One Less Heffren

My sister got married today.

I could write all about the funny and memorable little experiences that Jackie and I have shared over our lives. Like going jogging a few times a week at 11 pm when I was in middle school. Or like waiting forever at Buffalo Wild Wings for our check, only to have a manager creepily slide up to our table and say, "You're waiting for your check, aren't you? Well, no one knows where it is.....but I know where it is" and then running off and pulling it out of some random drawer. Or the numerous tennis matches. Or getting stranded in Shamrock TX because our car broke down in the middle of nowhere. Or watching The Cosby Show late every night for an entire summer. Or driving to school every morning pumping T-Bone in her car. Or staying at the shady Yucca Motel in the middle of New Mexico, where we did have HBO on our six-inch TV screen. Or going to a Relient K concert and trying to avoid being trampled by moshing high schoolers. Or watching "That Thing You Do" or "The Return of the King" or "August Rush" or "It's a Wonderful Life" or "John Q" or all the other scores of movies that I've seen with her.

There are very few people that I look up to as much as I do Jackie. She has a trusting faith that I try to model, and usually fail at. She has more wisdom and practical knowledge than I'll ever have. She has an enormous heart for people that I typically lack. She's the reason that I read what I read and like to write. She's easy-going and finds humor in almost every situation, and there's no way I could count the laughs we've had together.

And at the same time, she's not only my big sister, but one of my closest friends. It seems a little odd maybe that would be the case for siblings of opposite gender that are seven years apart, but it's true for us. When I'm frustrated about something and need to vent or whatever, she's the person I call, and I know that she'll always be there and understand and encourage. But she'll also tell me when I'm being stupid and will set me straight. She's able to relate with the crappy times in my life, because she's gone through them too. She knows my hurts and my laughs and everything in between in a way no one else does.

I've been thinking lately about how relationships change. You might be pretty close with someone, but then they move or get married or start hanging out with other people or just start ignoring you all together. People lose contact, lose frienships, start new friendships, and cycle back around. Two people can be best friends one day, and a couple years later have no contact beyond Christmas cards. And that kind of sucks, I think. Sure, situations and life change, but why are we so terrible at retaining relationships. Why do the good things have to fade away?

My relationship with Jackie has been different though and has been one of the most stable things in my entire life. She's always been there for me, and I know that she'll always be there for me in the future. She's never been embarrased to have me around. When she was in high school and I was a noisy, annoying elementary kid, she wanted me around. When she was in college and I was a pimply-faced middle schooler, she wanted me around. And now that she's out of college and has a house and a job and a dog, and I'm a 20-year-old guy whose maturity does not live up to his age, she wants me around, and that means the world to me.

Things change. I hope that my friends now will still be my friends in five/ten/twenty-five years. But that's hard to gauge, and chances are, our bonds will be somewhat looser down the road. But I don't think my relationship with Jackie will change much. Her last name may, but her place in my life won't. She's one of the most incredible people I know, and I love her a whole whole lot.

Also, I am very awkward and cannot dance.

Next or Now?

Last spring, all of the members of Ozark's camp teams went on "wilderness retreat." It wasn't my favorite weekend of the semester. In fact, it was maybe my least favorite. And I even had it easy, because I got to sleep indoors for two nights while most people slept out in tents. And we did all the normal things that you would expect on such a retreat, like team-building activities and eating hot dogs and standing on planks and being wiped out by 5'3" girls in capture-the-flag. But the first thing we did when we got there was spread out and spend about two hours by ourselves, giving us a chance to pray and read and meditate and journal and all of that. And that maybe made the rest of the weekend worth it. It was at an especially stressful time in my semester when I tend to neglect my time with God, so having that time and space helped tremendously and got me organizing my thoughts and feelings a bit. And during that time, I wrote something in my notebook that I feel like sharing, and maybe I'll comment on it a little bit. So here it is:

My cell phone isn't in my pocket. About fifty times, I've had the urge to pull it out and see what time it is. I have this obsession with time. Not necessarily because I'm so busy and am always on the go. More because I'm always thinking about what's next. I have this attitude that the next is always better than the now. I'm never content with the moment that I'm in.

I remember in high school at worship at CIY, I always hoped that it would never end. I felt I could stand and sing forever. How much I've changed since then. Even in really great worship times, I think, "Hm, the sermon should be coming up pretty soon." And during an awesome sermon: "I think this has been about 30 minutes; he should be winding down here."

I approach everything with this attitude. Even simple stuff like watching a movie or playing cards. And the result is that I end up not really enjoying anything at all. I always think that things will be better later. Why can't they be better now? What keeps me from loving every moment and making the most of every second? I think it's time to leave the cell phone in my room more often.

I don't know how long I've been out here. I think at least an hour. Maybe less. Maybe a lot more. And I don't know how long I'm going to be here. I'm sick. I'm cold. I'm uncomfortable. My butt kind of hurts. But let this be a time that I make the most of and that has an impact on the rest of the semester, summer, and my life. Live in the now.

That was all about sixish months ago. And I haven't really changed all that much. Actually, I wear a watch all the time now, so maybe I'm even worse about this than I was. It's like, every day, my goal is just to get by--to survive. I'm not too concerned about doing anything too positively or negatively. I just want to get through so that I can get to the next day, hoping that maybe it'll be a little better than this one was. And what a dumb, dumb way to live.

I have things very good. I go to a school that I love, and right now there's no where else in the world that I would rather be. I have the greatest friends that I could every ask for. I have a phenomenal family. But all the time it seems, I walk around wishing things were somehow different, and I think that difference will occur someday down the road. Granted, there's things in my life that I genuinely wish were different, but most of it is really nothing. I have a fantastic life now, and I don't appreciate it or use it. I'm so busy wigging out about whether or not I'll be happy tomorrow or next year or in five years that I don't open up my eyes to the opportunities that in front of me today. Is the next really better than the now? Only if I keep on treating the now like it sucks, when it really doesn't at all.

Wish You Were Here

It's been quite the weekend. I just got back from a trip to Albuquerque NM with Caitlyn, Charlie, and Ryan. It was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. We saw a whole lot of hot air balloons, sat in a car a lot, fell asleep in movies a lot, and all kinds of other things. And all those hours in the car (especially at night, when I wasn't allowed to drive because of my poor night vision) gave me time to think. So here's the fruit of that.

I've been thinking about missing people. Not people on the back of milk cartons, but how two people are separated for whatever reason, so the resulting emotion is that they miss one another, generally. Usually, we think of this as a negative thing. Whether it be a friend that moves away, a girlfriend that goes to college out of state, or a parent that dies, we miss those dear to us when they're not around. We know that things aren't as they're supposed to be. They're not as we would have them be.

Understandably, we don't like this. It's not fun to miss people. We want them to come back. And so what do we do? We try to fill up the vacuum created by their departure with something else that will distract us or make us feel better. We create a new relationship to take the place of the one that's been interrupted. We bury ourselves in music to drown out the silence. We sit comatose in front of a TV to keep our brain for focusing on what's missing. And to a point, I guess that's all useful, and necessary even. We obviously can't just wallow in pity because of changed relationships. But we shouldn't necessarily do whatever we can to keep these feelings away. Basically, we loathe the negative emotions that come with missing someone, so we do whatever we can to eliminate them.

Maybe we shouldn't run from "the missing feeling" the way that we do. Maybe it's good for us to miss people. Maybe it's an emotion that can can be used and should not be only avoided. Maybe God wants us to feel this in our guts. Maybe it can push us closer to him.

Do you miss God when you've wandered away from him? I mean, we freak out if we go two days without talking our sweetheart, but we don't even blink if we don't spend time with God for a month. When we miss a person, we often do what we can to fix it. We'll call each other or plan a trip to visit or whatever else. But when we don't spend time with God, and don't miss him, we just keep going as we are. I imagine he probably misses us during such times more than we can fathom. So if you have been distant from God, GET BACK TO HIM!

There's another way that I think how we miss people relates to how we miss God. Even if we are nurturing a close relationship with God in our everyday lives, there is a sense that things are not as they should be right now. Even though we can talk to God any time and we have the Spirit living within us, there's still more to come in a fuller sense. We can look forward to a day when we'll be face-to-face with God, and the gulf that exists between us, though bridged through Christ, will be erased completely. So while we're living here now, we should be missing God. Missing someone connotes a feeling of yearning. Our insides ache because we want so much to be with that other person. And that's how we should feel toward God.

I was reading Philippians 1 yesterday, where Paul is talking about how being in prison has given him a chance to witness to all kinds of people, and then he starts going off about whether or not it is better for him to go on living and serving the church, or to die and be with Christ. He writes, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain...I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body" (Php. 1:21; 23-24). Paul feels that yearning. He misses Christ. His desire is that he can leave the world behind and be united with God as he is meant to be. Do we miss God like that? I'd say most of the time, no. And that's not good.

I miss people. I miss my family back in Topeka. I miss my friends that live across the country. I miss my Ozark people during breaks. I miss my family members that have died. And that's ok, I think. It's alright to miss people. God teaches us through it. It doesn't have to be something that we bury deep down, but it can be something that we experience and deal with. Let it bring us closer to God.

Go Lead

What makes a leader? That' might be a fairly important question. There's tons and tons of books written about it, books by former presidents and football coaches and businessmen and preachers and everyone else. To be a leader, you need to fit a certain blueprint. You have to be motivating, organized, visionary, influential, eloquent, and on and on. Some people are leaders, and some people aren't. If you're not a leader, you're a follower. If you're a follower, your job is to follow that leader. If you're a leader, your job is to lead the followers. We look at some people and think, "Now there's a natural leader," and so we admire and respect that person and generally try to do what we think they want us to do, because as followers, we need to follow them.

What makes a Christian leader? Does a Christian leader need the same qualities as a leader in general? Should the church fit in with the whole leader/follower model? I've been thinking a little bit lately about how leadership pans out in Christianity. The first thing that needs to be considered is what qualities a leader should have, because they're not all the same as what we think to be "leadership-material" in the secular world. Leaders in the world need to be ambitious and confident with a fair amount of charisma. But I think the most important things for a Christian leader are obedience, service, and humility.

The leaders we see in the Bible aren't always that special. Half the time, they don't even have much of a desire to be leaders (Moses, Gideon). But then God tells them to do something, and they do it. They at times put up a fuss I guess, but they're obedient nontheless. God uses them because of it. He doesn't use them because of their awesome leadership skills. He just uses them because they're available and they do what he says. And I think that's what Christian leadership is about. It's not always about being a good speaker or singer or delegator or video tech or whatever. It's about doing what God tells us to do, like loving people and loving him and telling people about him and not being jerks.

Over and over again in the gospels, the disciples argue about which one of them is the greatest (which of them is the best leader). So what does Jesus say? He doesn't say, "Duh, Peter is the best leader because he's outspoken and people do what he says." He doesn't say, "Matthew is the best leader because he can handle money really well." He says, "If you want to be a leader, you have to put yourself last and serve people" (Mk. 9:35). Leadership isn't directing people in what to do. It's buying food for people, picking them up when they're car breaks down, giving them an ear when they need someone to listen.

And then there's humility. Way too often in Christianity, we equate leadership with a formal position. If I'm a minister or a deacon or a small group leader or an RA, I'm a leader. If I'm not one of these things, I'm not. And what it seems like is that we've taken the business model from the secular world and transposed it onto the church. Businesses have a manager, with people under him, with people under them. It's the whole leader/follower thing. (Granted, there is a level of authority given to some in the church, like elders.) So if I'm in a position of leadership, I think it's my duty to lead the followers, and if I'm a follower, I just follow and don't think I have any responsibility to lead.

So what we've done is based whether or not someone is a leader by what title they have. And I don't know that God is much into titles. I don't think God wants a select few to be leaders while everyone else is a mindless follower. I think we're all supposed to lead, to a point. Can we really believe that God doesn't not want everyone in the church to be spiritually mature; that he wants some people to keep taking in but not giving anything out spiritually? The Bible says we're a chosen people, a royal priesthood (1 Pet. 2:9) We're all called upon to minister to others. To serve. To lead.

So if you're in a position of leadership, don't get too high on yourself. Don't think that everyone needs to come listen to you on your microphone as you tell them how to act. But use the position to serve and love. Don't look on everyone else as your peons. And if you're not in a position of leadership, still look for ways to lead and minister. Don't use it as a cop-out to keep on in immaturity. Look for how you can help others with their walks and guide them close to Christ, to build them up. I'm not so sure that our visual should be a "leader" building up the spiritual lives of everyone else, but all of use building one another up. None of us are really all that much better than anyone else, I think.

If you're a leader, lead. Obey, serve, and be humble. If you're not a leader, lead anyway. Obey, serve, and be humble. I can't imagine that God wants any of us to act too differently.

There's No "I" in God, Church, Jesus.....or Team

I'm not feeling any kind of clever introduction today. So I'll just go into what I feel like saying. If you haven't read my last post, do that, because I think this might relate somehow. Earlier I wrote about how in relationships between people, we tend to make them all about us, seeking to gain the other person's approval of our existance and putting all the attention on ourselves. Thinking through all that some got me to thinking about something else. I wonder if we treat our relationship with God in much the same way.

There's a couple of different ways that I see this happen with Christians, including myself. One is that we constantly look for what we can get out of our relationship with God, much in the same way that we look to see what we can get out of relationships with one another. And there's a lot to be gotten, I suppose, and that's a very good thing. Obviously we're forgiven of sin, and we receive joy and purpose and everything else that makes life on this sphere worthwhile. If there was no benefit to following Jesus, I can't imagine that I would be doing so. But way, way too often, we leave it at that, and only approach God (and by extension, the church) for what we can reap from it. And so we go to church on Sunday and as we head to Wendy's for lunch, we complain that the music didn't suit us, or the preaching wasn't up to par, or the old people are too cranky, or not enough people greeted us during the "Holy Handshake" time, or whatever. In essence, we ask, "What did I get out of church today?" All the while, what I think is maybe the more important question goes unasked: "What did I give to God today?"

I don't remember many sermons. Maybe because I hear so many these days. But there is one that is a little more vividly implanted in my mind. My old youth minister preached it a couple times while I was in high school, and it was about how we approach worship. The most noticable thing about it was when he shouted at the congregation, "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!" That caught a few of the pew-snoozers a little off guard. Probably because he yelled it really loud, but maybe because it's true and we need to be unremittingly reminded of it. We need to stop approaching the church with a "gimme-gimme!" attitude of what we can get out of it. There's got to be more to it than that. Instead, perhaps we should ask: Am I using this time to honor and worship God? Am I connecting with and drawing close to God and with my Christian family? How am I ministering to those around me and encouraging them? What am I doing to let unbelievers know that Jesus loves them?"

There's another way that the attention-grabbing mentality works itself into our spiritual lives. Basically, we like ourselves. And we want other people to like us, so we do all these things so that they'll think we're worth their notice. Not only that, but we understandably want God to like us, so we end up doing all kinds of other things in hopes that he'll do so. And because of this, even the good, righteous things we do are done in an effort of self-exaltation and ego-enhancement. We think, "Hey, I'm a pretty good chap! Look at all these great things I've done! Surely God doesn't have any complaint against me! He's probably likely to name me MVP of the kingdom!"

And as per usual, we don't think the right things in the right ways. It's great to do all these things that God calls us to do. But we think that by doing all these good things, we can get God to like us. But the truth is, you can't do anything to cause him to like you more than he already does. He thinks you're phenomonal. He died for you, even when you hadn't done one good thing in your entire life. Do you really think that doing the right things and saying the right words is what causes God to notice you? To think you're worth loving? He does all that already! So maybe instead of asking, "What can I do to make God happy with me?", you should just ask, "What can I do to make God happy?" Remove the emphasis from yourself.

I apologize for not having written for a while. Things are getting busy, but I will try to write more often. Tomorrow (Sept. 22) is National Elephant Appreciation Day. Go crazy.

Can I Have Your Attention Please:

Once again, a Mark Moore lecture has gotten me thinking. The other day, we were talking about Jesus healing a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. This woman sneaks up behind Jesus in the midst of a massive crowd and touches the edge of his clothing. He then turns around to find her, and tells her that she is healed because of her faith. Meanwhile, Jairus, whose daughter is at home dying, is likely getting impatient waiting for Jesus to finish his encounter with this woman. The point that Mark made was that Jesus was able to give intimate, individual attention to this woman, even while being swarmed by the multitudes and being on his way to heal a dying child. Mark went on to describe several people he knows who, when they talk with someone, give that person their full attention, as if there is no one else in the room.

I (and I think a great deal of humanity) suck at this. We're generally pretty focused on ourselves. And because of this, we approach interactions with others in a self-centered manner that hampers our relationships dramatically. We want to be liked, to be accepted. And so we approach others looking for how we can build ourselves up through them. Our focus is not them, but on ourselves. So many times when I am having a conversation with someone, they may be saying something, and I am not even hearing them because I am already thinking about what I am going to say next. What can I say to make this person like me? What story can I tell so that they'll think I'm funny? How can I appear smart or interesting? I don't say anything out of genuine interest in the other person. Instead, I want to bring all the attention to myself.

I see this a lot. Guys get loud and obnoxious to get the attention of girls. Girls get cutesy and flirtatious to get the attention of guys. Guys boast about how great they were in high school football to get the attention of other guys. I have no clue what girls do to get the attention of other girls, because I've never been involved in any such situation. But I'm sure there's something.

Something I've realized is that the times I am most satisfied and happy with my relationships are when I put all the attention on the other person instead of myself. When I write an encouraging note because they're having a hard day. When I go pick them up some food because they haven't gotten a chance to eat. When I look for ways to build them up instead of myself. And not doing these things so that they will be grateful and tell me how nice I am, but doing them genuinely for them. Conversely, the times that I am most frustrated with my relationships are when I have put the focus back on myself, looking for what I can get out of the relationship and how I can build up my own ego and sense of worth.

What if we started to genuinely care about those we interact with day-to-day? What if, instead of looking for how we can make ourselves look interesting/funny/smart/attractive, we placed on the emphasis on the other person and sought ways to encourage them? There's an idea that I'm sure I heard somewhere, but I don't remember where. I just imagine it's too good to come out of my own head. But I think every day when we get up, it may be helpful to make it a goal to make someone else's day. This means really sensing the needs of others and meeting those needs in a completely selfless fashion. Perhaps Paul said it best: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Philippians 2:3-4).

And here's the thing: When we do this, when we actually put attention on others instead of on ourselves, the other person will typically begin to look to our interests. It works both ways. Instead of it becoming a battle in which each person is trying to build the castle of their own ego higher and higher, each person sincerely invests in the life of the other, giving of themselves to the other. Maybe that's what relationship is. Maybe that's what community and fellowship is. And I guess maybe that's what love is.

Our Time is Flatlining

I feel like at the beginning of almost every post, I apologize for not having written for a while. That's probably because, every time, I haven't written for a while. However, to mix things up a bit, this time I am completely unapologetic for not having written. I'm sure you've all been on the edge of your seats, checking this blog every five minutes in desperate hope that there would be a new word, but you've been frustrated for the last week and a half. Get over it.

Anyhways. life has been going along. Classes are picking up a bit as far as work and stuff go. I had a seminar this weekend about ministry through small groups that was really good. I imagine I'll write more about that later. I'm poor and need a job. And the ladies are all up ons. But I digress...

Mark Moore said something in my Life of Christ class last week that I thought was really good, and it's been mulling around in my head for a while. We were talking about Jesus' interaction with the Sabbath laws. Mark was talking about the need for sabbath in the life of the Christian, and how resting actually prepares us to do the work we need the rest of the time. The line that I particularly liked was: "Every day, there's enough hours in that day to do what God has called you to do."

I feel busy a great deal of the time. And thus, I feel stressed out, especially when we get into the trenches of the semester when all the term papers and tests and book reports and everything else are due. And I think, "If only there were like, 30 hours in a day, that'd be great. Then I'd have no trouble getting everything done." But I don't have 30 hours a day. I have 24. And my job is to use that time to its maximum potential to accomplish what God has lined for me in that day.

What that means is that I can't afford to waste time the way that I do. Over the past week, I've been thinking about just how much of my day is like a vacuum, totally devoid of anything useful. I'll walk into my room after classes and sit on my bed. And just sit for a while. And I'll probably do the same thing sometime during the afternoon. And before I go to dinner. And when I get back from dinner. And then a couple times in the evening. And then before I go bed. Mixed in with all that bed-sitting are the 63 times that I check my facebook to read all the wall posts that I don't get. And every once in a while, I stare off into space whilst I digest the Cheez-Its I just ate.

What if we eliminated these pockets of wasted time that are strewn along our day? What if, once we got back to our rooms, we got cracking on our homework. Then when we get that done, we'll have time to do something actually significant, or at least enjoyable, whether it's spending time with others and investing in their lives, or partaking in some ministry in the community. The stress caused by backed-up school work is taken away, and we use our time in a way that honors Christ.

I suck at this. I'm on facebook way too much. I play way too many video games. I lay around like a paralyzed walrus way too much. So I can definitely improve, and I imagine we all can as well.

If you haven't noticed (and I imagine you haven't), there's a bloggolution sweeping the nation. Or at least me and a few other guys at Ozark. So check out the links to Jim, Charlie, Tom, and Connor's blogs. And tell your friends. And put it up on your facebook. Print T-shirts. Rent billboards. Stand on the street corner with a sign. Secretly add this site to all your friends' favorites. Whatever it takes.