A Tribute to a Friend I've Known Since Birth

Just today, I happened to find myself thinking about you.  Maybe it has something to do with getting another year older, or maybe it was just a random bit of nostalgia that brought you to mind.  Or maybe it's the fact that you're sitting in my living room chair at this moment, just as reliable and patient and omnipresent as always.

The things I remember most about you growing up are your quiet nature, your calming spirit.  I remember the pensive quality of your gaze, so consistent despite my oscillating temperament.  You were always agreeable too, and loyal, but not to the point of being a sheep.  Maybe you didn't stand up to me as much as you should have, but I could always sense the disapproval you kept to yourself when I was up to no good.  In that way, you were a leader, even as you were a follower.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, you got just as dirty as I did when we were young - if not more so.  We took our leaps together, and - consequently - our falls.  My successes were yours, and my failures likewise.  You had your stitches, and I had mine.  Boyhood was rough on the both of us, the way it should be.  It taught us the taste of grass and fused the sensation of sweat running down our backs with the sense of accomplishment gleaned from hard work.

I think maybe we were so close because you were a reflection of the things I couldn't yet be - characteristics and qualities I wanted, but things for which I had to mature first in order to grasp.  Maybe you were a template, one that wasn't much like me, but a mouthpiece for all my quirks and the recipient all my ideas, all my imaginings, which no one else could possibly understand or handle the way you could.  In that sense, you were my muse, my confidant.  You embodied the songs I couldn't yet write, the stories I couldn't yet transcribe.  You were my first audience and my first critic, but you were gentle and we learned together how to dream big.

It's amusing in retrospect.  As a kid, you don't think about these kinds of things.  You just accept things as they are, at face value.  Things are black and white, hard and easy, bad and good.  The world only becomes complex when you shed that type of binary thinking in favor of adult ideas - gray areas, revelation, and common sense.  As a kid, you were simply my friend, a playmate, company in times of loneliness and celebration.  You were simply there, and I loved you for it.  Time and again, you let me drag you behind me through the muck of life (sometimes literally) and still got up on the other side with a smile on your face - a smile which said, very plainly, "Let's do that again."

I want my children to have a friend like you while things are still simple.  In fact, I want them to have you.  I want their experiences with you to be just as memorable, just as enlightening.  And when they get older, wiser, and more knowledgeable of the world, I hope they look back on their friendship with you and remember the romance of childhood.  My warm, golden summers of the 1990's on the East Coast would have been merely sticky transitions without you beside me to enjoy them; for my kids, I want the same.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll make them read Calvin & Hobbes as much as I did too.

Living and Active

In my youth group, we are currently teaching through the living and active qualities of the Word of God (as per Hebrews 4.12), and just this morning I was reminded of that very fact in my own personal study.  It's perhaps an ironic example of progressive sanctification: we never learn so much that we don't have any further to go, and often as I ponder teaching on a topic, I find myself needing the very instruction I intend to give.

As of this morning, I have a new life verse.  Job 27.6 says, "I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days."  Job, a man who was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but who had done nothing but pursue righteousness throughout his life, was forced to build a defense against his good-intentioned friends - friends who had heard of his calamity and unanimously decided that Job's personal wickedness had brought about his suffering.  Yet in the midst of his emotional, spiritual, and physical torment, Job famously blessed the name of the Lord and held fast to his innocence.

Reading that verse this morning, I pondered all of my failures just this week alone, and then the failures of my life as a whole, and I found myself thinking, "Wow, I wish that I could say that with the same conviction as Job."  Like Belshazzar, I've been weighed in the balances and found wanting.  But then I remembered that I can read this verse with conviction.  I don't need to build a defense against friends, family - anyone.  I stand redeemed by the saving work of Jesus Christ, and although I have failed time and again, I strive to glorify Him when He gives and when He takes away.  Job's claim to righteousness was not in anything he by himself had done, but in his ultimate desire to remain obedient to the Lord.  Likewise, I have no confidence in my own initiative.  My works of righteousness are nothing more than filthy rags if I count on them independently from Christ.  Furthermore, my failures are covered by His grace.

People always pull out that "no regrets, no consequences" mentality, encouraging others to live like there's no tomorrow.  But I want to live as though there is a tomorrow, a tomorrow where I can open the Word and reflect on the fact that I am consistently walking with Christ, and consistently pursuing righteousness.  I don't want to cram it all into one day because I've squandered yesterday and am worried I might not get another chance.  I don't just want to avoid regret.  I want a lifetime of days throughout which I can quote Job 27.6 with firm conviction - so that when there finally is no more tomorrow, I can stand before my Father and, instead of weeping for shame over of all my wasted opportunities, I can weep for joy instead, and boldly state, "My heart does not reproach me for any of my days."  More than anything else, I long to hear my Father welcome me into His kingdom with the proud words, "Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your master."

That Crazy Lady

I came home from work today to find my wife's computer sitting out on the desk, along with a note that said something to the extent of “I was studying the Word this morning and felt convicted, so I had to write out my thoughts, please read.”  Curious, and steeling myself for the needling daggers of humbling conviction, I sat down and opened her computer.  Her thoughts (with permission) are as follows:

~*~

I met a crazy lady the other day, or so I thought. As I sat with a number of other women around a table, celebrating a soon-to-be wedding day, a woman I'd never met before was talking non-stop about Jesus. She began repeatedly expressing her love for Jesus and sharing in detail all the joy she received for being a child of His. I knew everything she was saying was true - things like “He is my protector,” “He is giving me the strength I need to get thru my husband’s death,” and “I told my son he needs to take his decision to go on the Jamaica Missions trip before the throne.” Jesus saturated her conversation. As I sat listening, knowing how true all this was yet hearing those around me agreeing with a chorus of vaguely uncomfortable “mmhmm’s,” I couldn’t help but wonder if they were thinking, as I was, that she was a little bit too extreme.

It wasn’t until today, two days later, that I realized how crazy I am for failing to see just how much I lack true joy. This woman knew how much God loves His children. She understood that His love is such that He was willing to give His only Son so that we, as sinful as we are, could come home and enjoy heaven with Him (John 3:16-17; Hebrews 10:12-14). She clung to the God who is so powerful that He took down kingdom after kingdom for His children, the Israelites, and who promises to be our strength and refuge today.

You see, there is this battle I fight, one we all probably fight. I want to be perfect and honor Jesus. A big part of that, for me, is spending quality time in the Word, daily. I know all I have to do is say no to watching that episode of my favorite TV show in order to get a few more moments to spend in study, but what do I do? Typically, I justify laziness as weariness and promise myself that I'll just do it another day or later.

Do I? Not usually.

How is it that something so amazing as spending time in the Word of God is such a struggle to pursue? Reading the redemption story is medicine for a bad day’s work. It is healing for drowning in the midst of a materialistic public which desires nothing more than getting everything it wants. It is comfort for a death in the family or the loss of a loved one. It is peace in the midst of battle with a life-changing disease. We face these things day after day, but instead of turning to the Word of God, what do we do to get us through? Cry? Vent on our newest social network? Complain to friends? Distract ourselves through various media and entertainment?

The truth is, the lady wasn’t crazy. We are - that is, those of us who restrict ourselves from glorifying our Lord and Savior the way she does by worshiping comfort and entertainment. We DO NOT give God the glory He deserves - the type of life-consuming adoration which He justly required of the Israelites and desires in His church. Knowing who He is and what He has done should make us drop to our knees to thank Him endlessly (Phil 2:10-11). Time and time again, despite our sinful pursuits, He forgives. I thought that woman was being a bit dramatic about how amazing God is and how powerful He is, but in reality we should be just as zealous (Isaiah 25:9).

~*~

There's nothing that I need to add. All that comes to mind is Psalm 8.3-5: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.” We serve a God who deserves our zealous and passionate adoration, the kind which should consume every aspect of our lives, because He dotes upon us when we deserve nothing.

Of course, I'm also reminded of Proverbs 31.10 and 26: “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels... She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”

Gentlemen, listen when your wives share the convictions of their hearts. Chances are, you've got some changing to do too.