Finish Strong

It’s the final month of school for most of our students and people are starting to think about finals, summer jobs, traveling, internships, and all that good stuff. And, it is a super busy season for us…readying new leaders, finishing well relationally, planning new things, evaluating the year, etc, etc, etc. All on top of the normal rhythms of groups and one-on-ones and meetings.

I’m ready for vacation.

But I don’t want to check out early. At our last leadership community I shared with our students the story of Caleb. I always come back to Caleb when I think about finishing well, finishing strong.

Consider Caleb’s example (you can read about him in Numbers 13 and 14)…

He was one of only two Israelite spies (Joshua was the other) who saw how good the promised land was and believed the people could take it over.
He was sold out by the other 10 spies who freaked out because of the “giants in the land” and their weapons.
He and Joshua were the only two people from his generation allowed to enter the promised land.
He had to wander around the desert while his contemporaries died out, all the while knowing the good things he was missing out on. He had to question his fate a ton, I would think.
He went to a lot of funerals and dug a lot of graves.
And then, God picked Joshua to be the leader to take over from Moses. Joshua got the book deal, the twitter followers, the big church. Caleb had his life and his family and a hope for a plot of land.

If anyone had an excuse to give up, to lose hope, to become cynical or bitter or entitled or frustrated or angry or to quit, it was Caleb.

We don’t know much about what Caleb did for those 40 years, but we know how his story ends. He shows up again in Joshua 14. Everyone else had received their allotment of land, and finally Caleb says, “It’s time for me to take mine.”

And we read this:

⁶ Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the LORD said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. ⁷ I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, ⁸ but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly. ⁹ So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the LORD my God wholeheartedly.’

¹⁰ “Now then, just as the LORD promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! ¹¹ I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. ¹²Now give me this hill country that the LORD promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the LORD helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”

¹³ Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. ¹⁴ So Hebron has belonged to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite ever since, because he followed the LORD, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly. ¹⁵ (Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba after Arba, who was the greatest man among the Anakites.)

Then the land had rest from war.

Somehow, through all that, he still followed God wholeheartedly. He finished strong.

I love that image of 85-year-old Caleb still looking for a fight, still ready to go, still throwing himself fully into the work God had asked him to do. And somehow all of that contributed to peace in the land.

When I get tired I think about Caleb…I want to finish strong too.

Something I Like About Weddings…

Amy and I went to a wedding this weekend…our friends Ramon and Rachel exchanged vows and became man and wife.

There are a million things I love about weddings, and as I get older I get more and more emotional at weddings, and here’s why…

Marriage shapes us. It shapes our character. If we jump in with both feet and submit to the “other” marriage changes us…we allow someone else to be the authority in our lives and to speak truth to us…to mirror back to us who we really are.

It is incredibly humbling and has the potential to be transformative.

I love that.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Ramon over the years about marriage. About why I married Amy. About why I think marriage is great and why I am “pro-marriage” (as I like to say). We argued about it. Ramon said people didn’t need to get married…it was an old-fashioned institution.

In the end though, he went for it. They are going for it. And I am excited because I can see the change already. My prayer is they stick with the process, they continue to submit to and love each other, and that they embrace the adventure. Because it is beautiful.

Some Things I Learned From My Wife Who Is a Physical Therapist

My amazing wife is a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Her work world is very different from mine in some ways and, yet, eerily similar in others. I learn a lot of things from her. Like this:

Most people, when given the option between a 12 week PT plan of exercises and a surgical procedure, will take the surgical procedure.

Now, I am not anti-surgery…there are wonderful things that can only be done by a surgeon, and certain diseases/situations can only be combated on the surgeon’s table.

What I am talking about here are issues that can be solved either way. And in most cases the PT program actually has higher success rates and is a better predictor of future health. Plus, surgery, even minor surgery, is always risky!

But, PT involves 12 weeks of work. Hard work. And it involves changing some life patterns, like diet, for example. It does not, however, involve anesthesia or having your body cut open.

Again and again, though, people will choose surgery.

A quick fix. Don’t make me give up my dunkin donuts!

There are a million applications to the “spiritual life” here, but I won’t go in to all of them (I’ll save them for an illustration later!).

It’s a fascinating study in human nature…A Long Obedience never seems to be the most compelling option.

Any thoughts?

Man…*

Here’s an interesting couple of verses in Luke:

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide my inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” (Luke 12:13-14, TNIV)

Some context: Jesus goes on to talk at length about money and possessions and worry. About trust and generosity. The thrust of the passage is to be “rich towards God“…his purposes, his Kingdom.

But, if you read that reply in a certain tone, you get the impression that Jesus, as blasphemous as it might seem, was kind of annoyed with this guy. As in, “come on man,” don’t you see that there are bigger things going on here than how you divide your inheritance with your brother.

Jesus was welcoming, hospitable, and compassionate. But he was also protective of his mission and priorities. The Word did not become flesh to settle petty disputes. He knew where he was going and was not going to get sidetracked.

As ministers, leaders, pastors, we want to help people. That’s why most of us get in to this work. When someone comes to us and wants our help, our natural tendency is to say “yes”. This is the work we signed up to do, after all. But not every ask moves the mission forward…not every idea is the right idea for right now…some things people can (or need) to figure out on their own.

I find Jesus’ response strangely encouraging. But also challenging because I want to help everyone. Anyone else struggle with this?

*For the sake of full disclosure, the essence of this idea is stolen from a talk Rob Bell did in the poets, prophets, and preachers series but his emphasis was narrower, focusing on how people respond to sermons.

Options, Sabbath, and Saying NO

The more I work with students the more overwhelmed I become at the number of options they have to choose from. Literally, everything (class, living situations, activities, what to eat for dinner) is a decision from among multiple options.

Most students don’t struggle with filling up their schedules, they struggle with saying yes and no to the right things.

If I’m being honest, I have the same struggle. Amy and I could be involved in a churchy opportunity (to quote Nacho Libre) every day and/or night of the week (and some weeks we are).

The question is almost never one of finding a good options, it’s trying to figure out, to discern, what is the best option. Many of us solve this problem by saying yes to everything.

Or maybe (if it’s a Facebook event). We all struggle with saying no. Maybe that’s why Jesus said this.

Saying no is important, even vital, for life.

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My friend has been telling about his teenage daughter and the struggle with being “on” all the time. Thanks to phones, Facebook, etc the only time she is ever “off” is when she is asleep.

As a result, the burden of carrying a constant emotional weight can be crushing. They’ve instituted a “no-phone-or-computer-after-8-pm” policy (it’s voluntary but appreciated). I’m trying to do a similar thing. It’s hard.

But it’s a no that opens up the possibility of saying yes to some really good things.

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Sabbath is a Christian practice in saying yes and no. Often, though, it is framed as saying no to work.

It’s more layered than that, though. It’s saying no to finding our identity in work, in production, in achievement, in connection. Walking away from work (or the phone, or the blog, or the inbox) for a time frees us from slavery to those things.

Which is beautiful. But even one more layer down, it is a reminder that the world goes round without me pushing it. People will be ok without me. God is in control.

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I stink at saying no. I would much rather just say yes to everything. Have all the experiences I can have. Keep everyone happy. Not miss out on anything.

But I distort my own importance and tell myself (and others) that the world revolves around me if I don’t say no, even to good things.

What do you need to say no to?

“Busy is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal…not of devotion but of defection.” – Eugene Peterson