This weekend was a harsh reminder that this world is not our home. It is so easy to get comfortable here – I have a job, I have a house, I have a family, I have great friends – but this place is not our home. Sickness, injustice, downturns, it’s all rampant in this life. When we face those moments, we have two choices:

1. Get mad at God, abandon all hope and live in the moment.
2. Cling to God and the hope of all that Heaven brings.

To be honest, I find it hard to be satisfied with the idea of Heaven. It sounds great, but it’s so far away. Then the psalmist reminds me that better is one day in the House of the Lord than one thousand days anywhere else. Even standing in the doorway of Heaven is better than the best day here on Earth.

Can you imagine that?!? I have had many great days. Maybe I’m an optimist, but it seems like the really bad days are few and far between – I can probably count them on my hand. But even the greatest day we could experience, be it full of happiness and satisfaction, pales in comparison to waiting in the doorway of God’s place.

When it comes down to it, you either believe it or you don’t. If you don’t, there’s only so much you can do to make the most of this life. The reality is that from day one, our bodies are decaying. We have no way of affecting the decisions that other people make that could impact us. Tragedy strikes without warning.

But God, He is so good. He gives us grace and glory. He is our shield and our strength. I have to believe in the loveliness of His dwelling place, and I do believe that through that I will see His blessing. After all, we were created with that yearning in our souls. We can embrace it, or try and silence it with the material, withering world. Oh, what a tragedy that would be.

Editor’s note: As a self-proclaimed scholar, I realize that the “dwelling place” of God can have two meanings. One might be Heaven, but the most likely interpretation of dwelling place in this context is being in the presence of God when following His ways. For today, I like thinking about Heaven. I’ll try not to be a heretic tomorrow.

For one reason or another, I have been hearing/reading/thinking a lot about leadership lately. We put a lot of trust in politicians, church leaders, family, friends. I don’t often think of the ramifications of leadership, or the fallout of bad leadership. It’s hard enough being a husband and connection group leader, I can’t imagine being a king.

Give the king Your judgments, O God,
And Your righteousness to the king’s son.
May he judge Your people with righteousness
And Your afflicted with justice.

I love this prayer. God was willing to give Solomon anything he wanted, and all he asked for was wisdom. And for the first half of his life, he was a pretty awesome leader. He knew what it meant to be a man of God.

I’m not a big Mark Driscoll fan (I find him brash, and somewhat lacking in humility – you can be brutally honest and humble at the same time), but he’s in the middle of a series through the letters from Peter. Last week Driscoll talked about what it means to be a man. He made some good points about our responsibilities, but what struck me the most was his point that Jesus was the perfect man. I mean, yeah, I know He was perfect, but I never thought of Him as the perfect example of what a man should be.

Jesus embodied wisdom, righteousness, and justice, the very thing Solomon prayed for in Psalm 72. But Jesus didn’t show up and demand the spotlight, assume the leadership of Rome, and try and transform the world with ordinances. The leadership of Jesus was subversive to the extent that He transformed people, and the transformation of those people was going to change the face of a people, a region, and eventually the world.

Without going down a political road of how we advocate change, I just wonder if I am seeking to be the kind of leader that comes alongside the power of the Holy Spirit to help change people. I pray that wisdom, righteousness, and justice would be the mark of my leadership.

Editor’s note: I know what you’re thinking, so you don’t have to say it. Let’s just say I’m trying to work on sticking to my commitments.

Often, I forget this simple truth: God blesses us so that all the ends of the earth may fear Him. It really isn’t about us, it’s about the next person. If we really understood and believed that, maybe we wouldn’t get so bent out of shape when things don’t go our way. I’m talking to you, Chris Saldanha.

I am not sure when it happened, but at some point humanity thought that the blessings of God should come to and stop at us. But if you dust off that book called Genesis, God makes it clear from the start that what He’s doing, and how He blesses us, is all with the next person in mind. He tells Abraham that He will bless him, and though him all nations will be blessed. God didn’t tell Abraham to take his goodie basket and run into the closet and eat all of his candy before all the other kids get to it. For years I thought that was what Easter was about.

The writer of Psalm 67 is talking about very earthly blessings – produce, to be specific – and how we should be using them for God’s purposes. If our produce is supposed to be a means through which the ends of the earth would know and fear the Lord, how much more is the burden now that we have and understanding of the spiritual “produce.”

I am tired of running off with my basket of spiritual goodies and hoarding them all for myself. This year, I will use my chocolate bunnies of faith to help the next person know the person of Jesus.

My ability to blog every day has been, in the words of Charles Barkley, trrrible. There are a few things I have discovered while meditating over the Psalms these last three weeks:

• It is hard work to seek deeper truths on a daily basis.
• The psalmists don’t cover a lot of material, but the depth is unreal.
• It is so easy to push God to the bottom of your agenda, even why trying to focus on keeping Him at the top.

Thank you, Lord, for showing me my humanity.

You + Me =
Last night at bible study we were discussing the message of Haggai. Something amazing happens in those two short chapters – the people of Israel actually respond to the Lord and repent. Usually it’s a lot of back and forth, and God has to bring on some more punishment, and a few chapters later they get it. And it’s always so brutal. “Why don’t they get it?!? It’s so simple,” I say to myself.

Well, this time – they get it.

Naturally the conversation turned to discover what was different. It seems two fold:

1. The people of Israel recognized that crops, food, drink, clothing and money were not satisfying them.
2. The Lord stirred their hearts.

And that’s the formula: us + God = conviction and repentance. When conviction and repentance don’t happen it’s because our heart isn’t there yet. That can lead us down a dangerous path. We give a little here, give a little there, and soon we’re ensnared in something much bigger than we imagined. In Psalm 55, David is pained by a brother with who he once shared sweet fellowship, and now he is destructive. It seems to be a slippery slope.

So how do we stay there? That seems to be the million dollar question. The illustration that was used last night was comparing our responses to money and to God. No one has to convince us of the perceived “good” that can come of someone giving us $2000. Instantly we know where to spend it and what to spend it on. In fact, the possibilities are almost endless. We are easily convinced of the benefit.

When it comes to the value of following God, it gets tricky. Not only do we have to convince ourselves of the benefits, but the world around us is trying to prove us wrong. The world is trying to convince us that our security is in money, food, and shelter. We say, “Following Christ gives way to joy in suffering,” while the world shouts back, “Where is your God now?” For every perceived benefit, the world has a refuting response.

I think the truths that we have to hold on to are different for every person. We must seek out those truths and set our hearts on them. Through Haggai, the Lord begs us to consider our ways, because those ways are what will lead us to a greater relationship or to a shallow belief.

It seems like God’s Word has been really timely lately. Every time I turn to the Psalms to read for the day, there is a passage that applies to what’s going on, or what will go on. Sure, I might be reading too much into the relevance of what I’m reading, but it’s relevant none-the-less and is a cool reminder that what God has spoken is just as applicable now as then.

Today I’ve been thinking a lot about sin, grace, and forgiveness. It’s only fitting that I read Psalm 51, written by David as a response to Nathan confronting him about wrongly sleeping with Bathsheba (and later having her husband killed in battle!). It is a beautiful plea to God to remember His lovingkindness in the wake of our transgression.

One thing I never really thought of is the fact that our sin, our offense, is really between us and God. Unfortunately, innocent by-standers feel the fallout of that mistake, but what makes it a sin is that we violated what God commanded. I usually think about the brokenness between me and other people, rarely do I think about the brokenness between me and God.

David doesn’t throw up his defenses and try and talk his way out of it, he deeply knows what he did was evil (comparing it to a broken bone) and that God will be just with His verdict. David begs that his heart would be cleansed and that God would not take His Spirit away from him. If only we all felt the weight of brokenness like David. I can’t remember the last time I begged God to let His Spirit remain in me.

Ultimately, David knows there is nothing he can do to be in right standing before God. Only God can restore and deliver. David understand this, and what an awesome testimony of God’s grace and compassion it will be! He will go on to teach “transgressors” and “sinners” of what God has done out of His great love.

It seems like we have a lot to learn from David, especially in terms of how we respond to the sin of other people:

• We are not to come down in judgment, that is God’s role. I remember a wise man (Steve Larson) saying that we, as Christians, are in the business of reconciliation. Because of the fact that God restores and delivers, we must act in the same way to repair brokenness and come alongside the sinner.
• No one is above reproach. David was a “man after God’s own heart” and he did something incredibly stupid. Who am I to think I am any better? Such a somber reminder that we need to always be on guard.
• God is so good. We need to rejoice in the fact that God is both loving and just, and to tell people of the story of His redemption.

Editor’s note: All credit for the title goes to the very funny Kathryn Saldanha. She’s surprised no news people have used it yet.

Today Bernie Madoff is being tried today for losing $65 billion of investor’s money in a scheme, and now faces 11 criminal charges, up to 150 years in prison and $170 billion in restitution. This scheme has been going on for two decades, and not once did investors question how they would get a promised 46% return on their investment – which is totally unheard of.

Now, all the greedy people are mad. You turn on the news and you see wealthy Floridians yelling at reporters that nothing could be done to Madoff that would make them feel better about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe even millions, in this investment scheme.

Sorry folks, I don’t feel bad for you. Your greed caused you to chase after a too-good-to-be-true investment, and now you’re paying the price. I’m sure your lifestyle won’t change that much, since you’re completely loaded and have multi-million dollar houses anyway.

Granted, I’m generalizing. I’m sure there are people that don’t have much that will suffer from this. But for the most part Madoff’s investors were high rollers.

The Grave Truth
It’s only fitting that this morning I spent time meditating on Psalm 49, which is all about the reality that we take nothing with us when we leave this life. People are out there chasing fame and fortune – there are cities and streets named after people – but what does that profit you when you die. Nothing? In fact, your name will be forgotten among the generations.

More than that, the pursuit of all things self-glorifying also robs us of true wisdom, understanding, and the fullness of life, for this life and the next. The psalmist says that God will reach into the grave to redeem the soul of the upright, but the man who chased after his own praise will be consumed by the grave. His glory won’t follow him, he will be left with nothing.

I can’t help but think of the despair that chasing money and fame causes in this life. Those people lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions. That’s probably more money than I will make in my lifetime, and they are completely distraught. We are in an economic downturn that has led people to the point of killing themselves because they’ve lost their job, they money, and now believe they have nothing left to live for. What a sad, desperate picture of people chasing things that won’t follow them to the grave.

God, that we would chase after the redemption of our souls and not the riches of this world.

It seems like I am always forgetting that God is God and I am just a man. He knows what is best for me, so why would I even try and fight it? Let alone question it.

The earth will melt, and He will not be moved. Kingdoms are destroyed at the sound of His voice. He causes wars to cease and bows to break. Of course the best place to be is right where God would have me. I strikes me as funny that the Hebrew word for “cease” in Psalm 46:10 gives us the image of sinking down, like in mud or quicksand. It’s like we need to stop, and sink into the reality that God is our refuge. We become immovable in that truth, as God is immovable.

I need to remember to cease striving and know that He is God.

One of my favorite Don Miller ideas is the “lifeboat mentality.” In Searching For God Knows What, he talks about this exercise they did in elementary school where a bunch of people are on a lifeboat, and one has to be thrown out for the survival of the remaining. There’s a doctor, a teacher, a lawyer, etc. Who do you throw out? Obviously, whoever is “least valuable” will be sacrificed.

Don goes on to see this “lifeboat mentality” worked out in our lives, that we are constantly comparing ourselves to those around us to make sure we’re better than them. That way we won’t get thrown out of the cultural lifeboat. This gives way to us being frustrated when someone wastes our time, or we get angry when someone cuts us off. Anything that is perceived as saying, “I’m better than you,” we become furious.

But as Christians, if we really find our worth in who God says we are, we should never get mad, angry, or frustrated with people that damage our self-worth. It’s not their place to damage it, because our worth comes from God.

Reality is, I feel the pain of that damage all the time, and Katie can attest to the fact that I become defensive, angry, and bitter. In a similar way, I think we look around and see those who reject God being successful and affluent, when our own lives may be marked with suffering and hardship. Again comes defensiveness, anger, bitterness, and maybe even lack of trust or faith in God. What a sweet reminder Psalm 37 has been:

Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
Cease from anger and forsake wrath;
Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.
For evildoers will be cut off,
But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land.

If we really rest and wait patiently for what God is doing, we’ll save ourselves a world of heartache and evildoing.

Our culture (religious and otherwise) seems to have an understanding of how we are to treat each other as human beings. The glorious golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. Of course, we only really follow that when it’s convenient. I see plenty of people not treating others how they would like to be treated. Just yesterday I saw a woman rudely chew out a girl for talking during a movie. Sure, it was somewhat warranted, but you don’t need to tell her she’s “one of the rudest effing people she’s ever met.” There’s a much more caring way to say such things.

For the Christian, Jesus raised the bar. We’re not only to treat others fairly, but we’re supposed to love people. Even our enemies. Actually, especially our enemies. Everyone loves people who love them back, but we show our obedience to God by loving the “hard people” and being sacrificial in our relationships.

But long before Jesus, King David was stepping up in a huge way. Reading through the Psalms it seems like he was often in turmoil, or getting slaughtered on the battle field, or his enemies would be pressing in around him. But in Psalm 35 he gives us a further glimpse of his prayer life. He not only prays for his enemies, he laments with them. He is compassionate towards their pain and sickness. He fasts to prepare his soul and loves them like a friend, brother, or mother even.

If we were to love the people in our lives who are treating us much better than David’s enemies, in the way that David loved his enemies, how much greater of a world would this be? More than that, how much greater would be the perception of the God we serve? May it be so.

I have always been a fan of nature. Ever since I was a kid, I loved being outdoors and going camping. I don’t know what it is – maybe the beauty in the created, the mystery of the woods, the grandeur of the mountains. There came a turning point (probably my first camping trip after becoming a Christian) where nature became more than something to be enjoyed, but it became a means of worshiping God for His power. Even today, the closest I feel to God is sitting on top of a mountain with my snowboard strapped to my feet. There is something about being immersed in His dwelling place, away from distraction and chaos. Floating through the woods in fresh powder . . . there are few things better.

Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Heart!
I love that David took the opportunity of a storm (granted, probably a pretty wicked storm) to write Psalm 29 and to worship God for just how powerful and majestic He is. Matthew Henry, as he always does, paints a beautiful picture of what stirred in David’s heart:

It is the probable conjecture of some very good interpreters that David penned this psalm upon occasion, and just at the time, of a great storm of thunder, lightning, and rain, as the eighth psalm was his meditation in a moon-light night and the nineteenth in a sunny morning . . . So composed was David, and so cheerful, even in a dreadful tempest, when others trembled, that then he penned this psalm; for, “though the earth be removed, yet will we not fear.” He calls upon the great ones of the world to give glory to God. To convince them of the goodness of that God whom they were to adore, he takes notice of his power and terror in the thunder, and lightning, and thunder-showers, his sovereign dominion over the world, and his special favour to his church.

It reminds me of a story Troy Nesbitt told at Cornerstone about a boy in a thunder storm. The boy’s mom was concerned that he would be afraid of the horrendous storm, so she poked her head in his room to find him staring out the window crying out, “Bang it again, God! Bang it again!”

Oh God, would we be so enthralled by Your power and majesty as shown in Your creation that we would cry out in wonder! That we would call out to everyone to give You the glory due to Your name.