Category Archives: Spirit in the Night

Filings: Man on the Street

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by the Night Writer

One morning last week I was walking the five blocks from the train to my office, pretty much just thinking about the day ahead. As I waited at the first corner with a crowd of pedestrians for the light to change, an older black man standing in front of me turned around and looked at me, then said, “God bless you.”

“And God bless you, too,” I said, a little surprised but not really uncomfortable even though I could smell the strong scent of alcohol coming from him as he turned back around. I know from the times I’ve spent with the guys in the Teen Challenge program how much they hated, when they were on the street, how people wouldn’t look at them because of their color, or their raggedyness, or both. Since then I’ve tried to make it a habit to acknowledge people with my eyes when they cross my path.

The man was standing with two other rather scruffy looking guys. He turned to me again as the light changed and the crowd moved across the street, the two scruffy guys and my fellow pedestrians subtly leaving a bubble around me and my new friend as we got the inevitable request for money out of the way (which I declined). He then started a rambling description of his birthday being January 1, and how nobody believes that, and how Jesus walks with him, and nobody believes that either. “Do you you believe Jesus walks with me?” he asked.

“I believe Jesus lives inside us,” I replied.

“Does he live inside you?”

“Yes, he does.”

He went on talking about Jesus following him everywhere. By now Jesus was the only one who could have been in spitting distance of us. I was feeling very much at peace, though, interjecting a comment every so often to let him know I was listening. We got to the corner where my office is and my friend was asking me if Jesus walked beside me. I told him that I believe Jesus said he would never leave us or forsake us, that he would be with us everywhere we go. Then I got bold, though I still felt peaceful.

“I believe Jesus is walking beside you,” I said. “The problem is, you’ve been taking him into a lot of places he doesn’t want to go. I wonder,” I said, “what would happen if you started to follow him for a little while instead of having him follow you?” For the first time in our conversation he was still and quiet. I put out my hand. He took it.

“I believe you when you say you were born on January 1. I believe that is a symbol from God that you can make a new beginning, but you don’t have to wait for your birthday.”

There at the corner of Washington and Marquette I put my other hand on his shoulder and began to pray out loud, thanking God for the man’s life and for bringing us together and for the plans that God had for him. I prayed that God would open doors for him that no man could close and that he would close doors that no man could open. I said “Amen” and dropped my left hand. He stood there with a surprised look on his face.

“Thank you,” he said, softly. Then louder, “Thank you very much! God bless you!” Then he turned and walked away.

Now I harbor no illusions that that interlude will turn that man’s life around, but I know God has done greater things. Neither do I have any doubt that I was supposed to meet that man that day. As for myself, I got quite a lift from the unexpected meeting, and I wondered at the peace and confidence I had felt. I hadn’t been self-conscious at all about anyone else around us, or put off by the man’s appearance or condition. Believe me, that is not my usual demeanor! I felt at first as if I had just done something the way my pastor would’ve done it, and then I realized that perhaps I had done it the way Jesus would have — without a thought or care but for the man he had just met.

That may all be very nice but I also realized that, while I likely won’t know the impact I made on the other guy, that God wanted to show me something. I, too, am guilty — in both thought and actions — of taking Jesus into places sometimes that perhaps he doesn’t want to go. In fact, I can go hours without even being aware of him beside me. As the morning went on I was simultaneously buoyed by the experience and humbled that I was able to experience it. I didn’t really grasp the biggest lesson, however, until yesterday when it finally dawned on me.

The experience felt great and was stimulating because it was different, out of the ordinary. It finally hit me, yesterday, that in fact it shouldn’t be that out of the ordinary at all. Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time in church, but was usually out walking, going from one place to another, meeting the people he was supposed to meet, touching their lives with his presence. The same Jesus walks with me, wanting to do the same thing if I will let him; not by preaching sermons or trying to get people to say a prayer so they can be “saved”, but simply touching their lives with a word or a touch that communicates his love for them, showing — as Romans 2:4 says — “the goodness of God that leads people to repentance.”

I want to feel that lift that I felt that day much more often.

Are You Marriageable — Class 2: What is the condition of other relationships in your life?

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by the Night Writer

What do the current relationships in your life say about your capacity to be married? Do you understand the relationship between love and respect and how this may be different for men than for women? What will you bring from your parent’s marriage into your own? These were all covered in the second class;

How to be Marriageable: Class 1

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Several weeks ago I wrote a post entitled How to Be Marriageable. In it I laid out, at a high level, some key considerations and preparations a man should undertake to prepare himself to meet that special someone and to serve as the foundation of a happy and fruitful marriage. I even taught pretty much the same information to a men’s group, touching on all the points in about 30 minutes without going into a lot of detail for each.

My plan already was to develop each point into it’s own teaching and present it to a group of young men that I connected to. When I presented the idea to the lads there was a long silence as they considered the prospect. Finally, one of the guys (and a leader) said, “Ok, I’ll do it.”

Another of the young men said, “Yeah, I’ll do it; what could it hurt?” To which the first young man said, “Oh, it’s Mr. Stewart — it could hurt!” Nevertheless almost all of them gathered last week for our first class. I’ve posted here the “script” I used and followed (for the most part). There was a lot of discussion and some diversions where I used examples from my personal life to illustrate a point and those aren’t captured here. There should be enough to give you a good idea of what’s up, though. It starts very similarly to the original post but quickly moves into more detail than I wanted to provide initially. There’s also a link to a handout we’ll be using.

Life Shepherds

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“Now I’m thinkin’: it could mean you’re the evil man. And I’m the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he’s the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you’re the righteous man and I’m the shepherd and it’s the world that’s evil and selfish. I’d like that. But that ain’t the truth. The truth is you’re the weak. And I’m the tyranny of evil men. But I’m tryin’, Ringo. I’m tryin’ real hard to be a shepherd.”
– Samuel L. Jackson as “Jules” in Pulp Fiction

I didn’t start seeing the words “life coach” until I began following the Manival. Many of the blog contributors to that weekly carnival describe themselves as a life coach. I have nothing against the title as a profession or a hobby, but seeing those words made me think, “Why don’t people just get a pastor?”

The word pastor means shepherd, and I’ve had the same pastor for more than 20 years now. He, along with who and what he represents, have played an important role in my thinking and actions today. His teaching and his example have greatly contributed to the success of my marriage, my relationships with my kids and my employers and co-workers, my finances and has provided me with the peace and confidence to channel the abilities that were given to me into new and positive areas. Of course I realize that not everyone has this same advantage, though I consider it to be a necessity rather than a luxury. It makes me even more appreciative of the “coaching” that I’ve received.

Isn’t this what you’d want in a coach — a teacher, exhorter, advisor, someone to comfort you in the trials and discomfort you when you’re getting complacent? I have been led into green pastures and to still waters and in the paths of righteousness. My soul has been comforted, even when it looked as if I was surrounded by things that wanted to kill my spirit, and I have sat comfortably at the table with my enemes, willing and able to share goodness and mercy.

Of course what some might call coaching, and others might call mentoring, the church calls discipleship. And one of the things that I’ve been taught is that even as I am continually discipled I need to be always reaching out and discipling others. As I continue to learn and grow I need to be willing to help others do the same. It’s become so engrained in me that I hardly notice that I’m doing it, but I can see it in the interactions I have with our multiple-church men’s group, the “Fundamentals in Film” class I’ve been doing for more than two years with a group of teen-age boys, and the upcoming “How to be Marriageable” group, and in some of the surprising relationships that have developed in my life. Futhermore, while my blog is mainly for my own amusement, it also plays a role in this.

Even so, like Jules in the quote above, I sometimes have to try real hard to get out of my comfort zones, habits and selfishness to be a shepherd, and that’s where having an older, more experienced shepherd comes in handy. That, too, however requires letting go of some selfishness, or at least, self-interest. I’ve not been one who lays down his pride easily or who likes to admit that I don’t have all the answers — at least not audibly. Oh sure, I can curse myself and my perceived failings to no end internally or under my breath, but admitting it out loud is a lot harder. I think that’s not an uncommon attitude and probably the biggest reason so many people have not allowed themselves to be discipled/mentored/coached. It’s all too easy and common to merely want everyone else to change while we stay the same.

And we’re deceived, of course. The fact is we will all be discipled by someone or something, even if we don’t realize that it’s happening. The only choice we have is deciding who/what it is we will follow.

I figure that I’ve probably got enough experience (good and bad), accumulated wisdom and random revelation to hang out a shingle as a Life Coach, but I don’t know if that’s something I want to be, professionally, as opposed to something I just do day-in and day-out with whoever happens to be coming along. I do have a well-paying corporate drone job that I’ve thought of ditching from time to time. It more than covers our bills, however, which allows me the time and freedom to pursue these other activities that are more satisfying, if apparently unremunerative. I suppose I could try to do these things professionally but most of the people I’ve become connected with aren’t in a position to “pay” me in ways that the mortgage company and Visa recognize.

I don’t know that I’ll ever “go pro” — especially when it’s been so much fun to be an enthusiastic amateur!

Are you marriageable?

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Last week Brett at The Art of Manliness had a post about how to tell if the woman you’re interested in is “the one” to marry. They were good questions but they made me think that there should be some good questions a guy should be asking about himself first to see if he, too is marriage material. I’ve also been thinking lately of developing some discussion topics and exercises for some young men I know on how to become marriageable. My outline for that covers six to eight weeks of classes and exercises, but here are some of the highlights.

A lot of guys hope or assume that they’ll be able to sense when it’s time to marry, either because they’ll find someone they feel they can’t live without or they feel it’s time to settle down. Both of those feelings are important, and feelings provide valuable momentum, but they don’t necessarily indicate that you have the proper outlook or skills to marry. Yes, of course, people do get married in the throes of passion and somehow manage to develop the proper survival skills on the fly when reality sets in. Then again, many people try it this way and fail spectacularly. Ask yourself, would you rather learn to swim by being thrown into the deep end to see if you’ll go up or go down, or after you’ve been able to rehearse a few techniques while still at the side of the pool? Here are a few questions to try out on yourself.

How’s your conditioning?
Marriage is a marathon, but most of us spent our single days as sprinters, chasing women and running away from commitment. You get yourself into a distance race, though, and you’ll find you may look good for the first couple hundred yards and then you start to seize up. Blisters form from the friction, and just about every part of your body screams, “What were you thinking?” Now I’m not saying that you prepare for marriage by a series of progressively longer relationships; that may “condition” you, but not for marriage. What I am suggesting is that if your objective is to get married that you look to the condition of other things (ideally before you even meet the woman you’d like to marry). For example:

Picture this: getting out of the way

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Great testimony from King David over at The Far Wright today. It reminded me of a song we sang in church yesterday that goes, in part, “God will make a way, where there seems to be no way.”

What I saw in that song is that when there seems to be no way it really means that there seems to be no way to me. God always knows and sees the way — and usually I’m bogged down right smack in the middle of it (the way, that is).

We all have had the experience of trying to do things “our way” (thanks, Frank), the “worldly” way. If we’re blessed, or not too stubborn, we get hooked up with a good church and start to see God move and do things in our lives (He was doing them all along but we usually didn’t recognize them for what they were). We get a new idea of God’s power and mercy and we believe it and experience … yet we get comfortable or when a new challenge comes we still put ourselves in the position of saying or deciding what God can, or cannot, do. Even though we’ve seen that there were things we didn’t know before that have since changed our lives, we may yet assume that now we know it all …

“Oh yeah, God will do that, but He wouldn’t do this” or …

“If I do this, then God will do that, …

or the reverse, “God can’t do this because I didn’t do that…”

“God no longer speaks to us…or heals…or delivers…or opens doors that no man can close…”

Maybe it’s because our fear trumps our faith; we fear our faith is not even as big as a mustard seed, or we’re afraid that God won’t come through, or we’re afraid we somehow haven’t “earned” His grace — even if we’ve had hours, years, even decades of sound teaching that tells us His grace is a gift that no one can earn…

We cling to our doctrines and our own understanding, lovingly polished over the years, and fail to see or remember the underlying Word that they were based on. We’re afraid to just let go and put it in His hands, as if His plan isn’t sufficient for our needs, as if our senses are the sole arbiter of what makes sense.

God still speaks. He still heals. He still provides. If you don’t believe me, go talk to King David.

Left. Right. Left, Right, Left. Marching toward what?

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by the Night Writer

Rich Karlgaard is among those pondering a return of the religious left:

Yet while secular politics are unwelcome in our church, I have noticed subtle shifts of late. The mood of the ministry and congregation is moving left. The music is moving toward a folk-rock sound of the 1960s and 1970s. Youth ministers wear berets and soul patches. The younger ministers don’t identify themselves as “Christians” but as “Jesus followers.” I would guess that most of them are Obama supporters, but I don’t ask.

To my thinking, “Christian” is ideally something that other people should call you because of what they see in you, rather than something you’d necessarily call yourself. “Follower of Christ” doesn’t do much for me, since Jesus had a lot of people following him around during his ministry, perhaps just for the food. Personally, I like “Imitator of Christ” myself (more on that later).

America’s religious left seems to be mounting a comeback. I’m happy for this development, even though my own tilt is to the right.

The religious left has a distinguished past in American history. It led the abolition fight in the 19th century. It led the civil rights movement in the 20th century. Organizations like the Red Cross grew out of progressive Christianity.

Yes, and I think the basis of America’s welfare program appealed to our country’s Christian heritage and the well-meaning desire to do good and to help the poor. That welfare has had the un-Christian effect of destroying families and perpetuating multi-generational poverty also has to be acknowledged — something the religious left is loathe to do. It has also been, at best, ambivalent about abortion, and its infatuation and even outright embrace of communist and socialist totalitarianism from the Soviets to Castro, Ortega on through Chavez, and it’s apparent commitment to replacing God with Government throughout U.S. policy is also disturbing. (That’s not to say the Religious Right hasn’t supported it’s share of dictators and made its own alliances of convenience).

The strange disappearance of America’s religious left during the 1970s has been noted but not examined much. My own guess is that drugs, music, sex, New Age religions, body worship, tree worship, earth worship and so forth, siphoned off an entire generation of seekers who had previously found their mystic/activist fulfillment in the left hemisphere of Christianity.

Now one detects that many old hippies, and sons and daughters of hippies, are returning to progressive Christianity.

We’ll see how this plays out politically. If there must be a left, then let’s cheer for a religious and not an atheistic left. However, I do think the trend benefits Democrats and is one reason why Democratic primary voter turnout has far excelled Republican voter turnout this year. The mainstream secular media, as usual, has utterly missed this story.

I think I agree with Karlgaard that if there’s going to be a left let it be a religious left rather than an atheistic one. My caveat, and especially my prayer (for both the left and the right) is that the focus is on seeking and doing God’s will, ideally by trying to be like Christ.

Earlier I mentioned being an “imitator” of Christ. Because we’re all human (left and right), it is an easy step to try and move from “imitator” to “impersonator”, wherein we try to rule by proclamation as if we, ourselves, were God. That’s certainly long been a fear and a warning from the left side of the church aisle regarding the motivations of the right, while the left’s own similar tendencies are ignored or attributed to “doing good” or “meaning well.”

My belief is that any “theocracy”, whether left or right, is fatally flawed by our own human imperfections and tendency to turn moves into movements; movements into monuments; and, ultimately, monuments into mausoleums. By all means, we should pursue faith in our lives and we should hope that our personal beliefs will be reflected in our public behavior individually and through policy. Our responsibilities to the poor (and the poor’s responsibilities to God and others); to be stewards of the earth; to deal ethically and compassionately with others are all things that must be done and honored by individuals, not discharged to a collective or government to be taken care of while we blithely go our own selfish way. As I’ve written here before, if God asks me if I helped the poor (as if He doesn’t already know) I don’t think He’s going to be impressed if I say, “Well, I paid my taxes.” Being religiously left or right, highly taxed or not, doesn’t lessen our responsibilities to do something on an individual basis, no matter how many marches, protests or church services we go to.

We often hear the phrase, “What would Jesus do?” as a guide to behavior. I suppose that’s all right as far as it goes. A better statement might be, “What is Jesus doing?” and then trying to line up with that. If we believe Jesus is still at work around us, and not that He’s gone off and left us to our own freedom-eroding devices, we can purpose to look for those things and and align ourselves accordingly. I urge those of the religious left, and my friends on the religious right, to put our focus on glorifying God, not our own group or idealogy. If we can do that — though we may disagree from time to time — I think we’ll be all right.

Picture this: Yes

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Saturday morning we had our Inside Outfitters men’s meeting with men from a couple of other churches and a large contingent from Minnesota Teen Challenge. During the worship part of the meeting we sang with an abridged version of the song “Yes” by Shekinah Glory.

Will your heart and soul say “yes”?
Will your spirit say yes?
If I told you what I really mean,
would your heart and soul say “yes”?

It’s a song that moves slowly and deeply, giving one a chance to either sing along or meditate on the words as they minister.

There is more that I require of of you,
Will your spirit still say, “yes”?

For such a long time in my life my answer was always “No.”

Later I came around to where I said, “I don’t know.”

Eventually, in many areas of my life I said, “Yes” — to great effect.

Why then, in too many other areas, do I say, “Yes……but”?

Filings: Red Hot Secrets of Romance

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by the Night Writer

Where is it written in the Bible that guys have to be romantic? I mean, really, give me a scripture. I checked, and my concordance must be the Strong’s Silent Type, because the word “romantic” doesn’t appear once. Yet our culture tells us that women want men to be “r
omantic”, which usually means tender, sensitive and – oh yeah – dead.

In so many romantic movie by the time the credits are rolling over the last rays of poignant lighting, the guy is dead. As they might say in the Romance languages: Finito. Morte. Cold as a mackerel (like the guy in Titanic).

Why does it have to be like that? Well, I put down my Strong’s and picked up my Funk & Wagnall. It lists the definition of romance as “the character or nature of that which appears strange and fascinating, heroic, chivalrous…” and “a form of idealistic prose fiction distinguished from the novel or tale because it does not bind itself to reality…”

Well, there you have it: Romance is a fiction. The guy has to die at the end or otherwise ride off into the sunset or else reality will set in and the whole thing ultimately falls apart. You think women will pay to see a movie 17 times if turns out the knight leaves his shining armor laying around on the floor, or likes to spend his afternoons watching the jousts and scratching himself? ‘Tis a far, far better thing that he die nobly than live on and spoil the fantasy. That’s why most of what is considered “romantic” in our culture is really just a bunch of manipulative fluff that’s meant to sell something (or some philosophy).

There is an essential truth in all that, however: you really do have to die.

Earlier I challenged you to give me a scripture that mentions romance. I don’t think you’ll find one, but you will find an example of someone laying down his life for his bride. Ephesians 5:25 commands us to “love our wives as Christ loves the church.” He gave himself up, and we are to do the same.

Now I’d guess most of us, if it came right down to it, would be willing to take a bullet for our wives. The real question is, “But will you let her have the last doughnut?” It’s one thing to lay down your life in a blaze of glory like in the movies, but it’s a lot more difficult (and even more romantic) to do it day in, day out by putting someone else’s needs ahead of our own. Perhaps at some time or another you’ve heard the phrase, “C’mon, would it kill you to show a little consideration?” And the answer to that, honestly, is “yes.” It does kill us in so much as we lay aside our will, our pride, our way of doing things in order to reach out to her in a way that is meaningful to her.

We die a little when we put down the newspaper to ask her about her day; when we go out of our way to do something to make her day or her life easier; when we take her concerns and input into consideration in making a joint decision. Is it one-sided? Well, it can be, but it’s been my experience and observation that these activities are very much included in the laws of sowing and reaping, and the harvest usually comes pretty fast. Furthermore, if we are to take Christ as our model, we see that he laid down his life for us first without concern for what he would get back (in fact, even knowing that there would be many who would not accept his sacrifice).

He did it, the scripture says, to make us (the church) holy. One of the definitions of “holy” is “to be set apart.” We demonstrate that our wives are holy to us by treating them in a way that shows we value them more than any relationship in our lives other than God. Instead of taking them for granted because we’re around them so much, we put extra effort into their well-being precisely because we are around them so much. Yes, it will cost us everything – and it will pay back more than we can ever imagine.

Picture this: What the heart sees

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Here’s some of what we were singing today:

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord
open the eyes of my heart,
I want to see you; I want to see you…

See you high and lifted up, shining in the light of your glory,
Pour out your power and love as we sing holy, holy, holy!

What caught my attention was the reference to the “eyes of my heart” as opposed to my eyes themselves, and being able to see Jesus. Just what are the eyes of my heart, and what do they “see”? And it occurred to me that sometimes we sing about seeing God and Jesus glorified in the world, or think that the songs are about them being glorified in the world around us, when the change in the world begins with a change in our own hearts.

After all, will the way I go out into the world and go about my business change once I’ve truly seen Jesus high and lifted up and shining in the light of His glory in my own heart? What power and love might pour out as I sing, “Holy, holy, holy”?