Dandelions

I think one of the main differences between kids and grown ups is that kids think dandelions are flowers. Go into any home with kids in the summer and you'll see vases and kitchen counters over flowing with those little yellow weeds. Kids have the ability to look at something that is so common and so wide spread, and still see it as beautiful. As a flower, not a weed.

Jesus says that to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven we need to be like a little child. And so maybe we need to start looking at the dandelions and seeing flowers again. Maybe we need to look at blank wall and see a canvas. Maybe we need to see the tree in the backyard as a tower to another world.  Maybe we need to look at a stranger as a friend.

We need to see the ordinary as beautiful again.

Because when we see the ordinary as beautiful, something extraordinary happens: everything becomes beautiful. And yes there is still mess and chaos and disaster and hurt and pain and hate and injustice and abuse and evil, but if we're looking through the lens of the child there is more beauty than pain, and more life than death, and more love than hate, and more good than evil. Beauty is greater when we walk into it and become a part of it. Beauty is greater when we see our own smallness and the bigness of everything else.

Let's go find a field of dandelions. Let's lay in it for a while and make animal shapes out of clouds. Let's blow the dandelions seeds into the wind and make a wish. Let's wish for peace and wholeness. Let's wish for love and justice. Let's wish that the name of Jesus would be known across the world. And let's go make those things happen.

Let's walk with Jesus to see how he's already putting the world back to perfect wholeness.

Work in us God,
Help us to see dandelions as flowers.

Matthew 18:1-5
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me."

But our Lives as Well

1 Thessalonians 2:6-8

We were not looking for praise from people, not from you or anyone else, even though as apostles of Christ we could have asserted our authority. Instead, we were like young children among you.

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well.

But our lives as well. What does this mean?

I think sometimes it's easier to share the gospel and simply tell someone that God loves them than it is to share the messiness of our lives with them. I think that what Paul is getting at here is that it takes love to let someone into our lives enough to actually see gospel grace being played out in every day life. To love at all is to be vulnerable as C.S. Lewis said, and what could be more vulnerable that sharing our lives as well with the people we share the gospel with. And Paul does this with delight. He's humble. He's not looking for glory and acknowledgement, he's just trying to love these people like Jesus does. 

But our lives as well. How do we do this?

Maybe we need to meet up for coffee with that person in the back row at church. Maybe we need to say hello to the person sitting on a bench on the street day after day. Maybe we need to buy a kid some ice cream when they ask for a pack of smokes. Maybe we need to cry with our best friends. Maybe we need to laugh with a stranger. 

We need to give up our lives for these people. We need to give up everything for these people who have heard "Jesus loves you" from the mouths of dozens but have never really felt that love in action. We need to let our hearts break. We need to recognize our brokenness and then we need to love with our lives. And we can't do this unless God's in this. 

Not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. 

Because we loved you so much.

On Colors and Life.

Have you ever asked a seven year old girl what her favorite color is? I have. The results are astounding. Ask a boy and he'll give you a pretty predictable answer. He'll either like blue, orange, or red, or he'll just shrug. But ask a girl and-

She might first answer the question by asking another question: "Is rainbow a color?"  Her second answer will be highly dependant on how you answer her first question. If you answer no, then she will proceed to strategically order all the colors of the rainbow from best to worst. If you say yes, rainbow will probably be in her top five favorite colors. Just say yes. Rainbow is a color, and sparkles is a color too when you're seven.

After this she'll find every shade of any color and tell you all about it. She'll probably run around the room trying to find things to give you a good example of that tealish-blueish-purplish-not-like-that-shirt-but-like-that-blanket color. Then after all this is finished and you have a good list of ten colors (colors is used as an abstract term here), she'll search her funny little seven year old head for her list and just as you're about to ask her if she wants to play outside, she'll say, "WAIT. Did I say pinkish-purple was my third favorite color? That's not right, purplish-pink is my third favorite color. Pinkish-purple is my fourth favorite color. And I think that sparkles is my third favorite color, rainbow is my second and black is my first favorite."

Asking a seven year old girl what her favorite color is going deep into the mysterious ocean of time and space itself. I would reserve a whole afternoon for that question maybe. It wouldn't even be a waste of time though. After all, if you had to pick between sparkles and rainbows...

What I've come to realize these past two months of college is that everyone becomes a seven year old girl when they are faced with the question of what they are going to do after college.

I've been asked this question by students and adults alike. Every time I hesitate. Sometimes I say things like "Oh, I think I'll work on the downtown eastside" or "I think I'll teach English overseas." Sometimes I'll plunge into the pool of honesty and simply respond, "I don't know."

And that's the thing you guys. I don't know. Sometimes I think I know, just like the seven year old girl thinks that pinkish-purple is her third favorite color, but then I'll search my funny little head and change my mind again.

And I've talked to other people too. Nobody really knows what they're doing. To some degree we're all faking it a little bit.

Or at least I hope so. I hope that we don't have everything figured out. If we did, I think we'd be in a whole lot of trouble. If we did, I don't think that there'd be any room left for grace.

People, we're allowed to be clueless.
We're allowed to ask if rainbow is a color.
We're allowed to change our minds.

What God has been teaching me over and over again is to pursue what you are passionate about. Jesus said that the greatest commandment, the thing that we're supposed to do above everything else is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." How do we do this? "The second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39).

Do what you love. Do it at 110%. Use it to love God. Love God by loving everyone.

JUST LOVE, OK?

God isn't going to have a plan for my life that only involves doing things that I hate. Yes, there will be trials and sufferings, in fact that is what I am promised. But, God gave me gifts to use and enjoy for his glory.

If you love something, you should pursue it, and if you're on the wrong path, you'll start to hate it and start to love something else.

We should love each other with our whole lives because we are created in the image of God, and until we see Jesus face to face, we're the closest thing to the full image of God that it gets. And whenever we love each other, our fellow human being, created in the image of God, we love God (Matthew 25:40).

What am I going to do with my life?

Honestly, I don't know.

But if I know anything, it is that because God loves me and has given me life to the full, I need to love people.

So I'm just going to love, ok?

And that will be my life.

Everything

Matthew 28:18-20

 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age."

God could have made an army of Mother Teresas or Billy Grahams or even sent angels, yet he chose us. He chose us to complete his task. With all of our flaws and weaknesses God wants us. Right now, where you are is where He wants you. You are God's plan for the right here, right now. Our flaws make it so we simply cannot take any credit when God does something amazing. We must be totally out of our element, so that when  God does something absolutely amazing, all we can say is, "God did it."  

Romans 12:9-10
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 

Believe that. Be humbled by that. Live by that. The fact that God lets us be a part of spreading his name is overwhelming. There is nothing like looking into the eyes of another human being and telling them that there is hope and that God, the Creator of everything loves them. And we are called to do that; to be blessed by sharing God's love. That is something that we must abandon everything for. That is something worth leaving everything familiar and running to those who still have not heard of God's plan of salvation for them.

Romans 10:14-15
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

We have those beautiful feet. Where are we going to go with them?  

That is everything.

I'll live for that.

I'll die for that.

Olivia

I was sitting across from little Olivia. She was scared. But not of lions, tigers and bears-oh my! but of Hell. But of dying and going to Hell. And what was I to do? I had already told her that Jesus saves. That God loves her so much that He sent Jesus to die to save her from separation from Him, and if she believed in Him and told Him that she was sorry for her sins and followed Him she could be saved. But still, every night- fear. She didn't want to be a Christian. Her reason- "I don't think my parents would like that." "Maybe God wants to use you to tell your family about Him, about how much He loves them," I said. Still, "I don't think my Mom would like that."

I looked into those fearful eyes and she was crying. What else are you suppose to say to that little heart? One that is so scared of Hell, but so scared of losing her family's love?
I'm sure I could have said a thousand things then. Evangelists every where probably cringed when I said, "Let's go brush our teeth."  The conflict was left unresolved.

But we can only plant seeds. It is God that makes them grow.

And sometimes I feel like Olivia, like I know what God wants me to do, but I'm scared. I'm scared of what everyone will think if I do it.
And how God's heart must break when we do that to ourselves.

And one day, maybe I'll hear about little Olivia. About how she loves God with all of her everything and how her family loves Him too.
Maybe one day she won't be scared. And that will be a happy day.
And one day, maybe I'll stop caring what everyone will think if I just do what I know God wants me to do.
Maybe one day I won't be scared. And that will be a happy day.
And how God's heart must rejoice when we turn and follow Him.

Luke 15:4-7 "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nice righteous persons who do not need to repent."