It Sounded Like a Train...

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT – If you have an extremely weak stomach or can’t handle stories of death, I would suggest not reading this post – I am giving a very real and frank account of my experience in Alabama after tornadoes swept through the state.

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“You need to be prayed up if you go down that street,” the pastor told me. “There are bodies being piled up as they find them down there.”

I turned to one of the men in our group. “We can’t have these kids going with us,” I said. “Yeah, I agree,” he responded. We headed down the road not knowing what we would find, but newly aware that the full extent of the disaster had just become evidently clear.

That moment was one of the most intense moments I’ve had in my life – ever. To try and switch, in your mind, from [simply] giving a flat of water to someone in Jesus’ name to knowing that you may see a pile of bodies, victims from the storm around the next corner, is quite a drastic switch.

I don’t want to steal away, by any means, the great ministry that happened on the ground in Alabama during the week that I was there. We prayed with many families who were standing in front of their homes just standing in awe at the task ahead in picking up their scattered belongings. Through God’s grace and with the product of Convoy of Hope (who I have the honor of working for), more than 25 truckloads of immediate supplies (water, food, paper products, etc.) were given out in the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham affected areas during that week.

To God be the glory.

Still, there’s something inside of me that still, in a way, haunts me to this day. It isn’t a spooky haunting, like when you’re watching a movie and you know someone is around the corner about to jump out. It is a realization. One that demands recognition that the world is much more than what is seems.

One of the most powerful things about the gospel is the connectivity of all living human beings. Before the sacrifice of Christ and especially the ministry of Paul, for all intensive purposes, the Jews were pretty much “the stuff”. They were the ones that got all of the blessings: the sheep, the cattle, the mula, the land, the promises and the covenants. Yet, there was a God whose heart was beating for all of His creation and not just for one people group.

It’s in moments like the ones in Alabama where this becomes abundantly clear to me. Humans have this unexplainable draw to connect with each other. When a disaster happens, people talk about their friends’ mothers’ cousins’ sons’ co-workers’ experience in that disaster. Knowing people (even if it’s knowing someone that knows someone that knows someone that knows someone x 30) that have experienced a disaster automatically makes others feel a direct connection to what has taken place. People want to feel a part of anything big that happens, even to the point of someone in Illinois saying their house shook from the Japan earthquake, which is ridiculous, at best. Even so, we all feel a connection when other humans’ lives are drastically affected.

Standing in Alabama when a woman came through our distribution line (distributing food and water) begging me to be able to take extra supplies to her neighbors, my perspective took a sudden shift.

I remember receiving a text message around the same time, from someone, letting myself and a group of friends know, that people were getting together to play games that evening. I stood there looking at my phone, staring at the simplicity of what my life was just 2 days before, now faced with the reality of what it is like to literally lose everything.

She began to weep. “Please, please, I promise, I am not stealing your product. If you’ll just allow me to take a few extra things of water to my neighbors, I promise I will get it to them,” she said.

My mind became numb as she continued to speak. Fighting to get out the words through the tears, she said: “It sounded like a train. It’s like a bomb went off in my neighborhood. The morning after the tornado, when I woke up, there were people stepping over my neighbors’ dead bodies, to steal their stuff.” I struggled to be able to take in each word as she spoke. “5 of my neighbors are dead laying out in the yard,” she ended and sobbed into the shoulder of one of our volunteers.

It’s moments like these that I will never forget. Yes, life will largely go back to “normal” for me and for the people of Alabama, one day, but it will never be the same.

Getting up at 4am to drive back to Convoy of Hope headquarters from doing a flood assessment in eastern MO – headed straight into a brief and planning meeting for Alabama – loading our equipment trailer with the forklift – speeding home to pack for Alabama – leaving at 5pm – arriving in Alabama at 2am – unpacking cots, etc. so we can get to sleep – falling asleep at 4:30am – getting up at 6am – unloading everything and starting distribution…

That day made me feel like a superhero, rushing around, preparing to save the day. But after my dose of reality, hearing the stories from the mouths of the survivors, I realized the magnitude of what had happened and had to lean on the God who has never given up on me, knowing that only He can bring the people of Alabama through what they have just experienced.

It's Really Actually Very Simple...

One of the most compelling and amazing things about what Jesus came and did a few thousand years ago is really the simplicity of it all.

Atonement, justification, christology, progressive vs. instant sanctification, pneumatology, ecclesiology, predestination, eschatology, arminianism vs. calvanism, anthropomorphism, and the list goes on and on...

At the end of the day, after we’ve made up our own words and ways of explaining things, after we've argued over the details of what it looks like to be a Christ follower, after we've written down all of our personal views on God and tried to put Him in a small box, after we've read books we agree with and huffed and puffed through books that we disagree with, and after we've created divisions that shouldn't exist because of preferences and views, at the end of the day...

we have a God who is Infinite,
but still whispers “spend time with me”

The High-Maintenance Bride of Christ

At a chapel service recently, the speaker made a statement that I never saw coming. He spoke of a TV interview with Bono and a well-known Christian leader during which Bono said something similar to, “I have no problem with Jesus, but it’s Christians I have the problem with”. This statement I’ve heard before, but ALWAYS as a precursor to the speaker telling the faithful listeners in the room, “you’re a bad example, and no one wants to be like Jesus because you are a screw up”. (Okay, maybe slightly overstated)

The point is: this speaker went on to say that Bono should have been corrected when he said that because the body of Christ is the Bride of Christ and has been an incredible support throughout the speaker’s life. I was a little taken aback as I don’t believe I have heard the body of Christ ever defended to that extent.

It got me thinking: we really are a dysfunctional, high-maintenance bride, but no matter how you shake it, we followers of Christ ARE the bride of Christ and for that reason, we need to be careful when we criticize the bride. But even more importantly, we should be mindful of this fact (us being the bride), in how we live and carry ourselves, because at the end of the day, we truly are called to be the representation of Christ to the world. Whew. With His help, we can do it.

I’m currently reading a book called Mere Churchianity in which the author makes a distinction between verbally maligning the body and actually making constructive criticism – an extremely important distinction. He says, “it’s easier to be negative than to say something constructive…I have known church people in every season of my life. They have picked me up more than once, when no one else would bother with me.” He goes on to say how much a part of his life the church has been and how difficult it is to question the multi-billion dollar industry coined “Jesus following”, but he just can’t resist because who Jesus was and how some churches are/how some people live, just don’t line up. (more to come in the future on this book as I read more)

Some time ago, I had an experience that caused me to think for days. Yes, I was “blessed” with the analytical mind of my father (love you dad), so I tend to pick up on certain things and dwell on them for some time.

I was at a gathering at a friend’s house. Now, I love getting together with other young adults who want to be more like Jesus and the main reason is – at the end of the day, HE is the only thing we have in common, and that is an awesome place to be!

We decided to play a game where a question is read (i.e. if you could go anywhere on a vacation, where would it be?) and everyone writes down an answer. The person who read the question aloud then gets to hear all of the answers read by one person, and then they have to guess who wrote each answer. The more they get correct, the more spaces they get to move on the board. All in all – it’s a great way to get to know people.

Any game like this, when played with young adults, is a little risky. You always have people willing to push the envelope as much as possible. The night had some interesting answers that made my face red for a few seconds (obviously, I’m not an envelope pusher J), but towards the end, a question came up that is still making me uneasy inside.

The question was read aloud: “If you could use one word to describe God, what would it be?” Soon after the question was read, a few sighs, murmurs and sounds of disappointment were heard. Immediately my heart sank.

I am human. I thought the dicey answers were amusing and even tried to provoke some when it was my turn, but when that question was asked, the Lord brought me back, on my knees, at His feet, humbled. I was both shocked that a group with only Jesus in common preferred a different question AND convicted that I had similar hesitation to answer the question.

The God who sent His son to die for you and for me, who didn’t have to do what He did, but He chose to do it to glorify His name and to make a way for us when there was no way. The God who has provided for me throughout my entire life in blessings unfathomable – friends, family, finances, Godly counsel, shelter, food, legs, arms, air to breath, etc. and I have even a moments hesitation to fill out a paper with one word to describe such a person?

It’s like feeing like your rounding third base in your walk with Christ and then you step on home plate and realize it’s actually first base that you just reached.

Faithful.

That’s what I put. Even in my desertion of Him over and over, He still is the same yesterday and today. What other word could I possibly use?

So we are (and I am) a dysfunctional, high-maintenance bride of Christ, but He loves us. That being said, we owe Him everything. May we JUMP at any chance we get to come up with a word, or thousands of words to describe just how incredible He is!

Musing with a Passion

I have a gift for of over-complicating things. Just recently, I was on my way back from a hurricane assessment trip and went on a search in the airport to find my stolen cell phone while one of my co-workers went to hang out in a club (the frequent flier airline club). The plan was simple: I will go search for my phone, if I find it, great, but if I don’t, I’ll stop by the club, let my co-worker know that I didn’t find it, and then head to my gate (since he was making a connection for another city).

I came up to the club door and there was a big, carefully stained wood door that looked like only really important people would be allowed to touch the handle of. The sign outside stated that if you wanted permission to enter, ring the doorbell, have your club card ready, and be sure to be dressed appropriately. Given that I had shorts and a t-shirt (my only clean clothes left), I hesitated and wouldn’t push the button or enter.

It’s moments like that where, 30 minutes later, I think back and wonder – am I 4 years old? I can jump off of cliffs, but I can’t ring a doorbell? I try to do a back flip off of a rope swing into water, but I can’t go on one date because I don’t have a 5-year plan for the relationship penned on paper? I can do a belly flop off of the top of some bleachers onto a big gym mat (undisclosed location J), but I can’t answer a simple questions like, “what would you like to eat – chicken or pasta?”

Yet, through all of this hesitating and over-complicating of situations, it sometimes strikes me as odd that there are some areas of my life that have become unshakable.

I am at a point in my life where I am long past being a fake. I’m at a point where more of the same just doesn’t cut it. I’m at a point where I believe that if we truly believe what we say we believe, there should be some changes.

Jesus.

What does that name me to us? We put it on t-shirts, hats, mugs, websites, our cars, billboards and our bracelets, but after all the commercialism attempts have been exhausted and we have no more money for W.W.J.D bracelets, there are still people deeply hurting who NEED the Jesus that we advertise but don’t truly know in our hearts.

This blog is a written sermon to myself : a challenge for me to be a better man after God’s heart, but it’s also put on a public site because I wish the same for all of us!

If a pastor says to a congregation, “how many of you gossiped about someone this week?”, how many hands do you think would go up? Same group of people, same pastor, but say he asks, “how many people here want to be richly blessed by the Lord?”, let’s be honest, (almost) every hand in the place would go up.

This is not a blog about gossip, but about the condition of our hearts and how highly we view ourselves.

If the God I serve loves me, wants to bless me, has the best plans for me, has riches in store for me, wants me to have a big house, wants me to have a great wife, wants me to live a painless life, wants me to wear my (way too tight) “Jesus is my Homeboy” t-shirt, wants me to say “bless you” when someone sneezes, wants me to smile on good days and wants me to tolerate my co-workers for His sake – then THIS god is not the God of the Bible.

Yes, He has great plans for us. Yes, He has our back, BUT the God I serve is not a heavenly care bear sugar daddy looking only to make my existence an endless birthday party…HE is so much more than that.

We have consumed ourselves with a culture that demands respect to be earned and, in some ways, have expected the god we serve to earn that respect for providing for us whenever we need him to - a mindset that is SO far from who HE really is…

God became man and humbled himself even unto death – even death on a cross! What a shameful way to die! He did it for us, yes, to provide a way to Him, but He did it for his own glory!

He doesn’t need us as we are tempted to believe – although our responsibility to share the gospel is clearer than anything – but we do need Him. If you were some kind of electronic, you can have all the functions in the world, but if you lose your power plug, you ain’t gonna do anything.

I believe we have to change our theology that God created us to be awesome and it’s for His glory that we are awesome – and change it to the truth: we are wicked and depraved people and if not for His grace, we would remain that way. He is the only redeeming factor of me and I am therefore so incredibly grateful for His seemingly ridiculous sacrifice that made a way for me, a wicked man to come to Him.

This should be our viewpoint, a full reliance:

“⁹ But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. ¹⁰ He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us”

- 2 Corinthians 1:9,10