Confucius Would Have Say

I lost my watch on Friday. Losing a watch is like getting a haircut. I never realized how much I looked at my watch till I kept digging for it in my pocket... I never realize how much I move the hair out of my eyes till it's not there anymore (I'm speaking of a long time ago).

I also realized how silly I am with my watch when driving. One of my values is punctuality. In my mind, being late is just plain rude (though there's always grace). But that's not the point of this post, and I won't elaborate. After my watch tumbled from my pocket somewhere downtown, I realized how often I look at my watch when I'm driving. I wondered why I do this. I wondered if knowing the time during my commute accomplishes anything. I decided no: this habit is silly and unproductive. Do worried glances to my watch in any way influence when I arrive at church, the coffee shop, or the doctor's office? Could it be that in all these years, looking at my watch in the car only served to create stress? Somehow I felt that knowing the time mattered, but realistically, once I get going, I can only go and arrive when I do, after all. Getting frustrated over the clock while driving is as useless a baker throwing a tantrum when his 25-minute muffins are still gooey after 7. If I have 15 miles to go, I have 15 full miles to go, and I can only go the 15 miles as I can. I may as well enjoy the ride, the music, the company, the opportunity to pray, etc in the meantime. If I have to bake a cake, it's gonna keep baking till it's baked, and there's nothing I can do. I may as well do the dishes or read a book in the meantime.

To help remember this lesson, I've created a profound-sounding Confucius-like proverb: "No matter how long the journey, the muffins must bake completely." ***

Here's what's changing for me: I will always continue to do my utmost to leave on time, but if I fail, the stress will stop when I get in the car. The traffic lights, the traffic, the incompetent drivers are beyond my control. I can't make them go away, so what's the benefit in getting worked up? I'm gonna sing, not seethe. I'm gonna chat, not snap. I'll make an effort to leave on time, then, late or punctual, keep moving in a joyful, persevering sort of way knowing that eventually, in seeing the drive through, I'll arrive, late or punctual. And if I'm late, there's always grace. :-)

It's these little lessons that shape us, I feel.

This post was written with two pieces of salami in my mouth... I chewed them slowly, for the taste was pleasant.

*** What matters here is not that the proverb has no apparent meaning, but that it helps remember our story's moral.

Prayer Part 1 - Duh

Foolish, frustrating, funny are those brainless moments we spend frantically looking for the hat on our head, or the key in our pocket, the pen in our hand, or the glasses on our nose. I'm sure you can relate with your own experiences of overlooking the obvious in anxious desperation. Now laugh, cry, or shake your head with a smirk accordingly.

Only after pause, a breath, a retreat to calm, or perhaps a helpful word from a friend do we notice the socks we seek have been on our feet the whole while. Raging emotions blind... sometimes even "good" ones, such as our desperation to come close to God, I've been finding.

In my prayers, I also have overlooked the obvious. Though I dubbed my recent anxious desperation as "holy zeal", frantic earnestness and persistent demanding for God to draw near proved fruitless this morning. I became confused. But I waited, more to think of a new strategy than to hear God though.

If a stranger, or even a friend for that matter, looked me in the eye and demanded, "Tell me how you hear God speak," I imagine my mouth would hang open long enough for a sizeable pool of drool to collect on the sidewalk below before I'd find words to explain. Yet, in a mysterious and beyond-my-limited-comprehension kind of way, and rarely in the same way, it seems, God does indeed interact with us... sometimes with a clarity that also brings the sidewalk drool pool.

This morning as I waited in my annoyance.... Stop running, Zach. Stop dodging your responsibility. I thought I was confused before. Then, as if I'd just finished my turn in the Matrix helicopter training chair, I suddenly understood the that this was God and what he meant.

See, I prayed "Lord, I want to be closer to you."
I prayed "I want to know you, Father."
I prayed "I want my life to revolve around you."

After my instantaneous Neo moment though, I understood God saying, "Hey buddy... that's rad! Good to know! I'm delighted you want to know me more, that you want your life to revolve around me, because I'd love also to be in a better relationship with you as well. But, Zach, I'm already doing all I can. I've been speaking to you all day... every day. You gotta work with me, bud. You gotta listen back. I've been showing you myself everywhere you go. You gotta open your eyes. I've been offering my guidance, but you've turned your ears. The ball is actually in your court, bud, and has been this whole time. Can you tell me a time when I have withdrawn? When have I withheld my faithfulness? When have I left? Take ownership of our relationship, Zach. These prayers to me loaded with connotations of abandonment and loneliness... these prayers to ME, oh they hurt. Zach.. I love you, and for that, I will not, I cannot, force myself on you. I chose you. You must also choose me. And not just with your words, lovely as they may be. We don't have pudding up here in heaven... I've got much better treats on my banqueting table waiting for the day we can laugh over them together, but as my precious children say in the English speaking world, 'The proof is in the pudding.' Do you want to be closer to me? Then come. Do you want to know me more? Then spend time with me. Do you want your life to revolve around me? Then get out the hoe and start weeding... makes the changes to your life you know I've been asking you to make. If I am important... make me important. Remember bud, I'm always here... I always will be. And come quick, bud. I love you... I'm in a hurry to be with you."

In my situation this morning, those prayers were an absolute copout. I prayed them sincerely to be sure. But then I understand what I was indirectly saying in between the lines of these prayers: "Phew, I've prayed the prayer, my work is done. Now I've just got to wait. I'll get on with my life, and when God shows up then... Great, stupendous... man, that will be a great day when God listens to and answers my prayer and I have a better relationship with him." These prayers actually just seek to shift the burdens of the relationship effort, allowing me to feel good that I'm still "pursuing God", yet with the added benefit that the next move is God's - not my work. Somehow I thought praying these prayers gave me freedom to sit, chill, twiddle my "saintly" thumbs while God scrambles to catch up with my oober pious tendencies.

I should note that I don't believe all prayers of desperation are by any means wrong, and I'm not trying to make an all-encompassing generalization with this post. In fact, one of the most profound experiences of my life birthed from a place of nothingness and desperation a few weeks ago. I'm just saying that this morning I found myself at a place praying for things that were my own responsibility. I'm wondering how often I do this... when I actually pray for God to act just because I don't want to do the task myself... to avoid what is uncomfortable, or what I'm scared of, or what I'm lazy to do.

I'm also saying... that God is alive, that he speaks all the time, and it would do me good to listen.

This post was written with some incredible passion fruit tea at a trendy little place near my Everett house called the Spotted Cow.

Fine, I Accept

I'm at a hip joint in Ballard right now called Verite Coffee. I'll bring you here someday. Ask, and you will receive. I also need to confess, cause it will feel so good to get off my chest, that I've left my coffee routine to pursue my newfound eclectic flavors of loose-leaf tea fetish. Short term or long, I'm enjoying the affair while it lasts.

Over these last few months, I've been finding how much I struggle to receive any kind of gift. People buying my coffee, giving a present, lunch, love.... so terribly difficult for me. I've recognized it for the petty habit that it is, and have been making an intentional effort to improve. For instance, yesterday, I accepted delicious leftovers from someone. Oh, and I also let someone buy me coffee... and I expressed my heartfelt gratitude in grateful thanking ways (I hope, at least).

I decided it was time to start accepting because that's the way I want to be treated when I offer someone a gift. It feels crappy to offer someone some help, or food, or to buy coffee, or love... and for them to decline and deny and reject. I figure that if it feels crappy when people don't let me be generous, it probably feels crappy when I do the same, no matter how good or "noble" my intentions may be. In fact, I appreciate when people accept my gifts so much that I suppose I even see my accepting of gifts as a gift in itself.

Still annoying though are those who buy ALL the time.... who never accept the gift of letting someone else buy from time to time.

A Piping Spurring

All that has been happening in my life in the last two weeks, and here I am quoting a book. The rest... I'm still working through.

I just finished a book by John Piper called Don't Waste Your Life. Though redundant in some places, this book is generally a quality kick in the pants to get your rear in gear, and I recommend it to you. Piper does a great job of casting light on the meaningless crap we oddly orient our lives around at times, calling us on our emptiness for what it is. Here are some of the bits that I particularly resonated with:

This is a quote by David Wells that John Piper includes about the weightlessness of God in the church today:

"It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God's existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgement no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers' sweet fog of flattery and lies. That is weightlessness. It is a condition we have assigned him after having nudged him out to the periphery of our secularized life... Weightlessness tells us nothing about God but everything about ourselves, about our condition, about our psychological disposition to exclude God out of our reality." (121)

In Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer says that our view of God is the single most important thing in life. Our view of God shapes everything about how we live our life, the decisions we make, our prayers... everything. Read the first couple chapters of Tozer's book, I dare you. Though my view of God was "important" to me after reading Tozer's thoughts, I didn't realize how weightless my view of God was until reading Wells quotes.... how I allow such stupid things to sway me in use of my time, my concerns, worries, etc.

This next one is from John Piper:

"Not everyone should be a missionary or a pastor. There is to be a partnership between goers and senders. Concerning pastors in the church Paul says, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain" (1 Timothy 5:18), meaning: pay your pastor. But that implies that some folks must be earning grain to put under the poor ox's nose. This is also the pattern for missionaries in the New Testament. "Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing" (Titus 3:13). In other words, not everybody should go to minister with Paul; some should stay behind, work, and supply the ones who go." (134)

Growing up on the mission field myself, and feeling more and more that God is drawing me across oceans again in the coming years, I'm very aware, and very annoyed, with the prospect of raising support. Maybe it's the fear of being boxed as "nuissance" with every one else for asks for money... telemarketers, televangelists, door-to-door salesman, the homeless community... but I squirm with the idea of asking friends and family to offer their financial assistance. Thus, I appreciated this quote. It reminded me that God has created us all complete with different personalities, gifts, joys, and passions. This idea of the "body of Christ" is what I forget. I forget that God has actually created people different from me, with a love for business, who absolutely delight in their opportunity to make money and be generous with it. Perhaps my reluctance to ask others for help is pride in not wanting to be "needy" (though I am so), perhaps it's a feeling that asking people replaces faith (God knows my needs... why should I ask others?), or perhaps it's that receiving from people closes the door on experiencing God in a cool way (which is silly, because God uses all the time in cool ways, even financially)... Whatever the case, at least Piper thinks it's perfectly acceptable, and necessary, for the church staying back to support those who go. I shall munch on this.

The following is a quote by B.B. Warfield, a teacher at Princeton Seminary who died in 1921 about "the niggling questions about ministry to the poor by comparing it to Christ's ministry to us." This made me laugh, because some of the excuses we make up to avoid obedience are indeed hilarious/pathetic when we consider the sacrifice Christ has made for us.

Now dear Christians, some of you pray night and day to be branches of the true Vine; you pray to be made all over in the image of Christ. If so, you must be like him in giving... "though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor"... Objection 1. "My money is my own." Answer: Christ might have said, "My blood is my own, my life is my own" ... then where should we have been? Objection 2. "The poor are undeserving." Answer: Christ might have said, "They are wicked rebels... shall I lay down my life for these? I will give to the good angels." But no, he left the ninety-nine, and came after the lost. He gave his blood for the undeserving. Objection 3. "The poor may abuse it." Answer: Christ might have said the same; yea, with far greater truthy. Christ knew that thousands would trample his blood under their feet; that most would despise it; that many would make it an excuse for sinning more; yet he gave his own blood. Oh, my dear Christians! If you would be like Christ, give much, give often, give freely, to the vile and poor, the thankless and the undeserving. Christ is glorious and happy and so will you be. It is not your money I want, but your happiness. Remember his own word, "it is more blessed to give than to receive." (166)

Congratulate yourself if you made it to the end. I hope this stuff stuck with you like peanut butter in your throat like it did with me.

Gotta Go

Sometimes I have grand, sweeping ideas... Ideas to buck the cultural norms and society's expecatations of me... to just go and start living the life I want to live RIGHT NOW instead of waiting for all the common criteria to align before ministry is deemed acceptable... financial stability, long-term ministry experience, more degrees, "for the kids to grow up" (though I don't expect to be worrying about this any time soon). But then I doubt, and wonder, well, is it best to wait until I have my student loans paid off? Should I wait till I'm older... I imagine by the time I have a real beard I may be old enough to go? There is pressure to take care of this and that and that and this before I do anything substantial. Yet, I also know that Jesus, when he called his disciples, said "Follow me", and immediately they did. Or how about this, from Luke 9:

57As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." 59He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good bye to my family." 62Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

In my discouragement, I take great encouragement when followers of Jesus who I respect challenge me to do the very thing I want to do so bad. The following affirmation is something that Dick Staub wrote a few days ago:

"The salvation of the world is at one level an evangelistic enterprise--introducing people to restored relationship with God. so they can enjoy eternity in a better place than this world..but salvation is also a practical exercise that involves EACH of us using our talents to make THIS world a better place!

What would happen if our privileged Christian kids in the US took their financial, educational and natural (ala talents) resources and invested them en masse to transforming the world instead of living the American Dream?

Could happen…but it is unlikely unless their parents are willing to invest in kids who will not gain a financial return on college costs, nor will it happen if these kids don't de-prioritize their daily lattes, consumerist practices and 401k's and take up a cross.

I love Bob Buford's concept expressed in "Second Half" in which he describes his personal transformation from seeking a life of success and then in his early 40's trading it in for a life of significance,. But too often the next generation sees Bob's pattern as theirs to imitate: spend 40 years becoming financially set…then do something significant with what is left of your life.

We'll never change the world until we see significance as the definition of success and seek significance first. Seeking a meaningful life from the get go requires making God central and when the disciples did that—everything changed."

You can read more of Dick Staub at www.dickstaub.com
I also encourage you to check out his website www.thekindlings.com

O da pra da way ho!

O da pra da way ho!