I want to start jogging again but my knees hurt. They don't hurt all of the time but maybe 47% of the time they ache a little. I was talking to a friend tonight who is 20 years younger than me. He started running or jogging, I am not exactly sure of the difference only I'm pretty certain I've never done the former. (Except that one time when me and a buddy broke into this house in Tampa to see where they were filming a horror movie. After we were inside I saw someone at the back door with a flashlight trying to get in and we busted out of the front door running like deer from a forest fire. That time I ran for real.) Anyway, Joseph started jogging or running and he's trimmed up nicely and so I'm thinking I should do the same. Never mind that I'm 52, I can still have the lean body of a 30-year-old.
Ever since I returned from Romania I have been praying about other opportunities to serve. I want to become a missionary but probably for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes I imagine being introduced somewhere, "Dave Nix, missionary to Chiapas, Mexico, one of the most hostile regions for the gospel." Maybe there's like a "heaven receiving line" and most Christians have to wait in a queue but missionaries can casually stroll in a special door like the Hertz #1 Club or the Delta Sky Miles Medallion members. Pastors have yet another door but even they're only AAA members; missionaries have all the best perks.
Except it isn't like that. The gospel is about knowing Jesus. Really knowing Him. Serving, suffering and dying... sometimes in obscurity. God gets the glory and we passionately run after Him crying out with John the Baptist, "He must increase and I must decrease." The problem with this is that it is counter to most everything in me. Even when I think I've done something for altruistic motives I find this root of pride in me that wants just a taste a recognition. I'm convinced that followers of Christ know this better than anyone. Just a brief nod my way from the pulpit or a mention of some God-honoring deed I did all for the glory of Christ. I'll deflect the glory.... honest I will. I'll point heavenward and say with all the sincerity I can muster, "Ah, praise God, I'm just thankful He was able to use me." The only problem with this is that He knows my heart. He has said, "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9) It's like He was thinking of me when he penned those words.
Surely I would be a poor missionary. I'm fond of comfort and my knees hurt. I like having a clean private toilet, not to mention toilet paper. Nevertheless, I found a website called finishers.org. It's for older people who want to research mission opportunities maybe instead of retiring to Sarasota. I posted some information about myself there and actually started hearing from people. When I returned from Romania I received an email about an opportunity to help provide wheelchairs for the disabled in Turkey. We started corresponding. All of a sudden I had to ask myself, would I give up my business? Could I imagine selling or renting my home and leaving Trudie with friends and going to another country, another culture, to tell them about a God who loved them and a Saviour who died in their place? From whence came this little seed of desire that whispers inside me "yes, do send me Lord, I'll go"?
So, I think I better start jogging. Just in case I am subject to a more rigorous lifestyle in the future. Also, I think Spanish is a good language to learn. Chiapas, Columbia, Cuba... who knows? (I gave thought to Romanian but that language sounds so terribly difficult.) I don't know if He'll ever send me outside my neighborhood but this odd desire that I've never had before started creeping into my thinking 3 years ago and it only seems to get stronger. It feeds my zeal here also. I find I talk about Him more with neighbors, co-workers and even customers (uh-oh, big American taboo there, huh?). It's just that Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."
I want to buy that field.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Drinking, Community and the Gospel
I know someone who likes to drink. He cannot handle it though. He drinks too much and becomes inebriated. At that point it is difficult to be around him. Conversations become repetitive and animated, he pulls on my dog's ears playfully but too hard and she yelps, he becomes sloppy and just all around useless. He lived with me awhile on the condition that he not drink while staying here. After three strikes he was out. That was a couple months ago.
I've lived alone since my divorce. It was painfully lonely at first - especially on Sundays. Our pastor calls our congregation a "faith family" and that is what we are. I love my small group. But it was hard to worship together and then leave and be alone. I was always looking around for other people with whom to go to lunch after the service. Most of the time it was a drive-through and on to the house where Trudie would sit quietly waiting for a morsel to fall from the table.
In his book "Blue Like Jazz" Donald Miller shares how his pastor kept nagging him to move in with roommates. As I recall the author quite liked to be alone but his pastor believed firmly in community and kept nudging him until he relented and moved in with 4 other guys. He experienced difficulties but God used the experience to grow him, smoothing out some rough places like a sculptor.
I do think you can get mighty weird living alone. Talking to your pets isn't all that odd but I might want to keep an eye on the more lengthy two-part conversations. The ones that go something like this:
Trudie: "Daddy, why you gotta leave Trudie again?" (Trudie always speaks in the third person.)
Me: "Baby, you know Daddy has to work. Someone's gotta buy you food and treats." (I guess Daddy sometimes speaks in the third person too.)
Trudie: "Daddy, excuse me but it looks like you're the one doing all the eating."
Me: "Watch your mouth mutt or no walk before Daddy leaves for work!"
See what I mean? Doing it doesn't seem all that weird but writing it down like I did just now makes me wonder if I ought not find another roommate.... quickly.
Lately I have been thinking that relationships are far more important than I ever thought. I should have guarded many that I let dissolve or just kind of dissipate. I used to tell friends that moving around so much as a kid kept me skilled at cutting off relationships. If dad and mom said we were going back to Florida or moving to California I immediately started cutting ties and closing off a bit inside. These days I don't think that is such a great skill to have. Aside from the growing weird part I'm thinking God may use the more difficult times (like when someone is just royally getting on my nerves) to reveal things about my character that I'd rather not look at.
Imagine a guy hanging out for three years with twelve other guys. Out of that group he's really close to three of them. They do everything together - eating, sleeping, everything. You know how close you get to people just spending a week's vacation them. Sometimes their little habits start grating on you. When my friend lived with me he had a habit of walking through the house not really whistling but making a soft tune, which I could never identify by the way. It was kind of a cross between humming, breathing and whistling. Every morning he would do this as he paced around going from one room to the next with his coffee. EVERY morning.
Now imagine that you are Jesus hanging out with your twelve friends and you know them thoroughly. Not just the part of them they want you to see but you know them through and through. You see the core of their petty envy and bitter hatred. You see their irrational fears and slavish lusts. You see them as proud, arrogant and blind.... yet you love them. You reveal to them for the 3rd time at least that you are headed to an excruciating death on a cross of wood, nailed up there like a convicted murderer, though you never did one wrong deed in your life. You bear your soul and it goes right over their heads. They stare at you blankly and go right back to bickering about who is going to be the greatest in the coming kingdom. How alone would you feel? How desperate for intimacy and starved for true companionship and it's nowhere in these twelve. One of them will soon turn you over to authorities for some cash and another, who happens to be the loudest about his loyalty, will soon turn and run to save his own skin! At that point if I were Jesus I think I would've prayed, "God, just give me a dog! Please!" I bet his sweetest companionship was felt when he went off by himself, maybe knelt and looked up to the sky to talk to his Father. "Abba Father" he cried, "all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will..... but what you will."
Soon after he was suffering. Pain like we will never know. The cup would not be removed. The Father turns his back on his Son after placing every lie, every adultery, every murder, every drunken binge, every proud thought and envious glance right on the body of His Son. That body which Jesus said was broken for me. For you. Blood staining the harsh wood of the cross and falling to the dirt. Blood he said was poured out for us.
If someone wrote a play they could not capture the depth of this love. It's no wonder he told us to go tell everyone.
I've lived alone since my divorce. It was painfully lonely at first - especially on Sundays. Our pastor calls our congregation a "faith family" and that is what we are. I love my small group. But it was hard to worship together and then leave and be alone. I was always looking around for other people with whom to go to lunch after the service. Most of the time it was a drive-through and on to the house where Trudie would sit quietly waiting for a morsel to fall from the table.
In his book "Blue Like Jazz" Donald Miller shares how his pastor kept nagging him to move in with roommates. As I recall the author quite liked to be alone but his pastor believed firmly in community and kept nudging him until he relented and moved in with 4 other guys. He experienced difficulties but God used the experience to grow him, smoothing out some rough places like a sculptor.
I do think you can get mighty weird living alone. Talking to your pets isn't all that odd but I might want to keep an eye on the more lengthy two-part conversations. The ones that go something like this:
Trudie: "Daddy, why you gotta leave Trudie again?" (Trudie always speaks in the third person.)
Me: "Baby, you know Daddy has to work. Someone's gotta buy you food and treats." (I guess Daddy sometimes speaks in the third person too.)
Trudie: "Daddy, excuse me but it looks like you're the one doing all the eating."
Me: "Watch your mouth mutt or no walk before Daddy leaves for work!"
See what I mean? Doing it doesn't seem all that weird but writing it down like I did just now makes me wonder if I ought not find another roommate.... quickly.
Lately I have been thinking that relationships are far more important than I ever thought. I should have guarded many that I let dissolve or just kind of dissipate. I used to tell friends that moving around so much as a kid kept me skilled at cutting off relationships. If dad and mom said we were going back to Florida or moving to California I immediately started cutting ties and closing off a bit inside. These days I don't think that is such a great skill to have. Aside from the growing weird part I'm thinking God may use the more difficult times (like when someone is just royally getting on my nerves) to reveal things about my character that I'd rather not look at.
Imagine a guy hanging out for three years with twelve other guys. Out of that group he's really close to three of them. They do everything together - eating, sleeping, everything. You know how close you get to people just spending a week's vacation them. Sometimes their little habits start grating on you. When my friend lived with me he had a habit of walking through the house not really whistling but making a soft tune, which I could never identify by the way. It was kind of a cross between humming, breathing and whistling. Every morning he would do this as he paced around going from one room to the next with his coffee. EVERY morning.
Now imagine that you are Jesus hanging out with your twelve friends and you know them thoroughly. Not just the part of them they want you to see but you know them through and through. You see the core of their petty envy and bitter hatred. You see their irrational fears and slavish lusts. You see them as proud, arrogant and blind.... yet you love them. You reveal to them for the 3rd time at least that you are headed to an excruciating death on a cross of wood, nailed up there like a convicted murderer, though you never did one wrong deed in your life. You bear your soul and it goes right over their heads. They stare at you blankly and go right back to bickering about who is going to be the greatest in the coming kingdom. How alone would you feel? How desperate for intimacy and starved for true companionship and it's nowhere in these twelve. One of them will soon turn you over to authorities for some cash and another, who happens to be the loudest about his loyalty, will soon turn and run to save his own skin! At that point if I were Jesus I think I would've prayed, "God, just give me a dog! Please!" I bet his sweetest companionship was felt when he went off by himself, maybe knelt and looked up to the sky to talk to his Father. "Abba Father" he cried, "all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will..... but what you will."
Soon after he was suffering. Pain like we will never know. The cup would not be removed. The Father turns his back on his Son after placing every lie, every adultery, every murder, every drunken binge, every proud thought and envious glance right on the body of His Son. That body which Jesus said was broken for me. For you. Blood staining the harsh wood of the cross and falling to the dirt. Blood he said was poured out for us.
If someone wrote a play they could not capture the depth of this love. It's no wonder he told us to go tell everyone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
