I'm 60 years old.  It has it's advantages and its disadvantages.  I had breakfast out today and I got a senior discount.  The disadvantage is they didn't card me so I must look over 60!

By this stage in my life I should have life figured out.  More importantly I should have God figured out but he just won't sit still long enough for that to happen.  Even if he did stay still my senior brain wouldn't know what to do!

This is not a whine session (and I don't mean the kind you drink).  Here comes the "but."  But I've had so much life garbage dumped on me and often wondered, "What is the Big Guy doing?  Where is He?"  God just hasn't performed the way I expected and desired.  The only thing I can expect is that He ends up surprising me, some good but I tend to only see the bad.

I'm no surprise to God.  He know I mess up at times and even want to fire him!  The great thing is that he doesn't walk away when I hand him garbage.  He patiently waits for me to come around again and offer his grace.

I read this from "Ragamuffin" the other day:

This is the victorious limp often lived by this writer. At different times on the journey I have tried to fill the emptiness that frequently comes with God’s presence through a variety of substitutes—writing, preaching, traveling, television, movies, ice cream, shallow relationships, sports, music, daydreaming, alcohol, etc. As Annie Dillard says, “There is always an enormous temptation to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end.” Along the way I opted for slavery and lost the desire for freedom. I loved my captivity and imprisoned myself in the desire for things I hated. I hardened my heart against true love. I abandoned prayer and took flight from the simple sacredness of my life. On some given day when grace overtook me and I returned to prayer, I half-expected Jesus to ask, “Who dat?” None of my failures in faithfulness have proved terminal. Again and again radical grace has gripped me in the depths of my being, brought me to accept ownership of my infidelities, and led me back to the fifth step of the AA program: “Acknowledge to God, another human being, and myself the exact nature of my wrongdoing.”

Manning, Brennan (2008-08-19). The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out (pp. 186-187). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Thank you Jesus!

Raggamuffin Bible

FYI...the new Raggamuffin Bible will be released next month.

Check it out:  http://www.amazon.com/NIV-Ragamuffin-Bible-Meditations-Brokenhearted/dp/0310405238/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1382125939&sr=8-2&keywords=ragamuffin+bible

So what I read today isn't from Brennan Manning's writings, but it certainly qualifies!

In our addiction, we felt there must be an answer, a single answer to all our problems. A magic formula, perhaps, that would cure us instantly and set us free. How we wanted someone to come and give us that formula! But if there were a single answer, then life would be the same for everyone. And how boring that would be.

From Hazelden Meditations

I'm grateful that God is allowing me to go on the journey rather than waving a magic wand to make it all better.  It's better because He has daily lessons for me to learn and I don't want to miss out on my education!

What You Should Know About "Should"

I listened to a message by Brennan Manning tonight on Youtube: "Healing Our Image of God and Ourselves."  I highly recommend it.  He spoke of someone who said, "Don't should on yourself!"  I'm guilty of that.  My whole life I've been shoulding on myself.  Manning said that a person who keeps saying "I should do better, I should know better" etc. is a person who doesn't have a very good image of themselves.  The shouldness could be related to our image of God.  The God of "doing" and not the God of "being."  God didn't make us so we can feel guilty.  He made us so we can experience His total acceptance of ourselves with our weaknesses through His unconditional love.  God loves me right where I am, not where I should be because I will never be where or what I should be.  I am a work in progress and thankfully He posts a sign about me that says, "Work in Progress."  Thankfully He does leave the construction site; He stays with me until the job is done (which basically means He will never leave me).

Manning also said: "Healing the image of God heals the image of myself."  If we have a God who is constantly demanding that we always do things right and slaps our hands when we mess us, then we will treat ourselves in the same way.  If my image of God is healed, then my self-image can be transformed into His image.

Manning shared about the total lack of love and affection from his mother.  She saw herself through her image of God.  The most difficult and damaging relationship of my life was with my father.  After my mother died he said to me, "I don't ever want to mess with you again!"  Those were the last words I heard him speak.  He had separated himself from us,with the help of another family member.  I have since forgiven him but those words will ring in my ears all the days of my life, "I don't ever want to mess with you again!"

I will never hear from my Heavenly Father those words of rejection.  As a matter of fact, He has said He will never leave and His love is unconditional.

I am just a Ragamuffin created in the image of God.  I don't know why He bothers with me but I am so glad He does.  He is healing me back to accept myself, even with my shortcomings.  And He will heal you if you seek him half as much as He seeks you.

Early Morning Grace

It was 4:45 one recent morning when I awoke.  No, I didn't have my alarm set, unless you call a nosebleed an alarm!  I decided to make the best of it so I grabbed The Message New Testament.  The page marker was placed in Romans 5 so I started reading.  Here is what I read:

20-21 All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't  and doesn't  have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

When I read that aloud to my wife she smiled and said, "Brennan Manning."

I said, "Nope...the Bible."

But it does sound like something Manning would write.  Actually he did:

Over the years, the growing consciousness of radical grace has wrought profound changes in my self-awareness. Justification by grace through faith means that I know myself accepted by God as I am. When my head is enlightened and my heart is pierced by this truth, I can accept myself as I am. Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games, or pop psychology. It is an act of faith in the God of grace.

Manning, Brennan (2008-08-19). The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out (pp. 48-49). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

It has and continues to take the aggressive forgiveness and radical grace of God to help me work through my dysfunction (dare I say sin?).  It tells me that God is not about to give up on me even when I want to give up on myself.  I'm so glad He is hanging in there!

Ragamuffin Birthday

On this day in 1967 I came to faith in Jesus Christ.  By years I'm down the road quite a bit, but at times I feel I'm not as far down the road personally, whether in spirit or in recovery.  I'm my worst critic.  As we say in recovery, "My insides never match the outsides I see in others."  Others seem to have it together but so often I feel I don't.  That's why I am a Ragamuffin.  I don't have it completely together and seem a little dis-shuttled at times.

Yesterday was one of those "dis-shuttled" days and it has bled into today.  I need to keep in mind what I need to celebrate rather than what I would like to forget.

All of this reminds me of a quote from the Ragamuffin Gospel:



When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games.

Manning, Brennan (2008-08-19). The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out (p. 25). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

"Lord, help me to be honest when I want to play games.  Remind me that I am your "artwork" like Beethoven's unfinished symphony.  Help me to remain patient while you continue to work.  Amen.

Ragamuffin, Brennan Manning, Has Died

Brennan Manning died on April 12, 2013.  I am so glad he left us with his writings that will continue to encourage all Ragamuffins to experience the fullness of the God of Grace.  His work, "The Ragamuffin Gospel" came to me at a transition point in my life.  It was and is the message I needed to hear.  I was becoming aware of another call, a second call, in my life.  God was sending me in a different direction and Brennan was helping to show the way.

Listen to what he wrote on page 157:


Second journeys usually end quietly with a new wisdom and a coming to a true sense of self that releases great power. The wisdom is that of an adult who has regained equilibrium, stabilized, and found fresh purpose and new dreams. It is a wisdom that gives some things up, lets some things die, and accepts human limitations. It is a wisdom that realizes: I cannot expect anyone to understand me fully. It is wisdom that admits the inevitability of old age and death. It is a wisdom that has faced the pain caused by parents, spouse, family, friends, colleagues, business associates, and has truly forgiven them and acknowledged with unexpected compassion that these people are neither angels nor devils, but only human.

Manning, Brennan (2008-08-19). The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out (pp. 164-165). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Thank you Brennan, for your transparency in sharing your life, with all of its struggles and blessings, that lead you to the wonderful grace of our Heavenly Father.

(Read more about Brennan's passing at: http://brennanmanning.com/.  You can also go to his Facebook page  and leave a comment: https://www.facebook.com/brennanmanningfans?fref=ts).

THE MISSING PIECE —by Mark

This is kind of a test post. First, my thanks to my friend Wally for including me and for being one of several people who independently recommended "The Ragamuffin Gospel" to me within a 24 hour period. God clearly knew what it took to get my attention.

I've finished "The Ragamuffin Gospel" and have started "Abba's Child". I have to say that Manning's perspective looks like the "missing piece" of my relationship with my heavenly Daddy. Of course now the hard part is making the "Aha!" moment into reality in my life, in my soul, in my relationship with God and others. I've spent so long trying to "earn" acceptance by God and my community, trying to hide my true brokenness, trying to pull myself up by my own bootstraps - it is hard to let that way of life go and simply relax into my Daddy's arms.

Over the last several weeks God has drawn me back from the edge of a private abyss with a phrase that Manning mentions but actually came to me from a different direction - another of the convergence of God's speaking to me. I was reminded of Paul's repeated to be relieved of his "thorn in the flesh" until (if I may take liberties with the phraseology) God finally had to tell him, "Paul, shut up about it already!" Of course God's words were much more gracious, "Paul," [and this is the part that I have to keep hearing God say to me] "My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness."

Between that and Manning's "Abba - I am yours" God has gotten me through to the place where the real work can begin. I don't know what that looks like. I am very aware that I can't do it. I'm barely willing to let God do it. But as someone once observed, "All we can do is to be willing to be made willing..." OK, that I can wrap my mind around. I'm a little bit willing and God can work with that.

Mark

Rambling Ragamuffin Remarks

I often wish I could extend as much grace to me as God does.  I suppose if I had that much grace I would be God...and the whole world would be in trouble!

Sometimes I get tired of being a ragamuffin, which is another way of saying, "I'm tired of the dysfunction."  I just want everything to make sense.  I'm glad that God's grace is there.  It is a gift.  All I have to do is unwrap it and give him a big "Thank You!"

I know this post will not win a Pulitzer Prize.  The reward is to be able to express myself and know, if you are reading this, there is at least one other human being that thinks what I have to say has value.  What I say to that is, "Thank you."  Now, let me read your Pulitzer pontifications :)

Another Ragamuffin

I spoke with a friend today...another ragamuffin find!  we shared a lot about our struggles and the wonderful "furious love" and grace of God.  I'll be making another post from the book soon.  Please join us in the conversation.