t.ford

This was taken from my senior pastor’s blog. I love the thought, and how the reality of our eventual surrendering of every earthly thing shouldn’t keep us from abandoning ourselves (in the name of self-protection from the ache) to all the things worth loving.

The River
by Greg Boyd

I had an interesting time with the Lord Saturday morning that I’d like to share. As I typically do, I was spending the first part of the day laying in bed, remaining aware of, and surrendered to, God’s loving presence while paying attention to feelings inside of me. I felt this familiar “ache” in my soul that I’ve written about before. As I remained aware of God’s presence and explored what this ache was about, I suddenly found myself in a very vivid imaginative scene.

I was standing at the banks of a beautiful, wide, calmly flowing river. All around me and on the other side of the river were large trees reflecting the morning sun with a magnificent array of fall colors. I was also aware that Jesus was behind me, though it didn’t feel appropriate to turn and look at him.

Suddenly, all the things that are dear to me began to appear in front of me, one by one. I intuitively knew I was supposed to load each one on a raft and send it down the ever-flowing river, watching as it floated away and disappeared around a bend down stream. Just as one thing disappeared, another would appear and I would repeat the process. I can’t communicate how each of these things were represented in my imagination, but I ended up saying “goodbye” to all my possessions, all the activities that I love, all my accomplishments, all my most precious memories, and even all the qualities that make me the individual that I am. I felt the ache in my soul rise slightly as each thing was carried out of sight around the bend.

Then all the people who are dear to me began to appear before me, one by one, and I knew I had to release each one of them to the river as well. This was more difficult. They never spoke a word, but each had the calm look of resigned wisdom and a bittersweet smile that communicated compassion toward me. It was as though each person was saying; “Thank you for the life we’ve shared, but you need to let me go for now.” I knew they were right, though I felt the ache intensify as we embraced and then waved goodbye as the calm stream took them away from me. I wept as I watched each of my children and then my wife Shelley disappear around the bend, waving goodbye till the very end.

Then I was all alone. I stood for several moments staring at the quietly flowing stream and the beauty of my autumn surroundings. Despite feeling profoundly alone and empty, I felt a strange sense of harmony between the ache in my soul and the beauty of the river. It was as if my soul ache and the river were two sides of the same coin. And I knew I needed to embrace both. When I did, I felt like the ache as well as the river were my friends.

I then slowly turned around and saw Jesus, sitting on a tree stump with a tender smile and a look of serene wisdom. He nodded his head slightly and I teared up as I said, “You are enough. And I will trust you.”

I am more acutely aware than ever that the river never stops flowing, not even for a second. It eventually carries away everything and everyone we love. Yet, if we keep growing in our capacity to have Jesus as our sole source of life, we can trust that in the end, love will lose nothing — including the valuable lessons the ache in our soul is trying to teach us. Clinging to Christ alone while remaining aware of the relentless river that carries all things away allows us to cherish the people and things we love moment-by-moment.

I encourage you to embrace the ache; embrace the river; [give yourself fully to your] life and all that you love, moment by moment. And most importantly, embrace Christ.

Greg

There’s a point that serious Christians get to when their life gets separated into two parts, the time before you started reading Søren Kierkegaard, then the rest of your life afterwards.

Like with most other impressive spiritual thinkers whose stuff I’ve read, it’s more than likely I won’t make any life changes as a result of reading his books. But the biggest benefit will be that I can throw random quotes into otherwise uninteresting conversations with Christians to make myself sound more scholarly. His name just sounds cool when you say it.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King is alright, but their stuff is written on walls in elementary schools. When you throw the name “Kierkegaard” around, people just assume you wear a robe when you read your leather-bound books in your study.

I’ve found that it often works even when you don’t know what you’re talking about. Try it next time someone is talking about something spiritual – like salvation by works, or the significance of the two figures that showed up with Jesus at the transfiguration.
Just interrupt at the opportune time with, “Wasn’t that Kierkegaard who first said that?”
They’ll most likely say something like, “Oh, I don’t know; I was just sayin…”
Then close the deal with, “Oh never mind. That just sounds like something I read of his in [name an obscure book or essay he wrote].” The damage is done – you’ve just made yourself look much better than your friends.

On very rare occasions, you might have someone in the group say, “Oh really? Which part of that book are you talking about?” Don’t worry, they’re probably just bluffing too; nobody really knows Kiekegaard’s stuff.
The important thing is that you out-bluff them; keep digging your hole – maybe throw in a page number (keep it high since not many people make it too far into his books) and say, “It wasn’t a real significant part of that chapter; it just reminded me of what you were saying.”

If ever you feel like you may be getting into a bluffing filibuster that you’re scared you’re gonna lose, it’s important to keep an obscure (but impressively so) bailout author in mind…
“Oh, maybe I was thinking about Watchman Nee. Never mind.”

I was at the top of Half Dome yesterday. It was probably the 6th or 7th time I’ve been up there and it’s always looked exactly the same to me.
But when I was up there this time, it hit me that it hasn’t always looked like that. When it was first created, it looked way different.

I look different now than when I was created, back when I was nothing but potential.
As we grow, our potential gets replaced by what actually is – to where eventually there’s not much potential left. But what’s left is the actualization of all the choices we’ve made.
Much like if someone had flour, eggs, frosting, and filling, and could say, “There’s potential for a great looking cake here.” With every step into making the cake, there becomes less potential for what it could be as it turns into what it actually is.
When you see a nice, sweet little kid (or a mean, spoiled brat), you think of what they might become later. But when you see a sweet, old lady (or a judgmental, bitter, old man) it’s more likely that’s just what they are now.

I was thinking about the long process of the glaciers that cut through Yosemite to give it it’s shape. There have also been numerous natural fires that have actually helped replenish the forests there too. And every year, the snow refills the rivers and waterfalls that have been shaping the granite for millions of years – long before I ever saw it. The way it looks now is not what it looked like the first day the sun shined on it.
After all, the Grand Canyon used to be just a river.

God created, set the parameters, defined the rules that nature would follow, then he set the world in motion. Since then, the earth has been changing it’s appearance, although never behaving in a way that it wasn’t allowed to go. Meteors, tsunamis, droughts, melting, freezing, shifting, scorching, flooding – it was all part of it’s potential.

When God breathed life into us, he set us in motion.  Every day since, in our decisions, we have the potential to look and act more like him or to choose not to. He created us with potential and gives us a say in what we will actually be. We can partner with God to create the version of ourselves that he calls us to through Christ, or we can just look at ourselves and keep trying to create versions that look more appealing than each other.

There are days that I actually do well with that, and there are days I kind of coast through too … then there are days that are even more disappointing. In my journey to what I will actually be, I hope there are more of the former, but I know I often lose my way.

I can wake up in the morning telling myself all the reasons today is gonna suck, all the things I won’t be good at, all the people I want to avoid, all the uphill battles that I don’t feel like fighting. I can sometimes make that the reality that I live in.
But God’s word say that we are more than our circumstances suggest, even the comfortable ones.

We are more than conquerors – Romans 8: 37
We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ – Ephesians 1
We are the image of God – Genesis 1: 27
We are united with Christ and are one with him in spirit – I Corinthians 6: 17
We are complete – Colossians 2: 9-10
We have been chosen and privileged to bear good fruit – John 15: 16
When we let Christ have his way in us, we are transformed – Romans 12: 2
We are the righteousness and glory of God in Christ – II Corinthians 5: 21

When those thoughts, and more and more of God’s truths, become the reality that I wake up to, I become excited at the weight of all my potential.
To partner with God, for me, means to accept his theory of who I am, and to live like that is what’s true.

It’s been helpful for me lately to pray this prayer throughout my day:

Search me God and know my heart.
Test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Reveal any offensive ways in me,
and lead me into the way eternal.
Ps 139: 23-24

Are there any children that you’ve known that have ever gotten a cold or the chicken pox? Have you ever had financial problems at the same time your friends, your family, and all the members of your church were out of town and out of reach? Or what about all those times you had a hankerin for some world peace, and there was no one to pray for that for you? Didn’t you wish there was a place you could go to get all your prayer needs met … but without paying those large department store prices for it?

Well, your prayers are answered -
at Information Age Prayer.com! (link at bottom)

I think you’ll find the rates are more than reasonable. When I got the bill for my “Prayers of Affirmation that were repeated 3 times”, I thought there must have been a mistake; last time I heard of prayers of that quality for that cheap were in stories from my grandparents! Here’s some of the rates so that you can compare them with how much you’ve been paying elsewhere:

• $3.95/month for economic stability. I’m sure you’re thinking what I was thinking, “This discounted rate just makes sense.”
• $3.95/month for Affirmation prayer repeated 3 times. I’m sold, sold, sold!
• $9.95/month for 5 “get-well” prayers each day for a person of your choosing! A little pricier, but come on, you love your sick friends don’t you?

Are all you jewish peeps feeling left out? They’ve got deals for you too that will have you shouting, “Oy vey!”

• $25.95/month (Special Discount Package) for morning & evening Jewish prayers, 5 get-well prayers each day, and the prayer-for-peace package.

Catholic? They’ve got you covered too – and for prices that leave you plenty of cash for all that incense, candles & other Catholic stuff.

• Hail Mary’s, less than 7 cents each and conveniently sold in multiples of 10 – you really can’t afford not to get those.

In the interview I read with the operators of this website, they say they use computers and robots to get these prayers off 24/7. “We use state of the art, text-to-speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to a typical person praying,” the company says. “Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the customer displayed on screen.”

All prices are non-refundable, and each prayer comes with an amazing disclaimer that you should “Make God’s task easy” by still seeking medical & financial help by qualified professionals.

I wonder how God sends confirmation back to the computers … and if you have to pay extra for that.
(InformationAgePrayer.com site)

Some friends of mine have this sign on one of the walls in their kitchen. I also have a shirt and a hat that say the same thing. But what does it really mean to live simply? I think I need to wear the hat and the shirt to remind myself to value simplicity more than I do to tell the world how I do life.

I think every person who seeks to follow Christ needs to get to a conclusion on a handful of issues:
What passions/gifts/sense-of-purpose has God gifted me with to use in my time here?
How do I feel about violence?
What do I think about money?
What is really the point of going to my church?
and
How simple a life does God hope I live?
When I look at the life of Jesus, I feel like he must have come to some conclusions about those topics. I have a suspicion that some of the other things I spend my time on might actually be kind of insignificant.

Gandhi said, “There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.” It’s weird to think that there is enough food for everyone in the world, but there’s still gluttony and starvation. God seems to have set up a planet where all will have enough if no one gets greedy and everyone’s willing to share. The worst part is that I understand how hypocritical my life is that I even have to refer to a radical like Gandhi (to associate myself with his lifestyle), but have a life so opposite from his.

I get stuck somewhere in the middle of being overwhelmed by the worlds biggest problems and being overwhelmed by the “unachievable” lifestyles of the radical people doing what they do to help fix those problems. I wonder if that’s where most people are.
I hate that other humans are dying of starvation, but I don’t feed them because it’s just such a huge problem.
I hate that kids are recruited as killing machines in wars that destroy families for no reasons but to further one’s power by oppressing another, but I don’t have any clue how to stop that.
I know there’s homeless people within 10 miles of my house, but it’s not like they can move in with me, and I don’t really know where my money goes if I hand it to them…

It feels like it’s the not knowing what to do with my “value” (time, money, talent) that just keeps me defaulting to spending it all on myself. I want to know that my value is making a difference, but I have no idea what giving $50 to Darfur would do for anyone. But if I take a friend to Chipotle, instant reward: I am full of tex-mex goodness and I feel generous for paying for my friend… but in the meantime, the broken world is not really getting mended by that.

I think I need an experiment. I think that’s helpful for anyone who doesn’t know where to start. I’m obviously not moving to Calcutta tomorrow, but how can I just loosen my grip on the materialism I have today? That’s the only question for right now.

Any ideas?

Amazing this church is still together

I remember for years, the big Christian bookstore in Fresno had a cardboard cut-out of George W. Bush in their store-front with a sign on it that said, “Pray for our President.” That’s cool; it would be a good thing to pray for the president, or for that matter, any foreign country’s President, Prime Minister, King, dictator, Grand Poobah, terrorists, or whatever. Those individuals have some of the biggest influences on the world’s population; nothing but good could come from praying for them.

When I first saw the two-dimensional Bush in the window shortly after he got inaugurated, I remember thinking how weird it was that they never encouraged prayer for the previous President. Was it because this President was the Christian President? Was it because Clinton undermined the Church and ignored the values of Christians, and was opposed to the causes they supported? Was it because Christians take a sense of ownership with a Republican politician that says they’re Christian, and thus, needs to deny affiliation with any Democratic politician (even if they also say they’re Christian)? Was it just good marketing by the bookstore because they know most of their customers are Republicans or because they know that they’re exclusive well-wishes to certain politicians are shared by their customers? I really don’t know.
But at the risk of sounding like a 5th grader, it’s not fair – and I don’t think it’s very Christ-like either.

Bashing Clinton was all the rage, especially during his second term. Using his position of power to be unfaithful, to have sex with a woman that was not his wife, and then to repeatedly lie about it doesn’t necessarily sound like a man after God’s heart, huh?
Oh wait, that’s the exact same thing King David did.
Yeah, but David made it right when he was caught by his spiritual advisors and then made every effort afterwars to sanctify himself and the relationship…
Oh yeah, Clinton assembled a team of spiritual advisors too, after he admitted his personal, professional, and spiritual lapse of integrity to the whole world. Tony Campolo was one of his advisors and later said that Clinton met every requirement they set on him. Today, Clinton is still with his wife and seems to be a huge supporter of hers. As far as we can tell, they’re marriage is stronger now than a decade ago. It’s the exact thing Christians are told to hope for when there’s that kind of damage to a marriage.
I’m not saying that Bill & Hillary are now solid believers that apply biblical principles to every aspect of their lives – you know, like we do – but can’t we hope in people a little more than we do?

I called that bookstore a couple weeks ago after Obama got elected and asked if they’d put up the new “Pray for our President” display yet. They told me, “as of right now, they have no plans to go in that direction this time.” Amazing.

Is there something wrong with the criteria we use to decide if someone is worth our prayers? I think it’s fine to have a personal preference of one politician over another; that’s inevitable. But should we ever be able to justify withholding things like prayer, forgiveness, or hope to any other human? Does the current President have any less need of prayer than the last one or the next one?

Last I went with some friends to see the movie Valkyrie. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about the assassination attempt on Hitler (of which there were several, but this one was the closest to successful). In it, one of the lines that Tom Cruise says to advocate for why Hitler should be killed was something like, “History needs to know that we (Germans) weren’t all like him”. The character he plays (Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg) is now a hero to Germany.

We all agree that Hitler should have been killed. If it could have happened earlier, then maybe 6 million Jews wouldn’t have died.
I get that. He was evil and getting him out of power was in the best interests of pretty much the whole world. I could go on and on (as many rightly have) about whom it benefited to have Hitler killed. It might be one of the biggest “no brainers” in history that we should have all made it our first goal to kill him. So understand that I fully get why that’s assumed to be true.

It’s because I get the logic behind it so well that I have such a hard time with, “Love Your Enemies” (Matthew 5:43-44). What could that possibly mean other than what it sounds like?

Conversations about this problem almost always end up at the inevitable worst-case-scenario: If your spouse and kids were in the house when a rapist/murderer comes in and you’re the last line of defense, of course you’d kill him if you could, right?
Again, that’s true too. A ten year old understands why that’s the option that makes the most sense. If I didn’t try to kill him, then everyone would ask me, “Don’t you love your family and want to protect them? What kind of a sissy lets someone break in their house and have their way with them and their family?!”
My problem is not making sense out of why I’d try to kill him, I’m aware of why it’s ‘justified’. The problem is I wonder if I could justify it to Jesus?

It seems there was a lot of things he said that didn’t make sense to the “obvious logic” of every civilized culture. More than on a few issues he says something like, “You’ve heard it said [this], but I say to you [something different].” [This] was almost always something that was mentioned in the Old Testament that he was calling people to rethink in light of how Christ lived. It seems that most of the parts of the bible that are still referenced to make ’sense’ of our causes for war, retaliation, and justice are also from those same parts of the OT. It makes me wonder what I’d say if he ever asked me to explain myself after I killed my attacker.
“Trevor, what did you think I meant when I said to do good to those who persecute you and to love your enemies and those that want to harm you”
“I know, Jesus, but surely you understand why I did what I did; he was gonna kill me! What else was I supposed to do?!”

I feel like my logic would be what every one’s logic would be. I’m sure the question in everyone’s mind is, “Wait, so are you saying you don’t think you should defend yourself and your family, even to the point of killing someone if it had to come to that?”
That’s the problem! I think I still would kill for the reasons that make sense to me and everyone else.

But when Jesus said that thing about loving enemies, he was talking to people who had way clearer pictures of persecution than I do, even in my imaginary scenario. These early Christians were being fed to lions with their families. If anyone had reason to question the logic about what Jesus was saying, they would have. Yet it seems those people considered it an honor to give up their lives to show that Christ-likeness was their main objective. Their willingness to die practically identified that first generation of Christians, where now Christians are known to fight and advocate for their rights, and for their political preferences to be enforced on even those that don’t believe what they do.
So when we hear Jesus’ words, and we think of the most horrible kind of enemies we might encounter, is it possible that we’re saying, “Yeah, but surely he isn’t talking about my enemies. That’s different than the enemies he was talking about there.”

I’ve even heard some believers say, ” I can still love and forgive my enemy, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t kill him.”
Would Jesus ever say to kill someone when it makes sense to us, or when it seems like it would bring about something good, or if that person was gonna do something really bad to lots of people?

The worst crime ever recorded in human history is the killing and crucifixion of Jesus. If there was ever a reason to retaliate and stand on our morals of who’s entitled to what, it would be that Jesus is good and those that want to kill him are evil. One of his disciples was thinking exactly like we would be thinking, “If you’re trying to kill the most innocent and holy person ever, Jesus, (my family, Jews, etc.) then be prepared to die, because you clearly deserve it. And I will not let him go without a fight to the death.” Then Jesus confuses us again, “Peter, put your sword away!” scolding him (again) for living according to what was logical to him. Jesus even repairs the damage that Peter just caused with his sword.
When Pilate asked Jesus why he didn’t call on his soldiers to come rescue him (since, indeed, that was what would have been truly ‘just’ according to our rules), Jesus said that he’s a part of a different kind of kingdom.

According to our system of justice and morality that is always at work in our heads, we don’t think Jesus was right not to defend himself. According to our rules and ways of doing things, it appears like he actually lost.  I’m NOT saying his resurrection was the final sign that he actually won, as if to say that dying for our sins and raising from the dead was his ultimate goal. I don’t think it was. His resurrection was a victory over the death that sin causes in all of us, but his death was the first victory. The Bible says that they spat on him, hurled insults and blows at him and he did not retaliate.
If his innocent death for our guilty sins was what it was all about, why couldn’t he die a long time before 33 years old? Because the life he lived was just as important as his death; in it, he showed us how to live, how to think, behave, and love – sacrificially. In his every action, especially those at the end (when it would have made the most ’sense’ to defend himself), he chose to forgive and submit himself. He willingly got killed by this system’s rules to show us that he wants us to live according to his system.

If Jesus were walking the earth during the Holocaust, and he had the chance to shoot, stab, or bomb Adolf Hitler, I don’t think I know anyone who would say he would do it. So how can we make sense of doing those same things to anyone?

I flew from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis yesterday – first-class, suckas.

When I book a ticket on Kayak or Orbitz, sometimes I like to click the first-class box just to see how ungodly the fare is to sit in a leather seat. I’d never pay for it, but knowing how much more it is to sit on the other side of the velvet curtain does allow me to judge those first class people on the way back to my coach seat. When I finally get on the plane, they’ve been sitting there with their shoes off, drinking something complimentary on the rocks, and making money on their blackberrys and laptops even as I’m walking by them.

Bunch of showoffs; why do they think they’re so much better than me?

That’s what I used to think until yesterday. My first flight outta SLC was oversold, so they offered me a voucher for another plane ticket, and upgraded me to first class if I took a later flight. I said, “But of course,” in a British accent and, an hour later, was getting my feet rubbed by two flight attendants whom I named Numero Ocho and Buzzsaw. Before the doors were even shut, I was having to hold my third cup of Carmel-Apple Cider really close to my nose so I wouldn’t smell all those “coachees” as they ran back to their end of the plane. That’s when it hit me: we actually are so much better than them.

Being new to the customs, I couldn’t help but stare back through the curtain at all the riffraff. Me and my people would wager our real pieces of New York Cheesecake and baby-back Alligator ribs on which of them would win as we threw bags of little pretzels back into their section, laughing so hard when they got back up off the floor and tried to fit back into their tiny seats. A small group of the more generous “upper-deckers” I sat with talked about sponsoring a whole row of coachees for the upcoming holidays … but that quickly lost steam and we just ended up making scepters out of our real silverware and wine glasses.

So I sat next to a 27 year old guy who just had a job interview in SLC – he thinks he nailed it. He was wearing a really nice suit, watch and shoes … slick. We both tried our best to be interested in each other’s lives that kept getting less interesting the more information we’d volunteer. But overall I’d say this guy was pretty cool. I learned he was just about to get married to a girl here in the cities, and he seemed to enjoy answering all the questions I could think to ask about them and their coming nuptials. He spoke really highly of Angel, his fiance.

After we ran out of things to talk about, I went for the ipod, and Jon went for his porn.

No seriously, Jon looked at a porn magazine for about an hour and a half, making no effort to be discreet about what he was holding way too high in front of him. It was as disturbing as it was fascinating. Every passenger that walked by on the way to the bathroom did a double-take, and the poor flight attendant had to talk to him while he’d barely look up as he ordered his food or refills of Jack Daniels. I would hear him kinda chuckle so I’d look over and he would be staring at a page with no words on it, just pictures of naked girls.

After a while, I take my headphones outta my ears, and he leans over and says, “Ya know, I feel kinda bad sitting here in a nice suit, holding a magazine with [this] on the cover,” as he points to the front page, “but this magazine is so funny, man. You ever read it?” He reacted like I punched his grandma in the stomach when I told him I’d never seen it before. “Oh man, I’ll have to pass it your way when I’m done!”

I’d have preferred not to have such a decent conversation with him just minutes ago. He was a normal guy back then, who looked forward to his new wife and was mildly interested to hear about my trip out to California. Now I couldn’t help but wonder if he thought she just wasn’t pleasing enough to him, or if he kept this part of his life a secret, or did he think that porn was just a normal thing that guys do and that “our women” would understand – knowing that no matter how he’d answer either of those questions, it still didn’t make sense to me.

There’s something subtly diabolical about porn to me. I feel like if most Christians walked around with the knowledge of how destructive and divisive porn is to marriages, families and the hearts of men and women, it would be just as justifiable to declare war on those that produce it, as it’s been for us to declare war on terrorists (not that I support killing either of them). After all, what’s more worth holding onto, our life here on earth or strong marriages and families built on respect, faith, hope and sacrificial-love?

Part of the regular lingo of Christians like myself is the concept of one’s “calling”.  People often wonder what their calling is, their mission in life that God gave them a heart for.  I think it’s safe to say for me that the main criteria I’ve mostly used to confirm my “calling” in the last 10 years of youth ministry is how at-home I feel with my role in the church, surrounded by young people who affirm my place there by appearing to like and appreciate me.  After all, it feels like it’s a good fit for me, given my personality and the talents I [sometimes pretend to] have.

I’ve spent over a decade now being surrounded by some amazing youth pastors.  In fact, some have been so great that they’ve literally changed the course of my own life’s direction.  So I don’t say what I say now to minimize the effect they have in the lives of young people.  Obviously, I think highly of the role to have given such a large chunk of my life to it.

I was talking to a good friend of mine recently about calling, and how we needn’t feel guilty if our calling is to a place that’s rather comfortable.  I suppose I agree with that – I’ve got different friends that are pretty set up in life yet accomplish the Kingdom in unique ways that only they could given their place of influence.
But it got me thinking too.

I went to bible college with many people who had their heart set on becoming youth pastors (in my opinion, that’s the church’s ambition-equivalent of a high school jock that wants to be a high school P.E. coach when he grows up).  I’ve gone to camps where dozens of youth pastors are there with their groups of 20-300 students.  I’ve been in plenty of auditoriums filled with thousands of youth pastors at once.  Most of them, myself included, would use language that refers to their call by God to do what they’re doing.  Yeah, maybe.  Maybe for some of them, but I’ve been doubting the rest of us.

Youth Pastors are everywhere.  There was a time, I could have even said that most of my friends were in some form of ministry to young people somewhere in the country.

I was reading up on poor countries not too long ago, and I had the thought, “I’ve never known, nor even heard of, 1 missionary to any of these places.”  If we really believe our calling comes from God’s own heart and priorities, does he really care that much more about church lock-ins and that rich white kids get to go to summer camp more than he does about child slavery, ethnic genocide, and thousands of people dying of easily preventable conditions?  No one in their right mind would say he does, but doesn’t it seem the calling he gives the people that follow him would, at least, kind of reflect his HUGE heart for the drastically hurting world outside our nation?

I’ve been wondering about the reasons behind my own interpretation of what I’ve been called to do.  I think that when someone “surrenders” their life to Christ, that usually comes with some sort of desire to be more charitable – with their money, their time – people often have some urge to Christian service in some form.  Could the job of a youth minister ever be just enough to satisfy that urge to feel like you’re helping out, yet never ask you to live much of a radical life like Christ calls us to?  What other things have people felt called to simply because it was more managable or even attractive?  I look at the my life and priorities of when I was 19, and I wonder if I was even capable of being mature and objective and open to a call to something less than comfortable.

Years ago, I was reading up on the horrors of the child-sex trade going on in the third world and it broke my heart more than anything I’ve ever heard of.  So much so that I found a group of Christians across the country that were going to Cambodia and I went with them – just to go contribute in some way to the fight against that system.  When I got there, I drove through a village that was mostly given to the sex-trade; if you were a white man in this little town, there’s a 95% chance that you’re there to pay for sex.  At the doors of these little shacks filled with child-sex workers, were men with automatic weapons.  It didn’t hit me until I saw those guys that I didn’t really have a plan to help these little kids out of their situation.  I think I figured that I’d just show up and grab a bunch of kids and run them to safety.  Once I figured that wasn’t as easy as all that, I didn’t know what to do.  Eventually I just left Cambodia, and I never rescued any kids.
Thank God that I’m not called to that, huh!  Helping them would be really hard to manage – I’d probably get shot!

Bonhoeffer says that when Christ calls you, he bids you, “Come and die.”  I love Bonhoeffer.  A German himself, he moved back to Nazi Germany (from the safety of America) just to defy Hitler.  Eventually he was hanged for his resistance to the evil.As a Christian, there’s something that calls to me in that kind of life!  People like Mother Teresa, Eric Liddell, William Borden. I read about them and their brand of sacrifice and I say things like, “Yeah!  Dietrich’s the man!  That’s the kinda Christian I wanna be.”  Almost like I’m vicariously living my own faith through identifying with and endorsing theirs – yet mine costs me hardly anything.

Jesus says that no one loves more than when they lay their own life down for someone else.  The early Christians felt honored to give their lives for the cause of Christ.  I just wonder if many people I know aren’t going into the most broken places in the world because God really doesn’t call us there, or if it’s just too scary and unpredictable there.  My life is predictable and manageable here, and as long as I tell young people that Jesus is the answer, then I’m helping God out, right?

I’ve heard a good way to discern your calling is that it’s where your deepest longings collide with the world’s greatest needs.  If God’s hope for his church is to be the greatest agents of healing to a broken world, how do we ever hear that calling if we keep ourselves at safe distances from those in the most pain?

I don’t know; I’m always inspired by every account where I hear of people giving themselves up for others in heroic ways; it wakes something up in me.
I guess sometimes I just wanna see my own blood on the ground…

but in the meantime, if you need me I’ll probably be at the office – designing a t-shirt or something.

If you haven’t listened to Flight of the Conchords yet, you’re life is missing out on some good laughs.
They’ve got this song, “The Most Beautiful Girl (in the room)” where they sing to a girl who, depending on the street, is definitely in the top 3 prettiest girls on that particular street. It’s pretty funny, yet not even the funniest song on their album. There’s a lyric in there that says, “You’re so beautiful … like a tree,” said in a way that makes it obvious he couldn’t find something genuinely all that beautiful to compare her to. That phrase came to me the other day at an unlikely time and place.

Think of a tree. My favorite have always been those big Oaks like the one Forest Gump and Jenny hang out in. Besides the fact that some trees really do look cool, there’s also something about them I’m jealous of.

Trees do exactly what they were made to do.

Ever since the beginning of things, God placed trees in the world with a purpose. From the tree of the knowledge of good & evil to some tree in your parents’ backyard, all these trees accomplish what they were designed for. They grow and mature, sprout things when it’s time to, reproduce themselves, and always move toward the sun which makes them grow … almost like it’s no secret to them where they’re to find life.
They don’t complain or get sidetracked, and they don’t have questions like, “Am I where I’m supposed to be?” or “Was I made for something else besides this?” When a tree dies, it’s rare that someone says, “That one never really found it’s calling.”

In those ways, they’d be way better at being human than I am.

The frustrating thing is that I’m pretty confident what we were made for. I would even say that our purpose (in a general sense) is one of the few things we can be sure of in life: God made the world, it got messed up and broken, and he’s been calling on us to help him fix it ever since, to restore back to him all the things that don’t work like they’re supposed to.
To anyone who grows toward him (like the trees do) he places on them the burdens of the broken world around them, and gives them the strength to stand up to those things. In those ways, we get the unique opportunities to be God’s co-workers like only we can.
Oh, but those damn questions.

I wonder if trees are just inanimate objects like they seem, or is it possible that we could learn something from them – like how the ocean and the stars sometimes speak to me about God and myself? There are things that threaten the lives of trees: forest fires, lumberjacks, droughts … uh, woodpeckers. But they never uproot themselves from the soil where they get their daily needs met. When I feel threatened, I often uproot myself from God and run to a number of different things that offer me some false sense of security. I quit looking to God and seeking to grow closer to him for the smallest reasons.

The most frustrating thing is, I feel like I was made to grow like a tree. That I wouldn’t go back and forth from a strong trunk and deep roots to immature weaknesses and shallow confidence. After all, when was the last time you looked at a tree and noticed it was smaller than it used to be? Even weirder is that the bible suggests those kind of regressions will happen to people, but not to trees – and when it does, that’s when the place my roots are planted matters more than usual.

God says his power is made perfect in my weakness. I’m still learning what that means.
In the meantime, pray for my growth, my pruning, and my droughts.
Because sometimes it feels like trees are more aware of things than I am.

let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.
then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
-Ps 96:12