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Ruined For The Ordinary

In the movie Braveheart, William Wallace is speaking before a rag-tag bunch of Scotsmen attempting to breathe purpose into their weary hearts. These men have been used as disposable pawns by the nobles; they have lost friends and family fighting the English while their leaders have made deals of safety and security. Tired, dejected and weary of living a life that seems to be going nowhere the men begin to leave the battle-field. It is at this moment of “nothing really matters” that Wallace rides in and begins to paint a picture of purpose and meaning. From atop his mount Wallace cries,  “Every man dies, not every man really lives.” 

There is a reason to live…there is a purpose to life…it is not found in mere existence, but rather it is a divine seed that is within every person who breathes. When we begin to cultivate this divine gift of passion, purpose and potentiality, we become ruined for the ordinary and that truly is God’s desire for you…to be ruined for the ordinary.

I have talked with too many men and women who wish they could have another job…wish they had a different life or family but feel emotionally and vocationally stuck riding out the current of existence.

Jesus did not give His life so that we would merely exists, living in apathy or atrophy…He died so that His very life would be infused into us jump starting the divine ride of a lifetime!

Ralph Waldo Emerson noted that: It is not length of life, but depth of life, that truly matters. Jesus said it this way:

“If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it. Only those who throw away their lives for My sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.”   Mark 8:35

* Everyone dies, but not many really live…

* It’s not the length of life that matters, but rather the depth of life…

* Living full-on for the Good news of Jesus births a passionate life marinated in depth.

When I decided to take God at His word…I found life. When I chose to allow the Good News of Christ to become my mission…I found purpose. When I surrendered my agendas to the Holy Spirit, and began experiencing the path illuminated by Him, I was ruined for the ordinary.

There are many days that I stand amazed at all the things God has allowed me to be a part of, from helping a village in Uganda receive clean water, to handing out sleeping bags to the homeless in downtown Seattle. From holding the hand of a friend in pain, to riding horses over the Canadian Rockies with a bunch of crazy guys. From experiencing the peace, presence and power of God in my life to witnessing a family healed and transformed through the grace and peace of God in the community of faith.

The beauty of beginning to really live life is that you don’t have to move, change jobs, find a new family, or get it all together. No, God will meet you right where you are, just as you are, right now.

He simply asks a question. “Will you follow me?” If you will answer Him will a committed “Yes,” and allow Him to take the driver’s seat, you will begin to view your job, your life, your spouse, your friends and your family through a radically different set of eyes.

You will begin to see beauty where there was ash. You will begin to experience hope where there was apathy. You will begin to the fingerprints and the dance of Trinity all around you, and you too will be ruined for the ordinary.

Dei Gratia,

Monty

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Self Forgetfulness

Today as we journeyed a bit into chapter 2 of Philippians, we looked at this incredible invitation of grace God gives us…from His goodness…so every person regardless of their past or present might enter the incredible dance of God.  Many people were asking me about the video clip I used to demonstrate this incredible dance (perichoresis) of God that He invites us into, as well as the clip of the Apollo 8 flight where humans saw the full scope of the earth for the first time.

Here is a link to the message from today: http://www.svaonline.org/connect-and-grow/messages-and-podcasts/item/341-poured-out

And below are the videos…

poured out 3 message notes

Poured out study week 3 take home sheet

Grace and peace…Monty

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L’shanah Tovah!

Blessings to you on the first night of Rosh Hashanah! Rosh Hashanah is the celebration of the Jewish new year. Leviticus 16 sets the celebration apart as a yearly fresh start.

…In the seventh month, on the first of the month, there shall be a sabbath for you, a remembrance with shofar blasts, a holy convocation. -Leviticus 16:24

As the Jewish new year begins I hope you’ll enjoy the following video which I loved!

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Alzheimer’s and ethics

You might not know it, but today is  “World Alzheimer’s Day.” This day is spearheaded by an organization called The Global Voice on Dementia. You can check them out at:  http://www.alz.co.uk/  This has become a global concern that even the UN has taken notice of, and this week they are addressing it for the second year in a row.

The most recent stats claim that there are currently 30 million people who suffer from dementia, and there will be an estimated 100 million people by the year 2050.

If Alzheimer’s has not affected you or your family, there is truly no way to adequately communicate how painful, hard and devastating it is on the whole family. As the days go by, there seems to be less and less of the person you knew and loved “at home” in their body. To live through the deterioration causes you to ask God some serious questions. Walking through the effects of Alzheimer’s when it came to visit my family, has left all of us changed…it was a very long and hard journey.

I think that is why I had such an instantaneous reaction to Pat Robertson’s remark about Alzheimer’s this week. A man whose wife had Alz indicated that since his wife was no longer “there” he was moving on with his life, and wondered if it was okay to divorce her since there was not a tangible relationship anymore.

While Pat has made some pretty embarrassing news remarks over the years, which have often given Christianity a black eye, when he said it was okay for this man to divorce his wife since Alzheimer’s is a “kind of death” I was speechless.

When we reduce love and commitment to a formula that says, ” I am only in this as long as my needs are met, we have absolutely missed what it means to follow Christ with our actions and choices.

This kind of ethic-less thinking means that if you are not able to do for me what I want, regardless of a medical diagnosis, then I have no moral or ethical responsibility to stay in a relationship with you. Unfortunately I have actually witnessed couples divorcing months after a marriage began because one spouse got cancer, and the leaving spouse knew his sexual needs wouldn’t get met.

Amazing…bad form…wrong…selfish…ugly…

This reveals how me-centric we have the capacity of being, and how desperately we need God to help transform us into men and women who choose truth and sacrifice over self, ease or comfortability.

Do you remember the old “Lifeboat” analogy we grew up with…where there was a diverse group of people in a rescue boat, from teachers and lawyers, to disabled and jobless. The Lifeboat dilemma was that the boat was overloaded and some of the people had to go…the question to process through was…which life was truly worth saving. Welcome to ethics 101, and throw in a dash of situation ethics as well.

When we think life can be trimmed down to easy answers and flippantly decide which people deserve our love; which people deserve our unconditional commitment, and what is the loop-hole I can deploy when life get tough, we reduce our humanity to something more animalistic.

The man who Pat gave a get-out-of-marriage free card to, might have felt some relief for a while, but I think soon he will be flooded with other feelings that are not quite so life-giving. I know the weight and burden the loved ones of Alz patients carry is immense, but life isn’t devoid of pain. Instead of running from the pain and the feelings, real life it’s about who we are becoming through the pain.

You see God has placed His own source code into the hearts of us all. While we are good at tricking ourselves, living in denial or avoiding the questions of the soul…when the night spaces come, our heart is crying out the questions unleashed by the divine DNA within us, and we know that there are truths that exist beyond our comfort zones and our ability  to justify.

Every life matters because every life has its genesis in the creative imagination of God. We have the opportunity to most reflect the God-reality within us when we choose love, life, to invest in those considered un-worthy, to love those who seem un-lovable, and to stay committed to those who we made a covenant with and are unable to reciprocate because of something as devastating as Alzheimer’s.

In a very real way, God demonstrates the opposite advice that Pat gave. As God looked at broken humanity that struggled with a complete disconnect from the divine, He could have said, “Well, their sin situation is kind of a death, so I don’t need to stick around.” Fortunately for us He didn’t. In fact in Romans 5:8 we read:

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were       still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Then in chapter 6 verse 23 Paul reminds us: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So when we were considered “dead” that is when God’s extravagant love went into overdrive, not into a me-centric justification for non-involvement.

The life-giving model we see in the choices of the Father and the Son is to preserve the beauty and sanctity of life…not look for loop holes to disengage.

May we raise our awareness, compassion and love and stay committed to the ones we love, especially those with whom we said, “Til Death do us part.”

Dei Gratia…Monty