September, Week 2, 2012

Today Amber told us she wanted to accept Jesus.

Amber is tall, a young college age girl from a Buddhist background. 

This week we talked about Self-Image. What God really thinks about us. Some people see God like this angry bearded dad up there in heaven. An old man, crotchety and cranky. They think of God as this pasty glowing ethereal fun-nazi who is looking down upon earth with a judgmental glare. And possible a lightning bolt. 

That's so not true. It's not. That's as Mr. Burns would say, poppycock. 

Self-Image is one of those strange things that as a christian it's hard to nail down. In a theological minefield with beliefs wavering on self-loathing penitence and over-inflated views of total depravity, it's hard not to come to one conclusion.

I SUCK.

That's usually the overwhelming viewpoint I hear from people. The theology of suck. The Anthropology of suck. The view that Humanity sucks.

Psalm 139:14... is oft quoted as some magical pill to make us feel good about ourselves, but then we overdose on other things like "The heart is deceitfully wicked" and talking about how in our flesh is no good thing. It's almost schizophrenic. The truth is...

God is crazy about us. 

Psalm 139 goes so much further than saying that God formed our inward parts. It says that God wrote our days down, he wove us together. He fashioned and threw clay about on that potters wheel. We are this wonderful and incredible creation made in His very image. While the world often makes us feel dirty and broken, when God created us He looked down and grinned. He smiled wide. 

He broke open the bottle of champagne, screamed encore, and rested after this masterpiece of creation. Yet because of the broken and cursed nature of this world we feel utterly worthless. Destroyed.

So this week was neat, to think about self-image. To think that our image is the very image of God. That He is not this lightning bolt throwing deity who is distant, but an intimate creator who got his elbows greasy and his hands dirty creating us.

I can't stop thinking about the beauty of this. That John 1:1 talks about how in the beginning was the Word, Jesus, and He and the Father created the Earth together. So when Jesus walked on earth He was with His very creation. He touched trees that came from His creation, He touched hearts that He wove before the foundation fo the earth. The beauty of this is incredible, the intimacy, that Jesus is so much more than distant bearded figure. He is an intimate and loving creator. 

I'm learning so much about Jesus. How He is beautiful and funny and crazy, but a good crazy. How He spoke His mind, called people out on sin, yet was gentle and fierce. He is so complex. The epitome of humanity. The most human person who ever lived in fact because He was like us before evil entered the earth. Human and divine. There is this wonderful beauty in that.

Anyways all that to say...

His beauty is making Amber think about joining Him. That's wonderful. This week people died over youtube videos and magazine covers. Other religions spread and awful message of hate. We didn't even say "Amber, do this or you'll have a bad end."

There was no coercing. All that happened was Jesus in His love and beauty spoke truth into the life of Amber. Called her wonderful, fearfully made, valuable, worthy. We didn't need to riot in the streets. It was not the blood of other men on our hands that makes Amber want to know God. It was just Jesus. Being Himself.

That's what makes self-image so cool. In the end I worship this wonderful God who is so deep, beautiful, incredible, and I find that...

We are made in His image.

That's definitely a self-image to feel good about :) 

Memory

It's September, the last desperation clouding my soul is fading. I am driving now. The freedom is good. I'm happy. I've realized my basic needs were always easy to meet but I underestimated isolation.

I miss you. 

It's almost unnatural the way connections fire off and I find myself once again thinking of us. Every moment from the shading of a smile to the frequency of a pitch ignite and draw my heart back to you. Strange, hidden amidst the most mundane sounds, smells, sights, are triggers so powerful they send me reeling back into time. The thoughts and memories flash like lighting, striking mostly at random and yet too calculated to be an accident. The thunder peels as my emotions flare and I am back so long ago in those same places, those same moments. Memory is as much a blessing as a curse for the forsaken. A haunting specter refusing to let go. I don't want it too. As much as my soul wells up and cries for the cloying hands of the past to relinquish their iron grip, it is that connection with yesterday that drives me on towards tomorrow.

It's almost inescapable. Perhaps this is it, the mending of souls, never meant to be pulled apart. Perhaps the very spirit is now unbreakable, forever wound in this moment. 

I never thought much of memory. I never thought much of the device. It's not the photographic memory that leaves one haunted. Bright and vibrant, real and near. Rather It's the faded faulty camera in our minds. The long expired days turn gray and blur into evanescence. The old thoughts pale and rust and emotions run fallow. Honed and sharp I find the connections in my mind almost overwhelm me. Every thought linked to everything. I thought the mere pictures on a wall or the rereading of old letters would make my heart long and thirst for the old days. I thought removing such things could bring peace to a wounded soul. What foolishness, for if removing a photo could clean and wash the stains of time, peace would not be forfeit in the midnight hours. Yet, if removing a mere photo from the wall could make me forget, I shudder to think of the temporary investment my heart was making. No amount of self-abrasion could scrub away the connections and feelings. I once thought strong items fettered our mind such as music and old haunts. Yet it is the most insignificant of things, the most common, the most every day that launches my heart into the same tirade. The same longing. There is no solace, no peace, no rest. It's obvious the soul was not meant to feel such things. To feel such brokenness.  As hours waste and my prayers of desperation turn fervent I am reminded simply 

 of Jesus. 

In His humanity He came and found Himself separated from the Father. I know not the theological ramifications, I make no such claim to be wise in the ways of the scholar, but I am caught off-guard. The desperation in my soul is a mark of my humanity. Christ, the most human person to ever live, must have felt the longing. The longing to see His father. The longing for His lost and broken sheep. It is here I raise my cup to God, tip my hat and breath. I am feeling the heart of Christ. I am feeling the longing that Calvary brought to Him when He emptied Himself of power. Scarcely can my heart fathom the strange disconnection He must have felt in His own creation. Every atom, molecule, blade of grass, grin, old lady, laughing child and outflow of His once glorious self and father. Every moment a reminder that He is separated. I can hear a voice or see a couple holding hands and be thrust miles back into time, yet Jesus must have felt the sting of eternity welled up in a mortal coil. Every moment a wonderful symbol of daddy, yet an overwhelming isolation few of us can even begin to underestimate. Beautiful. That God would give up more than His life for us. The gospel is not the last week of the life of Jesus. It is this miraculous account of a creator so loving, intimate, and beyond that He humbled Himself to be like a child. To be birthed by His own creation. To sweat, get tired, bleed, cry, get hungry. It is this humanity that was written of in Hebrews. Christ is not an ethereal disembodied soul, rather He can identify with us. He has been there. It is now as I am here in eye of the hurricane, wondering what the future holds that I see all the more Christ is beautiful. He really loves us. If we really can haunt someone as glorious as God, surely not a moment goes by that we are not on His mind, ever present, called out to by a love few of us may ever even encounter.

Idols in the River

I sat there at the edge of the water. It flowed down washing away the dirt and filled that poured into it. I held in my hands an idol, a symbol of the sins of my life, a symbol of the bondage where I willingly walked back to Egypt and screamed “GIVE ME YOUR GODS!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53eAvrknuZA&feature=related

Derek Webb – Wedding Dress

If you could love me as a wife
And for my wedding gift, your life
Should that be all I'll ever need
Or is there more I’m looking for
And should I read between the lines
And look for blessings in disguise
To make me handsome, rich, and wise
Is that really what you want

(chorus)
I am a whore I do confess
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle
I’m a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle to you

So could you love this bastard child
Though I don't trust you to provide
With one hand in a pot of gold
And with the other in your side
I am so easily satisfied
By the call of lovers less wild
That I would take a little cash
Over your very flesh and blood

(chorus)

Because money cannot buy
A husbands jealous eye
When you have knowingly deceived his wife

I am a whore I do confess
But I put you on just like a wedding dress
And I run down the aisle
I’m a prodigal with no way home
But I put you on just like a ring of gold
And I run down the aisle to you

In a moment I would leave Egypt.

Wednesday Matt Korrel preached on baptism. He gave an excellent example of how some people are so hesitant to  become Christians, to commit to God. They say “I just need to know more.” Matt compared it to needing to know everything to on Dora the explorer. If you needed to know all the characters names before you watched it you may have never watched it. He then compared that to how some of us want to know everything before we have children, but if we waited until we knew about children before we had them, we would never have them.

Our culture has invaded our hearts and minds and ripped away the wonder and exploration from our lives. No longer are we able to live and make decisions, we are so exhaustively pumped with information that we absorb it desperately before we choose something. Our comparative and choice-laden society has made us need to know every facet of something before we invest in it. We must analyze something endlessly, calculate risk, reassess, and often freeze undecided. Matt talked about relationships. If we know everything about marriage before marriage, well we would simply never get married!

Our thirst for knowledge has assaulted and destroyed our appreciation for learning through experience. As I sat there listening to Matt speak I thought of a story I once heard.

In a Jewish wedding the groom would hold a cup of wine up to the bride to be. She would look into it. Like the American wedding vow, this was the moment of decision. This drink represented the sharing of two lives. It was the “I do.” As the beautiful bride stood there a choice presented itself. Drink, taste new life, embrace this change and give up your old life. Or drink not, walk away, run. As she pressed the cup to her lips she would be saying to the groom “I choose you, I choose to live the rest of my life with you, I am vowing my life to be yours.” I can imagine the sorrow when that cup was never drank, I can imagine the extreme fears that play themselves out in the brides head as the wine sits in that cup. Is he strong enough? Will he take care of me? Am I losing my freedom? Is this settling?

It is a terrifying thing to give your life to another person. Let alone a hairy, confusing, and strange thing such as a man. Yet the custom always left a profound impact on me. One time it was used to point out the similarity between marriage and the Christian ceremony of Communion.

Communion. I used to think of it as just Passover. Just. I put communion down as a strange and somber festival I would never understand. I put it far from my mind and heart as representing the deepest of human moments. It carries not only the story of redemption and rescue from an evil Pharoh, but so much more. I never saw the real weight and power of communion. As carrying with it the spirit of a wedding, a celebration of life, a joining of souls to become one. When I heard that the cup of wine symbolized so much in a wedding I began to see the beauty of communion. The beauty that Christ is wedding Himself to the church. It is a renewal of our vows, a time to call back on purity, to cling to our maker, to turn our heart toward the very one who made us. It is no wonder we are not supposed to take it lightly.

How hurtful and absolutely destructive it is when someone takes the vows of a relationship and wedding lightly! It marrs the soul in ways we cannot comprehend. It cuts our souls into pieces the same way Voldemort made a Horicrux. It is one of the most intimate moments where we betroth our very soul to the one who knit us together. In the bible the vow was something that when broken was serious enough to result in death. Yet the law is not an ugly nor brutal chain, it is a way that God desperately says to honor marriage. He cries out for us to protect it, for the only thing that unfaithfulness does is destroy and mar the beauty of our relationship. It violates our soul in ways we cannot understand. If we saw how our unfaithfulness destroys us we should shudder and the pure destructive power of sin. There is this powerful message God sent us in His law.

The death of Christ was this moment where God Himself decided to fill that cup with blood. Every drop of blood of blood flowed and spilt to fill the needed vessel for our vow. I look at how often I have drank that wine of the covenant, I have said “I will marry you Christ, I will be faithful.” Yet I said it as a fool in haste. I did not understand the cost nor what it cost Him!

Communion is something that we should take as serious as possible, yet like a wedding it is a time of great and festive joy! I’m so guilty. The blood is on my hands that I have been adulterous to my lover Christ. I have walked away from vows, I have chosen other lovers, I have ran towards sin as if I was running toward the prize. It is here that this last week I have really sat back and looked at that cost, that beauty, that wondrous atonement.

There I am back in Egypt. I am standing there wondering if wandering the wilderness is worth it, should I follow? Should I stay behind with the good food and the familiarity, or should I put my hope in something strange and unseen and wander off into the hot sand hoping that one day I may see a promised land.

I am back at the river.

In my hand I held an idol. Every time I drank from that cup of blood and renewed my vows with Christ I secretly thumbed the idol. I clutched onto it. It tasted of ash and death and decay yet I believed it to be the sweet substance of honey, life, and hope. I went to my idol for comfort, knowing that as I am betrothed to Christ He has not came to bring me home yet. I would hold that idol and say “I hope you can bring me some comfort while my Lord is away, for I don’t know when He will return.” It was a desperate cry for the peace and hope that Christ offers yet it was so unsatisfying.

I am back at the river looking down into that water.

I held that idol in my hand and glanced it over. It was mere stone and wood, sin and depravity. It was for this that I devalued the currency of the blood of Christ. It was for this that I let the death of God seem a small and trite exercise in my life. It was here that I put on a wedding dress and ran down the aisle while my filth still stained my heart and hands. Yet…

Christ held that cup to my lips and said “Drink my bride, drink and live.”

Christ took that cup that cost Him more than I will ever understand or know and said I am wonderful, He said I am not an accident, I am a child of God. He called me part of His very body, the church. He called me and said that I am worth dying for. That nothing on earth was more valuable than His bride, His people. He loved us despite our sin, our unfaithfulness, our darkness. Yet unlike this worldly form of forgiveness where we say we forgive and withhold our trust, Jesus took it so much further. He clothes us in love, righteousness, value. He called us righteous, wonderful, beautiful.

So I took my Idol. I tossed it into the river. With joy I tossed it and watched it stumble on downstream, devoured by the waves, crushed by the blood of Christ, decimated by the stronghold destroying word of God. I bought some grape juice and bread. I went to a tall place alone and renewed my vows. I love being a child of God.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbnX92DvRIw

Derek Webb – The Church

I have come with one purpose
to capture for myself a bride
by my life she is lovely
by my death she’s justified

I have always been her husband
though many lovers she has known
so with water I will wash her
and by my word alone

So when you hear the sound of the water
you will know you’re not alone

Chorus:
‘Cause I haven’t come for only you
but for my people to pursue
you cannot care for me with no regard for her
if you love me you will love the church

I have long pursued her
as a harlot and a whore
but she will feast upon me
she will drink and thirst no more

So when you taste my flesh and my blood
you will know you’re not alone

Chorus:
There is none that can replace her
though there are many who will try
and though some may be her bridesmaids
they can never be my bride

Courageous – Casting Crowns

we were made to be courageous
we were made to lead the way
we could be the generation that finally breaks the chains

we were made to be courageous
we were made to be courageous

we were warriors on the front lines,
standing unafraid.
but now we're watchers on the side lines,
while our families slip away.
where are you men of courage?
you were made for so much more.
let the pounding of our hearts cry,
we will serve the Lord.

we were made to be courageous,
and were taking back the fight.
we were made to be courageous,
and it starts with us tonight.
the only way we'll ever stand,
is on our knees with lifted hands.
make us courageous,

Lord make us courageous.
this is our resolution, our answer to the call,
we will love our wives and children,
and refuse to let them fall.
we will reignite the passion,
that we buried deep inside.
may the watchers become warriors,
let the men of God arise.

Chorus

Background:
seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God
seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God

Lead singer:
In the war of the mind i will make my stand,
in the battle of the heart, in the battle of the hands.
in the war of the mind i will make my stand,
in the battle of the heart, in the battle of the hands

Chorus

Be wary, however, of a common danger in this final step of the grieving process to which Christians are particularly vulnerable. That is forgiving without emotional integrity. It happens when the Christian quite sincerely declares, "I see the past now, and acknowledge what happened" (Step on of the grieving process). "I turn it over to God and forgive it" (last step). "There. That's done. The book is closed."

That jump from the first step to the last is a dandy bypass around the painful parts of the grieving process. Although it sounds scriptural and is certainly spiritually well-intended, it won't work. The pain has not been dealt with. The infected wound deep inside has not been cleansed, a very real and apt allusion.

The grief process is built into us, which is reason enough to suggest that it is the way God planned for us to deal with loss, emotional turmoil, and pain. When we abort that process, we end up forgiving (and no doubt quite sincerely) in an atmosphere of emotional dishonesty. Even though we voice forgiveness, there remains a deep reservoir of anger and resentment. The forgiveness lacks the integrity of reflecting all the facets of being human.

-Love is a choice

The Angels Rejoice

“Give me a hug”

“Why?”

“I just became a Christian!”

As soon as those words left Vickie’s mouth I hugged her like a bear hugs it’s cub. Grinning, laughing, overjoyed. We talked for a second and I celebrated with rapture the fact that she became a child of God today, a beautiful daughter of the King. I walked into another room. It took everything inside me to fight back tears of joy. I know I shouldn’t fight them, but when you are leading a cleaning team, it’s hard to weep in front of them.  Yet, that’s a subject for another day I suppose.

It’s been a long journey, a year ago Vickie found her way into my heart. She came here with few words and her boyfriend Paul. There are some people that are so raw. So unchurched, so fresh, so unaffected by Christian “Culture.” Every moment is a funny adventure as choice words slip out that I’m not allowed to say. The wisdom Paul gave me in his worldly love was usually things I am too young to know. A year ago I was on my knees praying for them. For some reason Jesus wouldn’t let my heart escape from praying for them day after day. I loved them and as I met with Paul and explained the bible, my heart softened and softened. It was tough to watch them go. Only two months to tell them about Jesus. I had left in a sense saddened but praying desperately to God, I wanted Paul and Vickie to know Jesus.

On the field it’s been strange. I’m not always very good at delaying gratification. If I was I would have a lot less problems and a lot less fat. I’m learning about investing. The farmer plants before the harvest, the investor spends money before he earns it. The truth is it’s been easy to be discouraged sometimes. Honestly, I am a foreigner 12,000 miles away from home. I’ve lost my grandfather, girlfriend, best friend, and much more. I am illiterate. I am a child in so many ways without a native speaker. Amidst that there was a time when I struggled very bad, I lost a lot of my joy and filled with bitterness. I let my circumstances put a jackboot to my throat and hold me down.

Today was another one of those moments when I breathe in deeply. I feel the warmth returning to my flesh, I feel the oxygen filling my lungs, I feel so alive in one moment that I am bursting inside. I am shaking and joyful. Validation isn’t necessary for the Christian life, yet in God’s great mercy He validated that this is all worth it. Those prayers weren’t in vain. The fact is that seeing Vickie become a Christian is like this immeasurable paycheck. It is a tangible mountain of wealth. It washes over the sores and hurt inside that ask sometimes “Was it worth it? Should I be here?”

It’s a beautiful day. It’s so worth it to give up everything for even a little bit of the true life that Christ offers. It's so wonderful to know my friendship with Vickie will still exist 50 million years from now.    

Relient K - Hope for every fallen man 

The Path

As I read the journey of Marc Driscoll and his wife Grace I am caught up in a whirlwind of emotions. Just the opening pages cut deep as I thought about some of the things in my journey that are so similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08WeoqWilRQ

Man on Fire – Edward Sharpe and the magnetic zeros

I feel like I am sitting at the edge of a cliff, staring at an impassable abyss. I know at some point something has to happen, yet I sit at the edge. I run around the circumference a bit, do pushups, I improve myself. Yet there is something beyond the dark inky blackness ahead of me that I cannot see nor reach. It is here that I am finding Victor Frankel was so correct, my existence moves from that of looking ahead to the provisional existence he experienced amid the life of the concentration camp. Days blend into weeks, but they melt so slowly I feel as if days are years in fake clothing trying to convince me they are skinnier then they really are.

On my journey I have came leaps and bounds and now stand like a horse before the race. My breathing is deep and the hot air passes through my nostrils as I stir and paw at the ground. There is nothing more that I desire then for the gate to lower and the world to fade in a Gaussian blur as I gallop onwards. It is here that anxiety once beset me. The voice of devils used to cackle and laugh, a cacophony of sound, screaming that I would fail. They masqueraded as wisdom and truth, rather then fear and passivity. They yelled that I was frail, not made to race, but merely in the wrong place and time. That My race was in vain. Now I know it was never about the finish line, it was about the race. I long for the wind to pull my hair back as I tumble forward gaining ground. I no longer fear defeat. I merely fear the death of the race. The death of the chance to inhale deeply and press on towards what lies ahead. To risk it all for the great adventure, the great pursuit of Christ.

So here I am at the edge of this abyss. Marc Driscoll shared his story so poetically and my inner being sighed as I longed to understand some of the same things. I longed for that elegant and frail hand to be in mine as I walk onwards in life. His book made me shudder inside to see the man I was playing out before me merely months ago. I had become a beast. Like Psalm 73, I become brute and arrogant. A mere creature of emotion and lusts, desires and defeats.

There once was no abyss, merely a well laid out path, yet as the Lord so amazingly does He has crumbled my roads. Struck down my comfort. Torn the path I tried so hard to walk across down brick by brick. As the stones crack and I find myself here, I am in the strangest of predicaments. A year ago I had a path and no direction. Now I have direction and no path.

I am not sure what the wise would rather have but I know that there is a promise in scripture that I used to understand the wrong way. In Proverbs God says these ancient words that I always heard but never understood.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.”

For some reason my eyes always looked at those words as if they were something I knew too well to reread. I would glance at them and a haze would envelope my heart. The words would seem stagnant and a voice inside would rise in a yawn and whimper, “I know, I am trusting Him, found the path, cool.”

Yet I totally missed the meaning…

Noah Gunderson – Winter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxOQV6epL4Q

I was foolish to think that what God was saying was “find the path and it’ll work out.”

Nope. Doesn’t work that way. Rather He was saying I can’t trust in my own understanding. So strange. It’s not the path I am seeking, it’s God, and He promises He will make a pass. Now this may be a slight difference, easy to miss, but therein lies the rub.

For so long I thought I was pursuing a path like Sherlock Holmes, looking for clues, signs, and the work of God. Yet what I am looking for is God.

I’m looking for God. It’s when I lean on Him that abyss starts to grow. The edge of the cliff I am on seems to get thinner. It is when I draw close to God the paths around me fade and fog envelopes them. The left, the right, and I stand practically on a tightrope. A thin bridge. This is where God wants me, because I am not looking for the path. Instead God will MAKE my path straight.

I don’t need to see left or right, in fact it’s so easy to look around be so distracted by thoughts and possibilities. Rather God does something crazy and says “Cling to me desperately and I will make your path straight.”

It’s so crazy. It’s like instead of looking at the map and the road we just drive forward and the road leads us. Maybe that goes against instinct. Maybe that sounds like Rob Bell Voodoo Jesus Magic, yet what I’m learning is that as I stand here I am at the edge of everything and the only thing that will keep me from tripping into that abyss is ruthless trust. It is here I finally have no path, but I have a direction, and the path is building naturally. Maybe that makes no sense. That’s ok, I’m pretty happy where I am. Not making sense and babbling on as the keys to wisdom and the universe start to swirl in my mind. I have learned so much.

Bringing it back to the point. Victor Frankel in “Man’s Search for meaning” talks about how when we know nothing about finality our existence moves from one of hope and purpose to provisional living. Tomorrow becomes absent in light of today. While we need to plan and think it is here that I find myself. I don’t know where I’ll be next week. I don’t know if I’ll ever see some of my best friends again. I don’t know. I simply don’t know. So I’m clinging to Jesus, I’m holding onto daddy, like any child who is along for the ride. And I guess now I’m finally just saying, “I’m glad were going.” Instead of “Where are we going.”

Am I a man or a Muppet?

I think the catalyst to my thoughts is often movies. I watch my thoughts fizz and pop as movies slowly activate the inner workings of my mind. In the most unlikely of places I found myself thinking about so much I’ve been learning and working through the last months.

The new Muppets movie has it’s slew of hilarious and genius moments but underlying it is this innocent relationship between Jason Segall and Amy Adams. What intrigues me so much about it is that although it probably was a filler plot element, the very nature of the relationship was almost cringe inducing to watch. I have been Jason Segal, the passive and extremely co-dependent male who is slowly suffocating the relationships in his life with his actions. There is a slow fade as you watch the relationship exist as an external attachment to Jason’s world, rather then him including Amy on his journey. Or when he does include Amy he includes everyone, specifically Walter. I watched and kept seeing stupid things that Jason did, things that in my now right mind I would never consider or think about, that I had once done. It was intriguing to think about it.

Now I am sitting here, listening to the Muppets soundtrack, and thinking about deep things. They seem like they don’t go hand in hand but I’m thinking about my generation. How I wasn’t fathered in a way that said “Jake, you can set boundaries. Jake your allowed to say no.” It’s been refreshing as I find myself refusing things, as I find myself speaking my mind in ways I wouldn’t have dreamed of even six months ago. I wish, oh how I wish someone would have just pulled me aside and shaken me and said “Jake your co-dependent”

I had never heard of it. I see all the symptoms now as I watch movies, people, friends. I talk to friends about old relationships and see how passivity is murder to a relationship. That our generation is full of men who either know how to be to aggressive, or too passive, but they know not how to treasure a heart. I’ve been told the new muppets movie is very self-aware. That’s what I’m becoming, able to look and see the different stupid things I’ve done. Choices that amounted to hurting people, failure to do enough. It’s not a guilt trip for myself either. I feel pretty awesome, I’m learning that I am a child of God and as such don’t need to feel the pain and condemnation that Satan hurls at me. He’s forgotten the refrain that Jesus Saves, as Shane and Shane put it so well.

Jason is interesting, there is this moment where Amy says “Ok, what are we going to do tonight?” It’s their anniversary. And Jason says “I don’t know, what do you want to do? Whatever you want to do.”

I think in my own desire to love and help people I used to think that offering the freedom of choice was an act of love, yet I’m learning that it is enabling me to be passive. A girl doesn’t want to make every decision, she doesn’t want to create the adventure. I was particularly struck by that lack of knowing what to do and that hesitation of Jason in such an important moment in the relationship. A tinge of sadness rose in me because I have done the same thing, suffocated a heart with my passiveness and lack of knowing what to do. It reminds me of that oft quoted military mantra that a leader need not go left, nor right, but he must do something. I wondered how many men have sat there staring and lacking the ability to decide. How many men have shunted there own passive nature onto another person.

Christ has given me so much freedom these last few months. I acted passive because when I wasn’t passive I got extremely wounded. Yet I let go of the pain three months ago and now I am learning more everyday. Turning the flashlight on myself has been one of the hardest and most painful things I’ve ever done. Yet I am getting better and that is freeing in and of itself. I no longer fear making decisions, I am able to fight that passive nature, I am seeing real victory. For the longest time I would try to well up thoughts and found myself frozen. A hindrance or a block would come and I would sit there dumbfounded like I was watching a train wreck and unable to stop it. Going back to the past and looking at how I got there, at how subtle rejections built up over time to create this wall inside of me has been one of the most freeing things I can imagine. Once I let go of that pain it was like I took the first breathe in years. Now I am finding my mind racing with thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions. I find I am able to not fear things that once honestly froze me like a child. That is wonderful. It’s nice to watch the Muppets and be reminded of some deep things today.