This blog has been dead for the past year, mainly due to a huge writing project that's now complete.  My newest book, "A Story of Grace: Beyond the Iron Curtain" is now available on Amazon.com. Written with Phil Metzger, pastor of Calvary Chapel Budapest, this book looks at some of God's amazing works in Central Europe over the past twenty years. http://www.amazon.com/Story-Grace-Beyond-Iron-Curtain/dp/0578143062

I look forward to returning the world of blogging soon.

Easter Saturday: Doubting God

Nestled between the tragic "Good Friday" and triumphant "Easter Sunday" lies a day often overlooked in the Christian calendar: Easter Saturday.

It's a day sometimes observed by the more high church denominations with ceremony and tradition, a day of mourning. It's a day of grief.  But it is also a day of much deeper emotion, a day that represents doubt and despondency.  And it poses a poignant question: How would you respond if everything you could see, hear, touch, feel, and taste told you that what you've believed in was completely wrong.

On Friday, the disciples, family and followers all watched Christ die a gruesome death.  Perhaps even as they stood there, against all hope, believing God would intervene at the last possible moment and all would see that Jesus is Messiah!  But God didn't intervene. God let Him die.

For those who believed in Him so completely, it had to have been incomprehensible. They knew Him and loved Him. He could not be dead! He had not done what Messiah was supposed to do! He had not ushered in a new era.

And yet as they wrapped his body quickly in spices and laid it in the tomb, they faced the incomprehensible reality.  He really was dead. As they pushed the stone over the cave opening, they had to begin burying all the hopes and dreams they had wrapped up in Him as Messiah. It was over.

As the sun rose on Easter Saturday, they had to go through their Sabbath routine, but it had to have felt so empty.  The questions must have screamed through everyone's mind, even if no one dared utter the words aloud.

Had Jesus deceived them? The love they had for Him made the possibility all the more painful to consider.

Was He not the Christ? How could He be if now He were dead?!

But His love, His miracles!  And yet now, He lay dead in a tomb. Death did not lie.

All evidence, all reality, all of life experience culminating in the day of Easter Saturday left no doubt. They were wrong. They had clearly misplaced their faith.

We all have Easter Saturdays in our lives.  They do not always correspond with the calendar holiday, but they are there--days when we doubt, days when we wonder where God is and if He even really cares. And our harsh circumstances testify with all certainty that we've misplaced our faith by putting it in Someone we cannot see.

Easter Saturdays are critical, defining moments in our lives. They are moments when the rubber hits the road in our faith.  After all, what is faith but the "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1)  It's easy to have "faith" when God makes sense. But that's not really faith at all. But in those Easter Saturdays of our life, when all logic and circumstances scream "there is no God,"  that's when real faith begins.

Easter Saturdays are not the enemy of our faith. They stand as a necessary ingredient in establishing a true faith built on more than religious axioms and tradition.  Easter Saturday represents a critical part in the process that brings us from the point of inexplicable tragedy (Good Friday) to a place of complete redemption and hope (Easter Sunday), where faith actually does become sight.

Born To Die

It's Christmastime! The streets are ablaze with glittering lights as snowflakes dance in the early night air, and homes, schools, and shopping centers  burst with candy canes, caroles, and colorful gifts. In the hustle and bustle, the stress and expectations, Christmas can really become as artificial as the silver and gold tinsel on a plastic fir tree.

So much so that we become lost in all the gingerbread, chocolate, and childhood dreams of a fuzzy-faced icon in a red suit.

Yeah, yeah, we all know the true meaning of Christmas. And if you are at all like me, you struggle to keep it all straight this time of year. "No, no, it's not about the presents," I say to myself as I rush into TESCO. "It's about Jesus." But immediately the thought is lost among my lists of things to buy, cookies to make, meals to plan and prepare.

To be honest, I all but failed this year to stay spiritually on track during the chaos of Christmas; that is, until I went to Miskolc and visited the orphanage there on Saturday.

I've done the orphanage thing for many years. But this year was different. It was different because Marko wasn't there.

Marko, precious Marko, passed away at age eight last month.

I really hadn't thought about the void until I walked into the house where he used to live. As I passed through the door, I totally expected to hear his little voice cry out, "Szia, Trudy!" as it always had before. I did not even know I expected it, but it's cold, harsh absence hit me with a sober silence.  Sure, there were the sounds of the other kids laughing and playing, but Marko was not there, and I wanted to cry.

I pulled it together as the day's events continued, but a heaviness remained. At one point I saw Philip playing with one of the new little boys in his lap. I saw the little dark-haired boy wrestle and laugh out of the corner of my eye, and for half-a-second I believed it was Marko, at home in Philip's arms where he belonged. For half-a-second, I forgot. For half-a-second, everything was alright again.

Then reality hit. And all that was left was the ominous presence of Marko's all-too-painful absence.

This year has been a year of a lot of death. From young Ben's death of brain cancer to the suicide at the orphanage in the summer, to our friend who lost his father, to Marko, and the flower girl from our wedding.

Loss makes for a sobering Christmas. It pares back the superficiality and forces us to look deeper at the holiday -- to reach out (perhaps desperately) for something more.

And when we reach out for a deeper meaning in Christmas, we discover a baby born to die.

Indeed, there is no superficiality here. No tinsel, no sugar plums. Only the somber reality that, on some level, Christmas commemorates a life coming in the world with one fundamental goal, one purpose. And that purpose was death.

And it would be the most significant death the world had ever known, for all of human destiny hinged upon it. It was a death that would bring grief, just like you and I have known.  But it was also a death that ignited life eternal for all who dare ask.

That makes Christmas on one hand a holiday as sober as grief itself, and yet on the other, a true reason to sing, "Joy to the World! The Lord is Come!"

And so we celebrated Christmas at the Miskolc orphanage.  We handed out the gifts (provided by the generosity of the American military community in Germany) and it was fun to see the kids tear into them with all the eager anticipation that fills the season with magic.

So even if you are grieving this holiday season, you still have a place by the manger because the manger is not so far from the cross. And the cross is just a few steps away from the empty tomb.  And that's a reason to celebrate -- especially in a time of loss.

Unlikely Heroes of Faith

"Love ... always hopes ... always endures." 1 Corinthians 13:7

"It's over," the phone call came from Miskolc to Debrecen in a torrent of emotion.

 "Marko died this morning," the sms on my phone read.

It was a sober day for all of us. The fight for a precious life was over. The struggle had ended and now there was nothing left to do but ache and mourn.

 The doctors had said they had done all they could do for seven-year- old Marko back in the Spring. And at that time we all braced ourselves for the end, not expecting him to reach his eighth birthday. But the end did not come.

 And in those months that followed something remarkable happened. It was not the miracle we hoped and prayed for -- that Marko would be healed. But perhaps it was equally magical and mystical.

 It was a miracle that transformed an American football coach and his Hungarian girlfriend from mere volunteers at an orphanage into true "angels of mercy" or perhaps more significantly the loving parents of a rejected, sick and dying child.

It was a cross few of us would choose to take up. But it was the one put before Philip and Laura and neither hesitated for a moment. In fact, they likely would not have called it a "cross that they must bear" at all. It was a labor of love.

Each day they visited Marko at his hospital bedside, bringing odds and ends to make his situation a little more bearable. Loving him. Praying over him. Laughing with him on his better days and aching with him on his harder days. Celebrating the moments when he showed improvement. Always hoping that against the odds, that somehow, someway, this little boy's story could turn out differently than his diagnosis predicted.

They became Marko's parents in earnest, as if he were their very flesh and blood right through that critical moment when Marko slipped from Philip's big football player arms into the all-encompassing arms of his heavenly father. And because of Philip and Laura's love for him, he was prepared to understand the love of the heaven he entered.

Now Philip and Laura's arms are empty and their hearts bear the same void carried by all parents who have ever lost a child -- a scar that, as I understand it, may fade in intensity but never fully heals.

Although they would not call it such, they are true heroes of the faith.

 But there are no heroes without sacrifice. And there is no sacrifice without suffering. And unlike most parents who suffer such a loss, this suffering was not thrust upon them. They chose to take it up willingly when they vested their hearts into the waning life of a precious, orphaned child. They made that choice because they believed Marko was worth it.

Although our ache is not as intimate as Philip and Laura's, we do ache with them. And we stand inspired and awed at their demonstration of holy love, God's love, in the face of a difficult situation -- in the face of such a significant loss. But the loss is not as significant as the gain:

Marko may have lived as an orphan, but thanks to Philip and Laura, he died as a well-loved son.

A Time to Grieve

This morning we lost Marko, the orphan who has been so sick for so long. No more pain, no more suffering, Marko now rests in the arms of his Heavenly Father. So much is wrapped up in this story on so many layers. But now it's time to put all that aside and take some time to grieve. In the face of all this, we do indeed have hope.

Just the Facts, Ma'am.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." --Hebrews 11:1

It's September! And that means the misery of the summer heat has lifted and the kids are back at school! That also means I put my nose to the grindstone homeschooling one of my kids.

I must admit that my daughter (sweet kid that she is) challenges my patience and teaching skills to the limit, to put it nicely.  Her learning difficulties and short term memory issues coupled with her lighthearted, sanguine-phlegmatic personality sometimes make lessons an exercise in futility. 

I see her grasp the facts for a moment.  She can even use those facts to solve a problem.  Then suddenly ... POOF! They're gone, as evasive as a fresh breath of air in mid summer when you live next to a pig pen (which, by the way, we do).

And so we have to begin again. I have to get her to dig around her brain until she can find and reinstate the facts. Until the next time they manage to slip away.

Frustration, indeed!  But when I look back over a semester, I can see the improvement. Those facts that were so hard for her to hold onto at first, eventually settle in firmly, and she begins to recall them effortlessly.

But make no mistake. It is a long, painful process.

Recently I've been reading Watchman Nee's  The Normal Christian Life. It has caused me draw a parallel between the way my daughter learns and the way I learn spiritually.  

Nee talks about the simple facts of the Christian life that are so hard for us to maintain hold of.

Romans 6 outlines these facts:
1. the fact that our old self was crucified with Christ
2. the fact that we are dead to sin
3. the fact that if we died with Christ then we now live with/in Him.
4. the fact that because of these previous facts, we can now walk in newness of life.

Basic Christian facts, right?  And yet when was the last time we gave any thought to these facts?  We give a lot of thought to the facts of the material world: the fact of the family budget, the fact that the kids need new clothes, the fact that someone must cook dinner.  And granted, since we do live in this material world we have to deal with those facts too.

But I fear we tend to act like the facts of the material world are more "real" and "concrete" whereas the facts of the the spiritual realm seem only theoretical -- and somehow they fade from importance in the menial "real" tasks of daily life.  We may have used and applied those spiritual facts in the past, but like my daughter, we've allowed them to slip away from impacting what we are doing right now.

As a result, we become incapable of living the Christian life as we are called to live it. The key to regaining the perspective is "faith" as defined in Hebrews 11:1.  "Faith is the substance of things hoped for..." Nee explains that instead of substance, a better translation is "substantiation."  He says the word here describes something that is sort of like the relationship of color and the eye.  Color exists -- even though the blind man has never seen it.  The properly functioning eye provides us an ability to perceive color. It gives substance to the color so it can be perceived.

So also properly functioning faith in the Christian life enables us to perceive the world from the perspective of spiritual facts -- to see and understand things others cannot.

We as believers are called to hold on to the spiritual facts -- even when the facts of the material world seem more critical.

Today, even as I was writing this blog, my scatterbrained 11 year old declared, "I am going to focus and do this right!"  She suddenly took hold the facts and slowly and methodically used them to complete her on-line math quiz.

There were moments when the things of this world started to distract her: the smell of burning trash from next door, the sounds of people yelling outside, and the annoying yipes of our dog barking.  But she determined to pull herself back to the facts which enabled her to perceive and understand each math problem.  And then faith became sight as she earned 100 percent on the quiz -- and those don't come easy for her.

How important are the facts of Christianity to the hum-drum of our daily life?

 Oswald Chambers noted, "The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God’s power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. ...It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done."


Try it and see. Take some time each morning to meditate on the spiritual facts of Romans 6 before you start your day. After all, we are exhorted in Romans 6:11 to "reckon yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ" so if we believe the Bible, there must be something to the act of focusing on these truths through the lens of faith.

Pressing on Even When it Hurts

"I press on toward to goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ." --Philippians 3:14

World Class Athletes.

I've watched in awe these past weeks to see phenomenal performances of young men and women in the 2012 Olympic Games. And part of the awe stems not simply from how they performed in London, but all the hours and years of training that led to this fateful occasion where they either medaled and watched proudly as their national flag fluttered to the rhythm of their national anthem. Or they headed home empty handed.

So much effort and training goes into becoming a world class athlete. Talent alone is not enough. Love for the sport alone does not cut it. I heard one interview which stated that these athletes often train 6-8 hours each day for years to prepare for the Olympic challenge. I am sure there have been many who had the talent, maybe even the love, but not the tenacity to make it to the Olympics.

Or perhaps its not simply that they did not have the tenacity. Perhaps they had other priorities in life. And quite honestly I can't fault them for that. I can certainly understand someone just saying, “It's not worth it to me. I'd rather invest in family or career or whatever with all that time.”

But as I watch Olympic athletes face their moment of truth, I find myself facing a moment of truth of my own. I can't help but think of what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:27 when he compared the Christian life to that of an athlete in training. “I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.”

Through the Holy Spirit, God has granted each of this the ability for spiritual victory. But it does not end there anymore that natural talent make an individual a world class athlete. We have to be willing to train.

Corrie Ten Boom's sister Betsy understood this truth when she lie dying in a Nazi concentration camp. She said: “Corrie, your whole life has been a training for what you are doing here in prison—and the work you will do afterward.”

We've faced a lot this year in GoodSports. If the year had a headline, it would be called our year of death. It started with a suicide at the orphanage in September, continued when our friend Ben Schoonover died of brain cancer in the Spring, culminated with a second apparent suicide at the orphanage in June, followed by the passing of the father of one of our baseball boys in late July. Even now, our dear little Marko from the orphanage suffers such severe health problems that we do not know if he will live to see his eighth birthday next month.

It's been a rough year, and yet somehow I know it is a year of training, training for the next step, the next phase of ministry and life.

And that's a little scary, because it just hurts so much. The hardest training hurts the most, but succeeds in making an athlete stronger, and preparing him for the victory.

To be honest, sometimes I just let myself get distracted from Him who trains me best. And maybe it's because I don't trust Him enough.

I fear the pain of training more than I long for the victory that grows from the deeper relationship with Him.

Are the sacrifices required to become a world class athlete worth it? That may well be up to the individual to decide.

But if we call ourselves “Christian” then we have allegedly “given our lives to Christ.” That means if we are truly Christian, we no longer get to decide if we want to train. We are in training PERIOD.

Sure, we can turn away. We can refuse to learn from our difficulties. We can ignore the Coach, but then we are blatantly choosing not to live the Christian life.

So maybe we just need to embrace the training and in doing so embrace the trainer who will take us to deeper relationship with Himself and fuller victory if we are simply willing “to press on toward the goal” especially when it hurts.