Up the Sunbeam

-- Sometimes a tennis match can be a great sermon. On Sunday, June 5, 2011, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer met for their fourth French Open Final. Much has been written and spoken of the epic rivalry between these two great and refreshingly humble champions; today's match only added to their lore. Each of them had moments where it looked like they would let it all slip away, only to rally and turn the momentum around. Each one had to exercise a little selective amnesia after an unforced error or a critical set lost. Each one played every point as if the whole match hung upon that one point (many times it almost did), and each one had to dig deep to believe he could come back even when behind and staring into the steely eyes of a powerful opponent. It was everything a championship match should be, one you wish no one had to lose.  One of the commentators highlighted the fact that these two great athletes consistently bring out the best in each other.   We live our li...

-- Everyone longs to  belong. There is a deep-rooted need, common to all, to have a place among our people, to be part of a family, a group of friends, to be integral to an organization or community, to belong . And we want to belong truly, not just have our name on an impersonal list of members. We long for a sense of wanted-ness, even needed-ness among the people who matter most to us. There is a good reason for our desire to belong. God wove that very longing deep into the fibers of our hearts when He made us in His image. We long to belong because God longs to belong ! I have thought a lot about what it means for me and all of God's people to belong to God , but have never really given much thought to how much God has told us about His desire to belong to us ! Are you, like I was, a little surprised at that thought? In God's Word, there are almost a thousand instances of the name "God" being preceded by a possessive adjective (my, your, his, her, our, ...

-- The woman in the pew in front of me had a distracting habit of rocking back and forth as though she were soothing a baby to sleep. I had to work to turn my attention from my annoyance at her rocking and focus my attention above and beyond her to the guest speaker. He had an engaging style, and had thoughtfully provided fill-in-the-blank notes for his sermon, which was a welcome way to pay attention to him and not the rocking woman I couldn't NOT see. His topic this morning was utterly familiar, much-studied, well-known . . . and woefully under-practiced, both inside and outside of the church. He spoke about LOVE. The visiting seminary professor brought a message that was both convicting AND uplifting (evidence of his giftedness), and he highlighted many points of truth about love and our responsibility that are absolutely crucial to our lives in Christ. While I will continue to chew on the meaty goodness of this message, there was one idea he shared that really sparked my...

-- Perfect? Nope . . . no perfection in sight, despite my many years of pursuing it. Now what? Should I keep going? Give up? Should I stop pushing buttons and fine-tuning the dials and reconfiguring my settings to get closer to the "perfect mix" that eludes me? I hear that being a perfectionist can be unhealthy. On the other hand, I hear that many of the world's most effective and successful people are, at least to some degree, perfectionists. What to do? What to DO ? Is there anything wrong with the pursuit of perfection? It couldn't be right to be in pursuit of IMperfection, now could it?  After all, it was in His sermon on the mount that Jesus went so far as to say, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."  Matthew 5:48 NIV Whoa!! So not just perfect, but PERFECT . . . like God-caliber PERFECTION!!  And here I thought I was discouraged by trying to be small-p perfect. How in the world?!! What did Jesus mean by that? That w...

-- The energy in the room changed dramatically. The entire audience seemed to feel it and sit up a little straighter in their seats with anticipation. Intermission was over and the band my son assembled to perform some of his original songs in a concert at his college was about to play--the debut performance of Jordan Friday and the Beautiful Romance! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Being on a college campus, the concert up to this point had been an eclectic mix of musical styles, varied cultures and lyrical content. There had been . . . . . . profanity-laced rap and hip hop . . . . . . some nice acoustic guitar work punctuated with angst and anger, lyrics about men reverting back to apes and violent rituals and despair . . . . . . and finally, my first introduction to a live performance by a screamo death metal band--lots of rage, frenzy, desperation, writhing on the floor and sounds I didn't know human voices could make "singing" words I think I'm glad were unint...