Teach me to number my days
And count every moment before it slips away
Taking all the colors before they fade to gray
I don’t want to miss even just a second more of this
It happens in a blink
It happens in a flash
It happens in the time it took to look back
The only thing that matters is how we have loved
I don’t want to miss even just a second more of this      — lyrics from the song “Blink” by Revive

I drop my kids off at school every day. It’s a spiritual experience for me, and I’m not joking.

There is something about that 2 minute ride from my garage to the curb of the school that lifts me up out of myself. Seriously, I seem to transcend up and out of my hurriedness or my laziness, depending on which one is assaulting me that morning.

Sometimes they are bickering, sometimes just staring out the window, sometimes they are silly. Sometimes they want to turn on some music, sometimes they tell a joke, and sometimes they tell how much they love me. Sometimes they are stressed about their day, sometimes they are laughing at the day, sometimes they are planning their day after school, and sometimes they are just wondering what day it is.

But whatever attitude, action, or atmosphere they jump into my car with, it doesn’t seem to matter. I ascend to some special place of deep awareness, immense gratitude, and fearful awe.

The deep awareness is of the seconds passing by.

The immense gratitude is for these 3 growing human beings that are occupying those seconds with me.

The fearful awe is from how much I value and enjoy each of these seconds with them and I can’t keep a one.

When my kids mobilize themselves, barely waiting for me to stop the car before their feet hit the ground running, I sit in my car and watch. I watch them run (usually) all the way to the door of the school.

At this point, you probably think it’s because I’m trying to be a good parent. They are my responsibility, after all. They are officially in my care until they disappear into the stewardship of that school.

But that’s not what motivates me. They would be just fine walking the 40 yards without me there. As a matter of fact, I’m more often sitting there feeling some pressure to get going. There are other cars behind me, things to do, places to go, and people to see.

But I don’t. I watch them all…the…way…in. Why, you might ask? What keeps me sitting there?

This thought: “Which second of their life do I want to miss witnessing?”

Not a one.

And it isn’t about my kids, really, as important as they are to me. They are just being used by God as powerful props to stir me up, grow me up, and wake me up.

There is something in everyone that really wants to matter. It’s a craving and driving force in every human being I have ever had the pleasure of getting to know. As if we just know we are supposed to.

And when I live fully present with another human being, committing myself to letting them know that they do indeed matter, the need in me is mysteriously satisfied as well. And then a miracle often happens.

We both connect with God. Right there. Right then. Sometimes it’s acknowledged, sometimes not. But believed in or not, noticed or not, there He is.

Which may explain why Christ gives the commission to love the force of a command: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

What second of my life do I not want to be a part of that?

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. Honesty is telling the truth to other people.” – Spencer Johnson

“The man dedicated to integrity finds himself always travelling. And the man dedicated to honesty attracts others who want to go and repels those that like where they are too much. ” – Yours Truly

At my core, I am a traveler.

Is it because I am a traveler that I have made my life about truth and honesty? Or has making my life about truth and honesty made me a traveler? I’m not sure.

At any rate, along the proverbial road of my most recent journey, I have come upon a “town” that has sucked me into liking it so much that it threatens my travels. It could kill my spirit, energy, and gusto. It could threaten my mission, character, and priorities. Liking something too much (anything really: an idea, a possession, a person, a way of doing things, a certain income level, etc) can attach me to it in a way that it could steal my very life!

The temptation to “have things figured out” or “stay within known parameters” is so large and looming with it’s convenience, consistency and perceived safety that, for many, it is worth giving up on both integrity and honesty, which demand constant movement, change, and challenge.

But at my core, I am a traveler.

So…like I say to myself when I am out running a few miles and want to quit, I say it to myself again…

Keep. On. Moving.

And I am completely clear that these words do not come from me.

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” – Genesis 1:2

I’ve spent much of my life wanting to experience the Spirit of God.

I have traveled to mountains high above the earth and into caves deep below – just for the chance.

I have sung my voice out with a thousand ecstatic worshippers in the stadium and I have laid prostrate silently with a few monks in the monastery – craving Him.

I have spent hours immersed in the most beautiful and stunning scenes of creation and just as many surrounded by plain and unimpressive walls of brown sheetrock – looking for Him.

I have holes in my jeans from being on my knees in prayer, paper cuts from turning the pages of scripture, stacks of highlighted notes from attending seminars, information overload from reading books, and a sort of interpersonal numbness, if you will, from having listened to so many people who have tried to guide me to the mysterious place where I can reliably find this Spirit that is so Holy.

The journey has not been in vain, or without pleasure. But through it all, there is only one place where I have learned to find my experience of the Spirit of God most consistently.

In the darkness.

I would have never read it this way before my journey, but not 2 verses into the Bible’s story, actually pre-day one of Creation, I am told where to find this least visible, most mysterious Person of the Trinity.

In the darkness.

According to this verse, right at the beginning, there were two things hanging out together over the deep waters of emptiness and formlessness that was earth at the time: Darkness, and the Spirit of God.

In a poetic way (and the creation story is recorded as poetry), I have found this to be practically true.

If I can say that I have experienced the Holy Spirit at all in my life (and I hesitate to trust anyone who is a little too certain that they have), then it has been, more than anywhere else, over the deep, dark places of my life. As I look honestly, the Spirit of God hovers most obviously “over the waters” of…

• My most tragic memories
• My most shameful failures
• My most difficult (and impossible) circumstances
• My most intense and inconvenient emotions
• My most confusing and brain twisting intellectual dilemmas

I don’t say this with total elation, mind you. I would prefer that the Holy Spirit be found in the light and full places rather than the dark and empty ones. I wish this Spirit hung out more often in my very structured world rather than in some formless one. If the Spirit of God hovered over the shallow puddles that take shape on my driveway after a good rain rather than over the deep waters of some dark ocean, I think I would more often journey to Him.

But that is not where I have found him. Not most consistently. Not most reliably.

I have found Him and experienced Him (again, if I have at all) by embracing and telling my whole story, by owning and confessing my sins, by admitting and walking into my most scary situations, by being attentive to and learning from (but not owned by) my emotions, and by being open to and fearless about being wrong.

I’m far from being done learning about what and where the Spirit of God is. And I know it seems counter-intuitive to say that you should go to the “dark” to find Him, when Jesus and Paul spend so much time talking about walking in the light.

To that I say – and I speak from a position of experience rather than theological knowledge – I have best been able to see and experience God as Light on the backdrop of the darkness.

That’s where I find him. In the darkness. My belief is that you will find Him most reliably there.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” – Jesus

I can’t identify the precise moment when it changed, but I remember life before making a priority of peace.

Back then, I didn’t think twice about sacrificing peace at the alter of busyness. I killed it often at the alter of meeting other people’s “needs”, demands, and expectations. Sometimes, peace got bled by me at the alter of my own insecurity, striving, and image management. Less often, but most painful for me, I killed peace at the alter of worry, control, and worse-case-scenario fantasies.

Those were tiring, soul-starving, non-stop-action days. I was “there” for a lot of people. I was “appreciated” for my hard work. I was “honored” for how well I performed. I was “proud” of all the “accomplishments” I saw in my life.

But I was not at peace. I lacked a deep and abiding, untouchable and transcending peace.

These days, whenever the peace of my heart is compromised, I notice. And reestablishing it’s integrity immediately becomes the priority of all my energy. Why? Because without a peaceful spirit, I stop trusting anything I say or do. Without a peaceful spirit, I know that everything in my thinking is skewed. Everything I do, say, and feel are suspect.

So I basically put everything on hold to explore and resolve what is going on inside of me…and let me be clear about one thing I’ve learned…it most assuredly IS inside of ME that the problem of peacelessness resides, no matter how much I’d like to attribute it to outward circumstances.

Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” He implies a certain amount of power available to us here, an inward authority over the troubled heart.

He goes on to suggest that he gives a certain kind of peace (“my peace,” he says).

And his kind of peace, evidently, is not available from our outward circumstances in the world (“I do not give as the world gives,” he says).

So why, then, do we work so hard to create or control outward circumstances to try to feel peace? Why do we pretend that if “so and so” would just do things different, or if “such and such” wasn’t happening, that all would then be well?

No, the problem of peacelessness is not in the world. It is in us. There are certain circumstances that are not yours or mine to change. And there are certain people that are present, not to torment you, but to play a provocative role in your ability to develop a self-responsible, eyes-wide-open, invulnerable sense of empowering peace.

Then, and only then, can you trust your outward actions and decisions and words.

The most disorienting of peace challenges to my heart are the ones that I can’t seem to explain to myself. “Why is this bothering me so much?” I ask myself. “Why am I obsessing over this?” “What is that reaction about?”

When this happens, there is usually some unconscious, unresolved history that God is trying to work out in me. A big part of my job, then, is to “let it happen” (or better said, “let Him happen”)…to cooperate with the unsettledness of it all and let it take me where it (or He) needs me to go.

Many people I know (me included), whenever they experience some assault on their peace either get too involved (by controlling, throwing fits, or emotionally blackmailing) or get too passive (by not caring, hiding behind judgments, or denial).

But these strategies for finding peace come from the world. They provide a way too cheap alternative to peace that works like a drug, providing temporary relief that will not be able to withstand the weight of future challenges to a truly peaceful heart.

May Jesus leave us the peace that can. His peace.

And then right before I  hit post, this commercial showed up, reminding me that when peace reigns in my heart, the world looks like a totally different place.

I while back, I went to Zimbabwe. I left many tears on the ground of that nation.

Because of what I saw and reported back to my family, every night, my two sons and daughters, who go to bed having had 3 square meals a day, pray for the kids I met there. Specifically, they pray that they would each get at least one survival meal each day.

You can help those prayers be answered and give a very meaningful gift to that special someone who has everything. You can feed these hungry kids AS your gift to your loved one.

Just go here and decide what level of gift you would like to give. You can…

• Feed one child one survival meal a day for 1 month – $10
• Feed one child one survival meal a day for 3 months – $30
• Feed one child for a whole year – $120
• Fund an entire feeding center for a year (approx. 200 children) – $2000

Or you can help a family feed themselves by…

• Providing a pair of rabbits for a family – $10
• Help a family start a rabbit business (1 dozen rabbits) – $60

I’ve been there. I took these pictures myself. I’ve seen hundreds of widows and thousands of orphans who are suffering in this nation. I know this pipeline through Operation Starfish Africa not as an “operation”, but as friends of mine, natives of Zimbabwe who take the call to get food to their nation’s children personally. They have had to buy food on the black market and get this survival help to people covertly in some cases.

100% of your money goes towards food. No admin costs for the people organizing it are necessary or even wanted.

Follow the instructions at this link and help secure these meals for these hungry kids.

Follow the directions and you can pay through debit or credit card. You could write your own, but you can also put in your email address and receive a special Christmas note to print out, put it in an envelope, and either mail it or put it on the Christmas Tree for your loved one letting them know of the gift of life you gave on their behalf.

In Zimbabwe, when someone is grateful and wants to say thank you, they put their hands together as if they were praying and look at you in the eye.

When they are unbelievably humbled and full of intense gratitude and want to express the depth at which they feel it but feel helpless to do so, and words can not express it adequately, they still put their hands together and look you in the eyes, but then they drop to their knees.

So here is the little girl that received a McDonalds toy that my daughter sent me over there with to give away. She was one of the few children I met that was not orphaned and lived with a mom and a dad.

So look her back in the eyes, and allow her to express the deep gratitude that will be felt by her less fortunate peers that live all around her.

I give you mine as well.

If Jesus Christ is man—And only a man—I say That of all mankind I cleave to him, And to him will cleave away. If Jesus Christ is a God—And the only God—I swear I will follow him through heaven and hell, The earth, the sea, the air.” –R.W. Gilder

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…And he will be called Mighty God.” – The prophet Isaiah

How did Isaiah make the leap? How did he make the leap, over the course of one verse, from “look, here’s a baby of ours” to “and by the way, he is God.”

And how about Thomas? Isn’t this Jesus he speaks to the carpenter? Didn’t this guy come from Nazareth (what good comes from there)? And was not Thomas realistic and scientific enough that he was able to look at the convincing testimony of his 10 best friends in the world who claimed they saw Jesus back from the dead and still shake his head in disbelief (Jn 20:24-25)? Yet he looks a grown human being in the eyes and is able to say, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:26)

I’ve made the leap, too. And it is not because I am certain without a doubt. Oh, at times I am. At times I am blindly certain, finding myself believing it with very little evidence or feeling. At other times, I’m almost helplessly certain (my favorite kind) because I have seen such marvels in his teachings, or through actions done in his name, or through personal, mysterious experiences in or around me. But sometimes, I’m “certain with doubts”. That is, I’m certain in spite of some fairly valid doubts that (I hope) come from the integrity of my heart.

How have I made the leap, then? How have I come to look a human baby, a human being in the proverbial eyes and be capable of such a seemingly absurd statement as that of Isaiah? As that of Thomas?

How can I summon the faith to follow Jesus as God?

Well, I think its more complex than I have the ability or energy to completely think through or articulate at this stage of my life. However…

As a pragmatist, I have found the life, teachings, and ways of Jesus to work.

As an idealist (and, ironically, as a realist), I can’t find any high and noble virtue or value introduced by any other philosophy, political system, or religion not already embodied and promoted by him.

As an extremist, I find nothing that boldly calls for and daringly promises so much.

As a romantic, I love that everything he is and does is motivated and explained by love.

As a judgmental skeptic, I can’t find anything wrong with him.

As a sociologist, when I see his character, mission, and priorities imitated, I see unstoppable good flood into and through people.

As a contemplative, I can’t seem to exhaust his depth, but as a simpleton, I find his teachings easy to grasp and easy to discern application

As a scientist, he gives me categories to explore parts of humanity that science can’t.

As a relativist, he gives me a way of being open to new points of view without being afraid.

As an absolutist, he gives me a few strong, hard-to-argue-with bedrocks upon which the rest of life can be interpreted.

As an activist, he gives me something worthwhile to do, not as part of my life, but as my life.

As an ecumenicist, he gives me a basis upon which to call for unity.

As a sinner, he offers the only message that satisfies and heals completely.

As a son, the God he describes as Father is the only God I want.

As a follower, he gives me someone I can trust.

As a leader, he gives me somewhere of worth to take people.

Something in me is saying that I’m just barely skimming the surface of some very deep waters in me. Dark waters that must be plunged into fully in order to find the treasures.

But for now, this is a satisfying post to write. A sort of, “reasons I believe” proclamation.

Ultimately, I think I’ve experienced enough of myself, others, creation, and God in the light of my followership of Christ to have decided that even if Jesus Christ wasn’t God, I’d follow him still.

Interestingly, that may be how Thomas navigated through all of his complexity to arrive at making the leap that Jesus was God.

After all, earlier in the story, he was the follower that said, in spite of any doubt that would suggest it unwise, ill-advised, dangerous, or unnecessary, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (Jn 11:16)

If Jesus isn’t God, well, then among all mere men, I choose to follow and die with him. In my journey, study, and exploration for truth, I have too many reasons not to.

“Dad, here. Take this paper and write down this prayer.” – my son Jakin, 6 years old, before I wrote what’s below, on a Sunday

Dear God:

I love you. I wanted to say, I liked church. And I thank you for letting us have this special day for us. And I thank you for making us to have this life. And I pray for Jesus and God to have fun up there in Heaven. And I pray that you get more powerful everyday. And I thank you for taking our sins away.

In Jesus name, Amen.

From: Jakin

I love ya, buddy! You are pretty much one of the best people I know, too!

“[The small group] was full of sweet and patient Christ followers who would allow me to ask questions without feeling ashamed or embarrassed.” – a report from a friend of a friend of mine who decided to follow Christ at 29 years old

A good friend of mine told me about a girl he dated as a young man. He was very fond of her, but because of his pursuit of Christ’s life and her lack of it, they parted ways.

Some would say it’s not a good reason for a couple to break up, that their love for one another should be enough. In some cases, and depending on the maturity of the couple, I would say that’s true. In others, however, I would suggest that the the life and ways of a devoted Christ follower are so vastly different from all other ways of life that the act of love for one another is to break up – if they weren’t going to attempt it together (Paul says this a little bit more bluntly than I would in 2 Corinthians 6:14-16). 

Anyway, out of the blue, 15 years later, he gets a letter from this girl. Here’s some excerpts:

I am writing to share with you and your family the place you marked in my journey with Christ. When you and I knew each other I did not know God. I remember how you responded to me. You started inviting me to church and gently talking to me about God to try and get a grasp of where I was in my belief system. One evening you tearfully pleaded with me to realize God is real and wants me to be His. At the time, I felt offended and put off and I could not grasp what you were trying to explain to me.

It would be years later before God would rescue me and pull me into a relationship with Him. I was 29 years old when I was baptized.

I married a wonderful Christian man when I was 24 and still a “non-knower”. He hosted a Bible study in our home and it was full of sweet and patient Christ followers who would allow me to ask questions without feeling ashamed or embarrassed. My precious husband lovingly supported and lead me to Christ and I will be forever thankful.

Sometimes I would wonder why God waited so long to save me. Then I remembered you. You were the first person to really talk to me about who God is and what He wants from us. God did love me all along. Even when I was not seeking Him, He called on me.

I think a lot about God and how He loves us and how He uses us to love on each other. I hope you are still bold and courageous for Christ. Thank you wanting so desperately for me to know God 15 years ago. May it encourage you to know that even though I rejected that message that day- today it marks an expression of God’s love for me, through you, even when I was lost and not seeking.

My friend was a relational expression of God’s love for her. The group of folks that met in her house were too.

Because of where we are as a church here in Amarillo, I couldn’t help but notice not just the message that she heard (the greatest one I’ve ever heard) but the method through which she was able to hear it.

She heard it through relationships.

Not sermons on Sunday. Not a large group gathering in a building designated for it. I’m not opposed to those things, and indeed they can be an expression of God’s love for people, but they are not relational expressions of God’s love. The sermon can be heard through the computer as easily as it can be heard on Sunday. The large group gatherings in a church building can be as impersonal and non-participatory as a movie in a theatre.

But individuals with other individuals (ie: small groups) have a better chance at the relational part of expressing God’s love.

Our leaders are asking everyone in our church family to reorganize ourselves into small groups. Not because it’s the only way to make disciples of Christ. But because the unique call on the Southwest church is to make disciples through relationships. And small groups are a better way for all of us to learn how to do relationships (an under-practiced skill, as you know) and then communicate Christ’s love and message to others through them.

My friend is doing it, and evidently, has been for a long, long time.

May God bless all of us who have found a better life in Christ to share it by being sweet and patient, relationally expressing God’s love for people, open to questions and conversations with anyone and everyone without making them feel embarrassed or ashamed.

“In most cases, something has died to give us life.” – Norman Grubb

I’m one hour out from being at the funeral of a great man. And I’m a few seconds removed from having read the above statement. So forgive me as I sit in the space that these two events have suddenly and surprisingly created within me as I ponder the relation of death to my life.

How dependent I am on death for life!

For me to have the leather for my shoes, death was required. For me to have the cotton for my clothes, death was required. For me to have the wood for my desk, death was required. For me to have the food that I will consume today, to sustain my very existence, death was required. For me to have a roof over my head, death was required. Even the oxygen I breath in every moment gives its existence completely up so that I might live.

It’s embedded in the fabric of my daily experience. I’m completely dependent on death to have life.

And this may be the first time I’ve acknowledged it with such awareness and gratitude.

And that’s the thing, I think. Awareness and gratitude. These days, people have divided into opposing camps: some people fight for the rights of those things that are dying to give man his life, some people fight for the rights of man to kill those things to have the life he has.

Both sides have merits, I think. I don’t want things to die for nothing of real value to man, but I don’t want man to miss out on things of real value just because it requires death to receive them.

It’s a dilemma.

I have felt it most poignantly in the story of Christ. When I hear the story, I never want to Jesus to die in it. But I want the life that he says I can have only if he does, too. I’m like he was in the Garden before he was drug off to be crucified, praying, “God, if there is any other way, let this cup be taken from him.”

It’s in the Bible’s story, and it’s in my daily story – someone or something’s death is the price for me to have my life.

I don’t think Jesus would want me try to convince him not to do it for me, nor would he want me to fight against it happening (Peter tried both – see Mt 16:23 & Jn 18:11). I think what he wants is for me to have…

…awareness and gratitude.

And then, everything that these two things bring, when they are with me, gives praise.

When I’m aware and grateful for all the things in creation that die to give me life, I won’t misuse creation. I’ll utilize it’s sacrifice…but I’ll also enjoy it, admire it, protect it, and care for it.

When I’m aware and grateful for Jesus who died for me to give me life, I’m not inclined to misuse him, take him for granted, or “live however I want since I’m forgiven”.  I enjoy him, I admire him, I serve him, and I praise him. I live a life of love…

…when I’m aware and grateful.

“The greatest among you should be like the youngest.” – Jesus Christ

My 8-year-old daughter Callie has learned to use the new printer on her mom’s computer. With it, she added this incredible piece to her already stunning room.

I pulled a copy out (just 1, as instructed), and here’s what it says:

Welcome!

In order for you to come into Callie’s room you must: have fun, be sweet, love each other, share, say nice things to your friends, always have your smiley face on, always be welcomed into Callie’s room, care for others, if someone is hurt- help them, never hurt people’s feelings, be very sweet to Callie’s parents, don’t beg for anything- just ask nicely, clean up your messes at all times, be nice to strangers that are at Callie’s house, do what Callie’s parents ask you to, be sweet to Callie’s brothers, recycle things that are recyclable, and don’t mess with fragile things.

If you are here, that means you are very, very, very, very special to Callie!!!!

At the bottom, by her already signed commitment, is a covenant of friendship from this sweet, sweet little girl.

You can bet I picked up the closest pen and put my name on it. Who in their right mind wouldn’t accept an invitation into a room that designs and protects that kind human-friendly atmosphere? Who wouldn’t pursue an offer of practicing a life like that?

There’s an old book that I have read called “How Children Raise Parents”. I remember being very taken in by it’s message that children are sent to us as parents to grow us up.

I have been sent a most spectacular of teachers in this little girl. She seems to carry light around with her with the greatest of ease. I am blessed to get such a front row seat to behold it.

I love you, Callie Jakin. You have a beauty that God Himself has established.