There are lots of reasons for that -- most notably the ones who run around our house in Disney movie-themed pajamas every night.

We also spent a good amount of time working on Stephanie’s photography business.

But the new year is always a fun time to reflect on what a year has taught me, and share that with you, for whatever it’s worth. So, you  might actually see a few posts from me over the next few days. They are likely to be hyper-introspective and even soppy, so… consider yourself warned.

Today, I’m sharing one of my favorite songs of 2011.

It wasn’t new in 2011, and it may or may not be familiar to you.

The song is Dancing In The Minefields by Andrew Peterson.

I’ve actually been enjoying this song, along with most of Andrew Peterson’s, for years now.

But this year, for whatever reason, it seemed especially profound and inspiring to me.

The lyrics are pretty straightforward and probably not too much of a stretch for most folks (hear the song and read the lyrics below): life is full of landmines.

Fundamentally, the landmines are all the effects of the Fall of man: pain, suffering, illness, disappointment, discouragement…

That imagery takes a different shape for each person from day to day. But at the end of the day, we’re ALL living in a minefield, and we never know when the next one is going to blow up in our face.

The song pretty much assumes that we don’t need to be convinced of this.

But what I love about it is the picture he paints of marriage being about DANCING in the minefields.

That picture implies so much to me.

It’s not about trying to avoid the landmines.

It’s not about mourning how hopeless the situation appears.

It’s about holding hands and dancing through the ridiculous situation -- taking every little excuse to celebrate and not getting stuck for too long when there’s an explosion.

I also love how the song pretty much just assumes that we all know that marriage is hard:

It was harder than we dreamed but I believe that’s what the promise is for.

What promise?

And how is this possible?

Where is the motivation to keep going when there are so dang many setbacks every day/week/month/year?

The last verse explains it:

‘Cause we bear the light of the Son of Man
So there’s nothing left to fear
So I’ll walk with you in the shadowlands
Till the shadows disappear

‘Cause He promised not to leave us
And His promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos, baby,
I can dance with you

There it is: we can hold hands and dance through the minefields because we have hope in the sovereign, good God who we’re trusting to hold it all together.

And in that way, marriage is celebration of the Gospel.

I’m not sure I can come up with the right words to explain how special that picture is to me.

But hopefully the song speaks for itself.

Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtTa81LyuQM

(if you are reading this on the blog home page, lyrics are after the jump)

I was nineteen, you were twenty-one
The year we got engaged
Everyone said we were much too young
But we did it anyway

We bought our rings for forty each
From a pawn shop down the road
We made our vows and took the leap
Now fifteen years ago

We went dancing in the minefields
We went sailing in the storm
And it was harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for

“I do” are the two most famous last words
The beginning of the end
But to lose your life for another I’ve heard
Is a good place to begin
‘Cause the only way to find your life
Is to lay your own life down
And I believe it’s an easy price
For the life that we have found

And we’re dancing in the minefields
We’re sailing in the storm
This is harder than we dreamed
But I believe that’s what the promise is for

So when I lose my way, find me
When I loose love’s chains, bind me
At the end of all my faith, till the end of all my days
When I forget my name, remind me

‘Cause we bear the light of the Son of Man
So there’s nothing left to fear
So I’ll walk with you in the shadowlands
Till the shadows disappear

‘Cause he promised not to leave us
And his promises are true
So in the face of all this chaos, baby,
I can dance with you

I’m not interested in boasting about myself or comparing my life with yours.

I just have to point out how awesome our friends and family have been this week.

First of all, I need to brag on my wife:

Kharis turned 1 last week, and Steph pulled out ALL the stops for her birthday party. I watched her spend hours doing research, shopping for ideas, cutting out Mini Mouse ears and bows, trying to find the right fonts and colors, making gift bags, ceiling decorations, cupcake holders, party food…

She poured herself into making sure that Kharis had a birthday to remember.

And here’s what it looked like in the end:

Steph: you rock.

But I also need to brag on Steph’s sister, “Aunt Addy”, who took a break from law school and her summer internship and flew all the way from Oklahoma just to spend 2 days helping us celebrate.

Oh, and did you see the cake she made? That was some cake mix, vanilla icing, vanilla fondant, and food coloring before she got ahold of it!

“Aunt Addy”: you rock too.

When “Aunt Katie” and “Uncle Anthony” (and honorary “Aunt ‘Lisha”) pulled into the driveway, Josiah was hiding in his room with the door shut, because he was freaked out by all the people in our living room. But they walked right through the crowd, found him, gave him a new bat and ball and hat, and brightened his day right on up…

And then there’s Steph’s parents and grandparents who drove down from Virginia…. in her mom’s case, that was after working all night.

Or our friends who postponed a trip to the beach for a couple of hours to celebrate with us.

Or our friends who found time between raising twin babies, selling their home, and getting a graduate degree to come spend a few hours with us.

Or our friends who manage to pull off a 4-jobs, 2-kids lifestyle but still made time to come celebrate with us.

Or my mom who brought enough vegetables to feed a soccer team and a big carton of home-made salsa.

I was overwhelmed by all the grace our friends showed us this weekend.

To everyone who made time to come help us celebrate our daughter (and the end of a year with a toddler AND a baby under one roof):

Thank you so much.

You rock.

]]> http://www.therieslands.com/2011/08/03/can-i-brag-for-a-minute/feed/ 3 http://www.therieslands.com/2011/07/12/the-wind-up/ http://www.therieslands.com/2011/07/12/the-wind-up/#comments Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:23:58 +0000 Zack http://www.therieslands.com/?p=5363

If you find yourself “playing baseball” with Josiah these days, he’ll likely insist that you wear a hat, and you will probably want to make sure it’s your “patient hat”.

Every day he makes me smile.

Most days, he makes me laugh out loud.

When my dad gave a speech at my wedding, he said “I feel like I won the lottery.”

I think I will probably say the same thing every chance I get when it comes to both of my babies.

But Josiah recently entered a new stage…

I suppose we could call it the “I just realized that I can learn more about the world by asking questions” phase.

Or maybe IJRTICLMATWBAQ for short.

Here is the conversation we had over breakfast Saturday:

J: What’s that?!!?

Me: I don’t know. What is it?

J: It’s peanut butter!

Me: That’s right!

J: What kind?

Me: What kind of peanut butter?

J: Yeah! What kind?!?

Me: I don’t know. You tell me.

J: I don’t know either!

Me: It’s creamy peanut butter.

J: What kind?

Me: Um… it’s just creamy.

J: What kind?

Me: CREAMY! Creamy peanut butter. Made from peanuts.

J: Peanut butter is made from peanuts!

Me: Yep.

J: What kind….

If Stephanie or look totally exhausted next time you see us, it’s because we have 100 conversations like that every day.

It’s amazing to watch Josiah grow up right before our eyes and to see those little wheels in his head spinning as he pieces together his understanding of the universe.

But man…. the kid has a LOT of questions.

But just in case you don’t come around here very often, here are a few of my favorite posts from 2010.

In no particular order:

Kharis Laughing

Josiah Turned Two

The Orange Chair : Kharis Version

Kharis’ First Video

Josiah Video

Kharis’ Baby Shower

Josiah Toddling Around Southpoint Mall

A Couple Of Josiah’s First Steps

My Thoughts Going In To 2010

(warning: what began as a short reflection on 2010 became a full-fledged brain dump – continue at your own risk)

2010 was a tough year for the Rieslands.

Not tough as in somebody got really sick or someone lost their job — I realize a lot of folks had those kinds of years, and I’m definitely grateful that we didn’t have anything tragic to overcome.

And I don’t mean tough as in bad either. It really was a wonderful year. Maybe our best yet.

I just mean tough. Hard. Stressful. Exhausting.

The first half of the year found Steph trying to take care of a very active one-year-old while finishing a very difficult pregnancy. And the latter half of the year has been six months of doing just a little better than treading water — trying not to be overcome by the responsibilities of raising a 2-year-old and an infant and still living a somewhat normal life.

And also trying to do all that on one income.

And also trying to do all that without just surviving — doing our best to enjoy this season.

Let me pause at this point and clarify: I’m not complaining. Not at all.

In fact: this year has gone at least as good as we hoped it would. Seriously…

We signed up for this with our eyes wide open. Like a runner at mile 18 of a marathon: he doesn’t regret his decision to run the race. He doesn’t want to quit (except for brief moments of self-doubt). And in a weird way, he is kind of enjoying it — he knows that it won’t be long before he crosses the finish line, and the race will have been worth it — and that motivates him. But if you ask him at mile 18, “How do you feel?”

Well, he’s not likely to sing his favorite piece from The Sound of Music.

And for us, this year was very much a marathon.

My routine has been:

• wake up between 5 and 6
• do freelance work until 8′ish
• (maybe) have some time to read my Bible or meet someone for breakfast
• work an 8-hour day
• go home and help cook dinner, feed it to our son, eat it, and clean up
• spend as much quality time with Josiah as I can before his 8:00 bedtime
• bathe Josiah, read him his bedtime stories, and put him to bed
• and then I have 8:30 until I pass out to spend time with my wife and my daughter

And Steph’s has been:

• wake up and feed Josiah (which usually a battle because he doesn’t want to eat his breakfast, he wants to play)
• feed Kharis
• feed herself
• play with Josiah
• play with Kharis
• keep their diapers clean
• pick up around the house
• make lunch
• feed Josiah
• feed Kharis
• feed herself
• read Josiah bedtime stories and put him down for a nap
• put Kharis down for a nap
• (maybe) take an hour for herself (nap, bathe, etc)
• then basically repeat all of the above through bedtime

And these are ‘normal’ days.

Factor in that once a week our small group will be coming over, so the house has to be clean.

And once a week we try and have a date, which means the house has to be clean (for whoever is babysitting) and details like meals and baths need to be lined up.

And then there’s making time for the grandparents, keeping the bills paid, keeping the lawn mowed and gutters cleaned, building relationships with our neighbors, finding time to cultivate our relationship with God…

Like that marathon runner, there have been plenty of days where I basically just put one foot in front of the other. Forget taking in the scenery or noticing who else is running the race. Sometimes it feels like the only goal is: don’t quit.

At this point, our fellow parents will roll their eyes and say “join the club”, and those without kiddos will roll their eyes and say “well you signed up for this”.

And to both I say: Yep! Absolutely! I would not trade any part of our life right now for anything. I love everything about it!

I love coming home to a new craft on the fridge that Steph came up with for Josiah to do that day.

I love how Kharis will jump so hard in her bouncer that she can’t stop laughing.

I love how Josiah wants to be just like me… how he would rather go buy groceries with his daddy than watch any movie or do anything else.

I love seeing 20 people in my living room discussing the latest sermon at church.

I love how my parents’ faces light up when we bring the babies around.

The sacrifice doesn’t shake a stick to the reward.

But here’s my reflection on 2010 (seriously, this is it… Kharis is about to wake up, and I’m out of time to reflect!):

I see lots of t-shirts and bumper stickers that say “Life is good”, or “Blessed”.

We live in a culture that truly believes that life is supposed to be easy and painless. And whenever something difficult or painful happens, people FREAK OUT. We look at the grass on the other side of the fence, and wonder what life would be like over there.

We spend our whole lives chasing idols that we hope will make our lives less complicated and more enjoyable.

If I could just be married to THAT person.

If I could just sleep with THAT person.

If I could just attain THAT income… drive THAT car… get an audience with THAT leader… have THAT job… if I can just make it to NEXT year… maybe that will fix things…

Then maybe I can wear the “life is good” t-shirt without being a total fraud.

But here’s the truth: life is HARD

It most definitely has its moments, but mostly, life is really, really hard. Even in the good seasons when nobody is sick or out of work or addicted to drugs (see above).

Life is hard. But God is good.

God gives me grace to be a good husband when I don’t have the energy.

God gives me the grace to play baseball with my son when all I want is a nap.

God gives me the grace to pay my bills every month.

And God has created this story we’re living in where the earth is not our home. He has gone to prepare a place for us. He will come and take us to be with Him. And a day will come when our whole existence will be wrapped up in Him, and we will be able to say, on that day, “Life is good” and it will mean the exact same thing as “God is good”… and it will be true for every single second of all eternity.

And between now and then, and forever after, God is the hero.

I’m looking forward to more restful days in 2011 (please Lord!!!!). But I know I’ll realize new ways that I need God’s grace. I know that in my future, people I love will get sick and die… I will make mistakes…. people who I love and trust will hurt me….

There will be many days when “Life is good” will be nothing but a lie.

But “God is good” never, ever will.

2011 isn’t my savior.

I already have one.

*Three quick footnotes:

1) I know that your life is hard. It’s not pop-psychology — the Bible tells me that this world is broken and so is everything in it. So next time we talk, let’s not beat around the bush. It’s not complaining – it’s reminding each other how badly we need Jesus to restore everything.

2) If you live in denial about how badly you need a Savior by constantly trying to convince yourself that “life is good”, knock it off. Denial isn’t your only solution to deal with all the broken pieces in your life. Jesus wants to take them and build a beautiful mosaic. (And He makes sure that He is ALWAYS the hero.)

3) Did you have a similar 2010? Feeling exhausted? Take heart: life is full of seasons. As a pastor at our church encouraged me: “This will probably be the only time in your whole life that you are the father of a 2-year-old and a 5-month-old. Make it count.”

]]> http://www.therieslands.com/2011/01/01/2010-a-reflection/feed/ 4 http://www.therieslands.com/2010/11/05/thoughts-as-my-son-turns-two/ http://www.therieslands.com/2010/11/05/thoughts-as-my-son-turns-two/#comments Fri, 05 Nov 2010 12:45:46 +0000 Zack http://www.therieslands.com/?p=5037 Seriously?

Did I just write that?

TWO YEARS OLD?!?!?!?

Is my son really turning TWO years old today!?!?

Someone please explain to me exactly when my son went from this little 7 1/2 pound cuddler:

To this curious, running, jumping, talking, ball-throwing, counting, movie-watching, hide-n-seek playing, water painting, sports worshiping little boy who recognizes U2 and John Mayer songs when they come on the radio, bargains with me about how many more bites he has to eat before he can watch a “DD”, and runs at least one naked lap around the house right after we get him out of the bath tub every night:

I set out to write a “Here’s To You On Your Birthday” post for Josiah, but I was immediately overwhelmed.

I just couldn’t possibly imagine having a more amazing son, and I think it would take at least a book for me to explain all the details of why.

So, instead, I think I’ll just try to capture a little bit of his essence at this age, and maybe this time next year, I’ll look back at this and laugh.

For starters, here’s 2 minutes of video from last week that captures him at this age pretty well. This was a couple of days before Halloween. Josiah was ‘helping’ me rake the leaves:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6zrvIAsnTY

Here are a few of his favorite things to say as he turns the corner to becoming an official 2-year-old:

Ooh too! (U2, his favorite band)

Hit it!

Play baseball!

Play basketball!

Throw ball daddy!

Daddy, hit ball!

Daddy, sit! (So I can play catch with him. He’ll only play catch with you if you’re sitting.)

K.S. (Kharis. He also calls her ‘baby’)

Hiding! (He loves hiding)

P’h! P’h! (Pops his lips like a fish. This indicates he wants goldfish.)

Aaaaaple juice!!! (ALL juice is ‘apple juice’, regardless of which fruit it was actually made from, and he never just says ‘apple juice’, he announces it: “Aaaaaple juice!“)

Mean shark! (A reference to Finding Nemo)

Mean doggy! (A reference to Sandlot)

Vwoooody! (A reference to Toy Story)

Jumping!!! (A reference to what happens to the crowd during ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’ on his U2 DVD)

Grab hat. At the plate. Swing bat! Hit ball! Pow! Running now. Past first. Past second. Past third. Wow! (A paraphrase of the first SIX pages of his favorite book. He can ‘read’ them to you.)

Chill out, DUDE! (Another Finding Nemo reference)

D-D! (“DVD”)

Da da da! (This is kind of like “yeah yeah yeah!” It’s an emphatic yes in Josiah’s dialect)

Diddy Bot It (“Forget about it”. Josiah pretty much repeats everything he hears you say. If he gets a laugh, he continues to repeat it. That’s what happened with this. He repeated it one day and we cracked up, so now he says it from time to time.)

Preeeeeety good! (His grandma taught him to say this when you ask him how he’s doing)

I lub daddy! (This is how he says ‘I love you’. If I say ‘I love you Josiah’ he responds in the third person, ‘I lub daddy!’ or ‘I lub momma!’)

Bad kiss! (At some point, Josiah saw me lay a serious smooch on his momma, so then he decided to try it. She taught him that that’s a “bad kiss”. So now at bedtime, he gets a devilish look in his eye and tells his momma “Bad kiss!”)

Jacket off! (When I’m heading out to the garage my ‘office’, I usually get pretty bundled up, because it’s chilly out there. And Josiah knows that if daddy has to work, then daddy can’t play. So, whenever he sees me with any kind of jacket on, he points and says “Jacket off”, which means “No more working or going anywhere for you today. Stay here and play with me.”)

Basketball! (This is what Josiah says whenever he figures out that we’re at church. 90% of what he does at church right now is play basketball. But trust me: for him, it’s worship.)

F#@! (Can’t forget this one. If Josiah is talking about “fork”, “truck” or “work”, then he’s bound to drop an innocent little F-bomb. This is especially funny if something get’s stuck under the couch and he wants his big wooden fork to dig it out and rounds around the house yelling “Fork it! Fork it!”)

Well, that’s all big daddy has time for today.

Happy birthday Josiah.

You bring us more joy than you’ll ever know.

Well, for those of you who told me that nobody likes hip-hop, have no fear: today is rock.

Steph will tell you that probably my favorite musician is John Mayer.

Say what you want about his private life or his 20-million-dollar watch collection (no, seriously), but the man has more musical talent in one fingernail than I probably ever will in my life.

Not only does the guy have some serious musical talent, he also has some incredible song-writing skills. The lyrics to some of his songs are profound and poetic, and he manages to verbalize thoughts that I have but don’t know what to do with.

Jon Acuff over at “Stuff Christians Like” even wrote a “John Mayer Quiz“, where he challenges you to guess whether lines are from the Bible or from a Mayer song. He also gives 7 Reasons Why Christians Wish John Mayer Were a Christian, which is pretty funny to me.

Anyways, for my birthday last year, Steph bought me the Where The Light Is: John Mayer Live In Los Angeles concert DVD.

It’s a fun mix of acoustic, blues, and pop and I love it.

In the past couple of weeks, it’s been a staple in our house because Josiah (our little drummer) has discovered a love for music and asks me to watch that thing every stinking day.

He points at the drummer and flails his arms and goes “booommma! boooommma!”

(Have I ever mentioned that I love my kid?)

Anyways, I don’t know where this long intro came from, but here is my favorite jam from the DVD. It’s the song Belief, which I have blogged about before.

Enjoy:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZHnVvy_Hxg

Like many people, I first discovered Donald Miller through the book Blue Like Jazz. He had written several books before that one ‘hit it big’, but for some reason, that one got our attention.

I enjoyed the book a lot — not nearly as much as some of my friends — but I love Don’s writing style. He has a tone that would fit perfectly if he were your good friend and sitting across from you at a coffee shop telling you the stories he writes about. Where some books engage me in a way that is a mental workout, Don’s books engage me in a way that is a mental stress-reliever. I can read his writing before bed and it actually helps my mind slow down and try and take myself out of my shoes and put on his for a few minutes.

So, I’ve been excited to get my hands on his newest work, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.

I won’t endeavor to write a significant review of the book — partly because I don’t have the time, and partly because several hundred other people have already done so (so why add to the noise?). I recommend Chris Brogan’s video review. Or, you can go here and read the first chapter online for free.

I will say that I think it’s a really neat concept, and it has given me another angle from which to view my experience of life. The book probably won’t change your life, but it will entertain you, engage you, and might even nudge you to dream a little better. I guess, in a way, all books change our life to a certain extent.

Anyways, the point of this post is to offer the snippet below from page 123. Every input we allow into our lives shapes our perspective and, consequently, our ambitions:

Before I started writing for a living, I had a job as a marketing guy at a start-up company that sold textbooks to the education market. In learning about my job, I had to read all kinds of other books about how to sell people stuff they didn’t need. As near as I could tell from reading those books, marking is a three-step process. The first step is to convince people they are miserable. The second step is to convince people they will be happy if they buy your product, and the third step is to include a half-naked woman in your pitch…

The thing I never realized while I was studying marketing was the process of advertising products is, in many ways, a manipulation of the elements of story. It’s like I was telling you about an inciting incident disrupting the stability of a character’s life, throwing him orher into a story. Advertising does exactly this. We watch a commercial advertising a new Volvo, and suddenly we feel our life isn’t as content as it once was. Our life doesn’t have the new Volvo in it. And the commercial convinces us we will only be content if we have a car with forty-seven airbags. And so we begin our story of buying a Volvo, only to repeat the story with a new weed eater and then a new home stereo. And this can go on for a lifetime. When the credits roll, we wonder what we did with our lives, and what was the meaning.

The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don’t want anything, we are living boring stories, and if we want a Roomba vaccuum cleaner, we are living stupid stories. If it won’t work in a story, it won’t work in life.

The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person’s story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don’t want anything, we are living boring stories, and if we want a Roomba vaccuum cleaner, we are living stupid stories. If it won’t work in a story, it won’t work in life.

I’ve had seasons of growth, seasons of dryness, seasons of ‘active ministry’, seasons of ‘rebellion’…

Heck, I’ve been a ‘professional christian’ in various capacities.

But right now, at 27 1/2 years old, with no important-sounding titles like ‘pastor of _______‘ or ‘_________ leader‘, I can honestly say this:

I love the Bible more than I ever have.

I LOVE, the scripture: It is such a masterpiece of a book.

It is one BIG Story composed of lots of smaller stories that even gives shape and context to my story.

And it communicates the same Truth – and sub-truths – in dozens of various ways.

You can read the 4,000-year-old story of Joshua and learn about the courage that comes from trusting in God. Or you can read the 2,000-year-0ld story of Stephen and learn the same lesson.

You can see our need for a Savior in the ancient stories in Genesis, or in Paul’s detailed argument in his letter to the Romans, penned thousands of years later.

Written by so many different people over so many centuries… and still faithful and consistent in the Story of God

The Bible is a miracle.

As I’ve been reading in the Bible this year, I’ve had a question develop in my head:

Only a very small percentage of the Bible actually tells the literal story of Jesus (Matthew 1 – Acts 1). From the middle of Acts 2 through the end of the Bible, all we get are various commentaries and explanations about Who Jesus is and what He accomplished.  So I’ve been wondering how my perception of God and my understanding of the Gospel would be different if all I had of the new testament were the stories of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts)

(2 Clarifications: I’m including Acts because it tells us a lot about the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ life, so we’ll just go ahead and say that it makes more sense to group it with the Gospels than with the Epistles. Secondly, the light that the old testament shines on our understanding of the Gospel is profound, and how much of the Gospel we could understand without it would make a fun discussion, but I’ll save it for a later post. So for now, we’ll leave the O.T. alone. We’re just talking about losing most of the new testament.)

I believe that there is more than enough in these five writings to come to a sufficient understanding of the Gospel and it’s place in our lives, but many of the passages that give me the greatest clarity and encouragement would be gone.

So, I want to ask you:

Just for kicks, pretend that Matthew-Acts was the entire New Testament. What book/chapter/passage/teaching would you miss the most? Why?

I work in a small ‘satelite’ office in Durham.

Our company’s headquarters is about 80 miles down the road, so someone made the excellent decision to lease our little corner of an office building in RTP for folks like me who would have to drive a couple hours every day without it.

A good 75 percent of our building is occupied by a branch of a federal government office, and apparently they do something worthy to merit a couple of Department of Homeland Security guards throughout the day.

The three guys who rotate the duty are all retired military dudes who are old enough to be my dad. This is kind of their retirement job.

They basically just sit at a desk in the lobby and sign off on mail deliveries and check people’s credentials before letting them onto the elevator…

Consequently, they’re usually REALLY bored, and they’ll talk to you as long as you let ‘em if you happen to make eye contact.

This is a problem for me, since I have to walk by their desk every time I need to go use the restroom or the water fountain.

Seriously: this is a problem for me.

Sometimes I pretend to be talking on my phone while I walk past them, otherwise I can’t guarantee that I’ll make it back to my desk.

It’s not that I’m antisocial or that I don’t want to talk to people. But sometimes I have five minutes to kill, not 25, and I can’t afford to miss a call or an urgent email.

Ok. So that’s only barely relevant to the point of this post, but it was nice to vent. (Send me your hourly rate and I’ll put a check in the mail)

Oh, and just to prove my point, I got up to use the restroom about 2 sentences back and I got pinned down by a guard. He wanted to tell me about how someone had a panic attack yesterday that got him going about how he almost had a panic attack years ago when he spent his first day on the job as a fire-fighter.

Actually, I kind of like this particular guard. He’s the chattiest of all of them, but I honestly think that he believes that he has important advice he needs to impart to me any time he gets a chance.

Plus, his daughter and grandkids live with him, and he pretty much supports all of them, so he seems like a pretty stand-up dude.

But there are 2 other guards…

One is just a dirty old man. He cusses like a sailor, and loud enough to hear all the way in my office, and when neither of the other guards are around, he watches movies on his laptop while he’s on duty. Last time he did that, I hear four cuss words in the time it took to walk from the bathroom to the door.

I once walked past the desk and he had both feet up on the desk and was read a copy of “Hustler” while having a conversation with a female employee.

So there’s the grandpa, the dirty old man, and I guess the third one we could call the entrepreneur.

Below is the footnotes version of a 20-minute conversation we had yesterday (while he was on the clock):

Guard: Does your wife like to shop?

Me (stunned): Uh, not really…

Guard: Of course she does. All women love to shop. You love to shop too, right?

Me: Uh…

Guard: When you want to buy something, where do you usually shop?

Me: Well, I guess it…

Guard: Most people say ‘Walmart’ or ‘KMart’

Me: Ah, sure

Guard: When you shop at Walmart, do they usually give you money back?

Me: If I pay wi…

Guard: Besides change

Me: I mean, my credit card has a little cash back program.

Guard (handing me his ‘business’ card): Wouldn’t you like to get paid to do your shopping?

Me (just trying to roll with it so I can get back to work): sure

Guard: All you gotta do is go to my website and create an account, and then you earn money every time you shop. Or travel!

Guard: (goes into long spiel about this business and how I can have my own website and earn money whenever I shop OR when OTHER people shop)

Guard: (still spieling…)

Guard (at some point in his spiel): You know, I came into this business really critical, but the ONLY problem that I’ve found so far is that it LOOKS kind of like a pyramid scheme. (yes, he said that out loud)

Guard (eventually): But that’s not even the best part. See, it really doesn’t matter whether people use your website or whether you make any money.

Me: Oh. It doesn’t?

Guard: No. See, if you do this program, you become a BUSINESS OWNER. You know what that means? Tax writeoffs!

Me: I see…

Guard: For example, last month, I made 200 extra dollars, just by writing off my business expenses.

Me: Wow!

Guard: Yeah, like right now: me and you are talking. You know what this is? Lunch meeting. I get to write off my lunch today.

Me: Really? You’re buying me lunch?

Guard: No! But as long as I eat my lunch within like, an hour or something, I can write it off! See?

Me: Oh… yeah. Well you should be careful. I have to file my taxes as a business owner, and it can be tricky.

(Guard keeps interrupting me, but eventually:)

Me: For example, we have a home office where I do a lot of my work, but we also have a bed in there for guests, so it’s not a writeoff. There are some really strict rules…

Guard: Oh yeah. Yeah. I know. My wife wanted to put a couch in my office, I was like, “no way”. So we only put it in there when people come over, but if we ever get audited or something, ain’t gonna be no couch in the office.

…

You get the idea.

OK. So why was it worth my time to type all of this out?

Am I just venting?

Well, I AM venting a bit. This guy is getting paid with MY tax dollars to protect the people upstairs — or possibly to protect the world from what they’re doing (should I be nervous that the Department of Homeland Security thinks they need extra protection?) — and he’s using his time to try and sell me on what appears to be a pyramid scheme.

But our little chat got me to thinking. That was only one of at least three conversations so far this week (it’s only Wednesday) where people hinted at stretching the rules when it comes to their taxes.

I say ‘stretching the rules’ because I think that each of these people would say that that’s all they’re doing. Or worse yet, I think they may even be in denial about whether they are breaking any law at all.

Have you ever done that? You have a very uneasy feeling about something and you’re pretty sure that if you think it through you’ll come to the conclusion that it’s wrong. So what do you do? You refuse to think it through. You hurry up and change the subject in your mind so that later you can convince yourself that you didn’t do anything wrong — you just didn’t realize it would cause trouble.

Psychology has a big term for this: cognitive dissonance

Lots of syllables, but really, it just means that you’re lying to yourself.

And my conversations this week reinforced what the Bible has been teaching me for a while now: “Little Sins” have devastating consequences.

That security guard is barely a grain of sand on the beach of our budget problems in America.

What’s the harm in one guy getting away with, say, an extra thousand bucks?

Well, how about if we ask a different question:

How might this country be different if everyone were completely honest on their taxes?

What if our government had a few extra BILLION dollars to work with this year?

I reject the objection that just came into your head: “Why should I worry about how much money I give my government if they never use it the way I want?“

You don’t get to say that.

Why?

Because:

1) That’s an over-simplification and you know it

and

2) Jesus didn’t leave that as an option

What did He say about taxes? “Render unto Caesar…“

Have you ever considered that He said this at a time when taxes were absolutely, BRUTALLY unreasonable? People lived in poverty because of the outrageously unfair tax rates. AND, that tax money was used for blatantly immoral causes, including brutal war and even idol worship. It was EVEN used as a form of worship to Caesar as god. It was EVEN used to torture accused criminals (think crucifixion).

And when Jesus sent Peter to pay his temple tax, He was paying the salaries of the men who were going to stop at nothing to KILL Him.

But when Jesus was asked the question, He didn’t say, “Well, it’s nuanced. It’s complicated. There are lots of details to consider….“

He said, “Pay it.”

Paul, in Romans 13, even goes so far as to say that every authority is given his authority by God, and that we should submit to the rule of our authorities as if submitting to God.

He wrote this to Christians who would be burned at the steak BY their authorities.

So, now that you don’t have your objection, I ask again: What if several billion dollars were available this year to deal with homelessness, child poverty, child obesity, teen pregnancy, Haiti, Chile…

What if it were available to setup a child mentoring program to keep kids from growing up and becoming criminals, and that caused our prisoner population to shrink, and that saved us even more money…

What if there were an exponential chain reaction?

What if this statement is true: People who cheat “a little” on their taxes CAUSE homelessness, drug abuse, crime, violence, and poverty.

Are you OK with that?

Are you OK with being casual about your level of honesty?

Really?

I’ll give you another example from this week. At our small group (a ‘small group’ is what our church calls the hundreds of Bible studies that meet in people’s homes across RDU) we have been studying through the book of Ephesians (as our pastor has been preaching through it).

A few weeks back we looked at Ephesians 4, where you’ll find this intense exhortation from Paul:

…do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God…

All by itself, this seems kind of cryptic. How do you grieve a spirit?

But look at it on context:

V 29: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

V 30: And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by Whom you were sealed for the day of redemption

V 31: Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Do you see it?

‘Grieving The Holy Spirit’ has to do with what comes out of our mouths: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice.

I think there are many of us who would say that we try not to commit any ‘big’ sins. We don’t kill, steal, or commit adultery.

Yeah? But what did you say about your least favorite politician or political party this week?

It does JUST as much damage.

It makes the Holy Spirit of God feel grief.

Recently, Paul Tripp came to speak at our church. He said that life is made up of ‘mundane moments’.

Similarly, I think our mark on the world is made by the ‘little’ decisions we make.

Every. Single. Day.

Interesting how they’ve changed their story over the years…

Their slogan back then was pretty interesting as well:  “Every child a wanted child”

I guess it just depends on what they meant by that…

(HT Z)

I’m 27 years old, and I can’t remember a time in my life that was so simultaneously exciting and uncertain.

(I’m hopeful that some of you will actually read this, so I’ll resist the urge to leave you a 3-page brain dump attempting to fully-qualify that statement. If you want the long version, give me a call and let’s go drink some burnt coffee!)

The summary version is: In the last four years I’ve gone from

poised college graduate with an engineering degree from a great school, a healthy routine, a (fairly) clear vision, and a fruitful life

to

an excited frontier missionary to a borderline third-world, closed country, on track to be international staff for a college ministry

to

a somewhat depressed and lonely missionary to a borderline third-world, ice cold, darkness-enshrouded, closed country

to

a 23-year-old who was recently kicked out of said third-world country who lives with his parents, has no job, and needs 128 dollars to fill up his gas tank (seriously)

to

a love-struck, head-over-heals 23-year-old who often drove 400 miles in a day in my courtship  of the only girl I ever loved

to

a 24-year-old newlywed who doesn’t know the first thing about marriage trying to work a full-time software job under managers who don’t like me while also trying to be a borderline not-quite-full-time youth pastor at a church plant with some great people but some fundamental gaps

to

a 26-year-old in the middle of a theological paradigm shift with a whole new (though less clear) vision for life, on the hunt for a safe church environment for my family (which now includes a baby) and for some good friends for myself and my wife (which are MUCH harder to find than I ever imagined earlier in life)

to

a 27-year-old recovering former fundamentalist-turned-calvinist, in the process of becoming a member of a baptist church (that I’ve known about for years but was too brick-headed to ever visit) with my fourth family member cooking growing in my wife (who is becoming exponentially more beautiful with time)

Suffice to say: it’s been one heck of a roller-coaster.

And this could be the beginning of a book, but I really just wanted to share something:

This whole time – from the moment I graduated from college (where Campus Crusade For Christ did a great job of helping me stay around Godly men I could learn from), I was searching for someone to speak some Truth to me.

Don’t get me wrong: my parents and friends and family are great and they give me great advice. But I was looking for someone who had been down the road I want to go down. Someone I could check in with from time to time to get advice, encouragement, and (probably most importantly) rebuke. I love the “follow your heart” type of encouragement you get from a parent, but I also want someone to ask me hard questions. I want someone to burst my bubble when it needs to be burst.

I’ve heard it said before that a friend is someone who will stab you in the front. I think there’s some truth to that I can’t remember the last constructive criticism I got.

So I was looking for some dudes I could have that kind of relationship with.

And I don’t mean I would sit at Starbucks and pray, “OK God. Send me someone to give me some wise council.”

I was banging down doors.

I was begging people to make time to spend with me.

I called pastors I had never even met and asked if they could make some time to talk to me.

And they said no.

Even when I was overseas and I really needed some training about how to do my job there, I asked our team leader if he could make some time to train me.

But he said it wouldn’t be worth the investment since my commitment was only a year.

I once wrote on facebook that finding a mentor is harder than I thought it would be and almost ALL of the feedback I received was negative. Some people were offended that I didn’t consider them my mentor. Some people said you don’t need a mentor because you have the Holy Spirit. Some people said that you don’t have to spend time with someone to learn from them.

So, eventually, I kind of gave up.

I know that’s weak; but it’s honest.

I figured trial and error (also known as ‘learn everything the hard way‘) would be my best alternative.

And to be honest, I still find myself pretty much in that place.

Even as recently as a couple of months ago I contacted one of the pastors at my church. He was willing to meet with me once and I basically told him where I’ve been, and where I think God is leading me. He listened and gave me some helpful feedback, but I don’t think that’ll become a common occurrence. (I actually had to communicate with his secretary just to get a date scheduled)

So, what’s the point of this post? Is it just a big whine fest?

No. I hope not. I’m sharing all this because of a blog post from Mark Driscoll that I read today.

Celebrating the 14th anniversary of Mars Hill Church by taking a look back, he gives a list of things he learned and things he wishes he had done differently.

First major lesson?

He says:

First, I needed more training and should have waited a few more years. Had I to do it over again, I would not have given up looking for a godly older pastor to help sand off my rough edges and help me get ready not just to start a church, but lead it well for a lifetime. I had tried a few older men and each relationship went badly, so I gave up trying to be rebuked, mentored, and trained. But I should have persevered in that effort.

Sound familiar?

This encourages me for 2 reasons:

1) I’m encouraged to know that I’m not fundamentally broken to the point that nobody wants to hang out with me my experience hasn’t been totally unique. Someone else out there has struggled with the same thing.

and

2) What do you know, but he actually has some advice (about looking for advice): keep looking.

And I think he’s right.

So I’m going to keep looking.

Can you relate?

Any thoughts?

Any… advice?

“The abortion industry kills as many BLACK people every four days as the klan killed in 150 years.”

He was quoting from this article, the meat of which says:

Presently, America’s pregnancy help centers are set up in predominantly white, suburban, and small-town communities. This reflects the demographics of our current movement. But long ago, Planned Parenthood explicitly identified its profit centers: “young women, low-income women, and women of color” (Planned Parenthood Plan of Action, 1997). Studies show that 62.5% of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in cities where Blacks represent a higher percentage of the population compared to the overall population of the state. (LifeIssues.org/connector/display.asp?page=05oct.htm)
Black women, who represent 12% of the female population, suffer 36% of all abortions. Latina women represent 13% of the female population but suffer another 20% of all abortions. Together, they suffer 56% of all abortions yet they represent only 25% of our nation’s population.
Rev. Clenard Childress, Northeast Region President of the Life Education And Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N.), explains the numbers: “The abortion industry kills as many Black people every four days as the Klan killed in 150 years. Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more Blacks than AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and violent crime combined.”

(emphasis mine)

Absolutely everything written here is fact. There is nothing about it that represents opinion. So, while abortion is a very touchy issue — and one dear to my heart as I have personally seen the effects in the lives of those I love — I felt comfortable passing on the statement as one of sobering truth…

However, I was discouraged to have a pretty angry comment form someone I haven’t spoken to since high school:

“That’s not even a fair conparison and I think it’s In poor light to put them in the same category. Planned parenthood is an abortion Industry giant?? Yea that’s when I stop reading the article. Get real man, educating people about their options is the only way to help them make an informed decision. It’s one thing to enjoy and express your religion, don’t throw everyone else under the bus.”

Since facebook has some pretty significant length restrictions, and since I can’t access while I’m at work, and also so that others who don’t happen to be our friends on facebook can be a part of the dialog, I decided to respond here.

So, here is my response:

Gray,

Thanks for your thoughts! I have to admit, I saddened that we’ve been friends on facebook for months, and the first time you decided to contact me was to chastise me for passing along someone else’s quote.

How are you doing? I hear you’re working for Apple now! Congrats! You must have really busted your but in college! (Can you hook me up w/ a new macbook? — Sorry, had to ask)

Since you seem offended by the statement I posted, I would like to clarify a couple of things and the respond to you, if that’s OK.

First of all, I’m not that guy who thinks we should picket abortion clinics and put cheesy bumper stickers on our cars to ostracize those who have made regretful decisions. I know that abortion is a deep topic, and that for those who have experienced it in any way, it is very, very personal.

This post is not really meant to stir up the dialog about whether abortion is acceptable or not. It seems that those who want to support abortion refuse to believe that an unborn infant is a true human being, and no amount of reasoning is ever enough to move past this step. This flies in the face of the fact that the human brain is incapable of understanding why we should save one 18-week-old ‘fetus’ and dismember another, or why we should mourn a miscarriage of one baby but applaud the ‘termination’ of another.

Nevertheless, a few typed words on a screen do not suffice to thoroughly discuss such a weighty topic.

The purpose of sharing this info was to bring light to how racially imbalanced abortion is, and that this is very intentional.

So, that said, let me respond to your comments:

That’s not even a fair conparison and I think it’s In poor light to put them in the same category. Planned parenthood is an abortion Industry giant?? Yea that’s when I stop reading the article.

OK. You say that it isn’t a fair comparison, but you actually don’t give me any reasons to support that statement. You say that it’s ‘poor light’ to put them in the same category, but why? It’s sad, to be sure. It exposes a painful and disappointing truth, but is it dishonest? You said that you stopped reading the article, so maybe if you read it you might be challenged to change your mind.

Or, perhaps you feel like the article might be misinformed or imbalanced. In that case, I would simply encourage you to head over to wikipedia. Do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to read about planned parenthood, and its founder, Margaret Sanger. You will find, right there in completely secular, un-biased black and white text that Margeret Sanger was a lifetime proponent of eugenics, and she founded planned parenthood (call the American Birth Control League, at the time) with the explicit intention of reducing the number of ‘unfit’ people in our society, particularly minorities. The KKK was actually influential in helping her get it started.

She petitioned our government to:

Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.^[20]

And her first pamphlet read:

It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them. Herein lies the key of civilization. For upon the foundation of an enlightened and voluntary motherhood shall a future civilization emerge.^[21]

There you go amigo. I understand that the truth expressed her is very inflammatory, but not everything that is inflammatory should be withheld from expression. It was inflammatory for a german to speak out against Hitler when he was in power. I’m sure that those who supported him were offended. But when human life — when social injustice targetted at a whole race — is at stake, I believe that being inflammatory is necessary.

As one of my favorite songs says: “I join the oppressors of those I choose to ignore.”

Are you sure you’re not just blowing this off for convenience sake? At least make sure you educate yourself before you do!

As far as your remarks about making an informed decision, I would direct you to the recent news story about how the director of Planned Parenthood resigned because she was being pressured to produce more abortion income from her clinic. They were trying to help their patients make an ‘informed decision’, much like a care salesman wants to help you make an ‘informed decision’ about buying his cars.

And lastly, you said

It’s one thing to enjoy and express your religion, don’t throw everyone else under the bus.

Please note that absolutely nothing ‘religious’ at all has been written here. Nothing. If you disagree, then please help me out. What is religious about this? I’m simply stating this collection of facts: Plannaed Parenthood is a profit-seeking company that was founded with the intention of reducing the population of minorities in America and has successfully done so by killing more Blacks in the last 30 years than AIDS, cancer, diabetes, heart disease and violent crime combined.

If that seems offensive, it should be. It should break our hearts.

Doesn’t it break yours?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Maybe it’s because I grew up in southern California where there weren’t many trees and they didn’t really look all that cool when they changed, but the Fall in NC always blows me away!

My favorite thing about it is that the leaves aren’t actually becoming another color; the beautiful reds and yellows are actually there all year-round, but green chlorophyll covers the beautiful diversity. It is literally in their dying season when the leaves show their ‘true colors’.

It always brings to my mind the words of Jesus in John 12:24-25

Truly, truly, I say to you,^(AD) unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. ^(AE) Whoever loves his life loses it, and^(AF) whoever^(AG) hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

It seems God designed everything — even us — to be most beautiful when we think we’re losing our grip on the tree of life… God did everything so intensely!

Anyways, here is my favorite Fall picture so far this year:

And since I haven’t had much time to get out and photograph the Fall this year, here are two of my favorites from this time last year:

Here’s a post I wrote at this time last year that is still just as applicable today…

Where have you seen the prettiest Fall colors?