To Be Known

If you were to go back in the blog and read, you might see some patterns.  You will see that I seem to continually talk about the same things.  I continually talk about how I'm way too busy and lose time as I turn around.  You might also see that I'm not consistent.  I'll blog a few days or weeks in a row and then go totally dormant for months at a time.  The only time this isn't the case is when I blogged almost a whole month while studying through the Gospel of Mark, which I have not finished....because I don't have/didn't make the time.

My blogging is a lot like my journaling.  I started journaling a long, long time ago.  I used to use simple notebooks with the spiral wire down the side of them.  At some point I graduated up to actual hardback journals, and from there, the Moleskine.  I try to sit down every day or two to converse with the pen and paper, writing down my thoughts, my struggles, and my prayers.  Sometimes I do well and I have a good stretch of writing.  Other times I go weeks at a time without writing.

A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out a drawer in my office and came across all my old journals.  They dated back to the early/mid 90s.  I read my thoughts a few days before I got married.  As I read, I remembered where and when I wrote it.  As I looked through all the journals, I came to notice some patterns, just like one could see if they read my blog.  I'm inconsistent.  I'm always whining about not having time, I'm always wanting more.

As I read, it felt like I am no farther along in my walk, faith, life than I was back in the 90s.  Sure, I understand that I've done things.  I've grown spiritually (and physically).  I've had a positive influence on people in their lives.  But, as I read, I couldn't help but ask the question, "What more could you have done if you hadn't been distracted, overly busy, or had you simply put your priorities in a different order?"

In the last year or so, I've been having these types of thoughts.  What more could you have done?  When I hit the 10 year mark here at South there was lots of these thoughts.  Ok.  You did some things, but what more should you have done?  When I turned 40 last August more of those thoughts bubbled to the surface.  I don't know that I dealt with them, other than thinking, "You can't go back and change things."

Unfortunately, thinking that didn't stop the thoughts from coming.  They have seemed to press in on me and frustrate me.  The past, that I can't change, grips me and at times paralyzes me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Can you relate?

As a minister, my goal in life is to help others realize the presence of God around them.  I believe that in all things, we can see God if we choose.  I think we can show God in all we do, if we choose.  The point in that is that its our choice to see and live the Kingdom of God in us and around us.  The kick here is, if we choose.

Here's where it gets serious.  What happens when one who feels he is called to do this, gets lost in the past, gets lost in the busy-ness and can't see what it is he's challenging others to see and live?  What happens?  You get almost nothing.  You get more thoughts of "What more could you have done?"  You get the timidity.  You get frustration.  You get a big fat mess.

This is how I have felt on and off the last few years.  I've tried to take it on myself.  I've won the battle sometimes.  I've faked my way through it at other times.  All in all, I find myself wanting more, wanting to do more, wanting to be more, yet not being able to do anything.

Last week I traveled to Atlanta, GA to attend the Catalyst Conference.  The theme this year was To Be Known.  The big picture idea is that to be known by God fills our need for approval, gives us hope in the Kingdom, and helps us make sense of our messes.  Of all the speakers I heard that week, there were four that really chiseled on my soul and situation.  I don't have the time or space to lay all of them out here.  I wish I did.  They are messages that I think everyone should hear.  Instead, I'm going to give a conglomeration of their talks.

God created and wanted to create.  He created us in the image of himself.  We are creations of God with a NATURE created by God to display God's NATURE--greatness, beauty, and worth.  Our identity is made in displaying God's greatness and worth.  That means God knows me.  He knew me before I was made.  He wants me to understand what it means to be known and how that reshapes how I live--to display His NATURE in my life.

At times though, as I talked about above, we lose sight of why we were created and what our purpose is.  We get it.  We understand it.  But, we forget it.  We lose our identity, a lot like the prodigal son.  He chose to squander his identity and being.  He went and lived the life he wanted to live to the fullest.  In the end, he realized what he wanted was empty.  He wanted to return to his family and simply be a servant.  Yet, when his father saw him returning, they threw a party and danced, because the son had returned.  The father put the son back in his place, as a son, not a servant.  God wants us to realize that if we continually return to him and seek him, he will restore us...just as he illustrated in the story of Hosea, having Hosea go and buy back his wife and make her his wife again.  God wants to restore us to our created NATURE--to glorify him.  That nature is fed through learning more about his nature and reveling in his nature.

In all of this we have a shift in life--I've had a shift.  Our eyes are opened and our living is empowered.  As God calls us to dance and live our rightful place, as sons and daughters, He helps us to let go of the past.  "...the old is gone, the new is here" (2 Corinthians 5:17).  He's calling us to live!  In our living, we realize the opportunities we still have.  If a jar of marbles represents the weeks of life you have with family, friends, your church, and so on, you come to realization that looking back caused you to focus on the empty space in the jar, what has already been done, rather than in the marbles left, what is yet to come--the space of life that you still have to live out God's NATURE.

Catalyst was everything I needed and more.  It really helped me frame some things that I knew, but had forgotten or couldn't see because of where I am.  God loves me.  He wants me to engage in him.  The way to draw me out is to find my joy in Him again and push forward in my feeding on Scripture and reading.  In doing so, I will allow him to lead forward.  I needed to hear the messages that people like John Piper, Reggie Joiner, Jud Whilhite, and Judah Smith shared.  I needed to realize that I was looking at my life through the eyes of the older brother, rather than seeing that the Father wanted me to not allow the past to shape who I was.  Rather he wanted me to dance and revel in the fact that he still sees me as a son. I needed to realize that its not about the past, its about the opportunities I still have left--the marbles I still leave in my jar.  

I need to get over the past…the things that I can't change.  I need to love with reckless abandon right now.  I need to lead right now.  I need to do everything I can to put good time in on the things that I think matter.  I need to learn how to deal with urgent and important so I can focus on the stuff that makes my heart sing--the important, yet un-urgent.  it needs to become my urgent!  

A few nights ago, when I was laying in bed, I felt the urge to write myself a letter.  As I laid their and thought, it went something like this....

Hey moron,

Remember this.  Yes, you are 41.  Yes, you have lots of regrets.  There is lots more you could have done if you had not allowed yourself to be distracted from the life you had been called to live.  You've lost focus on the one thing at times.  And, in all of that, you've allowed yourself to become a reactor rather than a catalyst.  You shouldn't be focused on the past anymore, other than to allow you to push forward from it--to use it as motivation to engage in life and do something more than you have in your last 41 years.  You still have a lot of life left.  Its time to get busy.  Its time to get serious.  Its time to lead those around you.  Its time to be the light that God has called you to be.  You want to do this.  You need to do this.  Not so that people will remember you and how you led, rather so that they will be moved closer to the father…so they will know what it looks like to LIVE as the lost son who was found.  Learn to be still again.  Learn to be bold again.  Learn to love recklessly.  Take others on this journey with you.  Help them to understand this, "worshipping Him with my life".  You understand it.  You know what it is.  You can do it.  Do it and help others do it.  God will take care of everything else.

Worshipping Him with my life,
Yourself

Let us live and be known!

Apps

I am addicted to my electronic devices.  There I said it.  I've been honest with you.  That's not the point of this post.  The point of this post is how apps work.

On my iPad, I have four or five note taking apps.  I have the ever awesome Evernote.  It is the primary place where I put things.  I'm working to move all of my paper files into Evernote.  It is really the place where everything can be.  I like the interface, its easy to use, what more could I want?

Today I downloaded the Moleskine notebook app.  If you are into cool things, you certainly know about Moleskin journals.  They are overpriced, leather bound, quality paper journals that come in many fashionable colors, sizes and paper styles.  It is the journal that I have been using for my hand written journal now for probably 5 or 10 years.  I do my best to find them on clearance at the bargain books store because I can't stomach the $15 pricetag other places.

Because I use one in real life, I figured I would give the digital version a whirl and see what it could do.  In the few minutes I messed with it this afternoon, I was rather impressed.  It has the ability to do many, many notebooks, all cool looking on a shelf with color coding and your choice of digital paper--lines, no lines, storyboard boxes, graph paper, and weekly agenda.  What more could one want?  Even more, you can type through a keyboard, like I am doing now, or there is a handwriting function that will allow you to draw, paint, write, puke, and what not on the page.  Then, if you get all the settings right, you can sync it to Dropbox or Evernote.  I haven't tried it yet.  I didn't want to lose too much time in messing with it.

As I was screwing around with the app, I came to this realization.  I've had three or four of these apps on my iPad at any given time.  Each time I installed one, I thought, "This will give me a place to write and so on when I have down time or I need to write without distraction, like that is even possible.  The problem is, I never use them.  I have good intentions to use them, but I never do.

I think that is the hangup I have with my electronic devices.  Everything is always new and shiny.  Developers are always updating things and making new apps that make me believe I'm going to be more productive.  I think I am going to get more done and be more efficient, when in reality, all I do is waste more time being wowed by the shiny appeal rather than being undistracted.

So, thank you Moleskine app.  I don't know how helpful you are going to be in my life, since I already have the ever powerful Evernote.  But, you did engage me enough to spend some time to blog, which I needed to do.

What else should I do....where's my iPhone?

See What the Lord Has Done

I just spent some time in chapter 6 of The Story.  Here are the things that my brain decided to click on...scattered as they are.

First, how happy would you be if you realized that as God is chastising the people and telling them that anyone over 20 will die before going into the promised land your birthday is next week?  Bonus!

The flip side to that is being the last person to die...everyone is staring at you every day, waiting for you to die so they can go into the promised land.  #thatsabadday

It intrigues me how quickly the Israelites forget everything.  They see God do amazing things through the plagues to get them out of Egypt so they can worship Him, yet they grumble.  They see Pharaoh and his army drowned in the sea, yet they want to go back to Egypt.  God feeds them manna from the heavens, yet they complain and want meat amongst other things.  God leads them with Moses, and yet they say, "we should appoint a new leader to take us back to Egypt."

Does their grumbling ever work out for them?  Not really, if you ask me.  They are shamed every time something bad happens.  Moses corrects them and makes them drink the dust of the golden calf.  God wants to wipe them out and start over with Moses multiple times, yet somehow Moses talks God out of it.  They want meat, so God sends quail to them, up to two cubits deep (that's 3 feet deep) and a day's walk thick in any direction.  That is a lot of quail.  When the people received this blessing, they went hog wild.  Scripture states that each person gathered no less than ten homers.  That's enough quail to fill a 76 cubic foot box--think 75 milk crates full of quail per person.  God gets so frustrated with their gluttony that he strikes them with a plague.

And then there are the 40 years.  God tells the Israelites to go in and take over the promised land.  They send spies, who report how great it is.  Yet, they doubt in their own abilities and don't even think about God's abilities.  Only two, Caleb and Joshua, understand.  As a result, they wander for 40 years until all the doubters and non-remember-ers die off.

We need to remember that with God on our side, we can do all things.  Our faith, if we allow it to be big enough, will put us in places where God HAS to show up.  But do we have that kind of faith?

Moses had that big of a faith.  He wasn't afraid to go toe to toe with God about things.  Though he tried to get out of a lot of things, God always showed faithful when Moses chose to have great faith.  He threw down his staff and God turned it into a snake eating snake.  He stepped into the Red Sea and God parted the waters.  He reminded God time and time again that Israel was His people and God showed them mercy.

Yet, Moses was susceptible to being too full of himself.  He takes credit for bringing water from a rock for the people, rather than giving God the glory.  His parting gift for that event, a trip to see the promised land, but not enter in.

If we think about us, where do we fail?  What do we whine about that we don't have?  How glutenous are we with our lives?  Why has God shown us mercy and not sent a plague?

For me, the big struggle is ministry.  All too often, because this is my job (which I love), I do things rather than engaging with God to do things.  I have a faith in God, yet I rest too much on the faith in myself, especially since I am doing "God's work".  I realize that I am no different than Moses or the Israelites.

What I need is to live by the statement, "See what the Lord has done."  I realize that I am gifted with the chance to be a part of that doing and that is glorious.  Yet, it is not my life I am living, but Christ living through me.  If I dechurchify that statement, its me choosing to live my life differently--not focusing on what I want and need, but putting what God wants as the driving force.

Sidetracked

As I sit in my office trying to work on the message I am going to give tomorrow at South, I frequently (probably all too frequently) take breaks after some time.  About an hour ago I checked yahoo and saw a headline that read, Showing Prostitutes the Rings of Saturn.  I was drawn in.  Seems like a good idea to me...giving people who are hurting and lost and a glimpse of the the beauty and immensity of God's creation.  I clicked through to see the article.  I was not ready for what I was about to see.

The byline of the article talked about a guy, Chris Arnade, who shoots photos of people in NYC.  I clicked through to his Flickr feed and ended up losing the last hour or more.  I was drawn in by the stories of the people he was photographing...hookers, addicts, and people who live in the macrocosm of NYC.  There was depth of hurt in their stories, stories of rape, abuse, and hopelessness.  Many of them knew they were in a bad place and wanted out, yet could not step away from the pull of the addictions they were dealing with.  His images were filled with such heartbreak.

Now my head is swirling filled with empathy for the distant faces in the pictures. As I clicked through image after image and read story after story, I thought of this question: What faces and stories are here close to me in Lansing and in Detroit?

And then I had this thought.  Would you even notice them?  Do you even care?  If you did notice them, what would you do?

Understand where I am at right now...I have been very reflective lately.  Maybe its because I turn 41 in a few weeks.  Maybe its because I feel like I never make and progress on the work that I have to do.  Maybe its me being envious of opportunities that others have gotten I wish I had.  Maybe its this message on the 10 Commandments that I've been chewing on for days and weeks now.  Whatever it is has had me continually asking the question, "What have you really done?"  And, shortly after that question comes, "What could you have done?" and "What should you have done?"

There is a scene at the end of Schindler's List where Oskar Schindler comes to the realization that he could have saved many more lives.  He becomes fully aware that he has been frivolous with his life.  He makes the statement, "This pin...two people.  This car...10 people."  He is overcome with emotion.

This is where I feel I am.  I'm half way through my life.  What have I done?  Have I attained my dreams?  What do I have to show for 41 years of life?  What do I have to show for 13 years of full time ministry?  What do I need to change?  How do I need to change?  What things in my life need to change?  Its a very tiring place to be.

Understand, I'm not looking for a pity party for Wally here.  I'm not looking for you to tell me all the good things I've done.  I know that if I were to compare my life to others, I could be proud of where I am and who I am.  I know that God has used my life in good ways.  Yet, I've gotten in the way all too often of what He has wanted to do.  I've not had the moxie to say things I should have said or to do things I should have done.  I've missed opportunities with life and wasted a lot of time on dumb things.  What time I haven't wasted, I've done ok things, always feeling that I could have done them better.

I have squandered a lot of life.

As I type this blog I realize I am not much different than the people in the pictures...full of hope, yet hopeless.  Yearning for change, yet too afraid to take the first step.  I know what I need to do and I have the power and ability to do it, yet I choose to sit still most of the time.

I don't want to sit still anymore.  There is too much living to be done.  I don't want to waste my life.  It is not my life to waste.

I waited till the end, here, to give you the link to the flickr feed.  Look at your own risk.  The images are painful and the hurt can be seen and read.  Don't just look and move on.  Allow the images to haunt you.  Allow them to challenge your heart and your life.  There are faces like this close to you wherever you are at.  We are called, as the church, to be people who show prostitutes the rings of Saturn and the other wonders of God.

Here is the Flickr Feed.