Nothing ruins a good action movie like the main character drifting off into some daydream sequence, away in some peaceful place with his family……

When I watched "The Gladiator" with Russell Crow years ago, I was in awe.  That’s the kind of movie that makes you want to be noble, to do the right thing, and in some weird way learn how to fight with a sword.  Eventually reality sets in the next time you get a paper cut and are tempted to cry about it…but I digress.

The only part I didn’t like about that movie is that Maximus, the big tough Roman Army General turned rebel gladiator, kept having this re-occurring dream sequence where he’d be walking through a field towards his family.  For a long time I just though that the director had included that part of the movie to be artistic, to give the main character some depth.  And I thought it was a waste.

I wanted to see action! I wanted to see Maximus take control of the army, to fight some more battles.  To restore the glory of Rome.  And to give my my money’s worth for the ticket I bought to live vicariously through this movie as an ancient superhero.

Alas, it was not to be.  Maximus dies, and floats away through the grass to his family.  But now, at the young old age of 31, with a life that seems more cluttered than the office I sit in, with too few hours in the day to have both a job and hobbies, I finally understand why the gladiator daydreamed.

At a certain point in your life, you long for the action, for the glory.  You have a point to prove, and you’ll do anything to prove it.  To be peaceful is to be boring.  To be resting is to be wasting time.  So you go out and pack your life full of the things you think you need to do, only to find that they high they bring is only temporary.  It’s never enough, no victory is good enough.

So one day you stop and look around at your life and think "What am I doing?"  "Where is this going to end?".  You take a look around at all the unnecessary things in your life that you’ve been chasing, and all of a sudden you feel like one of those horses pulling a chariot, and the stress of being driven around the ring of life has left you with a tired mind, and an empty soul.

For a while you don’t know what to do.  So you cry a little, get anxious a little, maybe get angry a little.  But at the end of the day, you’ve got a mess to clean up, and there’s no use getting angry about it, it won’t make it disappear any faster.  So you begin to clean up the cluttered mess that is your life.

At some point you begin to get a vision of a place you want to get to.  A peaceful place with only the essentials.  Free to take an evening with your wife to go down to the park without feeling like you’re leaving the world without a savior.  You imagine this place, and then the reality of your situation settles back in. 

But you know where you want to be.

It seems to me that in our culture, there’s a widespread trend of buying lots of stuff, as soon as you can, for as cheaply as you can.  This brings me back to the title of this post.  Quick, Quality, Quantity, pick two.

I want it all, and I want it now

You can certainly have high quality stuff, in large quantities, but it won’t be quick.  It will take time until you own it, which of course includes paying off credit cards used to buy it.  Or you can have high quality stuff, right now (quick), but not very much of it.  Or you can have a lot of stuff, right now, but it won’t be very high quality. 

Unfortunately, I think that this is the mentality that stores like Wal-Mart  promote.  Get everything you think you need, right now, for cheap.  But most of it’s really bad quality.  All ethical issues aside, most of what Wal-Mart sells for cheap is cheap for a reason.  It’s made cheaply.

The part of this that causes me major heartburn, is that it sends the message that quality is expendable.  Just ignore quality, focus on how much you can get.  While this is great in the short term, it breaks down in the long term because of more frequent repairs and replacements.

Learning to appreciate less for more

The idea of spending more money to get less stuff is a pretty direct affront to the mentality that most of us hold.  If presented with an empty living room, most of us would choose to fill it up with a sofa, loveseat, and recliner, TV, and entertainment center, with enough money left over to buy a coffee table.

But what if we made the decision that instead of buying all that stuff, we were going to buy just two pieces of furniture that would last for 15 years.  That’s a really hard decision to make when you’ve traditionally placed a high value on quantity over quality.  If we make that decision, we’ll end up with more comfortable furniture and we’ll worry less about spills because the fabric will be stain proof.  The reality is, for most of us, living that way takes longer.  You can’t have the room filled up right away, because you’re valuing quality over both quantity and quick.

Choosing wisely

Knowing that the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other before settling in the middle, I feel that it would be careless not to mention that price does not equal quality.  Many times one is an indicator of the other, but there’s more than one way to skin a cat.  The rule of thumb I use is this.

Buy the highest quality items you can afford to pay for with cash.

That simple rule keeps you focused on quality, as well as financial stewardship, and that can’t be a bad thing.

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.

I began to realize sometime last year that my perception of what a "normal" day was, had grown bloated.  The problem is, I had started looking at certain tasks that I didn’t particularly like as short, get-it-done-and-move-on tasks.  The more things I committed too, the smaller those things got to be in my mind.  Banking?  No problem.  Doing laundry?  No problem.  I’ll do it right after I get done updating the church website.

The problem is, those things aren’t short little things.  They take time.  And I was doing myself a huge disservice by not accepting that fact.  So I’d end up planning  my day full of so many things that I’d end up feeling like a failure by the end of the day because not everything had gone perfectly.

This also exposes another problem.  My expectations are based on perfection.  I base what’s normal on what’s really exceptional.  I still remember the night I bowled a 221 back at Manheim Lanes.  No one was there to see it, but it became my new "normal" bowling score. From that point on, if I didn’t make 221, I was failing to play up to what I was capable of.

So because there have been a few days where I got an enormous amount of things done because everything went exactly as planned, that has become my idea of a "normal" day.  So anytime anything goes wrong, it feels like I’m failing.  Because I’m looking at near-perfect and confusing it with "normal".

As I look around at American culture, it becomes obvious to me that I’m not alone.  I think that collectively we have a distorted view of what "normal".  Of what one person should be able to do.  Technology has cut so many corners for us, leaving gaping holes in our day, that we then fill with more stuff.  Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I just accepted the fact that I can only get one really important task done in a given evening, and then limited my responsibilities around that reality….

"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.

What if the things I get excited about aren’t really important to him?  What if the things that make me who I am aren’t important to him, but only the things that people traditionally associate with being "Christian".  What if my gift for playing blues guitar doesn’t matter to him?  What if my interests and talents in the technology world are just distractions from what he really wants me to be doing?  What if I’m doing this all wrong?  What if he’s not there with me at work, helping me discover how to solve problems?  What if he’s not really speaking to me throughout the day?

What if God is sitting in Heaven  watching me waste my time down here on things that he’s not interested in? (….silence)

I know now, more than ever, that I will NEVER go back to believing that.  I can’t.  What I have experienced in the last year or so is more precious to me than anything I’ve ever had or known.  If for some reason I got stuck in a really religious church that didn’t believe that this is how God interacts with us, it would break my heart.  If I was told that what I’m gifted in didn’t matter to him, or that my music wasn’t from him, I wouldn’t know how to go on living.

He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

The relationships that I got into were short and dramatic. I had my heart broken in quick fashion. Twice I thought I had met the girl I was going to marry. Until it fell apart. The drama was like a drug, I didn’t know what life was like without it.

When I met Lori, I experienced a peaceful relationship with no drama. It seemed strange and wonderful, but my soul was still in motion, still running. So I worked. And worked. And worked. Kept busy chasing that thing that was always just around the corner. The record deal. Whatever. Missed many quiet evenings together. I was fast-forwarding through life.

But finally, I have come into a place of peace. I have found what I was looking for.  I have found my significance in the only thing that matters.  After 31 years of chasing what can’t be caught, my soul is at rest.

As I listened to them offer us one thing after another, I realized that I was watching someone verbalize what so many of us struggle with.  It’s very hard to accept the fact that when Jesus died for us, it was unconditional.  It wasn’t based on anything we did.  It was based on the fact that God loved us so much.  So this brings up two interesting facts.

1. We cannot earn our salvation because it’s already done.
2. Beacause we can’t earn it, we’ll never deserve it.

Earn

I’m not sure what the dictionary definition of that word is, but I’ve always interpreted it to mean "to make progress towards, to pay off".  There are many things in this life that we must earn.  We must earn our grades, we must earn our pay at our jobs.  But salvation is not something we can’t earn.  We can’t make payments towards it.  If we could that would mean that Jesus’ sacrifice was not enough.  To put it bluntly, God did not send his Son to die for me so that he could hold it over my head for the rest of my life while I pay him back for it.  It was his choice, based on His love for me.  Nothing I can do can make that sacrifice justified.

Deserve

When someone says "you deserve it", they usually mean that you have paid an adequate price for something, it’s rightful that you should have it.  You deserved a promotion because you earned it.  Being deserving of something implies a state of arrival.  When I have arrived at the state of deserving something, it’s because of the long process of earning it.  After I work a full month earning my wages, I deserve my paycheck.

But since salvation cannot be earned, it means that we’ll never deserve it.  We will never arrive at a state where salvation is rightfully ours.  It will forever be the perfect gift that we must accept without the ability to pay off, earn, deserve, or otherwise validate.  And that’s extremely difficult to accept.  Because everything else in my life I feel that I have to earn so that I’ll deserve what I have.

Salvation and beyond…

It’s funny how your perspective on everything changes when you begin to deal with your own discomfort knowing that you’re the recipient of the greatest symbol of love mankind has ever received, and it has nothing to do with your good works.  All of a sudden, you begin to realize that the reason you’ve been judging people is because you’ve always felt that you have what you have because you earned it.  And therefore you deserve it. 

What an amazing life this can be when you can look at all your blessings, and instead of patting yourself on the back for how hard you worked to get it all, you can simply look the Father in the eyes and say "Thank You".  You have what you have because he blessed you with it.  Not because you worked hard, and not because you deserve it.

The things you own end up owning you.

It sounds absurd, but in the end, I believe it’s true. And here’s why. The things you own need to be cared for if you want to enjoy them. The more things you own, the more things you have to take care of. The more things you have to take care of, the less time you have to enjoy them. Eventually you get to the point where you’re not using certain things, but you still have to take care of them. At that point, that thing owns you. It is happy to sit there and rust, but if you let it do that, you’re the one who has to look at it, think of the money you wasted, feel guilty about not caring for it. It owns you. (And let’s not even talk about the stress that comes from worrying about something happening to those precious toys.)

Take my pool for instance. I love the idea of having a pool. I used to imagine myself coming home every day and going for a swim. The problem is reality. In reality, leaves fall in my pool every day. So do frogs, and sometimes birds. They often die in there. So my vision of jumping in the pool right after coming home from work is postponed by at least 20 minutes of work cleaning up the pool every time I want to use it. It will sit there and collect leaves and dumb thirsty animals whether I take care of it or not. Whether I ever take a swim, it will still run out of chemicals and turn green. I must take care of it if I even want the possibility of using it. It owns me.

I also have a really nice miter saw. I don’t use it. So I put it in my shed. Now it’s starting to corrode. Sure it doesn’t take much maintenance to keep it inside, but it takes up space. Precious space. If I didn’t own it, not only would I get more space in my laundry room, but I’d have one less thing to worry about taking care of.

There’s something to be said for things that you get to use, but not own. Chances are, if you have to leave your house to go use something, you won’t need to do anything to it before you use it. And when you’re done, you just go home. Someone else cleans it, someone else takes care of it, and you can get back to doing whatever else it is that you really care about.

I think I’m approaching a point in life where I want to own the fewest amount of things that take the least amount of maintanance.