Forgiveness

Okay so I have this problem; Forgiveness.

See the thing is that I am really good at cognitively making sense of an issue and figure out how and why I need to forgive. I am good at that. But the emotional piece is a completely different story.

Okay so story time. A few weeks back I was talking to a friend who had been hurt by someone’s choices. This person’s friend eventually came back and apologized and has since made amends. So as my friend told me this story, the first thing I said was this, “I don’t think I would want to be friends with a person who did that in the first place.”

Let’s be honest, that doesn’t sound like a very forgiving attitude. But here is my favorite part of the story. Immediately after I made that statement, my friend replied with this gem, “I have needed forgiveness from my friends before. So I am going to forgive [this person] now.”

It has seriously been weeks since that happened and I can’t get that quote out of my brain. It bowled me over then, and it continues to do the same.

What kind of selfish jerk am I to think that I should withhold forgiveness? Especially when I have needed forgiveness myself so often…

But I think that is the answer. I was being a selfish jerk at that point.

How dare I withhold forgiveness when I have needed it so much?

Am I really so arrogant to think that I haven’t needed forgiveness?

Or do I just try to deceive myself?

Do I really just want to just be a little better than this other guy?

Here is my favorite part. The Bible repeatedly tells us that God will forgive and judge us based on how we forgive and judge others. (Luke 6:37, Matthew 6:14 & Mark 11:25 to name a few)

PLEASE watch this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSnltiQozVk

I am bought with blood. Accept and rejoice. For freedom has come.

Dawg, Bro

http://www.theveryworstmissionary.com/2011/11/guard-your-heart-bro.html

I love the way she writes...

Thanksgiving

What am I thankful for on Thanksgiving? Let me put it this way…

I walked into my day after working what feels like every day for the last month. My emotions, psyche and body feel like it has been to Hell and back. I have been a less than admirable friend and family member.

So as I walked into work on this Thanksgiving Day, I need to communicate to you the attitude that I had. To say that I was “sour” would be a nice way to put it. To say that I was “a straight up jerk” would be slightly more accurate. Ill let your imagination fill in the rest…

I spent my day doing these things…

Being really, really tired.

Seeing co-workers.

Dropping off children at family visits.

Picking up children at family visits.

Being complained to.

Being complained about.

Seeing others volunteer their time to cook a meal.

Being cussed at.

Watching children miss their loved ones.

Watching children be hurt by their loved ones.

Repeating myself.

Giving advice I should never have to give.

I must say, though, that my favorite moment of the day was when I got the privilege to sit back and watch my children load their plates up with the phenomenal feast that my co-worker had prepared for them.

When I asked the kids what they were thankful for, they listed a variety of things. Not one of them said they were thankful for the wonderful, healthy food prepared for them. Not one listed our warm shelter, clean clothes and bedding, or a safe environment they have to sort out their issues.

So here is the cool thing. It occurred to me that my kids were not even aware to be thankful for the most basic needs that were being fulfilled. But how often do we make the same mistake? How easy is it to list the typical answers to the “what are you thankful for” question?

I am not saying don’t be thankful for these things. I am, however, wondering how many blessings and mercies are being rained down on us that we aren’t even aware of?

Yes. Count your blessings and be thankful. But, perhaps, you could also take a moment to consider the blessings and mercies that you aren’t even aware of.

So here is the real point. What am I thankful for on Thanksgiving?

I am thankful that I can find God in all of the things that I listed.

Let us return to the Lord.

Let us press on to know Him.

Let us press on into Him.

Let us find the healing in Him.

And as sure as the coming of the dawn, He will respond and He will revive. (Hosea 6)

For that, I am thankful.

King of Lawlor

Okay so I had the absolute, God-ordained privilege of meeting with an old friend today who always has this way of whipping me into shape.

So as I wasted two hours going on and on about the garbage that is my life right now, apparently the sad state of my life transferred to him because I continued to be on his mind. When I finally got home from this visit, I had an email waiting for me.

He included these two verses:

"Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." 1 Timothy 4:12-16

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 'Make level paths for your feet,' so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed." Heb 12:11-13

My friend said he thought that was God’s way of saying “man up.”

Anyway, it’s no wonder that I have been struggling. However, the thing I am really learning is that I desperately need to intentionally be putting good things back into my brain.

Garbage in, garbage out. Good stuff in, good stuff out.

I believe I am being disciplined, corrected, taught and refined. So what I need to do is to set my sights on the righteousness, peace and strength that will come from my diligence to my calling and gifts.

So perhaps you could help me come up with good things to put in my brain???

I am not clever

Okay, so I just went off on this 15 minute storytelling thing that morphed into a rant. Weird. I know. I was shouting!! Then I got home and started writing this really spicy blog post about all the garbage going through my mind right now.

Apparently it is time for me to calm down. I mean, I was actually called feisty today. Twice.

Whoa.

So my challenge is to figure out how to channel all of the ridiculous amount of frustration and life garbage fragments into something that is actually productive.

I think this is another “I don’t know” posts.

See here is the thing. I am in the middle of working 10 out of 11 days. It’s a pretty crazy stretch. That’s fine. I am glad to be working. The problem occurs when my brain starts to misfire and malfunction from lack of normal human interaction. If I am this strange with 4 days left… I want to be able to make something of this stretch rather than just survive and complain it away.

I am pretty sure this is just a complaint post. There is nothing productive that my brain can produce. It can only focus on the American Music Awards which is playing beyond the top part of my computer screen.

Ill stop pretending I have answers and just ask for your help.

Ideas about how to make the best out of a crappy situation?

Browns?

which way?

“Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honest but reluctant taxpayers.” –C.S. Lewis

I’m not sure how to describe the feeling… but it’s sort of like getting the wind knocked out of you. I get it every once in a while. It comes for a variety of reasons. Sometimes I need to find clarity. Sometimes I need to make better choices. Sometimes I need to resist temptation. Sometimes I need to trust in someone else. Sometimes it’s when I am just getting by.

But here is the common ground that I always feel about it; I am always being convicted about something. Now that I say it… it’s the same feeling I would get when I got busted doing something I shouldn’t.

Maybe it is the feeling of being seen through and knowing a façade does no good and the thing that always gets me is that I turn into this crazy emotional spastic person.

So I think this is where I need to be reminded that God wants my heart more than my ponderings.

I feel as though Jesus is simply asking me, “Do you love me?”

I am not sure how to say yes. So I will trust. I will quiet my mind and my heart. I will not listen to the doubts. I will not listen to criticism. I will not listen to the accusations.

“Trouble comes when we navigate solely based on what we can see. God is always doing more in and around us that we know.” – Louie Giglio

I think I am going to answer the question by paying attention to Him. 

Welcome to the 1800s

I had three references to Gettysburg in my day today. So I figured I would go with the prompting and see where my brain took me.

It seems that Honest Abe makes two points; first about words and actions, and then about dedication to a cause.

Busted! I found the connection.

I was just speaking with a friend about how I try to hold myself to a higher standard when I find myself the most frustrated. And the thing is that it is easy for me to talk about how I want to be good, loving, wise, honest, truthful and free… but I want to raise that standard when it is most difficult.

But here is my real thing. So many people have gone before me in this world. People have dedicated their lives to a multitude of causes and we all know that there are those that matter and those that don’t.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

                                          --Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

Here are my two questions for you…

What are you dedicating your life to?

How can you truly honor those who have fought the battle before you?

church and Church

It is a temptation to try to capture God within our church activities. We assume that Bible studies, prayer meetings and devotions equal a relationship with God. Love this quote from Thomas Howard in Christ the Tiger.

“[Christ] was a figure we could neither own nor manage. We claimed it as our special possession and exacted tribute and built shrines and established forms in which to incarcerate it, only to discover that it had fled. It would not be enshrined. It was the figure of a man, and a man must live and walk with other men or die, and this man was alive. He challenged out attempts to shelter Him and prop up His doctrine. What He spoke, He spoke loudly and freely, and His words were their own defense. When we tried to help things by urging sweetness and light, or by interdicting what looked threatening, or by tithing mint, anise or cumin, we found Him towering over us, scorching our efforts into clinkers, and recalling us to wildness and risk and humility and love. Just at the moment when we thought we had guaranteed our own standing in His good favor, He escaped us and returned with His hammer to demolish things. Try as we might, we could not own Him. We could not protect Him. We could not incarcerate Him. For he always emerged as our judge, exposing our punctilio and fright by the candor and boldness of His love.”

I think this struggle is as old as the Apostles. And I think that we must always remember that Christ’s Church is not a substitute for Christ Himself. Jesus Christ is the ideal and the actual. 

Christ is our Judge and, therefore, when we raise our meetings, church services, altars, prayers and annotated Bibles above Him, He is not our focus any more. 

The meetings we find boring, bore Him too.

"Return, return, and think again what I have asked of you: to follow justice, and love mercy, and do your job of work, and love one another, and give Me the worship of your heart--your heart--and be merry and thankful and lowly and not pompous and gaunt and sere."

Give your heart to Christ. He will save it.

Penn State

Here is what you must do. Read this now and then proceed...

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2011/11/10/sports/nh4729065.txt?viewmode=fullstory

Wow. I guess its time to take some responsibility for our society. However, its hard to change something so non-specific as "society".

"Its one thing to have a conscious. Its quite another to listen to it."

So ask yourself this; what action do you need to take to stop yourself from sweeping things, big or small, under the rug?

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

Please. Help. Me.

I am in a struggle. And I feel compelled to share it with you.

I recently have been feeling drawn back to youth ministry in a local church. But that is as far as I get. Because as soon as I have that thought, I get this image of me being in a job interview, with a pastor asking me what my ministry will look like.

BUT I DON’T KNOW!

Okay, so parenthetically, I would like to clarify that I am not struggling with my calling… I am struggling with the vision of my calling. I love teenagers and I can’t imagine doing anything else… but its what would the job look like. Get that?

So back to my question… what would my ministry look like? I don’t know. Really, I don’t.

I did the whole Bible study, small group, Sunday morning routine. It was effective at what it was meant to do. But as I have grown and changed soooo much from my time in a local church, I am struggling with figuring out how to reconcile my new passions with what the traditional vision of suburban youth ministry has looked like.

I am passionate about leading hurting people towards the Healing Christ.

And yes, I am speaking about a shift in the paradigm of youth ministry.

Consider this part of my “job interview” but I just don’t give a crap about retreats, concerts, pizza and games. And I won’t pretend to anymore.

Okay, smart alec Andy, so what does it look like?

I DON’T KNOW!

But I do know that I refuse to waste the money of faithful offering-givers just spinning my wheels doing the same old things that has turned the stereotypical local church completely obsolete. (I am aware that is a huge generalization… apologies to those who make a difference)

So. Please. Help. Me.

Many of you will say, “Andy you are incredible with teenagers and you were born to be in youth ministry. You just have to work with teenagers.”

I say, “Great. I agree. But what should effective ministry look like in the form of a local church youth ministry?”

Anyone? Concrete ideas? What can I tell my future interviewing pastor?