Airborne on the Fourth: Why the Cynic Can Still Love America

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cityThe timing of our Czech Republic mission allowed us a rare experience: being 35,000 feet over the United States on the evening of the Fourth of July.

At first, I had guesstimated that we’d be too early and too far north that night to see fireworks.

As the sun set a couple hours out of Chicago, I opened the window and glanced down, and my breath caught. Pinprick flares of multicolored light were visible against the dark land in every direction, as far as the eye could see, intensifying around a small town just to the south. I alerted the others and we stared out with delight. After consulting the onboard computers, we realized that the town to the south could only be Albany, NY. We were seeing the Fourth from the air after all!

Then we looked ahead of us and beheld a massive web of light terminating along a solid line: a coastal city. It was Boston. Where it all began. The tea party, the Boston Massacre, the first clashes at Lexington and Concord. The city obviously knew its history that night (or they were celebrating because I was leaving). The town was ablaze with tiny flashes of light like a Star Wars space battle. And as we flew over the coastline, still more fireworks: cruise ships off the coast were throwing their own displays. It was a sight I’ll not soon forget.

I must confess. Over the years, I’ve grown a bit cynical about the whole America deal.

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My and Paul’s Longing for a Harvest

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pragueI was reading through Romans from the beginning while I was in the Czech Republic. The first thing I ran into? An apostle Paul who very much shares my mind on the desire for a harvest.

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve in my spirit in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. – Romans 1:8-13

For all Paul’s reputation as a man of echoing words and fist-pounding exhortation, it’s a little surprising to see him opening his letters in such a tender and plaintive way.

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Pizza Lessons #6: No More Goodbyes

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boxIt seems that God had one more lesson planned in this series, one I did not originally plan.

For when our Czech Republic mission team said goodbye to our last non-Montana allies as we were preparing to head home, it was at…a pizza restaurant.

I love it when God does stuff like that.

What I don’t love is goodbyes. I get frustrated with them. I value stability, continuity, relationship. I value people. Change doesn’t sit well with me. You can shrug and go “It’s part of life, Brandon” all you like, and you would be right. But there are still those of us who don’t exactly gravitate towards change. It’s a personality thing.

That’s one hard part of a mission trip. As you leave the camp, then leave your host families and church, then leave your last allies as they drop you off by the airport, then finally leave your other teammates as they split off…well, it’s wave after wave of goodbyes. Like a long road of potholes.

That’s another reason I’m happy for the promise of heaven.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19:28-29)

Some say it is improper to teach Christians to look forward to any benefit of heaven other than the glory of God. I say let Jesus talk. If he sees fit to speak of rewards like the restoration of all our cherished human relationships, then it’s probably okay to look forward to such things. And boy do I look forward to that.

We might also say that it is to God’s glory that such relationships be restored, since he mentions it  as a feature of heaven where his glory is undimmed and unquenched. We might even add that it’s really the glory of God that will make these things perfect, improved, satisfying in every way, in a manner that our earthly shadows never could pull off. Imagine our most valued relationships with the sin, secrets, and sharp edges all removed forever. Who could argue with that?

There is a condition, though – following Jesus.

Jesus’ glorious promises in Matthew 19 come on the heels of his encounter with the rich young ruler, a man who walked away from God because he preferred the reward he had. It is an unspeakably sad story.

I, for one, want what God has to offer. The reconstruction of human relationships, everything made new, and above all, his glory and closeness. I will follow him to get it. Will you?

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Back from the Czech and a Thank You

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It was surreal to stand outside my own front door again last night. After the innumerable miles, an ocean crossed twice, gallivanting through the countryside of the Czech Republic by foot and bus and train, pounding the streets of Prague beneath soaring cathedrals, an entire world laid bare from 35,000 feet in the air, one door remained at the end of the trip to remind me of God’s faithfulness.

It was a great trip. I want to thank all of you who prayed for our effectiveness, finances, and safety over the two long weeks. I’ll share some experiences on the blog shortly.

I also want to thank you for continuing to read and comment on my blog while I was gone. I’ll soon be replying to the comments.

If you’d like to pray for us, please pray about the decompression phase – the come-down from the trip and its adrenaline and highs, the mediocrity of our regular lives and our old battles reasserting themselves, the hardness of saying goodbye. Pray that it goes well and that our hearts are caught by Christ. If you’ve been on mission yourself, you know these times can be tough – like the reentry from vacation, but multiplied by ten. Also pray that God will make grow the seeds that we have been privileged to plant and water in the hearts of the Czechs.

In the meantime, here are links to the Pizza Lessons series I auto-posted while I was gone. I hope you enjoy them while I get back into the regular swing of things, which might delay a Thursday blog post.

Part 1: The God Who Keeps No Score

Part 2: You Never Know

Part 3: Not Crediting God is a Sin?

Part 4: Done With Judging

Part 5: Down the Barrel of the Gun

Pizza Lessons #5: Down the Barrel of the Gun

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pizza4Every once in a while, on a pizza run, I’ll catch a glimpse of a future that worries me.

It’ll be some older male customer who’s living alone, in a tiny, isolated trailer way out on the edge of our delivery range, without a vehicle to his name. Some of these guys have a way of sharing a bit much about their lives, so I know they aren’t getting any visits from people. Just alone, filling their later years with television. Some of them by choice, some of them because of past choices.

I’ll just be real vulnerable for a second: that’s a future I’m afraid of.

I often worry about ending my life alone and broke, driving people away through advanced curmudgeonry. It sounds like overthinking, but my personality does tend that direction, and I worry about it a bit. I’m putting quite a bit of effort these days into avoiding that future.

Now, your typical response might be, don’t worry, Brandon. That won’t happen.

But maybe there’s an even better response.

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Pizza Lessons #4: Done with Judging

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pizza3Being a pizza delivery guy can make you judgmental in a hurry.

I mean, you’re seeing everything. Being a delivery guy takes you into every nook and cranny you didn’t know existed in your own town, and sometimes what you find is ugly. Trailer courts, ghettos, drugs, serious financial problems. It’s easy to take from the surface of what you’re seeing and form a judgment.

(Personal pet peeve: the husband/boyfriend/whatever who sits on the couch watching TV while the woman answers the door trying to juggle a baby, a receipt, and the pizzas I’m handing her. Dude. Help out.)

Or here’s a classic: maybe if you weren’t ordering pizza four times a week, you’d be doing better. I could feed myself for a week on what this is costing you. Heck, McDonald’s is cheaper!

And sometimes I might be right.

But I’m not so sure that that’s the goal anymore.

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Pizza Lessons #3: Not Crediting God is a Sin???

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pizza2Garn. I hate it when God saunters along and slaps the “sin” label on some innocuous thing I do every day.

I mean, how disruptive can God get? One moment I’m sitting there drinking a mineral water and minding my own business, and the next moment he’s blowing up my whole worldview. What’s a man to do?

Well…repent, to start with.

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Yet Another 5 Tips for Christian WordPress Bloggers

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We bloggers are obviously here to become echoers of God’s glory, not our own. Yet there are still valid reasons to seek a larger audience.

I have two previous posts (here and here) in what has now become a series on this subject – just the best things I’ve found have helped me. I’m no expert – just speaking out of experience. Here’s 5 more. (And the last two parts here and here.)

 

11. Don’t like your own posts.

It’s tacky.

12. Respond to every comment.

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Pizza Lessons #2: You Never Know

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pizza1One of the fun parts of my second job (pizza delivery) is that you never know where the good tips will come from.

Our dispatch system works on a rotating basis. The next driver up “clocks out” on the oldest run available once it’s ready, plus a second run (a “double”) if it’s in the same area and if it won’t be too long a wait for the second order’s items to be ready themselves.

Most of the time, we have no way of knowing how much a customer plans to tip when we clock out on that run. Even with the online credit card orders in which the customer has pre-loaded a tip when they first order, the dispatch system doesn’t show it, and digging deeper into our system to view the tip would be impractical given all the other stuff we’re scrambling to do. One could do it, but so far, the honor system has worked for us. Even when we recognize an address and know they tip poorly, we take the run for the sake of avoiding workplace drama.

In this way, pizza delivery is almost a form of morally acceptable gambling! It’s a lot of fun. You don’t know whether each “pull of the lever” will stiff you or bequeath a ten-dollar jackpot of a tip, but since you’re putting in work and earning a wage regardless, it’s hardly sinful. (I know – that’s because it’s technically not gambling at all. But you get the same slight rush.)

Nevertheless, occasionally we get a driver who tries to game the system.

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Pizza Lessons #1: The God Who Keeps No Score

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pizzaSo I traipsed merrily into my evening job (pizza delivery) one evening a few months ago, expecting a night of the usual bizarro shenanigans, and stopped dead in my tracks.

Filling an entire wall in the driver’s station was a big-screen TV I’d never seen before, displaying a map of our town dotted with numbered car icons crawling across it, and on the side, a list of the drivers’ names corresponding to each number.

That’s right – we were now being tracked. We’d been given a new set of car toppers, each carrying sensors that recorded our location, speed, acceleration, deceleration, and turning rates, all factored into our “score” for the shift.

Big Brother, thy name is P…

Nah, I’d better not specify which chain I work for.

One driver quit as soon as he saw the new system. I didn’t, but I was a little incredulous. Do we need to be babysat?

But then I considered the legends of other pizza drivers I’ve known and concluded, Yeah, probably. It was embarrassing to get calls from customers asking if it was our policy for delivery guys to almost drive into their living rooms. It was frustrating when drivers visited their girlfriends for twenty minutes while on a run, leaving a handful of us to drown in dough back at the store during a Friday night rush. I could see the logic behind the system.

But still…a score?

Then it occurred to me: I’m glad God doesn’t score me.

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