The Big Diehl

This morning, Mark Souder resigned his congressional office due to an affair with a part-time staff member. You can read the full report here.

Mark Souder has been known for his evangelical Christian values. His faith has undoubtedly played an important role in his campaigns. So what now? Mark Souder totally “blew it” – what’s that say about his faith?

I tend to feel that at this point, we get to see what Mark Souder’s faith is really made of. Christianity isn’t about a perfect, cookie-cutter, “Beaver Cleaver” lifestyle. Christianity is more about living towards perfect — living holy — and finding forgiveness and restoration through Jesus when we fail.

Is Mark Souder a bad Christian example? Probably not! Don’t get me wrong — what he did (his affair) certainly was a horrible Christian example. But how he’s handling it — THAT is Christianity at its finest. He easily could have kept his job — no problem (other politicians do it all the time). But rather, in his words, “I am resigning rather than put my family through that painful, drawn-out process.” That’s a great example.

Christianity isn’t about being all nice and neat – we all know that life is messy. Christianity is about working through the messes. And so here is Mark Souder, who totally screwed up massively with his personal life, taking his messy life to Jesus who is “a gracious and forgiving God to those who sincerely seek his forgiveness.”

Other political figures stretched the truth to the highest degree to try to maintain their dignity for the longest time possible, but Mark Souder has set a great Christian example by following the teaching found in James 5:16, “…confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (NIV).

Mr. Souder, I also wish you could have been a better example. But I thank you for the example of Christianity’s power that you’re setting now.

I once heard a story about a pastor of a little back-woods church who preached a message about how EVIL all war was. (This is not a political story – so stop thinking that way). The pastor went on and on condemning military soldiers for being involved with war and killing others, etc. etc. In his congregation was a United States Army Captain, who was visiting and just finished leading a battle. The congregation expected the Captain to stand up and “correct” the pastor. In fact, the pastor expected the captain to stand up and correct him. But the captain never did. He remained sitting quietly in the church. Never objected.

After the service, the pastor greeted the Captain and asked, “I know how strongly you disagreed with what I preached today. I’m wondering why you didn’t stand up and say something?” The captain replied, “Because six years ago, when my wife was dying of cancer in the middle of the night, you came over and stayed bedside all night long.”

…

I just experienced a similar situation that proved the lesson from this story. How I wish I could share it with you! (I would be betraying confidence).

I have always believed it, and acted on it. But now I’ve seen it.

Some people will never trust or respect us until they know how much we care.

They’re never going to know how much we care until we show them. And prove it.

That takes time.

Okay obviously I’ve been lacking in the blog department recently. I’m actually starting another blog with a friend in Pennsylvania specifically in the area of worship. I’ll link there when its ready to go public. But that got me thinking about blogging again.

Originally I had stopped blogging for an extended period intentionally to give myself a little “Sabbath” from it. But then I just lost all interest in it. I stopped liking it.

In that process, I discovered something interesting: the pen is mightier than the computer.

It’s true — at least for me.

Typing reduces the mind to rational thoughts, buttons, and a series of one’s and zero’s.

But the pen…. when the smell of ink rolling out of a Soft Grip Bic pen reaches my nose, it’s similar to the reaction a man has from sawdust from cutting wood or smoke from firing a gun…. it’s like, “Yea. I did that.” When I write with a pen, its like creativity sparks from my imagination. The pen gives a great sense of creation to the author. Or at least to me. It’s like I can look at what I wrote and can think, “Yea, I’m did that.” There’s more power in the simple things.

Life is richer because of the simple life. Maybe that’s something we can apply to other areas.

I’m stealing this from Corey Russel’s book, “Pursuit of the Holy”:

I believe one of the most common reasons many people do not embrace personal or corporate prayer is because it doesn’t make sense. It’s not logical. It seems to us that we are much more productive, that our time is much better spent and that those around us are much better served when we are busy — when we’re not praying, in other words. That’s totally wrong. We actually do more to affect the earth when we pray than when we do anything else. … If we really knew how powerful prayer is, we would prioritize our lives and operate our ministries and businesses very differently.

One of my friends tells a story about an old Chinese evangelist who spent decades in China winning thousands of souls for the Lord. He was crippled because of his age, unable to walk. Someone asked him “How do you feel now that you are not able to go and evangelize China and win souls for Christ?” The man smiled and said, “You don’t understand. When i pray on my bed in this little room, all of China shakes.”

What is it about us and trying to fit it? Who said Christians are supposed to fit in?

In Acts 17:32, it says that some people flat out SNEERED at Paul and those who talked about Christ. But others of them said, “Hey dude tell me some more.”

The way I see it: This scenario wouldn’t occur very often in our own lives because we’re too scared to have somebody “sneer” at us. We’re too worried about what other people think.

Now I’m not saying for one minute that we should AIM to get people to sneer at us. But I’m saying we have to make sure that we are more concerned about pleasing God than we are about pleasing man. Kinda like this guy…

“The bible is not boring-we are boring. We have been deluded into believing that true pleasure and fascination come in the form of loud, stimulating, immediately gratifying entertainment that we don’t even really take part in. We just sit there and passively watch or listen. Its over as soon as we turn off the TV, walk out of the theater, switch off the stereo, win the video game, or shut down the computer. This kind of entertainment doesn’t engage our spirits or make us more alive.

“the bible is divine entertainment- real entertainment. It contains the life of God, the creator of heaven and earth. And I guarantee that it will blow the mind of anyone who is willing to enter in. We must see the word of God for what it really is: a place of delight and pleasure.”

Quoted from “Pursuit of the Holy” by Corey Russell.

That first paragraph got me thinking. Maybe those loud stimulating forms of entertainment like TV cloud up our creative thoughts and desensitizes our spiritual receptors. How would we expect to receive a vision or hear Gods voice when we are in that state?

“let’s stop reading the Bible just so we can feel good about having done our daily reading. Let’s begin to actually stop and meet with God during our quiet times. Let’s ask God to encounter is. God promises [in Psalm 1:1-3] that whoever meditates on His Word will bear much fruit and prosper in everything. That’s a massive promise — a promise that I believe will be fundamental to awakening the Church in this hour.”

- Corey Russell in “Pursuit of the Holy.”

If you’re doing the corporate Furnace Fast, or if you’re interested in fasting at all, you seriously need to read what God said about honorable fasting in Isaiah 58. Go read it, and check your heart and motives in fasting.

Isn’t it interesting how one thing can represent something else much more specific?

Think about it. We may hear, “The White House says ….” is this a modern day miracle? Did s building miraculously grow lips and begin speaking? Of course not! We know this is refering to what the president and his policies have said.

There are lots of examples. “Washington” often represents the legislators, the individuals. “the pentegon” is another place yet it often refers to the generals and military officials. The employees at the Fort Wayne GM plant refer to their bosses at corporate headquarters by saying something like, “We will wait to hear from Detroit.”

And when [insert your name] says or does anything those around them should know that they’re representing Jesus.

Wouldn’t it be cool if our names were synonomos with “a word from God”.