The People of Wal-Mart

The weirdness of this life happens when we least expect it. I was in Wal-Mart today shopping for some necessities and like everyone else I was quite entertained by the number of lower income/poorly dressed folks that seem so abundant in Wal-Mart. It’s interesting how sometimes you see these folks working at trying to look odd with their funky hairdos and crazy clothes and I was a bit appalled honestly by the whole production of it all. I tend to be quite critical of others most of the time and like most everyone I am very harsh in my judgments of those who were shopping today…

As I was tootling along with my cart, a very strange thing happened… I began to think about what it was like in the streets of Jerusalem during Pentecost when Jesus was a boy… All I could think about was what it must have looked like?? Was it different than this? I mean… sure there was no A/C, but were the people much different??
I can’t tell you why I had such a thought, but it was weird… I did. I began to think of the mothers who had been remanded to come to the City of David to make an accounting and the fathers who were herding goats or whatever animal was the flavor of the day. I thought about all those people who were going in and out of the city gate, skipping over animal feces, walking in the hot sand, smelling to high heaven of sweat and B.O. and just doing their best to survive in that day. I was reminded that 2000 years later we are no different, in the way we do things. We may have the ability to stay cool indoors and buy movies and magazines while we wait for cashiers who make the beeping sound instead of typing in numbers these days… but essentially?? It’s still the same.
I saw a mom who was shopping for back to school clothes and supplies with her kids and she was using food stamps, cash and a debit card and I was totally taken back. I noticed the food stamps and was amazed at how colorful they were. I had never seen them before today and I think she was a little irritated because she caught my stare and probably thought I was judging her. I wasn’t judging her, but I was amazed at the strength of this woman who struggled to make ends meet and her two children who seemed to be so well mannered were standing besides here asking for candy that wouldn’t fit the budget and gum that would not be good for anyone actually. I heard the woman say “not today sweetheart, we’ll get that on a day when momma isn’t buying so many clothes for school” and I was heartbroken immediately that I wasn’t able to help buy gum or candy for the woman. I didn’t want to create the feeling of judgment for her by giving the gum to the little girl. I know it would be hard to know the rest of the world was able to provide and to not be able to give your children all they desired would be hard.
I immediately began to be filled with compassion for everyone I saw. I think God was allowing me to see them as his children and not white trash or rednecks like I had so quickly imposed judgment on them because they had different value systems than me. I sat in my car and as I type this I still have a hard time with it… I began to shed tears for the broken and beat down people who I had been poking fun at only minutes before. I was completely taken back by the thought that I have absolutely nothing in this world to judge or compare myself to any of these folks with. I am saddened we as a nation lift ourselves to the place of judge and jury for the way we look down upon them. We are so harsh and critical for the way we treat people who live their lives the best way they know how and just because they aren’t the same as we are, we look at them as if they could never measure up. I began to think of my friend Katherine in California who is involved in inner city ministry and was sitting on the hot sidewalk talking to George a local street dweller who happened to be an African American man in his 50’s who had no teeth and he was a regular in her visits and when the sidewalk grew so hot that it hurt to sit on it, George offered her his blanket to sit on. His only worldly possession besides his clothes and it was stained with blood, urine and sweat from his hard life on the street. She was so moved to compassion she kissed him for his act of kindness. This man offered his only material possession to her in her time of need and it was greater to her as a gift than a thousand dollars from a wealthy man. She told me the story of how God had changed George’s life and yet he remained on the street to minister to others who were hurting because of the harshness of this life. I felt myself needing to repent of my judgments and my finger pointing for those who were doing their best in this life to cope. Me with all my education, 2 degrees, years of schooling and ministry and seminary training… undone completely by the story of a homeless Black man who hadn’t finished high school and he was doing more than I have ever accomplished by trying to share the gospel message of the God I so boldly serve and brag about all the time. I am not beating myself up, but I am being changed daily because of the world I live in. George is on the streets in San Diego tonight; sleeping on cardboard… stinking to high heaven and it’s a scent that our lord in heaven loves to fill his nostrils with because of the love for the lost that fills George’s heart. Maybe one day I will become more and more like Christ, but for now I struggle to stop judging, and learn NOT to be critical of those whom Christ called me to find worthy. Jesus never came to the church folks… but to those who would love him freely, like George, and if I ever meet him I’ll be glad to shake his hand….

Politics of Perfection

Our lives are a canvas of stories that are told from our actions and events that either happen to us or we make happen and sometimes stuff just kind of happens that we neither plan nor could have a hope of making happen primarily because they are just too awesome to dream up. My good friend Ricky was relating to me a story that happened to him not long ago in his home town. He was apparently driving and chatting with his girlfriend when he said to her “oops looks like I’m being pulled over, I’ll call you back shuga”. Well, he DID manage to call her back, but it was about 17 hours later. It seems that his driver’s license had expired previously without his knowledge and when the deputy pulled him over, he was immediately arrested and taken into custody. I was blown away by the decision of the officer because I’d never heard of an arrest being made for what seems to be such a minor offense, but he was booked into jail and everything.
I found out about the story somewhere in the middle when his girl texted me asking for prayer because she had no idea of what was going on because he was arrested after he hung up… needless to say I was freaking out, Rick is a pretty humble guy, but as far as men of God go… he is the Apostle John in my book.
Well…I found out the next day when he told me about the story that it really was a divine thing, his arrest I mean. It turns out, he was placed in a holding cell with a guy who was a gang member and the guy had lived a pretty rough life. He related to my buddy how he had been kicked around all his life, typical deal, no family, street dwelling upbringing, never heard about the Love of God, probably a really great guy, but all he knew was take from others and selfish living because of the way he was raised. Rick… being Rick was just real with the guy and didn’t judge him or look down on him with some moral haughtiness of religion; he just spoke to him like he does everyone… with the love of God in his words. The guy listened and began to question my buddy and wanted to know of his kindness and why God was so good. The funny part is when Rick was getting ready to be brought in front of the judge; the guy thanked him for his words and actually gave Rick a hug. A gang member! I laughed out loud when Rick told us of his ordeal… that is sooo just like God to let it happen like that. The real kicker of the story is when he talked to the judge who was apparently “cornfuzzlated” (as my friend Lisa says) about Rick’s arrest. The judge wanted to know WHY he was being detained, because apparently it’s not an offense to be put in cuffs over. He was given his things and released. Like Peter or Paul, Rick ran to tell his friends and share with much exuberance about how awesome it was to be used of God like that. It didn’t shock any of us because Rick’s just that kind of dude.
I find it very interesting that in the midst of our semi cruddy lives, God is able to stick his finger in the middle of the muck and pull out a pearl.
I live my life most days like many others trying to make the awkward pieces of the puzzle fit together with very little success. I have those mountaintop experiences where I’m smiling and high fiving everyone around me, but they are vastly outnumbered by my screw ups that so encumber most of us. Most days are filled with hustling from place to place to find comfort to the need to fill up the brokenness with the love of others, or the need for money or endless business for the sake of being busy. Most everyone has a sense of who they are and when I am real with myself and God and I mean REAL, I am slapped in the face with just how broken I really am. Most of my friends are completely undone when I do this because they think I’m just being down on myself and I love them so dearly for their words but I don’t live in a la la land of grandeur about my being better than I really am. I don’t look at others with a microscope wondering about them either, but I do know we all seem to find a place of acceptance for who we are out of self preservation because if we didn’t we’d go out of our minds fretting over our troubles.
Politics are king and we are all masters of it whether we know it or not. Very rare are the times when we run across someone who is just a really good person who hasn’t polluted their lives with selfish virtues and lies and doesn’t have to keep their closets protected to keep the world from finding out just who they really are. Some are better than others at putting on a great front and with that skill comes great acceptance in our fallen world, but for those who are real or simply broken by life in the dark alley of sin, the world stands in the street clucking their critical judgments and calling out what a fool they are for being found out.
Christ never came to make bad people good…. He came to make dead people live. If we read our bibles instead of letting someone regurgitate what it says from a pulpit, we find that Jesus never criticized people who were not “church folk”. In fact… the religious people usually drew his ire because of their haughty actions and lack of grace for those God loved. Our belief in God is not nor has it ever been a call to a higher morality or judgment of anyone. It is a place where we are all little kids together and our father comes home with his tie undone and grabs the football to chuck to us and smother us with his love and acceptance and a gentle ear to hear of the bugs we stomped and the jungles we explored behind the neighbors back yard with our sticks and rocks as weapons. God is love….period. His whole existence is to give himself away and I long to be more like my buddy Rick who finds the biggest smiles in life when he gets hugs from gang members in a jail who for the first time in life encounter Jesus in the brokenness of who we are. Rick will be the first to tell you that God loves using broken people to love on those who need to hear of his love. It’s not the clean cut and perfect… it’s those who are simply willing to be used. ; )

Dat Foosball is da Debil

There is a special scent of woman’s perfume that has always captured my attention like no other. Romance by Ralph Lauren can sway my ship like a giant rudder and will cause me to actually float through the air and be lost like a love struck houndog. Its borderline obnoxious how possessed I become by the scent, but there is another smell that possesses my soul in a deeper realm and I would take any day of the week. It’s a scent that I usually only find the final weeks of July and most of the month of August. Unless you have a shared and like experience you probably can’t connect but this time of year I always catch a whiff of the humid dew rising off of fresh cut grass and it brings back a million memories waking up early to get to the field house to strap on 25lbs of football pads and helmet to walk into the hot morning sun for preparation on the field of battle.



The memories are so thick you can do your best to waive them away like flies but they won’t subside. The awkward feeling of the football pants washed in a hot dryer till they have shrunk to a size that you almost need Vaseline to squeeze into them. That jersey that you didn’t wash from the day before and the smell of the sweat that has soaked into it along with the early smell of mildew forming on the towels in the locker room. The cleat shaped clumps of dirt and grass dried hard on the cold concrete floor, which break up under your bare feet and you are forced to brush off as you slide on those hot socks fresh from the drye. The tightness of the helmet that is banded on your head and provides protection, but is so covered on the inside with padding you almost suffocate. I can still smell the sweet stench of Coach Price’s wintergreen tobacco, and see the brown string of spit that usually accompanied it as he screamed in the ear hole of your helmet when your actions were found less than desirable in his sight, and for me it was quite often. The grass, the sweaty jersey, that metal taste of blood in your mouth from the cut on your finger you just licked off to keep the ref from making you bandage it up…all these memories sink deep into my soul and summon the demon of football past and it comes relentlessly like a black magic voodoo woman haunting my dreams with her lustful and temptress thoughts of running at full speed and crushing the very bones of an opponent carrying that treasured brown trophy of pigskin and autographed signatures of former football greats. I have recently discussed these dreams out loud and to my anguish, my black magic lover visited my dreams again last night. I awoke to find myself racked with tension and the jet-fueled infusion of testosterone that always accompanies such things. It’s like that dream you have when you are flying, and even in the dream you know it’s not possible to fly but when you do and you are soaring… you wake up excited that you got to do it, but a little sad that it wasn’t real.



So where do I go from here? I was relating to a friend recently, you can’t just strap on pads and strike an unexpecting victim, because honestly, you’ll break out in a bad rash of hand cuffs. You can play a pick up game of basketball or join a softball league or even croquet somewhere, but why would anyone invent a sport with amazing weapons like bats and mallets where you aren’t allowed to extract any blood from your opponent. Fight clubs are illegal, and any kind of contact sport is simply off limits to guys like me. Granted you probably will never find a kinder more docile soul with giant paws of strength yet a heart of compassion and gentleness. Sort of a Ferdinand the bull if you will with a heart to see broken people healed and hatred of bullies. I’ve never been deer hunting even once as the sadness I would feel in taking the life of one of those majestic creatures as a sport or for a trophy would be gut wrenching. Many of my friends enjoy the hunt and the kill and live for the season, but for me it wouldn’t be a reality. So I find it odd the walking dichotomy of which I have become always desiring to fight for something I believe in, yet being a giant teddy bear with a gently touch. It occurred to me as I drove home from church today the generation of my grandfathers fought in a great war and their fathers fought in a war of nations before them, the men my fathers age fought for our country in Vietnam, but the men and boys of my era have never had anything they have felt the need to stand and fight for. They have nothing of which they can empty their passion into except their jobs. We have taken the warriors and hunters from the battle fields and jungles and reduced them to managers and factory workers who purchase their kill on a piece of plastic wrapped Styrofoam with a blood napkin which insulates us from remembering who we really are. Provision for our families is no longer the battle for survival but it is the accomplishments and the climb of the ladder to see how much air conditioned leather we can wrap our backsides in as we travel in a steel covered jukebox on our way to the next sporting event where we consume fatty foods and beer. We have twisted our need for purpose to a place of consumption and if we look around, the once great male of our species has left the place of muscle sculpted provider and high protector of the family to pasty white flab covered arrogance looking to be served as we drive around to the 1st window. I am disgusted by the figures of leadership in our nation, and many businesses and churches, although not as judgment as it seems to come across in my words, but in sadness as we have left the integrity of a way of life where men were men and our sons longed to be like their fathers who were their personal hero’s for the amount of provision and leadership they brought to the table.

I have found recently in my prayers and study of the gospels, that to be a leader of anything means to serve, not to be served. To be a father or husband is to be like the example Christ gave us to lay down our lives and die to ourselves. It will never matter the response we receive from those we serve, we should continue to tirelessly serve until our death, never expecting a certain outcome. Our service should be in love to give until it hurts for those we love because love isn’t an investment to receive a return like stocks. It is a commodity we give a way. It is never selfish, its very nature only exists to give itself away…period. Jesus ministry on this earth at the time of his death in anyone’s opinion was a complete failure. He had ministered to thousands of people, teaching and healing and yet at the final day on the cross at his feet gathered only his Mother, his best friend and one grateful woman. Yet it was in the completion of his death that we find his victory and the next book to the right in the Bible we find the disciples forming the church that has changed the world completely since that time.

As men we will serve our families tirelessly, always giving, always providing, always teaching and in our lifetimes we may not see the fruit of our labor, and God bless those with long lives and fruitful offspring who love them in their old age because more times than not we fail to see what God was doing with our lives while we are on the Earth. I know that in my passion to be male I will pass on the wisdom I’ve acquired in dying to myself, and I will spend the rest of my life serving my family teaching my boys to raise the banner of Christ high, and learning the fine art of dying to my selfish desires. The fight we rage in my generation is not one of men and nations, but the fight to find daily that our wives and our children and our families will know that if they have to etch our names in a granite memorial that it will be because we fought trying to preserve the principals of the walk Christ taught us to share with him on this earth. Superman is a hero of the people. Little boys don’t wear the blue shirt with the red S because he celebrated touchdowns and shouted “look at me”, he stopped speeding trains, and flying bullets and rescued kittens in trees. Serving others with no thought of personal gain is the greatest battle we can wage. If I never play another day of that debilish foosball, that’s okay, but I pray the battle to be more like Christ and die to self daily will mark the rest of my days and they can brand a large S on my pine box when they lay me in the ground and print “he served” on my headstone. I can only pray I’m found worthy…

.

Wicked Seed of Judgment

I was in the gym this morning and I learned a little something about myself. I was on one of the machines and the gym I belong to is really our local community center but they are pretty state of the art with the equipment they purchase. The trainer I was using has a TV monitor attached to it and can be tuned to whatever station I want to watch without fear of it being switched by some hyperactive overachiever who thinks they have become empowered.
There is a great sense of amusement in watching someone who gets lost in TV when they have rock music playing in their iPod… especially if that person forgets where he is when making comments. I was watching ESPN highlights and the women’s soccer match against Brazil was playing and I just blurted my opinion right out there. As I watched I said “Geez I hate women’s soccer” and only the movement of the heads around me cause me to break from the trance I had engaged myself in. The guy on the trainer next to me said “What’s wrong with women’s soccer?” I had to take my headphones off to have him repeat his answer, and it was then that I realized it was nearly silent in the room and my comment must have come out as very loud. I just looked at the guy and said “I just don’t like women’s soccer... I don’t find it interesting”. He looked at me like I was some sort of sexist pig-dog and looked ahead and kept plugging…
I thought a long time about what I had said. Why had I said that out loud? It DID sound ignorant and sexist, but I comforted myself by the words of the woman I had run into the day before who wanted the whole world to know that women’s soccer was more important than the cure for cancer and if anyone in the restaurant we had been in had wanted to change the channel that she was packing a gun and wasn’t afraid to use it… Okay she wasn’t THAT bad, but she was kind of militant. I thought about it and remembered a deep hatred for militant women and their stupid soccer game was growing in me… I realized I had allowed some bitterness in the door. That kind of nonsense won’t work in my life. A. Because it is toxic and painful to others. B. It's such a negative witness to others... I don't want to be a sexist pig...

So I kept watching and the guy next to me spoke again and when I slipped off my headphones, he was saying he wasn’t a fan of women’s soccer either… I hinted around that I was too judgmental and as we watched the highlights, one of the players butted the ball into the net with her head and we laughed as I suggested I was not in the physical condition to criticize women’s soccer.

We talked a bit more and I introduced myself and shook his hand after we finished our 30 minutes on the trainers and we agreed to meet up again another day. But I realized if I hadn’t isolated the criticism from the day before, it could have turned in to full blown hate. I am susceptible to viral anger like many others, but it’s hard to keep an eye on it at all times, but it IS important. I know I look foolish from time to time, and making blatant judgment calls about women’s soccer is one of those silly things I shouldn’t do, but catching them and fixing them quicker than I used to is one of the many miracles God is working in my life. I wanted to share this story because it’s really a glimpse through the transparent window of who I am and sometimes we all need to know we aren’t alone in our boogerhead decisions we make in life… : )

character

The side of town where I live is the older district. Not the part of town that was built in the 50’s with a lot of ranch style homes nor is it the new homes area that sprang up ridiculously in the 1990’s, but the old district… the one built when the town was built in the 1850’s which in Missouri is about right. The homes in this area are very colorful and each one different in construction as if to say people used to appreciate the differences and took the time to instill quality and diversity.
The house I live in isn’t even a house at all, it’s a basement. The actual house is a ranch style home built in the post war era and the two walk out basement apartments were actually a part of the home when it was constructed. It’s by far the newest home in the neighborhood. All the newness has actually worn off by now with the numerous amounts of tenants that has lived here and there are a few things here that just need updating from time to time.
The other day I flipped on the switch of the garbage disposal that was added years after the house was built I’m sure, but the switch failed to kick on the disposal. The funny thing is I wasn’t surprised. The disposal has been failing to kick on for several years and I have to kind of smack it with my hand against the switch for it to come on. For most people that would be a curse because we are a group of people who just want things to work. I mean obviously we want our cars and computers and airplanes to work. Airplanes working right are a very good thing to a guy who’s the size of a football player with an unhealthy fear of freefalling from 35,000 feet, but when my disposal doesn’t work the first time, I don’t have an anguish or frustration… I honestly kind of like it. I know that probably sounds a little weird…but its true. I get this little quirky smile on my face when it happens. It adds character I think. My home has a lot of things that work right and I like it like that way, but when that disposal doesn’t kick on right and I have to go all Fonzi on the thing and bump it to get it to work, I personally find the character it possesses as an endearing trait.

I’ve noticed there are friends of mine who have some character flaws. They might overeat a bit, or complain about things too much, or worry too much or they might be too much of a mother hen, but if we took these small peccadilloes away from these people? Would they cease to be endearing? I know there is a difference between endearing and annoying… sometimes it’s a fine line, but the endearing stuff is what makes a person have great character. Without that kind of character, we’d have no great stories to tell. God isn’t into cookie cutter types of people. If we all looked and acted alike, he’d probably get bored. He likes go getters, he likes compassionate folks and yes he really must love the knuckleheads because he made so many of them. He is a God of diversity, and that is a good thing, cause so many of us are different.

If you are like me, you are working hard at writing a great story with your life. Personally? I think I have tons of character… in fact probably a lot more than what you find on those slick sporty models with the stripes and perfect lines. In my own way I am kind of like an old jeep. You know, not a new one, but a red one that’s a little sun faded you’d see parked in front of a café somewhere in the mountains in Colorado, with the stickers of where it’s been and seen. You know the kind, with a bikini top on it and big tires, a loud stereo and maybe a little dab of rust on the fender well, and a “Have a nice day” tire cover with the yellow happy face on the spare in the back. I know the author of perfection is doing his work in me lately and yeah we are overhauling the engine… but the same great character still exists and kind of makes you smile because you know it’s the only one like it around... ; )

Joseph

Isn’t it interesting when we have a bad day or week how other’s rush to your aid to show you love or jump on the bandwagon to jeer you for your failures?
I’ve noticed when I’m feeling good about myself, I always remember the ones who love on me and yet when my low self esteem is at an all time high I tend to remember the folks who are critical of my failures. I know its human nature but I really desire to believe the best about myself even though it’s not always easy.

It’s easy for God to take a person of high esteem and knock em down a few notches with life, than to jack up a person who is down on himself. God can do anything he desires, and sometimes I really believe I am both types of guy but lately so much has happened and my world is falling down around my ears again and I feel lower than a snakes belly. Honestly the worst part of feeling like this isn’t the knowledge of living in a lie, or how I know I should feel better, but it’s the throngs of others who begin to tell me how I should feel. I know everyone means well, but I DO know I have children, I know what a blessing they are, I know I’m striving to be a good daddy, yes I know… this is what keeps me vertical most days, but you’d think I’d developed some sort of amnesia.

I began to read about Joseph in the book of Genesis. You know? Jacob’s boy? I like the story about Jacob and being married to Leah and Rachel. I really do. The bible says Rachel is a hottie, but Leah has poor eyes, but if you look it up, the actual interpretation is “Soft” eyes. She might have a horse face but she has a set of nice peepers the bible says. Jacob gripes about this, but his sex life is WAY out of control… like it’s a burden? Seriously Jake? I’m thinking he just likes to gripe honestly because here is a story of two women AND their maidservants fighting over sleeping with this guy.

The story goes on and is interesting because old Joseph is pretty well thought of as a boy. His dad apparently dotes on him probably because he is Rachel’s oldest boy, and he gets a little cocky with his dream, tells his brothers he is going to be bowed down to because he dreamed it, and they throw him in a well… and honestly? I can’t find any blame for them for that. We feel sorry for Joe because we know how the story turns out, but at the time he is a cocky brat and has to have the stuffing slapped out of him by life.
Now if you continue to read, you find he has a bit of integrity about him and goes a while… a LONG while as a slave and a worker and finally moves up only to be slapped around again and put in jail. It’s not a good kind of jail where there is TV and visiting hours and 3 squares a day. No, this kind of jail is the kind where there are damp, dank nasty conditions and foul smelling prisoners and quite frankly, it’s a gnarly existence, all because Joseph was trying to have integrity with his master. His master’s wife has a pretty…um…let’s say “amorous” need and he is thrown away in a cell, but the bible tells us God remembered him. The really interesting part is this… Joseph had been in prison for a while, he interpreted some dreams for a couple of guys, told them to remember him in front of the king but they didn’t and the bible says two years later, the king has a dream, the cupbearer remembers Joseph at that time and he is set free to become the 2nd in the kingdom because of his faithfulness.
Now the truth of this whole story is God gives Joseph dreams and visions of his future and guarantees he will be a wise and powerful man and he will lead his family, but the hardships he endures is not how we would achieve such a goal, but because of the disciplines and hardships he endures, his character is developed. Our characters are no different and I’m sure Joe had a few bad days like the one in the bottom of the well. The funny part about it is when Joseph was handing out the grain, no one really reminded him of the days at the bottom of wells and prisons… I’m sure they hoped he’d forgotten… I’m sure I’ll forget my dark days as well… but I swear some days I think God has forgotten about me…

Inked (short exert from the book)

I have a friend named Mike who is literally covered in tattoos. Now for most Christian, Conservative, fundamentalist types I have surrounded myself with in the past… this is bad. It’s bad because... well… honestly… where we grew up we knew that smoking and drinking and tattoos were for “bad” people who hung out at the Beer Joint. Mike however, is NOT from the fundamental, conservative area where I grew up and in the past eleven years, my Christian walk has afforded me the privilege to meet many great guys like Mike who simply love Jesus. I can only imagine that in my arrogance and judgment of my past I would probably missed a lot of friends like him because I valued people on the merits of whether their background was the kind you find advertised in any issue of Christianity Today, if we were just being honest.

It really gets me excited when Mike shares his story of God’s relentless mercy and grace in his life and he gets to talking in his Chi-CA-go accent and waiving his arms all around the air and repeating his favorite expression “I don’t care” all the time. The other day, mike and I and the guys were chatting at Clay’s Curbside Grill (a hot dog stand in North KC, but this guy Adam who is the owner, has given it quite a reputation with that name) and Mike told a story about his old man. Apparently his dad was NOT a fan of the tattoos nor would he allow Mike or his brothers to get one. He told us he and a buddy had snuck out and he wanted a tat so he got it on his chest. He told us he had a pic of his mom tattooed on his chest so that way if his dad got mad and wanted to beat him, he could simply tell his Pops “Dad… Really?? You want to beat me for having a pic of Mom tattooed to my chest?” We all got a good laugh out of his story thinking it showed quite a bit of forethought and moxey, only to really bust out laughing when he raised his shirt to reveal an evil clown type face on his chest. Mike really gets a kick out of that bit. We really get a kick out of Mike.

I’ve thought a lot about how my judgments about others became so skewed early on in my walk. It got me to thinking… you know REALLY thinking about my self centered world and what it would look like if I hung around guys who only acted and looked like me. That was a pretty depressing thought thinking I would only know guys who wanted everyone to laugh all the time and had a deep love for fried food. You see, in my thought process as a young Christian, tattoos were just unsightly but it occurred to me how Mike’s tattoos were no more a reflection of his character than the silver cross I wear around my neck. My cross was not going to get me to heaven any faster than those tattoos were plunging him into hell and to me that was a pretty big revelation. I was actually quite impressed with my self considering I recently had also been spending a lot of my spare time trying to figure out if Mr. Snuffleupagus was really a long haired brown elephant or just an amalgam Big Bird conjured up from time to time to have someone who would agree with him…

Here is the thing… Mike’s character has been being forged from the fire of life and his daily walk with God since the day he became a Christian. He loves to laugh and show the pics of the scantily clad women he has painted on his forearms and tell stories about coaching little league soccer for his daughters team and having to deal with the concerns of other parents and the odd looks on their faces as they wonder if he is a death row escapee who is in charge of teaching their children the fine art of not touching the ball with their hands.

In my own walk in recent years, I realized I’d stop judging people based on their outward appearance and my assumptions of their supposed sins. Which for me is weird because if I got really honest with myself, I can admit that I’ve been a pretty shallow person most of my life. The pendulum swing in my life can be attributed simply to me dropping the ball so much in my own life that I woke up one day and realized there was nothing exceptional about me or my behavior and who was I to judge anyone else’s life. So in thinking about all of this I was reminded of something I heard on the radio the other day that stuck with me… some guy said “Who we really are as people is not who we are when we stand triumphant on the mountaintops, but who we are under the rubble of the disasters of our lives” At first I was indignant about this… in fact I was quite snotty about it. I wanted to argue and tell this man he was wrong to speak for us. Who I think I am is a man who is triumphant and making great strides to undo a lot of bad things losing weight, stopping old vices, making good choices, gaining ground in my life.
It weighed heavy on me all that day until finally a chord was struck way down deep within me. The guy was totally right! He was, I mean who we are is NOT who we have become when things are going well… who we are and the real character of who we are is who comes out when our world collapses… MY world has collapsed several times and I gotta say… I pretty much suck. I mean really. I would love to brag and say I was the guy who was on top of the world and when it all caved in around me and that I was still standing tall and rebuilding walls and being the mighty man and everyone’s superhero but you know? When my job went South, or my kids were sick, or any one of my girlfriends and I split? That’s when my whole world caved in. It’s not pretty either… I lack dignity and character and anything anyone would call good in their life. Like I said… I suck. I say this not in a manner of low self esteem, but I believe God... in his great mercy has allowed me to see who I am deep at my core. Not because he wants me to slobber and blubber at his feet exclaiming that I am worthless either in a real sense of cruddiness or in any kind of false humility, but because he delights in me finding my strength and my purpose and my life in him and not in me.

“Our God is the God of second chances” is one of my favorite quotes… I say it often because it’s true. You see…there’s an ethereal belief and visions of grandeur about how we will live with him forever in the sky by and by etc, and those kinds of moments are great and I’m not downplaying them, but I’ve got to tell you… every day I am faced with who I am and who I really want to be. My flawed character, my tarnished life and my broken heart are a daily reality in my life, and honestly? I thank God every day for those things. You see? I would love to say I am who I am on the mountains… but who I am, is this guy… right here, today. My ministry, if you can call it that, will be to always espouse the grace and love of a God who is relentlessly kind to those who have blown it, those who have waivered in their quest, the feeble, sad, frustrated group of broken down folks like me who are continually shifting the heavy weight of their own life from one foot to the other. When you have been to the place where you’ve lost all that you esteem and value in your life, you begin to realize that God’s favor is a gift. You can’t earn it, buy it or expect it. He gives it freely to those who will come forward to receive it. When you find yourself in the possession of such a gift, you find that you will never ever look at wounded, hurting, broken people the same again… and that’s when lives are changed and altered and repaired and the place where pure ministry happens.

Last night I laid awake thinking and I thanked God for my friends like Mike, and my buddy John, and my friend Shelly, and others in this Rag Tag band of folks who have either stumbled in their lives in one way or another or have endured hardships to gain a new perspective on God’s desire for them. Not one of us are people I would call ‘religious”. We have made the decision in each of our lives to do the Jesus thing. His grace sought out each one of us for his desired purpose and plan. Not one of us can say we are pure, or better or holy than anyone else. God doesn’t stand and applaud or yell because any of us show up at church or daily quiet time. We are travelers on our way… tattooed with the decisions, the choices and infirmities we’ve endured in our lives and all of us realize that short of God’s grace and mercy, we might all just be a story in the news you would find on the 5th page back of the paper, forgotten in time and just wasted lives.
You will find on our faces, a smile, and hope in our eyes and if you aren’t careful? You might just get a hug. : )