Tunnel

Just when I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel extends itself by another 20 miles; just when I think it's all almost over, I find out that it's really only just beginning. I feel like I'm on a treadmill on days like today. Just when I thought I was just about done with this stretch of the journey, this chapter in the story, I realize that reaching the end of that chapter was an idol and that I've been chasing nothing except my own false worship. My little golden calf crumbles like sand falling through my fingers.

Learnin'

I'm learning a lot right now, but three big things in particular:

1. Prayer. I do not pray enough, and we totally underestimate the power of prayer - not because our prayers somehow make things happen out of our own power, but because God is good and God delights in His children taking time to talk to Him and ask things of Him. He delights in giving to us the desires of our hearts when we delight ourselves continually in Him.

It is amazing to me how quickly things start to happen when you dedicate yourself to prayer in a serious way, laying things before the Lord and asking that His perfect will be done with them. As CS Lewis writes, "we are far too easily pleased" and we so often fail to just ASK God about the things that are on our hearts. So often I catch myself worrying about things that I should be praying about. I'll worry and worry and try to think of solutions rather than just starting with prayer. Why does it take so long to get this? I must have a really thick head. Thank God that God is patient.


2. Rest, work/life balance, and the size of your plate. I have made a habit out of leaving the office no more than 9 hours after walking into it for weeks now, and I cannot tell you all what a difference it has made. I leave a ton undone each day and yet I am totally at peace about it because I'm realizing how much richer life is when you take the time to do things other than work - like rest, connect with people, develop new skills, and cast vision for where you're going with this big thing we call life. Far too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day slog and lose sight of the mission God has us on. It's important to continually seek solitude and prayer, and that's not something I do enough.

Rest. I mean REAL rest - not laying on the couch watching tube. I mean really, truly refreshing rest. Reading a book outside in the sunshine on a summer day. Spending some time in prayer and journaling. Reading your Bible. Getting together with friends for a low-key evening of time together. Too often our "rest" is nothing more than just physical downtime, and they're not synonymous.

I'm also learning the importance of knowing the size of your plate and filling it accordingly. First, know how much you really CAN do or be involved in - how much free time and energy you REALLY have. Then use your time and energy wisely and to God's glory. This means taking some things off your plate and putting others on - but most importantly, when you put something on the plate, something else has to come off. Always. This is a hard one for me to learn. I recently stepped down from the Prayer Team at church, and it was a difficult decision to make, but I am confident it was the right one. I am able to focus more mental energy, more of my spiritual giftings - and more prayer - on the things that really need them right now, like Community Group and Theology Response Team.


3. Strategic Chaos. Sometimes it is necessary as a leader to create strategic chaos. This means allowing things to break down in a certain area or allowing a need to be felt and seen in order to force your troops to rally. I tend to be the type that, when a need is seen or felt, will just step in and fill it because it needs to be done. I am learning this is one of the worst things you can do to yourself - it drains you, exhausts you, and causes burnout. In order to lead effectively, you have to know when to step in and when to step back and say, "I need to let someone else step up to the plate here." That means being OK with it if no one DOES step up to the plate, in which case God is probably trying to tell your team something.

Trying to do it all yourself is nothing more than yet another form of pride masked as "get it done"-ness. I know that I am all too often afraid to let the system break down because I don't want it to reflect badly on me. But it's not about me, and ultimately God is in control of the system. He will do with it what He pleases.

Psalm 25

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.
-Psalm 25:16-18

Kill the Pride

I am very grateful for the friends God has placed in my life - friends who are not afraid to call me out on my sin when I can't see it. Had a great talk with a buddy of mine the other night about things going on in life - community group, service at church, finding a wife - the whole kit n' kaboodle. A wonderful deutsches Bier at Feierabend and a close friend are one of the fastest ways I know to cut to the chase of what is really going on in life. Some of the best conversations I have had with friends about the real issues they're facing have happened in that setting.

I will be honest - "frustrated" is not quite a strong enough word for how I have felt lately. Trying to steer and lead a community group is something that I am learning as I go, and which I can only liken to learning how to drive a stickshift by going on San Francisco hilly surface streets during rush hour. I have made a lot of mistakes along the way, mostly in the area of things I should have done but did not do. I am learning what it means to take responsibility in that way. There are changes that need to be made, vision that needs to be cast.

Aside from that, this has been a season of life generally marked by exhaustion and a sense of being worn down. I've felt like I haven't gotten fed enough, like I have nothing left to give - I've felt a sense of apathy and lack of desire to reach out at all. But I am learning that I don't manage my time well enough, don't take care of myself enough (sleep and diet), and consequently have become tired, irritable, and flat-out not that great to be around. Exhaustion tends to bring out our true nature in the worst way. And I can hardly complain that I am not getting fed if I do not use the time I have well. This is something that has to change immediately.

My problem is pride. I am all about Matt. Matt's success in all areas: work, Mars Hill, community group, relationships...It's all become about making Matt look good. Not only that, but the idea that Matt deserves X, Y, and Z: Matt deserves a successful community group that explodes in numbers. Matt deserves a pay raise and a promotion. Matt deserves a wife.

That's not OK, because in reality I deserve nothing. I had to confess that this morning. I have to let go. That pride has to be killed.

It continually amazes me how faithful God is to respond when we capitulate and give in. Even in the space of today I can feel the closeness returning. I don't understand that kind of loyalty and faithfulness.

It's time to get up off the ground and start running again.

Still Here

Yep, I'm still alive, people - just been busy lately. Also trying to spend a little less time online and more time doing constructive things, like reading. And reading. Nothing of major importance to update ya'll on right now anyway, except that I am trying to regress to the bookworm roots of my youth.

Now, off to go read a book!

God's Chisel

I am really, really thankful for God's working on my heart and on my character. It's not always fun or enjoyable (in fact it very, very rarely is), but at the end of the road there's nothing better. Anything good in me I owe to Him.

Romans 8 Shows Up

You know, it's funny.

These days, my old struggles seem hardly even consequential most of the time. The complete lack of control over my own mind, the depression, the sense of darkness that hung over everything - these all seem like bad dreams that I had when I was young, not facts of life just a few short years ago. And lately, it seems like most days just pass by without much thought to what was once the most enslaving sin in my life. Even temptation is easy to say no to. It's just not attractive. I know where those roads lead, and I don't want to go down them.

But this season of relative calm and peace always gets disturbed, because there's eventually a moment where I get totally blindsided, out of nowhere, and it's all I can do not to flip out because of the pressure. They happen during some of the most inconsequential moments of life: shopping at the grocery store, writing an email at work, having a cup of coffee, reading a book, driving in my car. Yesterday one hit while driving home from work.

Two things happen in those moments:

1. I am profoundly conscious of the fact that there is an excruciating, deep longing that I don't think I will ever be able to fully describe. It is as though a vacuum opens up at the core of your being and begins to swallow everything like a black hole. But no matter how much it takes, it can't be satiated, and feeling that futile desire is probably as close to hell as I will ever get.

2. Even in the intense feeling of the idolatrous desires of my heart, I am profoundly conscious of my burning desire to go home. Home home. My soul groans for redemption in these moments.

In these moments I have to remind myself that the Holy Spirit is interceding for me with groanings too deep for words. For I know not what I should pray at those times. I have no words to speak, can't speak, can't think, can't focus, can't even breathe sometimes. But what I could never express if I wrote volumes or talked for years is known by my Father, and His will is known by the Spirit. And the Spirit intercedes for me according to my Father's will. Romans 8:26-27. My Father's will. Not my imperfect, selfish, quick-fix will.

What an amazing fact that is. Let that sink in for a moment. When you can't even breathe, God sends His Spirit to intercede on your behalf, to accomplish His good and perfect will.

And I believe that His will in those moments is twofold.

1. He allows that profound, excruciating longing to be felt for a reason. He doesn't just make it stop. And the reason for that is to continue to draw my attention to Him, the one who created me and who is therefore the only one capable of truly satisfying it legitimately, to His glory and my joy.

2. As He reminds me to look to Him and the cross, He desires me to be acutely aware of my own sanctification. He desires me to read on to verse 28, where He assures me that all things - even these moments of intense trial - work together for the good of those who are called according to His purposes. This is for my good because I am called according to His purposes. This means that I am blessed on the days when these moments of intense trial and temptation come my way, when I feel that if it doesn't let up I just won't be able to make it another day. Why?

Because this is what it looks like to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Philippians 2. We are to be obedient even to death as Christ was obedient to death on a cross. Obedience to the point of the death of our sin, putting it to death day in and day out. These horrible moments - in the grocery store, in the car - these are the opportunities for me to understand what it means to have my sin nailed to a cross so that it may die and I may live.

These are the death throes of the old heart's idolatry and the sanctification of your new heart. You are being transformed to look more like Jesus. 2 Corinthians 3:18. From one degree of glory to another.

Jesus cried out, hanging from my cross 2,000 years ago, that it is finished. My redemption is accomplished. The veil has been torn from top to bottom. I think that of all the images in Scripture, that is the one that is the most emotionally powerful for me. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the sky turning black, rolling clouds, a powerful earthquake, and the veil shorn in two? The Most Holy Place, once a room of privilege, fear, and unparalleled risk, now exposed to all; open, free, inviting, in the most beautiful symbolism ever to grace the face of the earth?

In that moment 2,000 years ago, my redemption was finished. It was accomplished. Period. End of sentence, end of story. Matthew's story ends with redemption.

All that remained was for me to be born and to live out the story that had now been written. And so here I am, living this story. Working out my salvation in the produce section of Safeway, in the right lane on Westlake avenue, at a streetside table at Uptown Espresso. All according to His will and through the intercession of the Holy Spirit.

You need to know that the story of your life is not the story of what you did with the years you were alive. The story of your life is the story of a God who transforms. He re-creates. He makes all things new.

He makes all things new.