Soundtrack

I'm no musician. I quite literally cannot sing and clap at the same time. But I love music. More than that, I need music. 

But then, don't we all?  I mean, the power of music can inspire and uplift, push you further than you thought you could go. "Eye of the Tiger" or almost any song from AC/DC's "Back in Black" album while working out is great incentive to go the extra lap or lift the last the rep. Louie Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" or John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" while coming over the crest of a mountain is just right. 

I've found that music challenges me to deeper introspection. The last few albums from Switchfoot have particularly moved me in a way I've not felt in a long time. I feel a kinship with "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas and David Crowder songs in equal measure. 

Why is this?  Why does a driving beat or lyrically interesting chorus have so much power over our emotions?  I believe the answer  lies in the fact that as humans we are meant to crave creativity. We are made to make things, designed to seek answers- but when answers don't come easy, I think music soothes us to help us understand. Music frees us to open our mind to the spiritual, to the complicated, and to the possibilities. The possibilities we can do something epic, that we can push ourselves further, that we can believe in the unbelievable. 

Music helps me have faith. It often surprises me by revealing God when I don't know how to find Him. Music sometimes asks the question I don't know how to ask. 

Music helps me teach- I love to put the concepts I teach to music to help students get the ideas. And it's just plain fun. 

Music helps me stay healthy. It really does motivate and inspire me. 

And a Roadtrip without music is just plain painful. But you really must pick the right soundtrack. 

Music is called the "soundtrack" of our lives. You've seen a little of mine- what is yours?

4 a.m.Wake Up Call

A word of warning, what I'm about to say should be weighted with the fact that it is around 4:30 in the morning and I was woken up with a pressing feeling that I needed to process some stuff with God and that I needed to use this medium to do it.

The truth is, I have no idea what I'm about to say.  Part of that, a large part, actually, is because for some time now, I have not really known how to process God.  Or address Him with others.  Around this time seven years ago, God called me, my family and some friends to start a church in College Station.  It meant moving and beginning a new career outside of full-time ministry.  And for a time, everything went smoothly.  Then they didn't.  I wrote it off as part of the struggle of pursuing God in a novel and challenging way.  And I could deal with it.

Because God was messy and unsafe.

I'd been influenced by a lot of writers who spoke of God in this way.  Guys like John Eldredge and Donald Miller.  They made these complexities and dangers of following God sound thrilling and exciting, and like the answers that I would find out  about who God really was and who I really was with Him would make all things clear.  They wrote about not looking for non-existent formulas for finding and serving God, while inadvertently (I believe), and ironically writing a new kind of formula for finding God.  Their formula called for us to look at God in non-traditional ways- and often to look for Him in shocking ways.

Now, I do not want to put out that there that I think these guys- and others- are doing anything wrong.  But I do not think I was guarding my heart as much as I should have.

I started looking for ways to serve God that were non-traditional and sometimes shocking- at least compared to what I used to.  Acceptance became a buzzword for me.  I accepted people as they were.  I accepted their lifestyles, and their struggles in an attempt to not alienate them, to engage with them and draw them to our church.  This is not, in and of itself, bad.  But again, I did not guard myself.  Because when one goes about accepting others with all their sin and baggage, if you are not careful, you begin to let your guard down about the sins in your own life.  You begin to think, "We've all got sin, I'm no different.  So, I can tolerate a little of my sin if I am tolerating and dealing with their sin."  I say "you begin to think-" maybe it is just me.

And the thing is, when you begin to let even the thought that a little sin in your own life is OK, you begin to deny the truth of God.  And when you deny the truth of God that no sin is OK, your relationship starts to suffer.  Now we are called to accept others as they are- that is unquestionable and a lesson Jesus taught us constantly.  But we are NEVER to tolerate sin in our own lives- not because of some obligation or standard we must meet- but because if we love God, we should hate sin.   Proverbs 8:13 says :  "To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech."  

But I was not hating evil in my own life.  I had allowed my acceptance and attempt love others with all their faults, and -this is key- my going out of my way to not offend people with my faith to allow me to start making apologies for my beliefs about what God is calling me and others to a life of.  I always say that God does not expect the non-Christians to live like Christians.  This is true, but we need to remember what and who Christians stand for, and not apologize for Him.

But- and this is the hard truth-  He does expect Christians to live like Christ.

That means that hand in hand with Jesus saying to each person He met:  "You are forgiven," He also tells us to "Go and sin no more."

Why?  Why does it matter so much that we should strive for a life of sinlessness?  I believe it is because sin, no matter how small of an amount, places strain on our relationship with God.  It allows cracks to build in our foundational beliefs in God- That He is Truth, and that He is Good.  When things fall apart because we have allowed sin in, we question if God really cares.  I mean, we only sin a little, but life is more difficult than it should be for the level of sin we engage in.

An example:  I have a habit of leaving Styrofoam cups around the house.  I like them because they are the best thing I've found for keeping my drink cool.  One or two here and there are not so bad.  But over a relatively short period of time, there are a dozen.  This causes strain between my wife and I  because my one little cup never stays just one little cup.  In fact, right now, there are about five by my bedside.  Another example in the dish-related analogy:  We can never just leave one dirty dish in the sink.  The dishwasher is full of clean dishes, and if we do not clean it out and make way for the dirty dishes, we just put a dish in the sink.  Over a short time, the sink fills up, even when we have finally emptied the dishwasher because the habit has formed.  Only when we run out of the important stuff do we finally-usually- clean up the situation.  Last night, I used a serving spoon to eat the last of the Blue Bell Dutch Chocolate- while this may in fact be the best way to eat any variety of Blue Bell, this is not indicative of a good clean dish situation.

I personally began to tolerate sin in my own life.  And then I began to experience difficulties which are natural to any believer.  Then, because the sin in my life was not being cleaned out and dealt with, I began to blame God.  I began to doubt God.  Then, when things got really bad and I didn't have a job and finding a new one was not easy, and then it got harder to pay the bills- I stopped believing God cared.  

Even when things got better and I got a new job, then later, I got my current job (Which has me as happy as I have been in my career as I've ever been) I still did not/do not feel like giving God credit.  I feel distant from God, even now.  There are moments- like now, when He woke me up at 4 a.m. with a pressing need to emotionally vomit this all out- that I hear Him and feel Him.  But these moments are rare. 

And by the way, "words of affirmation" that take on the form of  just trust in Him, or "God is Good," or "Fully Rely on God" (and any other 'helpful' advice in the form of an acronym) do not help.  They just tick me off.  Because they are part of that formula Eldredge and Miller talked about- which by the way, they were right about.  These phrases have become "abracadabra" for Christians- we say them and we feel better, even if they do not actually help the hurting.

The truth is, I still believe in God and attempt to trust Him because I believe, deep down somewhere, that I need to.  That I cannot live without Him.  But it is daily an effort to pray or read the Bible.  I want to see things with fresh eyes, to be reinvigorated.  I want God to show up.  And a lot of people will say that it is not His responsibility to come to us- He did that in the form of Jesus once.

But there is precedent for Him to continue to pursue us- Paul was chased down and blinded by God, Philip was sent after an Ethiopian, today we send missionaries to reveal God to people.  I want God to reveal Himself.  It makes me more like Gideon than I'd like to be, laying out my fleece and making demands- but God still answered him and he went on to do pretty well for himself.  And he honored God.

So, to sum up: I am trying to find that delicate balance of accepting others with all their sin and not letting myself fall into sin of my own.  I am trying to find a way to take a firm stand for Christ, and I am beginning that attempt by trying to relearn to trust God.  I want God to reveal Himself- in a positive, life-affirming way. A way that is clearly of God so that I cannot write it off as human kindness or skill.

I love God, but like any relationship, it is not easy.  My failings and fears and doubts have gotten in the way.  And to be honest, that whole "mystery of God" thing is cool at times, and frustrating at others.  I am on a journey, and right now, it is hard.  It has been rough road for the last 2-3 years.  I need healing, and for the first time in a while, I am actively trying to find that spiritual healing.  This blog entry is an attempt at that.

Hopefully it made sense.  If it did, great.  If not, it was probably more for me than anyone else anyway.