I thought these three videos complement each other very well. First, a very sharp, sadly true and thought provoking teaching from the lead vocal of Casting Crowns, Mark Hall, about the slow fade that so often happens for Christians when they start to listen to what non-Christians and Satan believe and think and slowly start ignoring the life-giving truths of God:
Keith Green talks about some of the same in this song where he laments the fact that so many of us Christians seem to lose the fire we may have had early on in our walk with Christ, but he comes to a place in the song, and came to that place at the end of his too short life on earth, where he saw that it was and is only the grace of God that we can trust to always sustain and cause us to not fall into sin and stuff that will destroy our lives and bring death in our relationships with God, ourselves and other people (Romans 6:23):
And finally this simple song about what to do when life is difficult, and you’re tempted to listen to the lies of the enemy who wants to bring you into the mud of mediocrity, sin, compromises and counterfeits. All we can do is turning our eyes upon Jesus, the initiator, author, sustainer and perfecter or our faith (Hebrews 12:2):
Blessings, Torben – who is so glad that my relationship with God is not based on what I do/say/think/feel or don’t do/say/think/feel. I’m so glad that everything is built on Jesus who never changes!
It was one of those key moments in life for this dad and his little girl who were watching a baseball game a few days ago in Philadelphia, United States of America. He catches a foul ball, and the rule is that he can keep it as a souvenir. To baseball fans it’s a big deal to catch a ball used in a Major League Baseball game. And he is celebrating with his friends seated around him before he gives the ball to his three year old daughter who wants to see daddy’s new ball…Watch this video and enjoy the beautiful reaction of this young father to her daughter’s action:
He could’ve yelled at her. He could’ve shown his disappointment. He could’ve rejected her. But he didn’t. He chose to show her that she was much more important than the gift he had just given her that she had rejected unaware of its value.
To me this is a beautiful picture of my relationship to God. He gives me many good gifts every day. And I often don’t use them or throw them away, because I’m unaware of the value of what I have received from my Father.
Many people believe that God is disappointed with them. I used to think so too. Satan had used a line from a song that went like this: “when God looks at me, he sees me with sorrow, always afraid, always running away“. That’s how I viewed God. He was disappointed in me. But God is not disappointed in me, even when I don’t receive, misuse or reject his good and valuable gifts.
I once asked a group of discipleship students from different nations what they thought God would think of them if they fell asleep while reading in their Bibles. Sadly, many answered that God would be disappointed in them that they couldn’t stay awake and scorn them for their weak faith. A Ukrainian man who had only been a Christian for a few months raised his hand and said: “I would imagine that a good father would be happy to have his child fall asleep in his arms. I think God feels the same way”.
God delights in you no matter what you do, say, think or feel!
Zephaniah 3:17: “For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs“
Blessings, Torben – who hopes that I will respond like the Phillies’ fan dad when I experience this type of key moments with my sons or daughters some day!
I have been thinking some about a verse from Romans chapter 6. It’s verse 23, and it goes like this:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”
Typically this verse is used in an evangelism context where Christians talk to non-Christians about the fact that if you choose to stay in your sin you’re going to end your life in Hell (‘death’ in the verse). The fact is, however, that this verse is not spoken to non-Christians, but to Christians. It’s a part of Paul’s letter to the Roman church, and it talks about realities that we as Christians experience today as well. The verse talks about clear choices with clear consequences.
If I choose sin and choose to live according to who I used to be (a sinful person with a sinful nature), and not according to the truth of who I am now (a new creation, 2. Corinthians 5:17, who wants to do what God wants to do, Ezekiel 36:26-27), I experience death. What does ‘death’ mean? Death in a biblical understanding often means ‘lack of life’. And in this verse it’s talking about how a believer, when he or she chooses to sin, chooses to live as a hypocrite (hypocrite=not living according to who you really are), you experience death in your relationships to God, to yourself and to other people.
How does this look like? It’s very practical stuff. If I choose to ignore what the Holy Spirit is telling me is the best thing to do, and I choose to sin, the results are simply worse relationships with God, myself and other people. I can’t be as open, vulnerable, honest and safe as I am when I don’t choose to sin. I don’t have to sin. Sin is not my master anymore (Romans 6:14). I don’t have to obey sin’s temptations (1. Corinthians 10:13). I recently heard an illustration where a speaker said that living as a believer is much like playing in a basketball or football match. Unless the referees blows the whistle and tells you that you’ve done something wrong, you can assume you’re doing right. As a believer filled with the Holy Spirit and his guidance in my life, I can be convinced that he’ll blow the whistle if I’m sinning. If he doesn’t blow the whistle, I can safely assume that I’m living according to God’s will and that I’m walking in the Spirit (Romans 8). As a Christian, and as a brand new creation in Christ (2. Corinthians 5:17) I have been given a new set of ‘default settings’. When you cut to the chase inside of me you find perfection, because you find Christ and what he has done in me. I am forever perfect in Jesus (Hebrews 10:14), and nothing I will ever say, do, think or feel or will not say, do think or feel will ever change that. But that doesn’t mean that I will necessarily get to experience the fullness of Jesus’ life here on planet earth. If I choose to sin, I will receive the wages of a sinful lifestyle. And the paycheck is death. It’s a lack of life. It’s a lack of intimacy with God. It’s a lifestyle of lying to my spouse and my friends and myself. It’s a masquerade where I have to cover up what I do and what I really think about myself. It’s a road of pretending, minimizing, exaggerating, hiding, lusting, or whatever your particular brand of flesh may be. It’s a reality of mediocrity, whining and pouting, because you don’t get to experience the fullness of relationships with God, with yourself and with other people that we desire. But God didn’t promise that we would ‘feel good and close to him’ when we choose to sin. He never said that we would have great relationships with other people, when we choose to sin. He said that choices towards sin will lead to death. Pure and simple. And then he was kind enough to leave us with another choice in the other half of the verse in Romans 6:23. I’ve seen the principle of death when I choose sin at work in my life many times. Most of my life I have been living in dishonest relationships with other people and trying to pretend that everything was okay when really that wasn’t the case. I’m so happy that Christ has shown me more and more of the life that’s available when we abide in him.
A wonderful gift to receive
The other half of Romans 6:23 again: “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord“. It’s important to understand that ‘eternal life’ is not something we enter into the day we die and go to Heaven. Eternal life is the very person of Jesus Christ as shown here in a couple of different verses: “we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life” (1. John 5:20), “and the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son” (1. John 5:11), “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Jesus is the eternal life, and he is given to us as a gift. And all that he is is given to us as a gift. It’s the gift of himself. Romans 5:17 calls it the gift of righteousness. Galatians 5:22-23 talks about Jesus when it talks about the fruit (singular, not plural!) of the Spirit. Jesus is the one who possesses all wisdom (1. Corinthians 1:24).
I want to learn more about who Christ is. I am tired of learning from other people and hearing other peoples’ wisdom. We don’t possess all wisdom, only Christ does. Just yesterday I was talking to somebody about what humility is, and it struck me that the best person to ask, but often the last one that we end up asking (…) is Jesus himself who gave us the invitation to learn from him in Matthew 11:28-29:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”
Christ invites us to learn from him. I am beginning to ask him more to teach me who he is and what eternal life really looks like. I don’t want other people to teach me. Other peoples’ experiences with Christ can be interesting to hear about, but I need to encounter Christ by myself and experience him heal, touch, direct, bless, challenge, encourage, strengthen, speak through me to really experience him and for it to really make a difference in my life. How I long for Christ to be more visible through me.
I love the line from this song called You Be Lifted High: “and I fall to my knees, so it’s You that they see, not I, Jesus, You be lifted high“:
A choice that I’m often presented with is the choice between cynicism and joy. Growing up and in most of my life I have always had a tendency to be very cynical (‘honesty’ I used to call it…), negative (‘realistic’ was my term for that…) and sarcastic (‘having a sense of humor’ in my words…). Cynicism, negativity, sarcasm, fault-finding are all different words that have to do with judgment. Judgment of God as being incompetent and not living up to my expectations, so I decide that he is a liar with his lofty promises (“abundant life?….yeah right!”) and I choose to live a life as a believer where I profess to be a Christian, but spend the vast majority of my energy judging other people for their mistakes and hating God for not giving me what I want. I also judge other people and deem them not worthy of my time and energy. Soft, good-hearted, forgiving people are seen as weak and pathetic, and it becomes very hard for me to relate to a God of compassion, grace and relentless love.
I am a cynic in healing. Some Christians I have met say that “it’s just natural for me to be more negative and cynical than other people“. That’s simply not true. It’s a lie. There is simply no way that it’s ‘natural’ for a born again child of God with the Holy Spirit living inside of him or her to be cynical, harsh, negative and judgmental. It’s flesh. It’s ugly. It needs to be recognized, confessed and exposed and put in its right place under Jesus’ leadership.
I am a cynic in healing. I have spent much time in my life finding faults. I used to belong to the large group of Christians who just never seem to find a church that fits them. There is always something that they don’t like. The other people never live up to their expectations. They think they are spiritually mature and have the gift of discernment because they can see that no churches are perfect. The problem is that we all know that no churches are perfect. It’s truly stating the obvious! But the tragedy is that these people, these cynical Christians, either just sit miserable in their bitterness and self-righteousness in the seats of whatever church or they conclude that church is a waste of time altogether and find themselves church-less, and often after a short while life-less as well. It’s a slow fade, but I’ve seen it happen for too many people I hold dear, and I thank God that he stopped me in my tracks when I was going down that well-worn path. And I thank him that he is healing me for the cynicism and negativity that used to control my life all the time.
It doesn’t mean that I’m not able to find faults anymore. Trust me, I’m great at that. I can find faults anywhere. But I don’t have to entertain that thought, invite it in for dinner and invite other people to share that discovery with me. I can say to God that I don’t want to live in darkness, and he will gradually show me more and more what it looks like to live as a child of the light.
Grace-healed eyes
I was very challenged by the following sections fromThe Return Of The Prodigal Son. It speaks volumes to me and challenges me to continue down the path of healing with Christ where he changes me from a son of cynicism to a child of joy, just the same way he changed the Apostle John from a son of thunder who wanted to call fire down on unrepentant people (Luke 9:51-55) to the apostle of love who couldn’t stop celebrating Christ’s love for him and named himself ‘the disciple Jesus loved’ (John 20:2) when he wrote his gospel.
“The father of the prodigal son gives himself totally to the joy that his returning son brings him. I have to learn from that. I have to learn to ’steal’ all the real joy there is to steal and lift it up for others to see. Yes, I know that not everybody has been converted yet, that there is not yet peace everywhere, that all pain has not yet been taken away, but still, I see people turning and returning home; I hear voices that pray; I notice moments of forgiveness, and I witness many signs of hope. I don’t have to wait until all is well, but I can celebrate every little hint the Kingdom that is at hand.
This is a real discipline. It requires choosing for the light even when there is much darkness to frighten me, choosing for life even when the forces of death are so visible, and choosing for the truth even when I am surrounded with lies. I am tempted to be so impressed by the obvious sadness of the human condition that I no longer claim the joy manifesting itself in many small but very real ways. The reward of choosing joy is joy itself. There is so much rejection, pain, and woundedness among us, but once you choose to claim the joy hidden in the midst of all suffering, life becomes celebration,. Joy never denies the sadness, but transforms it to fertile soil for more joy.
Surely I will be called naive, unrealistic, and sentimental, and I will be accused of ignoring the ‘real’ problems, the structural evils that underlie much of human misery. But God rejoices when one repentant sinner returns. Statistically that is not very interesting. But for God, numbers never seem to matter. Who knows whether the world is kept from destruction because of one, two or three people who have continued to pray when the rest of humanity has lost hope and dissipated itself?” (The Return Of The Prodigal Son, pages 115-116).
A few years ago I would have been in the large group calling Nouwen and people like him ‘naive, unrealistic, sentimental and ignorant’, but they are not. The more I get, what Philip Yancey in his masterpiece What’s So Amazing About Grace called, grace-healed eyes, the more I see that I am called to be like Nouwen and the other naive dreamers. I am also called as a child of the light to point to the light in the world when it’s visible. I’m not called to be ignorant about the real problems that are in this world. And I doubt that will ever be a temptation for me to not be aware of the real problems that are going on. But being aware of the problems and talking a lot about them, doesn’t do much to solve them. I have spent a lot of useless time dwelling of the problems in the world, and the problems in the church, instead of being a part of the minority that is always active in loving people and bringing forth life and light where darkness, bitterness and mediocrity rule.
Darkness/light, cynicism/joy
I will give the scene to Henri Nouwen again in these two segments where he contrasts people of cynicism with people of joy. I recognize myself very well in the cynical people, but thank God (!!) I’m beginning to see more and more of the simple joy in my life. And joy, not cynicism is, after all, one of the fruits of the Spirit living his life in and through me.
“For me it is amazing to experience daily the radical difference between cynicism and joy. Cynics seek darkness wherever they go. They point always to approaching dangers, impure motives, and hidden schemes. They call trust naive, care romantic, and forgiveness sentimental. They sneer at enthusiasm, ridicule spiritual fervor, and despise charismatic behavior. They consider themselves realists who see reality for what it truly is and who are not deceived by ‘escapist emotions’. But in belittling God’s joy, their darkness calls forth more darkness.
People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it. They claim that the light that shines in the darkness can be trusted more than the darkness itself and that a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness. They point each other to flashes of light here and there, and remind each other that they reveal the hidden but real presence of God. They discover that there are people who heal others’ wounds, forgive each others’ offenses, share their possessions, foster the spirit of community, celebrate the gifts they have received, and live in constant anticipation of the full manifestation of God’s glory” (The Return Of The Prodigal Son, page 117)
These are powerful words indeed. They expose the darkness that’s still inside of me. They expose how often I’m tempted to look at the dark instead of the bright colors of life. They expose that I often find it easier, more comfortable and even more spiritual (!) to criticize instead of encourage.
Paul urged the Ephesian church to: “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). Real truth is always filled with love. And real love is always filled with truth. This is not a call to blindness, stupidity, a childish outlook on life or anything like that. We are called to be aware. Be aware of both the good, the bad and the ugly. But in this day and age where most people are focusing on everything that doesn’t work in and outside of the church or in their own lives, the calling to celebrate the light is even stronger than ever before. I rarely have any problems speaking what I believe is the truth. But if it’s not spoken in love, it’s worth nothing (1. Corinthians 13), and I always have to ask myself a key question: “will what I am about to say build up relationships or break down relationships?‘. If it will break down relationships, it is probably better to stay quiet, but if it will build up relationships, I am free to speak what’s on my heart and trust that God put it there.
Here is the song A Place Called Grace. The place that we can all run to no matter how caught up in cynicism and resentment we may be. It’s a place where God starts to melt the iceberg that is around our true selves and we get to experience that God’s forgiveness and mercy changes us slowly from within
Blessings, Torben – who is glad that it’s God doing the changing of focus! It’s not about me tricking myself into seeing more of the light in this world. I simply see it the more I see Christ – who is the light of the world – in my life!
The worship song Better Is One Day was written by Matt Redman quite a few years ago and have been recorded by Redman, Chris Tomlin, Kutless, etc. and has become a fan favorite in a lot of contemporary churches all over the world. This song also made it into the repertoire of the church in Nuuk we visited during our recent trip to Greenland. I shared with the small group that we were gathered with while singing this song a revelation that God showed me a while ago. It’s a wonderful catchy tune and the lyrics of longing after God are powerful. But not true anymore…
The lyrics to the song are taken from Psalm 84 where David cries out to God in this way:
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearn, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. (verses 1-2)…Better is one day in your courts that a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked (verse 10)”
David is desperate to spend more time in God’s dwelling place which in Old Testament/Old Covenant days was the Temple of God. The temple that David so desperately desired to build for God so they could spend more time together, but where David had to accept that God had chosen David’s son, Solomon, to be the one who were to build the Temple in Jerusalem. David longed to come in and encounter God and be in God’s dwelling place. God’s dwelling place was a place outside of David. A place he longed to travel to and spend time in. A place that didn’t belong to David, but where he longed to be welcomed as a guest. Even if he just had to stay outside in the courts, David would be excited, because he would know that at least he would be close to the presence of God.
This was David’s reality and it was the reality of all believers in the Old Testament times before the New Covenant was set in effect after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the permanent coming of the Holy Spirit. But this is not the reality of any New Covenant believers, and therefore not the reality of any of God’s children today! We don’t have to travel to Jerusalem or somewhere else to visit God’s dwelling place. We don’t need anybody to intercede on our behalf, because we fear that we are not welcome. We don’t have to be afraid that the Temple will be shut down for us, because we have committed some sin or just don’t have the right heart attitude.
The great news of the New Covenant, of the new agreement between God and his children, is that we are now God’s dwelling place! And that dwelling place sure is lovely!
1. Corinthians 3:16-17 puts this piece of truth this way: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God’s, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are“
Wow…I am the dwelling place of God! I am God’s lovely dwelling place! I can rest in that. I don’t have to go anywhere, do anything, wear special clothes, eat special food, attend any fancy ceremonies or anything like that to approach God, because he is already inside of me. And he has declared that the dwelling place of himself is holy, and I’m that dwelling place, and therefore I am holy! I am as holy and righteous and blameless as the Temple in the Old Covenant was. God lives in me, rules in me, encounters me in me. And I can always fellowship with him, because he is right here inside of me.
Stop praying like David!
We have to stop using language from the Old Covenant and talk about it as if that is our reality today. It is not! We are no longer in the Old Covenant. If you want to read through a book that talks about the difference between the Covenants, and why David, Abraham, Moses, etc. would be jealous that they didn’t get to live in the New Covenant days, that you and I experience, go to the book of Hebrews.
We have to stop inviting God to come. He came. He is here. He is in me. You only invite somebody to come who isn’t here. He doesn’t need an invitation. He is already here.
We have to stop praying with David from Psalm 51: “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me“. He will not take his Holy Spirit away from a true believer in the New Covenant. In the Old Testament/Covenant days the Holy Spirit came at different times as a visitor. Today he is here permanently living in each of God’s children. As Paul puts it in 1. Corinthians 6:17 “The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him“. Not two separate spirits. One spirit. Just one. We are one with Christ and his Spirit will never ever leave us. No matter what we do/think/feel or say he will not leave us. For David there was a real fear that the Holy Spirit would leave him. That fear is not a part of the New Covenant. Let’s appreciate this miracle and stop praying as if we were still a part of the Old Covenant.
Maybe we could change the lyrics to Better Is One Day to something like this:
“How lovely is your dwelling place O Lord almighty. For my soul longs and even faints for you. For within me you encounter me and I’m satisfied in your presence. I sing beneath the shadow of your wings.
Better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you than the reality I lived in before I came to know you
One thing I ask, and I would seek to see Your beauty, to find You inside of me and have you reveal Your beauty to me.
Better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you than the reality I lived in before I came to know you”
(I’m by no means a great song writer, so if you, dear reader, have a better New Covenant-reality-inspired version of this song, you’re very welcome to post it here!)
Here is a video with the old version of this song :
I have been blessed enough to travel to quite a few countries in my lifetime. These last five years I’ve been living as a missionary completely depending on God providing for us through money from churches, friends and family members. And again this summer he has provided generously. Paul writes in 1. Corinthians 1:31: “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” And that’s what I do. Again. I boast in the Lord! I boast in the God of the Universe who has created incredibly beautiful places all over the world and who has given me the privilege of seeing many of them. I boast in the fact that he wanted us to go to Greenland (and Iceland!) this summer just because he wanted us to go….No deeper reason. Just because he loves us. That’s how it felt throughout our trip to Iceland and Greenland. This was – once again – God showing off!
Greenland was a breath taking experience. We were only in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and in some of the fjords around Nuuk, but during the week we were there we were constantly overwhelmed by the raw, beautiful and untamed nature that we were witnessing. Many cultures came and died trying to conquer the wildness of Greenland, and we couldn’t help but thinking that God created Greenland primarily for his own sake, since only a few percent of the largest island in the world have people on it. I think God just really enjoyed creating and he enjoys watching this majestic, colossal, white island where everything is very extreme.
It’s hard even to explain the unique beauty of Greenland, but untamed is an excellent word. Human beings at large think that we control nature. In Greenland people know that nature cannot be controlled completely. The air is fresh, the view is always majestic even when the unexpected fog rolls in and in minutes covers everything, the water is crystal clear and freezing cold even in the winter, the icebergs are a blue color that we thought only Colgate, Aquafresh or other toothpaste companies could manufacture.
We felt like we ran out of superlatives to describe the beauty of Greenland already before our plane landed, and we ended up saying “wow”, “thank you God”, “that’s so beautiful”, “wow…that truly is awesome” countless times during our stay there. I find it hard to fathom that many people who live in Greenland and many of the tourists who come to visit still refuse to bow their heads in worship to the Creator of all of it. We had to worship again and again. We couldn’t help ourselves. Thank you God! Thanks for your creation! Thanks for your beauty! We worship you for who you are!
Here are a few pictures that we took trying to capture some of the beauty. We weren’t able to catch it, because true beauty can’t be captured and put in a box. It’s untamable by nature.
And here is a worship video with a song that I sang countless times in Greenland:
When life is difficult, and I don’t know what to do. When questions are many, and I don’t have any great answers. When fear of the future and for today consumes me. When I feel like I’m going in circles instead of moving forward. When I feel like my flesh is too strong. When I feel I can’t hear the Holy Spirit within me. When I feel misunderstood and unappreciated by friends and loved ones.
And….when I feel like dancing and rejoicing. When life is filled with great experiences and lots of comfort. When I see a clear direction in my life. When I sense the Holy Spirit gently loving me and confirming who I am. When I see that nothing Satan or my flesh can fling at me can overcome me. When I sense great fellowship, love and mutual interest with friends and experience the unity of the believers.
When life is in between extremes, and I feel like I’m just hanging in there and going through the motion. When I feel like I’m existing and not really living. When I see more hypocrisy than fruit in my life. When I feel like giving up one moment and then I feel on top of the world the next.
No matter when, I will lift my eyes to the maker of the mountains I can’t climb:
I had no clue that Belgians were into more things than eating French Fries – which were invented in Belgium – and Belgian waffles But this wonderful video from the train station in Antwerp, Belgium even suggests that Belgians have rhythm and can dance!
More than 200 dancers were performing their version of “Do Re Mi” from the classic movie “The Sound of Music” that my mom and sister have seen so many times that I even know most of the songs, in the Central Station of Antwerp. with just two rehearsals they created this very cool dance! The dance started March 23, 2009, at 8 in the morning on a normal grey Belgian day. It is a promotion stunt for a Belgian television program, where they were looking for someone to play the leading role in the musical version of “The Sound of Music”.
I really enjoy watching the reactions, the excitement and the joy of the people who watch the dancers dance! It’s always wonderful to see some spontaneous joy
I keep coming back to Psalm 23. I just can’t get away from it. I keep praying it over people, when I talk to them about deep hurts, life in general and life as a disciple of Jesus in general. It has become the blue print for how I see the life of a disciple. It’s got such richness to it that it can speak to a child who learn it in Sunday school and impresses her grand parents when she proudly recites it, and it can speak to grown ups who have known God intimately for decades. There is such a richness in the simple words of that beautiful Psalm which I believe aside from John 3:16 and maybe 1. Corinthians chapter 13 about love, may be the best known part of the whole Bible.
I learned it as a kid as well, but these last months God keeps bringing me back to this rich Psalm and keeps unpacking the many layers of it. We did a whole teaching week in Nigeria about the life of Christ in us based on the six verses of the 23rd Psalm. Today I was thinking of it as I was listening to and singing along with Matt Redman’s beautiful worship song “You Never Let Go“. Matt Redman mentions the valley of the shadow of death, and I enjoy singing this song which is one of the in spite of-songs that I enjoy as opposed to the happy, clappy and at times slightly unrealistic because of-songs that so many people produce these years.
The valley of the shadow of death is the place where David turns the language in the Psalm from the impersonal “he” to the personal “You”. In that valley it’s only David and Jesus. And it’s only me and Jesus. The valley of the shadow of death is the place where we come to the end of our own rope and accept that we cannot create life and live abundantly in our own resources. It’s a place where no person can go with you. Only Jesus can go with you, and he does. His rod and his staff protect and comfort you. He knows what he is doing when he brings you into that valley. He knows you need to learn dependence, because your tendency – like any other human being – is to be a sheep who goes astray in your own direction thinking that you have it under control and you need to be in charge (Isaiah 53:6). In that valley you die to your independent will that promises you life and control, but only brings you mediocrity and counterfeit life. And in that place you are faced with the choice of brokenness or bitterness, and if you choose brokenness, you emerge from this valley as a new and life-filled child of God!
I have always been a passionate man. God has put a hunger in me for truth, and the last 10-15 years have been a long search for something that was real truth! I always had the notion that in order for something to be real, genuine, 100% truth it had to live up to two criteria: it had to be personal, something that we can experience and know, and it had to be universal in the sense that it couldn’t be something that was reserved for a limited number of people, it had to be equally available to everybody!
I have found out that very few things live up to those two criteria. I remember many conversations with one of my best friends, Carsten Almann Levisen, who would always end up being the bubble burster when I had thought of something I was very passionate about, and that I thought that all people in the world needed to hear about. He would often ask me questions about whether whatever it was I was so passionate about would be available and relevant for a 40 year old mother with three children in Indonesia, or a man with no education from Swaziland or a young child from an abusive background from Holland…..? Those are just examples of the people he would ask about, and every time I had to admit that he was probably right that either it took a certain level of education or some kind of special interest for it to be both available and relevant for these people.
It was a frustrating thing that he was bursting my bubbles, but I needed that to continue my search for real truth. And here many years after those first conversations in the late 90’s I have found the real deal! Since God took me on the journey of brokenness and lead me into the valley of the shadow of death more than three years ago, I have come to see, experience and embrace truths about who God is and who we as believers are in him that are truly both personal and universal!
I saw these truths in full bloom in Nigeria recently. We were people from three different continents (Africa, North America and Europe). We were people with very different backgrounds (some from rich, well-developed nations and some from tribal societies where their dads had five wives and worshiped idols). We had both men and women represented in our group. We had people between the ages of 20 and 72. We had people who had received hardly any education at all and who could barely read, and we had people in the group with doctorates and long fancy-sounding educations. We were, in short, an incredibly diverse group. And God’s truth, who is Jesus who call himself the truth (John 14:6), was the one who broke through all barriers and revealed himself and who we are in him to all of us despite our differences.
It was amazing to see that the truths of God’s Word are both personal – he spoke to us in many different ways and revealed different aspects of the truth – and universal – our differences didn’t matter, we were all united in having a true hunger for the truth that will set us free! Everybody in the world is longing for true freedom. Everybody is searching to have our needs for love, acceptance, worth and security met. All almost 7 billion inhabitants of Planet Earth are looking to have those needs met. And they can only be met in encountering the God of the Universe, revealed in his son Jesus Christ who is all truth! Not just some of the truth. But all truth. All truth is God’s truth. Every time anybody encounters real truth, it’s God’s truth. Even if these people belong to a different religion or claim that there is no God at all. Every encounter with truth that sets us free to live lives of freedom, peace, joy, love and acceptance, worth and significance without any hangovers or hidden price tags, is an encounter with God!
I am so happy that I have the privilege of being able to work full time ministering about these truths about God and us that are truly personal, universal, transformational and life changing! The changes that we experience when we truly encounter God are not these changes that wear off within a few weeks or months. When we truly encounter God we are changed forever, and we are forever ruined for the ordinary!
I thank my friend, Carsten, for being the tool that God used to always push me towards finding the real, universal truth, and I’m so happy that God revealed the real deal to me. And I count it a joy and a privilege to be able to devote my life to sharing about the truth who is Jesus Christ!
(Edit: I am blessed to be married to a wonderful woman who loves to help me see my blind spots, and as I was sharing about this blog entry, she asked me to consider if it didn’t sound a bit too much as if I have arrived and I don’t have anything more to learn. Great question, and I certainly want to clarify what I think about that. I do believe that I found the pearl and have bought the field where the pearl is in, but I’m certainly not thinking or believing that I have discovered everything there is to discover about this field. The kingdom of God is vast and has no end just like God’s love has no end. And I am looking forward to a long life and the rest of eternity to explore the riches that Christ has purchased for me and given to me. So yes, I am parked at the truths of who God really is, and who I am in him, but I am still longing to see and experience more truth. That longing for more truth has been with me for of my life, and I’m convinced that I’ll always be hungry for more truth! So I am by no means “done” or “arrived” in the sense of thinking that I know everything there is to know about the wonders of God and his love It feels like I have only just scratched the surface a little bit, and I’m excited that there is so much more to have revealed to me)
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