The first: Make disciples. I don’t believe God is an Aggie, a Longhorn, a Republican, a Democrat, an American, or an African. At the risk of offending someone at their core, I don’t believe God always points the exact way for you to go. If that’s what you’re looking and praying for, I’m afraid you may be disappointed in the end. With the utmost certainty, what I believe God wants from us is this: Go. Make disciples. It even has a progressive, moving meaning: As you go, make disciples. If you decide to go to school in Oklahoma, God bless you, and make disciples. If you decide to become an African missionary, God bless you, and make disciples. If you decide to stay in suburbia, God bless you, and make disciples. It’s not where you go that makes the difference. It’s who you are while you’re there. So, please stop praying and asking for signs if UT is the right school for you. If you want to go there, go. And make disciples.

The second part that I hope will help you be confident about your decision is under the umbrella of ridiculous optimism. I’m still wrestling with this one, but I would like to stop using the word “mistake” when it comes to decisions we make. I choose to believe that nothing is a mistake, and that all things are learning experiences. You’re not who you are now by accident. You are who you are according to a plan. I don’t believe God guesses about our next move and shuffles things around in order to accommodate your whims. For instance, after a series of rough relationships, I resolved, after some time, to stop thinking of them as mistakes and begin to appreciate what I learned and who I am because of it. Another example: I ate a Cabana bowl from Taco Cabana and got food poisoning. Was that a mistake? How could it be? I didn’t know it had consequences until afterward. I learned that I do not want that again, and to reduce my chances, I no longer order that. I learned. There is positive and negative learning. But there are no mistakes.

That to say this: Whatever decision you make is the right decision simply because you made it. You learned what you were supposed to learn (or will learn). You experienced what was intended. It’s not a matter of making the right decision. It’s a matter of gleaning what you can from the decision you made and applying it to your life.

So, make disciples and make decisions. It will be the right one. Keep your eyes open to what God is teaching you, for we have everything to learn from Him.

Recently, I’ve really enjoyed the song “What Do I Know of Holy?” Normally I stray away from the mainstream Christian genre. I got a little burnt out on MWS, PCD, SCC, and the like (if you know the acronyms… I understand. And I’m here for you). I listened to 89.3 KSBJ like a fiend growing up. My mother NEVER changed the station, and I rode more miles with her in the car than a trucker in busy season. When I went to Bible college I turned a 0 Kelvin shoulder to that genre and, regretless, didn’t look back.

My mom texted me one day saying, “Check ot wat do I know of holy Addison rd.” At first thought, I pictured a quote from Robin, “Holy Addison Road, Batman! That’s a lot of restaurants!” After decoding, I realized she’d heard a song on the beloved Christian radio, and wanted me to check it out. I gave it a shot. It was the game changer.

For a more full context of this blog, please refer to the song. I recommend buying it. It’s a Christian song, so if you download it without paying for it, God will smite you. Moving on, I wasn’t sure what to think about it at first. It’s well mixed and produced, but it’s not musically challenging. The lyrics didn’t even get me at first. Then I listened again. And again. And again. I wrote the lyrics down. Now I’m convinced that I could write a sermon series on this song. There are heavy spiritual truths in this song, and I want to touch on one small part of the bridge. It says, “What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?” I’m headed multi-dimensional here, so if you’re not into that the exits are at the top right for Windows and top left for Macs. Please walk, don’t run.

Another word for “dimension” I might substitute here is “realm.” We humans, with our limited minds, cannot understand anything greater than what’s been presented to us (for further perspective I recommend “The Matrix”) unless God chooses to reveal it to us. I STILL don’t understand this particular subject, but I’m beginning to grasp what it means. We see everything one realm at a time. Here’s what I mean: if you skin your knee, it’s a physical pain. If you’re too often the butt of jokes, it’s emotional pain. If your soul feels empty and dry and the Lord feels far away, it’s a spiritual pain. If you skin your knee, you aren’t going to attend counseling or pray for it. You are going to apply Neosporin and a band-aid. If your boyfriend breaks up with you, good luck for finding an ointment for that one. There are millions of people confusing their spiritual and emotional wellness, and they seek remedies for their emotional pain when really it’s an issue of the soul. They try counseling for the obvious symptoms of emotional pain when the cancer of spiritual depravity is eating away at their heart.

This is all easy to grasp because it’s linear, logical and live. When it begins to become more complicated is when two realms are combined. For instance, if your skinned knee is accompanied by a group of hooligans you were trying to impress   pointing and laughing at your misfortune, we now have physical and emotional pain. I believe the bonds of marriage and becoming one also span these boundaries. When the one who is supposed to be one with you and unites with another, I believe there is a deep, palpable pain that can make you cry, give you stomach and headaches, and wrench your inmost being… a tragic combination of the three. Yet our predicament continues. There are combinations of the three, but no substitutions; each must be dealt with according to its nature. A cut needs bandaging, a sob story needs a kind word, and a hurting soul needs the mercy of my Lord. That’s where my Jesus comes in.

The God who molded flesh, breathed emotion, and who embodies spirituality is the God who can make it what He wants. In no other human plight, circumstance or tragedy can vicarious remedies do what my God has done. You see, as Jesus was beaten, stripped, cursed, and nailed to the cross, He endured much greater physical pain than anyone can imagine. It would make sense for us to believe that Jesus’ wounds may heal my wounds. Or that the humiliation of being naked on a cross would make me feel better when my friends laugh at me. Jesus has taken the brunt of everything we deserve and lost His life for it. When they ripped giant holes in his hands and feet, it wasn’t so we could recover faster after breaking an ankle. It was so because we sin and choose to separate ourselves from the Father, and we feel the weight of shame and guilt on us day and night… may it be drained from our souls as the blood drained from his pure and sinless body. May His wounds heal our shame. May our God be praised for His mysterious and unfathomable grace. Amen.

It’s short, it’ll take you less than 30 seconds to read. I recommend it for context’s sake.

Anyhow, below is my response.

The thought of having a platform almost wears me out. I don’t know, it feels like having a platform is equal to pressure to perform consistently within (or on top of) your platform. I agree with one of the comments, that it’s tough in our world-view to think that someone who is not a speaker or communicator can have a platform. It’s interesting because it seems within that paradigm there is no one without. Obama, Mother Teresa, Stalin, Ghandi, Kim Jong-il, Jesus all have/had platforms.

It seems a platform is developed by communicating heart, ambition, ideas, and wisdom through humility, efficacy, and clarity (although some folks get away with it in complete disregard for the humility; not without it reflecting on the type or perception of their platform, however). So, how does someone whose gift isn’t communicating develop a platform?

Maybe my struggle is that I don’t have a solid grip on my occupational ambitions, and how they coincide with my gifts. I like to teach, but I get frustrated when those I’m teaching don’t listen or care to learn. I like music, but I don’t consider myself a musician. I like people, but I’m not brave or as outgoing as a “people person” should be. Over the past several years I’ve considered being a worship leader, youth minister, choir director, AV technician, high school composition teacher, missionary, and even, ah what the hell, a server for a nice restaurant thinking I could make decent money.

My platform has only been manifested in confusion, dead ends and hard-work all while living just above the relative U.S. poverty line and banking on the benevolence of the church.

That’s it. My platform is God’s grace. I exist for and by nothing else, because nothing else can satiate what my flesh craves. Or as Colt McCoy put it, “I don’t question anything. If nothing else, I know I’m standing on the Rock.”

Amen.

Ever notice how stories are almost always cooler than the event itself? Here’s why I’ve come to this conclusion: I’m still young, I understand, but I fancy myself observant and pensive. I often listen to the words people say, how they put words together, and the tone used during certain parts of the speech. I like to examine why.  Why did they choose this word instead of that word? Why did they decrescendo here and not there?

I like movies. “I know everything about film. I’ve seen over 240 of them.” It’s the closest we can get to characters and a story without being physically involved, even though sometimes my back or shoulders tense up during a heavy scene, not realizing it until the scene is over and I relax. Do you ever feel short of breath in an underwater scene? What about cold when the wind is howling and a blanket of white invading the screen? Or hot and thirsty when the music paired with the heat waves across the surface of the desert make you think you need water.

In reality, you’re in a comfortable chair in an air conditioned room with Sour Patch Kids making you pucker your cheeks in attempt to relieve the salt and butter film that still lingers after polishing off a bucket of popcorn that would put a grizzly in hibernation.

You feel like you’re connecting to the characters who play out their emotions and plight so dramatically and convincingly that it changes your emotion on a dime. This is a powerful method of conveying a story. What about a book?

“Oh the book is so much better than the movie.”

“Oh yea, you know what my favorite part about the movie was? NO READING!”

Books, or more specifically, the written word, can send you places you may not have gone on your own. Words may be strategically arranged in order to provoke emotion that, if less cogent, would elicit nothing. You weren’t there. You didn’t see it. You must trust my story. Or my imagination.

Words are left up to the imagination, but are more powerful when directed by tone. Also, your opinion of the person giving those words may enhance or stifle your reaction to this particular story. So, you must trust my story.

So, all of a sudden, the scrape becomes a deep laceration that’s gushing blood like Spindletop. The discomforting headache becomes a debilitating and sympathy-provoking migraine. The dog was the size of a horse, and the wind almost knocked you over as badly as the stench when the 120mph car slammed into the grapefruit sized pimple on your speech. 20 people became 25 became 40 large bears completely paralyzing the kid down your street in your own eyes making it the worst song you’ve ever tasted. Worse than yours.

We exaggerate. We meander. We stretch. And no matter the content, the words are limiting and lack the essential, existential, honest part of your story. Isn’t that the most important part? The story is sweeter than the event.

Two years ago for Christmas I bought my family gifts, but gave them away to random homeless strangers in the Houston area. It made for some really good stories. But it was scary. It was dirty and smelly. It was awkward. It was unfulfilling, disappointing, eye-opening, and real. I since read a fantastic book called “Under the Overpass” about two college students who pursued a homeless life for experience’s sake. Their stories were good. I liked the book. And that was all.

Two types of people are reading this. Those who do the stretching. The nuance statisticians. The word painters and imagineers. Those who know the event isn’t as good as the story. So you stretch. There are then those who listen to the stories. Who are comfortable reading or watching and not doing. “Boy that story about how he saved that homeless guy was awesome.” Please don’t be okay with being either. There is danger of dishonesty, complacency, apathy, and distance from the source of truth. It doesn’t really matter who’s fish was bigger. It doesn’t.

I was challenged to read the Bible through in a year, and I’ve been clawing my way through the Old Testament (for you recent “emerging church” goers, that’s the big first 2/3 of your Bible that’s got all kinds of stories that are weird and should just be avoided…). I’ve never been challenged so much in my view of the character of God in my life as a Christ-follower as I have the past few months. As a result, a lot of these posts will probably be in reference to those internal maelstroms. The most recent is my struggle to trust God with Enough.

I have enough. I don’t go hungry. I have a place to lay my head. Even Jesus didn’t have that (Matt 8:20). Do I really need what I don’t have? I don’t have my own apartment, I don’t have very much money, health insurance, a 401K (don’t even know what that means), or anything that I’m supposed to as a 23 year old college grad. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough. But I know that I have Enough.

Where do we draw the line at enough? When will our Enough be enough? Would I continue to do ministry, because it’s a calling and not a job, if I were not paid at all? It’s easy to say, “I could go someWHERE else and do someTHING else, work less and make more money.” When Jesus sent out the disciples he told them not to take anything. Our Enough will provide enough. And He did. They had absolutely zero, but they had Enough, and that was enough. When He provided the Israelites with manna in the desert He allowed them to gather only what they needed for the day. Why? Because if they gathered more than that, they wouldn’t put their trust in Him the next day to provide again. It would turn into a contest of who could gather the most. Who is the strongest. It would create a hierarchy. We (I mean they… right?) would begin to look for who had the most to save them and provide food. God would no longer be their Enough. How much is our enough?

Is 25K a year a good asking price for a full-time youth ministry job? 28? 30? Why do we even need that? I stated before that I don’t have much money. But gosh dangit I’m living in one of the most affluent areas in the nation, I’m driving a new car with golf clubs in the back and I’m writing this on a Macbook. It’s disgusting how much I have. I heard once that there is enough for everyone in the world. It’s the balance that’s off, not the supply. I’m not going to give you a guilt trip about how much you have. I’m going to ask you how much is your enough? Because maybe it says something about who is your Enough… and do we really trust Him?