March 2013
2 posts
The time and region Jesus lived in was broken, difficult and messy.
His people lived under megalomaniac rule as subjugated people, forced to pay heavy, unjust taxes collected by dishonest people.
The religiopolitical leaders of the day were hypocrites, vipers and sons of hell.
The leaders all around them loved authority and power more than the people they were supposed to protect, and they...
Not taking things personally is an art that I have only really began to practice recently.
And I am in no way a master.
This art is closely tied to the spiritual disciplines of relaxing, shutting up and knowing when to quit.
And this is all an art and not a science because there are no clear rules.
How do I find the balance between knowing when to quit and knowing when to stand up for myself?
...
February 2013
2 posts
I envy the homosexual community a little bit.
Ok I don’t envy the hatred, discrimination and venom that so many people like to sling at them; what I envy is this concept of “coming out.”
I get that the bad stuff makes the the coming out necessary. Because without the bad stuff there would be no fear and shame to hide behind.
But coming out, the concept, at least in it’s...
If I told you that I was a particularly brave man, I would be lying. And it would be a big lie.
And I think because of my timid nature, I’ve always been drawn to the courageous.
I play at being daring and foolhardy.
As a kid, I made a swords out of PVC and guns out of Legos (my mother EXPRESSLY forbid any toy weapons in the house). I would hide them under my bed and in the middle of the...
January 2013
1 post
On the wall behind my desk is a small piece of paper taped to the wall:
Twenty Carat. Seafoam Pearl. Spearmint Gum.
This little paper is a reminder of the colors of paint my wife and I picked out for our apartment.
We were so excited to finally have our own place - to finally be able to afford our own place. So we went to look at paint. I still remember that trip to Home Depot.
We knew we...
December 2012
3 posts
All my failures
All my weaknesses
All my deficiencies
All my flaws
All my mistakes
All my wrongs
All my omissions
All my oversights
All my outbursts
All my wounds
All my nightmares
All my addictions
I claim them all. I claim them as true.
And yet I cling to what is Truer than true.
I want to be important to people. I want people to be proud of me. I want people to tell their friends about me.
I want to be envied and applauded.
I want someone to write a song about me.
And yet, like Taylor Swift, I have a problem with relationships.
I like the attention, but I don’t really like people all that much. At least, not close up.
It’s probably part of why I love...
My Wife: “How does she have so much depth and wisdom?”
Me: “Because she’s been to the depths of despair and made it back out again.”
It seems counter intuitive: the pit of despair is full of lies and destruction. It’s not life in the pit that brings the wisdom. It’s the life lived crawling out.
The only way out of that pit… the only...
November 2012
2 posts
Purity makes me angry. So so angry.
When I told my wife this, she thought I was crazy. Then we had to have a long conversation.
Here is why it makes me angry: I know way too many women crippled by shame because they gave away their “purity” (or worse, some asshole took it). On the flipside, I’ve seen way too many “good girls” who think they are hot-shit because they...
I have been dry.. for a long while now. Too many times I’ve sat down at this computer, written a smattering of something and then closed the browser.
Not a lot of coherence to work with when I’ve spent the past several months dipping into the broken places of my heart and soul - digging out more shards and slivers than I ever figured could fit in there.
Before God, I was damned to a...
October 2012
1 post
Our Father, who lives in Heaven, make me super important.
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, as long as I get the recognition.
Give me, right now, an easy life.
And forgive me of my sins, as I avoid those who have sinned against me.
And don’t lead me into temptation, but deliver me from people that make me uncomfortable.
For Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever. Sort...
July 2012
2 posts
A friend of mine always brings up this diametric response we seem to have as human beings: pride on one side, shame on the other.
I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit as I’ve been going through a long, long, long, long growth process over the past year-ish.
I used to think this way: prideful people are just a-holes or a Bs. shame is the symptom of woundedness, experienced by...
I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
[…] [T]here is [a] power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.
Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
Thank God! The answer is in...
June 2012
4 posts
[This post is adapted from something I taught to a group of guys at my church last week]
As human beings, God has uniquely gifted and equipped us with individual personalities. We were made very good in the image of God (Genesis 1:27,31) and we were made for reciprocal supportive relationship (Genesis 2:18). No cookie-cutters in God’s garden.
Your you-ness is an incredible gift from God....
I’ve never found counting sheep helpful at bedtime.
Actually I find nothing about numbers or counting to be restful. I find numbers to be quite stressful.
So instead, for years (maybe since I was 14) I’ve written my own bedtime stories.
Not really written. Imagined, as I lay in bed.
I have a very neat system too. Because anything worth doing needs a good system.
There is never one...
My grandma passed away when I was in highschool.
She had Parkison’s Disease - had it pretty bad like poor Marty McFly.
Near the end she… well she lost her mind. The neurotransmitter responsible for Parkinson’s: When there is too little, you lose muscle control. When there is too much, you develop schizophrenia.
The strangest thing (and what I believe was actually hardest on my...
So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point...
May 2012
27 posts
Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know...
Dear Son,
I’m here.
Love,
God
Dear God,
Maybe you forgot to add my address to your GPS.
Or maybe your smartphone uses Sprint and you just don’t have any service.
Maybe one of those time changes threw you off.
Or maybe you forgot to reset your alarm clock after that brownout.
Whatever happened, I would really appreciate it if you could show up soon.
Had an unsettling conversation with my wife today.
I pointed out a mutual acquaintance from church today while we were driving away and said: “I am totally convinced that [john smith] does not like me.”
My wife response was initially patient: “Ok. Why not?”
I said something silly like: “Can’t put my finger on it. It’s sort of a gut feeling.”
She...
She is still struggling, flailing, drowning in her boss’s words as she pulls into the driveway.
“You’re just not cutting it.”
She steps out of the car and gasps for air. It doesn’t help. Her lungs, saturated as they are, can’t seem to suck in enough air to do much good.
She stands there for a bit, clinging to the door of her car.
She lets go, only to grab onto her phone. 4 unread emails. 2...
The biggest, worse, most terrible lie we can tell ourselves is that no one understands - that we are alone in our pain, our hurt, our grieving, our loss, our dysfunction, our madness, our mania.
Pain - as ugly, messy and miserable as it can be - its a powerful unifier.
Everyone hurts. No one is invincible.
It’s why we come together at funerals. It’s why we mark tragedies with public...
Sometimes listening to someone else’s story, the bigness and the passion and the depth, reminds me that my ordinary might be someone else’s inspiring.
I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more— Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets….Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved...
Doing the right thing is hard.
And when I say doing the right thing, I’m not talking about those really obvious, easy ones.
Don’t punch your dying grandma.
Don’t pee on your sleeping neighbor
Don’t scream at a sick child
I’m talking about those agonizing decisions, the grey ones that take a lot of thought and wisdom and advice and discernment. I’m talking...
I am not responsible for the emotions of other people.
Tonight at my friend’s wedding, my wife and I sat at a table with 2 pastors and a minister. My wife and I were at the pastor’s table.
Being at the pastors’ table is a bit of an allegory for my life.
I can identify 12 guys (pastors, ministers, elders or spiritual leaders) who have had an incredible influence on me.
But the truth is, most of these guy I’ve sought out....
“But if you keep attacking each other like wild animals, you had better watch out or you will destroy yourselves.”
Galatians 5:15
Got stuck on this tonight. Couldn’t get it out of my head.
So my wife and I have started talking seriously about kids. (Which I’m sure will make my mother-in-law happy. I’m surprised she hasn’t sabotaged our birth-control yet.)
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, about what it means to be a family and what I want for my family. And I’ve been making a mental list of what I want my family to be known for:
Taking responsibility...
“Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.”
But [he] replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?”
Nowhere near an easy thing to process.
But much better than our crappy modern catechism: “God works in mysterious ways.”
“The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.”
Psalm 34:17
Tonight, my wife and I screamed in the car. She screamed as loud as she could. Then I screamed as loud as I could. We screamed and yelled… all of our feelings and fears came out.
I used every swear word I could think of. And my wife swore twice.
But we weren’t...
Belief is a lot like love.
It can’t be a feeling, because when you need it most you’re feelings are caught up in the mess of life.
So tonight, when things feel so hopeless, I’m going to believe.
That things will get better.
These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
But if...
I don’t always handle conflict very well. It generally makes me uncomfortable.
But I’m learning the art of disagreeing.
I used to avoid disagreeing with others, because I’ve seen a lot of people manifesting their wonderful opinions as large objects with which to bludgeon other people. And I don’t want to be that kind of person.
However, being a pushover is not much...
When you’re a Christian and you get married, everyone wants to give you THE definitive book on marriage. Apparently no one agrees what that is, because my wife and I received several books.
One book in particular I found to be very underwhelming:
Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs
I found the book to be reductionist and overly-simplistic to the...
“Thank you God for the gift of friendship. There are a lot of lonely people in the world. Help us to keep that in mind.”
A good friend of mine prayed this prayer Sunday night while we were at In-N-Out. (Ehh rough quote, but the gist is there)
I was reminded of that prayer tonight during community group.
Tonight I will set aside my problems, pains, and hurts for a moment to...
Today I broke.
Split. Shattered. Crumbled.
And so what could I do?
Brave face, brave face, brave face.
But leave my phone at home.
Because the mask can never hide the tremor in my voice.
I bought a guy 5 bucks worth of gas.
I don’t say this to brag. I’m actually pissed about it.
I have a rule. Whenever it comes to giving money to someone, I am supposed to stop and think: “How would my wife give?”
My wife is much more naturally generous than I am. I jokingly tell people that my wife would give away all of our money if I would let her. (Joking, but it is...
Today my wife and I went on a hike with my sister and a friend of hers. Our desire to move to Chicago in a few years came up, and before going into the explanation, I decided I needed to share a disclaimer. The following conversation happened:
Me: Well I’ll just put it out there - my wife and I are sorta.. moderately conservative Christians. We’re going with some other people from...
Say no as often as you can.
Seriously.
As a recovering people-pleaser, I can tell you. Saying yes can be the most damaging thing to your emotional, spiritual and relational health.
I have made up all kinds of stupid excused as to why I need to say yes to people:
“Well I don’t want to disappoint him.”
“Well this might fall through if someone doesn’t step up and...
How do you love people?
I’ve heard a lot of people say that to really, really love someone, you can’t have an agenda.
I think I used to agree with this.
But I’ve changed my mind.
Love takes too much determination… too much grit, spit, tenacity, ferocity… too much self-effacing, self-denying, self-neglecting persistence to be driven by anything other than an...
Marriage is hard.
Being selfish, pointing fingers, blaming, and taking things personally makes it way harder than it has to be.
Thought out exactly what I wanted to say earlier today - didn’t write it down. Forgot.
Wrote out a post - didn’t save it. Lost it. Arg.
My wife and I are planning on moving from Southern California to Chicago in 2014. It’s a God thing.
We are waiting because we’ve got important commitments.
My wife’s Dad is in poor health - we might not have too much longer with...
April 2012
4 posts
Yesterday I was at the wedding of a good, good friend. It was an amazing day for him and his then fiancé, now bride.
It was a day of mixed emotions for me. Not because I wasn’t happy for them. I am, very.
But at times my joy was overshadowed by my own crap. Despite my promise to my friend that I would let nothing get in the way of the joy of his wedding.
There were moments when the confluence of...
I had such terrible social anxiety growing up, that I threw up nearly every day for two years. I remember dry heaving vomit tasted like Sunny D – and I would feel it on my teeth for hours.
I am incredibly hairy. This is a fact of deep shame for me. I don’t like going to the beach because of it. My wife thinks it’s sexy – I try very hard to believe her.
Sometimes I find that I love the mission of...
I like Barack Obama. I am a registered Democrat.
I was not a fan of George W. I am even less of a fan of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.
I have difficulty respecting people who take FOXNEWS seriously. (A big time issue with my heart)
I believe that the Republican stance on climate change, environmental protection and what I affirm as creation care is deplorable and morally reprehensible. It is...
I like Rob Bell. I like Brian McLaren. Both of these writers and leaders were incredibly important to my spiritual formation. At a time when I was angry with God, confused about Christianity and generally intolerant and dismissive of churches, Bell and McLaren kept me seeking God. What I appreciate most about these guys is their posture of humility and their desire to seek God. Despite what some...
March 2012
2 posts
A lot of talk about men, women, relationships and marriage has been happening around me lately. And like I always do - I’ve been putting a lot of thought into it.
I will start off with this, because it frames most of my thinking on marriage: the NIV & ESV composition of Ephesians 5:21-31 bothers me. In a creepy-crawly, bugs on my skin sort of way.
In my limited opinion, 22-31 is an...
Last night a good friend of mine told me that I gave weak hugs. We laughed for a bit after he perceived my questions as insecurity. (My friend is very aware of my propensity to take small comments very seriously and very personally)
I thought about it for a while - and I realized he was the first person to comment on how I hug. And as I thought about why his comment bothered me, I realized...
