An amendment to a new anti-bullying bill was recently made essentially allowing exceptions to bullying based on strongly held “religious or moral convictions”.

The point is to allow room for freedom of speech and freedom of religion apparently. However I have major issues with this, obviously, as thousands of others also do given the uproar about this amendment. Here’s the story.

The issue of allowing these types of exceptions could have obvious tragic consequences for gays, lesbians, and transgendered kids in particular, basically legitimizing an excuse to oppress homosexuals in our school systems because of beliefs about homosexuality being sinful or morally wrong.

As someone who was bullied in school, I can tell you that this type of oppression from peers has life-long effects. I often wonder what I would be like had I not had to experience daily fear, insecurity, and embarrassment resulting from the crap kids put me through. And I was basically just a normal scrawny kid that my ‘friends’ at the time found enjoyment from tormenting. Had I been a scrawny normal kid who was also gay, I can’t imagine what I would’ve went through.

To think that because one believes that homosexuality is sinful gives ones a right to put their hands on another person, verbally abuse him, or subject him to public embarrassment is absolutely disgusting and offensive to God. The Holy Spirit likely does not exist in that person, and God’s judgement awaits that arrogant fool.

This amendment opens the door wide for the continuation of “Christians” thinking the correct response is to rule over another who they believe is in error. Jesus told us to love one another as he loved us (John 13:34-35), and since Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, if we are not coming underneath our neighbor in service as opposed to ruling over them then we are not following Jesus. Radical love means acting out of the genuine belief that people living out a homosexual lifestyle are greater than yourself, not because they’re not in sin, but because your own sin is so detestable to you that your only hope of salvation is Jesus Christ, and not a shred of your own righteousness will earn you eternal life. You cannot express this belief by slamming a kids hand in a locker because they’re gay.

The good news here is that there has been quite an uproar in Michigan about this new amendment, and I’m hopeful that this bill will be revised appropriately to allow no excuses for oppression of any kind in our schools. There is a petition out that you can sign in a matter of seconds to show your support for a true anti-bullying law. Check it out here, and please sign: http://www.change.org/petitions/help-michigan-students-stop-the-license-to-bully-bill

Micah 6:8
“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

This dude’s been on my mind lately.

His name is Juma. He likes chicken and he takes his sleep very seriously.

My wife, Laura, and I decided to sponsor a child several months ago, and we looked no further than The Dream Project in Mozambique, Africa, an organization that helps kids who are orphaned or whose families are struggling, which our friend Amanda serves faithfully with.

We asked Amanda to pick a child for us, and we were happy to find out that Juma and Laura are kindred spirits in their views on sleep.

It’s been several months now since we started sponsoring him, and for most of that time it’s been, at least for me, what I expected sponsoring a child to be. You give money monthly, put his picture on your refrigerator, pray for him sometimes, and maintain a relatively disconnected relationship mainly based on a monthly financial transaction and some occasional letters.

But God’s been doing something in me personally lately. Over the last couple weeks I’ve really begun to remember Juma more often in prayer. And more and more I’ve felt this strange affection for him, as if he was somebody in my own family whom I loved dearly and wanted the best for. It’s caught me off guard, honestly, because for someone who compassion doesn’t come naturally for, it’s been an odd experience to be filled with a genuine concern and love for a boy on the other side of the globe whom I’ve never really been in any kind of real relationship with.

I listened to this sermon this morning on my day off from work, and fully expected to be challenged and conflicted, as I often am when I listen to Francis Chan speak.

If you have 20 minutes, I really suggest you listen to it as well. As I was laying on my bed afterwards processing these challenges I’ve processed many times before, I prayed that God would show me what he wants me to do for him, and moreover to fill me with a passion that would allow me not to do it out of guilt, but out of shear love and joy. I fully expected not to hear anything, but as I got up from that prayer and went to make myself breakfast, Juma popped into my head, and I was again just overwhelmed with love for him, and others like him.

In response I sat down to finally write the quarterly letter to Juma that Laura and I have been forgetting to write. It felt good to make him a priority, and to, in a small and somewhat distant way, include him in our family.

One thing that has kept me from blogging lately is that I have felt that I have to have a point to every post – some sort of challenge, or something insightful. I don’t really have that today. Just processing how God has been responding to me.

So Laura and I have been talking about some stuff in regards to all this. I’m sure as things start to solidify I’ll post about it. But all in all, God is moving in our midst and we’re already seeing some interesting things starting to happen. Excited to share when the time is right.

Jesus was walking along and a man ran up to him and asked him “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”. Jesus reminds him of the commandments: ‘do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’

The man replies, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Then Jesus tells him he’s missing one thing. If he wants to have eternal life he must go sell everything he owns and give the money to the poor, then come follow him. The man walks away because he is very wealthy and can’t quite bring himself to part with his stuff; to which Jesus responds “how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!… it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

But then he makes a key statement: “with man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

I’ve heard many pastors preach on this, and the majority of them use it to speak on the negative effects that material wealth has on us. And that makes sense. Wealth can be a cancer that consumes us without us even realizing that we are being trapped by it. We can get so far into our world of comfort that when we are presented with an opportunity for discomfort, we shrink back and cling to our comfort for dear life.

However, as I read this story this morning, I noticed something in Mark’s version that I hadn’t noticed before. In verse 21 it says “Jesus looked at him and loved him. ‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor…’”

It seems to me that Jesus saw something beyond the man’s grip on his wealth. He saw someone worth saving. And perhaps this passage is more about God’s grace than about Jesus being pro-downward-mobility.

When Jesus taught, he often raised the bar higher than anyone could achieve. He would say “you’ve heard it said ‘do not commit adultery’, but I tell you if you even look at a woman lustfully, you’ve already committed adultery with her in your heart.” Or, “you’ve heard about the commandment not to murder, but I’m telling you, anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement” (Matthew 5). I believe the story with the rich man is no different. Jesus is essentially saying “yes, you are hopeless in your grip on your wealth, but even without that you still don’t deserve eternal life.”

We can’t win. There is no possible way to beat the game of righteous living. We simply cannot enter the kingdom of God by doing more Christiany stuff. Even the most radical of Christians, God is not impressed by. Pleased? Totally. But what I think God is more pleased by is the fruit of an authentic relationship with him.  If we are remaining connected to him, and have a genuine relationship with him, our lives should bear good fruit, and that is pleasing to God like a mother who is pleased by closeness with her daughter, and the fruit of that relationship in her daughter’s life. But to bypass his grace and try to earn eternal life misses the point completely. Something tells me that even if this rich man did sell everything and give to the poor, his deeds would still be “like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) before God. But Jesus looked on this man and loved him despite what he knew was in his heart. And he turned around to face the crowd and spoke of his grace, saying “it’s impossible to get to Heaven on your own… but God is the only one who makes it possible.”

I think if we are connected to God, Jesus says we will bear good fruit (John 15) that is pleasing to God. But lose that connection to God and we are like a grape that falls off the vine and shrivels up. No matter how much that raisin tries to be a grape again, it can’t without the life that the vine gives it. And so I think this passage speaks to that life that God longs to give us apart from our futile attempts at righteous living.

If you haven’t heard, my wife Laura and I have moved to Kalamazoo, MI as Laura gets ready to start grad school this week at Western Michigan University. The process of getting here was both hard and awesome. I don’t mean awesome in the way that everyone throws it around – like an “I’m awesome” t-shirt or something. But more like ‘awe-some’. Full of awe. When things happen that can only be traced back to the hand of God, that cause you to stand in awe of him.

Throughout the Bible there are many instances of prophets recounting the works of God to the people of Israel. How he brought them out of slavery in Egypt, and cared for them in the desert. How he rained down Manna from heaven, and parted the sea so they could escape Pharaoh’s pursuit unharmed, and how he dried up the Jordan River for them to cross over into the Promised Land among other wonders. So with that in mind, I thought it would be appropriate to sort of sum up some of the things that God has done throughout this transition to help us get to this next phase of our lives.

Probably the most significant is Laura’s not-so-straightforward path into Western. We decided on Western because she had been encouraged to come intern at the Child Trauma Assessment Center (CTAC) – a highly respected clinic that provides in-depth, transdisciplinary assessments for children who have experienced trauma, located on Western’s campus – by none other than the founder, Jim Henry, whom she met at an adoption conference last year. But when Laura applied to Western, she was rejected because of her undergrad GPA. We later found out from the Admissions department that apart from her undergraduate GPA, her application was very strong, and the faculty was at one point questioning her rejection versus acceptance. After some back and forth they graciously welcomed her into the Masters in Social Work program (MSW) with the understanding that she must receive B scores, minimally, during her first semester in order to continue in the program.  We really feel like that is extremely odd. We have never heard of someone getting rejected, then accepted into a university; much less a grad program. We really saw God’s hand there and felt that maybe this whole grad school thing would be a wise move for us after all.

But the next big obstacle was Laura officially getting placed at CTAC for her internship. After all, that’s really the main reason we chose to move across the state. Laura hadn’t heard from Jim Henry throughout this whole process so we were worried that maybe he had forgotten about their meeting (which we later found out, he totally had – which is understandable; he’s a pretty big deal). Laura applied and waited to hear back, and then just a couple weeks before we were scheduled to move out here Laura heard from a friend of ours who used to intern at CTAC herself. She had run into Jim coincidentally and mentioned Laura. Jim had already filled the 3 available internship positions, but ended up requesting Laura’s internship application from her field coordinator, and created a 4th spot just for her. Also something that has rarely, if ever, happened at CTAC, and probably doesn’t happen in most instances in general, just like Laura’s acceptance into Western. Looking back, it’s amazing to see how God aligned Laura’s initial meeting with Jim Henry, which planted the idea of going to Western for grad school in our minds, and how he clearly finished what he started in carving out a path for her to arrive and get down to the business of becoming an even more impactful social worker.

Between receiving Laura’s acceptance letter to Western, and receiving the news that CTAC opened a spot for her, God had been providing in other small and big ways. There was our housing situation in K-zoo that we weren’t sure how we would afford with Laura not working, unless we found someone willing to give us a break on rent. We reached out to some churches, and found the favor of one particular pastor who presented our need to his community, which led to a recently widowed woman offering her condo to us for merely the cost of keeping up with the taxes and maintenance fees. Plus we now have someone in our lives here that we can get to know and hopefully help care for as she grieves the loss of her “prince” as she calls him. Then there was the car we thought we’d never be able to sell with all its problems (that we didn’t want to take with us to K-zoo), that ended up finding its way to the right buyer, to the new (used) car we were able to get for $1300 less than the initial price so we could stay within our budget; thanks to the powerful hand of God working through our sales rep at Suburban Toyota; and several instances of divine financial provision in between.

Also looking back I can see why my job situation took the turn that it did. I lost my job a year ago and ended up finding a new job that though it better suited me, I still thought was going to be simply a stepping stone to something more permanent. I see now why I felt God telling me along the way to stay with this company, because not only am I now worlds happier than I was at my last job, but the job is inherently very mobile, so I am able to work from pretty much anywhere. And it helps that my boss and the people I work with have been incredibly flexible with accommodating our relocation. I’m sure many can relate to the fact that often times we don’t understand what God is doing when life is uncertain, until we end up somewhere good and look back and see that we couldn’t have gotten there any other way.

There are so many ways that I can look back and see God’s hand on mine and Laura’s lives the past year or two that it would probably take a short book’s worth of explaining. But I think it is important to take time to stop and be thankful, and to proclaim some of the things that God has done. Laura and I continue to see God’s provision in our lives to this day, and we are so thankful that this transition has been for the most part pretty smooth. We do plan on moving back to the Detroit area following Laura’s graduation in 2 years, but until then we are looking forward to making this an adventurous time in our lives, and in our marriage.

So how has God provided for you lately?

I think the chapter on silence is in my opinion one of the most challenging, and counter-cultural, especially in today’s society where social networking/media has dramatically changed the way we connect with others, on one hand I would argue in a positive way, but on the other hand creating such a steady and amplified stream of noise to sift through, or tune out altogether.

Silence is almost unheard of on the internet. And in face-to-face social situations, silence is something we fight off with all of our might. Here’s a quote from the book I personally can relate to:

This might sound too unworldly to us, but let us at least recognize how often we come out of a conversation, a discussion, a social gathering, or a business meeting with a bad taste in our mouth. How seldom have long talks proved to be good and fruitful? Would not many if not most of the words we use be better left unspoken?

I really do have more times where I’ve met with someone, or been in a group situation and left feeling like I added nothing of value with my words. I was just talking to fill space, and to keep the conversation going. More often than not I feel like I maybe said something I shouldn’t have rather than feeling like what came out of my mouth was completely necessary and Spirit-filled.

Silence, as I’ve experienced it, is the way to Spirit-filled speech. It’s the way to being effective with what comes out of our mouths, rather than just being noisy. It’s the way to building deep community with others rather than infecting it with superficial chatter that flirts with gossip and slander. Silence is how we can carefully take a stand against something without slandering and dishonoring the offender(s). Not that we just don’t talk ever, but that by not being so easily given to wordiness, we become more sensitive to hearing God’s voice and his leading, and we become more sensitive to others.  Instead of letting our words fire at will we become more life-giving creatures, honoring God and reflecting our love for God by how we honor even our enemies. This is in my opinion one of the most rebellious and effective things we can do as followers of Christ.

In a world where everybody is talking and having little positive effect on the world, we need to be the ones rebelling against the world, taming our tongues (James 3), speaking seldom, and when we do speak, speaking life-giving words born of the Spirit of God.

Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you… (John 6:27)

I love John 6. So much depth in that chapter. I was reading in it this morning and verse 27 really struck me.

There’s this sense of misplaced priorities in our culture where career is king, tasks at home and at work consume us, and life is not LIFE, but life is just “life…” I see it in myself if I’m not careful, and I see it in others too.

It’s a matter of perspective, and readiness. We can choose to make ourselves aware of God in the midst of life and be ready to serve at any moment, or we can choose to just plow through each day, checking things off our never ending to-do list until we die and wished we had opted into life rather than opting out of it.

The bible says: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23)”

The King James Version translates it this way: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it determines the course of your life.”

So I have to ask myself, and perhaps we all do, especially those who find themselves in a place of transition; do I want my life to be about survival, or do I want to live in the adventurous, purpose-filled life that God intended for each of us? Jesus has already said that our basic needs will be taken care of (Matt 6:25-34), so there really are no excuses, are there?

Our work in that is not to just go do more holy-looking things, or to just kick back and take it easy for the rest of our lives. Our work is to daily guard our hearts, keeping ourselves in tune with God and how he wants to use us; being ready, and being aware that our perspective on life can easily slip into “life…”, and guarding against that – as if our lives depended on it.

True worship is honest. It’s a genuine outpouring – an overflowing of the Spirit that God has first filled us with in our lives. Worship in an outpouring of love to our neighbor. It’s prayer for others. It’s protecting that spirit within us, putting up walls against sin and distractions. Worship is singing with our lips and responding with our lives. It’s taking chances for the purpose of God being glorified, knowing that we might fail. Worship is the evidence of something happening in us that has captivated our attention and demands a response.

There are times when I don’t feel like worshiping – even as a worship leader. In those times my worship through song and through my actions feels uninspired, and done more out of duty than that outpouring I described above. I’ve been in both places, and I’m coming to realize that in those times of dryness, my worship still needs to be honest. I need to be able to say “God, I don’t stand in awe of you right now, but I want to. My life doesn’t authentically reflect your love for me and for others, but I want it to. Open my eyes so I can see you, and tune my ears to hear you. Inspire me to give all of myself to worshiping you.” I also know that I need to sacrifice in order to receive God. I can’t keep filling my life with clutter and distractions and expect God to align his will to mine. That’s a ridiculous thought. I need to boldly carve out space to meet with him, to study his word, to pray honestly, and to listen.

Ultimately, to truly worship God, we first need God. We need him to teach us, and open our eyes to his presence, and fill us with something greater than ourselves. It’s his work to do in us. Our worship is just the response to what he’s already doing. Our job just to show up to be filled, and then to be obedient with our response.

It is better to serve than to lead. Better to be taught than to teach. Better to be unknown than to be revered.

I’ve seen leaders, brothers in Christ, who know God and follow him, but are puffed up and arrogant. They boast about their accomplishments, all the important people they know, all the important things they’ve done, and in the last breath of their boasting they flippantly give glory to God.

How hard it is for those in charge to remain humble. Though we need godly men and women to lead, they face a greater inner burden – the temptation to seek their own glory over God’s, and to believe that their success is not by God’s grace, but by their own power. It’s a dangerous place to be.

Is it not far better to be an unknown, undervalued servant than to be a leader with much influence? What kind of corruption awaits those who choose to make themselves last out of love for those around them?

To take the lowest position is to share in the ministry and sufferings of Christ himself. There is no safer place to be than that.

Is it bad to be a leader? Absolutely not. But the challenge is not to seek after higher positions. And when we find ourselves in charge over others, the challenge is to make ourselves the servant of them instead of the ruler. This, after all, is how Jesus handled his rightful position of power on earth.

(Me: upper left, red hat)

Mostly for reasons stated in my previous post, “Dirty Rocks and other Distractions”, I knew that this was something I needed to experience, as much as I had heard from friends of mine who had done it that it was going to suck. And it did suck. A lot.

• 3 mile hike into the desert, uphill, with 80 pounds of gear on my back. I’m not an athletic dude, and I didn’t prepare my body well… so the hike was not fun.
• 5 days of solitude, no one to talk to. Also very difficult (but not as difficult for me as others, because I’m an introvert).
• 3 days of fasting – worst part of the trip. Dreaming of all kinds of food on day 1 of the fast is torture when you know you still have 2 days to go. And at the end of the fast is only a glorified handful of trail mix and a couple pieces of beef jerky.

For the most part, my time in the desert was both mentally and physically exhausting. I slept terribly, smelled awful (no showers), and really struggled through many times of just hitting a wall where I just didn’t want to do anything; was bored of the Bible, bored of writing, bored of hiking around, bored of looking at big rocks all around, and for 3 days didn’t even have food to look forward to to move the day along.

That’s really the cliff notes version of the non-spiritual side of the trip, and so I’m sure it’s easy to wonder why anyone would put themselves up to such discomfort. I mean, couldn’t I have just prayed in my bedroom just the same? Gone out into the woods for a day and read my Bible? Yes. But for me, I knew there was a lot to be gained from sacrifice, and judging by what my friends had told me – how much their lives were changed by their experiences in the desert – I knew I had to bite the bullet. And I can attest, there is something completely different about getting far out of your element and positioning yourself to be completely alone with God, and to experience hardship for the sake of a deeper intimacy with God.

Hebrews 12 has this to say about hardship:

Endure hardship as discipline…  no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

And that’s exactly what I received. The desert was hard. Totally uncomfortable. Certainly not a vacation. But I hiked out of there a changed man, or at least a strengthened one.

God really did speak to me in the desert, and I will unpack some of that in posts to come, but I want to end this post with this: God is real. He is relevant, and you really can have a relationship with him. Life, and death for that matter, look a whole lot different through the lens of a relationship with God. This relationship is not about going to church. It’s not about reading the Bible, and it’s not about saying certain prayers. It’s not about “organized religion”, or your past experiences with Christians. God is bigger than that, and when you have an encounter with him, and you begin to know him apart from any preconceived notions about religion, choosing to sacrifice comfort in exchange for intimacy in that relationship no longer seems crazy.

We lived in a neighborhood in Clarkston, MI which was about a half of a mile or so from Main Street in the village where all the shops and such were. Every Saturday I would beg my parents to let me walk downtown by myself to get the paper. So finally my dad decided to do a trial run. He would go with me to the store but walk about 10 paces behind me and monitor my ability to conduct myself safely.

The biggest obstacle facing me was crossing busy road at the end of our street. Apparently, as my dad would tell it, I began to cross the street, got about halfway across, and noticed some pretty rocks on the ground and decided to stop and admire them.

Test failed.

And now, some 20 years later, I would tell you that some things you just can’t chalk up to “a phase”.

So fine. That’s me. Short attention span; easily distracted.

But I’m also a human, and I think I’m not alone in my tendency as a human to trade the goal and the mission for meager accessories of life.

My purpose on this earth is to know God; to worship Him only; to depend on Him, and love Him, and serve Him, and to do all things for His glory. All things which are impossible without a constant connection with the Father, who fills me with the strength and wisdom and discernment, and even the desire to do those things.

But I often get tripped up, because though I know my ultimate purpose is give myself fully to God, I get so easily distracted by the day-to-day stuff of life, trying to provide for my wife and I, and eventually our kids; and largely, searching for significance in places other than God, to whom I am already immensely significant. And so I more often than not find myself scrambling about like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to find a firm place to stand where I feel on top of everything, and I feel important, and well-compensated for my importance, and I feel like I have it all together… and I just never seem to get there.

If I’m honest with myself, I know the distractions come from worry. Specifically, I worry that God will not provide for my needs, and deeper down, I worry about people’s approval of me. So as I run around trying to please others, and quench my insecurities, I end up stopped in the middle of a greater purpose for my life, staring at a bunch of dirty rocks.

When I get in this state of scrambling about, I just picture God looking at me and thinking “John.. if you only knew what you’re missing right now.. if you only knew the joy you are opting out of because you’d rather play in the mud.”

I don’t think that life in intimacy with God is meant to be lived sitting in a chair praying and reading the Bible. Nor is life meant to be lived out as a progression of tasks that we squeeze a little devotional into at some point in the day, if at all. But the more I process my distractions, get to the root of them, and begin to steer the ship back in the right direction, the more I believe that there is something very profound in this passage of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5.

¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ¹⁹ Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks. Do not quench the Spirit.

Beyond time spent with God every day, remain connected throughout the day. Seek God in all things, even the seemingly insignificant stuff of life. I think the more we become aware that God is always present, and he always loves us (not just when we spend time alone with him), then there becomes this awareness and acceptance that He is real, and He is more worthy of our attention than any accomplishment we could achieve in this life. That is the essence of praying without ceasing. Not literally praying day and night, never able to speak to anyone else but God, but simply remaining connected and aware of God’s presence and welcoming Him throughout the day.

I love that line, “do not quench the Spirit”. So blunt and simple, and all encompassing. Distractions and worry, and self-reliance, and people pleasing; all those things quench the Spirit. Not choosing to be aware of God’s presence quenches the Spirit. When we choose to serve the world and its demands, there’s no room for the Spirit, and we may say we are Christians and we love God, but we are actually serving a different god.

So that’s been my primary goal this past year or so – to give myself fully to God in the midst of day-to-day stuff, and trust that he’ll order my steps. I think the more I do that, the more dirty rocks will appear as they truly are: not worth risking my life to stop for.