Shapes and Molds

Every summer we go on vacation to Sunset Beach North Carolina, and when we are there I’m a beach junkie. That’s all I want to do is be on the beach. I want it to be ninety degrees, I want the water to feel like God himself drew me a bubble bath. I want to ride enormous waves that flip and crumble my body beneath their awesome power. I want to lie in the sand, I want to read pirate stories, and play bocce ball, and dig holes until I strike water, but most of all I want to build large intricate one of a kind sand castles that I can be proud of. You see many years ago when I first started going to Sunset Beach I wanted to build sand castles like when I was a kid, but I didn’t know how to build sand castles, so I went out and bought some molds. You know the orange and blue plastic shapes that you pack sand in and then try really hard to carefully remove the sand without breaking the shape you were trying to create, only you usually fail, and it never looks the way you’d hoped. So I bought a bunch of them; long skinny ones that I suppose are the walls; and then big square ones and small square ones; and large round ones and so on. And I tried for a long time to get the sand to take the shape of the molds, but it really isn’t that easy, I would always lose a corner or the door would get smudged off, and then finally I made a whole bunch of little castle out of these molds and stepped back and looked over my work and thought, man that looks awful, it looked like a five year old made it. I felt like I had just completed a page in a coloring book. Which when your little you can take some pride in that, but as you get older and learn to draw, you don’t feel as good about coloring in someone else’s picture, not as good as drawing your own anyway. And that’s how I felt here; I wanted to make something that came from my head; that was fashioned by my hands; that didn’t look like someone’s castle. And so I started reading about sandcastle making, and I learned about how to carve them, and what tools work best, and I started making my own castles and bridges, and drip castle mountains made from drizzled wet sand. And in the end I always love what I make even if other people don’t because I made it. I took sand and gave it shape, not someone else’s premade prepackaged cookie cutter shape, but the shape I envisioned. It becomes my castle not someone else’s. To be honest with you since then I haven’t been a big fan of molds. I don’t use them for anything anymore, not for my sand, or my play dough (which I do still play with) and especially not for my relationship with God.
When I first became a Christian lots of people handed me molds. They meant well for sure, but it was really confusing for me. Some people would say, “Here’s how I get closer to God, I wake up early and spend fifteen minutes in prayer. First I thank him then I ask for forgiveness, then I thank him for forgiving me, then I tell him all the things I need, then I read one proverb and one psalm, and one verse from the New Testament. And then I’m ready to start my day. You should try it!” It was like they just handed me some plastic mold and said here’s a good shape just pack your prayers in here, or here try this coloring book. It’s easy! I would try to pray and read and spend time with Jesus the way they told me to, but there wasn’t any life in it. I felt like I was just following some recipe, or like I was trying to be someone else. But that is how I was taught so I tried to fit that mold for long time. But then I met this guy named Lance, who didn’t ever have quiet times, and by that I mean he never set aside fifteen minutes or half an hour each day to read his bible and pray. He talked to God all day long. One day Lance told me that he couldn’t stand quiet times, and that they weren’t even biblical. He said, “The bible tells us to pray on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers, and what most people do is they go into there little prayer closet and shut the door and it’s like they punch in and punch out like God is there job. They say, ’Well I’m on the clock now so I guess I’m going to talk to Jesus and then, oh has it been 30 minutes already, well God see ya tomorrow.’” Lance made such a great argument that I stopped having quiet times, and I tried using his mold. But I wasn’t nearly as focused as Lance, I kept forgetting to talk to God all day long, I would get busy and distracted, and in the end I basically stopped praying altogether. Then I read a book that talked about journaling and the importance of writing out our prayers like David did. They wanted me to write a prayer to God and then write his response, and so I could keep this conversation going with God that was all written down. I tried using that mold for a little while. But writing is hard work, my hand muscles were too weak and they would cramp up every few sentences, and so I stopped journaling after just a few attempts. I can remember feeling lost for a while. I wanted to be close with God, I wanted to really know Him, but I didn’t know how to do that for myself. I would hear about a friend who wakes up at the crack of dawn and prays for 3 hours and another friend who goes off in the woods and seeks God all afternoon, and I’d instantly feel guilty and jealous, and like a spiritual loser. Finally I realized just like I did at the beach, that what works for someone else might not work for me. Honestly molds aren’t bad when you first start, when you’re learning to draw, or making castles out of sand, or when you’re first learning how to pray. But if you want to go deeper, you have to move beyond them. You have to let your relationship with God take its own shape. You have to learn how to connect with him in the ways that work for you, not in the ways that work for everyone else.
Some people best connect with God out in nature. They like to hike or fish or sit on a hillside and talk with God. Other people don’t like to be outside but they connect with God mostly through learning, through reading books and taking classes. Other people connect best with God through their five senses. They need to light candles and put on soft music, and read and journal. Others people’s hands cramp up like mine, and so they don’t like to journal, but they feel the closest with God when they are serving others, or when they are a part some great cause. Some people grow closer to God when they are growing along side of others. They thrive in small groups and bible studies, while some other people grow closer to God when they are alone in silence, and meditation. My point is we are all different and we need to discover how we grow, how we connect with God, and what makes us come fully alive. We need to move beyond the shapes and molds, and into a real, authentic, freedom filled relationship with God.

Secure

A few months ago I was riding on a school bus full of inner-city elementary kids on our way to go roller skating. I was sitting in the back of the bus, because that is where the cool kids sit, and I was just making conversation with one of the boys, when this girl, two seats behind me said, “Hey Daniel, why are your eyebrows like that?” I said, “What do you mean?” “Why are they so awesome looking?” And she said, “No what’s wrong with them?” For a split second everything inside of me wanted to lash back. I wanted to say, “What’s wrong with your face, and why’s your nose like that? And look at your kitchen!” I recently learned that amongst the inner-city youth the back of someone’s neck is called their kitchen, because the hair back there is always messy, like a kitchen. I wanted to tell her how clogged her drain was, and about the scum in her dishwasher. But then I remembered that even though I was riding on a school bus and getting picked on, I wasn’t in elementary school anymore. And even though I’ve been picked on most of my life because I have extra dark, ultra thick eyebrows, I quit caring what people thought of them a long time ago because on most days I live with a secure feeling that comes from knowing that I am loved and valued by the only one whose opinion actually matters. And so instead of cracking on her messy kitchen I just said, “Thanks for pointing that out, I used to get made fun of all the time for my eyebrows, but it’s cool. I don’t know why they are the way they are except God made me this way so I’m ok with it.” She just said, “oh ok,” and stared back out of the window. A few seconds later I heard another kid in the front of the bus picking on some girl for the way she looked. He was cracking on her weight, and her teeth, and I could see by the look on her face that those words were sinking like daggers in her soul. With hot tears streaming down her face and with her eyes clenched tight, she screamed at him, calling him names, and repeatedly demanding that he shut his mouth. After reprimanding them, I sat there and honestly felt sorry for them both, because like most of us, neither of them were capable of seeing what God sees when he looks at us. I sat and wondered about all of these kids on the bus, and just how different their lives would be if they all knew deep down in there souls that were loved by a great God; that they were created with intricate precision; that they were each complex masterful works of beauty; and that when God made them he sighed and called them "good." Everything that has ever been made by the hand of God has been given great value. He made you and me and everything He’s made, He’s called good. I wonder how our lives would be different if we really believed that.

I’m sure most of us to a certain degree do believe that, at least I’m sure we mentally agree with the idea that God calls us good, and that he does love us. But how deeply have we allowed that belief to sink inside of us? Does it change the way we see ourselves in the mirror or what we put on before we leave the house, or how we act in public to try and get people’s attention? Honestly I think for a lot of us, we are still starving inside for love and attention and acceptance. As Christians we should be totally secure in knowing that we are deeply loved and cherished by a great God, but instead we are mostly insecure, which is why we still spend so much time and effort and energy trying to get people to like us. It affects the clothes we wear, the people we hang out with, and the things we will say and do. It’s exhausting really. We run around living like circus clowns all dressed up performing for everyone just hoping someone will clap for us. And if they don’t, well it can be devastating, right? When no one cares about all our little efforts to be liked, or worse, when instead of clapping for us they throw vegetables, it can be soul crushing. Why is that? I believe it's because each of us were created in such a way that we cannot be secure on our own; our security has to come from someone else. And that someone else is God. We need his love in our lives like our bodies need food and water. So it makes sense why we all fight for love and respect and value and attention so much. We are dying here without God’s love in our lives, and so we become desperate for anything to make us feel ok. And that is why it hurts so bad to be disrespected or devalued, why we care so much about peoples opinions, because we are hopelessly grasping for some security, and most often we are reaching in the wrong directions. No person can make you feel totally secure. Their words will inflate you one day like a balloon, and then burst you the next day, plummeting you back to the ground. If our security is not found in Christ alone, every opinion or word spoken to us or about us can deeply affect how we feel. Even if what they say is ridiculous. But what if your security was found in Christ alone? What if you really believed that you are a masterful work of beauty, fashioned by a powerful loving God, and that he created you exactly how He wanted you to be, and when He looks at you He calls you good? What if you really believed that God not only loved you, but was actually crazy about you? The bible says He literally delights in you. He is passionately in love with you. What if that belief went deep into your soul like water, bringing life to the dry and cracked areas within you? What if you allowed that belief to transform what you believe about yourself? How would your life be changed?

Psalm 139:13-18
13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. 17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! 18 I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand! And when I wake up, you are still with me!

Thought Life

A few months ago I officially had the worst melt down of my adult life. As most of you know, my body has been riddled with injuries ever since the Marathon back in October. I broke my foot, then got tendonitis in my left knee, then tore some cartilage in that knee. God healed me, then I got tendonitis again, went to physical therapy, my left knee healed up, tendonitis in my right knee. Then I injured my IT Band in my right knee, then I got IT Band syndrome in my left knee, which I’ve been battling for two months now. Needles to say this whole experience has been pure torture for me; once one injury is healed up another one begins. It’s been agonizing because all I want to do is run! I even dream about it at night. I have vivid dreams of lacing up my tennies, walking out my door and running for miles with out any pain anywhere. But then I wake up to shooting pain in my knee, and I remember that I haven’t run without pain since October, which brings me back to the story of my melt down. It was a Friday and one of the first warm days of the year. I was feeling good and so I decided I would try jogging slowly outside again. So I put on both knee braces and headed out into the sunshine for a 2 mile jog. I had all my old running songs blaring in my ears and the first half mile felt glorious. Then the pain started setting in; I gritted my teeth and kept going, but it only got worse, it became sharper and more severe and I had to stop and walk. The moment I stopped the pain left, but a rush of self defeating thoughts came flooding into my head. “What did you expect? You’re never going to be able to run again, you can’t even jog. You’re done, go home.” I started praying, “God I need you right now, you said you would give me the desires for my heart if I delighted in you and you know that I do, you know that I do, please release me to run, I just want to feel what it feels like to run again, I can’t do this anymore please tell the pain to go away!” I took off again into a jog, and made it another quarter of mile before the pain returned only this time it was debilitating, it took my breath away and I had to stop again. Tears welled in my eyes, and then I lost it. I was walking down Cleveland Ave. crying uncontrollably. The thoughts returned and had their way with me. I thought, “That’s it, you’re done, you’re no longer a runner, just give up, you were stupid for even coming out here and thinking things would change, no more races, no more evening runs, just go home.” And I turned to walk home; I’ve never felt more discouraged, more defeated, and depressed in my entire life. But that’s when this song came on, called Pain by this Beautiful Republic, and I was walking home with the lead singer yelling in my ears, “Endure the pain to find no pain at all!” And that’s when it happened; I took of into a run, not a slow jog, a run, my old pace, the way I used to run six months ago. The pain was instantaneous, sharp, stabbing pain. Tears were streaming down my face, and I lost it, I just started yelling out loud as I was running down the street crying. “I don’t care, I don’t even care anymore, screw you pain! What are you going to do, hurt me? I’m already hurt. I’ve been hurt, you can’t stop me anymore, screw you pain, I’m done with you, I’m not a walker, I’m not a jogger, I’m a runner, I’m a runner, screw you pain, I’m an overcomer” And that’s when I saw a guy on his front porch smoking a cigarette, his mouth was open in shock as he watched me run by crying yelling, “screw you pain I’m a runner I’m an overcomer!” I made it all the way home running strong just like I used to. I clapped and started shouting praises to God, and then walked inside. Kristin saw me with red eyes looking all disheveled. And she said, “Are you ok?” I just broke down crying again, and told her the story, and then we both laughed really hard about it, because it really must have been a sight for anyone who saw me.

At first I considered this episode of mine to be a severe mental breakdown. But after some reflection I think it was more like a severe mental break through. I mean if you think about it nothing about my circumstances changed, I was in pain when I wanted to give up and never run again, and I was in pain when I was yelling I’m an overcomer. The only thing that changed was my thinking. I went from entertaining self defeating thoughts, to entertaining victorious thoughts. And for the rest of that day, and everyday since then, I’ve been thinking like an overcomer, and after a little bit of time, wouldn’t you know I’ve started acting like an overcomer. And now I’m back up to four miles running not jogging, and I feel like I’m beginning to actually be an overcomer.

Honestly though, I don’t think most of us have any clue just how powerful our thoughts are or just how much they can shape and mold us. The way we think might not change our circumstances, our thoughts might not affect our parent’s relationship or our dad’s illness, or the pain someone caused us. But it will affect our outlook, it will change our perspective, it will affect our attitude, and it will change who we are as a person. Most of us have no idea just how true that is. Most of us we don’t even pay attention to our thought patterns. But we all have these routine things that we think about. For a while I was routinely thinking about how much pain I was in and how awful that was. Now I routinely think about overcoming the pain and not giving up. But what about you? Let me ask you; Have you ever stopped to notice or pay attention to the state of your thought life? I mean, what do you mostly think about during the day, what thoughts do you usually think about yourself, about the way you look or talk or act? What do you think about your friends, about your teachers your parents, what do you think about when your mind is restless, wandering, or scattered?

A little while ago I was reading in this book about the synapses in our brains that cause thought patterns. And they were saying that the more you think about a certain thing like for example your looks, the more you obsess over your appearance, your hair your weight, your muscles or lack thereof. The path that those thoughts travel down in your brain becomes thicker and stronger. Your thoughts literally shape your brain, which in turn shapes who you are as a person. The more you think about certain things the thicker and wider those synapses become, and the less you think about them the thinner they become, and just like a bus route with no traffic, that route can close down all together. So if you practice thinking good thoughts your brain will take a new shape. If you practice thinking about faith hope and love your brain will literally build a highway for those thoughts and it will become more and more natural for you to think and act like a faithful, hopeful loving person. Because you are what you think. Regardless of our situation, or of what life might throw at us; we can change, we can be transformed, but it begins by changing the way we think.

Romans 12:2
2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Romans 8:5-7
6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

Philippians 4:8
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

Images of God

So an awful thing happened to me a few weeks ago that I haven’t told many people about. I watched the Bachelor. I say it happened to me because I was minding my own business, sitting on the couch messing around on the lap top while Kristin was watching it, because for some reason she loves the show. And after a few minutes, I started asking questions and then I put the computer down, and then I started commenting, and then the show was over, and I realized that I had just sat and watched the whole thing. The following week we were at her parents house eating dinner, and it happened again, only it wasn’t just me. Kristin’s dad was about to go run on the treadmill, but the show started, and he started asking the same questions I asked. Questions like, “Wait so this one guy gets to date 20 girls at the same time, and they all know about the other 19 girls? Wait, so all 20 of these girls are in love with this one guy? So he makes out with all of them, and then picks the one he likes best? What planet are we on, is this show made by a group of Muslims or Mormons?” And before you knew it he had sat through the whole show just like me. It’s kind of like watching a car accident. You want to look away, and you know that you should look away, because you know that it’s just going to be horrible, but you can’t; you have to see what is going to happen. And so a few weeks ago on a Monday night, some friends came over to hang out, and well the Bachelor was on, because again Kristin enjoys the show, and the rest of us just sat there watching the crash and none of us could look away.

He was down to four girls then, which doesn’t sound like much since he started with 20, but in the real world there are certain terms reserved for a guy who dates four girls all at the same time. Terms that I cannot repeat here; but there are names for guys who date multiple girls at once and who tells all of them that they are special and there is no one like them and the moment they try and talk he just starts making out with them, because he really could care less about what they have to say. He just wants to use them, so he can go on to the other girl, and the other girl, and the other girl. The craziest part of the show is how all of the girls know that he is doing this, and are seemingly ok with being treated that way. I can’t imagine behaving like this in real life. Think about it, can you imagine if when I asked Kristin out for the first time back when we were in high school; if when we were sitting in the park at the McKinley monument where I had told her I needed to meet her because I had something I needed to tell her. What if I had told her, “Kristin we’ve been friends for a long time now, and I think I might be in love with you, well not just you there’s 20 other girls that I’m also in love with, but I’d like to take you to the movies later, and then make out for a while and if it goes good, I might give you a rose afterwards which means we can go on a another date tomorrow. Nope, wait, tomorrow I’ll be going out with one of the other girls. Well let’s just see if you get a rose first.” Seriously? Do you really think Kristin would have said oh ok, yeah you can date me and 20 other girls. Honestly, in real life do you think any girl would be ok with that? Call me old fashioned, but I think everyone wants to feel like they are truly valued, that they are not just some object that another person is using; which is the feeling I get from these sort of shows. These girls are desperate for love, this guy cannot possibly give them what they are desperate for, it’s impossible for him to give them real love because the truth is he is just shopping trying each of them on like pairs of shoes, and that no longer makes them human beings, they’ve become something less.-simply objects.
The great tragedy of this, not just in a show like the bachelor, but in our culture as a whole, is that well we are not objects, we are human beings, and as human beings we are all images of God. This is what separates us from the animals, or from products that you buy and sell. The word of God is clear about this; we alone were made in his very own image.

"So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Genesis 1:27

You were made in the image of God himself; you are a reflection of your maker. Your body, your cells, veins, toes and fingernails, you were knit together in your mother’s womb by the hands of God. He says before you were even born he knew you, and he is the one who brought you into existence, he is the one who formed you, and he says you were made in His image. And not only is this true of you, but of every person on earth. We all carry a spark of the divine; we are all tiny mirrors of our maker, small images of God. That is what it means to be human, and it is a tragedy when we see ourselves and others as anything less. It is a crime against our Maker when we treat ourselves and other people, as something other, objects instead of images of God. But this is what our culture has done, and it affects all of us, especially in our relationships. All around us human beings are being reduced to objects. By the guys at school, rating girls on scales from one to ten, assigning numbers to specific parts of their anatomy; by girls who just give their bodies away like old shirts that anybody borrow. There are guys who only want to take advantage of girls, and girls who only want to toy with guys. So many people, image bearers of God, are reduced to objects. TV, movies, music, magazines, the internet, are all pumping lies into our heads about love and relationships: marriage is old fashioned, sex is casual, and people are objects. Don’t buy it anymore! We are images of the most high God. Honor, love respect, and cherish each other. Anything less is an insult to our Maker.

Free Love

I first started working at the Minnie Hopkins Neighborhood center when I was twenty years old. It was my first job that was based purely around helping people, loving and mentoring guys who were younger than me. My actual job was to oversee programs, like the free art classes, free violin classes, and the basketball league we had. But the main point of everything was to build relationships with the guys there and try to mentor them, to try to show them God’s love. The first guy that I really got to know was this kid who we’ll call Chris. Chris is an awesome guy, and we became great friends, and in way I became sort of a big brother to him. But I have to tell you it wasn’t hard to like Chris or to mentor him. He was a cool kid, witty, funny, and full of ambition. I also had a great deal of compassion for him because I took the time to really get to know him and hear his story.

But at the same time that I was mentoring Chris there was this other kid who we’ll call Matt. I also tried to mentor him, to be there for him and to love him the way I know God loves him, but that was a little more difficult. This kid was not easy to get along with. He was neither witty nor funny, but just obnoxious, mouthy and disrespectful. He nick named me Sweet Cheeks for no apparent reason, which I found less than amusing. He was hot headed, arrogant, and always talked about girls as if they were property to be used. Once in a bible study he actually asked me if it was a sin to beat his girlfriend. To round it off he was also a liar and a thief, and he drove me absolutely nuts. Well one day I was hanging out with Chris and Matt and somehow we got on the topic of God’s love, and I was telling them about God’s love for us and how we are to love others how he loves us. And Matt chimed in, “but you don’t do that.” I said, “I try to, I try to love you guys how I know God does,” and Matt busted up laughing, and said, “you don’t love me guy, man you don’t even like me …its cool though.” I said, “I like you, what are you talking about?” But then he said, “Man you take Chris out for his birthday, you buy him stuff, you guys are always together, and you just fake with me! You can say you love me man, but I know the truth, but it’s aaiight.” His words shredded and stabbed like daggers in my heart. I felt exposed, and there was nothing I could I do, there were no words to cover myself with, because he was right. He showed me my hypocrisy, my heart that did not match my words or my beliefs. I have always said that I want to love like God loves, but God’s love is unconditional, and my love has been extremely conditional. God’s love is free for everyone and my love, well my love was not free, but had to be earned. Some years later I realized why I did this, because like most people I was using love like money.


We do this all the time, we use love like we use tips at a restaurant. We leave big tips for those who treat us good, and we stiff those who don’t. If they don’t meet our needs; if they aren’t valuable to us, we won’t spend precious love on them. Donald Miller makes a great point about this in his book, Blue Like Jazz. To paraphrase him, He said, think about some of the words and the metaphors we use to describe relationships. We say things like, we value people, we invest in people, we treasure our relationships, relationships can go bankrupt, love is priceless. Did you notice that those were all economic metaphors? Do you see what we have done; we have taken love and began using it like money. We all do this; we spend love lavishly on the people in our life who we value, or on those who we want to love us back. So in a way what we try and do is purchase their love through gifts, through affection, compliments, and time spent with them. We use love like money to get what we want. It is actually quite selfish isn’t it? Which says something seeing as real love is not self seeking. But just look around and you’ll see this happening, you’ll see it in the work place; people spending generous amounts of love on the "higher ups" trying to purchase a promotion. At home you’ll find the father whose always gone purchasing extravagant gifts for his child in an attempt to buy his affection. At school you’ll see girls selling their bodies and their dignity for some guy’s attention, for some guy’s love. You will also see that guys are well aware of this, and they’ll easily spend their love like dollar bills on whatever a girl is willing to sell. Just like money so many of us use love to manipulate, to get what we want and to punish those who we don’t like. We buy, sell, and trade love all the time. But that is not how God loves, and as his followers we are called to love like Him. To love unconditionally, to love anyone and everyone, to love without hidden motives or agenda’s, to love without expecting anything in return, love that is selfless, love that is free. I wonder if I had been tough enough to really love Matt. To love him until he could feel how much God loves him, just maybe he would not be sitting in a prison cell right now for armed robbery. I don’t know, but maybe, because real love has the power to change a person’s life.

Ephesians 5
1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. 2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.

Together

Around this time last year I officially came down with the worst illness of my adult life. The weird thing is it was right after I received my first ever flu shot. At the time I thought I was invincible, but apparently the flu shot protects against 85% of flu viruses and of course because I’m an overachiever I managed to beat the odds. The doctor told me that it was a pretty wicked version of the flu and that I would be laid up for about five days. He also said that I should be isolated from Kristin and Jonah for the duration of my illness. So they left and went to stay in Minerva with Kristin’s parents, while I laid on the couch shaking and sweating completely alone for five days. I have never in my entire life been alone for that long, but I have to say it's very similar to what I’ve imagined hell to be like. For the first few days I did nothing but watch TV, because that was all I was capable of doing. FX had a bunch of superhero movies on and so that’s what I watched for probably ten hours straight; Spider man 2, Batman Begins, Fantastic Four, Daredevil, etc. That night I slept shivering beneath a mound of blankets and enduring one delirious dream after another. I dreamt of myself in a cape fighting a never ending host of bad guys, all in an attempt to avenge some family member’s death. I remember feeling exhausted in my sleep, I didn’t want to fight anymore, I just wanted sleep, but the movie in my head wouldn’t stop and I fought villains all night long. Once my fever broke I had my sanity back, at least for a little while. You see, now that I was in my right mind, the loneliness settled in and slowly drove me nuts. It wasn’t too long before I started talking to myself, asking questions out loud and then answering them, and then commenting to myself about my answers. I would yell at the TV a lot, making wise cracks at stupid commercials, or bad storylines. It only took about a day for me to start really getting on my nerves; I was so annoyed with myself and my constant sarcasm. I don’t know how Kristin puts up with me! I spent a good part of Sunday talking in a British accent for my own amusement. And by the time Tuesday rolled around and I finally saw Kristin and Jonah again, I was barely human. My beard had grown long, and my cheeks were sunken in, as if I had been on a desert island for a few years instead of on my couch for five days.

I was remembering this the other day, and I got to thinking about just how horrible it is to be completely alone. I know this from experience, but even more so I know this is true because God says so. In the very beginning, when he first created man, he looked at Adam and said, “It is not good for man to be alone,” and so he made Eve, and brought the two together, to help one another, to share their lives together. It is not good for us to be alone! We are hard wired in such away that by ourselves we begin to breakdown, digress, and go insane. We were made for community, for genuine relationships, made to share our lives with others, to help one another along. But so many of us live disconnected lives, we live isolated from genuine healthy relationships, closed off by a variety issues like; closet sin, insecurities, workaholism and depression. It is not good for us to be alone, and yet our culture teaches us that you have to be self sufficient, you have to believe in yourself, trust in yourself, and answer to no one. It is not good for us to be alone and yet even in the church, where of all places there should be genuine community, there is still a great sense of loneliness within many. We are supposed to be family; brothers and sisters, but tragically for a lot of us the church is not a safe place where we feel like we can be transparent. After all, “What if people knew that I still struggle with sin?” "What would people think of me if they knew about my hateful thoughts, my bizarre dreams, and my deep insecurities?” “What would they think if they knew about my past, if they knew about my fears, my doubts, my worries?” And so we put on Christian masks, and do our best to keep people at an arms length, to make sure no one really knows who we are. But we were made in such a way that we need each other, we need love, accountability, friendship, and honesty. Don’t allow the enemy to isolate you, don’t spend your life alone on your couch, or alone in an office, or alone in a church full of people struggling just like you. Get connected, be transparent, work at cultivating authentic relationships, because ultimately we die on our own, but we will always thrive together.
Ecclesiastes 4:7-12
7 I observed yet another example of something meaningless under the sun. 8 This is the case of a man who is all alone, without a child or a brother, yet who works hard to gain as much wealth as he can. But then he asks himself, “Who am I working for? Why am I giving up so much pleasure now?” It is all so meaningless and depressing.
9 Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. 10 If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. 11 Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? 12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.

Sniffing Ice Cream

This past summer Kristin and Jonah and I went to sunset beach on vacation with Kristin’s family, and whenever we go to sunset beach we usually spend all day at the beach and then at night we go out for some mini golf followed up with some ice cream from the Calabash Creamery. It’s this little ice-cream shop in the famous town of Calabash that has by far the most amazing ice cream I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. Personally I’m a big fan of their Mango Tango, and their Sunset Peach. Well on this particular night Kristin and I and all of her cousins were there getting our sugar fix. We were sitting outside on the rocking chairs, I had my sunset peach in a waffle cone and was enjoying every lick, when this little seven year old boy with a back pack came running over by us with several other kids his age. He was one of the cutest little kids I’ve ever seen and was just a little ball of energy running around jumping and playing as he waited for his mom to bring out his ice cream. Well a moment later the creamery door opened up and several bowls of ice cream were brought out. All at the once a mob of little kids stormed in and grabbed their ice cream and then scattered. The seven year old with the backpack just waited patiently, The door opened and his mom came out with his ice cream, two heaping bowls of ice cream all for him. “Here you go,” she said, and he ran over and put his face down to the ice cream, his nose hovering less than inch away, and he took several deep breaths, savoring the aroma of the ice cream, and then took off running to join the rest of the kids. But before he got far his mom yelled for him; “You need to go back in there and thank that nice lady who gave you this ice cream for free,” “Yes mom,” he said, and then ran back inside. We were all watching curiously because well we’d never seen a boy with two bowls of free ice cream, just smell it and then run away and play. The grandfather noticed us watching and said, “It’s heart breaking isn’t it.” I said, “What’s heart breaking?” He said, “The poor kid has been in the hospital for most of his life. He has a digestive problem and can’t eat anything, he’s fed through tubes, which are hidden in his back pack and they go directly to his stomach. But for the rest of his life he can never actually eat food. But he sure does love to smell it.” Just then the boy came bursting out of the door, and said, “Mom can I have some more ice cream?” “Which kind?” she asked. “Cow Abash Crunch!” She held out the bowl, and he stood there for thirty seconds smelling it with his eyes closed, just savoring it. And then he ran off. My heart shattered, and I sat there feeling guilty for licking my Sunset Peach in front of him. I turned to his grandfather and said, “So he really can’t eat anything?” He said, “No but as you saw he is as happy as can be, he takes everything in stride and honestly he is so thankful he can at least smell his food. Every night the family eats dinner together, and he sits at the table next to his brother and sister, and they make him a plate just like everyone else and he sits there while they're eating and smells his food. It’s heartbreaking to watch, he will smell his chicken for a minute or so, and then his mashed potatoes and gravy, and then his corn, even his coca-cola, but he loves it, he never complains, he always says he is thankful he can enjoy the smell of food.” He came over again and took another whiff of cow abash crunch, and his mom stopped him and introduced him to us. He smiled at us and then said “Do want to see my tubes?” My head nodded yes but everything inside of me screamed “No I don’t want to see your tubes!” But he pulled up his shirt for us to see where his tubes were inserted into his stomach. I said, “Cool man!” Because I didn’t know what else to say, and he said, "Nice to meet ya," then turned and sniffed his ice cream and ran off. It was a quiet drive back to the beach house, and the entire time I was wondering one thing. How this kid who has spent most of his life in the hospital, and is fed through tubes, and sits every night at the dinner table watching people eat while he sits and smells his food, how that kid seemed to be far more grateful than I am? That night I snacked on some trail mix, and when no one was watching I buried my nose in it and smelled it for about thirty seconds, and then I made sure I savored every bite of it.

You see the gift of taste is just one more thing I’ve realized that I take for granted, along with the gift of smell, touch, sight, sound, breath and life. It’s a tragedy really; it’s a tragedy how most of us never fully appreciate what we have unless it’s gone. For most of us we don’t think about it, we don’t dwell on how blessed we are every day that we wake up and can roll out of bed and breath in another day of life on this tiny planet spinning in this enormous universe. No we dwell on problems. We are worried and stressed out, busy and tired, anxious and insecure, and so we focus on what’s wrong, on all the things that we don’t have instead of enjoying what we do. Instead of breathing in like that boy smelling his ice cream instead of savoring life, instead of being thankful, so often we just whine and complain.

GK Chesterson once said that the worst moment for an atheist is when he feels grateful and has no one to thank. I wonder if then the worst moment for a Christian would be when he has someone to thank, but doesn’t feel grateful. I wonder if the worst moments for you and me is when we take God for granted, when we get so focused on our problems, our worries, and stress, homework, and family strife, that we miss the Glory of God all around us. So often we miss out on the ordinary miracles of everyday life. Don’t miss out today, breathe it in, and be grateful!

"Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High."