Nothing Worth Anything Ever Goes Down Easy

I'm still on a huge music binge, and Mat Kearney has been getting some serious air time.  He is a fantastic artist, a Christian who is making great music (I call it great music, not Christian music...just like I would with music that is great in any genre.)  Anyways, he has a line in a song that goes "Nothing worth anything ever goes down easy."  Boy, isn't that the truth.

You probably know someone who seems to accomplish anything and everything with easy grace.  They belong to a pretty exclusive club, one I'm never going to be invited to join.  When I look back at my life, the most rewarding, fulfilling parts have never gone down easy.  Not a whole lot HAS gone down easy and when it did, it either had that "too good to be true" feel (which of course it was) or the hollowness of knowing that there is little value in things that are easy.  While I still hate the struggle, I am learning to appreciate the refining that happens in the fight.

Marriage, career, parenting, faith---not one of those things has gone down easy for me.  I'm a selfish, stubborn person.  Believe it or not, that puts a strain on marriage!  I have to fight those impulses to look out for number one all the time and put my wife's feelings and needs above mine.  It's not easy.  Our culture teaches us that things are supposed to be done our way all the time.  I can't deny that mentality rubs off on me and I have to kick back against that mindset every day.  Marriage is hard.

I love to work.  My career is fulfilling, but I have to remind myself that my worth is not found in what I accomplish.  My worth is found in my relationship with Christ, but that is always difficult to internalize in moments of frustration and defeat.  Too often I ride the roller coaster of success and failure and my emotions are along for the ride.  I can be my own worst enemy, and the last thing most of us need is another enemy.  There will always be people out there who will try to criticize your work and break you down...it's best that you don't add to your own peanut gallery.  On top of all that, it is difficult to be a young man doing an older man's job.  Usually, when I talk to athletic directors and principals, I'm the younger voice in the conversation.  I'm thankful that God has positioned me in a great place to use me, but it doesn't halt the feelings of frustration or inadequacy that come along with inexperience.  Growing into a career is hard.

Parenting...well, most of you reading it probably know that it's hard.  It's extra hard when your parenting career begins with teenagers at thirty!  Working as a youth pastor and teacher for a decade has helped a little, but it's not the same as living with kids and being responsible for them.  This is another area where there are plenty of highs and lows, and it is difficult to keep your emotions and self worth from rising and falling with each situation.  Parenting is a challenge when you are a leader who is self-acknowledged control freak (I hope not to an extreme, but it sure is hard to evaluate ourselves, isn't it?)  You so badly want the best for your children and it is difficult to allow them to make their own choices and along with those choices, their own mistakes.  Even thought I am completely cognizant of my own failings as an adolescent,  I still cringe at their errors.  I know this comes from a heart of love, but it also brings frustration.  Sharing the parenting with three other people just adds a few more layers of challenge.  Parenting is hard.

I think we assume sometimes that faith should be easy.  Salvation brings joy and freedom and those sound like easy words sometimes, don't they?  Yet, Jesus made it clear that in this life we would have trouble.  Following Him is difficult on two fronts---internal struggle and external struggle.  I know what it takes to have a relationship with Christ and yet so often I find myself missing the mark.  I'm clear on what sin is.  I still willfully and knowingly sin.  I know I should engage myself in God's Word everyday.  I often pass over my Bible all day without a second thought.  I know that connecting to God (and to anyone for that matter) involves communication.  I struggle to pray and have a hard time making it a priority.  Christianity is hard, internally.  I struggle against myself, my flesh and my impulses.  Meanwhile, a war rages against me---and you---by the forces of this world.  We are bombarded with filth, with self-centered thinking, and with consumerist worldviews.  These things surround us and it is difficult to find escape.  Anyone who thinks faith should be easy is probably not being very honest with themselves.  Or maybe those people are the chosen few in the "easy grace" club.  I'm sure not.  Faith is hard.

I always feel a little better thinking about Job.  Talk about a guy knew a little something about things not going down easy.  He lost his children, most of his income, suffered horrible physical pain and endured the silence of God.  Yet, he had the trust and fortitude to say "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me I shall come forth as gold."  His life was hard, but Job understood that the struggle was God's hand refining him.  He maintained his hope in the Lord.  And, when I step away from my life and look at it with God's perspective, I know that these things that are hard are all areas that God is using to make me more like Him.  I have to refocus on the finish line, keeping my eye on the prize that is eternal life with Him.  God, keep my perspective eternal and not on the transient.  Help me to know that these light and momentary troubles are achieving for me an eternal glory that outweighs this life.

Yeah, nothing worth anything goes down easy.  But the truth in that statement is that when things aren't easy, they are probably worth it.

Awake My Soul

I have a new favorite tech application---Spotify.  I'm assuming some of you have seen it.  Basically, it's like having iTunes with every song you could ever want or imagine.  It recognizes all of the music on your computer and allows you to create playlists with any other song you want.  So, I've spent a good portion of the day listening to all kinds of great music on a fantastic playlist.  

I hadn't listened to much music without interruption for a while, and I was reminded of the power it has on me.  Music is one of the few, rare mediums that seems to awaken my soul.  When I am listening to music, it arouses emotions that I don't experience very often.  It makes me want to create.  It causes me to wrestle with the past, helps me to think hopefully about the future, and it makes me feel more fully alive in the present.   Music makes me more cognizant of the relationships I have in my life and I experience them more completely in the context of music.  Some people may look at music as an escape; I find it causing me to go deeper into who I am and particularly who I am in Christ.   

Does that mean that Christian music is the only venue through which God can awaken our souls through music?  Not at all, although we certainly must be careful about what we listen to and what we allow to take root in our hearts.  Proverbs tells us that whatever a man thinks about in his heart will be what defines who the man is.  There is plenty of music that is filled with vulgarity and profanity and is a clear perversion of the creative drive that comes from the image of God in which we are created.  Yet, there is soul-stirring music that boldly proclaims the glory of Christ and there is music that is subtle but speaks volumes about God's goodness through it's beauty and truth.  Music is powerful because it originates from the one who is omnipotent.  Music comes from God and is most fully perfect in His heavenly presence---right now, in this moment, music is being played and sung in the heavenlies that would blow us all away.  Music we listen to now is our clumsy attempt to create or listen to something that is even a shadow of what many of us will experience one day.  Music shows us just a shadow of God, and that fleeting image is enough to stir us to deep emotion.

As I've thought about this today, it has caused me to dwell on how music is handled in our churches and how it is often a source of contention and division.  I've always kind of written off those splits as people either being selfish or simply having different tastes.  I think that may be partially right.  But I have been mostly wrong.  The deepest longing in the heart of every person is to be connected to someone greater than ourselves, someone outside of mundane humanity---God.  Music provides a bit of that connection.  It causes our hearts to swell with longing for the One and we are willing to fight for that feeling.  It's no wonder we will split churches over music---we think it is maybe the medium that will help to fill that ultimate longing for Christ.

Jesus desires that His children be one.  That was His prayer for the disciples and His prayer for us.  How can we reconcile that hope with the very personal way in which "our" music speaks to us of the love, beauty, and closeness of Christ?  Is it simply a matter of humbly submitting ourselves to the Body and losing ourselves?  Maybe, but there is no denying that some music stirs our soul more than others.  I don't have an answer, but I'm up for having the discussion.  What do you think?  Even if you don't respond here, talk about this topic with others.  Music is often the voice of God calling to us...let us embrace that and not let it divide us.

And fyi, here was my playlist artists today---Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, J.Tillman, Rocky Votolato, M.Ward,  Denison Wittmer, Brandi Carlile, Jon Foreman, Pedro the Lion, John Mark McMillan, Gungor, Avett Brothers, Amos Lee, Ray LaMontagne, and The Civil Wars.  Check them out for a really nice, laidback playlist of some solid music.  And if you're listening to anything in this vein, let me know...I can add a million songs to my playlist, ya know.

Exiles

"Our life-long nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation."- C.S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"

I've been reading Tim Keller's The Prodigal God over the last week.  Great book.  Keller briefly explores the famous parable of the prodigal son and argues that the older son---the one who was disappointed in his father for taking his younger brother back---was every bit as lost as the younger son.  Both, he says, were ultimately outside the home---one chose to leave and live wildly and the other was so religious that he found himself resisting the father's love.  As Keller spells out this argument, an interesting discussion of exile unfolds.  The Bible is a story of exiles looking for a place to call home.  In Genesis, Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden.  Cain is forced to wander after killing Abel.  Jacob has to flee his home.  Joseph is sent away from his home and family.  The story continues throughout the Old Testament with numerous periods of Israelite exile and oppression.  This story of exile climaxes in the Gospels when the death and resurrection of Christ ultimately opens the door to God's house, a home that all men over all times have been desperately trying to enter---whether they knew it or not.  God's home is the only true and lasting home.

I'm finding this to be true in my own life.  The Lewis quote above hits the nail on the head.  As I get older and enter new phases of my life, I realize that you really can't ever go home again.  Sure, we can continue to remain in the love of our families and friends, visit our childhood home, return to key places and people from our past.  But it really is never the same.  My parents' house will never be the same for me as it was when I was a child.  Roles have changed, life is different.  My closest friends from a couple of years ago, people I talked to every day in Tennessee, are people I chat with once in a great while.  Guys I lived with in college, I have no idea what they are doing or where they are.  Even if I did, that home that was created for two years can never be the same again.  Try visiting your old church a few years after moving on.  Some things will be familiar, but ultimately, you can't recreate what was once there.  I know I'm rambling here, but I hope you are seeing where I'm coming from.  Everything changes so fast, it feels like we are always unsuccessfully trying to grasp "home" before it slips away and things change.  As Alyssa and I work on shaping our life together and our home, it won't be long before things change again.  The kids will grow up and move on.  We may move.  God could call us to new jobs or churches.  Friendships will evolve.  Home is transient and is constantly changing.

Ultimately, this deep desire for a secure and unchanging home is found in our relationship with Jesus Christ.  That emptiness we feel when things change can only be remedied when we truly rest in Him.  He is our Rock, the same yesterday, today and forever.  I must remember this as I reflect on change.  As we get ready to adopt sweet Kaylee and give her a "home," I cannot forget that the most important home we can give her is a relationship with God.  It is the most secure place that she, or any of us, can ever find ourselves.

Just Like Jesus?

One of my students commented today that people say they want to be like Jesus, but the reality is that they don't. In other words, if people REALLY had to go through the things Jesus went through, they might not be so quick to want to be like him.

This is a topic I've been thinking a lot about lately---what does it mean to be authentically Christian? While I'm still convinced I want to be like Christ, I think I'd better---we'd all better, really---heed his words to count the cost. Jesus repeatedly told whoever would listen that following him would be really hard. They would lose everything. They would be hated by the world. They would have to abandon themselves to find themselves. They might even be killed for his sake---and most of his closest followers were killed, and most in pretty awful ways.  Just because we are distanced by time and space from the culture Jesus lived in, we are not suddenly exempt from the struggles Jesus cautioned would come.  Maybe we aren't facing those struggles because "being a Christian" has become far too easy and comfortable.

I realize I am walking a fine line here.  I don't intend to cross over to a works-based salvation.  We are woefully lost beings outside of Christ's grace and I certainly can't do enough to somehow save myself.  My bad thoughts alone far outweigh my good works.  That alone is enough to send me to hell if I find myself outside of the loving mercy of Jesus.  Yet, Jesus said that those who abide in Him will bear fruit...and those who aren't bearing fruit will be cut off and thrown into the fire.  Time and time again he tells us that few will really follow Him and few will find salvation.  In this day and age, we have made salvation as simple as believe and say a prayer and you're in.  I hesitate to argue against that because it is so prevalent in our church culture, but I just don't see that portrait of a Christian painted in the Gospels.  Jesus says being a Christian will cost something.  James tells us that believing is not enough.  Our faith will be shown in our lives, and Jesus makes it clear that those who don't bear fruit aren't in Him.  Maybe that kind of talk makes you uncomfortable.  It's not surprising, considering that it makes me uncomfortable too and I am the one typing the words.  But, I challenge us all to read the Gospels anew and ask the question, "What does following Christ look like according to Christ?"  I would love to hear what picture emerges for you and how that impacts the way you think and live.

Music: Come Awake!

Love is the Only Answer...Everything Else is Just a Trainwreck

I didn't come up with that title on my own.  Those are some lyrics from the song "Portland is Leaving" by a killer artist named Rocky Votolato.  (If you like singer-songwriter acoustic stuff with some harmonica thrown in, this is your guy).  Anyways, this entry isn't really about me plugging music.  I've heard that song hundreds of times and always thought it was good, but those specific lyrics have been stuck in my head lately.  I think Rocky is a Christian, I'm not really sure, but boy do those lyrics sum up what we are supposed to be about.

When we try to go about this whole Christian thing with any other motive than love, it really is a massive trainwreck waiting to happen.  Paul made that pretty clear in I Corinthians 13 when he wrote, "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."  How many times are our actions based on something other than love?  How often do we treat others with a measure of love that we feel is equivalent to what we receive in return?  

Are you a love-centered person?  Is your church love-centered?  We cannot be program-centered, ministry-centered, social justice-centered, small group-centered, or any other kind of centered.  We need to weigh every action and every word, considering the question, "Is love motivating me?"  

The only thing that will change people, culture, and our church is love---it is the only answer.  

Re-blog: Kevin DeYoung's review of Rob Bell's "Love Wins"

A well-written review of the new Rob Bell book...I know there are a lot of Rob Bell fans out there, and certainly a fair share of critics.  In reading the selections from "Love Wins," it is clear Bell is making some dramatic leaps beyond the fringes of orthodoxy.  It's a long, but valuable, read.

God Is Still Holy and What You Learned in Sunday School Is Still True: A Review of “Love Wins”