gratitude

What If We’re Wrong?

We have to make decisions in, and about, our faith, right? Big decisions. Like, is the point to get out of here, escape this place, His creation, and go somewhere else? And if it is, what does that say about how we treat our neighbors, our pets, our environment, and everything else that we can see and touch? But what if that’s not the point, and we’ve neglected our home for this long? When God says “reconciling all things,” what does that mean? Is it like a reset, or a mulligan (like in Endgame when the Avengers go back in time and take a re-do)?

What if we’re wrong about each other? What if we are actually very trustworthy? Or what if we’re not? What if we should not have treated each other so awfully? Or what if we were too easy, and love is closer to what those people in the documentary I watched who ran teen camps in the deserts called “tough love?” What if we should’ve said “I love you” and “I’m proud of you” more often? Or is it possible that we said them too much and they lost all significance?

And I guess that’s my point.

Some decisions on how we live our lives don’t matter too much. Like the brand of toothpaste we use or how we fold our pants or what our favorite football team is. (Obviously, the right answer is the Dallas Cowboys, but everybody already knows that.) If we buy strawberry jelly and don’t like it too much, we can get another one next time. If our detergent gives us a rash, it’s uncomfortable, but it’ll go away and we can make a note to stay away from that particular kind.

But other decisions have much wider consequences. Some have eternal consequence.

If we choose the wrong person with whom to spend our lives, nothing is easy, we don’t want to go home, it’s tense and we’re full of anxiety, walking on eggshells. If we don’t tell them “I love you,” we might regret it forever. If we never hear “I’m proud of you,” we might spend our whole lives searching for it in all sorts of destructive ways.

Are we really thinking about our choices, are we intentional, consciously evaluating the things we value? Or are we sleepwalking, being swept along by what our parents or friends or celebrities believe & live, or are we just too busy and distracted to pay attention?

We’re going to be talking about community a lot. Are we spending time with our friends and family, with our tribe, taking the steps through this life together? Or do we find that most of our time is spent alone, isolated, behind screens, windshields, and walls? If that’s the case, is that really the choice we made, or did it just happen? Did we just wake up one day with no one to call with the celebrations or in our suffering?

Did we decide we weren’t worthy of beauty and peace? Or is that simply how we’ve always thought? And, really? Always???

Some of these questions absolutely need to be asked, because we didn’t choose them, it feels like they chose us. If we hear a lie often enough, it can sound like the truth, but it’s still the same filthy lie.

This morning, driving to the grocery store, I was thinking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we continue to allow the heresy of a salvation by works to subtly creep in, what exactly does that mean? And what if we’re wrong?

So, if the right theology is Grace+… If our salvation is lots of grace, but we have to do our part (no matter how large our part is)… If the True Gospel is closer to the gospel of Jesus and Chad (or Sally or Kevin or whatever your name is), and we partner with God to clean ourselves off to become acceptable, then what?

What if the Gospel you hear every Sunday, of Christ ALONE, is wrong?

Well, 2 things about that. First, the works: Ideally, our response is to live lives of love and peace and kindness and beauty, so maybe that might count. But does it really matter?

Is that one answered with a far more important question, why does “Christ Alone” matter so much? If the Gospel of Jesus ALONE is wrong, we would be guilty of shrinking ourselves and our egos, making Jesus the center of this wonderful Story, making it His Story. Our mistake would be to elevate the sacrifice of Jesus to cover all of us, everywhere, for all time. His life, death, and resurrection would be Everything. His love would be deep, wide, thick enough to hold every one of us as His children. We would define ourselves by/through Him, He would have the final (and only) word on our identity. We would, essentially, make Him bigger than He is.

But, on the other hand, if Grace+ is wrong… Then we elevate us, we make our actions, our behavior, our rule-following, necessary. The story would be ours. And we would minimize the cross, we would de-value the blood of Christ. We would say, “thanks, but it’s not quite enough.” Are we prepared to say that?

But what if we say that in a million ways, just because we never asked the questions, never thought to consider what we believe and what it all means? We started this post asking questions about some specific scenarios, but what if the way we answer the last one – if it’s a Grace OR Grace+ New Creation – is the answer for all of the other ones?

Nothing But Helmets For Everybody

Even though we were beginning a study on the Shield of Faith, moving on from the Helmet of Salvation, I realize now there is no moving on from the Helmet of Salvation. Of course, this reference is to the beautiful passage in Ephesians 6:13-17, “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

I have struggled with weight for almost my entire life. I would decide to give up hot dogs or soda or ice cream or packaged foods or whatever, all modifications based in various levels of fact and/or current trends, and probably all fairly intelligent. It’s not great to drink soda, or to eat foods made in a lab rather than made in the ground. And hot dogs…while unbelievably delicious…well, there’s a reason we try so hard to not know how they’re made.

Anyway, I am able to give up donuts for a time, sometimes a long time, but eventually, they find their way back into my life, a bite at a time. I can lose a few pounds, and keep them off for seasons, but they surprise me and end up back on the cold, hard scale, my nemesis.

What does the weight yo-yo have to do with the Armor of God? My focus in the kitchen is usually based in a negative, what I must “give up,” in order to be a healthy person, to find a healthy weight. And our focus in the spiritual life is often driven by the same motor; what we have to stop, or what we can’t do, the thou shalt not’s. Right? I can’t lie or gossip or envy. So, we stop spreading the latest news at the water cooler, until we can’t. We stop telling any untruths, until we don’t. We stop eating bread, until we eat bread again.

This kind of negative posture is based on me, on my superior will power or self-control, but I think I’ve been very clear that when things are based on me being awesome and supremely capable, it doesn’t ever lead to lasting success. Maybe I can be awesome enough today, but on a long enough time line (depending on how motivated or shamed I am), I will always let everybody down.

Instead of all of the ways we have to be different, all of the behaviors and habits we have to stop, the Helmet of Salvation tells a different story. Instead of detailed lists of who we are not (and how we can improve), the Helmet simply states the truth of who are. We don’t get better, we get new.

My dysfunctional dance with weight mostly ended when the focus became health & fitness. I began saying Yes rather than No. I liked me, thought I deserved better than hot dogs and cookies with cheap unnatural ingredients from a factory. This is not to say I don’t eat those cookies, it just means my value isn’t tied to whether I’m perfect or not. And the behaviors that make me feel like garbage (the behaviors that “miss the mark”) because they’re beneath me, I don’t have to stop, per se, I just have to do the things that are in line with the honor and dignity with which I have been bestowed.

But I have to understand the “honor & dignity with which I have been bestowed.” I have to know who I am, to live up to that identity. Then, my worth isn’t based on my perfection – on my totally abstaining from hot dogs forever – it’s rooted somewhere else, in SomeOne else. And that is exactly what the Helmet of Salvation is all about, that’s why it’s the only thing I’m talking about for the rest of my life.

Reflections

In my reading today, I ended up stuck on Proverbs 27:19. My Bible is a New Living Translation, and the NLT of that verse says, “As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person.”

Sometimes, I’m just moving right along. Sometimes, I take notes. Other times, I simply soak in the words and the feel of the pages in my hands. (Incidentally, when I purposefully study the Scriptures, I use a computer and lots of translations. The physicality of the paper or the hard cover has no draw for me. Instead, then, bridging gaps and making connections are the point.) Today was a little bit different, though by no means rare or unusual. Reading for pleasure and communion became study, then back again, translations mixed, computer screens and the thin pages held hands with each other, to the extent that it wasn’t either study or communion, either work or rest, it was both, and. It was everything, dancing together, blending seamlessly into one.

And I was stuck. My eyes wouldn’t skip down the 1/8” to verse 20. This isn’t that unusual, either, and when it happens, I know I’m about to be laid bare and kneaded like dough.

“The heart reflects the real person.” Who am I, really? Would my heart agree? When I think about my heart, it’s the motivation, the why behind the actions you see. Why am I doing these things, any things? Is it ministry, like I think/hope it is. Or is it obligation, vanity, ego, simple image-making, people-pleasing, or something else that I haven’t yet considered at all? I wish I could tell you, once I was open and totally authentic, it WAS ministry!!! But I don’t know yet. I pay lots of attention to this very thing, but “the heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,” (as it says in Jeremiah) – it’s why I ask, seek, knock for clarity, to be shown my dark, deceitful parts before they can take root and lead me down paths not meant for me. But just because I pay attention doesn’t mean I can’t fall, or get confused, or misled.

So back to the matter at hand, why was I stuck on this verse 19?

The NIV translates it as, “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” Now, my life reflects my heart, which reflects the real me. What does my life say? And does it actually say what I think it does? Or what I want it to?

I don’t always know why I write these posts, sometimes it’s in writing that I discover the point. But I already knew, today. I knew before I opened my computer to type a letter.

The Scriptures are never simply one thing. This library of books is not just instruction, not just history, not just poetry, not just allegory, or parable, or prophesy, or love letter – it’s all of them. It cuts us, wounds us, and puts us back together and heals us. It tells us we are here, now, and we are special and loved extravagantly, and then invites us to grow and move beyond the here and now. This library also serves as a mirror, reflecting our faces, hearts and lives, back at us.

I’m pretty sure the answers to all of these questions I’ve asked aren’t important. (And if they are, maybe they’re the sort of questions that are answered with the Spirit in private;) But what IS very important is that we ask them. It’s important that we jump in enough to get stuck, that we acknowledge that we’re stuck, and that we care enough about the answers to stay stuck until we’ve asked the questions. Maybe today isn’t a day for answers, maybe just for questions. Maybe I need to ask if the values I think I hold are really the ones illustrated by my life. Maybe I need to ask myself, “is it, really?” Or “Why are you doing that?” Or “Why did you just say Yes (or No)?” Or “Is this love?” Maybe I need to be laid bare and kneaded like dough to awaken me to my own beautiful life. Today, I did. I don’t always listen, don’t always ask.

So anyway, what did I find in this reflection? Me. Like all reflections, I saw me, for all that means, the good (of which there is much more that I can see than ever before), the bad, and the places we (He & I) need to address. I saw guilt and forgiveness. I saw love. I saw the same thing I always see: a new creation.

It’s a new year, I wrote this to get to this one line: May we all follow Him into our own reflections, see the intense, boundless, endless love He has for each of us, and may we ask all of the questions.

New Creation

So, I have this very great friend who got married on New Years Eve. We’ve known each other for 20ish years and in those 20ish years, we’ve been through everything. She was married to a guy who turned out to be a, well, he turned out to be a guy NOT to be married to. We cried together, the 3 of us, The Angel, her, and I, in our rented apartment. I stayed in relationship with him for her, until I couldn’t, because as it turned out, he was also a guy NOT to be in relationship with. We drove together to pick up her things. We watched movies, ate ice cream, wept, laughed. We followed Jesus together, we mourned the loss of our church together. We fell apart, then returned. We hurt each other, picked each other up, carried the other, said things we can never take back, and said and did things that cemented our lives to the other. She prayed for God to bring her a good man, a man more after God’s heart than hers. She wondered if the prayer was unanswered or if the answer was a gentle, soft, “no.”

But, of course, there would be a man (I spoiled the ending with my first sentence) with such a beautiful heart, the kind of man that could/would be her husband. It’s not always that the best people get the best things, but when it happens, it must be savored.

As they enjoyed their first dance, the only 2 people in the world, I thought of this passage in Isaiah: “…The Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Is. 43:16-19) This was truly a New Thing. The “former things,” the “things of old,” we would not remember. That guy is forgotten. The years and years of patient waiting on the Lord, wondering if this moment would ever happen, are forgotten. In His timing, He had made a “path in the mighty waters.” Her mourning had turned to dancing before our eyes, and our only duty (our honor, our privilege) was to perceive it.

Earlier in the day, we discussed the new year, and our preparation for it. These 2 weren’t passively waiting for a miracle, and they weren’t restlessly trying to manufacture that miracle. They didn’t settle for less 10 years in. They simply stayed on the path, listening, wide-eyed and open-hearted, becoming the woman & man they are today. To paraphrase the verse in Proverbs 21:31, their horses were prepared for battle – they had prepared well, faithfully – but this victory was the Lord’s. This victory was always the Lord’s.

What are we doing to prepare for this beautiful gift of our lives? And how? Are we patiently faithful, or are we still choking the wheel, trying desperately to force what we want, when we want it. Are we frustrated & confused at the perception that God isn’t listening, or isn’t going to show up? When will it be me, my turn? Why isn’t He answering? Where is the victory?

I stood in the front as she walked down the aisle, I wondered how many of these questions she asked, and how hard it must have been to not settle for just another warm body. I have a great job, and I got to stand in front of everyone, look at them both, and say, “you both deserve this.”

I don’t know what this year will look like for us. I know it’s not off to the greatest start, as I sit here with a box of tissues on my lap waiting for the sinus medicine to work, but it’s only the 4th. I do know last year ended with a Big Win. We have questions to answer, horses to prepare, moments to craft, and people to love. So many people to love. He’s doing a new thing, for us, in us, around us, through us, and maybe we have 20 years of waiting to do, maybe we have ex-husbands to forget, maybe we have colds & flu’s to suffer, pain and loss to endure, but it’s springing forth, even then, even if we can’t yet see it.

Congratulations to the Mr & Mrs. And to all of us, a very happy New Thing!

Last Post of The Year, with an Important Announcement

The Important Announcement: Christmas Eve service is Sunday 12/24/23 at 7pm. They’re will be NO Sunday morning 10:30am service.

I pray for you, that you experience God’s love & grace in every way, having the wisdom to choose Him and the strength to follow through on that choice, carried by the Spirit living in all of us. I am honored to walk this path, together. You are so great, I hope & pray that you know that. We jumped into so many things, one day at a time, holding your hand as you hold mine, never alone, discovering our worth and place as loved children of the Living God.

I am thankful at the grace you’ve given me, more thankful for the love you’ve shown. I hope you have felt the same from me. If you haven’t, I’ll do better to show you what’s in my heart.

At the end of every year, I sit down and consider what I’d experienced over the last 12 months, where I’ve come from, where I’m going to, what I’ve learned, who I am now, and with whom I’ve shared everything. I make peace with who I was, hold him gently, praise some things, forgive others, tell him how proud of him I am (after releasing what I have not been proud of, thankful of what those things have taught me), then say good bye. I pick a new focus for the upcoming year. I can tell you I am very grateful, overwhelmed at God’s grace.

This is the last post of the year – at least, I think it will be. Everyone will be home in this house and I’m thinking I’ll take those precious moments to breathe. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you one of my favorite passages, Genesis 28:16. You see, this guy Jacob finds himself in the middle of the wilderness (code for where God is NOT) and drifts off to sleep. As he sleeps, he has a dream, and in the morning wakes up and says, “surely God was in this place, and I was unaware.”

I don’t think any of us should be unaware, anymore. God was in the wilderness then, and He’s here now, if only we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel. We can wake up, to God, to each other, to ourselves. We can love, and we can do that any- and everytime we want.

It’s Christmas, The Savior is coming as a baby, to be “with us,” so we can be with Him. What could be more wonderful? I’ll see you Sunday night (there is NO morning service;). Have an awesome Christmas, everybody.

Deadlifts & Public Speaking

This is a 2nd post this week, and I don’t always like to do that. Added to that, it’s loooong. (I’m so excited I can barely stand myself – my books arrive today!!!) And I’m in the middle of a personal stretching, the me that was is not the me that is, and not the me that is going to be. Maybe we all are, and a looooong post on Jesus, basketball, deadlifts, Morrissey, and transformation will connect us today. My good friend calls it, “perfectly imperfect,” and that’s what we are. We are here and we are moving, always with Him. Here we go…

My favorite physical activity is a deadlift, and yes, I have given speeches and spoken on a stage. (These are my answers to the last 2 days of site prompts)

When asked, people are more afraid of public speaking than death. This seems strange at first, but I lost my house and everything in it in a flood in 2011. Many of us did. Others had inches or feet in their basements and first floors. The ones who lost everything put all of our ruined things on the front yard for dump trucks to pick up and haul away, and the house was bulldozed a year later. We didn’t have to deal with too much of the physical clean-up. The psychological, emotional and spiritual clean-up was a different story. Home can (and should) represent safety and security, and that was drowned with the carpets and doorknobs. You can buy a new end table, no stores sell peace. And watching your possessions scooped up onto industrial equipment as garbage is not a picture that quickly fades.

Anyway, the others with less water had to hire restoration companies, mold remediators, they had to replace their things, carefully watch weather reports… Yes, of course, no one’s house goes underwater, except ours did, and it certainly doesn’t twice, but try to sleep with statistical improbability when you’ve woken up to impossibility. In lots of ways, they had to deal with the catastrophic disaster in a much more present manner. Like public speaking. If you are terrible, you have to look at those faces again and again, they may remember and feel embarrassment for years.

Dying, like our flood experience, is walking away into a new blank space. We remember where we came from and what happened to our home, who knows if dying is like that? But we won’t have to look into the audience’s eyes and watch them struggle for comforting words. It’s why you don’t write a poem for your special lady and read it to her. You hand it to her on your way out the door after dinner and a goodnight kiss.

Love poems and death aren’t exactly the same, but the analogy holds up, I think. The vulnerability can feel like dying, and that’s what we’re afraid of, probably. Opening ourselves up to another, waiting in agony to see if we will be accepted or rejected. Will they like our speech and it’s content? Or will they like us, our personality, our way?

I quite like it now. Not everyone likes me, not everyone has to. That’s a new development, that I don’t have to be everyone’s favorite song. Some don’t like me at all. An old man left before the closing prayer like his hair was on fire after one Sunday sermon. I have some sharp edges and disagreeable positions, but that’s also why I might someday be somebody’s favorite song. Nobody cares too much about white bread, it’s nobody’s favorite, nobody’s worst. It just is fine. Like McDonald’s. It’s fine, kind of gross, but not gross enough to really matter.

Walking is great. Bicep curls and lateral raises are good enough, but nobody hates them, so nobody loves them, either. Deadlifts and squats, on the other hand… Mention Leg Day to your gym buddies and you will hear one of 2 responses. “I LOVE Leg Day,” or “I HATE Leg Day.” You either wake up early or look for any excuse to miss.

My brother can’t stand the sound of Morrissey’s voice. Nobody hates Coldplay. We all say we do, but that’s just for show. Coldplay is white bread. We don’t send sandwiches back because they’re on white bread, we don’t turn the radio station when “Yellow” comes on.

I don’t know what the point is. Maybe that we could be deadlifts and public speaking, if that’s what we are, instead of Coldplay and Applebee’s, manufactured to be sterile, inoffensive, and reach the widest audience. We can be exactly who we are, flaws, faults and rough spots, and many will love you just like that. Of course, many will not, and some people will even tell you that they don’t and why.

Perhaps the point IS absolutely to be deadlifts and public speaking, to open our hearts and souls and show vulnerability as whole, realized human beings, because to pretend to be anything else is just too much work. And lots of work in a meaningless pursuit is just plain silly. We have other things to do.

(That’s where the first post ended, but now I realize it was unfinished.)

At a particularly tense high school basketball game last night, emotions (including mine) ran high. And I wrote this last week: “On the way home, I expressed to the Angel that I can’t continue to get so worked up, that that isn’t who I am. But the thing is, I immediately realized, it is exactly who I am. I am a fiery, passionate man who loves sports and competition. I get excited easily at everything, highs and lows and everything in between.

Then, the next night, after committing to being even-keeled and calm, I pointed out that one boy was pushing another in the back with both hands over and over and over. It should have been helpful to the officials, because the 3 of them were obviously having a lot of trouble with the speed of the game and their responsibilities. It should also have been lost in the noise of the crowd, but everyone got dead quiet at that precise moment and my voice was the only one in the gym. So, I am that guy.

After the game, a family laughed at me – kindly, but still… And they wondered if I was like that on Sunday mornings. You have no idea. The answer is yes, of course.

A real problem (in every space, maybe especially the church) is hypocrisy, being different people in different spaces, pretending to be the image the situation wants. You can make a long list of my faults, but this is no longer one of them. I am just me. But like everything else, there’s no such thing as “just.” And like most everything else, the best thing about me is also the worst thing about me.

A wonderful development in my life is how I’m finally meeting the real, authentic me, and finding that I don’t hate that person at all. In fact, he’s alright. I just wish he’d calm down a little at high school games.”

Now, what you need to know is that I do not get confused; I am well aware that this is high school sports, and has no bearing on anyone’s worth or value, and has little consequence on a grander scale. Of course, that’s not to say they are meaningless. We could sing the praise of sports forever, detailing the endless positives we can all learn – about ourselves, others, gifts, teams, and our lives together.

So in these posts, the point was to be deadlifts & public speaking, and not hating ourselves because we’re not squats or scrapbooking.

BUT/AND…

After last night, I was gripped with what can only be called regret, very low level, but regret nonetheless. My mission is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, does this sort of behavior build walls or bridges? And the truth is, I’m not sure. Maybe for some, I’m a lunatic and this erects a thick wall, but for some, it might make me relatable and authentic and easier to approach. I am a lunatic in lots of ways, but an authentic, approachable, easy one. Those are all true. It’s the best and worst about me.

But the conviction quietly knocking, what about that?

I reached out to two trusted friends to ask, but didn’t need a response. The question was enough. We don’t ask what anyone thinks of drinking water or eating vegetables.

What if I’m not supposed to be a deadlift anymore. What if the Spirit is asking me to be a kettlebell swing? At least at basketball games, or home basketball games;) Should I continue to say, “I am a deadlift,” and isn’t that the opposite of humility and growth?

This is why a relationship with Jesus is so important, why true, working wisdom is vital to our lives. Maybe 2 weeks ago, the lesson was to love and accept me where I was, as a deadlift. But now, today, maybe the lesson is to not resign myself to always being a deadlift. I am a fiery, passionate man in the service of The King, not in the service of me, or “that’s just who I am.”

Lots of work in a meaningless pursuit is just plain silly, but which is the meaningless pursuit: change or acceptance? I can love the me God so lovingly created, and I can be transformed.

It’s almost New Years, a life of faith requires examination, what are the things to hold on to, and what are the things to leave behind? What is the work to do? I don’t need to be everyone’s favorite song, but the song I am must not be rooted in pride and rebellion.

Sports teaches a million lessons, this is just another one. I’m very thankful I have Jesus to guide me, and a community like you to walk alongside.

Last Weekend

Last weekend was very full… There are many different kinds of full. There is a bad full, where the stacked responsibilities are burdens, greedy vampires that suck & suck, leaving us completely drained. But the good kind operates in an inverse relationship, where as the items are completed, as the to-do list decreases, our hearts and souls increase. As the calendar empties, we are filled, with emotion, meaning, purpose, joy, with love.

There is the full that crowds out connection and presence. We miss sacred moments and invitations in the service of our productivity.

And there is the full that uses the schedule as a guide to direct our own participation in the gifts of our lives.

As we move into the Christmas season and it’s demands, I pray that, as much as is possible, we choose to be this 2nd kind of full.

There was a memorial service, wedding rehearsal, wedding ceremony, 2-day basketball tournament, and church service, each overflowing with beauty. We – all of us, with very few people overlapping events – showed up, as we are, and generously poured what we had to give into each other, like human offerings. Death, life, creativity, athleticism, new creations, passion, pain, celebration, everything all at once. On Sunday morning, as we held hands at the end of the service, I was exhausted, on the verge of tears, physically, emotionally, and spiritually spent, yet very alive and keenly aware of the significance of the blessings.

I barely finished my lunch before falling asleep to the sweet, soothing voice of Scott Hansen of the RedZone. Then, last night, I made the final touches on my book, and ordered the first copies. It was at that “Place Order” click that I could hold no more and those tears finally fell. The significance of months/years of work becoming tangible, harsh vulnerability and the naive hope of it’s impact, after already struggling to hold the beauty of the weekend, was waaaay too much for my soft, hyper-sensitive heart.

We still need our tree, to do some more shopping, presents need to be bought, meals need to be planned, people invited, holiday parties to attend, and there are so many basketball games. It’s easy to think of these things as nuisance or bother, as if they are obstacles to the lives we’ve always wanted. But that’s simply not true, they are our “as we are going,” from Matthew 28, they are our Great Commission. They are our lives and they are full of wonder & awe, if we only have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to feel them.

This is the season where we celebrate The Creator of the Universe, and it’s Savior, “moving into the neighborhood,” a season of hope and possibility, of the Kingdom of God bursting into this fragile, broken, wonderful world. It’s a season of presents AND presence, both of which can coexist if we only decide they will. It’s a season of basketball games for sitting together and experiencing the extraordinary gifts our boys & girls have been given. A season of mistletoe for kissing, family meals for listening and laughing. A season of missing those who are gone. A season of heartbreak. A season of new people in our Bridge circle. A season of such unexpected beauty that sometimes runs us over, smushing us into the fabric of forever.

I don’t pray for less things to do, for a life less full. In fact, it’s the opposite. I pray for more – of you, more time together, more hugs, more prayers, more gratitude, more Christmas songs, more of the Spirit, and much, much more love for all of us.

About The Weather

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances…”

Next week is Thanksgiving, so it’s a terrific time to reference these verses. Give thanks in all circumstances. We talk often about creating lives of gratitude, and the reason we do it so often is because it’s so difficult. It’s far more natural to allow lives of resentment and lack. Nobody has to tell us to take anything for granted, to hold grudges, or to try to control everything and everyone. I don’t remember any class syllabus with, “The Necessity of Wanting What We Don’t Have.” Yet, these are the wide paths we regularly walk.

Do we rejoice always? Pray continually? Give thanks in all circumstances? All? Really?

The words of Scripture confront us with a gigantic, usually unspoken, question. Are these characteristics we are asked to build realistic? Is the life Jesus (and in this case, Paul) calls us into possible? Or are they simply ideals, never meant for practical use?

It’s easy to argue the latter. Listen to how that passage begins (verses 13-15): “Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

Do I even have to ask if we live in peace with each other? How about our success in being patient with everyone? Everyone? And strive to do what’s good for each other and for everyone else? That’s infinitely more complicated when we’re focused on doing what’s good for ourselves, right?

In a world where peace is in such short supply, where the accepted norm is to pay back wrong for wrong, these words seem so far away. Loving our brothers and sisters, moms and dads, loving ourselves, is so challenging, how can we honestly be expected to love our neighbors, much less our enemies? It’s hard to even guess what it means to love our enemies. Is it hyperbole? Just pie-in-the-sky rhetoric that sounds awesome on a mountainside or in a letter to a church?

But there is the end of verse 18: “…for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” What about that? We wish to know God’s will for us and our lives, but maybe we already do, we just keep asking because we don’t like the answer. God’s will for us is that we are patient? Sounds that way. That we give thanks in all circumstances? But what if the circumstances are terrible?!? (Just a quick note; it does say in all circumstances, not for all circumstances, and that’s a big distinction.)

The last 3 words are the keys to all of it, of course. Chad alone can’t do any of these things with any consistency, if at all. But Chad in Christ Jesus is a new creation with a new nature, and with those things being true, anything and everything is now possible. We can be patient, kind people in a chaotic, upside down world. We can rejoice always, and we can give thanks in all circumstances. We don’t have to live the way we have been, we can live beautiful lives of hope & love in the middle of this hurricane. And maybe that can calm the hurricane. Or maybe it can’t. I don’t know. But it doesn’t really matter if I know or not, that’s what faith is.

Next week is Thanksgiving, and it sounds perfect to be the jumping point into living 1st Thessalonians 5 lives. Even if the turkey is dry or the pies are burned. Even if we happen to be alone (and if you are, maybe you would call me). Even if lots of things. We can start there, one day, step, moment, at a time. Let’s try to change this weather together.

The Post Office

This morning I went to the post office to buy some stamps. I arrived at 8:58am (according to my watch) and found the door locked, so I sat on the steps to wait. 2 minutes later (and not a second before), I heard the door unlock behind me. I pretended the clerk greeted me and invited me in, so I followed him to the desk, where I stood for a few moments while he did something very pressing at the desk behind the counter.

I said, “Good morning,” and it appeared to startle him. He asked what is was I wanted, and I said I needed some stamps. I considered making a joke about being so old that I still used the mail, but thought better of it, and instead answered his, “a sheet or book or what?” with, “I guess a sheet, how many are in a sheet.” He may have answered, but I didn’t hear/understand, so I got a sheet, paid $13.20 (!! When I was young, that would have bought me a thousand stamps, so that must be how many are in a sheet) and left.

I came from the gym, where I had to do my workout in reverse. Today is Leg Day and I needed a rack to do my squats and dead lifts, but all 4 were taken. I did 5 sets of calf raises, 4 of abductions/adductions, 3 sets of leg extensions, and 3 of Romanian dead lifts – it’s not important to know what those things are, just that I did 19 sets, while watching the guy on the last rack do 1 set, choosing instead to sit on the bench and look at his phone. 1 set.

Then I went to a local butcher, which I call The Tapioca Shop in honor of the shockingly delicious creamed pearl tapioca. The cashier who checked me out was not new, I see her nearly every week, and that is no problem at all, because she is fantastic. She isn’t going to break your neck with her blinding speed, but that is hardly important. I often with she were even a little slower, so I could have more time with her.

She made me think of the young woman who works at the gym, always smiling and waving to everyone who is lucky enough to walk inside.

SO as I left The Tapioca Shop, a small passage in Colossians came to mind, chapter 3, verses 23 & 24: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

It’s not my intention to blast the postal clerk at all, I don’t mind blasting the phone guy from the gym, but it’s the 2 others that are interesting to me. Those 2 women give everything they have, they work with all their hearts, minds, and souls, as if serving the Lord. They aren’t cleaning workout equipment for me, not selling tapioca to me, they are truly serving the Lord.

I know they don’t always feel like it. Their lives aren’t perfect – no one’s are, though I hope theirs are fulfilling and all of their relationships are awesome, that they’re treated like somebody’s treasure. The older woman wears gloves, maybe she is in pain, maybe she didn’t sleep well, maybe the younger woman is fighting off a cold or has a headache.

I don’t always feel like it, either, and neither do you. But that’s not covered in the Scriptures.

We’re just called to serve God. We’re called to love each other. These women do, am I? Do I always show up, and give everything I have to give? If that answer is no, then I should probably recalibrate. I’m really grateful I have these women as such cool examples who help to show me how to do it.

3 Jobs For The Site Prompt

I write another blog, too, called lovewithacapitall.com. It’s a space where I talk about songs and movies and anything else that interests me. It’s sometimes not as specifically about Jesus as this one is, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t about Jesus at all. Everything is about Jesus.

This is the post I wrote last week. I wrote it here because it was sort of about my birthday, and if I had shared it then on the Bridge site, it was a little too much like fishing for Happy Birthday’s and expensive gifts. (I don’t personally know most of the people who read the love blog, so presents are unlikely.) I don’t want birthday presents anymore, I have already received all of the gifts I could ever want. But I do want to share this with you because we walk our paths together, and ostensibly, you care for me, so this is where & who I am, now at 48. Thank you for being here.

The site prompt is to list 3 jobs I’d pursue if money didn’t matter, which is a terrific door to enter, especially today. You see, it’s my birthday, and it’s interesting how things change over a lifetime.

When I was a younger man, birthdays were about celebrating me. (Now that I say it out loud, it seems like it should be a day to celebrate my mom – I was a 10lb baby – but maybe I was the best gift for her already, right? Ha. Anyway.) But now, pretty imperceptibly over the years, they have morphed into celebrating the people that are in my life. No longer celebrating me, but celebrating you for pouring into me in such wildly different and always beautiful ways. 

I try to be a pretty thoughtful person, authentic and self aware, which leads me into days and moments where I look backwards & forwards, but mostly, I look around. Where am I? Who am I, who have I become, and who am I becoming? A birthday, as my phone is busy with well wishes and funny gifs, is a good day for that sort of thing.

So, as for 3 jobs. 3. Lead singer in a rock band. I wish I could sing the songs I wish I could write. My sister and I are always grateful that we have been given the gift of feeling songs so deeply, we cry easily at chord changes and perfect lyrics. Given the choice, I would have written “I Can’t Help Myself,” by Gene or “Hey Jealousy,” by the Gin Blossoms, and been an awesome front man, doing high kicks like David Lee Roth and being cool, like Billy Idol.

2. Superhero. This kind of goes without saying, we’d all put superhero at #2. We’d rescue our love interests, catch bad guys, return purses, and just generally set things right. 

And at 1. Pastor of a local faith community, which, in a wonderful twist of fate, is the one I actually have. I used to say I have virtually no skills, certainly none with which I could ever make a living, but that turned out to be untrue. I’m not overflowing with cash or anything, but that never mattered too much to me. In every way that does mean anything, I am the wealthiest person I know. Falling in love with Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me, for a million reasons. 

As I look at the 3, they’re very similar, aren’t they? I never connected that, until this very moment.

So. These 48 years that brought me here, with you, have been awesome – full of loss, pain, tears, heartbreak, laughter and unspeakable joy. I’m surrounded by the greatest people, doing the things I love to do; deadlifts, puzzles, watching dumb documentaries, listening, breathing, holding hands, kissing the Angel, loving God (and everybody else), and and and. That list could go on forever, I really love to do tons of things, but mostly I love to be here, now. So, how did I happen to get here? What did I do to deserve a life like this? Nothing. Nobody deserves a life like this. We just accept it, as the amazing grace that it is.

I am a very simple man, and I am overwhelmingly thankful. To paraphrase the best Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hatches The Egg: I am happy, 100 percent.