GET UP

The world is a scary place, right now. 

We feel the collective loss of humanity all around us through natural – and unnatural causes. Suicide and drug abuse is epidemic. Mother nature is thoroughly pissed off. 

I know many young mothers who are anxious and afraid to raise their babies in a society filled with grifters & goons masked as leaders & politicians, rampant evil unmasked and unfettered. 

I am not... unaware. 

In fact, I was once an anxious young mother, myself. I remember my stomach tying in knots as I watched the attempted assassination of President Reagan while I held my five-month old baby boy on my lap. I wondered into what kind of madness I had delivered him. 

Almost 40 decades later, I am no longer anxious. 

That baby boy grew into a wonderful, caring man who has made this world a better place. As has his younger brother. 

As will your child, if you claim the promise embodied in those sweet little nuggets from God: the hope of a brighter tomorrow. 

But brighter tomorrows do not come without a fight. Roundhouse gut kicks and jaw shattering sucker punch kind of fights. 

So you learn. You learn to take those punches and roll with them. Except when you can't. When the punches come so fast and so hard that you can't catch your breath, you can only lie flat on the mat and watch stars spin around your head while the ref begins a slow count to ten... 

Those are the times you will be tempted to close your eyes and never move again. Ever. Those are the times when rising from the mat becomes a choice. Your choice. 

Just know that if you choose to stay down, the consequences will affect each of us like ripples of water from a drop of rain. We will be left with empty years of unfulfilled promise... love unwrapped... hearts bereft of inspiration. 

I hope you will always choose to do the HARD THING. I hope you will choose to GET UP, wipe the sweat off your forehead and the snot from your nose (yes, you got the snot beat out of you), get up and get back to your corner. 

That's where your people are: IN YOUR CORNER. They are there, waiting for you. They have band-aids to stop the bleeding and ice to help the swelling. They will help you decide what to do NEXT. 

Not 40 years down the road, but RIGHT NOW. That's all you need to decide. THIS MOMENT. And soon – in a flash, really - those moments turn into hours and days and months and decades. Decades that you look back on with wonder that you survived. But you did. You survived Every.Dang.Thing. 

Even though you have scars on your chin and knobs on your knuckles... even though your ears are shaped like cauliflower and they won't stop ringing, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're still here. 

And you've learned The Secret: You are not in control. You never were. 

All you own are your choices. Kindness. Love. Hate. Division. You are free to choose, though bound by the consequences of your choices. 

If you never learn The Secret, the consequences will be devastating... and not just for you. We will feel your pain in our hearts. 

I am heartbroken for every troubled teenager who chooses destruction and changes the course of their life. 

And that friend... the one who was once the life of the party, but is now a tortured alcoholic / addict? My heart hurts for them. 

Bad choices are universally painful, while those who choose wisely encircle us with inspiration. 

Like the beautiful lady with cancer who chooses to keep dancing... 

Or that precious soul who works with disadvantaged kids while her own son sits in prison... 

The amazing grandpa who has been wheelchair bound for years, but refuses to be disabled. 

They got up from the mat and chose to make a difference for themselves. For all of us. 

You WILL get knocked to the mat. And God will STILL be in control. 

He'll help you get up, get you back to your corner. He'll fill that corner with people who love & sustain you, who only want the best for you... black eyes and all. 

GET UP.

Pricey Plots & Clouds Of Glory

JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT... the past several days of news coverage have been filled with memorials and funerals celebrating the lives of two American icons: Aretha Franklin and John McCain. 

As fate would have it, they were given back-to-back send offs that were as remarkably different as the honorees, themselves. For five days, we watched a somber, flag-draped coffin carry a war hero across the country in a procession steeped with military tradition and honor while simultaneously, the Queen of Soul received her own four day 'home-going'... complete with killer (pardon the pun) music, a 14 kt. gold-plated casket and three (count 'em) THREE wardrobe changes. 

Two extraordinary people who impacted the world in greatly divergent ways, both culturally and politically. And though their souls have “slipped the surly bonds”, their earthly bodies, well... they ended up in the same place: six feet underneath the ground. 

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One of the most interesting places I visited during my trip to Israel was the Mount of Olives. This famous “hill facing Jerusalem” (1 Kings 11:7) played a prophetic role throughout the Bible, including Jesus' last footprint on earth before He ascended to Heaven. 

Many believe it is where He will return. 

As I looked all the way across the Kidron Valley, my eyes were drawn to the double arches in the wall of Jerusalem, to the sealed up portal of the East Gate, also known as the Golden Gate. This is the gate through which the Jews believe their Messiah will enter Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple and usher in the Messianic Age. Muslims agree with Christians that Jesus will reign in final judgment during His Second Coming.  But while the Qur'an alludes to the return of Jesus as a messenger of God, Christians believe Jesus is the Son of God.

From where I was standing and all the way across the Kidron Valley, I saw hundreds and hundreds of tombs awaiting That Day. Directly below me on the Mount of Olives was the world's largest Jewish cemetery. I learned that those burial plots can cost upwards to a bone-rattling (pardon the pun) $50,000 dollars. Do you know why? Because not only is it considered a great honor for Jews to be buried close to the Temple Mount, but in doing so, their hope is that they will be the FIRST of the first when the Messiah comes. "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout... and the dead in Christ shall rise first." (1 Thessalonians 4:16) 

I was awed by the history of this place... and in wonderment of the future. 

Revelation is a murky mess of manuscript, y'all.  No matter what your conclusions are regarding the Second Coming of Christ, I am doubtful that any of us have all the details figured out.  Along with a hopeful “BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY!”, I do believe all Christians can agree on these two facts: 

1) He is coming! And He's coming out of the EAST. (Matthew 24:27) 

2) When He comes, WE will meet Him in the clouds. (1 Thessalonians 4:17) 

But... why East? 

And wouldn't you like to know who “We” is??

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THE EAST 

Genesis 2:8 tells us that God planted a garden in the EAST, in Eden. A perfectly heavenly garden which He planted for Adam and Eve. 

But Eve screwed it up ---- not only for herself and Adam, but for ALL humanity --- when she took a bite of that Apple (makes you wonder what she wouldn't do for a Klondike bar, huh?). Eve and Adam disobeyed God and He kicked them out of The Garden, sending them further away to a land East of Eden. And to make sure they never came back, He placed a Cherubim (not the cute kind) with a big ol' flaming sword at the East end of the Garden. (Genesis 3:24) 

Because of sin, they were separated from paradise by a Cherubim. God separated the unholy from the holy. 

Fast forward about 20 generations to Moses and his Israelites, just a'wandering in the wilderness. They roamed around, around, around, around, around. 

Clearly, they were directionally challenged. It took them over 40 years to wander a little over 200 miles into the Promised Land! They had no idea that the earth was a sphere, spinning on its axis. Completely clueless about the North and South Poles.

But God knew. He gave them specific and detailed instructions for the tabernacle and later, the temple. He demanded that it be laid out in an East to West continuum, with the Ark of the Covenant at the westernmost end of the Holy of Holies. Why East to West? As explained by Jonathan Cahn in The Book of Mysteries, North ends at the North Pole. South ends at the South pole. But East and West have no beginning or end– they are infinite. This inspired design allowed His followers to understand just how much God loved them – infinitely and forever.  He accepted their sacrifices and removed their sins “as far as the east is from the west.” (Psalm 103:12) It's no coincidence that the Hebrew word for East is 'kedem', which also means... everlasting. 

But wait! There's more... 

Do you remember what happened in the Temple the moment Jesus died on the cross? The veil which separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was torn in two, from top to bottom. This was the curtain that separated man from God, skillfully and intricately designed according to the law, with Cherubim woven into the fabric. (Exodus 26:31). Only the High Priest could go behind the curtain to offer sacrifices to God. 

Jesus, as our High Priest, blasted right through that veil on His way to His Father in Paradise. “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once – for ALL – having obtained eternal redemption." (Hebrews 9:11-12). 

Herein lies the significance: Adam lost paradise and was driven TO the East. When Jesus returns, He will come FROM the East and take us back to Paradise.

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WHO IS 'WE'? 

The Bible pulls no punches about WHO will meet Jesus in the clouds... “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.” (Psalm 24:3-4) 

Uh Oh. 

Clean hands, I can manage. But a pure heart? I'm pretty sure that disqualifies, well... everyone. In fact,  Jesus affirms it in bold red letters. Luke 18:19 says, “No one is good, except God alone.” 

But wait... does this mean that fancy funerals or strategically placed burial plots won't help us get to Heaven? 

'Fraid so, Fred. 

See, God really doesn't care how groovy your grave is or if you had 100 pink Cadillacs in your funeral procession with star-studded eulogies that lasted for days. And days. And days... 

He shakes His Holy Head in wonder at our pomp and circumstance. 

And surely He must think we're knuckleheads for going to all the trouble, when He made it so simple for us over 2000 years ago. 

All He asks is that we love Him with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength (Mark 12:30). Oh yeah, and love our neighbors as ourselves. If we can do that – love like Jesus loves – every dang thing will work out just fine. He will cover us with a GRACE that is big enough and bold enough to break down any barrier that might separate us from Paradise. 

All that we've got is all that it takes to rest sweetly in the hope that we WILL meet Jesus in those Clouds of Glory... faithful and full of the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead.