The Angel Priest

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine forwarded an article to me about an angel priest. It seems on a recent Sunday morning, there was a serious car accident in Missouri in which a young woman was pinned between the steering wheel and driver's seat of her car. Try as they might, the emergency personnel were unable to extract  the young woman from the car. As the woman's physical condition sharply deteriorated, she asked for someone, anyone, to pray. Suddenly, a man clad in black wearing a clerical collar appeared, He began to pray and anointed the injured girl. Shortly thereafter, the emergency medical personnel were able to free the victim from her auto and safely transported her to hospital where she recovered from her injuries.

Once the accident had been cleared away, emergency personnel were reported as saying given the severity and extent of the young woman's injuries, it was a miracle she survived. Even more surprising, there was no image of the man dressed as a priest in any of the photos taken while the angel priest prayed with and anointed the woman. None of the photos contained an image of the man who became known as the angel priest.

A few days after the accident, a Catholic priest from a church just up the street from where the accident occurred, came forward to say he was in fact the priest who ran to the accident site to pray with and anoint the young lady. When the priest did what he could do, he returned to his church for Sunday Mass. Mystery solved- there was no angel priest. The priest responded to the need of another, praying with and anointing someone in great need.

I thought about this event off and on for several days. Would we have even heard about the wreck had it not been for the presence of the angel priest who seemingly appeared one moment and was just as quickly gone the next? How would my life change if I saw an angel doing God's work? How would all of our lives change were we to witness such an event?  I remembered words of St. Teresa of Avila, "Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. You are the eyes through which Christ's compassion is to look out to the world. Your's are the  feet with which Christ is to go about doing good. Your's are the hands with which Christ is to bless all people now." Those words apply to all of us, not just lay not just clergy but all of us. We are all called to be God's angels as we serve and love one another even as Christ serves and loves us. Amen.

The Right Thing at the Right Time

You know what I struggle with these days. In a word? Procrastination.

Procrastination is the failure to do the right thing at the right time.

For most of us our problem is not that we don’t know what to do. Our problem is not that we deliberately refuse to do what we ought to do. We just don’t get around to doing it. I’m preaching to myself today, but here’s a few things I’ve found helpful.

1. Give Up Perfection.
One of the strongest links to procrastination is perfectionism. My friend Jon Acuff calls this the procrastinating perfectionist.    Jon says “90% perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100% perfect and stuck in your head.”
Eccl. 11:4 “If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.”
 Stop waiting for…
The perfect day.
The perfect plan.
The perfect reason.
The perfect person.
If you wait for perfection to pursue it will always paralyze. 

2. Buddy Up.
Go public with your dreams. The longer I stay quiet about something God has prompted me to do the more likely I am not to do it.
The longer you live with a God prompt the more content you become with not following it.

3. Ruthlessly Prioritize
I must decide what really matters.  This is a choice of the heart.  I want to live so that my life reflects my values.  So that when people look at me, they know what is really important to me.
Psalm 90:12 “Teach us to number our days so that we may grow in wisdom.”
Today is a gift. I’m not promised or owed tomorrow. It’s a gift.

Pastor Pete Wilson, Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN

This entry was originally published on August 13, 2013 on theuprising.org.

Your greatest weakness. God's greatest platform.

Few if any of you will ever know what it feels like to be Chuck Close.
A lot of you might not even know who he is.
But all of us have something monumentally important to learn from him.

Chuck Close is one of the greatest portrait artists of our time. If you glanced at his work, you would think you were simply looking at a photograph. In reality, you’re looking at paint. Sometimes pencil. Other times, thread. That’s just how brilliant he is.

But if you knew his backstory, you wouldn’t think it would be possible.

Close can’t remember a single face that he meets. He suffers from prosopagnosia, a condition that leaves him unable to recognize faces. He can create a masterpiece with your face, but he can’t remember it.

You would think that for a person in Close’s situation, creating portraits would be the last thing he’d be doing. After all, faces are his greatest weakness. But it’s just the opposite. It motivates him, even to the point of him saying, “everything in my art is driven by my disability.”

And that’s what makes his work that much more brilliant. It shouldn’t be coming out of him. But it is. His greatest weakness has become the source of his greatest strength. It’s provided a platform where his greatness can be amplified.

Few if any of us will ever have a condition like Close’s.
But we all deal with weakness in one shape or form.

Some of you feel completely inadequate for what God has called you to do.
Some of you feel like your marriage has about a week left before it falls apart.
Some of you have lost your job and you don’t see how you’ll make it.
Some of you are battling cancer and you don’t know how much longer you can fight.

For every person, there is a place in their life where weakness exists. And it’s for that very reason that in every person, a platform exists. An opportunity exists. An opportunity to amplify the greatness of God in a way that your strength alone will never be able to.

Your greatest weakness may actually be God’s greatest platform for showing His power and glory in your life.

Through saving your marriage when all seems lost.
Through using your cancer to shine a spotlight on His sufficiency.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Jesus tells us, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s power is the perfect counterpart to your weakness. It’s more than enough for you and it’s completely available to you. God isn’t scouring the universe looking for a perfect person through whom He can display His power and glory. He’s looking for the perfect person. And the perfect person is a person whose weakness provides God and His power with an opportunity to make their life unexplainable.

No matter what you’re going through, no matter how weak you feel right now, there’s no reason that can’t be you.

Pastor Steven Furtick, Elevation Church

This entry was originally published on January 25, 2011 on www.stevenfurtick.com.

iCommunity

There is a lot of talk about cell phones this week. On Saturday, I had a long conversation with two young women who traveled to Belize with our youth group this summer. We had many powerful experiences in Belize - we experienced transformation of families, we heard about wonderful ministries, we participated in the building of a bathroom and in the building and rebuilding of lives. We witnessed the powerful movement of the spirit creating a Christ-like community. We spent time genuinely listening to those in our group and those locals which became part of our group. We had hours of conversation about God’s work in our lives over dinner tables and campfires. And we did it without cellphones.

Upon their return, these two ladies were struck by many things in their lives, one of which our society’s dependence upon them. Although both of these young ladies have a “no cell phone policy” at their family dinner tables, they experienced culture shock upon visiting friends. Sitting awkwardly at friends’ dinner tables, they sought to engage - only be to be met by a table full of blank stares looking down at phones.

On Sunday, the Rev. Joe Mitchell’s sermon added to our conversation. He preached on our desire as a society to constantly want the latest and greatest technology. He spoke of the good in cell phones - the ability to connect with family and friends who were far away. He also challenged the not so good - the ability to need a bigger and better device to store our data like the man who destroyed his barns to build bigger ones.

As a youth minister, I struggle with the integration of technology, especially cell-phones in the life of our community. I recognize how much smart phones can be used to God’s glory - for easy access to digital Bibles, for immediate access to the Daily Office and Sunday lectionary readings, for prayer over the phone with my youth ministry friends across the world, and for counseling kids through a rough day at school. This year, we will be using cell-phones and IPADS as we search for God’s grace in the internet when we launch our new high school Sunday School - the Unveiling. I also see how disconnected they can make us when we see them as more important as the people around us.  

Struggling with authentic ways to live our faith both in the context of community and the world around is is not a new idea. For thousands of years, Christians have struggled with balancing Christ like community and secular world. For the past weeks, we have been reading Romans within the context of our Sunday readings. Paul did not have cell phones, but he did struggle with the right uses of food in relation to faith and especially how that food effected Christ’s beloved community. Was one to follow strict Jewish rules on food, or was one to eat anything as the Gentiles did? Paul gives us these words,

“Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgement on those who eat; for God has welcomed them... Let all be fully convinced in their own minds.” (Romans 14: 2-5). Paul goes on to remind us that whatever it is we do, it is not to pass judgement on one another but to build up one another for the body of Christ, and to do all for the glory of God. The community has a responsibility to look after one another - if what you are eating is causing another person to stumble in their relationship with Christ, then you probably shouldn't eat it in front of them. For Paul, food was the symptom of the issue. The issue was a community who loved and lived for Christ, the food was the symptom that was being manifested. “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit... Let us then pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up-building.” (Romans 14: 17, 19).

I do not know what Jesus would do with a cellphone. I imagine he would use it to keep up with those in crisis, to say daily prayers, to keep a calendar of healing appointments. But I do know, he would use it for the glory of God and for the benefit of a loving community. Cell phones are not the issue - holy living is the issue. To eat or not eat, use a cell phone or turn it off, Christ desires for us to do whatever makes us closer to his presence, both individually and corporately.

As our families and youth return to school, life gets busier and the amount of family communication through text and iCloud calendars increases. As we enter this busy time may we use our phones and our beings for the Glory of God - to love those around us and to spend time challenging each other to be what we are at the core of our being: interconnected beautiful manifestations of God’s love and community. 

"Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us, so be quick to love and make haste to be kind." - Henri-Frédéric Amiel