For the Cost of a Thought...

That is so...Jehovah!

Throughout the short course of my lifetime there has been an evolution of attributing descriptive words to mundane events that forces English teachers to beg for someone to please read a thesaurus or at the very least a Charles Dickens novel.

Some of these words you may be familiar with: cool, rad, sweet, awesome, dope, and the latest and least favorite, epic.

Hey kiddos let me tell you something, some dude's tricked out 1998 honda civic hatchback rocking 20s and scraping speed bumps is, and never will be, epic. Nor are the dozens of other mundane, to-be-expected rituals that you encounter every day.

This blog post, with actual words, is not even epic.

But what scares me the most out of all this is that eventually we are going to run out of superlatives to ascribe to such mediocrity that we will eventually begin to summon the very name of God to describe the newest Lady GaGa video or newest Apple product.

I can hear it now. "Have you seen <insert stupid, trendy, over-appriciated noun here> That was so...Jehovah."

Or. "Man have tried the new Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Chic-fil-a. YHWH". (Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I pulled out the tetragrammaton)

I am not trying to be stupid or blasphemous here. In fact it is just the opposite. I really hope that we can wise up and start be able to link accurate words with their corresponding events. Because in my heart I truly believe that if we ever get to this point humanity would have so far surpassed the breaking of the third commandment that God may actually start striking people dead! He's been really patient with us so far, but if we start to use his name to describe the next summer blockbuster than I, for one, and going to stand under some rocks cause the lightning might start flying.

Longest Run On Sentence. Perhaps also the best.

I have provided the previous paragraph to provide some context.

found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together. (p.40 and 41)\

"The Old Testament day begins at evening and ends with the going down of the sun. It is a time of expectation. The day of the New Testament church begins with the break of day and ends with the dawning light of the next morning. It is a time of fulfillment, the resurrection of the Lord. At night Christ was born, a light in darkness; noonday turned to night when Christ suffered and died on the cross. But in the dawn of Easter morning Christ rose in victory from the grave.

What do we today, who no longer have any fear or awe of night, know of the great joy that our forefathers and early Christians felt every morning at the return of light? If we were to learn again something of the praise and adoration that is due the triune God at the break of day, God the Father and Creator, who has preserved our life through the dark night and wakened us us to a new day, God the Son and Savior , who conquered death and hell for us and dwells in our midst as Victor, God the Holy Spirit, who pours the bright gleam of God's Word into our hearts at the dawn of day, driving away all darkness and sin and teaching us to pray aright - then we would also begin to sense something of the joy that comes when night is past and brethren who dwell together in unity come together early in the morning for common praise of their God, common hearing of the Word, and common prayer."

What life means now

I've spent the past couple hours driving around the town of my youth.
Some has changed. Some things pleasantly, have not.

As with any detour down memory lane the mind floods with the recalling
of thousands of events, people, and feelings.
These were the streets I grew up on but they had become a stage and
it's actors were mere shadows fleetingly prancing for me,
simultaneously a participant and audience member.

But what good is found in nostalgia. What good is there when your feet
are moving forward into the future but you head is turned backwards
peering into the past? Isn't inevitable that you will crash into
something?

If any good can be found it is this: looking back brings a subtle
satisfaction of the present. Indeed it should always bring a greater
appreciation for what has been gained. But we all know that is not
always the case.

It's been eight years since I left this place. Sure i visited it every
once in a while but today I came back for the first time. It was today
that I went back an purposefully relived those things I left behind.
And by reliving them I discovered that they belonged buried where I
had them before. There is nothing hear that beckons me back - at least
nothing stronger than the voice of God calling me forward...

Let me end this babbling by adding that there is a trap many are stuck
in. It is those whose past is brighter than their future and they
believe the best days are behind. How hopeless and foolish. There is a
wonder to be recaptured and rekindled in the days to come.

Ceremony: A True Idol

"Ceremony has the power to soothe and mollify the conscience , but ceremony no more changes reality than outward behavior guarantees love."

- Ravi Zacharias Recapture the Wonder

"Little children, keep yourself from idols."

1 John 5:21

Guilt. Failure. Worthlessness. Hopeless.

Ever feel that way?

You wake up and you live just to get back in bed because you feel like the longer you are awake the worse it is going to get.

You think your whole life consists of hurts, habits, and hangups.

Every single person who has ever decided to be a Christian has come to that same point. In fact it was probably getting to that point that made them look for some help in the first place.

And Jesus gives new life.

But have you met people who claimed to have this "new life" but still complain about the hurts, habits, and hangups?

What happened?

I think they made the most common - and potentially most spiritually lethal mistake a Christian can make. They relied on the ritual to ease their pain. What happens when you make this mistake is that every time you attend church you feel better about yourself. Your Bible reading, home group, prayer, and volunteer work all become like a system. A system that you use to convince yourself that all is good.

But Jesus calls us to a relationship with himself. Not a system, a ceremony, nor a set of rituals. No wonder some people look less than enthused in the pews across America today. They have relied on the ceremony to appease their conscience but the ceremony will always give way to the guilt and then you just get stuck depressed and down on yourself.

In essence, the ceremony replaces Jesus as the object of our worship. We worship church attendance - because missing adds on to the guilt. We worship tithing - because not tithing is selfish. We worship a dress code, an altar routine, a style of singing, a time, place and manner - because to not do so would heap guilt on our shoulders. (read: make us look bad)

But the tricky part is this: to do all of this doesn't take any thing off your shoulders, either. In fact it adds onto the weight of responsibility not to miss something. It's like the pressure of chasing DiMaggio's hit streak. But taking part in a ceremony does not change the condition of your heart. America's divorce rate proves this!

We should be awe-stuck and wonder-filled at the thought of the Almighty wanting to hang out with us. We should be honored that other Christ-followers want to help us out on this long journey. We should feel blessed that we live in a community that cannot afford to lose us because it would be fundamentally worse due to our absence.

But we have decided to try to find meaning through our ceremonies rather than infusing our ceremonies with meaning by offering our unique gifts for the encouragement and uplifting of the people we share life with.

How pitiful and powerless a church becomes when we rely on ceremonies to ease the pain of our sin when Jesus is offering to take the sin away!

Help Me Out! Takes 60 seconds.

A Hymn for those stuck on your past...

A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER.
by John Donne

I.
WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
    Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
    And do run still, though still I do deplore?
        When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
                    For I have more.

II.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
    Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
    A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
        When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
                    For I have more.

III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
    My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
    Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
        And having done that, Thou hast done ;
                    I fear no more.

Source:
Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.
E. K. Chambers, ed.
London, Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 213.

The Image

15Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.16 For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world.17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

1 John 2:15-17

My how often it is that we become enamored with the temporal things that we are offered. Can i suggest that perhaps we are even programmed to want that which does not last? Think of financing a car. How many pay for 60, 72, or 84 months and when that last payment goes through you start out again another new car? Cell phone contracts are sold to us in 2-year increments so that we always re-up to get the latest flashiest trendiest phone on the market. How many dollars of interest have we spent because of the convenience of having it now and not waiting it out?

Now before you think I am getting preachy at you, know this: This is my story and the questions that God has posed to me.

And I was forced to answer them truthfully and shamefully.

You see I want it all. (I can't wait until the day I can, with integrity, say that phrase in the past tense). I live my stuff. But there is one thing that I loved more than the stuff.

The image.

The image that I sold to everyone that I had it all together, that I was doing well and prospering. That I was better than I really was. I really loved that image. Now I hate it. That image alienated me from people. It kept me from being able to bless others because I was so busy blessing myself. And I think I am finally at the point where I can say this: My addiction to the stuff and to the image was all just a cry to belong. I wanted to be in the cool people's club. I wanted to be associated with the hot shots who lived on easy street.

What a miserable lie I lived. A lie that robbed me of joy and peace an friends. For when you live a lie based on image you constantly question whether anyone really likes you for you.

But as I have been spending some hard time on the Potter's wheel getting broken and remolded I have learned that the value of the stuff is minuscule in comparison to giving away that which helped formed some image, some lie, to the world.

It is a practical statement made in the first verse above. The love of the the world and the love of the Father just cannot co-exist in one person. You really can't do both. I've tried it.

I always try to be a teacher to some extent in these posts, but really I I don't have the space to share the lessons that I am still learning. But I do feel obligated to leave you with some challenge. Look at the sum of your life. In other words add everything together and see if in the end you have more than you have shared. If so maybe you need to share some stuff with others (read: give some crap away to those who need it). It may be at that point that you actually understand what joy is.

Wonder. Why?

Yes, that is a tear in my daughter's eye. No I did not cause this tear. It is actually the result of her fighting off sleep. Which the people working in the nursery can attest can become a violent altercation. Sandy hates sleep. HATES sleep. Which causes both my wife and I to wonder which side of the family that came from.

But I believe I may have an idea as to why my daughter hates sleep.

Wonder

At six months old everything still seems new and marvelous to her. She doesn't want to sleep because she doesn't want to miss a thing (cue cheezy Aerosmith song). The lights and sounds. The people and places. The very next breath...

She doesn't want to miss what we take for granted everyday.

We don't miss it anymore. We don't care about the lights and moving pictures. In fact we are so devoid of this things called wonder that we get a little testy when our cell phones drop calls...Do you realize that your voice goes to Outer Space and back again !?! Or that we can connect with 500 million people via this crazy thing called facebook which you access through something called the internet. Something your parents could have never believed when they were teenagers?

Ravi Zacharias says it like this

The tragedy with growing up is not that we lose childishness in it simplicity, but that we lose childlikeness in it sublimity.

The older we get the less sublime our world gets. I'm currently re-reading Zacharias' book Recapture the Wonder now that I have a daughter of my own perhaps I can catch some of her wonder and not want to sleep as much as well

One Similar Story

I am beginning to hear the same words - the same stories - being told by key influential leaders. Stories that inspire, yes, but more than that I believe these stories are a mark that defines some of the biggest world changers alive today.

It is a simple formula, this story is. It goes like this:

"I heard God whisper that I needed to ___(do something no one else would dream of doing)___ and I would have to ___(give away, sell everything, move somewhere crazy, start over, leave the security of my life)____ in obedience and in faith to God."

And here is the defining sentence:

"I know this sounds crazy but I just HAVE to do this."

It compares to the story written by Jeremiah the Old Testament prophet. His obedience to God was making him look crazy. So he decided to stop talking about God to people. But eventually it became a fire trapped in his bones and it literally made him weary carrying around his calling but not actually carrying it out. ( You can find this story in Jeremiah 20)

And really what it boils down to, in my opinion, is that God is asking people to give up what they have used to define themselves and trade it in for a new identity that God wants to bestow on them. But giving up the identities that we have crafted over the years is massively difficult. And that's why it takes a massive and radical act of obedience to break the old and beginning forming the new

Are you hearing a whisper? Is God telling you to step out and do something crazy?

Original or Remix

Everything is remixed today. And I will admit that I love the tech that enhances our creativity. But when I saw these videos I just couldn't help but think about how hard it is to top an original.