In recent weeks a smaller, somewhat unexpected film is getting some Oscar attention. Into the Wild is based upon the true story of Christopher McCandless, who after graduating from Emory University in the early nineties, gave all of his money to charity, loaded his sub-compact with his few possessions, changed his name, and headed west. Judging from McCandless’ detailed journals, he was disgusted with the wealth of his parents, along with the greed and corruption he saw all around him, and so he determined to fight the American way of life by going “off the grid”. It was a quest for adventure, and at the heart of that adventure, for McCandless, was anonymity and solitude. It seemed the way to escape the mess of the world would be to escape the presence of other people.
I had always considered myself to be fairly handsome. I knew that I was being a bit generous to myself, but hey, it was me. There were moments when I knew that I could stand to lose a few pounds here and there. My jeans would feel a bit snug—I’d just figure the dryer shrunk them (keep in mind they were two years old). The notches on my belt kept moving out to cleaner, unused notches leaving the inner ones distressed and worn out like the collar of an old shirt. I was, as my friend Jeffrey Lancaster says, “body dismorphic”—I saw myself as thinner than I actually was. That self-misperception was about to change.
Worship is formative. That means it has power to shape us. We are what we sing (as Mark Noll writes in a recent article in Christianity Today.) Our hearts are drawn from other “treasures” as our eyes are opened to see Jesus for who He really is. Thomas Chalmers called this the “expulsive power of a new affection.” By that phrase he means that you never really get over one love until a new one comes along. In worship we seek to have Jesus become more beautiful and believable to us. We seek to have God restore our sanity so that we can live in line with the truth of the gospel rather than in the fantasy world in which we must earn God’s favor and manipulate Him to do whatever we want.
Worship is a whole-being response to all of who God is and what He’s done for us, encompassing all of life, empowered by the Holy Spirit, offered through Jesus, in concert with all of God’s people (past, present, and around the world), using the gifts God has given us under the regulation of His Word and in response to His revelation which culminates in Christ and Him crucified, toward the goal that His kingdom would spread to the whole of creation.
Do you like weddings? Chances are if you are a girl you do and if you are a guy you don’t. I completely understand. Before I was married, I felt neutral about them, at best. Now that I am married, I tend to enjoy weddings more. They remind me of my own wedding, which was delightful and unforgettable. Recently I have been to quite a few weddings; in fact I just returned from one this past weekend. It comes with the turf of my job. As a campus minister I happen to be around people that are of the marrying age. Not only do I go to a lot of weddings, but also, I often have the privilege of participating in the ceremony.
“And this Gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”—Matthew 24:14
My first real attempt at evangelism involved handing out tracts in a poor neighborhood. We spent hours practicing what we would say. With a cracking voice and a weak feeling in the knees, I methodically went to each house repeating the same lines to whoever opened the door as I handed them the tract with my sweaty hand. At the end of the day, I honestly felt like a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman, not an evangelist. I now know why I felt that way.
“Whachu talking ‘bout Willis?”—TV show Different Strokes
In any discussion, at least those that are profitable, one must define terms. Yes, it is boring, and maybe picky, but even as you all communicate, you demand clarity, otherwise there is confusion. One striking example is of Johnny, a 16-year-old, who is told by his father that under no circumstances is he to go to any party. Now he may take his father very literally, and never go to a party. But Johnny’s girlfriend, also sixteen, invites him to a rave (which is another name for a party) and he consents to go. Why? Dad said I can’t go to a party, but he didn’t say “Don’t go to a rave.” Hopefully the point is made. We are certainly made in the image of God, yet at the same time woefully sinful. While many are charitable and grant that rave falls under the category of party, nonetheless, defining terms helps clear up confusion and sinful tendencies of the human heart and motive to suppress the truth (Romans 1:18ff). Picky? Yes! Helpful? Yes, and YES!
It is impossible to have an awareness of God without some understanding of the fact that he is holy. At the same time it is very difficult for us to wrap our minds around the concept of holiness. Holiness is difficult for us to understand because it is so foreign to our experience. We are well acquainted with brokenness and the miseries that accompany it in this life. We know all about sickness, sorrow, pain, and death. We have no trouble understanding sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, enmity, strife, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, and things like these. But holiness, that’s an entirely different matter. In fact, one of the most helpful ways we can understand holiness is to see it as the absence of these and other sins. God is holy specifically because none of the previously mentioned sins apply to him. John says that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5). This is another way of saying that God is holy.
For the past two and a half years I have not been able to shake the feeling that someone is watching me. Everywhere I go I get the feeling that someone is looking over my shoulder. Ever since my son Drew was born two and a half years ago there has been someone watching me. Just yesterday he watched me wake up (actually he woke me up by staring at me from approximately two inches away—this happens almost daily), he watched me make breakfast, he watched me get dressed, he watched me rake leaves, he watched me repair a broken faucet in my shower, and he wanted desperately to watch me “go hunt the deer,” but I was able to convince him that he would have to wait until he was older. Young children are obsessed with their parents. They are very observant and they are great copy-cats. I learned quickly that I must watch what I say and do because Drew is watching and he will inevitably follow suit—for better or for worse!
Had I any vague premonition of my present plight when I was six, I would have demanded that Stephen Herbison (incontestably the catch of the second grade) put his marriage proposal into writing and have it notarized. I do want this piece to be practical, so to all you first-graders: carpe diem.
Over the past several years I have perfected the artistry of escape regarding any singles functions—cookouts, conferences, Sunday school classes, and my personal favorite, putt-putt. My avoidance mechanism is triggered not so much by a lack of patience with such activities as it is by a lack of stomach for the pervasive attitudes. Thoreau insists that most men lead lives of quiet desperation; I insist that many singles lead lives of loud aggravation. Being immersed in singles can be like finding yourself in the midst of "The Whiners" of 1980s Saturday Night Live—it gives a whole new meaning to "pity party."