So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ~ II Corinthians 5:17

This week at Vacation Bible School we are looking at the “I am…” statements of Jesus; “I am the bread of life.”, “I am the light of the world.”, “I am the good shepherd.”, etc.  Jesus makes these statements so we can better understand who He is.

If we think back to the story of Moses, when God calls Moses to save the Israelites for slavery in Egypt, Moses asks God, “Who shall I say sent me?” God’s response...” tell them ‘I am’ sent you.” So in Jesus “I am statements” He is reiterating the words God spoke to Moses. So for Jesus, His identity lies with God the Father. 

For most of us, depending on where we are, if someone asks about us, often we identify with our jobs, I am a doctor, an accountant, etc.; or with our family, I am Jude’s dad or Becca’s husband.  Despite what we do or our family situation, those things, no matter how good or bad they are, should not be what defines us. Paul tells us that when we accept Jesus into our lives we are a new creation, our old self is gone and everything is new, including our identity. For some of us, this is a hard concept to grasp, as we have worked hard to build our careers and our families and our hard work is what we identify with. 

As 140+ children and an additional 70+ leaders learn and teach about the “I am” statements of Jesus this week, I want to ask: Where is your identity? Is it in things of this world, like jobs, family, or success. Or is it in Godly things? If someone were to ask you who you are, how would you finish the statement… “I am”

I’ve been lately thinking about memory.

Memorial Day is a day for remembering, after all, and on the Memorial Day Sunday, Dr. Avram preached memory as a function of faith. He experimented with seeing different ways of remembering in Jesus’ Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13. Though Wes didn’t name memorization, my mind traveled to a time when another minister of mine did.

Dave Hopkins, my boss at a Christian Camp where I worked college summers, was a hyper-competitive memorization freak. The first day of training, he gathered our fifteen-person staff and threw down the gauntlet: “First one to recite James wins.” No prizes. Just bragging rights. But some of us were hyper-competitive too. Three weeks later, he and I laid aside well-worn index cards and recited the five-chapter letter verbatim. Four other staffers nailed James by the end of summer. The next year it was four chapters of Colossians, then Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5—7). The habit continued after my camp work ended, so I memorized Romans 1—8 the summer before I started at Princeton Seminary.

Does this seem too hard for you? If you were asked to name the ten most intelligent people in America, I’m guessing not one of your list would be an actor; yet these not-necessarily-smarter-than-you actors routinely commit huge chunks of script to memory.  The same goes with singers. Not surprisingly, people who do a lot of memorizing get better at it.

How about you? If you still need incentive, a growing body of research reveals that actively memorizing trains brains in a way that staves off dementia.

You can do this! It’s about attention, not intelligence, and it helps your mind and heart. When that ancient Jewish singer, David, reflected on a long life lived in the rhythm of internalized scripture, he sang to God the good his own index cards and repetitions had done him: “Thy word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” (Psalm 119.11)

Friends, God changes us through the workings of our memory. Start with the Parable of the Sower, if you want. Write out your index cards now. Start reciting at stoplights and in waiting rooms and just before bedtime.  Before you know it, you’ll surprise yourself and your company at Christmas dinner by reciting the nativity story from Luke. Or at your child or grandchild’s wedding, you can blurt out 1 Corinthians 13 as a gift. 

Make 2017 a summer to remember!

Note: If you would like to join Allen Hilton’s Bible Mem Club, let him know at ahilton@pinnaclepres.org

We all work too hard. Already by 6 am, most of us are checking email in an attempt to get a head start on our day. By afternoon, we are plowing through our “to-do” lists, and catching up on more messages, emails, and business calls. Until bedtime, we keep a watchful eye on our email, sometimes answering queries until the wee hours of the morning. Indeed, in some professions, one must always be available to the “customer.” That mentality makes experiencing downtime or going on vacation nearly impossible. 

According to an article in the Huffington Post, “Americans have hit an all-time low when it comes to taking off work. More than 4 in 10 people do not use all of their vacation days for fear of work piling up or because they feel no one else can do their job while they’re away . . .  Experts say overloading without taking time to recharge isn’t healthy. “It might seem counterintuitive when you have a lot of work to take time off,” says Karen Osterle, a psychotherapist and marriage counselor in the District of Columbia. “But the problem is we’re not working efficiently if we’re in a constant state of stress . . .” [1]

Seeking work-life balance is not a theme unique to those of us living in the twenty first century. In Chinese philosophy, “yin and yang date back as far as 700 B.C.E., to the I Ching (The Book of Changes, a text Universal in its understanding and representation of the dynamic balance of opposites and the processes of unfolding events and changes).[2] ” Roman philosopher Seneca (c. 4 BCE–65 CE) wrote: “The mind should be allowed some relaxation, that it may return to its work all the better for the rest.”[3] Roman poet Ovid wrote, “Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.”[4] Leonardo da Vinci said, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.”[5] And in Mark 6:30-32, we read: “The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while."[6]

So what do you do for spiritual refreshment? How do you balance work and life? How do you know when it is time to get away? These questions may be answered quite differently according to the balance needs of each individual person. For me, sitting on a sunny beach with my toes in the sand, watching the powerful waves of the Pacific Ocean crash one after another for days on end restores my mind, refreshes my spirit, and revives my soul.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

The Scripture tells us to quiet ourselves, and with good reason! As you enter into summer vacation time, how will you refresh and restore?

[1] “8 Ways To Vacation Right And Recharge Your Health,” by Corinne Ruff, U.S. News & World Report. August 2, 2015 updated August 3, 2015.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/8-ways-to-vacation-right-and-recharge-your-health_us_55ba55a1e4b095423d0e191c, accessed May 16, 2017.

[2] Yin and Yang,” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang, accessed May 17, 2017.

[3]Wise Old Sayings, http://www.wiseoldsayings.com/relaxing-quotes/, accessed May 18, 2017.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] New American Standard Bible, https://www.bible.com/bible/100/MRK.6.nasb, accessed May 17, 2017.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend my brother’s Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition. The show was beautiful, inspiring and powerful. For over half of Cory’s life, he has been working with clay. I remember him coming home from his first ceramic class with a beautiful and simple pot. The year before I had taken the same class and my pot looked more like a blob than a vase. Needless to say, he had a gift…I did not. 

So, for the last 15 or so years my family and I have watched his art mature, change, grow and develop. I have loved every minute of it and feel blessed to be a part of it. I even get to showcase a few pieces in my home. I could go on about how proud I am of my brother and his skills, but instead I want to share something he said in his presentation.

Cory has spent the last few years developing a technique where he places hand-colored paper-thin clay flowers, shapes and lines on top of a clay cylinder or tile. He then moves and molds the clay until it creates the vase, bowl, cup, or tile that he was imagining. The challenge of this technique is that the original stripes, flowers or spots change and move in a way that you don’t always expect them to. 

It is a lot like life. We might expect our life to look one specific way all the time. Like myself, you might have plans for your future, thoughts of what your life might look like at one point or another, but more often than not our lives get stretched, challenged, pulled and distorted. Maybe you even feel like you are in that place right now. 

When Cory was describing his work at the gallery exhibit, he talked about the excitement of seeing how a line of color might move. He spoke about the experiment that drove him to see how he could shape and mold color into something beautiful and the challenge that drove him to try new things. 

In our lives, those experiences often feel like the opposite. How often those growing pains are the most difficult challenges that we go through. Sometimes it feels like the grief of losing someone we love hurts beyond what we can even imagine. Too often pain and suffering drive us to seek out any relief. More often than not, a move, challenging parenting moments, aging parents, new jobs and job loss feel like we are being pulled, pushed and molded into something that we didn’t really want to be when we started.

But, and this is a big BUT…those are often the moments that make you the beautiful piece of art that God made you to be. In my brother’s art, it is those swirls, distortions, stretches and twists that bring energy and life into his pieces. In fact, they are my favorite parts of his work. 

I wonder if it is those very difficult moments that create hope in our own lives. Not because those moments are perfect or what we planned on but because it is in those moments that we are required to be fully in the hands of the One who is molding and shaping us. It means that we have to trust that the Maker is watching those parts of our lives and His hands are directly moving us to the place God wants us to go. I pray that wherever God is molding you, you are able to see the beauty of you in these very moments. 

Evangelism is a scary word for many of us. We have faith and love God, but find it hard to share it with others. There are plenty of forces working against us, for sure. We have a hard time entering a conversation about faith for fear of rejection. We make the process way too complicated and over-think how to talk about our faith. We are trapped in a culture that generally has a bad opinion of Christians, making it nearly impossible to find a safe space. And, there are terrible things that happen in our world that we all struggle to understand through a Christian lens on our own, much less in a conversation with a non-believer.

Like so many of the things I talk about, I think we can learn a lot from observing how kids see and do evangelism. Here are a few simple observations.

1. Kids don’t start with a judgment. How often do we look at someone and form an opinion of that person before we even realize what we are doing? I think this prevents us from doing much work for God. Children see all people as beautiful and unique creations. The “weirder” someone is, the more a child’s curiosity will draw him near.
2. Kids seek common ground.  Don’t you love how kids will walk right up to a stranger and ask “Who would win a fight between Iron Man and Spider Man?” Or “Why is the sky blue?”  When kids make these overtures, they seek a common ground. This is the easiest way to begin a discipleship with another. Just find something you have in common; not necessarily a matter of theology or faith.
3. Kids don’t make it overcomplicated. Kids welcome confusion as it leads to curiosity and discovery. And, they are willing to discover new things with someone, together, without worry of being wrong, not knowing the right answer or being rejected.
4. Kids are capable of unconditional love. Kids don’t hold grudges or avoid someone after a bad experience. Adults, however, have a much harder time. And, if we try to talk with someone about our faith and get rejected, most of us crawl back under the rock we came from. We don’t let go and move forward…and we sure need to.

The Bible tells us to be more like kids in a lot of different ways and when we really think about the profile of a child, we see a striking number of similarities with the characteristics of Christ, himself. I guess to get others to understand the real meaning of being a Christ-follower, we just need to act a little more like Him. If that sounds like too lofty a goal, then we can always take the much easier path and act like children!