Christmas according to Bono

There is on old abandoned store near our mall that has recently been turned into a giant book sale.  They have tons and tons of books that they apparently printed too many copies of so they are selling them really cheap.  Most of the books are between $2-$5.  Christie and I both like to read so we have to be careful not to get carried away and spent too much money.  We went in there one night this week and picked up four books for $16.  One of the books that I bought is a conversation style interview of Bono.  I have been tearing through it this week because it is very interesting.  This morning I was reading and the interviewer asked him why he was always quoting the Bible and talking about God no matter what the subject.  He asked for an example of a time that he read scripture and realized how it practically applied to something in life.  He gave a great answer and a great reminder of what Christmas is really all about.  Here it is:

He begins to tell a story about a time that we was attending a Christmas Eve service:

"...but I was falling asleep, being up for a few days, traveling, because it was a bit boring, the service, and I just started nodding off.  I couldn't see a thing.  Then I started to try to keep myself awake studying what was on the page.  It dawned on me for the first time, really.  It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story.  The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough.  That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty, in s**t and straw... a child... I just thought: "Wow!"  Just the poetry... Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable.  There it was.  I was sitting there, and its not that it hadn't struck me before, but tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this.  Because that's exactly what we were talking about earlier: love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered.  To me, it makes sense.  It's actually logical.  It's pure logic.  Essence has to manifest itself.  It's inevitable.  Love has to become an action or something concrete.  It would have to happen.  There must be an incarnation.  Love must be made flesh."

I enjoyed that, so I thought I would share.  Merry Christmas!

compassion and integrity

So I'm working my way through a chronological Bible and I read the book of Ruth this morning.  I would guess that it was probably the fourth or fifth time that I have read it.  Its funny how when you read the Bible, different things stand out to you each time.  Here is what struck me this time through:

This story is filled with people who have both compassion and personal integrity.  I don't think that there are two more important qualities for a person to have.  Both require us to stop and think about life from the perspective of others in our decision making process.  First we find Naomi(who had recently lost her husband and sons) displaying incredible compassion and integrity by telling Ruth to stay in her homeland (where she could probably make a decent life for herself) when she plans to return to Israel.  Ruth responds with equal compassion and integrity by choosing to go with her mother-in-law and give up the little chance for life stability she had left.  Finally, we meet Boaz.  Not only does he display great compassion in allowing Ruth to gather food in his fields, the integrity in which he handles his relationship with her is pretty amazing.  Along with displays of compassion and integrity, we also see these people taking incredibly dangerous steps of faith in the name of these convictions.  Its a great little story and definitely worth the read every once in a while.

Of all the people that I have watched, learned from, and been affected by throughout my life, the ones who have effected my life and shaped my faith the most have had these traits in common.  Everything that they do and say is a result of strong convictions in personal integrity and compassion for those in need.  You really can't have one without the other.  Compassion without integrity won't last, and integrity without compassion is basically self-righteousness.  The one person that I have the most respect for on these two fronts is my father.

 I have watched him make many difficult decisions throughout his life and seen him place himself in very uncomfortable situations in the name of integrity and compassion.  I am very thankful for the example that he has set for me.  Compassion and integrity.... such a simple conception, but I don't think it gets any more important than that.

Discerning God's will: living by faith or being unsafe?

It's time for another blog.  There are number of things that I have thought about "blogging" about in the last couple of weeks.  I thought about writing about my dog, about my new wallet and how hard it was to give up the old one that I've had for the last ten years, or about how my voting experience went.  I decided to go in a little more serious direction.  Here is a topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately.  It is a very real struggle that will greatly affect some of the biggest decisions that I will make in my life.  Here it goes:

How do you find the balance between making wise decisions that will keep yourself and your family safe and living a "selfless" ministry centered life that I feel like God has called me to live?  Many people I know lean very heavily onto the safe side of this balance and basically work to make as much money as they can in order to provide their family with the best life they can provide for them.  I also know many people who have purposefully chosen to dedicate their lives to serving God and they and their families have had to make many sacrifices due to these choices.  I know that the easy answers to this question are: God calls us to care for our families and so providing for them is doing ministry in a sense, or just listen for God's will and He will help you make the right decisions.  I don't disagree with these statements, but I don't find them all that helpful as I attempt to discern God's will in the realness of everyday choices.  

Let me try to make this a little more real with a concrete example or two.  What if you had the opportunity to dedicate your life to a great ministry but taking the position will leave you and your family medically uninsured?  What if you feel called to take a ministry position that does not guarantee enough income to provide for your basic needs or is a potentially unstable position would could leave you without income down the road?  At what point does living on faith cross over into the realm of making poor common sense decisions?  How much should basic necessities factor into determining God's will?  What is considered a basic necessity these days? Enough money to eat? Medical Insurance? Retirement savings? Enough money to go on a decent vacation once a year? Do you see where I am going with this?  These are all very real questions that those who want to live a life doing ministry must think through.  I would assume that this becomes an even more real issues once kids are born (at these point I am assume that we will have kids at some point in the next 5-10 years).  

I guess what this is ultimately getting at is: how much should common sense questions (anywhere from "Will I be able to feed my family?" to "Will I be able to save any money to buy a house or have retirement savings?") factor into discerning God's will?  Where is the line between "God probably isn't asking me to make a decision where our family won't have enough to eat" and "God probably isn't asking us to make a decision where our 401k is not growing; where we can't go on a major vacation each year; where we can't have a new car; etc." 

I would guess that most people who would quickly answer: "Trust God and he will provide no matter what" have never made a decision where they are unsure if they will be able to eat or have a place to live.  At the same time those who would quickly answer: "Your first priority is to provide for your family," have never taken a step of faith to pursue God's call in their life.  How do you find the balance between providing for your family as a Godly man should, and giving of yourself to help heal a broken world as a follower of Jesus would do?

How much of discerning God's will for our lives require using the brain that God gave us to think through common sense problems, and how much of it has to do with an internal calling or longing that is confirmed through prayer, scripture, fellow Christians, etc.?  What do you think?

My boring page

So I decided that my blog page is pretty boring.  Black background and no pictures.  Someday I'll take time to figure out how to make it look decent.  That stuff takes too much time.  I guess if you need pictures for you now, you can visit my wife's blog; she has pictures of us all over that thing.  I love her; she's the best!

My job

This has been a weird morning.  I have been at home, resting from the long day that I had yesterday and getting ready for church tonight.  My muscles are sore and I have a list of several things that I need to do around the house that keeps growing everyday that I don't get to it.  Last night I didn't get home until after ten o'clock and I will be at the church until around 9 o'clock tonight.  I told myself that I wouldn't do anything work related until after lunch today.  The reason my muscles are sore is because I spent a lot of time playing sports yesterday.  Here is the basic run down of what I did: 

10 am - 2 pm: working in my office

3:30 pm - 6 pm: youth open gym/playing basketball

6 pm - 7 pm: filling in for your junior high basketball coach who is on vacation

9 pm - 10:15 pm: playing softball

(and Monday evening was spend at men' s open gym basketball as well)

Looking at this list doesn't sound like much of a ministry.  However, here is what I really have accomplished in the first two days of this week:

1. Monday night, halfway through open gym, I was able to lead a prayer with 30 young men, most of whom would never step foot in a sanctuary.  We talked about trusting God in an unstable economy, and asked God to help us to be men of integrity that make a positive difference in our workplaces.

2.  After basketball on Monday, I had a conversation with a man who was impressed by our open gym format and began asking questions about our church.  He shared that he recently moved to Columbia and hasn't been attending a church, but that he has a religious background.  I invited him to join us on a Sunday and asked him to consider helping me coach in our Upward Basketball children's league.

3. While in my office yesterday, I was working on collecting registrations for our Upward league.  Last season about half our children heard about Jesus for the first time.  Many of these kids come from rough family situations and were probably in the most positive environment they've ever been in.

4.  During youth open gym, there is a young man that comes every week and asks me to play one-on-one.  We have probably played each other about 40-50 time in the last few weeks.  One day he might beat me if he keeps practicing.  He is trying to get him life back on track after making some dumb decisions.  Each week I am able sit and talk with him about making good decisions, ask about how he is doing at school, and tell him about the life that Jesus has for him if he wants it.

5. At junior high practice, one young man kept saying "I'm not good at basketball" and apologized to his teammates about every ten seconds.  I was able to work with him on a couple basics of the game.  I reminded him every chance I had that even though he didn't shoot or dribble well, he was a rebounding beast and had good court vision.  I don't know if it made any difference to him or not, but I could tell that he wasn't told what he did well very often; only what he did wrong. 

6.  At the softball game I was able to have a conversation with a 30-year-old war veteran with two young kids.  He is a very nice guy.  I don't know where he stands spiritually but I do know that he is not involved in a church.  One day we will have that conversation.

7.  I set up a lunch appointment with a 19-year-old young man on our softball team that is in desperate need of some positive male influence in his life.  We go out to lunch a couple of times a week to talk about life.

I type all of this to say that yesterday was a weird day.  I played a lot of sports.  It would be easy to only see that part of the day.  However, with a little intentionality, it I did a lot more than that.  Sometimes I love my job.  Who wouldn't love spending a work day playing ball?  At other times I don't like it so much.  My wife works until 5 o'clock every week day.  I will be at some aspect of my job until at least 9 o'clock every night this week from Monday through Thursday.  That is really tough.  I can't imagine what it would be like for Christie and I to both be done with work at 5 o'clock each day and have our evenings together.  Despite those difficulties, I am so thankful to have a job that allows me to do something that I love, while making an impact for the Kingdom of God in the lives of the people around me.

Am I selfish?

Over the last few months I have discovered that I really like blogs. I like reading about what other people are up to in life, and what they are thinking about. Every couple of weeks I make my blog rounds and read up on the people that I know keep up with blogs. Then I got to thinking: if I enjoy reading other peoples thoughts, am I selfish for not sharing mine? I think I've always been this way. It's funny how our personalities spill out into different areas in life. I have always enjoyed discussion style learning. That probably sounds funny to any one who has been in class with me because they would notice that I rarely say anything during classes. Once a group gets larger than about four or five people, I tend to simply sit back and listen. Unless I hear something that I believe is completely false but its being accepted by the group as true or I have a strong feeling that I am having a unique perspective that no one else seems to be thinking about, I usually just sit and listen to all sides of an argument without saying a word. I guess I just figure that if I wait long enough, some one else will say what I was thinking anyway. If that doesn't happen, then I usually speak up as the group is wrapping up that topic. Anyways, I noticed recently that I am acting the same way with blogs. I read quite a few blogs and online discussions but never take part in any of them. Some I agree with, others not so much. Over the last year I have thought about a lot of different aspects of my faith. I have questions things that I have never questioned before and gained a new perspective on life and spirituality. This was a pretty scary experience at first, but I have gained some comfort through reading blogs and discussions written by others who have had similar thoughts. That led to the question in my title. What if some one else out there is dealing with the same questions and my blog would be helpful to them? I have always loved listening, reading, and learning. I don't think it is fair to others if I don't force myself to step out of my quiet comfortable self and speak up sometimes. Throughout my life I have been told over and over again that one of my greatest strengths is wisdom, but that my greatest weakest and keeping it to myself. I figured that starting a blog would be a good step in the right direction. So here it goes....

Christie's blog

So now that my wife has a blog and she has linked it to mine, somebody might actually see this. Maybe I should write something interesting. Hmm......not tonight. Go Celtics!

to blog or not to blog?

I haven't decided if I'm a blogger or not. I signed up for this thing because I wanted to be able to leave comments on a couple of my friend's blogs. They made me pick a title for my blog when I signed up so I typed the first thing that came to my mind (thats kinda sad isn't it?) By the way, if you haven't watched the cornbread samuri video on myspace yet, you should. Its really funny. Well anyway, I guess if I decide I'm not a blogger then this is the last you'll hear from me (if anybody actually ever comes across this). Otherwise, I'll try to write something with a little more substance than this.

Chris

Test Post

never been a blogger. lets see how this works