Trust is unnatural

Who do you know who struggles to trust anything or anyone?  We all struggle with trust, because trust is not natural.  But who do you know, even if it is you, who struggles with trusting anyone or anything? We struggle with trusting anyone or anything because our culture misperceives trust.  Our culture...our heart...our bones tell us that trusting is weakness.  We are convinced that trusting someone is only something weak people do.  Our heart has learned to tell ourselves that.

But we also know our heart...something within us wants to trust, right?  Something within us would like to trust someone...something.  We want to, but we know how risky it would be to trust anything.  We know how risky it would be to trust someone.

We know this because we have been hurt before, right?  People have let us down in the past.  People have hurt us in the past.  So we know that trust is risky.  Too many people who are supposed to love us have hurt us.  So even though something deep within us would absolutely love to trust, we don't because we know how risky it is.

But...

BUT... There is another voice within us.  It is faint.....it is distant for most of us.  There is a voice which says...

I am here..... ....I am with you....

I love you...... ......even now..... .............even here.......

I am with you..... ......and I will be with you....... ..........when all things come and go.......

We all hear this voice if we really listen.  There is something within all of us; the broken and hurt, that speaks this love to us.

But we spend so much of our lives, no matter how long you may or may NOT have been a Christian, hoping.

It does not matter whether you are a Christian or not; we ALL want that voice to be true.  We ALL want that voice to be real.

one thing I ask

I am not one to ask many things of God. I fear making him into some sort of cosmic santa claus at my beckon call.  My heart resonates more with David in Psalm 27. "ONE THING I ASK of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord."  Of all the things I could ask God for, my heart constantly only desires one thing.  I only ask that I may be with God and know Him more and seek Him.  I do not ask many things of God, but I certainly ask this one thing.  My heart leaps within myself and it seems to always scream, "Seek his Face!  Seek God still!  Be with God again!" (27:8)  It is interesting that David is in the midst of great turmoil when he wrote this Psalm.  He was being attacked by several armies; he was in a great struggle, and he had needs.  There were, in these circumstances, all sorts of things he could have rightfully asked God for.  But he still came to God and said, "ONE THING I ASK of the Lord..."  Of all the things he could have asked God for, he was only concerned with one.  "My heart says of you, 'Seek His face!' Your face, Lord, I will seek." My life is chaotic to say the least right now. Life gets more and more crazy, and I cannot keep up with it. There are so many things I could ask of God right now, but my heart truly desires only ONE THING.  I only ask one thing; that I may be connected to the heart of God for the rest of my life, to see and notice God's phenomenal love for me each day. To "gaze at the beauty of the Lord", to simply rest.

Abomination: how interesting

How interesting that we so often call one sin an abomination, and it is for that reason we view it as different from any other sin!  How interesting indeed! A study of the word "abomination" in the original Hebrew reveals the original word "toeva".  This word literally means "abomination" or "hatred".  Homosexuality is, indeed, an abomination; scripture tells us that pretty clearly.  But still, how interesting that we say homosexuality is not "just sin", its an "abomination"; a toeva!  How interesting!

A search for the word abomination; or, that is, a search for the word "toeva" in the Hebrew scripture also brings you to Proverbs 6:16-19.

"There are six things the Lord hates (toeva), seven that are detestable to him. ("What! Seven??) haughty, proud, snobbish, arrogant eyes ("oh..") a lying tongue ("What's this!?") hands that shed innocent blood ("oh okay, well yeah!") a heart that devises wicked schemes ("you mean that time I...?") a false witness who pours out lies ("lying again...worth hating TWICE??") a man who stirs up dissension among  brothers ("What! You mean the whole Church?")

How interesting!  How quickly we make one sin an abomination without looking at our sin!  How quickly we congratulate ourselves because we aren't gay!

On love and trust

We trust someone because we love them. We do not try to trust someone so that we can love them.  It would not be very loving or trusting to do it that way.  Trust has to be risky by its very nature.  There must be some sort of leap involved or there is not real trust.  You do not trust someone because you study that person.  You trust someone BECAUSE you love them.  If you are only studying and looking for proof you are not actually trusting at all. I actually trust God BECAUSE I love him.  If I only trusted of God what was proven, I would not have trusted at all.  I do not trust SO THAT I will love God.  My love for God drives me to trust him.

Sure, I wrestle and fight with that trust all the time.  There are times in my life when that trust is tested, but I remember, then, how much I love my Father.  When I remember how much I love my Father, I can remember if I really loved I would trust Him.

I may cry out to God in hurt, pain, and misunderstanding as long as I ultimately cry out, "Abba, I give you my spirit;" as long as I can say, "Thank you" even if through clenched teeth.

Hate the church

You do not hate the churchbecause this is what church is... and you actually like us a whole lot

What you hate is that and I actually hate that too.

Quick letter to my male students

It takes courage to stand out as a man in a culture of guys. But why would you want to do that? How would you do that? How to move from simply finishing to actually winning. Reality check: Women have given up on 'guys'. That should bother you deeply. They are searching for men to be men, but have absolutely no interest in guys who want to stay guys.

DISCIPLINE: Men understand that risk is essential for victory. On the battle front you're thankful for hellish bootcamp. Women are looking for men who are prepared to BE men (goodnews: men will stick out in a guy culture).

SERVICE: Guys live for themselves. Our culture of 'guys' fights against the entire purpose for creation. Guys are selfish and have no purpose to shoot for in life. At some point, you have to ask yourself if YOU would ever want to date someone who is all about themselves (why would you become someone YOU don't even desire?)

Men live for others. Your purpose is much deeper when living for others. Men WANT to make an impact, and impact only happens outside of self. A man is not focused on what HE gets out of a relationship but on what THE RELATIONSHIP gets out of him. 

Being 'one of the guys' is not being a man. If iron sharpens iron, a guy does not sharpen a man. (Prov.27:17)

You are not intended to do this alone; so quit trying to. (Hebrews 10:24-25). Failure is less likely when other men sharpen you.

* Quick letter to my female students

Quick letter to my female students

Have you been frustrated with the no good men pursuing you? Here is a thought for you today. [good] Men do not fight for anything of no value. Are you worth fighting for?

Now of course, I assure you that you ARE worth fighting for. The question is not as if you were not possibly worthy, but whether or not you act like you are worthy. Do you act like you are valuable enough to be fought for and pursued? Further, do you believe you are valuable?

If you give yourself out to whatever and whomever, you are not believing you are worthy or valuable enough to be really fought for and pursued. You give yourself to lesser boys and 'guys' who will never fight and are looking for easy pleasure. You will not be saved and taken care of if you are not valuable. You will only be used and thrown away.

But that is the game of boys and guys!

Men will fight for and pursue value and worth. You ARE valuable and worthy, BUT act like it and believe it.

* Quick letter to my male students

the Story of Disconnected Impact

I did not know what I was going to do when the strongest influence on my faith and growth decided he wanted to sever the tie we had to one another. For years, my life had been heavily impacted by this man and his family, but now he had made the decision to disconnect the familial tie that bound us together. When things of this sort happen in our life, we can allow the hurt of the break to make us ask and say some strange things.

"Was it ever really real?" "All those years are and were a waste."

It is important to remember in those moments that a break cannot take away an impact made.

No disappointment or failure on an important person's part can change the impact made.

It is important to honor the impact. You still have to remember, reflect on, and respect the impact made even if you can no longer honor or respect the person who made the impact.

Novocaine

When you have dental work done on one tooth, you will usually want the novocaine.  The dentist gives you the shot to numb the area around the tooth.  But its never the one tooth, is it?  That tooth and the area surrounding it is often numbed with the one pinpointed shot.  That is the way novocaine works.  You try to dull the pain of one tooth, and in so doing, dull the feeling of the entire surrounding area. How interesting that pain is pain and numb is numb! When something happens to cause us emotional pain, we do what we can to get rid of the pain.  We don't want to hurt; to feel pain.  So we numb it out with whatever we can.  For some, its with drugs and alcohol; for others its with relationships or sex.  For me its often with denial or indifference; I can escape the pain by simply not feeling it or ignoring it.  I numb the feeling of the pain that situation brings.

But like novocaine, its never just the pain that gets numbed.  A lot of times, its not just "pain" in general that gets numbed.  Like novocaine, I pinpoint my pain, numb it, and find out that it inadvertently numbs the surrounding areas as well.  I find in my attempt to numb the PAIN of a situation, I can end up numbing other emotions.  I become incapable of FEELING much of anything. 

When you numb one thing in your life so you don't have to feel, that emotional novocaine is going to affect more than the problem.  Numb is numb! Even though I purposefully numb the pain, I also end up numbing, simply, the ability to FEEL.  Numb is numb!  Now you cannot feel joy, affection, love, anger, sadness, and other emotions in the surrounding area.

We have to feel!!!!  Even the pain!!  Pain motivates us to change something, and if we only numb the pain, we do not change; and we numb other emotions in the process.

Deeper things of wounds

We are all wounded people, and all those wounds left alone to infect will hinder our ability to know God more intimately.  They hinder our ability to relate well.  For this reason it is with each wound healed that the voice of God grows that much clearer.  That is my ultimate goal; for the voice of God to grow clearer and clearer to me each day.  I hear God's voice in my soul clearer than I did a year ago, a month ago, yesterday because I have gone into myself with God's guidance and "Unchangeable Light". That has not been easy, and is often met with some fear and some hurt, but the Unchangeable Light goes with me into the darkened and FORGOTTEN recesses of my inner self to shed some of that light upon the wounds which have affected my ability to hear the voice of God more clearly and thus to relate to Him.

But as light is shed on a wound, I am faced with a choice.  Will I continue to anesthetize it, numbing it, forgetting about it and thus hindering my ability to know God a bit more clearly?

OR...

Will I FEEL the pain so I can realize what is wrong and then go about the fearful and sometimes painful process of mending so that I may hear the voice of God a bit more clearly and know him more intimately?

Starbucks in the year 2111

Sitting here in Starbucks, I have a wonder in my mind.  I wonder how much art has been created here at this Starbucks.  How many books!  How many poems!  How many songs! How many sketches turned paintings!  How many screen plays!  How many dreams and brainstorms! I find myself wondering how many of those things have been created here, and then I wonder how many Starbucks there are in the country; in the world.  How many coffee shops are there out there?  These little easy bake ovens for art everywhere!

What are these places and what about them lends the heart to create?

Then I wonder what these places will look like years from now.  It is so cultural now, and yet I am thinking many years from now.  I am thinking about vacations I have been on to areas with old ghost towns, museums, and reenactments.  It makes me wonder if 100 years from now there will be families walking through THIS Starbucks layered in dust and time.  Will the tour guide be wearing a tattered green apron and pointing out different things the kids could not care less about?

"Over here we have an espresso machine from about the year 2004.  The barista would stand back here and ask if there was anything he could get started for the next person in line."

"Over there is where they would sell Starbucks brand cups, pointless gear, and overpriced coffee makers for the wealthier customers."

Will the tour guide tell about the culture surrounding coffee that just blew up in American society?  I wonder if she will merely be explaining what Starbucks "used to look like" because the company will have continued to dominate the economy and look entirely different then.

I wonder if you can go to old towns where there would be poorly done reenactments by costumed high schoolers who have no idea what our culture really looked like.

Will there be "old style Starbucks" still open to run "like they used to" for the sake of nostalgia and tourism?

I wonder!