THE TRAVELER
The Traveler – Summer 2010
Maybe it’s the time of year…maybe it’s the time of life…maybe its how my brain works…or maybe just maybe, it’s something that I am supposed to understand.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about expectations. What is expected from a high school or college graduate? What is expected of a person by the time they reach a certain age? What is expected of someone based on who they are or where they came from? Are these expectations something we put on ourselves or are they something we allow other people to lie upon us and sometimes stifle us with them? And…in all reality are any of these expectation practical or motivating or even reasonable?
You pass a certain test, or you can throw a ball or you can sing a song…and suddenly there are expectations. I don’t think we inherently know how to put a crazy amount of pressure upon ourselves. I think we live in a society and a culture and a world that tries to measure the worth of a person by their success, by their achievement, by how they outscore or outshoot or out-sing someone else.
The bigger issue for me has become a matter of whose expectations do I need to care about…and what it comes down to is…only God in Christ’s.
Does that give me permission to be lazy or disrespectful or waste away the gifts I have been given? Nope. We are called to be excellent at whatever we do…but remember this…no ability we have …nothing we are or could ever hope to achieve is sent our way so we can take credit for it. That idea is furthest from the truth. What we have has been given to us so that when there is credit given, it goes to The One who gave us the ability to do it. Credit goes where credit is due…to God and God alone. So be excellent…for you will be noticed and credit will be given. I don’t want to waste away my gifts and abilities and then accredit it to the Lord…that is in no way glorifying. I want to give 110% and then give Him credit.
Here’s another thing to consider when it comes to expectations…can I give 110% to fifteen different things? Can I spread myself so thin trying to cram as much stuff as I possibly can into my life because someone around me expects it, that I miss being truly great at something that will bring glory to the Kingdom…and all because I wanted the longest list of involvements? What I’ve come to realize is that I know I would rather do something really well and then when asked about that achievement, give Him the glory, than do a whole bunch of stuff half-way, bringing Him little if any glory.
We’ve been studying verse by verse through the Gospel of John on Wednesday nights. If you haven’t come…you might want to consider it…6:45 on Wednesday evenings through July. The last couple of weeks of the study have been a real eye opener for me. And, they have been all about expectations.
The Jews had lofty expectations of not only who, but how their Messiah would be. Jesus broke apart those expectations from the very beginning. They expected the Messiah to show up much like Prince Ali in Aladdin did…with a big show and a huge parade. Coming quietly to a manger threw a wrench in their expectations from the very beginning. Didn’t matter what the Jews thought or wanted or expected…it was God’s plan…not theirs. Then, at the end of His ministry, when many of the people actually believed He was the Messiah, Jesus knocked on its ear everything they expected the Messiah to do.
You see, the Jews were expecting a warrior. They were expecting a conquering hero who would ride into town on a white horse and destroy the Romans and give the Jews the “win.” Jesus didn’t buy into those expectations at all…and he came to town on a donkey.
In doing a little research, I found that kings often traveled on donkeys. It was actually their preferred mode of transportation…in times of peace. Now, if there was a war to be fought, the king would ride a horse, and set himself ready for a big battle. For people who understood the imagery, it is astonishing to me that they shouted Hosanna or “save me” to a King riding in on a donkey, and expected a war to begin. Jesus was making a big statement to a big group of people that their expectations of the Messiah were not going to change what He needed to do.
When the people heard him talk of the Son of Man being glorified, they were expecting the trumpets to sound and the battle to begin. Expectations of a great victory. When Jesus spoke of the Son of Man being glorified…he was talking not of the beginning of the battle but of its culmination…its end…of His victory over sin and death in a way that NO ONE, except the One Whom it would glorify, would have expected.
So, as we head into a season of great expectations…all credit to Mr. Dickens…let us not forget to Whose expectations we need to offer ourselves. Don’t let the pressures of the world change the calling on your life. Don’t the expectations of men make you want to reconsider what you know God in Christ is calling you to do or be. And, if you start to feel weary, like you want to let the world win because it seems to know better…remember Who you follow. Remember that we have a great High Priest who knows what it is like to have expectations heaped upon His head, and yet was clearly focused on the goal and never gave up…may we be as focused…knowing it is only possible in His strength and for His glory. Have a great summer!
The TRAVELER #3 – Winter 2010
It’s the stuff of which classic literature and Hollywood movies are made. A man of power and prestige, seemingly having everything, but something is missing. A mysterious stranger who can see through all the pomp and circumstance of a life lived on the surface and a heart longing for something that is beyond the grasp of a man who needs to be different but just doesn’t know how.
We see the life of the lonely power player laid out before us. We learn how he has come to this place. We secretly cheer for him and hope that he makes the decision that will change his life. And, in true Hollywood fashion…he does. He sees the error of his ways brought to light and his heart is made new…his life is made different…and he, himself, the Grinch, carves the roast beast.
After he has seen his mistakes, and understands that he has made some bad decisions, and knows he needs to be different, and can comprehend the life altering changes that need to be made…even after that epiphany…
How does the story change, if the guy chooses to remain the same?
Do we keep reading A Christmas Carol if Ebenezer Scrooge decides he likes being a money-hungry, hateful man who mostly worries about decreasing the surplus population? Do we keep rooting for Mr. Darcy if he embraces his pride and his prejudice over Elizabeth Bennett? Heck no…we walk away and say fine.
Finished reading a book called The Jesus You Can’t Ignore. Part of the book talks about Nicodemus and his late night visit to Jesus…and their conversation and the outcomes of all that. For a long time, I read Nicodemus as a man who didn’t get it. What it comes down to is Nicodemus was a guy who couldn’t sell it.
He absolutely understood what Jesus was telling him, yet he chose to play dumb. When Christ told him he needed to be born again, he answered with some wide-eyed, how-is-that-possible, response about how could an old man be born again. It wasn’t a question of Nicodemus not understanding what Jesus was telling him, it was a question of Nicodemus not wanting to do what Jesus was telling him. Huge difference.
You see Nicodemus had it all going for him…an important job, the appropriate amount of respect in his eyes, a hard worker who had been and would be rewarded by God, because he had jumped through the right spiritual hoops in the right way.
Jesus knocked Nicodemus for a loop, when He basically said…all the stuff you’ve done, all the power and prestige you’ve received is a whole bunch of garbage…and if you truly want to be different, if you truly want to BE the guy you seem to think you are…the only prescription is to start over. A whole new start with an entirely new way of thinking.
Um…not something that Nicodemus jumped at…you see…he didn’t want to start over. He liked where he was and what he had and the important place he had earned for himself in the current system. The thing that so infuriated the Sanhedrin was that their system was corrupt and there was a whole new system on the way in. A system in which they weren’t any more important than anyone else, and a system that didn’t focus so much on HOW you did what you did with regard to faith, but WHY you did what you did. A totally new way of thinking.
The great part is that although Nicodemus didn’t make an instantaneous change, he did change. We aren’t given a lot of information about the degree of the change, but he did listen, he did evaluate, he did open himself up to the fact that he could be wrong, and what we do see from him later is a man who had started to change.
In the same way, we have to hit people with The Truth. That part is our job. We have to change everything about how we think about the world, if we choose to follow Christ, and it speaking His Truth, we have to lay it out there for everyone…no compromise…no niceties to make it more comfortable for them…then we have to let the Holy Spirit do His job and change the heart. It may be an all at once change, it may be a slow change. Not our worry.
Jesus didn’t give up on Nicodemus, but he didn’t lie to him either to make him feel better. Our job…stick with people. Tell them the truth and be available to them, as they work through their salvation with fear and trembling. But, don’t give up!
Fall 2009 – Entry #2
I’ll admit it…I bought it. I was with some friends on a weekend trip to Yellow Springs, looking through all the cool shops and visiting all the local artisans…I saw it and I bought it. I offer no apologies. If you come to my house, you will find it there, and I do use it.
Yep…I bought some magnetic refrigerator poetry.
You guys know how I love words. It’s amazing to me that people who have a God-given gift as wordsmiths can take words like window and sick and yonder and come up with…
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
That Will Shakespeare knew how to stick some words together! Girls, you know if some boy said those words to you, you would be on the phone in like five seconds with your BFF and she would respond with, “Awww!” Guys take note here, if you want to score points with the ladies…and yes, there is a point system…brush up on your Shakespeare.
Words have the power to tear down or build up…to touch and move and motivate and…destroy. There are all times that each of us has been angry or frustrated or pushed too far and have said things we wish we could have back the minute they fly out of our mouths. The wonderful thing about words is that they also have the power to bring joy and bliss and love and…life.
Know who’s great with the words? Jesus Christ. He understands people. He has a way of reaching people. Don’t get me wrong…there no watering down television evangelist stuff that tells you that God wants you to have all the stuff you’ve ever wanted. Come on, we all know that, very often, if we had been given exactly what we wanted at a certain point in time, that decision would have made us briefly happy but would have been so much less than what God in Christ has for us. If I had been given everything I wanted at 11, I would be an archeologist right now…and not have the privilege of getting to hang out with you guys!
No, I’m talking about genuine words from The Christ that have the ability to cut through all the junk we have loaded into our lives and get to the heart of the matter.
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Matthew 7:7-8.
It’s not about getting what we want, it’s about giving up everything that we have…about choosing to walk into His house, giving up all our weird ideas that we control anything and let Him begin to work in our lives.
You see, if we don’t talk to Him…knock and asked to be allowed in…He will never push it. Not gonna’ bust down the door…not how He rolls.
Know that feeling when you’re waiting for someone you care about to come see you…whether it’s a grandparent or a boyfriend or girlfriend…know those moments of eager anticipation when you can’t wait for the doorbell to ring so you can be with the person you love? That’s how Jesus feels about us. He stands patiently and eagerly at the door waiting for each of us to let it go…the pain and the sadness and the brokenness…and have the courage to knock and asked to come into a whole new life.
As we head into a new program year, my challenge to you…read and study and listen to the words of Christ. He has much for you to hear. And if you’re ready for that whole new life…KNOCK!
May 2009 – Entry #
If you don’t already know it, I am a huge fan of Literature, but it wasn’t always that way. I know in high school that American Lit and British Lit classes seemed to be a form of torture…I remember thinking that they were actually going to kill me and in my obituary it would list cause of death as Ethan Frome or Moby Dick or Silas Marner. Some of that stuff just seemed to be so far removed from where I was. Never thought there were important lessons to be learned from people who lived so long ago…what the heck did they know about being me?
Then, as a junior in high school, I ran into John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, written in 1678. Kind of changed the way I thought about great literature…and the fact that there are things that are universal to all of humanity…love, and hate, and fear and joy and heartache and loss and struggle and a myriad of other things that we experience as humans…and you know what…those things don’t change. The way we experience them and the way we describe our experiences change. So, when I stumbled across The Pilgrim’s Progress, I finally realized that some things about what it means to be a human being stay the same, regardless of their time and place in history. I got lost in the fact that Christian…yep, his name in the book, was indeed a pilgrim, on a journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. And, along the way, he would have to, with faith and steely determination, and some mistakes as well, make his way through places like Vanity Fair, and Doubt Castle, and the Valley of Humiliation, and the Country of Conceit, and a Plain Called Ease.
Isn’t that true of all of us, if we make the choice to follow Jesus Christ? Don’t we, indeed, become the pilgrim, or THE TRAVELER? So, this is where I’m gonna’ write about what my travels teach me, as I strive on a daily basis to work my way toward The Celestial City…keeping my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith… Don’t know where my travels will take me, but why don’t you come along for the ride. And, if you have something to say or some helpful advice or a detour from your own life that you want to warn me to watch out for on the journey…you know where to find me. So, we’re off. Pack light…we’ve got a long way to go…but never alone…
The Traveler – April 2010
I usually feel a little like the Energizer Bunny. My brain keeps going and going and going, and sometimes it drags the rest of me along for the ride. I often don’t sleep much. I live on cereal and popcorn for dinner. I just finished writing a script that if they knew what was good for them, the Disney Company, would buy and make into their next feature length animated movie. I started cleaning my apartment at 10 pm last night. And, if I’m not drawing a picture or hashing a plan or writing something in my journal, I feel like I’m wasting time. Sometimes, though, I hit a wall. The sheer number of things that need to be done becomes overwhelming and I just wanna’ sit on my couch stare at my television and think about nothing!
I’ll admit it. I’m tired today. It’s rainy and cool and gray and it makes me want to stay in bed all day long with a Jane Austen book and a chai latte, and not talk to anyone at all, for fear that they will need me for something or have another expectation of me. Sometimes, I’m running on empty and I feel like no one really cares. They just keep dropping metaphorical files on my desk until I disappear behind a cartoon pile of papers taller than I am. Do you ever land there? Do you ever feel like there isn’t one more ounce of strength you have to give, and the expectations keep piling up?
I think if we are honest with ourselves we are all there now and again. We need something to fire us back up again to tune us back in to what is truly important…to stop wallowing in our own lives and turn us around to face what is going around us and beyond what we truly understand from a much higher and more eternal perspective. We need to be renewed…revived.
That word…revive…has been in my head for the last couple of days, so as I usually do, I looked it up. It means…to restore from a depressed, inactive, or unused state: bring back…interesting. We are all over scheduled and over worked and over busy. The restlessness that goes along with all of that over-ness often wears us down and wears us out. We get whiny and nit-picky and pouty. We live in a cynical world that would be just as happy to use our lack of motivation and effectiveness and sometimes generally crabby attitudes as proof that Christians are a lot of talk. And, all of that wears on us and we do indeed become depressed and inactive and unused. Not only that, we become part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
In our own walks with Jesus to we let the worries of the very small world that is our lives and the problems of the world in which we live wear us down and render us into states of depression or inactivity or generally not using the talents and gifts and abilities we have been given? Do we begin to sit on all that we have because we begin to focus on what we don’t? You can’t tell me you haven’t let something, someone else has that you feel is missing from your life, impact you.
We need reviving…we need to be brought back from whatever weird plain of self-pity we sometimes land upon…and become effective for the kingdom again! That’s why we’re here.
The weekend of September 24-26, we will be having a church-wide renewal weekend, to revive each of us, to bring us back, to the sense of urgency in the battle we face. The details are being worked out as we speak, but the Keynote Speaker for the weekend is Kirk Cameron. Some of you might know him as Mike Seaver of the television show Growing Pains. Some may know him as Buck from the Left Behind movies. Some may know him from his recent movie Fireproof.
Since he became a Christian as a teenager, Cameron has invested his life in furthering the Kingdom of Christ. He is involved with a ministry called The Way of the Master. Their mission statement says, “150,000 people die every 24 hours—most without the Savior. We are deeply concerned that so few Christians reach out to the lost. Statistics show that this is as low as 5%. One of the reasons for this is that many don’t feel equipped. As a ministry, our sole purpose is to inspire and equip Christians—to teach them how to share the gospel simply, effectively, biblically . . . the way Jesus did. “The Way of the Master” is non-denominational. We believe and preach that the Bible is the Word of God, and that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh, crucified for the sin of the world, and that He rose again on the third day. We believe and teach that salvation is by grace, through faith, and not of works.” Now, that’s something I can get behind…something that is energizing…REVIVING!
What I am asking is that you begin to pray now. Pray for those who are involved in the planning of this weekend in September. That the weekend will be a time of renewing and reviving for the people of this congregation, as we get ourselves and our houses ready to be brought back. Pray for the people of Mansfield, that the Holy Spirit will prepare people’s hearts to hear The Truth of The Gospel that weekend. Pray for your friends…who you should invite to church or some youth activity or to that weekend in September. Don’t make this something you do casually. Do it with intentionality. Do it every day. Do it asking for His will to be done. Do it expectantly that the Spirit will move and His name will be glorified by what is done leading up to that weekend and in what happens that weekend.
If we could stand face to face with the King of Kings, would we be able to tell Him we are too tired or busy or worn out to continue on the march He asks of us. People are crying out for Jesus Christ and we sit passively behind the walls of our very comfortable castle…children of The King…seemingly unsympathetic to those perishing all around us. We are called out and we need to get ready. Time to walk the talk kids. I know who you are…I know what you can do when you walk in the Spirit. Let’s roll up our sleeves and be prepared to be brought back!
