Biking and Fasting – Lent

I road 43 miles yesterday (pedaling).  It was a beautiful day and I must say DLT is not that bad considering I was able to go later and ride longer.  Due to doctor’s recommendation to lose weight, I am currently in phase 1 of the South Beach diet.  This phase has practically no carbs and can be energy draining.  I do feel a lot better, but I think that’s because I am eating extremely healthy. 

About mile 40 everything I had was gone.  My legs started to cramp and I was spent.    When I got home it was work to get into the shower and get a snack (fat free cottage cheese).   It took me about an hour before I decided I could manage putting together a meal (guacamole and turkey wrapped in low fat cheese).    This diet is not the kind of thing you want to be on when training to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Phase 2, scheduled to start in a week has more carbs.  Since lent is the season of fasting I started to think about some parallels with this dieting thing.

 The last 3 miles of my ride yesterday I considered calling Fran for a ride.  I didn’t and instead dug a little deeper and depended a little more on my cycling skills.   Fasting is a lot like that.  There are points where you want to quit.  You begin to wonder is this really worth it?  Does God really honor fasting?  That’s when you have to dig a little deeper and ask yourself is my physical hunger outweighing my hunger for God?  The reality is unless you have truly been fasting for at least 3 days and have health issues God is the greater need.  The reality is that God is the One who sustains us and yes God does honor fasting with answers, intimacy, and power. 

I was able to switch my riding style and use a different set of muscles to avoid pressuring the ones that were cramping.  Between backpacking and cycling I have a keen awareness when my muscles are on the verge of cramping beyond being able to continue.  I also know how to change stride, position, and pedal stroke to use different muscles.   I believe fasting is one of those things that take a certain level of faith maturity to be effective and it is one of those things that mature Christians see as a needed discipline.  I can remember fasting for the first time and thinking the real advantage here is that I will probably lose a few pounds.   The real advantage to fasting is that you are intently seeking God and saying to God I want you more than food.   Fasting takes maturity in faith.   Maturity keeps you focused on God.   This should not discourage anyone from fasting, but realize first that fasting is a discipline. 

If I had had a flat tire or my muscle had truly cramped up, I would not have hesitated to call for a ride home.  I think there are times to break your fast:

1. The fast becomes about you either drawing attention to yourself with pride or complaining
2. You aren’t finding the time to spend in prayer or seeking God in His Word
3. Your planning was incomplete – you failed to look ahead at your schedule and you didn’t sacrifice certain activities

Don’t beat yourself up if you have to break your fast.  Fasting isn’t meant to be a burden.  The important thing is that you learn from why you had to break the fast and start over next time with strengthened fervor and focus.

HOPE

We recently started an outreach at the church to minister to children with special needs and their families.  The program is called HOPE.  It is on the first Saturday of every month from 10am-2pm and involves music, crafts, playtime, and education time.  The program has grown from 2 to 8 kids with tremendous potential for more.  The children are cared for in a safe environment with lots of volunteers.  The parents get some time on a Saturday to take care of themselves, run errands, rest, or whatever, hopefully free of worry for the safety of their child.  We as a church saw a need and decided to build a relationship to share that need.  This was our 4^th month and I was simply blown away by what God is doing. 

Smiles and laughter were abundant.  The kids were so comfortable being there.  The volunteers were engaged.  It was a place where everybody knows your name. We talked about a week of HOPE in the summer and the talk went from talk to planning to – I believe a reality.  While I was tired at 2pm, I was full of hope for HOPE.   Only God can do those sorts of things.   Every time I work with children with special needs I wonder who really is receiving the ministry. 

The HOPE kids have a wide range of special needs.  The most prominent one is autism.  I have to confess kids with autism can be a handful.  They live in a real world of their own and are very selective about who can be a part of that world.  Everyone else is simply a piece of furniture.  It is amazing to watch the interaction, acceptance, and fellowship we have received from all the HOPE kids and I don’t know if the volunteers really know how blessed they are to get hugs, high-5’s, smiles, and waves from these special children, once again only God. 

Where in your life can you identify a need, build a relationship to share in that need, and join God in the sorts of things that only God can do?  That’s the place you make time to be.  That’s the place you find resources to invest.  That’s the place where you will be a blessing and be blessed.  That’s the place you will meet God.

My Three Daughters

I have three beautiful daughters.  They are each uniquely gifted and blessed.  Sometimes I treat them as boys; I have just recently acquired road bikes for each of them with the intention of getting them to join me in my latest obsession.   My girls do extremely well in school, taking after their mother.  They love Jesus and His church.  I am so proud of them.  This blog entry is for them and in honor of them.  I have some context that brought me to write this blog.  The context is this, throughout our struggles with Jacob people have accused me of not having the wherewithal to raise or understand a boy, because I’m just used to girls.  I have decided to take the comment in reference that people must see how good a dad I am to my girls.  The truth is I am a great dad to my girls and thus I think I have something to say about raising girls.  

Having said that let me start off in humility.  The first and foremost posture of raising girls (children in general) is the posture of prayer.  Not with your head bowed and hands folded, but prostrate before God, pleading with God for more and more love.   Girls do need a different type of love than boys and as a man I am short on faithful, patient, edifying, and beautifying love that my daughters desperately desire, so I pray.   I frequently pray that God would give them husbands that will love more than I do and I would take a bullet for them.   I pray God would protect them from those who would hurt them spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically and at the same time I pray that God will give them opportunities to be His salt and light witnessing to the Lordship of Jesus.  

The second posture of raising girls is the posture of truth.  Not the truth that will set you free, but the truths that drama is unavoidable in their relationships with friends and that boys really are interested in only one thing.  As a dad involved in my girls lives, I have the potential to speak truth into the drama of teenage girl relationships.  I listen, reflect, and then give perspective on what is really important in the midst of the drama.  My girls respect that in our relationship (or seem to anyway), and I think that is rooted my involvement in their lives.   Now about the boys, the truth hasn’t settled in yet - the truth I speak is “not applicable” to the non-perverted boys that are interested in them.  We have marshal law in our home concerning boys, but there is coming a time and season when my girls will be on their own.  It is for those times that I speak the truth, that guys are interested in only one thing.  I tell my girls that self-control is based on saying what you mean and meaning what you say, eliminating opportunity (being alone in the wrong place), and understanding love and sex only go together in the bounds of marriage.  

The third posture of raising girls is that of a hug, being a source of appropriate affection.  The first part of this is that my girls see me treat my wife with respect so they can recognize what a healthy male-female relationship looks like and they will recognize when they are in an unhealthy one.  They see the appropriate physical and emotional relationship that my wife and I share.   The second part is that I give them the affection that they need to edify them and let them know they are valued and beautiful.   This is the toughest area for me, because I am not a person who displays public affection and I have to be intentional to teach this.  Our relationship mirrors the relationship that is perfected in God.  God sees us as valued and beautiful and therefore we are.  If I can teach that to my girls that, then there is no relationship on earth that can devalue them of even define them for they are loved children of God.

Without a doubt there is so much more to raising girls.  There is so much that I do wrong.  And in the end is all about the grace and glory of God.

Son-Ship

It’s been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. Our adopted son Jacob got into a residential treatment facility for RAD. He also had a risk assessment done which explained a lot of why we were/are so tired and broken. I visited with Jacob on his birthday and once again I was reminded of my relationship with God.

Jacob had requested his foster mother to bake birthday cupcakes for his class. The wise women responded, “that’s not my job.” Jacob also asked for an expensive birthday present from his foster parents. The response was, “that’s not in your budget.” I would rather talk about entitlement here, because Jacob was angry that his requests were denied, but instead I’m going to talk about son-ship (or daughter-ship). Both of Jacob’s requests are acceptable and encouraged in a family, but Jacob has rejected family. Jacob is not in foster care because his parents are abusive and neglecting him. Jacob is in foster care because he has rejected a loving adoptive family. Jacob wants the rights of son-ship without the relationship responsibilities.

I feel like I do that to God all the time. I want the blessing of being a child of God without the rules and without faith and obedience. I want full rights of being a co-inheritor with Christ without any sort of relationship with the Father. I want God to answer my prayers as one of His children without having to humble myself, confess, surrender, give up my authority, or love God more than I love myself. I want awesome ministry and Kingdom-size miracles, but don’t want to do what it takes to seek the face of God. I want all the benefits and blessings of a son relationship, but none of the responsibilities of being a son. I want to be beloved, but not know who is loving me.

Our souls yearn and hunger for all that God wants us to have and be. Our flesh (our sinful self) wants it without a Father. Jacob didn’t get his cupcakes or the present he wanted, but he does have parents who desperately want to give him all the blessing of a son. God stands ready to open the flood gates of heaven upon His children if they will humble themselves, pray, be obedient, and seek His face.

The Phone Call, the Dragon, and the Surrender

Two months to the day, Jacob decided to call us.  He had disrupted the whole neighborhood with a fight and the lies that followed in the attempt to get out of trouble.  In the midst of the aftermath he decided he wanted to talk with us.    It was short conversation if you can call it that.  It was rote and with no emotion attached.   He said the right things and then the conversation was over.  Partially because I wasn’t sure what I needed to say for his best interest and there was motive behind his words.   As an aside to the actual point of this blog, Jacob is well and on his way to a therapeutic classification and hopefully his behavioral issues will meet the criteria for a residential facility.    His behavior is being documented and his RAD diagnosis is confirmed. 

Now back to the actual point – I can see so much of my relationship with God in Jacob’s RAD behaviors.   In the midst of crisis and as a form of miss direction I go to God in prayer.  My conversations with God are rote and sound familiar with every other conversation I’ve had with God.   I know the right things to say and often times there is motive behind my words.  If I’m being honest and transparent, what I have spoken of as conversation would not meet the Webster definition of conversation.   If there were a direct phone to God, in many cases it would only have to have a mouth piece on my end.   God has always been good about putting a mirror in front of me and letting me see and experience who I am. 

There are two realities of who I am.  The first is that I am in Christ and there is no condemnation for those in Christ.  Therefore I write not with a shameful and guilty demeanor, but rather as one who is trying wholeheartedly to explore and experience what it means to walk with Christ.  This reality overshadows the second which is; as much as I want to be transformed I am unable.  I am still the guy who can have a one sided conversation with the Creator of the universe.  I am the guy who knows all the right words and can say them without a relationship.  I am the guy who can go days living on my own and run in prayer at the first sign of trouble.  If it were not for the 1^st reality I would be the guy who is far from having a relationship with God.   Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

In C.S. Lewis’ book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace’s behaviors (sins) lead him to a place where he is magically transformed into a dragon.  Being a dragon has its problems and is lonely.  Eustace is humbled and does all he can to stop being a dragon.   Finally, he finds a place where he can be whole again, a place of redemption.  Try as he could, even after multiple attempts he could not shed the dragon skin.  Eustace surrenders, and through Aslan’s (the Christ figure) power Eustace is transformed back into a boy.   Transformation comes through surrender.  Acknowledging we are not able and surrendering to the One who is able.   Surrendered postures us to listen and listening leads to relationship.    A surrendered Christian is a transforming Christian. 

It is my hope that God continues to remove my dragon skin transforming me as I surrender to Him.  It is also my hope that God will bring Jacob to a place of redemption where he can surrender his control and find wholeness.

Francis Chan – The Big Red Tractor

http://player.vimeo.com/video/7152556?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff

The Big Red Tractor – Francis Chan from Jacob Lewis on Vimeo.

Sermon: 2010 Adoption Sunday

The Father, The True Religion, and The Ox 

This is the sermon Fran and I did November 2010 as part of a Social Justice series of sermons.  It is a small part of our adoption story.   This link will take you to the Engelwood Presbyterian Church Website where you can listen or download the sermon.  I hope the Lord will edify you and lift you up as you listen. 

In Jesus,

Rob

Expectant Hope

“Your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish” – Matt 18:14b

Jacob (our adopted son who has been diagnosed with R.A.D.) has been out of our home for more than 60 days now and with the exception of the very first week he has not asked to call us.  The word we have gotten is that he has continued his behaviors and they are escalating.   Grandfather Home is in the process of classifying him “therapeutic,” which will open the doors for what Jacob needs – intensive therapy.  Even though I didn’t expect it, I was hoping that he would ask to call us or at least to call Kaleigh (his biological sister) showing us that he is not completely void of attachment, but as of today he has not. 

I can tell you how this feels, disheartening.  When you invest in someone as much as we have Jacob, there is expectant hope that what you have done has made an impact.  Expectant hope is that hope that resides deep within your heart and is always waiting, wanting, and searching for a relationship, but never demanding or forcing one.  It is the hope that flows out of love for someone.  Love, of course, does not have expectations, but love hopes and reaches its highest potential when it is realized and returned. 

There is a part of me that wonders if disheartened is how Jesus felt as the rich young ruler walked away, the Pharisees refused to see, the people shouted Barabbas, and the disciples misunderstood who He was.  God’s love of course is not completed by us accepting it, nor is it less powerful when we refuse it.  God’s love is complete and whole and powerful even when we reject it.   I do feel God is disheartened when we reject His love.  I do feel God, despite being all knowing, has expectant hope for us (Matthew 18:11-14).   

At this time, what is best for Jacob is for us to wait and be passive in the relationship.  God however is never passive, but always calling to us, shouting and whispering our names in love.   God is constantly and unconditionally, through the grace of Jesus, pursuing us with a love relationship.    It blows my mind to think that despite all the shame and guilt I carry with my sin and the unworthiness I feel, God still loves me and is hoping I answer his call.  God sent His Son to take care of our sin, shame, and guilt, and Jesus did on the cross.  God loves you and is calling you and hopefully expecting you to answer.

Grandfather Home Visitors

The Blog titles referred to in the Grandfather Home E-newsletter are – Waves, When Love Isn’t Enough I and II, Adoption, and Spiritual R.A.D.; can be accessed through the catogory link “Adoption Reflections” on the left sidebar. I hope they bless you and let you know you aren’t alone.
In Jesus,
Rob

Christmas Everyday!!!

First of all I want to give credit where credit is due – this idea came from Jerry a friend and church member.   He was leading a Bible Study and began by asking, “How much time we had created last month for shopping, Christmas parties, and Christmas festivities.”  The answer, “a lot!”  In our so called busy schedules we found time, no we made time to take part in the holiday frivolities.    Not just some time, but a lot of time.  Then he told a story about a Christmas present. 

Jerry’s son, Nick has been married for a little over six months.  Jerry thinking he was going to get to sleep in on Christmas morning was woken up by his 25ish year old son early.  Nick was excited about a gift he had bought his new bride and could not wait any longer for her to open it.   The present was a digital camera.  Nick new everything about this camera and had gone to great lengths to research and purchase this camera.  Jerry described the scene with joy and then flipped it around on us asking, asking us about the gift of Christ and our drive to present others with the gift of Christ.  The silence that followed witnessed to the clarity of the illustrations. 

We can and will make time for the things we want to do.  We can create time out of thin air during the Holidays.  Where is this creative spirit the rest of the year when God asks us to teach Sunday school, go to a Bible study, or participate in a ministry?  Time is the great equalizer; everybody has the same amount – 24 hours a day or 1440 minutes a day or 86,400 seconds a day.  That does not change during the holiday season and there is no time altering continuum that mystically appears.     In fact, as a minister the Christmas season is extremely busy for me, but I create time to do the things I want.   That time creating spirit matched with priorities and loyalties can really result in Kingdom impact if we would practice it all year long. 

It was the gift illustration that hit home.  We call it evangelism, but really it is participating with God as he offers His gift of Jesus.  I’m right there with Nick getting up early to see the joy on my family’s faces as they open their gifts.   How much more joy is there in our Father’s offering of Jesus?   Luke 15:7 – I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.  We are invited to participate in that joy!  It could be Christmas morning every day if we get up anticipating and participating with our Father as He offers His gift of salvation – Jesus.