Tim Harlow

The Soul

We took our staff to a Jesuit Retreat center on Monday for a 24 hour spiritual retreat. It was led by Ruth Haley Barton of the Transforming Center. My friend Bens’ church did this and found it very helpful.

 

Honestly, the soul is an elusive thing. 

 

“The soul is like a wild animal-tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently by the base of the tree, and fade into our surroundings, the wild animal we seek might put in an appearance.” Parker Palmer

 

You would think that people who work for the church – pastors and such - would have a great handle on our souls. But the truth of the matter is - busyness is the enemy of the soul. And I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re busy around here - 43^rd fastest growing church in America and all of that. And we are led by a big dope of a Type A guy named ME, who has a lot of heart and a decent mind and enough strength, but always has trouble catching his wild animal of a soul – BECAUSE I CAN’T STOP CRASHING THROUGH THE WOODS.

 

So we got away and we spent 24 hours working on coming up with one thing we could do for our souls. Ten minutes of solitude, dropping out of technology, shutting down the noise and being silent, making a commitment to spend extended time with God, utilizing “prayer hours” during the day, etc.

 

It was a lot of great stuff. Ruth was a fantastic spiritual director. And I would say to a person, we are all wiped out today. Why? Because it’s easier to be busy and answer email and put out fires and plan services, than it is to tend to the soul. Man, it’s so hard to shut down and shut up.

 

I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that if I have this problem, I’m guessing you do too.

 

For me, the quote of the day was from Henri Nouwen:

 

“Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community. A lot of people are always concerned about: “How can I help people? Or help the youth come to Christ? Or preach well?” But these are all basically non-issues. If you are burning with the love of Jesus, don’t worry; everyone will know. They will say, “I want to get so close to this person who is so full of God.”

 

Let me encourage you, as you head into summer, to try to take some time to be full of God. Some time to be still enough so that your wild animal of a soul will peek itself out from behind a rock and help you and God reconnect.

 

Heck, why not do it today? Why not now? Could you find a place of quiet and spend 10 minutes being still and answering this question – “How is it with your soul?”

 

Tim

 

The True Enemy of Marriage

As we’ve spent the last several weeks talking about marriage, and as I’m watching marriages implode around me at an alarming rate – truly alarming – I have to remind you of one very important fact that most of us miss when it comes to our marriage.

SOMEONE IS OUT TO KILL YOUR MARRIAGE.
 
I know that sounds alarmist, but it’s true. In one of his earlier books, John Eldredge talked about how his wife and he finally realized that there was spiritual warfare going on in their marriage and even in their house. If you know me at all, you know I’m not one of those “the devil is in my closet” kind of guys. I can’t stand it when people blame everything in their life on some evil spirit (“Oh, I had a flat. The flat tire demon must have got me…”)
 
BUT – there are evil spirits and there is one evil spirit who is in charge of them all. And I doubt that he cares about your tires, but I know that he cares about your marriage. He hates it. And he wants to destroy it.
 
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8

That word “devour” is graphic! Satan is a lion trying to devour our marriages. Do we pay attention? When it comes to the enemy, we act so surprised. You have an enemy. Your marriage has an enemy.

In their new book “Love and War”, John and Stasi Eldredge say –

We all know that loving is hard. Marriage is hard. It is hard because it is opposed. The devil hates marriage; he hates the beautiful picture of Jesus and his Bride that it represents. He hates love and life and beauty in all its forms. The world hates marriage. It hates unity and faithfulness and monogamy. Our flesh is not our ally here either—it rebels when we put others before ourselves. Our flesh hates dying.

 

But God loves marriage! The Holy Trinity is for it. God loves intimacy, friendship, unity, self-sacrifice, laughter, pleasure, joy, and the picture of the Sacred Romance that you have the opportunity to present to the watching world. God is with you. He is for you. He commands you to love and he says that with him and in him all things are possible. Not easy. But possible. Marriage is going to ask everything of you, and that is why you must have a vision for it…. We need each other—desperately. We have been entrusted with the heart of another human being. Our loving will prove to the world that love is real. We will play out before watching eyes the Great Love Story of the ages.

 

Listen, I know a lot of you are not familiar with the spiritual realm. I’m not real comfortable with it either. But the truth is there is a battle going on and your marriage is on the front line. So next time you wonder “Why am I so angry?” or “Wow that was on overreaction” – just ask yourself it there might be a power working against you. I can tell you that Denise and I still aren’t good at recognizing spiritual warfare when it’s going on. But we know it’s real.  
 
And we know that God said,

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. I John 4:4

Why do I bring this up? You can’t fight an enemy that you don’t know exists. If you think the problem is all her or him – or even all yourself – you can’t draw on the power of the Holy Spirit to fight for you. When you know that Satan hates your marriage, it should force you to realize that you need God’s power in your life. And it might take a little pressure off the two of you when you realize there is a lion in the room.
 
Tim
 
PS – Casey has an excellent blog this week – I highly recommend that you click over and read it. Casey's Blog 

Just Ask

The disciples go to Jesus in Luke 11 and say, “Hey – you are a good pray-er guy.” Teach us to pray. So the Lord gave us a pretty basic model prayer. Not a magic incantation, just a model. Hopefully you know it. Maybe you grew up having to say it over and over. Entirely not the point, but I digress.

After Jesus demonstrates how to pray, he tells a story about a guy who has unexpected guests late at night after 7-11 has already closed. And he wants to feed them so he goes to wake up his neighbor to borrow some Ben and Jerry’s. And the neighbor yells down at him and says, “We’re in bed – go somewhere else.”

Jesus says - I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs. “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." Luke 11:8-10

If you put all that together, it’s pretty easy to come away with the idea that Jesus is saying, “Just bug God a lot and he will finally give you everything you want.” Say it enough times (whatever that is) and it will come true.

But then Jesus finishes up with this.

Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:11-13

What he’s doing here is taking our prayer life with God up two levels from the neighbor scenario.

Level one is – Okay you might have to bug your neighbor for ice cream in the middle of the night.
Level two is – But your dad is better. He will usually give you what you need and you don’t need to bug him.
Level three is – God is better than all of the above.
 
So how do we handle prayer? Well, we pray like Jesus, for forgiveness and daily bread and God’s kingdom now and help me in temptation.
 
And we ask him for what we need, believing he knows what is best for us always.
 
I think a lot of people grew up with the “bugging God” scenario where you hoped that saying the right prayer enough times would get you “in.”
 
But I more likely fall into the trap on the other side – of not going to God with everything. And going back to him with everything.

Here is the key with persistent prayer! It’s not that God needs to hear from me again because he was busy or he forgot. It’s certainly not that God needs to hear from me again because he’s waiting for the third knock on the door before he reluctantly comes to open it.
 
The persistence in prayer that I’m missing is the ability to turn over those things to my heavenly father on a regular basis and remember that He is in control. We’ve got a lot of good but serious prayer things going on in our lives right now. Lauren is going to Guatemala all summer to work in an orphanage. Rachel is making an album. Rachel’s group Mosaic is making an album and traveling all summer. Becca is picking out a college. And there are those future marriages that probably won’t be as “future” as I think. I’ve got a book proposal in the hands of some publishers. Parkview keeps expanding and needing to expand. Not to mention the friends and family whose marriages and health and lives I need to keep lifting up in prayer.

My ask list is long. But is my God small? Of course not. He can answer everything I need with a snap of his fingers. Do I need to bug him or remind him? No.

But he is my father. And he DOES want to know what’s important to me.  And he wants to hang out with me.   And he wants me to remember every day, that he’s got it.
 
So I should pray. I should ask, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
 
Tim

Prayer for the Nation

This is my prayer that they are playing on Shine.fm (89.7) today. As we pray for our country on this National Day of Prayer.

Prayer

I am in Nashville.  The flooding is crazy.  Flying over it was very sad. Pray for these people.

But I got to be with Rachel and Mosaic as they were working on their new album.  They will be with us for Father’s Day weekend, and they are traveling all over the Midwest this summer.
 
I’ve actually been a part of making albums before, but you will have a hard time finding a copy of the Impact Brass and Singers at this point – it was really vinyl.  I have a copy I can show you if you want to see me in 1980.

And technology has come so far in thirty years!  Everything is digital and amazing.  And it gave me a good analogy (and a good chance to break in my new flip camera).

 

The Engineer from Parkview Christian Church on Vimeo.

Tim