Month: July 2024

Inbetweeners

One of my least favorite parts of coaching baseball were game days with a threat of rain. Maybe it would drizzle. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe the radar shows lots of activity right about the time we are scheduled to get to the field. Maybe it shows it at game time. I would check the hourly weather every 10 minutes, then check the hourly weather on all of the other sites, I’d call the other coaches to see what they thought, then I’d call them again, then I’d call my wife and grumble that it should either rain or not. I never liked the in between. I wanted God to make it easy for me, sunshine or pouring rain. Actually, that’s not true, I can’t say “easy,” because so many of our choices and the consequences aren’t easy, but I wanted to know the path to take. Even if it wasn’t the path I wanted, I wanted to know it was the path I was supposed to take.

Um, “supposed to?” Who decides what’s supposed to happen? Who we’re supposed to be? How it’s supposed to go? Is there ever a path we’re supposed to take? … Anyway.

We are in the midst of a building decision. I presented the paths several months ago and we’ve been praying ever since. The last 2 weeks, we began sharing our thoughts, answers, prompts. I hoped we’d all have the same conclusion. I hoped it would rain or not.

Of course, it was drizzly with colors possible on the future radar. 47% chance, which means it might rain. And it might not. Now, we’ve lived long enough, and if we’ve been even half-awake, we’ve experienced 0’s & 100’s that didn’t pan out. We don’t hold anything to be, as my son says, a “for sure-ski.” But we do like black and white, gray is uncomfortable. Gray also invites the Second Guessers, who are laying in giddy breathless anticipation to tell us we’re wrong and how could we possibly have made that decision???

So, is it going to rain or not? Then, we’re super spiritual and say, “if God is in it, we’ll know.” But is that really true? Probably not if we read and believe the Bible. When the Israelites were preparing to cross into the Promised Land, they were faced with a Jordan River at flood stage. The raging water could have been interpreted as God not being in it, right? If He was, He would certainly make it a shallow slow trickle, right? But instead, they were to send the priests with the Ark of the Covenant into the water. Do you think there was a chance they wondered if they misheard? Is that really what He said? Maybe He said “wait, and then send the priests in,” or maybe we were late to listen and He said “DON’T send the priests with the Ark into the water.”

Jesus got out of a boat in a storm and asked Peter to get out with Him. Maybe He’d save him. I wonder if Peter thought, John the Baptizer followed Jesus into the unknown and it ended…well, it didn’t end awesome for him. What if He’s going to say, again, “Blessed are those that don’t fall away because of Me,” after I drown?

We don’t usually get assurance for the next step. That’s what faith is, the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)” The Israelites didn’t know what the Jordan would do or how they’d cross – they hoped. But they didn’t know.

And add to that complexity and confusion, sometimes faith means to go and sometimes faith means to not go. Sometimes, we have a choice between 2 good paths. Do we follow the Law and leave our donkey in the hole or cross the street to avoid a dead/dying man, or do we get the donkey out and rescue the man and put him up at a nearby inn? All of those are good, they are all the right answers. Now what? And then, sometimes we do the right thing and it doesn’t turn out very great. Does that make it not the right thing, do the ends define the means?

We are inbetweeners. Maybe it will rain and maybe it won’t. Maybe we will grab our donkey, and maybe we’ll send the priests into the Jordan, but what I can say is that we probably won’t know if it’s the ‘right’ thing. Maybe there isn’t such a thing as one ‘right’ thing.

Maybe the point of all of this is a relationship WITH Our Creator, and if we hold His hand, trust Him with us and with the gifts He’s given, put (and keep) Him first, then every choice is the ‘right’ choice. And if we don’t, then none are. I guess we’ll see. Unless we don’t. Ha. I like this last choice, this last “maybe,” the one that doesn’t have us choosing a building or now, but instead, has us choosing only to be WITH Him. Yes, that’s the one, where we’re with Him in the gray, if it rains or not.

Where I Was Wrong

Yesterday, we discussed John’s 1st letter, chapter 1, verse 6, which reads, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” AND I wrote a post last week about where we spend our time, money, energy, (who the AI on our phones says we are) and if those spaces are consistent with what we say we believe is important. If it’s not, John says we are liars.

If I say Morrissey is my favorite artist (he is), but listen to The Beatles every day, far more often than I listen to Morrissey, am I lying when I say Morrissey? Maybe. John says yes.

So, the question is, do I have to change the way I behave to have fellowship with Him? Essentially, are there things I have to do?

Then, after the service, a man gave me his thoughts. He said, “You have to change your life, you have to be different.” Really? Have to?

Are there things we have to do to have fellowship with Him? I now think it’s a bit more complex than that.

Paul will occasionally address, in his letters, the belief some held that, if we are saved by grace, if our salvation is truly by/through His grace alone, then we can (and will) do anything we want. This is true. (Maybe not the “and will” parenthetical.) It’s also a distortion. He writes those letters to people like me.

This is what I taught often in the early days of my ministry. I wanted, I needed, to settle any doubts of whether we are loved, what unconditional means, and how big His grace is. I’d say, “Does that mean we can do anything we want? Yes.” I followed that up with “…but what we want changes.” The emphasis was clearly on the “Yes,” and not the “…but.” And, perhaps not surprisingly, my ministry was not as effective as it could, or should, have been. I was limiting, or cheapening, the Gospel.

There is an idea of cheap grace. If you owe 50 cents, and I don’t make you pay it back, that’s nice. If you owe 50 billion dollars, and I don’t make you pay that back, then that’s much more than nice. The debt I pay for you is humongous. The forgiveness of something so large is life-changing. Where I was wrong is that by de-emphasizing the debt, I also de-emphasized the forgiveness. I minimized the gift. It doesn’t change the answer, it is still His grace alone, but it does certainly alter each of the moments that follow.

If it isn’t life-changing, like the $50,000,000,000, maybe we simply don’t know it’s 50 billion dollars, or we don’t have any concept of how big an amount that is. There are some very cool demonstrations on the relative size of a billion on YouTube – maybe we need to watch one.

Do we have to be different? We just are. Maybe we don’t have to, but maybe that’s because we stop using terms like that. Maybe we just don’t understand any longer why it would be a have to at all.

I used to avoid the word ‘sin,’ at all costs. I don’t anymore. Now, it’s the vehicle to adequately frame His forgiveness. It’s not attached to shame or judgment, instead, it’s the best way to illustrate His sacrifice. The want does change, and if it doesn’t, then maybe we don’t know what 50 billion dollars is.

When we understand the size of the gift, there’s a certain gratitude and shift in perspective that goes along with that and radically transforms our minds & lives. But even then, there will still be times we come to a fork in the road, hear a voice of temptation in our ears, and have to choose whether to “walk in darkness.” And I’m pretty sure, in those cases, it’ll help to think about those 50 billion reasons to follow the one that leads to the light.

The Hours

I was reading an article this morning about food, exercise, and how we spend the hours of our days & weeks. And it has me thinking about things other than food and exercise, but still how we spend the hours of our days & weeks.

Often times, we try to out-train a bad diet (and when I say “we,” I mean “me,” but my guess is I don’t just mean me.) For instance, let’s say we are on a diet that allows 2,000 calories. Saturday, we go out to dinner and have an extra piece of pizza and dessert, and end up with 2,800 calories for the day. That’s ok, because we figure we’ll just go to the gym and get on the elliptical machine to work it off. For a 200 lb man to burn those 800 calories, it would take upwards of an hour of haaard work. Or we could’ve not eaten the dessert.

Do you have an hour to spend doing cardio penance? Probably not. We have lives, we’re loving people. But I do go to the gym, and that must count for a lot. The fact that socked me in the stomach was this: if we spend an hour a day, that is less than 5% of our day. Most of us go 3-5 times/week, which is 1.7-2.9% of our weeks. That is shocking, right? Do we think of it like that? I go 6 times/week, and that’s so much, but it’s only 3.6% of my whole week!!! The rest of the time – the other 162 hours – is a much more significant picture of my total fitness. I could be eating well, parking further away from stores or work, taking after-dinner walks, yoga, I could be doing lots of things. 3.6% is really surprising and, honestly, disappointing, isn’t it?

Church will be 1 hour on Sunday (if we can make it this week). 0.5%.

This is obviously not to add any guilt. We certainly don’t need any more of that, too many of us already carry the “not enough” mindset into spiritual matters. What it is is what my very good friend calls “black coffee.” Church isn’t the only way we commune with God. So, do we read our Bibles and/or pray an hour/day? Think about our percentages caring for our relationships with Our Creator. If we spent 3% caring for our children or our spouses, do you think you’d be particularly close? I watched a documentary today on Christianity in America that was an hour and a half. I spent more of my day watching TV than I did working out, yet I’d define myself more as a Man Who Goes To The Gym than Man Who Watches TV. But what does the AI on my phone say I am? That I am a Man Who Loves? (The Machines don’t care what I say or think I am, only where I am and what I do.) We are far more than our AI would ever know, we’re more than just percentages or location pings, but percentages, location pings, checkbooks, and screen times are undeniable factors in the mosaic that is our identity.

I am often struck by these types of stories, that lead down paths of examination and introspection. Everything is connected and asks it’s own questions. And as a general rule, when answering the BIG question, “Who am I?” it’s important to start with some black coffee, even if it burns going down.

How Do You???

I’m guessing nobody wants to read another post on youth sports, and how my coaching career came to an end (a loss), or how I feel about it today (a melancholy peace, if you know what I mean, and I know that you do – it comes from a 2 Hands practice, where you hold all emotions, sometimes seemingly conflicting, at once.)

And we’re discussing righteousness on Sundays, and why and how the spirituality spills out of us into real life, in real time. There’s so much more to think/say/argue about that, right? But the site prompt today is: How do you express your gratitude? And I like that, so we’ll start there.

Let me ask you, first – how do you express your gratitude? We all have a practice of thankfulness…well, when things are going well, we know what shalom means, and we feel positive, joyful, engaged, creative, hopeful, then we all have a practice of thankfulness. When we don’t, when we’re discouraged, isolated, restless, overly cynical, we forget that practice. That practice is also how we get back and find our hearts and souls, how we find our identities, who we actually are.

However today is, when your eyes are open, creation is crackling with the energy of the divine, and you are totally aware of who you are and who He is, how does that gratitude come out of you? Do you sing in the car? Walk a bit more slowly, with your eyes up? Do you call your friends? Are you on social media more or less? Do you move more, eat better? Do you give compliments? Hugs? Kisses? Do you dance in the kitchen as your make your dinner? Do you pray more or less? Read your Bible more or less? What kind of music do you listen to? Are you aware of time? Fun questions, right?

And what I’m thinking about connection is that the way I began this post only seemed unrelated. Nothing is ever unrelated. I coached those kids for lots of years, lots of games, and sooooo many practices, and that was absolutely an expression of the gratitude I feel at being here, now, and these gifts I have been given (gifts I could never deserve.) The kids were some of the best gifts, so caring for them and loving them was simply a grateful response. Writing to you, on this blog, is an expression of thanks. I sing and dance a lot, too.

And, as long as we’re at it, that’s what righteousness is. It is a response to the gifts (all of them, but especially the BIG one: salvation) we have received. We have a new life, so maybe we could live it as thanks, treating ourselves as His, royalty, wonderfully made. So often we make everything so complicated. If you give me a great gift, I treat it with care, giving it a place of prominence in my home. It is valuable to me, so I act that way. I don’t hit it with a hammer or kick it down the stairs. I am thankful and that is reflected in my behavior.

Our lives are our most obvious expressions of gratitude, and we might as well live them as the masterpieces He already knows we are.