The Road to Shalom

     There's been a lot of taking, writing, and shouting about the "right side" and "wrong side" of history, and which "side" you should be on. It strikes me a bit odd that many believers have accepted this false idea of history and who controls it. People believe that history has an arc, and that it can be bent by the efforts of humanity. 
     History does in fact have an arc, but I'm afraid the believing community has fallen prey to error because we've lost our ability to truly "tell time." In this final episode of 2021, we're going on a provocative journey into the two "time zones" of the Bible with the goal of getting our watches set right.

     Do you see yourself as a "peace-maker" or a "peace-keeper"? What difference would it make if you got this right? Or wrong? In any worldview that believes peace-keeping should be the priority, change is viewed with suspicion. Even change in the right direction. Threats to our personal peace and way of life—if uniformed by the purposes of God—result in us fighting for what's important to us, rather than what matters most to God.
     In this sixth and final interview with shalom-makers, Fran interviews his oldest son Ben, a veteran in peace-making in his own right. Ben's twenty years in urban space has convinced him that peace-making is often ignored or neglected by believers, not because it's wrong, but because it's difficult.
     You'll be nudged out of your comfort zone, but generously wooed into the circumference of truth is this interview.

     Shalom is the "way things are supposed to be"…everywhere…among everyone…all the time. It's absence is what's wrong with the world. But because the whole idea of shalom is foreign to us as believers, we don't naturally ask life questions within its frame of reference.

     For example, do you think there are places where it's "more absent" than in other places? Or more absent among some people groups than others? How old should you be before you can understand shalom for yourself? Is there a difference between a road of shalom and the road to shalom?

     Veteran urban worker, history teacher, youth pastor and husband and father, Clint Cvacho helps us get answers to all of the above. In this fifth interview with shalom-restorers you'll be challenged to revise some of your preconceptions about people, place, and purpose

     One of the things I've come to realize, after 51 years on the "Jesus Road," is that the Bible is new every morning. It's an example of a not so famous saying by Buddy Hinton in Kee Sloan's book, Jabbok: "The more I learn this, the truer it gets." In an age of glance, swipe and poke, hearing or reading something more than once is actually a good thing…because it's also a God thing.

     With that intro, I want to tell/alert you to the fact that this episode is the only interview I ever did on the Road to Shalom...nearly 3 years ago. But, it fits so well in the current series it's worth enjoying again…or for the first time.

     Join me in the living room of Dave Adkison, one of my best friends who also happens to be a world-class surgeon and a man who listens, touches, and heals...all of which are shalomic activities.

     If  one of your older Bibles has maps in the back, you'll notice that this image doesn't match the Dead Sea in your Bible. That's because the water from the Jordan River is being syphoned off for irrigation before it reaches the Dead Sea. And as a result, Dead Sea is becoming "deader" for lack of water. It's become two separate bodies of water, one of which is disappearing.

     In this third shalom-makers interview, you'll meet a longtime friend of Hands of Hur and our family. Matt Letourneau has done more with his life in four decades than some do in a lifetime. He's an artesian well of innovation, vision and a passion for the gospel. Currently he's the CEO of NeverThirst, a ministry committed to bringing Living Water and clean water to the nearly 800 million people who need both. Now that's about as shalomic as it gets.
     Come with me on a journey that begins in the American Southeast and extends to Africa and Asia, and has all the evidence of God's anointing and the power of His presence.

     In this second interview with shalom-makers—men and women who see themselves as agents of shalom because they're beneficiaries of grace—Fran introduces  Sarah Jackson. The product of a turbulent childhood in a loving home, she found herself being drawn to those we have marginalized, even forgotten, in our ceaseless pursuit of the next new thing. Sarah is a hospice nurse.
     Even though for most of us, pursuing Sarah's shalomic passion is unlikely, I promise you'll discover that the implications from this provocative interview will motivate you to say or do something for someone that you've known for a long time is overdue.

     This is the first of a series of interviews with shalom-makers who've learned to live on the flip-side because they understand the front-side of theology. Tracy Hipps' childhood was horrific and traumatic. Yet, he discovered that his own pain made him empathetic rather than merely pathetic and angry. He found his greatest joy in giving away rather than getting even.
     You'll find hope and encouragement for your own life by paying attention to the obvious healing and good fruit that comes from pursuing shalom for others' lives rather than lamenting or focusing on its absence in your own.

     You've probably heard  a Christian described as someone who's "going to heaven when they die," because they "invited Jesus into their hearts." It's a pleasant thought. But, it's also incorrect. It reduces salvation and faith to two points on a line, one at the beginning and one at the end. Unfortunately, it leaves out the  line itself! A person's entire life on earth.
     What happens during that "in between" time is important to God. In fact, He has a plan to make us less like Adam and more like Jesus. We call it sanctification. That's what God wants to do. Have you ever wondered why? What's the point?
     In this fifth and final installment of Fran's "Four Dimensional Theology" series, he pushes out the boundaries of our own transformation and leads us back to the purposes of God for the world and His own glory.

Why do you think Yeshua spoke about "doing" righteousness? Why did the prophet Amos talk about righteousness rolling down like "an ever-flowing stream"? Why would Paul tell a young pastor, a beneficiary of Christ's righteousness, to "pursue righteousness," and that the Scriptures are "profitable for...training in righteousness"?

     Maybe it's time that we mature beyond our one and two-dimensional views of righteousness—the ones that bend us towards self-righteousness, and examine the relationship between righteousness and shalom. This episode will be a great beginning on that wonderful journey.

     There’s an unspoken question staring us right in the face on at least thirteen pages of our Bible. Why do you think the Apostle Paul opened each of his letters with a sort of a Hebrew blessing, “grace to you and peace from God our Father…”? Why would Paul ask God to give his listeners two things they already had?— “Grace” from God, and “peace” with God? In particular, what could possibly prompt Paul to pray that God would multiply grace to sinners already justified by grace?
     Maybe at least part of what makes grace so "amazing," are the other dimensions of it that for the most part, we're oblivious to. This third episode in the "flip side" of Story words turns our favorite word, "grace" over to discover some unknown things about it that truly are amazing. And guess what? You're one of them!
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Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash