Since the dawn of time, the enemy has tried to play just one trick.
Though it has a thousand different variations and a million different manifestations, it boils down to the same lie every time.
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serious wednesday
Running out of time.
Three weeks ago, on a Monday morning at 7:27, I was journaling. Why? Because I’m holier than you and always obey the 11th commandment. Thou shalt journal.
In the middle of what should have been a peaceful moment, the overwhelming feeling I had inside was, “You’re too late.”
“You’re behind.”
“You’ll never get ahead.”
“If you could just get ahead, you could rest.”
“If you had more time, you could get it all done.”
Like waves crashing against the shore of my day, those are the doubts and fears I heard that morning. The absurd thing of course is that it was Monday at 7:27AM. I couldn’t have possibly had more week in front of me. I was behind? Behind what? The sun had been up for an hour on the first day of the work week. How is it possible I was already behind some fictional performance chart?
This is one of the enemy’s favorite games. His favorite thing to tell you about time is that “it’s too late.” That is what fear often shouts at you.
And so on that morning, I started to think about that and wrestle with that and pray about that. I ended up, like so many other times these last six months, with a simple idea. One I put down on a post it note and will share with you now. It’s not deep. It’s not complicated. It’s not all that long. But it’s the kind of thing I need to remember on Monday mornings and maybe you do too. Here’s what you need to remember the next time fear tells you that it’s “too late.”
Question:
Do you ever feel like you’re “too late” or “out of time?”
Loving the unlovable.
Sometimes the hardest part of loving people is that you don’t always get to hear the whole song.
You reach out. In a time of need or hurt or maybe even hope.
And you get pushed away.
You get chased away.
You get shoved away.
And you wait and you help and you stand in the storms of life with someone, and you feel like you are throwing a ball against a wall. You can’t tell if any of it matters. If your words or your actions matter at all. You think about giving up. You feel called to be salt and light, we know that’s printed in red, but sometimes in the space between hours and arguments, it’s hard to feel that way.
You keep loving. You keep hoping to see a change, not because it’s all about change, but because that would at least be a crack of light under the door.
But the light never comes. The door is never opened, even a little, and then they disappear. Not dramatically, maybe. They don’t float away on a hot air balloon or in a fast car. The ebb and flow of life just drifts them away. You feel you’ve wasted your time or maybe their time or everybody’s time.
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Kids get the gospel.
I am about to owe a dollar to my 6-year-old.
Maybe even two dollars, which is the little kid equivalent of 19 million dollars.
At least that’s what my dad would do in this situation.
When I was a boy, he would pay me and my brothers a dollar if he used us in a sermon illustration. Though I’m not a pastor, and this isn’t a sermon, I’m about to show you the gospel in four pictures, and they’re not mine.
They’re my daughter’s.
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Going on a mission for God.
I often feel that I am in the midst of a great adventure from God. We talk about “calling” in our culture a lot, and going on “missions” for God.
Sometimes, though, I put tremendous pressure on myself to make sure I don’t mess up that mission. Deep down, I secretly feel that if I fail, God’s design for my life, my community, Nashville, the world, etc. will not come together.
But here is something I recently wrote on a note, for me, that might also be a note for you:
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Signature sins.
I took a breakdancing class when I was in the third grade.
In Ipswich, Massachusetts, a beautiful, little New England village, our elementary school offered breakdancing lessons.
Maybe they were swept up in the hype of Breakin’ 2, Electric Boogalo, in the same way all your friends took swing dancing when the movie Swingers came out.
I’m not sure. I was in the third grade and not focused on pop culture trends. I was focused on making sure I brought my square of cardboard to each class. That was our version of the yoga mat. Unless you grew up on the mean streets of coastal Massachusetts, I’m not sure you can relate.
My signature breakdancing move was the worm.
Recognizing that I couldn’t windmill to save my life, and fearing that if I spun on my head long enough I’d develop some crazy skull callus like wrestlers with cauliflower ear, I focused on the worm.
It worked. My worm was ridiculous. It was the one move I was the best at. And it should have been because it was my signature move.
Now, a bajillion years later, surveying my life, I’ve started to realize I have “signature sins” too.
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The best thing I’ve learned on the road this year.
“I am the worst dad on the planet.”
This is what I think every time I go speak in Orlando, Florida without my kids.
Why do I think this?
Because the flight to Orlando is full of kids going to Disney World. They spend the entire flight intoxicated with the happiness of visiting the Magic Kingdom. For 90 minutes straight, they hug their dads across the airplane seats saying, “I can’t believe you are taking us to Disney World, daddy! You are the best daddy in the world. Now I know for certain that you really love me! Dads who have business trips to Orlando and don’t take their kids are some kind of monsters.”
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Thinking you're naked. (Remix)
I don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty awesome at applying band-aids. And make no mistake, that is an art. Because if you go too quickly and unpeel them the wrong way, they stick to themselves and you end up with a wadded up useless mess, instead of the Little Mermaid festooned bandage your daughter so desperately wants to apply to a boo boo that may in fact be 100% fictional.
Half of the injuries I treat at the Acuff house are invisible or simply wounds of sympathy. My oldest daughter will scrape her knee, and my 3-year old, realizing the band aid box is open will say, “Yo dad, I’d like to get in on that too. What do you say we put one on, I don’t know, my ankle. Yeah, my ankle, let’s pretend that’s hurt.”
But sometimes the cuts are real, like the day my 5-year old got a scrape on her face playing in the front yard. I rushed in the house and returned with a princess bandage. As I bent down to apply it to her forehead, her eyes filled up with tears and she shrunk back from me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t want to wear that band-aid.” She replied.
“Why? You have a cut. You need a band-aid.” I said.
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When good isn't good enough.
This post is going to make me look petty. About midway through, you’re going to scratch your head or your chin or maybe an appendage and think to yourself, “Gee whiz, that Jon Acuff sure is petty.” (Or maybe you’ll say “Gee willikers.” Who am I to tell you what “Gee” modifier you have to use?)
And the only reason you’ll think this post makes me look petty is because I am petty.
There’s a great temptation as a Christian blogger to only write things that make you look good. Or holy. Or put together. Or done with an issue. My friend John Crist challenged me one day about that. He said, “Did you ever notice pastors always ‘used to’ struggle with things? Whenever you confess something to them, they say, ‘Oh yeah, I used to struggle with that too.’ No one is ever currently struggling with issues.”
So here’s something I’m currently struggling with, a current affair if you will, like Connie Chung’s husband Maury.
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Wishing the Bible was a self help book.
The Bible makes a pretty horrible self help book.
Sometimes, that’s what I want it to be. I want to see a picture of God on the back cover of the Bible wearing an approachable sweater next to a golden retriever who knows a few tricks but not so many that he’s obnoxious.
I want to crack open a chapter, read a few verses, get some action items and then walk away from my relationship with God. The truth is, most of my self improvement efforts are geared at getting my life running smoothly enough to where I don’t need God anymore. I’m not opposed to self help books or self improvement, Quitter could be categorized as one in some ways. But if I’m not careful, I tend to mutate my own effort into my own Emmanuel.
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