Norah... almost as shocking as what you are about to read!

Whoa… That Was Close!

Okay, you’re not going to believe this… If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes I probably wouldn’t either, but it happened. First though, check out these verses from Psalm 91…

"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart… If you make the Most High your dwelling— even the LORD, who is my refuge- then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone…"

Now, I have always been confused by these verses because I, like you have stubbed my toe plenty of times, but friend, this week I found myself unmistakably covered by His feathery wings… He delivered me from the snare and from a huge stinkin’ insurance premium!

Okay, here goes… Christy and I have been going through a tough time lately and have had trouble making the ends meet, ya know? Well, on Tuesday I was getting in my car to leave the church parking lot. I let down the emergency brake and instead of putting the car in reverse, I just took it out of gear because there was this envelope with “The Youngers” written on it. Our knowing Father had used some sweet servant of His to meet our need, and just in time! I was floored and came back in the church to ask Tom if he knew anything about it, which he didn’t, and when we came back outside the office, my car was gone… and then I remembered… car out of gear, e-brake down, Oh No!

I looked across the street to the little yellow house owned by our sweet neighbors, the Ramsey’s, and there was my car. It had rolled down the church parking lot in reverse, crossed the street and straight down their steep little sloping front lawn into their house… Tom and I ran over to inspect the damage, but something looked a little off… The car had not hit the house! In a perfectly straight line it had rolled over fifty yards backward and then three feet in front of their house my car made a 90 degree reverse left turn, missing the house, and then hit a concrete flower pot slowing it down just enough to keep it from hitting the Ramsey’s car in their driveway… whoa! I am not even kidding!

When Mrs. Ramsey came out, I apologized and told her that I didn’t know how it was possible, but my car had not really hit anything. She said, “Well, honey, I’d say the Lord was driving.” I say, “Amen!” He met our need and saved our behinds and I am a witness that He is good, faithful, mighty, and as the Psalmist said, He is my refuge! Is He yours?

Saturday Dinner at Sharp Top Cove

Keys

As I type this, thousands of kids are sleeping in their cabins at Young Life Camp all over the country. It is Saturday morning, which means that there are hundreds of sleepy heads who are alive for the very first time having been spiritually dead their whole lives… Today they will wake up to maybe their first or second day of new life in Christ. My friend Bill is in Minnesota right now with a cup of coffee and his little black Bible praying for his new brothers and sisters at Young Life’s Castaway club. My friends Abbey and Becca are washing the towels, sheets and toilets of their new brothers and sisters at Windy Gap in North Carolina. My friend Andy is at Crooked Creek Ranch in Colorado making his new brothers and sisters laugh. My friend Emily is at Windy Gap preparing high school kids to serve their new brothers and sisters as well as sharing her story with them and my friend Ryan is there as well, singing into the hearts of his new brothers and sisters about how Jesus is our family.

It’s happening every week this summer… at various places throughout the country something like 40,000 high school kids will hear the message of the Gospel and experience it in various ways at camp. Tons of money, time, prayer, organization and arduous preparation goes into this outreach and the greatest thing about it is, those of us who are a part of it are not responsible for changing lives! Camp speakers plan every word they will say, musicians plan every word they will sing and leaders pray over every name for months, but we have absolutely no control over who responds to the Gospel.

This morning I was reading Acts 16. Paul was in Philippi and went by the city gate to a river where he planned to pray, but there were some women gathered, so he started to talk to them. This is verse 14: “One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.” See, Paul couldn’t save Lydia, but salvation does not belong to Paul. Some of us plant and some of us water, but God makes things grow and He does it whether we are asleep or awake and in ways we can’t explain.

Praise God that He lets us be a part of what He’s doing! He doesn’t need us. In fact, He could do this a lot better and cleaner without us anyway, like when a two-year-old helps their mom make cookies… He calls people, He draws them to Himself. He holds the keys to their hearts and only He can turn those keys. He drags us kicking and screaming into new life and we wouldn’t have wanted it if He hadn’t caused us to. He has said “Let there be light…” inside dark hearts and for some reason He has allowed us to have some little part in it, whether praying, playing or paying. The great thing that this means is that success in ministry is not about results or numbers, because that’s God’s deal. Success in ministry then, is all about faithfulness and holiness. Are we walking with Him? Are we keeping at it? Success means to stick with it, stick to Him and leave the keys in His hands.

norah rose @ 5 months

Learning to Wait…

The other day my oldest daughter Anna told me that she wanted oatmeal for breakfast, so I started to fix it. It was really cute too, because when she says oatmeal, it sounds like “oh-milk.” I put her in her high chair, put her bib on, and gave her some milk to drink while we waited on the oatmeal to cool off. After a while I got busy doing some other things and sort of forgot about Anna’s breakfast… oops! It’s okay though, because she reminded me. As I walked by her high chair she started to sing a song... an original composition that went like this: “Oh-milk, oh-milk, I’m having oh-milk…” It was awesome because she wasn’t screaming or crying but just patiently waiting and singing a song about it.

It wasn’t always that way though… When Anna was Norah’s age and still nursing, she didn’t patiently wait on food, and neither does Norah! Before babies are weaned, they absolutely freak out about eating! When the hunger pains start, Norah lets us know with heart-breaking, ear-splitting, blood-curdling baby screams… as if Christy hasn’t fed her exactly what she needs eight to ten times a day for the past five months! I don’t know what happens in their little baby minds, but they haven’t learned from all the other times their sweet mommy has provided for them. They don’t really know the ins and outs of nutrition, caloric intake and what their little bodies need. The only thing they know is that they are hungry and for some reason they think, “Okay, this is it… this is the end. It’s been fun, but I guess it’s all over!”

After Anna stopped nursing and started eating big people food, she learned over time that we are going to come through for her and give her what she needs. Eventually sweet little Norah will learn this as well. She will be able to relax and trust that we know what we’re doing and that she’s not going to starve. Now, if only I could learn this lesson… So often I don’t know what’s happening in my life or understand why God is allowing certain things and I throw a fit. I stomp my feet, clench my fists and lose my grip, hardening my heart in worry and anger. I act as if He doesn’t know what He’s doing, as if He hasn’t provided for me everyday, all day long all these years! In Psalm 131 David says, “But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.”

So what’s the secret, David? How did you learn to be weaned and to wait patiently like my Anna singing her Oh-milk song? Verse 1 in Psalm 131 says this: “My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul…” We don’t understand all that God is dong in this world and in our lives and even if He explained it to us, we still wouldn’t get it. He always knows what we need and He never forgets about us! We need to let Him sort out all the stuff and just trust Him. He knows what to do and He controls it all. We probably just need to sit back and sing more.

At the top of Sharp Top Mountain

A Well-earned View

I think I am finally starting to recover from my trip to Sharp Top Cove… Last week we took around 50 folks (high schoolers and leaders) to the Young Life camp in Jasper, Georgia and we had an amazing time! I say that I have finally recovered because summer camp can be taxing, especially if you’re over ten years older than the campers… I had tired feet, sore muscles, a sunburn and nowhere near enough sleep, but I think I’m just about back to normal. It was all worth it though, because I was able to stand back and watch as God did amazing things in the lives of our high school friends.

One of my favorite aspects of Young Life summer camp is the hike we take mid-week. Now the hike at Sharp Top is not an incredibly difficult or long climb, but for some folks it is first time in their lives they have ever even thought about hiking. When we got to the top, the camp speaker had everyone sit down and get completely quiet for a whole minute. It was amazing. I know that in my life in this 21st century there are very few times when everything is truly quiet (especially with two babies), but for high school kids, that is an even more rare occurrence. Their lives are bombarded with noise and confusion from every direction. I am always a skeptic when we start that minute of silence on top of the mountain… I usually think, “Yeah right, there is no way hundreds of kids will sit silent for a whole minute.” But they always do. It is absolutely breathtaking to look out over what our God has made and just be in awe of His abstract art. That day we all heeded the sons of Korah who wrote, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)

For me though, this hike was special because of a girl named Heather. She is a girl who has had a hard life, made some bad choices like all of us and has quite the reputation, but God has started to bring about amazing changes in her heart… I have watched Him draw Heather to Himself over the last two years through the love of her friend and leader, Emily. And this week I watched her stand up and tell over three hundred people about how she gave her life to Christ. It was awesome. Well, Heather had been dreading the hike all week long because she didn’t think she would make it up to the top, but we stayed with her and beside her all of the way up and she did make it! Several times on the way up she stopped and wanted to quit, but we didn’t let her. Then, when we could finally see the end in sight, she just got really quiet and hustled right up to the top. It was after that hike that Heather really opened up to everything at camp and started having a blast. She rappelled, rode mountain bikes and even conquered the ropes course! In all my days, I’ll never forget that hike and what God has done and is doing in Heather’s heart and mine. It kinda makes you wanna be still, doesn’t it?

Throwing the CCC Gang Sign at the '06 Retreat

Is That You?

Last weekend we took our annual high school Bible study retreat and it was a stinkin’ blast! Our old Young Life guy, Bill Reazer came all the way out from St. Louis to bring our kids some sweet and hard-hitting talks about why we do the things we do and how to really change from Romans 7. We stayed at Don and Judy Sharp’s outrageously beautiful lake house while Kim Reid fed us amazing food until we busted and her son Nater took everyone skiing and tubing on their boat. It was a ton of fun and a great time for our high school friends to be away from the normal routine and focus on being together and hopefully growing closer to the Maker of that beautiful place.

We spent the weekend living inside this question, (and I’ll never again see or say these words without thinking of Reazer’s face) “What are you doing… I mean what…what are you doing?” The Apostle Paul nails us all with his penetrating and transparent self-examination of this person who knows what’s right, wants to do it, and yet doesn’t… whoa. Why do we do the very things we hate? Doesn’t it just feel like being trapped? Reazer guided us through Paul’s thesis about the sin inside us dismantling our desire to do God’s will and took us to that last plea at the end of the chapter, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God- through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

See, our only hope is in Christ. This isn’t behavior modification. It’s all about relationship. It’s not that we’re supposed to try, try again… it’s that we need to be rescued, and we need the Rescuer everyday. Bill ended on Sunday talking about Jesus healing the man who was blind from birth in John 9. He pointed out that when the man returned with his sight to his home, no one recognized him. Being rescued by Jesus made him totally unrecognizable and all his friends were saying, “Is that really you? Are you the one who used to sit here and beg? No way… what happened to you?”

That’s what I want in my life… I want to be rescued everyday from myself and my own heart and I want to be changed by Him. I want to be unrecognizably different so that people look at me and say, “Lee? Is that really you? No way… what happened to you?”

Anna at Easter

Comfort

So yesterday was one of the greatest days ever! It was a Thursday, which meant the day was already full of promise because Thursday is my one full day off in the week… 24 hours with just my wife and daughters. I slept in like crazy, slammed some delicious homemade banana bread for breakfast and ran errands with the girls. After lunch everyone had a nap and then for dinner we went to our favorite restaurant, The Stir Fry Café on someone else’s nickel (praise the Lord for gift cards). After dinner we got Anna some strawberry ice cream and took her to look at a fountain, which she thinks is more fun than just about anything. It was such a great night… the food was great, and the girls were perfect angels at the restaurant… we are so blessed!

Well, on the way home we were listening to this awesome John Williams CD of film score highlights that Patrick and Patty gave me for my birthday, and the piece, “Dry Your Tears, Afrika” from the movie Amistad was playing. When the song first came on, Christy and I were instantly transported by that melody back into that unbelievably poignant true story. Anna asked Christy if she was sad, to which Chris said, “Some very bad things happened to a lot of people in Africa and it makes me sad.” Then I told Anna that all those bad things were the reason Jesus came, and that one day He would come again to make everything right in the end. Well, as we kept driving, that song kept crawling deeper and deeper inside me and breaking my heart over the wickedness and evil of slavery… I could just see Djimon Hounsou’s character standing in that courtroom with shackled hands screaming, “Give us Free!”

Before the song ended, I had tears of my own to dry… that’s when the coolest thing happened. My little two and a half year-old asked me from her car seat, “Dad, are you sad? Are you crying?” And I said, “Yeah babe, I am.” Then my little girl said, “Its okay, Dad. Jesus is coming back.” Whoa… I can’t describe what that moment did for me. This little keyboard doesn’t have the keys… to be comforted by your child, to have your faith strengthened by the words coming from that little heart… it was awesome. Later that night before we drifted off into sleep, closing our eyes on the most awesome of days, I thanked God for comforting me with my own words… for letting me hear the simplest and deepest truth in the sweet timbre of my toddler.

A Stradivarius Violin

Belonging To Skillful Hands

A few weeks ago I got a CD out of the library of Itzach Perlman’s greatest hits. It was absolutely ridiculous to hear the music that dude can make. People often say that the violin is the closest sounding instrument to the human voice, but there is no voice that could ever do the things Perlman can do with that violin. He can play so fast and so high that your brain can’t even keep up with the stream of sonorities he produces… but he can also play so heartbreakingly slow and with such depth of feeling that you have to pull the car over and just let it get inside you. Contained in the liner notes of the CD is an interview of Perlman where he explains the different pieces of music he chose for the record and why he chose them. After discussing all of the music, the interviewer asks Perlman to talk about his violin. He said that he plays a Stradivarius violin that was handcrafted in 1714. He ends by saying, “What I can tell you is, it’s a great fiddle!”

In his description of this 292 year-old instrument, Perlman said that he considers himself very lucky to have acquired it. I have to disagree. That violin is lucky to be in such gifted and capable hands! Although it is true that there is no violin quite like a Strad, it is also true that many of the ones that are still around these days are in glass cases in museums or owned by outrageously wealthy people who can’t play a single musical note. Violins were made to make beautiful music, and no matter how good the instrument is, sitting in a case or in tone deaf hands is not where they should be. Ah, but to belong to Itzach Perlman… to be owned by a musician like him… if violins could dream, they would dream of Perlman.

Psalm 107 says, “Give thanks to the LORD for He is good; His love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the LORD say this…” The word redeemed means ‘purchased’ or ‘bought back.’ People who have believed in Christ and received His free gift of life were bought by Him and the price He paid was His own precious blood. Paul says that because of this purchase, we no longer belong to ourselves, but to Him. He owns us because He paid for us with His very life. Sometimes that idea causes people trouble because they believe true freedom means belonging to no one and having control over your own life, but the truth is that no one belongs to themselves or has any real control. The Bible says that people are either owned by sin which causes misery and despair and ends in destruction; or they are owned by Christ… the tender and Good Shepherd whose “love endures forever.”

Before Perlman’s Stradivarius was a violin, it was a spruce tree, a maple tree and some random pieces of metal. Then it was crafted into something with the potential to make beautiful music; and in the right hands, it has made some of the most stunning and gorgeous music ever imagined. We have been redeemed and now belong to the most skillful hands there are… the hands that crafted us and the hands that were wounded for us. They are the hands of Christ, who is able to create with us the beautiful music we were made to make. It is good to belong to Him, for He is good and His love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say this!

He's back...

Mild Mannered Reporters

Can you feel it? June 30 is coming! Are you pumped? Wait… you do know what happens on June 30, right? The new Superman movie is coming out! I’m pretty sure it’s going to rock all of our faces off! You know, as far back as I can remember, I have loved superheroes… in fact, I bet that’s true of most guys. Jerry Seinfeld said that one huge key to understanding men is just to realize that most of the time we are trying to be superheroes… and that when men think about superheroes, these are not stories; these are options. Really, that’s kind of true of people throughout humanity. Comic books were not the start of superheroes. They have been around since the dawn of time. The Greeks talked bout the Titans and Hercules and every culture has tales of heroes of great strength, power and ability.

So why is this? Why do we love to create, listen to and tell tales of these extraordinary people? I think the reason is that we all want to be more than we are… I know this is true for me; I have always wanted to be a person that’s off the charts. As a kid I would climb trees or stand on really high things and just talk myself into being able to fly. The reason is that I didn’t want to be just regular old ‘me’ anymore. I know it’s nerdy to want to be a superhero, but this desire to be something more than ordinary is not. In fact, I think this is a desire that God has put into every human heart. One thing that I am starting to understand more and more as I walk with Christ is that the Gospel fulfills this desire… Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that if you believe in Jesus you become bulletproof or have heat vision or anything like that… but an incredible change does take place.

When a person believes that Christ died for them, the Bible says that a lot of cool things happen… they are born all over again and born from above. That person is completely cleansed from all unrighteousness and seated in the heavenly places with Christ. When you believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside your heart as a down payment guaranteeing God’s promise. You get a whole new heart, new affections and a new power. It actually says in Ephesians 1 that the same power that God used to raise Jesus from the dead is coursing through your veins if you are in Christ! Whoa! If you know Jesus, you really are extraordinary! You are brand new, and actually have new strength, real power and amazing abilities. In fact, when the believers in Corinth weren’t really living up to their new selves, Paul confronted them by saying, “Are you not acting like mere men?” -1 Corinthians 1:3

Now, it’s not that you can all of a sudden leap over buildings in a single bound, (who says ‘bound’ anyway?) but now you have the ability to please God with your life, whereas people who don’t know Jesus absolutely cannot. You can now face trials and suffering full of joy and trust. You can go through frustrating and difficult situations with mean and hurtful people and actually not complain! You can face devastation and tragedy with a heart absolutely full of peace! And the great this is this: that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the things you can do if you know Him! If you are in Christ and He is in you, you are extraordinary and there’s no one quite like you… Check out this beautiful verse in Deuteronomy 33… “Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD?”

Some of our high school folks hiking in a cave way back in April 2004...

Our Guide

Man, our weather here in East Tennessee has been so crazy lately! It feels as though the only thing consistent about it is its inconsistency… There have been outrageous storms and tons of rain out of nowhere for days at a time. You never know when you can do yard work, when you can leave the windows down, and you never know when you can go out and enjoy the day with a nice walk without getting caught in a deluge! Although, did you know that there is one outdoor place you can go and hike anytime… rain, snow, sun, hail, thunder and lightning, hot or cold? Know what it is? A cave.

You can go hiking in a cave in any weather at anytime of the year and it will always be around 58 degrees, dry and dark. About two years ago my boy Joe was our guide as we took the high school folks here at church hiking in a cave in Sparta. It was huge, dark and around 58 degrees even though it was fairly warm and rainy outside. When we were pretty deep into that cave I realized that if anything happened to Joe, we were toast! We had already gone through several tunnels and into and through different “rooms” so that I had lost all bearings. I had no idea where we were or where to find light. The good thing was that the quiet dude in the front with the light on his helmet was there, guiding us. He knew where we were, he knew where we were going (well, most of the time) and he was with us.

Deuteronomy 31:8 says, “The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” Sometimes walking through life is like walking through that cave… it’s dark, cold and full of creepy bats! We don’t always know where we are and we pretty much never know what’s coming. This can lead to confusion, anxiety and all kinds of fears, but we don’t have to feel that stuff! We have a Guide, and our Guide is the Lord Himself! This verse tells us two things not to feel and it gives us two great reasons not to feel them.

It says that we don’t have to be afraid and we don’t have to be discouraged, and the reason is because we are promised two things about our Guide: He goes before us and He will be with us. He goes before us… He is outside time and sees everything in the next five seconds and the next five years. That is called providence. He holds the future! I shouldn’t be discouraged, I should be encouraged because He’s already seen what’s coming and knows everything about it… not only that, He’s in control over everything that’s coming. But not only does He go before us, He promises to be with us! No matter where I go or what happens to me, God is with me! How can I be afraid if God is in my corner! You see, not only does He hold the future, He holds you! He’s with you. He knows where you are and He knows what’s in store. We don’t have to be afraid or discouraged because our Guide, our God has promised us His providence and His presence.

Christy and our new nephew Josiah

Namesakes

I just got a new nephew… his name is Josiah and he is beautiful. He is the son of two of my heroes: my wife’s sister, Patty and her husband, Patrick. Before they got Josiah they had Abby, who was born almost four months too early and spent six months in the hospital before she was able to go home. Patrick and Patty are everyday and all day long the most incredible example of trust in our Father and faithfulness in the midst of outrageous difficulties, confusion and trials. When I think about what a scary world this is to bring children into I rejoice for Abby and Josiah because they get to grow up in a home full of faith in and love for Jesus no matter what the world outside is doing.

I love the name Josiah. It reminds me of the Civil War… Josiah was a popular name back in those days, in fact; I have an ancestor who fought in the Civil War who had that name. I think the reason ‘Josiah’ was a such a popular name back then was that people read their Bibles more and watched Fox News less (or rather, not at all). See, Josiah was the name of one of the Kings of Judah in the Old Testament. You remember your Old Testament kings, right? First there was Saul, then David and after him Solomon. Then the nation of Israel had their own Civil War and split into two kingdoms. There was Israel, (in the North) and Judah (in the South). Israel had nineteen kings who were all total disasters. If they had been graded, they would have all gotten “F’s”. Judah was different. They had their share of “F’s” as well, but they had a few “C’s” and even a couple of “B’s”. There were only two solid “A’s”. One was Hezekiah and the other was possibly the only “A+”… Josiah.

It says in the book of 2 Kings 22 that Josiah “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.” There was absolutely no one like him! He became king of Judah at the age of 8. He had responsibility and leadership before some kids lose their front two teeth. He turned the nation’s heart back to the Lord, destroying their idols and celebrating Passover for the first time in centuries. He didn’t learn it from his dad either… See, Josiah had a granddad named Manasseh who was described as one of the worst people who ever lived… and Josiah’s dad, Amon wasn’t any better. So, how did he become so awesome? I don’t really know. It was probably some mystical and unknowable combination of God working in his heart, him loving the Lord, some advisors and counselors who had a heart for God, and some great Aunt Lulu who prayed for him everyday. Paul says none of us really knows how growth happens… we plant, they water, and God makes things grow. Somehow Josiah grew strong in the Lord.

Then when he was 26 (my age as I sit here and type this out) something happened. He ordered that the temple of God be restored and renovated. It was a huge project to restore the beauty and grandeur of God’s house, and it was going great when Josiah’s secretary ran into the throne room breathless… “My Lord,” he said, “We were cleaning out this closet up at the temple, and I found something…” “What?” The secretary looked at Josiah and said, “I found the Bible.” See, it turns out that for years and years (who knows how long) the entire nation was going about its business as usual while no one was reading God’s word! The Bible was covered in cobwebs in some closet! When Josiah heard this he said, “Well, come on… read it.” When they read the words of God to this young man, he lost it. He was completely distraught. That was the moment when all of God’s groundwork in his heart and his advisor’s godly counsel and Aunt Lulu’s prayers came to a head when combined with the word and Josiah became God’s man to cleanse the nation and lead them into repentance and worship. He was awesome!

I just got a new nephew… did I tell you? And his name is Josiah. I think he’s going to be awesome too… just like his namesake. But this Josiah has amazing parents living beautiful lives and he has sweet and godly grandparents as well. And he might not have Lulu, but he has Aunt Christy and Aunt Connie and Uncle Lee and we’re all praying. And this Josiah will never have to dig in some closet to find the words of His God, for they are written on the walls of his house and they are alive in the music on his Mommy’s lips and they are hidden in his Daddy’s heart. I don’t know what all it takes to grow, but God does, and I think this kid is gonna be awesome!

Ryan Long (drawing by Tom Job)

He Watches Over Me…

Last night Ryan Long played a concert here at Christ Community and as always it was great. I have always liked Ryan’s songwriting ever since I first heard the CD that Aaron Jenkins brought over to my house three years ago, but there is nothing like seeing one of Ryan’s shows. There is an intimacy and genuine yearning to his songs and heart when you get to watch him play and sing one of his songs. Last night’s show was great, but I was pretty discouraged by the number of people who showed up. I think we ended up having a little over 75 people, which isn’t bad unless you’re sitting in a room that can hold 220…

It turned out that the reason we had so few folks there was that there was a huge storm, (complete with tornados) tearing through Middle Tennessee and heading our way yesterday evening. Some family and friends out there actually had the siding ripped off of their homes and their cars slammed with hail damage as they hid in their bath tub… Well, that storm system, which had already claimed lives in Middle Tennessee was headed straight for us at 7:34 P.M., and the concert was supposed to start at 7:30. Now, in the past couple of weeks, the buzz about the concert has been great! Everyone and their hamster was planning on being there, but as the storm rolled in, the people did not.

We waited the worst out and started the concert a little late and it was everything you want out of a Ryan show… Everything from subtle to slammin’ guitar, flawless, scratchy and sweet vocals and the wide open heart of a guy who loves Christ. It was awesome. My favorite moment though was right at the end … The rain was beating down hard on the roof, the thunder was rolling heavy and deep outside and Ryan was leading us into deeper trust in our sovereign Father with a lullaby…

He clothes the flowers of the field
The fortune of the sparrow’s sealed
No worry, no vain care have I
That escapes His guardian eye

From a distance, and from very near
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow never fear
No need for me to fret or cry,
Safe beneath His wings am I

‘Cause He watches over me,
Every night while I’m asleep
And He watches over me,
Yes, He watches over me

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms
Leaning, leaning, on the everlasting arms

Anna... still smiling, even with a chipped left front tooth.

I Feel Great!

Okay, so a few weeks ago I was taking a nap in the middle of the day (on my day off) and I woke up to the most horrible, blood curdling scream… It was my two year old, Anna. I jumped out of bed, ran out of my room and saw her running toward me. From the kitchen through the living room and right in to Daddy’s arms she ran, screaming the whole way. When I saw her, I freaked at first because her face was absolutely covered in blood… her blood. I decided to pull myself together enough to comfort her and just held her close. Christy and Norah were close behind. It turns out that they were on a walk around our block when Anna fell and slammed her face into the pavement…

I have heard Anna cry and scream for many reasons in her short little life so far and it’s usually pretty hard to hear, but I have to say that something changed in me when I saw her bleeding. I don’t know… I wasn’t really ready for it, but it’s just different when you see your own child’s life stuff… anyway, there I am holding my screaming little, bleeding little girl, telling her it’s going to be alright when the coolest thing happened. For some stupid reason in that moment I asked her, “Are you Okay?” I mean, come on… the poor thing has just had pavement for lunch and I’m asking if she’s Okay? But Anna, holding on to me said through blood, snot and tears said, “I feel great!”

Now, I have to tell you that my Anna is quite the talker at age two... I know, everyone thinks their kids are geniuses, but I know mine is. I mean, when you sing a song, she tells you who the artist is. No kidding. She talks constantly about everything, but she has only learned words for a few emotions: ‘sad’, ‘okay’, and ‘great.’ Whenever you ask her, “How you doin’?” she always says, “I’m feelin’ great!” Now you would think that after crashing face first into Everest Circle, cutting up her face and chipping one of her two front teeth that she would choose ‘sad’ or maybe even ‘okay,’ but no… held up and held close in her Daddy’s arms, she said, “I feel great!”

James said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” (James 1:2-3) And Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:4-5) Whatever we go through, we should be dancing! We were dead in our sins and Jesus has freely forgiven us and guaranteed us a home in heaven with Him forever! When we think about what we have, in light of what we deserve, we should be happy all of the time! Not just happy though… we should throw a party all of the time! If we suffer and go through hard times, we should consider it PURE JOY! Now when was the last time you did that? No matter what you go through, you’re forgiven, righteous, heaven-bound and always in your Daddy’s arms. Now… don’t you “feel great?”

From Beethoven's Opus 1 Piano Trio no.3

Dissonance and Resolution

I have been reading about the life of Ludwig van Beethoven recently and have learned some really cool stuff… for instance: When Beethoven published his first work, (Opus 1: Three Piano Trios) his teacher, the European Master Franz Joseph Haydn didn’t like it. He thought that Beethoven was messing with the ‘form’ too much. It turns out that in a piano trio, the form called for two movements in a major key with a movement in a minor key in between them. (Now I know this is a little heavy in musical terminology, but hang with me, it’ll be worth it, I promise!) Beethoven’s first trio had two majors and a minor, but he opened the trio up with the minor movement which, according to Lewis Lockwood, “…breathed fire!” This brilliant young composer’s music was sometimes dark and foreboding, full of violent explosions of sound and carried out dissonant notes in ways and for lengths of time that had not been done before.

Dissonance is an interesting thing. Dissonance is defined as: “A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord, or a combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.” It may seem odd that composers would intentionally write dissonant notes into their music. Notes that don’t sound good together only work in music because the composer quickly resolves the tension by harmonizing the notes. When a piece of music is dissonant and then resolves into resonance, it is exceedingly beautiful… in fact, it makes us look back on the dissonance and say, “Those harsh notes were so beautiful… or the way they resolved was beautiful…” At some point it becomes hard to tell what it is that we liked, the dissonance or the resolution; it’s just all beautiful.

According to the Apostle Paul, God is like a composer writing a beautiful piece of music that we are a part of. In fact, we are called His “opus” in Ephesians 2. Like the works of Beethoven, this music that God is making with our lives is sometimes a turbulent storm of dissonant notes… Our lives are often full of discord and disharmony. We experience pain, loss, hurt, need, tragedies and trials and it’s easy to wonder, “If God is in control, why is life so dissonant?” Romans 8:28 tells us this: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” That means that in everything that happens to us, He is still in control and He is working all of it together for our good. We don’t always know what He’s doing or how He’s doing it, but we can know that He is using all of it, working it out for our good, just like a Master Composer.

One day when our lives are over and we are with Him forever we will get to hear the finished piece of music… the score He has been writing since the days of Adam. When we finally hear it, we will be able to see how all of our dissonant notes were resolved by Him into beautiful harmonies and we’ll say that the dissonance made the resolution all the more beautiful. We will be able to see that He was always in control and that we were never outside of His hand. We’ll see then that it was all beautiful and that we were always playing in the Master’s score.

Norah Rose and a tired me...
okay, so this picture is really stinkin' old, but it goes with the "archery" post from a few weeks ago. this was the day after Norah was born...

I Though It Meant Money and Cars…

Did you ever sing along to a song you really liked on the radio only to have someone tell you that you were way off on the lyrics? When I was a kid my dad only listened to the “oldies” station all the time, so I knew Motown music, the British Invasion, Rockabilly, and other types of American rock and Roll. One of my dad’s favorite groups was CCR (Credence Clearwater Revival). They have a song called “Bad Moon Rising” that says, “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” Well, as a kid, I always thought he was saying, “There’s a bathroom on the right.” I must have been singing it in the house or something because I remember my parents thinking it was pretty hilarious that I had gotten the lyrics wrong, but to a kid, having a bathroom on the right means more than the knowledge that a bad moon is coming.

I am one of those people who grew up in church, so I have been exposed to the Bible most of my life. I can remember hearing certain verses as a kid and interpreting them with my eight year-old mind only to find out much later that I was way off. One verse that really stuck with me from the early days was Psalm 37:4; which says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I can remember working really hard trying to figure out just how to delight myself in the Lord… if I could just do my part, then He would have to give me whatever my heart desired! It was right there in black and white in the Bible! The only problem was that every time I tried to get all happy in Jesus (or whatever that verse meant) I just wound up thinking about what all He would have to give me when I finally was delighted with Him…

I would wake up like on Christmas morning and find a blue Shelby Cobra with white racing stripes sitting in the driveway, and wait a minute… that was a new driveway attached to a really phat house and I would be wearing a brand new pair of Air Jordan’s as I swam through piles of money and climbed over stacks of really valuable comic books to get to our indoor ice-skating rink and skate park. It was going to be awesome!

Well, it turns out that CCR was talking about a bad moon, and I was way off on Psalm 37! See, there have been many times in my life since then that I have been truly… completely, delighted by God… delighted in Him… who He is and how He loves. So far, I still don’t have that car, those shoes or that house, but in those truly joyous moments, the thing I wanted most was more of Him… more of His love. My heart was made by Him for Him and my heart is only truly satisfied when He is all over it. God is the only one who can satisfy a human heart completely and He made us that way on purpose. It turns out that our hearts are most happy when we are happy in Him. So, when you delight yourself in the Lord, He gives you what your heart most desires… Himself.

Big Church

Have you ever wondered why the main meeting in church is called a ‘worship service?’ What exactly is worship? When the people in a church get together they sing songs, pray about stuff together and listen to someone talk about the Bible for a while… now which part of that is worship? To be honest, I grew up in church not even knowing it was called a ‘worship service’ until I was in late Middle School. When you are a kid, you go to Sunday School and after that you go to ‘big church.’ I can still remember looking at the bulletin as if for the first time in about eighth grade thinking, “This thing doesn’t say ‘big church’ anywhere on it… and what in the world is a worship service?!”

I was recently reading about Moses leading God’s people out of bondage in Egypt and how God saved them by parting the Red Sea so that the entire 2.5 million people could walk through on dry land. It was amazing! But before they ever got to the banks of the Red Sea, they had to get out of Egypt. God sent plague after plague down on Egypt but Pharaoh wouldn’t let them go until the last plague hit. During the middle of the night while everyone was asleep, God sent a destroying angel who took the life of every firstborn son, child or animal in every house and every farm. Well… almost every firstborn.

God had always said that the firstborn sons belonged to Him, but this was the first time He claimed His right. The only people who got to keep their firstborns were people who slaughtered a spotless lamb and painted its blood on their doorframes. This animal was dying in their place… buying them back. That’s why the Israelites got to leave with their kids. It was called Passover because the Lord passed over the homes with blood on them and stopped the angel from bringing death. Moses told the people that every year in the first month they had to celebrate the Passover as a holiday, and when giving Moses the instructions about the Passover feast, the Lord said, “No one is to appear before me empty-handed.” (Exodus 23:15)

The Passover holiday was a time of worship where they would bring another lamb and kill it to remember that God owns all of them, and to remember the price that was paid for them. We don’t kill animals in our worship service because all those animals were just a picture of who Jesus is and what He came to do. He died once and for all as a payment for all the wrong of all who will believe in Him. He is our Passover Lamb and when we come together singing songs, praying prayers and listening to the Word of God, it is a time for us to remember the Lamb who was slain. It is a time for us to remember that we belong to God. It is a time for us to offer our whole selves to Him because He owns us and has bought us with His own blood. Don’t appear before Him empty-handed. Offer your whole self to Him.

Archery

Twenty-two days ago I became a dad… again. Our new little girl, Norah Rose was born on Monday, January 2nd at 10:55 PM. Needless to say, the birth was amazing, my wife was and is amazing and Norah is pretty much the bomb! It has been so fun to watch the way in which our two-year-old Anna reacts to the new baby. For the most part, she is crazy about Norah and wants to hold her and smooch on her and all of that. Every now and then a little jealousness creeps in, but for the most part she loves her new little sis.

When we only had one newborn, I had no way of knowing what she was going to be like once she started walking, talking, singing and making jokes, but now Anna does all of those things and everyday I wonder what Norah is going to be like at age two. Now, I know kids are as different as night and day sometimes and so, I don’t really have any way of knowing what she will be like either, but now I at least have a frame of reference. One thing I have learned is that I won’t have to wait very long to find out what Norah’s going to be like, because these precious early days of infanthood (is that a word?) fly past like a fighter jet… you know it was there because you heard it, but it was so fast you can’t even get a good look.

So, all of a sudden I have turned around in my life and I’m 26 years old, blessed like crazy in 4.5 years of marriage, and I have two daughters! Whoa! I have kids… plural! This is all just going so fast and I want to do this right. I want to understand who I am supposed to be as Anna and Norah’s dad… What are my responsibilities as their father? Who am I supposed to be in their life? I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this, but there’s a pretty cool parental job description in Psalm 127. Solomon says, “Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”

So, if kids are arrows, then parents are the warriors. More specifically, parents are the archers. That is such a cool way to describe a parent’s job. I think that the natural desire for a parent is to shelter their child, and try to protect them from the messed up stuff in the world, but that is not a parent’s job. The Lord is our shelter and our protection, and He is that for our kids as well. My job as a parent is to be my girls’ warrior… their archer. My job is to shoot them out from myself and give them everything they need to make it farther out than they would have without me, and farther out than I can go. I am their warrior, and my job is to fight for them with prayer, lifting them up to their true protector and shelter. If I am a good dad, I fight for my kids through prayer, I aim them out into the fray and I know when to let them go. If I am a good archer, I am a good dad.

Well, here goes nothing...

I feel I must begin by saying that i am way out of my league here. I am not very technically savvy and that being the case, I only just learned what a blog is. This type of thing is very intimidating, but in the end I decided just to go for it because it may be a good way for me to unload thoughts and meditations and keep a fresh mind.

I guess I should start by explaining the title of this thing. This collection of meditations is called "The Snare is Broken" because of a verse in Psalm 124. David was such an amazing songwriter who beautifully painted the loving grace of God in so many ways. In this particular song he said, "We have escaped like a bird out of a fowler's snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped." (Ps 124:7) I guess I just want to hold this verse up as sort of a banner over my whole life and say, "I have escaped! I have been rescued from myself and all my wrong and it's all because God has been merciful to me." If there could be one word spoken over my whole life, it would be 'mercy.' God has poured out compassion, love, His favor and forgiveness and I didn't deserve any of it! I was ensnared by this fallen world and most of all my own fallen heart, but He has rescued me from the snare because Jesus died. Mercy, substitution, blood, death, resurrection and life... He has not only rescued me, He has broken the snare, and I am free.
-lee