tough. Living this christian life, that is. I get in the way of myself more than I’d like but God is so faithful and good. Really His faithfulness and goodness is what gives me peace. And I speak of these things separate from me. God isn’t good because He’s good to me or faithful because He’s faithful to me. He’s good and faithful because that’s just who He is. It doesn’t matter whether I think I’m “experiencing” God’s goodness or faithfulness because He’s still good and faithful! No matter what happens with me, He is still going to be glorified and Jesus is still victorious! The more I understand this, the more I realize this life really isn’t about me, but all about Him. The victory is already won. Talk about no pressure! Now I’m just trying to mimic His heart, walk in His Spirit and live in response to who He is. My failures are merely stepping stones anchored by his grace that are taking me to victory. It’s this victory I anticipate. I need to anticipate it more.
God has provided me with a job as a graphic designer with Hedman, a company that makes aftermarket parts for muscle cars. It’s been 8 months since I have had a job and I have been at the end of my savings for the past 5 months, but God continued to supply me with whatever I needed for each day. He has never allowed me to go without. Through this time some of the lessons that I have learned are humility to ask others for help, finding my identity in Christ and not in my work, working to have a steadfast faith especially in hard times that don’t make a lot of sense, being able to fellowship in frustration and uncertainty with others who are also unemployed, and most importantly to keep on loving other people that are around me even when my own needs are screaming for my attention. It’s amazing the peace I have when I’m looking to others with love instead of my own situation with fear. God is gracious in so many ways and his love really is incredible to me.
He’s been teaching me a lot about simple obedience lately. These are the words of Christ found in John 14:21, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” We all have our medications and mine has always been sex, either having it with girlfriends or looking at pornography. Lately I’ve been wanting to lust after the women I see day to day or look up women on the internet but by God’s grace I keep coming back to the fact that I really desire him more than my own gratification. I want to be loved by the Father and I want to know Christ and have him manifest himself to me. It’s this desire that day in and day out keeps me denying myself, picking up my cross and following Christ in pursuing the will of God and not my own. The more this is done, the more I feel the love of God upon me and the more I want to run after him full stride. I want to live a life evidenced by the power of His spirit at work and alive in me. I want to know Christ as if He is manifested and standing right in front of me. When I’m sober-minded and self-controlled I see so much clearly that God really is this treasure I have found that is completely worth giving up everything else for. It’s amazing what obedience in the little things, the secret things, does. It’s more beautiful than I could ever have imagined, and is what really defines my love for God and his love for me; all because of his immeasurable grace. Praise him!
The sun came out today after five days of forgetting what the sun felt like for us living in Lakewood, Ca. The better part of this past week has been washed by the falling sky and this sky collected in our streets and excited our gutters to overflow. It’s interesting to open your front door and see a river where you used to see a street. But today is different. The sun is out and the earth is dry. The air is warm and the breeze is but a whispering reminder of how she had stretched her lungs just the day before. But I don’t want to talk about today. I want to talk about yesterday.
Yesterday was an exciting day. It was the first time I had ever been in a Subaru Outback. I always thought they were great cars for outdoorsy people and now I was kind of living the day as one with my friend who really was one. “So this is all wheel drive all of the time?”, I asked while looking at the AWD logo on the dashboard. “Yep, there’s no way I can turn it off,” my friend answered. I felt like I could really sense all of the wheels pulling us along the concrete lanes of the 91 freeway as we made our way towards the San Bernardino Mountains. I couldn’t see the mountains through the pouring rain and swollen clouds, but I knew they would be there waiting for us.
As we drove we talked about a lot of things. It had been four months since I had seen my friend even though we live only twenty minutes away from each other. He began to share with me how isolated he had been feeling. He had been to a few churches in his area, but they left him frustrated. He told me how this one pastor of a very large church ended his sermon by asking people who wanted to believe in Jesus Christ to stand up and pray together with him. This was fine, but the pastor had everyone in attendance close their eyes and not look around during this time, as if to say that believing in Jesus is something shameful and those who believe in Him would only publicly profess their belief if there was nothing public about their professing. My friend walked away saddened and frustrated by this poor treatment of Christ and the Gospel. A new member of the family should be celebrated.
He says most of the churches in his area are seeker sensitive, which means they sway back and forth with the cultural trends in order to get more bodies in their buildings. These churches say they aren’t changing the message, just repackaging. The thing is, the message should be love. Love isn’t something that needs to be repackaged. It’s something that need to be done. Anyone who begins to grasp the love of Jesus and what He has done for humanity won’t be ashamed to follow Him.
We kept driving up these windy mountain roads and were soon thousands of feet high and wheel deep in snow. Then things started to happen. They weren’t major things, but just little things. We worked together to put chains on the car; one of us guiding the chains under each wheel as the other rolled the car forward. Then we almost kept driving down a wrong road when one of us realized this and brought it up in casual conversation. The last of these things happened when we were stuck in a line of cars. I told my friend that he could make a U-turn right where we were at to get out of this line and get us back on our way. I said he could easily make it and to just plow into some snow if he had to. He made the U-turn which ended up being something of a 5 point turn on the narrow snowplowed road, and we were on our way. I didn’t realize that all of these things were in fact things until he raised up his hand for a high five and said, “Thanks for the encouragement!”, then started to wonder out loud where we would be if we weren’t there together. I didn’t know where we’d be, but I did know that we were there together and these things I’ve been talking about are some of the reason why we, as in all believers, should be together and work to be together.
Just like the four wheels of the all wheel drive Subaru Outback, we were not designed to be isolated, but designed to be together, to work together, helping to regain traction if one of us is slipping. Just like the massive amounts of rain that together speak of the awesome power of the storm we were in, Jesus says that when His followers are unified in love as He is unified with God in Heaven, that we together speak of the awesome truth that Jesus is the Son of God through the unity and love we display with and for each other. We were made to live this life together and to move towards the unseen together. The unseen being the glory of God and His Kingdom that is waiting to welcome us home, kinda like the beautiful snow capped San Bernardino mountains, but better.
I wanted to pick up a pen tonight so I could write some notes in my Bible as I read it. I recently picked up a new Bible after giving my old one away at the request of a friend who had been talking to a homeless man while waiting for me to arrive at a small club down in Hollywood. We were to see two of his favorite musicians play that night. The man my friend had been talking with didn’t have a Bible but said he wanted one. My buddy sent me a text while I was on my way and asked if I could give him mine. I happen to have it in the car with me so I said yes. A month or so later, I had picked up a new one at a local bookstore but didn’t have a pen that wouldn’t emboss the pages. This is why I put on a coat and set out the door to walk a few blocks down the street to a market that has a modest stationery selection.
I looked through the different packages of pens that were available to me. I just needed one pen, but pens don’t seem to come in ones at this particular store. I looked at each type of pen packaged in twos and fours. I thought how it must be nice to be one of these pens cause you’d never get lonely. I settled on a package of four fine tip gel pens that flowed with black ink. As I paid for them, the cashier told me they were her favorite pens and I would love them. I told her I was excited to try them and wished her a good night.
As I walked out of the market and took the long way back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had just bought more than I needed, more than I wanted. I’m not just talking about the three other pens in the packaging. I’m talking about the packaging itself, the little piece of metallic something or other that’s somehow a theft deterrent device, and the printed instructions on how to use the pen in three languages. I didn’t walk out of my house thinking I really needed to pick up a piece of card stock just big enough to go around 4 pens and printed full of marketing jargon as to why every person needs to use the enclosed pens, but I got one. All I wanted was a simple pen. I ended up getting more than I realized. This reminded me of working on my 1988 Toyota 4Runner I bought when I was nineteen. I loved that truck and would do a lot of the repairs and maintenance myself. I was always amazed at all the different parts that went into making my truck do all the different things it did. It wasn’t so much the parts that amazed me but how I never realized I was buying any of those parts when I bought the truck years ago. It’s the kind of feeling I would get when I’d see a real human skeleton in a classroom during my college years. I’d wonder how much it would cost to get one of those, only to realize I already had one, inside of me.
All of this got me wondering about what we really get when we buy things. I mean when we buy a pair of shoes, sure we get some rubber, plastic, leather and laces, but what else do we get? We get a box. We get some of that thin paper they usually use to wrap the shoes in and maybe a bag to carry it all out with. The thing about all of these is we can hold each of them in our hands, but on this walk home I started wondering about all the stuff we get with our purchases that we can’t hold in our hands, the things we hold inside of ourselves, the deeper and sometimes darker places of our hearts, minds and souls. I don’t think anyone buys a new sweater because they want to hate another person for spilling something on it, or buy a new car to be paranoid about someone hitting it or scratching it. I don’t think a father buys himself a new tool so he can cultivate disdain towards his own son for breaking it, or a brother buys a new video game so he can punch his younger brother for touching it. But this is what happens. This is what we get without realizing it. Stuff has a way of making us think we need it, making us do the unthinkable to protect it. Our stuff is no longer about us, but we are about our stuff. It becomes who we are.
But somethings at times go deeper. Take my car for example. I bought it for a lot of reason that would make sense to most people, but one of them was so I could go out on more dates. Towards the end of my time with my 4Runner, it wasn’t in great shape. I had backed it into a few buildings, the paint was fading, it made a lot of noise, and smelled of engine grease. The last girl I dated while I had that truck wouldn’t be seen in it. I needed a car that wouldn’t scare off women if I was ever to go on a date again. I thought a new car would fix this problem. It did. I went on more dates. But now when ever I think of giving that car up, it’s not just giving up my ability to go where I want when I want, but it’s a death sentence for my dating life, even a dating life that has been dormant for years now. And what does this say about me? It says that I don’t believe I’m enough. Women won’t like me for who I am. It’s a loss of identity or at least a separation from understanding who I really am. I think it might go even deeper than this though. Maybe the very bottom isn’t a faulty understanding of myself, but a faulty understanding of Christ and not having my identity rooted in Him.
I thought of Christ not even having a place to lay his head while he was walking the country during his 3 years of ministry before his death, then I thought of the rich man who ran up to him to ask him how he could inherit eternal life. Here was a man who had every material possession he could want, face to face with a man who had nothing to his name. Jesus looked at him and asked him to sell all his possessions and give the money he made to the poor. He told the rich man this would give him treasures in heaven. Then he asked the rich man to follow him. But none of this happened. Instead the rich man turned with sadness and walked away from Jesus. Jesus went on to explain it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle then for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. To this the people around him respond, “Who can be saved?” It’s an interesting response. I think most people wouldn’t look at themselves and say they are rich, but these people did. And maybe we are too. Either way, the rich man’s identity was in all of his things, in the social status that comes along with all of his things, and in the facade of self security built up from having his things. Christ’s identity was in the work of God and in what awaited him once he was back with God. If my identity was really in Christ, then I would be busy with the work of God, not consumed with obsessions over things that might keep me from following God.
As my thoughts continued to ramble through my head as they often do, I became more disgusted with stuff. I was walking along a back alley and could see into backyard after backyard as I walked. This is what happens when you’re a six foot three inch man walking through a neighborhood built in the 1940s, back when people were shorter it seems. I saw stuff piled on top of stuff in these backyards. People had built up sheds and overhangs and shelves just to accommodate more and more of their stuff. It wasn’t even good stuff. It was dirty and rusty and discolored by the sun. But it was their stuff. They probably loved it. They might not even know what to do with out it. I know everyone isn’t this way with everything, but everyone does have something. What is my something? What are the things that are controlling me? What are the things that I hold onto tightly? What are the things that I’m refusing to give up? What are the things that are keeping me from fully loving God and other people? I just don’t want to get to Heaven and know I could have given more. So maybe I should start giving more now. To open my hands of all of my material possessions I believe will also open my heart to be more like the heart of Christ, open my mind to understand more the truth of Christ, and open my soul to be more sensitive to the leading of His Spirit.
So… maybe it’s time to get rid of some stuff.
News Years Eve has never been one of those nights I’ve met with joy and excitement like all the people I’ve watched through the magic of television over the past 30 years. I’d watch what seemed like endless oceans of people crash, wave, and roar in the new year with swells of song, dance, champagne and proposals flooding the confetti saturated streets of the largest cities in the world. I usually felt such disconnect from what I saw on the screen. I think in a way I was adrift in the dark placid waters of somber remembrance, looking back over my shoulder at the shores most likely I’d never walk again. I always thought of what I could have done better, what I could have done more and should have done less. New Years Eve, for me, was a night of regretful goodbyes instead of a night of promising hellos. I thought this was the way it was destined to be. I never knew it could be different. Then I met a man named Jeffery.
The New Years Eve party I had been at closed down early. I was back at home by 10pm with about an hour to figure out what to do. I was in a new house with new people in a new city and I wanted to thoroughly enjoy the celebration of the new year. I wasn’t having much luck. Half of my roommates were out of town and the ones that were home weren’t feeling well and didn’t want to brave the city streets. My last hope at turning my New Years experience around slid beyond the horizon with a text message from a good friend letting me know our plans had fallen through and he’d be staying where he was at. I stood motionless in the middle of my room looking at my cell phone. It was just a few minutes until 11 and I had nothing to do, no people to see, no place to go. I felt defeated. I didn’t want another New Year’s Eve like the last 30 I’d experienced. I started telling myself that I tried this year and it just didn’t work out. I told myself this was okay. Next year I would have made more friends and would be invited to more things. Really, what’s one more year of the usual and mundane. Everything will be different next year. I almost started to believe what I was telling myself until something inside me asked one of the most defining questions I had ever heard. It’s one of those questions that makes even the grayest of the gray turn to either black or white. It was soft, an almost audible whisper. “What would you do tonight if you knew tomorrow you would die?”
I was in thought for a moment then frantically reached for my nicest collared shirt, wool sweater and suite jacket. I wasn’t just putting on clothes. I was getting dressed for a concert. More specifically, I was getting dressed to put on a concert. I quickly grabbed my acoustic guitar, keys, wallet, knit hat, and my white wooden bar stool and loaded everything into my car. In ten minutes I was on the 405. Five minutes later, the 710. Thirty three minutes after leaving my house, I was parked on 6th street in downtown Long Beach pulling my guitar and stool out from the rear left passenger door of my slightly dirty 2007 Nissan Versa. The streets were alive with thundering footsteps and shouting voices. I picked up my things and began to walk down Pine Street towards the crowds. As people passed by I felt them looking at me while I carried my guitar in one hand and stool in the other. I was brought back to a memory of walking the hallways in junior high with my lunch box in hand mistakenly thinking it was lunch period when to my horror and shame I realized it was only a five minute passing period and thought all the students who saw me must have been laughing at me with their hands holding books and a lunch box in mine. I was twelve again for just a moment and felt out of place. It’s strange how some insecurities seem to never go away, but tonight I couldn’t be hindered by self doubt. I had a concert to make and I was going to make it. Tomorrow I might be dead.
I walked passed the road blocks and stepped into the somewhat familiar wide waters of crowds like I had seen on TV. It was a bit overwhelming to take in the entire scene before me, so I concentrated on person by person as I walked by. I try to make it a point to look into the eyes of strangers I pass. I like to think it helps them know they matter to me. It’s nice when you know you matter to somebody. I kept walking. The streets, growing more dense with people, began to disappear under waves of celebration. Dance music beat against the walls of every nightclub, restaurant and bar in sight with go-go dancers gleaming through the front windows using everything the good Lord gave them to lure more patrons inside. Massive stages filled with lights, walls of speakers and the greatest talents known to Long Beach filled the intersections of these densely peopled streets. I wanted to stop and stare. I wanted to take more if it in, but I only had five minutes to get where I was going. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew that in five minutes I would be there.
I crossed ocean boulevard with a large group of people. The only cars around were police vehicles with lights spinning and firetrucks that seemed to anxiously idle at the side of the road. I saw a corner of sidewalk made by two intersecting walls and wondered if that would be a good place to sit myself down but was quickly distracted by two feet of silky brunet hair waving side to side a few feet in front of me. I decided to keep walking. I have a strange almost-fanaticism where if I see a woman with beautiful hair my mind automatically composes an image of what I imagine her face to look like, and I want to see if my imagination is correct. Although I did keep walking I did not look into the face of this woman as I passed her. I only had three minutes left, and tomorrow I might be dead.
I was now walking along the west side of the Long Beach Convention Center admiring the 111 million dollar expansion that had been constructed in 1994. It has a lot of the glass and a large concourse that sits a story or so above the street. I soon came to the stairs that lead up to the concourse and began to climb them. This particular stare case is constructed of a series of steps broken up by an oval landing you come to in the middle of your assent or decent. It was on the this landing that I stopped to check the time. I saw 11:58pm glowing back at me from the face of my cell phone. Setting my things down, I knew I had arrived. I quickly opened my guitar case and pulled out my instrument. I sat down on the stool and placed the guitar in my lap. I set the fingers of my left hand to play an open G major chord and lifted my right hand to begin a downward strum. As the nails of my right hand fell onto the strings of my guitar the crowd below me broke into ecstatic, almost violent cheer. The tension that had been building in the city streets over the last few hours had finally been released as the clock struck 12 and the damn that once held back such feverish celebration buckled and exploded into what felt like a tsunami of fluid energy, the greatness of which I had never witnessed in a crowd of people before. And there I was maybe ten feet above all of it feeling the strings vibrate beneath my fingertips.
I smiled as I played through that G major chord. I smiled because I knew I was where I wanted to be. From the top of my few feet of makeshift concrete stage in the midst of the darkened city streets now set in motion by the celebrating bodies of my fellow men I lifted my voice towards the sky and sent my songs heaven bound. The Bible speaks of God being surrounded by millions of angels who sing his praise without ceasing. I sometimes try to imagine what such a choir of creatures would look like, what it would sound like. I can’t, but I like to think that on this night my voice somehow rose up from the earth and joined in with their songs of praise to the Almighty God, the Creator of all. It might be a silly thing, but it’s all I wanted to do. I wanted to put on a concert for God and just hope that he might be pleased with what he heard. I sang a number of songs full of lyrics that are close to my heart before detuning my guitar to play some meditative instrumental noodling while contemplating God’s grace and the people he loves all around me.
“Do you mind if I sit here and listen to you play?”
My head was down when I heard this question. I lifted my eyes to find a middle aged man looking at me while pointing towards the steps in front of him. He was a pleasant looking man with blue eyes and short curly hair wearing a red down filled jacket and pointed with a black knit gloved hand. I told him he could sit and listen all he wanted. We both sat in a silence only broken by the chatter of the crowds and the strum of the guitar. It was nice to have another person there even though I didn’t know his name.
“Jeffery. My name is Jeffery,” I heard him say.
I looked over at him and extended my hand. “I’m Brian.” He went on to tell me how he has a friend I remind him of. His friend played the guitar like I do and had long hair like mine. He said he’d sit for hours listening to his friend strum away on those six strings. Then he paused for a moment. I was looking into his eyes and saw them preface his next question with a deeper longing than most other expressions I’ve seen.
“What kind of songs do you know?”
I don’t really know any popular songs except a rusty version of Rainbow Connection by The Carpenters and the ever so catchy broken heart pop-ballad Since You’ve Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson. I thought of these as more of a guilty confession than a useful answer to his question. I kept silent. From the look he was giving me I felt as if something was dependent on the answer I returned, as if he already knew what he wanted me to say. I remember wishing he had just asked me if I knew a specific song or something, then I could have just said no, but now it was up to me to think of a song I knew that he might know and like. I couldn’t think of anything but didn’t want to ignore the question altogether. I looked away from him to break the tension I was feeling and explained that all I really knew were some church worship songs as I reached down to pick up a pile of chord charts to show him. Instead of taking the chord charts he grabbed my hand with both of his hands crinkling the charts that were now clutched between his forearms. He held my hand tightly. I looked over at him. His once longing eyes had swelled with tears that now flowed down his cheeks and his mouth cracked with a quiveringly frail grin.
“That is exactly what I need tonight,” he whispered, trying to swallow his emotions to be better heard. I felt a warmth come over me as I listened to him speak. He told me about his broken relationship with his mother. She hadn’t spoken to him in several years. He told me of obstacles beyond his control that were keeping him from living out his desires to be a missionary pilot in South America flying people and supplies to isolated villages that were not easily accessible by car or truck. He asked for prayer and if we could sing together some of these songs to God. That’s what we did. For the next twenty minutes or so Jeffery and I poured our hearts out to God on our little makeshift concrete stage. I remember him having a well sung voice that picked harmonies gracefully out of the air as if they were old friends he had sung so many times before. I smiled again thinking of the ways that God brings unlikely people together and faithfully gives to us what we need.
At the end of our time together Jeffery told me two things that struck me. The first was that he loved me. I rarely hear these words from a person I’ve just met. I remember one other time. It was from a man I spent three hours with talking on the street who had lost everything to alcoholism. During our time together he kept spitting out blood that oozed from an extremely painful tooth infection rotting in the back of his mouth. We talked about everything from childhood memories to the meaning of life. At the end of our time together he asked if I could get him a beer to help dull the pain and calm the shakes he was getting from not having alcohol in his system. He had already turned down my offer to get him some food. The company of a friend and a cold beer was all he wanted. I had given him company, and a few minutes later I gave him the tallest beer I could find at the Rite Aid we had been sitting in front of. To this day, I don’t know if that was the right thing to do, but I know I did it because I loved him. He gave me a hug and told me he loved me. He called me his friend. It seems this uninhibited love is given by those who know they don’t have anything to loose by loving another human being. It seems most of us still think we do. The second thing Jeffery told me that struck me was thanking me for listening to God’s call to bring my guitar and stool down to Pine Street and play worship songs on this cold New Years Eve. I wondered if it really was God’s call I had listened to at 11pm that night while standing motionless in my room. I wondered if it was God’s call that lead Jeffery to sit down next to some stranger playing a guitar in the middle of cascading concrete steps. I’d like to think so in some way, but I do for sure know it’s God’s call for us to love each other. And love we did.
I sat there for another hour or so after Jeffery left. I played more guitar and met a few more people. After the street had grown quiet, I packed up my guitar and gathered my things. I walked the half empty sidewalks back to my car and met more people on the way. I climbed into my car and started the drive home thinking about the night. I realized I wasn’t feeling my usual New Years Eve melancholy funk but was excited for the new year. I wasn’t looking back with regret but looking forward with a deep anticipation. I anticipated more of what I had experienced the first few hours of 2010. I anticipated more of God’s calling to uninhibited love. He is faithful to call. I want to be faithful to listen.
Nine of us have been living in this house since August of this year. Each one of us have found work except Matt and I. Matt is the pastor of our church and we are both at the end of our ropes financially. We know that God will come through and have joined in prayer with each other and others from our church, friends and family.
One of the things that gets me excited at seeing a community of people come together in prayer is the reality that a community that prays together celebrates together when the prayer is answered. I see this in Colossians 4:2 when Paul encourages the church to not only continue in prayer but to also watch their prayers be answered and give thanks together. So we’re all gonna party it up once God provides Matt and I work! Matt, myself and our good buddy Johny Walker!
One of my hobbies is riding my road bike. Kinda like Lance Armstrong, just not as far nor as fast. Since moving from Simi Valley to Long Beach this past August, I’ve put to good use the bike paths that follow the LA river to and from the ocean. I didn’t have much going on yesterday, so I took my 18lbs of two wheeled freedom out for a ride.
The bike paths that follow the river have been constructed to go under each cross street, which is great since you never have to stop, AND you get a small 20 foot slope to speed down and another one to climb up every half mile which somewhat breaks up the monotony of the otherwise flat ride. About 30 minutes into my ride I was climbing back up one of these 20 foot slopes and came face to face with a 13′ tall 20 ton clean up truck straddling the entire width of the bike path. Without a thought I squeezed my brakes and skidded to a stop. I stood there in the stillness of the moment gazing at this huge truck. I couldn’t go around it, I couldn’t move it, and I definitely couldn’t go through it. So I stood and stared. It was then I saw a guy walk around from behind the truck. He noticed me and raised his hand to show me his gloved palm. I wasn’t sure what he meant but he began to move tools aside which cleared an opening on the shoulder of the bike path. He smiled and waved me through. I proceeded slowly and had soon left the truck and man behind me.
For the rest of the ride I couldn’t stop thinking about my experience with the truck. I thought of how when face to face with the truck, there was no question in my mind that I was the less powerful than the truck and it created in me a sense of respect that I wouldn’t necessarily have for something like a Hot Wheels car. I loved Hot Wheels cars growing up, not just because they were little pieces of metallic coolness, but I made them do what I wanted them to do. I was in control of where my Hot Wheels were going, how fast they were tearing down the road, or which ramp they were going to use to fly across the living room while I watched The Dukes of Hazard on TV. That clean up truck, on the other hand, had more control over me than I did of it. Not only did I respect it, but for a few moments found myself in awe of its size and power; the very qualities I humbly respected.
Then I started thinking about God. How much more respect and awe does He deserve than a huge clean up truck? When was the last time that I was truly in awe of who He was? How are the ways that I don’t show him the respect that He so rightly deserves? It’s hard for me to keep God in His rightful place in my mind. I notice that He starts becoming more and more like a Hot Wheels car, that I can pull out of my toy box and play with at my leisure. I need to take time daily to meditate on what the Bible says about Him. I need to daily recapture that awe and respect of who He is and grow in them. I know that at the top of that 20 foot slope I had come face to face with that Almighty God, I wouldn’t have simply stopped and looked for a few seconds. For the first time in my life, I would have known what incomprehensible awe felt like. I want to know the true majesty of God and live my life in the wake of His glory.
I failed tonight and I need to confess my pride and lack of love. One of my roommates was assigned to cook dinner for the rest of the roommates that were planning to be home tonight. I love this guy, but he’s not as crazy about being clean as I am. This really isn’t a problem for me except when preparation of food is involved.
I walked into the kitchen to see how things were going. He was having fun cooking for all of us, but I noticed him using his mouth and the shorts he had worn all day to clean off his hands between chopping veggies, making sauces, straining pasta, and picking up food off the ground. It was great to see him enjoy himself, but as he touched all the food, I kept asking myself, “Am I really going to eat that?”
As I continued watching him cook, I remembered a story a friend had told me. He was visiting a number of remote villages in Burma while volunteering with a missions organization for a month. At a particular village he was presented with a plate of what was the most unappetizing substance he had ever seen and was expected to eat it. He said it looked and smelled like a plate of rotting meat paste. He took a bite not because he was up for the culinary adventure of a lifetime, but because of the people who gave him the dish. This was their way of welcoming him and giving him honor.
The situation I found myself in wasn’t nearly as difficult as my friend’s situation in his story. I was convicted. I needed to eat the food that my roommate was getting ready for me. He was loving me by cooking. I needed to love him by eating what he cooked. I did eat it and it was tasty, but I still struggled so much with laying down my own fanaticism about cleanliness and wasn’t able to fully enjoy what my roommate had done for me and our time together as we ate. I don’t love my roommate enough. I need to love him more and love myself less.
So today is my 30th birthday and here I am starting a blog. It’s a blog about trying to live life according the vision Jesus shared with those around him. Even though a blog is a medium of words, it’s my intent that this blog not be about words, but about using words and media to explain and express the day to day actions of someone figuring out what it means to follow Christ. Let’s see how this goes.
