Robbing Quality from the LORD

Stating the obvious; people desire relationships.  Do not most people want to be liked, acknowledged, recognized and even respected?  We seek relationships at home, at school, work, church, and even more so on social media.  We may even find ourselves justifying our value by the number of so called friends or followers we have.  We count our tweets, re-tweets, favored tweets, likes, re-shares, followers, friends, favored’s, and so on.  We are so focused on quantity and being quantified, that we have neglected quality. 

Society has come to this place where we have robbed relationships of quality.  Without quality, what you have is nothing more than superficial, non-dependable, unreliable, broken connections.   You may think you have gained the world in popularity by counting numbers, but in fact you have robbed your soul of one of its greatest desires.  We want to be connected to others.  Friends will unfriend, followers will quit following, re-tweets will be forgotten, favoreds will be filled away, pretty much all the quantity and quantifying will amount to nothing more than empty shallow meaningless numbers. 

Have you ever been in a crowd and yet still felt totally alone?  I have.  In robbing ourselves and cheating others of quality communication, we have created gatherings of two, three, and even mass multitudes of physical and digital congregations of lonely people.    

Although people will come and go in life, there is one who will never leave you or forsake you, He wants to be your friend forever and He will always favor you.  His name is Jesus.  He desires your friendship, following, favoring, re-tweets, re-shares and so much more.  He gave everything just so He could become a friend of yours.  He desires quality. 

Have you robbed yourself of the greatest relationship this world has ever known?  Have you chosen not to have Jesus Christ as your friend?  Even worse, are you a Christian who is robbing your savior of quality communication? Have you chosen to rob the one who gave it all so that you could follow Him?

This may be a stretch for some, but here it is.  In Matthew chapter 21 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling, He overturned all the tables and ran them all off.   He was angered because the temple was being dishonored for monetary gain.  Right after, Jesus said “My house will be called a house of prayer, and you have turned it into a den of robbers.”  In 1 Corinthians 6:19 we are told that our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit.  Now, if our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit and Jesus himself said in Mathew 21 that His temple is a house of prayer, then are we not robbing Jesus Christ of a quality relationship if we choose not to communicate with Him? 

I cannot help but believe that we are obviously called to a quality relationship with Jesus Christ.  In order to have quality we must communicate and interact intentionally, purposefully, and routinely.   If not, then you are forming nothing more than an empty religious gathering.  Although you may call yourself a Christian, attend church regularly and even share your religion, you will still feel lonely.  Quality, that is what makes it all real.  I challenge you to make your relationship with Christ all about quality each and every day. 

 

 

May my life be the proof and evidence of Christ’s love!

Unconditional Love and The Bet Was On.

My "There is a God" encounter with Carri resulted in  becoming best friends.  The awkward thing about our friendship; Carri  set me up on dates with her friends.  What I did not know at that time was Carri thought to herself  I was out of her league.  How crazy a thought was that?  Gorgeous blue-eyed captain of the flag corps blonde thinks a lowly, shy, under achieving brokenhearted wimp is out of her league.  Now that is humility, on her part.

I remeber  hoping that we would date someday, but if friendship was all I could have that was good enough for me.  After all, this girl was making something happen in my heart that I had never felt before.  I really liked it.  I am not talking about lustful thoughts or even infatuation.  It was genuine acceptance, concern and unconditional love.  My family made me feel that way, but you expect that.  I took that for granted.  This was just so different; this was a friend who did not have to be that way.

The opportunity I had been waiting for finally arrived.    All I wanted was the chance to have an actual date with just Carri and none of her friends. 

Carri was sitting in her dad's ford truck in front of my house after dropping me offone day.  I was leaning in the driver's window  just talking to her.  I was trying to find the confidence to ask the big question, "Will you go on a date with me?"  Then Carri out of total randomness says, "You know this truck has 24 inch rims."  I looked down and thought, "Yep she is right."  My response to her  was, "no they are not."  Immediately she responded, "Do you want to bet?" Challenge accepted.  I responded without hesitation, "Sure, if you are right I will buy you dinner and a movie, if I am right you can buy me dinner and a movie."  With the cutest smirk on her face she said, "Ok the bet is on."  Long story short Carri won, which I already knew she would.  I just wanted a date.  Carri then leaned out her window, kissed me on the lips and then immediately sped off. 

What I had found, but did not understand was unconditonal love.  This is the same kind of love found in Christ. The unconditional love found in Christ is even better because it is not skewed by inpure thoughts, jealousy, or even lustful desires. 

I Corinthians 13:1-3 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

May my life be the proof and evidence of Christ's love. 

A Delusional Life Audit and Inventory

Before you read this post, I highly reccomend you read my previous post.  Beginning with the Intro if you have not already.  This post will make more sense if you do.

Taking a personal inventory and life audit is a great way to determine your worth, so I once thought.  Is that not what you are supposed to do when trying to determine if your life is worth living? 

So here is what I thought my life inventory and audit looked like.  Is there a common theme of being bullied?  Yes.  Has the bullying gotten worse as time went on? Yes.  Does anyone outside my family really want me around?  I didn't think so.  Is there anyone who sticks up for me? Not that I can think of.  However, I do have a couple of friends who will say “sorry that happened, so and so was being a jerk."  Do they ever stick up for me when it is happening?  Not once that I can think of.  So do I really matter to these friends?  Probably not, otherwise they would stand up for me.  Is anyone out there encouraging me?  My parents, but they have to I am their son.  Do teachers notice me?  Not really, I can skip class and never get caught.  How well am I doing in school?  Failing, yep absolutely failing and I don’t even care.  My GPA was as low as 1.57, I’d say that equals failure.  

Am I good at anything?  I think so, but coaches never see it.  I love soccer, but I can not even make the travel team.  Why, because I don’t have the popular name.  After all, some of the kids already said that I wouldn’t make it because “nobody wants you on this team”.   Track; that’s where I know I can make it, well maybe not.  I went to the tryouts and kept up with the fastest kid on the field.  I just knew I was in, guess again… Not.  

Would my parents be proud if they knew what I was really doing?  Never.  Problems with alcohol? Yes.  Have I failed anyone?  I’m sure my parents, and definitely Tina and Gary.  They are both dead and I never tried or did anything to help or stop any of it.  What if I had listened to Tina, what if I had discouraged Gary from drinking alcohol?  Is there any reason what so ever for me to continue living?  Surfing, I love to surf.  But then again, I am pretty much alone.  I do take my younger cousin on occasion.  I just hope I don’t mess his life up and send him down the wrong path.  He needs me.  Actually, he doesn’t need me.  He needs someone much better than me.  

So is there any good reason to keep living.  That is a stupid question, of course not.  Besides, nobody really cares about me. Most people don’t even notice when I am not around.  If they want to hang out with me, it is usually because they want something.  Are friends encouraging me to be a better person? Yes and no; really, we just do stupid stuff together and I am definitely not making their lives any better.   

Has God ever done anything I told him to do?  Not that I can think of.  Has anything I have tried brought peace and hope into my heart where I want it the most? Never.  Am I worse off than when I was before?  Most definitely!   I have been picked on as long as I can remember.  I’ve been told countless times, “nobody likes you, nobody wants you, you don’t matter, nobody cares, and you will never amount to anything”.   I am a failure as a friend.  I am more depressed than I have ever been.  My life is a downward spiral of failure, rejection, being used, addiction, depression, and messing up other people’s lives.  

There is not one person I can think of outside of my family that even cares if I am alive.  If God really needed me, He would have done something to stop all this stuff.  I’ve gone to Him in church, in prayer, in reading a Bible, in scientology, through Buddha, and even by meditation.   Have I found Him or even experienced Him even once?  Not that I can remember.  

Is there anything I can do to make my life better?  I don’t know anymore.  I have tried so many things and nothing seems to work.  Is there anything that can make this pain go away? Death, if I am dead then I won’t hurt anymore.  Dead is dead right?  So now, how do I do it? How do I find the courage to finally end this miserable life that I think I am in?  Courage, I don’t have even an ounce of it in my soul.  I am even a coward.

I hope you get the point of what I was trying to show you in that last few paragraphs.  In my own delusional mind; I convinced myself that life sucked, God did not care, I did not matter to anyone, and I pretty much was ruining other people’s lives.  I had no opportunity or even the talent to succeed.  If God really had a plan for me and needed me, everything would be different.  God, if He even existed made a mistake when He made me.  That pretty sums up my deranged thoughts and the lies satan wanted me to believe. 

     

If I had only known and understood what Jeremiah wrote in Jeremiah 29:11 when I was a teenager.

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

This is me and my wife Carri
in Hungary during our first
foreign mission trip in 2007

I never understood back then that God really did have plans for me.  What I didn’t know then, is what my biggest problems were.  I allowed other people to define who I was, I tried to define God and who He was by my standards, and I pursued my own plans.  My plans were doomed for failure because of these problems. 

May my life be the proof and evidence of Christ's love

Fatal Ending Failures

What I am about to share happens to be two of the most powerful personal experiences in my life.  These are the reasons that motivate me to reach youth, or anyone who is hurting for that matter.

Suicide:

 Professionally, I cannot even begin to list the number of attempted and successful teen suicides I have been involved in. So many lives are tragically lost prematurely because of emotional pain. Most of which could have been prevented if bullying did not exist by peers and even family members. These lost lives may still be with us today, if they only would have confided in someone who could have been an advocate for them. Parents, pastors, teachers, councilors, coaches, aunts, uncles, friends...there is always someone willing to listen and help.

 My first girlfriends name was Tina; she was one of the most beautiful girls in the school. Every guy wanted to date a girl like her. Tina could have dated anyone on any given day. Most people really liked her and she was fun to be around. The awkward thing about Tina, she dated me. I was the wimp, the scrawny kid that most kids made fun of. To me, our relationship resembled the beauty and the Beast. Well more like Beauty and the Wimp. For whatever reason, Tina had an interest in me.

Like most high school relationships, ours did not last long. After a few weeks, she began to show up at school with unkempt hair and ugly clothes. I even remember the glasses that only my grandma would have worn. It was strange; Tina was trying to make herself ugly. She became too weird for me. I became very creeped out so I walked away from her.

A few weeks went by and Tina made several attempts to talk to me: stopping me in the hallway, leaving me notes, and waiting for me outside after school. I did everything I could to avoid her. I did not want to deal with whatever was going on. Like I said, her recent transformation creeped me out. I literally turned my back on her. The cat and mouse chase went on for a few weeks then it abruptly came to an end. Tina shot and killed herself with a bullet to her head.

As the police investigation unfolded, news broke out that Tina was allegedly forced to perform as a nude dancer by her mother at a so-called gentlemen's club. What I believe now is that Tina was making a last ditch effort to reach out to someone who should have cared. Could it have been that she wanted to be ugly? If she was ugly, then she would not have had to dance in front of men who were drunk and groping at her adolescent body as if she were a piece of meat. I may never know that answer.

Here is what I do know; I turned my back on a girl who needed me. I sent her the message, "I don't like you, I don't want you, I don't care", "You do not matter to me". What would have happened if I had responded to her call for help? Maybe Tina would be here today.

Drinking and driving:

The second life-changing event for me is the guilt I have had to live with for not taking responsibility for a friend who was drunk and needed to go home. For this and many other reasons, I speak out strongly against alcohol. I have had countless horrific experiences involving this foolishness and stupidity. What makes this even worse is the number of innocent lives that have been taken because of this ignorance induced by drunkenness. No one is invincible when it comes to drinking and driving. Alcohol is in control not you.

I will make this one short. Gary was killed in an alcohol related motor vehicle accident. While driving home from a party in order to protect his friends, Gary hit an oak tree at a high rate of speed. Upon impact, the engine of his car came into the drivers' compartment and killed him instantly. He almost made it home. The large tree he hit happened to be in his best friend's front yard.

Why would anyone ever allow a friend to drive drunk? Fun should never involve alcohol. You might as well play Russian roulette. Here is a fair warning: if you choose to drink and drive, eventually something horrible will come from it. Someone is going to get hurt and maybe even die and it may be you, someone else or even both. Drunkenness is just like putting that gun to your head, pulling the trigger and hoping you have the empty chamber. I was supposed to be Gary's friend; I never tried to stop him and I never tried to discourage him. A real friend is going to tell you when you are wrong. A real friend will try to stop you from being stupid. Honestly, I was not a friend.

Stupidity, ignorance and avoidance
can sure make a mess of things

Two thoughts from God's word I feel apply to this blog entry:

Matthew 5:13-16

 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. 14 "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Silence and avoidance is the same as losing our saltiness and shutting off our lights. A follower of Jesus Christ is to be the salt and light in this world. Do you get this? We must be who He is. We must reflect His likeness; when we do, people are drawn to Him. They will praise Him. Why? In Christ is where we find hope.

Luke 17:1-3

Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2 It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. 3 So watch yourselves. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.