Searching for Meaning and Purpose...

At the end of the day, what matters most to you?  Is it that people would like you?  That you would be successful (whatever that means to you)?  That you'd be in a relationship?  That you'd be seen as popular?  That you'd have what you want?  Seriously think about, because the answer is what drives your life.  Is that harsh?  No, it's truth.  You have three commodities that you bring to the table day in day out and spend to accomplish whichever purpose you're chasing: passion, time, and money.  If I were to chase down all three in your life I'd find out exactly what your god is.  Family.  Money.  Stuff.  Popularity.  Relationships.  Gaming.  Sports.  My list could literally be endless as there are countless things we give primacy in our lives to.  The Bible has a word for that- idolatry.  And no, I'm not saying you're out sacrificing a goat on a hill to a statue made in the shape of one o...

Another day, another 90's song lyric...although I must admit the Pillar cover of Shine is better than the original from Collective Soul (in this guy's opinion)!  But, the reason for quoting that line are simple: this is the prayer of any believer, or should be.  Why? Simply put, we exist to reflect the glory of the Father the same as Jesus did.  And on a day like today, I see it more than others.  Not to say people aren't being Jesus other days, but today it stands in stark contrast to the world.  The reason is a yearly occurrence called See You at the Pole, where students/parents/administration/teachers gather to pray for the school, our country, each other, and anything else on their hearts and minds around their school's flagpole.  So, today I joined 30+ teenagers and adults in front of the high school to pray.  Hands joined in a large circle right off the main walk into the commons, we lifted our voices to heaven and God was there.  Not th...

We've gotten so lost in the word "love."  I mean, we can go from saying, "I love you" to our spouse/family to "I love Taco Bell" in the span of one conversation.  It's that common usage that drains the word of meaning.  Especially in Christian circles.  We talk and talk about love, particularly as it has to do with that crazy thing Jesus said- "Love others as you love yourself."  But does all of our talking ever change anything? Here's the skinny- words mean jack squat or amount to a hill of skuballa ( see Philippians 3.8).  As I look at what's happening and coming out all over the place in our culture, Christians don't do what they say much less do what they claim to believe.  Just look at the " Preachers of L.A. " series or the next new reality show " Thicker than Blood " that showcases Christians with large piles of cash and no grip on the actual teachings of Jesus.  The teachings of many prominent ...

Have you ever had to wait, and wait some more, and keep waiting for something that seemed to never be coming?  It's hard and makes you irritable, right?  Especially in our culture: McDonald's aims to serve the customer in 3.5 minutes from order to exit in their drive through; you can microwave an entire meal in 4-7 minutes; you can find out price and availability of items and order online so all you have to do is walk in and pick it up; forget going to Redbox, stream it right now online without ever leaving your home.  I mean, everything is moving as close to on demand as possible.  Why?  Is there a particular reason things moved towards instant (or as close as possible to it) gratification? The easiest to spot reason is time.  We only get so much time in life and want to spend it to the max, not cooking, waiting in lines, or going to pick something up when it can come to me for a small premium.  The premise of spending time to the max seems legit, u...

I become more and more convinced that one of the keys to living (and loving) life is passion.  Simply put, the excitement to face each day, to embrace its challenges, and to attempt the things we should seems to be the mark of a passionate person.  And the truth is those kind of people are the people we want to be around, because boring and depressing are not adjectives we want to generally be associated with! For those who believe in Jesus, passion is even more essential.  As I look at  Acts, I see people oozing passion from their pores.  In fact, this passage from Acts 4 has me captivated:  While Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple guard, and some of the Sadducees.  These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead.  They arrested them and, since it was already evening, put them in jail u...

So often, we see things like the Naval Yard shooting yesterday and we decry it's senseless violence, but remain blind to the causality.  We don't like the thought that people are evil.  Just like those whose philosophy was shattered with World War 1, we would rather believe that people are inherently good and getting better.  But, that's just burying our head in the sand.... If you've ever studied church history or theology, John Calvin is a name that crops up and is associated with a five letter acronym: T.U.L.I.P, with "T" standing for "total depravity."  Simply put, that means that people are inherently going to make choices that are not good.  It doesn't mean they cannot make good choices, it means they inherited a sin condition and will sin, a lot.  The evidence is there for anyone to see: 9/11, the massacre at Sandy Hook, the OKC bombing, murders every day of the year, child slavery, human trafficking, rape, abuse, and the list could go o...

Change is one of those things you can never get away from.  No matter what you do, it's a part of life.  Just like death and taxes, change will always be with us.  But, the question is how you deal with change. Some people curl into the fetal position and want to wish it away.  Others relish it and look for every opportunity they have (like Bob Goff who quits something and starts something every week of the year).  Most of us fall somewhere in the middle- we don't seek out change, but we're not abjectly terrified of it either!  However, change is always tough.  Whether it's stepping out in faith to do something totally out of your comfort zone, moving away from family and friends, changing schools, changing jobs, getting out of (or into) a relationship, or changing your look- change is tough. A large part is because we find our identity in those things- our look, our activity, our relationship status (or lack thereof), our school, our job, etc. ...

As the school year settles in, we've all been confronted by the question, whether we acknowledge it or not.  People are constantly asking who you are, just not with those words.  Maybe it's "Where'd you get those clothes?" or "What sport are you in?" or "Where are you working?" but the meaning is the same.  Who are you? We label everything: colors, types, ideas, dreams, learning styles, disabilities, race, gender, successes and failures, ups and downs, and more.  Why?  Simply because a label allows us to make a swift judgment about something without actually having to learn about it.  Saying something was '80's automatically means thinking of hair bands and Top Gun.  But, we unfortunately do this to people too.  And I'm not just talking about stereotypes, but in every aspect of our relating to them.  We see that someone plays sports and label them a jock (dumb or not), we see a girl all in black with piercings and such and call he...

Maybe you've been there: your past catches up to your present and you REALLY don't like the conflagration that ensues.  For many on the church, your past catching up to you can be a death sentence for your usefulness in the kingdom of God.  You become the pariah, cast out, looked down on, and really not welcome because of something you've done.  It might not even have any bearing on who you are today, but even its scars are enough to leave you with a very visible scarlet letter... Why do we do this to ourselves?  Last time I checked, Scripture was clear that we were all a load of screw- ups ( Romans 3.23 ) in need of some serious help because we were sick ( Mark 2.17 ).  Truth not withstanding, that's often the appearance and necessity in many churches: we're all good, not a problem to be found.  If we show weakness or worse, sin, we're done and it's all over for us.  That's why Reliant K wrote a song many years ago about the church going ...

As we look around, we see signs of change everywhere.  Inflation has pushed prices to insane levels: $3+ gas, $3 milk, $1+ bread, and on and on.  As we see the prices tick ever upward, there are several factors at work: higher wages across the board mean higher prices for things across the board, higher gasoline prices make transit costs increase causing item prices to increase, taxation rates, demand, etc.  As we see these increases, the people who are hurt the most are those who sit on the edge of poverty or below.  When it's harder to provide for one's own family, it's harder to help out someone else! But, the call of everyone who believes in Jesus is to care for the oppressed, orphans, widows, and poor ( James 1.22-27 ):   ...don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.    For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.     You see yo...

Looking at the way we think & act (meaning me!), there's a regular pattern.  We look for someone to blame, some way to shift responsibility, something that gives us an out.  It's been that way since the beginning- just look at Adam & Eve's response in Genesis 3 : “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?” The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.” Shifting the blame and ducking responsibility comes as easily to us as breathing.  At least, at last check, most people don't need to be reminded to breathe and no kid needs to be told to blame someone else (or claim "It wasn't me!").  It's all part of the unfortunate sin nature we inherited from our forebears... Thus, "all have sinned" not ...

As I've written about the church, many (including me!) would be tempted to say- "See, those people are the problem, can't we fix them?" instead of starting where it needs to, with us.  Whenever we talk about community, it has to start with ourselves. So, who do you think you are?  Valid and very important question, right?  Mark Driscoll covers that in depth in his new book, "Who Do You Think You Are?" and we're going to be talking about it in depth the next several days, because until we have our identity, purpose, and place down telling others to fix themselves is failing in our mission and mandate from Jesus (who famously told us to "yank the plank" before trying to dig out specks in others' eyes). To start, we have to answer the question for ourselves.  I think I'm a person who's saved by grace through faith who's following Jesus.  Does that mean I'm right?  No.  I think so, but it might not be true.  So let's put...

I'm going to continue some of my musings on the Kingdom of God and community. In a nutshell, you'd say we're simply dissecting the church and the way it ought to be. Community inside the church is far different than most places, in part because we should be such a diverse group that normal categorizing fails (or it should, as Martin Luther King famously noted- Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week)!  There should be all varieties of people- race, socio-economic status, education levels, work type, age, gender- in the church.  It should be an eclectic mix of people who come together not because we like being together, but because we are each subservient to Jesus Christ and drawn together because of Him.  It's not about the music (rock, organ, chant, hymns, orchestra, a cappella, Psalms, or otherwise), the charisma of the preacher (because let's admit it: we like hearing preacher's who engage us and often choose our church based on that),...

Community.  Church.  Identity.  Who are we as individuals coupled with the question of who we are together.  It's tough, because it seems like there are a million different answers to the simple question, "Who do you think you are?"  Particularly difficult is parsing who we are in this crazy thing called the church.  The following is taken from a video (embedded below) from the Rend Collective Experiment (and written out below if you're a word person instead of an aural person): Is there anything quite like a campfire?  The community that’s built there by people sharing their stories and singing their songs is truly special and so intimate.  It’s like being 10 years of age again and sharing all your secrets with your best friend.  And that openness and vulnerability is exactly what we should see in the greatest community on earth, the Church.  There are no walls out here and there should be no walls of defense, towards god or eac...

Mark Dricsoll's new book, Who Do You Think You Are?  hits shelves today and as one of a select team (thanks Mars Hill!) I got an early review copy to check out.  I also went with my wonderful wife to see the new (and fantastic!) Les Miserables last night.  Both are dedicated to the same issue: identity. I would say the issue our world struggles with more than any other, is identity.  The suicide rate among 24-34 year olds is huge, in part because of missing identity or misguided identity.  To combat that, Driscoll unpacks Ephesians, Paul's magnum opus of identity, in his new book.  The entire theme of Ephesians, is "in Christ."  In fact, our lives, if not grounded on the fact leaves us asking the titular question, "Who do I think I am?" As I began to read, I was grabbed rather swiftly by the passion and depth of the pages (and the use of quoting from Fight Club, Memento, etc.).  The key contention is this: we can either find our identity in Ch...

Paul said that no discipline seemed pleasant at the time and I can so vouch for that right now!  Workouts and dieting have been steady, with only a few cheats here and there during the Christmas festivities.  However, finding the desire to kick into gear again is a bit lacking.  I see the goal and I know where I want to go, but motivation is a factor... How do we push ourselves in the right direction when we don't really want to?  That's the question I'm dealing with.  I think Mark Driscoll has the answer in his forthcoming book, Who Do You Think You Are?   The major premise is that who we are in Christ must be our primary identity, not our successes, personality, stuff or otherwise.  While I know all of that to be true, I don't know that I'd thought about it as much as  I should!  Being overweight (especially to the degree I am- around 100 lbs., minus 17 as of today!) is a reflection on who I don't  think I am.  Just as Adam and ...