Holy Romantic Communism: epilogue to a mission trip

the call and the funds.

It didn’t make any sense to go to Brazil. $3,000 to go to a country I was not interested in, where I did not speak the language and when I could have gone somewhere else where I did speak the language for less than half the price. I did not want to ask for people’s money, I did not want to tell the practical people in my life that I wanted to do this and I did not want to ask people for money to go to Brazil when just eight months I had asked for funds to go to Peru for a medical service trip. I did not want to seem like a shameless wanderlust trying to leech on others to pay for his travels. But at the end of the day I knew I needed to go. Because God said so.

My first glimpse of hope that this trip was truly “meant to be” came the weekend of our first trip meeting when I had several seemingly random events provide me with enough money to make the $300 down payment for the trip (I committed to paying $1500 of the trip’s cost myself). The second glimpse of hope came a few weeks later when I received an email saying two different very good friends had contributed a total of $300. It seemed God was in fact going to provide.

Then I received nothing…

For weeks… and weeks.

10 days before leaving I was $1,000 short of what I needed to go and I told God that if he didn’t provide the money like he said he would, then I wasn’t going to go. But then that night I saw my chiropractor and he offered me $350 to do 4 hours of work. And then a few hours later a good friend got in touch and offered me another $240. The following Tuesday I received an email saying an anonymous donor had given $500 to my trip along with a few other smaller donations from other friends and family. At the end of it all God provided $250 more than he initially promised. So Monday the 13^th of August I was on my way to Brazil.

the value of it all?

The first week of our trip was “successful” for all intents and purposes. We all arrived safe, we all got along splendidly, we were all excited, we had unimaginable doors open for us and we saw people praying to receive Jesus. It was all fine and good, but soon I found myself wondering why God wanted ME there. I was not essential to anything that happened. I was not the one who prayed for anyone to receive Jesus, or be healed. I was not even on the teams that God used to open the unimaginable doors. I started wondering why God wanted me there.

It was obvious he told me to go. It was obvious he had provided people to fill in for my work and donors to pay the cost of the trip. What was not obvious was why he wanted ME there. I was already a few grand in debt and in addition to costing me $1250 the trip would have me out another $1500 from all the work I would miss. But then I met Henry.

henry & co.

Our main outreach tactic in Brazil was to perform a dance, followed by a drama¹ about God’s love and then a quick sermon. One day when we had the chance to do our little “routine” before a school I met Henry. We performed once in the morning and once again in the afternoon. After our second performance when we were being hauled out of the theatre and the students were being hauled back to class, Henry approached me and introduced himself. He said that he had been at both performances and had really wanted to meet me but was really bummed that he had to go and could not stick around to talk. As soon as he walked away I began to internally, verbally abuse myself. How could I have missed that? A “divine appointment,” so to speak, that I was completely unaware of. I spent several minutes treating myself like trash. Then I was informed that we would be going to a different part of the school to wait around while our leaders talked to the school’s principle. During our wait, I spotted Henry! Henry had about ten minutes before his next class started. The conversation and prayer that ensued were not remarkable in the usual sense, but they felt exactly right. He told me about his dream that no one believed in. I prayed for him to have a fulfilled life. It was simple but it was my first inclination that I was in Brazil for some very good reason.

A few days after Henry and the school, we performed in a rather large park where I met Luna and Clayton. Luna said she did not believe in anything while Clayton said he had a little belief, whatever that means. They would not let me pray for them but the conversation we had led to an excellent connection and I left feeling that I had made friends. That same day I met another fellow named Felipe who spoke enough Spanish to chat with me a bit. My conversations with Luna, Clayton, Felipe and Henry were my first inclinations that God did want me in Brazil. Not just “me” as in another person or another believer willing to pray. God wanted me, Kendrick Barnes, from Lake Stevens, Washington, to be in Sao Paulo Brazil at that time, with those people, doing those outreaches.

my first time.

Early on in our second week, as the realization that God actually wanted me in Brazil sank in, I did something I had never done before. I prayed with two men as they received Jesus². Leondo and Jorge. Right after doing the usual “routine,” I approached Leondo and Jorge to chat with them. They didn’t speak English but one of the women who had seen the play translated for me as I talked to them. They said they wanted to receive Jesus, so we prayed. Then I asked the woman translating for me if her and her friend would like to receive Jesus. They said they did and we prayed. As I prayed for Leondo and Jorge I laughed several times, I fumbled over my words, and was completely lacking in evangelical suavity. But that was my favorite day.

The point of a mission trip is not to come back with the biggest possible number of people who “got saved” or “prayed to receive Jesus” or “were added to a church.” The point is to be used by God to spread his love in a situation you would never have found yourself in if not for the fact that you were on a mission trip. The reason that that was my favorite day is this: I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt (even more than when I talked to Henry and the others) that God had used me to make changes that will resonate in eternity. That’s the point of a mission trip.

impossible things.

The prayers I said with Leondo, Jorge, and the two women were not the only things done to spread God’s love in remarkable ways. Right after I met the four of them I also met a boy named Gusto. I do not know what physical or mental handicaps Gusto has but suffice it to say he is fourteen years old, about three feet tall, drools and was hard for the translator to understand when he spoke. He may also be the most beautiful child I have ever seen. Gusto couldn’t walk by himself so some others and myself helped him walk by giving him two hands to hang onto. Periodically we would help him jump and every few seconds a laugh would joyfully burst out of him. It was beautiful. Especially once we found out that his parents had rarely ever seen him so joyful. Broken, small, and hard to understand, Gusto was not a sight to behold. Despite this, joy bubbled out of him in an infectious manner and I could not help feeling that God saw me that way.

Despite an abundance of prayers, Gusto wasn’t completely physically healed. I, however, am confident that the joy he found that day was miraculous in and of itself, and may have even been more important than any physical healing.

A few days later we headed into one of the poorer neighborhoods of Sao Paulo to do the usual routine, which, it is probably obvious at this point, never had a usual routine for what occurred afterwards. We usually worshipped musically before performing the dance and skit and this day was no exception. Curiously enough, we usually had an audience form during our worship as well, though the intention was never that that would be a performance. That day in the poor neighborhood we had a much larger crowd than usual gather while we worshipped. They even clapped along with us. As soon as we finished worship we did the dance, skit and the gospel presentation. As soon as it all ended two of my friends made a beeline for one man who had been visibly affected by the skit. They talked with him for a while and soon asked if they could pray for his bandaged and broken knee. He consented. After their first prayer the pain reduced but he could not stand without feeling pain. After the second prayer he was running in place and was back to one hundred percent. He understood that God had healed him and he and the twelve people around him who witnessed the healing all prayed to receive Jesus. God set that one up nicely but it was not the only nice set up

It was early on in the trip that we had the chance to perform in the school where I met Henry and I would like to relay for you how that all transpired. In the process of inviting people to come see the skit one group happened to invite a school bus driver who was sitting outside of a school. He told them they ought to talk to the school’s security guard. The security guard told them they needed to go inside and talk to the secretary. The secretary told them they needed to talk to the principle and then called the principle down to see them. After my teammates explained why they were there the principle asked if they would be able to bring the drama to the school to perform for the fifteen to seventeen year olds. A drama about Jesus. To a public school. A school that happens to be one of the most prestigious in Sao Paulo. And after we performed the next day, twice, for well over 300 students, the principle told us it was the best assembly they had all year. You can’t make that kind of thing up.

a lion and a birdhouse.

Over the course of our trip we were expected to spend an hour a day with God by ourselves in the morning, this was a new and life giving practice for me. We were also expected to write an encouragement to someone everyday. On one particular day I received an encouragement telling me I was like a birdhouse: a place where the timid felt at home. That same note also told me I had a lion heart³. The trip started with me uncertain of why I had put so much money and effort into getting to Sao Paulo. The trip ended with me knowing that God is directing my steps and has set me up to be a courageous, lion-hearted man while simultaneously being a refuge for those who scare easily. God took me thousands of miles and dollars from home to use me for his purposes and to show me had a purpose for me. God asked me if I was willing to listen and when I said yes he taught me to be bold. God showed me that being obedient to him, even when the requests are rather audacious, results in lives changed, our own lives and the lives of those around us.

epilogue: holy romantic communism.

During our second week in Sao Paulo we visited two life groups.⁴ At one of those life groups God showed me two pictures. In the first I was standing before God’s throne, where he sat, looking quite approachable, and I was offering him everything I had. All my love, resources, talents, time… all of it. He said, “Thank you. I am going to take all of this and give it away.” I found this to be hardly an appropriate thing to do with such a generous gift. A few minutes later he showed me the second picture. I was before the throne again and he told me to come sit with him. As soon as I reached the throne I began to see a whirlwind tour of my life. First, I saw myself as an infant in my grandfather’s arms. Then I was a little boy sitting on the couch next to my dad while he read to me. Next I was talking about life with my sister Tara. Then I was sitting at a bar with my other sister Karissa as she bought me a beer. During the last part of the picture, I was in Brazil being prayed for by my friend Pete. I instantly recognized that each of these moments was God taking the love that people offered unto him and giving it back to each of his children. The picture I saw was a glimpse of how that had happened in my own life but I also understood that each person received enough love to last them through their life. He gave it back whenever he received it and the more people gave their love the less need for love anyone experienced.

Communism may never work in a political sense, but when the king of kings is dishing out love to every person to meet their needs it is a beautiful thing. It was in that moment, as I saw myself receiving love from all different people, that I realized my life was just one tile in the grand mosaic of the ebb and flow of the love of God. And now, in a totally new and different way, I know that I have received that love. And that I have plenty of it to give away.

p.s.

To the anonymous donor of five-hundred dollars,

 Thank you. This trip probably would not have happened with out you.

11     Specifically the Lifehouse “Everything” drama. Youtube it if you haven’t seen it. I watched it ten times in Brazil and it never got old. I nearly cried more than once.

22     Some people call this “getting saved” but I do not. Praying a prayer to receive Jesus into your heart and “getting saved” are hardly the same. No one really knows if they are saved. If someone tries to tell you that they are “saved” their theology is broken. Why do I say that? Faith and knowledge are not the same.

33     This was not the first time I had been told this, but it was one of the first times it had really sunk in. Thank you Michael Richards.

44     If you’re not familiar with the term life group, it is basically a small group. A gathering of usually 10-20 people that worship, read scripture, and “do life” together.

What makes a man?

What makes a man?

I once heard a pastor (Pastor D I’ll call him) complain about the men in his church. His exact words were that they were “basically chicks.” He said that the way church is run in our day is only appealing to women and children and that most “men” would rather be out playing or watching football or be working on cars than be in church. While I have my own concerns about men in the modern church it has nothing to do with them wearing sea-foam green sweaters, which seems to be a pervasive concern for Pastor D. My concern is that the anatomical men of the church are not being men of God, as I assume is also Pastor D’s concern.

My intention with this blog is in no way to criticize my brothers, nor Pastor D as his church clearly has a massive blessing upon it. Rather, I hope to put forth this question; what makes someone who is anatomically a man, a man of God? After being blessed to go to a men’s retreat last weekend and having the opportunity to talk with my very dear friend Zak about this, I have some speculations about the qualities possessed by a man after God’s own heart, which I thoroughly believe all men are called to be.

Integrity

One thing I will say for Hollywood heroes, in terms of the “manly” attributes they exhibit, is that the ones that most moviegoers really love and admire possess integrity. William Wallace in “Braveheart,” Maximus Meridius in “Gladiator,” and even, arguably, the McManus brothers in the “Boondock Saints” refuse to settle for what is easy and instead decide to do what they know to be right. While in some sense every man hopes to be this kind of hero in the sort of rebellious yet honorable warrior sense, most men instead find themselves with much more trivial villains in their lives. For example, whether or not they ought to fudge the figures on their tax reports or, maybe, if they should tell their wife about that little lust issue.

If a man wakes up everyday wearing a comportment that lacks integrity he will likely soon find it eroding, much like any creation that lacks integrity. While Nietzsche says, “It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation” I have not this to be true. I have found dishonesty in my own life to be rather viral in it’s ability to take an inch where only a mile is given. Soon I find myself lying about things not worth the trouble of lying about or lying about things that never should be lied about. Thus Nietzsche’s man of poor consciousness may find himself satisfied for a time with his bad conscience, but when push comes to shove he may find his equivocations undermining his good reputation.

If a man does allow himself to live with a dirtied conscious he will probably find himself dissatisfied when he looks into his bathroom mirror. These blogs (this one in particular) I find to be something of a mirror every time I write them. Reason being that I can’t ask someone else to listen to my words until I have done so myself. If a man cannot look himself in the mirror and see a man after God’s own heart how can he expect another to see him that way? Being real with one’s self is the beginning of real manhood.

Fidelity

Once a man has figured out how to be true to himself, he must learn how to be true to those closest to him. Fidelity is one of the most important traits any man can posses. My understanding of faith and family would lead me to believe that in every man’s life, God should come first, followed by his wife, and next by his children. After these three, how you align your priorities is your business. As such, a man should always put God’s desires and calling above the rest of the desires of his life’s influencers.

I find time to be one of the things that a man most needs to be faithful with. What a man spends his time on obviously represents what he values. Scripture tells us that were one’s treasure is, there their heart is also. In an epoch when “time is money,” one’s time needs to be spent very wisely. While I understand the immense pressure that is on men to be providers for their families, if a man’s occupation compromises his fidelity of time he may soon find it compromising his integrity as well.

Sexual fidelity is something that should go without saying as a huge form of faithfulness to one’s family. Porn and even “casual lust,” or allowing one’s eyes to wander where they shouldn’t, should be rejected both for the sake of keeping one’s self faithful but also for the sake of keeping oneself pure. In many ways sexual infidelity is also infidelity to God as it is a breach of one’s willingness to listen to God and therefore a breach in one’s integrity.

Courage

Courage I find to be a necessary supporter of integrity and at the same time an important counter part. Courage can be had without integrity, but integrity can’t be had without courage. By that I mean one can boldly do something terrifying with wrong motives and be called courageous, but one can’t have integrity without the courage to stand up for what he knows to be right.

Courage is undeniably a dead horse that has been beaten over and again by men’s ministries everywhere and as such I’d like to bring some fresh perspective to it. Webster defines courage as “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear.” I disagree with the dictionary here because it says, “without fear.” Few men can decide to be without fear; every man can decide to have courage. Courage, I believe, is the force that pushes us forth in spite of fear. If you weren’t afraid why would you need courage?

It takes courage to stand up to the injustices around us and within us. As I said before, if a man is to possess integrity he must have the courage to follow through with what he knows to be right. Thus, courage is what makes integrity possible. When you find yourself uncertain of whether the repercussions of your honesty will truly be worth the gains in integrity and when fear starts to say, “what will happen when you tell them?” remember this, “the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7). If your heart is not right, do not hesitate to make it so.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I implore you men of God, be men of integrity. Be faithful and do not fear the costs of your integrity, the rewards will outweigh them tenfold. Even now I find this to be a message to myself as much as it is to anyone else. Join me in trying to become a man after God’s own heart.

Let me love you: Giving and Receiving

We often forget that grace and karma are far from the same thing. We have this idea that as we become better and better people and do more and more church stuff, God will have more reasons to provide grace for us. We all should know that God grants us unrelenting grace upon request, and yet we live as if his love is conditional. We live as if God killed his son just so he could save a bunch of people who deserved it… that’s just silly.

Yet here we are. We won’t accept God’s grace because we don’t deserve it. Stupid pride. Stupid humans. We are stupid Christians.

I read a book that influenced me pretty heavily called “O₂” by Richard Dahlstrom; it is all about the ebb and flow of faith and specifically ministry. He theorizes that most modern Christians find themselves at either of two extremes, where they are either inhaling or exhaling constantly. They either serve constantly and pour out all their hearts into their ministries, or the other way around, they go to church and every small group during the week, but never actually do anything to help others. Even worse, most churches facilitate this by always asking the gifted folks to lead events and by asking the seemingly “not-so-gifted” folks to come to every event that the gifted folks put on. Sadly, when it comes to love I find the church is in much the same boat, with the majority of us being those who exhale and avoid inhaling as much as possible. My Nana gave me the saddest picture of this today.

I was visiting my grandmother (we call her Nana) in the hospital today after church and when we were alone we began talking about some more personal things. She talked about how surprised she was that this stomach problem had come on so suddenly and how she was so surprised that her issue is one that can kill if not operated on quickly. She mentioned she was so thankful for her relatives who took her into the ER and that she could be operated on so quickly. Then she started to change her tone. She said maybe it would have been a good time for her to go. Tears started coming to her eyes as she said that she was worried she was living too long and that she was becoming a burden to her family.

What you have to know about my Nana is that she cared for my Papa (her husband) for years and years before he finally passed in 2004. It was her whole life to care for him and when he passed she hardly knew what to do with her self. For along time she would still sign cards, “From Nana and Papa” and would hardly talk about anything else. When she finally began moving on she started caring for some friends of hers who weren’t able to get around quite as well as she. She would take them to the doctor when they needed or stop by and check up on them.

When my sisters and I were young we were home schooled and we would go over to her house once or twice every week and she spoiled us rotten. She would make waffles and a bowl of our favorite cereal for us and bring it out to us on a little tray as soon as we arrived and plopped down on her couch to watch TV. When my mom was a kid her and my Papa both worked a lot to give her the best they could manage; she was their only child.

And now, after eighty-six years of caring for other people, she doesn’t want us to care for her. She doesn’t want to be a “burden” to us even though she’s cared for our family for so long and she just started having problems last week. She’s asking us not to care for her and it’s a bit like saying, “Please, stop loving me.”

Riding back from my visit with her this afternoon, I wasn’t five minutes from the hospital before the tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t understand why I was crying. We have no reason to think that Nana is going to pass away soon and for the most part our visit was very pleasant. She’ll probably be out of the hospital in just a few days and yet I hurt and I wept. I started to pray and asked God to “soften her heart and to have her allow us to love her.” As the prayer came forth amidst quiet sobs I heard in my heart God saying, “Let me love you my child. I can see that you have tried and that you have suffered and even that you have failed. Now, put down your hands; let me love you.” God was showing me the sadness in his heart that comes from his children rejecting his love because we don’t think we deserve it. Like Nana and like everyone else, I am afraid. I am afraid to accept the words that I myself spoke to her this afternoon; “Nana, we love you too much for you to ever become a burden.”

There is a heart wrenching little children’s book called “Love You Forever” that I have mentioned before. This book depicts a mother who, no matter what upsetting thing her child does, she comes into his room every night and sings to him “I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always, as long as I love you my baby you’ll be.” That is our father’s heart… at least as accurately as I’ve ever heard it.

So please, join me. Get over yourself. Let down your guard. You are not good enough and you never will be. God knew from the start that he was going to have to go through so much heartbreak and so much rejection from a bunch of foolish children who thought they had to make it through life on their own. God did not send his son to die for a bunch of people who deserved everlasting life, he sent his son to die for us. I am about as broken as they come, and yet every night my Father comes into my room and sings to me, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always, as long as I love you, my baby you’ll be.”

Eye contact

We were greasy, cold, wet, tired and quite thankful for a patch of carpeted ground. Each night when we returned to the church after a fifteen-hour day on the street, my fellow Urban Plunge participants and I wanted nothing more than to sleep. I’m pretty sure each one of us had blisters on our feet by the end of the first day and I am absolutely sure that we were all very sore. Despite the discomfort however, each of us ended our time thankful for the experience.

Each of the five days of Plunge my fellow SPU students and I would spend wandering the streets of Seattle looking for homeless people whom we could ask about life on the street and how they ended up there. After that our only real concern was to find opportunities to eat and occasionally to rest and stay dry. Each day consisted of a fair amount of boredom and a fair amount of deciding where to go and what to do. The interactions we did have though were the real gold of the whole experience.

One of the more memorable interactions we had was with the street youth around Westlake Center. They were just like us in so many ways. They had their own outcasts, their own popular kids, many had cellphones, many had no desire to go to school or to work and each one had their own ways of finding, or at least needing, acceptance. One in being the guy who is a “lucrative business man” another in being the craziest guy on the street and still another in being the one who always does well with the ladies. It would be cliché to say that I saw something deeper missing in each one of them. However, I did see that there was so much acting on going and I just wanted it to stop. I understand that when most people in a society don’t want to interact with you at all it’s hard to be proud of who you are. I was just hoping that one day they would understand what their worth is. Last weekend, while doing some homeless outreach on Capitol Hill, I saw one of the kids I met in Westlake. He introduced himself as Garbage. It broke my heart because on the Plunge he had offered me his last cigarette and found cardboard for me to help me keep my stuff dry. Garbage is hardly a name fitting for someone so kind.

The natural extension of thought from the whole experience was to ask how we could help these people. Humans like us. Many of them had been dealt a poor hand and plenty others had just decided not to use their hand well. The question I tried to always ask of people who we met that had been able to leave the streets or who were in the process of leaving the streets was what had given them the motivation to get off. For most it was people they cared about or who cared about them. One gal said she had younger sisters who looked up to her and she wanted to set a good example for them. A married couple said they had two sons, who were then living with friends, and had lost their house so they were just looking for work to help them get back into a life. Another lady said she was tired of using drugs to get her through each day. Most revealing was what one woman at Mary’s Place shared with us. She said that for those who claimed they were fine with living on the street it wasn’t so much that they were ok with the street but that they didn’t believe anything better would ever exist for them.

In Seattle it’s not hard to survive on the street. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are available from shelters, soups kitchens, and the occasional do-gooder passing by. What’s hard is finding hope. Hope that if you pull yourself up from the bottom you won’t slip right back down. Hope that there’s someone who cares. Hope that there’s even a reason to get off in the first place. Due to its abundant resources for the homeless, Seattle is said to be the nation’s best place to be homeless. My prayer is that it can be the nation’s best place to quit being homeless too.

The hardest part about Plunge was partly the people that weren’t on the street who wouldn’t even look at you when you spoke to them. What was even harder were the ones who would look you in the eye when you spoke to them and say nothing, as if to communicate, “I know you were speaking to me, but you’re just not worth stopping for.” It serves to take away your humanity when someone won’t acknowledge you simply because your clothes aren’t quite as clean as they ought to be. For those who would at least say, “Sorry, I don’t have any change” we were very thankful.

With all of this in mind about giving hope and acknowledging humanity I would like to take the time to emphasize two services that seem to me to be especially effective, Mary’s Place and New Horizons. Both of these ministries make a point of being relational in their outreach and having people around who will talk with the homeless that come through not just serve them and get them on their way. New Horizons even owns a coffee shop across the street called “Street Bean” where people have made their way off the street through New Horizons can be trained to work as baristas, an exceedingly useful skill to have in Seattle.

My hope for all the “average people” who read this that may never want to live in a city let alone do outreach to the homeless is this: show them someone cares. If you can, stop for sixty seconds, ask them their name, and show them that there are people in the world who don’t just want to ignore them and who want to see them able to do something with their lives. If you want to be specific and talk about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they have food and some sort of shelter and safety, what they need next is love and belonging and that will ONLY come through human contact, eye contact being the simplest way to allow that to happen.

Carpe Diem

When I finally decided that I was sure I wanted to do pre-med I was uncomfortable with the fact that nine more years of school lay ahead of me. I knew it was “worth it,” but the idea was still very uncomfortable for me. My thoughts were along the lines of, why do I have to wait nine years to have a life? Why do I have to wait nine years before I do anything cool with my life? But then God, in the subtlest way possible reminded me of carpe diem.

Carpe diem means “seize the day” and people that live in this mindset often follow a philosophy that says do whatever you want and whatever feels good to you because you just might die tomorrow and you may as well live without regrets. I like the thought of living without regrets, I have a few significant regrets already, but I certainly wouldn’t mind not taking on any new ones. But then again doing what felt good has also been the source of my deepest regrets, so something has to change

Many who follow carpe diem would say that nothing matters but our own pleasure. I say carpe diem because I feel that everything matters. I can’t wait one day to settle an argument because the next day might not come for me, or for the other person. I can’t wait one day to tell people I love them because the next day they might all be gone. I can’t wait one day to show someone that they are truly valued because the next day they might be gone because no one ever showed them how much they were worth. Waiting until med school is over to “start my life” is not an option because I could die before I ever get there in which case my life would be the story of a man who had good intentions and nothing more because he never had the chance to live them out. All of this to say, my life has to matter now, because tomorrow is not a promise.

There’s my logic, now for my actions.

1. I intend to make every person feel valued, if I can. I want to value people when I see them, whether I know them or not because people need to know they are valued, myself included. Without value life begins to feel pointless and not worth living. I’ve known too many people who didn’t realize how valued they we’re and tried to take their lives because of it, and that’s something I never want to see again. I realized that I valued them and did not do a great job of showing it, and that’s a mistake I don’t want to repeat. Not that I can save anybody, but if I can make somebody feel valued then I will do what I can. Also, I can’t be a source of value, but I can be a supplement.

2. I try not to live for things. If I die tomorrow all my things will be wasted, and as such I try not to live much beyond my needs. No thing has brought me amazing joy and no thing has lasting consequences, but there is an action that does, and that is love.

3. I live for love, because God is love and because no other action has eternal consequences. You may say, “but what about faith? Surely our faith in God has eternal consequences?” In Galatians 5:6 Paul says that the only thing that matters is “faith, expressing itself through love.” In other words your faith must be shown by your love. I don’t believe in logic as a road to faith because if you can be argued into it, you can be argued back out. If you have love, however, you are not at the mercy of an argument, because love goes beyond anything we understand.

4. Live with excellence, not in the sense of being the best at everything I do, but in giving my best to everything I do.

In my short life I’ve already seen too many people who do not know what they are worth and what they are capable of. This needs to change. It needs to change now. And words of love are the only thing that will accomplish this change.

Post 13: And there stood before me a great wall... made of cantaloupes.

Many people have this misconception that prophets make big sweeping “prophecies” that are supposed to predict the future and that these prophets are supposed to be right every time or shut their trap forever if they make a mistake. Most people who call themselves “prophets,” or who at least claim to be “operating in the prophetic gift,” won’t usually try and tell you the capitol f Future, or even necessarily try to tell you you’re future. Most legitimate “prophets” I have heard of would probably just say that they know how to listen to God.

Now, we have a God who loves us so when he speaks he will not uncommonly whisper things very pertinent and real to the people who are listening. Or he may speak things to someone with open ears that are meant for someone who refuses to listen. This is where prophets come in and this is where it gets personal, powerful, and real. This is also where Herb Marks and I come into the story.

Herb Marks is a local “prophet” with a significant reputation. He served on staff at New Life Center, a huge Foursquare church in Everett, Washington, and while he was there, there was joking amongst some people that if you had any bad habits you shouldn’t go when Herb was speaking because he would “read your mail.” Herb is so gifted that he was hired by one church to do nothing but pray for people. Two or three years ago I saw Herb at Hope Foursquare in Snohomish, Washington, but I wasn’t there for his service. I was there for band practice and he was stealing our time because his service was taking too long. I was waiting in the back for him to finish up and head out when he caught my eye and, despite the fact that there was a large line of people waiting to talk him, he motioned for me to come up and talk to him.

At that point in my life I was skeptical, both of this guy and of the idea that God would speak through someone I had never met to say something useful to me. However, I went up and Herb walked me through a series of questions culminating in him asking me what the single biggest thing standing between God and I was, to which I responded… cantaloupes. I say that because the answer to that question was fairly personal and cantaloupes seem like a good substitute.

Two weeks ago I went and saw Herb a second time, this time with a very different mindset. Having now witnessed some very real prophecies and other incredible acts of God, I was more prepared to believe what Herb had to say. I was also strongly reminded of the fact that the cantaloupes him and I had discussed were still very present in my life. After Herb spoke he began to ask for people to stand if they felt a breeze against their legs. I thought I had felt the breeze but wasn’t really sure so I didn’t stand. He then said that there was one person who wasn’t standing because they weren’t sure if they had felt the breeze or not. I promptly stood up. When I rose Herb didn’t recognize me but began to tell me some pretty remarkable things. He made a point of saying that I needed to become a man of integrity, he also emphasized that he was NOT calling out sin in my life. This is rather important because some prophets can see the sin in people’s lives and will call it out in front of people, but that is quite destructive and is not the way that prophets are meant to handle that kind of information.

After speaking directly to me for a while Herb asked everyone that was standing to go and be prayed for by one of the people on the prayer team. God pointed out someone specific for me to pray with named George. Before I even approached him he came to me and asked if I wanted him to pray for me, I of course obliged. He prayed for me generally first and told me some things about myself that I may share another time, but not now. He then asked what specifically I wanted prayer for and I of course told him it was the cantaloupes. As he began to pray, God gave me an image of a small pink planet. I was standing on the planet and next to me was a large brick wall a few feet taller than I was. On the other side of the wall was the sun. The sun’s rays were shining over the top of the wall and my planet was entirely lit up despite the fact that the wall stood between the sun and me and I couldn’t see the sun itself. As George continued to pray the wall suddenly came down and became nothing more than a pile of bricks at my feet. I could now see the sun directly and step over the wall and it would not hinder me in the least, as long as I didn’t rebuild the wall myself.

Now, two weeks later, the wall is still down. Don’t get me wrong, the temptation has returned. I, however, have a new attitude about it. Now when the rotten cantaloupes show up, my attitude is one that says, “No, that’s a terrible idea! That is only going to be hindering to me and I should NOT do it.” As opposed to one that said, “Oh, I shouldn’t do it, but…” Two things that are helping me in this fight are the example set by the life of Jesus and the book of James. When Jesus was tempted he didn’t pussyfoot around and think about it, he immediately quoted scripture and walked away. The scripture I usually think of is in Phillipians (I think) when Paul calls people out for making their stomach their God, and for me, that’s a real quick shutdown. What James says in chapter 1 verse 15 is, “when desire has conceived it gives birth to sin.” So a natural extension of thought from that verse is to ask what it is I desire that I am trying to satisfy with a big orange fruit. So I’m asking God; what is it?

Rob Bell, in his book Sex God, talks about our desires. He says that our desires, in and of themselves, are not the problem. God gave us, and gives us, our desires. Problems arise when our desires are misdirected. Desires require an immense amount of energy and those desires, along with the energy that drives them, need to be directed towards positive things. In the book of Ephesians, Paul says that thieves first, need to stop stealing, but then they need to begin to work with their hands (the thing they once used to steal), and begin to work towards something good. He says this because, in essence, it’s impossible to focus on not doing something, so we need a positive to dwell on if we are to be rid of the negative influences.

The cantaloupes of my life used to make up a great brick wall that stood between God and I, but that wall has fallen. I still have those desires. Those bricks are still there. Now it is time to use the bricks to build a bridge to bring me closer to the sun. Or a bridge that will take me to another planet where I can help someone else tear down his or her wall. Or use those bricks to build a monument to God. Or crush the cantaloupes into some cantaloupe juice and bring the good out of them and share it with others. Or… well you get the idea.

Post 12: Jesus and Coach Huggins

Bundled up in a scarf and beanie with a few dozen other bleary-eyed SPU students, I stood in one of my favorite places; the canal right next to SPU's campus. It was 6:30 Easter morning and we all showed up to hear about see the Son risen while watching the sun rise. The morning started with an upbeat version of "Oh Happy Day" led by guitar and upright bass. I watched some people step back and forth or maybe raise their hands a little but most people were too cold to really be "into it." Charismatics are more fun to worship with than Methodists anyway. As I closed my eyes and began seeking the Lord, he showed me a picture.

It was about 2,000 years ago and Jesus was stepping out of the tomb. He was refreshed and smiling and as he stood there grinning, with a smirk he coolly said two words; "I won." Then WOOSH, fast forward back to 2010, my perception of the postmodern Jesus (jeans, flip-flops, V-neck and all) is standing at my side with a hand on my shoulder. Again, he only says two words; "It's ok."

That Easter morning I was feeling more than a little down about where I was at, and in some ways still am, in my life. "It's ok" was all I needed to hear. Feeling slightly embarrassed about old sins and dissatisfied about my relationship with him but also not feeling motivated enough to do much about you'd think what I needed was Pentecostal prayer meeting. Nope. Two words. "It's ok." That was all I needed.

* * *

If you like basketball at all you probably watched some of the NCAA March Madness Tournament. I have to say that the most remarkable moment of the tournament wasn't a slam-dunk, an amazing comeback, or even a Cinderella/underdog victory story. It was the West Virginia vs. Butler game.

It was one of the Final Four games and West Virginia, like all the others, was hoping to take home first place. Senior Da'Sean Butler, one of the best players in West Virginia's history and a major force on the team since his freshman year, was hoping to be an NBA draft pick. Da'Sean, obviously a key player, was bearing a lot of weight for the team and was needed desperately to take the team to the final game. If they won this would also be Coach Huggins first ever NCAA championship.

With a few minutes left in the game Da'Sean went for shot and came down with an obviously painful and serious knee injury. Da'Sean was writhing on the ground in obvious pain both from the injury and from knowing his career was probably lost along with the game. It was painful to see the anguish on his face. In a few moments De'Sean's coach Bob Huggins was running out to Da'Sean.

When Huggins reached De'Sean he basically got right on top of him, put Da'Sean's head between his arms and lowered his face to be just a few inches from his player's. I heard in an interview later that Da'Sean began apologizing right away. He apologized for letting down the team and especially for not getting the coach his first championship trophy. Huggins response was nothing short of fatherly. Huggins told Da'Sean "It's ok," that he was a very special kid, and, most importantly, he told him over and over that he loved him.

When we fall hard our Father comes running. He lowers himself down to where we are, gets his face in close to ours and as we lie on the ground crying out in our lowest of lows he says, "It's ok, I love you no matter what." What we have to remember is that it’s ok, God already won. Our sin is defeated and the trophy is his. All that's left to do is take his hand when he reaches down and accept his aid as he helps us rise again.