Father's Love

Do you ever have moments that seem to instantly mark you deep inside? The kind of moments you know you'll never forget? The kind of moments that God uses to leave his imprints on your soul? I think we all do. Just a few days ago I had one.

Next Wednesday, Jill will be induced to give birth to our son Micah. I came home for dinner a few nights ago and about 2 minutes into the meal, Abby (our three year old), decided to show me pictures of Micah that had been taken during an ultrasound earlier that day. To say she was elated just doesn't do the moment justice. She kept saying, "Here's baby Micah. It's he sweet. I'm going to be a big sister." She is so fired up about having a baby brother. It was precious.

The love I felt for her as she held those pictures was incredible. The love I felt for my son, whom I've never met obviously, was incredible. The sheer joy and delight ... time seemed to stand still. And just think, that's only a tiny little glimpse of what our Heavenly Father feels when he looks at us.

Islam vs. Christianity - So What's the Difference?

On our recent mission trip to Dubai, one person told us the government has a goal of building a mosque within walking distance of everyone’s place of residence. Whether that’s true or not I have no way to verify; however, there are lots and lots and lots of mosques there already. It certainly seems possible.

We took a guided tour of one famous mosque, the Jumeriah Mosque. The man who led the tour seemed like an incredible guy – the kind of guy I could be friends with. He volunteers his days off work to share his faith by giving tours of the mosque and explaining the basic tenants of Islam. To say he was charismatic, amazingly entertaining, and compelling would be the understatement of the year. He put Islam’s best foot forward for sure. To some degree or another, he walked through the five pillars of Islam and the meaning of each, the calls to prayer and reasons for each, and even touched on where the Muslim faith came from and why Islamic extremists are a perversion of the faith and not the purest version of it. It was the perfectly wrapped package ready to be delivered to each of the seventy to eighty people who attended the tour...well, an almost perfectly wrapped package.

Here’s the deal. When it came down to explaining the core of his faith, this deeply religious, deeply devoted, deeply dedicated man described peoples’ hope for eternity in this way:

There’s a good angel on everyone’s right shoulder and there’s a bad angel on everyone’s left shoulder. They are there your entire life. Every time you do something good, the good angel writes it down. Every time you do something bad, the good angel writes it down. When you die and appear before Allah, ‘the one true God’, if your good angel has more written down than your bad angel, he will let you into heaven.
No, I’m not making this up. That’s almost word for word what he said. And the reason he went into a discussion that specific was to explain why people would interrupt their lives five times each day to go to a mosque to pray: in other words, they go to the mosque to pray because that guarantees at least five good marks by the good angel that day! They go because it’s crucial to earn the good marks to counter balance the bad marks of the day. Now, is that representative of every Muslim deepest motivation? Of course not (I wouldn’t think); however, it was his clear explanation for the faith he holds. Good deed – good angel writes it down. Bad deed – bad angel writes it down. It’s as simple as that. God looks at the 51% side and that’s it.

Step back for a moment and imagine what it would be like to actually live with that worldview. Every time you talk about someone behind their back – oops, that’s written down…forever. Every time you fudge a bit of personal email into work hours – oops, that’s written down…forever. Every time you snap at your toddler merely because he annoys you and is cutting into your football game – oops, that’s written down…forever. Every time you long for someone else’s house, or clothes, or hair – oops, that’s written down…forever. Every time you nurture sexual thoughts – oops, that’s written down…forever. And the only way to deal with that sin is to out do it by getting the good angel’s pen smokin’ faster? I don’t know about you but if I did only good from now on until I die, there’s still no chance I could tip the scales to the positive. My good simply isn’t good enough. The horrible wretchedness of living under a worldview that says I must earn my way into eternity with God, I can’t hardly bear the thought.

The truth is, this dear man is carrying his sin around his neck because the Lord Jesus has not released it from him through his death on the cross. On top of that, he’s carrying the burden of trying to earn right standing with God through self effort. Between the two, I’m not sure how he’s able to walk. What a wretched way to live. How freeing the Gospel would be for him. What joy he could know if he would meet the Savior…

Christianitiy and Islam. What’s the difference? Both claim to have their roots in the Old Testament. Both claim to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Both claim Jesus as a strategically important and historical figure. So, what’s the difference? One word – GRACE. My friends, may you live, and move, and breathe, and rest, and rejoice, and repent, and truly quit trying to earn, and consider giving your life to tell people like the guy giving tours every week at the mosque in Dubai that grace is for real. Grace has set us free.

Dubai: Now That's a Sacrifice

Dubai. A year ago you’d probably never heard of it. If you were like me, even 6 months ago you couldn’t point to it on the globe. Recently, though, it has been in the news. Dubai is quickly gaining steam as a strategically important city – for a lot of reasons. More than likely, you’ve seen its opulence in the news. A good friend and I recently went there on a short term mission trip. I’ll be posting several entries…as I process what we saw and did.

It’s hard to put into words what Dubai is like. It is visually assaulting. Imagine Phoenix’s temperature with Houston’s humidity. Imagine the most ridiculously wealthy city you can think of – now double it. Imagine all of Manhattan’s skyscrapers going up at exactly the same time. Imagine construction sites littered with hundreds of men from foreign countries working 10-16 hours a day for nearly nothing. The richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor. Imagine a mosque within walking distance of every person’s home (sort of like Starbucks is trying to accomplish here). Imagine walking through the mall seeing Muslim women with their entire bodies covered (including their faces) while the women walking directly in front of them have on halter-tops. It is visually assaulting.

There are a number of things I want to write about but today I’ll focus on one: sacrifice. The purpose for our trip was to serve as one of several “storying” teams. First some details and then my point - As mentioned above, there are laborers throughout Dubai working on the construction sites. The volume of construction can only been accomplished through cheap labor on a giant scale. These laborers are from all over that side of the world, especially India. Many of them come to Dubai, work their first year for nothing (to pay for their trip to Dubai), and then work several more years without going home to see their families. They work 6 days a week in the harsh elements, well over a normal 8 hour shift, and then they sleep in tiny bunk houses (called “labor camps”) littered around town. The largest camp is called Sonapour Labor Camp. It is 8 sq miles. 200,000 men call this “home”. In this labor camp there are dozens of nationalities and even more language groups. Within this awful place, a church has sprung up among one of the Indian dialects. This group is studying through the Bible in a year using a “storying” method. Basically they are being discipled through learning the 72 major groups of stories in the Bible. Our role was to teach a few of those stories.

Alright, enough details and now the good stuff: I’ll never forget seeing these men walk in to worship and hear the Bible. They were literally covered in sweat: probably 60-70 men, many drenched from the incredibly high heat and humidity. I am not exaggerating – drenched. They had traveled by bus to sing, pray, and hear some white guys tell stories – on their only day off. Wow! Since they make this kind of journey every day to go to work, they knew what was coming when they got on the bus, but they came anyway -- they made a real sacrifice to worship. They could have stayed home. They didn’t have to come. A break was understandable, even deserved. These poor men looked exhausted. The physical demands, pressures, and stress they face daily are beyond what I can imagine. But they got in the bus and came anyway. Would you have come? Let me take it closer to home: would I have come?

To take it a step deeper – would we have been so irritated with God for giving us “hard lives” that we wouldn’t even consider going to church? I better leave that one alone for another day.

God tells us not to forsake getting together for worship. These former Hindus, these dear laborers challenged my level of sacrifice for worship like no one else on the globe. They make less money in a year than most of us make in a month, but they can teach all of us a thing or two about sacrifice. They were grateful for the opportunity to worship with God’s folks, regardless of how hard it was to get there. Let’s all learn from them. I know I can.