catching his breath

I decided to take my two youngest kids kite flying. One of the neighbors had given them an unused, used kite, like those you find in a garage sale, so I thought they would get a kick out of watching the thing soar. Cheap entertainment. The wind had picked up a bit and occasionally gusted briskly, so off we went to the big field east of our house.

When it comes to my ideas I’m an optimist and thought the wind was blowing a lot harder than the kite thought. It turned out the kite was right. Subsequently, we had to work the run-with-it-to-keep-it-up angle. Okay, cheap but exhausting entertainment. But the kids and I were able to catch a few moments of kite-flying wind in conjunction with our sprinting that made it a somewhat enjoyable experience. Again, an optimist.

I’m anxious about taking the kids kite flying again (when they won’t have to run a half mile to see any results). Note: a steady wind strong enough to wave a small tree is a prerequisite to flying kites while standing still. Lesson learned.

Of course, I’m always thinking of ways to exploit experiences with my family for my own illustrative purposes. I couldn’t pass this one up.

Let me set up this illustration a bit more. You can’t fly a kite drawing from your own resources or abilities. You’ve got to have a forceful wind. You won’t be able to exhale it into the air. Maybe for a moment someone can run fast enough to generate enough resistance that the kite peeks above the trees, but not for long. Every time one of the kids quit moving the kite went kamikaze on us. Unless we were in one of the few brief moments the wind had picked up. Still, you’ve got to have the force of a semi-strong wind to make a kite do what it’s supposed to do. Trust me, I made my kids sweat to prove this point.

Without God’s Spirit surging through the body we can never reach full potential as a church. We won’t soar the heights of the Jesus Way. Nothing but a crash awaits those who fail in posturing themselves to catch the animating force of God’s Wind.

Acts can serve as a quick case study. Start reading and it doesn’t take long to see that Luke describes Jesus in Jerusalem making preparations to launch his kite into God’s Wind. From there it will travel to “Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Chapter 1: Jesus assures them he will send the Spirit and that they don’t need to do anything until then. Wait for the wind.

Chapter 2: The Wind rushes in and the church takes off. Luke leaves little doubt to what generated the powerful display of God’s presence in the disciples of Jesus.

Luke goes on to describe Peter’s leadership sailing beyond his comfort zones by the power of the Spirit as he reaches out to the Gentiles welcoming them into the kingdom.

Chapter 7: Luke records Steven’s flight into the arms of Jesus after delivering a powerful kingdom message prompted by the Spirit.

Chapter 15: The disciples come together to discuss dissension among God’s people. Heated argument broke out, I mean, this thing had the potential of blowing up like some of the nation’s recent town halls over Health Care reform. It didn’t. Unity emerged. It’s very clear the only possible way this happened was because God’s people yielded to the Spirit’s movement and work (15:8, 28).

The rest of the book focuses on Paul. He is taken and blown all over the Gentile world spreading good news that God’s kingdom includes every nation. One part of his journey stands out and I’ll quote it at length.

“Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them” (Acts 16:6-10).

If you’re going to fly a kite wait for the wind. Jesus and the early church functioned under this reality and we’re reaping the blessings. The next time I get the itch to take the kids kite flying we’re waiting on the wind. We’ll have a better time. And I’ll have a story for them about a greater Wind. A Wind that will sweep them off their feet if they want.

I can hardly wait.

In my experience, the subject, even the engagement of worship to God has been tortured terribly by the prodding and poking of academic analysis (at least, these are the borders of much of my worship experience). Not that there isn’t a place for an intellectual breakdown of worship to God. But from what I can tell, it’s not meant to exist imprisoned in the inquirer’s mind.

God’s praise and the constituencies of that praise cannot stay confined to the firing sequences of brain synapses and the building of logical constructs. It’s a reality better felt than told, better experienced than studied, better lived than argued. It’s a reaction to a personal presence and not a decision made in adherence to impersonal rules.

A life and world as praise bursts onto the stage of existence when God’s will, his rule, visits our sphere of sensory reality. When he “stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth” not only do human lives shine as praise, the universe, in its material form, joins the chorus. God’s kingdom reality is the spark that sets off the firework display of praise. It happens naturally. It can’t be stopped.

Psalm 113 highlights the total-life, emotional and reactionary praise induced by God’s will. Praise reactions explode all over the place, all over the world. Everywhere! Why? God’s kingdom rule crawls across the land and ushers life onto every hill and into every canyon of the globe. He lifts the poor and needy to a place of majesty. He fertilizes the barren womb, injecting the childless woman with happiness and hope. Wherever God’s reign heals, helps and holds together, praise abounds. And, of course, whenever the sum of one’s life falls under this life-restoring rule of God, every physical fiber and emotion of that life becomes a living hallelujah.

This praise envelopes our world as evidence that his story of global restoration continues. That as Jesus said to John, “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”

Seriously. If we’re really paying attention and studying worship to God, our minds should explode and the topic held captive break free into dancing, music, timbrel and harp (Psalm 149:3).

Praise God, the ruler of all!

The title of this blog expresses a constant craving in my life. In John chapter 20 Jesus breathes on his disciples, identifying their reception of the Holy Spirit in the act. This imagery more than likely brought to their minds God’s creative breath of life (Genesis 2:7). And today this creative force acts in bringing to reality a new world, resurrecting agents of new creation. When I fail to inhale the breath of Jesus, a world smothered in darkness has little trouble knocking the wind out of me. I need to catch his breath to catch mine. Thus, catching his breath is the intentional pursuit of my life.

Of course, more images help our attempt to grasp the transformational power of God’s Spirit: fire, the dove, light. But I have chosen breath. I relate to the feeling, to hunching over, gasping for air. I also know the exhilaration of catching my breath, capturing in that breath the strength to go on. But to catch his? That’s life abundant.

The blog will contain some of my personal reflection as I struggle to catch his breath. There will be theological reflections and papers, poetic expressions, devotional thoughts and some of how I am making this attempt personally in my family, my role as a minister, as a friend and citizen in my community. I believe every kingdom purpose and action finds its source in the breath of God embodied in his people. So the specific topics of the blog will vary widely.

I hope you’ll join the conversation. Do not fear judgment. I welcome honest, constructive disagreement. Community dialogue and wisdom in conjunction with the Spirit of God functions as the impetus to meet the struggles and challenges God’s people face in a world still dazed in the aftermath of the fall. Chime in.

I encourage you to spend some time with the following excerpt from T.S. Elliot’s poem Four Quartets 4: Little Gidding.

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.