Football

My earliest childhood memory is from 1980. I was two. We were in Winter Park, FL, and Georgia had just won the National Championship in football. Dad was the president of the Central FL Bulldog Club at the time. He was playing one of his Georgia records those old school fans will remember "when you meet the Georgia Bulldogs, there's gonna be a Bulldog bite..." Run. Herschel. Run.
It was January in Florida and he was wearing shorts and a Georgia shirt as he almost always did. He was holding me and dancing. Singing. Rejoicing. It was pure JOY.

I am trying to wrap my mind around a football season without my dad. It's basically like how the first Christmas would be for other families. This is a man who couldn't go to Jacksonville one year for the annual Georgia- Florida game, and he couldn't get it on the radio. So he did what any self- respecting Georgia fan would do. He asked one of his friends who could get the game on the radio to play it and just leave the phone receiver next to the radio so he could listen. To the whole game. He paid the long distance bill.

Georgia football is spiritual in my family. Starting with my grandfather and spilling all the way down into all of our veins is the red, red blood. It runs deep on both sides.
It is spiritual in the sense that it is sacred, holy. It is at the very core of what holds us all together. The extended family I mean. We may not all keep in touch or all agree on life. But come Saturdays in the fall, we are all on the same side, wearing the same colors, yelling and screaming at the same people on the field.

Today I am fairly sure we will all pause. Even if its for a minute. To remember one of the greatest Georgia fans I've ever known. Second only to the Legend Larry Gaither.

I like to think of Dad rejoicing today. With an even greater JOY. Because no matter who wins today, he will not be disappointed. Ever again.

So in honor of Dad, "Give 'em Hell Georgia!"

Presence of God

I have been thinking a lot about the presence of God. Still. I feel it differently now. I used to experience it as though seeing the form of a person, a shadow really, in a window of a house across a great field. This last month, I have trampled through the field, stumbling, sweating, thirsty…and I find myself on the front porch. I have climbed the steps. The outline of the person is the same. I cannot see His features. Although I can hear the faint whisper of His voice through the door, I can’t always make out the words. But I am near. I am on the threshold of being with Him. All around me are the evidences of His hands. The fresh paint on the floor, the roof overhead, the manicured garden of corn and squash. The porch swing. The pots of hydrangea (because those are my favorites). He is with me. I am with Him. I am at peace, and I have ALL that I need. I think this is all of us as believers. At first we are far off, and now we are brought near. We see dimly in a mirror, but then we will see fully. We will see face to face. Our faith will be sight. One day, if we have trusted Christ, we will be inside that house. We will live there and we will dine with Him. Forever.

But what about when we are in the darkness? Is God still there? Has He left? I was looking at the end of Matthew, at Jesus’ last words. So picture this: Jesus is about to ascend into heaven. He is about to leave earth, to finish his 33 year long ministry. He is choosing His last words. He gives His disciples the Great Commission. He could have said anything. He could have said, “I love you.” He could have said, “I will provide for you.” He could have said “I am good. You can trust Me.” Or “Peace out!!” or a million other things. And what does He say? He says “I am WITH YOU ALWAYS, even to the end of the age.” WOW. And by saying that, He basically said all of those other things. What He is saying is—My presence is enough. This life will not be easy. It will be hard. You will suffer. You will be sad. But I am WITH You.

I think about that song I sang in youth group—“I wanna walk in the light as He is in the light.” You know you used to rock out to that, too (and may I say, I am so glad we did not have YouTube in the 80’s- Kristen Beck King, we would have owned that). Anyway, we know He is in the light. Jesus is the Light of the whole world. There will not even be a lamp in heaven, because, guess what? GOD IS THE LIGHT. I can’t even fathom that. And then I am wondering, well where is He in the dark moments? Where is He in the mascara cheeked, snotty pillowed, shoulders ache from sobbing, all I want is a hug from my dad, grief stricken darkness?

And then I read Exodus 20:21. And it says, “Moses approached the thick (wait for it) DARKNESS where GOD WAS,” and I stop short of my wondering. God IS there. Before the foundations of the world, God moved over the surface of the deep, IN THE DARKNESS (Genesis 1:2). He is IN the darkness, too. He has not left. He is just as present. And He will never leave. He is tirelessly at work redeeming all of the darkness. The suffering part is the same-- we will suffer here just as Christ suffered here, in order to be like Him in His suffering. But He is redeeming ALL of it. Beauty for ashes. Praise for heaviness. Joy for pain. Hope for sorrow. And the very best part, life for death.
Can I get an Amen?

Lazarus

A lot of friends have been asking how I am doing.

 I have been thinking about heaven and suffering and death and life. A lot. I have cried. A lot. I have laughed. A lot. I have also been reading and studying John 11:35, “Jesus wept,” sort of to make myself feel better about being a puddle. I have heard John 11 preached on many times, about the beauty and humanity of Jesus weeping and grieving at the tomb of Lazarus, missing His beloved friend. Post May 27, I have a different understanding of this passage. 

I believe Jesus was so moved in His spirit because He was about to call Lazarus from of the very presence of Almighty God back into a fallen and broken and sinful world. Jesus knew better than anyone else what it was like to come from perfect communion with the Father – where there is no sin and no sadness and no tears and no pain- into a place full of deceit, sin, brokenness, sadness, sickness, and death. I think Jesus was weeping FOR Lazarus.

I wonder if Laz was glad to be back when it was all said and done. I wonder if every day he walked the earth after that, he just longed to be with God again, that this life as we know it felt like a shadow of true life as he experienced it. The hardest laugh felt like a sliver of happiness, the most beautiful day felt lackluster. I wonder what he said of heaven. 

When Moses was about to enter the Promised Land, he told God that he didn’t want to go if God’s presence wasn’t going with them (Exodus 33). This man Moses, who spent 40 days and 40 nights on a mountain with God, would rather wander in the desert than spend one day in the Promised Land without Him. Wow. The Psalmist wrote that the NEARNESS of God is our good; not our circumstances, not when we feel His blessings, not the Promised Land…just His nearness. That is why Emmanuel means “God with us.” In His presence there is complete goodness and joy and hope.
I would never wish my dad back from the presence of God. He is experiencing life as we were all created to experience it. I am jealous for him and I miss him like crazy, but if I look at death like I think Jesus did, there is no sting. It is the great reward. It is life indeed. My dad is more alive now than he has ever been. I am reminded that I do have in my heart a portion of the presence of God, this tiny preview of heaven, a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, the Holy Spirit in me. And I think about why Jesus came. Emmanuel. God with us. God with ME. And He is.
And that is seriously Good News.