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Congrats, Peyton Manning

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Alright, I confess. I was slightly rooting for the Carolina Panthers to win Super Bowl 50. Nothing personal against you. I just felt like they were the better team. Plus, they had the kid from The Blind Side playing for them. It felt like the Christian thing to do.

Still, I also have to confess that I’ve admired you through your entire career, starting out at the University of Tennessee to the Indianapolis Colts and finally to the Denver Broncos.

You always have done everything and carried yourself with utmost class. You always have won the right way– by working hard and playing by the rules. You exemplified your Christian faith without using it as a bully pulpit to shame others.

I don’t know if tonight will go down as your swan song. It’d be nice to see you end your playing career as Super Bowl 50 champion. Still, that is totally your call. You are the only one who knows when it’s the right time to call it a career.

If this is the last rodeo for you, I wanted to be one of the first to thank you for leaving a legacy of class that I hope will be followed by not just future quarterbacks in the NFL, but by all professional athletes in their respective sports.

I love the way you’ve exemplified the truth that it really isn’t ultimately about winning or losing but how you play the game and why you play it. You always have played it for the love of the game and it has always showed. You have earned the respect not only of your fellow players and coaches but also of the opposing players and coaches.

No matter the outcome of the game, whether you had won or lost (and I am glad that you won), I would have considered you a winner either way. All this comes from a non-UT fan who grew up in West Tennessee supporting the other state college.

Thanks, and may you one day buy the Titans and run their organization right. I can dream, can’t I?

 

A Ragamuffin’s Take on the Gospel of John

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As part of a Wednesday night class I’m taking at my church, I read through each of the four gospels, ending up with the Gospel of John this past week.

As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite is the Gospel of Luke because of his attention to detail and his inclusion of those on the fringes of society. But I really, really like John.

To me, the Gospel of John is like an epic movie in the style of a Cecil B. DeMille or a David Lean. Think grand along the lines of a Lawrence of Arabia or Doctor Zhivago.

Of all the gospel writers, John is the most unapologetically apologetic (not in the sense of saying “I’m sorry,” but in the sense of defining and defending the faith). He practically puts his purpose in bold red letters: so that you may believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah and believing, find eternal life in His name.

I like to think of John 1:1-18 as a kind of overture with themes expanded upon in the rest of the book. It’s got Jesus as the incarnate Word coming to pitch His tent among us, rejected by His own, but granting life to those who recognize Who He is and believe.

It has light versus dark, life versus death, righteousness versus sin, ultimate good versus ultimate evil. And in case you’re wondering, good wins.

I love how John’s Gospel is the most love-centered gospel. John even refers to himself as “the beloved disciple” and “the one Jesus loves” because he can’t get over the fact that Jesus could love a hot-headed mess like him.

Ultimately, I love how each gospel writer injects his own personality into the stories and helps draw out different facets about the life and ministry of Jesus. The end result is a very three- (or four-) dimensional portrait of the Messiah.

On a totally random note, I wonder if John read the other Gospels and said something like “Oh, you have the ascension of Jesus in yours? That’s cute. I have the freakin’ vision of Heaven in my book.”

Probably not. But that’s just the way my warped mind works.

I still highly recommend reading through all four Gospels as often as humanly possible. Those books never get old.

Random Factoids About Me

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As part of a new discipleship class I am taking at my church, I had to come up with three little known facts about myself. Side note: if you’ve never actually written yours down, I recommend it. It’s fascinating.

1) I have my Masters of Divinity, making me a seminary graduate and officially overeducated and underemployed. But I am proud of my accomplishment and don’t regret a single moment of it.

2) I can whistle and hum at the same time. Demonstrations are available upon request.

3) I am mostly right-handed, but I write left-handed and eat ambidextrously. I likes my food.

4) I am an Eagle Scout. I managed to earn this award one month before I turned 18, which is the age deadline. Yes, I am extremely proud of it.

5) I am owned by one elderly cat who likes to curl up in my lap and hang around me whenever I’m home. Ok, so that’s fairly common knowledge. My little known fact is that I like both cats AND dogs. Why should I have to pick one or the other?

6) I have never broken any bones in my body to this point. I thought I had broken my pinky when I got hit by a car in December 2012, but it was only dislocated.

7) I write a blog every day and have done so since July of 2010. Then again, if you’re reading this, you probably already knew that.

8) I am the beloved of my Abba and He is still very much fond of me after all these years. I haven’t even come close to fathoming how deep and wide and high and long that love is or why it should exist for me. I only know that it does. I also know that He loves you the same way all the time.

There are more that I am probably forgetting. I may come back later and add one or two more as they come to mind or as I am reminded by family members who read this.

The Final Exam of Life

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If there is a final exam at the end of my life (and I seriously hope there’s not one because I haven’t studied in a very long time), I like to think there would be one question. I think of all the questions God could ask, it will not be these:

“DId you read your Bible enough?’

“Did you tithe enough and support enough missionaries and causes?”

“Did you have the correct theological beliefs and vote for the person who toted the biggest Bible?”

None of these. One question will be on that final and it will be this:

“Did you love well?”

Did you love those people in your everyday life? Did you take time to speak to those in your office or classroom? Did you give friendly smile to people who passed you on the street? For all your talk of how much you love God, did people see it lived out in you toward those who needed it?

Love is about saying to someone, “I see you when nobody else does. I hear you when no one else will listen. I will do whatever I can to help you become the person you always wanted to be.”

That kind of love is the love God has toward us.

The problem is that we have too many likes and not enough love. We have too many Facebook friends and not enough real relationships. Our vision gets narrow and we miss the people around us who will go through an entire day without anyone speaking to them or acknowledging them.

I will say this.

It is not okay to ignore someone who speaks to you or texts you or messages you.

It is not okay to get up and move when someone sits down at your table just because you don’t feel like talking to them.

It is not okay to defriend someone or cut them off as punishment, especially if that person never knows what they did wrong.

It is not okay to be friendly to everyone in your office or class and single out one person to not talk to.

Remember, each person bears the image of God, distorted as it may be though sin. Each person is a uniquely valuable creation that God made and Jesus died for. To treat anyone less is to treat what God made and what Jesus died for with disdain. You can’t love God if you don’t love His people. All of them.

Even further, what you did to the least of these– regardless of whether they live in a third world country or next door, whether they dress in rags or tailor-made three piece suits, you do to Jesus.

I want to live my life so that at the end I can say I loved well as I was loved well by Jesus. I will never love perfectly, but I will never stop trying. I may lose my way from time to time, but God’s love will always gently guide me back to His heart for His people.

May we all find that love and live that love. May God’s heart for people be ours. And when that final question on that final exam comes, I’m praying we will not only know the answer in theory, but will have lived it out so that our lives are an essay and a testimony to how good God’s love is.