"EXCLUSIVE"...A WORD THAT ANNOYS ME WHEN DESCRIBING THE GOSPEL

There is something about the word "exclusive" that drives me a little nutty when it comes to the Gospel.  It's not because it's not true in the theological sense that Jesus is the only way to God the Father...it's more because of the ways that it has often been wrongly used to describe the Gospel.

One of the ways that "exclusive" has been misused is much like the kid who gets invited to the Chucky Cheese birthday party brags to the kid who didn't get invited.  It wreaks of an "I'm right and I get to go/ you're wrong and you don't get to go" tone that sounds more like a nerd who's right about an algebra problem than it is a beggar who has found bread trying to tell another beggar where to find it.

Another use of "exclusive" that drives me equally batty is a tone often taken by those of a more universalist bent where it is used an insult that is much like the terms "narrow minded" or "intolerant".  This use of the word comes from those who would say "how dare you say that Jesus is the only way to God!  That is narrow minded and intolerant of other views!"

The response that rises up in me would be "how dare you say He's not!".

I guess part of the reason that I get so agitated is that I don't think that the Gospel is exclusive at all.  If there was an impassable canyon that everyone had tried and failed to cross but  finally a bridge had been provided to cross it and ANYONE can cross the bridge, would it be "exclusive" to tell people that the bridge was the only way to successfully cross but thank God there was a way across?

If there was an incurable disease but through some miraculous anomaly, a child was born with a natural immunity towards the disease?  Would it be "exclusive" to tell the world that they would all have to get the vaccine that came from that child's blood but thank God, there was a cure!
Since we are talking about the Gospel let's take this metaphor a little further (and it is just a metaphor that will inevitably break down somewhere)... What if the production of a cure required the use of every drop of that child's blood (thus taking the child's life) but both the father and the child agreed that this was necessary to save the world..would it be "intolerant" to say that there was only one vaccine but now there was enough for everyone to get it?  If I was that father, and after losing my son to save the world, someone had the nerve to say in my presence "it' narrow minded to say there's only one vaccine and I don't like getting shots so...no thanks", I can't imagine what I'd I want to do to them...but I might just let them have their way and let them face the sickness unprepared.  Fortunately, God is nothing like me.  He is far more merciful and gracious in pleading with us even as we refuse Him and insult the death of His son.

I know that God is much more than just a father but He IS a father and from that point of view, I just don't believe He would have let Jesus go to the cross if there was ANY other way.  The hard reality is that there was only one way to pay for and cure the brokenness of man so that we could be restored back to God.  The good news and the good news is that Jesus is the only way...and He is the only way that is available to anyone and everyone.

IT'S BEEN A YEAR..

It was one year ago today that we got up at the crack of dawn, loaded up in our mini-van and our rented moving truck and headed down to Nashville.  It was one of the saddest and most exciting drives of my life.  I had no idea that that drive would very much be a symbol of the year that was to come.
and now I'm feeling the weight of this year.

There has been a lot of change.  You always see those lists of top ten stressors in life.  We've checked off most of the top five on that list...We changed cities, changed homes, changed jobs.
Not only have we changed a lot but we have left and lost.  We left a church job that might be the only perfect job description for a worship leader on the planet leading worship for the only perfectly imperfect church on the planet.  We left people at that church that had very much become family.  They're still family but now they don't live close enough to drop by or invite us over for Sunday dinner.

My kids left everything that they would call their childhood up to this point.   They left a neighborhood that was like the neighborhoods you see in old movies where the families all know each other cause they're all outside a lot doing things like Fourth of July parades around the block and impromptu driveway fire pit get togethers at night.  My kids left a church where for seven years they had the royal privileges of being a staff kid where they could roam throughout the building wherever they wanted and we didn't worry about them cause everybody there knew them.


I also lost my older brother in early March.  Him having a heart attack could not have come more out of nowhere than it did.  Mike was the one who somehow always came out of a situation unscathed.  He was the kid in the neighborhood who could ride a wheelie all the way up the cul de sac.  He was the one who could always lay down a game time performance not having practiced at all.  It's been over seven months and I'm still not sure if I have even started the grieving process...but I know I'm really starting to miss my big brother.  Life is a little more scary and I feel a little more exposed with my big brother not being there to finish fights that I started.

We have also gained.  We have gained the comfort of being back in the area that both Jenna and I grew up calling home.  I'm more convinced than ever that the deep seeded longing and dream that feels like home will never be realized on this earth..but it is nice to not have to make a whole new set of friends and start all over like we have in so many other ministry moves.  This time we moved back to people who have known us most of our lives...and we get to add new friends to that mix too.   We also gained a neighborhood right away that is very much like the one we left where it's a real neighborhood with real neighbors who have already become really good friends.

We also added.  In January, we started the process of adopting a little girl named Fodie from Sierra Leone Africa.  Under normal circumstances, we might have waited until life had calmed down a bit but because of an upcoming change in the Sierra Leone law that would make the adoption process much harder, we started the process.  We made a trip to Africa in April to go to court to make her legally ours.  Jenna made another trip in early September to bring her home and she arrived in the U.S. September 4..my big brother's birthday....and just a few days before they started closing the Sierra Leone borders because of the spread of Ebola in the region.
These first couple months with Fodie have seemed like a couple of years but not in a bad way.  I feel like we are watching a little girl who was developmentally and emotionally
a three year old blossom and catch up to the six year old that she actually is.

My body and my emotions are beginning to manifest the effects of all of the change this year has brought.  I am more tired than I think I am and there's more sorrow inside that needs to find it's way out.  I know I need to let myself feel the weight of this year.  In measuring it, I can honestly say that I know I can't bear it...but I can honestly see that I haven't been bearing it.  God has kindly been carrying it for me.  That doesn't mean that I don't need to process some things like grief and change..but I can't force that process and I'm not going to try.  It will happen when it needs to.  I'm just grateful for God's kindness through it all.