To the people I care about the most….the students of Reach 1 Ministries

Hey all,

I’m sitting in my hotel room here in Atlanta at the National Youth Workers Conference. All day long I have been restless, like there is just something bubbling underneath the surface of my skin, dying to get out. It’s a weird feeling, and very upsetting when you feel like something is wrong but you just can’t figure out what it is. But, tonight, during worship, and afterwards as I rode the subway back to the hotel, three thoughts began to form very concretely in my mine, three things that I want to share with you, that I want you to know. These are all things that I don’t say enough to you, or at least don’t feel that I communicate well, but they are all things that are important to me. If I’m going to ask you to follow the vision that God has given me, and I am asking you to do that, then I think you should know what I believe. So, I ask that you please take some time to read this, and think about what I’ve written.

First, I want you to know that I love you. Before Isaac and Annaliese came along, Erin and I called you “our kids” and we still do. When people ask us how many children we have, I oftentimes tell them, “Oh, 100 or so,” because we feel like you are ours too. We have watched, and are watching you grow up, and that is a beautiful thing. There is not one of you that I wouldn’t drop everything for if you were in trouble. There is not one of you that I wouldn’t laugh with, cry with, hang out with, or share life with.

You may think that I want to be around you because I get paid to. While it’s true that I do get paid to minister to you, the truth is that God has blessed me so greatly by letting me get paid to do what I love, what I wanted to dedicate my life to anyway. There is no amount of money, or lack thereof, that would make me start or stop hanging out with you. I want to be with you just because you are you and because I want to have a relationship with you.

You are such a blessing to me, Erin, and the kids. I love seeing how my kids look at you….they think you are soooooooo cool! I hope you know that our home is open to EVERYONE, not just a few. We try to communicate that, and maybe we’re not good at it, but that’s why we have a house: for you to come over and eat our food, play our games, watch our movies, and just be with us.

So don’t believe what you hear about how much I care about you from anyone else. I love you just like you are, and so does God. And I’m honored to be your youth pastor.

Second, God is great. And I don’t mean great like “a little better than good”, or great as in “equal to Frosted Flakes”. God is great. He’s greater than anything. He’s bigger, stronger, bolder than anything you or I can comprehend. He’s powerful, just, and amazing. There is nothing on this earth that we can compare Him with when we think of greatness. His glory is beyond measure, and His works are endless. His love for you included the murder of his one and only son, who came to earth and lived like a homeless man without a place to go, hated by the very people who needed him the most. His love for us is deeper than any ocean, deeper than the deepest depths of outer space that no satellite can go to. And his forgiveness? Overwhelming. Jesus’ blood pays for every bit of our sin: past, present, and future! Are you getting it? God is huge!

And God is greater than our cell phones, cars, jobs, homework, ball games, video games, relationships, and anything else that we spend our time on. For God to truly receive the best of us, we have to be sure that we are giving Him first dibs on our lives. And I’ve learned one thing in 12 years of being a Christian: when we give God our best, and our concerned more with growing our character in Him than our success, then we will see the best of Him. There is nothing on this earth that you can devote your life to that will be any more satisfying than serving God. No amount of money, fame, power, or material objects will ever satisfy that hole that all of us have in our hearts that can only be filled by God. God is big enough, strong enough, loving enough to plug that hole in your heart. If we are His, then our lives don’t belong to us anymore. That means that His greatness is first, and anything we plan, desire, or dream is last.

And last, you need to know Him and own your faith. This is possibly the most important part of this letter. Millions of people are walking around in our world today with no idea of what they believe. They make up a name, slap some kind of brand on it, and then try to apply it to their whole life. Sadly, there are many Christians who do the same thing. People today seem less in touch with God. We know less of His word, we don’t know how to pray longer than a few minutes, and for some, service is a long shot. I want to challenge you to not be one of those people. If you’ve learned anything from me, I hope it’s that when God calls our name, He calls us to salvation and service.

Up until 4 years ago, I had no clue. I was a selfish Christian. I believed it would all come to me, that I could ignore the needs of lost and helpless people around me and that God would still be pleased with me. That’s just not so. We need to know what we believe, so that we can put what we believe into action. I’ll be the first to admit to you that I can’t go after the vision God has given me for our youth ministry on my own. That would be like me tying a rope to car and trying to pull it on my own. I can’t do it and I’m not going to try.

Do you know God? Do you really know Him, or do you just know about Him? It’s easy to forget that being a follower of Christ is about a relationship instead of a rulebook full of things we can and can’t do to make God happy. How is your relationship with Him? My hope is that it’s growing, that it’s amazing, that you see new things every day and you feel His presence at all times. If you don’t know Him like that, then all you need to do is enter into a relationship with Jesus, where you understand that He is more than just facts and words on a page, that He is alive and active!!!!! And the best way to do that is by being in His word.

For those of you who truly know Him…..its time we got serious about making Him known. Let’s work together to cut down on drama, on wasted time, and what ifs……and let’s just get to the point….people need Jesus, and we can show them the way. That’s what I plan to focus on in 2010, and I’m asking you to join me. I really, truly, deeply love you and I would not be anywhere else doing anything else. I believe and trust that this is exactly where God wants me. I want you to know that I’m praying for you by name each and every day. Would you do the same for me? It would mean more to me than I could ever put into words. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do in and through you.

Marty

Mediocrity: Attack the Root

I’ve got to get something off my chest. And, it sucks….it really does, because it means that I’m part of the problem, but I believe that only in admitting the problem can I find some sort of solution. So, here goes:

I’m mediocre.

And I don’t mean to say that I’m average, or middle of the line. The best way to interpret it would be to say that I’m lukewarm. The bad part about admitting that is that I’m completely disgusted at the amount of mediocrity that can be found in the church in our culture. Of course, that reminds me that it’s always easier to hate what you really are in order to make yourself look better than to actually do anything about it.

This week, as I go about my daily life, I really want to work to end mediocrity. But I know it has to start with me. I have to step up my game and stop making excuses. I want to live my life with passion, I want people to know what I believe and I want to stand for what I really do believe.

May mediocrity end where it begins – my heart…..and if not, then may God take me home.

Where’s Your Fruit?

I was talking with a friend this morning who has just lost her mother to a long battle with cancer. During the funeral, her son told a story about going to his grandparents months ago and asking them to share their testimonies with him. He wanted to be sure they were all saved before his grandmother passed away. Not only did he do this once, but twice, until finally he was satisfied in knowing that they were indeed saved. I remarked this morning to my friend that this was a pretty neat thing and that it was bold and brave of him to do so, and she nodded and said, “Not all fruit is shown within the walls of the church.”

I have to agree wholeheartedly.

My friend’s parents were church members, but they slipped through the cracks in their youth and never really attended regularly. Her father’s hearing was bad, and when they did attend, he could hear nothing. But, to everyone who knew her parents, each and every one knew what they believed. Why is that? Because fruit doesn’t just show up at church. In fact, it’s dangerous to assume that fruit shown only at church is indication that we are faithful believers.

Anyone can come into the church building and do “great works” and still be a son of the devil.

Where fruit really reveals itself is in the day to day. When we aren’t being watched, or think we aren’t being watched. It comes out in how I treat my wife, how I speak to my children, how impatient I am in the line at Walmart, or in how I spend my money. It’s in how I spend time with people, how I blog, and countless other things. This fruit, the fruit revealed in the everyday life of the believer, is the most important fruit, because it is not something we can put on and take off so easily. It is a crop that takes days, months, even years to cultivate, and it is a fragile growth that is not easily restored if allowed to rot.

I don’t know about you, but as a minister I’m more and more concerned with my everyday fruit than I am with the fruit that comes from being up front and in charge in ministry, and if you are a minister, then you should be too.

Can Anyone Tell Me What All the Fuss is About?

Y’know, I know some people don’t like President Obama, just like some people didn’t like the guy before him, and the guy before that, and the guys who came before them, but I’m really failing to see the problem with our President telling kids in school that their education is their responsibility. What’s so controversial about that? Is it because we’re asking the most overprivileged generation in history to actually have goals and take care of their business? I can’t honestly find a thing wrong with the words in this speech. Can you?

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, “This is no picnic for me either, buster.”

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.
I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.
I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work — that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, “I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.
And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

The Most Offensive Blog Post I May Ever Write?

There’s this question that’s been brewing in my mind all summer, and I thought it would go away by now, but it just keeps eating away at me, and it won’t leave me alone. The reason I say this might be the most offensive blog post I ever write is because I know that in typing this up, I’m meddling in big ways, but I just have to know the answer, so, I’m holding my breath and taking the leap. Here’s the question:

What right does a Christian woman have to wear a bikini?

Now, you might laugh at that question, you might think I’m nitpicking, but give me a chance to explain my line of thinking, alright? We all know that men are born being visual beings. It’s why everything from beer to video games is sold using sexual imagery. It’s why the porn industry last year made more than ABC, NBC, and CBS combined. And, we also all know that one of the things men report struggling with the most is lust. So, Christian sisters, how can you go out in a bathing suit that is practically your underwear, knowing that men struggle with lust, knowing that men are visual creatures?

Paul addresses the Corinthian church, who were adrift in a culture drowning in idols, about eating meat sacrificed to those idols. His argument is that since those who are mature in Christ know an idol is nothing because it’s not real, then it’s ok to eat that meat. There is true freedom in Christ. Yet, his argument is that there may be weaken brothers who see you eating this meat that’s been sacrificed and it might cause them to stumble into sin, and if that happens, then you have sinned not just against that brother, but against Christ. For that reason, Paul says he might never eat meat again!

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, won’t he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall. ~ 1 Corinthians 8:9-13

Too often today, we take the concept of freedom too far, or, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re just selfish. We do the things we do with no regard for the people who are around us, its like we don’t care. Girls, if you put everything you have out there on display, why do you get mad at a guy when he gets caught looking? Sure, you may have felt the freedom to dress that way, but you led your brother into sin. So, why wear your bikini to the beach, which leaves 85% of your skin uncovered, when you know it’s going to cause men, Christian and non-Christian alike, to lust?

Sure, the argument then might be, “They should control themselves.” Doesn’t that go for all sin though? Thoughts, actions, speech, all sin is sin. Therefore, this argument could be applied to anything we do.

Should I listen to “Sex on Fire” by Kings of Leon, even though I really really like it? It’s not hurting me….

Should I go see that new comedy movie, even though it’s rated R and it says it has sexual innuendo in it? It’s just a movie…

The movies that we watch, the music we listen to, the video games we play…..does it cause a brother to stumble? If so, then what business do we have doing it, whether it’s wearing a bikini or listening to the Kings of Leon?

Feedback would be appreciated, even if this post has offended you.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Tonight, I sat up and watch The Matrix, which I’ve come to realize is probably one of my top three favorite movies of all time. Every time I watch it, I see something new, I pick up on another symbol, or I’m just amazed all over again. As I watched tonight, I started to think about my own “rabbit hole” experience, of how I came to know Christ, and how I’ve come to be where I am, and I realized something: if it weren’t for all the Morpheus’ in my life, I don’t know where I’d be. You know what I mean, right? People who believed in me even when I didn’t. People who still believe in me now even when I don’t.

My journey to faith isn’t what I’d call hard, but it isn’t what I’d call easy either. For 17 years, I simply believed the world was enough. I wasn’t a bad kid. I never smoked, never did drugs, never drank. The worst I did was cuss a little and one time I flipped off my dad behind his back…(oh wait….that was AFTER I became a believer…OOPS!). Long story short, I didn’t think I needed a Savior. I was good. It took me a long time to see that I wasn’t. That I’d been living a lie, with wool pulled over my eyes making me believe everything was ok. Sure, I claimed salvation. I’d been baptized, after all! I still remember sitting down with my pastor at the ripe old age of 8 and him asking me what the first thing I needed to do to be baptized was, and in my selfish desire to simply get up in that baptistry (after all, all the cool kids were doing it, and I so DESPERATELY wanted to be cool), I blindly responded, “You have to talk to the pastor!” Of course, I faked my way through the plan of salvation and the prayer and was dunked….floated around….but it wasn’t anything more than church sanctioned swimming. And in my mind, I was ok.

But, I really wasn’t. I was deceived and didn’t know it, which is the worst kind of deception, the kind where people laugh at you, not along with you. But, along came some folks who taught me what it was like to truly follow Jesus. It was by their example that I saw I had no clue. That I hadn’t ever started my journey with Christ. They were so different, the way they lived was so fresh and new….I wanted it! So, I took the red pill. I jumped down the rabbit hole without a second thought, and found myself in a strange new world, learning, soaking it up, truly living!

Is it possible to forget what you have seen after your eyes have been opened? Can you close them again?

For awhile, I feel like I did. As if, somehow, my descent down the rabbit hole had been for nothing, and once again, I was playing that I had the answers when I didn’t. Truth be told, I was a traitor. I wanted to claim the blessings of this new life without having to live to meet it’s demands. And I’m still slowly waking up from that. If I could gobble a bottle of red pills, oh, believe me, I would, just to come back to that time of learning, of newness, of truly living. Because I believe this is the only way someone can truly live: with eyes wide open and uncovered, with nothing there to block one’s vision. And it is these Morpheus’ in my life, the believers who believed in me, and ultimately, God himself, that offered me the chance to see more than what my eyes alone could see.

I’m glad for your patience with me, Dad. As I grow and change, as I journey on…..keep my eyes open. Help me to keep believing. Amen.

Which One?

“Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.” ~ Charles Spurgeon

Those words both scare and challenge me at the same time, because I know if I’m honest, I waver between the two of those quite often, simply by not taking my mission seriously. Oh, sure, I tell my youth all the time that we are all called to be missionaries, each and every one of us. But, it’s a lot easier to say that than to do it. It’s so much easier to say I’m a missionary than to actually speak up and share the Gospel with my waitress, or act it out to the person who just cut me off in traffic or the cashier who is taking wayyyyyyyy too long to check out the people in front of me at Walmart. What is boils down to is: do I really understand the role Jesus has called me to? In Matthew 28, we are given what we call the Great Commission:

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

~ Matthew 28:19-20

There’s an implied you there that makes this personal. “You therefore go and make disciples….” That you means me, you, and all Christians. But, do we really see it like that? I think the majority of Christians think this means paid staff, or missionaries, or parachurch organizations. But, that’s not right. It really does mean all of us! Our responsibility is to be a missionary wherever we are. Some people just get called to do it for money full time. Working in a doctor’s office doesn’t mean you’re not a missionary. Or at a grocery store. Or at the library. Or wherever you work. God has called us to the places we are to share light and love, His love. And not just our jobs, but our families, we are to be missionaries to them as well.

So the question is……..which one are you?

I Want To See

“Show me your glory.”

Moses, after spending time with God in a way that had never been experienced by a human being, still thirsted for more of God. He wanted not just to see the cloud, and the fire, but he wanted to see the full glory of God. The problem though, is that he couldn’t. If he saw God in all his glory, face to face, he would die, as no man can see God and live. So God honored his request by asking him to stand on a rock, promising to pass by and put him into the cleft of the rock and hide him with His hand until He was past, so that Moses could see His back. And it happened just that way. Afterwards, Moses’ face shone because he’d been in the presence of the glory of God.

I’m going to be honest: I wish I were Moses. It must’ve been so easy to believe, so easy to follow God after seeing all that he’d seen. Look at what he’d experienced: the burning bush, the signs, wonders, and plagues in Egypt, the pillar of cloud and fire, the parting of the Red Sea, water from a rock, and God’s presence on top of a mountain in cloud and fire. I’ll admit it.

I’m jealous.

I wonder sometimes why that doesn’t happen to me. There are some days I just need a pillar of fire. I would love to go sit on top of a mountain in God’s presence. I think it’d be fun to go and part the Tennessee River and walk across on dry ground. But most of all, I want to know God’s glory. I mean, really know it. I use that word all the time, but I’m not entirely sure I get what it means.

This summer, I heard the best definition I’ve ever heard about God’s glory, and it was beautiful in it’s simplicity. Glory is: shining a light on something. The speaker used a lamp in the midst of complete darkness to show that glory is like shining a light on something, making it easier to see, revealing it to those around you. So that would mean that for me to give God glory, I must shine a light on him. And as I’m sitting here thinking about this, I realize that maybe seeing God’s glory is more about me being faithful to shine the light than it is for me to be in the right place at the right time.

If I would open my eyes and my heart, I might see that God’s glory is all around me, and I don’t need a moment of being hid in the rock to see my Creator. I don’t need to request His presence because it’s already here with me. I don’t need to wonder what God is like because He chooses to reveal Himself to me in a myriad of ways each day.

I just have to see.

Something more

Tonight, Erin and I watched Dead Poets Society, which was the first time seeing it for the both of us. I had always heard of the movie, and heard about some of the scenes, but I’d never seen it for myself. As the credits rolled, I wondered why I had waited so long to see it. There is something about the movie that resonates deeply with me, and lessons I think the church can learn as well. What left such a large impression on me was the idea that if you don’t put yourself in positions to see new things, to hear new things, to get different perspectives, then you become stagnant.

Am I stagnant?

I work in a church. All day long, I’m around Christians. We think alike, talk alike, dress alike, and even believe alike. In my job, I also serve Christians, all the time. Again, we hold shared values. So, I have to ask myself the obvious question: when was the last time I saw myself and what I believe from a different angle? If I’m honest with everyone, it’s a been a long time. After awhile, it all begins to blur together, and it can become weeks, then months where no contact is had with people who don’t immediately agree with you. What kind of toll does that take on a person, to always be right? To always be safe?

Starting tomorrow, I think I’m going to stand on my desk a little bit. See the world in a new way. Take some risks. And let’s see what happens.

This ones for you.

My wife says I don’t update enough.

Update.

Is this ok, dear?