piddling as a spiritual practice

If you really knew me you would know that whenever I am in town I start every morning with a visit to Chick-Fil-A.  It is more than just the food (which is great by the way), it is the space.  For twenty-plus years now Chick-Fil-A, sitting in my car in an isolated corner of the parking lot, has been the place I have spent my time with Jesus.  As a matter of fact, I was there just this morning.  It has been a rich and wonderful space for me, a place where God has met me deeply, a place where I have read and prayed and journaled and groaned and grinned and wept.  It has been a place where God has gotten his hands on me, where he has drawn his lips close to my ear, and drawn my soul close to his heart.  And it is still a place where he continues to transform me. 

Well, today I was about halfway through my morning routine when I went into the restaurant to get a refill, which is also a part of my morning routine.  And seeing as how I've been going to this particular Chick-Fil-A for about 15 years, I know most of the people in the store pretty well by know.  As a matter of fact, I've seen a lot of them come and go through the years.  As I was entering the store two of the "regulars" were on their way out.  And after we exchanged a few words of greeting, one of them said to the other, "You go on, I am going to piddle for a minute."  At which point she came away from the door and began to meander through the restaurant, greeting people and talking to some of the other "regulars."

Something about the way she said it caught me.  And something about what she then starting doing, caught me even more.  And as I walked back to my car I began to think about what I had just seen and heard.  And I began to be captured by the idea, and the practice, of piddling.  And the more I thought about it, the more I saw its spiritual value.  For most of us piddling is not a positive word, or activity.  As a matter of fact, most of the dictionaries I've checked define the word negatively, as the act or habit of wasting time.  But what the world considers wasting time, might be the very thing God requires in order to live life in union with him.  Life with God requires us to live at a different pace, to have a different mindset, to pay attention.  It requires us to not be so hell-bent on activity for activity's sake.  It requires us to not be so controlled by our own schedules, so driven by our own agendas, and so consumed with our own need to be productive and efficient that we miss the things of God that are right under our noses.  Piddling is a refusal to allow our lives to be controlled by a frenzied pace.  It is a determination to live differently; to stop and slow down, to linger and pay attention, to be on the lookout for the deeper things of life that can only been seen and experienced if we slow down and intentionally look below the surface. 

That's the beauty of what this woman was doing.  She was saying, "I'm not ready to rush off to the next thing just yet.  I want to see if there's something else here, something more, something deeper that I would've missed it I wouldn't have been paying attention.  I want to be open to the present moment.  I want to be fully here, explore the here and now, and find its riches.  So, if you don't mind, I think I'm just going to hang around for a while."  May we learn how to do the same.

love versus need

For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child—both alike belong to me. ~Ezekiel 18:4


Let's face it, some things in Scripture are just downright disturbing.  Oh, maybe not disturbing in a chaotic, random, hopeless, makes no sense kind of way, but disturbing in a challenging, unsettling, disorienting and reorienting kind of way.  And this is definitely one of those things: our children belong to God and not to us.  We do not own them, nor can we save them.  And they cannot save us.

We cannot save them from grief and sorrow and sadness.  We cannot save them from sickness and struggle and pain.  We cannot save them from hurt and hardship and brokenness; as much as we might like to think that we can. 

And they cannot save us.  They cannot save us from loneliness and isolation and despair.  They cannot save us from fear and anxiety and insecurity.  They cannot save us from feelings of insignificance and unimportance and unworthiness.  And when we demand or expect them to, it can get ugly really fast.  Because our children belong fully to God, and not to us. Therefore, we must learn to love them well, but we must also learn to hold them loosely. 

My sense is that most of us try to get something from our children that they were never intended to give.  In fact, if we do not get from God, what only he is designed to give us, then we will try to get it from our spouses.  And if we do not get it from our spouses, we will try to get it from our children.  And if we do not get it from our children, we will try to get it from our world--and so goes the downward spiral.  When we live our lives needing and demanding something from the people in our world that they were never designed to fully give, it always leads to dysfunction--unhealthy dependence or enmeshment with those in our lives and world.  Each one of us, first and foremost, belongs to God.  It is he alone that can meet us at our point of deepest need.  And only when we allow him to fully meet us there can we ever hope to be able to truly love those in our families, our lives, and our world without needing to control or manipulate them.

O God, let me never seek (or demand) from someone else what you alone can give.

eat this scroll

And he said to me, “Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the people of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.
     Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
     He then said to me: “Son of man, go now to the people of Israel and speak my words to them. (Ezekiel 3:1-4)

you must first eat the scroll

you must taste its sweetness

you must be filled with its life
before you can have anything
of real value
to offer the world

you must receive his words

before you can ever truly

speak his words

you must live his message

before you can ever really

give his message

it makes me wonder

why i get it so backwards

all too often

caring too much

"No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
     The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts." (Luke 16:13-15)

I don't know about you, but oftentimes I find that I care too much.  I know, I know, it sounds really strange, almost like an oxymoron.  I mean, how can you care too much, right?  But the fact is that you really can, and we often do.  At least I often do. 

I actually think that's what Jesus is saying right here in this conversation with the Pharisees.  They cared too much.  They cared too much about what people thought.  They cared too much about keeping up their image.  They cared too much about their position in society.  They cared too much about maintaining their reputations.  They cared too much about having influence and impact.  And, the truth be known, so do I.  You see, when we care too much--even about things that are good--it gives us a pretty good indication that what we really care about is ourselves, not the person (or thing) that is before us at any particular moment. Our care has subtly shifted from object to subject.

Caring too much is a warning sign that something within us has gone awry, that somehow our affections have become disordered.  Something has become way more important to us than it should be.  In this case, with Jesus and the Pharisees, he is calling their attention to their love of money, but there are so many other things that could be inserted into that blank and the statement would still be true.  Because when we care too much--even about those in our own families--the lines become blurred and we start demanding and expecting things from them that they simply cannot fully give us.  And things just go downhill from there.  As a matter of fact, anytime we become aware of a lack of margins or boundaries in our lives we should become suspicious that somehow we have begun to care too much, somehow our affections have become disordered.  For whenever something, or someone, occupies center stage in our hearts, then that is the thing (or the person) we are truly serving.  Whenever something, or someone, becomes our focal point, all else takes a back seat.  It is just the way we were made. 

only by prayer

A few months ago I was meeting a good friend for lunch at a local restaurant.  I was a few minutes early , so I decided to go the restroom and wash my hands before he arrived.  As I entered the men's room, I quickly realized that I was a part of a crowd who had apparently all had the same idea.  One of the men was the father of a toddler who couldn't have been more than three years old.  As I waited for the sink to open up, I watched as the father tried to help his young son navigate a world that was far bigger, and way taller, than the little guy could possibly manage.  Nonetheless, as the father tried to help his son through the rigors of a restroom that was made for grown men, the little boy continually insisted that he wanted to do everything by himself.  Yet the geography and the physics of the situation made that impossible.  He couldn't come close to reaching the top of the toilet seat, much to his dismay and annoyance.  Yet with each obstacle that was placed in his path he uttered the words, "By myself.  By myself."  When his father lifted him up on the toilet seat he uttered, "By Myself."  And then when the father picked him up so he could reach the sink he said, with more than a little frustration, "No, no, by myself.  By myself!"  And finally, even when they tried to open the door to leave the restroom, the little boy screamed, "By Myself!" even though he could not even budge the door on his own.  And as I watched this whole thing unfold before my eyes, I thought to myself, "I know that kid."  Then I had a realization, "Wait a minute.  I am that kid." 

Flashback to a fall day in 1984.  I had just gone on the Young Life staff in Charlotte, North Carolina and had found out that one of the two schools I would be working with was a small private school where they were hoping to start Young Life.  A few leaders were on the team and they had slowly begun going to the high school to befriend high school kids wherever and however they could.  So one of my very first days in Charlotte, thinking a lot more of myself and my abilities than I probably should have, I charged off to the school, totally planning to take it by storm once I arrived.  I got out of my car, went to the office, introduced myself to a few administrators, and headed off to the lunchroom; fully intending to have every kid in the school enamored and captivated in about an hour's time.  As I busted through the lunchroom door, I noticed that it was one of the smaller school cafeterias I had ever been in, holding roughly seventy-five kids.  And as the door opened, everyone in the room stopped and looked at me.  I totally froze.  Feeling their eyes burning into me, and needing to diffuse the awkwardness and tension as quickly as possible, I walked right through the lunchroom and out the back door into the courtyard.  What a disaster.  I thought about getting back in my car and leaving town immediately, driving all the way back to Knoxville where I was known and loved and forgetting about this whole Young Life staff thing forever.  But instead I sat down on a bench in the courtyard and tried to collect myself.  I turned to God, in humiliation and failure and fear, and cried out for him to be the one to do this ministry, and not me.  Finally, God had me where he wanted me.  A few minutes later, I slunk back in very quietly and tried to strike up a conversation with a few kids.  I actually only met one kid that day.  His name was Rick.  Needless to say I didn't take anything by storm.  It was actually the beginning of a long, humbling, wonderful process.  I did, however, happen to see Rick at the football game that Friday night and got to say hello to him.  When I did, he stopped in amazement and said, "You remembered my name.  I don't think anyone has ever remembered my name."  And so it had begun.  But first I'd had to learn some things the hard way.

In case you haven't noticed by now, I have a tendency to charge ahead, trying to do life and ministry on my own; or by myself , as the case may be.  The problem is that when I do that, it doesn't usually end up quite like I'd hoped it would, and even less, I'm sure, like God hoped it would.  It's usually not a pretty sight.  So, as much as I'd like to deny it, I am, indeed, that kid.  Glad to know that I'm not the only one.

The disciples did the same thing.  Just look in Mark 9:14-29.  Jesus had just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration with his three closest friends, while the rest of the disciples were trying to "minister" to the people down in the valley.  But it wasn't going too well.  And when Jesus and the other three disciples arrived they found themselves in the midst of a complete mess.  It was chaos.  A father had come, begging the disciples to heal his demon possessed son, but try as they might, the disciples just couldn't do it.  I guess that should've been lesson number one to them--apart from Jesus we, not one of us, can do it, whatever it may be.  It makes me wonder why I continually try; when doing life that way can only end up in frustration and failure.

"O faithless generation," Jesus replies.  "How long am I to bear with you.  Bring the boy to me."  Which becomes lesson number two.  Whenever we face anything that is beyond our capacity or capability--which, in all honesty, is just about everything--the answer is to simply bring it (or them) to Jesus.  The life of faith and ministry is not complicated, although we tend to make it that way more often than not.  Whoever, or whatever, it is, bring it to Jesus.  "Stop trying to do it by yourself.  Bring your friend, your issue, your wound, your obstacle, to me.  That's what true ministry is all about." 

Well, to make a long story short, Jesus healed the boy and gave him, both healed and whole, back to his father.  And after he did, the disciples came to him in private and asked' "Why could we not drive it out?"  And Jesus' answer is priceless: "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer."  In other words, "You can't do it by yourself.  Why do you continually try?"  And can't you just see the disciples looking at each other in shock and embarrassment as they realize, "We didn't pray.  Why didn't we pray?"

Which leads me back to my own tendency to try and do things by myself.  And leads me to the very same question the disciples were asking themselves: "Why don't I pray?  I mean, really pray."  Where is prayer in my life and ministry?  And how can I embrace, and practice, prayer in a way that recognizes and nurtures my dependence of God?

Not to long after my little episode in the high school cafeteria in Charlotte, my Area Director gave me a training assignment.  He wanted me to visit another city and follow another Area Director around for a day and see what it looked like to do life and ministry.  He had even picked out the place and the person he wanted me to visit--Ken Schultz, who was in Johnson City, Tennessee at the time.  My Area Director said that Ken's Young Life club at Science Hill High School was one of the largest in the entire region, and he wanted me to find out why.  Sounded like a great assignment to me and I was really excited about it, so I made arrangements to spend a day with Ken and to go with him to his Young Life club that night. 

When I arrived in Johnson City, Ken greeted me warmly and gave me a little outline of the night ahead.  And as we jumped into his car and headed toward the place they had club he said to me, "Now I have to warn you about something before we get there.  We spend the first hour of our team meeting before club in prayer.  I don't care if the skit is not done, I don't care if the songs are not done, I don't even care if the talk is not done.  For that hour before club we pray."  And sure enough that's exactly what we did.  We arrived at the house and everyone was scurrying around in typical fashion, trying to get all of their ducks in a row for club.  But when Ken and I walked in, everything stopped, and for one hour we prayed.  Now I have to be really honest with you, up until that point in my life (I was probably around 24 at the time) I'm not sure I'd ever prayed for one continual hour without stopping.  But for a solid hour we prayed, and it was wonderful.  We prayed for kids, we prayed for families, we prayed for God's Spirit to be unleashed and move powerfully.  We prayed for hurts and pains and challenges and conflicts.  We prayed for the school and the administrators and the community and the church.  We prayed for God to show up and to heal and to save.  We prayed for everything.  And not long after we finished praying, hundreds of kids poured into the room for club.  It was a typical Young Life club.  It was even a good Young Life club.  But the one thing that made it what it was, was prayer.  It was prayer that made it the biggest Young Life club in the region.

A year later Ken actually moved to Charlotte and was my Area Director for the second year of my training.  Being as young and curious as I was, one day I just started asking him about the details of his life.  "What time do you get up in the morning?" I asked.  And when he told me, I was amazed that anyone could humanly get up that early and still function throughout the day.  So I asked him why he got up so early.  And, among other things, he told me it was because of prayer.  "With all of the things God has given me responsibility over each day, I dare not leave my house in the morning without having spent at least an hour in prayer."  And ever so slowly I was beginning to get the picture.

What about you?  Where is prayer for you?  Where is it in your life?  Where is it in your ministry?  Oswald Chambers once said that "Prayer is the way the life of God within us is nourished."  Is your soul and your ministry being constantly nourished by the reality and the practice of prayer?  Or are you, like me, still too often trying to do it by yourself?

a leper's lament

I roam the countryside, fully knowing the ugliness of my affliction, fully feeling the brunt of it each moment of each day.  Mine is a lonely and tortured existence.  What others see on the outside is only the tip of the iceberg compared to the pain and the hurt and the brokenness that lies within.  They see the leprosy, but I see the hopelessness.  I see the debris from the wreckage of feeling totally worthless.  I know the bottomless depths of my self-contempt, and I am helpless to do anything about it.  Oh, I’ve tried and tried, but all has failed to offer a solution for my inner and outer turmoil.  I cannot cleanse, nor heal, myself, so I roam about, desperately seeking healing, or relief, or the faintest glimmer of hope, wherever I might find it.  Hope that somehow, some way, someone—anyone—might help me make some sense of this mess of a life I am trapped inside of.  “Have mercy!” is the constant cry of my soul.  Please, help!  Anyone!  O Jesus, Master, Son of David, can you help me!  O please, Great Physician, have mercy on me and heal my affliction!  For only you can offer the healing and the wholeness I so desperately need.  Will you?

true

“Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.” (John 1:47)  What a beautiful statement. Jesus saw Nathanael approaching and that is what he said.  The word used here (eidō) tells us that he didn’t just see Nathanael, but he saw into Nathanael.  And when he saw into the heart of Nathanael, he saw that there was nothing false.  The Greek word for false is dolos, which means deceit or trickery.  Thus, Nathanael was not pretending to be someone he was not.  He was not covering up or hiding behind anything.  He was not posturing or jockeying for position.  He was not acting or trying to fool anyone.  He was simply being himself.  He was being his true—created in the image of God—self.  I think that’s why Nathanael responds to Jesus with the beautiful words, “How do you know me?”  He didn’t argue with Jesus or try to correct him.  He didn’t try to deflect or deny the statement, he simply embraced it.  I think Nathanael did this because he knew to his core that he was being exactly who God made him to be.

O how I long for the same.  Don’t you?  How I long to be the beautiful creation that God intended me to be when he breathed me into being.  But, more often than not, I tend to be something else altogether.  I do not regularly live out of my true self, but out of some distorted version of that.  I tend to live out of a false self instead.  That self that is a product of my deepest fears, doubts, and insecurities.  That self that is constantly trying to prove to myself and my world that I am, indeed, worth loving.  It is what I like to call the manufactured self, because it is a self of my own making; a response to my trying to create an identity for myself out of fear that the one I’ve been given is not good enough.  And any identity (or self) that I create can only be false, because my true identity can only be given (bestowed) to me by the One who made me.

Lord Jesus, help me to be my best self today; the one you dreamt me to be when you breathed me into existence.  Amen.