The Cool of the Day

Something magical happens after midnight, especially at Waffle House.

            During the day it is just a dingy little diner with creepy truck drivers and burnt toast but after midnight it is a whole new experience. I can’t count the amount of good memories I have had late at night at some Waffle House with various groups of people, all laughing and talking about whatever it was that we have just come from and that has kept us out so late. It is not that the food gets any better, the service any nicer, or the bathrooms any cleaner. It is simply the fact that there is something enjoyable about being alive when the world is asleep.

            I’m sure I will grow old one day and appreciate these times less and less but I am 19 now and therefore have a right to enjoy them.

            I have heard people say, though, that nothing good happens after midnight. I don’t completely agree with that but there is definitely some truth to the fact that evenings are usually when we blow it completely.

            Think about it. We can be fine all day until we are tired and come home from a long day and are still asked to do a million things at once. We are exhausted and ticked off at whatever and evening is when it usually boils over to eruption. We just want to get off of our feet and relax and we usually stop at nothing to achieve that goal. Our defenses slacken and suddenly we are watching a movie that we never would have let ourselves watch had it been at any other time of day and we start snapping at people for hardly anything at all. Then the next day we wake up and wonder why it is so hard to have a good quiet time with God.

            Reading through Genesis, something was recently pointed out to me that I had never seen before that has completely changed the way I do my day.

            In the first chapter God has just spoken Light into existence and separated it from Darkness. Then at the end of verse five it says “there was evening, and there was morning- the first day.”

            Did you catch that?

            We usually start our day when our alarm clock buzzes in our ears while the sun begins to peak through our blinds but when God made the first day, He started with the night before. There was evening, and then there was morning. This whole time I have been thinking that evening was my time, since I had given God the rest of my day, and that He wouldn’t mind if I just turned the brain off and relaxed. I used to wonder why I would wake up distracted and my mind going a million places at once thus making it impossible to sit down and talk to God. Now I know it was because I was taking the evenings of my day for myself when that should have been the beginning of my day with God.

            What would our lives look like if instead of coming home from work or school and venting at how terrible our day has been we just sat in the presence of God? What if instead of holding in our frustrations all day until the exploded on our family at home, we gave them all over to God the first chance we got? What if we opened our Bible before going to bed instead plopping down in front of the TV?

            Now it might seem like I am saying we should never take time to rest, but actually I am saying the exact opposite.

            The great Chinese preacher and writer of the early 20^th century Watchmen Nee pointed out in his book, Sit, Walk, Stand, that since God made Adam on the sixth day and rested on the seventh, that Adam’s first day was a day of rest. Adam began his life in rest with God. God worked then rested, Adam rested then worked but their days of rest fell on the same day.

            If God began His days in the evening, and started out humanity with a day of rest, then I think I have been missing out on a lot of what God has been trying to teach me by thinking I could take evenings to do whatever I wanted to do. Evenings are the finish in my mentality and if each day were a race, how many times could I say I finished strong?

            Flip over to chapter three of Genesis and we find that God is walking through the Garden of Eden in the “cool of the day,” looking for His friends. God came to them in the evening wanting to know how their day had been and they hid from Him.

            Taking this literally has transformed my whole outlook on how I plan my day. If I promise God my life than I promise Him my whole day, even when I am exhausted and worn out. I think it’s awesome that the point of my greatest weakness is exactly when God wants to hang out with me.

            Beyond literally, though, God has also been showing me that the way I finish anything directly connects to how much I care about it in the first place. In high school running cross country, I never walked across the finish line because I cared about the race I was running. I wanted to show that this race mattered to me and that the next race will matter too.

            I am coming to an end of my first ten months with Missio Dei and all I want to do is just coast through the end but that isn’t an option. Nothing will have mattered this year if I don’t finish like it mattered. The way I start next year will be affected by how I finish this year.

            Evenings are the transition points. They are the end of one season and the beginning of the next. They are the point when I am exhausted and worn out but need more than ever to push through and seek God. I refuse to limp into the next season of my life. It will be a new day and I am not carrying anything into it that shouldn’t be there even if that means giving it all over to God when I am too tired to care.

            Musician John Reuben said in one of his songs that “good evening is a greeting, goodnight is farewell, ” and that’s the truth. “Good Night” is a closing statement but “Good Evening” recognizes the past but is more excited about the future, which is a place I always want to be.

            So as I close this season of my life I just want to give it all up. God, take all of me. I can give no more and I am exhausted and worn out but that is exactly where You want me. It is here that I realize how powerless I am and how powerful You are. You are the creator of my days and my nights and I know that You will be there tomorrow morning like You are here with me this evening, whatever it looks like. Thank You for a great day, and thank You for the promise of a greater one tomorrow.

            Good Evening.

It's Just a Flesh Wound

                I have discovered that it is a passion of mine to make the most obscure references possible and somehow dig out some profound truth. God just uses so much stuff to inspire me that it is fun to let my mind wander. In this blog I have written posts about megaphones, meatloaf, face paint, bacteria, nickels, salt, crickets, macaroni and tons of other things which occupy my brain and I imagine more absurdity is yet to come. Needless to say I was pretty excited when God taught me this one; but only for a minute, because this one kind of hurts.

            If you haven’t seen the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail you should, first of all, go shave your beard, give up your top hat and move out of the Amish community you must live in. Second, I need to inform you of one of the most important scenes in comedic cinema history.

            King Arthur and his band of followers are galloping through the forest (kind of) in search of the Holy Grail when they come across a tall knight in black armor who refuses to let them pass without a duel to the death. Valiant King Arthur steps up to the plate and draws his sword and the two commence in epic knight-errantry. Suddenly a blow is struck to the black knight and we see his arm fall off accompanied by squirts of fake blood. King Arthur assumes his opponent is through but is surprised to find that the knight has switched arms and continued the dual. Next comes the other arm and then the knees until finally the black knight is left as a mere stub of person waddling around the ground still spitting out threats and promising to bite King Arthur’s legs off, as his teeth are the only weapons he has left. In the midst of this bloody battle, the black knight responds to his massacre in a very funny British accent by yelling out “It’s just a flesh wound!”

            In case you didn’t catch this from the paragraph, it is supposed to be hilarious. I, as well as a large majority of my people the nerds, certainly think so. The man looses all his limbs and without batting an eye counts them all as just “flesh wounds.” If you don’t get it, just fake it with me for a second.

            I want that ridiculous kind of faith every day.

            Whatever it is that might be attacking me is just a flesh wound. Jesus said not to be afraid of the one who can kill the body but can’t touch the soul₁ and that means knowing the difference between right now and eternity.

            Most of the things we face in life attack our flesh. They threaten our wants and maybe even our needs but we hardly ever come up against something so drastic our eternity is left hanging in the balance. It is just a flesh wound.

            Your flesh is probably that thing that is keeping you away from God anyway. Shouldn’t we be a little excited our flesh is being attacked?

            Go and thank that guy for always getting on your last nerve and doing whatever he can to infuriate you. He is showing you that you are very impatient and not very understanding of the depth of people. Now you know you need to work on that.

            Thank those bill collectors for wanting all your money. Without them you might start thinking you could actually meet all your needs without God’s help!

            Thank those people in charge of you who are always bossing you around and treating you terribly. When you are in charge you will know what it feels like to be on the bottom and will be a better leader because of it.

            When we realize that we were built for eternity, daily issues don’t seem like issues anymore.

            If you are at that point when you just can’t take it anymore just remember that you were built for a kingdom bigger than your surroundings. If that doesn’t help you could just use you worst British accent possible and yell out “It’s just a flesh wound!” If nothing else it will make the people around you feel better.

            Anybody you need to go and thank for helping you attack your flesh today? 

            _{1-Mathew 10: 28 NIV}

The Not So Triumphal Entry

               Aside from inspiring me to stuff my face with marshmallow chickens, eggs filled with peanut butter, and chocolate in the shape of bird eggs- this season always compels me, as well as most of the world to read over the accounts of the Passion Week in the Gospels.

                I was reading in Mathew 21 when Jesus rides into town on a donkey when something new caught my attention. Jesus basically tells His disciples to go to some random guy’s house and take his donkey. I knew that part, but Jesus also includes a colt in the request. So now they have two animals.

            Now I have never lived on a farm, or even near a farm. I don’t know much about livestock. Actually I know almost nothing about livestock. I was in Arizona a couple weeks ago and there were horses everywhere. Horses walking on the side of the highway, horses walking through parking lots and horses hanging out it people’s front yard- it kind of freaked me out. So needless to say I had to consult some outside experts on anything horse/donkey related.

            Thanks to that ever-flowing fountain of ultra reliable knowledge known as Wikipedia (I know it isn’t really but I’m addicted), I found out that the “colt” the passage is referring to is a male offspring of a donkey that is less than a year old. At first I didn’t get why Jesus would get a donkey as well as its baby to ride into Jerusalem. It seems like a young, untrained donkey would get in the way of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry. I figured Palm Sunday must have been “Bring-Your-Kid-to-Work Day.”

            Then verse 5 messed me up when the writer quotes Zechariah and says “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

            Wait, Jesus is riding the colt? He must not have known that this colt was less than a year old, probably very small, has never carried anything before, and is likely to just go crazy and run over a crowd of people. He must not have known that this animal might not be strong enough to hold His weight all the way into Jerusalem and might collapse at any moment with its rider with it.

            Jesus knew. He always does.

            In fact, He specifically asked for the donkey that hadn’t been ridden yet.

            Sometimes I feel like that donkey.

            Sometimes I feel too young, too inexperienced, too weak and too attached to my home stable to carry my Savior. I don’t feel qualified to be all that he needs me to be. The bottom line is that I’m not. I am not a valiant steed or even a full grown donkey. I am just a colt. He chose me anyway, just like He is choosing you.

            Can you imagine how ridiculous Jesus would have looked riding that little donkey into town as a multitude of people shouted His name and praised Him like a king? I’m sure the colt wandered off the path a couple times, probably stepped on a few toes, and more than likely almost threw Jesus into the crowd on more than one occasion. Jesus chose to have that thing carry Him into His fulfillment.

            The cool thing is that Jesus not only requested the colt, but also the donkey. The donkey was there the whole time so that baby colt never felt alone. Somebody tried to tell me that Jesus rode both of them at the same time which I cannot possibly picture in my head and really doubt actually happened but I do know that Jesus requested two beasts of burden and at least rode the colt. I imagine that maybe He switched off between the two of them. When the colt couldn’t take it, Jesus gave it a break. He knows what we can take, He knows how far we can go and He knows how to give us rest. He also knows that sometimes we just need someone there with us who is older and wiser to just help us out and keep nudging us forward, ever ready to share the load when we need it.

            So when you don’t feel prepared, smart enough, or strong enough just remember that you were chosen to carry your Savior into the world. He is a heavy load, and carrying Him where you’re going without getting distracted by the people around you is a daunting task, but it is a possible task. When you have a heavy burden on your shoulders it is only because you just have that much more to bring to the world.

            Imagine how confident that colt would have been after accomplishing that task. He could carry anything anywhere now.

Awkward

                This post has the potential of offending approximately 11% of everyone who may read it. The great fountain of reliable knowledge known as Wikipedia informed me of this possibility when it said that roughly 11% of all people are left-handed.

            I have a confession to make and I apologize in advance. I don’t like watching left handed people write, play guitar, throw a baseball or do anything with their left hand. It just makes me feel awkward. Whew, there, I said it.

            Now don’t get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against left-handed people nor do I think that they are wrong for not being “right.” They just make me feel awkward and if there is one thing I know a lot about, it is being awkward. I am 6’3, weigh 150 pounds and trip over my own feet almost daily- I know awkward. Even the word "awkward" is awkward- I mean what other word has a K sandwiched between two double Us? 

            We have a saying on the team that something is only awkward if you make it awkward. This doesn’t usually work for me because I seem to, by my very nature, make most things awkward. I would hate to see what it would look like if I was left-handed.

                I got to thinking how rough it is for left-handed people in a right-handed world. Every time they turn a door knob, use a spiral notebook, or change gears while driving they are reminded of the fact that everyone else in the world thinks differently than they do.

            Somewhere down the line, left-handers got a bad reputation. The English word “sinister” comes from the Latin word “sinistra” which could be translated “evil, broken, or left side.” That is kind of harsh when you think about it. Most cultures of the world have seen this 11% minority as something either to be feared or fixed. The bottom line is that right- handed people have no comprehension of left-handed people.

            We as Christians are left-handed people in a right-handed world. We see things from a completely different side of the brain than the rest of the world is seeing through and we wonder why they are always disagreeing with us. We get accused of so much because they don’t understand why we do the things we do when it all makes perfect sense to us.  

            Ever look at a politician and be completely confused as to what they are thinking? Ever try and share your faith with a family member and get so frustrated that they can’t see what is so obviously right in front of them? Ever try to explain to someone why you don’t want to watch a certain movie or listen to a certain song that love and find nothing wrong with?

            It is because you have the “mind of Christ,”₁ and they don’t. When Paul said that we have the mind of Christ, he was explaining why nobody understands us and thinks we are weird. It is why the world thinks we are awkward.

            It is why it can be so hard living in this world with instincts so contrary to what everyone else is doing. This world is not our home and I think sometimes we forget that. We aren’t supposed to be comfortable here because we have our eyes set on a “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”₂ This world is not our home.

            If the world understands everything we do, we probably aren’t doing everything right. How could they understand why you would choose to forgive and love your abusive parent or the co-worker who spread false rumors about you? How could they understand why you would help a stranger out when you can’t afford to pay your own rent? Why would you skip lunch to read your Bible? Why would you get on your face and pray for your president instead of just complaining about him like everyone else?

            I think it is about time we as Christians embrace our awkwardness. We need to look different than everybody else. When something awkward happens, nobody knows what to do. All defenses are gone and everyone is looking for an explanation. We can never explain the hope that we have to someone who has never seen it in us and thinks that we are exactly the same as them.

            Let everything about your daily life remind you that you do not belong to the rest of the world. You don’t think like everybody else. You don’t do the things everybody else does. You are unashamed to be considered awkward because you are a follower of Jesus Christ. Don’t make yourself a righty just to fit in.

            What are some things you personally can do to remind the world (and yourself) that you are different? Let me know what you come up with.

_{1-1 Cor. 2:16 NIV, 2- Heb. 11:10 NIV}

What I Learned From My Little Brother

Sometimes God teaches me stuff through movies. Sometimes He uses food. Oftentimes He uses my everyday life.

            One place I never expected to learn about God and the life He created was from a little boy named Caleb. Here are just some of the things this incredible kid taught me simply by being who he was.

·         Life is a gift that is undeserved. Every moment of every day is something that has been given to us and should be appreciated. Life isn’t long enough to complain about it.

·         Smiles conquer more than powerful words of wisdom. It is possible with a few flexes of cheek muscles to bring new life to someone who needs it.

·         Schedule regular time to just sit and talk with people. Have no agenda, have nothing you want to get out of them- just enjoy the company and let them enjoy yours, regardless of how old they are.

·         Sometimes the smallest one in a group has the most fun.

·         Sometimes life happens in ways you don’t want it to, just keep smiling and make more than the best of it.

·         Sometimes butter tastes good just by itself.

·         When you find something you like to eat, who cares if you eat it every day?

·         Make the joke anyway even if you know you are the only one who will think it’s funny.

·         Have no shame for what you have gone through.

·         Never act your age if you are having more fun being yourself.

·         When you find a good friend -whether stuffed or real- never, ever, let him go.

·         No matter how small you are, there is always somebody smaller for you to take care of.

·         Return the favor. All Caleb wanted to do was be a doctor so that he could do what had been done to him- heal kids. Use the things that life has handed you to bring others through the things life is handing them.

·         Age and stature matters very little when it comes to changing the world around you.

My little brother changed the world in twelve short years. Someday I want to reach as many people as he did.

Happy Birthday Caleb Patrick Semple, you would have made an extraordinary thirteen year old. You are still teaching me things.