Who is Jesus?

I’ll never forget one of my final assignments, it was the spring of my senior year at university. Classes were winding down and our minds were beginning to wander. It was in this moment of mental milieu our professor assigned a task I thought bordered on heresy. “I want you to make a self-portrait of Christ.” Having spent the semester studying the ways Christ was portrayed for two-thousand years I should have seen this one coming. But the first image that came to mind was Albrecht Dur’s self-portrait of Christ, which was simply a painting of himself holding a fifteenth century gang-sign that meant Jesus. Having studied that painting in art history, the first thing I thought of was how arrogant it is to put our face on an image of Jesus, and say, “that’s me!” Because I considered Dur’s self-portrait to be a symbol of arrogance, I decided to do what university students do best, go against the grain and stick it to the man! Instead of producing a flat two dimensional image I did something abstract and three dimensional: I dug a stump out of the ground a put a twig in it. Although I made a conscious decision to stray from traditional art supplies, my inspiration came from our assigned studies. A seventeenth century French painting showed beams of light streaming around a wooden cross, isolated on top of a rocky mountain in a forest of pine trees. This painting made me nostalgic for the mountains and forests of the Pacific Northwest, the place where I grew up. It also reminded me of John 15:5 “I am the vine, you are the branches” With these two portraits of Christ in mind, I knew proceeded to carry out my daring act of rebellion. I turned to the tree and wilderness expert on campus, my mentor and friend who also happened to be the Dean and President of Student Development. How could he tell me no? With the help of his yard, axe, shovel, a long dead stump and my muscle I produced what I thought was quite possibly the most clever depiction of a self-portrait of Christ. All without having to use a single pencil, pen, or Photoshop stroke! On reveal day, everyone else maintained the tradition of two dimensional portraits. In a world of eight and a half by eleven sat my dirty dug-up sassafras stump, roots poking everywhere. My definition of Christ was indeed glorious, magnanimous and manly! And out of that stump poked a little twig of a pine tree with gentle green needles. My expression of myself, Northwest represent! The funny thing is I got in trouble for cutting the little branch off the pine tree, not digging a hole in my mentor’s lawn. Jesus was the vine I was the branch! I mean, Christ was the stump, I was the twig! I mean come on it was a piece of art!

What I love most about that assigned project, was not just the abstractness of my creation, but the visible and tangible reality that no two students picked the same portrait of Christ. We all chose something different, because we all saw something of ourselves in different historical and orthodox portraits of Jesus. Each portrait moved us individually, when we were asked to show what moved us we responded with a kaleidoscope of color from many cultures. Those cultures with their crazy colors always pointed us back to the truth of Jesus. We learned something very powerful through that semi-heretical sounding assignment. We can use different symbols to speak of Jesus, but still speak the same truth.

Today, I want to focus on a few of John’s descriptions of Jesus. John, whose gospel doesn’t look the same or tell most of the stories found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. John, the beloved disciple, who saw something different in Jesus that others missed. John opens his gospel not with a genealogy or the struggles of Mary and Joseph, but opens it with these powerful yet abstract words. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Instead of focusing on the humanness of Jesus, he goes straight for a statement about Jesus’ deity.

John uses the Greek word logos to describe Jesus. Logos is thick with meaning. Not only does it encapsulate spoken and written word, but it also covers logic, the process by which we reason. In his opening statement about Jesus, John is not only declaring the substance and divinity of Christ, but also the formative reasoning through which the entire universe will be created.

John tell us this directly when he says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John affirms the central logic of the universe. There are two categories: creator and created. The creator laid out such an organized creation that by simply studying the order and consistency of the world around us it points us back to God. Our ability to reason is the foundation of the scientific method, therefore the scientific method, when used logically, points us back to God. But who is this God? Surely he is more than reason alone. While reason tells us something about who God is, reason alone is not sufficient to describe God. Let me say again, reason alone is not sufficient to describe God. There are many philosophers whose minds bend towards who God is and God’s attributes, but refuse to take a leap of faith in what their minds tell them is truth. Reason is only a part of who God is, to discover more we need to travel back to the word logos and examine it again.

John’s use of logos isn’t just to describe a word, he uses it to describe The Word. As in the single most important aspect of which all words past, present and future will ever be founded upon. In short John is saying that Jesus is the embodiment of language and communication. John is saying that without Jesus none of our ability to describe and communicate what we see would be possible. Jesus is the fulfilment of human language. In the world of language and grammar, linguists search for the origin of language. For we know that the use of language separates us from everything else in the created order. We reason, communicate and produce words like no other creature in all of creation. As it is written in Genesis, we are created in the image of God. We are a reflection of God in a way that nothing else in the entire universe is. No star, gas giant, planet, or planetoid is like God the way we are. No ant, bee, bird, mammal or reptile can ever produce reason and language the way we can. Birds sing and bees dance, but their music is forever set apart from ours, for theirs is a limited vocabulary, frozen in the symphony of task, but ours extends to the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom and artistic expression. For human language is ever changing and shifting; it does not remain stagnant. It grows as we grow.

When we use our words to describe The Word, our vocabularies may not align, but the meaning behind our words will. If the meanings of which we use our individual and unique expressions do not align then we are not speaking of the same Jesus. This is the beauty of orthodoxy, for there is a right way to describe Jesus, not just one way. As there is a right way to describe Jesus, there is also a wrong way to describe him. This is called heresy, and it means we are creating picture of Jesus that does not describe him accurately. I can paint a picture showing Jesus putting the stars in their place and I can also paint a picture of Jesus healing a blind man. Both of these paintings are orthodox, for they each tell something true about who Jesus is. But if I were to only focus on Jesus as the star-maker, and forget Jesus as the healer, then I have created a heresy within orthodoxy. For we must remember that even though we may have a favorite image of Jesus, a way which speaks directly to our hearts, we must accept that he is larger than our depiction of him.

John knew this when he wrote Revelation. He knew that what he saw in heaven was beyond his capacity to write down and fully explain, yet his words are still sufficient to describe and communicate the truth he saw with his eyes. “… there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian.” John knows he’s not seeing jasper and carnelian. He knows he’s not looking at a man sitting on a throne, but at a someone who is not a man. He knows he’s looking at an image of God. He’s tells us about God through the colors he sees. With every appearance of created things related to the image of God, God used the opportunity to tell us something about Himself. Together, jasper and carnelian represent the first and last tribes of Israel, emphasizing God is the beginning and the end. By looking at the appearance of God John sees the beginning and the end. God represented himself to John in a way John could understand. John communicated that truth to his audience, and even though most of us today would miss out on that truth, we can still search it out and find its meaning. That’s the wonder of God, he’s more than what we can see, but what we see is enough to let us know who he is. We can be confident of who God is, even though we cannot completely see or understand him.

Ezekiel saw something similar, but describes God differently, “high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.” Ezekiel sees God seated on the throne, meaning God reigns over everything, just as John’s revelation of God includes God seated on the throne. Both admit appearances and likenesses; they know what they are seeing is not fully God incarnate. Whereas John sees the beginning and the end when he sees the appearance of he-who-sits-on-the-throne, Ezekiel sees the fires of God’s wrath about to be poured out on heretical Jerusalem. He sees the coming of an end. John would see the coming of The End. Ezekiel saw the appearance of God six hundred years before John, and described it in a completely different language. Even though Ezekiel’s and John’s visions don’t perfectly line up, especially when we consider the linguistic differences, there is enough similarity to know they are looking at the same God. The God who exists above and beyond our ability to describe him.

In his gospel John uses another simple word to convey who Jesus is. Light. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” It is no coincidence then that seventeenth century Enlightenment period connected human reason to light. For John in his gospel said seventeen centuries earlier that the word is light. Light makes visible what has long been hidden. The foremost thinkers and innovators of the Enlightenment thought they were building a world of full of light, where nothing would be hidden, where humanity would finally be able to create a world of order, structure and governance, fully taking our place as rightful stewards and sovereign rulers of all the earth. Some of these men were devout Christians, others were the founders of the new atheism and evolution. For the Christian, the light of the world was Christ, and it was by studying His created world and His word that peace on earth could be made reality. For the atheist, reason had finally triumphed over the antiquated notion of God and a new world order was being put in place, one where God had no place, only the greatness of man’s reason. Both Christian and atheist were scientists. One trusted in the reason of God, the other in the reason of humanity. We still see this split today, the false idea that true reason leads away from God. The idea that life and light can be found apart from God. The atheist rightly identifies the heresies of image driven God worship, but the skepticism of atheism does not lead to orthodoxy. For atheism uses reason alone, and places no faith in the one who gives us reason: Jesus, who is the word. Jesus, who is light. This is why John said, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” Reason without God is devoid of light and sits in darkness. Reason with God gives us light to see and understand, even though we cannot fully understand God. This is why in the Old Testament we see encounters with God including darkness. Darkness is used a symbol, showing an obscurity of understanding.

Abram’s first encounter with God included darkness, not because God is darkness, but because we cannot fully grasp who God is. God covers himself so we can understand what he is showing us about himself. Abram prepared a sacrifice before the LORD and waited for the LORD’s arrival, “As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him… When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared…” God represented himself to Abram through the darkness, not as the darkness. God revealed himself as the light shining in the darkness. The darkness serves not only to show us how we cannot fully understand who God is, but also to show us how great, wonderful, awesome and mighty his light is.

Just as Abram encountered God in darkness, so too did Moses. But when Moses left the presence of the LORD, the light of God made a lasting impression on him; his face shone, because he had been with the light of the world! “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him… When Moses finished speaking to them he put a veil over his face.” Just as Moses veiled his face to keep from scaring the people, so too God veils himself when he speaks with us. God only unveils himself when he has a powerful message to deliver, and even in his unveiling we cannot fully understand what we see. God’s veiling of himself is only for our benefit, it is not because he is afraid of showing himself, it is that we are afraid when we see him and we cannot fully understand what it is we are seeing. We see the beginning and the end, we see the wrath God will pour out and it terrifies us. We see him seated on the throne and drop to our knees in reverence, keeping silent because of the awesomeness of his majesty. For this reason God veils himself, and even though veiled his truth still shines through.

Looking back to John’s gospel, John writes about someone who isn’t the light, but has understood it in it’s veiled form. “There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning the light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.” We are not the light, even though we have witnessed it. This is the claim of all the biblical prophets and preachers, that though they have seen the light, they are not the light. Yet, even so the light shines through them because the light of God leaves an everlasting impression. An impression that cannot be denied by those who know God. This is orthodoxy, that no man is greater than the word he preaches. It is by the Word of God we preach and speak truth. It is by no other means that we speak, for we can use other words and concepts, but if they do not point back to the truth of God revealed through His Word, they are empty, misleading, and heresy.

How is it then, that we come to know God’s truth? “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all those who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband’s will, but born of God.” The truth of God isn’t hereditary, it’s not something we gain through our parents or ancestors. It is not a decision we make. It is something God gives to us and we receive. He shines the light upon us, we can accept it or reject it, but we cannot choose if the light will shine on us. It simply does. He does not force himself upon us to make a choice. He invites us. When he revealed himself to his prophets, he did so with such majesty and mystery and magnificence because they were to become speakers of his word. The word of God is powerful, and so far above anything and everything in the created order we can wrap our reason around and understand. We need to recognize the inescapable gravity of who God is, even though he revealed himself to us by becoming human. “The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” God made himself so ordinary we could overlook him. Because he wants us to make a choice. He wants us to choose him, because if we saw him as he actually is, we would all drop to our knees and confess he is Lord of all creation.

The sin of our day is that we have become so comfortable with God that we forget who he is. We forget the power, the wrath, the love, and the forgiveness. Just as God made the universe he could easily unmake us. Yet this all powerful God shows us grace. This God who is so unlike us chose to become like us and teach us his truth. He extends his hand to us, and offers us the opportunity to shine his light and speak his word. To proclaim him even though he is fully beyond our capacity to complete describe him. Yet even in our small-minded attempts we proclaim the greatest truth humanity has ever known: Jesus is the One and Only God.

One of the most enduring impressions from my senior year was a visit to a monastery. While everyone was swayed by the majesty of the architecture, the beauty of the liturgy and the simple-ness of monastic living, I was captivated by the windows. For by themselves windows have no glory, it is only the light that shines through them that makes them majestic. From the most complex and colorful stained glass masterpiece to the simplest of kitchen overlooks, they are only valuable because light shines through them. For a window without light is useless, but a window with light makes living possible. We are as the windows in that monastery. If we are stained glass windows then it is only the light shining through us that tells the story. If we are ordinary clear panes of glass then we help others see clearly what the creator has made. Both are valuable. It is by the grace of God his light shines through us. It is by the grace of God we can speak his word and communicate his truth. For we are not the truth. Jesus is the truth, and the light, and the word.

It is as John said in the closing of his gospel, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them was written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” There is simply not enough room in the world to tell all of the wonderful things of who Jesus is. We will continue to write, to think, to speak of who Jesus is, and the orthodox story will never grow old.

When Ferguson Burned

I didn’t know Michael Brown. I never walked the streets of Ferguson, but when I saw the first stories of his death it affected me. I am white. I am from the Pacific Northwest. I currently live on the opposite side of the world, yet I haven’t stopped thinking about Michael, Ferguson and the tension his death revealed.

You’re probably wondering, “How are you connected this?” I grew up in a white middle class family in the Pacific Northwest. There aren’t many African Americans where I grew up. As such there was a period of my life I was ignorant of the struggle, of the tension that is the African American experience. Going to university an hour east of St. Louis educated me. Not only did I study the local history of tension between white and black, but I made friends with those not of my background. Campus organizations, dorm rooms, and sport brought us together. These things gave us the opportunity to see each other as teammates and friends. What started as a vague notion of historical injustice began to form in my mind as a glazed over truth. I’ll never forget going to a diversity conference with one of my professors, only to discover the purpose of the conference was to address the issues of black and white and how to form a whole out of the two communities. At that stage I didn’t know anything was broken. But I knew something powerful brought us together, that there was a divide, even though I didn’t understand it.

When I moved to Texas I saw the divide. Friends showed me maps of the city and showed me where minorities lived. I drove around and saw the differences with my eyes. I didn’t understand why one side of the street had more and the other less. Didn’t they all pay the same taxes? I started to see the injustice. I started to see the white community continually running away from minorities, blocking them out. I saw the special white fairways, so they didn’t have to see what I saw. I felt confused, “Why would people do this to each other?” Then one rainy night I saw the truth.

It was a high-end society event for charity. White people were giving to white people and white issues. Black people were serving. Brown people were cooking. It was the clearest racial divide I had ever seen. It was like seeing a mythical dragon alive, well fed, and flourishing. I struggled to make sense of that night. How is it that such racism still exists? It made me want to change the color of my skin. I felt so disgusted I didn’t even want to look like those people. What do you do when your eyes are opened? I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I couldn’t stand for that kind of world. The world that vilified Michael Brown, and made a profit by keeping him and others like him down.

I know why Ferguson burns. It’s anger and frustration being let out. It’s the logical side of our brains rebelling against the illogical culture of oppression. Media may spin the violence, use it to explain how “black” people are, but its only because they make a profit out of fear. If they felt the same way people on the streets did they would be burning cars and businesses too. They would hurt, just like Michael’s family and all the protesters do. Instead they hide behind fear and exacerbate the issue. They don’t want justice, they want money, or in some cases, to donate to a charity of their own creation. They pat themselves on the back for their generosity, but their generosity is self-serving.

Breaking the chains of oppression, racism, and the economic divide takes community. It was a community in Texas that welcomed me in, asked me to be part, and made what happened to Michael personal. I became a coach. To a team of young promising men from the other side of the divide. I often laughed at the situation, as my own fears of inadequacy played in my head. I used humor to glaze over my fear. I formed drills to press into the stereotypes I feared most. I made myself go through the motions. I made myself take part. I targeted my fears and worked to destroy them. Joy was the best weapon. The joy of shared activity, of watching players develop. Of watching them overcome their battles, fears, and obstacles. I found myself caring deeply about the future success of my team. I wanted to give them more than physical skills, I wanted to give them an attitude they could take with them through life. I want them to break chains, just as much I want to break them.

When Michael died, it was though he was on my team. That someone had unfairly gunned down one of my players, because of fear. I have been angry, sad, frustrated, sometimes I don’t even know what to say. It’s hard to talk about something that foreign to other people’s experiences. They often don’t understand, much like I didn’t while at university.

When I heard about the protests and the over-responsive nature of the police I envisioned someone doing that where my team, my community and my players lived. I thought, “What are you doing? You don’t even know you’re making this situation worse!” Fear is profitable. Fear is a bullet proof vest, a riot shield, and an armored personnel carrier. Fear is a helicopter with a spotlight, making sure everyone on the ground obeys the loudspeaker. Fear is what drives the use of force. These things make sense in a warzone; they don’t make sense in neighborhoods.

I have never walked the streets of Ferguson. I didn’t know Michael Brown, but when he died the whole world heard about it. I heard about it. I saw images of fear in my neighborhood, of my friends being arrested for peaceful protest. My friends weren’t the ones burning cars, though their neighbors did. His death re-opened wounds and for many globally re-opened the conversation about racism and long held divides.

I know there is injustice in the world. It’s not a black and white issue. It is an issue of community. Of choosing to see another person as an other: as something, rather than someone.

The fires of Ferguson will go out. One day the scars from Michael’s death on the streets of Ferguson will be erased. The passage of time does not heal wounds, it is a community that draws together, despite its differences, that makes lasting healing. I hope the death of Michael Brown brings a community together, a community that has been fracture by fear, by fairways, and by time. The foundation of the community working to bring together these differences in found in Jesus Christ. Whose simple prayer for his people can be summed up in this, “That they all may be one.” I pray that world becomes the world we live in, that we don’t have to see any more Michael Browns. That all people of all colors will be able to see each other as brothers, sisters and friends. That our barriers and obstacles would be torn down. That the armor of fear would be cast aside. That the love of Christ would takes its place and we would all be made whole.

These issues are not just American issues, they are present in every culture, ethnicity, city, town and suburb. We all need to be made whole. Even if we’ve never walked the streets of Ferguson, or met Michael Brown.

The Art of Losing

We’re losing and I know it.

It’s the fourth quarter of the end of season Winter Basketball League Tournament. We’re playing basketball on the South side of Dallas, which means winning is everything. Winning means more on the south side of the tracks, because losing is considered the worst possible outcome. I can already see the disappointment in their eyes. My team is ready to emotionally shutdown. They will keep playing, but their hearts won’t be in it anymore. This is the moment I’ve been coaching them towards all season long. Never giving up. Regardless of the outcome. I call a timeout and talk with the team.

I don’t remember what I said. I do remember encouraging my players to finish well, to effect what they can. Do what they can do, and leave it on the court. I remember telling one of my players now was his time.

I told him to dunk the ball.

Dunking in basketball is a psychological weapon. It’s also ridiculously difficult to do when the other team is pressing you hard. You know weeks and months in advance you can physically dunk the ball, but mustering the courage to dunk for the first time in a game, let alone in a high pressure situation, keeps you playing it safe. My message to the team was just that. Don’t play it safe, leave it all on the court.

My team goes out with renewed vigor. There is a determination in their eyes, a refusal to give up, that drives them.

Sure enough, the player I encouraged goes for the dunk. He gets shut out. The other team discovers what he’s trying to do, and they want to stop it at all costs. We hustle back on defense, force a turnover, and the ball ends up in the right person’s hands. Sprinting down the court, he’s got three defenders in front of him. I know what he’s going to do. The other team knows what he’s going to do. The crowd knows. Our bench knows. For a moment we all hold our breath as he leaps into the air, headed straight for the hoop.

We wait.

It’s not about whether he can or cannot dunk. It’s about a refusal to give up. A stubborn refusal to let the other team decide how we are going to play the game. This moment encapsulates everything I’ve been trying to teach them about character for the past ten weeks.

The ball goes over the rim, and through the hoop. Chaos breaks loose. Everyone affiliated with my team goes nuts, but the other team doesn’t like it, not one bit. One of the other team’s players decides the best thing to do is to punch another of my players. Who had nothing to do with what just happened. That’s when this story gets interesting.

One of the smaller players on my team, the only kid who’s not originally from the south side of Dallas, decides watching his teammate get punched isn’t cool. He gets off the bench and gets directly between his teammate and the guy who punched him. Take in mind the heroic defender is about 125lbs/57k and the guy he’s defending is about 200lbs/90k. I wish I had seen it happen. I was too busy celebrating.

The referee didn’t like the post dunk events either, but he didn’t see the punch. All he saw was a player come off the bench and get in someone’s face. The least likely player on my team to break rules gets ejected. All because he stood up for his teammate. All because our team is refusing to give up.

I’d like to tell you this story has a Cinderella ending. It doesn’t. We lose. But I’m proud of my team. They realized something that day. It wasn’t about the sport, the competition or even the referees. Being on a team is really about playing for each other. Losing still hurt, but we knew we had more class than the other team. We walked out knowing that we had done our best.

That was all that mattered.

Losing carries with it a stigma. The same stigma as failing to achieve a goal, missing a deadline or anything else that can be considered not winning. Society celebrates achievement. It hates losing and labels those who miss their goals as losers. No one wants to be a loser. Considering every competition has one winner and many losers, you’d think our attitude towards losing would be more positive. You’d think we’d learn to encourage one another, build each other up and focus on what we can do better next time, but that’s not what often happens. Instead of encouragement and coaching, losers often get blamed. “You screwed up! You suck, you’re terrible, go home and think about what you need to do better!” Instead of building up they get torn down. Why? Because the person doing the yelling and abusing is afraid of being labeled a loser. Out of that fear comes an ugly disease that threatens to rot one’s soul to the point they stop trying. They become what they’ve always feared, someone who’s afraid to try because the idea of losing is too overwhelming. No one wins without losing.

As an athlete and coach I can tell you losing is difficult. It always makes you question what went wrong and what you can do to make it better. There is no need to promote fear or anger in order to get someone to perform differently.

I’ll never forget my fifth season coaching on the north side of Dallas. It was a perfect season. We lost every game.

I’ll never forget the last game of that season. We were down by one point and my team was trying their hardest. They were completely engaged and were not giving up. We played until the very last second, and that’s when we got fouled.

With no time left, one of my players stood on the free throw line and held the game, and arguably the season in his hands. That’s a lot of responsibility for twelve year old. He takes his first shot. It hits the rim, bounces off the backboard and rolls around the basket. Everyone takes a breath. It tips to the side and falls. No goal.

He lines up for his second shot. We need this one to tie and go into overtime. He bounces the ball, takes aim and releases. It looks like a great shot. It hits the front of the rim, bounces over the basket, and bounces a few times on the tiny platform between the basket and the rim.

The room goes completely silent.

All I want is for my player to know that regardless of the outcome I know he’s tried his best. I want so very badly for the team to have a win this season. I want them to hold their heads up high and feel like they accomplished something, that they can at least see their skills have progressed by holding something tangible, even if it’s something as intangible as the feeling of winning.

The ball rolls to the side and falls off the hoop.

As I did every game that season, I called the parents and players to the side to talk about the good things that happened during the game. To give put-ups to the players for their efforts in practice and on the court. It had never been harder to say something positive. We were all devastated. We were all sad. There was little to say.

So I said this, “I am proud of you, each and every single one of you, for how you played. You gave it your best the entire time and never once gave up. Losing sucks, and losing hurts. But what gives me joy is knowing you gave it your best. No one can take that away from you. [addressing the player who missed the final shots] You gave me everything today. I know those missed baskets hurt. I know you’ll think about them for days to come. Don’t let those failed baskets drag you down. Use them to fuel your efforts at practice. Know that the next time you attempt those shots you’ll make them. Keep your head up, because we can only get better from here. We will get better. Keep working hard, continue giving me your best effort and we will improve. That’s why we’re here. To learn how to give our best, that’s why we play sport. At the end of the day it’s not about the scoreboard, it’s about the attitude we learn to approach life with. We are here to learn to support each other, encourage one another and give it all we have. You guys have what it takes. It’s been an honor being your coach and I can’t wait to coach you next season.”

Those may not be my exact words, but that is exactly what I told them. Out of that team of eight, five players returned next season. Those five players became the backbone of my team. We didn’t win every game after that, but my players consistently encouraged one another and held each other up during games. Over the next three seasons I watched players transform. From kids who weren’t entirely sure about this basketball thing into dominant players on the court. I had the privilege of watching one young man all eight seasons. He transformed from a kid who was nervous about sport, because of his weight, transform into one of the most passionate players and team leaders. He discovered he had a part to play on the team, that his part mattered and that he personally could affect the outcome of each game. That is what coaching is all about. Developing players into who they can be.

What has been sweet about coaching on the north and the south side of Dallas is this: both my teams and players have gone on to be victorious in other things. My South Dallas team won a championship. My North Dallas players have gone on to play for other teams and have coached their teammates with the same values I have coached them. While I may be out of contact with many of my players, we are not out of contact through the memories we created. Those memories will last for a lifetime. Those are the good memories that came by making the best of difficult moments. It is those memories that spur us onward, not the fear of losing.

Explaining Chambers: Following our LORD’s will

Tonight’s writing is going to be a bit different. I’m going to share the devotional for the day and then break it down into individual parts to explain what Chamber’s means. Chambers always starts with a Bible verse:

“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem” Luke 18:31

In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, the beginning and the end are the same, viz., our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him—“until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus,” not to our idea of what the Christian life should be. The aim of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.

In Our Lord’s life Jerusalem was the place where He reached the climax of His Father’s will upon the Cross, and unless we go with Jesus there we will have no companionship with Him. Nothing ever discouraged Our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned Our Lord one hair’s breadth away from His purpose to go up to Jerusalem.

“The disciple is not above his Master.” The same things will happen to us on our way to our Jerusalem. There will be the works of God manifested through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude and the rest will show gross ingratitude, but nothing must deflect us from going up to our Jerusalem.

“There they crucified Him.” That is what happened when Our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that happening is the gateway to our salvation. The saints do not end in crucifixion: by the Lord’s grace they end in glory. In the meantime our watchword is – I, too, go up to Jerusalem.

As I read this devotion this morning, I saw two things: discerning the will of our Lord and the question of suffering. Discerning the will of our Lord means figuring out where in life God has called you to serve. The question of suffering asks, “Must I suffer to do God’s will?” Let’s approach these two thoughts as we walk through Chamber’s words.

The aim of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.

Missionary in this context means a follower of Christ. Chambers is blatantly saying useful Christianity and soul-saving Christianity is not the pinnacle of Christianity. Many are the ministries today whose aim is to be useful, but miss the will of God. Many are the ministries today whose aim is to save people from hell, but they too miss the will of God. The will of God is not only found in practical ministry or changing people’s hearts and minds, but in the individual who seeks God and follows were He goes. As we follow, we will perform practical tasks. As we follow, we will transform lives. But our eyes must be on our Lord, else we will fail to do either of these.

Nothing ever discouraged Our Lord on His way to Jerusalem. He never hurried through certain villages where He was persecuted, or lingered in others where He was blessed. Neither gratitude nor ingratitude turned Our Lord one hair’s breadth away from His purpose to go up to Jerusalem.

Our prayers often sound like this, “Lord, take these difficulties away and give me an easy path.” God cares about our suffering, but it is through suffering our character is revealed. Without suffering we would never know how aligned we are with God. We would never pray, “Lord, take these easy things away and give me a more difficult path.” Our journey will take us through blessings and difficulties. We should not cling to the material, but focus on the destination: Our Lord in heaven. It is with this image firmly implanted in our minds that we move forward, letting nothing hinder us. Good or bad, easy or difficult. It is here we encounter the question of suffering, “Must I suffer to do the Lord’s will?” No, you must not, but you will. Suffering and hardship is part of the journey. Hardship does not make us any more holy than accomplishing a task with ease. Both are required to teach and train. Both bring us closer to our Lord. Neither should be avoided.

“There they crucified Him.” That is what happened when Our Lord reached Jerusalem, and that happening is the gateway to our salvation. The saints do not end in crucifixion: by the Lord’s grace they end in glory.

We cannot run from the truth; Jesus died for our sins: that was His purpose in life, that is what God called Him to do. Jesus accomplished this task, though he waivered in the garden of Gethsemane. He waivered because He saw how huge the suffering was going to be. He was strengthened because He saw how huge God’s redemption and glory is. His suffering showed His alignment with God. "Not my will be done," If we take our eyes off God’s glory, we are in danger of only seeing the suffering. Like Jesus we need to look to God and see the greater work: eternity with God.

What does that mean for us today? We need to fix our eyes on God and follow the path he puts before us. That path will be filled with sorrow and pain, but it will also be filled with joy and life. We need to walk it steadfastly, neither running to flee from its dangers or lingering to hold on to its blessings. Our vision should always include His purpose for our lives: His glory.

The Coach's Voice

“Stand up!”

That’s all I heard him say. My coach was less than four meters away, standing in my corner. The clock was ticking. It was 30 seconds into the third round. Where was I? I was wrestling in my first high school tournament. C bracket. The place coaches put freshmen to find out what they are made of.

“Stand up!”

Tied with less than a minute to go, you’d think standing up was easy. Not really, especially when your opponent is on top, trying his best to hold you down. Especially when he knows if I stand up and escape, I will be ahead by one point. He also knows if I maintain that lead I will win the match and the bracket.

“Stand up!”

My coach only had one thing to say. He wanted me to win. He wanted me to stand up and face my opponent. I could hear his voice and the sound of the referee’s whistle. Everything else was a jumbled mess of incoherent sounds. With labored effort I push myself up and try to get into a stable standing position.

As I get to my feet my opponent pushes me to the edge of the mat. He pushes me out. We repeat this dance of me standing up, him pushing me out. He’s trying to push me out because he knows I can break his grasp. The referee gives him a warning. If he pushes me out again the referee will award me a point; my opponent is stalling. So he tries something new.

Slam!

He picked me up and threw me to down. I hear my coach yelling his encouragement.

“Stand up!”

I stand up. 45 seconds left.

Slam!

Face down, but in a stable base. I stand up again.

Slam! 36 seconds.

I sense a pattern developing.

“Stand up!”

Slam! 28 seconds.

The crowd doesn’t like that I’m getting slammed. My parents don’t like it either. I am completely oblivious. I only hear one voice.

“Stand up!”

Slam!

The referee gives my opponent a warning. He’s haphazardly throwing me into the mat now. It’s getting dangerous.

We reset in the middle. Him on top. Me on bottom.

“Stand up!”

Slam! 12 seconds

“Stand up!”

Slam!

The referee awards me 1 point

My opponent releases me to try and tie the match. 6 seconds

I turn and face him.

“Takedown!”

I shoot for my opponent’s legs. We scramble. Even though I’m ahead and completely exhausted I go on the offensive. My opponent’s mentally fatigued, freaked out by the clock and can barely defend himself. He doesn’t get a chance to recover.

The whistle blows. Match over. I win by sheer guts. I win because I listened to my coach.

That was how I won my first wrestling tournament. But more importantly it’s how I learned to listen for my coach’s voice, a skill that took me far as a wrestler.

Listening to the voice of a coach is everything in wrestling. The coach’s perspective is greater than that of the man in the ring. The coach sees openings in an opponent’s defense, calls out a move, and if the wrestler listens, it can be the subtle difference between victory and defeat.

The problem with listening to the coach? You have to tune out a lot of background noise, and I’m not talking about the noise of the crowd. Not only are your ears mostly covered, you literally have someone else grappling with you while you try to understand what your coach is saying. Sometimes it’s not clear, which is why wrestling coaches learn to say simple phrases. It’s all you can understand in intense situations.

As a wrestler you get to make the choice. “Is my coach telling me something I can do?” In the split second between hearing and taking action, the coach’s advice is being run through an internal filter. A filter gauging personal strength and endurance, fatigue, the opponent’s fitness level, and his response to previous moves. And whether or not you think your coach is crazy.

The best always are.

Hearing a wrestling coach’s voice and responding by doing is the difference between victory and defeat. Listening to our heavenly Coach is the difference between life and death: blessings and curses. Yet there is one big problem stopping us from, “What does our heavenly Coach sound like?”

While I can’t tell you the audible qualities of our heavenly Coach’s voice, I can tell you his voice brings calm in the chaos. Even when he’s asking you to give something you don’t feel you have. It’s those give and take moments that define athletes. It’s these same moments that define us human yet heavenly athletes.  It’s the smallest margin by which we win. Yet that margin comes down to a simple choice, “Will I listen to what my Coach is asking me to do?”

As we filter through what our Coach is asking of us, we hit personal barriers. We start asking questions like, “Does my Coach care about me, or does He care more about winning? Is He asking of me something I can actually do? Does He care how I come out of this?” We ask these questions because we don’t completely trust our Coach. A coach has to build trust into his athletes. Often times that’s a difficult task. It’s difficult until we have a moment of trust with our Coach, a moment where we stretch ourselves, doing what we thought was ridiculous: we have to take a risk. In that moment we give our Coach a chance, and we find out how much He cares for us and wants what is best for us.

But isn’t the heavenly Coach a bad coach? Doesn’t he break clipboards, flip chairs, yell at officials and make us do extra conditioning? Isn’t he mean and exacting? Asking us to do what we’ve never done before, speaking loudly to us when we do things wrong. Isn’t God a jerk?

We think this way when we’ve misunderstood God, and haven’t heard his voice. The big jerk in the sky comes from missing who he is.

Let me tell you a story.

When God created Adam and Eve, he blessed them saying, “go out, be fruitful and multiply.” He placed them in a garden where he planted two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. He told them they could eat from any tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good & evil, saying, “if you eat of it, you will die.” Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil, not from the tree of life. Because they ate from the tree, they found out they were naked and decided to hide from God. God walked after then asking, “Where are you?” After they confessed, although they still blamed someone else for their mistake, God cursed them making their fruitfulness and multiplication much more difficult. Before God removed them from the garden, he made clothes for them and covered their shame, because there was nothing they could do to cover their mistake.

The point of this story is simple, God’s blessing became God’s curse. While God intended Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of life, they chose to eat from a different tree. They decided to disobey the Coach. The Coach gave his athletes a choice. Even though they failed Him, God gave them a second chance. Even though it meant giving up what the Coach wanted for his athletes in the first place. Life.

God has always wanted life for His athletes. Not all of them choose life. They choose a harder more difficult path. Instead of listening to the simple commands of the coach, they choose the Coach’s curse instead of his blessing. He always offers the blessing first. Even when we fail to listen, he gives us a second chance.

How do we obtain his blessing? We listen to Him, become familiar with His voice, and do as He asks. Just like Adam and Eve, God has given us a second chance.

Immersion

New beginnings. Aren’t they wonderful? Emotions run high, we laugh, smile and do everything with extra energy and enthusiasm. We believe we’ve fully merged with whatever it is that we’ve just started and can’t imagine how life could be different. It’s the new car smell, the crisp clean look of new clothes, the photos taken with a new phone and the smile on your face anytime you look at your latest new things. The problem with new is this: new stuff gets old. The question we seldom seriously ask ourselves at the start of a new journey, “Will I still be enthusiastic about this when it becomes old?” The answer at the start is always yes. Time, however, takes us on our journey to truth. It’s the path of self-discovery.

In the fitness world hundreds and thousands of people sign up each year to be part of a gym. A lot of these people join during January, AKA the month of impulsive well-meaning resolutions. We all want to change some aspect of our body. Literally, all of us. Even though we don’t all want to change the same thing. For a lot of impulsive resolution makers, their journey looks something like this:

Week’s 1 and 2: I can do this, it hurts but I can do this; I just need to push through the pain, it will be okay I will achieve my desired outcome.

Week’s 3 and 4: Man I’m busy, I only made it in a few times and I’m starting to feel tired. Keep going, it will be okay, but that treadmill is starting to look like a ravenously hungry monster.

Week’s 5 and 6: It is a ravenously hungry monster.

Week’s 7 and 8: Was I going to workout this week? I just need to give my body a rest.

Week 9 until end: I tried it a few more times, but this just isn’t me. I can’t do it, but I’ll try again when I feel more motivated.

I recognize this isn’t everyone’s fitness story. Sometimes life happens when we make plans. But this is far too common a story, and that’s a problem. Not just for the people who are seeking change, but for those who support them as well. Often times the difference between bowing out early and achieving our goal is someone standing alongside us. They don’t have to be an expert. They can simply be a friend. Or even a stranger willing to listen. No matter the activity, doing it with someone else, even if they just cheer you on from the sidelines, makes a difference. There’s something powerful about togetherness. Something that makes us stronger. It’s the stuff that holds sports teams together; it’s why we care about home field advantage. That’s what many of us need. Someone to make us feel like we are on our home turf. Many of our January joiners would keep going if they simply had the support of one other person. One. Single. Person.

Think about that for a moment.

Encouraging one person can be the difference between success and failure. One encouraging conversation.

I would simply ask, “What kind of conversation would you like to have?”

While we ponder that question, let me answer what it takes to have a ‘successful’ encouraging conversation? Genuine concern. Genuine empathy. You genuinely need to care.

That’s all.

But beware! It means immersing yourself in someone else’s world. It means completely diving in, for better or for worse, and finding out where a light needs to shine.

What is that light?

Hope.

Is there such a thing? Yes. Yes, there is. True hope comes from immersion. We can’t sprinkle tiny hope droplets around. No. We need to full on dump buckets of ice cold hope on people. Maybe not to that extreme, but you get the picture J There’s a big difference between flicking a few water droplets from your fingers at someone and jumping with them into a pool. True hope dives in. True hope gets wet. True hope makes waves. True hope says yes we can and then jumps in regardless of whatever else is happening. True hope changes lives. We need more true hope in our world today.

There’s a question I see running around the internet. “Is there hope for the Church?” I’ve seen it asked in many ways and I’ve seen many criticisms, but most of what I’ve read doesn’t hope. It simply reads like Week 5 of our January exerciser journal. If all the Church is supposed to be is a few fluffy water flakes then yes, there is no hope. But that’s not the Church. The Church is a community founded on true hope. Hope founded on immersion: Ice bucket smothering, grab your buddy and jump in a pool hope. Hope that one small encouraging conversation can make a world of difference.

The truth is the Church is being separated from what it is supposed to be and what it’s not. This is a good thing. This is a natural thing. It’s the story of the Church for the past several thousand years. The Church will not cease in our lifetime, though it will change. What won’t change, what hasn’t changed, is the togetherness. It’s literally the foundation of the Church.

What is that foundation? That God cares. That he cares enough not to leave us in our hopeless condition. That he cares enough to do something about the state of our world. Consider these words of wisdom from Oswald Chambers, writer of My Utmost for His Highest “It is not so true that ‘prayer changes things’ as prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man’s disposition.” The point of Chamber’s words is this, when we place our hope in God and ask Him to change the world, He enables us to change the world by changing us first.

My hope is that God can change me enough to make a difference. I know God can change anyone who calls out to Him, asking Him to change them. So I’m asking, “God, change me and bring more hope to your world.”

Goal Setting

Goals. We’re all told we should have them. We should have a big picture goal of where we want to be and how we’re going to get there. I’ve been fed this message constantly since my first years of high school. “Where are you going to go to college? What are you going to major in? What do you want to be doing in 10 years? What position do you want in the company? How are you going to get there?” While some of this planning is helpful, there’s a fundamental flaw when it comes to long term planning; reality overrides many of our plans. We can have the best laid plans in the world, but when life happens plans change. This isn’t just true in business and academics, it also applies in the fitness world. One of my favorite things about working in the fitness industry is hearing people’s goals and why they want to achieve them. It’s motivating and inspiring when you meet someone who wants to exercise for the right reasons and have the honor of watching them get there one small step at a time. It’s a joy like no other. Yet many of us don’t experience that joy. We get caught in the daily struggle of “Do I have time for this? Is this really important? My goals seem so far away, will I ever get there?” These questions threaten to drag us down and suck the life out of us. While these questions are important, here are a few strategies to get yourself out of these funks.

-Do what you can do

Sometimes we set up monumental goals that can only be achieved through a mountain of work. Eventually something happens that puts us off course. A mental freak out starts. “I only have so much time to achieve this and since I’m already behind I have to work that much harder to get where I want to be.” This leads directly to burnout. We focus so much on what has to be done we forget we are only capable of doing so much each day. By focusing on what we can do each day, and letting each day take care of itself, we make progress to our goal without focusing on how much time it takes to get there. This kind of thinking sets us up for success in the next strategy.

-Challenge yourself against yourself

Find at least one thing each day and focus on it. Do it to the best of your ability. When you know what you are capable of, and you push yourself to meet your capacity, you grow in a healthy way. This kind of growth is sustainable, it looks internally for motivation based off personal experience. It’s not motivated by someone else, it’s motivated by a knowledge of self.

-Celebrate small things

There’s nothing wrong with throwing a big party every once in a while, but everyday needs to have some joy in it. Even on the worst of days, we need to look back, pick something out and say, “I got better at this today,” This keeps us from focusing on the negatives and helps us to see the positives. We grow every day, we don’t always stop to recognize it.

-Listen to your body

The body is a sensitive psycho-mechanical instrument. When the body doesn’t feel good something is out of place. Search for the out of place things, those things that suck the life out of you. Try something different in those spaces. Physically these would be adjustments in form or technique. Mentally they would be adjustments in attitude. Linguistically a change in words. Learning to operate healthfully makes a world of difference. It’s the difference between running with nagging injuries and running pain free. There’s no reason why we should continuously run in pain. Running is supposed to be fun. A few changes here and there just might make it pleasurable again.

Achieving goals is not about suffering. It’s about joy. About making small adjustments. Given time these adjustments create results. It’s not about forcing a result, but allowing your body to change and grow so those results can be achieved on a regular basis.

Goals are good things, but if all we do is spend time focusing on how great the future will be, instead of making little adjustments each day, we will miss out on the greatest joy of life. Setting a goal isn’t the goal, it’s how we enjoy the journey that makes a difference. When we start with our own hearts, we start in the right place. I think this is what Solomon meant went he said “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

 

To places unknown

A lot has happened in the past few days. It all started with a few simple questions asked by my club manager, “Where do you want to be in fifteen years? What are your goals in life?” The first time someone asked me this question was high school. I didn’t have an answer then. I had a direction, but not an answer. When I went to college I formulated an answer. “I want to be a youth pastor in the state of Washington.” Post college the tension between chasing that answer or choosing to help my family created a small crisis. Should I pursue church vocation? Or should I help those closest to me who need me right now, even though it means walking away from a dream. Four years later I am sitting in my house in Australia while my wife gets ready for work. Obviously I chose to walk away from pastoral ministry and I’ve ended up on the far side of the world. I wouldn’t change the past four years, but that initial choice has haunted me ever since. Should I go back to a church vocation? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that decision. I know I made the right choice, but I have doubted and felt guilty that I should have chosen the church. After thinking about my manager’s questions, and seeking God I can honestly say I will no longer be pursuing church vocation. That doesn’t mean I have given up on ministry. Instead I believe it’s because I have embraced ministry that I feel comfortable closing the church vocation chapter of my life.

Here’s why.

I have met certain men in my journeys who have advanced the gospel without holding a church position. These men have had ordinary jobs, but they have extraordinarily let God into their lives and let him use them, exactly where they are. Instead of looking for some kind of sacred position, they have spent their time working in the fields, and they have powerfully changed lives. I firmly believe when we embrace God’s call on our lives we can do the same, whether that’s answering a call to a church position or answering a call into the rest of the world. The place is not what is important, and neither is the type of work we do, it’s all about serving God through whatever he has given us to do.

I learned this first hand on a South Dallas YMCA basketball court. Basketball is not my best sport, so when I arrived and shortly found myself as the head coach of a boys high school team I wondered what God was doing. I was pretty sure He had picked the wrong guy and then put him on the wrong side of town. God obviously thought otherwise. It was on that court that I came to fully understand the power of the gospel and how it can transform any activity into something holy. I watched players begin to understand how I wanted them to play. I watched a street baller turn into a team player. I watched timid and quiet players turn into ferocious indomitable defensive players, with reputations of being bad guys, even though they were the nicest kids on the team. I watched players with average skills become team leaders. I watched good players push themselves to become great, and it wasn’t because their basic skills improved; it was because their hearts changed. That's not a skill you learn on the court, that's God working in someone's life. None of their achievements would have been possible without God leading the way. I would never have made it to South Dallas if I hadn’t first answered a call in North Dallas. God prepared me for what was to come, only because I was telling him yes in my life, even though I thought He was crazy putting me on a basketball court, let alone making me the head coach of two separate programs. God wasn’t crazy. He had a purpose, even though I didn’t understand it. Looking back I preached more Jesus as a coach than as youth group volunteer. Why? Because preaching has more to do with who we are rather than what we say. More to do with how we act rather than the philosophies we enforce. I fully believe God used me inside the church, and the relationships I built there were not in vain, nor were any of the lessons I learned invalid. I simply believe God used that period of my life to teach me how to go outside the church rather than stay inside of it. Even though I was convinced I was preparing for church ministry, God had other plans.

I think we live in an age where we measure the health of the church by how many people are inside of it, and whether or not we have a special role within it’s walls. The church isn’t a building, it’s a people and when people live together they don’t let walls come between them. Our ministries are not about whose set of walls were in, but rather how we act inside those walls. That is our vocation, that is our calling.

I have many friends who have trained for the ministry, some of which have jobs within the church, others who now work outside of it. For those who didn’t “make it” there is often a sense of guilt and shame, of not being good enough for church ministry, or the ever redundant, “if I just had more faith”. It’s not about measuring faith, it’s about serving God where he tells you to go. To schools, sport fields, factories, phone centers, fitness arenas, etc. Where is not important, serving God is. Allowing him to work through us, that is our ministry.

Following the road

This is a follow up to my last blog. My goal is to outline in detail what practices make a Christian. But first things first, a fitness story.

After my last blog I had a heavy lifting session. We did hang cleans to finding three repetition max, then a workout consisting of deadlifts, push-ups and box jumps. Because of the box jumps I decided to wear shoes. I thought I needed the cushioning. I should know better. The next day while walking to work I had a shooting pain on the inside of my left foot. Probing around my foot I located the tired muscles. They were alongside my inner arch. Basically my foot was rolling in during the workout. I wasn’t aware of it because of the cushioning of the shoes. Had my feet been in contact with the ground I could have corrected my form on the spot. I paid the price for my poor choice as my foot hurt for two days. On top of that I felt the effects run from my arch up through my calf, hip, lower back and shoulder. I could have prevented the pain if I had just taken my own advice and worn my minimalist shoes, but I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to cheat just once. I was wrong.

This is often how our spiritual lives work. We know what we need to do, but then we fail to do it. We get distracted by life and cheat when it comes to the basics. The most important basic of the Christian walk is grace. Grace to forgive ourselves when screw things up. Grace to give ourselves a second chance, even when we’ve made a mess. Grace to forgive others, as we ourselves have been forgiven. It would be no small exaggeration to say that grace is a cornerstone of the Christian faith. While grace covers our sin, there is more to our walks with God than just accepting and giving grace. We, like any athlete, need to train in God’s ways, seeking to understand them through practice.

What is it that we should be practicing?

For a long time I’ve pondered this question. I know the core answers, and I could point to different parts of the Bible to justify my practices, but I don’t want to. I believe that if the central core answers of the Christian faith are so important, we can not only find them mentioned together in one place, but we could also find them in the Pentateuch: the first five books of the Bible. I’ve spent many years searching for the place where they are all explained or mentioned in one single place. I’ve been reading the Bible for more than twelve years: you think this would be an easy answer, but it’s not. Finding the answer meant exploring unpreachable texts: the areas of the Bible people don’t talk about. Why don’t they talk about these areas? Because they are dry and boring. When I found my answer, in the last chapters of Exodus (36, 37, and 38) it was a passage I remembered reading many years ago. My response all those years ago? “Dear God why is this part of the Bible important? It’s just a list of materials and blue-prints for how they built a place of worship in the Old Testament. I hate reading this, it puts me to sleep.” Yep, that was my response. I was a young teenager at the time. Even then I knew one day that boring list might be important, I just had no idea why. So I read it anyway. And I kept reading it every time it came around, believing one day it might make sense. And while I have zero claims to mastering this part of scripture, I can at least say it has taught me something incredibly valuable, answering my long held belief that the central practices are in the oldest parts of the Bible and are all mentioned together. Let me tell you how I arrived at my current position.

Moses received instruction from God on how to build the tabernacle and all of its surrounding items of worship. God told Moses what to do. God. Told. Moses. When that message finally sunk in I realized that boring blueprint had incredible significance. It was literally a message from God on how to worship Him. In order to make understand what God was saying, I had to take a step back and put my critical thinking hat on. God doesn’t always make his answers clear. What we first see is not always what God is trying to tell us. With this in mind I looked at the list not as a series of objects, but a series of symbols. My head almost exploded. The beautiful thing about Biblical writings is that they are often literal and symbolic. Not just one or the other, but both and the same. Here is what I read, and what I understood based on the order of construction in Exodus.

The Tabernacle: Our personal meeting space

The first thing the Israelites built was the Tabernacle. The tent where God would dwell among them. The place where only a select few could go and meet with God. The first step in our journey of faith is making room for God. Having a place where we go to find Him. A place to talk with Him. There are many places we can go, but the point is to have a personal space in our lives where we can go and meet with God.

The Ark: God in our lives

The Ark is where God dwelled among the Israelites. They knew where God was because He filled the Tabernacle with His presence. He filled the Tabernacle because the Ark was there. It’s not enough to make space for God in our lives, He has to come dwell within us. The Ark is the symbol of God’s presence. Following God means He is present in our lives, and we recognize His presence.

The Table: Communion with God

God calls upon each and every living person to enter into a relationship with him. He calls out to us before we enter into relationship. Once we have made space and he is present we need to respond to this calling and begin a relationship with him.

The Lamp: Reading Scripture and Understand Jesus

The Psalmist wrote, “your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Jesus is the light of the world. As such we should not worship God in darkness, but learn about who He is by studying his word: meaning both the study of Scripture and the life of Jesus.

The Altar of Incense: Prayer

As we study who God is, we need to talk with Him. Prayer is our communication with God. Our ability to pray grows the better we know Him. If we don’t know Him, our ability to pray is significantly hindered. Studying who He is teaches us how we should pray. Praying to God strengthens our relationship with Him and invites him to take a larger role in our lives. Prayer enables us to move from a personal relationship with God, to an external showing of His grace and presence in our lives.

The Altar of Burnt Offering: Dedication, sacrifice and forgiveness

The Altar of Burnt Offering is where the Israelites sacrificed offerings to God. The first of these offerings, which the altar is named after, is the Burnt Offering. This offering was entirely burned on the altar as an act of dedication. When we have a healthy internal relationship with God it manifests itself outside of our personal lives. We must act publically. As the Altar sat outside of the Tabernacle, so too does our external signs of faith. Faith is more than a private matter. Notice the first external sign of faith is sacrifice, something given before God. This is a sign of being forgiven. We willingly give up what is ours as part of dedication to God.

The Basin for Washing: Identification with God’s people

It’s not enough to have a private relationship with God that sometimes moves us to external acts of faith, we must identify ourselves alongside God’s people. This one off washing is called Baptism. It’s an external sign of being accepting into a Christian community. It’s also a public declaration of faith. This sign not only says we identify with the Christian community, but that we will stand alongside it and support it.

The Courtyard: Fellowship with other Christians

It’s not enough to get baptized and give occasionally to Christian causes. We must spend time with other Christians. We need to be with each other, to encourage one another and to lift each other up. We should also spend time with non-Christians, as the Christian community is not exclusive, but rather inclusive. It takes time to develop in our knowledge and relationship with God. One of the best ways to continue to grow as a Christian is to spend time with Christians in worship to God. It is not enough to be around other Christians as our only support in the faith, we must also read, pray and make individual sacrifices along the way.

Feet

One of my favorite anecdotes from Born to Run reads something like this:  “Why are my feet weak?” “Because smooth roads aren’t natural, our feet are made to run on rough terrain.” What I love most about this little explanation is its simple statement of truth running contrary to most of our beliefs. One of the real-life characters encountered in Born to Run is Barefoot Ted. His name explains what he does; he runs barefoot. At ultra-marathon distances. Over rocky terrain. Even most of the ultra-running community thinks he’s a freak. He constantly gets told he’s going to get hurt and to put some shoes on, but he’s gotten used to the nay-sayers and consistently proves them wrong with each and every race. It’s his persistence, and the proof of his running ability that we are capable of running without shoes, that is to say, running without all the additional cushy support found in modern running shoe technology. It sounds absurd, but I know it’s true, even though I don’t go so far as to run barefoot. I wear those ugly, frog-footed five-finger toes instead, and I love them. The question everyone wants to know? Why!?

The answer is simple. It’s healthier. I’ve been going to a chiropractor since I was in elementary school. One of the first things I was told was that I had a flat left foot and needed to wear orthotics the rest of my life. An answer I challenged when I got out of college because I couldn’t afford new shoes and new orthotics. I had to make a choice. Continuing down the path chiropractors told me about my feet, or try and get to the source of the problem and fix it. I chose to get to the source. As I did I began to discover a few things about feet and shoes.

Feet have a quarter of the body’s bones. They also have more bones, tendons, muscles and ligaments than our hands. This subtle structural meaning? Feet are made to move. But shoes often aren’t. The goal of most running shoes is to limit motion. That’s why it’s called motion control. When the foot cannot move, its muscles atrophy. Atrophied feet are more prone to injury. Weakened feet strain more easily, but most foot injuries are not quick, they build over time. This weakening and perception of strain leads us to believe we should surround our feet with more cushioning, restricting further motion and causing strain on the knee. The more cushioning on the foot, the more the knee has to stabilize; lots of foot cushioning leads to knee problems. To compensate for knee problems, we adjust our stride and foot striking out of proper alignment. This causes hip and lower back pain. What starts at the foot effects the rest of the body, causing a host of symptoms that stem from a single problem: weak feet. How can we strengthen our feet? Let’s return to our little narrative about natural surfaces.

Since feet are so flexible, they are made to run on uneven terrain. Our modern world is full of concrete, asphalt, tiles, wooden flooring and carpeting: we’ve done everything we can to make the world smooth. After all no one wants to get sued due to the trip hazards of natural terrain. The best place to start strengthening feet is to go off-road. Do some trail running. You don’t have to climb the nearest mountain, just get away from flat. Why? Because running long distances on purely flat surfaces can cause repetitive stress injuries. The body needs variation to stay healthy. Moving over uneven terrain allows the foot to move and for muscles to fire in different patterns. Different does a body good.

If you can’t find a trail near you, try going barefoot on flat surfaces. Going barefoot removes the fluff around the foot and brings it into directly into the contact with the world, causing it to move, flex and engage like it struggles to do in a shoe. As you do this, keep this in mind: your foot has forgotten what it’s like to run barefoot. Go slow, take your time, build your strength. This strengths muscles that have weakened in the ankle, allows the knees to stabilize properly and reduces the strain on the hips and lower back.

By going nearly barefoot on smooth surfaces I overcame my injuries and have been orthotic free for the past four years. It has literally changed how I walk. I am more mindful about the muscles in my feet and I can engage them, no matter what is on my feet or what I am doing. I can stand painlessly for hours. I can walk without knee or back pain. I can lift heavy weights and not feel like an old man the next day. Discovering the power in my feet has given me the power to do life. Which is why I believe we all need to take care of our physical feet, as well as our spiritual feet.

Biblically speaking, one of the highest compliments and signs of a healthy spirit is described by walking. Not praying. Not preaching. Not even teaching. Walking. The walk is what’s most important. It triumphs over activities. Why? Because when the walk is right so is everything else. Walking rightly with God changes everything else. The walk speaks where words fail. The greatest problem with Christianity today is a walking problem. It’s not a church structure problem, a church industry problem, a church institution problem, a church education problem, a church program problem or even a church service problem. The problem is in our individual walks. Everything else is a symptom of what’s really going wrong.

The main problem? Our feet are weak. We need to strengthen them. We need to learn how to walk out what we believe.

How do we do that? By going barefoot into the world. By walking in places where the road is not smooth. Not just physically, but also relationally.

Perhaps the problem of the twenty-first century is one of comfort, and the desire for comfort is killing us.

Some say the church is anemic and dying. Some believe logic, reason and the scientific method are triumphing over old religious systems. They believe it’s time we cast the old aside in the wake of a new world order. What is this new order based on? Perfection. Advancement. Evolution. Safety. The exact same things that are the claims of running shoe technology. Which means our running shoes should be making us healthier. But they aren’t. Something is wrong with this new world order thinking; it’s not applied in real world examples. It’s based on theory and an assumption. We are not made to run. We are not made to be mobile, to walk the uneven and rugged path. We must protect ourselves from it. Such science is flat out wrong. Our anatomy proves otherwise. We are made to run, without the artificial controlling support we’ve been told we need.

Perhaps the release of Born to Run has changed people's minds about shoes, after all its been almost a decade since it hit shelves. Nope. I was in a shoe store the other day and saw a lot of the same bad technology, and I saw a bigger section of orthotics to correct what the shoes couldn’t fix. Instead of trimming down shoes and getting to the heart of our foot problems solutions have multiplied. We have the same problem spiritually, we keep adding cushion, trying to make life easier instead of stripping down to basics and walking in direct sensitive contact with the world.

So what it is that we as individual Christians need to do with our own spiritual lives? Do we need to find the hardest part of town and start a social program? Maybe, but that’s not really the answer. The answer isn’t about picking up something new, it’s about changing how we do. The answer is not to new tools, but learning to use the ones we already have. We have the tools we need, we just need to start using then.

Where? Where we are. Ministry is not a profession. It’s a lifestyle. One of walking humbly before our God wherever we are. It’s the ability to admit when we’ve done wrong. To seek reconciliation instead of continual silence. I am convinced that we know where and to whom God has called us, we just don’t want to go and don’t want to humble ourselves. Sometimes it’s easier going to Africa than to the person sitting next to you, or talking to the people we work and live life with:family members can be especially difficult. Confession and Forgiveness may be hard, but they are the tools to break the darkest of nights. Admitting wrong is the best way to start making things right. To start getting our feet off the smooth path of prideful comfort and on to the uneven road of healthy feet.

Walking as Jesus walked takes humility, we often make mistakes along the way. Pride acts as a cushion, as a justification for how we screwed up. Laying down our pride is the beginning of a new day and the strengthening of our weak feet. It’s the only way to start changing our world.