I’ve met a lot of people who want a truth catered to their particular viewpoint. The fact that they struggle with a part of the gospel and are offended by it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. It means it has authority. Their are parts of scripture I’d remove if the editing was done by me. I’d simply leave it out. I mean it would be a “nicer gospel” if Jesus didn’t die on the cross. It would be “nicer” if Sodom and Gomorrah were not destroyed. It would be nicer if no one was kicked out of the garden because of rebellion. It would be nicer if the central figure of the text wasn’t some guy who claimed to be God and called the priests hypocrites while He told His followers to procure swords.
But it wouldn’t be Truth either.
The Truth isn’t nice.
The Truth sometimes Hurts.
But it brings life and it’s worth every bit of offense it brings.
It’s been crazy around here lately. Let me share a few things that have been going on recently. No this isn’t a complaining post… just read to the end (I’m sorry, I know it’s long). ;) My wife has been sick as of late. It started Saturday with a mild cough. Then it became body aches too.
Let me back up a bit though.
Saturday night, my parents had called to say that their car had broken down. They needed someone to come and get them and take them home. Now if you know my family, you also know that my dad has AIDS and with that a weakened immune system. So staying out of cold nasty weather in the middle of flu season is a good idea. Becca was working on Saturday so she wasn’t with me when I picked them up and took them home. I drove back and picked Becca up when she got off and scheduled to meet my parents Sunday afternoon to drive my dad around to fix their car so my mom could get to work on Monday. It was an easy fix and would only take about an hour or two, half of which was going to be going to get parts. That night Becca started feeling terrible just before bed.
She felt better Sunday morning so we thought we’d head to church.
Little side note here is that this is when I am informed that all my sites are down and I have to call my webhost and get them all back up. Stupid little database issue. It gets fixed and we think we are going to be late to church.
There’s a new church that I went to last week and really liked. I wanted her to come yesterday. Since she was feeling better with some rest, she went. Of course, we completely forgot about the time change. We showed up, asked where the children’s workers are and was told that we forgot about the time change. So, we went and got the breakfast that we had skipped because we thought we were going to be late.
The service was good. A passage from the beatitudes about the righteous inheriting the earth. We then drove with Aidan out to my parent’s house. Of course with my dad’s weakened immune system him and my mom decided that it would be best if Becca did not ride in the same car with him and her staying at their place probably wouldn’t be a good option. It was decided that Becca should be taken home with Aidan and they could both take a nap. Becca was starting to feel worse at this point. Not too terrible. Just sick like any other cold.
It gets worse from here.
I drive back to my parents house, pick up my dad and go find his tools at their house here in town. (yeah, they have two places, one they live at and the other they use for storage at the moment) We go back take the part of the car and head to the parts store. At this point Becca calls me.
“My temperature is 103, I called R&T (some friends of ours) they are coming over to get me and take me to the hospital.”
I love my wife. Sometimes, though she does things without a whole lot of warning though. My first thought was “why didn’t she call me? I’m close. I can take her.” Then I realize she thought the whole thing through already. If I take her, what do I do with my dad who is stranded? I could take him with me while I take Becca to the hospital, but it could kill him. I could take him back out to his place and tell him to wait another day on the car, but I would be another hour doing all that running around since my parents live a bit further away. See, I love her partly for this reason. She thinks things through then comes to a conclusion and lets me know the end result of her whole process. Many times I am tempted to get upset because I wasn’t a part of the whole process but when I think about it I usually come to the same conclusion she did, just after the fact.
So, in short without consulting me, she came to the best conclusion. Call friends, finish up with your dad, meet me later.
T takes Becca to the hospital. R comes over and watches their three kids and Aidan in our home. I meet Becca at the hospital to check in on her while she sits in the waiting room, then I drive my dad back to the car where he finishes up there. An hour has gone by. Becca calls me.
“The lady who came in after me who has the same symptoms… they told her it would be four hours. They also told her that they have an urgent care facility about twenty-three miles away that has no wait and are equipped to treat flu-like symptoms. They close at six. It’s five-fifteen now. R&T have offered to drive me up there.”
“My dad and I are finishing up here. I am on my way.”
“I don’t think we have time if we are going to make it before six. R&T said we have to go now.”
“I am on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes or less”
“I don’t think we have time. Meet us at the hospital.”
“I’ll take you. I’ll be there…. or just go, I’ll catch up.”
Racing a Train.
I turn to my dad, ask him if he is good. He is. I jump in the truck and head home. Albeit a little quicker (except for those stupid speed camera traps). Halfway home I have to cross railroad tracks. A train is coming. Oh great! Just what I need. To sit at a signal and wait. I see the train. I see the lights. I also had friends when I was in youth group who died of a car-train collision. The train is far enough away by the time I get to the tracks. Of course I sped up upon seeing the train. (what would you do?)
You know trains look further away when you are both heading for the same intersection. It was a slow train, I will say that. When I got to the tracks it was about 1/10 of a mile away. There were no crossing bars across the road, just lights. Still scared me though as I crossed the tracks a little faster than normal. I think I scared the train driver more cause he laid into the whistle like a banshee. Under normal circumstances I would not have crossed the tracks. The mere prospect scares me. I stop if I see lights a mile away usually. In short, don’t do it even though I did.
That was the fastest I’ve driven in awhile when I pulled into our parking lot at five-twenty-five.
Everyone was piling into R&T’s van when I pulled up. Four kids, two of which were under 10 months old. I get quick directions. Becca jumps in. They tell us that they will take Aidan home with them, while I take Becca to Urgent Care. I try to keep my speed at only a-little faster-than-normal speeds up to the urgent care facility.
We make it at five-forty-five or so. They were still open. No wait, just as promised. Becca feels horrible. (But to me she looks as beautiful as ever.. ‘cept paler)
Influenza A.
Okay, so that little section heading says it. Regular seasonal flu. Still nasty. Still contagious. Still could be really bad for someone with a really weak immune system. Treatable. Prescription prescribed. We leave. I take Becca home. I drop of the prescription. I go get Aidan from R&T’s house. He is sleepy. I stop and get pizza as both Becca and I are hungry. I pick up the prescription. I make it home. Becca is in bed. I put Aidan to bed. I am exhausted. I call my friend in Arizona, M who I don’t really tell the whole story to because I don’t want to unload on him randomly (even though he is more than okay with it and I know it). He proceeds to tell me how something I said the other day really helped him. Of all the times I needed to hear that, it was then.
Other Contagions
I am truly blessed with friends. I may not have a whole bunch of really close friends in life, but I have a select few and they are good ones. R&T who come over take my wife to the hospital, watch Aidan on a whim and we can trust them with him are amazing people. I don’t usually say too much about how good a friend someone is because it sounds hollow just saying it. People always feel like they have to respond with “oh’ it’s no big deal” or “that’s what friends do”. Maybe a card is a better way to go for me or maybe it’s one of the many reasons I am writing this post. This is one of the few places where I feel I can be myself and think through what I have to say before saying it because the rest of the time even though I speak from the heart. But when I do, the words feel rushed and inadequate to what I really want to express. M in Arizona, I’ve never met in person. We actually met on Halo 3 a few months ago. Somehow over the distance and through some silly online game that we both play we have become good friends. Our wives get on and play with us sometimes as well as M’s kids. He’s been a great encouragement to me, sent me jobs he’s found that could fit what I am looking for. R,T & M. Thank you for your help, your encouragement and just being there somehow for us yesterday. It may not have seemed like much, but it helped me get though the day. It is friends like these that make me want to be a better friend myself. This is one contagion I want to spread.
I am truly blessed with my family. I love my wife. I love my son. I love my dogs. Becca does her best to provide for our family while I’ve been hunting for a position, working from home on websites, and being a daddy to Aidan. With a wonderful family like this, one can’t help but feel that there is something more they can do. Right now, I’ve been hunting all over the country for ministry jobs and nothing has opened up. Becca has a really decent paying job and she is good at it and it’s close to home. We don’t want to relinquish this time with Aidan to a daycare, so I stay home. Sometimes I feel guilty about it, more often than not, because I want Becca to be able to stay at home with Aidan and come home to her. I know that is something she wants as well. I think that makes it hard. If there is one thing I would wish on anyone, if I could do one thing for someone it is this, to give them a family that loves them. This is another contagion that I would infect people with.
I am truly blessed with my faith. I think it sounds haughty if I say it that way, but there are days I couldn’t get though without God. After all, he’s the one who gave me this beautiful family and these good friends. I struggle a lot with my faith though. Not in the sense that I wonder if I have faith, but in the sense of learning to trust God. I think it became more real yesterday than it has in awhile. I don’t think I would have raced that train if I really had a perfect trust in God. I would have just said “thy will be done” to God and waited for the train to pass…. maybe. See there’s an issue with that scenario too. We have an extraordinary God who sometimes calls us to extraordinary measures. No, maybe I didn’t feel like God told me to come within a tenth of a mile of being hit by a train. Then again, maybe he wanted me to see something about myself.
If I would jump in front of a moving train to merely get my wife to a doctor sooner with a sickness that isn’t too terribly life-threatening, go out of my way to help my dad and out of my way to prevent him from getting sick from the same sickness, then there are a lot of people out there who still need to have someone love them enough to simply tell them the good news that Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross 2000 years ago as a sacrifice for our sins so that we could have life that no one could take away. Without, the wages of sin is death. As followers of Christ, this is our calling. Save those who would die from death, and present them with not only life, but introduce them to the author of life. What is a person worth? Maybe this contagion is love. I hope you catch it.
I heard an interesting quote today from my dad. He said “Christians need community. You put them all in a community together and they rub the hard edges off each other. It’s a refining process.” I took a few moments to digest that statement and realized how true it is. If we are honest with ourselves we are pretty screwed up. All of us without exception need work and need a little refining if not a complete heart rebuild. If you look at the disciples, they were a rough bunch of characters. It took Jesus Christ three years of ministry with them and they still needed refinement and community to make them the men of God who were all eventually martyred for their faith in Christ (even John, though he survived it and died of old age eventually).
So is the church a huge rock tumbler for Christians? We polish off the hard edges and reveal the gems underneath.
Oh how we resist that rubbing against each other though. Learning to live with each other is hard work. I can understand why many churches resist any kind of outreach. They have approached that perfect synergy of not enough people to make it crowded enough that they have to touch anyone else. They sit scattered throughout the sanctuary on a Sunday morning. Reserved seats to avoid any kind of traffic jam upon leaving and far enough back that they don’t feel like the pastor is speaking to them too personally.
Then there is the other side. The perfect oiled machine with jewel movements to prevent any undue friction. It will be a politically correct sermon without really any kind of reference to sin but will focus on how God loves us just as we are. We can scale this they say. We can grow, make satellite churches, and take the message global. Make easily digested meals and serve it up to the masses. We will have our five year goals (regardless of the verse that says tomorrow has enough worries of it’s own), a perfect game plan for ministry that is a clean room dissection of the messy coagulation we find ourselves in every week when we meet together and real flesh and blood people have to touch other flesh and blood people.
I think I have figured out that this church thing isn’t about being nice. It’s not about getting in and out unscathed. We are humans after all. We hurt. We cry. We ooze emotion and puss and blood when things don’t go right. We get diseases of mind, spirit and body. It’s about being close enough to feed the hungry. It’s about being near enough to dry a tear and be a shoulder to cry on. A community that comes into the sanctuary and huddles together to keep each other warm and safe while they devise a plan to bring in more hungry, naked and diseased children out of the wind, rain and dangers that circle to devour the unsuspecting. A city of refuge. A training center for those who would risk everything for those who without knowing that there is a hope for life would choose death.
When you get close to people and you learn to love them, you hold them accountable for their actions. Not because it’s right, but because you do love them. This accountability is hard sometimes. Hard edges don’t get rubbed off overnight. It’s a process of being together and going through the pain of having those edges rubbed off gradually. Every jagged edged rock in this tumbler is valuable though. You are valuable. The marks we make on each other in love are a part of the process. Who have you made a mark on this week? Who have you held accountable? Who have you allowed in your life to hold you accountable?
For those of you who have just started visiting and reading decloned, you’ve come in at a weird time. Our family has been going through some major changes. My wife and I just had our first child, Aidan in January. Prior to that I left the church I had served at for about five years. My wife, Rebecca, went back to work full-time. I’ve become a bit of a stay-at-home-dad/blogger/freelance web designer kind of guy while I hunt down ministry jobs online. I’ve had several promising interviews over the last few months, but nothing has come of them. This last month, we got another dog. This last week we sold one car and bought another after we wrecked another car we owned. My wife and I have been trying various local churches to find one where we feel at home and where we can be ourselves again. We found another home for one of our cats and are looking for a new home for the other cat. My wife and I determined a few months ago that we just were not cat people at this stage of life since we had our son. Maybe we’d get another one someday when he’s older, but dogs work better for us right now.
In short Life Comes at You Fast. In one year everything has changed. I am enjoying being a daddy. I love my wonderful wife, Rebecca, more everyday. I really, really want to find a full-time ministry job that will allow her to be a stay-at-home mom. We are still working through paying off debt. I still desire to get a good camera (canon 7d in case anyone has the extra cash laying around). In short, there are still things we want, still things we desire and still things we need, but we are still here. God is still in control. My prayer life has taken a turn for the better (yet still needs work). I am learning to trust God more, to lay down pride in my life more, to be open more, and live a more honest existence. I’m not there yet and next year I probably won’t be either. God is though and He is still working.
There is a funny scene in the old Chevy Chase movie “Funny Farm” where the movers are trying to find the house. They pull up on an obscure dirt road and ask a guy sitting on the porch for directions. The dialog goes something like this. (Completely paraphrased and inaccurate to actual movie script”
‘Pardon me, Do you know how I can get to Redbud from here?’
If you are trying to get to Redbud, I wouldn’t recommend doing it from here….
‘But, say you had to get to Redbud from here?’
‘Like I said, not from here, but see this road? I’d go that way, then turn left where the old tree used to be down at the Michael’s farm, then make a right about five miles before the road dead ends…. but you could go the other way and shave a bit of time off your trip just follow this road the other way and turn left when you see the sign ‘
‘Thank you!’ (Moving truck rumbles off quickly while man on porch continues talking)
‘…but I wouldn’t go that way if I were you.’
Sometimes I feel like somehow as Christians we give the most incomprehensible directions to the simplest questions. How do I get to Heaven?
‘Well, see your life that you are living now? You are doing it all wrong. Read your Bible everyday. Here, take my 1611 KJV, I have extras. Get baptized. Quit smoking. Quit dancing. Move out of your girlfriends house till you are married. Become a member of the church. You might even want to join the choir. Quit drinking too. You also might want to trim all those pg-13 and R rated movies out of your dvd collection. Tell your employer that you can’t work Sundays anymore because you have to go to church (in fact, invite him). Volunteer to teach Sunday school to counter the rest of the bad in your life. As for your money, give 10% or more to the church faithfully from here on out. Oh, and your music collection needs to go. It’s too well… unchristian.’
I know it looks ridiculous to read it all like that. We’d never say that. We’d be more subtle. Gentle prods along the way so to speak. I think there is a simple explanation why we think this way so much of the time as supposed Christians. We don’t like the real answer.
How to get to Heaven? The real answer: believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, that He came to die in your place and set you free from the debt of sin in our lives. He died on a cross sacrificially and rose again three days later and conquered death for all of us who believe in Him. As for the rest of the stuff, get to know Jesus through his word, it’ll change your life.
Many Christians don’t really believe that a relationship with Jesus can change lives. That is why they are trying so hard to change people themselves.
Christian Music has always been a part of my life. So a few weeks ago when I was talking with a friend from back in my b5media days he asked me if I would be willing to write a bit about Christian Music on his site, Mission Notes. Also, Jason (www.bnpositive.com) should keep me accountable with writing a bit more frequently even around here. It’s hard to talk to a guy who writes around 1000 words a day on 5-6 different blogs and not feel like you should come up with something to write about.
Why do we put up with sin in our midst? Let me rephrase that. Why do we put up with sin in our lives even? It’s ugly. We go back to it time and again. We are a bent people by nature. Of course we chose it (as in Adam all die). In our churches, we have come to the conclusion that it is commonplace. We are not on a seek and destroy mission of dealing with the sin anymore. Maybe we should be.
See, we sin or “miss the mark” when it comes to perfection all the time. Nothing is new here. It’s the same old game we play time and again. From an old poem of mine I describe it as “puddles of life that we play in… splashing blood upon everything”. We have become careless with the blood of Christ. We can sin one moment knowingly and mutter out some prayer later, usually much later, about how sorry we are and how we are trying to do better. Rubbish!
There are of course little bad habits we tend to pick up though. Rather, addictions. How do we deal with these? How do we clean the slate and start over when we know we will go running back to the same old thing?
The Alcoholics Anonymous program did a lot to help addictions in our age. The first issue is to recognize the problem. Admit defeat. Wave the freakin’ white flag and get over yourself. Lay down the pride. Insert your own phrase here.
I have been reading Louie Giglio’s book. ”I am not, but i know I AM over the last few weeks off and on.
It’s resonating with me on this level that what we really need most is not another gameplan for dealing with sin. We need to quit the game of playing with sin. I can’t deal with it myself. I can’t truly repent without God taking control. I am small. I am weak. I am not I AM.
I picked up Louie Giglio’s book “i am not but i know I AM” last night while wondering around the not so local Barnes & Noble. As I’ve been reading through it, I’ve been encouraged to start reading through some of my other study materials. I thought this picture was interesting because even though I didn’t plan it this way, one of my Bibles is on top for easy access. It shows a bit of my philosophy that scripture is the best commentary on scripture. Picking up the Bible should be done more than picking up some new study material or devotional.
There is a passage of scripture that has always struck me as a bit odd….
Cast your bread upon the waters,
for after many days you will find it again.Ecclesiastes 11:1
Now, I’ve fed ducks in local ponds. I’ve fed geese. I’ve even fed fish by throwing bread in the water. Sometimes the animals don’t eat it. More than often they do. I’ve heard this passage preached in the sense of what good you do today will somehow come back on you as a blessing. It’s always seemed to me like some kind of karmic ideology within scripture that what we do comes back to us like a cosmic boomerang of goodness.
Well, I am not a believer in karma and I’ve never had a boomerang actually come back to me no matter how I threw it.
What is the meaning behind this passage?
Apparently, during the rainy season rivers would run at flood stage, ground would become muddy, and it generally wasn’t pleasant weather to do much of anything in, much less sow seed. Now sometimes, the flood stages of a river would last through the entire “prime” planting season. If you threw your seed into the water, it could be washed downstream or eaten by fish and other animals.
So what about casting your bread upon the waters?
To sow your grain in flood waters was something done in faith. There was no guarantee that you would ever reap a harvest from it. To do good whether it seems beneficial to you or not. When you sow a seed in faith, you reap more than just the plant of that seed. You will reap faith, because our faith is strengthened not by mere belief, but in putting faith to work in our lives.
Verse 6 finishes up that section of scripture:
Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.
