Middle Children

I always have great conversations with my college friend, Curt. One weekend, as we were taking a small road trip, he said this, "I feel like I was born in the middle. Like everything got started without me ever having time to get ready." For instance: he never chose to be an American or in the 21st century; have blue eyes or be the baby of the family; to be artistic or left-handed. For him, it's like he has been dropped into a play and handed lines, but never got to choose the role and let alone have any idea what is going on in the story. Against his analytical and engineering inclination, he was never allowed to figure anything out in time to be fully ready for life

Curt's situation is our situation and in the middle of doing our best to learn, to know, to make the wisest decisions we can, life hurtles at us - past us - completely unconcerned with our readiness. Here it is - caught in the middle, as it were - that we find ourselves at almost every parcel of life. We can't figure everything out and we cannot safeguard every decision from failure... or pain.

And I must think that this is how some of the disciples felt the day after Jesus died on the cross, when He was dead and buried along with all of their hopes and dreams and faith.

"He was supposed to lead Israel."
"He should have called down fire from the sky or angels from the heavens."
"He was just getting going; getting a following; becoming important and powerful! If only this hadn't happened. He was just in the middle of becoming king!"

These may have been some of these discouraged thoughts swirling down through a disciple as the last drop of hope left him and his plans dried up in the drain. And if the plans of those disciples had been the ultimate ones, our hopes would have gone down the tubes with his.

Life comes at us and interrupts us, right in the middle of those very things we are getting towards finishing; those things which mattered most. And it is here, immediately in this complaint, that we must notice a contradiction - we cannot have it both ways: either we can bemoan that, much against good manners, Life comes and disturbs our interests and projects OR we've come in the middle of something else, someone's project, and interrupted the interest of another. The contradiction is not that both are interruptions, but that there cannot be both a Master story (into which we're dropped) AND that our own personal story is the Master. One must override the other.

The huge consequence of my own story not be the Master story of my life is this: if I'm in the middle of someone else's story, and that Someone Else dropped me here and is working on plot and character development, then this changes the weight of everything. If my plans and efforts start to fail, for instance, this is a plot twist, not a tragedy. If loss or glory comes my way, this isn't ultimate defeat or triumph, but Him making the story more interesting

The questions all of us humans must face are:
1. I know I'm a character, but is there an author?
2. If there is, can I trust Him?
3. If I can trust Him, how does that affect the way I see what happens to me?

Curt is right, this does feel very much like we've been dropped in the middle of something else which was going on, so what does that mean for us? Well, what say you? Answer these questions (in your journal, perhaps) and think about how this changes things or leaves them the same.

I Was Listening 'Cause I Wanted To

I went to a Switchfoot concert last night. Switchfoot, if you don’t know, is one of the bigger acts on the Christian music scene today. Though they’ve been around for a while (over a decade), their popularity and notoriety leapt up with their album The Beautiful Letdown with national radio hits like “Dare You to Move,” a song about seizing life while you can.

The night was beautiful; the crowd, small but lively; and the pairing, perfect - (1) a mixed audience of racing fans (did I mention NASCAR put this event on?), youth groups, and sundry wanderers in with (2) Switchfoot’s hopeful, carpe diem emphasized lyrics and California-flavored rock. Who knows who was in the crowd. What made this potential oil-and-water emulsion so perfect was how the lead singer (Jon Foreman) would introduce his songs as “this is one about grace” or “this is a song about freedom.”

The introductions matched the lyrics; here are some of the themes of their songs:

• Life is more than (fill in the blank). Life is still worth living.
• I’m standing on the edge of everything I’ve never been before. I’m on fire when He’s near me.
• I’ve made a mess of me, I wanna get back the rest of me, I made a mess of me, I wanna spend the rest of my life alive
• (I want) More than fine, more than bent on getting by, more than just OK.
• This is your life, are you who you want to be?

What made this such a great mixture was not just that he’s speaking to Americans who hear of freedom often, it was that he started in with universal virtues and agreed upon goods. We all know we need forgiveness at times, we all want to be free, we all care about love. We all agreed with him that those things were important. So when Foreman and the band came out as a high-energy group, when they made jokes and had a ready laugh, when they seemed unafraid and free, we felt comfortable with them and welcome. We all agreed with Foreman’s starting points (love, freedom, etc.) and we wanted to be there with the band and, what happened?

We all listened to what they had to say.

And, in this, I take note of two things:

(i) People enjoy being around those who enjoy living; it’s a necessary condition. You can still enjoy life and people not prefer your company, but you’ll never have an invitation because of your demeanor if it is a constantly glum one, devoid of hope, and too serious to laugh.

(ii) Today we still are willing to talk about universal themes (like beauty or sacrifice) and those are great things to highlight in our conversations. What Switchfoot tried to do from a stage I can do over a fence or across a table. I can hold out things that are good and, if appropriate in that conversation, move to important other things which are related.

One of my favorite speakers is Ravi Zacharias. He gave a talk at a UN meeting a few years back and discussed four needs we all find in life, the need for justice, for forgiveness, for love, and for the good. As he talked, he referenced common experiences and compelling stories from the international scene. And then he closed with this picture: that the only place in all of history where we find these four needs intersecting is the Cross of Jesus Christ. The response was phenomenal. He could have approached the talk differently, but I’m not convinced it would have been any more effective.

So, today and for some of your tomorrows, I’ve got two things for you:

(A) Listen to what you hear discussed around you. People are talking about beauty, justice, love, family, mercy, and power everyday. How comfortable do you feel in talking with them about those things and letting the conversation go to God?

(B) Are you enjoying the life you have been given? I’m pretty sure that there are enough things to cause thankfulness for all of us to at least produce a meek smile, if not more. If life seems hopeless today, if it seems that gray clouds don’t come with silver linings anymore, stop. Reflect. And be thankful.

The Secret: Part 2

When secrets come up, there is the aspect of them that we’re on the outside of something important. There’s also something about finding “the secret” which portends to drive into the very essence of something. Consider how often we use this idea:

“What’s the secret to having a good marriage?”

“You have such a great way at responding to that person! What’s your secret?”

“If you buy my book, I’ll share with you the secret to my success in business.”

“The secret” in each of the above (and like situations) is the key to unlocking what each one is really about. The sermon series mentioned yesterday aims at exactly the same idea: what is the key to getting at being a Christian? I’d like to consider the following 3 thoughts 3 different people have shared with me in the last year:

THOUGHT 1: My philosophy professor

I took a class on the relationship between God + time this Spring. It was fantastic and terribly difficult. One day, as was pertinent, the professor stopped and said something I remember more than anything else we discussed, “The most important thing in your life is this: Friendship with God. Concern yourself with that and you’ll find yourself addressing everything else of importance.”

THOUGHT 2: My friend on the night before his wedding

We had gathered around the fire towards the end of the bachelor party the night before Sam (not his actual name) was to pack away bachelorhood forever. We kidnapped Sam from the rehearsal dinner (much to the bride’s dismay) and sped from the parking lot with him in the trunk. Though we stopped and let him out, he remained blindfolded until we arrived at the abandoned house by the river owned by his soon-to-be in-laws. There we put him through grueling tests symbolizing his journey towards marriage and the sort of man he’d need to be to lead his family. We got muddy. He was exhausted at the end and almost threw up a few times. His gauntlet ended with a fantastic prize he’ll treasure for life and we celebrated around the fire. On the ride home, he said, “That was perfect.”

As we sat there, the conversation moved from frivolity and jesting to the sharing of marital advice from the married. Sam then stood up and shared his hopes for the decades he and his family would have. In the middle, he said this, “Most of us grew up hearing that Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship. The people I’ve heard it the loudest from, though, are probably the worst friends to God. If that’s how they treat their friends, they are terrible friends.” He went on to talk about the sort of love he hoped to embody towards God and his wife. What he said sticks with me though and it raises a poignant question: If we treated our friends like we treat God, how long would we keep them? What sort of friend would we be?

THOUGHT 3: Eugene Peterson

Many of you know this name because of The Message, a stylistic rendering of the biblical text in contemporary language (though it’s not a translation - even the preface affirms this). Nonetheless, Peterson is a prolific and gifted writer. In a book of essays on the life of Jeremiah (“Run with the Horses”), he says this,

“A relationship with God is not something added on after we complete our basic growth, it is the essential core of that growth. Take that core out, and there is no humanity at all but only a husk, the appearance, but no the substance, of the human.”

The Secret to Life = Friendship with God

How good of a friend are you being to Him?

Think on these things.

The Secret: Part 1

I went to a different church on Sunday which is starting a new series called ‘The Secret.’ As you may have guessed, it is a play on the book which got some notable popularity a few years back, but the name (and graphics of the title) is the end of the similarity. Whereas the book declares that the secret of living the life of your dreams is “the law of attraction” which allows you to draw the things you want to yourself by believing you’ll get them (which is a load of hooey - but that would require another post(s) to demonstrate), his series is getting at the core of living the Christian life. Today and tomorrow, we are going to look at this concept.

The first look we’ll take is an aerial view of secrecy because something struck me as fascinating. If someone came to us and said, “Hey, in this envelope, I’ve got the SECRET to impressing your boss and never failing at work. In this one, I’ve got the SECRET to finding love and living every day in it. And this last one has something you’re really going to like, it’s the SECRET to getting personal messages from God on a daily basis.” How eager would we be to open those? Don’t we want to be in a vibrant love daily, to never fail at work, to talk to God daily? If there’s a secret, we want to know it.

But there’s something funny about all of this. Implicitly nested in these desires to open the envelopes is a suspicion of a really important conversation we’ve been left out of. Not only that, when the desire to know really rises powerfully, it seems that we are just one secret away from living the life we should be. If only we could know it! And deep inside this cry are two truths and a lie:

1. There is something wrong and life is supposed to be better than this (truth)

2. The something wrong is fixable, but the answer is outside of us (truth)

3. If someone would just tell us, it would all be better (lie)

The two truths are worth camping on briefly. These are two things which are universally believed and which, in one way or another, constitute what it means to hope. Hope is faith applied to the future about a present situation which could be better; it is this aspect which should be defining for us. We still grieve, but as those who have hope (1 Thess. 4:13). We suffer, but know that hope isn’t eradicated in its midst (cf. Rom. 8:28-30). We even rejoice in hope (Rom. 5:2). It is hope (the recognition that things are not best, but that they can be) which is implicit in every secret, but where do we find the lie and should we expunge it?

The pastor leading the series posted this as his Facebook status a day or two ago, “Taking spiritual shortcuts makes your journey longer than it needs to be.” The lie which sometimes exists in our view of “the secret to this or that” is the expectation of a silver bullet or magic pill - that the hard part is finding the secret, not living it. And when one turns to the Bible, we find that this sort of view of the secret to life is a broad, easy, and wide road, while the way Jesus walked and the road He carved is narrow and hard. There is a secret out there and it is the answer to what’s wrong with life, but it would be a mistake to think it to be a quick fix.

So, what do you think this secret is? If it’s not a “quick fix,” why not? How is the secret applied if not quickly?

May 7: The Prayers of the Saints

I want to share with you something which I've found to be of inestimable worth in my own walk with the Lord, a little book of prayers called "The Valley of Vision." It is a collection of prayers from different saints from that era, mostly pastors, and is divided up somewhat categorically. The richness of the prayers of these men is wonderfully encouraging and arresting when I think about my own devotional life and level of conviction about the same topics these believers discuss when they come before the throne. After your Bible reading this morning, read the prayer below. I hope you enjoy it as well.

"The Servant in Battle"

O Lord,

I bless thee that the issue of the battle

between thyself and Satan

has never been uncertain,

and will end in victory.

Calvary broke the dragon's head,

and I contend with a vanquished foe,

who with all his subtlety and strength

has already been overcome.

When I feel the serpent at my heel

may I remember him whose heel was bruised,

but who, when bruised, broke the devil's head.

My soul with inward joy extols

the mighty conqueror.

Heal me of any wounds received in the great conflict;

if I have gathered defilement,

if my faith has suffered damage,

if my hope is less than bright,

if my love is not fervent,

if some creature-comfort occupies my heart,

if my soul sinks under pressure of the fight.

O thou whose every promise is balm,

every touch life,

draw near to thy weary warrior,

refresh me, that I may rise again

to wage the strife,

and never tire until my enemy is trodden down.

Give me such fellowship with thee

that I may defy Satan,

unbelief, the flesh, the world,

with delight that comes not from a creature,

and which a creature cannot mar.

Give me a draught of the eternal foundtain that lieth in thy immutable, everlasting love and decree.

Then shall my hand never weaken,

my feet never stumble,

my sword never rest,

my shield never rust,

my helmet never shatter,

my breastplate never fall,

as my strength rests in the power of thy might.

Amen.