Forgetful

I usually do not think about my raincoat.

You see, raincoats fall into the category of 'things you forget you need until you really need them'. Other items that exist in this place are windshield wipers, pocket change, cell phone chargers, extra-strength Rolaids, and the copy of your 'Jock Jams' CD from the 90's.

The rain coat seems a little more important because it directly affects your immediate comfort. And on those days, if it were actually possible, I would give myself a swift kick. I always think to myself, "Why did I forget to grab that raincoat?" (I guess it is good that the swift kick to oneself is impossible here, because not only would I be soaked, I would be limping as well. )

Most days, I just leave my raincoat inside of the car. This is usually not a problem-as long as the rain starts while I am driving. But there are the times that the raincoat is in the car and I am soaked before I remember its location because I did not look at the Weather Channel, my weather phone app, or the sky.

Then there are the days that the raincoat is in the house and I am well on my way to a busy day, halfway across town when the skies open and the floods come.

I always think to myself, "Why did I forget to grab that raincoat?"

One morning, I hurried out of the house, ran to church, and hopped on a fifteen passenger bus on the way to downtown Chattanooga. It was an early start because my friend Kevin and I had signed up to help the Homeless Coalition with a project. Our mission: To shuttle homeless men and women from all over Chattanooga to a convention for the purposes of helping them find good places to stay, places to eat, rehabilitate (if necessary), get hair cuts and hygiene products, and hopefully find employment.

We rode downtown and Kevin and I picked up our first group at a local shelter. Everyone filed into the back of the bus. Conversation was at a minimum (I do remember vain attempts to talk about football with some of the guys). For the first half hour, we were all pretty quiet with the exception of a gentleman who was ever so thankful for what we were doing. He was a guy who most of us probably drive by every day. Nothing really stood out to me about him.

Well, I take that back. I do remember one thing-he didn't bring his raincoat.

Then there was the next stop at a downtown hotel that runs discounts for the local homeless population. The energy in our bus picked up and our we talked about life-normal, everyday life. This crew was pretty open about bad life decisions that had put a hold on everything else. Some shared about drugs, alcohol, children they had not seen. Others talked about losing jobs because of the economy. The reasons for their situation were mixed bag of poor decisions, an inability to 'bounce back', and a recession.

None of them remembered their raincoats, either.

Our third trip was probably the most eventful. Somewhere on the interstate, a conversation started about what they were having for lunch at our destination (no one knew). This evolved into a full-scale discussion between Kevin and the rest of the bus. If this were a segment on a reality television show, it would be called "The Weirdest Thing I Have Ever Eaten." It started with words like 'duck' and deer then escalated to 'bear', 'snake', and 'guinea pig' (I almost inserted 'St. Bernard' and/or 'my nephew', but deemed it inappropriate). One guy kept reiterating that he had also eaten 'raccoon' and that 'turtles have seven different types of meat'( I learned a life lesson in the midst of this-never have a competition with a homeless guy about who has eaten the weirdest food). We dropped them off for lunch and watched them all run inside.

They ran pretty quickly-because none of them had their raincoats.

Finally, a gentleman got on the bus and introduced himself to everyone riding. he then pulled out his harmonica and began to jam before telling us that he had toured with both Bob Dylan and none other than the King, Elvis Presley. He then played a couple more tunes before singing some of Elvis's hits for a crowd that was evidently more drawn towards the Beatles (or the Bee Gees, Jimmy Hendrix, or anyone other than the guy singing). When we dropped him off, he asked a few questions that I did not have answers to about the event, and walked off, leaving his seat soaking wet.

He had forgotten to bring his raincoat, too. Along with countless other men, women, and kids.

It is easy to look at a situation and disconnect yourself with cliches like 'they made their own bed' or 'better them than me.' The difficulty comes when we have conversations with people and look them in the face. Difficult decisions are made when we sacrifice for someone else-when we see those who are less fortunate as people-not a problem. While many of us find verses that are for us that we are happy to put on coffee cups or FB statuses, there are multiple references to the people of God taking care of the poor that have been ignored because we have decided those verses are for someone else. It has been said, "The problem is not that Christians don't see the poor; the problem is that we don't know the poor."

There are everyday things that all of us can do. I am, by no means, an expert. I am consistently reminded of my inconsistencey-where I fall short in all of this, when I am less than caring, overwhelming selfish, and absolutely ungracious. However, where I fall short, my Lord does not. He is gracious, selfless, and caring-and has asked the same of me and empowered me to walk with him in His infinite goodness. In Him, I can do "all things." I can, at the very least, look through my closet or act like the $2 I give to a guy on the street isn't going to cause my head to fall off or take food out of my kids' mouth.

I'm just a guy with a raincoat.

Chances are-you're just a guy with a raincoat, too.

Any questions about what you can do, feel free to www.homelesscoalition.org

Clutter

Today, I cleaned my office.

Please do not misunderstand me; I have a good bit of work to do. I have retreats coming up. I am working on two sermon-series for the Spring (1 John and Luke). I have to make another attempt at contacting a woman who wants to buy one of Hope's fantastic cheesecakes. And I still have not taken the time to flip out over the fact that we are within three months of the birth of our second (yet-to-be named) little boy. I have plenty that I need to do.

It is not that my office is even all that full of stuff. I look around and there is not too much to distract me. In the place of multiple commentaries by theologians, there is a fantasy football trophy from 2006, some paintings that I used on stage at camp in 2005, an old copy of Spider-Man from 1966, a Dirk Nowitzki bobble-head, and a stuffed Undertaker that one of our secretaries threw at me. These are what fill the multitude of bookshelves that the previous occupant left for me. (There were some commentaries on my desk-just books that have been 'borrowed' from my peers).

When I walked in today, there was an overwhelming urge to discard of the trash and reorganize the things of value. I tried to work on the 'to-do' list first. It was impossible. So I threw away countless papers that had just accumulated over my six months in this office. I found some books that I intend to read (yet had forgotten where I had placed them). Books are now, at the very least, on the shelf.

I guess I used the word 'clean' a little more liberally than some. I should probably have said, 'Today, I did things so that I could see some progress.'

Paul writes about the hard working farmer (2 Timothy 2). If we just think about the example, the farmer diligently worked while completely relying on God-plucking weeds day after day in the hope that God will send rain. He does some things in the hopes of seeing progress. His hope in God is certain because of God's faithful-and he works firmly within the knowledge of that truth.

Early on in Scripture, God lays out for us the Shema in Deuteronomy 6. God provides statutes and laws that serve to show the follower of YHWH how to avoid the trappings of a mundane, self-seeking life for the sake of them loving Him above all else. He reminds us to have constant reminders when he refers to frontlets. Frontlets literally means 'Everywhere you look, I Am there.' God's desire is for His followers to see Him and know Him in such a way that we could teach Him. Christ fulfills this message in that, in Him, these things are now possible.

What things are we doing in the hope of seeing God's progressive work in us?

Fanboy

It started innocently enough.

I was out of town. Hope told me that she had purchased Shep some superheroes.

My inner dork did a cartwheel. Ever since Hope's pregnancy, I have pointed out anything loosely connected to powers gained through gamma radiation, alien heritage, or accidental bites from a variety of insects. I would casually point to (albeit gaudy) bibs with a man in a mask jumping where milk spittle rests. When Shep was going through his stuffed animal/teething ring/exersaucer stage, I would take a step three aisles over to let him get a feel of Gotham City and the Baxter Building.

So when Hope called to tell me that Shep was now the proud owner of Spiderman, Carnage, a Hand Ninja, and Samurai Wolverine, I realized that all of my hard work was beginning to pay off. Before we knew it, all three of us would be wearing masks and capes and taking care of injured puppies when we were not fighting pedestrian crime.

Thankfully, this all coincided with potty training. What happened when there were no accidents? We could finally look for an Iron Man. If my boy had a successful week, there was good chance that a member of the Fantastic Four was in his future. If he complemented my driving, off to the toy store. He wanted heroes and it was my job as a parent to encourage his inner X-Man.

His collection was growing. The figures come in two packs and, despite the fact that he was the proud owner of 5 Spidermen, 2 Iron Men, and 2 Wolverine, I was able to sit down and begin to have discussions at an early age about how great power comes with great responsibility. We plotted out battles between the heroes and the villains who had oddly taken over the minds of all of Shep's animals (due mainly to a shortage in evil on the retail shelf). He even knew that the Hulk is the strongest there is and would have no problem smashing a T-Rex or an Elmo the size of my son.

We went to the store the other night. Shep asked if he could get some superheroes and had a few extra dollars. I confidently strolled into Toys-R-Us with the boy and we walked straight to the hero section. This is where it all gets a little iffy.

Shep grabbed a Bat Mobile. What is wrong with that? Nothing-well, almost nothing. He only owns Marvel figures. Bat Man is a DC character. My spider senses started tingling. He cannot have 17 Marvel figures and one Batman driving into the fight in his fancy sports car. DC heroes and Marvel characters never overlap except in publicity stunts by the publishers (and it does not take a mutant to realize that those books are non-canonical).

Shep then started to want Toy Story figurines. Next, he wanted the electronic dinosaur (the one with the remote). I kept steering him around the store, hoping that this was not real, just a training simulation like the one's that take place in the X Mansion.

That is when it hit me.

I was vicariously collecting action figures through my 2 year old son. Shepherd was not really collecting action figures-I was.

We walked over to the cars. He saw a three pack from the movie 'Cars' that he really wanted. So we bought them. Sally, Red, and (yet another) Lightning McQueen were now his. At least for a few days, Cars had regained there spot in my boy's vivid imagination.

Which reminds me-we still don't have a Batmobile...

Saving the Planet One Can at a Time

I was in elementary school the first time that I ever heard the word 'recycle.' At that point, I did not know (nor did I care) about the positive impact that recycling had on the environment. I had no clue that you could virtually recycle everything that had ever been 'cycled'. I never walked around the neighborhood with multiple plastic bags sorting cardboard into one, glass into the next, plastic into its own, and aluminum in the last. There was no desire in my heart to take care of my children's children and their children as well. I recycled for one reason: Greed.

My brother and I found out from our dad that the reason the old guy in the neighborhood used a stick to stab aluminum cans and asked us if we had anymore was because aluminum had a monetary value. Aluminum was big (small) business. I quickly realized that this was, for a 7 year old, the modern day equivalent of the poor-man's Midas touch. Every can I could find would be turned into cash money. With my brother at my side, the two of us scavenged the neighborhood (at least the parts within our parents line of vision), looking far and wide for cans. With each can, we realized we were one step closer to Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Contra, or Double Dribble.

In 1985, 2 million collectors earned over 200 million dollars saving cans. While this sounds like the greatest get-rich-quick scheme since door-to-door vacuum sales, it is important to do simple math. Cans were worth around $0.27 a per pound at the time. It takes roughly forty cans to get a pound of aluminum. In order to fully pay for a Nintendo game ($50), we had to collect over 200 pounds of cans! Even with my current addiction to soft drinks, that takes a really long time. As a 2nd grader, I realized with the quickness a simple truth that much of America still embraces: Recycling is a hassle.

Time passed. I grew up, graduated, got a job, recycling... is still not fun. It is more convenient. It is publicized better. It has a catchy, colorful nickname. Yet it still calls for a person to make a decision that involves an extra effort.

The recycler now come by your house and pick up your goods. You no longer have to sort them. Just throw it all in one bag and they will sort it all later. The only problem is that they do not run regularly. It takes someone competent in either quantum physics, logarithms, or philosophy to decode the pick up times for your neighborhood. The recycle truck on our street used to run the first Tuesday after the full moon (if it wasn't raining), but now runs twice a month. I still do not know when those two times will be.

Last Tuesday, I had my neighbor and best friend Kevin jump off my old truck and Hope and I hauled the remaining cardboard in our garage to the recycle center. (I had gotten lucky and placed most of the recyclables on the street. However, I did not want to push my luck for fear of having to carry it all back inside after the defeat of realizing that it was not the right day...again.) As we were driving, a box flew out of the back of the truck. I wanted to leave it. I felt like that it would decompose on its own since we were going the extra mile for the sake of the planet. Hope disagreed.

I parked about 15 feet down the road on the one flat spot I could find to park. I left the truck running because the truck won't start back up when you do weird things like put it in park. I ran quickly because the truck was on fumes. I went running uphill and grabbed the old diaper box box and took off back for the truck. As I sprinted to the truck, a little lady that we will call Edna stepped out from behind one of the bushes. She asked if I could trim the tops of her hedges.

The truck was still running. Hope was waiting. Edna was handing me the clippers (without an answer). I started to make an excuse. "I don't have time" seemed overused. "My wife is waiting" did not seem correlate with Hope's personality or the old ichthus on the back of my truck. ("Feaux hawks are in on bushes" was probably my best bet in retrospect.)

I took the clippers and trimmed the hedges. Edna told me her story. She told me that her husband had passed away from cancer and that she was taking care of her son now because he, too, has cancer. She told me that the Lord was getting her through this difficult part in her life.

In three minutes, I learned about a lady whose house I pass on the way to Target, to Chili's, to get gas, who I would never have even thought about stopping to help.

I got in the truck and Hope and I drove to the Recycle Center. She was laughing hysterically. We continued to laugh at my inability to properly trim bushes. What seemed like a hassle turned into a moment that made an impact on me and made me realize somet things for which I am grateful:

I am grateful for Kevin's forward thinking in the purchase of his jumper cables.

I am grateful for Hope being in the truck with me to watch this debacle.

I am grateful that I don't have to collect cans anymore for video games.

I am grateful that the recycle driver is so unpredictable.

I am grateful for the box that flew out of the back of my truck.

I am grateful for Edna being 5'3.

I am grateful that her bushes are 6'1.

Halloween Dance

It is safe to say that, around the age of 12 or 13, there is a huge difference in the way that your child will look at life. Your sweet baby no longer goes over to a friend's house after school to 'play'. If you even use the word 'play,' they will shrink down in the chair or shush you. Why? The reason is very simple. Kids in middle school do not 'play'. They 'hang out'.

It is also around this time that kids fully embrace the idea of relationships. They usually have the first case of 'puppy love' (and to think, you bought all of those Valentine's cards during elementary in vain.)They begin to wear cologne or perfume. They worry about their hair a little more. They even communicate with their girlfriends and boyfriends on the phone.

When I was in middle school, I dealt with a little of this myself. I had a young girl that I talked to on the phone. (It is so weird to think that we used to actually talk into the phone. On top of that, they were plugged into the wall.) We decided very quickly that we were going to 'go' together. As middle schoolers, this consisted of walking to classes together and occasionally carrying tray at lunch. We were 'going' together, but we really did not have anywhere to 'go.'

Then the flyers were placed around school for our Halloween dance! We finally had a destination-a place to 'go.'

It did not start off too great. I showed up wearing a hockey mask in an attempt to be Jason from the 'Friday the 13th' series. The attempt was half-hearted at best because, while Jason wore cover alls, carried a machete, and was covered in fake blood, I simply wore a button down shirt, carried a coke, and was bathed in Polo cologne.

I had my mom drop me off a good distance from the dance to keep from being embarrassed by the mere thought that I, a 12 year old boy, could not find my own way to the school cafeteria. I ended up being embarrassed because the distance of the walk caused me to break a sweat. Luckily, the strong aroma of the cologne completely overwhelmed the nostrils of anyone who stood within five yards of me.

The second problem proved a little more difficult. In all of our conversations, the two of us had never discussed costumes. I aimlessly walked around asking everyone if they had seen any resemblance of my girl. Eventually, I found her. She was dressed as a football player. Her costume was complete with eye black, shoulder pads, a helmet, and cleats. She was taller than me anyway. The cleats made dancing with her as difficult as sitting on the front row of a movie theater. Combining her uniform with my hockey mask made it seem like we should be on the Sports Center's Top 10 plays.

Mid-dance, I was a little disappointed with the whole evening. So, as we stood in the middle of the dance floor, I did what middle schoolers do-I broke up with her. Upon completing this task, I took off my hockey mask and went and did what chubby kids do. I went and sat beside the Booster Club table that was selling popcorn and cokes.

Moments later, a friend of hers came over to me and told me that my now ex-girlfriend was crying on the the other side of the room. I was more into the Little Debbie in my clutches than the conversation. I asked a question that made logical sense to me as a 7^th grade boy, “Why?” The friend replied, “Because you broke up with her, dummy!”

In a moment of nothing besides sheer brilliance, I uttered said to her, “Go tell her that I was just kidding.”

So she did. And the girlfriend bought it! We ended up dancing for the rest of the evening. She was happy because she had her dance partner back. I was happy because I realized that, if I did not want to deal with the strains of middle school love, I could break up because she would take me back. My commitment to her was really a commitment to my own happiness. I could walk away if I wanted and come back with 'I did not mean it. It was just a joke.' It was just a luke-warm, half hearted commitment.

Many of us are living out our journey with Jesus in very much the same way. We are committed when it is good for us and then stuck in the monotony of self absorbed living three weeks later. We stand on a spiritual peak singing promises that, too often, end up just being words. Our commitment to God is half-hearted at best.

The problem with this line of thinking is the Bible. Nowhere in scripture to we find God viewing this approach to Christ and His kingdom as something that we have the right to treat so flippantly. Christ says for us to love him whole heartedly (Mark 12: 28-31) and that His glory belongs to no one else (Isaiah 48:9-11). Too often, for the sake of our own desires and pleasure, our commitment to God translates as a vain, half hearted treatment of His love and a cheap view of His grace. When God is taken for granted and treated like this, our commitment translates as 'half-hearted'.

It does not take a hockey mask to realize that half-hearted commitment is not commitment at all.

The Gospel and Chicken Nuggets

I have a friend who is a devout meat eater-a steak and potatoes kind of guy. A few months ago, he decided that he was going to only eat a vegetarian cuisine for forty days. However, vegetarian in 2009 is not what it was in 1987. To my surprise, he was able to pick up vegetarian hot dogs, hamburgers, barbecue, etc. At any moment I half expected him to extract a T-Bone steak made solely of ground squash and zucchini.

Hope and I were at the store the other night and, for whatever reason, decided to buy Shepherd (our little boy) some vegetarian Chicken nuggets. Thinking they would be healthier and lead him into healthier, herbivore bliss, we gave them a shot.

He would not touch them. We tried everything. We tried cheering for him. We tried acting like the nugget was an airplane coming in for a landing. We tried me eating a nugget to make him jealous. We even tried ketchup. Nothing.

Here is the difference. My friend had conditioned himself to accept the shortcomings of the vegetarian cuisine for his experience. Shepherd, who loves real chicken, wanted nothing to do with our sloppy substitute made of cauliflower.

Too often in the life of a follower of Jesus, we accept substitutes for the gospel. Today, when we can have our Christianity in every size, flavor, and with cream on top, we deal with a multitude of false doctrine. There is the prosperity gospel which states that if we ‘blessed’ by God, then our financial endeavors and our joys in earthly life will be exponential. This theology being made popular by certain television networks and toothy grins.

There is also what is called the Social Gospel, which is consistently being reinvented. The long and short of this theology is that the main focus of the believer is to have an impact on society ONLY in the here and now and make up for the sins of humanity. The kingdom of God is merely an earthly Kingdom. The person of Jesus simply sets the standard for this goodness. His death on the cross was not in the place of our sin, Christians are to be morality driven do-gooders who try to put a band aid on the deep, infected cut that has been left on our world by sin.

The problem with these two ‘gospels’ is the Bible. If the prosperity gospel is true, then the stories of Job, John the Baptist, the disciples, and Stephen as well as numerous missionaries throughout history and around the world (not to mention Jesus) are pointless. To ascribe to a purely social gospel and simply focus on the here and now is to dismiss Paul’s longing for heaven and consistent Biblical theme that only in the presence of God will our view of Him cease to be distorted. Both of these focus on the actions of man outside of the work of Jesus. To paraphrase a pastor in Dallas, any time we put an adjective in front of the ‘gospel (social, prosperity, etc.), then that ceases to be the gospel.

Even personally, we distort the true gospel found in the Bible and orthodox Christianity. When we stand satisfied in our own good deed with no connection to Christ, then that is not the gospel. If, in our weaknesses, we blame God instead of depending Him, that is not the gospel. To act like God exists for us rather us existing for Him is to dilute the overwhelming Biblical message that all things exist in order for God to be made much of (Psalm 24). The problem with misunderstanding does not end with misguided theologians. It is propagated by the fact that the message of the Bible is, at best, considered for only an hour a week.

The gospel is this. We were created to be in perfect harmony with God. As a result of the fall, we no longer have that harmony; rather there is enmity between God and man. God sent Christ as result of His rich love and mercy to reunite us with himself and has therefore given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). If that Gospel has penetrated us, it will overflow and impact those we come in contact with regardless of their lot in life because, in Christ, we are a New Creation through Jesus (Eph. 2:8-10). Christ will shape the way that we view our place at work. He will define our role as we take our kids to practices. He will impact our marriage and give us a Biblical view of parenting. In retirement, the Gospel is the our desperate need for Jesus and satisfaction found in Him will spill out into the way that we live rather than what we define as our ‘beliefs’.

How have you been affected by Jesus? How has Christ shaped the way you treat others? Is your life defined by gospel rooted in the truths of Scripture? Or have we conditioned ourselves to accept the shortcomings of these heretical treatments of Christ and his message?

Are you settling for chicken nuggets made of cauliflower?

Let the Battle Begin...

I am not much in the kitchen. One of my greater feats was telling a friend to grind up Reese's Cups and put them on top of a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. While the actual work was going on, I was throwing the excess Reese's Cups at her boyfriend to see if he could catch them in his mouth.

With all of this said, I watch just enough food network to be dangerous. I made a vain attempt to cook Cornish hens one time because of the Neelys' show. However, the competition shows are the only network productions that I can really watch. And the granddaddy of all food network competitions is Iron Chef-more specifically for us, Iron Chef America.

However, i was a little concerned when asked to judge an Iron Chef competition as part of a Disciple Now. While I enjoy both the show and food, I also realize that cooking is not the easiest thing in the world and to expect 7-12 graders to create culinary masterpieces is a bit much. Furthermore, when you judge a contest, you have to at least taste all of the items, otherwise your judgment is a bit skewed. And even if the students were providing their very best efforts, I was a little nervous about the secret ingredient. Secret ingredients are a little scary when you have accomplished chefs. When you have an eighth grader who can jack up a Hot Pocket, a secret ingredient may put you in the hospital.

The youth pastor had prepared the students ahead of time and they had showed up with everything save the secret ingredient. Some of them brought raw chicken. Others brought eggs. I was a little nervous, half-expecting some kid to roll around in contaminated peanut butter. They were shaking and baking up ideas when the youth pastor announced the ingredient. I was about to be part of Battle Ham!

Ham is not easy to work into anything that is not a sandwich. I have to make an overt effort to eat ham; I never say, "I think that I will eat ham today." This ham was not even sandwich ham; it was 'fresh off the hock' kind of ham. And this ham was presented to me in every way that you can imagine.

I ate a ham pot pie. I ate a hamburger, complete with ground ham. I ate some twisted macaroni and cheese with ham. Lots of breakfast type ham presentations crossed my path; some of the ham wrapped around chicken and fried. This really posed an enormous threat to all things safe and edible, in my humble opinion. There were 'hambrellas' placed on cookie nuggets. One group even ground up ham in a red velvet cake batter.

The funniest part to me was that one group decided to do a medley of Mexican. They did ham and steak fajitas, complete with ham salsa and a sopapilla with ice cream chocolate sauce and a ham garnish. I realized that their food would have been the same with or without the ham. They made fajitas and said, "Throw some ham in that!"
They conjured up salsa and someone slapped some pig in and said, "Boom! Ham!" And ham on ice cream-that had to be an accident.

When it was all said and done, the contest was an 'other white meat' filled success. But I did leave with a few prevailing questions about myself. Are my faith and the actions that my faith generates something that deeply rooted in me, or just something that accentuates me? It seems like it easy for all of us to 'do what we're supposed to do.' Yet when we look at the life of Jesus (not to mention the Old Testament prophets), we see that doing the right thing for the wrong reason is a reprehensible act.

If nothing else, this weekend gave me something to chew on...