becoming what you are committed to...

When I was 5 or 6 years old I really wanted to be an astronaut. I mean really really wanted to become an astronaut. I had the space sheets, watched all the shuttle launches on television, and even had an astronaut Cabbage Patch doll (yes, I had a doll!). Anyway, I really wanted it, and when my family moved to the Space Coast of Florida, literally 10 minutes from the shuttle launch pad, I thought it would be perfect. Unfortunately, there are a lot of requirements to being an astronaut. You have to be good at science, and math, or a military pilot, and the training is pretty intense. I just wanted to float around in space... I didn't want to have to do all that work just to float around. Astronauts have a commitment to something more than just the "coolness" of being in space. They have a commitment to research and development, to discovery, to adventure, and to a lot more. Well, my outlook changed quickly, and I wantd to be something else. Wanting to be something and actually being something are two very different things.

Christians are like that quite often... or I should say people that want to be Christians are like that. They want the assurance of heaven, and the feeling of not being guilty, but not the commitment to the tough things. Jesus said, "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 10:37-39. And again, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Matthew 16:24. Those are some tough phrases. Is Jesus really saying to love him more than our families? Is Jesus saying the Christian life is not one where we will simply live easy and wait for heaven?

The fact is people want to be Christians without actually being like Christ. Christ denied himself, he denied those that were closest to him for the sake of God, he prioritized his life to glorify the Father. But we think we are making some huge sacrifice if we go to church one or two Sundays a month. We think it is some huge cross to bear to give of our income back to God for use in his church. We think it is being Christlike to bless our food at dinner but curse the guy driving next to us.

I'm not leaving myself out of this little diatribe... there are too many things that I don't prioritize around glorifying God, but it is a call to all of us to look to him first and foremost. It is a call to get out bed a little earlier on Sunday morning to worship him, and make that your top priority. It is a call for us to schedule our lives, and the lives of our children, in such a way that we develop our relationship with him above all else. It is a call for us to rearrange our attitudes and, yes, our personalities to be a light for people to see him. This may mean saying absolutely no to somethings. This may mean saying absolutely yes to other things. This may mean sacrificing times of sleep and relaxation. This may mean sacrificing times of busyness and hurry. This may mean smiling and engaging in conversation with people when you would rather keep your head down. This may mean spending time really listening to people when they seem to be hurting. This may mean challenging the Christians around you to deepen their commitment to the Lord.

This definitely means challenging yourself...

clean, clean, clean...

I think most married couples have this, but my wife and I have two different perspectives when it comes to judging whether our house is clean. Before I go too much further I should say, that our house remains clean by most people's standards, but everyone has times where they "get things clean." For me, our house is clean when all the clutter is picked up... when the clothes are put away, the dishes are in their spots, and generally the eye line of a room is clear. My wife on the other hand is the "deep cleaner" (that sounds like a line from a commercial)... To her, things are clean when they are scrubbed, mopped, disinfected, anti-bacterialized, etc., etc. My wife and I make a good team when it comes to the household chores, because both are important... I mean you can't disinfect a floor you can't get to...but you certainly do want those things disinfected.

In the Christian life, we know that we are forgiven of our sins by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, and so we are free from death and damnation and all that... but a lot believers make one of two mistakes 1) they believe they are incapable of sinning or 2) they believe it doesn't matter if they go on sinning. Both are false. 1 John 1:8-9 assures us that even Christians do sin, and Romans 6:1-2 says that we should not live by that sinful nature because we are part of Christ's body.

So, what does that mean for our lives? It means that by faith in Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit we can begin to clean our lives. First, the clutter... the junk... the things that keep us from seeing God clearly (though all sin distorts our view) and being a good representation for Him. For that began with my language. I mean I used to curse and swear like you would not believe, but after coming to Christ I prayed that God would empower me with His Spirit to clean that up. I'm am by no means a perfect person in that way, but that was a piece of clutter that was obstructing my witness and view of Christ. For some Christians, this is where their Christian progression ends... with the obvious stuff, the public stuff... but they never get down to the nitty-gritty of asking God to disinfect the real tough stuff in the corners of our lives that no one sees. The heart that lives and dies by their respect level in in the office. The person that just can't totally commit to church because they want to keep his/her Sunday mornings free. Someone who holds onto money in such a way that it controls his/her thoughts and actions where they can't be generous. It's the mouth that won't curse in public, but still does in traffic.

Proverbs says, "as a man (or woman) thinks in his heart, so is he..." The clutter is important to clean up, but only if it makes room for God to work on the deep cleaning. If we resist, then we are not living in the freedom of the Spirit and the hope of Christ. For more read Galatians 5:16-26.

when cool isn't cool...or the day I learned what 'cool' was...

I remember (maybe you do too) when I finally learned what it meant to be 'cool'. Of course a kid's life is totally consummed with the pursuit of 'cool,' and let's be honest it doesn't change all that much when you become an adult. We all still want to be respected, esteemed, thought well-of, live like someone to be emulated... right? That's basically what kids are after, at least in my estimation. But the question is, how does one become 'cool'? As it turns out being 'cool' is somewhat paradoxical... The harder you TRY to be cool the less you often are, and the less you TRY to be cool the more you tend to be cool. So it seems like being cool has more to do with NOT doing than doing. I remember when I finally figured that out I was like, "What an absolute kick in the pants! Is that really it?" Now, some maybe sitting at their computers thinking, "What about having good style, a sense of humor, the right car/friends/stuff... doesn't that play a part?" Well, no... not really.

A quick example might be helpful... when I was in high school, we had the typical group of 'cool' kids... you know the jocks, cheerleaders, those sorts. There middle of the roaders, and then there were... well, geeks, nerds, what have you... (I don't make the designations, I just report them)... In my senior year something happened. A friend of mine, who was not a jock or considered terribly popular, decided to go out for all the "cool/popular kid" things like student government, homecoming court, prom king, etc. I should explain he was a skinny white kid with big, bushy hair, shopped at the thrift store (this was before it was popular to do so), and drove a soccer-mom van. There was nothing explicitly cool about him, except his attitude. He just was who he was and didn't change. He met people as himself and put himself out there... By the end of the year he was elected to the student government, was the MC for homecoming, was the prom king, and was voted Best All Around. He broke a mold, and taught me exactly what it meant to be cool. (For those in the class of '98 at Citrus High you know I am not making this up).

So, what? What does this have to do with anything? This reminded me of Christ in a lot of ways. He was who he was, unapologetically and without putting himself into any mold. His disciples wanted him to be a great military leader who would kick out the Romans and bring the nation of Israel to prominence. The religious leaders wanted him to be a meek rabbi who would bolster the system of traditions upon which their power was based. Jesus wanted to do what he was sent to do. He was and is the Son of God who came to earth as a servant and laid down his life as payment for our shortcomings, our sins. Like the idea of 'cool' Jesus' life is paradoxical. In him is all the power of the divine, yet he came as a servant. In him was all the authority the religious leaders wanted to exercise, but he did not use it as they would have. Even Jesus' teaching is paradoxical. "If anyone wants to be first in the kingdom of heaven, he must make himself a last." And "Love your enemies, and pray for those that persecute you." And there are others.

The point is, that we should always be careful what kind of box we put our Christianity into. To understand how we should live and how to honor God with our lives, we need to put in careful study, and a lot of prayer, and not TRY to be holy as though we could earn our salvation. But instead we should live like Christ as a way to show our devotion to him.

what we take for granted...

Today, something very tragic happened in the world of sports... a runner died. Being a runner who has thoughts and dreams of running half-marathons, and marathons those three words are particularly tragic. What is most amazing is that this runner was no ordinary runner... he was an American marathoning champion, an Olympic hopeful, an elite athlete, and a newlywed. Ryan Shay died today just 30 minutes into the Olympic marathon trials in New York City. He was 28. Of all the people going to bed tonight the ones having the most difficult time with this are his family and new wife Alicia, but be sure those of us that run have been shaken too. Shaken because we have lost a great athlete, and because it shatters an unspoken assumption in many runners: these things don't happen to us. We don't have heart attacks, strokes, cholesterol problems, or hypertension we are in great shape... The thing is false assumptions are dangerous if you live by them. I don't know what Ryan Shay's situation was. In the days to come more details will come out, but I know this... when he lined up this morning he had no idea it would be for the last time.

As a runner I have to ask myself, "Will this change me?" I'm training right now for a half-marathon in December, my first one. I have been training, and demanding more from my body than I have in a while. I'm not elite, but I have goals in mind. They are not earth-shattering, they are personal goals, but important to me. I want to run a marathon in 2008, and try to qualify for Boston in 2009. But after hearing the news of Shay, I had a brief moment of pause... is this really something I want to do? It was a brief pause. I love to run, and this is want I feel God wanting me to do right now. In about 6 hours I'll get up and run my longest workout since I started back last year. God willing it will be cool and calm, but in the back of my mind I'll think about Ryan Shay and his family. They had assumptions to.

Just as in running assumptions can be dangerous, they are equally dangerous in the Christian life. Too many people believe the idea that life in relationship to the Father will be easy and struggle-free. Some assume temptations won't be temptations at all for the Christian. Still others believe that Christians will always relate to each other in the most loving and self-sacrificing way possible. There are literally thousands of assumptions just like that upon which people live their lives. When one of them is shattered, a person may be tempted to question their faith, or the Christian faith as a whole. Sure in the Bible Jesus says, "I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly" and He commands us to "love our neighbor as ourselves" and elsewhere it is written "resis the devil and he will flee from you". All those things are true, but none of them claims an easy life, or a life that is pain-free. In fact, Christianity may even be hazardous to your health. Literally millions of Christians have died over the past 2000 years, and thousands die each year even now as martyrs, or as though standing up for the cause of Jesus Christ.

What assumptions did those people live under? Just one... that they were meant to glorify God. That is a vague statement, but it is true. Martyrs know that their only goal is to glorify God whether in life or in death. They lived by that principle and they died by it. Jesus said "if anyone wants to follow me he must take up his cross..."

Now, if you are not a Christian or are pretty new to this whole thing, this may sound like the worse advertisement in the world of the faith, but there is more. Christianity is not about suffering, it is about living for something that has value beyond this life. It is about living for something for greater value. That is where the abundance comes in... it is not in material prosperity (though there is nothing inherently wrong about that)... it is in a life that echos throughout all of human history. Each life lived to the glory of God does just that. It has eternal effect.

So, the question is: what false assumptions are you living under? Do you believe life is about the here and now only? Do you believe there is more? Do you live as though God owes you something? Or do you live as though you owe Him?