Finding Hope and Life in our Deserts - Blog

I Wish I Could Make You Do This!

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:21:29 -0700

I have to confess that one of the most frustrating things about trying to help you people along in your walk with Jesus is that, and I know you'll find this hard to believe, sometimes when I tell people what they should do or how to live, they actually don't listen! Shocking! And yet, for the most part, when I do have some 'suggestions,' they are generally things that you really should be doing. (That sounds a little arrogant on re-back, but it really is true! If you'd just do them, you'd find that out!)

Here's another example of something I want you to do, in fact, if I could I would require each and every one of you to do it. Because not only it is good for you...not only will it enhance your connection with God...but it is a tangible way for you to show how much you love and care about the people in your Oasis family who desperately need your help.

I told you not too long ago that one of the things we needed to do better in the years to come is to keep making prayer part of the DNA of who we are. Over the past couple of years, we've held four or five lengthy times of prayer: 24/7, 24/3, that kind of thing. And every time we do it, I plead, cajole, encourage, inflict guilt (except I try not to do that too much, you never want to force anyone to love you!) in an effort to say to you that this is going to be really good for you! And it doesn't even taste like caster oil (hmmm, only older people will know what that even is, what would be a good equivalent for the younger crowd...I'll have to think about that...) And lots of you have taken the chance to experience it, and some of you, well, have ignored me. And that hurts, who likes to be ignored. Unless you're an introvert. Which I'm not.

All that to say we are providing you with another golden opportunity to express your love for each other, and to quiet you heart before God. Wednesday, May 2, starting at 8 PM with an hour long everyone is invited prayer time at the Millers, ending Saturday, May 5 with a prayer walk out at the Pflugfelders. One hour prayer slots at the prayer room at the Millers between then. Sign up here: http://www1.mysignup.com/cgi-bin/view.cgi?datafile=oasismay2012.

Look, the bottom line is, prayer is a good thing. God likes it when we do it! Maybe you aren't really comfortable with it, but no one is looking over your shoulder grading you..honest, no hidden cameras. Maybe you don't feel much like praying because of stuff you're dealing with, but praying actually will help you with that. Maybe you don't like to pray, but, well, you just need to get over that! I really can't think of any good excuses unless you're out of town that entire time (which some of you have scheduled a trip that just happens to coincide with the exact time we're doing this, veerryyy convenient! :-)) But if you don't care enough about your Oasis family...Oh, sorry, slipped into my motivate by guilt mode--we had a whole class on that in seminary. Honestly, this is one of those things if I could make you do it I would.

Ok, nuff said. Get over to that sign up site and click some boxes.

Is Re-Posting anything like Re-gifting?

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:04:35 -0700

It's of course Easter week, and it made me think of a post I did a couple of years ago that I think was, well, pretty darn good! So I'm putting it up again, it has to do with the day Jesus was actually crucified on. Could it actually have been Good Wednesday? Read on and see!

Has it ever bothered you that Jesus tells his disciples that he is going to be crucified (that's not the part that bothers me) and that he will rise from the dead (that doesn't bother me either, I like that!) but that it will be three days between the two? And at one point He specifically says three days and three nights in the old earth. Now we typically think of Jesus being crucified on Good Friday (which was convenient) and walking out of the tomb Sunday morning. I know there are really good theologians and Bible scholars who say that in the counting methods of the day that could equal three days and three nights...I don't know, must have been base 2 or something (that was for you, Scott Adamson!) There's for sure only two nights there, no matter how many days. I've always been bothered by that. And I'll bet it's never crossed your mind! Well, if you're interested at all, I think there's a lot of evidence that Jesus was actually crucified on Wednesday, but whoever heard of Good Wednesday? Here's where I get that from:

Keep this in the back of your head: Jewish calendar days run from sunset to sunset (which means that famous song from Fiddler should have been Sunset, Sunrise. I'm just saying!).

The reason that Friday is thought to be the day of crucifixion is that the Bible is clear that the next day was a Sabbath day. Mark 15:42-43 says "It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). Since a normal Sabbath would begin sundown Friday and end at sundown Saturday, Jesus must have been crucified on Friday afternoon. Seems pretty clear cut, right?

Ah, but what if it wasn't a normal Sabbath? What if it were an abnormal...er, a different kind of Sabbath? Read John 19:31 "Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. Interesting, huh? A special Sabbath, John says. Come on, you have to admit that's a little intriguing!

You see, the Old Testament talks about more than just one kind of Sabbath, days where there would be no work done, that were set aside to be holy to the Lord. For instance, Leviticus 23 when talking about the Day of Atonement, it says, "You shall do no work at all. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live. It is a sabbath of rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your sabbath." Other feast days designated this same way in Lev 23—Passover, (14th day of first month); Unleavened Bread (15th day of the first month).

Now, we also know that the day following Jesus crucifixion was the Passover, John 19:14--14It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour. "Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.

So what if the Sabbath that begins at sunset of the day Jesus is crucified is not the regular Sabbath, but is instead the Passover Sabbath. Jesus would actually then have been crucified on Wednesday, and put in the tomb before sundown of that day. The next day was the Passover Sabbath, the day following that would have been the Feast of Unleavened Bread Sabbath, and then the following day the normal weekly Sabbath, which would have ended at sundown on Saturday night. The women come to the tomb at first light on Sunday morning and find the tomb empty. Jesus would then have been in the tomb Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights, potentially rising Saturday evening, and the empty tomb discovered by the women Sunday morning, the first chance they had to come and do the work of preparing the body, because they couldn't do it on a Sabbath of any kind.

In addition, your Honor, I would submit to you Matthew 28:1--1After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. The word Matthew uses for the Sabbath here is actually in the plural, after "the Sabbaths." The Passover Sabbath, the Unleavened Bread Sabbath and the regular Sabbath. Your Honor, I rest my case!

I don't know if that really matters, you probably weren't as irritated by this I was, and I've probably confused you sufficiently that you stopped reading paragraphs ago. But it is good to know that when Jesus says three days and three nights, it actually could have been that way. Here's hoping you have a great Easter week, and don't forget to celebrate Good Wednesday!

One thing about Oasis, we know how to party!

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:38:11 -0700

Oasis celebrated 10 years of gatherings at Ashland Ranch Elementary School this past Sunday, and I always find it interesting that visitors seem to almost always show up when we do this kind of thing...older visitors...conservative visitors...on a day when a picture of me holding a bottle of vodka in one hand and Baileys in the other may or may not have shown up in the anniversary slide show. Deep sigh. My mom would be so proud!

But putting aside my personal embarrassment--which you all delight in, I know you do--we had a tremendous time celebrating all that God has done in our family over those 10 years. Say what you will about us, you people know how to party. Or should that be PAR-TAY? We heard things like how real this place is, how authentic we are with each other, how centered we are on Jesus, that our kids feel a part of what's going on, that we sense the love of God among us...pretty cool stuff, huh? We are not what I thought we would be when we started meeting at this school 10 years ago. But what we are, I absolutely love!

So where do we go in the next 10 years (I can't help but think that I'll be, lets' just say in my mid 60's at the end of that, I cannot even believe that!!)? We are still a work in progress, we have not arrived, and I believe God has laid on my heart some of the key places we still need to grow in. (Ok, ok, "in which we still need to grow." Sheesh!)

First, we need to continue to make prayer the foundation of all we do. over the past few years, mostly through Luke's influence, we have participated in times of 24/7 prayer, or 24/3 prayer, and God has responded by bringing change to us and our situations. I have to confess, I don't completely understand why God waits till we pray, but it seems He usually chooses to do so. We've made a good start, prayer has become more important to us then it has been in the past. And many of you have spent time in the prayer rooms and come away transformed as a result. We need to allow God to take us deeper into this kind of dependency. Luke is again leading out in this for us, soon he'll be calling us to a regular opportunity for connecting together in prayer. And the next time we're called to a 24/whatever time of prayer, I'm hoping that those of you who have yet to experience this will spend some time in the prayer room hearing from God. God is making us a praying church, let's cooperate with him as he does!

One of the things that God has built into our DNA from when Oasis was just a gleam in its Father's eye is that we were here to love the lost, to have our hearts broken for them, to be a place of grace and mercy. And we have had such a privilege of seeing so many people step into the family of God and experience genuine transformation. But we need to make sure that we are intentionally keeping this as a focus of who we are. It's too easy to lose sight of this, to lose the perspective of God's larger story going on around us. We'll be looking for ways to keep this on our front burners (I wonder where that phrase comes from?)

It didn't take a lot of analysis to determine that what we value most is our relationships with each other, the family that we are to each other. We're pretty darn good at this, if we say so ourselves! (And you did!) But we need to drive this community, this family, even deeper. Short of moving in with each other, we've got to find the ways to make sure that every one of us in connected to our family, that no one is lonely or isolated or abandoned. I told you that this whole thing sometimes feels very fragile, that relationally we could fall apart at any moment. I think that's just the nature of what we're trying to be and do here. We care about being connected, and so any thing that threatens that is magnified. If relationships are truly everything in the body of Christ, and we believe they are, then we are going to provide the opportunities to develop more love and trust among each other. Count on it!

We have so much to be thankful for. For the adventure of where we've been. For the joy of who God has made us. For the anticipation of what we will be. I am so glad to be on this journey with you. Shoulder to shoulder. A band of brothers. "It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus."(Philippains

A Story of Adoption

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:11:11 -0700

Admit it…you missed my witty repartee and keen insights didn’t you? Okay, neither did I. For a while there I was pretty much just dry and tapped out myself and didn’t have a lot I wanted to write about. But I’m feeling re energized, reconnected, and I ran across an article that is just too good not to bring to your attention.

We talk a lot about how crucial it is for us as Jesus followers to come to grips with everything that God has done for us. All that He has made us. The transformation that occurred in us when we gave our hearts to Jesus. We need to live in the reality of who we really are in Christ: forgiven; holy and blameless; blessed with every spiritual blessing; partners in God’s larger story; the Holy Spirit actually living inside of us; legally adopted as sons.

We are adopted as sons (and I know that sounds sexist but that’s a gender inclusive term, that male or female, we’ve been given the same rights as legal heirs of God which isn’t sexist at all.) Because of this great love God has for us, he has made us, who once were orphans or slaves, a part of his family.

So this article appeared in the Arizona Republic the day after Christmas called Hope Holds Out: Boy Gains Family. It tells the story of Evens Paul, a 10 year old boy from an orphanage in Haiti and his younger brother who have been in process of being adopted by a family here in Gilbert for several years now. It was nearly official two years ago, then the earthquake destroyed all the records and they had to start over. You should read the rest of the story, it’s really very moving, but what I wanted you to hear were some of the statements from the family. And what it says about who you are in the eyes of your Father.

“My family has been waiting for me,” says Evens Paul Goracke. His family has loved him even before they got him.

Evens knew some English, but spoke Creole the best. He called Heather “Mami” and Jason “Papi.” He taught Brayden the Creole word for “brother.” He told Brayden that he wanted to look like his American family.

When they got him home, Brayden gave him the tour and showed Evens the pool, their room, the Legos, the bunk beds: all shared. When I came from Haiti,” Evens says, “the first thing he said: ‘Everything is yours.’”

This family, the judge reads, shall now “bear towards each other the relationship of parents and children.” When she gets to that part, his mom grabs him tight, and he watches his parents wipe their eyes. “It’s done,” his mom whispers. “She said yes. You’re stuck with us, no matter what.”

Did you hear that? I mean, did you really hear that?? Loved before they got him. Everything is yours. You’re stuck with us no matter what. Maybe we need a story like this to break through the intellect to the emotion of what God has done for us in Christ. To get our arms around the truth of who we are. Children of “Papi.” And maybe our response should be what Evens was: to want to be like our new family.

Find the whole story at _

So that's what doing life together looks like!

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 11:09:05 -0700

I was out in Ohio a couple for weeks ago for a class on church planting that I took with my son David and his wife Sarah--btw, have I mentioned that I'm going to be a grandfather? (Smooth getting that in there, huh?) Sarah is due in November, their first, our first, it's all very exciting! But...I digress.

While I was there, I spent some time with a good friend, but to carve out that time meant I had to sit through his small group get together. Nice people, good discussion, excellent desserts, the meeting itself was fine. It wasn't until afterwards that I was astounded. We were talking about the group and some of their past experiences, and my friend told me how several years earlier one of the couple's marriage was in trouble, and how the guys met with the husband and spoke truth to him, encouraged him to fight for his marriage, and, well, loved him. And the girls did the same with the wife. And the result was that God saved that marriage and made it something solid. And how they're doing the same thing with another couple right now. By the end I was shaking my head, just astonished at the depth of community they were expressing to each other, the risky involvement in each others lives. I told him that and he looked a little puzzled and said, "Huh! Yeah, I guess that is special, I hadn't really thought about it. Usually I'm just frustrated that it doesn't seem like anything is getting done. It's good me to hear that perspective!"

A pretty good picture of what it means to do all those one another things the Bible talks about, isn't it? I could be the teacher here and talk about the principles we can draw out of that--the transforming power of community or how you need to invest a lot of what may seem like insignificant time to lay the foundation for significant events or how we all need this kind of connection. But I' rather go beyond the classroom with you and ask a more important question: what about you? Are you involved in a community like that? Are there people in your life that would be that risky with you, would care that much about you? And for my Oasis family--are you connected with others from this community in that kind of way?

I confess I walked away that night (freezing in the cold and wet that is Ohio) thinking that we think we do this doing life together thing pretty well, but wondering if all of us are in this kind of relationship. And pretty sure we aren't. You may be surprised to know that I think of you all alot, and I worry when I sense that you're disconnected, withdrawn from these kinds of meaningful/essential relationships. You know that I believe we all need to live in this kind of community, where we are loved, protected, cared for, and do the same to others. I need people who know me well enough, love me well enough, that if my marriage is in trouble, they won't simply watch me drift away, but will gather around me and speak truth and love to me. And so do you.

So, if you're from Oasis, you're going to get an invitation from me soon to extend our connection time, to give opportunity for relationships to go deeper, I'm going to lead you to the waters of community...which of course I can't make you drink from! And I'm going to encourage you to involve yourself in the things that promote this kind of intimacy, like our retreats, and potlucks, and campouts. It takes a lot of time together to get to the nuggets of significance, to delve below the surface of superficiality. To trust.

And if you're not from Oasis, find that community somewhere, go on an all out search until you find it. Because let's face it, ultimately relationships are everything, the eternal things. And it's better to walk this path together than alone.

We're Still Not Talking About Sex...How about some resources

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:56:20 -0700

So we finished our series on sexuality from God's perspective last week, and may I never have to say again in a message some of the words I've had to say over the course of that six weeks! Words like...oh, no, you have to go and listen if you want to know. Too bad we don't video this, then you could see how red I get.

But I still think this was such an important topic for us to talk about. We are being lied to on a daily basis about how we are made, and we have subtly bought into those lies without even realizing it. It's the frog in the kettle kind of thing again. So my heart was to restore the sacred and the relational passion to our sexuality. Hopefully you caught that, but like I said, it's really a matter of what we're going to buy into (the truth or a lie) and about how much we're willing to trust God with our sexuality.

And oddly enough, I'm not the only one apparently who thinks this is a vital topic to deal with. I was channel surfing last night and stumbled on two local church broadcasts. The first words I heard from one was "naked and unashamed," and the other was talking about sexuality as well. Hmmm....

Well, there is a point to this blog, honest. One of the points we made about being naked and unashamed was that we needed to become students of both lovemaking and of our spouse. Consider it continuing education. So I wanted to pass on some of the resources I used (besides the Bible, which is filled with wonderful insight on this) so you could do some study on your own. Kind of like extra credit...geez, how much motivation do you need to do this?? Anyway, here's the titles of some of the books I used:

Sheet Music (Uncovering the Secrets of Sexual Intimacy in Marriage) by Kevin Leman
A Celebration of Sex (A Guide to Enjoying God's Gift of Sexual Intimacy) by Douglas Rosenau
Love and War (Finding the Marriage you've Dreamed Of) by John and Stasi Eldridge
Red Hot Monogamy (Making your Marriage Sizzle) by Bill and Pam Farrell
Intended for Pleasure by Ed Wheat

You'll find these go into more, shall we say, depth, on the topic. ( And for my single readers, I'd maybe suggest waiting until you're engaged to begin your education. Channel that energy elsewhere!)

So was this series helpful? Did you get anything out of it? (Perhaps I should rephrase that.) Why not comment here and let me know how this challenged you, or which moment of my embarrassment you found most enjoyable!

One story to close: Somewhere in the middle of this series I recommended that you and your spouse should read the Song of Solomon together and take some time to figure out just exactly what it is the lovers are talking about in that poem. Well, one of you told me (this is how I know we're a really close church!) that you didn't get past chapter 4 before, well, um,

A Church called an Oasis...hmmmm.

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:39:43 -0700

I'm in one of my reading frenzies...I've got two novels started (depending on which bathroom I'm in) and two non-fiction reads going, and the only trouble I have is in trying to keep the stories straight. It makes for an interesting plot when I mix the story lines! I just finished Philip Yancey's newest book, What Good is God. Most of you know that Yancey has been one of my spiritual mentors through the years, ever since we stumbled on Disappointment with God during some rough times back in Indiana. He has a way of speaking into my soul,this book was no different. He uses 10 different speaking opportunities to look at the role God plays in cultures, countries, and difficult events. In one chapter, he's looking at the impact that AA has had on people dealing with addictions, and he titles his talk "Why I Wish I was an Alcoholic." You'll have to get the book to see what that's all about, but he says something there that made me wonder about our Oasis family.

Yancey writes this: "Every week the Mustard Seed group recites the twelve steps together and as I listened they seemed to boil down to two big steps. One is radical honesty. These alcoholics and drug addicts can smell deception a mile away and have learned to be brutally honest about their flaws and failures. The second step is radical dependence. They know they cannot make it through another day without the help of their friends and without the help of God. It occurred to me...that my own church could use a refreshed course on these very two steps. People can fake it in church--"How's it going?" "O fine, fine." When in truth a marriage is falling apart, a teenager has run away. "Need any help?" "No, no, everything's fine, the Lord is good."

Then, later he writes: "Many of the most spiritual addicts I know avoid church because they view it as a place for people who have it all together. Oh, my! I can think of far more entertaining ways to spend my Sunday mornings if I already have it together. I go to church as an expression of my need for God and for God's family. So often however, I leave with an empty feeling because church covers reality with a veneer of respectability. What have we done that we communicate church as a place for well people rather than a place to get well?"

That's what an oasis is, isn't it? A place to get well, to be rescued, to recover. A place for honesty and openness. What reading this did for me was to say, "you know what, we're pretty close to this." Just over the past couple of weeks, we've had people come in and say, "I'm having trouble with my child" and "My marriage is in bad shape." We want to be this kind of place, where grace and love and acceptance provides an environment of healing instead of judgment and un-grace. There's always of course room to grow. It's still hard to drop the masks and let others see us for who and what we really are. There's still some stiffness in our get togethers--we need to relax and be together as friends and family instead of feeling like we're in a church service! Like we're hanging out in someone's family room together. (I think it's those dang benches--how can you not feel like you're in at a performance of some kind?) But I'm so so grateful that many of you have taken the risk to say, "I don't have it all together. I'm hurting. I need my family's support."

"I have a feeling that if the watching world saw the church as a place that welcomes broken people for healing, it might have a greater impact than all our sophisticated outreach programs put together." I think I agree with that. It's what I want for us--a family that is real with each other. And not just because I'm a neb nose (don't get me started on western Pennsylvania-ese!). It's becasue we should be a fmaily

Raw or Radical? (Why I don't like raw Christianity)

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 10:00:29 -0700

A hummingbird was dancing outside my office window just now, maybe for a whole minute. That has nothing whatsoever to do with what I want to write about, but it was so cool!

Raw Christianity. That’s what I want to deal with today. Heard anyone use this phrase yet to describe their faith? It’s been bandied about (just how do you go about bandying something about?) in a couple of different circles of friends of mine. And it kind of rubs me, well, raw.

What I understand them to mean when they call themselves raw Christians is that we should be genuine in our faith, we need to drop all pretense of being something that we aren’t and just let people see us for what we are—sinners saved by grace. We need to dispense with the mask wearing, stop putting on airs of self-righteousness, and be real. Now that’s not what concerns me, I actually think that’s the way we should live out our faith, both with our fellow followers and with our friends in the world. (Pretty good alliteration there, huh?) I need to be real, to let others know the real Jim Miller, my heart, my hurts, failings. (Almost did it again, but couldn’t think of an H word for failings.) I get that.

What does concern me is that some of those who talk about being Raw Christians use it as a rationalization to do and say whatever they want. From using street language to justifying lifestyle choices. All in the name of being real, or raw.

But I like a different R word. Instead of being a raw Christian, I want to be a radical follower of Jesus. I want to live a Sermon on the Mount kind of life. I want to embrace costly, not cheap, grace. To live counter to the culture, not conformed to it. To answer the call to radical obedience, not out of some legalistic attitude where I’m trying to look good for God and others, but out of a loving relationship where I want to please the God who loves me. I want to risk for God. I want to hold nothing back. I don’t want to settle for the mediocrity of the raw lifestyle, I rather want to be challenged to a radical pursuit of God. A ‘take up my cross’ kind of pursuit.

And just in case you missed it: real, raw, rationalization, risk, radical. Sign me up for the last one.

How Far Would You Go? To Italy?

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:05:38 -0700

I read an article in the Sunday AZ Republic a couple of weeks ago about a couple whose marriage was in trouble. They had two teenagers, both had pretty successful careers, and over the course of time they had simply drifted apart and disconnected. They had talked about divorce, because isn't that what people do in this situation today? Well, the guy had a business trip to Italy (I got to figure out a way to get my business to take me to Italy!) and his wife accompanied him to play hostess for the group he was traveling with. One evening they sat on their balcony overlooking the Italian landscape, the husband said, "You now, I could live here." His wife replied, "Me too." And as they talked, they began to see a glimmer of light, a possibility of how to save their marriage and reconnect. but it was going to take drastic steps. They went home and quit their jobs. They sold their house in California. They pulled their kids out of their schools. And they moved their family to Italy. They used the proceeds from the house to pay for a year there. When the money ran out, then came home and found jobs that wouldn't be so demanding or time consuming. They lowered their standard of living. And they fell back in love.

The romantic in me loves that story (yes, you know I'm a romantic, admit it!). But its not very practical, is it? I mean, who would ever think about going to that length to save their marriag....Giving up your successful career just so you don't get divorc...it's an awfully drastic step just to put relationships firs...

This is a couple that came to their senses before it was too late. They suddenly saw what was of utmost importance in their lives--their marriage, their kids--and they took what many would call ridiculous steps in order to restore it. They 'threw away' careers, house, security, their comfortable lifestyles, because they knew they were missing what was of most value. They became desperate for each other, and they let nothing stand in the way of their restoration. They went all the way to Italy!

How about you, or me for that matter? How far would we go? Would we risk everything for what's most important? Would we put relationship over success, over comfort? What if it had been your marriage (what if it is?) How important is it to you? How desperate are you for reconnection? Most of us might be willing to do minor surgery, we might go to say, New Mexico. But all the way to Italy?

And what if it's your friendship with God? To what lengths are you willing to go to reestablish what is the most vital relationship you need? What are the things that have dragged you away from that first love, and now stand as barriers between you and God? What would you be willing to give up? How far would you go? All the way to Italy?

We sing that song at church that takes me deep every time: "I'll be a fool for You, I'll waste my life on You." Turning your back on all that you own, all that you've acquired, all you've achieved seems pretty foolish, a waste. But not when it's weighed against the truly weighty things of life: love, friendship, relationship. I don't think that family really misses any of that other stuff. They found what was really valuable--each other. But they had to go to Italy to do it!

Joy is Opposed

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:20:31 -0700

I've used this illustration a few times lately, that our walk with Jesus is more like a football than golf. With golf, I'm basically playing the course, trying to improve, wanting to lower my score, and then we compare that score to the other guys I'm playing with to see who wins. But football is different. In a football game, I have the goals of playing well, choosing and running good plays and wanting to score touchdowns every time I get the ball. But there's an added element in pigskin: there's another team that is actively opposed to what it is I'm trying to accomplish, whose goal is, in fact, to keep from doing and becoming exactly what it is I'm trying to do and become.

That came to mind again because Ann got a letter recently from Ransomed Heart, John Eldridge's organization, and in it he wrote about a disappointing situation he found himself in and how it raised questions about whether God really cared about him. As he was praying it through, here's the message he heard from God: Every joy is deeply opposed. Then he writes:

"Wait. What? It is? Really? Every joy is deeply opposed? That changes my perspective on everything. I mean, if that's true, then You are doing so much, for all the joy we do receive. And we are being so naive when we when we see joy as something that ought to come pretty easily. Like it's not really central to what's going on. Not a major point but a kind of sideshow, so it shouldn't be so hard. But then it is hard, and it doesn't happen, and that raises all sorts of questions, especially about...God."

"Think about it friends--what are the assumptions you are making about joy, and unanswered prayer, and God's heart toward you? Do you see joy as central to this Story, absolutely central, and therefore deeply opposed in your life--not by God, but by your enemy? Do you see how disappointment, wrongly interpreted, clouds your relationship with God? Lets in a sense of betrayal? Do you see how believing otherwise would change so much of your perspective? Dear friends, joy is central and joy is opposed."

I think we forget sometimes that we are at war. That there's an opponent who is actively working against us. If we could get our arms around that rea