EL’s Dribble

The past five years for Sarah and I have been the toughest of our lives. We’ve had to endure some tragic moments, work through the realities of marriage and struggle to learn on the job as we lead our church. We’ve had every range of emotion – from elation to frustration; from awe-filled to awful. That last one doesn’t really work, but oh-well.

And God seems to keep coming back to one question, “Do you love Me more than everything else?” And there are moments I feel like I answer well and yet life puts it to the test again – whether it’s frustration with our church or working through the pains of having children [or not having children]. Life finds a way to put what you believe in the crucible.

I find myself needing to choose over and over… is it God that I love and follow? Or is it success? Or respect? Or fame? Or security? It’s always the simple truths that I have to come back to.

I was flipping channels and I came across some random TBN-ish station where they were interviewing Nick Vujicic. He was born without arms and legs, radically received Jesus and is now traveling the world as an evangelist. And I caught the interview right when he said, “God asked me, ‘Nick, would you rather have me or arms and legs?’” Nick shared how he was whining to God about not being like everyone else… and in his moment of despair, God asked him that question and told him that he’ll do things he’ll never imagine doing. But it doesn’t include arms and legs.

And I started thinking – most of us [including most Christians] will think that’s just down right cruel. That God would pit himself against something like arms and legs. It’s borderline abusive. But the reality of our world is this – we will never be free if God isn’t the one we desire most. We will worship, build our worth or grow co-dependent on anything we can put our hands on. And I’m realizing that I’m never really free if Jesus isn’t the one I love most – if his opinion, his approval, his embrace isn’t the most important one.

I’m finding that everything I do puts that to the test… when I talk to people I’ve never met, lead with ideas that I “think” are from God or endure failure in things I try, it always comes up… “Is pleasing me, obeying me, following me… reason enough?” He has to ask me that… he has to… for my own good. Most of the time, I hate it.

And I have to choose every day… and often multiple times a day [or I won't make it]… “Alright Jesus… it’s you that I want. It’s your opinion that matters, it’s your truth that I believe, it’s your love that I bank on. I choose you.” Over the fleeting affection of fame, attention, respect, success. And yes, maybe even arms and legs. And the freedom that he promises begins to pour into my soul… sometimes just little droplets… but other times in great outpourings. And it can’t be found anywhere else. God pitting himself against my desires/dreams/idols is what I need whether I like it or not.

I always crave to hear about my parents’ history… how they ended up where they are at. And whenever I ask them questions like, “How did you get together?” or “Why did you make this decision?” it’s always followed by a very short and undescriptive response. Did they not want to share the foibles and failures it took to get to where they were? Were they just tired? Maybe it wasn’t the right time for a long story?

So whenever I get to hear the inner workings of how things came to be in my family, I get very intrigued. It happened more with my Mom as I grew older – she was willing to share her mistakes, her reasoning for things, the things she learned along the way. And I’m so grateful for that… so much of what she shared continues to pour life into me today.

But my Dad is a different story – not so much that he doesn’t want to share, but that he likes phrasing everything into a lesson. Which is good in some cases, but belaboring in others. And often we remember and learn the most when we’re able to peer into the heart and mind of the person who’s sharing, learn from where they went wrong or right and begin to live that out in our own lives. We just don’t learn as much from static propositional statements [note to preachers].

So Dad and I were talking and the topic was his decision to go into the food science – he studied at UC Davis at the urging of my grandfather to prepare to take over the family fishery business. It’s funny, but my life would be very different right now had my Dad been in the fish business and thus moved back to Taiwan. I would definitely be a Chien-Ming Wang fan for sure.

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Photographer: jmoorecoll.wordpress.com

It’s best to read the previous post before reading this one… it’s like watching Speed 2 without the original Speed and the magnificent Keanu setting the jaw-dropping action trajectory. Yeah.

When I think of when I’ve really experienced God’s love, it’s often been very simple revelations. It’s noticing what has always been there in the first place, but I was too caught up with myself to see it. And the surrender point comes when I’ve come to my end… where I can no longer figure it out, all resources are spent and I’ve done all I know how to get what I want. In great proclamation or in a mental whisper… I mutter, “I give up.”

Like when you’re looking for your keys. And you do everything… backtrack, look through all your pants, look underneath every cushion and then you’re beat. You’ve looked everywhere and got no where else to look. So you sit down, defeated. And you look up and they’re right next to the door where you last left them.

One example…

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We were reading through Genesis in our Monday house community. I’ve read through Genesis a few times but didn’t remember this part… a verse that seems fairly key.

“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” [15:1b]

God had just given Abram his mandate to bless the world. He messes up already, but hasn’t derailed the train entirely. And I think we all know he’s in for a wild ride. And God comes to him and says something very simple… don’t fear, I will protect… and I’m your reward, your treasure. Don’t forget it.

I think how often I’ve been consumed with everything else. Success, respect and security. These have often been my treasure, my reward… for all my hard work, for all my heartache. And yet God reminds Abram [and me] that with all that he’s going to be doing, the great “mission” he’s going to be on, the things that will come along and masquerade as the prize… God says… I’m your prize, I’m your treasure, I’m your reward. And because of that you have no need to fear. If you hold on to that, fear will not be oppressive.

And when I think of the free-est moments in my life… it’s the times when I’m relishing being God’s prize and his treasure… and fixed on God being my reward, his approval being my prize. It’s the Bible’s claim that if we make anything but Jesus our treasure, it will result in slavery. But when Jesus is our treasure, it only leads to freedom.

Still a work in progress.

The longer I’m here and the more I get to know myself and our generation, the more I realize that our biggest obstacle is fear. We’re crippled by it in ways that are deeply rooted. And it’s disheartening in so many ways.

And I think it is exasperated by the fact that so many of us [and I have to speak primarily as a child of a middle class home] had it easy growing up. Things came to us easy, we didn’t need to work [hard] for our education, we didn’t need to wait too long to satiate our selfish/material hunger attacks. I wish I could exclude myself from this, but that would be disingenuous.

It’s the stuff that our parents would tell us all along – “You’ve got it easy.” or “You don’t know what hardship is.” or “You don’t know what it means to work hard.” And the truth is that they’re right. Sure we work hard if we have to wait in line for an X-BOX or an iPhone. But when things come fairly easy, what does it really matter?

I think the issue is multifaceted – in that we are also children of broken homes, dysfunctional relationships and workaholic parents. And there is a bit of that in play… why work so hard at the expense of our families and a happy life?

But I feel like the most negative by-product of all this is that we’re a generation crippled by fear. We always feel like we have something to lose – and if we take any risks, our biggest fear is whether we’ll lose what we have. We end up making choices that perpetuate the fear. Choosing careers for money, choosing relationships that are easy. Never facing up to issues in our lives because we’re afraid of the horrible truth that we might not have it all together. That we might not have what it takes.

I think our generation of men are chickens. And I say that because I wrestle with the big chicken in myself. Wanting the easy route, always wanting to escape… maybe that’s why our generation is so enslaved by porn. Or so attention deficit or so commitment phobic or never really following through on things. I think that’s why our generation has so many people who are in their 30’s and 40’s who act like their 20. And 20 year old’s who act like their 14. It seems like a mass deterioration of maturity.

We’re afraid of wearing clothes that are uncoordinated. We’re afraid of saying how we really feel [we say what we think people want to hear]. We’re afraid of letting anyone get too close because what if they see who we really are? We’re afraid of giving our best effort… because if we do we’d have no excuse if we failed.

And I think if I were to pinpoint one specific fear… it would be the fear of failure. Failure in whatever endeavor [career, relationships, family, spiritual, etc.] means rejection. Sort of like sailing in for a beautiful layup to quickly find Dikembe Mutombo airmailing your shot 10 rows up into the stands. Rejection means that you had to eat your dreams. Rejection means that you might need to deal with the fact that you’re not invincible. Rejection also means rejection from the people that we long to impress. And we can’t take the rejection… we can’t.

And in the end we’re handcuffed. We have our toys, we eat well… but very few of us are men. We live crippled lives of fear and never really live free.

This is not necessarily a rant but an observation. And I think that’s why the Gospel still makes sense in this generation. It’s why the Gospel still makes sense to me, if not more so now. That’s it for this one… I’m now afraid that I’ve written too much.