Sometimes it tastes bad while it's going down. Sometimes it costs a lot. Sometimes you don't want it.
But it's always good for you.
This is a hard post to write. On Monday I spent 7 hours with my dad working through what exactly happened to him that led him to cheat on my mom and divorce her. It was a hard conversation because before Monday, my dad's general attitude toward his children had been defensive and often came out as, "I've made my decisions and you can deal with it. Quit judging me."
To barely-not-kids-anymore who watched a man rip their mother's heart out and walk out on his family, that attitude was hard to take.
Rudely skipping past the amazing refreshment of the brokenness and repentance my dad displayed on Monday (PRAISE CHRIST), I want to talk about the heart of our seven hours of conversation. The conversation essentially started with my question/statement, "What happened dad? Something major had to have changed for your family to drop from being one of your top priorities to you doing what you did."
As hard as it was to hear, my dad's honest answer was "Nothing happened. No decision was ever made to lower the amount of importance of my family. I certainly never intended to do that." I gotta be honest; it was a little bit less than satisfying. Essentially, this was the summary of his analysis:
No singular decision ever changed the way my dad thought about his family or related to us. On the contrary, thousands of non-decisions to forcefully and intentionally keep his family at the top of his priority chart eventually removed it from the list.
In the Greek, there are two words that translate in the English to the word spirit. One is pneuma (pnyoo-mah: yes that's where they came up with nooma.) The word comes from pneo which means "to breathe hard; to blow". The other word is psuche (psoo-kay) and it comes from the word psucho which means "to breathe voluntarily but gently". The difference is that with pneuma, your spirit is defined by HUGE defining moments of your life that take your breath away or make you blow a sigh of relief, scream in excitement or cry out in pain. Big defining breaths/moments in life. Psuche is a little more bland, defining your spirit by the thousands of moments everyday that you intentionally make decisions that keep your life moving forward. Intentional breathing keeps you alive even if it doesn't win any awards for excitement.
Why would anyone care about these two words??
Well it's because Jesus said the most important thing in the world is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your spirit, and with all your mind."
That word spirit there is psuche. Boring everyday intentional breathing. You see, too often we think that loving God has to do with big moments that take our breath away and cause us to cry and scream and commit our lives to the ministry and the convent and reading our Bible for 23 hours a day for the next 23 days. . . . and don't get me wrong, huge decisions are important.
But it was the thousands of decisions that my dad stopped making everyday that eventually caused him to bail on his family.
It's 2:30 a.m. and I'm in the living room of my mom's house in Pennsylvania discussing life with my mom and my brother-in-law. You've gotta love holiday vacation.
My brother-in-law just told this story. In the past few months the small group he was a part of has disintegrated. As a result, he and my sister have been left without a consistent group of people who love Jesus pushing them towards Jesus; a group of people who want to know them deeply; a group of men willing to ask him the tough questions; a group of women willing to push her past everyday fears and worries and toward trusting God; a group of young couples discussing parenting, serving their community, loving each other and ultimately loving God.
It's taken a toll on my brother. His comment is that he's angry that the group disintegrated. More than that, one of the other couples in his group struggled to the point of the husband not living with his family for a while. The small group falling apart certainly didn't cause this struggle, but the loss of a support group surely played a role.
He continued to discuss the way the group had fallen apart as they lost their baby-sitter and then one thing led to another and then they fell apart.
Wait stop. Did you hear that?
They lost their babysitter.
No catastrophic fall out. No bitter argument. No blow up. No major anything. Nothing that "mattered" at all. And yet here we are months later with a group of people missing out on something that was amazingly good in their life just because they didn't take care of the small things.
What are the "things that don't matter" in your life that you're not taking care of?
Dear Friend,
Let me be honest (As if you have any control of that situation). I'm more excited about the tonka truck that I'm giving to my nephew tomorrow than any other gifts I'm giving or any gift I might get.
There are some reasons why: 1.) It's exactly what he wants. 2.) He's just starting to love Tonka so he doesn't have many yet. 3.) It's unique. I happened to see it in a closet at the White House and found out that it was my roommate Dean's Tonka and he was willing to sell it to me. He's pretty much awesome.
The rest of my Christmas update:
My mom makes better food than your mom makes. Sorry to bust your bubble, but it's true. I'm not sure that any of the clothes I get for Christmas are going to fit anymore. The best Peanut Butter Balls in the world, twice baked potatoes, apple cake, the most tender delicious pot roast I've ever had, lemon cupcakes, and Christmas muffins are but a few of the foods I'm eating that you're not.
Time with my niece, Ro (Aurora), and my nephew, Jimbo (James), has been amazing. Kids make holidays/life more fun.
Made a two day trip from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts with my mom the day after I got here. It was crazy and awesome. We stopped by the Simpsons' house who treated us to amazing home cooked Italian dinner. Then we went and saw lots of extended family. I like them.
My dad and I hung out for about 7 hours straight this morning. God is good.
Merry Christmas!
Luda
There is beauty in simplicity.
Love God more than anything else. Love your neighbor like you love yourself.
Be grounded in the Word (which according to John 1 is Christ Himself.)
Die to yourself. Live for others.
Enjoy your day.
If you haven't gotten hooked on Manchester Orchestra, you should. Right now. Go listen to their entire album "Like a Virgin Losing a Child." Then listen to it about a thousand times over because it's got enough unique melodies, pounding emotional rhythm, and lyrical content in there to chew on for a few years.
In one of their most powerful songs, "Where Have You Been?", lead singer, Andy Hull ends on a repetitive cry of "Oh God, where have you been? . . . God, my God, my God, where have you been?" I totally connect with where he's coming from. There are moments in life where God feels far away, and life feels like it's falling apart, and it feels like all I've got left is "WHERE ARE YOU GOD?!"
It's the wrong question.
The truth of the matter is that God isn't in the habit of bailing on His kids. He's not prone to wander or get lost or show up late. God never struggles with keeping His schedule straight or finding time to fit us in between other hobbies of His. God isn't the problem.
We are.
It's amazing how quick we are to blame God for our own struggles. We need to start asking the question regularly, "God, where have I been?"
"The last two years, it's not like we haven't been close. The last two years we were one point away from getting to the championship game. We've got eight wins, and that's not really significant. Eight wins gets you eight months of headaches. That's what it got me. The game next week is what's really important. This one is over, done, gone."
Although I don't talk about it very often, the truth remains: I graduated from Clemson University and my blood runs orange every day of the year. If you're a Clemson football fan, it's been a good couple of weeks. Honestly though, it's been a weird experience at the same time.
I have always been a "two favorite football teams" kinda guy. . . You know, my favorite football teams each weekend are Clemson and whoever is playing against the Gamecocks. Having lived down here in Columbia for the better part of 2 years now and with the vast majority of the people I spend my life with being avid Gamecock fans, their recent tailspin has been a little painful to watch (instead of pure elation).
It's been even harder because I tried to warn them. I tried over and over to say "Don't get too excited about the rankings, they don't matter. A whole season is all that matters. . . " See the truth is mid-season rankings don't matter. No one looks back on the season and says "Remember when we were ranked 5th, that was awesome!"
Honestly, I didn't like a lot of the press conference by Tommy Bowden, but if he said anything smart it was, "We've got eight wins, and that's not reallly significant."
I've been doing some research and here's what I found:
1.) You're not very good at helping people fall in love with Jesus.
2.) God is really good at helping people fall in love with Jesus.
3.) 100% of the time, you should probably stop relying on yourself so much and go ahead and trust the Holy Spirit more.
"I need a new car . . . "
"I need a haircut . . . "
"I need a burrito from moe's . . . "
The english language is full of overused words. "Need" might be the only one more abused than "love". By definition the word means "to require" with implications of "I'm not going to survive if I don't get what I need."
New car doesn't really make the cut. Haircuts don't really make the cut. Honestly, a burrito is the closest thing to a need on that list up there. You do actually NEED food in your belly. We need to expand the usage of the word "want" in our vocabulary. I want a new car. I want a haircut.
Now aside from that small little cultural word-abuse rebuke, here's the real life lesson:
Wisdom is wanting what you need more than you want.
So here are the keys/steps to applying this principle: 1.) You choose what you want. You put energy into it or you choose to stop wanting it. 2.) Figure out what you need. 3.) Since you need it anyway, choose to want it and life gets better.
For any of you that didn't catch the Office last week, the highlight of the episode came when Michael Scott decided to declare bankruptcy. You can see a clip of his approach at the end of this promo.
I bring it up for two reasons: 1.) It's frickin' hilarious. Oscar comes into Michael Scott's office and explains, "Hey I just wanted you to know that you can't just say the word 'bankruptcy' and expect anything to happen." Michael responds, "I didn't say it; I declared it."
and 2.) Talk is cheap. I know we've heard it a lot, but seriously we can not change anything by saying loudly that we want it to change. What's funny is that's all we do some of the time. When we want stuff to change in our lives, we often say, "I want this to change"; and then we do NOTHING.
I WANT to stop looking at porn, but I'm not willing to get accountability, talk to anybody about my problem or get some software that could help.
I WANT to do well at school, but I'm not willing to do carve out time to prepare, study, go to class or ask my professors for help.
I WANT to save money but I'm not willing to budget, curb my ridiculous spending habits or get a better job.
I WANT to fall in love with Jesus, but I'm not willing to spend anytime with Him, read His Word or talk to anyone who knows Him better than I do.
So stop being lazy. Your heart and your actions move together. If you know God wants your heart to change and you want your heart to change, then be willing to do the hard work that change requires.
