Before and after

I used to think that the best stories had a beginning a middle and an end. Then my brother introduced me to Anime and more often than not you are just dumped into the middle of a story and have to figure everything out. It was frustrating at first, but now I realize that it engages you in the story more, you have to work at listening and watching within the story to figure things out. You actually have to work as a participant while watching or reading the story.

Once there was a man. He grew up in a home that loved God and he became a Christian. His faith was his own and he was very passionate about it. He was a warrior and fought for his homeland on many occasions. His faith often led him to speak truth into the lives of others and affect them in profoundly life changing ways. Eventually he met and married a wonderful woman and they had several children together. One day though this man saw another woman. He left his wife and children and committed adultery with this other woman. After some time the man died.

Was this man really a Christian? Was he really saved? Be very careful with your answer. Give it some thought. Take some time to consider why you answer the way you do because it is vastly important.

Once there was a man who knew nothing about God. He lived his life in a rough neighborhood and grew up very poor. He was given some religious education, but it didn't show in anything more than an assent to morality and was not a real aspect of his life. He had several girlfriends whom he slept with, got into fights and was just a regular rough blue collar Joe. One day he started reading the Bible and through this became a Christian. He worked hard and graduated college, married his high school girlfriend and then started a successful church as a pastor. After some time he died.

Was this man really a Christian? Was he really saved? Be very careful with your answer. Give it some thought. Take some time to consider why you answer the way you do because it is vastly important.

Many people would answer that the first guy is not a Christian and the second guy is. I would have to ask you how do you measure someone's Christianity? If everything we get is by grace, and all the things anyone ever does for God are just fulfilling basic requirements how do you measure Christianity?

We get so caught up playing God in other people's lives we forget it isn't our job. We don't know the beginning from the end, we don't know the full story. Often times these question come up and we assume that we can accurately judge everything about a person's life from limited information. We assume sin done before becoming a Christian is less bad than sin done after becoming a Christian. We assume our actions affect our salvation.

That first person could be King David from the Bible, the entire nation of Israel from the Old Testament, or a story about someone related to me by a friend.

The second person could be Kevin Seelinger a Young Life guy I knew, Mark Driscoll, Abraham from the Old Testament, or several friends of mine.

My answers about how people are living and whether or not they are saved has changed from time to time because I think that I know the beginning and end of every story. Instead we live life like an Anime. (Yes, big eyes and over done emotions are reality!) We get dumped into this world and have to work to interact with the story that is going on around us.

I often fail at treating people like they can be given grace. I just look at them and assume (wrongly) that they were always like this and cannot change. I diminish the power of Jesus Christ by not giving out grace and realizing that the story I am working out of is bigger then I am.

The other thing I find myself doing is assuming that people who end well are saved and people that end poorly are not. We find both examples in the Bible. If we assume on the salvation of people who are several thousand years removed from us and show them grace, why not in the here and now? I think it hearkens to a desire for control. If we can follow the rules then we will be okay. We are assured of our salvation by our good works and piety. Wait how are we saved again? Oh right, through grace! How do we live life? Oh right, by grace! If we miss this then we miss what God wants to show us. It's all about Him. Only, ever, always about Him. If it becomes about anything else then we have missed the point.

Now this is not a post condoning sin. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, had to die because sin was so bad and we could do nothing about it. This post is about remembering our place and living in grace, showing grace to others. Welcome to the story it's big, bold and beautiful.

Challenge: What story are you living out of?

Why being right doesn't really matter.

Hi!
My name is Andrew and I love to be right. It doesn't matter the situation, and it doesn't matter the topic. Life is a game and if being right is the scorecard, then I want to win. What's odd about my desire to be "right" is that it doesn't really matter. This truth came home to me in a big way recently.

I have been filling out a job application that wanted a job history first and then a place for education, address, etc. As I started my job history I realized that I haven't really been very amazing. Oh I have done things, but nothing out of the ordinary. I have skills but so do a lot of other people. It was really telling that my ego was deflated based on an expectation of someone reading a job history of mine. In reality I felt lame. I looked at what I had accomplished, compared myself to others, and saw how little I have really accomplished. I looked at my life for a second and realized how much I use my intellect to insulate me from my fears. Sometimes even writing (because I know I have some ability there) is me trying hard to be smart, to be cool, to be right. How pathetic.

The reality is that fear often motivates me more than love. The reality is I live in a dumpy basement apartment crammed with different piles of books I am currently reading (or was a month ago) random papers, and Rubbermaid tubs of clothing because I don't have room for a dresser. When people ask me how school is going I say "Fine", or "Good" because I can't describe how awful I am at deadlines. Even the name deadlines is crazy. If you don't meet them...you die! Gahhh! I fear failure at school not because it is hard, but because I gave up and quit several years ago. That quitting haunts me a bit and is a weird emotional snafu that comes up at the most inopportune times. Now I get to work full time and go to school, not because I want to but because I have to. Yuck.

Between my hang ups, fears, random self loathing, and slightly crazy life I defend myself by being right and having answers. This was all blown apart on a recent trip to Alaska. I talked to a buddy who has had three major catastrophes in his life. He asked questions that I realized if I tried to answer or give some sort of solution to or try to "fix" his problems I'd say things that would in reality be stupid. There was no "right" answer. This wasn't an academic challenge or a debate. This was real life come screaming into my buddy's life and into mine. Pain. Real, tangible, heaviness in the room you can feel, nothing you can do about it, pain. His pain was felt by me in a very real way and it exposed all my stupid, desires to be right and all the stupid walls I put up for exactly what they were. What do you do with that? I could be "right" all day long and my friend, who I love, is still sitting there in emotional agony.

So I gave up. I just sat there and listened and tried to be a friend without any stupid easy answers that sound trite in the face of cancer, divorce, betrayal, loss and death. I just reminded him of truth. That this is a crappy world full of sin and death. That it is so crappy God sent His perfect Son and people can't stand Christ so they kill him. The beauty of it is that even though people are God's enemies and killed Christ God showed His power and raised him from the dead and through that death forgives us and invites us to be adopted into His family. That is where true hope lies.

Otherwise I live in a harsh loveless place, powerless, without any control over anything. If you don't believe that watch Instinct with Anthony Hopkins. There is some good psychological stuff in there about control.

I choose to believe in the reality of hope in Christ and a good God who goes out of His way to love us. In the end me being "right" won't solve anything, builds up my own pride, and in the face of the difficulties of life really doesn't matter. Time to give up the self serving game for something better called love.

Challenge: When difficult things happen in life where is your hope? Put up a post I'd love to hear about it.

Why someone telling you “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up!” is absolutely ridiculous.

When I grow up I want to be…a tree. This is something I tell children whenever the question comes up. The truth is I can’t be a tree, but me saying I want to puzzles small children and keeps them quiet for a minute. The reality is we are not born into a vacuum, and there are limitations in life. You cannot be “anything” you want to be when you grow up. Sorry to burst you bubble. Most people who have said this statement are teachers. They are trying their level best to get you to think outside the box. They are trying to help you not limit yourself. Unfortunately people take this statement meant for learning and blow it way out of proportion. There are many factors that influence who you are and what you can accomplish. One of those is your inherent abilities. Some people can never, and should never, play an instrument, or sports, or hold a public office. Some people are awesome with their hands but could never write a novel. Each of us just by our genetic make-up has limitations. Even if we are amazingly smart and talented there is this thing called time and aging that eventually limits us as well. Even if we had the capacity to learn and do everything, time will slow us down and make us focus on a few of our strengths. Another one of those things that hang us up is our position in life. If you were born to dirt poor parents there may be limitations on where you go to school, how high you can rise in life, etc. Now I know all the rags to riches stories they are in Reader’s Digest every month. Most of us though, statistically, never rise above the station of our parents. It isn’t that we can’t I think it is just we often lack the desire, gumption, work ethic, etc. We become apathetic, complacent, and content. The last thing that can hold us back is the real subject of this writing, and that thing is identity.

Identity is the sub-level, base instinct, of who you believe you are. In the Matrix movie it is called “residual self image”. Identity is a base level of how we see ourselves that we have difficulty overcoming. Now the beginning statement is an attempt to get people to develop a better identity. To people in hard or difficult circumstances the statement may get them, when they are young; to not accept the world they see around them. It is an attempt, early on, to try to get people to re-identify their identity. To people in better circumstances, or more affluence it is an attempt to get them to strive and work for a dream. If you live where everyone has a car at 16 and your parents are independently wealthy you accept that this is a normal part of life. You are rarely outside of this comfortable existence so you accept what you see. If you live in an area where drugs are a problem, then you accept that they are a normal part of life. You accept that you will probably deal drugs for a job, etc. You have never seen any other life and so become so inured of what you see that you cannot think above that level. You identity has become rooted to the environment around you. If you grow up in France, speaking French, eating French food, you understand that your identity is French and you have certain cultural ideas that are part of your identity. If you grow up Catholic, you can say all the prayers, you feel comfortable around a liturgy, you have a base assumption about things that you rely on and trust in. Your religious identity is Catholic. All this just to say often the greatest impediment to our development as people is our identity. Late at night or early in the morning when you cannot lie to yourself and the rush of the day has ended, or has not begun, ask the question: Who are you?

In the movie Wanted the main character is beaten for not answering the question, “Why are you here?” His answer that stops the beating is, “Because I don’t know who I am!” In the Dark Tower saga by Steven King whenever the Gunslinger apologizes he always begins or ends with the phrase, “I have forgotten the face of my father.” Identity is so important that it permeates all of our cultural heritage, oral tradition, and stories. It comes from our past and propels us towards the future. Your identity is there and it determines how you envision yourself, which determines how you think, which determines how you act, which determines your place in this world. If you change someone’s identity then you can change the inward person and the outward action. That is why you hear of stories of people who escape bad circumstances and “rise above” them. They changed their identity from those around them. It is why you have stories of a prince who took a common girl, shy and unimposing. He married her and took her away for a year. When they returned she was radiant, bold and impressive. Her view of herself had changed from, “I am a shy commoner” to “I am the Queen of this land”. Her identity had been replaced by the prince. This is why we like stories that show change. It not only shows us that it is possible but also gives us hope. Identity can build us up or tear us down. Everyone has one and communicates it to those around them through their actions. Often our dysfunction comes from a poor identity. Often our greatest victories and successes in life come from identity as well. Who we are is eventually more important than what we do. What will a man do if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?

Challenge: Think about these three questions for 15 minutes. Be brave, take a chance, and look at who you really are. What is your identity? Who are you at the core? Who do you want to be?