Category: Deep thoughts and insomnia

I had to drive a good long way out in the boonies while it was still dark this morning—about 0330. I’m assuming it was still cloudy, because there were no stars, or moon. It was just really dark. I had my high beams on in case a donkey or a horse decided to play chicken—I wanted to give myself as much warning as possible. Thankfully, none of them decided to jump on my truck, and I escaped having to pick mane hair out of my teeth.

I accomplished my task in just a few minutes and started heading back. It’s a 45 minute drive back to civilization from the place I had to visit and I was mad because I had to listen to 93.1 on the way and that station makes me shriek every time I have to hear it for more than 10 or 15 minutes.

I don’t know if you’ve ever driven through the desert on a cloudy and moonless night, but all you can see is the swath your head lights cut through the darkness. That isn’t much at all.

When it started raining I had to swear a little under my breath because I hate driving in the rain, but then a thought occurred to me:

It might be raining now, but it probably won’t be in the morning.

Morning by morning, new mercies I see…

As I write this I’m glancing over my shoulder out the open door, and eastward as far as I can look, there is only darkness. The sun has yet to lighten the sky.

But I know the sun is just waiting for its moment.

I think life might be a little like that sometimes. There’s rain, and darkness, and it sucks to drive through that.

The thing about rain, though, is that it does eventually pass. Maybe it’s a couple showers. Maybe it’s a storm that lasts for weeks, months, or years.

I went through a period like that, and it wasn’t until it was over that it occurred to me the sun had just been waiting for its moment.

I spent several years as part of a ministry at my church in San Diego that spent quite a bit of time praying for (and with) people going through many different types of sexual brokenness issues. I’d always carried a bit of heaviness around that kind of thing myself, and while I did well enough in that ministry, it often made me alternate between feeling sad, and helpless, and sometimes even angry.

My life prior to joining that church had been pretty dark, even after I came to faith. It seemed like it was always raining, and I couldn’t shake it, no matter what I did.

Yet there was something about all those Monday nights spent in prayer. All the stories told, and the tears cried. All the breakthroughs experienced. Finally I realized they spoke to me so profoundly because while I was part of the team, I was also going through a refining myself. It took a lot of time. I was dealing with my own brokenness.

I would brush my arms through clouds like sticky cobwebs—they didn’t part.

But the sun was waiting for its moment.

It came in the form of a beautiful young woman from Arizona.

The woman who would become my wife brought the sun into my life, along with the realization it had been there all along. I just kept turning my face from its light and warmth.

I try not to do that anymore.

It isn’t that there is no longer darkness; there is. There’s rain, too. Sometimes a lot of it. Faith isn’t about not going through those things. No.

It’s about knowing—no matter how long the darkness or rain lasts—that the sun is just waiting for its moment.

Jesus promises it will come.

And look what happened.

Many years ago, I worked out for a time at the Bally’s gym in Mission Valley—for about a year, I think. For three of those months, I worked with a trainer named Andre, who I began to call Andre the terrible after a while. He was sort of like a Latino version of Stone Cold Steve Austin from the WWE, and I remember the first day I came in he asked me what level of motivation was I comfortable with.

I asked him what he meant, and he said how hardcore did I want him to be with my training. I told him somewhere in the middle would be OK, because I knew he didn’t want to see a grown man cry. He told me it happened more than I would think. It wasn’t that comforting.

Usually, I would show up for my sessions and he would weigh me in, and then proceed to cardio before weights. One time, I showed up and there was another guy there, too. Andre wanted to know if I would mind working out with another guy because he was double booked. I said ok.

I don’t remember the other guy’s name, but he whistled when I stepped on the scale. Jerk.

The cardio went well enough, and then we went to the weights. Andre put me on this butterfly machine, I think it was called. Something like that. The other guy went over to the free weights and started loading up a bar.

Andre stood behind me and barked in my ear while I struggled to bring my arms together in front of my chest. After about 30 seconds, I heard my workout partner yell “f—-!!” from the other side of the weight room.

The man had a barbell with what looked to be over 200 pounds pinning him to the weight bench like an insect.

“Are you trying to F—— KILL YOURSELF?!” Andre screamed at him. “What did I tell you about f—— free weights!?”

“Uh…”

“Use a spotter with that much weight! What if that f—— barbell crushed your larynx?”

I was thinking about that day this morning when I went to the Roadrunner for some caffeine. Andre was clearly no poet, but he had a really good point.

If the weight is more than you can handle alone, you need a spotter.

I thought about that today in the context of all the messing up I’d done over the course of my life. All the mistakes I’d made. All the sins I’d committed. All the people I’d hurt. I spent–no, wasted–so much time trying to get by on my own strength, when it was obvious that wasn’t enough.

Now, when it’s my tendency to dwell on the past and all the bad, it occurs to me the weight I’ve accumulated could crush me if I let it. I can’t lift it alone. I never could.

For most of my life, instead of looking for a spotter, I just loaded the weight on my barbell without thinking too much about it. There were times when it felt like the weight was indeed about to crush my “f—— larynx.”

I’d think about my past, and everything that entailed and I would quickly convince myself of my worthlessness due to how I’d always seemed to find stupid ways to get myself in trouble, and hurt people and even myself without giving it much thought in advance. I would do things because I felt it would benefit me in some way. Or because it would feel good, or make my life easier. Sometimes it even did for a time.

I was able to move past those times, thank goodness. Yet I would still think about them, and it would almost paralyze me when I thought what a f— up I’d been. Still was, sometimes.

And that was one of the most important things I learned about God. He’s a really good spotter. When you’re holding that loaded barbell over your chest, his will be the hands hovering over the bar in case you drop it.

He won’t just yank it out of your hands and lift for you. Not without asking, anyway. But when the bar gets too heavy—when the weight of sin and years and pain feels is so much your arms start shaking and you know it’s only a matter of time before you drop the thing—there’s help.

You don’t have to lift all of that weight yourself.

It isn’t always going to be some ethereal hand reaching down to yank 250 pounds off your chest. Sometimes the help comes in the form of a bald-headed, angry Latino personal trainer. The point is, when you’re dealing with a lot of weight, it’s a good idea to take a partner.

Use a spotter. That probably looks a little different for anyone.

Over the course of my life, I’ve been to a few AA and FA meetings. One of the first things they’d tell you to do is call your sponsor when you needed help.

I didn’t want to at the time, but I get it now.

Sometimes you don’t need to be touching that bar at all when you’re alone. I would think I was just going to lift this crap off my chest, when really I was on the way to crushing my larynx.

Maybe that’s happened to you, too.

Use a spotter when you’re lifting heavy weight. Maybe that’s a pastor. A sponsor. Or even simply a friend.

The weight of a lifetime of garbage can really pile up fast. Sin, mistakes, all the things you’ve done or been part of.

It’s heavy, man.

Ask for help. Being a tough guy doesn’t mean a thing if your neck has a barbell through it.

I think you’ll find that everyone, everyone needs a spotter sometimes.

A lot of people don’t think Christmas is that big of a deal, all things considered. It’s a day set aside for good old American-style capitalism, right? Maybe the family gathers, and it’s one of the few days of the year a whole bunch of people who normally don’t go attend church. So that’s cool.

But it’s just another day, right?

Not for me, and not for most folks who believe in what many might call “traditional” Christianity, if such a thing exists.

Here’s why, to my way of thinking.

Before Jesus could learn in the temple

Before he could read the torah

Before he learned how to work with his hands at the side of his father on earth

Before he saved the best wine for last

Before he made the blind see

Before he made the dead walk

Before he fed multitudes

Before he healed hearts and bodies and minds

Before he was chained to a Roman whipping post and flogged to within an inch of his life

Before he felt the desolation of his father in Heaven’s abandonment

He had to be born.

Now, think about all those things passing before his eyes as he hung there with his head down. Did he know what was to come upon his birth?

We don’t know.

We do know that when he cried out “eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani” it was with his heart ripped out in a way that man can never know.

And that was for us.

Been thinking about that ever since Eric shared that this morning in the kids ministry devotional and communion time.

And that’s why Christmas is such a big deal to me.