Tragedy

I recently discovered my passion for splitting logs. It is so much fun. I honestly don't think I've experienced an emotional roller coaster quite like it. There's nothing better than seeing a log split under the power of my swing, aaand nothing more disheartening than watching the axe bounce off the top of top of the log, leaving the piece of wood in tact, and mocking me.

I have this suspicion that while creating their beloved masterpieces many artists had their audinece in mind. I don't think they created their work thinking, "I wonder what they'll like." I think it was probably more like a desperate attempt to get something that was internally consuming them, out. Much like giving birth. Gross.

So here's what I was thinking about during Christmas. I was confronted with the tragedy of Christmas. Seriously. Read this..."Through him all things were made; with out him nothing was made that has been made.....He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not recieve him." John 1:3, 10-11.

There's something terribly wrong with this picture. God, our source, our origin, our purpose comes to us, and what should be the most easily recognizable thing, the most anticipated arrival wasn't recieved at all. Tragedy. I can look in our world though and I can see this. Can't you? Its suprisingly easy to look and see a world that's not the way it was intended to be. It seems somewhat lacking, something is missing, things are damaged. That's a truth most people can agree on whether they believe in God or not.

Is there anything more painful to watch than someone trying to be somebody they're not? Ah, it's almost unbearable! I think thats why I have such a hard time watching Meet the Parents...Focker...you're so akward. I love The Office, but goodness Michael can drive me nuts. Maybe you've been that guy who has butted in on a conversation and pretended to know what they were talking about when you really didn't. My skin is crawling just thinking about it. Is this what we look like? A bunch of people standing around the preverbial water cooler all pretending to know what's going on? There's a good chance.

This is the tragedy of Christmas to me. God, what defines us, presents Himself to us and we don't even recogize Him. Ouch. The pain He must have felt, and still feels. Donald Miller says it like this, "I don't think we can understand the pain a pure love would feel after being betrayed by the focus of its love."

But there is hope to be found in Christmas, one verse down actually. "Yet to all who recieve him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-children born not of a natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." John 1:12-13

There is a hope out there. You do have a defenition, an origin, a purpose and He came here to rescue us. Merry Christmas.

Do You See What I See...?

I've never experienced a time in my life where God has answered so many prayers, done so much, or been so evident. Yesterday I felt the urge to thank Him individually for all the things He has done and so I wrote them down. As I went down the list expressing my gratitude for each "blessing" I began to feel rather foolish. I found that the response that I wanted to express wasn't necessarily gratitude for the things God had given me, but it was something deeper. It was the mind blowing truth that He is...real, and if God is real, then by definition He is worthy of my gratitude. I don't think the benefit of answered prayer is found in the answers themselves, but its in the face to face encounter with a real, powerful God that knows you.

Something else I've noticed is this; the more obedient I've become the more liberal I think. Hear me out. Not liberal in a political sense, not loose on my morals, or on the truths that I believe in, but on the way that I choose to let these truths flesh out. Its like when I actually have an "aha" moment about something that has to do with God and what He's about I can't stand to put it in a box and look at it one way. The Gospel and Jesus Christ are bigger than myself and my pea sized brain. Why do we have to do things the way we have always done them? I'm not sure all of these great men who we've started our beloved denominations after ever intended for us to be reaching people the same way they did hundreds of years ago. They saw the lost and they discovered a way to reach them, a way that was probably a little liberal for their time. Wesley took bar songs and wrote lyrics for them that taught theology. Here's to being a little liberal.

Along those lines I've also started to discover another interesting relationship. It seems the more obedient I've become the more compassion I have for the broken, for sinners. I'm not going to lie, I've seen a decrease of personal sin in my life and I take absolutely no credit for it, I am far from perfect, I'm still wretched, no good, and all the sorts of things that people who are filled with humility tend to say :), but I am more Christlike than I was a few months ago. That being the case I can honestly say that I look at people who are drenched in sin, held captive by it and my first reaction isn't to judge them, but it is to have compassion on them. Don't mistake this for tolerance, but I want more and more for them to have a encounter with Jesus. I know what its like to live a life along side of Him, and its great. I don't want to make them feel like they can't do it because they're so "wicked", but its my hope that they can understand that Jesus believes that they don't have to live that way anymore. It really is an interesting relationship.

Please disregard anything you could take offense at, this is my blogg and I can ramble as much as I'd like. Other than that...God bless us, every one.

Murky Waters

I wish I could play the drums. I've decided that is my favorite instrument. I thought it was the piano for a while, but its not. The piano is now second. I want to be a drummer. Don't go and get any ideas and buy me a set of drums, or they'll do exactly what my bass and keyboard is doing right now...collect dust.

I get to be a part of this life group with my church, Midtown, and it is by far the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. These guys are so authentic and genuine, not to mention unbelievably attractive. I think that's why they put us all together, to have the best looking life group ever.

Ok, so here's what I'm thinking about right now. Christianity today is so clouded. I find myself tired of sorting through agendas in order to hear truth. It shouldn't be this way. I'm thinking its like this, there's Jesus and this incredible truth He embodied, this way of living He demonstrated, and then for the past 2000 years we've piled on layer after layer of man made crap. I said crap, could have said something else. The even scarier thing is that we've convinced ourselves that some, and maybe even a lot, of this crap is necessary. I just want to peel back these layers and immerse myself in the raw and original truth of the Gospel, but whats sad is that more often than not when someone starts to do this, peel back the layers of man made religion, they are labeled as a heretic, and that's an ugly word.

Here's whats really scary. I did a bunch of research a while ago about Elijah and why what he did was so important. He's labeled as the greatest prophet ever in the Old Testament, but honestly when you read his story compared to the rest of the prophets, it really doesn't seem like he did as much as the rest of them, but anyway. So Ahab was king while he was a prophet and his wife was Jezebel, major witch. It says that Ahab angered God more than any of the kings before him. Why you might ask...let me tell you. Before Ahab, all the kings allowed, encouraged, and embraced the worshiping of idols. I found out that the worshiping of idols wasn't necessarily replacing God with a different deity, but they were often seen as something that allowed worship God. It was like, hey, here's this golden object...worship it and it will help you reach God. Ahab on the other hand replaced God with Baal, and I mean what jealous one true God wouldn't get peeved about this?

But back to the idol thing. A lot of times they weren't attempts to replace God, but things that were seen as necessary aides in order to reach God...hmmm. Could some of these "layers" we've piled on our faith, that we've made a part of this thing we called Christianity actually be idols? Things that we've labeled as necessities in order to understand Jesus, that actually... aren't? I'm just asking, maybe you should to.

I just want to let Jesus breathe. I know He doesn't need my help, but He's pretty incredible on His own.

It's Not Always, Always

When driving, why does it take some people so long to turn right? It's almost as if they picture themselves in the Olympics, "here we go, the approach is good, now oh, oh, oh, yessss, stuck it." Shut up and turn already, your blinker's going to burn out.

The fact that lost love hurts as much as it does proves to me its worth living for. If it is that noticeable when it's gone, then honestly, what is it?

Trevor and I were talking the other day, you know discussing how to change the world from the kitchen counter-top, and he said something that has been bouncing around in my head for a while. He said in one way or another that the older we get the less we buy into absolutes. Absolutes are things that we label as "always", or "all the time." I totally agree. There really are very, very few absolutes in this life. People aren't always like this, things don't always turn out like that.

But there really is beauty in this. It seems to me that life pushes us towards a relational way of living. Things don't fit into formulas. People don't fit into equations. God doesn't exist inside of a method. It is though how we seem to approach these things. If I treat this person this way, say these certain things, follow these steps, then this will happen. I haven't found this to be true very often. God is the same way. I find myself thinking, if I read this much scripture, say these prayers, have this attitude, this behavior then God will respond the way I want Him to. Is He God, or is He a video game? When I think this way I'm not relating to a living God, I'm relating to a method, a equation, a formula, and not a divine being.

What God wants is for us to know Him. To ask Him, "Why did you do that?" Things aren't always so black and white, but that's ok, we tend to enjoy the colors anyway.

I think something incredible happens when we approach people this way as well. We very good at trying to wrap somebody up in a single moment based on first impressions or stereotypes. We see them behaving a certain way and we sum them up instantly. An entire life defined in a moment.

Jesus didn't do this. I heard a really good sermon last night on Luke chapter 7 by my friend Dustin Willis. It's the story of the woman, a prostitute, that washed Jesus' feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and covered them with expensive perfume. I was thinking about how differently the religious guys looked at her compared to how Jesus looked at her. The religious guys saw her as a prostitute, a horrible person living a horrible life, they summed her up in an instant. Jesus didn't do that. He looked at her in love, with compassion. Jesus looked at her and not only saw her in her current condition, but also her whole life, everything that brought her to that moment. He knew, because He is God, that this woman's dream from the time she was a child wasn't to grow up and become a prostitute, but that a lot of things happened to get her there. Jesus' compassion on this woman not only forgave her of her sins, but it set her free from a life controlled by them. She knew after that moment that Jesus understood, but also that she didn't have to live that way anymore.

Life is relational. With God and with each other. It can be painful, but even then it still shows itself to be beautiful.