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Why I am A David Gray Fan

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So far this year, I haven’t reached all my new year’s goals, but I have to say I have far exceeded one. I set a goal to go to more concerts this year and I have already been to more this year than I had in the previous five years. So, yay for me.

I saw David Gray at the Grand Old Opry Thursday with a friend of mine.  It was an amazing concert, almost an out-of-body experience for me. I think what really made me love the concert was seeing how passionate David Gray was about his music. Seeing someone who loves what they do and is very good at it, you can’t help but love it yourself.

I knew about three songs that he played the entire night. I could have been like some of those around me who tuned out the music they didn’t know and had conversations with each other instead. Besides being rude and inconsiderate, I think they missed out.

For me, the beauty of life is expanding your horizons and trying new things. New foods, new places, new people and, in this case, new music. The Bible talks about those who have ears to hear. Everyone hears, but not everyone really listens. That’s where the beauty comes.

I will probably listen to the David Gray CD in my car and the next time he’s in town, I will try to see him in concert again.

But more than that, I want to keep trying new things. I want to keep my eyes and ears open so that I won’t just look, but see, and not just hear, but listen. I won’t just exist, but I will truly live. Because life really is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

And I for one to be one of the few who don’t miss it.

 

Paid In Full

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I had an unexpected surprise today. Not the good kind. I got pulled over by a police officer for having a non-working brake light. Thankfully, the ticket will go away if I get the brake light fixed and go to traffic court and pay $15. It could have been worse, I suppose.

But what if I had been recklessly speeding and fleeing from the cops? What if I had run several stop lights in the process? And just for good measure, what if when the cop finally pulled me over, I argued with him and even physically assulted him? Here’s the kicker. What if after all that, he let me go scot-free without even a warning and told me all my crimes had been paid for by someone else who had also taken all the jail time I deserved?

Ok, I’m fairly certain I would never do any of those things in my car. But haven’t I in a sense done all those things to God? Haven’t I broken His laws and then tried to run from Him? Haven’t I tried to argue and fight with Him even when I am clearly in the wrong and the obviously guilty party?

And yet I go free. The man Jesus is the one who already paid for all my violations and crimes and penalties (and that oh-so-politically-incorrect word, sins). He died the death I should have died on a cross that should have had my name on it, but instead had His.

The good news is that all I’m out for my troubles is a $4.99 brake light and a $15 court fee.

The best news is that all God wants from me in exchange for my sins being paid in full and my status changed from sinner to saint, from enemy to friend, and from nobody to child of God, is me. All He wants from me is me. My love, small and weak as it is, is what He demands of me. That I love God wholeheartedly and love others the same way as I love myself.

Wow. I never thought that a busted brake light and a traffic ticket could be such powerful spiritual reminders of who I am now in God. The best lessons really are learned when you’re not even looking for them.

Lesson learned, again.

The Art of Blogging at 12:28 am

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I’m letting you in on a little secret. Most of the time when I sit down to blog, I have only a shadowy, vague idea of what I’m writing about. Usually, I sit down and start typing with my two trusty keyboard fingers and the words just come out. It’s uusally a first draft with little or no editing. Like a stream of consciousness thing.

I’m as surprised as anyone at what comes out in these blogs. I really do think sometimes God takes over and speaks through me. Usually, it’s me writing to myself reminders of what I already knew but needed to hear (or to read) again. I figure if I need it, then maybe someone else does, too.

I don’t write with expectations of having a multitude of readers. Numbers are nice, but also deceiving at times. I write for me, I write for God, and I write for that one person who needs encouragement that day. I try to write every day, whether I “feel” it or not.

Tonight on my way home from a friend’s house, I had Tori Amos playing in the car and felt the warm night air from the vents blowing over me. It was a good moment. I’d say it was even a spiritual moment where I was again reminded that life is the little things that we don’t ever plan for or expect, that just happen randomly, and we miss them if we’re too preoccupied with the past or the future.

I’d say the past is past. You can’t ever go back to fix or change it. The future is not yet, and my worrying and fretting over it won’t change what is to come. So live in the now. Be in the moment. Wherever you are, be all there and enjoy all of it.

Wow. I didn’t expect to go all spiritual life coach on you, but like I said, I never know what to expect when I blog. Except for catharsis and healing and the hopes that one person will be touched and blessed. If 9,999 others are touched and blessed as well, I am fine with that. But I am happy with just the one.

Even if that one is me.

My Prediction for When the World Will End

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Ok. You ready for my special revelation? You ready to know when the end will come? I’m one up on old Harold Camping, because I’m 100% sure about this.

Here it is . . . .

Wait for it . . . .

The suspense is building . . .

NO ONE KNOWS.

NOT EVEN THE SON OF MAN.

See Matthew 24:36.

That is my underwhelming prediction. No one knows and anyone who claims to know is gravely mistaken or a false prophet.

Anyone who has a specific date either missed that verse in Matthew or knows better than Jesus. Either way, I’m sticking with Jesus.

I do know the world will end one day. I don’t know if I’ll still be around, but it will all end.

I do know I’m on the winning side because I belong to Jesus. I do know that it’s going to be the best day of my life when He returns because everything I’ve ever longed for and hoped for and dreamed about will come true in its ultimate form.

By the way, the real date is July 16, 2016.

Just kidding.

Lucy, My Prayer Partner

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Every morning, I have the same routine. I get in my comfy spot, get out my devotional book and my Bible, and spend time with Jesus. At least it starts out that way. By the end, it’s sort of a nap with prayers mixed in.

Usually, my cat Lucy will crawl up in my lap and curl up while I read and pray. I wonder sometimes if I could understand her prayer language, what is would sound like. Maybe this:

“Dear God, please help this heathan pagan boy to understand that I need more tuna in my diet. It’s really not that hard. More tuna. Period.

Help him to realize that I do not like being called ‘fat widdle kitty,’ as I am not fat, but big-boned. And I’m too old and dignified to be called kitty anymore. Those cat toys aren’t even mine. I don’t know where they came from.

Could you get him a girlfriend or something so he doesn’t talk to me all the time? He talks my ear off and I have no idea what he’s saying most of the time. It’s like he’s speaking moronese or something. Sometimes I humor him by pretending I know what he’s talking about.

But let me stick around for a while longer. This kid’s gonna need a lot of help. I think he needs some more quality lap time and I need more nap time, so it all works out. See?

So to sum it all up. More tuna for me, a girlfriend for him, more nap time for me.

Amen.”

Voices

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What are the voices in your head telling you? You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones that you hear in the quiet moments when you’re alone. The ones that put a negative spin on a conversation you just had and have you believing the worst case scenario is about to go down and that person is about to completely write you off as a friend and (even worse than that) unfriend you on facbook. Gasp!

What do you hear when the voices talk to you? Is it something along these lines?

“You’re not as good as these people you’re with and they’re going to find out soon enough. One day they will see the real you, the one you keep hidden, and then they will be done with you.

You can never please God. Your past is just too bad and you’ve used up all your second chances. You are beyond saving.

You can please God after all, if you only add one more Bible study or mission activity, if you only read your Bible or pray more.

You’re not where you need to be. You should have been married by now or you should have kids by now or you should be living in the nicer suburbs by now or you should have a cushy office job by now. You’re not a success. You’re a failure.”

On and on the voices go, relentlessly repeating the same messages over and over again. All lies, but even so, it’s hard to dismiss the voice that sounds so much like your own. How?

Listen to the one voice that trumps all the others. The Voice of Truth (as one song puts it). The voice of God. He says this about you.

“You matter to me. You matter enough that I died for you and shed all my blood for you.

You are not a mistake or an accident. I made you with a purpose and I intend to do great things in and through you.

You are my beloved. My love for you is unconditional and complete and forever. You couldn’t earn it and you can’t lose it.  Whether you feel it or not, it’s there.

Who you are and where you are in life don’t define you as a success or failure. You are My child and that defines you. My plans for you are unique to you and can’t be compared to anyone else’s.

I am very fond of you and I won’t stop healing and restoring and rebuilding you until you look exactly like My Son Jesus. That’s a promise!”

I don’t know about you, but I know the Voice that I want to listen to from now on.

Grace and Faith and Other Ponderings

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First of all, let me just state again for the 1.000th time how much I love grace in all its forms. I love the fact that faith is what saved me, not my own works. But that leaves me with some questions:

1) Why are we so quick to default to rules instead of grace for living out our faith? It seems we’re a lot better at looking at a biblical text and coming up with all sorts of applications and practical steps than seeing what that passage reveals about the heart of God, especially toward His people.

2) Why is it that I in particular am really good when it comes to receiving and sometimes even expecting grace from others, but not nearly as good at extending grace to others? I judge others by their actions, while at the same time expecting them to judge me for my good intentions.

3) Why aren’t we putting down our picket signs and boycott plans and forming more confession booths. Not the kind where people confess to us, but where we confess to others how we have failed as believers to show them what Christ is really all about. Oh yeah, and Read Blue Like Jazz to find out more about confession booths.

4) Why are so many of us so quick to condemn sins we don’t struggle with, such as homosexuality or addictions, while minimizing the our own sins of pride and gluttony and lust? Why are we so quick to be like that Pharisee that thanked God that he wasn’t like all the sinners around him? Why aren’t we more like the tax collector who truly saw his own desparate need for grace and took the blame instead?

5) Where is the love that we are called to show each other? Not just a once a week kind of love, but an everyday, burden-sharing, transparent, completely honest love that seeks the best of the beloved, no matter what the cost. The kind of love that will draw people in droves to seek what we have in Christ.

If I am honest, I have to look in the mirror to find the problem with the Church. I am way too judgmental and condemning and quick to blame or cast doubt, slow to show grace and mercy. Each one of us could stand to look in the mirror for the culprit of what’s wrong with America. Not those liberals out there, but this hypocrite right here.

If I am true to the gospel, I see that that’s not who I am. That’s the sin in me, but not me. I am who God has declared me to be. So are you. We are already blameless. Already justified. Already righteous. Already victorious. All we have to do is claim these things and live in them. To so be enraptured by Christ’s love and let it envelop us until it shines through every pore and transforms us into the likeness of the One who loves us so much.

If I want grace, if I need it, then I should want it just as badly for my fellow believers. If I am forgiven for so much, then I should strive to aks God to put forgiveness in my heart for those who wronged me far less than I ever wronged my Jesus. Help me to want those things, Jesus.

Amen and amen.

Friendship: Forever or For a Season

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First of all, I’d like to thank the God of all grace who is transforming me daily from a very socially awkward person into someone who can hold a decent conversation. I’m not totally there yet and I have my awkward moments still, but I’m a heckuva lot better than I was.

That said, sometimes you will have friendships that come out of nowhere. Be thankful. Sometimes, friends will walk out of your life or put up a wall. Be thankful even then. I’ll admit that I am bad when it comes to reading people and figuring out what they’re thinking. I’m generally wrong most of the time, so I’d rather trust in God than my own feelings.

What I’ve learned is that you can’t control what your friends do, only what you can do. What you can do is to love those people in your life while they’re in your life. Pray for them and encourage them and bless them. Look for God’s best in them and give them every benefit of the doubt. Forgive them liberally, knowing God will forgive you just as you forgive others.

Then there are friends that are special blessings. They stick around no matter what and make you into a better person. Praise God for them, too. I have friends like that who bless me every single day and inspire me in my walk with Christ.

I think the most important lesson you can learn is to love without expecting love back, to give without expecting a return, and to bless and pray for them even when you get silence in response. After all, it’s not about them or even you. It’s about how God can be lifted up and magnified and how we can strive to push each other to be more like Christ. That’s what it’s all about.

Amen and amen.

A Daily Prayer of Mother Teresa

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mother teresa

I found this in the booklet that came with a Natalie Grant CD I bought today.

“Dear Lord, help me to spread your fragrance wherever I go.

Flood my soul with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only be a radiance of yours.

Shine through me, and be so in me that every soul I come in contact with my feel your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only you, O Lord!

Stay with me, then I shall begin to shine as you do; so to shine as to be light to others. The light, O Lord, will be all from you; none of it will be mine; it will be you shining on others through me. Let me thus praise you in every way you love best, by shining on those around me.

Let me preach you without preaching, not by words but by my example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to you.

Amen.”

I would only add that while it is great to show God’s love by example, it will always be necessary at some point to use words, for how can anyone believe who has not heard? I think the point that Mother Teresa and Saint Francis of Assisi made was that you need both. Not just words without a loving example and not just a loving example without words. Lord, help me to be both today!

Amen and amen.

Goals for 2011

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What are your goals for 2011? It is to lose weight? To run a marathon? To climb Mt. Everest or skydive?

My goal for 2011 might sound cheesy and super-spiritual, but it’s my own goal. You can take it or leave it if you want, but this is what I want more than anything in 2011: To be more like Jesus.

I want to be a whole lot less selfish and a whole lot more giving. If Jesus gave absolutely everything for me, what in the world do I have that’s worth keeping? I can’t think of anything.

I want to be a lot less neurotic and a whole lot more trusting. Jesus fully and completely relied on his Father and did nothing apart from Him. His resulting perfect peace was evident throughout His entire life, even in the midst of storms and trials and death.

I want to be less judgmental and a whole lot more giving of grace. Jesus’ only harsh words were for those who were religious but not loving. I see how desparately wicked I am apart from Christ, so how can I ever give up on anyone else or stop believing the best for them?

I want to be less in auto-pilot mode, and more alive. I don’t want to spend my whole life waiting for the next big event, and missing the small miracles right in front of me. I want to be in the moment of every moment and live my life “with eyes wide open and hands toward heaven”, as one of my favorite songs by The Vespers puts it.

I want to be less, so that Jesus can be more. I don’t want people to look at me and say how great I am or how admirable a life I’m living. I want them to see my life and that my life would ignite a yearning inside them to know and love the Jesus they see in me.

That’s my goal for 2011. To be like Jesus. Oh, and maybe to meet the girl I will marry. Just bein’ honest. Those are my goals. What are yours?