Through the eyes of a typical guy

Snodgrass

2010-08-31T15:30:00.002-05:00

You may think, by the title of this post, that suddenly I've been whacked by the "green" stick and I'm having an unfortunate problem with a nasty species of crabgrass in my new garden....

Not.

I'm taking two classes this semester with a New Testament professor named Klyne Snodgrass. He's got the name that commands instant respect as a professor, to be sure. And I'm taking my Greek exegesis class, as well as a class on the parables of Jesus, with him. Today was the first day I met him, and had ever seen him in person.

I arrived in seminary in the middle of last school year, and Dr. Snodgrass was on "sabbatical" teaching at none other than Duke Divinity School. So while I was around, he was not. But I heard a lot about him from many people.

In short, the guy is an icon. In the field of New Testament studies, Klyne is big. His books are littered all over the seminary foyer. He is widely known as a very demanding academic professor, but one of the most gentle, pastoral professors you will ever find. I'd never met the guy, and I was already very intrigued, and to be honest, a little intimidated.

Not because I was afraid he'd rip me to shreds.... I was intimidated because his reputation both as a Biblical intellectual and as a gentle academic shepherd of students far precedes him. And it is an honorable reputation, by what people have told me. And that's hard to find. And it also far surpasses the type of legacy I can reasonably ever expect to attain myself. So he will definitely put me in my place without even trying.

Most at the seminary don't really appreciate what they are getting with Klyne initially. Klyne generally teaches New Testament 1, which is generally taken by seminary students in their first semester of their first year. And, of course, this class is taught (generally) at 8am on Monday mornings, so this is the first experience of many students at North Park. And, apparently, the class is a doozy.

So, all of these factors combined, you may hear another professor saying to a new student that he or she was baptized into the seminary by "Klyne the Baptist" yesterday. They were.

Since I came in the middle of the year, I took NT2 in the spring, but opted not to take NT1 this semester because I knew of the workload. I was already taking Greek Exegesis with Klyne, and I thought, "I don't want to take a heavy Bible class at the same time as Exegesis, especially a Bible class with Klyne. That's a ton of work."

But eventually I decided to drop a preaching class for a number of reasons, and I saw this Wednesday night class being taught by none other than Dr. Snodgrass himself.... on the parables of Jesus. He had spent years working on a huge book on the parables, and that book was going to be the text for the course.

Then, someone told me that Klyne had been dropping hints to peers and students that he'd be retiring soon, maybe in two years. And I realized that my time to soak up everything from this man was short.

And I reflected... which always leads to more work for me....

In my life, I've been to hell and back. I'm stronger for it. I'm standing as though my armor is galvanized in the finest metal because God is on my side and I've learned so much, and I'm in the best shape of my life in just about every way. I've handled the crazy workload much better than I expected. I trust my instincts and knowledge and my ability to discern in difficult situations. With all of that, I've found that I have precious few mentors and people I personally look up to in my life. I've gotten to be a bit of a snob, I guess.

But I realized that this guy would definitely make me feel small. And that's not a bad thing. I knew I would revere him and that he'd make a huge difference in my life and faith. He's Klyne Snodgrass, for pete's sake! Klyne even has an entry on Wikipedia. Go ahead and go onto Wikipedia and search for him. He's got a page.

If you try to search for me on Wikipedia, you'd probably get a big sarcastic yellow face popping up, sticking its tongue out at you and blowing very hard. And you may feel a hint of computer saliva darting into your eye, and you'll wipe your eyes and once you can see clearly again, you'll realized that you tried to search Joe Misek on Wikipedia.

So I dropped that preaching class, and registered for the Parables class. And what I tried to avoid initially (taking two Klyne classes, taking a Bible class and Exegesis at the same time) is exactly where I find myself.

I met Klyne Snodgrass at 9:30am this morning, and he's everything that folks made him out to be. I'm gearing up for a crazy workload this semester, but I'll be sitting under a scholar that will doubtlessly change my life for the better.

Classes

2010-08-29T21:04:00.003-05:00

I would say that, in many ways, this past summer was the best of my life. I had periods of intense focus and workload. I had periods of rest and relaxation... which look a lot like laziness when you see me in non-action. Regardless, I had fun. I took two summer intensives which yielded nine academic credits. Add that to the 14 that I took in my first semester in seminary, and I'm coming along nicely, with good grades.

The intense period was a six week class studying two semesters' worth of Biblical Greek. It was crazy, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone with a history of heart failure, women who may be pregnant, anyone under the age of 23, anyone over the age of 49, or anyone with a shred of dignity and common sense. However, I survived the aptly nicknamed "suicide Greek" and passed it comfortably, en route to Greek Exegesis in the fall. More on exegesis later.

For the first time in probably 16 years, I played in some kind of a competive sport. Now, first of all, it was softball. It was not the baseball or football of my childhood dreams. If my childhood dreams were coming to fruition at this time, I'd be playing major league baseball or NFL football, but since my dreams that come true always have a nutty twist, I'd be on the disabled list as a veteran third basemen or middle linebacker of a team way out of playoff contention with a severed pinky toe stemming from an unfortunate incident involving a garden hose, a laborador retriever, and a revolving door that leads into a hotel lobby. I dunno either.

Anyway, it also was a church softball league. My seminary is affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church, and about 15 other covenant churches or organizations field a team and we played about a dozen games, plus playoffs. It can be fairly competitive, depending on the team you play. Some teams were skilled and they argued a lot with the umpires. Other teams were still trying to figure out which end of the bat you hold it from. We also had the obligation to umpire several other teams' games, and I got to umpire the plate about four times. It was kind of interesting when I would make a call and one of the players would bark at me. I generally barked back, then the player would realize that I was the bigger dog and he would remain silent the rest of the game... and I would praise God for providing me with a nice gym to work out at.

But the softball was fun because it was a chance for me to get to know people, challenge myself athletically, showcase my sub-superhuman strength, and hit the ball semi-impressive distances. It was a nice distraction from my Greek class, and it was generally enjoyable. I'll do it again next summer, Lord willing.

And I met many interesting people, and strengthen some friendships that were just slowly starting to form at the end of the spring semester. Summer in the city can be a lot of fun, and I was thoroughly disappointed that this 6-week, summer intensive, two semesters' worth of Biblical Greek crammed into four hours a day, five days a week, resulting in the knowledge of 80% of the Koine Greek language was not the cakewalk I was hoping it to be. Maybe I should have written out that last sentence before class started, and my expectations of summer fun would have been a bit more realistic. Regardless, I had limited time to forge new relationships and settle into on-campus seminary life.

And now, fall classes begin for everyone in about ten and a half hours. My schedule is kind of slick, although it by no means will be simple. I am taking the following:

Christian Heritage; T, Th 8-9:20am
Greek Exegesis; T, Th 9:30-10:50am
Parables of Jesus; W 6:30-9:30pm
Christian Theology... online

So that leaves me with lots of out of class work, but in class, I have no Monday classes, no Friday or weekend obligations, no class until the evening on Wednesdays, and I'm done with classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays by 11am. And I just moved on-campus, so I'm a short walk away from the seminary building. I'll probably be in the library or the gym, or about 50 miles northwest of of the seminary (I'll explain that in another post) most of the rest of the time. But at least I'm running life at my own pace, and I only have myself to blame if I start to slip.

And so, the next phase of my life, which now is running on a semester schedule apparently, begins. I'll miss summer, but I think I'll file this one in a very favorable section of my memories.

My divorce

2010-08-29T16:30:00.003-05:00

Relax. It's not what you think.

I've ended my relationship with the Chicago Cubs, as of about a month ago. I've had it with this 9 trillion dollar sorry excuse of a team playing manure-like baseball befitting of a ragtag minor league team. To call the payroll of this team albatross would be too kind and, frankly, not a sufficiently-extreme metaphor.

We have thrown enough money at Carlos Zambrano to fund the research of a cure for his brain damage. And he underperformed, threw a fit, went to the bullpen, threw another fit, went on the disabled list due to craziness, and then decided to pitch effectively after the season was long lost. This hothead is certifiable, overweight, undisciplined in the offseason, chaotic during the season, and prefer to HIT!!!

We have thrown enough money at Alphonso Soriano to feed EVERYONE ON EARTH plentifully. And yet this guy is nowhere near the megastar he was signed to be. He has at least two annual injuries early in every season, the early season slump that is justified by the fact that he's still "working the kinks out" (which most pros do during spring training), then he gets hot long after the season is lost and his stats are nicely padded to produce a respectable, yet underachieving, season of numbers.

We have thrown enough money at Kosuke Fukodome to buy him the Japanese baseball team he clearly wishes to be playing for. And yet, after multiple seasons with this team, he still hasn't settled into a good fit in the batting order or even a role on this team. His contributions early in each season, and late, which have tended to be good, have been dwarfed by the lack of contribution when it really has been needed for the Cubs... in the middle 80% of the season.

We have thrown enough money at Ryan Dempster to fund the production of a time machine back to his first season as the Cubs starter. Yet we've been categorically fooled into thinking that he is an ace-in-waiting and a dependable second or third starter on a championship team.

I appreciate Marlon Byrd as the one having the most successful season. First of all, I can't believe I just wrote that. But we the people of Chicago need more than a breakout season from Marlon Byrd. We need the offensive line to get fixed, for the defense to get healthy, for Jay Cutler to stop throwing the ball at the wrong jerseys.........

Oh, Lord, my blog posts of venting and frustration are all starting to blend together. Get me outta here!!!!!!!!!!

I love this......

2010-08-11T21:54:00.001-05:00

Thank you to Failblog.org and whoever sent this in to that site. Whoever this spunky kid is, made me smile.

Jesse Jackson, shut up!

2010-07-12T10:07:00.003-05:00

According to the statistics of my esteemed blog with an estimated readership of 2.4 on average (an alltime low I believe), this would be my 200th post since starting it a few years ago. And I'm going to waste this landmark post on the likes of Jesse Jackson.

Of course, Jackson had to chime in on the LeBron James hoopla, because there was James, a black man polarizing all of America in his self-indulgent glory, and Jackson feels entitled to feed off of the carcass of the spotlight as well. And the story goes like this: James does his well-publicized thing... Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert releases a scathing, jilted-lover style letter addressing the "betrayal"... Jackson says that Gilbert is acting like a slave owner upset that the runaway slave (James) got away.

Bull-(insert your own creative noun)!!!!

Only Jesse Jackson could think that he speaks on behalf of an entire race of people. Only Jesse Jackson can turn just about any issue into an issue of race. Only Jesse Jackson can equate LeBron James and his hundreds of millions of dollars with a slave.

This was not about race, and anyone with half a brain watching the proceedings knows it. This is about basketball. This is about business. This is about a richer-than-earth man with a clever agent orchestrating an impressive heist amidst the boundaries of free agency. This is about said richer-than-earth man firmly applying a bounty upon his own head by making a spectacle and mockery of it publicly, shamelessly, and with his tongue sticking out... when no one, it seems, really wronged him.

For Jackson to even speak, let alone interject race into the issue, shows how shallow he is, how drunk he gets on the spotlight, and how hypnotized he is by the issue he platforms upon. He sees a white owner and a black employee (yes, technically LeBron is an employee, albeit a rich one with incredible free market freedom), and all he sees is injustice, with absolutely no regard to circumstance.

I have yet to hear Jesse Jackson offer a critical thought in his lifetime. And simply because I'm criticizing him, he would call me a racist. No, call me an idiot-ist. I fully accept the realities and injustices of race in this country, but not every last issue is about race, not every last comment is fueled by race, and not every last decision is predicated upon race. Jackson, by his own wild urgency to address race relations, actually sets his cause back too far to measure.

I can rant all day about the stupidity here, but I'm done. I have a class to attend, and a life to live, and wasting more time on Jesse Jackson is exactly that: a waste. So Jesse Jackson, shut up!!!!!

LeJudas

2010-07-09T15:18:00.002-05:00

I'm not one to normally chime in on a news story that absolutely EVERYONE is clamoring about, but I wanted to cement a few things in cyberspace about LeBron James. I almost made this an "open letter to LeBron" post, figuring that there was a chance that he would actually read it, being that he is probably the most self-indulgent man alive such that he would even google himself and spend the rest of his summer vacation reading everything written about him. But, he may also send his entourage after me for not bowing down to the "King".

So even I had to find a bar last night to watch the "Deception", errr, I mean, the "Decision". I actually wanted to see how far he (and his cohorts at ESPN) would take this display of spotlight-hungry arrogance. It was nauseating, to say the least.

LeBron is well within his right to orchestrate an all-star team in one city to make championship-winning easy. His agents actually did a pretty slick job. But calling the press conference, scripting this "interview", and showing up every other major market in the country that didn't win his services is self-indulgence at its worst. LeBron isn't about team, organization, humility, or sharing the spotlight... he is about LeBron, and he sees winning only as a means to serving himself. He wants transcendant legacy, immortality, fame that surpasses any entertainer.

LeBron now has a bounty on his head, particularly in Cleveland. Without the press conference, I'm okay. But this was a massive "screw you" to a city that has served him well for his ENTIRE LIFE.

For all of you who don't take a Biblical view on pride and self-centeredness, here's the message: if you think LeBron has earned the right to play the game of life by grabbing all he can, leaving a trail of other people's blood behind him, and to PUBLICLY show them all up, fine. Good luck living that way. But then everyone else burned by his childishness also has the right to throw their weight around and try to burn him, too.

Yep, it would have been a great story if he had remained loyal to his city. Or if he had taken on a team like Chicago or New York that had solid pieces and climbed to the top with them. But his pride has invited a declaration of war, and so every other team has the right, according to this disgusting game of life that most people in America play, to put the smackdown on him.

"Me-first" has served NO ONE well, particularly when you look in terms of both this life and the life hereafter. I doubt the Cleveland Cavs' owner Dan Gilbert is a theologian, but he said something interesting in the aftermath: "Some people think they should go to heaven but not have to die to get there." Then he made a statement about karma, so that's where my intrigue ends. But he is right, sort of.

We are all fallen, imperfect creatures. The culture of entitlement in America is sickening. Too many believe they are entitled to a good job, nice house, easy life, and to do stupid things for a quick thrill or for personal glory without consequences. And we wonder why, deep, deep down, so many people are miserable. They are slaves to money, fame, booze, sex, popularity, drugs...

Entitlement leads to slavery. No one living under the auspices of that culture of entitlement is truly free. You are a slave. A slave to yourself. LeBron is a slave to his addiction to personal glory. And just think, one motorcycle accident, one mix-up, whatever, and his ability to play ball is gone. And off into obscurity he goes. Then what? Who is LeBron James then?

I'm sickened by the display, but I'm at least comforted in knowing that I am living for something more eternal, free of the self-addiction that is leading LeBron around like a hungry puppy.

Escape from the desert...

2010-06-29T13:32:00.002-05:00

This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

1 John 3:19-20

I think that everyone can identify with the phrase, “whenever our hearts condemn us” if I simple rephrase it into more commonly used expressions (or laments) today. How often have we said of ourselves, or hear someone say to us, “I don’t feel saved/forgiven/joyful/free/close to God/happy/etc.?” I have heard this so often in recent months, mostly from those who worship Christ as their Savior, those who have grown up in the church, even those who are pursuing ministry vocationally! All of the wind is out of the sail, all motivation is lost, God seems silent or far away… I know the feeling. Biblically, the expression that articulates this problem is in this passage: your heart is condemning you.

I love it when I see shreds of multiple disciplines in Bible passages. John, in this part of his letter, is doing some pastoral care, some theology, and some psychology, all in a tight space. And as we expand out from this tight space, and see the context, and consult the full counsel of the scriptures, we find a pathway, albeit a long and arduous one, out of this misery.

When I have felt this way, I have called it a “desert experience.” Spiritually, I feel like I’m off in the middle of nowhere, confused, with no direction. I don’t sense the Holy Spirit’s leading and, frankly, I’m upset and don’t particularly want to sense it. I think that these particular seasons of life are when many people choose to slip into corners of darkness, finding sparks of life or distractions from wrong sources. It is a vicious cycle, especially for those who call Christ Savior: we seek a spark, attain a “high”, then a corresponding “low”, guilt and shame and frustration sets in, we seek that spark again to make us feel better… the heart is condemning us.

How do we break out of this cycle? John says the most immediate help is in resting in the truth that God is greater than our hearts, and that He knows all things (v.20). We must take refuge in an OBJECTIVE truth… and yes, we must do this in a world that angrily tells us that truth is only subjective, only up to you, but “your truth” does not apply to anyone else. We need the absolute, and it will be the only kind of truth that works. Think about the crisis that we are in during these moments! When our FEELINGS are not providing us comfort, when our hearts are condemning us, won’t “subjective truths” that are only based on our private mental meanderings get a few holes poked in them? God is absolutely God, Jesus is absolutely the Christ, and we must take hold of it when our hearts condemn us.

If we expand our focus and look at verses 16-23, John lays it out. We must love our neighbors, even laying our lives down for our brothers and sisters (v. 16). In other words, treat love as a verb. So get off the couch! We must do things and get the heck out of the abstract abyss of our minds when we are in crisis mode. We must live it “in actions and in truth” (v. 18) and by this radical approach to life, “we set our hearts at rest in His presence,” (v.19).

This is not some boring call to be a monk living in a cave, with all apologies to the ascetic monks out there. This is about laying your life down for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of your neighbor. Spill your testimony to someone. Give comfort and encouragement to someone who is hurting in your life. Serve at a youth retreat. Go on a mission trip, pray over someone for healing, go into the world’s war zones… do SOMETHING to live into a bigger, God-sized story for your life!!!

There is something supernatural about sharing and living your faith that boosts your joy. And living “dangerously” for the cause of Christ requires God’s divine aide to accomplish the call… and I have this suspicious feeling that you will not feel so distant from God anymore when you watch Him performing miracles in your midst. You are not going to feel like doing it. That’s the nature of the condemnation. Do it anyway and God will breath faith into your soul as you step forward.

The feeling of having a “condemned heart” is common to all of us, but we have to get up and act to set our hearts at rest. Rather than drifting further into darkness, lean on the truth, and rely on those truths as you implore God to move in your midst.

New musical obsession

2010-06-29T13:20:00.003-05:00

I am pretty shamelessly a chest-thumping dude. I like my music, and many different styles. But when I'm strutting into the gym to do war with piles of iron, I need loud, heavy, intense rock music. I need my adrenaline pumping. For me, the problem is, so much of that rock music has a message that is about drugs, girls, anger, or being on drugs because of angry girls. So I've recently discovered some bands like 12 Stones and Skillet that scratch that itch, but have a distinctly real message, spoken by musicians that worship Christ but aren't afraid to express the battles being waged within the soul. So I have come across the band Red, and they are dark and heavy. But, wow, here are the lyrics of a ballad from their first CD.

-------------------------
Pieces by Red

I'm here again. A thousand miles away from you. A broken mess. Just scattered pieces of who I am. I tried so hard. Thought I could do this on my own. I lost so much along way.

Then I see your face. I know I'm finally yours. I find everything, I thought I lost before. You call my name. I come to you in pieces... so you can make me whole.

I've come undone. But you make sense of who I am. Like puzzle pieces in your hand.
-------------------------

Tells the story of my life, that's for sure. Thank you, Red.

And, of course, for the blues-rockin', gospel funky soul jam band freak in me... none other than Robert Randolph and the Family Band put out a very rootsy CD last week, and my current favorite song on earth has this chorus:

"Even though I've turned my back, I still belong... I still belong to Jesus!"

Yep, it's called I Still Belong to Jesus, by Robert Randolph.

Brain Damage Zambrano

2010-06-29T13:08:00.003-05:00

Carlos Zambrano, please report to the principal's office... NOW... no arguments.

Ship him back to the moon. Waste no time.

If there's one thing that is rising on my list of pet peeves faster than a rocket, it is a clubhouse cancer. That "list", by the way, is getting to be large enough to be classified as a book... no, an encyclopedia of some kind. Anyway, a clubhouse cancer is a team member of anything (a sports team or even a team member within the job force) that simply disrupts the functioning of the entire team with their poisonous, immature, me-first and me-only attitudes and tendencies.

No matter how effective the cancer is, the cancer is almost never worth it to keep around. The Cubs must launch Carlos Zambrano. I don't care what the cost is. Not only has he underperformed and made a mockery of his albatross contract, he is driving the rest of the team insane. His latest escapade on Saturday is it. He must be catapulted to a far off land in the name of damage control AND in the name of the betterment of the team.

If you run a business and have a clubhouse cancer tanking morale, launch him or her. Target that person, tell that person DIRECTLY that the antics are not acceptable and job loss is close, then flip him or her at the next flair-up.

Big Z has only been Stupid Z for too long, and his entire team is looser and better now that he is on suspension. I, the proud Cubs fan that cannot show his face around a White Sox or Cardinals fan because of the humiliation brought on not only by the disparity in the won-loss columns but also by these displays of petulance and immaturity, demand a turnaround now, and the underperforming clubhouse cancer must go first.

Sorry Carlos. Hope you live into all that talent and potential one day. It cannot be with the Cubs. Launch him.

Hello blogosphere, part 2

2010-06-29T12:59:00.002-05:00

Okay, so it's been about 3 months. Sorry to all -3.45 readers out there (yes, I'm in negative number territory now). Hopefully, I'll be able to boost it with some more regular postings. It's going to take quite a balance to post regularly once again. So throughout April and into May, I endured a crazy period of schoolwork. After that, I endured a crazy period of recuperation and, frankly, laziness.

So, here I am, signing onto my blog for the first time since part 1 of "Hello blogosphere". And the prospects of further insightful, spiritual, and/or sarcastic posts that have come to make "Through the eyes of a typical guy" all that it is (and all that it isn't) seem bleak. I begin a summer intensive class in a week, and it is two semesters of Greek packed into four hours a day, five days a week, for about five weeks. Even the faculty at the seminary call this "suicide Greek". My hope is that my days will be contain no fluff. This means sleep, class, work out, study, job/grad school softball, and contribute to the well-being of others through blogs or coffee dates. Repeat. No goofing around.

We'll see how this goes.....

My Grand Re-Opening...

2010-05-28T09:25:00.002-05:00

Well, so it's been almost two months since I have posted to the good ol' blog. I think I lost most of my good material from April and into May. I think I also lost most of my regular readership, which at last count, was up to about 4.7 faithful readers. But I have to get back into the swing of things, so I should start somewhere.

My first semester of seminary ended on May 7th. The last five weeks of the semester were brutal. I'm not sure how I pulled it off, but I made it through, and I actually got A's in all of my classes. Hard work paid off in this case, and hard work, I did... lots of it.

I'm in a unique position considering the school I attend and the church I attend. They have differing positions on the roles of women in ministry. I will give a brief synopsis, because this will provide a roundabout path toward my current spiritual "predicament".

In many places in the New Testament letters, it seems as though the author forbids women from serving in certain roles within the church, namely pastoral roles and as elders (1 Tim. 2:12, 1 Tim. 3:1-2, Titus 1:6-9). In other places, the author seems to give household codes that place the man in a role of authority over the woman in the house (Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18, 1 Tim. 2:8-12).

In other places, we see instances in which these regulations are possibly contradicted. Depending on how the text is translated, Priscilla and Aquila were teachers mentioned in three places (Acts 18, 1 Cor. 16, and 2 Tim 4). Phoebe is called (in the Greek) a diakonos in Romans 16:1, and Paul had referred to himself as a diakonos in other places. Hmmm. So should diakonos be translated merely as a deacon? Probably not. Maybe Phoebe had a much higher role of authority. And... POSSIBLY... depending on how you read the text, Junia in Romans 16:7 may actually have been an apostle... a female apostle. Without getting too wordy, the household codes may not be so clear either, when the codes are written along a backdrop of submission to each other mutually. Secondly, there is evidence that the author was addressing some specific abuses females were committing that the time, so the author may have been dealing with specifics and not setting universal rules.

OK, so here is what we are left with. Whether we are talking about the positions of the genders in society or in the church, there are differing opinions. My church teaches that men are to serve in pastoral and elder roles; women serve in many other capacities, but not those specific positions. My seminary teaches that the scriptures affirm the role of women in ministry without restriction, and the equality of men and women socially and in marriages.

There is so much more scholarship going into this debate, and for my purposes, I don't really need to get into it here. Here is my problem: I tend to agree with my seminary on the issue. But as we read all of the historical circumstances into the texts, and soften the apparent "hard lines" the authors seem to draw regarding the gender roles... I'm left wondering what biblical manhood really is. On this side of the debate, we have to emphasize the equality of the genders and the mutual submission of the two to each other. But the two genders were created differently, with the intent of being complementary to each other....

I don't feel right saying that the "complementary" differences between man and woman are strictly anatomical, but there are biological differences. As much as women have mystified me over the years, I still have figured out that the differences between man and woman are biological and then some. But as we search the scriptures and assert the roles of women in the church and world, I fear we are cutting down some of the unique traits of each gender. So, I'm left again with this question...

What is Biblical masculinity? If I am to live biblically as a man, how should I live? Who is my model? Are my masculine personality and masculine traits something to be suppressed or celebrated?

Regardless of the reasons, the vast majority of world leaders, politicians, church leaders, and business leaders have been men. And across these landscapes, we see problems. We see a high divorce rate, so men running the household hasn't proven to be the cure-all. My point is not that women should have been in those roles, but that by and large, the leadership of men have failed.

There's a lot too this, and I'm going to be working on, and probably blogging on, this one for a while.

What does a true, Biblical man look like?

Hello blogosphere

2010-04-02T15:28:00.002-06:00

Grad school has not done me any favors with regards to my blogging. And so, as I address my faithful readership of 4.3 (and probably dropping quickly), I just want you all to know... I take that back... it's a little presumptuous of me to use the word "all"... I just want you to know that I am still alive and well, surviving seminary, thriving, and busy.

Quick updates about me... the last month of semester, starting next week and going through the first or second week of May, is going to be insanely brutal. I am actually on top of most of the stuff and I believe I've put myself in a position to succeed. I am healthy, save for a very sore shoulder from overdoing it at the gym and a blister on my foot from running on the treadmill with a sock with a hole in it. Hence, the blister.

I have much that I wish to write about and I don't entirely have the time to deliver high-quality blogs at this point. All I can do is list a few teasers I have in the works, and I'll try to get to them when I have time... feel free to encourage, badger, bribe, or threaten me to compel me to further nurture this little blog here.

My parents got a new dog, a collie-lab mix named Tawny. My brother's bulldog Winston still occasionally comes home. This has been VERY interesting...

I helped my best friend from college move into their new home in the burbs a while ago. They are first time homeowners, and I can write many things about the moving experience...

The Cubs open their season Monday. If Alphonso Soriano continues to underachieve, I fully plan on referring to him this season as Alphonso Sori-excuse...

Looking for nice atmospheres to study, I've spent more time in Starbucks (even though I never drink coffee) the last month than I have in my entire life. The Starbucks culture yields some interesting and sometimes pitiable observations...

I got a new phone, still an entry-level one, but at least this one doesn't have an antenna...

Being a dedicated dungeon-dwelling weightlifter hobbiest, I'm hitting up the gym at my new school four times a week. But I lift sometimes with undergrads, and I have many reasons to laugh...

I just finished a video game where my character just destroyed all of the Greek gods on Mt. Olympus, and I'm still trying to figure out why I'm fascinated by this crap...

The Lord has taught me many things lately, particularly on issues of trusting Him in prayer, of forgiveness and reconciliation, of thankfulness and humility, and of not eating enough food to feed Wyoming whenever I'm at a buffet...

I'll get to these issues when I have the time. I'm sure it would be good stuff if I ever take them up. PEACE!!!

The real followers

2010-03-17T17:03:00.002-06:00

I heard an incredible quote today from an Oakland pastor visiting North Park University this week. BK Woodson really had my attention, and I don't even remember exactly what topic he was addressing when he said this. But I'll remember it for a long time...

"Christianity has a lot of admirers... but it has few adherents."

Whoa. Pastor's got it right.

The adherents have a serious call upon their lives that makes Christianity unattractive. The feel-good benefits, the promises, the happy stuff of Christianity... those are admirable. Those bring a lot of people into the doors of the church. The "Jesus is a good teacher" and "going to church is the right thing to do" notions reach a lot of people, but it doesn't carry them too far.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:24 that we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him. Everyone knew at the time, and I think we should know today, what happens after you pick up your cross. You die.

Your dreams die. Your plans die. Your intentions for wealth die. Some friendships and relationships die. Your old personality dies. Your controlling tendencies die. Your rights die. Your demands for comfort and complacency and self-sufficiency and autonomy and unlimited options to do what you want without consequences and affirmation and attention and admiration and a raise/bonus at work and the latest trends and the perfect soul mate and a cute house in the suburbs with white picket fences and a family dog and a corner office at a 9-to-5 job... all die.

Dead.

You die. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:31 that he dies every day.

Adherents dies.

But adherents have what admirers don't. They have replaced all of those things that died with... get this... FREEDOM!!!!

An adherent can live for God and with God as God perfectly and wonderfully designed them to be. There is a place of relationship with God that is so breathtaking, so exhilarating, never dull, always on a mission, joyful, peaceful, and so full of life...

and it has nothing to do with the crazy, unstable, and selfish world around us. I heard a story yesterday about how the Lord healed a third of someone's cancer, and shrunk the rest by 50%. I saw a prayer of mine answered last week that restored so much joy to my soul. I saw two dear friends get jobs a couple of weeks ago after months of toiling as we prayed.

You give everything up to adopt God's ideals. The old Joe dies every day. And to sustain us as we continually crucify that which does not belong to Christ, we get glimpses of the greatness of our God. Just enough to sustain us, not too much that we are overwhelmed or even prideful, but those brushes with the divine, the living and God, provide energy to endure the race...

vision for the future...

mission for today...

victory over the past.

Admiring doesn't do me any good. Adhering gets my head off of the pillow each morning. Ask yourself if you are an admirer of Christianity, or an adherent. Has a part of you died recently? Have you had a brush with the divine lately? Do you know His voice?

Salt and Peppers

2010-03-08T20:18:00.002-06:00

I am going to try my hardest to be optimistic about the Chicago Bears' free agent signings. They gave Julius Peppers a bazillion dollars to do primarily one job, which is to blow up the other team's quarterback. They gave Chester Taylor slightly less than a bazillion to pound out yardage, and a tight end named Brandon Manumalawhoever a few million to blow up dudes that are going to try to blow up Jay Cutler.

Each of them are 30 or older... now, I'm thrilled that dudes older than I am are still getting signed to bazillion dollar deals. There's still hope for me.

But this isn't about me.

The Bears don't have a great history with flashy free agent signings, particularly at big stat skill positions like defensive end, running back, or quarterback (read: Jay Cutler in 2009). But of course, the Bears don't have very many draft picks in 2010 because they mortgaged most of them to get Cutler a year ago. Thus, we get Peppers.

I am hoping for the best, but history says that such high expectations for huge free agent signings are a bit unrealistic. So, here are my predictions for Peppers:

9.5 sacks
12 games played
38 tackles
2 forced fumbles
a bazillion dollars
one Cadillac Escalade
one Chicago team continuing to swim in the sea of mediocrity.

Tiger Woods

2010-02-20T09:27:00.002-06:00

Go back into hiding.

Because what this world really needs is, for another media frenzy about the sordid details of someone's sex life. I have made very clear on this very blog that I believe Tiger is no man. He is a boy that acts like he just got a new toy for Christmas and he is so excited that he cannot control himself. I'm glad he's getting help. But the world has been his playground, and women have been his toys. Now he realizes that he needs the world more than the world needs him, because the world will take every opportunity to throw its champions under the bus if it can.

But I want to point out, just one more time, the hypocrisy in it all. This society has hi-fived promiscuous men. It is an expectation that, if you're a good-looking, successful young person, that you "live it up" and bed as many as you can. But the minute it goes public, you're toasted by that society. The moment it is uncovered that a celebrity man cheated on his cute, white, model wife, society wags the finger at him. The minute the cute little girl next door gets pregnant out of wedlock, she's branded with the scarlet letter.

Now, the celebrity man or the cute little girl next door are no less moral because of society's influence. They have earned the consequences of their actions. But, good grief, find me ONE media member that can rightly cast the first stone at ANYONE'S reputation!!!

My point is that it is not just the media. It is this over-sexualized, ungodly society. Sex is fun, so if its not hurting anybody, what's the problem with it? Live it up, right? If you're not ready to grow up and settle in with someone, what's the harm?

Bullcrap.

Whoever says that better hope the sordid details of their lives don't get spilled into the public. Tiger Woods has made immoral choices, but he is not unique. We all know men and women that have slept with dozens of people and used just about all of those dozens for nothing more than their own selfish, momentary pleasure. This society has championed hedonistic sexuality for years, then turns judgmental when one person is caught not living up to the Judeo-Christian values this country was founded upon.

The safest route... the only alternative... the way of Christ... is to be countercultural. Plain and simple. There is redemption, a clean slate, and a process whereby God will "clean up" your life, awaiting each and every person.

If you are confident enough to stand toe to toe with society, be countercultural.

Bang

2010-02-19T08:54:00.003-06:00

A funny thing happened yesterday while I was in the seminary's computer lab. I was there with only one other person (I'd never met him before), and the other guy got up to leave the lab for something. Just before he left the lab, he stopped dead in his tracks and said to me:

"You know what I just realized? Jesus' ministry was only 3 years long. Just 3 years! That wasn't very long."

Then he left the lab. I thought to myself, "Weirdo."

But I corrected myself quickly. Sometimes, that's how the Spirit of God speaks to us. He reminds us of a point, a very subtle point, to invite some serious reflection on the character and history of God. Then we must think about our lives. The Spirit just had whispered something to that guy.

And I was there to see it.

Now, if you really want to spend some time on that point, we can consider that after only 3 years of ministry, and one resurrection event, all about just one man, we are all over the globe, a part of this 2000 year movement.

God started something with a BANG, and it is still moving. He accomplished a lot in a little time, and we are still feeling the aftershocks.

The point is, God can invade our circumstances and communities in intense ways. Immediately. Shockingly. Controversially. And changes happen for a long time afterwards.

I am not advocating that we only seek out huge encounters with God. There is a place for consistent, disciplined aspects of our lifestyle. And we don't want to get addicted to the big blowouts such that we lose our connection to God when there is an absence of large-scale encounters.

But... stop putting God in a box!

Too often, we relegate God to being this buddy-buddy imaginary friend that we can talk to, complain to about our friends, or just feel good about to combat loneliness. Not all bad stuff. But are we, at least on occasion, asking God to do something BIG?

Have we completely foresaken the concept of revival? Or are we afraid of how God might take over?

When God shows up and takes over, scary things might happen. People might change. Critics might start to criticize. Things might start to get messy.

As I look throughout the scriptures and throughout church history, the authentic corporate BANGS that God did involved the fear of God, wonder, awe, and widespread humbling. Humbling!! These are things we Americans don't actively seek out. When God is most present, we can't help but be on our faces on the floor.

Do we want God to make a difference with the worldwide problem of poverty? Someone will have to be facedown.

Do we want God to awaken a dead church? Someone will be facedown.

Does someone want revival in a little country town, or a big city like Chicago? Start facedown.

You might as well start there, because if God acts with a bang, everyone else caught up in the bang will be facedown with you.

And I mean facedown as a posture of the heart even more than a physical posture. The church started in Acts 2 with the new believers act, as the onlookers called it, as if they "had too much wine." (Acts 2:13)

But the BANG produced a worldwide revolution. God's wind can blow through your city, your school, your business, your town, your family.

Start with letting Him produce a BANG in your own heart. Then wait on Him to send a violent wind through a bigger area. Don't fear the big encounters! After only 3 years of work on earth, Jesus' ministry continues to move 2000 years later.

The challenge of unceasing prayer

2010-02-13T10:36:00.002-06:00

Having been in seminary for a couple of weeks, I've already seen a couple of approaches to understanding the scriptures. I'm not even going to say "interpreting" the scriptures, because that will open up a theological can of worms that I'd just like to take a momentary break from. In any case, one example I've read is that some theologians will treat the relative infrequency of a certain topic showing up in the Bible as a sign that it may not be as authoritative. In other words, the topic's scarcity indicates that the topic needs additional supplementation, and may be up for debate completely.

Not to go off on a tangent, but some preachers inadvertently invoke this thought. In the few sermons you've heard about money, in how many of them has the preacher quoted some statistic about how many references the Bible makes regarding money? Just about all of them. I don't need to know that there are more references to money than to salvation, or some silly point like that.

Anyway, my purpose is that I treat those "tucked away" concepts not as unimportant, but as incredibly deep. I tend to think, with an earthly metaphor, that frequently-mentioned topics in the Bible are like elementary-level Christianity concepts. However, those tucked away messages are reserved for those that truly desire intimacy with God.

"Pray unceasingly..." from 1 Thes 5:17 is often discussed and quoted, but rarely lived out. Prayer is talked about a lot in the Bible, but this constant prayer lifestyle is not really mentioned, let alone expounded upon, anyway. I believe it a special place with the Lord, and it is reserved for believers that passionately pursue him, and will come to understand unceasing prayer experientially.

Woo, now I'm writing like a seminarian! I'll try to get back to writer Joe of several weeks ago.

Anyway, there have been many ways this passage has been explained. "Not without stopping, but constant." Or, "keeping the satellite of your heart always turned towards heaven."

None of this is wrong. In fact, it all adds to the picture beautifully. My approach is simply this: be able to hear from God profoundly at any time, in any unexpected or obscure setting. Even at the gym. In the car. On the bus. While cooking or cleaning. While walking to class. At work in the cubicle.

Anytime. This question is, Does God have access to you at any time, or will you make Him wait until you show up at church, or talk to a Christian friend, or listen to a Christian song, or prayer to Him in your heart, at your initiation? Will you let Him initiate the dialogue? At any time?

This is hard work, even for the Holy Spirit, as Romans 8:26 explains that He "groans" in intercession for us. It is a discipline, as The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence shows.

But I've touched this blessing on occasion. I must admit, not always. But I've hovered around this deep and amazing lifestyle with God. Believe me, it's interesting when I'm at the gym and I nearly break down in tears because I have the strong sense that God is reminding me of His control of a particular situation.

What hinders this postion with God? Well, just about everything of the world, but that's not practical to start with. I would say several things.

First, it is not for the proud and arrogant. It is for humble people who are willing to hear from God about how they need to change. I've generally heard the call from God to forgive someone or to apologize to someone at obscure times. If you want to hear from God, you must be willing to become more like Christ. That involves transformation... change... humbling... eating crow pretty often.

Second, it is not for those who want to cling to this world's garbage. If you fill your head with images from MTV, forget it. God won't share your heart with that nonsense. I'm not suggesting that you can never watch a movie, or listen to a secular song, or walk into a building other than a church. It is the dependency upon "guilty pleasures" that kicks out God's unceasing readiness to speak to you.

Let that soak in for a second... God is always ready to communicate with you. He is never too busy or caught up in other things such that He ignores you for any length of time. You are always in the forefront of His mind.

You will become counter cultural. You will be noticably different from everyone else. But isn't that what everyone in life generally seeks? They want to be unique. No one likes being just a number. People will do outrageous, dangerous, or controversial things to stand out and appear unique, popular, or different. God tells us to just remain in constant connection to Him. You will be different. You will be transformed into the unique and wonderful character God designed you to be. You will not have to settle for mediocrity. And you will walk with God in a way that makes this perishing world's "pleasures" seem like garbage.

New student

2010-02-01T21:05:00.002-06:00

So today was my first day of class, walking around on an unfamiliar campus and wandering through unfamiliar buildings. Of course, I'm banging into stuff, lugging too many items and bookbags loaded with more than I need out of fear that I'd be unprepared on my first day.

It's that "first day of school" look. Nervous, unsettled, hectic. I was unsure of what the next three years would hold. I was unsure of how much I would be taking on this semester. I was unsure of how I would succeed at my classes. Amidst all of those grandiose things, I was unsure of where the seminary building was on campus. My first class was at 1:30pm, so I got there at 10:30am, just to max out my chances of accidentally slamming into the right building.

I have always wondered if other, more seasoned students walking around on campus could identify the new kid. It might be a fun game to play with a buddy one day... Spot the Newbie.

I probably would have been a warm-up round for anyone playing Spot the Newbie. It was cold, so I wore a hoodie, and the hood was way over my eyes. I couldn't really see anything until it was almost too late. Remember how you used to dodge those balls in a game of dodgeball? Well, I was dodging inanimate objects... like water fountains, benches, light posts, etc.

I had a backpack carrying too much junk slung on my back. I had a plastic bag of about $100 worth of books I bought at the last minute. I had my laptop bag with my laptop, plus more junk, because after being out of academia for almost 8 years, I wasn't sure if the world had advanced to the point where every student took notes on a laptop as opposed to writing in a notebook. I was too sheepish to ask anyone. So I figured I'd bring both and just wing it based on what the other students were doing. In a class of about 15, I counted two laptops. And I think one of them was on Facebook most of the time. Cool. It's safe to be old school.

After settling into the library in the morning and looking over the syllabi for my classes, and perusing some of the books, I decided to take a newbie self-guided tour of the fitness center, where I hope to spend quality time this year. There weren't many people in the weight room around noon. Most of humanity eats at that time, I guess. I wandered into the men's locker room to see where I may store my stuff. Of course, here I am with plastic bag, backpack, laptop bag, and hoodie... and I take a wrong turn at the end of the locker room and end up in the shower area. There's one dude, stark naked and wet, looking at me like I just don't belong. Well, I didn't belong at that moment. And I didn't bother to try to explain, I just turned and booked it, hoping that my hoodie covered too much of my face for him to recognize me in the future.

Proceeding to class, I have that awkward experience in the middle of the campus where I'm walking through in the early afternoon, at a time when most students are transitioning from one class to the next. So there are plenty of onlookers. I had walked about 100 years to get to the middle of an open grassy area, en route to what I thought was the seminary building. Then I realize that I was going in the completely wrong direction. So... with all of the onlookers around, do I do an about-face, basically announcing to the world that I'm lost, or... do I waste twenty minutes of my time by proceeding forward anyway and wandering through the nearest building to reroute?

Before I tell you my ultimate outcome, I did something that probably made the debate moot... I stopped dead in my tracks, lifted my hood up, and looked around, confused and hoping the sign of the building I'm looking for pops into my field of vision. While everyone else is walking by me, I'm spinning like a really slow top.

And I still proceeded forward and wandered accidentally around the undergraduate cafeteria... with all of those teenagers wondered what the cat dragged into the cafe.

I found my one class today to be very interesting, and although the workload will be insane, I'm looking forward to engaging the material. And I'm sure the newbie-ness of me will wear off before I graduate in three years.

God's loving words...

2010-02-01T20:45:00.002-06:00

God's Word is a wonderful thing because it lives and breathes in ways that no other book can. I am constantly amazed at the Holy Spirit's ministry to the believer, to illuminate a passage of the scriptures. It happens at the perfect time, with a most profound application. And, sometimes, we just need a reminder of a truth that had gotten lost in the shuffle of life over time.

I was reading Psalm 103 a few days ago, and several days later, it is still resonating with me. I can write a book on the psalm right now, but I'll just say a few things about my favorite verse in the psalm. Verse 10 reads:

"He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities."

Immediately, my mind was taken to the perfection and majesty of God. His dwelling place, Heaven, is perfect and majestic. His Son, Jesus, was perfect and majestic in His earthly ministry, and He reigns in perfection and majesty at the right hand of the Father now.

And this perfect and majestic God extends an offer to us... to dwell with Him for eternity! There is NO WAY someone like myself can go to heaven, and allow for heaven to retain its perfection.

He wants our hearts to be the earthly dwelling of the Holy Spirit. He wants to walk beside us, and befriend us, here and now! He created us in His image...

And I mess up every day.

In comparison to the rest of the world, I suppose I could get away with saying that I'm a pretty good guy, and I deserve good things from people based on how I treat them. In comparison to this loving, holy, perfect, and majestic Creator God, I don't stand a chance. I deserve death. I don't deserve an inheritance of a heavenly dwelling place. Nobody does!

Eternally, Jesus paid the price for the sin of the world, so that if I believe in Him, I am presented before God as righteous, worthy of that glorious dwelling.

Daily, I still sin. And yet...

He does not treat me as I deserve. He doesn't return harm for the harm I do. Oh, what a forgiving, patient, merciful, and compassionate God! Every day, I deserve worse. Every day, I should be grateful that God is not dealing with me and my sinful ways on a scaled system.

It's always humbling when the Lord blows up a passage of scripture and reveals His goodness in a way that resonates with me. Let the truth of this verse sink in, deep into your soul, and give you a fresh perspective on life and faith.

A prayer as I return to school

2010-01-29T21:41:00.003-06:00

Lord, You are worthy of my most intense studies and attention. I praise you as the Lord of all, and I am humbled by this call to ministry to serve a great and awesome God. I know I am not worthy, nor am I capable... I seek You first to make me capable, competant, and effective.

I pray that You would open my mind and heart to study diligently; give me clarity and peace, that I may not only succeed in this endeavor, but also that I may know You more intimately. I pray that You would keep my heart focused upon You, that I would approach every detail as a fresh revelation of Your character, and as training for a most precious, noble, and humbling calling.

Lord, be the center. I open my arms to receive Your blessing, peace, strength, and wisdom. Do a mighty work in and through me, in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen

Back to school!

2010-01-19T21:58:00.002-06:00

So I was accepted into the grad school of my choice a few days ago. In less than two weeks, I'll be setting foot in a classroom for the first time in almost eight years. I really don't know what to expect or how I will react. I've been "civilized" by the real world for a while now, and I think it will be interesting to see if I revert to old college tendencies, or modify those tendencies through the filter known as "maturity".

For example, I wonder if, by force of habit, I'll grow my hair down to my shoulders and join a couple of rock bands. The problem is, my hair is thinner, so it will look more sad than cool. I would love to join a band, but I'll be so stinkin' busy with the class load, that I probably shouldn't.

Hair vs. haircut? Advantage haircut.
Band vs. no band? Advantage has-been band.

Wake up time... ooh, this will be interesting! Right now, it appears I won't have any morning classes, and I'll be in class straight from 1pm through maybe 5 or 6 pm M-Th, and one day, maybe later. This would be conducive to 10am wake up calls. However, I've got almost eight years of conditioning to start work at around 8 am. Hmmmmm....

Early bird or sleep in? Advantage zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Sunday nights tended to be a cheap-eats night in college, because you are gearing up for another week of class after being lazy for the majority of the weekend. And you don't have time (and in my case, the core competancies) to cook a fancy meal, so you have a greasy cheap pizza delivered. And you down all but one slice, and save that slice for breakfast the next morning. However, over the past eight years, I've gotten to be a workout warrior and I've required the nutrition to accompany this hobby. A high protein diet is expensive, and I'll be a poor student. But my workout habit and food intake habits won't die hard.

Greasy pizza or slab of chicken on the Foreman grill? Advantage, uuuhhhhhhh, roommate's leftovers.

Of course, a new school means new people entering into your life. And as a still-single guy, the eye may tend to wander to the other gender as it did in my undergrad. Whether we're talking about in class or students from another department on campus, you can't deny the urge to consider the possibilities whenever you cross paths with someone... and find any silly reason to go do coffee with that person. You're hunting. After eight years of being out of college, I've learned that life isn't just a big dating cesspool. You can and should see each person as a unique and precious individual, and if there may be a future in store, you should let the Lord make it clear through a series of godly encounters.

In the hunt vs. level-headed interacting? Advantage I'm-still-an-idiot.

SEX

2010-01-10T19:05:00.004-06:00

Now that I've got your attention... all 4.7 of you readers... this one is about... that. But as a Christian, and as a young, single, vital man facing all of the same desires and struggles that everyone else faces, I want to synthesize some of the things I've come to understand into a composit blog post. This topic is taught so poorly in the church at large, and I think that fact has contributed to the degradation of biblical values in our society.

Hardly anyone wants to hear Christ's teaching about this topic because just about everyone will be "called out" when it comes to this issue. We have a hard time reconciling the natural desires we feel with the (false) notion that the Bible teaches that sex is bad unless it is only for procreation... and it should not be discovered, discussed, or understood openly.

To be clear, I believe and practice the Bible's teachings on sex. But the understanding and practical application of its teachings have been difficult to attain. Foundationally, it is obvious that if you believe in God, then God is the Creator and Author of sex. If you believe that God is good, and good sex is what you crave, then maybe it is worth it to search out God's heart on the purpose and pleasure of sex.

In both Old Testament and New, the Bible teaches that the design of sex and sexual desire is within the context of marriage (see Genesis 2:23-25, Mark 10:7-9). And the design of marriage is not to be within the context of sex, but to include sex as the highest form of physical bonding and intimacy, a reflection of the emotional commitment between a man and woman. Whenever I talk with someone on this topic and need to put this into a nutshell, I say the following:

What is the highest form of physical intimacy between two people? Sex.
What is the highest form of commitment between two people? Marriage.
Shouldn't the two go hand in hand?

Even when an engaged couple (or couple living together and intending to get married someday) have sex, the physical out-raced the commitment. Before covenant marriage happens, you still have an "out", still a few strings unattached. What does that say about how committed you are to, and how much you respect, the other person, if you feel the need to "test drive" the highest form of physical bonding?

I'm tired of people lamenting the rates of divorce and spousal abuse and trouble and wondering what the causes are. Genesis 2 teaches that "the two will become one flesh." It is talking about sex, and it is saying that sex is inherently a form of bonding in which the very nature of one person is given to, and permanently shared with, the other. Promiscuity gives yourself to so many sources, and I've met far too many people that couldn't process marital intimacy because they'd given themselves to so many other partners. By the time they got married, it was as if there was nothing left to give. There is no such thing as "just sex". It is a powerful bonder and affects the soul and spirit of a person so much more deeply than most people give it credit for.

We have such a restricted, narrow view of marriage these days. These days, single men are expected to be players... it is "cool" to be able to bed quantities of women. The only mention of "quality" in any way is superficially of how high the thrill of the moment was. And we expect, as a hypocritical society, that men are supposed to "settle down" and get married after a while, and be faithful to this one woman.

Look at how vilified Tiger Woods has been recently. He is wrong to cheat on his wife, don't get me wrong. WRONG!!! But he definitely lived that lifestyle before he was married, and was high-fived because of it. How can we expect him to shut off his quest for the excitement of his single life? He was conditioned for YEARS before he got married to have a cheap and self-serving view of sex.

The Bible portrays a much more liberating view of sex and marriage. If one reserves physical intimacy for marriage, look at how much excitement, discovery, and raw intimacy are opened up after the wedding. The world says, live like a player with no rules, then settle down and try to hold it for one person. The Bible says, save sex for the right context, and marriage is a great liberator for all forms of intimacy for two people geniunely committed to each other. I can't think of a more romantic thing for a husband to say to his new wife on his wedding night, "I have waited a long, long time for you."

What is a single to do? If sexual desire is from God, but outside of marriage, it is destructive, how do we fight it? We don't. This passage struck me like a ton of bricks recently: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside of his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body." (1 Corinthians 6:18).

I could write for days on that one, but I want to focus on only the first word: flee. In other words, run like crazy. And this is the important realization I had recently: we're not designed to fight sexual desire. We were created for it! It is a good thing! We are not going to win that battle. The only way we can avoid immorality is to stay away from temptations.

So many other vices, we are to fight. Look at Ephesians 6:10-18, and all of the soldier imagery, popularly called the "Armor of God". I have stood toe-to-toe with tough issues like fear, anger, depression, hurt, you name it. And we are to fight stuff like that, because they aren't part of God's design for us. The armors in biblical times didn't have protection in the back. If you run, you're not protected! You fight these things, with God's strength.

But sexual immorality? FLEE! God says, Run the other way. You're not going to win. Apart from repentance and God's supernatural transformation, sexual immorality distorts the godly nature of your sexual identity. And it is not realistic to expect that you or I can just "turn off" those desires because the atmosphere of your life changed. Thus, it is REALLY unrealistic to think that you can evade consequences forever.

Revelation 2:18-28 is an intense passage on sexual immorality. Again, I can write all day on this one, but I point out verse 21, where God says that he gave someone time to repent, but she was unwilling. God gives time and opportunity to turn the other way. There may be no apparent consequence for quite a while. In this passage, she did not repent.

I cannot underestimate just how powerfully this world is affected by the distortion of this thing that God created. So much brokenness and hurt, deep and profound hurt, has happened because God's prescription for sex wasn't followed. God offers time to repent, and He is powerful enough to restore EVERYTHING within you to be aligned with His good, perfect, thrilling, and amazing plan for your life.

Persistent prayer

2010-01-07T22:15:00.002-06:00

A few things have happened recently that made me think and reprioritize prayer in my life. A few weeks ago, I had a great conversation with a dear friend about the nature and purpose of prayer. And... the balance of persistence in prayer vs. not whining and badgering God over and over like a spoiled kid, as if God doesn't hear us. There are some verses that suggest we should present our requests to God and move on, believing that we have already received what we've asked for. In others, we're called to persevere, to keep on knocking at the door and to keep on asking.

I decided that I wanted to make those "stretched out" prayers of extreme fervency a priority in my life. I guess you could call it a New Year's resolution, but I hate that term. It carries the connotation of intention to not follow through. My intention is transformation, and have a new, regular discipline.

As I drove home from work today, I thought of someone that has bugged me recently, but truly needs prayer. I thought to myself, I've prayed for this person already. I think a bit of bitterness started to creep in, because I didn't want to be bothered. I justified to myself, God isn't deaf. He heard me the first time, and He doesn't have a short memory. Just name it and move on, and I've moved on.

For some reason, I was then flooded with compassion for this person, and I started to pour out my heart in intercession. I wept and belted out words for this person as I drove. I can only describe it as getting a sense of how the heart of Christ bleeds for this person. And I felt the Lord telling me that it takes time and work, and sometimes a lot of it, but find the heart of God in prayer for another person.

That may be why we persist in prayer and maybe repeat ourselves a lot. It's not as if God has a short memory. He has promised that we will have anything we ask for in prayer. The privilege of having a prayer answered is for those who are seeking to unite their hearts with God's for a cause. And if we think we can just turn on pure intentions and full discernment in our hearts like it is nothing, we're fooling ourselves.

In Romans, it says that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groans. That sounds like a woman in the pains of labor, doing the hard work of giving birth to new life. Even for the Holy Spirit, it is hard work! And now I believe that the hard work of prayer is sometimes needed to find the pure and loving heart of God for a situation. Maybe we've got the right outcome, but are the intentions right? Maybe we've got all of that right, but do we burn with real faith, or are our words empty? Do we hope like gamblers hope for a Blackjack, or do we have the Biblical notion of hope in a promise-keeping God.

Prayer can and should be persistent... it's been a while since I've been so desperate in prayer. It was intense, and at times brutal. But I felt the blessings and desires of the spritual realm slowly descending upon earth ("Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.")

A serious look back at 2009

2010-01-03T21:15:00.002-06:00

Leave it to me to require two different types of reflections on the same year. No, I'm not crazy (but that's debated by many), but I do both sarcastic and profound well enough... I just have to do them separately. I'll approach this reflection this way: this is what GOD did in my life in 2009:

The Lord had had enough of my growing lukewarm spirituality. I didn't realize just how far I'd gotten away from that electric, living, active, and breathing Spirit relationship with my Savior. When I became a Christian, I was healed of a particular condition. In January, like an old nemesis that always beat me up coming back to his stomping grounds, it returned. After several days of punching the sky, it struck me that God had done it with a purpose. Several weeks later, at a dinner for my birthday with a good friend, my buddy prophetically called me out on a number of issues that the Lord had layed on my heart, and I had been burying. I spilled everything out right there, and a turning point happened.
I found out again what it was like for the words in my Bible to rise up off the page and speak directly into my life. This is a phenomenon that is available to every believer. EVERY ONE OF THEM!! It may not happen every since time, but God speaks. I had to relearn to listen. The scriptures from a previous post are just a few that hit me hard this past year.
I watched God cross my path with other people's paths... and almost instantly, I saw God's strategy it all. There are no coincidences or happy accidents in God's social realm. I used to talk Jesus with everyone, everywhere, all the time. For a couple years, that rarely happened. Suddenly, my boldness and my friends' readied hearts were connecting again.
God showed me that He knew my hurts in the church. And I was about to embark on a period of restoration. Admittedly, I've still resisted this agenda at times, but God answered my prayer in this area in an interesting way...
I've been called to ministry. Full time. Vocational. No shortcuts, no backing down. The church that has so hurt me, I will work with it and for it. And my training will not be quick, either... I feel led to a long, comprehensive educational training.
Me... I had run from deep wounds for a long time. It brought about a spiritual desert. There was an agenda for me two or three years ago, and I flatly said, "No." It is one of my biggest regrets in my Christian walk. Now, I am working on all of the points on the agenda, several years later, and it feels like I'm paying interest on it. God spoke to my heart as I read Psalm 42:7 one day: "Deep hurts". He knows that those depths can be painful. But God wants to go there and speak love and mercy into the darkest corners of my soul.
Society... I see the dichotomy in this world more clearly than ever. Darkness and light. Something is either pointing the world to God, or misleading the world. The depravity of our culture is so sad... in the media, music, television, movies, internet, magazines, schools, cities, homes. And we wonder why so many people self-medicate with drugs, medications, alcohol, sex... why marriages continue to break at a 50% rate... why the economy tanked (one word: greed)... why poverty cannot be solved... crime continues to destroy cities... this world is seduced by a deceiver that has most people eating out of the palm of his hand.
Women... oh, this is a tough one for me. I had become such a sarcastic skeptic, and several messages struck me hard for a number of reasons. I've always treated the opposite gender kindly, but the Lord showed me that all women are God's daughters, in some respect or another. He is jealous for them. And I was starting to believe my own jokes. So I resolved to grow and treat women with the extreme respect, no matter the type of relationship they have with me, that God demands. And I've seen how this sexualized culture has damaged so many women. God hates it with a furious passion, and woe to me if I contribute to the damage.
The Lord spoke great wisdom into my life with my buddy Phil Hoover's kidney donation. Check him out at philhoover-chicago.blogspot.com. I saw extreme reliance upon God, extreme sacrifice, extreme patience, and a resolve to see things through the lens of God's Kingdom instead of the world's.

And I look ahead to 2010. 2009 was definitely a turning point, preparing me for the wildest year of my life, where I will be stretched beyond imagination. I am being prepared for something radical to which God has called me. Pray for me as I embark on the journey of a lifetime!

In reference to my first post from today...

2010-01-02T19:33:00.003-06:00

I don't know what God has in store sometimes... but something interesting happened a couple hours ago.

So I was hanging out with a friend of mine last night, and while we were at my apartment, he checked his Facebook page. "Remember when Myspace was the biggest thing? Watch Facebook do a Myspace the minute I sign up for a Facebook account!!" I said. I proceeded to spew all kinds of sarcastic comments about Facebook his way, as I always do. He contentedly carried on with his business, as if I'm the brainwashed one.

I posted earlier today that I continued to stand against the tide of the Facebook revolution in 2009, but since it is becoming so predominant as a connector of old friends, I wrote that I'd probably give in some time in 2010... reluctantly.

As I reflected on 2009, I realized that I was blessed to have great openness about my spiritual identity and direction with so many people, both Christian and not. Looking way back, I was so blessed (and many others), at the end of college, to give my testimony before 400 students, many of them knew me before I became a Christian. And there I was, living proof of who I was, and who I am now that Jesus is in the picture. And I realized that there are so many people from my past that have not witnessed the transformation that God has done in me.

How could I reveal that to everyone? Oh, no, not Face-- don't let me say it out loud! Honestly, I didn't even really utter it as a prayer, but today I tacitly declared in my mind that God was going to have to make it clear in an unexpected way that I should spend any time with Facebook.

Then, I go to church. Pastor James preaches, great stuff as always. He starts to talk about supernatural joy, and how his mother is suffering from a terminal disease and in bad shape, but has convicting, amazing joy. And then he told the whole congregation to check out his 89-year-old mother on Facebook, and "she's REALLY into Facebook now!" He said to "friend" her, she'd get a kick out of it.

(THUD!)

That was the sound of my massive ego slamming onto the floor.

Is God really in this?

Uhhhhh, I might be caving sooner than I thought. Just give me a bit of time to gather up the pieces of my shattered pride.

Scriptures that pulled me through 2009...

2010-01-02T18:58:00.002-06:00

It was easily one of my most challenging years, and spiritually speaking, there were times when it was brutal. And in most cases, it was all internal... externally, everything seemed fine and it's possible no one noticed the battle or the growth within me. God has placed treasures in His Word that carried me through it all, and here's just a few of them.

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." -- 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NIV)

"He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me." -- Psalm 18:19 (NKJV)

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor." --Isaiah 61:1-3

"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you." --Joel 2:25

In 2009, God's Word was living and breathing in my life again... it spoke clearly into my immediate circumstances. It had been several years since I allowed the Lord to work like that so consistently. These verses exploded off the page at the perfect time this past year, and galvanized my armor for the road ahead.

My kind of humor!!

2010-01-02T11:53:00.004-06:00

Railing against "social" networking... I might get this.

We know it goes on...

My reasonable response as an employer...

2009 Buh-Buy...

2010-01-01T22:13:00.004-06:00

It was certainly a turning point year for me. I will always remember 2009 as the year that pointed me in new directions. There were awesome moments. There were tough moments. So, with this post... because I have no original topic to think of right now and I opt to take the easy way out in filling blog space... I look back at 2009.

I continued to rage against the cultural machine and avoided getting a Facebook account. At this point, it's just a game with me. It really has become the predominant modality to keep up with people, replacing email, letters, phone calls, and actual face-to-face contact (what a ridiculous concept). I'm just trying to see how long I can hold out until I am kicked into social obscurity. It stinks that I have to engage this war between society's decline into communicative mediocrity vs. my massive ego. I'll probably have to cave in at some point in 2010... just not now.
I bought an unbelievably awesome new guitar at the very start of 2009... a sunburst, maple-neck Fender Custom Classic Stratocaster. If heaven had a band, the guitar player (hopefully me someday) would be playing this baby. It set me back a pretty penny... or two hundred thousand pennies.
I forayed into playing online games with my Playstation for the first time. And, likewise for the first time, I had to deal with the turmoil of choice between gaming and real socializing... gaming and reading a book... gaming and sleeping... gaming and going to work... gaming and showering, shaving, clipping my toenails, tying my shoes, eating..........
I discovered that turning the age of 29 isn't easy. 29 is not in the "mid 20s". It is mid nothing. I couldn't bring myself to say "late 20s" because it sounds pathetic and I'd get yelled at by someone in their 50s for being distressed about getting older. So I coined the term "within 20s"... it didn't catch on, not by a long shot.
I'm a workout fiend, I love lifting weights. My bench press plateaued badly, and I started to lose strength and size in my chest muscles. I haven't resorted to anything drastic, but I researched a LOT to find help. I looked up supplements, lifting techniques, diet strategies, everything except using shady stuff at GNC and steroids. Right now, I'm choosing between genetically engineering additional Y chromosomes into my DNA, and injecting myself with totipotent stem cells from the bone marrow of an orangutan.
This year, I tried entering into both the baseball (the Cubs) and football (the Bears) seasons with a level head, as opposed to brimming confidence. I wondered if God would bless temperance on my part. He didn't. In previous years, my enthusiastic support ended with massive letdown. This year, God spent most of his resources on east coast teams.
This year, for the first time since I was 16, I retired my "schizophrenic theory of women". In case you're wondering what that theory is, let's just say that the theory is exactly what it says it is. Come 2009, I had ranked right up there with George Costanza in terms of guys most confounded by the female mind, so I figured my theory was creating some bad vibes. Now at the end of 2009... I'm trying to read between the lines of the Genesis account of the Bible, hoping that maybe God snuck a third gender in there somewhere as a secondary option.

I caught a few nasty computer viruses on my PC. These things will apparently infect your computer if you just hover over a certain pop-up, maybe not even clicking on it. In my rage, I spent actual time psychoanalyzing the little twerps that create these beasts. My current profile of this depraved little loser has me sending watchdog groups to basements in suburbia all over the world, in search of a nappy-haired grown man living in his parents' basement, coke-bottle glasses, wearing formal-looking Dockers at times when I'd wear sweat pants, and a MASSIVE Star Trek collection. If I ever meet this guy face to face, he's my lunch.

The family dog of over 14 years died early in 2009. We got Raider when I was 14, still in 8th grade. My family's dog-less rut stopped when my grad school brother brought home his new dog, a bulldog named Winston. I recently blogged on Winston. This pooch thinks the world is his water bed. I'm so amazingly jealous of Winston's luxurious lifestyle and stunned by the odd magnetic effect he has on girls. He is short, fat, round, and not very long. I swear, if he didn't drool and beg with increased belligerence every time I sat down with food, I'd mistake him for a basketball.
My sushi intake decreased in the second half of 2009. My buddy Mac first introduced me to sushi several years ago. This was tantamount to a dude introducing his buddy to a royal pain in the butt girl that is blessed with great genetics, and cursed with no personality but all drama. You can't get away completely from this girl, but dang, you are always left worse off than you were. Sushi? I can't get enough, but I always overeat, and I'm always left heavier than I was. Anyway... Mac tried making his own sushi one day, and I had some. It was good. But he caught some kind of bug right around that time and threw up after the homemade sushi. It set off a Pavlovian effect of distaste for sushi for him, so my sushi wingman is no more. I have a hard time justifying going to the sushi buffet alone. If you go with a guy friend, it's an intense competition. If you go alone, it's one of the seven deadly sins.

That's a few lighthearted highlights of 2009. Honestly, there was a lot of serious and profound details of 2009 worth reviewing as well, so I may do that next...

Happy CB Day!

2009-12-26T17:31:00.004-06:00

The day after Christmas is always an interesting observation for me. I affectionately refer to it as "Crap Back Day". It's a busy day at the stores because everyone who was given an unwanted or bad gift gets to cash in with Christmas' most twisted form of currency: the receipt. Crap goes back in favor of the present that will stand no better chance at enlightening the gift receiver of the true meaning of Christmas.

On Crap Back Day, Black Friday experiences a departmental butterfly effect. Nowadays, if you return a gift, you'll be able to exchange it for something similar or get a gift card for that store. Stores can at least keep the money in-house. So hundreds upon hundreds of road-weary consumers will be attacking a pre-selected department store for a low-budget spending spree.

This year, I won't be exchanging anything I got, because I asked for very few things. I did, however, need some rather expensive stuff, so any dollars allocated to me got poured into very few precious gifts. I don't think I'll return the Chicago Cubs 2010 calendar, though. The publishing company had the foresight to not include Milton Bradley as one of the monthly players featured.

On Black Friday and on Christmas Eve, we ought to salute every cashier in overcommercialized America. Today, we salute another forgotten cog, a tireless working ant in the ant colony of the American economy... let's see if I can dramatize this into a "We Salute You..."-style beer commerical tribute.

Real men (and women) of genius...

Today, we salute you, Wal-Mart customer service desk representative. You have worked your way up the ranks from shopping cart pusher to overnight stocker to cashier... and now you stand... behind the customer service desk.

Guy in high-pitched voice sings: (How may I help you?)

You sit upon your throne patrolling the storeroom floor for price discrepancies, chargebacks, and jammed cash registers.

(Open the @#$%*! drawer!!)

You normally have nothing to do but to wait... but on Crap Back Day... you have a line of people in front of you from your desk all the way to Montgomery Ward's... and Montgomery Wards went out of business years ago. You secretly long for the days of pushing shopping carts.

(I miss the snow!!)

So crack open a nice cold Miller Lite, you regal eagle of retail.

(Mr. Wal-Mart customer service desk representative!)

Presents or Presence?

2009-12-25T14:07:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas to my average audience of 3.7 blog-readers. I've upped the average recently due to posted comments from a couple of people I don't know. I only hope to reach that awesome, round-number benchmark of 8.14 one day!

Every year, Christmas comes and goes. I always feel like I'm missing something from the season, as if I'm missing out on some special "experience" from the holidays. The gifts and music and gatherings and Charlie Brown Christmas Special are all great, but I wonder if, each year, some kind of "magic" escaped me.

I can't go through the season without watching Charlie Brown's Christmas at least once. I'll be turning 30 in a couple of months. Something about it turns me into a softened little boy. A while back, when I was living with a roommate, my roommate walked in on me, in the living room, watching Snoopy and Charlie Brown. This was a few years ago. The look on my roommate's face... you would have thought he was witnessing me performing some kind of illegal voodoo ritual with incense burning and dark organ music. But no, I was watching Snoopy win a Christmas decoration contest for his doghouse, and Charlie Brown directing the Christmas play.

You can imagine the picture. I'm built like a tank... I'm about six feet tall, about 220 lbs with a rather muscular build, well-worn jeans or cargo pants, big baggy T-shirts and sweat shirts, typical dude. I'm the last person you would think would be laughing like crazy over Snoopy's shenanigans.

I think it harkens me back to my childhood... and with all of the both declarations of scripture in that show, which ordinarily would never be allowed on network television these days, it provided me with my first, authentic spiritual experiences in my youth. I watched a little group of cartoon kids and a goofy beagle find the true meaning of Christmas.

And I know the true meaning of Christmas more than ever now. But I can't help but wonder if there is some higher level of fulfillment in the season that I missed. I could care less about the presents. But every year, stores go over-commercial, families go nuts trying to please everyone on their lists, hosts of family get-togethers kick it into overdrive to make sure the food it right and the kids are occupied and the living room is set up properly and the tree doesn't get accidentally knocked over landing onto the host family's annoying new puppy. My Christmas still involves hustle and bustle, with everyone around me just trying to survive crowds before the big day, and the stress of the actual day.

And I haven't actually been able to share the joys of true meaning of Christmas with anyone with any level of depth.

I'm not surrounded by the most spiritual people during a holiday, so it all seems like a tired routine. I'm at the point now where I'm willing to spend holidays with someone else, just as a break from a routine that has increasingly diverted from the true meaning of Christmas.

I think the trick is that God blesses people with His presence when a group, no matter how big or small, share with each other, and truly celebrate, the true reason Christmas happens. And God is pleased when people mimic God's sending of Jesus Christ by making a genuine, heartfelt sacrifice for someone else. It's deeper than giving a good gift. It's an expression of love and hope.

And that's what Christmas is. God the Father made a huge sacrifice of love... sending His Son Jesus into the world as a vulnerable, lowly baby, because He loved a dark, broken, and depraved human race. He gave hope to people, as an expression of extreme love.

This season, even after today is over, celebrate Christ in Christmas, and sacrifice for those who mean the most to you.

Close calls

2009-12-18T19:44:00.002-06:00

I drive the same route to work pretty much every morning, and I did exactly that yesterday. There's are sections along the two major east-west roads that get blocked up really easily because two stoplights are so close together... on both roads. Many commuters, who start on the further south east-west road but need to sneak up to more northern one, have found a legal "cheat" along this route, whereby we cut up a side street into the back lot of a WalMart. We go through the lot and can make a right turn onto the further north major east-west road, and you bypass most of the congestion around those stoplights.

It's not a bad tactic, it has saved me time each morning, and it's pretty safe. Yesterday, there was a slight mist in the air and on the ground, and I was cutting through the lot, about to make a right turn onto the road. After the last car in a glut of fast commuters, I had a window of several seconds to make my turn before another glut came. Just as I turned, I got rear-ended by the car behind me, and I ended up in the middle of the two eastbound lanes. I was able to gather myself and drive up to the next parking lot and drive in before the next cars came, and the lady that struck me followed me into the lot. I was able to punch the bumper back into place, and rub most of the paint from her car off of mine. Not much more damage than that, fortunately. I just told her to forget it and go on with our day.

As I drove to work, I realized that the lady didn't hit me because of the opening in traffic. She wasn't paying attention, probably due to a cellphone. And it could have happened at any point, even while fast cars were flying in the lane I was about to turn into. I'm not exaggerating when I say that if I had gotten hit three seconds earlier or five seconds later, I'm in a big pile-up. And the lady is still in the parking lot, safe.

Back in college, I had an intro to religion class, and I remember a discussion about bad things happening to us. A girl in front of me was telling the class about a religious friend of hers that had gotten into an accident, and thanked God that the accident was not worse. She bluntly asked that if God were so good, then why didn't He prevent the whole accident in the first place?

I had a similar situation over three years ago when I was hit by a car on my bike, and I was knocked into a busy Chicago thoroughfare. A few seconds earlier or later, and I'm run over by oncoming traffic. I had some scratches on my leg, and my bike was busted pretty good. But I was fine and I just shook it off. Yesterday, I had a more spiritual approach to the accident.

Back then, I missed the message. The girl in my religion class missed the message.

"Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." James 4:14

We all need a reminder of our mortality. It's so easy to assume you have days, weeks, months, years ahead of you. And then I miss the urgency of now. And I may put off an assignment from God another day. Or fail to deliver some time-sensitive blessing to someone else. Or miss a miracle that God has for me.

If you think about the circumstances, I really could have been killed yesterday, or a few years ago. And walking away with a new appreciation for today is a beautiful blessing. In this selfish society, we seek comfort... trouble-free, fear-free, luxury, glamour, pleasure, etc. And any time something bad happens, we fail to see the point. The girl in my religion class thinks that life is about her trying to find residence on Easy Street. But life can be taken away before you find Easy Street on Google Earth.

Yesterday morning, I could have left so much unfinished business in life. And, to an extent, that is going to happen in every death. But I, and so many of us I'm sure, leave unfinished business every day that was supposed to have been taken care of that day... or yesterday... or last week... or a few years ago.

Sometimes, you need to step out of your comfort zone and take a risk for a godly reason.

Today.

You may not have tomorrow.

Why do I assume that my life is less frail now at age 29 than it will be thirty years from now? Whether you live for 100 years or 50 years or 29 years or a couple of days, it all is infinitesimally small compared to ETERNITY.

And the close closes provide us with great reminders of such timeless truths.

Winston

2009-12-14T21:22:00.002-06:00

I have a good friend that minored in something called "Women's Studies" in college. As I think about (and, frankly, overanalyze) the term "women's studies", I find this field of study to be more and more of huge scam. It implies that women can be studied, with the intent of attaining actual concrete knowledge about women.

As I've suspected for years, there is no such thing as concrete knowledge about women. Trying to study the unknowable is really a joke. If football jocks in college have music appreciation as their blow-off class, girls have women's studies. Every textbook in one of their classes should be censored. Forget free speech... everything in that class could be responded to with "what are you talking about?" And whenever you say that to a woman, there's a heavy price to pay. So it's not free. And so it shouldn't be studied.

I say all of that because I need to setup my rant about my little brother's bulldog, Winston. I don't understand the appeal of bulldogs. The way a bulldog looks, its analogous counterpart in the human race is the 280 lb, bald, goatee-sporting, leather jacket wearing bouncer at a nightclub.

It doesn't look very cuddly. You can describe most bulldogs, and definitely Winston, as having a face that only a mother could love. He has a weird underbite and has so many wrinkles that he has well over 250% more facial skin that necessary to cover his cranium.

And yet, Winston has this animal magnetism about him that just makes girls swoon. My brother and dad took Winston to the doggie beach in Chicago a few months back, and couldn't get over the attention this pooch got! I don't understand it. If I could walk around fat, wrinkly, and lazy, and attract women at this rate, I shallow enough to admit that I'd happily trade my gym membership for hundred Happy Meals.

And, of course, I'm an "overcomplicate my life" idiot. I could probably just formulate a plan to lease Winston for a weekend from my brother. Instead, I'm trying to psychoanalyze a bulldog as a way of understanding how to grapple with the female mind.

My family's dog of about 15 years died back in March, and Winston coming around every few weeks has rejuvenated the household. But I still fail to see the charm. With most dogs, if you throw a ball, it'll chase the ball. Winston? After you throw the ball, he just looks at you with this nonchalant stare, as if to say, "Yeah. And if you had a bulldog-sized hamster wheel, you would expect me to get in and run 20 miles to nowhere, right? Moron."

This pooch knows how to settle in. 15 years of having our black laborador retriever, and not once did my family let her up on the couch. I come to visit a few weeks ago, and there are sheets covering every sit-able piece of furniture in the house... so that Winston can jump up and lounge on the couch!!!!

I was laying on the couch reading the newspaper on Saturday, and Winston just approached the couch ever so patiently. He sat like a good dog, facing me. Time goes by. I get up to use the washroom. When I return, Winston is laying, sprawled out on the couch, with his head on a pillow. I decide to mess with Winston and I start piling every blanket, quilt, pillow, and sheet on top of him. Little did I realize that Winston didn't care... as far as he was concerned, all those extra layers were just keeping him warm. He didn't get up for another half hour, until he heard my mom arrive home with dinner. My dinner, by the way.

So what is it about this dog? How in the world does this canine deserve such a posh lifestyle and gorgeous women ogling all over him?

Clean up! Please!

2009-12-14T20:56:00.003-06:00

I aspired to be a hermit this past weekend, to recuperate and relax. For a variety of reasons, it wasn't going well by the time I went to bed Friday... my mind was wandering too far out of control. So... no more hermit come Saturday. I texted a friend and we ultimately hung out Saturday evening. I went to her Rogers Park apartment, and we decided to go to Guitar Center and play with some "toys".

By the time I got out of the car and we were approaching the store, I noticed that my left foot was slipping ever so slightly as I walked. I figured it was ice, and I just walked more slowly... not fully processing the issue of how my left foot could be a little slippy, but my right foot was as steady as could be.

We get inside and we peruse the instruments, and we eventually make our way to the acoustic guitar room. We both grab something and start noodling around. Eventually we start to strum some lines from a song we both like, and, as I usually do, I start to tap my foot to keep in time. Of course, I tap my left foot. I make a startling discovery...

There's a little brown lump protruding from the side of my shoe. Upon closer inspection... which, in my stupidity, involved taking my shoe off and holding it up near my face to take a "whiff"... I realized that I had, earlier in the night, inadvertantly invaded territory that was marked by a dog.

Just my luck, this must have been a massive dog. It may have been Clifford the big red dog that's the size of a north shore McMansion.

So, I still like guitar playing, my friend is laughing at me, and I decide to keep playing. However, instead of tapping my foot on the ground, I'm pounding my foot full-force into the core of the earth. Of course, then I realize that the "stuff" is just getting more firmly ingrained into the treads of my shoe. So I angle my foot to the side and slam the edge of my shoe, to knock the doo-doo out. Didn't work.

At this point, I have, what I call, a full fledged "poo shoe issue". It didn't stop me from stepping into another room with electric guitars rudely loud amplifers, and jamming on some blues riffs with a few guys in there. I still have my priorities. After the store closed and we got kicked out, I went outside with my friend and started going postal on my left shoe. I scraped it against curbs, slammed it against brink walls, soaking it in rainwater puddles and dragging it along the concrete.

I nearly was the one who flew over the cuckoo's nest. This stunk... literally and figuratively.

We went to Baker's Square for late night pie and a board game, and I conspicuously twisted the bottom of my shoe into the restaurant's carpeting under the table... for an hour. Didn't clean it completely.

We get back to my friend's apartment, and following scene is set: me, a small bathroom, 15 Clorox lemon scented wipes, and 6 Q-tips. If Chris Farley ever tried this set up in a Saturday Night Live skit, I'm telling you, there would have been no need for Matt Foley the motivational speaker.

The moral of my "poo shoe issue" is this... people, CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR FREAKIN' DOG!!!!

Taking Isaac up the mountain...

2009-11-29T16:25:00.003-06:00

I've always struggled with being too independent. I take ownership of things, and I'd rather everyone else just get out of my way and allow me to do my thing. That's how I've succeeded. That's how I've produced. That's how things have been accomplished in my little world. And I take my responsibilities and accountabilities seriously. That's a good thing... but the over-independence and ownership causes problems with God.

Surrender is always hard. When you have something you like, or you are eyeing something you want, it's a pain in the tuckus to give it up.

I was having a wonderful conversation with a friend of mine the other night, as I'm pondering big changes in my life. I talked about my insecurities, concerns, and the changes that would be necessary. And he said to me, "You and Isaac are going to have to take a walk up the mountain..."

We spent some time talking about Genesis 22, when Abraham was called by God to sacrifice his only son Isaac to God. He took his son up the mountain, bound him, and just as he was about to swing the knife, an angel called to Abraham and stopped him. There are a few points that are significant in this story to consider...

When God first called Abraham, he replied with, "Here I am!" He didn't say, "What?" or "Huh?", or text message "OMG!". He answered with a readiness for action. This is a man who loved to and was ready to do whatever God asked.
Isaac was no boy. He was probably an adult at the time. He was the child of a miraculous birth, a child of promise. He was extremely valuable to Abraham from the start, and Abraham had been watching his boy grow up into something special for many years at that point. This represented the biggest sacrifice a man could make.
Abraham never argued with God. All throughout the scriptures, we see prophets... PROPHETS!!!... like Moses, David, Jonah, men with huge assignments from God, verbally second guess the living God. Abraham kept his mouth shut and followed the Lord. When Isaac asked Abraham where the lamb for sacrifice was, Abraham simply replied that the Lord would provide.

It's not about doing something crazy for God. It's not even about the fact that God gave Isaac back to Abraham. It's about ownership. At the beginning of Genesis 22, it says that "God tested Abraham".

In Abraham's heart, to whom did Isaac belong? Was he Abraham's? Or was he God's?

Is God the highest priority in my life? Or is it my future? My financial security? My plans? My comfort? My familiar, daily routine? My friends, family, money, passions, job, or even the visions and promises of blessings I've received from God? Who's first?

God knows the blessings of this life will eventually compete with Him for supremacy in our hearts. They may even create such a sense of comfort that they will prevent us from seeing God's purposes in our lives. Most of those "Isaacs" are good things. But God may tell us to take Isaac up the mountain.

I've heard of, or watched, faithful men and women wrestle with God in prayer to finally surrender control in their hearts of their money, their kids, their spouse, their business, their homes, their time and energy, their plans for success...

I'm taking the success of my work up the mountain today. I'm taking my comfortable, secure, suburban existance up the mountain today. I may take a few friendships and relationships up the mountain today. I'm taking the familiar things in life up the mountain today. I'm taking financial security up the mountain today.

I'm not counting on the outcome of getting them all back after I just go through the motions... I'm surrendering all to follow the Lord, trusting that the Lord will provide.

Many of us need to take Isaac, or a few Isaacs, up the mountain. What is your Isaac?

I am second...

2009-11-27T09:41:00.003-06:00

I came across a website this morning that really humbled and ministered to me. Check out www.iamsecond.com. It's full of testimonials from people, some celebrity, some not, of how Jesus became first in their lives, leaving them in second place.

There's Colt McCoy and Sam Bradford, two phenomenal college quarterbacks, likely to earn millions in the NFL very soon. There's Mike Huckabee, who made a run at the White House last year. There's Brian Welch, who was a rock star in the band Korn before quitting to dedicate his life to Jesus. There are two NFL head coaches, two pastors, an American Idol finalist, a sex addict, a movie and TV star, a struggle with missing father issues, a struggle with childhood fame, a struggle with being the perfect pastor, a struggle with infidelity, a struggle with an eating disorder...

You get the picture.

I can identify with a lot of the stories. I still push myself beyond the limits with many things. I work to be the best, and to create the best. I play guitar to be the best, to sustain this silly dream of being a rock star. I lift weights at the gym to challenge every muscle beyond what they can do. I am dedicated, and sometimes dedication can drive me past God as a priority in my life. I spend too much time trying to be first.

Every story on the website ends with the person giving his or her name, then saying, "... and I am second."

The guy from Korn is a perfect example of how God designed us to return to him. He openly confessed that he pushed so hard to attain this dream of being a rock star. The dream actually became reality, and it wasn't good enough. In a effort to find that "something" in life that brings true fulfillment, he tried music, sex, drugs, more drugs, even more drugs, partying, got married, had a kid...

Nothing.

Every euphoric feeling would eventually abandon him.

Just before a drug binge, he prayed and asked God to give him strength to kick the drug habit. Long story short, God did, and the rock star known as "Head" quit Korn that day. And peace and joy entered into his life, and God's joy does not abandon him.

If there's one story that gets me every time, it's Josh Hamilton's. Iamsecond.com does a decent job of giving you the story, but there's more to it. It's still worth a look.

A stud baseball player, drafted #1 at age 18, in the major leagues, and then booze and drugs destroy him and his marriage. He loses everything, gets kicked out of his home, ends up living with his grandmother at age 25. He hits rock bottom, turns to Christ, cleans up, returns to the majors, and is an all-star.

I'll never forget Josh's show at the 2008 home run derby during all-star weekend. Josh pounded out a record 27 home runs in the first round, and not one of them were cheap. 500 feet or more, almost every one of them. He had everyone polarized, and he was only two years removed at that time from cleaning up his life and returning to the league after a lengthy hiatus.

After his round finally ended, I'll never, ever forget the interview that ESPN did with him on the field. The reporter asked him what was going through his mind while he was hitting all those home runs. He had this look of disbelief on his face. He simply said that it's amazing what the Lord had done in his life up to that point. I don't even remember exactly what he said. But I'll never, ever forget the look on his face.

It was the look that says, I can't believe I was so low, and God took me so high. I was such a mess, and God did all of the cleaning. There's no way I deserve any of this, but it's all so GOOD!

I can identify with it because I was a mess. I had different, but very high, hopes and dreams at one point, and I was screwing them all up in every way, too. I was so low, and God showed up. In the same way as Josh Hamilton, within two years, all I could do was shake my head and struggle to find the words to describe it all. Being second actually isn't bad at all, when God is first.

The sad part is that, early in 2009, Josh relapsed briefly. Basically, he escaped all of his accountabilities and partied one night, and some pretty nasty photos were taken of him. He repented right away.

It goes to show that you can slip and put yourself first again. I've done that. For the past nine months, I've essentially been in "first place recovery". Every time I say something I shouldn't say, do something I shouldn't do, or strive to earn everyone's adoration and praise for flashy guitar playing or big muscles or fancy displays of humor or excellence at my job, I elevate myself into first.

May this be my bold declaration of where I stand, of where my loyalties lie, and of what my life is all about...

My name is Joe Misek, and I am second.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T15:13:00.003-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm not going to do a post traveling one of my two usual routes: witty and insightful, or spiritual and contemplative. I'm just going to do the standard, "I'm thankful for" Thanksgiving posts. Yeah, maybe boring, but I don't take time out enough to appreciate the blessings in my life. The Bible commands to approach God with thanksgiving and praise... giving thanks should be the hallmark of my life. So, here's a partial list... I'm thankful that...

I'm alive... I wasn't always thankful for that.
my life has purpose... no matter what the situation is, God has more in store for me tomorrow, more exciting assignments to carry forth for God's Kingdom. The future is always bright.
I have reasons to smile and be joyful.
I have a roof over my head, food on the table, clothes on my back, all of the basics are abundantly met.
God speaks, and that sometimes, I hear. I'm thankful that God uses so many different methods to communicate His purposes and His love to me.
I have supportive, loving, caring friends, and that I have great reason to invest in those friendships whenever I have a chance.
I have a family... family was never a super bright spot or high priority in my world; I think of so many people that will eat alone today, for whatever reason. They built a foundation of modest living and a humble heart within me, and it serves me well today.
I have precious mentors that speak into my life spiritually, personally, professionally, and they do it with joy. I'm thankful that I have examples of what is good and right.
I have visions, albeit hazy, of what the Lord will do in my life in the future, and it will continue to be the ride of a lifetime.
I'm thankful for how I was designed, and that I have no real reason to wish that I would look different or have more. I'm by no means rich or awesome in this world's eyes, but God has blessed me with the contentedness that I'm a child of God, and His approval is all I need.

God bless all of you on this Thanksgiving. May it be restful, joyful, and a gift to your soul as we remember all of the things we should be thankful for, and for all of the mercies God has rained down from heaven upon us.

Deep calls unto deep...

2009-11-15T20:50:00.002-06:00

I blogged on this passage several months ago. I don't know why, but I need to play around with it some more... Psalm 42:7 reads,

"Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me."

A while back, I wrote a phrase that I will probably quote to myself and others many times for the rest of my life: Deep hurts. Deep down within your soul, there's all kinds of treacherous commotion. That's what the imagery in this passage confirms... waves and billows, noisy waterfalls. I've buried so much down there, and uncovering all of it has been, in my private settings, chaos and noisy and often painful. But cleaning out some of that stuff down there has liberated me more than any other single act other than my salvation.

I can't get away from it... deep is the place where true belief lies. You can believe something in your mind, but unless faith comes from your heart, Christianity is just a set of impossible rules to follow. There's no power, no victory, no joy, no hope.

I'm embarking on some of the most frightening journeys of my life now. I have no idea what life will look like very soon. It looks even more murky if I try to guess what life will look like in a few years. There's no earthy reason to trust in some words in a book written 2000 years ago, and follow the impressions within me given by some theological concept called "God". There's no reason to believe what Jesus said in Matthew 16 that I must lose my life to save it. I heard a sermon this evening paraphrasing it as becoming a loser in order to be a winner.

It is not manly to admit that I'm confused about a hundred different things, and scared about another hundred. At times, I'll feel like I'm the only one encountering my circumstances and I can feel very lonely and unsupported... in spite of the fact that I am surrounded by wonderful people. And make no mistake, as I deal with the turbulence of "deep", it crosses my mind to give up, sweep it back under the rug, ignore it, run from it all...

And then the Lord pierces me with His Word:

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen our heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!" --Psalm 27:13-14

Even David knew that without believing in the promises of a good God, you have no hope. Giving up becomes the most logical way through the storm. I have to believe that God has something in store for me on the other side... I have to believe that God will finish what He started... I have to believe that God will make a way, and change the heart of those people I'm praying for, and provide when there are no apparent resources.

Lord, I am waiting upon you and resting in prayer now, ever so patiently. In accordance with your Word, strengthen my heart to carry forward, to do your will, to continue to run the race. I believe I will see your goodness in due time, so bless the journey on my way there.

Tyrannosaurus flu

2009-11-10T16:11:00.003-06:00

I've always been a pretty healthy guy. I've never missed a day of work due to illness in my career. I work out, eat well, and have a decent immune system. I'll come down with the common cold maybe every year, but nobody ever notices. I just work out, drink lots of OJ, and keep my adrenaline pumping, and I fight it off pretty well. But I came down with something over the weekend that has just about floored me...

I started to feel the problem late Friday and early Saturday. Congestion, sore throat, the whole bit. The first sign of an issue was that I was working a youth retreat, leading a group of twelve junior high boys. That, my friends, is a massive, mobile petri dish for disease. The only time germs are threatened among that group is when they impishly decide to play with fire.

So that group didn't help, but it seems like I contracted whatever I have now shortly before the weekend started. Right now, I'm at home, having made it until 1pm before I had to call it a day at work. So, thus, I blog about my illness...

I slogged through yesterday at a pretty pathetic pace. But I didn't have to work very much because I worked a lot on Sunday, so I came in late and left a little after 4pm. Today, I felt a little better, but got several reports from coworkers and other affiliates that there had been a few cases of swine flu at the office and at our programs. Awesome. Here I was, thinking that I just had a cold and yelled myself hoarse all weekend... turns out, I might have be piggy sick.

I remember thinking to myself, There's no way I have swine flu. The image of the pig doesn't do this nightmare justice. I need a bigger animal, like zebra or hippo or gorilla or a big huge nasty dinosaur flu.

I went to one of those "Minute Clinics" in a CVS pharmacy, and asked them to test me for swine flu. They actually told me that no one will test for just swine flu... HUH? Apparently, the medical world's brilliant fix for this epidemic is to just have everyone test for influenze A and B, and if you have A, they just call it swine flu. If you are in a hospital setting, they will do that test, and if you come up positive for flu A, then they'll do a swine flu swab test. Costs too much money to do a swine flu test on everyone who's sick, they told the nurse treating me.

Okay. I don't want to know what they'd do in the case of an ebola outbreak, but let's stick to the facts here...

Just to amuse myself, I asked her if there were any other flus in the animal kingdom that this test wouldn't cover. Her Spanglish wasn't too good, so she just gave me a weird look. The amusement would end with me.

So she tested me for the different flu family members, and I came up with no flu. Her best guess was that I just have a bad cold or upper respiratory infection. Please, my vote is Tyrannosaurus flu.

If it looks like a flu, smells like a flu, sounds like a flu, tastes like a flu, it's a freakin' flu. I've had, consistently, sore and congested throat, nasal congestion, coughing, and a fever. Intermittently, I have had muscle and body aches, headaches, hot and cold flashes, fatigue, and loss of appetite.

Now, that sounds like a flu for most people. For me, the loss of appetite alone could signal impending death. All of those symptoms in me might very well point to Armaggedon.

So I walk out with suggestions of fluids, hot soup, and Motrin for any muscle aches. I'm also going to be researching what might have killed off the dinosaurs. Don't be surprised if I try blast a meteor from outer space into my throat tonight...

Face-space, My-book, Kidneys, Key Lime Pie...

2009-11-02T21:02:00.003-06:00

I get all of these social networking things mixed up sometimes. Yeah, I get it, Facebook is more popular than oxygen right now, and I continue to hold out on principle. I got onto a rant with a friend recently and I mixed up my words, and listed out all of the internet stuff in a way that went something like this: "Face-space, My-book, Tweester, Skypster, YouMooch, Flicker, SuckedIn (that's a play on LinkedIn, in case your mind started to wander), Bing, Ding, Fling, Wing, Hop, Top, Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom..."

I'm almost 30. I might as well be 300. I sounded like a bitter old curmudgeon. It's probably because I start with, what I believe, is the reasonable assumption that these type of internet services are from the devil. Don't ask me how blogs fit into the picture... I haven't figured out something clever to mask the fact that I just like to spout.

They say that these services are 100% free, with which I disagree. Maybe it won't cost you a dime, but it will cost you inordinate amounts of time and energy, carpal tunnel syndrome, social drama, more time cleaning up the social drama, and maybe even a bodily organ.

Huh?

My buddy Phil Hoover over at Something to Consider (www.philhoover-chicago.blogspot.com) used to rant with me about those sites... until he dumped me in favor of another perspective. Yes, humiliating. Then, an amazing story ensued that, depending on your viewpoint, will eventually convince me to either get a Facebook account, or never go near a computer again in my lifetime.

A little over six months ago, Phil caved in and signed up for Facebook. He told me right after that he was very pleased. I immediately countered that I was not pleased. "But, hey, whatever floats your trend-chasing boat," I thought.

On maybe Day 2 of Phil's new life reborn in the grace of Facebook, he came across some page for a friend of his, a professor from when he was at Lee University, Dr. Bill George. He was in terrible shape and in need of a kidney, because both were shot and he was on dialysis several times a week. I can't imagine how grueling that existence must be. The facebook page asked people to consider testing to be a kidney donor.

And Phil, for all of his quirks, immediately went to one of his two consistently awesome tendencies. The first is his preparation of key lime pies and home-cooked southern biscuits. The other is prayer.

He got down to business and baked a key lime pie for... just kidding. He prayed. He cried out to the Lord and said that someone, somewhere, in God's kingdom, there is a match as a kidney donor. And that still, small voice told Phil, You are a match. Search Phil's blog back several months, you'll see a post that asked everyone to pray about this.

Scientifically, the odds of Phil being a match as a donor are beyond the odds of the Cubs winning a decades worth of World Series rings by 2020. But Phil just knew he heard from God. And he got tested. And tested some more. And jumped through more hoops. And received a phone call one day...

"Mr. Hoover, you are a suitable donor." I was stunned, but I've learned that I like God's chances when the odds are stacked against Him. Being the underdog doesn't mean a thing when you are under God.

Now, it would be a nicely packaged story if the surgery occurred right after that, but Phil had to persevere and endure more testing, required weight loss, some lifestyle changes, and the like to prepare. Phil got the message in early summer, and ultimately it would take until the very end of October for the surgery to come. Phil's resolve remained strong, in spite of growing weary at times. For once, Phil's stubbornness worked in his favor...

Long story short (well, shortened, just slightly), Phil donated his kidney last Wednesday to his good friend, and Dr. George received it right away, and now, according to Phil, is "peeing like a water fountain."

I always tell Phil to leave the clever attempts at analogies to me.

I spoke with Phil several times in the days following the donation, which was a treat. All those painkillers make for some memorable conversations in people. The most memorable one was the one that didn't happen. Phil called me at 12:37am a couple days after the surgery. Obviously, Phil was on massive loads of morphine if he thought he was going to have a conversation with me at 12:37am. I guess it would be interesting to see which of us would have been more coherent at that point...

He's gotten calls from all over the world, and offers to tell his story on prestigious programs like Oprah and Good Morning America. All he's done is tell his story on a Christian radio program he likes, because, as he says, "This is about God, not me." But he will tell about how God was in it all, in a miraculous, loving way.

Phil is returning to Chicago soon. I can't wait to see him, and I will temporarily move in with him for a little while to help him out as he recovers. He won't be able to lift more than five pounds for a while, so I'm a bit worried about how much pampering he'll expect from me.

I'm also looking forward to eating a lot of his key lime pie. Yes, he probably won't be able to bake any for a while. But, remember my priorities. I agreed to stay with him for a while after the surgery on one condition... that he bake a bunch of key lime pies beforehand and store them in a place where I can find them, in the event that he didn't make it out of the surgery.

Phil's doing well, so I'll have to share the key lime pie with him. It will still be a tasty privilege to dine with a man who received such an honorable assignment from God and so sacrificially pursued it.

And thank God. Thank God!!! The Lord proved so much through this great testimony, but I'm first and foremost walking away with the assurance that God's in control. There's no such thing as odds. There's no such thing as chance, luck, being without hope, or being without a prayer. He is a miracle-working God who has no limits to His love for us! PRAISE GOD!!!

Moving

2009-10-05T21:15:00.002-05:00

I helped someone move from one apartment to another last Saturday night.

If you really, really care about someone, you'll help that person move. If you don't really, really, really care (I keep adding really's), you lack the one incentive that compels you to participate in the moving process. It's a wild process, one that I've done myself at least five times since I left college.

I have to admire people that take jobs as movers. It's a tough job that doesn't yield many rewards, like sewer cleaner, dog catcher, Home Depot stocker (more on him later), prison warden, and haystack-needle-finder. That's why you need to really, really, really, really care about the person you help with moving. It's a grind-it-out, sacrificial, sweaty bonding experience. But it's not without some interesting anecdotes.

The preparatory trip to Home Depot can be an adventure. The second trip to Home Depot to get what you didn't think of during your first trip is must-see TV. You see, during your first trip, you are trying to find a few general things. During the second trip, you are trying to find things very situationally-specific, like a certain sized screwdriver or wrench.

And the stockers know it, because they know you don't have tools of your own, and you're probably trying to figure this all out on the fly, and you're there a second time because you tried to use what you bought after the first trip and found out that it didn't work and got frustrated and threw what you had bought across the room and nearly put out the eye of the person you're helping move.

And so you hunt blindly for the right items, trying to avoid eye contact with any of the Home Depot employees who know your plight because they've seen many poor saps before you in the same situation. And they smile and shake their heads at this rare source of amusement at their jobs... one of the few, albeit twisted, rewards of working at Home Depot.

Anyway, you also need to find lots of empty boxes. And as you wander up and down the aisles of Home Depot with this person that you really really really really really care about, looking for a big sign that says, "Boxes", you try to avoid those Home Depot stockers. Again, it's a Saturday night, and they're working at Home Depot. They can't be happy; thus, you are sure they are prone to sarcasm. As in, if you ask one of them, "Where can I find boxes?", he is sure to respond with something like, "EVERYWHERE!!!"

Because, when you work at Home Depot, you see wall-to-wall boxes. I'm sure you get sick of them. This may be why you don't find any huge signs hanging from the ceiling reading, "Boxes" to indicate where the empty moving boxes are. It would be too depressing for Home Depot's employees.

And, of course, we stand in front of a huge pile of flattened, empty boxes, trying to project how many it will take to contain all of the stuff that belongs to this wonderful person that you really really really really really really really care about. You both fall deep into thought, trying to analyze from memory all of the different things that need to be boxed up. And you both stare off into space, thinking...

Remember the analogy of the hamster running in the wheel as a metaphor for someone thinking? Using the hamster, this is how that particular thought process goes: hamster wakes up, hamster realizes he is hung over, hamster slams into the wall of the cage; hamster sees a wheel in the cage but doesn't know what to do with the wheel; hamster looks at the wheel, sniffs the wheel, touches the wheel, chews on the wheel for a little bit, spits out a piece of the wheel that broke off; hamster climbs into the wheel, starts walking, then running; hamster realizes that this is great exercise; hamster realize that hamster is going nowhere very fast; hamster no longer is interested in exercise; hamster accuses owner of a sadistic set-up.

Eventually, you get back to the apartment and start the packing and heavy lifting. You start to load a van, and all of a sudden, that delicate balance between creativity and safety starts to come into play. Do you want metal rods hanging out an open window? Do you strap the headboard of the bed to the roof? Does the driver really need to see out the rear view mirror? Heck, do you really need to see out the windshield?

Fitting everything into every crevice of the van becomes a real-time exercise in high school geometry. With every box being stacked one on top of the other, you further butcher the Pythagorean Theorem.

And, some please explain why we do to the following: say you forgot the tape measure. Why do we think it is accurate and effective to measure the width of, say, a dresser by spreading your arms and gauging its length from fingertip-to-fingertip, then try to hold that measured pose and hold it up to an empty space? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, your arm moved? Because, if you miss it by a hair, you just lifted a dresser into a tight space within the van (threatening the well-being of your lower back) in vain.

Oh, yeah, one more story about the dresser. 1pm rolls around, and we have to get up one flight of maybe twenty steps. The dresser is too heavy to carry, and the stairs are too steep for two people to get it up without someone getting hurt. Intense desire to finish the job collide with dangerously reckless creativity, and I decide ('scuse me, you decide) to roll the dresser up the stairs. Yes, you (and the dresser) almost fall backwards about five times into the arms of the person you really really really really really really really really care about. But, by the grace of God, you make it, dinging up the walls all the way up. And everything is left in the living room, unpacked, but the job is done.

And for about an hour, you lay in the middle of the floor of the living room on top of a cushion, unable to get up. And you recap the night and laugh because you're done and groan because you're as sore as an ex-quarterback.

And you did it because you really really really really really really really really really care about someone.

Beauty from ashes

2009-09-30T20:45:00.002-05:00

I spent some time in Isaiah 61 the other day... and of course, when God is trying to impress a concept upon me, He bombards me with it. There's an awesome gospel song by Ron Kenoly called Beauty from Ashes, and it was ringing in my head. It prompted me to find the scripture upon which the lyrics are based. Isaiah 61:3-4 says,

"To all who mourn in Israel, He will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory. They will rebuild the ancient ruins, repairing cities destroyed long ago."

Sometimes, I can't help but read this chapter without tears. It's amazing how God has turned all of the ash into beauty in some way or another in my life. And I don't mean just physically... although I'll be the first to admit that I looked like ashes in every which way before Jesus came around.

All of the ash-like experiences of your past can become something beautiful. He can redeem those terrible days and turn them into gifts of testimonial inspiration to someone else. What I've recently seen is that all of the negative church experiences in my life will be redeemed if I go into ministry and serve Him obediently. All of those ashes will be made beautiful.

That's why I included verse four here... He will rebuild the ancient ruins. Whether something about you started out like ash, or started out well and crumbled to ruins, God can rebuild it. Redeemed, restored, rebuilt, whatever you want to call it, God does it.

Seriously! Give this some thought! If you've been around a few born-again followers of Christ, and I mean passionate pursuers of God, you can't help but admit that Jesus is the biggest impact player this world has ever seen. Who else, or what else, can have such a drastic and lasting positive impact on one's life like the One gives beauty for ashes, blessing for mourning, and joy for fear?

As I've spent much time over the past seven months uncovering personal issues that I've swept under the rug for years, I am reminded that I'm not doing this just to cause more pain for myself. Not only will God grant peace, He redeems. In all of of the corners of one's soul where there are ashes, God will replace with something beautiful.

Come home

2009-09-25T22:40:00.003-05:00

I spent a littletime this evening reading through the parable of the prodigal son from Luke 15:11-32. It's a pretty well-known passage... probably because it parallels so many of us today. And the parallel is so frighteningly accurate sometimes.

I know more than a few people who grew up in the church, and have heard the good news preached. How well it was preached, I don't know. But the basic message had been conveyed. By the time they are in their 20s, it's been a while since they've really engaged that spiritual side of themselves. They've probably gone down some paths that weren't, shall we say, well lit.

The son in the story hit rock bottom. It's amazing to me how thick-headed we can be sometimes. Just when your decisions take you to a new low, and everyone praying for you thinks that this will be bad enough to whip you into shape, you sink even further. I've had several rock-bottom experiences. One lead me to salvation through Jesus at age 20. Another brought about a personal revival about seven months ago that may very well take me into a pursuit of full-time, vocational ministry.

Sometimes, rock bottom is where God must take us. Sometimes, it's the only way we'll wake up. The son in the story, at his lowest point, "would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything," (verse 16). That's low!

I think rock bottom is so profound because there's usually only two options there. There's up, and there's out. You can stay there, and probably die quickly; or, you can turn upward, in the direction of God. God may have to cause us some pain to get us to the point where we our choices are ridiculously limited.

I've told a few friends before, "don't let it get any worse. Turn back now before you hit rock bottom." Rock bottom is no way to live.

As profoundly pitiful and painful rock bottom is, the overwhelming excitement of the father upon the son's return is also convicting. How often do we shake our heads when someone finally turns around and takes some proverbial "walk of shame"? I can only imagine the desperate and impassioned prayers that the father had been praying for his lost son.

Sometimes, I can tell just by looking at someone that a loved one is praying for them. I don't mean that in some voodoo-ish, mystical way. I just know that prayer in being applied in someone's life. And, really, in God's plan, very often I'm crossing paths with that person because I am one answer to those prayers.

And, sometimes, all it takes for the next prayer to be answered is to go up to that person and invite, "Come home."

I need to get better about telling people that have strayed just to come home. Better yet, I need to offer them a ride home. God so delighted in me that He delivered me from my rock bottom, and I still live today so that I can help others out of rock bottom.

The story takes the son from rock bottom to the loving, forgiving arms of the father.

From the worst feeling in the world, to one of the best.

I'm thinking of several, no, many people, that I must simply invite to come home. If at all possible, skip the arguments, skip the judgment, skip the details, skip the clean-up before you get them home and skip the demands for an apology and skip the theology battles and fundamentalist doctrine and skip rehashing all of your gripes with that person and skip the passive-aggressive games and skip the silent treatment and skip the payback and skip the "I told you so" and just

get

them

home.

And party like a madman when they get home. It's cause for a celebration. I thank God for bringing me home, and I hope and pray for a massive migration of prodigals coming back home.

It's such a glorious, safe, loving, merciful, compassionate, blessed place.

Another 5 am

2009-09-18T22:35:00.002-05:00

I used to believe that 5 am was a lie. I had no positive proof that it existed. I ignored the testimonies of many well-intended (and sleep-deprived) witnesses. But I have experienced it, I think, multiple times within the past couple of years, as I've documented on this very blog.

I'm pretty sure it exists now. Funny how, when I speak of 5 am, it sounds as though I'm talking about the paranormal.

Aliens, UFOs, 5 am, what have you.

Really! Have you ever seen wackos on TV talking about how they saw an extraterrestrial? They seem like relatively well-adjusted rural or suburban people... jobs, families, the whole nine yards. They just have this little side of their souls that is convinced they saw an alien. And its a pretty disturbing shift when you see them shift from talking about anything else in life to talking about UFOs.

I think I resemble that phenomenon when talking about 5 am... the only difference is, everyone believes and agrees with me. Everyone. No exceptions.

Anyway, I experienced 5 am again today. My job had a Friday-morning golf outing fundraiser and we all had to be there at 6am. I set my alarm clock for, what I believe, is the earliest possible time that can be set on that particular clock, which, I believe, happens to be 5 am.

My eyes actually popped open before the alarm beeped. So, in my belief system, it was still Thursday. Anyway, I thought to myself, This isn't bad! I can catch a few more precious winks and I'll be pretty fresh once the alarm rings! I love that feeling!

Two seconds later... EEEEPPP, EEEEEP, EEEEEPP!!! It doesn't beep, by the way, it "eeeps". Beep would be too tolerable.

I said, out loud, and very loudly, Oh no! Those extra winks had just gotten abducted by an annoying mechanism that haunts and tortures human souls on a morning-by-morning basis.

I actually made it through the day pretty well, and (working my way backwards) I went to the gym after work. I remember eating a tuna sandwich for lunch, driving a golf cart all morning to pass out beer to terrible but rich golfers, and I vaguely recall arriving at the clubhouse at around 6 am...

But I can't remember how I got there.

I guess that activities like golf and fishing are really good to do at obscenely early times of day. I've never cared enough to ask why. As far as I'm concerned, any fish that bites best at that early in the morning isn't worth frying. High-noon fish taste just fine.

So here I am, 11pm and about to go to sleep, and I survived yet another 5 am experience. I handled it so well, I'm actually going to strive to hit the ground running on Saturday and make the most of the day, and, for the first time on a Saturday, I'm going to even set the alarm clock...

for 5 pm.

Life verse

2009-09-12T13:43:00.003-05:00

Do you have a Bible verse that you cling to, recite, memorize, cherish, that basically sums up your life, or encourages you, prophesies blessing in return for all your challenges, or gives you strength whenever you need it? I do.

All over my room, in my Bible, even popping up on my cell phone when I flip it open. Anyone who knows me personally and knows anything about my life history can totally see why I cherish this verse.

"I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord." --Psalm 40: 1-3

I may write a whole book on just those three verses of scripture one day. Let's just say I've gotten a lot of spiritual wisdom and encouragement out of this passage. To strip it down to the basics of what I get out of this... and believe me, I have experienced these promises coming to fruition in my life... I can give you four promises from God here out of this passage.

1) God always hears you, and God rewards you when you passionately and persistently seek Him.

2) God will deliver you when you are at your lowest point. He did not put you on this earth to stay at the bottom and plow through life with misery.

3) God will fill you with joy to the point where you'll be singing. You can really, REALLY, be overjoyed by your relationship with the living God!

4) As God transforms you, other people will notice, and be ministered to.

Just to say something quickly about 2 and 3, I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine, and we were talking about friends we have that are at such low points. And we agreed that so much of the hurt would be healed, so much of the gap can be filled, if they would just sell out to Jesus!!! God is so real and so loving, and so interactive, and words cannot adequately describe just how powerful He is. We longed for a way to articulate to our friends that they aren't joining a "religion" when you authentically do life with Jesus... that adopting a new set of "rules" for life does not remotely describe being born again as a child of God. If you seek Him, He will deliver you, fill you with joy, and transform you AND others!

I have experienced it time after time, and that's why I cling to this verse everywhere I go, for over nine years. I'll have it with me for eternity... literally.

Roly Poly

2009-09-10T21:28:00.008-05:00

I believe God created the world, and everything has a purpose. That said, I don't think we'll be able to pinpoint what the purpose is for everything (or everyone, but that's a topic for another post...).

I sometimes look at something and wonder why it made it through the creative process. I'm not going to get into an evolution debate on this blog, but man, oh, man, you look at certain species and just know that evolution isn't true, because certain species would have been de-selected a long time ago.

Last week, I was a little taken aback when I saw the executive director of my agency outside on his hands and knees by the doors leading into the building. He was re-caulking the corners between the walls and the ground, and at the floor of the doors leading in.

The next morning, there are about a hundred of these little roly poly bugs stuck in the caulk.

I don't know what this says about me, but I couldn't help thinking, Why did God create these things? And why aren't they extinct by now? They obviously aren't too bright.

God, in His creative power, spends time helping these little things reproduce. Just to go jump into the caulk!!! I think of all the things God could have used some creative power on instead of these dunces.

He could have added a little thickness to each hair follicle on the top of my head. That comes to mind.

He could have re-routed a little bit better reception for my cell phone into my office at work, so that I'm not paying roaming charges whenever I get a call there.

Anyway, I can't help but wonder what the difference is between the roly poly that walks up to the caulk and says, "Gee, I wonder why fifty of my buddies aren't moving in that goop" and decides to jump in, verses the roly poly that says, "Gee, I wonder why fifty of my buddies aren't moving in that goop..." and then says, "I'll pass."

Judging by the numbers of bugs in the caulk, "I'll pass" doesn't translate well in Roly Polish, or whatever they speak.

So what are they for? What's the point? They're not smart. They don't serve well as pets. They don't serve some essential role in the food chain, like consuming swine flu before it transmits to humans, at least not to my knowledge. If they do, then we ought to stomp the heck out of all of them, or caulk entire villages if caulk works so well on them, because they're doing a lousy job.

I can't really conjure up a feeling of pity for something like these little bugs. You're not going to hear me approach that door/bug grave and lament, "Aw, poor roly polies!" They're not "sympathetic characters", so to speak, they're not cute (by ANY definition... and I know people that will call overweight bulldogs cute... makes me rethink the definition of "cute"... but no matter how you define "cute", it doesn't apply to a roly poly, period).

I think the concept of "cute" will be an upcoming blog post... all I need is for one more girl that I wish liked me (but just thinks of me as a swell guy at church that gives good driving directions around the north side of Chicago) to call me cute, and then images of Winston my little brother's fat bulldog with an extreme underbite to come to mind, and then I think, I look like Winston?!?!?!

And a classic blog post follows...

DCL

2009-08-31T20:22:00.002-05:00

I recently discovered a popular blog called Stuff Christians Like...

http://stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com/

Yes, the guy spelled it wrong in the domain name. It's pretty popular, with quite a few comments each post and far more readers than the average 3.1 that I have. Anyway, here's why I plug that blog:

Sometimes, all it takes is a fresh look at an old issue.

The gospel message hasn't changed, the mission hasn't changed, and the Bible hasn't changed, over the years. But we can update the delivery, we can explain and demonstrate the message in creative ways, and we can use new and clever analogies to get the point across.

Last Wednesday, the author posted on something called a DCL... a "Doesn't Count List". The DCL is basically a list of things a Christian may have that may not be God's will for our lives, but are insignificant enough that we trick ourselves into believing that they don't matter. For example, speeding. It's breaking the law, but everyone does it and (usually) gets away with it. You can convince yourself that it is so prevalent that it is no longer practical to obey the speed limit because you'll get rammed from behind.

It's a fresh look at the struggle we have with those "little" sins that we hope God misses when God blinks. We figure that God has priorities so much bigger than the things on our DCL.

But it's funny how our DCL... ah, I've really got to challenge myself and make this personal... MY DCL, updates over time. Certain song styles I listen to... what I watch on a movie screen... certain things I say just as long as I don't cuss out one of George Carlin's forbidden words... you get the picture.

But it is good analogy that clarifies how we might cut corners, spiritually speaking, to give slight gratification to our sinful natures. And the more you cut, the quicker things spiral out of control. What starts as an innocent flirt with someone I have no business dating or even associating with, can lead to all kinds of disaster, if you keep a dynamic DCL ready with pen always in hand.

There's all kinds of funny, Seinfeld-ian anecdotes that can fall under this topic. And we can laugh about them. But there's a serious side to this topic as well, regarding not only how our sin nature works, but also regarding the message of the gospel, and the author's post bring it out very well at the end.

We all like to make lists, and deal with the concrete. Paul had to address the Jews in several of his letters to convince them to lose the Law mentality and live under grace. We have to lose the lists. If following a "good" list saved us from the penalty of our sins, then God never would have had to send his Son to die a brutal death.

Sin is sin, it all separates us from God in some way, and God sacrificed His Son to close that gap. The cross means that He wants us closer to Him, so He is not going to miss anything that's on our DCL.

Great post, John. Thanks for lighting the match that will hopefully burn my list.

Crossroads

2009-08-28T21:36:00.003-05:00

I speak to my average audience of 2.7 readers...

By the way, I looked back over a few posts, and I realize I'm constantly adjusting that decimal slightly. I don't know why, I'm not doing any complicated statistical analysis. I'd rather that figure at least break double digits, or heaven forbid, my age. Right now, it resembles the pH of Juicy Juice. But now, it's "serious time"...

I need your prayers.

I've come to a crossroads, where I realized yesterday that I am quickly coming to the end of a present road I am on. I've known for a while that I can't go much higher on the current ladder and maintain my sanity. I need to interact with the people I serve, not meet about said people.

While that may sound sarcastic... yeah, it's layered with sarcasm, I admit... it's true of me. I'm wired to interact individually and directly with people. I must find a calling that doesn't remove me from the people I serve, but deepens my interaction with them, and increases my proficiency at serving and helping them. That, most likely, involves returning to school and furthering my education.

I have so much to think and pray about, and to discern, and to commit to. Whether it take twelve months or four months, I have to ready myself to say goodbye to my current projects. It will be excruciatingly difficult because of how much I love the people I see. This project started in the doldrums, and now it shatters every conception of what a program of its kind can achieve. Although it is still small in numbers of people, it is huge in lives, and I've realized that I live to accomplish exactly that.

Who knows? I may operate a huge corporation, pastor a huge church, write a huge book... or a really huge blog. But this type of size won't mean a thing. Whatever I do, it must make an impact in real, practical, deep, systematic, and profound ways within the lives of real and struggling people.

So I have to find a route that leads me onto that journey. There are a few too many routes for my comfort at this point, and none of the local options are lining up nicely in my earthly mind.

It's weird, in a way. I've watched three or four individuals recently move on and go to some kind of graduate school. For the past seven years, I haven't cared because it wasn't my time, but for the past month, I've been kind of jealous that they made a stinkin' decision. Four days ago, I went to Dominick's to buy a spiral notebook for something at work, and I couldn't believe the feelings that a little, college-ruled notebook could elicit.

I was so burned out academically after my undergrad work. I just wanted to hit the real world, make some money, and live comfortably. I did over seven years. I always said the same thing: "I'll think about grad school when the killer instinct to be in the classroom returns."

Well, it's returned. And it scares the bejeebies out of me, because during college, I transitioned from an concrete, memory-based test-taker to an abstract, free-thinking, creative writer. I hate taking tests now, and I'd so much rather write papers. I used to think scientifically, now I'm more metaphysical, analytical, abstract, creative, and spiritual. It's interesting how the few strengths I had before Jesus showed up in my life aren't so strong anymore (they actually weren't that strong my senior year, either), and these other skills came around without ever seeking them. Now I have to cultivate them and channel them into something.

The thought of going back into debt bothers me. The thought of giving up a comfortable paycheck, place to live, and being able to buy whatever I wanted whenever, for about 2 years, stinks. I need purpose to drive me... once I get rolling toward a particular end, I'm like El Nino on steroids. But I've got to get rolling in a particular direction.

Thus, I need your prayers. I have the very scary feeling that I am called to full-time ministry, which I'll never feel like I'm cut out for. Apparently, everyone else, including people who don't follow Jesus as I do, think I am. So I'm looking mostly at seminaries and Christian grad schools, mostly in the Chicago area, but I'm closing no doors just yet. Boy, if someone had suggested all of this to me ten years ago...

Six months ago, I entered a spiritual season, basically, of restoration. I have been pretty wide open on this blog about it. I continue to struggle with some of the deepest, most enduring battles, but I think I'm close to victory. I have shed so many tears, I had no idea my soul got so deep. I had no idea there were personal demons to slay so far down there. And, as I near victory, I never would have guessed that, along the way, a call like this would emerge from my soul searching.

Pray that the Lord would illuminate a pathway for me. I only want to stay in step with God's Spirit, but sometimes I'm pretty thickheaded and I need tangible footsteps in the dirt to follow. Pray that the fears of all those temporary circumstances would dissipate. Pray that my insecurities and weaknesses would not hinder me, but motivate me to see God's power work in my life. Pray that I would be emboldened to take the biggest personal risk of my lifetime. And most of all, pray that I would be remain humble and submitted to the will of God. Pray for me, you'll have my gratitude for life.

Deadlifts

2009-08-28T20:23:00.003-05:00

My love affair with the weight room has compelled me to try interesting things. Quick update on my primary focus now... after several years of what I call "heavy addiction", that is, lifting heavier weight with lower reps and daily eating my body weight in chicken, I am endeavoring to lean out a bit. I have no doubt I can do it, but it involves checking myself into Heavy-holics Anonymous, heretofore known as H.A.

Clever, eh?

It was getting kind of silly. My weightlifting routines were getting up to two hours a pop, and that was before I did any cardio. After two hours, I'm usually skipping the cardio. Heck, I'm skipping the postworkout shower. I would rest about four minutes in between reps and do 12-18 sets per muscle group, and train two muscle groups per session.

Now, I go to HA, and pair chest with biceps, back with triceps, shoulders and traps with core, and legs with lower back... four sessions a week. I'm usually doing a "superset" format where I'll have a chest and biceps exercise, for example, paired up and I go back and forth with hardly any rest. While my chest is resting, I'm lifting the other muscle group. I'm sweating like crazy after the first couple exercises. I'm still lifting heavy by most standards, but less than usual. And grabbing for a lighter weight, even when I'm gassed, is a blow to my musclehead ego. Once I finish the pair, I'll do some abs or core work, or drink a pool-load of water, and then move onto the next superset pair. I'm finishing my lifts in about an hour and fifteen minutes, then onto the dreaded CARDIO!! Oh, the treadmill, the bane of my existence at HA...

Okay, that's me now. But my latest masochistic obsession is called the deadlift. Just think about the two words that make up this exercise's name...

Dead.

Lift.

Sounds like a party, right? No. Most people rightly would rather try to sneak a chocolate pie past a hungry grizzly and an even hungrier Rush Limbaugh.

Basically, you load a bunch of plates onto a barbell on the floor, straighten your legs and back, grab the bar, and try to stand up straight. It hurts like you wouldn't believe once you get the right resistance. My lower back and my hamstrings are wasted for days.

This actually causes a predicament for me. I have to put deadlifts at the end of my leg/lower back workout because if I put them earlier, I can barely move to do anything else. But I'm exhausted by the end of my leg workout already, so I don't have much left in the tank for "deads".

I was lifting the other day, and someone walked by me and said I must be superhuman. As flattering as that sounds, I know the truth: that new students to the school of deadlifting are stupid-human.

Here's why. If the goal of such concentrated weightlifting is to make a particular muscle look good, then why in the world would I do these deadlifts? Nobody wants to look and any guy's lower back, and if anyone is actually staring at my hamstrings, they are getting perilously close to what I call the "forbidden city".

And yet, I can't get over how effective the exercise itself is. It took me years of training my lower back separately before I tried deads, because I've had lower back problems in the past. But whoa!

If doing yoga is like a graceful, fluttering dragonfly to those muscles, then deadlifts are like the monster from freakin' Cloverfield.

I don't know where in the world those analogies come from. Maybe they come from HA.

Identity

2009-08-15T08:45:00.003-05:00

A few years ago, there was a game show on TV called "Identity", or something like that. It involved the bigger, talking guy from Penn and Teller, and there was a big crowd of people and one person in the spotlight, and someone from the crowd's identity was eventually revealed. I never watched it, and it didn't last much more than a summer. But people watched it, and it had an interesting concept. But the tagline of the show, which the host would ask before each bit moment during the game, was "What is your... identity?"

What is your identity? It's such a loaded question because everyone knows what the word "identity" means. But its hard to define. It's infinitely more difficult to apply. I remember listening to a sermon years ago by Joe Stowell, and he spoke about this issue. He said that far too many people treat their identities as something they are doing, or associated with. For example, a doctor may say that his or her identity is as a doctor. So your identity may be your job. A college student may say that his or her identity is as a college student, or as being a part of a greek house or other association.

What happens when your job, or school status, or association, changes?

I just blogged about Michael Vick... what was his identity while he was out of football? Surely, he used to identify himself as "Michael Vick, NFL quarterback." When that was taken from him... he identified himself as, what? "Michael Vick, former NFL quarterback"? I think we can agree that it is sad to see someone phrase his or her identity as a "former" anything. It implies he or she never moved on, and in my opinion, never had a stable identity to begin with.

If you look up "identity" in the dictionary, you may see eight or nine definitions, all saying something like, "the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another". Kind of vague, huh? Basically, you being you. It being it. Me being me, or I being me, or I being I, oh who cares...

The very word identity doesn't have much of an identity itself! I requires elaboration from a much deeper source... you being you... but who are you? You have to get pretty deep to answer that question.

And that provides a huge challenge for people and usually causes an identity crisis for people. How many people treat their jobs as their identities, or their hobbies, or their status as married, single, Republican/Democrat, or take up an issue, like feminism or gay rights, or their skin color? I know people who most definitely would say their identity is "gay woman", "independent voter", "black man", "mother of two", "goth", "guitar player", "Lexus owner", "412 friends on Facebook!!", "vegan", "executive", or "Senator". What happens when these things change? Or if, as in the case of skin color, the depth of that identity is only, as one may say, "skin deep"?

I have a friend that certainly hasn't figured this issue out. Her self worth and identity is so tied up to what guy she's with... and this may change frequently! Her job pays well, has a nice place, drives a nice car, but the job is somewhat mundane, and the nightlife and guys provide the spark. She lives relationship to relationship, weekend to weekend, boring in between, drama when something is interrupted. It really is tough when your identity is tied up in other people, especially people who don't know you well. I still think it is not even sufficient to have your very identity tied to someone you are married to... unfortunately, that even changes 50% of the time, nowadays.

When the source of the identity crashes, the crisis begins. If you lose your job, your daily associations with those people fall, the success you had crumbles, your self-validation in doing something meaningful and being connected to something big on a daily basis, is gone in a flash.

I tend to think that categories can be pretty rigid, and most categories fail as sufficient identities. Family? Well, some people have strong families and identify themselves as "Smith" or "Jones". But other families are not so strong. And, like it or not, families will fail us sometimes, even strong ones. So is a family name sufficient? I don't think so.

Political issues? "I am a green friendly vegetarian!" Those are perfectly fine causes to take up, but should a socio-political cause become one's identity? I mention this example because we've all met very passionate people, who unfortunately get very worked up if you eat a chicken sandwich. It's as if you are doing wrong to them!! You are, if his or her very identity is as a green-friendly, animal-rights activist, vegetarian.

And folks who's identities are about how they look? Oh my goodness! They swing from vane to depressed to flattered to insulted to overinterpreted what someone said to freaked out that someone wore the same dress at the party, all in one night.

I could go on and on... but can I submit my opinion for what is the best, deepest, most stable, steadfast identity one could have?

Adopted child of God.

Not every Christ follower I know has truly let this sink in and become their identity, but for those who have, I see an unprecedented peace, and perfect balance between biblical humbleness and personal security. In Romans 11, Paul walks the Romans through a picture of Gentiles coming to faith in Jesus Christ as being wild olive branches grafted onto a nascent olive shoot by God himself, lovingly cultivated and welcomed in as part of the tree and sharing in the same nourishing sap as natural branches.

In Romans 8:15-16, Pauls tell us that we "received the Spirit of sonship. And by Him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." All through the New Testament, I see this duality of "we know God and are known by God," we chose God but God chose us, we loved God but God loved us first, we received Him but He adopted us... and I'm not talking in context of Calvinism or Arminianism here. This is simply the profound mystery of how God always desired us, and with great rejoice adopted us when we received His love.

It is a powerful thing to be the son or daughter of someone. But it is another thing, even more amazing, when adoption as a son or daughter occurs. The adopted one was wanted, desired, loved, cherished, long before that one really even knew the adoptor. It is a deep, profound, supernatural thing that I know will last forever, and creates the perfect, steadfast foundation for an identity as an adopted child of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

It gives me confidence in a way, but it is also profoundly humbling. Through this lens, we view the world, and see every issue we face, every victory and every trial, every twist of events, every friendship or relationship, in the context of the glory of Jesus Christ.

If you ask me what my very identity is... I am an adopted child of God.

Weighing in on Vick...

2009-08-15T07:46:00.002-05:00

So Michael Vick signed with an NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. Or, more likely, the team signed him... he would have taken anyone, but there were few that would have given him anything. And the debate, the outrage, the opinions, return. Dogfighting, remorse, suspension, football, etc.

I have never really been able to put it all together to come up with one concise viewpoint. As a Christian man, I will never condone such callus brutality toward anything, but I'm not equating dogs with people, either. I struggle with good points on both sides, some leading to, "Give him a second chance," and others leading to, "Lock him back up." So I'm just going to spew ideas in this post, and maybe I (or one of my 1.5 regular readers) will be guided in one direction or another.

I can stand definitively on one point: the NFL, particularly its commissioner, can do whatever it wants. Playing in the NFL is a high-paying job, a privilege, and it is a business. If you are bad for business, it has no obligation to you. If Commissioner Goodell wanted to suspend Vick longer, by all means, I'm behind him. If no team wanted to sign Vick, regardless of the reasoning, by all means, there's no conspiracy or blackballing. When you take a job, you must protect your job, and you must be good for business, even outside of the workplace.
As for the dogfighting issue, I happen to love dogs. I grew up with a dog. Growing up in a typical, white suburban family, short on newsworthy drama, the dog provided a daily spark. But a dog is not a human. I believe there is clear separation in creation between humans and people. Here's where I start to offend people: animal rights activists that go insane at a story like Vick's, but don't blink when a young child is gunned down in the city... that drives me nuts. How many times did we see, as people described Mike Vick's involvement in dogfighting, as inhumane. Did we notice that the word HUMAN is right in the middle of that word?!?! That doesn't make sense to me. We watch humans do this MMA fighting, boxing, Fight Club-style stuff, and that's entertainment, but dogfighting produces. I HATE DOGFIGHTING, don't get me wrong, but isn't there something warped about that? I'm not in favor of equating dogs with people, or any other animals, for that matter. My apartment has a bug infestation right now, and I'm setting off bombs to kill them all. Am I a homicidal maniac? What animals get our love, and which others don't?
The other side of the dogfighting issue... I think that psychology will prove that people who treat animals in such a cruel fashion tend to be heartless, cruel people. I don't think you'll find too many dogfighters getting lost and overwhelmed in worship on Sunday morning at church. Mindless, heartless cruelty is always wrong. It's funny how so many of the most notorious, sick mass murderers tortured animals when they were young, before they started killing people. I don't know exactly what all of this means, but I think there is justification to be suspicious of someone's moral compass if they dogfight.
The bottom line on dogfighting... it is against the law. Period. If people in Virginia, or Georgia, or wherever else Vick is in trouble for dogfighting at, have a problem with his punishment, take it up with legislators. He broke the law, I don't care what supporters say, he knew it was against the law and never said he was surprised it was against the law. He deserved his punishment.
Vick himself... it is convenient that he speaks out now against dogfighting, because obviously he is trying to repair his image in the public. It's hard also because he's not a cuddly personality with an electric smile... he's pretty inward and emotionless publicly. So people tend to think he doesn't care and he's just going through the motions to get a job back. This may be the case. Even if he had a Magic Johnson smile and Tom Brady charisma to host Saturday Night Live, I wouldn't let him dog-sit Fido. Can we trust that the change, and his remorse, is legit? Is he really sorry or just sorry he got caught? As I'm learning, repentance, remorse, and seeking forgiveness is a life-long growth process... it involves digging deeper and deeper into those scary depths of the human soul, and it's not easy. I don't visibly see him doing that digging, and he doesn't express it outwardly, at least the way I do. So I'm skeptical, but I'm not sure.
It is a black/white thing? I don't know! Michael Vick is a black man who was never known for his friendly personality or electric public persona. Most of the paying public who spend money on NFL games is white. We like Peyton Manning, who does Mastercard commercials, and Brian Urlacher, who does Old Spice commercials. Urlacher, by the way, is no saint, and does not have the most cuddly personality. But he was marketable in a big Chicago market, and thrust into commericials in spite of, not because of, his comfort in the spotlight. Manning, Urlacher, Tom Brady, white. Would the public be more willing to give Vick another chance if he were white? Sadly, I'm just not sure of the answer at this point.
It is a very good sign that Vick has Tony Dungy, on his sign. Dungy, the former coach of the Colts, is a man in truest, biblical, honorable sense. He is humble, he is a leader, he is insightful and honest, and he worships Jesus with every fiber of his being. He handles trials and adversity, both as a coach and in life (his son died several years ago), God's way. There is no doubt in my mind that Vick has at least one godly influence telling him of his need for the Lord, above all else. I don't know if that message has truly sunk in, but I trust the messenger and the message.

Use only as directed...

2009-07-16T20:07:00.002-05:00

For several weeks now, I've casually followed several big news stories involving celebrities. The Michael Jackson story would make my point in this post just fine, but by now, I'm sure my vast average readership of 1.6 (don't ask how I arrived at that calculation) is sick of Jacko. The death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair also makes my point, and actually shook me a bit about how quickly one can get sucked into something ungodly and destructive.

For those not totally up on the story, McNair, 36, was a star QB, retired for one season, millionaire, married with four children, living in Tennessee, where he spent the majority of his career. He was beloved as a tough guy playing through excruciating pain, and a man who gave much back to his community through charitable causes. He was found dead on the 4th of July, shot to death by his 20 year old girlfriend, who then turned the gun on herself. There's more details, but they're all over the internet. You can read them for yourself.

I would be as tempted as anyone to watch this train wreck and be critical and shake your head at the man for being so scandelously involved with a clearly unstable young (!) woman. And, maybe I have, as so many have. But I had this phrase ringing in my head after I heard the story: "Follow the prescription."

As a man who pursues the heart of God, I have been given a prescription with regards to how to live my life. When a doctor give you medicine of some kind, there are warnings and parameters. If you don't follow the prescription, the original problem can escalate or the drug itself can become a problem itself.

It is as if God says, "Here is salvation through Jesus Christ. This is the cure for the chasm of sin between you and me. Read the label and follow it, because things can get out of hand very quickly." The biblical "label" involves boundaries. It involves sacrifice. It involves a plan for every walk of life.

The gift of life is not a license to feed every beast within us. What bothers me most about McNair's story is that he had this girlfriend for many months, but he has a wife and four kids (one of them only three years younger than his girlfriend). He lavished this little girl a celebrity lifestyle, and she went crazy when he wouldn't get a divorce. There is NO WAY he held the line as a father while he was with this girl. Not a chance.

His funeral was held at a Baptist church in Nashville, I believe. The bishop for the funeral gave the "Don't cast the first stone" line. Fine, I get it. Don't judge. But if we are to remember the man, what are we supposed to honor? That he was an upstanding man of integrity, a great father? I refuse! He couldn't tame his passions for the sake of his children and marriage... that is not a man.

I've had a hard time recently with this concept of biblical manhood. It is so drastically different from society's take on what a man is. I'm a 29-year-old single guy. I have a decent job, I'm healthy, I work out, I have a social life, and generally regarded as a good guy to be around. When "society" looks at me for the first time, it presumes certain things about the lifestyle I lead. I'm supposed to make great money, drive a hot car, dress expensive, drink like mad at the coolest bars, bed a bunch of women, and live life from thrill to thrill, weekend to weekend. Eventually, I should "settle down" and get married.

And this is how I know the devil is in this "system". I have popped eyebrows up to the ceiling when I explain the lifestyle I live, and the boundaries I try to stay within, by God's grace. I'm the weird one when I live by biblical rules. I make every attempt to live life like a gentleman, respectful, sober, modest, humble, responsible, and consistent. I believe these are some of the marks of a true, masculine, biblical man. Society says I'm missing out on so many "experiences". And yet if I get married, I should act... as I am right now. In a twisted way, this may be how the Bible and society agree.

And yet this world somehow expects a guy to do a complete about-face when he gets married. That which was so seductive and desirable when he was single, is completely scorned when he is married. Steve McNair lived like a single rich guy, basically! I'm not excusing his actions, but he was just following society's "single guy" playbook. Society really has high expectations for human nature if it thinks a guy can just change his nature... the Bible may liken this to a leopard changing its spots.

"But Joe! Your life should change when you get married! A guy should be able to follow his commitment!" I agree. But my beef is with the pressures the world puts on a single guy; to expect the "guy's guy" to become a new creation through marriage is not in the prescription (You can fill in your own biblical parallel there). Just look at the rate of divorce to prove my point. We were not designed to try out different life prescriptions. The world has one set of expectations for adolescents, another for singleness in adulthood, then another in marriage.

What does this say about marriage, by the way? A man can live it up and basically act like an animal, and it's okay... but once he gets married, all of that "fun" must end? Marriage is just a prison sentence for the previous societal expectations he was free to and supposed to follow? That paints a very confining picture of marriage, whereas the Bible describes a very liberating experience, yes with certain boundaries still, but one of exceeding joy, unity, love, and growth in God's presence.

When you really think about it, living outside of biblical principles leaves a guy with a really rotten set of rule changes. I've found that following the biblical "prescription" for life minimizes the amount of damage you do to yourself. There still may be trials and trouble, but at least there aren't any stupid decisions causing me or anyone else any harm, when I use only as directed. God, help us all to conform our hearts to Yours, to live as You have lovingly directed, in the security of Your will.

Robert Rocks!!!

2009-07-04T14:15:00.002-05:00

Normally, I like my sleep. But when I found out that Robert Randolph and the Family Band was playing at Summerfest up in Milwaukee, I started doing mental cartwheels. The problem was, he had the last slot at a rock stage on Monday night... and I work the next morning. And I start work at 8am at the latest. So I had a personal dilemma pitting personal well-being against musical pleasure. Guess which won...

Robert put on a sensational show, as always. His music has an almost universal appeal, because there are elements of rock, blues, funk, soul, gospel, all wrapped up in a jam band that plays every song like it's their last. For a guitar nut like myself, this is pure heaven. The only problem some may have with them is that their jams can get a little long, with the various band members (usually Robert himself) soloing until their fingers bleed. Heck, I've done that myself, so it doesn't bother me.

They play a lot of originals, but smatter a few interesting covers into every set. Usually they'll touch a Jimi Hendrix song, parts of a Zeppelin tune, maybe a gospel number, and a Michael Jackson instrumental. On this particular night, they paid tribute to Michael Jackson by covering four of his songs: Wanna Be Startin' Something, Billie Jean, Man in the Mirror, and Rock With You. Normally, I don't care much for Jackson's songs, but when Robert's doing instrumental versions, and the whole crowd is going nuts, even I'm jumping around all over the place.

I would highly recommend a Robert Randolph show. I left myself with four hours of sleep that night and was "zombified" all day the next day at work. Zombified, by the way, is my made of word for having actively chosen to do something stupid that left you sleep deprived later, and consequently acting like a zombie.

I would also happily declare Summerfest in Milwaukee as the best musical festival on the planet. It is laid out very well, accessible, chock-full of big name musicians that span multiple genres, and has a pleasant atmosphere. It may be the only good thing ever contributed by Wisconsin. I hadn't been up to Summerfest in over a decade, and I'm pretty much committing to go at least once each summer from now on.

Just what are we honoring?

2009-06-26T20:42:00.003-05:00

There's a verse in Matthew 13:57 that talks about how Jesus went into the synagogue, had some choice words for the teachers there, and "they took offense at him".

I'm going to be like Jesus for a moment.

Let me state first that I totally understand how many people can be sorrowful when a celebrity dies. Michael Jackson dominated the music scene for many years. Music has a way of taking you back to who you were when the music first reached you... you remember fondly (or not so fondly) who you were, where you were, who you were with, everything. Michael Jackson's music does that for millions upon millions of people.

So I get it when we want to remember him in his death.

However, I have a serious problem with some churches in the Chicago area, ones that claim to worship the risen Savior Jesus Christ, having a memorial service to honor Michael Jackson.

WHO DID WE BUILD THE HOUSE OF GOD FOR?!?! WHO ARE WE HONORING??!! I totally understand having a memorial for a man or woman of God who pointed all of the glory to Jesus Christ, and there's nothing wrong with a service or funeral to remember the deceased. But it is done, in every Christian denomination worth following, in the context of what's to come, in the light of God's grace and truth.

I don't presume to know Michael Jackson's private theology, so I won't say that he never honored God. I can't know that. But in his public life... his music, his interviews, his lyrics, his work... he did not direct the glory to Jesus Christ. The whole point of this a memorial is to reminisce and put on display what he did and stood for in his public life. He made popular music. So what are we remembering in these memorial services at Christ-honoring churches? The goosebumps we got when we first heard "Thriller"?

His music was good, but it was worldly. Worldly messages are at odds with Jesus' message, and these churches want to bring those worldly messages into the sanctuary to "remember" them? And, please, I'm not even getting into the fact that Michael Jackson was almost assuredly a pedophile.

So many who claim the name of Christ as their savior have loosened their morals and infused their souls with the world's "stuff" and the world's belief system, all to the detriment of their worship, and it is in part due to the influence of pop culture. I don't care if someone wants to light a candle for Michael Jackson on the street, or blast his music on the radio, but the "King of Pop" should not be held in high regard in a church that claims to place Christ on the throne!!!

I'm sorry, but sentiment for secular stuff has no place in the Church of Jesus Christ. Call me strict, fundamentalist, or old school , but I want God's house to be a place where Jesus is held in the highest regard, revered, and honored, to the point where his glory has no equal. Anyone honored in church should be honored because he or she honored God with his or her life. THAT'S IT!! I would be equally ticked off if churches had played psychedelic montages of Jimi Hendrix footage when Hendrix died... I'll go insane if my church plays "Sunday Bloody Sunday" when Bono from U2 dies (yes, I know a bazillion Christians love U2... not today, Joe, not today...).

I'm passionately angry about this because it was Jesus who gave me a new lease on life just over nine years ago. No one else did. Budda did not, Allah did not, Krishna did not. No famous person did, either. Not Michael Jackson, not the Beatles, not Barack Obama, not Oprah, not Michael Jordan, not Bill Gates, not mommy or daddy or my favorite high school teacher or my first girlfriend or Shamu the killer whale or my prized guitar or Twitter. Jesus did, and the church was built solely to bring glory to that Man, Jesus Christ. In God's house, we should not be throwing a lovefest to celebrate someone who seemingly never figured the Jesus thing out.

No, it's not a good day when someone like Michael Jackson dies. I agree. But there is no reason to for a church to set aside Jesus for any length of time to "remember" a man who exclusively wrote worldly music, hung out with Bubbles the chimp, and abused young boys later in life.

I'm not going to make some goofy declaration that the church at large should stay silent about Michael Jackson't death this weekend. I want the action and the call to be active... to every church out there, I commission you: HONOR, WORSHIP, AND ADORE JESUS, ONLY JESUS THIS WEEKEND!!

Story

2009-06-14T21:29:00.002-05:00

People love a good story. Whether you hear it, read it, see it on the big screen or on TV, most people are suckers for a story with unexpected twists and dramatic resolutions. An effective story can move a person in made different directions, and the lessons learned from that story can stick with its audience for a lifetime.

Good stories connect with listeners because good stories walk a very fine balance. On one hand, a listener should be able to relate to the story's elements, the characters, the conflicts, and the settings. On the other hand, the story will also have a sense of drama, a sensational swoop of emotions or events, that causes the listener to imagine, even fantasize, about what it would be like to be in the story character's shoes. So in that sense, there should be a bit of separation between the audience's experience and the experience of the story's characters. It's a very delicate balance; not ever story does it, but stories that only do one or the other may still be "box office hits" or bestsellers.

So there's a side to every audience member that occasionally just wants to go see a big action flick that is entirely sensationalized, and not very realistic. Completely "other than" what I may go through. And sometimes, people like a slower story that almost completely mirror's their own experiences. Something "just like" I would go through.

Movies, TV shows, books of fiction, autobiographies, songs, art, can all tell a story to connect with an audience. But the stories that move people to tears, or to action, or to rejoice, strike that balance between "other than" and "just like".

The people of God that call Jesus the Savior get to tell that type of story. And I count it a tremendous privilege.

Every story that includes Jesus in it's big "plot twist" strikes that balance. The main character, just an ordinary person struggling through life like anyone else, meets Jesus and gets seated in the wildest and most glorious roller coaster life can offer. And the story doesn't end there... it keeps going, with more challenges, and Jesus keeps showing up.

Revelation 12:11 makes an interesting statement, "They overcame... by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony." I personally believe that this could be broadly interpreted to include the personal testimony of God's grace in the lives of Christ followers today. And if this is true, then it's got a whole lot of power to defeat whatever attacks us and those around us.

And I'm not going to pretend that telling the story is easy, either.

There's a hard rock band that I used to listen to... nothing godly about them, but talented and complex musicians with an interesting lead vocalist and songwriter. Their songs and CDs tend to long, with very cryptic or poetic lyrics, but they certainly tell a very personal story. The band is notorious for putting out new records 5-6 years apart, rather than a more conventional 2-3 years. It frustrates record companies and fans, but they do it their way. They'll put out a CD, tour for several years almost nonstop, take a few years off, some do side projects, and eventually emerge to write new material.

A while back, I read an interview a magazine did with the lead vocalist. The interviewer couldn't help but ask why the band takes so long to make a new CD. The vocalist said something that I could relate to and will never forget. He basically responded that, every night, he belts out these hard rocking songs and I can best describe as violently intense... if the song is about your experiences. After several years of touring, he especially needs a break. Every night, singing these intensely personal songs tears open a scab over a wound that's been trying to heal for years.

I won't go so far as to say that telling a personal story is that graphic. If anything, I've found healing for many of those wounds. But I can say that the wounds left a bit of a mark, and I show off those marks every time I tell my story. In many of our cases as followers of Christ, we've overcome... the demons that haunted us have been slain. But the dead bodies of those demons still lay strewn about the old battlefield. And every testimony involves going back to that battlefield, and remembering how you or I felt during that battle. It can be a great story... but it still may take a lot out of the storyteller.

And therein lies that special element of a good story. The storyteller takes a chance, and in many cases, makes a personal sacrifice, to share the story. An audience appreciates that deep down, and hopefully takes home a life lesson that remains with them forever.

As God has taken me through an intense season of growth over the past four months, I've shared many of my stories that the Lord has given me. Friends, coworkers, acquaintances, have connected with me and, as circumstances would have it, the situation called for a story.

I'll have to work on it for a while, and figure out how to whittle a very long story into one (or a few) blogs, but soon I'll be telling cyberspace my story. I think it's almost time for whoever stumbles upon my blog to see in contrast who I was, and who I am, and the story in between the two.

Shopping

2009-06-11T22:13:00.002-05:00

Certain characteristics about women have bugged me for years. You see, I'm the type of guy that likes to be able to figure out how something works. I like to understand the "why". I can't just accept an explanation of "it just is". So when I try to figure out certain things, even character traits of people, I like to analyze until it becomes predictable, and then to work with it until it becomes functional and reasonable.

I think you see where this is going...

I can't understand why shopping has such a hypnotic effect on women. I'll be out with some lady friends, and if I make the unwise decision to follow them into a department store, I'll have vertigo within ten minutes. They have to try everything on, or at least hold the outfit up to their bodies and visualize how they would look in them. They'll even do a quick little dance with the outfit held up to them, just to see if the outfit comes "pre-danced".

I can almost relate to this phenomenon, when I walk into a nice, big guitar store. I like to try out instruments, accessories, amplifiers, etc. But that is similar to test-driving a car, or borrowing a toy. I like to play with it to entertain myself... you can't "play" with a blouse. Well, it may look like it if my friend holds up a blouse over her shirt and starts to dance like she's wearing the blouse.

Then, in the blink of an eye, we're on the other side of the store, inspecting new purses. Women will hold the purse, look at the purse, run their hands over the purse, sling the purse over their shoulders, talk about the purse, smell the purse (I'm not kidding)... then text message their friends about the purse.

I can't help but wonder if, when they are shopping, they are considering whether or not this item will bring them true happiness. Could it be that ladies like to imagine if they will feel more glamorous if they actually buy all this stuff? In some of their cases, I think they want to appear to be wealthier, when buying that item will just make them poorer.

I think what freaks me out is that, at the most extreme, hypnotic shopping can turn into an attitude that says, "it's not good enough" towards what they already have. Maybe it's just prepared laziness on my part, but I'll usually think, "it's too much to manage" when I go into a store. But this is from a guy who used to have his hair down to his shoulders in college, and I cut my hair because I was going through shampoo too quickly for my liking.

I'd like to say that I have a godly principal about how damaging the "I gotta have it" mentality can be, but really, I'm just a confused dude. It's just amazing how even the cool girls can turn into a nuclear-powered pinball in a department store. I'll always laugh when I think back a few months ago to when I was at a mall with a couple of female friends, and after buzzing through an annoying store called Forever 21, my friend asked me, "Do you like to shop?"

She couldn't really understand my response, because I was dragging my tongue along the floor and panting heavily. There's not enough Red Bull in Chicago to boost me to her intensity level in a store like that.

So I don't know that I'll ever figure out how a store can morph a women the way it does. If Clark Kent goes into a phone booth to become Superman, a girl will go into a store to turn into mutant-warp-speed-Tazmanian Devil-crazy creature. It's amazingly frustrating and mystifying.

And, yes, I'm still not married.

One

2009-05-28T21:48:00.003-05:00

You may think, based on the title of this post, that this article may be some profound article about... oh, I don't know... unity or spirituality or some mumbo jumbo like that. Not tonight.

"One" is simply the number of remaining earth-dwellers that do not have a Facebook account.

I am one.

I am proud of my new status. It defines me well. It means I am an individual... a trailblazer... a leader and not a follower. I march to the beat of my own drummer.

A famous lyric may be, "One is the loneliest number that you ever knew..." I try not to think about it, but loneliness really could be defined by zero, as in, having zero Facebook friends. Which is true of me, since I don't have a Facebook.

I'm just not into signing up for more junk that I have to manage. With all of the ways we can interact with people nowadays, you can talk face-to-face, write a letter, phone call, email, IM, text message (did you realize I listed these as progressively more caveman-like in terms of conversational content?).

I don't need this... thing! I already have a big job to do, bills to pay, relationships to maintain, food to cook, health to maintain, sleep to enjoy... I have plenty on my agenda to manage. And, don't forget, I'm already busy regularly interacting with people that I actually wanted to stay in touch with over the years!

There's a reason why I lost touch with the coworker at my last job that always smelled like smoke.

There's a reason why I lost touch with the hyper-Catholic tamborine player sit-in from my first rock band I was in.

There's a reason why I lost touch with the guy down the hall in my freshman dormitory that preferred to name a certain body part of his "Rusty". (I certainly hope that neither he nor Rusty has a Facebook account).

There's a reason why I lost touch with the first-grade classmate that hadn't quite figured out how to use his fly when he was at the urinal.

I'm holding out on principle now. I won't do it just because all of the other six billion on the planet have one. I can't actually believe that Facebook will eventually become the normative way to keep in touch with friends separated by distance. However, if it does, I should be prepared for the demise of spoken language as we know it, because that would be next.

And don't get me started on Twitter. If Facebook could eventually lead to the demise of spoken language, an unbridled Twitter society could eventually lead to the end of all discernible human communication. All human interaction would just be reduced to animal-like grunts... typed out! At least if we grunt at each other in person, we can try to figure out meaning based on tone, cadence, facial expression, etc. Twitter is just text-messaged babble on a computer screen.

If this is the direction we as a society are going in, then the progressive dumbing-down of human communication will eventually lead to people that cannot interact, communicate, and relate. Everyone will be on his or her own. Everyone will be... ONE!

I'm just a trailblazer, ahead of my time.

There is no joy in Wrigley...

2009-05-10T20:19:00.002-05:00

Much has been made in Chicago of the fans at Wrigley Field booing more and more lately. We Cub fans have always been happy in spite of the futility. The losing wasn't such a bad thing for so long, because our expectations were so low, and we could just be happy! If they win, great! If they lost, oh well, we didn't expect much anyway... bartender, one more please?

Not so over the past six years. Once we got a taste of success in the playoffs, all of Chicago got hungry. Then Bartman... oh, never mind. Since then, the intensity has been ramped up, and early exits from talented Cub teams over the past two seasons have made fans frustrated. Suddenly, a win wasn't good enough. The 100-year mark came and went.

I will never forget game 1 of last year's playoff series with the Dodgers. The Cubs had the lead early, then Dempster gave up a home run to give the Dodgers the lead. And every Cub fan, everywhere, went quiet. It was as if Cubdom was saying in one collective sigh, "Here we go again." I had this sick, sick feeling that it was over right there, and it was. The Cubs never got a hold of any game from then on. All of the air was let out.

And something told me that the hangover would carry over into this season. Several injuries and poor execution from several key players have led to booing at an unpredented time of the season: April and May. Now, with Zambrano and Ramirez out for a few weeks, and Milton Bradley and Rich Harden always on injury watch, Cub fans are scared.

I've avoided writing about the Cubs this season for this very reason. I'm worried that the naive hope has been replaced with pessimism. It's not as if they aren't a talented team. It's not like they don't have great coaching and a general manager that will mortgage the house to get whatever pieces make sense before the trade deadline.

I just think the heaviness over Wrigley is just too heavy for any team to meet the expectations. It's different from the intensity and cutthroat competitiveness of, say, New York or Boston. It's also different from vicious "brotherly love" in Philadelphia, or expectations of entertainment in Los Angeles. I'm talking about the attitudes of the Cubbie Kingdom basically putting ankle weights on every player.

I may be going to several Cub games this year, and I'm going to try my best to not contribute to the problem. The best thing for this team is to have a return of the happy-go-lucky fans to encourage these guys just to go out and play and enjoy the game. Ho-hum. I'll try.

Searching for Eden

2009-05-03T20:06:00.002-05:00

I was reading a book the other day, and the author began to talk about something that I thought was very thought-provoking. He started mentioning Eden. In the earliest parts of Genesis, whenever someone did something wrong, they went east of Eden. In Genesis 3, for example, Adam and Eve were banished out of the garden, and they had to go east. If Eden represented paradise, heaven, the fullness of God's presence and will, they were always east of it.

And then, you don't read much about Eden throughout the rest of the Bible. Isn't it possible that Eden, or at least its garden, was visible to those looking west? Maybe sometime later in human history, isn't it possible someone accidentally "stumbled" into Eden? But if you talk about Eden now, your first thought is probably that it is a cautionary tale. You think about the snake. You think about the tree, or some apple, or Adam and Eve getting kicked out of it. This paradise doesn't evoke positive thoughts now.

The location of Eden isn't entirely clear. Most scholars will say that it is somewhere in present day Iraq or Iran. How's it looking now?

This concerns me because this means that, shortly after sin was introduced into the human race, not only were Adam and Eve banished from the Garden of Eden, eventually Eden ceased to exist on earth as God had intended it. Right now, someone in the middle east is riding through what used to me Eden, where God was "walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gn. 3:8). GOD HIMSELF WALKED THERE!!!! In a war-ravaged, famished desert of an area. It's conceivable that the USA, at some point, bombed Eden within the past twenty years!

Eden represents where we should be. Well, maybe where we should have been. It's not Eden anymore. What God intended for mankind, mankind shunned. I can't help but wonder about what Eden would be today, where I would be, and more practically, what Eden represents to me now. If I can't go there physically, I at least want my spiritual life positioned in Eden.

I think the mistake that Adam's early family made was that they didn't even appear to be interested in seeing what they were missing out on. I don't recall any interest in restoration, or in asking God for forgiveness. God actually MADE Adam, and he never bothered to talk to God about that whole Eden thing? On the contrary, it was Moses who boldly asked God to show Moses His glory.

I want to be in the center of God's will. I want to search for Eden and walk with Him... in this life. It's scary how Eden just went away, in a flash, because of Adam and Eve's sin. Sin caused the paradise of one man and woman's life to just go away. From then on, God literally had to guide them though a less-paradise-like plan for their lives. God didn't abandon them completely, but God's best was no longer available to Adam and Eve (and, consequently, everyone after them).

That's scary! That reinforces the urgency of now to me. I can't rest on the promise of God's forgiveness as an excuse to putting off repentance and "pressing on toward the prize", as the apostle Paul writes about. God only knows what I'm turning away from when I'm not in Eden.

It's amazing that God brings these truths to me now, as I'm several months into a season of deep transformation and humbling. Ultimately, as I seek to commit every facet of my life, every deep corner of my soul, into God's hands, I am getting closer and closer to Eden. I went east for a while. I didn't care what I left back west, but I left behind so much. I'm not thinking about Eden in terms of a snake, a tree, and the location of my greatest failures. I'm seeing Eden as the place where I can walk with God unashamed, victoriously, peacefully, and joyfully. I'm searching for Eden...

Just filling blog space...

2009-04-22T21:25:00.003-05:00

It has been a short while since my last post. In case you haven't figured out from the content of my post for the past six weeks or so, God has got me gripped by the neck. And He still does. I'm not quite ready to finish my ramblings about my studies into Paul's "thorn in the flesh". As I continue to sort through personal struggles, seeking peace on a number of issues, I can attest that God has been faithful, and I see Him at work in my daily life.

I've learned enough over the years to know that the process is sometimes more valuable than the product. This may elicit a few snickers, but the first time I heard this expression was from a preschool art teacher. Yeah, someone talking about fingerpaints and dried rice covering a little 4 year old rugrat from head to toe was actually used by God to impart an important principle. It would be easy, too easy, if God just zapped my issues away. The growth of my character, the developing of my interaction with the Holy Spirit, and the experiencing of God's faithfulness through it all, is far better.

I've shared my personal testimony several times in the last few months. I've had multiple coworkers and acquaintances talking to me about Jesus, and they genuinely listen and are intrigued as I spill my guts about what Jesus mean to me.

I have rediscovered a gift that went somewhat dormant for the past two years: that I can hear a person's problems and give comprehensive, deep, biblically-sound, but practical direction and wisdom that makes a real difference in someone's life. I think of the verse in John 14:26, in which Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will "remind you of everything I have said to you." I forgot just how awesome it is when some little nugget of wisdom, a solution, or best yet, a verse from scripture, pops into my mind just at the right time. It is absolutely a supernatural, Spirit-guided thin, and it's happening daily again. It's simply the Holy Spirit bringing to my rememberance the things that God has spoken to His people.

Very often, when one of God's people drifts a bit, the person is responsible for walking into the desert. Sometimes, as in the case with Jesus, God sends them. Well, I was not a prodigal by any means, but I was leaving God's presence to go out for a jog from time to time. I may have thought I knew better, but at times, I felt like an orphan. I love Jesus' promise in John 14:18, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." I went to the desert, God allowed me to wallow for a while, and when I realized what I was missing, Jesus came to me. He is empowering me, comforting me, and filling me with a desire to seek Him further.

It's so good to know that God is on my side!

Verse 9 continued...

2009-04-08T20:31:00.002-05:00

God says to each of us, "My power is made perfect in weakness." The more I think about this, the more I think this is some kind of unsolvable mystery. We're talking about God's power here, and God is, in this little sentence, making two huge statements. First, God's power somehow needs to be perfected, and second, it requires my weaknesses of all things to make that happen. I'm tempted to quit right there because that is so unfathomable, that nothing I write could do it justice or come close to shedding light on such an amazing mystery.

But that wouldn't be an interesting "typical guy" blog post.

I wonder if God is just a couple of steps ahead of us in this passage. By that, I mean that we instinctively want to make this about my problem, my trial, my pain, my thorn in the flesh. But God, in allowing this thorn, actually has in mind a longer-term effect that we may have... get this... on other people! Could it be that this passage is trying to get us to redirect our focus onto others?

How did I arrive at this? Well, basically, I've learned over the years that God's power is designed to accomplish something in people, to bring Him glory, but from others. He wants His power to shine, through us, to others.

That being said, I've also seen that people have a way of opening their hearts at the sight of other people going through things. People will watch others very closely. People can, and want to, relate to others' struggles and victories. Seeing God's power in someone else's trials resonates very deeply. In a strange way, God's power is more recognizable, or should I say accessible, when it's seen in others' trials.

I don't think God needs anything from us to make His power perfect in the earthly sense. I think it is more of a situation where our weaknesses complete the equation that eventually leads to His glory. It is a necessary ingredient so that God can bring comfort and encouragement to others that may be going through a similar trial.

So is it any wonder that the rest of verse 9 says that Paul will boast gladly about his weaknesses? Who is Paul boasting to? People!

You see, God has designed each of us to play a role in fixing this broken world. Our experiences make us stronger to do that work, and I'm learning to treat these thorns as big trophies in my ministerial resume. Each example is an experience that speaks volumes to my friends and acquaintances, not about me, but about how powerful and good Jesus is. So Paul must, and I must, not be ashamed of these thorns, but transparent about them. I must be quick to tell the story; I should brag about these thorns! Every time I brag about one of these trials, the equation of God's power is complete...

...and someone is going to find freedom because of that power.

Verse 9... God speaks

2009-04-05T19:26:00.004-05:00

"But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." -- 2 Corinthians 12: 9

In case it is not obvious yet, God has thoroughly had me by the neck for the past month, and this passage has been the theme of the entire season I have entered. This is another verse that I may just have to break up into several posts, because each time I've read it over the past month, it has exploded off of the page with fresh insight into my life.

Paul had been pleading three times with the Lord about this thorn in his flesh; as I mentioned in the previous post, these "three times" were probably not quick, little "pray before you eat" prayers. These were prayers of desperation, crying out to God.

"But He said to me..."

I'm so thankful that we serve a God who answers, who speaks, who responds, who guides and leads, who does NOT ignore. I've met so many Christians who have never been able to claim that God has spoken something to his or her heart. I don't know how folks can do it! If following God was just a bunch of rules and truths and routines, I would not last... well, I didn't. I was raised in that type of environment, Catholic upbringing, Catholic school, mass, the whole bit. And I'm not saying anything about Catholicism here... this can be found in every denomination.

If God does not speak, I'm a goner today. And I can attest that He speaks words of such amazing comfort and love, and of such profound insight and wisdom. He speaks into any situation, even about how to help a friend or how to do my job better.

"...My grace is sufficient for you..."

Like so many of us, I want to overcomplicate things. I want to come up with excuses and justifications about how a certain thing or situation would be better for me. I've found myself longing for a better job situation, a nicer place to live, a more ideal church, a perfect female companion. I've wished that certain things would be taken away, a bad job situation, a personal trait or tendency that I struggle with, an injury or illness, a family problem.

And while God can heal us of anything... or give us anything... sometimes, for His purposes to be accomplished in our lives, we must hear and accept, "My grace is sufficient." That's it. Forget the justifications. I can be full of joy and peace, content in my situation, and a blessing to others right now, no matter what the situation may be. This is possible because God gives us just enough grace to make it through.

This is not always easy to hear when my motives are selfish! God, I don't want grace, I want to be happy! I want money! I want the perfect family! I don't want... yada, yada, yada.

I'm learning that if I just take a deep breath and allow this truth to sink in each day, then I really, really can make it through whatever I'm facing. I am so acutely aware of some of my thorns and weaknesses, and I'm getting to be less ashamed of them. God designed me this way, and God's plan is to fill in my gaps with power and grace from on high.

John the Baptist said in John 3:30, "He must become greater; I must become less." I'm slowly discovering that as I go through this season in my life, God's desire is for me to decrease in every way so that God's glory may shine. God's glory and man's glory can't really share the same stage, can they?

But before I can get the point where God's glory shines through my weaknesses, I must first acknowledge that His grace is enough. It's not "almost enough". It does more than just register a blip on my radar. It passes the test. It is enough to get me through. His grace is sufficient fuel for me to accomplish His will.

Quick story, then I'll close: a couple of months ago, I was hiring for a position at my job. My colleague and I had two candidates neck and neck, I interviewed one, and he the other. We wanted to hire both but couldn't because of budget issues. We went with his partly because we guessed that his candidate would last longer with us. But my candidate was outstanding... and just happened to be a very, very attractive young lady full of personality.

Well, last week, another position opened. We figured we'd dig back into past candidates first before posting again, and so I sent an email to the candidate I interviewed. In the unlikely event she was still unemployed, I'd make an offer outright. She responded and said that she had found a job and would have taken it if hired back then, but thanked me for trying again. Then, at the end, she slipped in a quick question, asking me if I was single. I would have fallen out of my chair if I didn't have a deep impression from the Lord that this girl would not be a good influence on my faith. Actually, I did fall out of my chair.

I would have given my left arm for an opportunity like this nine years ago. Heck, six months ago, I probably wouldn't have been this strong. I banged my head on the table for a while, paced the room, the whole nine yards. Would just having coffee with her be so bad? I thought about everything God had been teaching me the previous month. I knew my motives deep down. So I responded in an email...

I told her I was single, but that I was a devout, born-again Christian. I basically explained that if we didn't have that in common, we couldn't go in that direction. She replied later and said that it was worth a shot to ask me, complimented me some, and wished me well.

Moral of the story: as I had been wrestling with how I was going to proceed, all I had was God's grace. I've always had that grace, but I didn't always acknowledge its sufficiency. This was one where I simply had to flee, and I needed grace to do it. My "typical guy" nature couldn't do it alone.

And just in case any second thoughts could have come in my mind later on in the week about contacting her again... I came down with the flu on Friday. Even God has a sense of humor.

There's more in verse 9 that I'll have to blog about later...

Another treasure from scripture

2009-03-30T20:52:00.002-06:00

"The Lord brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me." --Psalm 18:19

I love that. I've probably read that twenty times over the years, but last night it just exploded off the page in a fresh, new way for me. I've become so acutely aware recently of who I was and where I was before the Lord came into my life. I've gotten a few mental pictures, frighteningly enough, of who I would be and where I would be now had it not been for the Lord. So the rescue, the deliverance, has been in the forefront of my mind a lot.

It is so good to know that God, the Creator of the universe, this vast, indescribable, all-powerful, and infinitely wise God delights in me. He is so overjoyed, and so deeply cares, that God rescues. When God could be doing jillions of other things with His time, He cares enough to look at little ol' me and my circumstances... and actively and miraculously save me from whatever is threatening me.

I know the feeling of being suffocated by any number of pressures. It is a terrible, helpless feeling to feel that every wall is closing in on you... everybody is after you... every deadline is approaching... every insecurity within you is screaming louder and louder.

But God...

Sometimes, those are the two greatest words in the language, aren't they? "But God"... everything changes when God introduces Himself into a situation! Anyway, as I was saying...

But God "brought me out into a spacious place." Imagine someone who feels claustrophobic being released into a wide open, safe, peaceful place. It is a great relief; you catch your breath, and you are so thankful that the ordeal is over. Likewise, God can rescue us and bring us out into a safe, peaceful place.

And the reason why this uncontainable God would bother with the circumstances of someone as small and comparably insignificant as myself... is because He "delights" in me! This delight is so great that it motivates such a huge God to action, to intervene and do whatever it takes to protect me.

Maybe I'm just in a bit of a spiritually foolish stage right now, but I just can't properly put this into perspective without completely unravelling for the rest of my life. He has carried me, and each one of His people, through, because He is so overjoyed by me, by us. What did I ever do to bring this God so much joy? I don't know that I can articulate that now, but it certainly is something I'll be thinking about, and giving me much greater confidence, the next time I need to be rescued.

Who's ever heard of a band's "resource manager"?

2009-03-28T23:26:00.003-06:00

Although Chris Tomlin has become almost a bit too popular for my liking, his music still ministers to me as it did when I first came to the Lord almost nine years ago. I realized that he was in concert tonight about two weeks ago, and I promptly went to work trying to get a group together and to secure tickets. Well, bunches of people committed and flaked out, and being the typical guy that I am, I left buying tickets until four or five days ago. They were sold out.

After jumping through all kinds of hoops, two tickets rained out of the sky yesterday and I went tonight with a good friend of mine. And the concert was an awesome experience in the end. I'm a big fan of the opening group as well, Israel Houghton and the New Breed. Israel was scheduled to go on at 7pm, and of course, just before that, each radio station in the Chicago area that plays Christian music went on stage to promote it's station and do all kinds of hokie things to connect with the crowd. But then the real entertainment began...

Apparently, Chris Tomlin thought it wise to employ a "resource manager". I know what both of those words mean, but I have no earthly idea what a resource manager would do. Worse yet, this guy also liked to take a hit of the drug of all things corny. The young man took the mic and talked in a type of hip-hop language and deep tone of voice, and seemed to dress the part, although he was as white as a baby's behind. In short, he was trying to be cool.

So just before he left the stage he introduced the opening band and yelled, "Israel Houghton and New Breed will be out here SHORT-LYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!"

Ouch.

I can see drawing out the last word of the name of the band, or in Let's get ready to rumble!, or other appropriate phrases. But the word "shortly"? This is what happens when white people try to be cool. There are some people that should never be given a microphone in front of 4000 people... like this guy. And the funny thing is, he was trying so hard to be cool. And he was so... the opposite of cool.

I guess earning the title of resource manager puts you squarely in a struggle for significance. The main attraction is Chris Tomlin and the band (oh, and Jesus). Anyone hoping for the "big break" will go crazy whenever he has the mic in front of thousands of people. After tanking the cool factor, my friend and I couldn't help but ask questions about this young man. Was he trying to sound like a rap star? Did he really think he was connecting with the crowd? Did he follow the script? Does he still play with GI Joes?

I'm sure this boy means well. And I'm sure he has some kind of job responsibilities outside of barking at the crowd just before the opening band goes on. I just wish I understood. He was almost as entertaining as the main draw. But in the event that the resource manager ever reads this post... I want to say thank you for giving my friend and myself a quote that will always, unfailingly, cause us to laugh until our stomaches ache:

"SHORT-LYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Another verse speaking volumes...

2009-03-25T20:24:00.002-06:00

"Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and billows have gone over me."-- Psalm 42:7

A few years ago, I bought a live cd from a worship leader named Rita Springer. There is a song on there that doesn't even have any copyright information like all of the other songs. It was entitled "Deep Calls to Deep", and I get the feeling that she doesn't have any patent information on it because she just sang this verse word for word and just made it up on the fly. If that's the case, it's quite impressive because it is a beautiful and well-structured song.

I didn't make much of it at the time because I couldn't really figure out what it meant. Here I am several years later, listening to that song and hunting it down in scripture. And I'm still trying to figure out the meaning, but it is an intriguing verse. This psalm includes several well-known verses... like "As the deer pants for water, so my soul pants for You, O God," (verse 1) and "Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why are you so disturbed within me?" (verse 11).

The whole psalm is basically a desperate heart's cry out for the presence and comfort of God in the midst of deep dispair. And the language doesn't seem to be so... cryptic... until you get to verse 7, then the rest of the psalm seems to be fairly straightforward. So, seemingly out of nowhere, the author shifts gears in this writing to sneak in a very symbolic yet intriguing line.

I've read a few commentaries about this psalm, and very few address this verse. The ones that do, claim that this is merely about how God controls nature and the author feels like he is in the midst of an overwhelming storm. That's fine, but I think that there's more to it, and the meaning is, dare I say, deeper.

In verse six, the author writes about how his soul is downcast, but he will remember God "from the land of the Jordan, and from the heights of Hermon, from the Hill Mazar." Even if there are natural calamities at any of these sites, the author isn't saying that those calamities are the deep; deep is calling to deep at the noise of such acts of nature. So, what is the deep? Could it really be referring to the deepest parts of our souls, or even the deepest depths of God Himself?

I have found over the past three weeks that "deep" is scary. There's all kinds of ugly things within us if we dig deep enough. I'm uncovering some painful, painful stuff as I've dug deeper in my prayer time. I stayed away from deep for several years. Unfortunately, I think most people do. In the deep is the hurt that drives people to addictions, to reckless behavior, to extreme pride, to hurt other people, to deny God's saving grace.

But God wants to reach into our deep. Not only does God want to call to our deep, and work on all of those ugly things... He wants to call us from His deep! God want to reach into the depths of our hearts so that he can show us His heart. After all, it is the hearts of God' regenerate people that has taken the place of the Ark of the Covenant as God's dwelling place. He wants to live in our deep.

I've learned something else very explicitly lately. To get into our deep, sometimes God has to create a situation where we will be so desperate that we have to cry out to Him and really open up our hearts. We cannot expect that discovering God's purposes and experiencing God's presence would be like flipping on the television. A husband and wife cannot expect to have a successful relationship without opening up the deepest depths of who they are to each other. Likewise, to abide with Christ means to go into those depths, and make those depths accessible to the Holy Spirit.

He will go to work on the ugly remants of your past buried deep within. In your trials, He will fill up your deep with comfort, peace, wisdom, and a sense of His mercy. The flood of God's grace can wash over you no matter how bad things might get. You can expect a moving, lifechanging, sometimes difficult, but always glorious encounter with God when "deep calls unto deep."

Forward to verse 8

2009-03-24T20:13:00.002-06:00

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." 2 Corinthians 12:8

Like anyone else, Paul is no fan of the torment. He is referring to the "thorn in my flesh" from verse 7. We don't know what the thorn is. We don't know if it was physical, mental, emotional, relational, etc. We never find out if the thorn stays forever or is removed down the line. This is something that can universally apply to anything that may be a thorn in our lives. And, almost universally, and understandably, our first reaction is to want the thorn to go away. And Paul pleads with God to take it away.

Once again, the good news comes later in the passage. But there are several things that jump out at me in this verse. First, I cannot help but think about "Three times". We know from the whole passage that God eventually answers Paul. We know that the number 3 shows up very often in the Bible and carries all kinds of symbolism with it. But just set that aside for a moment and think about how Paul, this great apostle with a seemingly unparalleled relationship with the Holy Spirit, can pray about something three times, and get total silence on the first two.

I've learned something about a relationship with God lately. I am going through an extended season of refinement... spiritual open-heart surgery in a way. I was very lackadaisical in my prayer life and study in the Word before that. I felt strongly about three weeks ago that I needed to willingly enter into this season with several clear objectives. But something told me that I wouldn't even get directly to objective #1 for a few weeks.

Sure enough, I didn't take an active first step until Sunday night. For about three weeks, I was just getting back to seeking the face of God, devouring His Word, applying it to my life, and weeping before God with total honesty. It wasn't a very loud, raucous dialogue, I'll admit. The Lord gave me just enough to get to the next day. But any answers, healing, miracles? No.

I believe that God will hear from heaven and keep silent at times to test our sincerity. God is in the business of refining us such that our relationship with Him is the deepest, most important thing in our lives. And seeking Him just for a blessing, or just for an answer, or just for pain to be taken away, is far too shallow. It is a good sign that one's first reaction to a thorn in the flesh may be to pray. But our we approaching God as the Alpha and the Omega, or simply as a blessing vending machine?

When a believer who is prone to sweeping emotions first gets serious about depth with God, I would imagine the early silence could be discouraging. I know plenty of folks that, although they may not realize it, are seeking a spiritual thrill, goose bumps and all. God wants us in deeper than that, and in many ways, the road to spiritual depth is paved by perseverance. It doesn't surprise me anymore that Paul heard silence the first to times... or that I heard silence for almost three weeks.

And I also notice that Paul pleads with God. I've seen other translations say besought and begged. I doubt that the "three times" that Paul was talking about were each quick darts shot to heaven. Although there is a place for that, I envision Paul tearing up his knees, kneeling for hours as he worshipped, wept, and cried out to the Lord for healing. I can even see Paul flat on the ground, prostrate on a cold wooden or dirt floor, soaked in tears, dust, and who knows what else.

Think about how you have begged or pleaded with someone for something. Only in your greatest dispair would you beg, cry, yell, and repeat your request over and over, as a desperate child. Have you done that before God when things were at their worst? Have you had a rough circumstance only made rougher by the physical pain associated with your humble posture at the throne of grace? Have you cried your tear ducts dry before the Lord?

Paul did. And while many of those heartfelt prayers resulted in great works and miracles... well this time, Paul didn't get what he pleaded for. He didn't even hear a word the first two times.

Sometimes, I realize that I need to stop acting so dignified before the Lord and just open up. He wants my heart. He doesn't have much use for King James Version vernacular. He is not moved by obligatory praying. He didn't send Jesus to the cross to secure our comfort, to make prayer easy, or to trivialize the deep, connective nature of our relationship with God.

Paul pleaded... and he did it three times. God approves of Paul's response to this thorn as a model to us, even when we don't immediately get the answer to prayer we are looking for. As I've said several times over the past couple of blog posts, God has a message that can be found. Be ready to put forth some work to discover that message. Paul discovered a glorious, timeless message for all of us to see...

The rest of 7...

2009-03-19T20:19:00.003-06:00

"...there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me." This is the rest of verse 7 from 2 Corinthians 12. This is a passage that gets a lot of pulpit time from only bold pastors that want to tell their church the truth about life. This is not a feel-good passage, at least not initially. Who wants to hear that God allowed a messenger from Satan to show up and stick a big, sharp thorn in our flesh? And, moreover, who wants to hear the word torment? Fewer people still want to go through the process of enacting some kind of paradigm shift and eventually rejoicing in all of this!

Who wants to be happy about their torment? Show of hands, please... no? None of you white upper middle class megachurch suburbanites? I'm sorry, that was harsh. But that's me, too, by the way.

I'm slowly accepting that God views pain, trials, and torment differently. I see unwanted suffering, God sees opportunity. I see a step in the wrong direction... God sees my character developing in the right direction. He's not afraid to let us face Satan or one of his messengers! He's smarter than they are! He can even use their torment for our good.

I think first of the passage that tells us to "submit to God, and the devil will flee from you," (James 4:7). Great passage, but the reality is that the devil would never have to flee from you if the devil never shows up. In other words, he will show up. He showed up to Jesus in the desert at one of Jesus' most vulnerable moments. These appearances are inevitable, and there may be a thorn left behind. The war may leave a few scars.

But... the torment. Just the sound of the words is harsh, making me cringe. I can tell you that there is a thorn that torments me throughout the day right now. It constantly reminds me of its presence. Does it cause physical pain? No. I've got weightlifting injuries to remind me of my physical mortality. And that's nothing compared to the emotional torment.

The next few verses answer the torment. But I think that its worth confessing that, sometimes, from our earthly perspective, the answer of "God has a purpose" seems a little cheap. Certainly it is shallow and insufficient while you are being tormented.

As I've matured, I've found that trying to decipher God's purpose can be too daunting. Some bits and pieces of God's purpose can be so complex that we may never figure it out. Some of it may never be intended to be figured out by little ol' me. But I've also learned that, while God may have a far-reaching purpose, He usually has a very direct, personalized message.

"God has a message" seems to be a little more digestible. It definitely puts me on a discovery mission which, one, dulls the pain of the torment a bit, and two, can still contextualize the suffering for me. The message is discoverable! I know this because if God wants us to grow from such torment, we are going to have to realize some things, and ultimately change our behavior. We won't do that if we don't receive the message. And the message may or may not sound like good news. But even a message of rebuke, if I act on it, will lead to freedom.

One of my thorns is like an old rival that I haven't seen for a while. It won't go away now. I don't pretend to know the whole mind of God, but I believe the message, at least in part, for me is that I had been pushing God's hand away from me gradually for the past two years. When God's hand is no longer directly upon me-- well, you get the picture. It's as if the message is, "Do not forget what life was like before my hand rested upon you." If nothing else, this thorn is the reminder of just reliant I am upon God, and how preferable the glory road (as Joe Stowell called it) is to the wider road.

The thorn torments. It may not go away soon. It may never go away. But I am telling all of cyberspace now, even before you move onto verse 8, that if God allows a thorn, God also has a message... personalized, just for you.

My portion...

2009-03-17T20:55:00.003-06:00

I never really grew up in a worshipping church, so I can't quote songs from my youth that fanned the early flames of my faith. Having been a little disappointed in the quality of Christian music over the past few years, I hadn't bought a lot of new music recently. Over the past few weeks, I've revisited some CDs that wore out my boombox between four to eight years ago. Although they may not be timeless lyrics from classic hymns of the church, there are a few choruses that are coming back to me. They spoke to me then, and I'm identifying with them afresh as I write this. Here's one:

You Are My Portion by Darrell Evans
"Though I may not wear the garments of princes,
You are my portion, you are my portion, Lord.
For you clothe me in your righteousness,
You are my portion, you are my portion, Lord.
Though I may not sit at the table of kings,
You are my portion, you are my portion, Lord.
For you feed me from the abundance of your hand,
You are my portion, you are my portion, Lord!"

This one causes me to unravel, because for so long, I struggled with just how lacking I am. I never felt I was popular enough, good-looking enough, strong enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, all of it. When I hear this chorus, my soul yells, "Take the world, just give me Jesus!" I'll never wear the garments of princes, or sit at the table of kings. For years, I wished I could. I was so down because I didn't have what others had. I'm so thankful I never had those things in the first place. Whether it be status or material goods, it could not possibly compare to my status as an adopted child of God. He clothes me with something far greater, and feeds me from a place far more desirable. Praise God that He can inspire a simple song that changes my perspective so drastically so that I can rejoice in what God has given me, and in what the world has not given me.

Starting at 7...

2009-03-16T21:06:00.002-06:00

The title is a reference to verse 7 in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul states clearly a huge purpose of this whole situation that he was going through regarding the thorn in the flesh. He says, flat out, that it is to keep him from becoming conceited after being a part of so many glorious works of God.

I came to the Lord Jesus Christ at age 20, at the very end of my sophomore year in college. The following several years was a thrill ride of miracles, changed lives, and the awesome presence of God. The Lord put me to work immediately, helping other broken lives and speaking truth in front of hundreds of hungry and hurting souls. On top of that, if what I am going through now are "thorns in the flesh", then what God had healed me of back then were sharp knives. I was truly a new creation.

I suppose, after all of that, it would be easy to think that maybe, just maybe, I know what I'm doing. Maybe I'm as great as everyone is saying...

I am not.

I am slowly acknowledging what I already knew deep down inside. Before Jesus, I was a mess and getting messier. It was God that put me on the thrill ride and prospered me. And without God, I'm just that old mess again. But on occasion, I, like many of us, need the reminder of just how dependent I am on God. And so a thorn comes our way.

The thing about a thorn is that it is a constant reminder of our mortality. Paul himself, who penned this epistle, healed countless people. Can you see all of his detractors yelling to him to heal himself if he can perform all of those miracles? But he couldn't!

What does this mean? What can he do? Where the miracles fake? Was Paul falling away from God secretly? How would Jesus look in the eyes of this skeptical world if Christianity's biggest prophet had this affliction?

God doesn't want us to care about any of that! You see, this is God's way of slaying the giant of pride in our lives. For someone who has been as blessed as I have been, you have no idea how easy it can be for conceit to slip in and take some of the credit for myself. And there's nothing like a constant reminder, a thorn in my flesh, to reinforce just much I am at the mercy of God.

Healings? God.
Miracles? God.
Wisdom? God.
Talents and abilities? God.
Success at my job? God.
The fact that I have breath right now? God.

One of the current thorns I'm working with is something that I believed God healed me of nearly nine years ago. Imagine my fury when it made a return appearance a couple of months ago. But after all kinds of childish behavior, I came to realize that God was showing me what life is like for me if I push His hand away from me. And what pushes God further away from someone like myself than pride, arrogance, conceit, call it what you will?

That's just the first part of verse 7, and I can probably write a whole book on the second part of the verse. I won't. But I'll try to post something soon about it.

Journey from 7 to 10...

2009-03-15T20:05:00.002-06:00

That would be one of my less obvious titles for a blog post. I'm referring to a passage of scripture found in 2 Corinthians 12. For several months now, I've felt strong conviction from the Lord that I must face certain issues, past hurts, painful memories, etc., that I have buried. And they are buried deep. But as I'm finding out, they are still there. Anyway, this well-known passage kept coming up in my head, in sermons, basically everywhere, and I couldn't ignore it anymore. Paul writes:

7)To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8)Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9)But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10)That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I may have to blog on this in several posts, because I've read this passage every night for the past two weeks, along with whatever other passages I'm going through at that time. This is becoming the thematic passage for the season I am going through, spiritually. I don't know that I'll even have time to get into the specifics of what I'm going through... there's so much that I've learned about my spiritual walk with the Lord from this passage already.

My title refers to the process of going through the very beginning of the passage at verse 7 to the end at verse 10. In other words, I am going through the process of realizing that I have thorns in my flesh as a preventative measure against conceit, to realizing that my weaknesses are in fact strength in God's eyes.

Of course, in between, it gets a little ugly. Painful at times, to be honest. These thorns to which Paul refers hurt. They don't kill, but they dig into you and cause a constant reminder that something isn't perfect. If you don't work with those thorns properly, they'll just get pushed in deeper.

I realized that I had buried some issues approximately two years ago. At that time, I believe the Spirit of God was gently prompting me to face them. Prior to that, they were just "there". But at that point, I suppose God had determined that I was at a point of maturity and readiness to take on these issues that stood in between me and my blessed Savior. Instead, I buried them. I chose not to face them, and I've been wandering in an arid desert, spiritually speaking, ever since.

I needed some new perspective on these issues, because I was starting to unravel a few months ago, and I found myself thinking about them more and more. Then some very convicting and well-timed sermons, conversations, messages, songs, and gentle promptings from the Spirit started to come. And some sharp reminders of what life can be like when you push God's healing hand away from you.

I'm going to have to break this up into several posts. Unfortunately for those of you who find amusement in some of my humorous mental meanderings, you'll have to bear with me, because these are more for spiritual insight than for laughs.

I should share one thing now that I've learned before I close this post. When God leads you to do some battle with personal struggles, it is best to obey at that time. I will go so far as to say that you can argue with God about it, cry, whine, fight, complain to your friends, whatever. All of it is better than what I did... I buried it and just ignored the issue. You see, if you are doing the above mentioned displays of petulance, at least you are still engaging the issues, and, eventually, you'll face them directly.

Burying them, on the other hand, is the worst thing you can do. Aside from the fact that it is a prideful, fearful form of disobedience that shuts down dialogue completely, the issues seem to take on extra weight while they are in the ground. Right about now, I compare it to taking out a loan and accumulating interest. The issues themselves are heavy, but I feel very strongly that I'm also paying two years worth of interest on them because I ran from them for that long.

I've found that God will let you run off into the desert if you choose. He will let you see the consequences of your actions and choices. Thank God that He will still provide a road home. I have been given a roadmap in the form of this scripture that is incredibly dense with truth. Although the road won't be easy, I believe it will take me home.

If you wanna listen to some good blues...

2009-03-05T21:27:00.002-06:00

then check out the newest release by Joe Bonamassa, called "The Ballad of John Henry". Very few musicians nowadays, especially blues-rock artists, are pushing the boundaries of their respective genres in new directions. If you listen to Bonamassa's earlier blues and rock work, and then listen to this disc, you can't help but think that this guy has matured into a brilliant, yet soulful musician.

None of the songs are obscenely complicated, but I know for certain that Bonamassa's guitar playing is scary good. Not all of the songs are originals, but even the five cover songs show just how inventive and unique Joe can be. With all of the awesome guitar riffs, he keeps most of the album in the territory of huge-sounding, overdriven blues. But it is his unique take on what modern blues is and on what it can be that keeps me captivated.

Joe Bonamassa is kind of frustrating to me, in a way. His influences are similar to mine, he's only about three years older than I am, he favors many of the same guitars, tones, and styles that I do (I'm an addicted bedroom guitar player, by the way). He's basically doing everything I would want to be doing if I were a professional musician. I wish I were him. After listening to his first few albums, I didn't think he was doing anything I couldn't do if I had the same opportunities that he had. But the last few, and especially "The Ballad of John Henry", shows such impressive maturity in songwriting, guitar playing, and general musicianship. If you like to rock out on blues every so often, this is a special one.

29

2009-03-01T20:53:00.002-06:00

I turned 29 last weekend. It wasn't as easy as it was turning 22, 24, or 27. I actually had to prepare myself for about a month. I had to call myself 29 for a little while before my birthday so that I could get used to the concept. I had to convince myself of how immature it would be if I started to try out the old kindergarten skill of counting backwards on my chronological age.

You see, 29 isn't easy. I used to be able to say, fairly confidently, that I was in my "mid-20s". I was able to say that any time after I turned 22, but I can't say that anymore. No matter what angle to look at 29 from, it is not in the "middle" portion of the 20s. All I can get away with right now is to say that I am still in between 20 and 30. Then I begin to pray that whoever I'm talking to doesn't mutter, "technically" under his or her breath. "Mid-20s" was very smooth and recognizable to say. For some reason, I don't think "within 20s" will be as acceptable to the bulk of the populace.

It is a bit difficult for me because, all my life, I pushed myself to achieve at the pace of the folks either at the front of the class, or in the next class up. All throughout college, I generally took courses with either people my age, or older than me. At work, up until a couple of years ago, I was always one of the youngest folks in the office. I was the young gun with gusto, taking the world by storm with raw talent, idealism, and a bit of youthful recklessness and humor.

Fast forward to the present... I have an office in the downstairs section of my agency's building. Of all of the specialists there, I'm the oldest in that section. I've had a couple of my coworkers (whom I adore, by the way) tell me that they think of me as a mentor and they respect me. That's all fine and good, but I have this saying floating in my head that tells people to "respect your elders". Suddenly, I don't want to act so respectable anymore.

Still a vital single bachelor, I noticed a girl the other day, and found out she was about 23 or 24. Oooo, that's a bit too young, I thought. Huh? Wait, that girl is out of college! She may be a new professional in a thriving business! Still, too young. Grrr! At what point did that amazingly attractive age pool completely disown me as a citizen, and forbid me to even visit?!?! And I have employees that age that maintain a Facebook and Myspace page, have an IPod, Blackberry, and communicate almost exclusively (and quite skillfully) by text message. I have none of the above, and I've just learned to text solely as a means of communicating with a younger generation. I'm out of touch because I don't see the point of that which is cutting edge with "young adults". I used to be setting those trends. What happened?!?!

I looked at the possibility of joining a young adult ministry at church, and I'm a bit frightened that I will actually AGE OUT of that ministry within a year!! I remember those age-based rites of passage growing up... graduating and moving up a level, being able to drive, vote, etc., ... and we all looked forward to it. Now, well, those age-based rites of passage aren't so exciting anymore. Before I know it, I'll be old enough to qualify for senior citizen discounts and free rides on Chicago public transportation. I'm just waiting for people to approach me on my birthday and, instead of congratulating me, they offer condolences and words of comfort.

And, in reality, 29 is just a number. My health is outstanding and, save for a few aches and pains from my weightlifting regiment, I feel more vital than when I was 22. Save for the thinning hair (but not balding, I keep reminding EVERYONE), I look somewhat young for my age... so I'm told... hopefully by people who aren't just trying to make me feel better.

I was thinking that by the time I hit 30, I'll still be able to say that my life isn't half over. However, I can't start over from age 1 and work up to 30 again. I go from 31 and limp my way up to (gulp) 60. Actually, let's not go through this "looking ahead" exercise...

Seriously, I've been blessed. I'm youthful in a lot of ways, mature in a lot of ways; I've experienced a lot and I have a lot to offer, but I still have a lot of potential. In many ways, I'm at the top of my game and in the prime of my life. I can still make a titanic life shift and I still won't look like I'm having a mid-life crisis. God has so abundantly blessed me, and there's still so much more life to live. I've accepted that I am a full-fledged, charter member ADULT. The ways of my youth didn't always please the Lord who has so blessed me, so why hold onto those ways? 29 isn't so bad after all.

Nothing left on TV

2009-02-18T21:00:00.002-06:00

I used to wonder how people entertained themselves before the television became such a huge part of our culture. I don't wonder anymore, because the programming on television now is terrible. Right now, the television serves as nothing but a direct feed from either ESPN or my Playstation into my gray matter, and not very often at that.

Sitcoms aren't funny anymore. Dramas aren't riveting anymore. Talk shows talk too much and give me a headache. The news only covers depressing things.

Even commercials lack any semblance of creativity and humor. Did you see the Super Bowl this year? 3 million buckeroos for each of those timewasters, in this economy (you would think that the stakes were never higher), and none of them resonated with anyone.

And football season is over. This is tragic for me, because there is now, officially, NOTHING that I can turn on and fully expect to be interested for the entire duration. And, somehow, I've kept from wandering aimlessly around the house with nothing to do. I'm still keeping busy... I'm not bored, and who would have guessed, I may be more productive.

So there are MUCH better ways to occupy your time! Here's just a few:

Exercise. Makes you healthier.

Read a book. Makes you smarter.

Play an instrument. Makes you noisier.

Clean the apartment. Makes you more appealing to the opposite sex.

Learn to cook. Makes you less of a dumb bachelor guy like me.

Talk to people. Makes you friendlier. (Notice I didn't say "text people", by the way)

Sleep. No explanation needed.

Blog. Makes your one reader audience get off your back about how infrequently you blog.

Really. I feel almost like the apostle John just as he was writing the Book of Revelation. Everyone needs to know this. TV is not your best friend, it is not your sole source of entertainment, it is not the best use of your time, and it actually makes you less appealing as a human being. And if you visit me at my apartment and catch me building a ship inside of a bottle, the get me in front of an episode of House, fast.

Check out a better blogger...

2009-02-02T20:46:00.002-06:00

I have learned much about life from my good friend over at "Something to Consider", Phil Hoover. I met him at church about four or five years ago and we've become great friends. I would encourage you to check out his blog at http://philhoover-chicago.blogspot.com/. He tends to write spiritually uplifting, politically challenging, and occasionally humorous posts. But there is more to the man behind this blog. I'll be the first to label him an honorable man, but there are a few quirks you should know, which readily display the differences between him and me.

First of all, Phil is an early riser. I mean, early; as in, I've-never-witnessed-that-time-of-day early. Being a hardcore Chicagoan for almost a decade, Phil doesn't drive, so he needs to prepare for the public transportation of Chicago. That means allowing extra time, time that I refuse to give up because I put that "time" to great use... sleeping. He may go down the street to work out, and be in the gym by 5am. He tells me that when he attends a Thursday morning Bible study in the wee hours of the morning, he has woken up as early as 3:45am.

Phil may not strike you as the type to break out in the hula, but for a Chicagoan (who is native to Alabama, mind you), Phil really seems to like following the Hawaiian time zone.

He is also an intense cook. You think of people getting into a "zone". Michael Jordan used to hit shot after shot, and he's in a zone. ER doctors block out all of the stress of a situation to save a life, and they are in the zone. Phil in the kitchen? Zone with a capital Z.

I think of it as putting a car into it's highest, fastest gear. I, on the other hand, usually stay in neutral and try not to crash. If I kept my cooking "gear" out of reverse, I'm happy. I've seen Phil cook several times, and I tell you, I won't say anything goofy to distract him, because I fear that a 100 mph pot will come flying at my head. He is a man with a plan, full of experience, in his element, operating within his personal sanctuary. How else could he prepare several hundred biscuits and sausage servings in a mere half hour (don't quote me on the statistics)?

And if you get a chance to watch him in action, he'll even provide the play-by-play. He's like Al Michaels, John Madden, a Super Bowl half time show, and no bad commercials all roled into one meal prep. The only thing that bugs me is that he'll call almost every dish, "the easiest thing in the world to make". Yeah, for him. Myself, on the other hand, I'll challenge that statement with every single meal I have ever made!!! Those, ladies and gentlemen, have been simplistic meals. I'll be talking to him, and he'll rattle off about ten steps to a key lime pie with no thought at all. I'm still trying to pry open the box to a crock pot I was given at Christmas.

And don't get Phil rolling on a hot-button political topic that he has strong feelings about. Well, if you're up for some very creative linguistic imagery, aka biting sarcasm and maximum bluntness, then go ahead. Some of my favorite blog posts have been his rants on illegal immigration. You will definitely learn something, because he is well informed, when you read one of these types of posts. But on these issues, Phil takes great pride in being right. And I generally agree with him on most of these topics. But I'm not sure anyone has ever had the courage to disagree with him on such topics, because the bombardment would be like taking on a 400-person team of prozac-fueled paintball professionals by yourself.

In all seriousness, Something to Consider has some great insight, and Phil is a loyal and honorable friend. His quirks are entertaining. By the way, Phil requested that I post something about him on this blog. And he'll probably be the first to read it. I'm not sure what that says about him... but if you know him, you'll understand.

Promotion

2009-01-28T21:38:00.002-06:00

I was fortunate enough to get a new job at my place of employment yesterday, and it amounts to a fairly direct promotion. And a pretty friendly raise. I almost didn't take it because I've had this little hang-up about enacting a change that might upset the apple cart in other people's lives. This whole "caring" thing can be an inconvenience.

It was complicated and I'm not going to get into the details here. Essentially, I wrecked myself playing out all of the scenarios in my head for about three weeks and gradually got enough encouragement from others to keep myself settled. I prayed about it and ultimately, all of the doomsday scenarios looked small when I knew that I had a big God behind me.

I don't think every promotion opportunity is God's will. On the contrary, I think sometimes we can learn more from holding back, being patient, sometimes losing out on the promotion we want. In this case, I learned a lot from the little scenario "movies" I played in my head.

First, worry is pointless. Can I say it again? Pointless. It is a sin in the Bible, and with good reason. None of those doomsday scenarios would blindside God. On the contrary, God gave me grace to realize that He is so much bigger than any of them, and God will put you in a position to do His will if you let Him.

I took the job. Just about everybody I knew was excited and happy for me. By the way, my agency only opened the position internally. Kind of seemed like they had me earmarked for it. All of the concerns are still there. But in God's faithfulness, He gave me peace, and I realized that I have power to overcome by God's grace.

And it's also not necessarily wrong or bad to take a blessing. After all, God gives it, and it certainly seems like He delights in giving it. Praise God for His faithfulness, for the peace He imparts, and how He floods you with faith to see a situation from heaven's perspective when you earnestly seek His will!

when the HIGH is zero...

2009-01-15T20:39:00.003-06:00

I woke up today, and the news said that the temperature at that time was negative nine degrees. The high temp... the HIGH TEMP!!!!... would be zero if we were lucky. I'm sorry. When I think about the temperature of zero degrees, luck is the last thing on my mind.

I've pretty much hit the "dump" button on a lot of the things I learned in physics and chemistry from high school through college, but I seem to recall that if you were to convert degrees Fahrenheit to Kelvin, you convert to a system where zero is the lowest point (and coldest temperature) possible. At that point, there is absolutely no movement, even at the atomic level. I'm not sure what this means, but when I stepped outside this morning, I don't think a single atom in my body was able to move. We may have hit the elusive "absolute zero".

This weather is for the birds. No, scratch that. Even the birds are smart enough to travel south during this weather. I'd hate to think that Chicagoans are stupider than birds, but there I was, in my own little absolute zero. And a bunch of birds, that spent the summer smacking into the brick walls of my apartment and depositing their white and black treasures onto the hood of my car, were screwing around in the Caribbean somewhere, happy as can be.

I'm not sure why God created this extreme of weather conditions. I don't see the eternal purpose. I've heard of seeing the Grand Canyon, or an amazingly beautiful sunset across the ocean, or some other great feat of nature, and someone marveling at the awesome power of God. I'm sorry, but I didn't step outdoors this morning and say, "Wow, God, great is your power!" I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't move, remember? Absolute zero.

I'm hoping for a heatwave of 5 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow. Five. I own more guitars than that. I went out for sushi after work today, and I didn't absorb the fishes' cold-blooded nature. I just got cold.

I'm most perturbed that when temperatures are low, you would beg for humidity. But instead, you get wind chill. And in the summer, when all you could ask for is a little bit of wind, you get sweat-inducing stickiness. This is cruel. And after you endure all of this cold, Chicago's weather congratulates us by throwing a foot of snow at us. In my mind, I'm saying, "NO, NO, NO!! We did good! We made it! Don't you take heat off. Put heat back on! We deserve Hawaii! You're giving us Green Bay! Aaahhh!"

And it's hard to look your best on a day like this. What if there were a girl that I was trying to impress? Yeah, I'm sure she be smitten by my big, red nose, hobo-like nine layers of sweatpants, and my hair all patted down by the hoodie of my sweatshirt.

I usually cut corners in my morning routine if I know I have to spend extra time warming up my car. So the first thing to go is shaving. Second, I won't tie my shoes. The next is I'll throw my toothbrush and toothpaste into my lunch and brush at work. After that, it's don't pack a lunch. Beyond that, I suppose the last to fall would be the shower. That would absolutely leave me looking like a big, furry character in a Dr. Seuss book. So far, I've managed to just nix the shoe-tying and shaving... I don't know how they do it, but I've got a lot more respect for ZZ Top walking around with that big beard.

Let's hope for a warm-up. At this point, 10 degrees would be positively balmy.

Computer Viruses

2009-01-05T19:45:00.002-06:00

If my computer had a sickness that uses the same verbage as what humans get (a virus), then my computer just had Ebola. It seemed like there were wild African Zulu monkeys bleeding out and going crazy inside of my screen. I finally relented and my dad and I wiped my computer clean with several backup files kept. And it's okay now, but it got me thinking...

There's a dorky computer geek somewhere on the other side of the planet that should be very, very afraid of running into me in a dark alley at night right now. He won't make it out without it turning into a Quentin Tarentino movie. This guy sits at his computer and creates these truly wicked, rotten, comprehensive bugs, viruses, spyware, and malware that will absolutely go caveman on your PC. And this guy really doesn't stand to benefit, monetarily or otherwise, from your suffering. He's doing this just to assert the dominance in cyberspace that he is way too wimpy in real life to assert.

I'm mad at this guy. I'm mad at the guys at his high school that beat him up day after day and took his lunch money, thus bringing about the latest in the series, Revenge of the Nerds: Cyberspace. I'm mad at his parents for giving him his first computer one day. Heck, I'm mad at his parents for meeting and spawning this sad little creature.

Here's how awful this thing is. I catch this thing one day, doing nothing differently than I do any other day. NOTHING! And all of a sudden, I'm getting pop up messages telling me that I have malware and I have to get this expensive program to clean it up. Every time I tried to download a free malware and spyware program from somewhere else, the computer either redirected me or froze. It turned off my firewall and wouldn't let me revert my computer system to the settings from a checkpoint previous to when I got the bug. It had a personal vendetta with Google, and anything I googled, it would redirect me to either a casino website or a spyware site. Why a casino site? Who knows. For the cost of the programs I was being directed to, I might as well have hit the slots with a fistful of hundreds.

If any of you reading this entry have messed around with creating this trash... I'm promising you this: you will be judged one day for your actions, and you'll be begging for the fate of those who have dabbled in the occult! You are evil!!!!

Welcome to 2009

2009-01-05T19:16:00.002-06:00

Boy, I haven't been a very good blogger lately. Anyway, a belated Happy New Year and welcome to 2009 to everyone! I'm not big on looking back at any year and doing that whole "Top 10" business. I prefer to look forward. But since I haven't blogged lately, I'll do my Top Several moments that I followed or was involved in throughout the year.

Top Several Moments of 2008:

Tim Russert's death. This guy was crazy good as a political journalist. He single-handedly got me interested in politics, and I was never a very political guy. His untimely death meant that I personally had lost my most trusted source for objective political detail and critique.
Cubs swept in first round of playoffs. Cub fans throughout the country had every reason to believe that this team would not implode. They were multidimensional as an offense, deep as a team, solid as a pitching staff, and savvy winners all year. With all the different ways they found to win in the regular season, they couldn't find anyone with a pulse in the postseason. I went from excited to devastated way too quickly. I still can't bear to wear any Cubs gear in public.
Rod Blagojevich arrested on corruption charges. This was personal for me. This was the governor that vetoed a very substantial sum of money promised to the program I supervise for my job. We went in a huge hole and dug ourselves out with hard work and the generosity of many grateful families. The Illinois governor helped his friends and displayed a viciousness towards his enemies that affected far too many people negatively. And he's probably one of the most arrogant people I've ever seen.
The agency I work for crumbles. I had all kinds of anxieties about how there was so much turnover at the management level where I work. Between May through the end of the year, there were, at last count, a dozen positions affected by some kind of personnel change. None of them involved me, but my boss, my boss' boss, and my boss' boss' boss' boss all flipped for some reason or another. And believe me, it's a sick feeling when a position above you goes vacant, you don't want to go for it, and another long-tenured, underachieving, colleague lacking any discernable people skills wants it. Fortunately for me, that person left a few weeks later. Whew!
A new President was elected. I made no bones about the fact that I thought Barack Obama, although an inspiring and good man, hasn't done anything in any of his past jobs to earn the promotion he has been given. He was the "other end of the spectrum" candidate that almost all of America was craving. In the tug-of-war between style and substance, I've always categorically been a substance guy. I occasionally bumped into style, but a lack of camera-worthy style, I've found, can be forgiven when outstanding substance accompanies integrity and passion. So I supported substance, and America went with style. I'm not saying Barack Obama is completely incompetant. I'm saying I would feel more comfortable with a resume longer than a footnote on the Substance Candidate's resume.
I bought a Playstation 3. Yeah, this is far and away the quirkiest of the list. But I'm telling you, some of these games are like kiddie cocaine. I've moved past playing just the football game each year. I turned to role-playing, open world games that give you hundreds of hours of exploration and combat. And since I'm a bit of a compulsive perfectionist, I won't put the game down until I've overturned everything in the game... literally a hundred hours of gaming later.

My splits for weight training

2008-12-14T20:19:00.002-06:00

I am an unashamed weightlifter. I love hitting the gym and pounding the weights. And, as one may expect, I really don't like cardiovascular work, like running or biking. I see it as a necessary evil. In any case, I am still always tweaking my workouts to give each muscle the best chance to get work and to grow. Depending on the workout, my sessions can take anywhere between one hour and two hours, fifteen minutes. I'll give cyberspace a glimpse into a typical week for me, four workouts a week. My goal is to generally shoot for 6-10 reps of at each exercise, and I'll go a bit less if I want to try a new heavy weight or ligher with more reps if I want a good pump. The best way for me to do it is to reach the point of near-failure at the target number of reps, because regularly going exactly to failure, I believe, is unsafe and has caused injuries in the past due to using bad form. And basically, I hardly ever follow this plan to a T, because I go by feel and try to vary it up a bit, but I sort of use this as a starting point.
-----------------------------------------------------
Monday: Chest and upper back

Bench Press (bench or dumbell) (3 warm-up sets)
Bench Press... 8 reps, 7 reps, 6 reps, then 12 @ lighter weight
Rows (2 warm-up sets)
Rows 12, 10, 8, then 14 at a lighter weight
Incline press (bench or dumbell)... 8,7,7, then 15 @ 60% previous weight
Bent over barbell rows... 10, 8, 8
Cable chest flys... 10, 8, 8
Lat pulldown machine... 10,8,8
Decline chest press machine... 12, 8,8
Straight arm pulldown on lat machine... 8, 8, 12

This is my longest workout, so I'll usually skip the cardio unless I got into the gym earlier than usual.

Wednesday: Biceps, Triceps, Abs, cardio

Start with any biceps and triceps warmup for 2-3 sets each
Incline dumbell curls: 9,8,7
Overhead 2-arm dumbell extensions: 9,8,7
Ab machine... 20, 20, 18
E-Z bar curls... 8,7,6
Behind the back triceps cable pressdown... 10,10, 8
Ab crunches... 18, 15
Bent over concentration curls... 8,7,6
Closed-grip bench press... 15, 15, 12
I'll usually wander around the gym and drop a few more sets at light weights and high reps for both biceps and triceps, whatever apparatus or weights are available.
Decline sit-ups... 2-3 more sets to failure
Cardio: About 1/2 hour power walking on treadmill with fairly high incline

Thursday: Shoulders and Trap muscles, lower back

Lots of warm ups here, particularly for my rotator cuff since it's been bothering me so much lately. Several sets of raises with light dumbells, etc.
Military Press (barbell or dumbell)... 8, 8, 6, 12 @ lighter weight
Barbell shrugs (for traps)... 10, 10, 10
Shoulder dumbell raises... 10, 8, 8, 12 @ lighter weight
Lower back machine... 15, 15, 12
Traps shrug machine... 10, 10, 10
Front then lateral dumbell raises... 10/10, 8/8
Bent-over lateral dumbell raises (for posterior shoulder muscles)... 15, 15, 12
Lower back hyperextensions... 12, 12

Cardio: either same as the previous workout, jogging followed by incline walking, or stationary bike.

Saturday: Legs

My most hated day. I've had surgery on my left knee twice, and it is very finicky. It's always a little embarrassing for me because I set a precedent of lifting pretty heavy weights during the week, then I'm lifting comparably puny weights for my leg workout because my knee holds me back so much. Anyway...

Squats to warm up... 12, 12, 8, 8
Leg Press... 12, 8, 8, 6
Deadlifts... 10, 10, 10, 8, 6
A different leg press machine, one leg at a time... 12, 12, 8, 8
Calf raises on previous machine... 20, 20, 15
Leg extensions... 10, 8, 8
Hamstring curls... 12, 10, 10
Seat calf raise machine... 15, 15, 10

I may do cardio before or after this workout... if it's really cold outside, I'll do it beforehand to give my legs as much chance to warm up and reduce the chance of injury.
-------------------------
So there it is. If I'm feeling especially strong and ambitious on a certain week, these splits can be absolutely BRUTAL. It won't turn me into a competitive bodybuilder, but folks notice the muscle I've packed on. I've learned to lift much smarter and focus on the target muscle when lifting, rather than subtly cheating at a lift just to look good. I'll skip the leg workout altogether if its not feeling good, and I've skipped shoulders lately from time to time to give my rotator more time to recover if I needed it.

As I said before, I'll pick a weight that will get me to break down at the target rep number. By this, I mean I want to get to, say, 10 reps at a biceps curl before I have to start using bodily momentum and cheating to get the weight up for another rep. To give you an idea of where I'm at with a few of these, I generally do my first bench press work with either a barbell 240 lbs. or I'll use 110 lb. dumbells. Shoulder military presses are at 80 lb. dumbells right now. If I do standing biceps curls (which I didn't list), I use 55 lb. dumbells pretty comfortably.

I know dudes that use heavier weights and are bigger than me, and I've seen guys double all of these numbers. Those folks are far more serious than I am, and I consider myself a pretty serious hobbyist at it. So if you've been lifting for a while and want to break away from full-body workouts, and to stress your muscles more intensely, this is a split that I've done for a little while and may work for you.

New lows in Illinois, and in humanity

2008-12-09T22:01:00.002-06:00

I have been no stranger to laying into Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich on this blog. But the day of reckoning has come for this corrupt, and frankly sick, politician that made backscratching a way of life in office, and in his audacity, took evil to a whole new level.

This guy has been watched like a hawk for several years, and never more closely than since his fundraising buddy Tony Rezko was convicted recently. The feds have wanted him. Badly. And with good reason. So what does he do over the past month? He uses his power to appoint a successor to President-elect Obama's Senate seat and tries to sell the seat to the highest bidder!

And the off-color language he used in the taped conversation, the tone he took, the cocksure bravado he had, sounded more like a mob boss in the movies than like a governor. He and his wife badmouthed the Cubs (which will incite my wrath in all kinds of ugly ways) and even had the audacity to mention how he planned to parlay this into a seat in Congress to clean up his image and to set up a run at the presidency in 2016.

And this is personally vindicating because, as I blogged about this about a year and half ago, he vetoed a promised grant to the program that I run, amounting in $100,000. At the time, that was roughly a third of the overall budget, and my program nearly had to shut down. I nearly lost my job, if not for the generosity and sacrifice of my clientele. He wanted to free up money to make his pet projects possible which, as I postulated later, also would have been done to set up a run at the presidency.

But I'll leave the rest of the details, charges, and "what was he thinking" points to other bloggers and journalists. As a Christian man, struggling with sin like everyone else, I am fascinated at just how pride can consume someone. Think about just how "bulletproof" Blagojevich must have felt! He must have felt completely untouchable, if he actually thought he could sell off a federal seat in Congress.

I recently heard of a guy who was working with a company for only about six months. He had put a personal friend on the payroll as a substitute, and turned in timesheets for this person claiming hours that weren't worked. He was caught, and he was oustered. To do that so soon into your tenure at a job... I can't understand how arrogant one must be to think that one can get away with that so easily and take advantage of one's new company.

And yet, I do understand.

I know how sin can get out of control. I've seen it, and experienced it, snowball until you don't know what hit you. Pride has a truly devilish quality because it is so undetectable to the self. It so easily convinces someone that there is no problem there, all while the person is destroying himself or herself. The Bible says that God knows the proud from afar. Why? I get the feeling that pride stains the human heart like nothing else. Other sins may stain the flesh, poison the mind, damage relationships. But pride rips leaves pure ugliness on the one thing God values and desires above anything else in a person: the heart.

There is a depth of the human heart, of the soul, that hardly anyone or anything could ever penetrate to. I know it's there. I've been there. My job can't get there. My buddies can't get there. Pizza can't get there. The Cubs can't get there (they've tried). Jesus can. His Spirit lives there in a Christian's heart. And I don't think that very many sins can get there. I don't think that lust can get there. Or envy. Or even anger. But pride can. Pride gets there. In the same intimate, personal space that God can get to in a person. And they compete, fiercely.

Jesus gets into that deep place to exalt God. Pride gets into that deep place to exalt self. This is the same old war; it goes back to the very beginning... to the Fall. I'm in constant struggle with this war. And all of the Biblical promises about how pride with bring about someone's downfall... here it is, right here. This morning, we saw it in action. We will watch where pride takes someone. And it may be easy to shake your head and say, shame on Rod Blagojevich. And as much as I despise the man, and am relieved he is no longer in power in Illinois, I must tell myself, I am no different. I fight the same war every day. I could easily be next.

Only the Bears

2008-12-01T22:26:00.002-06:00

I went into this season predicting that the Bears would be putrid. I mockingly predicted 0-16. Now, while the Detroit Lions are threatening that record, I still can't allow myself to be seduced into thinking that the Bears are a solid team based on their six wins. Last night's performance against the Vikings was maddening, and illustrates why I refuse to get too connected to this team this year. Here they are, keeping toe-to-toe with a good team, whom they had already beaten this year, and they choke.

Remember last year when I was stumping for Devin Hester to become President? Now, I don't think I'd elect him to be village dogcatcher. I certainly don't think he'd be able to get at the dog without running out of bounds. And I can't really blame Hester, in actual fact.

Leave it to the Bears. Only the Bears. There is no other team in the solar system that would take the most electrifying, dangerous, and exciting player not just on the team, not just in football, but possibly in all of sports, for two full season, and completely take him out of his element. I'm talking about turning Hester into a wide receiver and completely sapping him of his health and energy so that he can be positively mediocre as a return man. As a returner, he made the world stand still, scared the bejeebies out of an entire league, and made the phrase "Don't kick to Hester!" a household mantra. And now, he stinks. A few nice receptions notwithstanding, Hester is not the force he was the last two seasons. He is not changing games completely as he was.

Only the Bears. Why mess with greatness? If the Bulls had tried to turn Michael Jordan into the ballboy, someone would have burned down the Chicago Stadium/United Center. And would have gotten away with it! Yet the Bears... oh, never mind. I can't stand it.

I really want to boycott college football, but...

2008-12-01T22:09:00.002-06:00

Sometimes, I wish football weren't so entertaining. The BCS system in college football has screwed it up, again, and this time, I've thrown my arms up in disgust. The remaining unbeaten powerhouse team, Alabama, is the unanimous number one. No problem there. However, it's a mad frenzy for who has the best claim to the number two spot. Of course, at the end of the season, this great system (I say that with sarcasm dripping) stages a "playoff" between number one and number two. It used to be arbitrary who had earned number one. Now it is joke about who belongs in the game. Rather than doing the smart thing and having a real playoff system, a bunch of computers determines who belongs in the game.

Multiple teams had a shot at the number two ranking this weekend, and the biggies were Texas and Oklahoma. Now, wouldn't it be great if those two teams were to have just played each other head to head at some point during the season? Oh, wait... THEY DID!!! And Texas won, and not just anywhere but at a neutral site, not at Texas' field or at Oklahoma's field. This was the best measuring stick imaginable as to who should be ranked higher.

But leave it to BCS. Right now, Oklahoma is sitting at number two. They will take on Missouri for the Big 12 championship game, and if they win that as expected, they will assuredly play for in the national championship game. Why? I'm not entirely sure, there are several empty reasons, all of which smell like a substance commonly given the call letters BS.

This is why people vote and determine rankings. Computers are programmed to spit out answers from hundreds of formulas. People, presumably, have COMMON SENSE.

And this is also why college football should implement a playoff, at least involving 8 teams. I know there's plenty of reasons why not, but you compete to be the best. If there's no way to realistically determine who is the best, then far too many folks will end a season feeling like they got robbed. And, honestly, sports can be a lot of things to a lot of people, but nowhere should it be about having the feeling of being robbed when you succeed at a high level. If other sports in college (basketball, baseball, heck, even lacrosse) can get it right, then football has no excuse.

Trash this system. It's so numeric, computerized, formulaic, and idiotic, that it has managed to become arbitrary! Start from scratch and doing it some other way.

A month old toy

2008-11-30T22:12:00.003-06:00

So I haven't been very good about posting for the last three or four weeks. It's been a very busy time, very exhausting. And... well, let me confess, most of what little free time I had, I readily yielded to a new video game I bought about a month ago. The game is called Fallout 3, and I must say, it is hypnotizing. After doing just about everything I could with it for a full month (I'll explain in a minute), I beat the game at 11pm last night.

Here's the basic set-up: the game is set in the year 2277, a full 200 years after a war resulted in a gigantic nuclear explosion. This third installment of the series (I didn't play the first two, and the last game came out over ten years ago) is set in Washington DC. The area is basically in ruins with small, irradiated settlements here and there, and overrun by mutated animals and people. There are normal humans as well, some sympathetic to you, some looking for your blood. Everything you eat and drink has radiation.

The story: shortly before the nukes dropped, multiple vaults were set up across the area intended to be living spaces for large groups of people to be sheltered from the radiation of the wasteland. The vaults are sealed, no one can get out, and no one can get in. Well, your dad was a scientist in your vault, and he escapes on your 18th birthday, and you decide to escape and find him. Apparently, he's trying to find an old colleagues that, 20 years ago, worked with him on a huge project to purify all of the water in the ruins of radiation, and ultimately saving humanity.

The main quest has you travelling about through the dangerous wasteland searching for him. But there are tons of little side projects that you can run into to make extra currency and level up your player. The game is generally a first-person shooting game, and you get a lot of enjoyment from blowing up a 30-foot super mutant with a missile launcher. I did that a lot. Those little side projects can add dozens of hours to an already 20+ hour long main quest.

So, being the detailed and obsessive freak that I am, prolonged the experience by doing most of the main quest, then just about EVERY SINGLE SIDE QUEST that I could possibly find, and finally finishing the main quest last night. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I may have logged over 100 hours of play time over the past month on all of that. And I'm even more embarrassed to admit, I think it was time well-spent.

These role playing games suck you into their little worlds. In the game, you get shot at, you have to find food and drink to regenerate some health when you are hurt, you have to manage your radiation levels, health, and money (you need to buy healing items, weapons, clothes, etc.). Sometimes, when you are low on health, you have to just take a little radiation and drink from a fire hydrant somewhere before you take on a battle. To show you how engrossing this experience is, I was walking around in Chicago yesterday and passed by a fire hydrant, and I was strangely compelled to take a drink from it. I didn't.

So this ends a small chapter of my life, the Fallout 3 chapter. No longer do I have to worry about a six foot tall scorpion attacking me, or how much radiation I'll take if I eat the meat from an irradiated mutant brown bear, or how I'm going to repair my assault rifle. I probably won't touch a game until something similar comes around. With my free time now, I might try something I haven't done in a long time. Cooking, cleaning, reading a book, doing laundry, wash the dishes, shaving...

Dick Durbin: NO!

2008-11-30T21:43:00.003-06:00

Sen. Dick Durbin from our great corrupt state of Illinois made some news last week when he said that he was considering petitioning President Bush to commute the sentence of the former Illinois Governor George Ryan. Now, I didn't follow the Ryan trial very closely, but I know that he was convicted by a jury of racketeering, fraud, and corruption, all crimes he committed while he was in office. And it was not without a body count... the jury heard testimony of how several of the truckers driving with licenses that were bribe-bought accidentally killed several kids. Again, while he was in office.

Sen. Durbin brought up the fact that Ryan has already paid so much in terms of consequences. He is very late in life and his wife is in frail health. He has already lost his pension and won't have any financial security, especially if he lives to see his release. At his age, a 6 year sentence is close to being a life sentence. Yada, yada, yada.

And, of course, our great governor, Rod Blagojevich, jumped on the bandwagon immediately and said that he agrees. This guy, of course, has all kinds of friends indicted and looking at jail time, and he's being investigated aggressively himself. How convenient.

I can't seriously believe that elected officials of Illinois are actually saying this out loud in this political climate. Politically speaking, the morale of the people of Illinois has never been lower. This government is a mess, to put it kindly, the people know it, and elected officials know that we know it.

So let me spout it out clearly: Ryan should serve his full sentence. No reduction, no gifts, nothing. Particularly while he remains unrepentant for his crimes. The elderly should not receive mulligans because of their advanced stage of life, nor should the justice system take into consideration the situation that Ryan put himself in!!!

There is a difference between legal consequences and natural consequences. Legal consequences are rendered by the justice system. Natural consequences come about because of one's idiot decisions. Six years in the slammer and no more pension? Legal consequences. Not being able to be with your wife in her later years? Your fault. Natural consequence. Your tarnished "good name"? Natural consequence. No more financial security after losing your pension? Natural consequence of getting caught.

Durbin said, "To say that he's paid a price for his wrongdoing, he certainly has. And the question is whether continued imprisonment is appropriate at this point." I disagree. He certainly has not. Natural consequences should not have that much weight in decided whether or not a man has paid legally for his wrongdoing. This is a governor that took the corrupt status of Illinois to a new height and paved the way for Gov. Blagojevich to be as corrupt as he is. Blagojevich was more than willing to cite the corrupt ways of the past when he was running for office, but was more than willing to ride the wave once he got in. Making Ryan serve the full sentence sends a message to the state (and to elected officials) that this will not be tolerated. Commuting Ryan's sentences says that we're willing to go easy because of sad circumstances that the wrongdoing put himself in.

Don't make this mistake, Sen. Durbin!

A new president announced...

2008-11-04T22:18:00.002-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama has been elected as the next President of the United States. I'm currently watching John McCain's concession speech, and Obama is about to take the stage in Grant Park in Chicago. I'm not sure how I feel about the next four years.

I believe that there is more excitement than ever about the presidency and the country. My hope is that all this enthusiasm for voting is genuine, and that it will translate to goodwill for the entire country. Because if it was about following a rock star on tour, this country isn't going to get any better.

I hope that this isn't a case of drinking some sort of "change" Kool-Aid, and we just become a more liberal version of the same broken country in serious, scary times. Hey, maybe anything different is better than what we've had for the past eight years. I'm not a very political guy... and I regressed even moreso when Tim Russert died. Oh, I would have LOVED to have seen Russert take a crack at these two candidates! Anyway...

I hope to death that Obama is more than just a rock star that has hypnotized and captivated the masses. He certainly doesn't have a long resume of experience that proves his readiness for such a high office. We're relying on skills and personality, not to mention his ideals and charisma.

It's the allure of the unknown, maybe. It's always more seductive than the familiar, well-worn path that McCain probably represented. But does that translate to an effective governing of the most powerful country in the world? I have no idea, but let me be honest: I'm not celebrating with a wild party tonight. I don't think I'd be doing that regardless of who won the election.

God help me to love this country so much that I will celebrate like the "fans" in Grant Park right now when we handle the two wars properly. Help me to want to celebrate when the economy shapes up. Help me to celebrate, to really feel deep down in my soul how good it is, when schools are built, and jobs are created, and when taxes are lowered, when energy is conserved, when the poor are fed, when the homeless are given meaningful work and shelter, when good is done.

I'm not a believer yet that this is for "real". My dad told me recently that he was going to vote for Obama because, as he said, "this could be big!" Again, I've not bought into it yet. I'll believe it when we start to see what I listed above. If this is for real, then the celebration will continue at every sign that this country is becoming "a more perfect union".

I wish it were my party...

2008-10-29T20:14:00.002-06:00

If I were a bigger man, I would take this opportunity to congratulate the Philadelphia Phillies. But I'm not. I'm still ticked.

There should be a party... RIGHT THIS MINUTE... in Wrigleyville. The biggest party in human history should be occurring right now. This should be the most insane, wild, and wonderful celebration ever seen. But no. Because the Cubs morph into the monkeys in the Careerbuilder commercials come playoff time, I'm sitting here blogging about what could have been.

The end of frustration. The end of misery. The end of human suffering. The beginning of a new enlightenment. The beginning of true world peace. The coming of Heaven on Earth. The Cubs winning the World Series.

But no.

Because no one employed by the Chicago Cubs franchise could field a ground ball, get a clutch hit, or simply comprehend the four-word phrase, "Don't pitch to Manny!", my misery continues. It's just another day, pondering what could have been. Longsuffering men across this great city cry in their beers tonight because we watch yet another team (that we beat, mind you, in the regular season!!!) claim the championship.

We have no excuses. The notion for all of these "curses" originated in the hindquarters of a bull. It has nothing to do with the cold weather in Chicago during playoff time... look at what happened in Philadelphia these past few days! We just have these "lights are on but nobody's home" moments in the playoffs!

We had the most loaded team, hitting for both power and contact; we were clutch ALL SEASON; we had a starting rotation for the postseason that made teams shutter; we had depth; we had superstar power; we had all the pieces in place. It was our hands gripped around the necks of the rest of the league, and we let ourselves get kneed in the junk.

I'm sick of this. We deserve better. These letdowns are taking years off of my life, and off of the lives of too many people. This could, technically, be criminal activity, come to think of it. The Cubs are causing the suffering and demise of the many people. Oh, never mind.

I'm ticked right now, as you can tell. Just give me a few days to cool down. And sorry to all those kids that show up to my doorstep on Halloween trick-or-treating. I won't have any chocolate or candy to give away. I'm eating my whole supply right now.

Bugs

2008-10-14T21:09:00.002-05:00

As the summer started to wind down and fall was upon us, I realized something for the first time since I moved into my apartment at the beginning of March. I have roommates. Lots of 'em.

In the past when I had a roommate, I was usually able to get my way by arguing. In this case, if I kill my roommate, I still lose and I'm still far outnumbered.

I think the main species of bug that have joined me in my apartment are aphids. And their not small bugs. I can see one in the corner of the room twenty feet away when I'm not wearing glasses. Just as a point of reference, this morning before I put my contacts in, I smacked into the door because I didn't see it.

The thing that's consoling about these bugs is that they are pretty tame, and relatively respectful (for a bug). They try not to come out unless it's night or when I'm not home. They stay out of my bedroom. I have a problem with them hanging out so often in the bathroom and kitchen. They don't crawl all over my food, or microwave, or toaster, or anything else I'll need for food processing. They go around, so that's the respectful part. But that's still too close for me.

It's really funny because if I get home late and I turn on the light in the kitchen, about five of them up on the kitchen counter scatter like crazy. It's as if they're employing stealth tactics, and they're cover was just blown. Just to show them a lesson, I play a game with the poor last one that doesn't successfully take cover. I'll usually grab a piece of paper or something and try to trick it into walking onto the paper. If it does, then I'll pick it up and hover it over the sink (with water running of course) and wait to see if this dumb bug just blindly walks off of the edge of the paper or if it gets to the edge and skids to a grinding halt.

Do you remember the old Roadrunner cartoons? Think back to how any of those characters chasing the roadrunner would be running so fast that it would run right off the cliff, but it wouldn't fall until it actually realized that it had just run out of real estate. That pause of gravitational reality was always so much fun for me as a kid. I kid you not, I swear I witnessed one bug run off the edge of the paper, and I heard an ever so faint, "Oh oh!" and about two full seconds elapse before it dropped into the sink for its ceremonial aphid burial at sea.

So they don't bother me that much, in fact they are kind of a source of amusement. Anyway, I've consulted my mom for advice on how to deter these buggers from getting too comfortable. I've tried Raid and other kinds of spray, and the aphids are the only bugs those don't scare away.

My mom then suggested something called boric acid. Great. I knew I should have paid attention in my inorganic chemistry class in college. She still hasn't found it yet at the store, and I'm not about to bust into the local chem lab and ask for some boron. With all of the hazards and blow-ups I caused in chemistry class, I wonder why I should stop at boric acid. I'm sure there's a bunch of things that would kill an aphid, especially if many of those things nearly hospitalized me. So I'm going to try to cocktail an acidic mixture of osmium with neptunium and see what it does to those aphids.

And, really, although they're still intruders, they're like semi-trained pets with a devious side. They won't attack you or try to do harm in any way, but they like to explore. I'm simply insisting to these little six-legged amateur Magellans that this land has already been discovered and claimed for Joe. Or, if they can scrap together some cash to pay some rent, I might be willing to negotiate.

Geese

2008-10-07T20:55:00.002-05:00

You know what bugs me?

Flocks of geese.

They're everywhere. They're in the yard behind my apartment. They're in the fields. They're in the courtyards. They're in the middle of the street. If one shows up in my apartment, I'm going to marinate it and roast it. This might sound like a good idea, but remember, I can't cook. That move could take me down with the goose.

Since I've been a Christian for eight years, I've done my best to cut out the use of profanity in my language and gestures. The last time I gave the middle finger... it was about ten years ago. I was driving to work, I was going down a sidestreet, and a bunch of geese started to cross the road. You've all been in this situation. There's always a bunch of them. LOTS of them. Not one goose is in a hurry of any kind, in spite of the traffic. They're not at a stop sign, or a crosswalk, or even a rarely-used country backroads. The geese all line up in single file and, amazingly, it seems like they line up tallest to shortest! Mother goose goes first, oh so slowly! And they have this goose-approved head-bob as they walk. Their beaks go slightly forward, slightly back. Slowly.

Cars stop. And wait. More cars drive up and stop. And wait. Some start to honk. Then everyone starts to honk. Still waiting, honking, getting impatient, but no one has the coldness to cut past everyone and blast those geese into a dust storm of feathers.

Well, I was at the FRONT OF THE LINE of cars. When you're in this situation, you start to think that maybe, just maybe, some of those honks are directed towards me and not the geese. I watch this family of geese slowly shimmy to the middle of the road, and just when the mother goose gets to the other side, and the family of geese behind her had just about cleared my half of the road... I swear to you, the mother goose turned and announced to the rest of the geese that she was calling off the entire operation... and turned around, and started back to the other side, with all of the other geese following suit.

I cursed, loudly, honkws, and gave those geese the middle finger. Other drivers saw me and laughed. I had, in effect, "flipped the bird" to a bunch of birds. What seemed like hours later, the geese finally cleared the road, and I'm telling you, my 1991 Dodge Aries went from 0 to 60 in two quacks of a goose's beak. That Dodge wasn't designed to do that, but after that experience, I was.

So whenever I step in some of that goose poop just beyond my apartment's porch, I think of that day. I think of how utterly functionless those geese are in the world's system. They seem like such arrogant creatures with a sense of entitlement that dwarfs that of most rich women that I know. So geese are out there in my doghouse with Cedric Benson, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Ron Paul, the Chicago White Sox, Kim Jong-Il, the monster from Cloverfield, hip-hop music, and Skeletor from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Uh, don't ask.

I'm back

2008-10-07T20:43:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone!

I'm back.

I've been rooting for the Cubs for the past three weeks. For the past three days, I've been trying to pry myself out from under my rock.

I've been traumatized. Absolutely abused. I've rooted for these Cubs since Spring Training in late February. I've watched them spend almost $400 million in new contracts over the past two years. In three quick games, after all the build up and excitement, I've watched the return on that huge investment go the way of Wall Street. Now, America is close to a new Great Depression. Now, I, a Cubs fan, am close to a Giant Depression.

I'm not going to go on one of my trademark rants about the Cubs right now. I don't have the strength. I'm too weak and weary. I just need to recuperate. But at least I have a little bit of time freed up again to keep up with my blog. Once I recuperate.

5 am reprised

2008-09-20T08:18:00.002-05:00

Hopefully, this is something that happens only once a year.

I had another 5 am wake-up call yesterday. This time, my agency had a golf outing fundraiser that started at the butt-crack of dawn, so we had to be there at 6am to start and set up.

This really shouldn't happen. No, I'm not talking about the fundraiser. I'm talking about 5 am. It shouldn't happen. It should occur or exist. And there was no way ON EARTH I was going to set my alarm for any earlier than 5 am. I don't think it goes any earlier than that, in fact. I certainly don't.

On those rare occasions in which I have to wake up that early, it's kind of like my own personal daylight savings. I call it my daylight losings. Here I am on a Saturday morning at 8am blogging. I'm all screwed up right now, my sleep pattern is off, everything that is routine to me is crumbling!

The fundraiser went very well. All things considered (i.e. 5 am, me, a 5-hour vitamin energy shot that tasted like dirt, etc.), it was a success. I left at 10 am to go run my day program, and things were doing okay when I got there. We made a good bunch of money for the agency. But I'm all twisted right now! I'm concerned that I might start eating cereal for dinner and grilled chicken for breakfast; I might start my pants on my head and my shirt on my butt; I might start watching Oprah or listening to country music or something. I'm all out of sorts. I might start becoming optimistic about the Bears (in whom I'm still not a believer). I'm going to have to right this ship very soon.

Unfortunately, I have to conclude that 5 am is not a myth. It very much exists, and there are actually other freaks in the world that realize this as well... and they all drive like maniacs, cutting off the groggy poor souls like me at that ungodly hour. And yes, I woke up, ate, showered, got ready for work, commuted 13 miles, and arrived within an hour, by 6am. All to avoid the most violent and graphic blog entry title that could ever occur in human history: 4 am.

Bears blog: my apologies

2008-09-11T19:12:00.002-05:00

Well, my tail is not in between my legs right now... it's up my keister. I didn't put my foot in my mouth, I swallowed it whole and now my foot is, well, back in between my legs. I have badmouthed the Bears all preseason. They have earned an apology for rough-housing the mighty Indianapolis Colts in week 1. Bears... I am sorry. You were right... this week.

I have to give kudos to the offense. They moved the chains, pounded the football, played calmly and stuck to the game plan. The defense punched the Colts right in the mouth. Now, granted, Peyton Manning was rusty and their offensive line was missing some key people. But the Colts' defense was third in the NFL last year. Third! And the Bears simply executed the plan. Nothing spectacular, but consistent, solid, and physical.

Matt Forte is very good. I hope the line continues to open holes for him, because he's better than the average label that has been predicted for him. The offensive line played amazingly well, especially considering that everyone (including myself) foretold Kyle Orton's burial at midfield of Lucas Oil Stadium. And nobody got hurt. We're all still healthy, so I'm actually surprised.

Make no mistake. I'm not a believer. There are reasons to be skeptical, and any team with a different makeup, which would create unfavorable matchups for the Bears, could still destroy them. Unless, of course, all these guys are for real. So I'll watch next weekend...

Palin's daughter

2008-09-02T18:59:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone, I'm back. Yeah, I know it's been about three weeks since I've last posted. I've been busy, I've been unwilling to blog any further about the impending insanity that will be the Chicago Bears' season, and I've had a strange case of humorous writer's block (it might be called "Playstation syndrome"). So I come out of hiding today, with not much funny to write, but some perspective on a political issue.

Who am I kidding? It's a tabloid issue. The recently-named running mate for John McCain (whom I'm pretty sure I'll be supporting in this election), Sarah Palin, just announced that her 17 year old daughter is pregnant, and is planning on marrying the father and keeping the child. Sadly, this is news. Unfortunately, "sophisticated" news anchors have to ask political analyst guests on their news shows whether or not they believe this will affect votes. I just went onto CNN's website and they asked in a web poll question if the viewer thought that voters should care about this issue. Most people voted no, but 33% voted yes. With over 300 thousand votes, that's more than 100,000 people voting that this is a big deal.

Here's my opinion on this... that's 100,000 hypocritical busybodies out there that need to put down their National Enquirer and go find some excitement in their own lives. This is not a political issue. This is not even something that represents Sarah Palin very much. Now, if she came out and blatantly said, We will terminate this child, and Palin has always been a pro-life politician, then maybe I'd shutter a bit. But that's not going on here. This is a family situation that has no bearing on the election.

Are we, in this country, going to judge this 17 year old, or even her vice-presidential candidate mother, because it has been officially confirmed that she is having sex before marriage?!?! Alaska was just labelled as "the coldest state with the hottest governor" because she was a beauty queen years ago. Now voters that were scintillated by the sex appeal on the ticket are going to turn around and pass judgment on a 17 year old girl and embarrass her family by making this tabloid news?

As if the fact that teens are having sex, and some are getting pregnant, is scary news. We've all known this, and we were all 17 years ago once. Think back to when you were 17. The most God-fearing teenages struggle with this. It's not far from the truth that the vast majority of 17 year olds either are (or were) having sex, or wished they were having sex (please, nobody reply and discloser which category they fit in).

This is a good ol' fashioned, "scarlet letter" type of branding. That's all it is. I credit Palin with disclosing it before it could turn into a tabloid frenzy, and I credit both candidates by refusing to make an issue of it. I don't find the issue amusing, interesting, or politically significant. It's an invasion of privacy and an open door to embarrassing a family going through a whirlwind of change right now. Pray for them. Hope that it turns out well and that God uses this as a way to personally connect with this young lady and this family, privately. No matter what her sin, we've all done the same, or wanted to do the same (which is essentially doing the same, according to the Bible). Don't destroy this family. Drop this issue now and focus on the real issues.

Bears Blog #1

2008-08-10T20:22:00.002-05:00

Last year, I retired from Chicago Bears blogging toward the end of the season. This year, I think I might end up retiring before the end of the preseason. Anyway, it's not looking good, and I'm thinking that I'm going to be getting my "Bears Win!" fix through a video game rather than in real life.

The Bears' star draft pick, offensive tackle Chris Williams, had back surgery last Wednesday and is said to be out about 10-12 weeks. Williams was supposed to fortify the left side of the offensive line for the next 10-12 years. The career backup, Terrence Metcalf, supposed to get his shot as a starting offensive left guard this year, had minor knee surgery a couple of weeks ago. Given that the offensive line play (or lack thereof) was a huge cause for the Bears' futilities last year, I can confidently say that we have made zero progress in the area of greatest need since the end of last year.

Here's the prescription... there are two experienced left guards out there, almost fully recovered from injuries from last year. Both are former Pro Bowlers, and one of them was with the Bears last year. Ruben Brown had three productive years with the Bears, and LeCharles Bentley is a former standout that's been plagued with injuries for the past three years but is said to be fully healthy now. They are both cheap, experienced stopgap options. Get one of them!!! Our current option is a guy named Josh Beekman. Yeah, I've never heard of him either .

I'm appalled that the braintrust of the Chicago Bears didn't do more to fill the positions of need in the offseason. Jerry Angelo (the general manager that displays very little evidence of a brain or trustworthiness) didn't do any major upgrades at left guard, free safety, wide receiver, and most importantly, quarterback. Plus, our running back is a rookie. He's gambling that someone within the Bears' system will "step up" and have a career year to make those positions work this year. What is the definition of "insanity" again?

The Bears' first preseason game last Thursday didn't do much to calm anxieties across the city. When you come to work the next morning and everyone is raving about the mobility of the third-string quarterback, that's a bad sign. There's no reason to analyze the first preseason game any further when the actual season is looking so bleak.

So I'm bracing for a terrible season. They may be pushing the creativity of my sarcasm to new heights this year. The good news is that Brett Favre is in New York and won't face the Bears this year, unless both teams go to the -- ha ha ha ha ha ha! The rest of their division looks poor as well. The Detroit Lions don't look good. The Packers gave away Brett Favre. The Vikings look absolutely incredible at every position... except the most important one, quarterback. So there's hope that the Bears will win a few games. But a "few" means that the losses will be a "ton", so if you're a fan of sarcastic humor, tune into my blog weekly for a good laugh.

Football is back!!!

2008-08-03T19:26:00.002-05:00

Ah, yes, it's the sounds of the season once again. The crashing of helmets, the grunts of superhuman physical specimens, the blow of the whistle, coaches yelling, fans screaming. It's football. I'm watching it right now, the first preseason game of the year. All of the great players, Peyton Manning, Jason Taylor, Bob Sanders, will play one down before giving way Pop Warner-equivalent football. And I don't care. It's football... maybe it's football's little rascal brother, but it's better than no football at all.

And it's nearing the date of my favorite holiday of the year... the release of the next John Madden Football for Playstation. Madden 09. I can't wait. I already informed my boss that I'm leaving work at 3pm that day. I have a ritual on what has become known as Maddenoliday. I stop at the nearest store to pick up the game... I pick up a pizza on the way home... I play the game and eat pizza until I pass out. I go to work the next day (a step that is often neglected by hardcore gamers, so give me some credit), and I play again until I become a huge zombified mess.

This year, Madden will be extremely important to me. Because I'm a pretty good player, and I'm always the Chicago Bears. My virtual Chicago Bears are always good, entertaining, winning Super Bowls and loaded with Pro Bowl players. This is the only way I'm going to witness winning Bears football this year, because the real Chicago Bears are going to stink. Bad. Unless they start cloning and sign 27 Devin Hesters right away, I'm going to be relying far too heavily on video games to get a taste of successful Bears football.

So, August 12 is the day. Don't call me, don't text me, don't bother me on that day. I won't get up from my couch. And Sundays, already a holy day in the eyes of God, become even holier to me, because of football. And Monday nights. And Thanksgiving Day, and several other Thursdays and Saturdays later in the season. And whenever I fire up the Playstation. The greatest sport ever is back, and I'm taking my rightful spot in front of the television.

And you may remember late last season that I announced my retirement from Bears blogging. Well, much like Brett Favre, I have un-retired, spurned lucrative offers from the team to stay retired, and I'm back with avengence. Until the Bears cause me to punch a hole in my TV.

Are you ready for some football!!!!!!

Fairy tales

2008-08-03T18:50:00.002-05:00

Like many folks, I grew up watching the Disney movies that would be classically labeled as "fairy tales". Everybody loves a "feel good" story. And maybe I'm not so much talking about fairy tales as I am talking about the American Dream, whatever the heck that is. But in going through life, it has constantly amazed me how people react when life, work, relationships, business, family, and even one's faith life doesn't go according to one's expectations.

Now, I'm prone to frustration and letdown as much as anyone. But if there's one good thing about having some rough times in my past, its that I'm not as devastated as I used to be when things don't go my way, according to my perfect little fairy tale dream for my life. Scratch that... to be honest, I don't dream much. My dreams are pretty boring. People dream about the fairy tale wedding, or American Dream family and executive-level job with a corner office, or a nice big house in the suburbs with three kids and a dog, or that you are a superstar athlete or celebrity. I don't dream like that. The last dream that I could remember having was of me sitting on the couch watching TV and eating a bag of chips. No joke. Just me, the TV, and Doritos. And I don't eat Doritos.

But I know many folks have an ideal, perfect vision for their lives. Maybe it lines up with the American Dream, or a fairy tale, I don't know. And it is a powerful, POWERFUL thing that drives the actions of all kinds of people in all walks of life. I watched recently someone abandon a work-related journey years in the making, and relocating it completely because something didn't go according to the vision. Now I fully believe that God has a plan and purpose and that spiritual reality may have influenced this person's decision. But the stress and frustration associated with the journey not going according to place really struck me. How many people in this situation would just say, "You're not going to let me win? Well then I'll just take my ball and go home!"

What is it about life that makes us think that this life here on earth can possibly go smoothly? We glamorize these snapshots of upper-class lifestyles and forget that there was probably some turmoil getting there. Even in an actual, Disney-approved fairy tale, there is some kind of conflict that makes for a good story. Maybe its the fighter in me, but I never really enjoyed the endings of some of those stories... I drew (and still draw) inspiration from the perseverance of the main character mired in those conflicts. I didn't care about Cinderella's ending... I actually appreciate more that she didn't get all catty with her sisters like most women I know would.

I like the story of Josh Hamilton, outfielder for the Texas Rangers, not because he hits 500-foot home runs now. Barry Bonds did that, and I don't like Barry Bonds. But the part of the story of Josh Hamilton I am motivated by is part where he put forth a lot of effort and exercised a lot of humility in turning his life around. He persisted when he could have given up. No where in the "American Dream" is there a part about where a guy gets tossed in jail and into rehab, and nearly killed, by a drug addiction, and the subsequent tempations for drugs AFTER he got clean.

When someone asks me about what I want my life or career to look like in 5, 10 years, I honestly answer that I don't know. I'm not too bright for not thinking about those things... there is a lot of good in having some directions and plans. But for the idealistic people that start ranting about the size of their families, homes, jobs, career trajectory, pool in the backyard, etc., can I warn you to let the wind out of the sails just a little bit? What happens when life throws you a curveball? What happens when you get passed over for a promotion and end up with a boss that's not too fond of you? What happens when you are told that you medically can't have kids? Or if you lose your job, or foreclose on your home, or a loved one has cancer, or your son or daughter in the military is sent to Iraq?

It takes so little effort on the part of this world to throw a twist into your "fairy tale". But if the tale, or the American dream, or the vision, is the foundation for your very being, I caution us all, you will be wreck. If your foundation is God, and He molds the vision for your life, the result will be peace. I recommend reading The Dreamgiver by Bruce Wilkinson... he also wrote the Prayer of Jabez. God gives us a big dream of purpose, and it usually doesn't involve any illusions of grandeur. And God doesn't lie to us and tell us that there won't be any curveballs in our fairy tale.

Salaries

2008-07-26T19:19:00.002-05:00

For a dude that is squarely planted in middle class life, I watch the very beginnings of the preseason of the NFL and read about all of the contract holdouts, demands for more money, rookie contracts, etc. On one hand, I get it because these guys are in the entertainment business, and a physically risky one at that. One the other hand, when a player is saying, "I only make $500,000...", some of us want to upchuck. I think there should be a new law that forbids the word "only" being in the same sentence as a six-figure number or higher. If you break that law, you lose a digit.

I've watched the Chicago Bears deal with a few unhappy millionaires this past offseason. Brian Urlacher, Tommie Harris, Lance Briggs, Robbie Gould, and soon Devin Hester have all been given huge raises (after rather public tantrums) from previous base salaries that put each of them in the top 1% of America's income-earners. Sometimes I think that it would be miserable to have my salary so public, constantly hanging over my head whenever I perform.

But I think that most players like it, because it signifies status. Players want to be told and shown that they are the top dog. There is a well-established, strong suggestion in the middle-class business world that you don't mention what your salary is around co-workers. Somebody will feel jilted... then start micro-analyzing everything that everyone with a higher salary at their level does. It can get ugly... trust me, I've seen it.

So many people in this country are so insecure. We want all kinds of tangible, real signs that we are valued, respected, recognized... and it all stems from an unwillingness to succeed and achieve quietly. What ever happened to just working hard to please the Lord in the place that the Lord placed us? And letting God work to dole out the blessings as He sees fit? AND MINDING YOUR OWN BUSINESS???

I've grown accustomed to be a high achiever in a low place, and not getting a whole lot of tangible recognition for it. In a lot of businesses, any differentiation in recognition and rewards would destroy too many egos. But then it becomes about one's "number", one's salary. And any differentiation there, any reward for a certain level of experience or education, becomes a problem.

Oftentimes, in the crazy realms of my head (when it's working, that it), just for the sake of perspective, I'll make an absurd "replacement scenario" to illustrate how misguided priorities are. So, here goes: let's imagine that, instead of dollars, we all earned Twinkies. Paid in Twinkies, keep Twinkies in huge containers that serve as wallets, and fork over Twinkies when we go to the store to buy things. And, of course credit (or debit) Twinkie cards. Instead of coins... crumbs.

Now, how do the NFL contract negotiations; multi-million Twinkie earners complaining; inner-office squabbles about Twinkie salary; and the cutthroat drive to earn more Twinkies seem now? We drive big cars and wear expensive bling to show off how many Twinkies we earn. And, oh yes, the bank is one great big Hostess factory.

It's goofy to think of us putting the Twinkie up so high as a symbol of our status and our respect level, but that's what we've done to the "almighty dollar." Imagine if Twinkies produced both greed and insecurity is so many people... right now, the fact that Twinkies produce obesity is enough! But greed and insecurity have been given new life by the dollar. And, just as in my scenario with Twinkies, currency is important. Of course. But not to be worshipped or overprioritized.

I'll admit that I've been a little sore in the past at the thought of possibly making less money than a coworker whom I believe had underachieved. I'll have moments where I crave the respect that I think I "deserve". But as a follower of Christ, the term "deserve" gets a little scary, doesn't it? So let's think of it as my salary being what God can trust me to "handle" or "manage". And if I'm not grateful about that, then maybe I should get paid in Twinkies.

My take on the Favre situation

2008-07-19T11:13:00.003-05:00

It's really getting to be disgusting how the sports media has turned into tabloid-worthy paparazzi over the past couple of years... whether it be Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Michael Vick, etc. I don't care who Alex Rodriguez is sleeping with or practicing kabbalah with. Here, Brett Favre hasn't really done anything wrong, but this is getting out of control fast. He retired, and a few months later, he decided he made the wrong call, so he wants to come back. The media is all over this one... every journalist, newspaper, blogger, TV station... and now the Packers have filed tampering charges against the Minnesota Vikings, saying that they had inappropriate communication with Favre (who is still retired).

Before I rant, can someone tell me how Greta Van Sustren of all people landed the big Favre interview last week? Not someone on ESPN or at Sports Illustrated? A legal expert who covered the OJ Simpson trial well over a decade ago! What's next? Mike Wallace interviewing Roger Clemens about steroids? Oh, wait...

This smells of a situation where the Packers wanted Favre to retire. Yes, maybe they had courtesy discussions back in March to "talk Favre out of" retirement. But something is fishy because they couldn't have set the jersey retirement ceremony for Favre any quicker, outrightly naming Aaron Rodgers as the new QB, and implementing a new offense tailored to Rodgers' strengths. I understand moving quickly, but it's no secret that the Packers' brass didn't like the yearly "will he or won't he" tension.

And this speaks to a deeper issue within the realms of the sports business. The higher-ups on teams HATE it when a player gets to be so big that the franchise turns on that player. Remember how the Chicago Bulls couldn't wait to move Michael Jordan on and dismantle that team after their last championship?They may have had one, maybe two, more good years in them as a unit. How's that move paid off?

Owners and general managers have egos, too. And they are in charge... the players are the employees. But it sickens many of them when someone like Brett Favre has so much of a stranglehold on the team and the fanbase. It's why some general managers make odd trades and draft obscure draft picks... they want to prove that they are significant, too, and that they caught something that no one else did. They would love to ship out Favre and bring in "their guy" and have him succeed.

You've heard many coaches preach, "no one is bigger than the team." Sorry, in this bazillion-dollar business, there are a select few that carry the franchise. Teams love to have "franchise players", but hate it when those players become the face of the franchise. Owners don't like having to cater to, and answer to, their employees. I get it, but if that's going to be the case, then they should not have allowed salaries to skyrocket over the past 15 years. They didn't have to add skyboxes and raise ticket prices and sign TV deals and turn their businesses into massive cash cows for their financial benefit. Famous players have become the proverbial Frankenstein of these businesses. They created these monsters, they've made a lot of money off of these monsters, so they should have to live with them.

Which brings me to the verdict: let Favre play, start, whatever the heck he wants. He has more than earned the right to be a little bit flippant, and the Packers have the added benefit of having the CLEARLY BETTER quarterback playing if he were to return. The Packers are better with Favre, not Rodgers, and Packer fans want to win now, not later when Rodgers becomes more established. Favre proved last year that he is not washed up and having a hard time letting go. He's still great. This should be an easy decision.

Admitting that one of your employees is more famous and successful than you are may be a bitter pill to swallow. But there's a bigger and more bitter pill waiting for you if your fan base abandons you and your 3-13 Aaron Rodgers-led football team.

Josh Hamilton's newest fan... ME

2008-07-16T20:19:00.002-05:00

I'm going to take a break from my usual left-field musings of humor to heap some praise on Josh Hamilton, outfielder for the Texas Rangers. In a span of about twenty minutes, Josh became a national icon just by hitting home runs in a competition that wasn't a real baseball game. In Monday's Home Run Derby, Josh went up and hit 28 home runs in the first round. He ended up wearing himself out from that display that by the final round, when both competitors start from scratch, Hamilton actually lost and only hit 3. But for 20 minutes, he put on a performance of epic proportions.

A few years ago, Bobby Abreu hit 24 homers in one round. That was incredible. But Hamilton not only surpassed 24 easily, he was hitting 500-foot MOONSHOTS. Hitting a ball into the upper deck for a home run at Yankee Stadium is absolutely unheard of. This guy has precision and power that puts him into a rare echelon of players. I got home just in time to see Hamilton start his round, and I stood in front of the TV shaking my head in disbelief the whole time.

After he finished his round, he was interviewed by ESPN, and the microphone broadcast the interview to the whole stadium in addition for TV. He proceeded to say that he felt so blessed that God took him from where he was to where he is now, as quickly as He did. After he lost in the final, he was interviewed again and thanked his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Josh Hamilton was drafted number one several years ago by the Devil Rays. He had all the talent in the world, but a horrible drug habit derailed his career. Cocaine nearly ended his career, his marriage, fatherhood, and his life. He ended up in his grandmother's house, wasting away, but grandma prayed all along, and eventually he went to rehab and got clean. After about three years away from the game, clean and committed to serving God and his family, he made a comeback to baseball. Eventually he ended up with the Reds' system, played about 15 games in Single A minor league ball, and was called up to the majors. He played very well, and the Reds traded him to Texas for some much-needed pitching. Now, Hamilton is an all-star and rising talent.

But what's amazing about him is that he's made no secrets about how he fortifies his life as a Christian to keep the drug demons away. Every night, they attack. He never travels without more than $20 in his wallet. He speaks to kids and groups frequently, and openly praises God for giving him a second chance to play the game he loves for a living.

I remember those first couple of years after that amazing redeptive salvation moment with Jesus. Suddenly, I was looking at the darkness through the rearview mirror. It's like a constant Tilt-A-Whirl because you are emotional, joyful, naive, redeemed, but tempted like crazy. Josh is on that now, and I remember it. Still tempted, but so, so thankful. I would highly recommend finding the edition of Sports Illustrated from about a month or two ago with Hamilton on the cover. The story was comprehensive, as one would expect from SI, but the center of the story is Hamilton. Hamilton himself has was way of making Jesus the center of Hamilton's story.

I'm reminded of something I've learned over the years. Having experienced a different, but very real, type of darkness before I was saved, I can recall that state of dispair that Hamilton probably found himself in. You can conclude that there is either a power greater than you that is in control, or there isn't. Concluding that there isn't and realizing that you aren't sufficient is what I call depression. By the way, concluding that there isn't (regardless of any theology that you may recite, mind you) and realizing that you are sufficient is a pretty realistic description of pride.

When you conclude that there is, in fact, a power greater than you, and when you finally accept that you are not sufficient, but that God is, well, that is salvation. Drugs, depression, anorexia, anger, lust, alcohol... they are all devastating, and have demon-caliber power. But Josh is living a spiritual reality now, which is that God is bigger than all of it and can GET YOU OUT of that darkness. He is greater than those demons, and in Christ, He has given us authority over them. Hamilton makes no bones about how he is still under attack, but he is living in victory now. He is a reminder that I can live in victory right now. The demons will still pay us a visit, but neither Josh Hamilton, nor myself, nor you, have any obligation to entertain them. Praise God for giving Josh the whole stadium to testify to God's greatness, and for reminding a Christ-follower like me, several years removed from the Tilt-A-Whirl, to rekindle that joy of that ride and rejoice in the victory.

I could practically taste the soup before I got there...

2008-07-10T20:55:00.004-05:00

My coworkers and I have developed a really bad addiction to a restaurant called Sweet Tomatoes. But not the whole restaurant. Just a particular soup they make there. Sweet Tomatoes is essentially a soup, salad, and pasta buffet that is very popular with vegetarians. The only meats that might show up is in a few of the soups and maybe a chicken salad. Several of us and I fell in love with this Classic Cream of Tomato soup they serve.

You see, we took our program there a few times and the staff and I practically guzzled a keg of that soup. It was incredible. None of us had been there in several months, and we've been trying to organize a little after-work trip for all of us to attack that soup. Well, after months of battling schedules, pocketbooks, and fatigue, we finally determined to do it yesterday. Myself and five others went there on a mission to sap the world of its tomato supply.

The human body works in a funny way. Did you ever notice how, when you've got a real yearning for a certain food, you can almost taste it in your mouth hours before you actually get to it? I've always wondered if this is a hunger-induced hallucination. Lou Malnati's pizza will always do this to me. But this soup is different. It almost became an over-hyped legend at work because we pumped it up so much with sensationalized verbage. And really, I'm a voracious meat-eater, so I don't have much of an excuse to go to Sweet Tomatoes other than this soup.

Let me parenthetically mention that I have the bad habit of getting really competitive at buffets. Not with other people. With the restaurant. I go in determined to get the better end of the deal at least threefold. You heavy eaters know what I mean. I want to eat about three times the value of food than what I actually paid to get in. For almost $20 at the local sushi buffet I frequent, I'm able to blow way past $60 worth of fine sushi. I consider $80 worth of sushi a "victory". On this day, I planned to take my exploits to the normally-tame environment of Sweet Tomatoes.

Yes, I skipped lunch. I always do when I'm declaring war upon a buffet. Once work got out for the day, we deployed the troops due south, with General Joe at the back with an intense taste of Classic Tomato Soup in his mouth. I could taste it. I couldn't wait. We got in paid, and a few of us bee-lined with soupbowl in hand to the soup buffet section. This is the greatest feeling on earth: when you have the virtual taste in your mouth, and you are about 15 feet away from putting the real thing in your mouth.

I surveyed the scene, looked up and down the soup buffet... there were eight different soups there... but NONE of them were the vaunted Classic Tomato Soup!!! I was sure there was a mistake... this is Sweet Tomatoes' signature soup! I asked the poor guy behind the counter, and he said they were out. This is the worst feeling on earth: you still have that virtual taste in your mouth, but you realize that it is not going to cross over from virtual to actual any time soon.

Maybe this tells the reader a bit too much about me... but I was extremely upset and disappointed! I was miserable. I come in ready to drink an ocean of this stuff, and I'm not getting any of it. The letdown was awful, and the several others who'd had the soup before were the same way. Once you get that taste in your mouth, if that hunger doesn't get quenched, you automatically develop a psycho-somatic disorder for the next two hours. Or maybe just me.

To make matters worse, nothing else at the buffet is really that great to me, so I had to eat a bunch of salads and little pasta dishes to fill up. It never actually occurred to me the previous times that I was there that they served anything else but this soup, so I'd never tried anything else... consequently, I didn't realize just how mediocre all the rest of their food was. It really wasn't a very fulfilling meal for me just based on the food I did consume, but it was made much worse because of what I DIDN'T consume, and by how badly I craved it on the way there!!

So here's a lesson for you all. If you ever really fall in love with a particular dish or food item at a certain place, make sure you leave some space to try the other stuff there, too. You need to have a serviceable back-up plan within that restaurant, because if it's a buffet, you paid first. You can't just get up and go across the street after seeing nothing good on the menu. It is an emotionally overwhelming situation to be in, trust me, I know. Just be prepared.

Read this one about Jesse Jackson

2008-07-10T20:50:00.002-05:00

I couldn't have said it any better myself. My good friend Phil reacted to the Jesse Jackson comments about Barack Obama that hit the airwaves the other day. I love it when Phil really turns it loose... it's some of the best blogging on the internet!

http://www.philhoover-chicago.blogspot.com/

I agree with Phil that Zimbabwe would be a good spot for Rev. Jackson to try something new. Let me be the first to start the "Try Zimbabwe" campaign for Jesse Jackson.

Firecrackers

2008-07-05T19:34:00.003-05:00

Every holiday has its traditions, and I understand this completely. Christmas has the gift-giving and trees, Easter has the eggs, yada yada yada. Independence Day has the parades and fireworks, of course. And those traditions tend to actually become the main event, rather than the real reason for the special day; the gifts, trees, and commercialism of the Christmas season drowns out the fact that the day (and season) is really about the birth of Christ. And, likewise, remembering celebrating the freedom of this great country take a backseat, on the Fourth of July, to blowing up miniscule little bomb-type things and waking the neighbors who are trying to recover after the local fireworks display just an hour earlier.

Such was the case last night. Actually, such is the case every Independence Day in a lot of neighborhoods. I was visiting with friends up near the Wisconsin border, and after a late dinner, we retreated to their home to watch the rest of the Cubs-Cardinals game. Right around 9:30pm, we thought we were under a nuclear attack. We thought, Why would terrorists have Winthrop Harbor circled on their maps as a place to hit next?

No, it was the annoying neighbors setting off a half-hour's worth of firecrackers all up and down their driveway. I am not kidding at all... about 30 minutes of rapid-fire insanity that absolutely had to have been several hundreds of dollars-worth of firecrackers. Now, if the wonks next door had strategically set up the firecrackers to somehow blast "God bless America!" in Morse code over and over again, I might be okay with it. But if this display were in Morse code, the only thing it could have been saying was "Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

Every neighborhood has an attention-seeking dummy like this that make it a ritual every year to put up extravagent Christmas lights, too much spiderweb cotton at Halloween, and to mount a sonic assault on the neighborhood on the Fourth of July. Last year, I lived about a mile north, same thing. Two years ago, I lived on the north side of Chicago, across the street from a huge park, and it was the worst. Four years ago, in Libertyville (ironically), same thing. Growing up in my quaint little suburban hometown, the next door crazies did it EVERY YEAR WITHOUT FAIL!

You know how, when you spend a lot of time thinking about something, it seems weirder and weirder the longer you focus on it? For example, the more I think about the word ketchup, the weirder the word sounds to me, and I start to wonder how on earth ketchup got its name. Anyway, the more I think about firecrackers, the more I don't get the point. Why did this ever start as a tradition? Did someone really say, "It's Independence Day, so let's go make it sound like war outside!!" At least the parades and fireworks have a communal component and a celebratory or awe-inspiring element to them. Firecrackers just crack loudly and stink up the street. Makes you thankful for your freedom, right? Uh, no.

When we got back from dinner, we saw the driveway next door full of little pink rods. Literally, the driveway was COVERED in pink! I don't know how much a firecracker costs, but someone went to a specialty store (I can't imagine Target selling this stuff in bulk) and dropped hundreds of dollars on this bright idea. For what?

And herein lies the lament that I really have. Because of all of this yearly goofiness, I'm not sure I've ever had a genuine holiday "experience" where I really felt the weight of the importance of the occasion. I suppose those first couple of Christmas seasons after I became a Christian came close, but not entirely, and certainly not at Easter, because the commercialism and "traditions" overwhelm the meaning behind the occasion.

At least with the 4th of July, it's not politically incorrect to talk about the freedom of this country. During Christmas or Easter seasons, you can't mention Jesus without being told to hush. But even on Independence Day, the celebrations are more about blowing up stuff and passing out candy in a parade to promote your fledgling local business than it is about history. The relevant history is noticably absent in these celebrations. And these holidays (and days off from work) are supposed to be about just that: history. Remembering it. Thanking God for it. Learning it. Learning from it.

I guess blowing up firecrackers is an expression of freedom. But I'll be darned if the people who wrote, signed, and fought for the reality of the Declaration of Independence had the freedom to annoy your neighbors in mind when they acted. Anyway, let's take a moment to thank God for the blessings this free country has afforded us. And make no mistake... this liberty is a godly thing, even if it gets misused by the receivers, so put the credit in His hands.