Costumes (Friday Devotional)

 

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

- Psalm 139:1-4

In neighborhoods across the country, tonight you’ll hear the same cry at every doorstep: “Trick or treat!” Smiling adults will drop fun-sized candy bars into plastic orange buckets. Parents will find their entire vocabularies reduced to two exclamations, “slow down!” and “remember to say thank you!” And most importantly, every child (not to mention plenty of teenagers and adults) will be wearing a costume.

That’s part of the fun of Halloween, of course. Whether you opt for something scary like a vampire or a werewolf, something corporate and recognizable like a Minion or one of the Avengers, or you go with one of those punny getups that you have to explain—see, I’m wearing a beret and holding a piece of bread; I’m French toast—everybody gets to spend the evening pretending to be something they’re not.

Of course, Halloween isn’t the only time we do that. Not really. When you’re at your wit’s end and the cashier asks how you’re doing, you smile and say, “Doing great.” When you want to make a good impression on someone, you laugh at their jokes even when they’re not that funny. When you show up to church on Sunday morning, you wear nicer clothes than you did on Saturday and match it with better manners and a brighter smile. Costumes and make believe, it seems, aren’t reserved for October 31.

But eventually you want to take your costume off and be yourself. You want someone who knows you fully, not just the version of yourself that you present in public. So there’s relief in knowing that the Lord knows you as no one else does—just as there is no hiding from God, there is no fooling him either. He sees you as you truly are—and he loves you anyway.

Costumes can be fun, but the truth is liberating. What a blessing to know that God sees past our disguises to the people he created in his image. And what joy to know that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to save the person you pretend to be—he did it to save you.

Bouncing Down the Road (Friday Devotional)

 

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

- Psalm 46:13

A couple days ago, I was driving up Centerville Road when I spotted something out of the ordinary in front of me. It was a large, red, inflatable ball—the kind you see for $5 in a cage at Walmart—bouncing down the road. Maybe it had been in the bed of somebody’s pickup truck and had bounced out, maybe it had been thrown out the window of a passing car like litter, who knows? But there it went, bouncing down the 6-lane road.

It was never a hazard for me—I was in the left lane and it was in the right—but I watched the ball from the moment it caught my attention until long after I drove past it. I was waiting for something—for the moment a car hit the ball head-on and popped it. But as far as I know, that ball just kept bouncing down the street. The last I saw, it was still bouncing down Centerville Road.

Something about that bouncing red ball felt metaphorical to me, felt like life. All of us are, in a sense, like that ball. Every day we do the basic things we know how to do—we go to work, we spend time with friends, we do our chores, we eat, we sleep. We bounce down the road.

But for most of us, there is a persistent feeling of insecurity. What if I get laid off? What if my friends move away? What if the doctor tells me I have cancer? All it takes is one big event, one head-on collision, and life as you know it could come to an end. We need something to make us feel safe, something to make us feel less afraid in a fearful world.

In Psalm 46, the writer speaks of God as a “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” The psalmist doesn’t live in some pie-in-the-sky fiction where bad things never happen to good people; he has seen enough life to know that things can get dangerous quickly.

But “though the earth should change”—whether through natural disaster, manmade crisis, or any sort of peril—the psalmist says he will not fear. He knows the Lord is with him, so ultimately he is secure.

Life can make you feel like you’re a fragile inflatable ball bouncing down a busy road, just moments away from being run down. But the Bible tells you who to trust in your fear and insecurity—not your own strength and wisdom, but the Lord’s. Keep bouncing, and trust God to get you where you need to be.

All's Fair (Friday Devotional)

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 

- 1 Corinthians 12:14-15

This weekend marks the conclusion of a favorite annual tradition for families across our region, including mine: the State Fair of Texas. Every year, more than 2 million Texans—and, at least for one weekend, visitors north of the Red River—make their way to Dallas’ Fair Park to eat, play games, eat, ride rides, eat, see shows, and eat some more.

There are probably certain parts of the fair you enjoy every time you go—for us, no trip is complete without a Fletcher’s corny dog, a stroll through the livestock barn, and a quick perusal of the new cars in the Automobile Building. Then again, there are other aspects of the fair you may have never tried. Maybe you skip the games at the midway, or steer clear of the Ferris wheel. Maybe—<shudder>—you pack your own lunch so you won’t have to pay for fair food.

But whether you do it all or simply grab your corny dog and go, I think you’ll agree, the State Fair is more than just the activities you partake in. It’s crowds gathering around Big Tex for selfies, even if you don’t take any yourself. It’s live music playing on the main stage, even if you don’t know the band’s name. It’s the thousands of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes—the ones for you and the ones for others. Some parts appeal to you more than others, but every bit of it matters.

So it is with the church, where individual differences and distinctions come together in the unity of the Spirit. The Bible teaches us that all believers are empowered with different spiritual gifts—everything from wisdom to hospitality to teaching—for the common good. Similarly, the church has always been made up of both men and women, young and old, rich and poor.

Such diversity can be challenging, and so the temptation is to divide ourselves into more homogenous groupings in the name of ‘relatability.’ But the danger in doing so—in always surrounding believers with people just like them—is that you rob people of the kind of church Jesus created.

The truth is that every person has something to contribute to the church; every individual member matters to the body. Your brother in Christ possesses gifts you don’t have, and you have something to offer that your sister in Christ doesn’t. We need everyone to carry out the mission our Lord has given us.

Like the offerings at the fair, you don’t have to appreciate or even understand every ministry of your church. Some will appeal to you and others won’t resonate. But praise God for all those using their gifts to make your church a vibrant, multifaceted family of faith.

Made New (Friday Devotional)

 

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

- Romans 6:4

Netflix used to be best known for sending DVDs through the mail. Amazon once exclusively sold books. YouTube originally started as a dating website. And before it was marketed as modeling clay for children, Play-Doh was initially sold as a cleaner to remove coal residue from wallpaper.

All these companies, for various reasons, reinvented themselves over time. They found new purpose, a new way to exist in the world—and because of their imagination and their willingness to change, they saw growth they had never imagined.

When the Bible describes life in Christ, it explains it as just such a conversion—not a slight modification of behavior, but a total transformation. Believers in Jesus are baptized in water, and that immersion symbolizes a spiritual death and resurrection—when we emerge from the waters of baptism, we do so as new creations. Even as Jesus was raised from the dead, we are raised to new life in Christ.

Longtime disciples of Jesus need that reminder: there is supposed to be a marked difference between your life before you were saved and your life after you come to faith. Salvation is not something you tack onto an existing lifestyle, but something that changes everything.

If secular corporations can be transformed, surely the same can be true for God’s children. May we be known not for minor modifications, but for total transformation.

Christlike Compassion (Friday Devotional)

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

- Matthew 9:36

The other day, something upset my daughter Katherine. I don’t remember if she’d hurt herself, if somebody had made her mad, or if she’d just been told she needed to do her chores—but whatever the case, she had collapsed into a heap on the floor, sobbing.

What made me remember that moment was what happened next. As she wailed, our son Isaac, not yet 2 years old, curiously walked up to her. Even as she screamed, he cupped her face in his hands—the same way he does to me and his mom when he wants us to pay attention to him—and quietly questioned, “Hi, KaKa?”

There’s a reason why that little moment has been rolling around my brain all week—as adults, we almost never do that. When we see a stranger in need, it makes us uncomfortable and we look away.  When a loved one is struggling, we silently wonder how long it will take for things to go back to normal. Our immediate reaction is not to enter into someone else’s suffering, but to flee from it.

Jesus never ran away from people in need, he ran toward them. Whether to heal, to teach, or simply to console, Jesus’ instinct was to reach out to the suffering, to put their face in his hands. Because he knew—and he was teaching us—that love is not just something you feel, but something you demonstrate.

Christlike compassion requires more than good intentions, it requires stepping outside your comfort zone. It means showing people, not just telling them, about the love of Jesus. May you not respond to tears by turning away, but by stepping up.