a personal insight…

we had lunch with an old friend today.  we had not sat and talked…really talked…since 1990.  in 1990, he was a just a kid.  he’s a man now.  older.  wiser.  deeper.  it was great to be around him.

as we talked, old wounds of mine were opened.  i thought about things that i had long since buried.  i remembered a lot of good stuff, but some of the pain was still there.  lurking.

but it’s in the past and i have moved on.  older. hopefully wiser and deeper, too.  we are all products of our past.  life events…both good and bad…are the things god uses to shape us and mold us and turn us into something for noble purposes.  or not.

i’m grateful for the pain and the struggle and the injustice and and difficulty and the mistakes and the growth curve that my life journey has produced.  i would not be who i am without it.

i am even more grateful that god never quit on me…even when i doubted…even when i wanted to give up…even when i called his existence and wisdom into question…even when theology and philosophy didn’t square up with what i heard others saying and doing.

i am grateful that faith and reason learned to coexist in my world.  i am grateful that i got to the point that i didn’t have to have answers for everything and that i became (by the grace of god) a pursuer of the “big picture”.

i am most grateful that i didn’t let people define god for me…or ruin faith for me…or box me into corners where there was no reasonable way out.  i am grateful that hurt or mean people did not suck me into bitterness…or lure me into apathy…or blindly call me to a life of judgmental self-centeredness (though i struggle with it everyday).

i will be eternally grateful for mercy, forgiveness (both for me and for those i interact with), for purpose, a higher calling than a mere existence centered on my own pursuit of happiness, and a the capacity to live life within the touch of people…in spite of the risk.

yeah, i’m a pretty happy guy tonight…and it has nothing to do with my location!

Axioms…from my perspective

normally, i dedicate thursdays to giving some of my personal life axioms…truth that, from my perspective, is self-evident. sometimes practical. sometimes philosophical. sometimes whimsical. but truth, no less.

“sometimes, there’s just nothing you can do.”

have you ever had to emotionally separate from someone you love?

have you ever had to put up internal protective barriers between you and someone else, because even though you wanted to be close, they didn’t…and you didn’t want to feel that pain?

have you ever wanted to have a relationship with someone, but you had to create distance…waiting for them to be honest?

a while back, i shared with you this axiom:  “risk being hurt by people.” don’t get me wrong.  i still believe in this axiom.  it is still one of the most profound lessons i have ever learned and i will stand by it’s truth and live with it’s consequences until the day that i die.  but there is a “flip side” to this truth.

sometimes, there just isn’t anything more that you can do.

sometimes, you will give it all…pour it all out…and others will not reciprocate.  sometimes, you will want more and deeper and all you will get is shallow.  sometimes, you will want to be great friends and all you will get is cordial.  sometimes, you will want to share life and heart and spirit…and all you will get is the passing of information.

you will want to speak honestly…resolve differences…dig deeper…know the truth…struggle with dissimilarity…feel their pain…walk through the uneasy, the uncomfortable, the darkness, the anger…but they won’t.

sometimes, there’s nothing more that you can do but wait.

it may change.  it may not.  but you can bet it will stink.

A little introspection

i’m getting ready to preach this morning.  the topic is love.  probably one of the most popular sermon topics preached around the world today.  i wouldn’t have chose it, but since i’m preaching through the book of 1 john, it comes up pretty regularly.

i always get the feeling that when i teach about love, people are saying in the back of their minds, “yeah, yeah, yeah…i’ve heard this a bizillion times…tell me something i don’t know.”  i’m not so sure i don’t feel the same way most of the time.

the problem is, no matter how many times i have preached and taught on love, i know that i still struggle with it.  i can’t even comprehend the love of god, let alone imitate it!  when i am commanded to love my brother, i’m generally ok with that, as long as there is some kind of reciprocation.  when i am rejected, ignored, gossiped about, turned on, lied to, withheld from, slandered, judged, hurt, disregarded, …well, that’s another story.

my prayer today is that even if nobody else listens to my sermon, i will.