A candle flame

If you stare at a candle flame long enough you’ll notice right near the wick at the hottest point, the nucleus of the candle flame, it’s dark. The heat from the flame melts the wax and it is then drawn into the wick providing fuel for the flame which BURSTS to life. When I look at it, it makes me think of God’s refining fire. The fire is hot, sometimes so hot it even feels unfair, but the truth is....it’s the most pure form of love. A love that says “I want you to be shaped, molded, stretched and transformed, I will fight for your heart.” There aren’t many explanations this side of heaven as to why painful things happen in life, but we can be assured of one thing, if we turn our face to Jesus....he will comfort, he will hold us and he will not let go. Ever.

He calls out to us saying “I am your refuge. I am your God, your father, your friend." But how often in that refiner’s fire do we feel left in the dark just like the center of the candle? We stumble, we fall, we experience pain. Sometimes we partake in even deeper pain because our unbelief tells us that God’s presence and power are somehow not with us. We become consumed, not with the God who can offer us his peace, who desires our hearts and wants us to desire his holiness. But we sit in the whirlpool of questioning God. Why is this happening, where are you? Why can’t I understand this?

Until it happens, the moment we fall on our knees...we break..we cry and we ask in desperation; not for God to remove the pain, but for his presence to invade. For him to shine his light on our hearts and create in us people who will glorify him. When our hearts are consumed with THIS, we come to realize that WE exist FOR God, not the other way around. We can offer our lives, our very being on the alter and our fortunate blessing(though undeserved)...to learn in a deeper way of his pure, unfailing, unchanging love that will never let us go. We kneel in the darkness and we say. “God I can’t see, I can’t move, I can’t breath without you.” And that very realization, has in fact made us holier. It did not come from the lips of one who "speaks" of holiness as something that can be worked for, or achieved. It came from a heart of true desperation; a transparent and humble heart. We have not found some “secret” to be the kind of person who is this or that, we have not learned a language that masks our insecurities and faults, we have not even surrounded ourselves with "holy people" in order to appear as though we have it together, we have simply relinquished our hearts, cried out to God. And He so faithfully honored his promise as he always does. He hears our cries, he is near.

Only when we are broken on our knees can we understand that apart from God, we are nothing, no matter who we work for or what we do. Some of us work for churches, others for multi-million dollar companies. Some of us are leaders, some are followers, both equally important. But more importantly, ALL of us are children of God. We are all ministers, we are all sinners, we are all forgiven, saved by grace.

One of the most beautiful stories I have ever heard is the story of the sinful woman who washes the feet of Jesus with her hair and her tears, kissing his feet and kneeling not even before him, but behind him. The desperation, the shame, the feeling of absolute imperfection before a perfect savior. Someone once said to me “could you imagine the amount of tears that had to be streaming from her face, her eyes, her mouth, her nose?” When was the last time we cried like that at the feet of our savior?

It can be so easy as we grow deeper in our "knowledge" of God to play the game, the game that makes those that aren’t playing feel like utter outsiders, that we are somehow at a higher level of existence because of this life we are called to live. We speak a language of calling, leadership, and changing the world, but our hearts are far from the one who actually changed and continues to change it. It is not us who bring the world to know Him, we simply bring ourselves to the world and it is God who is in us through HIS sacrifice....HIS price paid, that people come to know HIS love. Only when we reach the end of ourselves, the absolute end and we feel we have nothing to give, nowhere to go, we don’t have the answers. Then weeping, we cry out for God to be there all to realize as we look to our side we see he was right their with us all along.

And the candle? Though we can’t see from the dark center of the flame there is a glow; A glow that can only continue to get brighter if we are willing to be stripped of everything within us. Until there is nothing left but Jesus himself. The glow surrounding us comes not from our gifts our talents or abilities, but from the holy spirit who lives inside us.........Bursting forth, and lighting up the world.

Color outside the lines

"Life is not a color-within-the-lines project; life is a work of art.
You have to keep mixing colors, creating new blends, and seeing things in fresh ways.
You must be willing to get paint all over you.
Life is about growth. Growth demands change. Change requires humility."
~ Erwin McManus



It’s time to get messy, make mistakes…big ones…..do something good, for someone. Get to know who you are and more importantly....who you are becoming. Life is a series of choices, those choices make up your character….what kind of character are you creating? Who are you trying to please? Who are you living for? What are you living for? Change is hard, harder than you think it ought to be, YOU are afraid of change…..no, maybe you are just afraid. Fear is not what you live for. Freedom is. Freedom from the need to be perfect. Free to be broken…and stay that way. Because you only have learned how much you really need HIM since you have learned how broken you really are. Cause a catastrophe as you follow Him, let it be unpredictable. Chase after him. Hard. And just keep running. He is what you live for. He is the only thing worth living for. He saved you from death, he brought you into light. Live in that light. He is enough.

A Beautiful Hike in San Francisco

The mystery of life is that the Lord of life cannot be known except in and through the act of living. Without the concrete and specific involvements of daily life we cannot come to know the loving presence of Him who holds us in the palm of His hand. . . . Therefore, we are called each day to present to our Lord the whole of our lives.
--Henri J. M. Nouwen