Editing My Friends List

Most people are on some sort of social networking site (or several). Those who are may have edited their friends list. Over the course of time, you get to be "friends" with people who fade from your life or whom you never really knew anyway. Some may be people you met once and thought they were really cool, but never had a reason or opportunity to speak to them again. And so you purge your friends list from time to time. Or I do, about once a year.

There's so-and-so who friended me and I know I knew them in college, but we were never really friends, so he's gone. Here's a woman I dated a few times, but she's far enough away that our paths will never cross and I think she's seeing someone else anyway, so sayonara to her. There's another person who can't seem to have a conversation with me without telling me how awful their life is, so adios.

Some of the reasons I use to clean up my friends list may be perfectly valid; others, perhaps not. But I've rarely gone out with the intention of meeting people, much less adding them to my friends list. It's not just that I'm introverted, it's that my friendships just sort of happen. I don't actively seek out new people, let alone try to get a certain type of person as a friend. Granted, most of my opportunities to meet new people comes through church, so the variety of my pool is a bit limited, but even if it wasn't, would I actively seek out those who need a friend the most?

We all need friends, whether Christian or not, but those without Christ need not just me as their friend, but an example of what Christ is like. Do we really show that to people? Do we seek out opportunities to do it? Jesus didn't hang out with the church crowd all the time. Yes, He spoke in synagogues and talked to Pharisees and Sadducees, but He also made fast friends with prostitutes, tax collectors (who were essentially government-sanctioned thieves), adulterers, and other such "unholy" people.

I once had dinner with a former prostitute. I was going for a walk back when I lived in Tulsa and she wanted someone to escort her to IHOP across several parking lots and then across a street. It was pretty late and the parking lots were dark, so I agreed to that and then she insisted on buying me dinner and she told me her story. She'd gotten saved a few years before that night and was trying to get into the college I'd just graduated from. I listened and thought it was a good story, but I honestly don't know if I'd have had dinner with her if she was a prostitute at the time. I almost certainly wouldn't have sought out her company to hear her story and talk to her about God. I don't think about such things often now and I don't have that many opportunities (or perhaps I simply don't make them), but I wonder if I would take them if they appeared before me.

About a year ago, a few friends and I were coming back from a basketball game and taking the metro out to a station. There was a woman who was trying to hold it in, but was crying and obviously in deep emotional pain. I felt an urge to talk to her, but I didn't. I was afraid of her snapping at me, of making a fool of myself, of embarrassing her, and just thought she would clam up, apologize for crying, and say everything was fine.

Perhaps the most striking example, though only because I know the end result, was that someone I worked with when I first moved into the area committed suicide. He was even newer than I was and messed up big-time about a month or two in. My boss, who seemed close to the CEO, told me this guy would be fired. I felt bad, because I was getting to know this guy; he sat right next to me. This guy called me that night and asked point blank if I knew whether he was getting fired. I couldn't lie to him, but I told him maybe if he promised to make things right, his boss and the CEO might give him another chance. I told him to come in on Monday (this mess happened on a Friday), apologize, and work his butt off to fix it and see what happens. He mentioned something about, "If I never see you again, thanks for being a good friend." In retrospect, maybe that should have warned me more clearly, but I thought he just meant if he was fired, our paths likely wouldn't cross.

The next day, he killed himself.

I'm not saying I take responsibility for his decision or that it's my fault this happened. What I am saying is maybe I was supposed to say something to him sooner, something about God or getting to know him on a more personal level or just something that would give him hope...and I didn't. He was just a work friend to me.

I know it's impractical and potentially dangerous to just be friends with everyone. Unless God guides me to, I'm not going to go downtown and preach to a gang (and even then, it would have to be a strong guidance). I also recognize that it can be a bad idea to hang out with people who do things that you struggle with. A person struggling with lust might not be the best evangelist to a prostitute, for example. Yet how many people do we pass every day who look like maybe they just want someone to talk to? Like they're trying to see a glimmer of hope in a life that's falling apart at the seams? Like they need Jesus?

Maybe it's time for me to edit my friends list in a different way, not in cutting people, but in finding people who really need, not another friend, but a true Friend.

All The Time

I had a weekend that made me question God's goodness. The details of all that happened aren't important (well, not for purposes of this post. I haven't even told my closest friends what happened.), but my questioning of God is.

We just have a different view of good than God does. Our view of good is what we want; His view of good is what we need. Even keeping that in mind, though, doesn't make it easy to trust that God is good if you can't see how something in your life is going to help you in any way.

We humans are terrible at a lot of things: putting others ahead of ourselves consistently, focusing on the future and not the present, focusing on the big picture and not the little things, remembering that what is invisible can be more important than what we can see or touch, and (for me, at least) singing. But one thing we're very good at is looking for reasons behind things. Even four-year-olds constantly ask "Why?" about almost everything around them. As adults, we can take a lot of things if only we know the reason for them.

And perhaps that's what made me question this weekend whether God is truly good. I had something bad happen and can't find the reason for it; thus, God is not always good...or so goes my logic. If that is the case, then it is not that I don't always get what I want that makes me question His goodness, but that there is uncertainty. I'm willing to accept that which will hurt me initially if it will help me long-term, but not willing to accept pain without reason. It's the uncertainty that made me question Him.

Anyone who's spent time around a four-year-old knows there comes a point in time in which the target of their questions runs out of answers, throws up their hands, and says, "Because!" It might not be a bad strategy for me in seeking an answer. I can ask why all I want, but at the end of the day, what happened happened. There's nothing I can really do about it, no way I can change it. All that there is left to do is trust God, just because...He is good...all the time.

Addictions

Our pastor is talking about addictions now, what they are and why we can't stop. Most people know what they really are: things we do because we believe they will ease our pain and make us happy...at least for a little while. Whether the addiction has a physical component like many drugs or is purely mental, they're all attempts at escape.

In a discussion group we have after the sermon, one woman told of a recent high school grad she knew who smokes marijuana often because, according to him, it's the one thing that keeps him from committing suicide. I've had other addictions for the same reason, to restore just one shred of the happiness that was missing from my world.

And we can get addicted to pretty much anything, even things that are normally good. I've known someone who was addicted to volunteering and burnt himself out. Others can be addicted to being around people, work, shopping, or a bunch of other things we don't normally consider addictions or that we don't consider to be as bad as being addicted to sex, drugs, alcohol, and gambling.

In a way, though, these lesser addictions can be more dangerous. The point of addictions is escape from something, usually a certain high level of stress. It's easy to realize a drug addiction is dangerous, but how bad could an addiction to work really be? You make a lot of money to support your family, get a lot done, get the respect of coworkers, and might even be able to retire a few years early.

One problem with this is that if you're addicted, you'll never be able to stop working, even if you have the money to. A bigger problem is that as long as you keep telling yourself it's not an addiction or, perhaps worse, that it's a positive addiction, the longer you'll keep using it to ignore the problem you're escaping from.

And what are we trying to escape from? I want you to ask yourself that question. I also want you to honestly examine your life for any behavior that may be an addiction. In my life, I have one of the "lesser evil" addictions, yet it sucks dozens of hours of my time away each week.

Then I want you to think about how to break these addictions. I'm going to think about it, too (because I really don't know for sure). It's too easy to say "give it up to God," and, though that's certainly a part of it, what does that mean on a practical level?

For me, on a practical level, it means I'm going to start limiting the time spent on hulu and video games (my lesser evil addiction), particularly during work hours. I might even turn off my wireless internet card to make accessing hulu impossible. I will also have to fill my time with something more wholesome while not getting addicted to my replacement.

The real issue, though, is I have to find what I'm trying to escape from and deal with it with God's help. It's not enough to change habits; we have to change our hearts. We have to replace what we feel will give us happiness with what will truly satisfy us. Otherwise, we'll all be addicted to trying to please ourselves.

Take It All Away

I've been thinking a lot lately about why some people are so closed to the message of the Gospel. The real message is that God loves everyone, that we need salvation, but that salvation is a free gift for us. Who could hate such a message?

My first answer was that the message was being misrepresented and that's true. Many Christians are protesting loudly things like the legalization of homosexual marriage and some (*cough*Westboro Baptist Church*cough*) are making national headlines by protesting at funerals. Whether well-intentioned or not, the message from such protests is that the person is not ok, not lovable, not accepted...until they've changed and become more like the protesters.

But Jesus never demanded that people be like Him before He loved them. He didn't make them get saved before He healed them. They simply had to have faith that He could heal them, which is the same faith they might have accorded to one of the prophets. He hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors, adulterers, and thieves (that last one literally), but didn't seem to have made many friends in the church. His message is not that we have to be perfect, but that we can't be and yet He loves us anyway and offers to save us from ourselves.

The message has been corrupted by the church. People hear, "You're not good enough because you're not saved." Who would want a God that will only love them if they're perfect, since everyone knows they're not? Who would trust someone who spread such a message, since that person is a hypocrite?

Now, though, I think there's another reason why it's so hard for many non-Christians to believe. I have several friends who grew up in non-Christian homes or who rebelled as teens. Underage drinking, drugs, sex, shoplifting, and other things were done regularly, with sex being the one they were often most addicted to. When they became Christians, it was difficult for them to let go of that past life. Even if they were no longer committing the actions, they were thinking about doing them, longing to do them.

For someone without Christ, that may well be how they see the message: "Ok, I get salvation, but I have to wait until I'm dead to use it. You have no proof of an afterlife, so there's a chance I'm wasting my only chance to be happy. Also, if I can be saved any time before I die, why should I be saved now? I don't want to give up sex [or whatever else is their idol] because it's the only thing I have that makes me happy. Sure, it makes me miserable and empty at times, too, but it's all I have."

Read that last sentence again. People will defend the best thing they have in their lives, rather than risk losing it, even if the thing they're defending is hurting more than helping. When we as Christians go out and preach the Gospel, we have to understand that the world has these things that are slowly killing them (and that they probably know are slowly killing them), but that they can't give up because they have nothing better to replace it with. We can't just tell them to give up what they're doing. To be honest, I'm not even sure we're supposed to preach that at least until we've shown them something better and they understand that it's better. How can we expect them to change without motivation? It's hard enough to change even with motivation!

One of my friends has a quote from me on a sticky note that says, "God is like a garbageman: He will only take what you leave out for Him." I was half right. What I didn't say is that He gives you what you need to leave it out for Him, too. By that I mean few people would throw out a computer before they have a new one. You throw out the old once you have something better. If I don't have enough of God in my life, I will fill that void with whatever I can and hold on to that garbage. With God in there, I can let go, put that out by the curb. I can finally let Him take it all away.

The God of Traffic Lights and Parking Spots

There is a notoriously long light near where I live that I almost always seem to get to just as it's turning red for the arrow left. I wait for three or four minutes for it to turn, usually impatiently, particularly since if I had been just ten seconds earlier, I could have saved myself four minutes. Yesterday, I was running a couple minutes late for church and I got to this light just as it turned yellow on the cross road, so I got the green arrow within seconds of stopping. I looked upward and said a little thank you to God and then a thought hit me:

Why am I more grateful this morning that a traffic light went in my favor than I am for the gift of salvation?

I didn't know what to say. I'm not even sure I know the answer, even though I've had a full day since then to think about it.

I think there are several reasons. First is that we tend to forget about or take for granted things we already have. Most people in the world still don't have their own laptop, their own car, a GPS, and an HDTV, yet here I'm typing merrily away on the first, with the others at my disposal and I haven't thought about them today until I typed this. I haven't thought about how grateful I am to have a mother that sacrificed so much for us or friends that are still friends even after...I've shown how human I am.

I treat salvation like this. I have it, and so it's not important enough to me to think about every day. What I think about every day instead are the things I don't have and really want.

Perhaps the real problem is that I see the goal as having been accomplished. I have salvation. Yay! Now on to something else. The reality is that even though I will go to Heaven when I die, the journey is just starting. I have lived nearly 30 years. This means, statistically, that I have about 50 to go. Considering that I'm living healthier now and have never smoked, drank all that much, done drugs, or often tried risky and dangerous things, and also that longevity runs in the family, it's not out of the question that I could hit 90 or even 100. In other words, I still probably have nearly 2/3 (possibly more) of my life yet to live.

In my near 30 years, I've learned so much, developed all sorts of good and bad characteristics, corrected some of the bad ones, seen some of the good ones wane, and have become an overall better person in the last three years. I had put my life on hold for five years after college (and in some ways, even the last two years), but I know I need to get it moving again.

I am playing Final Fantasy VII for probably the twentieth time and I love the game not only for the story and gameplay, but for how I level up. I get stronger through new weapons, abilities, armor, and levels. I don't feel this way in the real world. I don't feel like I've improved too much in most areas and I need that sense of accomplishment and progress. The reality, though, is that I am still a low-level Christian, with so much room for growth, so many battles left to fight, and prizes far greater than anything found in a game waiting for me to discover them.

I think another part of the problem is that we focus too much on what's right in front of us. At my old job, we had a phrase "putting out fires" to describe our general mindset. We would ignore things until they became an emergency and then have to deal with them. Because we didn't proactively deal with issues very well, it was one fire after another, leaving us little time to think ahead, so the problem was cyclical. My life tends to be like that. I focus on what I want, not what I need, and so I have neither most of the time, which leaves me wanting what I want even more.

We forget not only that there is something greater than us and our wants, but also that there is a future. When I'm stuck at a light and know I'm going to be late somewhere, I'm not thinking that it probably doesn't matter to anyone but me when I show up or that by tomorrow, everyone who does notice will probably have forgotten anyway, or that a week from now I won't even think about it again; I'm thinking that I can't fail them or embarrass myself by not being punctual.

During all this, I forget that God loves me sometimes. I question how good He is because He's letting me be late by not making the traffic light go my way, forgetting what Jesus did for me, how much attention God gives to everything I do, and how deep His mercy runs for me. I try to remind myself of it at times, but I often make Him the God of Traffic Lights and Parking Spots more than the God of my life. I wish I could find a way to see Him as glorious and amazing as He really is...and remember it the next time I'm stuck at that light.

Hypocrite

I am about to deliver my first sermon tomorrow. I was supposed to deliver it two weeks ago, but our young adults group was snowed out both last week and the week before. I was confident those two weeks, confident in the sermon, in my ability to present it, and in myself.

This weekend changed all that. I now feel like a hypocrite for saying what I'm going to say. The message is about how to change. Tomorrow will be about the ways we fail to change, and then next week will be the true reason we fail and how to actually start a real change in our hearts. (I had to condense a three-week series to two weeks due to the cancellations.) I feel like a hypocrite because this weekend revealed to me that I hadn't changed as much as I thought I had. I'm still me. I still struggle with things that I know in my head should be given over to God, that are senseless for me to worry about and impossible for me to do anything about.

And maybe this is the best thing that could have happened for the series. I say that not only because it will make me rely on God and God alone for the delivery of the message, but it adds a strong element of honesty to it. I have the changes that have happened, thank God, but my idealistic "I'm all better now" facade that I've lied to myself with has been put away...at least for the time being.

What this weekend should have done for me is give me more compassion for those who also struggle to change. It has a little, but mostly, it fed my anger and self-hatred. Why? Because I haven't changed as much as I had thought. My heart is still mostly what it was. I still base my happiness on what others think of me and focus on all the negatives that I perceive. I still base my self-image on what I can or can't do and it kills me because it's never enough...it's never going to be enough.

I was proud of a change that had I had not accomplished and that has not been completed yet. Maybe that's why God let the other meetings be canceled, because He wanted me to be reminded of my dependence on Him in my heart and not just my head. Whatever the case, I am happy that I went through this weekend. It's good sometimes to be reminded just how easily we can become our own biggest enemies and roadblocks.

Namaste

I have a friend and former coworker from India. She recently wrote a blog entry about the real meaning of "Namaste." If you've ever done yoga, you've probably heard of this pose or had the instructor say it to you on your way out. I just started yoga as part of the P90X program, but I didn't know what it meant. It means, "In you I see the divine."

As a non-Christian, my friend embraced this concept, that there's something divine in all of us, from a child's smile to a stranger's tears to our dreams about our destiny. I got to thinking about whether I can agree with this as a Christian.

On the one hand, I'm not divine. I'm a sinner. I'm not worthy of worship, nor am I perfect. The definition of divine I usually go with is being God-like or proceeding directly from God and being holy and pure. That definition doesn't really describe any of us, does it?

And yet, the Bible says God created us in His image. We have our emotions, inherent sense of justice, ability to love (even though ours is impure), and free will from Him. Moreover, 1 Peter 1:16 commands us, "Be you holy, as I am holy." We're supposed to become more Christlike as we draw closer to God, not in any sense that we become worthier of worship, but that we become examples to others of God's love for them. When people see us, they see the change Jesus has worked through us.

In my friend's blog, this divinity was based on who the person was and not the Creator. Should we not be trying, though, to make that a true statement when people look at us, "In you I see the Divine"? In you, I see the love of God. In you, I see an example of what God wants people to be. Namaste.