Who Not What

There is a saying I love that always helps me keep things in perspective when my desire to do totally cool things threatens to take over my life: It's who you are, not what you do that matters. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you accomplish the greatest feats in all the world, who you are is what really counts. The Bible puts it much better than I could:

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3

But I think there is a flipside to this as well. A lot of times when we think about God, we think about all of the awesome things that he has done for us. We remember the time when he sent peace to get us through the loss of a loved one. We remember the time he provided for us when we needed money and we didn't think there was any way we were going to make it. We remember when he helped us find our keys that one time they fell out of our pocket at the movie theater and were hidden under a row of seats. God has done a lot of amazing things for us, but he is so much more than what he does.

It is easy to root our faith in what he has done for us when he has done so much - to worship him for how well he takes care of us. But we should not plant our faith in what he does. Our faith should be rooted in who he is...his character, his nature, his goodness, his divinity. Everything that he does for our benefit springs from who he is. God does good things because by his very nature he is good. Nothing he does goes against his nature, so even when we don't understand why or how something could be happening, we trust the character of the God who is at work and put our faith in who he is. And what is the key to that kind of faith? Knowing God.

It's who He is, not what He does that matters.

Car Accident

Today I got in a car accident. Before you ask...no, it wasn't my fault. Here's how it went down.

Lewis and I were driving back to the office after our staff meeting at Atlanta Bread Company. I had a breakfast sandwich and coffee. It was delicious today. Anyway, we were tooling down the street when car one pulled out in front of us to cross over into the far lane. He had plenty of room to clear us, but the guy in car two who thought he could sneak out after car one did not. I smashed the break pedal into the floor like I was trying to kill a giant spider. My wheels stopped, but the car didn't. The rubber peeled off my tires like I was trying to stop a car rolling on giant black crayons. Lewis yells, "Look out!" In my mind, which was operating in hyperspeed, I calmly explained to him why we were going to be okay. What actually came out of my mouth was more like, "Nyauh!"

My front passenger side slammed into the front driver's side wheel of car two, bending his wheel over and crushing in the steel exterior of his Ford Focus. After I checked to see if the driver of car two was okay we chatted. Turns out it was the first real two driver car accident either of us had ever been in. Pretty cool.

What's not so cool is my sore neck and headache. Turns out your neck snaps like a rubber band when the weight of your melon head is going one direction and your body is not. Especially when you hit something at 35 miles per hour. And the accident wasn't my fault, which means that my 97 Saturn will have a 2009 front end. That's pretty cool, right?

Grammy Itch

I used to play in rock bands. I'll just come right out and own up to the fact that deep down inside of me lives a little man who wants to get in a van and drive ten hours to play a forty five minute show for just enough money to cover what I spent on gas and food to get there. This little man doesn't care about making a living, he doesn't care about sleeping in comfortable beds and he doesn't mind eating gas station food that exists at the lowest rung of the food chain. All he wants to do is rock.

This little man was knocking at the door of my mind while I very casually watched what was left of the Grammy awards after small group on Sunday night. Here was the dialogue we had:

Little Rock Man: Hey. Hey! There are people playing music
on tv. Do you see that?

Me: Yes, Little Rock Man. I see it. It's pretty
cool.

Little Rock Man: Of course it's cool. They are rocking!

Me: Well, to be fair, it is the Grammys so there really isn't that
much rocking going on.

Little Rock Man: There's enough. I wanna do that too! Come on...let's do it! Grab some of your holey (not to be confused with holy) jeans out of the closet, throw some goop in your hair, get your guitar and let's drive! We can be in Pennsylvania by noon tomorrow, and maybe we can get in on open mic night at Jimmy's Coffee Hut.

Me: That sounds about as good as getting punched in the face, Little
Rock Man.

Little Rock Man: I know! It rocks!

Sometimes I wish I had Little Home Improvement Man or Little Star Wars Figurines Man. Little Baseball Card Man sounds good too, but I guess we do the best with what we have.

I did go downstairs and play my guitar really loud though. Really loud. Sorry neighbors.

An Open Letter to Matt Pope

Dear Matt Pope,

Yesterday in Prairie Village, a suburb of Kansas City, a church protested outside of a local high school. They mobilized their people and drove to Kansas City with their signs and their voices to take a stand. What were they protesting? They were protesting you. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested outside of Shawnee Mission East High School because you, an openly-gay former student, were elected prom king last year.

As I watched this on the news, I felt sick to my stomach. Not because a local high school had elected a gay student as prom king, but because of the warped response of those who are trying to represent God to the world. The leader of the protesters, Shirley Phelps-Roper, was briefly interviewed by the local news station.

"Those children elected a prom king, queen, thing," Phelps-Roper said. "They showed that they don't have a clue about their duty to obey the standards of God."

I wanted to ask Shirley about her duty to obey the standards of God myself. When did it become a standard of God to verbally attack and abuse those who may be far from him? Those he loves dearly? God has clear, unbreakable standards for us, but how are we supposed to live them out?

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-40

Matt, if I had to make a list of ways to show love to someone, shouting down a group of students for nominating their friend as prom king might not be at the top of the list. This is not an excuse, but God doesn't hasn't given us the responsibility of calling out everyone else's sin. We are responsible to deal with our own. God doesn't want us to throw stones at others, but to look at ourselves in the mirror of his word.

I wonder how many of those protesters would still be there shouting about the gay prom king if everyone knew what lie they told their boss to get the day off, what gossip they told about the girl in the other van, the thoughts they had about that kid who really gets on their nerves, what sites are on the history list of their web browser...

Please know this, Matt...God loves you. He loves you with a perfect, selfless love that has no basis in who you are or what you do. He loves you unfailingly because that is just who he is. He wants you to know him. He wants to have a real, tangible relationship with you. He thinks you are awesome and has an incredible plan for your life if you are interested in taking his hand.

I don't know if you'll ever read this, Matt, but if you do, drop me a line. I'll buy you lunch sometime.

Chris

Self Evaluation

For me a new year brings with it a sense of renewed purpose, a fresh chance to get things right. I can't look back at a previous year and not identify things that I wish I would have done better. When it comes to my own performance, I am a harsh critic. There are probably very few of my failings you could point out that I am not already very aware of. Probably.

If I was to be completely honest I would admit that I have blind spots. I've got gaps in my ability to self evaluate and I can miss things in myself that I would want to get rid of if I picked them up in an honest evaluation. For example, if I were to take a step back and get a completely objective view of myself I would realize that I have a habit of relentlessly and ruthlessly making fun of Twilight to the people who love it dearly (even now I am practically having to break my own fingers to keep from writing all the witty comments that are coming to mind). But some people really love that beautiful novel of love and romance, so it would probably do me good to just shut up once in a while. Besides, I love my share of stuff that many people would think incredibly stupid (the movie Screamers).

I say all this because I am in a period of reflection and self evaluation right now. Where am I? How did I get here? Where do I want to be? What do I need to do better? It's a good place to be because if we can't take a clear and honest look at ourselves we can never identify and deal with what is holding us back. In one of my favorite passages, the Bible puts it better than I ever could:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
Psalm 139:23-24

What about you? Ready to take a look?