“Ask me anything you want about my personal, private life. You can dig as deeply as you want to dig. You can probe as thoroughly as you want to probe. No question is out of bounds. So fire away.”

With those words reverberating throughout the chapel, my role for the week or weekend as a camp or conference speaker begins.

And my, oh my, do these students ask! Anything, and everything. And all the while, under their intense gaze, I try my best to answer their every question — the good, the bad, and the ugly, of which there has been much in all three categories in my 61 years — as honestly, yet discreetly and appropriately, as I possibly can. 

Why take that risk? you might wonder. Well, there is a method to my madness. My calculation is simply this: Vulnerability begets vulnerability. If I am honest with them, they will be honest with me, with their counselors, and most importantly, with God.

And they are.

My follow-up invitation to them is this: “I’ve just handed you a 3×5 card. I want you to imagine that you could ask God anything. Anything. Anything about your life, about your world, about your relationship with Him. Anything. If you could ask God anything, and know that you would get an honest answer, what would you ask?”

Of course, through the rest of the camp, I always strive to work as many answers into my talks as I can. Often, I even end up writing a new talk just to deal with a certain question if I sense that there are many in the audience wrestling with the same issue. I’ve done this for years, and it always give me a sense of the pulse of the camp, a tremendous advantage for any camp speaker.

And my, oh my, do these students ask. Anything, and everything.

Serious questions. Heartfelt questions. Difficult questions. Nearly-impossible-to-answer questions. Rarely, if ever, do I get a nonsense question. Life is just too real, too challenging, too painful for these students to waste this opportunity on the trivial.

Here is a random sample of the questions that the students asked  of God at my last camp just a few short weeks ago. A Junior High/Middle School Camp, which included some students as young as 10 and as old as 14. If they could ask God anything, they would ask Him this…

Why don’t you listen when I need your help?

Why is the world broken?

Why did you let my father molest/rape me?  (He went to prison for  this, was tried and convicted.)  I just want to know why?  I am in pain.

Why can’t I have more friends?

Who gave birth to me?  What happened to them?

If you could have prevented sin, why didn’t you?

Why is my mom a crackhead and why does she choose drugs over me?

How did Jesus feel when He was all alone, when His friends left Him?  What should I do when this happens to me?

Why is there death?

Why is life so hard?

Just a few of the over four hundred questions that I collected and compiled that week, and those are just from Page 1; I haven’t even gotten to the 2nd page yet!

It’s enough to make you cry, isn’t it?

As I wrote a moment ago, I did indeed try to answer as many of these questions as I could throughout my 9 talks that week. But even so, I only scratched the surface. And of course, my several pages of questions do not include the dozens of questions I was asked personally as I met with and talked to many of the students during their free time.

All of this to say that I have ample material to include in this blog. In the coming weeks, I will endeavor to address several of these questions here in this forum.

My hope is that these questions, and the Bible’s answers, will strike a chord (pleasant-sounding, of course) with many of my readers.

But for now, I just wanted to give you a taste of what these students are dealing with.

The next time you see a junior high or high school student flying by on a skateboard, tagging a wall with some spray paint, or acting disrespectful, pause and pray for him or her. They’re not just kids. They are people. Many of them people in pain. Many of them wrestling with some punch-to-the-gut kinds of confusing questions that in a better world they would never need to ask.

Pray for their parents (step-parents or guardians). Pray for their siblings. Pray for their teachers, counselors, youth pastors (if they have one). And pray that through the dense fog of their pain, they will begin to see the bright light of God’s hope and healing, grace and mercy, care and compassion that He longs for them to feel.

Guess you’re never too young to teach an old dog a new trick.

In this case, “young” refers to my fifteen-month-old granddaughter, Nora; “old dog” refers to yours truly.

This afternoon, Nora taught me something.

She and I shared an exhilarating experience together. We were at a local park, one that boasts a series of water jets shooting sky-high arrows of H2O over the heads of all the children, the liquid laughter splashing on the ground to the delightful laughs and squeals of every youngster in the place.

To put it simply, Nora LOVED IT.

Nora just couldn’t seem to get over the magic of a concentrated stream of water spontaneously shooting up from the ground. She delighted in the refreshing sensations — on this 90 degree day — of having her entire body drenched in the wild wetness and coolness of the spray. She looked on in amazement as individual jets suddenly and without warning turned off, only to spring back to life as if they each were a living thing. She ran through the water with reckless abandon, totally immersed (no pun intended) in the moment. 

In a word, Nora was lost in the WONDER of it all.

And I’ll admit, a part of me looked on with envy.

Nora wasn’t for a split-second encumbered with the worries of the day which tend to weigh me down. She couldn’t have cared less about a teetering economy or the latest terrorist threats. She took no time out of her fun-filled afternoon to concern herself about her health and how the unknowns of “Obamacare” might affect her physical and monetary wellbeing in the future. She wasn’t worried in the least about the unemployment rate, or her prospects of landing her dream job, or meeting and marrying her best friend and soulmate. She didn’t even consider the possibility that the Dodgers might soon blow a 5 1/2 game lead and fall out of first place in the National League West because Hanley Ramirez jammed his shoulder after tumbling over a concrete wall while catching a foul ball in the cozy confines of Wrigley Field.

Nora just lived in the moment, singularly focused on the wonders of the world around her. Wonders worthy to behold. And in that moment, she knew no fear. She didn’t have to. I, along with her parents and my dear wife, were there watching over her. In that moment, she felt free to embrace the joys of the wonderment she was experiencing.

Something that thrilled my heart no end, because to some degree I was able to provide that for her.

Frankly, I rue the day when she will wake up a full-grown adult focused on the problems — the stresses and the strains — that life has become for most of us.

On that future day, I will be sad. Sad that she has lost something. Something precious. Something priceless.

She will have lost the wonder of it all.

I will be sad because it is a big wide world out there, filled with wonders that, even as an adult, she will have yet to experience. Sad because there is no reason that she, nor I, nor you, nor any of us must lose the wonder of it all.

Losing the wonder of it all was my own choice. A choice I didn’t have to make. A choice I never purposed to make. But a choice I made, nonetheless.

But, thankfully, a choice I can reverse. And so can you.

So with all of this talk about how exhilarated I was this afternoon to witness the exhilaration of my precious little Nora… and my lament at her someday losing the wonder of it all… and the sadness that I will feel if/when that day comes…

Do you suppose that every time I fail to see the wonder in the white puffy clouds floating across a powder-blue sky, the whistle of the wind as the leaves of our many trees kiss each other, the purr of a cat, the twitch of my little puppy as he dreams of his own wonders while sleeping securely in my lap, the rapturous refrains of a melodious masterpiece, the wonder that I am alive to see and hear and experience this wonder we call “life”… 

Do you suppose that God is sad? Sad that to some degree, I have lost the wonder of it all?

They were ready to kill Him on the spot.

They had the motive — Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. They had the means — an inexhaustible supply of rocks. They had the opportunity — Jesus stood before them, a sitting duck for their accurately aimed stones.

In this PODCAST, you will hear Jesus on trial for His life. And in defending His life, He will call a full complement of five witnesses to testify on His behalf. A quintet of compelling witness who will leave no doubt that Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be — God Incarnate, God in the flesh.

Your faith will be bolstered, your spiritual life strengthened enormously as you listen to Jesus on Trial.

Please note that depending upon your web browser, it could take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to play.

HAPPY LISTENING!

Asaph had it all.

But he didn’t even begin to realize that.

Asaph is anything but a household name. Yet he boasted quite an impressive résumé: as David’s handpicked choir director – first in the Tabernacle and eventually in the Temple; as a prolific songwriter (twelve of his psalms are included in the Old Testament Psalter); as a prophet; and as a good role model (evidenced by the fact Asaph’s sons followed in their father’s footsteps and became Temple choir singers).

Yet, with all of that, Asaph nearly threw it all away.

Somewhere along his spiritual journey, Asaph fell prey to a sickness of the soul that infects many people of faith. At some point in his ministry, for reasons clearly spelled out in Psalm 73, Asaph became jealous of wicked people – a hideously dark disease that, if the truth be told, has at times affected me as well. 

Has it ever affected you? Let’s find out. Check out Asaph’s astonishing admission to see if you can relate.

Asaph honestly acknowledged that “I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping, and I was almost gone.” To which I say, Thank God for genuinely authentic people. People whose approach to life is, “What you see is what you get.” People who are poor performers. They cannot act. They will not pretend to be anything other than what they truly are. The kinds of spiritual leaders those in the “Millennial Generation” (see my previous post) crave.

Give Asaph credit; he knew that he was in spiritual peril, about to flush his faith. But why? What threw him into such a traumatic tailspin? Keep reading.

“For I envied the proud when I saw them prosper despite their wickedness.”

There it is. The heart of the matter. Asaph compared his life of strict spiritual discipline and denial to the wanton wickedness that the undisciplined pleasure-seekers surrounding him enjoyed. And to Asaph (not to sound clichéd about it), life seemed utterly unfair.

Was he right? You be the judge: “(The wicked) seem to live such painless lives; their bodies are so healthy and strong. They don’t have troubles like other people; they’re not plagued with problems like everyone else. They wear pride like a jeweled necklace and clothe themselves with cruelty.

“These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for! They scoff and speak only evil; in their pride they seek to crush others. They boast against the very heavens, and their words strut throughout the earth… Look at these wicked people – enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.”

Except that he was wrong; dead wrong. Perceptions may be reality, but not in this case. Asaph’s view of  “the wicked” was skewed from the start, something he thankfully came to realize before it was too late.

Sure, Asaph’s life wasn’t the bed of roses he might have hoped for or expected when he chose to follow God. He lamented (a polite word for whined), “Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason? I get nothing but trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain.” Sound like anyone you know?

Fact is, life can be tough, very tough. Tough for the righteous. And tough for the wicked, no matter how hardy they might party in order to try to dull their pain with their pleasure. But in the end, it’s all just a mirage.

As Asaph clearly came to see.

Upon reflection, Asaph arrived at four profoundly insightful conclusions:

(1) Had Asaph given in to his envy of the wicked, and flushed his faith in the process, he would have let a lot of people down. People were watching him, just like people are watching us. Fact is, we don’t go down alone; we invariably take a lot of people down with us – people who trust us, look up to us, respect us. That was a price Asaph was not willing to pay.

(2) Payday will come some day. Sure, the “wicked” may be having the time of their lives now… for a little while. But the “passing pleasures of sin” do pass. And that’s the point. And when they do, the wicked are left holding a handful of nothing, except for a bunch of fading memories, and the crushing consequences of their foolish choices.

(3) The wicked reduce themselves to living like beasts, governed only by their carnal cravings and animal appetites. Gone is their dignity, sacrificed on the altars of their depravity. Lost is their self-respect, forfeited by their disrespect of the God who made them.

(4) (And most significantly…) If Asaph turned his back on God, he would be letting Him down — the One, the only One, who never would and never could let him down. Nothing was worth that, for Asaph or for us.

As Asaph so correctly concluded, “It is good for me to draw near to God.” Yes it is, Asaph. And you know what? It is good for us to do the same.

I am so sad.

I’ve got to wait over 11 more months until my favorite holiday of the year — the 4th of July — rolls around again. Not because I am especially patriotic, mind you. But because Independence Day is the one day out of the year when I can legally blow things up.

It’s true. I LOVE fireworks. I’m addicted to the pops, bangs, and whistles of the holiday. I stare amazed at the sheer energy released every time a match is applied to a fuse and it burns itself down to the inevitable, earth-shattering, ear-ringing “BOOM!” The dynamic power unleashed in that controlled explosion called a firework is to me irresistible.

But here’s a thought, a thought that makes me smile: We don’t have to wait for the next 4th of July. The next time we want to see dynamic power unleashed in a controlled explosion, all we need to do is to look into a mirror.

Don’t believe me? Then believe Jesus who said,

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8).

Power. Dunamis. The Greek word from which we get our English word, Dynamite. 

As a Holy Spirit-indwelt Christian, you have the dynamite-like power of the 3rd person of the Trinity dwelling right inside of you, making you a veritable powerhouse of potential. 

You — Yes, YOU!!! — have a dynamic personality.

“How dynamic?” you ask. Just look at Peter.

At the very moment when Jesus needed him the most – just after His arrest and just prior to His crucifixion – we find Peter doing and saying the unthinkable. We join the narrative in Matthew 26 where we read,

“Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard (with Jesus’ executioners, no less), and a servant girl came to him. ‘You also were with Jesus of Galilee,’ she said. But he denied it before them all. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. Then he went out to the gateway, where another girl saw him and said to the people there, ‘This fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth.’ He denied it again, with an oath: ‘I don’t know the man!’ After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, ‘Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away.’ Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man!’ Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: ‘Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.”

Peter was the guy, remember, who swore in front of the other disciples that he would gladly die for Jesus. Yet, when the moment of truth arrived, Peter folded like a house of cards. Not very heroic by anyone’s measure. Hardly a controlled explosion of dynamic power.

That was then. Some seven weeks later, on the day of Pentecost, before an assembled crowd of thousands, guess who stood before the masses, and heroically and explosively and dynamically declared,

“Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst… you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” 

That’s right. Peter.

Whoa. What in the world happened to Peter? Something utterly not of this world. Peter was indwelt by the Holy Spirit. (You can read all about it in the opening verses of Acts 2.) 

The Holy Spirit transformed Peter from a weepy, self-confessed coward into an oratorical dynamo whose fearless preaching (at the risk of his life, I might add) resulted in the birth of the Church as three thousand people answered his call to place their faith in Jesus.

Similar stories abound. Examples…

Stephen was empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

The Apostle Paul was empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Barnabas was empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Paul prayed that the Christ-followers in Rome would be empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

The Christ-followers in Corinth were empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

The Christ-followers in Ephesus were empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

The Christ-followers in Thessalonica were empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Pastors Timothy and Titus were empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Oh, and by the way, YOU are empowered by the Holy Spirit. Yes, little ole you! 

The 3rd person of the Triune Godhead resides within you. You have the power of Almighty God right at your fingertips: The power to say “No” to temptation. The power to live a victorious Christian life. The power to overcome the trials that beset you. The power to be a blessing in the lives of the people around you. Power, power, power. You possess power – the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit.

Let there be no doubt. When you received Jesus into your life, you got a Heavenly bonus. The Holy Spirit took up His residence right inside of you, along with His promise that He will never ever leave you. He lives in you forever, along with His power, giving you one dynamic personality.

Believe it or not, the origin of the word “Viva” is Italian!!!

Look it up in a dictionary and this is what you will read: “‘Long live!’ (Used to express acclaim or support for a specified person or thing.)”

Well, that being the case, I am using it as an expression of acclaim, and support, and a heartfelt wish for a long life to every single Junior High student with whom I spent a fabulous week at one of my favorite places on this planet: Hartland Christian Camp. They blessed me, and would have blessed you, beyond words.

Just imagine the scene: Scores of students lined up early outside of the outdoor chapel, ready to rush in to get the closest seats. Just imagine hundreds of students taking notes, laughing and crying, and interacting with and responding to the Worship (shout out to the Bryan Easter Band) and the Word of God. Just imagine during decision night, dozens of students taking a public stand to tell the world that on Tuesday night they had “decided to follow Jesus.”

I’m telling you, my faith in the next generation, my faith in the future of our country and our world has been restored by the precious gathering of some very special students on top of a modest hill ensconced in the beautiful mountains above Fresno, CA.

So many students were so kind as to thank me for the blessings that they received from me as their speaker. But I’ve got to tell you… They blessed me far more than I could have ever blessed them.

My heart is full, my soul is refreshed, my hope is renewed… all because of some 400 or so students who made my week, my month, my year, and who touched and captured my heart, at a little place called Hartland.

“Thank you” to the dear students, whom I am now thrilled to call my friends, for putting up with me for a week, for lending me your ears, and for giving me your hearts. YOU touched my life in ways that I will NEVER forget.

Viva Junior Highers!!!

Can I say something here? I LOVE camp. 

Not camping so much. I’m talking summer camp. More specifically, speaking to and loving on some pretty special students at camp.

Yep. I’m definitely a fan!

That’s where I am and what I am doing as you read this. A place near and dear to my heart. Hartland Christian Camp in CA. You can check it out by clicking HERE.

I’m not quite sure what it is about camp that I love so much. Maybe it’s that everyone is (in theory, anyway) unplugged at camp. No Wi-Fi — which means no Facebook, no Twitter, no Spotify, no Tumblr, no Internet! — no TV, no cell service, no technology of any kind. It’s amazing how much easier it is to hear God’s “still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) when every other voice clamoring for our attention is turned off and tuned out.

Perhaps it’s the setting. A place of spectacular beauty that leaves no credible doubt that there is a God. I mean, if we do not doubt the existence of Rembrandt as we behold his handiwork, how can any thinking person doubt the existence of God when we behold His handiwork? The blue skies, white puffy clouds, green trees, lush grass, the sounds of the wind rustling the leaves, the starry night glistening like peep holes into Heaven — what a portrait God has painted for us. At camp, we see different things than we see at home. And what we see, we see differently.

Quite possibly it’s because for one blessed week, we are bathed in prayer by the many faithful friends and parents back home who get on their knees on behalf of the camp as a whole, the students individually, the staff, the members of the band, and the speaker. God’s hand is on the place. His blessing permeates, penetrates, and fills the camp like the air. You can feel it — no easy task for a guy like me who is anything but touchy/feely. Yet, feel it, I do. Or more accurately, feel Him, I do.

Of course, it just might be because for six sacred days we become a family and — for all of us this week — Hartland becomes our home. A home where God’s Word is taught, God’s love is shown by every staff member to every student, God’s glory is on display, God’s the Father is pleased, God the Son smiles, God’s Spirit is at work, memories are made, friendships are formed, and lives are genuinely changed. Forever.

Put it all together and guess what? I LOVE camp.

Yep. I’m definitely a fan!

Please, please, please become a part of our prayer team by praying for every single Junior High/Middle School student up at Hartland this week, for the staff, for the band, and yes, for the speaker — that God will be honored, His Word will be held up high, His name will be praised, and every one of us will leave the holy hilltop of Hartland changed. Forever.

Though I have never met him (living, as he did, in medieval times), I can tell you that Rabbi Yehuda HaChasid understood the deepest, and for many of us, the darkest aspect of the human condition.

We’ve all lost someone or something near and dear to us. And given enough time and circumstance, we will lose something or someone yet again.

And when we do, the inevitable result is a heart shattered by our loss.

Some times, probably more times than we’d like to admit, we feel as though our hearts are crushed beyond repair.

Do you know that feeling? Emotions so deep that we cannot turn them into words, only tears?

Loss comes in many different sizes and shapes. The loss of a dream. The loss of a prized possession. The loss of a career. The loss of a beloved pet. The loss of a person oh so precious to us that we cannot bear the thought of living without him or her. The loss of a relationship, especially one where the breakup was not what we wanted. The loss of one’s health. The loss of our idealism. The loss of our innocence. The loss of our faith. The loss of all hope.

Nothing in this world will splinter our hearts more completely than a profoundly personal loss.

And of such a loss, no one is immune.

Last Saturday night at The Safe Haven — which, as the name implies, is a secure refuge for anyone and everyone nursing a broken heart — in a matter of a mere 15 minutes, four dear people shared with me their most recent losses.

And the thing of it is, the way I am wired, I want so desperately to wave a magic wand and fix everything. But I have no wand. I can fix nothing.

What have you lost recently?

How is your heart holding up?

Don’t feel ashamed to admit that you’re not doing especially well with your loss. Trust me, it’s OK to sit amidst the rubble of your once whole heart.

There is a precious promise contained in one short verse buried in the middle of the Old Testament, what Rabbi HaChasid would have called the Hebrew Bible. I don’t know if Psalm 51:17 inspired him to compose such a beautiful sentiment when he wrote, “I will build an altar from the fragments of my broken heart.” But it surely wouldn’t surprise me if it did.

Consider this verse — an invitation and a promise — with me. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart — these, O God, You will not despise.”

Sacrifices speak of those precious possessions that the people of God voluntarily lay upon an altar as an act of worship — our feeble way of expressing to God our recognition of His infinite worth or value by giving Him something of value to us.

An altar marks the place where we make such a sacrifice, a place where our worship takes place, a place where we meet with God. An altar is where the human touches the divine. Where God Himself touches the earth. Where He meets with us — unseen, unfelt perhaps; but there nevertheless. Assuring us that even in our darkest hours, we are not alone; we are never alone.

When God inspired David to write Psalm 51:17, it was His invitation to gather up all of the splintered pieces of our broken hearts, to then pile them up into a modest, nondescript little altar. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It need not look like much. But its significance cannot be measured. Those are the stones of our hearts — broken, splintered, fragmented, but now fashioned and formed and made into a meeting place with God. 

To meet with us so that we need never to bear the loss alone.

It was most appropriate that God chose David to pen those words. Just think about some of what he lost: a baby to an untimely death, a beloved son to the bitter hatred he felt for his dad, his reputation, his standing with the people, his home in the Holy City of Jerusalem from which he had to flee in fear of his life… 

What have you lost recently?

How is your heart holding up?

Rabbi HaChasid said it so beautifully: “I will build an altar from the fragments of my broken heart.”

In response to his words I would humbly suggest, “Poor is the person who has never suffered a loss.”

Poor because Psalm 51:17 makes crystal clear that there is a richness — a closeness, an intimacy, a depth — to our relationship with God that we cannot know in any other way but through profound and personal loss.

What have you lost recently?

How is your heart holding up?

Perhaps it’s time to build an altar.