don't turn away

I saw a billboard for Don't Turn Away.org on the way home from work today. This is an issue I feel strongly about, due in no small part to personal experience. (No, I have never been abused, but I've seen abuse and it is a horrible injustice committed by the cowardly.)

Check it out...and report child abuse or neglect if you witness it.

a lament

We don’t really embrace lament these days. It’s rare to even hear anyone talk about lament, but I feel like lamenting this afternoon.

I just got off the phone with a minister friend of mine, someone I once worked with, and hearing about his congregation and how the work there is going made me sad. I miss working as a minister. It was hard work, but fulfilling.

So I’m sad right now. I miss what was and I wonder what will be.

chaos

I am reading a story right now that involves an interesting element: the “Chaos Curse.” I have to admit, when I first read about it and its alleged effects I was unimpressed. The Chaos Curse simply exaggerates the true desires of one’s heart. Whatever is already there is highlighted. If you have a passion for, say, food, under the effects of the Chaos Curse you would be able to think of little else. You might forget to go to work, forget to manage any of your other responsibilities. You would be lost in preparing food and eating food, and eventually your passion for consumption would become so great that you might not even bother preparing food before stuffing it down your throat. You could easily eat yourself to death, very literally.

The Chaos Curse is passion unchecked.

Reading this story and imagining the effects of such a curse on various people quickly convinced me that the Chaos Curse would be a devastating thing. Can you image? People lost in their secret desires, bending and shaping their whole lives to accommodate what they want, even ignoring what they need in pursuit of their greed for whatever.

I think about what my life would be like under such circumstances. I think about what my passions are for. The truth is, I’m afraid I would degenerate to a pretty sad state.

Really, this is the way of the world. We do, in fact, live in the midst of the Chaos Curse. No, there’s no “old magic” to blame for it, no menacing wizard behind some scheme to dominate the world—just the cosmic forces of good and evil battling for our hearts. And in this battle, people do sacrifice everything, everything in pursuit of that which matters most to them. That is the world we live in.

In my life this bears itself out as true. I will push, pull, lie, cheat, steal, work, scheme, hurt for, sacrifice for, even die for that which I am passionate about. And you will, too. The question then, I suppose, is this: What are you passionate about? Your passions will drive you. They will direct the course of your life. They will determine how you live and what you live for. Your passions are the barometer of your heart.

I realize that I’m diving pretty deep for what is, in the end, a fictional device used to further a story. But this idea of Chaos, the way people are affected when their passions rule, it compels me to self-evaluate. If my passions are of the right stuff then allowing them to rule would not be so bad. Allowing them to rule! They do rule!

My part in the whole mess is to choose. I guess that’s what I’m getting at—choose your passions carefully. If you are passionate about something that’s not such a great thing to be passionate about, consider the fact that your passions rule you and consider changing your passions.

I know I have some passions that need to be changed. I don't think my heart is quite ready for the litmus test of true Chaos, and I don't mind confessing that. That's where I am on the journey.

One last thing—the book I’m reading, if anyone is interested, is entitled Canticle by R.A. Salavator. It's worth checking out.

the hard part

I once heard a minister say that the hardest part of being a minister is being a Christian. I think he meant to convey that faith is hard work, and I buy that because it rings true to my own experience.

It’s funny because we talk about faith in God using terms like “surrender” and that seems to imply a lack of action. When I think of surrender, I think of a white flag waived sheepishly over the head of someone who believes that throwing in the towel is his only choice, his last hope.

That’s not what it means to surrender to God.

Surrendering to God is not the absence of action so much as it is the applied and intentional taming of your own will. When I find myself surrendering to God that usually means I’m doing something he wants me to be doing that I don’t care for. It usually means I’m acting, not giving up. It usually requires bravery and tenacity on my part. I am typically at my best when I’m surrendering, not my worst.

I don’t surrender all the time, though. There are a fair number of times when I take the easy way out, doing what I want to do and ignoring whatever the call of God might be leading me toward. Sometimes, as though my actions are no more complicated that a simple circuit, I just follow the path of least resistance. Those tend to be my low moments.

I think the hardest thing about being a Christian is being a Christian. There doesn’t seem to be much that’s easy about that. It is, if you’re really doing it, an all-or-nothing kind of thing. In my book, that’s hard work.

re-calibrating

Sometimes I find myself in a place, like in a dream. I feel like I’m looking at myself from the outside, wondering where I am and what I’m doing. It’s like watching a movie but this movie is about me. It’s filled with suspense and intrigue. Like any good suspenseful film, I watch the main character—me—and I often worry that something is about to go wrong. There seems to be an ever present danger and it lurks just around the next corner, just out of sight. That’s fine, I suppose, because the real question is not whether or not this danger exists but what I will do when I happen upon it.

Do you ever feel like that?

In the first four chapters of John there are two characters I marvel at. First, there’s Nicodemus—religiously leader and general good guy, so far as I can tell, but a bit of a coward as he’s coming to Jesus in the middle of the night. When no one will see him. He doesn’t seem to catch on to metaphor too easily, either. Jesus has to explain the idea of re-birth to this guy several times and he still maynot be getting it. At the conclusion of their conversation he hardly seems any further along. But he means well, and Jesus receives him. Jesus encourages him. Jesus throws on a jacket and stumbles out into the night to meet him, and I feel like that says a lot about Jesus.

Then there’s the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman, and I feel like I know her. Sometimes I feel like I am her. Rejected and sinful, hesitant to believe much of anything. I get the impression that she, unlike Nicodemus, follows Jesus’ analogies about living water but chooses, when Jesus challenges her about the condition of her life, to side-step any kind of real interchange and instead asks a question about worship style. A question not nearly as invasive. A safe question. Isn’t that just like me?

Nicodemus won’t allow himself to really hear Jesus and this woman at the well, upon hearing Him, promptly changes the subject.

Jesus tries to speak with me often. Daily even. I can sometimes hear clearly the call of His voice and sometimes it is nothing but the sound of the fan blowing in my room while I fall asleep at night. But He’s there. Sometimes I insist on seeing this world, His world, my way. Sometimes I insist on a literal interpretation of everything and I miss the wonderful metaphor of life. Life is, after all, really a giant metaphor. Nothing matters but His love for us.

Other times I dare to sit with Him, sheepishly, of course, babbling about things that don’t matter until He stares me down and challenges me with the raw truth of who He is and how much I need Him. Then I find myself praying about the weather or selling some stupid deal instead of meditating on His nature, His Spirit. Sometimes I just lack the courage.

And this is what I mean when I say there is a danger lurking out there for me, a test coming. How can I live in His light if I lack the courage to step into it? How can I really grow closer to Him if I keep avoiding Him or changing the subject when He and I talk? This just won’t do. No, something in my life needs to be re-calibrated. Something needs to be changed. Something I feel quite certain He will have to change within me—it’s beyond the scope of my ability to change.

What strikes me most about those two people in John and their encounters with Jesus is that my inclination is to compare myself to both of them and try to learn something new about me. My first reaction is an attempt at greater self-awareness. My first response is basically selfish. The real deal in those stories is not how Nicodemus or this woman reacts, but what Jesus does and how He treats them. The real issue is who He is.

He is One who speaks truth, even if I avoid hearing it. He is One who knows me better than I know myself, even if I try to change the subject when that comes up. He is One who will meet with me in the middle of the night down some back alley or in the heat of the day out by a well—wherever, whenever—just so long as we meet. And He is One who does not seem to judge the success of such meetings as I would. His intent seems to be a genuine meeting. His agenda is just that something real happen.

It’s infinitely easier for me to sit here and type about that than to drop to my knees and try to do it. Much easier to critique Nick or this woman for their shortcomings in the face of Christ than to face off with Him, myself. The truth is it’s scary. The truth is scary, and He won’t spare me that. He will speak it, the truth, outright to my face and He will bath me in it if I let Him. He will immerse me in it—baptize me with it—allowing me to be consumed by it because only them will I really know Him. Granted, the pay off—knowing God—is well worth it, but getting there is terrifying.

That’s why Nick and the woman both balked. That’s why I often balk, myself. But Jesus doesn’t balk or flinch or walk away. He’s steady and steadfast and He’s ever waiting. My goal today, meager though it is, is simply to stand firm in His truth and to seek Him. Really, I don’t think I can do any better than that. I don’t think He asks for much more than that. And I hope that when the lurking danger finds me, it finds me ready, firmly grounded in God’s truth, living my life wholly in the light and ready for whatever challenges I must face.

quote

"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."

- The Imitation of Christ

good things

Two weekends ago my wife and I spent the weekend in San Antonio visiting her parents. On Saturday morning her father and I had the chance to visit for a while. I have recently made a considerable career change, moving from a people-helping industry back to sales. I have found the transition difficult at times.

I enjoy helping people. When it was my job to help people, I felt very satisfied, not only as an employed, salary-earning, financially-self-sufficient individual, but also as a human being. I felt like I was fulfilling a call.

Sales does not stir my soul in quite the same way.

Katie’s father also works in sales and he shared his philosophy with me. He said he tries to function primarily as a problem solver. He visits with clients about this and that and when he hears about a way they solved a particular problem, he takes note. Then, when visiting with future clients, even if he’s not in a position to make a sale he has something to offer them. He is a sort of self-proclaimed consultant. He considers it his job to help the folks he interacts with, and he likes his job. He feels fulfilled in it.

He told me to approach my job the same way, to recognize that you can help people through just about any job. He said it was all about my attitude and my approach and that my intent was what mattered. He said God could even bless people through sales.

I smiled, even though I didn’t really buy it.

But I thought about what he said. See, my wife’s dad is a wise man, a good man, and though his advice seemed trite to me I decided I better dwell on it some and consider it. I prayed about it and mulled it over and a few days later I decided that maybe he was right. I resolved to change my approach to my job.

I made two commitments:

1. To help people. I decided that I would not sell, not to anyone, unless I was sure that selling to that person was to their advantage.

2. To be completely honest. I know you will find this shocking, but there are people in sales who will mislead you just to get you to buy something. I decided not to even think about being that kind of sales person. Not to deceive my clients. Not to deceive my boss. Not to deceive my co-workers. Full disclosure.

That was Tuesday of last week. Starting Wednesday, my sales have been, well, good. As of today, the 9th, I am at 140% of my quota. For the month. We have three full weeks left. I have sold something every business day in March. I go to work, I talk to people and I help them. If I can’t help them, I wish them well. If I can help them, I explain everything, answer all their questions and they seem to be buying.

Now, I’m not saying I made some kind of deal with God. Far from it. My theology isn’t that thin. God isn’t giving me deals (which result in money for me) because I did something good. There’s no direct cause-effect here, or not a simple one anyway.

I made a commitment, a good commitment, I think, and God, for whatever reason, is blessing me. It’s not because of my commitment, per se, but it is a blessing nevertheless.

Earlier this week I began to want to give the credit for all this to God. I mean, I’m a competent person and all, but all these deals, all this success, it’s God at work, not me. I’m just trying to stay true to my commitment, and I’ll stay true to it even if the sales dry out. (Though, to be honest, I'm not really worried about that. I think people like buying from someone who's committed to helping them.) The point is, God is doing good things.

James says that “every good and perfect gift is from above.” Indeed.

Certainly the good things in my life are from Him. My wife. My friends. My family, including my new relationships with Katie's family. My success. All of it.

And I just want to go on the record with that.

relating

The hard part of faith for me is this: I believe it's all about relationship, and relationships are hard.

If it were just about "doing right", well, that I can do sometimes, but not all the time. If it were just about "doing right" and God giving me grace when I screw it up, well, that would be relatively easy. But if it's about knowing God and being known by God, if it's about a living, active relationship with an eternal being, it it's about seeking more than His commandments and actually seeking Him, well, that's hard.

It's hard because it's mystical. It's hard because it can't easily be defined. It's hard because there's no book out there with some secret formula for doing it in five easy steps. (At least none that are worth the paper they're printed on.) It's hard because it's real.

But I think that's what God wants from me and honestly, that's what I want from Him. Something real. Real just costs so much. It takes so much work. It truly is hard.

choosing forgiveness

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins,” (Matthew 6:14-15).

Simple equation. You forgive, you get forgiven. You refuse to forgive, you don’t. Said another way, the degree of forgiveness you offer will be proportionate to the degree of forgiveness you will be offered.

Sounds fine and good, even fair. It sounds like karma. It’s as if there is some kind of cosmic balance maintained, as if, like matter, there is only so much forgiveness in the universe and if you horde the forgiveness you ought to be giving, there will be none out there in the cosmos to come back to you when you need it. But as easy and balanced as it is, it’s scary, too.

The thing is you aren’t in a position to forgive until someone has wronged you in some way. That means at the very moment when you are hurt, attacked, mistreated and even abused you are under obligation then, in that moment, to somehow offer mercy and grace to the offending party. You can’t attack back and then claim to offer forgiveness later without expecting God to respond to you in the same way. Yeah, pretty scary stuff.

I’m particularly challenged by this reality because I’ve recently endured what I consider to be horribly unkind behavior and I find myself wanting to pass judgment on those who have been hateful toward me, wanting to go Old Testament on them using all kinds of prophetic ancient texts to remind them of God’s contempt for the wicked…

…and then I remember that I am wicked, too. I too have committed horrible sins. In the situation in question there are certainly things I could have done better. In the rest of my life, I have sinned with such resolved endurance that if it were an Olympic sport, I’d be in the running for the gold. I can’t condemn unless I am comfortable with being condemned.

No condemnation for me, thanks. I’ll pass.

Often these days I am reminded of the treatment I have endured and anger begins to creep into my mind. In those moments the only thing I can think to do is pray. I know how trite that sounds, but honestly, that’s all I can do to keep from soaking in my anger, marinating in rage.

At first when such moments arrived I prayed for myself, that God will allow me to release my anger. But that didn’t work as well as the prayer I now pray. I pray for them, for the people who could not forgive me. I pray, not that God will strike them down and not that God will reveal the wickedness of their hearts to them, but that God will make the same mercy available to them that I so desperately need for myself.

I pray that God won’t hold their wrongs against them.

That, too, sounds trite, I’m afraid, as it so obviously echoes Jesus’ prayer for His killers from the cross. I’m in no way comparable to Jesus in my capacity for mercy, so please do not read an “I’m like Jesus” message into what I’m writing here. I sink into despair and anger as often as I rise above it and I am far from fully forgiving.

But I’m trying. Trying to be what Jesus has asked me to be. Trying to forgive because I want to be forgiven. Trying to love because I want to be loved. I don’t know what else there is to do, really.

I realize I’ve thrown a lot out there, some of it obviously of the fresh-wound variety and I hope my indistinct references don’t confuse you too much. But this is where my heart has been for the last few weeks, so maybe something in all that, something in the mess, will encourage or enlighten you.

The point is a simple one: you have the choice to forgive or hate. I would encourage you to choose forgiveness.

stereotyping, part 2

Okay…eight hours of sleep later and I’m still thinking about the idea of stereotypes and the church and Christianity.

Here’s something to chew on. Jesus warns against being “ashamed of Him,” (Mark 8:38), but no such warning is ever given about being ashamed of the church. Apparently, if I say I’m embarrassed by being associated with Jesus that’s one thing; if I say I’m embarrassed by being associated with Christians, that’s another.

However, Paul repeated uses the analogy of the church as the body of Christ. Using this analogy, Jesus is the head and His people, the church, are necessarily and inseparably connected with Him. This kind of makes Jesus and the church a box set, a combo that cannot separated. I can no more say that I love Jesus but not His church than I can say I love my wife’s head but none of the rest of her. John makes the same argument: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar,” (1 John 4:20).

On a side note, I’m not advocating hating anyone, even people calling themselves Christians who display nothing of the character of Christ. That’s pretty offensive to me, going around using Jesus name and making Him look bad and all, but I think Jesus would want me to love those people, too. I’m talking about be embarrassed by such people and being vocal about the fact that I’m not like them and I don’t really want to be associated with them.

But is being embarrassed by the church, even the Christian posers, while different from being embarrassed by Jesus, wrong?

To make the matter more complicated, there are several warnings in the New Testament directed at the church stating that many who claim association with Jesus are really claiming a lie, (Matthew 25:31-46 is my favorite). In other words, the body of Christ (made up of those who have true connection with Him) and the establishment of the church as a political, structural entity are not necessarily the same thing.

I suppose, then, that my initial conclusion holds. It’s perfectly acceptable, at least in as much as I can understand, to say that there are a lot of so-called Christians and a lot of so-called churches that I claim no association with whatsoever. Jesus' criteria for association with Him (in Mathew 25:31-46) is simple: if you serve others and love all (both those who believe what you believe and those who don’t), then you know Him. If you don’t, you don’t.

So any person or church out there who loves all and serves everyone they encounter, I’m cool with. Those who judge, criticize, condemn and love only on the condition that you agree with them, I’m not.

Make sense?

stereotyping

You know what sucks about being a Christian? The stereotype that comes with it.

Last night (Thursday night--it's late Friady night right now) I was cruising blogs and more than once came across one I wanted to post a comment to. But I hesitated. I hesitated because I thought about those people, those other bloggers coming to my blog and seeing that it belongs to a Christian and immediately drawing certain conclusions about me. Conclusions I’d rather people not draw.

Without getting into a church bashing session let me just say this: if you’re reading my blog and kind of checking things out, don’t immediately assume you know what I mean by “discipleship”. I don’t really care too much about organized religion, the politics of church or even “Christianity” as an entity. I do, however, care a great deal about Jesus. My endeavors in spirituality are entirely wrapped up in growing closer to Him. You can keep the rest of it, frankly.

(In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, I stole that last thought straight from Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller—a really cool book about non-churchy faith—though I may have made the point more aggressively than Don would.)

My point is just that I worry sometimes what people will think of me when they hear that I’m a Christian, or worse yet, when they hear that I’ve worked as a minister. I wonder if words like “close-minded”, “judgmental” and “self-righteous” immediately cross their minds. I fear they do.

I try not to get too cynical about it, but as this post attests, that’s a struggle for me. Nothing whatsoever is accomplished by my ripping to shreds the establishment of the church or the ideology of American main-stream Christianity, and yet I’m tempted to do just that in an effort to prove to the rest of humanity (or at least to the three people who read my blog) that I’m not one of those Christians. It’s a tough line to walk.

But I won’t give in. I’m not going to blast Christianity at large, but neither will I defend it. I’m pro-Jesus, all about Jesus, and Him I’ll defend (again, stealing from Miller), but the church is going to have to fight those battles on her own.

What point was I trying to make? Oh yeah, the stereotypical Christian. I’m not one. Give a guy a chance. We on the same page? You picking up what I’m laying down? Good. Great.

Love and peace all around. Happy blogging.

feeling the walk

Some days I don’t feel like much of a disciple.

On those days my prayers usually begin with: “Lord, help me to do Your will…” This is not a noble aspiration as much as it is a concession that on some days I lack even the desire to follow God. I’m asking Him to give me the want to seek Him because I’d rather be doing what I’d rather be doing and, while I know this is wrong, I don’t particularly care. Except enough to ask Him to overcome my selfishness.

In the end, on those days, He does all the work. He inspires me if I’m inspired at all, and if I’m not inspired, if I wallow in selfishness from dusk ‘til dawn, it is His grace that restores me. Because He doesn’t lose all patience with me I have the opportunity to try again tomorrow.

This is the walk. This is the walking. Sometimes wanting to take the next step, sometimes thinking about how much more pleasant it would be to sit down and sometimes just lying down, your whole body flat against the path you should be hiking, a blatant, obstinate, full-body protest to the call.

This is the walk. And some days I don’t feel like I’m even moving. The funny thing is there’s no rhyme or reason to it. I can feel devoted and deeply engaging in pursuing Jesus one day and I can feel complacent and lazy the next. I end up deciding that the task at hand is just to trudge on through. You get somewhere when you’re walking because you keep taking steps, big steps, little steps, sometimes steps with considerable breaks between them, but you keep taking steps. You keep moving forward.

It’s not rocket science, walking, and it’s not particularly fast. I just try to keep moving.

Because of all this, because it's slow and hard and sometimes I'd rather just be selfish, some days I don’t feel like much of a disciple. Today is one of those days.

bono speaks

Read what he said at the National Day of Prayer Breakfast here.

treasure hunt

I few days ago I read the following verse from Luke: “…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” (12:34). I’ve been thinking about that.

All my life up to this point I’ve read that verse and thought of it in very financial terms. Like heaven is a bank or something. Transactions are made in the form of good and bad actions on my part. When I do good things, I’m making a sort of deposit in the Jesus account and when I screw something up, I make a withdraw. Makes sense, right? By that rational, Jesus is saying, “Do good things because ultimately there’s something in it for you.”

Very Dr. Phil.

But since reading this verse a few days ago I’ve been thinking about it more like a pirate might. I’ve been thinking about my treasure as something out there, something hidden or buried, something I have to find. I’ve been thinking that maybe God isn’t talking about some mutual fund in the sky but something else. Something with a little more adventure to it. Something risky.

Okay, so back to the pirates. Pirates hunt for treasure, right? (Go with me on this one for a bit.) That’s the typical pirate thing. There’s treasure out there and they have some kind of a map and it’s mostly clear, but not totally clear, so there’s some guess work to it, too, and they look for treasure. It’s usually buried and sometimes not in the most obvious spot. Frequently the hunt is dangerous and only the pirate willing to risk life and limb, willing to sail around the world, willing to do whatever it takes to find that treasure or dying trying, only that pirate will succeed.

The Seven Habit of Highly Successful Pirates, The Abridged Version.

Point is, they take chances and they pay a cost and finding the treasure is work, but it’s worth it. In a sense, because they risk so much and because they are so passionate in their pursuit, their hearts are tied to that treasure. It’s an obsession to them. It’s what they want, even need.

What if relationship with God is more like that? What if the point is to be engaged in a hunt, a seeking for Him that involves risk and chance, work and pain and, ultimately, reward, but not the reward of mansions in the sky and streets of gold but the reward of Him? Being with Him, knowing Him, being known by Him? What if that’s what it’s all about?

If that’s what Jesus is saying, then the point changes. It’s more like, “Seek God passionately, with all your heart, because He is the treasure and your heart should be tied to Him.” I’ve got nothing against banks, but I think I like that interpretation better.