We fear having to confront the possibility that God actually does something.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been in a church prayer meeting where people pray for someone who is sick or in the hospital, etc. We all pray that God would “heal” them. We all pray that God would guide the hands of the doctors, etc. We are comfortable with those kinds of prayers. And we are comfortable to attribute to God the success of the surgery: He answered our prayers–He guided that surgeon’s hands!

The problem with the gifts of the Spirit, or anything else that is supernatural, is that it removes a comfortable, ambiguous faith in God. For example, when surgery is successful, some attribute the success to the doctor, but we “believers” attribute it to God. Those who believe in God see the situation differently than those who don’t. Yet, nothing circumstantially can be attributed as a miracle. The surgery was anticipated by doctors to be successful. The matter is convoluted more, however, when the surgery has 50/50 chance of success. If the person comes through, we say it’s because of a miracle of God! Was it? For a believer, yes. For a non-believer, no. After all, things turn out favorably 50% of the time. If they don’t pull through, however, we believers still affirm God was working there just the same.

In other words, with all of these things, it’s all very muddy. To what extent was God actively involved in the process? It is very hard to tell, and we are comfortable in such ambiguity. Whether God was working in the situation is a matter of personal interpretation. It makes us believers comfortable to believe God was involved when He couldn’t be seen.

But what about believing God to do something more demonstrative?

Many Christians believe that praying for such things is inappropriate. God should remain in the shadows. He should be a matter of interpretation. The idea of God revealing specific information to someone, or healing someone instantaneously, or causing someone to speak in a language they do not understand…now we get nervous. “God doesn’t work that way. Of course, He can do whatever He wants, but He typically remains in the shadows.”

I’m not going to argue whether that’s true or not. But what I will say is that’s how we prefer God to operate. We don’t really want God to make himself obvious. It’s better if He remain a matter of personal interpretation. Once someone says, “God told me last night…”, I get uncomfortable. I don’t expect God to tell people things. Rather, I expect that God simply requires us to trust that He is real and that He is working in the background, even though we can’t hear Him speaking.

The gifts of the Spirit make God too real. They force us to deal with a God who makes Himself known, who communicates directly with us, who performs miracles. Most of us are not ready for this type of a God. We are too concerned with following a religion focused on good, ethical, and moral human behavior. A living God turns the focus onto the behavior of God. Now it’s focused on what He is doing, not on what we are doing.

C.S. Lewis once said:

An “impersonal God”– well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads — better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap — best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps, approaching an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband — that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when the children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion (“Man’s search for God!”) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?

God is still doing things today? He is still speaking? He is still revealing Himself? As long as He reveals himself in people’s hearts, that’s fine. But keep it in your heart. Don’t let Him out. That’s all we ask, please.

But why fear the gift of tongues? I know the standard reasons given, but for fun, I want to offer five reasons why you should fear the gift of teaching more than the gift of tongues.

1. The gift of teaching requires public speaking. That’s the second biggest fear for many people (death is #1, perhaps taxes is #3). On the other hand, the gift of tongues is primarily meant for your own personal prayer time, and the Apostle Paul even discourages its use in public (1 Corinthians 14:19).
2. The gift of teaching requires a person to extensively study Scripture in order to be effective. Tongues, on the other hand, can be spoken regardless if you’ve been reading your Bible or not.
3. According to James, you should be afraid of becoming a teacher, because teachers will be judged more strictly by God (James 3:1). Jesus even says that it would be better for you to have a millstone hung around your neck and to be cast into the sea than to lead a little one in the faith astray (Mark 9:42). There are no such warnings for those who possess the gift of tongues.
4. When you teach, you must continually strive to ensure your audience understands what you’re trying to say–praying that the “light bulb” inside their head flashes on. Even if you do end up speaking in tongues publicly, the whole point is that no one understands. No pressure at all!
5. You can totally fake speaking in tongues and no one will ever know. Just speak some gibberish and put a little passion behind it in your voice. People will be unable to prove whether you have the gift or not. Even if you’ve duped yourself into believing that you have the gift of tongues, no one will be the wiser. (That is, unless they have the gift of discernment…but that’s another blog post…) It’s a lot harder than that to fake people into believing that you have the gift of teaching!

So there you have it. Five reasons why fearing speaking in tongues is kind of silly. If you want to fear a gift of the Spirit, it seems more sensible to fear something like the gift of teaching.

1. It is clearly fake. It pretends that some kid is on a journey, when he clearly has already come to these conclusions from the teaching of his parents and pastor. No problem that he has come to these opinions, but he pretends like he is still truth-searching. I am guessing this will be revolting to most thinking individuals.

2. It does not portray youth ministry for what it really is. It makes it look like youth ministry is all about entertainment or trying to usurp parental roles.

Like most propaganda (and dare I say even conspiracy groups), it has a lot of truth in it, but throws in slight twists to bring the audience to conclusions which are illogical and unfounded.

80% of children/youth leave the church by the time they go to college. I’ve never been a fan of such a statistic. In fact, I want to see that percentage go to zero. But as bad as that number sounds, it may not be as “bad” as it appears on the surface. (Of course that number is bad, but let me explain.)

I think this number has always been the case. Even in Jesus’ ministry, the vast majority who followed Him did so for only a time. Regardless of our ministry techniques, I think we have to be aware that most simply won’t follow Jesus all the way. If you have a drastically different number for your church, I question if you are truly following Him or have watered it down.

It’s so easy to water down the Gospel. One way to water it down is to stop reaching the messy, hurting world out there–just take care of yourself and your family. Youth ministry says, “No, we will not isolate ourselves. We will reach every kid we can with the Gospel–even if 80% of them end up walking away.”

NCFIC thinks they have a better answer–get rid of youth ministry. (I was made aware of this group by a post from a youth ministry leader, Marko.) Now it is true that many of the issues they present are valid problems that many youth groups face: simply entertaining kids, trying to take the place of parents in discipling kids, etc. In fact, I’ve written about that. There is a strong movement within youth ministry to address these issues. That’s one thing I like about youth ministry, among many other reasons:

1. It is self-critiquing. Youth ministry is constantly changing, because we ourselves see our own faults. Nothing that was brought up in this video is news to youth workers. We are guilty as charged. But I love this about us: We readily admit our failure and seek to serve God more biblically and faithfully. Now a question to the NCFIC…could it be that there are just as troubling problems inherent to your philosophy of ministry?

2. My experience of good youth ministry is the closest thing I’ve experienced to New Testament church. Here are several ways my experience of youth ministry outshines your typical church:

a. It has been evangelistic. It does not cater to church people. Like Jesus, it is ok with upsetting the 99 to find the 1. I love how so many youth pastors get in trouble with “church folk” every time they accomplish something incredible for the kingdom of God. This latest video might even be another example of that.

b. It has been focused on discipleship. Most churches are unwilling to truly challenge their congregations. Their goal is merely to give a positive message that everyone will appreciate. My experience of youth ministry, on the other hand, is that youth pastors are doing everything they can to push kids to truly devote their lives over to God. They are not happy with simply numbers in a pew or dollars in a plate. In fact, it’s the only place in church I can think of where we don’t pass around a plate every week, thank God. The messages I’ve heard from youth pastors in youth ministry have always been convicting, challenging, and prophetic. Not your typical Sunday morning sermon.

c. Lay people do the work of ministry in youth ministries. There usually aren’t full-time “evangelism pastors” or “worship pastors” in youth ministry. We adults who serve in the youth ministry are truly ministry teams, and we’re usually not paid to do so. We don’t have fights over how the money is spent. Youth groups don’t split like churches do. As youth workers, we work. And we work together. And nothing, baby, can tear our teams apart!

d. Speaking of youth workers, I don’t know of any other group of people in the church who are more sacrificial with their time, money, and energy. I know I am biased here, but I would rather start a new church with the people in my previous churches who were youth workers than anyone else in those churches. 9 times out of 10, they are the most on-fire, passionate, God-seeking, God-honoring, Scripture-studying, prayer-focused, evangelistic, joyous, fun-loving, faithful, growing people in the church.

e. Youth ministries serve. We go out to our communities and we work hard. Try doing that with adults. They never have time with their busy schedules to put roofs on houses or share the Gospel to people in Mexico or rake the leaves of the widows in the church. But youth groups are doing it all the time. On top of this, many churches don’t provide much financial assistance to youth ministries–and youth usually aren’t old enough to have full-time jobs–so the youth also work very hard raising the money to go on such ministry trips.

f. Youth ministries are real. We don’t pretend like we’re ok. We regularly confess the problems in our home lives and inside our hearts. We don’t feel the need to be super-spiritual or happy all the time. Unlike Sunday mornings, where everyone is always smiling, shaking hands, and pretending like God is the most important thing in their lives.

g. Everyone shares. In most churches, the pastor preaches, and the rest of us listen. Not at youth group. We all ask questions, share what is going on in our lives, and laugh together. We’re often sitting in a circle on couches or on the floor, not in pews facing the choir. When we worship, we are less concerned with the quality of the music, and more concerned with baring our hearts before God.

Youth ministry made a big impact in my life. In short, I believe youth ministry is the best thing to happen to church in the past 100 years. I’m no longer a youth pastor. I’m now the “senior” pastor (although there is no one else on staff at our church, so that makes no sense). My goal is to turn this church into as much of a youth group as I can. In my opinion, youth ministry shows the church just exactly how far it is fallen and where to start in getting back on track. No, youth ministry isn’t perfect. It’s far from that. But it’s the one area of church ministry that should be encouraged and even modeled after–not vilified and removed.

In my opinion, rather than get rid of them, churches need to become more like their youth groups. Many churches already are. If anything, I say: Youth group all the more, baby!!!

I must strive to have enough faith in God to believe that He can work through all sorts of situations and people like me that aren’t ideal.

Perhaps instead of striving to become a more ideal leader or to make situations more ideal/biblical/effective, I should strive more to place my faith and hope squarely in God, believing that He can do great things in very imperfect situations and through very imperfect people like me.

I can’t get away from that thought. I strongly desire to see things become ideal in churches. That’s where my passion lies. It’s ideal if everyone in a local church is on-fire for God–I want to see that happen! It’s ideal if the leadership of a church is unified, passionate, and committed to the Gospel–I want to see that happen!

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, I think that God has put those feelings inside of me. The problem comes when I can’t see a way for God to have His way unless those things are in place. I forget that God merely spoke this world into existence–and that He considered that a full-day’s work. After six days of speaking, He felt the need to take a day off to rest, ha!

God only has to speak the word, and He has His way. No matter how ideal or depressing a situation is, He squirms His way through and performs a miracle. Whether it is the miracle of life or the miracle of life from the dead, a simple faith in God is all it takes to move mountains. You don’t need this in place or that in place. All you need is God to show up.

And He promises to show up where 2 or 3 are gathered in His name. Take a look at the stars at night and let them remind you of everything our God can do.

I’m starting back up with a fairly personal post. Oftentimes, when I go to sleep, negative thoughts surface about the areas of leadership in which I am not excelling. The funny thing is that during the day, I’m not aware of these shortcomings, but at night they come blaring through. The next morning, it’s as if nothing happened the night before, and I can’t even recall what exactly I was thinking as I was trying to fall asleep the night before. At times, I’ve thought “Maybe this is spiritual warfare,” because I often feel discouraged, rather than encouraged to press forward. And the discouragement is pretty heavy.

When these thoughts come, it’s not uncommon for me to feel as if someone else would do a better job than me, so why not let someone else better do it? Or to feel as if because of my inadequacies, I’m letting other people down, and they won’t be able to reach their full potential because their leader (me) isn’t doing all he can to help them. At these times, I can see how much better things would be if only I didn’t have certain faults or if I worked harder or if I had other talents or…

Like I said, at times I’ve wondered if this is some sort of spiritual attack (and I’m guessing my more “pentecostal” friends may think that’s a no-brainer). While I won’t dismiss that possibility, I’ve been recently made aware that leaders of all kinds (not just pastors or “spiritual” leaders) experience similar thoughts and feelings. I think it may be a manifestation of internal stress that leaders put on themselves without knowing it. For me, it surfaces and reveals itself at night in bed.

I also think that the issue is compounded for me, because I tend to be a critical person. Most people think this is a negative trait, but I usually see it as a positive trait. I think things don’t usually get better until we are dissatisfied with how things currently are, and then as a result start looking for a better way of doing things. Of course, being dissatisfied with the current situation feels negative to most people who are happy just to go with the flow as-is. But I do see how looking at things critically can sometimes be counter-productive. In this case, I am my own worst critic. And rather than encouraging me to excel, these thoughts/feelings discourage me.

However, the reason I don’t dismiss this as spiritual attack is because it’s as if these feelings/thoughts don’t seem to come from my conscience, but instead from somewhere closer to my sub-conscience.  I’m not aware of these things until I’m in bed, and trying to drift off to sleep. It’s sort of like there’s another voice condemning me, even though it is coming from my own mind.

To my surprise, I have found prayer to be largely ineffective at countering the thoughts. Instead, what I have found to be the best way to stop the bombarding thoughts is to remind myself that the most important thing is how I live my life and the health of my family. Ultimately, everyone else is responsible for their own lives. While good leadership definitely helps people and I want to be a better leader, I am not ultimately responsible for the direction people choose to follow in their lives–whether that direction is closer to God’s will or further away.

And I think in the end, that is the source of the feelings/thoughts I have. I wish that friends of mine who aren’t believers would surrender their lives to Christ. And I wish that friends of mine who call themselves believers would live Spirit-filled lives. And although here and there I see this happen, I see the opposite happening in too many people. And I percieve that other leaders have better success at seeing people choose to follow God than I do, thereby the problem must be something with me.

In every good lie, there is plenty of truth. Otherwise, the lie is unbelievable. I believe there’s a lot of truth in the negative thoughts/feelings I have sometimes at night. I’m not a super leader. I have a long way to go. But I must strive to have enough faith in God to believe that He can work through all sorts of situations and people like me that aren’t ideal.

Perhaps instead of striving to become a more ideal leader or to make situations more ideal/biblical/effective, I should strive more to place my faith and hope squarely in God, believing that He can do great things in very imperfect situations and through very imperfect people like me.

“We don’t worship the Bible; we worship Jesus.”

This is true, but the Christian faith has been passed down to us from those who “saw and heard these things.” They continually warned us to not listen to others who think they know more or know better than the apostles or prophets of old. Even if they have claimed to receive something directly from Jesus. This has always been a problem, even in Old Testament times. It is easy to stray from what has already been given by God. We learn who Jesus was and is, based on those who actually knew Him and His apostles. As much as the Christian faith is about trusting Jesus and His message, it’s about trusting that those who wrote the Scriptures properly passed down Jesus’ message.

As time goes on, however, the Church strays away from the original teachings of the apostles/prophets. It happens to all of us, including me. Recently, I came across an article that was written by Keith Green about thirty years ago. So much of what he said challenges me and confirms much of what I have been processing through for the past year on this blog.

As you read the article, you might think, “I thought the Gospel was supposed to be easy to understand–why complicate it?” I don’t think Keith Green is complicating it. Yes, the Gospel is easy to understand, but it is also easy to twist. It is important that we continually re-examine what it is we are teaching others. Are we passing along the Good News from God? Or is it some tabloid gossip that’s coming from less credible sources?

If you claim to be a Christian, but feel you cannot trust the Gospel as given to us in Scripture…tell me: what other sources do you feel have more credibility? Your gut? Your pastor? The latest book out? Keith Green? What makes them more credible?

Part of the frustration of leading others is trying to lead them, but they refuse to follow along. As a leader, you are always aware that you could be doing a better job leading. So when others don’t follow, it often confirms that you should be doing a better job. “If only I was a better leader, then I would see better results.”

I think there’s a lot of truth to that. After all, in my “profession,” there are many pastors who I perceive to be much better leaders than myself, and in all cases, they are able to develop maturer (is that a word?) disciples of Christ than I see myself doing. I have a lot to learn about how to lead people along in their walk with Christ.

But on the flip side of the coin, I don’t think it’s always the fault of the leader that others won’t follow. It doesn’t only require a great leader, but willing followers. And sometimes, a leader cannot do anything more to help followers who refuse to follow.

And if followers refuse to follow, can they even claim to be followers? That is the question for those of us who call ourselves Christians–followers of Jesus. Are we following Jesus? If not, not only can we not call ourselves leaders, we can’t even call ourselves followers! We are wanderers.

Churches feel obligated to have some sort of follow-up plan in place when people make decisions for Christ. Yet, I stumbled across these words from the late Keith Green a few days ago:

In my studies of the life of Jesus, it has amazed me that He never had “a follow-up program.” It was usually His habit to let people “follow Him up.” He never had to go door to door, looking for that fellow who He healed last week, wanting to share another parable or two. He always seemed to have the attitude of, “If they want life, then they’ll have to come and follow Me.”

What if we had more of that approach in churches? This puts more of the responsibility on the follower than the leader. Should it be the leader’s job to try to get people to go a certain direction? Sometimes I feel this is a futile cause. If someone wants to follow, they will. If they don’t, they won’t.

My fear is this: if we took this approach, how many would follow? It seems to me that so many people need leaders to not only hold their hands, but also pull them along. Otherwise, very few people will get involved or move ahead. I don’t think there are many followers out there–most of us are wanderers.

I even look at my own life with Jesus: I feel like I wander more than I follow.

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, O take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Is it worth the energy to try to get people to move forward in their faith when it seems like it takes so much just to see them budge a little? Or should we take more of a hands-off approach like Jesus did with the crowds that “followed” Him?

What’s a leader to do with wanderers?

Where is the Holy Spirit in my church?

That’s a question I’ve asked myself often, for as long as I can remember understanding the purpose and power of the Spirit from Scripture. And I hear many other church people who are hungry for the Spirit in their lives and churches asking the same question.

Where is the boldness that’s supposed to come from the Holy Spirit?

That’s another similar question. Isn’t the Holy Spirit supposed to make a difference in our lives and in our churches? Why does it seem as though our churches are filled with people who are relatively the same as the non-believers around them? Where is that spiritual “oomph” that’s supposed to be evident in the lives of people who have received the Holy Spirit?

Where is the power of the Gospel?

Isn’t the Holy Spirit supposed to convict people’s hearts when the Gospel is preached, so that they are forever changed? Why so little transformation going on in our churches (even though 9 of 10 churches use that word in their mission statement)?

In 1 Thessalonians 1:5, Paul writes: “For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.” I want to see THAT Gospel at work in our churches! Why don’t we see it that often?

Ironically, I think the solution to all these questions is: OPPOSITION.

We face very little opposition. Even the opposition we might face, we try very hard to avoid it. We are always asking, “Where is the moving of the Holy Spirit that we see in Acts?” But we seldom ask, “Where is the opposition that we see in Acts?”

But wait, Tim…we don’t want opposition to the Gospel…we want supernatural display of and reception of the Gospel! This is our very problem, in my opinion.

In our efforts to avoid opposition to the Gospel, we distort the Gospel into something more palatable for everyone to receive, so that the masses will respond favorably to it. Of course, we can all point to the prosperity gospel as an extremely exaggerated example, but how about looking at our very own churches and lives. How closely does our preaching of the Gospel match up to Paul’s: “Turn completely away from your idols to serve the true, living God, and wait for His Son to come from heaven–the Son God raised from the dead. Jesus will deliver us from God’s coming wrath.” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10) This is very similar to Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” (verse 40)

We don’t like to put ourselves at odds with the world. We don’t want to tell anyone that God’s wrath is coming to humanity, or that our generation deserves it because it is perverse, or that faith in Jesus is our only means of salvation. Granted, there are some people who thrive on pronouncing judgment on others. That’s not what I’m saying here. What I am saying, however, is that we shy away from the truth, or spin it, so as to avoid any kind of opposition. However, it seems to me that opposition is precisely what we need to experience the boldness and power in the Holy Spirit we are longing for. When we suffer for Jesus, we cling that much tighter to whom and what we are suffering for. We make a decision as to whether Jesus is worth the opposition. If we determine He is worthy of it, we trust in Him and His message that much more.

Let’s remember that most of the time in the New Testament, the masses didn’t respond favorably to the Gospel (the day of Pentecost is the exception). Most of the time, Christians were running for their lives, and few pockets of people believed in Christ. These churches in the New Testament weren’t megachurches. They usually met in people’s homes, because they were so small. What happens in Acts 4, after the disciples are beaten for preaching the Gospel? They return home to pray fervently, and then in verse 31 it says, “And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God in boldness.”

There’s that boldness and Holy Spirit we want! But it came after opposition/persecution that we don’t want.

When I stood up for the Gospel at my former church, I was mocked and labeled narrow-minded for believing that Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims, etc needed to turn from their idols/false religions to serve Jesus. Now, I wasn’t beaten by religious leaders like the disciples were in Acts. I was just perceived as being misguided and the anti-Jesus way. This was very minor “persecution” comparatively. But do you know what happened as a result of some minor opposition and some minor financial struggling? I became MUCH more emboldened about the Gospel. Something supernatural occurred inside of me. God instilled a faith disproportionate to the little bit I endured. You can read about that experience here. Now this was very tiny opposition compared to what so many Christians have endured for their faith–it’s not even worth comparing–but even with such little opposition, I have seen great faith and boldness come out of it.

Let’s look back at 1 Thessalonians. Paul tells them in chapter 2, verse 2: “But after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition.” And then in verses 4-6: “…we speak, not as pleasing men but God, who examines our hearts. For we never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed–God is witness–nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others…”

Opposition keeps us from the dangers in church of trying to please men, fixate on money, or increase our church’s status. (This is what I see in so many churches and denominations.) When we face opposition, we don’t have time to play those games any longer. But as long as we can find ways to avoid opposition, this is what happens: Rather than seeking God, we continue seeking after what is most beneficial (i.e. comfortable) for our lives and the growth of our church. And no surprise that very little boldness or power of the Holy Spirit ever shows.

Now, for all of Paul’s boldness, was he some mean, vindictive preacher to those Thessalonians when he arrived? On the contrary, in verses 7-8, he says: “But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.”

We’re not talking here about trying to stir up opposition like those Westboro hatemongers from Kansas or an attitude that wants to send everyone to hell. We are talking about such a plain conviction in the Gospel message that our hearts are continually amazed and burning with the truth we see in the Gospel and we are eager to share it at all times and in all places. It becomes all we live for.

If you read the book of 1 Thessalonians, you will learn that as a result of Paul’s boldness and the power of the Gospel through the Holy Spirit:

The Thessalonians receive the Gospel as God’s words, not man’s words (When you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. -1 Thessalonians 2:13)

They suffer opposition for the sake of the Gospel like the apostles did (For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. -1 Thessalonians 2:14-15)

And they do not give in to the opposition ([We are] constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope. -1 Thessalonians 1:3)

Now isn’t that the kind of life you wish you could see more often? Wouldn’t it be a great joy to know a church like this? Paul is overjoyed for sure. He writes this letter to tell them how thankful he is to hear that they are indeed strong in God in the face of great opposition, and to let them know that their testimony of standing strong is spreading throughout many other provinces.

The next time we ask the question, “Where is the power of the Holy Spirit? Where is this boldness that’s supposed to come?” …let’s ask ourselves, “Where is the opposition?”

But when the tornado hit Joplin Sunday night, I saw it in a somewhat different light. Because I wasn’t familiar with the landmarks, what hit me hardest was the personal devastation, not the physical devastation. From watching videos and hearing the stories of those who have survived, I have been imagining what it is like to endure and survive an EF4-5 tornado. I can’t imagine the level of fear and chaos during those 30-40 seconds–especially with small children. The ears popping, the deafening wind, the sounds of everything being destroyed coming right at you, people screaming their heads off, the constant pull of the wind on your body–how horrific. I simply can’t believe anyone would have to go through such agony. And today, they’re predicting potentially 50 more tornadoes.

And then you stop to think about the “twisters” that many of us face in the figurative sense. Those times when life really throws a curveball that completely knocks everything off-course. I’m not talking about a little tragedy here or there, but when something happens that seems to totally destroy everything in our life up to that point. It is hard to accept that God allows such horrific and devastating things to happen to humans. It is hard as a friend to know what to say in response. I think as a pastor there is even more weight as to how you should respond.

What would I do if something similar happened to me? I think the only way I could cope with it is reminding myself that this is not my home. While I don’t think that would ease the pain, it would hopefully remind me that everything up to this point in my life has been focused not on making a good life for myself here on earth, but on the promise of eternity. Even though it is sometimes almost impossible to believe it, circumstances in this life do not change that promise. Yet I see that very little of my life up to this point is focused on the promise of eternity–much of it has its focus on bettering my life right now. I think the best hedge against the devastating power of life’s tragedies is for me right now to devote less of my time, energy, money and passion on my current situation and devote more toward my real home.

My real home is a place where neither moth nor rust–nor tornadoes–can destroy. I need to keep this in focus, even (and perhaps especially) when life’s twisters seem nowhere around.

Harold Camping is just the latest in such a trend to say when Jesus is returning. And everyone is dismissing his prediction, not surprisingly.

Of course, it concerns me when someone thinks they know the day or the hour when Jesus himself said He didn’t know it when He walked this earth. I guess some people interpret Jesus’ words, “You will do even greater things,” to mean they can know things that even Jesus didn’t know…

But there is one thing that concerns me even more about the silliness of such a prediction: It seems to me that people, even Christians, should be cautious about what exactly we dismiss. Jesus is indeed coming back, and it could very well happen on May 21, 2011. It could happen today. It could happen several thousand years from now.

When people wrongfully predict Jesus’ return, it’s like the boy crying wolf. There is a danger that people will dismiss the very notion that Jesus is coming back at all. Jesus says, “When I return, will I find faith in the world?” He is indeed coming back.

People are making all sorts of jokes about how to prepare for Jesus’ return on May 21. But being prepared for His return is no joking matter. While I think it’s great to poke fun at such a silly prediction as Camping’s, we must be diligent to separate that from poking fun at merely the idea of Jesus returning on May 21.