The Good Portion

As a gardener I know firsthand how important soil is. Everything else can be just right, but if the soil is wrong my plants won’t survive, or if they do, they will never thrive. This is the fact of nature that Jesus appeals to in his Parable of the Sower: "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold." Luke 8.5-8a It’s easy to confuse who we are in this parable. I’m always tempted to think of myself as the seed that grows or doesn’t grow. But in this parable the people are not the seed. Rather, "The seed is the word of God” (Lk. 8.11b). It is the word of God that the sower plants, and it is the word of God that is meant to grow and prosper. We are ...

In spite of her lengthy decline, I was nowhere near as prepared for my mother’s death as I thought. Only afterward did I learn that grief was not the straightforward thing I'd expected. And even though I had every reason to believe that my mother was with the Lord, I found myself grappling with the cold reality of death, not just for my mother but for everyone. When she died it was like a veil was lifted. I saw clearly for the first time the horror of what I’d only given lip-service to before: everywhere and every day some deeply beloved person is dying. Every day, everywhere someone is aching and weeping for their loss. And if the Bible is true, then not all of those people will spend their eternity with Christ in heaven. As my mother’s death brought home this tragedy, my heart began to break. "Some of us have absorbed a form of theology with all the answers. We can offer standard answers to every problem that comes along, especially if the problem is afflicting some other pe...

I’m individualistic by nature. (Aren’t we all?) Even now, after years of being a Christian, the word “submission” can make me squirm just a little. I don’t especially enjoy being under authority. I still want to do what I want to do.  In part, I’m a product of my culture. Let’s face it, submission is not what made America a nation. Though we have “authorities,” we don’t feel particularly beholden to obey them. After all, we elected them, right? They answer to us, which we take to mean that we are the authorities. Don’t tread on us. This mindset permeates every corner of our lives, even as Christians. We like to think we choose God, when in fact it is He who chooses us (Jn 15:16, Eph. 1:4). We are very good at deluding ourselves into thinking we are submitting to Christ by re-imagining Him as someone who supports our interests, a God who backs our agenda. Or maybe that’s just me. But perhaps it’s not a distinctly American trait, and perhaps it’s not just me. Peter had big plans for...

 “He that knows better how to tame a shrew,  Now let him speak: ‘tis charity to shew.” Shakespeare never set out to preach the gospel, but in The Taming of the Shrew, he did exactly that—to me anyway. I’m told the message of this play is well-hated these days. I can see why, with it’s old-fashioned views of women. But I’m not talking about women’s issues, per se, I’m talking about the Church—the Bride of Christ—the Shrew. Any person well acquainted with church history, and any Christian well acquainted with his or her own heart knows, Christ took a shrew for his bride. And like Petruchio in the play, he was under no illusions. He knew what he was getting into, but he would not be deterred. He undertook His task with wholehearted zeal and with perfect confidence in a successful outcome. “Why came I hither but to that intent?  Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?  Have I not in my time heard lions roar?  Have in not heard the sea, puft up with winds,  ...

One Saturday morning. I relaxed on my pillow and sank into my prayers with a leisurely attitude. "I should ask the Lord what to do with this rare, unstructured day," I thought. And so I began, "Lord, how would you have me use this day?" But the first word of my prayer echoed in my head "Lord . . .”   “Lord," what an odd word. Here in “the land of the free" we don’t have lords. We have employers (hopefully), but no masters. We have rights on which no one has the right to tread. Our lives are rich with options, opportunities, and the freedom to pursue them. Besides taxes, we have few mandates (and we resent even those). Do we, who doff our hats to no man, even know what it means when we address Christ as "Lord"?   I am an American and I love this country. But seventeen years ago I was re-born a Christian, a citizen of a foreign country. That kingdom is not a democracy; it’s a monarchy. Christ is its king and his word is a constant reminder tha...

I think movies, in many ways, have done us a disservice. Seeing life on the big screen, larger than life, we lose sight of both the majesty and the miniscule-ness of life as it really is. We (or is it just me?) see Jesus as a giant figure, a massive close-up, a star on a screen, forgetting that He was a man. He was as invisible as we are from the distance of a mile. He was the same size as we are, more or less, from the distance of a hug. He was a man who could easily fit through the nearest doorway. On the other side of the world thousands of years ago, invisible to us both in space and time, tiny and barely noticeable, almighty God, vaster than all the universes, took on flesh. There and then He lived. There and then He loved, and taught, and served. And there and then He died, a being so small history should have forgotten Him. So why have we not forgotten? And why would the Infinite God create a finite planet, a pale blue dot (to quote Carl Sagan), for tiny men to live as tiny imag...