little giving king.

To give is to loosen your heart from itself enough to love unmistakably. Forever a war will wage within my chest.  A native land will always be at stake.  Advances will be made and little won battles will convince me that peace is near and the war won, but I will learn that then, too, I must loosen my grip on my own heart and selfish desire.  The war is no less than my heart able to love freely in response to Christ's love allowed to vanquish all selfishly rooted motive smeared ugly by sin and mired in desire.

You see, to give from a place of charity in my heart as a means of merely being charitable and nice is a short-sighted advance in the war of my heart.  The problem is in my every attempt to be good, in every good try to really care for those close to me.  Sooner or later, most often sooner, my grip around my heart will tighten, my love will flatten, my words grow coarser and I will set alone as king of nothing really, just my little demanding heart. If the victory over our selfish hearts lies in love, then we must be givers rather than takers.  Give more than you demand receipt and you will love expertly - but, the caveat to be crossed is giving and loving without measure.  And that can only happen in our hearts, in our families, marriages and varying relationships, when our hearts have been pierced with a Love forever.  In Christ alone do our hearts both die and live, rightfully find end and beautifully are resurrected.

When I became a father, love swelled uncontrollably within the walls of my heart, pushing the limits of possession and responsibility. I felt for someone I didn't yet know but named. Yet quickly, I discovered how selfish my heart truly was.  My schedule was often disrupted for these beautiful little lives that were just so needy and dependent.  For the first time, I felt the regression of love in my selfish frustration as a parent.  And again, I see selfishness in my choosing to limit love in marriage.  It sounds awful, but it's honest.  I married an amazing woman just a handful of months ago, and again, I'm realizing just how selfish I can be.  There's the ebb and flow I alone allow, the back and forth of giving and taking in the form of love and selfishness.  I am one of five in our family and I fight when they want losing a bit more control of how and when life happens. I. Me. I demand for my way, justifying rudeness and trouncing too hard through beautifully blooming love. All in the quest of satisfying me.

Love is patient, love is kind . . . love is Christ.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

In life as we move in and out of conversations brushing shoulders with others regular to our day and in the intimate circle of family and marriage, the act of giving is holy, set apart from the speed of battling with our hearts, our hands clinching for self-satisfaction.  Let us quiet our efforts, gain victory through Christ and only then, love well.

(image: brianbatista.com)

3 Things NOT to Say to Someone Suffering.

Morning would always arrive too early, and in each minute a thousand days were lived. My feet would shuffle along while the world spun by, a regular blur of normality and happiness alien then. Everyone seemed so okay and days just kept going on. People spoke and I smiled and that was all. Suffering isn't something we're akin to talking about. We hide. Often, we suffer silently due to the shock of loss, of something missing, misaligned and broken. The face of suffering looks like divorce, abuse, abandonment, loss of a career, injury and even death. We feel alone. Many drown in the confusion of just why or how this - whatever 'this' is for them - happened to them.

We who watch life pull apart in those moments have all opportunity to outlast suffering in the lives of those we love - not with our words or enlightened ideas, but with our hope. Hope always blooms in the harshest winds and darkest nights. Just as morning too early arrives overcoming night, hope in a new day owned by our faithful Creator usurps suffering.

Here are three things not to say to someone suffering: Time heals all wounds. (Not true; healing belongs who mourn. Matt 5:4) I know how you feel. (This only serves to diminish the reality of the person's suffering.) Be strong. (Lasting strength begins with our need and dependence on our Savior.)

Rather than offering quick words to those suffering, let us offer lasting Hope and suffer well with them.

"Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good." 1 Peter 4:19

In the moment life breaks.

Something wrong will happen.  Count on it.  There will come a time when life will not add up or line up just as it should, or you anticipate it should.  There in the gap of life as it should be and as it actually ends up being, when your feet feel disorientation in what was expected and what is being experienced, something will be amiss.  Maybe you’re like me and faith will recoil in the surprise of life not adding up.  I remember after my first wife unexpectedly died despite prayers and pleas for death to not win out.  Not only did faith fade into my circumstance, but betrayal and anger seeped into place.

Things were not as they should be.  Often times, life lands just in this way and breaks more than our expectation.  We are broken in moments when reality separates from our expectation or hope. I think it is there when life breaks from our expectation and what we wanted, hoped for or thought doesn’t add up with how things end up being that we discover the greatest transaction aside from God’s love for us.  It is the trading of what we want for what actually is.  Healing while hurting transcends all that can ever possibly be wrong for the acceptance of all things always good for the heart belonging to God.

Those who learn to live well don’t learn to dance in the rain, make lemonade or smile through tears, but feel the bruise, wince and swallow the goodness of life that is rather than wander through thoughts of why things went wrong.

Life will break, friend. and so will you.  Things will not always add up and you will be disappointed.  Pain will threaten your security in life.  You may even feel dislodged by the unfair way life moves unconcerned of your needs, your identity or achievement.  Many a good men have lost it all here in their inability to heal while hurting and see beyond the day burning into the next.  There is always another day for the heart belonging to God for it is He who knows them all, and it is He who knows best the way brokenness.

He was despised and rejected by men;
 a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
 he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs
 and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
 smitten by God, and afflicted.
 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; 
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:3-5, ESV

(*image credit: thewrongsideofthepond.com)

Let's talk about writing ...oh, and a bit of a surprise

In one week's time, I'll be leading a session for Linger Conference's Creative Training day on writing and authoring a book.  If you'll be in the Dallas area, you can acquire your ticket here.

Perhaps I'll walk them through my manic ebb and flow of discipline and myriad of ideas webbing in disconcerting fashion leading to dead ends and rabbit trails.  And, of course, there's the deal with insecurity that echoed in each keystroke while writing my book, which leads me to think now why in the world am I leading this session again?  Oh right, I wrote a book.  After all, I am just beginning to break the habit of response when people who know something of my blog or book ask me just what is it that I do.  My typical response was that I was in sales or business development, which was true of my day-to-day, but not totally accurate of my dream.

While I am by no means an expert, I don't need to be.  You see, a dream must be worth more than the humdrum of day-to-day and story more than silencing fear, or insecurity or expertise or experience or excuses . . . or anything else.  Every person who's ever white knuckled the pursuit of writing a book or accomplishing a dream bigger than present, for that matter, started from a common place called the beginning.  And it is from there the book is written, the canvas painted, the song crafted and the creation is determined - at the beginning where every disqualifying reason succumbs to completion decided.

What I know about writing is that the craft matters less than the continual pursuit of story.  Tell the story - all of the story, more than should be told - and the writing will happen.  I am less convinced of the magic of authoring a book and more confident in the discipline of story and its telling.  And so, it is on this knowing that I'll give a talk and lead a creative breakout session on writing, story and authoring a book.

As a bit of a surprise, my publisher (Influence Resources) has worked tirelessly to print special pre-release copies of my book, Earth and Sky, just for Linger Conference.  This is a very limited printing of my book months before its official release date.  In fact, the only other copies going out will be to those who supported my Kickstarter campaign last year, which will be a special edition pressing including original cover design.

I'm very excited to share a bit of my story and experience both in the form of a talk and my book.  I hope you can make it out!

Forever good.

one sun will set forever a day unwarm to the name called you no hints will warm the hearts of those with shared blood gone     and then Forever

my name is a disease cured by resurrection fooled by all that my momentary hand holds i am immortal today immune from extinction brave until i fall again then i spy the small that i am

and know i am getting older. slower.        prouder. more attuned to Forever, to the sky whispering joy divorced again to the day once fought for when i matter to those i don’t know

a nameless man     is no better known     than the moment he disappears into today     and then Forever

Always larger than your to-do lists and calendar notes and goals is a question nestled deep within your chest, urging every effort toward accomplishment and begging you toward success.  In the stillest of night and the quiet of morning I think of it, of myself in years ahead and the measure of meaning then, of me then.  Even in days I soar with success, I feel the nibbling of needing more and wanting more than what I have now.  And when I’m not careful, I’m convinced to run erratically into the day and turn over conversations and tasks for evidence of worth and acceptance - sometimes to convince myself that I am enough.  I am not.  I know this in my head, but it’s my heart that echoes empty wants. I am inconsistent at my best.  They know - my friends, my family - yes, they know well just how inconsistent I can be.  I am the only one still unconvinced, sure I can make it on my own and measure good enough.

Every time we strain against grace and reach back for good, we frame faith in the past, as if all that God has redeemed was us then.  And so begins our wrestle with good and grace rooted in a myopic attempt to save ourselves and be gods.  Grace is so much heavier than good, outweighing all attempts that will always fall short no matter the equation we follow or figure.

This is the Gospel: if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Our aim is to belong to this Truth, not betroth ourselves to any image of a better us that is good at good.  There is not one good other than Christ.  We are no more than moralists when our good attempts at following Christ is confined to categories of dos and don’ts and acceptable and not.  The Gospel swallows us whole, all of us; our yesterday, today and forever.

And then so what is the result?

The result of the Gospel’s work in my life means me as a husband who learns to love as Christ loves us, a father who learns grace and to accept his children independent of their bucking, a friend who gives all without measure and a neighbor who’s light never wanes in the dark.  I admit, I am not this man fully, but I belong in Forever by Grace’s strong embrace.  And it is Grace’s doing that keeps changing me.

Friend, what happened then on the cross, before you knew, before you began stretching for good and name and accomplishment, has been indeed done, Forever.  May our strain to be cease in our belonging.

the one reason you'll never be better.

There is an undeniably regular reason why not much farther beyond six days into the new year your infant-aged resolution is already in trouble.  In fact, if you haven’t already abandoned all resolve to welcome in the new, better you, you’ve at least hit the snooze button once.  Each year, scores of folks partake in the ritual of making commitments they will not keep.  Maybe it’s the overindulgence of the holidays or the mistakes of a year passed that drive people to muster the resolve to be different.

Statistically, most people resolve to lose weight or to save more money.  Statistics also show that these same people will probably make the same resolution once again this time next year.

If I separated my made resolutions into two piles, the followed through pile would be quite a bit less substantial than the pile of resolutions transformed into results.  Had I held to my resolutions of old, I would have run a marathon, journaled enough for at least six books, learned two languages and probably would be a much nicer person.  But I’m not.  While enraptured in romantic notions of me becoming that much better in doing these things, I haven’t accomplished any of them.  I gave up too soon and ended pursuit for something far less glamorous and interesting, typically television.  If television were a reputable resolution, my effort would certainly be talked about.  As I writer, I’d love to say books rather than television, but that’s the better me that I don’t usually live to be. 

We all stand staring at the beginning of a new year wanting to be different, hoping for drive to marry desire and live forever in our metamorphosed lives.  And those years and wants just pile up higher.

There’s a reason this doesn’t work out for you.  If you are anything like me, and I’m willing to bet you are, at least a little, the busyness of your life is all about you and being some better, more accepted, heralded, acclaimed and noticed version of who you’ve been.

Better is, well, better.  People love being better.

We are addicted to the idea of who we think we could be or should be, or must be in order to be okay and appeased, but it will never end.  We feast on the idea of some better version of who we should be while we starve ourselves in the empty wanting.

Here’s a help: you’ll never be who you’re not, now.

But it’s quite a bit deeper and more disturbed than adopting a self-actualized mantra.  Calling out in resolutions made to achieve and discover a better you is a calling out for home and to belong.  I want to be better in hopes that I might be more at ease with my restless self and feel accepted and loved.  That is the root and reason for most resolutions in my life.

There is but one fix for this void - Jesus.

For a lifetime we can experiment with happiness and search for the kind that sticks to our bone, but Jesus alone can satisfy.  Just as he assured a soul thirsty woman looking for life in sheets that he could provide quench for her thirst, so can he for us.  All we must ever do is to stop our pursuit of lesser things we think will guide us to a better version of ourselves.

Make a resolution.  Resolve that the answer will never, ever be discovered within your flesh and blood and bone.

In these six days into a new year, cease the empty busyness of achieving a better version of yourself.  Instead, be found in him, drink deeply of his grace and go satisfied.

Jesus doesn't fix anything.

(image credit: Virginia Wieringa)

in a manger still and obscure hidden beneath a star shone bright swaddled in ancient words and found by foreign men bruised heal before lungs even drew a quiet night diseasing evil forever

after all, bruised beats broken and that’s what the angels were singing to shepherds, to wise, to whored and to falsely whole

    we swallow brokenness like the drugs keeping us afloat     our heads nod in restlessness and the receiving     our hearts return us to the well to see the seer

and so this is Christmas all white in the absence of snow our hearts pushed in, and we know the bruises beat the broken

holy night, hushed and aglow promise’s arrival to a heavy handed world time a refugee in the camp Grace swallowed the Virgin knows what mothers do not: how to hold the King of Angels O, come let us adore him, Christ, the Lord

Christmas comes earlier once again.  Sales announce the season and joy fills our hearts.  It seems as though more of Christmas is lost in commercialism each year.  The story, faded into well balanced nativity sets sold for shelves and lawns grows more native in an adapted knowing that Christ came so we spread good will and cheer.

But look at the night.  Jesus doesn’t fix anything.  In fact, things get worse; a lot worse.  The king of the moment feels threatened at the report of foreign wise men arrived to see the foretold promise under a star.  So the king commands all babies under the age of two be found and murdered.  The people of the foretold promise bleeding again under the tyrannical rule of other men.  I’d say things worsened. We’ve heard the story bookended by Christmas and Easter unfold - the child grew.  The story builds anticipation as some realize the Promise arrived in a manger, grew into a man, touched people like God.  He gathered the bruised and buried the broken.  And then the story reaches climax with his public, gory death - worsened once again.  A strong shift of circumstance happens in Jesus’ resurrection, and then, a sort of to be continued hangs as those closest to him watch him ascend into the heavens.

And here we are.  Holders of the promise awaiting God’s glorious arrival, as a people once did.  So much of our world is broken; our very lives broken, too.

What if Jesus comes hushed again, undetected in our world obsessed with its own healing, demanding all must be whole before all can be all right?

Jesus doesn’t fix anything.  He comes.

Into the worst conditions, among a family gone amok, through the unchangeable circumstance of death and all the more that can go wrong, Jesus comes right into the middle where you are and abides.

And so, this is Christmas, this is Advent, this is promise and this is Jesus.  O, come let us adore him and belong to a Savior come and not a known cure.