You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Relationship’ category.
Whenever you get ready to board a plane and fly to a new destination, you typically check baggage. Well, those of us who fly Southwest still check baggage. The rest of you probably try to carry on as much as possible. Anyway, we lighten our load before we head through security and to our gate. It makes traveling easier and more convenient. It frees us.
We have to do the same when seeking a deeper relationship with God. Two days ago, I was providing advice to a co-worker who was in the midst of a difficult situation with another colleague. She was trying to figure out how to handle an upcoming meeting that was going to be critical to the long-term success of the project she was working on, and the relationship with the project leader was on the rocks and sinking fast. My advice was for her to wipe the slate clean, to press reset and enter into the meeting with no biases, no hurt feelings or grudges, no baggage. As soon as the words spilled from my mouth, I knew I needed to hear them as well for an entirely different purpose.
We all have baggage. Some of it is heaped upon us by other people in our life, and some we pick up on our own. Both kinds of baggage are equally damaging when we try to make progress toward God.
The small Baptist church I attended growing up was fundamental, legalistic and oppressive. It was an overly strict, suffocating church experience. Well intentioned. Missed the mark horribly. There was a business meeting where two of the deacons spent 40 minutes arguing over whether we should spend some of the church’s budget to pave the parking lot. One contended that we have been fine for the last 40 years without a paved lot, to which the other deacon pointed out that 40 years ago we didn’t have indoor plumbing in the church and everyone should agree we need it. That was really and truly the most important issue to be solved, according to church leadership.
In another instance, we had a pastor who resigned because the church refused to let him get a second job, despite the fact that he needed the supplemental income. I think he was going to do something overly taxing and distracting like paint houses in his spare time. And my least favorite. We had a youth pastor who was reprimanded and chastised after he brought an African-American teen to church with him. The reasoning was that he didn’t really know the kid, and the kid could have been dangerous.
My point is one I’ve brought up before. Institutions will let you down. They will create baggage. It’s no wonder that I encounter more and more people who tell me they are spiritual but aren’t interested in being a part of a church family. They claim to believe in God, but are so burned and jaded by church as an institution that they declare organized religion a dead practice and not for them. Organized religion would be wise to listen closely to those complaints and adjust accordingly. There are endless opportunities to get Christians back engaged and together in community, helping each other heal. Sometimes it feels like the obstacles preventing more of that are endless as well. And I’m not talking about packing the seats on Sunday morning. Attendance comes up dramatically short as a measurement of what I’m describing. But this isn’t a post about what makes a powerful church experience and what does not. So, I’ll save a deeper discussion on that for later.
As I was growing up, my mother would drag me to church. I would go, sometimes willingly and sometimes kicking and screaming. Meanwhile, my dad would be in the garage or mowing the back lawn or hunting. I’ve never asked him why he didn’t go with us. To this day, we’ve never had a conversation about God, salvation, relationships, any of that. I’ve wanted to, but we’ve never really had that type of relationship. Don’t get me wrong, my father would do pretty much anything to help me and Calie and the kids. He’s always been there when I needed him. But talking about feelings and deep philosophical issues has never been on our agenda. So, I’m not sure what his baggage is. I believe that he believes in God, but something about the church turned him off a long time ago. And it’s been heavy enough to weigh on him for a very long time. Bags just get heavier. You know this if you’ve traveled recently. The suitcase that zipped just fine on your way there, won’t even get close when you try to pack up to head home. It’s a great mystery, like why I never seem to have a matching pair of socks after doing laundry.
I’ve noticed in my journey that baggage has really been holding me back. I should be a more experienced traveler and hand over my bags at the gate. Even better, when I arrive at my next destination, I should leave them on the carousel to circle endlessly, waiting on me to return.
Once you check your spiritual baggage, there’s no need to claim it again. That’s the beauty.
I know the term “circling the drain” historically has a negative connotation, but for this discussion, I’m going to use it in a positive sense, so try and stay with me.
As I’ve been on this journey and documenting it through this blog, I’ve noticed some patterns, some themes, some familiar stops if you will. It started to feel as if I was on the verge of repeating myself every 4th post. I started to wonder if I was making any progress at all, since I didn’t seem to be moving forward, but instead just going around in circles. Was I just chasing my own tail here?
But after giving it more thought, I realized that this journey actually is not a straight line, or even a curvy, windy road. The destination isn’t some far off place. That’s just the the perspective of my own default settings. It’s just the way we are wired. In Crime and Punishment, the main character, Marmeladov Dostoevsky (no, I can’t pronounce it) says, “Do you understand what it means when there is absolutely nowhere to go? For every man must have somewhere to go.” We all need to have a destination, an end point. We need to be able to chart our progress. We default to thinking the journey closer to God requires a trek from where we are to where we need to be.
But it’s not about mile markers or odometers or an annoying voice in your dashboard (always with a slight British accent) that says, “You have arrived.” In actuality we aren’t headed to some far off place. We’re headed deeper within ourselves. God lives IN us, remember? He’s not out there somewhere waiting FOR us.
That’s why my blog is called the way to (t)here (although I couldn’t have articulated it as clearly even a few days ago). Where you are, how you got there and where you’re headed are all intertwined in who you are. The physical “where” isn’t really part of the equation. It’s not the Old Testament, when God told Moses to meet him on top of a mountain (Exodus 24:12-18) He is in us. We really don’t have to travel very far to get the conversation going. So it’s not a destination. It’s an ongoing dialogue, one that might never actually come to an end in our lifetime. It just gets deeper and deeper.
But first, before you can explore the depths, you have to circle the drain. You have to pass by and around all the obstacles, all the issues that slow you down and hold you back. You make laps in concentric circles that get tighter and tighter, like water going down a drain. You circle common ground, getting closer to the flow. That’s what I’ve been doing. Coming back around to a set of core issues, peeling the onion each time around, getting closer to fully understanding the complete picture, to entering the flow.
If we don’t reorient and understand it isn’t a straight line or a curvy road, we are going to get unnecessarily discouraged. If you’ve ever been lost in the woods, or in an unfamiliar place (and if not, you’ve surely seen it in movies and television), you know what happens. You’ll pass by the same building, or tree, or other landmark for the 5th time and realize you are going in circles, no closer to your destination than when you began. Possibly farther from it, since now you’re disoriented, turning in circles after all. But realizing you are on the 5th lap around the same circle can be a very powerful thing when pursuing your walk with God. It means you are just that much closer to entering the flow.
I’m not sure how far I can stretch this analogy without breaking it, because obviously we don’t just head down the drain at some point with all our issues fixed and enjoy the ride to a better place and a deeper relationship. But I definitely feel it represents well what happens when you first commit to getting back in touch with God and working on your walk with Him. So hopefully, I’ve given you some comfort if you happen to be turning in circles at the moment. And helped you see that circling the drain can actually be a good thing. For me, it’s been very powerful. I’m excited to make another lap and get a little closer to the flow.
In my opinion, the two most common obstacles preventing us from walking with God are self-interest and fear. Self interest is usually the driver of sin, as I have discussed before in some detail. Whether we are too confident, or insecure or unstable, our “self” presents ample opportunities for being unwound and undone. It’s hard to calibrate confidence to the right level. Fear, on the other hand, is most often the thing that prevents progress toward what God has for us. This I have mentioned previously as well.
As I’ve been reading Isaiah, I’ve picked up on a recurring message. It shows up almost every other verse it seems. Fear not. Be not afraid. Don’t be afraid. Have no fear. Etc. God keeps messaging, over and over and over, that we should not be afraid. Any guess why He feels it’s necessary to repeat that phrase so many times?
I’ve also been reading a book by Aleksandar Hemon (best author I’ve discovered in a while by the way) just for pleasure, but today, God sent me a note through it as well. I am absolutely pumped that no matter what I pick up and read lately, God has an insight waiting. The characters in my book were discussing a war-torn Sarajevo, specifically power outages. One says to the other,
“We dreamt of light, but hoped for darkness.”
That’s exactly what I do. I dream of light, of the great things God has in store, of the plans He has for me. And in the same breath, I hope for darkness, that all will just be safe and unseen, because who knows what the light might bring. In the book, the characters were referring to the fact that it was easier for the enemy to attack at night as well if the lights were on. For me, it is the fear of where God might shine the light. I’ve brought this up numerous times, because it’s a central theme for me. It’s a constant challenge. The fight with fear.
In Isaiah, He doesn’t just stop at saying don’t be afraid. God makes some promises to us. Among them are:
1. He will show us the way.
30:20 – Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
2. He will be with us and be there for us.
35:3 – Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give away; say to those with fearful hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”
3. He will provide what is needed for us to make a difference.
42:6 – I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand, I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who stir in darkness.
We humans are built for self-preservation. We have instincts to protect ourselves, to survive and thrive, to recognize and flee from danger. Unfortunately, these survival skills, while very helpful in many circumstances, are horribly effective devices for derailing us from God’s will.
God is trying to tell us, just like a somewhat famous politician once said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Fear, at is core, is the face of a weak faith. It’s the fruit of a shallow-rooted tree. It is the result of trusting self over God. That takes us to a much bigger discussion that’s probably better handled one bite or blog post at a time.
In the meantime: No Fear.
Isaiah 40:6 – A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”
A little later…
Lift your voice with a shout, lift it up and do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!”
A little later…
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
Ever been at a loss for words? Or even worse, been involved in an awkward conversation? With surprisingly few meaningful thoughts to share?
At first, as I read this and took it for what God was saying, I was highly disappointed. A year has passed since I decided to seriously pursue a deeper relationship with Him, and here I was soaking in a passage about not even knowing what to say to or about Him. Not in an “awe of Him” kind of way, but in a “I really don’t know who you are” kind of way. That’s extra tough for me, because there was a time when I lived in Chicago that I was the resident “expert” in the office about religious topics and walking with God. And somehow, I’ve regressed.
Those who know me well will tell you it’s hard to know me well. For whatever reason, I have a difficult time really getting to know people. On a surface level, fine. But not deeply in a “doing life” kind of way that I always hear about. And I’ll tell you, the only thing worse than having an awkward, don’t know what to say, conversation with strangers or new acquaintances is having one with someone you’ve known for a while but really don’t know. We’ve all been there, especially us guys out there. It goes something like this:
“Hey.”
“Hey”
“Catch that game.”
“Yeah, crazy, huh?”
“So, how’s work?”
“Busy, you?’
“Same ole.”
And then, bring on the awkwardness.
I just confessed to not be an expert at building deep, significant relationships but what I feel fairly certain about is that they are hard work. And you can’t go through the motions, and stay in the shallow end of the pool. Otherwise, you can sit there forever and barely get wet.
I’m still thinking about exactly what God is saying here, whether he’s talking about my walk with Him or my walk with others. Doing life together. That sort of thing. Or if it’s all the above. Either way, I’m just going to stay open and await further instructions.
In the meantime, Isaiah had more to say about growth.
26:16 – Lord, they came to you in distress, when you disciplined them, they could barely whisper a prayer.
37:27 – They are like plants in the field, like tender green shoots, like grass sprouting on the roof, scorched before it grows up.
37:30 – This year you will eat what grows by itself, and the second year what springs from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Once more, a remnant of the house of Judah will take root below and bear fruit above.
I suppose I am in that first year, still eating what grows by itself. I need to show patience and restraint and not try to skip year two. Just be thankful for what’s being fed to me. Because don’t we all want to be year three, where we are planting, creating, making things happen? Deeply involved. Knowing who God really is and what He has for us. Reaping and sowing.
I also plan to open myself to deeper conversations with those who I should know better by now. Bring the awkwardness on.
I was buying milk the other day, standing in front of the shelf, shuffling through cartons, comparing expiration dates. It’s an annoying habit, but I like to find the one with the longest “shelf life” so even if I can sneak an extra day or two, I feel like I’ve won something. After all, there’s nothing more frustrating than having just enough milk for one more bowl of Cheerios only to discover that yesterday was expiration day. And I’m not about gamble with milk that’s a day over the limit. No how, no way.
As an aside, turns out expired milk won’t kill you. http://tinyurl.com/lqxl33
Which leads me to the question at hand. Why do we spend so much time with decisions about things that will expire while giving so little thought to things that are eternal?
We get swept away by things whose impact won’t even last until tomorrow while not giving nearly enough weight to actions and decisions that can impact a lifetime if not longer.
Because the things of this world are fleeting. His kingdom is forever.
22:17 – Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of you and hurl you away, O you mighty man. He will roll you up tightly like a ball and throw you into a large country. There you will die and there your splendid chariots will remain, you disgrace to your master’s house! I will depose you from your office, and you will be ousted from your position.
26:12 – Lord you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. O Lord, our God, other lords beside you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor. They are now dead, they live no more; those departed spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them.
31:1 – Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do lot look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord.
32:5-6 – No longer will the fool be called noble nor the scoundrel be highly respected. For the fool speaks folly, his mind busy with evil: He practices ungodliness and spreads error concerning the Lord; the hungry he leaves empty and from the thirsty he withholds water.
Common thread in these verses? Power, pleasure, pain it’s all short-lived. It all has an expiration date. It all is fleeting.
Today was probably the worst day I’ve had at the office in quite a while. And I really let it get to me. I was so stressed out on the way home that my face was starting to twitch. It didn’t help that I was skating on sheets of ice trying to get to my front door. The trivial pursuits of this world, the things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, are the very issues we spend mountains of time contemplating and worrying about. My job is stressful only because I place too much emphasis on it, append too much importance to it. When we get bent out of shape with things happening around us in the world, decisions by those in authority or short-term success gained from people who have impure motives and questionable actions, we are placing too much emphasis on the here and now, appending too much importance to it.
This loss of perspective also impacts our actions. The world can make an enticing and compelling affront. In chapter 36, the field commander for the King of Assyria attempted to cast doubt within the people of Jerusalem, to mock them, to create questions about the validity of their beliefs. Every day, the world can make you question what’s really success, what’s really peace and satisfaction. We are wired for immediate gratification. We trend toward short-term rewards. Most of us can spend money much more effectively than we we can save. It’s easy to get caught up in worldly pursuits, building a kingdom on earth and not in Heaven. To lose perspective on forever in moments that are fleeting.
I encourage you to join me in taking a minute to think about how many truly meaningless decisions you’ve agonized over in the past week and how many actions were influenced by a short-term return on your investment. I know I’m not the only one who shuffles cartons, obsessing about expiration dates.
We all have people we look up to, role models if you will. This can be a good thing, and a bad thing. Modeling the healthy behaviors of others provides an example, a path for us to accomplish similar positive things. Modeling can be a risk, because of the human element. Corporate sponsors spend billions banking on, or creating, role models for today’s youth. Tiger Woods. And in some cases, they make big time mistakes that can negatively impact the images of their companies, not to mention the psyches of today’s youth. Tiger Woods.
I have two goals related to role models. First, I am going to work on how I respond to the success of others so that I can be positively inspired at all. Secondly, I am committing to doing a better job in choosing who I allow to inspire and motivate me.
The How
It’s hard for me to hear stories of great success, personally, professionally, spiritually, without at least a hint of envy. I’ve made no secret that I want clarity in the purpose God has for me, and that I want to do something that will impact his kingdom. And that my delusions of grandeur are never far from reach. As a result, I usually do one of two things when I hear or witness someone being successful. Neither is healthy or positive. One reaction is envy. I long for a story like theirs, to have my purpose clearly expressed for me and to have successfully produced something related to it. I get down because I don’t see the same fulfilled purpose in my life. And it’s frustrating, because it’s not just everyday people stories that do this to me. It’s the “This Week on Oprah” or the “New York Times Best Seller List” or the “Hi, I’m the Best Athlete Ever to Play My Sport” stories. It’s the “Underdog Overcoming Great Odds or the “Gained Success Far Beyond My Years” and such. Why can’t I have that? Better question for reflection: Why do I need that so badly?
The second thing I will do upon hearing about success is compare. Given the struggles I’ve already expounded upon, I need to know how I stack up. If I can’t compare, I can’t win, and if I can’t win…well, anyway. Everything shouldn’t be a competition, but sometimes for me it always is. I’ll set my sights on someone or something that becomes a benchmark. And I will hold myself to that expectation, to surpass that benchmark.
I hereby declare that I will do everything in my power to celebrate the success of others, to learn from it, to let it grow who I am. Not to let it deflate me or discourage me by forcing me to reflect on what I think I may or may not have accomplished.
I was headed to my computer to write this, to put it down and to, as I like to say, “book it” when my wife sidetracked me with a story from the conference she just attended. One of the keynotes had a very inspiring story, and she was still moved by it some two days since hearing it. In a soundbite, he went from being abandoned in a trailer in Virginia by a drug addict mother to touring several countries and continents for Nike as the Executive Director of Play and changing the lives of kids in all corners of the world. It was an amazing story. I was standing there listening, knowing I was on my way to write this post, and challenging myself, trying to audit my honest, knee jerk reaction to his story. I struggled a bit, but I was able to appreciate it for its own merit. I admit, there was a tinge inside, of wanting to have a similar story to tell. Obviously I have not had to rise up from such long odds, but I twist that in my own mind to beat myself up and say I have even less excuse not to have accomplished something “great” already. I was humbled by how quickly God did a “price check” on what I was selling, just to help me see whether I was serious or not.
The Who
My second problem is who I’m looking to for modeling. Since I am a driven person, with yardsticks and benchmarks and all the works. I usually look toward people who have a best-selling book or a rags to riches story or some phenomenal rise to star status. This puts unbelievable pressure on me, at least on a subconscious level, to validate my worth. It also does absolutely nothing for strengthening my walk with Christ. It automatically skews my perspective so that I disregard and dismiss anything that doesn’t seem like the next big thing. Making it improbable if not impossible for God to successfully share my purpose with me.
Moving forward, I am striving to look not toward people who are renowned and famous and shiny, but toward those people who are broken, honest and humbly following the call of God. People who are open with who they are, who let their wear and tear show, who aren’t ashamed of where they’ve come up short and aren’t offended by where others have come up short. Of course there is overlap with the happy, shiny people. Many times a broken person will rise from it and use the very thing they’ve always struggled with as their way to make a positive difference in the world. So I’m not saying fame, and or fortune, will strike you from my most admired list moving forward.
My oldest son has a stuffed animal (woof woof, not making a barking sound, that’s the dog’s name), who goes everywhere with him. It’s his favorite toy. It’s dirty, beat up, torn, all but broken. In fact, I think it only has half a dozen “beanies” left in it, so maybe you could technically say it is broken. It means more to him than 100 shiny versions of it. It means more than bigger, cooler, newer versions of it. Its imperfections make it perfect. Those have been broken, who have allowed God to repair them and make them whole, and then who have been unselfish enough to allow the world to bear witness on it, those people are beautiful because of their brokenness. I think we all should long for that type of healing, that type of genuine relationship with God and with others. I know I do. That being said, we should look to others who are accomplishing it as a source of inspiration and motivation.
I poked some fun at Tiger earlier. I must apologize. Depending on how he approaches his life moving forward he could be both a bad AND a good example of a role model. Just like every other human being walking the earth. Corporations and the general public are going to be less likely to look forgive and forget, because he’s not quite as “shiny” as he used to be. But he still has the potential to produce beauty from this brokenness. Just like every other human being walking the earth. Ah, the power of redemption.
Moving more slowly through Isaiah than I hoped, but still moving. So that’s a win. I stopped when I read the following verse. It just popped out to me.
Isaiah 26:10 – Though grace be shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the Lord. O Lord, your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.
We are both stubborn and blind. Oblivious. Even in the midst of miracles, we don’t see God. This is as true today as it was in the time of Isaiah. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve overlooked or just been unconscious of what God has done for me, the simple miracles he’s performed to keep me safe, to help me succeed, to protect and shelter me, sometimes even from myself.
Your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.
I’m not sure whether stubborn is worse than blind or if it’s the other way around. Whether it’s worse to disregard God and refuse to acknowledge the way He works, or to be totally unknowing, to be so far out of tune that you don’t even have the awareness to realize He is present.
Your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.
Does it make you wonder what you’re missing? It says His hand is lifted HIGH. He’s being as obvious as He can be. I’m always hoping for a sign, something to confirm I’m on the right track. Remember in Bruce Almighty, where Jim Carrey’s character is begging for a sign from God, while honking his horn for the guy in front of him to go faster, a guy who is driving a truck with about a hundred various street signs hanging out of the bed?!? I sometimes think if God tattooed it on my forehead, I’d stand in front of the mirror contemplating why I can’t seem to discern what His will is for me. Oblivious.
It’s as if we’ve grown to believe that God is really invisible, that he only exists up in the air somewhere. Or we’ve drifted so far that we treat Him like our significant other when we’re getting lectured about taking out the garbage for the 100th time (this is purely hypothetical). We just look right through Him in a daze, hypnotized by whatever we can fix our eyes on in the distance. Or we’re just so wound up around our own life that it’s like in high school, when the teacher calls on you to answer a question and you have to wipe the drool from a daydream off your face before you can stumble your way into a semi-coherent and reasonable answer.
Even as we are shown grace, we do evil.
Stubborn. Disregarding what we know is right. Yes, we’ll never be perfect, and sin will come. But it feels in this passage like He’s addressing the unwillingness to do anything about the sin. It’s there to stay, and we’ve just gotten comfortable with it, like an old t-shirt that has holes and is stretched out, but it’s ours and we’ve grown to love the way it feels. It may be ugly, but it’s ours.
So, earlier I posed the question about which was worse, being stubborn or blind. I’m afraid that many times for me, it’s an irrelevant question because I’m both at the same time. I’m holding on to junk that I should let go of, and I’m praying for clarity when God is at work all around me already. If I just stopped for a moment and let my own dust settle, it would be painfully obvious what miracles are occurring, and I bet by opening my eyes to those miracles, I will see the next step as clearly as a truck full of street signs obstructing the road ahead.
Your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it.
My next assignment. Throw away some old t-shirts (both literally and figuratively). Stop looking ahead for God, and look around instead. Oh, and take out the trash (although now that I think about it, yesterday was trash day. Oops).
It’s been a little frustrating, like I’ve been on this road for quite a while, but I haven’t really moved all that far. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of traffic holding me back. But something is jamming me up. For the most part, it appears the travel delays have been self-inflicted unfortunately.
I’ve been a Christian for going on a quarter of a century now, and I’m sometimes amazed with the amount of basic truths I’ve either forgotten, blocked out or somehow passed by the last 25 years. I’ve been slow to receive much of what God has for me because I’ve been trying to “have my act together” before approaching him. Feeling like it would not be genuine to try and have a deeper relationship if I still had ongoing sins, things I’d yet to surrender. And so for a while now, I’ve let every stumble send me back to the beginning.
But I’ve had the process all wrong. The order of things in particular. “Who you are” is on a parallel track with “who you want to be.” You get wins along the way. You make progress along the way. And eventually, you get close enough to see both roads inching closer together. I was coming to grips with this, when recently a pastor reminded me that surrendering is a process in itself. We don’t completely give over everything all at once. We do it little by little. In that journey is where God shows up.
As it turns out, I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be. And I can’t allow every transgression to reboot my process. I like analogy and metaphor, and I use those language tools probably a bit too often. But here’s another one. In bowling, if you are at my skill level, you have an occassional gutter ball, where it just sticks to your thumb, or you pull it or whatever, but the end result is you are riding the gutter all the way down the lane. It’s not great for your overall score when this happens, but they don’t send you back to the first frame to start over. They don’t take away the pins you’ve already knocked down in previous frames.
It’s probably not a perfect metaphor, but close enough for horseshoes. The point is that I’m no longer going to let missteps steer me off the path. I’m just going to stumble ahead until I catch my balance again. And keep moving.
My family visited Grace Chapel this morning in Leipers Fork. They were hosting a guest speaker, Chris Williamson from Strong Tower Bible Church. He’s quite the speaker, by the way. The message centered on what we should do when things don’t go our way. It provided me with several insights, but for now I am writing about a point he made toward the end of his sermon. He talked a lot about John the Baptist and how he questioned whether Jesus was truly the Son of God after finding himself imprisoned. The pastor made a great point about John’s sudden lack of faith. John the Baptist had paved the way for Jesus. He had trumpeted the coming of the Lord. But when he found himself in a critical trial, in a time of real need, he stopped leaning on faith and started looking with his eyes, trying to trust in his frail humanity instead of his Heavenly Father.
That’s exactly where I am. I’ve had lots of starts and stops over the past year as I’ve tried to get closer to God. Without fail, I can always attribute the “starts” to times when I trust in Him to guide me, to take me on this journey, to lead me where I need to go next. Without fail, I can always attribute the “stops” to me not being faithful to the call, to taking my eyes off Him and looking around the next corner myself, to me saying, “Hey, I’ve got it from here.”
I’m not sure why I’m so quick to grab the steering wheel when He is such a better driver, and has the map, and knows the way, and can operate the vehicle more adeptly. I am proud to say, though, that every time I “start” I make it a little longer, and every time I “stop” it doesn’t last as long. So I guess I’ll just “continue” and see what happens.
I grew up in rural Mississippi. I grew up in a traditional Southern Baptist Church in a small community. Attendance typically maxed out at no more than 70 (Easter, Christmas and a few times during softball season when team members were trying to squeeze in their required Sunday appearances to stay eligible for Tuesday night games). Most weeks, we had between 20-40 in the pews. I was related to half of t hem. It was a legalistic environment, complete with the vein-popping, pacing and sweating, overly zealous pastor prowling the pulpit and calling out sinners. I remember one Sunday when we learned Rock and Roll was evil, was of the devil. We dissected (literally) the song Hotel California by the Eagles, calling out all the references to drugs, the occult, the devil himself.
It’s not that I’m ragging on the church where I came to know Jesus, where I grew up and was equipped with a working knowledge of the Bible, where I actually had a couple of mentors who deeply shaped me, but it was an oppressive, stifling experience and emblematic of what can go wrong with organized religion. You were judged harshly there. Gossiped about for indescretions large or small. And there were a few occassions when I think our congregation just simply made bad choices with the best of intentions. Rock and roll is not the enemy. I’ve known that for years. The enemy is me. I am most often the one who steps between me and God. I am the reason for stunted growth in Christ. It’s too easy to point at enviornmental factors as the focus of our battle, when the most trying, difficult battles we wage occur within our own skin.
the way to (t)here 
What You Said