Revolt Towards

Dive!

Check out the trailer for the new film, Dive! It's all about dumpster diving for wasted food! 
(I think someone I know is in the trailer. Weird).

Justice Isn't About Me

So yesterday I was driving home and I got off the 101 when I saw this woman holding a sign that said "Pregnant. Please help!" While I've come across signs like this before, this one was different. This woman was holding her face with her free hand as tears came streaming down her face. Through my thin car windows, I could hear the groan of her sadness and the reality of her situation made me reach for my wallet. Only I was too slow and the light was green and I'm praying, "Jesus, should I go back!? What should I do?" 

All I heard was, "Joel, this one isn't yours."

Out of all the times I've helped people and given my change, here was a woman whose tearful moaning still had my ears ringing and I was ready to do whatever it took, and all I hear, or what I think I hear is, "This one isn't yours, Joel." 

I was pissed! As I continued driving, I wanted to cry and was completely frustrated inside. 

That was when He spoke.

"Joel, my justice isn't about you."

But I was ready to sacrifice anything! Go anywhere! Do whatever it took to help this woman!

"It's not about you, Joel. It never was or will be..."

"My justice on the earth has nothing to do with you feeling good about yourself, but justice in her life is as much about you as it is about her. Justice, the kind of justice I'm looking for, is ultimately an issue of worship, Joel. My justice for you right now is to be obedient to me because your obedience—your worship by listening to me—is better than your sacrifice. This one isn't yours to tackle. This is where you trust me—an act of worship—that I'm big enough to take care of her and let justice come."

Of course, I was floored. Mad, but at the same time, taken aback at this revelation.

It's not about me. I wanted to help, but my help and action can't supersede listening to the King. If I were to have acted on my own in this situation and enacted my own sense of justice and my own sense of Joel's righteousness in the situation, then who knows what ramifications that would of had. Am I worried about the ramifications of me not helping her when I had the means to do so? Well, while something like this had never happened before, it doesn't change that Jesus quickly was teaching me to trust Him. To trust Him that me not acting doesn't mean I was inactive. I prayed for her the rest of the way home (and even wrestled with my own believes that we need to become the prayers we pray). But frankly, I would rather be pissed off at God for being obedient (because He can handle it), than to have missed this lesson all together because I just blindly acted on my compassion.

Hebrews 1:8
But about the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.

If I enact my own sense of what I think justice is, then I play God. I put myself as the one holding the scepter of justice. But I don't hold the scepter—only the King does and we are all subject to him. I do believe this only applies to us who call Jesus our King. The Red Cross, Oxfam, FEMA, UNICEF—they will all call their own shots. But as people who "proclaim another King", I want to make sure I also never go to the frontlines on the battlefields of justice without knowing what my King is doing. 

It's about His justice, not mine. It's about His righteousness on the earth, not mine. And both those things mean that bringing His righteousness and justice ultimately comes down to worship of Jesus and not our own ideas, plans and the best-laid intentions. 

If the pursuit of justice ever becomes about our own glory, we might as well be making a golden calf from the gold found in our lofty, compassionate pursuits. True justice on the earth from the One who sees and knows all things and all scenarios, is never about me and never will be—it will always be about Him as long as I (we) let Him have His way.

Follow Up

 
 

So when I was in New York, or rather, Brooklyn, I wrote a blog (I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For) after an afternoon spent at Prospect Park. I wish I would have wrote this followup a few weeks ago, but it never happened. But something awesome did happen on my day there in the city.

I was Sunday, September 27 and my last day on the east coast so I wanted to make the most of my day. I really wanted to go to Central Park at some point, but my prayer was that my time in NYC wouldn't be in vain (ie: just to see U2) and that something would happen that day to conclude my time there.

A few different things happened that day (encountering a drugged-out woman on Broadway and Spring; spending time at Grace Church while the girl's choir practiced singing Isaac Watts' "When I Survey the Wonderous Cross"; and being able to walk through Central Park after the rain), but it was in the evening at my friends' church, Trinity Grace, that everything made sense.

I walked into the church that night with Nathaniel while their time of worship was going on. While they sang songs I didn't know, it wasn't hard to sense that they knew why they were there and wanted to encounter God. After worship, this woman came up to give the teaching for the night. What would you know, but it was all on the dunamis power of God.

She talked of us being a people who live for the renewal of all things by being people who pursue the power of God. She talked about how embarking on this means we have to repent for not pursuing it actively before. She talked about how this is what the world needs, what New York City needs and what the church needs. 

She spoke from Act 17 where Paul and Silas are preaching in the city and they get accused of "turning everything upside down" and for "proclaiming another king" other than Caesar. 

Acts 17:6-7
And when they found them not, they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city, crying, These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.

They turned everything upside down! They proclaimed another king! 

If we are honest, when was the last time those who follow Jesus were blamed for turning everything upside down? Maybe during the Jesus People movement of years past. But not lately. Not even our justice movements within the Church have gotten blamed for such a thing. 

I think a key to understanding the power that can transform families, homes, cities and nations is that we have to proclaim another King. And if we aren't proclaiming another King, in whatever we do (work, play, social justice, church, ministry) then we truly do need to repent. 

...Because God is waiting for us to join Him in the renewal of all things.

Van Gogh on Fear...

"I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm – but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity. Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all. 

Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be,the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, "defiles" – they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians." 

 - Vincent Van Gogh (who did not pick up a paint brush until he was 30 years old)

Burial...

 
 

"He that loses his life for My sake shall find it." (Matthew 10:39)

On Sunday before heading down to Culver City to lead worship at Expression58, I was in prayer and while in meditation, I saw the word "Burial". I've been reflecting on a lot concerning where I am with my creative entrepreneurial firm Engage, after a client pulled out of a contract worth over $5k last week and wondering if there is more there than meets the natural eye. So to see the word "Burial" was as much about my spiritual life as it is (or could be) about the life of my business, my ideas and my future.

 Romans 6:3-5
"...Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.  If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection."
 

As I ponder and reflect on the burial of things, I also anticipate what might be resurrected from such a burial. Even a seed planted in the ground must die before it can sprout with the newness of life. Below is an excerpt that I recently read from the devotional book, "Springs in the Valley": 

In my early life I entered into a partnership with a friend in the wholesale ice business. For two seasons in succession our ice was swept away by winter freshets. In the winter of which I speak, things had come to a serious pass and it seemed very necessary that we should have ice. The weather became cold; the ice formed and grew thicker and thicker until it was fit to gather. Then there came an order for thousands of tons of ice which would lift us entirely from our financial stress. 

Not long before this, God has showed me that it was His will that I should commit my business to Him and trust Him with it absolutely. I never dreamed what testing was coming. At midnight there came an ominous sound - that of rain. By noon the storm was raging in all it's violence; by afternoon I had come into a great spiritual crisis in my life. 

By mid-afternoon of that day I had come face to face with the tremendous fact that down deep in my heart was a spirit of rebellion against God. And that rebelliousness seemed to develop in a suggestion to my heart like this: "You gave all to God. This is the way He repays you." Then another voice: "My child, did you mean it when you said you would trust me? Would I suffer anything to come into your life which will not work out good for you?" And then the other voice: "But it is hard! Why should He take your business when it is clean and honest?" 

At the end of two hours (during which waged one of the greatest spiritual battles of my life) by the grace of God I was able to cry out, "Take the business; take the ice; take everything; only give me the supreme blessing of a will absolutely submitted to Thee." And then came peace! 

By midnight there came another sound - that of wind. By morning the mercury had fallen to zero, and in a few days we were harvesting the finest ice we ever had. He gave back the ice; He blessed the business; and He led me on and out, until He guided me from it entirely into the place He had for me from the beginning - that of a teacher of His Word 
 
- James H. McConkey.

"Give your life to God, and God will give you back your life!"