Getting Wise - One way in which God used the church in my life.

*I'll tell you now. This is something I thought about today and I haven't exactly honed it down to my usual style of weblog post.*

Several years ago, a friend called me to see if I wanted to "hang out after everyone got out of church." I wasn't going to church at the time. Or rather, I was attending a church, but a church of several thousand where I could burrow in the back seats, unseen and undisturbed.

When I told him I wanted to stay in that night, I admitted to what I was doing instead: sitting in the basement, soaking my feet, watching the Gilmore Girls, and drinking gin (with a splash of cranberry juice, you know, for color). One of the biggest reasons I drank alone back then was because, well, I didn't want to be around people when I got shiker.

Around that time, I read Proverbs 18:1 and began to feel uncomfortable. "Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment." Even if I went out, I could put on the Isaiah Kallman act and never let anyone into the messier parts of my life. Even if I went to church, it was about as intimate and connected as any game at Comerica Park. Even if I talked to people sitting next to me, we would just share commentary.

It took long while for me to realize I lived like this because I was selfish. I didn't want to admit my problems and look weak or foolish. Worse, I didn't know if I really wanted to change. This last point shook me because I was smart enough to recognize my imminent destruction.

The problem went beyond my tendency to hole-up in my parents' basement and drink. My life needed something besides more people and less booze. I needed something else. Other sections of Proverbs spoke to this need. Like 11:14, "Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety." Or 19:20, "Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future."

I needed to let people into my life, yeah. I needed to let wise people into my life. And I needed to apply their advice.

I'm glad God sent me to Lifehouse Church here in Nashville. Not only do I love the people and the mission, I appreciate how I couldn't casually attend. The people there challenged me. They gave me advice when I needed it. I learned how to grow in humility, although I'm still working on that one. Before you ask, I do drink considerably less, even if I make more of my own beer.

Proverbs clearly says God is the source of wisdom, so I don't want to give the people in the church too much credit. But I'm certain God used the church to help me become the relatively healthy adult I am today.

What's your church experience? Have you seen a good change in your life? Or has it been terrible? Boring? I'd like to know.

The Politics Of Fame And Glory - How I realized my self-righteousness was driven by a fear.

If you've read this weblog for the past few months, you might know that I play in a band called the Summer Country. I feel comfortable talking to you about this because there are only, like, twenty of you, and half of you share my last name.

In the past, I've written about false humility and musicians getting more credit than they deserve. I haven't forgotten. Between those two ideas, I live in tension. I don't think I should receive the adoration all who see me, but I don't think I suck either.

So far, this tension has led me to become a terrible self-promoter. I may have mentioned that before, too. Whenever I'm challenged to do something more with the music, I quote Proverbs 27:2. "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips." Not only is that simply great advice on how to keep yourself from arrogance, it ends the discussion with most people. And it's a discussion I don't like to have with them.

Tonight I asked myself why. Why don't I want to talk about what I do? Why don't I want to listen to the people telling me I should learn how to promote myself?

It took less than a minute to realize it's because I'm afraid of my image. Isn't that dumb? I rail against self-promotion because I don't like the idea of selling myself. The underlying, unspoken motivation comes from living in Nashville and hating how other people sound when they constantly self-promote. And I don't want to sound like those guys. But isn't that just as bad? Aren't we all trying to look cool, even if we have different reasons?

I'd be selfish either way. I don't know how to change it just yet, but I realize something does have to change.

Unless you have some great advice for my situation, I'll finish today's post with a song I wrote. I don't want to be famous, but I want people to listen.

Should I Pray About Everything? - Discussing whether God is a good father or a gang boss.

Five years ago, someone asked me, "You listen for God to speak, right? And you ask Him what He wants you to do? At what point do you use your brain?" Since then, several people have asked a similar question. It seems natural to ask God for wisdom and direction when it comes to big decisions like where to live, who to marry, etc. But should we go overboard and stand still, waiting for orders? Is it like working the chain gang in Cool Hand Luke where you have to get God's approval before everything? "Getting a drink of water, Boss."

This question came up last night during a Bible study after some friends and I read James 4. Verses 13-15 say, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.'"

We talked for a few minutes and asked ourselves, where's the line? Do we avoid boasting 'I'm going to get a drink of water' and instead say, 'If the Lord wills, I will live to get a drink of water'?

Wise people make wise choices because they have wisdom. That makes sense, right? And according to Proverbs 9:10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding." If we seek to know God, we'll know how to live. Fearing Him could simply mean we make decisions we know will make Him happy. We live for His approval.

Of course we should still ask for wisdom and listen for the Holy Spirit when we pray. When I lived at home, I asked my dad for his advice whenever I needed guidance. And yet there were times I chose to do something based on what he had already taught me. At all times, though, I also had to be open to his correction. I may have thought it was alright to dig for treasure in the backyard, but I had to listen to him when he told me to stop and dig in the woods instead.

Do you ever have trouble finding that line between listening and action? Which side do you lean more toward?

I Wanted So Much To Be A Man I Forgot How To Be A Child.

Early on in my church-going life, Sunday school teachers gave a lesson on "Faith Like A Child". They told the story of Jesus scolding His stupid adult disciples when they tried to keep the pure-of-heart children from surrounding Him. The lesson ended with my friends and I assuming we had stronger faith than our parents and maybe even our pastor. I'm not making this up. We discussed these things over graham crackers while we waited for our parents to pick us up after the service. Our six-year-old arrogance came from all the self-esteem lessons we learned in elementary school. Public school said we deserved to be treated like the center of the universe. Sunday school taught us, whether intentionally or not, we had a knack for faith. We were naturals.

I can understand why those Sunday school teachers didn't teach us Proverbs 22:15 in the same lesson. "Doing wrong is firmly tied to the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far away from him." Our parents may have found us crying into our crackers if we heard that sort of thing. You're all sinners and need correction. It's true, though. From birth to old age, everybody sins. We tend to do what we want instead of what God wants, trusting ourselves over our Creator. That's sin. I didn't learn the sin lesson at Sunday school nearly as well.

In the following years, the pride I put in my faith settled in like a syrupy stain. Without realizing it, I became just like one of those disciples pretending to know better than Jesus. My interpretation of the Bible was better, my shortcomings ignorable, and my reasoning irrefutable. It's a dangerous attitude.

My pastor taught through a series on Proverbs last summer. The sermons paired with personal prayer and study made a significant change on my attitude. I decided to take more responsibility and seek wisdom. The church places a high value on discipleship and I began meeting with an awesome guy. He asked me at our first meeting, "What do you want to learn?" I thought about it for a second and said, "How to be an adult." I wanted to become a shining example of biblical manhood after the Proverbs study.

I had a good goal, but my attitude still carried the old stain of pride. If I could learn how to do things right then nobody would bother me to improve. I could give the answers instead of having to answer for myself. Yes, God wants boys to grow into men. He wants them to leave their parents and take wives, to work hard, to lead a family. But the subtle lie I accepted came from a warped idea of "independence".

All those months of reading Proverbs and I missed the number one, basic, first-grade principle from Proverbs 1:7. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline." Cory Wigal, pastor of Church on Church Street, put it this way, "Learning to fear God is the first smart thing anyone can do."

Without getting too far off track, I'll use a tried and true comparison for how we should fear God. My dad is a big man. He still has two inches and sixty-some pounds on me. I would need at least ten more years before I could take him in a fight. So you can understand how as a child I had a certain level of respect for my dad's strength. I may have mentioned the time I thought he was going to kill my brothers. Well, this image of my dad inspired a respect for his power, but he was also the man who let me sit on his lap while we watched episodes of Nova on PBS. He took me to Tigers games and wrote a song about my name. At times, he'd pick me up from behind and give me loud, smacking kisses on the cheek saying, "I LOVE YOU!"

This is the picture I have of a father. Why wouldn't I trust someone who could wipe me out but inexhaustibly loved me instead? My obedience to Dad was trust put into action. When I think of my relationship to God as Father, the statement still applies. Like the Psalmist, I wonder, who am I that He should be mindful of me? But He's the one who loved me so much He sent Jesus to die so I wouldn't have to pay for my own sin. Do I believe it enough to put my trust into action?

Let's look at the best Father/Son relationship in history. Jesus most certainly grew into a man according to Luke 2:52. His character doesn't lead me to believe He lived in a state of what my sister calls "adult-olescence". But He continued to trust God the Father enough to pattern His every action accordingly. In John 5, answering criticism for supposedly working on a holy day of rest, Jesus said, "Yes indeed! I tell you that the Son cannot do anything on His own, but only what He sees the Father doing; whatever the Father does, the Son does too. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He does." Here is a perfect picture of childlike trust. I have tried in the past to give a solid definition of faith. Jesus, being God, defined a life of faith by trusting His Father and imitating Him.

The lie of independence absolutely denies this kind of trust in the Father. It leads me to believe I can make decisions based on my own wisdom. This lie told me I could rightly discern between good and evil like God. Faith requires me to trust God over everything. If I do anything apart from following His lead, then I fail to imitate the perfect example of a life faith set by Jesus. Romans 14, talking about everyday things like meals and calendars, makes this very clear: "Whatever is not from faith is sin".

Maybe a righteous life isn't defined by a list of do-and-don't. Could it be that righteous living means we become like children and trust God the Father, telling people we want to be like Him, obeying Him out of both respect and love? Fools run from God's wisdom and discipline. If I try to be independent of His oversight and do things on my own, does that make me a bad kid more than a responsible adult? In light of this, Romans 8:1 gives me even more comfort when it says, "There is no longer any condemnation awaiting those who are in union with the Messiah Jesus."

I once told the man discipling me at church how I wanted to be an adult. Here is my new goal: I want wisdom. To get wisdom, I must always respect God above everything. I must accept what He says and learn from His discipline. This will never change. In time, though, I may come to a point where I can read Proverbs 4:1-3 to my children with confidence. "Listen, children, to a father's instruction; pay attention, in order to gain insight; for I am giving you good advice; so don't abandon my teaching. For I too was once a child to my father; and my mother, too, thought of me as her special darling."

Any wisdom I may have to share in the future doesn't depend on a vague level of adulthood, but rather on a humble recognition of God as the source of all wisdom. I was once a child who trusted my dad. I want to continue living as a son who trusts his Father.