I Didn’t Know What to Write About Today, So…

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…here’s a poem I had to write for English class once.

What? It doesn’t always have to be all serious up in here.

 

I refuse to write this poem
You can’t make me, I won’t show ’em
No doubt my thoughts would be below ’em
They’ll just laugh (too well I know ’em)
At how clumsily I grow ’em
I’m skilled not, will not write this poem.

I refuse to churn out lines
Or wrack my head to spit out rhymes
To foot and verse I’m not inclined
Regardless of how loud you whine
At every turn, I shall decline
I’d rather plot a nice cosine.

I refuse to ponder men
Passed on fivescore years and ten
Who spent their lives in soggy glens
Staring at some silly flower
For a fortnight and an hour
Or locked away in dusty dens
Pale hands stuck to their pens
Pulling out their hair again
By some tricky verse devoured
Rhyming dictionary scoured
Do not such great poets end
In asylums, looking sour?

I refuse to write these verses
My mind is full of rage and curses
Ugly thoughts of zombie hearses
Not the rhymes that come to nurses
Trust me, you don’t want to know ’em
I just can’t, just shan’t write this poem.

I refuse to wrap my brain
Around these concepts I disdain
Similes blow right past me
Like the wind I cannot see
Lost I am with metaphors
Drifting off that distant shore
Alliteration is insane
Syllables that start the same?
Such a silly subject serves
Only to get on my nerves.

I refuse to waste my time
Grappling with foot and rhyme
To your pleadings I’m immune
Surely you will yield soon
I’ll resist all afternoon!
All assignments, I’ll forgo ’em
I care not, dare not write this poem.

I refuse, with my two hands
To crank out poems on command
Great musings you may demand
But I just do not understand
Iamb, trochee, anapest?
Surely you must be in jest!
Who among the devil’s pests
Sent to earth to cause unrest
Coined THOSE words? But I digress
I simply won’t put on this yoke
Pentameter makes me choke
I’d rather go and take a soak
In massive vats of rancid coke.

I refuse to write this poem
I just will not undergo ’em
My defiance is infinite!
This argument is stubborn, i’n’t it?
I really put my vocab in it
Persist you may, but I will win it
You can’t prevail...wait a minute.

 

(my teacher gave me on A on this poem and used it as the first entry in my class’s collection book)

It’s Okay to Admit that Losing Friends Hurts

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friendsLosing friends hurts.

Sometimes I think that if all the energy we pour into avoiding that fact were spent elsewhere, we’d have cured world hunger by now.

The memes clutter our feeds.

“We never lose real friends, only fake ones.”

“Those who can’t handle your worst, don’t deserve your best.”

“Be yourself and the right people will gravitate towards you.”

“If they didn’t stay, they were never meant to.”

And today I found myself wondering…Who are we trying to convince?

Over the years, I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost them because someone moved. I’ve lost them because they got “too busy to call”. I’ve lost them because they married. I’ve lost them because they got married and wanted to stay friends but were female, and it was no longer appropriate. I’ve lost them because they forsook God and all the awkwardness that causes in the coffeeshop (I should have fought harder for those). I’ve lost friends simply because one of us changed, or revealed their darker side, and the other decided they didn’t like what they saw.

I’m no special case. Life winnows things away, and friends are no exception. It’s left me with a small but committed group of close friends I know I can count on, no matter how many the miles and misunderstandings. We’re in it for the long haul. I want to hurl myself into a lake with joy when I think of those people.

And sure, some people are best left in the past.

But…

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All Paid Up for My Czech Trip!

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Praise God. He has raised all the money I needed for my upcoming mission to the Czech Republic.

(This actually happened a few weeks ago. I would have posted about it sooner, but a medical issue arose that briefly called my participation on the trip into question. I’ll write more about that soon – suffice it to say that everything’s now fine.)

I want to thank you, dear reader, for any prayers you sent up for my fundraising efforts since I first posted about my trip. I really believe that prayer makes a difference, that God allows prayer to make a difference in order to get us involved in his work and draw us closer to him. Today is a great example.

When God provides financially for someone, he gets creative. It’s fun to watch. My barber called my haircut free the other day as a donation. Someone I barely knew offered me a donation in exchange for an old, non-working guitar of mine (her class used it for a project or something). My mission team did a dessert auction. GoFundMe is creativity. A lot of people enjoy GoFundMe because it’s simpler and easier to use – point and click – than a cornucopia of checks and support forms and where do I mail this and what do I write on the check and so forth.

Even if your only contribution to my trip was prayer, that is no small contribution. I now consider my prayer supporters part of the team. Those folks will receive updates and appreciation out of my desire for you to see your investment.

It’s not too late to join that team, by the way. Please pray for the hearts of the Czech citizens I’m visiting. Pray hard.

Anyway, just a little note on my progress. Thanks so much for your support.

Late Marriage is Not a Curse

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picmonkey_imageOK, this takes the cake.

I just ran across a blog post vigorously arrayed “against” late marriage. The author was praying for his release from any sin or curse that might be keeping him in the “cage” of late marriage. He went through everything imaginable…generational sins, unfaithfulness, betraying others, demonic sacrifices, everything but the kitchen sink. And then ended with visualizing the fulfillment of his expectation that he would marry soon. All in Jesus’ name, of course.

Double take.

I want to be clear that I do practice spiritual warfare. I’ll even admit that an idea isn’t automatically ridiculous just because it strikes me so. I’ve heard respected Christian authors say that great couples are opposed from before their meeting. So who knows, maybe a few people do have to fight that battle.

And I certainly agree that marriage sounds good. I’m the family type, always have been. Some people are simply built that way. Independence is overrated for me. (My readership is now skewing their heads quizzically: are we sure he’s male? Yes.)

But the assumption that late marriage is always a curse?

Can’t get on board with that.

I wonder what this blogger does with Paul, who chose lifelong singleness for the Kingdom’s sake. I wonder what he does with Matthew 19, where Jesus bluntly tells us that not everyone is cut out for matrimony. “His plans are for my good,” this blogger chants. But how do you know what’s good for you? Perhaps singleness is better. Perhaps Satan isn’t a convenient catch-all for every circumstance you dislike. At the risk of flipping your worldview upside down, what if it’s God holding you back?

I must be clear on another thing: I don’t believe every Christian single is being “held hostage” until they check off “enough boxes”, or reach “Expert Level” on being satisfied in God, before God marries them off.  That all-too-common theory knows nothing of grace, and it leads singles into an awful existence running around in circles rummaging for internal flaws so that God might “lift his hand”. A terrible motive for pursuing righteousness.

But…I won’t make a principle either. I do believe God does this with some people. He’s certainly entitled to. This blogger is obviously operating from a prosperity gospel mindset where his definitions of “good”, not God’s, are in effect.

Such richness is lost that way.

Waiting is transformative. It’s given me time to grow, to stabilize, to accomplish tasks for the Kingdom I couldn’t have otherwise, to get deeper into God’s Word and become a better potential head for a wife. I cannot tell you how valuable the wait has been. Thanks to God opening my eyes and ears to the realities of marriages around me, I’ve been able to beat back the ignorant albeit near-subconscious fantasies that singles buy into (marriage is a cure-all, etc.) and start plugging into the Thing that matters most. It’s forced me to reckon with God. It’s forced me to acknowledge that I’m not in control and that his ways are best; that he is my ultimate validation, strength, and peace; and that he really is enough.

That’s a shipload of treasures that would have missed the port entirely had I married when I wanted.

Believe me, I look forward to tying the knot someday. But I won’t try dictating to God what’s best, and I won’t claim that singleness is the absolute nadir of human existence, to be avoided at all costs. There are things far worse. Like living life without God. Thus the Gospel keeps its place as the Main Thing, above every other consideration.

God’s Not Done with Your Dad

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Father’s Day isn’t a holiday that I get to celebrate with quite the same gushy giddiness as my friends.

My father and I have been estranged for…gosh, it’s been 16.5 years now. The reason isn’t important at the moment. Over the years, there have been halting efforts at reconciliation; the last couple years have been mostly good. We had a nice conversation last night that highlighted how good God has been to both of us in the last year.

And that’s the thing – God’s gone right on being good to him.

You see, Level One of Father’s Day blog posts is to talk about how great your dad is. Level Two is to talk about how to handle things if your father perhaps made some mistakes, to extend sympathy, to make sure the fatherless are not left out of the blog audience, and to glorify God as an unfailing father. It’s important to let the fatherless know that their pain and lack is seen and cared for by God.

But Level Three – to which God has leveled me up in the last few years, somewhat against my will – is recognizing that God’s grace extends to your father.

That can be a gigantic stomp on our pride. When we feel our fathers have not done right by us, we retreat to a place of safety in which God is on our side. There is good in that, at first. God does take umbrage over this stuff.

But eventually, God turns his eyes on us. He starts asking whether we have forgiven. And we must ask ourselves, what right do I have to hold against my father a sin that God has forgiven?

That was a difficult moment for me. I preferred my safety and injured pride. There was a moment when I thought I’d never speak to him again.

But I saw God working in my father’s life. He was continuing to bless him (though his life was not perfect). He was gaining wisdom. He was fiercely committed to God’s Word. He was even using his experiences to counsel others. He’s still a good man, in many ways. It was humbling – and awe-inspiring – to see that God was not done with my father. I couldn’t ignore it. I had to respect His work. God was being generous, and I had two options – get with the program and learn about God, or walk in ignorance and be the lesser servant.

It’s hard to know what our future relationship will look like. Obviously, it will never be quite the same. But things are looking better.

Most importantly, my perceived horizons of God’s grace have widened, stretching across the Montana sky. He is truly amazing.

When Good Theology = Good Feelings

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One thing I’ve discovered about God: he’s offering a great deal more “good feelings” – more joy, peace, serenity, and even enthusiasm – than most of us are experiencing.

The explanation for the disconnect is this: we are not receiving it.

Why not? Possibly because we’re never told it’s available.

Discernment bloggers love to tell us that good theology isn’t about good feelings. I appreciate their vigilance. Good feelings can come from bad sources – promises of earthly wealth, skewed talk of miracles, or even just an unhealthy focus on good feelings – and we must be aware of such deer trails. It’s a cross, not a bed of roses.

But what about Philippians 4, which promises “a peace that transcends all understanding”? Or the repeated command to “rejoice” in our sufferings? Or God’s offers of inner healing (Psalm 34, Isaiah 61)? Or, oh, I don’t know, the promise of heaven? David seemed stoked out of his mind by, of all things, God’s commands. That’s almost weird. My generation prides itself on being more drawn towards God’s compassion and love than his commands. Yet Psalms 119 shows a man absolutely head over heels in love with God, giddy, intoxicated, elated.

There’s more to this “Christianity” thing than some of us know, methinks.

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We Must Never Become Black Holes

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holeI’m stoked. To convey this illustration, I get to be geeky – I get to explain the nature of a black hole, an exotic celestial object of great lifelong fascination to me.

Black hole are collapsed stars, grown so dense that their gravity, out to a certain distance, is strong enough to arrest their own light. Since an object is only seen by the light it sends to your eyeballs, a spherical region around a black hole appears, well, black to the outside observer. The star is still inside, but forever hidden because its light can’t escape.*

For a long time, I was a black hole. Sucking everything in, emitting little. God was working on my inside, but it was a process.

Several years ago, I chanced into a dating relationship. We had a good five months before she called it off. It happens. (She’s married now.) But it was a revealing time. I got a chance to see how such companionship affected me, what it exposed.

Amongst the discoveries: while we dated, I started taking risks. I found a greater enthusiasm for people, asking how they were, hearing their stories.

And after the relationship ended, I found myself tempted to revert to introversion. The tug of social hesitation, fear of what others think, disappointment with life, etc. reasserting itself, overwhelming my emanations. Like a black hole, hiding my light.

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Do You Trust God to Reward You for Your Sacrifices?

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The Jesus you love will cost you, millennials.

That message has largely been lost in this age of emotional Christianity. But Jesus himself said it so insistently, so repeatedly, that we can conclude this: if sharing the Gospel is not costing you, you might want to ensure that it’s really the gospel you’re sharing.

The Jesus who did so many wonderful things – ate with outcasts, railed against Pharisees, whispered “neither do I condemn you” to the adulterous woman – also said some other things, difficult things, which many Christians my age hesitate to accept. He compassionately asks us to release cherished sins. He urges us to put his Word before our deepest feelings and most precious relationships. He commands us to look to him, not the world, for our definition of love. He speaks of hell. Often. He calls us to tell decent, law-abiding citizens that their efforts are not enough, and that only turning to Jesus in repentance can save them.

But most importantly, God offers to reward us for these sacrifices.

Would that knowledge make the Christian choices easier?

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It’s Not About You, Christian Graduates

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Graduation is upon you.

What a relief. To be freed from the hallways of the high school you’ve learned to hate and launched upon the world full of possibility. Just to be celebrated is a great feeling. Goodness knows we don’t get enough of that these days. Everyone is flying in from across the country just to attend your party, churches are holding banquets in your honor, and all of it is wonderful. It’s your moment in the sun. Bask.

The graduation speeches are exciting. Live your dreams. Reach for the stars. Realize yourself and your potential. Don’t let anyone tell you who you are or what you can’t do. Perhaps there is some truth there.

But we have a few problems here.

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More Than Just a Whisper

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gushRead these verses and ask if they match your experience of the love of God.

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15 )

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17b-19)

Your love, LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. (Psalm 36:5)

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. (Psalm 103:11)

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. (Psalm 23:5b)

Notice the plentitude. Abounding. Overflowing. Fullness. Heavens. These are not words meant to convey scarcity, an occasional drip. Rooted. A tree does not grow unless it has ample soil to draw from. Fullness. How many of us can tell of feeling full of God?

Does this capture how you experience God’s love on a daily basis? A weekly basis?

My experience of God’s love used to be little more than an occasional whisper. Every few months or so, I’d get a glimpse. As if from a distant country, a well-phrased word from God came to me about how he sees my efforts, or how carefully he is handling my life. I rejoice. But it fades soon, replaced by the noise and dust of life. And the next one doesn’t come for a while.

We seem to have accepted this as normal. We expect only the infrequent dose of God’s near, full love. We call them “mountaintop experiences” and feel better because at least it sounds realistic and adult. After all, we see only through a mirror dimly.

But when I examine the Bible and its characters still inhabiting our side of the mirror, I see a much different expectation laid out for us. When the Bible speaks of God’s love, it portrays a much fuller, stronger, and steadier phenomenon than we typically experience.

Are we missing something? Have we settled for much less love than God is willing to give us? Why? And how?

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