Chases

I just got back from the dentist and, of course, had to have chocolate cake and a Dr. Pepper. I've recently been introduced by various friends to some incredible musicians. Mind if I share? I hope that you don't. Do check out Steve Moakler on itunes. I believe he was, until recently, a student at Mizzou. This guy has a phenomenal voice and the rare ability to spark a good song into existence. Also, a band called Fundamental Elements has become so amazing to me. Their song "That Girl", especially, is so brilliantly sassy and fantastic that I put it on repeat for hours on end. Also, I've found an amazing rapper (yeah, I know. Rap sucks.). But this guy is straight theology injected into rap. It's incredible! He's got Piper sermon excerpts on Romans 5 and a song defending the doctrine of limited atonement. He's name is Shai Linne. You'd do well to check him out, even if you're like me and can't usually stand rap. I could list more but this would become a showcase and review and that thought wearies me somethin' fierce.

I've been struggling epically with desires and contentment. Some days are much easier than others. Some days aren't. I was reading through 1 Timothy 6:6-11 the other day. Paul says that it is with contentment that great gains in godliness can be found. Why? Because we have nothing here. We are the terrestrial tenants. And so, Paul argues, since our eternal destiny will not be inclusive of the stuff we accumulate here, then why crave it? Yes, these verses deal immediately with material possessions and the harmful senselessness of it. But, like everything, this is an issue of the wellspring (what Prov.4:23 calls the heart). It's a contest of desires. If I have food and clothing, I'm supposed to be content. Why? Because my desires are to be sated with something else, with something more. What am I to chase and be satisfied with if not the beautiful things on the earth?

A relationship is something that I can't take with me to glory. Despite what the poets sing, a romance is limited to life on the ground. It's like a balloon tied to a tree. It will never leave the atmosphere. So what do I do? I am designed to desire. The original blueprint for man included him being a chaser. But cravings can burn my world down if they seek to embrace the many infernos found in my stay on earth.

But verse 11 unleashes me! Look at this: "But as for you, O man of God, flee these things [the things of this world that I tend to crave]. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness." Pursue these! Chase these! Chase them down and capture them. Engross yourself in the art of pursuit. But why is that hard for me? Because the object of that chases is godliness. It's a pursuit of something that my sinful flesh wants nothing to do with. It will require an iron fist and a heart in love with God. Righteousness. Godliness. Faith. Love. Gentleness. I want more of them. And I want to want more of them!

If I can become thoughtfully desirous (the opposite of infatuated) with these traits of a man of God, I can enjoy and find intense (and intensely real) fulfillment in Christ, thus glorifying God. And for me to seek that kind of contentment in the love for a woman (though that love be good), I'd be missing the point entirely. I can't take it with me. But those 1 Tim.6:11 attributes will be with me in glory and, indeed, already permeate it. To chase a romance without first having captured godliness is a remarkable display of wasted time.

Passion Without Faithfulness?

The topic of passion has been in my mind these last couple of days. I recently stopped by a youth group meeting at a church I had not attended in years. Many of the old, familiar faces were no longer there. But there was a very noticeable "electricity" in the group. I hate using that word to describe a feeling. But the students in assembly were simply charged with an almost palpable sense of community and fellowship. I thought that was interesting. Then the pastor got up to preach. Despite the clarity and steadfast treatment of the text, I noticed that he used the word "passion" a lot. I think I actually lost count of the number. He urged the students to have passion and commended them for their passion and plead that they would cultivate and control the right and wrong type of passions, respectively.

Why bring this up? It's not only in this one instance that I have noticed an overabundance of passion-oriented preaching. Note that I didn't say "passionate preaching" but passion-oriented preaching, preaching that is geared towards and designed for the purpose of the self production of passion. And when I say passion, I mean an intense zeal and excitement. This mild obsession with passion doesn't seem, to me, an entirely even-handed treatment of the Christian life. Did I say mild? Isn't there an entire annual conference called "Passion"?

Now, let me make one thing clear. I am not against passion. I am not against godly emotions (or "affections", as the Puritans would say). I love it when I read or study a text and the words rip apart my pride and melt my eyes and shatter my sinful flesh. It provokes this rumbling, hot fervor and zeal for my Master's glory. I would call that a passion. There is a passion for passion in the youth culture of the Body of Christ. I've witnessed it in many different churches and individually in the lives of Christians. To me, this passion is almost alarming. It is alarming because it is unbalanced. What is it missing? It lacks a definite emphasis on faithfulness. Passion has become the 10th fruit of the Spirit. The mark of passion has almost entirely become a mark of the godly. If you would be godly, they seem to say, you surely must have this passion. A Christian or a church that seems "dead" or is simply more subdued in their expression of worship or zeal is branded as unspiritual by many young Christians I have spoken with. That idea is a danger to the church. Because passion is not always there. Passion cannot always be there.

Sometimes I open my Bible and the ink slides off my mind into a harmless puddle on the floor. Now, maybe I'm not a very spiritual and passionate Christian. Or maybe, like most of us, I'm simply a human Christian. When that happens, am I to be despondent for my lack of passion? I am to be faithful.

In Revelation 2:4-5, Jesus rebukes a church for abandoning their first love (namely, Christ). That church had fallen out of love with Jesus. They had no passion for Him. They had no godly affectionate response to their Savior. What does Christ command them to do about it? Wait for that passion to come back? Pray that God would stir their hearts back to a godly zeal, fit for worship and service? No. He tells them to repent and to "do the works you did at first". Do the works you did at first? That is faithfulness. It is obediently seeking after the Lord through the Scriptures, through prayer even though you feel dry and dead and empty. That is what faithfulness is. And it is that faithfulness that produced that godly passion in the first place.

My fear is that passion is getting the spotlight and faithfulness is trapped back in Galatians 5 with the other marks of the Christian. Young Christians are taught and encouraged to sprint and to search for energy bursts yet they seem ignorant the truth that our faith is a marathon. When Paul talked about Christianity as a race, he was not talking about a sprint of passion but a faithful, long trek that was indeed passionate. We need to be training and conditioning ourselves with this marathon mentality. It is a desperate need today.

Thoughts About Words

Lines from Vonnegut collide with Psalm 119 and my thoughts sling to the floor like cold mashed potatoes. I asked her what she thought Beauty was. We were talking about Beauty with a capital B. As she boiled down her answer to a purely good shine, I washed my throat with Dr. Pepper then whistled along to a beautiful song. We bantered back and forth about flowers and rust and babies and scars and sunsets. My knees felt like they had been kicked in. Would my pillow release me from the usual morning headlock? Could I twist its wrist? Would I even whimper in defiance?

Like an oak tree that drops its resurrection fruit, such furious words slide down the clock and break my nose with their reckless velocity. They brought live ammunition for their corroded cannons. Did they even know who they were aiming for? But they shot me in the head and in the heart and in my arms and legs. And how grateful I am for these wounds! If they had not buried alive those words meant for my heart, I might just be healthy and whole and comfortable today. What a terrible thought! But I praise God for such providential and dusty shrapnel that bled my soul dry and restarted my mind. Praise God for Scripture. Amen.

Back Home

This night is warm and windy. Though I'm tucked away in our dark living room, I like to imagine that there are clear, liquid stars overhead, barely stirred by a virgin summer breeze and dying to fall. In this sky stuffed with heat, the constellations seem to be melting. I'd love to see what star droplets look like. Would they drip through the Earth's crust like battery acid through paper? Would I be able to gaze at their glory long enough make a memory before my eyes burned away? Silly thoughts from a tongue tied dreamer.

I've been in dogged pursuit of what it means to be sensible. I heard once that men should be old when they're young and young when they're old. What I wouldn't give merit such a description when this corpse is hugged by the unfamiliar earth. Unfamiliar. What a world I've lived in these 21 years and yet I've only covered a pinprick of the area with feet too small for adventure. Still, I've never gotten used to this place. I pray to God that I never start to love this blue ball He's made for us. Though I'm thankful that He sparked it and spun it, I've daily been increasing in my jagged awareness that I'm a tenant. More and more, I feel like I've stumbled into a festival full of strangers and I'm not wearing a name tag. I pray that this sentiment doesn't shrink my compassion for those strangers. All the same, I'm thankful for this restless spirit. May God keep such venomous comfort as far from my shores as He wills.

Go Cardinals.

Your PB from J for today: "You get that from this grove, yes?"

I have a lot of growing up to do.

Once More, From the Beginning

I must confess that my love for music had been in distress these last couple of years. To be more exact, it's really my love for the double bass that was in the death throes. I blamed the university. In truth, I know that I was half at fault. Sawing away at that block of wood was like chewing on a flavorless piece of gum. The enjoyment has already left but you're still repeating the motions. I'm happy to announce, however, that my love is growing warmer for the instrument. I've begun to record myself practicing and it has made all the difference. To be confronted with such awful habits and inconsistencies! But once I swallowed the bitter pill of observation, I was able to go back to the bass and correct it. Collapsed fingers. Hunched shoulders. Thoughtless and constant vibrato. These cracks have haunted the surface of my playing for years and my teacher has always pointed them out. But until I was able to see the flaws through a lens, up on a T.V, I had no idea that they were that unruly! Recalcitrant habits of an immature hobbit.

I'm trying to write again every day and, while this isn't particularly important or stunning to most people, it does serve my purpose.

Come, May. Come soon.

Applause is a strange thing. Applesauce makes much more sense.

April is the month of death and longing. I continue to scramble and I trip over my own feet. Every moment feels like it's five minutes to hindsight. What do you do when your knees go out from jumping through too many hoops? I'm going to need a walker soon. Weather in Texas has been beautiful. It's been absolutely beautiful, like a home team victory. I've been recovering from all the carpet burns on my mind. You're such a sappy cello tonight. But such happiness! It makes me want to slip into my skinny jeans and dance around while eating low fat yogurt. If I could see the inside of your eyelids, I could understand all your dreams. This life is a fist fight and our jaws are porcelain. We eat up the uppercuts and gulp down the shortcuts. Make sense?