It was a Tuesday morning– much like this morning. We were living in Tacoma, Washington at the time and were due back in Michigan the next day for my brother-in-law’s wedding that weekend. It would be the last summer weekend before I started classes the next week.

But the phone call was confusing–something about a plane crashing in New York. We roused ourselves out of bed and immediately turned on the news where we, like the rest of the world, watched as the rest of the horrific events of that day unraveled. And we knew it wasn’t something about a plane crashing, but everything.

With eyes glued to the news, we began talking how we were going to get back to Michigan in time for the Saturday wedding. We still weren’t convinced that we wouldn’t be able to fly, but after a couple of hours of discussion made the decision to make the 2,000 mile trip in our car.

We packed and were on the road after lunch. A lot had already happened that day, but there was too many miles to put in before we could stop, and the drive gave us time to process. We kept the radio on in the car, continuing to listen to the reports of what was happening, of what had happened, of what would happen. There was a lot of conjecture. Nobody really knew.

When we got to Spokane to refill the gas tank, I made a couple of phone calls to see whether planes were flying again and whether we could reschedule our flights. We had no idea that it’d be a while before there was public air traffic. We still had no idea of the broad sweeping effects of that morning.

It wasn’t long before we were in Montana–big sky country, where you can see for miles and miles and the sky is bigger than you could ever imagine. And it was there that the devastation of that day was finally made so apparent to us: there were no planes. Not one. For the hundreds of miles that we had driven, we had seen no movement in the sky. It was eerie. The stillness was sobering.

It was as though the sky itself was mourning the loss.

We’d grown up so accustomed to the noise and the sight of air traffic. Never in my life had there been a day without the sight of multiple passenger jets carrying people across the country or a private plane gracing the local scenery.

Those days were filled with uncertainty. Would we make home in time for the wedding? When would air travel begin again? Would New York City recover from this tragedy? Would the nation? Were we safe? When would things be normal again?

And for that entire 2,000 mile trip, we never saw any sign that things would ever be the same again. No planes. No movement. Just stillness.

But it was in the stillness that we found of all things, peace.

In the days when we face incredible uncertainty, it’s natural to be filled with fear. Sometimes it’s little things that cause us to fear the very worst. But sometimes it’s the monstrosities. When towers tumble and fall, it seems the world itself is caving in. And like Chicken Little, I think I thought the sky would follow suit.

Four planes had been hijacked. The twin towers had fallen from the sky. Thousands of people had lost their lives. And a nation was on it’s knees, crippled from the weight of it all.

The sky stood still. The lack of movement was odd, but also reassuring. Though there were no planes, no vapor trails, no movement, the sky itself wasn’t collapsing. The insidious attack had not upset the constant and faithful supervision of a God who held creation together.

Of course that tragic day still brings many questions about the goodness and presence of God, a God who was seemingly absent . . . and silent.

But the sky stands still. It has not buckled under the weight of it all. There has been grace. There has been healing. We have seen life and growth.

It was the absence of one thing that brought the recognition of another. Loss is incredibly difficult and uncertainty can be paralyzing, but God continued to prove Himself faithful in that the universe itself did not collapse in on itself.

Though the sky stood still, it was comforting that it was still standing. There was so much uncertainty that day–of what was, of what would be–and what we did know was pain. But the pain itself was a reminder that we were still here. And so was the sky. And so was the God who had made it all.

In the midst of the unknowable, we chose to trust the One who could sift and work through the rubble to bring life and restoration.

It was incredible. And it actually developed into a double-rainbow. I don’t care who you are, a rainbow is always amazing. The mere sight of one turns us all into kids again. We holler for everyone to take a look and we quickly grab our cameras–even though we’ve seen hundreds before.

Why is that? It’s because we don’t see them every day. And they’re beautiful. And they remind us of God’s promise to Noah. It isn’t that most of us have actually ever feared God judging the world again through a world-wide flood, but it is a kind of sentimental reminder of God’s faithfulness. We take the rainbow as a reminder for all of God’s promises. And that’s just reassuring.

But the rainbow thing got me thinking . . . and looking at that passage in Genesis again. And I saw something there that I hadn’t seen before.

We all see the ark. We all see the animals. We all see the rain, and the dove, and the olive branch. We all see the rainbow. But there was a connection that I didn’t see before.

It’s when the rainbow appeared. Think about it for a minute. As I’m writing this, it’s a relatively sunny day and I’m sitting in my backyard enjoying the sun, a slight breeze, and even the shady break that the clouds give when they pass by the sun. But there aren’t any rainbows. Why not? Because rainbows don’t happen on clear, sunny days.

Rainbows happen when it’s raining.

Well, duh. That might seem really obvious to you. But it wasn’t obvious to me every other time I’ve read that passage in Genesis. God used a rainbow to promise Noah (and the rest of us) that He would never destroy the earth again through a flood. That meant that He promised while it was raining.

The rain had stopped when Noah and his family finally and safely exited the ark, built an altar to God and offered a sacrifice on it. It was then that God spoke to him and gave the sign of His promise: the first rainbow.

I don’t usually have that kind of faith. It had rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The earth didn’t need any more watering. If I were Noah, once the rain had stopped I would’ve been more than happy to not see another drop of rain for the rest of my life. I would’ve been thrilled for God to take me to an arid place and say:

“Here’s the Gobi desert, Noah. It exists as a sign to you that I won’t ever destroy the earth through a flood again.”

That kind of sign makes sense to me. But that isn’t the kind of sign that God chose to give.

God’s promises come with a place to hang our faith.

Noah’s sandals were still wet and the sound of pouring rain was likely still in his ears. But his faith was sure. It would have to be. That’s the way God often works–He doesn’t just deliver us and set us in a place that is ‘safe’ without any risk. No, He calls us to a place where our faith is liable to get wet and our doubts are as real as the mud between our toes.

Noah, if you are truly willing to trust what I’m about to show you, you’re going to get wet . . . again.

God doesn’t call us to safety. He calls us to Himself and asks us to trust Him through the storm for true safety. It’s a theme we see throughout the Bible: Israel at the Red Sea, and again at the Jordan; Jesus with His disciples in the boat in the storm, and again at the cross.

Rainbows remind us that we can trust God not to destroy us with a flood while it is still raining . . . but the sun is shining, too.

Where is God prompting you to step into the rain and trust Him?

Obviously, this isn’t one of those posts that will demonstrate how I’ve got it all together. Because I don’t.

The problem for me with Lent this year hasn’t been a matter of the difficulty of giving up as much as it has been the intentional aspect of meditating on the life, humility, and sacrifice of Jesus. No, the giving up has been fairly easy—perhaps I aimed too low and gave up something that had little effect in my life to begin with. Perhaps I gave off the top instead of giving sacrificially. I’m still sorting this aspect through.

What I do know is that my giving up has been little more than a dietary decision at this point. And that isn’t the purpose of observing Lent. Jesus didn’t leave his father’s throne because he just needed a little space. He gave up his rightful place at the Father’s side in order to make it possible for us to gather there as well. While that space was his right, it is ours’ only by grace.

Lent then, is a season that ought to be entered intentionally to consider that exchange and the grace that has been poured out on us. It isn’t that we don’t contemplate these things through the rest of the year, but now we do it collectively, recognizing that his sacrifice was not solely for me as an individual, but for the sins of the whole world.

So as one representative of those sins, I reenter this season confessing I have made too much of myself and too little of Jesus. And this has not only been during Lent.

Can we journey together?

Today marks the beginning of Lent. I began observing this season just a few years ago and have found much encouragement through a dedicated time of reflection. Regardless of what we “give up” during this time, the discipline of meditating on Jesus’ own sacrifice and the celebration of his subsequent resurrection and exaltation can become powerful moments in our lives.

I plan to share various thoughts and resources along the way during this season, from today until Easter. I invite you to come along, to investigate and to participate yourself. My hope is that along the way we will each be drawn into a greater intimacy with Jesus and be able to echo what Paul writes in Philippians 3:10-11:

that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

When it comes to inviting others to follow Jesus, we need to use words that will be at least familiar to those to whom we’re talking. Otherwise we just end up clouding the truth, hope, and beauty of the gospel. If we can’t unpack and define the terms and give them clarity, perhaps we don’t really understand them ourselves.

Those of us who have grown up going to church are notorious offenders of this type of behavior. Part of the work that we need to be doing is to continually evaluate and sharpen how effectively we communicate with people.

Lest you think this is some useless attempt at being relevant it’s important to note that our model for this type of communication is Jesus himself. John put it most simply and clearly when he wrote:

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

The decision of the Godhead to make himself known to the world, to reveal himself, was not to use overly high and indiscernible language, but to come and live among his people, taking their very form and speaking their limited language. He used stories and parables and concrete language. He changed his method depending on the audience and he started with what was familiar to draw them to the truth and to the hope that he offered them.

Words take work. Communication takes a commitment to clarity. It takes listening to people to be able to recognize where they are and what they’ll understand and what will resonate with them. Each conversation will certainly be different and draw on different symbols and illustrations to communicate the truth. But each will afford new opportunities to show the beauty of the gospel as well.

If I truly love Jesus I will put in the effort to clearly and creatively communicate as he did so that through my words others may come to love and follow the Word.

I’ve since read another of Batterson’s books and when I heard about his latest, The Circle Maker I put it in my queue. But when I saw the subtitle mentioned in a tweet, I went right out and bought the book and dove right in.

What was that tweet? What’s the subtitle?

Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears.

Batterson had me at ‘hello.’ Actually it was the part about ‘Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears’ that got me. This describes exactly where I feel I am. Truthfully, I think I’ve been stuck in this place for a while, but only recently have I been spurred on to pursue God in that space. Batterson’s book helped immensely here.

This is the second book on prayer I’ve read this year and both have challenged and encouraged me in unique ways. But it’s how Batterson specifically applies prayer to those aspects of life where we must reach higher and leap farther in our faith that made the deepest impact on me. Batterson ties the character of God and his desire to answer our prayers to our impulse to take risks when others might counsel us simply to play it safe.

Rather than simply make excuses and take the easy way out, we ought to pray through the dreams and impulses we wrestle with. Many of our big dreams have been placed there by God himself so that he could accomplish something great in and through us.

We lose faith in the God who gave us the big dream and settle for a small dream that we can accomplish without His help.

Batterson is careful to emphasize that this is not ultimately about us, but about our intentionally trusting God and asking him to accomplish his purposes.

The title, The Circle Maker, comes from Honi, a first century Jew who was bold enough to ask of God to send rain. This man and his faith are the inspiration for this exercise of prayer Batterson calls circle making. He illustrates this exercise by separating the book into three major circles or sections: Dream Big, Pray Hard, and Think Long. Each one is integral to the exercise and discipline that Batterson encourages us engage.

Batterson doesn’t attempt to make much of us or even of our efforts in prayer, but rather points to the greatness of God who is able and exceedingly willing to answer even our largest leaps of faith.

Much like his other books, Batterson puts biblical feet to these ideas. Rather than just tell us what we want to hear and give us a spiritual pep talk, he encourages and challenges us through biblical principles.

We come away with a stronger desire to trust God more and to do more than just ask him in a cursory manner, but to really commit ourselves to asking and depending on him for his answer.

We come away wanting to be modern day Circle Makers.

It seemed simple and obvious enough. If you’re at point A and need to get to point B, just choose a straight line.

But somewhere along the lesson I applied these truths to my life journey. And while it is true in geometry, life isn’t necessarily geometric.

I’ve been reading lately about the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and their journey towards the Promised Land. I’ve long known that the journey took them 40 years (much longer than it ought to have), but I only recently noticed this verse, Exodus 13:17:

When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, “Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.”

God kept his people from going directly into the land, his place of promise and blessing for them, because they wouldn’t have stayed and would have chosen to return to the mistreatment of Egyptian slavery instead.

Sometimes the long way around is meant to strengthen our hearts.

I realize that my goal is often to get into the land, but God’s intent is for me to dwell in it. The difference is subtle, but drastically different. I spend a lot of time trying to arrive and God intends to build into me in a such a way as to prepare me to abide.

Abide, not arrive.

The question I need to ask in evaluating the way ahead then is not so much Where is God leading me? but What does God desire to do in me?

It seems God is less interested in merely fulfilling his promises to us than in making us sufficient enough to enjoy them.

The circle is called the blame game.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the rules, it works like this: you do something wrong and when confronted about it, you simply blame someone else. It’s really fairly easy. Often, you choose the person who’s in the closest proximity to you and while the unsuspecting individual is left fending for themselves you try to slip away. It’s the ultimate diversion tactic.

It’s a circle for another reason, too. Usually what ends up happening is that everyone present just points fingers at each other. The brother blames the sister who in turn blames the brother and when that doesn’t work she blames the dog. You get the idea and you’ve probably seen this played before.

Now, to be fair, this game is played a lot more frequently by my kids than it is by me. (Do you see what I did there?)

Our kids learn a lot from us. And if there’s one poor behavior that doesn’t have to be taught, it’s blaming someone else for our own faults. Blaming others has been around nearly as long as there has been someone to blame.

You know the story: Eve ate the forbidden fruit (from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) and then gave it to Adam who also ate. When God confronted Adam about this, Adam blamed Eve and Eve, in turn, blamed the serpent. And so the game began.

Of course it isn’t a game at all. That’s just one of our ways of trying to rationalize it. Maybe we call it that because you’ve got to be quick on your feet to implicate another person before they suspect it—the slyest fox wins. Regardless, we’ve damaged many relationships by not admitting our faults. People get hurt when we try to divert the blame on to them.

One of the major problems with this game is that if you keep playing, it doesn’t end. If I blame you, you may in turn try to blame me, or whomever else might be a worthy scapegoat. Down the line it’s going to come back to haunt us both because that other individual is likely going to bear a grudge for having to deal with our throwing them under the bus.

The only way to stop the game is by quitting. That is, somebody has to decide not to shift the blame onto another person and instead own up to their own wrongdoing. But this is hard to do, especially when that seems counterintuitive to a game that we’ve been playing so long that we’ve forgotten where and when we first learned the rules.

But this is where grace comes in.

Grace doesn’t just step in and say everything’s okay and that nobody has to confess anything and there aren’t going to be any consequences. No, when grace enters in it is accompanied by the truth. And in this way, it is most clearly the gospel.

We play this game because we’re afraid of the consequences for our actions: they are far greater than we are willing or capable of bearing. But the gospel, good news if there ever was any, says that we are fully at fault and fully accountable. This is the truth and though we try to shift the blame, it stills falls directly on us. The diversion only works as a temporary distraction to ourselves, but it has no way of altering the truth.

But the gospel does not stop here. In grace we hear the full truth: that there is one who stopped the game by willingly taking our blame upon himself. Jesus knew we were at fault, but insisted on bearing the consequences that should’ve fallen on us.

There’s a model here for us to follow. But not a model only—it is also the means by which we are able to break the circle. And so we need to just stop playing this game. We need to give up the charade that we have done nothing wrong. We need to humble ourselves and take full responsibility. In doing so we will both see that we are unable to bear the full burden and that we don’t have to. There is one who has taken our blame and shame upon himself and offered us forgiveness and grace instead.

At first glance this little book doesn’t look as though it will pose too great a challenge. It doesn’t look like it will take that long to read and honestly, I thought it would mostly just guilt me into praying more.

That was not the case at all. I finally picked it up thinking I would breeze through it and move on to the next book in my queue. I quickly (and happily) learned how wrong I had been.

Jones writes a simple and concise book on prayer, to be sure. But it packs a powerful punch and is highly practical. Most lessons we hear on prayer appeal to our guilt and our obvious need to pray more. Not so with Jones’ book.

In less than 170 pages Jones moves from defining prayer and how it works in the first two chapters to giving a sampling of prayer throughout history.

He spends three chapters on prayers from the Old Testament, three more on those from the New Testament, and then three more chapters on prayers from the Church’s history. He wraps up the book with a dozen pages of sample prayers meant to guide us in the exercise of prayer.

And it is this point, the exercise of prayer, that I think makes Jones’ book stand out from what I expected a book on prayer to be. Jones knows that we all know we ought to pray more, but he recognizes that there are a multitude of reasons that we don’t. And so what he encourages throughout the book is this practice of exercising—though he never does so explicitly.

Prayer takes work. It takes discipline. It takes repeated effort. It needs to be worked out. It is an exercise . . . and we don’t ever fully arrive.

Jones spends his time exposing us to a variety of recorded prayers over a long course of human history. And in doing that he not only exposes our hearts, but also shows us incredible glimpses of the God who hears and answers those prayers. And in showing us these glimpses of the greatness of God, he gives us the only true motivation for prayer.

We are drawn to prayer because we are drawn to God.

Jones follows each prayer with a short summary of the truths contained—a double-shot of truth for those times when we’re tempted to move our eyes to quickly to the next page. This provides for a much fuller exposure of our hearts as well as God’s.

Before moving on to the next prayer or next section of prayers, Jones then asks a number of penetrating and thoughtful questions, questions that are too sharp and direct to escape without answering. They are questions that further motivate and move us to pray.

I have read few books that have accomplished what this book has done: I have come away not just knowing what I ought, but doing it, and finding myself in healthy repeated patterns of this renewed exercise.

Don’t worry, I’m not posting anything I haven’t already admitted to him and to God. And I am thankful to write that both have graciously forgiven me.

It was at the dinner table last night. Is there any dad out there who hasn’t sinned at the dinner table?

Here’s the problem: dinner is at the end of the day and I’m ready to start winding down from the day. The time I spend in the morning over a cup of coffee serves as the warm-up to the day, and dinner usually serves as the cool-down.

But that’s not how my kids view it. So, we have a conflict in expectations. Dinnertime for them often lends itself to escalated laughter and zaniness that quickly erodes into something akin to a wild rumpus.

Last night, I warmed up leftovers for the kids because Kim was still at work. Now leftovers for a 2, 5, 6, and 9 year old are usually greeted with all the joy of eating slugs. But last night, they were excited: ravioli and mac and cheese. Neither of these were from cans or boxes, mind you. These leftovers were the real deal and the kids brought healthy appetites and good attitudes.

After I got them their meals, I warmed up my own. They were mid-meal by the time I sat down, fully engaged in eating. While that is fairly unusual at our table, by the time I joined them they were already involved in conversation with each other. Conversation, not arguing. So it was going really well . . . until I entered the mix.

As Liam was talking, I said, “Shh. Shh.”

He responded, “Shh.”

Me: “Shh.”

Liam: “I was talking.”

Me: “I know. I said ‘shh.’”

And here is where I realized I was the one at fault, not them.

Liam: “Why? I was talking. We like talking and having fun at the dinner table. We don’t get to have fun in the morning because we have to get ready.”

Me: “I know, but I like it quiet. And not wild.”

Liam: “We like it wild.”

At this point, I fully realized that they were acting very well. There was no rumpus. They hadn’t been throwing food. It was me who had squashed the spirit. So, I apologized and asked him to kindly continue the conversation they were having when I sat down.

He did and the entire meal went very well.

Later that night, at bedtime, I had to intentionally humble myself and tell him that not only had he been right and I was wrong, but I told him that he handled it all very well. He hadn’t gotten sassy or argumentative with me. But in a clear, controlled and rational way he was able to make his case and it was clear that I was the one who nearly caused the wild rumpus.

As I sit here this morning I both hope that this experience will continue and never happen again. I hope that I stop screwing up with my kids and approaching things irrationally and selfishly. But I know that won’t likely happen. So, I hope that my kids will learn to calmly and rationally be able to speak their case and that I will have the clarity and humility to listen.