Author: Nick

Rosemary and I were discussing last night one of the problems of aging: loss of memory: Walking into a room and forgetting why I went there, being unable to bring to your lips the name of someone close. Conversations at breakfast which I normally have with a group of friends of which I am the youngest, are often strange. Detailed discussions take place about mutual acquaintances, whose names are never mentioned, because none of our aging minds can remember the names, but we all know to whom we refer. These little lapses of memory are normal; but forgetting our past can be spiritually deadly. In a spiritual desert? It happens,  that “feeling” that God is far away, that our prayers hit the ceiling and go no further, that Our Father, if He even exists, just doesn’t care.  We all have those moments. It becomes a great problem if we dwell in the desert and a momentary “feeling” can become a dry and hopeless way of life. These moments are also “memory” problems and the solution to these desert moments is to remember. “Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve. Provoke yourself by recollection, and your affection for God […]

Once again OC comes up with a fascinating concept: the starvation of our imagination of God. “The people of God in Isaiah’s day had starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols, and Isaiah made them look up at the heavens, that is, he made them begin to use their imagination aright.” I wonder what OC would think of the state of imagination today. Looks like the movie “Avatar” will set records for attendance and sweep the Academy awards. It is without question the most “imaginative” movie I have ever seen. It is just the most recent and most dramatic example of the state of imagination today. We are bombarded with imaginative images and concepts. I think that very avalanche has starved our individual imaginations and particularly our imagination of God. In our media intense world the need to imagine is virtually eliminated. Movies in 3D, video games and constant exposure to television replace individual imagination. The Art of Reading is dying. To read requires the application of imagination as our minds turns the printed word into self-created visions that make up the story line. We don’t do much of that anymore. Starvation for the imagination of […]

I slept like a log last night. I was completely exhausted. Sometime during the game I got a several inch long cut on my arm. It was a tough game. It will be useless to try to accomplish much today. I’m still too high. The Saints are the Champions of the world. It’s a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience and the exhaustion and exhilaration are intense and simultaneous. It’s not a completely unknown feeling. It feels very much like the days after completing a Kairos weekend. That experience is also exhilarating and exhausting. There is a feeling of having  been spiritually used up. And that is a good and appropriate thing. It is what we are created for. It’s our purpose after our salvation: to be completely used by God.  Recently after a period of great productivity in my life; I realized that the cycle of waking in the morning excited and motivated to get things done and the evenings feeling almost too tired to move, is the right and natural way of living. But remember that it is crucial that exhaustion is part of a cycle of refreshment, pouring out, and exhaustion. A balance in our spiritual life is crucial. We […]

We understand that sanctification is a process that begins when we are saved. But why is it a process? Why doesn’t God just make us instantaneously everything we are meant to be? I am reminded of the court room exchange in the movie “A Few Good Men.” The young officer demands of the aged veteran officer: “I want the truth.” And he is told, “You can’t handle the truth.” As to sanctification, we are not instantly ready for full sanctification: the cost is too great. “It will cost an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of all our interests in God. Sanctification means intense concentration on God’s point of view.” At salvation, we don’t surrender our free will, nor or we transported from the material, non-spiritual world in which we live. Although our eyes are opened when God saves us; our vision is still immature. In the process of sanctification, our interests increasingly match the interests of our God. It is a process which must move forward if we are to increasingly become the image of Christ. How much sanctification are you prepared for? The better question may be: Are you ready for […]

This little graphic is from the Walk to Emmaus web site. The Walk is similar to Cursillo. These are the ministries on which Kairos, the prison ministry is based. After Jesus’ death and Resurrection, disciplines were walking to Emmaus, confused and dejected by the recent events and Jesus appeared along side them, walked with them initially unrecognized.   I was feeling a bit dejected last night. Kaydence’s father couldn’t fly in from offshore yesterday because of the weather; so we have her for at least one more day. That’s certainly not a bad thing; but I had plans for today. I was going to my Kairos meeting in Baton Rouge. We have painters coming on Monday and I have to do things to get ready. I’m suppose to meet someone. . . well you get the point. “Jesus, what are you doing. I have plans.”  That’s how it is with the feeling of dejection. It isn’t that Jesus isn’t there; it’s just that we don’t recognize Him. Today’s My Utmost for His Highest is so good and so deep, I just want to paste the whole thing here and send it on. In fact, that’s what I’ll do in edited […]

It seems my every work in ministry has been up front and prominent. There are many “behind the scenes” jobs in Kairos; but I’ve never had one of those. At any church there are many who pray, clean, bake cookies, and do all the things that are required to make any ministry work. I’ve never had any of those kinds of jobs. I’ve always been a teacher or preacher. So today’s My Utmost for His Highest devotional struck me hard.” I do not want God to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; I want to have the right kind of people watching and saying, ‘Well done.’”I would like to think that I would  be willing to toil for God in some way that is never noticed and never appreciated. But I’m frankly not sure. I appreciate those who work behind the scenes those whose efforts in the kingdom are never known. I know that those whose efforts go “unrewarded” in this life will be greatly honored in the next. I need to seek and perform those tasks that are never noticed and never appreciated. “Are you ready to be not so much […]

I am tired this morning and it will be a long day. Kaydence had a bad night with her asthma. She was up coughing most of the night, coughing to the point of vomiting. Rosemary was the one who stayed up with her. I tried to sleep; but I knew Rosemary would need relief by early morning and there would be no daycare today. I finally gave up and got up about 4:30. Even tired my heart melts when she coughs and cries, wanting to sleep but unable to. I know her Dad will be back on Friday and she will leave us for three weeks and I will miss her even the vomit and the sleepless nights. It’s times like this that I feel I don’t really love the Lord like I do my “loved” ones.  “Paul says he is overruled, overmastered, held as in a vice, by the love of Christ. Very few of us know what it means to be held in a grip by the love of God; we are held by the constraint of our experience only.” No matter how grateful we are for what God has done for us, our relationship with Him […]

Five years ago today my son Jason died unexpectedly. Like most of us, he could be a difficult man; but I could see Jesus in him when he was with his children. In those moments, he functioned as God means us to function: as projectors of the image of His Son. OC reminds us today. ” Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but “to reveal His Son in me.”” John Bevere in Extraordinary talks about our images: Our projected image is the front that we attempt to put up. That image we want people to see when they see us. We often fool ourselves that we are successful in that projection. But we are not. There is a second image: our perceived image; that is what people see us as. It’s not the same as what we think they see; but it’s also not who we really are. What we really are is what Bevere calls the actual image.It is sad to think that for most of us for most of our lives, no one, not us and not others, knows who we really are. I […]