Into the Light

I spent most of last week battling a headache. We were leading worship for students at a youth camp in Florida. The schedule was relaxed and the weather was perfect but I squinted my way through a week-long melon-thumper. The problem was the sun. The wide open skies of the Florida Gulf coast reflect off of the powdery white sand in a deadly combination for unshaded eyes. If you stare into the light you will see nothing. Instead the goal in that kind of bright-wash is to keep your eyes down and focus on the stuff the light is illuminating.

As a songwriter I have stared into the light of God’s glory for years now seeking fresh and cathartic ways to describe what I see. The problem of course is that what I see staring into the glory of God is most often blinded and blurry. To try and describe glory is to kill its mystery. The adjectives I use only seem to dim God’s radiance. I am, however surrounded by the stuff that God’s glory is illuminating.

In music (like in no other area I know) we as consumers have created categories like sacred and secualar, Christian and mainstream. As a songwriter I find it difficult to make that distinction. What I see when I look around me for something to write about is the glory of God. Sometimes I try and stare into it to describe what I see. Other times I look around to see what God’s glory is illuminating. Where is glory being reflected? Sometimes those colors seem more vivid and the images more visceral simply because these eyes of mine weren’t built to see what’s real beyond all of this. At least not yet. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.” 1 Cor 13:12.

Staring into the light isn’t always helpful but if you look around you, surely you will see what the light is illuminating. Look around, where do you see the glory of God reflected around you? Share your reflections with us as a comment!

SweetSleep in Haiti

Andy Reuter has done an edit of HANDS to help point attention to HAITI and the work of a cool organization called SWEET SLEEP. We know these guys well and believe their doing something truly unique and lasting in Haiti. Please join them in their work by making a donation HERE.

Where is God?

I heard this question posed on CNN this morning as commentators marveled at the worship and thanksgiving that was springing up on the streets of Port-au-Prince this morning. My limited exposure to the hurting and oppressed around the world in places like India, China, Eastern Europe and Southern Africa have suggested to me that the question “where is God in tragedy?” is uniquely American. Perhaps it is a question uniquely asked among the wealthy, the self-reliant.

We who have been given so much struggle to understand how a loving God could subject his children to discomfort, tragedy, suffering, or need. Honestly, I have little stomach for discomfort. I have assumed that surely my best good will be found in the escape of suffering and lot along its path. Surely the love of God would be proved to me in the removal of suffering from my life.

Even a cursory search of the Bible exposes a vastly different worldview than the one by which we in the west weigh our lives. Difficulty and even tragedy are viewed as a path to walk, a journey toward a destination. “No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful. But later on it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace” (Hebrews 12:11) As the church of the New Testament faced persecution and death, they were instructed to view their suffering as an honor (1 Peter 4). In the same way, the apostle Paul did not hide the myriad tragedies he faced as though they threatened the existence of a loving God. Instead, he boasted in them as a deeper proof of God’s patient shaping presence with him (2 Corinthians 6). We ask, “wouldn’t God keep his children from facing persecution.” The answer of the first century church would surely have been, “please do not remove this honor from us. Please do not rob us of this journey”

Further, when God decided to introduce Himself to the world in the person of Jesus, He did so by trading in crowns and palaces for swaddling clothes and a manger. He came to a persecuted people and was born into poverty. Suffering is not only true to the human condition, it is a core expression of Immanuel, God With Us. Jesus is not God’s removal of suffering from the world (though that day will come – Revelation 21). Jesus is the icon of God’s presence in the midst suffering. The Holy Spirit is God’s avatar with us in all that we face.

Among the urban poor in Mumbai, the rejected Roma of Eastern Europe, the earthquake refugee camps of the Sichuan province of China and even in my own relatively safe and comfortable experience in New Orleans in 2005, there is a very clear sense that God is present in the middle of suffering. God is not present with the purpose of removing suffering from us, not in this brief life. Instead, at our point of deepest dependance, God proves Himself as deeply dependable.

How can the followers of Jesus give him thanks and praise in the middle of such tragedy? How can a loving God allow suffering and tragedy like that in Haiti? Where is God? I’ll allow U2′s Bono to answer better than I could from his sermon at the National Prayer breakfast in 2006: “God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.”

Home from India

I am back home from an amazing songwriting adventure in Mumbai, India. Can’t wait to share songs and stories with you. The One Most High God is drawing people to Himself everywhere I go. It may be months or years before i even understand what God is doing among 1.5 billion Indians but it was easy to see the way God was active with Arif, Samir, Satala, Danielkahn, Jai, and a hundred others.

Before the stories begin I will sleep much and write disgruntled letters to Suntrust, AT&T, and Continental. In the meantime you can see images, videos, and stories at mreport.org.

King of Hearts

Mosaic Nashville has set up a fund to help pay medical expenses for a friend in Mumbai, India. Vivian had a heart attack last week and medical bills quickly exceeded the annual cap of the friend’s health coverage. Any help you are willing to offer will be a great relief to Vivian and his family.

All contributions to Mosaic Nashville’s King of Hearts Fund are tax deductible. The “Donate” button below offers you the chance to make a secure online donation. If you prefer to mail a check, make it payable to Mosaic Nashville and write “King of Hearts Fund” in the memo line. Checks can be mailed to P. O. Box 60604 Nashville, TN 37206.