randalevan's blog

The long journey to reach our starting point

Jacquie and I began our most recent adventure about four years ago. We felt it was time to come "home" to California after having been away for about sixteen years in Spain and New England. That was when we started walking. Where would we end up? What would we be doing? All we knew was that we were committed to loving God, loving our neighbors, and wanted to serve in whatever meaningful way we could both in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Spain.

"You can't do that."

 

When was the last time somebody told you, "You can't do that"? I have certainly heard it a time or two! I was reading the foreword of a book on Saturday morning and it got me thinking. It describes some of the obstacles the author had to overcome in order to get her book published. She received multiple letters of rejection from a variety of publishers. Here is one of the comments she received: "Lady Di could be cycling nude down the street giving this book away, nobody would read it."

In spite of all the opposition, she felt like the book had something to say, so she tried one more time...and the rest is history.

The book I am referring to is Feel the Fear...and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers and I have a copy of the 20th Anniversary Edition. The publisher who said "Yes, you can!" has sold over 2 million copies so far.

I guess all the other publishers were wrong...and they probably kicked themselves when they saw how successful the book has been!

Jeffers isn't alone. People are telling us all the time, "You can't do that." Let me share with you just a few examples.

Christmas all year round?

Do you know what "Epiphany" means? I had some idea, but decided to look up the definition on dictionary.com. Here is part of what I found:

e·piph·a·ny

/ɪˈpɪfəni/ Show Spelled[ih-pif-uh-nee]

1. (initial capital letter) a Christian festival, observed on January 6, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles in the persons of the Magi;

2. an appearance or manifestation, esp. of a deity.

So, Epiphany the holiday happens today. (*And if you have never lived in Spain or any other country that celebrates El Día de los Reyes, you don't know what you are missing. In our kid's experience, living in Spain meant you received gifts on December 25th AND January 6th!)

But epiphany the manifestation of a deity (*in this case, Jesus) can happen any day. Jesus can breakthrough and come to life in the midst of the thick and thin of daily living. But..., how can that be?

Exercising our Faith Requires Taking Risks

Wouldn't it be nice if walking by faith was easier than walking by sight? No risk, no worries, and no confusion or doubts. The problem is, then it wouldn't be faith would it? The writer of the ancient letter to the Hebrews described faith in this way: "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." (Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1.)

But what does "confidence" feel like? In my experience, it feels like jumping off the edge of a pool, believing that God will catch...but there is that hesitancy you feel before you actually leap...and...the adrenaline and fear that rush through your veins when you are airborne, inbetween the safety of the pool's edge and God's arms.

I had the privilege of traveling to Spain last month...something that I have been able to do quite often over the past nine years...something that I am grateful to God for. On the way back, I had what I would describe as a "divine encounter"...an encounter with someone who had recently taken "the plunge of faith"...someone who had a message from God for me...that I would like to share it with you.

You are my Beloved - Part II

Here's the second half of the Nouwen quote from the other day...

“I am putting this so directly and so simply because, though the experience of being the Beloved has never been completely absent from my life, I never claimed it as my core truth. I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness. It was as if I kept refusing to hear the voice that speaks from the very depth of my being and says: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.” That voice has always been there, but it seems that I was much more eager to listen to the other, louder voices saying: “Prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular, or powerful, and then you will earn the love you so desire.” Meanwhile, the soft, gentle voice that speaks in the silence and solitude of my heart remained unheard or, at least, unconvincing."

You are my Beloved

Someone I care about very much was going through a rough time recently. Because I love them, I wanted to comfort them. As I thought about what to say, I remembered a quote from a book by Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest and prolific author who passed away several years ago. In his book, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living In a Secular World, he writes:

"Ever since you asked me to write for you and your friends about the spiritual life, I have been wondering if there might be one word I would most want you to remember when you finished reading all I wish to say. Over the past year, that special word has gradually emerged from the depths of my own heart. It is the word "Beloved," and I am convinced that it has been given to me for the sake of you and your friends.

it's always been about love

what strikes me about my faith is that it has always been about love. (*now i have to say, before God invited me into a real relationship with Himself, "faith" was all about fearing punishment and promising to never do "it" again, and of course committing to be "good" if God would get me out of my current mess. i came to a point in my life where God helped me to realize that what i was experiencing was not faith at all...but that is a story for another day...)

when i think about the way that God pursues me, i think about love...whether i look back at all he has done for me in the past, or, the ways that he woos me today to follow him - either to do things i would never choose of my own accord to do or go to places (*or stay in others) i find unappealing, i think of love.

i think christianity has always been about love. now, we can make it into other things - being right, being good (*not an easy thing to do...i tried!), getting God to give us what we want, etc...

curiously, both the old testament and new testament proclaim this truth. i used to always think that under the old covenant that God expected people to obey the law in order to enter into relationship with him. it was all based upon their performance. but over the past years, i have been hearing something different. in fact, i just read something recently that talks about this...and i would like to share it with you. here goes:

no church without the reign of god

i started reading volf's after our likeness: the church as an image of the trinity this week. for any of us who have been actively involved in a local church, we know how hard it is to stay actively involved! in this brief quote, volf reminds us of the identity of the church, and as amazingly impossible as it sounds, how it is the vehicle (paul the apostle would say "body") that god has chosen both to reveal himself to the world and get his work done.

who do we turn to?

 
when life doesn't make sense, what do you do? sometimes i get angry. other times, i get busy. (*it's not so much that i go after busyness...it seems to come to me all by itself.) 

anyway, a couple of sundays' ago, our pastor alex van riesen preached a sermon using mark chapter 4, verses 1 thru 13. (*if you would like to listen to it, go to http://www.vcfp.org/sermons.html, and click-on "download" for the january 10th sermon.)

in his teaching, alex referred to the disciples' of jesus dilemma: he had just told a parable to a very large crowd of people about a farmer who had scattered a bunch of seed. it had fallen on four different types of soil, with four different results. given the agrarian nature of the culture he was speaking to, it appears that jesus had basically told them something they already knew. why did he do that?

what is going to make me happy?

There's a story in the Gospel of Mark about a paralytic man who is carried to Jesus by his friends on a mat.  (*To read the story, go to Mark chapter 2, beginning with verse 1.)  One of the remarkable things that happens is that Jesus heals the guy!  But He does something else...something that the man didn't even ask Jesus to do:  He forgives him.  Why did Jesus do that?