Crying Babies and Men

So, apparently God is at work at 4:30 in the morning. I was pretty sure this wasn't the case, as generally nothing good happens at that hour. I even had a theory* that in some ways God used Santa's method to be everywhere. If Santa had to make it to everywhere in the world in just one hour, that would be tough. But because of different time zones, he really only has to cover one time zone per hour, and he can still make it to each time zone by midnight (still a daunting task, but much more believable). So obviously God is much bigger than Santa, so he can cover more ground and more time zones at once, but come on, give the guy a break once in a while. He is the One who invented the Sabbath after all. So in this theory essentially God is working everywhere, but doesn't need to be in the Eastern U.S. timezone between say one and seven a.m. So during those hours, he's working in the rest of the world. And at three in the afternoon in Ohio he doesn't need to be in, say, Beijing. This is a much more manageable schedule than trying to be everywhere at once. (One hole in the theory is that I hadn't really thought about people that work third shift. Admittedly, this theory has many holes and is really an attempt on my part to make God easier to understand.) All that to say I didn't expect God to show up at 4:30 a.m.

But Cooper had woken up at about 2:30 the other night. Heather got up, fed him, changed his diaper, burped him, fed him again, and was ready to put him back to bed. But Cooper would have none of it. He screamed and screamed, so Heather tried everything she could to calm him down. After repeated attempts, and at this point having been up with him for two hours, Heather finally came in and woke me up. (I had slept through the entire ordeal, which is generally the case as a train could go through our house and I wouldn't wake up.) She needed me to try to settle him down. So I went in and held him, and he screamed and cried, and so finally I held him as close to him as I could, tightly against my chest and sat down in the rocker with him. At first, he continued to scream, but soon the scream turned to a cry, from a cry to a whine. Finally, he stopped whining and his breathing was short and quick. Over time, his breathing slowed down, he took deeper breaths, until finally, he was lying there in my arms with his mouth wide open, arms and legs relaxed and sprawled out in a deep sleep. As he slept there in my arms, God showed up in a pretty real way.

We all have those times like Cooper. Life is painful, things fall apart all around us, the questions seem much bigger than the answers, we can't fix what's going wrong, relationships go through rough times. And yet I find that in those times I try really hard to fix it myself. I try to come up with the solutions, I try to make the problems go away. And the harder I try, the worse things seemingly get. But I find that when I go to my heavenly Father, and just let him hold me, when I stop trying to fix everything and just know that his arms are so big, that I eventually find rest.

As a man and as a dad, this can be really difficult to grasp. We live in a society that being a man is about being able to fix things, about being in control. But maybe being manly is less about being in control than it is empowering the people around you. Loving your wife and kids well so that they can do the same. Believing in people even when they don't believe in themselves. Giving people hope when they've given up. Sometimes we need to step back and realize that we can't control and fix everything. People's greatest need isn't me, it's being known and loved by an incredible God. Maybe I'm at my best as a man, when I let myself be held, because then what I have to offer isn't me, it's Him. Coming to that realization may be the manliest thing you could ever do.

As I was holding Cooper and the clock ticked to five a.m. (which up until then, I thought that hour of the morning was a myth) I realized that what Cooper needs isn't me, it's a dad much bigger and stronger than I. So by the way I live, by the way I love him, I'm going to do my best to point Cooper to his Dad. So I would encourage you, stop trying so hard to fix everything, and sometimes just let yourself be held. And God will show up.



*Before everyone writes and calls me a heretic and uses words like omnipresent to tell me that God is actually everywhere at once, please note the satirical tone to the opening paragraph.

Learning to Shut Up.

Later this week, I'll be leading a group of middle and high school students to Chicago on a mission trip. In expectation for the trip I've been spending a lot of time in prayer. If you've spent enough time around church you learn the ways you're supposed to pray. There are certain things you pray before a meal (such as asking God to nourish this food to our bodies, as I did today as I was about to eat cheese bread at Giovanni's, as if there was any possible way that it could have nourished my body). There are things you pray when you're about to start a Bible study, or deliver a sermon, or start a road trip. And then there are things you pray when you're about to go on a mission trip. You ask God to get the hearts of the people ready that you're going to minister to, you ask God to give you courage, you ask God for safety. None of which are bad prayers, except I found myself praying those things not because it was from my heart, but because those are the things you're supposed to pray. It's almost as if we believe there are formulas, and if we pray the right formula, God will bless what we're doing. I was also finding as I was praying, that the time I was in prayer was me doing all the talking. Which says a lot about how big or small I think God is.
I think I know a lot about basketball. I've been around it all my life. My dad was a high school coach when I was growing up. So when other kids went home and played after school, I went with my dad to basketball practice. When other families were watching sitcoms at night, we were watching basketball on tv. I played basketball in high school and college and I coach high school basketball now. So I've been around the game quite a bit, and feel I know quite a bit about it. So when I have conversations with people about basketball, I talk in a way as if I know a lot about it. But there have been certain times I've had the chance to be around some big time college basketball coaches. Guys that have coached at the highest levels. Guys that have won a lot of games. Guys that have done, seen, experienced more in the game of basketball than I ever have or will. During my sophomore year of college, our basketball team worked a coaches clinic in which there were a lot of coaches that came and spoke. During one of the breaks in between sessions, we had the chance to talk with some of the coaches about basketball, and a funny thing happened. I shut up. I didn't have anything to say. In fact the only words that came out of my mouth were questions, to try to learn from them, to see things as they see them. I knew that what I knew about basketball was nothing compared to what they know about basketball. So I shut up. And listened. And asked them what they see.
So as I was praying about the trip, talking endlessly to God about how much I think I know, I felt God's Spirit say, "Andrew, shut up." (Even though that phrase wasn't allowed in my house growing up, I'm pretty sure that it's a phrase that God uses, especially to get my attention.) Even though I've been around church all my life, and even though I've been on a lot of mission trips, I have no idea what God wants to do on this trip. None. Because he knows way more about life and love and ministry than I do or ever will. So maybe instead of me trying to tell God what he should do, maybe I should ask him what He needs to do, and shut up, and wait for the answer. Maybe that's what prayer is about. Listening, waiting, and finding out what God is into so that I can be into it too.

The Gift of Giving

Heather and I had the chance to go to the Reds game last night by ourselves. There were no diapers to change, no little mouth to feed, and no dealing with "hurricane time" (the time from when Corinne wakes up from her afternoon nap until the time she goes to bed where she literally tears through the house, getting into anything she can find, and making as big a mess of it as possible). It was just her and me, and great weather, and baseball.....and it was awesome.
Parenting changes everything. Your schedule changes (crazier), your free time changes (much less), the activities you're involved in change, places you hang out change, everything changes. You have to live a life of serving. You put their needs before yours, they become more important than you.
So when were offered free tickets (Thanks Ryan and Beth!) and free babysitting (Thanks Jim and Terri!) we jumped at the chance. And so Heather and I had the chance to go the game, and relax, and enjoy the awesome weather, and eat nachos with jalapenos (they were glorious), and we got to just enjoy each other. I've been to over 50 Reds games in my life, and I've never appreciated one as much as I did last night.
When you do something enough, and when you can do it whenever you want, on your schedule, when only what you want matters, you begin to feel a sense of entitlement. That you deserve things, that it's your right to have them. And then we get angry when we don't get them. But when you live to serve, you expect to give things up, you expect to not have as much, you come to realize that things that were once in your control aren't anymore. And the gift of giving is that you no longer believe you're owed anything, but when you receive, it's something that you really appreciate.

You don't have to have kids to live a life of serving by the way, this is way bigger than that. This is about everything you do, pouring yourself into others, putting them in front of yourself.

So as Heather and I sat together watching the Reds win (they're 2-0 on games that I've been to this year....I'm just saying), there was an overwhelming sense that we are so blessed. It was a liberating feeling, to feel blessed about something that you've experienced so many times. Maybe the greatest gift isn't what you have, it's in what you give.

Good Conversations

I love talking about Jesus. I suppose that's a good thing since it's part of my job. But the times that I really love talking about him is when it's unscripted. When you're sitting at certain restaurant, as I was yesterday with some friends of mine. After lunch, we walked outside and we were standing around our cars. One of my friends asked the other one, "How are you doing?" It wasn't the kind of how are you question that you ask someone in passing but you really don't want to or care to hear the answer. It was the kind of how are you question where the person knows that I'm willing to stand here as long as it takes for you to tell me how you're really doing.
The askee (I'm pretty sure that's not a word) of the question began talking about how at college he's tried out some small groups and Bible studies, and he hasn't found one where he fit in. Actually, they made it clear to him that he didn't fit in. And he didn't fit in because he has a lot of questions. Tough questions about who God is, what He's doing, and things in Scripture that just don't make sense to us. Anytime he would ask these kind of questions, they would give a pat answer, one that doesn't really answer the question but instead tries to make it go away. They want a tame God (or should I say "god"). They want a god that they can put in a box. A god who never stretches them or moves them from where they are. A god they can explain away.
For some reason, we're afraid of people asking the tough questions about God. I'm not sure where this comes from, except that I guess we're afraid of what people will do if they ask a question and don't get the answer that they're expecting. But I think God is okay with the tough questions. Actually, I think he wants them.
In the Jewish tradition, it was the rabbi's job to know about God. They spent nearly their whole life, from the time they're only a few years old, learning about God, studying the Scriptures, and pouring over the texts. Their life's pursuit was learning about who God is. But one of the most important things that they did was ask questions. They asked questions about they things that they read. And sometimes, when they asked those questions, there was no easy answer. So they'd ask other rabbi's, and if they weren't able to answer that question, do you know what they did? They threw a party. They couldn't find an answer so they celebrated. They celebrated the fact they weren't on the same level as God, that they didn't have all the answers.
I think God likes tough questions. Just asking the question implies that we don't know and we believe, or at least hope, that he does. We're going to deal with a tough passage of Scripture on Sunday that doesn't have easy answers. At first, I wanted to skip this story, to glaze over it, but I think we'd miss out on so much of who God is if we did that. So we're going to ask some tough questions about God.
As we were standing around the cars talking, my heart broke for this friend. At school, he hasn't found the kind of friends that he could have these kind of conversations with. The kind of unscripted, from the heart Jesus conversations that draw us closer to Him. I hope he finds some soon. I can't do without them.

First Blog

Hey all,
This is officially the first Connection blog. I'll be writing from time to time, sometimes once a week, sometimes several times a week. It will give you a chance to see how I experience God during the week and hopefully, will give you some things to think/talk about.

As you know, we're working through the Book of Acts right now, and as I'm wrestling with the text I'm wondering, there are all kinds of supernatural things happening. People being healed, the blind can see, people communicating to others in their own language without ever having learned it. At one point, a guy literally disappears from where he is and shows up somewhere else. Crazy! But I wonder, was all that stuff something that needed to happen then and not so much now? I'm not asking does God still interact and do things in his people and Creation, but why don't those things happen now? Should they? Are we missing out on things we should be seeing and experiencing? I don't know. The more I study Acts the more I'm confused by it. Maybe that's true about a relationship with God. Maybe the more we get to know him, the more we learn that there is so much we still have to learn. So as you grow closer to God you realize the capacity for relationship with Him is so much bigger than it was before. I love that about Him.

I'm sure there were some interesting conversations about the talk on Sunday from Luke. I think that's good. Here's what I want to happen. When someone from outside of the culture of Connection comes in to talk, I want you to wrestle with what they're saying, to think about it, to play with it in your head. And at the end of that you can land where ever you want, but I hope you land where you do because that's where you believe God is, and not just where you're comfortable. Feel free to post questions or comments about the talk on the wall on our Facebook page.

On another note I received something in the mail last week that I can't wait to tell you about on Sunday!