Up to Speed	Wednesday, July, 28, 2010
by John Fischer It’s a conversation that allegedly took place between Abraham Lincoln and his best friend, Joshua Speed. Speed, upon finding Lincoln reading the Bible, laid a hand on his shoulder and remarked, "I am glad to see you profitably engaged." "I am profitably engaged," was the affirming reply. "Well, if you have recovered from your skepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not." "You are wrong, Speed," said Lincoln, looking up from the pages of his Bible. "Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will die a happier and better man." I like this for numerous reasons. 1) It's Abraham Lincoln, an obviously smart and great man who gave God respect, believed the Bible, and relied on Christ for strength to lead America through one of it's most trying times. 2) It's a great statement on the cooperation of reason and faith. Christianity is not unreasonable. It does not require blind or stupid faith. It requires a reasonable faith. That would be, as Lincoln described it, a faith that travels along with reason until reason can go no further, at which point faith goes the rest of the way alone. That says that faith is not antagonistic to reason, it's just that reason alone isn't enough. 3) Joshua Speed, who was Lincoln's best friend, did not share Lincoln's belief. This is a good example for us, because we tend to gravitate, especially with best friends, to people who support the same belief systems we hold. We might have acquaintances that are not believers, but rarely best friends. This account lists Speed as Lincoln's best friend. I'd be curious as to whether Mr. Speed will be in heaven. It's hard to imagine a long, close friendship with a man like Lincoln that wouldn't have convinced Joshua Speed about the reality of all that Lincoln believed at some point. At any rate, it's a great example of the kind of friendships I believe we as Christians need to cultivate—relationships of mutual respect with unbelievers (or what I like to call, from a more hopeful perspective: "not yet believers").
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Shoes off	Tuesday, July, 27, 2010
by John Fischer When God met Moses through a burning bush, He told him to take off his shoes because He was standing on holy ground. I've been thinking about that holy ground lately and wondering why God had Moses remove his shoes. In my research I came upon the teachings of a few rabbis whom I would assume have the inside track on the cultural meaning of this practice. I found there were not one, but a number of possible explanations. One possibility is to symbolically remove the dust and dirt (contamination) from the world so as to enter the holy place. The priests in the temple remove their shoes in this manner. Another was the idea of humility. One rabbi remarked how Jews cover their heads as a sign of respect, but uncover their feet. That would seem to indicate to both humility and vulnerability. Rabbi Yaacov Haber commented about that vulnerability. "With shoes, one can walk over stones, glass, water, even fire and not feel a thing. Without shoes, one can feel everything. Step on the slightest protrusion, even a little Lego, and the pain climbs right up the spine." If you're going to be a leader... you must remove the insulation that you wear to protect yourself.... It will hurt but you must be able to feel every bump, every nick and cranny; you must be able to feel the pain. A person who is responsive to external conditions or stimulation is a person who will be susceptible to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others. It is this individual who can develop a meaningful relationship." As if this wasn't enough, there is still one more interpretation of the metaphor, and perhaps it is the most important. For Moses, the burning bush represented the presence of God. Today, the kingdom of God has come; His Holy Spirit is here; and thus the presence of God is everywhere. So Rabbi Melanie Aron can say, "The place upon which you are standing, that is the exact situation in which you find yourself, is a holy place. In whatever distracting and difficult situation you find yourself, there are opportunities for holiness." Or as Woodie Guthrie wrote in his song, "Holy Ground:" Take off your shoes and pray. The ground you walk, it’s holy ground. Every spot on earth I traipse around. Every spot I walk, it’s holy ground. Every spot, it’s holy ground. Every little inch, it’s holy ground. Every grain of dirt, it’s holy ground. Every spot I walk, it’s holy ground. So which one of these is it? Well, this is what I have found to be true about God's metaphors. They do not apply to only one aspect of the analogy and we are supposed to figure out which one that is. God is just too thorough for that. He has created the world so that all aspects of his metaphors are true; in fact that is why He created them: so He could say many things all at once. May we walk today as if our shoes were off -- sensitive to the environment and to the needs of those around us, humble and vulnerable before the Lord, and aware of the fact that wherever we step, it's holy ground.
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Being a Missionary Without Being One	Monday, July, 26, 2010
by John Fischer You are where you are for a reason. Your vocation, your neighbors, your community and your many associations are a world you inhabit to which you were sent. Every one of us has a sphere of influence that involves at least one other person and that makes us eternally significant. If you ever heard about God sending people to the mission field and assumed everyone like you who didn’t go are somehow without a mission, you assumed wrong. There is absolutely no difference between you and me and Joe Missionary heading out to some South American jungle. In fact, in many environments we can accomplish more than a missionary can because people see a missionary coming and say "Look, here comes a missionary!" and whatever they think of missionaries is immediately predisposed upon you regardless of who you are. People also excuse a missionary’s faith because that is what missionaries are supposed to have. They probably wouldn’t ask a missionary a whole lot of questions about their faith unless they were really seeking God. I guess I’m thinking about all the people, who, for whatever reason, are not seeking God, but who might be interested in meeting Him if they knew He wasn’t part of a missionary’s agenda. Contrast this to being just a regular guy. See, if you are just a regular guy, someone might say, "Look here comes a regular guy," and treat you like they would anyone else. There are no expectations or predispositions. They see you like a normal person (which you are) and they may not be expecting you to have a strong faith in Christ (which you do), so when you end up having one and they already like you and respect you, they will have to give credence at some level to what you have to say, even if they were already pre-disposed in some way against that belief. Don’t get this wrong either. We are not surreptitious. We are not stealth bombers slipping in under the radar and waiting for the proper moment to drop our bombs on people; we are simply people with a mission who do not broadcast it. Our mission, anyway, is not offensive. It is ultimately to love people and tell them what Jesus means to us, when given the opportunity. Given, some people will find Jesus offensive no matter what we do, but if we have their respect and they are still offended, we will know for sure about the offense. I think it is probably safe to say that more people today are offended by Christians and/or Christianity than they are by Christ. More people need to have the opportunity to be introduced to Christ. And who, but you, could have a better chance to give them that opportunity, since you are not a missionary?
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Big Deal	Friday, July, 23, 2010
by John Fischer Job argued with God. Moses bargained with Him. Jacob wrestled with Him. Nehemiah changed His mind. What do these amazing stories tell us about God if it isn't that He wants a relationship with us probably more than we want one with Him. What does it tell us about God if He is willing to be persuaded, cajoled, bargained with and wrestled? It tells us He created us like Him so we could participate in a relationship with Him that means something in terms of integrity. It's no small thing for God to be swayed by a puny human being, but such is the wonder of His will. The Psalmist has declared a similar wonder when he wrote, "When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you have set in place—what are mortals that you should think of us? For you made us only a little lower than the angels, and you crowned us with glory and honor. You put us in charge of everything you made, giving us authority over all things—the sheep and the cattle and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents" (Psalms 8:3-8 NLT). In other words: What's the big deal here? We're the big deal. Does this bring us glory? Yes, but that only brings Him more glory. That He would create us with this much power and authority says a lot about our Creator and what He created us for. He created us with intelligence and emotions. He created us like Him so He could relate to us and we could relate to Him. And He gave us the right to refuse Him, accept Him, argue with Him, badger Him—even tell Him to get lost if that's what we want to do. Think about that. Even unbelief has integrity. What kind of God would create a being that might not even believe in Him? A God who wants a relationship with him when he does. That's why the very next verse of this Psalm reads, "O Lord, our Lord, the majesty of your name fills the earth" (Psalm 8:9)! We are part and parcel of God's glory. That He would do it this way—that He would create a world, people it with beings like Him, and then give them authority over that world—even the opportunity to believe Him or not—says as much about Him as it does about us. You and I are a big part of God's glory. And that's without even trying.
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Bowing to the coffee god	Wednesday, July, 21, 2010
by John Fischer I got a new Starbucks mug yesterday. It's a ceramic version of the famous cardboard cup with the familiar green circle. I am shamelessly loyal to the Starbucks brand. That’s because coffee is my religion. I can say that because Christianity is not my religion. In fact, I don’t have a religion; I only have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ His Son. But I drink coffee religiously. Religion is ritual, habit, doing certain things to get certain results, and pleasing the acceptable god by bowing, scraping and doing all the necessary penance required by that god to please him/her/it. I have been known to bow and scrape to the coffee god, but thankfully, not the real God, because the real God does not require this. God does want my love and devotion, but He doesn’t want it in the form of religion. He has even been known to get upset with people who make a religion out of knowing him. He does not want our sacrifices, our regular attendance at worship, or even the praises of our lips if our hearts are not in it. And if our hearts are with him, where they should be, none of these things are good for brownie points in heaven. They may be a part of our lives, but they will flow out from us as a natural expression of a loving relationship. Now I’ve had my old mug for at least 5 years, and this new one has a different set of rituals attached to it that I will have to adjust to. No problem. I can do this; it’s just coffee. God, on the other hand, would not want to be a 10-year habit broken only by a new church, devotional book or pattern of personal discipline. Discipline is fine when it comes to self-control, but God would not like to be the product of discipline any more than you or I would. God doesn’t want our words, our singing, our sacrifice or our self-flagellation; He wants our hearts. A real relationship is based on love and wanting to be with someone. That comes from the heart. And if it isn’t in your heart, no amount of religion will ever put it there. Meanwhile, for my coffee experience, I continue to worship at the Cathedral of St. Arbucks. My coffee religion remains firmly rooted. For me, religion applies to coffee, but not to God. God is too reckless and unpredictable to fit into any religious system or practice. And aren’t you glad?
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Growing Younger	Tuesday, July, 20, 2010
by John Fischer I was so much older then I'm younger than that now – Bob Dylan We often think of spiritual growth as getting spiritually bigger and stronger. That would make sense since it’s the meaning of the word. We even have a term we use for those who have walked with God a long time: we call them “spiritual giants.” Yet I’m not sure they, or God, would support the metaphor. On a couple of occasions when the disciples of Jesus volunteered to shoo the children away, Jesus rebuked them and made a point of His preference for children, going as far as to say that the rest of us need to become like them if we have any desire of finding a heaven in our future. I wonder what part of being like children he meant. Obviously he didn’t mean we were to be like children in everything, because children are naïve and foolish sometimes. Children are immature and God is pointing us all to maturity in Christ. But in some things spiritual, children have the upper hand. The most obvious is their simple and total faith and trust in their parents, which becomes an example for us of how to trust our heavenly Father. Secondly, and not quite as obvious, is the wonder of a child. A small child is on a road of discovery and every new thing is full of delight. It does not take much to please young children because their imaginations are so active and their experiences are so new and fresh. Parents love this season. A two-dollar car will completely satisfy the desire of a four-year-old, but an eight-year-old is not going to be happy with anything less than a thirty-nine-dollar remote control Hummer. Something else I’m observing with Chandler is the ease by which he makes friends. We often go a local park and I watch him immediately jump in with whoever is there — no introductions necessary. For children this age at the park, there are always parents around, and I notice painfully how careful and suspicious we are of each other as we play out this little charade to determine whether or not we will introduce ourselves and bother getting into conversation. Our children have no problem with what is a difficult barrier for us, and the contrast makes our isolation even more apparent. We were created for friendships. Our mission as representatives of the Kingdom of God on earth depends on it. We should borrow a chapter out of our children's book and just start playing together with strangers in the nearest sandbox. Some guy walked up to me yesterday and acted like we were already in a conversation, and it was no time before we were. And he was just being friendly. Take it from the kids. We can do this.
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What you think about...	Monday, July, 19, 2010
by John Fischer What do you think about when you're not aware of what you're thinking? An argument could be made that a person's thoughts are their own business. This is true to a point, but sooner or later, a person's thoughts become the business of everyone around them. That's because a person's thoughts never stay their thoughts. Eventually their thoughts determine their actions -- more than that -- they determine who they are. Jesus put it this way: "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45) When this overflow takes place, we don't know. A person may be able to live something that is contrary to their heart for a while, but sooner or later his inner life becomes his outer expression, good or bad. Many Scriptures place a high value on what we think about, but none as clearly as Paul's admonition in Philippians: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praise-worthy -- think about such things." (Philippians 4:8) This verse immediately raises the question as to how one does this. Are we to arrange our world and our experiences so as to only encounter that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, and worthy of praise so that these will be the things that fill our minds most of the time? Though this appears to be the most common interpretation of this verse, it is hard to imagine anyone really finding and maintaining such a pristine environment for any length of time. Our environment and responsibilities in society force us to encounter much that is false, ignoble, wrong, impure, ugly, less than admirable, and not worthy of praise. How can we limit being exposed to bad things if we live in a world that constantly throws both BAD and good at us? Can we realistically ensure only good things will enter our minds? The important distinction to make here is that Paul is not talking about what we are exposed to -- what we encounter in the world -- but rather, what we think about. What we see and what we think about are two very different things. This is not about what is in our field of vision as much as it is about what occupies our mind. You can't always control what you see, but you can control what you think about. So decide what will you think about today. It will make a difference in who you are, and what you do.
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Help we could all use	Thursday, July, 15, 2010
by John Fischer Imagine you are a single mom with three kids to drop off at school before going to your first day at a new job. On a slippery, rain-soaked street, you go into a slide and skid into an accident that all but totals your car. Compounding the problem is the fact that it isn't your car—you borrowed it from a friend because yours needed to be fixed and you didn't have the money yet to fix it. So in fear and trembling you call the owner of the car to let him know what happened, and all he wants to know are the answers to three questions: 1) Are you okay? 2) Are the kids okay? 3) Do you have enough money for a cab? Yes, yes, and yes, you say. Good, he says, then get on your way, young lady. You have an important day ahead of you and you can't let this stop you. Leave the car, I'll send for a tow truck. Now be off, and God be with you. What happened there? 1) No judgment. 2) Help. (A lessening of the load, not another burden.) 3) Encouragement with dignity. Now that's the kind of help we could all use! Life is hard enough as it is, to not add the pressure of being good Christians to the burdens on so many backs. And what makes this even more tragic is that the added pressure so often comes from the only true source of hope anyone has—those who forgot they are ambassadors of the grace of God. When those who represent the unconditional love of God start laying down conditions for acceptance, love and understanding, where are the rest of us going to go? We need to come alongside each other and help—no questions asked—not run our spiritual Geiger counters up and down everybody's faith. "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior." Habakkuk 3:17-18
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God on the go	Wednesday, July, 14, 2010
by John Fischer God doesn’t desire more of our time sometimes; He desires more of our attention all the time. Ever feel frustrated because you hear messages about getting closer to God and you definitely desire this for yourself, but you are inundated with so much to do already that this only makes you feel guilty because you are too busy for God? I think we all feel this at one time or another. Some of you may need to carve some time out of your busy schedule for more specific time to be with God, but that isn’t necessarily the only answer to this question. Look at the following scriptures: "I have set the Lord always before me." (Psalm 16:8 NIV) "My eyes are ever on the Lord." (Psalms 25:15 NIV) "I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips." (Psalm 34:1 NIV) Reading these words makes you wonder if these are the words of a monk who had nothing else to do but devote himself to God. Actually, they are the words of David, King of Israel, a great ruler and warrior. How did he manage to run a nation at war, and keep his eyes on the Lord at all times? The only conclusion is that he did this while he did everything else. It’s a continual awareness of God that we are talking about here, not necessarily more time devoted to spiritual pursuits. I once saw a sign that read: "Your God is what you pay attention to." You see, I believe you can pay attention to God while you are doing everything else. It’s all about doing everything for God and seeing God in everything we do. It’s about bringing God into the boardroom, the exercise room, the living room, and the bedroom. Now of course He’s already in all these places but we’re talking about being aware of His being there at all times. That’s what it means to set the Lord always before us. Worship is a frame of mind that always has God in the picture. We don’t need church, or Bible study, or devotions to remind us about the Lord if we’re already aware of Him all the time. These opportunities then become more precious to us because we can devote all our attention to that which we have been aware of all along.
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'What's the rush?'	Tuesday, July, 13, 2010
by John Fischer "Many will rush here and there, and knowledge will increase." (Daniel 12:4) This comment comes in the context of the end times struggle of nations for control in the Middle East. It is stated almost as an aside, but it jumped out at me when I read it today as such an apt description of our current way of life. We are rushing to business, rushing to school, rushing to soccer practice and ballet lessons, even rushing to church. At the same time, knowledge is increasing. This is the information age. Almost anything is at your fingertips. You name it; you can google it. And yet with all this mobility and information, are we any better off? And so, as a civilization, we are rushing here and there, gathering more and more knowledge, but not necessarily the wisdom to go along with it. Sooner or later we're going to all hit the proverbial wall—one way of describing the apocalypse also predicted in Daniel. The big question is: what do we do about this? Do we just rush along with everyone else and get more and more knowledge? Well—and you may be surprised at my answer—to a certain extent, yes, because to speak into a culture, you have to be in it. There are still hippies from the 1960s living in the mountains somewhere. They chose a simpler existence and stuck with it. The rest of us who thought we were countercultural, became the new culture. We are now rushing here and there, running things and trying to get ourselves elected, and preaching, and trying to save the world, and I haven't heard a thing from any of those guys in the mountains in 40 years. Whatever they're doing up there is of no consequence to the rest of the world. Pretty selfish, I think, especially if you possess a message everyone needs. So we will feel the effects of the information age, and of all this rushing around. We will have to figure out how to deal with it like everyone else. Jesus said we don't have to be of the world in order to be in it. We can be in it and of something else. That something—or better yet, Someone—gives us perspective and a reason to be, and the ability to detach ourselves from this world now and then to renew our faith and point of view.
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The Improbable Truth	Monday, July, 12, 2010
by John Fischer Has it ever made anyone curious why the Bible questions its own answers? Take the book of Ecclesiastes, for instance—twelve chapters dedicated to the propagation of the meaninglessness of life. And this is not just the author having a bad hair day. This is an investment of a wise king's entire life seeking the meaning of his existence. Every attempt to answer the big question is meticulously pursued, and with all the resources to make it legitimate. If Solomon wanted to pursue wealth, he had wealth to exceed the richest kings at the time. If he wanted to pursue pleasure, he had a thousand concubines at his bidding. And in his pursuit of wisdom, his wisdom was unparalleled in human history. King Solomon was no armchair philosopher. He had the opportunity to try out each one of his solutions, and every time he came up with the same conclusion: "Meaningless, meaningless… Everything is meaningless" (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And even when he does concede, in the end, that the only reasonable thing to do is to fear God and keep His commandments, it's not like he's ready to celebrate this final discovery (Ecclesiastes 12:13). In fact, it reads like a resignation. You finish this book and you want to go, "When's the next Tony Robbins seminar? I need some cheering up!" Actually, the fact that Ecclesiastes is in the Bible does two things for me. First, it gives me confidence that the rest of the Bible is true. If Christianity were a construct of the human mind, you wouldn't find this stuff in its portfolio, that's for sure. What propaganda features differing views? Who includes the opposing arguments in their literature, and even makes them look good? And yet the Bible declares life meaningless, it shows bad people having a good time and good people having a miserable time. The hero of the whole book dies a brutal death in the end, for heaven's sake, and then He calls His followers to come and die with Him! Well, whoopee! Where do I sign up? I'm sorry, but to all those who say someone made up Christianity, I have to say, based on what? Certainly nothing I know of in human nature. Secondly, it makes me look more deeply into things. Maybe the reason following Christ doesn't magically make this life a party is because there is something more than this life to consider. And maybe Solomon was so old and spent by the time he finally got to it that he couldn't really enjoy what was enjoyable about what he found. And maybe, just maybe, the reason God put his story there was for us to benefit from his life's search, take his word for it, and start living where he left off.
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What you think about...	Friday, July, 09, 2010
by John Fischer What do you think about when you're not aware of what you're thinking? An argument could be made that a person's thoughts are their own business. This is true to a point, but sooner or later, a person's thoughts become the business of everyone around them. That's because a person's thoughts never stay their thoughts. Eventually their thoughts determine their actions—more than that—they determine who they are. Jesus put it this way: "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45) When this overflow takes place, we don't know. A person may be able to live something that is contrary to their heart for a while, but sooner or later his inner life becomes his outer expression, good or bad. Many Scriptures place a high value on what we think about, but none as clearly as Paul's admonition in Philippians: "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praise-worthy—think about such things." (Philippians 4:8) This verse immediately raises the question as to how one does this. Are we to arrange our world and our experiences so as to only encounter that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, and worthy of praise so that these will be the things that fill our minds most of the time? Though this appears to be the most common interpretation of this verse, it is hard to imagine anyone really finding and maintaining such a pristine environment for any length of time. Our environment and responsibilities in society force us to encounter much that is false, ignoble, wrong, impure, ugly, less than admirable, and not worthy of praise. How can we limit being exposed to bad things if we live in a world that constantly throws both bad and good at us? Can we realistically ensure only good things will enter our minds? The important distinction to make here is that Paul is not talking about what we are exposed to—what we encounter in the world—but rather, what we think about. What we observe and what we think about are two very different things. This is not about what is in our field of vision as much as it is about what occupies our mind. You can't always control what you see, but you can control what you think about. So decide what will you think about today. It will make a difference in who you are, and what you do.
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Die Hard	Wednesday, July, 07, 2010
by John Fischer Often, as a child, when I complained about some ache or pain that had no clear physical explanation, the simple parental diagnosis was: “It’s just growing pains.” I used to imagine my muscles and bones actually hurting while they stretched and grew. While I know nothing about the scientific nature of this evaluation, I do know it has a spiritual application that is entirely accurate. It hurts to grow. It hurts to grow because we have to die to old ways in order to live anew, and old ways die hard. We place a high premium in life on dying peacefully, but in reality dying almost always is accompanied by pain. We have dependencies with coping mechanisms that have enslaved us. It’s hard letting go of our security blankets. In a touching scene from the romantic comedy, Mr. Mom, Michael Keaton has to coax his toddler’s “whoopee” blanket away from him. Upon rendering it up, the little boy asks for a moment to himself to grieve the loss and we can almost touch his pain. We would like similar moments to grieve our little daily deaths, but we have to learn to move on, because the pain of losing is followed by the greater joy of finding God always meets us on the other side of our loss. It hurts to grow because growing usually means facing into some fear or weakness that has limited us. Though God saves us through no effort of our own, he asks for our cooperation when it comes to our spiritual growth. Real spiritual growth only happens when our effort to act upon God’s word meets the provision of the Holy Spirit in us. Or as Paul teaches, “Put into action God’s saving work in your lives, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him” (Philippians 2:12-13 NLT). This is always the spiritual principle of growth. We obey by stepping into our weakness or our fear, hoping in the fact that because it is something He asks of us, He will meet us somewhere along the way with the power to do it. This is almost always a painful proposition because it requires a step into the unknown. What if God doesn’t show up? What if this is all a hoax? I suppose we can ask these questions, but we will never get them answered on this side of the pain. We have to take the step, believing that there is something there that we can’t see. And if that doesn’t hurt, it’s probably not faith. It's hard to die... but it's the only way to live.
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We aren't, but we are	Tuesday, July, 06, 2010
by John Fischer This is the secret to the adequacy question: We aren't, but we are. Are you adequate to be the kind of person God meant you to be? Are you adequate to be a good husband, or a good wife? Are you adequate to have an effect on people? Will the people you know be different because they know you? Are you the person for this, or is it someone else? And if it's not now, then when? When will you be ready to be used by God? What do you have to do to get ready? Here's the answer: You are. You are adequate to be and to do all that God requires of you… now. However, your adequacy will come through an awareness of your inadequacy. You are inadequate if you are looking to yourself to come up with the goods, but adequate if you are looking to God. So, in a way, the answer to the initial question: "Who is adequate to be the kind of person God meant you to be?" is that we aren't, but we are. Now is that perfectly clear? Here it is again… "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant…" (2 Corinthians 3:5-6 NIV) There you have it, the last and only biblical word on adequacy is simply: we aren't, but we are. And the only way this works is to be constantly aware of both these things at the same time.
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'O beautiful for heroes proved'	Monday, July, 05, 2010
by John Fischer For a real Independence holiday treat, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghz4_kikLkE&feature=related and enjoy an excellent performance of "America, the Beautiful" by the late, always gracious Ray Charles. I actually found a number of different recordings of Ray singing this song and all of them are the same basic arrangement. He starts with a more unfamiliar, obscure verse from the song written by Katherine Lee Bates and then sings the first verse last—the one many of us learned in school: "O beautiful for spacious skies…" This was obviously intentional. He wanted to focus on a verse that most people wouldn't even know existed if it weren't for him. And it is a verse most appropriate for Independence Day. O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife. Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine Till all success be nobleness And every gain divine! It was the artist's prerogative, that of the six verses he could have showcased by way of his celebrity, Ray Charles chose this one. No wonder. It captures the most noble of aspirations. It goes way beyond what we do, to the more telling, why we do it—something so deep we are all incapable of judging, even in ourselves, and yet something we should continually strive for and call each other to. The heroes of this verse were selfless in their struggle for freedom, and there is a reason for that freedom—not for autonomy—but that this freedom might be used to extend mercy, create noble character and secure spiritual gain. I would say we have all but lost sight of this kind of freedom, but all is not lost. As countries go, we're still young enough to be an experiment, and idealistic enough to use our freedoms for the right reasons. Like my wife always says, "Do the right things for the right reasons." Patriotic days like today call for our noblest aspirations, but—and let's put this in proper perspective—nothing like the aspirations with which we will return to work tomorrow. That is the true test.
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'...and out came this calf!'	Friday, July, 02, 2010
by John Fischer "Someone is lying in spectacular fashion." - Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia We live in a society that has come to expect a certain amount of lying to go on at all levels. We've all lowered the bar considerably. I was reading again the story of Moses on Mt. Sinai receiving the tablets on which were written the commands from God, the first one of which was being broken at that very moment down the mountain, as the people were worshiping a golden calf. Moses had left his brother Aaron in charge, and the people had gotten restless, doubting whether Moses would ever come back. So Aaron had collected all their gold jewelry, melted it down and made it into a golden calf, and introduced them to their new god "who had brought them out of the land of Egypt." The key element about this for our story today was the fact that Aaron had "fashioned" and "tooled" the calf himself. He was personally involved. And when he saw the power it had over the people, he was pretty impressed with himself. When Moses came down the mountain, he found the people in a drunken orgy, celebrating their new, shiny, bovine god. Throwing the tablets down in anger, he demanded from Aaron what had happened. At that point Aaron waxed prolific in his story-telling finesse and did what we all would have done: passed the buck. The people had lost hope in Moses and were demanding a god like the pagan countries around them, so Aaron, trying his best to keep order, had collected all their gold jewelry, thrown it into the fire, and lo and behold would you believe, "...out came this calf!" Linguists must have developed the passive case in deference to our human capacity to blame someone or something else for our own guilt. The passive case has no one responsible. It happened to me instead of something I made happen. "I just suddenly found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time." Oh really? How did you do that? Someone got you there. If it wasn't you, who was it? Better to take responsibility for the good, the bad and the ugly. Sin doesn't happen to you. Sin doesn't even happen. We make it happen; we sin. This is where the truth calls us to a better way. Lies almost always grow out of our attempts at cover-up. Truth is always the shortest way back. And it's the safest, too. You only have to remember what actually happened.
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Opera night	Thursday, July, 01, 2010
by John Fischer [A little over two years ago, most of us saw this for the first time. I just ran across it again and found out the link still works… and so does the magic. Here's what I wrote then. Maybe it's time to do it again. I don't know about you, but I can't seem to get enough of this.] Okay, everybody, get out the Kleenex. And get out all your excuses for not going after your dream, and put them on the table. While you're at it, empty your pockets of every ounce of pre-judgment you can muster and get ready to do something with that too. Then dump out your fears, small thinking, and inadequacies and watch this video. When you're done, I suggest you clear the table of all that unnecessary stuff and decide what you're going to do. You are gifted by God to do something that will amaze and delight those around you in no less of a manner than this. http://www.maniacworld.com/Phone-Salesman-Amazes-Crowd.html
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The presence of the holy	Wednesday, June, 30, 2010
by John Fischer Often I will scoop up a good sentence or paragraph from one of our readers and file it away in my "Future Devos" file to come back to at another time. Sometimes they have lost their context, but that doesn't matter if the quote is good enough. Such is the case with a comment from Jodi in Idaho: "I feel closer to God when I just go to work each day, live life, and accept everyone with God's love." What I don't know is what she was comparing this to. She feels closer to God when she is doing these things than what? Well I'm not sure it matters, but it was probably being compared to more assumed spiritual things like going to church, or reading the Bible, or praying, or singing worship songs, or hiking in the woods, or counseling someone, or attending a Christian retreat or seminar. In other words, Jodi feels closer to God doing normal, everyday, average things rather than anything overtly spiritual. Now I like the fact that Jodi has given us a little window on the sacredness of ordinary life, and we would do well to fill in our own version of ordinary things and train ourselves to see and appreciate the presence of the holy.
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Still in the mirror	Tuesday, June, 29, 2010
by John Fischer "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Those who listen to the word but do not do what it says are like people who look at their faces in a mirror and, after looking at themselves, go away and immediately forget what they look like" (James 1: 22-23). We're going to stay a little longer with this verse. Yesterday we determined that people forget what they look like in the mirror (of the word of truth) because they don't like what they see. So they fabricate a false version of themselves, which they choose to believe over the true one. But the problem is, they are usually the only ones to buy the fabricated version. What most people see is closer to what every one of us sees in the mirror. This is why we are usually the last to know what jerks we are. It's important to remember what we see when we look in the mirror. That will humble us and make us more dependent on the Lord. The man who remembers what he looks like when he walks away from the mirror is someone who will not think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but neither will he think of himself as less that he ought to think either. As one of our readers commented yesterday, when we see ourselves in the mirror, we also see the Lord's hand on our shoulder. Which is a way of saying we see Him too, and we see what He is making us to be. And remember, all this goes back to hearing the word of God and doing something about it. This is serious business. We need to be doers of the word and not hearers only.
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The man in the mirror	Monday, June, 28, 2010
by John Fischer I'm starting with the man in the mirror I'm asking him to change his ways No message could have been any clearer If you wanna make the world a better place Take a look at yourself and then make a change A year ago last Friday Michael Jackson, the one who brought us this song, passed on. The timing is significant to me in that I have been struggling as of late with that man (the one in the mirror, I mean). My struggle has been to remember what he looks like. I'm referring to a scripture verse in the Book of James that has always haunted me. I've always been drawn to this verse as if I should know why. For the longest time I have wondered what it meant; and then when I suddenly realized all to clearly what it meant, I found myself wishing I hadn't, because the meaning is too painful. "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves," it starts out. "Do what it says. Those who listen to the word but do not do what it says are like people who look at their faces in a mirror and, after looking at themselves, go away and immediately forget what they look like" (James 1: 22-23). The reason he forgets what he looks like is that in the light of the word, he sees himself for the scoundrel that he really is, but because that view is too painful and requires too much change, he promptly forgets that picture and goes on his way, choosing to believe something else about himself and his circumstances rather than face the truth. The right thing to do is remember what you look like, however painful, and use that as a reference point of change. Remember, and change. Remember, and change.
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New for old	Friday, June, 25, 2010
by John Fischer Jesus once warned against trying to patch an old garment with new cloth or put new wine into old wineskins. In the case of the garment, the new unshrunk piece of cloth will tear away from the rest when the clothing is first washed. And in the case of the wineskins, the new wine will be too acidic for the old skins and they will burst. New wine and new skins need to grow old together. I used to wonder about exactly what this meant. I'd heard it taught as being related to new methods of sharing the Gospel and pretty much left it at that. Recently I found something new. I found out that Jesus told this story right after being criticized for hanging around tax collectors and sinners at Matthew's house. (Matthew was a former tax collector who, upon being invited to become one of Christ's twelve disciples, decided to celebrate his career change by inviting all his friends over to dinner to meet his new boss. Tax collectors were thought of as pretty much the scum of the earth.) When the religious leaders (Pharisees) questioned Jesus as to his choice of friends, he promptly replied, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matthew 9:13) Which translated meant, I didn't come for you; I came for them. And shortly after that is when Jesus is suddenly discussing garment repair and proper wine storage. Here's what I think. I think that little piece of advice was meant for the Pharisees. It was meant to announce to them that God was now going to usher in a new thing entirely. Jesus did not come just to fix religion. He did not come to patch up the Old Covenant. Nor did He come to pour new life into it (new wine into old wineskins). He came to do something entirely new. And in order to “get it” you can’t come in through the existing door. The Pharisee’s framework of thinking about God and religion will forever prevent them from being able to understand and partake in something new -- what Jesus came to establish. Therefore, Jesus is pleased to start with people who have no preconceptions of God and how to please Him; they just know they’re messed up. That’s all Jesus wants. He doesn’t want the religious sacrifices of “good” people. He wants the entire lives of people who know they are sinners and failures so he can begin something entirely new with them -- new clothes... new wine... new skins. Now all this should come as terribly good news to anyone who knows he or she is not a good person. That's precisely the point. Jesus didn't come for good people; He came for sinners. He did not come to make good people better, but to make bad people good. And Lord knows that's what we all need.
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Growing Younger	Thursday, June, 24, 2010
by John Fischer I was so much older then I'm younger than that now. – Bob Dylan We often think of spiritual growth as getting spiritually bigger and stronger. That would make sense since it’s the meaning of the word. We even have a term we use for those who have walked with God a long time: we call them “spiritual giants.” Yet I’m not sure they, or God, would support the metaphor. On a couple of occasions when the disciples of Jesus volunteered to shoo the children away, Jesus rebuked them and made a point of His preference for children, going as far as to say that the rest of us need to become like them if we have any desire of finding a heaven in our future. I wonder what part of being like children he meant. Obviously he didn’t mean we were to be like children in everything, because children are naïve and foolish sometimes. Children are immature and God is pointing us all to maturity in Christ. But in some things spiritual, children have the upper hand. The most obvious is their simple and total faith and trust in their parents, which becomes an example for us of how to trust our heavenly Father. Secondly, and not quite as obvious, is the wonder of a child. A small child is on a road of discovery and every new thing is full of delight. It does not take much to please young children because their imaginations are so active and their experiences are so new and fresh. Parents love this season. A two-dollar car will completely satisfy the desire of a four-year-old, but an eight-year-old is not going to be happy with anything less than a thirty-nine-dollar remote control Hummer. Something else I’m observing with my five-year-old is the ease by which he makes friends. We often go a local park and I watch him immediately jump in with whoever is there — no introductions necessary. For children this age at the park, there are always parents around, and I notice painfully how careful and suspicious we are of each other as we play out this little charade to determine whether or not we will introduce ourselves and bother getting into conversation. Our children have no problem with what is a difficult barrier for us, and the contrast makes our isolation even more apparent. We need friends. Our mission in life revolves around friendships. We need to be more eager to develop these, even if only for a moment at the park. You never know when a relationship might save a life. Take it from our kids.
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Gracious unbelief	Wednesday, June, 23, 2010
by John Fischer One of the greatest privileges God has given human beings is the freedom to reject Him. That someone can walk into hell with head held high singing, "I did it my way," is a value, though tragic in its outcome. Our friends have every right to not believe, and we must allow them that right. We will never be able to make someone believe anyway. Only God can do that. "For God, who said, 'Let there be light in the darkness,' has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God..." (2 Corinthians 4:6) It takes God to turn on the light, and until He does that for someone, no amount of banging on a person's head with a Bible is going to amount to anything, except his pain and our frustration. If you love and accept someone, and don't try and change or fight them, you will find that the truth, through your love, will have a much better chance of invading someone's life. Besides, everyone is right about many things. You can affirm those things -- connect where you can -- and let God work. Resisting someone in their unbelief will get you nowhere. Besides, I personally don't think there are many people who truly don't believe; they are just trying to tell themselves they don't, because they are mad at God for something, or don't want him messing with their life. [A contribution right now would come at a very important time for the Catch of the Day and our future together. See the box below to be linked to our donation page, and thank you in advance for your timely assistance.]
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The secret of a clear conscience	Tuesday, June, 22, 2010
by John Fischer "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me." (1 Corinthians 4:3-4) Wouldn't we all like to know the secret of a clear conscience? Well here it is. We have talked a lot about judging in previous Catches, but very little about what to do when you are the one being judged. The answer is actually pretty much the same. It stands to reason. If we are not to judge others, then we should not allow ourselves to be judged by anyone. Now of course we can't control what someone does to us, but we can refuse to allow it to concern us. Or as Paul put it, "I care very little if I am judged by you." Why do you suppose he can say that? On what basis is he able to disregard the judgment of others? On the basis that the Lord is the only judge that matters to Paul. Paul knows that he has already been accepted by the Lord, so who cares what anyone else thinks? Don't you wish you could live this way? You can. Just do the same thing. Paul's clear conscience is not because he is innocent, but because he has brought everything he knows about to the Lord. Keep a short record. Bring your sins immediately before the Lord as soon as you are aware of them. Leave them there at the cross and walk on through to your new life in Christ. Will you be perfect? No. You'll just be perfectly clear.
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Gracious unbelief	Monday, June, 21, 2010
by John Fischer One of the greatest privileges God has given human beings is the freedom to reject Him. That someone can walk into hell with head held high singing, "I did it my way," is a value, though tragic in its outcome. Our friends have every right to not believe, and we must allow them that right. We will never be able to make someone believe anyway. Only God can do that. "For God, who said, 'Let there be light in the darkness,' has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God..." (2 Corinthians 4:6) It takes God to turn on the light, and until He does that for someone, no amount of banging on a person's head with a Bible is going to amount to anything, except his pain and our frustration. If you love and accept someone, and don't try and change or fight them, you will find that the truth, through your love, will have a much better chance of invading someone's life than if you continually tried to resist him in his unbelief. He's still going to be right about a lot of things. You can affirm those things -- connect with him where you can -- and let God work on him. (Besides, by the way, I personally don't think there are many people who truly don't believe; they are just trying to tell themselves they don't, because they are mad at God for something, or don't want anyone messing with their life.)
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No Christian anything	Friday, June, 18, 2010
by John Fischer Did I ever tell you about the guy I read about who thought he wanted to start a Christian coffeehouse to try and reach people in his neighborhood for Christ until he realized that they already had a coffeehouse right up the street and perhaps he should just go there? Don't you like this guy? Don't you wish he'd been around years ago before a whole enterprise of Christian stuff was invented that has only proven to isolate Christians from the world rather than help them be a part of it? In fact, I think it is high time to declare anything that has to use the adjective "Christian" to describe itself is most likely not. The best way to keep this straight is to simply remember that "Christian" is a noun. Only people can be Christian. Try going through your day noticing all the times you use Christian as an adjective to describe something other than a person. I bet you will be surprised. The only Christians I know are people. Let's try and weed out these artificial renderings of faith and re-establish the noun of belief. There is no such thing as a Christian anything.
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Pleasing to God	Thursday, June, 17, 2010
by John Fischer If you’re anything like me, you are really good at beating yourself up on a regular basis. Most of us live with a lot of guilt. We were never good enough. Everything is our fault. This is because all our lives, we have learned acceptance based on performance. If we behave properly, we will be loved and accepted, but one mess-up and love is withdrawn. We are expected to do well, so we only hear about it when we don’t. God loves us on a wholly different basis. With God, we begin with love and acceptance and we move out from there. When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, a voice was heard from heaven as He came up out of the water, “This is my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with Him” (Matthew 3:17). At this point in his ministry, Jesus has done nothing to prove Himself or earn his Father’s approval. No healings. No teachings. No disciples. His baptism signaled the beginning of his ministry, and yet we find God fully pleased with Him at this point. It was a given. It is the same thing with us. God delights in us just as we are. You are pleasing to God already. Or to put it another way: God likes you. This may be hard to believe but it is true. You bring pleasure to God right now as you read this. God’s love is extended freely through Christ’s death on the cross. It’s what Christ did that brings us into fellowship with God, not what we do. The things you do today will not cause God to like you or dislike you, they will grow out of knowing you already bring Him pleasure. And there is nothing you can do to alter that fact. So take it. Bask in it. Yes, right now, without lifting a finger, God is pleased with you. He made you for this. He made you and He delights in you. This is where we start.
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God never promised us a rose garden	Wednesday, June, 16, 2010
by John Fischer Remember the song by R.E.M., "Smiling Happy People?" Why has that always made me think of Christians? Somewhere we have gotten the idea that our primary witness in the world is to always be happy, always bright in countenance, always on top of things. We even have a name for it: victorious Christian living. In my church growing up there was a leading surgeon who was a great Bible teacher, with an effervescent personality and an inextinguishable positive attitude. I never saw him but that he wasn't bouncing on his tiptoes. Whenever he spoke, he had a voice that would wake the dead, and when our families would go out to dinner together, he would say the blessing in a tone that made the whole restaurant have to pray too. I'm not suggesting that any of this was not genuine -- I believe it was -- but he was held up, at least in our family, as the epitome of a victorious Christian. He was the standard for the rest of us. However short you were on measuring up to Dr. Byron's attitude and countenance was how short you were on true spirituality. No wonder struggling people struggle even harder around Christians. It ought not to be so. I think part of the problem is we've got Christianity offering people what God never promised to deliver. Often this smiling happy life is hung on John 10:10, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." "Abundant life" it's been tagged, and it sounds like a pretty good deal. But is what we think of when we hear "abundant life" what Jesus meant? I wonder if we look at the abundant life through the glasses of the American way of freedom, democracy, the pursuit of happiness, wealth, success, individualism -- in other words, everything Americans desire and aspire to. Jesus might as well have said: "I have come to bring you life in the form of the American dream." Somehow I don't think that's what He meant. My own study of the Greek word translated "abundant" reveals that it is basically a superlative of the former word, "life." It means Jesus came to bring us life and more of it. Part of the word implies "all around" or "circumvent" which might carry the idea that all aspects of life will be deeper. Whatever you get with life, you will get more of it with Jesus, all the way around. More sadness, more joy, more suffering, more glory, more pain, more gain, more rejection, more love... in short, more of everything. It's just an all around bigger life. And I also think it has something to do with significance -- a life that has meaning beyond this life. It's a life with a life #2. So that leaves room for all of us, and all that we are going through. As one of our readers has commented: "Bottom line I believe that God knows that we need the depressed personality as well as the happy, happy gang. I guess to keep us grounded. I believe that Christians need to get hold of this concept and quit relating a heart in tune with God being only manifested in a big smile. I believe that God can work through a tear as well as a smile."
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Giving out lots of UPR	Tuesday, June, 15, 2010
by John Fischer One of our readers from a few years ago introduced us to a term from her training as a massage therapist known as UPR ("Unconditional Positive Regard"). I'm bringing it up again because I think this is an excellent tool for helping us think about people who may or may not be Christians. This is an excellent way we can cut through people’s barriers and preconceptions about Christians and Christianity. Get to know people first as human beings. Don’t lead with your Christianity; lead with your love, care and friendliness. Find common ground with people and show an interest in what interests them. (A good reason, by the way, for having lots of varied interests and concerns. The more interests you have, the more people you can connect to.) Listen. Learn. Develop meaningful relationships based on shared concerns and then when someone finds out you are “one of those Christians,” they will have to rethink their idea of what a Christian is, or make an exception for you. Either way, you’ve broken through their resistance, and who knows what might happen after that? To this end, I think we should borrow this phrase from our reader's massage therapy manual and give out lots of Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) to everyone we meet. I can’t think of a better way to express how we should regard all people. Everyone is made in God’s image, loved by God, forgiven by Jesus, and precious in His sight. That’s a lot of positive regard, and that’s just for starters! 1 Peter 3:15 says: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” – “respect” being the operable word here. Let’s focus on giving out lots of UPR today!
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The other side of the cross	Friday, June, 11, 2010
by John Fischer I need the baptism. I need the fire. I need the Holy Ghost filling. I need the touch. I need the healing. I want the power. Call it what you what you will, I want it. I'm tired of only a thinking man's Christianity. I'm looking for motivation, change, transformation and action. I need to not be told what to do, as much as how to do it. A pastor I know said to me just yesterday, "We have allowed cerebral understanding of the word to interfere with the power." I'll go along with that. I want to get the ball and run with it right through all those steps and principles and propositions. Get the assignment. Get the power. Do it. This is resurrection power. His power. His resurrection in this body. How about that? That's what's walking around in you today and this weekend. Be on guard; that's a lot of power you're responsible for. Look not to the past, or to your grief, look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, who has seen the other side of the cross. Too many on this side taking notes. Too many with their notebooks and folding chairs. It's over. We've seen enough here. Jesus has already been to the other side and it's His resurrection in this body. Time to live again.
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Knocking the stuffing out of boredom	Thursday, June, 10, 2010
by John Fischer It's been said that Theodore Roosevelt would stay up late at night before entertaining a visitor or dignitary, reading up on something he had found out the guest was particularly interested in. Imagine that: going out of your way to learn something that may not interest you at all, just so he could contribute to the conversation something he knew his guest would appreciate. Olen from Rancho Cucamonga, California sent us this: "Warren Bennis once said, 'Boredom is what happens when I fail to make someone interesting.'" Now that is a total reversal of the expected. When someone is boring, the assumption is usually that… well… it is that person's fault that they are boring. That person is simply a boring person. Mr. Bennis turns that on its head and puts the responsibility for seeing someone as interesting in the eye of the beholder. He says we are the ones who make people interesting, by finding out what they are interested in and getting them to talk about it. And, of course, it's extremely important to really listen as well. This would fit nicely with understanding that we are all made in God's image. If I fail to find something of interest in a person, then I am saying God is boring. If every person bears a piece of the image of God, then everyone is interesting at some level. It's up to me to dig for treasure in the people around me. Think about this today—that you are responsible for finding something beautiful about all the people in your day.
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A new point of reference	Wednesday, June, 09, 2010
by John Fischer I have so much to learn about being a friend. I feel so awkward around people I don't know. I've finally figured out what this is. I'm feeling awkward around people I don't know because they don't know me, at least they don't know who I am. Most of my career I have traveled in circles where if I wasn't the center of attention, I was running a close second. In such environments I am never at a loss for conversation. People want to talk to me; they have questions they want to ask me. I feel at home in that world, but it's not the real world. It's an artificial world where most of the conversations are scripted. So that's it. My hang-up is my selfishness. No wonder I want to become invisible in a group of people I don't know. They don't know me. There is no point of reference. How can I possibly strike up a conversation with someone who doesn't know who I am (or as Marti likes to put it—who I once was)? This is truly tragic. I only hope I've discovered this in time to do something about it. It's a pretty simple solution, really. Just need a new point of reference. The new point of reference is everyone else. They are the stars. They are the ones I want to interview. They are the ones I'm waiting to talk to. They are the ones I am full of questions about. Lord forgive me for asking everyone to cater to me. Show me how to cater to others. Give me a new perspective, and may I learn how to make everyone else the topic of my conversation. [A contribution right now would come at a very critical time for the Catch of the Day and our future together. See the box below to be linked to our donation page, and thank you in advance for your timely assistance.]
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'What has brought you life today?'	Tuesday, June, 08, 2010
by John Fischer I have a friend who likes to experiment with new ways of beginning a conversation. He's kind of forced into this because he works with homeless teenagers in an inner city district where it's hard to start a conversation with "How are you?" when the unpleasant answer kind of screams in your face without anything being said. There are ways in which we say hello to people that indicate whether or not we intend on engaging them in conversation or just politely dismissing them. I think first we have to ask ourselves if we really care. If you really care about the answer, you are probably not going to ask someone "How are you?" Maybe it will be a version of the familiar phrase, like "How are you, really?" or maybe it will be something else. My friend has a question to suggest: "What has brought you life today?" Now that will stop you in your tracks. What made you sit up and take notice of the fact that you are actually alive? What made your heart beat faster? What got your attention? Something in the news? A God moment? A phone call from your daughter? A brush with death? What made you know you were alive today? It's a valid question that cuts through much of our mundane existence. If you can go through an entire day without coming up with anything that made you feel alive, it doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't anything; it just means you didn't notice it. That's why the question is a good one. It draws something of value out of us. As it is set up now, "What has brought you life today?" is more of an end of the day question. And for those of you who are reading this first thing in the morning, a slight adjustment may need to be made. You might want to think about living today in such a way as to have an answer to that question later on. You might want to plan on making some things happen that you know would bring you life, like that phone call to your daughter, for instance. In other words: make life happen, don't just let it pass by in front of you. And then think about using this kind of opener on someone else. Just be sure you are awake and alert when you do, because chances are you will get a real answer that will demand engagement. As my Denver friend says: "I want you to explore for yourself what brings others to life. I want you to open your canned conversation starters and find ways to step into others lives not around them." [A contribution right now would come at a very critical time for the Catch of the Day and our future together. Use the link above to go to our donation page, and thank you in advance for your timely assistance.]
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Backyard lighting	Monday, June, 07, 2010
by John Fischer My wife lives in that playful right side of the brain that has been known to suggest it might be fun to rollerblade to work. There is no GPS system in Marti’s head that checks for a good route. She merely sees her goal and finds ways to achieve it even if they are not conventional or paved routes. Her mind leaps and bounds in lateral jumps while mine thinks in sequential steps, each of which is justifying the next. She has no problem being wrong at some stage in order to achieve a right solution. This drives me crazy! A perfect case in point would be the lighting system we have in our back yard that she put up one weekend when I was away. After repeatedly asking me to do it, she decided to do it herself. I deserve the consequences. Did she consider that the packages of lights she bought were left over from Christmas, and that the reason they were on sale was they blinked? Did she have a plan for how she was going get power to all these lights in the most efficient manner? No. Thoughts like this do not have a place to reside in Marti's brain. She had a goal, and, by golly, she was going to achieve it one way or another. And she did. Never mind that the other way she came up with turned out to use three times the extension cord as necessary and a totally unfathomable system of wiring that would confound the greatest mind and make a diagram of it look like spaghetti lining the tray of a 2-year-old's high chair after supper. But the lights all work, and did I add that they all blink? Yes, it is an electrical nightmare, especially when something goes wrong with one of the lines like it did yesterday, and I have to somehow figure out how to locate and solve the problem. "Just follow the cord to the other end; something's obviously come unplugged." Yes, I thought, but which cord, and how can I follow it when sections of it are buried under dirt and leaves, and there are two lines going in and three coming out? As in many things we do together, her way doesn’t stand to reason, yet it makes all the sense in the world in that… well… it works. The lights are on, but did I say they blink? One of our major discussions here in the Catch is our need to be carrying our relationship with God into the marketplace. This is something Marti does without thinking. She's just there. And while I'm building arguments and apologetics and strategies for how to accomplish this one step at a time, Marti is already in the parade making a turn on Market Street and heading down Main. Well, the backyard lights are all on again, even if I do not know why. But did I mention that while pretty… they all blink? Marti recognizes the error as something she didn't plan on, but adds, "Don’t they remind you of fairies touching down and then taking flight?" Lord, help me… help us all embrace people who arrive at the same solution from a different perspective. And get us out of our heads, and into the world!
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Coyotes on the high seas	Friday, June, 04, 2010
by John Fischer A week ago Sunday, 5 dads and 7 kids set sail from Catalina Island to Newport Beach on the southern California coast amidst 18 foot cresting swells and up to 30 knots of wind, and Chandler and I were among them. My wife and undoubtedly the other wives thought we were foolish and ill-advised to put our kids at risk in such conditions. Having never sailed before, I had no knowledge of the line between risk and safety. Our skipper, who had logged thousands of miles on his family's Cal 40 sailing vessel was not overly concerned, and two of the other dads had a good deal of hours at sea between them. The fact that the winds were behind us and the swells were pushing us more or less in the right direction lessened our worries as well. It meant we could actually surf the bigger waves across the channel. As our last official event as part of the Coyote tribe of Y-Guides dads and sons, it was an adventure we will not soon forget. The next day we found out that a smaller sail boat that left the same Catalina harbor at roughly the same time as we did washed up onto the shore near Palos Verdes, a few miles north of our destination, with no one on board. The man who was sailing solo has not been found. When I heard this, I got a little weak in the knee even though I had been safely on land for almost a day. Those same seas we had crossed just a day earlier had claimed the life of a man who, according to the newspaper story, was, like our skipper, an accomplished sailor. Have you ever gotten a glimpse of the magnitude of the danger you were in without even noticing it? In regards to spiritual warfare, I believe it's like this all the time. It's a battle of unseen forces beyond our control. Be grateful that God is on your side. Stop right now and thank God for his protection over you. There is so much he is doing for us that we don't even realize.
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A legacy of depression	Thursday, June, 03, 2010
by John Fischer You may not have heard his name but chances are he has touched your life in some way. Every time you say: "Variety is the spice of life," or "God moves in mysterious ways," you are quoting him. And if you have any high church in your background (by that I mean churches with hymnbooks that they actually sang from) you have undoubtedly sung the most famous of his 66 hymns, "There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood." His name is William Cowper (1731-1800) and he was one of the most popular poets of his time. He has been credited with changing the direction of 18th century English poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes from the natural beauty of the English countryside. There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emmanuel's veins... What you also may not know is that his whole life was plagued with depression -- his only hope found in clinging to the cross of Jesus. Modern psychologists study his volumes of letter writing and find evidence of what we today would call a classic manic-depressive person. Of course, without the benefit of what we now know about the workings of the human brain, William Cowper was left to consider his disability a spiritual struggle of immense proportions, often filling him with doubt and the fear of eternal damnation. His sanest moments were spent in the garden of his friend, John Newton (author of "Amazing Grace") where he would bask in the love of Jesus and write hymns. ...And sinners plunge beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains. When I first found this out, I had to have a little chuckle in retrospect over all my experiences hearing "There Is A Fountain" sung so majestically and so hallowed from pressed collars and pressed robes, while all along, no one knew they were singing the words of a man who would have been considered a mad man in his day and a mental patient today. It is not uncommon for people with deep insights to live with deep inner turmoil. We've heard a lot about depression so far this week and I couldn't help but share some words with you about how God can speak into and through the darkest parts of our lives. It is my belief that had God healed William Cowper of his depression, we would not even know his name today. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a eulogy for him titled "Cowper's Grave." I conclude our thoughts today with the first two stanzas. It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart’s decaying; It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying; Yet let the grief and humbleness as low as silence can languish: Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish. O poets from a maniac’s tongue was poured the deathless singing! O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging! O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling!
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‘I just wish I were one of them’	Wednesday, June, 02, 2010
by John Fischer Someone wrote to us about the authors of so many Christian books and devotionals: “I'm sure these writers are helpful to so many people, I just wish I were one of them.” I bet everyone has felt this way at least some of the time, and others feel this way almost all the time. That book, devotional, study guide, seminar, retreat, or church service was helpful to so many people… I just wish I were one of them! Here’s what makes this even worse. A lot of people are acting like they are one of them for whom it is working, when deep down inside, they are not. This is when playing church can be so damaging. Church should be where you go for help, but if no one needs it, no one gets it. Church should be a little like heaven—full of a whole bunch of people who can’t believe they got there, know they don’t deserve to be there, and can’t wait to find out what happens next. Church is not a building full of beautiful people who hide a secret that the Christian life is working for everyone but them. It’s a community of folks who know they shouldn’t be there in the first place, and yet they got there anyway, through no merit of their own, and because of that, they have nothing to lose. There is power in conformity; we just need to decide to what we will conform. Will we all conform to being something we are not, or will we make a corporate decision to be who we are, whatever the cost, and let Christ be the one who conforms us to His image as He sees fit? You don’t have to wish you were anything except to be who you are. That’s the way Jesus found us, and that’s how He will make us into the men and women He desires us to be.
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Pick up your cross	Tuesday, June, 01, 2010
by John Fischer I've received some new insight into what it means to pick up your cross (something I've never understood very well) and follow Jesus. It simply means pick up your cross and get on with your life. Don't stand there and hang on it. That's already been done. Easy to say... but what is my cross? What is yours? It seems we all have one. What could this mean? Well one thing we know is: my cross is not the same as Christ's cross. His cross was our sin. My cross isn't my sin, because that would mean my sins have to be paid for twice. No, my cross is all the reasons I think I need to pay for my sin myself, or make someone else pay. It's all my excuses and condemnations. It's my victimization that immobilizes me while those I think have lesser hurts get to move on. It's the "me, me, me" thing. "No one's had it as bad as me." Well, even if that were true, how long do you plan on singing that song? A few more weeks? A few more years? The rest of your life? It may be that we've had it worse than someone else, but that is impossible to judge and even harder to compare. The point is: I've had mine, and you've had yours, but it's not too much for each of us to bear our own cross, or Jesus would not have told us to pick it up. This is not to belittle anyone's ill treatment. It's more of a pleading for the mercy to move on. Every one of us has a cross to bear. And if you think yours is any more difficult than anyone else's, you might be surprised to find you'll have an argument on your hands from others around you. No, in this regard the answer is the same for all of us. Pick up your cross and follow Jesus. And if you think you have an unusually difficult cross to bear, don't look at the guy next to you, look at Jesus, and think again.
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New math	Friday, May, 28, 2010
by John Fischer The forgiveness of God teaches you to fear God. Seems like an odd connection—forgiveness and fear—but after you hear King David (from the Old Testament) talk about both of these things in one of his psalm lyrics, you begin to see why they are related. "Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive? But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you." (Psalm 130:3-4) Why would the Lord's forgiveness teach me to fear Him? Because I know, at all times, that without it I am toast! My life is hanging on God's forgiveness and God's forgiveness alone, and because my sins are so great, my very life rests solely on God's decision to forgive me. Should He ever change His mind about this, I have nothing else to fall back on. I am left with the magnitude of my sin, a righteous and demanding God who can extract an ounce of selfishness from a ton of good deeds, leaving nowhere to hide. When I realize the greatness of my sin, I have a healthy desperation for the forgiveness of God. I will not be prone to take advantage of that which is my only hope—a hope that rests on nothing but the sheer will of God to offer it. Sometimes I think we get too comfy with the forgiveness of God. Like "feel-good Christians," we take the forgiveness of God too lightly and fail to come to grips with the devastation of our sin. "Lord, if you kept a record of our sins, who, O Lord, could ever survive?" (that's the fear part). "But you offer forgiveness, that we might learn to fear you" (that's the forgiveness part), but it's a forgiveness that is always aware of who God is and what we deserve. My multitude of sins + God's mercy = a forgiveness that just doesn't add up. And so I walk with a sense of undeserved pardon, partaking in this new math, and not wanting to add to what has already made this a severely lopsided equation. I want to please God now. I don't want to be one to take this forgiveness lightly.
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The God of ______ (Your name here.)	Thursday, May, 27, 2010
by John Fischer "Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land... 'I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel.'" (Daniel 6:26) Many of you are probably familiar with the story of Daniel who advanced to a place of prominence with the king of Babylon while the children of Israel were in exile there. Daniel became one of the king's most trusted servants, although he continued to worship and obey the God of Israel. The decree to not pray to any other God but the king or get thrown in with the lions was issued not by the king, but by the king's other servants and magicians who were jealous over Daniel's favor with the king. So when the king found out that Daniel's God had protected him from the lions, he so was overjoyed to have him back, he issued the decree quoted above and had the men who falsely accused Daniel thrown in with the lions instead, where they had a much different fate than Daniel. This story is remarkable for two reasons. 1) The place of prominence Daniel was able to achieve by being a trustworthy servant, without compromising his own beliefs. 2) The respect the king had not only for Daniel, but also for Daniel's God. The same is true for us today. Truthfulness, integrity and hard work gain the respect of others, and can lead to places of influence. And along with that respect comes a respect for your God. So much so that some people's first encounter with God will be through you. In that case, meet the God of ______ (Your name here). Remember, you may be the only glimpse of God some people get. God-related things such as evangelical Christians, religion, or the Bible might turn off some people, but if they like you, who knows, they just might give God a second thought. Imagine someone coming to faith in Christ because they wanted to find out more about the God of ______ (Your name here).
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When I'm the answer to my prayer	Tuesday, May, 25, 2010
by John Fischer I'm sure many of you have heard the joke about the guy who drowns and arrives in heaven complaining about how God never answered his prayer for help, when, in fact, God had sent him help three different times, but he missed each one because they were natural ways out of his situation, and he was expecting something supernatural. (I'm sure one of you will bless us with the actual joke via comment. I can never remember jokes.) Well, in the same way, I think sometimes we are the answer to our own prayers by stepping into God's provision that was there all along. I know this is often the case for me. What I'm praying for is what I'm missing because, like Gideon, I'm hiding inside my head or behind some wall from my enemies, when the angel of the Lord is right here, calling me to get up and defeat them through the power the Lord is waiting to bestow on me. (Judges 6:11-16) So if that is you, today, I offer the following song for encouragement. It's a Jackson Browne song that I have used before in the Catch, but it's for me today, especially. Sometimes we need a kick in the butt, and it can come from anywhere. Alive in the World by Jackson Browne I want to live in the world Not inside my head I want to live in the world I want to stand and be counted With the hopeful and the willing With the open and the strong With the voices in the darkness Fashioning daylight out of song And the millions of lovers Alive in the world I want to live in the world Not behind some wall I want to live in the world, Where I will hear if another voice should call To the prisoner inside me To the captive of my doubt Who among his fantasies Harbors the dream of breaking out And taking his chances Alive in the world To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world To open my eyes and finally arrive in the world With its beauty and its cruelty With its heartbreak and its joy With it constantly giving birth to life And to forces that destroy And the infinite power of change Alive in the world To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world To open my eyes and finally arrive in the world To open my eyes and wake up alive in the world To open my eyes and finally arrive in the world (c) 1996, Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP
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We love because…	Monday, May, 24, 2010
by John Fischer Life is for love. We live to love. Love is so important, it is synonymous with God, or, as the Bible says it: "God is love." When you love, you are near to God. When you get near God, you don't become more spiritual, you become more loving. "We love each other because He loved us first" (1 John 4:19). This immediately says a lot about the situation. Primarily, it makes God's love a starting point for everyone. This is not about growth -- some spiritual mountain to climb where we can finally start loving other people -- it's quite the opposite. It's spiritual ground zero. God loves us first. That's where we all start. In the beginning, God loved us, and John says that because He loved us first, we can love each other. So what's the connection between His love for us and our love for each other? Well, think about this. When you start with being unconditionally loved by God, you take the wind out of the sail of earning love, or of locating the reason for love in yourself. We are loved because God choose to love us, not because of us, but because of His nature. He is love; so He loves us. That means we're all at ground zero when it comes to being loved. We have no worth in ourselves except that which comes from being loved by God. As John Ortberg wrote in Love Beyond Reason, "There is a love that fastens itself onto ragged little creatures, for reasons that no one could ever quite figure out, and makes them precious and valued beyond calculation." What a deal: God loved us into existence, loves value on us, and loves us home to Him. And we, "ragged little creatures" that we are, do nothing to bring about any of this. This is why we can love. Because God loved us first this way, we can love others, too, because they have been given worth by the same unearned love, just as we have. The only catch is (and its' a big one) we have to accept God's love on this basis -- on the basis that we do not deserve it; we merely receive it. The only thing that can keep us from knowing God's love is thinking we deserve it.
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Just another dad	Friday, May, 21, 2010
by John Fischer This morning, while most of you are reading this Catch, Chandler and I will be motoring across the 26 miles that separates Catalina Island from the coast of California in a private boat with 5 dads and 7 kids. It's the last weekend trip of the year for the Coyote Tribe of Indian Guides, and our last event as Waverunner and Bald Eagle (our Indian names—shouldn't be hard to guess who is who). Saturday night there will be a special ceremony when fathers and sons who are graduating out of the program (that's us) say their vows to each other. It's very touching and the stuff memories are made of. I just went back over my Catch archives to discover that I wrote something about this weekend every year since the first trip in 2007. You can see a progression as I moved from being scared and intimidated by the thought of being around non-Christians to last year when my friend had to decide whether or not to take a call from Arte Moreno on a borrowed cell phone. I had a number of uncertainties, that first year. How was I going to react to being a "camper" since almost all my life I have been in some form of leadership in camps as a speaker or a singer/songwriter? This year I'll be racing in like a kid, trying to find the best bunk for Chandler and me, and pounding on the table at meals with the rest of them. That this isn't a Christian event is the most compelling thing about it. Around Christians I am well defined. Around these guys, I'm just another dad, and frankly, that feels good.
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Fade to white	Thursday, May, 20, 2010
by John Fischer In a three-part series for the Los Angeles Times, Joe Mozingo, staff writer for the Times delved into the best-kept secrets of his family name. For more than a year, he traveled across the country meeting Mozingos and researching his ancestry in courthouses and libraries and online. Most of his life, Joe Mozingo had been haunted by his name. How come his ancestry was such a mystery? Why were there no stories about great, great grandparents? Why were his relatives sure Mozingo was Italian but couldn't produce any connection to Italy or find Mozingo in any registry of common Italian surnames? Curiosity turned to compulsion and for more than a year, Joe traveled across the country meeting Mozingos and researching his ancestry in courthouses and libraries and online. The results of his research were published this week in the Los Angeles Times where Joe Mozingo works as a staff writer. What he unearthed was a minefield of emotional responses. He was able to get as far back as a common ancestor to all living Mozingos—a black man named Edward Mozingo who lived in the time of James Madison and may very well have served him. He was an African from the Congo whose name has Bantu roots, and whose memory had been all but lost and whose color had faded to white. The article he wrote was more about how the Mozingos in his family reacted to this news. As for his own parents, he said this, "My parents have always been fairly liberal in accepting other people's differences. But recognizing the other as an element of ourselves was harder." Indeed it would be. I couldn't help thinking about this in relation to how Christians see sinners. It's one thing to think we are being open-minded toward sinners; it's another thing to actually see their sin as a part of us. It's one good way to avoid being judgmental. See the sin of the worst as a part of you and rejoice in your salvation. It was discovered that one Mozingo Joe found had an ancestor who was most likely a member of the Klu Klux Klan. Imagine if he had found out about his own roots. Would he have been in for a surprise! What we hate is most often in us anyway. Might as well get used to knowing that.
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Lunch with Hefner	Wednesday, May, 19, 2010
by John Fischer You would have to know Thatcher to understand how it would be possible for him to be on a service call at Hugh Hefner's mansion and not know that the old guy in the smoking jacket he had lunch with was Mr. Hefner himself. Called in to do some camera repair work on a live set, Thatcher, a recent graduate of Biola University, was invited to join the crew for lunch. That's when he noticed the Playboy magnate alone at a table, so he took it upon himself to give the old guy some company. He just didn't know it was Hugh Hefner until later. Actually had he known, it probably wouldn't have made much difference; Thatcher is just that way. When I heard this story, I couldn't help but think that Mr. Hefner must have thoroughly enjoyed the rare privilege of having lunch with someone who wasn't after a thing from him except to enjoy his company over lunch. I asked Thatcher what they talked about and he said "Oh just the usual stuff. He wanted to know what I was doing there and how things were going for me. He seemed to take a genuine interest in me and my career. When I asked what he did, he said he was in the publishing business." "What kind of a guy was he?" I asked. "He was just a nice old man." Why am I greeting you with this story today? Because at the most basic level, every one of us, from criminal to President, is just a human being with common needs and desires—someone for whom Christ died—and the more we see everyone this way, the more we will be able to befriend people and give them what they need.
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It's not about me, even on my birthday	Tuesday, May, 18, 2010
by John Fischer Yesterday was my birthday, and though I appreciate all the well-wishers who contacted me through Facebook and email, it wasn't exactly a birthday to remember. This was nobody's fault except for project deadlines and a prior decision to celebrate on a later date when all my children could be with me. Still, even though I knew this, it was hard not to struggle with some self-pity and the justification to do something nice for myself because I deserved it—after all it was my birthday! At one point, I tried to create my own private party until I realized how much my family needed me, and how inappropriate it was to zero in on myself using my birthday as an excuse. This was a day to give, not receive, and as I think about this now, I see that it would be a good theme to adopt for this next year of my life, not just one day—to focus my attention on giving—to my family first, and then out to those beyond this circle. Instead of "This is my birthday, what's in it for me?" it will be more like "This is my birthday, who can I honor today, and what can I do for them?" Because it's not about me, even on my birthday. For those who might choose to join me, think today about what you might have in your life that you use as "birthday?" of sorts—an opportunity to pamper yourself like you've done every year for how long? Whatever that is, lay it down, and walk into a focus on giving to others, because it's not about you, even when it's your birthday.
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No Shortage of Sinners	Monday, May, 17, 2010
by John Fischer Eugene Debs, who ran for President of the United States as a third party candidate in 1912, had this to say while campaigning: “As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” Obviously he didn’t get elected, since none of us has ever heard of him, but I believe there is a lot of truth in thinking this way about our place in the world. Paul the Apostle had something very similar to say in a letter to a new church: “When I am with the Jews, I become one of them so that I can bring them to Christ…When I am with the Gentiles who do not have the Jewish law, I fit in with them as much as I can... When I am with those who are oppressed, I share their oppression so that I might bring them to Christ. Yes, I try to find common ground with everyone...” (1 Corinthians 9:20-22 NLT). Both these men are talking about relating to people by identifying with them through finding something shared in common. When it comes to being around “common sinners” we have a tendency to be more like the Pharisees than like Jesus. A Pharisee once judged Jesus for allowing a woman of the streets to bathe His feet in perfume mixed with the tears of her sorrowful life. The Pharisee had already distanced himself from the woman because of her sin, and was shocked that Jesus, as a teacher, did not do the same. He even thought to himself that Jesus wouldn't let her touch Him if He knew what kind of woman she was. Jesus, in the meantime, was busy understanding her, including her sins, which were no problem for Him since He was to take them to the cross for her, and in doing so, forgive her. (Luke 7:36-50) Why is it so hard for us to identify with sinners, and so easy to judge them when we, too, are guilty? We must stop this distancing of ourselves from sinners and start looking for common ground like Paul, yes, and even like Mr. Debs. I really do like his campaign slogan. We would all be more compassionate and more merciful if we would take it on. “As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” And I'm adding one more thing: And as long as there is a sinner, I am one too, bringing good news of Christ’s forgiveness to others like me who need it.
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The preposterously Good News	Friday, May, 14, 2010
by John Fischer I have some really good news for everyone today, but it's not just good news; it's preposterously Good News. I found it as I was reading in Isaiah this morning. "I, the Lord, made you, and will not forget to help you. I have swept away your sins like the morning mists. I have scattered your offenses like the clouds. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free." (Isaiah 44:21-22) Here it is: God forgave us first; then He invites us home. It could just as easily have been: Return to me and I will forgive your sins. That would have been remarkable enough. But instead, it's: Come home because you've already been forgiven. This was precisely the case for the prodigal son. He was forgiven before he ever reached the front driveway. That's why his old man was running to meet him. There was no discussion. No lesson. No: "I hope you learned your lesson." He needn't even ask for forgiveness, for it had already been granted. This is our message to the world: You have already been forgiven, so come home. Christ has already paid the price to set you free. He has removed the barrier between God and us. How can anyone resist so great a love? No wonder Paul calls it Good News. Can you imagine anything better when it comes to God and our sin? We know we are guilty. Our consciences tell us that. We know the demands of the law. We have the commandments for that, and we aren't doing very well by them. We know that if we mess up in just one thing, we are charged with breaking the whole law. God does not grade on the curve. Instead, He offers us a blanket pardon -- the only thing that could ever save us. "Oh, return to me, for I have [already] paid the price to set you free." Preposterous, isn't it?
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Let both grow together	Wednesday, May, 12, 2010
by John Fischer Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. "The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?' " 'An enemy did this,' he replied. "The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?' " 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' " (Matthew 13:24-30) I like to think of this parable as being about worldview. There are those who would try to separate out what is Christian from the rest of the world. Those who would try to rid the world of weeds. Those who would try to create separate worldviews. To which Jesus would say: "Let both grow together…" We exist side by side with the world; that's the way it's supposed to be. We were never meant to create a separate Christian world. We were meant to grow up right next to unbelievers in this one. Besides, if there is such a thing as a Christian world, it exists only inside someone's head. It doesn't serve any real purpose in the world anyway. And of course the farmer is going to treat this whole field as if it were only made up of wheat. The weeds are there, sure enough, but the concentration is made on the wheat. Treat it like a field of wheat; the harvest will tell the true story. Yes, in art, popular culture, education, business, politics… let both grow together. It's the only way it's to be done. [A special thanks to David from Portland for today's application of this parable.]
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No argument from me	Tuesday, May, 11, 2010
by John Fischer Thanks to all who commented on yesterday's Catch. So many of you are really tracking with me. And now that I've got you thinking about treating everybody as if they were being saved, how about we just take the next step and save everybody? Now I know I've got your biblical inerrancy dander up! This is truly one of the hardest hurdles for unbelievers and believers alike, because it's hard to imagine God condemning anyone to hell. As my oldest son says, "He loves his creations too much to throw a single person away." But there is certainly no getting rid of hell in the Bible, and there is a judgment, and there are sheep and goats, and wheat and tares, and Paul talks about God having the right to make a vessel for destruction. But here is the question I want to ask: Is the evangelical argument for hell solely in support of biblical inerrancy or might there be a little of our own desire to see a hell because we have a few people we think should go there? So here's are a hypothetical question, and it has nothing to do with the "Is there a hell?" question; it's designed to reveal something deeper in our thinking and our hearts. If you could remove hell from the equation—if God could somehow figure out a way to save everybody and stay true to his own word—what would you feel about that? Would you be happy, or would you be a little put out? It is my belief that anyone who would be disappointed to find out that no one was going to hell has something more too learn about the grace of God and their own personal sin. I am not a universalist. I am not about to start down that road, but I will go far enough to say that if God should decide after all this that he wants to save everybody, well he's not going to have any argument from me.
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Being saved	Monday, May, 10, 2010
by John Fischer In 2 Corinthians 2:15, Paul writes: "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing..." In two simple phrases, he arranges all of living humanity into only two camps. There are "those who are being saved," and "those who are perishing." I would submit to you that this is a much better way to distinguish in our minds between people than to think of them as Christians and non-Christians. Our usual distinctions as to Christians and non-Christians may, in fact, be wrong. Paul's definition is superior in that it implies a process while ours implies a fixed state. Christian and non-Christian terms also allow us to think we know something when we don't. These terms simply do not allow for the spiritual journey that we all are on. A person whom I might call a non-Christian today might very well be one who is being saved. In the same manner, I am sure there are people whom we would call Christians today who are, in fact, those who are perishing. In any case, we don't know for sure, who is what, and I, for one, think that's a good thing. By thinking of people as being saved or as perishing, it relieves us of the pressure to have to pigeonhole everybody. Every single person you meet is either being saved or perishing, and you may not know which it is. This is the kind of truth that allows us to treat everyone the same. All have equal importance since the book is not closed on anyone. And here's something I'd like to offer you in light of this if you find it helpful. I have decided that I will treat everybody as if they are being saved, regardless of what they say. Why not? If I'm right, then I will have helped them along the way. If I am wrong, then I will have created the best possible environment for them to believe. Actually, I thank God I don't know ultimately who is perishing, because I can't imagine someone I love going to hell. I'm going to hope for them right up to infinity and beyond. You never know what kind of deals can be done with angels in the last seconds of life -- seconds that we may never know about. At least not yet.
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Confessional	Friday, May, 07, 2010
by John Fischer Marilyn from Kansas wrote: I was disappointed that you were willing to wager none of the other occupants of the White House had prayed for Billy Graham. Wouldn't that be between God and the people who pray? And who are we to say or judge who doesn't and doesn't pray. Seriously, I think that you were way off course for this. No one knows but my Father in Heaven how, when, where, and WHO I pray for unless I make it public." You are absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong. I had no business making that statement. It is one of my downfalls to judge judgers for judging. This day for me started and ended with confessions. I had a number of things to make right with my wife today, and she forgave me. I noticed, however, that things were not remarkably different after that. I kind of half expected them to be. Just because you confess something doesn't mean it goes away. We still have to live with the same leanings. If anything, confessing a wrong makes us more aware of what we have to do to set it right. It makes us sensitive to our tendencies to sin. May God keep before us those things that need to change, and may grant us the power to change them.
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Between being dispensable and being Johnny-on-the-spot	Thursday, May, 06, 2010
by John Fischer The Book of Esther in the Old Testament is the story of a young Jewish woman who, based on her beauty and desirability before the king, became the queen of Persia in a time when Jews were living there in exile. And when a plot is uncovered to kill the Jews, Esther puts her life on the line to thwart it. Mordecai, who raised Esther after her parents died, challenged the queen with the opportunity her position gave her. "For if you remain silent at this time," he told her, "relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14) Mordecai presents us here with two seemingly contradictory things. (I have come to expect this kind of thing from the truth.) 1) Don't think you are indispensable. 2) Don't sell yourself short. Somewhere between being dispensable and being Johnny-on-the-spot lies the will of God for Esther, and in turn, I think, for all of us. We mustn't think too highly of ourselves. God will not be without a witness. I mean, historically God has used angels, pagan kings, donkeys, and bushes to speak for Him if needs be. He can certainly fill in for you if you decide to take yourself out. At the same time, He puts us in places where our influence can make a big difference, and we are the ones who lose out if we don't rise to the occasion. The will of God is an opportunity and a destiny. It is a very cool thing, actually. Not something you have to do, but something you get to do. Who wouldn't want to step out under those conditions? And when you step into it, you step into the flow of God's plan and provision. Resources you didn't know you had become available. Think about it this way. God doesn't need you (He can do fine without you, thank you), but He wants you (He wants to bring you into His plan and accomplish something together with you). He'll use somebody or something else if you bail out, but why would you do that? Why would you miss the opportunity of a lifetime? We see this reality in a historical moment in the Esther story, but I think this story there to teach us this truth is also at work in our lives daily. There will be opportunities today to step into the will of God or miss it. If you miss it, you are the one who loses; someone else gets the action. Based on other assurances in scripture, that doesn't mean you won't get to your ultimate destination, it's just that you will miss a good deal of adventure along the way. Think about the fact that you are alive today for such a time is this. Don't miss it!
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Red helicopter	Wednesday, May, 05, 2010
by John Fischer I was helping Chandler clear out his closet recently when I came upon a little red helicopter that was one of my favorite toys of his when he was younger. No batteries or bells and whistles, it only had a simple mechanism that allowed you to "fly" it by pressing on a plastic lever underneath that would make the blades rotate. If you got in the right rhythm you could keep the blades whirling continuously while you imagined you were flying it all around. This toy couldn't have cost more than a few dollars, but its playing value far exceeded that. I hadn't seen it in some time so I picked up the red helicopter with a bit of nostalgia as I noticed its condition. The rear propeller was gone and only half a blade remained, but I pushed the lever and found out, lo and behold, it still spun around. Among the saddest things about kids growing up are the tender stages they leave behind, never to return. Of course Chandler says "helicopter" properly now. I can remember when it used to be "hepacollar." I liked that a lot better. Though I'm happy with his speech progress, I'd give anything to play with Chandler's "hepacollar" again. Something else about Chandler: he treats his toys well. He knows every one of them, and has a place for each one. This is his thing, entirely; we didn't teach him this. That's why I was a little surprised when I showed him the condition of the helicopter and he said he didn't want it anymore. So I gave it one last commemorative flight with its blade whirling around unevenly, and mentioned how cool a helicopter it had been and how much fun we had had playing with it. Then I put it in the trash. A few minutes later, he went and got it out. "I want to keep it," he said. Chandler is not one to change his mind very easily, so this had a profound impact on me. Can you imagine what God is pulling out of the trash right now? What life, broken and uneven, can He still fly?
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Pray for each other	Tuesday, May, 04, 2010
by John Fischer I read in the newspaper recently that after a brief weekend in Asheville, North Carolina, President Obama, at his request, visited an aging Billy Graham at his home in Montreat, and the paper said that they prayed for each other. They prayed for each other. "When the President got ready to leave," Billy's son, Franklin said, "the President prayed for my father, my father prayed for him." They prayed for each other. They prayed with each other Eleven other occupants of the White House have met with Billy Graham at least once, but I would be willing to wager that none of the eleven prayed for Billy. That's not what they got together for. It occurs to me that President Obama and Billy Graham did what all of us should be doing when we get together with friends—pray for each other. There is no hierarchy. There is no spiritual pecking order. There is no separation. When the leader of the free world meets up with one of the most revered evangelists in history meet, what do you think happens? Did I mention they prayed for each other?
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'Everyone, meet Grace; Grace… everyone'	Monday, May, 03, 2010
by John Fischer [Marti wrote this yesterday in an email to a friend. I intercepted it for you. Enjoy!] My desire is to do what is right. My result is to do what's wrong. Who can lead me out of this dilemma? At the heart of the universe is the Law. What you put out comes back to you—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. As in physics, every action is met by an equal or opposite reaction. The Law is an exacting taskmaster. You reap what you sow. And yet … along comes this unpredictable thing called Grace to upend everything. Grace defies reason and logic. It interrupts the consequences of our actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid things. It is, therefore, Grace that keeps me on my knees. Grace changes the world. She takes the blame, covers the shame, and removes the stain. Grace makes beauty out of the despicable, which is my middle name. Grace overrules every unkept promise and tells reason when it's had enough. She's for everyone who needs her—every life that has no end, every knee not quite ready to bend. My graffiti tongue, my foot in every face, and every compromise made, finds Grace. Grace navigates me to simply be and explains clearly in whom to trust, while always guiding me to be still, so I know when to surrender. To be still is very difficult for me to do. Yet, once I do, I come crawling and sometime falling to His feet. When I was a younger woman, I threw stones at the obvious targets. As I've gotten older, I've turned more on myself, and the hypocrisy that I've found in my own heart. There is plenty of subject matter there. Yet, it is Grace who forges the way I choose to see the world, and at a deeper level, the way I see myself. The law is not the enemy of God—not at all. Yet we have replaced the Law with a list of instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just did it; and a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy Spirit. The Law is good but we have replaced discipleship with discipline. Please do not judge my irreverence. I truly am in awe that the God who created the universe is looking for company—a real relationship with people… with me. All the same, what keeps me on my knees is Grace.
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The Bible says…	Friday, April, 30, 2010
by John Fischer Janet, in a comment yesterday about the Catch wrote: "The Catch of the Day does it for me. I find myself saying to my friends, "John Fischer says..." rather than "The Bible says...." Now there was a time when I would have considered such a statement blasphemous and would have felt the urgent need to correct this person. But actually, the more I think about this, the more I like it. In fact, I would also prefer what Janet says to what the Bible says. For that matter, I would prefer what anyone says to what the Bible says because what the Bible says is a very small thing when compared to what the Bible actually means. In my younger, more arrogant days, we were experts on what the Bible says. If we knew what the Bible said on something, you couldn't even have a conversation with us because we would just tell you what the Bible says and that would be the end of it. This made for a pretty one-sided relationship. When you already knew what the Bible says, it not necessary to learn what it means. People who always go around telling people what the Bible says are in many ways trying to get around the responsibility of finding out what the Bible means. "What the Bible says" is a lecture; "what the Bible means" is a conversation. What the Bible says" is something you memorize; what the Bible means is something you discuss. What the Bible says is dogma; what the Bible means is life. What the Bible says is words; what the Bible means is action. What the Bible says is telling; what the Bible means is living. What the Bible says is preaching; what the Bible means is practicing. What the Bible says is about answers; what the Bible means is about questions. You don't want to go around saying, "The Bible says…" if you don't know what it means. What it says and what it means are two different things.
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A Love Song	Thursday, April, 29, 2010
by John Fischer Well it's been a musically inspired week here at the Catch. It all started with "People Get Ready," went to remembering Johnny Cash, and finally, I want to keep it going with a magical little musical mystery that occurs randomly on my iPhone. Every once in a while, a song off the 1971 Love Song album starts to play on my phone. The picture of the album fills the little screen and I am immediately transported to another place and time as I hear the lyrics play out: Lend an ear to a love song Oooo, a love song Let it take you, let it start What can you hear in a love song? If you can feel it, Then you¹re feelin¹ from the heart All the emotions true feelings of life is what music of love is about If you are listening with peace in your heart and no doubt So listen now to a love song If you can hear it We will never be apart Now here's the magical part. The song literally takes over. I can't stop it without turning off my phone. And if you asked me to find the song right now, I couldn't. I don't know where it comes from, or where it goes. Now you might think this would be somewhat annoying but I find it quite the opposite. It's like the wind of the Spirit blowing on my life, and it always seems to happen right when I need it the most—when I'm anxious, or pressed, or trapped in negative thoughts—it pulls me right out. It's a love song invasion, and it always seems to put everything in perspective. You know, it wouldn't hurt to have something you can turn to that will calm your soul and blow a fresh wind into your life. Maybe it's a song, or a passage of scripture, or someone's writing that can transport you somewhere else and bring a new perspective on things. Who knows, maybe it's a Catch of the Day that does that for you once in a while. I would be so happy if it did. "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)
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Remembering Johnny Cash, Part I	Tuesday, April, 27, 2010
by John Fischer Johnny Cash was no saint, but he brought more sinners hope than any saint who’s gone marching in. What with his drug dependencies, his affair, divorce and remarriage to June Carter, and his angry jowl on stage, Johnny looked and sounded like a hard-livin’ mean old cuss of a man, who, if he escaped hell, did so by a very thin margin. What made Johnny unique was that he knew this about himself, and continued to embrace, with every breath, what made him both sinner and saint. Johnny Cash refused to justify his sin, diminish it, or sanitize it. He was who he was—a man who struggled with his own beasts and found forgiveness, consolation and strength in his relationship with God. He was a Romans 7 man. It was his favorite passage of scripture. “I love God’s law with all my heart” (v. 22). (And he did. He left Sun Records and his first producer, Sam Phillips, after only 3 albums, at the height of his career, and went to Mercury Records, because Sam wouldn’t let him do a gospel album.) “But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind” (v.23). (That would be the theme of “The Beast in Me” that he wrote and sang on his first American Recordings album.) “This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me” (v.23). (And we know about that: how he would get off drugs for a while, only to become addicted to pain-killers. How once, it took a personal visit from each of his friends and an ultimatum from the wife he loved so dearly, to get him off.) “Oh what a miserable person I am” (v.24). (And he wrote and sang about this, time and time again, from the devastating loss of his 14-year-old brother when he was only 12, to his own near-death experiences as a slave to his addictions. He embraced so many people’s misery because he embraced his own. And sang about it.) “Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord” (vs.24, 25). (And this was, indeed, his salvation: the redemption of Christ. He was redeemed by the blood and knew well the cost to his savior for at least his salvation. He would probably say he’s got enough sin for an army.) In this he became a sort of champion of sinners—a poster child for forgiveness. If God can forgive Johnny Cash, he can forgive anybody. And he celebrated this outlandish role by calling himself the Man in Black. I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime But is there because he’s a victim of the times... Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day And tell the world that everything’s okay But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black. Trying to “carry off a little darkness on [his] back” sounds almost like sin’s a mission for him, but I doubt that he was doing this intentionally. It was more a role he began to accept for his life as he experienced, over and over again, how hard it was to truly live the righteous life he desired. And unlike the rest of us, he chose not to hide his struggle with sin, or rationalize it away.
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Get ready, people	Monday, April, 26, 2010
by John Fischer Rolling Stone magazine named "People Get Ready" the 24th greatest song of all time. It was included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. "People Get Ready" has also been chosen as one of the Top 10 Best Songs Of All Time by a panel of 20 top industry songwriters and producers, including Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson and Hal David. So, to what do we owe this little piece of information? Well I heard the song again Friday night sung by an a cappella group at a Leadership Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, and realized that even though I've sung portions of the song myself, I didn't really know the third verse. So later that night I did a little research and here's what I found. Verse 3: There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own. Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner For there's no hiding place against the Kingdom's throne. I had not realized there was a verse in this song about the judgment of sinners, but such lyrics were not uncommon in 1965. Peter, Paul & Mary were singing "Everybody gonna pray/On the very last day/When they hear that bell/Ring the world away/Everybody gonna pray to the heavens on the Judgment Day." And Bob Dylan was singing "Then they'll raise their hands sayin' we'll meet all your demands/But we'll shout from the bow your days are numbered/And like Pharaoh's tribe they'll be drowned in the tide/And like Goliath, they'll be conquered." Not to mention Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" and Creedence Clearwater's "Bad Moon Rising"—"Hope you got your things together/Hope you're quite prepared to die/Looks like we're in for nasty weather/One eye is taken for an eye." Where was this coming from? Since when do people bring possible judgment upon themselves? Two things, I think… 1) the Holy Spirit was preparing a generation for a spiritual revolution, and 2) there is a universal need and desire for justice. Even if it means we must all face the same tribunal, we don't want evil to go unpunished. As part of the civil rights, anti-war movements of the day, there were wrongs to make right. Heralding the grace and mercy of God does not mean that God has gone soft on sin. How could he, when he poured out his wrath against sin on Jesus, who became sin for us? It is a very costly grace. Justice was done. That's why Jesus could say, "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son." (John 3:18) So get ready, people; there's still time. People get ready, there's a train a comin' You don't need no baggage, you just get on board; All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin' Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord. [There are a number of live recordings of "People Get Ready" on YouTube, but the ones worth seeing are Alicia Keys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB8yBwmHF_8&feature=related (she really means it) and my favorite, a version by the composer, Curtis Mayfield with Taylor Dayne http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQqTxK7VhSk&feature=related.]
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Get your head in the door	Friday, April, 23, 2010
by John Fischer I bet I'm the only guy to ever slam the door on himself. Literally. We live close enough to open hills that we get frequent visits from wild critters—mostly skunks, raccoons and possums—all of which come out at night. In fact we wage a running battle with them over the tender plants in our garden that they love to dig up for the grubs they find camped underneath. We have tried everything from radios set on white noise to chicken wire to coyote urine, none of which seemed to make any difference. Our only respite this year has been that they love my neighbor's garden now more than ours. I feel sorry for him, but secretly I rejoice. Because of the close proximity of these animals, you never know when you might encounter one, especially late at night. That was the case when, upon leaving my garage office to walk back to the house, I opened the door on a skunk just three feet in front of me. I was so shocked that my first reaction was to slam the door. The only problem... I left me head in the doorway. Yes, I failed to pull my head in the door before I slammed it, making my head into a slam sandwich. Aside from the pain, I felt so totally dumb. I mean who's ever slammed the door on himself? This must be a first. I'm just so glad there was no one there to see me being this stupid. My kids haven't stopped laughing about it since I told them the story, however. For reasons I don't want to know, they had no trouble envisioning me doing this. Maybe it has something to do with the time I slammed the nearest door to make a point in an argument only to realize that I had shut myself in a closet. I'm sure that God has something to do with these little escapades that have the end result of making sure I do not take myself seriously. Now every time I start to get a big head, I can remember it got so big once that I couldn't get it in the door in time. "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18) Which translated means: if we don't take ourselves down, God will. Stay humble. Jesus said to choose the lowest place so that if God wants to upgrade you, he will. Stay faithful in the little things, and God will lift you up.
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Those baseball gods	Thursday, April, 22, 2010
by John Fischer "The only thing you can do is hit the ball. After that, the baseball gods take over." - Boston Red Sox designated hitter, David Ortiz Today I bring you a little David Ortiz theology. Even though more than once he has sent my team's playoff hopes disappearing on a long fly ball into a Fenway night, I still love his comment, and find it a pretty good illustration of the Christian life based on what Paul says: "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." (Philippians 2:12-13) A baseball player practices hard, learns and studies the game. He studies the opposing pitcher to try and guess what kind of pitch he is going to throw in which count. He has perfected his swing through years of experience. He has tried to do all that he can with the God-given talents he was born with. He steps up to the plate with all of this in him, and perhaps all this will be a factor in whether he will actually hit the ball or not, and if he does, how well. And yet as soon as he hits it, it is out of his hands. That's when, as Ortiz puts it, the baseball gods take over. Paul tells us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because God is real, and through our efforts He is working in and through us in ways we may never know. This verse has always been about a strange inter-working of our work and God's work, but what it really amounts to is doing your homework in establishing and growing your relationship with God, stepping up the plate of your responsibilities and opportunities that come out of your giftedness, and hitting the ball. The rest is up to the baseball gods, or, of course, the real God, who is working everything according to His good pleasure. To this end, God will never fail you. I can't, however, say the same for those baseball gods.
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Paths	Wednesday, April, 21, 2010
by John Fischer True or false: All paths lead to God. False. All paths can lead to God. True. It all depends on which end of the path you are looking from. True or false: All paths that lead to God have to go through Jesus. True. Therefore, there is only one path to God. False. There are as many paths to God as there are people who find Jesus. Everybody's path is different. Some paths go through fundamentalism and end up with Jesus. Some paths go through Catholicism and end up with Jesus. Some paths go through Islam and end up finding Jesus. Some paths go through Buddhism and end up finding Jesus. Some paths go through atheism and end up with Jesus. Some paths go through Mormonism and end up with Jesus. All paths that get to God go through Jesus, but you can start from anywhere. God is fully capable of drawing those who are His from anywhere. And He does. It isn't necessary to convince someone to change paths. We don't have to carry around WRONG WAY signs to flash in front of people. There is no such thing as a wrong path; there is only the path you are on, and it is not necessary to get someone off the path they are on, and onto the "right" one. It's only necessary to point people to Jesus. Anyone should be able to see Jesus from just about anywhere. Especially if they are truly looking for God. The point is to point people in the direction of Christ from wherever they are. Christians as well as people from other religions, cults, or no religion, who are truly seeking God, will find Jesus. Christians and people from other religions, cults, or no religion, who are not really seeking God, will not find Jesus. They will just be distracted by religion.
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A demand for purity	Tuesday, April, 20, 2010
by John Fischer I recently came across a list of traits comprising a cult. The list might surprise you. It included the following: a demand for purity, confession of sins, the total control of information and communication, and a sharp delineation between insiders and the outside world. The scary thing about this is: these are all good things, that in the wrong hands and used for the wrong reasons, can be devastating. And because their misuse is so subtle, we need to be better at spotting where the truth stops and the lie begins, so as to not be lead astray. The first one is probably the most dangerous because it sounds so right: a demand for purity. Truly, this demand is biblical and should be a part of our life and worship as followers of Christ. Jesus told us in no uncertain terms to be holy as His heavenly Father is holy. Peter told us to live lives above reproach. James told us to not be corrupted by the world. And Paul told us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. So what could possibly go wrong with this kind of emphasis? Exactly this: as soon as anyone claims to actually be pulling any of this off, is when the trouble begins. God's demand for perfection is there for one reason: to show us how imperfect we are, and to confirm our need for Jesus. True holiness and righteousness comes from Christ in our lives, not how well we are doing at being pure and holy. A cult is present when it is assumed that someone has actually reached the level of purity required (usually the leader). As soon as that happens, look out. The demand for purity is good and right, it's just that purity must never come at the expense of honesty. But because no one is perfect, it always does. Purity is the standard, not the practice that we all will attain at some point in this life. True holiness is unattainable by any one of us; it comes only through Christ. And how does that come? Upon the admission of our unholiness, and our need to depend on Him for everything. My wife can tell you all the exact details of where we were when, in a family discussion, my mother came out with her version of the facts: that I never sinned. Marti almost lost it. Obviously she knew a different me than my mom imagined me as. If my mom had been right, I could have created a cult on the spot. As it is, I am just happy to know my forgiveness is continual because I have a habit of continually needing it.
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Out of my head over you	Monday, April, 19, 2010
by John Fischer "Got to learn to stay out of your head; I've heard it's a bad neighborhood." I picked up this little saying at a development conference Marti and I attended last weekend. I relate to it because I know well the negative voices that play over and over in my head like a broken record. Not to mention the conversations I never have because I'm paying attention to the imaginary ones in my head instead. Sometimes those conversations never make it into real life because the one in my head reaches an impasse and cuts off. Roaming around inside your head is always a dangerous place to be especially when there are real conversations with real people to be had just outside your door. A real conversation connects you to someone else and embarks you on a journey of discovery outside your ability to control. You meet a real conversation with a perfect blend of heart and head. I have a tendency to want to play out an imaginary conversation where I can see ahead into how a person might react to a given statement and prepare my next line much like one might anticipate an opponent's next move in a chess game. But this isn't a chess game nor is it something that exists only in my imagination. It's a real-life connection and for that, you have to climb out of your head and into another's, if you want to have any meaningful relationships. The more time you spend locked up inside your head, the less capable you are of engaging in real dialogue. If you're anything like me, your head accounts for way too much and your heart stays hidden. Time to get Get into your heart. Get into engaging other people. Make a connection. Get out of your head and into your heart.
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Your pan is too small	Thursday, April, 15, 2010
by John Fischer I have Dave from Portland to thank for our opening story today. It's an old joke about the family that cut the ends off the roast before cooking it the oven. This story hits especially close to home for me because a roast in the oven was a Sunday tradition in my house. Every Sunday morning before going to church, my mother would brown the roast on top of the oven and then put it in a covered pan in the oven with a timer set to come on just about when the sermon started in church. Seems to me she may have cut the ends of the roast off too. Who knows? Maybe it's an evangelical tradition. Well according to Dave, that bit about cutting off the ends of the roast was nothing more than the fact that grandma's pan was too small. What about your belief? Is it big enough to hold everything that belongs in it? Think of your hopes and dreams. Think of your plans and expectations. Think of your love and your capacity to give. Think of even your concept and understanding of God. Are you cutting any of these short just because your belief is too small? Jesus said our experience of life is only limited by our faith. If we have faith we can move mountains. If we have faith we can do greater things than he did when he was here. If we have faith, there is no limit to what we can accomplish. How about it? Are you cutting off the ends of your Sunday morning roast just because your pan is too small? Get a bigger pan. Get a bigger faith. Believe big. LIVE BIG.
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The value of questions	Wednesday, April, 14, 2010
by John Fischer If a generation that started with questions and ended with Jesus tried to start the next generation off with Jesus, could that next generation circumvent the questions of the former? Can you start a whole generation off with Jesus and assume they will be satisfied that they grew up with the answer? Don't you have to ask the questions either way? You might ask them on the way to the answer, or you might ask them to test the answer you already have, but you will have to ask them still. If you don't, I would wonder what your faith is worth. I would worry about a generation that grew up with answers and never questioned anything. Is it possible to have faith dropped in your lap? Can you receive, find, and enter without asking, seeking and knocking? If a person has come by all this so easily, who's to say it wouldn't just as easily be taken away? As they say, "Easy come, easy go." In seeking there is a glory that must be guarded. The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son show a persistent Father bent on finding us. Amazingly, God plays this game by the same rules as we do. If he is that persistent about finding us, how can we expect to get to him any more cheaply? We have seen this played out repeatedly on the stage and screen: lovers in slow motion running, gliding, sailing, swimming, floating toward each other's embrace. Why do we never tire of these scenes? Because they are a picture of God and man seeking each other, reaching out from something missing inside and holding tightly to it once it is found—each calling the other its own. The important issue here is ownership. The answer doesn't become mine until I own the question, even if it means the dark horror or the empty loneliness of it. I might know the answer intellectually, I might be able to write books about it; but until it touches the aching questions of my heart, the answer will never be mine. In the climax of the movie, Back to the Future, the mad scientist is braced against the clock tower in a heavy storm. In one hand he has an electrical cord that goes to a lightening rod on top of the tower; in the other, a cord that will link up to the flux capacitor in his DeLorean time machine and send it and Michael J. Fox back to 1985 from whence they came. I like to think of that cord as going deep into the hardest questions of my heart, and the other, to the answer from God. Until I connect these—and the question must be mine, a known and felt extension of my need—answers are no more than an empty cord dangling from the clock tower in the rain. The lightening will come, but it will do me no good.
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Taking action	Tuesday, April, 13, 2010
by John Fischer "The mind of man plans his way [Decision], but the LORD directs his steps [Action]." (Proverbs 16:9 NASB) Remember the three frogs on a log? One decided to jump down… how many were left? Three… because deciding to do something and doing it are two different things. In order for a decision to mean anything, you have to do something about it. You don't just decide to get married; you buy the ring, set the date and plan the wedding. You don't just decide you're going to get a job; you get your resume ready, fill out applications, make phone calls, pound the pavement. You don't just decide you're going to make some changes in your life; you make them. Decisions mean nothing without actions to back them up. It's a little like hearing the word of God and not doing anything about it. That means that once you decide for door #3 you have to open the door and walk through it into whatever it is that door holds for you. You back up your decision by taking whatever steps that decision requires you to take. And the amazing promise is that the Lord will direct your steps as you go. This verse tells us a lot about how this works. It says that the Lord directs our steps, but who takes those steps? We do. The Lord doesn't take them for us. We don't stand there and wait for him to move our legs. We step out—we take action—and the Lord somehow directs our steps as we go along. Strange, mysterious, but true. So that means you can't just wait around for God to do something. You do it. You step out, because God will do something through your steps. He directs as we walk. He works as we work. He talks as we talk. It's a little like a cartoon I saw once of an artist painting a picture, except that he himself was being painted at that very moment by a very large brush in a very large hand.
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God doesn't have a second best	Monday, April, 12, 2010
by John Fischer One of our readers had the following statement embedded in his comments. It's what he proposed as a sad eulogy on the way his life has been going lately. "Here sleeps Gary, his eyes were opened, he had a lot of great ideas, he just wasn't sure the Lord thought so." Lots of great ideas will get you nowhere without two things: Decisiveness and Action, and what the Lord thinks of this isn't what we've been taught. DECISIVENESS – Gary wasn't sure what the Lord thought of his ideas. He was frozen in indecision because he was thinking that the Lord was only in one of his ideas (or maybe none of them). It's like having to choose between Door #1, Door #2 and Door #3, and thinking that the Lord is behind only one of them. What if you knew he was behind all three? Would that make it any easier to make the decision? Think about it: How could the God of the universe—the one in control of all things, the one who is "over all and through all and in all"*—possibly be limited by our decisions? Imagine this God helplessly trapped behind Door #3 going: "Please, pick me, pick me, pick me!" while we choose Door #2… "Oh… too bad, Gary. You picked the wrong door. Better get used to my second best." One of the most damaging false teachings to come out of evangelical Christianity is the idea that there is a "permissible" will of God versus the "perfect" will of God. Like you can take the wrong road and be forever stuck in God's second best. Honestly, does it sound like God to have a second best? If your theology must have a second best, then define it as this: NO DECISION AT ALL. God can't direct you if you're not moving. He can't direct your steps if you're not taking any. Gary's asleep because he can't determine what the Lord thinks of all his ideas. Well here's what I think, Gary. I think he thinks they're all pretty cool! And I don't think it really matters much which door you take, because the Lord is behind every one of them. So get out of bed and get going, dude! And Gary… thank you, because I needed this today. "The mind of man plans his way [Decision], but the LORD directs his steps [Action]." (Proverbs 16:9 NASB) Tomorrow we'll talk more about action, but I think you've got the idea already. * Ephesians 4:6
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Don't let it slip away	Friday, April, 09, 2010
by John Fischer Last night, Marti and I enjoyed a night out at our local community theater. It's a date night for us once a month during the season, and that's why we buy tickets in advance, because if we've already paid for the seats, there's a good possibility we might go. After a great show and the opportunity to do Q&A with the cast, we filed out of the side entrance. In front of us, moving very slowly and carefully was a group of elderly ladies, some on their own, some being assisted by their more able peers. The side door was large and heavy and incapable of being propped open, so it became the responsibility of one after another of them to have to navigate the heavy door. Marti told me to lend them a hand, so I moved on ahead and held the door until they all passed through. It was a small gesture (anyone of you would have done the same), but I was amazed at how appreciative they were. Their faces brightened and the pleasure they received from this overwhelmed me. Marti reminded me later that they would have each had a man of their own at one time to handle things like this. But now, with no one but another shaky widow to lean on, they were missing that simple dignity. I looked at their faces and immediately saw them younger and vibrant. In that simple act, I was giving something back that age and frailty was threatening to steal from them, their dignity. Look for opportunities like this to spread a little worth around. Watch the value return to the countenance. It's only what they are due—what should be the nobility of a long life, and what all of us will wish someday we could reclaim. See to it that you do what you can do to never let it slip away. Strength and dignity are her clothing; and she smiles at the future. – Proverbs.
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Realignment	Thursday, April, 08, 2010
by John Fischer After yesterday's Catch, Camille wrote: "Amen to 'Manifesto!' Oh how I wish that more Christians would see it this way!" Well, Camille, a lot of them do, including a good many of our readers. I say this because I have been speaking about these things for the better part of four years and I notice that just about everyone is still signed up. If they weren't at least open to thinking about these things, they would have left a long time ago. Something like "Manifesto" comes along for me every few months as I try to summarize what it is I've been getting at (I'm in process just like you). I keep waiting for the unsubscribe button to light up, but it doesn't. That's because I think a lot of people, both Christians and non-Christians, are resonating with what is being said here. We are a part of a movement. It's a move out from the four walls of the church building into the marketplace where there is a free exchange of goods and ideas, and anything goes. Here, the meaning of things counts more than the words used. Another reader commented on how she believed that what I was saying would not be accepted in the "traditional church." Well I'm not even sure that matters, because I'm not sure what the traditional church is, nor do I really care. I do care deeply, however, about the body of Christ… and it's everywhere.
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Manifesto	Wednesday, April, 07, 2010
by John Fischer In a world of totally right and totally wrong—entirely good and entirely evil—we seek bridges from people in the church to people in the marketplace. In a world of blind passions and willful ignorance, we deliver a message of acceptance and love. We believe the Lord is moving within the marketplace through the disenfranchised who are finding alternative ways to fellowship, worship, and study the Word of God. We believe in the Word of God, but we do not use it as a club to beat people into submission, or a guest list to keep riffraff out, or a proof text to bolster prejudice, or a textbook with which to answer every question we throw at it. We go to the word as a key to unlock the mysteries of God, and we are prepared for the fact that those mysteries may lead us to more questions than we had when we started. We are comfortable with ambiguity and paradox; indeed, a good deal of the truth we hold dear is made up of both. We renounce rigid delineations of people into categories and embrace all men and women as unique creations of God with intrinsic value. And most of all, we love Jesus. Jesus is it. He is the whole enchilada. If you have Jesus, you have the Father and the Spirit. We love the fact that we cannot outline Jesus, program him, summarize him, polarize him, popularize him, or second-guess him. Only follow him.
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Who's guilty?	Tuesday, April, 06, 2010
by John Fischer Jesus once set a guilty woman free from her accusers by showing that the people who were judging her were just as guilty of sin as she was. "All right, stone her," he said to the religious leaders who were ready with stones in hand to deliver the judgment she indeed deserved. "But let those who have never sinned throw the first stones!" (John 8:7 NLT) This incident shows us something very important about our purpose as followers of Christ. Our job is not to throw judgment upon people but to identify with them. The Pharisees and religious leaders were trying to separate themselves from this sinful woman they had found in the act of committing adultery. By judging her, they were going to be able to feel much better about themselves. Jesus put a stop to their little charade by putting them in the same boat with the woman they were accusing. They were just as guilty. It is so tempting to think that we are better than other people. We love soap operas and reality shows where everyone's life is so despicable, we can feel better about our own lives. But whenever you start to separate yourself from sinners, you forget that it was your sin that brought you to Christ in the first place The Gospel comes best from people who identify with the sins of others, because they have become so familiar with their own sin. It is noted in the account that as the self-righteous leaders were convicted by the presence of sin in their own lives, "they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest." (John 8:9 NLT) That makes sense. The oldest would be the ones most aware of their own sinfulness. There comes a time in your life when you can't fool yourself anymore. There were probably a few young, arrogant idealists who hung on as long as possible, but even they had to finally give in to the truth about their own guilt and drop their stones. The proliferation of both spoken and unspoken judgment found, sadly, within Christian communities has forced many into the world, unarmed and without a known Christian friend and mutual sinner. Christians are constantly trying to separate themselves from a world that Jesus wants them in. Jesus wants us to see our own sin and not make such a big fuss over everyone else's. Our sin nature is our connection with everyone else who struggles in life, our salvation is our hope, and the Good News of the Gospel is our message. Anyone can spot a mile away the hypocrisy of proclaiming a gospel about the forgiveness of everyone's sins but your own.
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Sincerely wrong	Monday, April, 05, 2010
by John Fischer For two days last week two birds tried to get in my office window. They were small birds—wrens most likely—and they were so desperate and so persistent that I had to finally drop a curtain down over the window for fear that they would exhaust themselves flying up against the glass over and over again. It's a window that's about 5' long and 2' high, and there are bushes just outside it where they would hop around and then keep flying at the window, glancing along it looking for a hole or a way in, or whatever it was they were trying to do. I have no idea what made them so bent on this except that they must have been seeing something inside my office or in the reflection that compelled them. Did they think this would be a perfect place to nest if they could just get in? Did they think their reflection was another bird encroaching on their territory? Why would they persist like this? Why not give up and go somewhere else. Chandler had a great idea: draw a monster face to scare them away. So he did, and I taped it to the window—a right scary monster face it was, I must say, and as if that wasn't enough, he drew a bird in the monster's mouth! (What a smart kid!) But nothing doing. Nothing was going to deter these birds from their mysterious goal. It wasn't until I dropped a bamboo curtain down over the window that they finally left, but not after flying back a few times, hovering just inches back from the window, looking for whatever it was they thought they saw there. Have you ever gone after something you thought was right only to find out you were barking up the wrong tree? How long did it take you to figure that out? How long after you found out it wasn't to be did you keep on trying? How many times did you fly up against that window thinking that it would somehow be different this time? Persistence is a good quality but not when the avenue being pursued is the wrong one. Ask God to show you the way. If you feel like you're just throwing yourself up against a window, back off and pray. God is not a God of confusion. This morning as I was walking out to my car, I noticed a small bird fluttering up against the window of my neighbor's house. They just don't give up, do they?
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Coyotes on the high seas	Sunday, April, 04, 2010
by John Fischer A week ago Sunday, 5 dads and 7 kids set sail from Catalina Island to Newport Beach on the southern California coast amidst 18 foot cresting swells and up to 30 knots of wind, and Chandler and I were among them. My wife and undoubtedly the other wives thought we were foolish and ill-advised to put our kids at risk in such conditions. Having never sailed before, I had no knowledge of the line between risk and safety. Our skipper, who had logged thousands of miles on his family's Cal 40 sailing vessel was not overly concerned, and two of the other dads had a good deal of hours at sea between them. The fact that the winds were behind us and the swells were pushing us more or less in the right direction lessened our worries as well. It meant we could actually surf the bigger waves across the channel. As our last official event as part of the Coyote tribe of Y-Guides dads and sons, it was an adventure we will not soon forget. The next day we found out that a smaller sail boat that left the same Catalina harbor at roughly the same time as we did washed up onto the shore near Palos Verdes, a few miles north of our destination, with no one on board. The man who was sailing solo has not been found. When I heard this, I got a little weak in the knee even though I had been safely on land for almost a day. Those same seas we had crossed just a day earlier had claimed the life of a man who, according to the newspaper story, was, like our skipper, an accomplished sailor. Have you ever gotten a glimpse of the magnitude of the danger you were in without even noticing it? In regards to spiritual warfare, I believe it's like this all the time. It's a battle of unseen forces beyond our control. Be grateful that God is on your side. Stop right now and thank God for his protection over you. There is so much he is doing for us that we don't even realize.
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'I Thirst'	Friday, April, 02, 2010
by John Fischer Please give me a drink. – John 4:7 We worship a God who became a vulnerable human being. Superman took kryptonite. Samson lost his hair. Jack Frost relinquished his wintry powers to become the town tailor. Jesus got thirsty. It’s a story that is played out not only in history, but in fantasy, legend and mythology—someone with supernatural powers gives up those powers to become human, and it is always done for one reason: love. That was God’s reason. "But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8) Love always makes you vulnerable. There’s no way you can love without being exposed in some way or giving something up. Love and need go together. God’s love compelled Him to do what He did because that very love created in Him a need for us. By creating us He also created in Himself a place for us, and that need was reflected many times through the life of Christ. Jesus Christ didn’t die for us because it made for good theology; He died for us because He loved us, lost us to sin, and gave Himself up to buy us back. By doing this He had to become vulnerable to the very system He created, that we might see how true love behaves. There is a death in love, and that death is the death of self. Jesus died to love us; we die as well in order to love and serve others. And part of that is in being vulnerable. Sometimes the best thing we can do for someone is ask for help. Jesus asked a woman for a drink and three years later, he was asking for the same thing from a soldier as He hung on the cross—symbolic of the vulnerability He placed Himself into for the whole human race. Being vulnerable to those you love is a big part of what love is.
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Mark H. Waters, 1936-2010: kind father, loving husband, rocket scientist, grave robber	Thursday, April, 01, 2010
by John Fischer Yesterday, the priest of Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church in San Luis Obispo, California put the ashes of my sister's husband down in a post-hole size cavity in the middle of a patch of green grass next to the church. Led by my sister, family members threw small trowel-sized clumps of dirt in the hole until the small white bag that contained the remains of Mark H. Waters was no longer visible. My sister said later that she wasn't going to throw any dirt in, but when faced with the finality of it, she did. I think she made a good choice. It wasn't until his death that I realized what an accomplished person this man was who married my sister late in life. We knew him only as the kind, generous, thoughtful man who saved her from the disappointment and heartache of two failed marriages with has gentle spirit, completely devoid of judgment and cynicism. But at his funeral, surrounded by colleagues and friends from earlier in his career, we found out what an accomplished engineer he was. From his biography we read: "Mark became a propulsion specialist in the Mission Analysis Division at NASA Ames Research Center… Mark and his Ames colleagues provided key independent analysis of subsonic, supersonic, and hypersonic transports as well as trans-atmospheric vehicles, and helped analyze and design the latest in NASA's access to space initiatives." Good grief, my brother-in-law was a rocket scientist! Apparently some of the nurses reported that he was working on some of his latest ideas and projects right up to his death, and was visibly irritated that he might not get to guide these ideas to their conclusion. It would appear that Mark robbed the grave of the wealth of his own talent. He spent it all every chance he got. It has been said that graveyards are the wealthiest places on the planet, teaming with all the unused gifts and unrealized dreams of those who go to the grave still plump with potential. Do you want to do that, or do you want to go to the grave knowing you have invested well all that you have been given? Now is the time to answer that question, not when you only have four months to live, and all of your energy must be used to fight what is threatening to kill you. Jesus went to the grave empty. Paul said his life had been poured out as a drink offering. What about it? Are you using up all that you have?
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Saint Benjamin	Wednesday, March, 31, 2010
by John Fischer I received the strangest email yesterday from a 20-year-old kid who calls himself Saint Benjamin. That's terribly close to the title of my first novel, Saint Ben. The similarity was not wasted on him. Indeed, it was the reason he wrote me. On January 20, 2010, Saint Benjamin answered a knock on his door and was immediately shot in the head over a drug related issue. As luck would have it, nothing vital in his brain was hit, and in the two months that have transpired since that fateful day, he is almost fully recovered. It so happens that January 20 is also the fictitious day that Ben died in my story—one of a number of coincidences that Benjamin believes mysteriously connects him to the Ben Beamering in Saint Ben. How he came upon the book in the first place was what Benjamin calls an act of "divine intervention." Apparently his mother was walking out of their local public library when she caught the title out of the corner of her eye on a used book table. She purchased it for a quarter, something Benjamin thinks is "an excellent price for such a powerful and awakening book." Now Benjamin feels that "getting shot in the head has given me the ability to freestyle rap continuously but with smart rhymes and no cursing. I consider myself the first Christian gangster rapper." Now I'm not sure what all that means, except I do think it has something to do with bringing kids to faith in Christ through his music—a sentiment I don't have to put much effort into understanding. It's a strange world we live in, but it is also possible to see God's hand everywhere, where even a fictitious story can connect to the strangest of events making a significant contribution to the life and the faith of a young reformed drug dealer. May you earn your sainthood, Benjamin, by bringing many kids to faith and hope through Christ.
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Perpetual need	Tuesday, March, 30, 2010
by John Fischer I went forward last weekend to receive Christ. I was compelled. The last time this happened to me—at least that I can remember—was when I was eight years old. And just like then, the message went straight from the speaker to my heart (bypassing my mind) and directly to my feet. It had to have missed my mind, because if it hadn't, my mind would have given it a piece of itself about how I had already done this. Since I'm already a Christian, why not stay back and pray for the others? I wouldn't want to take up someone else's place; someone might be ready to make a first-time commitment. Luckily, I didn't listen to my mind. I listened to my heart instead, and my heart told my feet to get down there. My need drove me. I needed to pray and be prayed for. I needed healing. I needed to become as a child again in the lap of my heavenly Father. I needed to experience my forgiveness. I needed to claim my dependence on God. I needed to be like everybody else. I needed a fresh touch from the Holy Spirit. It occurs to me as I keep reading over this list, that all of these things should be continually reoccurring in a believer's life. Outgrowing any one of these things will disqualify you as a Christian for the power of God.
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'That I may gain Christ'	Friday, March, 26, 2010
by John Fischer Well we've got something going with this ability/availability comparison. Richard wrote: Ability says I can; availability says we can. Bob submitted: Our abilities make us arrogant; our availability makes us humble. And Linda gave us: Our ability can be lost or diminished with aging, illness, challenging life circumstances etc.; our availability often increases at these times. "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." (2 Corinthians 4:16) In Philippians, Paul wrote about his abilities: "If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless." (Philippians 3:4-6) An impressive array of talent, pedigree and protocol, I'd say. Paul could stand up to anyone's righteousness and come off looking pretty righteous himself. But here's what he had to say about that: "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:7-8) It's a pattern of exchange: our ability for his power, found in our availability. "Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God." (2 Corinthians 3:5)
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Ability and availability	Thursday, March, 25, 2010
by John Fischer God doesn't want your ability as much as he wants your availability. We shine in our abilities; God shines in our availability. Our ability makes us strong; our availability makes us vulnerable. People are impressed with our abilities; God is impressed with our availability. Practice improves our ability; faith improves our availability. Our ability makes us popular; our availability makes God popular. Not everyone is able; but anyone can be available. Our ability draws on our natural talents; our availability draws on our spiritual gifts. Ability can put us in the way; availability keeps us out of the way. Our ability is fine; our availability is better. God teams up with our ability; He gets inside our availability. These are all reasons why God doesn't want our ability as much as he wants our availability. Maybe you can think of some more. [A note to our Catch readers: If you knew about a product that was helping people with their overall health, regardless of their age, and you knew it was working for you, would you share it or keep it a secret? If you are looking to improve your physical, emotional, and spiritual health, we invite you to email your phone number to john.fischer@mac.com or martifischer@mac.com. We look forward to telling you more.]
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Jump!	Wednesday, March, 24, 2010
by John Fischer Three frogs are sitting on a log. One decides to jump down. How many are left? Three. He only decided he was going to jump. He didn't actually jump. Oh, he may have made a great decision. He might have even decided he was going to jump really far when he jumped down, or scream all the way and make a big deal of it. Or his decision may have come out of a good deal of soul searching. He might have been thinking: "This time I'm really going to do this. I'm committing myself whole-heartedly to jumping off this log. This is it; there's no turning back now." But regardless of what he tells himself or how far he stretches this out, until he actually jumps, nothing has changed. He's still just a bump on a log. A friend of mine often says that a decision without action is delusion. I've only deluded myself into thinking I've changed when I really haven't. The decision was only in my head. Yesterday I wrote a catch about being a good listener to someone in his or her time of grief. After speaking with my sister upon the rapid decline and death of her husband, I was somewhat reluctant to keep calling. What do I say now? There are no words that can possibly reach this pain. That's when I realized, at the end of yesterday's Catch, that I could call my sister even if I didn't have anything to say to her, because I had realized the most important thing I could do for her is listen well. And I'm sure I gave the impression that the next thing I was going to do after writing that Catch was to pick up the phone and call her. But did I? No. You see I decided I could call her, I even decided I would call her, but I didn't actually call her. I'm still only a bump on a log. Jesus constantly talked about being doers of the word and not just hearers only. It was one of his major themes. It must have been important or he wouldn't have repeated it so much. We have lots of hearers in evangelical Christianity. Some of us have gotten so good at this, we could be known as professional hearers. We might even make a decision supported by going forward in a meeting and sealing our decision with a witness and a prayer. But until we do something about it, we are just a bunch of bumps on a log. Professional bumps—deluded bumps—but bumps nonetheless. There's only one way off this log… Jump! "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock… But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand." (Matthew 7:24 & 26) [If you knew about a product that was helping people with their overall health, regardless of their age, and you knew it was working for you, would you share it or keep it a secret? If you are looking to improve your physical, emotional, and spiritual health, we invite you to email your phone number to john.fischer@mac.com or martifischer@mac.com. We look forward to telling you more.]
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The other end of the phone	Tuesday, March, 23, 2010
by John Fischer Well I found out through one of our reader's comments that there is hope for Blitzen in the form of "Sticky Paws." (Scroll down for yesterday's Catch) Apparently there is a product you can apply to your dog's paws and it can navigate the slipperiest of floors. If only they had something like this for my sister. Actually they do, in a way. It comes in the form of friends, family and church—all of which she has—but I'm sure nothing will take care of the ache, but time. Many of you have written with encouragement and mentioned your prayers for my sister, which are greatly appreciated. Some of you have gone through similar losses and your perspective, a little further down the road, is very helpful. This is why we need each other, and partly why we go through some of these devastating experiences so that God can ultimately comfort us, and then we can comfort others in similar straights with the comfort with which he comforted us. (See 2 Corinthians 1:3-5) But I appreciate mostly John's advice. He said to just listen. Grief is something you need to tell, and tell often in the beginning, and one of the best things we can do for someone who is grieving is to simply be a willing listener even if it's just on the other end of the phone. I needed to hear this because I was finding myself not looking forward to calling my sister, mainly because I have nothing to tell her. I'm reaching for just the right words—some Sticky Paws for the slippery slope of grief—but fortunately I am coming up empty. It's just as well. Listen? I can do that. Listen well? That will take some doing, but I'm ready to learn.
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Blitzen's nightmare	Monday, March, 22, 2010
by John Fischer Poor Blitzen. Our 5-year-old Chihuahua is frozen, spread eagle on all fours in the middle of the hardwood floor, shaking like a leaf. I've mentioned before about his mortal fear of slippery floors. He's a hopeless case because his only solution to this problem is what actually perpetuates it. He'll stay frozen like this until he can't stand it any longer and then he will try and run as fast as he can to get to a more reliable surface on a rug or out the door, and you can just imagine what happens. His legs fly everywhere, like Scooby-doo on ice, and he hardly goes anywhere at all, thus confirming all his fears. But today is nothing short of Blitzen's nightmare because all of our area rugs are getting cleaned, making the entire floor a vast impassable surface with no relief in sight. Even if he could run, he has no place to run to. Sometimes your life probably feels like this—as far as you can see only fear and trepidation and nowhere to land. I know my sister woke up this morning to what she wishes were only a nightmare—something she never would have imagined happening even weeks ago—the rest of her life without her husband who was taken from her just days ago by cancer. What do you do? What do you say? You feel frozen on the slippery floor. If Blitzen had intelligence and I could communicate with him, I would tell him to step out slowly, one paw at a time. He's not going to go far, and he's not going to go fast, but he will get to a safer place eventually if he keeps on. It's all you can do in these times. It may seem mechanical, it may seem pointless, but you keep going and you keep believing, one foot in front of the other... one foot in front of the other… until you get to higher ground. And you will. And you will find that God never left you. Because he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)
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Like, that's just so God!	Friday, March, 19, 2010
So King David was settling into his palace one day in a time of relative peace with Israel's enemies at bay and his kingdom united, when he started to feel bad about his fancy cedar digs compared to the Ark of God out in a tent somewhere. So he told the prophet Nathan about this, and Nathan ended up hearing a message from God for David that went something like this: "So you want to build me a temple? Why? I've never lived in a temple. From day one with you guys, my home has always been a tent, moving from one place to another. And have I ever complained? Has anyone ever heard me say, 'Why haven't you built me a beautiful cedar temple?' "No, David, you forget that I've been with you since you were a little shepherd boy. I chose you to lead my people. I've been with you wherever you've gone. I've destroyed all your enemies. I've provided you a permanent homeland, and now I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to build you a house -- a dynasty of kings! And I will establish your throne forever." (2 Samuel 7:1-16) Now isn't that so God? "I'll keep the tent; you take the house." When you think of it, really, it's pretty silly to imagine building God a house. Now if He were just a little god, an idol of our making, a house would make sense. But He is God, the one who made the universe. The one who made us. The one who uses the earth as a footstool. How could we possibly build anything that would contain Him? Just like David; we can't. And the truly remarkable thing is that, just as with David, God, instead, is building a house for us. Jesus is preparing a house for us in heaven, but there's more than that. As God established David's throne, so He is establishing our future. It's not only a house He has for us, it's a legacy. It's as if God says to you and to me: "I'm going to establish you. Your legacy will be forever. Don't worry about building a place for me. You can't. In fact, why would you put me in a temple when I'm already at large in the world? No if you want me in a temple, then start getting used to the fact that you are my temple! I live in you! You're the only home I have or desire here on earth. In other words, "I don't need a house; you take the house." I mean, like, isn't that just so God?
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Just an old-fashioned love song	Thursday, March, 18, 2010
by John Fischer I love this comment. It's from Angus in Ontario, Canada, and this man is definitely singing my tune. "Your reference to the shamrock and the Trinity reminded me of my favourite (that's how they spell "favorite" in Ontario, Canada) analogy of the Trinity—and I'm sure it was never meant to be that—the one written by Paul Williams and sung by Three Dog Night: 'Just an old-fashioned love song, coming down in three part harmony.'" I love this for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Paul Williams' own version of this song was my favorite on one of my all time favorite albums by the same title. But I love it even more for the way it illustrates how we can find so much in life that colors and deepens the truth. It's not like What You Can Trust, over here, and What Must Always Be Suspect, over there. It's more like the truth is flung out everywhere and we get to find it, and lo and behold, there it was all along in a Three Dog Night hit song and we didn't even see it. It took all this time and the help of Angus to uncover it. Angus said, "I'm sure it was never meant to be that," but I'm not so sure. I believe God has his hand in all of this—that it was all meant to be. Paul Williams may never have imagined this kind of application of his music, but there's certainly nothing preventing us from making it so. That means there is a ton of raw materials out there waiting to be claimed for the kingdom. Happy hunting!
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'Come and walk among us'	Wednesday, March, 17, 2010
by John Fischer Li wrote yesterday, "Maybe you should expound on the faith of a child in relation to your theme tomorrow, St. Paddy's Day!" That got me wondering what the faith of a child had to do with Saint Patrick's Day, and I realized I knew little about Patrick except that he has usually been credited with bringing the gospel to Ireland. So I did a little research (with the emphasis on little) and this is what I came up with… Patrick was born in Britain sometime in the late fourth to early fifth century. At the young age of sixteen, he was captured and taken to Ireland as a slave where it is said that he worked as a shepherd boy. He wrote that his faith grew while in captivity and that he was in prayer daily. After six years he was able to break free from his master and return home. But there he was visited with visions of Ireland and what he called "the Voice of the Irish." And what did the voice say? "We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us." (This must be where the faith of a child comes in.) Notice the essence of the request: "walk among us." Not, "Come and evangelize us," or "Come and preach to us," but "Come and walk among us." God called him to do more than just evangelize. God called him to walk and talk and live his life with the people of Ireland. Proof that he did just that is a story that has been handed down about an ash wood walking stick he carried with him. As the story goes, he would thrust the stick in the ground wherever he was evangelizing, and in one particular place, later named Aspatria (or ash of Patrick), the stick had taken root by the time he was ready to move on! So remember today that Saint Patrick came to walk among the Irish. And remember, too, that the Shamrock we will see so much of today was to Patrick, an illustration of the trinity—God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit—the same, but separate. And a special shout out to my good buddy, Patrick Cunningham in Cupertino. Wish we could get together today; I will be thinking of you. I will always remember the tragic circumstances that brought you to our door as proof that what may seem at the time to be the worse thing that could befall anyone can turn out to be the best. Thanks for walking among us, Patrick.
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Dumb and dumber faith	Tuesday, March, 16, 2010
by John Fischer "I'm submitting a request," someone wrote recently, "will you, in a future Catch, expand upon what you meant by 'reaching for and experiencing God from the standpoint of my whole self has been nothing short of revolutionary.'? I need that revolution in my life!" What I meant is something raw, real and unself-conscious. When was the last time you gave yourself so much to something that you forgot about yourself in the process? It means to respond to God with all of me. Not my prejudged, predetermined, weighed and measured Christian self, but my devil-may-care, throw-caution-to-the-wind, what-you-see-is-what-you-get human self. It's responding to God from the standpoint of someone who knows nothing about God except to love him, versus one who appears to know everything. That's the problem I'm addressing here: some of us know too much, or at least we try to look and act like we do. Some of us have been in this Christian thing too long without acting on all the sermons we've heard, inspirations we've received, Chapels we've sat through, books we've read and seminars we've attended. (Did I leave anything out?) Do that too long and you can actually know too much to mean it. Maybe some of us need a dumb and dumber faith that just grabs onto God and holds on for dear life, because there is nothing else we can do. It's a dumb and dumber faith that starts over every day in some manner of trust or belief. And it's believing without calculating. Like a child. Like a new Christian. Like anyone else who comes to Christ as a sinner in need of being saved.
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Uphill climb	Monday, March, 15, 2010
by John Fischer I am out of reasons; I am out of time. I am out to make it in the uphill climb. - John Fischer from the song, "Time for You" Chandler and I went mountain biking this weekend. I'm not really into this sport; I just borrowed my daughter's bike and ventured out with just a little trepidation. After checking out the best trails on the Internet, we set out to find the trailhead. I selected a canyon trail thinking it would be the least challenging. I imagined us meandering along the canyon floor among low-lying bushes and scrub brush and an occasional gnarly California oak. Instead it was up and down—mostly up, going in, since we were moving away from the ocean into the hills. I could have thought of that had I given it any consideration beforehand. There were some uphill sections that were too much for even my 18 gears. I needed 19. Here's what I found out about going uphill on a mountain bike. If you stop anywhere along a steep grade, forget starting again. You're walking the rest of the way until the trail levels off. Your only hope of staying in the saddle is to keep the momentum going. I think that says something about perseverance. When you're in an uphill climb in your life—perhaps you're trying to kick a bad habit, or you've got barriers to overcome, keep going. It won't always be this hard, but you will get though it faster if you keep pedaling. And if you get to a point where you just can't pedal anymore, it's okay. Don't lose heart. It just means you will have to get off the bike and walk. Push the bike until you can get on it again when things level off. Just don't quit. "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:11-14)
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A better way	Friday, March, 12, 2010
by John Fischer Do this and live, the law commands, But gives me neither feet nor hands; A better way his grace doth bring, It bids me fly and gives me wings. The law is no one's friend. Nothing wrong with it. It's all good and right and holy. King David, in the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119 (176 verses), does nothing but extol the virtues of the law. He loved the law. He delighted in it and meditated on it day and night. But it was nonetheless not his friend. There is nothing in the law to help us obey it. It is just there—the standards and precepts of God—waiting for someone to come along and do them. But no one can. And this is why the law is also a taskmaster, or as Paul wrote, a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ (see below). And a rather harsh one at that, for as good and right and holy as the law is, it also condemns those who don't follow it. Well I don't know about you, but I'm usually coming up way short. But someone did eventually come along who fulfilled all the requirements of the law as a man—the man, Jesus. And along with him came a better way for us. By putting our faith in him, everything he's done as a man counts for us. Whatever he's done, we can do. Whatever he has overcome can be overcome by us. Whatever he has earned is ours to claim. And should he want us to fly, well, we will find that we already have wings for that. We are sons and daughters now. "But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:23-26)
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Grace on the line	Thursday, March, 11, 2010
by John Fischer "Hi, John, it's Grace. Just wanted to let you know I was down here." It was 5:30 a.m. and even earlier than that in my time zone to which I was returning. There was no way Grace could have known how significant a statement her words were for me at the time. She was merely following through with her assignment to pick me up at my hotel and drive me to the airport for my early morning flight home. She was a part of the group I spoke to that weekend and had volunteered for taxi service. I hadn't even remembered her name until she said over the phone, "Hi, John, it's Grace. Just wanted to let you know I was down here." Those simple words hit me in an entirely different manner than she could have intended. For her it was a casual statement, probably her first words of the morning except for ordering coffee at the 24-hour market on the way to my hotel. But for me, those words were the words of God, breathed to me over the in-house telephone line of my hotel by the Holy Spirit, catching me totally by surprise in their directness and disarmament of worry and guilt: "Hi, John, it's Grace. Just wanted to let you know I was down here." I had only been awake for half an hour, yet I had somehow managed in that short span of time to put myself into a guilt trip that was taking me down. Baggy eyes and regret were starting a new day off on the wrong foot already. That's when the phone rang, and a voice from out of nowhere said, "Hi, John, it's Grace. Just wanted to let you know I was down here." How about you? I bet you could use a phone call like that, this morning. Go ahead. Pick it up. It's probably just Grace on the line letting you know she's down there. She always is.
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Comic reality	Wednesday, March, 10, 2010
by John Fischer Well someone suggested that one way we could get rid of the self-conscious, image-conscious church scene would be for everyone to don robes before we go to church so that we would all look the same and no one could judge someone else by their looks. Chandler goes to a school that requires uniforms for this very reason. Actually my wife is already a step ahead on this one: Everyone wear black. That's all she has in her closet—black dresses. Black dresses to soccer games, black dresses to work, black dresses to church. If she ever asks me what should she wear on a particular occasion, I always say, "Wear the black dress." Actually church should be now what it's going to be someday—a ton of people experiencing joy, not from a worship song, but from the joy found in I John I:1-4—from having seen, heard and/or felt the Lord. Then all kinds of believers would be in big bear hugs cause it wouldn't matter if you saw Him, heard Him, or sensed Him. No one would have a better story than anyone else, and it would not matter what you wore. The church that most approximates this is a church we went to where everyone was a card carrying member of a dysfunctional family so everyone accepted you for who you were, because it was a given you were blowing it in some area, and it didn't matter which one. Marti's recommendation is that everyone wear around his or her neck a mirror instead of a cross. One look at the image there and you would either cry because His 'why' was so great, or you would laugh at the comic relief He must find in our hiding. Comic relief… or maybe comic reality.
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Silent questions	Tuesday, March, 09, 2010
by John Fischer "I can't go to church today; I don't know what I'm going to wear." I wonder how many times thinking like this has kept people from finding the love and support a group of believers could provide. "I don't want to iron my good slacks, and besides, I've gained so much weight, I'm not sure they'll even fit anymore. I'm just so sure everyone is going to be looking at me!" Where do these kinds of thoughts come from? Is there any truth to them? What do church and clothes have to do with each other anyway? Why do we have to have our best foot forward in church? Why do people feel like they are being sized up in church? Are they? "Which pew shall we sit in? I want to sit near the back." How many people come to church to hide? Why bother coming if you are only going to remain isolated? But who wants to come out of hiding when there is so much judging and evaluating going on? What must we do to change this? "I'd better pop in a stick of gum, I had garlic last night!" This person is bordering on paranoid. Got to reach out and find people like this. We have a lot to overcome in order to make this a place where everyone is truly welcome. "I'm not going back there for coffee; going straight for the car." You know people like this. They look like they know exactly where they are going and how to get there. You wouldn't want to interrupt them now, would you? Well I hope so, if you care. [Thanks to Kimberly for the painfully truthful questions.]
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Chopin's heart	Monday, March, 08, 2010
by John Fischer This weekend Marti and I spent an enchanting evening with Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849), the Polish composer and virtuoso pianist who is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music. Through the magic of theater and the artistry of actor and musician Hershey Felder, Chopin came alive and kept us spellbound for over two hours of music and dialogue. He even fielded questions from the audience towards the end of the play and took it all in character. One of the last stories he told was the story of his death to tuberculosis at the young age of 39. Before his funeral, and in keeping with Chopin's dying wish (which stemmed from a fear of being buried alive—something not uncommon in that day), his heart was removed and preserved in alcohol. (Our onstage Chopin was careful to point out it was actually fine cognac.) Aware of his sadness over not being able to return to his native Poland, his sister took the heart in an urn to Warsaw, where it was sealed within a pillar of the Holy Cross Church beneath an inscription from Matthew 6:21, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." It is still there to this day, though it was removed for safekeeping during World II when the church was bombed. Our Chopin revealed to us that it was, surprisingly, a Nazi soldier who removed the urn, and later brought it back when he heard the church was being rebuilt. This is yet another illustration of how the closer you get to those we tend to categorize and demonize, the more human they appear. Christ told us to love our enemies. That may not be as hard to do as one might think.
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The long and longer way	Friday, March, 05, 2010
by John Fischer What should have been an eleven-day trip for the children of Israel to get from the Red Sea to the crossing of the Jordan River into the Promised Land ended up taking them 40 years in the wilderness. As someone who grew up in church, I can attest to the fact that this story really preaches. "How to turn an eleven-day walk into 40 years wandering aimlessly in the wilderness." And always, the lesson has been to obey God, because look what happens when you don't. The implication being that the children of Israel could have greatly shortened this time had they not grumbled against Moses and God. It's a powerful message, which, unfortunately, sends many people home depressed. Either they have children or loved ones who are disobediently wandering around in their own wildernesses, or they themselves feel the sting of the hot desert sun. Who of us can say they haven't disobeyed the Lord? Who of us hasn't grumbled or complained to God about the way He has been running things? I'm not even sure the eleven-day trip is an option for anyone. Now I know a lot of you are suffering due to desert experiences—yours or someone else’s. Yes, the children of Israel wasted a lot of time wandering around for 40 years on a trip that should have only taken eleven days, but here’s another way to look at it—God got them to the Promised Land nonetheless, didn't He? I believe this is much more the message of this story than "obey God and things will go great for you; disobey Him and eat desert dust." Desert experiences are not always our fault. Sometimes they are sent to strengthen our faith. Faith that is defined by the good life is not going to stretch anyone very far. In fact, it can get us into a lot of trouble when we assume that success is God's blessing. Hardship, on the contrary, is definitely underrated. It teaches us patience and builds character. Faith when God seems far away and everything seems to be going wrong is a faith that truly means something. The desert is not always the long way; it is sometimes the only way. So here's something to think about: There’s the long way and there’s the longer way, but they both arrive at the same place. Yes, we can make the long way longer, but God will always be faithful to get us where He promised. This is something to hold onto, for you, and for those you love, who, in spite of everything, belong to Him. God does not abandon His own. “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)
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Space defenders	Thursday, March, 04, 2010
by John Fischer Yesterday's Catch about going underground on either side of the culture wars brought out a number of book and film recommendations from a few of you. This is apparently not a new idea. The most interesting one to me was Jim and Casper Go to Church, suggested by Laura from Lubbock. It is the story of a Christian and an atheist visiting mega churches across the country and discussing what they found. According to Laura, the real value of the book is found in the friendship they develop. Given the rarity of Christians and non-Christians in relationships to begin with, that would seem worth the price of the book alone. Then she pointed out an important transition that occurred in their relationship—a transition from "defending the faith" to "defending the space." That space is described as a relational space allowing for "authentic, respectful dialog and friendship between believers and nonbelievers." I'm thinking about what that space might represent and I can think of a number of things. Space to grow, space to respect, space to fail, space to disagree, space to change, space to stay the same, space to believe, space to not believe. This is a space worth cultivating. It is a space worth fighting for. It's a space that will ensure that a relationship can be born. Such a space will face opposition from either side and that's why you will need to defend it. Possess this and you have a rare and special thing that God can use. For that is the most important reason for this space—room for the Holy Spirit to move.
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The disarming humanity of the enemy	Wednesday, March, 03, 2010
by John Fischer In her book, In the Land of Believers: An Outsider's Extraordinary Journey Into the Heart of the Evangelical Church, Gina Welch, a lifelong atheist, goes "underground" in Jerry Falwell's Lynchburg, Virginia congregation to try and understand the evangelical movement from the inside and gather observations for this, her first book. In a review of that book in the Los Angeles Times, however, Laura Collins-Hughes concludes that it is Gina Welch who comes off as the villain in her own research—a liar and a faker (she even fakes a salvation experience) whose questionable motives contrast the vulnerable trust her subjects place in her. In her concluding paragraph, Collins-Hughes writes: "With a youthful blend of cynicism and naïveté, she (Welch) approached Falwell's flock as if they were the enemy—thereby setting herself up to be totally disarmed by their humanity. In this minor skirmish of the culture wars, score one for the evangelicals." I'm not surprised. I have noticed this to be the case whenever someone crosses over for an unbiased look into the camp of a perceived enemy whether it's religious, political, racial or any other form of prejudice, what they find out is always how human and like themselves, the so-called enemy is. Like in the 2005 movie, Joyeux Noël, when on Christmas Eve during World War 1, members of the German, French and Scottish armies declare a temporary truce and end up in a fleeting moment of brotherhood, burying their dead, celebrating mass together, and playing football. What if we went underground into the world? What if we disguised ourselves as unbelievers, would we find out the same thing? Undoubtedly. We would find out how much like non-Christians we are, and how little there is that separates us. We might even be surprised by how much we like these people. And we might find out we understand why they don't believe, which would help us greatly when we talk to them as those who do, knowing what kind of obstacles to belief are in the way. So how about it? We can stay on our sides, shoot at each other and believe all kinds of lies about the other guys, or we can try and make peace, bury our dead, celebrate mass together, and play football. Which will it be? "An evangelical? Not really," by Laura Collins-Hughes, Los Angeles Times, March 2, 2010, p D7.
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Work out; work in	Tuesday, March, 02, 2010
by John Fischer Michael from South Carolina wrote after yesterday's Catch, "I constantly struggle with the intersection of human initiative and God's grace. I'd appreciate your reflection on that." Well, about the best I can say is that it's a mystery and a paradox wrapped into one. Any attempt to make it make sense is going to compromise one or the other. The truth is they both work together in ways unknown to us. It's not one or the other; it's both, together. I can look at my life and see seasons when one dominated over the other. Early on, it was all about what I did for God. Faith was legalistically tied to doing the right things and not doing wrong things. Then, as I became a young man, I came to be mentored by a group of pastors whose mantra was the New Covenant ministry based on the saying, "Everything from God and nothing from us." Though I understand this was not the intent, it soon became a convenient way to absolve you of responsibility. That's why as of late, I've been asserting my responsibility again. The verses that put it all together for me are Philippians 2:12-13: "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose." How many workings are there here? Two—mine to work it out, his to work it in. This is the mystery: it's really both of these together. "Live as if it depended on you; believe as if it depended on God."
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In the bleachers	Monday, March, 01, 2010
by John Fischer They gathered in the bleachers of the high school football field—about a hundred moms, dads, and kids with skateboards and bmx bikes to register their support for a skateboard park in Laguna Beach. And Chandler and I were among them—Chandler on the new bike we got him after his accident. Chandler is now into all the tricks he wants to be able to do on his bike. His favorite TV channel is Fuel TV, featuring skaters and bikers and the death-defying, anti-gravity tricks they somehow are able to pull off. I never cease to marvel at the impossible feats these kids are able to perform on their bikes and boards; and like we just saw in the Winter Olympics, every impossible trick done today, will be outdone by someone tomorrow. Isn't it amazing what the human mind and body is capable of? It doesn't seem to matter how difficult it is, someone will eventually do it. But you've got to want it. Think of the will and desire that pushes some athletes beyond the barriers that stop others. You can't possibly be an Olympian without a huge, almost insatiable need to be the best. And I have watched kids on their skateboards try one trick over and over and over again with the same result: crash! But they get up and try yet again. What makes someone do that? They want it. They really, really want it. They want it more than the next guy. So far Chandler has seen things he would like to be able to do on his bike, but I don't see him practicing them, at least not yet. He wants to be able to do it, but he doesn't want it bad enough yet to do whatever it takes to get there. What do you want in life? What do you want from God? You've got to go after it; it won't just come to you. I used to think that it did, and it's gotten me into a lot of trouble.
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A few reflections on window washing	Friday, February, 26, 2010
by John Fischer It's not just a window I'm cleaning, it's a lens, and since it's a lens to the outside, I feel like I'm cleaning the whole world. That's all that's necessary, you know. We're not going to clean up the world, but we can clean up the lens through which we look at the world and others who live in it. "He who seeks good finds goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it" (Proverbs 11:27). A lot of people are looking for evil these days. Is it any wonder that they are coming up with it? I think we could stand a bit more window cleaning and a lot less demon hunting. It's amazing what a little Windex will do. We're always trying to fix up somebody else's place, while neglecting our own dirty windows. Pretty soon, someone's going to notice how dirty our windows are and suggest to us that this might be why the world looks so bad. "He who seeks good finds goodwill." Jesus found it in the most surprising places: in a young boy who desired to share his lunch, in a Roman soldier's faith, in an outcast Samaritan woman, in the sinners and tax collectors at Levi's house—in the madmen and lepers and lame and numb and dumb—in you and in me, he found goodwill. "Peace on earth to men of goodwill."
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You, me and God	Thursday, February, 25, 2010
by John Fischer Caryl of Florida wrote after yesterday's Catch: "I'm submitting a request: will you, in a future Catch, expand on upon what you meant by 'reaching for and experiencing God from the standpoint of my whole self has been nothing short of revolutionary.' I need that revolution in my life!" I'll try, Caryl. That statement came out of a lifetime of dissecting every little thing in my life to determine whether it was of the flesh or of the Spirit. It came from too much teaching and too little action. It came from too much introspection and not enough connecting outside of myself. It came from a superficial worldview that arranged everything into sacred and secular compartments. It came from too much comparing spirituality. The revolutionary part was in discovering I didn't need any of that—I just needed a heart for God. God wants a relationship with people who want one with him. It's not much more complicated than that. What is "love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength," if it isn't loving God with your whole self—flesh, spirit, dysfunctions, unconfessed sin… This is for those who have over-analyzed themselves and their spiritual life. God's in the business of simplifying. Children get this much more easily than we do.
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This skin I'm in	Wednesday, February, 24, 2010
by John Fischer My Christian background and training had a tendency to create disconnected individuals at war in their inner selves. We learned to distrust anything human, blame everything on our sinful natures, and long for heaven when this conflict will finally be over. As a result I grew up out of sorts with my humanity. Poor wavering soul on the brink of sin; Will he get out? Will he give in? Flesh and the spirit warring within… What will he do? How will he win? If only he could grab hold of his chin, Unzip himself, and step out of his skin. But alas, he finds, through thick and through thin, That skin is the stuff he will always be in. It is for this reason that singularly reaching for and experiencing God from the standpoint of my whole self has been nothing short of revolutionary. This is me. This is all me. Grab it; pinch it. This flesh is me. This spirit is me. When I sin, it's me sinning. When I glorify God, it's me glorifying. I'm not viewing—from a disconnected, irresponsible distance—the disembodied shell of myself; it's me here and I am choosing all the time what I am going to do with me. I am responsible. Cut my heart open and you won't find a throne-room with a miniature devil and angel playing musical chairs, you will find a heart beating for whom it wants to beat. For when it comes down to it, there's really only God and me and what we do with each other. The more I mess with the simplicity of this basic two-part equation, the more excuses I end up making for myself not to burn with passion in my love for him, not to wrestle with him, not to lay hold of that for which he has laid hold of me.
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The way it is	Tuesday, February, 23, 2010
by John Fischer It first comes on as humorous (I found it in the Sunday morning comics), but then something profound starts to set in. It's a one-line strip called "Mutts," by Patrick McDonnell, and last Sunday's version featured one of its characters as a television news anchor. He's sitting at a desk straightening his papers with the word NEWS overhead. First frame: "…and now a world update…" Second frame: "The sun rose. The birds sang. Rivers flowed. Grass grew. Flowers bloomed. Snow fell. The stars twinkled." Third frame: Nothing… just the anchor sitting there, with his papers. Fourth frame: "And that's the way it is." Actually, humor aside, these things make for great news. This is the kind of news that is going on all the time; it just rarely gets reported. With so much bad news dominating, isn't it nice to hear something positive for a change? And though these things are assumed, that does not make them any less profound. Imagine a morning where the sun didn't rise, birds stopped singing, rivers ceased to flow, grass stopped growing, flowers never bloomed, snow never fell and stars stopped their twinkling, even on a clear, moonless night. Any one of these things would turn our world upside down, yet God, in his infinite wisdom, holds it all together. Thank God today for something obvious that normally escapes your notice. Something huge. Something we rely on every day but would fall apart without it. This is God's nature, to maintain the world we live in; he's the one holding it all together. And that's just the way it is.
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Hard to love sinners	Friday, February, 19, 2010
It's hard to love sinners when you are trying so hard not to be one. I'd be willing to go to the grave known as nothing more than the guy who came up with that sentence. So here it is again… It's hard to love sinners when you are trying so hard not to be one. This statement captures so well the struggle between good and evil in us all. But it is also the struggle between the Old Covenant (the law) and the New (grace). The Old Covenant is all about not sinning. "Thou shalt not…" And if any one of us could actually pull off the Old Covenant, then we would have the right to say anything we want against sinners. We would have the right to only respect those who earn it. We could even despise those who don't, because our righteousness would vindicate us every time, and condemn them. But alas, the law has condemned us all, so that no one can pass judgment, and no one can earn anything. The law was given, not so that we could follow it, but so that we would break it, and find out who we really are. We are those who can lock arms and sing along with Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash and anybody else who might want to join in: "Lord help me, Jesus, I've wasted it so; help me, Jesus, I know what I am." The Old Covenant—the law—teaches you that. It teaches you what you are really made of. And those who spend their life refusing to believe that, and trying to follow it instead, are going to have a hard time loving sinners. And they will have a hard time loving themselves as well. And all those Christians who supposedly got saved by the New Covenant and then go back to living like the Old one were possible (if, indeed, you can do that), well, they're going to have a hard time showing respect to anyone, because… well… it's hard to love sinners when you are trying so hard not to be one. "But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." (Galatians 3:22 NASB)
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The beginning of respect	Thursday, February, 18, 2010
by John Fischer Well we kind of fell into this whole respect thing, and it has turned into a good discussion. I have been enlightened by your comments and aided by the clarification that has been needed along the way. So much so that I don't think we are quite ready to move on just yet. I think respect ultimately has to do with the value we place on another human being. Do we value someone's life regardless of how they choose to live it? A prisoner on death row has as much value as I do. It all has to do with value. God valued our lives to the extent that he would send his only Son to a horrible death he didn't deserve just so he could redeem us. Are some of us more redeemable than others, or are we all in this together. Susan teaches Math and Science in a charter high school in rural Arizona. She wrote us about how many of her students have been in and out of the probation system for bad choices. Most of them are considered "at risk" because of their home conditions. They tend to be disrespectful of teachers, adults, and each other. Some of this comes from a lack of self-respect. "It is easy to be angry with them and disrespectful," she wrote. "It takes more energy to be respectful to each student, realizing that God made them. I need God's love in me to show each student the same love and respect. Only when they have experienced respect from others can they begin to have respect for themselves. And if they do not respect themselves they will not respect others. Respect needs to start somewhere." There it is. We've been at this all week just to get to that. Respect needs to start somewhere; so how about with you and I… here and now?
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A starting-point for respect	Wednesday, February, 17, 2010
by John Fischer Some of you wrote after yesterday's Catch that you were having trouble with the idea of respecting everyone. What about lazy good-for-nothings and deadbeat dads? What about criminals and gang members who kill over a pair of sneakers? What about sexual predators who prey on the helpless? How could anyone possibly respect someone like this? Don't you have to earn respect? I believe there is a basic starting-point for respect that comes with being made in the image of God. It's what everyone gets for being human. No matter how bad someone becomes, they never lose this. Besides, there is always the hope of redemption. People can and do change. Does that mean the redeemed person deserves respect while prior to their redemption they didn't? Do we respect one thief next to Christ on a cross, and not the other? Is there ever a time when we are justified in devaluing another human being? I have discovered that respecting others starts with me. It starts with knowing and embracing my own sin. If I weigh my sin against anyone else's, no matter how bad they might seem, mine will always weigh more. Why? Because it's mine. I know my sin. I know its depths and its intricacies. And I know how hard I work to try and forget this—to even focus on how bad someone else is so I don’t have to face how bad I am. And then I bring all this to the table and find out about God's mercy—that I've been forgiven, my slate has been wiped clean, and in God's eyes I'm righteous, in spite of all that other stuff I know about me. You see, once this has happened to you, you can never look down on another human being again. I know what a scoundrel I am, yet God loves me, then how can I not extend that same mercy to everyone else. So when Peter writes: "Show proper respect to everyone" (1 Peter 2:17), you go, "I can do that. I can look at everyone the way God looks at me. I can show them the mercy that he showed me." Who do I think I am if I can do anything short of this? "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst." – Paul, the Apostle (1 Timothy 1:15)
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Respect	Tuesday, February, 16, 2010
by John Fischer Well Presidents Day went off without a hitch, except for the fact that we don't know what to call it, or how to write it. I've seen it as Presidents Day, President's Day and Presidents' Day. It also depends on what state you are in. In Virginia it's still Washington's Birthday. When I was growing up we had separate holidays for Washington (February 22) and Lincoln (February 12). I remember this because I can still feel the excitement of knowing one holiday meant the other was close behind. In 1971 the Uniform Monday Holiday Act put a stop to all that by determining that the third Monday in February would be a good day to celebrate them both. In most states it has now expanded to incorporate a celebration of the office of the President in general, and all former Presidents in particular, and last but not least, our current President. But as I write this, it is still officially Presidents Day, and given that, I have a few more things to say about Presidents and the Presidency. It seems it has become increasingly popular, at least in my lifetime, to blame the President for whatever ails us as a country. Presidents always begin with pretty big approval ratings, but those dwindle rapidly into much lower percentages as they begin their term. We need to remember that we as a people—humble as we are—elected the man through the freedoms that have been won for us Whether or not you voted for him is irrelevant. We all elected him through our system of government, and he is our President. We need to honor him and pray for him, not bad-mouth him. Respect is a dying virtue in our society. There are those to whom respect is due by virtue of their office. We need to reclaim it for ourselves and everyone around us. "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men. Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king." (1 Peter 2:13-17)
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Presidents' Day	Monday, February, 15, 2010
by John Fischer Presidents' Day, Valentine's Day and my oldest son's birthday all combined into a single event as I took my family out to dinner yesterday. There are a number of art galleries in our town and after dinner we went through a couple of them just to see what was on the walls. In one gallery there was a print that looked as if it were made for Presidents' Day. The artist had rendered an imaginary gathering of past Presidents in someone's living room. It looked as if Abraham Lincoln had just cracked a joke and Eisenhower and F.D.R. were cracking up. Somehow seeing them all together in such a light made them all seem so ordinary and human—like any gathering of friends. It's hard to imagine that these men influenced the course of human history as much as they did by the decisions they made. And yet they were no different than any one of us, and no better either. We are, all of us, human vessels made to contain the Spirit of God. On one hand, we are common, made up of the same stuff; on the other hand, we contain the presence of God in the Holy Spirit who was given to us. We are ordinary; we are extraordinary. What we accomplish will come by faith and through the power of God as we are thrust into life. The more demanding the situation, the more opportunity to grow. "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2 Corinthians 4:7) Treasure in a clay pot. Spirit in you and me. Whether you're the President of the United States or a clerk in the back office, the same elements apply. Hear, decide and act. You can change the world.
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Football and worship	Friday, February, 12, 2010
by John Fischer The testosterone level was off the charts. It was my last assignment before heading out to the airport to fly home. I was addressing all 44 members of the Malone University football team in Canton, Ohio. Was I intimidated? You bet I was. I told them I lettered in tennis in high school. I got a good laugh out of that. This was not originally on the calendar of events for my two-day stay on campus, but grew out of a conversation I had over lunch with the new football coach. When he said his goal was to mix worship and football, I connected with that, having always believed that remarkable athletic performances were cause for praising God for making the human body with such amazing capacity. So he invited me to come talk to his team and I accepted. I began by spending a few minutes on Romans 12:1 about presenting our bodies to God as living sacrifices which was our spiritual service of worship. Everything was going fine until I opened it up for questions and one of them wanted to know if anyone could be forced to become a Christian. At first I was a bit blind-sided by the question, but it didn't take me long to figure out where this was coming from. As a Christian university, Malone would have certain behavioral requirements that someone from outside a Christian environment would not understand. Indeed, there were a number of non-Christians on the team who nevertheless had to abide by the rules of the university. As others chimed in with similar grievances, I realized the mistake they were making. They were thinking they were being forced to become Christians because in their minds, being a Christian constituted abiding by certain rules of behavior. So I told them, no one is ever forced to become a Christian because a Christian is someone who responds to God out of the desire of his or her heart. They were only being forced to act like one in keeping with the policies of the university. Isn't it true, however, that most people think this is what a Christian is? It's a misconception that's as old as the Pharisees, but it refuses to die. That's because grace is so contrary to human nature. It goes against everything we know and have been taught. That is, in fact, one of the ways I know it has to be true. It's the most preposterously good news anyone could have not thought of.
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The responsibility box	Wednesday, February, 10, 2010
by John Fischer Last weekend, Chandler spent Saturday night at his big brother's and sister's apartment meaning Marti and I had the rare opportunity of getting a break from the animated features and talking animal movies that seem to dominate family appropriate viewing these days. So I chose Changling, starring Angelina Jolie as a single mother in Los Angeles in the late 1920s who has the Los Angeles Police Department trying to convince her that a boy they found is actually her son that had been abducted 5 months earlier. It's a true story about the L.A.P.D. forcing her to receive the boy even though she knows, and they know, he is not her son. Her refusal to play along with the whole scheme ends up bringing the corrupt department to its knees. It's a stellar performance that netted Jolie an Oscar. In the opening scenes, before the abduction, her son questions her as to the whereabouts of his father, and in an attempt to put adult matters in children's terms, she tells him that his dad received a big box marked "Responsibility" and chose to leave rather than open it. That struck a little too close to home for me—the whole idea about the responsibility box. Give me credit for not leaving, but I'm afraid I can't say the same thing about opening the box. In fact, the box is still here. It's in the middle of whatever room I'm in like that elephant we all know about. Something about that little story clicked with me. I think it might be the idea that it is a box waiting to be opened, and most boxes I know about that are waiting to be opened contain a present. Maybe this one does, too. My oldest son's birthday is today, and he will have some boxes to open that I'm sure will get immediate attention. Suddenly I realized I've been thinking about this responsibility box as a burden, when all along it's been a gift. The gift is the opportunity of becoming what I was meant to be by doing what I was meant to do. How foolish to leave a gift unopened. Have you got something in your life you've been avoiding? If you knew it contained a present, wouldn't you open it?
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'Oh when the Saints…'	Tuesday, February, 09, 2010
by John Fischer It is fitting that the name for the NFL team that just won Super Bowl XLIV is the New Orleans Saints. The spiritual that inspired it, "When the Saints Go Marching In," is a song of resurrection. It was sung primarily at funerals and celebrated the hope of a better life than this one. For many, especially those in poverty and slavery, death was a release to be celebrated, not an end to be feared. You could say that the New Orleans Saints victory Sunday over the Indianapolis Colts was a similar death to life experience for the people of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina all but wiped out the city, and especially the poorer housing in the lower lying areas. Homes were lost; lives were devastated. Many actually wondered if the city could ever rebound. Much has been said and written about how this was more than just a football game for the city of New Orleans, and at the risk of being redundant, it was. This team came to represent hope, pride and the possibility of recovery. There was something almost spiritual about this. When priests slip on Saints jerseys over their vestments during Sunday mass and pray for the team, you know this is something special that is uniting the city. Everybody knew this, even the Indianapolis players. Colt running back Joseph Addai, was quoted as saying he was happy for the people of New Orleans. There is something about the human spirit that deserves celebrating. God created us like this. He let us experience losing and winning, and let me tell you, winning is sweeter to those who have tasted defeat. And perhaps buried in all this drama of good and evil, winning and losing, life and death, devastation and recovery is something about why God put us on this earth and allowed us to experience all of this—something for now as well as something for later. We can only imagine what Eden was like for Adam and Eve in their innocent state, but in spite of how idyllic that must have been, they never would have understood what it's like to go from losing to winning, death to life, devastation to recovery or guilt to grace. And one thing is for sure; their garden-variety life won't hold a candle to what heaven will be like when all the saints Christ has redeemed go marching in.
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The Spit 'n' Argue Club	Monday, February, 08, 2010
by John Fischer I caught an intriguing article yesterday in the Los Angeles Times, part of an "L.A. Then and Now" series ["At these debates, expectorations were great," February 7, 2010, p. A36]. It was about an informal open-air club that met daily next to the Long Beach pier to chew tobacco, whittle and debate. Someone observed that they did nothing but spit and argue, and thus the Spit 'n' Argue Club was born. That was somewhere in the 1880s, and remarkably, the tradition lived on for over three-quarters of a century, finally succumbing to talk radio in 1972. It was a quiet death and few noticed. It's no coincidence either that the 1970s marked the end of civil debate and the ushering in of an era of choosing sides, demonizing the opposition and shouting without listening. We could sure benefit from some spittin' and arguin' these days. The Times article reported: "profanity and alcoholic beverages were banned, as well as bathing suits. It seemed almost blasphemous to debate the existence of God while wearing swimwear." It's good to have a few ground rules when you meet to debate important things. My favorite comment was from a columnist in 1935 that made the observation that "when you know a thing, you merely speak it, but when you are rather doubtful, you must assert it so loudly as to overwhelm all opposition." This certainly applies to the truth we know about the gospel of Jesus. No need to shout just set it forth plainly, because the power is in the message, not the delivery. Simple statements, simply spoken. The truth doesn't need help. Would that we could have our own Spit 'n' Argue Club—a safe place where anyone can talk about anything without prejudice or judgment. A place where all questions are welcomed and encouraged. A place where loud assertions are not necessary. But anyway, if you can't form a club, you can always be one. Act this way and you will create an environment of civility around you. God only knows how much we need that right now. "…we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." (2 Corinthians 4:2)
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No place to hide	Friday, February, 05, 2010
by John Fischer I'm writing today's Catch with one ear to the 10 o'clock news in case I might have the opportunity to catch my son in action. Apparently he made an arrest today with television news cameras on hand. An attempted robbery and a threat upon a fellow LAPD officer brought out a huge show of force as over 50 officers converged on the suspect who had fled into a culvert that runs under one of L.A.'s major freeways. Christopher and his partner had positioned themselves where they thought the suspect might surface and ended up being the ones to spot him hiding in a storm drain, talk him out, handcuff him and bring him in. Pretty exciting for a first year cop. Pretty exciting for a first year cop's dad. As it turned out for the suspect: You can run but you can't hide. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. [from Psalm 139]
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The universe next to me	Thursday, February, 04, 2010
by John Fischer I was on the first leg of my flight home from Rochester, New York yesterday when I sat next to a very nice lady I guessed to be somewhere in her 70s. She was flying alone and had been to Rochester for the funeral of her sister. She had a long trip home to a small town near Yosemite National Park in central California. The flight we were on went to Chicago and then she was going to L.A. and connecting from there to Fresno, getting in around midnight and then having to drive a couple more hours on top of that. She seemed pretty spunky, but I wondered if she was up to all this. As we got ready to deplane in Chicago, I realized she was going to have a bit of a challenge making her next flight. There was only about 25 minutes for her connection and you couldn't have picked two gates further apart. She would need to take the shuttle short cut and I knew from experience that was hard to find and navigate. Luckily I had plenty of time for my connection so I told her I would help her get on the shuttle. That turned out to be harder than expected. The line was long and they only took 18 people at a time. There were at least three busloads ahead of her. No way. Could she walk all the way around? Not and carry her heavy bag. She obviously didn't travel much or she would have had it on rollers. So I went to the head of the line, found a security person and told her they had to get this woman on the next bus. I last saw her looking back at me with a thankful look on her face as she descended the stairs to the waiting shuttle outside. I wonder if she made it. Though I never even got her name, I got strangely attached to her throughout this brief encounter. And as she faded out of view, I was suddenly aware of all the other people in the airport, and for an instant, I felt all of their own stories. It was as if I caught a glimpse of what God sees as he keeps his eye on this world. It was overwhelming. Everyone had their own issues and they all seemed so important. Who would make it and who wouldn't, and what about those who had no one to help them? Someone once said that when a person dies, we lose a universe. I glimpsed a universe today, and I was amazed.
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'Resist the evil; seize the good.'	Wednesday, February, 03, 2010
by John Fischer "I look on this world as a wrecked vessel. God has given me a life-boat, and said to me, ‘Moody, save all you can.'" – Dwight L. Moody, 1877 "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign Lord of all, does not cry: ‘Mine!'" – Abraham Kuyper, 1880 I obtained these two quotes from Richard Middleton, a professor at Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, New York, where I am currently speaking. I was a guest in his Worldview class yesterday when he began with these two quotes, which represent two completely different worldviews within the same general time frame and the same faith in Christ. To one, the world is a wreck with little worth saving, save the people in it. To the other, every inch of the world is the domain of Christ. Actually it may be that both are true. For the early part of my ministry/career I was closer to Moody's worldview as we were very much influenced by the belief that we were in the last days and our focus was to get as many people saved as possible while there was still time. But as time has passed, I have come to see more from Abraham Kuyper's point of view. The emphasis is still on the souls of people but their physical well-being is also important. Issues of justice and equality should be our concern as well. Before Christ died to save us all from our sins, he spent three years healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, setting the captives free and delivering the oppressed. If the only important thing was the eternal condition of the souls of men, why did he bother? Because everything matters. This world matters. The Lordship of Christ over every sector of society matters. Ah, but wait, the good professor had one more quote up his sleeve. It is a quote from C.S. Lewis that states: "There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan." Yes, there it is—both perspectives are true at the same time. By taking either one of these points of view over the other, we actually imagine a simpler world. For instance, if the world is already a wreck, we don't have to do anything about it. And conversely if the world is already dominated by Christ, we don't have to try and save anybody. As it is, there is a struggle of ownership, and we are in the middle of it—indeed, the struggle is over us. It is all around us as well as in us. And here is the conclusion: "Resist the evil; seize the good."
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More than just choosing sides	Tuesday, February, 02, 2010
by John Fischer The gospel always calls us to do more than just choose sides. There are so many issues dividing our country right now—abortion, gay marriage, capital punishment, gun control, universal health insurance, taxes—and in Washington, our legislators are divided right down the middle on everything according to party lines. But this is exactly what the problem is with politics: there are only two sides to everything. Any thinking person knows this can't be true. There are nuances, subtleties and compromises everywhere, and yet the choice still comes down to one side or the other. Too much is at stake to cross party lines. And with little kindness and civility in the middle, the hope for gentle debate and reaching a more complicated, but equitable consensus is unlikely. Where do Christians, or more importantly, where does the church fit into all this? Well, unfortunately the church has taken sides along with everyone else and lost its authority to speak into the deeper levels of these issues. The gospel, which values every human being and every human being's right to freedom, justice and equality has lost its middle ground. While the truth should be speaking into both sides, it is being heard only in one. But this doesn't mean you and I can't be wiser as individuals and act more responsibly with the truth. We need to always go deeper than just choosing sides. This will allow us to reach across the middle and value those who would otherwise be our enemies. We must remember these are real people we are talking about—people who like us, need Jesus. Making an enemy of someone for whom Christ died is not consistent with the message of the gospel. This may not be able to be accomplished on a large scale but we can make a difference on a smaller personal scale where we live and work. We can reach across and value those on all sides of an issue. We can represent the love of Jesus to everyone. And we can listen and learn even from those with whom we might disagree. "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:32-36)
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The gospel of Jesus happens	Monday, February, 01, 2010
by John Fischer Last week I had the unexpected privilege of hearing Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking whose story was dramatized in the movie by the same title staring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. She's a short, spunky woman with a passion for justice and a story of how God dragged her into a life-changing relationship with a prisoner on death row. She tells the story of how one of her colleagues encouraged her to write a letter to a prisoner, which she did, thinking little of it. Then she went on to explain how that letter had altered the course of her life. She put it in the simplest terms: he wrote back, they developed a relationship, and the gospel of Jesus happened. I was immediately captivated by the simple thought that our relationships are the place where the gospel of Jesus happens. I believe this is true, and I believe it can happen in many different ways and on many different levels. When does the gospel of Jesus happen? Any time someone is affirmed, any time value is attributed to a human being, any time forgiveness is extended, any time love is spoken, any time you remove a speck from someone else's eye because you just had a log taken out of your own, any time patience wins out, any time justice is done, any time the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, and the good news is preached to the poor. In the case of Sister Prejean, the gospel of Jesus saved a guilty man for eternity, and set her on a course to reach many others is similar circumstances. Be looking for how the gospel of Jesus might happen in your life today and the lives of those you touch.
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Heartburn	Friday, January, 29, 2010
by John Fischer Two men walking down a road. Stuff's been happening. Big stuff. They're trying to sort it all out. Suddenly some other man joins them. They've never seen him before. Wants to know what they're talking about. The first two look at each other funny. "Are you the only one around here who doesn't know?" "Know what?" says the new guy. And so as best as they can, they try to bring him up to speed, wrestling the story back and forth between them in a mental tug-of-war of recollection. Suddenly the new one is talking and it's soon clear that he does know what's been going on… knows it better than either one of them do… knows it as if he was there. Maybe he was. Then he starts telling them about all the events leading up to this, and connects the dots across a few hundreds years as they make their way along the countryside. They walk and talk for hours but it seems like minutes. Where on earth did this guy come from and how does he know so much? And what's the deal with my heart? Stupid thing is burning right here in my chest. They get to their village and persuade the new traveler to stay. They sit down to dinner and he just keeps on talking and their hearts keep on burning. Wait a minute. Stop everything. They HAVE seen him before. And in an instant they know… It's the Lord! And in another instant he is gone. "Man! Did your heart burn while he talked to us?" "The whole time." (See Luke 24:13-32) Marti loves this story. She loves it most for the passion—the burning hearts. She also loves it for the walking along the way and talking as they go. Marti says that's the way people find out about Jesus. We walk alongside them… and our hearts burn. Sometimes we know something's happening. Sometimes we don't. Marti is a little put out with God for not letting her in on more of this. She wants to know now. She says it's like a tapestry of people's lives being woven together, and we can't always see it. But he can. That's why we just keep on walking and talking… and burning. "Walk with me and you will see why I need the Lord," Marti says. The "why I need" part is really important there. It's what makes this work. Transparency. Feel your heart burning. Walk with someone, and Jesus walks with you.
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What do you want?	Thursday, January, 28, 2010
by John Fischer God wants an interactive relationship with us. He wants a relationship with someone who wants one with him. We're all a big part of this. The reason I know this is because he extended an invitation to us that calls for our participation. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7). Come on, God is God; he doesn't have to do this. He could just as easily say, "Here's what you get, here's what you're looking for, and this is where you're going," but instead he asks: What do you want? What are you looking for? Where do you want to go? It's amazing to me that God wants to engage us in this manner. I've always got him so big and me so small as to be basically irrelevant. But here God is making us part of the action. He's coming to our level. He's involving us in the process. How about it? Could you answer these questions? I'm not so sure I could. What do you want? What are you looking for? Where do you want to go? Jacob once found himself wrestling with his fears all night and then realizing, half asleep and half awake, that he was wrestling with a form, and then a man, and then in the light of dawn, he saw the man's face and it was the face of God. And a soon as he recognized this, he grabbed on even harder and said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." And God did.
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The book of Marti	Wednesday, January, 27, 2010
by John Fischer I promised you Marti would be leading us into action this week and so far it's turned out to be more about passion. However I'm not so sure she sees those as two different things. For her, I think they are so connected as to be almost the same thing. If you have passion, you will act. It's the driving force that moves you to do something. It gets you up out of your folding chair, it gets you going in the Spirit, it compels you to give, it pushes you out beyond yourself. The Book of James says faith that doesn't manifest itself in works isn't faith (James 2:14-17). In much the same way, the book of Marti says passion that doesn't manifest itself in action isn't passion. And exactly what action are we talking about, you ask? I don't really think it matters. As long as we are moving, God can direct us. God can't direct the steps of someone who never takes one. I'm going to let you enjoy Marti's description of when the passion began for her. Perhaps it will help stir something in you. I was not born a Christian like John. I attended my first Christian conference when I was 25. My group was asked to write down what we may have said or done that harmed others. Having failed the "First to the Verse" contest, I naïvely thought, “If this contest is based on the number of wrongs needing to be made right, I think I am going to win this one!” Looking up several times confirmed my good thinking. Having finished before me, the others were waiting. Still working on my list and already clearly ahead of everyone, I declared myself the winner. The leader hardly looked as pleased with me as he had been with Mr. First to the Verse. In fact, he was not even smiling. He indicated I would go first to the fire and throw in my list. I do not know if anyone else followed me in setting their wrongs on fire. I was too captivated by my crimes burning before my very eyes until there was nothing left except the smoke, which God breathed in as I let go. The fire that night never died. That passion for God remains alive today. It is forever relevant.
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'Standing Outside the Fire'	Tuesday, January, 26, 2010
by John Fischer Marti likes country music. It's kind of an odd match if you know her since she is such a New York City lady. She has one pair of jeans and I honestly haven't seen her wear them in over two years. She has a closet full of dresses, mostly black, that she wears every day, even when working at home, which is most often the case. So when this city-slicker starts quoting country music it causes you a little hesitation, except that there is this other side of her—this down-to-earth devil-may-care sort of gustiness—that maybe does find a connection in the immediate accessibility of country music and it's honest, starkly human themes. So if she has somehow managed to pull a devotional thought out of Johnny Cash and June Carter's "Ring of Fire," maybe it won't be that much of a surprise that her next thoughts come from the pen and music of Garth Brooks, "Standing Outside the Fire." It doesn't take much to see the correlation she found: a song that celebrates falling into the fire, and one that laments staying out. Standing outside the fire Standing outside the fire Life is not tried it is merely survived If you're standing outside the fire There is a certain element of people who observe, comment on, have advice for, but stop short of truly living life. Marti calls this the folding chair Christian, who goes about with a notebook and a folding chair, ready to sit down and take notes at a moment's notice. And she most frequently paints a picture of a group of these folks all in their chairs around the cross, notebooks out, feverishly writing down what makes this such a significant place to be, while resurrection power is waiting to be discovered for all those who would embrace the cross and walk on through to their new life in Christ. Then there is another group too proud to jump in the fire having interpreted strength as being total self-reliance. These are those who resist any show of weakness—any loss of control. The same ones immortalized in the song: We call them strong Those who can face this world alone Who seem to get by on their own Those who will never take the fall The loneliest people in the world are those who don't need anyone. And finally there are the "weak" ones, gloriously drawn into the passion of knowing and following Christ and being directed by his Spirit. These are the ones who have fallen for the Lord and are living in the fire, letting it burn through every part of their life—everything that they do. We call them weak Who are unable to resist The slightest chance love might exist And for that forsake it all They're so hell bent on giving, walking a wire Convinced it's not living if you're stand outside the fire. Well they're right: it's not. You can stand next to the fire, feel its warmth and see by its light, but you never will know what it can do until you abandon your notebooks and your hold on yourself and jump in.
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'Ring of Fire'	Monday, January, 25, 2010
by John Fischer Marti sent me an email last week with suggestions for a Catch. I replied that she had at least a week's worth of Catches in that one email so this is going to start what I expect to be a Marti week, and let me give you a little window on what's in store for you. Expect this week to be all about ACTION. You see, Marti and I have just understood one of the reasons why we act so differently and what is the source of most of our conflicts. She is all about ACTION, and I am all about DOCTRINE. Marti became a Christian a few years before I met her and immediately began sharing Christ with just about everybody she met, started an international organization of Christian airline personnel with a chapter in Los Angeles, and led a Bible study of flight attendants. Later I might tell you what she did the second week after she was saved. I, on the other hand, grew up in a good evangelical home and church where everything was all about doctrine, i.e., everything hinged on what you believed. If you had all the doctrines of scripture right, you were a great Christian. In fact, one of the unspoken skills you want to develop as an evangelical preacher is learning how to fire people up during your sermon so that they are all enthralled with new things about the truth, while sending them home with nothing to actually have to change in their lives that might upset the afternoon football game. It's difficult, but it can be done and developed over time if you really work at it. Evangelicals are masters at getting people spiritually pumped without having to DO anything. So this week we're going to hear from Marti and it's going to be all about becoming action-oriented believers. There is a famous town in Missouri called Branson some of the most intelligent and talented people Marti has worked with live. They are hard working people who live by their values, offer up genuine hospitality and always over-deliver on their promises. Unlike the sad songs of regret and indecision that characterize so much of Nashville's country music scene, Branson sings to stir the heart to action with passion. Once when visiting Branson, Marti and I were privileged to hear Johnny Cash and June Carter sing their trademark song, “Ring of Fire,” and it is that song that Marti turns to for inspiration today. Love is a burning thing And it makes a fiery ring Bound by wild desire I fell into a ring of fire Though it comes on like a song of how they met and fell in love, there is much more to it. We saw June and Johnny late in their careers, when so many of the sorrows and pains of their lives separately and together were etched on their faces, but it was very evident to all that the fire was still burning strong. Marti sees a real faith as something like a ring of fire. It will burn you, purify you, inspire you and sear the self right out of you. The ring of fire is where life is lived and experienced fully from its heights to its depths. In the fire you are aware of the Spirit of God in you. You are on alert—eyes wide open and completely alive. You see everything and act on what you see. You see your sin more easily too and that makes you quick to forgive. Here you live beyond what you have grasped. There is an existence that looks a little like life but has none of the fire. It can have all the right doctrine, but no one gets burned. Here you are more likely to comment on life than live it. Values such as safety, control and being comfortable prevail. Step into where God is. Step into the fire. Action has to begin with passion. It's all about jumping into the fire.
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Close to the bone	Friday, January, 22, 2010
by John Fischer 36 men who attended a men's retreat I spoke at last week in the Pocono Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania are joining us today. Welcome, gentlemen! At that retreat, I sort of coined a new phrase I've never used before at least in this context. I talked about living close to the bone, and by that I mean living in such a way as to have little to hide. Not that we broadcast all of our dirty laundry, but when there are at least some people who know all about our struggles and temptations, then everyone gets the benefit of a more realistic, humble person. Men especially live under the weight to perform flawlessly as a husband, father, spiritual leader, problem solver and expert on just about everything. And if we can't pull any of this off, or if failures crop up in any of these areas, we hide them and fake the rest. This may work for a good period of time, but sooner or later, the cover-up breaks down and we are found out usually through something catastrophic like an affair, an addiction, divorce or a nervous breakdown. You can't live a lie forever. If our faith is going to have any substance at all, it has to be built on principles that transcend the failures and the weaknesses we all have but seldom admit. And the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that it is exactly suited for that—something that transcends our failures and weaknesses, allowing us to embrace them and not run from them, while at the same time giving us strength to make progress toward fulfilling our roles as leaders. This is what I mean by living close to the bone, and had more spiritual leaders found out how to do this, there would have been fewer moral breakdowns. In the new Christmas movie "Everybody's Fine" starring Robert DeNiro (you'll have to wait for the DVD; it lasted all of 2 weeks in the theaters), DeNiro plays a newly widowed father who while in the local supermarket stocking up for an expected holiday visit from his three children announces repeatedly when questioned about his family: "Everybody's fine." Of course the rest of the movie is the discovery that behind the scenes, everybody is actually far from fine. In his review of the movie for Christianity Today, Gordon MacDonald links this same charade with what commonly passes for fellowship in most Christian circles. "All it would take is for a few people to say 'we're not… I'm not… fine' and the simple but dazzling grace of our Lord Jesus would start to take over." There it is. That's living close to the bone—close to where the grace of God works because, well, nothing else is working out.
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What really matters	Thursday, January, 21, 2010
by John Fischer Well I really like what Bob wrote in his comments and it will help clarify why I brought the whole language issue up in the first place. Many of you seem to want to make this into a moral issue. My desire for all of you in this has nothing to do with morality. To me, that's another discussion for another time. It has only to do with loving people and having our eyes opened to barriers that might exist to doing that so that we might remove them. So here's what Bob wrote: "I've served as a pastor in the most affluent suburb of Los Angeles, been a truck driver among largely uneducated men, worked in a Christian bookstore outside Boston, cleaned bathrooms in the dorms at Harvard, grown up in the locker room at the YMCA in downtown Washington D.C., played hoops (sorry: "pick-up basketball") in suburban and urban/"ghetto" locales. I've had to learn a lot of languages, all of them considered American English in some form. And each of which can so easily offend the ears of those who don't share the dialect. As followers of Christ we are called to live among all sorts of people, and not take offense at what is not intended to offend." This actually sounds a lot like Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23: "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." Paul's desire for everyone to know the saving grace of Christ surpassed everything, even his need to be or not be law-abiding, to be right, or to be strong. All agendas to him were subservient to one thing—that as many as possible through Christ might be saved.
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A new law of the land	Wednesday, January, 20, 2010
Yesterday's Catch led to a volume of comments. It appears that we could spend weeks on this topic and still not arrive at the bottom of it. Just going over the comments will give you a good deal more than I brought up to think about and talk about with your friends. I don't wish to have the final say on swearing or using coarse language as Christians. In fact, it was not my intent to deal with the language we use as much as it was to think about how to deal with the language others use. Many people in their comments wanted to talk about the language we use as Christians. That's a good discussion to have at some point but it was not the one I intended. I meant only to think about the language others use around us and how we respond to it. My concern, as it usually is in the Catch of the Day, is how we as Christians relate to those around us who may not be believers. It was in the interest of their need for the gospel of Jesus Christ that I asked for us to rethink how we deal with the moral condition of unbelievers. The whole point of yesterday's post was what we hear, not what we say. If we spent more time climbing into the shoes of those around us and seeing things from their perspective, we would be less bothered by other things. And, as always, the goal is love. "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." (1 Peter 4:8). Love: the new law of the land.
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Getting out	Tuesday, January, 19, 2010
by John Fischer Before Christmas, Marti used the sh-- word in a Catch describing what was undoubtedly spread over the floor of the stable into which Christ entered the world. As you might imagine, we received a number of comments, most of which were positive, by the way, and one of my favorites was from a reader named Lynn: "I think the word usage was appropriate, but then what do I know? I hear so much swearing from people I am around that I am beginning to think I am odd for not swearing. I loved your post. I really would like to know if anyone became a Christian because they were tired of swearing? That just never seems to be the important issue that one needs to be saved from. I usually end up with people talking about their pains, losses, and emptiness. They want a new life more than a new vocabulary." I especially think Lynn's comments about being around so much swearing that she doesn't notice it anymore is worth noting. If we truly love people, this will not be a big deal unless we choose to make it one. And why would we? Why would we ask people to change their behavior based on our standards? That's like traveling to a foreign country and insisting on everyone speaking English when they're around us. Actually the foreign language argument is a good one. Imagine reaching out to kids in the inner city where the "f" word is as common as breathing. If we're going to truly love people where they are, we need to take them as they are, and if that means we need to desensitize ourselves to swearing then so be it. Is anyone any more holy for what they don't hear? I would go as far as to say that a Christian who is offended by swearing isn't hanging around non-Christians enough. Come on, people, you need to get out!
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Weak and strong	Friday, January, 15, 2010
by John Fischer His strength; our weakness. Will we ever get it straight? I am getting to where I pretty firmly believe that God does not reach anyone through our strengths, only through our weaknesses. Our strengths only bring us glory. His strength in our weakness makes him the star. By the time Samson shared the secret of his long hair with Delilah, he had most likely made the assumption that his strength was his. He had become one with it. What difference did the hair make? His hair might have brought him strength in the beginning but that was just to build his self-confidence. He could handle himself now. Go ahead, lose the hair. The strength is mine, you'll see. I'll just get up as I always have and wipe out these guys. Or so he must have thought. Why else would he have revealed his secret? And then, in the end, blind, humiliated and imprisoned, he called out to God for the strength to perform one final feat—one that would cause more destruction to the enemies of Israel than all the others combined—and this time it was God's strength through his weakness. He knew it and so did everyone else. Your life is useful to God not because you are getting it right or setting an example of how everyone is supposed to be, but because you are living in an open and honest way so that others can see God at work in your not-so-perfect life. God's ministry through us requires us to be stripped of pretense, religiosity and self-reliance. It's not that he can use us even when we are down to the raw bone of who we really are; he can use us only when we are down to the raw bone of who we really are.
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Character development	Thursday, January, 14, 2010
by John Fischer I know I've used this before but I can't help it. Never have I witnessed a part, a character or a situation as a dramatic production that is closer to my deep-seated fears and misassumptions than what I find in the character played by Peter Facinelli in the movie The Big Kahuna starring Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. I keep coming back to it because I have quotes from it in my speaking notes and when I go on the road and prepare for a new talk I run across them again and sometimes I find something new that didn't hit me as strongly as it did before. Probably because I wasn't ready for it. Truth is always like that. Peter Facinelli, who plays Bob in this movie, is a perfect example of a kid who grew up Christian, went to a Christian college, took on all the trappings of what a Christian is supposed to be and do, and truly means it, but when thrust into the real world with two seeking individuals who to him would simply be non-Christians, the holes in his character, the missing links of humanity, the inability to connect with what should be naturally human become glaringly obvious. So much so that towards the end of the movie, Phil (the Danny DeVito character) makes an observation, "Your problem, Bob, is that you haven't lived long enough to regret anything." To which Bob replies, "You're saying I have to go out and do something bad so I'll have something to regret?" (Exactly what I would have said, by the way.) Phil: "I'm saying you've already done plenty of things to regret you just don't know what they are." Ouch! That's the part that always nails me. But then he goes on to say: "It's when you discover them (the things you regret), when you see the folly in something you've done, and you wish that you had it to do over, but you know you can't, because it's too late. So you pick that thing up, and carry it with you to remind you that life goes on, the world will spin without you... Then you will gain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself across your face." This adds new meaning to "pick up your cross and follow me…" Instead of dragging around some imaginary bloody beam of wood, what if Jesus meant for us to face into the failures, disappointments and mistakes of our lives and own them instead of excusing them or skating over them, and let them become a part of who we are and are becoming? Pick them up and carry them around as reminders of why there had to be a cross in the first place. So many Christians are like Bob: they're trying so hard to be good Christians that they wouldn't recognize their own cross if they tripped over it. Their cross is all the things they should be regretting but don't know anything about. Believe me, I can speak with certainty about this because I'm an expert at it. Picking up your cross then would mean moving on in spite of your mistakes, failures and regrets. It would mean growing through regret and forgiveness, and finding hope on the other side of the cross.
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Being who you are	Wednesday, January, 13, 2010
by John Fischer All you had to do was to be what you've always wanted to be. Welcome back to the love that is in your heart From the song "Welcome Back" by the group Love song Sounds like a simple thing to be who you are, but it is not. It's an illusive goal. It seems like the harder you try to be somebody, the further away you get from being who you are. Marti and I listened to some of my early music last weekend and I found out, through her ears, something I hadn't heard before. My very first songs were the most pure, unpretentious and original of all of my music. They were the most "me." I never noticed this before because I always heard the music in terms of the production quality, which improved greatly as time went on. But from the second album on, you can hear something else taking place—influences from somewhere other than within. There's the Judy Collins sound, the "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" intro, the James Taylor guitar, the Billy Joel arrangement… and every time I sang, I tried to match the musical influences the arrangement took on, and somehow, it wasn't me. But you hear the first album and, as hokey as it has always seemed to me, I can't deny the innate beauty of the fact that it isn't trying to be anything but what it is. And in that same manner we all find out who we are by not trying to be anything else. That's why Love Song is onto something when they marry true identity to a kind of homecoming: "Welcome back to what you knew was right from the start." Though we can't always be it, consciously, we know who we are. A relationship with Jesus involves a total acceptance of who we are through an unearned, uncluttered reality. Lord give us grace to walk forward, unmasked... vulnerable… liberated.
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Someone who believes in you	Tuesday, January, 12, 2010
Do you have anyone in your life that believes in you so much they see what you can't see about yourself? In fact they see it so clearly that they get exasperated with you for not seeing it. The way I see it, you can do one of two things about this. 1) You can choose to ignore them and continue on selling yourself short when it comes to opportunities to grow and expand your influence. Or 2) you can step out on the strength of what someone else sees, even when you don't, and start believing what they believe about you. This one is certainly more risky—less safe—but who ever promised us safety? Adventure, abundant living, maybe, but not safety. Discovering and becoming all of who we are and are meant to be is one of the main reasons we are alive. If not, then what are we here for—to wait out our time until eternity and have nothing to show for it? It's all about our gifts and our contributions that have a lasting effect on our corner of the world however large or small that corner may be. Thank God for others who believe for us and care enough to tell us what they see. And if you are unaware of anyone like this in your life, you aren't alone. God is there, and He is the one who has been behind you all along.
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I believe in you	Monday, January, 11, 2010
by John Fischer We're going to start off this week with a really encouraging twist. It's a twist because we are used to hearing this expressed the other way around. For as long as I can remember, the emphasis spiritually has always been our belief or lack of belief in God. But what about God's belief in us? Is there such a thing? What would it do for you if you knew that God believed in you? Well, he does. One of our readers shed some light on this in a recent comment, pointing out that by Jesus saying to the twelve, "Come follow me," he was placing faith in them. It was common for rabbis in that time to pick their students, and they typically chose only the best. That's why for Jesus to choose a bunch of common fishermen and a tax collector to be on his team, he was turning the system on its head. By this he was saying, "You're my best; I believe in you." If you are a believer today, it's because God believed in you. He picked you out of a crowd and said, "Come follow me." He wouldn't have done that if he didn't know that you could cut it. What a vote of confidence we have! What strength of character that can give us! Think of it today when you need fresh courage to overcome a barrier or tackle something new. Think about the fact that God believes in you. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:29-30). See what I mean? You can do this. So can I. This is what I needed.
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Charlie's Angel	Friday, January, 08, 2010
by John Fischer First let me clear up a little something about yesterday's Catch where I related some of Marti's experience at a shooting range with our son who is now an L.A.P.D. officer. Some of you were concerned about the references to stereotypes such as "rednecks" and "gun-tottin' members of the N.R.A." These stereotypes were intentional and made to point out the lesson of why we often feel judged, because we are so good at judging others. We know what we're doing, so we fear everyone else is doing the same thing to us. Marti avoids these traps by talking to people and making every attempt to get inside their shoes. I can imagine her getting right in with the "boys" at the shooting range. In fact, when they made fun of her in her dress and high heels, she just smiled and told them she was one of Charlie's angels. I've seen her cross barriers like this many times. She's actually much more at home with down-to-earth Missourians than with us flakey west-coasters. The real lesson here is that all stereotypes exist only in our heads. No one fits totally into a stereotype. God made us too complex for this. Every single person we get to know will bust the stereotype we are so prone to put on him or her. Marti knows this better than anyone. And should there be subsequent visits to the shooting range, you can bet she will come back with some stories from the boys, but this visit was just for focusing on her son. One of our readers made that very observation when she commented, "I suspect that the positive attitude Marti is having about shooting has mostly to do with the pleasure of doing this with her son and her pride in his expertise and his taking the time to be with her." Bingo! Here's what Marti wrote in an email to Christopher: "I think I finally made a connection to the happiest time I ever had as a child when I was with my grandfather on his farm shooting duck before the sun was up. Thank you so very much for such an experience. I just hope we can do this again. Thank you for your patience, willingness to show up with your mom thinking she was a Charlie's Angel, and making me conscious of keeping my finger off the trigger. I have always loved you, but I cannot express how brave I think you are to show up at a place like we were at, with someone like me! I had the time of my life." I think that's about the sweetest thing I've read in a long time. And I think that it is a fitting conclusion to a week focusing on relationships over the long haul. Best to stay conscious of keeping your finger off the trigger.
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Hardheaded woman	Thursday, January, 07, 2010
by John Fischer Well I'm in big trouble now. Marti went shooting with our son yesterday… and loved it. This is the mother who refused to let that same son own a toy gun when he was little. At some point squirt guns were allowed for the fun of water fights, but that was a big hurdle to cross. Now that same son has two real guns of his own as a member of the Los Angeles Police Department, and yesterday he took one of them along with his mother to a shooting range to teach her how to fire it. After yesterday's Catch, is it any wonder I'm a little uneasy about this? I wish I could have seen it. They'd been trying to arrange for this to happen for some time and finally were able to work it out by meeting at the range—Marti coming straight from a business meeting. That meant she was in a business dress and heels which provided no small entertainment for the mostly redneck clientele at the shooting range. At least Marti was aware of the looks she got, and the perceived snickers. As we discussed this later, Marti had to face the fact that her presumption of being judged by the other shooters was mostly due to her unconscious judging of them. And isn't that how this works all the time? It may even be part of why we are so reluctant to be more forthright about our own shortcomings: we fear the judgment of others because we are so well acquainted with our own tendency to judge. Picture this: a well-dressed, high-heeled, gun-control favoring Democrat from upstate New York popping off a police hand gun at a shooting range surrounded by hard-headed gun-tottin' members of the N.R.A. Maybe it was the memory of going duck hunting with her grandfather as a small child, or maybe it was the pride and pleasure of being expertly and so thoroughly instructed by her own son, but she loved it. Hasn't stopped talking about it since. I'm okay with this, just as long as she doesn't bring one of these things home. I've got enough to deal with in light of the self-defense course she signed up for—not good news for a frog (I mean prince) like me.
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The princess and you-know-who	Wednesday, January, 06, 2010
by John Fischer Like any princess, I love stories but always miss the point of them unless they involved one dragon (slain), one princess (from tower, rescued) and a grand wedding at the end. [That opening should be a telltale sign that I am not doing the writing today. We got to thinking that perhaps Marti would be the perfect follow-up to my confessional Catch yesterday. This is her offering. Don't look too deeply here, except to find the grace to smile at our flaws and foibles.] Our life in the Fischbowl, is like the The Frog Prince, a Brothers Grimm fairy tale of a spoiled princess who reluctantly befriends a frog only to have him magically transform into a handsome prince. Although in some versions the transformation is invariably triggered by the spoiled princess kissing the frog, or the frog spending the night on the princess’s pillow, in the original Grimm version of the story, the frog's spell was broken only when the princess violently threw it against a wall in disgust. [I know the feeling.] Miraculously, she suddenly comes to realize an internal side to her self. Upon this realization, the frog returns to the real image of a man or in this case, a handsome prince with kind eyes, like John. But since John chose full disclosure in his last Catch, I must push the story a little further, as you will find that the story goes into a Dark Time. There is not a lot to say about the Dark Time except that there is no starlight. For my part, I should be in a more, shall we say, luxurious confinement somewhere else, as befits a damsel in distress—a princess without a country and a threat to things going on in countries far away. In reality, however, this is when John tiptoes, because the princess is contemplating dire and momentous matters. He knows that when her glory dims she will sooner or later emerge with that radiance that comes from somewhere or other, but if he takes a wrong step or speaks too soon on days like this she may eat him whole. To his credit, John sits on the bed and tickles her toes and then immediately wraps her in her bedcovers and holds her until a few moments later when she is ready for coffee. John, as you can see, is a very brave man. He watches her carefully though he does not let her first morning hour be too serious. What is called for today? Perhaps today should be quiet, he wonders, so that she can garner peace and strength. Plain dress and quiet in the castle. Later she may work in her gardens and think. Or perhaps she needs to strap on her jewels and fabrics and take up her duties to be reminded of her strength. John is wise not to speak too soon; he will watch. First he will hold her a little, then she will suddenly throw him off commanding him to stop that at once and putting on her cross face. Ah, there's the spark. The lady—the princess—is awake.
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We've only just begun	Tuesday, January, 05, 2010
by John Fischer Last night, Marti and I celebrated 35 years together. It sounds like a big deal when really it's not. Like I wrote on her card, "We've always been." The years roll off either way. It could be 40 years or it could be 5. And yet, even though that expresses the solidity and inevitability of our relationship, in many ways I feel like we've only just begun, and that has nothing to do with the fact that the Carpenters rendition of that song made it the most popular wedding song when we got married. We are seriously only just beginning because I am just waking up to what a jerk I've been for the last 35 years. I will spare you the details except to admit that I am a very selfish, self-centered person who has resisted fully embracing what it means to be a lover, provider, protector and guardian of my household. My household—the Lord—and anyone else available were supposed to take care of me while I was out doing the Lord's work, at least that's what I chose to believe. Now I'm finding out that the Lord's work starts at home. And why am I telling you this? Because I wanted to share our anniversary with you, but not without telling the truth. Those sweet little stories like the one about how a fine wine improves with age just don't apply to us. Perhaps they once did, but I used up all those stories in the first few years of our marriage. Truth be told, we haven't let wine sit very long; we've needed it to get through. And I'm telling you this because I don't want you to think that everything is just working out great because we are Christians. We are probably still married because of that, but I wouldn't go much farther than that. You can be a Christian and still be a jerk. There aren't any guarantees except for heaven, but the last time I checked, this was earth, and heaven is still on hold. And I'm telling you this because we're in this together, and I need you. I am learning a bunch of very basic, practical stuff late in life and I don't have much time. I'd like to have something to retire from before I retire, and I think you may be a part of that. And I'm also telling you this because it's never too late for something new to begin. I'm actually excited about this. It's also a real break for me that my wife has the patience of Job to stick this out. And it also doesn't hurt that she's still the most beautiful woman in the world. Well then what's to be the reason for becoming man and wife? Is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life? And if loving is the answer, then who's the giving for? Do you believe in something that you've never seen before? Oh there is Love, there is Love. – from Noel Paul Stookey and that other famous "Wedding Song"
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The spirits did it all in one night	Monday, January, 04, 2010
by John Fischer Every Christmas, we enjoy two or three versions of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. Whether it's Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart, Bill Murray, Jim Carrey, or someone whose name I've forgotten from a community theater performance, it doesn't seem to matter. It's always an inspiring story of transformation wrought by visitations of the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future—a transformation I think we all desire in some form in our lives. At one point Scrooge wants to know why all three ghosts can't visit him all at once and get it over with. I would gladly take them one at a time if I could experience as thorough of a transformation as Ebenezer makes in one night. I wish it were that easy. Realistically, our transformations are much more gradual. We need to learn to be more patient with the process. The hardest part of change for me is the fact that I have to do it. I would much rather have it happen to me—to wake up, as Scrooge did, and find myself changed. If you don't mind my sticking with the story, I think I might be able to solve my own problem. In the story, Scrooge gained a new vision of himself—a new idea of who he could be, and, indeed, wanted to be, and it was this that moved him to action. Giving to the poor, buying his clerk a goose and raising his salary, attending his nephew's Christmas feast, and seeing to it that Tiny Tim got the treatment he needed—Scrooge did all this and more, but these new behaviors sprang from a changed heart and a new idea about himself that compelled him to make them happen. You and I need to find out what, in the name of Christ, is big enough to move us forward and overcome our own barriers to change. It may be our spiritual gift; it may be forgiveness; it may be our new identity in Christ, it may be a missionary call… whatever it is, real transformation isn’t going to happen until we are in its grip. For Christ, it was "the joy set before him" that compelled him to endure the cross and its shame (Hebrews 12:2). What will it be for you that will transform you so much that it affects what you do and say? What will it be for me?
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Charlie's Angel	Saturday, January, 02, 2010
by John Fischer First let me clear up a little something about yesterday's Catch where I related some of Marti's experience at a shooting range with our son who is now an L.A.P.D. officer. Some of you were concerned about the references to stereotypes such as "rednecks" and "gun-tottin' members of the N.R.A." These stereotypes were intentional and made to point out the lesson of why we often feel judged, because we are so good at judging others. We know what we're doing, so we fear everyone else is doing the same thing to us. Marti avoids these traps by talking to people and making every attempt to get inside their shoes. I can imagine her getting right in with the "boys" at the shooting range. In fact, when they made fun of her in her dress and high heels, she just smiled and told them she was one of Charlie's angels. I've seen her cross barriers like this many times. She's actually much more at home with down-to-earth Missourians than with us flakey west-coasters. The real lesson here is that all stereotypes exist only in our heads. No one fits totally into a stereotype. God made us too complex for this. Every single person we get to know will bust the stereotype we are so prone to put on him or her. Marti knows this better than anyone. And should there be subsequent visits to the shooting range, you can bet she will come back with some stories from the boys, but this visit was just for focusing on her son. One of our readers made that very observation when she commented, "I suspect that the positive attitude Marti is having about shooting has mostly to do with the pleasure of doing this with her son and her pride in his expertise and his taking the time to be with her." Bingo! Here's what Marti wrote in an email to Christopher: "I think I finally made a connection to the happiest time I ever had as a child when I was with my grandfather on his farm shooting duck before the sun was up. Thank you so very much for such an experience. I just hope we can do this again. Thank you for your patience, willingness to show up with your mom thinking she was a Charlie's Angel, and making me conscious of keeping my finger off the trigger. I have always loved you, but I cannot express how brave I think you are to show up at a place like we were at, with someone like me! I had the time of my life." I think that's about the sweetest thing I've read in a long time. And I think that it is a fitting conclusion to a week focusing on relationships over the long haul. Best to stay conscious of keeping your finger off the trigger.
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Live and give	Thursday, December, 24, 2009
by John Fischer God so loved the world that he gave… (John 3:16) Now that just about says it all. He gave his only begotten Son, that instead of dying, we might live, and live forever, at that. That's Christmas. That's the gift that keeps on giving, giving and for-giving. In the middle of our frustration and disappointment… God gave. In the middle of our grief… God gave. In the middle of our confusion and doubt… God gave. In the middle of our rushing around trying to make everything just right… God gave. In the middle of our selfishness and sinfulness… God gave. God gave his only Son and that Son is now available to us so that we might start living right now—not tomorrow, not in eternity, but right now. Because God gave, we can start living and giving with the power of his Spirit to overcome our selfishness. Live and give. Live and give. That is what we are here for… to live and give. And it's all because God gave… "he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Right now. Please have a Merry Christmas. Hug and kiss your loved ones. Embrace every one in his and her own dysfunction because God in Christ has accepted you in yours. Have a joyous celebration of the fact that God gave. [Important notice: I will be taking off between now and the New Year to refresh and be with family. The Catch of the Day will resume on January 4, 2010. Until then, with whatever happens, live and give and rejoice in your life in Christ.]
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Good King Wenceslas	Wednesday, December, 23, 2009
by John Fischer Neil is an executive for a national financial institution located in Pennsylvania. He is a reader and regular supporter of the Catch of the Day. Just yesterday he told me a story of his own giving experience that resulted in a deeper understanding of what it means to give and receive. It seems that he and a buddy got wind of a single woman in their church who was having trouble keeping her house warm for her and her children. With the help of his friend, Neil determined to help this woman by driving a load of firewood to her house. Hearing him talk about the snowstorm that complicated their delivery made me immediately think about images from the English carol "Good King Wenceslas," about a king who braves a winter storm to bring wood to a poor peasant (see below). In the process, she asked which one of the services this week they were going to attend. (They are all part of a large church that puts on eight Christmas programs over the holidays mainly as an outreach to the community.) When they told her and asked her the same question, she said she was going to all of them. "I have 17 of my friends coming and 13 of them don't know Jesus." Suddenly Neil realized he was in the presence of a fellow believer who was herself in the process of giving, just like he was. This often happens in our giving. We think we are bettering someone's life only to discover that we are the ones who have the most to learn. That's why we must keep an open mind at all times. Look out: You never know what you're going to receive when you give. And like the good king Wenceslas, you always get blessed when you bless. Good King Wenceslas Good King Wenceslas looked out On the feast of Stephen When the snow lay round about Deep and crisp and even Brightly shone the moon that night Though the frost was cruel When a poor man came in sight Gath'ring winter fuel "Hither, page, and stand by me If thou know'st it, telling Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?" "Sire, he lives a good league hence Underneath the mountain Right against the forest fence By Saint Agnes' fountain." "Bring me flesh and bring me wine Bring me pine logs hither Thou and I will see him dine When we bear him thither." Page and monarch forth they went Forth they went together Through the rude wind's wild lament And the bitter weather "Sire, the night is darker now And the wind blows stronger Fails my heart, I know not how, I can go no longer." "Mark my footsteps, my good page Tread thou in them boldly Thou shalt find the winter's rage Freeze thy blood less coldly." In his master's steps he trod Where the snow lay dinted Heat was in the very sod Which the Saint had printed Therefore, Christian men, be sure Wealth or rank possessing Ye who now will bless the poor Shall yourselves find blessing
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Unwrapped gifts	Tuesday, December, 22, 2009
by John Fischer So Marti sent me out today with an assignment to find a replacement bike for Chandler for Christmas. He's ready to get back in the saddle after his accident last September, but he's understandably skittish about it. A new bike and a new helmet could go a long way to providing the impetus needed to overcome his fear. So I went with pretty clear instructions as to what he wanted, deliberated in three different mega-stores, and came home with assorted size gift boxes, wrapping paper, tissue paper and ribbon… but no bike. And that's where we are in our shopping just now. We've got all the stuff with which to dress up our gifts… just nothing in them yet. It makes me think about how we can work so hard on trying to present ourselves as good Christians without ever giving the gift of Christ. Christ doesn't dress up too well. He didn't come with fanfare or pomp. He was born in a barn accompanied by the bleating and braying of farmyard animals—hardly anything fit for a king—and as such, he shows up best, today, in the unadorned nature of our daily lives. And yet we still try to box and wrap up what happened there and we can't. Marti had it right. It's the excrement on the floor of that stable that represents where the power of God works best. You don't want to wrap that up in finery; you want to present it as it is, and you exactly as you are—unwrapped and smelly yet basking in the presence of the Living God… that he would seek you out and be born in your life? Who would have thought?
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Secret Santa	Monday, December, 21, 2009
by John Fischer 'All of the stories that have come in about giving have all had an element of risk about them. That's because giving is always risky. You're going to part with some of your money, your time, or your sweat and get nothing in return. You might not even be appreciated for it. You may not get any thanks. The recipient might not know whom to thank. You're going to better someone's life and slip away quietly out the back door, like a secret Santa that no one will ever find out about. Are you okay with that? That's probably a good test for whether you are truly giving or not. Can you live with being anonymous? Does it matter to you? Is it your genuine joy to see someone happy or doing better because of your gift? And what if you get taken when you give? Someone could be scamming you. And what if they are? What will you do? Become suspicious of everybody? Trust no one? Crawl inside yourself and never give again? No. You just keep on giving. Isn't that what God does? Jesus said that when we give, we shouldn't let one hand know what the other hand is doing. In other words, give in secret. We're not getting any credit for this, so it shouldn't matter. We're not doing it for credit anyway. When it comes to giving, remember what God does. Everyone I know has failed me Should I let them take that cross and nail me? That's what God does. That's what God does. That's what God does. Why can't we? …from "What God Does" by Skypark
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The Holy Spirit's whisper	Friday, December, 18, 2009
by John Fischer Here is what the Spirit of God says to us: "Tell him I love him." It could be to a friend recovering from bypass surgery in the hospital; it could be to a homeless man, smelly and half nuts; it could to be your husband just going out the door for a few groceries—and never coming back; it could be to the lady who cut in front of you in line; it could be to your best friend the one you won't ever see again who left the party early to walk home by himself… In all of these situations, the Holy Spirit wants to have us stand in for him. He wants us to deliver the message. It's the ultimate gift, and it explains why God sent his son into the world, but it's less complicated than that. It's distilled into three words, one phrase, and it's the point of it all: "Tell her I love her" or "Tell him I love him." It's the Holy Spirit's whisper. He whispers it in our ear while we stand in front of someone it would be impossible for us to love otherwise. And he whispers it in our ear as we casually say good-by to the most familiar face we know. And why do I need to do this? She'll be back in just a few minutes. Will she? "Tell her I love her." Don't miss an opportunity. Because it's ultimately what the Father said to the Son when he watched them nail him to a cross and had to turn his back as he agonized alone, covered in sin that was not his and forsaking his only begotten: "Tell them I love them," God said. And he did.
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In-coming toaster	Thursday, December, 17, 2009
by John Fischer [Okay you guys… time for Marti to break in on our discussion. Though I need to warn you that this is a little like an encounter with the ghost of Christmas present in Scrooged, Bill Murray's clever adaptation of Dickens' Christmas Carol. She will dance around excitedly on her tiptoes, clap her hands with joy, sprinkle pixie dust on you and then bash you in the head with a toaster. You never know when it's coming. “Sometimes you have to slap them just to get their attention!” So here goes, and don't say I didn't warn you…] Not all experiences in giving are victorious. Spit and the smell of urine is very offensive, but wasn't the Lord of Lords born in straw poverty and shit? Good thing He wasn't offended. To recognize there is no difference between you and someone that is homeless is good, but to embrace that equality and rejoice together is to have an encounter with Christ. And then, to unite is good, but to respect differences, better. Looking into the eyes of someone lost is to find a beautiful reflection of you. The reason we are asked to walk together before the Son is so we can share equally in the cleansing and the refreshing cries of thanksgiving. It is ok to be glad when you are warm and someone else is cold, it is just not okay to keep him waiting. See a homeless person as an angel, and know he is watching. Greet everyone as a guest on his way to the banquet. If you are lucky, he might ask you to join him. Now, how about your neighbor? Did you hand-deliver a set of candles to brighten up his home? Did you invite him over for a game of charades and give him a chance to see you as vulnerable as he feels? The heck with walking the old lady across the street, take your own sack of bones and walk across the street to give your neighbor a merry note about how much you appreciate your him. Laugh out loud because there is more to find that is funny about you than there is about anyone else. Don't take yourself so seriously. The Lord, if He chooses, will use you when you are most vulnerable—just so the recipient doesn't get confused about who is the bearer and who is the Christ. [See what I mean? Like Marti says after she hits you with the toaster: "Sometimes the truth is painful, but it makes your cheeks rosy and your eyes bright!”]
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First run	Wednesday, December, 16, 2009
by John Fischer Our first day of sharing various giving experiences at Christmas has been a good one. To access the comments we received, click on the comment link below and scroll down to yesterday's Catch, "Time to give," and click "Read Comments" at the end of that day. Most of you related some kind of giving experience you have participated in over the last few years. Though these are good for giving us all some great ideas, they fell a little short on the personal experience quotient. This time, let us know what was difficult for you personally, how you overcame, and what you learned from the experience. Bridget pretty much nailed it: "Our church youth group recently collected socks and coats and blankets for the Mustard Seed (downtown Victoria, B.C.). I was feeling a bit intimidated about going with the kids to hand out stuff, it was out of my comfort zone. I am used to panhandlers on the street who are aggressive and in your face. But we took about 20 kids down there and helped people find coats that fit etc. We mingled with the street people, sometimes it was hard to know who was a volunteer and who was homeless. It was a great experience. I met all kinds of interesting people, and I saw them as people like you and me who just happened to be going through a bad patch. There was one fellow who has chosen to live on the street and he was so interesting. All of these people had stories to share about their lives. It changed my perspective and made me put a face on the homeless and realize that some of them just want to talk and have someone listen. Our teenagers loved the experience and are looking forward to doing it again in the New Year." Let's keep our stories current to this year and outside our usual comfort zone. Happy stretching!
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Time to give	Tuesday, December, 15, 2009
by John Fischer Bono, of the Irish rock band, U2, starts us off today: "A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord’s blessing. I was saying, 'You know, I have a new song, look after it… I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea…' And this wise man said: 'Stop. Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved in what God is doing—because it’s already blessed.' Well, God is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing. And that is what He’s calling us to do." This Christmas, we want you, our Catch readership, to see how you can turn what has become a "getting" holiday into a "giving" one. This is a challenge to stretch beyond what you might normally do into some new area of giving. What's your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of this cyber church? And we want to hear what you are doing. Report back via our comment link what you are finding out—good, bad and ugly. Help us all grow from your experiences. Let's not just take notes on our Christianity lets move into where it counts for real. Let's have an explosion of love and mercy as we turn our focus out to our neighborhoods and communities.
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The gift of God	Monday, December, 14, 2009
by John Fischer "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23 NIV) The gift of God. Eternal life. Do you all have it? It's all in Jesus, you know. Get Jesus and you have life. Ever think about that? God's plan to save the world is a gift. God set it up that way. He didn't make it a race, or a grade (on the curve, I hope), or a fight, or an accomplishment, or an award. He made it a gift. We don't have anything to do with it any more than a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. Nothing to do but receive it. He probably didn't want us to have anything to do with it lest we mess it up. Most likely we would have. We would have developed pride over it. We would have made ourselves out to be better. We would have tried to be in charge of who got it and who didn't. It would have become an ugly mess in our hands. But he took care of all of that by making it a gift—his gift. Totally out of our hands. "How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift was given." It was like that. It was quiet and lacking in pomp. But that's the way he wanted it. A simple gift given to all is celebrated on Christmas. And those who can, receive it. The losers… the failures… those down on their luck… the hopeless… the undeserving… these are the ones who get the gift. Actually these are the only ones who get the gift. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8,9 NIV)
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'What did you give for Christmas?'	Friday, December, 11, 2009
by John Fischer Christmas is all about giving. There's the gift of the Christ child that started it all, the gifts of the magi, the gifts we give to one another, the gift of family and friends together again, and the gift of lights and decorations for any and all to enjoy. There are gifts we give at this time to the poor and the homeless, and gifts to children who might otherwise have nothing to open on Christmas day. Or as one fundraiser told Ebenezer Scrooge, "At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time." Christmas is a time when even the Grinch who stole it, gives it back. Starting today, and over the next two weeks, we will be focusing on giving. I am looking forward to this because I have much to learn. Giving is not something that comes easily. We are much more prone to getting. Indeed, I could have started out this Catch by stating: "Christmas is all about getting," and not had any argument from anyone. How many times have you heard "What did you give for Christmas?" Probably not many. But that will be the question we will attempt to answer as we make this journey together. It will be a time for all of us to stretch beyond our comfort zones and push out some of the borders that have kept us small and insignificant. And it will be a time when our cyber church can move out into our surrounding neighborhoods and communities and make a difference in the world. So think about it. What will you give this Christmas? "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15) (Or in Chandler's words: "Thank the father who sent the kid.")
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The mystery of God's will	Thursday, December, 10, 2009
by John Fischer Reconciliation is the central theme of God's history in dealing with the human race. The short of it is: God created human beings in His image and birthed them into a harmonious world. For reasons we can only speculate, He allowed evil to enter into this idyllic world and separate human beings from Himself and each other. This has obviously had disastrous results, but, nonetheless, the rest of the story is the process of reconciling what has been separated. In Ephesians 1:9 it says, "And he [God] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times have reached their fulfillment -- to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ." That would mean that whenever we work to overcome some difference or repair a breech in a relationship, we are participating in a mystery. To reconcile a relationship is to act according to the mystery of God's will. That means Christians need to be "uniters," not dividers. For years, Christians have prided themselves in being dividers -- so much so that we have made up reasons to be different from everyone else and called that difference: holiness. Being different is not necessarily holy, especially when the difference consists of erected cultural taboos and behavioral requirements with no real biblical or moral grounding. The walls that exist between Christians and non-Christians are largely of our making. Our bent needs to be on reconciliation—finding what we have in common with others, not creating reasons to separate. If the mystery of God's will is to bring all things in heaven and on earth together in Christ, then we want to be working along with that will, not against it.
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Looking for the Lord	Wednesday, December, 09, 2009
by John Fischer So Monday night found me sitting on the ground leaning against the locked door of the local coffee bar with my laptop at 11:30 p.m. using their free wireless connection that was fortunately still working to post yesterday's Catch because our connection at home had gone down about a half hour earlier. It was freezing cold, at least by southern California standards. It's not the first time I've done this and probably won't be the last. I felt no sense of inappropriateness about tapping into someone else's connection given the amount of time and money I have poured into this place during working hours. Until we got wireless at home, it was my virtual office. Two doors down is a gay bar, and a tonally challenged live version of Elton John's "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" came drifting over to me. As I got in my car to drive away, having successfully completed my mission, I noticed in the rear view mirror, a man alone outside the gay bar in a dress. He was lighting up a cigarette. Just seeing his bare shoulders made me shiver on such a cold night. I felt a palatable loneliness for him. When I got back to my desk at home, a text message from my wife was waiting for me on my cell phone. It read: "Be careful. Anyone out at this time is searching for the Lord, but doesn't know it." I thought of the man in my rear view mirror and knew she was right. Actually, she's right about all of us—even those who aren't out at night—we're all trying to find something lost. With every longing, every shortage, every need… We're looking for the Lord. With every heartbreak, every disappointment, every loss… We're looking for the Lord. With every accomplishment, every triumph, every gain… We're looking for the Lord. With every mystery, every question, every doubt… We're looking for the Lord. With every struggle, every challenge, every win… We're looking for the Lord. See how we're all looking for the Lord? We just don't all know it.
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Wonder	Tuesday, December, 08, 2009
by John Fischer I wonder as I wander out under the sky, How Jesus the Savior did come for to die, For poor orn'ry people like you and like I, I wonder as I wander ... out under the sky. I sometimes think that wonder is like an endangered species – we don't have enough of it and are in danger of losing it altogether. You lose wonder when you try and explain everything. Wonder is wasted in seminars, and "how-to" books, and manuals for living, and steps to a more victorious Christian life. Wonder is what takes over after you have explained all you can explain and answered all you can answer. In my experience, we have tried to answer too much. Wonder is what finite, sinful creatures do when we encounter the holy. Wonder is what Mary did after an angel told her she was going to conceive of God and bear the savior of the world. Wonder is what shepherds did when they found a baby wrapped up and lying in a feed trough after being led to a stable with a choir of angelic beings still ringing in their ears. Wonder is what great and wealthy kings did when they entered the presence of a child whose glory and significance was only matched by the interstellar GPS system that got them there. Christmas is a time of wonder, what with the lights, the music, the magic, the snow (fake or real), and the children... always the children. Christmas is for children because they still know how to wonder. Grown-ups outgrow wonder all too soon. We get good at explanations. We have reasons for things. Children just experience things; Grown-ups take notes. Children ask questions; Grown-ups are supposed to know. Children wonder why; Grown-ups wonder if. When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall, With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all; And high from God's heaven a star's light did fall, And the promise of the ages they then did recall. If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing, A star in the sky or a bird on the wing, Or all of God's angels in heaven to sing, He surely could've had it... 'cause he was the King. But He chose not to, for our sake, and that is probably the biggest wonder of all.
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Believing (or not believing) with your heart	Monday, December, 07, 2009
by John Fischer Like belief, unbelief is usually personal. The following statement appeared November 24, 2009 in the Opinion page of the Los Angeles Times in an article by David Masci titled: "What do scientists think about religion?" "As for Darwin, his letters indicate that he was probably an agnostic who lost his faith not because his groundbreaking theory was incompatible with religion, but because of his grief after the 1851 death of his favorite child, his 10-year-old daughter, Annie." The article went on to show that the concluding sentence of "Origin of Species" speaks of a "Creator" breathing life "into a few forms or into one." Even Darwin had to admit that someone had to have started it all. And yet when it came to that someone having any claim on his life, his heart was too small and too brittle, having blamed God for a deep loss in his life. Faith—both having it and losing it—is intensely personal. One rarely talks oneself either into or out of becoming a Christian based on intellectual argument alone. I am a believer today not because someone answered all my intellectual questions about God, but because God became real to me and softened my heart. He pulled me to himself at a young age through a dramatic presentation of the gospel. My mind had very little to do with it. Similarly, if you know of someone who is struggling over believing in God, you might want to find out where the emotional barrier is in order to help them move loser to believing with their heart. Perhaps you have similar stories. We'd love to hear yours.
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Too profound	Friday, December, 04, 2009
by John Fischer Ah but I was so much older then I'm younger than that now. – Bob Dylan Marti thinks that though she has appreciated the Catches I've been writing this week, I have been trying a bit too hard to be profound. As is usually the case, she is right. I can explain. I've been cheating. That is, I've been plagiarizing myself. I've been using some of my earliest writing and lifting sections from one of my first books, and truth be told: we are so much more profound in our younger days. Life has a way of unraveling certainty and muddling our thoughts with reality. Not that we doubt or disbelieve; it's just that we aren't as smart as we once were. Truth is not neat and tidy anymore; it's messier. Children and old men wonder. Everyone in the middle is just trying to get by. That's what Marti wants. She wants more of what will help us all get on with our lives. So since Marti was the one who started this, I will let her finish it. But mark my words; this is no less profound as anything I wrote this week. She's just taken "profound" to a new level. Once again, if you get it, let us know. Though they will be curious to see what is taking place inside, all the stars are watching over you. Their job is to guard your heart from any anguish and just when your brain is being twisted a tad too far, look out the window and you will see one or two of the smaller stars winking at you. I love the little ones – they still wonder. Smile and take leave of any concern. They may not take an active part in anything; they must just look on forever. It is a kind of punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. – Marti Fischer
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Something beautiful	Thursday, December, 03, 2009
by John Fischer I was once awestruck by a couple I observed at a university event. The girl was very attractive, close to cover-girl standards. Yet the guy looked as if he had just walked off the set for The Nerds. He was shorter than she was, wore thick horn-rimmed glasses and a plaid short-sleeved shirt with a row of pens in its pocket. He was definitely a candidate for getting sand kicked in his face. But the strangest thing of all was that these two were obviously in love. What could she possibly see in him? I asked myself. Suddenly I realized—she was blind. What did she see in him? Everything. Everything that's important about who a person is, what love is, and what a real man is. She saw everything she needed to know about him. But this is not the only blindness going on here. The girl is also blind to something else. She is blind to her own beauty. She doesn't know she has cover-girl looks. She has nothing with which to compare herself. She doesn't know that she conforms to what society is currently calling "beautiful." All she knows is that someone loves her strictly for who she is, and in that love she reveled. In this, she is like all of us, for we do not know our own beauty as God sees us, and perhaps it's just as well, since we wouldn't want to become arrogant or self-serving in our relationships. Our value comes from knowing that we are loved by God, and that alone is all we need to know. Still, it doesn't hurt to know that we are beautiful to someone.
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The gospel is waiting	Wednesday, December, 02, 2009
by John Fischer The gospel is waiting. It is waiting not to be spoken, but to be lived. The gospel is waiting to be believed and to be put to use in your life and mine. It's not just a static message; it's a living testimony. The gospel needs much more than paper to be printed on; it needs a life it can imprint. "Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God" (2 Cor. 4:1-2). The success of the Gospel in our present age does not depend on how attractively it is packaged, but on how honestly real Christians are living out their lives in the world. It's not just the Gospel that does it. It's not just a message. It's the gospel in you and in me. Nothing needs to be done to the gospel except to be lived. Nothing needs to be done to the Gospel. Everything's already been done. But there is much that needs to be done in our lives by the Gospel. And this is the every day walking in faith that even the strongest and longest of Christians must do, too. There is hope to be expressed, sin to be confessed, forgiveness to be embraced, suffering to be endured, glory to be shared, love to be received, and love to be given. It is the presence of all this happening in our lives that we are to commend to someone else. If the Gospel is alive in me and I introduce myself to someone, I am introducing them to the Gospel. If it is not alive in me, no amount of dressing it up is going to convince anyone; but, on the contrary, it will mask the real truth. The issue, therefore, is not how to present the Gospel, but how to make certain it is living in me — a much more difficult proposition. It means deep questioning, soul-searching, and observing myself continually in light of the truth. "Undressing" would be a more appropriate expression of this process than "dressing up." Dressing up, if it protects us from having to be honest, is nothing more than cover-up. That's a message you simply cannot dress up, especially if you tell the whole truth about yourself. No need for deception. We won't draw people into a net and then surprise them with the Gospel. We set forth the Gospel plainly through words of truth and words of honesty from our lives. We trust God, the Great Designer, to handle His own image.
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Only one world	Tuesday, December, 01, 2009
by John Fischer We live in only one world, and it's an ugly one filled with war, disease, terrorism, rape, exploitation, hunger—I could fill the page—but that is the world. I have read my Bible from cover to cover, and I have not found any mention of another one. In fact, the world I find in the Bible seems to be basically the same as the one I live in. But it is also a beautiful world filled with glorious natural beauty, art, music, kindness and good will. These are not two separate worlds. They are aspects of the one world we live in. The glorious news of the Gospel, of course, is that God came into this world in human flesh. He came in the person of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus did not come to create a little world within a world; He came straight from His Father in heaven to pay for what is wrong with this world and rescue what is right. To do that, He lived in this world—you know, the ugly one, the only one we have, the one full of prostitutes, criminals, soldiers, lepers, and crazy maniacs. He lived in a world of people with wild eyes and smelly bandages, people who, if they moved in next door, would definitely bring down the property values. He was referring to this world when he prayed: "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world" (John 17:15-18). Sooner or later the rapist is going to break into our house, the riot is going to spill over onto our street, or the bomb is going to go off under our car. It's inevitable. There's no way to escape the danger of life in this hostile world because, after all, the world is our address. We have to get beyond being shocked and horrified by what we see in the world and get on with walking into it with the love and mercy of Jesus Christ. When we do, we will finally realize that safety has nothing to do with locks, that security has nothing to do with fences, that joy has nothing to do with the absence of pain, and that peace has nothing to do with comfort. We will no longer confuse the securities of a Christian subculture with the presence of Christ. We will know the real Christ sustaining us in the real world, where He once sustained himself by doing the will of His Father. We will also hurt with the world, bleed for it, and cry over it just as Jesus did. And we will be in danger and touch the unclean bandages. But isn't that exciting? Who would want it any other way?
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A View From The Fisch Bowl	Friday, November, 27, 2009
by Marti Fischer [Though I usually edit Marti's writing, I am leaving this so that you can encounter her raw and uncensored. Marti's A.D.D. writing style is usually a stretch for most people, but we both believe there are at least three people out there who will understand and resonate with her writing, and if you are one of those, we'd love to hear from you!] John was born wondering. On any day in John's life you will find him scratching the folds between his temples. He thrives on living at a level of complexity, on one hand and on the other, he can get overwhelmed with detail chatting with the mail carrier. John is the guarded communicator of profound Christian truth. His job is to wonder. His job is very difficult and sometimes challenging, considering the conditions of his own character and those surrounding him. Knowing that God wants everyone to join the odd group of guests attending Jesus' birth day, John is constantly wondering whether if you, his beloved readers, are ever surprised by Christ. • Even when in the wrong places, do you ever end up finding Jesus anyway? • Do lights ever go on for you when simply standing in the marketplace tending to your responsibilities? • Do your searches, as modern sages, ever lead you through the mazes of the ordinary and the supernatural to the real living Christ? I suppose we have always lived in a Fischbowl. To know us is to experience, though not necessarily understand, our high drama. It is all set up like a fishbowl would be. Here is the John Fisch, and here is the Marti Fisch. The Marti Fisch has this entertaining Disney/Eastman-derived sketch; it is dripping with cartoon diamonds. The John Fisch is scrubbing algae off the little statue of a deep-sea diver and grinning at us, winking at the Marti Fisch's personal fanciful display. You have an idea of what aspects are genuine and which are whacked. Yet, the basic Green Acres model applies. It is ZsaZsa and Eddie Albert, trying to find ZsaZsa's tiara in the alfalfa. This sitcom is more than just the public face of John and me; it reflects deeply internalized things in all of us and it is supported and perpetuated by every moment of our lives with amazing consistency. We are hardly the Perfect Couple: following our first idyllic encounter at a Christian retreat, we married, produced two amazingly great children, and later were given a gift within a child whose smile truly lights candles. While John Fisch wrote and spoke, Marti Fisch steadily climbed the professional ladder, becoming a status-mad workaholic. Now, many years on, John is asked to turn what he does into a cyber church while Marti, when not kidnapping puppies for fur, anticipates change as a result of this gathering place. Like the spoiled princess who reluctantly befriends a frog and magically transforms it into a handsome prince, miraculously The Catch, in its pratical terms, is transforming us into the real image of man and woman that is holistic, integrated, and sustainable - a handsome prince and a beautiful princess, both with kind eyes. So, knowing things are afoot, that change is taking place, what is the catalyst and what are we to do, you wonder? Surprisingly, it is time for us to put away our royal robes, dress plainly, and try to be still. It is not like a prison sentence, not like being rendered invalid, and certainly not like beating ones wings against a cage. It is, in God terms, simply a time when we know that God is more irresistible asleep than all that we can work on at top speed regardless of accuracy. It is a time for our nervous minds to be silent so that our spirit can listen to the quiet whisper of God - while, at the same time, moving out - one step at a time. [I do not wish to belabor the same people, but the Catch is our only means of support right now, so if you have been intending to donate someday, please ask if that someday may have arrived.]
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A thankful man	Wednesday, November, 25, 2009
by John Fischer The worst moment for an atheist comes when he is really thankful and has no one to thank. - Unknown So Thanksgiving is upon us and you will have to forgive me because I am about to brag on my family, but they are what I am thankful for right now. Let's start with Chandler who has survived a number of challenges in these last few months. Most of you know about his accident. Confining a highly active 10-year-old to a wheelchair and then crutches for three months when he's experiencing no pain is pain itself. But he continues to keep his head up and make recovery progress. And the best thing is that he now, more than anything, wants to get back on his bike. And then there's my oldest son in his first year with the L.A.P.D. He tells me that a good deal of his time is taken up with resolving domestic disputes. He recently wrote me: "We deal with the most mundane calls, but for the people who call for us, it's a real emergency. It's like a puzzle every time, trying to figure out the best solution. Trying on different hats, from a counselor, to a teacher, to a parent, to a friend. It's interesting and exhausting all at the same time!" An example of this was a story he told me of a parent who could not control her teenage daughter and out of desperation called the police. Christopher's training officer (T.O.) told him this call was all his and he proceeded to sit the girl down and talk to her for over an hour. His T.O. wanted to know where he had learned to talk to kids like that. I'm not surprised; he's always done this in our family. Turns out the parent wrote a letter to the department and both Christopher and his T.O. received commendations. This incident was followed by a suspected armed robbery, and found Christopher moments after his in-house counseling session bursting into a restaurant with his shotgun drawn. For a kid whose mother never let him play with guns, this is enough to stop our hearts or bust our buttons—one of the two. Never to be outdone is Anne in her second year of Physician's Assistant school at the University of Southern California. This next semester she starts her residency in one of the busiest hospitals in Los Angeles County—right in the middle of the heaviest gang activity in the city. No problem for Anne. She thrives on this kind of thing. I couldn't help but imagine my son bringing them in and my daughter sewing them up! Finally I am thankful for Marti, the woman who brought these children into the world and taught them to be who they are. Their character strength and the reality of their faith come from her. I don't deserve any of them just as I don't deserve the life I have in Christ. I am a thankful man. And last, but not least, I am thankful for you, my online family. Many of you have been faithful readers of the Catch for some time. I can't write without readers. Thank you for giving me the privilege of serving you. Happy Thanksgiving! Be thankful for the people in your life! [Thanksgiving gifts are encouraged at this time. See the link above, and thank you in advance for helping keep the Fischtank in operation.]
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All things thankful	Tuesday, November, 24, 2009
by John Fischer Gratitude is the current of the river of grace. The giving of thanks is the only logical response one can have to a forgiveness and a holiness that are totally undeserved. By nature of the fact that grace is a gift, there is nothing one can do but receive it and be thankful for it. Thankfulness is so tied to grace that the absence of gratitude in a Christian's life is an indication that legalism still rules the day. Most of us have a hard time responding to gifts. Gifts run contrary to those who trust only in what has been earned. Gifts imply a need or a weakness, and if the thing one receives is righteousness, it means admitting to the failure of the holy effort to produce it. But what a glorious failure! Who has managed to join the ranks of sinners save by grace without possessing a deep and abiding, ever-flowing gratitude of the heart? We have done nothing to deserve, create or maintain the righteousness we have been given, and therefore we can do nothing but be grateful for it. Even our reward at the end of the journey will come as a thankful surprise, because we will have become so well acquainted with our sins and shortcomings along the way that we will not be expecting it. So we will throw ourselves on the mercy of God when we meet him, just as we always have done, because we have no other option, and yet, in his eyes, we are already clean. We have been clean all along through the blood of his Son. That's why it will take heaven to contain our praise and an eternity to give proper thanks. "You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever" (Psalm 30:11-12, emphasis mine).
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Take it from Blitzen	Monday, November, 23, 2009
by John Fischer Remember "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?" My own version would come under the heading: "A Lot of What I Really Need to Know I've Learned from My Dog." Anyway, I'm sure God gave us animals so we could learn about ourselves by observing them. Blitzen, our Chihuahua, knows our patterns so well that he is aware of when it is the weekend. Something in our schedule triggers him. He likes the weekend because I go get breakfast for the family and take him along for the ride. On Saturday it's muffins from the bi-polar baker, and on Sunday it's bagels from the bagels shop in town. The minute I'm up, he starts following me all over the house lest I up and leave without him. The big deal about this drive is that he gets to stand in my lap, put his front paws on the window's edge and stick his head out the window, and though it's less than 5 minutes to either of these places, that doesn't matter, it's a big deal to him. And the biggest deal is whenever we pass by another four-legged creature. Blitzen goes nuts, barking and hopping and carrying on all over my lap. This immediate rapport with his own kind is something I've noticed with all dogs. Picture two strangers passing each other both walking their dogs and imagine the people don't want to talk. Too bad, because the dogs do. Would that I was half as friendly. I'm taking it from Blitzen today. Everyone I pass is deserving of an enthusiastic greeting. Time to get excited over strangers—hop around a little inside. You never know the value of a smile or a kind word. People have been stopped short of suicide just because someone noticed them.
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Flight 50	Friday, November, 20, 2009
by John Fischer I'm remembering a woman today on a transcontinental flight I once took who refused to pull down the shade on her window to help darken the cabin for the mid-morning transcontinental movie. I never did know anything about her personal issues, but she will always be a hero to me. Hazy light from the lonely oval streams in on her row of airline seats and slightly diffuses the color tones on the movie screen. I'd like to believe that she does this to maintain some contact with reality outside this screaming silver bullet. This airplane scene somehow represents my life, and that woman, fighting for one small window of hazy reality in the middle of an airborne Hollywood fantasy, is my inspiration and my way out. The darkened plane, the filtered air, and the darting, flashing celluloid all are pulling me into someone else's story, someone else's reality. Somewhere below me is the truth. Somewhere down there I can walk and smell the pungent sage as it is crushed under my boots. Somewhere down there I can taste the dirt and feel the wind on my face. Somewhere down there I can feel the sun dry my lips. I know this, yet I feel like most of the people on this flight who have pulled down the window shade and let something else define reality. Oh, there's truth here, but it's someone else's truth first — if it ever is mine — and it's as far above the ground as I am right now. Suddenly I remember that I was on the ground once. I traveled this great country in a sports car with a backpack strapped to the trunk. I took back roads in Georgia and talked to old men at country stores. I drove by belching factories in Detroit and camped under the stars in the pine forests of Tennessee. I hiked the craggy mountains of southern Texas and slept on a cliff over the Rio Grande while a full moon rose on my left and a full sun went down on my right. And the dry wind chapped my lips. But now my lips are smooth. The air is controlled in this plane just as the experiences are. Compromise has been laid upon compromise until my last touch with my heart is this one small window — a porthole of truth — and the defiant woman who guards it. Cheer the woman! Stand in front of the screen! Slide open your shade! Scream! Do something to wake up before we all fall asleep watching the movie on Flight 50!
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Sheer delight	Thursday, November, 19, 2009
by John Fischer I was in the process of beating myself up over something when an email from a friend arrived with the following verse: "The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17). Wait a minute. God is taking great delight in me and I am beating myself up? What's wrong with this picture? Obviously I do not have God's view of myself. I have a warped view and I am going against God's plan when I give into it. If we were all honest, I think we would find that this view is pretty rampant especially among Christians. We continually feel like we are falling way short of what is expected of us spiritually, and to be perfectly honest, most of us probably think God is administering a good share of the beating. That is where we are all wrong about God. Think about it like this: Why would God heap guilt and punishment on someone he went to such great lengths to save? Doesn't make sense, does it? And yet we love to engage in this "woe is me" way of thinking. We love to punish ourselves as if we could pay for our own sins. Well God's got other things in mind for us. He wants to delight in us. This is what life is all about, after all. God created us because it was his pleasure to do so. He made us so he could delight in us and we could delight in him. God gets joy out of every inch of his universe, but nothing like the joy he has over you and me. Why is it so hard for us to believe this? Probably because it's so rare in our human experience to have anyone experience sheer delight over someone else. We are so careful and guarded with our praise lest we unknowingly reward some wrong behavior. But God has already gathered up all our wrong doings and put them away on the cross, leaving him free to delight in us, and so he does. Think about who we could be and what we could do if we really started believing this.
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Two for a penny	Wednesday, November, 18, 2009
by John Fischer "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows" (Matt. 10:29-31). Three things strike me about these simple, beautiful words of Christ. First: His will encompasses everything in my life. If God wills to allow the death plunge of an innocent sparrow and can somehow incorporate that tragic event into His total plan for the world, then He certainly must be doing the same with the apparent tragedies that occur in my life. Limiting God's will to what is good for me (from my finite perspective) is to rob Him of His sovereignty over all things. Second: God is involved with us even in the minutest details of life. The hairs of my head . . . numbered? Really! I can just imagine God saying, "Hold still; I'm counting — 12,534 . . .12,535 . . ." (Except that in my case, it would be—12,534. . . 12,533. . .!) If God knows how many hairs are in my head, is there anything about me that could possibly escape his knowledge? Third: God not only knows us, but He assigns us the highest value in spite of knowing us completely. "You are worth more than many sparrows." My perception of this concept went through a wonderful metamorphosis as I meditated upon it. At first I wasn't very impressed. How many sparrows am I worth! Fifty? A hundred? At least a thousand, I hope! And then it hit me. Sparrows may not be very important to me, but they are very important to Him. He conceived of them in His mind and created them with great care. He fashioned them with perfect aerodynamics and set them soaring in the sky. He taught them how to gather food, to reproduce, and care for their young; and when one flies unwittingly into the invisible trap of my plate-glass window and falls lifelessly to the ground—He knows. Suddenly the worth of sparrows shot up — and so did mine, as well as the value of every person on the face of this earth. You and I are the creatures He prizes above the rest of His creation. We are made in His image and He sacrificed His Son that each one of us might be one with Him. Sparrows are sold at two for a penny; we were bought for a much higher price.
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The tyranny of the not-so-good	Tuesday, November, 17, 2009
by John Fischer When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Ecclesiastes 7:14 I learned something today about bad times. Bad times can be useful. They can motivate us to change. That's why the worst kind of bad times are the not-so-good times. Admittedly, sometimes bad times are beyond our control, but often, we are not entirely innocent. It's important to own up to how we may have contributed to the times being so bad. Bad times come for a reason. They are here to teach us what we don't want. The worst thing you can do with bad times is adjust to them, or learn to tolerate them. Adjusting yourself to not-so-good times is to make peace with mediocrity. The worst enemy of good times is not bad times, but not-so-good times. Not-so-good times have a way of inoculating yourself against the best or the highest. You may have heard that the good is the enemy of the best, well so is the not-so-good. The not-so-good is the enemy of the worst and that is dangerous because we need the worst to wake us up to what needs to change. You can tolerate not-so-good; but the worst forces you to do something about it. The worst can actually be beneficial. The worst can help motivate us to change. An alcoholic who gets by without admitting to being an alcoholic is making compromises with the not-so-good, taking everyone around them along. An alcoholic who seeks help is taking the first step towards real change, because they are admitting that things are not good at all, and if nothing changes soon, disaster will occur. This is bad, but it is ultimately good, because a change is taking place.
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'So? Can you paint?'	Monday, November, 16, 2009
by John Fischer I'm looking back at a quote I used last week about a Christian writer being a Christian who writes about anything, and remembering one of my favorite stories along those lines. It's about a lady I met at a PTA meeting who when she found out I was a Christian had asked if I could explain an incident she had experienced with a Christian that had puzzled her. It seems a young man had stopped by her house soliciting house-painting jobs in the neighborhood. She asked for his card, and noticed the sign of a fish right under his name. When she inquired about that, the painter smiled and announced that he was a Christian painter. The woman said she was a bit puzzled by that, and after thinking about it for a minute or two, she had responded by asking a very obvious question: "So? Can you paint?" Being a Christian painter might mean something to another Christian, but to anyone else, like this lady, for instance, it merely confuses the issue. All she wants to know is how well you can paint. It occurs to me that this is the level at which we meet most people, and something we need to pay a good deal of attention to. Who we are, what we do, and how well do we do it are questions that are at least initially more important than our Christianity. Being a Christian something-or-other only means something if the something-or-other does. We need to pay attention to the whole of our life. This is when doing all to the glory of God makes sense. If you're a really exceptional painter, then the Christian label doesn't even need to be there. It will stand on the merit of who you are.
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Welcome back	Friday, November, 13, 2009
by John Fischer My sheep know my voice… (John 10:27) I've often thought that the early songs of the country rock group Love Song were God-breathed, and thus a perfect representation of how the Spirit of God wishes to woo people to himself. The fact that the members of Love Song wrote these songs literally days after being dramatically saved without any evangelical background or training, and that the songs were instrumental in a huge harvest of souls during the last spiritual revival to hit this country makes me sure they were given by God for this very purpose. If I'm right, then we can learn a lot about the heart of God through these songs. For instance, the lyrics I quoted in yesterday's Catch about reaching out to God with one hand and bringing a friend with the other are right from the 2 Corinthians passage that has us reconciled to God so that he might reconcile others to himself through us. And then there's this: Welcome back to the things that you once believed in Welcome back to what you knew was right from the start Sometimes you don't know what you're missing Till you leave it for a while Welcome back to the love that is in your heart Now this is amazing. As far as I know, this has not been done before or since. These lyrics are addressing something that's already there. Romans Chapter 1 says that everyone has some knowledge of the truth to which they haven't been true and their conscience tells me this. This song reaches into that place and gently uncovers the truth. So what does this have to do with us? It reveals something about the heart of God. It reminds us we don't have to badger, frighten or cajole anyone into believing. Simply speak the truth and call. I know you thought you could turn your back And no one could see in your mind But I see that you know better now You never were the untruthful kind And I'm so happy now to welcome you back
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Bring a friend	Thursday, November, 12, 2009
by John Fischer Accept him with your whole heart And use your own two hands With one reach out to Jesus And with the other… Bring a friend. – Love Song Well I hope you've all enjoyed coming along with me to Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. I've enjoyed having you. If you know anyone who is looking for a good Christian college, I personally recommend this one, and that's totally free and unsolicited. By the time most of you read this, I will be on a plane home, though tonight, I'm finishing this up in the student union building with a medium latte and an obscenely large chocolate chip cookie. Earlier tonight, in my last talk, I challenged the students who were there to consider being a new kind of Christian—one who is not afraid; one who is in the world but not of it, and not concerned over his or her own safety (because Jesus is praying for our protection [John 17:15]); one who is known for being loving, accepting, and non-judgmental; and one who is eager to engage the world and embrace those who are different. And then I suggested that we should side with sinners. How else can we be reconcilers if we don't get in among those God is reconciling? It's the job he has given us to do. "All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:18). Put simply: God brought us to himself so that we might bring others to him in the same way he brought us. You can't do this business from a distance. You have to be in the company of those God wants to reconcile, because he is making his appeal through you. Besides, who's the biggest sinner of them all? Who needs his grace and mercy more than anyone? Who is the charter member of sinners anonymous? Hey come on you guys… this is our group!
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Accent mark	Wednesday, November, 11, 2009
by John Fischer Today I met Ariél. She is a 19-year-old sophomore at Grove City College and it is very important to her that you know she has an accent mark over the "e" in her name. When she told me her name, and I asked her how it was spelled, she was careful to mention the accent. I asked her why that was important, and she said it was what made her different... distinctive… what made her stand out. I asked her if the accent changed the pronunciation of her name at all, and she said that wasn't important. It wasn't as important how people said her name, as it was simply knowing it was there… the accent mark, that is. I wish you could meet Ariél. She has bright brown eyes, and I've never thought of dark eyes being bright but God somehow figured out how to make hers that way. As we talked, there was something about that accent mark that kept bringing me back. I began to think that maybe she was onto something—maybe everybody had an accent mark of some kind, if not in their name, in something else about them. Everyone has that one thing that sets them off from the rest—that thing that makes them one of a kind. Actually, isn't it true that each one of us is one of a kind? I must admit, of all the Ariels I know, this is the first one I have ever met with an accent mark in her name. Actually, I don't remember ever meeting an Ariel before this, but if I did, I bet they wouldn't have an accent mark in their name. I'm almost sure of it. In fact, I bet I've just met the only Ariél in the whole world.
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Getting online

Tuesday, November, 10, 2009

by John Fischer I am sitting in a cubicle in the attic of the Henry Buhl Library at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Here, tucked away in a stuffy corner, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of books, I am finding the memories of my own college study experiences flooding back to me. I used to study this way if I really had to book it, because there were few distractions. Even the heat in this upper room is a part of the memory. Attic rooms of all college libraries must be required to have poor ventilation so everyone can have this experience. I will not last long here—long enough to feel the pain, though. As long as I stay here, I am sure I have a test tomorrow or a paper due. I came here because I could not get online in my guest room and someone said there was a TLC center in the library. So when I found the TLC room and went up to two students sitting behind a desk and announced I needed some serious TLC, they laughed. "That's the first time I've heard anyone say that here." Apparently at Grove City College, TLC does not mean Tender Loving Care. But it might as well have been because that's what I got anyway as Brian and Randy reconfigured my computer to work with the college system. And then they gave me the bad news. "Of course you'll have to change everything back when you leave." Suddenly I feel trapped inside the Gr