Sweet Release

Let me tell you what sweet release means to me.

Several years ago, my wife had an operation on her foot that left her nearly helpless for weeks. Unable to walk, there was little she could do but lie down, bear agonizing pain, and hope for some relief when she took pain meds.

I got the call a few days after her surgery. All I could hear as I picked up the phone was “Anthony, I need you!”.  I raced home to find her in excruciating pain, and with eyelids swollen. Her throat was starting to swell. The pain medication had triggered an allergic reaction.

We raced to the ER, as much as you can race with someone who cannot walk, in pain almost too great to talk.

I have never felt quite as powerless as I did that day. Powerless to provide comfort, powerless to provide relief, powerless to fix anything. As she laid in the ER bed, eyes closed due to the pain, the doctor injected her with something that must have been from heaven.

The look that came across her face is burned into my memory. Sweet release, played out right before my eyes.

That’s what sweet release means to me.  The memory of that day, the day I was powerless to help. The day I watched my wife go from unbearable pain to sweet, peaceful rest in a matter of seconds.

Quieting The Storm

The days leading up to our ER visit had been like a quiet storm. Constant pain, broken sleep, more pain. A storm of discomfort and anxiety. By the time we reached the ER, it felt like a tornado.

Jesus said it’s not those who are well that need a doctor, but those who are sick.

Maybe you’ve got enough money that you can ignore the deep, inner pain that so many people deal with their whole lives. Maybe you don’t know any people who’s lives are a wreck. Maybe you never see pain.

But for many of us, people like me, we’ve reached a point where we are not among the well. We count ourselves among the sick, the broken, the hopeless.

For 30 years of my life, I wrestled with so many deeply rooted issues of significance, worthiness, fear, and at times depression. No amount of money, or friends could hide the fact that something was wrong.

The picture of how I felt inside would look much like Lori’s face right before the medication hit. A tired, worn-out soul, a heart bruised and covered with scar tissue, too hurt to know that there was anything better.

..from the grip of these chains

One day, my first set of chains broke off. They were the chains I had been using to convince myself that nobody cared about what I had to say. Chains around my own self-worth.

And when they broke off, I broke down. I don’t know which was stronger, the grip the chains had on me, or the grip I had on those chains. But the feeling I experienced as they dropped was like nothing else I had ever been through.

That day, the storm inside quieted for the first time I could remember. I felt like I could breath for the first time. A millstone had been lifted from around my neck.

And when I looked up, I saw a God that had not been putting his foot on my neck to keep me down. Rather, he had been waiting, all those years, to take my pain, my heartache, my chains.

Waiting for me to walk by his side, released from false obligation, unbearable expectation, fear of failure, and the constant fear of abandonment.

That’s why when I hear the words of this chorus, the words come from a place inside so deep, that the tears often prevent me from singing.

Confronting Sin

Pat’s statements about Haiti being cursed because of their ‘deal with the devil’, brings each of us face to face with our own willingness or embarrassment about confronting sin.  Let’s forget for a second the timing of Pat’s comments, or even what he was referring to.  Forget the situation, the people, the messenger, and ask yourself “Am I willing to call sin, sin?”

Forget about Pat Robertson for a second. The fact of the matter is, if you’re like me, you’d never say anything like that whether it was right or wrong because you’d be too scared.  And God wants to change that. There is a time and a place for us to confront sin. Jesus did it, his disciples did it, and so must we.  The Holy Spirit will tell you when and how, but to act as if we can go through life, and pretend that everything around us is OK, is naive.

So, Pat was wrong, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid to say the right thing when the time comes.

Sin and Consequence

What do you actually believe about the protection or lack of it, when we live by, or ignore a relationship with God?  I am not going to address this on the national, but rather on a personal level.

The fact is, when we walk in relationship with God, through Jesus, we have two kinds of protection. The first is the supernatural protection that you read about in the Bible through miracles. The second is the insight and foresight that the Holy Spirit gives us when we allow him to live through us.

If you live in relationship with God, and live according to his principles, you will avoid many, many things that other people have to deal with. Both because of his protection, and because of the simple fact that his principles work. In the areas that you ignore him, you will inevitably experience hardship. But not all hardship is because you’re ignoring God. The two principles are not mutually exclusive.

But if you do not live in relationship with him, and you open yourself up to all manner of ungodly influence, the consequences can be fatal.  This is not because God is judging you, but rather because he has already judged the sin, and you’re walking right in it. He’s offering relationship to protect you from the things that will harm you, and when you choose those things over him, the curse of those sins comes walking into your life like a virus on the hands of a dinner guest.

Just because Pat Robertson gets on TV and crassly states that God is judging a country right after they experience their worst disaster in centuries, that doesn’t mean that we can discount the fact that in our own lives, our sin will lead us to the very things that God will warn and protect us from.

It sounds unrelated, but at least for this Christian, they are not. I’m not in the nation-judging business, but part of what Pat Robertson said stirs an uncomfortable pot in my spirit. I think it’s wise to realize that a bit of truth mixed with a lot of crazy, still has a little truth that we can extract for ourselves.  And the truth is, sin takes us in the opposite direction of God’s protection.

The Problem With Pat Robertson

So now that I’ve wrung the only positive things from Pat’s statements I could find, let me talk about why I think he should have gotten prayed up before getting shaved up that morning.

Timing and Tone matter. Jesus was not a blundering idiot. He was a master of nuance, tone, approach, and wording. Because the Holy Spirit gave him the words and when to say them. Negative tone combined with bad timing can be extremely hurtful.

I don’t claim to be a biblical scholar. But I know the voice of God. And I know a bit about how he speaks to, and about, those who are hurting. And he doesn’t say what Pat Robertson said, when Pat Robertson said it.

God may send someone to tell a country to repent from witchcraft. But when God sends them, the buildings will still be standing.

When the buildings are in shambles, when the people are dying and in desperate need of hope, God offers his love, not his judgment.  How do I know?

Because in our darkest moments, God does not come at us with fists, he comes at us with open arms. Because when we are hurting, we are most aware that we are desperate for hope and love. There is a time and place for accountability, for strong words, and difficult truths. But that time is not now. And Pat Robertson should know that.

Pat, I wish instead of sitting in your thousand dollar chair, blaming judgment and curses for people crushed under collapsed buildings, you had instead listened to the voice of God and said this.

“Our prayers are with the people of Haiti in the midst of this terrible tragedy. I call on Christians around the world to pour out the love of our God to that country right now. To show his mercy and love to those who are hurting. Give of your finances bountifully, and pray without ceasing for those still in need of rescue. And be a source of hope to those around you who have none.”

That was the tone needed for the timing of that day.

“Some days I have to choose between taking a shower and eating.”

This is the kind of thing you get to hear when you’re not paying attention to what’s really happening in your household.  Unless you’re unfortunate enough to have a spouse that can hold everything in.  Thankfully mine cannot.

After Austin was born, our lives were turned upside down. Lori went from career woman to mother in 24 hours. At first, I was very helpful, making sure she didn’t have to do an any laundry, dishes, cleaning or cooking.

After a week or two, I got comfortable and lazy. And because she’s awesome, Lori picked up the slack. If I didn’t do the dishes, she did.  If I forgot to bring the laundry up from the dryer, she did.

I conveniently ‘forgot’ how much work she was doing at home taking care of a newborn, while I sat in my comfortable chair at a desk. I assumed that since she wasn’t complaining about anything, she must be getting better at this mothering thing and able to handle some of the housework again.

The problem is, none of my information was from outside my own head. Lori never told me that she found herself sitting around wondering what to do with her time. I never asked her if she still wanted me to keep doing all the housework.

I just stopped.

And we stopped talking about it.

Then one night, thankfully, she couldn’t take it any more and we had a very uncomfortable talk.  I listened to her describe her day, realizing how inattentive I had been, and how close to depression she was slipping.

All while I sat at my desk drinking coffee at work every morning.

It would have been much easier if she had been accusing me of being lazy, and not caring. Then I could have just gotten defensive, and we could have both felt entitled to something.

But as she poured out her heart to me, she wasn’t accusing me, she was practically begging for help. Because she was trying to do it herself and she needed my help.

You may be intuitive, you may be perceptive. But I challenge you to ask your spouse today if they need your help in some way you don’t know about.

Unless you ask, you’re just guessing.

But we were created to love, endure wounds, and to be healed.  Not to build up scar tissue around the part of us that most resembles our creator.

My Baby

Yesterday, my 11 month old baby boy pulled a wooden stool down on top of his head as he fell backwards onto our hardwood floors. I ran upstairs to find him in my wife’s arms crying.

Then he stopped. His little head rested against her chest, and those normally sparkling eyes slowly closed.  And my heart nearly stopped as my wife cried out “Why isn’t he crying?”

In that moment, I felt an indescribable fear, a prelude to the pain that would certainly follow if those eyes did not open again.

40 minutes late, as we left the ER, it was very clear that he was fine. But I was not.

Several month into our journey as parents, I laid awake at night, staring at the ceiling, feeling an anxiety similar to what a skydiver must feel before leaping from a plane.  It’s the anxiety you feel knowing that you’re engaging in something you love, but knowing that you’re also exposing yourself to the very real danger of being hurt.

Having a son has uncovered some very tender parts of my heart.  There are times when I hold him that I feel my chest might burst with happiness.  It’s more powerful than how I felt when I got married.

That’s because my heart was not always so free to love recklessly.

Scar Tissue

As a teenager, I was a drama king, and had no idea what depression was. I went through numerous emotionally taxing relationships. Upon graduating college, I quickly experienced another gut wrenching disappointment, and began to build up my defenses. Protecting myself from getting hurt again.

By the time I reached 26, my heart was so callous I could barely feel any emotions resembling the love that had allowed me to get so scarred. Then I met the woman I knew would become my wife.

My heart slowly began to thaw as I approached my wedding day. I wrote a song to propose to her, and as I wrote it, I spent more than an hour in tears, as I felt the flow of emotion that had long been absent.

As I played it for her, more tears flowed.  Tears that she didn’t fully understand, and that I am only now starting to understand myself. There were several times over the next year where my heart seemed to melt a bit more.

By the time my son was born, my heart seemed free of the callous scar tissue that had once protected me from getting hurt.  And the emotions flowed freely.  It has been wonderful.

But as I lie awake staring at the ceiling, I considered the possibility that I could lose both of them. A small voice told me that unless  I kept myself from loving too much, I would certainly be hurt so deeply by that situation, I could not fathom the pain that would follow.

Think deeply about that. I was scared of loving my wife and son too much because of how bad it would hurt if I lost them.

It’s the same feeling that caused me to begin building up scar tissue around the hurt areas following my stream of hurtful relationships. An effort to protect myself from future wounds.

But what I didn’t realize then was that scar tissue prevents as much as it protects. To experience love requires sensitivity, and scar tissue that protects you from hurt, also prevents you from feeling, even when you want to.

That night, I realized something profound.

If the worst happened, if I lost those that I loved so much, my biggest regret would be that I didn’t get  and express as much love as I could possibly could while I had the chance.

The Point Of No Return

The little scare with our son reminded me of that truth.  I am in this too deep to back up. I am hopelessly in love with my wife and my son. If something happens to them, I am without a backup plan. I am vulnerable because I love them.

I was created to love them recklessly, without restraint, and without anything protecting me from hurt.  I was also created to carry inside me the one who can heal any wound, and the one who pours out the love that flows through me as I love them.

Living a safe life by restraining our love is not living. It’s survival. We were not created to simply survive, we were created to live. To love. To hurt. And to heal.  So if you’ve been protecting your heart because you’ve been hurt, consider taking your foot off the brake, give Jesus the drivers seat, and love like you were created to do.

But this past year has been full of projects that seemed to follow longer arcs than I’m used to. From the starting point to the ending point, there was enough distance and height in the arc for me to lose sight of why I started on this project, and unable to see the finish point, and unable to see the ground to know how high this arc had taken me.

It’s not a perfect metaphor, but it’s the best way I can think to describe some of the things that happened.  I’ll just share one example.

My dad was unemployed for about 9 months starting in Sept. of 2008.  At some point in spring of 2009, on one of their trips to visit us, we jokingly suggested that he look for a job in State College. We said that if he got a job here, we could hire my mom as Austin’s nanny instead of putting him in daycare.

It started as a joke, but the more we thought about it, we realized how many ways this could work, and how great a blessing this would be for them and us.  My mom was very, very overworked, my dad needed a job, and we needed a nanny.

The vision was very clear back then. So when my Dad got a job offer in State College, it seemed like it was a quick work of God. A month later, he moved up here. My mom could not move at that time, as she was so deeply rooted in her two jobs, she could not simply pick up and leave.

It took over two months for my mom to finally move up here for good. And even then, for the first month or so, she was back and forth a lot visiting with her dad who was in the process of going home to see his maker.  I remember thinking right before she moved up here, how it seemed like so long ago that we ever had this idea, and now, literally 6 months later, it still wasn’t ‘finished’.

Our vision was for my parents to have a secure home here in State College, for my mom to be free of the demands of her jobs, and for everyone to work together to make our unusual household run.  Instead, we had my parents living apart, my dad working hard to adapt to a new job, my mom trying to clean up after years and years of being solely responsible for too many things, Lori preparing to return to work, and I had just left my job to continue running my guitar lesson business.

This was not the picture we had in our minds so many months ago. I felt like we were at the top of a very long arc, unable to see where we started, and unsure if there was an end to this arc that connected with the ground. But I felt God telling me that this was the nature of long, drawn-out projects, even the ones that he starts.

Unlike the quick, can’t-catch-my-breath projects that are over and done so fast, these slow works of God require a strong relationship, especially at the peak, when you’re the farthest from anything that looks like the dream that you began with, and the reality of the finished work.  Without that relationship, you’ll be tempted to get distracted with something else that looks easier to complete. Or to try and force a quick end to the project.

Only when you know God’s voice will you hear him say “I started this. It’s real. It will be finished.”

Of course, there’s always the situations where we started on some project that was never ordained by God, and we find ourselves in this situations, just with a different response from him.  Although, hearing his voice is a great way to avoid finding yourself on an arc with no end.  If you find yourself there, you still need to have that relationship, to hear him say “Not this way, not right now.”

Either way, the arc, the project, the time, none of it is the focus. Those are just things we do. The real key is why we do it, and that’s directly connected to our relationship with Him. If that’s intact, there’s no arc too long for us to follow.

If you’ve ever tried to push a car with no driver at the wheel, you already know the problems of being pushed.  There’s a reason that cars are towed from in front, rather than pushed from behind.  But more on that in a minute.

A summary of this post

I spent over 8 years using all my skills to to gain attention and validation for myself as a musician in a band.  This need for validation and attention served as my steering as I was pushed by the need to please people and the drive to accomplish great things.  I couldn’t even see God’s plan for my life because it didn’t involve the things that I thought would bring me the most attention. Once God healed the areas that caused me to be driven, and I learned to follow his leading, I was able to follow him along a path that brought me more fulfillment than I ever experienced while being driven and pushed.

Where He’s Led Me

Over the past 16 months, I’ve been creating blues guitar lessons and posting them on YouTube, and selling them to like-minded guitarists around the world.

As of this writing, these lessons have attracted over 2 million views on YouTube, and draw about 10,000 people a month to my website.  I get emails from people every day that would, and sometimes do, make a grown man shed a tear of joy.  Emails telling me about how someone picked up the guitar after 20 years and is finally playing the way they always wanted, or how a proud dad is watching his 6 year old son learning things he never thought possible.

Most of the skills I needed to accomplish this I had learned long before I ever started to use them this way.

Where I Was Driven

Being driven can make you do some crazy things.  The slightest bit of ’tilt’ in your wheels can cause you to veer off course, at the mercy of whatever drives you.

For the longest time, I thought I was going to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Not once did I stop to consider why.  I realize today that I had a massive need for validation.  My guitar playing skills were what I felt made me special, and I intended to prove it to the world.

My steering was off.

With such a void in my life, the constant push to please people, and the pressure to accomplish, I was pushed again and again, driven off course by the loneliness that ached at my very core.

I spent 10 years of my life starting bands, playing a few gigs, writing songs about stuff that only mattered to me, and constantly wondering when my ship was going to come in and rescue me from this life of obscurity that I was condemned to with all the ordinary people of the world.  I was destined for greatness, and all my skills were testament to that fact.

I made websites, advertisements, logos.  I converted a spare room or basement in every house I rented into a recording space for my ‘art’.  In 2001 I recorded a CD and played every instrument and sang everything myself.  By the time I had spent $2000 getting it finished, I realized that it sucked and over 900 of them still sit in boxes in my attic.

In 2005 I recorded another live CD of a concert I had been planning for 6 months.  The quality was mediocre at best, yet I sank another $2000 into getting another set of boxes full of CDs for my attic, again.

I prided myself on my songwriting skills.  I wrote complex songs that didn’t groove, and abandoned the music that I really loved. The strangest things is that I was taking songwriting cues from other songwriters who’s music I didn’t even really enjoy.

Being pushed to please people caused me to expend my time and energy on projects that I had not even consulted my wife about.  For many months, I had people coming into our house 2 or 3 times a week to record.  All because I felt a false sense of obligation to people that I loved, a slight misalignment in my steering that allowed me to be driven off the path that God would have had me on.

One day my wife asked me what my 5 year plan was, and I was brought face to face with the reality that I had no vision for my life.  I had no 5 year plan.  I was completely caught up in what I could do right now to make myself known to the world.

When I Stalled

It’s a vast oversimplification to say that I read some books and was fixed, but that’s how it started.  I learned some things about my faith that I hadn’t known before, and before you know it, I stopped caring about getting a record deal or getting famous.  I stopped feeling obligated to please people, or even to participate in most things I was doing.  I just wanted to stop.  So I did for a while.  And it felt good.

But that’s not where it ended.

The Pulling Begins

In October 21, 2007 I put up my first guitar lesson on YouTube, and in less than 4 months I was selling hundreds of lessons a month to people around the world.  I didn’t start with a plan, I had no agenda.  I actually felt like I could barely keep up with the growing success of the lessons.

Slowly I began to see myself being pulled along a path that I had never seen.  I had answered a simple question from God that night when he asked me “Why aren’t you putting guitar lessons on YouTube?”  I wasn’t driven to do it, I just did what I felt he had asked me to do.

As the lessons grew more and more successful, I tried to turn the steering wheel a couple times, but when you’re being pulled by a force stronger than your ability to turn the wheel, the pull straightens out your steering.  His leading kept me from getting bogged down in things that would only take me off course.  The vision of where he was leading me was so compelling that it caused me to stop putting my hands on the wheel and just trust the pull.

It was as if he was in control.

I’m not going to suggest that God is the only source of pulling.  Certainly people who don’t know God are pulled by great dreams of things to come.  But I truly believe that God’s pull is the one that will bring the most fulfillment in any person’s life.

But it’s hard to be led, when you’re still being driven.

Christians interpreted the movie "The Matrix" the way we interpret a lot of things.  Because of our inexperience, and lack of understanding of what it really means to know God and abide in his love, a lot of us latched onto the most obvious metaphor the movie provided.  Neo was supposed to set people free from the pretend world where people were unconscious slaves to the machines.  Just like Jesus sets us free from our slavery to sin.  And the fact that the "real world" was dark, dingy, full of pain and suffering, hard work, and constant danger, fit very well with a worldview that many Christians hold. 

Sin is glamourous, full of color, bright, shiny, just like the pretend world of the matrix.  But of course anything that glitters can’t be God, so the real world must be shades of grey and black with striving, and suffering everywhere.  But hey, at least we’re not living in that awesome pretend world of sin anymore…

This is a twisted view of reality.  The Matrix had it backwards.  And a lot of us bought it hook line and sinker.

The reality is this.  Sin is not glamourous, it’s not shiny.  Sin is dark, it’s miserable, and it eats you from the inside out.  Our life without God resembles more of the "real world" of the Matrix.  No refuge, no comfort, just a confusing maze of tunnels and robots that like to try and kill us with their long tentacles.  OK, so I made up the part about the robots, but really, we need to stop treating sin like "it looks so good but it’s really not".  Take a look at someone who’s lived a hard life of sinnin, and see how glamourous they are.  And the thing is, sin is not fake. It’s very real, and so is the pain and despair that come along with it.  It’s a cursed land, and people who live there are going to have to deal with all that comes along with being separate from God.

So if sin is like the "real world" in the matrix, what does that make life with Jesus like?  I have found that in the past 2 years, my life looks more and more like the fake world inside the matrix, except that it’s real.  My world is brighter, more joyful, more peaceful, and I can leap from one building to another with a single bound.  I honestly think that the colors of nature around me are brighter and more colorful too, but that could just be because I’m finally able to take time to look at them instead of living my life in fast forward always thinking about the next thing I’m going to accomplish.

This metaphor is far from perfect, but I hope that it makes some sense those who read it.  Life after death to sin is not supposed to be a constant struggle, a dark world of grime and grease and robots.  Rather, Jesus sets us free from a life that looks like that, and opens up the door to constant communion with the Father, and that kind of life is full, overflowing, and abundant.  Maybe not always in the physical sense, but what we experience in Him does not have to match what’s going on around us.

If your picture of "the Christian life" has looked more like the Nebuchadnezzar in The Matrix, ask yourself if this is the kind of thing Jesus really died for.  Sin separated us from God, and we’ve been miserable ever since.  Did Jesus die so we could wake up to a life dirty torn clothes and cold metal beds?  Or did he die so that we could wake up into a new world of uninhibited, unconditional love from our Creator?

Am I reminding God of something he forgot about?  Does he ever get a startled look on his face when I pray "God, so distant and powerful, I want to remind you about that thing that my friend is dealing with right now." He never actually answered me by saying "Oh yeah, that thing…. Don’t worry, I got it covered, thanks for reminding me….", so I always suspected it was kind of pointless to bring up stuff as if he didn’t already know.

But something inside me knew that there had to be a reason to pray for someone.  We’re not alerting God of a situation he wasn’t aware of.  He’s not watching our prayers like we watch the news to get the latest updates.  He’s already ahead of us on all of this stuff, but there has to be some reason he wants us to pray.

In order to understand it, I think we have to look at what his entire purpose of creating us was.  Relationship.  For whatever reason, God keeps wanting to involve us in his will on earth.  Sounds crazy, knowing how good I am at taking care of my own responsibilities, but for some reason he gives me the opportunity to interject my disfunctions into his divine will instead of just letting me sit on the sidelines.

So I think I’m starting to learn that prayer is not about waking God up from his power nap after church to remind him that one of my friends just got fired and needs a job.  It’s about realizing that he’s already working in that person’s life, and all he wants me to do is agree with him here on earth that I want His will to be done in that person’s life.

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven".

There would be other times when she would ask a question, and for whatever reason I didn’t understand what she was asking. But instead of simply asking her to repeat it, my response to her seemed to say "What is wrong with you, why can’t you explain this?". Part of this stemmed from my frustration about not being able to understand what she’d be saying. Nevertheless, it is something I had to learn to stop doing because of how it affected her, but still,I did not understand why.

Then one day, in a split second, I had a revelation that rocked my world. The Holy Spirit showed me a vision of my wife as a little girl, growing up, completing high school, going to college, getting 3 degrees. Graduating with a Ph.D, doing awesome research, being confident in her abilities. Taking care of herself, and doing fine.

The he showed me her beginning to doubt herself. All of a sudden she’s not so sure she knows what she’s doing anymore. Even basic things like paying bills, and banking etc… She begins to wonder if she’s not that intelligent, and that causes her to second guess everything she does.

Now comes the fun part. At that moment, the Holy Spirit revealed to me that this is what my words were doing to Lori. A strong woman who had been doing just fine on her own, now in marriage beginning to doubt herself because of the way I treated her.

My heart was broken, but not from guilt, or shame. It was broken for her sake. I felt God speak to me and say

"How dare you speak to her in such a way, someone that I love so much."

This was not condemnation, it was correction. And I needed it. Lori needed my support, not my correction. She needed someone to praise her, not look at her with frustration. It broke my heart to think that someone who used to be confident in herself, would look inward and think "Maybe I don’t really know what I’m doing", because of something I said.

When we begin to understand how much God loves us, and we stop being so hard on ourselves, our hearts become soft enough to realize how much we’ve hurt other people. Things we couldn’t see before because we were afraid to look. This experience was painful, but I was ready to face it because I knew that God would not abandon me for having done something so hurtful. That’s a wonderful place to be.

Not because I was scared, not because I felt bad, but because I simply in that moment didn’t want to contribute to the possibility of getting cancer someday. As I left the store, I realized that this is the first time I’ve been leaning one way on a food issue, and upon a small nudge from the Holy Spirit, changed my mind simply because of what He told me.

What a strange feeling to be able to abandon something you want so quickly because He asks you to. In that moment, the will of Anthony Stauffer ceased to exist, and all I wanted was to do what He asked of me, regardless of how I felt about it. My desires would be to do what He required.

As soon as I reached the stairwell in my building, the spell was broken and I immediately went back to being impatient, and edgy as I followed someone up the stairs at a forth of my normal speed. But for a brief instant, I had a glimpse of how Jesus approached life. Simple obedience to the one He loved.

However I find myself now facing some new things in life that could mean some radical changes to the structure I’ve gotten used to.  It feels like the beginning of a new adventure.  And I find this new-found peace being shaken by an invitation to come along for a life-changing journey.  There was a time when I plunged head first into things like this because of the need to prove myself to everyone, to prove myself worthy of God’s love.  To earn the respect of others.

However, now that much of that has passed, I find myself here still afraid of change, worried that the blessings will run out.  So without the push of my ego and need for validation, I have to ask myself, why would I go?  Why would I dare mess with what’s working?  Why would I try something new?

I am compelled to accept the invitation because I believe that He has good things for me ahead.  He will not force me to go anywhere.  But if I accept the invitation to follow Him through this transition period, I know it will be a great adventure.

Have you ever faced a potential life-changing decision?  Do you just plunge in headfirst with no thought for why you do it?  Maybe you sit back and do nothing because you’re afraid….

Walking with God won’t always be the same picture.  It won’t always be still waters around us.  But He can create still waters inside us.

You see, when I saw God as a distant figure, up in Heaven waiting for me to earn my way into his paradise, I felt like I had to defend that he existed because all I felt between me and Him was distance.  I saw obligation.  He was something that needed proving, defending.

But when I began to actually experience him, I couldn’t find words to prove that it was right.  It seemed pointless to try and prove that this was real.  It’s the difference between showing a picture of your wife to someone and trying to prove you’re married to her, and looking into her eyes and seeing that you are.  One is distant and disconnected, and might even look contrived.  The other is sincere, heart-felt, and real.

I still find apologetics interesting.  I still believe that God’s principles have very beneficial application even outside the church.  I still believe that Jesus’ sacrifice was done in accordance with Hebrew law, and even more so, I still think that the need for salvation is a clear, cogent argument.  But if someone doesn’t believe that, what I experience now might be the most convincing thing I could show them.

And I can’t even find words for it.

Square Pegs, Round Holes

Over the past 12 years, I’ve developed some interesting skills.  I developed the strang ability to mimic the guitar style of Stevie Ray Vaughan, arguably the best blues guitarist of all time.  I also taught myself how to build websites in my spare time. Another computer related skill set I’ve also learned is the art of studio recording and video editing.  To top it off, I was surprised to learn that I make a pretty good teacher on subjects I care about.

So here were 4 fairly disjoint skills that I picked up, and for the longest time I felt like I had a bunch of square pegs and my life was made of round holes.  How in the world could all these things fit together?

• Guitar Playing
• Website design skills
• Recording and video editing
• Teaching

Quieting the noise pollution of religion

Over the past year and a half, I’ve dealt with a lot of old testament style beliefs that I held.  Feeling like I had to earn God’s favor, I had to fix everybody, and make them happy.  These kinds of thoughts and beliefs were polluting the air between me and God to the point where I could not hear him.

As I began to walk away from some of those mindsets, I started to experience a kind of peace I had never felt before.  A peace with who I was, who he had made me.  I began to hear him speak about things I would have never considered important enough to him to talk about.  I began to trust that there really was nothing that he considered insignificant.

The blinders come off

For years I had dreamed of putting together a curriculum to share what I had learned on guitar.  But the task of creating a series of DVDs seemed so monumental I always wondered if I’d ever get the chance to do it.  One night while I was cruising around YouTube, watching videos of other people playing guitar, showing off their amps, pedals, guitars, or just showing off their skills, an idea came from that still small voice that I’ve learned is the Holy Spirit.

"Why don’t you start making your own video guitar lessons, and build a website to show them on?"

And my immediate response was "uh…….yeah.  Why haven’t I?"  It was so simple, it was right there in front of me, and it had never occured to me that I could do it.

To make a short story even shorter, in the 3 months since I put up my first lesson, I’ve had my first 22 lessons watched over 60,000 times on YouTube, I’ve had over 3,000 individual people from over 20 countries visit my website.  The number of pages viewed on my website is more than 30,000.  I now get about 1100 pages viewed a day on my site and over 1000 video views a day on YouTube.  I’ve had people send me donations, ask me to sell DVD lessons.  I’ve even had people go out and buy amps, guitars, and guitar effects pedals after watching my videos.

All of this was a complete surprise to me.  I have no idea how far this will go, but my bigger question was "Why didn’t I think of this before?".  The skills were there, but I couldn’t see it.  I was so wrapped up in trying to please God, that I couldn’t see the most obvious thing right in front of my eyes.  The one thing that pulls together all my skills towards a common goal.  It makes so much sense now looking back, but for years it was hidden in plain sight.

You can’t afford not to hear God

To close this series, I want to say again that a Christian cannot afford to go through life not hearing God.  We will miss many good things that he’s laid before us, uniquely designed for the skills he’s given us.  While we’re stuck running in circles trying to figure out how to get our act together enough to please him, we will miss the ideas that he’s hidden in plain sight, right in front of our eyes.

The Show Must Go On

This old saying is traditionally used in the context of show biz.  Feeling sick?  The show must go on.  In a bad mood? The show must go on.  I believe that in some twisted way, many Christians in high-profile positions of ministry have come to believe that this is true of their ministry.  Kids out fornicating?  The show must go on. Marriage troubles? The show must go on.  Burning out?  The show must go on.

I believe that the root of this feeling comes from a belief that God cares more about the ministry, than He does about a healthy family.  The thousands of people I preach to are more important to God than the 5 people in my own house.  Maybe there’s even a feeling that God will just magically work out everything at home because being involved in this ministry is so doggone important that he couldn’t possibly expect me to take time off to deal with it.

Is it possible, just maybe,. that when we’re going through a crisis at home God would understand if we lay down the ministry for as long as it takes to heal those areas?

If I don’t do it, nobody will

This is another poisonous attitude that plages many Christian’s in ministry.  I know first-hand how this belief can grip you and make it impossible to tear away from what you believe God has you on this earth to do.  Besides being unbiblical, this is also prideful.  Somehow, in all his infinite power, God is incapable of reaching the people I reach, through anyone else.  The danger is, if we really believe this lie, taking time off to deal with our most important ministry ( family ), will be weighed against a false weight of people that won’t be reached if we stop.

What about the people?

The truth is, anytime we are active in ministry, there are people in our immediate sphere of influence.  If we stop right now, some of those people will not be reached tomorrow, next week, or maybe next year.  But it’s a lie from the devil himself that those people need me to save them.  God loves every one of the people I minister too.  But they are HIS people.  Not mine.

The belief that God needs me to reach this person and this person is classic role reversal.  The truth is, I am the one who needs him.  So often it seems that people in ministry hope that his grace extends backwards into their households, which they are ignoring.  Why can’t that same grace keep everyone else, while I deal with my family? 

Too Little, Too Late

Very often, by the time we hear about problems, it’s too late for the person in question.  I’m trying to remember a single case where someone in public ministry stepped back from the public eye for a while, and then had their marriage fall apart within the next year.  Most often I remember stories of people going through divorce, then having to step back from ministry.

Stepping back from ministry after the storm has done its damage is no way to live life.  Maintaining a balanced life that has correct priorities is the best way.  Stepping away from that which is less important to deal with family when problems start, is also wise.  But this attitude that the show must go on, no matter what’s happening at home is nothing  but deception.

"Can I have another shot of those eye drops?"

I would have done anything to get rid of that pain.  I knew the drops were not good for my eyes in the long run, but I just didn’t care.  Once I experienced even a little bit of relief, I just wanted to keep the pain away.  Thank God the doctors weren’t allowed to give me what I wanted that day.

Sin is medication – Most things that we consider "bad" are really just pain medication.  Most people feel a dull ache in their soul and will do anything to find some satisfaction.  That ache comes from a lifetime of missing the one thing that can fulfill us completely.

The ache inside - Most of us crave attention.  We long for someone to tell us we’re valuable.  There’s a reason for that.  We were all born incomplete.  There is a need for validation, affection, completion, and affirmation that every single person needs.  Parents, peers, children, and friends cannot completely fill this need. 

So some people turn to Jesus.  They’re promptly taught that the answer to that ache is to serve Jesus.  To do good works.  But they never really learn to experience God rather than serve him.  They continue doing God’s work, thinking that in that work come fulfillment.  But the hunger deep inside for approval and validation continues to hurt.

Is it any wonder that so many people turn to alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, sex, fame, or any number of other things?  What do you do when nothing anyone says takes away the ache in your soul?  If you can’t fix it, than you might as well numb the pain. 

Addicted to numbness – There is a physical side to addiction, but I believe there’s also an emotional side to it as well.  How many people get completely wasted because for a couple of hours they feel free from the cares of the world, and they temporarily stop feeling that something is just wrong without being able to fix it. To feel that temporary freedom becomes an addition.  And pretty soon the physical catches up with the emotional and now our bodies are as addicted as our souls are.

Living Water – God is the only thing that can take away the ache in our soul.  The feeling of emptiness.  But it doesn’t happen by studying the Bible if we still view him as a far-in-the-distance God.  Until we come to grips with the fact that he wants to be integrated into our lives like breathing will we experience the fulfillment that only he can bring.

It’s a good thing to stop every once in a while and ask ourselves this question. 

"How difficult is it for me to be a good Christian?" 

Eucalyptus Jesus

A while back Lori and I travelled to Las Vegas.  While staying at the Luxor Hotel, we went to a day spa.  I had never been to any such thing before, so I didn’t know what to expect.  One of my favorite things about it was the sauna, with eucalyptus steam.  Sitting in there in the intense heat, breathing in the sinus clearing eucalyptus steam was a refreshing and restful experience. 

As I left the sauna, I was sweating, so I went to the huge jacuzzi, where I soaked for as long as I could stand the water.  Then I grabbed some juice, a newspaper, and just sat on a lounge chair by the pool for a good while.

I abided in that spa for just a couple of hours and it refreshed me more than anything else on that trip.  Imagine if I could pack up that day spa in a box and take it with me anywhere.  The next time I need a break from whatever is frustrating me, I take a few minutes to soak in the dense, refreshing eucalyptus steam.

How much more kind, patient, compassionate, and loving would I be if I could experience that anytime, anywhere?  I’m getting to a place where I’m realizing that experience the presence of God is every bit as refreshing as that spa.  It refreshes my spirit, my mind, and my soul.

Abiding in God instead of working for him

Jesus instructed us to abide in him as He abides in us ( John 15:4 ).  Should that be something that take a lot of work.  Does it take a lot of work to abide in your house?  When you sit down on your sofa, is that a lot of work?  Do you have to earn the right to be in your house?  Maybe your house needs some work done, so it does take some work.  But Jesus ain’t no fixer-upper.  He don’t need any work.  Abiding in him is a place of resting, not a place of labor.

If we perceive our walk with God to be one that involves strain, friction, tension, labor, etc…  we begin to develop calluses on our heart that prevent us from experiencing the fruits of the Spirit.  We think that praying must be done a certain way, at a certain time of day, in a certain place.  So getting to that place is sometimes difficult, but we strain to make it there faithfully because that’s what a good Christian does.

We work so hard making sure that no one else experiences any kind of inconvenience or hardship, maybe partly because we think God expects that of us.  So our relationship with him becomes callused.

God is not our work

There are certainly things in this life that will require us to work hard.  We will develop calluses to many things.  We’ll grow callused to the shock of waking up early in the morning.  We’ll grow callused to the cold wind on our face.  We may even grow callused to the back breaking labor required to do some of our jobs.

But God is not our work.  Our work is not a prerequisite for being in relationship with him.  It’s important not to confuse the two.  God is IN our work, but he is not our work.  Our work may give us calluses, but God will not.

Rest for the weary

Some people have been building callused hands and hearts by working for a God they barely know for so long that they wouldn’t hear God’s voice if he spoke to them verbally.  The good news is that there’s a place of rest for even those tired laborers.  No heart is too callused that he can’t soften it.  No spirit is so callused that he can’t break through. 

Give your religious job your two weeks notice.  You just got a new place to live and it’s already paid for.

Lately I’ve been thinking about what relationship with God really means. How are we to interact with him? When are we to talk to him and how are we to do it? How does my life here on earth interface with a supernatural being that I can’t see?

Here’s what I’m realizing. God it interested in every part of our lives (a la Psalm 139). He never wanted to be just another "part" of our lives, he wants to be a part of everything in our lives. In other words, he wants his relationship with us to be our lifestyle.

So if God is a part of everything we do, than we’re never really apart from him. In addition, John 15 says that we are to "abide in him". Other translations word that as "make our home in him". What do we do at home? We live.

So what does church today involve?

1) We have to get ready for church.
2) We have to go to church (by leaving our home).
3) We have to change how we dress.
4) We sit in formal, organized rows and mostly listen.

Is it any wonder that we can start to view our relationship with God as periodic series of events, rather than an "always-on" connection? He becomes something we sit and watch, at a place we go to, after we make sure we look right.

I realize that church services serve a purpose. It’s the only kind of venue where we can have loud praise with instruments and sound systems. We can fit a lot more people together in a service. But services are a terrible metaphor for our always-on, integrated relationship with God.

God is always here, always with me. He’s just as much with me at work as he is at church. I no longer go to church to find Him, I go because I live with Him.