Summer of '89

Nineteen years old.  Idea brimming.  Enthusiasm crazed.  Anything ready. Flying in.  Full of faith.

First vocational ministry position.  Summer Youth Intern.  Faith Baptist Church.  Anchorage, Alaska.  Land of the Midnight Sun.  Views as above from Lake Hood with Chugach Range were out my office window.  Float planes constant.  Mountain splendor ever present.

Serving under my former Youth Pastor & dear friend Sam.  Living with Sam, his wife Cheryl, & one-year-old Samuel.  Eating Cheryl's amazing Alabama cooking with a bread for every meal & deserts too except brekafast.  Driving the Green Machine.  BIG green GMC 4x4 stepside pickup.  Meeting a moose face to grill on my first drive in the Green Machine.  Suffering from "Midnight Fever" as I hardly slept for the first two weeks with latenight sunsets & gorgeous weather.  Experiencing God coming through on choir tour getting us a new church & big crowd in hours time.  Sharing the Cootie Awards as later on choir tour we had a lice outbreak & made the best of the long drive home by giving each other silly awards.  Paying my phone bill in apple juice.  Samuel drank lots of it.  I owed $22.  Drugstore had .99 cents sale on apple juice.  I bought 22 bottles.  Packed for me in liquor boxes.  I carried out with a pair of seventh grade boys.  It was the summer of '89. Learning about life, ministry, & myself all at the same time.

The lessons hold true twenty years later: love Jesus; pray hard; love people; preach the Word; ask questions; laugh out loud; cry when needed; sing for joy; try new things; take life as it comes; give yourself; walk in grace.

Great lessons.

Great place.

Great times.

Great friends.

Great experience.

Greatest God.

What a privilege to serve.

I John Mark

That title is not a typo. And don't worry: The pastor hasn't gone heretical preparing to cite previously unknown scripture from "First" John Mark.

That, readers, is how my two-year old, toddler son refers to himself.

Sweet kid. Rough as a corncob.  Even when he loves you. Big for his age. Genes from Mama's side. Blue-eyed, dimple-cheeked bandit. He'll steal your heart. Tough on the outside, but soft on the inside.  So his perceptive sister says. Got big vocabulary. Yet still learning. How to be himself. Not easy being number three. How to use his words. Can't always communicate what he'd like. Yet with unwavering certainty he asserts himself.

If you were to say to John Mark, "You are so cute!" He'd respond, "No, I John Mark."

If I were to ask him, quoting Mary Elizabeth, "Are you tough on the outside & soft on the inside?" He'd respond, "No, I John Mark."

Most any question. Most any statement.

He responds, "I John Mark."

He doesn't understand that we're just describing a characteristic of who he is. All he knows is that he is. He is "John Mark" period.

If this is still around. If he cares to read it. For the record. Let me state: Yes, my son, you are the one, the only John Mark Householder. Unique. Absolute treasure of your father. Given by God. Made in His image. Filled with His Spirit.

If only when life asked of me, I could respond every time with such unwavering certainty. I am Paul Aaron. Unique. Absolute treasure of my Father. Given to the world by Him. Made in His image. Filled with His Spirit.

Attractive

Got the kids all ready for bed. PJs on. Looking cute. Hair still a bit damp from bathtime. Smelling sweet. I think the Johnson's people must have done lots of research to know that making their shampoo smell like Flintstone vitamins would be pleasing to Daddys.  Sorry, the sweet smell of clean kids got me off story...

So, all five of us are in Seth's room.  Prayer time.  John Mark, two, is usually in bed before his siblings.  He's still awake tonight.  Overly energetic.  I'm kneeling down beside Mary Elizabeth. Trying to bring calm.  Melanie is about to sit on Seth's bed when he announces contrary plans, "I want John Mark to come up here on my bed with me.  Daddy, you come up here."

Me & John Mark together on Seth's bed doesn't compute in my Daddy brain.  Maybe I blew that fuse during my morning sermon prep.  Maybe I tripped that breaker running around with the kids before suppertime. So I ask, "Why do I need to come up there, Buddy?"

In second-grader simple logic Seth states, "John Mark's attracted to you, Daddy.  If you come up here.  He will too."

There you have it, friends.  I am attractive to my two year old son...

At least in the eyes of his almost eight year old brother I am.  That's something, right?  I may have thinning hair, an average face, & a less than stunning physique, but I can attract the toddlers.  Watch out, world!

I have to ask, however, as a Christ-follower: Who am I attractive to? What might make me attractive?

Jesus says he will draw all men to himself if I will lift him up.

He is attractive.

Lift him up.

Spacewalk

U.S. Astronauts began a risky spacewalk about two hours ago to repair & upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.  Among their maneuvers will be a camera upgrade. The old one allowed us never before seen views of space & will end up in the Smithsonian. The new one will look deeper into space & is the size of a baby grand piano.

The little boy inside me spoke up, "Wow! Wouldn't that be a cool thing to be doing this morning! Walking in space. Floating around. Seeing Earth like a glowing ball. Awesome!"

The grown man inside spoke next, "That took years of dedication & training to get there.  And even though those guys are weightless they are in those heavy, cumbersome suits.  And for each one guy out there working he actions are directed by countless many."  You've seen the space movies, right?  How many people watch monitors & give instructions & updates down here while a handful are up there?

The Christ-follower inside had the last word, "I can be weighed down & encumbered by the sins of this world, yet freed to weightless dependence as I confess to my Savior.  I am part of the Body of Christ, the church, & although we are many we seek our direction from only One, our Lord Jesus."  What needs confession today?  How is he directing me to follow?

Following Jesus.  A lifewalk.

Jumping Curbs

I had a Huffy IV.  The coolest BMX bike in the world of 1980.  Shiny black & yellow bumblebee meets BMX, Baby! 

I loved to ride hard.  I loved to jump.  The stuff a BMX bike was made to do.  The stuff boys frighten their Mamas doing.  Jumping curbs was the thing to do on our neighborhood streets.  The transition of curbing into each driveway made a pair of impromptu ramps--one in each direction--in front of every home.

Jumping curbs.  Again & again.  Jumping curbs.

My heart jumped too.

Fun stuff.

Well, fun when you're a ten-year old boy.

Years later as a newlywed my wife had a white Cutlass Supreme. Nothing too expensive, but the wheels & the trimwork gave it a tough, futuristic look.  From the front it had the look of an old-school Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet.  She never liked it when I said that & she still won't.

Finishing up a late workday at my desk in Fort Worth & knowing Melanie would be leaving work in Dallas near 40 miles away, I got a cellular phone call.

Noise.  Sirens.  My heart quickened.  Then a firm voice.

I'm an EMT with Dallas Fire Department.  I've got your wife with me in the ambulance. 

My heart stopped.

She's been in an accident.  We're taking her to Baylor Hospital.  I'm not supposed to, but she wanted me to call you.

I must confess that I broke the speed limit as I drove the very road my wife had wrecked on.  I was only slowed by the onlookers gawking at what was left of her tough turned upside down white Cutlass Supreme.

She'd been run off the interstate.  Jumped a curb.  Flipped her car. At highway speed.

Not fun.

Not fun no matter your age.

The ambulance ride & ER visit ended up being only precautionary.  She came out sore, but with just one scratch & one good bump by God's grace.

Matthew 5:17 records Jesus saying, "Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

John R.W. (you know he's English because he has two middle initials & the way he spells "curb") Stott writes of that same biblical Law, "It is the kerbstone along the road of love."

I can do the math on that equation: Law = Curb + Road = Life of Christ-follower.

God's Law shows us our boundaries as we seek to follow Christ Jesus living by grace.

As a kid jumping curbs was fun.  A thrill.

As an adult jumping curbs is costly.  Possibly deadly.

As a kid jumping curbs was habitual.  It was daily.  

As an adult I try to keep it between the lines.  Trouble free.

But I must ask myself... When it comes to some of God's Laws for me--His commands, His direction, His will--am I still jumping the curbs?  How does that reflect the growing maturity I should be attaining as a Follower of Jesus?

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:11, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man I put childish ways behind me."

Still jumping curbs?

Stumbling

Tony Woodlief wrote this last week.

It moved me to introspection.  May you be so moved.

You yearn for a holy place because, in the time between waking unable to recall where you are, and drifting again into the half-sleep that is all you’ve known for the longest time, you stand in the darkness of your sterile hotel room, peering into a mirror to see that you are nothing like what you were supposed to be. You see in this darkness that you are shadow and vapor, that the pretty words in which you wrap yourself are no more you than the dirty glass is water.

You yearn for a holy place because the stench of your unholiness, your un-separateness, your common, petty guile and smallness, is sometimes so stark that you would sooner go without air than breathe it in. You yearn for a holy place even if you think you may be damned, because to be in it is to know, only fleetingly, only with darkened gaze, that there is something more than you and the things that are so very much like you.

Your heart and flesh cry out for a space that is more than just a meeting house for commemoration and remembrance and symbols. You are desperate for a space where the God who is a love you can scarcely think on waits to commune with your pale, quavering soul. A place that is holy because it embraces the great mystery of death begetting life,  of the tomb containing joy, of sorrow and hope intertwined in a world that would deny you your full portion of both.

You are desperate for the soft spilling light of sun pouring through stained glass, for the rustle of your clothes as you kneel, for the cross by which even someone like you might be healed, for the trembling prayer, the whispered blessing. You cry out for a place that will remain holy even after you have been in it. A place so holy that you pose no threat to it, so holy that it can embrace you in all your smallness and be no smaller itself, no less clean nor true nor solid.

You are so very thirsty. The darkest part of night has gathered about you. There is no water here. There has never been water here. Why did you think there would be?

This is what you think as you lie down in your lonely bed with parched throat, as you wait for daylight that you hope will be bright enough to make you forget, for a time, this yearning. Where is your holy place? Where will you find it in this strange city, and in the strange city to follow, and in all the days you wander from home, perhaps even within the walls of home, because you have mistaken trinkets and baubles for sacred things?

You could spend a lifetime finding the holy place, rediscovering the sacred things. You should. For now the rocks and trees are silent in the close-drawn dark, but something within you is crying out, because it knows you were fashioned for more than this. Will you listen, here in this darkness? Will you stumble onto the hallowed ground and drink deep?

Love It to Live It

The article below is an excerpt of one from Josh Hunt, a phenomenal teacher of Bible teachers & an exemplary follower of Jesus.  You can learn more of his heart & his ministry by linking from his name above.  I was challenged & I pray that you will be too.

Do you serve God to give or to get?

The real spirit of the question is, "Should you serve God to give or to get?" If you were all you should be, godly and right thinking and mature and Christ-like, would you serve God for what you could get out of it, or what you could contribute?

I think we would quickly agree that we should serve God to give. We should be more about contributing and less about receiving. We should, if we were more godly, serve God to serve God--to give. We might think so, but we would be wrong.

Hebrews 11.6 lists two steps to drawing near to God: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him."

The two steps are:

1. We must believe that God exists. Turns out, this is a pretty easy step. About ninety-five percent of people on planet earth do believe that God exists. Even the devil believes that God exists.
2. We must believe that God rewards. As the NASV has it, "He is a rewarder of those who seek Him." We either come to God for reward, or we cannot come to God. We must come to God seeking to get a reward. There is no other way.

It makes sense if you think about it. If we are thinking rightly, we realize He is rich and we are poor; He has plenty, we have need; He is strong we are week. The idea that we would come to God to help God out might sound good at first blush, but if we think about it at all we realize we can't help God out. He doesn't need anything. He certainly doesn't need anything we have to offer. We don't have anything He needs. We can't do anything for Him that He needs us to do. He is complete. We are needy.

Eventually we come to the place where we say, as the old Hymn writer said it, "I need Thee every hour. .  I need Thee, oh, I need Thee, every hour I need Thee."

How wrong it would be to turn this classic hymn on its head and say, "You need me, oh you need me, every hour you need me." The writer got it right.

Jesus emphasized this point of reward in Mark 10: “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” Mark 10:29-30 (NIV)

C.S. Lewis talked about this:

"If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. "

The research indicates this was the #1 predictor of spiritual vibrancy: whether you strongly agreed with the statement, "It is always in my best interest to live the Christian life." People who strongly agreed with that statement were two and a half times (145%) more likely to be spiritually vibrant when compared with those who only agreed with that statement. When compared with those who disagreed with the statement, those who strongly agree were five and a half times (450%) more likely to be spiritually vibrant. This one factor mattered more than anything else I could find.

You might be tempted to think this is a rather abstract theological point that has not much to do with every day life. You'd be wrong. Here is why.

We are irrevocably hard wired to pursue what we believe to be in our best interest. It is built into our programming. We can't avoid it. We have to learn to live with it. If we believe that God is a rewarder and we will be rewarded for following Him, His yoke becomes easy and we follow Him almost automatically. If we think we should follow Him but we would rather go our own way because we think we know best, we are going to be in a constant battle of the will with God. It is not enough to submit our will to Him. We must believe--not merely believe that He exists. We must believe He always rewards. We must believe it is impossible to follow God and not be rewarded. Ought-to, and should and you-better will never do. We must believe  that he rewards.

I have written thousands and thousands of sentences, but I have only written one that I think is profound. Here it is:

We must come to love the Christian life,
or we will never come to live the Christian life.

Break it down: we must come to love prayer, or we don't pray very well. Prayer moves from being a duty and an obligation and becomes a delight--a sweet hour of prayer--or we are not praying very well.

We come to love serving or we are not serving very much.

We come to love the Word and it become sweeter than honey as the Bible says, or I will bet you struggle to spend time in the Word. You have to force yourself and you can't force yourself consistently.

You must come to love the Christian life, or you will never come to live the Christian life.

Self-discipline is over-rated in a lot of Christian teaching. Not to say there is not a place for self-discipline. Balance is an issue. Sometimes you need self-discipline. Sometimes we need to do what we should do whether or not we feel like it. But, if you try to live your whole life this way, you are in trouble. If you trying to live your whole life forcing yourself to do what you don't want to do because you don't think it is in your best interest, you can't live that way. You will get tired. Eventually you will do what you believe to be in your best interest.

You must come to love the Christian life, or you will never come to live the Christian life.  

Lord Jesus, grow my love of you & all things that will assist me in loving you better.  Amen.