To The Girl in My Class

I hope you know above anything else that there are Christians out there lying to you. They are telling you how to live your life. To stop this, quit that, buy this, and don't watch that. These Christians hop on their high horse and demand you live the life that God "intended" for you to live. This may look as easy as quitting smoking and being nicer to people. This life they sell you also might involve going to church with them on Sunday, and saving face after that insane Saturday night you just had. You'd have to break it off with that boy, cause he's bad news, and listen to only Christian music so that your head is filled with songs about love and hope rather than Miley's version of pop. This life seems so dry to you because that's not who you are, you do what you want when you want. The craziest thing you would ever do is leave your life of fun to dress in skirts and wake up early on Sundays. It all just seems like too much work.

All you should know is this is a lie, this is yet another lifestyle people are trying to sell you so that you begin to look like them. You begin to live by their right, because they're Christians and they have it all together. 

This isn't it, that's not the point of Christianity. We weren't called to look a certain way or to dress a certain way, that doesn't make us faithful, it makes us religious. Don't get sold by the lie that your identity is in what you do or what you don't do; get sold by the power of redemption, this alone will become your identity. The battle isn't between right and wrong, the point of Christianity isn't to live a better, more wholesome life: it's to live a life filled with awestruck wonder at the cost that was paid for on the cross. Christ lived your identity for you, He abandoned himself so that you don't have to worry about your image or judgments made about you. There is hope to be found in sacrificing you so that you strive to look like Him, rather than yourself.

Let your guard down, let your insecurities, transgressions, and that boy that hasn't been treating you right vanish in the power of redemption. Let the love that can be found in Christ be what determines your next move. Don't buy into the lie that you were born a certain way, or that your past is whats keeping you from moving forward. 

I hope you find strength in someone other than yourself, someone thats lived your sins, someone that has always loved you unconditionally, and someone thats waiting for you. He will fill your life with so much more joy than the boy that's using you. You are worth so much more than what this life has to offer.

This is coming from someone who attempts to live his life with these truths everyday. This is coming from someone who hurts on the daily, and struggles to live knowing that Christ is where he should find his all. I fail so miserably doing this, and I hope you don't ever see me as the image of hypocrisy. We all go through dark wells, and we will always question ourselves and what we believe in. We are rotten to the core, attempting to make sense of our identity through crazy beliefs in the unknown and personalities sold to us on the television. 

Take a fall into something bigger than you and never be afraid to turn to Christ. Living a life in awe of what He has done for you will become your new identity. This identity will no longer be yours, but His…  and there is so much freedom in that. It won't matter what you do or don't do, because once you seek His grace your desire to follow Him will push you to live the life you were actually created to live.

Born into Normalcy

Ryan used all the effort he had left in him to make his eyes open to the sound of a baby’s ever-present cry for attention. The sun shone past the shades, the warmth hitting his face like a cup of hot chocolate on a snow day. It was early, the break of dawn, and Ryan still had an hour to sleep before going to work in his cubical. His wife knew this so she rolled over and rose from the bed, the mattress gently rustling underneath Ryan as his wife went to attend to their child. The child was six months old; the child represented to Ryan everything he had worked for from the beginning, the perfect life. Ryan spent his childhood in the comfort of his home, playing with cars in the playroom. He spent middle school practicing basketball and how to persuade a girl to kiss him, and he spent high school figuring out how to dress, and most importantly, how to impress the ladies. Ryan made good grades, and of course he went to a four-year college for business, moving out of his families home at eighteen, never looking back. Ryan always moved forward, always took the fast train to where he was going. Right now he was going to work everyday, returning home to his apartment filled with cream furniture, floral drapes, and white walls. This was the life for Ryan, the perfect normal life he had always dreamed of.

Sam’s entire body went into shock as he was awaken by the sickening sound of his alarm clock both buzzing like mad and hitting the floor of his parent’s home. It was the break of dawn, and time to go to work. Retail was never Sam’s thing, never was something he looked forward to doing, never that job that fulfilled his talents. But it was a job, and right now, it’s the best that could be done… given Sam’s circumstances. Sam threw on some clothing, ran to the restroom, where he grew up learning how to brush his teeth and shave, and combed his thirty-year-old bed head. Sam looked longingly into the mirror, wondering how he got to this point; he was working retail. Sam thought he knew what he was doing, he thought he had gone to the right college, he had thought a lot of things that came crashing down, and landed him back where he started, in his room where his old band posters still hang up from freshmen year of high school. Sam went to college, for three semesters, until he was forced to drop out, he was failing. Sam was failing at life, Sam had no job, had friends in all the wrong places, and he completely devastated the hopes and dreams his own parents had instilled in him since his eighth grade graduation. Now, instead of dating around for marriage, Sam is pulling three shifts to pay of student loans. Now, instead of working at a steady job in the city, Sam’s at the downtown mall unloading the latest shipment of Martha Stewart linens. Sam is not going places like his brother Ryan, everyone expected both of them to succeed at everything they did.

I just hate expectations, because I can never meet them. When people bother me about school, and want to know why I’m home every other weekend, I want to ask them when it became weird for a son to miss his family so dearly, three days at home is enough to get him through the week at school. I feel pressured everyday to grow up a certain way, to live a social norm; I have no energy to focus on Christ, and what He wants from me. What if God is taking me to Dillard’s, to work weekends, to find out that people that work there, they crave the same God I do. What if God sends me back home, to my comfortable lifestyle, to break me to a thousand pieces? What if he’s shaking me to my core as I sit here and type not realizing because I’m worried that if I don’t go out on Friday night everyone is going to think I have no friends. I have no room to grow up if the expectations tell me what to do, no room to do what my heart aches for if my friends are telling me to try this, drink that, no… don’t do that. 

The day I moved into college my sister told me some of the most gripping words I will keep with me until I die. She told me “God is so much bigger than our plans… that sometimes what everyone else says you should do isn't always what God wants for you. If you get there today and you pray and this isn't right for you...please know that that doesn't make you a failure...it means that God has so much more for you.” Did you hear what she said to me? That if God told me this whole college thing, where I think I should be, isn’t right for me, I’m not a failure? What a radical thought for the world to hear, that if I can’t make it in college, and end up selling concert tickets at the local coliseum, I’m not a failure. If I decide that my family is too important to leave behind at the moment, and I go back home, I’m not a failure. This is something drastically different than I’m hearing from my friends, who are telling me that going back home on the weekends…. Like who does that? Grow up and live your own life. In reality, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m living my own life, I’m doing what feels right for me, because my normal, isn’t yours. My life… doesn’t need to look like yours. 

I was born into normalcy but I was baptized in grace…. Grace that doesn’t require me to get married and have kids before thirty… grace that doesn’t require a master’s degree, or the purchase of happy meals from the lady who just never did grow up. It’s time we listen to Christ, stop living for everyone else.. and grow up listening to the voice as still as the air, that’s telling us to follow Him… because he can offer so much more than comfort in consistency.

Losing Control in 2012

My sister has seizures; she has epilepsy. As a kid, epilepsy was just a word, something she had to battle, at that point I never saw it as a battle though. It was something she was dealing with, something wrong with her that, well, I could check of my list of what wasn’t wrong with myself. I grew up seeing several of her seizures, but they never affected me, I barely remember seeing them. Again, it was something that happened only to her; epilepsy was a condition that seemed like didn’t make her any different. I could always count on waking her up at nine in the morning during the summer to come downstairs with me, being to scared to face the hidden dangers of the living room alone. She was always upstairs, listening to nineties music, dreaming of her future as a beautiful bride and a loving mother, singing her cares away. I could count on her looking great for prom, experiencing her first heartbreak, and still managing to get on my nerves, never able to bike ride or play video games when I wanted.

This past week she stayed in our house while her husband was out of town, and she had a seizure, one cushion down from me on the couch. She was with us, her family, she was safe, but in that moment our family came crashing down. Suddenly something wasn’t right with one of us, and it seemed to occur to every one of us at the same time. My sister suddenly wasn’t my sister, she was seizing, and she wasn’t there. I still don’t understand how for a moment, she escapes from her body, leaving my family in turmoil and heartache. We all know what’s happening, everyone knows she safe in our arms, but watching my sister in uncontrollable danger still makes us cringe. Days later and I continue to replay that single minute in my head. Days later and I am still worried about it happening again. Days later and I can’t seem to let it go. This happens to her too often at this point in her life. She has no control over it, yet it could completely alter her entire future, all of her plans.

There’s something about losing control that makes me want to just be done with this world. Down here its nice to know what’s going on, where I’m going in life, and always knowing what’s going to happen next. As my sister rolls out of bed in the morning, she thinks about the dangers of having another seizure, as I roll out of bed, I think about my schedule, and pray it goes the way I have so perfectly planned. My sister doesn’t know if she can have a child in her future, with the rate she’s going that might not be an option. The biggest worry I encounter is what gas station to go to get the best deal. I’ve made my life something to control, something only I have the remote to.

Starting this year, however, I am relinquishing control. It seems so draining to worry about what’s going to happen in my life this year. I look at the future, and I can’t help but wait for hard times. It’s like I expect the worst, while being blessed with the best. I see people around me being stricken with life altering sicknesses, I see people around me without a future, taking breaks from life to pursue the world. So it seems like this year is going to be a toughie, but is this how God wants me to see the future. Did God create a masterful plan for my future, only to allow me to worry about where He’s taking me in the present? I don’t know what this year will bring, and that is incredibly terrifying. I don’t know if I am where I am supposed to be at school or if I will see it through until senior year. Will I come back home to be close to my family, will I finally relinquish my own grip that I have already clinched to my future? I sure can make an effort, to not worry… to give it to God, and live the day for Him.

It’s hard to understand what that means until you make an effort to do it. A Christian can tell another to live the day for Christ, and bear your cross daily, but for most of us, that’s a cheesy saying we don’t put much effort into understanding. For most of us living for Christ is something we’ve got down, because things are going good in our lives. We’re only living for Christ when we have no worries, nothing to ponder over, nothing much to deal with. My sister lives for Christ when her future is caving in, and I have realized now that that is living for Christ, when after the world has had enough of us, thrown us to the garbage, and it seems like we don’t know the way out… we pick up that cross, and we start fresh, and we live for Christ. This year, I can have my ups, and I can be confused, and worries can coming crashing in like waves during a hurricane… but it seems so much nicer, to look to the horizon of the future, and know that every storm, every heartache, and every sunny day has been mapped out to perfection just for us. That everyday, isn’t supposed to be a meter for us to determine whether or not to live for Christ, but rather, a roller coaster, that we ride, always knowing, always trusting, that living for Christ, makes this life all worth the confusion.

Mistaken Santa

The boy stumbles through the snow on his way home from the bus stop. The last day of the third grade before Christmas break always leave a child filled with joy to return home…return home to warmth, Christmas lights, and songs about presents. The snow is thick on his boots… the boy trips and suddenly his face is blasted with the coldness of winter. He stumbles to his soaked feet, and wipes his face, which now feels as hard as stone, and bitten with frigid air. All he can think about is staring at the television, playing video games for a whole two weeks. Hes so preoccupied with the joys of a virtual world he doesn’t notice that he left a mitten behind when he fell a few steps back. He’s so preoccupied he doesn’t see the other children running home to welcoming parents and eager siblings to enjoy the spirit of Christmas.

This boy has to walk the extra few steps to home; it takes him twice as long, treading in the snow, than the other kids because he lives in a different part of town. There’s no one else on the bus to walk with him home, so he braves the cold alone. It helps when he envisions himself as a solider braving the terrors of nature, the look of a trespassing dog, or the boy down the street who owns one of the biggest water guns in his class. The walk continues, and the boy trips again, his boots are too big for him, and sometimes they get in the way. He’s not sure how he got them, whenever he gets clothes he doesn’t go shopping for them like the other kids do, he usually sees an older gentleman dropping off a bunch of clothes at his front door. The man obviously didn’t realize that the boots were one size too big. Tall houses are covered in snow, lights are wrapped around every window, every bush, every tree, in perfect arrangement. Sometimes the boy thinks of living in one of the top windows, where he could look out of his room at his kingdom below him, it would be like he ruled the world!

The boy can always tell when he’s almost home… the houses get smaller, the road gets rockier, the pavement gets overrun by grass and empty coke bottles. The best parts of the walk home is kicking these empty glass bottles, one by one, listening to them roll off the pavement. Today is different though, the sidewalk is covered in snow and the glass bottles are overtaken by snow… the boy can’t enjoy a round of coke bottle soccer. The boy walks by the broken glass of the convenience store and peers in the crack to see if the new edition of his favorite comic book has hit the stands. Today must not be his day, first no bottle soccer and still no new comic for December… what a day, he just wants to go home and play some video games. He’s on level thirty-five, one of the hardest levels to beat, or at least that’s what his friends at school say. Just one more level until he can beat the boss of the game, the boy smiles at the excitement of it all. His book bag starts to get really heavy as he rounds the corner and sees the pursuit of home. The boy beings running, his heart beating immediately out of his chest, the wind causing his red nose to run... he struggles to wipe his face with the ice that has become his hand, he realizes then he left his mitten behind… his mom is not going to be happy about this, those were his only gloves. At this point the boy doesn’t care, he runs up the broken steps that make up the threshold to his home, throws open the storm door that reminds him of his grandma’s house two doors down, and throws himself into the chipped white door to his one floor, one bedroom hideaway.

He steps into the doorway, shaking off the snow from his jacket…. the sound of thumping snow hitting the floor is all that can be heard in the boy’s house. He walks through his smoke filled house, pacing around attempting to find anyone alive. You would never know it’s Christmas time in the boy’s house without the black and white Santa Claus crossword he brought home from school sitting on the coffee table. The walls in this house are never adorned with garland, paintings, or even family photos… usually just the occasional birthday card hung up by small stripes of masking tape. The boy walks into the bedroom to find his dad sitting on the floor, staring out the window, rocking back and forth. His father’s long fingernails tap nervously as the dad turns around to see that his child is home from school… it seemed like just thirty minutes ago his child had left this morning. As the boy waits for something, he never really knows what he waits for from his father, he turns back into the living room and fixes his eyes on his PlayStation…. its time to play. Hours pass, the father still wide awake, keeping the door to the bedroom shut, as the boy wastes away in front of the television… playing video games.

The front door opens wide, as the stale air of the house gets overturn by a blast of winter air, the boy looks up to see his mother walking in, with a single brown paper bag, and that same glazed look she’s had on her face for a week. Nothing is said, the boy returns to his games, as his mother creeps around the house, finally opening the door to the bedroom. The clock ticks as screaming is heard from the bedroom, the clock ticks as something is thrown across the bedroom, the clock ticks as the boys parents talk about money, the clock ticks, and the boy plays his video games. Hunger creeps up once again in the boy’s stomach; he rolls his eyes, and continues to play his video games. Mc Donald’s sounds like a Thanksgiving feast at the moment.

When suddenly the boy remembers that his teacher gave him a piece of chocolate today for Christmas, the boy stumbles to his feet, runs to the door, tearing into his book bag, finding the chocolate nestled between torn folders and broken pencils. The smell of his book bag reminds him of school, of his friends, and French fries on cafeteria trays.  The boy takes his candy to his seat in front of the television, devouring every morsel of his dinner, before he throws the wrapper amongst cigarette buts, empty glass bottles, and the Holy Bible.

The boy squints his eyes, as he wakes up to the sound of his father rushing out the door, and the sight of sunlight gleaming through the window, past the mismatched window shades. He must have fallen asleep playing video games, the television shows of a paused pursuit on a fantastical mission. The boy stumbles to his feet, to the sound of his mother crying. He walks into the kitchen and finds some crackers, those ones that come six in a pack, as the doorbell rings… the boy didn’t even realize they had a doorbell until now. He waits for his mother to answer it, as the bell rings again. The boy looks around the corner of the living room to see who it would be, Saturday morning and someone wants into this house? The mother stumbles out of the bedroom to the door, ignoring her son on the way. The door opens to tall gentlemen, giving the widest grin the boy had ever seen on a person. The man is well dressed, holding gifts wrapped in Christmas wonderland paper. The boy’s eyes widened, he had never heard of Santa coming to the front door before, and he didn’t remember it being Christmas day… in fact the boy knows it isn’t Christmas. The smiling reindeer and snowmen on the wrapping paper fill the boy with the most joy he had experienced since beating that one video game last year. The man hands the gifts to the boy’s mother, they exchange some words... the boy would listen if presents weren’t in the picture. His mother closes the front door as the gentlemen walks away. The presents are set on the damp carpet of the living room, and the mother tells the boy he can open them as she returns to the bedroom and closes the door. Elated, the boy rushes to his knees to open his gifts, his gifts brought by Santa, his gifts brought by a stranger. This is the best Christmas the boy had ever had.

Running Home

New Balance shoes make thumps on concrete as elementary school children race off the steps- the flood gates open and the pursuit for home from the school bus begins. The last child to exit the bus is smaller than the rest, a kindergartener, still unsure of his place on the bus… so he waits patiently for the bigger kids to take their place. The child stumpers through the snow, attempting to maintain his book bag from falling off us his body, stuffed in a warm winter coat. The mittens are falling off and his socks are rolling to the tips of his toes, his feet beginning to swell up in the frigid air. He watches as the other children filter into their tall brick homes, one by one they run, greeted by dogs, welcoming parents, and white fences. The fifth graders get to come home to an empty house, a chance to steal the television and have victory over CNN and the Home and Garden network. It’s not hard for the kindergartener to make it home, passing brick castle after brick castle it can be hard for some little children to make it to the right home. When you can barley see over the kitchen table, sometimes suburbia looks more like a bustling city than a quiet neighborhood. The wind blows as the child attempts to smack his hair from his face, as he approaches his house. Everyone knows where this child lives; it’s not hard to recognize his house from miles away because he lives in the glass house on the end of the street.

The people in the glass house are known well in their suburban neighborhood, after all, it’s not everyday a family chooses to live in a house where you can watch every waking child, every mother’s footprint, and the father returning from work. Day after day their routine of daily life is seen by all as a circus act, something to be marveled at. Their life is some drama to look onto as others lives just don’t add up. People watch as they treat each other with respect, as the father loves the child for doing the right thing, and as the company of the mother is just as good as any Saturday morning cartoon. The brick house with the white garage door to the left of the glass house have their problems, dad recently moved out with his mistress, the teenage girl ran away with her twenty something year old boyfriend. Screaming is heard from the brick houses on the streets as children are woken for schooldays, lunches are thrown out the window as single mothers maintain a house filled with peanut butter and jelly and business proposals. Secrets are kept, annual gossip sessions are held in the form of card games at the neighborhood clubhouse, and fathers are moving out left and right. Families are being stripped away with anger, malice, and deception, but not at the glass house. At the glass house, respect is given, love is expected, and joy comes in response. Traditions are kept and the children feel loved, and cycles of happy homes are passed down from generation to generation.

Of course there are people on the street who hate the people in the glass house, they feel that they built their house for the attention, for their every act to be watched and recorded by the mothers on the street. Some families are simply jealous of the openness of the home, the love and affection that is so absent in their own homes. While channels are blocked and computers are off limits at some homes, the people in the glass house are able to enjoy trust they have instilled in the kids of the glass house. No one can see the huge big screen television or the new luxurious couch in the brick houses, but in the glass house, their possessions are seen by anyone who cares to give a glance. When a new television arrives at the glass skeptical, none of the children seem to care, but in the brick house, the children beg for it until their eyes are black and blue. At the glass house, material possessions are not expected; they’re earned and received with humility and gratefulness. The father that lives in the glass house always comes home on time for work, and calls everyday when he has to go out of town for business. The mother at the glass house is not overburden with work, and does not own an apron; the father takes care of most of it. Everyone in the glass house shares the burden of the world, and no one is taken for granted, or loved more than another.

My father recently shared with me that transparency in your life results in awareness and in obedience in Christ. More often than not the Christian walk is spent in hiding, hiding behind walls of sin like the people in the brick houses. Sometimes the shame of a loved one keeps us from enjoying their company, and sadly, sin is not smothered with love, but with guilt and, in return, more sin. The more we hide the more sin bundles up inside of us like weeds overtaking a garden. The people in the brick house were certainly jealous of those in the glass house; sure their life is on display, but for the good of others. The family in the glass house doesn’t cower in sin; they embrace their downfalls, are drawn to redemption, and lean on others in fellowship. We can make the Christian walk so much harder than it was ever meant to be. Our families can hide in sin very easily, the teenage boy can be afraid to tell his parents that he’s bullied in school. The eight-year-old daughter can come home from ballet; too terrified of her parents to tell her she did not make the cut to go to regionals. Yes, sometimes we can use sin to burden our faith, and keep ourselves hidden under a blanket. We live with the weight of what we’ve done. Life would be so much easier if we were transparent.

If we lived in a glass house we’d have nothing to hide, we could conquer sin, and people could help us with what we’re going through. Its not a horrible thing to be predictable, to have integrity, and to be the man or woman you claim to be. Its time to own up to who we are in Christ, and stop letting sin keep us covered up and guilt us into a becoming a different person. If we lived for Christ, became transparent, now that would make our lives so much simpler. 

Dinner for Two

Here you are again, at your favorite restaurant, table dressed in white linen, candles burning. You can see yourself in the reflection of the silverware and the plates are so clean you dare not to touch their gleaming surfaces. You’re pretty sure you could wrap yourself up for days in the napkins… they look so soft, and the glasses… oh they are pristine crystal. You’re alone in the restaurant, the music is playing, but the silence of voices is so quiet your chair is making more noise than you. Chandeliers hang like icicles and the red carpet is as luxurious as a Hollywood red carpet. Still no one in the restaurant, not even a waiter. You’re alone but your date will be arriving soon. You begin pulling at your shirt, making sure you look as good as you did in the mirror twenty minutes ago. Mess with your hair, pull up the socks, and wipe your face for the thirteenth time. You actually get up to adjust the seat, make sure the light will hit you just right when your date walks in. Silence continues. You mess with the silverware, getting tired of waiting… you wait… in silence, as the sound of instruments drowns out your breathing. Your heart pounds as you see the door crack… still no one in the restaurant as your date takes a step through the door, you see them float across the room and approach you like the rising sun. You stand, heart pounding… you have never been this nervous. You reach out your hand as your date extends theirs. You lay your lips on their hands ever so gently, return to your perfect posture and get the nerve to greet your date with the elegance of the most suave man in town. Good evening sin, you’re looking lovely tonight, I’ve been waiting.

Sometimes it feels to me that we wait on sin, we take the time out of our day worrying about sin, avoiding temptation but in the end we greet sin with a welcoming hug like seeing family at Christmas. We hide like children playing hide and go seek, but we always want to be found. Our hunger for sin is real, and we expose ourselves to it like children playing games with their friends. People always talk about temptation and the devil, how the devil tricks you into sinning, how every time we sin we have to battle the devil to the death… but what if it’s us that we have to battle. Once the devil gets us hooked on talking about people behind their backs, drinking, gambling, sex, we get so intrigued we end up becoming a devil to ourselves. We set the table, we let ourselves fall, and we welcome sin as a teenage boy on his first date. Sin becomes comfortable, and no matter the sin, there’s always that core issue… ourselves.

A friend of mine once told me that at the root of any sin, no matter what someone is going through, you can always find a common ground with them. Sometimes the mother who has an affair with her gardener is no different than the teenage boy who can’t help but trash other people on the Internet… they’re both lonely. They both are so far from God they can’t tell their head from a hole in the ground. They have gotten both so used to sin they once again set the table for sin. Sin is reoccurring, because we are disgusting people, sometimes we have to see ourselves in order to see our sin. We spend so much time blaming our frustrations on the devil. Those dern demons are at it again, when really; the addiction to sin is what draws us back to the dinner table. The addiction to our sin, the need for attention, the comfort of a bad boy, is really what calls us to hell and further away from God. If we’re honest with ourselves the next time we get caught up in sin, we can use this opportunity to examine ourselves, what is really the downfall about ourselves that calls us back to reoccurring sin. Whether we find ourselves tempted by alcohol, or the encouragement for hate, we can usually find something about ourselves that calls us back to bashing our friends.

This is what makes the church the gorgeous bride that it is, this is why a group of people that struggle with sin is so beautiful. If we didn’t have each other, we wouldn’t have the strength to overcome sin. We can pursue God till our eyes are bloodshot with tears, but if no one is there physically, who can suffer with you…. the sin becomes so much harder to beat.

Redemption is an amazing phenomenon, and the fact that we go to church and surround ourselves with lonely people in search of redemption, it makes it all worth it. There are so many looking for grace, so many who have come from sin. As my friend also once told me, everyone is recovering from something, or trapped in sin worth recovering from. Whether it’s a mom struggling to not murder her boss at work or the father jealous of a friend’s wife, the root of sin will always be the same. The people who you thought you knew will always get caught in sin they would never dream of telling you, but taking the time to open up to someone can be the key to cancelling your dates with sin. Once we realize the core of our sin, loneliness, isolation from God, it doesn’t seem so weird when your best friend admits to have done cocaine. Once you realize making fun of your sibling is just as tragic as the girl who clings to the guy that makes her feel good for the wrong reasons… redemption can be found with the help of some fellow sinners, and the beauty of God’s grace.

It’s easy to point fingers, easy to make fun of the alcoholic at the end of the table, easy to tease the girl for doing weird things alone in her room. But when we step back, this is also a sin. Grace doesn’t come through the ability to make ourselves feel good because of what someone else does. Redemption comes from an awareness of sin, the fellowship of other sinners, and a willingness to grow out of the sin, to someone greater, someone who has never battled sin, someone who has overcome it, so that we don’t have to go through the pain of loving sin. I am drawn to redemption because I am tired of inviting sin into my life and resting on it for my comfort. I am drawn to redemption because I am so much more. I am drawn to redemption and will in return draw others to redemption. I will ultimately make the choice to no longer judge people for what they’ve done, because I am just as lonely as they are. I will make an effort to be there for my friends, make an effort to help them focus on what they can be without their sin.

We are invited to so much more. Christ is waiting for us, to get up from the table, casually make the way out of the restaurant, wave goodbye, and go to a restaurant where there are so many more… just like us, feasting at the table of redemption. 

Can You Quiet Down, I Can't Hear Myself

The older sister is on her way home from picking up her younger brother, who has found refuge in the backseat of the car. The younger brother can be heard ranting on and on about his art portfolio he has brought home from school, filled with art that is the best he has done since second grade. He sifts through his art, more excited to show his sister than anyone else- he always sought the approval of his siblings than anyone else. They travel down West Mountain Street in the sister’s tank of a BMW. The younger brother pesters his sister to look at the latest piece of art he’s done, lilies floating a pond, as the older sister loses control of the car and begins swerving. In this moment neither knows what is going on, the sister begins to panic, her sense of responsibility is plummeting as the car’s control over her increases. The tank swerves across the other side of the road as a bright blue truck comes straight into the side of the sister’s car.

The next breath of life the little brother remembers breathing is being handled out of the car by strangers, while screaming for his sister at the top of his lungs. The sister sits in the driver seat motionless, and the younger brother can feel the weight of the world on his shoulders, just a third grader. Sister gets out of the car… something the matter with her leg, the silence of both the brother and sister screams louder than a child watching their first horror movie. The sister feels the most responsible; she had failed at taking her brother home from school... a seemingly simple task. She placed him in danger of death, and now she had to face the fact of her parent’s disappointment. This is too much for a young woman to have to deal with, too much regret to have to cope with. The brother has to call his parents; the sister is an emotional wreck… too fearful of what’s to come on the other side of the receiver, the third grade brother calls. The parents don’t care about the wreck… were him and his sister okay?

In college it seems like a focus on sin is a necessary day-by-day process. There is so much coming at you, so many pressures; it’s hard to focus on God while avoiding these sins. The responsibility as a Christian to not conform is a great burden to carry around, especially in college. A university campus is a feeding ground for lust, malice, hatred, and alcohol… the avoidance of these iniquities takes all of your focus.

I recently hear of friends going to places I have never heard of, places not good for their spiritual welfare. I hear my friends confessing to drinking, because hey, it’s not a big deal on campus. Sure they will admit it’s illegal, but it’s like going over the speed limit… everyone does it here… Am I hearing this right now, driving over the speed limit is the same as drinking underage? Can it be that I am the only one that thinks this is destructive? I begin feeling guilty when I hear that my friends are merely “experimenting” with these things. Like a helpless mother feels when she loses her child in the supermarket… could I have stopped them from doing these things? How do I show them they can’t be sinning like this when they claim to be such strong faithful Christians? The more I hear about it, the more I feel my own body being weighted under their sins. This feeling can be enough to drive anyone away from the redeeming nature of Christ.

For me to focus on others sins is dangerous… I begin to think of myself better than I ought. I am okay because my spiritual life is at a place where I am comfortable enough, not desiring these sinful desires of college. That’s just it though, I’m comfortable here and all I am doing is playing daddy to other people when they screw themselves over. I am the better one of the group, and I am now at a place where they ridicule me for what I chose not to do it…not because they are that rude, but because I keep waving their sin in their face, it would be my natural instinct to put a defense too. I end up sinning trying not to sin. This is getting really confusing for my spiritual life.

I’ve learned to become like my parents when they heard me and my sister had gotten into a wreck… not continually reminding my sister of her mistake, but rather, focusing on the deeper issue… were we okay during the situation. The truth is, everyone is going to sin, in different ways, in different places, at different times. Does it do us any good to focus on these things? No, because it spiritually drains us to the point we become a father to our friends rather than accountability partners, which is what Christ has called us to be. I can’t keep bringing up underage drinking to my friends, because I’m not going to be with them when they get offered a beer at the next tailgate, or when they somehow find themselves with friends at the hookah bar. What matters is that I am there for them, whenever they need someone to talk to about what’s going on in their lives. We start to badger other Christians, seeking to “do what God wants us to, by persecuting their downfalls.” What kind of friend is this?

Christ is calling me to focus on the bigger issues: how is my relationship with Him, what am I doing to pursue Him on a daily basis rather than persecuting my friends to get an ego boast. If my friends are sinning, and they’re Christians, the Holy Spirit will take care of the badgering, why don’t I help them focus on growing in Christ rather than the world? I can daily remind them of Christ’s grace, redemption, and the beauty of living for something greater than the world. It’s not important to live in the ghosts of our past, but focus on redemption in Christ, and like my mother asked my sister and I, “how are YOU doing?” Where are our spiritual lives heading?

“You can hear it in the trail behind your voice

There’s a multitude who claim

They’ve been through the fire of fallen angels

They’ll never be the same

We live with the weight of what we’ve done

The cracks that we slip through

No time to forget about our future

Just the things that we won’t do

But you know you can’t”

-Needtobreathe

I Get So Restless

You lay in bed, your full size bed, fitted nice and comfortably with a comforter that feels like a marshmallow swallowing you whole. You just got finished watching some television, the normal school night...you struggle to get eight hours of sleep before that math test in the morning. You tried to study an hour ago, but some other things came up, but you will be okay, those other tests down the road will even out the failures of tomorrow. You lay in bed and can't help but think of what someone told your friend about you today at school. How dare they have the audacity to talk smack about you without even getting to know you first. You continue on this train of thought until you wonder what ever happened to your best friend. You two used to be so close, but now he's into some things you don't agree with, and suddenly you feel like a sad parent watching their child come home with a failed grade in school. You want to help them, you've tried to make them understand... they just don't get it. There is so much your friend isn't telling you, you feel like an open book to them, but they're closed to anything you have to say. You continue to worry yourself to insomnia about new friends you have made, wondering what they think of you, are you too much for them, too loud, are you really as crazy as they are? You dwell on your life, how it's going somewhere, your purpose layed out for you, and continue to think about your life, legacy, and some good ol' fashion gossip. What will you wear tomorrow? These thoughts circle your brain into the night, and you will be lucky to get six hours of sleep before the nightmare of the test in the morning.


You accomplish insomnia while a man five minutes down the road walks the street, looking for a bed to call his own. 


You accomplish insomnia while an inner city child of eight lays his head on a pillow, his bed the floor of his one bedroom house, surrounded comfortably by his five other siblings. He could't be happier to be in the home he is now. Sure he would like money and a sports car, but that can wait, he's got his family for now.


Why am I so restless? Why can I not seem to get an once of peace in college? It seems like I am standing in the middle of Route 66 during rush hour, people passing me by at 90 miles an hour, and I gasp for air above the business of everyone else. These faceless crowds are all a blur, they push me to keep living, keep going, keep pursuing. But what am I pursuing? What are they pursuing? I am getting so restless, like back in high school, dwelling all night on interactions that latest for a blink of an eye. And then that peace hits me like a freight train:


"In your ocean I make of thee
I feel the waves crashing on my feet
It's like I know where I need to 
But I can't figure out
Just how much air I will need to breathe
When your tide rushes over me"
-Needtobreathe


There is rest, there always has been... there always will be. The rest we can all find in Jesus Christ sometimes goes unnoticed. People live in their day, immerse themselves in their friends, and take comfort in the loneliness of the night. We worry about tomorrow, what we've done, and live in our ghosts of the past. Our fear steals our sleep, and we dwell on death and what our lives are going to mean to someone else.


But what if there's more to this restlessness, what if the peace we have so long been ignoring we embrace. What if intentionally we live for something bigger than ourselves... now that would be a beautiful thing. No longer will our lives be filled with what tomorrow brings, but rather we will live each breathe thankful we have been given the chance to walk to our next class. Our minds would change so drastically, we would actually care about our friends, sacrifice for them, because us, well we don't care about ourselves anymore, we are Christ now, robbed with peace and grace. What a beautiful image, wrapped in peace and grace.


 No longer does the future need anxiety, it is taken care of. 


We would finally listen to the cries of the poor man, the foot prints of the inner city child.


We would live like a child, without the fears of our innocence, but spending time learning about Christ, like a child learns to embrace the world for the first time. Sure we're in college and mature in the world's eyes, but in Christ we are made new like a child. For the spirit of a child will inherit the kingdom. 


Let us wake up from our restlessness, wrapped in Christ for all eternity.

To Cheat on a Test

One of the worst feelings in the world is walking into class on a test day, having not studied or even glanced at any of the material covered in class the past few weeks. You've done it before, we all have, because it's either an easy class and we know it will be an easy test, or we're lazy, we don't care, until we walk into class and feel the knot of failure in our throats. You know no matter what you put down on that test paper it will be bad news in the end, and you will have to live with the consequences, the big fat zero when you get the test back. Always hated that feeling, not knowing the material, feeling like a complete idiot when everyone else around you seems to know what the answer to number two is. So you glance over to the paper beside you, doesn't hurt, they are helping you, they just don't know it. What harm is it using someone else's work, someone else had prepared ahead of time, you won't do it again. Next test you will be prepared, but for now, let's see what Jane got for number two. But what if Jane doesn't know what she's doing either, she might just be writing random things down on the page so she can hit up the gym sooner than later. Maybe Jane is in the same boat you are, having not studied, she just hides it better than you.That's the tricky thing about cheating. Sometimes that kid next to you doesn't know what they're doing either. 
It seems like college is the same way, been here for a month and it feels like I haven't studied for this type of test. You have no idea where your life is going just like walking into a classroom on test day, not knowing what's on the test paper. So you start hanging with people who seem like they know what they're doing, they know college, they have experience, so in a since you cheat on their life, steal their attitude. Before you know it you end up where you started, confused because you're not sure what this college thing is all about. Starting college is starting a new step in life, except you have no idea what's ahead of you. It's a scary feeling, you haven't prepared for this type of freedom, this since of responsibility. What will you do with yourself? Are you going to be the kid who cheats on someone else's paper, getting into the wrong crowd and following their example, or you going to bow up and live the life you were meant to live. 
God has a plan, I just know it. I walked into college two months ago, unprepared and confused because I don't have the answers. What I can rest assured in however is that the answers have been accounted for and no matter the failures I find myself in, I don't have to live life afraid of what's to come. I have the answers written upon my heart and no matter who I find myself around, I don't have to cheat on myself by living the world, because I know God has paid the price and that this feeling of not knowing, it's going to come, but I can know my God has the end all figured out. He's the playwright, I'm just a character in his play.

I Hope the Big Kids Like Me

Remember that first day of school, you know the first day of kindergarden when you were the underdog before stepping foot though those large wooden front doors with the netted glass, making you feel like you were walking into a prison? Before school started you may have seen your siblings go through the same thing, or heard your parents bracing you for what's to come. You always hoped that the big kids would like you. Justin, that huge fifth grader who looked like he could eat you in one bite, or Brittany, the fourth grader who always had something to make fun of you about. School is always filled with those pressures, those  big kids who are going to make or break you in school. Get on their good side and your set; pick up their fallen napkin at lunch, and never forget to compliment their new Nikes. From the first day of school to thirteen years later in college, we idolize someone, someone who's been in our shoes who seems to know the key to success in life. In college it's those who've got everything figured out, those 4.0 kids who have found their way, made too many friends to count. The woman in your english class who can balance a chemistry equation and her social status. The Phd student whose job will make six figures in his near future. These people know where they're going, they have their life set out for themselves and the world is wrapped around their finger.


I've never felt like that. I don't belong here. Something about this place doesn't scream you have got it all figured out, this world was made for you. At college I'm an alien in unchartered territory, not part of the local fraternity with those rad parties on friday nights. I can't seem to get myself together in this world, because I wasn't made for this world.


One of my friends told me the other day how she chased her roommate for over a mile in the middle of the night, her roommate drunk out of her mind. Seeing people walk back from the local hookah bar somehow breaks my heart, it doesn't scream  you know you're supposed to do it, it's just a part of college. Is that really what's it all about here, getting wasted on Fridays, experimenting with drugs I've never even heard of. Am i supposed to know what kind of drug they're on, am I supposed to know how to roll a joint and memorize the perfect talk to get the ladies to do what I want them to? Is cussing really just a part of the lifestyle here? From my experience here, the answer is yes... there's an expectation when it comes to college, to be the world, embrace the world.... because hey, you only have four years to act like a fool before you have to get a job. 


But like I said, I can't seem to get it together, I can't seem to enjoy this world like everyone else can. How come the big kids can have it all together down here while I'm stuck doing homework and watching movies on my Friday nights? I've come to realize I feel this way because I, like I said, am an alien in this world. I am already someone who doesn't enjoy taking advantage of girls and "huffing"(whatever that is.) 


What if these four years were meant for something better, what if I take these days I have here and use them doing something that I'm not supposed to. I want to be the rebel who does the opposite of everyone else, because I have someone calling me to make a difference, I have someone that's pressuring me to take the days on earth to serve Him, not have sex more than the buddy who lives next door. My sister Cathy once told me that God doesn't always take us down the expected path, this I have also come to terms with.. It seems like no matter where I go in this world, I'll find a way to feel like an alien, but if I keep serving the perfect God I have come to love, no matter where I go, I can hold my head up high like the big kids, because I'll be there for my own reason, just not one known by the world. 


So I think I have found my place here, I know I have a purpose, so I guess I'm like the big kids. I'm only serving someone they aren't. It's okay, some of them will like me and others will treat me like an alien, but hey, it's okay, I've come to terms with being an outsider.




I've been wondering is we start singing'
Could we stand our ground
And through everything we've learned
We've finally called to terms
We are the outsiders
-Needtobreathe (you should give them a listen)