Happy Birthday to Me

Hot dog, I'm 23. I think I'll celebrate by jumping on the "30 Things About Me" bandwagon (thanks Missy)!

1. When in the car alone, I yell gibberish.

2. Every personality test I've ever taken has told me to become a psychologist.

3. My favorite show on TV is The Office

4. My favorite anti-show is The Soup

5. When I get a song stuck in my head, the only way to get rid of it is to play it nonstop until I get sick of it.

6. If I'm laughing while in conversation with someone, 10% of time that laughter is sincere.

7. I get diarrhea once a month, and then I swear off fast food. Then I eat fast food again, and the cycle continues.

8. I've never had a girlfriend for more than two weeks.

9. I've never been in debt (coincidence?).

10. Twice in middle school, I was rejected by girls I didn't even ask out.

11. In Springfield, I was rejected by at least one girl from almost every surrounding college.

12. I don't really fear rejection anymore.

13. The concept of cuss words is HILARIOUS to me.

14. I feel uncomfortable around senior citizens, but I'm working on my ageism.

15. My favorite speaker is Mark Driscoll because he's not afraid of anyone.

16. I cried the first time I saw Mufasa die in the Lion King. (If you didn't feel for Simba, you're a heartless brute)

17. I love breakfast, but I'm having an affair with sleep.

18. I am at my best at the end of the day.

19. I've been whitewater rafting 8 times...once guided by a mustached lady.

20. I left college with the knowledge that I really know nothing...and a heap of useless dorm room junk.

21. The most influential book in my life would have to be The Final Quest by Rick Joyner. I read it ten years ago, and to this day I still think about it from time to time.

22. My favorite gospel is John's.

23. My biggest pet peeve is fakeness motivated by self-righteousness.

24. I sometimes struggle with not feeling forgiven after I've confessed a wrongdoing.

25. I love sushi.

26. I miss my first car...a white Chevy Blazer ('89) that was too beautiful for this world.

27. I once slept 17 hours because I was just that comfortable.

28. I believe that if Jesus were walking around in the flesh today, most of the people you think would love him wouldn't even recognize him, and most of the people you would expect to hate him would be his best friends.

29. If you want to impress me, brag about your weaknesses.

30. At any given moment, I am carrying a small plastic sample of "miracle water" in my wallet that I received free from a televangelist, just in case I need a miracle. So far... I've been good.

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Relationship Model for Living

Matthew 6:25-33
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

As I was getting to know a friend, she asked me about my plans for the future, and that really got me thinking. I know that I am a planner, but I also know since God has invaded my life there are many things that I have not been allowed to plan.

For instance, employment : I've learned that it is not up to me where I go and what I do for money. I started out in high school wanting to be an electronics engineer, and when that didn't sit right, I assumed I would be working vocationally in a church organization. Now I know that's not where He wants me either. A hundred schemes later, and I've decided to give up and let Him win. God has always provided for my needs, and He always gives me the next step if I put His plans first. So when I am not backsliding in my faith, I don't even try to make plans for my future employment. I'm taking classes in management right now because they are free. WHO KNOWS where that will lead me.

It makes sense when you think about it, because I am not a "human doing" who is defined by his job. I am a "human being," who exists to relate with my creator. There are much more important things in life than what I do for survival.

While that is true, I still don't think it is right to just drift through life without taking responsibility for what is important. True, God has taken over some of the major decisions in my life, but I have been left with a tremendous obligation (and privilege) to maintain what life should be all about...my relationships.

I read something recently that was talking about the extreme value in the people that fill our lives every day. We often forget or simply deny that people are immortal. We are not dust in the wind. We will be alive forever (apart from or in relationship with God). So that means your mailman will be alive forever. That guy who plays his music too loud in the apartment next to you will live forever. Your family members will exist forever. Knowing that people are eternal puts a lot more value on them than we are used to showing.

The Matthew verse above is wisdom from God, telling us not to get caught up in the things that won't matter in the scheme of eternity. He is telling us to focus on the eternal, and then He will fill in the minor details that seem so major to us when we have our priorities out of whack. So knowing what I AM allowed to plan, I have created a rudimentary life model...a picture of what I want my life in this world to be, based on scriptural principles:



You'll notice a few things. First, every tier represents some kind of relationship. What I will do for a living or for fun or for clothes is not on a platform, because I fully expect God to provide outlets for those needs as I focus on what IS on the platforms. Nothing in my life should matter as much as my relationships...most importantly, my relationship with God.

I find that my life REALLY starts to spiral down into depression fast when I put something on the outside of the circle above God's place. When I get a little too into my self-image or a new gadget to the point that I would ignore God to indulge in my quickly dissolving appetites, I soon learn the meaning of "unfulfilled." That's around when I start blaming God for not being around when I need him. It's so hypocritical of me, so its' a good thing God is patient.

Family should be an easy one. Hitler probably loved his mom. If the worst people in the world can love those that love them, it should be a given. What's hard is when family members don't love you back. Sometimes its easier to love friends than family because they aren't as close to you to see all of your wrinkles.

Friends are anyone that you've gotten to know ever, even a little bit, and not hated afterward. It's really hard to keep in touch with everyone by this definition. We are prohibited from this by our natural limitations, but those you can keep the lines of communication open with are not to be cast aside or ignored.

The hardest of these tiers to really care about will obviously be the last one because I often put my own entertainment or pretty much anything before strangers (definitely enemies). There's too many risks to care about strangers for too long. We naturally fear the unfamiliar. It's part of our fallenness, but Jesus loved people on the street enough to die for them. That's what we should be going for.

Outside the circle thingy are parts of life that are not eternal. Okay, yeah, you can argue with me that there will be adventure in heaven, but whatever adventure in heaven will be infinitely more adventurous. So let's put "worldly" in front of all those words for now to make them temporary.

Some of them can make me feel very good, and there's nothing sinful about them, in and of themselves. It is just that they can so easily be made into false gods. Personal wellness is great great great great, but some people can put so much energy into their diet and exercise routine that their relationship with God looks like nothing compared to their relationship with their whey protein shake. Or in the pursuit of "the job," a man can neglect his wife and kids, like in the movie Click. Now that I think of it, there are a lot of comedies that have examples of this model getting screwed up. A movie called Shopaholic is coming out...can you guess what she will be putting before her relationships with hilarious results? It rhymes with Gooey Baton.

What about people who don't have the centerpiece, but the rest of the relationships are developed. They don't have faith in the God of the Bible, but love people around them and even strangers. I think they can be fairly happy people, but there will always be something major that they can't put their finger on missing. I'm talking out of ignorance, but I imagine its like the empty feeling I get when I spend hours editing a video and find out that it won't be used. There's an ache in the body for something immaterial that can't be described.. an unquenchable thirst, like the woman had in John 4.

The most important thing about this model is that it is not self-centered. It is God-centered. Meaning, the point of this model isn't to provide me with the most happiness. The point is to get the closest I can to God, and allow the rest to fall into place.

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Tantrum

What it looks like after God tells me to trust him:

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The Day After Tomorrow

I have a little place in my heart for disaster movies. I like any kind of entertainment that answers the question "what if..." What if a cure for cancer actually turned people into zombies? What if someone survived a plane crash only to be stuck on a deserted island? What if I had to survive in the dessert of Namibia? In the case of the movie I just DVRed: "what if the world suddenly found itself entering an ice age?"

I've seen the movie before, but this time watching it provoked some spiritual parallels that I want to discuss. Like the beginning of all disaster movies, this one starts with people getting caught off guard by unexpected precursor events. Extreme weather is running rampant all over the world: basketball sized hail in Tokyo, tornadoes in LA, and beams of super-cooled wind freezing helicopters mid flight. As expected, there is mass unrest. Even the one person who knew it was eventually going to happen had no idea what it would look like when it did. In other words, this cataclysmic event was beyond all human efforts to anticipate and properly prepare to keep people safe from it.

On some level, that situation makes me think of the condition of the American Church: disoriented, caught off guard, unprepared, or even in denial about the impending struggle. The word "Christian" or even "Christ follower" doesn't have a connotation of strength or bravery right now. There's a feeling of helplessness in the air right now as we see our helicopters of faith falling one after the other and our cities destroyed by giant hail.

As the weather worsens across the entire world, the story follows high school student Sam (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who finds himself, along with his mathlete friends and hundreds of civilians, taking shelter in a public library. A few hours, maybe a day, of waiting leaves all the people restless. As soon as they see another group of people acting on the bright idea to venture out into the snow, they can't resist doing the same.

Their logic: there are terrible things happening all around us, we must do SOMETHING.


Leading the group of people with this logic is a policeman. He seems to be the only person in the library with a title and some kind of authority, so the people listen to him when he decides everyone should strike out into the harsh weather. The funny thing is, there is no rational reason he should be making these types of decisions. His opinion is no more educated or likely to work than the regular joe nobody who has the same idea right before he does. Why does everyone listen to this guy? Because he has a hat and a vest on that says police?

The only one in the room with any kind of real authority is Sam, whose father has a doctorate in climatology. He hears from his father to dig in and wait until his arrival. As the crowd of people start preparing to leave the library, he pleads with them to stay knowing what their fate would be if they left. The policeman ignores him, and so does everyone else because he's just a kid who has no yellow sash and no shiny hat. Not to mention the fact that his message is intolerable to a restless people: wait.

To a group of people that are scared, insecure, and unprepared, that is the last thing they want to hear.

Similarly, a season of waiting or simple (but effective) prayer is intolerable for the American Church in peril. We see the effects of sin and it gets our engines running, but too often we end up heading in an uneducated direction because we don't want to wait for the Holy Spirit. We're so desperate to do SOMETHING that we strike out into the cold with only the appearance of direction, and people suffer for it. In the movie, Sam's dad later finds the frozen remains of the policeman and his followers. Desperate for someone to tell us what to do, we listen to people who get their authority from people who have no authority. And when those ivory towers fall, our hopes and faith fall with them. There needs to be a movement that will lead Christians back to prayer and back to the Holy Spirit, so that we will be connected to the implications of the individual seasons we're in.

Not every should wait, and not every one should venture out. In the movie, half of the nation would have died if they all waited. God is probably not telling everyone to wait right now, but those who are being told to wait must do it. If our relationship with God does not go beyond our Christian service, we are not doing "Christian service," we are doing self service because we are really just easing our feelings of helplessness. Motivation is everything. Our feelings of helplessness should not be solved by OUR action, but by our confidence that God has already won. It's a matter of obedience as the events foretold play themselves out.

Sam: "You made it"

Jack: "Of course I did"

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Psalm 139

God knows me.

There are some days when that is the only peace of information keeping me sane.

Psalm 139
1 O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. 2 You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. 3 You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. 4 You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. 5 You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!

7 I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
8 If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
9 If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
11 I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
12 but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.

13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!

19 O God, if only you would destroy the wicked!
Get out of my life, you murderers!
20 They blaspheme you;
your enemies misuse your name.
21 O Lord, shouldn’t I hate those who hate you?
Shouldn’t I despise those who oppose you?
22 Yes, I hate them with total hatred,
for your enemies are my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Common to the area that I now live and grew up in, there is a classic comeback phrase to create distance between yourself and someone who is getting too personal: "You don't KNOW me!"

Whether that particular phrase is in your arsenal or not, if you are human, you know that all people are separated from each other either by indifference or ignorance. In other words, you don't know your mailman well either because you don't have access to this information, or you don't care to have access to this information.

Hold on, this isn't a post about how we should all be doing a better job of getting to know complete strangers. I try to stay away from preaching anything other than Christ crucified, even the gospel of sociability. I'll just say this one thing, even if you are the most outgoing and personable individual in the world, your ministry has NO power unless the Holy Spirit is fueling it...even if everyone around you is jealous of your "ministry," it is not effective until God makes it effective.

Anyway, this simple fact that we are all separated by either ignorance or indifference leaves a tremendous void in each of us to find someone who knows us. So begins our relentless quest for community. This is easily evidenced by the huge success of the internet social networks, some that allow you to display your every action (or at least the ones you want to share). We surround ourselves with family, friends, potential mates, and even pets to fill this space, all the while we take for granted the one relationship that will fill its every crack and crevice.

Who but God is worthy of the knowledge that includes EVERY thought that has ever entered your mind and EVERY word that has ever left your mouth? Is anyone worthy of knowing your every move (even more than you express on your twitter)? As the Psalmist said, "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!"

We're touched when a friend sends us an email or a Facebook message proving to us that their thoughts were on us for a brief moment, but what about the thoughts of God for us that outnumber the grains of sand on the earth? That kind of revelation is so great that we politely refuse its truth. We simply disagree that there is a God that cares THAT much to go to all the trouble of learning our every in and out. Forget believing that He is always near us, we don't even believe He gives us a passing glance. So we go on our way, looking for alternate ways to fill the holes in our empty lives.

No wonder it is so easy to be in a room filled with people and still feel so alone.

We are desperately out of touch with how much God is not anywhere near indifferent or ignorant to our situations. Reading that, many people will think "I want to be in touch with that truth. I want to believe that God cares that much." To their dismay, there is no shortcut to believing in this Lord. There is no magical amulet you can buy. It can only happen through faith.

Hebrews 11:6
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

To believe in this God.. to receive the truth of Psalm 139, you must have faith.

Not good habits.
Not good morals.
Not good thoughts.
Not good deeds.
Not good speech.
Not good looks.
Not good skills.
Not good hygiene.
Not good credit.

Faith, and faith alone will connect you to a God that can satisfy your deepest longings.

P.S.
There is such a desire out there to know or find oneself, but consider verse 6 of Psalm 139. Knowing oneself is too much for us to handle. Only God knows who we are. Consequently, the only way to come close to knowing ourselves is to know Him! If this doesn't ignite a desire in my heart to do what Hebrews 11:6 says and seek Him, then I don't know what will.

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Questions I'm Asking

Lately I've been wrestling with a question that pertains to the natural giftings a believer possesses and the role these gifts play in missional living. I am NOT talking about spiritual gifts. I am talking about the things we were born with or were developed naturally. Some examples would be the ability to speak well to large crowds or the ability to make people laugh or even to paint a beautiful portrait.

First, some verses that may or may not have something to do with the answer:

(Phil 3:3-8) For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence. [...] But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

(Psalm 87:7) Singers and dancers alike say, "All my springs are in you."

My question is: How much should Christians be relying on their natural giftings to live missionally?

Related Questions:
Are our natural abilities a part of our fallen flesh that needs to be denied or are they powerful tools created in us to be utilized in our interactions with people?

Can we go too far in our reliance on our natural abilities or were they inserted in us to be used to their maximum potential?

Is it worship when we know we can do something ourselves, but we believe God to do it without involving human effort? ...or is it squandering our natural abilities?

How much did Jesus rely on his natural abilities for ministry, and how much did he accomplish by Holy Spirit inspiration?

Is there even a distinction between natural gifts and spiritual gifts ?

I ask these questions because I frequently think of this message I once heard about the story of some of David's soldiers that risk everything to bring him a drink from a dangerously guarded well. It's found in 2 Samuel 23:13-17. Anyway, they risk life and limb to accomplish this mission of simply bringing David some water. When they bring him the drink, HE POURS IT OUT because he believes a mere man is not worthy of such sacrifice.

God is worthy of this type of sacrifice.

These men could have used their abilities in much more seemingly profitable ways, but they poured themselves out for something that would bring their king even a small amount of satisfaction.

Think of how they must have felt on their journey to get the water. They must have questioned their actions a million times, but because they were attentive to the longings of their leader, they would do anything to get it.

Amongst those other questions I am looking at...am I willing to misuse and potentially squander my natural abilities to bring God satisfaction? More importantly, is He even asking this of me right now, or is this a cover up for some fear of typical ministry?

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