You See Jesus

Time is such a fickle thing. Sometimes is goes by slow. Sometimes it flies. Sometimes it acts like a veil, making something good look bad. Something holy, evil. We don’t know the future. We can’t see the impact of a life from the perspective of eternity.

C.S. Lewis said this in his book, THE GREAT DIVORCE :

“Son,'he said,' ye cannot in your present state understand eternity...That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why...the Blessed will say "We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, "We were always in Hell." And both will speak truly.”

I’m always enthralled by the concept that when we do good (or bad) for someone on the street or in our lives, that Christ sees it as if we did it to or for himself.

Thinking more on that subject, one of the things I do to almost anyone I consciously encounter, is judge them. I consider myself a pretty forgiving person, and so I’d like to think I go easy on people when I judge them, but I judge them, nonetheless. I like their clothes, or their demeanor, or not. I marvel at someone’s intellect or cleverness.. or not. I evaluate how fast they served me.. or not.

Sometimes I love them.. or at least the thought occurs to me (thanks to the Holy Spirit). Other times, I mindlessly pass by my opportunities to love. I miss the chance to assign value to people. I miss the opportunity to see, what God sees. Jesus.

The song is entitled, YOU SEE JESUS. Joel Lane, sang the vocal for this song demo. You can listen to it here.

You See Jesus

I see a hungry child who has nothing to eat

A cycle of poverty that will repeat

I see a dependency that’s just begun.

But, You see Jesus. You see your Son.

I see a rebellious man who curses your name

Convicted and guilty one who takes no blame

I see a fugitive upon the run

You see Jesus. You see your son.

Light from darkness. Old made new.

Flawed and ugly, beautiful to You

I see my apathy towards the oppressed

I’m weakened by atrophy and selfishness

How jaded and cynical I have become

But you see Jesus. You see your Son.

You see Jesus. You see your Son

You see the purity of a holy one

All my unrighteousness has come undone

You see Jesus. You see your Son

You see Jesus. You see your Son

You see the purity of THE holy one

All the unrighteousness has come undone

You see Jesus. You see your Son

You see Jesus. You see your Son

You see Jesus. You see your Son

Look To You

10 years ago, on September 11, 2001, I was packed into a small video duplication room at the end of the hall with a dozen coworkers, watching a 10” black and white tv set, as we saw the second 747 fly into tower #2. We all felt helpless. I was horrified; as if I’d just been punched in the gut. I heard someone say, “what should we do?” I remember thinking, “yes, what should we do?” and waited for an answer. When no one answered I looked back to see the whole room looking at me, waiting for an answer.

It was a sobering moment, especially since I didn’t have a good answer. I’ll never forget that moment; When those around me, faced with a difficult life question, chose to look to me for an answer.

I went home that afternoon, and for the next few days I watched the non-stop news coverage. I saw the towers come down, over and over...at least a couple dozen times. When I close my eyes, I can still people running from the cloud of dust and debris. I still see the people jumping to their deaths. I still see the smoking wreckage.

A few days later, on Saturday morning, after the world had finally started to turn again, I was sitting on the side of a soccer field on the west side of Detroit. After a moment of silence, I remember sitting in the morning sun, watching my son’s team play ball. I remember thinking about being in that video duplication room. I remember the feeling of being blind-sided by the humbling responsibility of leadership. As I sat there, I was flooded with words. I pulled out something to write on, and In less than 5 minutes I had written down the words of LOOK TO YOU.

I remember thinking that this was a song about September 11th. A way of dealing with the pain and the horror. A song about our human condition and our natural response to demand and eye for an eye. I remember struggling with the truth that tells us we should overcome our natural reactions and respond to a higher calling.

Ten years later, the words that flowed through me still ring true, and I feel blessed to have been given this song.

Look to You
Tim Wheeler ©2001 Weaver of Words Music

What do you believe in
Do you believe it’s true?
Do you hold it over others
who don’t believe like you
Call it righteous indignation
Or a justified alarm
But muster his compassion
for those who wish you harm

Our world, your world, will look to you

The world is full of anger
and broken empty dreams
And the canopy that shields her
is tearing at the seams
Hatred rage and vengeance
seem a natural response
But you know your call is greater
as a child of renaissance

Our world, your world, will look to you

We’ll look to you
To see how you respond in tragic circumstance
We’ll look to you
To see what happens when your enemies advance
We’ll look to you
To see just where you turn when you haven’t got a chance
We’ll look to you

I know it must be tempting
just to follow happenstance
It’s hard to lead the music
when you really wanna dance
But the servant that’s within you
is calling you to stand
The reason for your being
may be close at hand

Our world, your world, will look to you

Update: August 9, 2011: Nu-Blu has just released a new version of Look To You on their new CD, The Blu-Disc. It is available on iTunes and other fine purveyors of e-music or you can get it by clicking here.

A Hymn.

I’ve been collaborating with a great writer from Houston. Eva and I have written a few tunes together and recently she asked me to write a hymn with her.

When we were researching the hymn, Eva sent me a link to a sermon on the subject. It turned out that the sermon was an all-night sermon from new year’s eve, 1960. The speaker was W.A. Criswell. Wally Amos Criswell was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas from the mid 40’s until the mid 90’s. Pastor Criswell dedicated my two oldest children. He was a gentle soul with a powerful passion for the gospel and people.

The sermon was entitled, “The Scarlet Thread”, the same title we had chosen for our hymn, and was about the common thread of God’s holy sacrifice throughout the history of mankind. Amazingly, the audio tape of the sermon was available in the W.A. Criswell library online! It was amazing to me to listen to a sermon from so long ago, and to be so moved and enlightened. It was an exciting find.

W.A. died in 2002. First Baptist Dallas has had eight senior pastors since its beginning, but only two pastors, George Truett and Dr. W.A. Criswell, for the period between the church’s founding in 1897 through 1995.

The hymn, SCARLET THREAD is the result. Here’s a video of the demo:

The Invention of Lying (Faith)

Rented this movie last night.

It had a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not terrible, I guess. Better than 50/50. I should have required a higher standard. What’s odd, is that when you read the reviews, they are totally polarized. Witty / Stupid Hit / Flop. There seems to be no connect between the reviews. Its as if they’re talking about two different movies.

I think I figured out why.

It was a pretty funny premise. No one lies. Everyone tells the truth, in fact; Everyone is compelled to be brutally honest.. its their nature.

As a result, there are a lot of funny scene possibilities. Unfortunately, most of them are acted out in the first 10 minutes of the movie.

The first lie happens after the main character (played by Ricky Gervais) has lost his job and is evicted from his apartment because he doesn’t have the $800 for his rent. He goes to the bank to withdraw his last $300 so he can rent a truck and move his stuff out. The system is down and when asked how much is in his account, he is so obsessed with the $800 dollar figure he blurts it out. Conditioned that no one lies, the teller assumes that there is a mistake in the system and gives him the $800.

All is well and good until his mother is on her death bed, scared of an eternity of nothingness. Equipped with his new ability to lie, he tells her that she is in fact going to a good place and that she will see all her friends and her deceased husband.

Happy, she dies, but the entire hospital crew, who’s been listening, wants to know more.

The next day he returns home to find throngs of people on his front lawn, wanting to know where they go when they die, and the main character is revered like Moses. The people wait for his revelation.

He goes inside and spends some time, writing down his story. he thinks his scribblings look unimpressive, so he pastes them on the back of pizza boxes. He makes his way downstairs and reads out his 10 “facts” about the man in the sky who makes everything that is good and also makes everything is bad. But he makes more good things than bad things, so its ok.

So, the religious similarities are complete.

Ricky Gervais had an agenda. A self-avowed atheist, he took a pretty funny premise and used it to paint faith as a lie, cooked up to make people feel better about dying into an eternity of nothingness.

Now I know why the reviews are polarized.

As he read the 10 facts, and suspecting his agenda, I couldn’t help but be annoyed with their silliness, and how the crowd, portrayed as gullible, saw all the holes in the idea of a “man in the sky”. Ricky, improvised and although it took him 2 hours to get through the 10 FACTS, he became rich (another over-obvious cliche’ comparison to televangelists) and was immortalized in stain glass windows in churches where people go to “think about the man in the sky”.

The part that constantly annoys me (with these types of films), is the simplicity with which the arguments against faith are made, and the way in which multiple religions are kneaded together to create inconsistency and contradiction in their logic. But he’s the one making the movie, and he can do whatever he wants. He’s the guy with the script and the investors, and the popularity to at least float such a movie.

What annoys me more is that there are not more people of faith using the same arena to tell their stories. If they do, the standards are almost always lower. (Bruce Almighty, excluded) The dismissal of the arts and excellence in many segments of the church is at least partially responsible. Its a travesty that more people of faith aren’t well-versed in the theatrical arts and comedy writing. At least if we poke fun at the human race, we could do so with an accurate depiction of the elements of faith.

Back to the reviews. The movie premise was funny, but the plot was terrible and predictable. The schmarmy ending was one in which you instinctively turn to those with whom you’re watching with a face that says “That didn’t just happen, did it?” It was really bad writing and acting. If Ricky’s character had had more tension against him, the movie could have worked. As it turned out, he was revered throughout, and there was never the successful delivery of a moral. I guess its appropriate that a movie portraying faith as a lie has no moral.

So, the reviews? What was that about? How could there be 57% good reviews on this movie? Perhaps they liked the agenda, and it was funny for some to see faith bashed, even at the expense of the writing and acting.

As for the 43% of bad reviews, I suppose some of them didn’t like the agenda, but I’d have to assume most of them just wanted to see a good movie...

Yeah, right.... Oh? You're serious?

So I mentioned that I started leading a new small group 24/7 with Jesus series.

Sounded like a good idea. A good study for our group.

Well, this week we’re looking at Simplicity, Silence and Solitude. Great, right! I’ve written songs about silence and solitude, and how important it is; Even how scary it is. How we avoid silence, even when we’re getting ready for sleep and turn on Conan or Jimmy Kimmel to keep our minds busy while we drift off.

Silence is always a time when you hear things. Important things. Things you need to hear.. sometimes things you don’t want to hear. Maybe that has something to do with why we avoid it so aggressively...

Well, I’m prepping the lesson and the instructor (on the video) asks the question, of the 168 hours we have in a week, what do we need to change in order to free up 7 hours a week to train. 7 hours to be in silence and solitude with God.

7 HOURS!?! Wait a minute? Did I sign up for this? Surely there must be another way! Can’t we get a CD to play while we drive to work? Maybe we could buy some subliminal tapes to play while we sleep? Sure I want this, but.. 7 hours?

No one said anything about giving up things like TV watching, getting up early, saying no to stuff, just so I can free-up time to spend with God.

Hmmm? Wondering how this lesson’s going to go over with the group tonight?!? Based on my initial (if I’m being honest) reaction, I’m a little worried. : )

I’ll report back later.

T

The Teacher Always Learns More Than The Student

Just began leading a new study with my small group. 24/7 With Jesus.

I’m excited as we have a full spectrum of Christ followers in the group, from novice to mature.

As I prepped and presented the first weeks lesson, it occurred to me that I have:

1. So much to be reminded of, and
2. So much to learn.

One of the things that I was reminded of this week was that we, on our own, are only capable of one thing in our relationship with Jesus.

Seeking. All others aspects of our walk are a result of our seeking out a relationship with Christ. Other disciplines can be learned and refined. But seeking is the key to empowering those disciplines.

I could write so much more to explain that point, but I would rather spend the time seeking.. : )

God bless you, and g’Nite.

T

Finding The Way Home.

In mid-December, I was contacted by one of my favorite publishers in Nashville looking for material for an upcoming gospel project. The artist is a once-well-known recording artist. This artist had had huge successes back in the early 70’s and had been recording ever since. All in all, over 50 albums.

I set out to learn about the artist. Google is wonderful. From the articles and interviews I found, I learned that the artist had a love for horses. I read about the artists’ family and their history. I learned of recent projects and the genres they were targeted towards.

I googled photos of the artist and saw several album covers, promo shots, etc. I submitted a song that was not so much gospel as a song that spoke of a person of faith. It was forwarded and I pretty much forgot about the pitch for a few days.

Then a writer I work with, Jim Evans, sent me an email. I had mentioned the pitch to him and he had an idea for a song. What he sent me struck a chord and I went to work. The premise of Jim’s lyric was a classic theme, one that painted many pictures. I took that and what I had learned about the artists’ passions, family, and struggles and tried to paint a song about tradition, values, and redemption. I tried to write a lyric that would strike a chord with the artist, and yet be a song that could be universally understood.

I started with a classic gospel feel, but quickly reverted back to a hymn form. In fact, I originally had written a soaring bridge, but decided the hymn form made it feel as if it could have been written a century ago.

When it was ready to see the light of day, but I put down a piano track, sent it to my publisher. He brought in a Nashville fiddle player and sang the vocal.

Hope you enjoy it.

You can hear it here.