Futility

The cure for my sometimes brooding and anxious heart is my futility.

Sometimes in my walk with God my heart gets cold and stale and I release it to drown for a season in the swift waters of life.

In the last month my inclination – no my instinct – has been to not press into God as I feel myself separating from Him.

It has been to just plunge headlong into my own thoughts and disengage from fighting “the good fight.”

I’m just tired. I’m overwhelmingly busy.

I haven’t been able to find my way back with warm verses like “those who wait upon the Lord soar on eagles wings,” or “for God so loved the world…”

This morning I read in Ecclesiastes 9:3 that “…the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. Afterwards they go to the dead.”

It's interesting to me these scriptures are what brought me comfort.

Ecclesiastes 9 through 10 goes on to validate that we mourn, that our days are hard and that often we are futile, and well, that’s just the way it is.

Solomon tells us there is one fate for all men. Evil men, lazy men, righteous men - we can plan and we can toil but in the end we all go to down to Sheol.

I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.

There is futility, which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happened according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I say this too is futility.

I have a friend, who loves God.

Her whole life has been in service to Him.

In the last year-and-a-half her son died of a drug overdose, her mother passed away, and she watched her beloved husband of 40 years slowly suffocate from pneumonia.

Her grief is her world right now, and it is oppressive and overwhelming.

So what now is her fate?

Should I send her a greeting card with a watercolor scene painted on it and calligraphy talking about God’s promises for a hope and a future?

God brings the day of adversity just as he brings the day of prosperity.

There is a proper time and procedure for every delight, though a man’s trouble is heavy upon him.

To me, Ecclesiastes is honest about how inequitable life can be for those who strive for righteousness. These verses acknowledge that tension we all feel about how we wish we behaved and how we wish things would be - verses how thing actually are.

These verses don't instruct us to throw in the towel either. In fact, there is a strident warning that in the end the unrepentant life and unrestrained evil we may practice will not go unpunished.

Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil…

But it will not be well for the evil man and he will not lengthen his days like a shadow because he does not fear God.

Whether it is our exhaustion, our willful disobedience or the unfair tragedies of life

Ecclesiastes, I believe, is giving us permission to sometimes let go of our expectations and just be.

Because sometimes things really are as harsh and hard as they feel.

Time and chance overtake all.

It is refreshing to me that Solomon says sometimes the answer is to let go of our rigid fervor to churn out our fate through our best efforts and right living.

I think he's telling us to take ourselves less seriously.

Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?

Do not take seriously all words, which are spoken, so that you will not year your servant cursing you.

For you also have realized that you likewise have many times cursed others.

The condition of my heart and my thoughts are what they are. I want to love Jesus and I want to live life well. But today it’s not a very shiny or pretty love.

But I am small. The cure for my brooding heart is that right now I need to be reminded of my smallness in the world.

Today God’s grace is lifting my burden in the truth that I am small and futile.

Everything under the sun has been done before and has been forgotten and will be forgotten again when I repeat it.

But Solomon’s words also gently pull us back into the heart of God to understand that even though the nature of this world is futile it is still good for the soul and our calling to practice God’s love.

Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart: for God has already approved your works.

Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head.

Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life, which He has given to you under the sun: for this is your reward in life and your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

Whatever you hand finds to do, do it with all your might: for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.

The race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability:

For time and chance overtake them all.

The Jesus in a Triple with Cheese

I have had a great deal on my mind lately. Ministry conflict, relationship challenges, people who are hurting in my family.

And I'd be really grateful to hear from the Lord a loud and clear answer on any of the above. But in all of these situations I guess He's decided they are a process, a trial, a maturing... Sigh.

In the mean time, I've been throwing out proverbial fleeces and arranging circumstances to maximize God's opportunity to show up in a way, time and place that would make perfect sense and be obvious to me. As far as I can tell He's not responding to my tactics.

On Sunday I was driving to my friend Stephanie's house to enjoy a meal (and when I say enjoy a meal, I mean one granddaddy of a honkin' feast prepared by her expert hands). It was rainy and cool and I was loving the day.

On my way, at May and I-44, I saw a homeless woman holding a sign. (I don't ever read the signs, although I should more often because a couple of months ago I saw a guy holding a sign that said, "Why lie - I need a cigarette and a beer." I thought that was the best marketing tool for spare change I had ever seen. If I hadn't been late for a meeting, I would have backed up and given him a $20.)

I like to give cheeseburgers and fries to people who stand on the corner holding a sign. It's just my thing. No deep spiritual principle...just like to do it when I am able.

So when I saw this woman draped in a long coat with the hood pulled up over her head, and a cane that she was leaning on, my heart went out to her, and I immediately knew it was cheeseburger time.

So I made my way to the Wendy's just on the other side of I-44, and as I was about to turn in, I heard as clear as day, "You should buy two meals. They never work alone."

I, of course, reasoned with that whispered thought that I was doing a mighty work in just buying one, and that two cheeseburgers was not really necessary. That's just my overly eager sense of compassion welling up, which always gets me into trouble when I take it too far.

But to make up for the fact that I wasn't buying two, I went for a 3/4 lb triple with cheese large fries and a water (I also reasoned she was dehydrated and water is better for her than DrP.)

So I pulled out, completely satisfied with myself that I was on my way to do something God would really appreciate. Then I saw her friend. He was working the south corner of May and I-44.

"You should buy two. They never work alone."

Punch to my gut.

As I pulled up to her friend, I rolled down the window at the stop light and handed the first cheeseburger to him and said, "Is that your friend on the other side?"

"Yea," he said with a big smile.

"Will you share this?"

"Yea," another smile as he accepted it and immediately gathered his things and started to cross the intersection to go have lunch with his friend.

I rolled up my window and felt awkward.

I told myself the 3/4 lb triple with cheese, large fry and large water was enough for the both of them.

I even talked to myself about the beauty of how they were going to share that cheeseburger and how I can't remember the last time I shared my cheeseburger with someone. And maybe I would even ask some of my friends in the coming week the profound question of when was the last time they had shared their cheeseburger with someone. And how we would all be humbled and meek for a time thanks to the insightful spiritual principle of simple sharing illustrated to us by these two beautiful homeless people.

But as I did my U-turn and headed back south for Steph's house, I started feeling a little desperate at my choice of one cheeseburger over two. Had I just ignored a rare moment when I actually heard something from God?

I made it all the way to Steph's house before the conviction was so strong that I had to roll down my window and shout at Steph, who was just getting out of her car home from church, "I will be back in 7 minutes! Just 7 - gotta run and do something real quick!"

Like a repentant maniac, I sped back as fast as I could shouting at every stop light and slow driver..."I am trying to to do the work of GOD! Get out of my way!"

Wataburger was on the other side of May, so I decided I would stop there for round two.

Now Wataburger is not like Wendy's.

I sat there for the longest eternity of twelve minutes waiting for their version of the 3/4 lb with cheese, and it was not very convenient.

But I then reasoned that my wait was a result of my disobedience and could be likened to those times we spend wandering in the deserts of life because we've ignored the voice of God and now we may have to suffer the consequences...

(As you can tell this whole cheeseburger debacle began to have epic lessons/principles weaved into it...)

So when I finally got the second cheeseburger I whipped over to my friend who was already back at his post after sharing the first burger, and like a gigantic dork said, "Uhm hey, since there were two of you I wanted you both to have a full burger so I went back and got a second."

To understand the awkwardness of what I felt at this moment, think of that scene where Baby tells Patrick Swazy, "...I carried the watermelon."

He just looked at me and said, "Oh, ok thanks," and smiled.

So I smiled back...said something lame like "Have a good day" and rolled up my window.

For whatever reason, rolling up my window felt like a little glass wall I had let down momentarily to conveniently bestow my grand kindness and then put back up to keep my world tidy.

So now I was late back to Steph's house where the rest of the lunch party was waiting on me to each their lunch.

So instead of a nice encounter with a random act of kindness I had a series of awkward circumstances with a rush of guilt and other emotions that overshadowed the whole exchange between me and the two homeless people.

I'm not sure what the lesson is other than listen the first time and if you think you're supposed to buy two cheeseburgers for the love of God just buy them.

And perhaps it gets easier to here Him in the more pressing situations of life when we are first obedient in the small subtle instructions.

Day 21 – Death is crouching – a mortician’s view

On day 21 of my "30 days left to live," I received a text message at 1:30 a.m. morning from a new friend I recently met on my last trip to West Africa.

It was a plea for prayer on behalf of his friend, with whom he graduated from high school. His friend is in a fight for his life against leukemia. They are both 23ish.

Eric reminded me in the text message he “doesn’t do the God thing.”

Yet he is vicariously asking God to move.

We humans are such funny little creatures. If only our back-door acknowledgments to God were more plainly seen by us as a stark clue to how deep our need for Him is ingrained in our very being.

In the last four weeks in almost every circle of friends and family I have death has reminded me it is always on the move. This is partly my motivation for wanting to be more conscientious of how brief our time is here, and be more deliberate in how I make choices.

Three weeks ago, a 50-year-old farmer was electrocuted, who was among my parents’ closest friends. Tim left behind his bride of 28 years, Tina, and four beautiful children who had just started families of their own.

My friend Christy called me two days ago because her uncle suddenly passed away.

A business associate I have known and worked with for years died Wednesday from cancer. I didn’t even know he was sick. I read about it in the paper.

Two days before a friend’s wedding, she called me horrified, because her fiancé’s cousin had committed suicide in a drunken rage by slashing himself over his whole body and then hanging himself. He had a three-week-old baby and a new wife.

My own uncle has only weeks, possibly days, now that the cancer has spread to his brain.

A guy about my age who I know from church delivered the message this Sunday and talked about how his wife (couldn’t have been married more than a couple of years as he’s still in his 20s) was killed in a tragic car accident.

An excellent woman of deep character and faith that I have recently been privileged to spend time with has lost her mother, son and husband within a year.

Don’t tell me there aren’t times where it is legitimate to ask, “Has God deserted me?”

But what do we do with all the loss and tragedy? When the shortness of life socks us in the gut? Has God abandoned us?

I have a friend who is a mortician. She is young, full of joy and has this authentic faith that shines. She chose this path, because she sees all the pain, the questions and the despair of people who come through the doors of the funeral home.

It is her ministry to lovingly prepare arrangements, sit quietly with families, comfort in tears and give dignity to services, answer tough questions…

She thinks there is a culture of avoiding death in America. Ignoring its realities.

Often, we are shocked in the American church when death strikes home. Our society is so filled with images of beauty, vitality, youth and health, that death seems so far removed, unnatural and inappropriate unless you are old and have had a full life.

My mortician friend tells me about how the viewings used to be in the home for several days. It was a very public event where the home was the epicenter of all the remembrances, memorials, and grieving. Children were not protected from the dead or kept away while the casket was open.

And, of course, it used to be much more common to lose a child, or die young from disease, die in childbirth…

I don’t mean to be morbid in writing about this whole subject. But focusing on death and having a clear picture of the fact we are all going to die seems almost taboo to talk about.

Obviously when we experience death of someone significant in our life, it is natural to mourn, grieve and struggle deeply.

It's interesting that so many of my friends in West Africa maintain rock-like faith in Christ, when they see nothing but death and disease all-day long. But in the land of privilege and wealth, when we lose someone, often it cripples our faith.

Perhaps we’ve just lost our healthy acknowledgment of the reality of death – how quickly we come, how quickly others go and how brief we all are.

Whether we have 30 days left or 30 years. It’s all so brief. Understanding our own brevity and insignificance can bring clarity and passion to always live life like you only have 30-days left.

Day 28 - Teach me to number my days

I went to a different church from my own this morning, and …drum roll…in keeping with the theme of 30 days to live the message happened to be "Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.” Psa 39:4

This, for me, may be getting a little spooky at this point.

During the service, clips from the movie, The Bucket List, were used to illustrate what matters most in life – relationships with God and relationships with people. (I always find it remarkable when Hollywood swims in deep waters without a political agenda, btw.)

There are two approaches in the movie of two dying men. One pursues pleasure and the other, a deeper reason for life and restoration of relationships.

The idea of cramming in as much wild and unimaginable pleasure possible if you knew you only had a short time to live, vs. pursuit of meaningful relationships, more fulfilling things, or restoration of all you have wrecked during your life is an interesting debate. Pursuit of self? Or pursuit of others and the meaning of life?

Everyone, of course, will say the latter of the two is the more noble pursuit. How many of us though, because we don’t regularly face the fact we are dying (whether it be in 50 years or 30 days) unconsciously live for self?

On Saturday, while trying to filter my daily activities through the question, “What would I do if I only had 30 days to live?” I found myself making judgments about little things, “This person I just tied in meeting at the intersection – should I dart out to be first, because, hey – I’ve only got 30 days to live! I have to get going!” Or do I, in a sense exhale and recognize it doesn’t really matter? Wave them forward and wait two minutes longer. Ponder this may be the last time I tie someone at an intersection…

Or on the way to Kansas City, my mom told me I was tailgating someone too close. Do I stick with my usual reaction of getting really annoyed? Or do I just look at her, tell her I love her and let it go?

I decided under the 30-day scenario, she matters more than my ego. I love her deeply and why in the world would I spend my few days with her being annoyed?

So on day 28, I want the answer to be others are first in my life. When I’m not first it opens the door for others to sit deep in my heart. It creates space in my soul for God to come in and take root.

This marks the first day of the last 30 days I have to live.

July 10, 2009.

Everyday it seems like a fog of life decisions and situations and chores can be all we wake up to. And sometimes I’m so full of fear, bad habits or procrastination that I wince at choices that will open me up to pain or loss – choices that may cost me something.

So often I wait. I sit and stew in a situation when I should act.

I wait for Genie Jesus to come along and magically engineer my circumstances to where my feet are transported to that spacious and sure footing the Psalms talks about.

This week would be an excellent week for me to get my act together, clear my head and focus on things that matter, because I am picking up my daughter and her sister in Kansas City. They are spending a week with my family and I for the first time.

Almost nine years ago, I placed my three-day-old newborn for adoption with a wonderful family I chose from out of state.

(I was young, in a bad relationship, had no education and no way to support a child.)

I was totally unprepared for how gut retching that choice would be. For three years I stayed mostly in a fog of grief over a motherhood no one really credited (including myself) as legitimate.

(Well, there were a few. But for the most part if you want to create a socially awkward moment in a crowded room, throw out the fact you’re a birth mother and watch all the little people scatter.)

Overtime, the adoption grew into a fully open one. I love each member of my daughter’s adoptive family and cherish the closeness that I have with them.

So anyway I’m in the bathroom getting ready this morning (this is often where my most profound thoughts of the day take place), and I’m thinking about the haunting voicemail I had at 5:30 a.m. from my beloved kid brother, Matt, sobbing because his girlfriend of two years just dumped him OUT OF THE BLUE after spending some week at some pansy-ass self discovery thing in California where she met a guy that she thinks she needs to pursue. I want to kick her ass. Very Jesus like, right?

Then my mind starts rolling through the possibilities of how this situation can be used to create opportunity to win Matt back to the truth that God is real. He is LOVE. He is NOT Joel Olsteen. He is not religion. He is not some rigid non-educated world view or Ned Flanderish lifestyle that prefers bumper stickers warning of unmanned vehicles in case of rapture instead of profound logic and reason that makes sense of the universe.

Then I started to dwell on the fact my best friend is in West Africa for two weeks at an orphanage and I MISS HER and need her counsel right now so much. My lovely, God-given crutch of friendship that I’m such a weenie without…

Then I started to think of my other beautiful friend who is going through a messy custody battle with an ex-husband who’s also on my list of “peoples behinds I would kick if I wasn’t a Jesus follower.”

Then I started to think about this relationship I had swung back and forth into over the last 10 months that looked great on paper (go to church, gainfully employed) and should have added up, but it didn't. At all. And we both knew it.

So much energy expended…round holes…square pegs…my life’s pastime…

Then I started to think about my daughter’s family and her parents and how they are separated and may very well end up divorced.

What does that mean? What does it mean God, when you sacrifice your sanity? Your motherhood? When you sacrifice your right to see your own child so she can have a family and it all falls apart anyway?

That’s when the thought came to me of what would I do if I had to filter everything through the reality I only had 30 days to live?

While I was getting to ready this morning, I remembered a sermon Craig Groschel socked to my gut a couple of years ago titled “30 days to live.”

He interviewed people who were dying, and asked them what their regrets were? How are they spending their time? What would they do differently with their family?

I began to challenge myself in my head. “How would you treat this relationship if you only had 30 days to live? How much more time would you waste on that situation or this situation?

Would I finally divorce fear, my lifelong companion, and more deeply embrace God’s truth and faithfulness that He came to give us life abundant?

But my thoughts were interrupted by a call from my mom, “Did you get a call from Uncle Steve’s mom?” she asked.

“No.”

“Well, I guess they forgot their cell phones on their way to the VA. They were getting another CAT scan. It must be bad for Lenore to leave a message and say she can’t get a hold of me so she’s going to call you.”

“What do you think it is?” I asked.

“Well you know he’s been really sick. He can barely eat anymore and they’ve stopped the chemo. I don’t think he’s honestly going to live much longer.”

At this point I just stood there shocked by what I was hearing. Shocked for my uncle, and shocked because I had just been completely marinating in my own mortality, and my mom calls me with this news.

I have to be honest, my Uncle and I are not that close. I don’t want to be one of those people who put themselves on display during a tragedy for the notoriety that comes from being near to it.

My Uncle is a hard man to know and an even harder man to love. At 50-something he was never married, no children, and he hasn’t had a job in more than five years.

The vitality of his life, the meaning of it, is something that has long been lost for him.

When he would join us for a holiday, he would spend the entire day watching TV never talking to anyone.

The only thing that would engage him was to throw out something provocative like, “Yea, I do NOT think Democrats are the spawn of Satan…” And he would swivel the chair around, and go rapid fire on the great evils and stupidity of liberals, Democrats, credit card companies, preachers, foreigners, Muslims, college kids, Californians, the news media and the weasely French…till all in the room would suddenly remember something urgent in the other room and scatter.

But we really do love him. And he does have his sweet moments. They’ve grown with frequency the more sick that he has gotten. So have his desire to “do this” or “go there when I get better.”

Today his doctor recommended to his 80-something year old mother that she get hospice.

So I don’t know why anyone would want to read about this.

But I’ve made the decision today to try and sincerely live my life the next 30 days like there all I’ve got.

Now this doesn’t mean that I’m going to quit work, let my car get repossessed and do nothing but eat chocolate and spend time with my family.

But I am going to make a conscious decision that with every circumstance I encounter, be it a person in need, a weighty decision, a string that needs cutting, a leap of faith that needs taking…I’m going to try and filter that decision/circumstance through, “What would I do if I only had 30 days to live?”

We shall see what comes of it…

The Double Agent: Between the Pharasee and Tax Collector

What does it mean when your heart longs for

justice to be delivered.
mercy to be shown.
significance.
a more natural selflessness.
healing from broken patterns.
a well of kindness from within.
peace.
a genuine love for others.
clear thinking.
determination to finish.
excellence in what you do.

And yet despite all the grace and love you find yourself

being annoyed at KLOVE all week long, and then worshiping to the acoustical version of the song on Sunday in church.

being enraged at the headline of the innocent killed by a drunk driver, but you two and a half glasses of wine after a long week and then drove home.

you pour in love and hope into a crushed heart that's been placed in your path, yet you do not bother to hide the deep disdain for the angry and rude man who lives in unit #1.

deep and heartfelt prayer for a good friend's relative who you don't know, and a total inability to sustain an effort to plead for your brother.

Luke 18: 9-14

Confess it like you mean it and then you will

deliver justice.
show mercy.
find significance in humility.
be selfless.
stomp out broken patterns.
well up with kindness.
breath peace.
genuinely love.
think.
finish.
polish with excellence.

Number My Days

For the last six months I have lived in the fog of choices that rolled through my life, and became so thick so quickly, I suddenly found myself unable to see 'the end game' of my life.

I hate that feeling. Nothing makes me wither quicker than knowing I've chosen the drudgery of a lesser path or busyness over God's calling or His pursuit of me.

The last four weeks have been an attempt -albeit somewhat shaky- to realign and refocus my heart and my dreams on a path that revives my desire to live in pursuit of Him.

It's just so easy to get bogged down in stupid, thoughtless choices whether they be over relationships, time, spending money, taking on too much work, being consumed with buying stuff...that you wake up one day and you're about to turn 62 and hate where you are in life.

A good friend of mine, Dr. Dicks, who has forgotten more about agri-business and sustainable economic development projects in 3rd world countries than I will ever hope to learn - said something on Friday that has stuck to my bones all weekend.

In referencing our plan to start a farm in Sierra Leone West Africa, as the first project of a larger vision to help launch businesses that feed and employ our African friends, he said "I don't have much time left. I have get this one right. I can't waste time on people or projects that aren't going to work."

He's right.

The world is burning.

No one who truly gives a damn has the luxury of being ineffective.

Whether it's serving the poor, single moms, orphans, starvation, the national deficit, saving the whales, AIDS, child soldiers, raising your children, loving your spouse, eating healthier, not being mastered by coffee or soda, finding a cure for the common cold...we should all number our days with the end game in mind and work our way backwards to how we will arrive, by grace, at living abundantly.