At the movies
I can appreciate a good movie just as much as the next guy, but this one I’m not so sure about. It looks so weird/odd/just all out strange that I’m probably going to have to at least rent it when it comes out to see how bad it is.
Learning to see the drops like stars
I had the chance to see Rob Bell on his Drops Like Stars tour with some really good friends last night in Nashville and as usual, my thinking was stretched in big ways. Rob is an excellent communicator and during the two hours we spent in War Memorial Auditorium, he dropped some heavy stuff on us about the purpose and power of suffering and pain in life. Here’s just a sample of the copious notes I took…
- Sometimes we are so overwhelmed by suffering that we just can’t move. But sometimes, we are so free from any kind of suffering or pain that if we don’t understand and respond to the suffering of someone else, we ourselves will spiritually die…of boredom.
- What would it look like if I let the empty place inside of me open up?
- Pain has a way of making us honest.
- Suffering has a sort of art of elimination about it–some things need to be removed or eliminated from my life in order for me to see what has been there all along and what really matters.
- When a specific type of suffering (a disease, a life situation, a common feeling of betrayal or fear, etc.) is talked about and people are able to identify with it (the “Yeah, I’ve been there too” kind of emotion), the molecules in the room change. There is a sense that I am not alone. There is a sense of community and family among complete strangers when you hear the powerful words
“I know how you feel.”
- Suffering has an art of solidarity about it.
- God was present in suffering with the story of the cross. The incarnation of the Creator in a human body in the form of Christ shows that we have a God who is not distant or detached but is present in the most painful experiences that ever could be imagined.
- It makes all the difference to know that there’s someone else screaming alongside us. To know that someone else understands and identifies with our pain and confusion.
- God, through the person of Jesus Christ, came into the world and screamed alongside us.
- The healing and restoration in my life begins when I discover that I am not alone.
- In many ways, the cross is a symbol of God saying to us “I know how you feel. I know what it feels like to be hurt and be betrayed and hated. I understand what you mean when you say that you have been left all alone.”
- What every artist (and every human) must understand is that even the broken pieces are essential.
- God is a God who wastes nothing. There is a purpose to suffering and pain and confusion because of the truth that
this too will shape me.
- Having been confronted with this present suffering, I will either become bitter or better. I will close down or I will be opened up. I will cling to my own ideas and plans or I will realize a new day comes tomorrow. Even in death, there is resurrection, because after all
nothing is without significance.
Rob closed the evening by telling a story about his nephew. At a family gathering one time, this little boy started to yell “Stars! Stars!” when it began to rain outside. When Rob asked his sister-in-law why her son kept saying “Stars! Stars!”, she replied that for a brief moment, in her son’s understanding of his world, the rain drops would look like stars exploding when they hit the ground.
That little boy saw exciting stars when he was surrounded on every side by the giant drops rain.
He saw the stars…not just the drops of rain.
He saw the beauty in the pain.
I want to see the drops like stars. Not just the drops. Because when I run away from the drops, I miss seeing the stars.
The Turtle Man
It’s things like this that should make you proud to live in the south. And if you don’t live in the south, I know that seeing something like this just makes you jealous that you don’t have this rich culture and fascinating individuals such as the legend known as the Turtle Man:
Today is World AIDS Day
Every 14 seconds, a child is orphaned by AIDS. You and I have the power to change this by partnering with Compassion International. Click here to learn more about Compassion’s AIDS Initiative.
A Week of Doing Nothing
Most of the time, life is pretty packed with stuff to do. I’m working on changing this current reality in my life, but more often than not, I find that my weeks fill up faster than I’d like for them to.
But last week, I had the chance to do absolutely nothing for a week…and it was wonderful! Our family had the chance to go on a cruise together to the Caribbean. We got to go snorkeling, we took a ride on the banana boat, and saw some of the cool coral formations on a glass-bottom boat.
We had a lot of stuff we could do during the week, but the great thing was that we didn’t have to do anything if we didn’t want to. So I actually had the chance to sleep in and read (for pleasure–what an idea).
I saw just how important rest was last week. I want to learn how to rest and stop and be quiet here in real life.
Lessons from my Grandma
I know everyone thinks that they’ve got the best grandma around. And sorry to rain on your parade, but you’re wrong. Mine is the best around. Allow me to explain why…
Hanging out with the grandma and a new addition to the family.
I had the chance to hang out with my grandma last week. She lives here in Nashville and she’s 88 years old. We call her Maw-Maw in our family. Not really sure why we do that. I think one of my older cousins, who was the first grandchild, just came up with the name and it’s stuck ever since. I try to hang out with her as much as I can because she always teaches me every time I’m around her.
She has led (and is still leading) an interesting life. She taught herself to paint after my grandfather died (several years before I was born–from the stories I hear about him, he was one incredible person–I can’t wait to meet him).
She was a clown–no, really, she was. She and some of her other senior-adult friends formed a clowning group that would go to nursing homes and elementary schools to just hang out with people.
She has competed in the senior olympics in swimming and actually progressed from local competitions to the national level (and nothing says cool like the senior olympics).
She has taught herself Spanish. Since she knows I’m studying Spanish, we always try to go back and forth with the new Spanish words that we’ve learned.
She can play the piano like crazy and has taught 
herself how to play the harmonica…that’s right, the harmonica. We want to try to get her one of those head brace things so that she can play the harmonica and the piano at the same time (because we all know harmonica + piano = party).
She’s learned how to use a computer. She still hasn’t figured out what Facebook and Twitter are but she’s getting there.
I say all this to say that she has really lived. Not just survived. She has lived. She has challenged herself to be a lifelong learner and has never settled for the ordinary.
She has seen good times and bad times. And she’s stood on the truth of who Christ says He is and has allowed that to be her launching pad for living a life in which she genuinely loves people.
I’ve learned a lot from my grandma…not just from what she has said, but in how she lives.
She always listens more than she talks. She knows that people are broken and often just need someone to listen.
She helps people see that they have value.
She is excited when others succeed.
She loves people well.
She understands just how amazing grace really is.
She sees a need and responds to it because of the love and grace that has been extended to her in Christ.
She always reminds us that she is constantly bringing us before her Father in prayer. And when she says this, I believe it.
She is living a good story with her life.
I just hope that I can live a story like hers. Because the story she is telling is a pretty good one as far as I’m concerned.
So thanks, Maw-Maw, for living such a good story and for letting us be a part of it.
Hope, faith, and dignity
Seeing this hurts my heart. The fact that so many kids don’t even get a fair chance to live life…all because of something that is preventable. With all the resources and medical knowledge we have, this is still going on? That’s just not right.
But words like hope, faith, and dignity can change a child’s whole life. You and I can be a part of bringing hope, faith, and dignity to kids living in poverty today through Compassion International’s Child Survival Program. Help be a part of making sure these kids are able to survive way beyond their fifth birthday.
Find out all you need about rescuing kids from preventable diseases at compassion.com/rescueme. It’s so ridiculously easy to get started in changing a kids life (and I’ll bet that if you do, your life will be changed too–mine was).
God moving in the dark and destitute places
I love stories of people who are willing to be a part of missions around the world and the incredible things that they are able to see God do–both in the people they work with and in their own lives as well.
My friend Calea Bakke had such an opportunity presented to her and she took it. Calea, along with ten other team members, traveled to Peru with the OneHope organization. OneHope’s mission statement sums up what they’re all about: “To effect destiny by providing God’s eternal Word to all the children and youth of the world.”
The team got to distribute copies of the Book of Hope, a book that helps explain the grandness and beauty of the Gospel story to kids around the world.
Calea is an incredible writer (just check out her blog) and she had the opportunity to write about her experiences in Peru for OneHope. You can read (and see photos) about the incredible things that God did in the people of Peru and in the lives of those eleven individuals who were willing to be the visible image of Christ to their world by clicking here.
As Calea says,
For three and a half weeks, 11 teenagers left the reality they understood and were introduced to a new worldview. It was eye opening and sobering to see how most of the world lived. But it was life changing to experience how incredibly God moves in the dark and destitute places.
Go read.
Right now.
And if you’re like me, you’ll learn a lot.
How can you and I be involved in sharing the Story here at home and in far away lands, in the dark and depressed places of our world?
Up and out
I’ve got the best friends in the world. For real. I’m blessed to know these people who would allow me to call them friend. I’m seeing the incredible value of this community in which we operate as life gets busy and chances to hang out become harder to come by.
I always learn so much from these people when I get to be around them…every one of them always speaks a lot of truth into my life. The other day I had the chance to hang out with my good friend Josh Woodlief. Josh is the worship pastor at OneChurch in Clarksville. His focus at the church (as the title suggests) is on worship. He leads two services every weekend and manages a talented team of volunteers (among many other things) each week. He dropped some deep stuff on me about what worship is…
If you’ve ever been to a “contemporary” worship service, you’ve probably seen people raise their hands as they sing along with the worship leader. There’s the group that is a little timid about the whole idea and bring their hands up half way. Then there’s the group that has both arms spread out wide so that they almost knock you over if you’re sitting too close to them in the pew. A third group throws both hands up and keeps them there for every song. Nothing wrong with this stuff at all. The Bible even talks about it…
In every place of worship, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy.
I’ve seen lots of people do it. I do it. I think in some ways, it adds emphasis to what we’re singing when we physically reach out to our Father and almost assume a position of surrender before Him.
But what my friend said put a different spin on this whole idea. He said worship has to have hands that are both lifted up and extended out. Translation: worship that has any integrity, any merit or value, has to be not only about remembering how good God is and the grace that He’s shown us, but that worship has to move us from those gatherings to a place where we, as the church, are the visible image of Christ to the hurting world in which we live. You can’t have one occur without the other for either of them to have integrity.
Our corporate gatherings are not meant to be a “worship fix” for our week that charges us up to just survive the seven days ahead of us. That’s a selfish point-of-view if that’s how we view our worship gatherings. Those gatherings are meant to be a springboard from which we are propelled into the dark and dangerous and abandoned places in our communities and around the world to care for and love people well, to give them dignity and respect, and to tell those who are bound mentally, spiritually, and physically that the Liberator has come.
Our hands that, on Sunday morning, were lifted high singing about how the prisoner has been released and how freedom has come have to be extended to be about the work of setting those prisoners free from the bondage of poverty and pain and darkness. If we just sing about it, I don’t think we really believe it.
Donald Miller explains it like this…
…what I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.
So may we live with hands lifted up in worship but may they not just stay there. May they be extended out to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with God.
Fight poverty with just a click…
