Back stage pass

Most Sundays, I am an exceedingly privileged man, in that I get to lead a congregation into the throne room of God. Often, I have thought about what that looks like but never taken the time to write it out and explain it. The images in my head certainly could never do it justice, so perhaps my hesitancy to write about it has been that I didn’t want to lessen the impact by trying to explain something that seemed beyond words.

This morning seemed different to me and the images seemed more alive and real than anything I have envisioned in the past. For that reason, I decided to jot it down and tell you about it.

What struck me at first was this idea that while I may be a worship leader, there were thousands of other worship leaders all doing the same thing at the same time. That thought brought humility as I realized that God has entrusted me, as he has entrusted thousands of others, to lead His people into His presence. It’s not that I am any more special than anyone else; instead it’s that this is the role that God has designated me to do in the broader scope of His redemptive work here on earth. I am fulfilling a purpose set about for my life by the creator of the universe and the awesome thing is that I get to do this.

So, let me explain what I imagined as I thought about leading worship each week. Imagine, for a moment, a church building hundreds of times bigger than anything here on earth. This building has very tall, arched top, double doors all the way around it, exposing a sanctuary in the center and in the center of the sanctuary is God, seated on His throne, overseeing all He has made. Leading to the sanctuary are thousands of roads, coming from every direction. On every road, coming from every direction, there are little groups of people, all on their way to the very large church building. Every group is singing and even though the songs being sung are all different, every group is in harmony with the next.

Even though there were literally millions of people all making their way to this large building, and you would think there would be massive lines out the doors, instead there was plenty of room for everyone to come inside. In fact, there was enough room that the crowd could triple in size and there would still be extra space. Each person in each group seemed to have a designated place in this massive building, but instead of it feeling like a huge gymnasium, I remember feeling as if I was in an intimate setting, praising God with the songs we had brought. There were all these people and yet I felt so close to God and the amazing thing was that everyone was experiencing God on that same personal intimate level, but we were all together, as one.

Backing up a little bit, I remember that as we were on one of the roads, making our way to the house of God, an angel appeared next to me and gave me instructions for once we were inside. It was kind of like being in a parade and having the route director let you know where to turn and who to follow and where to stand and so forth. I remember the angel being super encouraging, letting us know we were almost there and to lift our voices to God with spirits of thanksgiving. The angel didn’t seemed concerned about the exact songs we were singing or which key we were in or why I was using a capo for my guitar or any of the trivial things we get hung up on. Instead, the angel sang along with us, harmonizing with us and everyone else as we praised God with everything we had.

And that’s when it really hit me. The bible talks about how we will take nothing with us into the next life and of course I believe that is meant to refer to earthly things. But we will indeed travel into eternity with our voices and I was struck with the power of God that when we at last come into His presence, we will have our voices with which to praise Him. In fact, it is all we will have but what a joy it will be to know that our God has given us a voice to praise Him with and we will get to use it everyday!

So there we were, all of us, walking and singing on our way to meet with God. We walked alongside angels and everyone was simply joyful. There was no anxiety or worry about how we sounded, or if the words were being projected properly up on the screen or if a note was played wrong somewhere by someone, or any such thing. Those concerns simply did not exist. Instead, everyone had a singular focus; everyone was unified as if there were one voice.

And in the midst of everything that was going on, I became aware that my position as the worship leader of my small group was more of a privilege than I could have ever imagined. I was being entrusted with leading this group to this place filled with such joy. For a moment I felt as if I had been given the greatest back stage pass ever, where I got to personally hang out with the headliner but even better than that, I got to invite every person I knew to be there too! This image became seared into my brain of me introducing all these people to God, the single greatest headliner ever and then, at the end, He shook my hand and all I could say was ‘thank you’.

God has been pruning and shaping me for some time now and for a long time, I wondered what for. For the past several years I have been praying in earnest for God to use me but more importantly, I have asked God to humble me because I knew I needed that to happen before I could ever truly serve Him, instead of serving myself. In the last year, God has laid out His plans for my life and in doing so He has shown me the humility with which I am to approach this calling.

My place is to serve others that they might discover the joy that comes with being in His presence. My place is to lead people into a meeting with a Holy God who desires to know each of us on a personal level. My place is to introduce others to the mighty God, whose grace covers all. And my place, on a daily basis, is to thank God because I get to do this.

Not so perfect

We're SO busy, working SO hard, trying to make everything SO perfect, we lose sight of the fact that nothing will ever be SO perfect and in fact, it is Jesus we need; the only perfect being ever.

A friend said something the other day that really made me stop and think. I made an initial note of it, relating to wanting everything SO perfect but not understanding that it can NEVER be that way until we go home to meet Jesus, then I sat down to hammer out this point.

Why then do we pine for perfection in this life when as Christians we are painfully aware of the imperfectness of this place? Are we simply trying to manage the time and space better? Are we simply trying to make things more tolerable? I wish that were the case but I truly believe that Christ followers have fallen victim to the idea of heaven on earth based on perceived ideals. If this is the case, it explains why people snap. And even prior to people losing it, so to speak, it explains why so many on this earth are living lives filled with frustration and angst, especially when discussing polarizing topics such as religion and politics.

I don't think this is a simple case of blaming the media or our society or prevailing thought or religion or politics. There really isn't one place to lay blame except possibly on ourselves. We have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing we can achieve some level of perfection if we would simply vote a certain way, buy a certain product, listen to a certain program, act a certain way, wear specific clothes, speak in a particular way or even become educated to a certain degree. This is all a hoax and a ruse and a lie and it cannot be achieved; not here.

Getting this out is having a profound effect on me and I am realizing that for so long I simply wanted people to see my point of view because if they did, they would become aligned with not only my way of thinking, but with what I perceived as right. It's more than simply offering up my opinion and expecting someone to accept it, it's believing that my opinion is more correct than theirs and will usher in a more perfect state of being in the world. Clearly, that rationale is inane, among other things.

Politics has provided the most recent examples of this type of insanity and we are all fools for believing that one side, or one point of view, can fix everything. This is the greatest scam of them all, indeed. However, religion has also provided us prime examples of this same methodology. For centuries, men and women (men especially) have gone so far as to go to war to espouse their opinions in regards to religion and those opinions vary from man to man, from city to city, from country to country and so on.  Are we really so crazy as to believe that we are going to usher in a more perfect state by going to war over whose God is better? Or killing in the name of "insert your opinion here"?

This is not to suggest we should not stand upon our principals, morals, ethics and laurels. It is important to be a principled man (or woman) in this life. However, it is also important to be rational and realistic and understand that even our principals are imperfect because everything in this place is imperfect. And yet, we impose our imperfections upon others by expecting them to be perfect, even though rationally we should know better. We somehow rationalize that perfection is not possible and even man's obsession with science can prove that and yet daily we seem bent on destruction over the idea that it is. Our relationships fall apart because of it and then we turn around and attempt to explain it all away by claiming that if only we had known more, or practiced harder, or worked more, or spent more time on, when in all truth what we all need to do is love more and give more grace.

Love and grace. On this planet, there are not any more perfect examples of perfection than these 2 things. This life will not be made better by their absence, instead it can only be made worse and we have mountains of data to prove it. And yet, even with such insurmountable evidence, we attempt to fill our lives with temporary substances and false hopes based on a place that we know for a fact is eventually going to go away. If this doesn't prove insanity, I don't know what does.

Skeptics might contend that while absolute perfection is unattainable, we can come close to perfection and therefore should be satisfied with that. I will tell you that you will never be satisfied with “almost perfect”. You will strive and push and chase after and ache for things to be just a little more perfect than they were the last time. This is a guarantee and can be seen in all facets of life from the way we vote to the way we drive.

Perfection is truly unattainable in this life. Because of that simple and yet profound truism, we must learn the fine art of grace and the distinct joy of love. Without them we will chase the wind and die trying to catch it in our vain pursuit of perfection.

Uncle

Good evening sir.

I have not really stopped thinking about this topic, this one we have talked about in depth, this subject that seems to pervade nearly every area of our lives thanks to the media and all sides who appear to want it to become more than it probably should be.

I'm not saying I am sick of anyone or anything, but I have to wonder if all this volleying is doing any good or if it is just furthering the divide. The world seems bent on creating a chasm of us versus them and hiding inside their exceptionalism until Jesus comes back on the wings of an F-18, holding an American Flag and shooting RPG's at anyone sporting a rainbow sticker on their Mazda Miata.

You may have to pardon me for my excessive wit as I'm afraid that most of my compassion for those who call themselves Christian is waning. I suppose this was bound to happen given my strong liberal leanings and the fact that I was a liberal before I gave my heart to Jesus, but I am so tired; frankly.

In this day of communication and social connectivity for a wide range of platform broadcasting, how is it that there is so much hate? Oh wait, I know, let me answer that one...it's because the people who control the platform for broadcasting are full of hate and anyone who dares to stand up and speak love is labeled as a softy or a pacifist or worse....a Jesus freak.

Over the last few weeks, I have had the honor to sit and talk to quite a few people who have different views than mine and share with them about this topic. Our positions on a host of topics are all over the board but we all agreed on one thing: we are not doing anything to show the love of Christ in this matter, at least not to the extent that we could be. Furthermore, we are forgetting about a few simple tenets, so let me share them with you.

When did we become perfect? Seriously, think about that one for just a second and then remember what Jesus told us to pray. He prayed what is now commonly called the Lord's Prayer. In that prayer we pray to God to "Forgive us our debts". Remember that one? It's a good part of the prayer and we like it because we know that God forgave us our ultimate debt, the one we could never repay, the one we could never do anything about unless somebody did something for us. Our debt was sin and without the ultimate sacrifice, we would be eternally guilty with no way to ever pay back that debt. We should all be found guilty and forced to spend eternity separated from our creator but that wasn't the plan. God wants us to be with Him so He forgave us our debt.

Have you ever scratched your head on that one? I know I have because I know I am certainly not worthy of being saved. As the song goes, I was a wretch. But Jesus came, lived a sinless life, was crucified in our place and then rose again. This is the story of our lives too, not just the story of His.

That redemption story is for you and me.

That story is for everyone.

That story is for the gay man.

That story is for the lesbian woman.

That story is also for the murderer and the thief and the adulterer and so on. We've touched on the beauty of grace before but let me delve a little deeper this time. Bear with me. This is a story of redemption, to be sure, but this is also a story of perfection and of forgiveness of sins. This is even a story about justice...just not your brand of justice.

You see, in the world today we seek justice for those who commit wrongs. Those wrongs could be against society or they could simply be personal things, like having someone lie to you. They could be serious offenses like childhood abuse or a different kind of abuse, like watching your father cheat on your mother and then walk away from everything. In our world, we want justice to be served because somehow it will make us feel vindicated and give us closure and help us sleep better at night so we can say that the other person got what was coming to them and we can sit back and say "I told you so" and laugh.

We want people to hurt because we've been hurt. That's our brand of justice. And the reason we want justice so badly is because we have a problem and that problem can be traced back to the very beginning, to an apple, a garden, a snake and two people. Before that fateful bite, life was good. In fact, life was perfect. Let me repeat that, because it bears repeating....life was perfect. From the moment those teeth sank into the skin of that apple, we have been desperately trying to get that perfection back. We have tomes full of rules that have been written since nearly the dawn of time and those rules have always been for the sole purpose of keeping people in line, keeping the peace, honoring others, honoring God and if we would only keep all the rules, things would be....wait for it....perfect.

So far, that's not working out very well for us.

In fact, since that fateful bite, there hasn't been a perfect moment since. And yet, we strive for perfection daily. Our marketing gurus tell us to do so and our society says it's attainable and we teach and coach our kids in such a way that we expect it and when we go anywhere and do anything we demand it and ARE WE OUT OF OUR MINDS???!!!!

Let's get back to the Lord's Prayer. After the line where we pray to God to forgive us our debts, we then say "as we forgive our debtors". This is simply meant to say that we should pardon the debts of the people in our lives who owe us, because there is nothing that someone owes you that is anywhere near the debt that God pardoned for you. The trouble is that we have that pesky perfection problem, so anyone in our lives who isn't living up to that standard of perfection that we set becomes a failure in our eyes. This goes for anyone who owes you anything, including an apology. This goes for anyone in your life that you have deemed imperfect based on your standard of perfection. This goes for anyone who you want the swift arm of justice to come down on. The truth is, this goes for anyone you can think of, regardless of whether you know them or not, that you think deserves God's wrath and if it were up to you, a lightning bolt from heaven would simply smoke them out. Or maybe an RPG from a guy standing on the wing of a jet.

Did I mention I was tired? I'm not tired, I'm fired up; frankly. But getting fired up isn't going to solve much, it's just going to raise the anxiety in the room a little and with all these RPG's flying around, that might not be good.

Perfection is not going to happen. But you know what will (and can) happen? Forgiveness.

And that happens because of grace.

Not justice. Not your brand of justice, anyway.

In the world of forgiveness, we live day to day wanting grace but also wanting justice. We want to hurt people because we've been hurt and maybe if they apologize just right and make us feel all warm and squishy inside, we might offer them a little grace. But only maybe.

So we go on hurting others and calling it justice because in our heads, it's what people deserve. Grace becomes something we think we deserve and as we continually strive for perfection and demand even more from those around us, we want to be worthy of grace but in all reality, we want justice first.

And in this life, there's only room for one. Grace or justice. You can't have both. Not your kind of justice, anyway. You can't have perfection either. Not your kind of perfection, anyway.

But you can have grace. In fact, you've already been given grace, even though you don't deserve it.

The only thing left is to give it out.

Because trust me, justice and perfectionism and all this striving isn't working.

IT WILL NEVER WORK.

But grace will. Grace always works. And grace is what this world needs if we're going to compassionately address the gay community in love. If we're going to reach out a hand to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. If we're EVER going to accept the fact that perfection in this life is unattainable, but love and grace are in abundant supply at the foot of the cross.

_____________________________________________________
My life is not mine, and yet it is mine to live for Him. Peace to you all.

D

Environment variables

Recently, I made an observation about myself that got me thinking. After more observation, which included watching others, I began to form a conclusion, at least so far as the initial observation is concerned. I think this behavior is key to understanding certain adaptive settings as well, but for now I am intrigued with what I have seen to this point.

Namely, I am talking about how some of us change behaviorally depending upon the setting, the people, the music, the sub-culture or the language. To understand this clearly, one must consider his or her own behavior from a certain base point. A base point for indicating behavior would be found by pinpointing where a person spends the majority of their time, or who a person spends a majority of their time with. For instance, in my case one could simply observe my behavior at home with my wife and kids. After a certain period of time, specific behavioral elements could be obtained. For some people, a workplace can also be an excellent spot to determine behavior, but not always.

Once a base point is established, regarding common (or expected) behavior, the next step is to watch someone in a setting that is not normal or is outside of routine. Some good examples would be a family reunion or any function that involves a setting and people that are not familiar from the base point. A company holiday dinner party or a professional meet and greet for business purposes where spouses are invited or a school reunion are just a few more examples. In any of these cases, it is common to observe individuals behaving differently than they would if they were in their daily routines.

Using myself as an example, I occasionally travel to spend time with my two brothers, my sister, their respective others and their kids (my niece and nephews), as well as my mother. From the moment our conversation begins, I am different. My speech patterns change, as does my vocabulary, even my demeanor. These are not subtle changes either, they are indeed quite noticeable. I use words, mannerisms, figures of speech and gestures that are not part of my typical daily routine. My desire for specific food and drink changes as well which ultimately leads me to feel as if I am on some distant planet every time I see them.

Determining if my actions are the result of a choice or if they are due to programming is something I wrestle with. Mostly, the way I react feels intrinsic so I am led to believe this is something I am hard wired with but I don’t like the idea of being unable to control these patterns so naturally I want this to be an act of choice so I can correct it. The trouble is that I have been travelling up there for many years and it has always been this way. Changing this is going to require a tremendous amount of focus on my part. I’m positive it can be done but then it leads me to wonder if anyone will notice, and if so, what will the reaction be?

I also believe that it may be possible to have had a base point at an earlier time, only to be replaced by a newer base point. In my case, I grew up and remained in the same area for 25 years and then moved away. For the last 18 years I have been living apart from my immediate family. To some degree, I have lived nearly 2 different lives. Initially I was surrounded by brothers, a sister and parents who all sounded, acted, thought, ate and lived the same. I was surrounded by similar speech patterns and behavior that was distinct to my family, introduced by parents who came by their own distinct personality traits from their own respective upbringings. There can be no doubt that even though I moved away, I maintained some piece, some part of me that was built, so to speak, by how I was raised.

After I moved, I became surrounded by new influences. Over the last 18 years I have been changed based on my surroundings and most certainly by my wife and 2 kids. The mannerisms I have today are a direct result of them as well as co-workers, friends and even acquaintances. Therefore, all of this makes for an interesting dynamic when I go back to where I am from and visit family. There is a bit of a clash at first, between my current personality and my old one, but before long I talk and act like I had never left. It feels uncanny, to be certain. I have begun to wonder if there will come a time, when after spending enough time in my new surroundings, I will not be affected by my travels.

Interestingly, even when I talk to my family on the phone, my voice and speech are influenced by what I hear. Consciously, I have been working on deliberately sounding like myself (which is very weird since it should be natural) and I am making some progress. The last few phone calls have been better and I believe that in time I will simply talk like I usually do and there won’t be any sliding towards what used to be. It’s the difference between that initial base point of behavior and speech patterns to my current base point that was established nearly 20 years ago.

Have you experienced anything like this? A tale of two lives perhaps, with distinctly different sets of personality traits, behaviors and speech patterns? I find it all very fascinating and wonder how a person could change their innate and early speech patterns and behaviors that would conflict with newer, more adopted patterns. Share with me if you have.

My dog, the cat

My dog thinks she’s part cat, and based on the amount of time she sleeps during the day, I’m inclined to believe it. Also, because of how much she sheds, year round, she is a terribly messy cat to boot. There is certainly some dog in her and of course, she does bark from time to time but this almost seems like a front or a diversion.

Many believe that a dog is man’s best friend and my first dog was certainly the embodiment of that phrase. I adored him and he was my buddy, always so excited to see me and always ready to please. Before he (Boo) passed away we acquired our current dog/cat, knowing full well that Boo was going to be gone soon. Our new dog (Scout) came with a few interesting warnings, such as she did not like women; at all. When I first met Scout, I was somewhat indifferent because of my attachment to Boo, but when my wife and daughter met Scout, it was love at first sight. And even though Scout was supposedly not that into women, she took to my wife and daughter from the word go. We adopted her the very next day after having met her at a downtown fair.

Oddly, Scout is not a “man’s best friend” kind of dog. She was, and still is, a dog who will follow my wife around incessantly as if my wife is holding the last dog treat; ever. I have tried repeatedly to win favor from Scout by taking her for walks (she usually makes it 1 block before ripping her head out of her collar and running home), playing with her (she becomes ultra submissive after a few minutes and usually pees on herself), being overly doting (typically, she makes a bee line for her bed and won’t come out unless I have food) and petting her nearly every chance I get (all she wants to do is lick my hand).

I suppose I was expecting too much from a dog. I had hoped that Scout might be a running buddy that would run with me whenever I went jogging. I tried it once. We actually made it 2 whole blocks before she stopped and looked at me as if to say, “you sir, are completely mad”. Scout also hates the water and refuses to go into a lake or the ocean. Bath time is tantamount to some wicked form of medieval torture. I may have also recently traumatized her by throwing her into a 3 foot snow bank of fresh powder. Scout stands approximately 12” high and while she hopped out like a rabbit, I’m pretty sure she was doing so while planning my demise.

All of this is not to say that Scout is a bad dog, she’s just a weird dog. In some odd attempt to lick the faces of everyone, she will stand on her hind legs and put her front paws on you, completely stretched out, as if standing up like a human. When Scout gets excited, she will jump straight up from that position. She has been known to “walk” to my wife before while standing upright; it’s hilarious.

At night, she will use her nose to completely cover herself with her blanket in an almost cocoon like nature. My wife thinks this is cute but I’ve never seen another dog do it, so therefore it’s weird. In an effort to enhance the cute factor, we have purchased a few outfits for her, especially for when it’s cold out. Scout wears them well but I often wonder what she must think. Then I remember, she’s part cat; she doesn’t think.