Good, Old-Fashioned Inappropriate Metaphors

It's like they were all masturbating! A room full of people were getting worked up toward the close of a church service. I sat in the back next to my friends and we silently watched. The atmosphere was so uncomfortable for me that my legitimate need to use the restroom was a welcome excuse to escape the madness. "People are gonna think I'm the worst cynic of all time," I muttered to myself, alone in the restroom, "This is just bad! It's not worship!" I remember hearing a pastor ask me, "If the Holy Spirit ever left this church, would any of these people notice?"

Curiosity led me back to the sanctuary as I followed the sound of a young woman crying. The young men and women standing in the aisles wailed in sympathy. Their corporate vocalizations rose together to form an almost other-worldly sound, filling the room and rising to the ceiling. I had listened intently to the entire message and to the words of the closing song. The entire service was beautiful to the ears and the eyes but entirely meaningless. I, who will not withhold an "amen" when the pastor 'says it how it is,' had sat stone-cold silent in the wooden flippy-bottom chair through the entire sermon.

After standing by the sound booth for what seemed to be an eternity, I finally decided to return back to my seat. My friend looked at me,

"Did you say something?"
"What? Oh, I didn't say anything. I have a lot to say, but not right now."
"About this?" she asked.
"Yea."
"Is it bad?"
I pressed my lips together and nodded.

The Mountain

I remember when I had my first mountaintop experience. I was at Christian Summer camp and I was a high schooler. All of the independence and being away from my parents for a week just made this a choice time for me. The speakers were moving and the music was powerful. When I felt emotions for the first time during praise and worship, I thought they would always be there when the band played. Certainly, my experience wasn't contrived: it was completely genuine.

But returning home hit me in the face like a sack of bricks. The next step in this experience was how I watched my spiritual buzz fade over the next few weeks. It didn't take long for me to return to where I had been before. I felt spiritually dead again and I couldn't wait for my next revival. Next summer, I got my fix and I cruised on that high for a few weeks and then it just died again like the first time. My conclusion at the time was that this would be a necessary cycle in order to stay connected with God.

My next fix was supposed to be on the Mexico missions trip in the Spring with my youth group. I went the whole week and no buzz. Oh well! There's always summer camp! But amazingly, no buzz then either! I was concerned at first, but the message I got from God was clear and it's impacted my life more profoundly than any emotional experience I've ever had: "Don't expect any more of those mountaintop highs. That time of your life was fun and important, but it's over and I need you to move on and grow up. I love that you can worship me when it feels wonderful, but now I want you to learn how to worship me when you feel nothing."

Addicted to Ecstasy

I'll admit that I'm not the greatest of Biblical scholars, but I'm having a hard time finding where Jesus said, "If you truly love me, you'll feel it." The message I get from many churches today that if you don't feel the Spirit, you don't have the Spirit. But wouldn't it make so much more sense if the Holy Spirit was a whole lot more than a drug? It's hard for me to understand why God would be okay with being put into that kind of a box. I really believe that the purpose of my emotional experiences during my Summer camps was for God to make Himself real to me - to announce to me personally that He exists. That's when I fell in love with God. So, you might say that I was in the honeymoon stage.

To stand in a room full of people dancing and making noise in response to nothing worth getting excited about breaks my heart. I truly believe that God is worth our undignified praise, but it is impossible to truly praise Him without acknowledging His awesome attributes. The point of unified corporate worship is that we acknowledge and celebrate God's praiseworthy attributes as a group!

But who are we to go into worship expecting to receive blessings from God? No matter how badly life is going, we still absolutely need to remind ourselves how we have already been blessed. If you're waiting for God's blessings to begin, you're already missing them. Do you want to know how to maximize God's blessings in your life? Observe the pattern of God's provision in your life that has you standing in His presence today. It's easier to have faith that God's goodness in your life will continue than that they have yet to begin. If you're waiting for that 'breakthrough,' you clearly don't realize that the real breakthrough that you need happened two-thousand years ago when Jesus died on the cross.

Wanting more of God is like taking a shower under Niagara Falls and wanting more water. He's given us more of Himself than we could ever contain. Church, the deficit is not in His presence: it's in our recognition of His presence. I'm not saying that it's wrong to ask God for a fulfilling relationship, a raise, a promotion, financial relief, physical healing, a new car, a better house, for a positive pregnancy test, or a negative one, etc... But get it out of your mind that God's sitting up there waiting to grant your wishes as soon as you vocalize them or after you've passed His "tests" for you.

Our purpose on here as a Church is SERIOUS, not a bunch of silly tests to see if we're worthy of Heaven. The truth is that we're not worthy of Heaven but Jesus made it so that we can still enter its gates. The reason for the trials in our lives is because our lives have purpose! Hell is no laughing matter! It's a terrible place and God has commissioned us to reach out to those who, like us, are damned apart from God's grace. 

Let me finish!!!

This will probably come as a disappointment to many, but Christ did not die for your weekly or daily climax. I sincerely believe that to stand before the altar in the expectation or even determination to be enveloped in a spine-tingling emotional release is entirely selfish. "Worshiping" God for the feelings and the blessings is missing the point of worship. God's blessings cannot be bought by anything we have to offer. He will send us relief at the proper time, but for nothing but His purposes alone. Sometimes, He is just waiting for us to ask. But many times, He's got something bigger cooking than we can possibly understand. If you want a miracle, think about the fact that God hasn't destroyed you even though you completely deserve it. God is not here to serve us. We're here to serve Him and it is for His pleasure, not ours, that we worship.

Hey, I just met you. Now CHANGE, dammit!

I was at a park and an older man motioned for me to sit across from him. He wore a cap that said, "Campers for Christ." I had seen him praying and it was pretty obvious what he was about. If he ever asked for my name, that's all he knew about me before he began sharing the Gospel. I listened quietly and respectfully as he unfolded a brief summary about the life and significance of Jesus and then he asked me if I'd heard the story. I paused briefly as I tried to evaluate the most loving way to respond.

Wait! How is it you said you know me?

I guess I'm honored that I look like a sinner. I hate thinking that someone might look at me and think that I'm a good person. But I sat and listened to this guy cold-pitch the gospel to me for at least a good minute before I was given a chance to share anything about myself. Once I had spoken, his startled expression made it clear to me that the last thing he expected was for me to be a practicing Christian minister.

What a loud-mouthed bunch we are! There seems to be only one mission in modern evangelism: "I need to get people to believe what I believe." Many Christian leaders will convince you that you can debate people into Heaven. The sad truth is that by our assurance that we are the sole bearers of truth, we stand in the way of the work God wants to do through our lives. Our mouths are wide open as we shout Jesus's name, but our ears cannot hear God's voice over our repetitive jabbering.

A pathetic characteristic of the Church is this widespread belief that it is a character flaw to not know Jesus. Without knowing the experiences that have brought that person to where he/she is today, we will simply deem that person as 'less enlightened' than those who attend our church. We're oblivious to the fact that a person's rejection of Christianity may not be as much a 'logic' thing as it is a 'heart' thing. When we tell people that Jesus is the answer to their problems, we have no idea that the root of that person's problems just may have come from those who claimed to represent Christ. Yet the Church at large is prone to not address the issue. In countless people's lives, "Jesus" is the name that has accompanied the worst evils they've ever witnessed.

Stop thinking that you're so important!

If you think that God loves you because you love Him, how dare you? Who the hell do you think you are to think that your life is somehow more valuable to God than someone who, for all you know, was driven away from Him by people like you? There are two things you can do with your life: you can get in God's way or you can get out of God's way. If you want to learn true surrender and submission to God, remember that God doesn't owe you anything and that you can't help Him accomplish anything He can't accomplish without you.

Understand that God's love for us is unfathomably great, but His love is no greater for one person than it is for another. The love bestowed upon us is not merited by anything of our own doing but by what He has done. It is the very fact that we are beautifully made by God and in His image that we are the recipients of His love. Regardless of our belief system, we are still the work of His hands and we are his prized creation.

They were speaking ironically, right?

There's this commonly held philosophy that all people are "basically good." Now, I can see where people can get mixed up, here. It's easy to do the right thing when the benefits of doing the wrong thing are small and the repercussions are foreseeable. We usually get something nice in return when we do something nice to someone else, even if the reward is simply feeling good about ourselves. But put any human being in a position of high power and you can watch all of that supposed 'goodness' melt away. Our truly evil colors show when the perceived reward for our corruption is high and we're sure that we can dodge the consequences.

All mankind is basically evil. To our very core, we are selfish, greedy, and twisted. That is the very reason that we cannot save ourselves. That is why Biblical law cannot save us - it is against our very makeup to be truly good, following both the spirit and the letter of the law. From the surface of our skin to the deepest pit of our souls, we are corrupt. Only the blood of Christ can pay the debt we owe for our vile nature.

So why would God want to save us if we're so bad? Because we're beautiful! Even in our unfathomable perdition, humans bear unmistakable signs of God's love, goodness, and character. Jumbled among our wayward fiber, we find trademarks of God's magnificent craftsmanship and glimpses of His grace. Although we are now fallen and sinful, God still made us just a little bit like Himself and for that reason, he takes pride in us and desires us. Because of our ability to turn away from Him, He values the worship that we bring to Him. It's voluntary!

Pardon my French

I hope that you understand my heart when I say this because I cannot conceive strong enough words to describe what I'm trying to communicate. Too many beautiful people are being treated like shit by the people whose conduct influences the reputation of Christ. Who are we to treat our equals as lesser life forms simply because they don't believe in the God we worship?

I think we're in dire need of a change of mindset. People need to be saved but they don't need to be fixed. There's a big difference between the two. We're broken, yes. But we'll be broken until the day we die. Accepting Jesus into your heart just doesn't fix you - not in this life, anyway. I'm in love with God, but I am still very, very broken. I'm so glad that God never fixed me, though. If my problems were solved, I'd stop needing Him. If I wasn't overwhelmed by my insufficiencies, I'd never cry out to God for help. If I wasn't ashamed by my faults, I'd be overrun by pride. The greatest beauty I have ever seen in my life is my dependence on God.

Christian love needs to change, too. People know when your love is insincere. If we are magnificent in the eyes of our creator, we should also see that magnificence in each other. If Jesus considered mankind worth dying for, shouldn't we extend to our fellow human beings, saved and unsaved, the honor and admiration suitable for those who are treasured by the King?

Love as a means or love as an end?

I want to issue a challenge to the evangelical Christians out there who think that the purpose of Christianity is to get people saved. We are not called to be commissioned salespeople: we're called to be God's "satisfied customers." Our job is not to 'sell' God to the masses but to demonstrate His love in action in our lives. We can stop hiding the fact that we are still broken so that others can know just the kinds of people Jesus saves and how He uses them.

Jesus saves people. We don't. I realize now that Jesus never summed up the law as, "Convert as many people as possible." People know when someone is trying to convert them and I can't say that I can blame anyone for being somewhat offended or put off by that. It offended me to be evangelized. When we make disciples, it should not be the purpose for which our 'love' aims, but rather a natural by-product of God's love that reflects from our lives. 

Jesus commanded us to love one another. But I don't think we should love one another simply because Jesus said we're supposed to. I want to be loving people as an outpouring of my gratitude that God has created them and blessed my life with his magnificent handiwork. His fingerprints are on everyone. No, we are not "basically good": we're basically evil; but I am convinced that every person has beauty interwoven into the fabric of their being that somehow reveals the character of God, in whose image mankind was created.

Why I Can't Save My Virginity for Marriage Any Longer

My stomach hurts today. It hurts like it used to a long time ago. In fact, it's hurt for a couple of weeks, now. It's the burning of acid-reflux and it's miserable. Laying down is not fun and enjoying some of my favorite flavors (the spicy ones, in particular) brings uncomfortable consequences. I realized after some thought that these are the symptoms that only arise when I am under stress. I asked myself, "What am I stressed about? What has me so worried?" It seems that I'm lovesick again. It's that feeling you get when you want to be held. You don't even need to be pining for anyone in particular for this to occur, it's just that you want somebody to make you feel safe. It's the panging to be physically and emotionally intertwined with another person you find sexually attractive. It's been a while since I've felt this kind of lovesick and I'm grateful for the fact that I've gone roughly a year now without the smoldering craving for romance and intimacy.

But it's back. My stomach burns for relief like my heart burns for love. I'm 26 now. Long before, I imagined that this would be the age at which I'd have a wife and at least one kid with another one on its way. But I'm still a virgin today and most high school students have more relationship miles on their odometers than I have as an adult in his mid 20s. The topic was even brought up last weekend and a couple of women at church assured me that the "right" girl is out there and that I'll meet her someday. The words are so kind and they used to be comforting, but there's a grassy field in my mind with a tombstone that reads: "RIP: Family Plans." I don't say, "When I get married," anymore. I say, "If I get married." No longer, "When I have kids," but "If I have kids." Most people hear my words and conclude that I've lost my faith in love.

Can we stop lying to each other???

Why do so many people find it necessary to assure their single friends that "true love" will come? They're well-meaning words and I know that they're aimed to comfort the downtrodden, but they're not necessarily true. While I realize that this happens quite often outside of Christian circles, it still troubles me that supposedly Bible-believing Christians perpetuate this idea that love will come when you least expect it. There's this widely-circulated philosophy that, "You need to stop trying to find the perfect special someone and focus on being that special someone." To me, it paints this picture of a guy and girl who are made for each other, placed in separate rooms, and preparing for their blind date with each other.

The reason I detest this is because it places this idea in our heads that we were made for some other special person: that missing puzzle piece. It's as if our entire existence and purpose is for that special someone that we'll someday meet down the road.  Understand that as I write this, I believe in this kind of love less now than I ever have before. I, who used to imagine being married with kids and happy, now just try to imagine being happy. There are just no guarantees in life and I can rest on nothing more than my salvation through Christ. But God never promised me a wife or kids.

I'm told often, "Don't worry. The right one will come around." The problem is that nobody can know that for sure and the people who say that could be wrong. The odds are good that if I keep wanting love, I'll find it. But unlike before, I now know how fragile my heart is and I probably guard myself more than I should because I want love but I don't want any more hurt, so I avoid it. It may be that my heart is as well-equipped for romance as my skin is for sunlight.  Sometimes it works out that love will find a person once they stop looking for it, but life doesn't work out that way for everyone and people need to be sensitive to that before they start claiming that they know the formula to finding one's soulmate. I've stopped looking for or wanting love for long enough now that I should have found at least five or six soulmates in close proximity to choose from.

I don't believe that love will find me

Love might find me. I welcome the possibility! But I'm not sure of it like I used to be. I've been through the five stages of loss and grief over this issue. I've denied it, I've been angry about it, I've bargained with God about it, and I've borne an overwhelming amount of depression because of it.  But not until sometime during the last year have I really come to a place of peace and acceptance of it. 

There's a strong chance that I'll never fall in love and get married. If I do, I could lose her and never love again. We may never be able to conceive children of our own. If we do, we may outlive some of them. If we can't have kids, we may try to adopt and be unable to for some reason. It may be part of God's plan for me that the deep desires of my heart to be a husband and a daddy, a lover and provider, may never be fulfilled. I would love for my dreams to come true, but I know now that these are unrealistic expectations.

I'm no longer saving my virginity for marriage

Now before you think I'm throwing a pity party and trying to get attention, though I'm sure you're already thinking that, I need you to know that the reason I say all of this is because this process has brought me to a place of deeper faith than I've ever had in my entire life. I used to lay awake at night, haunted by these fears that the things that I wish for may never come true. These aren't fears anymore. It's not that I don't believe they could come true - they just might. But I know that I'll be alright, even if my life never meets those hopes and expectations I've had for it since I was very young.

I wasted too much of my time trying to become the most perfect 'future husband' possible in preparation for the woman God 'has chosen for me' when I could have been a lot happier just trying to be as unabashedly awesome as possible. During this time of reconciliation with reality, I've met a place where I'm no longer remaining sexually abstinent for my future wife and her happiness. Instead, I'm abstaining for me. Because I can't see how being sexually active outside of marriage can be constructive toward achieving my goals in career and ministry, I choose to keep it out of my life. Most days, I don't even believe such a woman exists who could love me and make me happy; but I see my face in the mirror every day and I know that this is a person who will need my love and consideration every day of my life. 

A better faith

It's been a long road that has brought me to where I stand today. But I now have a better idea of what authentic faith needs to mean for me and for other people who are seeking to know God. My faith can no longer be a belief that things will happen or work out a certain way: it needs to be that no matter how life works out, I know that God will never cease to be sovereign, perfect, all-powerful, and loving. Pleasant circumstances are not the evidence of God's love: His love is present even in our aches and pains. Though our situations change, God's love never changes. 

I experience physical pain today for the blessings I wish I had. I fantasize that a beautiful woman will suddenly grab me by the collar and start making out with me. I'd give up a week of food if I could spend just a couple hours under the stars with a pretty girl in my arms; strands of her hair between my fingers and foreheads pressed together between kisses. But in life, there will be pain and sadness. I'll cry today, but I'll also make a difference in someone's life today. If I die at age 90 and my last kiss a year ago now is the last kiss I've ever had, God never stopped being God. I pray that even through my brokenness, people will be caught up in God's love as a result of the life I lived.