Update

Greetings to those who still continue to visit The Thin Edge, even though my time and energies have obviously been focused on other things for the past three years. Yes, we moved back to the United States three years ago this month. The time has flown as we have watched our family grow: three grandchildren have quickly multiplied into nine over this short period of time.

My American heart doctor confirmed that I had suffered a heart attack in Wales in March 2008, so within a few months of returning, the VA (Veterans Administration) took great care of me and completed stent surgery at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Five stents later, I immediately felt a huge difference Continue reading

Closing this blog

Well, it’s been just over four years ago that I began this blog. It was excellent therapy for me and it gave me a platform to talk about things that I felt, at the time, to be important and relevant. To me, it didn’t really matter whether anyone read my posts or not; however, I discovered that a lot of people were singing out of the same songbook and a few people probably became convinced that I had completely lost my mind or my faith.

I have been back in the United States now for eighteen months and, like every other American, I have sadly been forced to scratch and claw my way to sustain even the most austere existence possible in the current economic climate. It took eight months to land a full-time position and we almost went bankrupt in the process, so I’ve had virtually no time to blog in any meaningful way. I’ve settled for a more convenient approach via status updates on Facebook, so if you really want to keep in touch, please search for Bill Lollar on Facebook and send me a friend request with a brief note explaining that you have been following my blog and wanted to stay in touch. I’m a little bit eccentric about “friend requests” so if you don’t write me a personal note, I’ll probably just delete your request.

Thanks for the interaction over these past four years! I really miss writing and maybe one day I’ll return to blogging in my retirement years, if that ever becomes a possibility for me.

Take care! Unless I change my mind this blog will disappear on December 25, 2010.

Blessings!

Bill Lollar

Coloring Outside the Lines

Toddler DrawingFor those readers with children and those who have worked closely with toddlers, I’m sure you know what happens when a child is given his/her first coloring book and a box of wax crayons. Without any apparent (to us) logic or forethought, the child quickly launches their art career and randomly scribbles across the pages without consideration of the obvious black lines that everyone knows—except for the toddler—you’re supposed to treat as boundaries for each color. As a recovering perfectionist, this used to drive me up the wall as each of my four children would “ruin” a brand-new coloring book. Children can spend hours with a new coloring book and, of course, they always enjoy sharing their art with the people they love. “Look, Dad! I made this for you!”

What I didn’t realize then—and hopefully I look at things differently now—is that children approach their artwork as a natural expression of their innocence, freedom and individuality. They enjoy using any medium, whether it’s finger paint, watercolors, crayons, pencil, ketchup, mud, or even the poop inside their diapers (as we discovered with one of our daughters) to create uniquely original works of art on the most unlikely surfaces…even the faces of their siblings! But soon we begin telling them that they are supposed to color inside the lines and eventually they learn to conform their artistic expression to our logical, adult expectations. This happens as we give feedback such as, “That’s pretty good, Brian, but it would be so much better if you kept the red crayon inside the lines of Superman’s cape. You’ll do better next time!”

We often carry this same line of thinking into the Christian faith. Mike Yaconelli makes the following observation in his book, Dangerous Wonder:

Most of my life I heard the message loud and clear that Christianity was all about coloring within the lines and coloring well. If I was a good Christian, if I loved Jesus and wanted to please Him, if I read my Bible, prayed, and went to church, then I would get better and better at coloring. And if I lived a long and godly life, I would eventually be able to draw close to the perfect drawing.

Wherever that message came from, it was a lie. I am fifty-five years old and my coloring still looks like Alana’s (the two-year-old daughter of a friend).

I believe God looks at my coloring and says, “Hmmmmm. You certainly like the color green! Lots of passion in this stroke. I like it.”

Even as I write those words, I can hear the “concern” of those who worry about others misunderstanding the gospel. “You’re not suggesting, are you, that nothing matters to God? Certainly, God has standards!”

What I am suggesting is that God’s grace is so outside the lines of our understanding that we can only stand in awe and wonder. Christianity is not about learning how to live within the lines; Christianity is about the joy of coloring. The grace of God is preposterous enough to accept as beautiful a coloring that anyone else would reject as ugly. The grace of God sees beyond the scribbling to the heart of the scribbler—a scribbler who is similar to the two thieves who hung on crosses on either side of Jesus. One of the two asked Jesus to please accept his scribbled and sloppy life into the kingdom of God…and He did. Preposterous. And very good news for the rest of us scribblers.

Imagine a new couple—let’s call them John and Lisa—who begin attending a Sunday morning service in a typical conservative evangelical church. They are remarkably transparent from day one—a trait that some people find refreshing—and they open themselves up like a book to an entire congregation of strangers, not realizing that most people avoid such things for fear of being judged. Not John and Lisa. Maybe no one warned them. They came because a friend invited them and, surprisingly, they continue to attend the services weekly, even though church-going has never been a regular experience for either one. They are completely naive and unassuming about everything related to the Christian life, especially what’s considered “inside the lines” or “outside the lines.”

I can promise you…someone’s going to get their nose out of joint because John and Lisa don’t fit into their expectations of what constitutes a “good Christian” even though they know this couple is just beginning to investigate Christianity up close. They will discover John likes to go to the casino once a month, or that Lisa has had an abortion, or that the couple enjoys a few beers when they go tailgating with their non-church-going friends during football season, or that they are convinced evolutionists and, God forbid, card-carrying Libertarians! You see, when we’ve been bullied into coloring inside the lines, it drives us crazy when other people just scribble for the fun of it (and get away with it).

To me, it’s one of the reasons people are walking away from institutional Christianity. Maybe John and Lisa will find a loving fellowship where they are accepted as they are, where others are willing to allow God’s Spirit to do His work in His own timing in their lives, and where the active love of Christ demonstrated through others kindles a thirst in their hearts for authentic Christianity, as opposed to legalistic adherence to a form of religion that sucks the joy and life right out of them. I hope they find a place that welcomes scribblers. I’d love to find such a place, too.

Seeking that elusive relationship with God

I’ve just finished reading The Furious Longing of GodThe Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning by Brennan Manning, where he states:

The seldom-stated truth is that many of us have a longing for God and an aversion to God. Some of us seek Him and flee Him at the same time. We may scrupulously observe the Ten Commandments and rarely miss church on a Sunday morning, but a love affair with Jesus is just not our cup of tea.

This is my first exposure to Manning, a prolific author who would probably describe himself as a man obsessed with the love of God. In his  introduction, he describes the numerous books he has written as variations on this captivating theme, one that I must sadly confess has never featured prominently in my own studies, reflections, or teaching until the past two or three years.

Those of us who embrace a Reformed soteriology (doctrine of salvation) have many mind-boggling themes competing for our attention: the covenants of grace and works, the absolute sovereignty of God, predestination, providence, and what we often call the doctrines of grace (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints). We could insist that, since all of these themes are deeply rooted in the love of God, every aspect of a Calvinistic worldview inherently proclaims God’s love, but I’m afraid that would be putting too positive a spin on the reality.

Perhaps I’ve missed something along the way, because I can remember vigorous theological discussions on whether Calvinists could legitimately say to non-Christian people, “God loves you.” Many of us find ourselves squirming in our theological seats because the Reformed “system” only makes room for God’s love toward the elect, those whom He has chosen to save from the foundation of the world. So we feel very uncomfortable expressing God’s love to just anyone. In our minds, the “elect” are few in number compared with the overwhelming mass of humanity who are traveling the broad road that leads to eternal destruction. God does not love the non-elect, our theological system tells us; in fact, He will forever and ever pour out unimaginable punishment and suffering on these “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” (Romans 9:22, ESV).

This perspective of God has made it very difficult for me to fathom what Brennan Manning means by “a love affair with Jesus,” even though I consider myself to be a recipient of God’s grace and a follower of Jesus Christ. And yet I think back to the garden of Eden, prior to Adam and Eve’s trespass, where the first human couple walked with and enjoyed unhindered fellowship with the Triune God. The Bible gives us virtually no information about their daily relationship with God or how long before sin entered and tainted the perfection of Eden’s paradise, but surely they enjoyed an intimacy with their Creator that would stagger our imagination.

A more fully developed portrait of God dwelling with men can be seen in the life and ministry of Jesus, who held nothing back when He said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9, ESV). Think about that. Daily interaction, shared experiences (meals, parties, festivals, funerals, frightening episodes on the sea), times of hushed reverence and exuberant laughter, teaching in the context of life, sadness, disappointment, suffering and the full range of human emotion must have characterized the Savior’s life as he walked this earth with his disciples. While we may not know how Adam and Eve interacted with God prior to the Fall, we have been given an even greater vision of daily life in/with God through the Lord Jesus Christ in his three-year ministry in the towns and villages of Palestine.

I hunger for that. I long to know God’s grace more fully in the ordinary routines of life, outside what many people would describe as the religious component of their life…the weekly church-going activities where we tick the obligatory boxes and hope God sees our sacrifice. We participate in the holy rituals that have been handed down through the centuries because we want to know Him, and yet those activities often leave us feeling empty and wondering if God can be known in these ways.

At the same time, we’re not sure what we would do if God really showed up on Sunday. How would we know? Does the hair stand up on the back of your neck? Does the pace and intensity of our “praise and worship” increase when God’s in the house? Do we sense a special anointing on the pastor’s sermon? Should we stand, sit, or fall prostrate on the floor? And what if God doesn’t show up in most church services week after week? What does a “worship service” feel like when it’s devoid of His presence? You see, I’m not sure we can tell the difference; in fact, I don’t think we really want to know, because of our deep-seated aversion to God. We want to be God’s people, but we’d rather the Almighty keep His distance, like the Israelites of old feared hearing the voice of God.

Should our relationship with God (I speak here of the triune fellowship of Father, Son, and Spirit) resemble anything of the faint glimpses we see in Eden or the more robust images of first century Palestine? Do we look to the Puritan era or modern movements like the emerging church? If our religious rituals seem empty and unfulfilling, should they be jettisoned as relics of the past that have little or nothing to do with a daily experience of His presence? Or should we dive deeper into ancient patterns, like the neo-monastics or those seeking God in a more formal liturgy of worship? More young Christians seem to be doing this, praying the “daily office” and observing the orthodox holy days like monks in an ancient monastery, exchanging their middle-of-the-road evangelicalism for a more high church, smells and bells liturgy.

At this point, pursuing various styles and approaches to “church” (I hesitate to even use the word in this way) seems quite ludicrous unless they lead me to know God more intimately on a day-to-day basis. Christ died for me! I want what Paul prayed for the Ephesians: that I would have the strength to comprehend the dimensions of Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge. I want to be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18–19). And I don’t think experiencing these realities is dependent on what we do when we gather with other believers, whether informally over coffee or in a more structured Bible study group. The fullness and the reality should already be present within us, shouldn’t it? We take that with us everywhere we go, so that the fragrance of Christ may permeate every place, sacred or secular, our feet take us.

Those elusive missional moments

Image © Mandy ShaulThis morning my wife and I drove into Cardiff for my doctor’s appointment at the University of Wales Hospital. After waiting an hour past my appointment time, I was a little cranky from the pain: a large cyst in my jaw was found nearly a month ago when my local dentist could not find anything wrong with my teeth. Surgery was scheduled for last Friday, but canceled at the last minute due to a lack of bed space—a common problem in the National Health Service due to extremely high occupancy in British hospitals. Not willing to simply wait passively for another surgery date to come through my letter box, I requested an appointment with my doctor to see what could be done to expedite the process.

The reason I share the above details is to show that the most mundane events of life can present opportunities for befriending those around us—even when extreme pain may be the driving force behind such encounters—and being sensitive to God’s amazing work in human hearts. Unfortunately, our lives are lived at such a pace that we seldom recognize these missional moments; or we so compartmentalize our lives into secular and sacred that we Continue reading

You might be lukewarm if . . .

A thought-provoking, soul-searching list of eighteen signs that characterize the lukewarm Christian. Distilled from Francis Chan’s book entitled Crazy Love.

1. Lukewarm people attend church fairly regularly. It is what is expected of them, what they believe “good Christians” do, so they go. Isaiah 29:13

2. Lukewarm people give money to charity and to the church as long as it doesn’t impinge on their standard of living. If they have a little extra and it is easy and safe to give, they do so, After all, God loves a cheerful giver, right? 1 Chronicles 21:24, Luke 21:1-4

3. Lukewarm people tend to choose what is popular over what is right when they are in conflict. They desire to fit in both at church and outside of church; they care more about what people think of their actions (like church attendance and giving) than what God thinks of their hearts and lives. Luke 6:26, Revelation 3:1, Matthew 23:5-7

4. Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin. They don’t genuinely hate sin and aren’t truly sorry for it; they’re merely sorry because God is going to Continue reading

In our recent trip to visit friends and …

WalmartIn our recent trip to visit friends and family in the United States, we found ourselves neck-deep in a heated conversation about whether Christians should patronize businesses that support equal rights for gays and lesbians in the marketplace. Particular emphasis was placed on Wal-Mart’s decision to join the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce several years ago. My friends also refuse to purchase automobiles from Ford Motor Company and gasoline from Texaco because those companies have adopted policies that certain right-wing Christian organizations have deemed a threat to traditional Judeo-Christian family values. They receive irregular “Action Alerts” from the American Family Association (AFA), giving them advice on who to boycott and how to bring economic pressures to get such companies to change their ways. Continue reading

Living dangerously? I wanna talk about me!

Image © iStockPhoto (all rights reserved)Before the holidays, I sold a few sets of books that were collecting dust in my library and ordered a stack of new ones from Amazon, including Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you) by Jim Palmer. What a ride! I’m trying my best to finish the last couple of chapters, but I wanted to share a few quotes from the chapter entitled, “Sex, Lies, and Paratroop Deployment.” Continue reading

Wishing You a "Dangerous New Year!"

Image © iStockPhoto.com (All Rights Reserved)It would be alright with me if I never again heard the worn-out phrase, "Happy New Year!" What does that mean? I'm sick of happy. It's boring. And I'm not sure it's what God has in mind for those who are willing to be salt and light in their communities. So instead, I'm wishing a "Dangerous New Year!" to all my friends who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.

May God stretch our faith in 2008 beyond our wildest imagination! That's a dangerous prayer, but we're living by faith not by sight. Jesus has invited us to take up our cross daily and follow Him, not settle down for a nice comfortable lifestyle in the suburbs within our homogeneous socioeconomic grouping. Been there, done that! Boring! Continue reading

Truth, freedom, dancing inside

Image © Al PowerWilliam P. Young is not only the author of The Shack, but he also shares some creative, inspiring content on his blog. Recently he posted a fictional account of an uptight Jewish disciple and a curious Samaritan “whose breath radiates goat and garlic.” This odd couple get into an interesting discussion of parables, truth, and freedom that transforms both men by the end of their conversation. Here’s a little sample—I hope you’ll visit Wind Rumors for the entire story—where the impatient follower of Jesus discovers the reason he has been approached by this bizarre stranger.

“The good Samaritan, you know, that guy that Jesus just told us about. I want to know who he is. I would like to meet him.

“Now I am wide awake. I grin at this man thinking that he is joking, but the intensity of his face communicates that he is dead serious. “You want me to tell you who the good Samaritan is, like…his name?” Continue reading