Marking time

Its one of those evenings when I start thinking about the swift passing of time. It seems like just last week I was a teenager and over the hill meant 30. Now I am pushing 50 and I realize that I don't have a whole lifetime ahead of me. 60 isn't that far behind, and regardless of how I slice it, the slope is all down hill from here. I don't mean to be overly morbid - it is just that life is feeling mighty precious these days. Many things in my life are coming together, and I see God using me in ways I have only imagined in the past. I want to breathe in every moment of it and not miss a single breath.

So where from here? The single passion in my heart for the last 25 years has been to impact the world for Jesus. But how do we leave a mark in the world? Touching people's lives seems like the most precious commodity of all. What will be left when I am gone? Will any of us have touched history in a way that will live beyond us? When I was 20, I thought I really mattered. Now that I am ever so much past 20, I find my value waning as I struggle to stay young and on the cutting edge. Is there impact that we can make in the second half of life? Or will we continue to discard those most valuable in our society because they aren't 'cool'.

Papa, I want to make a mark. I always have. To leave behind a world that has been changed in some way by my hand - that is my prayer. And if I am really honest, I don't want it to be a small mark. Will all my writings ever be of interest to someone else after I am gone? Will the splash I make in the pond of life send ripples into the future?

I am comforted with the thought that I am not that important. When I am gone, others will pick up the baton of faith. And some will impact the world, and others won't. Ultimately, our relationship with Jesus is the only thing that lasts. And I am deeply thankful, when all is said and done, that Jesus is the author and perfector of our faith. May the marks on history be His to make, whether or not he wants to use the likes of one of us.

Birthday reflections

It suddenly just dawned on me, like 2 seconds ago, that my spiritual birthday is in 2 days. It will have been 27 years since the decision to follow Jesus - not bad for a guy who is only 25. As I reflect, there are a hundred lifetimes reflected in those years, and at least a million miles. There have been some absolutely horrible spots in the road. There have been times when I wish I had never chosen to follow - not because Jesus wasn't true, but because it has been too damned hard at times. I think about the journey and honestly, it has been a hard one. I guess I made it that way by my slowness of heart.

But then I think about how different it would have been without Jesus. I imagine I would have done the same stupid things and made the exact same mistakes, but there would have been no one there when it came time to find my feet again after my falls. He has never left me of forsaken me, though at times it sure felt like it. As I look back, I see that despite the difficult times, it has been very worth following Him.

There have been so many turns that make the road look convoluted. So many wonderings and wanderings that have made 'the road less traveled' a difficult one. I don't mean any disrespect in my honesty about the toughness of the road. I realize now that every painful step was a needed step. You might say that there was need of more than one shovel to dig me out of the messes of my life.

And now I am here, in this place in the road. And as I look back, the potholes aren't really the things that I remember. What I see as the result of the journey is where I am now. And what I see when I look at the journey from the 'now' is Jesus. I see His working with a pretty unlovely lump of clay, and totally despite me, He is making something beautiful.

It is easy to see the failures of life. I wonder how often we see the Jesus of life. Because Jesus transcends the failures and the successes. He is more than both, and Lord of both, and He offers us more in relationship with Him than we could ever find in the emptiness of our failures or the joy of our successes. He is what it is all about.

I see so far to go, and yet as I turn away from my looking back and face the future, there isn't an infinite number of years left. I am hoping that I have another 27 years in me, but maybe not. But there is a larger question than the number of years left or the number of potholes I have fallen into, or the number of transforming victories I have experienced. And that is the amount of Jesus that I get to shine. You see, apart from the good and bad of the journey is the power, presence, and person of God.

My prayer is that at the end of my life, people won't really notice Mike's mistakes or Mike's accomplishments. Sure, having the good stuff noticed would be great, but it is nothing compared to people noticing Jesus.

Somehow Papa, may people see Jesus. That is my prayer.

Cutting trees with a divided heart

My friend Trevor came and visited from California last weekend with his wonderful family. We had a blast doing all kinds of things. But one of the things that we didn't get to do was cut down a tree. Trev wanted to get the old chain saw out and watch a 100 foot tree topple over, but when we stopped at the ranger station for a tree cutting permit, it was closed.

Normally, and on every other day of the life I have lived, I would have blown off the whole permit thing and just cut down the tree. I have a problem with authorities charging me for the privilege I believe God gave us, but none the less, an $8 fee is required. I was torn with whether to buck the system and go covert and illegally cut some firewood, or be above board and be a good Christian. I ended up deciding neither.

I have never been one to obey certain ridiculous laws like wood cutting tags. But over the years I have discovered that doing something like cutting without a permit leaves my heart divided. I can go ahead and lop down a ponderosa pine, but I do it with at least a little part of me looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody is going to catch me. And I hate that feeling. It divides my heart. It keeps me from fully enjoying the simple fun of watching a tree go over. And bottom line, I am sick of living with a divided heart.

So we didn't cut down a tree. Instead, we played in the shop and went hiking and drank some beer and had a blast enjoying. And we did it all with a single heart that I really believe brings glory to God. Not because cutting down a tree would have been bad, but because I wouldn't have been able to do it single hearted and to the glory of God. You see, my fully enjoying it would have been glorifying God.

And that I want to do more than anything else in life.

Coasting

Life has taken me to a place where I end up having to drive a lot. So being the cost conscious tight wad that I am, I coast, trying to save on gas. There is a big hill I end up driving quite frequently that I can kick the car into neutral on and coast over 5 miles. I don't know how much gas I am really saving, but it makes me feel better to watch the miles go by without the engine doing much work.

I notice that there are two kinds of coasting in life. The first is when we think we have arrived at a certain goal, and we stop putting in the time. Like the last couple months of a presidential term - the lame duck syndrome. Sometimes we don't think we can make any difference, and sometimes we just quit trying to make a difference. Whatever, we end up coasting and not doing the work. I see a lot of Christians like that - not doing much of anything, just coasting through their relationship (or lack thereof) with God. I guess that would be bad coasting.

But there is another form of coasting that isn't about shirking responsibility as much as it is about trusting God. Learning to go with the natural desires and interests that Papa put in us is a form of coasting that says "I trust what He is doing and where the natural gravity of His spirit is leading, and I'll rest in that - in His presence and guidance." It is a very cool place to be.

So which are you? Are you coasting? If so, are you letting Him lead you, or are you just plain losing interest? They might both be easy, but for totally different reasons.

The paths we never walk

I was sitting in front of the fire tonight and thinking about life - not the path it has taken, but about the ones it hasn't. There was a job at a hardware store that I am thankful I didn't get. The cars I almost bought. The houses that I was going to remodel. The relationships that never took off. The adventures that never got lived. There are vacations that never happened, and things I wanted to try and never did. There are memories that are real, and a thousand more that were just my imagination. I used to think that there was one right path for a person's life, but as I walk the one I am on longer, I realize that it is one of many paths I could have taken.

But this path has led me to this specific place in the journey, and who knows why I ended up here.

The answer to that last question is 'God'. God knew the path from the very beginning, from the moment I was conceived in my mother's womb. He has known the devastating mistakes, and the profound victories - long before they happened they were a memory to Him.

I don't know if anything I do in my life will really ever make any kind of impact in the eternal realm of things. There are people in the world who would say I touched their lives in dynamic ways. There are others who would say I am the reason their lives are a mess. What do you do with the dichotomies of life?

In the end, God is all that matters. He is the only one that makes the number of days we live make any sense whatsoever. He is the one who weaves together the threads of our lives in ways that makes a tapestry ultimately. Out of the victories and devastations, He makes something beautiful. Sometimes He uses the path we walk to create that living testimony of Himself. Other times He uses the ones we never walk as the defining moments of who we are not - to shape the person we become.

Who knows but for such a time as this we were put on this earth. How will the next moment on the path be lived? And what will He give the world through the unique vessel of us?

The line between young and old

I watched an old guy buying paint at the hardware store today. As par for the course, I was in a hurry. He acted like he had all the time in the world. And I realized that most of my life has been lived in a hurry. I wondered as I watched him, where the line is between young and old. When do you wake up and have time to kill? When does the pace change?

I realize that this guy at the store probably was retired and didn't have anything to hurry off to. His pension check or social security check or whatever he used to live on came regularly in his life. I am still in that phase of life where I wonder where the next meal is coming from, and how I am going to pay the bills this month. I guess he had the luxury of income - to some extent at least- that he didn't have to work for. I was still chasing the almighty dollar.

I know the day is coming when I will wake up with lots of time on my hands and little to do. I suppose on that day I will have all the time in the world. But today I find myself still in a hurry, still trying to survive.

The line between young and old will happen without me knowing it. And I will look back on this busy day and wonder what all the scurrying was about. And when all is said and done, will the scurry of this season balance the slowness of the next? Will the young still living in me regret that I didn't relax a little more? Or will I be glad that I hurried when I had a reason to hurry?

I know for sure that Papa loves me, that this life isn't what it is all about, and that someday He will make all of it make sense. And I know He is the reason for life, hurried or slow paced. I am so thankful that it isn't about me!

Osage Orange

There is probably more than a few of you who are reading the title on this one and wondering what that is. Osage orange is the name of a type of tree that is found in the Midwest. It is sometimes called hedge. I has nasty thorns and is really hard, and never grows straight. Perfect for walking sticks - except you can't find one that isn't shaped like the back of a camel, and if you do, you'll come out of the thicket with thorns in places you won't admit to. The Indians used to use the wood to make their bows out of. It is my favorite wood to make into walking sticks. Those who know me understand that despite 30 days in rehab, I still nurture a habitual addiction to carving walking sticks.

So when I was back visiting my dad at T-giving time, I forced my brother to cruise the country roads until we had at least 4 Osage Orange logs in the car. I like the hedge wood because once you get past the thorns and the very unremarkable bark, there is an equally unremarkable sap wood underneath, just like every other tree. But if you keep carving, the heart wood is a vivid orange, and hard as iron, and absolutely beautiful. But you have to go through a lot to get down to the beauty.

And that's the point - to get past all the unlovely stuff to the real gem on the inside. I guess it's a lot like people - sometimes you have to get past some pretty ugly stuff to find the beauty. I think one of the things that made Jesus so cool was that he could see past thorns and unremarkable bark and ordinary sap wood to get to the real heart of a person. And always it was beautiful, because He is the one who puts the beauty in the hearts of all of us.

Dare to discover the beauty in someone today. They may fight you on it - maybe because they lost hope a long time ago that there was anything beautiful in there. Help them see it again.

Turn two

My buddy John and I were going our separate ways after coffee last week and he did something that I had never seen. He pointed at me with two fingers, making a funny looking peace sign, only aimed at me. I had no clue what that meant - I thought it was one of those strange John things. (You'd have to know this guy to know the depth of oddity he carries daily :) - you'd also have to know him to know the depth of friendship and value he holds in my life).

Finally he asked me if I knew what that meant. I guess he could see the cluelessness on my face (that look goes away rarely in my waking hours). He explained that in the Navy, it was a sign that meant "Turn two". I remained clueless looking. He went on to explain that it meant to turn from what you were doing, and then turn again to what you should be doing - the job at hand.

It struck me as a pretty novel concept, and one that we are lacking in the body of Christ. I realized that John was talking about real repentance. So many times we define that word as 'turning from our wicked ways', but it is more than that. It is also turning toward Jesus. I find so many people who work like crazy at turning from their struggles and sin, hoping to get sinless and struggleless. And as I think about it, that sorta misses the whole point. Because Jesus is the point.

We couldn't fix ourselves. That is why Jesus came. We couldn't do it right enough. So He did it right for us. Real repentance is about turning two - away from our sin (as best we can), and more importantly, toward Jesus, because it is all about Him, not about us. When we get that through our heads, we are facing in the right direction.

Take a chance

The biggest struggle in the body of Christ is not sin, it is boredom. More saints are sidelined by ineffective faith than falling into some big scandal of morality. Last weekend I was preaching about the temptations Jesus struggled with in His 40 days in the desert. One of the things that I saw from the three temptations Satan throws at Him was a struggle with what it meant to be loved. When Satan took Him to the top of the temple and challenged Him to throw Himself down, thereby testing His Father's love for Him, he was hitting at the very core of faith - the question that asks "Am I really loved by God?"

I find that most Christians will tell you they know they are loved, but they don't live it. Because if we know we are loved, and there is nothing we can do about that being loved, we are free to make mistakes and live in faith and a trust that our Father's love for us is unlimited and unconditional. But when we don't trust that we are loved, we live in fear, and that fear keeps us from taking any risks - it keeps us from really living in love because we are afraid of losing that love by some wrong thing we might do or say.

When Jesus was tempted, He trusted in His Father's love, even when it didn't seem very evident. That was the only thing that made His struggle with temptation different than ours - His response to it. He trusted that He was profoundly loved even though it didn't feel like it. That trust gave Him freedom to move boldly in His ministry, even when it didn't go well. He was able to risk doing and saying things that weren't real popular because He knew there was nothing that could separate Him from His Father's love. Trusting and living in that love enabled Him to take chances.

So why don't we? Because we have this stupid thought in our heads that says we might do it wrong, we might mess things up, we might upset God. How ridiculous! If that line of thinking is floating around in your head, dare to confront it and take a risk. We say we believe in the sovereignty of God. But we live in a fear that we are so powerful that we can thwart whatever it is He wants to do. Take a chance and challenge that! Either the Bible is true, and there is nothing that can separate us from His love, or it isn't.

In which case be very, very afraid.