Finders Keepers

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While in college, I was introduced to one of the most interesting places on the planet.  One weekend a month, a major clothing company would open a supply room of their store, accessed from the back of the building, for a first-come, first-serve shopping experience at highly discounted prices.  The first time my friends took me along, we arrived at 5am and there was already a line of people waiting in their camping chairs, rehearsing strategies as if they were on an apache helicopter touching down in an overgrown field somewhere.  It turned out I was not prepared for what came next.  As the clock struck six, two brown metal doors opened and a company employee handed me a garbage bag.  I thought to myself, “Why do I need this?  Do we have to clean up first?”  Just then the crowd literally pushed me through the door.  As my eyes adjusted to the lighting in the room, I found the very purpose for the bag in hand.  The room was filled with clothing – coats, vests, shirts, pants, some lined on tables by size and style, others thrown in bins or hanging on poles.  Instincts I didn’t even know I possessed kicked in, and I was off like a sprinter at the sound of a starter pistol, grabbing everything in site that I might be remotely interested in and stuffing it in the garbage bag.  This is not a place with fitting rooms or benches for the weary.  The strategy I would come to learn and pass on to others was the “grab and stash,” in which you grab as many things as you can (throwing elbows if you must), secure a corner of the room, and sort through the pile for the things you actually want to purchase while throwing the rest back to the vultures circling the room for leftovers.

I went back to this place several times during my college years, and each time there was this twisted hope as those brown metal doors began to open.  All of this can be mine. This is the voice of materialism.  We see something and we just have to have it because we don’t know what we would ever do without it.  We say things like “I’ve always wanted one of these” or “I don’t know how I’ve lived so long without one of this.”  It will make our life easier.  It will cause people to fall in love with us.  It will bring world peace to the darkest corners of the globe.  There is another voice, very similar to the first, which lurks just below the surface of materialism.    I’m pretty sure I heard it that day while I was stuffing clothing in a garbage bag like a bank robber stuffing a canvas sack with a dollar sign on the side.  All of this should be mine.  This is the voice of entitlement.  While materialism breeds a desire for more, entitlement convinces us it is our right.      

I remember a few years back, my wife and I had dinner at the home of some newly married friends of ours.  We hadn’t been to their house before, and so I was quite surprised to pull into the driveway of a brand new home.  Their house was bigger than our house.  Their backyard was larger than our yard.  Their refrigerator was shinier than our refrigerator.  As we pulled up to our house at the end of the night, I noticed our siding looked faded and the driveway had more cracks than when we had left earlier that evening.  I felt depressed and found myself thinking, it’s not fair.  I’m older.  I’ve been married longer.  I’ve worked harder.  They don’t deserve the better house. 

I do.

This is the voice of entitlement and it permeates all of society, including our churches.  This has not always been the case, however.  Just read the accounts of the first Jesus followers in the beginning chapters of the book of Acts.  As the message of the resurrected Christ spread throughout Jerusalem and the surrounding region, more and more people came to put their faith in Jesus and joined this new community. Luke gives us this description of those early days of the Jesus movement:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.  (Acts 4:32)

When the text says everything, it means everything.  Luke continues on to speak of new Jesus followers even bringing the deeds of their homes so that their property could be sold and the money distributed evenly.  The thought that they had a home and their new brother or sister didn’t was unacceptable.  In our society, this type of action would be considered outrageous, possibly even downright irresponsible.  You earned it.  You deserve that.   Let them get their own.

Thank God our heavenly Father doesn’t deal with us in this way, for we can do nothing to earn his favor.  We may come holding out our deeds or thinking our life circumstances certainly should earn us something, but God’s grace is not for sale.  It cannot be earned.  We cannot do enough to deserve it.  But here’s the crazy part – he gives it anyway.

Paul, a former church persecutor turned Jesus follower (who then went on to write most of the New Testament) was quick to remind us how little we have actually done to earn God’s grace.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

While we were undeserving, God gave.  While we were incapable of earning, Jesus bled.  God’s grace is truly an unmerited gift, as is our entire life.  How much different would your life be if every day began as a gift instead of a right?  As the sunlight spills through the blinds and stirs you from your slumber, you become aware that you are indeed alive for a new day.  With a voice still heavy with sleep, you whisper to your heavenly Father, “Thank you for the gift.  It’s beautiful.”  You rise to live in the newness.  And as you stumble from the bed to your shaky feet, you take your first steps all over again.

Over Packing

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I can admit it…I over pack.  I have the tendency to bring along way more than I need to.  I can’t help it.  Whether it’s a weeklong vacation or just a day trip, I always have these grand visions of us accomplishing way more than is humanly possible in the allotted time.  But what if there is a pool?  What if there is a baseball field?  What if we decide last minute to bushwhack 4 days into the jungle and I don’t have a machete? (This has never happened).  What if we end up remodeling a kitchen and I don’t have a wet tile saw? (Surprisingly, I’ve never remodeled a kitchen on vacation).  And so, I usually just end up squeezing a bunch of random stuff into every last nook of the van.  But when we break down on the side of the road and I can just simply reach for my flare gun, I guarantee I’ll be the one laughing.

If only this tendency of mine to over pack was limited to vacation travel.  If I’m honest, this is a pretty common theme for me.  I carry too much with me.  I always have.  I just don’t have the ability like some people I know to shake things easily.  It turns out things do not just “roll off of me.”  I guess this means I am, in fact, not rubber but glue.

While we’re being honest, my guess is there are a lot of people like me in this way.  Not in regards to vacation travel but in life.  A lot of us over pack.  I see it in the faces of people I walk by every day.  Without one exchange of words, it is clear.  They are carrying something.  And it’s heavy.  They are tired.  And for many, it hurts.  It’s all they can do to keep going.

Maybe it’s the weight of careless words spoken….

 

You are not good enough.

You are not talented enough.

I don’t like you.

 

Or the weight of what’s been done…

You have done too many things wrong.

You have hurt too many people.

No one can accept you.

 

This is the burden many of us bear.  We just can’t seem to set it down.  Regardless of where we’re going, you can be certain it’s on the packing list.

That is what makes Jesus’ invitation so surprising.

 

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Bring your junk.  Crawl if you have to.  Just come.

Last winter, my family was at the airport after returning from a family vacation.  After securing the bags from the turnstile, my oldest was quick to grab one of the bags (the largest bag) I had placed by my side.  He grabbed the handle and began to pull.  Knowing he really just wanted to help, I proceeded to grab the remaining bags and we began the walk to the van.  He started out fine but soon began lagging further and further behind.  I could tell the suitcase was beginning to get the best of him.  Soon I had to stop and wait for him to catch up.

Cody…why don’t you let me carry that for you?

To which he replied,

No.  I can do it dad.

 

After several more minutes like this, I eventually took the bag from his hand.  Now to be honest, this was really just a selfish move on my part because I was trying to speed things along.  My son just wanted to help.  He wanted to do it himself.  He wasn’t ready to admit the bag was too heavy.

But the bag was too heavy.

As he released the bag, he gave a sigh of relief and ran to catch up with the group.  I guess sometimes you just can’t feel the burden you’ve been carrying until it’s gone.

Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

These Things Are Rarely Things [Materialism]

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[This is a revision of a piece I wrote last year, hence the baby references of my youngest.  Otherwise, I thought it might be timely.  mb]

I said it again when I prayed tonight. I didn’t really mean to but it just slipped out, sort of like when you go into “sub-conscious prayer mode” and find yourself reciting phrases without really thinking about what you’re saying. Left unchecked, pretty soon you realize that you have just repeated to God the items you need to pick up at the grocery store tomorrow.  Embarrassing, I know, but anyhow I said it. I prayed ”and thank you for all the things you have blessed me with.”

Which got me thinking how these “things” are rarely things.

I am writing this after the close of a truly spectacular autumn day. The magnificent yellows and oranges of the trees beg a second look. It is before such a backdrop that I was able to watch my blessings unfold. Today, it’s the sheer surprise and joy in my son’s eyes as he connected the bat with the ball in our backyard this afternoon. It’s my daughter’s silent expression of belonging as she plops down next to me on the couch. It’s our youngest’s unabashed raising of arms in the air in an effort to once and for all answer the “how big” question. It’s someone to share these precious days with. Family is my blessing today.

It’s funny how when answering the blessing question, my mind seldom visits the ideas of touch screen cell phones, flat screens, or designer jeans, and if it should happen to, it doesn’t stay long. That’s because these “things” are rarely things.

Sure, today I’m also thankful for meals and roofs and clothing, and each one of these is cause for thankfulness to our heavenly father, but I get the sense that when Jesus said not to worry about what you will eat or what will cover you, it was not simply about provision but also about priorities. Don’t get me wrong, my roof is great.  It keeps most of the rain out and most of the heat in, but for me today, it was more about what was going on under my roof that led me to be thankful. That is the “thing” I felt blessed by today.

I wonder what it is about the human heart that causes us to cling so tightly to things made of metal and plastic.  What makes us hunger so deeply for “stuff?”  With the commercials for Christmas already in full swing, you can’t help but feel somewhat un-American if you don’t spend the next two months in a mall somewhere living on a steady diet of Auntie Anne’s pretzels and lattes or if your guest room closet doesn’t resemble a squirrel nest just before winter.  I don’t mean to sound cynical, and I sure love giving and getting as much as the next person, but I just worry sometimes about the amount of stock we put into things that are just, well, things.  Beyond being “just things,” they simply don’t last.  They are temporary.  Fleeting.  They have their moment in the sun but it is truly that…a moment.  Just ask the beanie baby that was once enshrined in an air tight glass case with the name and number proudly in view about the transition to becoming the dog’s chew toy in the backyard.  Okay, so maybe don’t ask the beanie baby…but you get what I’m saying.  The allure of things is short-lived.  The next thing will be replaced by the next big thing which will give way to the next bigger thing.

I imagine at some point in time an eager friend calling another to excitedly announce “Hey man!  I just picked up my new Commodore 64 Computer.  This thing is beautiful!  The green tone of the screen is even more vibrant than in the pictures.  And it’s got 8 bits!  I don’t have a clue what a bit is but there are 8 of them!  That’s gotta mean something!”

I’m guessing it’s been a long time since the Commodore 64 has received that kind of attention.  Now, it’s a large paper weight- a huddled mass of metal and plastic taking up space in some corner of the basement alongside crusty paint cans and a salad shooter.  This is the temporary nature of things.

Over ten years ago, I was in a small impoverished village outside of Tiajuana, Mexico.  Houses made of tarps and cardboard.  Sewage running through the streets.  Barefoot children walking among trash and debris.  Though this was over a decade ago, I can vividly recall the joy in the faces of several young boys as they played with a discarded hubcap on the side of the road.  They tossed it back and forth, rolled it, spun it…you name it, they did it.  And they laughed.  Man, how they laughed.  I had come to teach a thing or two to these “poor people” and yet, I was the student that day, for back in the States, I had not one, but four hubcaps.  They were attached to my car which was parked in my driveway which led to my house that contained my bedroom that was filled with drawers and closets and boxes and dressers full of stuff.  Things.  Metal and plastic just like that hubcap, but better.  Nicer.  Newer.  More-er.  I had everything and yet they were the happy ones.  I was jealous of them.  I longed to be like them.  I get the sense that the joy in these kids was very much related to the fact that they had very little.  They had learned at a young age not to cling tightly to things simply because there was nothing there for them to cling to.  A hubcap brought joy but I would guess the joy was more about the running and throwing and laughing and less about the possession of an object, for they possessed very little.  Maybe a better way to put it is that they were possessed by very little.  They used the thing without it using them.  As quickly as they snatched them up, they could set things down and move on.

It’s been over ten years and I’m still trying to set things down.

Water Walk

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I haven’t been able to stop thinking about yesterday.  My son and I shared an experience together that was so deeply memorable and significant that I have had trouble getting my head in the game today.

Last week while on the Calvin College campus, I had heard from a student about a “Water Walk”, an event that was created by the guys from the band Jars of Clay on behalf of Blood:Water Mission and a student organization at Calvin.  A Water Walk is an opportunity to experience what it is like for Africans to travel several hours daily to collect the water they will need for that day for drinking, cooking and cleaning and whatever else they may need.

The women of the villages along with their children make this daily trek, sometimes twice a day.  They don’t make the journey because they don’t have anything better to do.  They make the journey because they have no choice.  It is a life and death matter.  So when the student explained what they were doing and why, I quickly thought of my oldest son Cody.  He’s five years old and starting to get to the age where he is observing the world around him and seems genuinely interested in life.  I thought it would be a good thing for us to share together.

Cody and I arrived a little early.  I was carrying my wife’s mop bucket and my son had an empty gallon milk jug.  He was intrigued by all the steps on the campus and was running around jumping off of things even though I was encouraging him to rest up for the trip.  I didn’t know what to expect.  I just imagined he would need the energy that was being used to jump into the flowerbeds.

Over the next few moments a group began to form and soon after that Dan, Charlie, Matt and Steve from Jars of Clay joined the group which had now grown to around 30 people.  I had known they were coming but I imagined they would just be kicking the walk off and sending us out.  I didn’t realize they would actually join us for the walk.  After a few thoughts from Dan, everyone began to choose buckets – some large, some small.  My bucket was the size of one of the smaller ones but I had the feeling I would be carrying more than water back with me, so I felt justified.

The walk was really enjoyable at first.  It was an amazing 60 degree October day and the leaves were so vibrant and beautiful.  I was spending time with my boy, not to mention the members of one of my favorite bands, and I was exercising, which doesn’t really happen all that much anymore.  We weaved our way around campus, carrying empty buckets and enjoying conversation.  Cody and I were quick to fall to the back of the line, as his strides are half that of anyone in the group.  About 20 minutes in, he asked if I could carry him, hence the small bucket, and so I threw him up on my shoulders and we kept following.  We left the campus and headed deep into the nature preserve on the other side of the highway.

As we arrived at the location where we would draw our water, the group grew quiet.  Two of the students trudged into the mud at the shore and we made a line so they could fill our buckets.  The walk there had been very casual, but Dan asked that we walk back in silence.  He urged us to feel the weight of the water and to imagine that this was our life.

And that is what we did.

Several carried the buckets above their heads while others opted for the handle, a thin metal luxury unknown to most Africans.  At one point I tried to hold the bucket against my chest but my steps were too clumsy and I sloshed water up and over the sides and onto my coat.  Within a hundred yards of our filling spot, Cody was worn out.  He asked if I could carry him and so he went back up on my shoulders, him holding his bucket and me holding mine.  We again fell quite far behind the group.  Dan lingered back to walk with us for a while before catching up with the rest.  As I carried Cody, his water jug resting against my face, the water sloshed out of the spout and onto my skin, one time dripping into my mouth.  The water tasted awful.  ”All of this work,” I thought, “to carry dirty water.”

I knew this experience would be memorable, but I didn’t expect it to be so moving.  Until you feel the weight of the water in your hands, it’s hard to empathize.  Cody and I had a unique perspective bringing up the rear of the group.  Never before have I seen splashes of water on the ground where someone had sloshed their bucket too much and thought, “there’s a drink for someone.  There’s another.  And another.”  Every time I spilled my own water, I imagined having one less drink to offer the little ones I was coming home to.  Dan said that if a child spilled their bucket on the journey, they would go back to the water source.  A child.

Over the next 30 minutes, Cody went back and forth between walking and being carried.  It was quite clear the novelty had worn off and he was thinking about being done.  As we approached the steps where we had started two hours earlier, I asked him to walk the final stretch, carrying his own jug.  The group had already finished.  But as we walked up the steps, I felt a real sense of accomplishment.  I was proud of what we had done.

But then it sank in; for an African that did this daily, there wasn’t a sense of accomplishment but instead, duty.  This was their life and there would always be another walk.  Tomorrow will look a lot like today.

On our way home, we talked about what we had just experienced.  Cody asked me why the Africans had to walk to get their water every day and I told him because they didn’t have water in their villages.  He asked why they didn’t have water in their villages.  I said because they didn’t have the money.  He asked why we had the money to have water in our house.  I said something really vague.  He asked again.  I answered again.  He asked again and before I answered, I realized he was asking a different question than I was hearing.  He wasn’t asking questions about being born in the right place at the right time or having the opportunity to earn a decent wage.  He was asking why we had the money if they didn’t.  In other words, why wouldn’t we just give so they could have.  It seemed obvious to my five year old son that if we have more than they do, we should give until they have the same.

I had no answer.

At dinner, my wife was asking about our experience at the Water Walk.  When we were talking about the water being dirty, she asked Cody why they had to drink water that could make them sick, and he said something I can’t forget…that I hope I don’t forget.  He said the reason they have to drink dirty water is “because they have no choice.  That is the only water for them to drink.”

After dinner, I walked to the kitchen and filled my empty glass with a turn of the faucet.  It overflowed the glass into the sink below.  I literally walked five feet for cold, healthy water.

Something is terribly wrong here.

 

To learn more about Blood:Water Mission and how $1 can give 1 African water for 1 year, visit bloodwatermission.com.

Lunch is Fifth Period And There’s A Taser In The Desk [How We Change]

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Shortly after moving to Virginia, it became clear that I was going to need to pick up an extra job in addition to the internship I was doing at the church there.  So I did what every single one of us said we would never do- I became a substitute teacher.  I say this because we all know how subs were treated when we were in school and to put ourselves in that same situation would be like wearing a tuna-flavored swimsuit into a shark tank.  I remember one incident in high school when a student with a watch that doubled as a remote control kept changing the video that our substitute had set up for us to watch.  As you might imagine, this drove the substitute crazy because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the VCR.  But because I needed the money and Virginia has low credentials for substitutes, there I was, filling out paperwork at the school administration building.  A few short days later, I was called for my first assignment; three days of in-school suspension detail at a local high school.

I was fortunate enough to avoid in-school suspension when I was a student.  I had my share of detentions but never crossed the line worthy of spending the entire day in a solitary classroom.  As the principal walked me into the stark white room, he explained my responsibilities.  “Keep them in their seats.  Get them to do their school work.  Don’t hurt anyone or get hurt by anyone.  Oh, and lunch is fifth period.”  I thought it a bit out of line to say but I wondered how I was supposed to miraculously create diligent workhorses out of misfits who had just been kicked out of class.  Did he really expect to walk in at the end of the day and find us telling algebra riddles (“Because seven eight nine!”) and crafting haikus about our favorite elements of nature?  As far as I could tell, all we had managed to do is put them all together in a room where, with their powers combined, they could wreak havoc on the substitute teacher.

The first day was borderline torturous.  I sat at my desk at the front of the class (a truly strange experience if you never have before) and read a book I had thankfully brought along.  I would glance up from the page to give the allusion that I had total control of the room.  I was watching.  I didn’t know what I was going to do if things got out of hand, but you can believe I was watching.

Repeating this throughout the day, I began to realize something that I hadn’t expected.  These kids, as it turned out, were in fact just kids.  Most of them had never spent time in prison or had their face digitally blurred on an episode of COPS.  Behind the hardened exterior, they were a lot like the kids on the other side of these walls in the rooms with colorful posters and learning.

I realized another thing.  It became clear that most of these kids had already accepted this as their lot in life.  They knew very little was expected of them and that a seat would always be reserved for them in a solitary room somewhere.  They were expected to fail.  Worse yet, they expected to fail.  Were they in charge of their actions?  Sure.  But sometimes it helps to have someone in your corner that actually believes in you.  Someone who loves you enough to call you out from the place you’re in.  For most of them, however, they had crossed some invisible line where, not only was there nobody to believe in them, nobody was even surprised by their poor choices anymore.  They had gone too far.  This was now expected.

The question this experience leads me to is this- how do we change?  When we are made aware that there is something wrong in our life, how do we fix it?  Do we just wait it out by sitting in a stark white classroom somewhere and let the bad seed die of boredom?  Do we just try really hard and, if we fail again, go back to the start and try really really hard this time?  What will cause a person to see the error of their ways and change their course?

I think change is mostly relational.  Seriously.  Think about it.  If there is no one to believe in you, why in the world would you ever need to change?  Sure there are these great moments of self-realization when a person pulls themselves up out of the depths and makes great change because that’s what they knew they needed to do.  I would bet these are few and far between.  My guess would be that for every story like that, there are thousands of stories of failed New Year’s resolutions, defeating addictions and hopeless misery.

Sometimes it takes someone else to point something out for us to know it’s wrong.

It’s like the time I accidentally put on a Polo Skirt in the middle of Eddie Bauer.  I honestly thought it was just a really long shirt until I heard my brother-in-law saying “Umm Matt…you’re wearing a dress.”  In that moment, there was no mistaking something was wrong.  I’m sure I would have figured it out (or bought it), but it was sure nice to have someone there to point it out to me.

I don’t know about you, but I can only muster up so much motivation to change myself.  I am too good at justifying where I’m really at.  I have really become quite convincing when it comes to fooling myself into believing things are better than they are.  “You’re not that out of shape.”  “You weren’t that passive aggressive with them.”  “At least you’re still doing better than that guy.”

This kind of self-deception is difficult with the relationships in my life however.  I’m sure you would agree.  The best relationships in my life are the ones in which I have a real sense that the other person is “for me.”  They stand in my corner.  They love me enough to call me out of the place I’m in.  And when this kind of person does call me out, when they humbly yet boldly walk out on a limb with our relationship in hand, it is very hard to return the same.  They make me want to change.

Ultimately, they give us a better picture of ourselves.  And who doesn’t want that?

This is most certainly one of the characteristics of God that I appreciate the most.  Contrary to what is easy to believe, God does not ask us to come perfect.  Not even close.  But do not confuse that with complacency on his part to overlook the place we’re in.  You want to talk about walking out on a limb for the sake of the relationship.  His story tops all else.  And now, in Jesus, God stands in our corner to give us a better picture of ourselves.

I don’t know about you, but I sure like his picture a whole lot better.  And I love that he still thinks there is hope for me yet.  It’s enough to make me want to change.