Christianity

For When You Can’t Sleep

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Right about now, I wish I were a cat. I look at my cat, who hops on the bed and curls up on the pillow next to mine and is asleep the moment she lays her little head down. Meanwhile, I am still tossing and turning, wide awake.

I’ve learned a few lessons from a lifetime of difficulty getting to sleep.

I know that at night every worry and fear gets magnified beyond any reasonable doubt. The normal worries of finding the right person turn into “I’ll never get married and will die alone.” The normal anxieties of career transition turn into “I won’t ever get a job because there’s nothing I’m good at.”

The trick is to recognize these lies for what they are and to realize that you don’t think as clearly when you’re tired. That’s why it’s always a good idea to put in a good night’s sleep before you make a major decision that will drastically affect your life.

I don’t have any answers to how to overcome the inability to sleep. He says as he is typing this at 12:40 am.

I know in the past, I’ve used the time to pray over what’s troubling me that won’t let me sleep. Sometimes, I get up and try to find some mindless TV to help relax me. I’ve even gone old school and tried warm milk (though it doesn’t work too well when you overheat the milk and burn your mouth).

I think in a way it’s a good thing I can’t sleep sometimes. It helps me realize that sleep is not a given or an entitlement. It is a gift from God, just like every other good thing in life. So maybe instead of counting sheep, count your blessings instead (as the old song says). Instead of looking at what you’re missing out on, look at all you have.

Taking Your Medicine

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My niece was not having a good day. She’s teething and has a cold, among other things. My sister was trying to get her to take the medicine that would make her feel better and not be in as much pain, but she wanted no part of it.

It would be easy for me to scoff at a 17-month old who is refusing what is obviously good for her. But then I have to ask myself how many  times I’ve done the same thing.

I don’t mean when I was growing up and adamantly refused to take my cough medicine (namely, because it tasted like cherry-flavored death in a bottle). I mean now when I don’t want the disciplines from God that will make me more like Jesus and less like that selfish sinner I used to be.

I want every day to be sunny, but without constant sunshine without the occasional rainy days leads to a desert. If I never have bad days or days that don’t make sense, then I don’t appreciate the really good days.

I’m sure God looks at me like I looked at my niece today, smiling and shaking his head. He knows what’s best for me. I only think I do. I only see a limited part of the picture. He sees it all.

I think the lesson for me is to be thankful when things don’t go the way I wanted them to. I can’t count the times I look back at my life, grateful that I didn’t get some of the things I asked for and desperately wanted at the time, because I didn’t know what I wanted or how to ask for it. And most of the time I still don’t.

The story has a happy ending. Once my niece settled down and took her medicine, she felt a lot better. Once I stop fighting God and demanding my own way and finally agree to his way, I often feel a lot better. I have a peace that only comes with acceptance and surrender.

Now if I could figure a way to get my cat to take her medicine.

 

Lost and Found 2: The Non-Sequel

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I call it Lost and Found 2, not because it has anything to do with the my previous blog called Lost and Found, but because I couldn’t very well have two blogs with the same name, could I? And on a random note, I just finished watching the movie Brave, so I’m hearing a Scottish accent in my head as I’m typing all this.

When I volunteered at the Youth Evangelism Conference, I and all the other volunteers stayed at the downtown Doubletree hotel, courtesy of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. It was quite lovely. But somehow in my hurry to get dressed the next morning, I left one of my favorite t-shirts on the bathroom floor.

I didn’t catch the oversight until I got home. I was very tempted to give the shirt up as lost. I mean after all, it’s only a t-shirt, right? But I really liked this t-shirt. So I called the hotel and got transferred to the lost and found department. Or technically, to the answering machine of the lost and found department. Twice.

Any normal, non-OCD person might have given up by this point. But as I have mentioned many times before in many various settings, I am not a normal person. The OCD part is debatable.

I was going to be in downtown Nashville in the middle of a very wintery day today anyway for some other non-exciting event. So I thought, “Why not? What will it hurt to drop by the hotel and ask in person?”

It turns out the third time’s a charm. They did have my t-shirt, which I am now wearing, and everybody lived happily ever after. Except for those who had to go out into the bitterly cold weather.

The moral of this tale is to not give up, even when what you’re looking for seems hopelessly lost. Like maybe a lost coin. Or a missing sheep. Or maybe even a prodigal son. As someone said before, Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. Don’t give up. By the way. that someone just so happens to be Jesus, so I’d do what he says.

Remember that you were once lost, too, and Jesus found you. He didn’t give up on you, and even though you might not have thought yourself worth the time and effort, he did. He didn’t (and won’t) give until he’s found you and rescued you and brought you all the way home.

That t-shirt that I went to all the trouble to find? It’s an Elvis Presley t-shirt from Goodwill. And yeah, it was completely worth the effort.

For When You Feel Like Giving Up

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image

Maybe you’ve felt like giving up lately. Maybe you’ve been so discouraged and disillusioned that the prospect of another day sounds daunting and the idea of giving up sounds appealing. Instead of going out there and fighting, it would be so much easier to stay home and pop bon-bons while watching daytime TV.

Maybe you feel like things will never get better, that the way things are now is the best they will ever get. Maybe your faith is at a low ebb and your motivation is slipping. It seems like nothing you do makes anything better, so why try? Even prayer seems mechanical rather than heartfelt and you feel like the biggest phony when you pray.

Keep praying. Even if it’s nothing more than reciting the Lord’s Prayer or repeating a simple phrase like “Abba Father” over and over, keep praying. Keep getting out of bed and getting out there and believing in better days.

God has a way of putting the right people into your life at just the right moment. God has a way of speaking comfort and encouragement from his Word or from random conversations with friends.

It’s easy to give up, but it’s harder to live with the regret of what might have been had you kept on trying. The Bible speaks about how trying circumstances and challenges build endurance, which builds character, which leads to a hope that doesn’t disappoint. That’s from what I like to call the GJV version of the Bible.

My prayer for you is that you keep putting one foot in front of the other and as you do, you find the next step a little easier than the last. My prayer is that you find unexpected blessing and encouragement when you need it most. My prayer is that you will take what you learn in these dark times and share it with someone else who is going through the same thing.

Don’t give up. God is faithful and he will get you through it.

The Wild Weekend of YEC

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I’m tired. It’s been a hectic, crazy 48 hours, but it has been so much more than worth it. I volunteered again for the Youth Evangelism Conference at the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Nashville. The atmosphere was electric, with close to 10,000 students and adults in attendance, anticipating what God was going to do next.

Well, God didn’t disappoint. I saw lots of students going forward, making decisions for Christ, not just being satisfied with playing religious games but willing to give everything to follow Christ.

One thing I remember from the weekend was the speaker talking from Jeremiah how God boiled down his people’s rebellion into two things: forsaking the fountain of living water and trying to quench their thirst from broken wells. They gave up the living water to drink mud.

The solution to my struggles and your struggles isn’t to try harder or to be more committed. The issue isn’t about effort. It’s about appetite. What are we feeding on? Is it everything the world says will fulfull us? Those things may taste good at first, but they leave us unsatisfied and still hungry and thirsty.

Or are we seeking after Living Water and the Bread of Life? For me, am I cultivating a good appetite for God and letting him fill me up so that I’m too full for anything else?

The answer is to feast on Christ. Let him be enough. Let him be your strength, your power, your supply, your joy, your reason for living. Anything else that you devote your life to or prize highly is an idol. Anything other than Jesus that tells you that it will take care of you no matter what is an idol.

I’m sure that I heard this somewhere else, so I can’t take credit for it. How do you defeat an idol? You starve it. You don’t give it any time or a affection. Instead, you give all that to God who deserves it in the first place.

I went to serve and be a blessing and once again found myself blessed and served. I was challenged and motivated to hunger and thirst after God more than ever before.

I hope that’s your desire, too.

 

Thanks for the Birthday Wishes

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Since I gave up facebook for lent (or took a sabbatical, if you will), I thought I’d use this forum to express my sincere thanks and gratitude for all the posts wishing me a happy birthday.

My response goes like this: Thank you. Yes, it has been a great birthday. Yes, I’d like that Starbucks. I like the idea of an extended birthday celebration, since February is the shortest month, so I will keep partying right on into March.

I’m feeling the facebook love. I know that ultimately the only approval that matters is from God, but it’s still nice to know that I am appreciated by so many people from so many different parts of my life.

So, for all of you who are just dying to know what I did today, here goes. It was a low-key day. My parents took me to Miller’s Grocery in Christiana, a fantastic meat and three restaurant that everyone within 50 miles of Nashville should check out. I watched It Happenend One Night, an old Frank Capra movie that was the first to win Oscars in every major category. I had quality therapy time with my cat Lucy, who deemed my lap worthy of her presence and her nap time.

Tomorrow, I’m volunteering at the Youth Evangelism Conference. I served last year and had a lot of fun, plus I came to one of these conferences as a youth way back in 1897. I look at this weekend as paying it forward to the next generation of youth.

I’ll be back on facebook after Easter, but I wanted to make sure that my gratitude didn’t go unexpressed. I am eternally grateful to every single one of my facebook friends, even to the ones who didn’t get around to wishing me a happy birthday. You all rock.

 

A Thought or Two from Mr. Chesterton

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I’ve been staring at my laptop screen for 45 minutes and I have come to one very astute conclusion: I got nothin’. I can’t think of anything to write about that would interest me, much less you.

The writer’s mental blank happens to me every so often, because thinking of something new to write about every single day is harder than it seems. At least for me.

So I’m borrowing some thoughts from a dead guy named G. K. Chesterton who wrote some pretty good books back in his day which you should check out if you have some free time to read and want something more to feast on than sparkly vampires in angst. These are his actual words that I’m borrowing, by the way.

“Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.”

These go to show you that there is very little to say that hasn’t already been said at least once during the history of the written word. My job (or the job of anyone who communicates through writing) isn’t to reinvent the wheel– or in this case, the ink pen– but to more often than not remind you of what you already knew but forgot that you knew.

Just Some Thoughts From Another Good Night at Kairos

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In spite of the cold and rain, it was a good night. At Kairos, Mike Glenn wrapped up the series called “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” with some final thoughts on what true love is. And yes, you know that Tina Turner song is now stuck in your head.

I remember reading somewhere that love isn’t sentiment as much as it is service. It isn’t feelings as much as it is action. As the old dc talk song says, “Love is a verb.”

Most of the time, we think of love as a contract. I’ll love you if you love me back, but don’t expect me to keep loving you if you quit. In other words, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.

But God’s love isn’t a contract. It’s a covenant where he essentially says to his people, “I will always be your God, your Savior, your Lord, your Provider, and your Defender.”

His love isn’t contingent on ours. I’d be in serious trouble if that were the case. His love is forever.

In Matthew, Jesus defines real love. It’s one thing to love those who love you back and be friends with those who are easy to get along with that. Anybody can do that, with or without God’s help. But it’s entirely another thing to love your enemies and do good for those who despise you. It takes supernatural grace to do that.

In other words, people expect you to give as good as you get. They expect you to fight fire with fire, anger with anger, grudges with grudges, and hate with hate. But Jesus is calling us to fight anger with kindness, grudges with forgiveness, and hate with love. That’s the only way to end the seemingly endless cycle.

Love doesn’t stay put. It goes to where the hurting people are, to where the need is greatest, to the dangerous places that most people won’t go. It looks for and draws out the best in the other person, even when that other person can’t see it.

We need more love like that. I need more love like that. An unbelieving and lost and hurting world needs to see love like that.

What Everyone Needs

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This is absolutely not about why everyone needs to vote Republican or Democrat. This is not about why everyone needs to support this or that cause or agenda. This isn’t that grand.

1) Everyone at some point during the day needs a hug. Just a simple reminder that someone out there knows who you are, where you are, and what you’re going through and says, “You’re not alone in this.”

2) Everyone needs a cat or a dog (or some other form of pet) to always be nearby and have that constant look of expectation. You may have treated them like garbage and still they will crawl up in your lap and settle down for a long nap. I don’t know about you, but I feel much better about myself when my cat does that.

3) Everyone needs to find at least one small victory during the day and celebrate it. Even if it’s the act of getting out of bed in the morning. Or not managing to trip over anything and fall down for 24 hours straight. You could be living through the most horrific day and if you find that one small victory, it won’t seem as bad.

4) Everyone needs to hear at least once a day that God still loves them. No matter what you’ve done or how long it’s been since you even thought about God, much less spoke to him, God loves you. He is still very fond of you and still wants you to know that.

5) Everyone needs to do at least one thing that’s not on their day planner or to-do list. Go take a walk in the park or sit on a bench and watch people. Take five minutes and do nothing more than breathe in and out slowly, taking in the love of God and exhaling fear and doubt.

Those are a few things I think everyone needs. See that wasn’t painfully political or overly preachy now, was it?

To All the Wallflowers in the World

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perks

I finally broke down and rented The Perks of Being a Wallflower from Redbox. In case you were wondering, that was the infamous movie that I had a ticket for the night I got hit by that car in downtown Franklin. Yeah, that was the movie I missed. Well, I finally saw it, almost two months later.

One line really struck me. “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

I had always wondered why I saw nice, pretty girls who always seemed to date guys who struck me as obnoxious, loud jerks. I wondered why they did that when there were nice guys (like me) available.

You could argue that most of the nice guys (again like me) never got up the nerve to ask out the nice, pretty girls. But I do think that people who don’t think much of themselves will settle for relationships that aren’t the best for them.

In case you’re wondering if this is going to be yet another blog on dating, it’s not.

I wonder how many of us really know our own worth. We tend to repeatedly replay every minor criticism and downplay every compliment out of a false modesty that really isn’t modest at all. If you and I are honest, we don’t think much of ourselves most of the time and we project that on to how we perceive others to not like us or acknowledge us.

Maybe you think nobody ever sees you or feels your pain or even cares that you’re hurting. Maybe you wonder why you bother getting up in the morning only to spend the entire day being overlooked and ignored by everyone around you.

Let me remind you that God thought you worth loving. Well, let me rephrase that. God chose to love you because he wanted to and in loving you, he made you lovable and worth loving. Maybe that only makes sense if you’re tired and still awake after midnight, but there it is.

God formed you with his own hands, breathed his own breath into you, and called you very good. You are made in the image of God and there is no one else exactly like you. You are God’s poem, his masterpiece, his workmanship.

So whenever you are tempted in any way to settle for less than God’s very best, remember that you are worth loving because God said so. And anybody who says or acts otherwise doesn’t deserve you.