8.21--In It, Not Of It

My wife, Jessica, and I just returned from a 5-day vacation to Texas. We flew into the Arlington area, then drove down to San Antonio area, from there went to Burnet, and finally back up to Arlington. When we were trying to decide where we were going and what we wanted to do while down, we realized that we have too many friends and family to see and that Texas is just too spread out to see all of them between Monday and Friday. So, we made the best of the situation, had a whirlwind visit with about 18 hours clocked driving around the state, and we saw everyone we could for as absolutely long a time as we could.

And I realized something very important about myself while there: I am a Texan, through and through, but now New Jersey is starting to seep into me and take root! I am a much more aggressive driver, I expect my corn to come straight off of the cob in the summertime, and it took me a few seconds to remember that I have to pump my own gas down there! Now, I don’t know exactly what to think of this. I have always seen myself as something of a spy, or infiltrator here in Jersey. I have come equipped with the best that Texas has to offer in regard to hospitality, gentlemanliness, more “y’alls” than you can shake a stick at, and a good ole southern outlook on life, and my job was to infect all of this into the hustle and bustle of all them yankees in the northeast.

8.14.11--Be Strong and Courageous

I firmly believe that somewhere in my history I am related to at least one of the great explorers of history. I get too excited about adventures and learning about new places for this not to be the case. And, I know that the rest of my family is affected by this as well. We love to go explore.

I remember one day, while we lived on Guam, we decided that we wanted to check out the parts of the island that were, shall we say, less traveled than others. Now, for those of you who do not know much about Guam, let me first say that you’re not missing much. There is not much to know about it. The entire island is smaller than the county in Texas in which I was born. It’s tiny, and there are only so many roads and trails you can have on a tiny island. But, that being said, we loved it. We would go on these treks called boony stomps. The boonies were what the locals called the jungle areas; these boony stomps were hiking trails that you could take to get to secluded beaches. I have to tell you, they are some of the most breathtaking beaches I’ve ever seen. Even though I was young, my 6 and 7 year-old self still logged away the images of the waves and the sand and the fish that would swim right up to you. These boony stomps were always great adventures and wonderful times spent together as a family, and I absolutely loved them.

7.31.11--Golden Earrings and Scarred Ears (Exodus 31)

So it’s no secret. I’m a big guy. I have been for a while now, and honestly, it’s just within the past few years that I’ve started trying to do something about it. Throughout high school, I somewhat foolishly tried to act as if this was not at all the case, though. I thought I could hide my weight from everyone and myself if I layered properly. My solution? I wore a Hawaiian shirt and t-shirt almost every day of school for four years. It became a trademark-like thing; people knew me for my Hawaiian shirts. Did they really hide the fact that I was overweight from the world? Absolutely no. Did I somehow trick myself into believing this was the case? Absolutely yes. 

I decided the summer after I graduated that I was going to be more confident about who I am, that I was going to turn over a new leaf and not try to “hide” who I was but be happy about the person God made me to be. But this confidence would come at a cost: to truly leave behind the destructive self-consciousness and self-image I had harbored for so long, I had to cut off all ties to it. So I said goodbye to my aloha shirts, and didn’t pack a single one to take with me when I moved out to TLU in the fall.

To get to where I wanted to be, I had to let go of the things that anchored me where I was. 

7.24.11--The Grass Is Always Greener... Right?

Jess is working for four different families as a babysitter and nanny right now. She is definitely staying busy, and God bless her for it, because I could not spend all of my day with other peoples’ kids! I don’t know how people do it, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for elementary school teachers, day care workers, and nannies. It takes a certain type of person to be able not only to put up with kids, but love them in spite and despite of their immaturity as they develop into young men and women. One of the families that she nannies for have been exceptionally welcoming and hospitable to us, going so far as to invite us over for dinner and even to stay overnight at their beach house this summer. We’ve had a wonderful time getting to know all of them, and we’ve even brought two of the kids to church with us a couple of times!

A couple of weeks’ ago, Jess and I went out to the beach house, not to babysit, but to check it out and spend some time in the water. Almost immediately upon arriving there, the two older kids, one thirteen and the other sixteen, started complaining to us about how there was nothing to do when they were at the beach house. They were away from their friends, couldn’t get a job because they weren’t out there long enough, and they didn’t have anything to occupy their time while their parents were at work. I looked out the window at the pool, saw through the tree line that separated their house from the beach, and decided that they had to joking. 

7.17--Storm Clouds and Silver Paint

(Based on the Joseph story from Genesis and Romans 8:28)

I’ve spent the last 8 weeks working as a summer chaplain at the Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility, just a few miles up the road from our house. While there, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with young men from all walks of life, not much different than you or me, who simply made a few wrong choices and are now paying the consequences of that. One of the things I’ve been doing is leading a twice-weekly Bible study for anyone interested in reading God’s word together. Most of the guys that attend regularly will adamantly tell you the same thing:

Prison saved their lives.

7.10.11--Wrestling with God (Genesis 32)

Let us pray.

One of the most meaningful moments of biblical revelation of my life was during one of Mr. Hobbs’ lectures in my high school AP World History class my junior year. We were talking about ancient history, specifically in the Middle East in what was ancient Mesopotamia and Sumeria, an area known as the Fertile Crescent. Mr. Hobbs lectured that religion saturated every aspect of life back then, and how every culture had its own gods that each ruled over all of the land visible from that god’s temple. It was very Lion King-esque, except instead of a god’s dominion being everything that light touches, the god’s dominion was everything within sight of the temple. Priests and other worshipers would face toward the temples for prayer, and any supernatural revelations from the gods came from their dwelling places.

And then along cam Abraham, who messed up the status quo. You see, when God spoke to Abraham, God didn’t speak from a temple. The story goes that God spoke… and Abraham looked up. God’s temple was not a building; God’s dwelling place was the very sky, and therefore God’s dominion included everything under the sky.

Everything that the light touches and the elephant graveyard.

7.3.11--Creation: Our First Impression of God (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

I read an article on Yahoo!News a while back that stated that my generation is the worst generation at changing a first impression. Once we have our minds made up about something or someone, we cannot break out of it. That impression is forever locked in our heads. That means that in a world driven by instant gratification and in a world where the average person sees and hears thousands of advertisements a day, we make up our minds of who and what we like and don’t like within a matter of seconds, disregarding everything else.

The first impression is crucial. I read once that almost 80% of first-time church visitors have already made up their minds on whether or not they will come back for a second visit simply by their impression of the outside of the church. Heck, most people won’t even wait to hear me preach before they’ve decided if they like my pastoral style. It will be determined by whether or not I greeted them, how strong my handshake was, and whether or not I said “um” during the greeting and opening prayer. Some people are even worse. They will judge me based on my age or even how I dress.