Life can seem so unfair can’t it? I mean your best friend has a boyfriend when you can’t seem to even land a date. Your neighbor drives a new car every year and you can’t even afford to put gas in yours. Your coworker gets the promotion you’ve been working so hard to achieve. It just seems like everyone else gets what you’re after and it’s just not fair. You have illness after illness and people around you are always healthy.
When we compare ourselves to everyone else, or anyone else, life just seems unfair. But sometimes it’s hard not to compare. People love to post their instagram lives for the world to see. No one posts the bad stuff. Perfectly posed. Lighting is staged. Tummy sucked in. Standing on a box to look taller because everyone knows you’re short (ok maybe that would be me if I actually cared enough to post pictures of myself!) I mean does she always dress like that? Are his muscles always that defined or is the lighting just right in that pic? Comparison is a terrible enemy that can lead us to a place of brokenness and despair.
I want to introduce a different way of seeing things. It’s not easy and it’s something that I am working on myself. Instead of asking why can’t I have this thing or be like that person, try asking what if it’s just not my time? What if my time is yet to come?
The idea behind it’s not your time is that even though someone else gets the blessing or the good day that you have been praying for, working toward, and expecting for years, your time is coming.
Maybe it’s a job that you have applied for but didn’t get. Maybe it’s a significant other that you have been trying everything you can to find. And everyone around you seems to be married and you can’t even land a steady date. Maybe it’s having a little bit of extra cash to go out on the weekend with your friends and you can barely scrape two nickels together. Whatever it is maybe it’s not your time. Maybe your time is coming.
I know that doesn’t take away the sting of not having it. I know it doesn’t make today any easier, but when you realize that it’s not about your timing or your plans, it does make moving forward a little easier.
And lest anyone think I haven’t had my “it’s not your time” moments, please come talk to me sometime. I will gladly share with you the plethora of moments that things didn’t go the way I had planned and I wondered the same thing you’re asking right now.
So does life seem unfair? Yeah it sure does! I know that some days are going to be far worse than others. But when we shift our focus to a realization that my time is still coming, things tend to look different.
Here’s an exercise I do to keep me focused when life seems a tad unfair. Take a deep breath and look at your own life. Really look at it. Not looking at what you don’t have but what you do have. Make a list, even if only mentally, of the things you have in your life today that you didn’t 1, 3, or 5 years ago. They are examples of the it’s not my time principle in action. Three years ago it wasn’t your time to have those things but here you are enjoying them.
Again, I’m fully aware it’s not going to make a husband magically appear to your non-dating doorstep or a million dollars appear in your empty bank account, but it will shift your mind from scarcity to abundance.
It’s not your time, but imagine how great it will be when your time finally arrives! That will be a day to celebrate for sure!
Something that everyone longs for in life is peace. We think about it when wars are waged around the world. We think about it when our child enlist in military service. We think about it when we’re bullied on the playground or picked on at work for not being like everyone else. We want peace when our life is a chaotic mess.
The pursuit of peace is something that drives many of us into despair because we’re looking in the wrong places. When we long for peace, and we turn over every rock in the garden trying to find peace looking for it in someway that we can grasp with our own hands, we find it a lot like trying to grab a fist full of water. Unfortunately, that’s not how peace works.
Before we go too much further here, we probably should understand what piece is, and what it is not. Peace is not an absence of war or a place where there is no conflict. Peace, in the way we are using it here, is more of an internal calm, even in the midst of turmoil and struggle. It’s the realization that things are going to work out for the good, even though all evidence appears to the contrary.
While I have to admit, it would be great to live in a world where there is no struggle or pain. We also have to realize that simply is not a reality. There is pain and struggle all over the place in our world. There is fear and apprehension, anxiety and worry all around us. Peace is an internal thing that allows us to navigate life even in the midst of these challenging situations, but where do we find it? How do we grab peace and make it define our present situation?
That’s the hard part because peace is not something we find by looking for it. I know that sounds kind of hopeless, but it’s the truth. We just can’t find peace by securing a bigger bully to help us when life is hard. We don’t find peace by amassing large amounts of money or power or prestige. Peace is a natural byproduct of a right set of relationships.
Throughout the Bible we’re told to trust God. For some people this is an easier task than for others. But the more we can trust God, the more peace we naturally have in life. I know that sounds kind of odd and pretty churchy, but it just is the way it is. When we are willing to give up control of our lives, we actually find greater peace. Trusting in God to function in his role as God allows us a greater peace than trying to earn, win or struggle for peace.
Look, if we’re going to boil this down to one simple thought, it’s that you won’t find peace by looking for it. You find peace only by surrendering.
One thing I see a lot of in the world is a unnecessary division between the church and the world. It’s pretty heartbreaking actually. A huge part of the problem is how the church has handled matters we disagree with over time. I’ve said for years that the world knows the church more by what it’s against than what it’s for.
We, and yes I include myself in this assessment, have spent far too much time with fingers pointing condemning, or at least speaking down about how people live their lives. That action is terrible. This lifestyle is wrong. They’re in an unholy place. How dare they do that action to that person. And the list goes on.
Before we get too far down the road here, it’s important to make sure you don’t hear something that’s not being said. I’m in no way saying we can’t differentiate between right and wrong. I’m also not saying we can’t call out a wrong when we see it. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it, and that’s the point of this week’s post.
Last week we asked the question why is the world the way it is. This week we turn the coin over and instead of looking at the world, we address the church. Paul does this really well in Romans 2. While looking at the world at the end of chapter one, he then turns and essentially says but you’re no better.
Ouch! That one hurts a bit. We’re no better. It was directed to the Jewish Christians and the Roman Christians of Paul’s day, but that message is transferrable to the 21st Century Christian Church as well. We’re no better.
Paul says in the first few verses of chapter two, and I’m paraphrasing here, How can you judge the world when you’re not following the rules yourself? That puts you in a really bad place to put it mildly. You can’t judge the world, then do the same, or similar, thing that you just condemned!
How about that one! We condemn the movements in the world around sexual preference, while not condemning the man who gives significantly to the church for having an affair. We look the other way when someone wins the lottery and gives the proceeds to the church, but frown upon people who gamble. We say abortion is wrong, but speak ill of our neighbor and call them derogatory names just because they look different.
You see the point of the whole thing here is that we know better. We don’t have an excuse either. If the world doesn’t have an excuse because God revealed himself in all of creation, then we don’t have any excuse either because we have God revealed to us in his Word. Significantly more clear evidence of God’s power and grace yet we ignore it so we don’t have to do the hard task of loving someone caught in a mess.
Paul will say numerous times in a variety of ways that all mankind has sinned and all mankind is therefore under the same judgment. If all sinned and if the wages of sin (all sin) is death, then all deserve death for the sins they’ve committed. Not just the people who’ve done the big things, whatever those big things are.
Look I get it. It’s hard to see things the way the Bible talks about it. Everyone is on the same playing field. Everyone is on level ground and just because I go to church doesn’t make me any better than someone who doesn’t. This is a huge misconception in the world.
The devil knows he can’t take a believer out of God’s hands. He can’t change their salvation as it were. But he can sterilize them and make them not live like they’ve received the grace needed to change their entire life.
Paul here is driving to the understanding that whether we’re in the church or outside the church, we’re guilty of missing the mark when it comes to fulfilling the law. If all sin and all fall short of the glory of God, and if the wages of all sin is death, then that means the death of Jesus can be applied to everyone. Unfortunately not everyone wants Jesus’ life and death applied to them. Some want to DIY their salvation. Some think they can do it themselves. And this is what leaves the world in such a messed up place.
When the church tries to look down its nose at the world around it just because they look and act different, it sterilizes the faith of the church. And when the church is sterile, it can’t grow and flourish.
Paul is addressing the church in Rome but I think he’s talking about us today as well. We’re without excuse when we condemn someone else and do a very similar thing. We’re without excuse when we rely on the grace of God but don’t give it to those around us. We’re without excuse when we beg God for mercy but don’t show it to others.
The point is we’re no better. But we’re all in need of God’s grace and lucky for us, while we were still messed up in our sins Jesus died for us…all of us.
Now admittedly the title of this post will likely mean some won’t even read it. Maybe you’re not a person with a church home and think there’s no way this will mean anything to you. Well if you’re still here, I’d like you to just keep going because while this is going to reference faith in God, there are some transferrable elements here to any belief structure.
There’s a book titled The Critical Journey where you can get more details on these stages. I’ll do my best to offer a very high level summary of my findings on these stages and how they apply to our lives today.
Submission
The book calls the first stage Recognition of God, but I want to go with a slightly different name. The idea is that in this stage you recognize you’re not in control of your life. There’s something or someone out there who’s guiding your life through. Some call it the universe which to me is a tad sci-fi. I call it God, and the way he does it is through the work of what the Bible calls the Holy Spirit.
In the first stage, we surrender or submit our lives to God. We acknowledge there are things we don’t know and things we can’t control. We recognize that God ultimately has our best interests at heart. We still live our lives. Not much externally will change here but inside there’s at least an acknowledgment that something is different.
Learning
The second stage is called Life of Discipleship and focuses on the growth of learning that takes place. As we have this recognition that God exists and is untimely for us, we then turn to learning more about who he is and how he functions. The Bible calls this discipleship, which is what the book uses as well.
The idea here is that the ways of God start to become more ingrained in who you are and how you live. The character is God is something you look for around you. Your learning is sinking in and shaping how you see the world around you. The transition to the next step then becomes easy the more you learn.
Achievement
The third stage of faith is when the submission and learning become doing. This is the Productive Life stage. There are things on the outside that start to change a little. We shift our time around to be in worship on Sundays. We set aside some of our household budget to give to the local church. We try to cuss less. You know all those things that happen when you’re not living your life just please yourself.
This stage is marked by outward expressions of our faith. We’re definitely not there yet as the saying goes, but we’re letting the learning start to chisel away the rough edges of our lives.
Reflection
There’s generally a time when we’ve done a lot of learning and started to become more active at church when we feel a need for something more. This is the Inward Journey stage.
Here we spend time meditating, praying, reflecting and wanting more than just surface level stuff. Sunday morning worship is great but we long for something more. We recognize that we need to take the Sunday morning event and move it into our relationships and darkest corners of our lives. There’s generally time spent in counseling to help dig deep into our inner lives to see what really makes us tick and how this whole faith thing will make a difference beyond an hour a week.
Journey
Sometime during the reflection stage and before we get to the Outward Journey stage we’re going to hit a wall. This is the place where the chaos of life hits us square between the eyes. It generally happens with a conflict or significant loss. The wall is found in an unexpected divorce, job loss, major conflict with friends. It happens when life is upside down and inside out. As we navigate the wall in front of us, the reflection stage will either loop us back to the beginning or propel us on a journey of outward expression of faith.
This fifth stage is all about living out in a very intentional way the elements of our faith that are critical. For Christians, this is changing the motivations of hearts to love. We often will continue to do what we’ve been doing, but now it’s for a different reason. Our motives become pure in light of the inner faith journey we’ve been through. We’re not perfected in love and we still struggle, but the fifth stage is really all about intentionally walking in the faith we claim.
Love
The sixth and final stage the book proposes is really living a life of love. That phrase is a bit sappy sounding but it’s not really all touchy feely, crying and hugging kind of love. The highest level of faith development is when the love for Christ and love for neighbor propel all of what we say and do.
Of course there will still be hiccups along the way. Of course we’ll falter and even fail in this process. The overarching idea however is that we have arrived at a place where the message of God’s love and mercy has been so internalized and applied to our relationships and struggles that it just oozes out of us everywhere we go.
Unfortunately, many people or perhaps even most people never make it past stage three. They get stuck in the achievements of faith section. They volunteer at church and show up for worship. They sing or perform or help on teams, but their level of faith is never really internalized or lived out in real time.
There will be some who make it to stage four but this and the wall associated with it normally serves as a strong roadblock to going further. Perhaps knowing the stages will be helpful in progressing through the cycle. Maybe if we know there can be more than just knowing God and his teachings then we’ll long to find a way to do that and it will shape how we live.
Wherever you are on the cycle, there’s always room to grow and mature. There’s always another step in the journey. Where are you?
A simple thought. An easy word really. But do we say it enough? Why is it so hard at times to say thanks?
Ok so it’s not that it’s hard to say, it’s that sometimes we forget to say it. At least that’s my biggest problem with today’s word. But did you know the more you say thanks, the harder it is to complain?
It’s a fact. You can’t be disgruntled about something and thankful at the same time. It’s like being blinded by light and in total darkness simultaneously. It just can’t happen!
Gratitude should probably be the word for today, but thanks is so much shorter of a word. A simple thank you can totally change someone’s day. And no I don’t just mean the person to whom you’re speaking either. I mean you. It can change your day.
Saying thank you over and over again for things will condition your brain to look for things for which you can be thankful. The more thankful you are the more you’ll say thank you and the more you’ll see things for which to be thankful. It’s like this crazy cycle of goodness!
Here’s a little secret as you try to implement this one in your life. You don’t always have to be overwhelmed with thanks to just say thank you. I’ve said thank you at times when I wasn’t really even sure that I was thankful. I did it because it felt like the right thing to do. I did it because I knew if I said thank you eventually my heart and head would catch up to my mouth. I don’t mean to be disingenuous by any means. But sometimes you have to say it out loud before you can feel it deep inside.
Today’s word comes with a challenge. What are some simple things that people do for you consistently that you could slow down long enough to thank them for today? Maybe it’s your spouse always making sure there’s food in the house – that should probably be one of mine. You know I can’t remember a time when I went to the pantry or the fridge and it was totally empty! And honestly I don’t know if I’ve ever said thanks to my wife for doing the whole people thing and going to the grocery. So here it is, in public for anyone who cares enough to read this, Thanks Dear for always making sure there’s food in the house!
I want you to walk with me for a few minutes. This walk will take you back in time a few years in my personal life. I’m going to bring you along for some key moments that make me a bit vulnerable, so be kind. This walk is not for any other purpose than to give you a window into my heart. I could go further back in time, but I think a couple of years will be sufficient.
We’ll start in the early summer months just a couple years ago. I received a phone call that I knew was coming but didn’t really want to receive. My grandma, who had been suffering for years with the debilitating disease known as Alzheimer’s, was moving into her final moments. I jumped in my truck and made my way to their house.
When I got there my family was already inside. They were smiling, crying, laughing, sobbing, reminiscing, and did I mention crying? These are normal reactions in a situation like this, so don’t read that as anything other than statement of fact.
I came in the house and said my hellos, told my grandma I was there, then took my place. That phrase took my place should sound odd because it kind of is. I took my place off to the side, out of the way. My feet were shoulder width apart. My hands tucked behind my back clasping one another. It was my official stance, in my official place. No tears. No emotion. I was there.
I see this moment and many others like it, like a piece of workout equipment at the gym. It’s like a sled that sits on the ground. There’s a picture of one above. It has handles standing up so you can push or pull it across the room. You add weight to make it more challenging. You can even attach straps to it and drag it like one of those strongest man competition kind of events where they pull a semi truck across a parking lot.
As I stood in the corner of the room, my family was talking and crying and wondering when this was going to happen. I stood there with the harness on my shoulders, down in my stance, ready to pull the sled across the room. All emotion was shut down in that moment. Something I’ve grown far too good at doing.
I watched closely as her breathing slowed. I’ve learned that breathing rhythms change as one starts to transition from this life. I felt the eerie presence of what I’ve come to know as death settle in the room. I looked at my mom and nodded as if to say It’s time. I did what we call the commendation of the dying, basically our version of last rights (kind of). When I finished, I told my family they probably had a few minutes to do one last goodbye. Sure enough, the breathing stopped. Everyone knew it. No one wanted to admit it.
The tears flowed. Words were lost. They really didn’t know what to do. The hospice nurse helped contact the funeral director to come gather the body. When he arrived, he didn’t have any help so he asked me to help move the body to the gurney. I’ve done this before but didn’t even think I’d do it in this situation.
I lowered my stance. Grabbed the harness on my shoulders. Dug in my footing and pulled. This is what it felt like. My emotion was shifted to drive. Instead of tears falling down my face, my hands lifted her body from one bed to another. I know they didn’t think this but the looks on my family’s faces were just simple shock. How can you do that and it not tear you up? Are you an animal? Alien? Robot? As long as I’m in my drive stance, there isn’t much room for emotion. My sadness turns to drive. My joy turns to drive. It’s really all I know at times.
Nearly a year later my grandpa died, then my other grandpa, then my wife’s grandma who was like a grandma to me as well. All of them gone within a couple year span of time. I didn’t cry at any of them. I conducted their funeral services with not so much as a tear. And no that’s not bragging. That’s the point of this post. I didn’t know how to cry. I just knew how to push, pull, drive.
A year later a great family of close friends left to pursue new endeavors in a new area. We had grown pretty darn close through our time shared, but now they were gone. My feet dug into the ground. The sled kept moving. As long as my legs didn’t stop moving, the sled would continue. As long as my feet kept churning, the pressure, pain and struggle wouldn’t seem so bad.
In all of that, my son left for service in the US Army. I didn’t know what it would look like or how it would end. I was wrecked inside. When I was in public my feet dug deeper into the ground. I pulled like I’ve never pulled before. But I didn’t realize that all of these things, and so many more I haven’t mentioned, were weights added to the sled. As long as I kept moving, I could pull it.
My wife, unfortunately, bore a heavy load through all of this. She saw me fall apart when my son left. She saw me flat on the ground (literally) unable to hold myself together. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t keep food down. I couldn’t even workout. The weight had gotten too much. I couldn’t keep it together anymore and since home was my safe place I fell apart. She was worried. I was a mess. But when we left the house, I got in my stance, grabbed that harness, dug my feet in the ground and started pulling. I was moving slower this time but I thought as long as I move I’ll be ok.
Ok now take a breath all of you. This is not a post about my ability to push through. It’s not a post about how strong I am. It’s a post about my faults and my brokenness. It’s a post about weakness and a major flaw. I’ve told you all before that I can drive. It’s part of my personality. That theme song from a few weeks ago tells the story of my drive, but what is easily missed in that song is the reason for the drive. But what I didn’t spell out for you specifically is that drive isn’t fed by personal ambition. It’s often fed by an inability to properly process emotion in public. I couldn’t do it because I felt weak. I don’t like feeling like people can’t count on me and when I was feeling broken I felt like I was letting the world down. So I tightened the shoulder straps of that harness, lowered my center of gravity, used my hands to balance, and dug in using power and energy that I really didn’t even have.
Why do I share this? Simple. Don’t be like me. The apostle Paul said to follow me as I follow Christ. I’m telling you don’t do life my way. It really isn’t good. Yeah I can push and pull and drive, but it doesn’t always end well. If you’ve been on the road around me in the midst of one of these emotionally charged moments, you’ve probably seen it. You might have even been hit by the sled I was pulling. It wasn’t intentional. Some days I’m way better than others. Some days are…well let’s not talk about those.
Why do I share this? The power of the church is that you (and I) don’t have to live this way. The church is the body of Christ. It’s the collective strength of every part of who God called us to be. This is likely why the writer of Hebrews says not to give up meeting together. The more isolated we are, the harder life is. The more distance we allow to grow between us, the more challenging life is for everyone. Get together. Find people you can trust and ask if they’ll help grab the sled with you. Maybe they’ll even help you by lifting a weight off of the sled so it’s not so hard to pull.
We all have to drive at times in life. But we don’t have to do it alone. When it’s time to pull your sled, remember there are people around you who want to help you. And if you happen to be one of those people around me, be patient as I try to figure out how to convert some of this drive back into a healthier alternative.
Now that we’ve turned the page on the calendar and have opened up a brand new year of possibilities, it’s time to dig in a little deeper into this idea of discipleship and spiritual formation. This will hopefully be the Friday rhythm for 2024 (only time will tell how well I hold to this schedule).
If we’re going to get started getting serious about discipleship, then we should probably start by taking a look at the master. I mean after all, the only way to be great at something is to follow the one who was the best at it. Right?
And since I’m a pastor and the whole topic of discipleship is a biblical one, you probably already guessed who the master is. But for those of you who are a bit late to the party, his name is Jesus. He kind of wrote the book on discipleship. Literally.
So Jesus was a real guy, very few people argue about that one. And for those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, we believe that he was also the Son of God. There’s also some pretty stark evidence to that fact as well. Regardless of what you believe about Jesus, pretty much everyone can agree that he had a pretty stellar way of doing life. I mean, if he wasn’t the Son of God and yet got thousands of people to follow him, then he’s probably pretty good at getting people on board with his way of thinking.
How did he do it? I mean, the whole discipleship thing. Remember the definition I work with is that Discipleship is the process of being transformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others. With that in mind, how did Jesus get the people of his day to actually follow him closely enough to want to do what he did.
Think about the story in the Bible of Jesus walking on the water. He’s out there for a nice evening stroll across the water by himself. His disciples are in the boat trying to get through the head wind, when one of them sees him. Not knowing what was going on and realizing that water walking was not a normal part of life, they kind of freaked out. Then Peter, the kind of rash one, asked Jesus to call him to the water.
Wait! Did you hear that? If it’s you, Jesus, call me to come to you. What would make a man who knows how water works, want to attempt to walk on water? He probably didn’t have the class on the idea of buoyancy, but he still knew that people did not walk on water. So why?
It’s the discipleship done the Jesus way. He didn’t coerce people to follow him. He didn’t bait and switch them. He didn’t try to sell them on anything fancy. He just said Come. Follow me. That’s it.
I think a huge part of discipleship the Jesus way, is about authenticity and integrity. These two words really go hand in hand and will likely make it to the word of the week post in the near future. The long and short of these two ideas is that he was real. He was the same in public and in private. And the disciples saw that. The men and women of his day saw that. And they were attracted to the realism of that way of life. There are plenty of fakes out there, so it makes sense to want to model your life after someone who is real.
The other part of it was that Jesus cared. So much of our discipleship ideology in today’s church culture is about classes and rituals. Not so much with Jesus. He wanted people to know how much he cared. He did it by being where the people were. Getting his hands dirty. Serving the people no one wanted to serve.
If we’re going to learn from the Master and do discipleship the Jesus way, then we need to start with knowing who we are and actually caring about the people in the world around us. If we start with caring, and I mean genuinely caring, then we’ll be leaps and bounds ahead of where we are now. By the way, genuinely caring means we don’t just say we care. It means we do something with that care and compassion. That’s a great start at discipleship the Jesus way.
This is one of my least favorite questions ever. Inevitably I get asked this question by someone I’ve recently met or with whom I’m just getting a relationship built. And as soon as this question is answered, the conversation stops. I mean the conversation stops as abruptly as a car hitting a brick wall.
Part of the reason is my title. Some people have the title of CEO and it sounds all spicy and cool. Others have Officer or Engineer or Lead something or another. But my title is scary for some people. What do you do? I’m a pastor.
Insert the sound of a car screeching its tires coming to a stop.
The next thing that happens is one of three options. The least likely is for the person to say something like Oh that’s super cool! I’ve always wanted to know a pastor. Admittedly, this one is so unlikely that it’s never actually happened! But I guess it always could?
The next potential reaction would be for the conversation to just stop and the person to act like I no longer exist. This has actually happened a couple of times. It’s almost as if we’re having a great conversation. They find out I’m a pastor, and then I disappear. It’s like I vanish from their midst and they go on to something else like I’ve been transported through some wormhole into a different dimension of time and space. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling.
The most common reaction I get is Oh wow I’m sorry! As weird as this sounds, it always gives me a chuckle. You’re sorry? Really? For what? It’s not like someone held a gun to my head and told me to be a pastor or else. Actually I had a few people who tried to convince me to do something different with my life. What this question actually means however is Oh crap! I’m so sorry! I know I said something that probably offended you and now you’re going to say some magical phrase that’s going to get me banished to hell forever. Or something close to that anyway.
I think the problem is that people, and by people I mean those not connected to a church and those connected to a church, really don’t know what it means for a person to be a pastor. I don’t intend for that to be demeaning toward people by any means. It’s just most people have a pretty limited view of what a pastor does.
I’m the backside of many of those must be nice to only work one day a week kind of jokes. And yes I do know they are joking. But I also think it does show that many people, again both inside and outside of the church, don’t really know what it is that I do.
What do you do? Ok so let’s hit the obvious. I preach and teach about the Bible on Sunday. That’s kind of the given part of this whole scenario. What most people don’t know however is how long it takes to get ready for a given Sunday. I mean when I stand up front on a Sunday without notes and no cool teleprompter, there are 20+ hours that go into making that a reality. I could skimp on that and lessen the teaching but if I do that I should be fired. Without a script or anything it may look like I’m just winging it, but there’s a lot that goes into those couple of hours on a Sunday.
Add to that, there’s preparing small group material, overseeing other staff members, being a volunteer coordinator for over 150 volunteers throughout the year, party planner for those who want fun events but don’t know how to plan them, ensure that all the wheels are greased and running smoothly. Oh then there’s visiting those who are in hospitals and shut ins. Being involved in the community enough that the community knows we exist and are here for them. Did I mention being somewhat accessible nearly 24-7?
What do you do? Well, I’ve canceled vacations because someone has been on their deathbed. I hear some of the most awful stories of brokenness imaginable. Stories I can’t share with anyone, even my wife, because part of being a pastor is confidentiality and trust. I have to watch people say and do some pretty dumb things and not react too harshly in the moment. (sometimes I’m better at this than others).
What do you do? I get up a 2am when you’re having the worst night of your life. I come to your bedside when you’re terrified. I’m the one standing in the room when your loved one is struggling with their final moments. I’m there to carry you when your marriage is shattered. I shift my schedule to meet with you because you have a day job and my schedule is more flexible. I stand in the room with the lifeless body until the coroner comes. I hold in my emotions so you feel free to unload yours.
What do you do? My favorite is when people tell me they’ve just finished a long 3 week stretch of working 60 hours a week. I mean that can be tiring I’m sure. If I were to log my hours, I’d say more than 3 out of every 4 weeks I’m logging about 60. From time preparing sermons to praying for you, from practicing to preaching, from creating programs to coming in to pinch hit when someone can’t show up, from teaching at least 2 different groups on 2 different topics per week to so many more things that you’re already bored reading this.
What do you do? I carry the spiritual, emotional and at times physical needs of over 250 people. I take it very seriously. If you know me, then you know what I do is give up myself for those +/-250 people. And lest you think this is me complaining, let me be very clear. I choose to do it again year after year, month after month, week after week, day after day.
Being a pastor isn’t just what I do. It’s who I am. It’s not just a job. It’s my very calling. This is what I’ve been made to be. I could do a million other things, but none of them are what God made me to do. What do I do? Well, simply put, I’m a pastor. More than a job, this is my life. And I’m so honored to be able to do all of it.
Twas the night before Christmas, when Mary and Jo In a manger were resting for their baby to show A stable was where they would make up their beds And straw was the pillow they’d use for their heads.
The evening was ending, the time was at hand A baby named Jesus was born in that land. She wrapped him up tight and swaddled him close With this child came God’s love, and a heavenly dose!
And when he was born heaven opened its light And shined on some shepherds in a field that dark night. They fell to the ground and were filled with great fear, But the angel spoke quickly, “Do not shed one tear.”
I bring you good news of great joy on this night A child has been born to take all your fright. Yes a son has been born and Christ is his name, More angels then showed to sing of his fame.
O Glory and Honor Yes praise to the King O Glory and Honor Let your peace here reign. He came down from heaven He came down for all, To die for you, Rise for you Saving you all!
We all know the story, we’ve heard it before, How he died and he rose to open heaven’s door. A cross and some thorns were the gifts that we gave, His life for ours, it’s us he did save.
And now, in our churches, we gather and sing, All honor and glory to this child, our king. For he is our hope and our peace and our light Yes he is God’s love that came Christmas night.
Now off to your homes, go forth with God’s blessing. The Father and Spirit and Son you surrounding. May God bless you this night, as he shows you his love. Merry Christmas to you, may you know God’s Great Love!
Our final stop on this Advent journey is most certainly an unexpected place. Before we can really understand the events of the next couple of days, we need to see their unexpected end. We take it for granted mostly because we know the end of the story, but hit the pause button today and think about this one.
Jesus was the long expected child to be born. John 1 tells us that He was born to be a light in the darkest place imaginable. He would bring peace to a people who knew no such peace. He would instill joy in the hearts of all who would know him.
Imagine the look on Mary’s face when she held him that first time. The shock that Joseph experienced when he heard his tiny cry. Then fast forward just 33 years.
The same face that smiled as she held her first child now has a hard time seeing anything through the tears on her face. The light that came into the world for a moment is overshadowed by darkness once again. The peace that rang through the hillside at the birth of this baby, has quickly turned to shouts of death and murder. The life that came in a manger would now be laid bare on the cross.
This is the story of Advent. It’s the story of Jesus. It’s the story of why he came the way he came. None of it matters if this is missing. The unexpected end would bring an unexpected result…his death would mean our life. If his life meant our peace and joy in this life, his death would amplify that peace and expound on that joy. His unexpected end means our unexpected beginning!
