Introspection

To me, one of the hardest things in life is realizing something about yourself that you wish wasn't true. I think, unfortunately, many of us simply ignore those things or brush them off. "Well, no one understands what it is to be me" or "If they had to walk in my shoes they wouldn't blame me" and those things might very well be true. But the thing is, that doesn't mean that we should just accept our shortcomings with a shrug and a grin.

So, this week I feel like I came face-to-face with a flaw that I don't think I ever realized I had, or at least hadn't put a label on it. I was annoyed with something and just got finished working out. As I was taking a shower it hit me pretty hard. I have a really strange phobia of not being heard.

I'm sure there are any number of psycholigical explanations, and probably if people are honest this is pretty normal. People want to be heard and to be listened to. But for a lot of my life, I think I had just pushed it aside, convinced myself that it didn't matter whether people heard me or not. But I don't think that was true. I think the simple fact of the matter was the for the longest time in life, no one was really listening so I became convinced that I didn't care if no one was listening.

Now, I am in a very odd position. I am at a church where I am listened to, almost too much. And I am at a job where I usually feel like every word falls on deaf ears. So, my desperate need to be heard is both being nurtured and shot to hell at the same time. I can look back and see times of frustration with a new clarity. I would say a good majority of the time that I am upset with people close to me it is because I didn't feel like they were listening.

And I think some of it goes deeper too. I think that everyone should always listen to me. There is a certain arrogance that says that my thoughts and ideas are always the best. My good friend Don told me that I needed to look inside to see my frustration. And he was right. If I let myself, I will be frustrated by others until the day I die. It is a near certainty that that will happen either way, but when it comes to this issue I think I can be less frustrated. I think the main thing is that I need to relearn to appreciate other people's ideas, thoughts and feelings. I need to reaffirm my need to have constant input, to look for insight in strange and new places, and to be open to others.

All the wrong things...

I remember when I first learned to play sports. I loved thinking about hitting the game winning home run, sinking the game winning three pointer, or beating the buzzer with a "boomshakalaka" dunk. Those are the types of things I wanted to do to win in sports. And those things are great... unless that is all you can do. The guy that hits a lot of homeruns but bats .192 isn't a really great asset to his team. The guy that drains most threes but can't play defense or rebound or pass or dribble? He drains his team of one whole position for the whole game; the same for the guy who can only dunk. The reason it took me a long time to "get it" as far as basketball goes is because I never understood the principles of the game.

My frustration with the American church is the same. We are so worried about being "purpose driven" and seeing our numbers super-sized that we ignore the fundamentals of the game, if you will.

Why did Jesus come? To reconcile the world to God. I don't see anything about moving people from crowd to core or growing numerically. The fact is that sometimes doing God's will in the world makes us less popular rather than more. Sometimes we must take the role of prophet in the world, and most of us forget the the prophets were the equivalent of the stinky kids in class. They didn't have friends, they didn't get the chicks, and they sure didn't seem "purpose driven."

The disciples? Sure, they were driven by purpose, but it wasn't the purpose of growing their church. It was the purpose of growing God's kingdom. Now, the common assumption is that those things are synonymous, however, I don't think they always are. The church is called to live in strange counter-cultural ways, not to always grow "bigger and better." Do churches need McDonalds in them? Do churches really need parking garages or state of the art fitness centers? I don't think so. Now, I'm not sure that having those things is sinful, but it certainly isn't the best God has called them to.

So what is the best God has called the church to? Not sure that can ever be adequately answered, but I'll give it a shot. I think the church is called to be scattered at times, to be spread out among the people that don't believe. I think the church is called to be salt, and you never want too much salt in one place. I think the church should value fitness and good parking, but those can be done in a different kind of place. I think the church should be messy, organic and never homogenous. Each local church should be a unique manifestation of the church universal. We shouldn't be concerned if we are too small or too big. Do we trust God to draw people, to woo them?

Each church meeting should be a dangerous expression of the strange union between the divine and mortal. We should be creative, on edge, seeking something new, every time. We should ask the questions that people in power are afraid to ask. We should advocate for the weak, especially for the weak. We should be the staunchest supporters of those who we believe to be wrong. Most churches believe homosexuality is a sin, but most churches should be loving gay people with fierce determination. Most churches believe abortion is a sin, but those Christians should be loving the people who have and give abortions in a way that makes no sense.

Most of all, church should be a place where everyone is embraced. Church should be a place where we can't help but encounter a real God and his real (flawed) people. It should be a place where we can't help but be changed. Moving people from the crowd to the core is stupid and disingenuous.

Defense

When did the church decide that they should always be on the defense? Who decided that one of the central ideas of the bible was that God hated Darwin and evolution? When Jesus talks about the gates of hell, I suppose those are used as an offensive weapon in the afterlife?

When I look around at the Christianity I was raised in and that I came to love, I see a lot of defense. I see people that are quick to point out why others are wrong. I see groups that are more worried about losing something than gaining the whole world. I see a sad state that makes me a bit depressed sometimes.

In basketball and most other competitive sports, a good defense can win most games for you. If you can keep the other team from scoring, you can usually win... obviously. Usually defense is more about fundamentals and execution. And I guess that is why a defensive model for church is so popular in the United States.

If we run around telling people who and what ideas are looking to steal their soul, then we can maneuver them as we please. People are terrified of losing things. They think "Gee, if I give in on this point, if I admit that God may not have created in six literal days, then how can anyone trust that Jesus rose from the dead?" or "If we admit that our politics are not right all the time, then people may think they are wrong all the time." But neither of those is coherent.

Of course, God could have created all that exists in 6 literal days. But why couldn't he have used millions, billions of years? Does it really have any bearing on who Jesus was and is? And what if, as Christians, we were wrong to believe in capitalism, or democracy? Would that mean that we would suddenly have to abort every baby? We are making connections that do not exist, because we are playing defense only.

The church started as a radical, dangerous movement. People were uncomfortable with Christianity because the people who believed it were so loving, they embraced community in such a way that it made people see what was lacking in their own lives. What if, instead of letting culture decide what we think, or political parties, what if we evaluated everything against Jesus? Would Jesus really have set up a weird video series of "Evolution vs Creation"?

I think we need to push the tempo, encourage innovation, embrace learning. If we really believe that God created the world, then God created the science the governs the world. And if God is true, then won't it become, at least somewhat evident? Defense wins championships, but offense sells tickets. If we believe the Easter story, the championship is already won. What we need to do is show people that it is a life worth living, or, in a way, a show worth attending.

Foods

One of the things that I have really felt like I have been missing the mark on is the way I eat. I eat like a slob most of the time. I have candy very regularly, I have Dr. Pepper way too much, I eat fried food and fast food probably ten times a week. It just isn't good.

So my sweet wife took me to Sunflower Market. We bought a bunch of healthy veggies and stuff to make good salads. I start tomorrow, and I plan to eat a salad for lunch four days a week.

The main reason for this is vanity. I have more of a belly than I would like, and I would like to drop to around 190. I have been working out like a fiend, but I have lost absolutely zero pounds. So, I am looking to work out harder, and eat better.

But the deeper thing is that I know God has called me to be a good steward of the things he has given me. In reality, I have not been a great steward of my body. I need to take better care of those things I have been given, and my body is the most important thing I have ever been given.

Less than a week.

That's right. Less than a week before Refuge Community Church kicks off. It has seemed like such a long build up, from the embryonic stages in Brownwood, to the serious planning in Waco, to the hours of mentoring preparing paperwork, to the seven months of meeting as a home church, to now.

I honestly wish I had more time, there are so many more things I would like to do. But I also know that all the necessities are taken care of. We have a wonderful core of people. We started with a very trustworthy, faithful friend handling the finances (something that is absolutely essential), added a hard-working friend with the heart of a true servant leading up our small groups, and then we added an extremely talented musician who wants to learn. And those are just the guys in official roles. There are too many wonderful traits in our people to list or mention, but needless to say I'm excited.

But at the same time, I am anxious. How will we respond to difficult situations? Will our leadership rise to the occasion, or will we let pressure implode us? How will I respond when things happen that I don't want to deal with, or what if I do want to deal with it, but feel like it is wisdom to let it play out? Can I trust God to take my mistakes and make a beautiful mosaic from them? What happens if no one comes? Will I be satisfied ministering to those we already have, or will I fall prey to the awful numbers game? Will we include new people, will we lovingly rebuke those who need it?

It comes back to call for me. I have to trust my call to Refuge, and I have to trust that God called our leadership team. It is easy to trust God on those that have already stepped to the plate, but not so easy to trust those that have struck out a few times. I have to trust that the Spirit that moves in me also moves in the people I seek to serve. And if that is the truth, he may be speaking to them in ways that I'll never understand. I love our church as it is, but I know that God calls church to grow, to change, to be like a living organism. My hope is that God will give me wisdom to lead in that way, that he will give our people patience to bear with me while I learn, and most of all that he will fill us all with love for one another and for our community.

Sigh

Sometimes that is simply all I can do. I am, like anyone else, of the opinion that I am right more often than not. I believe that my personal political preferences are more ethical and that they reflect biblical values more than those that I disagree with. I'm still not alone there. But can we all be right? Of course not.

So should we all just shut up about it? Not mention our disagreements? I think not. The problem is not that we argue, but how we argue. Have you ever argued with someone and regardless of how right you are or what you say, they refuse to concede a point? I have been that person, and they really don't learn. But if we are ever to make progress, if we are ever going to get beyond stupid partisanship, we all have to enter discussions with open minds, and more importantly humble opinions of ourselves.

Why is it so frustrating to try to discuss important issues with people who will not listen? I think it is an underlying superiority expressed. It is a thought process that says that you are not as intelligent as me, so I will not listen to anything you say. It is usually accompanied by some condescension, and usually leads to a fair amount of rage.

The funny thing about it is that some of the smartest people I have ever known were some of my seminary professors. Dr. Sands, Dr. Olson, Dr. Tucker, Dr. Foster, Dr. Gregory, Dr. Gloer, and on and on. And when someone disagreed with those guys, they patiently listened, offered their thoughts, and validated the other person's point of view. I believe that those men were so smart because they refused to dismiss people based on those people disagreeing with them. Since graduating, I have thought a lot about this. It is my goal to emulate those brilliant profs of mine, and though I am most of the time very stubborn and believe I am right, I have to think I'm getting better.

*Edit*
This is further exacerbated because the guy I'm thinking of today compared "nigger" to "teabagger" saying that they were equally offensive. Then when everyone said that clearly the former was much more offensive, he refused to recant. White people should never pretend that they understand the deep offense that that word causes.

The Economy of God

I'm in the process of reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Miroslav Volf (if you would like to know more, click the link to the right for "Exclusion and Embrace"). This book is titled "Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace." Pretty much, Volf is contrasting the economy of this world with the economy of God.

Each of us that has grown up in the United States has a pretty skewed idea of what it means to give and receive. If you give someone a birthday card, you will be disappointed if you do not receive a birthday card back. If you invite someone to dinner, you can expect to be invited to dinner in the next month or so. We believe in reciprocity. The problem?

This is not the economy that God desires. God expects us to give without any return. If we lend money, it should be free of interest. If we give gifts, we shouldn't expect them to be used in a way that pleases us. We should lavish on those who cannot hope to pay us back. Why?

Because God has first done those things for us. God started his economy at the start of all things. He created things that couldn't possibly return the gift of being or of life. Later, he redeemed those things he created in a way that they couldn't possibly hope to return. As hopeless children, all we can give to God that he desires is our own love. And while that is intangible, it is something that God created the entire cosmos to have.

So what does that mean? It means as Christians, and as larger units as the Church, we should be giving without expecting return. We should be willing to receive graciously, because that is part of the divine economy. Imagine if everyone was willing to give but no one was willing to receive? We must receive and seek to pass the blessing to someone who doesn't deserve it and can't earn it. We should be willing to ask, because God tells us we should as from him. Words like "earn" and "merit" are not longer worth mentioning, because in God's economy none of us can earn or merit anything. All we can do is receive, and then, in turn, give.

Volf says this "For a giver, every need is in a sense like any other need, and the mere fact of its existence is a sufficient reason for attending to it. Only ungracious and reluctant givers inspect the causes of a need and dole out the benefits in proportion to its legitimacy.
"Some needy recipients may prove unworthy. They may be ungrateful, they may squander gifts irresponsibly before their genuine need is satisfied, and they may greedily refuse to pass even a crumb from their table to neighbors in more dire need. They clearly need to learn how to both receive and give- though probably not from those who give to them, lest the givers prove to be reluctant and arrogant, and therefore bad givers. Yet if receipients are in need, gifts should be given. Need is the only justification a gift requires."

The Power of Words

So I just completed a five-week bible study at work. We talked about Calvinism, Arminianism and Open Theism. There was a guy in the class who I didn't think was particularly bright before it began. But, week after week, he consistently showed a very solid grasp of the topics we were discussing. Then, the day after our last class he came up to me to speak about a bible study that he was a part of at his church.

Basically, they were talking about a scientific experiment that proved that words matter. The guy in charge took some glasses of water and spoke different types of words over them. He would bless some and curse the others. He played heavy metal with evil messages over some, and classical music with heavenly messages over the others. He labeled some 'love' and some 'hate.'

And he ended up with some fascinating results. Those that he blessed had a very different chemical makeup after than those he cursed. Some ended up being toxic due to the words spoken over them, and some water ended up much better. Since most things contain a very large amount of water in their basic composition, this shows the importance of not cursing and the importance of blessing. There was only one real problem with this experiment.

It isn't true. See, these "results" have never been duplicated. No one has been able to prove that words have an actual effect in our world, at least not physically. Many times people will say that they know words are powerful because the bible indicates that they are. And the bible does seem to say that. But is that what the bible means? Do words, in and of themselves, actually have power?

I think they don't. At least not people's words. If words themselves have power, then we could merely run around using the right words to get all kinds of things accomplished. We might even carry some sort of pointing device, and wear a robe and a pointy hat. Words do not have power on their own.

They can be given power, but they can only be given power by some sort of agent, God or others. See, God's words have power because God is power. God can make things happen merely by the force of his will. To think that people can do the same is to elevate people to a level equal with God. People can give words power by the meaning that they ascribe to them. "Love" only means something because someone hears it. "Hate" only means something because someone says it. The words themselves mean nothing.

Fear

I was thinking today about people from high school. The vast majority of people that I went to school with left the state or at least the city after graduating. Most of us went on to do a variety of things in a variety of places.

But there was a small contingent that did not move away. A small group ended up staying in the city for college, if they went, and are still hanging out with their high school friends. Generally, those people that stayed were those people that were considered "popular" in high school. And now, those people are doing the same thing they were doing then.

The big difference, to me, was fear. The cool kids had a lot to give up. High school was great for them (and just so I don't sound jaded, I loved high school too). It was so great, that they never wanted to let it go. Fear kept them driving down the same streets and talking to the same people. Fear kept them from exploring new thoughts, new cities or from meeting new friends. It's probably not fair to say that everyone who stayed in OKC did so out of fear. Many were probably not scared at all.

But when I think about what really scares people, I think about what is typically a good horror movie. These days, people love to make horror movies as gory and bloody as possible. But a really great horror movie emphasizes the unknown. A great horror movie makes the watcher realize that ANYTHING could be out there. Anything.

And I think that "anything" is typically what holds people back; from moving away, from meeting new people, from taking risks. After all, ANYTHING could be out there.

I think generally that is the same thing that holds people back from taking a leap and doing something hard. What if we fail? What if I'm not as __________ as I thought? What will people say?

But when I think about fear in my life, there are so many wonderful things that I wouldn't have if fear had kept me down. I would never have gotten a dog like Rufus, I would never have made the friends I made in college, I would not have gone to Truett Seminary, I probably would never have walked down an aisle when I was 6 and asked questions about God. If I had let fear get in the way, I would never have called a girl that I met in the college cafeteria. I would never have asked her out the first time (much less the second or third), and I would never have asked her to marry me.

The problem is, I look back at the times I overcame fear, and I see that the best things in my life have come from overcoming fear, but I still let it paralyze me at times. I still wonder if the risks we are taking in our life are worthwhile. And I'm still afraid of the unknown. Hopefully I will remember the good things that come from overcoming fear, and hopefully God has more great things in store for me.

Well...

We got some really great news, but I still couldn't sleep last night.

I pretty much went on a driving tour of Denver yesterday. We really need a place to meet, so I checked out three separate spots yesterday. I started by the capitol by checking out a space at First Baptist of Denver (thankfully this First Baptist couldn't and didn't want to fire me), I proceeded Hope Community Church to check out a space they had (which was really cool) and finally I made my way to Bethlehem Lutheran Church. Each spot had its strengths and weaknesses, but I think we will probably end up at one of the latter two. The chapel at Bethlehem would be free of charge, which is a really nice price, and it has pretty much everything we need. The other has a better location, but I would be very happy with any of them.

So, we had three pretty good spots, we won't end up stuck meeting under a bridge somewhere. It is great news, and instead of dreading our first service as I had been, I am now starting to get excited.

So why could I still not sleep last night? Because my excitement wouldn't let me. I couldn't help but think of people we could reach, messages I could share, songs we could sing, and most importantly, community we would build.

A place really means nothing, but it means everything at the same time. It is strange. It should never be the primary thing a church thinks about or desires, but it is a necessity if you want to actually be able to meet. So, hopefully I will sleep tonight, but hopefully I also continue to get more and more excited.

Sleep

These past few weeks, sleep has not been good. As a consequence, I had to go get some cream for circles under my eyes. Here I am, a 27 year old male, shopping next to a lot of 60 year old women. Robin got a good laugh out of it. The package only mentions when women should use it too... so that's pretty neat.

Anyway, I haven't been able to sleep at all. I think one of the main reasons is that we do not have place to meet for our first service yet, and that is about two and a half weeks away at this point. So, yeah, a little worried about that. Today I'm supposed to meet with the pastor of First Baptist Denver, and I'm really hoping that goes well. If not, I'm meeting with someone from the staff of Bethlehem Lutheran Church later in the day. So out of the two, I really hope one will work.

So last night I couldn't sleep because I was having a crazy dream. In my dream, I woke up about 30 minutes until my meeting. I rushed to get ready, and I made it to the church with about 5 minutes to spare, but I looked down and I was wearing a cutoff tshirt and athletic shorts! Crap. I didn't have time to run home and still make the meeting on time, and as I was deliberating what to do, Rufus woke me up.

I know I have recently had dreams that Palm Sunday came and we didn't have a place to meet, so I was panicking the day of. I feel like I am caught between several forces here.

The first is my perfectionist nature, at least with things I care about. I'm not a perfectionist with cutting my toenails or even with haircuts, but with church I want things to go perfectly. This turns out to be a problem, because a good church, by very nature, is pretty open about problems and issues. A good church never goes perfect because it is allowing people that are messed up to have a big part.

The second is my definition of success. I want Refuge to be an incredibly church, and I want to make a huge difference in the city of Denver. But I am defining "success" incredibly wrong. Success for Refuge has nothing to do with the entire city of Denver. Instead, it has to do with a guy who spent 8 years in prison, and because of Refuge he finally has a church that he loves, a place where he can become a minister, and a place where he can make a difference. It has to do with embracing people and helping them find God's purpose in their lives. Success is loving well, and by that definition, we are already well on our way to success. I just can't help but get mixed up with wrong definitions sometimes.

The third is God's propensity to give what we need only when we need it. God's kingdom is not built on surplus and capital, it is built on the obedience of God's people, and it is built just in time. The Israelites were not allowed to take more manna than they needed for the day. Jesus compared his people to the flowers of the field, who do not store things for themselves. So, sometimes God doesn't provide until just in time, and that is up to him.

I just hope today is just in time, I need some good sleep...

Prayer

Does it really mean anything? I have never heard anyone who is a Christian say no. I have rarely heard people of other religions say no. So what's the point?

Most Christians will agree that prayer is a place to thank God for the good things he does. Most will agree it should be a time to adore God's sacrifice in Jesus for humanity. But what about when we ask God for things? Should we? Does it make a difference?

I grew up with a very fundamentally different view of God than I have today. As I grew up, I just imagined God outside of time. I love comic books, so I just assumed that God was viewing all of life, all of time like it was a giant comic strip. He was viewing the past, present and future as one "present." He saw the end in the same way that he saw the beginning. In fact, I remember when I preached a sermon in Australia, I said that very thing.

If that is the case, then can we ask God to do something that he was not already going to do? If God is looking at each moment in time as if it is present, and God cannot be mistaken, then God can only see the actual future as it actually will happen. And if that is the case, then he will do what he will do.

And that fit pretty well with my experience with prayer. I prayed from the time I was 7 or 8 until I was at least 14 for God to bring my dad back. And he never did. God didn't listen to my prayer. So I stopped praying and asking God to do things.

Then I started to explore the idea that maybe God was not outside of time like I had otherwise suspected. I started to read authors that believed that people could argue with God, and sometimes win! I read and reread passages like Exodus 32, when God says in no uncertain terms that the Israelites were going down the crapper. He was just going to get rid of them and start over with Moses the stutterer. But Moses stuttered out a pretty good argument with God, and the scripture says that "God relented of the calamity that he was going to bring on Israel." I read places where Jesus asked God to take the cup from him, when Jesus said to ask of God, and to ask some more. If Jesus knew God better than any of us, and if Jesus thought that prayer might make a difference, then maybe it did?

Now I pray much differently. I know that God very well may decline my requests, but I believe if he does it is for a good reason. The more I reflect on my dad never returning, the more I realize God was protecting me. Why would he want me to have a hero who couldn't avoid drinking or huffing paint long enough to drive his children to school? So he said no. And I believe it was every bit as painful to God as it was to me. I believe that he cried as I did. That God wanted nothing more than to reincarnate himself to come and be there for me. Well, he wanted almost nothing more. The only thing that stopped him was that I believe he wanted me to still have choice.

And I believe that is why God is not outside of time. In order to preserve our ability to have choice, I believe God chose to enter into time when he created it. I believe that God changes, that God has emotions, that God hurts with us and that God celebrates with us. I just can't imagine why Jesus would tell us to ask for things if God had already decided if he would give them or not. I can't imagine, on the eve of horrific suffering and crucifixion, that Jesus would have asked God to create another way if it was really impossible for God to change his mind.

CS Lewis says that because of Jesus' self affirmation as God, he was either crazy, evil or actually God. Well, there is some debate about that issue today, but let me steal his logic. If Jesus told us to pray, and compared it to a persistent widow who finally changed an evil judge's mind, if he told us to pray and acted as if changing God's mind wasn't out of the question, then he must either have been crazy, or a liar, or he was God and he knew what he was talking about.

From naivete to.... something better.

So, at church we have been going through a pretty long and, to be honest, grueling process. We are talking through many of the difficult issues faced by churches today, and really the issues face everyone. How do we respond to people who disagree with us? Why do we believe what we believe? What if we are wrong?

As we walk through this journey, I know it has been hard on many of us. I know that some of the questions that we have raised are not fun to confront, but I believe in the direction we are going.

I think most of us started at "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it." And that works pretty well for some people. But the fact is that even if that little syllogism were true, the question could still be asked, "Does the Bible say (it)?" We take certain things for granted, like the existence of an eternal hell, the salvation of the elect, or that all the Bible agrees on any particular issue.

I wish I could remember the exact phrase he used, but Kester Brewin talks about this particular journey in his book "Signs of Emergence." He speaks of moving from a naivete that takes certain things for granted to a certain wisdom in acknowledging that we don't know all the answers, but we are comfortable asking the questions.

I honestly think in this particular area that the clergy in churches have let their people down for a very long time. We have become as comfortable as the Catholic clergy were in the middle ages. We love the fact that people "trust the pastor." We love people asking us hard theological questions and we love hearing them reply "I hadn't ever thought of that." We have become obsessed with our own genius. And it is pretty sad to me.

If, as clergy, we know more about an issue, we should be incredibly humbled by the discoveries of what we don't know. If, as clergy, we are educated on a particular passage, we should be in awe of that many meanings that that particular passage could have.

It's not that I don't think we can be fairly certain about some things, it is that I don't think we can be all that certain about everything.

One of the main jobs of clergy should be to propose questions for the people. The problem with giving out a list of answers isn't that so many are wrong, in my opinion. It is that we are robbing our people of the very important journey that seeks the answers. Part of the reason I think God made pregnancy last nine months is because it takes about that long to discover some of the questions we should be asking, to face the reality that a life is soon to be in our care. Why do we think we can give glib answers to questions that God spent the better part of history trying to get people to discover? If the Bible is God's word exactly as he intended it, then why should we take away the process of people searching it for riches? I would rather frustrate the people that I am called to minister to than rob them of the all important task of realizing their own spirituality.

XOXOXO

I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that he had been drinking heavily tonight. I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that he drinks heavily before he sees me every time. I'm sure some of it was I picked up his cane when he dropped it, and I'm sure part of it was that I moved a chair for him. But for whatever reason, I was given a hug by a very drunk homeless guy tonight.

I say that not because I did anything exceptional to earn this hug. I say it because when he did it, it was completely unexpected and really probably undeserved. And as he reached out his dry and cracked hands to mine, as he pulled me close, and as I smelled the alcohol so strongly I was afraid someone would give ME a breath test, I realized that it doesn't take any kind of exceptional person to reach out to our clients. What it does take is someone who is there.

Some of our clients have done some stupid things to end up on the streets. Some of them have simply fallen on some very hard luck. But every one of them want a couple things in life. They all want someone to listen to them, regardless of how crazy they may sound. And they all want someone to touch them with kindness. These are things that anyone could do, but unfortunately we have all too few that are willing to do them.

These are the things that I believe set Jesus apart from any other kind of messiah. Jesus listened. Jesus cared enough to be down in the dirt, to be available, to be there. And this is what I think God calls us to when we come to minister. We are caleld to be there. I hope I can be there with the kind of consistency and love that Jesus was.

Marathoning...

I doubt that is a real word. And I'm also not writing this post to declare my future intentions to run a marathon. Though, at some point I would like to do that. No, I'm thinking of a different type of marathon.

We live in a society of sprints. We have to run and get "fast" food. We have day planners to ensure that all the different sprints we run throughout the day go as planned. We have instant publishing on the internet, and sometimes amazon takes too long, so we go to the store and pay 10% more for the same book.

We sprint to work, sprint home. We sprint through conversations and relationships. We get impatient with "warm-up" conversation. We sprint through playing ball with the dog, or we microwave the dinner instead of using the crock pot.

I think usually are propensity is to declare the United States to be at fault for all of that. But really, I think the United States has just perfected a millennium old problem. We are incredibly impatient.

I go from very committed to somewhat committed to not caring at all about my own personal fitness program. Why? Because I can't microwave it. I am not back to 190 in a few weeks, so I despair. There is no way to sprint to good shape... well, not figuratively (because if I regularly and consistently sprinted every day for a long time, I would be in great shape). We can't cut corners on something like that. It just doesn't happen.

The same can be said of our spiritual lives. I want very much to be the pastor, and more importantly, the kind of person that is worthy of heaven immediately. And when it doesn't immediately get easier, I despair and give up. Why can't it be a sprint? Why can't we microwave our souls into a perfect temperature to relate to God and others?

I suspect that the process is as important as the end result. I think that in this case the trials and tribulations of running the marathon are part of what makes us "heavenly" people. Some things can be rushed. But some can't. I suspect that truly being a person that knows God and others can't. I think God would love it if we could just make a decision and sprint in to instant holiness. But I think to truly become holy we have to go through the refining process of running when our feet hurt. Of continuing when our legs burn. Of falling down and refusing to stay down because we haven't made it to the finish line yet. I hope I can someday make a good marathoner...