I Know Who I Want To Take Me Home

At age 10 I wanted Jesus' return to wait until I could drive a car.  At 19, when I got my drivers license, I wanted Jesus' return to wait until I'd had sex.  At 29, when I got married and first had sex, I wanted Jesus' return to wait until I had become a father.  Now as the father of 5, I've driven a car, had sex, and become a father.  I do not wish for death, but when my time comes I know who I want to take me home. 

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Romanticizing The Past

In life we have a tendency to romanticize the past.  We do this in many ways.   Quite often I think we do it without thinking about the full past that we are romanticizing.

The End Is Where We Begin

I haven't hit the end of my rope. I hope not to. There have been moments in recent years where I felt like I was getting close. Moments where the tension between faith and life and everything else seemed to collide with the sort of intensity  that would put an NHL player into concussion protocol. 

I hope that  I don't have to hit the end of my rope to figure things out. I've been to some pretty dark places and I can't imagine what it must be like to go to darker places. However, if I have to hit the end of my rope be able to understand what it means to be surrounded by the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, that as much as my body may begin to twitch at the thought,  I say bring it on.

The Eleventh Hour Quickly Passes By

Parenting is one of the difficult, maybe even most difficult, things I've done in my life. No matter how early I get up, or how early I get home from my job, I'm still up way too late every night. It's exhausting. It's draining. And yet I wouldn't trade my five boys for anything in the world. So I trudge on, with drooping eyelids and yet a happy heart.

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a hip trendy word in many circles. There are numerous people who are going through a deconstruction phase when it comes to their faith. A singer-songwriter that I have really appreciated over the years, recently announced that he went through two divorces: a horizontal divorce with his wife and a vertical divorce with God.

I've been thinking about deconstruction. No I'm not ready to throw away my faith in God. But I have realized that many of the thoughts about religion and God that I was taught growing up, whether directly or indirectly, are anti biblical and a hindrance to growth in my spiritual life.  We would sing "Jesus loves me when I'm good, when I do the things I should."  Another song we would sing, when I was a summer missionary with Child Evangelism Fellowship, said that when we are obedient to God "His affection for you actually doubles."

Since I stepped down from the pastorate last fall, I've struggled with identity. After all Paul wrote the church in Ephesus that "we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works."  So if I'm created in Christ Jesus to do good works,  when I do those good works, based on the flawed teachings of my youth, his affections for me actually double.  Do you see where I began to struggle when I'm not performing in ways that many in the church consider quantifiable?

Over the last decade, I vacillated between two sides of the pendulum. One that calls for us to be holy as he is Holy, and the other that says I'm loved my God because of what Jesus has done and not because of what I do. There are times that I need to focus on the command to be holy. And there are other times where I need to focus on the fact that I am loved no matter what I do.

Part of the deconstruction I want to go through is focusing on what does the bible actually ask of me versus what has religion taught me about what I should do in their eyes. 

Good little Christians say the right things, do the right things, and don't ruffle any feathers.   After all, Christian kids should be seen and not heard.

Growing up in the church as I did, being a good Christian was almost paramount to being a good American. Good Christian boys go off to war to defend their country. Will even hold special services for them on Memorial Day in the 4th of July. My family might even get up and sing Proud To Be An American for special music at church.  I have a recording of me reciting patriotic poems at my Bible Church growing up, all under the auspice of special music.  For the first quarter Century Of My Life this was probably something I would have been proud of. Now it makes my stomach churn.

A song that I remember hearing back in the mid-90s.says "take away the dross that hides the glory of the cross."  When I'm honest with myself, most of what I've done in my life is dross.  I tried to come up with clever and witty things to say that people would remember. Was that so that Christ would be glorified or that I would be remembered?

Deconstruction also asks why we do the things that we do. Such as why do our Sunday Services include scene songs of worship and one person standing up like sharing another. It hasn't always been this way. Upon a little bit of research I found out that our modern style of church service came about with Reformation.  During the Middle Ages the Catholic Church primarily was focused around the Eucharist. When the Reformation hit the scene, individual spirituality became the focal point. However most Christians could not read, with literacy rates low, and the printing press just coming onto the scene.  So much of the service involved a literate person standing up front in Reading their thoughts and the word of God to others in the pews. But five hundred years later, we continue the same model even though modern teaching methods teach us that lecturing is the least effective way to pass along information.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Many will balk at any changes to the way church is conducted, forgetting the fact that church services have changed drastically time and time again over the last two thousand years.

I don't want to continue on the same path just because someone,  somewhere told me is would make God love me more.  I want to reconstruct my life to model what I read in the Bible.

Depression

It took courage.  I finally admitted to those closest to me that I had been facing depression for months, if not years..  I was working two jobs, my wife and I had five boys, and I was emotionally, physically and spiritually drained.  The advice I received was try harder.  They didn't say that exactly, but it was what I heard.  What I was told was that if I felt drained, I should spend more time praying and in studying the scriptures, I should exercise more, I should get more sleep, and just trust God more.  I was working 50-55 hours a week in my "full time" job, and that job had me walking 10-14 miles a day.  So, the exercise part was laughable to both my wife and I.  The pray and study more part was difficult, because my second job at the time was being the preaching/teaching pastor at my church.  A lot of my "free" time was spent in preparing sermons.  At that point, I almost resented being a pastor.  And yet, the advice given was to double down.  As for the suggestion that I should sleep more, I wasn't sure how that could happen.  But I tried.  My wife picked up more responsibilities, and we made an effort for me to get more sleep.  I probably added 30 minutes a day to my sleep time in the months that followed.

A turning point, not in the depression, but in regards to my resolve, came when I had a follow up meeting with those closest to me.  What came out of it was that my mistakes from years before, which I had been led to believe were minor, were major obstacles that had eroded trust between us and had made the past three years of my ministry had in essence been a hindrance to the ministry I had been called to.  I walked out of that meeting knowing that it was time for me to resign from my position.  And so I did.

I thought that with one less responsibility, maybe the burden I was carrying would lighten.  Actually the opposite happened.  My depression increased.  Now I was a man who had not only lost his vision, but also his sense of purpose. In a sense, I felt like it was me against the world, or maybe a better way to say it was the world was against me.  I found myself lashing out at times at some of the people I love, whether publicly or more often in my own mind.  I was hurting, and instead of letting people in it was easier to push them away.  After all, I can't get hurt by people that I push away.  At least that was how I was acting. 

As Robert Rohr says "If we don't learn to transform the pain we will transfer it."  And I'm not proud about it, but that is sometimes what I did.  Maybe it was paranoia, and maybe it was just pain.  But it felt like things were more personal time and time again.  People I didn't realize I had put so much trust in used words or actions that cut straight into my soul.  And as a result, it was easier to push people away than risk more pain. 

I wish I could say this is all in the past and I'm better now.  I can't.  I have some OK days, and some low days.  I'm being intentional in making changes, such as spending little to no time on social media, eliminating some of the distractions that take up time that is better spent elsewhere, learning to say "no" more, etc.  I am also on a waiting list to see a counselor. Tricia and I have rekindled a friendship with another couple that has been helpful in taking steps towards trusting again. I've been more purposeful in what I listen to, such as listening to the complete N.T. several times in a few week period instead of other stuff, and maybe all of these baby steps will help to get me back to where I should be. 

I recall hearing Brennan Manning say that it shocked some people that he became an alcoholic after he had been a Christian and in the ministry for years.  “Often I have been asked, 'Brennan, how is it possible that you became an alcoholic after you got saved?'  It is possible because I got battered and bruised by loneliness and failure, because I got discouraged, uncertain, guilt-ridden, and took my eyes off Jesus. Because the Christ-encounter did not transfigure me into an angel."  That is something I can relate to.  Maybe not the alcoholic part, but the rest of what he said.  I admire Brennan's candor, especially near the end of his life when he wrote about all his struggles and failures, and yet how the grace of God was enough. 

I remember hearing Randy Alcorn talk about how when he faced a period of depression some people thought it showed a lack of faith.  He says that looking back on that time, he realized it was a gift from God that helped his faith ultimately to grow deeper.  I hope that someday I can look back on these past couple years and say the same.  As for now, it's one day at a time, one step at a time. 

For now, I often times find the deepest cry of my heart is summed up in words penned by Edge when he wrote "Jesus, Jesus help me.  I'm alone in this world, and a ****** up world it is too.  Tell me.  Tell me the stories.  The one's about eternity, and the way it's all gonna be."