This week my blog turns a year old. (That’s seven dog-years and about a million internet-years). Guess it’s time to tell you why it’s called God in the Clear.

A few years ago I read a book that begins this way: “Imagine God thinking about you. What do you assume God feels when you come to mind?”

Recent studies have confirmed that we are just as likely to imagine a god filled with anger and disappointment as one filled with love and joy.

Let’s push further still. Call to mind your biggest screw-ups: times you’ve disappointed others and yourself, times you’ve acted and reacted in ways you just can’t believe, times when you’ve let sin claim large territories of your heart.

With all of your weaknesses, addictions, and flaws called to mind, picture God once more. How in the world will He react to people with the capacity for sin and betrayal like us? We are his children, sure, but we are also train-wrecks. “Surely, there’s a limit to his love,” we begin to think, “a breaking point for his patience. And if so, surely, I’ve reached it.”

The first time we (and I use we in a loose sense) reached this “breaking point” was Genesis 3. Adam and Eve have surrendered to temptation, beginning (as it always does) with the acceptance of a less-than-stellar conception of God. In a sudden wave of awareness, they can think of nothing but their sin and shame (nakedness).

Their hearts, for the first time, know a reality other than the love of God. They now know fear, suspicion, regret, and they know them intimately. They scramble to assemble a cover for their nakedness – which was the ancients’ beautiful way of expressing our intense desire to be able to fix our own brokenness – but, alas, it is completely, ridiculously inadequate.

At that exact moment, they hear God walking toward them.

What a curious time for God to show up.

Adam and Eve (i.e. humanity) hide. Besides the “I can take care of this myself!” reaction, this is the other devastating reaction we have to our own sins. We shrink. We look for the darkened corner. We get out of the clear.

But not God. Where is He at the precise moment his children need him most? Where is He when they’ve done their worst, when they’ve painted black where he created white? Where is He when they (we) are utterly convinced He’ll want nothing more to do with them?

God is in the clear. Looking for his children. Calling out their name.

Can you hear him? “Where are you?” He asks. It is, as the ancients told the story at least, the first question God ever asked. Until this moment, he has spoken decisively, using his words to shape the world. Now, he pauses and waits for our reply.

His presence in the midst of our sins, his question in the midst of our confusion – They compel us to come out of hiding. They convince us that our distorted view of God was exactly that. They let us know, from the beginning, that there is nothing we can do to ever make him be anything other than love.

God is in the clear.

Are there consequences to our sin? Absolutely. Abandonment? Never.

God’s not hiding, not recoiling from our brokenness. No, he’s coming for us.

One day that even meant putting on flesh and walking among us (again). Nowhere do we see God’s heart more clearly than on the cross, but He’s been revealing it to us ever since He stood in the clear.

Last week I wrote this brief message for ClearView’s website. I’m still digging it, so I wanted to repost it here. I’m planning a series of new posts too. Original content should start showing up again beginning this afternoon.

It’s Easter.

But we’re not going to hide any eggs. Or rent a bunny-suit. Or ask anyone to put on pastels.

What we are going to do is simple. We’re going to sing and shout and preach and pray like people who have been redeemed.

Like people who have been set free.

Like people who once were dead and are now alive.

Because we are.

And because it’s Easter.

And Jesus is alive.

And anything is possible.

If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to check out ClearView – This is it! There’s no better message than the good news of Jesus’ resurrection. We’re hosting two Easter Gatherings, one at sunrise and one at 10 a.m. Find out more and get directions here.

The phrase, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” is familiar to most Christians. It takes us back to the darkness of a Friday 2,000 years ago when Jesus was hung on a cross and the brilliance of the following Sunday when he was resurrected.

But the phrase is powerful because it directs us to think about our current situation in light of those earth-shaking events. The God who raised Jesus back to life is still at work redeeming and restoring all people and all things, and if that’s what he did with that, imagine what he can do with this.

Resurrection, in other words, isn’t something that happened just to Jesus, but the pattern of how God works in all things.

In the meantime, Friday is hard. Friday is brutally hard. We don’t spend all of our life there (though some spend more time there than others), but all of us spend some time there.

The year that God seems distant

The season when your marriage just doesn’t work

The day you get the phone call

The moment someone close turns on you

Friday. All of us.

Some Christians seem to think Friday is optional. If you have enough faith or pray just the right way, you’ll get a pass from such troubles in life. Others seem to have settled into Friday and forgotten entirely about Sunday. They punch their card each week and go through all the motions, but, apparently, they ran out of joy before they ran out of work. Neither view has it right.

Here’s the Gospel: Friday is real, but it is not ultimate. Following Christ involves great loss: discomfort, denial, death. Let’s be clear about that; Jesus certainly was. But in every moment of loss, God is at work bringing about new life: redemption, restoration, resurrection.

Death. Resurrection.

Loss. Life.

Friday. Sunday.

Last Friday, I sent a message to about 25 folks who have all partnered together to launch a new church in Shreveport, Louisiana that will be known as ClearView Church. It was just a quick note to remind everyone of the time and place for our first gathering. I repeated that we shouldn’t expect too much: we haven’t yet tried to get the word out, and, frankly, we’ve got a lot of work to do before we should. Just before sending the message, without much thought, I titled it, “Sunday’s Coming.”

On Sunday we gathered, and it was beyond any and all expectations. 72 people came together, some of whom I have no idea how they knew about it, and the sense of joy, freedom, and expectation was greater than I’ve experienced ever before.

Sometimes, we have to grit our teeth and remind ourselves, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” Other times we find ourselves right smack in the middle of God’s goodness, and, with gratitude, all we can do is say, “Sunday came!”

God’s work of resurrection showed up on Easter morning 2,000 years ago. It showed up again last Sunday. It has shown up countless times in between, and it’s going to keep on showing up until the day when there is nothing, absolutely nothing, left for any of us to say but, “Sunday came!”