Author: Wick

Husband, Father, Pastor, Missionary, Writer, Poet, Friend, reader, coffee enthusiast, hockey Wing-Nut, musical participator, etc...
Posted in Different Thoughts

peace.

Posted on by Wick

It was so peaceful I had to snap a picture of it.  Sure, she requires a light, or a noisy fan/radio, or mom/dad laying with her usually.  But here she was, sleeping peacefully in her own bed.  Here we are in the 4th week of Easter, and I”m struck by this concept of Peace that we haven’t heard much about since Christmas.

It’s right there in the midst of the “Hallelujah Chorus”.  He’s the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6)!  (Hallelujah!)  But this is so much more than a holiday icon.  More than words meant to flavor a Christmas card, & give meaningful alliteration to worship pastors who like to shout out short phrases during singing while surrounded by poinsettias.  Sidenote: You may wonder, as I did, why “Prince” of Peace?  Why not “King”?  The answer might be simple, as seen in definitions of “Prince” here.  It’s not always a statement of royalty, but also “the one of highest rank, the chief of any body”.

He is actually the foremost authority on all things peace related.  The source of Peace above all over peaces.  (read “peace” here as so much more than cessation of war)  This God-man who we see hanging on the cross, battered and scarred.  The resurrected Jesus who walked with his followers on the road to Emmaus.  In many cases, these moments of death and resurrection become reduced to a mathematical equation:  Sin created a “negative”, and Jesus was the only positive large enough to bring us back “out of the red”.  God paid the giant debt, and now we’ve all got great cosmic credit scores again.

But what we see happening on the cross, through the resurrection, and so on – is not an objective math lesson.  As cute as it might be to say “3 Nails + 1 Cross = 4Given”, there is so much more happening here than the clearing of our sin-debt.  Jesus is actually blazing a trail for all of humanity to follow.  God became man, and by his life He created a way for humanity to live a life of sacrificial love for others, dying to self and being given a new source of life.  Redefining the human experience, and providing new foundations for us to build on.  He accomplishes nothing less than the birth of a New Kingdom of Love, one that will never end.  He then gives us His Spirit to actually be our source – so that our efforts are not merely “attempts at looking like Jesus”, but are actually the presence and work of Jesus Christ breaking through into a world that is desperate for the presence of it’s Lord.

And so, in my frustrations with my daughter, I feel like maybe God often looks at me with the same fatherly love.  Wondering why I don’t rest in His peace more often.  Why we feel ourselves tossed about by the waves of anxiety, pressures of false foundations, and so on.  Wondering why I feel the need to always be busy doing something, instead of napping in His presence (or at least breathing slower).

And so I will remember this week, as I continue to proclaim the resurrected Lord as my King – He is not only Lord of all.  He is the very source of True Peace.  As His Spirit continues to become our source, we will find ourselves more and more founded on a peace, even one that is beyond our understanding…:)

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:7

Posted in Uncategorized

a “different” journey – adoption

Posted on by Wick

We’d been dating for quite a while, and the topic of marriage had come up. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, not sure how to say it. “What if I feel God calling us to move to Africa?” I assured her, if God was calling us, we’d follow that call together. Here we stand, in our 10th year of marriage, and we believe God is issuing a call.

But it is not a call for us to go to Africa.

We believe it is a call for us to make room in our home and family for Africa. More specifically, we believe God is moving us toward an international adoption. To offer our home and family to a child who would not otherwise know they are loved and precious in the sight of God. Not simply to offer them the last name “Anderson”, but to offer them and our own children an identity much larger and foundational – child of God.

Ever since getting married, and especially after having children, we’ve prayed about how to “orient” our family around something larger than ourselves. To craft a story we can tell by living it out with our children and grandchildren – one that joins in the story God has been telling for millenia. A story of outward-going love. Love that goes beyond what is expected. Love that is invitational. Love that is striving to beat in rhythm with the very heart of God.

I don’t have to quote scripture here, but just in case you’re unfamiliar with a few of the many verses that reveal the Spirit’s time signature: James 1:27, Romans 8:15, Matthew 19:14, Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 58:10, and plenty more where that came from. Of course, there are many different ways God desires His people to move and accomplish His healing and “new creation” work in the cosmos. Every family and home must discover what rhythms God is inviting them to move in – this is one that has surfaced throughout our journey of orienting our family around Christ.

As we move forward, there are many unknowns. How will we possibly afford this? (one dollar at a time) How long will this take? (one to several years) Where will our daughter/son come from? (possibly Central Africa, possibly somewhere we’ve not yet considered) How can others get involved? (prayer, fasting, donations as we begin our fund-raising efforts)

Our girls are very excited about the possibility that we may fill the empty seat in our mini-van with another sister. We’ve invited them to be praying with mommy and daddy now, toward whatever God may have in store for us. Our plan is to continue giving you updates, and we will add an “Adoption Journey” tab to www.differentparent.com so that you can follow along and pray with us.

Thank you for joining us in prayer, and for your friendship and support as we move forward – wanting to be used by God. As I’ve said, there are many unknowns at this stage – which makes us depend quite a bit on practicing dependence on God. That’s probably a good place to be. 🙂

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place-making

Posted on by Wick

It is not uncommon to ask a pastor where they have lived in the past 10 years, and have 2 or more states listed off.  There are as many reasons for this occurrence as there are pastors.  One reason may be wanting to follow Christ in some understanding of “the son of man has nowhere to rest his head” (Matt 8:20).  Pastors follow the call of God to stay move-able.  Some may even think the putting down of roots to be making oneself unavailable to the future calls of God.

But what if in remaining move-able, we pastors have also missed out on leading God’s people in the important work of “place-making”?  Walter Brueggemann says this of what he calls our problem of “placelessness”:

“That promise concerned human persons who could lead detached, unrooted lives of endless choice and no commitment.  It was glamorized around the virtues of mobility and anonymity that seemed so full of promise for freedom and self-actualization.  But it has failed….It is now clear that a sense of place is a human hunger that urban promise has not met….it is rootlessness and not meaninglessness that characterizes the current crisis.  There are no meanings apart from roots.” – Brueggemann, The Land

With unemployment rates rising, we see huge benefits to websites offering to match jobs from the east with workers from the west.  To the availability and affordability of u-hauls, light-weight furniture, and new employment that includes paid moving expenses.  But what it also does is keep the “greener grass” mentality forever before us.  “Yes, I will live here and raise my family here.” is spoken with “..until something better is found, or my needs force me to look elsewhere.” being said under our breath.

I obviously has very little ground to stand on here.  I’m 30, and have changed addresses at least 6 times since turning 18.  But I think it’s important for us to recapture “place-making” as an important part of our faithfulness to God.  Ever since humanity was “displaced” from the Garden because of sin, God and His people have been working toward a return to implacement together.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that “home-making” is more of an important theological act than we’ve ever really given credit to.  It means figuring out how to stay in one place, and transforming that place by our extended presence and life with God may be more important than moving to where the gold rush of “success” is being promised.  That living this way may actually limit us, and force us to live more simply than if we were free to move based on whatever greener grass we thought would be inherently good for us and our great-grandchildren.  Caring for the structures of our aging homes, tending to the plant and animal life in our yard, and building long-term community with the people around us – have eternal value as these things are by nature done as liturgy, the “work of the people.”

Is it bad to move?  No.  There are plenty of good reasons to make the decision to follow God’s call to another place of residence.  But most of us don’t live in a culture where that’s the question being asked.

May that encourage us this week as we pull another weed, repaint the bedroom, mow our yard, feed our squirrels, hang new curtains, talk to our neighbors, and fix that board that keeps coming loose…