R3: radical, revolutionary, different

Today is Thanksgiving.  A day we Americans typically eat a ton of food, spend time with friends and family, and watch the Lions lose.  And it’s also the conclusion to R3’s series on thanks giving.  I’ve found that just writing and thinking about these posts has really impacted my perspective.  I find I’m a lot more thankful for just the random stuff in my life.  I hope you find the same.

Thankfulness

God - Thank you for everything you do in my life.  Most days I simply don’t take enough time to thank you for all the miracles I experience.  If I’m honest, I almost never thank you for anything.  In fact, my attitude tends to be one of ungratefulness, rather than gratitude.  I am sorry for that.

As I sit here thinking about how complex life is, I am amazed that my body can breathe air, type words, and hold a conversation with you all at the same time.  Even though I usually take it for granted, I am grateful for a working body. 

Mostly though, I find today I am very thankful for you.  You’ve completely changed my life.  You’ve completely changed me!  And you did it for no other reason than you love me.  Not because I deserved it.  Not because I earned it.  Simply because you are love.  For that I am thankful. 

As I enjoy thanksgiving with friends and family, I ask that you watch over them, and everyone else.  Perform miracles, heal the sick, and do amazing things - and I am thankful even when you aren’t doing those things in my life. 

You are a loving God.  For that I am thankful!  Amen.

<comments are open, feel free to add your own prayer of thanks>

As I alluded to in the post yesterday, I am thankful for suffering.  I know it sounds strange to say that.  Frankly it seems weird to type it.  But almost everything I treasure has come through suffering, including R3. 

We all want our lives to be easy and convenient.  I think this is especially true in America, where we are used to having everything within minutes, if not seconds.  But no one escapes suffering.  Not even God.  Which leads me to believe that maybe suffering isn’t something to be avoided, it’s something to learn from.

God has a way of taking what the world means for evil and flipping it on it’s head.  In the Chronicles of Narnia, the White Witch thinks she wins by killing Aslan, the Lion.  But she couldn’t be further from the truth.  The suffering, and death of Aslan (a stand in for Jesus) was the exact thing that ends up destroying the evil of the White Witch.  In the book, CS Lewis describes Aslan’s return like this,

“…though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.  Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time.  But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there ad different incantation.  She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.” (Chronicles of Narnia, p.160)

Without suffering the White Witch never would have been defeated.  Without suffering you and I never would have been saved.  Without suffering countless miracles never could have occurred.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t look forward to it.  I am not happy about it.  I wouldn’t want to give up a Friday at the movies for malaria.  But I’m learning that sometimes the best teacher is suffering.  And I am willing to do anything that draws me closer to God. 

Because of all of that, I am thankful for suffering

Looking back at the list of things I am thankful for, I can’t help but notice how many “small things” are on it.  To be honest that surprises me.  Before I sat down, I fully expected my list to have a lot of “big ticket” items.  For instance, my car, my apartment, or even the Steelers. 

But most of what I’m truly thankful for are the so-called “simple pleasures” in my life.  Instead of being excited about the material possessions I have, what matters most to me are the basics - like being able to eat Sour Patch Kids. 

I’m not sure I would have recognized that without this exercise. 

It sounds cliché, but the small things really do matter.  So often we think that in order to be thankful and happy the big things must fall into place.  We tell ourselves, “if we just get this promotion I’ll be happy.”  Or “if only she likes me, then everything would be okay.”  But I’m finding that’s just the opposite.  My life has never been more “up in the air”.  And it’s the little things in my life that keep me excited and motivated. 

Funny how it takes hardship and struggling to realize that…

I’m not a big into celebrating holidays.  I don’t have anything against them; I just don’t get really excited.  But holidays can serve an important function.  They help us remember the significance of events, and serve as a way to remind us of where we’ve come from.  In that spirit I’ve decided to do something a bit differently here at R3 for Thanksgiving.  I want to actually take time to think about the things I’m thankful for instead of looking at it as a big dinner with some football on the side. 

There’s no question this year has been hard on many of us economically.  But we still live in the most blessed country in the history of the world.  We also live in a day and age where most of our needs are met.  When we get hungry we don’t have to go hunt and kill our food, or pick some berries.  We just drive up to McDonald’s roll down our window and in less than 5 minutes we’re clogging our arteries. 

It’s easy to forget just how much we have. 

So that’s why, for the next few days I want to focus on things to be thankful for.  Such as…

• being alive
• having friends for both the good and bad times
• Sour Patch Kids
• a heated apartment
• cell phones
• thanksgiving with my family
• a home cooked meal!  (no microwavable burritos here!)

(ed note:  This was supposed to post yesterday.  Does it make a difference that it went up a day late?  Only in my obsessive, compulsive mind I suppose!  Maybe I should be more thankful for my memory!)

‘Cause I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?”

- Matthew West, The Motions

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to follow God.  Especially as we are hammered every day by bad news.  How do you follow God when you have no job, no money, no future?  How do you manage to live out a life of faith when your home or car is being repossessed?

There’s only one answer I can think of, and that’s being ”all in.” 

We can’t worship God half way.  If we’re to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, we can’t carry it just part way.  We can’t just say “I’m in it for the good times.”  Because when we take that approach, the minute bad things hit, we jump out and lose hope.

Jesus warned us to weigh the consequences of following him.  And I think he was serious.

He knew we could never withstand suffering if we haven’t fully committed to God.  If we’re holding onto the world, we’ll never be able to say “everything I have is yours”.  As long as we still crave what the world offers we know, deep down, we’re not being honest toward God.  Which is why our first reaction to bad news is anger towards him.  We’re upset he’s taken something that belongs to us.   

When we split our between the world and God, our focus always ends up on what makes us happy and healthy.  

When I look at passages like these, I don’t think God is trying to be harsh.  I don’t think Jesus was trying to scare people away when he said a follower must “hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life” (Luke 14: 26).  Jesus was trying to show the problems of having our focus on something other than God.  He wanted us to understand that we will never be able to handle life if we grasp him with one hand, but cling to the world with the other. 

Being a Christian is an all or nothing proposition. 

Until we’re willing to go “all in” we will never have the piece of mind that comes with trusting God.  We will never believe we’re really doing what God wants.  Because we will always crave something else.  It’s only when we learn to put God ahead of our families, our lives, and our comfort, that we can escape hopelessness.   

Knowing that we’ve given everything, instead of going through the motions” lets us withstand suffering.  It may even allow us to enjoy life in the midst of our problems.  But without giving everything, we have no chance when real suffering hits. 

Being “all in” is what puts this world into perspective. 

I’d like to say that I’m home after a few weeks of travel. But I’m actually back on the road. Which is nice because where I live it’s snowing and where I am its 70 degrees. You have to love that! So while I’m on the road I want to take care of a little housekeeping and expand upon an interesting idea.

Christopher sent in an email about the king of the hill post.

The part of your post that I really wanted to comment on though is about being an individual and learning to submit to authority. From my own experiences in Christ, I have to say that once we do start to practice submitting to authority for the sake of the Lord, it has been for me, another one of those new found freedoms in Christ that you begin to experience. You’re no longer weighed down by thoughts and feelings to “defend” your ground, or to come up with arguments of justification for your actions.

Practice. It’s something I usually don’t’ associate with living out a life of faith. But you know what? I think that’s a great way of looking at it. It’s very rare that we instantly become people who can live in perfect faith. Usually it takes weeks, if not years, to overcome some of our sinful behaviors.

I think this is one of the most dangerous times of being a Christian. When we become frustrated that we aren’t changing as fast as we should be, we run the risk of giving up. We can become so upset that we keep making the same mistake we wonder, “will I ever be able to overcome this?” It’s easy to say we’re never going to overcome our selfishness, our lust, our greed, and so we give up.

But if we look at it from a practice perspective, things change. Our weaknesses no longer become impossible to overcome. Instead they represent a chance to learn and try again. In the book, God is closer than you think, John Ortberg has a prayer that simply says, “God I’m sorry I failed, please help me start again.”

God can never change our hearts if we’re running away from him because we see ourselves as failures. But he can radically change us if we keep getting back up and saying, “God, I failed, help me to stand up and try again.” This is the balance between truth and grace.

Maybe it’s true what they say: practice makes perfect.

What does a sick 3 year old, being kicked off a flight, and losing a power strip have in common?  They are all things that in my two weeks of travel I never expected, and yet they were my biggest challenges. 

Before I left I expected computer problems, stress, or even getting lost in some strange city to be my biggest issues.  But all of those went smoothly.  In fact even driving around Chicago was easy.  Every single thing I worried about worked out perfectly.  What I found was a sudden supply of unexpected problems!  Things that had never even crossed my mind.

Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”  I’m not sure that point has ever been driven home more than these last few weeks. 

I look back at all the stress and feel a little embarrassed by it.  All of the anxiety I felt was pointless.  I didn’t accomplish anything through worry.  I didn’t solve any problems by being nervous.  It was just a big waste of my time and energy. 

I’d like to say I am cured of my need to worry.  But I know that’s not really true.  I think I can honestly say, however, that things are just a bit more in perspective.  And isn’t that what the Christian faith is all about?  Each day making a little more progress towards God. 

Sometimes it’s easy to get down on ourselves.  We blame ourselves for our sins, for our failures.  We start thinking that God can’t use us because we’re not perfect.  God offers us an infinite number of “do overs.”  But we need to be willing to go to him and accept that. 

When I think of that I’m reminded of this shirt:

 Image courtasy ShirtADay

(For those of you who didn’t grow up playing video games this is known as the Konami cheat code, which gave you 30 lives in various video games.)

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”  - Albert Schweitzer

Who’s flame do you have a chance to rekindle?  Who’s life can you radically alter, simply by being there for them?

I am very much an individualist. 

All of my favorite games, movies and history stories involve the lone hero fighting the forces of evil (Chuck Norris I’m looking at you).  To be honest I hate the idea that I need community to live a healthy, productive life.  I don’t want to have to submit my life to other people - I want to be king of the hill. 

But if I want to live out a life of faith, I need to look at everything the Bible says about my life, not just the things I’m interested in hearing.  That’s why I find the Bible’s comments on authority so challenging.  It directly confronts the way I want to live my life.

Yet should I be surprised?  Look at what happens in the world around us.

Since 2000 we’ve been told by one political party that our current president is an idiot.  Comedians re-tell that same joke as if no one has ever heard it.  Companies publish calendars and cards illustrating “Bushisms.”  In response, we’re told that the other political party hates their country.  And hopes that things will be miserable for millions of Americans just to improve their election chances.  

Of course it’s not just politics where this happens.  It’s at home too.  A 12 year old boy was suspended from school for wearing a mohawk to support the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  His response was essentially: “I’d rather be suspended than cut my hair.”  His parents supported his decision. 

Now maybe Bush isn’t the smartest President we’ve ever had.  And maybe one party really does believe in redistribution of wealth.  And maybe the school over reacted with a boy’s enthusiasm for his favorite team.

But is this mocking authority how we’re called to live? 

We  seem to “stick it to the Man” because we can.  And so we cheer for the defiance of a 12 year old.  And laugh at the Bush is stupid jokes.  And nod knowingly that one party wants to take from the rich and give to the poor. 

I don’t pretend to understand everything about how the Bible portrays authority.  Maybe I don’t even know most of it.  But how can we hope to learn what it means to be obedient, when as a society we intentionally mock those in authority?

Right now we find ourselves in a global economic crisis.  And we’re told that we need to trust our leaders.  But why should we when we’ve been told for 8 years that the president is an idiot?  When we mock authority, how can we suddenly turn that attitude off when suddenly we need to trust authority?

The answer is, we can’t. 

There’s a moment when Saul is standing alone in a cave “using the facilities” so to speak.  David, the man who Saul is trying to kill, is hiding in the cave. Saul had been searching for them for a long time.  It would be so easy for David to end his life on the run by killing Saul. At least that’s what David’s men think.  

But David believes Saul was chosen by God, and therefore has all of God’s authority.  So instead of killing him, David cuts off a piece of his robe.  Saul leaves without knowing how close to death he was.  As Saul walks back to his soldiers, his protection, David appears, saying, “I could have killed you, but I didn’t because God chose you to be king.”

David knew that if he started ignoring God’s authority because it was convenient, he’d be walking down a dangerous path.  He respected Saul’s authority so much that he’d rather live a life on the run, then counter what God might be doing through Saul.  He knew he couldn’t turn his obedience on and off.  That’s a very different place to be than how we seem to be living.

Like I said, the Bible’s view of authority is difficult for me to grasp.  Especially as someone who prides himself on individualism.  I do know that with the election in a few days, this is something we all need to wrestle with.  No matter who wins the presidency, serious problems face this country and the world.  And I don’t want to reject authority simply because I don’t like it.  I’m committed to God, no matter where that leads me.

I want God to be my king of the hill.