Another New Beginning

About three and a half years ago, I started this blog as part of my journey into what I called "the real world." Little did I know how long it would take me to get there.

As I look back on the early posts here, I can't help feeling like it was a different person who wrote them.  I guess really it was.  I can hardly believe all that God has led me through in this past season, and the changes in my life have been both internal and external.  My soul and my situation are both so different now.

Not to say there weren't some really good things going on at the time I started all this, but as I look back I see a kid with some big talk and not much substance to back it up with.  In this season, God is calling me into manhood.  Into hard work.  Into courage.  (Things about which college graduate me had so very much to learn!)

God has also been providing me with new opportunities to share my thoughts.  It's become apparent to me that if I don't have any place to express what God is teaching me, I don't know what to do with myself.  That's part of why I started this, really.  I had all these ideas and no forum in which to teach them, and I was pretty much boiling over.  Now I lead a small group and a worship team, and God has finally given me chances to teach in church again after a long break.  I couldn't ask for more opportunity!

Another thing about the time when I started writing on here was just that: the time.  I had all kinds of it.  Much more than I knew what to do with, in fact, and I wasn't really using it well to be honest.  Sadly, those blog posts are one of the only truly productive things I was doing in a large part of that season.  Now I have a full-time job in addition to all the teaching opportunities I was just talking about.  I certainly don't need to try to find ways to pass the time!

Of course, much more could be written about how I'm in a different place now than I was then.  However, another thing God has been teaching me to leave behind is my compulsive desire to say everything I think needs to be said all at once.  With that in mind, here are just two of many things I think are important moving forward from here.

First, God owns everything.  There's already an appalling number of I's in this post and this blog, and there will be a few more before I get done here.  But he owns everything, and the more I realize that, the more I enjoy life.  He just isn't that concerned about my agenda.  I hold on to my freedom and time in self-employment, and he tells me to get a job.  I pray about a girl, and he tells me... to get a job.  Seriously, he knows what to do, and my time and effort belong to him, not me.  If I'll let him use those things as he sees fit, I believe with everything I am that I'll experience the blessing I've tried (and failed) so long to produce on my own.  Not that it's some magic formula-- it's just that where the Spirit of the Lord is there's freedom.  That's the ultimate blessing.

That brings me to my other point.  I've noticed that my life goes better when it's lived with a healthy dose of just not caring so much.  Now, I don't mean to say that life and doing the right thing aren't important.  What I mean is that a great deal of what I've cared about has been misplaced.  I've cared so much about my own safety and what other people think of me, and that has never produced anything but death.  I just don't have the energy to keep caring about that stuff, and I become the person I really am more and more as I let it go.  I end up accidentally walking into the freedom I thought I could find myself but couldn't!  I have life less figured out than I ever thought, and I can only hope that blessing continues.  Figuring everything else out is someone else's job anyway, and guess what? He's already finished it.

These days, I care more than ever what God thinks about me and less about what everyone else does.  The nice thing about that is that what he thinks doesn't change like people's opinions do.  I don't have to manage it.  Nor can I: no matter what I do, God is only looking at me with love and planning me a future filled with hope.  100% love, all the time-- Even when that means he has to discipline me to get something stupid to stop.  It never changes his opinion on me: beloved son, covered by the blood of the beloved Son.

So, that real world thing I was talking about?  I didn't mean getting a grown-up job (although I did do that).  I mean seeing that this is my Father's world, and no matter what happens I have him.  His question to me in this season is the same as to the disciples in the sinking boat in the storm: why are you so afraid?  And as I realize that he will always be there, I start to fear less.  With him there, it will always be ok... and even if it isn't, I still get to go be with him in heaven at the end.

Still, eternal life starts now.  That life is the light of the world, the streetlights' call.  What is eternal life?  That I may know the only true God and Jesus who he sent. I can do that now.  I can let his light shine through me more and more-- another new beginning, every day, every moment, every prayer.

Want to try it?  Want to see what happens?  Well, you won't read about it here.

Come live it with me.

Poetry and Life

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month?  Somehow I didn't until this year, but I spend so much time in libraries now that it's hard not to pick up on these things.  I suppose it makes sense-- the first important poem in (semi-) readable English begins with a reference to April, which was also later called the "cruellest month" by T.S. Eliot in the first line of possibly the most famous (and most overrated) poem of our time.  Anyway, in honor of all that, I'm going to NOT post another one of my poems (and split my infinitives with pride-- poets can do that!).  What I am going to post is a list of good poems by much better poets than myself for you to check out if you're interested.  All of these poems should be easy to find online if you don't want to spend your time hanging out in a library like I do.  As a side note though, I do find that reading a poem out of an actual book seems to be more enjoyable than reading off a screen-- don't know why that is exactly, but try it and you'll see!

Starting at the beginning, I want to talk about a longer poem that I referenced in my last post but I feel is too big to include in a list.  Possibly the best free verse poetry I've ever read is found in The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.  Yes, The Waste Land is more famous, but the The Four Quartets is better-- and much more encouraging.  Trust me.  I can't recommend it highly enough; it takes a little bit of effort but it's well worth it.  So start there if you can, but if all you have time for is shorter stuff, here is a brief list of some inspiring shorter poems that should make a great jumping-off point into the wide world of poetry (and if you want a much longer list just let me know and I can easily furnish that as well)!

John Donne-- Holy Sonnet 14 (Batter my heart...)
George Herbert-- Redemption
Andrew Marvell-- The Coronet
William Wordsworth-- Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
Percy Shelley-- Ozymandias
John Keats-- Ode to a Nightingale
Emily Dickinson-- "Hope is the thing with feathers"
Gerard Manley Hopkins-- "As Kingfishers catch fire"
Robert Frost-- The Road Not Taken
                    -- Two Tramps in Mud Time
Richard Wilbur-- Hamlen Brook
Mark Strand-- Keeping Things Whole


So there you go.  A closing thought: our modern way of life tends to cause us to miss the beautiful in the midst of the mundane.  I think one of the (many) reasons poetry has such value is that it is intrinsically an appreciation of the beauty God has embedded all over the place in this world.  Reading (and writing) poetry helps me remember to look for the beauty of the world... and then I just start seeing it.  To appreciate the beauty that God has made is a way to worship him, and that's why we're here, no?  Also, we are God's poetry (see Ephesians 2:10-- "workmanship" in that verse is the Greek poiema which is the word we get poem from), so we were made to experience the creative and specific design of beauty because it's who we are!   So enjoy the rest of National Poetry Month... and don't stop there.

Trying

I'd like to begin today with an extremely random quote: "Do or do not; there is no try"  --Yoda.  Our favorite green jedi munchkin utters this line while trying to get Luke Skywalker to use the force strongly enough to lift his X-wing out of the swamp that inexplicably exists on (in?) the asteroid where Yoda lives.  At least I think that's how it goes; I haven't seen the old Star Wars movies in quite a while.

Anyway, that particular line has always been one I've loved to quote, partially because Yoda is one of the only voice impressions I can do with any level of proficiency whatsoever and partly because it just seems applicable in many situations.  You have to watch out for Yoda, though.  As the main philosopher of the Star Wars series (along with Obi-wan, I guess), he's always saying things that are obviously meant to be profound costumed in a mystifying array of vague spirituality, ambiguity, and reversed syntax.  When you look closer, though, his statements usually fall somewhere on the spectrum between pure nonsense and outright falsehood.

This one is a prime example.  Now, I think it's true that people tend to use the phrase, "I'll try" to indicate that no one should expect them to succeed, either because they aren't up to the task or because they don't actually plan to expend that much effort on it.  So in that sense, Yoda's instruction could be legitimate.  A jedi saying they'd try would be a cop-out of that order, since the force should enable them to do basically whatever they want (an interesting issue never really addressed in the films, by the way-- why can't they fly? why can't they all shoot lightning out of their hands? If Vader can choke people with his mind, why does he even bother with a lightsaber? But I digress.)  Here in the real world, though, there is no force.  Here, we have God.

The most powerful force in the universe is not a formless power that can be used to good or evil ends.  Far from it, He's a person (three of them, actually) with a very specific will for how things are going to go in his world.  His sovereign will puts us in the position where we clearly do not have control over our own success or failure.

I'm not trying to get into the whole free will vs. sovereignty argument here.  I think it's self evident, though, that our best-laid plans tend to "gang aft a-gley" as Robert Burns said (rough translation: they go straight to crap a lot of the time).  A much more intelligible quote from another poet sums it up quite nicely, I think: "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."  --T.S. Eliot.  Now, Mr. Eliot wrote some really depressing poetry (and some very snobbish literary criticism) early in his career, but then an amazing thing happened: he met Jesus.  The quote above is from after that happened, in the midst of his crowning accomplishment, a very long poetic meditation on the value of life (and other things) called The Four Quartets, which I highly recommend.

I think T.S. Eliot was wiser than Yoda.  I also think that the preceding is a sentence that has never before been written in the history of literature.  I'm ok with that.  All I know is that the Bible is filled with verses backing up the idea that we have very little control of the "do or do not" part of life.  For us, there is only try!

"Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?"  Lamentations 3:37-38

"Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain."  Psalm 127:1

"Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished, you have done for us" Isaiah 26:12

Far from being depressing, this is freedom.  If our success or failure as men or women-- as Christians, as people-- depends on our own efforts, we are screwed.  But God takes the pressure off!  He is already doing things; the things that we have accomplished are all things that he did.  Instead of worrying about whether we succeed or fail, we get the privilege of discovering and participating in the plans of God.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them"  Ephesians 2:10 (ESV).

I quoted from the ESV here because the NIV makes the verse sound unnecessarily Yoda-ish by inexplicably translating the Greek word for walk as "do" in this verse (and in no other place for whatever reason) and adding another "do" before good works, where there isn't even a verb in the original!  Their carelessness caused me to misunderstand this verse for years, thinking that I had to somehow make God's plans happen.

What if instead, God is already at work in His world?  What if his plans are already in motion, and we can just walk right into them as we pursue relationship with Him?  What if all we have to do is try, and He handles the success and gives us failure when we need it?  What if we can trust that He is strong and He loves us, and the rest is not our business?

Can we really be led by the hand of God, hear his voice, and work alongside Him in his perfect plan?

It's something I'd like to try.

Confession and Repentance

So, I know in the past I've said in my introductory paragraph that a blog entry would be short... and it's turned into a total lie.  However, this one really is a quick one (by my standards at least).  I think its importance actually comes in part from the fact that it's so simple.

Basically, God showed me this past week that I haven't really been understanding the process of confession and repentance.

I tend to fall into what Timothy Keller (in his book The Prodigal God, which is an excellent book that also derives some of its effectiveness from being short) would call the "elder brother" category.  Now, I'm an only child, but this refers to the story (Luke 15:11-32) of the lost son(s), in which the older brother is angry when the "prodigal" son is allowed to return.  He had been slaving away sedulously (vocab word for the week) all those years, and the rebellious younger son was welcomed back despite being profligate and wicked.

I don't think I begrudge people their welcome back to God, but the point of the "elder brother" idea is that dedicated people often use (or attempt to use) their morality as leverage on God.  I've been slaving away, so you have to do ____ for me, etc.  Now, when these slavers (like me) actually do mess up, they try to earn their forgiveness the same way.

Ever spend a lot of time beating yourself up for your failures?  I know I have.  I thought that was just part of the deal, like a specific amount of self-flagellation would be necessary as proof of being properly sorry so God could forgive you.  The "bigger" the sin, the more beating up of self needed, right? Interestingly, this is also the younger son in the story's plan, but the father cuts him off in midstream when he tries to execute it.

That's what happened to me too.  I (gasp!) sinned this month, and I was starting to grovel about it when God challenged me to put my silly English major brain to work and remember what some words actually mean: confession, and repentance.

Confession essentially just means stating what you believe to be true.  We confess Christ, for example, when we say we believe he is the Savior.  It's just telling it like it is. 

Repentance, in the literal sense, means turning away from something.  It's not the same thing as being sorry at all... it's more like facing in a different direction.

Confessing sin, then, is just telling God what happened. 

Repenting of sin is the part where you stop thinking about it.

Is that shocking? It is to me!  Something in me doesn't even want to accept that it could be that easy, but the fact remains that Jesus already dealt with our sin on the cross, and God continues to be the good father who cuts us off in the middle of our beating ourselves up.

It's so practical and efficient that it has to be God's design.  We get to just tell God, "I sinned, and this is how."  He is already fully aware of how bad it was, so no editorializing or grovelling on our part is necessary.  Then we're allowed to just leave it behind, trusting that confessing is all we need to do to be forgiven (1 John 1:9). 

By the way, not thinking about sin is just like not thinking about a pink elephant (which you just did, of course).  In order to do it, you have to think about something else, not focus on what you're trying not to think of.  If we try merely to turn away from sin, we have to keep checking to make sure it's still behind us. If you just try not to think about sin, not only are you still thinking about it but you also are much more likely to do it again! We become what we look at, I think.  That's why I recommend instead thinking about Jesus dying on the cross, or the fact that no matter what happens, I'm God's son.  Don't turn away from sin, turn toward Him.  Looking that way moves me to awe and worship instead of gloom and self-focus.  I think that's the only way to do it.

"One thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

What a privilege!

Saying no...

I suppose I probably should have seen this coming.

What, you may ask? Well, of course ever since I posted about saying yes to God, I've been much more conscious of all the ways I say no to him.  I'm actually realizing, much to my chagrin, that between outright saying no and just not listening at all, I don't really say yes to God nearly as much as my previous post might have made it seem like.  I mean, I even boiled the whole process of life down to a few simple steps in that post... and then I found out I'm bad at doing them.

I guess this is just my personal disclaimer then.  I didn't ever mean to suggest that I have life under control, but it turns out that's kind of what I was actually thinking after all.  If that sounds prideful... it is.  Nice thing is, if you just get something like that out in the open, then God can do something with it.  What he likes to do is humbling and often painful, but that's really what progress looks like, I think.

So, I was thinking that I should amend my five-step plan to include a part where we confess and ask for repentance for all the ways we say no.  Then I was thinking, not many of us are actually bold enough to say no outright to God (although I have done that, and I don't recommend it).  Mostly we just don't ask/listen/pay attention to him.  For those of us who know that he actually speaks, this is a little bit like a kid plugging his ears and yelling lalalalala to not hear what his parents are saying.  He can try the excuse that he didn't hear, but that doesn't usually get far (note that this is a purely hypothetical kid of course, not based on personal experience at all).

The only difference between us and that kid is we've developed more sophisticated ways of plugging our ears and yelling, so to speak.  Last time I mentioned YouTube and its noise-making, distracting brethren on the web and tv.  Sometimes it can even be healthy things, like working hard, or even personal relationships.  Mostly, however we do it, we say no to God by trying to avoid the silence (physical and spiritual) in which we know he speaks.

What I'm finding is that no matter how well I think I'm doing with this stuff, I'm still much more of a mixed bag of good and bad than I wish I was.  I suspect the same is true for you, if you're honest.  Even in this, though, we have hope:

Our hope is that God pursues us.

Even when we are running away (or toward any other thing, which is the same), he comes after us.  He doesn't mind the whole mixed bag thing so much; it's really his only option for people to work with.  Check out the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, for example!  Elijah just had pretty much the most amazing mountaintop experience (literally) possible in the chapter before, and in chapter 19 he freaks out and runs away.  He also asks God to kill him rather than making him keep working!  Keep in mind this is the same guy that was eventually found worthy to skip the whole death thing and get carried into heaven on a chariot made of fire as well.  Was he perfect? No. But God pursued him... and he spoke to him in the silence (1 Kings 19:12).  I know the NIV says gentle whisper, but the literal translation is "thin silence."  That phrase inspired a poem for me that reflects my desire to listen and respond to the Lord, and I'll finish with that:

Elijah's Prayer


let me be found
in the thin silence

listening

let my voice
surrender and stay

quietly

for you

let my heart
be wholly at home

to whisper

resting on you
let me be lost

Amen

A Winter Poem in Spring

I'm looking out a window right now at that beautiful kind of wet snow that sticks to only the tops of tree branches and makes the whole world look like if you bit it, you'd taste ice cream.  Earlier, I took a walk in the beginnings of it, but it was still a pleasant surprise when I looked out later to see that it had covered everything.  I know it's almost April, and even my winter-loving self has to admit that it is now, by all official standards, spring.  I just think it's kind of funny that just because of that arbitrary division of months, some people act like this snow is an affront to the dignity of the world.

That got me thinking, too, about how we don't really get to decide when a lot of different things happen in life.  We can strive and try and even ask God for things, but they happen exactly when he wants them to happen, regardless of our plans or categories.  Just like it snows in April (and sometimes May too) in Cleveland. 

Then, I started thinking about the challenge of staying in the present.  I wrote last time about how the desire to have everything right now gets in our way.  However, that doesn't change the fact that right now is really the only moment we have to work with.  I think our problem comes when we spend now focusing on later or already.  When we do that, we effectively take ourselves out of the present.  What's more, we make it very difficult for people to connect to us because we are somewhere (or somewhen) else.

God is never like that, though.  As we try to become more like him, it's important to remember that he is definitionally the God who IS.  It's his name.  I AM.  Although he is not bound by time and experiences all the moments of it equally, he has dedicated his presence to being with us.  God with us, Immanuel, is really just a synonym for I AM in my mind.  If you look at how Jesus lived when he was here, he embodied this divine characteristic fully.  He was able to devote his full attention to wherever and whenever he was, and whoever he was with.  He knew so well how to be present.

Now, I don't think it's wrong for all you colder-blooded people to wish for warmer weather.  I just made the connection mentally that staying emotionally and spiritually present in our lives can be like trying to appreciate a snowstorm in spring.  If we can look past the potential inconvenience and the fact that the whole thing isn't what we were expecting (or hoping for in many cases), there is great beauty to be seen and enjoyed.  Although the seasons of our lives may not last as long or may last longer than we expect or want, God never fails to give us beauty out of our ashes (see Isaiah 61:3).  Instead of getting stuck on the beauty of the future (or past), why not stay in the present and enjoy what's there?

That's what I'm trying to do.  In fact, I've been trying to do it for awhile now, and this whole winter stream of consciousness reminded me of a poem I wrote a long time ago.  For some reason or other, snow has always been something that gets me thinking about these deeper things, I guess.  I'll end with this:

Comparison


faintly perceptible
falling in silence

uncounted stacking
of discrete moments

gentle brilliance
smiling, smoldering cold

overpowering flash
that marks restive roads

empty blanket plush
insulating clarity in the dark

silken momentum
across great distance

quiet everything covering
shining outer shells

restoring final stream
that gives growth future

indirect ocean
wave of frozen clean

and how could we be anywhere
but home?

What and When

I am in a season right now where I am more aware than ever of my need for God's guidance.  I have a lot of decisions to make and things to think about, more than it seems I ever have.  Maybe becoming a man just brings that stuff with it, and maybe I should have been feeling like this a year or two ago while I was determinedly avoiding decisions and (to be honest) real life.  Whatever the case, anything that reminds you of your dependence on God can't be too bad of a thing; it's just that the uncertainty can be unpleasant.

I don't feel afraid about it all, though... not really.  This past year has been a year of immense change and I know God has guided me through it all.  As I approach another birthday, I feel like the coming year is going to be much the same in that respect.  The hard thing about change, though, is that while you can sometimes see it coming, it's pretty much impossible to tell what it's going to be.

Really, I think that's where we get in trouble a lot in life: trying to decide what changes will come to our lives before they happen.  Even worse, sometimes we try to tell God what changes he should be making and when they should be happening.  I know I had a whole plan for my life when I was 18-- according to that plan, by this present time in my life I was supposed to be a full-time pastor happily married to the woman of my dreams and thinking about when and how many kids to have.  Thankfully, God knew I wasn't even close to ready for any of that.

Funny thing is, a lot of that horribly mistaken adolescent vision was based on things that I really do feel like God wants me to do.  My heart is to minister to people, to be married someday, and to be a good father.  I feel like these desires come from God and even honor him.  What God has been showing me recently, though, is that just because he has spoken something, doesn't mean it has to happen right NOW.

I've seen a lot of people bring themselves pain like this-- God gives them a vision for something, and then they get ahead of the plan and wear themselves out trying to make it happen, only to end up questioning God when the plan fails.  My question is, whose plan was it?  We (I include myself here) have an alarming tendency to grab the plans out of God's hands and make them our own.  God should fulfill this vision this way, and (usually) right NOW.

The Bible paints a very different picture of how God fulfills his plans, even once he has revealed them to us.  The lives of Joseph, Paul, Abraham, David, and many others reveal that God doesn't always do things right NOW.  After God revealed some of his plans to those honored individuals, they ended up being imprisoned for years, preaching on the backside of nowhere, wandering about in foreign lands, or being chased by the very king they had been anointed to replace, for example.  And Jesus, who clearly knew that God was his father at age 12 (see Luke 2:49), had eighteen more years to wait before he began his ministry!

But who would have followed a 12 year-old rabbi?

It just wouldn't work.  My point, I guess, is that any attempt at carrying out God's plans before their time is just as ludicrous.

As for those people I mentioned, all they kept on doing was the next right thing.  Joseph never lost faith in prison and served with distinction no matter where he found himself.  Paul just kept on preaching the truth. Abraham was even willing to sacrifice the son of the promise if it meant following God's commands.  Maybe part of David being a man after God's heart was the way he knew that God had anointed him king in Saul's place but continued to serve him and refused to kill him even when he had the chance (twice!).  He was waiting for God to do what he said he would, and he refused to take it into his own hands.

As for Jesus, he just continued to grow.  That's pretty incredible, considering he was God in the flesh.

Now, none of that is to say that we should just passively wait for things to happen.  All those men walked in great purpose and initiative when the time was right.  It's just to say that finding out what God wants to do is worthless if we won't wait on his timing to make it happen.  We also have to keep growing in the meantime.

So that's where I find myself.  I know God wants to do some things.  I'm just trying to find out what they are and, just as importantly, when they are.  The constant battle of life is to let God's plan be the one I follow.  This plan is not just destination, but timing and method as well.  God's revelation, no matter what it is, awaits its appointed time to be fulfilled (see Habakkuk 2:3), because God fulfills it--not us.  Jesus knew that it was his Father who was the one doing the moving.  I want to know what the Father is doing, and then (and only then) join in doing that thing myself.  That's how God's will is done. 

And if we'd all do that... that's how his kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Goals, past and present

Well, I've been writing like a madman all week (and last... and next), so I want to keep this short.  I just thought I would give an update to the small world of my blog on how I did with my New Year's "resolutions" last year.  As you may (or more likely, may not) recall, last year around this time I wrote a post denouncing the idea of New Year's resolutions and then made two of them in that same post.  It seems only fair, seeing that I shared them with the world, that I let everyone know how they went.

First, I resolved to drink more water. I think it's safe to say that I definitely did that, but it happened fairly intermittently and not as consistently as I would like.  It did result in me buying a nice water bottle that makes me much more likely to drink water, so that's definitely a positive.  I think what really happened is that, toward the end of last year, I got really overwhelmed and all these high-minded resolution type things I was thinking about just went right out the door.  I'm doing pretty well with this one this year so far, though.

The second resolution was to be on time for things.  Keep in mind that when I wrote that one, I was completely unemployed.  It's amazing what wonders having somewhere you have to be on time to or get fired will do for your punctuality.  It's nothing like college, that's for sure :)  Anyway, I feel like I've come a long way in this area.  There was a momentary setback when I moved and didn't know how long it was going to take me to get anywhere for awhile, but now I think I'm back on track.  I really like how life feels a lot better when I'm not constantly running late!

Speaking of that... well, first of all, I had a good talk with some friends recently about goals for the New Year.  I said how I don't like resolutions, but a friend of mine challenged me that living life without goals is really dangerous.  I knew I had to agree with him, and it led to a discussion about goals vs. resolutions.  In a resolution, people tend to just resolve to be different, which is what I bristled against last year.  Goals are more like a plan for long-term growth.  What I ended up doing last year, really, was setting some goals: by the end of the year, I want to be doing better in this area.

So, this year I'm setting a goal again.  I want to stop procrastinating.  This is huge for me, because I've been this way for a long time, but I really want to do things before the last minute at least some of the time.  The reason I've been writing like a maniac this week is because I let this enormous period of time I had to work on the huge project I'm under contract for elapse without doing hardly any of it.  The deadline is in a week and three days and I still have a long, long way to go.  Needless to say, this is dramatically reducing my quality of life.  Completely aside from the fact that all I have time to do is write, the whole thing is also very stressful, what with the possibility of failure, humiliation, and worst of all: not getting paid.

Mind you, I think I'm going to make it.  I have a plan for making it.  I will do everything in my power to make it.  The point is just that it didn't have to be like this.  Even a little bit less procrastination would have made this month a much more enjoyable one.  That's how I want to live in the future.

And one step further: I don't think I can be the things God is calling me to be if I won't learn to work ahead of time and get the procrastination under control.  I live on my own now.  If I won't get the things done that need to happen in my life, no one will (unless my roommate bails me out somehow, but that's different).  It's time to man up and live like I care about where I'm going.  Maybe this deadline crunch is exactly what I needed.  It could end up getting me on the right start for not just the new year but for the rest of, you know... life.

Moving

As I mentioned last time, this is a season of many new things for me as I move out of my parents' house for the first (and hopefully only) time.  Well, it really did (after some unforeseen delays) happen, and the dust is just now beginning to settle a bit.  There are countless things that could be said about this whole process and all it entails, so I really can't let it go by without blogging about it at least once.  Besides, it's really the main thing that's been happening in my life and my heart recently, so I can't imagine writing about anything else right now anyway.  What follows is a sampling of my thoughts from the past few weeks.  If it seems a bit random or chaotic, then it mirrors exactly the process of moving in general, at least to me.

This may seem self-evident, but one of the biggest things about moving is all the movement it causes.  It sometimes seems like everything is constantly in motion.  I think this is one of the best reasons to do it every so often, especially for people like me.  Sometimes I can just get very stationary in life, not doing much or making much progress in any direction.  Moving does not allow for that option.  I feel like I've learned so many things and in so doing gotten out of my own little world and into the real world at large to a much greater extent.  It's a wonderful, beautiful place to explore-- it makes me feel small, and that's a good thing.  It breaks the illusion that I am a big deal in a small world that I orchestrate to orbit myself.  Instead, I'm just a little man in a huge world that revolves around God's never-failing plan.  And that, my friends, is a comforting thought.

Another big thing that moves when you move is emotion.  It's a good thing that God started helping me learn to deal with my emotions before I started this process, because I had no idea that I could feel so many wildly different things in such a short space of time.  I have felt overwhelmed, exhilarated, afraid, happy, sad, peaceful, lonely, joyful, confident and any number of other things that I don't know how to name, sometimes all at once or in rapid-fire succession, sometimes at longer stretches.  I say stretches because that what it's doing to me in a big way-- it forces me to go to God, feel what I'm feeling, and bring it to him for help.  The only other option would be implosion, I think.  Another good reason for moving: anything that brings our constant desperate need for God into such sharp focus has to be a good thing.  He always comes through when he has to, and being closer to him is the end goal of life anyway...

Moving has really highlighted the value of relationships for me as well.  The people I care about mean more to me than ever now that I have my own house to welcome them into.  That being said, if I just stay in my house and retreat into myself, those relationships will suffer-- they need investment and time.  I mean, it helps if you have a wonderful, like-minded brother to move in with you, but even (or especially?) that kind of relationship is not self-sustaining.  It needs care and time to achieve the constant growth necessary for health... but it's worth it.  I would argue that relationship (i.e. friendship, love, community and real connection) is one of the biggest things worth striving for in all the world.  If you count relationship with God, then it definitely IS the most important.

And of course, moving teaches many more mundane or practical lessons as well.  For example, it is a better idea to wait for your roommate to help you move large furniture up two flights of stairs than to do it yourself because you just want to be finished with the task.  Similarly, it is a good idea to bring a quarter to Aldi when you go there and get a cart, rather than trying to hold your whole trip in one big box that was lying around.  On a related note, Marc's doesn't take Visa cards (or any other kind except Discover, it turns out).  What?!?! Who knew?  And who knew how expensive most of the things I really like to eat are?  And who knew that garbage disposal and recycling require a six-page manual?   Paying bills, repairing locks, cooking food... man, I'm starting to feel like a freaking adult.

And it's all exactly where I'm supposed to be.

A New Street

When I started this blog, I noted that in some ways it was a chronicle of my journey into the "real world," as far as I understood that at the time.  The first entry was over a year ago now, written the day after I turned in my last paper and shut the door on college.  The journey continues to be a long and strange one, and although I'm still not sure I know what the real world is, I believe I'm taking the next step towards it.  Tomorrow begins the one year lease of my first apartment, my first time out from under my parents' roof.

I have lived in this house where I sit right now for 19 1/2 years, which is a pretty high percentage of a life of only 23 1/2.  There are memories in every corner of it; in some ways it will always be home.  It's time, though, and it's been time for a while now, for me to move on.  I think it will be a spiritual change just as much if not more than a physical one.

It's funny, because for a long time I've thought of autumn as a time of new beginnings.  I know everything is dying and falling and such, but it seems to me that new things are always beginning in this time.  Maybe it's just that every school year offers the elusive possibility of a fresh start, but even now that I don't have that on my plate, things still feel new around the fall.

I have no idea what God wants to do in me in this season, but I want all of it.  He's giving me a new road to walk down, and I don't want to miss any of it by taking unnecessary detours.  I love my parents, and I'm blessed to know that I'll always have a place to return to if I need it.  But for now, God is sending me to be a light on a new street.  I look forward to writing again from there!  For now, I'll end with a poem I wrote a long, long time ago that somehow feels very fresh and new to me right now.  Things always cycle like that, I'm finding.  Out of death comes new life; out of old things, new things are born.  And fall doesn't really begin until you drink apple cider around a fire :)

Deeper



Floating in the same wind that brings
impending autumn, surrender
and freedom awaken together.
With hayrides and first
days of school
comes the dream that this fall
could be different,
the restless replaced
by anticipation,
a promise beating back
the patterns circling
viciously around—
a fall deeper, into one
transcending the changing seasons,
more faithful than the turning
leaves, who bears me in
their opposite direction,
resting in pursuit
and drinking apple cider
by the fire.

Devotion

There's an old saying that goes, "Don't put all your eggs in the same basket."  This is commonly regarded as wisdom, since obviously if you drop the one basket carrying all your eggs, you then have zero eggs, which would be the worst possible outcome.

I'm not sure it works that way in God's kingdom, though.  Check this out:

"Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.  Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.  Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress."

--Paul, in 1 Timothy 4:13-15

Paul is asking Timothy to put all his eggs in one basket.  Devote yourself, be diligent, give yourself wholly.  These are all or nothing phrases.

I think we shy away from approaching life like this for a couple of reasons.  For one thing, devoting yourself to anything (which implies complete focus and being set apart for a task--similar to holiness, actually) is hard work by definition.  It is all consuming, and a lot of us have trouble committing to things like that.  So, laziness gets in our way.

Even deeper than that, though, I feel like we avoid this devoted lifestyle because of fear.  We are somehow afraid that it won't turn out to be that great and we'll be left with nothing else after the eggs drop.  We really don't think God's plan is the best, so we follow halfway just in case it is the best, while also making our own plans and holding onto those.  It doesn't seem to work, but that doesn't usually stop us.  Maybe that's why Jesus said we have to lose our lives to save them.

Then another thing we fear is the reaction of others.  Paul comes right out and tells Timothy that everyone will see his progress: little or much, good or bad, it will be right out there.  Streetlights are right out in the open, not hidden.  If we devote our lives to following the Lord, people will be able to tell, and our successes and failures will be much more visible if we're willing to be real.  I think that's why we paradoxically try to save face by not trying as hard as we can.  That way if what we're doing fails, we always have the out that "we weren't really trying our very hardest."  Who knows what would have happened if we were?

So that's where I find myself today.  I know that I want to devote myself to following God, reading the word, and using my spiritual gifts.  I want to be diligent.  I want to devote myself wholly to this.  I am also afraid.  But, I know the times when I am most devoted to God are the times I am most free.  The same decision presents itself every day, every hour, every moment.  All I know is, regardless of my past choices, my current fears, or old sayings, right now I choose devotion.

One Step

I'll start off today with a poem I wrote a while ago as I was preparing to graduate from college:

One Step Forward Taken


Somewhere outside empty,
around the corner
from unrest and
down the next
street from destiny
is my intended
destination. I sit
in my life
like a kid
in the car
in the family
driveway and say
Are we there
yet? knowing only
leaving and arriving.
Wherever there is,
I can’t get
to where real
and fake diverge
all at once,
so I tend
to take less
than the first
             step.




I wrote this poem in the midst of thinking about moving out of academia into "real life," but I've realized since then that it applies to so many different situations.  It seems like my brain always wants to do things later or somehow start at a more easily defined time, e.g. "I'll start my workout plan on Monday, but today's Thursday so there's no use starting it now"  or  "Next month I'll have to eat healthier, but this one is already pretty shot" or "Next year I'll really start working towards my goal of dunking a basketball"-- you get the idea.  Goals that seem very big just can't be accomplished all at once, and that can often lead to putting off even their smallest beginnings (which then leads, of course, to putting them off again later).  Those are just examples, but it can happen with anything.

Am I the only one that does stuff like that?  No? Good, I didn't think so.  I think it's really an example of how we listen to the voice of fear in our lives.  The whole situation reminds me of something my pastor likes to say, which I will paraphrase from the Ricktionary like this: "Our enemy always wants us to do things a little, and later.  God wants to give us more, and now!"  And isn't that the truth?  It seems like there is often a questioning voice advising us to hedge our bets or put things off until we're more ready or the time is more right.  But when is that, exactly?

What I'm trying to learn to do is take the first steps.  If I realize something needs to change in my life, I don't want to finish out this week doing it wrong and start trying it the right way on Monday!  I need to accept that real change is messier than that and can't be confined to my (sometimes unreasonable) desire for order.  I want to take the first step toward doing the things God has placed in my heart right now, right here in the middle of all the ridiculous mess and chaos.  I don't have time to wait for things to be more right or ready.  A little and later just isn't going to cut it for me; I need more of God and his help, and I need it now!

That might seem a little demanding, and I guess maybe it is.  All I know is that God has given us the green light to come after him with that kind of intensity.  Check out Genesis 32.  Jacob wrestled with God (!!) all through the night and wouldn't stop until he received a blessing.  He wasn't like, "let me just get things straight with my brother who wants to kill me and then I'll start following you and seeking your blessing."  He knew he couldn't go any further without God's blessing and he needed it right then.  He took the one step he needed to take, even though he took it (and every other step from then on) with a limp.

I don't want my fear of limping to get in the way of my taking that first step, whatever it may be.

There's no time to waste.

Growing Up

For those of you keeping score at home, this is the 23rd post on my blog! It's interesting that it worked out like that, because this is also my first post as a 23 year old. Hah, I almost wrote "the first post of my 23rd year," but that obviously wouldn't be true because this is the beginning of my 24th... but yeah.

Anyway, I've been feeling for quite some time like this particular year was going to be a big year of change and growth for me. It all has to do with the process of growing up. I realize, of course, that there's no getting around the fact that being 23 years old makes you an adult by any reasonable standard. It's just that I didn't really feel like one.

See, in way too many areas and situations, I've still been waiting for life to come to me. When you're a kid, that's pretty much how things go. Life happens to you, and you roll with it and have as much fun as you can while still fulfilling the demands being placed on you by authority figures so you don't get in trouble. In America, we've managed to extend this phase even further than just grade school or even high school. College is pretty much the same deal; it's like a four-year (or more) extension of childhood and freedom from the dreaded real world. Then you get spit out at the end of it, and (especially if you graduate with a liberal arts degree) you're no closer to knowing how to handle the real world than you were before.

At least that's what happened to me. Anyway, the end result for me was essentially a vague and nameless uneasiness about my life and future. Kind of like, wow, I'm a college graduate, but who am I and what am I doing? And because that's such an open-ended question that has no easy answers, the path of least resistance becomes doing nothing.

Unfortunately, that pretty much creates a vicious cycle: you have anxiety, you ignore it and don't make progress, which makes you more anxious. It sucks. The question, both for me and for others who find themselves in this situation, is whether the crushing weight of expectation and fear will drive you to God or away from him.

For quite awhile, I resisted what God was trying to do through my anxiety. Eventually though, the desperation it created led me to his feet. The funny thing was, he actually wanted to heal me, not make me do a bunch of stuff I felt powerless to do. He wanted to teach me the fear of God and help me get rid of my fear of men, and he also made much more of his love real to me.

I can only be a man because I am his child.

As that truth has been steadily sinking into me, a lot of things have been happening. I'm becoming more truly myself than I have ever been. I care much less about what people think of me. Plus, God has been providing for me greatly, both spiritually and physically. He's giving me strength and vision again, not to mention a job (or two jobs, actually). I'm learning how to be much more purposeful with my time too. I regret the time I've wasted, but I believe God is redeeming the years the locust has eaten (Joel 2:25). He's leading me into a brand new season. At 23, I finally feel like I'm growing up.

A Heart for Cleveland

One of the biggest things God has been doing in my life recently is teaching me how to feel. If you know me well at all, you know that I'm a thinker. I love to analyze things, and I tend to turn them over in my brain repeatedly until I arrive at what I deem to be a "solution," whatever that means. I've always wanted to have a logical reason for things, and that pretty much leaves emotional considerations in the background.

I've come to realize, though, that my unflappable logic and analysis has often just been another layer of my biggest weakness: pride. My refusal to feel was really just arrogance, an attempt to control the world through understanding. If I remain unaffected, I stay in control.

When it comes down to it, I really have believed that I was in control in my life. Now, it obviously takes some pretty selective memory to believe something like that in the face of all the craziness of life, but I was getting the hang of it. Problem was, the One who really does have the control wasn't too thrilled. He's not really a fan of competition for his position.

Long story short, God started shattering my perceptions of control by using my emotions. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to make yourself feel something (e.g. joy, love, etc.), but if you have, you know that it really doesn't work. If you haven't, give it a shot sometime. I don't think it's possible, at least not for long. Anyway, the conclusion of all my logic and analysis was that if I had all the answers, I should be happy. Needless to say, I wasn't.

To give an example, I'll share a poem I wrote somewhere in the midst of trying to analyze my way through life. During my Junior year of college, my mom had totalled her car (she was fine) and was borrowing mine, so I had to take the bus/train to school for a while. The experience had quite an effect on me, and I wrote this in a subconscious attempt to deal with what I was feeling but didn't want to admit.


Commute

Today I am riding through
the steel bowels of a single
manmade mountain. It isn’t
very impressive, but it is all
the subway we have here. I
haven’t eaten for hours,
but I don’t get off as I reach
the city center, a hard rock
that only turns to living flesh
at certain quite specific
times. Those times, you can
lose yourself in the hurrying
humanity and quietly pretend
you have the answer to the
endless iron question. Other times,
it’s better to pass quickly by
the dirty Modernist monuments
and hope you can catch
the next bus at your connection
further on.
Thursday, 4:34
by the market tower clock
and I am boarding the 4:25.
The conglomerate smell of the
market is all I will enjoy today, not
the shouting vendors as they
make their best deal or set up
the stuffed pig’s head at
just the right eye-level
to scare the children. I don’t
have time for the homemade
glazed doughnuts from the
baker in the far northwest corner
or the fresh produce that
is somewhat less fresh than
the sellers say, but still a bit
more fresh than it smells.
No,
today my goal is just to make
it home, taking the redline 66X
and the 20A through the shades
of culture, death and life
to my refuge from the smoldering
embers in the dying heart
of the fire, where I can set myself
apart and analyze as I prepare
for the inevitable onrush of
tomorrow and my next ride.





I knew even then that this withdrawn analysis was not going to be the answer, but writing this poem provided me with the first realization that that's what I was doing. I had always thought of myself as a city kid, in touch with the problems of the street. Really though, despite the fact that I lived within the city, I had left it, to protect my heart from the hardness and pain. I was taking sociology classes, learning how to analyze the problems of the city without really feeling them, trading emotions for statistics. As I hope you can tell from the poem, I love my city (well, most of it anyway), but I was turning my back on it.

Even more pressing on my thoughts was my own survival in finishing college and managing my life. I spent a lot of time in survival mode in those days. Living like that gets tiring though, and God had other things in store. First, he had to bring me face to face with my own emotions, which turned out to be darker and much less controlled than I had thought. I had to learn, as strange as it might sound, to feel what I was really feeling, even if it meant admitting that I had no idea what to do with it and very little (if any) control over it. It's a journey I'm still walking on, and probably will be for quite awhile.

As I feel my own emotions more and more, though, I'm finding that God has more for me than just that. He also wants me to feel His emotions! I think we can easily forget that God feels things just like we do. Actually, I guess a better way to put that would be that he feels things even more deeply and profoundly than we do. And the biggest thing he feels? Love.

In asking God what he feels, I have become much more conscious of his overpowering love. For me, for others, for his Son, his church, everyone. God feels sorrow mixed with love, anger mixed with love and joy because of love. In fact, one of the most amazing and praiseworthy things about God is the way that he loves us beyond explanation, despite ourselves.

So, back to my poem for a minute. The problems of Cleveland are pretty overwhelming, and you can see a lot of them if you take the rapid from University Circle to the W. 25th street bus. They seem too big to handle from the perspective of just me and my thoughts and feelings. When I look at my city, I can feel frustrated, afraid, or even depressed.

But what does God feel about Cleveland? In most cases, I'm guessing it's something like compassion. I'm sure there are things that make him happy, angry and sad as well, but I think the overriding current is compassion for people who have lost their way. Therein lies the difference between God's thoughts and mine. I see large-scale societal problems that I don't even know how to begin to change, and the result is the overwhelming emotions I've tried to get rid of. God sees the problems and could rectify them instantly, but his heart is for the people. Although he could change things on the grand scale, his method of choice is compassion.

That's why it's so important for us to be in touch with God's heart, not just to know but to feel what he feels. Compassion, it turns out, is not nearly as overwhelming as fixing all the deep-seeded problems that plague my city. Each person I see on my commute through Cleveland is someone God loves, and I can treat them like that. I don't need to analyze so much as I need to feel God's love, and if I have no idea where to start, I can just start where I am. If I can just do that, I can break out of my protective bubble and really start making a difference.

And if we all could do that... who knows what could happen here?

Resolutions

Well, normally I don't do this. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever done it before. This year, though, I'm making a New Year's resolution. Actually, I'm making two of them.

I guess I've always rebelled against the idea that just because the calendar changes makes this a better time than any other to try to change your life for the good. Resolutions seem so cliché. And really, if you're just saying things because it's the time of year to say them, there's no way those kinds of things are going to produce lasting change anyway. That's probably why so many New Years' resolutions fail miserably.

Well, that and the fact that so many of them involve sweeping, wholesale life change of the variety that really can only be accomplished bit by agonizing bit, not by idealistic proclamations. In that sense, the phenomenon of the New Year's resolution is very indicative of our culture as a whole. Showing resolve actually means bearing up under troubles and being firm and unyielding. But, it doesn't seem very empowering or encouraging to say, "I will fight this thing tooth and nail even when it seems like nothing is happening until finally and ever so gradually I start to see results." Instead, we like to decree instantaneous change: "Starting right now, I resolve to be different in this way." Also, very seldom do we ask God for his help at all. No wonder we can't ever keep these things!

Having said all that, though, I am still making two resolutions. I mean them, in light of my statements above, as things I hope to gradually improve on. They aren't especially life-transforming, but I hope that little by little, with God's help these can be things that yield blessing in my life. Here they are:

1. Drink more water.

2. Be on time for things.

That's it! Basically, I just noticed that I feel much better when well hydrated, and there's no reason short of laziness that I can't feel like that a lot more of the time. As far as being on time, I am pretty good about that when it involves something that I have a responsibility for, like a band practice or something. What I'm talking about is personal integrity stuff. I want to arrive when I say I will and be a man of my word in every area. Of course, I still value things that I can come to whenever, so those aren't really included. I really like flexibility! In general, though, I'm working to be more on time and ahead of the curve. So that's all for now... we'll see how it goes this year, and maybe next year I'll even try it again :)

Streetlights Playlist

Recently I've been asking the Lord kind of a strange question: "God, what do I like to do?"

I realize that might sound a little bit crazy, but the fact of the matter is that I've spent a lot of time worrying about what everyone else thinks and what they like me to do and be. So much, in fact, that I had actually lost sight of what I myself actually like to do. I know I talked a bit about this in a previous entry, but I've been trying to figure out what I actually care about as part of discovering my identity.

See, what I'm guessing is that the things I care really deeply about are things that God has placed in me for a reason, things he wants me to do something with. The part I'm still learning about is slicing through the fallen brokenness on top of all those things in order to find what's underneath.

Anyway, one of the things God has shown me that I really like to do and care about is music. That is a pretty broad category, but I still think that's the best way for me to put it. I love listening to almost all music, and I also like making music in any possible way. I have a song in my head constantly (although I unfortunately have no control over which one it is at any given moment), and I'm always humming, whistling, singing, playing or making a beat to something! So, I think God has given me this passion to glorify him.

The most obvious expression of that passion in action would be worship, which is a great way that I can use music for God's glory. I don't think worship is limited to my own singing or playing, though, which got me thinking about my music collection. I've noticed for awhile now that the idea of streetlights is a theme in the music I like to listen to, so I started looking through my library for any song that has to do with that. I found more than I was even expecting! Therefore, I'm pleased to announce and share with you my Streetlights playlist. All these songs either talk directly about streetlights (i.e. use that specific word) or otherwise remind me of Ephesians 5:8-14, my theme verse for this blog (and life in general really-- see first entry). Here it is:

1. Work: Jars of Clay
2. Sleeping In: Nevertheless
3. Illuminate: Project 86
4. Far & Gone: Day of Fire
5. Serial Sleepers: House of Heroes
6. Oh! Gravity: Switchfoot
7. Turn On the Lights: Sanctus Real
8. Shine With Me: P.O.D.
9. Sandbox Praise: Pax217
10. Burn For You: TobyMac (feat. Double Dutch)
11. Murexa: Falling Up
12. Shine: Newsboys
13. Sleeper: Everyday Sunday
14. I Need Love: Sixpence None the Richer
15. In the Light: dc Talk
16. Broken: Lifehouse
17. Light Up Ahead: Further Seems Forever
18. This Love: Stavesacre


I'm actually listening to this playlist as I write this, and it really encourages me, so I hope it can do the same for you. As it turns out, this playlist is almost exactly one 70 minute CD worth of fantastic music. If anyone is interested in hearing it, I would be glad to burn you a CD (which, by the way, is actually legal if it has no more than one song from any album. Record labels see it as free advertising rather than a copyright violation! And trust me, once you hear this music, you'll be interested in buying more of these artists' stuff). Also, I'm sure many of these songs can be viewed/listened to on Youtube, so check some of them out!

I'll finish with one more verse that has to do with the streetlight call. This verse seems to run through all the songs here as well, and it has inspired me for many years, since even before I thought about the idea of streetlights. Matthew 5:14-16-- "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

So it all comes back to worship in the end. Really, that right there is who I am, and who you are. Let that be my song.

Whatever you do...

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." -- Colossians 3:17

This verse has been rocking my world this week. It's so simple, yet so powerful. Simple, in this case, I mean as the opposite of complex, not of difficult. In fact, I think this simple instruction from Paul is something that almost nobody is really good at.

The problem is, we're far too quick to view these kinds of statements in Scripture as suggestions. But this is a command. It's not just an idea for a way to receive blessing and have a better life (although it is that too), it's a sovereign directive from God himself. Obviously, it's a good plan to pay attention to those. So how do we do this thing that God is commanding? Let's take it piece by piece.

First, we have this crucial qualifier, "whatever you do." This is a huge deal, because this phrase makes the coming instruction all-encompassing. Whatever is about to be said, it applies to every single situation and action in our lives, so it should always be on our mind as we make our decisions. These kinds of over-arching statements in Scripture are fairly rare, and they always indicate things that are of great importance. In fact, I can only think of four others in the whole Bible right now (but if you know of any more, please let me know!). One is in Proverbs 4:23: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Also, there are the three "one thing" verses, which I'm pretty sure I've previously mentioned on this blog. They are in Psalm 27:4, Luke 10:42, and Philippians 3:13-14. If you don't know them, you should really look them up right now. Also, I can't think of any better place to start memorizing Scripture than these verses.

Next, we have Paul refusing to leave any loopholes in his command. Words and deeds are both included. I know the old saying "actions speak louder than words" has some merit to it, because a lot of times people remember what you do more than what you say. But, trying to make the two things separate is a deceptively false dichotomy. It's not like what you say is unimportant as long as you do the right thing. Words are actions! They are things you choose, and God expects them, like everything else, to be included in his dominion. To reinforce this beyond all doubt, the next words are "do it all." Everything. Pretty self-explanatory, I think.

Now we come to the payoff. We are to do whatever we do "in the name of the Lord Jesus." This part is really the reason I'm getting rocked by this verse. What does it mean to do something (or, as we are instructed, everything) in Jesus' name? Here's my take on it. If you think about it, every action or word gives glory to something. If I brag about my accomplishments, I give glory to myself. Another way to word that would be that I say those boastful things in my own name. If I idolize a celebrity, I give glory to them. I try to be like them, and make decisions essentially in their name. See where I'm going here? Essentially, we are always worshipping something because that's what bringing glory means. If you disagree, try to think of an action that brings no glory to anyone or anything. I couldn't do it.

That's why I'm thinking that doing something in Jesus' name means doing it for his glory. AND, as I just stated, everything brings glory to someone or something. SO, if we aren't bringing glory to Jesus with what we do, we must be bringing glory to someone or something else. There is no middle ground, no neutral gear here. That actually reminds me of another big over-arching statement of the Bible that I forgot earlier. In Matthew 12:30, Jesus says "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." That's what makes this command from Colossians so stunning. There is no moral neutrality. Either words or actions bring glory to God, or they bring glory to something else, and if it's something else then that is against God. Being against God, as you may know, is not a good place to be.

Then to reinforce this point, Paul finishes with the clarification that the things we do should all be out of thanksgiving (see that worship/glory idea again?) to God. This helps us have a better visual picture of what Paul means. It's a good question to ask ourselves as we consider doing something: "can I do this while giving thanks to God?" If the answer is no, we shouldn't do it. End of story.

Here's where this thing gets really sticky for us. As Christians, we want to please God, but we also have our flesh that just wants to please itself. We know it's a bad idea to offend God, so our favorite phrase becomes, "well, it's not wrong..." etc. I'm not going to pull any punches here: that whole idea is a lie from the enemy. If something isn't specifically for God, it's against him. If it doesn't gather glory to God, it scatters that glory elsewhere, and that IS wrong!

Another favorite strategy of ours in justifying our actions is comparison. This one works two different ways. One way is that we have something we want to do, so we look at someone we respect who is doing that: If they're doing it, it must not be wrong! They're a great person! The other way is that we look at someone who is doing something much worse: I'm not doing something that bad, so I should be fine. Both of these approaches have the same problem. The verse doesn't say 'whatever everyone else does,' it says "whatever YOU do"! The decision to glorify God with your life, your words and actions, is up to you individually and no one else. Others might decide differently from us what they think glorifies God, but it shouldn't have any impact on our own decisions. On the flipside of that, we shouldn't judge them either. We should just do what we believe God says is right, no matter what.

So what should we do in light of this all-inclusive command? I can't really tell you what to do because God has to stir it in your heart. As I just mentioned, you shouldn't do anything just because I'm doing it or anyone else is. You need to glorify God in whatever way he shows you. But I'll tell you what I'm doing: I'm looking carefully at my life, thinking and praying about all the things I have and do. If it doesn't glorify Jesus and can't be used to give thanks to God, I'm getting rid of it. When I say getting rid of it, I mean exactly that. In the next week or so, I expect the amount of possessions I have and things I spend my time on to noticeably decrease. I also expect, though, that I won't really miss them if I pursue Jesus instead.

I know that all sounds pretty radical. Jesus was pretty radical too. While we're being radical then, let's just call things what they are. Anything that brings glory to something or someone other than Jesus is an idol. Not just a personal choice, a waste of time, or a harmless little addiction but an idol. And I'm not talking like American Idol, I'm talking like a false god (although I often feel like the two are pretty much synonymous). It's what the first of the Ten Commandments is talking about not having. I just feel like so many of us have the cords of materialism, this world of things we worship, wrapped around us like seaweed dragging us down. What's worse, we don't even know it a lot of the time. I know I didn't. It might be because Christians don't like to use the word idol, which I'm convinced is mostly because it draws attention to their breaking of the first commandment! I know now that I've been breaking this commandment and ignoring it for years. Speaking of people who had seaweed wrapped around them, Jonah said, "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs" (Jonah 2:8). I don't want to miss out on any more blessings because of stupid things I bow down to! I want to guard my heart and see my life be blessed because of it.

Now, will I get all this right, and keep that command perfectly? I highly doubt it. But I will try. I have to. I'm realizing more and more that if following Jesus isn't a 100% thing, I don't even want to do it. I'm tired of wasting my life. God is calling us to radical holiness, something completely outside what this world's system can offer, something for which there is no model other than Jesus. Holiness. Worshipping one God, being set apart for one purpose only. "Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14, ESV).

Want to come with me?

Audience

"Know your audience." It's one of the first things all aspiring writers are taught, but sometimes a rather tricky thing to do. When it comes to blogging, for example, how can you really know who you're talking to exactly? I assume that most (if not all) of the people reading this right now are my friends in real life, but I have no way of knowing which ones. And honestly, that makes it a little difficult to know what kind of tone to take as I talk about serious things that I really care about. I don't relate to all people the same way (although maybe I should).

So, I don't really know my audience for sure. I guess that just means I have to focus on posting things that can be beneficial to whoever might read them. I realize that not everything here will be a blessing to everyone, but that's ok with me. As I think about it, this blog really has several different purposes, each of which have to do with different potential audiences.

For example, sometimes when I write here it feels like I'm just shooting words out into the clear blue sky, never to be seen or heard from again. There is, in fact, the very real possibility that no one will read some of the things I post. Even if that were true, though, I'd still write here. One huge purpose of this blog, I'm finding, is that it helps me clarify my thoughts on some of the issues that will define my life-- things like how much I'll let God have control of my life, or how Cleveland can be changed. As I write, I'm forced to think about what is important enough to include, and it helps me realize key things that I often haven't even begun to think about when I start an entry. I'm also forming an archive of my thoughts that I can look back on and learn from later (it's my most successful attempt at journaling so far). I'm becoming a better writer too, since writing (like most other things) is something you can only really get better at by doing it. I wouldn't trade all those things for all the readers in the world.

Hypothetical scenarios aside, I do know that I have at least a few readers. For my friends and family, this blog is becoming a way that I can share my story with you. In the past, I realize I've been pretty bad at doing that, for which I hope all of you can forgive me. I hope also that what I write here can provide opportunities for face-to-face conversations about the things that really matter. Just as a disclaimer, when I write about what God is doing in my life here, please don't assume that I have this stuff figured out. I love to discuss and chop it up both one-on-one and in groups to gain the wisdom and perspective of the people I trust. In fact, as God is showing me more of who I actually am, I realize how much I've depended on my family, both natural and spiritual, all along. So if you're interested for whatever reason in sharing my journey, please come with me.

For anyone I don't know yet who (I hope) is reading this, I hope it blesses you. Whether or not you share my religious convictions that shape and influence this whole process, I hope you see authenticity and integrity in what I write. I don't have all the answers, but I can't imagine not looking for them. If you're looking, consider me your fellow searcher. I hope my words are encouraging, even if sometimes challenging. They challenge me. I'm sure you feel the darkness of life into which I do my best to bring a small light, and I hope you'll accept my invitation to do the same.

And for everyone, if you read this and like it, take time to say hi! Leave a comment after a post you like (or don't like). Challenge my thoughts and ideas (but feel free to agree with me as well)! Or, if you don't want to leave your thoughts in public for anyone to see, I love getting email too. Chances are you got this link from an email from me (it's in the signature line of every one I send), but if not, you can always get my address from my profile.

If you really like the blog, follow it! There are buttons that say "follow" in the very top navbar and in the right sidebar near the bottom. Or if you prefer to keep tabs on things using feeds, there's a link to subscribe to this site at the bottom of the page and in the sidebar as well. Either of those methods will make it so you don't have to guess when I've posted a new entry, which is a fairly impossible guessing game to play.

Just for those of you who like the guessing game though, I have added some features to the blog that you can look at even when I don't update it. The "poem of the day," as mentioned previously, randomly posts a great poem from the Library of Congress each day. I've also added a "word of the day" because I really like words, as I'm sure you all know by now. Increasing your vocabulary is fun! Yeah, I'm definitely an English major. Anyway, even more exciting, down at the bottom of the posts section (because it was too wide for the sidebar), there is now also a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip of the day! As you may or may not know, C&H is without question the finest comic strip ever to have existed, a topic on which I'm sure I'll write more later. If I were you, I'd come to my blog every day just for that.

Finally, to end my spiel of shameless self-advertisement, I now have in place a gadget in the right sidebar (and a button in the top bar) that will let you share my blog on your facebook or twitter. I don't have a facebook or twitter account and I'm not really a fan of either (another topic for a future post), but I'm not above using those resources to increase my blog traffic :) If you think what I'm writing would be interesting or important enough to share with your friends on your profile, please do. I think this stuff is important, or at least amusing, or I wouldn't be writing it. Any help you offer would be greatly appreciated.

So, that's it for now, my first effort towards both knowing and expanding my audience. By the way, this is post #10 on this blog, which makes it legit, not just a passing fancy (according to the highly scientific standard I just developed ten seconds ago). I feel like I've done all the cosmetic changes and content tweaks that I'll need for awhile, and I plan to keep writing here for a long time to come. Thanks for reading!

A prayer for the orphans

As some of you may already know, one of my biggest interests in life is poetry, both reading and writing. My ongoing side project for the past couple of years has been working on an initial manuscript for a book of my poems, which I hope will someday be good enough to be published. Poetry is really one of the best ways that I'm able to express the deep things that get stirred around inside me from time to time, and just as with my more prosaic thoughts, I imagine that a lot of times people will be able to identify with them. So, every now and then when one of my poems seems appropriate to a subject that I want to talk about, I'll post it here.

By the way, I'm always open to comments and suggestions on my poetry (and my other postings too!). Just click on where it says comments below the post and tell me what you think. Fellow poets, feel free to use that forum to suggest possible edits as well, or to post your own poems if they relate to the subject. Just be nice :)

What follows is the first of my poem blogs (plogs?), which is a poem that I actually wrote a long time ago (a few of you may have already seen it) but seems more applicable than ever right now. Enjoy:


Redefinition

You are valuable in a way
that he never said
and your every smile stands
in cut glass defiance against

all the cries, not admissions
of anything or flags in the wind
but repairs that bring strength
in the gaps between

all you deserve diverging
from him to create
room for the incandescent
gift of heat instead

burning your new word
across the silent fields together
so you never are defined again
by what you never had.





Just so you know, that huge break means the poem is over. Anyway, recently at my church (check out http://www.vineyardcleveland.com/ for more info and to actually hear the sermons I'm just about to talk about) my pastor has been talking about something he calls the "orphan heart." People that have this heart live with feelings of abandonment and inadequacy because, in some area or another, they never received the love they needed to grow. Usually, it seems to me that this comes from being mistreated or neglected by a father, although I'm sure mothers and other influential figures can have the same effect. And because none of our parents are perfect, it really seems like all of us deal with this orphaned feeling in some way or another.

So, this poem is for the orphans. It's a fragile group of people, but one in which I have no choice but to include myself as well. And I guarantee you that Cleveland is full of them. The challenge for us, as streetlights, is to bring the Father's love to these people. A challenge, because a lot of them will run from us. A challenge, because our own brokenness wants to make us hide from them. And a challenge, more than anything else, because a lot of us are just too busy to notice how amazing God is and tap into his heart of love for us and for those we find ourselves in contact with.

That, though, is also the reason we have hope. If we pay attention, God's love is so big that it makes obstacles pale in comparison. He wants to redefine us, so that we can pass that gift along to others. We ARE his. We ARE loved. We ARE important. Who wouldn't want someone to tell them that?

So, I'm attempting to let God redefine me in this transitional season. That's the only way I'll have something to give to my city. But what I'll have... it'll be exactly what they need.