life

What If?

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questions

 

I went running today for the first time in over two weeks after I tweaked my knee. I felt great. My knee felt great. And I found out that I’m not the world’s slowest runner after all. There’s at least one person out there slower than me, and I know because I passed her.

But then I got to thinking. What if my knee had been messed up to the point where I couldn’t ever run again? Would I still be thankful?

Or what if I lost my health? Would I still be able to wake up in the morning with gratitude for another day of being alive?

What if I lost my friends and family? Would I still be able to worship with a sincere heart and sing about the goodness of God?

What if God took away from me everything and everyone that I daily take for granted? What and who would I have left? Would I have anything at all left?

Would I still be able to praise Jesus for saving me if he never did one more thing for me?

Could I live a life of thanksgiving to my God for who he is if I never saw another visible sign of his presence?

Is God and God alone truly enough for me?

I wish I could say yes, but I find myself leaning on other crutches when I get tired or stressed or upset. I find myself thinking more about other things and people than about God. Sometimes God feels like a last resort after all my other planning has failed.

The truth I need to remember today (and maybe you do, too) is that God is the only one able to save me. He’s the only one strong enough to hold my life together and to hold me when I’m falling to pieces. He’s the only absolute constant that I can count on who won’t ever leave or forsake me.

So all of this to say that I need to be more thankful for what and who I have in my life. I need to remember where it all comes from, too.

I’m thankful most of all that God is still working on me, making me a better man, son, brother, friend, husband (possibly one day), father (also possibly one day), friend, and follower of Jesus.

A Slice of Blogging Life

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Here I am, sitting at a table in the middle of a Connection Cafe at Brentwood Baptist Church that’s full of people and conversations and laughter and . . . well, life. While I was bashing my brains (not literally) trying to come up with a fresh blog topic, I thought, “Why not just describe where I am?” I mean, after all, if this blog fails spectacularly, it’s not like I don’t have 988 others to fall back on. The world won’t end.

I’m in a good position to witness a lot of the interaction going on around me and do what I love to do but don’t normally do unless I’m at the mall: people-watching.

I sometimes like to step outside of life for a bit and observe it. Not in an OCD, note-taking kind of way, but just in a general non-threatening, non-creepy kind of way. I love seeing families and married couples and throngs of teenagers and all the ways they mesh together.

It’s good to slow down and really appreciate this simple things in life. To appreciate family and friends, good health, freedom, the Church with all her beauty and faults, and life. There’s that life stuff again. I guess it boils down to being grateful for being alive. Life isn’t guaranteed. It’s a gift handed to us each day for which most of us– including me– taking for granted most of the time. But not today.

Today I am aware that I could very well not be here tomorrow. Neither could you. No one is guaranteed a tomorrow.

So if you get anything out of this rambling mess of a blog, take this. Take time to appreciate all the miracle and mystery and madness that is life. Take time to be thankful for the gift of being alive and being able to enjoy it.

That’s all. Now you can go back to watching re-runs of Swamp People.

What I Learned About Grace From Swing Dancing

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I went swing dancing tonight. There was much fear and trepidation at first, and quite honestly, I expected to be a one-and-done and convince myself once and for all that I can not dance.

It started rough. I did well with the lessons part, but once it came to the actual dancing, I panicked and forgot everything. I even was going to use my knee as an excuse not to dance anymore tonight. But a friend convinced me to give it another try. I realized I was stepping too far back at one point and seriously throwing off my rhythm.

Once I got that part corrected, it was like my confidence went through the roof. Or at least to the rafters. I even enjoyed myself.

Then I got to thinking. Swing dancing is more than just doing steps. It takes grace.

Life’s a lot like that. Relationships are a lot like that.

When I have friends who do and say things that I don’t quite understand and seem hurtful, I need to give grace.

When friends seem to withdraw and aren’t as friendly as before, I need to give grace.

When I find myself falling back into old fears and doubts, I need to give myself grace.

Giving grace simply means that there’s more to the story than I know. It means that I would probably do much worse in that other person’s shoes.

So, I plan on going back in two weeks to swing dance again. And I plan to be better at giving grace to those around me, including myself, who need it most.

My question to you is this: who in your life deserves for you to shut them out but who needs grace from you instead? Is it you? Is it a friend who has messed up with you lately? (OK, that’s three questions. I cheated. Sue me)

Grace makes everything more beautiful and is itself beautiful because it is undeserved, unexpected, and always needed.

Once again, I choose grace.

All Those Voices and The Truth

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Maybe you’re like me. Sometimes maybe you get so many voices in your head, it’s hard to tell which ones are genuine and which ones are not. It’s hard to discern your own thoughts from the legion running through your mind.

I firmly believe that one of the enemy’s tricks is to plant thoughts in your mind and make you believe that those are your thoughts. He can take a little bit of the truth, just enough to make it plausible, and mix it with a lie. Kinda like a fisherman baits a hook with enough of a tempting lure to make the fish bite.

I’ve been overwhelmed at times and not known what to believe or which voices to trust. But I’ve come to realize that in those times it’s better to not trust what I think or what I feel, but what I know. That is, what God has revealed to me about himself time and time again.

I know he’s good. I know he’s strong. I know he’s for me. I know he won’t give up on me.

Many times, I’ve fallen back on those truths when the lies seem so very easy to believe. When the old fears of abandonment seem to be coming true before my very eyes and I feel more alone than ever, I have to remember that God is with me.

You never know what you believe until it’s a matter of life or death, when your survival and your sanity depend on it. You never know how strong and good God is until you’re lost and he’s the only one who can find you, when you’re sinking in despair and he’s the only one who can rescue you.

Devils and lies die in the light. They can’t survive when confronted with the very truth of God’s word. So name the lies for what they are. Name where they came from. And declare out loud that Jesus has already defeated that enemy and those lies once and for all.

Most of all, let’s hold each other up in prayer and be strong for those when they can’t be strong for themselves, and believe for those when their faith is too weak. It just takes two or three.

Remember that the Truth as personified in Jesus isn’t just another voice in your head. It’s the Voice that bids all other voices be still the way it bidded the waves to be still. It’s the Voice that will always have the last word.

 

The Ebb and Flow of Life

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It seems like every area of life has an ebb and flow.

When you’re out looking for a job, one minute you feel like you’re the most talented person out there and could handle any type of job and the next you feel like you don’t have any skills and are basically unhireable.

Or maybe you’re out in the wacky world of dating. Maybe one day you feel good about yourself and your looks and feel confident in your chances. The next day you might feel like no one will ever be attracted to you and you will die single, dateless, and alone.

It could be that in general you have moments where you feel that everything in your life will work out fine and you feel optimistic about your future. Then the next time around you feel like you’re doomed to a series of failures and disappointments.

As with most politics and theology, the truth is somewhere in the middle. You can acknowledge these feelings, but don’t let them run your life or you will be all over the map. Literally. The truth is that your circumstances are usually not as rosy or as bleak as you think they are. You’re not God’s gift to the opposite sex or a leper. You probably won’t go through life with a 100% success or 100% failure rating, but you’ll have a bit of both.

For me, when I get caught up in the ebb and flow of emotions, I’ve learned not to try to deny the feelings or suppress them, but take them to God. I admit that while these feelings seem true, God is truer than any feelings. While feelings are fickle and changeable, God remains the same forever.

I’ve always liked the old saying that goes something like this: work like it’s all up to you and pray like it’s all up to God. In other words, faith means acting on what you believe and going for what God is calling you to, because faith is an active verb.

So keep trusting God when life seems great and when life sucks. Keep praying when you feel like it and when you don’t, when every prayer is answered affirmatively and when your prayers don’t seem to get past the ceiling. Keep asking, seeking, and knocking, regardless of circumstances.

Maybe I’ll take some of my own advice for once.

 

 

I Have T-Shirts Older Than You

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It’s a humbling thing to realize that you’re old. I came to that realization when I found my old t-shirt from high school in the back of my closet. This t-shirt dates back to 1991, my senior year. It’s old enough to vote. I feel old.

But I’m also thankful. I made it this far. A lot of people didn’t. I can’t complain about my age because some people didn’t get the chance to experience their 40’s. Or even 30’s.

It really is all about perspective. I’m not thinking about how much longer I have left. I’m taking each day as a gift and being thankful that I woke up today with all my hair and most of my senses.

Life is good because God is good and God is life.

 

My So-Called Blog

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mscl“People are always saying you should be yourself, like yourself is this definite thing, like a toaster. Like you know what it is even. But every so often I’ll have, like, a moment, where just being myself in my life right where I am is, like, enough” (from My So-Called Life).

Yeah, I just probably violated some copyright law with that title, which could either refer to the early 90’s short-lived TV series My So-Called Life or the local band My-So Called Band, who more or less borrowed their name from the show, so I think I’m good.

I’ll be honest. I missed that show when it was actually on the air. I think I caught a glimpse of part of an episode when it was in eternal re-runs on MTV. I was probably too upset that MTV had gotten away from actual music videos to be able to truly appreciate what I was watching. I also seem to recall that my crush on Claire Danes started with seeing that fraction of an episode all those years ago (just keepin’ it real, folks).

Well, here I am, 18 years after the show ended and way too old for the demographic and in serious danger of losing my man card for saying this, but I really like this show. It captures a time, but it doesn’t feel dated.

The styles may be from the Nirvana-era early 90’s, but the themes are universal. The characters feel as real as any of the people I went to high school with. The issues they deal with are issues I dealt with, for the most part. I can actually remember specifically what I felt when I see a character going through what I went through.

I’ve been trying to find one particular quote that really struck me from watching the first three episodes. I just now found it and I’m having that satisfied feeling of “I’m glad I found it” mixed with the relief of “I’m glad it really exists and I didn’t just make it up in my head.”

“What’s amazing is when you can feel your life going somewhere. Like your life just figured out how to get good. Like, that second.”

I realize there is an overabundance of the word “like” in that statement. I also realize that I tend to get annoyed when people overuse the word “like.” Like I just did. Right this second.

All I’m saying is that it’s funny how God uses the unlikeliest things to teach you about life. Like TV shows and songs on the radio and offhand comments from friends. Yeah, that pretty much sums it all up for me.

True Faith

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Well, my team lost again. I was rooting for the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl and they got oh-so-very-close, but still lost. Thus continues my streak of rooting for the losing team. But I’ll keep rooting for my teams, even if they keep losing.

Some will tell you that faith means that if you believe hard enough, everything will go your way and you will always get what you want and all your dreams will come true. I think that’s partially true. Sometimes, you believe and you receive what you want. But not always.

I think true faith is shown when you see no sign of your prayer getting answered, but you still keep believing the impossible. Your faith deepens and grows when you don’t get what you asked for and when the silence of heaven seems to be your only answer.

I’ve said it a lot lately, but I believe it more than ever before– God is the absolute best at making the impossible possible. He’s the only one who can speak life out of nothing, who can bring a whole universe into being by speaking it.

A church were I attended for a few months has a saying, “Everyone’s welcome. Nobody’s perfect. Anything’s possible.” As of right now, I officially made that my motto. I think it serves as a good model for Christianity.

Jesus will never turn away anyone who comes to him in faith. Nobody gets it right all the time and every one of us has royally screwed up at least once. And no matter how bad your situation is or how far away your dreams seem, it’s never too late and you’re never too far gone to see God show up, for with him all things are possible.

So you’ll probably hear me wailing and gnashing my teeth again after next year’s Super Bowl. But I’m not giving up hope that my team will win one day. And I’m especially not giving up hope on my God. He’s all I really have, anyway.

A Christmas Prayer

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Lord, the time approaches yet again when we celebrate your arrival in human skin to make your home among us as one of us. We celebrate that you became Immanuel, “God with us,” and took your place among us, sharing our joys and sorrows, weaknesses and pains.

We confess that we have so often lost sight of why we celebrate this day. We have made it into the giving and receiving of gifts and of excessive shopping and spending. We have forgotten that at the heart of Christmas, it is your birthday.

Help us also to remember those for whom Christmas isn’t such a happy time. So many mourn the loss of loved ones and live in the midst of family strife and turmoil. So many are facing tough days ahead as many are without jobs, some without homes and even the basic necessities.

Help us to walk along side those who are hurting in this Christmas season. May they find you, O God, to be their burden bearer, their refuge, their safe dwelling, and their peace in the midst of storms. Comfort them, bring healing to their strife, and be in the midst of them as the Prince of Peace.

Help us to remember those less fortunate than we and to be generous to those around us who have needs, both physical and spiritual. May we serve you by serving one of the least of these.

May we remember Christmas every day by being living incarnations of your presence everywhere we go, for you are not only God with us, but you are God in us, too. May we never forget that what started out in a manger ended on a cross, and that we are alive and free because of that terrible price you paid.

So as we get into the days of celebration and merriment, help us to remember that you are the reason for it all. May the best gift we give anyone be to show them your love and point them to you this holiday season.

My Disclaimer

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Just in case you thought I had it all figured out, this is my disclaimer: I don’t.

Sometimes, I have no clue what’s going on. Sometimes it really feels like everybody else on the planet has got their act together and I am wondering where I left my cell phone when it was just in my hand a second ago.

I know what Tom Hank’s character in the movie Big feels like. I know what it feels like to be a kid in a grown-up’s body. Sometimes I ask myself questions like “When did I get grown-up? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was a kid?” and “Haven’t they figured out by now that I’m faking this whole adult thing?”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to be an adult. It means I survived with the vast majority of my mental facilities. That’s a good thing.

But no, I don’t have my 20-year life plan mapped out and diagrammed just yet. I’m not too sure what I’ll be doing tomorrow. Surprises are much more fun, don’t you think?

I do know that while I don’t have a clue sometimes, God always knows what’s up.

I still believe that he who began a good work in me will complete it. I still believe that he works all things together for good. I still believe that he knows the plans he has for me.

So if you feel like you haven’t quite figured out this whole “being an adult” thing, remember that you’re not the only one. I haven’t, and I’m sure there are plenty of others who haven’t, but just aren’t brave enough to admit it.

I find myself leaning on the sovereignty of God a lot more these days and trusting him a lot more. These days, it’s not about trusting him with my whole life. It’s more about trusting him for the next five minutes.

I think that’s a good place to be.