gratitude

The Grateful

Gratitude Journals. Gratitude Breaths. Thank You Notes. Those are the first 3 in an email list of gratitude practices, as it is Thanksgiving this week. I think we’ve probably heard all of them before, We’ve been told to make lists and to slow down and breathe many times. Maybe we haven’t had thank-you notes suggested (when was the last time we passed a hand-written note at all??), but it certainly does make sense to acknowledge kindness and beauty.

The 4th requires an explanation. Flip The Script means, in difficult situations, we ask,”what is one thing I can be thankful for in this situation?” It’s a simple re-frame that can exchange one “O” word – obstacle – for another – opportunity. And it reminds me of a different email I received yesterday, that stated “the opposite of misery isn’t happiness, it’s gratitude,” and asked us to “Be grateful for your struggles, because within them is the opportunity for growth and meaning.”

In the movie I watched last night, after saving the multiverse (don’t ask), one character asked if the time variance agency (really, don’t ask) could change another character’s regrettable, awful past for rescuing the world. He was told that past, that deeply painful past, is what created the hero that could save us all. There was nothing to change.

By the way, it was yet another instance of a story where the hero sacrifices him- or her-self so everyone else can live. Sounds familiar. I point this pattern out to my boys every time we see it, and explain that it’s in so many stories because it’s The Best Story. Our Creator, Savior, and redemption are wired into our souls. We all know it, and so does Hollywood. (I was going to add “whether they admit it or not,” but that’s silly. They admit it with every re-telling.)

Anyway. I’m just spending the time this week reflecting on gratitude, in general, as a concept, and in my own life, specifically. We could make lists or flip all the scripts, but each of them, any/all of them, are designed to open our eyes and turn our heads. Paul writes that we are to be thankful in everything, and that’s unbelievably difficult sometimes.

But so was my first deadlift. A deadlift works nearly all of the muscles in your body. It’s hard and I struggled to do very light weights. However, I wanted to do it, I wanted to be a man who deadlifts. And guess what happened? I kept watching YouTube videos on correct, safe form. I asked questions and studied others in the gym. I deadlifted often, even when I didn’t want to, didn’t feeeeeel like it. The light weights increased as it became an integral part of my workout routine. It’s still hard, but it’s awesome. I am a man who deadlifts.

I think gratitude is probably the same idea. Being a grateful person requires all of us, asking muscles we don’t always use to grow and strengthen. And we pay attention, hand writing notes (maybe we should bring handwriting back) or reading mass emails or whatever, and keep gratituding. Even when we really don’t feeeeeel like it.

We have been given our very lives, each breath, each moment. We’ve been given each other, the beauty of the changing leaves and the Church. We’ve been given touch, smiles, kisses, tapioca pudding, and breakfast sausage. We have been made to deadlift, we’ve just seen the wind & forgotten. Way deep down, in all of the most authentic parts of us, under all of the rock in which we hide, we are The Grateful. So, how about, starting with this week, we begin chipping away at the rock and reveal this stunning true nature of ours.

Christmas Presents

Last week, I went to a Morrissey concert in Atlantic City. Morrissey is a pop singer, and he’s been my favorite artist since I was around 13 years old and heard a song called “Ask.” (I’ll talk about the actual show on my lovewithacapitall.com blog, if you’re dying to know more.)

I went with my sister to the show, and her husband (who, inexplicably, HATES Morrissey) and the Angel also came for the evening in the city. We stayed in a fancy hotel with a perfect view of the ocean, ate too much of a great meal and way too much, several times, from an interesting cafe.

Then, home for last minute preparations for Operation Christmas Child shoebox Sunday. I made the soup and the cake, she made the artichoke dip, and we eased our tired bodies (we’re older now and need more rest than we used to) into bed.

Sunday morning, the Bridge packed the boxes we delivered to the drop point a day later, and hopefully we all ate too much of the community meal. Together.

This was a beautiful weekend, full of meaning and significance. But Morrissey was the least of it. That’s strange to write, because for so many years, I would’ve said he was the most important figure in my life, singing the songs that detailed my (our) emotions and gave me 1 person who, I believed, understood. I would’ve told you he saved my life on more than one occasion, and that might be true.

But during the show, I looked at my sister and hugged her and told her how much I loved her, how I didn’t want to be with anyone else but her. The songs were great, but this relationship was so much better, deeper, with mountains of history between us. Morrissey didn’t know me, our history was a one-way street. Those songs just gave us another extraordinary reason to share the time.

The 4 of us had dinner and breakfast. The Angel and I watched the sun set and rise in our hotel window and on the beach. He’s the best brother in the world, and she’s just the best person. I’d rather kiss her once and share one meal of noodles than watch all of the Morrissey shows ever.

So, yes, of course, Morrissey doesn’t know me, but neither do the boys and girls half a world away who will open our presents, and packing their presents with love and prayer with my family opened me in wonderful ways for which I can never prepare.

This is more of a bullet point narrative post than a long thoughtful essay, but the point is that while Morrissey may have saved my life, it was just to bring me to the place where my life could actually be saved and redeemed. When I fell in love with Jesus (10+ years after I fell in love with Morrissey), it began a lifetime of restructuring my values.

The first time I saw Morrissey, I left my friend at the door to run to the stage to be in the front row. That’s where my values were then, I now forgive the boy that did it, but it isn’t me now. Morrissey connects us. Without the connection, without the relationships, they’re simply chords and lyrics (which are still miles better than most things).

Now, I prefer dinner with my sister and her husband. I prefer holding the Angel’s hand and watching the waves roll in. I prefer shoeboxes and pumpkin pie. I even prefer making a cake for others.

And all of those preferences ooze down into every area of my life from the One with the position at the top. I am so grateful that Morrissey moves me, grateful that he means so much to me, because it paints a picture (however inadequate) and packs a shoebox full of the love, belonging and fulfillment of the One who opens my eyes and heart and changes everything.

2 Things For This Week

Last week, we spoke about honor – what it is and how we do it. Both of these were surprisingly difficult. Many times, we use words that we cant exactly define. I think religion is full of these kinds of words. We’ve seen them enough to be able to pronounce them and use them correctly in sentences. “Honor” is easy enough to write sermons around, but becomes substantially more difficult if you carry it out just one more question, the dreaded, “what does that actually mean?”

Love is another. What does it mean to love your neighbor, or your enemy, your friends, parents, other drivers? For that matter, what does it actually mean to love your spouse??? We don’t ask, because it exposes us and we don’t like to sound like we don’t have everything together, especially if we don’t. As it turns out, maybe we’d all be exposed, if one of us would simply give voice to our vulnerability.

Anyway. What does it mean to honor someone? Better yet, what does it look like? I think it looks like listening. Asking questions. Saying something wonderful. Encouraging. Speaking truth. Trusting. Going first. Letting them go first. (I know they are direct opposites, but that doesn’t bother me and it shouldn’t bother you. It depends on the time and place. Sometimes, you can go first. Sometimes, I should. Not everything is strictly black and white, it’s a beautiful exploding gray.) And what does it look like to honor ourselves?

I asked these same questions Sunday, and I’m asking again, because the answers are different for all of us, and the only way we can find out how we can honor each other is if we ask, seek, & knock. Of course, it’s hard, and we don’t want to. We want to be honored, but to do the honoring is a different story altogether. But it doesn’t really matter if we want to or not, our communities and our world depends on if we show up to each other with love, and with honor.

The second thing I want to talk about is our Very Cool Thing Saturday. We’ll have a, well, what is essentially a party, a big rad shin-dig. At 6:30 I’ll talk about my book (Be Very Careful Who You Marry), then Olivia Farabaugh (Oliviafarabaugh.com) will play us in, then I’ll talk about Star Wars and the Resurrection and how that can change everything around 7, then after that she’ll play her songs and give her story, and we’ll leave around 9ish. She’s really extraordinary, in all sorts of ways, and you’ll love her.

Now, as far as our community goes, this was the idea from the beginning. We would create a place for artists (of any discipline) to express themselves in public, and in doing that, we would go to any/all lengths to affirm their divine spark, their identity in the image of a wildly creative God. And we would show up, and in that, we would affirm our Genesis 1 & 2 bend to be together, according to our design. What that means is that we would be together because it’s how we’ve been designed to be.

We would show up and welcome guests and love them, without regard to any label or imaginary division, and without reserve. It would be an opportunity to show the love of Jesus because that’s what we’ve been designed to do.

So, my second thing here is to invite you to come out to love and be loved. To come out to welcome Olivia and to be welcomed by Olivia. To hear how Luke Skywalker’s training on Degobah relates to our marriages, and to buy my book (ha!!). To meet my nephew’s girlfriends. But mostly, it’s really a chance to lean into our wonderful creation and be grateful, and I think we could all use more chances for that.

It’s Saturday at 6:30 at the Bridge, and it’ll be Very Cool, but it would be even more so if you’re there.

Leadership

The website that we use to create & post content on the Bridge (bridgefaithcommunity.com) and the Love With A Capital L (lovewithacapitall.com) websites is called Jetpack. It’s easy and free, 2 characteristics that make it very friendly for me. Jetpack wants it’s users to post often and gives lots of tools to make that happen. One of them is a prompt (a question or an idea), and today’s is: Do you see yourself as a leader?

This is interesting, because we all can have such widely contrasting views on this question. The nature of my position at the Bridge makes it obvious for me, but how do you answer the prompt? I’ve heard the phrase, “I’m no leader,” so many times, I’d start to believe it, if it wasn’t so wrong.

I also hear “I’m not a creative person.” Where do you think these lies began? When did we first hear them? Were they something we were told? And why? Why would someone lead us to believe such false notions about ourselves?

Much of our journey of faith, following Jesus, is un-learning the nonsense we’ve been taught.

Not a creative person? If we are awake and aware, if we look around, we see the fruit of a wildly creative God. The world is exploding with color and texture and beauty and function. We are made in the image of that God. It is as if we are saying, “We are all made in His image…except for me.” It’s strange we would accept this as truth isn’t it?

As far as leadership, last week we discussed our relationships in the home and asked some very difficult questions: Are we keeping score, making long records of wrongs? Are we patient? AND would our children be the first to call us patient? Would our spouses be defending our kindness? Would they defend the words we use, or our tones? Are we proud? Would our wives or children say we need it our way? Do they think we need to control how we make a pb&j sandwich? 

If these questions are so valuable (and so hard to answer honestly), that implies that people are watching. Our children are learning from our example. Our spouses are discovering who we are, how we move, what’s important to us. All of this points to the opportunity to impact the world around us, an opportunity that is only fully realized when we acknowledge the truth of our responsibility.

At work, in the grocery stores, behind the wheel, at the gym, we are always on display. How do we speak to each other? What can the cashier at the Walmart learn about the Gospel from our marriages? From our interactions with our teenage sons & daughters? If love is patient, would someone feel loved after interacting with us? Would they feel inspired our gratitude or deflated by our sour, complaining hearts?

This is the definition of leadership, and probably we’ve closed our eyes to avoid it. Those days are over, they have to be. There’s a saying that goes, “Teach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” We’re all teachers, illustrators, leaders, everybody is watching. I don’t always like the prompts, they often amplify a disappointingly stark difference in perspectives between the cultural and the spiritual. What we do matters to someone, so that makes it matter to everyone. Once we see this, our vision clears to possibility. And this is how it all starts…

2 Aching Muscles

On Friday, I pulled a muscle in my back. This, I suppose, isn’t the most surprising thing in the world. It happens. What’s embarrassing about it is that I did it while throwing frisbee. Or rather, disc golf. That sounds much cooler than “frisbee.” We’ve been playing quite a bit lately, and it was a pretty good time, until I felt like I got stabbed in my back and now it hurts to breathe too deeply or dead lift or get up or move quickly or walk around like a normal person. Sigh. So there’s that. I don’t know when I got this old. I used to be able to throw frisbees with no consequence. Sheesh, its just a frisbee.

If I take some ibuprofen, it’s not too bad. I bet nobody knew on Sunday morning or yesterday visiting family. Maybe they did, you know I can be very dramatic in my self-pity.

Today it’s better – I haven’t taken anything for pain yet today – but maybe that’s because there is another thing that is affecting an entirely different muscle in my aging body.

My youngest son just left for the first day of his senior year of high school. This has been only the first leg of the “lasts.” The last high school summer league in basketball. The last summer vacation of high school. The last first day.

There’s a meme (the wisdom literature of our time, our proverbs) that says something like “one day you’ll carry your child to bed and it’ll be the last time, and you won’t know it at the time.” And it can be anything. These 2 boys used to sleep on my chest. We walked them to school, drove them to practices, watched band concerts. I used to put them on my shoulders, or better yet, in a backpack for walks, like Yoda. If I sat them on my shoulders now, there would be many more than one muscle pulled. (My older boy is bigger than me in every way, maybe I should get on his shoulders to see now.)

As we all get older, we get the gift of knowing it’s the last. I knew the last time I’d coach each of them. I knew when I handed the championship trophy to this now-high school-senior and hugged him, that it would be the last time I would ever do that. That’s why I cried in front of everyone. We know today is his last first day of high school. We know the next first day of school, he won’t be living in this house. I cry a lot in front of everyone. (Today, though, with this pulled muscle in my back, it hurts A LOT to cry, more than usual.)

I talk a lot about a 2 hands theology. We are asked to hold the sadness – in this case, the sadness of the loss of my little boy – AND the celebration and joy – in this case, he’s a cooler, better person than I could have ever dreamed he’d be. Both of these boys are, and that is more wonderful than I can tell you. Except they’re not boys anymore, they’re men, and that hurts worse than I can tell you. My tears are a holy mixture of pain and joy.

That mixture has a name and is, simply, gratitude. More than anything that I can’t tell you is how thankful I am. My sister & I were talking, awestruck at these lives with which we have been blessed. This is certainly not to say they have been easy or without struggle or without times we doubted and there were times we might not have felt so grateful. But the thing about a 2 hands theology is that we have always been honest about those times, and the truth is, that’s probably why we’re so thankful today. We have been there for all of it.

I remember tearing their artwork from the walls of our old house as it went underwater, but I couldn’t get it all. And I prize what I took and mourn the loss of what I left behind. My aim has always been to live a fully present life, showing up to the pleasure, the wins, and the suffering, the losses. There have been so many of both, and I wouldn’t trade any of them.

So yes, I am celebrating with an ecstatic heart at this life I’ve been given and what I get to see and experience…and there is no amount of ibuprofen that can ease the hurt of what I get to see and experience. But the best thing is that there is no world where I’d want to.

Cookies

Sunday’s message ended with the wildly unreasonable command of Jesus to gouge out our eyes if they cause us to lust, to cut off our hands if they cause us to sin. Obviously, He couldn’t have actually meant that, right??? It’s this kind of passage, in the Sermon On The Mount, no less, that causes us such trouble and leads us down paths of discussion on hyperbole and exaggeration – which gives us a very nice, convenient out.

I’m reading Judges right now. (My practice is to read 2 passages, one from an Old Testament book and one from a New Testament book – the New Testament is Revelation. Just some light, easy reading. Ha!) In chapter 2, Israel does what Israel does – what we do – and is disobedient. Maybe it’s pretty subtle, but disobedience nonetheless. They have been told to “drive out” all the people in the Promised Land, and the chorus of the first chapter of Joshua is “____ failed to drive out the people living in _____” This refrain is in verses 19, 27, 29, 30, 31, and 33. Now, maybe they failed to drive out any of them or maybe just not all, but it’s still the same idea. They were given instructions and didn’t follow them.

In chapter 2, we are told Israel “abandoned the LORD… They chased after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them.” Now, why were the people around them? Because they didn’t drive them out. Because they didn’t do what God asked of them, commanded them.

If I keep cookies in the house, I’m going to eat them.

A solid trainer who knows me well will tell me to get them out of the house. Will tell me that I can’t be trusted (even if it hurts my feelings.) Will give me the tools to set myself up for success. Then, if I get rid of all but some or none of the cookies, I haven’t listened to him. And it might not be today or tomorrow, but I will eventually eat them.

The Canaanites are the cookies. gods like Baal and Ashtoreth and those ridiculous Asherah poles are just more cookies. And the Israelites are just like me, they can’t be trusted with cookies in the house.

So Jesus tells us, if the cookies cause you to stumble, if you’re going to eat those cookies, throw them out. If your computer causes you to stumble, throw it out. Maybe we can’t use our phones when we’re alone, maybe we need some controls. If our time alone with our boyfriends & girlfriends brings unbearable temptation, then maybe we don’t get alone time. Maybe we’re always outside or with others.

But we’re NOT children, we have enormous reserves of will power. We can stop any time we want. We can hold firm. We don’t have to eat the cookies. We are very strong and disciplined. And I’m 100% sure that’s true. This minute.

David could be on his roof – after all, it’s his roof. He could just not look at his neighbor Bathsheba (who, incidentally, is considered by whoever decides these sorts of things, one of the 5 most beautiful women to ever live. And whoever does decide probably has never seen the Angel, so maybe not top 5, but we get the point.) And I’m positive he did. For a while. Nobody takes the money from the drawer the first time they’re on the register. (I know, everybody says they do, says it’s the first time, but nobody believes that because it’s never true. And if it ever was, it’s such a small percentage that the exception proves the rule.)

I don’t have to eat the cookies today, maybe not even this week. But there will be a night I can’t sleep, or I’m sad, or disappointed, or just bored. Then, those cookies are in big trouble.

This hyperbole isn’t an out at all, it’s an illustration of how important it is. We’d rather not have hands than more cookies, and not have eyes than be that violently destructive to our own bodies, souls and spirits. If the off ramp is there, we’re going to take it. We’re going to settle for less, we’re going to forget that we’re children of the King, going to forget we’re made to fly.

And it’s really hard to fly while our arms are full of cookies.

Gifts

I usually like to write and post on a Monday or, at the latest, Tuesday. Today is Thursday. This week has been full. My heart is full, my head and my schedule are somewhat less full, but still enough to add a certain extra weight to the everyday.

First, the “everyday” reminds me of the AI quote from Sunday about the profane. Profane is defined as “Things that are not sacred, such as ordinary daily routines of life. Profane elements are secular, mundane, and practical, and are not considered to hold any spiritual significance.” I think that is a poor definition, because it implies that there are areas of life that don’t hold spiritual significance. It seems to me that part of our problem is that we believe that these areas exist, and therefore, and treat them as if they are meaningless. They lie outside of any greater consequence, and check out. We mindlessly step in the same footprints as yesterday and tomorrow and next Friday and last January.

So I believe that with all of my heart: there is no separation, and everything is spiritual, as long as we hold it with care and love.

Then, the homework was to open our eyes to the beauty of this life, to see all of this as a gift, the blessings, and look for spaces to be grateful. Notice these wonderful lives of ours.

And sometimes, I am invited to discover if these beliefs I say I hold are the ones I actually hold. Invited to do the homework myself. Asked the very difficult question of priority – when belief and faith come into conflict with convenience or my idea of what is supposed to be, then which side wins? Not only in my head or on paper, but in flesh and blood?

We all have this same invitation a ka-jillion times a day.

I make a weekly to-do list that I cross off (it is very satisfying to cross them off) as I complete each item. 2 of the items are “Bridge Post,” and “Love Post.” I write these posts on Monday or Tuesday. But Monday and Tuesday, I had homework and belief to practice. I don’t always get these pop quizzes right, often times I’ll serve my to-do list and treat other opportunities as things to get through to return to my list.

Thankfully, this week, I was (mostly) fully present to this gift I have been given, and I’m only writing this on a Thursday. Small steps make good lives, and sometimes they make lives so much better and deeper than you could have ever possibly imagined.

Context

Sunday mornings are always interesting, for all of us. We wake up in certain ways. Saturday nights are interesting. The week before, the week ahead, how we slept, we sometimes have sore throats or coughs or allergic reactions. Maybe we had a fight with our husband, youngest child, or the washing machine is broken again. Work has been too heavy…or too light. Bills are due, and how are we going to make that work??? And now, by some miracle, we got up and left the house and came to this place, and what do we do with our hearts, our minds, our stubbed toes and too-tight pants?

I wonder if these people will notice? Do they have it all together, with their hugs and combed hair, or do they feel like me, too? When the singing starts, some put their hands up, some sing sooo loud, some just move their mouths, some don’t at all, and I just feel like crying. They call it worship…what is that? What exactly does it mean to worship?

And now the sermon? Everywhere else it’s a lecture or a talk, a teaching, but here, it’s a sermon. Is that cool, or is it weird? We’ll read parts of the Bible, and what if I can’t hear because I can’t pay attention? I just stare out the window or look at the pages, what does that say? I probably should have just stayed home…

This story, I’ve heard a million times. I know it, and this person talking, they know it, why are we still talking about it? I wonder what’s for lunch, or if we’re still fighting. Why are churches the only places where you can find pew-style seating? If they were so comfortable, wouldn’t they have caught on elsewhere? Maybe they haven’t because we have to step over each other to get in and out. Who knows? This place.

More music. Maybe I can leave now, before anyone talks to me? Is that what I want? Maybe not, maybe it would be cool to talk to someone, maybe I could tell them, maybe I wouldn’t feel so alone? But maybe they’d judge, maybe they’d raise their eyebrows and I’d know, right away, what a terrible idea it was to open, even a crack. Maybe I’d feel even more alone than I do right now? Is that even possible?

Now we are holding hands and praying. Does God hear, is he listening to the voice of a person in a small church in a small town? Do you know there are 1 million churches in this small town, I bet there are more churches than people. Why so many? Why do we pray? Is it so God changes His mind and decides to fix this, help me pay my bills, turn the doctor’s positive result negative? If He could, and if He loved me, why wouldn’t He just do that? And if He didn’t, why would my asking change anything? I thought He knew everything, knows what I want, what I need. Does He love me?

Why am I here?

So we leave, and on the way, someone looks at us, holds our hand, tells us they know, and they really do. Or they don’t, and we slip out before anyone can see the chaos in our hearts.

So, what is worship? I know now. It’s this. All of it. Showing up, as we are, thoroughly broken or euphoric (and everywhere in between) and asking allll of the questions. Pretending isn’t worship, it’s hypocrisy, and it has no place in a church. We bring the pieces of our lives and lay them at His feet – some of them are flawless in their beauty, and some are broken beyond ever being repaired, but in the loving hands of Jesus, and the Church He’s created, they are all gorgeous.

(…and, for the record, we never should have just stayed home;)

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.