Fun at the Fantasy of Trees with COUSINS!!








Getting Fit

Yesterday I looked in on the weight room at the high school during football workouts. The season only ended a short three weeks ago and already they are back at it… lifting weights and getting in shape. I can still vividly remember doing those same exact exercises with those same exact bars and weights. Sure, it’s been twelve years since I was in the weight room getting in shape for another football season, but power cleans, lunges, and shoulder presses have not changed in the slightest. They still coach the same old technique for the same old lifts that can get a person physically prepared for the unique challenges of football. In fact, whenever I visited practice during the year I watched as new guys went through the same old fundamental drills we did over a decade ago… dip and rip, double team and read drills. Baseball players have batting practice and cross country runners run everyday. If you want to be in condition for those sports, you simply have to do those things; there’s no shortcut and no way around it.

I haven’t been running a lot lately and this past Sunday I played a game called “Crows vs. Cranes” with a bunch of middle schoolers. This game requires a lot of sprinting. You just sprint over and over again, and it’s not that I couldn’t handle the sprinting, because that was fine, but here I am three days later and my legs and back are still sore! Why? Because I’m not in shape! See, when you’re not in shape, you can still run if you absolutely have to, but it’s probably going to mess with the rest of your week, but if you’re in shape, you can run all you need to and you feel fine.

I have been thinking so much lately about the fact that spiritual health is a matter of fitness. Waking with Jesus in a joy-filled and victorious way has a lot to do with whether or not you are in shape spiritually… Look at David. In Psalm 63 he says, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”

David knew that in order to walk with God, you have to nurture your faith! You have to practice your love for God! You have to work out and condition those beliefs you hold! That’s how you hold onto them. Everyone has doubts from time to time, but what do you do with your doubts? Do you feed them? Do you try to reason with them? Do you nurture them? If so, you may be getting out of shape. I don’t think David allowed his doubts very much breathing room. He didn’t have time to not praise. He said, “I exalt you, I sing to you, I think about you all the time! I cherish you, I long for you and I lift you up!” He’s working out! He’s staying fit, and look what happens… he says, “My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods.” Exercise your faith! Get in shape! Life feels better that way.

On Purpose

Chris Rice has this song called “8th Grade” where he says, “Take a little trip with me back to Junior High, set the time machine to 1975…” The rest of the song is a nostalgic backwards glance that is mostly cute and funny where he concludes that everything was easier back then, or maybe, looking back we just think it was easier because at least we know we made it. Now, I love Chris Rice, and I even like this song, but I wouldn’t go back to eighth grade for anything! Are you kidding me?! All the insecurity, the drama, the Spanish homework, the pimples and the silk shirts with stonewashed jeans are enough to make me so glad to be past those days! There were so many awkward relationships and simply everyone was putting on a show in order to find somewhere to fit in… whoa, knowing what I know now, I’d never, ever go back there!

Imagine going back even further! Imagine knowing what you know now about life… about work, technology, relationships and independence and having to go back to early childhood when you had zero freedom and weren’t allowed to make any decisions at all about your own life! Imagine being weak and being totally bossed around. Imagine having to relive babyhood… the terrible food, the inability to employ language or really move on your own! That would be so terrible! I can’t imagine having to learn how read all over again… especially when I’ve read Dickens and Tolkien! I can’t imagine having to learn how to walk all over again, especially when I’ve run at full speed on the kickoff team in high school football, hiked on the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains and stood on the Great Wall of China!

As I write this, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am one of those people who can never separate Thanksgiving from Christmas. It’s not that I don’t want to give Thanksgiving its due or anything, it’s just that as I reflect on what I’m most thankful for, my mind is drawn so strongly to the sweet baby in the manger who was Almighty God Himself. Jesus not only created everything and everyone, He watched them all live their lives. He saw all the skinned knees and cruel bullies. He watched the nervous breakdowns and the bitter breakups. He watched kids fall up stairs, wet the bed and fall asleep first at sleepovers. He watched people get toothaches, go bald and get ignored. He watched people get betrayed, arrested, interrogated and tortured. He watched people get crucified; and having seen every single second of every life He made… having known exactly what He was getting Himself into, He still came.

I wouldn’t go back to high school or middle school or childhood for anything in this world! Knowing what I know now, I’d never go through all that stuff on purpose, but He did! Jesus knew exactly what He was walking into and He walked into it on purpose! Why?! Why on earth would anyone in their right mind do that?

Well, it’s simple. He did it for me. He’d do anything for me. Know why? He loves me that much, that’s why. He did it for you too, because He loves you that way. Now there’s something to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Oblivious to the Obvious

Look, it happens to everyone sooner or later. It’s embarrassing, it’s awkward and if you haven’t done it yet, you will at some point. One of these days, you’ll forget to hike up that zipper and someone will bust you. The best you can hope for is that when your time comes, you get it over with among friends. I mean, what if you were some big executive giving a keynote address to a group of would be investors? What if it was your first day as the new White House Press Secretary? Although, I guess that guy has the big presidential podium… I was in a men’s small group one time where the leader had to turn to one of the other guys and say, “Brother, this is an accountability group, right? Well, I feel it’s my responsibility as your brother in Christ to hold you accountable and tell you to XYZ.”

I think the thing that’s so awful about a situation like that is being made suddenly aware of something that everyone else saw about you, which you didn’t. It’s like the Snickers commercial from a few years ago where a bald guy made a toupee out of Snickers candy bars. All of his coworkers gathered around his desk to confront him saying, “Umm.. Steve, we just want to let you know, we know you’re bald.” Steve tried to look surprised, as the girl said, “We think you should stop wearing the Snickers.” Steve managed a weak chuckle and said, “What do you mean?” And the girl said, “It’s not fooling anyone.” The commercial ends with a crying Steve alone in his car removing the Snickers hat from his bald head.

What if there was something glaring and obvious about my life that was out of whack and everyone saw it but me? What if the most significant thing about me was out of place and I didn’t even know it?

In one of the most famous passages in all of Scripture, the Apostle Paul tells us that no matter how mature we think we are, no matter how much ministry we think we’ve got going on, no matter how passionate we are about the Kingdom of God or how much we sacrifice for it, if we don’t love people, we are nothing. In 1 Corinthians 13, he says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

You see, no matter who I think I am, if there is even one person that I hate or can’t stand, I am vastly out of touch with my own struggling spiritual state. Love is the single most important thing, and whether or not I love people is the single most important thing about me. If I hate anyone at all, the rest of my so-called spiritual accomplishments and maturity are immaterial compared to that one fact. If I don’t love, that issue is the single most important thing about me, whether or not I realize it. But if love is my goal, and the law of love my guiding principal, all the rest of it will fall right into place. I don’t want to walk around with some obvious and awkward misstep that I am painfully unaware of! I want to know who I am and where I stand, and the thing I want more and more is simply to grow to be more like Jesus, the Lord of Love.


P.S. wanna see that Snickers Commercial? Click here: http://bit.ly/tD4yY

Stats

Jack has been having a rough time lately. And look, I get it. I bet it’s hard to be twelve months old! I bet it’s frustrating to be stuck inside a body that won’t move the way you want it to with fingers hopelessly incapable of fine motor skills and a mouth that simply refuses to say all the words you’re thinking! Imagine giant people carrying you around all over the place, wrapping you up in whatever clothes they want to and then plopping you down on the floor, sticking some toys before your face then walking away… you’d probably go bonkers too! But then, you can’t say, “Hey, giant people! Come back in this room and hand me one of those tiny orange crackers that looks like a fish!” because you can’t talk. On top of all that, you’re painfully making teeth all the time. Wow.

Jack is about the easiest baby ever, but sometimes he’s just frustrated. Sometimes he just cries. On Monday I was hanging out with him and he was having a hard time. I kept telling him that everything was going to be okay and wondering if he had any idea what I was trying to communicate with him. His little brow just furrowed and the tears came running down his smooth little face and into his open, crying mouth. I looked at him in between cries and asked, “What is it, bro? What’s wrong? What do you need me to do?” He didn’t answer because he doesn’t know how to speak English yet, but I wished he could have. My father’s heart would have done just about anything to placate the little guy in those moments if he could have just asked!

Lately I have been watching God answer a lot of prayers and they have been specific answers to specific prayers. For a few years now I have been writing my prayers down in a book simply because it helps me stay focused and I’ve started to realize something cool. As the ink that lines out those prayers leaves my pen and sticks to the page, it often does so in haste or in distress. Often times my prayers are the illegible scratching of a worried or even panicked heart. I leave the indecipherable scrawl on the page along with the weight of the problem and then have the peace to go about my day. Lately though I have seen some of those problems from the page solved before my eyes! I have watched God move and simply answer my prayers just as I wrote them down in desperate hope that morning! I find myself saying things like, “Whoa! That’s exactly what I prayed would happen!” Then I go back to the journal and find that prayer staring me in the face, only it has changed shape now. It’s as if my feverishly scribbled mess transforms over time into a written record of the faithfulness of God.

Our Lord’s brother James said, “You do not have because you do not ask God.” Now, I am not saying that writing down your prayers creates a mathematical correlation or contractual relationship whereby God is bound to do whatever you may fancy. I do not pretend to understand how the sovereign will of God meets up with my anxious prayers. The only thing I do know is that He has done it before… I have watched Him do exactly what I’ve begged Him, in His great mercy, to do. I have watched Him turn my frantic and forlorn hopes into His own shining stat sheet… a testimony of His merciful goodness. We can’t say what He will do and what He will not, but if He doesn’t, let it not be because we didn’t ask.

Page 273

Yesterday I went to jail.

Wait. It’s not like that… I meant to go. That is, I was only visiting and I got to leave when I wanted to. See, every Tuesday, Tom goes to the Anderson County Detention Center to visit the guys there and lead a Bible Study for whoever wants to come. This ministry started off slowly and has at times been discouraging, but through the Lord’s blessing and Tom’s consistency, it has become something really special. Lately Tom always says, “God is really doing something out there at the jail!” Guys are growing, reaching out to their cellmates (they call ‘em “cellies”) and even singing! Lately they have just had this intense desire to sing praises, and they sing with all of their heart and voice, but they only know a couple of hymns; one of which is, Will the Circle Be Unbroken… whoa. So Tom asked me to go with him, bring a guitar out there and teach those guys some of our really simple worship songs.

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous going in there. You have to pass under a metal detector to sign in. You walk into what they call a “trap” which is basically an enclosed space between two steel doors. One opens, you walk in, and it closes. Then the other opens and you get to walk out. We walked down an eerily quiet and close corridor lined with more steel traps. Finally we made it to Unit 2 and walked into the block. This is a big, open room filled with tables that are bolted to the floor. The perimeter of the block is all cells… more steel doors with one little window in them. As we walked in, the block was totally deserted. Everyone was still in his cell. I nervously looked around at the cell doors surrounding the room and saw surly faces passing by the windows. Then, all of a sudden, one guy looking out of his window saw Tom… His face broke open into the widest smile! He shouted for Tom and then motioned for a cellmate to come look. Another face in the window saw Tom and broke open in palpable joy!

As the guard opened the cell doors for free time on the block, men in orange jump suits came out of doors from all over the place, but 13 of the guys were different than the rest. They carried their Bibles, shouted Tom’s name and rushed down the stairs to see him. They were laughing, hugging and so excited to see their friend… their pastor. We couldn’t even start Bible Study because they were so eager to share miraculous stories of God’s faithfulness to them with Tom. They were literally busting at the seams with the Holy Spirit’s contagious joy! We stood up and sang songs together and it made me cry to hear their worship! They were simply so happy to be praising and to have new songs to sing! They sang their hearts out… I couldn’t hear the guitar or myself singing! After that, they prayed and thanked Jesus for their brothers, thanked Him for their time in jail and thanked Him that He rescued them… wow.

I wish you could meet those guys. I wish you could see their passion for the Lord and how much they love Tom. As we were leaving, I walked back over to the metal detector and the visitor’s log. It was a large, leather bound book held together with duct tape on the spine. It was on page 273 that Tom wrote down our names and the day’s date and time. I remembered Matthew 25 and how our Lord said, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'… 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Tom has been going to that jail every Tuesday for over two years to serve Jesus and to serve those guys he loves so much. His name is in that visitor’s log over 100 times. It’s not a flashy, trendy or cool way to do ministry, but it’s sweet and real and it’s the kingdom of God being built.

A day at the ZOO!!








Jack was not a fan of the sand pit... really not a fan.






Super Powers

Okay, before this goes any further, let me just give you fair warning that this will be a bit of a nerdy post, or thought, or whatever these things are that for some reason you read. I’m just letting you know in case you want to go ahead and stop reading due to the impending and excessive dorkiness, which is on its way…

When I was in the sixth grade, Dad bought me a comic book. I was traveling with his football team to a long distance away game and he wanted to get me something to read. It was a “Wolverine” issue with a thick, card stock cover designed to look like a top-secret CIA manila folder. This top-secret folder had three huge gashes in it, which allowed you to look through to the next page and see the contents of said folder. I didn’t know anything about comics or Wolverine or why there were three gashes in the cover of this book. Neither did Dad. He chose ‘Wolverine’ simply because we are both fans of the University of Michigan Wolverines. I opened the book with care and within a few minutes discovered that this Wolverine guy had six retractable, metal claws that came out of his forearms. Wow. I was instantly hooked.

Within a couple of months, I became an expert not only on Wolverine, but just about every major comic book character I could get my hands on. I read about them, I collected their cards, I discussed their powers and exploits with my dorkiest friends and I even drew them during class. Superheroes became something of an obsession for me. To this day I am still fascinated by the fact that throughout history, human beings have created stories about people living among us who are not normal like us… people who are extra normal, different, more powerful. When I was a kid, I truly longed for that radioactive spider to bite me or for a meteor to land on my bedroom. I wasn’t just into this whole super power thing, I wanted to be super powered! I wanted to throw cars, climb walls and wield a light saber!!

As it turns out, there are folks living among us who are not normal. There are people milling about with powers and abilities that not every one has. Not only that, but I’m one of them! This week I’ve been reading 1 Corinthians and in the beginning of this letter Paul rebukes his audience by saying, “Are you not acting like mere men?” He expects them to be something more than mere men! In the beginning of Chapter 4, he says, “So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and those entrusted with the secret things of God.” He goes on to say that, “the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power.” Folks who know Jesus are the holders of powerful secrets that make us something more than normal! Whoa, this is like real-deal superhero stuff!

The thing is, I can’t fly or dodge bullets. I can’t teleport or swing through the city on my own webs; so what are these secret, extra powers all about? What is it that sets Jesus’ followers apart from mere men? In this same chapter Paul says, “When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.” Our powers are all about love, patience, endurance and self-control. It may not seem as cool as leaping a building in a single bound, but sometimes it’s just as hard to do, and not very many people can do it. God is making us into something new and powerful… something more than what we were.

Anna lost her first tooth!



Still a little freaked out, but happy right after it was pulled:



And... FALL is HERE!!!





Signs

In most cities, if you write checks that you don’t really have the money to write, you just get fined by your bank, which is enough of a deterrent for nearly everyone. Some places of business post those rubber checks, the names and even pictures of folks who overdraw their accounts. In the town where I went to college, it was worse… I remember driving to work one morning and seeing someone walking on the sidewalk around the courthouse wearing one of those gigantic sandwich signs. From really far away I couldn’t read it and assumed it would be one of those nutty “The End is Nigh” people you always see in movies, but it wasn’t. As I drew closer I could read the sign, which said, “My name is Tony Craig and I write bad checks.” (I made up that name by the way) Later that day, as I was driving home from work, I saw the guy still walking around the courthouse with this sign displaying his name and crime for everyone to see! He had been there all day telling thousands of people about his empty bank account. That punishment was old school!

In the town where I now live, there is a labor dispute going on between a business and a group of its workers. For months and months there have been people in a few different locations throughout town sitting in lawn chairs beside a 25 foot-long sign dumping shame on this business. After months of driving by these signs, you get to where you don’t even see them anymore… they’re as much a part of the landscape as the Bradford Pear trees that shade the disgruntled workers. The other day I noticed their sign, though. You see, one of the signs had changed. I drove past and read, “SHAME ON ROBERT MORRIS.” (not his name) It didn’t just cast shame on the business, but on one individual person.

Now, I don’t want to get into this labor dispute. I don’t know the issues or who’s right or wrong. That’s not why I’m writing this. I’m am writing this because when I drove past that sign, it struck me that I would be horrified to find my name on a 25 foot-long ‘shame’ sign in giant capital letters for all to see. I mean, my daughter can sorta read now… what if she saw that sign? The thing that really got me though, was that someone could make that sign… I don’t know what this guy’s sins were, but I know I have sinned. I know that I have done things that deserve public disgrace. If there were a sign for every cruel word I’ve said or every unfair or messed up thought I’ve had, this world would be covered with them! And that could be said for just about any of us. What if my worst sins were broadcast on a billboard for random passers by? What if my crimes became a public spectacle?

Thanks be to God for His grace! Because I’ve believed in Jesus, I am totally forgiven for every wrong word, thought or deed in my past present or future; and even if I did have to circle the courthouse with a sign, I am completely free and forgiven in the only court that really matters. In Colossians 2 Paul says, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Isn’t that awesome!? Because of His grace, I’m not a spectacle and the only thing written over my life is, “Holy.” In the face of Almighty God, I can stand with no shame and no sign.