Nick’s Walk

Also . . . add to your faith . . . —2 Peter 1:5 One of the “gems” I picked up this weekend was this. There is no growth on the mountain top. Growth and life is in the valleys.  It’s a hard truth. Think of the mountain tops, they have exciting views and the exhilaration of being “above it all” but there is little plant or animal life or fertile soil. All that’s down in the valley. The days after a Kairos weekend are filled with prayer for the residents and the team as the valley of every day life  becomes real. We must take the spiritual high and turn it into a new day-by-day life. This is not automatic. We have God’s help, of course, but something from us is required. What we are really trying to grow in the valley is our character. No one is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; it must be developed. Nor are we born with habits— we have to form godly habits on the basis of the new life God has placed within us. This consists of doing the things we should and ceasing to do the things we […]

Monday Abide in Me . . . —John 15:4 To “abide” means to continue to remain firm to endure. A weekend like I just lived through helps me to abide in Christ. It renews my enthusiasm for the life I have in Him. It makes me  want to continue the walk leading to perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus— I have to do it myself. Our Lord’s inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father’s plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord’s life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is “hidden with Christ in God” ( Colossians 3:3  ).Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, “Yes, Lord, just a minute— I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all […]

. . . come, follow Me —Luke 18:22 I write this on the final morning of the Kairos  weekend. We have been passing on Christ’ invitation to “come, follow me” to a group of residents of Camp D. I will always remember this Kairos as the “Little Kairos that Could.” We were short of volunteers, money, cookies. We had to cut back from our usual 7 tables to 5; Still the Holy Spirit showed up. My favorite memory may be of the man who has been incarcerated here for 57 years. On the first night he would not even introduce himself. Yesterday he was happily sharing with anyone who would listen.  We have a muslim who yesterday admitted that we were Christians as defined by Our Lord, he could indentify us by our love. Yesterday we made lists of those persons, often including ourselves, whom we hold in unforgiveness. As the day concluded we burned the lists in a special ceremony. I recall the man who said, “Last night when I went to bed, it was like I wasn’t even in prison.” Or the man who proclaimed, “You made me feel like a man, not a criminal.” Or the […]

We are watching God give many “new names” as we move into Saturday at Camp D Kairos. I will have many stories to report when it’s all over. Continue to lift us up. They said to Him, ’Rabbi . . . where are You staying?’ He said to them, ’Come and see’ —John 1:38-39 Where our self-interest sleeps and the real interest is awakened. “They . . . remained with Him that day . . . .” That is about all some of us ever do. We stay with Him a short time, only to wake up to our own realities of life. Our self-interest rises up and our abiding with Him is past. Yet there is no circumstance of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.“You are Simon . . . . You shall be called Cephas” ( John 1:42  ). God writes our new name only on those places in our lives where He has erased our pride, self-sufficiency, and self-interest. Some of us have our new name written only in certain spots, like spiritual measles. And in those areas of our lives we look all right. When we are in our best spiritual mood, you would […]

I was unable to get on the internet yesterday from Kairos. Things are going well. Please continue to pray,. Come to Me . . . —Matthew 11:28 On Friday of the Kairos weekend, this is what we want the resident to hear: “Come to me” from the lips of Jesus. We want them to put aside whatever ideas they have about heaven and hell, religion and God and just hear Jesus call to them personally to come to Him, personally. For many, it is an incredible new experience. Pray that many will hear that call today in Camp D at Angola. I have a talk to give about 11 a.m. It is entitled, “Friendship with God.” It introduces the simple but powerful idea that God wants to be the friend that we have spent our lives looking for. Pray with me that my words will be used by the Holy Spirit to plant that revolutionary concept in these minds. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words— “Come to Me.” Our Lord’s words are not, “Do this, or don’t do that,” but— “Come to me.” If I will simply […]

. . . seek, and you will find . . . —Luke 11:9 All you have to do is watch a little television to begin to desire. The media is designed to cause us to want things. And it’s not just the commercials, but the television shows themselves portray people living lives that seem far above and beyond our daily grind. If we can but realize that this picture of life, limits and does not expand, our horizons. If we limit our reach to those things we see in the  media, we cheat ourselves. God intends so much more for us. Today I begin a Kairos weekend. I will go to the most unlikely of places to find God and His blessings. I know I will see him work in lives apparently “destroyed” by sin and death and He will put life into dry bones. I say this with confidence because I have seen it again and again. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss . . .” ( James 4:3  ). If you ask for things from life instead of from God, “you ask amiss”; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment.  Our […]

Everyone who asks receives . . . —Luke 11:10 I hate to ask for directions. I think it is mostly a man thing. Women don’t seem to be afflicted with this malady. I don’t like to ask for directions because to ask is to admit I am lost. A man should never be lost. He should always know where he is. I think to some extent OC agrees: “There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. “Everyone who asks receives . . . .” This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (seeMatthew 5:45  ). To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God. Heavenly Father, all good things come from you. I pray for this […]

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them —John 13:17 This week is another Kairos retreat week. It is especially exciting to watch the “new guys” get caught up in the excitement of the ministry. It is a scary thing to go into Angola, once the bloodiest prison in America, now transformed by the love of God into the country’s largest church behind bars. It is exciting to see the new ones, at first tentative, then excited as the prospect of seeing God at  work. One of the great times during the weekend occurs on Saturday night when the “new guys” are given a chance to share their thoughts and impressions. These reflections never fail to bring forth tears. Almost unanimously these people will tell you how they never envisioned themselves in prison ministry and that they fought mightily against the call if God. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, […]