Flat tire

So, I’m driving down the road last night running a couple of errands, and as I’m exiting the Interstate I see a car on the shoulder with a man changing a tire.

Something inside me says, “You ought to stop and help.”

Something else says, “Looks like he’s got it covered, go on.”

I start rationalizing.

“Looks like He’s a younger guy, he can handle it.” I get closer and see he’s not such a young guy. Wife’s sitting in the passenger seat.

“It’d be kind of dangerous to stop, I’ve got kids to think of.” How many times do I actually think people get run over changing tires?

I’m about to pass him now. “Too late, can’t stop now.”

“Yes you can, you can back up a little and at least ask if he needs any help”

I don’t do anything for a couple of seconds.

Now it really is too late.

I drive on, do what I started out to do.

Nothing more.

“Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as….”

I need three things… no, four things,… no, five….

I am in need of a great many things. And I don’t mean want, I mean need if I’m going to be more like Jesus. But I am only going to mention three today, as they seem greatest at the moment.

1. I need prayer to be like breathing.- I am a prayer advocate, I’m the one always calling for more prayer by the leadership of the Church. I’m on the prayer team whose job it is to encourage a life of prayer in our congregation, and yet I don’t pray well, or often. I need to be one who has “soaked himself in prayer”, as Richard Foster describes a friend.

2. I need to “eat this book”.- I’m a teacher in our congregation, I know a lot of scripture, and I know a lot about scripture. I also don’t read a lot of scripture lately. I need to be someone who reads, and meditates, and chews on, and eats the scriptures. I need to be with the bible, as Eugene Peterson says, “like a dog worrying a bone”.

3. I need strength to let go of the “self-sins”. I’ve honestly given up much of myself to God. I’ve come to the place where, when looking at the possibility of death, I’ve said, and meant, “You are my King, I am yours to do with as you please.” And there are still things in me that I won’t, or can’t let go of because of what they might bring about in my life. I feel like this prayer from A.W. Tozer,

“Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all Those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus’ name, Amen.” (The Pursuit of God)

I need these three because what I know isn’t nearly as important as how I live.

New Rule

I’ve had to implement a new rule.

Not for the blog, but for me in my favorite chair.

The new rule is: No computer until at least one Psalm read/prayed.

This thing is taking up way to much time… no, I’m letting it take up too much time.

Someone out there ask me tomorrow if I’m following the rule.

So you don’t believe in Total Depravity?

Well, let me tell you about what I had to do this morning. 

But first I need to back up a little to Monday evening.

A good friend of mine called me to let me know his Dad had just died. It wasn’t unexpected, he had lung cancer that couldn’t be treated, and was in Hospice. My friend was as prepared as you can be for the death of a parent.

After the initial conversation of loss and sorrow and support, my friend told me about the arrangements. Now, you have to understand that this friend’s family was pretty dysfunctional and complicated, and that’s somewhat of an understatement. My friend anticipated the “receiving of friends”, on Tuesday, to be pretty messy and potentially embarrassing, so If I wanted to do anything he thought it best just to come to the graveside service Wednesday, at 1pm. “It’s a military service, so get there at 1, and it’ll end promptly at 2. In and out pretty quickly.”  OK, no problem.

Fast forward to Wednesday morning.

 

Dropped my oldest off at school, ran through the list of things I needed to do. Go meet with another buddy, Pick up the dry cleaning so I’ll have something to wear to the funeral, am I forgetting anything?…No? Good.

Go through the morning as planned. Look up from the computer, and it’s 1:57 pm. 

Oh Shit!

I can’t believe it! I can’t call right now, the service is still a couple of minutes from being over. 

You want to know what I’m thinking right then?

What excuse can I come up with to make it look like I was coming, but something prevented me. My thoughts at that time were on what lie could I come up with to save face. 

Fast forward to this morning. 

 

Dropped my oldest off at school, called my buddy (hoping he wouldn’t answer so I could leave a message), and left a message telling him the truth. I hope he calls me back soon so I can ask his forgiveness for such a big screw-up.

 

Being real is hard

I’m finding that trying to write the truth is harder than I thought it would be.

I started this blog to tell the truth, but I find that what I want to do is write something wise, profound, witty, and thought provoking. 

In the interest of “keeping it real”, here’s something that happened to me this morning.

I was having coffee with a buddy of mine, and we were talking about how things are going in our lives. Honesty, authenticity, family, church, struggles etc…. Good conversation about real stuff that matters.

While we’re in the middle of this, I keep seeing women come in, and in the back of my mind I’m beginning the process of lust. Noticing the forms, the shapes, that I’ve trained myself to pick up on quickly, and dwell on. Years of training myself to notice breasts and curves have paid off. I now do it without thinking about it. Even in the middle of spiritual stuff, Church included. 

It’s not like I’m just pretending to pay attention to the conversation, or pretending to really mean what I’m saying. But it’s going on in the background all the time.

At some point in the process I become aware of what I’m doing. Sometimes I stop myself, sometimes I don’t want to. I usually try to flirt with an imaginary line I’ve drawn for myself. Linger a little, but not too long. Not long enough to get caught, not long enough to feel guilty about, but long enough to remember if something extraordinary happens by.  I don’t like it, and yet I do.

Welcome to the walking contradiction that is my life.  

 

Desire (2)

No, you didn’t miss anything.

I was going to post a piece on desire that was “profound”, and made you think. I may still post that later as “Desire (1)”.

But I decided to just tell you what’s going on right now.

I’ve been in a place of low desire for God lately. 6-8 months worth of lately. I’m sure there are lots of reasons for it, but they don’t really matter. The fact is it happens to me from time to time. 

During this time I met with a friend who is experiencing a real revival personally. As I listened to him and his exuberance, I was a little sad, and a little jealous. I remembered how it felt. I remembered the reality of God’s presence, and I wondered if I would know that again.

The last 4-6 weeks have been different. I’ve begun to recognize the return of that “burning heart”, that Tozer wrote of. As a matter of fact, Tozer is one of the ways I’m recognizing that desire is on the rise again. I re-read the preface to The Pursuit of God and I felt that familiar ache and longing for the spiritual realities he speaks of.

“In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct `interpretations’ of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water. “

Reality Check

I went back and looked over the posts so far. In the rules I said if anyone was whining all the time I’d say something. well…

I’m calling myself out.

Here’s a reality check.

My life is incredibly rich. God has given me a wonderful (and I do mean “full of wonder”) family, a church that is stable and Gospel centered, teachers of The Way second to none, comfort unimaginable in 90% of the world, and a desire to follow and know Him.

Having said that, here’s what I’m not saying.

God made my life wonderful because I became a Christian. 

God fixed everything when I became a Christian.

Now that I’m a Christian, my children’s teeth straightened out, my bank account is overflowing (because of tithing) and I no longer struggle with temptation or sin.

If anyone’s trying to sell you that particular brand of snake oil… Maybe that’s too harsh. That maybe someone’s actual testimony, I’ve never met them, but God may actually work that way in someone’s life. 

My experience has been that:

I still struggle with all kinds of temptation, fall into… no, run willingly into sin, at least one of my children seems destined for braces, and God is not a quarter slot machine ready to pay off every time I find someone to “agree” with me. 

Things are not always so rosy in my world. But the truth is, things aren’t as bad as I whine about either.

I’ll find anything to distract myself from… Hey, look at that!

I can use almost anything to distract myself.

Books about God to distract me from God Himself.

Books about prayer and/or praying people to distract myself from praying.

Committee meetings to distract me from actual ministry.

Spiritual conversations to distract me from real community.

Words and thoughts to distract me from actions.

Abstract theology (even if I say it changes my actions) to distract me from hard obedience.

Like this morning, a morning like many others. I get on the computer, read some blogs about spiritual stuff, check email. Time to move on with the rest of my day, I’ve done my spiritual reading. Haven’t touched the bible, but I’ve thought about God stuff, so I don’t really need to spend time with Him.

Can’t deal with having to deal with the living God. Must find something to distract myself.

Well…

Update: Took him to the Dr., good news, not pneumonia, or meningitis (my thinking always moves toward the worst case senario.) a good old sinus infection is the culprit. The upside is I get to spend today (Monday) home with my son!

 

… last night and today pretty much suck. My youngest is sick. 

Didn’t go to church, will go to the doctor.

Can’t wait for the new heaven and earth. 

“How am I to pray this very night?”- C.S. Lewis

 

The god I thought I knew isn’t the God who really is

Bob over at “The Boar’s Head Tavern” has quoted C. S. Lewis from A Grief Observed;

Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures or statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images – sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of his presence? The incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are ‘offended’ by the iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not.

“My idea of God… has to be shattered time after time.” 

Jesus “leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins.”.

My ideas of God. In ruins. Time after time.

What I was willing to stake everything on used to be quite a list, theologically. Not so much these days.

So, I’ll just say this, Jesus is the only one with the words of eternal life. I’ve got no where else to go.