Author: admin (Page 9 of 211)

I remember when the big Atlantic trips were exciting, full of nerves, a little last minute panic, and Walmart runs. As we age, and traveled so much, it’s quite chill in the Crowe house. Suitcases are out days before departure, Deb is the consummate packing professional so I just try to stay out of her way. We’re a tag team, as most marriages become. I’m fixing lamps, painting rooms, installing some security cameras at our house in Pennsylvania.

Deb has the final loads of laundry running, and organizing closets for cleaners and prepping the house for renters this year. Our house has been such an amazing, providential blessing, bought just two months before the war broke out in Ukraine, online, without ever seeing it. How we ever qualified for a mortgage without having any credit left in the US and without enough US income, it surely one for our book one day.

God has blessed us, we feel it, we are humbled by it, and now as we leave to venture back to Romania and a world that functions much different than North America. We somberly pack, hearts both heavy at the reality of Ukraine still, and the groaning of our bodies, aching a bit more and contesting the travel ahead. It’s an odd season, our motivations have changed a lot, we’re not missionaries saving the world, we never really were. We’re just available, asking, seeking, knocking. W want Creator’s joy to be our strength. So much transformation needs to happen for that to be genuine. Lord have mercy, help us (me) to be like our kids in that regard.

That’s not to say we’re not anticipating good things. We are excited to be with Broderic and Kristen, to come alongside them as their family explores and grows. We have friends to see, to listen to, to hug and love spending time with. We have community in both Romania and Ukraine. We have borders to cross, and people to serve, teams coming in this Spring, and friends planning visits to Romania this summer.

I have been wrestling the past month, for sure. Wrestling with a vocation, a calling that has seemed to go completely sideways. God moved on us as young adults to live toward the East, and Russia specifically. Even in Ukraine, all these years, we never looked West, always East, curious as to what Lighthouse, what our widows ministry, or business ventures might mean for Eastward movement of both our family and the movement of the Spirit. Now I find myself laying my own narrative down, my identity, my sense of belonging and purpose in the kingdom. I am free, I feel this, like a wagon unhitched from the horse, but the horse (I’m the horse in this odd metaphor) isn’t moving from the wagon too far. I may be free, I may be able to live into new spaces of influence and relationships, and even enter a new phase of life as an older man, but I can’t help but sense God redeems, He renews, He doesn’t just give another plow after your entire life was grooving the handles of one vision. I like my wagon, I feel God’s heart towards the East. Yet, is it time for us to refocus on new? Can this horse walk away from an old wagon if there’s a new one God has prepared? Maybe we can connect them all like the old tomato wagons pulled by our tractors on the farm. Sometimes they’d have even 3 wagons back to back, as I kid I thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

I receive no life from geopolitical history on it’s own, or current events either good or bad. The life I live is rooted in the Creator behind the freedoms given to all of humanity. His life is good, pure, and I can see it coming through the contours, the edges, persisting through the shadowy corruption of humanities actions, words, and way. We are living out either God’s reality, His vibrant loving way, or we’re so absorbed in this world that we fight within it, we fight over worldly words, meanings, ideologies.

I have this sneaky suspicion that for many Christians, we’re so de-tuned from the beauty of Jesus Kingdom, and His vision for humanity, that the best we can do is fight for outward preservation, for outward behaviors, for morality of the past, and not the underlying beauty of the present that’s so yearning to break through. Maybe I’m not making sense?

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that returning back over to Romania, nearer the war and Ukrainians that are suffering from it, I can’t get sucked into the reverberations of the physical, material when it’s the spiritual, the principalities and powers behind the scene marring and destroying the good of this world. The battle is there, and the battle is already won. Jesus, our redeemer and King, with a robe dipped in His own blood, riding on a horse, our sacrificing God who would rather be slaughtered on a Cross then coerce humanity into puppetry obedience: This God is worthy of our lives, my life. His loving, divesting way, is the way to victory for the believer. The way of the lamb, the sacrifice of God in Christ, is our resurrection victory over death and all this world might bring to us. Without this experienced reality of God’s conquering love, I’m quickly buried in a sea of apathy, and sucked into battling physical fights, unkind words, and exchanging the mystery of God’s love for the certainty of feeling smart, right.

We’re packing up, not really moving home, nor leaving home. We’re sojourners at the moment. Truly, we all are, all the time. This world is not our home, yet our hearts hope for home and enjoy the brief tastings of belonging. I’m ready to see what God has for us. We are open, positioning ourselves for several possibilities beyond this year. Not far from our mind the reality that we’re aging, we’re dying, yet coming alive to the best things in this world. It will continue fighting, will we surrender to love? It will entice and deceive, will we find our hiding place in the safety of Christ’s power, the gift of sharing in His holiness?

This week my close friend, Dima, was issued conscription to join the war in Ukraine. Throughout Ukraine over the past couple of weeks, the net has been widening toward those who haven’t yet ‘volunteered’ to defend Ukraine from the Russian invaders.

Dima has served with us at Lighthouse for +5yrs with his wife Lena as youth leaders. He’s been such a blessing, and friend. Someone we’ve leaned on for taking care of the property while representing integrity and diligence for the cause of Christ in our community. He knew this day was coming. Just last week we zoomed, and he was already mentally preparing for the inevitable. He was at peace then, and had resolved in his heart that he will trust the Lord, His God, for whatever comes.

It’s one thing to send humanitarian aid to hot-spots, to pray ‘over there’ for peace. It’s been difficult to see some of our youth from Club 180 dressed in army gear and holding weapons on social media. It’s been heart breaking to watch school teachers, mechanics, and retired neighbors called into action, leaving families behind to fend for themselves, some returning home only once or twice in the past year! It’s admittedly quite different, when your close friend, your brother in Christ, is called into something so evil, and blatantly unnecessary.

My prayers solicit tears for Dima. Tears of aching pain for his wife, for his family, for a man who has given himself to loving others, bringing the hope of Jesus kingdom each day in his community through his smile, laughter, and optimism. I grieve today, not because I think Dima might be thrown into the front, or lose his life imminently. I grieve because this war, this sinister brutality, interrupts what is beautiful. Dima and Lena had just bought their first home, they were planting flowers, fixing bicycles and growing their own hobby business. Lena is now thrown into independence. Lena has been the main leader at Lighthouse throughout the war, and now has lost her best friend to wake up to each day, her capacity to care for others diminished as she’s forced to shore up the home front.

The trickle down effect of war is devastating to neighborhoods, the local economies, the schools, and structure of society. Even if the war stops today, Russia has successfully crushed the economy, expunged the brightest young women and families from it’s borders, and instigated limitless forms of trauma upon the next generation from their relentless terror. Those things are facts to the rest of the world, data in the annuls of history with the other wars. But for me, today, it’s about Dima, my friend, one that is intimately part of my own story, who’s influenced the way I see the world, and act within it.

I take solace in the faith of my brother. I believe Dima will be a bright, ray of light and hope wherever God graciously places him. Dima knows this, and would never ask for pity. He would, however, give thanks for the prayers offered up on his behalf. You have my prayers my friend, and my tears.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things

Philippians 4:8

We’re in Texas this week. The last time we were here, war had just broken out in Ukraine and I flew over to Romania. Deb and the kids followed 3 weeks later, and we settled into a new reality, language, people. The year that was 2022 is over, but the war inside Ukraine seems far from ending. In a sense, Deb and I feel right back where we started, and it’s not a comfortable place to be – looking into an abyss of decisions.

I liked this painting, it captures how we feel. This life has been such an incredible ride for us, we’re exceedingly thankful. Being older, we’re learning to step back and just take in the wild beauty of it, even in the brokenness of it all.

When you’re young, time seems unending, the road ahead limitless. The unknown future is met with optimism, mistakes and detours not such a big deal. As we age, however, it seems we take stock in our decisions more seriously. We’ve experienced the brevity of this life, said goodbye to those that surprisingly left us, and our own bodies begin to remind us that we aren’t winding up, but down. This life is truly a breath, a fading flower, and peering down that unending road shows clear signs of an end.

As much as I wish to write that we’ve secured a plan, a place, a space for our family in this coming new season, any attempt to outline that here would be false. Falsity is a funny thing, I’m learning. I don’t actively lie, or mean to mislead, but when faced with the challenge approaching 50 yet seemingly starting over, I want to go there. I want to narrate a story that is climbing upward, attaining. I want the surprising new career path, the security of outward success. Yet, as we continue to wait, to lean into the present moment of trusting Jesus for today, Deb and I are learning to trust in the character of God as our Father, and not in any particular outcomes.

This is true, this is where my heart finds itself today. We have opportunities we’re exploring, very kind and missional people that have extended branches of fellowship and collaboration. We have dear community inside Ukraine flourishing in delightful ways, truly God has taken great care of His garden we were privileged to labor within. As we visit, speak where invited, and navigate this week here in Texas, I find my spirit oddly aware of this invitation to trust Him, to be patient, to give thanks for this place of transition rather than fret within it.

It’s wild, really, that in our most uphended seasons, we find grace to not only weather the storm, but the secret of His near presence as the end our hearts long for. God, who so often becomes our instrumented means to an end, is permitted by our consciousness to move in as the Shepherd of our soul, not just our pocket book and belly. He invites us to just remain suspended, like that cross of old. It’s a place of trust, and there we learn just how panic stricken we are at the menial things, the transient, the temporary things of this life. It’s in this place of willing surrender, I think, that death really loses it’s power, it’s sting.

Nobody wants to die and leap into eternity when we’ve secured a sense of control in our surroundings, our lives comfortable and going somewhere exciting. When we aren’t sure what is next, when we’re looking at a series of all-way-stops and forks in the road, we pause, we reckon with what is most true – and that, for us, is that this life of faith and journey with Christ is a continual invitation to live into His presence each day, to enter the suffering and joys of others when presented with opportunity, and remaining ready to answer His call.

My prayer today was this, “Jesus either fill me from the inside with the knowledge of your will, or surprise me from the outside in a way that we will know and follow you.” Either way, the promise is that His will, will be accompanied with the desire, the infilled, unmistakable desire to do it (Phil 2:13). I have grown to appreciate the freedom the Spirit gives us to navigate this life alongside, along with. However, in the end, God has led me back to that simple place of surrender, where we gratefully hand our lives back and seek to do His will above our own. Whatever, whenever, Jesus we are yours. This is the work of the valley, the upended life, and it is good.

What do you in your valley, your crossroads?

I’m learning that what I considered to be faith in the earlier years, was really an underlying anxiety to be trusting in the Good Shepherd. It’s so much easier to plan our way out of stuff, but all that planning puts us back in control, and comes with all the stress of ensuring success.

Thinking upon true things. Today is where we live, where we love, and are loved. With more questions than answers, we hold onto Jesus and learn to value His nearness more than a cool plan. I’m learning not to leap down the first available road. Lord keep us from the unnecessary detour. The road is not, after all, unending.

Let our decisions come from that deeper places of united faith, as sojourners smiling into the unknown as we bask in the warmth of your affirming fire.

In global solidarity, the year that was 2022 now closes behind us. Unique struggles, victories, all of us. Most will follow us into the new year, like it or not.

Yet, for those who are brave enough to puncture the allusion of falsity and begin living into person God has made us to be, we can live through this coming year with grace and beauty. We live into the year not through striving, nor the commitments we make, but through believing the love that already exists over us, even in our brokenness and yearning.

This world, particularly in the hyper-individualized western culture, celebrates being perfect, strong, certain, undaunted. Yet, I’m learning, experiencing a different kind of value, before my Creator. He sees through the shadows, beyond the ideas of myself, the false ways. He sees me, truly, yet somehow still loves me!

We are not loved for our action, or lack of action. We are not loved because we modify our behavior, or can’t muster the strength to keep resolutions. This new year, and our responses within it, have no bearing on our value, our worth. We have each been made into the image of God, and though broken this world is, and we within it, we are each given gift of our true identity. I’m learning to rest into it, liberated by a perfect love that beckons me to release all other fountains of affirmation.

If Christ is to be our guide, then we must allow him to bring us to our own place of surrender. In this place, we lift up the old version, the fleshly, fallen vision of ourselves onto a cross of it’s own. There, with Christ, we surrender the old, and embrace the new, which is made in His image, the person we truly are before Him in love. I once believed the old was the new, the manufactured the original, but no more.

I walk into 2023 as an uncertain, unsure, weak, and humbled husband, father, man. I don’t know what is next, and I believe God has a lot of forming remaining to do in my life, out of love. I’m being made, and re-made into that person, by His Spirit, through surrender and faith. What an upside down kingdom this is!