More to the story...

I've recently finished reading A million Miles In A Thousand Years, and I find myself in a rare place. I wish it wasn't over.


Memorable scenes make for a good story.

I think I understand why we are called dust, vapor, and mist in the Bible. It's because our story, our life, is nothing but a scene in a much larger and greater story. Among the billions of people around the world, there are little scenes being created. Some are vibrant, attractive, and exciting, while others are dull, slothful, and plain. What I've learned is that we have the creative authority to make our scene memorable.

Our story, being less about the destination and more about the journey has never made so much sense to me. This journey changes us.

Our journey changes the way that we think, the way that we feel, act, and speak. A good journey changes these at the roots. Our feelings are responsive to the scenes in our life, they make us feel things we never new existed. Throughout our story, our character changes the way he acts. Things he once loved, he doesn't even acknowledge, and others he never wanted to be part of, he begins to write into his story. Our story makes us more conscious of the words we speak, knowing that words have, before, cut us or brought joy to our lives.

Our story brings meaning to life, to our thoughts, feelings, actions, and speech. Real meaning - the type that doesn't just mutter the words, but knows the character and depth of each letter, speaking them with care and perfection. In caring for each moment and each word, we learn to write a story with precision.

When I get to heaven, and my story is over, I hope that I have a good story to tell God, also. I hope it goes something like Donald Miller imagines it will be. "I'll tell these things to God, and he'll laugh, I think, and he'll remind me of the parts I forgot, the parts that were his favorites. We'll sit and remember my story together, and then he'll stand and put his arms around me and say, 'Well done,' and that he liked my story. And my soul won't be thirsty anymore."

Don't take the bus...

When Donald Miller writes about his story hiking the four-day Incan trail to the top of Machu Picchu, I already feel some sort of connection. I never made it to Machu Picchu, nor Peru for that matter, while I was in South America, but I understand his story, and more than that, I feel it.

"...you can take a train and then a bus, and you can hike a mile to the Sun Gate [the top of Machu Picchu]. But the people who took the bus didn't experience the city as we experienced the city. The pain made the city more beautiful. The story made us different characters than we would have been if we had skipped the story and showed up at the ending in an easier way."

I think that, often times, we choose to take the easier means to an end. Some may call it cutting corners, others may say it's strategic planning. After all, like sitting at the top of Machu Picchu, all end up at the same place. But I'm finding more, as my young life matures, about the importance of the often excruciating roads that change our lives. For me, the destination is nothing more than just an end point, but the journey along the way is turning out to mean more to me than it ever has. Maybe, these days, I'm giving more thought to the pace of life, the steps I take, and the adventures that can be present if we choose to omit the use of the sidewalks mapped out in our lives. "The pain made the city more beautiful."

When I get to where ever I'm going, I hope it's more beautiful today, than it would have been if I arrived yesterday.

Leave The Windows Down

This comes from a recent conversation:

"I was in the parking lot at work and debating whether to roll my windows up or not b/c it was super hot outside, but i had my GPS and ipod in the car, and my wallet, i rolled the windows up anyways but thought to myself "i wish people who broke into cars would say 'dont worry about going to the church parking lot to break into any of those cars, those christians just give all their money away so there wont be anything to take'."

"This comes from all the talk i had done about the homeless and how i wish i could just let people crash at my house. but then you think "well what if they steal something from me and take off in the middle of the night", and the answer is that it wasn't yours to claim in the first place, god calls us to give everything away. its so easy to understand but so hard to live. but i guess that's life and why there are so few that actually make it to heaven."

I responded:

Maybe it hurts a bit when i walk out of the service and I'm hit with pamphlets and posters of a million dollar, 5-year-plan, that the church is proposing, and followed by Lexus', beamers, and suburbans pulling fishing boats out of the parking lot...seems to be one be ironic situation huh?

Then again, I guess Shane Claiborne (author of a great book titled The Irresistible Revolution) does lean a lot further to the "liberal" interpretation of scripture (nothing wrong there). As he and many other consistently refer to Luke as the "Give-to-the-needy-manual" maybe they forget that the book was made possible by what most historians believe to be a very wealthy (today's millions) government official - Theophilus, who funded Luke as he journeyed, interviewed, and wrote the historical account of Jesus (Luke) and the first church (Acts). It seems there's need for both in our society.

It's all a paradox. Jesus made himself the least, yet he was the greatest. We are called to give away everything to become rich (in Christ). Thinking about it, and definitely trying to explain it is tough. ....and in the end, I think you are very right.

We should be giving away our money, our time, our couch, our bed, our car, lending to people because these things ultimately belong to God and we are called to steward them accordingly. The quote came from a book I'm reading 'Rescuing Ambition'. He mentions this: "Contentment comes as we satisfy the fierce ambition to move higher by reaching lower. We're filled as we choose to empty." ...'Christian contentment, is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at His disposal in the place He appoints, at the time He chooses, with the provision He is pleased to make.' "

I mean, think of Jesus, He showed us that humble service is the highest place of rank. Low = High has never made sense to the world...sometimes it doesn't make sense to me, but it's right. We have an invaluable advantage today, knowing that our worth, value, and importance is not wrapped in what we wear, own, or aspire to become, but our worth is wrapped in the blood of Christ. In this we are given the freedom to be detached and no longer enslaved to the things of this world (Our t.v., money, car, etc...) and that is why, I think, we should be able to give those things away...

How did we get here?

I've been hearing and reading a lot lately about story. We all love a great story, and the best ones do more than just entertain us for a night, they transform us.

I've always thought that a good story would be to end up somewhere special, to have a spectacular destination and closure, but I've discovered truth in what Yvoun Chouinard has told me, "You learn that what's important is how you got there, not what you've accomplished."

If you heard a story about a climber who reached the top of a mountain, but never heard about his hurt and joy along the way, you would be pretty bored. In a good story, we want to sweat with the character, feel the rock the he feels beneath our feet, experience the cold and windy nights, breathe the fresh mountain air, be troubled by his loneliness, altogether, we want to be part of the story with him, and when he reaches the summit the hair on our arms rises too, but it's only in knowing how he got there that makes the story so appealing, so real, and so meaningful for us.

We love great stories, from a distance.

We all have these stories, but for us, we want to hide the "how we got there" and just proclaim that we've arrived, because how we got there doesn't always seem beautiful. We couldn't bear to show others that we wore some blisters along the way, that we got lost at mile 14, or that we had to use a map and we couldn't do it all on our own.

The same stories that we love to hear, we hate to be.

I don't think that the story of life, your story, is about where you end up, it's about you're transformation. How you, as the main character in your story, have evolved is far more imperative than where you end up. Don't be too concerned with where you are going, but enjoy how you are arriving, because after all, "the journey is half of the fun."


In Christ we are, "...being transformed by renewal of the mind."

"If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers. You wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you’d seen. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later, except you’d feel robbed and want your money back. Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo.

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to be meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either."

- A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller

Grace.

It's not until you take off on a wave, and stand up, that you actually know the feeling of surfing. It's not until you put a ball in the back off the net and celebrate with your teammates that you know the feeling of scoring a goal. It's not until you stand at the summit, arms raised and spread, feeling the wind whip your face, that you know the feeling of climbing a mountain. It's not until you fall, that you know the feeling of getting back up. And it's not until you realize that you are helpless on your own, that you realize you have a divine helper and a savior that sets you free.

The power of the wave, the rush and fist-pump of a goal scored, and the wind that whips your face at the summit, is the grace the tends to us.

Sure, you can read all of the books you want on surfing, futbol, climbing, and even about the Savior, but it's not until you go out and experience these things (the power, the rush, the wind, and grace) that you get to know them.

But this reminds me of the 'ol SAT format questions: Which doesn't fit? Surfing, Futbol, Climbing, or Savior of the world. Your correct answer is the last. Why? Because the Savior gives you a feeling that is everlasting, His grace never runs out. The ocean will be flat, the game will end, and you must eventually climb back down the mountain, but His grace is everlasting. Psalm 139 says that no matter where we go we can never escape His spirit, He knows us, and He is with us. To me, that's reassuring. Actually that's amazing!

And yet we find another problem. There will be days when, without fail, I have an "off" day in the water (more often than not), when the ball just won't go in the back of the net, and I'm to tired to make it to the summit. In these we measure our progress, our success, our ability. "You're only as good as your last game," my coach will say.

However, with grace, "You're last game doesn't make a difference." You see, no amount of failures or successes makes you. You're saved from the pressure's of success and failure and set free, knowing that the Savior of the world Has come for you. And because of this thing called grace, when God looks upon us, beaten and tattered, we bring Him joy, because He sees Christ.

...But it's not until you experience His grace that you actually know the joy and peace that it brings to your life. It's something I experience new everyday...I'm thankful.

"A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. " ...Grace.

Quote

"There was once a man who became unstuck in the world. He took the wind for a map, he took the sky for a clock and he set off with no destination... He was never lost."