expected. I think I may have as many questions as I do answers. If you had told me when I was a young pastor that this would be in my future, I would have argued with you outwardly and inwardly would have hoped and prayed it wasn’t true. I would have seen your prediction as a prophecy of my own apostasy. After all, I would have reasoned, a person knows more and more as he gets older, not less and less. Boy, was I wrong.

I could make a long list of things I was sure of back then which I ultimately came to learn were dead wrong. I discuss many of those false beliefs I held in Grace Walk. Some of the things I built my life on were as far from biblical truth as a person can be.

In 1994, when I left the pastorate and began traveling, it didn’t take long for me to realize that not everybody grew up in the denominational world I did or held as common knowledge the doctrinal specifics I had been taught. I discovered that, within the body of Christ, there was a tremendous difference of opinion about many things. Spiritual gifts, when and how Jesus is coming, the place of women in the church, what a Christian can wear, drink, say, think and where we can go and not go, forms of church government, styles of worship . . . the list goes on and on.

The amazing thing about the diversity I saw was that people who held firmly to beliefs that stood in stark contradiction to the things I had always been taught were as sincere about their beliefs as I was. Some of them believed what they did for the same reason I had – because they had been taught that all their lives. Others, though, came to their viewpoints after open minded study of the Scriptures.

I’ve always loved lively discussion and debate, so I found myself engaging with these people about a variety of topics. As I did, to my surprise, I found myself changing my mind about some of the things I had always believed. I saw myself holding a looser grip on my opinion about other matters that I had been completely convinced about in the old days. There were even some biblical questions that I just had to put on the shelf, with the attitude, “I don’t know what I think about this anymore.”

Some of my friends and colleagues from the old days still think I have compromised. I’ve learned that there is a sense of stability in thinking you have it all figured out. Take away absolute certainty and people become afraid. Don’t misunderstand. I’m still certain about many things – the finished work of Christ, my heavenly Father’s love, who I am in Him – I could make a long list of the things I’m certain of too.

It’s just that, as time has passed, I’ve realized I don’t know as much as I used to think I knew. I find myself learning to live with questions which may or may not be answered in this life. When asked what I believe about specific topics, I often answer, “I don’t know. I haven’t studied that subject since I got my grace eyes.”

To my surprise, I’m completely comfortable with knowing less, not more, as I’ve grown older. Being willing to admit that I don’t know some things causes me to be teachable, allowing me to grow. People who already (think that they) know everything can’t learn and, consequently, can’t grow. I hope I spend my lifetime learning and growing.

When I began to understand my identity in 1990, I turned in my Doctrinal Deputy badge. I’ve decided I’d rather be a disciple than a deputy.