Category Archive

Chapter 5: A powerful SUV (on Discovery and Learning).  For most of us who own SUVs, it’s just enough to know we could do something like the commercials if we needed to.  While just knowing we could explore unpaved territory may be okay for literal suburbia, it’s not okay for the landscape of our spiritual lives.  We have a lot of knowledge about God, but are sadly lacking in vibrant experiences with God.  Once very two years or so, I have an encounter with God that makes me fell “saved” all over again.  I fall into a spiritual rut, and then find myself sinking in the quagmire of my own self-preservation.  Those of us who live in spiritual suburbia have become experts on what we don’t experience.  We attend meetings, listen to others, and can critique sermons, services, and sanctity–without ever having to interact with God ourselves:

The short-term mission team and I were performing street dramas, preaching the gospel, and being all-around ethnocentric, upper-middle-class Americans.  Still, God was at work in Budapest, Hungary, and lots of people were committing their lives to Christ and capitalism through us.  As I was wandering a public square, I noticed a weathered and aged man playing a violin that had only three strings.  His knuckles were knobby, and his fingers appeared to be as beaten down as his violin.  As I apprached, he screeched a tune that sounded remarkably like two cats in heat. 
          Clasping my hands together, I pantomimed my question regarding whether I could pray for him.  But as I knelt down, the man extended one of his withered hands to my shoulder and raised the other one up to heaven, and began to pray for me instead.  I felt a tingling rush sweep over my body and then, Wham!, I hit the cement sidewalk, face first and weeping uncontrollably.  I thought, Get a grip, you’re making a scene out here in public!  But my body would not submit to my pride.  Instead, I lay there listening to an old man pray in a language I didn’t understand, hoping no one was noticing me.
          Another tingle went through me, and I found myself sitting at a colossal banquet table that stretched for hundreds of feet and seated hundreds of people.  I was sitting on one end of the table, and Jesus was way, way down on the other side.  I could hear him laughing and talking with those seated around him.  Then I zoomed in on Jesus.  Though we were still at opposite ends of this great expance, Jesus and I were looking eye-to-eye–and he wasn’t happy.  “How many times have I told you that the first shall be last and the least shall be the greatest in my kingdom?  You are kneeling before one of my most holy servants,” he said.
          Then like a hyperspace jump in Star Wars, I was back.  Two Hungarian students who attended the American univeristy told me they had been watching for about ten minutes.  “He was praying, thanking God for sending such a holy man to his city so that many might receive God.  He must think you’re a priest or something.  Then he went on to pray about the poor and needy around the city.”  The students went on to explain how Frank plays his violin every day in order to raise donations so that he can buy bread and distribute it to the poor and addicted who suffer without hope in the backalleys.  If Frank had any bread left over after his rounds, then he’ll eat.  Rumor had it that there had been times when Frank had gone seven or eight  days without eating so that others would have enough food.
          What a world of distance between my Christian suburbia and Frank’s urban wilderness.  Oh sure, I may have been able to dance doctrinal circles around him regarding God’s heart for the poor and broken.  I probably could have helped him set up a more effective and efficient way to collect money and distribute bread to the poor (all in the name of godly stewardship, of course!).  But I wasn’t the expert on ministry to the poor; Frank was.

• How do you connect with God?  Jesus wants to be the master of our lives, and this puts us in the position of becoming his apprentices.  The way to get closer to God is not to study about him, but to participate with him.  “Follow me” surely implied that Jesus was going somewhere.  Reading the Bible for knowledge alone is like going to a restaurant and eating the menu but not the meal.  Now don’t reak out on me.  I’m not about to go all anti-Bible on you.  I know and firmly believe that the best way to know where God is and what he is like is through his holy Word.  However, the meal is in relationship with the person of Jesus Christ, not in simply reading about what he offers.
• In Matthew 6:9-10, Jesus used the Aramaic term Abba.  Abba was a nursery term, and in today’s vernacular it would be “Papa” or “Daddy.”  With this word, Jesus is inviting us to experience the Father’s complete, safe, and radical tenderness toward us.  Our conversations with God need to start with our understanding of God as our Abba.  If we don’t get this, if we don’t let him function in that role, we will always come up short in regard to what he wants for us in prayer.  Has this information changed the way you actually connect with God?  Knowing and actually experiencing and trusting this information are very different things.
• For example, I first ran into Madame Guyon while studing Richard Foster’s Devotional Classics.  She wrote about a profoundly simply way to turn our hearts toward the presence of God (find a Scripture to use to help focus on God, continue to read those words over and over again slowly until you sense God’s presence, shift from the Scripture to conversing with th Lord, then if your mind wanders just go back to the Scripture to get you back on track).  Since then, I’ve gotten pretty good at talking about prayer, but I know God is still waiting….
• Julian of Norwich wrote, “For the highest form of prayer is to to the goodness of God.  God only desires that our soul cling to him with all its strength, in particular that it clings to his goodness.  For of all the things our minds can think about God, it is thinking about his goodness that pleases him most and brings the most profit to our soul.  For we are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it.  No created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves them.”  I could drink from God’s goodness and love all my days, and his well would never run dry, and my thirst would never be quenched.  The invitation goes beyond understanding to truly clinging to the tangible nature of God’s goodness.
• Brother Lawrence wrote, “I imagine myself as the most wretched of all, full of sores and sins, and one who has committed all sorts of crimes against his king.  Feeling a deep sorrow, I confess to him all of my sins, I ask his forgiveness, and I abandon myself into his hands so that he may do with me what he pleases.  This king, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastening me, embraces me with love, invites me to feast at his table, serves me with his own hands, and gives me the key to his treasures.  He converses with me, and takes delight in me, and treats me as if I were his favorite.  This is how I imagine myself from time to time in his holy presence.”  Let God pour his emotional, reckless, and prodigal love on you.
• While pursuing my PhD (Debt Piled High and Deep), I used to think it was to my advantage to buy used textbooks that already had lots of highlights.  But that was frustrating because previous colleagues didn’t seem to know which things I would think were important.  A couple of times a year, I go back through my selection of books and read the highlights.  I see so many great insights that I wanted to apply to my life.  Some I have, but most remain yellow. 
• Also, most of the highlighting occurs in the front half of the books, with the amount slowly drying to a trickle by the three-quarter mark.  I have a bad habit of not finishing.  I’ve realized I need to apply what I have been learning.  I need to follow through on the commitments I have made, especially the things that Jesus has brought into my life.  Jesus may have been speaking to me through those books, but have the words worked their way into my being (2 Peter 1:3)?
• Escaping suburbia means aligning our behaviors with our beliefs.  The divine power he offers is called grace, God’s empowering presence in our life that helps us turn knowledge into experience (Luke 2:40, 1 Corinthians 15:10, Ephesians 2:8-10).  You get more grace by living it.  The more of God’s grace you allow into and through your day, to work out in and through you, the more he will pour upon you.  We aren’t endued with such power mrely to attend church meetings.  God has equipped us to charge over the gates of hell, to drive straight into the Enemy’s camp, and to live a life that finds itself right smack in the middle of God’s story in the world around us.  Step on the gas, I see a mountain to climb.

Chapter 6: A really big house (on Intimacy with God).  I got to thinking about the types of homes people return to.  Not just the physical structures, mind you, but the relationships behind the brick and mortar walls.  When you live in a large home, you have plenty of room for a variety of activities to be happening at once, but it also means you don’t have to be very close to anyone if you choose not to be.  This book is about the home located inside of you.  As Jesus spoke in Revelation 3:20, he was talking to those who havealready professed to have a relationship with him.  Jesus wants to be invited into deeper, more meaningful relationship than just standing at the door will allow. 

• (1)  Yet, that’s about as intimate as we often get with him, like with the pizza delivery guy.  Secretly, we hope that our plastic Jesus’ head is bobbing up and down. 
• (2)  Or, we plateau at the relatively stable symbiotic business/working relationship where we mutually benefit each other.  We know God by name and commit to working for him because we believe in the vision and values of his organization.  We hold marathon PR meetings to develop plans to sell his product (salvation) to others.  We raise money for the poor.  We get his peace and fire insurance, and he gets our busy bodies.  The temptation to settle in this land is powerful; it is, after all, the Land of Good Things (eg.  it is good to focus on evangelism, it is good to serve others on Sundays). But we can forget to stop and asky why.  Why am I so busy?  Far too many teeter around the edge of burnout.  They signed up because they loved the Boss and grooved with his vision.  The benefits were out of this world and the coworkers were friendly.  Then something began to happen.  Their external busyness dried up the internal goodness.  Once motivated by the Master himself, they are now only motivated by the machine itself; they are simply a cog in the wheel of the business called “churchianity.” 
• That’s what happened to Jonathan.  He grew up street smart and tough, but God grabbed hold of his heart, held it in his nail-pierced hands, and turned this six-foot-four, three-hundred-pound, Hispanic, Hollywood punker into a gentle giant for Jesus.  Early in his walk, his passion often outweighed his wisdom.  He invented the ministry of evandelism.  On other occasions, he’d flatten tires and wait for the owner to return.  He promised to fix their flat for free if they’d listen to his message of God’s love.  He then soon found himself playing the guitar for crowds and leading worship teams.  People gathered around his fire and warmed up in his glowing.  A subtle shift began to happen.  He started playing for the effect of worship and was no longer playing to an audience of One.  Slowly, subtly, and surely, this once radcal, passoinate, no-holds barred, worshipper of Jesus had turned his ministry into a business relationship.  Before he knew it, the goal was to create and perpetuate the sense of God’s presence for others though that presence had long since waned in his own heart.  He found himself growing bitter and resentful.  He realized his worshipping heart had lost its center.  What he’d once done for the love of Jesus, he was now doing for the works of Jesus.
• (3)  The difference between being a servant/business partner and a friend is in the intimacy, not the action.  We are called to do the things that Jesus did.  We can be religious and do these things out of a sense of duty, or we can be intimate and do these things out of a sense of friendship.  I, for one, want to be in a cooperative friendship with Jesus, where he shares with me not only the task at hand, but his heart’s desires and motivations as well.  My team and I were working among the children who were living and working in the desolate and polluted environment of a garbage dump on Bohol Island in the Philippines.  One of the local leaders brought a guitar, and everyone was singing.  Under my breath, I muttered, “God, this song isn’t right.  Look at the deprivation.  How can we be singing you are gracious?”  It was as if Wisdom was standing next to me, for I heard a voice as clearly as if I were talking to my friend Marty, saying, “I sent you, didn’t I?”  It’s hard to explain, but I felt as if god was saying that he was allowing me to be a part of his heart and love for these kids and the Philippines.  I was participating in a cooperative friendship with Jesus, not just a partnership.  And as such it seemed he felt open enough to share with me his heart for those kids and for me.  Conversations like this can turn something hollow to something hallowed.
• (4)  Just as I don’t critique the art my children make for me, neither does God critique our heartfelt worship works for him.  But if we didn’t grow up in such a home, we will often draw a line, buil da fence, and decide to experience Jesus’ love on the cross, but we won’t risk trusting the love that sent him there.  In doing this, we are negating much of the reason Jesus became a man in the first place (John 5:19, John 14:9-11, Luke 11:2).  Jesus came to make God’s love tangible to you and me.  But for many of us, the tainted love of our earthly fathers has poisoned the love we experience from our Father in heaven.
• In Psalm 18:7-15, we wonder what David did to make God that angry.  God was indeed angry, but not at David (5-7).  What really makes God angry is when the Enemy is picking on his kids!  David got brutally honest and cried out to God for help.  God heard and came with the full force of his might to help him.  This same love sent the full force of God’s mercy and forgiveness to the cross to conquer the enemy of our souls, once and for all.  But God doesn’t just love humanity that much, he loves you that much.  I meet people almost weekly whose fathers are terrible representations of what God intended dads to be.  But we must risk believing in a perfect Father’s perfect love.  As we explore God’s love, I believe he begins to restore a sense of wonder, awe, and childlike trust to our desolate spirituality.  Not only does wonder develop intelligence as children grow, i belivee it also helps kids maintain their sense of innocence.  We must ask for it, and then slow down to look for it.
• (5)  When Jesus says John 14:6, I believe he is inviting us to enter into a passionate love relationship with him.  I believe he is telling us that it is possible to know him, and for him to know us like husbands and wives know each other, not sexual or erotic but emotionally intimate and passionate.  God invites us into a relationship of such trust and closeness that we feel completely safe with him, willing to be “naked” in his presence, with nothing to hide, willing to bridge any barrier in order to find complete oneness with him.  To experience this deep level of intimacy with God, we need to risk feeling a little undignified and unruly in the presence of the lover of our soul (Psalm 69:6,9, Matthew 26:7, Joshua 6:7, Matthew 2:9). So step out, do a little dance, and make a little love toward God tonight.
• Worship should declare the joyous celebration of God’s presence in our lives, the awesomeness of his sovereignty over the whole universe, and the tangibleness of a transparent, unashamed, and intimate love–just like God wants expressed through marriage.  The ways that I express my affections for my wife are quite diverse, but my love for her should be evident every day that I celebrate her love in my life.  We should view worship as a lifestyle as well as a part of church meetings.  In both instances, it is choosing to give all honor and thankfulness back to God for his presence in our lives.  Although some contmeporary religious styles often interpret reverence to God as something quiet and somber, scriptural worship is quite diverse.  Biblical worship connotes freedom, ranging from standing, raising hands, or dancing, to kneeling or lying prostrate; from quiet, reflective listening to loud, passionante praise.  Rekindle the romance.
• That’s the beauty of plumbing the depths of the unfathomable.  The adventure never ends.  “When you want God as desperately as you wanted air, you will know him as I do.”  How far can this joureny take us?  Deep…desperately deep.  The devil does not want you going deeper.  If you did, your love for God might become contagious.  Others might become more thirsty and hungry for substance in their relationships with God.  There could actually be revival.  So the Devil work hard tokeep you and me busy.  Just enough so we don’t feel like we are failing.  But many of us are stirring.  Suburbia has lost its appeal.  Our souls are hungry for more of the real presence of God.  We don’t just want him to deliver the pizza to us, we want him to come inside our souls and share the meal with us.

“Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Ghost descended on me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. 
          I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me.  Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love….
          No words can express the wonderful love that was shed abroad in my heart.  I wept aloud with joy and love…. The waves came over me, and over me, one after the other, until I recollect I cried out, ‘I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me.’  I said, ‘Lord, I cannot bear any more;’ yet I had no fear of death” (Charles Finney).

Chapter 7: A perfect lawn (on Brokenness).  Brokenness and pain are not pretty.  They are like a throbbing sore, constantly aching and oozing until we medicate or anesthetize them.  Brokenness causes God’s presence and power to fade like an echo in our soul.  The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way! The truth is, the area of our deepest pain often has the potential to be the source of our greatest joy and the launching pad of our highest callings.  Indeed, those who have been forgiven much tend to love much.  Suburbia gives us shame in our brokenness; Jesus gives us hope.  The church often says, “How could you?”  The Holy Spirit ays, “I still love you.”  Our culture finds no value in broken things; God finds redemptive value in them. 

• In Mark 14:3-6, almost all placed value on the jar before it was broken.  But Jesus placed value on it after it was broken. This woman was broken before him, and he was pleased.  This is a story of worship that God likes.  The same story he wants us to live today.  He is drawn to people who admit and invite him into their brokenness.  I am convinced that is why the Father had Jesus be born in a manger.  He wanted his Son to be born in the brokenness of poverty.  But even being born in one of the lowest cities of the day was not low enough, for Jesus was born in a stable that housed only animals.  There is no place on earth he will not go to reach us with his love.  But what if God the Father was trying to tell us his life can best be born out in the lowest, most shameful places of humanity?  What if he was not only talking about the physical but the hidden stuff in our souls as well?  When God’s life came and invaded darkness, the world got the blessing and the Father got the glory.  We work so hard to prop up the exterior of our decent Christian living that we fail to attend to the hurts, hang-ups, and decay within.  If we long to escape, we can no longer hide our brokenness.  We must offer it to God as uncharted territory and be willing to explore it with him, beginning with surrender.
• Often brokenness is masked by addiction and addiction is masked by secrets.  Many who struggle with the continuous ache of brokenness first try all kinds of things to anesthetize it: drugs, alcohol, shopping, cyclic relationships.  We may try yoga, yogurt, or Yoda, popularity, power, or porn, dressing up, dressing down, or complete nakedness.  But soon we find that those things only serve to widen the chasm created by brokenness.  So we make a promise.  Sin, repent, commit to change, and round and round the cycle goes.  When we will crash and burn, nobody knows.  But herein lies the problem–commitment.  As long as we are committed to overcoming our brokenness, we won’t be able to do so.  What we need is to surrender (Romans 7:18-25).
• Surrender is not losing the battle; let Him fight for you.  Surrender is not periodically giving in to your hurt and/or brokenness (not to binge and purge).  Surrender is not giving up a part of your life (He knew what he was getting, but did you know what you were giving?).  Look at the desolate territory of our soul and ask him, “Can you redeem this land?”  If he says yes, then surrender it to him.  Give up trying to fix it to impress him or trying to hide it to protect him. 
• One of the hardest areas for me to surrender was my idea that I needed to have it together in front of those I pastor or lead.  You know, the whole “live above reproach” thing.  The problem arises when living above reproach becomes synonymous with hiding behind dishonesty.  During that early season of my walk, God gave me an opportunity to have lunch with Tom Stipe.  During our chat, he said, “There are no Cinderella stories in the kingdom of God.  Every authentic leader bears the scars of brokenness.  If they don’t walk with a limp, they probably aren’t worthy to be followed.”  Walking with a limp is not only an indication of struggle and past brokenness, but also evidence of healing and perseverance.  The Bible tells us that God’s gift and his call are irrevocable (Romans 11:29), but so is the path to get there.  There is no short cuts on the way to holiness and healing.  One way or another, I was going to have to learn to surrender.
• The movement of posers are restricted.  Instead of exploring, posers are forced to keep up the appearance of their glittering images.  Every life needs to look the same so that no difference can be felt or recognized.  “How are you?”  “Fine.”  Or rather, FINE (Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional).  We must give up our rights, privileges, and personal expectations.  Vertical honesty, and then horizontal honesty.  I see a Wonderbra spirituality.  We use whatever contraption we can to puff up what little substance we atually have to impress others, even if it hurts us in the process.  Then later, they find out we really weren’t as attractive as we made ourselves out to be.  Perhaps the ultimate irony is that by enhancing our weaknesses, we may be distracting others from our strengths.  Psalm 136 says that his love for me has remained consistent, pure, lavish, purposeful, and powerful over all these years.  Vertical honesty doesn’t only mean that I am transparent with God about who I am, but it also means that I’m receptive to who he is in all his love.  Just because I don’t deserve his love doesn’t mean I can’t have it.  It is his gift to give and only my choice to receive.
• Coming clean with a bunch of addicts is amazingly freeing in AA, NA, etc., but when people come clean in the church, the response is often quite different.  After a friend of mine talked about her eating disorder (and the initial under-our-breath gasps), the group piled on her like a school of well-meaning piranhas.  Everyone wanted a piece of “helping” her find the way to healing.  After about a half-hour of counsel and storytelling from the group, she sheepishly piped up again, “I was just asking for prayer.”  The church needs to follow the recovery group model.  The group simply responds, “Thank you for sharing.”  No judgment, no critique, no shaming.  Just genuine thankfulness that someone was…well…honest.  Now no one has to pretend anymore, which is the first step toward healing.  What they do next is up to them, it is their journey, we are just there to help.  The place where honesty on the horizontal and vertical meet looks remarkably like a cross.
• Not long ago, I had the privilege of facilitating a group of twelve spiritually hungry and brutally honest seekers.  I affectionately dubbed our ragamuffin group the “Red Pill Forum,” alluding to the first Matrix movie, and the scene where Neo had to choose either the red pill or the blue pill.  Choosing the red pill meant discovering the truth and following it despite not really knowing just how far that journey would go.  Choosing the blue pill meant erasing the question and going back to pretending everything was FINE.  This group’s version of choosing the “red pill” was swallowing a weekly reading from Brian McLaren’s challenging but noncondescending book Finding Faith.  We had two simple rules and one goal: (1) a commitment to honesty about our own life and (2) a commitment to honor the honesty in each other’s lives.  Our goal was exploring God’s story in Christianity, without manipulation or pressure to convert.  It happened about the seventh week of our weekly gatherings.  I was talking about how Jesus invites us to live from a whole new perspective–one in which life is lived from a “God-ward” orientation and not a “self-ward” orientation.  Then someone said, “That’s one thing I don’t understand.  Christians talk so much about abundant life, but it seems all your decisions are based on fear.  Fear of hell, fear of punishment, fear of displeasing God or others, fear of sharing your faults.”  Ouch.  Indeed, that’s not abundance, that’s avoidance!  She risked honesty bcause she felt safe enough to be honest.  I received her honesty because I felt safe enough not to be defensive. 
• God doesn’t invite us out of suburbia and into the land of brokenness so that we can become fixated on what is wrong in our lives.  He invites us into that dark, unexplored place so that we can see his re-creative power at work.  He doesn’t want us focused on avoiding pain.  He wants us focused on pursuing wholeness.  Maybe it’s time to invest some time, energy, and money on the inside.  After all, that is where we really live. 

Conclusion: Rethinking suburbia.  Most seminaries do a better job of teaching eschatology than they do teaching brokenology.  “The problem with suburbia is that it’s perfectly designed to anesthetize us from pain.  It puts a veneer of wholeness on the outside, and allows hollowness to thrive on the inside.”  But there is no barrier that the power of God cannot overcome when we give him permission–regardless of whether those barriers are from within or from without.

1. Have a clear vision of what you really want out of your relationship with God.  Students with declared majors seldom had many choices between classes.  Their course was mapped out for them on a timetable.  When they graduated, they not only had a degree on a piece of paper, they had a substance to their education.  One student thought that if he just took enough classes, sooner or later he would qualify for a degree and then he would graduate.  He said he liked my sexuality course a lot; he enjoyed various art classes and had taken a number of the fisheries courses.  I told him if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up with a job drawing pictures of fish having sex, and that was a very narrow career field.  If you have a clear vision of where you are going, you’ll seldom get stuck and disappointed with where you’ve been.
2. Give yourself permission to not be perfect.  Sometimes I find myself trying so hard to be something I’m not that I begin to not be something I want.  What I am is God’s beloved.  What if, every day, I just accepted the fact that I’m not going to be perfect in anything I’m trying to accomplish in God’s purpose and plan?  Some might use this as an excuse to be sloppy with their faith, but from where I’m sitting, God’s love deserves my best effort.  I don’t have to earn his love today–I just have to live in it and through it.  Llike when my daughter plays soccer.  She can play her best, and I can expect her to represent her family name well, but I don’t have to expect her to be Mia Hamm.  Living in this reality will release in you new freedom to fail, but fail in a forward direction.  To eternity and beyond.

Exposing the Hollowness of Comfortable Christianity
by Eric Sandras

Chapter 1: When suburbia loses its appeal.  “Suburbia is depicted as a comfortable but somewhat vacuous realm of unreality: consumerist, wasteful, complacent, materialistic, self-absorbed, sprawling, shopping, disneyfied.  They’ve cut themselves off from the sources of enchantment.  They have become too concerned with small and vulgar pleasures, pointless one-upmanship, and easy values.  They have become at once too permissive and too narrow, too self-indulgent and too timid.  Their lives are distracted by a buzz of trivial images, by relentless hurry instead of genuine contemplation, information rather than wisdom, and a profusion of superficial choices” (David Brooks, On Paradise Drive).  We’ve been duped into thinking the perceived safety of predictable ignorant bliss was more rewarding than the risk and joy of discovery.  At best, such a lifestyle is maintenance.  At worse, it is counterfeit Christianity.  We are at a crossroads (Jeremiah 6:16):  Stand, look, ask, and listen. 

Chapter 2: Keeping up with the Joneses (on Identity).  Why do we immediately ask people what they do for a living?  Most of us ask because the answer helps us size a person up.  It enables us to make all kinds of assumptions about a person’s value and potential.  We are tempted to believe that we are what we do, what we have, and what others say about us.  This has been around since the Garden of Eden; the fruit was DoToBe.  But God invites us to eat from the Tree of Life, BeToDo (Galatians 6:4-5 MSG).  Anything in the kingdom of God that is worth doing–is worth doing poorly.  It doesn’t mean doing it apathetically or irreverently but doing them humanly (which includes failures).  Chasing bubbles (Eccelsiastes 2:11) will eventually lead to a bad taste in our mouths and dissatisfaction in our guts.  People have opinions; God has truth.  People have attitudes; God has perspective.  People have brokenness; God has wholeness.  People have loud mouths; God has a gentle whisper:

1. When God said this about Jesus (Mark 1:9-11), Jesus, the man, hadn’t done anything yet.  Yet, the Father makes a huge deal over him.  The Father’s total love and acceptance for Jesus wasn’t based on performance but on relationship.  Jesus was loved because of whose he was, not because of what he did.  When we are rooted in God’s total acceptance, we are like toddlers secure in their relationship with their parents, whch frees us to take risks and explore the spiritual realm because we know we aren’t going to lose God’s love.  Secure kids know they have a safe place to come back to, and that if they get lost, mom or dad will come looking for them.
2. In the parable Jesus tells in Luke 15, the story is not just about a prodigal son (who represents us) but also about a prodigal father (who represents God).  God and humanity both are lavish and wasteful, one in a life-stealing way and God in a life-giving way.  God’s kingdom, by his very nature, is marked by diversity.  God’s communities are built by multiplicity and creativity, and kingdom spirituality seeks to be lavish and diverse in its gifts.  But suburbic spirituality settles for conformity, uniformity, and efficiency.  Too many of us have convinced ourselves that we are narrow and limited in our scope of influences.  For instance, take the church’s use of spiritual gifts surveys.  We identify one or two primary gifts then spend the next ten years defined by what we were on that given day.  But what if we have an entire fruit salad of spiritual gifts?  Sometimes I sccop out more grapes than peaches.  Other times I scoop out more raisins than bananas.  Either way, I know it will be good because my grandma made it.  Each of us has a plethora of gifts and abilities within us, just waiting for the Creator to call them forth.  How do you root yourself in God’s prodigal nature and find a whole new identity? By magnifying the Lord, as if through a magnifying glass, and taking a closer look.  As you ponder God’s prodigal nature in the Word, in the world around you, and through your senses, you will begin to magnify him and see this aspect of his character in everything.  His abundant goodness, overwhelming creativity, and lavish love will seem to permeate every portion of your life.  Next thing you know, you will have restored a sense of wonder and will no longer be a slave to routine.  You will realize that you are a reflection of God’s prodigal nature, and you will become more lavish in your love, compassion, generosity, and creativity because you have found your identity in him.
3. God never gives up on me, but I naturally default to me.  But it’s as natural for God to pursue us as it is for us not to pursue him.  In Psalm 23:6, the word “follow” is translated in most every other place in the Old Testament as ”pursue,” a military term indicating relentlessness, passion, and purpose.  Goodness and Mercy-Love, like sheepdogs, are nipping at your heels every time you being to move away from God’s presence and protection.  He has give you free will, so you can choose whether to love him back.  But God is still pursuing you.  Even if you and I never find all of him, we should not stop looking.  Just like God never stops, never gives up, never falters in his love and pursuit of us, we can find our very identities when we do the same in our relationship with him.  I’m still seeking.

Chapter 3: A promising career (on Calling).  At the close of LOTR: Return of the King, Frodo and Sam are struggling to climb Mount Doom.  They are so close to their destination, but Frodo has reached the point of exhaustion.  Sam, his lifelong friend and companion, says, “I may not be able to carry the ring, but I can carry you.”  With every bit of strength he has left, Sam stands up, puts Frodo over his shoulders, and begins the final ascent to fulfill the destiny for which they were created.  My friend Sonny identified with Sam, a servant leader who didn’t bear the burden of the ring but the burden of the ring bearer.  I identified with Frodo, the reluctant hero who often struggled with the feeling that, although he had clearly been given the task of destroying the ring, the job was too big for him to accomplish.  Frodo was doing what he was called to do, and whenever he was about to fail, “destiny” had someone or something help him fulfill his calling.  However, God doesn’t want us to live vicariously through mythical characters like Frodo, or even through biblical characters like Joshua and Esther.  He wants us to live our own story in the here and now.  Gandalf said to Frodo, “All you have to do is decide what to do with the time given to you” (Joshua 1:5-6, Esther 4:14). 

• Calling is something that comes from within us.  I used to work with developmentally delayed children.  We constantly were looking for ways to connect with one child in particular, Jonah.  Then one day, I was sitting next to him while playing telephone with another child.  The play phone rang, and before I could pick it up, Jonah grabbed it and said, “Hello, this is Jonah.”    Aparently the ringing of the phone triggered something within him, and he responded.  Something similar happens when we are exposed to our God-given calling, whether it comes through the form of a sound, a character, or an opportunity.  But if we’re not careful, our other responsibilities can disconnect taht call and force us back to living life the way we have always lived it.
• Not long ago, I was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt that I had purchased from Goodwill.  Someone asked me for the truth, and the person was no longer impressed.  The whole episode got me thinking about how many jerseys and sweatshirts I wear that represent other people’s callings.  Christians who are living in spiritual suburbia “just wear the shirt.”
• One of the great dangers of living in spiritual suburbia is the temptaion to enjoy the stability of a consistent paycheck at the cost of fulfilling our calling.  Some of us have bought the lie that calling is only for the skilled and seminary-trained.  And so we live life by default, often doing good things.  Churches always have more needs than resources.  Oh, how easy it is for leaders to see the people as commodities that exist to serve the machine called “church,” regardless of whether the job fits their calling or not.  Because of this, many are doing acts of service in the church but aren’t following their calling.  We never become fully alive in our souls because we never fully become what God has created us to be.  The weight of responsiblity presses us down and buries that nagging sense of dissatisfacion and the hope of something more.  So we settle into the safety of the good things we are already doing, and build a fence around it to keep it contained.  What if we grabbed life by purpose and not by default?  What if we sought a calling instead of simply earning a living? 
• When we live out our calling, we sense that we are fulfilling our purpose, that we are in the right place at the right time, “moving to the rhythms of God’s grace” (Eugene Peterson).  Few of us discover our calling by accident; we only find it if we look and pursue it.  But because it comes from within, we can’t just take some personality or spiritual gifts survey and-voila!-idenitfy our calling.  Nor can we just drop all our responsiblites and routines, like we are in some spiritual midlife crisis.  In order to find our calling, we must explore and risk believing Ephesians 2:10.
• One of the challenge of discovering our calling is that it’s often plural and not singular.  Maybe that’s why we have call waiting.  So we took the most important step toward disocvering a call: prayer.  In Numbers 9:15-23, there is (1) God’s presence, (2) the people, and (3) the wilderness.  they didn’t know where they were or where they were going!  all they coudl do was follow God; where they were going wasn’t important.  There I was, wandering in the wilderness of calling, with numerous options with no idea which way to go.  Like the Israelites, I also had a choice: to pursue God’s presence or to stay in the comfort that we’ve built for ourselves.  So there I was, still in the Wilderness of Wondering, but wanting the presence of God more than anything else–even if it meant we would never leave the wilderness.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. 
          But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.  
          Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever wth me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone” (Thomas Merton).

• Leviticus 10 tells the story of Aaron’s sons getting consumed by fire.  According to the passage, God had anointed Aaron for a specific task, and God wanted him to fulfill that call before Aaron got on with his own personal business.  Later, Aaron does get to take care of his sons’ funerals, but at this moment (10:6-7) his brother is reminding him that he was anointed to be a priest, and that he had to fulfill that calling first.  It was then that the Shekinah glory hit me: “You can do all kinds of things and be fruitful.  But you have always sensed that I have called you to ___.”  So that’s what I did.  When we follow God’s calling, all the pieces come together to reveal the glory and purpose of God in our lives.  Sometimes we’re anointed for a season, sometimes for a lifetime.  But when it happens, the comfort and predictability of redundancy give way to the adventure and passion of intentionality.  So calling is less about what you do, and more about who you are.  Just because I didn’t end up at Focus on the Family doesn’t mean that those who do work there are not called.  “We are all just God’s pocket change.  The honor is not in what he spends us on, but in that fact that he chooses to spend us” (John Wimber).  Of course, when you surrender, God may not only lead you on some adventuresome roads, where you’ll get a God’s-eye-view of humanity, he may also lead you down some rocky roads, through the valley of disillusionment and despair.  Following your calling doesn’t guarantee the three Ps of success as defined by suburbia (popularity, prosperity, and personality).
• As my friend and mentor, Marty Schaffer, taught me, wait aggressively.  Do everything you know to do at this time and place in your life.  Some things are just obvious, such as honoring developing a heart of worship while others are equally important, such as standing against injustice.  It means not walking away from responsibilities but purposing to keep in harmony with the will and Word of God.  Pride, fear, and comfort often keep us from experimenting.  Experimenting often enables us to discover the callings that are lying dormant within us.  Don’t go “oughto-matic” either.  Submit every “yes,” “no,” “ought to,” and “should” to Jesus the Master.  As you slow down to do only those things that seem right to you and the Holy Spirit (good at a few things rather than mediocre at a bunch), you may find that you are already walking in your calling.  But if you still feel you are living in suburbia, the way out is by stumbling forward and pairing up with a good mentor.
• Eli helped Samuel learn how to trust both voices (I Samuel 16), and to live out his calling.  If you discover that you are in your calling, but not walking in it successfully, you may need to find a mentor.  Find a person who genuinely has the voice of the Good Shepherd.  Every community of fatih has folks whose calling is mentoring (and not just managing) others.  And you will know you have found such a person when s/he is more concerned with your character than with your gifts.

Chapter 4: A television in every room (on Doubt and Discouragement).  Silence used to scare me.  I’d turn on the television to distract my soul to keep from thinking.  Maybe it’s a form of denial.  Maybe our pretending happens because we don’t know or don’t like who we really are.  Regardless, we keep ourselves so busy, so preoccupied with things that don’t really matter, that real growth and real life get stymied.  Ironically, ignoring only feeds them, while facing them head-on cruches them and turns them into fertilizer for our faith.  It’s easy to start preteding and stop growing, to distract ourselves with things happening outside of us so that we can neglect the things inside of us.  But God knows just how wisdom could enter my haert, how much knowledge I would need to be able to walk in a stronger and more stable sense of faith (Proverbs 2:10).

• Pretending may be okay for children, but it’s not okay for adults, especially for a pastor.  Here I was, on a Sunday mroning, asking myself, “Am I even saved?”  My son had his stuffed Grover doll, my daughter had her Polly Pockets, and I had what felt like a plastic Jesus.  My kids could invite their friends over to play house or Sesame Street, and I thought that was cute.  But I had invited two hundred friends to come over and play church in two hours–and that stressed me out. My morning would be filled with people asking me questions about God, life, and religion.  I felt I had a responsibility to my “sheep.”  After all, they couldn’t see a shepherd who struggled, who doubted, who this very day was asking many of the same questions they had.  Perpetuating the image of authenticity had become more important than being authentic.  I was sincere.  At least, I sincerely wanted to be sincere.  Actually, I sincerely wanted to be sincere about my sincerity.  I was acting, filling a role, trying to be more than I was–and in so doing I had become less than what I was.  Can you identify?  Have you been busy pretending to believe?  Because you are afraid that once you stop doing, doubt will stalk you?  Now don’t go abandoning all those activities just yet.  It may not be the activity that is the culprit, but you.  We have to stop distracting ourselves and pretending to have more of a relationship with him than we do.  What’s the difference between faith, obedience, trust, pretending, and what makes the difference (experience, intellectual understanding, and so on)?
• Holy sacred cows, Batman!  “Mother Teresa was afflicted with feelings of abandonment by God from the very start of her work among the homeless children and dying persons in Calcutta’s slums.  From all available evidence, this experience persisted until her death five decades later” (Richard Ostlin, “Mother Teresa’s Private fears Told”).  What a relief!  She was a real person.  But unlike those stuck in spiritual suburbia, she didn’t try to distract herself from that pain.  Instead, this godly woman allowed it to draw her closer to God.  She said, “We cannot long for something that is not intimately close to us.”  Saint John of the Cross coined the phrase “dark night of the soul,” referring to those times when we can not understand what God is doing and feel distant from him.
• What Saint John calls “dark,” Luke the apostle calls a “gap” (Luke 18:9-14, 7:7, 5:31-32): God honors the person who recognizes the gap but shuns the person who doesn’t, the centurian kept the gap, and Jesus came for those who see the gap but still trust in God.  In other words, Luke affirms that there is a disparity between what i believe to be rue and the actual reality I walk in.  I am caught between two wrolds–the kingdom reality that Jesus invites me to live from and the broken world the Enemy wants me to stay trapped in.  They all expressed frustration with living in the tension of mystery but longing for the security of understanding.  Frustration with believing in something they couldn’t see, but also doubting that it even exists.  They wondered if the labor of pursuing Christ would indeed reap the life-giving rewards he has promised.  One thing is clear, these saints also became aware that such disparity between where we live and what we long for can actually be a part of God’s plan, part of his plan to set us free from suburbia and move us into his purposes.  They solidify our faith and keep us from becoming hollow.  We must be willing to walk in this gap.

My team and I were ministering in the small river village of Porto de Moz, Brazil.  We’d been there for a week.  I preached what I thought was a powerful word for the community at the final evening meeting.  I can’t recall ever feeling so much in “the zone.”  I felt like a spiritual Shaquille O’Neal posting up against the Smurfs.  The Enemy’s defenses in this city and church were being shattered.  Then it happened.  “Please ask that God would heal my son.”  She showed me the boy, who was paralyzed down the entire left side of his body.  As I knelt down to be eye-to-eye with this precious child, he moved to hide behind his mother’s hip.  His life had been six years of hell.  But a mother’s love had brought him to a place of worship that night.  I reached out my hand and took hold of his good one.  Immediately something began to surge through me like liquid love.  It’s hard to explain, but I loved this boy as my own.  He felt it also, because he immediately stepped away from his mother and moved toward me.  Oh, my faith was so high at that point.  And so I prayed.  I could still feel the waves of liquid love flowing through me, but there was no physical manifestation of healing occuring in his body.  My faith thermometer dipped just a bit.  
          …At that point, the negotiating ceased.  I knew the healing wasn’t going to happen, though I didn’t know why.  I stood up and let go of the little boy’s hand.  All of the incredible things God had been doing that night were being crushed under the weight of my burgeoning disillusionment and embarrassment.  I wanted to run and hide, but my heart made me turn and say onelast thing to the mom.  “Look, I don’t know why God didn’t heal your son.  I wish I did.  But I can tell you one thing: He loves your boy.  I have never felt so much love and mercy flowing through me from God toward an individual as when I touched his hand.  I’m sorry.”
          As I turned to leave, the mother burst into tears.  “God loves my son!” she kept saying.  As I found out later, when she had been eight months pregnant, her brother and another guy got into an argument and her brother was murdered right in front of her.  The horror of that sent her into premature labor.  That crisis, coupled with poor medical procedures, seemd to have caused the paralysis her son has lived with ever since.  She had thought God had abandoned them both.  Perhaps more than healing of the body, they both needdd healing of the heart and Jesus met them at that place.  Their deeper questions had been answered–but mine were just beginning.
          I decided to be transparent with my team and share with them my frustration.  But, despite their counsel and prayer, I just couldn’t stop the disillusionment from mushrooming wihtin me.  The 28 hours home only fertilized the fungus.  I wanted so desperately to hear why.  The gap between what I knew in my head and what I felt in my heart was much wider than the 18 inches.  When asked to pray for the sick, I stepped aside so “others could participate.”  I was dealing with a growing wave of doubt, discouragement, and disillusionment that was drowning my calling.  Some well-meaning Christians offered me verses (Romans 8:28, Isaiah 55:8).  Now I’m not saying the Bible is not true or helpful.  In fact, when God finally did speak, these same verses suddenly found new substance for me.  But the attitude in which these pat answers were given only proved my point.  I needed Jesus to talk with me–thorugh his Word, through his ways, through my heart.
          In our culture, we have been taught that disillusionment is a bad thing, but in reality it can be very healthy.  After all, it helps us understand that we have been living with an illusion.  God wants us to walk in reality and life, not some beer commercial.  He invites us to live life from his perspective, not from some politically correct, poll-driven, hyper-genderized, extremist center (whatever that is).
          One day I realized I may never hear from God about that situation.  Even though I didn’t understand why God hadn’t answered our prayers for healing, I understood that I had to choose to trust him, and not allow discouragement to cause me to stop praying for the sick or caring for the broken.  It came through re-evaluating many of my preconceived ideas regarding how God should work on my behalf.  It came through remembering all the times on my journey when I had seen God act in me and through me.  As a result, I was not willing to let the acid of disillusionment eat up my faith.  So I chose to trust and let God’s way be a mystery and not a misery in my life–and then God spoke, “If you want the thrill of victory, you will have to learn to live with the agony of defeat.  I am more concerned with your trust in me than your understanding of me.”

• Indeed, there are times you and I must simply choose to follow God’s Word, even when it doesn’t feel right.  We must listen to God’s Word, to God’s words, to God.  We must take God at his Word (John 14:1, Jeremiah 29:13, Isaiah 58:6-7).  I encourage people never to make a big decision when in a crisis.  If we wait a little while, until the dust of circumstances settle and our emotions are a bit more stable, the path God wants us to take is usually clearer.  Obedience and discipline do something for us.  They give us rails to ride on, even when the way seems unclear.
• We must admit not everything is kosher in our souls.  While the spirit of suburbia says insulate yourself and pretend everything is fine, we must choose to walk in the opposite spirit and pursue the God of our understanding.  Sometimes God hides because he wants us to seek!  During my season of discouragement and doubt, I tried to remain faithful to what I was called to do.  I tried to talk to God over and over again about it, even though his silence was sometimes deafening.  Still, I knew there was a reason for the silence, and for the time being, that had to be enough.  I had to choose to believe.
• Struggling with the “whys” and “where are yous” of faith puts us in good company.  The common denominator in all those biblical saints (David, Martha when her brother died, John the Baptist in prison) is what should be common in us–they asked hard questions.  They pursued God.  They were brutally honest with their struggle.  They were not afraid to ask what was difficult. And sometimes they got a hard answer.  To learn, we must get up and listen through the silence to the voice of the Holy Spirit.  Richard Foster, in his book Celebration of Discipline, offers tools (not magical formulas or legalistic codes): simplicity, silence, and fasting (replace the space with seeking and listening, thus it can include technological fasting).
• It’s not like he doesn’t know about your frustrations already.  But when you express them to him, your heart and mind stop trying to figure stuff on their own.  Too many questions and doubts live rent-free in our minds, taking up space that Wisdom wants to fill.  When you create space to get honest with God, you may not get answers immediately, but you will get peace.  You may not have understanding right away, but you will experience faith.  You may not see circumstances change right away, but you will gain perspective.  The story is not so much about where you began, but about the roads you follow, and where you finish.

It seems like much of the world is without God, and it keeps marching forward in blindness and darkness.  I think the light isn’t so evident, but I also think that if we look for it, it’s there.  You’re right though, God seems to do things in a way that we don’t expect, such as Jesus dying on the cross.  I’ve been pretty ok lately–but I feel like God is making me dig for him, really look and seek him, and that’s so hard ’cause I’ve gotten used to living in a world without God….

God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:27).

• allegiance–the loyalty of a citizen to his or her liege, in this case, Christ.  Pledging to any other is treason.
• alter call–an evangelist preacher’s invitation at the end of the sermon, asking people to come forward to acknowledge a commitment to living an alternative culture (see culture).
• detergent church–a church whose sole purpose is to purge the skid marks sin has left on man’s soul and our society.
• follower–a believer who demonstrates support and allegiance to a person, a doctrine, a cause, with implications of a personal relationship, acquiescence and active championship.
• chicken poop for the soul–Christian clutter in our storage spaces and in our souls.
• culture–the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular religion or sect often considered to be extremist or unorthodox, with members living outside of conventional society under the direction of their Leader, Jesus Christ.
• evangelist–from the Greek evangelion meaning “bringer of Good News” that there is another kingdom, another economy, another leader who is the Savior.
• faith–from the Greek pistis for “duty for fulfilling one’s trust”(Matthew 19:14, Isaiah 11:6d), loyalty.
• false profits–false prophets
• Jubilee-redistribution, release and rest, as in redistribution of wealth, a release from any bondage that holds individuals captive, and a rest and freedom from work.
• rebelution–a cross between rebellion and revolution, an uprising against social norms of apathty and indifference, a rebellion against rebellion.
• spiritual midwife–a person trained to aid another in producing something spiritually new and different with God.
• orthodoxy–belief, practice, and character conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early church.  Further known as orthopraxis.
• politics–from the Greek polis meaning “city, civil, citizen, civic, to be a society of people.”  This new city is the New Jerusalem.
• practicing resurrection–to follow, observe, exercise, train, perform, and pursue habitually or customarily the kingdom we are to “incarnate now,” the one that is “within us,” “among us,” and “at hand,” “on earth as it is in heaven.”
• prophetic imagination–coined by Walter Brueggemann, this refers to the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts, of what is not actually currently present but can be consistent with reality in order to face and resolve difficulties, the opposite of which is redemptive violence (see below).  Arsenal may include the elements of laughter, surprise, and humor due to their “disarming” quality (Colossians 2:15).
• radical–from the Latin rood radix for root, the root for discovering what it means to be Christian disciples.
• redemptive violence–an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights, laws, and beings.  The damage done by this intense revenge communicates that some are beyond redemption, such as with the death penalty.  Example: ”the government that had trained McVeigh to kill, killed him, to teach the rest of us that it is wrong to kill.”  Please see prophetic imagination above (”violence is for those who have lost their imagination”).
• spiritual bulimia–a habitual disturbance in consumption behavior linked to identity and image.  It is characterized by frequent episodes of grossly excessive intake of Christian industrial products followed by self-induced vomiting to avert appearing unspiritual.  Inadvertently, the consumer experiences malnourishment from never properly digesting “our daily bread.”
• spiritual leprosy–a chronic, infectious disease characterized by numbness and loss of feeling for others.
• spiritual masturbation–the stimulation or manipulation of one’s own faith in order to be emotionally charged but never give birth to anything.
• totemisim–coined by Emile Durkheim, the human tendency to form our conception of God in our own image
• vocation–from the same root as voice, a strong impulse, inclination, and calling to follow God’s service, function, and station within the Christian station of life.

Not the television series season finale tonight.  That’s just how I describe how I’ve been feeling for quite some time.  And that’s what I’ve been telling people.  Like I wrote in an email three weeks ago when asked for a prayer request:  “On a personal note, I still feel lost, but it’s not this big suffocating weight and desperation, and I don’t really think it’s a bad thing either.  Still, I think what was said at Bible study was right on target, I really don’t even know what to specify except that I really haven’t touched that Bible in forever.  I used to read it every day.  So that is a step.  But just everything is on my mind really, like counseling and church and career and stuff….”  Before, it was this feeling of desolation that would be the catalyst of a stampede of thoughts that no one cares (e.g. second-guessing my friends and family, perceiving past gatherings from under the shadow of a dark cloak).  Just as Phoebe knows her fear of the stage is irrational, I know these thoughts are irrational, but it still doesn’t much help with untangling that knot during the deer-in-headlights moment.  Depression is irrational!  Or is it?  I remember Hannah made a comment after watching Lifting the Veil, saying she somewhat believes that some who have depression are more in tune with reality than us “normal” people because we “ignore” the atrocities and stick with an “illusion” of rosiness in order to not go “crazy.”

“Keep Breathing”
by Ingrid Michaelson

The storm is coming but I don’t mind.
People are dying, I close my blinds.

All that i know is I’m breathing now.

I want to change the world…instead I sleep.
I want to believe in more than you and me.

But all that I know is I’m breathing.
All i can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.

All that I know is I’m breathing.
All I can do is keep breathing.
All we can do is keep breathing now.

Anyway, I guess this is as good a time as any to at least sort a smidgen in my mind/heart/spirit:

COMMUNITY
Genesis 35:11

Last Thursday I drove my parents to Austin to pay a last visit before my brother left for one week (to visit his former roommate), to give him his luggage (so he can pack), and to clean out his fridge (because he can leave food on the stove and not ever eat or clean it out).  My brother and I are very close.  We grew up with the same parents and familial history, in the same household, went to the same school for awhile, even were in the exact class and period for a class or two in high school (personal tutor, baby!).  We initially hung out with the majority of the same acquaintances (and lack thereof) and shared in the same struggles regarding church and friends and connectedness that we still discuss to this day, many times while in his room chatting up to the wee hours of the night/morn and our parents would come and say time to go to bed!  We are considerably different when you meet us, no doubt, as I am more like our mother and he is more like our father.  And in fact since high school we have led very different lives and rarely hang out or even talk with the same people, friends, or each other.  Nonetheless, during those occasional phone calls, I would say that I still feel close and  would still reveal much embarrassing/humbling/shameful things to him.

By the way, he had moved into a new apartment (from the urgings of his currently ex-girlfriend) and bought some furniture.  Where did they come from?  The famous Craigslist.  I have never been to the site, but many many people have made references to it.  From my understanding, it’s a virtual (that sometimes eventually leads to a physical) place where people can sell and exchange practically anything, from sofas and endtables to jobs, pets, and discussions.  It reminds me of Facebook and Myspace, two sites which Jennifer Garcia is part of and asked me if I was as well (I’m not, and actually most people in FBCC don’t have Facebook).  I’m not part of Craigslist, either, but is it something to BE a part of?  But those in Facebook and Myspace are still part of that network since they are still signed up in it, right?  Am I still part of Xanga if I decide I won’t write in it anymore (no activity), even if I have two blogs hosted on it?  You used to need an account to leave a comment, but now you don’t.  Do those who have never signed up part of Xanga if they leave a million comments on others’ Xanga blogs?  What does it mean to be part of a community?  What does it mean to be part of a church, and to be part of His Church?

FELLOWSHIP
Acts 2:42-47

I have been faithfully attending church services on Sundays since childhood.  But this past January, since I’ve always hated it (since middle school and El Paso, and even in Austin), I made a conscious decision to just stop going.  I made no effort to wake up earlier than usual, and even if I did, I didn’t even consider the possibility of perhaps attending.  Not until I figure out which church to attend regularly (do I want to stick with FBCC with its new chapter?), why I feel the way I do about it (is it the environment, the specific social situation?), and my reasons for going.  Three Sundays ago, I told Tiffany that though I haven’t really been communing with God lately, and though I have never ever exactly lauded FBCC, I have come to the conclusion to return to FBCC.  Now I have to dissect what that entails.

Regardless of its vagueness, it was a difficult decision.  Vickie is in San Antonio, so that’s why she says she continues to attend WHCC (her default).  However, she says that when she returns to a more permanent stay in Houston, she’ll move to Access, which is where Phoebe and Linton are fellowshiping now.  Access is starting out as a small but highly committed group.  When it grows in size, how will it look like?  Are people still going to connect?  To start off last fall, Pastor Ted asked his congregants to read The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again by George G. Hurton III.  In it, the key to evangelism is through understanding and living as a fellowship among the people, and in time they will open their hearts to the God who knows them.  The old Roman way was for people to believe before they can belong, while the new Celtic way is for you to belong and eventually believe.  In other words, the community and not an individual brings you to Christ.  In many ways, it’s easier to tell someone the Gospel than it is to take someone where s/he consistently experiences the Gospel.

How do we belong?  I sure feel like I belong to WHCC and HCC more than FBCC.  I know I am at fault for not terribly trying much, but even though I don’t really try, I get invited to their birthday parties, their holiday celebrations, and their event gatherings.  They even apologize profusely for forgetting to add me onto their list and making sure I am included next time.  On the flip side, I try the hardest with FBCC (but not my hardest in general) by calling and emailing them to contact me to hang out, and instead I’ve come to expect voicemail and oh yeah, this is what we’re doing right now, if you want to come.  Is it because at least one or two people keep track of me at WHCC and HCC, but no one does here at FBCC?  That could make all the difference.  Or is it that I expect more (and keep a record of wrongs?) because I have decided to be included at FBCC but I am nonchalant with whether I am invited to WHCC or HCC?  I remember back in January there was a slew of WHCC birthdays, and then in February there was a slew of FBCC birthdays.  Somehow, I ended up going to the WHCC ones but not the FBCC ones as much; I don’t remember now, but at the time was it due to scheduling conflicts or did I finally decide to attend the WHCC ones because I was more comfortable with them?  What does it mean to expect the worse but hope for the best?  How do you have high expectations but….? 

When I entered college, I checked out a handful of Christian gatherings.  I joined a small group that was part of the then-called Chinese Bible Study because it was the thing to do and everyone kept emphasizing them.  Our group fell apart,one by one, until it was just the Bible study leader, me, and this girl who was highly committed and hadn’t yet accepted Jesus.  I felt sorry, but that wasn’t going to cut it, so I left highly disappointed and joined CCC.  Later, I learned that one of the girls who wasn’t that much of a believer became good friends with Kara and eventually made an amazing transformation through His grace.  The thing is, though you can encourage group ownership, it sure can’t be forced.  Anyone knows nagging doesn’t work, although we find ourselves doing it.  Haven’t you noticed with some you just click instantly and with others you don’t?  Some people find you dull, while others find you exciting, or at least around them somehow you light up.  Even if you give all the time you can, with all the sincerity and effort, with both of you seeking, even if you lived near each other.  Reminds me of that girl from Chicago: we had an affinity towards each other so we’d decide to meet up and all, but anyone can tell from our conversations that somehow we just weren’t clicking.  Eventually we both decided without words to call it off.  She was a smart and pretty girl; I wonder where she is now after UT Austin pre-pharm classes.

Maybe we’re defining incorrectly.  Back in high school, I was elected to be the Science Club president, with a new teacher sponsor.  It bothered me that our definition of a member was someone who paid the fee.  There were those who were super dedicated, coming and helping at every single event, while others never showed up but they did pay the money.  I didn’t enjoy being president, so for me to keep everything running was as good as it was going to get, not trying to change their pre-existing system.  Magnificat has an application process but afterwards you’re in for life.  Even with years of hiatus you are always wlecome to come back and use the resources.  I met Annie Shen at an HCC gathering, and she says she hangs out with HCC, serves in her home Asian church, and then attends a more American (or African-American?) church on Sunday mornings.  Seems fragmented and yet, is that something I want to imitate?  In a way, her method demonstrates that we together are the Bride of Christ.  Vickie’s always running around hanging out with all these groups because we are all interconnected (actually, if left to my own devices, I really don’t care to make new friends). 

Indeed, it is impossible to know everyone, even within a single church building (”Abandon Committees, Skip Teams, and Embrace Communities” by George Bullard), so is there significance in “choosing” a church?  Are we to attend, serve, and gather within one?  What does the modern-day “fellowship of the believers” look like?  I think my problem would be choosing, because many times events have been booked for the same weekend.  Do I even it out?  Or instead, focus?  Still, I remember in the past when someone at FBCC needed a bone marrow transplant due to leukemia; the whole church gathered together.  We have also drawn together to fundraise for missions we support.  And the Chinese churches have gathered together for events as well (although it appears that FBCC does that less than the others).  Our mechanic, dentist, realtor, and family physician all were borne from the network of these Chinese churches.  It’s like “The New Science of Networks” by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi (who wrote it after reading “The Strength of Weak Ties“ by Mark S. Granovetter).

Still, when I went to RecWeek it was a big deal since I didn’t commit myself to InterVarsity but to CCC:EPIC (who has their own similar conference: DWC)–the IV leader went to the CCC leader to make sure they knew about me and it was okay with them!  Actually, it is the close relationships I formed in EPIC, not IV, that continue to live on.  I’ve still visited Josh, sent a card to Jonathan Le, had a few meals with prayers and talks of our spiritual struggles with Marie when she stops in town, and exchanged sparse emails with Iris.  Which reminds me: before the birth of EPIC, Alice and I were part of a CCC cell group.  The concept is that, as it grew, it would split and thus multiply.  We had to decide who we wanted to go with: Ophelia or Kristen.  I couldn’t decide at all.  Eventually, on the Jester steps, Iris poured out her heart and tears and basically begged me to be part of the one she had chosen.  I don’t remember if I had chosen one yet at this point, or if I ended up choosing the one that she asked me to be a part of, but I just remember this particular heart-wrenching moment.  I’ve never felt so loved and accepted.  And then, even leaving a comment on a random Xanga where they just started their own EPIC, I never would have imagined that eventually she would pray for my sins, and then point me (with Rudi) to spent one night of our two-week road trip at a stranger’s apartment.  Not only did this sister in Christ open her place for us and provide hospitality, she also prayed for and over us.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS
Luke 15:1-7

Perhaps Josh had a better glimpse of how this all operates when he wrote his journal entry on seasonal friendships.  On the snowboarding trip, not only did I reinforce previous friendships but also forged new ones.  Liz prayed for me when she didn’t even know me, only because she knew I needed the spiritual support.  Now we still exchange postcards and emails.  I haven’t spoken to Ruth since I’ve moved back from El Paso; she was a wonderful roommate.  During the student orientation at UT Austin, somehow I ended up hanging with a Hispanic girl and an African-American guy.  I remember the incident when we were eating some free food in a large banquet hall, and he said that he really stood out.  “Because we’re under the skylight?”  “No, because I’m the only black person in this room.”  It was really nice to not be alone and to share the experience with others in the same boat.  I remember her waving at me later, and he visited my dorm freshman year, but now I don’t even remember his or her names (or faces….).  When we graduated, Sapna gave me an old photograph of when the three of us (including Reena) were in second grade? and I had played this detective game with them by planting clues: ”It takes a long time to grow an old friend.”  Back in high school, Carla Ortiz gave me this:  “Thanks for being my friend & for being the caring person that you are to me.  Your the GREATEST friend.  Happy B-day to a friend that means ALOT to me.”  I remember thinking, this is so out of nowhere!  I don’t recall any conversations we’ve had in the past, and ever since I have not a clue what’s going on with her.  She says I’m such a great friend to her, but how?  I know many times I’m nice to those I really would prefer never to hang out with again, but with her it wasn’t even that….

I remember back in Austin, Timmy Chui wrote about The Atomic Tiers of Friendship haha; wonder where he got his ideas.  Phoebe and Hannah have been gone for a week in Hong Kong and will be gone for another week.  I have been contemplating our relationships since I’ve been back at my parents’ place for the time being.  Phoebe and I grew close first semester of freshman year and then agreed to an accountability relationship thereafter until I moved to El Paso.  Hannah and I gelled a connection after her 22nd birthday while exchanging deep, dark, familiar yet unsimilar, privacies.  We’ve hung out I think usually once a week together on the weekends, but of course it’s not like before.  I think other acquaintances (not “friends”) know more about them than I do at this point.  I’m not exactly pining for the days gone by but rather how to take those spontaneous moments along into the future, how to cultivate the environment for our older selves in new stages, for the sake of the gospel, for our children.

I mentioned that we should be neighbors so our kids can play together.  Linton said, “But you don’t even have a boyfriend!.”  Indeed, I’m not even close to marrying, let alone having children.  I never really got to know my neighbors, but it turns out that I know a little more (thanks to my dad) than Phoebe and Hannah do about theirs (they say they’re new).  Linton has to feed their dog Missy, but it seems that in the past (or at least in media), the neighbor usually handles that role.  As I drive towards Dulles Avenue, I always pass a driveway packed with boys who have grown tall and lanky!  I don’t know who lives there, but I’ve seen African-American guys, Asian-American guys, and white guys all playing basketball together.  When Gilmore Girls first came out, what drew me was not only the intelligent banter but the concept that they lived in a (too) close-knit town.  Everyone would eat at the local Luke’s Diner, and then people could hang out on their front porches and say hello to those walking by.  But they sure had a lot of gossip.  (And, as Phoebe said, when Dean made love to Rory, we were shocked.  So much for a clean series.)  I absolutely adored the neighborhood playground my brother and I frequented as children.  Okay, so maybe this concept is now dangerous in this day and age.  Then you can have those “gated communities” that Jessica/Robert/Rosemery (and my brother) are in (compare with the med center condos that Alison/Wilson/Cindy live in).

MARRIAGE
Ephesians 5:22-33

I always say that I feel more comfortable around guys than girls (verus for Linton he says he grew up feeling more comfortable around girls than guys).  The past few weeks I wonder how I came to that conclusion, both mentally and subconsciously in how I act.  I mean, I hung out with both while in school (and senior year it was a table of all females during lunch, man I miss Arlene and oh, her birthday was this past Sunday), and at church it wasn’t like the guys in my class treated me better than the girls.  I would also say that I have more guy friends than girl friends, yet if I lost my guy friends I would be sad but not as devastated as if I were to lose a friendship with a girl. 

Chris Sun is a prime example.  In fact, I’m almost hesitant to call him a friend.  Is he more of a…frequent acquaintance?  Seriously, the only reason we hang out is through Linton (and satellite friends).  I have a [funny] birthday card that he gave me freshman year.  Little did I know then how rare that is.  Yet he’s probably going to be one of Linton’s groomsman, and I did invite him to my birthday dinner, I guess to even it out.  I also invited Nathan Kim, and we rarely talk.  In fact, we just see each other at football and usually don’t even exchange words.  But I know if I am in need of prayer or other help, he will respond, as he always emails back amidst his numerous activities.  And then there are Andrew, Nathan, and Inch.  Well, I haven’t been in contact with them for quite a long time now, but it’s okay.  I think I feel closer to them than the other people I’ve met from football simply because I met them through Vickie, and somehow that changed the dynamics in how I associate with them, like sending them Christmas cards.

Haha, remember when Tina Chen thought that David Kalloor and I were dating because he’d come over so often freshman year before either of us made many new friends?  It never occurred to me, and I never ever did/will have that thought concerning him.  Whereas with Siwei we, I have no idea how, hit it off right off the bat (where/when/who).  I could tell him everything that I tell my brother–that’s how close I felt with him.  But I barely met him.  At first I clung to thinking, “What does it mean to know my husband?” but like friendships, there are those you just click with and those you don’t.  So I’ve let go of that.  When I said no in Austin to a sweet guy who asked me out, he asked if it was because he didn’t believe in God.  “No, I’m just not attracted to you.”  Somehow, I didn’t feel it.  

Although, I think that has to do with our current culture.  If parents don’t approve of your choice nowadays, that’s usually overlooked instead of trying to reconcile.  In past customs (like the dowry) and in prevailing traditions (like the father “giving away” the daughter) though, it’s really a relationship between the two families, if not also between/within churches (The Starter Marriage and the Future of Matrimony by Pamela Paul), dating with the approval of your community, who is in the place to help you weigh in the other factors of values and also keep you accountable.  That’s probably why Erwin and I are somewhat okay when thinking about arranged marriages.  I think the problem occurs when they make matches due to affluence and distinguishment, etc, as all humans end up messing up good systems.  My question to myself is, “If a guy I highly respect were to ask me but I just wasn’t feeling it, even after multiple extended rendezvous, would I accept?”  I think this is the wisdom I need to ask God about: the ability to discern whether an obstacle is the result of the need for discipline/perseverance (hurdle) or is the result of the need for a detour/fork (wall).  That’s what I’ve been trying to consider about waking up early, memorizing verses, personality in socializing, planning (using a planner works great for me, but Jennifer Lin says it doesn’t help her at all), kit with relatives, exercising, friendships as mentioned above, love languages….

PURPOSE
John 17:4

Last Wednesday, we met for FBCC Ladies’ Group.  The overall concensus was, we have no idea where we are headed and how our stories will end on earth and continue in heaven.  Many are figuring out whether to change to an entirely new area of study, or at least a new job within their current finished schooling.  The competition rises each year it seems among valedictorians/salutatorians, and I am amazed at just how ambitious and passionate they appear to be; you wonder if they will reach it, and if they will find satisfaction in reaching it.  As the dark clouds slowly dissipate, at times an epiphany or some clarity will shine through, but then it quickly disappears and I’m in a fog again, but still in a better state for seeing it.  I’m usually at peace when I think that I will be married while going about the house, how I’ve always vaguely but contentedly imagined it, helping supporting supplementing whatever he endeavors.  Despite that, Proverbs 31 had always bothered me, but even now the Proverbs 31 woman is now a celebration and challenge.  This always-wife desire and this in-the-Bible-but-doesn’t-seem-right disenchantment is finally coming together.  I guess I didn’t realize that it made me feel intimidated, incompetent, hopeless, exhausted (in my own power) like reading the goals of the graduates.  Instead, as God is making us perfect, as women He is making us her (His power with our participation), in our own unique ways. 

Of course, having “peace” doesn’t always mean I’m on the right track, but again you can’t discount it either.  I get restless when I think that I have been blessed beyond what I could’ve asked or imagined and with that comes the stewardship of making great strides for His kingdom (and thus even before believing but being raised in church, missions was always attractive to my naive eyes).  The thing is, ultimately we are to obey and glorify, NOT to change the world.  I think it is in this that I am transitioning from abstractness into something more pragmatic, as I am slowly lifted out and glean the gems that can only be understood from coming out of trip-ups, temptations, and trials.  I was all tangled up in my buzz words of community/friends/romance/vulnerability/missions/reconciliation/prayer, I’ve forgotten to “look up!”  I’ve been trying to figure out what God has given me a gift in, where God has placed my passions in, and how it could all work in this current culture, but conclusively regardless of techniques and training, the umph will be from God.  

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.  For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! (Philippians 3:7-16, Romans 11:36).

AMEN.

I was trying to find this but instead stumbled upon the following email from an old EPIC friend dated Sunday, May 1, 2005 9:11 PM:

Well, I took long enough getting back to you.  How are you?  I read your last email, but there was so much to take in that I wound up not responding to any of it, haha.  You had a lot of really great thoughts.  I hope all is well, and although it was many, many weeks ago, I’m glad you enjoyed your trip to Austin.  I happen to enjoy visiting old places, but it is true that I end up very nostalgic because it isn’t the same as I remember.  I can relate to the thought of seeing familiar faces yet somewhat regretting not getting to know them better.  There are people from high school who I would love to see just because we connected for a semester back in high school, but at the same time, we weren’t really close either.  I call those relationships seasonal friendships.  In fact, not too long ago, I wrote a short journal about it:

This is a letter of gratitude and fondness for my seasonal friends.  Do you know the type I’m talking about?  There are always those really cool people in your life who you may only see once or twice a year–at best.  However, when you do happen to cross paths, you connect and click with them immediately.  A big smile spreads across your face, and you run to greet them.  You pick up where you last left off, and it’s as if you’ve never been apart.  You may not be keeping track of what’s going on in each other’s lives, but when you talk, you can still relate to what they say.  These are the people that don’t immediately pop into your head when you’re thinking about your friends, people that you may not think of at all until you meet again–and that’s ok.  Because when you meet, you can talk with them about everything and anything; you laugh and share for one night…and then not talk to them again for months.  To see them again is like a holiday surprise: it only happens once a year, but just that one evening is enough to satisfy you.  They float in and out of your life, tied to you by only one fond shared memory or experience–a single, thin thread, but one that is unbreakable.  They are the people you don’t realize how much you miss until you meet again.  Though we may not keep in touch very well, I want to thank you, my seasonal friends, for being the very cool and awesome people that you are.  I am SO glad that I met you, and I am very fortunate to have someone like you in my life.  I can’t wait until we meet again.

I don’t know if that’s the kind of feeling you meant.  It funny how much a single shared memory can tie you to to someone for life. 

People come into your life
for a reason,
a season,
or a lifetime.
When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or spiritually. They may seem like a Godsend and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrong doing on your part or an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.

Sometimes they die.
Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand.

What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on.

When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you experience of peace or make you laugh. They may
teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real!  But… only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons, those things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway), and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of our life. It is said that love is blind, but friendship is clairvoyant.
The PRESENT is the gift from God that you receive when he puts someone in your life.

God may put someone in your life for
five seconds,
five years,
five decades.

God doesn’t promise us any certain time with someone and it’s what we make of that time that is our gift from God. That’s why we call it the PRESENT So enjoy the PRESENT from God.
Thank you for being a part of my life. May God hold you in the palm of His hand and angels watch over you.

I caught the last 2 of 4 hours (see below) of Pangea Day (thanks, Hannah, for figuring out our time zone’s period: 1-5 pm).  Pangea Day is really a wish come true for founder Jehane Noujaim, who won the 2006 TED Award.  You can watch the rest on the site.

Segment 07:  Us/Them  (continuation)

• Film: Stille Post (Telephone Game), directed by Oliver Rauch.  Children pass a secret message along in a familiar childhood game — but their classmate doesn’t realize the message is at his expense.
• Film: Operation Homecoming: Road Work, directed by Richard E. Robbins.  “War is a passage — whether you live or you die.”
• Iranian underground indie rockers Hypernova jam out.
• Film: Sili (The Slap).  A soldier, a young woman, a colonel, and an old woman board a train. Nobody, save one of them, can explain what happens next.
• We Feel Fine, by Jonathan Harris.  The artist and computer scientist makes online art that captures the world’s expression – to show off a world that resonates with shared emotions, concerns, problems, triumphs, and troubles.  “Whether you’re a billionaire or a refugee, a prisoner or a president, you have feelings,” Harris says. And his website “harvests” feelings from the Web. A sample of how people are feeling right now: “I feel like a hack… I feel I could be doing more… I just want to feel alive for the first time in my life… I feel so much of my Dad in me–that there isn’t room for me.”
• Film: Meninos (Boys), directed by Ernesto Molinero.  Boys in a Brazilian school deal with the daily trials of childhood — and emerge better friends.