Shout Out to the Ladies

Dear Women,

            I am not pretending that I have in the least bit “figured you out” but I have noticed some very troubling things that my fellow Men have caused. It is pretty common knowledge that a basic need of females is to feel beautiful but I think that you have unconsciously let Men define what beauty looks like. This is very bad because we seem to have messed everything up.

            Everywhere I go I see girls struggling so hard to fit into what we have defined has Beautiful and failing so miserably that what is left is hardly recognizable as a person, much less a treasured child of the living God. Needless to say I am tired of testosterone ruining lives when we were given the Divine responsibility of cherishing and leading God’s own Creation. I am not disowning my gender, just trying to redeem it.

            In an attempt to redeem the reputation of Men I want to redefine what it means to be Beautiful. It is a little awkward for me and very different more blunt than anything I have ever written but there are too many slaves to what we have always called beauty to shy away from the topic any longer.

            Let me start with what Beauty is not.

Beauty is not WHO YOU ARE WITH: It seems like everywhere I go I see these girls hanging for dear life on some guy’s arm as if letting go would shatter everything they want to be. Sure he may have tons of money and look like you ripped him out of an Abercrombie catalog but if he is the kind of guy that always wants you with him it is probably because he is insecure and wants to be seen with you. You are being used.

You don’t get more beautiful by being with that guy, you just become a trophy.

Trophies collect dust and never are admired for anything but for who “won them.” You are far too beautiful to sit on somebody else's shelf. You were not created to collect dust because Woman was the only thing in all of creation that was not made out of dust. Eve came from a living, breathing, body- everything else came from the ground.

Beauty is not YOUNG: This country is full of weight loss programs and cosmetic surgeries that take the aged and transform them into youthful “beauties.” Men have told you your whole life that your value is in your appearance and since you are aging out of your good appearance your only option seems to be dressing like a teenager and hating what you see in the mirror more and more every day. Don’t believe our lies.

Grow old and be happy. Laugh away those wrinkles and know that you have more wisdom and experience than any of those girls you are trying to imitate. You don’t prove anything by looking half your age or showing that you “still got it” except that you are terribly afraid of death and don’t believe that the other side of eternity has anything to offer you.

Beauty is not OLD: Nothing ticks me off more than a little girl who hates that she isn’t ten years older. Life moves so quickly Time doesn’t need your help in blowing away your childhood. Your beauty is not in how old you look. The “you” in twenty years would trade places with you without hesitation.

Beauty is not NAKED: Since the first day Adam looked at Eve and thought to himself “Whoa man” (where we get the term “woman”), us guys have been on a continual pursuit of convincing the female race that their beauty lies in their nakedness. We tell you that you aren’t worth anything when you are fully dressed. This is because we have come under the grave misconception that woman are just objects to point our raging sex hormones at and use for our pleasure. We could not be more wrong.

            You are more than a sex toy. You don’t get more beautiful by exposing more skin. Fitting into those jeans doesn’t make you more valuable. Don’t sink to our level by attracting that kind of attention. The kind of guy you get when you use that bait deserves to be thrown back into the water. You have been bought with a price by the Creator of the universe so don’t dress like you are still for sale.

So now that I have covered what Beauty is not, I think it is time I clarify what Beauty actually is.

Beauty is about WHO YOU ARE WITH: You read that right, it looks like I just contradicted myself but let me clarify. Beauty is not about the people you associate with but by the God with whom you are surrounded. Your beauty comes from outside of you. You are a reflection of the glory of God which is a beauty far more powerful than any physical appearance or hairstyle. Beauty in the truest sense of the word is the radiance of the Holy of Holies which can saturate everything about you. People don’t even have to see you to be attracted to the beauty coming from you when you are with God.

Let the world see past your body and see into new depths of beauty. Some wise person once said that a woman should be so deep in God that any man has to find Him before they find her. Do that.

Make us guys go through intense discipleship before we even think about pursuing you. Make it impossible for someone to see you and not see God.

Beauty is YOUNG: Everybody stopped pretending life is easy a long time ago. Growing up and living life is bound to beat you up and give you scars and calluses. Try as hard as you want but you will never be able to erase them on your own but there is a God who can and wants to wipe you clean, give you a fresh start and make you beautiful again.

Beauty is the renewed youth of someone who has gone through Hell but bears no burn marks on their body and can laugh at that thing they call “past.” It doesn’t matter where they have been because they are made young again by the grace and awesomeness of God.

Beauty is OLD: People seem to have this idea that beauty is somehow trend related. In the Roaring Twenties beauty meant looking like a boy. In the sixties beauty meant dressing like the first lady. In the eighties beauty meant having hair that floated three feet off your head and used enough hair spray to put a whole in the Ozone layer.

Beauty is not a trend that dies. True beauty is as ancient and eternal as the angels in heaven. When you realize what true beauty means you are connecting yourself with the things of heaven which will be around long after your clothes go out of style. The beauty that is in you is older than humanity and still kicking.

Beauty is NAKED: We live in a day and age where enough make-up and fashionable clothing can cover up any amount of “ugliness” people think they have. True beauty, however, is naked, raw and transparent. Beauty doesn’t need to cover anything up because it has nothing to hide. Adam and Eve were naked until they discovered shame.

You don’t need to get any part of your body “done” because you let God do all your transforming.

True beauty is honest with itself and isn’t pretending to be anything it’s not. Beauty is not an act.

                Please forgive us guys for confusing you, we don’t know any better.

                        With deepest sincerity,

                                    Remorse and  

                                                Apology,

                                                            A guy

The Macaroni Lifestyle

           There are not too many practical uses for pasta. I mean aside from making various Italian dishes with names that sound like mob bosses, there is not too much you can do with it.

            There is, however, one very notable exception.

            It is the largely unappreciated art form of pre educational system humans known to most simply as Macaroni Art.

            You know what I am talking about. Someone one day long ago figured out that uncooked pasta works great glued to construction paper in various shapes to appease small children in clean amusement for hours. I for one, never really saw the artistic side of Macaroni Art but I know that my four old self just got hungrier every time we had make some.

            In case you don’t know, here is how the process of creating Macaroni Art works:

            Adults tell kids what to do, show them how to do it; then let the kids go free and have at it. The kid puts all of his attention span and creative energy into his masterpiece. He knows that his macaroni elephant looks like a mushroom with eyes but it doesn’t matter to him. He also knows that the kid beside him is fully capable of making the Mona Lisa out of lasagna noodles but that also doesn’t matter because he did his best and that is all that counts. The great phenomenon here is that the kid never once thinks of keeping his masterpiece, but can’t wait until he gets home to give it to his mom or dad.  

            I can’t think of a better picture of the life of a Christian than macaroni art.

            Think about it.

            God tells us what to do; He shows us how to do it then lets us free to be creative with the hopes that we will enjoy ourselves completely and then offer our work back to Him. It makes so much sense.

            Instilled deep inside of us is the desire to make beautiful art and give it back to the One who will appreciate it the most and this desire comes out when little kids are asked to make macaroni art. The problem is we grow out of pre-K and somehow get this idea that the gifts and abilities we have are solely to be used for our benefit and critiqued by us when they are not what we feel is good enough.

            It shouldn’t matter that our greatest gifts hardly amount to anything recognizable, because they are the best of what we have been given. It shouldn’t matter what it all looks like in the end because we fully enjoyed making it and fully enjoyed giving it away.

            It shouldn’t matter that somebody else does things way better than we do because what you make is for your Father not theirs. This life is your macaroni masterpiece, not theirs.

            I think it is incredible that little kids can have so much pleasure in making art and then not think once about giving it all away. If you have ever been around a little kid with time on his hands you will inevitably find yourself with a stack of art that keeps piling up until you take their crayons away. They just keep giving and creating more of their masterpieces and never think of keeping one for themselves.

            Sometimes I get this idea that I can use the gifts God has given me to become a super Christian that the world respects and remembers for eternity. It is like I can use the writing ability given to me to write a world changing, fame attracting masterpiece or use the speaking ability given to me to become the greatest preacher the world has ever known. My four year old self would smack me. He knew that what I create isn’t for me.

            None of us have much but we always think that the art supplies given to us is ours to do whatever we want with but that is not the case at all.  Some of us have the audacity to think that God never gave us anything at all and so we aren’t expected to do anything. We assume that if God didn’t make us “wise beyond our years,” socially extravagant or even physically attractive than we have nothing and should not be expected to attempt a masterpiece.

            A parent receiving art from their kids never evaluates what materials, resources, or abilities the kid had available to him- they just appreciate it all because it was done out of love.

            God does the same thing.

            Sometime people who do have all the things the world desires think that they can actually make something beautiful with their macaroni. They think their best efforts are good enough to actually make a difference in the world.

            God knows better. It is just macaroni.

            When you think about the incredible power it took to shape the heavens and create humanity, the very best of what we do just becomes macaroni. It really isn’t any more valuable than gluing dried pasta to construction paper but God still lovingly accepts, and desires for it all.

What are you making with the little bit of macaroni you have been given?

            What are you going to do with your masterpiece?

            God desperately wants to display your macaroni masterpiece on the refrigerators of heaven but He can’t when all you want to do is keep it for yourself or pretend you can’t do anything.

Megaphones

             One of my favorite movies of all time is A Knights Tale. It is one of those great movies that I can’t not watch when it comes on TV. There is a scene where Heath Ledger’s companion posing as Geoffrey Chaucer is performing his usual over the top and laudatory announcement of his jousting friend to the adoring crowd when he says something that got me thinking.

                In the midst of lavish exaggerations, fake Chaucer says something to the effect of “he spent a year in silence just to better understand the sound of a whisper.”

                A whisper is almost nothing. A few notches down and there would be no sound whatsoever. You have to be real close to someone both physically and relationally to carry on a successful whispering conversation. Distance between parties eliminates the art of whispering. That doesn’t seem like something that would take that long to understand but once again, I am proved wrong.

                Elijah once was given the incredible opportunity to meet face to face with God. He had just finished a fiery dual with the prophets of Baal where God had showed up in an incredible way when he ran away to a cave to hide from people who wanted to kill him. It is amazing that we can see God so clearly in all His power one second and the next feel like He can’t save us from whatever circumstance we are in the next. God wanted to remind Elijah of who he was dealing with so He tells him to stay in a cave and watch because His presence was about to pass by.

                “Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” *

            Elijah was so close to God that he recognized that God would be more likely to appear in a gentle whisper than in a rockslide.

            “That random ball of fire that just came through here? Oh that was nothing.”

            The Creator of everything chose to reveal himself with a sound that is almost nothing.

            God whispers because you have to be close to him to hear it. Anybody can feel an earthquake, whispers are for the ones He wants to be close to.

            One thing was just revealed to me about the familiar walking on water story in Mathew chapter 14. These tired, weary, and wave battered disciples thought they saw a ghost and not one of them recognized him as the guy they traveled the world with so Jesus had to tell them himself who He was. They all still had their doubts so Peter decided to ask Him something that would prove his identity, kind of like when you forget your Facebook password and they ask you all these predetermined questions to make sure it is really you. Instead of Peter asking Jesus to tell him what number He was thinking about or where he was born he asks one striking question.

            “Lord, if it’s you…tell me to come to you on the water”*

            Peter would know that this ghostly figure on the water was Jesus if He compelled him to come closer. Only Jesus would show his power and then invite him to join Him in it. It was characteristic of Jesus to want Peter closer to Him. He always wants us closer to Himself than where we are right now.

            We are always looking for a “sign” from God that anybody with half a brain could see when God wants to personally swoop down from heaven and whisper directly into our ears and show us how close He views our friendship with Him to be. He just wants to have you lay your head on His chest and feel Him breathing. Signs are for those who don’t know God enough to hear him whisper. Everybody saw Jesus walking on the water; Peter got the privilege of getting closer.

            The point of closeness to God is to bring others with you. Any truth you have ever learned was given to you so that you would share it. God stops speaking when you stop repeating.

            I have been thinking a lot about whispers and am really considering the idea of a “voice fast” like our hero in A Knights Tale is said to have taken. I want to take a whole day without saying anything and focus solely on listening- listening to God, to the people around me and to the rare but ever so pleasant sound of silence. I want to better understand a whisper. Also, my foot hardly ever has to enter my mouth when my mouth decides to stay closed. Anyway, just a thought.

           

            The problem is that everyone is a megaphone. That means that not everybody is shouting the right whispers. However, everyone is shouting something. It can get a little messy sometimes.

            The issue is not that you don’t have a voice, but that it is echoing in the wrong place. The problem isn’t that you have nothing to say but that you are so terrified of saying it you pretend like your megaphone doesn’t work.

            You don’t have to be a preacher, or a novelist, or political activist to use your voice, you just need to be quiet long enough to hear the right voice and bold enough to shout what you hear.

            People are hurting and dying every single place we go. Where there are people, there is pain. Where there is pain, there is a need for a good megaphone. God has given me this blog to shout His voice; someday I hope it will be a pulpit but that doesn’t change the fact that I pass by hurting people all the time at Wal-Mart or the grocery store that need to hear something from God. Sometimes that one person God compels you to talk to needs to hear His voice more than a whole congregation of people listening to a sermon.  

            Where is your voice echoing? Who are the people you are already influencing that need to hear the whispers of the Almighty? We have the incredible privilege of drawing so close to God that we can hear Him whisper into our ears, how can we keep that to ourselves? We all have a megaphone.

            Shut up and start listening. Speak up and start proclaiming.

*1 Kings 19:11b-13 NIV

*Mathew 14: 28 NIV

*Ezekiel 3:26-27