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Biting the hand that elected you

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Two days into his presidency and the honeymoon appears to be winding down for President Obama, at least from the perspective of the establishment media as represented by the White House Press Corps.

As one of his first acts as president, Mr. Obama announced that his administration would be marked by a new transparancy. He then barred television cameras and news photographers from his second swearing in and refused to answer a reporters question about his Deputy Defense Secretary nominee’s ties to lobbyists.

Traditionally news photographers have been admitted to the Oval Office to capture candid moments of the new president on his first day. Obama barred the photographers, instead distributing official White House photos of his first few hours in the Oval Office, characterized by the White House Press Corps as “photo press releases.”

As reported by Politico.com, the New York Times is not amused that then President-elect Obama denied them the traditional free-wheeling interview it had always conducted with the incoming president.

Now that the election is over, it seems Mr. Obama has forgotten that it was his friends in the main stream media who worked tirelessly to get him elected in the first place. Remember Chris Matthews’ “thrill up my leg” after one of Obama’s campaign speeches? Politico reports,

“…getting one’s message across through establishment media isn’t the only option for the new administration. The Obama campaign proved that one could skirt around the mainstream media at times, whether by blasting out text messages to millions of supporters (the Biden pick), or leaking to select news outlets and blogs as a means of getting out the day’s talking points out.”

Watch for the hand that Obama is biting to bite back with a vengence. Obama may have quickly forgotten the media that elected him, but the main stream media’s memory isn’t that short.

First Obama honors gays, now terrorists at Inaugural

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From the International Herald Tribune:

A Muslim scholar chosen to speak at President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural prayer service Wednesday is the leader of a group that federal prosecutors say has ties to terrorists.

Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, is one of many religious leaders scheduled to speak at the prayer service at Washington’s National Cathedral.

Mattson has been the guest of honor at State Department dinners and has met with senior Pentagon officials during the Bush administration. She also spoke at a prayer service at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

But in 2007 and as recently as last July, federal prosecutors in Dallas filed court documents linking the Hartford, Conn.-based Islamic society to the group Hamas, which the U.S. considers a terrorist organization.

Just wondering…

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…why it is when a tragedy like 9/11 occurs people ask, “Where was God?” and when a miracle like US Airways Flight 1549 no was says, “THERE is God!”

Not to take anything away from the skill and heroism of the pilot, but if we blame God for the actions of radical terrorists on 9/11, shouldn’t we also credit God with the actions of a skilled pilot on 1/15?

Hearing God at the End of a Bad Day

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At the end of a particularly tough day yesterday I found myself in a reflective mood. I wasn’t liking what I was seeing as I reflected on the quality of my work. I was feeling overwhelmed and quite insufficient…when out of nowhere the Holy Spirit broke through and said:

“You are insufficient but I am sufficient.”

I kid you not. This BAPTIST actually HEARD the voice of God! Where did THAT come from, I said to no one in particular.

The “no one in particular” must have heard me, because He said back to me:

“2 Corinthians”

2 Corinthians? I found my Bible and turned to 2 Corinthians and began reading at chapter one until I came to the verses undoubtedly the Holy Spirit was pointing me to:

For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

Beyond strength. Despairing of life. Sentence of death. Ever had one of those days?

Those words described perfectly my mental and spiritual state as I reflected on what was a less than stellar completion of yesterday’s tasks. But through these words in 2 Corinthians the Holy Spirit reminded me that “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10), that I should be content when I have done less than my best, because in doing less than my best I am caused to recognize my REAL failure, which wasn’t a terrible performance in and of itself, but the confidence that I was somehow sufficient in myself. All things being equal (i.e., you did your homework, you prepared), bad performance is evidence of depending only on yourself and NOT on the sufficiency of Christ.

When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

There’s that voice again! The Holy Spirit reminded me that not only does my total incapacity apply to my salvation, but it extends even to the tasks of show preparation, sermon preparation, meetings, telephone calls, and a hundred other uncatalogued events that take place on any given day as I work toward the goal of completing my tasks with perfection. While I must do the preparation, the Holy Spirit was saying, “YOU, Paul, ARE insufficient.” Preparation, while necessary, is not enough. Preparation is an offering, a sacrifice to the God on whose sufficiency alone we depend.

When we do less than our best even after we have done our best, God brings us face to face with the reality of our own insufficiency so that He can overwhelm us with grace, causing us to rely on Him – the one who raises the dead! Under normal circumstances, when you die, everything is hopeless. But not with God.

God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or imagine.

That voice! God alone is able to work in impossible circumstances.

So the reality is, while I had a bad day, it didn’t kill me. And if it had killed me, God was able to overcome that, too. And if he is able to overcome utter hopelessness, He can certainly use a bad day to remind me to stop being so reliant on myself. He can use a bad day to ultimately glorify Himself.

He must increase, but I must decrease.

There’s that voice again!

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God…

Spiritual Practice: Mistaking the Road for the Destination

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Nothing has encouraged me more in developing habits that contribute to my spiritual formation – what some might call “spiritual disciplines” – than observing the devotional habits of great men. One such man was C. S. Lewis. The disciplines he employed for developing his spiritual life are examined in Lyle W. Dorsett’s Seeking the Secret Place: The Spiritual Formation of C. S. Lewis.

Dorsett identifies five areas which Lewis gave careful attention to in his own spiritual development:

  1. Prayer
  2. Scripture
  3. The Church
  4. Experience with other Christians
  5. Mentoring Others

The first three seem obvious on the surface, but Dorsett details the way in which Lewis’s use of prayer, Scripture, and the sacraments evolved over the course of his 30 years’ experience as a follower of Jesus Christ.

For instance, in the area of prayer Lewis said he “tried to pray without words at all – not to verbalize the mental acts.” Dorsett notes that “his practice was to pray for others and not even mention their names. Instead he ‘substituted mental images of them.'”

His prayer life included faithful intercession for an unusually large number of people. He prayed for himself. And in his correspondence with others he encouraged them to pray for him which essentially developed into an “international prayer network.” Lewis viewed prayer as “God inviting us to be partakers in the execution of His will.”

Lewis also had a high view of Scripture, utilizing the Book of Common Prayer to aid him in systematically reading the Bible morning and evening:

He normally read daily from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, steeping himself in the Psalms. In fact, following the book’s pattern, he read the daily office, and he most likely read through all 150 Psalms each month. During the academic term he also went to morning prayer, or Dean’s Prayers, at 8:00 am at Magdalen College. There he heard more Scripture read in this brief service of worship, meditation, and prayer. As frequently as possible he also liked to set aside time in the late afternoon, preferably around 5:00 pm, when he could read other parts of the Bible and pray.

Dorsett notes that one of Lewis’s evening habits included retiring to his room and “pacing up and down for about an hour, praying through portions of Scripture, often the Psalms.”

The difficult part of engaging in any spiritual practice is getting started. The danger in any spiritual practice is mistaking the activity (prayer, Bible reading, church attendance, et al) for the relationship. The spiritual disciplines are not ends in themselves, yet how many times does our praying, our Bible reading, our worship result in a true encounter with the living God?

There are apparent risks in driving on Michigan roads in January,  but because I have a destination – some place I have to be – I don’t avoid driving on snow and ice covered roads.  In the same way we cannot avoid the spiritual disciplines because there are apparent dangers.  Whether we embark on the icy road or into a plan for spiritual development, we must keep in mind that the road and the plan are NOT the destinations. They are merely the aids to get us to where we are going. We can’t mistake the road for the destination.

When we step onto the path of spiritual formation the destination is NOT a better prayer life, or even a better understanding of Scripture, but rather a deeper relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.With St. Paul we need to say, “That I may know HIM…”

I hope to see you along that road.