"The LORD had said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go the land I will show you."  Genesis 12:1

When I run back into the world of Genesis - back into the beginnings of how people deal with God and God deals with people - I am increasingly amazed. 

Take Abram for example (Abraham being his later name).  There is no record of Abram doing anything with God before we meet him in Scripture.  Saying anything to God.  Behaving any way that would make you believe that he is different than anyone else at the beginning.  Then, out of nowhere, completely unprovoked, God just shows up and starts talking to him.

How about Jacob as another example.  He lies to his dad, steals from his brother, and his name means "deceiver, supplanter."  Nice.  Seems like a perfect candidate for God to pick.  Yet, as Jacob travels and goes to sleep, sure enough God shows up to him in a dream.  Unprovoked.

Moses meets God in a bush - unprovoked.  Gideon meets an angel of God - unprovoked.  Joshua meets the Captain of the armies of the LORD - unprovoked.  See the pattern?

What is unique about this pattern is that it seemed to be more common this way in the ancient world.  In our world, we don't expect to see the supernatural really.  Maybe we do, but we feel that it will only come through seeking God and praying and fasting.  Without a doubt, God shows Himself to those who seek Him through prayer and fasting.  But sometimes He doesn't.

And sometimes He shows Himself to those who have no idea that He is coming.  They haven't been praying necessarily, they aren't fasting and waiting on the LORD.  They are just living.  And here comes God, unprovoked, to bust right into their world and talk to them - either through an angelic messenger, a bush, a voice, a donkey, whatever.  That was the common course of the ancient world as recorded in the Holy Scriptures.  What's even more curious is that most of the people that found themselves in this position thought it was perfectly normal.  Not that they weren't scared or blown away or didn't have a surge of adrenaline when all of this happened - it's just that they accepted it as part of life.

The thing that strikes me as cool about that is it seems like those living in the ancient times of the OT knew that there were cracks in our world.  There was a different reality present that wasn't fully segmented from the everyday, mundane existence of regular life.  At any moment, God or one of his angelic messengers could show up in a bush, a donkey, or looking like your neighbor Frank.  Maybe that's why the writer of Hebrews mentions that some people have entertained angels unaware.

I love the fact that the Bible reminds me that today is not just dead-set in stone that it will be an ordinary day.  There is the chance that God may do something surprising.  He works mysteriously, and sometimes even contradictory, to what we think He will (or should) do.  We are not stuck just to languish in this mundane existence because we remember there are cracks in the world - and those cracks provide peepholes into another reality.  A reality where God chooses to show up when and how He wants to.

Unprovoked.

"Jesus did many other things as well.  If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that could be written."  John 21:25

To think that we only have a small glimpse of all that Jesus did is staggering.  After all, this is the most accounted life in the history of humanity.

It would be great to have more books about the life of Jesus from eyewitnesses, but we don't.  God gave us all we needed (and probably, more accurately, all we could handle).  I wish there were more books, selfishly, because I just love books.  I like the feel of them, and I feel as if in many of them that I am being personally discipled in faith by the author.  But books, because there are so many, must not be ingested indiscriminately.  There are some bad ones out there for sure.

That said, I am asked about books a lot - what I recommend about this subject or that theme.  And even though I have some of those listed on this website, I thought maybe I would pass on to you a bibliography of sorts, arranged by theme, that might prove useful to you should you ever want to dive in to any of these subjects.

Philosophy of Mission - God's Missionary People by Charles Van Engen; The Once and Future Church by Loren Mead; Missional Church by Darrell Guder; The Shaping of Things to Come and The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch; Invading Secular Space by Martin Robinson and Dwight Smith; The Open Secret by Leslie Newbigin; Let The Nations Be Glad by John Piper.

Apologetics - The Reason for God by Tim Keller; Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis; Simply Christian by N.T. Wright; Jesus Among Other gods by Ravi Zacharias; Beyond Death by Gary Habermas; God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga.

Spiritual Formation/Spiritual Disciplines - The Divine Conspiracy, Renovation of the Heart, The Great Omission, Hearing God, and The Spirit of the Disciplines all by Dallas Willard; Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero; The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan, Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas.

Leadership - Spiritual Leadership by  J. Oswald Sanders; Spiritual Leadership by Henry Blackaby; The Making of a Leader by Robert Clinton;  The Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley; In the Name of Jesus by Henry Nouwen.

Well, that ought to give you enough to read for the next few years if you so choose.

Happy reading!

"Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said: 'Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.  He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them.  He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.  He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in the darkness, and light dwells with him'."  Daniel 2:19b-22

When I woke up on Wednesday of last week, I knew something had fundamentally changed.

The United States of America had elected the first African-American President in its 230-plus-year existence.  Negating politics for a moment, and speaking on a purely human level - this was inspiring.  We observed one of the most landmark moments in the history of the American Presidency - a moment that many never dreamed they would actually see.

My concern in this post is not with the epic historicity of this Presidential election since I don't think it can be argued by any rational person anyway.  Nor is my concern with unlocking all of the political pros and cons of an Obama administration (we all knew when we woke up on Wed. November 5th that no matter who was elected, we would not be happy with either a few, or many, things).  My concern is with the reaction of many in the evangelical stream of the Church in the United States.

Let me first say, clearly, that I have no problem with people who are passionate for issues that they consider moral imperatives.  I am one of those people.  This is not a shot at passion for a cause that is noble.  What I am concerned about is how that passion translates, and what message it sends from those of us that claim to follow Jesus.

As the reality of an Obama presidency set in, I began seeing some of the most fear-mongering, panic stricken reactions from those in the Christian community (mostly "white" Christian community to be honest).  Some Christian leaders wrote fictitious letters about the year 2012 and what has happened due to an Obama presidency.  Other people went apocolyptic and felt that they "knew" that Obama was the perfect candidate for the Antichrist (I actually got emails about this, some more panicky than others).  Yet others posted on their Facebook pages that if you voted for Obama then there is no way you could be a Christian (ah, civil religion at its best - scary).  Amazingly, others began to associate Obama with Muslim terrorists because his middle name is "Hussein" (as an aside, nobody ever makes such an association of McCain even though a domestic terrorist was named Timothy McVeigh.  I still have yet to hear "Well, McCain is Scoth/Irish and you know [wink wink] what that means").

I say all this not to defend Obama's political positions; those can be argued and should be evaluated with a holisitic Biblical worldview (and, on a personal note, I vehemently disagree with him on some of those very issues).  This is simply to remind the Christian community that panic, fear, and a veiled hate is not becoming of a follower of Jesus.  It looks nothing like Jesus.  Isn't it amazing that some of the same voices that preach that "God is in control" have acted as if the world has gone off its axis?  What does an unbelieving world see about the faith that we profess?

We need to be reminded by Daniel of something very important.  Even a cursory reading of the book of Daniel reminds us that the Sovereign God is ruler of the nations.  Not kings.  Not Presidents.  God Almighty.  If God so sees fit, a leader can go from king to cattle in a moment (read Daniel 4).  Only God is Soveriegn over the nations and the affairs of men.

This is reiterated by Jesus on a number of occasions, most notably when he is teaching on the end of all things in Matthew 24.  And what does He say our response should be regarding all that will happen? Very simply, "Don't freak out."  And this was consistent with his teaching from his great discourse on the grassy hill in Matthew 6:25-34 (you should go back and read it.......right now).

So, what am I suggesting our response should be if we are one of those who is troubled by the election of the new President?

Faith, hope, and love.

So, what am I suggesting our response should be if we are one of those who is thrilled by the election of the new President?

Faith, hope, and love.

Our mission doesn't change no matter who the President is.  We pray for him - that God shows him the path of wisdom and righteousness.  And we rest in the fact that God is the Sovereign over the nations and the affairs of humanity.