a friend

lunch today was with a friend I hadn't sat down and talked with for a while. I knew it'd be picking up right where we left off and it never missed a beat. How is it that friendship works like that? It stinks that in this very busy world we get very little quality time with friends. And if quantity is quality, then a little quality time is really not much at all. But it seems to me that once a relationship is built, once a friendship is forged through good times and hardships, through laughter and tears, through hard work and entertainment, through good quality/quantity time that it survives long breaks and within minutes there is like there was no lapse in time at all since the last time you sat down to lunch.

Our Creator made us this way somehow with the knowledge that we'd be the kind of people who get too busy for our own good and too self-absorbed to realize that we have to have deep relationships. So he did this thing in our souls that connects us so we really can pick up right were we left off. It's almost a reminder of how Jesus' friendship with us works.

new exercise

I have friends who read much more than I do and I also have friends who read less than I do. I think I read quite a bit, but I often wish I would set aside more time for it. Normally my reading consists very heavily of non-fiction from a Christian perspective. I read theology, Christian leadership books, commentaries, books on how to live like Jesus and whatever other books I can get my hands on in that kind of vein. I began reading some books and articles on "branding" and "Team Building" in the professional world and it's definitely been stretching. I've learned a ton and I think a lot that translates to life across the board. We're a part of a team in almost everything that we do so that's important. We position ourselves as a brand as well as promoting other brands whether we are meaning to or not so that's important. Eureka!

It's something different for me. It's something that merely a few years ago I would have told you that I didn't really see the point in reading those types of books. I would never have said there was anything wrong with them. I mean, I would have said that I get it for people who were really pursuing business careers, but for me or people who are really serious about pursuing Jesus, they are a just waste of time. We could have been reading a "Christian" book.

I'm learning a lot of valuable information, though. It's amazing how truth is truth no matter where you find it. It's amazing how much great "life stuff" you can find in places that you never would have thought to look for information on "life stuff." I'm learning truth in a place I wouldn't have thought to look a couple of years ago. Maybe that's growth?

a chase

I have been having an inner dialogue for the last year or so based on some things that some friends of mine told me that they believe about the Holy Spirit. That dialogue has gotten louder and softer and louder again as I've read the word of God and other books or heard a podcast here and there. I thought "the shack" had some great things to say, and a year ago or so I had heard Mark Batterson talking about his book "Wild Goose Chase" and was intrigued. This morning at church, Mark did a great job with talking about our following the Spirit's leading and not asking the Spirit to help us with our own plan. He leads us, we don't lead and ask him to come along.
I think that this all fits in with my current inner wrestling over my obsession with myself. I loved the reminder that I need to let go of my own plans and my own vision of what should be and ask God for His Spirit's guiding. Mark challenged us to ask God to let His Spirit take us on an unpredictable adventure, one that would lead us right through His path that might look expected but probably unexpected. Why unexpected? Look at the stories in the Scripture about those who followed Jesus...Adventure! Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, John, Peter, Matthew, Paul...fill in another Bible character's name.
Imagine the adventure that awaits the one who follows this amazing God and submits to His Spirit. My inner dialogue will continue, and I look forward to how it plays out. Hopefully my mind and heart are open to the understanding that is true about the Spirit. I pray that I will understand this following and submit to it as only possible if I submit to the Spirit as He illuminates my heart and mind to the truths of the Word.

my humble button

It was dumb, but we used to say that we were so humble that we were going to get humble buttons so people would know how humble we were. Yeah, I told you it was dumb. I think that really, most people struggle on some level with pride. It was the reason for Satan's fall, and it really seems to be the root of most sin.
I have been doing this self-inventory and finding myself living mostly for myself. As I begin to do this recognition I have begun praying that God would begin to weed out the things that I am doing for myself and move me toward a selfless life centered on Christ and others. I have been praying this way all week, and today I ended up listening to a podcast from Mosaic with Erwin McManus speaking. I was just listening to the next one in line and was amazed at how God can just take things from all over your life and tie them together. It was a talk on a passage that I've heard taught, read, read books on and meditated on, but today it was more poignant than ever. "Blessed are the poor in spirit..." Jesus put everyone else before himself. He would never have fought for his rights or have tried to get the best of anything before someone else could get to it. If he were to see that there were only a couple of pieces of pizza left, he would go hungry and just let others take it. He always thought first of his Father and others.
The reality is that if I am going to truly follow the Jesus of the Bible, I have to be selfless I have to humble myself to the reality that others are more important than my will and desires. I must be poor in spirit. I must allow the way of Jesus to permeate my arrogant spirit and live in a posture of humility.
I want to be blessed of God. I must become more like His Son. I need to be poor in spirit.

brackets

Every year I fill them out. Every year I am toast by the end of the first day. Every year I finish last in whatever group I decide to get into. So this year, I went chalk. I just followed the committee according to the ceding, and I looked at the percentages as I filled them out online. I'll probably lose again this year, but this time I can point to someone else to blame. I just became a follower. No leading here, no going out on a limb, just simply following the pack. Safe...it's not my M O, but this year...that's how I roll.

why

Today was not a day for change. It was simply a day for observation. A day to take stock, to take a personal inventory. It was a day to ask myself, "why?"
I have been reading Francis Chan's book Crazy Love for my small group at church and though I normally read through things fairly quickly, I have forced myself to move at the pace of the group and so this week was chapter five. Last night I read it again and felt as though I had been punched in the gut. It's stuff I've wrestled with for a while and at times in the last month have tried to make changes that haven't really stuck. So today I decided that for this day I wasn't going to change anything. Here was my plan of action.

1. I was going to purposefully think about every action I took.

2. I was going to ask myself who I was serving with each action or to whose benefit I was doing that action.

Here's what I discovered (though I suspected it) about myself and my actions.

1. Most of my day was spent serving myself.

2. The actions I seemingly did for others had some kind of understanding that my helping or supporting them would benefit me in the future.

3. I am quite possibly the most self-absorbed, self-indulgent, selfish person I know.

Tomorrow I am going to do the same exercise, though this time I am going to simply change three selfish actions and turn them to unselfish actions. It's a small change, but I don't think I can handle the big ones right now.

little me

I chew my nails...it's a bad habit, I know. Leave me alone, there are worse ones. (I might have those too, but I'm not fessing up here) I try to quit every once in a while and get along for a couple of weeks while I'm thinking about it, then, without even thinking about it a couple are chewed off and it's over. I decided today that it is going to change.
I put my son to bed the last couple of nights after not seeing him for a week and it was so amazing to read him his stories and pray with him and tuck him into bed. A couple minutes after I laid down with him I heard this little clicking sound. I had seen him with his fingers in his mouth earlier in the day but didn't think anything of it. Now I know...he was copying me. It's amazing how you really want to see things change when you see them in a mirror. When that mirror has a soul and is going to begin showing even more in the years to come, it makes me want to change even more.
I already have the need to change because I'm trying to pattern my life after Jesus, but this makes a lot of things come into a more clear focus. That little man wants to be me. I better be one to be like.

good coffee

spent the last couple of days in Jackson, MI with one of my best friends. I got to observe his class on student ministry that he is teaching at a local university and then just hang out with him. It's always a blast and a lot of laughs over whatever it may be that we're drinking, eating or looking at. We had breakfast at the Roxy and it was one of the top breakfasts I'd ever eaten. We then continued to Biggby coffee for a few hours of talking over some good coffee. My sister knew I was going and asked if I'd video the experience. "It needs to be documented, you guys always sound like it is a hilarious time. So, this time I took a hidden camera and recorded our antics. Please enjoy.

not alone

the basement has several new pieces of drywall now that my brother and I have finished working down there. I'm really glad that he came to help me tonight because we did get a lot done. But really, it was more than that. I was glad to have some company. Last night I went into my son's empty bedroom and laid on his bed for a half hour missing him and the rest of my family who are visiting family on spring break. Tonight I've got company and it is great to hang out. shot his new handgun, ate some venison that I had grilled and worked on some drywall for a while...nothing too out of this world for hanging out, but it's just great to have a friend to hang out with and for it to be my brother.
Still miss my family, but it's going to make this weekend when they get back so much greater. For now, just hangin' with my bro.

life

Ok, just finally figured out the correct fingering for "there goes my life" by Kenny Chesney and it made the song so much easier to play. Then, I started singing it a bit to get my mind off of the last blog and for a bit of a gig some buddies and I have in a month or so. There was a point in there where I just pictured my little Laila climbing up our open staircase in the middle of the house and me looking up and seeing her doing that on her own and I just had this moment where I felt the consuming love that I have for her. At the same time that I can't wait until she's saying "daddy," I realize that it will mean that some of my time with her is already gone. I can't wait to make the most of every moment that I have with her. I hope I do make the most of every moment. I pray (literally) that I will be that Dad who pushes through the tough stuff and loves her with every bit of my soul. I pray that I will teach her the important stuff, the stuff that matters. I pray that I will be the one that she looks to for guidance, for advice, for encouragement, for real and transparent love. I pray that my walk with Jesus will be such that she can see it and want to follow in the same way. God, make me that man.

until when

I sat down to write a sweet blog about my daughter tonight and I may still do that but on my start up page the news story flashed across my screen: "at least 10 deaths reported," "Deadly Rampage in Alabama." The picture showed Geneva, Alabama right above the panhandle of Florida and I was a bit sickened. I went to college not super-close to Geneva. It was about 100 miles from Pensacola where I finished my undergraduate degree, but you know how things look so close on a map like that. It just had a bit more intensity to it as I read.

Again and again and again this happens. Someone comes to a place of rage where they feel that the best option is to kill others and then turn the gun on themselves. How does life get to that point and what kind of world do we live in where this happens more than once? This will be the lead story on all of the news channels across the country and we'll all hope to hear soon the killer's reasons and his plan, but in the end it will just be another in the long list of horrifying stories of people going on a killing spree. Is this world hopeless? Is there anything that we can look to that can pull our world out of this unspeakable evil? Where is God in a story like this?

I know I wrote only a few days ago on a similar issue, but here it raises its head again. These things have been happening since the beginning of time, though it seems like with our 24 hour news cycle that it happens more today. Only a few chapters into the Scriptures Cain is so infuriated that he kills his brother. There's some crazy stories about pharaohs killing all male children two and under. There is the story of some brothers who kill a whole town full of man with an elaborate plan. Herod tried to have all male children under two killed in Jesus' day. We all have heard the insane mass murders that Hitler orchestrated and more recently of Saddam Hussein and then we end up to this shooting today. Can God really be in control of a world where all of this is happening?

This world is broken, isn't it? There's no denying it. It's no more or less broken than it was the day that Adam ate of the fruit that was forbidden. People are the same as they've been for thousands of years. We are all broken creatures searching for what will make us whole. We look for love, acceptance, belonging etc. and then when we don't find it we decide that we'll just have to keep looking our whole life and that's the point of life - the looking, we lose hope and settle that there just is no hope, we lose hope and decide to take ours and/or others hope, or we realize that the hope for this world lies only in one place.

I believe that Jesus came to fix the brokenness of this world. I believe that Jesus came to be the hope of the world. I believe that Jesus will take our brokenness if we will give it completely over to him and like a master artist, put it together in the most beautiful masterpiece that we could ever imagine. This giving of our lives is so hard because we want to keep control of it just in case God would back out on his end of a bargain like others we've met and we want to be able to fall back into our comfort zone and blame him if it falls through. It's our insane desire to hold onto the brokenness that continues to hold back what God is doing in our world. But it isn't as though the world as it is doesn't do something good. The fractures, though, also serve to stand in contrast with the amazing glory and perfection of our God. This evil helps to serve the purpose of showing us how badly we need to be put together and how futile our attempts at it really are.

This giving of our brokenness to God is a difficult process. I know that I have told God that he can have my shattered life, but for some reason I continue to hold onto the bits and pieces of it that are somehow a comfort amidst a world that looks a whole lot more like my slivers than the piece of art that God is patiently working on. I truly believe that if we would give up every little portion of our scrambled lives that we would begin to see God's kingdom moving in ways that would not only put our own lives back together but would lift a hurting world toward His healing. What am I holding onto that is holding back God's work in the world around me? What are you holding onto?

traffic

I think that the biggest question that people really have about God and if he exists is the question worded a bit like "if God really is there, how come such bad stuff happens?" It's a good question. Bad stuff does happen and every day and all over the world. It happens to mothers, to fathers, to infants and to children and the bad news never seems to stop.

I went and saw the movie Taken tonight and thought it was a pretty intense, well put together movie with a decent story line. The thing is that the human trafficking issue comes hugely into play. Can you imagine that people abuse and sell other human beings? It sickened me to the core and made me ask "why could you let this happen, God?" It was a movie, yes, but these things happen every day. Women are forced into a life of drugs and prostitution in order to fulfill the sick fantasies and greed of others. So how can a good God that I so firmly believe in "let" this happen?

I wish that I could give you this amazing, stop you in your tracks answer. If I could, I'd probably be speaking to thousands of people on a weekly basis instead of writing this on my couch for all five of you who read this. I do have a bit of an answer, though, and I've been working through it myself. The scripture says, "you are the light of the world, a city on a hill that should not be hidden." It also says, "you are the salt of the earth..." The deal is that God has placed exactly the light into the world to shed illumination onto these issues and has put his people in the places where they can make a difference and change the world. He has put the resources into place to put human trafficking or starvation or any number of human calamities to an end. But those resources are wrapped up in my macbook and my nice home. These resources are wrapped up in our tricked out church buildings and our expensive meals. Those resources are wrapped up in my caffeine addiction and so they never make it to where God has equipped them to be delivered.

The more that I see movies like this or news stories or U2 songs and do nothing about it, the more desensitized I become that they are someone else's problem and that it sucks that it happens. The more that I do that, the more I can "live with" these things in the world and point a "justified" finger at God and ask Him why, or rationalize that "this sinful world deserves this." and the more I become one who is allowing hell on earth instead of one who is bringing God's kingdom.

the end

I usually absolutely love the end of the week. Fridays close with meetings and wrapping up my paperwork for the week and then the weekend brings a bit of extra time with my family and some projects getting worked on or finished. Tomorrow will be the end of a big week of work, but my family is leaving for a week without me and so this end won't quite have the sweetness of the normal Friday.

glimpse

Decisions can be tough...I mean, you really thought you wanted to do one thing and then before you even meant to and definitely before you tried to, your mind changed. Or maybe it was your heart that changed. You really don't want to say that you're flip flopping, but it's close. You are pretty sure that you've changed your mind and your heart, though still longing, is following. Or has your heart changed and your mind is having a tough time following? So there will still be those times when you aren't positive that you've made the right decision and yet you are sure that it is where you are supposed to be.

Maybe that free fourth shot in my Americano at Starbucks was a bad idea.

self-consious

it has a couple of nice gouges in it after only a few hours of aiming myself down a mountain on a single board over and over again. I bought it only a couple of hours before we got there and only after my good friend assured me that he would never make fun of someone for wearing a helmet. It's a "cool" helmet if there is such a thing. I saw a few of the high-flying boarders wearing the same one yesterday. Several small children wearing the same one (you know, the kids at age 6 who are already all tricked out in their burton gear whose parents drop them off every day to snowboard) The difference was I was an adult without the rest of the "cool" gear and I was riding the bunny hill. Ok, maybe I only saw the bunny hill up close a couple of times, but still...the three jumps I tried, I never really got air born except for after my butt and head had bounced off of the ice with a thin layer of snow over it.

I'm glad I had the helmet, I was a bit self conscious about it throughout the day, but it probably saved a mild concussion and maybe a couple of years with my grand kids. I laughed when my brother brought up this little clip from Jerry.



It's true...I care way too much what people think of me...I care less than I did a few years ago, but for some reason I feel the need for people to be impressed with me. Maybe my dad never gave me enough praise when I was young, maybe I have some deep seeded memories that lead me to these kinds of thoughts, or maybe I just need to practice more humility.

Maybe I should just wear a helmet for everything...(that's for you, ben).