Jail and Jobin

Anyone who knows me at all knows I love love. I'm not afraid to admit I'd have no problem watching The Notebook or Pride and Prejudice without being forced to do so by a pretty girl. I've always been a hopeless romantic of sorts. So the ground I was standing on was shaken when I found out I didn't really know what love was. How ironic.

I thought I had clearly distinguished in my mind the difference between loving someone as a person and being "in love." The obvious difference is, romantic feelings and attraction don't exist with every single human. Apart from that, I'm not sure much else is different. We're commanded to "love one another as Christ loved us", and husbands and wives are commanded to love each other "as Christ loved the church"- "us" and "the church" are synonymous, because we (the people) are the church. It's the exact same command. Interesting.

In terms of romance, God gave us this window to "fall in love", which propels us into marriage. It may be physical attraction, emotional connection, similar personalities, or any number of things. But I think the command is the same because God knew what he was doing, obviously. He knew your first 6 months or year of falling couldn't last. It couldn't stay that way. Of course romance should stay alive, and I believe couples have to fight for that. But love will ALWAYS require more than romance, no matter how hard you're swept off your feet.

I heard a story recently. A story of heartbreak, destruction, and redemption. A story about a prominent youth pastor. He was married with little kids. Trusted and loved in the church and community. It turns out he had been struggling with infidelity. Except he wasn't just having an affair. He was paying for sex with male prostitutes. It's kind of hard to describe what you're feeling and the thoughts you're having right now isn't it? I was enraged when I heard the story. Now imagine what his wife must have felt, because I know you and I can't even comprehend it. This youth pastor was arrested while purchasing a male prostitute and was taken to jail. He called his parents with his one phone call and begged them to come pick him up. His parents had a standing rule since he was a teenager. If you get arrested and taken to jail, you're staying there at least 24 hours. I think that's a great life lesson. The youth pastor's dad was now charged with calling the wife and telling her why her husband wasn't coming home. The dad made the phone call and proceeded to tell the wife what had unfolded, and what his policy was on jail. The wife was silent for a short moment, and then said "Go get my husband right now." It wasn't anger. It wasn't abrasive. What it was, was determination. That wife gathered her parents, her husbands parents and her husband in the living room of their home that night. She and her husband sat in the middle of the living room while both sets of parents stared at them. She looked at her parents and said "I have forgiven him and love him, and so will you." She looked at his parents and said the very same thing.

I don't know what their road was like after that night. But I do know that the youth pastor got help. He was accepted by another church, and eventually, given another opportunity to be a youth pastor. His wife never stopped loving him, and never left his side. I also know that night she didn't say "Go get my husband." because she remembered how she felt in the first 6 months of their relationship. She didn't remember the flowers or romantic dinners or even the things he never said. She remembered Jesus, and it had nothing to do with what her husband deserved or didn't deserve, who he had been, or how bad he had failed.

You see, this is what I now know. Love isn't a response. It never will be. Whatever you respond out of, isn't love. You respond out of pleasure, passion, desire, self, emotion, fear. But not love. Love just is. It doesn't waver. It chooses to engage. Love always chooses to find a way to express itself. Regardless of what's returned. It's an invitation over and over again...and this invites the other person in. And everyone wants to be invited.

It wasn't long ago I was going through one of the most difficult times in my life. Everything I thought I knew came crashing down and I was no longer sure of anything. About two months later I met someone I now consider one of my very best friends. We'll call him Jobin. What Jobin gave me was an invitation. Over and over again. He loved me right where I was at. He was present in my life and the story that had begun to unfold. I've learned a lot from Jobin in the short time we've known each other, and I'd like to think he's learned a thing or two from me. What I know about Jobin is that I get his friendship and nothing else. There are no strings attached. Nothing on the other side of the equation. That's how Jesus was. He was present. He gave invitations. And he offered Himself and nothing else.

"The bible says the only weapon any of us really has is love. But it's love like a sword without a handle and because of that, sometimes we'll get cut when we pick it up." - Bob Goff

That sounds risky, like it might even cost me a limb or two. But that's how I want to love. And that's the kind of romance and friendships I want to have. Relationships that involve completely imperfect people who refuse to give up. I don't know if it's a product of current society or if friendships and relationships have always been disposable. But we just throw them away. In the words of the great poet often known as Jay-Z..."Onnnn to the next one." In every form and fashion. In every type of relationship. On to the next one.

I don't know much, but I know that at one point or another we're all in jail like the youth pastor. And everyone thinks it's a good idea if we just stay there for a night or two or they just forget about us. But when love comes into play, the way Christ loved us and how he told us to love one another and our spouses, there's someone that says "go get my husband out of jail", "go get my friend out of jail" - because they just simply refuse to give up.

"Ryan's love was audacious. It was whimsical. It was strategic. Most of all, it was contagious. Watching Ryan lose himself in love reminded me that being "engaged" isn't just an event that happens when a guy gets on one knee and puts a ring on his true love's finger. Being engaged is a way of doing life. It 's about going to extremes and expressing the hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness." - Bob Goff

We need more wives breaking their husbands out of jail. We need more Jobin's. I want to love like them. I want to be audacious to the point it doesn't even make sense.

More to come.

Radioactive

Do you ever stop and think about what it means to be alive? That it's a miracle all by itself. Maybe that's a little nostalgic, but with the nostalgia comes perspective, and we could all use more of that.

Recently I was invited to a concert by some friends. However, the concert was on a Tuesday night. In a different city. Of course I wasn't going. I'd have to work 13 hours the next day, and I'd be exhausted from the 13 I just worked. I shrugged the invite off, but couldn't move past it over the next week. So I did the only logical thing....I went.

"Back then I'd be lying in bed or walking down a hallway at college, and the realization I was alive would startle me, as though it had come up from behind and slammed two books together. We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren't capable of remembering how we got here."-Unknown

 How quickly we forget the Psalmist David's words...

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them." Psalm 139 13-16 ESV

That's how we got here. You and me. With a purpose. We have always been seen by the only eyes that truly matter. There has never been a day when we haven't been known. "O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar." Psalm 139 1-2 ESV. He knows us, when we're on our knees proclaiming our love for him. Or when we're running from him as fast and far as we can.

There I was, at the concert. In a packed arena. On the front row of seats looking out at a mob of young people in the pit just in front of me. The guys high fiving and the girls slowly shifting their dresses back and forth.Waiting with great foretaste for the sounds of the newest indie rock sensation of sorts. The first guitar was amplified, and an outcry of monumental triumph quickly followed.

I could only think, what if people worshiped Jesus that way. Not just at a Hillsong or Jesus Culture concert. That's vastly limiting the meaning of worship. I'm talking about a life of worship. Living life with that kind of anticipation of the Lord. I found myself completely unable to enjoy the moment. But as the band kept playing I was distracted by how talented they were. Every single one of them was playing multiple instruments. Even two instruments at a time. Five or Six different types of drums. Guitars. Keyboards. Gongs. Tambourines. The madness was magnificent.

"When you are born you wake slowly to everything. Your brain doesn't stop growing until you turn twenty-six, God is slowly turning the lights on, and you're groggy and pointing to things saying circle and blue and car and then sex and job and health care. The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're just used to it."- Donald Miller

In that moment life became staggering again. I was suddenly aware of how incredibly talented each member of this band was, and how the noise they were making, was what we call music. God had given each of them the ability and skill set to make 15,000 people stand to their feet and scream at the top of their lungs. That's staggering. The bible tells us that God is in everything. I was marveled by God in that moment. Even if it wasn't a Phillips Craig & Dean concert.

I played baseball in undergrad and before every practice and game we would pray as a team. There was one particular guy on the team whom everyone always gave a hard time after he prayed. His prayers took forever. He would say how thankful he was for the day. The trees. The birds. Baseball. His teammates. The weather. It always made us laugh. Maybe it was overboard. But when I think about it....life must have been so incredible to him that he just couldn't overlook all these little things. He was alive and it wasn't because of a temporary happiness. The joy that he knew, was staggering.

Because that's what God does, he loves to make us marvel at his glory, if we only stop to recognize the ways that he is trying to tell us how much he loves us. When it's not just another Oklahoma sunset in our eyes. When we stand in the rain in our favorite clothes. When we have the opportunity to listen to someones story. And the chance to tell them ours. When everything falls apart and you watch God put it back together piece by piece by piece. When we give of ourselves, and unexpectedly receive. When we end up at an unexpected concert with unexpected company.

There's no explanation other than he loves us. Since before we were born. And right where we are at today. Life is staggering, don't miss it.

I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones...welcome to the new age.

Give it a listen. It's the jam.

More to come.