Perfect Birthday Gift

July 27, 2009. 37 years to the day from the time of my birth.

I write this not out of melancholy about growing older, nor to garner attention for the day. I write out of consideration of the gift of life that God has given me.

I once talked with my wife about making my own coffin. I love to do woodworking and leather crafting, so I am pretty sure that I could make a pretty cool coffin. I would probably put shelves in it so that it could be a useful bookcase or cabinet until I needed it for its primary purpose. I even downloaded plans from the internet.

My wife just gave me that look that she occasionally gives me when I come up with ideas like this. The look say, ‘I love you, but I think you are a bubble off of plumb.” She wasn’t too keen on the idea of having a coffin around.

Yes, I know this is weird, but track with me for a bit.

I figured out quite some time ago that life starts slow, in grade school, one year of life feels like it takes about a decade to complete (especially in math class). But sometime after your teens, life starts to go in fast forward. Each year, it gets faster and faster. I’m pretty sure that my final years will be reduced to minutes.

Again, this is not meant to be a maudlin commentary about the speed of life or my passing youth.

I just want some sort of constant reminder of the value of the time given us. I think that I might waste less time and resources if I have some sort of visual touchstone like my own coffin.

I wonder, would I spend any more money on ‘toys’ instead of using it to help others?

I wonder, would I waste any more time on video games or randomly surfing the net instead of spending time with my wife and daughter?

I wonder, would I spend so much time doing ministry work instead of investing time in the people that I am called to serve.

The problem with birthdays, funerals, and New Years day is that we so easily make resolutions to change, to focus on the important things. Yet, these things quickly go out the window as the day to day distractions of life step in. We pay bills, we lust after new toys (which usually leads to more bills), we go to work, we work on the house, we get our oil changed, we busy ourselves with hobbies. How quickly we forget our resolutions and begin wasting what little time we have.

This is why I want my own coffin. It can serve as a reminder that just won’t go away. Even if it starts to fade into the background of my own busy-ness, other people will remind me as they see it in my office or at the house.

In fact, I think this would make a great birthday gift that I could make for other people. A fine oak box, carved with beautiful designs and lined in fine leather, useful for a coffee table or a book case. Just picture the look on the person’s face as they open their birthday present from me and find a coffin.

Perhaps my wife is right, I just might be a bubble off of plumb.

Camp Songs and Theodicy

Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong.

The perennial church camp song, sung by kids for so many generations.

We sang this at Kids Camp this last week and it started me thinking.

In youth and childrens ministry, I have seen all kinds of horrible things that have been done to kids and heard even more second hand stories. Physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse. Kids who have watched their parent’s marriage torn apart and are drawn into the fighting. Children of drug and alcohol abusers who had to learn all too young how to take care of themselves. Children who have to help their siblings hide from a stepfather’s unwanted attention. Children abandoned by parents. Children drugged into oblivion so they don’t act up.

I faced some of these very situations this last week.

My heart aches each time I look into the face of a sweet child and see adult-like pain.

If the line from the song, “Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong,” then how can He let this happen?

This is an old question that has long been batted around by believers and non-believers alike. In fact, there is even a term for it: Theodicy. But, the reality of holding a child in pain brings it home in a way that academic arguments never can.

God allows us to live in sin as part of our ability to choose Him. That makes sense. If He fully protected us against our own sin, then we can never fully choose Him in love. I get that. I understand the difference between a computer programmed to say, “Rodger is awesome” versus my daughter giving me a hug and saying, “Daddy, I love you.”

Recognizing that God allows us to suffer the consequences of our own sin doesn’t make it hurt any less to realize that He also allows us to suffer the consequences of other people’s sin.

And that brings us to the child in pain.

Jesus says, “It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.”

He also said, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

Therein lays the answer. God’s solution to the problem of these children’s pain comes from us. For now, we are the ones to welcome them in His name. Facing this in ministry, my only comfort comes from the fact that there are loving Christians in the world who take Christ’s love for little children as a personal call. They are His hands as they put their arms around a weeping child. They are His hands as they call CPS to help break a child free from an abusive situation. They are His hands as they adopt a child or take them in foster care.

Jesus loves me, this I know. For loving Christians show me so.

Little ones to Him belong, they are weak but through Him his servants are strong.

I Need a Hero

One of my earliest memories as a child was watching my father face death.

When I was about five years old, we lived across the street from an apartment building that was somewhat disreputable. One day, we heard a loud confrontation going on out in the street. The landlord who owned the building was arguing with a tenant who owed back rent. While we watched, the tenant reached in the back of his pickup truck and pulled out a wooden tomato stake and hit the landlord in the head, knocking him to the ground where he lay crumpled. My father (who was a former ambulance attendant) instructed my mom to call the police and then he went out front.

While we watched fearfully from the upstairs window, my father walked up to the angry tenant who was still yelling and waiving the stick at the unconscious and possibly dead landlord on the ground. As my father approached, the man turned the stick towards him and demanded to know if he, “wants some too.” Dad told the angry man that he was just there to check on the injured man and then he turned his back to the tenant and began checking on the landlord.
With that, sirens began in the distant and the tenant jumped in his truck and roared off down the street out of sight. We found out later that he was captured at gunpoint a few blocks away as he drove right into the oncoming police.

A few years ago, there was a woman brutally beaten and then raped in South Mountain park, while bystanders watched, unwilling to get involved. Since then, I have seen this story repeated dozens of times in different localities by different people, always the same outcome. Someone is attacked and other people stand by doing nothing, out of fear or apathy.

Where are the superheroes? Where are the warriors? Where are the knights in armor charging in on white steeds with swords slashing? Where is the cowboy in the white hat with guns ablazing?

Moral responsibility doesn’t require superheroes, knights, cowboys, or other fictional heroes. It requires ordinary people who have had moral upbringing to stand up through fear and do the right thing.

And moral upbringing, my friends, is where we are falling down.

As a nation, we have begun raising generation after generation of morally crippled individuals.

The Shema of Judaism (found in Deuteronomy 6 for Christians) says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one, Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up…”

Did you catch that? “Impress them on your children.” That’s an imperative. It doesn’t say, “if your children ask,” it instructs us to do something about it. Then, it goes further. The instruction isn’t just once. It isn’t just in school. It is not just at church. It says, “Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up…”

As a youth minister, I am often surprised and appalled at the lack of moral education in the home. Parents bring their kids to church occasionally (not even regularly) and expect them to get their ‘dose of morality’ that way.

On more than one occasion, I have had parents who don’t regularly attend church call me up to ask me to deal with some issue that their child is facing. “My child is cheating in school…”, “My child is lying to me…”, “My child is hanging around with the wrong crowd”, “My child is_________.” They then say something along the lines of, “I told them that the Bible says…” this is generally followed by some misquoted passage or even something that isn’t in the Bible at all.

My question to them is, “How can you expect your child to respect to follow God’s law if you don’t even do so?”

I recently asked my Junior High and High School kids how often their parents talked to them about biblical issues at home. The resulting quiet was deafening.

It is simply impossible for a child to learn right and wrong unless they are exposed to it.

The symptoms are everywhere – steroid use in sports, Enron, Bernie Madoff, cheating scandals at Ivy League schools, the rise in violent youth crimes, and so on.

These things will continue to happen and continue getting worse until the adults of the world begin the simple and vital task of teaching moral values to our children.

My father’s actions so long ago have had a lifelong impact on me. I cannot stand aside watching evil triumph. I do what I do because of this. It may sound cliché, but, All that is required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.

Let's change the world. You and I. We can do it. We'll teach our children and the kids that we meet about truth and justice, about right and wrong, about love and hate. Let's dare them to stand up for the good and then, let's show them that we live it in our own lives too.

Where have all good men gone

And where are all the gods?

Where’s the street-wise Hercules

To fight the rising odds?

Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?

Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need

I need a hero

I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the night

He’s gotta be strong

And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight

Lyrics from ‘I Need a Hero’ by Bonnie Tyler

In my professional opinion, it's time to get over it

OK, I have to say it... It has been two weeks now. If you aren't a part of Michael Jackson's immediate family and friends - Get over it.

I'm tired of that being the headlines in all the news, constantly mentioned on talk radio, and the only thing anyone seems to be talking about. I have no patience for the cult of personality for celebrities that our culture seems to thrive on.

You didn't know him personally and, no matter how much you liked his music, there is no personal connection there. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nicht. None.

If your life is so empty that his death matters to you (or the happenings of any other famous celebrity that you don't personally know), then it's time for you to get out into the real world. Go meet some people. Make some friends. Go to church. Use your time to serve others and get to know them.

His daughter's eulogy broke my heart. I hurt for her and the rest of his immediate family, just like I hurt for anyone who has lost someone close to them.

For the rest of you - get a life of your own and get over it.

That's all I have to say about that.

P.S. this also goes for anything to do with Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, Brad and Angelina, Brad and Jennifer, the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Lindsey Lohan, etc. etc. etc.

Today

Today,

More than 20,000 children will die due to famine or poverty related causes

Thousands will be made orphans due to loss of parents due to HIV/AIDS

Many more will be made homeless refugees due to war

Soldiers will be injured and die in wars around the world, leaving loved ones behind

Hundreds of Americans will lose jobs and homes due to the economy

Elderly grandmothers and grandfathers will languish in loneliness

Oh yeah, and some dead famous singer guy will receive thousands of hours of media coverage.

I'm glad we focus on the important stuff.

Two Movies

This weekend, I watched two movies that are worth comment. Life just isn’t like the movies. Usually. But, sometimes, they mirror real life in a way that can be exquisitely raw.

The first movie that I saw was ‘Last Kiss.’ It was a date night movie for my wife and I. Earlier in the week, we were at Wally World, getting new shoes for my daughter. After about a half an hour looking at shoes and realizing that the girls weren’t anywhere near done, I wandered over to the $3 movie bin. (Hey, if a man can’t spend $3 on a movie for his wife, what’s this world coming to?) I found this movie that billed itself as a romantic comedy and it had the guy from ‘Scrubs’ in it, a show my wife likes. What could go wrong?

Everything.

This movie is agonizingly close to reality. It is a movie about relationships, broken ones. It was not the ‘romantic comedy’ that it billed itself as. No, this movie is about the destruction of relationships. Marriages fell apart, relationships were destroyed, parents fought over their children. There was infidelity and dysfunctional relationships right and left. I've seen far to many destroyed relationships of close friends and people I care about, to appreciate this movie.

Save your $3 and buy your wife a big chocolate candy bar.

I would recommend this movie to one group of people. I believe that I might just send it back to my old Bible college to the counseling department. It should be a class assignment: each student must take one of the characters and describe the process for counseling this person. The people in the movie are so real that the process of counseling them would be great practice.

The second movie that I saw was also on a date night. This time, it was daddy-daughter date night. I took my little girl out to see the movie of her choice and for a little gelato afterwards. She chose the movie, ‘Up’.

This movie, I would recommend. It too is about relationships. The core of the story is about a man and a woman who get married and grow old together. She dies in the first 20 minutes of the movie and the rest of the movie involves him fulfilling a promise to her while learning to find other relationships in his life.

I am not ashamed to say that I cried in this movie. The writers do such an excellent job of making you love this couple, it’s hard not to cry when you see him alone. It really strikes to the heart of my own fears. I love my wife. A lot. And, I recognize the awful truth that one day, one of us will go before the other one.

Every love story has a sad ending. There is a deep truth there that was at the heart of each of these movies. Each movie showed the pain and grieving that comes with the loss of a relationship. Unfortunately, we live in a society where the first movie is a better example of relationships than the second.

I am distressed at the state of marriage in our world. Life is short, painfully so. We have the briefest time on this earth to live and love. Why, then, would you waste it being miserable and hateful to someone.

The truth is, you can spend a lifetime growing together in a healthy relationship, facing down your problems and learning to work together OR, you can spend a lifetime dealing with the baggage from a broken relationship. Either way, you spend a lifetime with that person.

My wife and I both come from broken homes. We could have learned the lesson that relationships are disposable. They aren’t and we didn’t. Instead, we both decided that our marriage was going to last through it all. Our goal is 75 years and then we’ll renegotiate.

We’ve lasted 13 years so far, through some really tough times and through some really great times. We’ve had the 2nd Year lull and the 7 year itch. We’ve had struggles with having children and the delight of adoption. We’ve had arguments that shook the walls and we’ve laughed together, played together, cried together, and loved together.

Relationships are hard. I won't lie to you. You will never hurt another person in this world as much as the person that you truly love. To grow in love, you must be vulnerable, and when you are vulnerable, you will get hurt. Working through that hurt as a partnership, opening up to each other, and growing old together will make for an adventure that outshines any movie script.

Healthy relationships require a daily choice to grow closer to each other. They require a regular dose of humility. They require constant care and vigilance. Long lasting, loving relationships don't just happen. They require effort. Trust me; it is worth it.

Both of these movies, ‘Last Kiss’ and ‘Up’ hold the same lesson: a healthy relationship is priceless and a dysfunctional one is worthless – it’s your choice which one you will live with.

I think I need to go watch a guy movie now.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24.