Over 99 Billion Saved

On November 1, 2002, McDonalds did something that changed my life forever.  They made their double cheeseburger a dollar.  A DOLLAR!!!  But that wasn’t all they did on that fateful, historic day.  They made an entire menu of things; all just a dollar each!  In fact, you know what?  If you haven’t had an opportunity to walk into a McDonalds since November of 2002, just go to a McDonald’s right now and see the eighth wonder of the modern world, The McDonald’s Dollar Value  Menu.   Because if you haven’t seen it, I know you won’t believe me.

So, let me lay it out for you.  You can now create your own value meal.  For example, you may walk into a McDonalds and decide that you are happy just to spit out a number and get one of the meals that McDonalds thinks you should have.  So you glance up at the big board and say, “Large number 1 with a Dr. Pepper.”  And then you give them whatever it costs, and they give you a Big Mac, a large French fry, and a large Dr. Pepper.  That was the old way.  But now we live in a brave new world. 

Now, for roughly the same price you can choose three or four things that you want.  Not what they think you’ll want.  You can get a McChicken sandwich, a small fry, and a hot fudge sundae.  You can get a double cheeseburger, a small Coke, and another double cheeseburger.  You can get whatever you want! 

But, why did they choose to make this change? 

OK, that’s a stupid question.  Obviously, they did it because it’s awesome.  The question is: why did they do it on November first, 2002? 

The Times They Are A’Changin

In 2002 we were just beginning to learn about the effects of a major paradigm change that would affect everyone in every industry all across America.  The generation that was coming of age on November first was very different than the ones before.  We did not like or trust that which was slick and prepackaged.  We did not want anyone to make our choices for us, we wanted to choose for ourselves (and we didn’t want to pay more for doing that, either).  We didn’t believe you when you told us anything at all, we wanted to find out for ourselves. 

So McDonalds, seeing this trend, gave us the Dollar Value Menu.  They knew we didn’t want their combo meals anymore.  They knew that we wanted to make our own combo meals.  They knew this because they were in touch with the people they served (there’s over 99 billion of us) and they were flexible enough to make the changes that they thought were necessary.

Now expand your vision.  Do you really think this paradigm shift only applies to hamburgers?  Could it be that this massive change in how we all think and see the world applies to…oh I don’t know… our spirituality?  No, that’s insane.  People aren’t looking for new ways to experience God, deepen their faith, and connect with a community.  Our churches should just keep offering us that one combo meal we’ve all been eating for decades: worship music, a message, and a side of communion all for $3.99.  I mean, we’re all exactly the same right?  We all have the same spiritual questions and real world issued to deal with don’t we?

No?  Then why is it that we have all been force fed the same solutions?

I love the church.  I had to start with this admission because there will be a few points through my ramblings where you as
“][ the reader will begin to think that this isn’t the case.  At times you will think that instead of a part of this thing called the body of Christ, that I am an outsider.  A critic.  And on some level you will be right.  There will be times, very early on, where you will read the words that I’ve written and assume that I’m angry, even furious with the church.  There will be times when I will seem like I used to love the church, but have since been scorned and have become bitter.

So which is it?  Do I love the church or hate it?  Am I a part of it or an outsider?  Friend or Foe?  I only know one way to explain my answer to this.  And while I usually shun analogies since they are always incomplete and sometimes misleading if we take them too far, this one fits nicely.  Unfortunately, it’s cliché.  Oh, well.  Here we go . . .

The best way to explain the exact nature of my love for the church is baseball.  More specifically, the love that I have for the church is almost completely like the love that a fan has for his baseball team.  But I don’t mean just any old fan.  I mean a paint-your-face, sit-in-the-rain, season-ticket-holding fan.  These people love their teams.  But does that mean they’re always happy with them?  No.  Does that mean that they agree with all of the owners’ decisions?  Absolutely not.  They cheer when they win, cry when they lose, and scream at all the bad calls in between.

The most beautiful picture of this is that of the Boston Red Sox (pre-2004).  Up until their World Series victory in 2004 the Red Sox history had been categorized and epitomized by abysmal failure punctuated by close calls and brief glimpses at possible redemption.  Doomed to always fall just short of any real achievement due to some ridiculous one-in-a-million stroke of bad luck (otherwise known as “The Curse of the Great Bambino”).  To us on the outside this was both a little sad and a little amusing.  But to a Red Sox fan, this was painful beyond words.  To believe in something so completely and have it turn against you.  Or more accurately, to have something you truly love break your heart in the very same moment that it gives your life meaning. 

This is my love for the church.

But there is a point where this analogy, like all analogies, breaks down.  As a San Francisco Giants fan I have found that I have no control or say-so when it comes to the management of the Giants.  No matter how much I want them to trade Barry Bonds for three or four solid team player so we have a shot at a pennant, they will not.  There are two reasons that they won’t trade him.  Here they are:

1. Barry Bonds puts butts in seats because everyone wants to see him hit a home run.
2. I have no control over the Giants.

The first reason may be the actual reason they don’t trade him, but the second reason is far more relevant to us here.  There was a time not too long ago that I believed that this lack of control applied to me and the church as well.  That I have no say-so in this thing called the body of Christ. But that’s not the case.  Not at all.

A few years ago when I decided to abandon the idea of being a paid minister I started to question whether or not I could still be a valuable and impacting part of a church without being “staff”.  At first I didn’t think there was any way I could make as much of a difference as when I was a paid minister.  I mean, how could I?  I wasn’t speaking from the stage; I wasn’t determining church policy or planning the programs.  But when it comes down to it, are these the things that matter?

I have come to believe that they aren’t.  I have come to believe that the church, the true church, exists almost completely independent of the  programs we put together.  It exists separate from our doctrines and our ministry teams, and oftentimes even our ministers.  And it is this church.  This underground group of people that exist and move just beneath the veneer of our religious façade, that I love.  That I weep for when they fail and cheer for when they win.  That I deeply and profoundly desire to come to the surface.  That I seek to understand and be a part of.  This church is my Red Sox.

By all accounts the senior minister of the church I grew up in was a real asshole.  But I really looked up to him.  He may have had an anger problem (he was kicked out of our church basketball league for cussing at other players and telling off the referee).  And he may not have been the most caring person (he forgot who my dad was even though they worked together for quite a while).  And to top it all off he went and had an affair with the church secretary.

Man I love that guy. 

What better example of a flawed hero could there be?  This guy was anything but holy.  But God used him to change the lives of more than a couple people.  In fact he made a difference to a lot of people.  He was a broken but willing instrument.  But can you guess what happened to him?  He was fired, of course.  What other possible outcome could there be for a minister whose marriage fails largely due to an affair?  That person can’t possibly still be used by God after something like a divorce, can they?

Does it bother me that he hurt his kids and especially his wife who is a very good woman?  Of course.  I truly can’t imagine their pain and feel angry toward him for causing it.  But does it bother me that my home church felt as though this warranted being removed from the very people who should be trying to heal him?  Bother isn’t even the word.  Infuriated is more applicable.  To say that this man was “not perfect” isn’t even scratching the surface of how flawed this guy was.  But at the same time this same guy who hurt his family also spent a decade serving the people of that church.  He helped people through some really hard times.  And what did we do?  We waited until he was going through his darkest hour, and then we cut him loose.

Now I know something had to be done.  Action had to be taken.  But what in the hell makes us think we have the right to send away or even allow a broken or hurting person to leave if there is even a chance that they can be helped?

People screw up.  This isn’t to minimalize it, because sin can and does destroy lives.  What I am saying, however, is that screwing up is unavoidable.  That’s one of the reasons we need God’s grace.  A grace that we all depend on.  Who are we to deny each other that same grace that we, ourselves are so profoundly in need of?  All of a sudden, I’m reminded of something Jesus said. 

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you

-Matthew 7:2

That’s more than a little scary.  Have you denied grace to anyone?  What about you?  Would you or have you failed to be forgiving of someone who fails to maintain a perfect life?  I hope not.  Because according to Matthew 7:2, if you do you will be expected to maintain that exact same level of perfection.

Here’s how it works.  We mess up.  Then we try to hide it because we know what we did was wrong.  And depending on how well we hide it we may keep messing up and hiding it.  This could go on for hours or years.  But then God does something interesting.  He reveals your dirt.  There are a hundred ways He does this, but He always does because even He can’t fix it until it’s out in the open.  Then you have a choice; rebel and continue to live like you want or admit what you know is wrong and ask God to fix it and help you.  And then He does.

God is in the business of redemption.  He loves to bring us back to Him when we stray.  And ideally, we should be an extension of who God is.  We, as individuals, should be doing what God wants to be doing.

This preacher I talked about earlier spent a great deal of time warning his church that sin can grab you at any time.  Turns out he was right.  And it turns out he was no exception.  So what does his church do when they find that their leader has sin in his life just like they do?  Just like he said?  They kick him out of the church.

Sure, many of us prayed for him.  But when he needed love and grace the most where were we?

I’ve watched this happen over and over and over.  To everyone, not just ministers or Christians.  Instead of seeing our bother’s/sister’s divorce, affair, theft, drug use, or whatever as an opportunity to show someone the same grace God gave us, we see it as an opportunity to turn our back on someone or weed them out.

Sometimes we do it through an elder’s meeting and a pink slip.  Sometimes we do it by shunning someone.  Sometimes we just shy away from a difficult conversation and then talk about it in hushed tones, imagining that they don’t know what we’re saying about them.  Sometimes the hurting people take it on themselves to leave our presence.  It doesn’t matter how it happens.  It’s our job to surround hurting people and help heal them so this separation doesn’t happen.  Period.  No matter how hard or uncomfortable this might be.

Spiritual Amputation

It’s interesting to note that if you step on a nail your body’s first reaction is not to let the foot rot and fall off, thus eliminating the problem.  That’s because your body knows that it is necessary that your foot be attached and fully functional.  It’s also interesting to note that in your body, when you get some kind of infection, your body doesn’t see quarantine as an acceptable means of treatment any more than it does elimination.  In other words, it doesn’t cut the infected part of the body off from the other healthy parts so that the sick part can make itself well before rejoining the whole.  Why?  Because that would be impossible.  No, your body rallies behind the infected part.  And apart from outside assistance (medicine) either heals the ailing part or dies right along with it. 

The reason for the divine logic that determines that our bodies act like this is twofold:

#1) Your body recognizes that a part of the body that is truly sick needs help to become well again.  It simply doesn’t have the power to heal itself.  Put simply, the sick part needs the rest of the body to make it stronger.

#2) Your body recognizes that it needs the part that is infected.  That part performs a valuable function and the rest of the body won’t be the same if it were lost.  Put simply, the rest of the body needs the ailing part to function.

When you get a wound, your body immediately sends white blood cells to fight the infection.  It sends antibodies to heal you.  It builds up a scab to protect you and underneath creates scar tissue to restore you.  Either that or the infection spreads and the body dies right along with it.

Whether you realize it or not you are part of something.  We are all connected.  You can’t act like you’re alone in life and expect to become the kind of person God wants you to be.  He made you to be a part of a community.  And with that comes this: if you abandon your fellow human beings to suffer alone with their mistakes, you will never be the kind of person they could have helped you become.

See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

-Hebrews 3:12-13 (NIV)

When a part of our body is in pain, what do we do?  Not what should we do what do we do?  When someone disappears, do we seek them out?  Do we ask where they have gone?  When someone suffers from a mistake that somehow gets broadcast do people who have had a similar struggle rally around them?  Or do we avoid the issue: imagining that the person doesn’t know they are silently being judged? Do we need each person in our lives so much that we can’t bear to let them suffer an infection alone?  Or are we quick to amputate?

They had some really cool and impressive gifts of the Holy Spirit back when Paul wrote about how the Body of Christ works.  But Paul ranked love as higher and better than any and all of them.  Love.  How we see each other.  How we treat each other.  That one word embodied the whole plan God laid out for how he would change people’s hearts through us.  Love.  The most excellent way.  And it worked.  At some point we have forgotten that.  We behave now as though we never knew.  We shun them, avoid them, and forget them.  And for what?  Being human?  Needing grace? 

Is that love?

Of all the criticisms people level at churches, the most common may very well be that churches are only after your money.  I find this very interesting.  Of all the things that churches ask of people…

You say I need to love my enemies?  And I can’t hit someone back if they hit me first?  OK I guess I can deal with that.  What?  Did you say something about my money?  Sorry, laying down my life for a greater cause is one thing, but don’t ask me to give up my cash. 

I’m usually very understanding of and sympathetic to the problems most people have with what is done and said inside the walls of churches. But this hang-up most people have with preachers asking for their money makes me think that the problem isn’t with our preachers on this particular issue.  It’s with us.

The truth is that we shouldn’t be OK with a minister asking us for ten percent of our income.  Why not?  Because God doesn’t ask for ten percent.  God wants one hundred percent.  And we should be satisfied with nothing less than giving every bit of it to Him. 

Did you hear that?  That was the sound of a hundred people closing their internet browsers all at once.  Ever since Jesus was walking around in sandals, He has been telling people that they have to give up everything to follow Him.  Money included.  Why should the message be different today? 

We want a God who will change every aspect of our lives for the better.  We want a way of life that is totally unlike all the other ways of life in this world that we have lived.  We want God to make of us something more than we could be on our own.  But what are we willing to risk to see what that really means?  If there is even a chance that God is real and His way of life is as revolutionary as some have claimed, is it worth everything we own to have just one chance at being a part of that?

The fact is this: The percentage of our life we allow God to control is directly proportional to the change He is able to make in our lives and through our lives.  And while this may be very simple logic, the difficulty of living this truth out is staggering.

We want all the benefits of God’s guidance while still maintaining control over our possessions.  And guess what?  It doesn’t work that way.  We have to stop begrudging every minister who asks for a couple dollars and begin to make every dime we have available to whatever God wants to do with it. 

Now.  That having been said, I will say that I almost never give any money to a church.

$$$$$$$$$

Money is inanimate.  It is made of either paper and ink or a combination of metals.  It is incapable of thought or action.  You are a human.  You are capable of love.  You are able to form meaningful relationships with the world around you and with the people in it.  So if you are being controlled by your money (and not the other way around) something is terribly wrong. 

Your money, and the things you do with it should reflect what is important to you.  Your money should reflect you.  Even more than that it should be an extension of you.

The problem occurs when we think and act in defense of our money, or to amass more money.  You’ve heard it said that money is a means to an end.  That’s bullshit.  There is no end that money is the means to that will not leave you unsatisfied.  Money can either take you down roads in pursuit of more and more stuff.  OR.  You can use your money to bring you closer to the people around you.  This brings me to why I do not typically give money to churches. 

In the Bible it says that wherever your treasure is, that’s where your heart is.  That means you can easily tell what is important to someone by looking at where they spend their cash. 

My heart is not in a building.  My heart is not with a staff.  My heart is more or less indifferent about the fate of any nonprofit organization.  My heart is with a mother who left her abusive husband and now she needs some cash for a hotel for a couple nights.  My heart is with an ex-junkie who has moved back home to get straight but needs money for storage to keep his crap in while he looks for a place to stay.  My heart is with a friend who really needs to talk about something with me but doesn’t have a bunch of extra cash for lunch out. 

My heart is with people.

Second Hand Love

There is a dangerous phenomenon happening all over the place that is threatening to steal the joy of being a part of what God is doing all around us.  I call this phenomenon “Second Hand Love.”  For example, let’s say you happen into a church on Sunday and hear about a community of homeless people near the church building.  The minister truly moves you to want to help these people.  So what do you do?  Well, the minister would typically urge you to give money or food to the shelter they’re trying to establish to help this community. 

Why wouldn’t you want to meet these people?  Why wouldn’t you want to become a part of the community you’re planning on helping financially? 

I’m not trying to get you to give money to any certain charity or group.  I’m not even trying to get you to give your money to anyone else at all.  All I’m trying to do is to get you to see that your money is a part of you.  So if you feel as though you should be part of a community of people who seek to find God’s plans, then decide to truly be a part of that group.  Make your money available to the people in that group you know to be in need.  Or if you feel a tug to help a person or a group in your city, don’t just throw money at a homeless person or a charity. 

Be a part of the things you feel like you should give money to.  Don’t use your money to buy a feeling of accomplishment and don’t begrudge it when whatever community you find yourself in needs your cash.  You can either use whatever crap you own to bring you closer to the people in your life, or you can let it isolate you.

I don’t usually give advice straight out.  Any of my friends will tell you that if I’d much rather ask you a bunch of questions that lead you to find an answer yourself than just give you one of mine.  This does two things.  One, it makes whatever answer you get stick to you because you came to it on your own.  And two it makes me seem a little bit wise and a little bit like a know it all prick.  But anyway, this time I’m just gonna skip all that and give you some advice.  Because if I know anything, it’s grace.

God is trying to make you into something new.  See?

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

-II Corinthians 5:17

But He’s not making you stronger.  Not more independent.  He’s trying to make you more humble.  More honest.  More in need of those around you.  More in need of Him.  Its a scary idea.  And a lot of us won’t let Him do it.  Because He’s not just using words to do it, He’s using action.  He wants us to practice accepting grace in little things everyday.  That way, when it comes time to accept God’s incredibly huge dose of grace we will know how.  Here’s what I mean.

There’s something about me . . . no, about everyone, that tries to keep us from accepting anything from anyone EVER.  Think about it.  You and a friend go out to dinner.  The check comes.  What happens?  Best case scenario:  your friend offers to pay, you offer back, and you play paper-rock-scissors to decide who the lucky one (the one who “gets to pay”) will be.  Worst case scenario:  both of you compare bank statements and debate who is more qualified to pay the bill.  What is so scary about accepting things from each other?

We all know we need each other, but we wait until we are at the very end of our rope to reach out for help.  And that’s fine if you think you can make it through life on your own steam.  Fine if you want to keep the illusion that you’re self reliant.  But the thing is, and here’s the advice part, you cannot really accept God’s free gift of a better life if you can’t let someone buy you lunch.  In other words, the way you accept things from other people is a good measuring stick for how well you truly accept God’s grace.  Here’s another way to measure: how often do  you extend grace to others? 

How often do you seek out ways to give material things and your time to the people around you?  How often do the things you have overflow into the lives of your friends and family and even strangers?  Well, it may be that you are awesome when it comes to this.  But most of us are not.  Here is our report card from the research of George Barna from his book, Revolution:

*Churched Christians give away an average of about 3% of their income in a typical year-and feel pleased at their “sacrificial” generosity.

*Fewer than 1 out of every 10 churched Christians donates at least %10 of their income to churches and other nonprofit organizations. (More than 1/3 claim to do so.)

*When asked to explain their understanding of Biblical stewardship, less than one out of every twenty includes resources such as time, relationships, ideas, or skills in their assessment.

*Most believers are unable to identify anything specific they have ever donated money to that they would describe as producing life-changing results.

We don’t get it.  And these are statistics from the people who are supposed to be closest to God.  And no Bible study on grace is going to fix this situation.  We need physical practices that we can try in the real world.  Only then can we begin to learn how to accept and pass on the amazing gift of God’s grace.  And in my search for practices like these I have found only two.  But these two should be more than enough to begin to teach us what we desperately need to know:

1.) Make a habit of accepting gifts when people try to give them without arguing or justifying it in your mind.  Just accept them.

2.) Make a habit of extending gifts to people all the time.  Don’t wait until they’re in dire straights.  And that includes forgiving anything they might have done to you.

Grace is one of those things that’s easy to learn and hard to practice.  But I don’t want to go my entire life without truly knowing the full joy of accepting the incredible grace of God.  I don’t want to miss out on even a fraction of it.  And I don’t want anyone around me to miss out on that either.

In the Backroom of a Party

Me: You think we don’t see the real you?

Tia: No. If I let what’s underneath come to the surface I’d just cry all day.

Me: (inappropriate chuckling)

Tia: What’s funny?

Me: You’re not half as transparent as you think you are.  Wait.  I mean, you’re more . . . you know what I mean.  You don’t hide what you’re feeling as well as you think.

Ryan: You’re transparent.

Me: Thank you.  That’s what I meant.

Tia: Well not many people see through me, so I must be pretty good at it.  Only a couple people see through me.  It’s just you’re one of the few.

Me: Can I correct you?

Tia: What do you mean?

Me: All those other people in your life who you think don’t see through you?  They do.  They see how much pain you’re in.  They just don’t care enough to let on that they do.  Or maybe they’re too scared to even admit it to themselves.  Cause then they would have to actually deal with your problems instead of just smiling and making small talk.

Tia: …

Me: Do you do that with other people?

Tia: Do what?

Me: Assume other people don’t have real problems that they’re going through?  Just seeing the half-ass façade they throw up to protect themselves?  Do you do that?

Tia: Yeah . . . I have a hard time thinking that they have problems like I have problems.

Crimes of Indifference

People in pain throw up walls to protect themselves from others.  They act like nothing is wrong so they won’t have to explain to people that they’re broken.  This happens all the time and it’s easy to understand why they do this.  It’s a defense mechanism.

Here’s the catch.

We all see it.  We watch people do it and we say nothing.  Sometimes we even convince ourselves that we don’t see it.  Sometimes we even go to the extent of turning into the kind of person who really is so oblivious to the people around us that we literally don’t see it, but what’s our motive?  Hiding their true feelings is the defense mechanism of someone in pain.  Ignoring is the defense mechanism of someone with a much deeper, much simpler disorder.  And that is this: we just don’t care, and this is a crime.

And the victims of this crime aren’t the only ones who suffer.  Yes, by floating through life oblivious to the pain that others try to hide, we are sentencing them to isolation.  Alone with their pain.  But just as they pay a price for our indifference, so do we pay a price as well.  This crime of leaving our fellow humans alone with their pain has a devastating sentence.  We are left alone with ours.

So do you want to be the kind of person who pretends you don’t see the pain of others?  Do you want to be left alone with yours?  Or do you want to be the kind of person who pierces through the bullshit others throw in your way to get to what is real?

Before what would have been my final semester at Bible College, I was offered the opportunity to be the Children’s Minister at a church plant in Charlotte, North Carolina.  At first, I said “no”.  Mostly because I had never worked with children, or even held a conversation longer than two minutes with anyone younger than six.  But I said “yes” in the end.

I said “yes” because I felt that God wanted me to.  This overruled all of the reasons I gave God that I wasn’t right for the job.  (I’ve found that the more unsuited to a particular role in God’s plan you are, the more God wants you to fill that role.)  It reminds me, now, of something Paul wrote:

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

   ”I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;

      the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

                                                -I Corinthians 1:17-25 (NIV)

I find it strange that Paul abandoned all of his strengths.  Paul was extremely educated.  He had a deep understanding of scripture.  He was a natural leader.  He had a deep understanding of the cultures he was trying to reach.  And he was brilliant when it came to relating spiritual truth to people in a way that was inescapable.  Why, then, did Paul write that it was through weakness that God works? 

            •Why did God choose the weakest of Jesse’s sons to rule His nation?

            •Why did God send Gideon to battle with 300 of his least-skilled warriors?

            •And why did He allow His Son to be born in a barn?

God’s purpose in all this is simple.  When God works, it will be just that:  God’s work.  It will be greater than anything any one of us could have done.  Even the best of us, even using our strongest God-given abilities.  None of us could design or build something that approaches what God can make.  That’s why He’s called God, and I’m called Chris.  His name is much greater than mine because He is much greater than me.

So far I don’t think I’ve broken any new ground or blown anyone’s mind yet.  The fact that God is greater than us is not exactly innovative or new.  Even the idea that God uses our weaknesses and makes them strengths is widely accepted.

My question isn’t whether or not we know these things.  I know we do.  My question is why we act like we don’t.

Imagine for a moment that Jesus has changed your life.  Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that His love has moved you and changed your life so radically that you want to spend the rest of your life trying to let Him change others through you.  What is your next step?

Aha! Gotcha!  You can’t think that far ahead or else you’re just doing whatever you think is the best way to serve God and labeling it “God’s Work.”  All we can do if we want to be the kind of people who God works through is simply ask God to use us and get out of the way.  Just trust that He’ll move us and follow His lead when He does.  Our job is to be the kind of people who are open to joining in whatever God is doing all around us, even if it’s not exactly (or at all) what we had envisioned.

Anyone who is or has ever known an alcoholic is familiar with AA’s 12 steps to serenity.  The first three of these very powerful steps are as follows:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Every new member to AA has to stand in front of their peers and admit they have a problem.  This isn’t to make sure everyone present is an alcoholic and not a spy.  It is to make sure that everyone knows that they are not the answer to their own problems.  No, in AA it is understood that one cannot be the source of a problem and the solution at the same time.  

Those of you not afflicted with this disease may be questioning the relevance of these things to you.  You may not be afflicted with alcoholism, but you are afflicted with something just as destructive.  Pride.

Alcoholism can restrict you from functioning as an adult.  It can make you dependant.  But pride can make you just as dependant.  Not on a drug, but on yourself.  This may not seem like such a bad thing to you.  But if, like me, you have come to understand that any true growth cannot come from within, you realize this dependence to be even worse than any dependence on a chemical. 

Now, I’m going to do something strange: I’m going to refrain from trying to convince you of the idea that you cannot achieve any real inner growth of your own power.  This is because I know that if you haven’t learned this fact on your own before now, I won’t be able to do so with words.  For some of us this lesson is harder to learn than others.  This is because some of us are naturally smarter, stronger, and generally more able than others.  It is these people who have a harder time understanding the need for a higher power to aid us in our attempts to understand things beyond our understanding…like anything having to do with God. 

In a way, you have to hit rock bottom before you can understand this.  You have to come to the realization on your own that while you may be smart, it isn’t enough.

For the rest of us, this is just a short reminder of the fact that if we seek to understand more of ourselves, we need to depend on God, not our own knowledge. 

God Loves A Longshot

I don’t know if you know this, but God loves to send completely unqualified people to do His work.  That way, everyone knows that it was God alone working.  He loves it.  He chose the weakest son of a sheepherder to rule a nation.  He chose a murderer with a speaking problem to free His people from Egypt.  And if you had any doubt as to this fact remaining, look at what the Bile says about God’s own Son.  God could have given His Son an appearance that was attractive and drew people to Him.  An appearance that immediately made people want to be around Him.  But here is what the Bible says about the Christ:

            He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.  He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.  Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.

-Isaiah 53:2-4 (NIV)

But here we are.  Feebly trying to get our spiritual affairs in order on our own.  When will we learn that the failure or success in our spiritual lives has nothing to do with us but with how much we let God take control?  It is only God that can draw people to Himself.

So you go ahead and improve yourself.  Make yourself clean before you let God use you.  Personally, I’ll take a crazy man who won’t shut up about God over a diligent and determined disciple trying to make himself better any day of the week.

Martin Luther King had a dream that racism would finally be ended in America.  This dream, and the sense of purpose it lent him changed our entire nation.  I have a dream as well.  Two of them actually.  Mine aren’t nearly as noble, but they are recurring.  Maybe that makes them special.  Anyway, here’s the first one. 

The One About the Truck

It’s my birthday, and I find myself at McDonalds.  All my friends are there to celebrate my birthday, so it’s a pretty good dream at this point.  But there’s a problem.  People are hungry and there is an obstruction in the way of the little cash registers where ordering happens.  To be specific it’s a green ’57 Chevy truck.  Well, half of the truck, anyway.  Someone has inexplicably cut a ’57 Chevy truck in half and placed the front end in front of the counter at McDonalds facing out (thus blocking the way of people hoping to order). 

Well, it’s my birthday, so I make the most of this strange obstruction.  I climb on top of the roof of the Chevy and sit down on it, looking out at my friends waiting to order like a king looking down on his subjects.  Then I look out to my left and there it is…

A mob of people are coming into the McDonalds from outside.  I say mob, because it is obvious that they are pissed.  And then it gets worse as I realize that this is a mob made up entirely of my ex-girlfriends.  And for some reason they’re pissed at me. 

The dream ends with me trying to get out of this McDonalds before all my ex-girlfriends get a chance to string me up. 

Although I had this dream several times throughout high school, I’ve had the next one for far longer.  I can’t even remember how many times I’ve had it.  And unlike the last one, I actually know the meaning of this one. 

The One About the Kid

This dream begins with my waking up.  I leave the small room I find myself in and am greeted by the African Savannah.  At this point I should mention that in this dream I look nothing like myself.  At this point in reality I am six feet tall with very short hair, and a slightly athletic build.  However, in the dream I am roughly eight feet tall, very muscular, and incredibly hairy.  You might wonder how I knew that it was me.  The only way I can explain this is that as I dream it I just know that it is me. 

I am standing outside what I assume is my hut when a cry goes up on the other side of the village.  I rush over to see what the noise was and find that a young girl has become deathly sick overnight.  It is apparent that without medical attention she will die.  The problem is that the closest hospital is over a hundred miles away through the jungle where there are no roads.  Without hesitation I pick the child up and put her on my shoulders and begin to run. 

I run with this little girl on my shoulders for over a hundred miles through the thickest jungle imaginable nonstop until finally we arrive at the hospital. 

With this the dream ends. 

Who We Truly Are

This may seem like just a crazy dream to you but the first time I had it I awoke knowing exactly what it meant and what it was meant to teach me.  The only reason I can account for the fact that it has recurred so many times is that I have not truly learned this lesson. 

There are three main things to notice about this dream:

1. The person I am in this dream is someone whom I could never become on my own.  I could never grow another two feet and put on all that muscle, let alone grow all that hair (or even a simple goatee). 

1. The dream takes place in a place I have never been before.  Furthermore, it is an environment where even the eight foot version of myself is not in control of what happens.  On the Savannah, you are entirely at the mercy of nature. 

1. The things that I do in this dream are things that I could never do.  Even an eight foot superhuman me could not run a hundred miles in the African heat carrying a child. 

These things alone are not important nor do they constitute a lesson or message from God.  People have dreams about flying all the time which would certainly be very similar in these three respects.  The important thing here, the thing I woke up knowing this dream to be about is this:

God wants to make me into the kind of person I could never be on my own, take me places where I could not go on my own, and use me to do things I could never do on my own. 

Sound weird?  It is.  It is both completely insane and absolutely normal all at the same time.  But it’s not just me that God wants to do this with.  It’s everyone. 

Methodists believe that the Bible is the only acceptable source from which one can take his beliefs, Catholics believe that one’s beliefs can come from the Bible, church fathers, popes, bishops; The Seven Ecumenical Councils; the Trent, the Vatican, and other Catholic councils.

Baptists insist that creeds impair the individual believer’s ability to interpret scripture while Lutherans  believe in the Nicene Creed, Apostles’ Creed, Athanasian Creed, Augsburg Confession, and the Formula of Concord.

Episcopalians think that if we are considered good it is only because God worked good through us, and that our salvation depends on Him.  Catholics believe we can lose our salvation by mortal sin and regain it through penance.

Wesleyans look forward to Jesus coming again at the end of the world when He will resurrect the dead people who were faithful to Him and then everyone else later.  Presbyterians look forward to the end of times when “the cosmos will be renewed, perfected, purged of impurities, and subjected to the rule of God.”  Whatever the hell that means.

Now let me tell you what I believe…

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

-I Corinthians 1:10 (NIV)

And even more than this…

Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

-I Corinthians 4:1 (NASB)

What is so scary about the admission that we don’t know everything?  Why can’t we say that even though we have over 4000 years of perspective on how God works, God is still God.  His ways  are higher than our ways.  We don’t always know what God will say or do in a given situation.  We don’t have the answers for all the questions that the Bible chooses not to specifically give.  And we do not, no matter how anal retentive we are, have any say as to how He works. 

I have listened to thousands of hours of talk from educated ministers and Bible college professors and I have seldom heard  the words, “I don’t know.”  Why is that?  I am dying to find a church where I hear someone ask, “What do you guys believe about predestination?”  And they are answered simply with the response, “We’re not really in control of that, plus we don’t know.  So why waste time debating what we don’t have the power to decide?” 

Because here’s another thing I believe, because I have seen it to be true…

We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

-I Corinthians 8:1b (NIV)