Shame is a profoundly dominant force in this world. Think how many times you compromised your character because you were ashamed of what you actually felt or wanted to do or say. Shame drives us to cover up who we really are for fear that if our true self was discovered we would be deemed inadequate. Shame, in it's essence, is the very passageway through which this fear enters our lives.
Some guys just love being naked. They find it freeing, comical, or just an excuse to exercise their masculinity. I'm not sure if women truly revel in these moments of nudity as men do, but I can only hope (kidding). I've found that these recreational nudists are the minority of men, or at least American men. Being naked is a necessary requirement for only certain activities in life and it is never sought after otherwise. However, it seems like there was the intention at the origin of our creation to truly enjoy our nakedness, rather we weren't even supposed to know we were naked. In Genesis we find that man created the first article of clothing, not God. It was out of shame (Gen 3:7) that we hid our bodies from one another.
I see a lot of people get teased or constantly made fun of for being "sheltered". Like I've said many times before in previous blogs, I'm no advocate for ignorance. However, I just can't help but think sometimes that knowledge is not always power. In Genesis we read that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The phrase that scripture uses to describe what happens after they eat of the tree's fruit is "their eyes were opened" (Gen 3:5, 7). It would seem as though God, in a manner of speaking, purposefully hid things from their sight knowing full well that, due to our human nature, our psyche would be crushed by certain knowledge about ourselves and this world. You could say that God purposefully sheltered us.
We live in a society that offers unlimited knowledge. You can google information to your heart's content on any subject and become an expert on a limitless amount of topics from human sexuality to rocket science. We've downloaded so much information that we've started to ignore God because our answers sound so much better than His answers. We've started to promote lifestyles and values that completely contradict what God intended for us. In doing so, it seems as though we've found a way to surpass shame. This is a paradox which I hope I can aptly explain.
Think of an abusive father who dominates a child's life with cruel words, harsh restrictions, and possibly even physical violence. When that child grows up and finally escapes that abuse, he (pardon my gender specific use of "he", know that I imply he/she) will most certainly seek to live a life contrary to that of his abusive father. He will treasure his freedom and unlimited potential to be something different than his father. However, he will undoubtedly be filled with anger and bitterness towards his father for the rest of his life (should he not seek forgiveness). While it may feel as though he is free from the abusive parental control he experienced throughout his childhood, he will indeed still be under the control of his father as long as anger and bitterness towards him are alive in his soul. The very deep seeded anguish which motivates him to move further and further away from his father is, in reality, a continual force dragging him back into that home of iniquity. Although his father is not physically present he is indeed spiritually present, and thus his father still dictates his every action. Now, imagine this scenario projected onto shame in our society.
Shame is present because we sinned, and we've been trying to escape it ever since. At first we just created clothes out of fig leaves. Now we have parades and political organizations. We became so dominated by our inability to escape the soul-shredding guilt caused by our shame that we in turn started to use reverse psychology on ourselves by celebrating the actions that once caused us to feel ashamed. I have no doubt that deep down these actions still cause us to feel ashamed, now it's just there's no shortage of people to rally around us and support us in our shameful ways. Shame is the abusive father we grew up with and now hopelessly pretend to be free from.
I know this all may seem somewhat contradictory as shame initially made us insecure about something we should have never been insecure about, i.e. being naked. A Christ follower understands that shame can be both a tool for correction when it comes from God and a tool for destruction when it comes from Satan. God wants us to feel ashamed when we are not who He has made us to be, while Satan wants us to be ashamed when we are who God has made us to be. What makes Christians different is that we've chosen not to let that shame control our lives and instead let the abounding love and grace of God wash it away. Everyone else is just fighting to repress their shame not knowing that it's like quicksand; they can keep struggling to escape, but without accepting the helping hand of Christ to pull them out, there is no hope.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Job Description
Conflict brings out how we really feel about ourselves, how we feel about others, and what we feel is our role in this world. Do we seek justice? Do we crave revenge? Do we offer grace? What do we do in those moments where something clearly must be done in regards to a conflict or dispute with a friend, coworker, family member or peer?
I have a problem. I'm fairly good at arguing and I have an inherited knack for noticing faults, flaws, and shortcomings in most people within a reasonably short period of time. Those observations make it incredibly difficult for me to be patient with certain people. The larger problem they create is that they can stir within me a deep feeling of superiority over other people whom I deem immoral, hypocritical, shallow, disrespectful, insecure, or just lacking in authenticity. That feeling of superiority is hands-down the greatest barrier in dispensing love to people who need it the most. Deep down I do want to love them but only after they change this, stop doing that, and ask for forgiveness for all the ways they've wronged me or others around them. In reality and much to the contrast of my human nature, the love which Christ calls us to has no prerequisites.
I think we can all agree that Billy Graham has lived pretty close to the standards God calls us to, or at least as close as we can hope to live up to them. Surprisingly, I found that he has encountered quite a great deal of criticism by fellow evangelical Christians over the years. I guess, in retrospect, that isn't surprising based on the common tendency of religious, moralistic beliefs to create the sense of superiority I described in myself. We have a profound ability to ignore that log in our own eye yet spot that speck in our brother or sister's eye from a mile away. I digress. Apparently in 1998 after the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke, Billy Graham attended a fundraiser for President Clinton and caught a ton of crap for it. In the end, all Graham said about it was "It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge, and my job to love." Well put.
What's the most important commandment? It's pretty clear in Matthew 22 and Mark 12 to name a few places where we can find the obvious answer. How come we still can't grasp what this looks like fulfilled in our own lives? Generation after generation has failed at this. I think it may be because we get confused by all that the Bible tells us to do and we forget how simple our job description really is as disciples. Love God, love one another, the end.
P.S. Andy Stanley has a great 8 week sermon series on the difference between a Christian and a Disciple based on this principle. Check it out! http://northpoint.tv/messages/christian7
I have a problem. I'm fairly good at arguing and I have an inherited knack for noticing faults, flaws, and shortcomings in most people within a reasonably short period of time. Those observations make it incredibly difficult for me to be patient with certain people. The larger problem they create is that they can stir within me a deep feeling of superiority over other people whom I deem immoral, hypocritical, shallow, disrespectful, insecure, or just lacking in authenticity. That feeling of superiority is hands-down the greatest barrier in dispensing love to people who need it the most. Deep down I do want to love them but only after they change this, stop doing that, and ask for forgiveness for all the ways they've wronged me or others around them. In reality and much to the contrast of my human nature, the love which Christ calls us to has no prerequisites.
I think we can all agree that Billy Graham has lived pretty close to the standards God calls us to, or at least as close as we can hope to live up to them. Surprisingly, I found that he has encountered quite a great deal of criticism by fellow evangelical Christians over the years. I guess, in retrospect, that isn't surprising based on the common tendency of religious, moralistic beliefs to create the sense of superiority I described in myself. We have a profound ability to ignore that log in our own eye yet spot that speck in our brother or sister's eye from a mile away. I digress. Apparently in 1998 after the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal broke, Billy Graham attended a fundraiser for President Clinton and caught a ton of crap for it. In the end, all Graham said about it was "It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge, and my job to love." Well put.
What's the most important commandment? It's pretty clear in Matthew 22 and Mark 12 to name a few places where we can find the obvious answer. How come we still can't grasp what this looks like fulfilled in our own lives? Generation after generation has failed at this. I think it may be because we get confused by all that the Bible tells us to do and we forget how simple our job description really is as disciples. Love God, love one another, the end.
P.S. Andy Stanley has a great 8 week sermon series on the difference between a Christian and a Disciple based on this principle. Check it out! http://northpoint.tv/messages/christian7
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Our Own Good
I'm starting to see the true value of intellect these days. That may sound like I've realized it's worth more than I'd thought but it's actually quite the opposite. Intellect is a good thing, but it should never be viewed as the greatest thing. I see now that intellect is quite dangerous when it's coveted above all else, especially humility. Before I get into this, I have to admit that I'll be discussing these two characteristics in extremes in order to distinguish their unique potential in our lives.
To say that intellect and humility are completely at odds with one another would be unfair. However, they do not naturally play well together. Intellect brings with it a sense of self-reliance while humility brings utter selflessness. Through our intellect we can begin to understand our universe, our surroundings, and ourselves. On the other hand, humility tells us that there is so much we will never know about the mysteries of this life and that it's OK to not know. The not knowing gnaws at our intellect day and night until we break or give into humility. Humility breeds joyful curiosity about our world while intellect develops prideful mistrust of the unknown.
Recently, I've seen intellect crush the spiritual life of a brother of mine. He studied psychology, philosophy, theology, and every other -ology you could possibly study. Over the past 4 years I watched him shape the spiritual life of many an up-and-coming christian youth. He drastically helped shape my faith as well. He knows his Bible inside and out, studied the life and teachings of Jesus thoroughly as well as the history and doctrine of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions. I thought if anyone's faith was rock solid it would be his, but I was wrong. I thought all his knowledge created an impenetrable wall around his spirit that Satan could never crack. All his knowledge may have fortified the mental side of his faith but it left his heart and soul wide open for attacks that crippled him over decades of spiritual warfare and neglect. I see now that knowledge only goes so far in our spiritual lives and once it goes too far it becomes even more difficult to adjust to the life Christ calls us to, a life saturated in humility.
In an age of information and tech-savvy youth, we learn at a very young age that we can learn to do just about anything by googling it on any electronic device attached to the internet. The problem is that we bring that mentality into our relationship with God and we begin to try and figure Him out instead of allowing God to reveal Himself to us. Having gone to a Christian University I've seen first hand kids who go from christian high schools, to christian colleges, to seminary, to working at a Church and all they know is how to prove the beliefs they learned in school. Oswald Chambers said it best, "When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God—it is only believing our belief about Him. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy."
I've been in some low places before where I demanded that God show up--either audibly, visually, or physically. I wanted Him there because I believed He should be there because that was the best way to handle my situation. I was sad, depressed, lonely and I believed I knew what God's correct response should be. I presumed to know better than the deity who created me because I had grown up reasoning my way through every spiritual dilemma, religious debate, and complex decision I'd ever encountered. Through these lows I learned that you can know everything about God and still not know God. I heard a pastor say once that if you just know everything about a person without knowing them, you're just a stalker. I'm sad to say that I've talked to far too many people who feel God is absent from their life when God is probably looking down at them saying "You're the one who is absent in mine!"
God is constantly seeking us out and we get fooled into thinking we are seeking Him merely because we constantly look to find out information about Him. I believe He's speaking to us constantly but we find it so difficult, so very unnatural to our character to put everything on hold and throw our lives up to God and say "Do with me what you will." We want to know God but we don't want to let Him dictate our lives so it feels like He's not interacting with us, or He's not there at all. Well He's there alright, we're just tuning Him out with the sound of our own prideful intellect telling us how to make every decision in our lives. I think it's far more beneficial for our personal lives, and our ministries as well, to actually know God than to know a ton about Him. I believe that happens through humility. A humility that genuinely desires to allow Christ to live through us and not vice-verse. In the Bible, the people God spoke to and interacted with the most were those who were truly humble. Just look at David for instance.
2 Samuel 6:16-22 depicts a scene where David is so giddy to have the Ark back in Jerusalem that he starts getting all footloose in the streets, so much so that he embarrasses his wife who scorns him for doing so. David's response is "Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!." That's a statement that intellect would never comprehend. Are we willing to be humiliated in order to honor God? Are we so humble before God that we don't even care for social status and personal image? Maybe those are the things God is calling us to sacrifice in order to be with Him, but we're so entangled by intellectual pride that we can't accept a voice that tells us to do anything like that. All I know is that the more we lean on our own understanding, the more likely we are to miss out on the wonderfully divine plan God has for us.
Lastly, let me just say that I'm not advocating ignorance or that it's beneficial to be unintelligent. We should all study our faith like crazy so we know what we believe, but at the end of the day we can't hope to rely on our intellect to get us through the trails of this life. Somehow we have to merge all of the confidence we have in our mental capacities with a completely humble spirit before the Lord. Humility must be the essence of our lives, for how else will we ever attain the standard of love that God calls us to? The foundation of what Christ did for us was lowering Himself from a Godly form to a humanly form and then serving us in the most profound example of humility ever witnessed. It's crucial to remember that people don't worship Jesus for his intelligence, so they wont worship Him because of our intelligence either. They worship Him for His love--a love which is bound by humble service to mankind. So let's do the same.
To say that intellect and humility are completely at odds with one another would be unfair. However, they do not naturally play well together. Intellect brings with it a sense of self-reliance while humility brings utter selflessness. Through our intellect we can begin to understand our universe, our surroundings, and ourselves. On the other hand, humility tells us that there is so much we will never know about the mysteries of this life and that it's OK to not know. The not knowing gnaws at our intellect day and night until we break or give into humility. Humility breeds joyful curiosity about our world while intellect develops prideful mistrust of the unknown.
Recently, I've seen intellect crush the spiritual life of a brother of mine. He studied psychology, philosophy, theology, and every other -ology you could possibly study. Over the past 4 years I watched him shape the spiritual life of many an up-and-coming christian youth. He drastically helped shape my faith as well. He knows his Bible inside and out, studied the life and teachings of Jesus thoroughly as well as the history and doctrine of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions. I thought if anyone's faith was rock solid it would be his, but I was wrong. I thought all his knowledge created an impenetrable wall around his spirit that Satan could never crack. All his knowledge may have fortified the mental side of his faith but it left his heart and soul wide open for attacks that crippled him over decades of spiritual warfare and neglect. I see now that knowledge only goes so far in our spiritual lives and once it goes too far it becomes even more difficult to adjust to the life Christ calls us to, a life saturated in humility.
In an age of information and tech-savvy youth, we learn at a very young age that we can learn to do just about anything by googling it on any electronic device attached to the internet. The problem is that we bring that mentality into our relationship with God and we begin to try and figure Him out instead of allowing God to reveal Himself to us. Having gone to a Christian University I've seen first hand kids who go from christian high schools, to christian colleges, to seminary, to working at a Church and all they know is how to prove the beliefs they learned in school. Oswald Chambers said it best, "When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God—it is only believing our belief about Him. If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy."
I've been in some low places before where I demanded that God show up--either audibly, visually, or physically. I wanted Him there because I believed He should be there because that was the best way to handle my situation. I was sad, depressed, lonely and I believed I knew what God's correct response should be. I presumed to know better than the deity who created me because I had grown up reasoning my way through every spiritual dilemma, religious debate, and complex decision I'd ever encountered. Through these lows I learned that you can know everything about God and still not know God. I heard a pastor say once that if you just know everything about a person without knowing them, you're just a stalker. I'm sad to say that I've talked to far too many people who feel God is absent from their life when God is probably looking down at them saying "You're the one who is absent in mine!"
God is constantly seeking us out and we get fooled into thinking we are seeking Him merely because we constantly look to find out information about Him. I believe He's speaking to us constantly but we find it so difficult, so very unnatural to our character to put everything on hold and throw our lives up to God and say "Do with me what you will." We want to know God but we don't want to let Him dictate our lives so it feels like He's not interacting with us, or He's not there at all. Well He's there alright, we're just tuning Him out with the sound of our own prideful intellect telling us how to make every decision in our lives. I think it's far more beneficial for our personal lives, and our ministries as well, to actually know God than to know a ton about Him. I believe that happens through humility. A humility that genuinely desires to allow Christ to live through us and not vice-verse. In the Bible, the people God spoke to and interacted with the most were those who were truly humble. Just look at David for instance.
2 Samuel 6:16-22 depicts a scene where David is so giddy to have the Ark back in Jerusalem that he starts getting all footloose in the streets, so much so that he embarrasses his wife who scorns him for doing so. David's response is "Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!." That's a statement that intellect would never comprehend. Are we willing to be humiliated in order to honor God? Are we so humble before God that we don't even care for social status and personal image? Maybe those are the things God is calling us to sacrifice in order to be with Him, but we're so entangled by intellectual pride that we can't accept a voice that tells us to do anything like that. All I know is that the more we lean on our own understanding, the more likely we are to miss out on the wonderfully divine plan God has for us.
Lastly, let me just say that I'm not advocating ignorance or that it's beneficial to be unintelligent. We should all study our faith like crazy so we know what we believe, but at the end of the day we can't hope to rely on our intellect to get us through the trails of this life. Somehow we have to merge all of the confidence we have in our mental capacities with a completely humble spirit before the Lord. Humility must be the essence of our lives, for how else will we ever attain the standard of love that God calls us to? The foundation of what Christ did for us was lowering Himself from a Godly form to a humanly form and then serving us in the most profound example of humility ever witnessed. It's crucial to remember that people don't worship Jesus for his intelligence, so they wont worship Him because of our intelligence either. They worship Him for His love--a love which is bound by humble service to mankind. So let's do the same.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Listen Up
I have a lot of topics I've been meaning to write about for weeks now. The ideas circulate in my brain for a while but when I sit down at the computer to exhale my thoughts, there is no interest left to project them out down from my head to my finger tips to the keyboard. Sometimes I feel a strange pressure rising up in my chest. I wonder what it is that I've forgotten to do but the source of the pressure is not from what needs to be done but what I think I've got to do in order to maintain this fictional notion of productivity. It bugs me that it's hard to just sit in His presence sometimes. To just be present. To listen...
We spend a lot of time asking God to help us get to where we want to go, to feel what we want to feel, or to become what we think we should be. We say "I'm ready God! Anytime you want to do my will, I'm ready!" Then we wonder why it seems like God isn't doing anything. He's just not doing what we want. Maybe if we took the time to truly align our hearts with God's direction for our life, we would ask Him for things that He would grant. I know I often feel like I have to be doing, doing, doing to be aligned with God's purpose for my life. It's as if we have to hustle Jesus for progress in this world. "See God? See how much I did? Wanna hook me up with some money, a husband/wife, a new place, or a better job?" Oswald Chambers wrote "Sometimes there is nothing to
obey and our only task is to maintain a vital connection with Jesus Christ,
seeing that nothing interferes with it."
Technology makes it so easy to constantly be reminded of the work yet to be done, the people we still need to call, the things we need to fix. Paul said that as Christians "We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort..." I think it's a good reminder to know that God's not looking down at anyone thinking "No, no, no! If only he had chosen to work another hour more he would have been noticed by his boss, gotten the promotion, earned enough money to start that non-profit he always dreamed of, met his wife, started a family and lived happily ever after. Well, now he's just going to die alone, stuck in the quicksand of middle-management for the rest of his life."
We should try our hardest to do great things for the Kingdom, but we should also try to not try too hard. We have to understand that our efforts are futile to a certain extent when they overtake what it is God actually has planned for us. We complicate everything about God's plan when it's really more simple than we think. All it takes is for us to slow down every now and again. Turn off anything electronic and just be still. Listen. Don't put a time limit on it. Seek His voice in every and all situations and you'll be surprised how He sounds.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Coming Out of The Cloth
I have this reoccurring conversation on set and around town here in LA quite often. It goes like this;
"So are you out here to act, write or direct?"
-"I'm not sure yet. I just graduated last May and I'm still figuring things out."
"Oh really? Where'd you go to school?
-"Azusa Pacific University. You ever heard of it?"
(Unconvincing nod of assurance) "Yea, yea sure...What'd you get your degree in?"
-"Theology"
(Awkward silence) "Really? Huh...Neat.
One of two questions may follow from this point and they are "So are you religious/Christian?", or "Do you want to be a pastor then?". The progress from there is left up to God but that is not my point. My focus is on the awkwardness, the palpable tension that arises each time I come out of my theological closet to reveal a part of me that no one, from just looking at me and my occupation, would ever have guessed would be such a significant part of me. Sure I'm a clean-cut, white boy who looks like he probably grew up in the burbs under a "christian household", but almost everyone had to go to Church at some point in their childhood and that doesn't mean they take it with them into the real world as an adult, especially in Hollywood. Some may even say they believe in God, or that they pray, or that they are really spiritual and open to many paths to "god", but you don't see them choose to study about God or dare to let it impact their social life, hopes, dreams, or aspirations. As soon as I utter the words "I believe" I am a leper.
I could openly say that last weekend I did some ecstasy, purchased sex with a prostitute (male or female), and paid for an ex-girlfriend's abortion, and in most social circles that I'm surrounded by, those things would be completely acceptable to talk about in polite conversation. I might even get a few laughs about it. How do I know this? I've heard each of those examples discussed among groups of people I've sat with and heard no one even come close to expressing an attitude of disdain, reprehension or condemnation. However, I constantly get people looking at me wide-eyed and confused, sometimes even with a hint of disgust, as I express that I chose to study about God in college instead of hooking up with semi-conscious coeds while smoking weed and taking shots of cheap liquor.
Back when I was at APU, I heard a lot of boisterous talk about "Being in this world, but not of it". There is a popular Christian clothing brand called Not of this World and they make stickers, clothes and other various items that profess this ideal with the letters NOTW. If you were to peruse the parking lot at APU at any given time when classes are in session you would see cars by the dozens covered with these tacky NOTW stickers. They make me laugh when I see them now because I've realized that this statement really sets up casual christians for a catch-22. Most people I see with these stickers or other items proclaiming to be NOTW are either so enveloped by Christian culture and community that they never go into "the world", or they are so "of the world" that this superficial statement plastered on their clothing and cars leaves them with enough of a sense of fulfillment in their spiritual life to allow themselves to avoid actually changing their words, beliefs, and actions to fit a lifestyle that is consistent with the Gospel.
I live in the world. It is not a pretty place to be most of the time. Sometimes I am definitely of this world when I shouldn't be. It is an extremely difficult task to constantly be surrounded by your greatest temptations, have your deepest insecurities exposed, and be ridiculed and made an outcast for what you hold most dear to you in this life. There is nothing cool about being not of this world. It's a battle everyday and I'm not so sure my civic is ready for that kind of hip declaration, at least not the way I drive in LA traffic (which is the way most people drive). But I try. I honestly try so damn hard...
Something I'll never forget from Scripture is that when the Church was first starting up after Jesus' death and resurrection is that the initial believers did not call themselves "Christians", but rather they were labeled as Christians by the gentiles who heard them preach in Antioch. Acts 11 tells us that most of the believers were preaching only to the Jews but a smaller group decided to go out and talk to the gentiles, those who were considered of the world. Verse 26 says that Saul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch to preach and live among the gentiles for a year and it was then that they earned the title of Christian. It wasn't a title with which they just flippantly described themselves after they attended a few Church services, taken a few bible classes, went on a mission trip, or sang in the church choir. They ate, slept, lived, and breathed Christ's life and teachings, shaping themselves into little replicas of Christ, aka Christians.
It will never be easy to openly express my beliefs in this society. It's never easy to make your environment a product of you rather than the other way around. But I know with Jesus anything is possible. I know with Christ I can avoid the one night stands, casual alcohol and drug abuse, addiction to fame and fortune, and other various socially but not spiritually acceptable behaviors. I don't want to leave this world with just stickers and trendy clothing to explain who I was and what I lived for. I want to live with such genuinely Christlike love for all people that my beliefs can't be ignored. I want to live as close to a pure and blameless life as I can with morals not shaped by society but by something greater and more profound. I want the non-believers, all the modern day gentiles I've spent my life with to stand around at my funeral and say "He really was a Christian."
"So are you out here to act, write or direct?"
-"I'm not sure yet. I just graduated last May and I'm still figuring things out."
"Oh really? Where'd you go to school?
-"Azusa Pacific University. You ever heard of it?"
(Unconvincing nod of assurance) "Yea, yea sure...What'd you get your degree in?"
-"Theology"
(Awkward silence) "Really? Huh...Neat.
One of two questions may follow from this point and they are "So are you religious/Christian?", or "Do you want to be a pastor then?". The progress from there is left up to God but that is not my point. My focus is on the awkwardness, the palpable tension that arises each time I come out of my theological closet to reveal a part of me that no one, from just looking at me and my occupation, would ever have guessed would be such a significant part of me. Sure I'm a clean-cut, white boy who looks like he probably grew up in the burbs under a "christian household", but almost everyone had to go to Church at some point in their childhood and that doesn't mean they take it with them into the real world as an adult, especially in Hollywood. Some may even say they believe in God, or that they pray, or that they are really spiritual and open to many paths to "god", but you don't see them choose to study about God or dare to let it impact their social life, hopes, dreams, or aspirations. As soon as I utter the words "I believe" I am a leper.
I could openly say that last weekend I did some ecstasy, purchased sex with a prostitute (male or female), and paid for an ex-girlfriend's abortion, and in most social circles that I'm surrounded by, those things would be completely acceptable to talk about in polite conversation. I might even get a few laughs about it. How do I know this? I've heard each of those examples discussed among groups of people I've sat with and heard no one even come close to expressing an attitude of disdain, reprehension or condemnation. However, I constantly get people looking at me wide-eyed and confused, sometimes even with a hint of disgust, as I express that I chose to study about God in college instead of hooking up with semi-conscious coeds while smoking weed and taking shots of cheap liquor.
Back when I was at APU, I heard a lot of boisterous talk about "Being in this world, but not of it". There is a popular Christian clothing brand called Not of this World and they make stickers, clothes and other various items that profess this ideal with the letters NOTW. If you were to peruse the parking lot at APU at any given time when classes are in session you would see cars by the dozens covered with these tacky NOTW stickers. They make me laugh when I see them now because I've realized that this statement really sets up casual christians for a catch-22. Most people I see with these stickers or other items proclaiming to be NOTW are either so enveloped by Christian culture and community that they never go into "the world", or they are so "of the world" that this superficial statement plastered on their clothing and cars leaves them with enough of a sense of fulfillment in their spiritual life to allow themselves to avoid actually changing their words, beliefs, and actions to fit a lifestyle that is consistent with the Gospel.
I live in the world. It is not a pretty place to be most of the time. Sometimes I am definitely of this world when I shouldn't be. It is an extremely difficult task to constantly be surrounded by your greatest temptations, have your deepest insecurities exposed, and be ridiculed and made an outcast for what you hold most dear to you in this life. There is nothing cool about being not of this world. It's a battle everyday and I'm not so sure my civic is ready for that kind of hip declaration, at least not the way I drive in LA traffic (which is the way most people drive). But I try. I honestly try so damn hard...
Something I'll never forget from Scripture is that when the Church was first starting up after Jesus' death and resurrection is that the initial believers did not call themselves "Christians", but rather they were labeled as Christians by the gentiles who heard them preach in Antioch. Acts 11 tells us that most of the believers were preaching only to the Jews but a smaller group decided to go out and talk to the gentiles, those who were considered of the world. Verse 26 says that Saul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch to preach and live among the gentiles for a year and it was then that they earned the title of Christian. It wasn't a title with which they just flippantly described themselves after they attended a few Church services, taken a few bible classes, went on a mission trip, or sang in the church choir. They ate, slept, lived, and breathed Christ's life and teachings, shaping themselves into little replicas of Christ, aka Christians.
It will never be easy to openly express my beliefs in this society. It's never easy to make your environment a product of you rather than the other way around. But I know with Jesus anything is possible. I know with Christ I can avoid the one night stands, casual alcohol and drug abuse, addiction to fame and fortune, and other various socially but not spiritually acceptable behaviors. I don't want to leave this world with just stickers and trendy clothing to explain who I was and what I lived for. I want to live with such genuinely Christlike love for all people that my beliefs can't be ignored. I want to live as close to a pure and blameless life as I can with morals not shaped by society but by something greater and more profound. I want the non-believers, all the modern day gentiles I've spent my life with to stand around at my funeral and say "He really was a Christian."
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Easter Eve Reflection
Jesus will be getting up soon. What did He do for those two nights His body lay in the tomb?
Today is Easter and millions of people will go to Church today, many who never go except for twice a year. I don't want to critique them, condemn them, or pity them anymore. I'm tired of having to explain this stuff or rationalize my beliefs. I don't know how any rational human being can know the story of Christ and ignore its implications. On a basic level, how can you watch The Passion and not be moved enough to seriously question the life of Jesus Christ from Nazareth?
People baffle me. We will focus so much of our attention on the most meaningless things in life and then be bold enough to question the meaning of life. I'm pretty sure we will never find true meaning in our life through spending hours researching who Kim Kardashian is dating.
Jesus sure went out with a bang but He spent the majority of His life as a carpenter. I feel like I'm building a lot of tables these days. I wonder what His life was like then...I would have loved to spent a workday with Jesus and then went out for beers afterward. I know we're supposed to have "relationship" with Christ who lives within us, but there is no replacement for having a physical human body to look at, listen to and touch. I want that. I wish He was here now. I want to say I'm jealous of what the disciples had but their lives almost all ended in martyrdom via brutal executions.
Still, we focus on very few days of Jesus' life in the Christian Church. What about all those years in the workshop? Don't most of us spend the majority of our lives in the workshop being groomed by God for that one specific ministry we are called to?
What was Jesus' daily life like before He went on that 3 year mission trip with His 12 buddies? What was the breakdown of how He spent His days hour by hour? Did He catch up on all the latest gossip? Did He tell jokes or listen to old men tell stories of past victories? Did He practice sports or music? We are called to daily live our lives for Christ but we never think about how Christ lived His daily life before His journey began in His thirties. I love Easter. I love Christmas. But everyday is not Easter or Christmas. Most days are just "Monday, Tuesday, Thursday" etc.
Jesus walked out of a tomb roughly 2012 years ago today and left a mystery the world has never fully understood nor believed. I'll never know what He did those thirty years before His ministry began. I'll never know what He did those two nights His body lay in the tomb. I hope one day, in the next life, that I get to ask Him. All I know for now is that there is nothing else worth believing in this entire world, nothing more worthy of my time, nothing that merits the dedication of my life more than that Man who lived a better life than anyone else who has ever walked this earth before.
Today is Easter and millions of people will go to Church today, many who never go except for twice a year. I don't want to critique them, condemn them, or pity them anymore. I'm tired of having to explain this stuff or rationalize my beliefs. I don't know how any rational human being can know the story of Christ and ignore its implications. On a basic level, how can you watch The Passion and not be moved enough to seriously question the life of Jesus Christ from Nazareth?
People baffle me. We will focus so much of our attention on the most meaningless things in life and then be bold enough to question the meaning of life. I'm pretty sure we will never find true meaning in our life through spending hours researching who Kim Kardashian is dating.
Jesus sure went out with a bang but He spent the majority of His life as a carpenter. I feel like I'm building a lot of tables these days. I wonder what His life was like then...I would have loved to spent a workday with Jesus and then went out for beers afterward. I know we're supposed to have "relationship" with Christ who lives within us, but there is no replacement for having a physical human body to look at, listen to and touch. I want that. I wish He was here now. I want to say I'm jealous of what the disciples had but their lives almost all ended in martyrdom via brutal executions.
Still, we focus on very few days of Jesus' life in the Christian Church. What about all those years in the workshop? Don't most of us spend the majority of our lives in the workshop being groomed by God for that one specific ministry we are called to?
What was Jesus' daily life like before He went on that 3 year mission trip with His 12 buddies? What was the breakdown of how He spent His days hour by hour? Did He catch up on all the latest gossip? Did He tell jokes or listen to old men tell stories of past victories? Did He practice sports or music? We are called to daily live our lives for Christ but we never think about how Christ lived His daily life before His journey began in His thirties. I love Easter. I love Christmas. But everyday is not Easter or Christmas. Most days are just "Monday, Tuesday, Thursday" etc.
Jesus walked out of a tomb roughly 2012 years ago today and left a mystery the world has never fully understood nor believed. I'll never know what He did those thirty years before His ministry began. I'll never know what He did those two nights His body lay in the tomb. I hope one day, in the next life, that I get to ask Him. All I know for now is that there is nothing else worth believing in this entire world, nothing more worthy of my time, nothing that merits the dedication of my life more than that Man who lived a better life than anyone else who has ever walked this earth before.
Monday, April 2, 2012
"Suck Brick Kid!"
God has a wonderfully effective way of smacking me right upside the head when my mind starts wandering off to dark places. When I begin to feel anxious, restless, or uncertain about the future the last thing I usually want to do is read Scripture, but it always seems to be God's weapon of choice when it comes to making spiritual adjustments. Initially, His unfailing truth hits me like a brick I should have seen coming from a mile away (I imagine He has a lot of bricks prepared for me in my journey, much like Macaulay Culkin on the roof in Home Alone 2). However, the impact is never painful, just strong enough to knock me back on track.
This evening as I was feeling extremely unsettled with work, finances, and the future so I just sat in the most uncomfortable chair in my apartment and wondered what could possibly be the next step. Luckily, I had my iphone in my hand and something compelled me, possibly the power of Christ, to open up my handy dandy Bible app. The last thing I had been reading was Philippians 2 because I was looking for a verse about complaining, something I'm sure I'll blog about in the near future. What caught my eye in that moment was the verse just before the one I had researched days earlier, and that is Philippians 2:13 which says "For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him."
The second half of that verse is what really carried the weight of the realization God placed in my heart. God is giving you the POWER to do what pleases Him. I already feel like I have the desire to do what pleases God. That desire has shaped my whole life. However, I have never been secure in my belief that I have the power to do what it is will please God. I have such grand dreams of accomplishing miraculous things for the Kingdom in my lifetime, but I am often plagued with the fear that I will get in the way of myself, that I will somehow obstruct my own path and hinder my potential to serve Christ to the fullest. Tonight I was reminded just how foolish it is to worry about what I can do, for it is not my power that gets anything truly good done in this world.
I love the book of Philippians because it focuses on humility. Humility is so counter cultural, so offensive to our human nature (especially mine), that the thought of accomplishing true humility is overwhelming. It's like trying to capture a unicorn. Although, I do believe nothing worth achieving is ever easy and maybe the best goals are the ones which do indeed appear to be unattainable for they leave room for God to act miraculously. I want to be truly humble someday so that my pride will cease to lead me to believe that I know what is best for my life and thus lead me into the snares of worry as my expectations never fit the schemes of this world. The reality is that I will most likely never reach this profound level of humility, but it's worth a shot. In the meantime, I'm sure God has plenty of bricks for a lifetime of loving guidance and correction.
This evening as I was feeling extremely unsettled with work, finances, and the future so I just sat in the most uncomfortable chair in my apartment and wondered what could possibly be the next step. Luckily, I had my iphone in my hand and something compelled me, possibly the power of Christ, to open up my handy dandy Bible app. The last thing I had been reading was Philippians 2 because I was looking for a verse about complaining, something I'm sure I'll blog about in the near future. What caught my eye in that moment was the verse just before the one I had researched days earlier, and that is Philippians 2:13 which says "For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him."
The second half of that verse is what really carried the weight of the realization God placed in my heart. God is giving you the POWER to do what pleases Him. I already feel like I have the desire to do what pleases God. That desire has shaped my whole life. However, I have never been secure in my belief that I have the power to do what it is will please God. I have such grand dreams of accomplishing miraculous things for the Kingdom in my lifetime, but I am often plagued with the fear that I will get in the way of myself, that I will somehow obstruct my own path and hinder my potential to serve Christ to the fullest. Tonight I was reminded just how foolish it is to worry about what I can do, for it is not my power that gets anything truly good done in this world.
I love the book of Philippians because it focuses on humility. Humility is so counter cultural, so offensive to our human nature (especially mine), that the thought of accomplishing true humility is overwhelming. It's like trying to capture a unicorn. Although, I do believe nothing worth achieving is ever easy and maybe the best goals are the ones which do indeed appear to be unattainable for they leave room for God to act miraculously. I want to be truly humble someday so that my pride will cease to lead me to believe that I know what is best for my life and thus lead me into the snares of worry as my expectations never fit the schemes of this world. The reality is that I will most likely never reach this profound level of humility, but it's worth a shot. In the meantime, I'm sure God has plenty of bricks for a lifetime of loving guidance and correction.
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