The Measure of a Man

Have you ever noticed that there are just a few key areas that a man must have some proficiency in to be considered manly. He doesn't have to be good at all of them, but he better be pretty good or knowledgeable about at at least one of them to keep his man card. I like to break those areas of interest down as follows: sports (this does not include soccer because that is not a sport it is like an acting class for Europeans and South Americans or NASCAR because that falls under another manly area other than sports I believe), hunting and camping, cars, needless but must have technological gizmos, and tools and construction. If you are a man and you do not have some level of proficiency or at least a high level of interest in one or more of these areas, you are probably much to close to your mother and like a nice Pinot Grigio, not that there is anything wrong with that.(actually there is, but I wanted to be PC) I am well covered as a huge sports guy and my love for needless technological gizmos that I don't need and usually end up not fully using, just so you know. With my manhood firmly secure in my own mind, I find myself very aware of those men who don't fit neatly into my perception of what a man is. I hear a guy telling me how much he loves soccer and I think what did your parents do to you to turn you into this and wondering if he likes cross dressing or just feels compelled to do it? Here's the problem, my perspective on what makes a man is highly dysfunctional and does a disservice to the broad scope and beauty of what men can be and are. It has the ability if I allow it to rob me of great friendships and tremendous opportunities, all because of a flawed and limited understanding on my part.
I was thinking about this today as I listened to a "good" Christian man talk about the "compromise" in the life of another believer and how one day this man would stand before God and would be surprised hear God say "Depart, because I never knew you." I refrained from punching this particular "good" Christian only because I know how easy to fall into the same trap of self-righteousness. As much as it saddens and enrages me to see so many try to narrow the scope of God's grace, it frightens me that we are limiting the grace in our own lives as we do this. I am reminded of Matthew 7:2 which says, "For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you." By narrowing the grace of God's in our minds and perspectives, we restrict the wideness of grace available to us. Why would we wish judgment on any one or find satisfaction in the struggles of another person, believer or not? It says alot about us that we want to make it more difficult for people to find and live for God. Rather than helping lighten their load by showing grace we add to it with our own traditions and accompanying self-righteous ideas and the danger of that is that these become the standards we will be judged by. Jesus was known as a friend of sinners while so many believers believe that it is our duty to avoid sinners as much as possible. It is not just non-believers who are lost it seems.
As partakers of God's grace, we have a responsibility to confront the self-righteous and low grace attitudes that have pervaded so many of our churches, to let God's grace be fully what it is and to recognize that only God gets to be God.
I will let Charles Swindoll say it much better than I ever could, "The problem with legalists is that not enough people have confronted them and told them to get lost. Those are strong words, but I don't mess with legalism anymore. I'm 72 years old; what have I got to lose? Seriously, I used to kowtow to legalists, but they're dangerous. They are grace-killers. They'll drive off every new Christian you bring to church. They are enemies of the faith. Other than that, I don't have any opinion! So, if I am trying to force my personal list of no-no's on you and make you feel guilty if you don't join me, then I'm out of line and I need to be told that." Grace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Rated R for Adult Language

When was the last time you allowed your anger to just overwhelm you and in that moment of being overwhelmed you did things that you would not normally do? For me, it was Thursday. I was talking to Susan about the people who are currently renting our house and who we have already had to take to court once because they refuse to pay their rent on time or at all as now the case seems to be. Not only that, this woman lies and bounces checks to us for thousands of dollars creating real difficulty even though we have tried to work with them and help them in every way possible. We go to court and the judge says, well you should just be grateful to have renters in this economy and I'm thinking, you're an idiot, how is having renters who don't pay any better than not having renters?(More proof that graduating from Law School is not too difficult) I would rather have no one in my house than to collect no rent and having to go through all these hassles and this frustration. So I'm talking to Susan about this on Thursday and I'm getting so angry that I find myself threatening to drive to Panama City this weekend and grab this woman by her throat and throw her and her kids out on their butts (gotta admit I didn't say butts) and unleash biblical vengeance on them. Then I hung up and I replayed the moment in my mind and I realized how ugly I had allowed myself to become in it. Not only was I seriously thinking about inflicting bodily harm on a woman and two kids, I was using some language that I don't ever use because of just the ignorance it portrays. If you are a curser, you just sound stupid when you do it, trust me. Why would I allow myself to regress into that type of behavior over anything? The answer for me, a lack of faith. If I really believed that God was working all things for my good, then I would trust Him with this. In that moment I didn't.
I fell back into default mode, which for me is wanting to handle everything myself. The problem with that is that it has never worked. It is that stubborn desire that has created most of the pain and regret in my life and yet I am still so quick to revert back to it. Thank God that He allows us moments of clarity and reflection to realize how ugly we can be left to our own devices and that He is faithful to forgive and to help us learn and grow from each mistake. If we want to carry the full burden of our own lives, He will certainly let us but the weight is more than we can bare and the strain of it robs us of the beauty of who we are. I hope this week in those moments where you are challenged beyond what you think you can handle, that you will allow God to carry that weight and not allow it to rob you of who you are.

“Difficulties show men what they are. In case of any difficulty remember that God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil.” - Epicetus

What Do You See?

Let me lead with a question, "If you could be one person from the Bible (excluding Jesus), who would you choose?" The first choices that come to mind for me would be Paul I guess, maybe Solomon, David had his moments, possibly Zerubbabel just on the sake of his name alone. Way down on that list would be guys like Job and Jonah and Hosea because let's be honest, their lives had long moments of suckage. I'm talking about those moments that just make you look at the sky and ask God to just be merciful and end it, moments that seem to make no sense in the lives of those who follow God. The problem with that is that if you look at the afore mentioned guys like Paul and David and Solomon and even Jesus himself, it seems that their moments of suffering often outweighed their moments of peace and ease. It seems then that either God just likes to watch us suffer or maybe He understands something that we don't or that we wish were not true.
I was reminded of the necessity and the benefit of suffering and hardship as I read Job 42 this week. Job says in verse 42:5, " “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You" after God allowed everything to be taken from him and he experienced this miserable period of life. This man who God had bragged on earlier in the book says here to God, I thought I knew you before this pain and suffering, but I realize now looking back that I only knew a little. It was the suffering that forced Job to rely on God exclusively and by doing that to understand the true scope of God's love and compassion. I like to think of this idea like you would in working out, if there is not a good measure of resistance when you work out, then there is no real growth. In this life, we need resistance and pain, because it is in those moments that we are forced to recognize that our own strength is insufficient and that God himself must bear the weight of what we are facing.
I was reminded of this today in talking to Susan about some issues we are facing with our renters that to be honest just suck, but I also recognize that it is in these moments that our faith either grows or diminishes. We are unable to do any more than we already have, but we are trusting God through this resistance and in that He is growing our faith. It does hurt a little, but the pain is part of the growth. It is these moments of doubt and confusion that allow us to really see God and so I am thankful that He is working this out for us and that after it is over, we will be able to look back like Job and to say "I thought I knew you before, but I see you now beyond what I could back then."
God is with us and He is with you too. I hope you see Him.

Camera Out, Hip Out!

“Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.” - Bertrand Russell

If the title of this post makes no sense to you, then you are obviously not me, because I am laughing just thinking about it. If you know my daughter Rylee, and I'm sure you do since the only people who seem to read this blog are my relatives and RJ (thanks RJ for giving me a sense of validation), then you know that she is absolutely hilarious and will take attention when it's available and demand it when it's not. Susan posted a picture of her dressed for her first soccer game (yeah I know it's soccer, but she's a girl so that makes it acceptable) and she invariable went to her "go to" pose. That pose is, created all on her own, left hip thrust out and head tilted to the right. It screams "you are lucky to get to see me today". She lives life full speed and never meets a stranger, always has something to say, which I love about her (most of the time). It also scares me to death to think of her as a teenager (don't worry I am stocking up on ammunition, so we are good.) It made me think about how different she and Aiden are in some ways, he is much more reflective and laid back, but they both have such incredible potential and attributes already that will benefit them as they move through life. I am sure that there will be times in the future when we will be tempted to tell Rylee to tone it down and just relax like her brother or to tell Aiden to liven up just a little bit, but the recognition I want to have is that they are exactly who God created them to be and to do that is to demean God's creative spark that is ever present in their lives.
It also makes me think how often I find myself focusing on other people and the successes they seem to be having, honestly envying that, because I am not sharing what I think is success in that moment. Over the last two years I have had the opportunity to talk and counsel with a great number of people and the commonality that I have found in them and myself is the lack of contentment. We find ourselves focused on what is happening in the lives of others and not on what is taking place in our own lives. We lose sight of who we are in the pursuit of who we wish we were. As Russell says in the earlier quote, we are chasing and emulating people who don't even exist, except in our minds. I am convinced the best way to serve and honor God is to be you, to allow Him room to work in you and maximize the potential He planted within you. It is God who gives the increase in all things and He wants to yield a bumper crop in our lives. We can't water and tend to our lives though if we are constantly looking at the fields of those around us and fretting over why theirs looks better than ours at this moment. You are a marvel of God's creation, I pray that you find your "go to pose" and that you put it out there every chance you get.

P.S. - "But godliness with contentment is great gain." 1 Timothy 6:6

Wisdom From the Stock Room!

“Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.” - Douglas MacArthur

I know you probably have never felt this way, but this week I wanted to quit. Not really quit, my emotions just got the best of me and I wanted to just tell everyone they could keep their stupid jobs, ridiculous assignments, the miserable heat, etc. and I would head back to Florida(I know, it's hot there too) to see my wife and kids who I miss incredibly . It was on the tip of my tongue as someone with no real power or influence other than that in her own head explained something to me that needed no explanation and which she was butchering all the same. As I opened my mouth to say it, the most inconvenient thing happened, I remembered this quote from MacArthur. I thought of the times in my life when I have quit, not because things were too difficult, but because there was an easier option. The easier option was not nearly as rewarding mind you, but it saved me pain and difficulty and at the moment that was all that my mind would focus on. I remembered the after effects of those decisions and the regret that I still feel when I think of what could have been if I had just put in a little more effort and stayed in the fight a little longer. I thought of the people that I let down in the process, including myself, and suddenly it became pretty clear. So go ahead Mrs. Self-Important, tell me eight times how to do the same thing and I will listen intently and act as if it is the first time you said it and that I am gleaning incredible wisdom about how to break down a box and other magnificently important matters because this is part of the journey that God has for me and like my example Jesus, I will bear not only what I enjoy, but more importantly, what is necessary. I am not quite where I want to be, but I am not where I was either, I will finish this race and hopefully finish well.
God Bless You as you run yours as well!

Windshield or the Rearview

I was thinking about why we spend so much time looking backward, full of regret and wishing that we could change things we did. For me, I guess I think that those things have cost me opportunities and that my life could be so much more than I feel it is. I could take away the guilt and shame that I feel for mistakes and failures, ah the guilt and shame, that is the essence of the problem. We find ourselves locked in a cage of our own design. I don't know how to move on and so I assume that this is where I must stay. I can't forgive myself and so I spend so much of the time that I have been given looking back and wondering what could have been rather than looking ahead and determining what will be. It's a recipe for disaster.
Case in point, I was nineteen years old sitting at the corner of John Pitts Rd. and Star Ave. about the fifth car in line at the stop sign. I'm not sure why but I happened to look in my rearview mirror as I sat there and I saw a Firebird maybe 100 foot back not even starting to slow down. It was close enough that I could see the guy driving looking in his rearview mirror for some reason and realized that he did not see me or the line of cars in front if him through his windshield. I watched as he finally looked in front of him and saw his eyes go wide and his panic as he locked up the brakes. Too late, he slid into my bumper and ended up buying a new bumper for me and doing a good bit of damage to his car as well. I listened as he explained to the FHP trooper how he thought he had just passed a friend going the other way and was looking back to see if he was right. The trooper explained that there is a reason that windshields are much larger than rearview mirrors. A windshield should be the place of emphasis for anyone driving a car forward. Unless you are in reverse, a rearview mirror should only used as a reference point for changing lanes and directions. That's good advice for driving and for life.
Maybe you're like me and the pangs of regret show up often and you would like to just sit and wonder what could be as you look in the rearview. The danger is that you miss what is coming up right in front of you and lose your ability to navigate as it approaches. We have all made mistakes, big and small, but those should just be reference points that help us keep our bearings as we move forward, not focal points that keep us looking backward. The key to moving on I have found is understanding grace, radical grace. The source of that grace? God himself. It is grace that defines me not by my mistakes, but by His love. It is grace that incorporates my failures into His plan rather than excluding me from that plan because of those mistakes. If you find yourself focused on the rearview today or an day, just remember that God's grace frames those images from the past and provides a clean windshield as you move forward.

Let's Take A Walk

It's been a few days since my last post, mostly because I got to go home and spend some time with my family over the holiday weekend. It is so good to see them, but so hard to leave when that time comes. While I was home, I noticed a bit of a habit that our cat, Allie, has developed. We have had her since she was born and in our last house, we never let her go outside because it was right off a pretty busy street. So she has been a strictly inside cat all of her life. Now she is living in a house that sits on 25 acres basically in the middle of nowhere and there is no reason that she couldn't go exploring and expand her world beyond the back door. I watched her over the weekend as she would go to the door and lookout and act like she wanted to go out but when the door opened she would move away from it, back to the comfort of what she has always known. The one time she actually went out she only went a few steps and froze, looking absolutely in fear of what might lie over that two inch drop to the patio.
It made me think of my own life right now and how many people I have talked to over the last few months and years who are just stuck in places that they don't particularly enjoy or want to be in, but the money's good or there are too many unknowns if they were to change. It reminded me of how we talk about faith and the importance of it, but then hold on with steel fists to lives we have "surrendered" to God. I for one have talked about faith endlessly throughout my time in ministry but it took these last 3 years to really appreciate the beginning of what faith is, it is that back door. It is so easy to live that domesticated life, there's always food, a soft couch, and sometimes someone to scratch you in just the right spot, but it robs us of the potential that lies just outside. Inside, life is predictable and safe for the most part, but we don't need God most of the time inside, just at dinner time and to change the litter box.
Outside is where all the possibilities lie, it is there that real faith is formed and tested. So, I find myself at 36, away from my family, working jobs that pay 1/4 of what I made two years ago, sometimes thinking what am I doing? Then I remember, being safe and warm inside looking out that back door at the vastness and unpredictability of what lay just on the other side. For me, God lay on the other side of that door. So here I am outside, it is not always easy, there are days that I long to just go back to what I know, but that would be me depending on me and that is not faith at all. I am thankful that God has brought me to this point and I follow Him as he leads me through these woods and as I learn the way, maybe I can help others find the way as well. See you on the outside!

P.S. "If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.
"Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.
"If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.
"Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes." Matthew 6:24-31