Past encouragement for today: old journal entry

I had just lost my job, Tonya was in Zimbabwe, and a promised position was pulled from under me. So I left for a weekend to Bowman Lake up past the Yuba Gap. The only things I brought with me were a tent, a journal, a Bible, The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen, a bit of food, and a six pack of beer. I had no idea what was going on in my life. I found my last journal entry from that trip... Interesting how these things are perfect encouragement today as well.

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June 6 (Sunset…THE LAST BIG ONE…WHEN GOD SPEAKS)

I climbed up on the rock face behind my site to watch the sunset over the lake. Well, actually, the sun sets behind the mountain in front of my site, but I can still experience the sunset if I don’t see the sunset. I climbed up on top of the rock face and looked out over the lake at the mountains that spring up on the other side. I watched as the shadow cast from the mountains in front crept up the mountains behind my site. I just sat and watched for a while. It kind of reminded me of a canary being put to sleep. It was as if God were putting the mountains to sleep for the night.

You look at these mountains and they even LOOK old and tough. They look like they have put in a long day’s work. All day long I have watched these mountains in amazement. To amaze a guy in the 21st + century is a pretty daunting task. We need to be entertained by bigger and better things, and for years to this day, mountains have been bigger and better. Even now they are bigger and better than most things. They have succeeded in amazing me all day long, and that is no easy task. So they deserve the sleep and rest. So God put the mountains to sleep like a little canary.

You see the blanket draped over the cage, but you know there’s a bird in there. This is why after the shadow covers the mountains entirely, the moon will come up and cast its special light upon them to make them silhouettes. They just look like big black masses beyond the deep blue space of water, but you know there are mountains over there. They’re just sleeping!

While God was putting the mountains to sleep, he spoke to my heart words I needed to hear. I just sat and listened for a while. He sounded a bit like a conversation a friend of mine had with Brennan Manning a few years ago over cigarettes and coffee at the Anderson, IN Waffle House. My friend and I (along with others) had been digesting Brennan’s words for a couple years at that point. My friend had established a comedy/drama team based heavily on the writing of Brennan Manning and the songs of his ‘soul mate’, Rich Mullins. My friend asked Brennan for any advice to offer a group of young guys who wanted to serve God and spread his love through comedy and drama.

This man who we all were pretty convinced could walk on water with Jesus, whose words we had sucked all we could from said a rather unexpected thing. He said, “Get a job!”

God spoke a similar message into my heart tonight. A bit more tenderly, but the same idea! He said:

“I know you’re worried and you’re scared. I know you are questioning why you left a profession you love to follow a path that had not lead back to that profession. I know you are scared about what you are going to do, and that you feel like your passion has been removed. I know all of this, but I have a new and different plan for you. You are going to do bigger and better things for me, but you are not ready yet. You have some passions in your heart you have not paid attention to. You have passions you do not know about yet. I will show those to you when you are ready, but you are not ready right now. In the time being, while I am preparing you and raising you up, get a job. Get a job, pay your bills and support your family. This job does not need to be a career or even something you are passionate about; I am preparing you for that and remember you are not ready yet. You will find what that is in time, but go on looking hard after me. I have bigger and better things for you outside student life. You will reach more people for me. You will bring glory to me through new things in the future, but for now you need to work and support your family. You need to pay your bills and continue learning. Look further for those passions you have ignored and the ones I will reveal to you in time.

I love you PC!

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About not being a Christian on account of the hypocrites

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"I don't believe in Christianity because there are too many hypocrites." This is an objection to Christianity which I am tired of hearing. Essentially, this statement says that hypocrisy takes away the validity of Christianity. It says, "I will not become a Christian because of the hypocrites. I cannot believe Christianity because of the hypocrisy."

There are two reasons this statement and belief frustrate me;

1) Its true 2) It does not make any sense

First of all, to say Christians are hypocrites is absolutely true. In fact, most people are hypocrites. As long as you present an ideal lifestyle and belief system as the one you are to live to an imperfect humanity, we will always be hypocrites. Ideal lifestyles take work, and you generally have to work through our imperfect realities to make them happen. This means that mistakes will happen. This means that not everyone is prepared to be perfect, but we still more forward.

Second, I get frustrated with hearing the objection to Christianity on the grounds of Christians being hypocrites because it does not make sense. It literally does not make logical sense. In fact, this objection commits a logical fallacy (that of trivial objection); it focuses on the wrong thing. This statement focuses on insignificant things while ignoring the main point. The statement does not make sense, because to hear someone say, "I do not believe Christianity because there are too many hypocrites," needs only one response.

The main point is whether or not a person believes in Jesus. So you could say,

"Could it be possible that Jesus was from Nazareth? Could it be possible that God is a God of phenomenal love? Could it be possible that the cross was real and accomplished what it says it does? Could all of these things be possible EVEN IF Christians are hypocrites?"

Hypocritical Christians do not make Christianity false. Hypocritical and generally sinful Christians do not disprove the cross and what happened there. Sinful Christians do disprove Christianity; in fact, I would go on a limb to say it proves Christianity's gospel even more. This proves that imperfect people are still able to be Christians. That's pretty good news to me.

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I love my family TOO much: father fiction part 2

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We are told to "seek first His kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be added to us" (Matt. 6:33). We want to know our children will grow to love us and their hearts will turn toward us as they continue to grow, but too often we try to make our children our numer one priority. We make them our world, and then we wonder why our godly parenting has not yielded that closeness. Jesus was starkly clear when he said in Luke 14:26 "if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sister, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

Too many of us have made idols of our own children and spouses. We think we are loving them by doing this. We think we are raising and supporting good Christian families by doing that, but we are only idolaters. 

We are not going to build strong families by our own diligence, but only if we seek God and his kingdom first...and then all these things will be added to you.

The solution is seeing parents, and particularly men, seek to be Christ followers FIRST. It is seeing men love Jesus Christ more than their mothers, fathers, wives, and even their children.

Because when we do this, we have a fellowship and connection with the greatest love of all. When we make an idol out of our kids or family members, we lose connection and fellowship with the source of greatest love.

When we love Jesus MORE than anything and anyone, He gives us all we need. He returns children's hearts to their fathers and fathers to their children (Malachi 4:5-6).

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Father Fiction

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Though my dad never disowned me or walked away from me, I did do a lot of my growing up without my father around.  He never wished for this, and I absolutely do not BLAME anyone for this life.  Blaming anyone is a waste of time because I could be using that time and energy healing from the hole I had and have. I have done a lot of healing in my life, learning to be a man without having the constant input from a father.  As Donald Miller wrote in his book Father Fiction, "wounds don't heal until you feel them."  I began to feel the wounds years ago...probably in college.  I began to ask myself questions about how I saw the absence of my father affected me.

Now again, I have to clarify that my dad is not some deadbeat dad who I am just now blaming for anything.  He did his best to love me all he could from a distance.  Divorce is crappy, and he did his best to love me throughout my entire life.  That being said, truth still remains, I did a lot of growing up without a father, and of course that sucks...plain and simple.  In that growth, though, I have learned a lot about who I really am as a man, but that only happened once I allowed myself to feel my wounds and grow through them.

I mean look at me now.  I am a husband to my best friend, which is a fear [wound] I once thought I would never heal from. I am a father to 2 beautiful girls God has given to me, I am convinced, to wreck me each and every day. I am a man who desires to love my wife every single day with an integral outlook and dedication.  I am learning to accomplish myself as a wounded healer. I am always healing wounds as I discover them, but I am much more of a man even now than I ever dreamed when I was younger.  I can now resound with Miller:

"We are the ones who will wrestle with security who will overcome our fear of intimacy, who will learn the hard task of staying with woman and our children, who will mentor others through the difficult journey of life, perhaps rescuing them from what we have been rescued."

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Okay, you're right! Prove it!

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THE PROBLEM, though, is that our culture has moved on without us. We are still behind yelling about how we are right and everyone else is wrong. Our culture is ahead of us, and we stubbornly stay behind. Our culture, today, calls for action. Our culture and our world needs experiential proof. Now the word "proof" may spark our old attention, but we need to begin seeing "proof" very differently than we always have before.

We have exhausted ourselves at proving we are right and they are wrong, but we are only going to reach our culture today....NOW...when we learn to prove our Christian motives to love and serve when we actually go out in the world to love and serve.

Our world and culture no longer hear our words of "proof" for the right and wrong of Christianity; it has moved forward and awaits us to prove we are Christians by actually BEING Christians in the world around us.

 

Unsafe Christianity

What do we hope to get out of religion?  Why are we often so disappointed by religion? One main reason lies in our expectations of religion and the fact that they do not meet each other very well.

So many of us do an excellent job at confirming Nietzsche and his view of religion as an opiate for the people.  We have turned religion and especially Christianity into an opiate, a strong pain reliever, an ultimate high to calm us beyond anything we have ever known.  We have come to a point where we hate religion because it does not give us calm clear life. We get frustrated when Christianity does not offer us the clear cut answers and life we thought Christianity would be.  We soon come to realize that Christianity is NOT always clear and easy.  We come to realize that Christianity shakes us to the core.  WE realize that Christianity is not as SAFE as we had hoped and thought.

Christianity was and is never intended to be safe, and we cannot depend on it to be so.  In fact, Christianity is not safe and will always be uncomfortable, and if it is comfortable we are not experiencing true Christianity as it is intended to be.  We need to be shaken continually.  That is what Christianity does; it shakes us up.  It moves us to responsive action.

This is the reason so many Christians today are frustrated and close-minded.  They are closed to challenge and questioning because they want their faith, their religion, their Christianity to be clear, stable, and safe.

The [dis]ease of trust

One friend of mine asked the question, "Why is it so hard to trust God," and I spontaneously responded with... Because its risky! Trusting anything or anyone, especially God, is incredibly risky. In fact, if there is no risk then its not really trusting is it? I mean think about it; if I am not risking anything...if it were really really easy, then there would be absolutely no need to trust. Its hard to trust God because he's risky. You pay the risk that he's not real...since he IS real, you pay the risk of him not hearing you, you pay the risk of him saying "no" to any or all of your deepest questions, you pay the risk of him not feeling close, you pay the risk of his discipline (whatever that looks like), you pay the risk of him not meeting whatever expectations you may have (because he hardly ever does).....

But it is all of these risks that actually make TRUSTING possible...not easy, but utterly POSSIBLE. If you had none of these risks, you would not be able to trust God at all. The very fact that you are still pursuing is, in fact, trusting God. Trust is not feeling at ease...trust is taking the risks.

 

Bullet pointed update

* Back from Mexico where God did some incredible work in mine and others hearts. Broken chains! Serving the poor and deported! Watching my students present and BE the gospel in a dark, dank basement.* Still pursuing and learning about restoration in many parts of my life * Got the flu a few days ago. First time in years! * Change is imminent and on the rapidly closing horizon. * Listening to: Ascend the Hill, new Counting Crows album, and Oddisee * Reading: The Hunger Games, Simple Church, Growing Disciples, and Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl * Discouraged by: turn out of our taxes, the weight of change not exactly "resting" on your shoulders * Encouraged by: amazing wife, beautiful daughters, stronger relationships with students, hope for futur * Right NOW I miss: football, Anderson University, my nieces, and SYTYCD * Watching a lot of: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Fresh Beat Band, Whitney, and SNL

Why God is wrecking you

"The words of the Lord hurt and offend until there is nothing left to be hurt or offended. Jesus Christ had no tenderness whatsoever toward anything that was ultimately going to ruin a person in his service to God....If the spirit of God brings to your mind a word of the Lord that hurts you, you can be sure that there is something in you that He wants to hurt to the point of its death." - Ozzie Chambers There are times I have certainly sensed God offending me with the things He brings my way. There have been times He speaks loud and clear through a devotional, through actions or words that have hurt me and offended me. A lot of those times, I have resulted to the, what I thought was, the faithful response of, "Well God is in control, and He knows best."

Of course that is very true, but I have rarely gone the next step when God has offended me. I have rarely taken a look at myself and tried to figure out, "Well then what is God telling me here? What is He getting at by offending me? What needs to die within my life? What is getting in the way of my serving God completely?"

If God is going to continue offending me until there is nothing left to hurt or offend, how long will I go without killing all those things left in my life to be offended and hurt? I do not want my service or relationship to God to be ruined by anything.