Andy The Squirrel

Funny Farm, with Chevy Chase, is one of my favorite movies, maybe because sometimes I feel like Andy Farmer, the main character.  If you haven't seen Funny Farm, I'll give you a quick plot synopsis.  Andy is a sports journalist in the city, but decides to follow his dream of writing a great American novel.  He gives up everything for his dream.  Andy and his wife bought a farm in Vermont, for the solitude of nature to allow Andy to concentrate on writing his book.  He has a $10,000 loan from his publisher to get started, and everything is on the line.

The movie is hilarious, we follow Andy as he struggles to concentrate, constantly being interrupted by his outraged, drunken mailman, his runaway dog, snakes, and an entire small-town that hates him. 
When Andy finally finishes his book, he takes his wife out to a nice dinner, checks in to a romantic bed and breakfast, sits her down by the fire, right before bed, cracks open some champagne, and presents her with his finished work.  She sits down, and over the next few hours, he watches her with great anticipation as she reads his book.  When she finishes, he says "Alright, I'm ready, what did you think?" She looks into his eyes, and bursts into tears.  She says "I never knew what was going on, in the first 20 pages, there were 3 flashbacks, a flash forward, and on page 8, I think there was a flash sideways!" "What about the story?" he asks.  She looks at him confused and says "Story? What story?" He replies, "Well, what should I do? Take out the flashbacks? Re-write the opening? I could do that!" She replies, "Burn it!" From that point on, Andy has it rough.  He wrecks his car, breaks his arm, sleeps in, drinks too much, and sets traps for the mailman.  He has given up on his dream of writing.

One night, Andy's wife sits him down by the fire, brings him a hot cup of coffee, and explains to him that she had written a book in her spare time, and sent it off to a publisher, who in turn mailed her a contract, a typed copy of her manuscript and a check for $5,000.  He says to her "You wrote a book, and then you sold it? That's wonderful, what kind of book?" She says "It's a children's book, about animals. Well, squirrels mostly. It's about this squirrel who lives in Central Park that falls asleep in the back of a delivery truck, and wakes up in the country. He has some funny misadventures, and he makes all kinds of mistakes... Because he is from the city, and he is completely out of his element." "The squirrel is me, isn't it?" he asks.  "No!" She says "of course not!" "What is is name?" He asks.  She replies  "Um... Andy.  But don't get mad, you were my inspiration!" She goes on to reveal that Andy the squirrel gets run over by a truck at the end of the book.

It is a pretty funny part of the movie, but you are probably wondering where I am going with it.
When I saw this movie, my heart broke for Andy.  Despite his hard work, talent, and self confidence; his dreams, his ambitions and career had failed. In the beginning of the film, Andy fully expected to move to the country, and write the best American Novel that had ever been written, but one failure after another left him empty, and hopeless. Has that ever happened to you?  Have you ever felt so hopeless in your failures that you just wish you could start over?  I know I have, and it is difficult place to be in.

Often, when I have felt this way in my life, when I investigate my soul, and find the source. It is me.
I am my own worst enemy.  When I try to do everything on my own, I fail, every time.  I kind of hate when people say "God will not give you more than you can handle!" I believe that is good theology that has been twisted into an ideal that is not realistic, and besides, at what point can you "not handle it" when your head explodes? Anyways, I digress.  The truth is, with or without God, everyone will be given more than they can handle, the only difference is those who have faith in God, and allow Him to intervene in their lives.  As humans, we are hopeless, rancid, depraved sinners, incapable of greatness.  However, sometimes, what we fail to understand is that, anything great is something we can not handle, only through God can greatness be achieved.

I have never been one to ask for help.
But I have realized that if I don't ask for help, I will never achieve the greatness that God has planned for my life.  So, I anticipate difficulty, knowing that God will carry me through to greatness, so long as I give him my everything.


"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you."
 -1 Peter 4:12-14 (ESV)

Avengers

The other night, Emily and I went on a much needed date night, and decided to go to see The Avengers.  When we got there, we saw that it was playing in IMAX3D, neither of us had ever seen an IMAX3D movie before, We had a gift card to the movie theater, and we hardly ever go see movies, and if we were to see a movie in IMAX3D, the Avengers would be perfect.  Explosions, cars flying everywhere, planes crashing, and it is almost three hours long.  So, we did it.  It was incredible, I the best movie theater experience I have ever had!

I love the feeling you get when you walk out of a superhero movie.
You feel absolutely pumped!  You feel like you could lift a car, or fight off anybody.
Usually, most of us probably wouldn't fight back if we were mugged, we would just hand over our wallet.  After all, its not worth it to risk your life.  But, if we got mugged after a movie like that, we might try to Avenge our wallet!

Why do we feel like that?  Why do action/superhero movies make us feel invincible?
Why do suspenseful movies make us jump?
Why do horror movies make us afraid to walk to the bathroom at night?
Why do Romantic movies make us want to snuggle?

It is because we love a good story.  We focus so intently on the plot, that we actually care, and show concern for the fictitious characters in the movies.  When we went to see The Avengers IMAX3D, at one point, I took off my 3D glasses, and looked around the theater.  Everyone was making the funniest faces.  Their mouths were open, they were gasping, on the edge of their seats, none of them were at all concerned how they looked, and each person was so focused, and emotionally invested in the movie, that they acted as if they were alone in the theater.

It was a great movie, maybe the best I've ever seen, but can you imagine how incredible our relationship with Christ could be if we treated Him and His word this way?  I mean, when was the last time you gasped, jumped or cried while reading God's word?  If we viewed the gospel in the same way, we would get pumped up about God's word.  We would feel invincible under His protection.  We would be so focused on God, that we wouldn't care how we looked around others.

As amazing as that movie was, that was the one thing I took away from it, that convicted me.
Thor is awesome, but he isn't real.  Tony Stark is hilarious, but him and his suit do not exist. 
Jesus Christ is real, and the true story depicted in His word not only saves our lives, but our eternity.
We all want to be a superhero.  We want to save humanity and stand over an evil villain victorious.
We have the opportunity to do that every day, it may not be as glamorous, but it is far more urgent.

Black Widow: "Don't go after them, the are basically gods."
Captain America: "Ma'am, there's only one God, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that."

Enough

One thing about God's Word that I love, is the mixture of humanity and divinity: Almost every time we learn something new, we bask in our new found wisdom for a season, but eventually the new wears off, and our humanity discards our wisdom for it's skewed perception of reality, only to leave us to re-learn the same lesson the next time we find ourselves looking for answers to why our plan didn't work.

For me, the lesson I continue to re-learn is one of the most basic, dominant themes of the bible: God will provide.  I used to think I knew what need was, and then I got married.  Before, I needed things for myself.  If I didn't come through, I just did without, which could be hard, but whatever.  I could get over it.  After I got married, I had a wife to support.  She is everything to me.  My whole entire world is wrapped up in her stability, security, happiness, wants and needs.  When I finally thought I knew what it meant to truly need, we began to adopt our beautiful baby girl.  No longer am I merely responsible for my own wants and needs, My family is counting on me for their life-support.  Not coming through is no longer an option.  

When we first got married, our annual income was well below the poverty line. I honestly can't believe we survived.  All of our bills every month well exceeded our income, and that didn't even include our groceries or gas. 

We sold everything of value, and came up with ways to make ends meet.

I will never forget one night of particular desperation.  It was a Saturday night, and we had to drive 45 minutes to church in the morning, where I was the Youth Pastor.  Our gas tank was empty, our bank account was 0.00 (if not less), and we had absolutely no resources that would fill our tank.  We had nothing.  I told Emily that I was going to go get gas for the morning, I am sure she must have thought I was crazy, and to be honest, I did to.  I knew that God would have to somehow fill our tank.  As I drove to the grocery store, I pulled over in the parking lot of the grocery store.  I prayed to God "Lord, please provide us the money to fill this tank with gas.  God, wouldn't it be an amazing testimony to your provision, if when I stepped out of this car, I found a $20, $50, or $100 bill on the ground! I could tell everyone how You provided so great for us!  Thank You God for the provision I am about to receive!"  And with the most faith I could conjure up, I stepped out of the car, and began to walk the parking lot. 

I searched for 10, 20, 30 minutes, and there was no great sum of money to be found.  However, after walking the parking lot for about an hour, I did find enough pennies, dimes and nickels to barely get us to church and back the next day.  

I learned a valuable lesson that night, that even though, it may not happen exactly how you want it to, God will provide.  Could God have dropped a Benjamin down right when I jumped out of the car, and made it easy on me?  Sure He could've!  But, He didn't, for a reason.  He showed me that I was not always going to get the easy way out.  Sometimes, it is going to be harder than I might like, and in those times, I should praise Him for giving me enough.
Despite most Televangelists, He may not give us leaps and bounds, but He will give us enough.  

Our lives are different in a lot of ways now, but one thing still remains, our dependance for God to provide our needs.  We need God to bring our Baby home.  We need God to guide our footsteps that structure the rest of our family's lives.  We need God every day to provide everything.

Thank you God for your provision.  You blow my mind.

Changing the world doesn't have to be so complicated.

I am not political.  I never have been.  To be completely honest, I have always heaped politics into the same category as sports.  It is an area that some people worry and fight over, and no matter how passionate they are, their time and energy is wasted trying to argue their point.
Please do not misunderstand, I think it is vitally important as God's people to research political candidates, form an educated, biblically sound opinion, and vote accordingly. That is a huge responsibility of ours, and I do not take that lightly.  Our country is facing a lot of huge issues that need divine intervention.  However, when was the last time you have seen a senator, congressman, or even a president change the world?

The truth of the matter is, generally, politicians do not change the world.  We do.

Revolutions, Movements and Revivals do not take root in our government.  They take root in passionate people, who act on their convictions.
Changing the world doesn't have to be so complicated.

For an example, There once was an average guy named Steve.  Steve was a blue collar, paycheck to paycheck worker.  On the job, Steve would just casually, but intentionally stumble into conversations about the gospel with his coworkers.  Most of them thought he was crazy.  However, one of his coworkers secretly listened to what he had to say.  Steve would leave gospel tracks and New Testament Bibles laying around, and when Steve wasn't looking, this coworker would snatch them up, and read them in private.  One day Steve's coworker worked up the courage to ask Steve if he could go to his church, just to check it out.  He wanted Jesus.  The very next opportunity he had, Steve brought his coworker to his church.  His coworker intently listened to the preacher's sermon, he was on the edge of his seat, and couldn't wait for the invitation.  When the invitation came, Steve and his coworker walked the isle, and Steve's coworker asked Jesus into his heart.

Odds are, this story is cheesy to you.  But it means a lot to me.  Steve's coworker was my dad.
After my dad gave his life to Christ, he was called to preach, then to plant churches.  Long story short, all because of Steve, who I don't even know, I was raised in a Christian home.  In a way, anything I do in ministry are the fruits of Steve's labor.  During my father's ministry, he has planted over 100 churches and led thousands upon thousands of people to Christ.  Some have went on to start their own ministries, some just spread the gospel like Steve did.  Regardless, Blue Collar Steve changed the world in a huge way.  His acts of casual evangelism will change the lives of millions.
That is mind blowing.

Steve had no idea, and may still have no idea how he changed the world.  He was just doing what he could for God.  He wasn't a Dwight Lyman Moody or a Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  He was a Steve.
God is not calling all of us to be "Heros of the Faith" he is calling many of us to just be average people, showing others His love.

The love of Christ is powerful enough to change the world through us.
We don't have to be awesome. Christ already is.

Do Well

The soul is a very fascinating thing.  It's essence is a mystery, and yet, it is everything that brings a person to life.  However, it always amazes me that we all have similar motives, our lives are just our attempt to achieve our goals.  We all use different methods, therein lies our individuality, personality, attitude, successes and failures.

I believe that at everyone's core is to simply do well.  Regardless of whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, everyone's life pursuit, in one shape or another, is to please the Lord.  The human soul will never be satisfied until it is in harmony with God's will. 

When I think of the happiest times in my life, it is when I have put my desires aside, and work whole-heartedly to achieve God's will.  In the same token, when I think of the most miserable times in my life,  it was when I was frustrated, and impatient with the results I was getting doing things the right way, and as a result, I took shortcuts in my relationship with the Lord.  By taking shortcuts, my relationship with the Lord grew weak, and I just focused primarily on my own agenda, and my own desires.  We all have experienced this feeling, and sadly, most live the majority of our lives in this state of mind.

I believe this is how Cain felt in Genesis chapter 4.  We all know the story, Cain and Abel bring their offerings before the Lord, Abel brought livestock, and Cain brought fruit.  Needless to say, the Lord favored Abel.  This devastated Cain, but the Lord encouraged Cain, saying:

"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. 

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
Genesis 4:7

He is a loving Father telling his child not to be discouraged, not to give up, and if he performed his duties well, he would be accepted as Abel was.  He also gave him a warning, that if he didn't do well, he would be vulnerable to sin.  The Lord goes on to say that we must rule over sin.  Although this picture of sin ready to devour us at any moment is terrifying, we can overcome it if we choose to.  We all know how the story ends, Cain did not heed God's warning.  In a jealous rage, he shed the blood of his innocent brother, and suffered the consequences for the rest of his life. 

Hopefully most of us will not kill anyone in a jealous rage, but there is a lot we can learn from this passage.  

Be Careful, every day, to do well.  Don't waste a moment, use the resources that God has given you to reach your life's full potential for the kingdom.  But when you mess up, rule over sin.

Secret Weapon

I am going to be honest, I have always loved the concept of the secret weapon.
If you are not familiar with the secret weapon, let me enlighten you.
Picture yourself in a battle, you are battling it out with your enemy, you are neck and neck with your opponent, neither of you can seem to get the upper hand, and just before they take the lead, you reveal that you are in possession of a revolutionary, groundbreaking weapon that trumps all others.  You catch your opponent off guard, and claim your victory!

When I was in the fifth grade, for one brief moment, I got to experience the rush of not only using the secret weapon, but BEING the secret weapon.  So there I was, on my basketball team, I can't remember what we were called, but I think it was associated with some sort of animal of prey (Lions, Tigers, Raptors...). However, I was the youngest member of the team.  The rest of my teammates were in the sixth and seventh grade, but I somehow managed to make it onto the team. 
Here is a particularly nice photo of me back in the day.  What a winner.

There was one particular game where we were neck and neck, and our team really needed to step it up, and take the lead.  The score is tied, and they bring me out.  Number 3.  Secret Weapon!  I run on the court, the crowd (my mother) goes wild!  I get possession of the ball, and at the last possible second I am forced to make a quick decision.  That's right, a half-court shot.  I put it up, it seemed like an eternity before it made it to the goal, and swish! Nothin' but NET!  I throw up my hand in victory, and briefly had the feeling of being a secret weapon.  My teammates rush by my side, but instead of hoisting me on their shoulders, they began to hurl insults at me.  I look at the score board, and our opponents' had somehow gained 3 points.  Then it hit me: I wasn't our secret weapon, I was theirs!
In that brief millisecond, I knew what it felt like.  I felt valued.  I didn't feel like the chubby, uncoordinated youngster of the team, I was valued, I was needed, I was relevant, I was an imperative asset to the team.  

In my adult life, I have found that I have that same longing of being valued, needed, relevant, and imperative to a cause.  However, frankly, more often than not, I am not capable of being an asset to anything.  I am insufficient, and that, is a terrible feeling.  I want to be someone who is wonderfully fulfilling my purpose in life.  But, I'm not the only one.

Many mighty men that God used to do incredible things felt the same way.
Take it from Isaiah.  Immediately after Isaiah saw God in Isaiah chapter 6, he says "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!" There was a sense of unworthiness, as their should be.  God was asking Isaiah, a regular guy to be His messenger to Israel.
Later on in Isaiah, chapter 49, he says these, more confident words:

"Listen to me, O coastlands,
   and give attention, you peoples from afar.
The LORD called me from the womb,
   from the body of my mother he named my name.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
   in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
   in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
   Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain;
   I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD,
   and my recompense with my God.”

It is encouraging to me to know that Isaiah felt the same way I do sometimes, but through all that, because of his intimate relationship with God, he could see past his insufficiency.  He says that God had made him a polished arrow, and hid him away.  He was a secret weapon! 
So many times, we can feel like we are living this life for nothing.  Let's be honest, instant gratification is not the name of the Christianity game.  We do not always reap our benefits in a timely manner.
Isaiah said that he felt like he labored in vain, that he spent his strength for vanity, and yet he goes on to say that he is still being used by God, and still necessary in the advancement of His Kingdom.

So, regardless of our attitude, or our self-confidence, or whatever, we have to know that we are necessary to God's Kingdom.  Even though we may not always be able to see it in ourselves, God does.  He will use us, and continue to use us if we choose to trust Him in the fact that He can, regardless of our insufficiency.