A Chicken in a Cage with a Ferret

Twitterpated

2012-01-18T19:33:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I took a big step in catching up with my generation. I started a Twitter account. I remember a few years ago when I first heard about Twitter from my friend Blake. I told him I thought it was a silly idea. Facebook already had status updates. Why would I need yet another way to let the world know what I was doing at any given moment?

I also remember when I was a senior in high school and I first heard about Facebook from my friend Charlie. In a similar way, I thought it was a waste. I said, "So...you can get on this website, and people who are already your friends in real life will tell you that they're your friend." I even wrote an article in my school newspaper predicting that Facebook would be an obsolete fad within six months. Nostradamus I ain't.

Same thing when texting first started to get big in our culture. I figured, "Why would I take time to type out a message to someone if I needed to talk to them? Why not just call?"

Nowadays, I have texting, and I also have a Facebook and a Twitter. I spend way, waaaay too much time on each of these phenomena. And, in many ways, I like them. Texting lets me shoot quick messages when I don't want to get into a whole conversation, and it lets me stay in contact with some people whom it would feel awkward to call. Facebook lets me stay in touch with people I've met all over the country. Twitter gives me a platform for all of the little pseudo-thoughts that can't be developed into blog posts. So each of these advances in social technology has value.

However, I've been thinking some about the effect such things have on the way we relate and communicate with one another, and not all of it is positive. We have become a culture that is satisfied with sound bites. Don't have a real conversation with me; just tell me what's on your mind in 140 characters or less. Don't ask me about my trip to NYC; just hit "like" on my pictures. We want our interactions with one another to be short and sweet, to be to the point. We look at the bottom line without really caring about what it takes to get there. The great danger, I think, is that we can forget how to truly relate with others in a meaningful way.

Life isn't made of sound bites. It's made of emotions, dreams, frustrations. It's made of series of seemingly insignificant events: meals, traffic jams, stubbed toes, sunsets, and jokes. It's made of stories. And these are stories that can't be expressed in a couple lines of text. So if someone is really going to relate to me beyond a surface-level interaction, he needs to be able to see beyond the sound bite. We know how to broadcast highlights of our days through hashtags, but we may have forgotten how to have a 30-minute conversation over dinner.

Today I listened to a sermon by Matt Proctor, the president of my alma mater, Ozark Christian College. In it, he said that the danger for this generation is that we have traded the risks of reality for the safety of virtual reality. In the sermon, Matt is talking about how we turn inward instead of walking out in faith in the work God has for us, but I think the same observation applies to how we relate with one another. A real relationship is risky. A digital persona won't often reject me, and if it does, it really doesn't sting that badly. But a flesh-and-blood person...such an entity can do some real damage to my person.

Sometimes I think that I would have fit in better with my world if I had been born 50 years earlier. I would rather read a printed edition of a book than on an e-reader. My life would move along just fine if I didn't have internet access in my pocket 24/7. I think writing a letter on paper and sending it in the mail is classy. It shows that I care enough about what I'm communicating to take the time to write it out, and get a couple hand cramps along the way. It's romantic. (Do you think that when my generation is old, women will pull up files of "love texts" that they got from their husbands when they were dating the way women keep love letters?)

We have all of this information available, but we're not that informed. We know a little bit about a lot of topics, but we don't know a lot about much. And we have all of this social media, but we might be one of the least social generations in history. You can know a little bit about a lot of people without knowing anyone deeply.

What do you think? What advantages does social technology possess? What dangers come with it?

Discovering Beauty

2012-01-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Kansas gets a bad rap.

I'm from Kansas. And over time, I've been fortunate to be able to travel to a lot of different places all over the country. Whenever I tell people in another location that I'm from Kansas, they never say, "Oh wow, that's such a lovely area." Nope. Not once. Instead, they say things like, "Oh....it's so flat there," or "Yeah, I had to drive through Kansas once on my way to Colorado. Longest day of my life," or "Then I guess you're not in Kansas anymore!" Hilarious.

People get down on a place like Kansas because they don't think it has the same sort of natural wonder that many other areas do. It doesn't have great forests or mountains or beaches or waterfalls. People think it just have a lot of wheat fields. And their perception is true, I suppose. There are a lot of wheat fields, and the state is relatively flat, and there are vast stretches to real estate where you won't see too many people. But I don't think that this means Kansas lacks beauty.

I've been living in Cincinnati, Ohio for about six months, and last month I was able to go back to Kansas for a few days. As I was crossing the Missouri-Kansas border on Interstate 70, the sun was beginning to set. And it was the best sunset I have seen in a long time. The sky was on fire. The entire thing glowed in a brilliant orange. I could see the horizon miles in the distance, and I could see the opposite horizon in my rear view mirror, and the entire space in between signaled that the sun was calling it a night.

In Kansas, the sky is big. When I walk out my parents' front door, I can see for a ways in almost any direction, and the expanse of the sky stretches from one horizon to the other. During the day, I might be able to go outside and see huge white clouds hanging in the sky. At dusk, I can see orange and red streaks in the clouds as the sun descends. And at night, I can see the stars arranged in their constellations.

In Cincinnati, the sky isn't that big. When I walk outside, I can't see more than about a hundred yards in any direction. There are too many hills and trees and buildings. So the sunsets aren't as majestic, and the stars aren't as bright. This isn't to say that Cincinnati doesn't have its own beauty. It's just different. In the fall, all of those trees shift colors and drop their leaves. I can also go to my school's library and look out the window at a view that overlooks downtown.

Different places possess their own beauty, and it's unique to that location. I've been able to see Pacific sunsets and Arizonian deserts, Kansas constellations and snow-capped Rockies, Appalachian foliage and Manhattan skyscrapers. None of these things looks like the other, but they're still beautiful. Even when you might think a place is devoid of beauty, it can be found.

I've been thinking about how this truth my be valid in other spheres of existence. In people, for instance. Every day, you probably encounter people who don't seem very beautiful. I work at a large retail store, and I have to deal with people who are rude and inconsiderate and loud on an hourly basis. Not everyone walks into the store with graceful radiance. So it can be easy for me to dismiss people--to let my interaction with them be brisk and hurried. To just sleep in the car during a drive through Kansas. But I think that in each person, there is some beauty to be found. It just might not be accessible on the surface. So whether it's your neighbor, roommate, coworker, in-law, or whoever, it might be good to try to find the beauty in people.

It may be that this also applies to how we think of seasons of our lives. I think that for each of us, there are times in life that we love and we wish we could stay in forever, but then there are others that we wish we could just skip over, just like we fast-forward through the commercials when we record a TV show. It's because we think that some times lack beauty. I've hinted at it in previous posts, and maybe I've stated it explicitly, but the season of life I'm currently in isn't the most enjoyable. It often feels like my life has stalled out. I've got friends that are starting their real lives, beginning new ministries, forming new relationships, getting married, and starting to look more and more like grown-ups. I, on the other hand, am still in school, do the same job my sister did when she was 17, and eat frozen pizzas on a too-regular basis.

But there has to be beauty here. It's just hard to find, sometimes. This chapter of my story doesn't look as exciting as my years in college or preschool (I love Play-Doh), and it might not be as exciting as the years ahead of me. But it's where I am, and certainly it's not void of value. There is beauty here. Maybe you too are at a place in your life where you feel stuck in some ways. The temptation is to just zone out until a time with more obvious beauty begins, but I would encourage you to find the beauty where and when you are. I think it's there. Sometimes we just have to dig a little.

This morning I watched the series finale of Extreme Makover Home Edition, in which they built seven homes for seven families in Joplin. If you have some time, check it out at ABC. Continue thinking of and praying for Joplin. Every time I hear about it, I'm reminded just how much I love and miss that city.

Also, yesterday I started a Twitter account, so if you're interested, you can follow me @DavidHeffren.

I'm sure you were all cheering for the Steelers in the playoffs, and they're now eliminated. I share your grief. Who are you going for now?

Real Food

2012-01-09T09:39:00.000-08:00

Are there many feelings better than a full belly?

I don't mean when your stomach is so full that it makes you feel sick. We've all been there before. Actually, we've all been there pretty often. You eat until you feel like you're going to explode, leaving a big mess that you're going to have to order some OxiClean to take care of. That's not a good feeling. But there are times when your stomach is full, and it's just right. You've eaten Sunday lunch with your family, and now you can lay on the couch and watch football until your eyelids droop and you slip into a nice long nap. It's the American dream. To be satisfied after a good meal.

I read a passage from the New Testament yesterday that I think deals with the topic of satisfaction, and it uses the image of food and water. But food and water are only metaphors here. The satisfaction that is addressed goes beyond how you feel after Thanksgiving. It talks about spiritual satisfaction--of being completely content and fulfilled in Christ and in living the life God desires for you to live.

The passage is a popular one. In John 4, Jesus is traveling through Samaria when he stops to take a break near a well. Before long a Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water, and Jesus engages her in a conversation that reveals this woman's longing for satisfaction and her inability to attain it. The whole thing centers on the metaphor of water. Jesus points out that the water in this well is unable to truly satisfy, because she keep having to come back to draw more. But he promises her living water that satisfied completely. And what is this living water. It's Jesus himself, and the pouring out of his Spirit into a person.

Up to this point, this woman hasn't found that sort of satisfaction, because she's been looking in the wrong places. She's been married five times, and at the time of her encounter with Jesus, she's living with a guy she's not married to. It seems like she keeps trying to find fulfillment in men, but all she really does is leave behind a string of broken relationships. What she really needs is Jesus himself, and the same is true for each of us. We have a habit for trying to find satisfaction in all the wrong places (relationships, jobs, money, status, etc), but all that ends up happening is that we find ourselves saying "I can't get no satisfaction" (sorry...I had to throw that in).

A little later in the chapter, we see a glimpse of what brings Jesus a level of satisfaction. After the Samaritan woman leaves to go tell the rest of the town about Jesus, Jesus' disciples show up and say, "Hey, you'd better eat something." Jesus replies, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." He goes on to say, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me to finish his work."

Jesus sees his ministry as his food. It's what nourishes and sustains him. It satisfies him.

I think that's a really interesting way to look at ministry. It's more common to think of ministry as something that depletes you. It empties your tank, and you have to find another way to fill yourself up in order to go out there and minister again. And in some ways, that might be true. We see Jesus going off in solitude and praying and resting, and I think these practices were necessary to his ministry. But at the same time, his work is still his food. He was satisfied when he was in the middle of God's will.

You need food to survive. And so too, we need to be engaged God's work for us to be spiritually healthy. Our lives are incomplete when we wast them pursuing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with God's will for us and through us. We need to follow the Spirit's leading just as much as we need to put food in our bodies. The prophet Jeremiah communicates this need when he says, "But if I say, 'I will not mention him or speak any more of his name,' his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot" (Jer. 20:9). Jeremiah had a compulsory need to proclaim God's word, and I think Jesus understood that need.

For us, I think it's important to ask ourselves from time to time about where we are seeking satisfaction. I have to ask, "Am I look for fulfillment in something outside of Christ and his will for me? Do I for some reason think that God is insufficient for me?" Chasing satisfaction in other things never gives us what we need. It's like eating nothing but gummy bears and expecting to be well-nourished. Jesus gives living water. God's work is our food. And the rest is imitation.

The Year I Was Supposed to Grow Up

2011-12-31T17:22:00.000-08:00

We only have a few traditions here at A Chicken in a Cage with a Ferrett. (1) Being awesome. (2) Playing Christmas music in December. And (3) Writing a year-end recap of my life. At the end of each year, I like to reflect on some of the major themes and currents in my life, as well as some of the major events. And as 2011 comes to a close, I think that this last year was theoretically one when I was meant to enter adult life. I'll let you decide if I succeeded.

One way in which adulthood crept up on me this year is that all my good friends started getting married. In fact, that's how the year started, when last January 1st, I was the best man for my friend Ryan's wedding in Idaho. And recently, I was the best man again when my friend Charlie was married in Indiana. (Women talk about being "always a bridesmaid, never a bride." I guess I'm always a best man, never a....man?). Through all of this, I did discover how good I look in a tux. It's out of control. I should wear one every day. It's kind of an odd feeling when your best friends all start getting married and becoming domestic and watching the evening news. Adulthood is so domestic. But I do really like visiting friends when they have wives who are willing to give me baked goods.

In May, I donned my goofy cap and blue dress and walked across the stage to receive my college degree. Graduating college is an exciting time, of course, but it's also kind of sad. You gain calligraphic piece of paper but lose a home. I loved my time at Ozark and often wish that I was still there (you can read my ode to my alma mater here.) What's even more depressing, though, is that Ryan once read my a passage from a book on Christian marriage that said that if you graduate Bible college single, your chances of finding a wife decrease drastically. Again, that's why I need to wear a tuxedo around.

May 22nd became one of the more distressing days I have experienced in a long time. I remember browsing facebook and seeing a status update from a friend in Joplin, Missouri saying that he was in Walmart and that it had been locked down because of a tornado warning. Those things happen in the midwest, so I didn't think of it too much. Then I got a call from another friend telling me that the tornado was a bad one, and I began to see news reports showing the chaos that was left in the wake of the twister that ripped through the middle of a city I love. Now, I'm not going to pretend that this event was as impacting for me as it was for those who were there and lost loved ones or houses. But even so, it's a difficult to see a place that you lived for five years torn to bits. So continue to remember and pray for Joplin. The picture below is the satellite image that you can see on googlemaps, and you can see the brown stretch moving from west to east where the tornado went through.

In August, I moved away to a mythical land--Cincinnati, Ohio. This has brought with it a number of different challenges. Paying for rent and utilities. Cooking some and trying not to set my kitchen on fire in the process. It's like I have real responsibilities or something. It's funny. People might spend a long time dreaming about the day when they move out on their own, ready to carve their own path in the world. But it's really not all it's cracked up to be. I miss the days of having other people cook for me and clean up after me. And even though I have all these new responsibilities, I don't really feel like a true adult. It's like I'm playing house or something, and I worry about being "found out"--that someone will discover that I'm just a kid who really has no idea what the crap he's doing.

So maybe adulthood is more than I've imagined it before. Growing up, I looked at my parents and thought, "Man, there must be some point in life when you just 'get it.' When the world makes sense, and you always know the right thing to do, and you have all the answers." But if that's how it works, I'm certainly not there. I think it's more likely that we never really reach the end of our development. We're are people who are just trying to find our way through life, from the time we're born till we die. There is never a moment when someone gives you a certificate and says, "You're an adult now." We grow into it.

At the end of these kinds of posts, I like to write a little something that looks forward to what's going to be happening in the next year. But this year...I really don't know. Right now, it looks like it'll be more of the same...hanging out, going to school, watching Netflix, eating frozen pizzas.

What about you? What have been the highlights of your year? What are you looking forward to in the next?

What God Looks Like

2011-12-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

If you're anything like me, then at some point while you were growing up, you thought, "What does God look like?" It's not a bad question to ask. As human beings, our identities are intertwined with our appearance. Other people know us by the way we look. So what about God? What's he look like?

The issue with asking this, though, is that God is not like us. He doesn't exist in a physical body. God is spirit. So any image we create of God's appearance is only our own attempt at making sense of a personal being who is spirit. In the Bible, we find a lot of really cool descriptions of God, but even they aren't really what God looks like. Isaiah sees God on a throne in the temple while angels sing. But it's a vision. It's how God reveals himself to Isaiah in a way that Isaiah's finite mind can get some sort of handle on.

In Exodus 33, Moses asks to see God's glory. It don't think this request was out of place. After all, Moses had already done a lot of things at God's direction. He went to Egypt and faced off with Pharaoh. He raised his staff while on the banks of the Red Sea and watched as the waters were pushed back. He had been leading a grumpy, discontented nation through the desert. So maybe he just wanted to see God's face as a reassurance that he was on the right track. But God's doesn't really give Moses what he wants. God says that no one can see his face and live, so instead, he puts Moses in a cleft in the rock while his glory passes by, and then allows Moses to see his back.

No one could see God's face.

And through all time, people have tried to put a face on God. I suppose the most common is to think of God as a giant man with a long white beard, wearing a toga, as if he were some sort of cosmic grandfather. Or maybe you think of God as a bright shining light. I don't know how you envision God. There might be a million different ways.

Today is Christmas Eve. And this weekend, we remember how, a couple thousand years ago, people did see God's face. You could look at God. And he looked like a baby in a feeding trough. I imagine he was probably crying because he was hungry or he was cold or because, well, that's just what babies do.

It seems so....ungodly. Where's the giant white beard? Where's the golden throne? Why isn't he throwing lightning bolts around like javelins? God as a baby. It makes no sense. And that's the wonderful beauty of it. At Christmas, we celebrate how the Creator stepped into his creation to save his creatures. We were floundering in sin and guilt. Jesus entered the picture when "long lay the world in sin and error pining." We couldn't do anything to save ourselves, so God became enfleshed (or incarnate, I guess you could say) to save us. And the God whose face we couldn't handle, who stood so far above and beyond us that our descriptions of him were woefully inadequate, came near in Immanuel.

Thirty years later, the picture doesn't look much more glorious. Instead of just being a shivering child in a manger, Jesus becomes a beaten, bloody body nailed to a wooden cross. Again, it seems so ungodly. God dies. The one who had legions of angels at his command allowed nails to be driven through his wrists. Why? Because he loves us. Because we had made a mess of things and were unable to pull ourselves back up.

This Christmas, I hope you remember to take time to worship and thank God for what he has done in Christ. How wonderful that the baby in the manger would become our sin-bearer! That our Lord would serve us! That the one who deserves all of the worship and praise would give himself up for us! And while, for a time it all looked anything but divine, we look forward to the day when Christ returns in a way that seems more fitting. Even now, his eyes are like blazing fire, his feet are like glowing bronze, and his face is shining in brilliance (Rev. 1:12-16). And he'll come back and make our salvation complete. And we'll see him face to face.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas. Enjoy your roast beast.

An (Un)Normal Day

2011-12-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

I watched a movie a couple weeks ago called "Life in a Day." It was a pretty interesting concept for a film. National Geographic had regular people throughout the world film the happenings of their day on July 24th, 2010. Then the filmmakers gathered all of the footage and put it together to create a documentary that shows what life was like on that day, from beginning to end. You see all sorts of things in the movie. You see people getting married. You see people riding their bikes around the world. You see people fighting cancer. You see people praying. You see women in third world countries carrying jars of water on their heads.

What I find to be really interesting about Life in a Day is that it is a film that cannot be remade. When you're filming something in a studio, you can re-shoot a scene if you don't like how it turns out. Just shout out, "Cut!" and then roll it again. And when you do this, the different takes look really similar. It's basically the same thing: the same words are spoken, the same camera angles are used, the same facial expressions are made. But with this documentary, that's not how it works, because it shows life as it happens on a specific day, and it's a day that will never be repeated.

Last month, a lot of people made a big hoopla about November 11th, because the date was 11/11/11, and that won't happen again for another hundred years. And that is pretty cool, I guess. Maybe when the clock struck 11:11, you made your ultimate wish. I hope it came true for you, I really do. But the truth is that every single day is a day that will never happen again. Today is the only day it will be December 20th, 2011. Ever. And once today is over, it's gone forever. It can't be recaptured. And all of the events throughout the world that took place today will never occur in the same combination ever again. Every day is a period that is here for a while and then gone.

I feel bad for people who talk to me on a regular basis, because it seems like whenever someone asks me, "So how was your day today?", I answer, "Oh, you know. Just a regular day. Same old, same old." That's how days can feel, I suppose. Especially when you work a job that is pretty repetitive, for all you fellow cashiers or bricklayers. But when you really think about it, there is really no such thing as a "just a regular day," because each day is a little different. No day in your life has been an exact carbon-copy of another day. Each day is filled with new conversations, new thoughts, new experiences, even if they seem like insignificant ones. Each day is entirely new and different.

Not only that, but every day holds the potential of being something remarkable for you. For many people, today was the very first day of their lives. And for many others, today was their last. Today someone got the job promotion he has been working hard to achieve. Today some kid learned to ride a bike. Today some guy got down on a knee and proposed to the love of his life. And today, some other guy totally blew it with the love of his life.

I often have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. For one thing, it's just so dang warm under my blankets! But for another, I can think, "Well, time to start another routine day." And maybe you think the same thing. But honestly, today might be anything but routine. Today could be the best day of your life. It could be the day you hear back about a job that you applied for weeks ago. It could be the day you happen to bump into your old bank teller at Barnes & Noble. It could be the day you discover a new favorite band or watch the greatest movie ever made. It could be the day you meet your best friend. And it could be the day God puts the final period on the story of the world and drops the curtain on the whole thing. Every sunrise sheds light on a new world of possibilities.

And that makes every day a little more exciting, I think.

Symptoms of a Disorganized Life

2011-12-13T20:45:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've written anything. You might have thought that I finally ran out of things to write about. That may very well be true. But fear not, because even that won't put the brakes on this train. The reason I haven't been writing is that I have been BUSY! Today was my last day of the semester, but that meant that the last few weeks have been full of studying and researching and paper-writing. Plus, I've learned that December can be a pretty busy month for Walmart cashiers, so when I haven't been doing work for school, I've been getting into fisticuffs with crazed holiday shoppers. Unfortunately, the one who has lost in all of this mess is you, O Faithful Reader. Or maybe you consider it winning. In that case, congratulations, and I'm sorry to rain on your parade.

A while back I read a book called Ordering Your Private World, written by Gordon MacDonald. It's a pretty good book, and I would recommend it. In one part of the book, MacDonald is writing about how we can better manage our time, and he provides a list of "symptoms of disorganization." As I said, I have been pretty busy lately, and when I look at this list, I realize that just about every symptom applies to me. So, I thought that I would share them with you. I won't really tell you how to fix any of these situations. If you want to know about that, I guess you'll have to go buy the book. Anyways, here's what MacDonald identifies as symptoms of a disorganized life:

A cluttered living and working area
When life becomes disorganized, it shows up in certain areas of one's environment--a desk, the top of a dresser, etc. MacDonald writes, "In fact almost every horizontal surface in the path of my daily travel becomes littered with papers, memos to which I have not responded, and bits of tasks that are unfinished." As I sit here in the chair in my apartment, I can look around and see the clutter around me. The coffee table in front of me is filled with loose papers, junk mail, and not one, but two empty Chick-fil-A cups. If I look to my left, I see more papers, old receipts, and some empty wrappers from Little Debbie oatmeal cakes. Now, I could get up and clean off these areas. It would take about 28 seconds. But I keep leaving it, saying, "I'll clean up later."

A dirty car
This one might sounds pretty petty, but I think it's accurate. When one is living an organized life, the condition of his car might suffer. It goes unwashed, the backseat becomes filled with drive-thru bags and old church bulletins. You keep driving well past when you should have gotten an oil change, saying that you'll do it next week. I once heard a senior minister at a megachurch say that, whenever his church is considering hiring a new staff member, he wants to first ride in their car so that he can see the condition of the interior, because a messy car implies a messy life.

Diminution of self-esteem
I'll just quote MacDonald here: "I feel the slightest tinge of paranoia, a low-level fear that people are going to discover they are not getting their money's worth out of my labor, that they are going to come to the conclusion that I am not half the man they thought I was." I can relate to this much of the time. I don't alwas feel like I am the person I could be, but maturing and developing just sounds like so much work. That can wait till another day.

Missed appointments and deadlines, and messages that have not be replied to
When life is disorganized, you think you're coasting along alright until you think, "Holy crap! I was supposed to be at so-and-so place to meet with so-and-so person to talk about so-and-so half an hour ago!" Or, you continually fail to respond to emails, voicemails, or facebook pokes. I'm really bad about this, actually. Almost every time I get a message that I need to respond to, I put it off till later, really for no reason.

Investing energies in unproductive tasks
An unorganized person has trouble focusing on priorities. Instead, they spend time doing what's easiest. Instead of studying for a test, it's easier to sync your iPod. Instead of writing a sermon for Sunday, why not doodle on a notepad? Of course, this only leads to further lack of organization, as you get further and further behind what needs to be done because you've used your time on things that aren't really that important.

Feeling poorly about one's work
We all want to churn out quality production. The problem is that many of us have a difficult time feeling like we've done so. For example, I don't think this is my best blog post. Heck, I didn't even come up with the main ideas. A disorganized person recognizes that they haven't turned in their best work. This is related to the previous point. Because you might spend your available time in meaningless distractions, you don't spend the time required to bring quality to what you do.

A lack of intimacy with God
Disorganization doesn't only affect one's work. It can have a negative impact on one's relationship with God. When life is disorganized, it becomes difficult to work in time in Bible study and prayer. You might neglect involvement in church life. After all, how can you give yourself to such things when there is a stack of memos on your desk and a ever-growing to-do list in your mind?

A lowered quality in relationships
The relationship with God isn't the only one that suffers in a disorganized life. In such a state, it's common to spend less time with your spouse, kids, friends, siblings, etc. There's just no time for relationships. But the thing is, relationships require time. They can't grow without it. They stall out, or, even worse, are weakened. Conversations become shallow, and you might become irratible around others because you feel that they are intruding on your busyness and hustle.

Maybe some of those symptoms describe how your life is looking right now. As I said, just about all of them show up in mine. If so, it would be a good idea to deal with the issue--to budget time, create a list of priorities, and stop procrastinating.

Speaking of procrastinating, I have yet to buy any Christmas presents for my family. My family is difficult to buy for, and I'm not sure what to get. So I thought, "Why not get some input from my best friends--the people who read my blog?" So, digital world, what idea do ya got for me?

You Were Right, Dietrich

2011-12-02T18:02:00.001-08:00

I feel like I need to offer a disclaimer at the beginning of this post. If I have to do that, I suppose it means I shouldn't write it at all. But I'll keep going. What I want to say, though, is that this post can easily be read as though I'm throwing some sort of pity party. I don't mean to do that here (though I'm not above doing it on other occasions). I do believe, however, that we can learn lessons from the different stages of life, and we can learn from one another, so those experiences are worth sharing.

It's been four months since I moved into an apartment by myself. For the five years before that, I had lived in a dorm on a floor with 20 other guys. And for the 18 years before that, I lived with my family. So having my own place has been a pretty big shift. Whereas I used to sleep ten feet away from a roommate, I now have a whole 500 square feet space to myself. And while I used to sit in my colleges dining hall at a long table filled with my classmates, now I usually by myself at a little table or on the couch. And after a few months of this, here's the conclusion I've reaches: Living by yourself is kind of a drag.

As people, we need one another. It's imperative to have contact with one another, and to have it regularly, not just once a week at church or in class. We don't do so well in life when we try to navigate it solo, and this truth has been more evident to me over the last few months.

There are a lot of reasons that we need others. For one thing, other people keep us mentally sharp. In some ways, this is different from things I have said before on this blog. I have written before about how important it is to read widely because this enhances our thinking and makes us deeper people. We have a lot to learn from those who have gone before us and written down their insights, or from our contemporaries who see things differently than we do, or from twenty-somethings who write blog posts on their couch while watching football and drinking off-brand soda.

But that's not enough. Even if you sit and read all day long, your mind will get dull if it's all done in isolation. We become deeper not just by the ideas and information that we take in, but also through our interactions with each other. Since living by myself, I have done a lot of reading about ministry and theology. But I haven't talked with others about ministry and theology very much--at least not as much as I did when I was in undergrad. And having those conversations was important in my own development. We need challenge each other, to discuss together, and to question each other. This makes us more complete individuals. It makes us more reflective thinkers and more engaging communicators.

Not only that, but as we become duller in isolation from one another, it becomes even harder to meaninfully connect with others. Our ability to relate with others is like a muscle that needs to be worked out or else it atrophies. In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes:

When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body. (152)

Another reason that we need each other is that a lack of community magnifies life's other problems. All of us deal with situations that we are difficult. I don't know of anyone who never has any worries or stresses. But we are able to deal with such things most effectively when we are living in community with others. For example, there were times in college when I was going through some crap--the stress of classes, uncertainties about my future plans, girls shooting me down. But at the end of the day, I would be sitting in a booth at Taco Bell with my friends, and all of a sudden all of these problems didn't seem so bad. On the other hand, if you're not experiencing that same sense of belonging, then your lousy job seems lousier, your lack of money seems more lacking, and the football player who's dating the girl you like seems even bigger.

I've come to believe that human beings weren't meant to live alone. We're designed to be together. And by that, I don't even just mean to do life together in the sense of being in a small group or meeting a friend for lunch every once in a while, though I do think those things are important. But when I say that we're meant to live together, I mean it in a literal way. I don't think it's good for a person to be the only one in a place of habitation. We are born into families--a natural set of housemates. And for the rest of our lives, it's good to be under a roof together, because that's where the benefits of community can happen on a daily basis. After all, no one wants to grow up to be a lonely cat lady.

In that same chapter of Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller goes on to write:

Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together. Loneliness is something that came with the fall.

If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live. (173)

What other benefits of communal life are there that I didn't mention? What do we gain from doing life together?

Sweet Spot

2011-11-29T19:47:00.001-08:00

I suppose I should start this post by first of all making it known that this idea I'm presenting is not one that is original with me. I heard it in a presentation that someone gave at school a few weeks ago, and he heard it from a guy in his church, and that guy read it from a book, I think. But, if that many people keep passing it on, then it must be a good idea. Maybe you too will share it, and you can say, "I heard this from a blog, but the same guy also wrote that he only wants to date a girl who lives in a barbecue restaurant, and that's just ridiculous. Maybe he's not really worth listening to."

Anyways, the speaker at this presentation was talking about how we can most effectively utilize the time that we have--about what projects, duties, or responsibilities we should give the most attention to. He talked about finding your "sweet spot," which is where your proficiency, passion, and purpose all come together. You can think about it as a venn diagram. The sweet spot is where the three circles come together, and this is where you want to spend most of your time. You want to dedicate yourself to the things that you're good at, you have a passion for, and that help fulfill your purpose.

There might be something that fits your purpose, but that you honestly aren't very good at. It's probably best to delegate that to someone else for whom that task fall into their sweet spot. Or, there could be something that you're good at, but you just couldn't care less about. Again, that's something that someone else might love to do and could do better than you.

This "sweet spot" principle can go a long way in shaping how we spend our time in ministry, in jobs, or just in life in general. It might be helpful to look at all of the different activities you do throughout the day and see where they fall on this chart. Of course, sometimes we all have to do things that don't fall in our sweet spots, but hopefully the bulk of our doings are there. But you may find that most of the things you do are somewhere else on the chart. If that's the case, you might need to do some reevaluation, delegate some responsibilities, and see if there is a way to adjust what is expected of you.

So are you good at baking cookies? Do you enjoy baking cookies? Do you feel like it's your purpose to be a kind and generous person? Then bake some cookies and send them to me! Thanks, you're a peach. I'll be looking in the mail for them.

How to Shop

2011-11-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you don't understand all of the dynamics that make up a situation until you are on the other side of it. For example, sees things that happen at a school that a student doesn't. You might spend twelve years in school as a student, but if you become a teacher, you become aware of things that you were completely oblivious to before.

For the last couple months, I have been working as a cashier at a major retailer. Now, we all have plenty of experience as customers. You've gone to the store to do a little shopping, and you've watched the cashier scan your items and put them in plastic bags, and you've handed over your money and received your change. But when you're on the other side of your transaction, you begin to see all sorts of things that you never saw before, and many of them are negative. And so, in the spirit of Black Friday, I'd like to give you a few tips that can help you be a courteous and responsible shopper:

Make sure you have money to buy what you pick up
I think this is a no-brainer, but apparently not everyone else does. You can't buy things if you can't pay for them. Now, I understand if you might be cutting it close with what funds you have available to you, so you might grab and item or two that you'll have to wait on for another time. But it amazes me when customers come up to my register with a large order and say something like, "Let me know when my total gets to $30," and that total is reached only halfway through their cart, so then they say they don't want anything else. This is especially problematic when the unwanted merchandise includes cold food such as meat or milk. If a customer brings a package of hamburger up to the register and then says they don't want it, we can't put it back on the floor for purchase because of health concerns, and that meat is just thrown away. So when you're shopping, make sure you can pay for what you grab.

If you do change your mind about buying something, put it back or give it to an employee
When I worked at a library, there were signs all over the place tells our visitors not to try to reshelve books that they had pulled off the shelf. Why? Because the Dewey Decimal System can be a little complicated for some people, and it's important to make sure things get put back in the same place. In a store, many people don't care at all if things are where they're supposed to be, so you see all kinds of items in random places. Just in my check-out line, I always find cans of green beans, packets of underwear, or spiral notebooks. Once I found an entire set of pajamas jammed up where the gum is. That's not where pajamas go. They go in the pajama section. So take them there, or give them to someone who can.

Put a hold on your family drama until you get outside
Families quarrel from time to time. All of us have gotten into arguments with family members. You've probably even shouted once or twice. But please, when you're standing at the register buying your products, establish a momentary truce until you leave the store. You might not think it's that big of a deal to cuss at your significant other or to yell at your kids how then need a whoopin', but when you do it while the cashier is trying to bag your merchandise, it's awkward as heck for that person.

Don't eat what isn't yours
This one really isn't that big of a deal. I think it's kind of funny actually, because it's just not how I've grown up operating. But sometimes, when I'm ringing up someone's merchandise, an empty bag of chips or candy will come along my conveyor belt, and the customer will say, "Oh yeah...I ate that." What?! Here's the thing: you don't own anything in the store until you pay for it. Up until that point, it belongs to the store. So don't eat it. If you're really hungry, take it to the front and buy it. Otherwise, it's like going into a strangers house and rummaging through their cupboards for Little Debbie cakes.

When the cashier hits on you, just go with it
You wouldn't believe how many times I've winked at a pretty customer and tried to get her number, but she just totally shoots me down. No sense of common courtesy.

Don't expect every employee to be an expert on every product
Now, in a lot of stores, you should expect that the people working there have some knowledge about the things they sell. Especially in a smaller, specialty store. However, I work in a store that sells just about everything, and it would be absurd for me to know everything there is to know about all of the items in our store. And yet, this is what people often expect. It's okay to ask, but don't get frustrated if the person you ask isn't really able to help. I don't know which kinds of chewing gum are safe for dentures. I don't know of that pan will be big enough for the turkey you bought.

Have you ever worked retail? Do you ever see any other behaviors that customers do that can be obnoxious?

Laodicea: The Lukewarm Church

2011-11-22T17:18:00.001-08:00

Over the past several weeks, I've been writing about the letters Jesus dictates to John for the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2-3. If you've reading these posts, I hope that you've been able to relate in some way to the messages that Jesus is giving to these churches. There are a lot of good things about these churches, and hopefully those qualities are present in our churches as well. But there are also a lot of areas in the believers' lives that need correction, and I would bet that many of us need the same words of warning and challenge. This might be especially true in the seventh and last letter, and probably the most well-known, the letter to the church at Laodicea. Here's what it says in Revelation 3:13-22:

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing." But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

There are a lot of tough words in this passage. Jesus isn't being overly delicate here. In my posts on the letters to Smyrna and Philadelphia, I pointed out that those letters are unique in that they are the only ones where Jesus gives no rebuke. Well, Laodicea is unique in the opposite way. Jesus gives no commendation. He doesn't say, "Here's the good things you've done, but here's some ways you need to do better." He just says, "I know your deeds," and it's pretty much downhill from there.

So what are these deeds that Jesus reprimands the Laodiceans about? He says that they are lukewarm. I remember when I first read this passage when I was younger, I thought this just meant that the Laodiceans were sort of committed to God, but not all the way. To be "hot water" would be good (like being "on fire" for Jesus), and being "cold water" meant you had a pentagram tattooed on your forehead and could quote passages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra from memory. But now I don't think that's what the image of lukewarm water is getting at, because the truth is that both hot water and cold water are useful. You can use hot water to bathe in or to cook, and you can use cold water to drink or to play in the sprinkler in your front yard. But lukewarm, tepid water...it's not really good for much of anything. It's useless. And that's what Jesus is getting at, I think. He's not saying, "I would rather you be a Satanist that be lukewarm." But he does blast the Laodicean church for having become useless to the kingdom. And what's the threat if this situation remains the same? Jesus says he would spit them out of his mouth. Literally, the word means to vomit. There's not really anything in the world I hate more than vomiting, and I imagine it would be even worse to be the vomit. But that's what Jesus says would happen with the Laodiceans if they don't repent.

But why had the Laodicean church become useless? The rest of the letter explains. They depended on their own wealth and security and failed to recognize their need for God. That's the thing about Laodicea: the city was absolutely loaded. In A.D. 60, an earthquake had destroyed the city of Laodicea. When the Roman government showed up and offered to help with the rebuilding, the Laodiceans said, "Thanks, but no thanks. We can handle it." Can you imagine a city today doing that--turning down governmental aide after a natural disaster because they are wealthy enough to rebuild on their own? The Laodiceans had a lot money. They had enough to navigate life pretty well on their own. The problem with the church however, was that this security found in riches caused them to also tell God, "Thanks, but we've got this."

The believers in Laodicea were deceiving themselves, though. The truth was that they weren't alright. They thought their bank accounts gave them security, but Jesus strips away their inadequate veneers are reveals their true state. They are "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked." They thought that because of their wealth, they were spiritually self-sufficient, but in reality they are a total wreck. And instead of trusting in their gold, clothing, and eye salve (three products that Laodicea was known for), they needed what only God could give them.

There aren't many passages of the Bible that are more relevant to the American church than Revelation 3:14-22. A lot of people shy away from the book of Revelation because they think it's all these crazy visions that no one can understand, so it doesn't matter anyway. But Revelation was written to seven churches in Asia in order to guide them as they followed Christ in the world, and those seven churches dealt with a lot of the same things we do today. Laodicea was rich. They depended on wealth instead of on God because, well, it seemed like they could get by doing that. And that same temptation exists in our own culture today. We are the richest nation in the history of the world. We can provide for ourselves the things that we need. And if there's some kind of emergency, we've got savings accounts and insurance policies and contingency plans to bail us out. With so many resources at our fingertips, we might in effect say to God, "Thanks God, but we can handle things here. We've got it taken care of."

In a lecture on this passage, my old Revelation professor Shane Wood asks, "If the Holy Spirit left your life, would your life change? If the Holy Spirit left your church, would your church change?" Do we really rely on God? Our wealth can make that difficult. That's the thing about being poor. A poor person recognizes their dependence. He understands that he needs something that he is unable to provide for himself. And that might be why Jesus said the poor are blessed (Lk. 6:20), and James says that the poor are actually in a high position while the rich are in a low position (Jas. 1:9-10). If we are going to be the disciples and the church that Christ calls us to be, we need more than anything to recognize that we can't go anywhere without him.

I think Jesus is trying to get our attention. He's pounding on the door, trying to rouse us from our comfort and lethargy. When we talk about Jesus knocking at the door, we tend to think of it in evangelistic contexts, and we tell unbelievers that God is knocking on their heart, so they need to let him in. But it's interesting that in the context of Romans 3, this image is spoken to the church! Jesus wants in the church! And far too often, we leave him out on the front step. It's time we bring him in for dinner.

Speaking of dinner, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week and that you get to spend it with family and friends. And if you plan on going shopping on Black Friday, please be kind to your cashier. If you're a guy, give him a high five. If your a lady, give him your number and a wink. He could use it.

Philadelphia: The Resilient Church

2011-11-19T18:23:00.001-08:00

This is what Jesus says in the sixth letter of Revelation, this one in Revelation 3:7-13:

To the angel of the church of Philadelphia write: These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars--I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.

I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

I feel like I really don't have a whole lot to say about the letter to Philadelphia. Not because it's not a wonderful and beautiful letter. But it's actually pretty similar to the letter to Smyrna, which I wrote about just a few weeks ago. The letters to Smyrna and Philadelphia stand out among these seven letters to the Asian churches because they are the only ones that are completely positive. In the other five, Jesus reprimands the churches for some area of failing, but all he does is commend Smyrna and Philadelphia.

And why is Philadelphia commended? Because they've been holding on in the midst of adverse circumstances. They've been feeling the pressure of persecution. Those who belong to the "synagogue of Satan"--possibly Jews who have been stirring up trouble for the church among the Roman leaders--are trying to snuff the church out. But in spite of this, the believers have held on. They're resilient. They don't cave in to the threats and abuse that are poured out on them.

Why was the church at Philadelphia able to endure in this kind of situation? Why did the not crack in the shadow of persecution, while we might remain quiet about Christ for fear of what our co-workers might think of us? I think that the Philadelphians had laid hold of the hope that exists in the Christian life. In times of tribulation, that's often the only thing that can get us through--a knowledge and trust that things will change. When I'm in the trenches of the day as a cashier at Wal-mart, I can get through it because I know that at the end of the day, I'll be able to go home and eat a frozen pizza. And in a much more real way, the church won't be trampled on forever, because Jesus will come back, and his church will be vindicated.

That's the promise that Jesus makes to the church at Philadelphia. In verse 11: "I am coming soon." Those had to be such comforting words to the Philadelphians. They are reassured that they haven't been forgotten or abandoned by Christ. He's on his way. And he promises us too that he will come. So what does the church do in the meantime? "Hold on to what you have." We grip to the hope we have in Christ. We don't let it go for anything. That hope is like a rock-climber's rope.

A hope rope.

Hey, that rhymes!

Sorry about that. Anyways, that hope is like a rock-climber's rope. So we hold on to it for dear life. Because without the hope of Christ's return and the consummation of his kingdom, there isn't really anything to keep the church from falling off the cliff into despair.

Thankfully, our hope isn't one of those wishy-washy hopes that we usually have, sort of how I hope Katie the bank teller is sitting in the Cincinnati Chick-fil-A the next time I go there. No, our hope in Christ is sure, because he's the one with the "key of David" (v. 7) This is reference back to the description of Jesus in Revelation 1, where it is said that he holds the keys to death because he was dead but now is alive (1:18).

And it don't get more real than that.

Sardis: The Sleeping Church

2011-11-15T18:08:00.001-08:00

I'm not much of a morning person. I really like to sleep. When I was a kid, my family was staying at a motel during a road trip, and in the middle of the night the smoke alarm in our room malfunctioned and went off. I didn't even wake up. Even just today, my alarm went off at 8:00, and I proceeded to turn it off and stay in bed for another hour. Especially as it's getting colder, it's tough to get out from under my nice warm blanket and get on my feet. That's inertia, right? An object at rest stays at rest. And when I'm at rest, I'm not apt to get in motion.

That's what was happening in one of the churches in the first century, but their spiritual laziness was a real danger. Here's what Jesus says in the fifth letter of Revelation, in Revelation 3:1-6:

To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have no soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

The church at Sardis looked pretty good on the outside. But Jesus knows their true state. They're asleep at the wheel. Even worse, he says that even though they look like they're alive, they're really dead. They might have the outer fixings, but they are internally weak.

An interesting bit of historical background is that, in Sardis' history as a city, there were a couple of times when the situation Jesus talks about literally came into play. Sardis was an exceptionally fortified city. It should have been nearly impossible to overtake militarily. And yet, not once, but twice, the city was overtaken because the guards were sleeping on the job. The city's enemies (Cyrus in the 6th century B.C. and Antiochus III in the third century B.C.) would send someone to climb up the city's walls and open the door to let the army in. The city was also captured on another occasion by Alexander the Great simply because they were afraid to face Alexander, even though they had what should have been an impenetrable fortress. So in a very literal way, Sardis had gotten into major trouble because they had been asleep, even though they looked strong on the outside.

The church in Sardis is spiritually asleep. But what is it about them that is evidence of this slumber? I think the answer is in verse 2: "I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God." The church as Sardis had only gone halfway. They perhaps had made some promises about how they would follow Christ, but they just didn't make it to the finish line. They were like the hare from the fable--fast out of the gates but settling down for a nap part way through the race. So what does Jesus say to them? Wake up! Get out of bed! Finish what you started!

If I can be honest, I feel like I relate more with the letter to Sardis than any of the other letters in Revelation 2-3. I'm a chronic non-finisher. I like to start projects and give them up after a while. About a month ago, I wrote a blog post about making goals to be the person you want to be, and when I made my own list, I included things like "Do the dishes every night" and "Clean my apartment every weekend" and several other simple practices that I wanted to get into the habit of doing. A few days ago I looked back at my list and realized that I kept up with only a few of my goals.

Those are small things. It becomes a bigger problem when that tendency affects our life in Christ. We dedicate ourselves to a certain task. We say that we'll set aside time every day to spend in Bible study and prayer. We promise to invite that coworker to church. We vow to get into an accountable relationship so that we can rid ourselves of a sin that keeps dogging us. But not long after, these tasks that we had undertaken remain undone. Our deeds are complete. And even though we might look pretty good on the outside ("That guy goes to church every Sunday. He must be a thriving Christian"), we've flatlined on the inside.

I think that Jesus would give many of us the same instruction that Paul gives to Archippus in Colossians 4:17: "See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord." I don't know what it was that Archippus was supposed to bring to completion, and I don't know what it is for you. I only know that, as Christians, we can never say that we have arrived. At least not until the day when Jesus returns and takes us home. We are always growing and maturing. God always has more work for us to do. I have heard it said that a Christian who is not growing is dead. There is no coasting in the Christian life. Or, as Craig Groeschel puts it, "If you're not dead, you're not done" (The Christian Atheist, pg. 137).

Here's an unrelated sidenote: At my church this last week, we had the chance to be visited by Mary Kamau, a Kenyan who directs a mission called Hope Missions International. Hope Missions reaches out to one of the slums in the Kenyan capital city of Nairobi. It was really cool to be able to listen to Mary and hear about the incredible work that is being done in one of the most destitute places on the planet. Hope Missions is one of the most holistic missions I have heard of. It's involved in church planting, business training, micro-loans, education, AIDS awareness, community development, and several other works. It's meeting individual spiritual needs, individual physical needs, and community needs. It was such an encouragement to hear how God is blessing this mission, which started just over ten years ago with a school for less than 50 children and now includes eleven schools with over 3000 children, plus all of the other programs. Anyways, I would encourage you to check out the mission's website at www.hopemissionsintl.org and to keep their work in your thoughts and prayers.

Thyatira: The Compromising Church

2011-11-12T20:37:00.001-08:00

To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.

Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will striker he children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): Only hold on to what you have until I come.

To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations--"He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like potter"--just as I have received authority from my Father. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. (Rev. 2:18-29)

Jesus has a lot to say to the church in Thyatira. And honestly, a lot of it sounds pretty scary. He's pretty fired up about some of the things that are going on in Thyatira. He commends them for their love and faith. They're not doing everything wrong by any means. But there are some ways in which they aren't living up to what Christ has called them to be. Namely, they're compromising with the culture around them.

An important background fact about Thyatira is that trade guilds played a special role in that city. Basically, a trade guild was an organization of workers in a specific trade, kind of like a union today. The commercial life of Thyatira was built on these trade guilds. If you weren't part of the guild, it was hard, if not impossible, to make a living.
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This presented a problem for the Christians in Thyatira. As with most things in the ancient Roman world, the trade guilds were intertwined with idol worship. The guilds paid homage to certain patron gods. Thus, to be part of the guild, you had to go along with the idolatry, including its sex-charged worship through temple prostitution. (It's a good thing that unions today just make you sign a piece of paper and pay dues.)

It seems like the church in Thyatira was compromising with the everyday reality of idolatry around them. They were being influenced by "Jezebel"--a reference to perhaps the most despicable figure from the Old Testament. Jezebel was the queen of Israel and the wife of Ahab. Her claim to fame was in propagating the spread of idolatry throughout the kingdom, which eventually led to its annihilation at the hands of the Assyrians. And in this letter, the Christians in Thyatira are being tempted to compromise and be drawn away after idolatry and sexual immorality, just as the Israelites had been drawn away after Jezebel and her gods. To do otherwise was financial and social suicide. Surely God wouldn't blame them for caving in a little, right?

But God's reaction to such compromise isn't very cheerful reading. There's talk of a bed of suffering, intense suffering, and children struck dead. Not the kind of things that you would put on a banner and hang up in your church's sanctuary.

In his book Revelation's Rhapsody, Robert Lowery writes that in Revelation, we can see two dangers that the Asian churches faced. Two ways that Satan tried to get them to stumble. The first is persecution, which is a common theme throughout the book. We've already looked at that in the letter to Smyrna. But Satan's other tactic, and probably the more dangerous one, is cultural seduction. He wants to get the churches to conform to the world around them. That's what we see happening in Thyatira, and that's probably the more relevant threat to the American church today.

Christians should look different from the rest of the world. There's is a lot of talk in the church today about how we can be more relevant. And that's an important talk to have. We need creative and engaging ways to relate to the world around us. We shouldn't be afraid to change methods and styles so that our message can be heard. But let's not let go of holiness. Relevance doesn't mean we conform to sinful culture. If we don't that, we become the opposite of what we want to become. We become irrelevant because there is no longer anything that distinguishes us from anyone else. To the world, a message that doesn't change us isn't really worth listening to.

The call of Jesus in this letter is the same as we find in several of the others letters in Revelation 2-3: Repent. Turn around. Stop compromising. In Revelation 1:6, we are called a "kingdom and priests"--a description that God had used before of the nation of Israel (Exod. 19:6). As the church, we are God's holy people. We don't look like everyone else. We're aliens and sojourners. So let's dedicate ourselves to the holy lives we've been called to.

Pergamum: The Tolerant Church

2011-11-06T20:25:00.000-08:00

Don't you hate it when you get a song that you don't even like stuck in your head? Maybe it comes on the radio while you're driving to work, and then you find yourself humming Ke$ha to yourself the rest of the afternoon. You kick yourself the rest of the day, thinking, "Jiminy, why didn't I just turn off the radio once it came on? Tik Tok. Why did I let myself listen to it for a whole three minutes. But the party don't stop."

In the third letter of Revelation 2-3--this time to the church at Pergamum--Jesus points out that they were allowing themselves to listen to some of the wrong people, and there is great danger in that. Here's what Jesus says in Revelation 2:12-17:

To the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword. I know where you live--where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city--where Satan lives.

Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin by eating food sacrificed to idols and by committing sexual immorality. Likewise you also have those who hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Repent therefore! Otherwise, I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.

The letter starts out with a commendation for those in the church at Pergamum: They've remained faithful under pressure. They live in a city that is opposed to Christ. It's a city where "Satan has his throne" (a possible reference to an altar to the Greek god Zeus that stood on top of the mountain in Pergamum). The pressure on the church was so great, in fact, that one of its members, Antipas, has lost his life. But in spite of all of this, the believers in Pergamum stood pat and didn't retreat from Christ.

But the church there is also playing with fire. They've been tolerating some dangerous voices within the church. There are some who "hold to the teaching of Balaam" (cf. Num. 22-25). The also permit the Nicolaitans into their midst. We don't know much about what the Nicolaitans taught, but it seems like they advocated antinomianism (no law), claiming that freedom in Christ might freedom to engage in whatever sin one chooses.

Basically, the church at Pergamum had become tolerant.

I hesitate to use the word "tolerant" because it's such an common one in our day and age. I read somewhere that tolerance has become perhaps the most important "virtue" in contemporary culture. We are told over and over again to be tolerant of others, and to be labeled "intolerant" is a major slam. It can seem like the message of our culture today is that no one is really wrong, only different. So every belief, characteristic, or lifestyle must be accepted and celebrated.

Of course, such unqualified open-mindedness doesn't mesh well with Christian truth. As a result, some Christians glory in their intolerance. It's almost as if they are boasting in intolerance, in effect shouting, "Yeah, I think you're wrong. I'm intolerant. So bite me."

That may not be the best approach. As Christians, we should hold unswervingly to the the truth of God's word, but we still need to approach issues with grace and love. Otherwise, we come off like jerks.

All of that is a diversion, however. The point is that the church at Pergamum had become tolerant of some teachers in their midst who were espousing falsehood. And instead of correcting this errant teaching, the church was letting it slide. They weren't standing up for truth. They were taking a "live and let live" attitude. What they needed to do was to draw a line in the sand and firmly say, "This is unacceptable teaching." But instead, they kept listening to things that weren't good for them.

Tik Tok.

I think the letter to Pergumum is an important warning even to us today. It warns us about being careful who we listen to. We can tend to tolerate people who spout out all sorts of ideas that are contrary to Christ, whether they are friends, authors, radio personalities, politicians, professors, or whoever. And while being open to all new ideas and seeking greater general understanding is important, there comes a point when we need to say, "Enough is enough." Because not every idea is a good idea, and not every teaching is worth listening to. Tolerance of such garbage only gets it stuck in your head, and things stuck in your head start to work their way into your actions.

But the party don't stop.

Crap. Now it really is stuck in my head.

Smyrna: The Tested Church

2011-10-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

This is the second post I'm writing in a series about the letters to the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2-3. Last week we looked at the letter to the church at Ephesus, and today it's on to the church in Smyrna. Here's what Jesus says in Revelation 2:8-11:

To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. I know your afflictions and your poverty--yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

The letter to the church at Smyrna is an interesting one. In most of the letters, there is some kind of warning given in which Jesus tells the church to repent and change in some way. But in two of the letters--Smyrna and Philadelphia--there is no such warning. In this letter, Jesus doesn't say "I know your deeds" and then go on to explain how the church isn't living up to what it should be. Instead, he says, "I know your afflictions."

Smyrna was a church under pressure. They were suffering. They were persecuted. They were afflicted. They were following Christ, and Satan was coming at them because of it. They were slandered by others in the community and even faced the prospect of death because of their faith. And yet, in spite of this, they had continued to hang in there. They endured.

But Jesus knew what they were experiencing. He says, "I know your afflictions." I think there may be a couple different layers to this. Of course Jesus had knowledge that the church at Smyrna was suffering. But he knew their affliction in a deeper way. He knew it because he too had experienced it. He too was slandered and accused and beaten. He was even killed in the most gruesome terms. Jesus hasn't asked his church to go where he hasn't already blazed a trail. He knows the church's suffering because he has suffered and is present with us in our suffering. And that's a comfort truth, I think.

Another comforting truth is that there is something else on the other side of suffering. The church's afflictions aren't the end of the story. The beginning of this letter identifies Jesus as the one who had died and come back to life. The cross wasn't the end of Jesus' story because he bust out of the tomb three days later. And suffering isn't the church's end because there is a crown of life waiting on the other side. In verse 10, Jesus said that the Smyrnans (?) would suffer for ten days. This is a symbolic number drawn from Daniel 1, where Daniel and his three friends, while captive in Babylon, are tested for ten days of eating only vegetables. The meaning? Ten stands for a period of testing that has a limit. The testing doesn't go on forever. And just as Daniel went through ten days of testing to come out successfully on the other side, the church at Smyrna would go through persecution for a time to burst out in glory on the other side.

It's really difficult for me to draw very good applications from this passage for the contemporary American church. The church at Smyrna experienced some serious persecution and suffering for their faith. Their lives were literally at stake. It seems a little presumptuous for me to compare my own conditions to theirs. American churches are facing the same situations that they were.

But nevertheless, even American believers do suffer. It might look different than it did two thousand years ago. But being a follower of Jesus always comes with a cost. It might be vocational, relational, or financial. A person's reputation might be spoiled because of a decision for Christ. It might mean leaving behind a life of comfort and ease for something less cozy. When we face these kinds of circumstances, what comfort can we draw from the letter to Smyrna?

Jesus knows our affliction. He's right there with us. And he's been there before. He can guide us through it because he knows the way. He can strengthen us with the same power that brought him back from the dead (Eph. 1:18-20). We can get through the crap of life because God gives us a vision of what's waiting for us.

And everyone looks better in a crown.

Ephesus: The Orthodox Church

2011-10-25T19:47:00.000-07:00

I've decided to try a little experiment. For the next few weeks, I will be writing a specific series of posts on the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. I've done series of posts before, but never one that will take this long. But these seven letters in Revelation are really interesting I think, and they're definitely worth taking a good look at. So for a little while, I'll be looking at each letter at a time, trying to see how our churches, or even our personal lives, might look a lot like these ancient churches, and also trying to see how these letters challenge, encourage, and guide us in our own lives and faiths.

One other note: a lot of my thoughts on Revelation are due to the Revelation class I took under Shane Wood at Ozark.

The first letter that Jesus gives through the apostle John is to the church at Ephesus. Here's what it says in Revelation 2:1-7:

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands: I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. But you have this in your favor: You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

As in several (but not all) of the letters in Revelation 2-3, this one starts with a commendation. The Ephesians are commended for their perseverance and hard work. They are careful to test those who might be false teachers. They guard their doctrine closely. It seems like the leaders there had taken seriously Paul's warning to shepherd the church and be on guard against "savage wolves" (Acts 20:25-31). The Ephesians staunchly defend the faith against those who seek to distort it, including the Nicolaitans that are mentioned in the letter.

But not everything in Ephesus is as it should be. They are criticized for having forsaken their first love. It's not entirely clear what this means, but it's likely that it includes both love for God and love for others--two loves that go hand in hand anyway (1 Jn. 4:19-21). After all, this is at the center of Christian ethics. Jesus himself the injunctions to love God and love your neighbors as the two most important commandments. And the Ephesians had forgotten that. They were doing great on maintaining the truth of their faith, but they had forgotten to practice love. And without love, the good things we do really aren't that helpful (1 Cor. 13).

So what can we learn from the letter to the Ephesians?

You can have all your doctrinal ducks in a row and still be missing the big picture.

The Ephesians had their doctrine down. They were orthodox. But they were missing love. And there's still churches like that today--who do an awesome job of defending sound theology and doctrine but who do it with a hardened heart. And maybe we do that as individual Christians. I think that Bible college or seminary students are especially susceptible to this. You begin your academic career filled with a passion for God, for his Word, and for serving the world. But after a few years of study, you've forgotten your "first love," even though you dedicate great energy to writing sound doctrinal sermons or critiquing the latest theological fad.

Jesus' word to the Ephesians, and maybe to us as well, is to recapture the love. This doesn't mean that we abandon sound doctrine. No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. But we may need to take a step back and remember why it is that we do what we do. It's out of a love for our Creator and for his creatures.

And what's the promise to the Ephesians if they repent and get the love back? They get to eat from the tree of life.

It is autumn, after all. Who doesn't want a good apple? Or pie....or cider....

Snack time.

Child of God

2011-10-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!"
-1 John 3:1

I think that verse from 1 John is one of the most wonderful statements in the entire Bible. We are children of God! It's actually a pretty common description of our relation to God that we find in Scripture. God is our Father, and we are his sons and daughters. Over the past week or so, I have been thinking about all of the various implications of this truth.

When approaching this topic, it's sadly necessary to point out that a lot of people have major problems with the idea of God being their father because they then view God in light of their own biological father, who may not be a good person at all. But thankfully, the fatherhood of good isn't based on the crappy fathers that exist in the world. God is what a father should be. A lot of fathers come nowhere near this, but this doesn't diminish the wonderful truth of the kind of father God is and what it means for us to be his children. So here's a few ideas that are associated with our identity as sons and daughters of God:

God's love for us isn't based on what we do or don't do
A child shouldn't have to earn his father's love, and thankfully, we don't have to try to earn God's love. In fact, it is impossible for us to earn God's love. Nothing we do or fail to do merits God's favor. But he loves us in spite of the things we do. Our sin doesn't disqualify us from God's love. That's what it's like in a strong parent-child relationship. A child might spit in his dad's face and do anything he can against him, but the father still love him because he is his son. It's like the the father in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. The son takes a good chunk of his father's money and quickly loses it in what the Bible delicately calls "wild living." When the son comes back, dirty and ashamed, the father rushes out to him, wraps his arms around him, and throws a party because his lost son had come home. The disrespect the son had shown the father didn't affect the father's love. How liberating it is to know that we don't have to earn spiritual merit badges to get our heavenly father to care for us.

God's love doesn't stop
At no point does a good father stop and say, "You know what? I used to really love my child, but I think I'm over that." A father's love lasts forever, regardless of what happens. There isn't an expiration date on his love. That's how it is with God's love for us too. There is nothing that can stop God from loving us. Even if we don't care about his love, he continues to love. Even though the world is a big crazy place and he might have a lot of crises on his plate, he loves us. Paul famously writes in Romans 8:38-39 that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Nothing can come between the Father's love for us. It reminds me of the movie Taken and how the Father never stopped searching for his daughter, regardless of who or what got in his way. Getting between that father and his daughter was a dangerous place to be. Satan may try to separate us from God's love. But I don't think it'll work out too well for him either.

God doesn't guilt-trip us
When a good father looks at his child, he doesn't immediately think about all of the way that child has disappointed him. A father forgives, and then that is the end of the matter. He doesn't say, "Now Billy, remember how you took those cookies from the cookie jar and then lied about it four months ago? Don't you still feel bad about that?" And yet, some people think that's exactly what God does. They think that God is always there to remind us of the ways we have messed up, and this live with an unbearable sense of guilt, even though God has forgiven them. But I don't think that's God's voice pouring guilt into their ears. It's Satan, the accuser. As children of God, we can live free from guilt because Jesus Christ has already paid our penalty. Romans 8:1 says that "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." God has removed our guilt, so that now there is no one there to accuse and condemn us (Rom. 8:33-34).

We have an inheritance
Galatians 4 has a lot of incredible material about what it means to be a child of God, and one of the points that it brings out is that children receive an inheritance. In this chapter, Paul contrasts children with slaves. In Christ, we are no longer slaves, but are rather made sons and daughters of God, and he writes in Galatians 4:7, "So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir." Later in the chapter, he uses an allegory that considers the son of Hagar (a slave) and Sarah (a child of promise). Verse 30 says that "the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son." As God's children, we look forward to "an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--dept in heaven for you" (1 Pet. 1:4; cf. Matt. 25:34). Our Father won't leave us out in the cold. And that's something to get pretty dang excited about, I think.

We can approach God without fear
A child should have no qualm about coming to his father about anything. There is an intimacy between father and child, and Scripture tells us that, because of Christ, we have that same kind of intimacy with God. Galatians 4:6 says, "Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.'" We can come to him with any problem at any time, and he welcomes us with open arms. A child doesn't have to go to a "professional" to take a request to his father for him. He doesn't have to go through a mediator. An amazing truth is that God wants us to come to him. He is always ready to hear us. He wants us to communicate with him freely and openly. Hebrews 4:16 says we can "approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." The creator of the universe is also our loving Father. Sweet.

We should begin to look something like God
Before you come to apartment and drag me out so that you can take me to the street corner and denounce me as a heretic, let me make it clear that I'm not saying that we become gods or anything like that. But as God's children, we should begin to resemble him in some ways. We use phrases such as "Like father like son" and "A chip off the ol' block" to talk about how children resemble their parents. For an example, here's a picture of my dad and me. As I have gotten older (and decided to also grow a goatee), a lot of people say that we look alike. (Which I take to mean that we both look freakin' good in a tux.) When people look at me, they can see something of my father in me. And as Christians, when the world looks at us, they should see something of God in us. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48; cf. 1 Pet. 1:15-16). As God's Spirit works in us to sanctify us, we are molded and shaped so that we reflect the holy character of God.

What are other implications of being a son or daughter of God? What benefit of being God's child are you most grateful for or astounded by?

On a final note, if you have some time check out the story that ESPN's Outside the Lines did about Joplin here, and continue to pray for Joplin. I love that city.

The D-Heff Show

2011-10-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, sometimes you watch a TV show and think, "Man, it would be pretty awesome to be a character on that show." That's the appeal of television, of course. All of these shows portray an imaginative image of life. Even what we call "reality shows" are anything but real. No matter how much you might want it to be so, the truth is that real life just isn't like your favorite sitcom. Here's a few ways in which this is true:

1. Real conversations aren't full of memorable witticisms

I think a good sense of humor is one of the most important qualities a person can have. I like to be around funny people, and I hope that at least on occasion, people find me humorous as well. But no matter how funny your friends and you might be, you're not funny all the time. But that's not how it is in a sitcom. In a sitcom, a conversation consists of perfectly timed puns and wisecracks. Awkward smalltalk doesn't exist in a sitcom. No one wants to watch a group of friends sitting around a table and talking about how there's construction on I-75 or about how it's been an unusually warm weekend for October. But in reality, such conversations are common. You have to talk about such mundane things sometimes because, well, sometimes there just isn't much else to say. Every other sentence can't be a clever joke. Which leads to the second point:

2. Sometimes you'll say something you think is funny, and no one will laugh

We've all been there before. You're at dinner with friends, and you formulate some quip in your head that you just know is the most hilarious thing that has ever been uttered in human speech. In your head, it's amazing. But once it leaves your mouth, you realize that it's not funny at all. It's moronic, in fact. It doesn't even make sense. And instead of standing and taking a bow to the uproarious, you sit in shame as everyone gives you an uneasy glance and continues with their conversation as if you had said nothing. Of course, an even more embarrassing situation is when no one laughs at your joke except you. You don't want to be the guy who laughs at his own corny jokes. On a sitcom, though, this isn't a problem. After any moment that is intended to be funny, the laughtrack gives its approval. Wouldn't it be nice if real life came with a laughtrack? Maybe I should keep a speaker in my back pocket so that whenever I say something no one laugh at, I can hit a button and receive that immediate affirmation of a kind laugh. It would be a real ego-booster.

3. You have responsibilities and a job

Now, most characters in a sitcom also have a job. But have you ever noticed how rarely they are actually there? (Not including shows like The Office, of course). Sitcoms don't show their characters are work, sitting in a cubicle pushing paper all day. The people in sitcoms are always hanging out in apartments or bars or going on roadtrips. They're never too busy. They don't spend their evenings going to meetings or taking kids to soccer practice or going grocery shopping. They spend them sitting around with their friends or getting into zany predicaments. But that's not what your life is like. You get up at 6:30, go to work all day, and when you get home you're too tired to do much besides sit around and watch a sitcom. Then the next day, you do something similar. You don't have time to spend five nights a week just hanging out with friends. But for a sitcom character, it really doesn't matter much how much time is spent at work. And yet....

4. You don't have unlimited cash flow

For rarely going to work, it seems like very few sitcom characters have major money problems. When one character says, "Hey, let's all go out for a drink," you never hear another character say, "You guys go ahead. I'd better sit this one out. I only make minimum wage, and I haven't paid my electric bill yet this month." I guess old show The Honeymooners would be an exception to this rule, but that's an exception. For the most part, sitcom characters have no worry about finances, and they all live in trendy apartments with a large main room so that all the other characters can come over for parties and the camera can still fit everyone in. They never live in little one-bedroom jobs with absolutely nothing on the walls like I have.

5. Real world problems can't all be solved in 22 minutes

This is the typical format of a sitcom episode: some situation arises (a crazy inlaw is coming over for Christmas, one character's favorite restaurant is closing, or Cory and Topanga's relationship is on the rocks), then the characters spend the episode trying out futile (yet comical) methods for solving the problem, and in the end everything works out. All of this is contained in a nifty half-hour slot, so that after watching, you are able to go on with your day stress-free. But that's not how real life is. Real life is complicated. Some situations are complex. Your spat with a significant other might last for days, or even weeks. Your jerk boss might continue to be a jerk as long as you work there. Real problems don't all have a definable beginning, middle, and end, all with a snazzy bow on top. Life is messy, and its problems don't all come with commercial breaks so you can go use the restroom before having to deal with it again. Sometimes you just have to hold it.

What are some other ways that life isn't like a sitcom?

Where Friends Come From

2011-10-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago, I moved to a new city where I knew next to nobody. As I have written about in previous posts, since then I have been trying to adjust to a new period of my life, and one significant change is in my social life as I have needed to meet new people. In this time, I have thought some about exactly how friendships happen. Do you ever think about that? Take a moment to run through a list of some of your friends, and ask, "How did that person and I become friends?" You normally don't think much about how your various friendships have developed. You just know that you have friends, and you don't stop to think about how that happened in the first place.

But the truth is that any friendship has to have some sort of beginning. Relationships are created ex nihilo.

So how do friendships happen?

That question is probably asked by more people than one might realize. I would suspect that there are a lot of people that just don't know how to build friendships. (And by "out there," I mean "sitting on my couch and typing on my computer"). I did a little Google search on the topic just a bit ago and found a site that covers "How To Make Friends and Get a Social Life" (www.succeedsocially.com). People want to know how to make friends. So how does it work?

I think it's different for different people. We all have different ways that we tend to make friends.

There are some people who talk their way into friendships. When I say that, I don't mean that they're deceitful or anything like that. I simply mean that there are some who create friendships simply through conversation. They can sit with someone at a coffeeshop and talk and talk forever, and then the two people walk out the door as best buds.

That's not how I roll. Now I try my best to make good conversation with people. I just feel that I'm not all that great at it. I (once again) relate to Donald Miller's sentiment when he writes in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, "I can get tired when I talk to somebody new, because if there is silence in the conversation, I feel it's my fault." Of course, that isn't a necessary way to feel, but I think it might be a common one for a lot of people. It's an awkward and uncomfortable thing to be around people you don't know well with nothing to do but make conversation. It works for some people, but not so well for others.

What I have come to realize is that, historically, I tend to begin most friendships by sharing a common experience. It happens by doing something together--playing basketball, playing ping-pong or cards, going bowling. (Or maybe it's just that I really like games....) But for me, it's difficult to sit in a room and make small talk for very long. I simply run out of things to say. I need an activity to go along with it.

So what about you? How do you tend to make friends? Are you one of those people who can do it by just by conversing? Do you also prefer to have a common activity with someone? Or do you just stare at someone across the room for a while? Or maybe you just randomly add strangers to your Facebook friends list. (Or maybe you're Google+ list? I'm not cool enough for that yet).

Or maybe it's by reading someone's blog and then sending him Chick-fil-A gift cards. I hear that's a pretty popular method.

The Power of Prayer

2011-10-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been reading through Luke's gospel, and the other day I noticed a contrast that is made that I had never noticed before. That probably means that I'm reading more into the text than there actually should be, but even so, I figured it's worth sharing.

One of the reasons that Luke's gospel is interesting is in its structure and the way that Luke arranges the narrative. Luke 9:51 is a turning point in the book: "As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem." From that point on, Jesus' eyes are fixed on Jerusalem, where he would be arrested, tried, and crucified. For half the book, then, the story is pushing continuously toward Jerusalem and the cross. Jesus has a determined spirit. He is constantly moving forward to Jerusalem, and even though he continues to teach and heal, the story is directly mainly on what would happen at the cross. So from Luke 9:51 on, we see the incredible determination and resoluteness of Jesus as he heads to the cross.

Jesus isn't the only one who had this sense of resoluteness, however. We see the same attitude in his disciple Peter as well. After all, Peter had made some major sacrifices in choosing to follow Jesus. He had left behind his family, friends, and business at the call of Jesus. He brings this truth to the service in Luke 18:28, when he says to Jesus, "We have left all we had to follow you!" And in the upper room on the night before Jesus' crucifixion, Peter even says that he is ready to go to the cross with Jesus. In Luke 22:33, he boldly declares, "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death." At this point in Luke's narrative, Peter shares the same determination and unflinching steadfastness that Jesus has.

But not long after this, Jesus and Peter look much different in their readiness to go to the cross. Jesus is arrested and continues to demonstrate the resoluteness that characterizes his actions and words throughout Luke. When asked by the priests if he is the Son of God, he says simply, "You are right in saying I am" (Lk. 23:70). Then, when Pilate asks him if he is the king of the Jews, he replies, "Yes, it is as you say," (Lk. 23:3). A defense attorney would probably say that Jesus isn't doing a very good job in defending himself. He doesn't try to dodge around the charges that are presented against him. Instead, he faces the whole ordeal with apparent confidence. He continues to demonstrate great determination. He knows his mission, and he carries it out without turning aside to other possible paths. The Jesus whose eyes had been fixed on the cross since Luke 9:51 carries that cross through the streets, knowing that is why he had come.

Compare that with what happens with Peter. Less than 24 hours earlier, Peter had pronounced that he would go with Jesus even to death. But that's not what happens. Peter doesn't end up on the cross next to Jesus. Instead, he's found in the courtyard of the high priest, and when a little servant girl suspects that Peter is one of Jesus' disciples, he adamantly denies it. Not just once. Three times. The Peter in the courtyard looks a lot different from the Peter in the upper room.

So why the change? Why does Jesus maintain his determined spirit, but Peter forgets his promises and denies Jesus?

I think the answer to these questions comes down to Gethsemane. Between the upper room and the courtyard, Jesus and his disciples go to the Mount of Olives in Luke 22:39-46. And that's where the actions of Jesus and Peter are very different. Jesus spends the time in fervent, intense prayer to his Father. He asks that if it possible, he not need to go to the cross, but he still submits himself to the Father's will. His prayer is so intense that Luke even writes that "his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." On the night before his resolve will be tested most strongly, Jesus spends significant time in prayer with the Father.

Peter's prayer in Gethsemane doesn't quite look like Jesus'. When they first get there, Jesus tells his disciples, "Pray that you will not fall into temptation." But it's late at night, and the disciples had had a long day of preparing for the Passover, so they were naturally tired. When Jesus goes to them after his prayer, he doesn't find them in prayer. He finds them sleeping, and he has to kick them awake and remind them to pray.

I wonder how Peter's story might have been different if he hadn't slept through Gethsemane. What if he had spent the time in focused prayer as Jesus had? Would he still have denied Jesus in the courtyard? Or would that time in prayer have given him the strength to move forward with the same resolve that Jesus has the next day?

I think we sometimes forget about the power that is available through prayer. It was Jesus' prayer that gave him the inner strength to carry through with the plan God had for him. That night of prayer was like the time it takes for a knight to put on his armor. Peter, on the other hand, neglected that time of prayer, and he was unprepared for the challenges that awaited him.

In his book Power Through Prayer, E.M. Bounds writes, "Prayer is one of the eminent characteristics of strong spiritual leadership. Men of mighty prayer are men of might and mold things. Their power with God has the conquering tread."

The good news for Peter is that his denial wasn't the end of the road, and it's interesting to me to look at how some of the "big" moments in his later ministry were accompanied by prayer. Acts 1:14 says that Peter and the other believers in Jerusalem "all joined together constantly in prayer." Not long after that, Pentecost happens, and Peter preaches a sermon that resulted in three thousand people coming to Christ. In Acts 3, Peter and John are going to the temple to pray when they bump into a crippled beggar, whom Peter then heals. In Acts 10, Peter is on the roof praying when God gives him a vision that leads to him going to Cornelius and sharing Christ with the first Gentile Christian. And in Acts 12, when Peter is miraculously brought out of prison, it is when the "church was earnestly praying to God for him."

I hope we don't neglect the centrality of prayer in our own lives. Whether you preach in a church, help with the youth group, or just strive to be a godly family member and friend, you need prayer. In prayer, we gain the strength to do what God has for us to do. Ignoring prayer is like trying to run a marathon without water. We won't get too far.

Believe me. I run marathons all the time.

Fearfulness to Fearlessness

2011-10-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest from the front. The idea for this post didn't originate with me. In fact, this is what my friend Charlie is teaching about to his youth group tomorrow. I don't think many kids from his church read my blog though, so we should be safe.

When you were little, there were a number of things you were probably afraid of. We all have fears of some sort. For me, there were a lot of things. Dogs. The dark. Being kidnapped. Storms. Spiders, bees, and other creepy-crawlies. I was a pretty nervous kid. I couldn't handle horror movies, and still refuse to watch them today.

Now as a pseudo-adult, I have gotten over some of those childhood fears, but now a new crop of fears has taken their place. I still have a number of fears: The unknown future. Becoming a schizophrenic when I'm older. Women.

Tomorrow Charlie will be teaching how, when we come into contact with Jesus, our fearfulness gives way to fearlessness. And when I look at what the Bible has to say on the topic, it certainly seems like that's how it should be. Scripture repeatedly tells us that we don't need to be afraid because we have God on our side. In story after story, someone is told to not be afraid. Here's a few examples:

Hagar is told not to be afraid after being sent away from Abraham and his family (Gen. 21:17)

Moses tells the Israelites not to be afraid when they're sandwiched between the Red Sea and the Egyptian army (Exod. 14:13)

God tells Joshua not to be afraid when he takes of the leadership of Israel after the death of Moses (Josh. 1:9)

Saul's son Jonathan tells David not to be afraid of Saul, knowing that God will make David the next king (1 Sam. 23:17)

Elisha tells his servant not to be afraid of the surrounding armies because "those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Kgs. 6:16)

Nehemiah tells the Jerusalemites not to be afraid of their enemies and to remember the Lord (Neh. 4:14)

Jesus tells the Twelve not to be afraid of those who kill the body, and also not to be afraid, since they are worth more than sparrows, which God cares for (Mt. 10:26-31)

Jesus tells the disciples not to be afraid when they see him walking on water (Mk. 6:50)

Gabriel reassured Mary by saying "Do not be afraid" (Lk. 1:30)

God speaks to Paul: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you" (Acts 18:9-10)

The church at Smyrna is told not to be afraid of suffering because they would be given a victor's crown (Rev. 2:10)

All of this is just a small sampling of times when people in the Bible are told to let go of their fear. It happens all over the place. God's people are afraid, but he reassures them and pulls them toward fearlessness because of his presence and work in their lives.

When I was a kid and was faced with a frightening situation, there was one thing that would alleviate my fear--when my dad was around. My dad is a pretty big guy, so when he was near, I knew I had nothing to fear. He wouldn't let a dog maul me. He wouldn't let a stranger snatch me up and stuff me in their trunk. He had my back.

The Bible calls God our Father. That metaphor has a number of layers to it, but I think one truth it communicates is that we don't need to be afraid of anything. A father looks out for his children. So whatever our fears might be--lack of money, relational failure, future plans, telling others about Christ--God is with us. He's our perfect Father, with perfect love and perfect power, and he can take care of our problematic situations. We can remember the words that God spoke to Joshua: "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

I'm a Big Kid Now

2011-09-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

It's been almost two months since I moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to begin my life as an adult. Since then, there have been many ham sandwiches eaten, many wrong turns while driving, and many beds wet. Today I thought that I would share with you all a few of the lessons that I have learned from the experience so far:

1. Independence is overrated
Usually sometime during one's high school years, he begins to develop an itch to get out on his own. He believes that he doesn't need anyone else and that he can take care of himself, thankyouverymuch. So he anxiously counts down the days until he is free from his parent's care and lives in his own apartment.

That kid is wrong.

Living the adult life isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when compared to simpler days. Being an adult brings with it a million added responsibilities, and dealing with those responsibilities requires time, money, and energy. You quickly begin to miss the days when someone else would cook your dinner and clean your bathroom and do your laundry. Independent living isn't all late-night parties and pretty girls coming over to play gin rummy with you. So if you still live at home, or if you live in a college dorm or something like that, don't take it for granted, and stay there as long as you can. You might want to consider building a secret nest in the attic or air duct system so that you can start living there before they kick you out.

2. Everyone wants your money
When I was growing up, my dad would always tell me, "Nothing is free." And he was right. When you're out on your own, people assume that you have some money, and everyone wants a piece of it. I don't know how many "deposits" I have had to pay to different companies since I've been here: deposits for my apartment, deposits to the energy company, deposits to the water company, deposits to the guy that sits outside and threatens to throw eggs at my car unless I pay up. I feel like a pile of birdseed, and one by one birds fly down and take a few bites out of me.

3. You can live twenty feet from people and not know them
The student body at my college was the greatest community I have ever been a part of. It was easy to get to know people. I lived on a dorm floor with twenty other guys, and even though I wasn't the best of friends with all of them, we at least knew each other and could hang out. And we would be in classes together and eat together and play basketball together. When you live in an apartment, however, it's completely different. You might think that it would be sort of similar, but that's not the case at all.

There are eight apartments in my building, and they are all packed pretty closely to each other. From my door, I am only a few steps from each of the other apartments. But even so, in the last two months I have seen only three of my neighbors. I know more people than that live here, but I have never even laid eyes on most of them. Even the ones I have met, I see rarely. There is one woman that I met when I moved in, and sometimes I see her outside with her dogs, but that's it. Then there is a guy that I met while doing laundry my second week here, but I haven't seen him since. And there is a woman in the apartment next to me who I met when she was moving in a few weeks ago, but once again, that's the last I've seen of her.

An apartment building isn't like a dorm because people do not leave their doors hanging open while they're home. They walk in, unlock their door, go inside, and lock it behind them. And it would be a little awkward for me to go knocking on each door saying, "Hello there!" So really the only way to meet neighbors is to happen to be coming home or leaving at the same time as them.

I'm saying all of this to simply point out that density of people does not mean that relationships happen. It is possible for a person to live in the middle of a crowded city and to still be isolated.

4. Women don't get masters degrees in Biblical Studies
Last year my roommate was taking a class called "Principles of Family Living." In that class, he had to read a book about Christian marriage. One night, right before I went to bed, he read me an excerpt from that book. In essence, it said that a Christian college is the best place for a believer to find a spouse, and that if you graduate such a college without having done so, you're basically out of luck for the rest of your life. Not a very pleasant thought to have rolling around in your head as you try to go to sleep.

Sadly, the book seems to have been right in some respects. Seminary is a different type of thing than Bible college. Bible colleges are full of nice single girls who are there for a variety of reasons. But they don't often go to seminary and pay tons of money to study Bible, knowing that it's hard enough to find a ministry in a church as it is. The result? My classes are basically all filled with guys. And I don't even have a pretty bankteller to go hit on anymore.

5. Things work out
So far, this post has been a bit of a downer. I apologize for that. And this last point is not necessarily a lesson I have learned in the last two months. It's more of a lesson I have learned from past experiences, as well as a trust that it will prove true in the present one as well. Things work out. Sometimes life seems difficult, and you have little money, few friends, and no opportunity to use the pick-up lines you've been developing for months. But it often just takes time. Going to a new place is never easy, and at first you might want to turn around and go back to where you came from. But after some time, you adjust and begin to build a new life. That's part of growing up, I suppose. So don't shrink away from the unknown future or new situations. Hang in there for the tough parts so that you can get to the goodness on the other side.

Getting in the Way of Love

2011-09-23T05:34:00.000-07:00

Today is a first here at A Chicken in a Cage with a Ferret in that I am having a guest blogger for the first time. Today's post comes from my friend Katie. She's a great writer and is basically a genius, and I figure my readers deserve to enjoy a good post every once in a while. Plus, she's writing on loving people, and you don't want me to write about that, because I really suck at it. Be sure to check out and follow Katie's blog here.

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For the past couple of weeks I've been thinking a lot of what it takes in loving people. Or more accurately, I've been struggling in loving people in the way that God commands. One of my first thoughts when it comes to love is 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

I don’t know about you, but I’m a really big fan of love. It sounds like a real good deal to me, but what I have seen in the people around me, as well as in myself is that in our attempts to love others, we muddle it up. It’s not that we don’t know what love is. I think the passage in 1 Corinthians sums it up well, and Jesus gave us a great picture of what it looks like to live it out. I think often our problem is that we fail to recognize the barriers that keep us from genuinely loving the people around us. Whether it be from our own insecurities, selfish desires or cultural expectations.

Loving people is important. In the gospels, when Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, his reply is pretty straight forward: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

But here's where I screw it up: The bit about loving our neighbors as yourself? Well, I sure like my neighbors, but most of the time I don't like myself. Often my own insecurities get the best of me. But loving people, I think involves a genuine, healthy love for yourself. How can we live a life transformed by an amazing, unending love without learning to love and accept ourselves for who we were created to be? Ultimately, our insecurities keep our focus on ourselves, limiting our attention on the people around us.

Another thing that I see a lot in myself, which I think may be from our culture and again my own selfish tendencies. But often, when we love we expect it to be reciprocated. Love knows no bounds, but I sure do. And I can put some pretty weighty conditions on a person in order for them to receive my very selfish, very messy love. But I don’t necessarily think that’s a healthy or true thought about love. Although it’s nice to be loved in return, genuine love for others is given freely. I think that you can see that most clearly during Jesus’ time on the cross, eh?

My last thought on this is from a couple of months ago. I watched a video about loving people despite their circumstances. I’ve mulled it over in my mind since then, and I can see why we would want to do that. It’s about acceptance. At least that’s what it sounds like to me, and I sure like acceptance. But the thing is, I think that view fails to actually meet other’s needs. When our needs are big, and well, just plain needy, often it’s the people that make an effort to meet those needs that shows true kindness, a genuine love. Maybe instead, our efforts should be to love people in the midst of their circumstances. During Jesus’ ministry, he didn’t just come to accept those seeking him. He came and listened to people and met their needs. He healed the sick, showed kindness and respect to the woman at the well when most ignored her, and met our greatest need - he freed us from our sin!

I don’t think this all is coming out how I have it in my head, but most of my thoughts rarely do come out right. And I'm sure there's a better way to explain all this and there are likely many more barriers we encounter in loving people. But basically, love is great, but loving people is hard work. We can’t do it on our own. And the times when we try to do it on our own, when our selfish desires get in the way, is when we fail to accept the transforming power of God's love for us. So get out there, and love some people. It's what Jesus would do.

Where the Story's Going

2011-09-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, there is day during which I decide to write a blog post about our lives being stories that we create, following some of the things Donald Miller writes in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Today is one of those days. In the book, Miller defines a good story as one in which there is "a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it."

I have been thinking about this definition of a story for the past few days and trying to see how my life might fit into it. Does my life right now reflect such a story-structure?

The answer I arrived at was simply "No." I haven't been overcoming conflict to get something I want. Truth be known, I haven't really done much of anything for the last two months. Here's how a typical week has looked for me: I go to class Mondays and Tuesdays, and then the rest of the week I sleep in, sit around my apartment all day, stay up late on Facebook and Youtube, and then go to bed, only to repeat the cycle the next day. There is no progress in that kind of existence. Good stories aren't about people that just hang out engaged in random trivialities with no purpose in mind (except for maybe The Catcher in the Rye, but that's unique).

After thinking about it for a while, I began to see that a large part of my problem is that I haven't even established the first part of a story's definition for myself: "a character who wants something." I've had to stop and ask myself, "What do I want? Do I even know?" Those are questions I hadn't paused to reflect on for a long time, but they are questions that need asking. If you don't know what you want, then you don't know how you should be spending your time to get there. If you don't want anything, then it's acceptable to spend your days in any way you please, because nothing gets you any closer to or farther from your nonexistent goal. With an undefined goal, it's okay for the day's activities to be an amorphous blob of random peddling. But if you're life is going to be a good story, it's necessary to first figure out what you want.

A qualification may be needed here. Wanting something and overcoming conflict to get it isn't all that makes a good story. Some wants are better than others. If, while considering the question "What do I want?" you decide what you want is a sweet car or to be the most attractive guy in town or to live in a gated community, then it may be that you need to reexamine what you want, because while those might make a story, they don't make a very meaningful one.

As I was thinking about how this all works in my life, I decided to tweak the question a little bit and to ask myself, "Who do I want to be?" In a good story, the character develops. He changes. At the end of the story, he isn't quite the same as he was at the beginning. This is the difference between a round character and a flat one. So the other day, I blocked off some time and sat down with a pad of paper. I really thought about this and began to write down ideas. Then, when I had established a list of who I want to be, I wrote down ideas for each point, concerning how I can begin to achieve those goals. Here's some examples of what I came up with:

I want to be a good preacher. Which means I should listen to a few sermons a week from preachers I admire. I should do a better job of cataloging illustration ideas I come across. And I should pray! (E.M. Bounds: "Air is not more necessary to the lungs than prayer is to the preacher." I love that guy.)

I want to be a critical thinker. Which means I read more, zone out in front of my computer less, and blog regularly.

I want to be socially engaging. Which means I talk to people I don't know, contribute to conversations if I have something worth saying, and try to get over my feeling that I am always out of place.

I want to be a responsible and productive person. Which means I make myself get out of bed at a decent time instead of sleeping in as late as I want. I clean my apartment every weekend. I stick to my financial budget. I put my dishes in the dishwasher before going to bed and take out the garbage instead of piling it up like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout.

I want to not be single anymore. Which means I work on my dance moves and start saving up money for a tattoo.

Intentionally taking time and making this list was one of the most helpful exercises I have done in a while, and I encourage you to make your own list. Just think, "Who do I want to be? What am I not now that I want to be in the future?" Once you know that, you can start developing a plan to make it happen. You can look at each quality you want to develop and figure out how to get there. All of a sudden, the way you use your time and energy begins to take shape.

On their new album (which comes out next week!), Switchfoot has a song called "Thrive." Here's some of the lyrics, and I think they go well with what I have been thinking in all of this: No, I'm not alright / I know that I'm not right / A steering wheel doesn't mean you can drive / A warm body doesn't mean I'm alive / No, I'm not alright / I know that I'm not right / Feel like I travel but I never arrive / I wanna thrive, not just survive

Now when I go to bed, I can think, "Did the things I did today move me toward the person I want to be?" The hope is that I am able to answer that question in the affirmative more and more as time goes by. Then my life might start looking less like mere existence and more like a story. Less like surviving and more like thriving.

So what are some of things that would be on your list? Who do you want to be? Leave a comment; you might help give others some good ideas!

The God We Need

2011-09-17T20:20:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been reading the book of Judges, which is one of my favorite Old Testament books. In Judges, we read all kinds of incredible stories of how God works in behalf of his people, and we also see a lot of really cool examples of how God can use people who seem fairly insignificant to do some amazing things. There is a flip side to the book of Judges, however. Not only does this book give us incredible pictures of God's might, but it also serves as a sad commentary on the Israelites and their lives. The story of the book is cyclical: the Israelites start worshiping other gods, God allows them to be oppressed by other nations as a result, the Israelites wise up and cry to God for help, God raises up a judge to save them, and then when the judge dies the Israelites revert to idolatry and the whole cycle starts over again. Because of this sad history, over and over again we read something like "Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord."

Judges 10 is a good example of how the Israelites keep going back to false gods. Verse 6 says that they again did evil in the eyes of the Lord and "served the Baals and the Ashtoreths, and the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites and the gods of the Philistines."

Sheesh! That's quite the list. It's not just that the Israelites forsake the true God for one idol. They're grabbing every god they can find.

Why do they do this? Why are the Israelites so quick to forget about the God who miraculously brought their ancestors out of slavery in Egypt, who parted the Red Sea, who took care of them in the wilderness, who drove out the previous residents of the Promised Land, and who had already delivered them by several of his judges?

I think that the Israelites tended to worship whatever god met their needs at the time. When they were being oppressed and needed rescuing, they turned to the God of Abraham because he was the only one who could come through. But when life was going alright--when no foreign invaders were threatening their borders and when the crops were fruitful--they worshiped idols because that's what was convenient. After all, a statue doesn't make too many demands. It's was a lot easier to worship Baal than it was to live the holy life God had called them to. So they followed whatever god fit the occasion.

Sadly, we probably do similar things today. We follow other gods when it's convenient. Granted, most people don't bow down to statues or sacrifice an animal on an altar. But we rely on things other than god until those things fail to give us what we need. A person might put their trust in their bank account because it takes pretty good care of them. Or a person's god could be himself, and he believes that he has the ability and the smarts to navigate life just fine. Another person might place his trust in a relationship, because as long as that is going well, there's no problems. Now in the event that the gods are unable to give us what we need--when bank accounts dry up, a relationship crumbles, or the Philistines invade the land--that's when we'll worry about God. In the meantime, though, it can be easy to think we don't need him. After all, these other gods don't call us to love our enemies, serve the outcasts, or be truthful. They are a lot more convenient.

The problem, of course, is that none of these other gods can give us what we really need. They have no power. It was the same for Israel's idols, and God calls them out on it. Back in Judges 10, when the Philistines and Ammonites overtake the Israelites and the cry out to God to rescue them once again, God says, "Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!" (Jgs. 10:14). The point is that those gods can't do that. They're just blocks of wood and chunks of stone.

Likewise, any false gods we bring into our lives lack the power that we need from a god. We might like that they don't demand much from us, but we're not crazy about their impotence. So we try to go back and forth--calling on the true God when we need him but returning to idols when it's convenient. It's like choosing what I should wear today based on the weather forecast. I look for a god that meets the needs of the moment. But that's not the kind of god that God wants to be. He's not just another t-shirt in my dresser. He's all there is. He's the God for every occasion--for when life is going well, and also for when it's not. Anything else is a cheap imitation. And no one really wants a knockoff.

You Can't Stay Here

2011-09-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

If you're anything like me, sometimes you like to just sit back and think about "the good ol' days." About those times when life was so much simpler. Those times when your responsibility-load was low, Chick-fil-A gave student discounts, your favorite NFL team hadn't just gotten smashed by 28 points, and the pretty girl who sits in front of you in class hadn't called you a hippo-eyed dweeb yet.

Ah, those were the days.

There is a potential danger in spending too much time reminiscing like this, however. What can end up happening is that we focus so much on the past that we become hesitant to move into the future. We become stuck in days gone by and are unprepared for the day we're in right now. We become like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite--constantly thinking about our glory days on the high school football team and never moving forward in creating a dynamic present or future.

I think that the God of the Bible is a forward-moving God. This is not to say that God has no interest in the past. Christianity is a faith drawn from history. Often in Scripture, God's people recall how God has acted in the past (e.g., Deut. 1-3; Ps. 105). The purpose of this, however, is so that they can better understand how God is leading them into their future. It's not just so that they can all lay around and say, "Hey man, remember how we defeated Og king of Bashan? Yeah....that was pretty sweet." God reminds them of such things so that they can carry on with the work he has for them to do.

Sometimes God needs to give his people a little kick in the pants to get them moving. We see it in the account of the Transfiguration, where Moses and Elijah appear on a mountain with Jesus while Peter, James, and John watch. When Moses and Elijah are getting ready to leave, Peter says, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." It's as though Peter is so impressed with that moment in time that he just doesn't want to let it go. He wants to hold on to it for a while. Instead of going back down the mountain with Jesus so that he can continue his ministry, he wants to pitch camp on the mountain. But that's not what God has planned for Peter. He can't stay on the mountain. He needs to go with Jesus to Jerusalem. He needs to see the resurrected Christ. He needs to speak at Pentecost and witness to Cornelius.

Peter's gotta get off that mountain.

It's a similar situation when we read about the Israelites' journey through the wilderness on their way to the promised land. Over and over again, the Israelites meet some new obstacle and they start to complain, wishing they were back in Egypt. When they start running low on food, they grumble, "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death" (Ex. 16:3). Later on, when they're tired of nothing but manna, they say, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost--also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!" (Num. 11:4).

These are just a couple examples; there are other times where the wandering Israelites freak out and start reminiscing about "how good they had it in Egypt." Last week the preacher at my church said that the Israelites have "an eternal case of nostalgia." They get stuck in their remembrances of the past to that point that they want to turn away from where God is taking them and go back to Egypt. The crazy thing is that they're days in Egypt weren't even very good! They were slaves! And yet, the comfort of what they know seems more appealing than the discomfort of their future, which they feel unsure about. And yet, God is calling them forward. They can't go back to Egypt. God has bigger plans for them than that.

Since moving to Cincinnati last month, I have caught myself being like the Israelites a lot. I sit around and think about how great things used to be even just six months ago. It was so nice to have money for Taco Bell and to have a TV to watch football on and to have a roommate to joke around with. I even think longingly of my college's dining hall, where I could just walk down the hill to eat a meal prepared for me. (I forget, however, that when I was there I frequently complained about how the portions weren't big enough or how baked potato bar was the biggest ripoff in the world.) The result is that I end up being grumpy and dissatisfied with where I am, and I might lose sight of how God is pushing me forward into something even better.

Are you ever like that? Do you often look so intently at what you miss from your past that you close yourself off to what God might have planned for your present and future? Or maybe you're like Peter, and you want to put up a tent around some significant spiritual experience while you miss the God who is right in front of you?

God is moving us forward. Let's join him for the ride.

Tonight I watched the original King Kong from 1933, and really liked it, actually. The love interest of the movie is between an actress and a sailor. For the first part of the movie, the sailor is a total jerk to the actress. All he does is talk about how women get in the way, and he frequently mentions how she shouldn't be on the ship. This goes all the way up to the point when he all of a sudden tells the actress that he loves her. And even though he has been horrible to her all the way up to the point, she kisses him. The lesson learned? It was really easy to get women to like you in the 30's. I guess I was just born 80 years too soon.

It also helps a lot if you rescue her from a 50-foot ape.

Christianity Needs Jesus

2011-09-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

There is a wide range of views concerning Jesus. If you watch TV documentaries about Jesus for very long, you'll hear all sorts of ideas: that he was a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, that he studied in India and returned to Palestine as a wise sage, that he ran off to France with Mary Magdalene. The list goes on and on. In all of my reading and classes on the subject, though, I have always heard, "Every serious scholar acknowledges that Jesus was indeed an historical figure. Barely anyone denies this claim." I have always thought that scholars who deny Jesus' historical existence were like Honus Wagner T206 baseball cards--you know there's a few out there, but chances are, you won't come across one.

Until today.

For one of my classes, I am reading The Historical Jesus: Five Views. This book consists of essays about historical Jesus studies from five notable scholars in the field. These five scholars write from the full spectrum of views, from a very liberal stance to a conservative one. Today I read the first essay, which is entitled "Jesus at the Vanishing Point" and is written by Robert M. Price. Price is one of those scholars that you always hear about in whispers but rarely bump into. The main thesis of his essay is that there never was an historical Jesus.

My purpose in this post is not to critique the material of Price's essay. The book includes responses by the other four contributors, and they each do a much better job that I could. Needless to say, I disagree with pretty much everything Price writes. But what I find most interesting about this essay, and perhaps the most troubling, is when Price writes that he is "now a happy Episcopalian. I rejoice to take the Eucharist every week and to sing the great hymns of the faith. For me the Christ of faith has all the more importance since I think it most probable that there was never any other" (56).

That absolutely blows my mind.

Price completely denies that Jesus ever lived. Everything contained in the gospels is thrown out the window. No incarnation. No sinless life. No crucifixion. No resurrection. And yet, even though he rejects all of this, Price still places himself in the Christian camp. He goes to church. He sings the songs and takes the Lord's Supper. And I simply wonder: Why?

I remember having a similar reaction when I read The Meaning of Jesus by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright. Borg is a member of the Jesus Seminar, and though he may not be quite as extreme as Price, his views concerning Jesus certainly don't follow orthodox Christianity. Most notably to me, Borg rejects the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He writes, "I see the empty tomb and whatever happened to the corpse of Jesus to be ultimately irrelevant to the truth of Easter" (130). He goes on to explain his belief that after Jesus' death, his followers "continued to experience Jesus as a living reality," even though his body was not brought back to life (135). In spite of his beliefs, Borg, like Price, says that he is "committed to the vigorous practice of the Christian faith" and is involved in church life (vii).

What if Borg and Price were right? What if Jesus never did rise from the dead? What if he never existed at all?

Would I still be a Christian?

Nope.

No matter how I slice things up, I can't see any reason to be a Christian without Jesus. Unlike some other religions, Christianity is one that is founded in history. It's grounded in a person--the incarnate Son of God who gave his life on a Roman cross and walked out of his tomb three days later. If the New Testament is wrong about the central doctrines of who Jesus is and what he did, then the Christian faith is a sham. It's irrelevant. Even the apostle Paul wrote that if Jesus were not raised from the dead, our faith would be futile and we would be pitied more than all men. We would be wasting our time. Christianity stands or falls on Jesus. Christianity is not about the Lord's Supper or singing hymns or being baptized. These practices only have meaning as they are grounded in the historical reality of Jesus. Without him, there's nothing.

Thankfully, though, Jesus is real. He really did live two thousand years ago. He really did die for our sins and then conquer death through the resurrection. He really does promise us eternal life with him. The things the New Testament tells us about him are true. Jesus' feet made footprints in the Palestinian sand. His blood left stains on the wood of his cross. His burial clothes were left behind in the tomb. He really did live, and he continues to live.

And that's why I'm a Christian.

Christians on the Playground

2011-09-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

Do you remember being called any names when you were a child?

Kids on the playground at recess calling each other mean names is a pretty common happening, and all of us have probably undergone the heckling of classmates as some time in our past. For a lot of people, such experiences can even have a lasting impact on a their psyches. There are sorts of names out there to call people. Geek. Nerd. Four-eyes. Pizza-face. Moron. The list could go on.

When I was a kid, people called me by some pretty mean names too: Stud. Mister Awesome. The Incredible Hulk. The coolest kid in class. It was a pretty rough childhood, as you can tell.

In all seriousness though, no one likes to be called names. Because of this, we try our best to disassociate ourselves from such labels. "Hey man, I'm not a geek, ok? I just wear this Star Trek Deep Space Nine t-shirt to be ironic. I got it at Goodwill for like, two bucks." Or maybe you'll say, "Look, you can't call me four-eyes! These aren't even prescription lenses!"

These days, there is another label that is thrown around in a derogatory way, and it's one that I have applied to myself my entire life: Christian. It seems like that word has become a slur in recent years. In our culture, "Christian" is a dirty word in many circles. Now, since the first century, people in the unbelieving world have spoken against Christians. The sad thing is that today, their reasons often aren't because we are so passionate about evangelizing or because we are loving those the world has cast aside. Rather, it's because we do many things that don't look very much like Jesus at all.

A few years ago I read a book by David Kinnaman called unChristian. Kinnaman is the president of the Barna Group, which conducts a lot of surveys about religion and spirituality. In this book, Kinnaman reports on a series of surveys about how American's perceive of Christians, and many of his findings are pretty troubling. What he found is that, instead of being known for their love or good works, Christians are usually thought of as hypocritical, judgmental, and out of touch, among other things. The point of the book is a difficult truth: as far as how we are perceived by the world, Christians often look very unlike Jesus.

I think this has even caused many Christians to be leery of the attaching the word "Christian" to themselves. They don't want to be associated with the negative connotations that go with that term in popular culture. So instead, they talk about being Jesus-followers or God-seekers or something like that. And churches, instead of naming themselves that sounds too "Christian-y," choose more hip names like "Legacy" or "Refuge." (You can see a big list of such church names here. And we get books like Rob Bell's Jesus Wants to Save Christians. I haven't read it, so I can't comment on it too much, but I think the title is telling.

My purpose is not to criticize these sorts of efforts at distancing the church from the Christian label. In fact, I wonder if this might be necessary. If the word "Christian" has become stained with so many associations that are harmful to how we are understood by the world, is it a bad thing to discard it so that the gospel isn't dismissed before we even have a chance to present it?

What do you think? Has the word "Christian" become so damaged in our day and age that we should be cautious of applying it to ourselves--not because of fear or timidity, but because we don't want to turn people away unnecessarily? Or is it a label that should continue to be worn with pride?

How to Hack Off a Pharisee

2011-09-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well friends, I am happy to be able to announce that I am no longer unemployed because I have been offered a job at a nearby Wal-Mart (assuming that I passed my drug test and background check. It probably wasn't the best day to eat four dozen poppyseed muffins for breakfast). So the next time you're in the Cincinnati area and need to buy...just about anything, stop by and say hello.

In Luke 4, Jesus is at the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth when he gives what many people see as his "inaugural address." When he stands up to read from the Scriptures, he reads a passage from Isaiah 61: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then Jesus says to the crowd, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

When you look at Jesus' ministry throughout Luke's gospel, you can see how it fulfills this description that Jesus gives right at the beginning. His ministry is one of freedom, liberation, and jubilee. He cleanses lepers, gives sight to blind, raises the dead, hangs out with the scum of society, and proclaims forgiveness for sins. His ministry tears away the chains by which people had been held down. Jesus transcends the barriers that society had erected and shows love to the last and the least.

In Luke 5-6, there are a series of stories in which Jesus demonstrates this sort of liberating ministry. What is interesting to me, though, is how everything that Jesus does in these stories would have totally hacked off the religious establishment--the Pharisees and experts in the Mosaic law. While Jesus is bringing love and freedom to people who have rarely experienced it, the Pharisees become indignant that Jesus would dare to do the things he does.

If you look at these two chapters, you can see what I mean. In Luke 5:12-16, Jesus heals a man with leprosy by reaching out his hand and touching the diseased man. This man's leprosy would have made him ceremonially unclean (Lev. 13), so by touching him, Jesus would seem to show little concern about the Mosaic laws concerning clean/unclean. And that would certainly annoy the Pharisees. Next, in Luke 5:17-26, a lame man is brought to Jesus, and Jesus declares that the man's sins are forgiven. The Pharisees speak up at this point, objecting that it is blasphemous for a man to forgive sins. After this, in Luke 5:27-32, Jesus calls the tax collector Levi to follow him, and then he eats at Levi's house with a hodgepodge of tax collectors and sinners. This causes the Pharisees to complain that Jesus associates with such filth. Then, in Luke 5:33-39, the Pharisees are upset that Jesus' disciples don't fast the way that they do. And then finally, in Luke 6:1-11, Jesus ignores the Pharisees' rules about Sabbath-keeping by allowing his disciples to pick grain and by healing a man with a shriveled hand. This really ticks off the Pharisees, so that they begin plotting about what might be done with Jesus.

In this section, then, there seem to be two different systems at work. On one side is the ministry of Jesus--touching lepers, having lunch with prostitutes, and thinking about others' welfare instead of the intricacies of rabbinic law. On the other side are the Pharisees--standing aloof from the problems of the world in an effort to protect their own religious purity. Jesus' ministry is one that brings grace and freedom; the Pharisees' brings control and apathy toward the hurting.

A question we need to ask ourselves is whether our churches today look more like Jesus' ministry or the Pharisees. Are we living out the freeing ministry that Jesus modeled for us? Are our churches places where the hurting and broken come for healing? Or do they stay away, afraid that we will only sneer at them in judgment? It's a sad truth that the latter might be true.

I recently read Philip Yancey's book What's So Amazing About Grace?, and I would certainly recommend it. In it, Yancey describes how God shows us such incredible grace and how we too should be fountains of grace in a world that doesn't experience much of it. At the beginning of the book, Yancey shares a friend's experience to illustrate why a book about grace is so necessary:

A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter--two years old!--to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to support her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable--I'm required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman.

At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naive shock that crossed her face. "Church!" she cried. "Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse."

That's a problem.

It's a problem when the unbelieving world looks at the church, and instead of seeing the face of Jesus, they see the demeaning glares of the Pharisees. It seems as though the very people who were most attracted to Jesus are the ones who are the most repulsed by the church today. I can't think of a way to explain that other than to say that, far too often, the church looks less like Jesus and and more like the Pharisees.

We need to recapture the freeing nature of Jesus' ministry. We need to begin to once again be known for our love and grace, not for our judgment. And it start with you and me, I suppose. I'm always fascinated with places in the gospels where Jesus goes toe-to-toe with the Pharisees. It may because I'm a lot like a Pharisee myself. We all need to take frequent looks at the way Jesus lived and how he interacted with others, and let's start living out that grace ourselves.

And now, as I often like to do, here's an unrelated sidenote. I often like to use my blog to muse about how relationships work and to present some new idea to get girls to notice me. (All of this is actually just a subtle attempt to get readers to leave a comment saying, "Look, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Here's how it really works...). Anyway, yesterday I watched a couple old Star Trek episodes, and in one of them, the Enterprise picks up a 17-year-old kid who grew up with no human contact. When this kid meets a girl on the ship he likes, he impresses her by doing card tricks. Granted, he kind of ruins it all when he turns out to be a psycho who makes people vanish with his mind. But while he was doing those card tricks, he was king! So I guess if I want to get a date, I just need to learn some card tricks. Everyone likes card tricks. They're a natural conversation-starter. So if you know any good ones, come teach me! We're all in this together.

Sherlock

2011-08-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

Last spring, I was browsing around a bookstore when I came across a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle on sale for four dollars or so. At the time, I was just starting to read The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, which is crazy-long, so I didn't get around to starting Sherlock Holmes till this weekend. It was a really interesting read, actually, and I would recommend it.

Near the beginning of the book, Dr. Watson is marvelling at the way in which Sherlock Holmes is able to notice details about a situation that he is unable to himself. Sherlock picks up on the most minuscule of clues, and even though the same clues are available to Watson, he lacks the ability to piece them together and form conclusions from the evidence. Sherlock tests Watson by asking how many stairs are in the staircase leading to his room. Watson doesn't know, even though he has walked those stairs hundreds of times. Then Sherlock says, "Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed."

There's a difference between seeing and truly observing. Two people can look at the same situation, but only one of them might perceive the greater reality of what is going on. This happens more often than when we're trying to solve London-based crime mysteries, too. For one thing, it happens in our interaction with God.

The church I have been attending in Cincinnati started a sermon series called "Sync," and it deals with this idea that we don't always really observe the reality confronting us. Here's what the church's website says about the series:

God is always there--we often miss Him. God is at work around us and for us every day, and desires to be at work in us and through us--if we are open to that. But living spiritually in a material world is a continual challenge. We live for a God who is invisible, but real. So if we don't see Him or hear an audible voice, how do we experience Him? Where do we find Him? This series of messages is about encountering God, and then getting our lives synced with Him. It's a series of stories from Scripture about people who met Him and how they were changed as a result. Some were searching for Him; some weren't. But they all encountered the living God.

We're not always very good at picking up on the presence of God or on how he is at work. We see, but we don't observe. In the first sermon of the "Sync" series, the preacher talked about Genesis 28, when Jacob flees from his family for fear of his brother, whom he had ripped off and who was big and hairy and angry. On his journey, Jacob stops to sleep on the ground, and he has a dream in which he sees a stairway going up to heaven with angels all over it, and God appears and renews the Abrahamic covenant with Jacob. When Jacob wakes up, he says, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it" (Gen. 28:16).

It's not as though God only showed up there during Jacob's dream. He was there all the time. And not only that, but he was with Jacob all the time. God was at work in Jacob's life in ways that he didn't even perceive, so God had to make things very obvious to him through this spectacular dream.

The preacher also referenced 2 Kings 6, where the prophet Elisha and his servant are surrounded by the armies of Aram, who have come to capture them. When the servant sees the situation, he freaks out and begins to despair, but Elisha somewhat cryptically replies, "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Elisha prays, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then, when the servant looks out, he "saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." At first, the servant sees the situation, but Elisha observes. He sees how God is working behind the scenes, and it gives him peace.

I wonder how many times I am in a situation where God is working but I never perceive it. Not until afterwards, anyway. I imagine it's pretty frequently. Maybe the same thing happens to you. You go through a tough time, but then when you're on the other side of it you can look back at it and say, like Jacob, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it." But if we began to purposely look at the world with the purpose of perceiving God, how much more comfort and peace and joy might we be able to find in times of trouble?

Another way in which we often see but fail to observe is in our interactions with other people. Every day, you probably walk past hundreds of people. But how many of their faces can you even recall? Probably not very many. And honestly, even when you interact with people you know (or even some of your good friends!), you might not really try to see deeper situations that might be going on. We are masters of small-talk, and we might get to know people without every really getting to know them at all. Instead of really listening to and trying to understand one another, we just skate along the surface. We see, but we don't observe.

My encouragement to you, then, is to work on being conscious of the deeper realities that surround you every day. God is present, and God is active, and we are more able to join in with what he is doing in the world when we perceive what it is that he's doing. At the same time, we walk among people who have stories and personalities, and we would perhaps be better people if we learned to see beyond the face and understand the person.

Might as well go solve some mysteries well you're at it.

It's All in Who You Know

2011-08-26T17:26:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading my blog the past few weeks, you know that I've moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and you also know that I've been having some trouble finding a job. Well...nothing has really changed in that regard. For the past several days, I really haven't done much except sit around hoping the phone rings with a job opportunity. I feel like one of those college athletes that doesn't actually go to the draft, so they sit at home anxiously waiting for the phone to ring and tell them what team they're going to play for. Up to this point, though, it's looking like I might end up as Mr. Irrelevant.

I've been thinking about why it might be that I'm having so much trouble landing a job (after all, with no job, I've had time to think about all sorts of things). I have come to believe that, when it comes to getting a job, having the right connections matters more than being especially qualified. If you know someone who runs a business, or if you just know someone who works there, then you've got a better shot of being offered a position. On the other hand, if you are just blindly sending applications to dozens of hiring managers who have never heard of you, it becomes much more difficult.

That's my experience in the jobs I have had, anyway. When I worked at Wal-Mart for a summer, it was largely because a guy from my church is one of the managers, and he mentioned the opening to me. When I worked at my college's library, it was because my friend Erin worked there and mentioned to her supervisors that I would be good for it. When I preached at a church in Oklahoma, it was because my friend Sy had been preaching there and was looking for a replacement. And for all three of the church internships, I had a connection with the minister I worked with. So more often than not, it's all about who you know. I could be very qualified for a position, but I might lose it to a snotty-nosed high schooler whose uncle runs the store.

It's about who you know. I think this same principle is true when it comes to us and God, but this time, I think this is a very good thing. We don't get to God because we are qualified for it. We like to think that sometimes. We work really hard at following all the rules and knowing all the right things, and we expect this to impress God. It's like we're handing him resumes and saying, "Be sure to get a good look at my education and my experience and skills. I haven't missed a Sunday of church in twelve years, and I took some classes at Bible college too, and I can parse Greek verbs, and the only curse word I ever say is the D-word...none of the really bad ones."

The bad news is that none of our resumes qualify us for salvation. All of us are under-qualified. Scripture tells us that all of us have sinned and that sin prevents us from being able to come to God. If we depend on all of the things we have done to try to win God's favor, we fail.

The wonderfully good news, though, is that our deeds don't get us to God. It's not about what we've done or haven't done. It's not about what we know. Instead, it's all about who you know. It's about whether or not you know Jesus--whether or not you're connected to the only one who does qualify for heaven. In Galatians 2:16, Paul says that we "know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified."

Every couple months, I feel an obligation to quote Donald Miller. Here's what he says in To Own a Dragon: "Heaven and hell are about who you know, not what you do. Who you know saves you from what you did and who you are inside" (138). And we desperately need saving. Isaiah says that even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags before God. That's not something you would want to wear to a job interview.

This is the beauty of grace. Our salvation doesn't rest on what we have accomplished. It's all about what Jesus accomplished, and it's about whether or not we're connected to him. It's all in who you know. Of course, my intention isn't to give anyone a license for lawlessness, as though the way we live has no meaning. Just today I read a really good chapter in Philip Yancey's What's So Amazing About Grace? about such grace abuse. But I also read a good chapter about legalism, which he calls "grace avoidance." And considering how amazing grace is, why would we want to avoid it?

A Little Is A Lot

2011-08-21T10:49:00.000-07:00

The things I'm going to write today are nothing new. I'm not bringing any fresh revelation. If you go to church or anything very often, you probably hear a couple sermons a year telling you the same truths that I am going to share today. I've heard it all a million times. So I don't want to try to beat anyone over the head with this, nor do I want to guilt-trip anyone. But the truth is that over the past few weeks, I have had to remind myself of these things repeatedly to keep myself from becoming a selfish complainer, or at least to keep myself from complaining more than I already do.

I have now been living in Cincinnati for three weeks, and I'm still jobless. It's not for lack of trying; I think I've applied to over fifty employers by now. But, for whatever reason, I just haven't had much luck landing anything. Not to say don't enjoy the time off. It's been nice to spend my days reading and watching Pawn Stars and old Planet of the Apes movies. However, now that I'm in the "adult world," I have adult expenses: rent, utilities, groceries, gas, etc. Thankfully, I've got enough cash saved up to last a little while, but I am quickly realizing that it's not much fun to have a lot of expenses and no income.

So I have been trying to be careful with how I use my money. I make sure not to leave lights on or to have the air conditioner running all the time. I eat ham sandwiches at home instead of going to Chick-fil-A for lunch. I don't buy anything at the store that I don't need. And, to be honest, it's kind of a drag. I'm not used to being required to be so disciplined. When I was in college at Ozark, I didn't think twice about making a Taco Bell run for a late-night snack, because it only cost a few dollars. But now even a few dollars is something I have to be concerned about.

It's easy for me to complain about all of these things, and it's easy for me to sit around and think longingly about the good old days (namely, a month ago) when I didn't have so many worries and concerns. But then I have to remember how most people in the world have much less than I do. You've probably heard the statistics at some point--about how billions of people live on less than $2 a day and how thousands and thousands of children die from malnutrition and preventable diseases. It's astounding. (If you want to see more poverty facts, you can check them out here. When I think about the problems that so many people in the world deal with, then the fact that I haven't been able to buy anything on iTunes for a while seems much less troubling. Most people in the world can't even fathom having some of the things I do, simply because I have a car, computer, phone, and bed. We live in a pretty crazy world if an unemployed grad student can be in the upper tier of global wealth.

Again, my purpose in writing this isn't to guilt-trip you. I don't want to make you feel bad. But I do want you to think about these things and to be incredibly grateful for what you have, even if it's not quite what you wish you had. And I'll work on doing the same.

And now, a few housekeeping issues. Last week I had a contest for readers to give me a recipe they think I can handle, and two of my friends, Charlie and Katie, both commented with a recipe. After careful thought, I have decided that Charlie wins, for the sole reason that he lives 110 miles from me instead of 2426 miles, so he is more likely to be able to use his prize. So Charlie, if you ever want to eat some garlic bread, come on over. However, just for entering, I'll give each of you a plug for your blogs. So be sure to check out Charlie's blog here, and Katie's blog here.

A final thought: I really have no idea how adult relationships work, meaning that I don't know how people meet others and make friends when they don't live in a dorm on a small Bible college campus with a bunch of other people. Even more so, I don't know how romantic relationships work in the real world, where it probably takes more than just kicking the back of the chair of the girl who sits in front of you in class until she turns around and you can ask her to walk around campus with you. I guess that to make friends, you just have to go where people are, and to meet a girl, you have to go where single girls are. But going to any such places costs money, and as I have already said, that's a problem right now. Making friends costs money, and finding a sweetheart costs even more. The band House of Heroes has a song titled "Love is For the Middle Class," and perhaps they're right. After all, I don't think many girls want to go on a date that involves them coming over and eating ramen noodles with me.

The Cost of Stew Has Really Gone Up

2011-08-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

When I read about Esau in the Bible, I always think about how he and I are very similar. He was big and strong and hairy. He was an outdoorsman, and he loved to go out and hunt and climb trees and crush stones with his bare hands. Esau was a man's man. He would have been one of the guys in the World's Strongest Man competitions on ESPN. Like I said, we are practically mirror images of each other.

Alright, so maybe I'm not very much like Esau in those ways. I don't look like him, and I'm not an outdoors-y type. I did play football one year when I was a kid though, but we didn't even win a game. However, there are times when I am like Esau in a negative way, and maybe this is true of you too. In Hebrews 13:16-17, the author warns us to make sure that we are not like Esau, "who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward, as you know, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears."

This is a reference to Genesis 25, which tells how Esau came home after a hunting trip and saw his younger brother Jacob cooking a pot of stew. Esau was so hungry that he traded his birthright as the oldest brother to Jacob, just so that he could have some of the stew. Part of the birthright meant that Esau was supposed to get a double-portion of the family's inheritance when their father died. But instead, Esau was so concerned with filling his belly at that moment that he threw it all away just so that he could have a bowl of stew. He forsook something much greater for immediate satisfaction.

All of us do the same thing from time to time. For us, it probably isn't selling our inheritance for stew (though I can sort of relate to Esau. It's hard for me to open my fridge and see cans of Coke in there without grabbing one, even if I know I should have something else.) But it's easy for us to become short-sighted and to pursue temporary thrills or pleasures while sacrificing greater rewards. That's one of the root causes of sin, really. We tell God, "This is what I need right now, so I'm going to ignore what you command so that I can get it. I know what's best for me." Afterward, though, we can look back and see the foolishness of our decision.

What does this look like in real-life situations? It might be spending money impulsively on something you see in the store window instead of using it wisely as a resource to help others. It might be settling for a relationship that is easier and more immediate instead of working for one that is better. It might be loafing around on a couch with potato chip crumbs all over you instead of remaining active and healthy. It might be choosing a career path that will give you fame and fortune instead of one that you can use to do real good in the world. It might be choosing a short time of pleasure instead of a life of purity. It might be spending all afternoon watching YouTube videos instead of spending any time in Bible study or prayer. And the list could go on and on with ways that we choose the easy, immediate, quick ways to handle life instead of the ways that God commands us to follow.

It's all so difficult because living a life of obedience can take a long time to see its goal. Several times, Scripture refers to righteousness and holy living as "fruit" (Phil. 1:11). Fruit takes a while to grow. You have to plant a seed and wait for the plant to grow, and then you have to take care of the tree so that it can produce healthy fruit in season. Growing fruit takes hard work, patience, and diligence before you ever get to taste the final product. And to see the benefits of a righteous life, it takes a long time. We need long-term vision if we are going to be faithful to remaining on track. Our problem is that we wish that instead of being fruit, it was more like a Pop-Tart--put it in the toaster and 30 seconds later, it's hot and ready. So we chase after the Pop-Tarts of life instead of waiting for fruit, which is better by far.

So watch out for the Esau-like tendencies in your own life. In Hebrews, the author gives a ton of other examples of people who were quite the opposite--people who resisted temporary comforts and pleasures because they knew something better was coming. The list includes Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and others. These were people who didn't settle in because they "were longing for a better country--a heavenly one" (Heb. 11:16). In the same way, author exhorts us to look for "the city that is to come" (Heb. 13:14). Focus on what's to come, not on the cheap substitutes that are right in front of you.

On the right, you'll see a new link for Eat Your Bible, a blog that my friend Sy is doing with daily Bible studies. I encourage you to check it out. I wrote a guest-post for it on Aug. 15th, so check that out too.

And now, a contest: Recently I have moved into my own apartment, which means that I have to start cooking for myself. So far, my cooking arsenal includes BBQ chicken sandwiches, spaghetti, hamburger helper, ham sandwiches, frozen pizza (which I burned and set off my smoke alarm with), and hot dogs. So if you have a recipe for anything that a culinary moron like me could make, leave it in a comment. The prize for the recipe I like best: I'll cook it for you if you come visit me in Cincinnati. And if you buy all the ingredients. And if you leave a tip.

Worry

2011-08-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I promised to begin writing two blog posts every week. Well, I haven't been doing a very good job at that, but I have a good excuse. I've been busy becoming an adult. Since the last time I wrote, I have moved to Cincinnati, Ohio so that I can begin seminary classes in just a couple weeks. This means that I have moved out of my parents' house and now have my own apartment with all of its responsibilities included. I have bills to pay and dinners to cook and robbers to keep out, and if I can be honest, it's stressing me out.

I've never before felt like I've had much of a problem with worry before. I like to think of myself as a pretty easy-going guy. I roll with the punches. I ride the waves. But one thing I have realized over the past week is that it's easy not to worry when you have other people taking care of you. I don't have to worry about my food when I have a parent to cook it or a college dining hall to walk to. I don't have to worry about having a well-maintained place to live when I sleep in a dorm room and the janitorial staff comes and cleans our hallway every day. When you're out on your own, so many of the concerns and responsibilities that you didn't even think of growing up are placed on your shoulders, and it can all begin to feel awfully heavy.

I'm not writing all of this as an excuse to say that worrying is alright and that it's just part of life. Scripture tells us that worry is not alright. Jesus taught that we shouldn't worry about food and clothes and all of the other things of life on this earth, because God is a good father who will take care of us. Our job is to seek God and to join in what he's doing in the world.

So no, I am not trying to excuse worrying. I am simply confessing that this area is a weakness of mine. I am a worrier. I worry about having an expensive apartment but as of yet, not job to start paying for it. I worry about whether or not my culinary skills are going to be sufficient to cook that box of mac 'n cheese for dinner. I worry about whether or not I'm going to be able to handle the workload of grad school on top of working and taking care of my apartment. I worry about not being able to make friends in a new city. I worry about getting lost while driving around and ending up in the 'hood. I worry that it might have been a complete mistake to come to seminary and that maybe I should be doing something else.

There are a lot of worries that can pop up as you mature and enter new stages of life. If you're anything like me, you could make your own list of issues and concerns that worry you. When Jesus tells the parable of the sower and he talks about seed falling on different types of soil, he says that the seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear God's Word, but then the worries of life choke it out. It's easy for me to read that and start thinking about people I know who are like that, but when I'm honest, I'm like that more than I would like. In Crazy Love, Francis Chan writes about this parable, and he warns us to never assume that we are the good soil in the story. We need to check our own hearts and attitudes to make sure that we really are trusting God with our lives. We need to do this when life seems to be going easy, and we need to do it when life is hard too. Now that I'm an "adult," Jesus' words about worry are so much more challenging to me.

So maybe I have a lot of things to worry about. But the truth is that I'll be okay. I'm not dealing with anything that millions of other people haven't already gone through as they begin their lives on their own. I have incredible friends and family who support me and pray for me. And most importantly, I have a God walking beside me who is capable of taking care of me. It may be that God hasn't allowed me to find a job in Cincinnati yet because he knows that my body and my mind need a couple weeks of rest before classes start. It may be that he hasn't gifted me with talent in cooking because there is an excess of ham sandwiches in the world, and he needs me to eat them all. Who knows? At times, it feels like I'm alone. But I'm really not, because God is right there with me, and for now, my job is simply to be content in him. He can handle the rest.

Movin' On Up!

2011-07-31T21:01:00.000-07:00

Here's how much I love you readers: even when I have a lot of important things to do, and even when I should get to bed early because I have to drive nine hours tomorrow, I still make time to write a new post when the situation calls for it. So don't take this for granted.

I am writing this on Sunday night, and on Monday morning I will leave my home in Topeka to move to Cincinnati, where I will begin seminary in a few weeks. The U-Haul truck that we rented is all packed up in our driveway. Since my bed is already in the truck, tonight I am sleeping in our spare bedroom, and that's where I am as I'm writing this. It's funny to me, because when we first moved to Kansas, this was my room the first couple years that we lived in this house. It looks like I've ended up right back where I began. Except there are a lot more cat decorations in here now.

The past few days, I have spent a lot of time packing and getting ready to move. It's been a pretty big undertaking, and unfortunately for my parents, I didn't get my room cleaned up as much as I had hoped. There's something you need to understand about my bedroom. Most of it has gone untouched for years. Seriously, there are things in my room that have done nothing but collect dust since before I left for college five years ago. So needless to say, there was a lot of junk in my room, and it took a long time to dig through everything and figure out what I need to take with me, what needs to be thrown away, and what might need to be stored. It makes me wish that I never have to move again, but then I remember that I'll probably run out of money in a few months and have to move back in with my parents.

All of this cleaning and rummaging and packing has been an interesting experience, because it feels as though I am in a place of transition between my past and my future. One the one hand, I am about to embark on a new experience. It'll be my first time living on my own, and I can look forward to learning how to cook and making new friends (or maybe, I can just look forward to eating ramen noodles and being scared to even leave my apartment). On other other hand, as I have been sorting through all my possessions, I have been reminded of where I have already been. I've looked through old yearbooks and stacks of pictures and notebooks. I've found some pretty cool stuff, like this old picture of me and Jon Foreman, the frontman of Switchfoot, when I was in fifth grade or so. Switchfoot was my favorite band then, and they're still my favorite band now. Part of the reason I am who I am now is because when I was just a kid, I heard the song "Chem 6A" and convinced my parents to get me the Switchfoot album on cassette tape. My past has shaped my current character, and it will continue to do so as I move on in life. While I have been packing and have been reminded of my past likes and past events, I have been able to reflect on who I have become and where I am going.

A couple years ago, I went on Ozark's "Spiritual Formation Retreat," which was one of the best things I did in my time in college (isn't it weird that I can say that now?). One of the activities we did at the retreat was to take a few hours and just think about how the story of our lives had gone up to that point. This was probably my favorite thing we did all week. It really helped to sit down for a while and focus on my life, reflecting on how events and relationships throughout my life--both good and bad--have molded me into a unique individual who can be used by God in special ways. Losing loved ones at an early age has shaped me. Becoming friends with this kid Charlie in my Sunday School in elementary school has shaped me. Getting up on stage and sharing my testimony with the rest of the youth group when I was in seventh grade has shaped me. Being given a copy of Blue Like Jazz by my sister for my 18th birthday has shaped me. Striking out with girls in college has shaped me. Choosing to spend a summer in Oregon has shaped me. We all have experiences and stories and , and even things that seem insignificant at the time chisel away at our characters, constantly determining the people that we are.

It's important for us to reflect on these things, because by doing so, we prepare for our futures. My friend Kelsie is one of the smartest and wisest people I know, and when I was a freshman at Ozark, she graduated as the saluditorian. In her graduation speech, she talked about the book of Deuteronomy, about how before Israel entered the promised land, Moses reminded them of where they had been. He rehearsed their story, and he reminded them about the law that God had laid down for them. It was necessary for the Israelites to keep all of this in mind as they entered a new chapter of the nation's story. The line of Kelsie's speech that I remember was her last: "Reflections on our past will shape our future." That's good advice, I think--especially when entering a new stage of life. We have to remember where we've been if we're going to have a good grasp of where we're going.

When people move away from home, they often call it "leaving the nest." I guess this can be either encouraging or terrifying, depending on the outcome. Because when some baby birds leave the nest, while they might falter at first, they begin to flap their wings and soar to new heights. Other birds, however, just crash to the ground below and are left to die.

I hope I'm more like the first bird.

How We Talk

2011-07-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I stop and think about why I write in this blog. After doing it for several years, why do I still find myself at my computer tapping out new words? It certainly isn't for the money, and it's been a long while since any readers have left a gift basket on my front step. I guess the reason that I love to write this blog is simple: I like to write.

This train of thought has caused me to think about how different people prefer to communicate. For whatever reason, communication through writing means a lot to me. Over the past couple years, I have had chances to deliver messages in different ways, especially by preaching and teaching. As much as I love to preach, and as much as I love to teach, and as much as I try to give my best in my preparation for such opportunities, I get most excited about writing a new blog post. I feel that writing is how I communicate best. When I write something, it means that I have really thought about it and that I have worked at getting the right words to convey my message.

For me, the things I write are usually things that I mean the most. Whether it's a blog post, a letter, or just a short message to someone, if I take the time to write it, that person can normally know that I really mean whatever I say (except for the exaggeration and sarcasm that tends to work their way through anything I do). Now, this doesn't mean that if I say something verbally in conversation or in a prepared message, I don't mean it or care about it. However, most often, the topics I am most concerned about are ones that I will address through writing.

Of course, other people communicate most sincerely in other ways. For some who are perhaps more passionate and less cerebral than I am, they communicate most deeply through off-the-cuff conversation. Others do it best through music. For others, it's painting or sculpture. Or by actions. Or with film. Or with a host of other mediums and channels. We each communicate best in a different way, and it's important for each of us to make sure that those close to us understand how we function. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to any sort of relationship is mis-communication, so if you are going to have any sort of relational success, it's necessary that others know how you communicate, and also that you know how they communicate.

So what about you? How do you feel that you communicate most deeply? What mediums do you use to convey the most important messages of your life?

Make Life Happen

2011-07-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

A few night ago, I watched one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction. After watching it, I started thinking about this blog post. This morning, though, I discovered that I already wrote a very similar post last summer after watching the same movie. Since I didn't even remember this, I'm sure you don't remember it either, so it can't hurt to write it again now. Besides, this should just tell how how good of a movie Stranger Than Fiction is, since it made me want to blog twice. So go watch it.

When the movie starts, the main character, Harold Crick, lives a life of monotony. He does the exact same thing every day down to the second, and it's not a very interesting life. Over the course of the film, however, Harold begins to change the way his life looks. Instead of just going to work and coming home to eat alone, he stops counting how many steps it takes to get the the bus stop, and he starts playing guitar and flirting with an anarchist baker. By the end, Harold's life is completely different than it was at the beginning. He brought about change. He developed, and he was much better for it.

This change didn't come about by happenstance. Harold Crick doesn't go to bed one night as a calculating IRS agent living a life of solitude and then wake up the next morning as a different person. The story of his life develops because he himself chooses to enact change. He's not just sitting on his couch when a guitar and Maggie Gyllenhaal fall throw the ceiling. He figures out what he wants and goes out and tries to get it, and it involves action and risk and vulnerability and the chance for failure or rejection. But those are the things that make a good story, I think.

I'm a bit of a daydreamer. I often sit around and think about the life I would like to be living, or I think about the person I would like to be. My problem is that I'm hesitant to go make that life happen, and I don't take any steps to grow into the person I could be. As a result, things don't really change, and it becomes easy for me to complain about how I'm not entirely satisfied with how things are going for me.

The law of inertia says that an object at rest will remain at rest. I suppose that's why changing is so difficult. It's much more comfortable for me to lay here in my bed than it is for me to go out and meet new people or try new things or put myself in a situation that might not turn out how I want. As far as life development is concerned, maybe I'm in a state of rest, and I need a kick to get me rolling.

Maybe you're like me in that. A truth that we need to grasp on to is that the best things in life don't just fall into our laps. They almost always require that we go out in search of them, and that usually involves risk and possible failure. It's much easier to just sit in your bedroom and think about what things could be like than it is to try to make it be so. But the latter is much more rewarding.

On a side note, this last Wednesday I gave the devotion for the senior adults lunch at my church, and after I was done, they had a singing group made up of senior citizens come perform. First time I had ever heard an 80-year-old woman yodel. Best Senior Saints lunch ever.

Checklists

2011-07-18T19:34:00.000-07:00

I've made a decision. I'm going to start to try to write at least two new blog posts every week. I have noticed that blog that do really well all have new updates pretty much every day. I'm not quite to that level, but I figured it's time to step things up at least a little bit. Don't get too excited though (or too disheartened. Depends how you feel about my blog). Chances are, this new pattern won't last beyond this week.

In Mark 10, a group of Pharisees comes up to Jesus with a question: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" Jesus responds by asking what Moses commanded, and they reply, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." After this, Jesus goes on to describe how the intent of marriage is a lifelong commitment between a husband and wife.

The problem for the Pharisees here is that they are solely concerned with following the details of the law without worrying about the intent of that law. They want to be able to check their adherence to the law like an item on a checklist. Yes, Moses did permit divorce, but in no way is it ever depicted as a positive thing. But instead of wanting to follow God and his true desire, the Pharisees just want to say that they have stayed within the bounds of the law. For them, it's not about having a trusting relationship with God. It's about crossing your t's and dotting your i's, so that you can look at God's commands and say, "Check."

A little later in Mark 10, a rich young man runs up to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus essentially tells the man to obey the Ten Commandments, but the guy claims to have already done so. Don't murder? Check. Don't commit adultery? Check. Don't steal? Check. Don't lie? Check. Honor your parents? Check. He's done it all, and at the end of Jesus' listing, he can say, "All these I have kept since I was a boy!"

When it comes to marking items off of a checklist, this guy is in pretty good shape. But when it comes to following Jesus with everything, he's unwilling. In verse 21, Jesus says, "One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Then the man walks away, unwilling to part with his possessions for the sake of Christ. Like the Pharisees earlier in the chapter, he was interested in wearing his adherence to commands on his chest like merit badges, but he wasn't ready to be a true disciple of Jesus. He was focused on a checklist of duties and not on walking in the footsteps of Christ.

But what comes between these two passages--the first about the Pharisees, and the second about the rich young ruler? In verses 13-16, people try to bring their little kids to Jesus, but the disciples try to keep them away. Then Jesus famously says, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

What sharp contrasts we find in this chapter. On the one hand, there's the Pharisees and the rich young ruler--so intent on following commands, but not as concerned with a true relationship with Christ. On the other hand, there are the children--with no merits of their own, but coming to Jesus with attitudes of trust. And which group does Jesus commend? The children. Both the Pharisees and the rich young ruler do not have the attitude of a child. They don't want to receive the kingdom of God. They're trying to earn their way into the kingdom.

Often, I find myself taking the stance of the Pharisees or the rich young ruler instead of that of the children. I come to God with my checklist of accomplishments and expect him to be impressed with all I've done. Read my Bible regularly? Check. Weekly church attendance? Check. Didn't cuss anyone out today? Check. Pray before I eat my dinner? Check.

But God isn't interested in our checklists. He's interested in our hearts. He wants us to come running to him like a child into his father's arms. A child doesn't have to come to his parents with a list of accomplishments to ensure that he is loved by them. Likewise, our ability to work really hard and follow all the rules doesn't cause God to love us, and I think he would rather we faithfully throw ourselves into him. This isn't to say that obedience is unimportant. But we might need to examine why we are obedient to God's word. Is it so that we can keep crossing things off our checklist? Or is it because we love Christ and desire to follow him?

On an unrelated note, I have recently caught myself saying "Will do" a lot whenever I am given a task. You know, someone will say something like, "Hey, can you make sure to take out the trash on your way out?" and I'll say, "Will do." It really bugs me. I think that's an annoying thing to always be saying. I don't like saying "Will do." But it's like I can't stop, not matter how much I want to. Do you ever catch yourself always saying something that you don't like?

Train Your Brain

2011-07-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting blog post a couple weeks ago that touched on the subject of neural plasticity. Neural plasticity means that our brains are shaped by our experienced and by how we actually use our brains. The blog referenced a study in which MRI's were taken of the brains of London taxi drivers and were compared with images of other people. Researchers discovered that the hippocampus of the taxi drivers' brains were larger than those of other people. The hippocampus is a part of the brain that controls spatial memory, and since taxi drivers need to remember routes to so many different locations, their activity of driving a taxi had actually changed the morphology of their brains. So basically, these drivers had trained their brains into being able to meet the demands of their job.

Reading this made me wonder what my brain might look like. Recently, I have been feeling mentally sluggish at best, especially since I have been home for the summer. I really do believe that I have been getting dumber. For example, when I was a little younger, I used to be able to zero in and focus on what I was doing without getting distracted. If I were doing a specific task, I probably wouldn't even hear someone at first if they tried to get my attention. Nowadays, though, I have trouble focusing on anything for more than about 20 seconds at a time. I'm worse than a typical Jr. High student. I constantly find myself just staring off into space, thinking about nothing in particular, even when I have a task to be doing.

Even just today, I spent the day writing funeral sermons that I can use in the future, so that I already have them on hand when I need them and won't have to write a new one. I spent all afternoon working on this sermon, and at the end of the day, I could look at it and think, "Wow, this isn't very good at all." And it really isn't. It took forever and a day to write, and it's kind of lousy. It's as though I was more focused, sharper, and more creative four years ago than I am now.

I imagine that I have probably let my brain get flabby. I haven't been practicing very good discipline lately. I get home from the church and just loaf around the house for the most part. The result? I'm less productive, I write fewer blog posts (and even fewer good ones), and my brain turns to a sloppy mess. And, just as it's hard to get back into physical shape after you've let yourself go, it's tough work to get back into mental shape. It means I need to be on facebook and youtube less, in my books more, and engaging with others more. So I'll be working on that, and in the meantime, I ask that you forgive me for being an idiot.

The Ten Not Worst

2011-07-02T10:03:00.000-07:00

I hope that, as your beginning to read this post, you have your confetti and noisemakers in hand, because this is a very special post. It was on this day three years ago that I started writing this blog! (This is the part where you throw the confetti.) And oh, what a three years it has been. There have been some laughs. There have been some tears. Maybe even a little weeping. And I'm consider myself privileged to have gone through all of it with you, my faithful reader. Even you...the one in the red shirt. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Thanks for being here.

When I first started this blog, I had about three readers. Today, I have at least five or six. As I was thinking about that, I realized that there are some people who haven't read any of the older posts. So today, I want to do something that feels very vain and self-glorifying. But I figure, "Hey, it's my blogiversary. I can do whatever the heck I want, and people still have to tell me how nice I look in my turtleneck sweater, and I get to pick out which piece of the cake I want first. Now, do I go with the biggest one, or the one with the most frosting?"

Anyways, today I am presenting to you links to the top ten posts I have written thus far. Over the last couple weeks, I have gone back over everything I have written in the past three years, desperately searching for ten posts that didn't suck quite as much as the others. Some of these are the ones about which I received the most positive feedback from readers, and others are just ones that I especially like. And so, without further stalling or silliness, I am pleased to present in chronological order:

The Top Ten 'Chicken in a Cage' Posts of the First Three Years (there's got to be a more concise title for this).

Bystander Effect (Nov. 2008): How psychological theory has a very real and very depressing impact on my own life. This post probably doubled the readership of the blog at the time, and it has unfortunately continued to define my life ever since.

In the Dust (Dec. 2008): How the book of Lamentations shows us that grief and sadness are legitimate experiences that can even push us closer to God.

C'est La Vie (March 2009): One of several posts that arose from me being pretty hacked off at the world. How God-given contentment helps us roll with the punches that life throws at us.

Van Ride (April 2009): Using a 15-passenger van as a metaphor for the fluidity of our social circles. This caused several people to somewhat aggressively ask me, "So David, I bet you're just ready to kick me out your life, aren't you?! Well, I hate you too!" I guess good blog posts come with a cost.

In Search of Swagger (Nov. 2009): A semi-sarcastic post about why I don't have much luck with the ladies, mixed in with a few other random thoughts that I found humorous at the time.

Before Garmin (Dec. 2009): How God leads us through life a little bit at a time and usually doesn't show us the whole picture at once, as well as why I need to be in more jewelry commercials.

This Isn't the Church (Jan. 2010): Why the internet and online communities (even this blog, regardless of how good it might be!) are inadequate substitutes for the flesh and blood church. This post is notable because I quoted a guy from a book, and he commented on my post. Which means I have to be way more mindful of libel these days.

My Friend (May 2010): An ode to my best friend upon his graduation from college. In the post, I say something about him being single. Now, just over a year later, he's engaged. I like to think that this post was the catalyst that made that happen.

Dancing Is Better Than Poking (Nov. 2010): Why the church should be the remedy to the "classy isolation" that we tend to put ourselves in. (By the way, this might be my favorite post, if you're looking for an "Editor's Pick".)

Ready for Rest (May 2011): A reflection on the tornado that struck Joplin earlier this summer, and why we should all be looking forward to the day when Jesus makes the world as it should be.

Well, that's that. As we celebrate another year, I would like to reaffirm how thankful I am for each of you and for you taking the time to read. If you have been reading my blog for a while and there's a post that you like that didn't get listed, share it in a comment; I'd be curious to know.

Now here's your mission: When you come across the first person you see after reading this, wink at them and say "Go get 'em, Tiger." It's a very encouraging way to greet someone.

Thatta Girl

2011-06-25T15:50:00.000-07:00

Recently Donald Miller (who I like to reference in my blog more than anyone else) got engaged. Earlier this week, he wrote a blog post about how his new fiance, Paige, found a journal entry in which she listed out the qualities she wanted in her future spouse. Miller includes this list in his blog post, and it includes a lot of good things, like how she wanted a guy who wants to talk to her every day, who is consistent in his actions and behavior, who reassures her, and who puts her first in his life after God. Miller also writes that making a list like this "gives a single person a filter through which to weed out candidates that don't fit," and he encourages his single readers to make a list of qualities that they themselves would like to see in a future significant other.

That seemed like a good idea, and so, for your enjoyment, I present my own list. So, without further ado:

I want someone who...

- Is unable to beat me in arm wrestling. (This really narrows down the field.)
- Can tolerate being in a room with me for at least 10 minutes at a time. (Again, this narrows things down quite a bit.)
- Will watch ball games with me without expecting me to watch HGTV or Lifetime with her.
- Works at a BBQ restaurant so that she can hook me up with free food. Or even better, lives in a BBQ restaurant, so that I can eat some whenever I go see her.
- Reads a lot (especially Donald Miller, C.S. Lewis, and A Chicken in a Cage With a Ferret).
- Doesn't have any Ke$ha or Justin Bieber songs on her iPod.
- Would rather be treated to a nice dinner at Chick-fil-A than at fancy French restaurant.
- Can understand mumbling. It gets to be too much effort for me to speak up.
- Won't criticize me in public for my jean shorts.
- Can come up with good blog post ideas when I can't think of anything.
- Wears glasses. Yup.
- Doesn't make fun of my voice when I sing during the songs at church. Or when I just talk, actually.
- Thinks that a guy who is good at bowling is way more attractive than a football player.
- Doesn't chew her ice.
- Looks good in Cincinnati Reds apparel. (Of course, who doesn't?)
- Would be down for semiannual Planet of the Apes marathons.

Well, I guess that's about it. Granted, I would waive any of these criteria for my old bank teller, Katie. But I don't know where she is now, and all last semester I had Kyle Tapper as my bank teller instead. He's nice and all, but it was just such a downgrade.

What's on your list?

Ministry to the Family

2011-06-18T20:07:00.000-07:00

I'll begin this post by warning you right off the bat: This post is intended mainly for those who are in Christian leadership of some sort. I preface everything by telling you this so that, when you get to the end, you don't write me hateful emails saying that I'm neglecting a segment of my already-dwindling fan base. You've been forewarned. However, I hope that even if you're not a minister or anything like that, I hope that this post is still helpful to you.

For the past week, I've been reading the book of 1 Timothy. This letter was written by Paul to his friend Timothy, and it gives a lot of instruction for Timothy, who was serving as a young leader in the church at Ephesus. I figured it would be a good book to study as I begin my summer internship at my home church, and I have enjoyed it a great deal. The other day, I was struck with something Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:1-2--"Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity."

Reading these verses caused me to stop for a moment and ask myself, "How do I think of the church in which I serve?" This passage in 1 Timothy suggests that we think of our churches as families. The metaphor of the church as a family is a common one in the New Testament, but I had never before considered what this metaphor means specifically for a church leader. Timothy, serving in Ephesus, is told to think of the people of that church as his fathers, brothers, mothers, and sisters.

Christian leaders often think of the church in other terms (and these are typically good ways to think of the church). Perhaps the most common is for a minister to talk about his "flock." This metaphor is scriptural even, as Paul tells the Ephesian elders to keep watch over the flock because they are "shepherds of the church of God" (Acts. 20:28). Understanding the church as a flock helps the minister remember his responsibility to care for the church, just as a shepherd's responsibility is to watch over the sheep.

In the same way, it is necessary for leaders to also think of the church as a family. I think this can radically alter the passion with which a leader approaches his ministry. To be honest, there are some days when I wake up, and I'm not excited about going to work at a church. There are days when it would be nicer to stay in bed. And, I imagine, there are days when a shepherd may not be jazzed about going out to the field and watching sheep all day. However, when I think of the church as my family, my task gains new significance. Going to the church is almost like a family reunion. It means I get to spend time with my brothers and sisters in Christ. And, spending time with family is (or at least should be) a positive experience. It becomes much harder for me to get down about my busyness or duties when I remember that they are for the good of my family in Christ.

The way in which we conceive of the church has a big impact on how we relate to it. The Bible gives us a multi-faceted, diverse picture of the church, and we would do well to keep in mind all of the ways in which the church is described. We would also do well not to make fun of the dork who has white hands but sunburned arms because he was outside wearing work gloves all day. And we would also do well to buy him lunch for good measure. And I would do well to wish my dad a Happy Father's Day tomorrow, and you would do well to do the same for yours. And finally, I would do well to stop using the phrase "would do well." It's pretty obnoxious, really.

Obligations or Opportunities

2011-06-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

I've been called a pessimist once or twice in my lifetime. I've been called a Debbie Downer. I've been called a killjoy. I've been called a terrible dancer. Unfortunately, these labels are true much of the time. It's an aspect of my character that I'm not very fond of. (Of course, that statement itself is a little bit of a downer. Sorry.)

Part of the problem, I have realized, is the way in which is perceive the various activities that I do throughout the day. It's a sad truth that, much of the time, I don't really like what I'm doing. It's almost like I wake up every day and immediately think, "Bleh, I have to do this and this and this, and I really don't want to." That's not a very positive way to live. It becomes difficult to get much enjoyment out of just about any activity.

My mistake in this attitude is that I tend to view the things I do as obligations. This automatically makes them less enjoyable for me, because I perceive them as something I have to do. I'll think, "I have to go work at the church all day, and then I have to take care of this chore, and then I have to do that." At times, even though I probably wouldn't say it out loud, I thinkm "Now I have to spend some time in the Bible and prayer." Even if it's something that I generally enjoy doing in itself, it becomes a burden when I think of it as an obligation.

A helpful shift in thinking is to begin seeing happenings in my life as opportunities instead of obligations. It's to look at a situation and focus on the good that can come out of it instead of my duty to get it done. Nearly every situation has a positive potential, with the exception of going to the dentist, unless I think about the opportunity I'll have to say curse words in my head.

Here's an example: For the most part, I'm not very eager to be someplace where I don't really know many people. I'm just not all that outgoing, and I always feel awkward and in the way. (Granted, the fact that I think of myself this way usually causes me to actually be that way. It's the whole self-fulfilling prophecy thing.) Because of my aversion to being on socially unfamiliar grounds, I normally dislike those situations and certainly don't look forward to them. However, if I simply change my perception from seeing such a situation as an obligation to seeing it as an opportunity, it becomes much more enjoyable. I can think of it as an opportunity to meet new people and make friends, and that's a good thing. After all, if you never make new friends, you'll end up all alone when your current friends die. And I certainly plan on outliving all my friends.

Such thinking even helps the most mundane tasks more enjoyable. This morning I got up and decided to mow our front lawn. Now, I'm not crazy about mowing. There are plenty of things most of us would rather do. It can be an obligatory chore that we always try to avoid. But, as I thought about it, I realized that mowing the grass gives me several opportunities. It's an opportunity to get some exercise. It's an opportunity to do something nice for my family. It's an opportunity to have some time to myself to think and reflect on some issues. It's an opportunity to figure out what I wanted to write in this post. Thus, all of a sudden, a burdensome chore like mowing the grass can become something to actually be excited about doing.

Go ahead and try it out. Start seeing everything you do as an opportunity for something good to happen. I think that every day is full of possibilities for something positive, but we often miss those possibilities because we're so focused on how we don't like what we're doing. When we do this, I think we can wake up each morning excited about what that day might hold instead of just looking forward to going back to bed that night.

Why We Should Look a Little Lazier

2011-06-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

It seems that when you want time to slow down the most, that's when it really feels like it speeds by. It's been two weeks since I graduated from Ozark, and I have used those two weeks to rest and relax with few responsibilities or obligations, and it has been great. This last week, I went to Indiana to spend some time with my best friend, and it was honestly the best week I have had in a long, long time. Now I'm back in Topeka, and in a couple days I will begin an internship with my home church for the summer, while I work on nailing down an apartment and finding a job for when I move to Cincinnati in August (so if you happen to be an employer in Cincy...hire me!)

The end of my "break" has reminded me just how busy life tends to be. There is always something to do, and probably none of us have as much time as we would like. When I was at Ozark, I always felt like I was behind (and I really was much of the time). Last fall, I was up for a good chunk of the night working on a project, and that's when I decided that I needed to be more responsible with how I used my time so that such occasions wouldn't happen as often. So at the beginning of each week, I began to make a weekly calendar that planned how I would use each hour of my days, and I would hang it on the wall next to my desk. And it helped a lot. It kept me on task and helped me eliminate the "dead time" of my week--times that I would poke around online or just sit and veg out.

What I have begun to think, however, is that some dead time is actually healthy. When I created my weekly plans, I filled up just about every moment of my day with something--doing homework, writing sermons, reading, watching movies, etc. That problem was that I missed out on times to actually do nothing besides sit and think. I was in need of purposeful downtime. I needed time to be still for a moment and just let my mind work through some issues. When I was so focused on always doing something so that I could get everything done, I neglected to give my mind some space.

After being a college student for so long, I have developed an unnecessary tendency to feel guilty if I'm not busy. It's like I don't know what to do if I don't have anything to get done. Lack of activity means I'm lazy, right? It feels like I have to be doing something. But that's just the thing. We don't always have to do something. In fact, we shouldn't always be doing something. Sometimes, what we need most is to be still.

I did a better job of this when I was younger. My freshman year at Ozark, I would often just lay on my bed and look at the ceiling and chill for a bit, rolling some ideas around in my head. A guy down the hall would always walk by and see me just laying there, and he would ask what I was doing, and I would reply, "Just chilling, man." And those times were important for me, I think. In many ways, I was smarter five years ago than I am now, and that is partly because I allowed myself to stop and reflect more regularly.

I have written before that in order to have something substantial to say (in blogs or conversations or anything else), it's important that we take in from others by reading and listening. I think this is true, but that's not all. We also need to allow ourselves to process what we have taken in. We need to spend time ruminating on the concept that we read, the conversations we have, the experiences we go through. Input without processing doesn't create very good output.

My encouragement to you, then, is that you allow yourself some time in your week to stop and think. When you go to bed, just lay there for a bit and reflect on your day before you go to sleep. Or sit in your favorite chair and let yourself daydream. Go on a walk but leave your iPod behind. Sometimes, it's when it looks like a person is doing nothing that they are the most productive.

And what should you think about during these times? Why, you should think about what sort of nice comments to leave here, of course.

Ready for Rest

2011-05-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

Right now, I'm laying on my bed back at the house where I grew up. No more blog posts will be written from my desk at Ozark. I took the last test of my undergraduate career last Thursday afternoon, and Saturday I donned my gown and mortarboard and walked across the stage to receive my degree, and then I stood on the outdoor basketball court and took pictures with all the weeping girls who will be distraught that I never married them, and then went home, and that was that.

It's always a nice feeling to be done with something. To finish a long novel. To watch the finale of a television series. To crawl across the finish line of a 5K. Or, in my case, to turn in your chapter identification test for your Revelation class and realize that there are no more papers to write, quizzes to study for, books to read, or dioramas to construct.

And in all honesty, I'm glad to be done. I need a break. I need some rest. It feels like I've had my head down and have been running as hard as I can for a long time, and now I can finally stop and breathe. I think it's been over a year and a half since I have had a true break--a few days in which I had no real responsibilities, nothing to work on, nothing to prepare for. I've been looking forward to the next couple weeks for a long time. I'll watch TV, read books that I want to read, and take a nap and not feel guilty about it.

It all makes me wonder what it will feel like when I'm at the end of my life and I know that I'm almost done. Getting through Ozark was hard--probably the hardest thing I have ever done. But I feel like getting through life is an even more tiring process.

This is how far I was through this post before Sunday evening. This was supposed to be a fairly light post, talking about what I plan to do with my couple weeks of a break. But then I was given a startling reminder that even in periods of temporary rest, life continues to go on, and that life is so incredibly difficult.

Last night, a massive tornado tore through Joplin, Missouri, the town that I have called home for the last five years. There's no need for me to give you many details; you can turn on the news to find out as much as I know. But from the latest report that I've seen, 116 people were killed in the storm, but that number could continue to rise. One student from Ozark lost her life. I've talked to friends whose apartments have been destroyed. The pictures I've seen are unreal, and those in Joplin that I have talked to have said that the devastation is terrible. It's an absolute tragedy, and it seems like a bad nightmare that this happened in a place so close to my heart.

Life is really difficult. It is a long, treacherous road. We get knocked down and beat up on the way. So what does it feel like to know that you're near the end of it? When I know that I'm close to death, what will I be saying? I hope that I'll be able to say, as Paul did, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing" (2 Tim. 7-8). Paul had lived a tough life. He had gone through a lot. And at the end of it, I think he was ready to be done. He was anxious for some rest. He knew that he had given everything he had to Christ and his kingdom, and he was awaiting his reward.

People often postulate about what heaven will be like. I don't know exactly how it will be, other than that we'll be with Jesus. But I like to think that when I get there, God will say, "David, why don't you rest for a while. Take a break. Go enjoy a nap. You ran a good race, and now it's time for you to rest." That's what I hope for. We await that Sabbath-rest that Hebrews 4 promises us. And there won't be any more tornadoes. There won't be any more sicknesses. No more family quarrels. No more injustices. No more disasters. No more sadness. The race will be over. The fight will be finished. And we'll finally rest. We look forward to the day when we can say as C.S. Lewis does in The Last Battle, "The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

And until then, we continue to run as hard as we can. We serve Christ in everything. We love and care for those around us. We rush into devestated neighborhoods to help in any way we can. We share Christ with our friends and families. We push on through every obstacle and stumbling block, chasing after the example of Christ, pushing forward to that crown that Paul mentions.

Pray for Joplin. Pray for the those who have lost loved ones. Pray for the injured. Pray for those who lost their homes and possessions. Find a way to give to help in the recovery of the city. One good way would be through my old church at Carterville. And as this race of life goes on, and trials and difficulties continue to batter us, pray the words of John from the end of Revelation:

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Gozark!

2011-05-13T22:56:00.000-07:00

When I was just a freshman in high school, I decided I wanted to go to Ozark Christian College when I graduated. For the next four years, I knew that would be where I would end up. I never even applied to any other college. I didn't visit other campuses. I was Ozark all the way. In fact, by the time I was a sophomore, I was ready to be done with high school. There were good things about high school, but I was anxious to move on to something else. Ozark was my Promised Land, and I impatiently weathered my years in the desert of the high school hallways. At long last, in August 2006, I drove my Buick onto campus, parked it in front of Williamson Hall, and started carrying my stuff to my dorm room. I wore my David Crowder t-shirt that day, and we had chicken parmesan for lunch in the cafeteria. There are some days that you just don't forget easily.

Ozark has been my home for the last five years. But a week from now, I will be graduating and will be leaving. As cliche as it sounds, it had not yet sunk in that graduation is finally here, possibly because I still have quite a bit of reading and studying to do for my Western Civ text for Tuesday. When I stop and actually think about it all though, it is an odd feeling to realize that I'm leaving this place. This hill means a lot to me. The people here are maybe the greatest community I've been a part of. I've grown and matured a lot here (but have also gotten less mature in some other ways, so it probably cancels out). In our culture today, we don't often think about the important of "place," but places really do mean something, and Ozark is a place that is especially significant for me.

As I walk around campus, and even go elsewhere in Joplin, I see specific places that mean something to me. I can go to the cafeteria and see where I've talked and laughed and eaten countless cheeseburgers. I can see classroom in the library where I began to realize that I love to preach. I can see spots on campus where I've had to have some really difficult conversations. I can see the round tables in the student center where I played cards for hours--where friendships were forged and I laughed more than I possibly have anywhere else. I can see the ping-pong table where I would play until I got dizzy. Right now, I'm sitting at the desk I've been sitting at for five years, writing papers and blog posts and facestalking. I can see my bed where I've laid staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the happenings of my life. I can see the chair on the other side of the room, where Charlie, then Ryan, and now Nick have sat, talking with me about all sorts of things. I can see the spot on the gym floor where I injured my knee and tumbled to the hardwood, and I can see another spot where I closed my eyes and heaved up a buzzer-beater in our intramural game. I could go to the mall's food court and see the place where I slept on the floor so I could get free Chick-fil-A for a year. I can drive out to the church at Commerce, where for the last year I have been taught wisdom and ministry, as well as being constantly told how my body will fall apart when I'm old. I can see the projector in its spot on my counter, which we have used to watch seasons of Smallville, Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, The Office, and who-knows how many movies.

But now, it's time to leave all of that. In times like this, I tend to become rather reflective and sentimental. I love this place. But it's a place where I can't stay. I think that a lot of the time, God uses a certain place to prepare us so that he can send us to another place. It's a pretty cruel trick, really. When we become attached to a place, that's when we're often sent out from it. Thankfully, though, we serve a God who transcends places. It's not as though I need to be at Ozark for God to be with me. He was with Joseph in Egypt, David in Jerusalem, Jonah in the fish, Daniel in Babylon, Paul in Rome, and John on Patmos. While places are important, God is bigger than all of that, and everything really boils down to him anyway.

I'm ready to leave Ozark. Not especially happy about it. But ready. I'll miss this place deeply, and I'll miss the people here even more. But I believe that God has used Ozark to do what he's wanted it to do in my life, and now he has something else for me to move on to. I'm excited to start seminary in Cincinnati in the fall, and I'm excited to continue down whatever path it is that God has set before me. But part of me will always be left at Ozark (not that I'm going to dismember myself before graduation and leave bury a piece next to the time capsule by the library).

What are some places that mean a lot to you?

Write On

2011-05-11T18:09:00.000-07:00

Today I finished reading A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. If you haven't gathered it from others posts I have written, I'm a pretty big fan of Lewis. I think he was one of the sharpest Christian thinkers in history, and he had an incredible understanding of human nature and a special knack for putting his thoughts into words. Many of his books present clear, thought-out arguments concerning some aspect of Christian belief and behavior. He typically wrote with the precision of a heart surgeon. However, A Grief Observed is different.

A Grief Observed is composed of several journal entries that Lewis wrote after his wife, Joy Davidman, died of cancer after they had been married for four years. It does not read with the organization that Lewis' other books do. Instead, it seems scattered. While his other books demonstrate the power of Lewis' incredible mind, this book gives a glimpse of his aching heart. In it, you find Lewis struggling with his faith. You see him doubting God. You sense the agony that he feels at his loss. He writes with brutal honesty and self-disclosure. This book is not the product of months sitting in an office, revising each paragraph so that it has the right flow. This is the product of a broken man pouring himself out as he pushes his pen to paper.

It is especially interesting to read A Grief Observed in connection with another of Lewis' books, The Problem of Pain. The Problem of Pain was published in 1940 and is a theological treatment of the existence of pain and evil in the world. In it, Lewis explains how pain is a necessary by-product of human free will, and he shows how God uses pain to bring his creatures back to him. While not written in a cold manner, The Problem of Pain comes from an objective position. In contrast, A Grief Observed comes from the trenches of grief. It's raw and uncensored. And when I stop to think about it, I am so impressed that a man like C.S. Lewis, a Cambridge professor and world-renown Christian writer, would reveal the tormented working of his soul by publishing such a book. The world is better off because he did so.

All of this has reminded me of the purpose in writing. In writing, we share life with others. A person may object, "But isn't it better to converse in person? Don't we share life together by actually spending time together?" And in some ways, I think this is true. There is no substitute for a face-to-face relationship. At the same time, however, writing does have it's place. I, for one, am a better writer than I am a conversationalist. Because of this, when I want another person to know that I sincerely mean what I say, I often write it. For me, speech can too often be flippant and instinctual. Writing, on the other hand, requires actual thought and attention. When we write, we have an opportunity to share together, to learn from one another, and to grow together.

However tacky it might be, I want to quote one of my earlier posts: "Life is a conversation." That's why I write. That's what this blog is all about. It's about engaging in conversation with those who care to join. It's about recognizing the fact that we were not made to hack our way through life alone, but that we are meant to navigate its paths together. It's about the truth that many people are smarter and more insightful than me, and that I need to hear their corrections and additions to my thinking. It's about making my life experiences about more than just me, but allowing them to somehow speak to others.

My encouragement to you, then, is simply to write. Put your pen to paper, or your fingers to keyboards. It doesn't matter if the end product is finely polished. It doesn't matter if you're presenting some ground-breaking concept that no one has ever ideated before. We need to converse. We need to learn from one another, in the good times and the bad. In the triumphs and the tragedies. I've come to realize that many of my best posts are ones that were written in times when I was having a rough go of things. I can trace my mental and emotional state through my words from the last three years. Sometimes I need to go back and hear from my younger and wiser self. And I know for sure that I need to hear from you too.

Final note: A few of my friends at Ozark that are in a worship band called Axios have just finished putting together an EP. They're really good, and you can check out their stuff here and buy their songs. Which I highly recommend you do.

An Amateur Critique of Love Wins

2011-05-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of talk the past couple months about a new book by Rob Bell called Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived (quite an undertaking for 200 pages). Bell is a well-known pastor from Michigan who has written a few other books and produced a video series called "Nooma" that many churches use for Sunday Schools or Bible studies. The reason that many Christians have been up in arms over Bell's new book is that some say it advocates universalism, which is the belief that, in the end, all people will be be saved and go to heaven. However, one problem is that many of those who have vehemently been criticizing the book have not actually read it, so I thought it would be a good idea to grab a copy and check it out. These are some of my thoughts on the book, though my treatment is by no means exhaustive. After all, it is after midnight right now, and I need by beauty sleep.

The concern that instigates the writing of Bell's book is a valid one, I think. Near the beginning of the book, he tells of an art show that his church hosted, and one exhibit includes a quote from Ghandi. During the show, someone attached a note to the exhibit that said, "Reality check: He's in hell." Bell comments, "Really? Gandhi's in hell? He is? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt? And that somebody decided to take on the responsibility of letting the rest of the world know?" (1-2). The judgment demonstrated in this incident causes Bell to reexamine the doctrine of heaven and hell. As I understand it, Bell seems to propose that even after death, people will have continued opportunities to surrender to God's love, and that "God will ultimately restore everything and everybody" (107). However, in other places, Bell seems to contradict himself, and he uses enough enigmatic language in his book to make it difficult to pin down what he actually advocates. Nevertheless, there are several significant problems with his approach that deserve to be addressed.

Most importantly, I think, Bell tends to play a little fast and loose with Scripture throughout the book, either by taking verses out of context or by inserting concepts that don't seem to really be addressed by the passage. A few examples: In one section, he is writing about Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities that were destroyed because of rampant sinfulness. Bell then references Matthew 10:15, where Jesus says that it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah at judgment than for cities that reject those Jesus sends out. Bell then writes, "More bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah? He tells highly committed, pious, religious people that it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than them on judgment day? There's still hope? And if there's still hope for Sodom and Gomorrah, what does that say about all of the other Sodoms and Gomorrahs?" (84-85). I think it is a bit of a jump, however, to say that Jesus' intent in his statement was to explain the eternal destinies of Sodom and Gomorrah. Bell may need to pay more attention to Jesus' use of hyperbole throughout the gospels.

There are other instances of similar problems. In one place, in trying to show that all people will accept God's love, Bell cites the common statement in Ezekiel: "The nations will know that I am the Lord" (99). He doesn't provide a specific verse reference for times that this phrase is used in the context of people accepting God's love, and he fails to mention that often, it is used in the context of judgment against wicked nations (e.g., 25:7, 11, 17). In another place, Bell discusses the parable of the prodigal son and goes into depth concerning the fate of the older brother in the story (Lk. 15). After retelling the story, Bell writes, "There is much for us here, about heaven, hell, and the news that is good" (170). At this point, I had to stop and ask, "What? Is the parable of these two brothers talking about heaven and hell? Is that the point of the story? Can we build a doctrine of the afterlife on this story?" It seems that Bell is inserting a topic into the story where it does not exist. These are just a few examples of how Bell uses Scripture in Love Wins, and some of his exegetical methods are questionable at best, I think.

In other places, Bell seems to ignore important passages that might contradict his position. In discussing how God is represented in Jesus' parables, he writes, "Is God like the characters in a story Jesus would tell, old ladies who keep searching for the lost coin until they find it, shepherds who don't rest until that one sheep is back in the fold, fathers who rush out to greet and embrace their returning son, or, in the end, will God give up?" (102). In the margin here, I wrote, "Or like the master of a wedding banquet who throws people outside?" Bell tends to focus on the images of God in which he welcomes all and searches for them, but then he ignores those images where God seems to draw a line in the sand, those images of judgment.

A little later, Bell writes, "Could God say to someone truly humbled, broken, and desperate for reconciliation, 'Sorry, too late'? Many have refused to accept the scenario in which somebody is pounding on the door, apologizing, repenting, and asking God to be let in, only to hear God say through the keyhole: 'Door's locked. Sorry. If you had been here earlier, I could have done something. But now, it's too late'" (108). At this, my mind goes to another parable Jesus tells in Matthew 25:1-13, where five foolish virgins show up late to a wedding banquet, so they bang on the door and beg the bridegroom to let them in, but he replies, "I tell you the truth, I don't know you."

Again, there are other examples in the book of times that Bell seems to ignore certain passages. The bulk of Revelation is pretty absent, and I don't remember seeing passages like 2 Thessalonians 8-9 ("[Jesus] will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power"). In short, Bell creates too sharp a contrast between God's love and his justice/judgment (for which he uses such words as "vicious" [174] or "cruel" [175]). To get to this point, he is forced to do some exegetical gymnastics.

I have heard a lot of people ask, "So is Rob Bell a universalist?" It's a little hard to say. Again, it can be difficult to track with what he is trying to communicate. In some places, it sounds like he might be, but in other places (especially his last chapter, as well as pgs. 154-155), he seems to deny universalism. So it might be a fruitless task to try to put Rob Bell in a doctrinal box, and we should probably just listen carefully to what he is actually saying.

So what should be the answer to the problem Bell is addressing? Because it truly is a problem. Writing a note at an art fair declaring the eternal punishment of Ghandi is certainly not the way Christ calls his church to act, and it is commendable for Rob Bell to bring such problems to our attention. But is the answer to this problem a reworking of the doctrine of heaven and hell? Or, should I response simply be to stop judging others? The greatest problem isn't our doctrine (though some people definitely have incorrect doctrines). The problem is our practice.

I like the way that Bill, a man in my church, has put it. He said that when people ask, "Will so-and-so be in heaven?", the best way to answer is to simply say, "Not without Jesus." Will Ghandi be in heaven? Not without Jesus. Will Mother Teresa be in heaven? Not without Jesus. Will Osama bin Laden be in heaven? Not without Jesus. Will I be in heaven? Not without Jesus. Our responsibility, then, is to constantly thank God for his amazing grace and to make sure as many people have the opportunity to know Jesus. We don't have to judge. I think Jesus is more than fit for that task.

This post is in no way an adequate treatment of Love Wins. I have not really talked about the really good points that Bell does make in the book, and there are still other problems in his arguments that should be addressed. But I only have so much time, and even less brainpower, so this will have to do it for me. Let me know what you think, especially if you've read the book. Also, you may want to check out Kevin DeYoung's review of Love Wins. It's pretty long, and I honestly haven't read it yet, but I've heard it's pretty good.

Hobbits, Wizards, and Wardrobes

2011-04-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

There's something about those British writers. They know how to put together a good story. Granted, they have been writing in the English language for quite a long time, but even so, it's not a very big country, so how many master storytellers can it produce? I find it interesting, therefore, that there are three such well-known fantasy series that have come from Great Britain in the last 60 years--J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, and C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. At the beginning of this semester, I started reading the Harry Potter books because I wanted to read all of them before the last movie comes out this summer. They truly are very good books, and reading them got me thinking about how these three sets of books all have different strengths. Each writer puts their stories together in special ways, and I like all of them a great deal. So I thought I would take some time to comment briefly about what I like in each, just because I think it's interesting. No ethical challenge in today's post. Just some thoughts on how three very good writers do what they do so well.

First, The Lord of the Rings. A few things I want to mention. First off, out of the three series that I mentioned, I think this one has the highest writing style. I've heard before that Tolkien was a bit of a perfectionist, and that he finally submitted his books for publishing at the insistence of his friends that he finally put down his pen and let them be finished. And it shows in his writing. Tolkien was a master of words, and each sentence in these books is carefully crafted.

Second, I am impressed with the level of detail that Tolkien gave to the history behind his story. The tale of Frodo taking the ring to Mt. Doom is not an isolated story. Rather, Tolkien places it in an extensive context. He creates an entire history of Middle-Earth. At the end of The Return of the King, there are a number of appendices that provide chronologies, family trees, and details of elvish language. I haven't read much of this material, but it amazes me that Tolkien would have put the time and the thought into sorting out so many details.

Third, The Lord of the Rings is truly an epic story. It is played out on the big stage. Somehow, the stakes of the story just seem bigger than in many others stories. The outcome of the plot doesn't just affect a few select characters. Frodo's mission has ramifications for the entire world that Tolkien creates. In reading these books, the reader gains a wide perspective. Tolkien crafts a tale of gigantic proportions, while still giving adequate attention to the primary characters. Fourth and finally, I think that Gollum is one of the most intriguing characters in all of literature and is really a highlight of this story. Psychology classes could use him as a case study, and he's not even a real person.

Second, Harry Potter. Before reading the books, I was hesitant. I felt like I would be selling out to mass culture. But now, having read them, I can see why they are so popular. In fact, I would say that they are probably the most culturally influential books that have been written in my lifetime. This is because Rowling does a number of things especially well. First, while Tolkien does a great job of creating a history for his story, Rowling does a great job of creating the world of her story. She creates a unique culture and vocabulary, so that readers can hear about muggles, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, or the Daily Prophet and know exactly what is being spoken of. That's what fantasy fiction does--it creates a new world, and Rowling does that with incredible detail.

Second, the Harry Potter story, from beginning to end, is woven together exceptionally tightly. Events that happen in the first couple books have importance even at the end of the story. Rowling began writing with the end in mind, and each book contributes significantly to the climax of the epic. That's not an easy thing to do in seven books published over a period of ten years. Third, the characterization in the Harry Potter series is very well done. There are a lot of characters in the book, but the reader feels like he really knows each one. The reader is able to anticipate how a character will react to a situation, and each character is unique.

Finally, The Chronicles of Narnia. I think that the greatest feature of these books is that their meaning is the most apparent and the most significant. Not that The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter don't communicate a message. All literature does. But, in my view at least, the message communicated by Lewis' books is the greatest. In reading of Aslan's interactions with the children who visit Narnia, as well as with Narnia's own inhabitants, one can see how Jesus himself loves the world. What's especially interesting is that Lewis communicates this through children's literature (an umbrella under which The Lord of the Rings and most of the Harry Potter books don't fit). Also, throughout The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis has a way of including specific lines that I think are so powerful and that have implanted themselves in my mind. Here are some of my favorites:

Mr. Beaver speaking of Aslan: "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

After Lucy asks how to get to Aslan's country from her own world: "'I shall be telling you all the time,' said Aslan. 'But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.'" (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)

After Jill asks if Aslan eats girls: "'I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,' said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it." (The Silver Chair)

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." (The Last Battle)

So there's my thoughts. Nothing life-altering, but as someone who likes to write and is interested in how storytellers shape their stories, it's good for me to do some reflection on those who do it especially well. If you've read any of these books, leave a comment and share what you think.

Friend or Fan

2011-04-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

This post is going to be about your identity. It's about figuring out on what your identity is built. Before I begin, though, I feel like I should get one point on the table from the start. For each of us, our identity is based ultimately in the person of God. That's where our worth comes from. It's due to the fact that we are beloved creations of God, and nothing can change that. That should bring a great deal of comfort, knowing that no matter what happens in our lives, we can rest assured in the fact that God loves us.

However, that's not what I want to focus on today. Instead, I want you to consider how it is that you portray yourself to other people. How do you want others to relate to you? More specifically, do your base your inter-relational identity on who you are, or on what you do?

I think a problem for many of us is that we overemphasize the latter. We put so much pressure on ourselves to accomplish something. We want achievements. We want titles. We want to be successful in some area so that other people will see it and be impressed with us. We're groomed for this pursuit from the time we're born, it seems. We are told to go to school and work hard so that we can get good grades. We [and by "we," I mean "people other than me"] play sports so that people will take note of our athletic ability. We do everything we can to get good jobs so that we can make money and buy the status symbols that serve as trophies of our success.

All of this is part of our method of relating to others based on what we do. We develop a nearly Marxist self-perception in which our identities are wrapped up in what we produce. So the quest is to constantly produce more and better goods or deeds, because if we falter, then people will stop caring about us.

In a way, when we order our lives like this, we're seeking fame. That's a big part of the dream for many. We want to be famous. We want people to recognize our faces. We want to be congratulated. We want people to stop us on the street and tell us about how we are so great at what we do. We see celebrities on the red carpet, with the crowds pressing in and asking for autographs, and we think about how great it would be. And so, we continue to work and produce and do.

The other approach is to strive to build connections with others by who we are. This is an important difference. When we base our inter-relational identity on what we do, we get fans. We attract people who are intrigued by our ability or achievements. To some, that might sound like a pretty sweet gig, but I think there's something better. Instead of fans, what we really need are friends. A fan is someone who likes you because of what you do. A friend is someone who likes you because of who you are. A friend isn't concerned about whether or not you always produce the greatest thing in the world. A friend wants to be around you even when you fail. When you do something that isn't spectacular. And in the end, fans come and go, but friends tend to stick around. At least the good ones do.

So maybe some of us need to reevaluate where we put our time and energy. Many of us put forth so much effort doing, when what we really need is to simply be. We might need to stop and ask, "Do I want to make fans or friends?" Then we might start doing more to cultivate our characters instead of simply producing.

The Recovery of Worship

2011-04-16T20:59:00.000-07:00

There is a danger in being a Bible college student, or in being in ministry. It's talked about quite a bit at Ozark. This danger is that, in one's studies, he may spend extensive time pouring over Scripture, exegeting passages, parsing Greek verbs, memorizing verses, and reviewing ecclesiastical history, but he never applies what he learns to his life. People talk about the danger of the Bible becoming a mere textbook and not the very Word of God that is intended to mold a Christian's ethics. When this happens, we become nothing but hypocrites, preaching that others emulate Christ but failing to do so ourselves.

There is another danger that is not mentioned as much. It is similar to the one I've already described, but is distinct, I think. This danger is that, once again, a Bible student or minister can spend a lot of time in academic pursuits but loses his passion for worship. A person's faith can become wrapped up in books and commentaries and lectures and sermons, but it's not found in reflection and singing and drumming and dancing. As a result, we measure our relationships with Christ by our knowledge and not by our adoration. We begin to see worship as spirituality for the masses. It's for the "average churchgoer" who comes to get their weekly Jesus-fix. We, on the other hand, are much to sophisticated for such base religion, right?

If that's how we think, we need a major overhaul in our attitude. We're in a bad spot when we start to believe that our faith is about only about having the right doctrinal system or knowing the answer to every Bible trivia question, and not at all about standing in awe of the God who's the point of it all. There's an old worship song that says, "I could sing of your love forever," and I remember times in high school when that's exactly how I felt. I think that a lot of people that grew up in church youth groups can think of times of worship when they felt like they could have stood and sung songs of praise for hours.

Nowadays, I don't feel like that too much. When I'm at chapel services at school and we sing songs before the sermon, my mind wanders and I begin to think about how much longer before I can sit down, or about how my legs are tired, or about what homework I need to do that day, or about what I should blog about next. But I reckon these mental meanderings are alright, because hey, worship isn't that important compared to all my other pursuits. And what happens is that my adolescent passion is replaced by rigid formalism. Songs have been replaced with lectures; drumsticks have been replaced with concordances.

But even the greatest theologian needs worship.

The book of Revelation is chock full of songs. On just about every page, someone breaks out in a musical number. Elders lay down their crowns, creatures shout about the holiness of God, and saints sing about how Christ has conquered. Many scholarly articles have been written about the meaning of these hymns in Revelation--about how they provide commentary for the visions that John sees. The hymns are seen as serving the same function as the chorus in Greek drama. All of this might be true, but I think that at the same time, there is so much worship in Revelation because God's majestic nature is seen clearly, and the angels have no choice but to bow down and pour out their hearts in praise. And if angels are so immersed in worship, we should probably be careful of thinking it's below us.

Get 'Er Done

2011-04-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

If you're in a hurry, I guess you can skip over this first paragraph. It's going to be about how I'm sorry for not having written in a while, and that my excuse is that I've been really busy. Finished a great big paper for my Revelation class this last week, and that took a lot of time, so it's been hard to find a nice little block of time to write anything. Plus, I haven't really had much of a thought for anything to write because all of my mental power has been directed toward my homework and all of the other stuff I have to do. Blah blah blah. You've heard it all before if you've been reading my blog, because I begin half of my posts by writing something similar.

Which got me thinking (so you see, I really have had an idea!): I wonder how often feelings of obligation lower the quality of my work. Maybe this happens to you too. Often when I have a task to do that I need to get done, I get so anxious to get done with it that I rush through and don't make it as good as I could. I do this even if it's something that I really enjoy doing.

For example, I really like the things that I'm studying at Ozark. I like doing research on a passage of Revelation. I like reading books about what the atonement means. I even like reading Bible commentaries some. But for some reason, when these things are given to me as assignments and I have a deadline to get them done, I forget how much I like the topics, and I just want to get it over with. Because I'm so anxious to be done, I don't spend as much time on it as I could, and the quality of my work suffers.

It's the same way with preparing my sermons for each Sunday. I really like preaching. I like doing the research and the reading, and I like the writing. But because Sunday it always coming, because I have to get my sermon done, my sermons aren't as good as I think they could be. When they are done under obligation, my passion is lessened.

For whatever reason, I was born with an innate sense of obligation. I've always lived with a strong sense of "should-ness." I'm not very rebellious or risk-taking, because I tend to just think, "This is what I'm supposed to/not supposed to do." Normally, I don't even question it. I can't give good answers about why I'm supposed to do it, I just feel like I am. Maybe that's why I get so stressed out over assignments and deadlines. I feel obligation to get these things done. It's just what I'm supposed to do. And the result is that I focus so much on what I have to do, and not very much on what I get to do.

I guess what is needed is an attitude-shift, but it's not an easy shift to make. We need to learn to take genuine joy in our work. We need to learn to wake every morning and think, "What kind of things do I get to do today? What can I do to serve or to work?" Instead, what I find myself asking is "What do I have to do today? What is there that needs done?" And that's not a very good attitude to have. If I did have that sort of attitude, I would actually read back over this post right now and fix the grammatical mistakes and make it a little more clear. But I feel like I need to get it posted, because I have other stuff I have to do tonight. So I guess you'll just have to deal with it.

Confidence Man (With Less Theft)

2011-03-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of being a social butterfly. I like to envision myself at a party, moving around the room having meaningful conversations with all sorts of people. I'd like to be one of those people that can create an instantaneous connection with a stranger, as if we are old friends. But I'm not like that. I'm usually pretty uncomfortable in social situations. There is a reason I write blogs, after all.

For example, when I was in middle school, I always looked forward to the school dances. A dance was always on a Friday, and I would anticipate it being the highlight of my whole week. But here's the thing: I can't dance at all, and I couldn't then either. I could do that thing that middle schoolers call "slow dancing" alright, where a guy and girl stand a couple feet apart and sort of touch each other. But I never had the guts to ask a girl to dance, so my limited skills went unused. So I would spend the time awkwardly standing around, and by the time I left the school gym at the end of the event, I would realize that I hadn't had a very good time. But then the next morning, I would wake up and think, "Man, I can't wait till the next dance!" I would vow to myself that next time it would be different, and that I would be the life of the party. A couple months later, the whole process would repeat.

People sometimes tell me that I just need to be more confident. Confidence can be defined as "belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities." What we often label as confidence, however, is often just the opposite. You might see a guy who sits at a table with others and goes on and on about everything he knows about a given topic, or you see another guy telling a girl how great he was at high school football, and you think, "Now that's a confident guy." In fact, you may even label him as overconfident.

In these sorts of scenarios, what we think of as confidence is actually just the opposite. A person who needs to have a conversation focused on him, who must brag about past accomplishments, or who must put his knowledge or skills on display for everyone to ooh and aah at is demonstrating a lack of confidence. Most of us do this from time to time. We all like attention. We want people to be impressed by us. We put so much stock in others' perceptions of us. A truly confident person does not need to play this game, though. A confident person has enough assurance in himself that he is not overly concerned with what others think about him. He doesn't need to turn the spotlight to himself.

The confident person, then, is able to give real attention to others instead of drawing attention to himself. He makes a conversation about the other person. He asks questions that give others a chance to talk. He encourages. He gives credit to others instead of trying to gobble it up himself. A confident person is much more enjoyable to be around because he isn't trying to win your support like a political candidate lobbying for votes. He's not trying to manipulate you.

Our tendency is to label people who a naturally friendly as "confident," while those who are more reserved are "not confident." However what we often think of as an issue of "confidence vs. lack of confidence" is really not about confidence at all. It's an issue of being outgoing vs. being shy. An outgoing person can be confident (giving genuine attention to others) or not confident at all (desperately trying to impress). In the same way, a shy person can be either confident or not. Because a person is quiet does not mean that person lacks confidence. They just lack outgoingness. These aren't the same.

I am not writing any of this to speak out against those who say I need more confident, because these people are right. They might mean to say that I should be more outgoing (which is possibly true), but I do also need confidence. I like to bring attention to myself. I like to look good. And because of this, I often make my interactions with others about me instead of about them. I need confidence. And perhaps you do too.

To The Republic

2011-03-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which is stands, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.

Every American knows those words. We are taught to recite the Pledge of Allegiance from the time we're born, it seems. They may be the most oft-quoted words in America, except for "Happy birthday" or "So have you read D-Heff's latest blog post?" When I was in elementary school, every day began with the entire student body turning toward the giant American flag hanging on the wall, and we would recite the Pledge of Allegiance with our hands over our hearts. It becomes so routine, in fact, that we don't even give the words a second thought. They're just natural.

I wonder, however: As Christians, should we say the Pledge of Allegiance? Most Christians in this nations would say, "Of course we should. God and country--that's what we're all about." The appropriateness of reciting these words goes unquestioned. I have even been in churches when the entire church says the Pledge of Allegiance together Independence Day (shudder). The more I think about it though, the more I am convinced that the Pledge of Allegiance doesn't have a place in the life of a Christian.

Can a person have allegiance to two kingdoms? That is what it boils down to. As a Christian, I am part of Christ's kingdom. That's where my allegiance lies. Can I, then, also claim to have allegiance to that nation in which I live?

What if we took this concept and put it in a different context? For example, would it be alright for a Christian in China to pledge allegiance to China? Or for a Christian in Iran to pledge allegiance to Iran? Or could a first-century Christian have pledged allegiance to Rome? How then is it acceptable for American Christians to pledge allegiance to the United States? Now, you may argue, "But those other places are pagan nations. We live in a Christian nation." I would disagree with such a proposition. You can check out my earlier treatment of that topic, which is more complete but certainly not exhaustive. Those who think it's okay to give their allegiance to America because we live in a "Christian nation" may not be looking at the American values that are contradictory to God's kingdom. I haven't checked in a while, but the last I knew, "patriotism" wasn't listed as a fruit of the Spirit.

I hesitate a little to post this, because the truth is that I'm not completely sold out on an answer to these questions, though I guess it's obvious which way I'm leaning. But for the most part, publishing ideas that you're unsure on (and not very knowledgeable about) is a dangerous enterprise. So please join in the conversation. Leave a comment and let us know what you think. And enjoy March Madness. It is the most wonderful time of the year.

Authority and Compassion

2011-03-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

Recently I finished reading a book called Killing Cockroaches by a guy named Tony Morgan. If I ever write a book, it will probably be one like this one. The whole thing is just a collection of his blog posts. Heck, if that's all it takes to write a book, I've already written one or two. Anyways, in part of his book, Morgan gives a list of reasons why he blogs, and I was surprised when one of them was "People send me free stuff." What?! I've been doing this for two and a half years, and not one of you chumps has sent me anything! It's time for you saps to pick up your end of the deal.

Now that I've totally alienated the bulk of my readership, let me get to what I want to write about today. I have been spending some time reading the gospel of Mark over the past couple weeks. I love that, even though I've read Mark I don't know how many times in my life, God continues to illuminate different things for me. As I have been reading it, I have been struck by the way that, over and over again, Mark points out Jesus' twin characteristics of authority and compassion. On one hand, Jesus demonstrates incredible power and strength, both in word and deed. On the other hand, Jesus is compassionate--he feels concern and love for the crowds that continuously press in on him. These characteristics are not at odds with each other in Jesus, however. They go together. Jesus has authority and compassion, and one does not diminish the other.

We see it from the very beginning of Mark's gospel. Even in the first chapter, we read about Jesus teaching in the synagogue and driving out an evil spirit. After the exorcism, the people in the synagogue are amazed and say, "What is this? A new teaching--and with authority! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him" (1:27). So right away, we are reminded of Jesus' power and authority (which is demonstrated again in the next passage when Jesus heals Simon's mother-in-law, plus everyone else who comes to him that night.) Later in the chapter, a man with leprosy comes to Jesus, begging him to make him clean. Then Mark tells us, "Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!'" (1:41). Here, we obviously see Jesus compassion. He reaches out and touches those that the rest of society expels. He embraces those that the world pushes away.

It's much of the same for the rest of the gospel. (Or at least through chapter nine, which is where I am now.) Jesus declares that he has "authority on earth to forgive sins" (2:10). He identifies himself as "Lord [authority!] even of the Sabbath" (2:28). Jesus is the strong man who invades Satan's house and ties him up [more authority] (3:27). The disciples are terrified because "even the wind and the waves obey him [even more authority]" (4:41). A legion of demons recognizes that Jesus has the power to torture them [and yes, once again, more authority] (5:7).

In the same way, Jesus' compassion shows up again and again. Jesus eats dinner with tax collectors and sinners, because they are the sick who need a doctor (2:17). He heals a man with a shriveled hand who was ignored by the religious establishment (3:5). When he tries to get some time alone with his disciples but is intercepted by a huge crowed, "he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd", so he feeds all 5000+ of them (6:34). He heals the daughter of a Syro-Phonecian woman [which Jews would read as "dirty, nasty, unclean, flea-ridden Gentile] (7:30). And, when he feeds yet another crowd of thousands, he says, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat" (8:2).

Authority and compassion. Authority and compassion. You can't get away from them when you read Mark. My favorite story that illustrates this is the account of Jairus' daughter and the bleeding woman--two stories that are twisted together like the strands of a rope. In this text in Mark 5:21-43, both Jairus and the woman are afraid at some point. The woman, who had snuck up behind Jesus, touched his cloak, and been healed, trembles with fear when Jesus finds her out. Why? I think she was afraid that Jesus lacked compassion. She was afraid that he would rebuke her and condemn her for being so presumptuous as to think she can just come up and touch the clothes of such a popular miracle-worker. But, contrary to her fear, she experiences a special display of Jesus' compassion. He doesn't scorn her. He tenderly says, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." What a compassionate Christ.

Then there's Jairus. He had come to Jesus to see if he would heal his sick daughter, but while Jesus was busy dealing with the bleeding woman, his daughter had died. So Jairus is afraid, but for a different reason. He is afraid that Jesus lacked authority. He perhaps doubted Jesus' power. Healing a girl is one thing, but bringing her back to life is quite another. Perhaps this one was simply out of Jesus' reach. But then Jesus looks at Jairus and says, "Don't be afraid! Just believe." Then Jesus goes to Jairus' home and brings his daughter back to life, demonstrating that he even has authority over the grave. What a powerful Christ.

At times in life, I am afraid, and I would think that you may be also. Sometimes we are afraid that Jesus does not have authority. We think that there might be a situation in our lives that is just too much for him to handle. We're not sure if he can come through this time. Or, on the other hand, we may be afraid that Jesus does not have compassion. We think that he is unconcerned with our problems. We figure, "He has more important things to worry about, after all." However, the story of Jairus and the bleeding woman (as well as the rest of Mark) reminds us that Jesus has authority and compassion. He is all-powerful and all-loving. And that means being his child is a very good thing to be.

This also has an affect on how we think about our own ministries and our own lives as Christians. If we follow Jesus, we too should be characterized by authority and compassion. We have authority, not in ourselves, but because we preach God's Word and have his Spirit dwelling within us. So let's be bold, not shrinking back, but standing firm through any circumstance. Not only that, but we must have compassion. Let's see other people the way that Jesus sees them--as his children and his flock that are lost without him. Let's reach out and touch the untouchable, love the unlovable, and embrace the outcasts.

Authority and compassion. We see it in Jesus. So let's help the world see Jesus in us.

Do I Need Clarity?

2011-02-26T17:40:00.000-08:00

I noticed something odd yesterday. I had picked up a couple followers of my blog since the last time I had checked. That's awfully nice of them, so I figured I at least owe it to them to actually write something on here every once in a while. Just to show I care.

I was listening to a song today by Chris Taylor called "I Don't Need to Know." I was hoping to be able to get it to play on my blog, but they don't have it on playlist.com. It's a pretty good song, though, and I especially like some of the lyrics in the chorus:

I don't need to know all the things that I know you know
Just the simple fact that you loved me before I was born
Every piece of me that I lose along the way
You pick them up and make me new
You make me new

I'm graduating from Ozark in a little under three months. I have been thinking about this fact on a more regular basis lately. Not so much because I want to, but because it keeps sneaking into my mind when I let my guard down. I would rather not think about the truth that very soon I'm supposed to be an adult and I have to have some idea about where I'm going from here. In these sorts of life-transitions, I think all of us want to have a lot of questions answered. We want to know what life is going to look like. Will I go to grad school or go get a job? Where in the country will I go? Will I live by myself or have a roommate? Will I go ahead and get cable TV or not? Will I have any money? Who will I marry? Will the nursing home I'll probably be living in by that time let me have the ceremony there, or will I have to do it somewhere else?

I have a lot of questions that I would really like answers to. Right now, the future looks so hazy, and that can be frightening. I try my best not to worry or to be anxious, but it's a lot easier to talk about that than actually doing it. If only God would drop his will for my life like a brick on my head, I would be able to breathe much easier. Uncertainty feels like a precarious position.

What Chris Taylor recognizes in his song, though, is that we don't need to know everything. God does know, and he's a good God, and we can trust that he'll work things out. It's like a child with his father. When you're a little kid, you don't need to know every detail about the future. You don't ask questions like "What will I be doing three years from now? What is the exact economic process that ensures that I have plenty of mac n' cheese to eat at dinner? How can I best invest my future assets so that I can retire comfortably?" No, instead, the child knows that his father has everything under control. It's not the child's responsibility to have it all figured out. Maybe that's partly what Jesus meant when he said his followers need to be like little children.

There is a story about a guy named John Kavanaugh who worked with Mother Teresa for a while as he tried to determine what to do with his future. When he met with Mother Teresa, he asked her to pray for him, and she asked what he wanted her to pray. He replied that he wanted her to pray that he have clarity. However, Mother Teresa refused to pray that he would have clarity. (She could be such a jerk sometimes.) Kavanaugh told her that she seemed to always have clarity, and that he simply wanted to have that same sort of clarity in his own life. Then Mother Teresa said, "I have never had clarity. What I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."

I don't need to know everything. I would really like to know everything. But I don't need to. It's not my job to have the entire course of the universe spread in front of me like a flowchart. It's my job to follow Jesus. To wake up each day and see how I can best serve him before I go to bed again. I know that God loves me, and that's enough. He's got the rest under control.

The Noticeable Church

2011-02-12T18:14:00.000-08:00

I do hope that all of you have finished mourning the Steelers loss in the Super Bowl from last Sunday. I know it's hard, but I think that we can get through it if we support one another.

This morning I started reading a book that my friend Charlie got for me called Killing Cockroaches by Tony Morgan. I'm not very far into the book yet, but I really like what I have read so far. The book is all about church leadership, which is a valuable and important topic, but isn't really one that I get into very easily (which is unfortunate, considering that I hope to be a church leader sometime in the not-too-awfully-distant future. The thing that I really like about Killing Cockroaches is that it does not follow the structure of most books. There are not really chapters; instead, there are just a ton of short blips, each only a page or two. Also, instead of establishing lists of leadership principles that should be put into practice, Morgan just tells a lot of stories and asks some questions. This is helpful, I think, because stories and questions stick. Enumerations of principles are difficult to keep in mind, but stories and questions are often have influence that lasts longer and that might even change behavior. (Check this out to see more of my feelings on such things.)

One of the questions that Morgan asks that I thought was especially poignant was this: "If your church shut its doors today, would your community notice?" (15). In this section, Morgan talks about how a couple in his church gave their car to a young woman in the congregation who was in need of a vehicle, and he references how the early church in Jerusalem would sell their possessions and share one another and truly care for those in need (Acts 4:32-37). This is the kind of church life that gets noticed. The thing about the couple at Morgan's church, and the thing about the church in Acts, is that they were engaged--they were engaged with one another and engaged with the surrounding community. One of the reasons the early church was always been persecuted is because they didn't just fly under the radar, trying not to make a scene. They were noticed.

As leaders in the church (or as members of the church, in fact), it would be helpful for us to constantly be asking ourselves the question that Morgan poses. There are many churches that are doing really incredible things in the community to share the love and gospel of Christ, but sadly, there are also many that are so internally focused (what can we do to feed ourselves?) that their presence makes no impact on anyone who hasn't gone to that church since they were babies. That's not how it should be. If your church and its people vanished tomorrow (now I'm treading dangerously close to rapture theology. Whoops), there it should leave a dent in your city. The church should be as noticeable as a unicorn running through a shopping mall. Not because it pridefully draws attention to itself, but because it restlessly loves with the love of Jesus, and that love is counter to anything the world has ever seen before.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Plan A

2011-02-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

I could make up some lame excuse for not having written for a little while, and I could say that I have simply been too busy with school and such. But all of that would be a lie, because the truth is that I went to one class all this last week. All day Tuesday, the sky dumped absurd amount of snow and other wintry precipitation all over Joplin (as well as all over a large chunk of the country, from what I hear), and this resulted in three snow days in a row for me. It has been snowing some more today, but not as furiously as it was earlier this week. Right now large flakes are gently floating down from the clouds, and it's all very beautiful, in fact. It's the kind of a snow that is featured on Christmas movies.

This week I have been reminded of an important fact in several different settings. In my Sunday School class last Sunday, we were studying Isaiah 53, which is well known because of how vividly it describes the way in which Jesus would lay down his life in order to take on the infirmities and sorrows of his people. This is an incredible passage of Scripture that should be read and reread over and over again. Tucked within it, though, is a significant little idea. Verse 10 says of the suffering servant, "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and thought he Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand." It's God's will that all of this would happen, even hundreds of years before it actually would. Just hold on to that idea for a moment.

A couple days later, I was reading the first chapter of Ephesians, where Paul describes how God has blessed us with "every spiritual blessing in Christ." Verses 4-5 say, "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will." These are some pretty loaded sentences, and they immediately raise all sorts of theological questions concerning predestination and God's foreknowledge and such. This is fertile soil for a theological debate. Here's how I read it (though I haven't studied this passage in depth): God chose us (the church) before creation, and he predestined us (the church) to be adopted as his sons. This was God's will from the start. To bring the church to himself. Not that he picks and chooses who will be saved and who will not, overriding any sense of personal decision. But God does love and choose the church. Again, hold on to that.

Finally, in my Romans class this morning, my professor talked about how, in the first few chapters of Romans, Paul develops the argument that all people, Jew and Gentile alike, are under sin and are in need of Jesus. There is no room for spiritual superiority here, because all are on equal footing--both the pagan who indulges in every sinful desire and the judgmental Jew who believes he is safe because of he pedigree. What my professor pointed out is that it was always God's plan to justify sinners through Jesus.

So what does all of this point to? It shows that God's intention and will from the beginning was to rescue the church through faith in Jesus. It is not as though God's original plan was to only save Israel, who would maintain the sacrificial system for all of eternity, but that he later changed his mind because he could see that wasn't working out very well. God's purpose didn't fail, forcing him to scrape together some sort of second-string scheme. What biblical history shows us is that God's intent from all of eternity was to send Jesus to die on the cross and to form the community of the church. The church is not God's "Plan B." It was in his mind from the beginning.

It is popular today to get down on the church. A lot of people, even a lot of Christians, like to bash the church every opportunity they get. But let's remember how deeply God loves and cares for the church. We are adopted as his own children through Christ. The church is like a bride, and it is unwise to insult a person's bride. Especially when the groom is Jesus himself. No, I certainly think the church needs to be critiqued from time to time, and we need to constantly be reforming ourselves and growing more into who God would have us be. But let's be careful of getting too down on the church, and let's remember how it fits into God's plan for the world. At the same time, this should create within us an incredible sense of gratitude and self-acceptance. No words can adequately describe God's love for us. He chooses us first. We're his first pick. He doesn't take us because no one else is around, or because those he really wants are unable. God loves the church. He loves us. And that's a fact worth being pumped up about.

Adoration

2011-01-26T18:19:00.000-08:00

'Tis been awhile since I've written anything here. I've missed you all terribly. Especially you. (You know who you are.) Let me give you all a brief summary of what my life has been like since we were last together. I was in Oregon for about ten days and had a fantastic time getting to visit with friends and spend some time in my favorite part of the country. I spoke at a high school retreat while I was there, and it too was a great experience. It was certainly a challenge due to the fact that I had never before preached so much in such a small window of time, but I enjoyed it a great deal. I believe that God did some incredible things in the lives of the students who were there, and it will be exciting to see how he continues to use them all in the future. After the retreat, I flew back to Missouri and have been getting into the swing of things for my last semester at Ozark. I think this semester will be very good. I only have four classes (13 hours), which is the least I've ever had, and I think my Romans and Revelation classes will be awesome. Also, the Steelers made it into the Super Bowl. Time for all of you to pull out your Terrible Towels.

Now that we're on the same page, I thought that I would take a few minutes to share some of the things we talked about at the retreat in Oregon. The theme for the weekend was "Adoration," and we talked about what it means to live a life of adoration and worship of God. All of this was as much of a challenge for me as it was for the students, and I was blessed to be able to research and think on this topic, trying to look at the idea of worship in a new way. I hope it's an encouragement and a blessing to you as well. Each of the paragraphs below is a summary of one of the messages I gave at the retreat.

Why do we worship? That's an important question, I think, but it's not one that we often stop and ask ourselves. Different people would likely give different answers to this question. A popular answer might be, "Well, because it's Sunday." And, as we all know, Sunday is the day that we dress nice and go to church and worship, while we got about all of our "non-worship" activities the rest of the week. This is a lame reason for worship, however. It's like a married person saying, "I adore my wife because it's Thursday, so I'll do a lot of things for her today but not the rest of the week." Another reason that some might give for worship is "Because the music moves me to it." In our modern vernacular, worship has become equated with singing at church, so if they play a song we like (and play it well), then we are enabled to worship. But again, this is a weak reason for worship. Music can't create worship and adoration any more than playing love songs on a boombox can make two people fall in love. It doesn't work. Believe me; I've tried. So why do we worship? I think the answer is this: We worship God because of who he is and what he has done. First, when we get a glimpse of God in his holy, sovereign character, we have no choice but to worship. Just look at how the Israelites respond to God in Exodus 19, or Isaiah in Isaiah 6. Second, we worship by remembering how God has acted in salvation history. After crossing the Red Sea, Moses and the Israelites sing a giant song because of how God had saved them. Likewise, when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we are worshipping Christ by remembering how he has saved us. Maybe the reason so many of us have a hard time getting into worship is that we have taken out of the context of God's character and actions.

There are several significant obstacles to worship, however, and possibly the greatest one is pride. In Luke 18, Jesus tells a story about two men who went up to the temple to pray--a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee makes his prayer all about himself, boasting to God how he does good deeds and abstains from the vices that characterize those around him. The tax collector, on the other hand, prays simply, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." Jesus says that the tax collector is the one who went home justified before God. Why? Because he exhibited humility, while the Pharisee was characterized by pride. You can't worship God when you're worshipping yourself. If we're going to truly worship and adore God, we need to come to the realization (as my former youth minister would say) that it's not about you. Worship is about God and him alone. It's not about what we get out of it, but about what we bring to him. Charlie wrote a blog post a while back about pride and humility that helped me a lot in this message. You can check it out here.

One of my favorite images of adoration in the Bible is in Luke 10:38-42. Jesus and his disciples are going to Jerusalem, and the go to the home of Mary and Martha for dinner. These two sister takes very different approaches to Jesus' visit. Martha is going nuts, running around the house trying to make sure everything is perfect. Mary, conversely, just sits at Jesus' feet, listening to what he's saying. Jesus says that Mary, not Martha, is doing what's best. Not that Martha isn't doing good things. She just isn't doing the best thing. The good things we do aren't always the best things, and we need to learn to adore God through our priorities. The truth is that most of us have crazy schedules, and we spend our time in a number of varied and beneficial activities. But what Mary shows is that our highest priority needs to be to be with Jesus. To abide in him, one could say. God doesn't just want our activity or our busyness (even those of us in vocational ministry). He wants us.

Our adoration should play a part in every part of our lives. It's not something that exists only in our hearts without any outward expression. That's not how we think of things today, though. People will say things like, "God isn't all that concerned with how I live. All God really wants is relationship. He just wants me to really love him." And those people look at the Jews in the Bible and think, "Those silly people. They just didn't get it. They didn't understand that God is all about the heart. They're just legalists." But here's what I think those Jews would say to my generation: "How can you love God without obeying him? Do you really think all he wants is for you to feel warm fuzzies and to sing praise songs and then go on living however you want? Do you really think God just wants your heart, as if it can be separated from your lifestyle?" And so, what we find is that adoration is shown in our obedience. 1 John 2:4 says that anyone who says "I know God" but doesn't obey him is a liar, and I think it would be fair to say that anyone who says "I love him" but doesn't do what he says is in the same boat (Jn. 14:15). Again, it's a lot like a marriage. I can run around telling everyone how much I love my wife, but if I never do anything that my wife asks me to do, it has to be questioned whether I really love my wife. Adoration without obedience is really no adoration at all.

And finally, adoration is shown in our sacrifice. Romans 12:1 famously exhorts us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices as this is our spiritual act of worship. Such a sacrifice cannot be halfhearted. This adoration requires everything we are. When a lamb was sacrificed on an altar, it couldn't be a sacrifice and continue hopping around on the grassy hills. It had to be all in. So what does it look like for us to be living sacrifices? I think a good place to start is with what Jesus says in Mark 8:34-38, when he tells the crowds that following him means that they deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow him. First, we must deny ourselves. Being a sacrifice means that we are no longer our own bosses, but that we truly make Jesus our Savior and our Lord. We are a sacrifice when we remember that our goal is not to have "your best life now," but that, as I said before, it's not about us. Second, we carry our crosses. Jesus used the most offensive symbol of his day to show that following him is not a call to discomfort or inconvenience. It's a call to death (Gal. 2:20). Third, we follow Jesus. This typically means that we leave something else behind, just as Simon, Andrew, James, and John left their fishing gear on the beach and Matthew left his tax booth empty. Then we follow Jesus wherever he leads us, which is a pretty scary proposition because he could lead us all sorts of places. And yet, in the middle of it all, we are comforted by the truth that God is good and that he has already gone ahead of us with his cross because of his love for us. He's truly worth being adored.

Class Struggles

2011-01-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

I think it would be fun to count up all of the different places in the world I have written blog posts from. I mean, there have got to be at least four or five. It's absolutely nuts. Right now I'm back in Oregon for the next week and change. You avid readers may (or you friends of mine) may remember that I spent last summer working with a church in Corvallis, Oregon. Next weekend, that church's high school group is having their winter retreat, and they invited me to come back and preach at it. I'm really excited to be here and to get to spend time with some good friends from last summer, and I'm also pretty stoked about preaching next weekend. I do value your prayers for me this week, both for my own preparation, but more importantly that God would be working in the students this week even before we leave. I'm really excited to see the awesome things God will do next weekend.

I enjoy living in the United States. I don't mind criticizing our nation from time to time, but for the most part, I realize that I am very fortunate to live where I do. Not everyone in the world has all of the resources and privileges that I do because of my national status. Of course, one of the best thing about life in America is that I am a citizen of a democracy, and we function under the principle that all people are created equal. Yesterday, however, I experienced a case in which this principle is not applied very well. I flew from Kansas City to Portland, and I believe that there may not be anything that makes me feel less valued as a human than commercial airlines. After I had gone through security and had been waiting at the gate for a while, one of the airline employees came on the intercom and said something like this:

"In just a moment we will begin boarding United flight 293 for Portland. We will begin by boarding all of our first-class passengers, as well as members of our Premium Gold Star Good-Looking Club, who may walk on this red carpet while we shower them with rose petals. Once these passengers are on board, all of you bed-wetters may take your seats in coach."

Once I got on the plane, I had to walk past all of these first-class passengers, looking smug in their recliners and sipping their drinks from their real glasses instead of the disposable plastic cups. They think they're so high and mighty. After all of us lower-class passengers get seated, they pull a curtain to separate first-class from coach so that all of those in the front of the plane don't have to look at our pimply faces. It's humiliating. As I sat uncomfortable with my arms crossed across my chest because the person next to me was using the armrest, I came to the sad realization that I am just another worthless member of the proletariat, fated to spend my days shining the shoes of "The Man."

The flight was not all bad, though, because I spent the time learning practical dating tips from J.R.R. Tolkein's The Return of the King, which is the third and final book of The Lord of the Rings. Here's what I learned: first, everyone in Middle-Earth talks with such class. They use the word "shall", and they give each other all sorts of names and titles, and they don't sound like a bumbling idiot like me. For example, I just opened up the book to this gem: "But Imrahil said: ' So victory is shorn of gladness, and it is bitter bought, if both Gondor and Rohan are in one day bereft of their lords. Eomer rules the Rohirrim. Who shall rule the City meanwhile? Shall we not send now for the Lord Aragorn?'" I've never said such a fine sentence in my entire life. If I start using the word "bereft" more often, I know the ladies will be lining up to listen to what might come out of my mouth next.

Second, at the end of the book, the hobbits return to their homes in the Shire. Sam has his eye on this she-hobbit Rosie, and while Rosie is near, Sam's gaffer asks Frodo how Sam did on their journey. Then it says this:

"Perfrect satisfaction, Mr. Gamgee," said Frodo. "Indeed, if you will believe it, he's now one of the most famous people in all the lands, and they are making songs about his deeds from here to the Sea and beyond the Great River." Sam blushed, but he looked gratefuly at Frodo, for Rosie's eyes were shining and she was smiling at him.

The lesson? If you want girls to like you, all you have to do is return successfully from a death-defying quest to save the world.

Ain't no thang.

State of the Heffren Address

2010-12-31T10:55:00.000-08:00

I would like to begin this post with a quotation from a blog post that my good friend Charlie wrote in May:

I secretly have a "Blog War" with David Heffren. He doesn't know about it(well, he might not if he reads this post like a good friend would). I saw that before tonight, we both have posted 11 blog posts so far this year, and as I walked into our dorm room, I saw him writing a new post. I can't let him write more blog posts than me, so I decided to write one. I know that people usually write when they have something of importance or meaningful on their minds, but I am competitive by nature. So I guess you could say this post was born out of spite for David Heffren. So take that four-eyes.

This is now my 43rd blog post of 2010, whereas Charlie has only written 40 of them. He made a good showing, but he just couldn't handle me down the homestretch.

Right now I'm in Boise, Idaho because my friend Ryan (and my roommate last semester) is getting married tomorrow afternoon. When I first met Ryan, I never would have thought he would have gotten married before me. Actually, that's a lie. This guy was just too fashionable. You can only hold him down for so long. So far, Idaho is a pretty killer place. When we landed, we could see a mountain from snow all over it, which was a nice change from just looking at dead trees and the Jehovah's Witness church out my back door. Plus, we had some delicious Red Robin for the rehearsal dinner last night. Not a bad way to end the year.

At the end of each year, I like to write a blog post to review the previous twelve months in my life, picking out the most notable events. So as I look back on 2010, the first thing that comes to mind is when I went to New York City in January for a class. I had never really been to NYC before, and it was a great time. I met Mike Ditka, which is a story that I'll never get tired of telling. I ate lots of pizza. I tried on $6000 jackets. I talked with a crazy guy at Starbucks that told us how he passed out for PCP. I ate free dessert from the Italian restaurant manager that somehow remembered Ray. All in all, a successful trip.

2010 was a year of transition. Not so much because of things changing a lot in my own life, but more because of so many of my good friends graduating and going of to bring real life. April and May were kind of weird months, because of the the upcoming graduates would want to get in all of the time they could with their friends, so it felt like people were wanting to hang out all the time. This was a shift because I'm used to people not wanting to hang out with me at all. Graduation was a pretty sad time, but it was still exciting to see all of the incredible things that my friends are doing in ministry, and I truly consider myself fortunate to have spent a few years rubbing shoulders with them.

Probably the most noteworthy part of my year was my summer spent in Corvallis, Oregon where I did a student ministry internship with Suburban Christian Church. If you've been an avid reader of my blog from the beginning, you may know that I spent a month in the Northwest while I was on camp teams, and I was anxious to go back. The people at Suburban were great, and I couldn't have asked for much of a better summer. Granted, I had to struggle with driving a stick shift for three months, but once I stopped being bothered by all the other drivers flipping me off, I could settle in and really enjoy myself. Oregon really is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I always say that you can get to every biome of the world in a two-hour drive. I'll be heading back to Corvallis a week from today, and I'm pretty stoked for that. I just hope the people there remember me.

I think I have written this before, but my time since getting back from Oregon has been a bit of a blur, so I'll just summarize it all here in a few sentences. I'm still at Ozark. I preach now at a little church in Commerce, Oklahoma. It's challenging at times, but still going great. Connor and I went to Indiana to visit our lost friend Charlie, and it was a great trip, except when Charlie's car broke down at a gas station in Louisville. My intramural volleyball team got second place, thanks to our average height of about 6'2". I went to a lot of weddings (Ryan's tomorrow will be the fifth one in the past four months). And....that's about it.

As far as looking forward to 2011, I guess the only thing I know for sure is that I'll go to a wedding tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I'm going to graduate this year, but I don't want to count my chickens too much. After that, the year is pretty wide open, which is exciting in a way but a little scary in many more. Have a great New Year's Eve. I'm going to spend my time stealing some kisses from Charlie (Hershey's, that is).

100 Posts and We Haven't Broken a Hip Yet!

2010-12-28T14:25:00.000-08:00

Today is a special day. I've been looking forward to it for some time, in fact. Maybe a month or two ago, I noticed that I had written over 90 blog posts since I started A Chicken in a Cage with a Ferret two and a half years ago. Because of that, I've just written garbage for the past few posts so that I could get to this one. Welcome to (drumroll......) my 100TH BLOG POST! This probably ranks somewhere in the top 43 accomplishments of my life, for sure. There are so many people out there that I want to thank: my 17 followers, my five readers, the Starbucks guy that made my chai latte today, Don Miller for providing my blog title, my once-upon-a-time co-writer Caitlyn, Charlie for name-dropping me in his blog, and, most of all, I thank myself, just for being you. Go get 'em, Tiger. One hundred is an important number. I remember that when I was little, I was so impressed by how my older sister would stomp on empty soda cans and smash them, and I wanted to do it too, but she said that I would be unable to until I weighed 100 pounds. I was so distraught. As excited as I am about having 100 blog posts, however, I sometimes wonder how my life might be different if I had spent all the time it took to write all of this working out in the gym instead. I would probably get my lunch money stolen way less often.

Do you ever feel like you're always just waiting for the next thing? I do, and I think that the same is true of many people. For example, Christmas is over now. I remember how, when I was a little kid, the day after Christmas I would think, "Holy cow. Now I have to wait an entire year for Christmas to get here again. I would feel so down about the prospect of having to endure another 12 months of days not getting presents. Normal life is so drab when you compare it with Christmas, after all. We look forward to and wait for other moments in life, too. I wanted to go to Ozark for college since I was a freshman in high school, and I was often frustrated by the fact that I had to graduate high school before they would take me. Other people just can't wait for their wedding day once they get engaged. A good friend of mine is getting married this Saturday, and I think his fiance has probably been counting down the days since April.

These sorts of things happen all the time. Personally, I feel like I am always unsatisfied with where I am and what I'm doing at the moment because I am constantly looking forward to the next thing. There is a danger in this. We can spend so much energy focusing on some point in the future that we miss where we are now. I had lunch with my sister today, and we talked briefly about how dang old we are getting. I'm going to be 23 in a few weeks! I have no business being 23. People that age are supposed to have some sort of handle on life. I didn't really even own any long-sleeved shirts until yesterday. I'm obviously not prepared. The thing about getting older is that it doesn't wait for you to be ready. In school, you have to pass one grade to move up to the next one, but with age, you get older every year no matter what. They're no tests. You're just expected to keep up. Time is one cruel master. And yet, as I continue to age, I worry about what kinds of good things I have missed in my life so far because I was so concentrated on what's next. Conversations I could have had, laughs I could have shared, weddings I could have crashed.

It's all a pretty tricky practice. It's like we need three eyes. One to reflect on and learn from the past, one to be paying attention to what's going on in the present, and one to be planning for and looking forward to the future. We run into problems when one of these eyes starts doing all of the work. When we focus too much on the past, we get stuck in regrets and are unable to move forward in life. When we focus solely on the present, we make foolish mistakes and are ill-prepared for what might meet us in the future. And when we are too focused on the future, we miss out on what good things are happening in our lives now. It's not an easy thing to do, especially with people who as poor vision as me. So in this, my 100th post, my encouragement to you is this: Find out which of these eyes you need to give some special attention to, and try to work some balance into your life. Learn from the past. Live in the moment. Plan for the future.

When a television series films their 100th episode, I think they usually get a giant cake and have a big party for all of the cast and crew. And I wanted to do something similar, but I can't really bake, and I would be a big fatty if I made a whole cake for myself. So I did the next best thing--I bought a double-decker taco from Taco Bell to celebrate. Hooray a-for me!

And now here's your chance to join in the celebration. For those of you who have been reading my blog for a while, I'm curious if there is a specific post that you've especially liked. I want to know this for a couple reasons. First, I'm proud and arrogant and like to be patted on the back. But also, if I know what good things I have written, maybe I can do a better job of emulating those posts in the future. Plus, I have to know which ones to include in my book. If you leave a comment, I'll pay you with 100 high-fives (or "knucks", if you prefer), or I will give your greatest enemy 100 punches in the face. Your choice.

Tradition

2010-12-24T20:31:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve. It's funny how different Christmas feels compared to when I was a kid. Christmas used to be the highlight of my entire year, and I would could down the days till Christmas beginning in November. And then, the day after, I would think, "Dang, now I have to wait an entire year for Christmas! I can't do it!" Nowadays, the holiday just sort of sneaks up on me until one morning I wake up at the break of noon and realize it's here. This year, I don't even have a blizzard or power outage to signal that it is indeed Christmas. If it weren't for everyone putting Christmasy statuses on their facebook profiles, I would probably miss the whole thing.

What do you first think of when you hear the word "tradition"? Many people associate traditions with Christmas. (Or, they might associate it with that song from Fiddler on the Roof, which is not a very good Christmas movie at all.) In fact, Christmas seems incomplete for some families without their traditions. They eat certain foods, watch certain movies, wear the same sweaters, etc. I was thinking tonight about whether or not my family has many traditions, and I came to the conclusion that we really don't. We eat dinner. I think that's about it. And every year I try to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, but I think that's just me. Not everyone in my family appreciates it as much. If you want to hear about some Christmas traditions, you can read this.

Tradition is not only important for celebrating Christmas, but it is also important in the Christian life. The concept of tradition shows up quite a bit in the Bible. In some instances, tradition is viewed as a negative thing. Jesus condemns the religious leaders for holding to manmade traditions at the cost of obeying God (Mk. 7). In these passages, tradition is set up against God's word, and the reader is warned against placing "the way we do things" on the same level as divine command. In other instances, however, tradition is valued as the teachings that were handed down in the church. That's what tradition means--something that is handed down. In this sense, Paul tells his readers to "stand firm and hold to the teachings (tradition) we passed on to you" (2 Thess. 2:15).

That's what our faith is. It's a tradition. It's something that has been handed down for centuries. It's not something that sprang out of someone's imagination. It's root is in the historical events surrounding Jesus, and eyewitnesses passed it on to others, who in turn passed it on, all the way down to us today. The church today finds its origins in this tradition. And that is a comforting thing, I think. Traditions unite a family. They are markers of identity. That is why families value their holiday traditions so highly--those traditions remind the family of who they are. In the same way, the Christian tradition brings unity to the church. The gospel is the story that binds us. Along with this, we have other traditions and church practices that unite us. We celebrate Jesus' birth through Christmas. We take the Lord's Supper to remember Jesus' sacrifice. We baptize to join in Jesus' death and resurrection. All over the world, Christians engage in this tradition of the Christian life. It brings us together, so that I can know that I am following Christ, not by myself, but alongside Catholics in Ecuador, non-instrumentalists in Nashville, house churches in China, and Pentecostals in Africa. We are the church, formed and directed by the tradition handed down to us.

I hope you all have the merriest Christmas imaginable and that Santa gives you anything you could want. I also hope you catch someone under the mistletoe. Now there's a tradition that needs to be taken full advantage of.

Stuff I Like

2010-12-17T19:09:00.000-08:00

There won't be much material of substance in this post. I suppose that's a pretty terrible way to get you to continue reading. Eh. Recently I was thinking about how I tend to be a complainer. It's a lot easier for me to focus on what I don't like about a given situation than it is to focus on the positive. And so, I thought it might be good for my personal health to list some things that I truly like. It is Christmas season, after all. Isn't this the kind of thing people do for the holidays? I mean, besides overeating and watching stop-motion movies. I guess I'll just keep listing things I like until I either run out or get too distracted. Or until an attractive female calls me up and wants to go get pancakes.

-I like seeing the people at the mall that are getting those Chinese massages in the little chairs. It seems like the most awkward place in the entire world to have that done.
-I like watching a couple Homestar Runner cartoons every day. Even though I've seen them all a hundred times, they serve as little reminders that the world is still pretty good.
-I like winter because the long nights make me feel reflective.
-I like that I'll be going back to Oregon in 21 days.
-I like observing other people's terribly awkward, uncomfortable situations. I even sort of like my own awkward situations.
-I like this commercial.
-I like to listen to my Friday playlist and hope that someday, somewhere, by some freak set of circumstances, I'll be a good dancer.
-I like to look at all the books on the shelves when I'm in someone's office or dorm room.
-I like people who comment on my blog posts. They're my best friends. Everyone else is not.
-I like the word "voluminous."
-I maybe, sort of, kind of like a few Superchick songs a little bit. Please don't think less of me.
-I like Coca-Cola, and I like when my friends' fiances keep the fridge stocked with two-liter bottles of it.
-I like being in a crowd, like in a mall during Christmas season or walking the sidewalks of a big city. Not that interact with anyone in the crowd. I just like being there.
-I like reminiscing about the "good old days" of freshman year when I played pool every afternoon, ate pizza every weekend, and took a nap every other hour.
-I like video montages, like the ones they show at the end of the Olympics or during the college football national championship.
-I like when people who write the blogs on my sidebar write a new post. Hint hint.
-I like Alumni jokes.
-I like listening to Flobots, pretending I know something about politics, and feeling like I'm sticking it to the man.
-I like intramural basketball. Especially when my teammates let me start the game when we play a team that's not very good.
-I like the Christmas gift you're going to give me.
-I like writing my sermons in coffee shops. It makes me look so cultured, I think. Now only if I used an iPad from the pulpit....
-I like the cover of the Sonic & Knuckles game for Sega Genesis.
-I like that the Cincinnati Reds finally had a winning season this year.
-I like when I make an allusion to Freaks and Geeks or Arrested Development, and someone knows what I'm referencing.
-I like going to the bank in Joplin on Tuesdays.
-I like spending the weekend at Ryan's apartment. It makes me feel like I can do whatever I want, even though we all know I'm not going to do anything I wouldn't normally do.
-I like the feeling of waking up, thinking it's time to go to class, looking at your clock, realizing it's only 2:42 a.m., and rolling back over to go to sleep.
-I like to break out into random beatbox sessions, even though I'm about the worst beatboxer I know.
-I like when girls wear glasses. I also like that glasses are becoming fashionable as a rule, and I like to think that I'm the reason.
-I like to make faces in pictures, except there are only about five that I do. I guess I should work on some new ones.
-I like lil' smokies. Actually, "like" isn't strong enough of a word. Love? Adore? Am infatuated with?
-I like bowling. Except when a girl beats me. Or Charlie.
-I like reading all the Facebook posts wishing me a happy birthday and thinking, "Gosh, that's awful nice of that person. Especially after we haven't talked in four years."

So as you can see, I like a lot of things. Feel free to comment with your own (hopefully shorter) list, and have yourself a merry little December 18th.

Potentially Christian America

2010-12-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

I think I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but this semester I have been taking a class in the General Epistles, where we have been studying the books of James, 1 Peter, and 1 John. This has been one of the most thought-provoking, applicable classes I have had at Ozark. One of the best things about the class has been the books that we have read for it. One of them that I read about a month and half ago is Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon. I thought the book was great, as one can tell by the frequent highlighting throughout. I had been planning to write a blog post about the book when one day I noticed a book on the New Books spinner in the library. The book is called Death of a Christian Nation by Deborah J. Dewart. After scanning the synopsis on the back cover of the book, I realized that this book may be just about the complete opposite of Resident Aliens, so I thought it would be fun to compare the two.

Both Resident Aliens and Death of a Christian Nation begin with the same issue: America can no longer be considered a Christian nation, or at least is losing its status as a Christian nation. Hauerwas and Willimon use a story of how, in 1963, a movie theater began to be open on Sundays. For these writers, this is evidence of the end of Christian America. They write, "Whether we are with Pentecostals, Catholics, Lutherans, or United Methodists, we meet few young parents, college students, or auto mechanics who believe that one becomes Christian today by simply breathing the air and drinking the water in the generous, hospitable environment of Christendom America" (16). Similarly, Dewart looks at legal cases from the past several decades and concludes, "If modern liberal activists have their way, the phrase God Bless America will ring hollow because our Christian nation will be dead" (6). Both books recognize that American life has changed and that our country is becoming more and more "unchristian." However, the two books respond to this situation is vastly different ways.

But before we get to that, maybe we should ask if the United States was every really a Christian nation in the first place. Many Americans, perhaps even most Americans, would not even question this. They point to the faith of the founding fathers and to the biblical principles that undergird the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Dewart's first chapter beings, "In the beginning, God blessed America. Christianity was the bedrock of this country." She provides a number of quotations to show that America was Christian from the beginning. For example, she quotes Thomas Jefferson:

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis--a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the fit of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that His justice cannot sleep forever. (4)

It all sounds very good. However, just in the case of Thomas Jefferson, we may need to examine his Christian convictions a little closer. It is not unknown that Jefferson produced his own version of the gospels, in which he removed any hints of miracles, Jesus' divinity, or the resurrection. His version ends thusly: "Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was man never yet laid. There they laid Jesus. And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed." And that's it. We might be able to ask Jefferson whether the doctrines of a faith can be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis--a conviction that Jesus was God and rose from the dead. What we see in Jefferson (and, though I'm certainly no expert, I would assume we might see in several others among the founding fathers) is a deistic, antisupernatural worldview that discredits a great deal of Scripture and strikes at the heart of Christian faith. Maybe early America wasn't quite as Christian as we have been told. (We might also want to remember that the colonies started a war in large part because they didn't want to pay taxes. Doesn't seem to fit with Rom. 13 very well.)

So then, how do Dewart, Hauerwas, and Willimon deal with all of this? For Dewart, the situation demands that we do everything we can to keep America from losing its Christian identity. She writes:

American Christianity is under attack. From shore to shore, cases are legion. Believers need knowledge. They need to know how fellow Christians are suffering for their faith right here in America. They need to know how current laws impact their ability to apply biblical principles in the workplace. They need to know their Bibles. They need to know where to turn for help. Without this knowledge, our 'Christian' nation will die." (xv)

To Dewart, the greatest danger threatening the contemporary church is that America will cease to be able to call itself a Christian nation. She claims that if this happens, it will severely hamper the church's ability to carry out its mission. She continues, "Moreover, our freedom to preach the gospel is rapidly diminishing, and preservation of that freedom is vital to the church and its mission" (xv, emphasis mine). And, although I have only skimmed Death of a Christian Nation, it seems like Dewart's solution to all of this is that Christian be knowledgeable about their "right" and be able to defend those rights in the public arena.

On the other hand, Hauerwas and Willimon paint a very different picture. They too see that "Christian America" may be eroding. However, instead of making a plea to the church to preserve that system, they see it as a good thing that will allow the church to function as it should. They write, "The demise of the Constantinian world view, the gradual decline of the notion that the church needs some sort of surrounding 'Christian' culture to prop it up and mold its young, is not a death to lament. It is an opportunity to celebrate" (18). This is due to the fact that, when the church and state become wrapped up together, it is typically the church that loses its identity. Instead of the church shaping the state, we find nationalistic ideals molding the church. Instead, the church is called to be "a social alternative that the world cannot on its own terms know" (18). The church stands separate from the state because it is its own entity. We may like to think that, at least in its original condition, American government was buddy-buddy with the church, but this may not be the case. Hauerwas and Willimon write, "The story which comprises American capitalistic, constitutional democracy and the story which elicits the church are in greater conflict than these Christian transformers of culture know" (155). The church functions by its own politic, and it certainly doesn't need the support of the government or judiciary to carry out its God-given mission.

Something we American Christians struggle with is that, our entire lives, we have been so attached to our "rights." We believe that preservation of our rights is required if we are to live the Christian life. However, that doesn't seem to be the image that Jesus gives. Instead, he predicted that all men would hate his followers (Matt. 10:22), and he knew that Christians would be beaten and killed (Mk. 13:9). Meanwhile, we Americans are terrified that our churches might lose their tax-exempt status, or we worry that out workplaces won't let us wear Christian symbols on our jewelry. And yet, in spite of the very unchristian environment of the first-century Roman empire, the church expanded, and what started out as a little mustard seed grew into a tree. For a more recent example, we might look at the church in China, which is growing like crazy even though preachers don't have the politically-sanctioned right to stand on a streetcorner and tell people about Jesus. Oftentimes, it is when the church faces its greatest hardships that it is able to most exemplify what it means to follow Christ and it carries out its mission to the greatest extent. So maybe the loss of Christian America really isn't too bad. Maybe it's just what is needed to help the church be what it was made to be.

What do you think? Is the United States a Christian nation? Is it the church's responsibility to maintain (or recapture) America's Christian identity?

Seeing People

2010-12-09T19:18:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the last day of class for the semester, and then we have finals next week. I am pretty excited about this fact. I'm sure I've written this before, but finals week is always my favorite week of the semester, and I would not be at all disappointed if this final week was like last semester's, when we played Killball (or as you Northwesterners call it, Smashface) a couple hours every night. It blows my mind when I think about how fast this semester has gone. I think this is because this semester has not had as many "defining aspects" as some of my others semesters--some TV show to watch on the projector with the guys, or some girl to turn me down. These are the markers of my seasons of life, but this semester has probably been more constant. I guess that's what happens when you get older--life begins to meld into some ambiguous blog, and before you know it, you're eating breakfast at Bob Evans when you realize, "Holy moly! I'm an old man!"

I feel like I need a break. (Bear with my complaining for a moment; I promise I'll try to make it redeeming). I was thinking about this a while ago. I feel like I have not really had a true break since maybe last March. Almost as soon as I got out of school in May, I went to Oregon to do my internship there, and then a couple days after I got back, I came back to school. So I spent my entire summer teaching every Sunday morning and organizing events and such, and since then I have been preaching just about every week and trying to keep up with school. It feels like I need to be doing something every moment of the day, and I feel guilty if I even take a short nap or run out to get some Burger King. And I'm tired. I so much long for a week that I can sleep and watch basketball and not have to be concerned with all of the different responsibilities on my plate, and the problem is that I can't foresee that happening anytime in the near future.

But then I read about Jesus, and I realize how petty I can be sometimes. In Matthew 14:13, Jesus learns that John the Baptist has been killed. It's difficult to determine exactly what the relationship between John and Jesus was like, but every indication seems to point to the idea that there was a special bond between them. Understandably, Jesus is upset, so "he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place." For a little while at least, Jesus just wants to get away. For a moment, he tries to get away from the crowds so that he can grieve, but the multitudes aren't easily dodged. Instead, when they see Jesus in the boat, they run to meet him at the opposite shore. That's when Jesus does something that puts me to shame and silences my little complaints. "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick" (Mt. 14:14).

Jesus had a special ability (understatement) of seeing people. Really seeing them. He perceived their needs, and not only that, but he loved them and had compassion on them. He didn't see them as an obstacle, an interruption, or an annoyance getting in the way of his rest. He saw them as his beloved, so he changed his plans in order to heal and feed them. I can't imagine that. There may not be a time when it is more acceptable to not do ministry than when grieving the death of a loved one, but Jesus continues to serve. How was he able to do this? Because he saw the bustling crowds as people created and loved by God.

Sometimes I stop and ask myself why I should keep going. I look for a reason not to quit. It would be so much easier to just push everything aside and do only what I want to do. In those times, it's imperative that I think about people. I have to make it less about the task and more about the people. If I just focus on my sermon itself and think about all of the research and writing and practicing that lies ahead of me, I feel burdened. But when I think about the people, when I focus on Vernon and Pauline and Bill, I am reminded that there is a reason to it all. Or, when I focus just on my homework and stare blankly at the stack of books on my desk that need reading, I find it difficult to be motivated to do much of anything. But when I turn my attention to how my preparation now will benefit the church I serve in the future, there is a new umph behind my tasks.

There will be times when we feel fatigued and worn down, and we would love nothing more than to crawl into our bed and forget about everything we have ahead of us. There will be times that we are far from home, living in a new community, missing our friends and family, and we would give anything to jump on an airplane and fly back. And there will be times when, after years of ministry, we begin to wonder if our entire lives have been in vain. In those moments, we might just need to step back, take a breath, and look at Jesus, because when we do that, he'll turn our attention to the faces of people. And that just might be the push we need.

Enjoy the Christmas music, Chuck.

Pilgrims and Stoics

2010-11-25T08:56:00.000-08:00

Today is Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving for a couple reasons: 1) I like to eat (especially when it involves sweet potatoes, rolls, and pie); 2) I like to watch the Macy's parade; 3) it gives me an excuse to wear my full-body Pilgrim costume. This Thanksgiving season has been especially good in that today, I will be partaking in my fourth Thanksgiving dinner. The fact that so many people have been willing to feed me makes me worry that I'm being fattened up for some sort of human sacrifice, but for now, I'll just enjoy it.

If someone were to ask you today, Are you thankful?", how would you answer? My guess is that you would say "Yes." As we gather around the table covered with turkey and stuffing, we reflect on all of the things we are thankful for--family, friends, shelter, food, freedom, etc. It's relatively easy for us to feel thankful on Thanksgiving. But what if, instead of asking, "Are you thankful?", someone were to ask you, "Are you content?" Would you be answer to answer in the affirmative? The truth is that thankfulness and contentment go hand in hand. They overlap in many ways. And yet, we seem to have a lot more trouble being content than we do being thankful.

Part of our problem in this may be that we misunderstand what contentment is. We carry with us a number of misconceptions of contentment. For example, we might think that contentment can be equated with wealth, but in reality, they may be quite the opposite. In 1 Timothy 6:6-10, contentment is placed alongside warning about wealth. There is a contrast--there are those who are content, and there are those who want to get rich. Just look at our own nation. We live in the most prosperous country the world has ever known, but at the same time, it may be the most discontented. We always want more--bigger houses, nicer cars, more attractive spouses, more products with an Apple logo on them. Our wealth has failed to make us content, and we are often unable to say along with Paul that we are content "whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want" (Phil. 4:12).

Another misunderstanding we may have about contentment is that contentment is self-sufficiency. We might think that being content means we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and keep our heads up in any situation, but that we do so by our own power. This is the idea behind the philosophy of Stoicism. Contentment is the essential virtue in Stoicism. Stoics made it their goal to transcend above any sense of need, passion, or desire, but they believe that a person had the ability within themselves to do this. The power came from within.

That is not biblical contentment, because what contentment is is dependence on God. Contentment is the belief that no matter what happens--when bank accounts run dry, cars break down, friends abandon us, our health fails and the milk jug in the fridge is empty--God is still good and takes care of his children. At the same time, when our bank accounts are full, we feel strong as an ox, and life seems to be going well, contentment is the knowledge that our security does not come from these things but from our Father in heaven. Contentment is the realization that most of the things we think we need are things we don't really need at all because all we truly need is God. Last week I ran across a story of a spiritual seeker who went to spend a weekend at a monastery, and as the monk showed the man to his cell, the monk said, "We hope you have a blessed stay with us. If you need anything, just let us know, and we'll teach you how to live without it."

We think we need so much. But truth be told, we don't. We need God, and it's because of his presence in our lives that we are able to be content. After talking about how he is able to be content in any situation, Paul writes, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." It's not a Stoic independence, but rather the empowerment of Christ, that is able to make Paul content. Similarly, Hebrews 13:5 calls us to be content "because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'" We need to remember that God is with us wherever we are and in whatever circumstances, God won't leave us. Paul knew that God was with him when he was in a friend's house enjoying dinner, and he knew that God was with him when he was alone on a damp prison floor. I hope that our thankfulness isn't something that happens only when we have turkey on the table and sweet potatoes in our belly, but that we use this holiday to instill within us an attitude of contentment that continues through the entire year.

And with that, I wish you the happiest Thanksgiving possible. I'm thankful for each of you that read this, and I'm thankful for the encouragements that I get that let me know that there may actually be a reason for me to continue writing. And finally, I'm thankful for each of you who are going to fight the shopping crowds at Black Friday tomorrow just so you can get me a good Christmas present. It's awfully nice of you.

Dancing Is Better Than Poking

2010-11-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

Last week, I was privileged to hear Randy Gariss give a lecture on working with a team in ministry. Actually, I guess I was doubly privileged, because two of my professors scheduled him to teach, and it was the same lecture both times. This was a good thing, though, because the second time Randy said something that got me thinking (and I need all the help I can get with that these days). For those of you that don't know, Randy Garris is the preacher at College Heights Christian Church in Joplin, and only though I've only been to College Heights once, I always appreciate the times that I get to hear Randy speak. He definitely one of the wisest men I've come across. Anyways, what Randy said in our class was that today, we are masters of short-term, shallow relationships. He talked about how, a hundred years ago, a person would grow up living in a room (and maybe even sharing a bed) with his siblings, and he would have the same teacher all the way through high school, and there would be one coach for all the sports, and there would be one store in town. Now, however, we have constant relational turnover. If you don't like your teacher, you can get a new one the next semester. This is a symptom of the changes that have occurred in how we relate with one another. We've become experts at small talk and pleasantries, but we don't do so well in establishing enduring, deep relationships.

Randy said that we try to cover up our relational struggles with what he called "classy isolation." We decorate our isolation so that it doesn't look like isolation. Facebook may be a prime example. We spend more time delving into the "social world" of Facebook or other mediums instead of being engaged in flesh-and-blood relationship. And if you know me, you know that I use the word "we" there not just as a writing device, but because I'm probably the worst at this. It's so much easier (and safer) to interact with a typeface and a profile picture than with a person sitting across a table from you. And yet, we think that we are relationally rich when we don't know how to maintain an actual relationship. I can brag about having 574 Facebook friends, but the truth is that only a handful of them know me very well at all.

We want something greater, of course. We really do desire deep, lasting relationships. Last night I saw the new Harry Potter movie. At one point in the movie, things are going very badly, and everyone is depressed. Hermione is sitting by herself listening to the radio when Harry walks over, pulls her to her feet, and begins to dance with her. And while she's reluctant at first, before long they are dancing and smiling and laughing. I thought this scene was beautiful. For one thing, I too love to dance. For another, it was a great picture of the type of relationships we want. In the story, Harry and Hermione have been through an awful lot together, and they have a friendship that many of us long for. They know each other so well and they care and love for each other in a way that is anything but common.

Of course, this relationship is artificial. The scene is designed by a director and film crew. So we could dismiss it as an impossibility--just another glitzed up picture of what we wish for but that is too unrealistic to be attainable. And yet, I hope and believe that the fellowship we possess in Christ is greater than anything that even Hollywood can imagine. Such closeness and love is possible. In fact, in the church, it should be a common feature. At Sunday School this morning at Commerce, the class began reflecting on what it is like to lose a loved one. The congregation is mostly made up of older folks, and in my little class of seven people, four of them had lost a spouse. After they had shared for a while, one of the men, Bill, said, "You know, this isn't something we can talk about just anywhere. Not even with friends. This is the kind of thing that belongs in the church." The church should be where we can enjoy these deep relationships. The church should be where we can talk about our loved ones who have died. The church should be where we dance with each other in adversity. Our fellowship is incomplete when we relegate it only to talking about football at the coffee pot.

The stories of our lives are lacking something when we fail to develop these sorts of deep relationships. Any good epic story is about more than the task to be accomplished; it is about the relationships between the characters. These stories are about more than throwing the ring into the fire, defeating Voldemort, ending the White Witch's reign, blowing up the Death Star, or protecting the island. They are about Frodo and Sam; Harry, Ron, and Hermione; Lucy and Tumnus; Luke and Leia; Jack and Kate. While the tasks are what grab our interests, these relationships are what grab our hearts.

These relationships are forged in adversity. The reason these characters become so close and unceasingly loyal to one another is because they experience so much difficulty together. Maybe one reason that we have trouble developing such relationships is that we do not recognize any sense of adventure in our lives. We need to recapture a sense of "quest." When our lives are just about living comfortably in gated communities and going to work everyday so that we can stay healthy and buy IPod apps, we don't really need other people. We can do that pretty well ourselves. But when we remember that we are in a lifelong struggle "against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms," we realize that we can't do it by ourselves. We need one another because we are fighting an enemy much more real than Voldemort, and we are involved in an epic story that makes all other stories seem soft. So let's put away our classy isolation, and let's dance.

When I started writing this post, I had planned to call out all of you other bloggers, because of the blogs on my sidebar, the only one that had been updated in the past month was Charlie's. However, just a little bit ago, Caitlyn updated hers. But for all the rest of you: write something! Also, I added a couple new links to the side, so be sure to check those out.

She's Just About to Close Up the Library!

2010-11-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

If you read this post and sense any sort of rage or brooding anger expressed, it's because right now I'm watching the Steelers getting beat the Patriots. So I apologize in advance. Lucky for you, though, I don't anticipate my subject matter today bring out too much angst. In any case, I'll do my best to keep the obscenities to a minimum.

I recently read a chapter in a book about, well, reading. The book is Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders, and it was pretty good, so I thought I would share a little bit. Since I have been at Ozark, I have often heard the saying, "Leaders are readers." (Patriots just scored. Stink.) This is because, on our own, we really aren't that smart. We need the wisdom of those who have gone before us, as well as of our contemporaries. Sanders writes, "Through books we hold communion with the greatest spiritual leaders of the ages" (103). Our lives and ministries become imperiled when we begin to think we have the wits to figure it out apart from the experience of others as communicated through writing. We need to read.

But what should we read? It's worth asking. In our world today, we are faced with an absurd amount of information, and the truth is that we all probably read a lot. In Donald Miller's blog last week, he said that he think people today read more than any other generation in history, but the problem is that we don't read good things. There is so much fluff and drivel out there, and it can be difficult to read with discrimination. For this reason, I definitely think it is important to read actual books. Not that we shouldn't read blogs and such (in fact, I would strongly recommend it. Especially this one.), but in our age of instant amateur publication, books become more valuable due to their editorial process. Of course, many books out there are still full of garbage, but they are hopefully a little more rich than an online post by a stranger detailing the drama of her life.

One of my favorite questions to ask people is, "What have you been reading lately?" I just always think this is very interesting, and that why I stole the idea of having a picture of whatever I'm reading on the sidebar of my blog. I think you can learn more about a person from what they read than you can by their favorite music or movies. As influential as movies and music our in our day, books still have more lasting influence in an individual's personal formation. So, all of you potential commenters: What are you reading? What are some of your favorite books/authors that have had an influence on you?

Looking Up

2010-11-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

This post is brought to you from a land far, far away--Indiana. Right now, I'm sitting in a room with Connor and Charlie. We've been talking for a while about the intricacies of the movie The Prestige, and with all of this brain power floating around in one room, I figure it's a good time to write a blog. I started having the idea for this post a couple days ago, and then yesterday we were at a Christian book store when I saw a book by Beth Moore called Looking Up. So I've been beat to the punch by Beth Moore again. Once I was going to write a post called "Feathers from My Nest: A Mother's Reflection," but then she beat me to that one too. She's always one step ahead of me.

I have a bad habit of not looking up when I walk somewhere. Instead, I tend to just look at the ground a few feet in front of me. I've been doing this for a long time. I think that in part, this habit has developed out of a fear of tripping. When I was in first grade, a girl in the after-school program challenged me to a race in which we would jump rope all the way across the gym. I was pretty good at jumping rope, so I was confident I would win. I started off great, but then about halfway through I tripped over the rope and smashed my face into the hardwood. Who knows how good-looking I would be today if that hadn't happened? And so, I look down when I walk. I remember when I was six or seven, I was walking with my dad out of Kroger when he commented on it, so I decided to look up as we were walking to the car, and it was like I saw an entire world that I never before existed. But that is definitely not my natural inclination.

You don't tend to be very popular when you always walk around with your head down. People think you're bitter and unsociable. Which may very well be true, but if you're not like that, I've heard that people will be warmer toward you if you look up and smile. Apparently body language is supposed to communicate. Who knew?

This picture of looking up/down is a good metaphor of how different people approach life. There are some who go through life with their head down, looking at the ground in front of them. There are two effects of such a perspective. First, when you're looking down, you have no reason to think that anything will ever be any different. When I walk with my head down, all I can see are the four feet of sidewalk in front of me. For all I know, that sidewalk just goes on forever. When we go through life with our heads down, we assume that life will go just as it is now. We focus on our present situation and forget that there may be something beyond that. When I was in sixth grade, my Sunday School class used a book called Someone's Making a Monkey Out of You to talk about creation and evolution, and that when I learned the word "uniformitarianism." This is the idea that natural laws have always functioned at the same rate and in the same ways for all time. It stuck with me because it was the fanciest word I knew at the time, and it still may be. In any case, living life with your head down result in a uniformitarian outlook. Because all I can see is what is happening right now, I come to believe that this is what will happen for the rest of my life.

The result of this is fatalism. You come to believe that life has dealt us a certain hand of cards, and that's what you're stuck with. If, at the time, you are pretty happy with your life, and if things are going your way, you become an optimist to a fault. You see those four feet of sidewalk as gold-plated, and you think that it will continue as such forever. When something bad actually does happen, you don't know how to handle it, and your fatalism may swing to the opposite extreme--pessimism. If, as you have your head down, you aren't happy with your life, and all you see in the sidewalk are cracks in the cement with weeds creeping through, you drag your feet and sulk because you think this is how it will be forever. And before long, no one wants to hang out with you because all you do is complain about your life and try to bring everyone else down in an effort to somehow make yourself feel better.

All of this is related to the second effect of walking with your head down: you limit your ability to choose an alternate course. If all I see are the four feet of sidewalk in front of me, I don't have very many options of where I'm going. I can keep walking down the sidewalk, or I could turn around and go back maybe. But that's about it. I don't see any other paths to take. As a result, I never change or grow. I stay the same year after year, never realizing that I have the power to determine where I go.

The alternative to all of this, of course, is to walk with your head up. When you do this, the effects I mentioned earlier are reversed. No longer are you confined to believing that all of life is the sidewalk. You see trees and buildings and other sidewalks, and you realize that life actually can change. Things may not always stay the same. There is more out there than your present situation. Maybe that's why, when a friend is have a tough time, we say things like, "Chin up, Champ!" or "Keep your head." In those times, we need to know that there is something more out there, that the crap we deal with no won't last forever.

When we live with our heads up, we also open ourselves up to innumerable possibilities of action. We see that we don't have to walk down the same sidewalk forever, but we can go all sorts of places. Maybe I'll choose to go down the stairs to the right, or maybe I'll go in that building, or maybe all just run through the grass. I'm no longer locked into the same path. Instead, I see multiple possible futures, and I have the ability to choose where I'll go. I can enact change in my own life. So if I don't like something about my life as it is, I can take steps to change it. In another year or two, I might not be quite the same as I am now. I become a round character in my story instead of a flat one.

So, my encouragement to you is this: Look up. Don't get caught up so much in your present situation that you forget that there is more out there, and we have the power to go take hold of it. Granted, this means that we may at times trip and fall on our faces, but we pick ourselves back up and keep going. The ability to live a worthwhile story depends so much on vision, and we need to pick our heads up and see what's out there.

There is a guy who used to go to Ozark who is really good at film and cinematography and such. Recently, I watched a video he made about a person who writes a blog. I'm going to ruin the ending for you if you keep reading this, so be prepared. But in the short movie, the blogger is struggling to come up with something new to write about, so she goes to a little motel in the middle of nowhere and starts murdering people. Yikes. Who knew writer's block could be so lethal?

Rolled around in Charlie's Grand Am last night listening to Flobots. I've missed that.

Is It Worth It?

2010-10-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate it when you work pretty hard on something and then the end product doesn't seem like it was worth all the trouble? Last year in my Strategies for Teaching class, I had to make a model in a box of a Sunday School classroom. This isn't my kind of assignment. I can write research papers or give presentations, but please don't ask me to do anything artsy-craftsy. I spent hours cutting construction paper and shaping pipe cleaners, trying to make miniature tables and chairs. And when it was all said and done....my model looked like a kindergartner had made it. It's just not the sort of thing I'm good at. So I turned it in, and when I got it back later, I carried it directly to the dumpster in front of my dorm. My hard work just wasn't enough to make a very good model.

At times, I think we can feel the same way when we do other things too. For example, I feel like I work pretty hard at school, but it can be hard to see what I gain from that. People could say, "Well, it helps your grades," but those are really just letters on paper. Sometimes I wonder if my life would really be any worse if I didn't work as hard, and I'm not sure that it would be. Actually, it would probably be better in a lot of ways. We can feel the same way in ministry, too. We might work hard for hours and days; we may stay up late into the night in order to serve those under our care, and it seems like nothing ever changes. We could dig into research and pour ourselves into our sermons, but our listeners still zone out. We might dedicate years to pastoring a congregation, but that church never grows and never acts like it really wants to. Today I was with my friend Sy, and he said that sometimes it can feel like you prepare a gourmet meal, but everyone just nibbles at it.

And that's a frustrating feeling. We wonder why we should keep at it. Maybe it would be better if we didn't care so much. If we put up a little less effort. Is it really worth it?

I don't think there are many easy answers to these questions. It may be that our response is simply to remain faithful. We continue working hard because we believe that God will do something with it. We stick with what is correct even when it feels like it isn't. That's what faith is, in a sense. It means that we don't just quit when it seems like our effort is without result. We believe that God will bring about fruit when we remain faithful and serve him with what we have. I have heard people say that our goal as Christian leaders should not be to be effective, but to be faithful, and I think that is a good way to think of things. We do the best we can, and we trust God to do something with it.

In my last post, I had a contest, looking for suggestions on how I can increase readership of my blog. Only two people commented, which shows me how important these ideas may be, but it also shows me that it might be a lost cause anyway. In any case, I've decided that Charlie wins the contest for two reasons: 1) He gave a wide array of ideas (none of which will probably happen) and 2) Caitlyn doesn't like Taco Bell, so there is little use in me buying her a taco.

So tomorrow is Halloween. Today, I know of four of my friends that dressed up as geeks. I'm not sure if I should be honored or offended that people use Halloween to look the way I look every day.

I read a story today about a guy who has been the first person to gain 500,000 achievement points on XBox 360. I don't really know what that means, other than that this guy plays a heck of a lot of video games. You can see the story here. Now, I assume that the picture with the story is this guy and his girlfriend. And my question is this: How the heck did a guy who has spent the last five years playing video games for that many hours get a girlfriend that looks like that?! And people wonder why I'm cynical.

Super-Senior Lessons

2010-10-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

For the last 15 minutes or so, I have been sitting at my computer agonizing over what I should write about. I want to write something funny, but not pessimistic, and that is a very hard line for me to walk. I'll try my best to make this post fit the bill. However, I've already ruined it. Here's an important principle to remember in all of your social interactions: Never begin a story with "Here's a funny story..." or a statement with "Here's something interesting...". You're only setting yourself up for failure. If you preface your anecdote with a promise of humor, you create an expectation for laughs, and if the story proves to not be funny, you only leave your listeners disappointed. Instead of introducing a story with something like that, just begin your story. That is all just a free tip from your friend David.

So I guess instead of writing the previous paragraph, I should have just written: "Here's a post. Read it."

I'm getting old. This year is my fifth and last one at Ozark, which means I have been here longer that just about everyone. Most the the students I came in with as bright-eyed freshmen have left and are doing all sorts of things all over the place, but I'm still sitting at the same desk I have had since 2006, with the same posters on my wall. Really the only thing that has changed is that I have a roommate who doesn't mysteriously disappear when it's time to clean the room for room checks. We are already halfway through the fall semester, and now that I have a good amount of my fifth year under my belt, I thought I would share a few lessons I have learned about what it means to be a super-senior.

1. You get slow and out of shape
Don't get me wrong, it's not like I was ever freakishly fast, as I am not the posterchild for athleticism (as much as a surprise that might seem to many of you). Nevertheless, I did come to the realization that my prime days might be behind me during intramural frisbee season this year. I have been playing with basically the same team for the past three years. The season started off great. We won our first game on a clutch score near the end of the game, and we were riding high with visions of frisbee domination for the rest of the season. Unfortunately, that was the last game we won. Not only did we lose all the rest of our games; we were decimated in ever facet of the game. What we finally concluded was that, while other teams recruited freshmen and sophomores, we had remained the same. So while everyone else got younger and faster, we got older and slower. The result? An already fragile ego being smashed to bits. Thankfully, intramural season started last night. Let's go Stoop Kids! 1-0, baby!

2. You're not as influential as you think you should be
When you're in high school, everyone knows that the seniors run the school. They are the ones who have been their longest, and they have, well, seniority. They are the ones who set the tone for the year. But that isn't how it works at a college like Ozark. The truth is that the freshmen and sophomores steer the ship in many ways. For one thing, there are just so many of them, and for another, so many of the older students have bailed out and now live off campus. Of course, maybe these reasons are just an illusion, and the true reason is that I'm to passive and apathetic to have more of an influence, but I don't really care to find out for sure.

3. Your weekends are spent attending weddings
I remember when I used to spend my Saturdays doing things I really wanted to do--sleeping in, watching movies, taking a nap, shooting stuff with Nerf guns. These days, however, weekends mean that I actually have to take a shower, because they mean that I have to go watch someone get married. This weekend I will be attending my third wedding of the semester, and as much as I love to put on a tie and dance the night away, I do miss college football.

4. Your romantic life is probably over
While I am on the topic of weddings, let me share with you some information that my roommate Ryan was kind enough to read to me right before I went to bed a couple weeks ago. In their book Creating a Successful Christian Marriage, Cleveland McDonald and Philip M. McDonald write this about Christian colleges:

There is no better place for a young person to find a mate with similar beliefs, goals, and values; and a multitude of happy Christian marriages have resulted from courtships on Christian campuses. If a man or woman leaves the campus without a mate or prospective mate, he or she will never again have such a wide selection of possible mate choices. There may be eligible bachelors and single women back home in the local church, but the opportunities will be much fewer than they are on campus. (119)

The McDonald brothers(?) go on to write that many students do not date because they are shy [insert: they sit in their rooms and write blogs instead of speaking to actual human beings], and that they need the Holy Spirit's help to overcome their undeveloped social skills. I certainly don't want to undervalue the work of the Holy Spirit, but it sounds like the McDonalds are telling people like me that once we get to May and are still single, it's going to take a miracle to change that. Or, I guess I could get a tattoo of a cross on my arm. I heard that works.

5. You're not as fun as you used to be
Like I said before, I did all kinds of fun things my first couple years at Ozark. Ryan and I often reminisce about how, our first semester, we went to the student center after lunch every day and played a few games of pool with Charlie. It felt like, in those early days, I was always playing games and ordering pizza and going on late-night food runs. Here are some statistics that help illustrate the change: so far this year, I have played ping-pong twice; I have played basketball once; I have played cards once; I have watched one movie on our projector; and I have not played pool at all. Somehow, I have gotten so serious about things these days, and I miss the days when I didn't feel like I needed to work as hard and when I laughed more. Before long, I'll be one of those crotchety old men at the nursing home, and some kid will ask me to play checkers with him, and I'll tell him no because I would rather....do whatever crotchety old men do. Think about broken hips or something.

6. You're expected to have some sort of handle on life
On an almost daily basis, I ask Ryan, "What are we doing with our lives?!" It seems like the closer I get to graduation, the less able I am to answer this question. A few years ago, I had it all figured out--I would graduate and then look for a year-long youth ministry internship, and then after that I would look for a youth ministry at a mid-sized church in the Northwest. Nowadays, the answer is much more vague, and is something like, "Well, I might go to seminary....if I can afford it....but if I can't....I guess I'll do.....something....." Since I was a freshman in high school, I pretty well had the next stage planned out, but now that I am getting closer to another transition, I am on less secure ground, and that is a scary thought. That's why I occasionally make a threat to just work at Domino's. I do love pizza, after all.

CHECK THIS OUT!! YOU COULD WIN!!
So I've been trying to think of ways to increase the readership of this blog, because I feel like not a lot has changed in a long time, and I'm never going to be offered a book deal at this rate. I suppose the best way to get more readers would be to write more posts worth reading, but that sounds like more work for me. And so, I propose a contest (which is in itself a way to increase readership): Leave a comment and give me a creative suggestion on how to increase readership, and whichever idea I like best, I will buy that person a taco or something.

Small Prayers and Small Faith

2010-10-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

My favorite class this semester has been my General Epistles class. In the class, we're studying the books of James, 1 Peter, and 1 John. It isn't like most of the exegetical classes I have taken at Ozark. It's very laid-back and application-centered. It seems like every few minutes, my professor, Doug Welch, asks, "So what does this mean for how we live in the church?" Our goal is not just to discover what the biblical writers were saying to the first-century audience, but also to find what God is saying to the contemporary Christian church through them. In order to do this, one of our assignments is to give a short oral presentation about what each particular epistle says about some ministry in the church. A couple weeks ago, my friend Kylie gave a presentation on what James says about prayer, and it got me thinking about a few things.

I don't pray very well, and I've written about that before. I do believe that it is an area I have grown in a lot over the past year, but when I look at the E.M. Boundses and Brother Lawerences of the world, I see that I still have a long way to go. In James, we see how closely prayer is related to faith, which suggests that my faith is not where it should be because my prayers aren't where they should be. For example, in James 5:14-16, James instructs the sick to call for the elders so that they can come and anoint them with oil and pray for their healing, and he writes, "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up." Of course, praying for the sick is a common (and good) practice today, but how often do we honestly believe that our prayers will be answered in miraculous ways? Kylie pointed out that when we pray for the sick, we often say something like, "God, please help Grandma Biddy and heal her of her sickness, but we just pray that your will be done." It's like we work an escape clause into our request. We're afraid that God won't heal Gradma Biddy, so we use a vague request that God's will be done as a safety net. Then, no matter what, our prayer is answered as we asked--if God heals Grandma Biddy, that's great, but if he doesn't, then that must mean it wasn't his will. (Granted, Jesus instructs us to pray that God's will be done [Matt. 6:10], but I don't think he meant this as a way to "back him up" so that he doesn't fail in answering our requests.) Not only that, but we often don't even pray that God will directly heal a person, but instead we pray, "God, please be with the doctors and work through them to bring about healing." As if the God who gave sight to the blind and raised the dead is unable to cure a case of cancer on his own.

All of this is a demonstration on how we format our prayers to insure that God doesn't "fail." We're not sure how to deal with it if we pray big and bold and God doesn't come through, so the safe thing to do is to pray for something that will happen anyway. Many people, when they pray before a meal, will say something like "And please bless this food and let it nourish our bodies." Is this much of a prayer? Isn't food designed to nourish us? Am I praying in faith when I say, "Let this ham sandwich give me energy for the next few hours"? I certainly don't mean to criticize those who pray like this, because since I can remember, I have prayed that same thing before every meal. There has to be something more powerful and significant about prayer, though.

Again, it all relates to faith. Do we really believe that God will answer our prayers. In James 5:17-18, James references Elijah, who was "a man just like us" who prayed that it wouldn't rain, and so it didn't rain for three and a half years. Then he prayed that the drought would end, and down came the rain. That kind of prayer is a lot different than me asking for my dinner to do what it does anyway. Elijah prays a prayer that changes things; I often pray prayers that maintain the natural order. Instead of having faith and then pulling up my prayers to match that faith, I end up pulling my faith down to match my petty requests. If I could pose the issue in a way that makes sense to all you World of Warcraft fans out there: if I have a Level 8 faith but am making Level 3 requests, I make my faith a Level 3 instead of making Level 8 requests.

When James is writing about how the unwise person should ask God for wisdom, he writes, "But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the win. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does" (Jas. 1:6-8). We need to be praying prayers that stretch our faith, not ones that shrivel it up. So let's boldly and unapologetically offer "big prayers" to God. Let's pray for things that will require for God to actually act. "You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures" (4:2b-3). We shouldn't ask for things out of selfishness and personal prosperity (cars, money, popularity, etc.) but we shouldn't be afraid to ask God for things that seem impossible or crazy, remembering that he is the Father who loves to give good gifts (Matt. 7:11).

Is this a scary proposition? I think so. We become afraid that, if we pray big and God doesn't answer how we want, then our faith will suffer. But we need to learn to continue to pray boldly, not being deterred just because we can't see what God is doing (Lk. 18:1-8). Unanswered prayer doesn't need to damage our faith, and it shouldn't be an excuse to water down our prayers.

This last Sunday, Mark Driscoll preached a pretty good sermon on prayer, so if you have 55 minutes to spare, you should get it on its podcast and check it out.

Unrelatedly, today I heard a song on the radio by Bruno Mars called "Just the Way You Are." It's all about how he thinks that the girl he's singing to is beautiful just the way she is. She sometimes doesn't feel like she is, but he loves her just as she is. How nice of you, Bruno Mars. As I was listening to the song, I became curious about something, so I went and watched the music video on Youtube, and my suspicions were confirmed. The girl in the video is very attractive. Not just to Bruno Mars--any single guy would probably jump at the chance to spend time with her. I feel like the point of the song would be better communicated if the actress in the video didn't look like a model. Of course you don't want her to change when she looks like that, Bruno. They should have casted a woman that was a little more "normal" looking: maybe a little pudgy, with slightly crooked teeth and and oddly shaped nose. But I guess that's why no one hires me to direct music videos.

Today (Wednesday) is the first time that the Cincinnati Reds will play in a postseason game since I was seven. I hope you're all as excited as I am.