reminiscing.

Timehop's a neat thing. Four years ago i got to baptize this dude. It's crazy, four years has changed so many things in my life, and I don't think that there's been much stability or clarity throughout that time. But even amongst the chaos, God has his ways of reminding us what truly matters...what can't fade...what's eternal. 

In the four years since, I've been able to baptize two others. And I've spent some time being bummed that it wasn't more. Life has a way sometime of making us feel small and insignificant...I've often faced the worry that I'm not as good of a leader to our students, that I need to get myself figured out, or that I really haven't made an impact on those around me. I've questioned my job, my friends, my family, and my faith. I've felt lost and broken, and have been very close to throwing in the towel and walking away from it all. 

Two minutes after this photo was taken, an observer from the church told me, "remember this date. Write it down, never forget. Whenever you feel the devil deceiving you into thinking you don't have an impact, remember this date. You took part in a moment in eternity, and watched someone walk from death to life."

I don't know the last time that I put much thought into the date. But February 27th, 2011 is the day I got to watch my friend step from death to life. Thank you John for that day, and thank you Jesus for reminding me that you're still using the crazy ones like me to make an impact. 

reflections on philippians 4.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4-7

Do you remember the first time you received really good news? For me, that news came when I was 3 years old, and my parents told me I was going to have a little sister soon. I remember being crazy excited for that. I cleaned my room, helped my mom pick out clothes, and picked a whole bunch of flowers out of the backyard (which my mom wasn’t too stoked on because apparently new flowers are supposed to stay IN THE GROUND). I got so crazy over the flowers that apparently I was convinced that my sister’s middle name needed to be “flower”. Thank God I was three and not the one to make those decisions!

I remember the first time I received really bad news. I was about 6 years old, and my mother told me that we were moving away from my dad. Nothing about it made sense. As a kid, you don’t really understand warning signs very well. Even though everything around me for the previous few years pointed towards it, no 6-year-old kid is ready to process that. I remember going through a few years of craziness after that. I became easily angered. I threw fits at school. I got vicious towards other kids at times. A couple of years later, they told me I had this thing called “tourette’s”. I didn’t really know what it meant at the time, but I knew that I now had these nifty new pills that put me to sleep really quickly, and that there was an official reason why I twitched and hummed all the time.

“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”

-Pastor Steve Davidson

For as long as I can remember, I’ve found that my happiness and my well-being can be easily swayed by the circumstances in my life. I became a Christian at the age of 15, and it took me a long time after that to reconcile the pain in my life with God’s sovereignty. Having never grown up in church, I had a really odd view of God growing up. My parents would occasionally mention God, usually coupled with a few choice swear words, when trying to either motivate or scare me. I heard the phrase “God is watching” often growing up. My knee-jerk reaction to that used to be to think, “Oh yeah? God’s watching? Then why can you do whatever you want?” As I grew older, I became even more jaded hearing this. As my family kept struggling with anger, drugs, and broken relationships, and I saw friends suffering all around me, my response became, “God’s watching? Then God, if you're watching, why are you still letting all of these shitty things happen to me? Why do I have to be angry and miserable?” I never doubted that God was there, but I began to feel that He didn’t really care, which only pissed me off more.

During my sophomore year, when I was probably at my lowest, I came upon a passage that shifted my perspective.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

This was really the first time that Jesus made any sense to me. This to me was the Gospel finally connecting; Jesus promised us rest from our burdens, and that his death would take those burdens from us. What’s crazy is that God didn’t just “lighten” our burden; he exchanged it. He bore the weight of it, and continues to bear it. That blows my mind! John 16:33 says, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” I had to start shifting my perspective from “God, why haven’t you fixed everything for me?” to “God, thank you for giving me rest.” That’s where Philippians 4 comes in. Studying through it this weekend rocked my world. Paul tells us to rejoice always. That’s super difficult in practice. It’s really easy to rejoice and praise God in the good things. We equate God doing good things with how “happy we are”, but we leave our happiness up to happenstance. God showed me this weekend that his constant nature allows us to rejoice not in the circumstance, but in the fact that God is in control. Terrible things happen. We don’t rejoice that those things are happening, but we rejoice in the fact that God is in control and will work it for our good and His glory. We don’t have to allow ourselves to suffer through the pain.

We can pick flowers out of the ground with exuberance and abandon, despite the thorns lying in our midst.

(Check out yesterday's message from Clovis Hills Community Church on Philippians 4. Blew my mind, and inspired this post).

love does not boast.

In honor of it being Friday, I'm going to keep my thoughts on boasting boiled down into 4 points. Because, let's face it, nobody wants to read on a Friday!

1) Boasting and envy are closely linked to each other. Most of the statements in this passage are linked in pairs. This is a great example of that. Boasting about yourself or your accomplishments causes others to envy you. When we envy somebody, we will find reasons to boast for anything to make up for our perceived shortcomings. When we envy, we're saying "I'm not as good as you. When we boast, we're saying "I'm better than you."

2) We boast for attention, but most times we just annoy everyone around us. We've all been around that person that always wants to talk about themselves and the things they've done. Let's face it; often times we are that person. All it does is cause us to appear very self-centered and inward focused. There are better ways to receive attention than by just talking about our own accomplishments. Try creating meaningful conversations instead :)

3) Boasting attempts to take the glory off of God and put it on us. It becomes hard to share the Gospel of Jesus and the mighty power and wonder of God when we attribute things He has done to ourselves as if we were the only ones that mattered. God has given us more than we could ever possibly deserve, and serving God is an amazing blessing. Sharing what God is doing is a powerful witness tool; stop inhibiting God's work by trying to promote your own self-image.

4) Instead of boasting, use your energy to lift up others with encouragement and recognition. This allows us to move from self-centeredness to others-centeredness. When you let someone know that you've witnessed the things that God has done through them, you are providing them affirmation that builds closer relationships and you encourage them in their own walk with God. And when you let someone speak those words into your own life, you in turn will be encouraged to continue seeking God's will and lead others in that direction.

love does not envy.

I've found that I usually don't have a lot of envy towards others' possessions. I've never spent a long amount of time dwelling on what my friends have, other than "oh hey, that car's cool. Id like to have a nice car one day." Envying after "stuff" was never an issue because I definitely have appreciated the concept of working for what you want, and using what you earn to buy things you need. It's simple. The thing that is more difficult for me is the trap of envying someone's circumstances and lifestyle in an unhealthy manner. When my parents divorced, I felt terrible being with my friends whose parents were still together. I craved a life of "normalcy" like they had. I felt inferior because I only had one parent at home. I envied my friends in relationships, not because I wanted any specific person but because I began to associate their relationships with happiness. I appreciated the things I had less and less because I had already decided that I was less important or cared for than my friends. Even others' happiness became something I envied. I wanted to feel what I thought they felt. I didn't want to be broken anymore. The problem with envy is that it is based on the premise that we are less "whole" because we look differently than those we know and look up to. Jesus came for the world while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8) and didn't require us to qualify or be "good enough" first. We have to develop in ourselves a strong self-image based on the truths God has told us about ourselves: that we are broken, but we are beautifully created in His name. There is no need to envy because God has given us all we could ever need in Him.

love is kind.

Back in 2000, there was a movie that came out called Pay it Forward. The acting was semi-decent and the plot was full of ridiculous and confusing twists, but the premise was pretty great: an 11-year-old kid decides to create a social network of sorts based on the idea of doing good deeds. The idea was that you did something great for someone, and in return they would do something great for 3 other people, who would each help 3 others, and so on. An exponentially growing network of people who were connected by kindness. Decent concept. As I've grown, I've started to reflect more on the idea of "random acts of kindness". I'm for the most part all for them. Being kind to one another and helping those in need is a form of basic human compassion. It's our proverbial middle finger to "survival of the fittest" in a way. When we do kind things to those we don't know, we rarely have anything to gain from it. In fact, we have things to lose: time, comfort, money, safety, you name it. It is our way of showing the world that every single individual matters no matter who they are, and that we're all in this together.

My biggest frustration however is that we can often find it "too hard" to be kind to those we know more. It's difficult to be kind to the people who hurt us, especially when we know that we won't have anything to show for it usually. It's hard to be kind when we just don't get along with someone. And it's extra hard to be kind to someone who is just plain annoying. What becomes frustrating is when we decide not to be kind to someone based on our assumption that we won't get anything in return. It's one of the biggest forms of selfishness.

Jesus spent a lot of time talking to us about how to treat others. One of the most often quoted parts of the Bible is what is referred to by many as "the Golden Rule" - to treat others the way we want to be treated. Too often, however, we want to turn it into "treat others how they've treated you," which becomes focused on retaliation for those who we don't get along with, or extra love and attention to those who don't step on our toes. Jesus took it a step farther, though, and told us "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." How hard is it to pray for those who seem to be actively against us? It's crazy! This type of love is so counter-cultural that I can barely wrap my head around it.

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you. (Proverbs 25:21-22 NIV)

What if we stopped focusing just on "random acts of kindness", but started practicing "intentional acts of kindness?" I know for me that there are people in my life that I've reacted negatively too, and as a result they've left my life and I've lost an ability to effectively share Jesus with them. Our acts of kindness and care towards others, especially those who do not know Jesus as Lord, allow us to develop relationships and open doors for the Gospel in crazy ways. I love that! What if you took 3 people in your life that you just don't get along with at all and focused the next 2 months on showering them in kindness, respect, and gentleness? How would that change us? How would that change their heart and their perceptions of you and the life you live? It'll have an incredible impact on every aspect of our walk and our relationships with those around us. When we allow kindness and care to be our native language instead of a dialect that we speak on occasion and hope it translates right, others around will learn to speak love way more through our actions than anything we could ever say.