Category: Life

Sometimes it takes me forever to “get it.”

I had to travel to Colon, Panama for work last year, and it was probably the hottest and most humid place I’ve ever been in my life. It was an extremely long month of extremely long days, and I missed my wife and son so much it was like a physical pain. I had a routine, though, and it kept me going.

I read my bible for about 15 minutes—usually a chapter of something or a few Psalms. Then breakfast at 0630 in the hotel restaurant. After that, head out to the test—hoping the line at the canal wouldn’t be too bad. Also, I’d listen to worship music on my mp3 player anytime I got a chance. It wasn’t much, but it helped me to get through things away from my family and my church for 28 days.

But even with that, there were many things to take me away from my time with the Lord.

It had been a long day, and I was tired.

I had to get up early.

Or the guys wanted to do something that night, or that morning—it could have been any number of things.
Sometimes I would skip part or all of my devotional time, and I really felt it when that happened.
I had no one to blame but myself. So I just did my best to keep my “stuff” together and do my work. I knew the time would pass one way or another.

Two days before we left Panama, we were all in the van driving to work. I had my headphones on, as I usually did. It was great because we would inevitably get stuck at the canal for almost an hour, and also because it drowned out my annoying coworkers–and believe me, they would annoy Mother Theresa. Like usually happens, God knew better than me what I needed.

On this particular morning, the first song that came on when we stopped at the canal was this TobyMac song called “The Slam,” which is one I usually skip over. I never really thought much about listening to it: I didn’t care for his spoken intro.

This time, I stopped and listened to the words and this particular verse about John the Baptizer kept repeating in my head:

They came from the cities and towns all around

To see the longhaired preacher from the desert get down

Waist high in water, never short on words, he said

Repent, the kingdom of heaven can be yours

But he stopped in the middle of his words and dropped

Down to his knees and said, behold the Lamb of God

He’s the one, the slam, don’t you people understand?

You’re staring at the son, God’s reaching out his hand

God is reaching out to me. As He was to the people he interacted with during the three brief years of His ministry.

John the Baptist was really an amazing person. To start with, he fearlessly proclaimed the word of God, regardless of potential consequence. He also foretold of the coming messiah, the thongs of whose sandals he was not worthy to untie.

What I was thinking about was that not only did John recognize that a messiah was coming and the kingdom of Heaven was near, he recognized Jesus when He came. Not everyone did. Think about it. When Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, he probably had to walk through a crowd of people that had come to hear John. There were almost certainly Pharisees among them. But Jesus ventured through the throng, and was baptized by an obedient John.

Behold the Lamb of God.

I wonder, how many of us would recognize Jesus if He came in such a way today?

Think about it, just for a minute.

What if you were at church? What if your pastor was right in the middle of a sermon, and then dropped to his knees in the pulpit when some scruffy looking guy in jeans and a tee-shirt came in?

Would you recognize him, too? Or, to steal from Brennan Manning, would you think your pastor’s cheese was sliding off his cracker?

I wonder what I would do? I like to think I have enough discernment that I’d be able to recognize

the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world

but I really don’t know. Of course, as a believer, I know how Jesus is going to come the second time. It won’t be like the first (see John’s Revelation if you want details).

My point is this:

I don’t know about you, but it’s my tendency to stare through people sometimes. Especially people I don’t want to see; like the people at the Jordan river that long ago day did not want to see some Nazarene carpenter.

I stare through people that want something from me I am not prepared to give them.

People that are hard to look at for various reasons.

People that annoy me.

People.

But here is the truth: Jesus came for those people just like he came for me. He came for the old, for the rich, for the poor, for the ugly and annoying. He came for the beautiful.

He came for the dirty, smelly guy outside the Chevron who follows you to your car to beg for change.

And He also came for me.

Should I not, as a follower of His way, be prepared to treat those people the same way He would? Should I not recognize them for who they are in the same way He recognized me for who I am when I asked Him to be part of my life?

Should I not see them as His children? And with that recognition, in seeing a person just a little bit of the way God sees them, am I not seeing His face reflected?

Am I not recognizing Him, and being recognized?

Am I not at last becoming the person God had in mind when He made me?

I think I knew I needed glasses for a while before I actually got them. It was hard to admit, though, even to myself.

I would sit on the couch and have to squint at the Tivo menu to read what programs were recorded, and eventually, I would give up and simply walk over to the television and look at it from a foot or two away.

Another time, I had picked some friends off at the airport and after I dropped them off, I realized I could not read the small green street signs to navigate my way out of their neighborhood. I think it took me about 90 minutes to get home, and it probably should have been 15 to 20. I finally found my way to I-5, and ended up getting back on down by the airport–after I drove through Barrio Logan with the doors locked.

The point being, I could not see well at night, or at any real distance, and I knew it. Yet I resisted getting glasses because I’d had perfect vision my entire life, and it was not possible I no longer did.

Glasses were for old people.

Then I realized, I am old people.

So I went to see an eye doctor my friend recommended, and after I got my glasses, I could not believe how much easier things got. I could read the titles on the Tivo menu from across the street–never mind across the living room. I won’t even mention how awesome it was to see street signs without stopping and squinting. Not that it helped me much with getting lost–anyone who knows me can attest to that.

The short version is that once I finally broke down and sought help, I could see again.

I think that’s what it’s like when we finally let down our guards, and let go of our inhibitions and preconceived notions about God and just ask Him to help us see.

I can remember when I finally did that. It had just gotten so frustrating (not to mention nearly impossible) to always see things in black and white, when a part of me always knew there was way more to life than that. But I was looking at life based on a set of sometimes flawed values that I had accrued over a life jam packed with all kinds of nonsense. Most of which was created by the lies I allowed myself to believe about God, about myself, and about the people I was continually made to interact with.

Black and white.

You’d think it would be easier to see things that way–in convenient terms I understood the definitions for. And in some respects, regarding some things, it is easier. Evil is still evil, and always will be. God is still good, all the time, and always will be. Beyond that, many things in life are not so clearly defined. Jesus allows us the freedom to choose the path we will walk. And ultimately, how clearly we see the world around us.

To me, looking at the world after allowing Jesus into my life was kind of like the scene in the Matrix where Morpheus sits Neo down and talks about the reality of mankind’s existence.

MORPHEUS: We are trained in this world to accept only what is rational and logical. Have you ever wondered why?
Neo shakes his head.
MORPHEUS: As children, we do not separate the possible from the impossible which is why the younger a mind is the easier it is to free while a mind like yours can be very difficult.
NEO: Free from what?
MORPHEUS: From the Matrix.
Neo locks at his eyes but only sees a reflection of himself.
MORPHEUS: Do you want to know what it is, Neo?
Neo swallows and nods his head.
MORPHEUS: It’s that feeling you have had all your life. That feeling that something was wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad, driving you to me. But what is it? The LEATHER CREAKS as he leans back.
MORPHEUS: The Matrix is everywhere, it’s all around us, here even in this room. You can see it out your window, or on your television. You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
NEO: What truth?
MORPHEUS: That you are a slave, Neo. That you, like everyone else, was born into bondage… …kept inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.
Outside, the WIND BATTERS a loose PANE of glass.
MORPHEUS: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
NEO: How?
MORPHEUS: Hold out your hands.
In Neo’s right hand, Morpheus drops a red pill.
MORPHEUS: This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back.
In his left, a blue pill.
MORPHEUS: You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe.
The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.
MORPHEUS: You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, with the moisture growing in his palms.
MORPHEUS: Remember that all I am offering is the truth. Nothing more.
Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill. The Cheshire smile returns.

Science fiction, of course, and it is just a movie. But we do allow ourselves to be both blinded and deluded by the world. It’s easy because there’s nothing about it you have to challenge—you can just accept “how things are.” You don’t have to challenge yourself, or change, or grow. You don’t stretch your boundaries—you cherish them. And in the end, you get out of life with a PhD in complacency, and not much else.

But that isn’t the truth. Life doesn’t have to be “that way.”

There is more.

The truth is, once you have Jesus in your life, and heart, and mind, you see everything by a different sort of light than you’re used to. Everything looks different: people, life, politics, even the “world.” Not through rose-colored glasses, but through lenses tinted with the blood of a Jewish carpenter.

I think if we look at things—at life—through Jesus, then we see them in the way they’re meant to be seen.
We see the truth.

Consequently, it seems to be in the act of looking around at everything else that we become blind, or at the least distracted. Once distracted, it’s easy to believe what you hear—about yourself, about God…about everything. We become too concerned with labels, and less with the people we’re attempting to fit into our little one-or-two-word definitions. And if they do not fit into the little boxes we’ve created,

Christian
Atheist
Democrat
Republican
Green
Liberal
Conservative
Good
Evil

then we close our minds to them, and they are simply wrong.

To me, one of the worst things about it is that we deem ourselves worthy enough to judge the worthiness of others in regard to anything, and then we become so smug in our rightness, we can’t see God at all anymore, and aren’t even aware of it.

God judges: and no one is worthy.

All have fallen short of the only judge that matters (Romans 3:10 and 3:23).

Who am I to judge anyone else’s commitment to Jesus? Who am I to hold it up to mine, and find it lacking? Am I perfect, or do I walk perfectly with Jesus?

Not even close. Not a day goes by that I don’t need His forgiveness for something, though sometimes I have to remind myself to ask for it.

What makes me think I can judge anyone else’s patriotism, or commitment to their family, or that my methods for disciplining my children are better than theirs? I heard someone say on the radio not long ago that where we see people as obstacles, Jesus saw them as opportunities for ministry. Man, do I wish I could do that.

The plain truth is that the world and the things in it are so bright they fall over our eyes and cloud our perspectives until we ask and ask and ask God to take them away, so we can have eyes to see—to see each other the way He intended us to, through his eyes. So we can look at His people–even if they don’t believe—and realize he died for them just as much as for we who now believe.

Maybe even more.

Because He came not for the well, but the sick.

He came to give His life as a ransom for many.

He came to give us eyes to see.

I used to think Christians had to be perfect.

I think that hindered my coming to faith more than any other thing, because I knew I never had a chance in that regard—I was a mess, and I knew it better than anyone. But the thought was still there: for most of my life, I thought a person had to live this perfect life to know Jesus, because that’s the way the lives of the Christians I knew seemed; at least to the extent that I knew them.

They seemed blissfully happy all the time.

They never seemed to doubt God, or His will for their lives.

They never had marriage, family, or friendship troubles. At least not that anyone on the outside knew about.

It was almost like they were ideals, rather than actual living people.

Even after coming to know Jesus, I would sometimes feel like I was posing, because there were times when I still felt down, or sad. There were times when it seemed God’s will for my life was not perfect at all, and that he might have even “had it in for me” in some way. I can’t tell you how many times I would get whiny and defensive with God, asking things like, “What did I do to deserve _______?”

This felt particularly true regarding my relationships with women, such as they were. It was difficult for me to see the hand of God in any of them. I suppose now that was because what I was looking for could not have been found embodied in a person—at least, not until I sought Jesus with that same fervor first. But what I did was make bad decision after bad decision, and then blame anyone and everyone else—including God—for the outcome.

And the truth of it all is that sometimes I still doubt God, even though my life is better now than it’s ever been. So my doubt often stems from when I see how things are going badly for people I care about, and I don’t know what to tell them about where God was when X happened, or why He didn’t answer their prayers the way they wanted. There are only so many times a person can mention “mysterious ways,” and really, no one wants to hear that, even if it is true.

I have an amazing family, and a wife that loves me in spite of all my stupid baggage. My kids are strong, and growing, and loved. I have the opportunity to be the father to them I always wanted for myself, and really didn’t have.

Yet doubt still creeps in. I doubt when I see what the world has become, and the terrible things that happen in it—things that would break even the strongest heart.

There were times when I doubted God had a plan for anyone, or that he was any more than a benevolent bedtime story.

I am not perfect, and certainly not a perfect Christian.

The thing is, there is something that tells me God can handle my doubt, my childlike petulance, and my outbursts of anger and unbelief, because He is bigger than any of my grievances, large or small.

I think that if I didn’t doubt, and if I didn’t question things from time to time, then I would be little more than a God automaton, wandering around praising the Lord in a monotone and handing out tracts at gas stations. I would have no idea what it was like to experience God in His fullness, or that such a thing is even possible.

And for what it’s worth, here is how it worked for me:

My doubts led me to thinking, and praying, and asking questions.

Asking, thinking and praying led me to scripture.

Scripture led me to truth.

Truth led me to Jesus, who was waiting for me.

What I want to say here is that I make no claim to having all the answers to your questions. I may not be able to assuage your doubt regarding God, and His will for your life.

There are probably hundreds of books out there right now that will tell you how you can have a better life, or get out of debt, or find a better you. They have all these tidy little formulas to achieve your goals, and to get where you want to be with the least amount of effort. You can learn how to see it and receive it, or name it and claim it.

I think that if you get somewhere or achieve something without any effort, what kind of satisfaction can you find in that? Because at the end of it all, faith is not easy. It takes work—sometimes a lot of work.

It seems to me that if you could break Jesus, and healing, and restoration down to a formula, then it would not mean as much. And in spite of what a great many people would have you think, I don’t believe hearts work that way.

What I want to tell you is don’t abandon your faith because of struggle, or because you doubt that a loving God exists.

Wrestle with God—Jacob did.

Ask Him questions. Cry out to Him for the truth that only He can bring. Talk to a pastor, or small group/bible study leader. Go forward during an altar call. Delve into scripture with a disciple’s heart—Psalms in particular are filled with laments, and the hurting crying out to God with unimaginable pain.

Most of all, pray.

MC Hammer may have been one of the cheesiest rappers of all time, but I think he had it right when he said “you’ve got to pray just to make it today.”

It’s true that we live in a fallen world, and faith is sometimes hard to come by. So when I read about writers and speakers like Rob Bell who call people into a dialogue about things that may be controversial, or simply just hard to talk about, I think maybe it’s a good thing. It sheds light on subjects many people probably think about but don’t have the rocks to mention.

Because I believe everyone has doubts, and questions. That’s right, even people of faith. I believe that if there are no struggles in your life—no pain, or hurt, or disappointment—then you’re deluding yourself, like those people with the plastic grins and the perfect lives I knew when I was a kid.

And I think it’s so dangerous when we get to a place in our lives where we think we’ve “arrived” spiritually, and there is little more we can learn or experience in the way of God. I think then we’re farther away than when we began. Faith is not a class with a nice certificate at the end—it’s real, and it’s hard, and sometimes it feels like it isn’t worth it.

It is worth it, in spite of how lousy things can be.

And there’s always more to learn, and understand, and question.

I think writers like Bell cause people to seek answers to those questions, and once again, I believe that’s a good thing.

I will say, though, that no writer, or pastor, or speaker can lay claim to knowing the mind of God other than how it is described in scripture, and when such men and women start putting words into the mouth of the almighty they will most likely run into a buzz saw of trouble.

I don’t know what Mr Bell says about Heaven or Hell in his new book, because I haven’t read it. I probably will read it eventually, but with the foreknowledge that he is but a man trying to stir thought in people, and hopefully to get them nearer to God. And he did stir people up—not just with this new book coming out. Bell has been a controversial figure for years, because ever since Velvet Elvis came out, he’s been stirring thought in people by making them approach their faith in ways they maybe never thought of before.

In my opinion, if this or any book draws people to look into the bible, and seek knowledge about God, then it’s a good thing, because I don’t believe God’s truth can be denied when earnestly sought—there certainly came a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m hoping that if you’re getting close to that point, you won’t be able to either.

And if not automatically branding Bell and others like him as heretics (as so many in the blogosphere have) makes me one, too, then I guess I’ll just have to live with the label.

Like Tupac said, “only God can judge me.” Not that Tupac quoted a lot of scripture in his lyrics—I’m just making a point.

It’s not ours to dictate whether or not someone is worthy of…rescue, of salvation.

It’s not ours to condemn.

I don’t know about you, but I have no desire for that particular responsibility, and I certainly do not know the mind of God.

So what I hope to do here is just tell you a few things I’ve learned about God, and about how he relates to me. I’ll tell you a little bit of my story, and maybe you will be able to take something away from it that will make you think, make you ask questions.

Some of these posts that will follow in the coming days and weeks you might recognize from previous postings, and many are largely the same, but with a few changes made in a feeble attempt by yours truly for a more concise narrative.

I’m hoping this will make sense, because I feel like this story is one I have to tell, even if I have no idea whether or not anyone will care to spend time reading another person’s thoughts.

So what I plan to do is try, and see what happens.

See you in a few days.

People in recovery often speak of reaching their “bottom,” or absolute lowest before they actually begin recovering from anything. I guess when you’re lying there and looking up, and you finally become aware of your own mortality or that you may have lost everything that means anything to you, getting your act together and getting help seems like a pretty good idea.

Now, I’ve never been in recovery, but I recall with absolute clarity the moment I had the awareness I needed to change something about my life or I was going to eventually kill myself.

I think it would have been 2002 or early 2003, when El Tri got eliminated from the World Cup pretty early on. It may even have been the United States that did the eliminating. What happened was that I had some friends over to my apartment to watch the penultimate game, and there was drinking involved. It doesn’t really matter what it was, or how much I drank, but the end result was me lying on my bathroom floor, with several blended beverages splattered in and around my toilet.

I must have laid there several hours, trying to get the world to stop spinning, but it never did. I eventually passed out, and just lay there on the floor in a puddle. My friends–such as they were–eventually left when I did not make another appearance.

I woke up with the worst headache of my life, and the knowledge that I could have choked on my own puke and no one would have even noticed.

And the thought occurred to me that this could be what the rest of my life would be like.

Obviously, I made some drastic changes in my life. My act has mostly been cleaned up for a couple of years now, but I can’t take any of the credit for that.

I’m not sure really why my mind dredged that thought up, but after worship on Saturday night, I couldn’t get one of the songs out of my head–it was called “I Give You Glory.”

What I was thinking today is that no matter how enlightened I may feel, no matter how much I may feel I’ve “arrived” in my walk with Jesus, the truth is that even if I hadn’t arrived, or been edified, or even accepted Jesus for who He is I would have still been loved just as much.

The maker of the universe would have pursued me just as relentlessly in my state of disgrace, laying on my bathroom floor Lord only knows how close to choking on my own chunks as he does when I attend services with my hair neatly combed (OK, yes, I know I don’t have hair, but you get the point) and my NIV bible clutched in my nervous hands.

Why?

I don’t know if I’ll ever get done tripping on that.

What I wanted to say though is that I can’t take any of the credit for any transformation that may have occurred in my life, because without Him it would never have happened. I never would have gotten up off my bathroom floor, or for that matter never would have knelt on that dock (which I am ashamed to say happened nearly three years before the bathroom incident–no, I am not perfect) and started the path I’m finally walking on in earnest.

My life has been filled with amazing things over the past three years, and all the glory belongs to Jesus, without whom I would be but a vapor.

I give you glory.

Go back and listen to that song again, and think about the words. Chew on them. They apply to you.

I used to wonder why it was so hard to change my behavior.

Somewhere I got this notion that because I knew Jesus–and knew about him–that everything about me I didn’t like would just sort of melt away and things would be so much easier. I wouldn’t have to struggle anymore. I would no longer doubt. And when that didn’t happen, when struggles still occurred, and doubt crept around every now and then to wind itself around me and winnow its way into my soul, it was like nothing made sense anymore. And I began to find reasons why God couldn’t be real. They were everywhere, it seemed.

While my faith may have been distant, and I allowed the white noise and madness of the world to drown out Jesus, I still had the awareness of my sin. And even when I was sometimes wracked with doubt or pain, and right in the midst of self-medicating, I wanted to change. I knew somewhere in me that I needed to. I didn’t want to be the person I saw myself becoming, because I knew in my heart the man God wanted me to be.

But it was just so hard to be him. I remember praying and praying for God to help me be better; a better Christian, friend, brother–you name it. And to help me stop falling into the same patterns of thought and behavior, time and time again. But it was like Paul said:

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. (Rom 7: 14-17)

I knew my behavior was sinful (many behaviors, in many ways), but every attempt I made to change on my own met with abject failure, and it seemed temptation and opportunity were at every turn. Plus, it was easier to please myself than God.

So I did. And afterward I would feel terrible, and beseech God to help me never ever do it (whatever it was) again.

what’s going on inside of me

I despise my own behavior

this only serves to confirm my suspicion

that I’m still a man in need of a savior -DC Talk

But nothing changed, and any victory I won on my own was short-lived, at best. And I knew it would be. I would wonder why God would never change my behavior, no matter how earnestly I entreated Him. It wasn’t until the past year or so, after much healing, and much prayer, that I realized why:

God does not change behavior, he changes hearts. The transforming power of Christ works from the inside out, not the outside in.

Jeff talked about that last night at church, and again this morning. Changing from the inside out. It makes a lot more sense now than it did then.

I needed to change my heart. Or rather, I needed Jesus to change it from within. I needed Him to take away not the behavior that was drawing me away from Him, but to help me understand whatever was at the root of whichever base desire I felt the need to indulge at any cost. And to defeat that desire, and whatever lies the enemy would have me believe about myself and replace them with Truth.

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)

It was this realization that just…well, shattered me. I could apply it to so many parts of my life, so many struggles. Even now I think about it.

I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you.

So, it was possible to cast off the old man. It was possible for my self-made shackles to fall away like torn paper, and to rise from them free.

Struggling with lust, or pornography, or acting out sexually? Don’t just ask God to change your behavior, and take away desire. Ask him to change your heart, to reach into it and find that Love that transcends all other types of love, and all substitutes for it. There are so many people out there reaching out for something–for anything–that will make them feel whole. Because it’s so damn hard to go through life feeling like you were torn off from the one thing that meant you were real, and loved, and…seen.

It’s been my experience–and part of my struggle–that my own struggles with these things were simply that. A search for something to fill the void–the sucking chest wound–the perceived absence of love had created in my life.

I had to ask God to fill that dark vacuum with light. With Love. And it wasn’t until He did that I began–just began–to become the person He had in mind when He made me. Without that transformation, I would not exist as the person I am today, and my life would be…different. And likely not in a good way.

The funny thing is, there are so many things to fight–so many struggles. And no time to enjoy a victory before the next battle begins…

like my struggles with eating, or diet (which remain). Why is that so damn hard to change?

Maybe because, even though I know better, what I’ve been praying for is for God to change my behavior. To take away desire. To take away my tendency to do what I don’t want to do instead of what I do.

Not to find what is lacking in my heart that causes me to eat like a Roman at a banquet, and replace it with a desire for Him.

Not to find that part within me that causes me to want to please everyone and replace it with a desire to please Him.

Not to find that place within me I retreat to when it gets hard, and dark, and cold, and to speak truth to me there.

Not to find the real me, the ME God wants me to become within the person I am right now.

I want to be that person, and I want to do those things, and I want to struggle less with certain things, and I want to see God everywhere, because he IS everywhere. But to do that, I also need to to this:

5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding; (Proverbs 3:4)

I need to trust in the Lord with all my heart.

I need to trust the Lord with all my heart, every part of it.

I need to be changed from the inside out.

And even though when I think about all the battles ahead, it almost makes me feel like it’s too much, and I can’t go on anymore, I remind myself there is hope.