My Most Expensive Cup of Coffee Ever

Several weeks ago I sat at this very table with this very intent in mind: to write a little about life and how some verses in Hebrews 12 were involved in my week. Then, in my second-most klutzy move of the year (the first being an impressive mountain bike crash), I spilled my entire mug of coffee onto our Macbook. The screen went black as the brew soaked down through the keyboard, and that was the end of that blog attempt and our computer. Talk about a pricy cup of coffee.

But here I am again, and after much ado I'll start again from Hebrews 12:1-2.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Last month I completed my first-ever triathlon – a sprint triathlon, which means it was a fairly short one. Nevertheless, it was a big deal for me, so I trained hard for it over the course of several months. The week of the triathlon our community group studied Hebrews chapter 12, and the verses above were absolutely appropriate.

. . . let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely . . .

Man, I don't know about you but I am not a spandex person. Not to reference sin which clings so closely, but it was a different feeling being tied into a pair of triathlon shorts; not wildly inappropriate, but still not something I'd walk around in on an average day. But you know, they were great for all three events of the race, and I can't imagine what it would be like to race in something really heavy, like a flannel shirt or winter boots. No one would ever race in clothing like that, silly! You think to yourself. Well of course not, but we Christians try to run with our baggage all the time. It might be sin, it might be the dead weight of the past. But we cannot follow Jesus well if we keep ourselves attached to it. This is a hearty reminder to me as it is to you.

. . . let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith . . .

My triathlon ended with a 2.5 mile run. By the time I got my shoes switched and started into it, my calves told me they'd had enough already. They cramped up as badly as I've ever experienced. Not only that, but physically and mentally I was beginning to fatigue a bit. From my limited training I've learned when that happens, to pick out a spot up ahead and tell myself, Run there. Whether outside or inside a gym I'll look ahead to the next landmark, run to it, then pick another landmark and run to that. It's a neat way to trick my mind into going further than it would otherwise. So that's what I did during the triathlon. Run to that building, run to the next road, run to the turnaround, run back to the building. Miserable as I felt, I just ran to one goal at a time, and eventually my next goal was the finish line.

I envy those people who have their lives planned out years in advance, and can simply walk ahead and presto! Things fall right into place. My personal experience has been more of a step-at-a-time process, like God is there saying, Run there, and when I do He says, Now run there. And the picture in this Bible passage is to keep our heads up and our gaze fixed on Jesus and ignore whatever else would pull us away from the goal.

There! I finally got these thoughts together, and if I can just hit that "Publish" button before I spill some more coffee...

Making Jesus Cool

Here's a question: Is Jesus so unhip that Christians need to convince people that he is actually a cool guy, by ripping off creating merchandise ideas as a persuasion method?

(Original photo found here)

After much deliberation, I decided to skip this year's local Christian music festival. Our budget literally could not afford the tune of $40 for one day of music (I was only looking forward to one of the bands anyway), but I was still a little bummed to miss it. The festival itself is usually pretty good, and I've made a lot of memories there. 

One part of the festival I don't miss, which is a sad reflection of our culture at large, is the MASS MARKETING of the thing. The largest building on the grounds is dedicated to vendors. Bands sell stuff (which I understand, because they have to eat), organizations sell stuff and try to raise support, music stores sell stuff, and there is always at least two booth spaces' worth of Christian t-shirts that, if you buy one and wear it, will make Jesus look at least 35 percent cooler to your non-Christian friends. And these t-shirts accomplish it all by ripping off giving a spiritual twist to whatever the outside culture says is popular right now. How can anyone say no to having "Myspace in Heaven" or "Abreadcrumb & Fish"?

The interesting thing that we forget in this mindset is that what is popular in the general culture is actually not on the cutting-edge of creativity. And when Christians try to capitalize on a trend that looks cool right now, they don't realize the rest of culture has moved on to something else already. Call it a clean miss.

Jesus is not a fad; he is not cool, and following Him throughout history has proven uncool to untold numbers of martyrs, at least this side of Heaven. Jesus walked on this Earth, changed lives, healed, raised the dead, challenged, and divided. He was killed, and He rose from the dead. And now the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead is living inside His followers. With that in mind, why in the world would a mere t-shirt do anything at all? Why not wear a plain shirt and let God do what He does through you?

SCOTUS vs. Freedom

It is difficult to know exactly how to celebrate Independence Day when the days leading up to it have been particularly hard on Americans' personal freedom. I realize that the SCOTUS decision specifically has been heavily scrutinized this week, so many things I write here are in danger of lacking originality. However, after reading through the decision (available for you to read here) and dissenting opinions therein, I couldn't help but be gravely concerned about what happened. 

A good point raised in the opinions of Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito was in reference to the commerce clause argument. They observed that if the legislation was upheld using the commerce clause of the Constitution, the new law would classify not only action, but inaction, as "commerce," and make anything that exists subject to regulation and taxation, greatly expanding the scope of the federal government. If you breathed a sigh of relief that the commerce clause did protect you from being compelled to purchase health insurance, you may have lost your lunch when Justice Roberts unveiled the grander scheme he had cooked up to gently make you buy it anyway.

Because of the penalty being re-written by Justice Roberts as a tax, this monstrosity of a law magically became classifiable as "Constitutional." (Never mind that the law's advocates denied to the point of tears that it was a tax back when they were steamrolling it through the legislative branch.) And now, not only our actions are taxable, now our inactions can be subjected to penalty... tax, I mean, by the federal government. All this was accomplished by semantically slipping around the commerce clause.

This is, to the simple man and the scholar, lunacy.

One would think that the Supreme Court Justices would only read the law, judge it to be valid or not under the authority of the Constitution, give their judgment and move along. In this case, four justices stamped their automatic approval upon it, and the Chief Justice thought about it for a while and did the same. He also took time to reinterpret the main thrust of the argument, write up a dashing little opinion, and probably rehearse it in the mirror so that he could read it all the way through without chuckling.

Not to make light of what happened, because it is more dangerous than we can imagine, especially since much of the population actually believes that the government is a sincere and benevolent entity. But many of these people have been bought and paid for by one social program or another. As a result, stunts like what happened last week, when the Supreme Court rewrote legislation and stripped us all of another freedom in plain sight, can happen without much consequence. The majority of the Justices smile, the President smiles (and tells everyone to move along), the media smiles; and the average citizen wrinkles his nose for a minute, keeps watching the news until he sees his favorite team has won, and smiles as well.

God help a country willing to give away its freedom.

More on Pain

One of the last times I sat down and wrote, I wrote about Pain. It has been months since I did that, but in the meantime I started a job at an urgent care clinic. In the last two years at the hospital, and now at the urgent care I encounter pain all the time; pain in all different parts of the body, pain that is burning, crushing, or throbbing; pain expressed in all manners by people of all ages.

Recently there was a little boy who came into the clinic with a lacerated chin. He was not in much pain; in fact he had a lot of energy and seemed pretty happy, until it was time for the doctor to stitch his chin up.

The boy’s happiness disappeared as the staff “papoosed” him in a sheet to keep his body still on the bed. As the doctor began to clean the wound, the boy screamed and thrashed about, trying to free himself. He could not, since he was held firmly in place by several of the nursing staff. The procedure continued along, the doctor numbing the wound with lidocaine, then carefully working through each stitch to sufficiently close the wound. All the while the boy thrashed and screamed with as much energy as he could muster. When he discovered there was nothing he could do to escape, he screamed forth all the angry words his young vocabulary come up with. Eventually the wound was closed up, the area tidied, and the medical staff went on their way (to their great relief).

When I told my friend Tim this story, he thought about it for a moment, then said, “That’s pretty much the way we are with God.” How true! God knows better than we do what we really need, and usually it involves undergoing things we are convinced we don’t need. These processes involves pain in some form. But like a doctor, God knows in order for us grow and be healthy we need to go through this pain. Even our control must sometimes be restrained so we don’t spoil his work, and we must simply endure it.

Of being an ungrateful patient I am the guiltiest. I thrash, I scream and shout; I disagree with the diagnosis and fight against the pain with all that I have. And somewhere in this process the Holy Spirit reminds me that unless he does this thing, I will not get better. I have no choice but to submit to the faithful hands doing their work.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-3

God, help me to trust you.