Tag Archives: christianity

Socks? Off.

Posted on by under 2025

I discovered some years ago that my innermost motivation for doing much of what I invest my life in is not just what the surface level would suggest. Missions? I love evangelism and the Church and culture and travel and that instant bond between brothers and sisters in Christ. But. Teaching? I love diving into the Word and spending my days at the Teacher’s feet and feeling the flaming of that indwelling Spirit surging with passion and willingness to move any marionette willing to hand over the strings. But. Mentoring? I love the deep swim in their lives, motivations, and impediments that have too long hindered them from a full awareness of what and who they were made to be. But.

The thrill that ignites so much of what I come back to again and again? Watching the light in someone’s eyes spark with an awareness that God is bigger than they ever realized before. That mind blown, box shattered, head exploding, imagination expanding, heart enlarging, socks blown half across the globe, world altering moment when the fetters fall and God escapes the genie bottle of our limited and limiting faith. Ahh, nothing better than to watch that explosion happen and the shackles that held true faith captive come crashing into a whole new belief system.

That moment when a woman with little knowledge of the world outside of her limited purview comes face to face with the reality that the God she often doubts lives outside her local church walls (maybe not even as far out as even the parking lot) is the same God showing up in a tent church with a beach ball hung like a chandelier in the center to a poverty stricken people who have no indoor plumbing. And He seems to be showing up to them a bit more powerfully than He ever has to her.

That instant when the guy gets smacked in the face with an awareness that God really is able to deliver the undeliverable. That money comes from nowhere he’s ever known existed. That word was spoken so aptly by someone he will never see again. That message reaches his ears from the lips of a preacher on the other side of the world or a walmart shopper he doesn’t know but who lives in the same town. Or maybe he just hears an imperceptible whisper he knows didn’t come from his own mind. God has been listening? God went to the trouble? God knows? God delivers? God is able?

The silent sound of sobbing from the corner as a woman so far lost and hopeless realizes the God she’s been running from loved her enough to bring a new friend from the other side of the world to make sure she knew she was still loved, wanted, known, and valuable.

Yep. And the socks blow off.

I’ve had the amazing privilege of seeing that look many times. There’s a shock then a sort of brokenness and then a sheer surrender and delight. There are often tears and just when you think your heart will break open the laughter starts to roll inside your very soul. Like Manoah. Samson’s dad thought surely no one could see God and live to tell of the day–that fearsome brokenness when you know that you know He’s been there all along. Followed by the realization that though He’s been watching it all, He’s still there loving on you. That’s the smile, the laugh, the impossibility of it all. And then the excitement. If He is there, if He can do this, if He’s all the way over here, if He …. Then He may be bigger than I realized.

And I may too.

Too few know this look. Too few have had it. We don’t go to the uncomfortable unknown. We don’t talk to the stranger. We don’t commit to the unachievable. We don’t dream. We don’t attempt those things which we couldn’t alone complete if and when He fails on the follow-through. We don’t let Him out of the box. We keep our tidy God in His little church sized box and–for our own selfish, sinful sakes–hem Him in to that which is known, safe, controlled, and familiar. Socks? Firmly on.

He will blow you away with His abilities and delights, blessings and provisions, appearings and sweetness. Day after day the gifts sit under the tree of true union. Day after day He waits for the child in us all to run, fall to our knees, and expectantly reach for gifts–lives!–that will leave us coming back for more, blown away by the wonder of being the King’s kids.

All That Press

Posted on by under 2025

Why is it that the tabernacle gets so much scriptural real estate and yet I almost never turn to it in search of a life-giving, applicable, impassioning, and pertinent word for my day?

If every word is useful, alive, and God-breathed, there sure are a ton of words dedicated to an ancient mobile building that has long since ceased to exist. I, however, have never had the sense that if I just knew how many pillars were on the northern side of the tabernacle I would have a fire lit in my soul by the knowing. (It’s 20, by the way.)

I believe it’s because too often I’m looking at the tabernacle as a story not my own; as a word from somewhere else, for someone else. And a word that’s hard to break into at that. You have to work a little. You may have to think. For goodness sakes, Americans don’t even like European things because they come measured in metric units! Talk about hard to relate to – the metrics of Old Testament schematics long predate the metric system. If I were looking to make the intellectual investment and put the work in to understand what’s there, I fear I may find it isn’t really there for me anyway. All that press dedicated to the tabernacle was geared for some other time, place, and people.

I believe I’d be wrong on all accounts.

God inhabited the tabernacle after Moses set it all in place. God inhabited the temple after Solomon dedicated it. When Christ’s redeeming work tore the veil into the Most Holy Place, God issued an invitation to all who would come to be inhabited as well.

Much of the world long awaits the building of the third temple. For the Church, we aren’t looking for the construction of the third temple, we are on site for the construction of the second tabernacle.

The mobile tabernacle became the static temple and, at Christ’s death, the temple went back to being a tabernacle. On that first Day of Pentecost, tongues of fire lit on the Church and men and women took on a new identity as the new mobile housings of the Great God of All Creation. What had been singular buildings became numerous moving habitations.

On your own personal Day of Pentecost, you became indwelled by the Holy Spirit. You became the exact picture of that structure in the wilderness. God put His Name there. God declared His home to be where you were and are. He set His glory upon you.

The tabernacle is far more than someone else’s story. It is exceedingly more than a rendering of pillars, posts, linens, and lamps. It is a story of the place where God set His Name, dispensed His glory, displayed His power, and declared His Presence.

That place is you.

Glory Glow

Posted on by under 2025

As housings of the great God of the universe, we get the inconceivable distinction of radiating His renown to all who might encounter us. We get to trade in our tainted name and sullied stories for His almighty name and His eternally grand story. We get to move from objects of shame to objects of His desire. We get to enjoy a transformation from dirt, dust, ashes, and grime to beauty, splendor, riches, and perfection. We get to trade in our filthy rags for the bridal attire of the truly holy. We get to watch the cleansing miracle of stained black sin turning righteous pure white. God comes to dwell and brings all His glorious splendor with Him.

And unlike Moses with his veil of sadness–not attempting to hide the glow of his face but the sad reality that the glow didn’t last (2 Corinthians 3:13)–we get to see God light a flame with His tongue of fire and set this holy housing ablaze forever. And unlike Moses we aren’t meant to hide it anyway. We are His calling card. We are the ambassadors through whom God calls all man unto Himself. We have a Maker, we have a Saviour, we have an Owner, Master, and King and He has written His name on my forehead to claim me as His own. As His child I bear that name as a reflection of the One who wrote it upon my life.

The glow of His great glory–like an inferno sized tea light within the clear glass candle that is this fleshly abode–radiates through my life, love, and demeanor. I hold both the privilege and the responsibility of stoking that fire, of putting it on a stand amid the rooms that make up my days, of lighting the world in which I wander. It is His greatness I bear. It is His name I represent. It is His esteem, reputation, and honor my life is called to uphold and magnify.

His glory glow on my face. His renown on my lips. His praise on my tongue. His grandeur on the pages of my rewritten story.