Monday, December 10, 2012

I have been on here for awhile. My bad. Seriously. I'll explain (or make excuses) later. I'm writing messages for some kids. The hardest part is trying to simplify things that are beyond me. But I try.

To know the Gospel is to hear the mystery of God; to pursue the mystery of God is to find love; to find love is to be free; to be free is to experience grace; to experience grace is to respond; to respond is to love back; to love back is to die to yourself; to die to yourself is to live for others; to live for others is to tell the Gospel with your life; to tell the Gospel with your life is to let the world hear it. So sit back. Listen. Just be ready to move.

I'll try to give you a good life to listen to.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Food for Thought

"People are not problems to be fixed, but mysteries to be honored and revered."
                 - Eugene Peterson. 

Brilliant.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

That is Soooo Cliche


Clichés are so yesterday. Yet it feels like everybody and their brother uses them and they never quite get to the point. We should choose our words more carefully; after all, it’s another thing that separates us from the animals. So grab life by the horns and learn to speak your mind! Hugs, not drugs! Carpe Diem!
            Now please excuse me as I wipe the barf off my keyboard because the amount of shameless clichés in that last paragraph made me a little sick. I’m willing to bet someone could give me the different etymologies behind each one, but it’s funny that just certain ones have stuck. Like, “in the nick of time.” Does anyone even know what that means? When you really stop to think about it, the very existence of clichés shows how lazy we can get with how we communicate and even think. They even seep into when we create something.
So you get countless songs about how when you’re sad it feels like rain or how when you’re overwhelmed you’re going to break free and fly or how someone can steal your heart or…seriously, go to your music library and count them. Now, they’ll still succeed at what they’re trying to communicate, but what about creativity/originality/showing that you put in genuine thought to what you’re saying? (Check out Michael Gungor’s blog on creativity in Christian music.) Would anyone ever just memorize a proposal speech they saw on a romantic movie in order to ask someone to marry them? Yikes, I hope not, but the more I think about it the more think that someone has probably done that. Weird, I almost barfed again.
            But I’m being facetious (shocker!) and I know why we use them and I probably drop a cliché or two daily. They’re a quick and easy way to communicate an otherwise expanded thought. Quick and easy. And everyone will understand what you really mean because everyone gets what you mean. No semantic arguments there. But then we really get lazy.
            Christians have our own clichés. Some of us even call it speaking “Christianese.” Cute. Go us.
            Here a few that we see way too often:
·      Ill pray for you = Good luck with that, I really got to get going.
·      Worship was great today = I had a good time
·      I’m good = My life is absolute chaos
·      I don’t mean to judge, but… = Buckle up, I’m about to judge someone
·      I told her I wouldn’t tell anyone but… = I told her that I wouldn’t tell anyone but I’m going to go ahead and gossip anyway.
·      I don’t have the gift for that/feel led to do that = I’m too afraid to ask for that gift so I’m not going to even try to see if I could do that.
What’s the worst part about the above Christianese comments? They’re all clichés built upon phrases that actually mean[t] something. Christ said that our “yes” should actually mean “yes” and our “no” should mean “no.” I think it’s pretty safe to say that He wants us to always mean what we say and live accordingly.
So please, by all means, speak some Christianese every day. Just make sure you mean it.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

A Healthy Dose of Honesty

 I haven't written in awhile. I haven't felt challenged for awhile.
Or maybe I haven't been challenged anything for awhile. Or maybe I haven't been listening to God's challenges.
I haven't been completely myself lately. In fact, I've been looking around for me everywhere. I've felt...empty.

Paul, in an effort to encourage his brothers and sisters that made up the church in Ephesus, challenged them to be "filled with the fullness of God" at all times, but especially when they felt that needle inching closer to "E".
I can relate to that.
You see,  I've been praying to God, asking, no begging Him to fill me up. I've felt (relatively speaking) unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and de-energized since being back to school. It's not necessarily the school's fault, nor the classes, the people (especially the friends!), the lack of Chic-Fil-A's; it's me.
I've flicked some kind of mental (spiritual?) switch, both in my mind and my heart, that this last semester is this burden I must bear before I get back to living the way I want. Doing the things I want. Only daring to invest love in the people I want to invest in. Because hey, I'm almost out of here! Why would I invest time, energy, and love into people that I won't have to see anymore after a couple months of monotonous school work? Right? Yea, right. Nice, Jon.
I'm sure that's what the God of love wants.

Someone close to my heart showed me a message that Francis Chan had given at his church. Man, that guy. Talk about someone that God uses to encourage, but maybe more importantly for my case, convict the rest of us. He talked about how in times where we feel empty, instead of having an expectation that God will somehow change the situation because I am in some shape or form suffering from it, I should ask, no beg, no want nothing more than for God to change me. Who am I to question the God of everything ever's intentions for placing me where I am in life? I serve an intentional God. I serve a perfect God. Therefore, His intentions are perfect.
I want to feel challenged again. Because I want to discover, or merely see a glimpse, of how deep, how wide, and how INFINITE God's love is for me; how infinite His love, and how limitless His plans.
But it's easier said than done, isn't it?
Because this whole "feeling conviction and attaining a sense of purpose on a daily basis no matter the circumstances" is a work in progress. I'm not going to end this with some clever full-circle insight. I'll instead leave a link to Mr. Chan's sermon that has helped crack open my hardened heart.
Francis Chan

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

No Way But Up

    The only thing crazier for me to think about than how high, how difficult, and how perilous hiking Mount Everest is would be how crazy the men and women who have done it must have been. People don't say that some one climbed Everest, they say they conquered Everest. Over 220 people have died trying to reach the summit, and that's not exactly as peaceful as passing away in your sleep; it's a little closer to freezing to death and/or not being able to inhale the thin veil of oxygen in your deflated lungs. Fun times.
    So what's the point? Despite the unenviable death described above, almost 3,150 people have at least attempted the climb...what a bunch of morons. Have there been that many morons with an interest in rock climbing throughout history, or am I missing something? I think George Leigh Mallory, who climbed Everest in 1924 (before they had oxygen tanks and things) would say I'm missing something. He had this to say:
    "The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is no use'. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life." Mr. Mallory was on to something. And Mr. Mallory died in his failed attempt to climb Everest in 1924. 
    A mountain can take your breath away with its beauty and grandeur, while all the while it can literally take your breath away. But I like to think that there is not one person to have reached its summit and regretted it, even if things were lost along the way. And stranger still, there are those who attempted it and failed but still regret nothing. If you're like me, love can seem like a similar endeavor.
    I have yet to reach love's summit. It hasn't worked out with the people that I've tried climbing it with in the past. I've gotten lost on the way up, I've run out of air, or I acted like it wasn't a dangerous climb at all only to get swept up the wind. But I don't regret those climbs. Not one bit. Because the view was still beautiful, and I'm actually closer with those people for trying. Because maybe we're not supposed to worry about reaching the summit. 
    Maybe God cares more about the climb. Maybe God wants us to have those moments where we hold each others' hand through the coldest wind or where a mere gaze from our partner is more sustaining than water. Maybe God wants us to share an adventure; and no one has ever had an adventure where there was nowhere to go. 
    Love seems dangerous. But that's the beauty of it; that I still want to climb, and that there's someone who would want to climb with me. Because I'm sure the view from the top is gorgeous, but it's the journey up that I hope takes my breath away -- one way or another.