Moments

I asked a question last week, "What made you believe?" My response was many faces unable to articulate an answer. In reflection on this I realize I was asking for a recounting of one moment in a lifetime of moments. How do you pick just one? How can we passionately speak to the reality of God if we struggle to explain our own relationship with Him. This experience may be to personal and intimate to share with those around us. Or could it be hidden doubt about our belief in the experience of relationship.
I love stories. The ability to imagine a world and bring it to life through story fascinates me. Moments in story like Frodo destroying the Ring of Power, Aslan vanquishing the White Witch, or the Italian Stallion defeating Apollo. These stories tug on my heart strings and I stand in awe at man's ability to dream. I also stand in awe of God's ability to trust us with dreaming in light of us being able to dream fantastic tales of goodness and nobility we are also capable of the opposite, tales of horrible destruction and atrocity. And yet within this danger there rests the wonder and never ending possibility to imagine God. A God beyond description who embodies such a glory that I can't even be in His presence. And who embraces such grace that in my ability for evil I can come to Him for salvation. I don't know when my moment was exactly but I think it was when I first was able to imagine a God who loved me and who had a story written for me.
My faith began to grow when the evidence of life began to reveal much more than a string of coincidence. It revealed a desire of a creator to live in community with me. My story is filled with choices, who to marry, how many kids to have, to obey the law, to make the world a better place, to serve the poor, and to love my neighbor. At times I will choose the good in these and at other times I will choose the opposite. But that will not change the desire of God to spend time with me, it will not change His great love and ability to extend grace. This revelation is a culmination of moments, not just one. I think that is how the existence of God comes upon us through a series of moments that lead us to a point where faith happens and we can no longer deny the existence of God.

Hope

I have been challenged to think about hope this week. I attended the funeral of a close friend who passed way too early in life and was also informed that a close member of my family has cancer. In situations like this I entertain the question, "Where is the Hope?" Suffering and fairness do not go hand in hand and our sense of fairplay is brought into question whenever suffering hits close to home. This is another example of how God wants to relate to us, in a very personal and intimate nature. He wants one on one relationship and even though suffering is horrible it challenges us to grow in our relationship with God. We find the psalmist in this predicament in Psalm 73. Basically what he says is that while he may doubt God's existence it does not change the fact that God does exist and God does love and God is involved with His people. Hope. That is the reality. My feelings do not enter into the absolute truth that God does exist and God does love me. Hope. My heart is hurting and suffering is directly in my life. As I wade through my doubts hope is found in a God that can handle my doubts, in whose existence does not depend on my belief. I don't know if I will ever understand pain and suffering but God's is a shoulder that at the end of the day I want to cry on. Hope.

Worth Celebrating

So I am watching the memorial service for Michael Jackson right now and hearing all these famous people sing his praises and talk about what an addition to heaven he is and how saintly he was in life. It strikes me as odd that although a wonderful performer Michael obviously had a morally questionable lifestyle and some of the choices he made must have been concerning the even the most liberal of people. I think this brings up the question of what do we value in a person? Is it their talent or their ability to entertain? Or is it their steadfastness in the face of adversity? Their priority of marriage and parenting? Are failed marriages and bad choices with children okay if you sing a wonderful song about looking at yourself in the mirror? I am not trying to pass judgment on anyone but I have to look at the message we are sending by idolizing people who may not live up to what we would define as a moral person. While Michael did a lot of wonderful things in life he also had many struggles and made some poor choices just like most of us. So mourn his passing but don't send the message that he was a saint and worthy of our aspirations. There are many other finer examples to model our lives after, just because he was a pop superstar and has had his entire service covered by media does not mean that we should live like him.

The Walk

I took the seniors away this last weekend to Sunriver, Oregon. I had an interesting revelation while I was there. Normally I am a pretty lazy person and will choose to drive over other means of transportation. Hence my Pooh Bear tummy. But Sunriver is a place that changes that outlook and I think also gives perspective on some important things in life. You see in Sunriver there are two separate networks of transportation one for cars and one for walking, running and biking. The entire city was built so that once you drove to the house you are staying at you don't have to drive anywhere else for your entire stay. It was a pretty big paradigm shift for city people to not so much focus on the destination but on the entire journey. We all have a goal we are trying to reach, but who has ever reached that goal without first learning along the way. Isn't your favorite part of a lot of movies right at the beginning when our hero is training for the big fight and he or she is going through the long painful process of learning what it takes to win. "Paint the fence, sand the floor and wax the car," are the classic examples of this. We had some great conversations while journeying together on this trip and it was a testament to what has happened over the last four years of these students lives. God cares about the journey because I think the more you learn on the walk with Him the better equipped you will be to lead others on the same road. So in your walk don't focus so much on the destination that you forget to cherish the journey.

Cliff Diving

So last night I was at the graduation ceremony for Kings High School. It was great to see so many of the students that have let me walk with them for years achieve such a great thing. As I was watching them walk across the stage and hearing their plans for the fall it was very hard not to reflect. You see my ten year reunion is coming up later this month and it has been hard for me to know how to feel about it. So much has happened since I walked across that stage, how am I supposed to share ten years of history in one night? I have come to realize that I want to attend this reunion to see the people that I have stayed in relationship with these past ten years. That if there was not a person that I had remained in contact with I probably would not attend at all. I realize that this has a lot to do with trust. And the ability to trust others with my life and what has happened in it. It is like trying to tell someone what is underneath the water they are about to jump into. Without an existing relationship of trust and community that person would be silly to jump. It goes to show how important it is to have close relationships in community that develop trust. Those are the people that I am going to see in a few weeks. But more importantly it is important that I develop this relationship with Jesus. If I love Him now and don't plan on seeing Him again until our ten year reunion I don't trust Him. As the Steven Curtis Chapman song says, "I'm diving in, I'm going deep, in over my head I want to be." Jesus will ask us to jump into the water and expect that we trust Him enough to not worry about our safety. My prayer for the graduates last night and for my life was that they and I would not relegate Jesus to an "I'll see Him at the reunion," relationship. But that we would continue to seek Him out and grow in our relationship so that when the reunion does come around He is a trusted and familiar face that we know won't lead us astray. God Bless you Seniors!

Lessons in Failure

One of the things I wish I had learned more from when I was younger are the failures that I experienced. Of which there are many. Now that I have lived a little bit of life I find that as my responsibilities increase so do my opportunities to fail in huge life changing ways. For instance in high school I bought my first car for $1800, which at the time was a lot of money. A few months later the clutch went out and I was forced to replace it. This ended up costing me more money and I discovered the horrible money pit that cars are. However, in the grand scheme of things this was not a life altering amount of money that I spent on this car, and I learned a valuable lesson, that cars rarely cost what is says on the sticker. I learned a lesson about cars and money because my parents put it on me to fund my own transportation and figure out what I needed to do for myself. Looking back I really appreciate the choice that they made for me because in a relatively harmless environment they taught me a huge lesson about responsibility and money management. And if there is a short list of things that cause my wife and I to argue money is definitely on the list. Now as I am older $1800 doesn't seem like so much money when we are buying and selling houses for hundreds of thousands of dollars and leaving college with tens of thousands in debt. But the lesson is still the same, steward what you are given well and be responsible living within your means. You will not have as many toys but you will be happier in life and relationships.

Missions?

So I have been challenged recently to examine my definition of missions. The real question is are we allowed to call everything we do in the name of the gospel missions? With my recent involvement in the Missional Church movement I thought that by definition Christians are mandated to be on a mission at all times. But does this shift in modern church language reflect a redefinition of missions or has it created two distinct definitions for the same word? Or maybe there is a much deeper problem that faces the American church. I think it may be a problem of laziness. If I can go across the street and bring a neighbor who just had surgery a meal and call myself a missionary, I take a huge burden off of my shoulders. The act of loving our neighbors is noble and a command of Scripture, why do we feel obligated to attach the word missionary to those actions? Does that title make them more or less noble? In our struggle with pride it is easy to lose sight of the simple act of service. That the glory of God's kingdom is first and foremost our aim. True missions take the gospel to where it is not. That is our mission given by Scripture, to share the love of Jesus with the whole world, even the dangereous parts. It has to be our goal, to show the entire world the love that God has for them, and there is a role in that for each and every one of us. Losing our drive and passion for those that have never heard is a disease that will eventually spread to the entire body. We as the church need to stay focused on what God has for us. As I continue to process the definition of missions I would love to hear what you have to say. Please feel free to comment on this post.

Polar America

Is it weird that we as a people seem to be moving further and further apart? I have been reflecting on the inauguration last week and there is one part that really bothers me. As former President Bush was flying away the crowd that had gathered for a momentous occasion started to sing. Steam's lyrics began to come clear, "Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye!" I thought to myself, do we really hate you so much that we unwilling to say thank you for your service that we asked you to perform? Now I believe that many mistakes were made during the Bush administration but I also know that we as a nation ask someone to be our president. That means we reap what we sow. I really appreciate what President Obama has called the nation to in his appeal to all for their service. But will the right truly work with the left or just bide its time until it is in control again? It seems that we have lost the general trust in each other that simply came from being American. With that loss has come the need to travel to extremes to find trust in people with the same ideology and distrust those who differ. Eventually we may need to realize that patriotism may not be the bonding agent we thought it was. The question of what bonds us as a people together needs to be asked. The answer may well lead us to solutions for some of the social issues we are facing today. God asks us to seek unity in all things, making unity a priority in anything that we do. Is unity a priority in the things we do as a country? Until it is I feel like we will continue to see a divide becoming greater. Where do Christians fit into patriotism? How does one nation under God come about? I think the Church has to practice making unity a priorty and be an example of unity for the nation. Not only will we be a great witness to God's glory through doing this but we will see a country come together in a way that I think we all want it to.