Stuff Christians Like

Serious Wednesdays

The end.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about a few simple things. Lately as the volume of things turned up, there’s a bit of a whisper that won’t leave me alone. Here’s what’s bouncing around my head:

If at the end of my life, the only thing I’ve accomplished is a comfortable life, my days have been wasted.

If at the end of my life, the only thing I’ve fought for is my own name, my days have been wasted.

If at the end of my life, the only thing I’ve cared about is my own care, my days have been wasted.

If at the end of my life, the only thing I’ve stood for is my own reputation, my days have been wasted.

If at the end of my life, the only thing I’ve traded are works for rewards, my days have been wasted.

May we not go to the grave quietly.

May we not make refuse of the gifts we’ve been given. 

May we never chase the shiny in place of the holy, the trend instead of the truth, the immediate instead of the eternal.

Arrive empty to the grave, having given all you were given, stewarded all you were tasked with.

Give the grave only bones.   

The failure gift.

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I got fired once and they made the right decision.

I was a horrible employee. The work I did was lazy, my attitude was belligerent, and I somehow managed to be cocky at the same time.

So they called me into a room and fired me.

It was a humiliating experience, and you know what the worst part of that failure was?

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Why I don’t believe in grace.

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The other day, Ray Lewis, played his last game in Baltimore’s stadium. After 17 wildly successful years, he’s retiring.

At the end of the game, he took off his jersey to reveal a shirt that said, “Psalms 91.”

I smiled at that. But then deep in my heart, I thought, “Yeah, but that guy was part of a double homicide. Whatever.”

And there it is.

I don’t believe in grace.

Or, I believe in it for me, and people who have sinned like me. But there’s a whole lot of people I don’t think deserve grace.

The problem is that, when we talk about grace, we often don’t use one of the most important words to describe it.

We say, “Grace is powerful and free and beautiful and amazing.” But we leave out one of the key descriptors of grace.

The truth is, grace is offensive.

Grace offends in its’ generosity.

Grace offends in its’ availability.

Grace offends in its’ depth.

Grace offends in its’ unwillingness to be controlled or owned or manipulated.

Grace is offensive, and when I see people who I think don’t deserve it, I am reminded of ultimately how desperately I still need it.

 

How Christians get arrogant.

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The other day, a friend of mine made a comment about an author. He wrote:

“I’ll say he’s sloppy at best when it comes to sound doctrine and theology.”

I think the first half of that thought is awesome.

I think the author he was describing is sloppy at best.

I think I’m sloppy at best.

I think you’re sloppy at best.

I think there’s not a person on the planet who isn’t sloppy at best.

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Fame is a drug and it's never enough.

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Turns out that if you chase “enough” outside of God, you never catch it.

Enough followers on Twitter, enough blog readers, enough books sold, enough money made, enough friends…the specifics of the chase don’t really matter.

Enough is elusive. Just when you think you’ve caught it, it moves again.

In this 3-minute video, I talk about how easy it is to wreck your life chasing enough and how that happened to me in the pursuit of fame. (Video was shot at the Catalyst Conference.)


Question:
Have you ever chased some form of “enough?”

Why are Christians such jerks?

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Recently a friend of mine started living for the Lord.

After a year of sharing his faith vocally, we had coffee and he told me something he found surprising.

He said that in chess, the pawn pieces are used to advance the more important pieces. They go forward and sacrifice themselves to create opportunities for the Queen, King and Bishop. He thought of himself as a pawn, trying to actively serve the needs of others and serve the kingdom, clear that life isn’t about him.

He said the biggest surprise though was that the more he served and lived a life for Christ, the more he felt attacked. But not by other people, by other Christians. He was confused because he’s never seen a King attack its own pawn in a game of chess. He’d never seen a Bishop take out its own pawn, but the more time he spent in church, the more he got attacked by the people who were supposed to be his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

I started to think about that because it’s an issue I keep seeing come up.

A pastor once said, “Nobody is as mean as Christians who are being mean for Jesus.”

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The S word that ruins most of us.

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For the last 7 years, I’ve been unlearning God.

He is not who I thought he was.

He is not who I was told he is.

He is not the greedy miser of joy I suspected all these years. He is not the boring happiness thief I cobbled together all these years. He is something different. Something wild. Something uncontrollable.

And one of the biggest surprises has been discovering how broken my understanding of the word “surrender” is.

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