My friend Jimmy Cooper has one of those experiences that you want, and don’t want to have. I’ll let him explain. 1

 On January 19th, 2012 -  I was with my wife Christiane in our apartment in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. We had been out on a date and we had just gotten home. Actually, I guess we had been home for an hour or so and it was pretty late at night, about 1:30am. I started having an overwhelming feeling that I needed to lie down. It was out of the blue and I couldn’t fight it, so I lay down in bed and closed my eyes. I wasn’t feeling well and it came on so quickly, I just had to close my eyes.

Thomas, one of Jesus Christ friends, asked him about eternity “How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, “I am the way, the truth, and the life! Without me, no one can go to the Father. If you had known me, you would have known the Father. But from now on, you do know him, and you have seen him.”

Sweet invites his readers to consider the implications and benefits of living our Story as Christ’s Story.

Sweet captured the gospel and it’s implications accurately: “To be the humans God made us to be, we need grace.” We need that grace to effectively represent Christ for a dying world.

Friday I met with one of my favorite people. For more than a decade Erica Wilson and I worked together at TreeHouse. While Erica is disinclined to gamble with her money, recently she gambled with her life. Erica left behind her job, friends and family and moved to Belize for three months.

While it was not a permanent departure from her life in Minnesota, it was a significant life transition.

I asked her, “How do you gamble losing all that?“

Erica smiled with a slight shrug, “The only thing that comes to mind is that I trusted God with it completely.”

Tomorrow night my wife Amy and I will be attending Sara Groves’ CD release concert. As I wrote yesterday I have been a fan since my friend Dan Adler first played us her song Generations.

I am excited to hear her in person, and I’m also anticipating her new album. 

Sara’s last album — Fireflies & Songs — was widely acclaimed, and even won as 2009 album of the year.  Commendably the reviewer added, “Already known for her transparent songwriting, Sara Groves gets even more piercingly honest on this, her ninth album. Whether her relationship with God, marital tension, or a private battle with anxiety, it’s poetically spilled forth…” 1

Pain Despite Faith

My friend Brandon, like many people, lives with the pain of migraines.  Brandon has explained, “migraines make me very ill.   They can put me out of action for an entire day or more.  I can feel one coming on and then when full blown I feel horrible, nauseous and need to go to bed. While some people can have a migraine every couple of months or a couple of migraines a week, sometimes my migraines can repeat day after day for a week or more.”

I didn’t start playing chess until I was in my thirties.  I’m not very good, but I do enjoy playing. 

Well, I enjoy playing people  have a chance to win against.  While I love my friends Eric Swendsrud and Jeff Prentiss I’m intimidated playing them in chess.

Jeff and Eric patiently play while I try to outwit them.  Masterfully they wait until just the right time to turn things in their favor; every time.

I’ve never beaten them.

Some people suggest that God seems to play an unbeatable divine chess game with us.

Growing up I loved to play games.  As good as I was playing hide and seek, I was not very good at playing the game Clue. 1

You remember Miss Scarlet?  I seemed to never guess the solution first. Did the clues point to Colonel Mustard? Mrs. Peacock? Or, Professor Plum?  Who committed the crime?  Where?  How?

It was all a mystery to me. 

Sometimes I’d guess the right person in the wrong place.  Or, I’d suspect the wrong person when I thought I had it all figured out.  Too often I’d rush to judgment hoping to solve the mystery.

Hide and seek was always one of my favorite games.  Small and skinny I fit in small places.  Somewhat reckless I hod where others wouldn’t. I was almost never found.

Sometimes it seems like God plays hide and seek with us.

Sometimes God seems so elusive.  God seems to come close, but then, so quickly, God seems farther away.  Farther away, and hard to find.

And, sometimes I feel so spiritually alive, but then, so quickly, it all seems to fade.

Have you ever experienced that?

Fortunately, we’re not alone.  Abraham, Moses and David come to mind immediately.  We’re not alone. 1

Life is filled with uncertainties.

Those uncertainties can weigh us down.

Those uncertainties lead many to denial, self-destructive choices, or self-reliance. 

I am finding that faith in God sets me free from my natural inclinations to hide in denial, self-destruct in shame or wallow in my loneliness and the arrogance of self-reliance.

This song by a young woman known as Lights lifts my faith.  I hope it helps you too.

Lights’ Lions

Worry is a giant all of us face at one time or another.

When I face giants I find it helpful to shield myself from the lies the giant bellows.

Hear our four verses of six words to help you focus on God as you stand your ground while battling the giant of worry:

- Be anxious for nothing, but…pray [Philippians 4:6-7]
– Cast your burden on the Lord… [Psalm 55:22]
– Call upon me in the day of trouble… [Psalm 50:12]
– Casting all your care upon him… [1 Peter 5:7]