True Wholeness Comes From Brokenness

I think at times we may think that being ‘whole’ means that everything is always ok and together in our lives. If we are whole emotionally we are never upset or disappointed or sad. Spiritual wholeness means that our faith is always perfect and we always feel close to God. It must mean that we are always balanced and always doing the right thing. I believe that this is not the right measurement. Wholeness does not guarantee that there will be no pain or that we will always be level emotionally. The measurement of wholeness is not avoiding pain or being perfect but what we do with the pain in imperfection. It does not mean there is no brokenness but that it’s actually ok to have brokenness.

In fact wholeness is made up of a lot of broken little pieces in our life. The sign we are whole is if we can receive God’s love and forgiveness in the midst of it. The bible says that a broken and contrite heart will never be refused by God. That if we try and save our lives we will in fact lose them. Often we allow brokenness to bring fear and fear makes us try and control things including brokenness. But what you try and control will eventually control you! By receiving God’s love it throws the fear out and allows us to embrace the brokenness as an opportunity to grow. That is what leads to wholeness!!

So give yourself permission to feel the pain of disappointment to know the sting of brokenness it will make the sweetness of God’s love pouring over you all the more real. I often hear people say they want to feel God’s love and the reality of Him in their lives and yet at the same time avoid any conflict or are scared to ask the hard questions of God. To see the ‘real’ we must be ‘real’. Get honest with your faith - if you lack it ask for it…if you need healing press into God all the more…if you have broken pieces and feel shattered ask God to sweep them up and breathe new life into them.

I once had a vision of someone’s heart broken into a million pieces I saw Jesus bending over on hands and knees carefully gathering them together into His scarred hands…He held them up to His mouth and breathed on them and they came together and the heart began pumping again…you could see the pieces almost like they were glued together but the heart was pumping. As Jesus handed it back to this girl she could not receive it and knocked it out of Jesus hands and it shattered again. Without word He got back down on His hands and knees and began the collecting again being very careful with each piece…this happened over and over until she collapsed into His arms and received His gift. Jesus will never stop putting the pieces of your life back together…He will keep doing it until you receive it…still cracks, still scared but whole and pumping His love through out your life!!

Mark is a master mentor who believes in the apprenticeship model of discipleship. Mark is excited about selling his house and moving into the next stage of his life and ministry.

Vegas or Bust

I once saw a bumper sticker that said ‘Vegas or Bust’ well I was just in Vegas and it was a bust for sure. I have to say that city is a very dark place in many ways we all know its called sin city but I had no idea how much so. It needs a move of God in the worst way. I sure felt for the church there as their task is huge. What broke my heart the most was the sense of false hope that was so strong there. Promises that can never truly be realized by the people that visit or who live there. As you walk down the strip you are met by people trying to hand you porn and I must say it was very annoying and we definitely were not happy with them and unfortunately showed it. Then it dawned on me that they were just trying to feed their family trying to make ends meet - to survive. It was probably the only way they could make some money. My heart goes out to them being forced into exploiting young girls the age of some of their own daughters. It must torment their souls to be out day after day being treated horrible and feeling horrible for what they were doing.

My point here is this… sometimes it is easy for us to judge someone for what we see them do in the natural without understanding what put them into the situation in the first place. I at one time in my life was homeless and on drugs and stole to feed my habit and stomach. It would be easy to judge me and I may have deserved it but the whole time I was in that period of my life I dreamed of helping others. Always even then I would share what I had with others. If the church in North America is going to touch our communities with God’s love we must change our view of it. We must seek to understand people and where they are at…not judge them for it! We must move with empathy putting ourselves in their shoes. Jesus did that for us He came and walked a mile in our shoes and then paid for it with His life!

Our faith must be love centered not rules centered. We, as followers of Jesus, must see what He sees rather then what the world sees. I have found that how one is viewed is how they are treated and eventually the person develops a belief system around that view about himself and others. This is especially true of kids: There was a time when a ministry partner was asked to come to a school to talk to a student. This student was considered the bully in the school everyone including the staff saw him in this light. He may have earned it but it did not represent his heart at all. As they talked my friend said to him, “I see in you a gift of compassion!” The kid laughed out loud and asked if he knew who he was. He assured him he did know and that he saw in him a gift…to make a long story short because I don’t have space here, he was eventually able to see it too and his bullying turned into leadership and he turned out to be a top student who helped other kids. He simply had someone help him change the window he looked through. We must at times look through a different window then the obvious one. Look into the heart of someone rather then the actions and then begin to say what we see!!

Let’s LOVE BIG, people! LOVE BIG!

Mark is enthusiastic about helping people learn to speak and live out strength-based principles. Mark is also enthusiastic about banana splits!

Making Peace with the Present

The other day I heard that Americans receive an average of about 3000 commercial messages in a given week and that this tends to create a wish fulfillment dynamic in our culture. This means that we are always wishing for something that we don’t have thinking it will fulfill us. Another way I’ve heard it put is the “moving horizon”. In the same way that one can never reach the horizon no matter how fast we go, we can always be moving towards something future with an uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction in our lives. In fact, I think that the main message in most advertising has become one of the mottos of our culture: “My life would be better if only…”

Lately I’ve been in a bit of a funk myself (not the James Brown kind either – that would be an entirely different blog). At times I’ve felt crushed between the rocks of disappointed hopes and the waves of frustrated goals. When I started thinking about all of this it was because of a still, small voice inside me that said, “Can you learn to make peace with the present?” It felt like I was being offered a better possibility – an alternative to the tyranny of the unfulfilled, often unreachable “If-Onlys” in my life.

I realized that I had been futilely chasing the horizon for some time. Let me give you a couple examples of what I mean. Recently two goals that I had been moving towards for some time were achieved. They were two big “If-Onlys” in my life. One was that I wanted to be able to work on staff at the church in a pastoral role and the other was to find our own house to purchase and settle down in. Between those two things there was more than three years of working and hoping. It seemed like they would be key solutions to something indefinable in my heart. Well guess what? In the last 4 months, I reached both of those horizons and they weren’t the solutions I hoped for. Don’t get me wrong: Both have been a source of blessing to me and I’m grateful. However, they weren’t happy endings or finish lines but simply doors to walk through that led into new challenges and journeys. On top of that, I realized that other horizons that I am chasing, for one, becoming a father, continued to leech the joy from my life.

It began to dawn on me that reaching my goals would not fulfill me and that life is not a series of destinations to be reached but about walking with God in the midst of the journey. If I’m constantly focused on unfulfilled wishes, then I put entirely too much pressure on myself and others around me to be moving me towards my goals. This leads to anger (frustration) at those in my way, a lack of peace with the present and an inability to be grateful for “now”. On the other hand, God was promising me peace if I could put my hopes in His care and learn to find contentment in the present. This doesn’t mean denying that I have hopes and dreams that are yet to be fulfilled but knowing that they won’t be the final answers to my longings (I think those will have to wait until heaven). So, I’m trying to take God up on His offer and learning how to walk in the present with contentment.

Ben enjoys how often he gets to spend time connecting with people in his community - so much inspiration and joy comes through it. Ben is excited about spring weather and sunshine-filled days!