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When You Grow Up

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I’m sure you’ve been asked this inevitable question at some point in your formative years. At some point in grade school or high school or college, someone asked you this:

“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

There’s a few things wrong with that question.

First, some people take longer than others to find that supreme calling. Some are well past grown up and still haven’t decided what they want to be yet.

Second, the likelihood these days is that you won’t spend 30-40 years in one job at one place. You’ll more than likely have several jobs and more than a few careers. Anymore, people change jobs every 2 years and most will change careers at least once.

You are not defined by what you do for a living or how much you make at your job. No matter what society or your friends or your family tells you.

You are defined not by what you do or who you are but by Whose you are. If you belong to Jesus, that’s how you’re defined from now on.

Your identity doesn’t crumble when you get laid off or (perish the thought) fired. Your identity rests securely in the person of Jesus.

You are Forgiven, Paid For, Forgiven, Child of God, and (my personal favorite) Beloved. You could probably think of a few more names associated with being in Christ.

So on those nights when you don’t feel particularly special or like you matter, remember Jesus paid the ultimate price for you because He believed that you were worth it.

The Love of God Revisited

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“Take your human feelings, multiply them exponentially into infinity, and you will have a hint of the love of God revealed by and in Jesus Christ.  With a strong affirmation of our goodness and a gentle understanding of our weakness, God is loving us – you and me – this very moment, just as we are and not as we should be.  There is nothing any of us can do to increase his love for us and nothing we can do to diminish it” (Brennan Manning).

Tonight at Kairos, I got a much-needed reminder about the unconditional love of God for me.

It’s easy for me (and I’m sure you as well) to get caught up in the trap of a performance-based view of love and then transfer it to God. It goes like this:

If I live right, God will love me more.

If I read my Bible more, God will love me more.

If I tithe more, attend church services more, treat people better, and so on and on. . . .

The truth is that if I never read my Bible one more time, God’s love for me would remain undiminished (thanks to Michael Boggs for that gem of a reminder).

The truth is that the nature of God as love means that He cannot love any less than perfectly anymore than He can be anything less than 100% holy or 100% righteous. So He is 100% loving toward you and me.

The catch is that He chooses to love me when He doesn’t have to. He chooses to love you simply because it is His pleasure and His delight. It’s nothing that you and I bring to the table or anything about us that makes us lovable. Only the love of God in us and for us can make us lovable.

A dangerous prayer to pray (that may not seem dangerous) is to ask God to show you just how much He loves you. Your mind won’t be able to contain the answer. After all, it is beyond human comprehension or understanding.

As always, let that love be what defines you, not what your friends say or think, what your annual job performance review tells you, what your level of success and influence tells you, or anything like that. You are not defined by marital status, career, finances, popularity, or even religious standing.

Only God’s love has the power to define (or redefine) you, heal you, save you, and transform you into something worth loving.

Oh, and one more thing. I’m not loved this much to hoard it all. I’m loved so that I can receive it and turn around and love those around me the same way. In fact, the true measure of how I’ve really received the love of God is how well I share it with those around me who need it most but deserve it least.

Just think about that for a while and see if it doesn’t blow your mind.

My Exhausted Advent Prayer

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Note: I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my entire life. Working 136 hours in two weeks will do that to a person. Plus, I have some sort of allergy/sinus/cold crud that is extremely annoying.

I just finished watching A Charlie Brown Christmas again. As always, I loved it.

As always, I got a little emotional when Charlie Brown thinks he’s killed his little Christmas tree. He says, “Everything I touch gets ruined.”

Have you ever felt that way? Maybe about relationships? Careers? Hopes?

This Advent prayer is for you and me:

Lord, this season marks the anticipation of Your coming. We long for and look forward to Your arrival. We so need you.

Too often, we feel neglected, forgotten, left out and alone. We feel like the only ones that people can never make time for.

We long to matter to someone, to not always feel like the substitute people that others will be around only when the people they REALLY want to be with aren’t available.

It seems as though sometimes that people have given up on us, decided we weren’t worth the effort, and moved on. Only they neglected to tell us.

Be near us tonight. Remind us that Your coming is not far off now.

Remind us that Immanuel means “God is with you” and “God is with me.”

Immanuel means that You are near to the broken hearted and crushed in spirit. Those who have all but given up on people and who are so fearful of being let down and hurt yet again that they have shut down their hearts.

Let us feel you near. Let us hear You speak words of tender compassion in the day, sing songs of joy and delight over us in the night. Call us by our true names that only you and we know.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

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Waiting and Praying Through

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“Did you catch what this self-assured judge said? If he can be moved to act justly, won’t God bring justice for His chosen people when they cry to Him day and night? Will He be slow to bring them justice? Mark My words: God will intervene fast with vindication. But here’s the question: when the Son of Man comes, will He find anyone who still has faith? (Luke 18:6-8)

Something Aaron Bryant said tonight at Kairos really caught my attention. He said something to the effect of “If God granted you that one big thing you’ve been praying for at that very moment you asked for it, what would happen? Would you be ready for it?”

If God gave you that hot-looking guy or gal, how would that turn out? Would that relationship implode because you weren’t emotionally ready for such a relationship? Would getting that career you asked for cause your family relationships to suffer because of the extra work hours and responsibility?

I know one of God’s best gifts to me has been not giving me what I asked for that I thought I had to have right then and there. For one, what I asked for was stupid and for two, I wasn’t near ready for it.

That girl that I was certain God should bless me with as a wife? I can’t even remember her name. All I know is that our marriage would have been one big hot mess.

According to one wise church member, God has four answers to my prayers: 1) “Yes”, 2) “No”, 3) “Maybe”, and 4) “Are you kidding me?”.

I know you could never imagine God saying that last one. But think of some of the things you’ve prayed for. I can think of times when I prayed for my team to win a game or another team to lose. I can think of a time or two when I prayed for a really attractive girl to be attracted to me. Probably we’ve all prayed that the whole bag of Oreos we ate in one setting would turn to muscle and not fat.

God sometimes makes us wait for what we pray for so we can see if what we’ve asked for is something we want or something we need. Like praying for a Porsche versus praying for reliable transportation.

Right now, my prayer is that God does whatever it takes to conform me into the image of Jesus. That people come away from me having met Jesus, even if they don’t remember my name. That I can be the best me that God made me to be.

And if you don’t remember anything else, remember to keep on praying and don’t give up. Ever.

A Good Night for a Homecoming

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It was a good night for a high school homecoming game. It seemed more than a bit surreal to be at Beech High School on their homecoming night, but you couldn’t ask for better weather.

The home team won. Barely. The game was probably more suspenseful than it needed to be, as the Beech Buccaneers kept letting Gallatin back in the game. All that matters in the end is that the home team won and lots of good memories got made.

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I was purely a spectator. I didn’t know anyone at the game save for the handful of folks from my community group. I was feeling a bit weary and disconnected, so I did my fair share of wandering alone through the masses there to celebrate one of the truly great and time-honored rites of passage still left sacred in our society.

I was a bit saddened by the regret of one blog I wrote about a friend some months ago that caused a strain on our friendship. I’ve since deleted the post, but it’s still not the same as it was (and may never again be). If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself not to write that blog. It’s one thing I wish everyday that I could go back and undo.

But enough of that. I got over it. I saw a very strange but creative halftime show by the Beech High School marching band. Apparently, it was themed around the M. Night Shyamalan movie Signs, but all I saw were little green men and women scurrying around a fake cornfield and playing eerie movie music. Kudos for creativity, but not so much for making sense.

I made a new friend (Rachel), had some very salty Powerade, witnessed a great game, and hung out with some amazing people called the Green Hills Community Group.

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It’s funny how at times I remembered exactly how I felt as a 17-year old during my high school homecoming game. All the uncertainty, fear, doubts, insecurities, and joys came rushing back. But I saw it all through (hopefully) wiser 41-year old eyes.

I hope to do the high school homecoming game thing again, but hopefully not after putting in 40 hours of work in 4 days and hopefully more rested.

God is just as good to me at 41 as He was when I was 17. It’s nice to know some things never change. Even when I’m 64, that same God will be with me and for me and love me just the same He did when I was in high school and like He does now.

What Next?

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 7 Comments

I’m sure you’ve been through a similar scenario in your life.

You get the call to come to your manager’s office. Or maybe to a neutral office. They sit you down and inform you that your job is being eliminated. In essence, you’ve just become very expendable.

You can call it any number of things. Let go. Laid off. Terminated. Downsized. Whatever you call it still doesn’t change the fact that you still don’t have a job to go to in the morning.

That was me at about 10:30 am today. I had no idea it was coming. I didn’t even know where the room was and had to ask somebody how to get there. I did know when I saw the manager and the HR person both sitting at the table that it probably wasn’t good news.

It still seems surreal that I lost my job today. I took one last walk around the trail close to the office and went to Starbucks and finished the book I was reading. Even now, it feels like a dream.

To me, this feels less like the end and more like a beginning. It’s less like a closing door and more like an open window.

I don’t know what’s next, but I do know that God does. If it’s possible to be anxious, excited, nervous, scared, and bewildered at the same time, then I am all of the above and then some.

I just read the verse in Psalms where it says, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their seed begging for bread.” It means that God takes care of His children.

Maybe this is God gently nudging me out of my nest into that unknown country, like the one God called Abraham to.

At a benefit concert tonight, I heard one of the performers say, “I want my life not to work if you take God out of the equation.”

That’s where I am. If God doesn’t come through, I’m in trouble. But I know based on the last 9,999 times that He will.

 

A Prayer for My Friends Tonight

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God, I bring my friends before you tonight. I know that You know what they need better than I do and even better than they do.

God, they are burdened and heavy-laden with work and with school, with spouses and with romantic relationships, with family and friends.

Grant them Your perfect peace tonight and enfold them in Your arms so that they can feel You near to know that You are just as near when they can’t feel You.

Grant them the joy than transcends circumstances and events, good or bad. Joy that can only come from You and that other people can only attribute to You.

Give them wisdom in their friendships. Bring people into their lives who will draw out the God-colors in them and inspire them to hunger and thirst after righteousness and to above all yearn for Jesus more than life itself.

Remove the people who hinder them being who You called them to be. Lord, even me, if I am a hindrance to Your work in their lives. Give them the grace to let the people go who You take out of their existance.

Above all, give them a single passion and vision: to follow hard after You, regardless of what it costs or what anyone else around them thinks. May they see only You and love only You. May their love for others be Your love flowing through them.

Lord, cause Your face to shine on them and be gracious to them. Take them to the lowliest people and let them be Your hands and feet to those who will never be able to repay what You do to them through my friends.

I pray for success and prosperity and good fortune for my friends. More than that, I pray intimacy and a deeper, wilder love for You, even if it comes at the expense of success and prosperity and good fortune.

Thank You for my friends. May they know how grateful I am. Much more than that, may they know each and every day and all through the night how You love them and how fond You are of them and how You call them beloved and how You are their Abba Father. May they each hear the sweet sound of You singing with joy over them in the deep waches of the night.

That’s my prayer for them tonight. Amen.