Read This Post or I'll Shoot My Cat

Just take a look at this big, fat ball of hair (the cat, not me). You wouldn't want his death on your conscience, would you? I'm completely serious. Have you ever seen Boondock Saints?

OK, so, now that I've got your attention, I'll go ahead and let you know that I have absolutely zero intention of hurting Deputy. He's my cat. Come on. I'm not gonna shoot my cat. If the post had been about me shooting my sister's dog, you would have had legitimate reason for concern, but I would never purposefully bring even the slightest harm to Deputy, so you can go ahead and stop writing your angry e-mails to the ASPCA and just pay attention.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The Life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the Eternal Life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

- I John 1:1-4

That's the prologue to the first of John's epistles. It's a beautifully expressed declaration of the tangible reality of both the person and the divinity of Jesus Christ, and opens up one of my favorite books of the Bible. But for the purposes of this post, I really just want to focus on verse 4: "We write this to make our joy complete."

Proselytizing, evangelizing, whatever you wanna call it - spreading the Gospel, telling others about Jesus, and bringing people into God's presence is an absolutely undeniable part of Christianity. If you're not sharing your Christianity, you're not actually doing your Christianity.

It doesn't have to be so overt as this blog, or so obliviously ineffective as standing on a street corner in a sandwich board and shouting at passers-by, but it's got to happen. That's made perfectly clear throughout the entire New Testament.

But why?

"...to make our joy complete."

I'm sorry to resort to such a low-down dirty trick as pretending to threaten my cat, but I'm just trying to do whatever I can to get you to notice this stuff. It's not so much because I crave an audience as much as it is that I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. I have something to say that I think you would benefit from hearing. I actually think it's important enough that I'm willing to play whatever cards I've got at my disposal just to get you to read at least ONE of these posts, hopefully more. And it's not like I've got any kind of ad revenue coming to me off of this. Facebook definitely ain't payin' me, even though it alone is at least a part-time job just based on the hours I put in each week...

But I do get something from it. I get something of a completion of my joy. I get the thrill of knowing that I've helped people focus on God, maybe even in a way that they never had before. That is awesome for me. And not because it's got anything to do with me, but because it's entirely about you, the one reading this. If you are reading this, I am thrilled. I'm even more thrilled if you're actually absorbing any of it. I'm elated if it challenges you to think about your relationship with Christ and the improvements you can make to it. I'm overjoyed beyond the limitations of the English language to express if, by some movement of the Holy Spirit through me and my keyboard, you - the actual YOU reading this right now, not the general "not me" version of "you" - take a step closer to God that you'd never taken before, whether you've been going to church your whole life or you've never once heard a word of the Bible.

And it doesn't give me all those warm fuzzies because I'm the one that wrote whatever words changed your life. It rocks my gypsy soul for the same reason that the shepherd rejoiced when he found his lost sheep, the woman rejoiced when she found her lost coin, the father rejoiced when his lost son came home, and the Father and all the hosts of angels rejoice when one repentant sinner accepts the Grace of God and steps into the Light.

It makes my joy complete.

If I can be the instrument God chooses to use to bring you, in any way, closer to Him, hey - that's awesome. You will not find me complaining about that. I try not to complain about God using me in general, but that specific use would be pretty solid.

But why? Why does it even matter to me?

Because I fully believe that everybody's life - and I mean everybody-everybody - could be improved by better knowing the Majesty, the Splendor, the Glory, the Holiness, the Power, the Presence, and the unfailing, unending, unmistakable Love of God.

Look, folks... God is... the best. The. Best. Imagine the best thing you've ever experienced. Now go infinitely better. That's a rough picture of the goodness of God. I cannot possibly explain to you in enough detail how good God is. 1) I don't have the words to convey it all, and 2) you don't have the patience to read my futile attempt, which would be so overly verbose that Google would shut me down for clogging up the internet.

I don't know what your relationship with God is like. I hope it's incredible. I hope that whatever you're getting is anything like what I'm getting, because folks, I ain't lying when I tell you that what is happening in my life is so very good that I cannot possibly keep it to myself.

It's Oreos and Led Zeppelin and good Batman comics and perfect air conditioning and the comfiest couch in the world and every other possibility of anything GOOD in this world all rolled up into one inexpressibly perfect thing, and I would feel like an absolute jerk if I kept it to myself.

If you eat at an awesome restaurant, you tell your friends, right?

If you see a mind-blowingly good movie, you tell your friends, right?

If you have goodness, you share it with the people you love, right?

That's what I want to do.

I want to tell you how awesome God is for me, because I know that when you let Him, He will be every bit as awesome for you. I mean that, no matter where you are in your walk with Him. If you're a staunch atheist, I want to talk to you about God. If you've never missed a church service in your life, I want to talk to you about God. If you just don't know where you fit in, I want to talk to you about God.

And I am totally willing to cheat in order to get that done.

Why else would I have been writing posts openly drawing comparisons between God and Batman or God and Eric Clapton?

It's not (exclusively) because of my inability to escape my own nerdiness, but it is because I am trying to do anything I can to get people to read this. I want to talk to you about God. That is my goal. If this means I lure you in with sensationalist headlines about killing my cat, so be it.

Jesus performed miracles for a reason - to get people to listen to Him. The Holy Spirit manifested miraculous gifts in the early church for the exact same reason - to get people's attention and show them the glory of God. Whatever gifts I do have from the Spirit, I have not as yet been able to heal a lame man with my shadow, so I will have to do what I can to bring people in, because I can think of absolutely nothing in existence that could ever be any more fulfilling than to encourage those around me (and, through the magic of the interwebs, those nowhere near me) into a closer relationship with God.

It makes my joy complete.

But here's the twist.

I jokingly threatened my cat just to get you to read this. It's an absurd example, but it worked, right? I mean, you are, after all, reading this...

How would you have responded if this week's entry had instead been titled "Live Your Life By My Rules or I'll Shoot You"?

I don't think there's any point in being bashful about my intentions. Yes, I want to encourage you to grow closer to God. That's my goal. Again, I don't care if you're already a very strong Christian or if you're a very strong atheist or if you're just very strongly confused. I want to talk to you about God. And my ideal outcome of any conversation that we should ever have about God is that we both walk away with refreshed spirits, renewed minds, and rejoicing hearts.

But the last thing I want to do is bully you into accepting what I believe.

I do believe, fully, that Christianity is the best possible way to live your life. I also believe, with every bit the same fullness, that the Christian life that I'm living is the best I can do with the knowledge and understanding that I currently have. In other words - yeah, I think I'm right. Of course I think I'm right. If I didn't think I was right, why would I continue to think things that I thought were wrong? That's dumb.

But there is a gigantic difference between my telling you that I feel that the truths behind my beliefs would be of great benefit in your own life if you applied them the same way I do and my telling you that you're evil and stupid for believing something other than what I believe and should immediately recognize the rightness of my beliefs and just stop your silly questioning because how could a fool like you ever know anything worth saying in the first place.

Put a bit more simply: there is a HUGE difference between sharing the Gospel through Love and forcing the Gospel down people's throats through arrogant moral superiority.

I'm perfectly willing to trick you into a conversation about God. I don't feel bad about that.

I'm also completely at peace with the idea of using whatever connections I might have with you or anyone else I ever encounter to find a way to get my foot in the door and then get to that conversation about God. It's worth working towards. In my work towards connecting people to God, I'm willing to be a downright snake in the grass, if I have to.

So that's what I've got this week. I've got nothing to hide - my mission, my purpose, my goal is to talk to you about God. I don't care where you stand with Him, I fully believe that both of us have everything to gain from striving for a more perfect understanding of the infinite goodness of God.

It is to that end, then, that I would like to close this post with an especially heartfelt encouragement and sincere exhortation: talk back. I have always wanted this bloggery business to be a conversation more than a sermon. I would LOVE to hear from you - no matter who you are, no matter what you believe. Ask questions. Debate points of doctrine. Drop a truthbomb on me with a scripture I might not have thought of that shows things in a different light. Whatever it is, please... do it. I want to be better at this, and a lot of the learning comes from feedback.

I do sincerely appreciate those of you who do comment and write me and everything else. It definitely means a lot, and please don't feel that I don't value your input - I do. I just want more. Is that so bad?

God bless you... And hopefully we'll talk soon.

A (potential) Leap of Faith

So tomorrow morning I fly out to Oregon to meet the congregation at the Madras church of Christ.

I'm gonna be up there for 12 days - from the 2nd to the 14th - preaching on the two Sundays in between, as well as teaching the Wednesday night Bible class.

It's a small church (for now!), with an average of about 20 people showing up most Sundays from what I understand. That also seems to be a generous estimate. I'm not sure.

There's a lot of complicated history with the church that I'm not entirely sure I can follow just yet, and they haven't had a preacher for about three years, so maybe their standards have fallen low enough by this point that they're willing to give me a shot. That is in fact the entire purpose of this trip, as I'm sure you've guessed - I'm going up to see if I'm a good fit for this congregation and if they're a good fit for me.

I also just got off the phone with Sallie Mae.

I do not like that woman.

My loans are coming down on me in a way that I just can't do anything about. I have been looking - looking hard - for a job, but things just haven't been happening. And I haven't just been looking for church jobs, I've been looking for a regular job-job, too. Dollar General, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, Burger King, seven different gas stations, Harris Teeter, Whole Foods, Costco, Publix, McDonald's, floor refinishing, delivery jobs... no, no, no, no, no... all no. I have no money, I have no job, and I have a whole lot of debt that is very insistent on ignoring the fact that I have no money and have no job.

It's enough to get a guy kinda discouraged.

OK, fine... Really discouraged.

I'm at a crossroads of the principles of my faith and the principles of the world. On the right, I have God telling me that He has a plan for me, and that things will work out, one way or another, sooner or later. God tells me (and, coincidentally, you) over and over that it's not up to me how things work out (James 4:13-14, Jeremiah 29:11-13, Philippians 4:4-7, Proverbs 3:5, I Peter 5:6-7, Psalm 48:14), and beyond that, Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that we're not supposed to worry about money or stress out about tomorrow, but instead to focus completely on God, trusting that He'll take care of us (Matthew 6:19-34).

And on the other hand there's a few voices in the world telling me to do nothing but completely freak the ever-loving electric cuss-words out about not being able to repay my loans. If I don't pay off my loans, then the rest of my life is completely sunk.

Money, it's a crime

Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie

Money, so they say,

Is the root of all evil today

But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're

giving none away...

- Pink Floyd

A lot of what I'm thinking about right now goes back to what I wrote in "The Safe Bet" a few weeks back. I made the point in that post that if we are going to claim to live as though God is real, then perhaps we ought to live our lives as though we actually believed it. God says He's going to take care of us, He tells us not to worry about money, He tells us to just trust Him, take care of each day as it comes, and live our lives as completely focused on serving Him as we can.

And the thing is... I know all of that...

But man, I don't mind telling you at all that I am still scared senseless.

The pressure from the loans is bad enough, believe me... But it's not like Oregon is just up the street from Tennessee. It's not like I've actually got a lot of experience at being a preacher. It's not like I don't have doubts eating away at me every second of the day, especially as that flight gets closer and closer with every hour.

But you wanna know something really crazy?

I had already made up my mind before we even left for church this past Sunday morning to go forward during the invitation and ask for the congregation's prayers about this whole Oregon trip deal. But when we got to church and the sermon was entirely drawn from Hebrews 11, the "faith chapter" of the Bible... Well... That was kind of exactly what I needed to hear.

Isn't the whole point of faith in the first place that we actually live it out?

Isn't the whole point of faith in Jesus that we face up to the challenges that are going to come our way?

Isn't the whole point of faith in God that we accept that things may not make a lot of sense by the world's standard, but knowing throughout it all God has a plan for us?

I have to admit that I don't know what that plan is. I don't know if it's Oregon. I really don't even know if it's a church job at all, at this point. Like I said - the doubts, they are a-plenty.

But through countless hours of prayer - and not just my own, but also those of the army of people whom God has led into my life who are all supporting me at every turn - and dedicating myself to studying the Bible as best as I know how, this is what I feel like God's asking me to do.

And it's big.

But hey... I serve a Lord who died for me.

I guess the least I can do is fly to Oregon.

I would really appreciate your prayers. Not only for me, but for the Madras church. One way or another, the next 12 days are going to change my life, and hopefully the lives of a few other people. In all things, however, I hope that my words and actions can lead others - and myself - closer and closer to the eternal presence of God.