I Need To Stop Playing Catch Alone - A non-legalistic type of discipline

Recently, I heard a comedian say he had no toy more pathetic than a bounce-back. If you aren’t familiar with this product, you probably had more friends than I did as a child. Basically, it's a trampoline set on its side. When you throw a baseball, it'll "throw" it back to you. When my brothers didn't want to play catch with me, I hauled out the ol' bounce-back.

As you might imagine, it's accuracy in rebounding the ball made me jump and dive for a lot of catches. This helped me on the field when I needed to snag line drives, but my throwing accuracy was only so-so. And hitting? I was probably somewhere around .250 in my little league career. Not exactly the Mendoza Line, but nothing to crow about either.

Even though I knew my weaknesses, I kept practicing with that bounce-back. I didn't tape off a box on a backstop or hang an old tire to get better command of my throws. I spent more time on Mike Tyson's Punch-Out than I did swinging in the batting cages. Those wild throws and swinging strikes embarrassed me, even when no one saw them. So I kept practicing what I knew I could do well.

Okay, in terms of my life as a Christian, this analogy breaks down. But I did think about the bounce-back this weekend when John Privett from Lifehouse Church taught through Luke 5. Then he read verse 16, "But he (Jesus) would withdraw to desolate places to pray." John stopped and asked, "Now why would Jesus need to take time to pray? Why did he need to go off by himself in solitude?"

Lots of people object to the "do-this-don't-do-that" image of Christianity. In a way, they should. We're saved entirely because God offers to remove our sin and also credit us with the righteousness of Jesus. If we've accepted this forgiveness and receive His grace, we don't have to earn God's favor by doing all of the right things.

This went entirely against the four-point "what it means to be a Christian" lesson I learned in Sunday School. We would count them off every week: 1. Accept Jesus into your heart (always confusing concept) 2. Pray 3. Read the Bible 4. Go to church.

Maybe the list could have been cut in half and simplified. 1. Repent 2. Make Jesus the Lord of your life. Or maybe 1. Become a Christian 2. Try to live the way Jesus taught his disciples to live. I don't know. Maybe that's not helpful. But I think it gets more to the point.

Whatever the case, Jesus is my example. He knew God was pleased with him (Matt 3:17 and 17:5), so the fasting, prayer, and times of solitude weren't ways in which he made God happy. I think Jesus did it for at least two reasons. First, I'm sure it helped his growth and the strength of his relationship with God. When Luke 2 says Jesus grew in wisdom and favor with God, I doubt this happened without any action on his part. Earlier in the chapter, he's in the Temple keeping up on discussions with the Bible teachers as a twelve year old. The kid hadn't even been Bar-Mitzvah'd! How did he get to that point? Wouldn't it make sense he spent time in the Bible?

Second, I think Jesus practiced these spiritual disciplines because they didn't fit in with the demands of his schedule. It seems he wants to get away and pray right when there's the most demand for him. With so many people to heal and so many messages to teach, where does a guy find time to sit and pray in peace? He had to make time. He had to say no to demands.

There, right there I thought about the bounce-back. I rely on what comes easily. I study the Bible. I pray. I worship. These are all acceptable. People tell me I do these things well and I know God is already pleased with me.

But then again, I don't necessarily see growth in other areas of my life. If I say I want to be a more humble person, then maybe I should practice doing something good without announcing it. If I want to grow in wisdom, maybe I could learn how to spend time with men who will actually challenge me and help me mature. If I want to have more joy, maybe I should learn how to celebrate my relationship with Jesus and demonstrate it once in a while. All of those things might be hard or embarrassing, but I need to show some initiative.

Sometimes you have to get over yourself and ask someone to play catch with you.

There Is No Resale On Salvation - A ramble about baseball and feelings of condemnation

I don't know if I've said this before, but like I've said before, I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville. To clarify, I don't know if I've said the phrase "Like I've said before, I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville." But I'm almost certain I've used the phrase "I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville" at least once.

Now that we're clear on what I mean, let's get to it. I don't know a lot of baseball fans in Nashville. So you might understand my excitement when my wife announced she wanted to play fantasy baseball. "I want to learn the game so I can appreciate it with you." Tell me that isn't the sweetest. I dare you.

I created a moderately low-competition league with some of our friends so she didn't have a lot of pressure and feel like a failure. She took charge of planning the live draft party. Our friends let us know what they planned on bringing to the drink and snack table.

Then draft day came. After cleaning the house and setting up the living room, I realized no one had mentioned bringing anything to drink. I called the one friend who hadn't already told us what he planned on contributing. When I asked him what he was going to bring, he paused. He wasn't sure what to bring and asked if we needed anything. I told him we were drinkless. He said he'd take care of it.

When I hung up, a bell went off in my brain and I asked my wife, "Did I just tell him to bring something when he might not have planned on bringing anything?"

"Yes, you did."

I immediately called my friend again and told him not to feel obligated. He said not to worry, he wanted to contribute but didn't know what to bring until I called. No matter how my times he said I wasn't rude, I still felt like a jerk and bought drinks as well. "Rudeness guilt," I explained to my wife.

Yeah, that was a long story for a point as small as this: I feel bad when I make mistakes. Who doesn't, right? But I've written a couple of posts quoting Romans 8:1 and still don't always remember the words. "There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus."

None? No guilt?

The truth is only Jesus has lived a life without mistakes. Luke 4 shows him resisting all kinds of understandable temptations. Hebrews 4:15 says Jesus understands our mistakes because he went through every kind of temptation. He had every opportunity to make the same mistakes we've made. Maybe not specifically making rude assumptions prior to a live draft, but surely rudeness in general.

When Jesus died and got up, he paid the price for all of our failures. Who tries to buy something after someone has already bought it? Salvation isn't resale. The price was paid once and for all time. So it's not our behavior which makes us good, but our trust in what Jesus already did for us.

I think conviction should motivate us to do things differently, but condemnation encourages something else. Condemnation drives us to use will power. It makes us strive and fail over and over. It makes us feel more and more condemned. Paul wrote about this cycle in Romans 7.

So yeah, rudeness guilt is silly. Next time, I'll just apologize and learn from my blunder.

Trust and the Wall of Discomfort

Last week, my publisher sent me the galley proof of Stark Raving Obedience. I spent all weekend going through the text, taking time out only for baseball and church. While reading, the Holy Spirit used my own book to convict me. Several times in the book, I encourage people to act on the truth they read in the Bible. All I could think about were the times in the past month where I didn’t obey, missed my opportunity, or misunderstood the cue.

The top, number one, inexcusable excuse for my shortcomings? Discomfort. You could call it a host of other things. “Fear of man” “Fear of rejection” “Lack of faith”, all of which might describe what happens when I’m well aware of God’s will and still bail.

During the past week, a few things happened to reinforce what the Holy Spirit brought to my attention. First, I read a comment on Stuff Christians Like from this girl. She quoted from Kierkegaard’s Provocations by way of Shane Claiborne. “But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it (the Bible) because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?” At first, I laughed and copied the quote for my own use.

Two days later, I decided to give myself a break from work. I drove a mile down the road from my house to Greer Stadium, home of the Nashville Sounds, a Triple A baseball team. I asked for a seat all the way down the left field foul line, five feet from the bullpen bench. For most of the evening, I listened to the relief pitchers and bullpen coach analyzing the game. If anyone looked over my way, they may have thought I was keeping score. Actually, I was writing down bits of their conversation. At one point in the fourth inning, the starting pitcher came to bat. He took two strikes in bunt attempts then swung for strike three. Minutes later, the bullpen coach told one of the relief pitchers to start warming up for the next inning. The guys on the bench tried to figure out why their starting pitcher wasn’t finishing a decent game.

Later, they learned what happened from the backup catcher. Apparently, after strike two, the batting coach signaled for another bunt attempt. The pitcher looked at his coach like he must have lost his mind. If he missed another bunt, strike three, a wasted at-bat, another out. The pitcher shook off the signal and motioned back to the coach that he wanted to swing. To the pitcher, the coach’s sign looked like idiocy. Suicide. But then again, the pitcher’s solution didn’t work, either. Coach was so angry he benched the pitcher.

One of the relief pitchers started laughing. “Man, if coach calls for a bunt, you give him a bunt.” Then after a moment, he started analyzing the situation. “I can see why they guy decided to swing, but coach was right. One out with a man on first and third is a great bunt opportunity. Either he advances the runner from first to second and gets him in scoring position or we somehow manage to pull off a squeeze play and bring the guy on third home. We might have taken the lead.”

I can’t say this was the pivotal moment where the Sounds began to lose the game. It is minor league ball, after all, which has enough errors to make me believe I’m watching theater. Even so, from that inning on, the team trailed the rest of the game and lost.

Immediately, I wrote this conversation on my program and made the connection to my attitude in prayer. There are days where God signals for me to pray for someone or tell them about Jesus. It’s not always so drastic. Sometimes He tells me to send an email or make a phone call that I forget about. But there are times when I absolutely know what God wants. He made it clear in prayer and scripture. Proclaim the good news of Jesus, pray for the sick, that sort of thing. But then I’m shaking off the signal or pretending holiness by asking, “God, do you want me to pray for this person?” After a silence, God says “No” and I feel justified in my nervousness. But maybe God said no because I’ve proved my lack of faith by not acting on the truth I know in the Bible. Maybe I just got benched for that game.

Now before you think I’m sitting in a chilly Nashville coffee shop moping about my failures, I want to assure you that God has used me to pray for and minister to more people now than ever before. Because of this, though, I’m noticing more instances when I don’t follow through on what God puts on my heart. It’s like the difference between walking into a wall and running full speed into it.

As I talked with God about my attitude when I run into the wall of discomfort, He reminded me of a parable in Matthew 21:28-30. “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go.” In the next verse, Jesus asks the religious leaders “Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.”

We can find ourselves asking God to speak to us, to give us a sign, but then shake it off when He tells us something. There are lots of people who would ignore parts of the Bible that they'd rather not confront. I’ve found myself with that attitude in the past. The Bible is offensive. What if you really did live by what it said? What would become of you? I can tell you. It will ruin you. You’ll end up sacrificing everything. But take comfort in what Jesus told Peter in Mark 10:28-30. “Peter began to say to Him, ‘Behold, we have left everything and followed You.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.’”

It may be hard to reconcile with the hundredfold embarrassment, persecution, or other trials, but the promise outweighs the cost. I’d rather be the son working for God despite the discomfort or supposed inconvenience. I’d rather bunt and stay in the game than strike out and watch other men do what I should be doing on the mound. When I’m running that marathon and hit the wall of discomfort, I can remind myself that the wall isn’t made of bricks. It’s made of lies and orange gelatin. It might hurt a little and feel gross, but God has enabled me to push through and keep going.

How the Bears Became Bad News and the Ducks Became Mighty.

Baseball may have taught me a lot, but nobody taught me a lot about baseball. I remember getting yelled at in Little League for messing up a play or batting poorly. Lots of people were willing to tell me what I did wrong, but very few people would show me how to do it right. There’s a reason I gave up playing the game for playing punk music. Mistakes were acceptable if not celebrated, and it was easy enough to teach myself anything I needed to know. Even so, I still wish I had that cinematic baseball team where a coach comes to turn a bunch of misfits into all-stars.

I’ve been in Michigan for the last three weeks and seen lots of old friends. Some of them have asked me how I like living in Nashville. Even though I lived in Michigan most of my life and moved only a year ago, I tell them that Nashville is my home. When they ask me why I like it so much, I used to tell them that I’m pleased to live where God wants me. While that’s true, I realize that I have another answer. I have people in Nashville who train me in discipleship. It’s like I found the Little League coach I always wanted. Until I moved to Nashville, I never understood the value of discipline and discipleship.

I used to identify the word “discipline” with punishment. Anything else was training. The Bible used the word discipline in terms of punishment sometimes and many a Baptist child heard these verses. Proverbs 22:15, for example, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” Or the famous Proverbs 13:24, “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” Dang, right? Imagine how blessed you’d feel hearing someone quote those verses after hitting you with a belt.

But more often than not, scripture talks about discipline as if it’s the greatest thing in the whole world. Hebrews 12 talks of how God disciplines to train us in holiness. Verse 11 says, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” And in Revelation 3, in a letter to Sardis, God says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.” Paul rejoiced at the discipline of the church in Colossians 2:5.

We can easily get the wrong idea about discipline. It’s not punishment for its own sake. It’s not hateful correction. Like children, we think we know the best way to live, but we would mature poorly if we didn’t have people to train us. The disciples weren’t masochists, as far as I know. They wanted Jesus to show them how He lived His life. Instead of studying in the back of some synagogue for an allotted amount of time, they followed Him everywhere, listened to every word, asked Him all sorts of questions. “How should we pray?” “How many times should I forgive my brother?” “Should I pay my taxes?”

Alright, so discipline isn’t as bad as it sounds. It develops a mature way of life. But what does that have to do with living in Nashville? I have people in Nashville who meet with me regularly, whether intentionally or otherwise, to encourage me towards discipline. Then I turn it around and help other people with the same encouragement. It’s created a community of people seeking to develop a mature relationship with God, help each other reach those goals, stay accountable, and celebrate the growth. This gives me even more incentive to build and maintain an intimate relationship with God knowing that it helps my church. Paul mentions this kind of other-centered discipline in Romans 15:1-2. “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.”

I’m glad I grew up in Michigan. But taken away from the culture of discipline that I’ve found in Tennessee, I fall back into old patterns and live less than extraordinarily. How often does this happen to you? How easy is it? That’s a pretty good sign that I’m still learning. I’m not ready for the travel team yet. I found myself saying the very words a friend told me about his lack of discipline. The decline in discipline almost made me think that I had begun to desire God less. I’m a forgetful person who needs others to remind me of my hunger for God. If I could do it on my own, why would Paul spend all of 1 Corinthians 12 saying that members of the Church were given different gifts so they could work together as a body with different parts?

The different parts of the body depend on each other. They are responsible to each other. They train and build together. They become strong and focused. They are able to accomplish their goals with skill. If the body is supposed to be a picture of the church, how out of shape is yours? In 1 Timothy 4, Paul instructs Timothy how to deal with false teachings and says, “But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

I’ve said it before, but all I want from life is to glorify God and point others to Jesus. When I die, put it on the stone. I can’t accomplish these things effectively on my own. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. I burn out too quickly and lose heart. I need people to cheer me on, train me, keep me going towards that goal. How else am I going to make a big play in the championship game?

I once wrote about the church as a team. Here are some questions that might apply well to the analogy. How well do you know the people in your church? When you gather, do you encourage each other in righteousness? Are you willing to submit to spiritual authority? You don’t have to answer all of those questions right now. Let’s start with this one. When you think about discipline, do you think of it as a means to victory?