Don’t Confuse Busyness with Godliness

Regular consumers of the Monday Musings know that I love to use song lyrics as a springboard to spiritual meditations. A song from the country group Alabama hit home during a hectic week. I’m in a hurry to get things doneOh I rush and rush until life’s no funAll I really gotta do is live and dieBut I’m in a hurry and don’t know why. It seems those lyrics describe the norm for many of us. Especially the life’s no fun part when we are crazy busy. Slowing down was a big part of my motivation in writing Waking Up Slowly. Here is an excerpt about the danger of busyness from the book. Letting our busyness get in the way of our relationship with God shows how out of balance we let our schedules become. Nowhere in Scripture will you find this command. Be busy and know that I am God. Our busyness does not please God. Our faith pleases Him. And we can’t
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Can I Trust God’s Directions as much as my GPS?

My lovely wife returned from a luncheon engagement with an insight I was more than willing to borrow. “My GPS took me on a path that was completely counter-intuitive to me.” Joni reported. “I even wondered if I had entered the wrong destination. I learned later that there was a major slowdown on the normal route and this strange path got me there on time. The GPS could see things I could not and knew how to get me there. I began to think I do the same thing with God. I wonder about the path He has me on and if He knows how to get me to the place I want to be. But He sees things I cannot and I need to trust Him more.” I love that metaphor. I think part of the answer is that we fail to recognize how big our God really is. I am going to borrow a bit from my book
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My Christmas Wish For You

Amy Grant recorded “My Grown-up Christmas List” for her “Home For Christmas” album. The lyrics imagine an adult going back to Santa with a different perspective on what matters most in life. Instead of material things the writer now asks for good things for others. I love the sentiment of the song. No more lives torn apartThat wars would never startAnd time would heal all heartsEveryone would have a friendAnd right would always winAnd love would never endThis is my grown-up Christmas list “My Grown Up Christmas List” I thought about my “grown-up” Christmas list this week. I would love for all of the things in the lyric above to come true. But I have lived enough to know they will not. Everyday lives are torn apart. Wars start too frequently. Time does not heal every heart. Some who are reading this are lonely. Right seems to lose way too often and love ends for many. So what could I wish for that
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Why Is It So Hard To Unwrap The Gift Of Grace?

Every follower of Jesus is offered the gifts of grace without any strings (or ribbons) attached. All of us have full access to these gifts. Paul writes that we are brought into right relationship with God entirely as a gift of His radical and amazing love. When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of his grace he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life. Titus 3:5-7, NLT Grace is the best deal ever offered and yet we often resist accepting the gift of our Lord. We can’t believe it is true. We fear it can’t be possible that we can be
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Can We All Move to Mr Roger’s Neighborhood?

The day after a wonderful Thanksgiving Eve family gathering we checked out the new movie about the iconic children’s star Fred Rogers. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood is based on the real life relationship between Rogers and Esquire magazine writer Tom Junod. In the movie the cynical journalist has been renamed Lloyd Vogel. Known for his unflinching exposes of people and events, Vogel chafes when receiving an assignment to do a “puff-piece” on television’s Mr. Rogers. Vogel approaches this story determined to find out if this gentle man is a fake. His skepticism prompts one of the best exchanges in the movie with his long suffering wife. Lloyd Vogel: I’m profiling Mr. Rogers. Andrea Vogel: Lloyd, please don’t ruin my childhood. I will not offer any spoilers. I will say the movie was not what I expected. It was much, much more. I have a confession to make and an apology to offer. I was “too cool” for Mr.
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Could the Local Church Learn from Toby Keith’s Bar?

I write a lot about the importance of Christian community. I too often hear from wounded churchgoers that have not found a room of grace where there is freedom to be honest. At the risk of riling the ever present spiritual hall monitors I want to suggest a reason so many people leave the institutional church in frustration and pain. My thoughts were triggered by a song titled  “I Love This Bar” by Toby Keith. If you will hang with me to the end before launching the email barrage I think you will at least see my point. I understand that bars can be a dark place to anesthetize pain. But there is another dynamic of these gathering spots that we can learn from. In my oddly constructed brain I listened to this song and dreamed of what a community of seekers and followers of Jesus should look like. We got winners, we got losersChain smokers and boozersAnd we got
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Politics and Jesus

Nothing like starting out the week by discussing two of the three forbidden topics: politics and Jesus. I used to be a rabid political guy. I once believed we could change the culture with the right political leaders. I was right to have the dream but wrong about the method. Even if I could get my “dream team” elected we would still have a problem in our culture. Sin. Politics and law don’t change that inconvenient truth (apologies to Al Gore) that we have an inherent human heart problem. Jesus gave us a perfect example of what it looks like to be a good citizen while recognizing what really changes the heart of man. The religious legalists (the Pharisees) were trying to trick Jesus to get Him in trouble with the Roman government. Nice try. “Teacher,” they said, “we know how honest you are. You are impartial and don’t play favorites. You teach the way of God truthfully. Now tell
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