What an interesting place to be. After a thousand miles, 4 new tires (I had a blow out and decided to also change the remaining three), and now 6,000 feet above sea level, I sit in an unfamiliar town. A town in which bike racks adorn vehicles instead of EZ Tags for the toll way and the scenery’s default color is evergreen instead of concrete gray. Houston is truly a world away. Kelly and Greyson have been here awhile and now they are on a plane headed home. I trust deeply that the Lord has something for me in ‘the lonely places’. Something that the distraction of familiarity can’t cultivate, something that can’t be emailed, faxed, or programmed in from a touch tone phone, something from Him. A word, a vision, a directing, a warmth, which comes only on the ultimate Father & son retreat.
Today in an unfamiliar, but cool enough, coffee shop I sit with out the crutches of my roles. I’m learning roles are different than identity. Roles are what I do, identity is who I am. I understand and function well in my wonderful God given roles but resting only in my identity is a stretch, I feel a bit aimless. My roles of dad, husband, friend, and pastor I know well. “Greyson, time for bed. Kelly, let’s eat out, it’s date night. Where is that wireless mic? Is that my cell phone ringing or yours?” Roles, ah the sweet clarity of task and productivity.
Is identity then…the helper of my roles… the foundation of my roles…uh…the secret of the success of my roles? NOPE. My identity is child of God, Christian, beloved, and saint. Identity doesn’t need a crutch. Identity in Jesus stands alone, it does not lean. It is leaned upon. It’s too crucial, strong, deep, eternal, and holy to require a lean against something ‘sturdier’. It IS sturdiness. My identity in Jesus is enough to take me through the lonely places into the heavenly places of foretastes from the Lord in a time of solitude. But even more, to heaven itself when I stand before Jesus face to face. Not in my roles just my identity, I am His child, beloved by God. So now no matter the town, altitude, or scenery He is my sturdy identity. The waves of roles will ebb and flow while identity runs as a deep river. “Move me down stream Lord, as I seek the Whitest of Water on this solo voyage.”
4:50pm
I’m back at the house. Alone. I think maybe for the first time in years. Alone, with nothing coming up and nothing just completed. No one to call. No where to run. I will be stronger than the remote control, more mature than turning to folding clothes or DVD’s, listening to the wind in the trees instead of a CD, all of this to worship deeper. What does that depth look like?
Tears, sobs, beating my breast. Grief, pain, memories of a previous chapter. I’m excited about the future. But at this moment I miss Kelly and Greyson. Their DNA is through out the house in the form of forgot items or things that wouldn’t fit in the suitcase. She should be in the kitchen preparing a meal while G-man and I play with that yellow car and construction set one more time. The storm that is blowing in has no two year old to let us know it just thundered or lightening. Who is going to close the sliding glass door because it is about to storm?
The warmed up chicken spaghetti won’t taste near as good if someone doesn’t spill his milk and a beautiful woman doesn’t leave the table three times to check on something in the kitchen. When you are alone the things that bugged you now are the endearments that connect you.
Oh for someone to interrupt me, please ask me to change my plans, somehow involve me and my heart in the present tense. But no, alone is alone. It is selfishness at its finest hour. I have the ultimate control and space I thought I wanted. But the truth is no matter how many square feet the house has I can only sit on one couch cushion at a time and life is only lived when there is someone next to you using the pillow you want.
Oh sweet tears, they burn as they roll, my stomach tightens, my face contorts but could this all be apart of the molding into the image of Christ. Could this be the truest of Christianity? Could this be what I’ve prayed and sung pleading for at camp after camp? Joy takes courage because joy comes after weeping. I actually want to weep. I want to pour the superficial through my eyes to get to the depths. May the salt of my eyes be the sweat of my heart. Deep people do things differently. Lord, I will go. You bring the tears and I’ll bring the trust.
There is another pain that the tears point to, the chapter closing of Breakaway and travel. For so many years that has been home for 40+ hours a week. I have thought about Breakaway daily, almost moment by moment. It in a sense it is the identity I possess in this world. I’m introduced as its founder; I’m impressive as its agent of growth; I hold the history in my frontal lobe, the vision in my heart, and splinters from its construction in my hands. The streets of College Station, the restaurants, the people, the faces, the campus, the MSC, Reed, our homes, St. Joseph Hospital… The keyboard would be out of warranty to conclude the list. But such is life, sad good byes, fond memories, painful growth, and the sun rises to do it all again. I’m so thankful that our ministry is eternally secure. It wasn’t for me, it wasn’t for not, it was for Jesus. Therefore, when the streets have pot holes, the houses are sold, and the faces change, the impact Jesus made lasts.
What a weird moment. I’m a dad and husband. I’m a pastor. And I’m the guy who used to live in College Station and do Breakaway.
Onward into the night. The storm has passed and my stomach now growls for that chicken spaghetti. Life rolls on. I’m sure I’ll hear creeks in that house that sound just like an unwanted guest. I’ll wonder of my safety. All the while Jesus will notch my courage up and my pride down.
Deeper into the woods I go to paths untrod as I seek to know my God. (Kinda sounds like a hymn.)
August 4, 2004 12:43pm Trinity, TX
My sabbatical is coming to a close
Solitude/Sabbatical…what does it really mean? Most people I mention it to hear “extended vacation” and since I’m a pastor they also throw in a dash of the spiritual. Maybe their thought is more vacation than the non-preacher gets with a few extended quiet times. 2 parts vacation and 1 part Bible. Others hear sabbatical and have a “Navy Seals for Jesus” connotation, something only the super saints can do. I know this because they immediately say “I could never do something like that, I’m a people person.” I guess they see a cabin deep in the woods with a solitary candle lit as I read for hours on end before I put on my night cap to snuggle into the top bunk with Abe Lincoln below. “Can’t wait to chop wood and read books with you tomorrow, Abe!” He replies “Not me I’m tired.” I say with a smile, “That’s what I like about you. You’re so honest.”
The truth is that a time of solitude is not a running from people, it is a running to God. It is freedom from the urgent to seek the important. It isn’t just a pastoral privilege but a Christian discipline. Our busyness is often an avoidance of depth. So we must carve out a time to be alone with Christ. Find out what is on the other side of busy and/or bored. It is what my father in law, who’s a rancher, does when he moves the cattle from one pasture to another to allow the land a time to replenish. If you don’t rotate the land you’ll only ranch a year or two (that’s ranch talk for burn out).
I have sought to dine in a different pasture. Not only am I better nourished but grass is sprouting in the other fields as well! It has been a journey full of surprises (I’ll fill you in on August 15th). When I began I was incredibly tired and drifting toward E in speaking. I had spoken 40+ times since May. Now by the grace of God I can’t wait to preach His Word. I have sought his direction and provision as to where to lead us in the next year and of course He has provided. I’m incredibly excited about where we are going. The grass is springing up in the field. Amazing what God can do with a little water and time.
To remove the mystery here’s what it looks like most days:
Wake up when ever I wake up
Spend devotional time with the Lord usually outside
The rest of the morning is devoted to preparing for sermons; mainly planning the broad brushstrokes of topics, vision, and direction not specific points
Pray
Eat lunch and take a break
Read everything from poetry to theology
Possibly exercise or take a nap
Pray
Eat dinner
Study I Timothy or Titus
Read more
Then around 11 or 12 I tell Honest Abe good night and climb into bed
This is not a rigid schedule in the least! It definitely ebbs and flows but it’s typical.
I’m not completely disconnected but enough to feel free. There are things that need to be done at home and HFBC but I trust the Lord is in control.
August 5, 2004 8:46pm Trinity, TX
“The elevator is to your right…”
Whatever you do don’t get alone with God. It is too risky and reorganizing. Alone is an invitation for Him to meddle. He invades your personal space. The elevator door shuts and He stands to close. I smile sheepishly and wait for His floor to ding but they are all His floors. He is waiting for my floor to ding. DING! We exit together, He is still to close. The solitude yearns for a TV to break the need for conversation, maybe a Christian book will do the trick. Everyone knows if it is a Christian something or other it counts as spending time with God. No, not this time just me and Him, the defensive and the meddling.
But oh how sweet. As the time extends, I realize it isn’t meddling it’s caring. It isn’t too close it is not close enough. It isn’t a DING of an elevator I look for it is elevation. Lord, You and me. What TV show could be better, will a clean house give the satisfaction of peeling the world to the fringe and centering on Christ. Wreck me, Lord. Take me to the depth that puts pressure on my ears and I wonder if I can make it back to the top before the gasp. Depth doesn’t stem from status quo. It is impossible be different while living the same. A difference in depth requires a difference in days. I’ve already lived thousands of days waiting in lines and ordering my steps. What a difference it has made to live a few waiting on You to order my steps. Here in the midst of this wacky “You are going to do what?” time of solitude I’m being chiseled. Things are added and taken, all of which is right.
So whatever you do, don’t get alone with God. Stay busy. If you do get alone with Him make it short and on your terms. Sandwich the time right before or after an “I can’t be late” important thing to do. This will ensure a capsulated movement in the areas you choose. If you give Him extended time and an open heart you’ll quickly hear the elevator door close and see him standing too close for comfort.
Seriously, how many days have you lived that were just like this one? Carve it out, plan it if you have to, but get alone with Jesus for long enough to move past bored. Let the ADD we all have kick in but stay at His feet. His meddling will turn to reorganization we all need.
Ice to H2O
I suppose in an unconscious attempt to get in touch with my sensitive side, I read a poem tonight by Elizabeth Doten entitled “In a Hundred Years”. The premise was the ground will again be level in hundred years. The rich and poor today will both be gone in a hundred years, the swords of the brave will be rust in a hundred years and on it went. In this beautiful and insightful poem one line in particular, pierced deeply,
“Are the trophies they’ve reared and the glories they’ve won
Only castles of frost-work confronting the sun?”
I almost could finish the poem. “Castles of frost-work (that’s ice for the poetically challenged) confronting the sun”. What a spot on picture of our earthly successes! Castles, intricate pains taking castles, hand carved, glistening in the sun, but melting, melting away drip by drip.
As I read that line, my heart sank with the thought of the castle villages I’ve built in the kingdom of Gregg. “Oh Lord, I’m sorry.” The times I have yearned for the attention and stolen the praise were moving quickly from December to August. I was also reminded with how quickly life passes. Like a butterfly leaving a flower it is gone.
But with every true repentant whisper, God reveals how to trade the counterfeit of sin for the real McCoy. The melting of my castles highlights the importance of building His kingdom not mine. The best way to do that is…discipleship! We are all melting away and it‘s true, in a hundred years the sun will be victorious. BUT! Discipleship is dipping the pitcher in the vat of water that remains and refreezing it again in someone else’s life. Who are you and I pouring into? Discipleship is an intentional effort to pass truth to the next generation. To refreeze the waters of truth in us for the next sunrise!
The tragedy is not is in melting castles but evaporated water.
The punctuation of Christ
I’ve been praying and preparing for Staff Retreat. He has spoken. Then I felt a HUGE comma. A selah, from Him. Just a time to sit in awe. “No time to grab a camera no time to writ e it down…something I’ve been chasing has finally let me catch it.” Sara Groves This Peace. To sit in awe of Him is the soil from which all else springs. It IS humility of man and exaltation of God all in one moment. The slower I move that more focused I live the more commas that come. It seems like He would sped things up. The focus should result in action. Get out there do something. But instead His higher ways change the fruit of focus to being. As I sit with Him more mission efforts are accomplished, more souls are won, and more power s given to my talks. How? I guess it is a mystery. A mystery of the power of the prayer that is whispered in awe, sincerity and focus. A mystery of the power that preaching has when the preacher has been with God. I guess it is best said in Psalm 46 “Be still and know that I am God and THEN I’ll be exalted in the nations.
No explanation point, just a comma on a boat deck in August. But each time I pause for the comma, each time my heart and focus yield to Him voice, I’m developing ears to hear and eyes to see His movement. Life is to loud. So loud much sensory overload that we miss the whisper of heaven. Hearing ears originate in comma hearts.
Sit
The depth of sitting. Sitting on a porch or at a table is the University of Depth seeking a PHD. in development. When we sit we converse. The rocking porch conversations with the Lord as wind of the Spirit blows disguised as wind in the chimes. The meals with family and friends around a table where the main course is a story we’ve all heard but still give a hearty laugh too. These are the places of deep living.
Good family time doesn’t follow “I would like a #3, no pickles.” “Please drive to the second window.” It follows “Who saved room for desert?” as we let the answering machine do it’s job. We’ve lost the depth of sitting in the shallowness of running. Just sit, not ‘Just do it’. Sit with the Lord. Allow the ebb and flow of journal entry and Bible reading to happen. Sit at the table a little longer even if the meal came in sacks instead of on china. The dishes can wait. Teach you kids the importance of eating together. If you sit lonely remember heaven has pulled up a chair and you aren’t alone.
I don’t know, maybe it is silly, but depth is developed when we pull up a chair and listen.
