RE: Psalm 28

I was bullied a bit as a kid. Once when I still attended a Christian school, an older boy on the school bus stomp kicked my face. I didn't tell anyone, since bullying was pretty common and I didn't want to look weak. I wanted to look strong. In fact, the desire to appear powerful became a driving force around this time in my life. I wanted to show that I was strong so I wouldn't get hurt any more. I didn't want anyone to get hurt any more. I hated bullies ferociously, so I committed myself to becoming stronger than they were. Tragically, I found out that the more I tried to be the strongest, the more my friends just got hurt by me instead of by someone else. Trying to stand up against bullies, I quickly became a one myself.

I don't think this experience is too unique. Trying to out wit and out gun the corruption and evil in our lives we easily become poisoned by our bitterness and resentment, and can ultimately become worse than what we hated at first.   It is once we recognise our own sinful power struggle that we pray the words, Do not drag me off with the wicked,with the workers of evil, who speak peace with their neighbours while evil is in their hearts (28:3). And it is with full knowledge that we are no better than our enemies that we beg for forgiveness and Blessed be the Lord! For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy (28:6). Thank God he remains patient and loving even when we are temperamental, judgemental, and fearful.

The Lord is the strength of his people;
he is the saving refuge of his anointed (28:8).

Photo credit: Ian Kahn

Human Concerns

The logical follow-up to yesterday; written by the only logical person.  Thanks again Beth.

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Matt 16:21-23

I love this passage. I hate this passage. It’s been a strange relationship. I’m fascinated about when this happens. Just a couple verses ago, Jesus blessed Peter for speaking his faith boldly. Today, instead of seeing God speaking through Peter, Jesus sees Satan. That’s a pretty drastic change.

Peter can be so spot on one moment, and then out in left field the next. As a kid, I used to think he was stupid. The older I get, the more I see my face reflected in his foolishness. God has called this instance to my mind many, many times. I have a lot of ideas about what God wants. I think many of us do. We tell God that He does things this way, that His justice looks like this and that He wouldn’t do that. We put our ideas for us and for other people in His mouth.
Peter didn’t know that trying to keep his Jesus from death would have kept the world from the overwhelming Grace and Salvation that God had planned from the beginning. We don’t know what we may be trying to keep back by wanting God to do things our way.

Challenge:
What things are you trying to control today? Hand these things over to God, and let His Will be done. He has only the best for you.

Real Friends Hang Out And Do Dumb Stuff

One of the best things about a really good friend is bringing them into a new part of your life. They tend to make it better. My best friend Alex and I talk about tough stuff in our lives, but we also make extravagant bacon-y breakfasts, watch anime and ride our bikes. A complete friendship with Alex includes both deep conversations and fun stuff. A complete relationship with God is the same way.

Deep worship and prayer times are wonderful, but God wants to be a part of our “normal” lives too. God created our world to have a vast and beautiful variety of experiences that aren't church services, Bible readings or musical worship. Those spiritual practices do shape how we see our world; they help us to see Jesus in less obvious places like in basketball games and biology homework.

The majority of life isn't overtly spiritual. We spend hours a day eating, working and getting from one place to another. Those parts of life are still a gift from God.

Jesus loves you. He says so in the Bible and if you listen you can hear him say so in the crisp richness of a strip of bacon, in Adele's sonorous tunes on the radio (or whoever music is super-personal), and in the hilarity of internet cat videos. God is not contained. May you enjoy his gracious and loving presence in all aspects of your life.

Ephesians 4:4-6

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

An Insecurity Articulated

I want, with desperate passion, to matter. I want my life to mean something. I want to change the course of my neighbor's life by helping her get custody of her grandchild. I want to write and publish books before I turn 30. I want to be a teacher so that I can change the lives of my students by illuminating their minds, iron-cladding their confidence and unleashing their passions and potentials upon a world that expects ordinary. I fear and hate the idea of being remembered as ordinary, of being forgotten, of not building something that will still be around in 100 years. I crave significance like a smoker craves nicotine. I revel in the thought that I've improved the world. I find exhilaration in knowing I've been instrumental in preventing at least one suicide. I am deflated again by the memory of a suicide I could not prevent.

In school I never wanted to be an exemplary student because the students who focused on achievement were too busy to effect their environments. I always thought that the most studious, hard working students were being duped into irrelevance by allowing their self-worth to be attached to the points of a rubric. I always did my best to learn everything I could from a class without studying to pass someone else's test. I wanted to be smarter than the smartest students, and I wanted to show it by NOT getting A's, joining honor societies, or making Dean's lists. I wanted to show it by saving lives, enriching souls, and freeing spirits.

Whatever the best possible pursuit is, that is what I want to put my hand to. I want to master Tai Chi so that I can have a calm, powerful mind to counsel with, and a quiet power with which to defend the weak. I want to cook with the inspiration and cunning of James Beard, because I know that food is a universal language and I secretly hope that a perfect cup of coffee can change the direction of a man, family, or nation.

I have a friend who's story I have promised in writing never to publish. Though she goes unnamed, I will say that she brought the written word to a nation that had never known it, and brought a tribe of cannibals into the kingdom of God by putting the New testament into their language.

She is the most significant person I can imagine, and I strive to not live in the fear of being nothing like her. I fear insignificance. I fear an impotent life. I also know that a life of fear is likely to be a powerless, self-destructive life. I am therefore left to ask myself, what mindset can I take on, what cause will I champion, what is of real importance that I can pursue fearlessly and without insecurity? What should I be? The Pastor? The literature teacher? The Youth Minister? The Father? The brother? Author, business owner, CEO, lawyer, warrior, poet, counselor . . .

The people who have had the greatest shaping and illuminating impact on me are a Bible translator, several literature teachers, a youth minister, a Boy scout leader, a Tai Chi instructor, two parents, and a handful of authors.

What unifies these individuals is that they all performed their role as a service and worship to God, with the exception of one teacher and a few authors who glorified God inadvertently through their wisdom, integrity, and generosity.

My prayer is that God makes me like them. I want to speak with the words of God; I want to illuminate the world. I do not know how best to do it, what role to take or job to hold, but I rest assured in my [very Lutheran] belief that God will accomplish his work in spite of me. My role is to yield to the Holy Spirit's movement, to fall deeper in love with the God of love and to gush that love every day of my life until it kills me. Dead to my own ambitions, I can live without fear, knowing that my significance shall be eternal, and no consequence of my own action as Christ shows through me and carries unto completion the work began in me.