Acupuncture

My entire life I have struggled with seasonal allergies. As a kid I remember large periods of time feeling like my nose was plugged up with corks and my head ready to explode from the pressure build-up. There are days when pollens and other "demonic" forces are floating through the air conspiring together in a perfect way to keep me sneezing without restraint. I start rubbing my eyes. My wife gives me that all important advice, the same advice I give her when her allergies flare-up, "Don't rub your eyes! It will only make them worse. Did you take an allergy pill?"

About a year and a half ago I was having an especially hard time. My sinuses were completely plugged-up and I was unable to hear a thing because my ears were clogged. I know, gross, huh? One of the men in our church asked me if I was willing to try anything to be rid of this mallady. I was desperate. I said, "Absolutely, yes! What do you suggest?" He said that he had been a chronic allergy sufferer himself for years until he discovered the healing remedy of acupuncture.

ACUPUNCTURE??? What, you mean those guys that poke you full of holes? How in the world is that going to make any difference with the way my nose responds to seasonal alergens? Well I went and within weeks my sinuses were cleared up and my allergies held in check. Unbelievable, huh?

Last week I went to my weekly acupuncture appointment. As Dr. Peter Pi began routinely poking me with needles I noticed something. Some of the spots he poked seemed to be more painful than usual. Usually there is a quick pinch and then you relax and hardly notice the needle is there for the next half hour. This time it was more noticeably painful. Not unbearable, but definately uncomfortable pain. At the end of my session when Dr. Pi was relieving my skin of the needles, I mentioned to him this sensation. He responded to me, in his Chinese accent which reminds me of the great wisdom associated with characters like Mr. Miyagi or the Master in the old tv show Kung Fu, saying; "This is good. Pain is good. The more sensitive, the more effective."



That last phrase really stuck out to me. It was as though God was speaking through this statement about acupuncture and relating it to all of life and ministry. "The more sensitive (you are) the more effective." In application this truth reveals the heart of what it takes to remain focused on the very mission of Christ Jesus. The more sensitive we are the more effective we will be. We need to be sensitive to peoples needs, senstive to their hurts or joys, sensitive to our communities demographics, sensitive to their passions, sensitive to our own needs, sensitive to the needs of our family, sensitive to the truth, senstive to sharing mercy. How do we do all these things? By being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. When we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit of God He makes us sensitive to the world around us.

Sometimes being sensitive can be painful. Being sensitive leaves us vulnerable, exposed. It is from this posture of availing our feelings and senses to the elements of Christ's mission field, laid out before us, that we are able to accomplish great things and fulfill His greatest destiny on our behalf. Sure there is risk involved, but pain produces possibility. Often through pain comes the greatest possibility for new possibilities. That is a lot of possibilities.

The opportunity for great pleasure comes through our availablity to being sensitive. Not a fleeting, self-focused pleasure, but a pleasure of seeing lives transformed in the power of the Holy Spirit. Seeing others, that we have cared for and about, that we have invested our emotions and time into, become sensitive themselves to the Spirit of God and to their world surrounding them. Seeing them heal from the chronic allergens of sin, guilt, shame, disease and distortion. Seeing others fulfilled becomes the source of our greatest fulfillment and pleasure.

Jesus ultimately brought healing to our world through pain. His wrist and feet and side and brow were punctured for the purpose of redeeming and fulfilling us. Matthew's account tells us that at one point in the passion story centered around the crucifixion Jesus was offered a drink mixture of gall and vineger, soaked in a sponge. This mixture was not for refreshment. It was a common narcotic, produced and given to those in great pain to try and deaden one's sensitivity a bit, in order to take some of the edge of the pain off. You know what Jesus did. Once he realized what was being given to Him it says He rejected it (Matthew 27:34). Jesus recognized that here in this situation "Pain is good! The more sensitive, the more effective." Jesus did not allow himself to be shielded in any way from the pain, because out of that pain brought the great possibility of seeing His greatest creation fulfilled.

You might be saying that is quite a stretch, acupuntucre and Christ's crucifixion. You might be wondering what kind of doctrine I am creating here drawing some parallel between this allergy treatment and the cure for mankinds separation from God. No I am not saying that we all need to go out and do acupuncture as a means of spiritual and mystical communion with God, not at all. No new doctrine or religious expression being pushed here. Just a simple analogy to ponder. I simply want to acknowledge the truth of that simple statement that sometimes "Pain is good!" Pain is never fun. Sometimes we want to protect ourselves and avoid being sensitive, especially us men. But being sensitive can be the pathway to our greatest acheivements in the Lord. In the words of Dr. Pi, "The more sensitive, the more effective."

How do you tackle a yard full of weeds?

Last September my wife and I realized a dream that we thought would be way off in the distance. We were able to buy a house. We were able to take advantage of this foreclosure/ economic crisis happening all around us. The house we bought had sat empty for over a year and the bank that owned it just didn't seem to have the time during those twelve plus months to do anything with the yard. So we inherited yards full of weeds. We live on the central coast (in Salinas), which is a farmers paradise. Guess what, weeds grow good here too. Our front and back yards are a testament to that fact. We have weeds - big, ugly, hairy weeds -weeds with deep roots. In the front yard I scattered weed and feed the weeds just gobbled that stuff up. I started ripping up the weeds in my lawn, now the front yard is patchy, somehow the weeds still are thriving. It is going to be a long haul.

Last night I was pulling out a small jungle on one half of my backyard. The roots were so deep and there were so many that I had to dig three holes four feet deep to get them out of there. As I was working it hit me, if you want to see something good in the place of something that has been infested with weeds it is going to take a lot of hard work, tenacity bordering on outright stubbornness, and when you are about to give up you just need to buckle down and go at it again.

A beautiful garden or lawn just doesn't evolve from a weed infested wasteland overnight. Neither does a growing and thriving ministry. When you take on a ministry in decline often it come with its own thorns and dare I say even weeds. The ground needs to be prepared, it needs to be nurtured. This takes an incredible amount of time, more than likely it will take more time and energy and investment that you probably originally counted the cost for. You will see great strides take place only to become dismayed by new setbacks from time to time. But tending to this work of God requires that you stay the course even when the task seems beyond your reach.

I was dreaming of a beautiful, weed-free yard yesterday. I was envisioning that day when I will be able to put in an hour or so a week just maintaining it, pulling a small weed or two and occasionally pruning things back. The reality is that for the kind of growth that you desire in a garden or lawn it takes work. Growth is not maintenance. If you maintain it it will all die and eventually be taken over again. This is true in the church as well. We are never here to just maintain, we are here to grow a beautiful church. Our worship leader Chris Bohrman said to me in his own words yesterday that he sensed that maybe we were starting to maintain a little bit after this great push we just had over Easter. Its time to pull out the shearers and shovels and go back to work.