Intimacy

Current playlist:  Ancient Skies – The Michael Gungor Band (it’s on repeat).

Sometimes I get in a rut with songs and I just listen to them over and over and over again.  Ad nauseum.  Maybe rut isn’t the right word.  There are just times when one song really sums up what I’m thinking or feeling and I just can’t change the track.  My job is great for many reasons but one of the one’s I’m most thankful for is that I can listen to music while I do it.  All day long I listen to music.  When I get in one of those song ruts, or whatever you want to call them, I can end up listening to the same song for close to 8 hours.  Sounds like the definition of insanity you say?  It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called crazy and it probably won’t be the last.

Crazy or not, that’s not the point of this little post, so onward!

We’re only 2 months in and already the year of 2012 has been crazy for me.  So many changes and new opportunities have presented themselves.  There have been struggles and frustrations along with awesome experiences with friends.  What I have been most thankful for and excited about over the last couple of months is that my intimacy with God has been renewed.  As a worship leader I think, talk, and sing a lot about intimacy with God, because it is so incredibly important but it’s really easy to talk about it and not back it up 100%.  It’s surprisingly easy to put on the face of intimacy in a worship service and have your heart and mind be somewhere completely different.  It’s sad but true.

When I left to go to my parents’ for Christmas I was just tired and over leading worship for a little while.  Burnt out is probably a little too strong a term to use but I was getting there.  I had 2 weeks off in a row where I didn’t have to lead worship and honestly it was great, not because I dislike leading worship but because it produced a hunger and a renewed passion for entering the presence of God and worshipping Him.  I came back totally energized and ready to go with the “Let’s do this!” mentality.  It was great.  Worship the first Sunday back was energetic and passionate.  The next Sunday followed suit and in my mind I was thinking, “See? All I needed was a breather.  That’s all.”  The problem is that energy and passion like that can’t be sustained on our own.  Energy and passion like that can only be sustained by intimacy with God.

Intimacy with God.  It’s such a simple concept it would seem, but yet we struggle so often to find that intimacy.  The truth is that it is simple, but some of the simplest things in life are the hardest to do.  To be completely honest the last couple of months have been long and hard for multiple reasons, that are generally irrelevant to this conversation.  Through it all I’ve heard God speak these two phrases over and over again to me: “How much do you trust Me?” and “How much do you want Me?”

It’s my firm belief that your answer to those two questions is the key to intimacy with God.

Your answer, as well as mine, cannot be simply a verbal response.  It has to be a response characterized by action.  The moment you tell God you trust Him completely and you want Him more than anything in the world that is exactly what He’ll require of you.

Be warned.  Intimacy with God is one of the most difficult things for us as sinful, weak human beings to grasp because it means letting go of everything else in our life to hold on to God.  That’s much easier said than done.

But it’s worth it.

Back to my song rut.  This week has been awesome and difficult at the same time.  Once again God is calling me to a deeper level of trust in Him and it’s hard.  I turned on this song Ancient Skies at work and just allowed the music and words to overwhelm me for a minute.  I closed my eyes and just sat there for a second, soaking it in.  The song has nothing to do with trusting God.  It has nothing to do with going through trials or being frustrated or even specific intimacy with God.  It’s simply a song worshipping God for being unchanging, for being awesome, for just being God.  But it resonated so deeply inside of me because intimacy with God isn’t born out of cheesy love songs to God.  It’s born out of worshipping God when you don’t have all of the answers and trusting that He knows what he’s doing.

Intimacy is born out of trust.

Trust requires action.

What will you do?

Humility in Boldness

People-watching has always been fascinating to me. For years I wouldn’t admit this fact because, let’s be real, it’s a little creepy. Today, however, I’m letting that flag fly. I love to people watch. Sitting in my favorite coffee shop, comfortably settled in my usual seat I have a wide-angle view of the rest of the customers.

There’s the first date currently going on in the corner of the balcony, full of awkward silences interrupted by seemingly unwarranted giggling and flirty glances.

Across from me, sitting in front of the window, are two girls, one of which is a friend of a friend. The kind of friend of a friend that you know but don’t really know so you just glance at each other, accidentally make eye contact and then quickly go back to what you were doing before, pretending you weren’t really looking.

The obvious coffee addict sits by himself hunched over his computer mindlessly caressing his coffee mug as if it were the one ring to rule them all.

Then there’s the high school kid who somehow managed to convince two girls well out of his league to hang out with him (there is awkward silences punctuated by giggling at this table as well… only this time it’s the guy).

The current clientele is rounded out by that tall girl from the Liberty basketball team and a couple of hipsters (recognized by their rolled up jeans, plaid shirts, cool shades and an overabundance of hemp) buried in hipster books.

The diversity almost always present in shops like this one constantly amazes me. Coffee shops tend to be common ground where people from all different walks of life rub shoulders with each other. Each person has their own story, their own past and future. There is an entire network of family and friends connected to each individual. When I people-watch I sometimes try to deduce these stories from their clothes, the facial expressions, and the book they are reading or the people they are with. For some reason my mind always begins filling in the details of their lives by wondering about what their families are like. The reason for this, I guess, is that the family unit has a profound impact on the lives of the individuals that are apart of it. For bad or good, someone’s family will have always have a role in shaping a major part of the person’s life.

I lived a fairly sheltered life, growing up. Although my dad had been through a divorce before I was born, I never really felt that affected by divorce because both my mother and father were still together. I never considered my oldest sister a half-sister, but I also never really thought it odd that she had a birth mother different than mine, that she would visit every couple of weeks. Other than my own family, almost all of my friends growing up in elementary school were living in families where both of their parents were still together, so it struck me as odd when I met a kid named Mike who’s parents weren’t on speaking terms. I thought Mike was the coolest kid ever. We were both 11 and played on the same little league team. He played shortstop, I played first, and we both pitched. I’m still under the impression that we were the best pitchers on the team, but I also know that although we were technically in “little league,” I definitely had a major league ego about my playing abilities.

Mike was cool because he was different than all my other friends. He swore (when my parents weren’t around to hear) and told jokes that my church friends wouldn’t understand, never mind try to tell. But the thing that made Mike the coolest was that he could get his parents to give him almost anything he wanted. Because they were so hurt and angry at each other, if Mike told them that other parent had denied him a bike or a video game the other parent would buy it for him for two reasons: to claim their title as the favorite parent, and to spite their counterpart.

This concept was revolutionary to me. I was so jealous of Mike’s magical abilities. I often tried a similar strategy with my parents.

It never worked.

My best bet for similar control over my parents was to wait until my dad was just about to fall asleep on the couch until I mentioned any requests. I didn’t want to just be like Mike though, I wanted to be better than him, so my requests usually centered on either a new car (for a 5th grader) or a million dollars. Go big or go home.

It goes without saying that I never got either… but did it hurt to ask?

Did I lose my dad’s affection?

Did I really risk the chance that he would give me something that I couldn’t handle or that would be detrimental to me?

I knew my dad loved me and that he would give me what I need. Conversely, I subconsciously trusted that he wouldn’t give me something harmful or unnecessarily dangerous.

Recently, I’ve been wondering if I trust my Father in Heaven the same way. In Proverbs 30, Solomon asks God not to give him more than he needed to survive so that he wouldn’t become arrogant and forget God, but also not to give him less than he needed so that he wouldn’t be tempted to steal and dishonor God as a thief. This verse resonated with me the first time I noticed it. In a society dominated by over-indulgence and the pursuit of affluence, I long to be set apart as someone totally dependant upon God for my existence and survival. The humility that marks that kind of Christ-follower is something that I have striven for ever since. Just in the past few days God has been showing me that the very humility that I so desired was actually holding me back from the potential gifts and blessings that God had for me. I had stopped asking God for big things because I knew that I didn’t deserve them. The humility of knowing what I needed and didn’t need had become a source of pride.

I was better than people that were constantly asking God for inane and crazy stuff. I just knew that he would rather spend time with me, a guy who didn’t ask for much, than with the other people who have the audacity to ask for a bigger house! Don’t they know there are starving children in Africa who have legitimate prayer requests?! How dare they!!

 

My relationship with God had turned into a pathetically, timid prayer time for a few minutes every day because I subconsciously didn’t want to bother God.

Additionally, I found that the other reason I didn’t ask God for big stuff was because I was trying to protect myself by filtering my prayer requests. God forbid, that I ask for something immoral or ungodly and it somehow gets by God. What if he let me have it? Better be safe and limit myself to the simple and easy stuff. In my arrogance, I had stripped God of his ability as a Father to protect me. It was as if I viewed Him as a slot machine that at any moment could give me the jackpot, which my humble-self knew I couldn’t handle. It was much safer to just not play the slots at all.

Jesus said that God loves to give His children good gifts (Matthew 7), so why am I so timid when it comes to asking anything of Him? My own pride is responsible for this timidity. God has been consistently reaffirming to me the fact that he is more than able to look after me and give me what I need. I do not have to be my own father, my own protector.

Could you imagine all that God could have in store for us if we just trusted in His ability to protect us, even from ourselves? When we allow ourselves to live in relation to God the same way that I did as an 11 year old with my dad, our faith is enlarged and we begin to understand the meaning of grace, and undeserved gift, more and more.

I am beginning to ask God for more audacious things. Not for the sake of the things themselves, but because I don’t want to eliminate any opportunity for my faith in God to grow, and in doing so also limit the depth of my relationship with Him. If my desire is always to give God glory in every area of my life, then it doesn’t matter what blessings He gives me or doesn’t give me, because I’m not the point. He is.

Ask God for a humble, childlike boldness and allow Him the opportunity to blow you away as He lavishes His love on you.

Don’t be too proud in your humility to ask for big things, because big things just might be what He has in store for you.

The Story of Mr. Porsche

I love spring and summer time.  I am most definitely a warm-blooded individual and living in southwest Virginia in April is one of the best things that ever happened to me.

Kind of kidding.

Then again I’m not.

I really do love it… a lot.

Recently, I was driving down the highway on a lazy Sunday afternoon, simply enjoying the 65-degree weather.  The windows were down, my arm out the window cupping the wind with my hand, with the sun reflecting off the hood of my car.

No really, it was perfect.

During the course of this amazing drive I came upon a car driving obscenely slow in the left-hand lane.  Now this is not a unique occurrence in Lynchburg.  Despite all it has to offer, Lynchburg still boasts some of the worse drivers and ridiculously built roads.  What was different about this timid driver was the car he was driving: a Porsche Carrera with its top down.  This car is built for to look fast, feel fast, and be fast, but its driver was content to live 3 miles under the 55 mph speed limit.

This odd picture led me down two patterns of thought, but we will stick with just one of these paths for this post.

Thought Numero Uno:

As I passed the Porsche I wondered aloud to myself why someone would spend the $80,000+ on a car that’s express purpose is speed if they were not going to utilize it at all.  By my way of thinking, my ’95 Toyota Camry handles the speed limit pretty well and was about $75,000 cheaper when I bought it a few years ago.  I quickly realized, however, that this gentleman had not bought his Porsche to go fast.  Rather, he purchased it because it was a status symbol.

Despite our criticism of outdated caste systems in places like India, the United States of America is home to a society that obsesses over status.  Our clothes, phones, cars and houses all combine to place on a various tiers of popularity and acceptance.

New is always better and everyone is waiting for the next big thing.  One popular electronics store is currently running an ad promoting their buy-back program for people that find they’ve bought a new TV only to realize that a bigger and better model came out on the market a week later.  Everything about that ad screams that our status is wrapped up in what we own or look like.  Is the “old” TV really that much worse and outdated than the next model?  In most cases won’t the older (by two weeks) model do almost the exact same thing as the newer one?  But we buy it because it puts us a step ahead of our friends and thereby places us at a higher status.

Paul came to a different conclusion about where we derive our status.  Romans 8:16 calls all disciples of Christ “children of God.”  It is not our possessions that give us worth, but the fact that, as verse 17 says, we are “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.”  When an infinitely powerful God gives you all of the rights and privileges of being His child and heir that is worth more than all of the cars, clothes, possessions, and status in the world.

In similar fashion, Jesus encouraged his followers in Matthew 16 not to store up treasures and possessions on the earth, which are temporary, and instead to place our value and worth on things that are eternal (or heavenly).  These eternal treasures are not tangible to us on our physical earth.  Instead they are the outcome and result of obedience to and trust in God.

It is incredibly easy to be swayed into placing my worth in my status in society.  In fact almost everyday I have to remind myself that my value is not dictated by what others think.

I am the child of a King.

And not just any King.  I am the child of the all-powerful, supernatural God of everything that exists.

Read Job 38-41 for an idea of what kind of God He is.

Now before you jump to conclusions about what I’m saying and how I’m saying it, let me be clear about something.  I can’t stand people that walk around saying “I’m a King’s kid,” using and abusing it to act like spoiled brats and think its ok.

Their behavior could not be more unbiblical.

Being the child of a King by all means makes me privileged.  However, this privilege is not license to act any way we please.  Instead I am privileged to a higher level of responsibility.  As a disciple of Christ I am no longer called to simply obey the letter of God’s law as it was given to Moses.  I am now responsible to obey and follow the spirit behind the laws that were given.  Jesus said that the law of Moses says prohibits murder, but that his followers not only shouldn’t actually kill someone unlawfully, but they shouldn’t even harbor anger against another.  So then our privilege as heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ does not look as much like keys to our dad’s Bentley as it does a higher standard of living.  Those that use their status in Christ to excuse their own behavior and avoid discipline are still caught up in the social hierarchy of our own society.

In the face of the very similar hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Jesus tells a crowd in Matthew 23:12, “…those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  This is the essence of the privilege we have been given as heirs. The privilege of humility.

So is your worth found in material possessions, in things that will be gone in a few short years at best?

Or is it found in the offer of relationship that Christ has extended to you?

- Jeremy

Coffee… liquid gold

I am currently sitting in The Muse Coffee Co enjoying a hot cup of coffee.  Today my drug of choice is a Brazilian blend and it has further solidified my belief that God put coffee beans on the earth to give us a taste of what we’ll be drinking in heaven.

I’ve enjoyed taste of coffee for some time now.  The first sip was more about being “grown-up” and less about the liquid gold itself as my Dad insisted it was an adult beverage (a rule just asking for me to break it… so I did).  Most people drink coffee because of the caffeine.  It’s a weak pick-me-up for early mornings and late nights.  As a result, most compromise the coffee with a deluge of cream and an avalanche of sugar, creating more a sweet, coffee flavored half & half drink than anything that really resembles coffee.  This is how I was introduced to coffee.  Dunkin Donuts has always been (and always will be) a staple in my family.  I proudly tell my friends that I had a DD’s 3 miles north, ½ mile south, and 4 miles west of my house growing up.  The only reason there wasn’t one to the east was because that was the ocean (although a floating Dunkin Donut’s just might have been the best idea ever).

In the past several years I’ve become more acquainted with “coffee shop” coffee.  I began to discover the art of roasting and brewing coffee… and my life has never been the same.  Coffee went from being a necessity and a rite of passage to adulthood, to an organic experience.  Many of you will probably laugh when you read that last line but it’s actually true, in a tongue-in-cheek but still completely serious kind of way.  This experience has compelled me to forgo the cream and sugar in favor of a new way of drinking coffee.  Once I had my first cup of genuinely fresh coffee (roasted that morning) I found that it is a lot like less the Dunkin Donut’s version and a lot more like expensive tea or a fine wine.  If you pay attention to the coffee, you will discover that additives are not necessary because there is plenty of flavors and tastes already in the coffee.  I’ve begun to drink my coffee slowly, not chugging it as many do, but savoring each and every sip because each one brings a different taste to my mouth.

By now, most of you, probably including my mother, will think that I have lost it, that I’ve had one too many cups of coffee or that I’ve most definitely had a terrible fall and my brain has turned to mush (mush that has a weird fascination with coffee).  I assure you that none of these things are true.  While I do love coffee, I do not spend hours and hours pondering its complexities.  Well today I have, but I don’t usually…  In fact, I still drink much of my coffee with cream and sugar.  But here’s where I will begin to make my point.

The only coffee that I drink with cream and sugar is homemade coffee or restaurant coffee.  The reason?  Generally the coffee is not fresh and pure, so it requires something extra to give it taste and make it enjoyable (some of you may disagree with me there… just go with it).  In fact this is why most people use cream and sugar… to cover up stale coffee beans or a lack of taste.

In many ways the evolution of my faith in God and my experiences with Christianity have mirrored my discovery, and re-discovery, of coffee.  For years as a teenager and into my early college years, I believed Jesus Christ was my Savior for two reasons: (a) it was the adult thing to do (b) it was my pick-me-up to get me through the day and keep me out of hell.  I believed because I saw my parents believing and that was what was expected of me.  However, like my coffee, church often felt packaged and stale, so I began flavoring it.  I flavored it with loud music and bright lights.  I flavored it with cool people who always knew what to say and who hair always had that “I just woke up” look.  I flavored it with dynamic teaching that always brought tears to my eyes and chills running down my spine.  I poured and poured and poured more and more sugar and cream into my relationship with my God and my Savior.  Yet it still left an awkward and synthetic taste in my mouth, a taste that screamed that this was man’s invention.

More recently I’ve discovered an unadulterated Jesus.  This Jesus never sat down and planned the best way make a measureable difference in his community.  He just was the difference.  He didn’t seek to attract followers, but actually sought to somewhat discourage would-be disciples (John 6:53; Luke 9:57-62).  Matthew 8:18 reads, “Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to over to the other side (of the lake).”  Could Jesus have actually shunned publicity?  This same Jesus came only in the name of love and not theological supremacy.

(Let me make a quick side note for those of you that may jump to accuse me of forgetting the judgment and righteousness of God:  Wrapped up in the love of God is also the justice of God.  His justice comes out of his love.  If he failed to be just than he would fail to accurately embody pure love.  So when I say that Jesus came only in love, I am not referring to human affection or devotion, but to Divine love.  The end.)

However, this description of the our Savior and example for living often looks nothing like the Christianity that we have come to know; a Christianity that has become obsessed with publicity and putting on a show.  Jesus didn’t “brand” himself so that every time someone saw a picture of Jewish guy with 12 friends following him around they would think of him.  His life said enough on its own.  He was the Son of God and had no need to prove himself.

Have we been flavoring our Christianity because we haven’t discovered who Jesus really was?  Jesus is not a caffeine high, good for waking you up in the morning and helping you finish that paper you put off until the late the night before it was due. Jesus is  good enough on His own, without our gimmicks and stylish music.  Christianity is not about the church.  Christianity is about Christ.  Pure and unadulterated, no cream or sugar.

Take these thoughts and contemplations for what they are: human.  I don’t claim to be a Bible expert.  I don’t claim to be a philosopher.  I claim to be a somewhat lazy grad-student/janitor who is finally beginning to get a taste of who Jesus truly is, what He taught, and how He lived.  I hope that the thoughts that God has been stirring up in my mind and heart have challenged you as well as encouraged you.  Take care.

Jeremy

I’m a rebel… I think?

I’ve always been a little bit of a rebel.

I’ve been told that I have a problem with authority.  Usually that problem is that things aren’t done my way.  It’s always seemed like a valid argument to me…

I love finding music and musicians that no one else has heard about.  It never fails to make me feel important and “avant garde.”  But for each time that I hear them on the radio or hear other people talk about them I like them less and less.  The more popular they get the less interested I am because I want to be different from everyone else.  Of course I’m an avid fan of a baseball team with one of the biggest fan bases in the country.  And of course you will find several pieces American Eagle clothing in my closet.  And of course I play the guitar and sing just like every other rebellious twenty-something graduate student.  But somehow I still hold on to this idea that I’m different.  We all feel this need to be an individual yet in our individuality we all somehow end up the same.  It’s ironic to me that “indie” has become a new genre in the music world.  It doesn’t even make sense to group musicians that are supposed to be independent into a category.

The reason for these contradictions, I believe, is that despite our desire to be separate and one-of-a-kind, we have an even stronger desire to fit in, to belong.  We dress, act, and talk like the people and things we admire.  We have heroes, obscure or famous, that model a life we hope someday to achieve.  And, like it or not, we do all of these things in hopes that we will be accepted.  There is always that guy that insists he doesn’t care what anybody else thinks.  He is apparently “his own man.”  He’s also probably more insecure than most.  Anybody that feels the need to announce his or her individuality is most likely concerned that they won’t fit in anywhere and mask that by over compensating in their attempts to be different.  Someone truly independent and unconcerned with the opinions of others would never talk about it because it would never occur to them as something to be concerned with.

We live in a world where we are told what we want and what we need every single day.  Last night a lady took almost an hour to explain to me why I needed this new exercise machine.  Who wouldn’t want to get ripped in only 20 minutes a day?  She confidently told me that this would revolutionize my life.  And why shouldn’t I believe her?  Would somebody with abs that tone lie to me?  I think not.  According to a Dunkin Donuts, “America runs on Dunkin,” and if I don’t have All State Insurance then my friends won’t do secret handshakes with me.  We have formulas for everything from how to win a championship to how to start a successful business.  Americans seem to base their entire life around formulas.  Everything is logical and orderly and in its place.  Happiness is achieved with 2 kids, 2 cars (for you and your trophy wife), and a that last mortgage payment on your house.  And if you really want to be happy you build a white picket fence around your yard to keep the neighbors dog from leaving you presents.

It has also been apparent to me that this ideology has infiltrated the body of Christ.  By and large most churches model themselves after some kind of successful business, whether they realize it or not.  In fact, at least one person has written a book on how to apply good business principles to the church.  Our mission statements have begun to resemble company mottos and tag lines.  I recently read the purpose statement of a well known church and found it, frankly, rigid and cold.  It read “Our mission statement is to win, grow, and send followers of Jesus Christ.”  Now the ideas behind each of the points in this statement are absolutely on track.  Through the Bible, God tells that he desires to change people’s lives through our testimony of His love in our lives.  There is also a definite call to discipleship in the church, as well as commissioning of Christ followers to spread this good news of Jesus Christ to others.  However, when I read this mission statement I could only picture a circular flow chart, almost like a recycling sign, with a CEO pointing to each word (win, grow, send) and stressing the importance of each for the maximum growth and efficiency of the company.

Or take your average church service.  There is a formula for putting together the quintessential church service.  First, you must have some upbeat songs to get the congregation clapping and engaged.  From there you move into your slower and more emotional songs, mixing your offering time somewhere in between.  After giving some general announcements about the potluck dinner in a few weeks, you should use some special music to transition into the sermon.  At the climax of the sermon the band will make its way on stage while everybody’s eyes are closed in prayer so that the music can start immediately as the pastor walks down to pray with people at the altar call.  All in all this should take no longer than an hour and a half.

But Christianity is so much more than a business plan.  A life spent following Jesus Christ should be more than slogans and mission statements.  The formula is simple and self explanatory: follow Christ.  Why do we feel the need to complicate things with our own ideas and agendas?  In Acts 2 we are told that the early followers of Christ had everything in common with each other and that no one lacked anything they needed.  How’s that for a business plan.  Yet often we find our churches hoarding the time, money, and talents of their congregation so that no other church can capitalize on them.  We think if we can only get that one popular guy to come to our service then it will validate our existence as a church to everyone else.  So rather than seeing visitors as welcome family members or friends, we view them as potential free advertising.

“If you like your Sunday morning experience, then tell your friends about us too!”

The American church has spent so much time saying that we have to stand out from the rest of society, that we’re different.  Yet, in reality, we model our churches after secular business plans with an emphasis on numerical growth and efficiency rather than an emphasis on the things that God is passionate for.  And what is God passionate about?  Love.  Unconditional love.  James wrote in his first chapter that Christianity in its purist sense is to take care of widows and orphans.  What if we spent less time finding the next best Bible study program and more time practicing what we’ve learned from the last ten Bible studies we attended?

Being just out of college and still living in a college town, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to a lot of young 20-somethings looking for a church body to get involved with.  Almost inevitably I find that the churches that they are looking to get involved in or start attending are ones with firmly established programs and smooth Sunday morning services.  Rarely, if ever, do you hear someone say that they are looking for a church that doesn’t quite have it all together.  I will tell you straight up that in the past I would never have looked for a church like that.  I started going to the church I attend currently because I saw a need that I could help meet, but I kept going because of the family that I found.

This family is dysfunctional and quirky, our staff doesn’t always say the right thing, and our coffee often tastes burnt (I also hear that the worship leader is a bum) but that’s why I like it here.  We are not a perfect church.  Just like a normal family we have that awkward cousin that nobody quite understands, but we’re a family.  We fight and get upset with each other over stupid things.   We celebrate in each other’s joy and cry with each other’s loss.

This is what body of Christ should be like.

Not obsessed with having it all together, but content to rest in the knowledge that we never will have it together, but that God’s love and grace is still enough to redeem our obnoxiously ordinary lives.



Life Lessons From Buster

A week ago today I was really excited.  I was only a short(ish) drive and flight away from a 5 day vacation from work, church responsibilities and Lynchburg in general.  In only 18 hours away from seeing my family, old friends, and (drum roll)… the beach!!  Life could not be any better to me.  I got off work at 9:30 and headed home to finish packing and clean up the house a little bit before I left.  Feeling strangely responsible, I purged the refrigerator of that milk that had been sitting there for too long, the salsa that looked like it had some kind of guacamole in it (it didn’t), and that other thing that looked like it might have been a green pepper in some past life.  With the trash taken out and the apartment generally looking pretty good (if I do say so myself), I threw my bag into the car a little after midnight and headed out on the road to D.C. where my 6 AM flight awaited me.  As I rocked out some tunes from my iPod, I couldn’t help smiling.  Life was good.

An hour later…

Still smiling and jamming out to some Jesus Culture, my car suddenly jerked back with a loud bang and headed off of the road.  The dust raised from my sudden stop momentarily gave the illusion that my engine was smoking.  I slowly got out of my car and walked around to the front to inspect the damage.  Thankfully, it was simply a blown tire and I breathed a sigh of relief as I went to get my spare… the spare that had a leak that I forgot to fix.  Just my luck.

“Thank you for calling AAA, how can I help you?”

“Hi, yea I’m sitting in the middle of nowhere about 25 miles south of Charlottesville, VA with a flat tire and no spare.  Can you send a truck to help me out?”

“No problem.  Can I just get your membership number?”

I gave her my card number and general information.  I sat there thankful that I was still in cell phone range and wasn’t completely stranded.

“Sir, we have a problem.”

Great.  “And that is?”

“You’re not a member any more.”

After jumping through ten different hoops, calling my parents at 2 AM, finally being reinstated as a member, the lady once again asked where I was located.

“Umm… I’m somewhere around 25 miles south of Charlottesville I think.  There aren’t any signs or buildings around.  Just trees.”

“Well sir we need an address or location of some kind in order to help you.  Are there any landmarks around?”

“…..um. No.  I’m in the middle of nowhere.”

This went on for some time until she finally dispatched a driver to find me anyways.  Sitting in the darkness, my emergency lights casting a rhythmic orange glow around the car, I fiddled around with my iPod for an hour or so to keep my mind off of the fact that I was stuck on the side of 29 North at 2 in the morning. 

The tow truck didn’t show up until 4.  As he pulled in front of me I wondered how awkward these next 120+ miles would be riding with a complete stranger.  The truck door opened and out came Buster.  At most 5’7”, white haired, and seemingly missing some teeth (although that might have been the lack of sleep talking), Buster was not what I was expecting in a tow driver.  We chatted for a while about where we were from, where I was going, the weather, all of this sporadically interrupted by several stories that usually started with “Well back in my day…”  Buster wasn’t as old as I originally thought.  Judging by appearances I placed him at 80+ years old.  He was actually closer to 60.  Still, his thick southern drawl and never ending stories gave me the impression that I was talking to a wise old sage.

We talked about Lynchburg and how much it had changed in the last 20 years.  He told me about how his dad had been on the road crew that first began paving the cobblestone streets downtown.  Feeling that I spend a lot of my life talking about myself, I decided that I was just going to listen to someone else’s.  And Buster had lived a rich life.  Not rich because of money, but rich like a good wine or piece of chocolate.  In our surprisingly candid conversation, I learned about his less than ideal childhood, how his mother died when he was a kid, and how his dad was less than loving.  He was drafted when he was 19 and fought in the Korean War as a helicopter crew chief.  He came back and married his wife and eventually got a job picking up scrap metal for a local company.  Four years ago he decided to start a tow company.  Shortly after his first year he bought his second truck and two years ago he opened up his own repair shop.  On paper this life might not seem very rich.  It might seem average or even a little cliché and boring.  But you didn’t hear him tell it.  I know he lived a rich life because I could hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes.

Still it wasn’t his stories, or the emotion in his voice that left me with a lot to think about.  He told me several times that he never drives to D.C. and if anybody asks him to tow them there he always refuses.  Even when AAA called him that morning at 2:30, he ignored the phone until they called back a second time.  I expressed my thanks once again as apologized for his grumpiness.  “I didn’t even get a cup of coffee before I came out here.”  He explained that his wife usually puts the coffee grounds in the night before so he can just turn the coffee maker on when he wakes up.  Only this time she forgot and only hot water came out.  He shook his head and chuckled in an “over-tired/what are you gonna do” kind of way.  Buster told me that before he left he made sure she had some coffee for when she woke up.  I jokingly made a comment of how that was nice considering he didn’t get any.  He paused and with a slow drawl and a serious face looked over and said, “Well… I love her.  There’s a reason I’ve been married for more than 30 years.”

Buster’s life was rich because it was simple.  Not simple like a country-bumpkin you would see in a movie, but simple because he didn’t complicate things.  Life wasn’t a formula for happiness or getting rich, it was just life.  There were good times and there were bad times.  That’s life.  That’s being married.

While I was home with my family, we had a lot of extended family staying with us for the weekend things were crazy.  With four kids under the age of 6 running around all day and getting into trouble everything just seemed to get more and more complicated.  I slept on the couch for a couple of the days and that meant that whenever the first kid woke up, that’s when I woke up.  And I honestly didn’t mind that.  The only problem was that I would wake up and immediately start my day of relaxing with my family.  There wasn’t really a quiet place that I could go read my Bible and talk to God for an extended period of time so I would just wait until later, constantly putting it off, and never actually getting around to it.

I live my spiritual life under this subconscious delusion that I need to spend a certain amount of with God every day, which is absolutely true.  But if something comes up and I’m not able to spend the same amount of time talking and listening to God I usually just don’t do it altogether.  It’s as if there is a magical number of minutes that I must obtain in order for God to speak to me.  It’s complicated.  I come up with a million and one excuses why I can’t do it now, and none of them are really valid.

Psalms 116:6 says that God “preserves the simple.”  I complicate my life, both physically and spiritually.  I’m constantly over-thinking things and situations.  Buster’s comment about loving his wife didn’t fully impact me until this morning.  As the conversation replayed itself in my head, I felt God saying, “Do you love me enough to make me coffee in the morning?”  I often make time for God out of Christian obligation rather than love.  My motives for conversing and communing with God vary daily.  But he’s calling me to stop, to simplify.  Because when it comes down to it, Paul was entirely correct when he wrote that anything done without love is worthless (1 Corinthians 13).

Weakness is Strength?

When I was younger I had a problem with exaggerating.  It wasn’t your typical “tall tale” kind of exaggerating though.  I never really blatantly lied about things.  It consisted mainly of giving people the illusion that I was more knowledgeable, experienced, or talented at or about something than I really was.  Usually it would occur when some friends of mine started quoting a movie I hadn’t seen or talking about a song I hadn’t heard.  I perfected laughing at just the right time and making general statements that actually sounded like I was making a specific reference to whatever subject was being discussed.  “Remember when that guy made fun of that other guy in the movie??  Yea that was hilarious.”  And if they asked me a specific question about it I would say something like, “Oh I must have walked out on that part.”  But why?  Why go through this whole charade over a movie?  It probably would’ve been easier to just say I hadn’t seen it yet.  Of course at the time that wasn’t an option because my credibility as a cool kid was tied very closely to which movies I had and hadn’t seen.  Naturally.

I should tell you that I’ve grown out of that problem.  I still get the urge every once in a while to give people the illusion that I’m somebody I’m not, just by nodding in agreement to a conversation I know nothing about.  No one wants to feel out of the loop.  That’s why we talk about each other, isn’t it?  By being involved in someone else’s life we feel like we’re on the cutting edge of the breaking news in our friends lives and that gives us status and importance.

If you know me at all, you know that I love music and musicians.  I don’t know what it is but I love finding great bands and artists that none of my other friends have heard before.  I’m sure Columbus felt the same way about discovering the America’s.  There’s a thrill to it; a sense of control.  Picture Columbus coming back to Spain after his groundbreaking discovery:

 “So remember that time you thought the world was flat?  Yea, that was dumb.  Oh, and by the way, I found a new continent.   I’ll let you know how to get there for a fee.”

I want to find a new continent.

This past Sunday, Pastor Mike was talking about how his 3 year old daughter, Ava, has a habit of jumping into his arms whenever she was about to walk down stairs.  In fact she often doesn’t even give him any warning before jumping.  She just jumps and expects that Mike will catch her.  Jesus told his disciples, “…whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Luke 18:17).  A child trusts his father.  Ava trusts that Mike will catch her because he has caught her in the past and has yet to drop her.  We trust God out of the experiences we have had with his faithfulness in the past.

Our problem is that we know too much.  We become risk analysts for our own life and we spend most of our time trying to reduce the amount of risk we will encounter.  We worry about our finances, our health, our future, our past, our family, our country, and so much more.  Mike’s daughter does not have much, if any, awareness of the dangers involved in jumping off of stairs, but we do.  We calculate the wind speed, the angle of the stairs, the height of the stairs, our weight, and the distance between us and our Father.  We calculate all of this information and often we get scared and decide instead to sit down on the stairs for a while “until the wind dies down.”

So should we just pretend like these factors and dangers don’t exist?  The night before Jesus was to be crucified He asked His Father to please “Remove this cup from me” (Mark 14:36).  Was He ignoring the dangers and certain excruciating pain ahead?  Of course not.  Faith is not ignoring danger, faith is jumping in spite of the danger and expecting you will be caught.  It is interesting that at the beginning of Mark 14:36, Jesus addresses God as Abba, or in English, daddy.  It is the only time that Jesus calls his Father, daddy.

If any word is uncomfortable for a grown man to say I think it would probably be the word daddy.  It’s uncomfortable because just saying that word feels like a surrender of power.  Daddy is a word used by small children who have no way of taking care of themselves and rely fully on their daddy.  It’s an admission of a lack of knowledge.  It’s saying, “I think I know a lot of things, but in reality I know nothing compared to you.” But daddy is also a statement of faith.  It declares, “I know that these stairs are really high, and the wind is strong, but if you want me to jump I know you’ll catch me.”  In verse 36, Jesus in effect says, “Daddy, you can do anything.  Please don’t make me go through with this because I’m scared out of my mind.  But I trust you completely, and if you say it’ll be ok, then I know it will.”

I’ve recently been listening to a song by Ben Rector called “The Sophomore” that really made me aware of these attempts at control.  He sings, “…you find you’re holding on to everything you know, but the strength to move beyond is found in letting go.  There’s so much I don’t know.”  We find similarly contradictory statement in Matthew 10:39 when Jesus said, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

Have you come to know God as your Daddy?  Or is it too uncomfortable?

There’s a release to realizing how little you really know.

“Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”