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...
