So, lesson #1. I am a terrible blogger. I go months (and almost years) without blogging. Well it’s going to stick this time. I am going to exchange my more verbose rants with with shorter things to hopefully keep this more regular (like fiber for my blog).
As of 11.9.11 my amazing wife and I officially own a legit business (in the state of Georgia’s eyes). We own East Metro FIT (LLC). We are very excited about it and will be pushing hard to make this thing work.
But that’s not why I came here…I came here because Romans 1 rocked my world (specifically the following verse).
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1.25
That’s me. I do that. I worship at the altar of sports, running, lifting, the internet, etc. all the time. I am so glad that God always accepts me when I come back to my senses and worship the only thing worthy of praise.
Prod and poke yourself and see where you might be worshiping at the foot of. If we are honest, it oftentimes isn’t the cross.
How can you examine that? I think this is a good way to check. Read Matthew 6.21 or Luke 12.34. Jesus says where your treasure is [meaning money] that is where your heart is [meaning that's what you value and ultimately worship].
The good news is that all you have to do is redirect your $ to things God values and your heart can’t help but to follow. It’s funny how I’ll struggle to write down an extra $25 on a tithe to the church I love but that I will consider spending more than that on a dinner or 4x that much on a new pair of shoes. Where’s your heart?
Obviously it has been a while since I wrote. Things have changed. Some for the better and some for the worse. Let’s start at the beginning.
Losing your job sucks. Losing your job due to something out of your control sucks in one way, losing it because of something in your control hurts for a different reason. Humans like control, so it is obvious when circumstances change and you deem it out of the realm of your control it isn’t easy to swallow (if it is a bad thing). So no longer being the Director of Student Ministries for a group of kids I loved hurts because I feel it was (at least partially) out of my hands.
But then there is the other one, and for me this is the one that is harder to take. Losing my job because I didn’t meet/exceed expectations feels roughly like a kick to the solar plexus (Wiki for more info). I know that my departure was, at least, a blend of these things. And the second part is not easy for me to admit.
I have decent self-esteem. I have great friends and family. I have an amazing wife and 2 dogs that love me. The funny (or interesting) thing is that when my pride was damaged, the positive support I received from those sources seemed to weigh less on my pride scale than the “you aren’t doing a good job here so we no longer need your services” thing. As a matter of fact, I am not sure I am back at the level of self confidence I was at 3 months ago still to this day.
It is so easy to focus on my ego being hurt and neglect the bountiful blessings that “overflow my cup” in my life. But here is the TRUTH (and where I need to be focused):
“You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.
Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life. “
Psalm 23:5b-6a
I love that Psalm (and the diction Peterson uses in his paraphrase). I always liked that Psalm and I applied it in the sport realm frequently (when I played sports where the outcome “mattered”). It was my battlefield. But it amazes me how some 7 years later, I find this Psalm to speak to a completely different part of me.
It is is in the quiet moments (or the loud ones) and the scenic sunsets (or the grey rain drizzled days) when I notice something. God’s beauty and love is chasing after me. The world may not want me but he does. And he’ll chase after me. It happens at such random times, as you can tell from my description before this. In the chaos and turbulent times in my life God still chases after me. I am worried about my pride. What others think of me. If I am a failure in their eyes. My ego kicks in to say that one day I will be great at something and love doing it, only to be hushed by my fears and doubts and worries. And all of a sudden God catches me while I am running full sprint from him. Running away to the doubts. And he reminds me it isn’t about my pride. It isn’t about me at all. It isn’t even about what “they” say. It is about his beauty and glory and love.
I have no idea why a love so pure would waste his time chasing after me, especially after I have been told I am not good enough by my peers or co-workers or friends, but wow is it something to be thankful for.
I go to a church named Ebenezer. This morning [at our weekly student devotion breakfast] I decided to talk about Ebenezer but I wasn’t talking about our church but rather what Ebenezer means. I asked if anyone knew what it meant and none of the students did. So I solicited guesses. One guess was it was named for the street that borders it. That is a very logical guess. Unfortunately for this logic, our church was put here prior to roads even being in the area. The church dates back to 1818. I told him that the road was probably named for the church, not vice versa. The next guess was that it had “something to do with the Bible or church” in general. While nebulous, this is a “correct” answer.
During Isreal’s beginnings, while it is strengthening as a nation and fighting for its Promised Land, the kingdom runs into an issue. This issue is named the Philistines. They were a more powerful group of warriors, aggressive, and they terrified the Israelites. The group came to Samuel, the judge/leader of the gang at the time, and asked him to pray that God helps the Israelites defeat the Philistines. Samuel does. God answers.
One of the crazy “God interventions” in the Bible occurs. He basically makes it start thundering like crazy and this scares the poop out of the Philistines, thus causing confusion, thus allowing the Israelites to attack when they weren’t prepared and win. In tribute to God’s “showing up,” Samuel erects a monument, a single stone, and names it Ebenezer [which means "Rock of Help"].
Interesting history lesson perhaps but you may be curious where I am going with this…
I wonder if we have faith that “God will show up” when we need him most, like Samuel did. Do we have real faith in God even in our most trying hour or is it just a nice word we throw around to mean we think that “God sometimes does some okay stuff for us when he wants to”? Do we honestly, truly, whole-heartedly trust that God can intervene on our behalf in miraculous ways?
I struggle with this aspect in my life. I like to think I am a faithful person but do I honestly believe God would send a wave of thunder to disrupt my enemy? Do I truly believe that Jesus could heal someone that I know, without touching him, but just by speaking healing into existence? Do I whole-heartedly believe that if I just touch the clothing that Jesus has on that I’ll be healed? I am not so sure.
America teaches us to become self-reliant. I am not going to go off on some anti-American tangent here but I am curious if the “American Dream” is a bit juxtaposed to the “Biblical Promise.” I hope to grow a little less self-reliant each day and grow a little more God-reliant.
Been a while. I know. I am terrible at keeping up on here. I am so glad to not be a writer for a newspaper or something. I wouldn’t ever meet a deadline. Life’s been busy but full of blessings. My wife and I purchased a home, moved, got a new puppy (a 6 pound long haired Dachshund [wiener-dog] to compliment our 72 pound American Bulldog/mutt…yes, they make quite the combo and are already BFFs), all in addition to our already kind of crazy life schedule. So that is part of why I haven’t written in a while but the main reason is…I just am bad about doing it. Sorry.
On to what I wanted to write about…
I took my youth to Passion City Church last Sunday. We try and go once a month and if you are in the ATL, you should at least check it out once. The pastor, Louie Giglio, was out of town (in New Zealand) so they got a “fill in” named Jeff Henderson. Jeff helped start Buckhead Church and is now starting Gwinnett Church. His message was about not giving up on 2011, in regards to our “resolutions” and such. He said to look at the decisions we make through the lens of this verse:
Matthew 22:37-38 - Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.
He challenged us to focus on one of the above ways to love God and really push in that area. So naturally this leads me to a story about I how I have started “couponing” the last few weeks.
My beautiful/amazing/caring wife and I were watching TV 2 weeks ago and we ran into a show about how people use coupons to get like $8342035280457.38 worth of groceries for $1.39, or something along those lines. My initial response was that these people have no life and go dumpster diving to find coupons and such [which is probably true] but a few days later I decided to buy a Sunday copy of the AJC and use a few coupons. This was a major deal for me since I have always been too proud to use coupons. Coupons were for less fortunate people or crazy soccer moms. Not me. Well now they are.
I am sure you are reading this [well I am not sure you are reading this but if you are reading this than I am sure you are] thinking, “What does loving God with all your heart/soul/mind have to do with you using coupons?” Here is the tie in. I have started getting discounted products but I still can afford to pay what I was paying for groceries and such prior to couponing, so now I always pick up a few things for the local food bank and still end up saving money or breaking even. So I am using my resources more efficiently [ie. being a better stewart of God's blessings in my life] to help others.
Today I was driving and a guy had a sign saying he lost everything and was hungry. I stopped the car, asked if he wanted food. He said yes. I just so happened to have some stuff I bought for the food bank in my car and gave him a few bags of Chex Mix for him to eat. It doesn’t seem like much but it is what I had. I feel that this was a way for God to respond to my request to be used. I want to be used by God. Sure you see people on the side of the road all the time, but how often does that happen right after you bought some food with the coupons you started clipping because of a show you saw a few weeks back with the sole intention of helping others with your purchase? Now, the food didn’t make it to the food bank but I am just going to go buy other food to replenish it with. In addition to the food bank, God used my crazy new hobby to help a guy eat something and, maybe for the first time in a while, feel almost connected to the world. Like maybe someone cares about him.
A hurricane starts a breeze, a fire as a spark, and the road to redemption starts with a single step.
Will you find one area to love God with all of? If you do, I know you’re 2011 will NOT look like your 2010. And neither will the world around you.
I’ll keep this one short and sweet. There is a story in the New Testament that I have really gravitated to recently. It is about a Centurion, which is an officer in the Roman military, and his abounding faith. He finds Jesus and tells him that one of his servants was paralyzed and was suffering. He asked Jesus to heal him, which Jesus agrees to and tells the Centurion he will go to his home and heal him. That all sounds like many stories in the New Testament but here is where this one goes radically differently, the Centurion tells him he is unworthy of having Jesus in his home but he knows that if Jesus just speaks healing for the servant than he will be healed. The Centurion explains that he is a man that gives orders to others and that things happen because he speaks the orders and that he is sure that Jesus can do the same. Jesus speaks and the servant is healed. End of story.
The really awesome part, the part that keeps sticking in my head, is that the Bible says Jesus was astonished by the Centurion’s faith. This Centurion had so much faith that it shocked Jesus. Wow. That is beyond the scope of my comprehension but it is awesome that this guy, who is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, loved and trusted Jesus so much that it astonished him. Jesus, who knows our hearts and our thoughts, was caught off guard, was surprised, was taken aback. This is nuts. And this is the challenge for me. I want to do something that leaves Jesus astonished [in a good way of course]. After my final breath, I want to see Jesus and him say that I astonished him with my faith, love, compassion, etc. Could there be anything better than that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. It has been a while (or like 6 months) since I have posted on here. Obviously nobody is checking this on a daily basis but I still feel as though I slacked off. I’ll work harder to try and get one of these in a week. Seems doable. Okay, onwards and upwards…
So this morning (and yes, it is still morning…actually much earlier than I’d prefer to be up) I was reading through Matthew. I have some “favorite” books of The Bible (not sure if that is kosher or not but it is truthful) and Luke would be my favorite Gospel and Acts my favorite book overall but Matthew is picking up steam. The main reason for this is The Beatitudes. The 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of Matthew are probably the most pertinent consecutive run of 3 chapters in all of The Bible for people who are already followers of The Way. So if you have already jumped aboard the JC Express, these chapters really help us set our sights on some pattern of behavior that should demarcate the boundaries of how we should be living. So obviously I am going to write something cool about these chapters, right?
Nope. What actually struck me today was something I read just before you get to those chapters. It comes from Matthew 4.6. Matthew 4 is the chapter describing Satan’s efforts to tempt Jesus to make a decision, by playing to his human nature. Jesus is 100% human (and 100% divine), so he had emotions/pains/thoughts/struggles too, so when Satan tries to manipulate him after 40 days and nights of fasting, it would be forgivable if he were to have slipped up (in my eyes) but, of course, he doesn’t.
The first temptation was to turn rocks to bread and since JC was hungry, it makes sense to play into those pains if you are Satan. That doesn’t work though. So Satan moves to plan b, trying to get Jesus to “test” his Dad by jumping off the highest point of the temple and having angels save him. Satan says, “If you are the Son of God throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” (Which is a Psalm, 91.11-12)
So I was familiar with all of that but here is what I learned today: the Greek verb for ”it is written” is gegraptai which is in the perfect tense. Now I am not sure how many of you remember your middle school lesson on verb tenses but the perfect tense is on that is both an action that occurred in the past but is continuing in the present. So when we read ”it is written” (which occurs throughout The Bible) we need to realize it is saying “it has been written and it still stands written;” it applies as much now as it did then. It is continuous.
That is a major point. Sometimes I think we, as Christians, like to say, “Oh that applied to back then, when it was written” to dodge some of the implications it has for us now. Now I am not saying we need to move closer to being Messianic Jews but I am saying that the points being made then still mean something now. And you know what the craziest part of all of this is, it wasn’t Jesus who used gegraptai in this instance, it was Satan. Which mean even he knows that The Word is still living and dynamic and consistent and as important as it was when it was first breathed into being.
I wonder how many of us take The Word as seriously as Satan does. I know I have to catch up. And if we aren’t going to take it as seriously as our adversary does, well, I can see why non-Christians don’t think much of it either.
I have not written anything in a while (which is quite obvious if you are on this site) but that does not mean I haven’t been thinking and reading. I have started to read my Bible (well one of them) a good deal more recently and in addition to that, I have read some more great stuff from C.S. Lewis. But what is resonating the most with my heart is how what I have read in the New Testament meshes with Claiborne’s ideas in The Irresistible Revolution. Claiborne is not on the writing level of Lewis, Bell, or Miller but his stories are powerful and don’t need the captivating writing styles because, well, the stories he tells are captivating as is. What is stirring in my heart most right now is how little I/the church/the world does for “the least of these,” as Jesus put it. And while I am not going to start a church or world wide revolution today, I certainly can start one in my own life.
“We can believe in CPR, but people will remain dead until someone breathes new life into them.” – Take from The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne
I sometimes get so wrapped up in how awesome Christ’s love is and wanting to tell people about it that I forget to SHOW them. Let them feel it. Experience it.
I wanted to write this to keep myself accountable. Effective immediately, I am going to find new ways to touch the lives of people in the “margins” by bringing Christ’s love to them, instead of living my life as is and just waiting to stumble into those opportunities. War sucks but passivity is about as terrible.
Our church is collecting stuff to send to Haiti. Buying stuff for that drive is good but writing a check or giving things is not exactly what Jesus had in mind. I don’t recall any Bible stories about JC sending a poor family a sack of silver but there are dozens of stories where he actively touches people’s lives and heals them or feeds them.
Action may not be a panacea but it is surely an anodyne.
So it has been a while since I wrote something. I am sure nobody was too concerned. This one will be short and sweet.
I have interesting taste in music, I’d say. I grew up listening to rap, which turned out to be a great experience for me. Add in I spent most of that time on the upper class white Mecca of the South, St. Simons Island, and you’d quickly figure out I got some interesting looks (many from my parents). Now this may seem strange but I think listening to that type of music, in addition to playing basketball and football, was a HUGE blessing because it led me to become friends with the black kids because I had more in common with them than the white kids around me. If you know me, and odds are if you are reading this you do, you probably are aware that I don’t really pay much attention to the skin pigmentation of the people I am around. Granted I know if someone is black/white/other but it doesn’t register as a negative or positive for me, like it does for many people. You can miss out on some great things when you stereotype…
Example:
Here are some lyrics from an amazing song by a Christian band:
Hallelujah, I’ve been saved by grace,
Hallelujah, saved by grace.
and this is why, I’ve been saved,
by His grace.
I bet looking at that you are probably thinking you’d enjoy that song (if you enjoy 104.7 The Fish or the Adult Contemporary Christian radio station near you). It sounds like something you might sing in church. Maybe it is from a hymn even.
Nope. (Feel free to skip to 1:48ish in if time is of the essence or the music is unpalatable for you)
I routinely get interesting looks from people who see me getting out of my car or pull up next to me at a light (on the driver’s side of my car because the passenger side window motor has been broken for over 2 years) and hear the music I am listening to. As a matter of fact I have been told I was listening to “devil music” by a person who overheard it coming from my car. Interesting point, I was in a church parking lot and was there to volunteer to help with an event at the church…Hmmm.
Look, I make snap judgements about people by seeing what they look like or other meaningless things all the time. I am not perfect in this regard, but I am making strides to break that habit. At least when it happens now I tell myself what I am doing and that stereotyping someone is NOT what I should be doing. Has this burned me in the past? Absolutely. Have I done something nice for someone that a “normal” person might not have interacted with out of fear/assumptions? Yep. But I have also had the same people be extremely gracious when I reject the stereotype and act as Christ would (or at least closer to how He would than how I would have in the past).
Remember who Jesus hung out with? Not a bunch of preppy upper class choir angels…And if they are good enough for Him, clearly they are good enough for me.
Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.” Matthew 7:12 The Message//Remix
I feel like they told me that in Kindergarten…glad it is finally sticking.
For those that know me well, this will come as no shock but I wanted to start off by saying I have a “man crush” on Rob Bell. So forgive me if I sound like a Rob Bell apologist (because, well, I am one). Some people love Rob (yeah, I feel like I can call him Rob) and some people think his take on church/theology/ministry is “not correct/sufficient/some-other-negative-term.” Obviously I am in the first camp, perhaps the President of that camp…or at the least a Secretary of State or something. But I digress…
This is not about Rob Bell. This is about a lecture series written by Rob Bell and its impact on how I view things. The series is titled Everything is Spiritual and its basic point can be boiled down to exactly what the title claims, that EVERYTHING is indeed spiritual. If you have a spare minute and forty-fiveish seconds to spare (and obviously you do, you are reading a blog written by some random kid) check out this video:
I am all about some parsimony and nothing quite fits the bill like summarizing a lecture series in under 2 minutes!
In addition to the brevity of summarizing Rob Bell’s point, he also tells it in a uniquely Rob Bell fashion, so hearing it from him is much better than hearing my brutal attempt to transcribe his uniqueness.
Okay, finally to my point (about time, I know). I was driving home last night after a gathering with the high schoolers in the youth group at my church and, with my iPod shuffling tunes through my car speakers, I heard a song I have heard a few dozen times. I have always like the song and band (clicky to listen), which is A Day to Remember – Have Faith in Me, but it struck me differently this go round. Now this could be because I had just come from an awesome time talking outreach with a bunch of youth and adults or it could have been because I was high off of my Mucinex (which works pretty well, actually) or maybe it was a blend of those two things, but I heard the song and thought to myself how everything really is spiritual. Now ADTR (A Day to Remember) is not a Christian band but the lyrics seem to convey the author had a grasp on how our relationship with Our Father is.
I said I’d never let you go, and I never did
I said I’d never let you fall and I always meant it
If you didn’t have this chance then I never did
You’ll always find me right there, again
Now don’t think me naive. I realize the author could have penned this about his girlfriend or mother or buddy but that further proves my point. Humans love and care because we were divinely constructed to do so. Because God shines His glory and love through us. Because every good thing we encounter is spiritual. We definitely do not have the capacity to live that way “on our own” and even when we think we are doing something good “on our own,” well, we just are missing the point, right?
Let me throw out a really geeky analogy (and if you aren’t geeky, then I apologize but try and hang with me, I’ll keep it as painless as possible). We all know the comic book hero Superman. Well maybe you know or maybe you don’t but he essentially is only powerful because our planet gets its energy from our sun. Kryptonians, Superman’s “race,” whose native star Rao had been red, only possessed superpowers under the light of a yellow sun, like ours.
Okay, where am I going with that? Superman was only “super” on Earth. He was essentially a normal dude back home on Krypton (in regards to his powers). We are only loving and kind and generous and whatever else “good” you can think of because Our Creator made us in His image. His likeness. Anything made in His likeness has to be spiritual, right? As Mr. Bell points out, the Hebrews lack a word for “spiritual.” They obviously understood that everything was God’s so everything was holy.
Not even God used the word spirit or divine or anything like that when telling Moses who He was:
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’
Exodus 3:14 – New International Version (NIV)
If He is who He is, then we are who He made us and that is in His image. Everything IS spiritual because everything is God’s.
God bless.
[Note from the editor: I apologize if this logic is difficult to follow, I am still on said Mucinex. I can't tell if my rambling makes sense or is just babble. So a mea culpa is being presented up front (well, really at the end but hey, that is better than nothing).]
I am not a morning person. At all. As a matter of fact, my very existence might the be defining set of actions that spit in the face of the term “morning person.” 5 AM may just be my newly found mortal enemy…Having complained enough, I feel like I should get to the point of this entry.
You see things differently at, say, 6:10 AM than you do at 9 AM or 1 PM or even 1 AM. The first thing I noticed is how beautiful the white of headlights (and now some bright blue sprinkled in as well) and the red of the taillights of my neighboring voyagers of the way-too-earlyness are. Maybe it is because I am still partially asleep but the lights almost seem to blur themselves, like an elapsed time shot with a camera. (See below) Seeing lights like this, while driving and not via a picture, awakens a realization in me that seems like common sense, but for me it obviously wasn’t (but hey, you can’t blame me…my brain doesn’t crank up until noon). This epiphany was that everyone is going somewhere and everyone is coming from somewhere else. Seems pretty obvious, eh? Well, yes it is, but the implications for realizing that are tremendous.
People bring their past with them to where they are headed. That includes their pains and sufferings as well as their triumphs and successes. Not only that, but people are all headed different places and at different speeds. Whether we realize it or not, we are all leaving trails of light behind us, while throwing beams of white light in our immediate as well.
In addition to how light was manipulated by the cars driving to and fro, the most awe inspiring thing for me this morning was how the light emerged from the horizon. The pre-sunrise light is different from the darkness at day’s end. There is almost a tangible and visible energy to the darkness; like there is an abundance of light just waiting to burst through the darkness to brighten our day and illuminate the masterpiece God created for us. I truly believe that light is the second best way of seeing and feeling how awesome our God is (if you are wondering what ranks #1 on my list, that would be LOVE). I could try and explain why I feel this way but I will leave to my homeboy C.S. Lewis to bring home the bacon in a way I never could in a million years.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Light is beautiful. But light also let’s us see all of God’s other creations, which just multiplies how amazing of a gift light is.
“God spoke: “Light!”
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning –
Day One.” – Genesis 1:3-5 from The Message//Remix
How blessed we are to have a Creator that was powerful enough to speak the world into existence, yet care about us so intimately that He knows the amount of hair on our heads!
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” - St. Augustine
I hope we all use the precious gift of light to see what’s important and to appreciate what majesty is around us everyday.
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