Category: Struggles

Casual Blasphemy

I figured something out today.

The President is not the anti-christ. He’s not the savior, either. He’s just a man. He gets up in the morning, and he goes to bed at night. By all accounts he loves his family in the same way you love yours. He eats, drinks, and goes to the bathroom.

He’s a man.

I think that’s part of the problem. The President is so beloved by the largely liberally slanted media and the Hollywood “lobby” that he’s been almost deified, in a sense. He was elected because his promises appealed to more people than the other guy. Twice. This is the way of elections. President Obama won fair and square both times. Move on.

When I saw this clip on YouTube:

of Jamie Foxx calling the President “our Lord and savior,” I wasn’t particularly offended as a believer because I recognized the statement for what it was: a clearly misspoken and probably taken out of context remark that was likely meant with at least some irony by mssr Foxx. At least I hope so. It’s difficult to imagine anyone actually believing President Obama is anyone’s savior. Yet I do think Foxx’s words, spoken casually, are symptomatic of a larger problem.

This morning I saw a representation of this painting online, called “The Truth.”

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The artist, Michael D’Antuono, has said his intent with the painting was to provoke political dialogue and that he meant to display the painting in a mock voting booth.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but to me this isn’t so much about the artist having the constitutional right to say whatever he wants: he has that right. I think he knew exactly the kind of reaction a painting of this nature would provoke in the “religious right,” and painted it with that in mind. He got the reaction he wanted, along with a large bowl of controversy. I’d imagine he probably sold a few tickets to art exhibits as well.

Back to my original point: President Obama is a man. He’s not the savior. He’d certainly acknowledge that himself. He’s not a hero, either. Most people aren’t. His election (both times) was certainly ground-breaking and showed how far our country has come.

Yet as I mentioned earlier, The President was elected based on what he said he would do. He was also elected based on who he was and what he represented.

The media and Hollywood has created this…cult of personality around him. We allowed that to happen. We encouraged it. We still do.

He’s a man, people. A smart and gifted one, but he can’t fly or lift cars over his head. He can’t save anyone, maybe not even the country. Salvation (and deliverance) lies elsewhere, and we as a people have to be careful of the burdens and expectations we place on our public servants.

Still, I look at the crown of thorns in D’Antuono’s painting and what I feel is not so much outrage as sorrow. He clearly does not understand what it represents. I wonder if he truly understands what his painting represents?

It’s not just oil and pigment. If there are actually people out there who believe the President to be something he is not (such as a savior), they are worshipping at an altar they want no real part of.

Just because the constitution gives people the right to say (and paint) stupid things does not mean they should. Casual blasphemy is still blasphemy, and whether or not you believe it does not matter. Think of the outrage if Muhammed had been mocked depicted instead of Jesus.

Then again, no one really thinks twice about offending Christians.

John 15:18 says, “remember if the world hates you that it hated me first.”

I read this commentary about the above verse, and I thought it was interesting:

If the world hates you – As the followers of Christ were to be exposed to the hatred of the world, it was no small consolation to them to know that that hatred would be only in proportion to their faith and holiness; and that, consequently, instead of being troubled at the prospect of persecution, they should rejoice, because that should always be a proof to them that they were in the very path in which Jesus himself had trod. Dr. Lardner thinks that πρωτον is a substantive, or at least an adjective used substantively, and this clause of the text should be translated thus: If the world hate you, know that it hated me, your Chief. It is no wonder that the world should hate you, when it hated me, your Lord and Master, whose lips were without guile, and whose conduct was irreproachable….

I think we need to expect mockery, and much worse. I think the world is changing, and quite obviously turning away from God.

It makes me sad, but also resolved. There is much work to do, and we as believers have much responsibility.

Politics and the rhetoric that comes with them really don’t matter in the end.

Jesus does, and what we do with Him.

Throwing Fits

Earlier today, John really wanted a cookie (he calls them cakies). I informed him he needed to eat his food first, and then he could have dessert when we came home. He proceeded to have a pretty good meltdown, complete with a healthy portion of tears and carrying on.

He wanted that cookie right then and was pissed when he didn’t get it.

Around the same time, my older son wanted to go for a bike ride with his grandpa (we were hanging out over there). That didn’t work out, either, and he went into a class III pout/sulk. This is an 8 year-old version of throwing a fit, and not much different from what his little brother was doing.

He wanted to go for that ride, and he was pissed when he didn’t get to.

I was thinking about the whole thing tonight when we got home and it occurred to me how much like that we are with God. We go to him with entreaties for what we think we need to have or want to do and we throw fits if it doesn’t happen on our timetables.

We want our cookies now, and sometimes there are other things we need to do first, or go through first.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone. There was a time a few years before I met my wife when I was convinced I’d met the person I was “supposed” to be with. I remember praying that God would help that situation work out in my favor. I was convinced that if it happened with us, every other messed up thing about my life and myself would suddenly make sense.

It did work out, for a time, and I was happy enough. But not really. I knew she was pulling me away from God, but I didn’t care. I told myself I had things under control.

I don’t think it surprised anyone when things imploded in a spectacular fashion that messed me up for years, until a beautiful young woman from Yuma sent me a message on MySpace.

After things ended, I was furious with God. I resolved not to ever share that part of myself with anyone again, even though I desperately wanted to. With that resolution, I was also withholding part of me from God. It wasn’t just the matter of denying my company to the ladies, but also rejecting the part of me God created to know him best.

I was throwing a fit, because I wanted to be with this woman and God knew better than I what I actually needed.

Maybe it’s like that with you, or has been. You want something from God or someone else, and you want it now.

Maybe you won’t get it. I don’t know how you respond to that, but for me it made me want to turn away from God rather than toward him. It made me take my toys and leave the sandbox for a while, metaphorically speaking.

It didn’t help at all.

So how do you handle it when God doesn’t give you what you want? Do you throw a fit? Do you sulk? Do you run toward God or away from him?

Your Story Matters

Last night at church Zeb talked about sharing your story and faith with people, and how effective it can be. I believe it. Hearing stories from people about what God had done in their lives showed him to me in a way just hearing a lesson never would have.

I think our stories are so effective because they can show people they aren’t alone in their struggles, and that there is hope.

For what it’s worth, here’s something I came up with a while back that gives you an idea about my story.

Of Conviction, Inspiration, and Change

There’s this scene in the movie Sling Blade where the camera moves through the day room in a mental hospital, passing by various patients on its way to Karl, played by Billy Bob Thornton, who is quietly sitting in a chair looking out a window.

The audience is offered brief glimpses of many of the patients, and their common features all seem to be lots of slack jaws and staring eyes.

I was thinking about my high school Sunday school class the other day and that image occurred to me.

It has been no walk in the park to try and get those kids interested and participating. I’ve been observing the other teachers and taking lots of notes, and hopefully my next lesson will go a little better.

Certainly, part of the problem must lay with the students having difficulty relating to someone so much older than they are. Also that it’s likely they are not in class by choice, but because their parents make them go.

But I think the problem is larger than that. It’s more than my teaching style and that the students may be tired from a long evening of playing Call of Duty or instant messaging their “bestie” on their smart phones.

I think we’ve raised a generation of kids that has forgotten about the passion of Jesus. By that I do not mean his long walk down the Via Dolorosa, but his zeal for his father, and his Father’s house.

It’s my job to find a way to reawaken that in them. It’s not just about Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, though he does.

It’s about reminding these kids that Jesus is relevant to them, and is not simply a set of ideals passed down from their parents like a set of holiday china. This is the same Jesus that wept over a city. The same Jesus that calmly made a whip from leather cords and then cleared the temple.

But how do you instill passion and zeal in a generation that seems to care for very little other than what’s before them at that moment?

That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I feel a sense of urgency about it because now is when these kids are going to learn the things that will stay with them. The urgency comes from the knowledge that if things about the world that so desperately need changing are ever going to be changed, it will be these kids that do it.

I think of movements like Jesus Culture, who get so much right. I think it will take some kind of revival to wake this kids up, and that it starts with us. It starts with parents, teachers, and pastors.

We need to find a way to not only make Jesus relevant and real to them, but also to help them realize that while Jesus is the hope of nations, they are, too.

Until (and unless) Jesus returns, they have the unique opportunity to shape their own futures.

How do we do this?

I believe there are several things we need to do.

1. Awaken in them a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. There seems to be an almost choking apathy amongst young people today–the “whatever” generation.

2. Inspire them to act for the kingdom. Retreats and conference highs are great, but we need to be there when they come off it and the real work begins. Inspiration is not a one time thing. We lead from the front and we kick them in the pants when they need it. We need to do this for them:

3. Pray for them. Lift them up. Let them know they can do anything, with effort, with God, and with accountability.

4. Teach them it will not be easy to change the world. It will be tough. Teach them that changing the world starts with their own world. Search their lives and their hearts and identify the areas lacking and bring God to those places. Invite healing.

5. Walk with them. Let them know they aren’t alone and never were. We might be out of touch with their reality in respect to our own, but if we show them consistency and back our pledges to be there for them and pray for them with the actuality of doing those things, then we can change that part, too.

I am not writing this because I think I have all the answers. Certainly the opposite is true. The conviction I’ve been feeling lately is my own, based on my own experiences and my own prayers. It could even be that the huge pile of words I’ve just expelled is solely for my own edification. But on the off chance there’s even 1 other person out there who shares my struggles and convictions, I’m going to put both this and myself out there.

And I’m going to pray.

Due Diligence

I read an article from a few days ago on a conservative website this morning, and it kind of stirred me up a little. The article was regarding a 2 hr muslim Jumah prayer service to be held at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

That didn’t really seem fair, because that article (and a few others I read) also mentioned a Catholic Cardinal had volunteered to give a “Christian” prayer and been denied.

This may have been true 4 days ago, but upon further research this morning, I found that Donald Miller (he wrote Blue Like Jazz) was giving the benediction, and that same Cardinal whose offer of prayer had originally either been ignored or denied (depending on what you read), was now giving the closing prayer.

While not the same as a 2 hr prayer service, it is also not the complete absence of Christian prayer it initially seemed. It is perhaps also of note that the Muslim event is technically near the event (in a park), while the benediction and closing prayer are in the actual convention.

But since I’m mentioning things worthy of note, it’s also certainly possible the offer from the Cardinal was accepted only after a shitstorm of controversy was generated by what initially seemed like more liberal pandering to Muslim complaints of anti-Islam bias.

Does anti-Islam bias exist? Of course it does. Islamic and liberal activists in the media and private sector will not let you forget it.

What is seldom heard is that anti-Christian bias also exists. It exists every bit as much and is just as bad as bias against the Islamic religion.

Here’s my point. I nearly flew off the handle when I read about 2 hrs of Muslim prayer at the DNC with no Christian counterpoint. The apparent unfairness of it all was maddening.

When I looked deeper, I found out there was a lot more to it than what things originally seemed to be.

There’s much danger in blind acceptance of anything you read, especially in today’s political climate. All I’m saying is before you rush to judgment, make sure you’ve done your due diligence.

And watch out for the plank in your eye.

By the way, I deliberately did not insert links to what I read today.

Looking it up is part of your due diligence

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Prone to Wander

Jon Acuff had a great post yesterday on his blog about why people think Christians are fake. Check it out and then come back.

Ok, good. You’re back.

In his piece, Acuff talks about a worship leader changing the words to “Come Thou Fount” when he performs it. I agree with Acuff’s point in the post. The words this leader changes are in my opinion a beautiful description of a sinner that knows where they’ll be given their natural proclivities, and offers what matters most to the God he loves to hopefully mitigate his chance of wandering.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for thy courts above

Like Mr Acuff, I would love to be able to say that when I became a Christian, I stopped making mistakes. It would be great if I could say that with the advent of Christ in my life came the departure of sin, but that isn’t what happened at all.

Rather, I still mess up. All the time. I get angry, or sometimes lustful. Or maybe I curse, or use the Lord’s name in a way it was never intended. Sometimes I am neither loving nor helpful to the least of these.

And I doubt, and wander.

But I love God, and I acknowledge that only through he can my heart be sealed from it’s natural proclivities.

So when people do things like change lyrics or words because they feel it indicates a more positive message or maybe because they feel they don’t wander anymore, it conveys the message that with God comes an absence of struggle with the things of earth.

That’s not true, and people need to hear that. So that when they still want to do dumb stuff after beginning a relationship with Christ they don’t just think they’re doing something wrong and walk away from the only thing that can deliver them.

I think we need to be real with our worship and our testimony. Heck, sometimes when you’re a leader, the song is your testimony.

Pretty pictures of a life without struggle don’t show Jesus to people. If I wanted that I’d move to Texas and hang out with Joel Osteen.

We need to show people there is hope for deliverance. We do that with honesty about our lives. We share in the struggle. We let people who don’t know Jesus (and also people who do) know they aren’t alone in their tendency to wander. All have sinned and fallen short.

I know I have.

Come thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing thy grace

Oatmeal, Enemies, and Morning Catharsis

The bible clearly has a lot of instruction about how we’re supposed to treat people, and lead our lives in such a way we can represent Christ to those who don’t know him and have not heard the good news.

My problem is that I want those people to be nice. That often isn’t the case. There’s a great many red letters in my Life Application Study Bible detailing what we can expect to face from people when we share Christ with them.

Persecution, hatred, even death.

I don’t want to be persecuted. I want to be welcomed. I want to talk about God with people who already know how awesome He is. I don’t want to defend my faith, and I don’t want to turn any cheeks.

I want to hit people back. I want to go “Chuck Norris” on my enemies.

Scripture tells me I can’t. This morning I read Proverbs 25: 21-22 while I was eating my oatmeal, and I didn’t like it.

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals in his head, and the Lord will reward you.

The first thing I thought about was why the heck should I do that for my enemy? And while I might not have any personal enemies, certainly it could be argued that as Christians there are a great many people who hate us for believing in something besides ourselves and trying to lead our lives so they demonstrate that.

Certainly today’s social and political climate in the United States is a vivid demonstration of how a great many people feel about Christians and what they stand for, or perhaps “stand against” would be more apt.

That’s neither here nor there.

To my mind, what it’s about is a human response to an affront vs a Godly response.

We are not God. We are people, and our human nature is to respond like to like. So if someone cuts me off (or flips me off) in traffic, I want to make sure I “get them back” in some way, even if that involves a raised finger of my own or a few shouted words.

If someone insults me, my family, or my faith, I want to respond in kind. I want to out-protest their protest. I want to make them look like idiots because they tried to make me look like one.

Jesus tells me I can’t do that. His Godly nature demonstrates how lacking in grace my human nature is.

It is solely through his presence–his inhabitation–that I can show any grace at all.

Because I have been shown grace, I can be graceful.

Because I have been shown mercy, I can be merciful.

Because I have been shown love, I can be loving.

The trick is, it’s more important I show these things to enemies than friends. My family and friends already know they are loved.

Enemies being enemies, they expect a certain response to their actions. Unfortunately, we often give them what they’ve come to expect from us. It’s in our nature.

With God’s nature, we suddenly have the ability to respond how they do not expect.

That changes everything. In my opinion, it is difficult to respond to love with hate.

Unfortunately, it’s also hard to respond to hate with love.

Yet as we progress through a season of changing political and religious tolerances, it seems clear that unless we change something, entropy isn’t just going to be a concept we learn about in high school.

We’re going to destroy ourselves.

It’s not too late to seek harmony instead of entropy.

It’s not too late to respond to hate and persecution with love.

It’s not too late too late to look at the person in the mirror and ask them if they truly know God and care about His will for their life.

It’s not too late to manifest that will for our lives in our lives.

So the next time you’re confronted with hate, or prejudice, or persecution, try and respond with love.

They won’t expect it, and you’ll heap burning coals on their head.

Satan Wants My Squeaker

I had this dog for a while who would utterly destroy all his squeak toys. It didn’t matter what they were made of, it typically only took him a few days to get at the toy’s squeaky little heart.

He would do it through small wounds, generally, and just work the toy over. He’d pull out little bits of stuffing from each tear in the material and deposit them on the living room floor as he worked to get at his ultimate goal–the messy death of the squeak toy.

When he finally got there, he’d crush the squeaker between his jaws and then just lay there and enjoy the carnage he’d created.

This morning I was thinking how much my faith is like one of those dog toys.

I’ll get wounded from time to time–small tears in my fabric. A little stuffing will come out, sometimes more than a little. Yet because my heart is still squeaking, I convince myself my wounds are only superficial. It’s only a cut or two.

I tell myself the cuts are no big deal, and since they don’t (really) threaten my life, I don’t need to worry about them.

The world–and life–are the cause of the tears in my fabric.

The world can’t get to me because of my faith, or because my wounds really aren’t that bad.

My wounds are not mortal.

And then the truth came.

1. It isn’t one singular tear in the fabric of my faith that will be my undoing.

2. It’s the collective whole of my wounds and the blame apportioned for their cause that can draw me away from God if I let them.

3. It’s separation from God that will kill me.

4. The tears in the fabric of my faith are caused by doubt, and by whispered lies from the enemy about God, and myself, and my wounds.

Another truth that came to me today is that for every lie we’re told and believe there is a corresponding truth from God.

We can fight the lies with truth, and it is that same truth that heals the tears in our fabrics–in my fabric.

It’s normal to doubt. Doubts mean you take your faith seriously, and provided you don’t allow them to overrun your faith, they can help you in the end. That is, if you seek the truth with a disciple’s heart. Doubt can only overcome you if you let it–if you do not fight.

Make no mistake, there is an enemy to fight. He prowls around like a lion (or perhaps an angry dog), looking for something to devour (1Peter 5:8).

That something is you. And me. It’s tough to hear, and even tougher to talk about. People want to hear platitudes, and that everything is good and beautiful and that they are saved from harm by faith.

That’s true, but not the only truth.

Our enemy–and I do mean Satan–can and will stop at no height or depth in his quest to separate us from God. He tears at the fabric of our faiths, and our lives. He burrows deep in our guts, attempting to get at our hearts.

He can’t unless we let him. We don’t have to.

We can fight.

We can pray the armor of God daily, and we can seek the Lord’s truth in and for our lives.

Otherwise, the world is the least of our worries. We’ll end up like this poor thing, but for eternity.

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On Fire

I’ve been thinking of a song all day today. “On Fire,” by Switchfoot.

It’s a beautiful song, and one of those ballads you could easily take as either about a relationship between a man and woman, or between a believer and God. Jenny and I heard it at the first concert we went to as a couple, back in 2008. Before I go any further, just listen:

This is actually from the very show we attended:

I love the song, and when I hear it I think of falling for Jen, long before we were planning to get married.

“But everything inside you
Knows there’s more than what you’ve heard
There’s so much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words”

I’d spent so much time talking to different women. Some I wanted to be involved with and never got to be. Some I shouldn’t have been involved with, but was. It wasn’t until I started spending time with Jen that I knew what it could really be like to have God in common in a relationship—to have Him mean the same thing to each person..

Things change when that happens.

“There’s so much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words”

I discovered that when Jen and I started talking, and I will be ever grateful she sent me that first email. It changed my life in every way a life can be changed.

Today, though, I was thinking about the song in a different way, and the part that kept repeating in my head was this:

“Give me one more time around
Give me one more chance to see
Give me everything you are
Give me one more chance to be near you

When everything inside me looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I’ll take”

Today, I was thinking about God when the song was playing in my head, and the funny thing is, I didn’t even listen to the actual song today until I typed this sentence.

I’ve been feeble and inconsistent in my devotional life, and it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that I was having difficulty.

I’ve been feeble and inconsistent in my prayer life as well, and that is perhaps worst of all.

Perhaps as a result of both of these things, I’ve been down on myself tremendously of late. Mainly, this has been because I feel like I’ve been epic failing in my ministry commitments at church, and questioning whether or not my current involvement in Youth Ministry is even where I’m supposed to be involved.

I’ve been really giving myself a ration of crap.

So today I found myself singing quietly to God:

Give me one more time around
Give me one more chance to see
Give me everything you are
Give me one more chance to be near you

When everything inside me looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I’ll take

And I also began to think about how easy it is to start looking at ourselves as piles of garbage—piles of crap.

Our enemy wants us to have these sorts of images of ourselves, and the opposite is true.

We were not created worthlessly, no matter the circumstances of our births.

We were not created to offer weak prayers and insincere pledges of fealty to God based on what we think our needs are.

We were made not as piles of excrement or garbage, no matter what our erroneous self-images may tell us.

We were made in His image, and meant to offer Him our most sincere prayers—and our hearts—and to cry “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

This is my prayer—that I find that ability within myself, and also the ability to tune out the things and negative thoughts that help no one, least of all myself.

So that When everything inside me looks like everything I hate, I will be able to remember what I am actually worth to my God.

I Have Decided

People talk a lot about what it means to be saved. They discuss the semantics of it, and different ways they believe it can and cannot be achieved.

Many doubt there is even such a thing as salvation at all. In order for salvation to exist, there must be a thing or perhaps circumstance we are delivered from. In order for mankind to be delivered from sin, sin has to exist.

If sin exists, what is it, and what is the punishment for committing it?

Perhaps a very simple way to put it would be that it is something that pulls us away from God and toward the world, or ourselves, and our own gratification and glorification becomes paramount. The punishment is death.

The semantics of sin have generated endless hours of arguments, likely millions of written pages, and one dead and resurrected savior.

So what does a person have to do in order to be spared eternity outside the presence of God?

Some believe all one needs is to a be a good person. Treat people well and be nice to dogs and homeless veterans.

Others think faith in God receives the gift of salvation rather than causes it.

Then you have decision theology, which tells us one must make a conscious decision to “accept” Christ and follow his teachings to be saved from sin and its penalty.

I think that some people make it a lot more complicated than it actually is. They’ll talk about theology like monergism and that doesn’t sound like Jesus at all to me.

I think you truly do have to simply decide to follow Jesus, and then do it. It is a lifelong commitment, and it is not always easy.

I think of the old hymn, composed in India “I Have Decided To Follow Jesus. Who knows how this hymn was actually composed? I’d like to believe it’s the first version given in the above linked web page, but the truth is that even if it is not, that does not make the words any less true.

Here is a beautiful version of the song, and the story behind it.

As for me, I have decided to follow Jesus.