The Gospel According to Children

This is the Gospel!  When you see the story of Jesus Christ through the eyes of an innocent child, you see how gloriously simple it is.  Jesus came to this world, leaving his perfect home, to embrace a broken, dying world.  He lifted up the poor.  He restored relationships.  He ended strife.  He was perfect.  And just when it seemed like all was lost, he defeated death once and for all.  All it takes is accepting it.  Kids get it.  And when all start to get it, it looks like the last minute or so if this video.  Life is a joy to live!

This band has absolutely wrecked me the last couple of days!  So glad God has allowed me to come across them and be blessed by their music.  I leave you with a prayer from their song "Broken Bread":

I will not fight you

Take me past the line that my heart draws

I will not fight you

Take me beyond the laziness of my thoughts

I will not fight

Lead me further than I've gone before

I will not fight you  

Amen!

Killer Live Music

Bon Iver, "Skinny Love" live at Haldern

The Head and the Heart, "Winter Song" live in Charlottesville

Brandi Carlile, "Pride and Joy" live in Salt Lake City

Denison Witmer, "Are You a Dreamer?" live in Kennebunk

Check Yo'self

The other night we lost our first game of the season...well, I shouldn't say we lost.  We were blown out of the gym by 35 points.  Not exactly what we envisioned at 7-0.  There were a lot of reasons we lost---they were better than us; we shot very poorly; we were in foul trouble; the officiating was less than stellar; and the list goes on.  Needless to say, none of us were happy with the outcome.  As I talked with my team, my coaches and my wife, my frustration level went through the roof.  I kept reliving various moments in the game that I had no control over---a bad call, a poor decision by a player, etc---and it drove me crazy.  I went to bed this way and woke up still thinking about basketball.  At some point that morning it dawned on me---"Derek, you are really screwed up."

My priorities were completely out-of-whack, and as I really considered the situation, it occurred to me that it's been this way for quite some time.  I'm not sure when it got to this point, but basketball was obviously taking a position of lordship over my life.  As I thought more about it, I realized that maybe basketball wasn't the only thing out of it's rightful place.  Money and bills have created some serious stress.  An inordinate amount of time has been put into work, usually at the expense of my family.  It took a basketball game to get me self-evaluating and when I did, it wasn't pretty.  But it was good.  Why was I letting something so inconsequential wreck my night or an entire weekend?  It's as if God let things get bad enough, let my stress level reach it's boiling point, to show me how ridiculous I've let things get.  I was mad, frustrated and sick over a stupid basketball game.  When was the last time I had that kind of anguish over any number of things that are infinitely more important?  It was time for a change; I really feel that I was at a crossroads and God was laying out for me two choices----continue down this self-absorbed, short-sighted path and dive headfirst into a lukewarm faith that inevitably would result in destruction, or quickly adjust my heart and mind and get back to walking and thinking in the Spirit.

I made a decision last weekend.  I decided that I refuse to let the circumstances of this world dictate my attitudes, emotions and behavior.  I will reprioritize my time, effort and energy and put God in his rightful place on the throne of my life.  No longer will I use people as my sounding board for my stress, but I choose to be salt and light in the lives of the people with whom I cross paths.   As I made that decision, it is amazing the peace I have felt over the last several days.  My stress level is as low as it has been in years.  When you choose to actively work to connect with and think like the Lord, it is impossible for your attitude not to be affected.  It's been a long time since I felt like God wants to do something new and special in my life, and I have felt that for the last week.  No idea what that will be, but I'm excited to find out.

We lost again last night, this time by 5 points.  Was there frustration?  Of course.  No one likes to lose.  But my heart and mind immediately was encouraged by the improvements our guys made.  This is in stark contrast to the frustration and anger I would normally feel.  God is doing something.  Sometimes He just needs you to check yo'self before...well, you know the rest.

Currently Listening To: Worship List

Ten songs you should check out...seriously, this is great stuff.  Worship is changing.  There are artists making music that goes beyond four chord, radio friendly stuff.  We don't have to settle for the typical.

1.  Holy (Wedding Day)- The City Harmonic

2.  Alive- All Sons and Daughters

3.  Sins are Stones- John Mark McMillan

4.  Alive Again- Matt Maher

5.  Take the World but Give Me Jesus- Ascend the Hill

6.  You Have Me- Gungor

7.  Heaven- Daniel Bashta

8.  The House of God, Forever- Jon Foreman

9.  Love- The City Harmonic

10. Won't Back Down- Mat Kearney

If we're Facebook friends, you can check out my playlists on Spotify if you're interested.  If we're not Facebook friends, well, then I guess there's no hope for you.

Ultimate Things

"The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.


The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call ‘ourselves’, to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be ‘good’. We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centred on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do. As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs. If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and re-sown.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, emphasis added)


I've been reading Tim Keller's The Reason for God over the past couple of weeks (basketball season really slows down my reading pace, I guess).  The book is ultimately addressed to skeptics, but I enjoy Keller and always am down for reaffirming what I believe and why.  Tonight's chapter dealt with the area of sin.  Borrowing from Kirkegaard's definition of sin, Keller argues that sin can be properly defined (at least in its deepest form) as anything that human beings put in the place where God should rightly be.  He explains that most skeptics think about sin as a cosmic list of dos and don'ts when in fact sin is more rightly addressed as pride---looking to fill ourselves with our own work, relationships, abilities, etc instead of God.  We deify ourselves, others, activities and accomplishments when we look to fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts with anything but Him.  Think back to the the Ten Commandments, the ultimate list of "religious rules."  What's the first?  "You shall have no other gods before me."  This was the first law God gave to man.  Sin is wrapped up wholly in that first commandment.  


This thinking about sin is not new to me, but too often I get caught up in the dos and don'ts like everyone else.  It's easy to spot lust or greed or dishonesty.  It's not quite as simple when we try to figure out what we are idolizing.  If we knew we were idolators, we might be inclined to re-prioritize.  This is subtle sin.  It's a sin that creeps in without us fully recognizing its presence.  Sure, we may have the nagging feeling that we are spending too much time on something or that we may not be as closely connected to God as we should be.  These feelings tug at us; the more recognizable sins slap us in the face.  Before we know it, as Keller writes, we have turned "good things" into "ultimate things."  Yet, as a Christian, there can only be one Ultimate thing; He will accept no less.  Lewis was right.  We can try to hold onto "ourselves" (if we can really convince ourselves that we are really fully "us" without Christ completely in control) and our desires, but then we certainly cannot turn ourselves over to Him as He demands.  We're either all in or we're all out.  That is not popular theology---at least not with me, it isn't.  I don't like it, but Jesus makes it abundantly clear that I can't serve myself and Him.  I can't put life in any order that doesn't have Him first and rightly belief I'm walking in truth.  


I'm glad I'm reading this book.  It reminds me of the bigger picture of Christ's call on my life, particularly in terms of the sin of idolatry.  Between my family, the adoption, work and basketball, I'm in constant danger of putting many other things on the throne that only Christ should rightfully sit upon.  I need to renew my mind when it comes to thinking about sin and understand that sin begins with putting any other gods before Him; those "good things" can very quickly become "ultimate things."

City Harmonic Speaks Truth

Love seems like such a tricky thing
It can find us in the gutter
And it can make us feel like kings
I could give away the whole wide world
But if I never had it
I never really had a thing

God is love

Dead Man Walking

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."- Galatians 2:20

This verse is often-quoted.  I wonder how deeply we have pondered the implications of this Scripture.  My fear is that Christians tend to make this a feel-good verse about life in Christ and we leave out the unpleasant detail of our own death.  Paul isn't teaching that Christ is alive WITH us as if there are two lives going on in our bodies.  No, he tells us that when Christ is alive in us, WE ARE DEAD.  How does that jive with a culture that preaches the message of self-esteem, "finding yourself" and achieving your hopes and dreams? 

I'm trying to really get this.  I'M DEAD.  That means my hopes, my dreams, my ideas, my wishes, etc are not important any more.  That probably offends some of you reading this and that's okay---it offends me too.  Here's the thing though---God is not calling me to abandon my hopes, my dreams, my ideas or my wishes.  I'm supposed to be dead.  Dead people probably aren't too worried about themselves.  He is the one that's supposed to be alive, right?  Doesn't that mean that He is the one with the hopes, the dreams, the ideas and the wishes?  Of course, this whole concept of being physically alive while putting my very flawed, very human spirit to death is a bit confusing.  But there is no possible way I can read Galatians 2:20 and walk away with any other interpretation other than the fact that I'm dead and Christ is alive.  I'm not completely sure what that looks like or how my flesh can stand in the way of Christ's work through me.  But my prayer is that God helps me to really let Him live through me.  I'm dead anyways, right?