Four H's To Help Christians

I'm at a crossroads.

What I do next will define a good portion of my life for the next year or so. I have a choice to make, and deciding what to do is never easy.

As Christians, we're told that God has a plan for our lives. Sometimes the idea of this is comforting, and sometimes it's stressful. What's the plan? We know some basic instructions, like, "Love your neighbor as yourself," but who is my neighbor, and how do I do that? Unless you're an ancient Bible hero, you usually aren't told what the plan is, at least not specifically in plain speech.

When it comes to big decisions, deciding what direction to go from faith perspective can be difficult. Do I seek out that new job? Do I move to that new house? Do I go on that trip or reconnect with that person or go off birth control? What's the best plan, here?

I tend to live my life one project at a time, and when a project is done I often find myself in a state of limbo between what I've done and what I'm going to do next. Personality tests tell me I love change, so it's easy for me to keep my options open. I find myself open to new career paths and willing to see where any new rabbit trails lead. This can make the decision even harder.

Over the years I've made some good decisions and some bad ones, and I've always felt like there were certain characteristics that were common across all the good decisions I've made. Last night my owl brain was awake, and I thought of a clever name for these characteristics, as it all suddenly became crystal clear to me in the wee hours of the morning.

There are four principles that are true of every good path I've chosen to go down. I think these principles are also true of every good decision those ancient Bible heroes made thousands of years ago. 

When making decisions I've started to ask myself four questions, which I'll call for clever-catch-phrase sake, the Four H's:

Hard, Humble, Hungry and Human.

When faced with deciding what direction to go in, I ask myself if the direction is Hard, whether or not it requires me to be Humble, whether or not it requires me to be spiritually Hungry (to rely on God more than I usually do), and whether or not it's Human-oriented, as in humanitarian, i.e. will people benefit from it?

Let's break down the "Hard" principle, the one that says that God's calling is always challenging. 

God has never called me to do something easy, something that came naturally. Why? Because I already do those things. I don't need to be called to do them, because I already do them without thinking. I'm a natural at those things, therefore, no calling needed.

God likes to challenge and stretch me because He knows it's imperative to my growth. So I ask myself, Is it hard? Does it force me out of my comfort zone? Is it a difficult task? 

Generally speaking, the things that I've felt called to do contain a level of inconvenient difficulty that has stressed me out. This is true of every Bible character who encounters God;

God says to Moses, "Even though you have a speech impediment and are wanted for murder, go back to Egypt, speak to Pharoah, and free my people."

God says to Esther through Mordecai, "Even though you're came from rags to become the Queen living in a palace, risk your 'good' life to save my people."

God says to Abraham, "Leave everything you have and go to this foreign land and I will make your offspring my people and they will be blessed."

God always says, "Do something hard, take a risk, trust me, it'll be worth it."

This might be hard to hear, but chances are if it's easy and comes naturally, God is not calling you to do it.

The second "H" is Humble. A truth of every action God calls me to is that it takes a level of humility to complete. This means not puffing myself up, bragging about my own abilities and my own talents. It means humbling myself to the task before me. My natural proclivity is to do the thing that boosts my ego, that makes me proud of myself in relation to others. My default-mode is to viciously defend my self-worth and importance. So I ask, Will this humble me?

God has never called me to elevate myself over others because it's something I already naturally do, and I already know He calls me to do Hard things. The Hard thing is putting similar value on others as I do myself. Oh man, it's a really Hard thing to be Humble.

The best results have always occurred when I've lowered myself. It's in these times I realize that by putting others ahead of me, by excusing myself from the competition of life, God is pleased. Good things happen when God is pleased.

You need only to look at the life and death of Jesus to see how much God values humility. Everything He calls us to do contains some level of Humble.

The third "H" is Hungry. 

Will this decision make me more Hungry for spiritual connectedness to God and the people around me? Will it cause me to rely on my faith more? To be more prayerful? 

Hungry is connected to both Hard and Humble, because Hungry recognizes that hard things can't get done without God's blessing. Hungry causes us to want more of God in our lives. Every good thing I've ever done has caused me to pray a whole lot more than I usually do. The situation made me rely on God more. The Hardness of it made me more Humble, and both of those aspects made me more Hungry.

The fourth "H" is an important one, one that stands alone as a key principle to any choice God is calling you to make:

Does it help other Humans? 

Flash back to those paraphrases from the Hard category, where God is calling those ancient Bible heroes to do hard things. At the end of each statement, you'll see that it's always for the sake of people. God always says, "Do this hard thing to help people." God never calls you to do a hard thing that helps only yourself. Other lives are affected by our decisions.

Our spiritual lives are intended to be lived from the inside out, we are supposed to work on ourselves for the sole sake of, sorry for the cliche, "shining a light" to others. We are made to bless others. All throughout the Bible, God calls people to do Hard things so that other Humans can benefit.

So I ask myself, Does this allow God to use me to influence others for good? Could doing this help people? Or am I focusing inwardly because of fear? 

Basically, I need to know that my motivations for making a decision aren't selfish. I know that God cares for others, and anything He has ever called me to do has been to impact others through my work, presence and abilities. Humans are the most important thing to God, as displayed by the life and death of Jesus, and God will always call you to helping people.

I'm not saying that if you employ the tactic of the Four H's your decisions will be instantly easier to make. I'm not trying to cheapen something as nuanced and intricate as those big Pro-vs-Con life decisions, and I definitely don't want to simplify what is supposed to be difficult. Good decisions are hard to make. Life is complex and hard and it matters very much how you choose to live it. 

I simply wanted to share with you a tool that helps me sift through my options, and I wanted to encourage you that although the choice that requires more prayer, more humility, and more service to others is ridiculously Hard, I believe that you will live a better life by choosing it.

The Four H's have been on my mind a lot lately as I try to find my way through the murky limbo I'm in. I think it's good practice in these times to do an inventory on what I believe in, why I believe it, and why it matters.

This is not by any means a complete thought as I've only just fleshed it out in the last few hours. I don't mean to present it as an all-encompassing doctrine for choice-making, because I'm sure there are variables based on different situations, but I wanted to share my opinion in the hopes that it could help you guys make some decisions you are being faced with. 

The practice of writing it down really helps me to figure it out, and the knowledge that you might be reading along really helps me clarify what I believe, so thank you for that.


 

Enough

Not enough people tell me my music is good.

Oh, plenty of people say my music means the world to them, but it's never enough. When it's MY music, MY art, MY ego, MY insecurities, MY thirst for peer recognition, respect, and honor, I am never fulfilled and it is never enough.

I was in Minneapolis on the 2007 Tooth and Nail Tour. After the show I went to the merch booth to meet people. I was stopped by one of those really charismatic, on-fire Christians who always seem to be getting "words" for people. Just my luck, he had a word for me, and although I'm naturally a skeptic I agreed to let him pray for me. Couldn't hurt right? He put his big hands around my head like he was about to head-butt me and started praying in tongues (which always creeps me out), while onlookers waited patiently with their unsigned TCC posters in hand. Then he started praying in English, which made me feel a little better about the situation. Turns out he was saying some pretty good stuff.

Afterwords, he looked me straight in the eyes, my head still in his hands, and said, "You are enough because He is enough." I nodded nervously and he said it again, staring more intently, "You are enough because He is enough." 

That echoed in my mind for a long time. Five years later, the "word" he had for me still hits me out of nowhere... I am enough because He is enough.

It's not about me, and when I occasionally remember that I suddenly lose interest in people telling me I'm good. 

I understand that the art I make isn't from me, it flows through me, from somewhere else to somewhere else. I sit down to do the work, but I barely understand how inspiration works let alone the true meaning and influence of any song I've written. I am blessed to enjoy it, and that is enough for me.

It's like having a baby. Sure, it grew in you and then came out of you, but you didn't consciously make it. The child is unique and the miracle of human life is... a miracle. All you did was have sex. All you did was experience a few minutes of pleasure and a miracle happened. Every parent knows they can't take credit for the miracle that is their child.

That's how I feel about songs, especially the ones that end up meaning something to a lot of people. They feel good to write, and the lyrics and concept usually materialize in ten minutes or less. They are things that occur to me, not things I manufacture. I don't write them, they write me. 

If you love my songs and think I'm wise because I write them, then getting to know me in real life would probably disappoint you. I'm messy and inconsistent and foolish and sarcastic and immature. I would encourage you to not seek fulfillment in people, because people will always disappoint you.

For a few minutes a year I am honored with the burden of being a broken tool in the hand of a perfect God whose apparent goal it is to bring some tiny portion of goodness into the world. I couldn't tell you why, and it could all stop tomorrow, but I can tell you that I didn't do anything to deserve it.

It does me no good to seek out credit. Because it isn't rightfully mine, no amount of credit will fulfill me. I am enough because He is enough. I have enough because He gives me enough. I am good because He is good, and I am useless when He doesn't show up.

Nothing this world can offer me will ever be enough.

I am enough because He is enough.

God and Laws

I hate American politics, but I think about them a lot. I just noticed that I have two blog posts related to politics that are unpublished. I think this is because politics are so petty and polarizing and do little to stimulate the type of thought and discussion that bares good fruit, so I'll write something I might feel is important, read it, realize it will only breed friction, and then file it away. 

However, this topic really intrigues me, and since it's more of a spiritual approach I'm hoping when I finish I'll have the inclination to hit "Publish Post."

Where is God in politics? How do you reconcile what you believe with any form of political activism? What would Jesus do?

I was sitting around with a group of friends last week and we asked ourselves these questions. 

One of my friends was hurt by how people have used politics to take Christian prayer out of schools, and also lobbied to ban the Ten Commandments from display on public property. She was sad that teachers could no longer teach Christian history, and she wondered what would come of all this. She was sincere. She only wished that kids would have the opportunity to learn about the love of Jesus. 

Some of my other friends spoke up about how Christianity is portrayed in politics. They didn't like the right-wing pundits who claimed Christianity. They seemed fake. We all agreed that we didn't like Christians being defined by being anti-gay and anti-abortion or pro-war. We agreed that Christians should stand for justice and peace, not persecution of any group, that we should never challenge or demean our enemies, we should love them. (Matthew 5:9, Psalm 82:3, Matthew 5:44, Luke 10:25-37).

So how do we do all that? How do we cultivate those ideals within our current political system, and in the face of such polarization?

This was a tough question. I think our natural reaction is to fight laws that seem to us as "Anti-Christian." We tend to (out of sincere concern) gravitate towards the idea that America will be damned if there isn't Bible reading in schools, prayer in Congress, and God in the Pledge of Allegiance. We're taught that our country is drifting farther and farther from the beliefs on which is was founded. The idea has been propagated that we used to be a Christian nation, but now we're drifting from the good graces of God. We're told by some that we're heading down the wrong path to destruction, and we must get politically active in order to turn our course back to God.

I have to tell you, I don't believe any of this. When was America a Christ-like nation? When we stole land from the Natives? Slaughtered men, women and children in cold blood? Used slavery and persecution to build our country? How about as early as the 1960's when racism was political POLICY (For more on this, read THIS book). Sure, our forefathers wrote God on things, but did that automatically make them Godly? And furthermore, does it even matter outside of perpetuating a political agenda that's impetus is millions in donations?

Let's go back to what started this whole America thing.

 

To sum it up, Puritans were facing persecution from the Catholic majority. Terrible things were happening. So they left to take religious refuge in the New World. To read more on Religious persecution that helped found America go here. 

When we read history, time and time again we learn this simple equation: Religion + Power = Persecution. Our forefathers knew this, that is why they believed very strongly in the separation of Church and State. You don't have to be persecuted to know this, you can just read about crusaders slaughtering "heathens" or conquistadors "converting" savages at sword-point. Power corrupts, it wants to control. Power wants to be God and to judge what is good and what isn't (Luke 6:37, Matthew 7:1-5).

There are people in this country who, in the face of such obvious truth to the contrary, would want history to repeat itself. Some people actually want a Christian majority so that they can legally ban homosexuality or whatever is maddening them this week. They literally want power in order to persecute people. That is scary. It's also anti-Jesus, which is even more scary considering the implications of who else might be behind this movement.

As far as Christians being more and more of a political minority, I'm in favor of it. True Christianity flourishes through extreme persecution.

Why are we so afraid of persecution? Do Christians forget how this whole thing started? After Jesus left Christians were being hunted from house to house, thrown in prison, beaten and stoned to death, hung, filleted alive by knives, burned to the stake, crucified, and their numbers dramatically INCREASED! You see the same thing happening in China over the last fifty years. If you ask me, I say go ahead and ban Christianity. At least then we'll know who the real ones are. I am not afraid of persecution, I welcome it. It'll separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. This whole thing about fighting for a "Christian Political Majority" flies totally in the face of what Jesus established with the early church.

Think about it. Jesus said He came as a "humble servant," to "Seek and to save that which was lost." He said things like "the last shall be first" and "blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth." How can you reconcile these words of Jesus with grasping for political power?: 

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." - Mark 9:35

The truth is, you can't.

Changing laws to coincide with morals doesn't change hearts, it only allows for persecution, violence, and hate. Unless of course they're changed for freedom or justice.

I think the place for Christianity in politics is not on the "moral-crusading" end, but on the justice end. Christian organizations like the International Justice Mission use global laws to free the persecuted and seek punishment for their captors. It's amazing the good that can come from people who take this verse literally:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. - James 1:27

How can anyone fight that?

Instead of Christianity being defined by the right-wing, anti-whatever vitriol, it'd be nice to have it be defined as loving, justice-seeking, poor-serving, and actually Jesus-following.

Those are just my thoughts on the matter.

For more on what Jesus thought about the Religious Political Majority in His day, read Matthew 23.

Smoke, Drink, Cuss

Since the Jesus Movement in the seventies, the average church-going Christian could probably be outwardly defined in action as someone who doesn't drink, smoke, or use rough language - a fact that has kept pastors awake at night and inspired thousands of sermons. 

It's not because the conviction to not drink, smoke or cuss is a bad conviction, it's because the average Christian is defined by inaction rather than action, a problem that Jesus spoke so passionately against.

I can see the heart of the conviction to not do certain things. It's a good heart. Christians are called to live differently, and not drinking, smoking, or swearing is a practical way to show that you've set yourself apart. It's not just because the Bible says to watch your tongue and not be a slave to anything, it's also a great conversation piece, and I'm sure many a spiritual conversation got started when someone asked, "Hey Joe, I noticed you don't say the F word, you only drink soda at the bar, and you don't laugh at my dirty jokes... what's your deal man?" And Joe gets an opportunity to share his deal, which is Jesus, and that's a good thing because Jesus is good.

But somewhere along the way this inaction became the Gold Standard. The frosting on the cake became the entree, and church-going Christians all across the western church have been primarily viewed as people who don't do what other people do because of religious reasons.

There are a number of problems with this. One is that the same thing that attracts some people to christianity, this projected cleanliness, has at times alienated others. It's also caused self-righteousness (which is the most unattractive thing in he world), and it's been used as a ruler to judge a persons spiritual healthiness. "Do they drink, smoke, use coarse language? Then no, they're not walking with the Lord." I can't count how many times I've heard something along these lines. 

For a lot of church-going people, the definition of a true Christian means a person who does not drink, smoke, or use foul language.

I'd be remiss to not point out that one could define a Mormon, Muslim, or a Buddhist the same way. In fact, I'd wager that so many other religions do a much better job of "living righteously" when it comes to vices and speech. These are religions that would make the average western Christian uncomfortable to be categorized with, but when it comes to the category of inaction, most religions reflect the same values.

The problem is obvious. If the focus is on inaction - the list of things you don't do - then you are free to live your life however you want. What I'm saying is there are plenty of people who don't smoke, drink or cuss, but do business like the majority in every other aspect. They are viciously self-centered at work, stepping on anyone to get ahead. They do what benefits them the most regardless of who gets hurt (which is usually justified under the guise of "What's best for my family"). They value money the same way everyone else does. They criticize the underprivileged and justify not helping people. They are vindictive and prideful and selfish. Their coworkers would not define them as loving, gracious or compassionate.

So if Christian really does mean "Little Christ," we should probably see what Jesus said about all this, after all it's His name Christians carry. What does Jesus say about what our focus should be? Turns out he said a lot. In fact, the entire chapter of Matthew 23 is Jesus getting angry with the Pharisees, the religious elite in Israel at the time, because of their lack of focus on the things that truly mattered. They followed all of the outward aspects of the religion, tithing, fasting, wearing the garb of "holy people." But they did it for the wrong reasons, for selfish reasons, and they had long lost touch with what truly mattered.

If you haven't read the chapter you should. It's a pretty good one, because Jesus is the underdog sticking up for the little guy, and he gives the bully a lashing like he never had before. My favorite verse in the NIV translation is verse 23:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. ²⁴ You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Isn't that great? What wonderfully creative and harsh language. The truth is they were so religious and so focused on a thing like tithing - even down to their herb gardens! - that they forgot about justice, mercy, and faithfulness, the things Jesus says Christians should be characterized by. Of course, Jesus does validate Jewish law by saying "You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former," so he's not saying don't tithe, tithing is a good thing, but only when done out of faithfulness. You have to have the right focus, otherwise you risk hypocrisy like the Pharisees did.

Over the last ten years or so we've seen a gradual change in the western church. People are meeting for Bible study in pubs, Bible college students are picking up a tobacco pipes to look more like C.S. Lewis, and even pastors have shortened their list of forbidden words. Of course this has been met with resistance, especially from some in our parents generation, who have always defined Christianity as an alcohol-free, smoke-free, slang-free way of life. They struggle to see any good in even moderate delineation from these staple rules, and I can't blame them. I can respect their conviction, especially when it's out of a heart of faithfulness and obedience. 

What is hard for me to put up with is the type of pressure, criticism and judgement that sucks the joy out of a room. If you look carefully you can read the underlying script at some wine-filled conservative Christian weddings. You can look around and see it in some of the guests eyes, it reads "We disapprove of this, and thus we cannot fully celebrate with you." 

I find it sad when people are so tainted with judgement that they cannot see the beauty in something. They can't see the beautiful moral of a story because the characters used harsh (realistic) language, they can't celebrate the beauty of a marriage because of champaign toasts, they can't connect with co-workers on a deeper level because they refuse to enter a bar. (Side note: When I was 11 years old I was kicked out of my Sunday school class for arguing with my teacher that Jesus would enter a bar and love the people inside. I still believe I'm right about that.)

Convictions in the grey area can be wonderful until you try to apply them to the group, and then they start inhibit beauty and joy and love and all things good. We should be giving a reason for the hope that we have, not giving a reason for why we don't say the S-H word when referring to poop. Hope is beautiful, so let's make it part of the entree. Who really gives a shit about poop anyways.

In the last ten years there has been a movement in Christian culture trying to shift the focus from inaction to action. Some Christians are trying not to major in the minors anymore, and that means that loving, passionate people who give their time to the church and put others before them also enjoy a beer with friends and don't get offended when someone drops an F-bomb. 

I think this is a good thing. 

I also think it's a good thing that those who have convictions follow them when it comes to their personal choices. If you have convictions for not drinking, don't drink. Have a Diet Coke or something. The problem arises when we want to blanket a group of people with our personal convictions. We want to play God and decide what is wrong and right for everyone, but the Bible leaves a pretty grey area when it comes to consuming alcohol or using slang (For my opinion on language use, see blog post Profanity vs Slang), but one thing Jesus is very clear on is criticism. He starts out Matthew 7 saying this:

 ¹ “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.   ³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

I think the point is you'll never get the plank out of your own eye. We'll never be righteous enough to be justified in our criticism of our brothers and sisters. Or perhaps the point is that the action of trying to pick the speck out of our brothers eye reveals the fact that something in our own souls is fundamentally flawed. That if we were truly living right, we would never criticize our brothers and sisters on the grey-area issues. Perhaps our criticism reveals the plank in our eye, the plank that is our lack of focus on the fundamental dietary staples that Jesus laid out for the Christian life. Our focus should be inward. Jesus was very clear when he said "Do not judge," so why do we allow judgement to run rampant in our churches?

I think we have to take a hard line on things like love, mercy, justice and faithfulness, and leave a lot of wiggle room for the little things. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 

and then...

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

It doesn't matter what you don't do, it doesn't even matter what you DO do, if you don't have love, whether in inaction OR action, your efforts are meaningless. Plain and simple.

Everyone will be convicted in a different way about the grey area, and we can't be quick to judge or criticize those who think differently than we do about the "frosting" issues. We have to show love. 

So for those who lean conservative, don't go sucking the joy out of the room when not everybody follows your convictions, and those who lean liberal, don't go criticizing those who choose to abstain. 

Let their hearts decide what is best, but in all things, may we have love.

Prayer and Song

Some of the most humbling experiences in my life happen when I realize that I am not God. Of course I never consciously believe that I am God because that would make me a nut job, but it's true that I can go about my day living as though the world revolves around me. I can tend to think I am pretty important.

I think we all do this. We hunger, we eat. We want, we get. Most of our daily routines, habits and hobbies are maintained with the hope of helping us to accomplish unattainable things for ourselves. We want things like financial security, comfort and freedom. Most risks we take are for our own sake in order to achieve, if not those things, a sense of accomplishment and self pride. In short, most of what we do we do to feel good about ourselves, with the hope that someday everything in our lives will be perfect. We are inherently self-centered.

But every so often something hits me like a gust of wind, powerful yet fleeting, and it scoops me off the ground and gives me, if only briefly, a different perspective, one where I realize that I am not the main character in a movie called The Life of Matt MacDonald. And then I realize that I am not in control, and that my sense of safety is an illusion. That I am and always will be as close to death and tragedy as anyone else on this earth, and nothing I can ever do will fix that. In these moments I realize all of my self-inflicted anxiety and stress in my petty quest for comfort is nothing short of a colossal waste of time.

These are great moments.

There are a few things in life that will usher me into these types of moments. One of them is the beauty of nature - an incredible view of the sunset, the stars, or a mountain range for example. This is simple, it helps me to remember that I'm just an organism trying to survive on a speck of dust floating in the abyss, and that my worries are so small compared to the infinite universe or the expansive natural beauty of earth that existed before human eyes could see it. The other two things are prayer and song. They seem to have the similar effect of shifting my perspective from what doesn't matter to what does.

The Apostle Paul said, "Pray without ceasing." I think he knew something about the power of prayer that most of us tend to forget. The power of prayer is not only that sometimes they miraculously get answered, it's that when you pray it changes your perspective. You relinquish control of the future, and by doing that you are recognizing that you are not the center of the universe. 

I think this is one of the reasons that Alcoholics Anonymous has been so effective for years. A primary step of the program is to recognize that you are not in control, that there is a higher power. You have to humble yourself, you have to give up the idea that you have control over your addiction. You have to realize that you are not God and you cannot fix yourself. I think this happens when we pray.

It's amazing when it happens. I'll have a conflict with a person and a list will start forming in my head. The list includes the many ways they've wronged me, clearly justifying my anger against them. But then I hear this voice, usually right before a confrontation. It says pray about this. If I respond correctly, something happens. I'm whisked away from my pettiness, my need for retaliation and justice. When I appeal to a God that not only said, "Love your neighbor" but who also said, "Love your enemies, do good to those who curse you," I can only respond with love. It's like I've switched to a wide-angle birds-eye view and I see what truly matters; the big picture. And then I realize that it matters very little if I get my revenge, and it matters a lot if I love this person. My heart softens, and I am able to extend the same grace that I've received. The result is always much more joyful and rewarding then when I choose to harden my heart and exact revenge.

A prayer and a song can be very similar. Come to think of it, many of the songs I've written have been prayers of longing, kind of like those old Psalms that David wrote. I've always gravitated toward songs that are about being in one situation but wanting so desperately for another. I think we all relate to that because we all have that insatiable hunger for more. I enjoy songs of praise, the ones that thank God for our blessings and for being, well, God, and I think gratitude is a major key to living a joyful life. But for some reason I identify more with the struggle. I wish churches would play more sad, longing songs about wanting things to be made right in the world, and how it really sucks right now, but I imagine that wouldn't be very good for church attendance. 

Regardless of my preference, songs of all types have occasionally ushered me into the presence of something that felt so good and so right that it gave me a new frame of mind, like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But it wasn't a weight that was placed on me, but one that I had selfishly placed on myself. My body responds to this with a tingle down my spine, goosebumps on my arms and a lump in my throat. Sometimes I'll be choking back tears to a song that a week ago I criticized for being heartless and boring. Perspective is everything. When this happens I can only feel two emotions: humility and gratitude.

Whenever I praying or singing, complain or thank, I acknowledge that there is something else more powerful than me at work in the world, and it rescues me from spiraling into a black hole of self-"comfort" that only leaves me miserable.

We cannot change the past or predict the future. Safety is an illusion. 

Live and love today.

Plans

This is a long one, maybe even my longest yet.


I've driven around, flown over, and walked through hundreds of cities and metro areas and I'm always somewhat amazed by the accomplishments of man; the towering buildings, freeways and streets, transportation systems and infrastructures with hundreds of micro economies functioning to prosper the majority. Sometimes it all just seems so ingenious, and it's somewhat smugly reassuring to observe what humanity is capable of. Until I take a step back. From the macro perspective, how fragile is our system! Our global economy is built on a bubble, on debt, on projected profit from that debt. It's an unstable facade, built on nothing ultimately sustainable beyond a hundred years. It's founded on the idea that the current generation is the most important. What we GET is what matters most. The plans that we have made are not plans that will last. They are not plans that will carry us much farther than the scope of our own life-spans. Civilizations greater than ours have arisen and disappeared throughout history, and the plans they made are now seemingly obsolete in the grand scope of things. What makes every generation think it is the most important? Thousands of years ago people much wiser than us implemented their plans with as much foresight as humanly possible, but even then the residual impact is little if any. Our plans are built on temporal knowledge, in the spiritual sense and the timely sense. The foundation for our standard of living is built on sand. Our plans are extremely fragile and near-sighted.


What if there is an Ultimate Plan? A Plan that isn't limited to one person, or one life-span? What if history, ancient and recent, holds proof of that plan unfurling in the macro and the micro sense? I believe in that Plan and Purpose, because I believe in a God who loves and interacts with His creation, but also because I've witnessed His work on the micro level, in my own life, as well as through my parents lives before I was even here.


My parents became Christians in the late 70's. I don't know much about this time in their lives, other than that they were post-hippie travelers who randomly met in Vancouver, BC, thousands of miles from their respective birthplaces (my dad from Halifax, Nova Scotia and my mom from outside of Richmond, VA). While in Vancouver, BC they attended some Gospel meetings and became "born-again" by every sense of the term. Their habits and lifestyles spun a 180 as they implemented their new found moral convictions, got married and started a family. 


According to his testimony my dads conversion was a tedious one, spanning seven years and involving him being tracked down by a preacher who seemed to show up at the most random moments. These random interactions eventually led him to give his life to God. I think my moms conversion was a bit more impulsive. Either way, for several years they maintained a very black and white faith. 


In 1994 we moved across the border to the US. The new church we attended was more concerned with posturing and judgement than community and love, and the culture slowly chipped away at my parents faith. Areas of their lives and marriage were left unattended, exposed, and allowed to fester due to lack of depth, accountability, honesty, and care for the things they once deemed important. Eventually differences could not be reconciled in their relationship and it lead to their separation, subsequent excommunication from their "church," and divorce. Since then their faith has struggled as shame, resentment, regret and bitterness have taken seats at the table while things like grace, mercy, love and forgiveness grow ever-distant.


Of course this is only my take on the matter, and I'll admit that from the outside it's seemingly easy to discern the consequences and their causes; the causes being justifications for stubbornness, revenge, anger and bitterness, and the consequences being detachment, loneliness, lack of peace and loss of faith. Speculation can only add up to so much, however, and the truth is that things are more confusing and messy on the inside. What I do know is that as of right now neither of my parents are actively pursuing any portion of the faith that once changed their lives. My mom used to read the Bible to us every morning at breakfast, but I'm speculating that she probably hasn't opened it in years. One of the most enduring images I have from my childhood is of my dad sitting at his desk, pouring over his bible and studying scripture, but I doubt he has spent any time doing that lately. Needless to say, both of my parents currently seem concerned only with their individual, short-term plans. They've lost their faith in the Ultimate Plan. I'm not blaming them, because they've had a hard go of it, and I'm not confident that I'm exempt from their circumstances. It could happen to the best of us, and so I must tread lightly and remember that "There by the grace of God go I."


In my experience, something happens when you read the Bible. Something rings divinely true within its pages. When read properly, the Bible doesn't encourage your political stance, tease your intellect or simply resonate with the "poet inside." Instead it grabs your heart and squeezes it until the tears flow. The truth about love, forgiveness and sacrifice is simply that; Truth. It just rings true. It speaks to that part of us that longs for ultimate Truth and absolutes. It puts things in perspective and it causes us to live differently, to love better. It calls us to become a part of the plan. When we read the Bible, it puts us on track. I can tell when a Christian has spent time reading it with enthusiasm recently, and I can usually tell when they haven't. My parents, I suspect, haven't. (If I'm honest with myself it's been too long since I've spent significant time studying the Bible and the symptoms of that have been showing. #realtalk)


In an effort to totally redeem myself (sarcasm) I've been reading this book by Francis Chan called "Crazy Love," and it he discusses his discovery of Gods specific love and divine plan for his life. He comes upon this by reading Jeremiah 1:4-5 where God says to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart." Thinking this might have just applied to the prophet Jeremiah, Francis was reminded of Ephesians 2:10, where we are commanded to "Do good works, which God has prepared for us in advance to do." His realization is that God knew us before we were here and prepared a plan for our lives. He planned for us individually ahead of time to follow Him in order to be effective stewards of His love, to do "good works" which advance His Ultimate Plan. We have to choose to be a part of it, and as with the Apostle Paul or my Dad, sometimes he chases people down. His plan is different for everyone in the micro sense, but He's the only Being with any eternal perspective in the macro sense, so we're forced to trust Him in order to be a part of it. People like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Theresa were figures who trusted God's plan and followed it into harms way out of conviction from the calling to do "good works," which I have no doubt God "planned in advance" for them to do. It's a humbling concept that an all powerful God would love us so much and want to know us so intimately that He would chase us down in order to make us a part of His loving plan. When people truly respond to His Plan, you see the loving approach to equality, sacrifice for the weak and service to others like MLK Jr. and Mother Theresa were characterized by.


I think of my parents meeting out of what seemed like sheer happenstance, thousands of miles from their home-towns. I think of their dramatic conversions, how my dad was chased down through a seven year process where God, through experiences and interactions, would not leave him alone. I think of my childhood, my five siblings and my two Haitian-born sisters, the opportunity given to us to learn about God and accept His Plan for our lives... When I step back and look at all this, it doesn't seem like random chance. It seems to me like my parents were accosted by the Holy Spirit, chased down by a God that had a plan, and plan that they had no intent of fulfilling when they started their adulthood. I think about the people in my life who have steered me toward that Plan, even when I fought so ignorantly against it.


I've seen what I claim to be God's work in my life. It sounds crazy, I know, to talk about things you can't see or prove with your basic senses, but I've felt the peace of knowing my Creator. It's better than any other high I've experienced. I've felt drawn and called to certain things, hard things that I didn't want to do, but when I came out on the other end I realized how blessed I'd been for doing them. The point is I wouldn't be here if not for God's work in my parents, and regardless if they admit it or not they were used for His glory in their youth, and although in their 50's they have nearly forgotten His gift, His plan continues through us, their children.


Part of me says He's done chasing them, that His work in them was fulfilled in us, that their role in the Plan is done... but another part of me says He desperately longs for communion with them again. The God I read about in the Bible isn't one that turns His back on lost children. Jesus illustrates God as the father in the Prodigal Son parable. The son spent his entire inheritance partying and dishonoring his father, but in the end his dad accepts him back with loving arms and throws a feast for his lost son who came back to him. Jesus spoke about Gods love is like a shepherd who would leave his ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness just to find that one lost sheep. When I read that I don't think God is fine with any of His sheep or His children wandering off, going their own way, unprotected and vulnerable. I could be stretching it, but perhaps that parable also says something about our innate need for community. Perhaps the ninety-nine in the flock are safer because they have each other, they have strength in numbers, but the lost sheep is all alone, in desperate need of a shepherd and community, and because of it's unique situation the shepherds heart breaks for it. So much so that he leaves the ninety-nine "found" sheep to go find the lost one.


When I read about Gods Plan, I think about it's significance and how it far surpasses our own personal plans. This is much more than just life and death. "Lost" and "Found" have significant spiritual meanings and outcomes. It's true that not all who wander are lost, I've wandered my fair share and I believe it is a part of how I'm wired. I also think it's true that those who seek will find... I've found that when I honestly seek God without any conditions, He always shows up. Those who are truly lost and running away, however, are characterized by selfishness. They give very little. Lost people are plagued with worry and stress, they're misguided, prone to denial and indulgence in frivolity. Chan says in his book that "Worry and stress reek of arrogance." It's true that at their core, worry and stress are selfish feelings. The number one concern of those emotions is Self. Those emotions display lack of peace, distrust and ignorance of God's unconditional love and provision, and they also restrain the ability for one to love and sacrifice for others. Worry and stress cause us to implode, completely taking us away for Gods plan for us to "do good works" which He has "planned in advance for us to do." 


I once heard a quote that said something like this: "What you do for yourself in this life will die with you, but what you do for others will live forever." I don't know who wrote it, but it's definitely a Biblical principle. People who become obsessed with their tiny, insignificant plans, become characterized by worry and stress. They become selfish. They become lost.


Jesus tells us that if even man, who is sinful in nature, gives good gifts to his children, how much more does the perfect God of heaven wish to give to those who call him Father? He also says not to worry, because if God takes care of the birds, making sure they have nests and food, how much more will He take care of us, His most beloved creation? The difference is that as humans we have a choice. We can choose to have His help and peace, to live without anxiety or stress or worry or anger or any negative emotions. We can choose to trust in the Ultimate Plan and to do our part by doing "good works he has planned in advance for us to do." Or we can bear our own burdens, hyper-focus on our selfish, temporal plans and watch worry and stress swallow our lives and damage ourselves and our families.


May we all seek the bigger, better plans for our lives.





"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."


                                                         -Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

The Struggle

Sin is not a generous boss.


I read that somewhere, and it's stuck with me. I always find that the more I give myself over to empty things the more they seem to control me. The more I ignore my conscience and do the wrong thing the more discontent I become. The symptoms that follow are anxiety, fear, frustration and disillusionment, a feeling of emptiness, of my soul being in a state of unrest. I know why I feel this way, because I have become enslaved to empty things, sinful things, and the satisfaction they promise is never as generous as I would hope. In fact, the more life I give to sin, the more life it takes from me, so it rings true when I hear the statement that "sin is not a generous boss."


Have you ever been faced with the reality of wrong and right? A religious person would call it sin and righteousness. Has it ever hit you that although we are grey creatures, there is an ultimate black and an ultimate white? Good and evil? I'm from the school of thought that believes that everyone starts out pretty innocent. We all want to do good, but naturally evil creeps in and entices us to follow it. We are faced with choices every day to either do the right thing, or give ourselves over to the wrong thing. The evil thing. The thing that promises us freedom and success and satisfaction but never provides it. That thing is sin, and sin is a liar.


Let's face it though, we all sin daily. We might not actively seek them out, but these sins probably appear some place in our lives: Anger, resentment, jealousy, bitterness, lust, gossip, envy, selfishness, greed, indulgence. Why do we allow these things to hang around? They give us a quick thrill don't they? A thrill that promises deeper satisfaction but never seems to come through for us. 


Take bitterness, for example. Sitting around brooding about someone makes you feel justified. Your adrenaline pumps, your opiate receptors are drinking it up, and in that moment you feel good. But you hang on long enough and your bitterness will consume you. It will turn into depression. It will be all you think about. Your life will become joyless and ridden with anxiety. We've seen it over and over in the lives of our families and friends. Bitterness is not a generous boss. So why do we choose to serve it?


Have you ever forgiven someone who has wronged you? Have you ever felt the freedom of letting your bitterness go? The weight lifts, it feels good. It feels right. Your happiness comes back and you're no longer a victim, no longer a slave to negativity. Righteousness is a generous boss, because it gives you piece. When you do the right thing, you receive good things, like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 


In Christianity, those "good things" are called the "Fruits of the Spirit." People who are truly following Jesus are supposed to be characterized by those things. Unfortunately, more often than not "Christians" are defined by the bad things, especially in Western Culture. I would venture to say that the stereotype is based on truth. It is probably not the case that Christians in Western Culture are oppressed or misinterpreted. The stereotype is probably there because a vast majority of Western Christians have let hidden sin creep in, and sin is not a generous boss. I am not exempt. We can become enslaved by our judgmental spirit, and our legalistic attitude breeds bitterness, exclusivity, gossip and selfishness. The more you give yourself over to those things, the more enslaved you become.


Even if you aren't a Christian, or a Jew, or a religious person at all, you probably still want to be a good person. You want to be defined as good, and you believe you know what "good" looks like. You still do wrong, but you try to do good. Why is it such a struggle to do it then? We watch movies and root for the good guy. We try to model ourselves after good people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa and Abraham Lincoln and Jesus, but why is it so hard to step out and actually do good? Is it the sacrifice? Maybe it's because the right thing doesn't provide any sort of instant gratification. It's usually difficult to do and it takes a measurable amount of courage. That's sort of how I decipher if what my conscience is telling me is in fact good advice. If what it is asking me to do is uncomfortable and requires sacrifice, thats usually a good indication that it's the right thing to do. I don't know why it is this way, but when I make the sacrifice to do the right thing, those "good things," those "Fruits of the Spirit," always follow.


What defines an evil person then? If a truly good person is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, is a truly evil person defined by the opposite? In the Bible, Galatians 5:19 (NIV) says, "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like." Does struggling with any of those things make you evil though? I'm pretty sure if we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit we struggle with some parts of that definition of "sin nature." However, we would like to believe we're still pretty good, right? What I find interesting is that the Bible says the acts of sinful nature are "obvious." As in, when we do them we know they're wrong. We feel guilty post facto. So why do we get enslaved to them? The more we feed them, the more we suffer, so why do we feed them? I think it's partially because humans are lazy. The right thing is temporarily difficult but pays off later on, and the wrong thing is temporarily exciting but ruins us later on. We live so in the moment that the wrong thing seems like a good choice. We seek such instant gratification that the right thing seems almost like a waste of time. 


I think most peoples' definition of an "evil" person would be someone who has made conscious decisions time and again to do the wrong thing, but not only the wrong thing but hurtful, spiteful things that effect others in drastically negative ways . We all sin (unconsciously most of the time and with minimal guilt later), but in those big moments which define character I'd like to believe that everyone reading this would do the right thing. You would save a life if given the chance, and you wouldn't take your neighbors life because they angered you. You wouldn't purposely and continuously hurt people for your own gain, right? I only assume this about you because I think most evil people wouldn't care to read the introspective blog of an obscure musician. Maybe I'm wrong. 


The point I'm doing a poor job of making is that I think evil people are just like you and me. They probably started out wanting to do good, but slowly, choice by choice, situation by situation, they fed sin in their lives until they became enslaved to it. They made the choice so many times to do the wrong thing, it's almost as if they don't have a choice anymore. Sin nature has consumed them. They are defined by anger and resentment as opposed to love and joy. 


The Struggle between good and evil is the struggle of our lives. The Struggle defines us. When we look back at the lives of those who have passed away we always try to illuminate the positive. We want to believe that good won out, even when it's obviously to everyone that it didn't. I'm a pretty terrible sinner, but I haven't given in completely to that sin nature yet. I'm still fighting, like most people. I live in The Struggle. Most importantly I've accepted grace and forgiveness for my shortcomings so I know I've got a VIP table waiting at the party when I die, but that fact alone doesn't take away the nagging importance of how I choose live my life. Do I embrace The Struggle? Fight the current? The temptations and the instant gratification? Or do I give up and float downstream. I've floated my fair share I think, and I'll float some more soon I'm sure, but for now I think I need to bust out my flippers and struggle for good.


Speaking of that, check out recent updates from my friend Tom in Haiti here: http://www.jesusinhaiti.org/blog/blogger.html


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Also, I'll be writing soon about videos we will be releasing and how pre-orders for our new record will go to raise money for earthquake relief in Haiti.


Thanks for reading.