This video is an excerpt from John Piper's How to Kill Sin series. You can listen to the entire second part of the series (where the excerpt comes from) by clicking:
http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/how-to-kill-sin-part-2#/listen/full
Friday, September 30, 2011
Rescue
After a group bible study this week a woman approached me with a question.
She waited till most everyone had left then quietly said, “I have a niece who lives out of state that has a drug addiction. She’s tried to quit but she keeps going back to it. And now she’s in trouble with the law and she’s unemployed and practically homeless and wants me to bring her up here to help her try to fix her life again.
But I don’t know if I should. She’s been here before and there’s so much drama that comes with her. Even my other nieces and nephews and grandchildren have been caught up in it in the past. It’s like when she comes to town, she ruins our lives.
What should I do?”
I thought for a minute and then I told her this story, “When my brother and I were young we each took some lifeguard training classes. He was excellent and for a while became an ocean lifeguard. I was not as good of a swimmer and took a summer job renting out kayaks. In the first part of training though they always begin by teaching you this...
That when a person is in the full throws of drowning. When they are thrashing uncontrollably without any hope of swimming on their own, you cannot just rush in alone to save them. They are excessively panicked and in their adrenaline surge even a child can be stronger than you. They will grab you with complete desperation. In their terror they will actually push you under them in the water and try to stand on you just to get a few more seconds of oxygen. Ultimately they will drown you before finally drowning themselves.”
With tears welling up in her eyes the woman nodded her head in agreeance. Then I told her this story...
“A few weeks ago I was walking through the warehouse where I work and a co-worker of mine was passing by wearing a brand new, spotless, adult sized, little league baseball cap. I smiled and complimented him on the hat. He turned around, took off the hat and showed me where a boy’s name was embroidered on the side. It wasn’t his name so I asked whose name it is and he said his nephews. The team had just had these hats made in his honor over the weekend.
He then went on to tell me of his nephew and a few friends boating out at the lake a couple weeks ago. His nephew had been swimming just a few feet from the boat when he screamed out and began to splash rapidly. The thought is that he must’ve fully cramped up because he was normally a good swimmer. The boys girlfriend being in the boat jumped in the water and swam to help him only to grab his hand as his body went completely under. Later she said, “It was like something really heavy was pulling him down.” The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds. His fingers slipped from hers and the boy was gone. Hours later search crews recovered his body.
“Now,” I said “In answer to your question. We all have that fear that if we rush in to help someone, they might pull us down with them. And I’ll admit to you that an addict can destroy an entire city street with the violence, the thefts, the arson, and the chaos they’re world brings. In my life, watching not just myself but, my friends, family, co-workers and even a fiancé succumb to addictions. Watching some slip away quickly while others just seem to drown for years. All of it has really only made me wish for one thing: I wish was a better lifeguard.
And I guess that’d be my advice to you. Gather your family together. Explain to them that someone is drowning right in front of them and that’s dangerous for everyone. But if they can make a decision to bond together, to get educated, organized, and work as a team, you might be able to save her.
You’ll need literature, support groups, local counseling centers. You’ll probably even need to pool your money together for a treatment center. Then in about a week or two once you’re prepared, call your niece and tell her what the family has committed to do. Then go in and get her.
Then as I looked directly to this woman I could see her tears had been wiped away and replaced with a look of determination. I then said, “Even with your best efforts it’s going to be rough. You are consciously leaving the warm, dry, and safe comfort of your life to dive into the same freezing, thrashing hell that she’s drowning in.
She might fight you and in the end, might even slip from your fingers. Your fears are legitimate. But know this, she is drowning. And your own fear of drowning like her is not an excuse to just stand on the shore and watch.”
She waited till most everyone had left then quietly said, “I have a niece who lives out of state that has a drug addiction. She’s tried to quit but she keeps going back to it. And now she’s in trouble with the law and she’s unemployed and practically homeless and wants me to bring her up here to help her try to fix her life again.
But I don’t know if I should. She’s been here before and there’s so much drama that comes with her. Even my other nieces and nephews and grandchildren have been caught up in it in the past. It’s like when she comes to town, she ruins our lives.
What should I do?”
I thought for a minute and then I told her this story, “When my brother and I were young we each took some lifeguard training classes. He was excellent and for a while became an ocean lifeguard. I was not as good of a swimmer and took a summer job renting out kayaks. In the first part of training though they always begin by teaching you this...
That when a person is in the full throws of drowning. When they are thrashing uncontrollably without any hope of swimming on their own, you cannot just rush in alone to save them. They are excessively panicked and in their adrenaline surge even a child can be stronger than you. They will grab you with complete desperation. In their terror they will actually push you under them in the water and try to stand on you just to get a few more seconds of oxygen. Ultimately they will drown you before finally drowning themselves.”
With tears welling up in her eyes the woman nodded her head in agreeance. Then I told her this story...
“A few weeks ago I was walking through the warehouse where I work and a co-worker of mine was passing by wearing a brand new, spotless, adult sized, little league baseball cap. I smiled and complimented him on the hat. He turned around, took off the hat and showed me where a boy’s name was embroidered on the side. It wasn’t his name so I asked whose name it is and he said his nephews. The team had just had these hats made in his honor over the weekend.
He then went on to tell me of his nephew and a few friends boating out at the lake a couple weeks ago. His nephew had been swimming just a few feet from the boat when he screamed out and began to splash rapidly. The thought is that he must’ve fully cramped up because he was normally a good swimmer. The boys girlfriend being in the boat jumped in the water and swam to help him only to grab his hand as his body went completely under. Later she said, “It was like something really heavy was pulling him down.” The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds. His fingers slipped from hers and the boy was gone. Hours later search crews recovered his body.
“Now,” I said “In answer to your question. We all have that fear that if we rush in to help someone, they might pull us down with them. And I’ll admit to you that an addict can destroy an entire city street with the violence, the thefts, the arson, and the chaos they’re world brings. In my life, watching not just myself but, my friends, family, co-workers and even a fiancé succumb to addictions. Watching some slip away quickly while others just seem to drown for years. All of it has really only made me wish for one thing: I wish was a better lifeguard.
And I guess that’d be my advice to you. Gather your family together. Explain to them that someone is drowning right in front of them and that’s dangerous for everyone. But if they can make a decision to bond together, to get educated, organized, and work as a team, you might be able to save her.
You’ll need literature, support groups, local counseling centers. You’ll probably even need to pool your money together for a treatment center. Then in about a week or two once you’re prepared, call your niece and tell her what the family has committed to do. Then go in and get her.
Then as I looked directly to this woman I could see her tears had been wiped away and replaced with a look of determination. I then said, “Even with your best efforts it’s going to be rough. You are consciously leaving the warm, dry, and safe comfort of your life to dive into the same freezing, thrashing hell that she’s drowning in.
She might fight you and in the end, might even slip from your fingers. Your fears are legitimate. But know this, she is drowning. And your own fear of drowning like her is not an excuse to just stand on the shore and watch.”
Monday, September 26, 2011
Toyohiko Kagawa, as told by John MacArthur
My dad told the story of a poor but well- known Japanese Christian who is now with the Lord. His name was Toyohiko Kagawa. He was burdened deeply for the poor Japanese people in the slums of Kobi. And he spent the years of his life in those slums demonstrating his love to those who were downcast and down trodden. He was a small man with a frail body. And one of his lungs was diseased with tuberculosis.
On a visit to America the doctors told him that he couldn't live long, so he returned to the slums of Kobi saying, "If my life is short, it will be full." He moved into a room in the slums so the needy could get to him and there in the stench of those back streets Toyohiko Kagawa lived. Every day he preached in the streets to the poor people.
On one particular day as he was preaching, his text was John 3:16 and his theme was the love of God for unworthy sinners. It wasn't an easy place to preach the love of God, a dismal rain, a dank street, dispersed the crowd and rough men laughed and mocked at him. What does this little man with his funny talk about God know? And what does anyone know about whether God loves us or not?" one man mocked. It seemed they had the right side of the argument for even as Toyohiko tried to answer them he coughed the hacking cough and spit up a significant amount of blood.
They laughed and said, "If God loves you why doesn't He do something for you?" The persistent little man lifted his arm, wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve and went on with the story of God's love. And the biographer says, "Gradually in the cold street there ruckus voices were stilled, for stealing in on their pagan minds was the realization that right before their eyes in that little sick man was the very proof of what he was saying. Toyohiko Kagawa was actually a demonstration of God's love."
On a visit to America the doctors told him that he couldn't live long, so he returned to the slums of Kobi saying, "If my life is short, it will be full." He moved into a room in the slums so the needy could get to him and there in the stench of those back streets Toyohiko Kagawa lived. Every day he preached in the streets to the poor people.
On one particular day as he was preaching, his text was John 3:16 and his theme was the love of God for unworthy sinners. It wasn't an easy place to preach the love of God, a dismal rain, a dank street, dispersed the crowd and rough men laughed and mocked at him. What does this little man with his funny talk about God know? And what does anyone know about whether God loves us or not?" one man mocked. It seemed they had the right side of the argument for even as Toyohiko tried to answer them he coughed the hacking cough and spit up a significant amount of blood.
They laughed and said, "If God loves you why doesn't He do something for you?" The persistent little man lifted his arm, wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve and went on with the story of God's love. And the biographer says, "Gradually in the cold street there ruckus voices were stilled, for stealing in on their pagan minds was the realization that right before their eyes in that little sick man was the very proof of what he was saying. Toyohiko Kagawa was actually a demonstration of God's love."
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Mirror
“For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” -1 Samuel 16:7
I have known some beautiful people, not inwardly- no. Physically, bodily gorgeous, exotic, alluring people, men and women. Even in personality, the Type-A outgoing, energetic-charismatic-catalyst type of people that light up rooms as though taking stage in a sold out show. In fact, that’s a pretty good description, maybe I’d be better in saying, “I’ve known some beautiful performers.” And I have done everything to model myself after them.
In fact, it’s not unfair to say half the women I’ve dated made their living on stage. And there’s a few excellent songs like Turn the Page that tell about the life of a performer after the lights have faded or who we are on the road between shows but this isn’t really an essay about that. In fact this is about being as far away from the stage as possible. This is about crouching down, hidden in the shadows of anything that’ll take the attention away from you so we don’t have to feel like we’re performing at all.
This is about turning our faces away; even away from ourselves. In the bible it’s written in James, “For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” –James 1:24 Because once we’ve seen our true selves, we don’t want to remember what we saw. We can’t live with what we saw.
I once heard a morbid fortune cookie style saying that said, “The world around you is a reflection of the person within you.” I don’t know if that’s true but I’ve often thought of that when I’ve found myself surrounded by people I don’t like.
During one particularly bad summer in my past, I had made a habit of getting good and drunk at home before going to dive bars to pick fights with anyone who’d fight back. On one of these nights, a friend had come along thinking we were just going to let loose and have fun (not knowing my recent ulterior hobby). By the 3rd bar I was being launched out of my friend yelling as he picked me up from the sidewalk said, “How long are you going to keep fighting with everyone?” To which in passing clarity I said, “Until someone beats me up.” “What!?! Why!?” he said. And I remember mumbling, “So I can look as bad outside as I feel inside.”
You see it wasn’t right that my heart had been through all the miserable times of the last year and my face still came out looking unscathed. It wasn’t right that I could still dress myself, go outside and walk vertically like everyone else. I wanted ambulances. I wanted panic. I wanted everyone to look at me with horror, shock, and pity. I had bean inwardly beaten unconscious and left for dead. Now I wanted that to happen physically so someone would finally take notice and rush to help me.
Has anyone else ever felt that?
It gets worse though because for years in my unhealed scars of that summer, I’ve actually beaten others into feeling that same way. Sadists call it self-pity. Realists call it tough-love. But it’s more than that, its shame. In fact, it’s more than just shame because it’s a shame that begins with guilt.
We who have been ripped naked and raped continually by years of addiction, or self-abuse or depression or just sin in an aimlessly violent world... when we are finally given a day of rest or the hope of freedom or even just an hour of peace are suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. Because the sun has finally risen from the longest night only to cast a little light on how our lives are destroyed. Everything is in pieces. Everything is lost.
In my two decades of drugs and alcohol I had lost, sold, traded and given away every small ounce of dignity I ever had claim to. I had failed every white eyed, childhood expectation I had ever set. I had slowly manipulated every disintegrating hope ever put on me by my family, my friends, my bosses, everyone. And that’s just the beginning of the level of guilt that came with sobriety.
Then the shame. Living in shame is like a sort of after-suicide existence. Because you’ve already killed yourself, there’s nothing left but that fact that you given up and quit living. So now what? You drift in shame like a facedown corpse that’s now worth nothing. What’s left of your body is just a cracked shell, empty.
In the last part of my drug and drinking days while fighting from bar to bar I had also started pouring zippo fluid on my bathroom mirror and watching as my face burned. I wasn’t sure about a God or heaven but I was certain of hell and knew I was at the gate. It was a long way from the applause and adoration of life on a stage.
That’s why the idea of a Christ centered redemption is so important to me now. The new ideas for me to learn and follow like when T.S Elliot says, “You don’t have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”
Then I find scripture’s like the one I started this essay with; that God doesn’t look at the mess we’ve made of our lives. That God pushes all the ashes of that arson aside to clearly see the heart within us and says, “Yes, I can put my own spirit into that.” That’s good news for someone like me.
Not that God will repair the damage I’ve caused or heal this torn down body but that none of the remaining pieces of the whole ever even mattered. It was all just a temporary vessel for my soul. And even in the fragility of my own heart, through Christ my soul is strengthened. That’s very good news for us all.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” -2 Corinthians 4:16
I have known some beautiful people, not inwardly- no. Physically, bodily gorgeous, exotic, alluring people, men and women. Even in personality, the Type-A outgoing, energetic-charismatic-catalyst type of people that light up rooms as though taking stage in a sold out show. In fact, that’s a pretty good description, maybe I’d be better in saying, “I’ve known some beautiful performers.” And I have done everything to model myself after them.
In fact, it’s not unfair to say half the women I’ve dated made their living on stage. And there’s a few excellent songs like Turn the Page that tell about the life of a performer after the lights have faded or who we are on the road between shows but this isn’t really an essay about that. In fact this is about being as far away from the stage as possible. This is about crouching down, hidden in the shadows of anything that’ll take the attention away from you so we don’t have to feel like we’re performing at all.
This is about turning our faces away; even away from ourselves. In the bible it’s written in James, “For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” –James 1:24 Because once we’ve seen our true selves, we don’t want to remember what we saw. We can’t live with what we saw.
I once heard a morbid fortune cookie style saying that said, “The world around you is a reflection of the person within you.” I don’t know if that’s true but I’ve often thought of that when I’ve found myself surrounded by people I don’t like.
During one particularly bad summer in my past, I had made a habit of getting good and drunk at home before going to dive bars to pick fights with anyone who’d fight back. On one of these nights, a friend had come along thinking we were just going to let loose and have fun (not knowing my recent ulterior hobby). By the 3rd bar I was being launched out of my friend yelling as he picked me up from the sidewalk said, “How long are you going to keep fighting with everyone?” To which in passing clarity I said, “Until someone beats me up.” “What!?! Why!?” he said. And I remember mumbling, “So I can look as bad outside as I feel inside.”
You see it wasn’t right that my heart had been through all the miserable times of the last year and my face still came out looking unscathed. It wasn’t right that I could still dress myself, go outside and walk vertically like everyone else. I wanted ambulances. I wanted panic. I wanted everyone to look at me with horror, shock, and pity. I had bean inwardly beaten unconscious and left for dead. Now I wanted that to happen physically so someone would finally take notice and rush to help me.
Has anyone else ever felt that?
It gets worse though because for years in my unhealed scars of that summer, I’ve actually beaten others into feeling that same way. Sadists call it self-pity. Realists call it tough-love. But it’s more than that, its shame. In fact, it’s more than just shame because it’s a shame that begins with guilt.
We who have been ripped naked and raped continually by years of addiction, or self-abuse or depression or just sin in an aimlessly violent world... when we are finally given a day of rest or the hope of freedom or even just an hour of peace are suddenly overwhelmed with guilt. Because the sun has finally risen from the longest night only to cast a little light on how our lives are destroyed. Everything is in pieces. Everything is lost.
In my two decades of drugs and alcohol I had lost, sold, traded and given away every small ounce of dignity I ever had claim to. I had failed every white eyed, childhood expectation I had ever set. I had slowly manipulated every disintegrating hope ever put on me by my family, my friends, my bosses, everyone. And that’s just the beginning of the level of guilt that came with sobriety.
Then the shame. Living in shame is like a sort of after-suicide existence. Because you’ve already killed yourself, there’s nothing left but that fact that you given up and quit living. So now what? You drift in shame like a facedown corpse that’s now worth nothing. What’s left of your body is just a cracked shell, empty.
In the last part of my drug and drinking days while fighting from bar to bar I had also started pouring zippo fluid on my bathroom mirror and watching as my face burned. I wasn’t sure about a God or heaven but I was certain of hell and knew I was at the gate. It was a long way from the applause and adoration of life on a stage.
That’s why the idea of a Christ centered redemption is so important to me now. The new ideas for me to learn and follow like when T.S Elliot says, “You don’t have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”
Then I find scripture’s like the one I started this essay with; that God doesn’t look at the mess we’ve made of our lives. That God pushes all the ashes of that arson aside to clearly see the heart within us and says, “Yes, I can put my own spirit into that.” That’s good news for someone like me.
Not that God will repair the damage I’ve caused or heal this torn down body but that none of the remaining pieces of the whole ever even mattered. It was all just a temporary vessel for my soul. And even in the fragility of my own heart, through Christ my soul is strengthened. That’s very good news for us all.
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” -2 Corinthians 4:16
Sunday, September 18, 2011
I Knew Peter Pan
Dedicated to Hannah
I spent 20 years running and gunning across this country. I’ve lived in 16 cities in 7 states. I’ve driven ‘borrowed’ cars and stolen cars from S. Carolina to Florida to Oregon to Minnesota and back with another dozen states in between, all without a license.
For work I’ve stolen, bought, used, and distributed everything from drugs, to guns, to women. I used lies, violence and crime as tools pulled from my pocket without a second thought just to get ahead, get laid or get out. In my more stable years I ran bars and strip clubs in Minnesota, Florida, Washington and a whorehouse in Mexico.
Through it all I never really thought of myself as being a bad guy though. In fact, most people who've known me say I’m quite charismatic with a generous personality. I have been known to be a little temperamental.
Tonight I was talking to one such friend who’s known me for 15 years. She put it best when she said, “You’re just not a stay-at-home kind of guy”.
As I was tripping through those fun-loving decades, I envisioned myself as a sort of Peter Pan fighting off pirates in squad cars. Women loved the way I could find romance in any dark alley or fluorescent-lit train station as a sort of 'happy-thought' in an urban never-never land where all the lost boys thronged to me as their inspiration to stay young by staying out, staying free, and never touching the ground. I was the party that never ended.
As I rounded 30 on two wheels and watched a few friends fly off the track by either dying or going to prison, I did finally begin to question my own immortality. "I better kick it down a gear", I thought to myself so I don’t have the same embarrassingly untimely end they do.
That led me from the limelight of Main streets on Saturday nights into the flickering, smoke choked late night dark bars on weeknights where I was ‘one of those guys’ who’d be sitting by himself with a triple Jim Beam in a large glass and an overflowed ashtray pinning down a hundred dollar bill.
I heard a story once how Dean Martin just before he died could be found in a particular restaurant bar most nights where he would order tall glasses of whiskey, one after another, and just sit alone until having to be carried out by some cheap bar staff and put into a taxi. Well, I was not yet as old as Dean but it was looking like that was going to be the rest of my life as well.
To be honest, I had nothing left. My body couldn’t handle the drugs anymore. The decades of dealing with strippers had left me too mean and vengeful to be charming to anyone. Even my once heroically prolific sex life had dwindled to complete impotence from all the damage whiskey causes. Even the blessed V-pills weren't enough after awhile leaving me to stumble out of hotel room’s ashamed, enraged, and back into bars for another large glass.
By now, the romance had drowned completely. My Peter Pan syndrome had become a kamikaze’s last flight. Now I was just circling around looking for something large and dramatic to nosedive into. I was 35.
With no money or job or home left, my mom finally pony’d up and moved me back to Idaho where I could be closer to her. I did my best that first year to live what I’d heard was a normal life. I got a semi-steady job as an overnight office janitor and learned to make sugar-based moonshine on weekends to supplement my drinking costs.
The janitor job paid nine dollars an hour and half the shine I made was mine to drink. But I always had another couple gallons in quart mason jars to take to the country bars and sell out back for twenty-bucks apiece. That’d pay for the rest of my drinks inside.
Within a year, I was being launched from my new apartment with multiple eviction charges and was now working as a day labor temp for a wax warehouse. Then those pirates in squad cars finally caught on to me. I ended up in jail with 2 DUI’s within 10 months. Sitting in the holding cell with handcuffs on, I was really starting to question my immortality now and whether or not I had any chance at a future left at all.
After being bailed from jail the second time and brought home by a caring girlfriend ten years younger than me, I finally went to an AA meeting down the street from my Mom’s house. As I walked in, I grabbed a luke-warm cup of bad coffee, politely smiled to all my new lost boys and introduced myself as “just John”.
I've been sober now for one year next month. I've quit smoking. I’ve leveled off financially so my bills are getting paid. I’ve got steady work as a forklift driver. I’ve begun reading the bible and believing what I read. I’ve made friends with a few pastors who help me pray and I’ve began talking to my family again daily.
I've had counseling, imprisonment, probation, and fines all taken care of responsibly as week-by-week my life begins to resemble something of societies normalcy. All of these things I’ve done happily just to leave behind the life of death I was beginning to spiral in.
But still, you can’t just expect me to be a “stay-at-home kind of guy”. In this last year I’ve also fired my AA sponsor because he was moving too slow. I turned my daily prayer into a three hour daily bible study which twice a week becomes a group study I attend as a student and once a week becomes a group study I teach.
I attend church; I attend two churches. One at 9:30 and one at 11, every Sunday. I volunteer once a week to feed the homeless. I volunteer once a month to help the elderly. I volunteer as a beginner’s alcohol and drug councilor. I sponsor 3 impoverished children in 3 countries through online International organizations.
I've also requested to begin working with a teenage youth ministry which has just been approved.
I've begun working out, eating healthy, and biking. I’ve stopped dating altogether till I can find some positive counseling group or literature on dating responsibly.
I write essays (like these) every week and email them to everyone I know and for those I don’t know, I've begun publishing all my work on a Blog. Oh, and I have a cat.
So do I still smell the whiskey, gun powder, cigarettes and cheap perfume at night as I sit in bed beside my energy-saving lamp while reading my bible? Yep.
Do I ever wish I could go back to the beginning and do it all over again the exact same way? Yep.
Is that an option? Nope.
Fact is, I’m lucky to have lived through it. And now I kind of feel like the guy who knew Peter Pan just before he took that last flight and never returned. I’m sure even my old friend of 15 years still wonders if she’ll ever see him again...
Yeah, he’s still out there. But he’s probably about 18 years old tonight. And me? I'm just a middle-aged guy sipping coffee at the window with a dreamy look and a few wild stories.
Unlike old Dean or even my imprisoned friends, I've been given a new chance to live a second life as a sober adult. Maybe to repair some damage I've caused. Maybe to build some hope in others. Or maybe just to finally touch ground and walk barefoot back home.
I spent 20 years running and gunning across this country. I’ve lived in 16 cities in 7 states. I’ve driven ‘borrowed’ cars and stolen cars from S. Carolina to Florida to Oregon to Minnesota and back with another dozen states in between, all without a license.
For work I’ve stolen, bought, used, and distributed everything from drugs, to guns, to women. I used lies, violence and crime as tools pulled from my pocket without a second thought just to get ahead, get laid or get out. In my more stable years I ran bars and strip clubs in Minnesota, Florida, Washington and a whorehouse in Mexico.
Through it all I never really thought of myself as being a bad guy though. In fact, most people who've known me say I’m quite charismatic with a generous personality. I have been known to be a little temperamental.
Tonight I was talking to one such friend who’s known me for 15 years. She put it best when she said, “You’re just not a stay-at-home kind of guy”.
As I was tripping through those fun-loving decades, I envisioned myself as a sort of Peter Pan fighting off pirates in squad cars. Women loved the way I could find romance in any dark alley or fluorescent-lit train station as a sort of 'happy-thought' in an urban never-never land where all the lost boys thronged to me as their inspiration to stay young by staying out, staying free, and never touching the ground. I was the party that never ended.
As I rounded 30 on two wheels and watched a few friends fly off the track by either dying or going to prison, I did finally begin to question my own immortality. "I better kick it down a gear", I thought to myself so I don’t have the same embarrassingly untimely end they do.
That led me from the limelight of Main streets on Saturday nights into the flickering, smoke choked late night dark bars on weeknights where I was ‘one of those guys’ who’d be sitting by himself with a triple Jim Beam in a large glass and an overflowed ashtray pinning down a hundred dollar bill.
I heard a story once how Dean Martin just before he died could be found in a particular restaurant bar most nights where he would order tall glasses of whiskey, one after another, and just sit alone until having to be carried out by some cheap bar staff and put into a taxi. Well, I was not yet as old as Dean but it was looking like that was going to be the rest of my life as well.
To be honest, I had nothing left. My body couldn’t handle the drugs anymore. The decades of dealing with strippers had left me too mean and vengeful to be charming to anyone. Even my once heroically prolific sex life had dwindled to complete impotence from all the damage whiskey causes. Even the blessed V-pills weren't enough after awhile leaving me to stumble out of hotel room’s ashamed, enraged, and back into bars for another large glass.
By now, the romance had drowned completely. My Peter Pan syndrome had become a kamikaze’s last flight. Now I was just circling around looking for something large and dramatic to nosedive into. I was 35.
With no money or job or home left, my mom finally pony’d up and moved me back to Idaho where I could be closer to her. I did my best that first year to live what I’d heard was a normal life. I got a semi-steady job as an overnight office janitor and learned to make sugar-based moonshine on weekends to supplement my drinking costs.
The janitor job paid nine dollars an hour and half the shine I made was mine to drink. But I always had another couple gallons in quart mason jars to take to the country bars and sell out back for twenty-bucks apiece. That’d pay for the rest of my drinks inside.
Within a year, I was being launched from my new apartment with multiple eviction charges and was now working as a day labor temp for a wax warehouse. Then those pirates in squad cars finally caught on to me. I ended up in jail with 2 DUI’s within 10 months. Sitting in the holding cell with handcuffs on, I was really starting to question my immortality now and whether or not I had any chance at a future left at all.
After being bailed from jail the second time and brought home by a caring girlfriend ten years younger than me, I finally went to an AA meeting down the street from my Mom’s house. As I walked in, I grabbed a luke-warm cup of bad coffee, politely smiled to all my new lost boys and introduced myself as “just John”.
I've been sober now for one year next month. I've quit smoking. I’ve leveled off financially so my bills are getting paid. I’ve got steady work as a forklift driver. I’ve begun reading the bible and believing what I read. I’ve made friends with a few pastors who help me pray and I’ve began talking to my family again daily.
I've had counseling, imprisonment, probation, and fines all taken care of responsibly as week-by-week my life begins to resemble something of societies normalcy. All of these things I’ve done happily just to leave behind the life of death I was beginning to spiral in.
But still, you can’t just expect me to be a “stay-at-home kind of guy”. In this last year I’ve also fired my AA sponsor because he was moving too slow. I turned my daily prayer into a three hour daily bible study which twice a week becomes a group study I attend as a student and once a week becomes a group study I teach.
I attend church; I attend two churches. One at 9:30 and one at 11, every Sunday. I volunteer once a week to feed the homeless. I volunteer once a month to help the elderly. I volunteer as a beginner’s alcohol and drug councilor. I sponsor 3 impoverished children in 3 countries through online International organizations.
I've also requested to begin working with a teenage youth ministry which has just been approved.
I've begun working out, eating healthy, and biking. I’ve stopped dating altogether till I can find some positive counseling group or literature on dating responsibly.
I write essays (like these) every week and email them to everyone I know and for those I don’t know, I've begun publishing all my work on a Blog. Oh, and I have a cat.
So do I still smell the whiskey, gun powder, cigarettes and cheap perfume at night as I sit in bed beside my energy-saving lamp while reading my bible? Yep.
Do I ever wish I could go back to the beginning and do it all over again the exact same way? Yep.
Is that an option? Nope.
Fact is, I’m lucky to have lived through it. And now I kind of feel like the guy who knew Peter Pan just before he took that last flight and never returned. I’m sure even my old friend of 15 years still wonders if she’ll ever see him again...
Yeah, he’s still out there. But he’s probably about 18 years old tonight. And me? I'm just a middle-aged guy sipping coffee at the window with a dreamy look and a few wild stories.
Unlike old Dean or even my imprisoned friends, I've been given a new chance to live a second life as a sober adult. Maybe to repair some damage I've caused. Maybe to build some hope in others. Or maybe just to finally touch ground and walk barefoot back home.
Light and Shadows- a commentary on James 1:12-18
a commentary on James 1:12-18
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12 ESV)
Everyday in life we are tempted to stray away from God’s path. We are tempted to seek carnal pleasures over spiritual ones. Perhaps we’d rather tremble in insecurity than to trust and rest in God. Perhaps we’d rather bury our talents or buy fancy things than use our gifts to help others. Perhaps we’d rather be selfish with our own love and not give it away unless we first deem someone to be worthy of receiving it and, paying it back. Maybe we are just prideful and want to be heard more than we’re willing to listen.
There’s an infinite number of ways for us to seek out the darkness from within rather than to live in the light of God’s plan for us. Jesus spoke of this inner darkness when he said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Matthew 15:19 ESV)
Paul spoke of this darkness when he said, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15 ESV)
We are born as flesh into a fallen word. We love the darkness because we are raised in darkness. We might even go to great lengths just to avoid the light so we can stay longer in the darkness. This is taught plainly in John’s gospel, “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.(John 3:19-21 ESV)
Many times we don’t even realize the sin and darkness we willingly live in. It’s as though we are born as lepers in a leper colony. The decay in our lives is so common in our culture that it has been accepted by us as normal for everyone. But God is the “Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James1:16) God is the source of our healing light. God is the source of, “Every good gift and every perfect gift.” (James 1:16) God is the healer amongst us lepers. God calls us in his scripture to believe in his Son. To love his son. To leave our darkness behind and follow his Son (whoever follows me will not walk in darkness). In doing so, God give us a new life in a clean body. God gives us a new skin clean of the leprosy and sin and leads us out of the colony into a better life.
Why? To be “firstfruits”. That is, to be a living body of God’s mercy. We who strive to accept God’s love are the first harvest of God’s great crop. We are those who are set free from the darkness we were raised in; those who yearn to be taught by God to walk in light and truth.
Once you have begun your walk in God’s plan, your life will noticeably change. You will become a worker of good deeds with courage and compassion instead of being in fear of disease, hidden in darkness. You will become a person who takes their insecurities to God in prayer and lays them at His feet instead of chaining them to your own.
You will become a person with a new conscience (the Holy Spirit) who will convict you and spur you on to help you and teach you how to heal the weak and carry the poor.
That is our ministry; to be a living faith through our actions that Jesus is present in our lives.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12 ESV)
Everyday in life we are tempted to stray away from God’s path. We are tempted to seek carnal pleasures over spiritual ones. Perhaps we’d rather tremble in insecurity than to trust and rest in God. Perhaps we’d rather bury our talents or buy fancy things than use our gifts to help others. Perhaps we’d rather be selfish with our own love and not give it away unless we first deem someone to be worthy of receiving it and, paying it back. Maybe we are just prideful and want to be heard more than we’re willing to listen.
There’s an infinite number of ways for us to seek out the darkness from within rather than to live in the light of God’s plan for us. Jesus spoke of this inner darkness when he said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. (Matthew 15:19 ESV)
Paul spoke of this darkness when he said, “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15 ESV)
We are born as flesh into a fallen word. We love the darkness because we are raised in darkness. We might even go to great lengths just to avoid the light so we can stay longer in the darkness. This is taught plainly in John’s gospel, “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.(John 3:19-21 ESV)
Many times we don’t even realize the sin and darkness we willingly live in. It’s as though we are born as lepers in a leper colony. The decay in our lives is so common in our culture that it has been accepted by us as normal for everyone. But God is the “Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James1:16) God is the source of our healing light. God is the source of, “Every good gift and every perfect gift.” (James 1:16) God is the healer amongst us lepers. God calls us in his scripture to believe in his Son. To love his son. To leave our darkness behind and follow his Son (whoever follows me will not walk in darkness). In doing so, God give us a new life in a clean body. God gives us a new skin clean of the leprosy and sin and leads us out of the colony into a better life.
Why? To be “firstfruits”. That is, to be a living body of God’s mercy. We who strive to accept God’s love are the first harvest of God’s great crop. We are those who are set free from the darkness we were raised in; those who yearn to be taught by God to walk in light and truth.
Once you have begun your walk in God’s plan, your life will noticeably change. You will become a worker of good deeds with courage and compassion instead of being in fear of disease, hidden in darkness. You will become a person who takes their insecurities to God in prayer and lays them at His feet instead of chaining them to your own.
You will become a person with a new conscience (the Holy Spirit) who will convict you and spur you on to help you and teach you how to heal the weak and carry the poor.
That is our ministry; to be a living faith through our actions that Jesus is present in our lives.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Letters to Children
Hello Depti!
God Bless you Depti. You are such a wonderful child in my life. Just thinking of you everyday makes me so happy! I love being your sponsor and your friend. I have your picture and I show it to all my friends here in America and on the internet. You look so handsome and strong and I know you will grow to be a mighty man.
Today I received a letter from Pastor Christodan Takri at the Karnjaguda Church of the Mukti Malaya Center. His letter was so inspiring. I know there are a lot of children there but if you ever meet Pastor Christodan please give him a great big hug from me for being such a wonderful servant of God and for caring so much about you!
I work very hard at a warehouse job lifting heavy boxes all night and sometimes when I'm really tired and I don't want to do any more work I just think of you, young Depti, and then I'm happy again to keep working knowing that the money I make helps you in school and church.
Jesus is such a wonderful God to all of us and tonight as I prayed I thanked him for bringing you into my life. I said to Jesus that you are like a gift of love filling up inside me daily. Depti, our God is a wonderful and loving God who loves you so much. Please pray to him and thank him for bringing us together from all the way across the world. Please give thanks to God for Pastor Christodan and for your family.
Depti, you are truly a most wonderful gift to me and just the thought of you brings me so much joy. I pray for you almost everyday and I even dream of one day being able to meet you.
Please study in school. Please listen to your teachers and your parents. Please pray to God every night. And please eat all your healthy food. I know you will grow more and more everyday until you are a full and mighty man.
All my love and prayers for you,
John
www.compassion.com
God Bless you Depti. You are such a wonderful child in my life. Just thinking of you everyday makes me so happy! I love being your sponsor and your friend. I have your picture and I show it to all my friends here in America and on the internet. You look so handsome and strong and I know you will grow to be a mighty man.
Today I received a letter from Pastor Christodan Takri at the Karnjaguda Church of the Mukti Malaya Center. His letter was so inspiring. I know there are a lot of children there but if you ever meet Pastor Christodan please give him a great big hug from me for being such a wonderful servant of God and for caring so much about you!
I work very hard at a warehouse job lifting heavy boxes all night and sometimes when I'm really tired and I don't want to do any more work I just think of you, young Depti, and then I'm happy again to keep working knowing that the money I make helps you in school and church.
Jesus is such a wonderful God to all of us and tonight as I prayed I thanked him for bringing you into my life. I said to Jesus that you are like a gift of love filling up inside me daily. Depti, our God is a wonderful and loving God who loves you so much. Please pray to him and thank him for bringing us together from all the way across the world. Please give thanks to God for Pastor Christodan and for your family.
Depti, you are truly a most wonderful gift to me and just the thought of you brings me so much joy. I pray for you almost everyday and I even dream of one day being able to meet you.
Please study in school. Please listen to your teachers and your parents. Please pray to God every night. And please eat all your healthy food. I know you will grow more and more everyday until you are a full and mighty man.
All my love and prayers for you,
John
www.compassion.com
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Healing
“Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson
3 broken noses, 6 broken fingers, 2 broken hands, 1 broken wrist, 2 cracked ribs, ½ dozen black eyes, enough cracked teeth to have my dental x-rays used in dentistry school… Yep, I’ve lost my share of fights. My self-surprising willingness to toe-off at the drop of a hat has been labeled by friends as courageous, reckless, and suicidal. To me it was always just a thing I did. I never really thought much about fighting until a fight was over.
So as I stood before Judge Gardunia last March listening to her read off a grocery list of penalties I was sentenced to, I didn’t really feel much. I just looked down, exhaled slowly and took my blows. And for anyone who has never understood the criminal mindset let me just clarify this as simply as I can: Getting penalized by the law is like learning to fight. The more hits we take and live through, the more unafraid we become. To America’s average Jonny-Do-Good, being beaten might sound life-ending. But for someone who finds their identity in scars, its validation. (for further reference on this, Google: Repeat Offenders and read anything you find) Simply put, you cannot beat the fight out of a boxer. You have to heal the fight within them.
So you see I haven’t been in a lot of fights over the years as much as I’ve just been in the same fight since I was a kid. I’m fighting with myself and I’m taking that fight with me everywhere I go. And I’ll tell you one more thing; I’m not the only one.
Personally, I’ve been in a life-long fight with my own spirituality. As Blaise Pascal said, "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus." I’ve been fighting that vacuum since I was a kid and getting pummeled continually as I tried to fill that hole with sex, alcohol, and drugs. Now that I have faith, I’m starting to feel at peace. I’m lowering my fists without being afraid.
3 broken noses, 6 broken fingers, 2 broken hands, 1 broken wrist, 2 cracked ribs, ½ dozen black eyes, enough cracked teeth to have my dental x-rays used in dentistry school… Yep, I’ve lost my share of fights. My self-surprising willingness to toe-off at the drop of a hat has been labeled by friends as courageous, reckless, and suicidal. To me it was always just a thing I did. I never really thought much about fighting until a fight was over.
So as I stood before Judge Gardunia last March listening to her read off a grocery list of penalties I was sentenced to, I didn’t really feel much. I just looked down, exhaled slowly and took my blows. And for anyone who has never understood the criminal mindset let me just clarify this as simply as I can: Getting penalized by the law is like learning to fight. The more hits we take and live through, the more unafraid we become. To America’s average Jonny-Do-Good, being beaten might sound life-ending. But for someone who finds their identity in scars, its validation. (for further reference on this, Google: Repeat Offenders and read anything you find) Simply put, you cannot beat the fight out of a boxer. You have to heal the fight within them.
So you see I haven’t been in a lot of fights over the years as much as I’ve just been in the same fight since I was a kid. I’m fighting with myself and I’m taking that fight with me everywhere I go. And I’ll tell you one more thing; I’m not the only one.
Personally, I’ve been in a life-long fight with my own spirituality. As Blaise Pascal said, "There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus." I’ve been fighting that vacuum since I was a kid and getting pummeled continually as I tried to fill that hole with sex, alcohol, and drugs. Now that I have faith, I’m starting to feel at peace. I’m lowering my fists without being afraid.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Remember the scene in the movie The Mission where everyone had to climb the waterfall to get to the tribal people? Well, in case you've never heard of Mission Aviation Fellowship, I've posted their link below.
Water: The Thirst for Righteousness
It is not who we are that enables us to worship, it is who we are not.
It is not what we are capable of but, is born from what we cannot create or live without.
It is not what we are capable of but, is born from what we cannot create or live without.
The analogy of hunger and thirst is universal. Is there any living creature that does not become hungry or thirsty? Don’t all animals need nutrition? Even plants hunger and thirst instinctively for survival.
It’s woven into the mortal fibers of nature. Without hunger, without thirst, nothing would eat. Nothing would drink. Without consuming in even minimal ways, every living thing on earth would die.
It’s woven into the mortal fibers of nature. Without hunger, without thirst, nothing would eat. Nothing would drink. Without consuming in even minimal ways, every living thing on earth would die.
Scripture uses this same analogy of hunger and thirst as an instinct for salvation, “Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35
But scripture goes even deeper to distinguish us as humans from other living creations; Even in distinguishing humans from one-another in saying, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6
Do some humans hunger and thirst for righteousness while others do not? Does this mean that only some of us are seeking a ‘right-living’ while others seek a ‘wrong-living’ or nothing at all? Maybe.
Or maybe some are like me. For over thirty-five years I never had a hunger or thirst for righteousness. I was a special type of super-human born with a unique form of righteousness embedded in my DNA,
self-righteousness!
Do some humans hunger and thirst for righteousness while others do not? Does this mean that only some of us are seeking a ‘right-living’ while others seek a ‘wrong-living’ or nothing at all? Maybe.
Or maybe some are like me. For over thirty-five years I never had a hunger or thirst for righteousness. I was a special type of super-human born with a unique form of righteousness embedded in my DNA,
self-righteousness!
That’s not to say that I didn’t have the daily need to feel justified. In fact, I justified on an hourly basis everything I ever did. I justified where I lived, how I lived, who I lived with, and ultimately who I was, all quite creatively I might add. Over the years I’ve written poems and songs, performed monologues, dialogues and even gave barroom sermons about the justifications I had reached.
It was a system that worked quite wonderfully with only one small flaw, it demanded continual attention. You see, being me and remaining full of self-righteousness requires a constant stream of justification flowing into me. Think of a cracked vase with a slow leak. There was always a sense in me that never seemed totally fulfilled unless I kept adding to it. Personally, I liked adding to myself by pouring in an even amount of women, money, adventure, alcohol, and drugs.
But not everything we use for self-righteousness is as obviously visible though. Some people are continually filled by adding marriage, kids, careers, and mortgages. And before you get upset with me for comparing a drug addiction to a healthy family let me ask you this- Does your family give you a sense of purpose, a sense of love, a sense of duty, a sense of living? If you suddenly (God forbid) lost your family or career or home, wouldn't these senses of ‘right-living’ be lost as well? Do you not thirst and hunger for these things daily? Wouldn’t you say that their ongoing presence in your life gives you a sense of righteousness?
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:15
When I lost my self-righteousness was when I first started in sobriety. A counselor told me I might want to look into the Bible. I had never really read the Bible and so as a grown man reading scripture for the first time it was quite an experience. My shelves were already full of books on philosophy and right-living including but not limited to Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Thoreau, Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Machiavelli, Yeats, and Shakespeare. “That’s kinda a lot” you might say. Well like I said before, I needed a daily flow of justification and I also tend to consume everything as an addict.
Right away though, there was a difference between the Bible and every other book I’ve read. Namely, in terms like “never go hungry” and “never be thirsty”. Imagine a one stop shop for all my needs! That sounded like the kind of philosophy and right-living for me! And now some time later, as I sit back and meditate on the journey of my life that lead me here I’m left wondering, am I blessed? Have I stopped filling my own self-righteousness and in doing so, began to hunger and thirst for something better? Isn’t that the thing I’ve truly sought after all these years?
Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” John 4:6-15
In all, so long as we continue to seek a sense of right-living from ourselves and from our world, we will never be content. We will always be addicts with a need for continual attention.
But there is a gift we've been given called Worship.
It’s a gift to those who can no longer fill themselves. It’s a gift given to the broken, to the thirsty, to the poor in spirit. To come with a neglected heart, with a starved body, and with open hands.
To ask out of our mortal need for that which a glimpse of the immortal caused us to crave.
And it’s only through this surrender to poverty in my own Worship that I can begin to not just be filled but, to overflow from a spring within me of His promised blessing.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Dying Faith
The simplest proof of a dying faith is to believe in God, in Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, and not to trust them to act in your life.
There are many times that we don’t take our concerns or questions to God. I’ve found in my life that it’s usually because of two lies I’ve allowed myself to believe:
1. God won’t help me because he doesn't understand.
2. God won’t help me because He doesn't care enough about me individually.
1. God won’t help me because he doesn't understand.
2. God won’t help me because He doesn't care enough about me individually.
If I let myself believe these lies even partially, I then allow myself to begin following my own wrongful understanding of life in place of God’s will. I begin believing I am in independent control over my destiny. Then, I quickly become caught up a fight of trying to force my will onto the world around me.
As my plans ultimately begin to crumble the last thing I want to do is take the whole mess I've created to God. I am by this point even more convinced that God will not understand or be willing to help. I’m embarrassed. I’m frustrated. I’m prideful. And I’m ashamed.
The mistake I’ve made is by limiting God’s presence in my own life by not going to God first.
But if instead,I choose to live in a submissive state. Always willing to say, “thy will be done”, then I can begin to trust that the world within me and around me is actually being shaped and formed by God.
But if instead,I choose to live in a submissive state. Always willing to say, “thy will be done”, then I can begin to trust that the world within me and around me is actually being shaped and formed by God.
To do this though I must continually set my worldly wisdom down and admit to God in prayer and action that his ways are greater than my ways. And then to lift my worship to God wholly as my worship to self and this world diminishes.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Faith: Through Prayer
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Rom 12:1-2
There’s a transformation that occurs through prayer. Not so much in the world around me but in me. In fact through daily prayer, my entire view of the world gradually begins to change. What I once thought was a priority become’s trivial and what was once trivial becomes consuming. For example, when I worry about bills I’ll pray for job stability. But as I pray I find myself thinking about all those who don’t have jobs. Then I end up praying for the unemployed and asking God to show me what I can do to help them. You see- transformation. Concerns on how the world affects me become prayers for how I can affect the world. But I’m ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.
There are two fundamental pillars of lifelong truths I first had to surrender before I could ever experience even minimally effective prayer:
1. I had to in some way be willing to accept the possibility that there is a God, and
2. I’m not him.
With just the same recklessly shallow level of commitment I bring into most relationships, I decided to find out by giving prayer a shot.
I had seen the classic Rockwell style portrayals of children kneeling at their bedsides with chins raised and ridged hands pressed palm to palm so I figured that’d be a good start. First though, I had to go outside and smoke a cigarette. I wasn’t sure exactly what would happen if I tried to pray and to be honest, I was a little paranoid. I figured, I better smoke now cause I don’t know how long I’m gonna be in there.
Then knowing my hands smelled like cheep burnt tobacco I went in my bathroom to wash up. I also washed my face, brushed my teeth, brushed my hair and straightened my shirt- I really had no idea what was going to happen and wanted to look presentable you know, just in case!
Finally, with a nagging sense that I was mildly delusional I took a deep breath then went into my bedroom and closed the door. I turned off the lights and assumed my position with both knees down, both hands pressed, fingers pointed like ten rockets to the sky and eyes firmly shut as I began speaking loudly, “..Um! I uh.. I don’t know if your there or here or whatever!” “I gotta talk to someone though and it’s just me here so if you’re listening that’d be great.”
I continued on finally lowering my voice till eventually speaking somewhat normally as though I was just journaling, “I got these problems in my life with alcohol and bills and jail. You know, like, my life is just a mess. I don’t know where I screwed up but it’s getting pretty bad down here and uh, I could use some help.”
And let me take a minute in this story to tell you how even now I can remember what was on my mind as I spoke. I had envisioned a giant brick wall in the front of my head. It was like some kind of barrier built between me and God. And I felt like I was trying to talk over or through this massive obstacle. Then the realization came to me that this was my wall. I had built this wall over the last 35 years. I felt discouraged. I thought, ‘What am I supposed to do? There’s this fortress style wall here that took decades to build and now it has to go.’
So I literally just envisioned myself reaching out to that wall and taking one top brick down. That’s what this prayer would be, one brick. And each prayer afterward would just have to be another and another for however long it took.
I continued in that same prayer talking about my failed goals, lost years, sin, my financial debt and my torn romance. And as I prayed, my posture began to loosen. My hands dropped down and my knees began to hurt so I got up and just sat on the end of my bed still talking with my eyes closed.
I began petitioning God for answers with statements like, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my life.” I shook my head and raised my voice in accusation. My hands began to gesture and my eyes opened until I was speaking freely as though to someone directly in the room with me.
I began getting emotional as I went from explaining my frustrations and fears to actually being frustrated and afraid. I began feeling overwhelmed as tears filled my eyes and broke, streaming down my face. By now I was pleading with God almost demandingly saying, “I can’t do this on my own! I need you to be here, right now! I read your damn bible and you said you’d be here!”
I began to panic as though I were drowning. I went back to the floor but this time I was lying down with my face in my hands as I sobbed, too wrecked for words. It was in a complete emotional collapse. Time began spinning as I poured everything out in tears and screams until I had nothing left but to mutter into my hands, “I need you.. I just need you.”
What happened next is neither supernatural nor mystically extraordinary. In fact, it was the opposite. It was just a sense of warmth as I lay trembling on my bedroom floor. Something like a blanket being laid over me. A quiet sense of calm and protection covering me.
And somewhere deep in the center of my chest it felt as though something painful had finally let go. Or maybe I had finally let go of it, I don’t really know. But I can tell you this; it wasn’t surprising or frightening. It was just a simple and perfectly natural understanding. That was it. Every chaotic day of my life throughout my whole existence was suddenly answered with a single simple revelation- God is.
I began to laugh a little and cry normally now in a sense of relief as I said, “Thank You, Lord, thank you.”
Praying continued like this in almost full hour sessions for the next few weeks but I never did see that wall again. It’s as though God had seen me take that first brick down and blasted the whole thing with his fingertip. I still have the occasional full emotional breakdown in prayers from time to time which I’m thankful for but usually I just keep an ongoing dialog open while making sure to set aside three or four times a day just to stop in a more formal prayer.
All that being said, the transformation from who I was to who God makes me still continues with each prayer daily. I go to God when I’m confused. I go to God when I’m relieved. I go to God as a student and a son looking for instruction or love. Sometimes, I just go to God while sitting alone just so I can relax and be still. It’s a new sense of life summed up in the Latin term, Coram Deo, ‘living in the presence of God’.
In fact I think it was a few weeks after that first prayer that I was walking with an old friend of mine who asked, “But John, how do know God is real?” To which I answered in plain honesty, “He told me so.”
Faith: Through Trials
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Heb 11:1
Faith in its simplest form is Trust. To have faith is to trust in the action of something or someone outside of ourselves. Some of us have a hard time with this. We struggle with relinquishing control over any part of our lives. For us we say things like, “Our trust (or our faith) in others is weak.”
In today’s culture our idea of Faith is even more tainted when we mix in the modern movement of Prosperity (i.e. Health and Wealth). Because we’ve allowed ourselves to slip into a luke-warm pool of acceptance that Faith itself is a sort of mystical current we send out in waves to cause change. This is seen in self-help sermons and literature involving the power of positive thinking, karma, and the exercise of will-power which all teach us that with enough Faith, we can accomplish anything; the faithful will be healed, the faithful will have success, the faithful will prosper. All of which is a Godless faith that un-bashfully promotes ourselves in control over all of nature. This is a façade. This is a false hope in a time of true need. And when we who thought we had faith are not healed, do not become wealthy, or are unsuccessful, our faith dissolves even further. So even as Christians, when addressing Faith we must approach cautiously and first identify what the proper action and application of Faith is.
If I were to ask you as a Christian, “Do you trust in God?” It might seem a bit puzzling at first but we’d each probably answer, “Yes, of course.” So then I’d ask, “to do what?”
“What do you trust God to do?” or more correctly, “What do you trust in God to be?” Now, we are no longer discussing faith or trust as defined within our own earthly boundaries. We are properly addressing a biblical Faith. And for this we’ll need some biblical knowledge. We need to take time to learn who God is and what God promises. Then when confronted with the question, ‘Do you trust in God,’ you’ll have the knowledge in the identity of God to answer from.
We are directly called by scripture to, “Trust in the Lord your God with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.” Prov 3:5-6 This is not a passive, acceptance of trust. This is an active scrapping off and stripping down the layers of a lifetime of disillusioned self-awareness. We must let go of the shrouds of self-righteous understanding we’ve dressed and hidden ourselves behind until we are once again naked as newborn children before God reciting like the psalmist David, “In you Lord I put my trust - You are my rock and my fortress – You are my strength – Into your hand I commit my spirit – You have redeemed me.” Ps.31 This act of trust is not self-sustaining either. We must dutifully remove our false impressions of the physical and spiritual world we live in and re-submit them as chaff to the fire of God daily. James describes this in 1:2(a) when he says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”
When a storm of trials arises, your bearings can get a little shaken. You might have doubts about where your life is heading. You may even question God’s presence in your life. As James goes on to say in 1:6 “Like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” you’re sent crashing back and forth without going anywhere. Then suddenly the thin raft of your own understanding is blown with one lightning strike into pieces as another layer is stripped from you.
These “trials” are intentional acts permitted by God. Do not be surprised or discouraged. Peter, in his letter to early Christians bluntly wrote, “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come to test you, as though some strange thing were happening to you.” 1Pet12
James then writes in 1:4, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Perhaps you’re still in that churning trial clinging to one last plank of self-indulged understanding as it finally splinters and sinks and you call out, “Lord! Save me!” And in that, the purpose of the storm is complete. Because its only when we are wiped out entirely with no trust in any of our own efforts but in God alone, will we feel the immediate hand of Christ as he catches us.
This is the proper action and application of Faith. Not as you once believed that a life in Christ would protect us from trials but that the trials themselves would become tools in the hand of God for our growth and development into mature believers.
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