OK, all you who call Kansas City home, give me some input. Let me lay out the background.

We do a lot of entertaining of out-of-town and out-of-the-country guests. Graceway is in the people business. Today, several of us took a Salvadoran friend who works and ministers in India to lunch. He’s been here a few weeks working on his English. We wanted to take him somewhere a bit special and somewhere that smacks of Kansas City. I hate to take guests to chains. This is a great restaurant city and I much prefer to take guests to one-of-a-kind places that they will remember and associate with the best Kansas City has to offer.

So where did we end up taking him today? At the advice of my faithful assistant, who has more than her fair share of flare, we took him the Harvey’s in the heart of Union Station. Built in 1914, Union Station is a great American historical monument, a testament to a bygone era of trains, gangsters and what was America’s second grand train station after Grand Central in New York City. Harvey’s has very good, reasonably-priced luncheon fare and the view is priceless, soaking up tons of history and people-watching. If you get bored you can always tell your guest about the 1933 Kansas City Massacre attempting to free gangster Frank Nash and then search the outside of the building for the bullet holes that still exist.

I suppose it’s obligatory to take visitors for barbecue. I don’t even want to get started with what is the best BBQ in KC! I often end up taking guests to Jackstack in the Freight House in the Crossroads district because of the spectacular setting inside and out, that and the fact that Jackhouse is usually in everyone’s top five ‘que list. Lidia’s and Grunauer’s right there are also good options. Webster House in the shadow of the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is amazing. The Farm House in the River Market is one of several originals there. There’s no place in the world like Rozelle Court in the Nelson. Are you picking up on the pattern here?

Kansas City’s Italian heritage offers a host of Italian options such as the original Garozzo’s, Milano’s, Figlio’s and Accurso’s to name just a few. Apologies for not naming your favorite!

Let me summarize my criteria:

• Has to be uniquely Kansas City – NOT necessarily Kansas City cuisine, just a one-of-a-kind place. So ethnic food of all types welcome – think Frida’s Mexican, Axois for French, Little Egypt in Westport is good.
• Needs to be reasonably-price and preferably open for both lunch and dinner. Pierpoint’s at Union Station is also unique to Kansas City and great restaurant. However, the price point of Pierpoint’s is a bit beyond my budget point! That’s the point of why we went to Harvey’s in the same building.
• Ideally it should be a place conducive to conversation. Noise level below 110 decibels and generally pleasant. I not thinking where you order at the counter, eat at a wooden picnic table and they are trying to bus your table after 10 minutes. Got it?
• The best case is a restaurant that has synergy with the setting. This is why I would choose Jackstack over Oklahoma Joe’s in an Olathe strip mall (although I would make an exception for the original Okie Joe’s in the gasoline station on Mission Road under the right circumstances). Figlio’s may not be the absolute best Italian joint in town, but who has a better overview of the Nichols fountain on the Plaza? If I’m going to Garozzo’s, it’s to the original house in Columbus Park, not one of the strip center varieties. Got it?

I want to hear from you. What are your ideas of great Kansas City places to take our guests? Where do you, where would you take you guests to give them an indelible impression of our city? Speak up! Loud and proud!

After all these years the image is still fresh in my mind. A young staffer at what is now Graceway was in high form.

What’s with these people who are always saying something like, “Well, bless God! Amen, Brother, just bless the Lord! Yes, Jesus, bless God! Is that not the most stupid thing you have ever heard? How in the world could any human bless God? God blesses us! There’s absolutely no way we can bless him! What on earth would we ever do to bless God???!!!

I just stood speechless and dumbfounded. I had not yet navigated culture shock enough to know how to, or even if I should respond, having arrived from Central America just recently. The other problem that left me suspended in indecision was that this guy was totally hysterical. Those remarks were made in the context of an entire running routine that flowed from his lips almost constantly. An incredibly gifted communicator, I truly think he may have missed his true calling as a stand-up comedian.

Bible study, however, was not part of his skill set at that time in his life. Listening to him I was thinking, “Have you not ever read the Bible? It’s pretty full of admonitions to bless the Lord, oh my soul and a host of other similar exclamations” (Psalm 103:1, for example).

I was actually reading one of those passages in the Bible this morning when I remembered those comments from many years ago. Here’s what I was reading:

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. Psalm 63:1-4

This is a passage that specifically tells us HOW to bless the Lord. Yes we CAN bless God! Here are some salient thoughts about how we bless God.

• We bless God when we seek him early and not as the God of last resort.
• We bless God when our souls thirst and long for him in those times of spiritual dryness.
• We bless God when we witness his power and glory in our daily reality and not only in our moments of high praise in the assembly of believers.
• We bless God when his praise flows from our lips.
• We bless God when we totally submit ourselves to him (symbolized by the lifting up of our hands).

I know that God has blessed, is blessing and will bless us. The question is whether or not we are blessing him. But now you now HOW! What will you do about it?

Luke writing his Gospel, by Andrea Mantegna, 1431

It’s been a while since I gave you a literary update on our Luke study. We have been learning that Luke has a sophisticated and eloquent writing style that is also a huge help in discerning his main points. If you are just joining this discussion, you might want to review the information about parallelism that I have previously shared. You can that by clicking here, here and here.

In the second of the posts listed above I showed you an example of step parallelism comparing the birth announcements of John the Baptizer and Jesus from Luke 1:5-56. Here is another example of step parallelism to show Luke’s poetic order in laying out the birth, circumcision and public presentation of both John the Baptizer and Jesus.

Step parallelism is so-called because when laid out visually, as you will see below, it takes the form of steps. Another type of parallelism we have seen in Luke is called chiastic parallelism because its visual form resembles  the side of an X by indenting successively inward to the point of emphasis and then working back out with correspondingly parallel statements. The name chiastic comes from the Greek letter Chi that resembles our X.

Remember that some of the passages we have seen so far fall into BOTH step and chiastic parallel form, depending on how you look at them. In other words, this book has multiple layers and is far deeper than you might have imagined! What I offer in continuation is a slight modification of Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s work in his Gospel According to Luke I-XI, pp. 313-314. This example is a bit more complex that others we have seen due to the appearance of several refrains added to the mix. A refrain is like a chorus in a song that is repeated and can occasionally appear out of expected order.

Parallels in the Birth, Circumcision and Public Presentations of John the Baptizer and Jesus (Luke 1:57- 2:52)

The Birth of John (1:57-58)

A – The birth (1:57)

B – Joy over his birth (1:58)

The Birth of Jesus (2:1-20)

A’ – The birth (2:1-12)

Angelic song (2:12-14)

B’ – Joy over his birth (2:15-18)

Refrain B, Mary treasures this in her heart (2:19)

Refrain A, Shepherds return home (2:20)

Circumcision and Presentation of John (1:59-80)

A – John circumcised and named (1:59-64)

B – Reaction of neighbors (1:65-66)

C – Zacharias’ song (1:68-79)

D – Refrain C, the child grew (1:80)

Circumcision and Presentation of Jesus (2:21-40)

A’ – Jesus circumcised and named (2:21)

B’ – Reaction of Simeon and Anna (2:25-28)

C’ – Simeon’s song (2:29-32)

Refrain A, Joseph and Mary return (2:39)

D’ – Refrain C‘, the child grew (2:40)

Complimentary Story – Jesus visits Jerusalem (2:41-52)

Refrain A, Jesus and his parents return home to Nazareth (2:51)

Refrain B, Mary treasures (keeps) this in her heart (2:51)

Refrain C‘, Jesus grew (2:52)

I am continually amazed by the sophistication and beauty of Luke’s writing. Even more I am impressed by our great God who has given us his truth through  40 human authors writing over the course of approximately 1600 years in three languages on three continents and yet making it all fit together as though written by a single source.

A couple of days ago I posted that you might be thinking a bit too much. If you didn’t see it, hit “home” on the left and check it out. I hadn’t planned on a sequel, but this other image sort of just popped into my mind – people who are always waiting on God – a bit too much and a bit too long.

Before you start throwing Bible verses at me and call me a heretic, give me a chance to explain. I know, of course, that the Bible is full of admonitions to wait upon the Lord. Geeze! You didn’t think I overlooked that, did you? OF COURSE there are plenty of times when we should wait on God!!

For example:

• You are confused, befuddled, frustrated and have no clue what you should do – good time to wait on the Lord for more specific instruction. And, it wouldn’t hurt to look in the Bible for guidance while you wait.
• You have claimed one of God’s promises from the Word and are waiting for him to perform it, like the promise that Jesus is coming again. You’re not going to make it happen, so just settle in and wait. You may be waiting a LONG time, like those saints in Hebrews 11:13 who waited their entire lives and still did not see all of God’s promises fulfilled – but they knew they could count on God to fulfill them at just the right time (Galatians 4:4).

But, there are plenty of times when we use “waiting on the Lord” as a cop out, an excuse or a cover for our lack of faith.

For example:

• Let’s say someone has offended or hurt you. They ask you to forgive them, but you’re not ready yet. You are waiting on God for just the right moment to forgive. The Bible, of course, says that we are commanded to forgive (Matthew 18:21-22; 2Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 4:23, for example). In this case waiting on the Lord is code for I’m still mad.
• There’s a wonderful case of waiting on God at the wrong time in the Exodus story. Moses and the people of Israel have their backs up against the Red Sea and Pharaoh’s army is bearing down on them. Sensing the crisis of the moment, Moses, in his best Charlton Heston imitation , stands before Israel and tells them not to fear but to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord (Exodus 14:13). In other words, all they had to do was to wait on the Lord and he would come through for them. He probably got that from a book on spiritual leadership. God’s response was immediate and graphic. Why are you crying to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward! I’m not a Hebrew scholar, but I think the more literal Hebrew translation is something like, You tell those Israelites to get their lazy carcasses off the ground ‘cause they’re fixin’ to have to haul butt!
• As leaders we also love to use the phrase, I’m waiting on God. It can cover a whole bunch of stuff. Sometimes I have asked leaders why they don’t give ministry responsibility to a certain individual. If the response is that the individual is not ready, I want a specific reason why not. They may NOT be ready, but YOU be ready to tell me why. Don’t just tell me that you are waiting on the Lord for them to step forward, or something lame like that. That can be translated a number of ways, and the possibilities are practically endless.
•  I don’t like that person.
• I’m too lazy to do my job of making disciples. If I give them a specific responsibility, I might have to mentor or supervise them, or something like that. I don’t want to do that.
• I’d just rather do it all myself.

I’m really glad the leaders in my life when I was young didn’t feel like that! They challenged me, stretched me and pushed me when I was the one who didn’t think I was ready. I’d probably still be waiting on God for something to happen had it not been for their loving pushes.

I was thinking about this issue just last Saturday as I was finishing teaching the Book of Ezra in Shepherds School. Revival is breaking out in Israel as Ezra has returned and called on the people to repent for their sins and unfaithfulness. Read the tenth chapter and see how Ezra deals with this spiritually sensitive situation. He sends out word to all that if they want to wait on the Lord, they have exactly three days to get their act together and show up or risk being cut off from the people. Nice, soft leadership style, don’t you think?

So, we conclude that there is a time to wait on God and a time to move forward in faith. Before you flood me with emails and FaceBook messages asking how to tell the difference, hear me out.

When you have specific biblical instruction, you hold to it, obey it. If you’ve done your part, God will do his part when it’s time and you might have to wait, maybe even a long time.

When you are uncertain what to do, wait. Search the scriptures; seek counsel, pray.

Be honest with yourself. Why I am saying that I’m waiting on the Lord? Am I really, or is it just that I think this sounds spiritual? Am I using this saying as an excuse or cover up?

Beyond that – you’re on your own! Ask God! He might just answer you immediately like he did Moses.

Thinking is a really good thing. God gave us the ability to think. Can I just say that right up front?

There are times, however, when it seems to me that we might be thinking a bit too much. Not that thinking is a bad thing. It’s just that sometimes too much of a good thing is no longer a  good thing. Like too much dark chocolate, or too much good coffee, or too much ice cream, ya know? … hmmm. Well, that may too extreme of an example, but hopefully you get the idea.  Too much … even of a good thing? OK?

Last week I was conversing with a dear friend, a young pastor whom I have known for many years. I respect him immensely. He is brilliant; he is consecrated;  he is spiritually sensitive and I’m sure I could add many more semicolons describing what I think of him.

As we talked, my friend shared that he is on the verge of making some very important decisions, the kind that change your life’s direction. He eloquently explained his situation, his thinking, his dreams and fears. The more he talked, the more it seemed that he already knew the best thing to do. He had prayed it through,  thought it through and talked it through with his wife and closest counselors.

He just couldn’t pull the trigger. He was pressing down on the accelerator, the engine was revving  up, but he just couldn’t get it in gear. He was staring at the screen and the little hourglass thingy was spinning and spinning furiously, but nothing was happening. Reboot?

Have you ever had that feeling? You know what you think is best. You are right on the edge and you want to step forward. You have weighed the options. You have tossed it around in your head and heart for what seems like an eternity. YET … well, my friend put it this way.

I just don’t want to make a mistake.

Alright. That’s what I think most of us would say. Of course we don’t want to make a mistake!

We were sitting at a meal together when we had this conversation. I was in Monterrey, Mexico for a mission conference. There’s a nest of leaders there with whom we have shared life for many years. I had not been to Monterrey for a while and was absolutely thrilled to see all God is doing among them and how they are growing and maturing. I could have had this same conversation with several of them. In fact, this same type of conversation occurs rather frequently. That’s why I thought I might share my answer with all of you.

So, what’s my answer? Here’s the gist of what I said.

When your heart is pure and sincere like yours, when your motives and desires have merged with God’s, you really can’t make a mistake. Really.

Even if you choose a path that might be “second best,” or “third best,” or whatever, God will gently nudge you until your built-in GPS is fully locked in to the whole network of Heavenly satellites and you are squarely on course.

I gave him the example of Paul in Acts 16. Paul and Silas had set off on a mission. After much prayer and thoughtful consideration, they planned to visit a group of churches previously planted to see how they were doing. This was not a bad or sinful thing to do. This was not a mistake, but the Holy Spirit shut the door. I’m not sure how he did that, because that’s all the information we have. Undeterred, Paul and Silas set off in a different direction. Once again the Holy Spirit shut the door, closed the road, put  up orange cones and plastic yellow tapes or however in the world that happened. It’s important to note, though, that there was no lightning, thunder or fire and brimstone falling from Heaven, no judgment, no shame or guilt. God just shut the door – however he did that. That’s it. That’s really just it.

So Paul said, let’s take a mini-sabbatical and just hang out in Troas for a while until God makes things clearer. I’m sure Paul had friends there to stay with and I’m also sure he knew all the good places to eat.

What happened next is that God made things clearer. Did He ever! Paul gets this vision of a Macedonian man calling for help and the world is changed forever.

Here’s the deal. You pray, consider the options, get good counsel and you think it through thoroughly. You make sure your motives are correct and your personal agenda is set aside in favor of God’s.

Then you act.

This is point where you don’t worry about making a mistake. If you head in a wrong direction, God will steer you on course. But it’s hard to steer a vehicle that is not moving. Just move.

If you ever find yourself in a firefight (and I hope you don’t) with bullets coming in fast and furious from who knows where, what will get you killed is not a bad decision. What will get you killed, hard, cold and stone dead before you know it is – indecision. Yes, I said indecision, as in no decision at all. When the rounds are coming in, you get the ____ out of there! Right, left, back, forward, up, down – makes no difference. You just move your butt! This is a situation where thinking too much can be fatal.

If you land in a bad spot, move again! Repeat as needed. That’s how you have the best shot at surviving when under heavy fire from an as yet undisclosed direction. Works pretty good in other life situations, too.

By the way, did you catch this in Paul’s Macedonian situation? Paul sees a Macedonian man in his vision. Yep, it says very specifically that this man is a male, a Macedonian man-type male. Yet when Paul gets to Macedonia (Philippi)  there is no man. What he finds is a small group of women meeting for prayer on the Sabbath down by the river. And among them the key person is a woman, a wealthy business woman with a big house named Lydia. She (female, feminine gender-type woman, non-male person) becomes the key to Paul’s world-changing ministry opportunity there against all stereotypical odds.

I know some people who are such anally analytically over-thinkers that  in a similar situation they would still be wandering around all these 2,000 years later looking for that Macedonian guy they saw in the vision thinking that they or God has surely make a mistake. I am very thankful that Paul just went with the flow and didn’t think about it too much.

Go thou and do likewise. You just might be thinking a bit too much.

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