Friends, Texas & Absolutes

30. I’m thankful to have friends with whom I have stayed in contact over many years and whose friendship always feels like a gift of God no matter how much time passes between our visits.

Chances are good that I’ve lived over half the days allotted to me on this earth. There’s a little shutter in me as I write those words. The chill, however, quickly turns to gratitude for the days behind me. My family and friends top the list of things for which I’m grateful. 

When it comes to friends and staying in touch with them, here’s a toast to technology that makes that so much easier! From emails to social media and texting, staying in touch is so much easier than 30 years ago! 

I know, I know, social media isn’t a real connection. I just want to say, however, as someone who remembers writing countless letters to my girlfriend (who is now my wife!) and paying ridiculous per minute long distance phone call rates, the fact that I can scroll through feeds with pictures documenting daily life in friends’ lives is far superior to waiting days or weeks for word from a friend. 

The nostalgic part misses the labor of letter-writing and waiting on word from an anticipated letter. Although to be sure, if someone from 2022 were to go back in time to my 1989 self and offer me pictures of Meeka on demand, or the ability to text her all day, every day, my twenty-year-old self would’ve taken that without hesitation!

I digress…

Friends. A man with friends is a rich man no matter what his bank account has in it. It’s a Wonderful Life brings tears to my eyes every Christmas Eve as the final scene reframes what’s most important in a man’s life! Closer to home, my parents taught me this. And I’m grateful to be able to say that I have a list of names of people that if any one of them were to show up at my house tonight, I’d enjoy every second catching up, laughing with them, and reminiscing together. 

The Bible says in Genesis that it’s not good that we, as humans, be alone on the earth. If that is true when Adam lived in Eden and walked with God in the garden, it is most certainly true, even more so now. It’s interesting to note that in the Genesis story, when God gives Adam a companion, Eve, it was before the problem of sin. It was paradise, yet something was missing in all of that beauty: friendship and companionship with other humans. The beauty necessitated companionship.

I’ve come to learn that our need for genuine connection isn’t just because we make a mess of things or get depressed on our own. Instead, the need for a real connection with other humans grows out of something very healthy in us. To deny this need or, worse, to try and numb this desire is to kill off something essential to being human, to being our true selves as God created us.

Here’s to all of my friends out there. You remind me that beauty still exists in the world, laughter is easy, tears have been shed and shared, and hope burns bright in your presence. Thank you for all of your love, patience, wisdom, long car rides, walks in the woods, bike rides, concerts, funerals, delivery rooms, mountaintops, and just being you, reflecting God’s grace to me. 

 31. I’m proud to be from Texas.

Most of the friends mentioned above reside in or hail from the Great State of Texas. Obviously, I’m not like some Texans who could never imagine living anywhere else. I currently live in Tennessee, and I have had a couple of stints in Colorado. But, the Lone Star State is and will always be my home. 

Several years ago, a friend of mine was throwing shade on Texas. He was from a neighboring state — rife with jealousy, I’m sure! We eventually got to talking about Meeka being from Canada. He asked me what Canadians think of Americans. I immediately replied, “Canadians think of Americans, what the rest of America thinks of Texans.” 

And yes, the State of Texas has its own pledge that school kids are taught and recite while growing up!

32. I have a strong urge to make sure I avoid extreme viewpoints without nuance and the complexity of reality.

Dr. Curtis Freemen taught a theology course that I took my sophomore year in college. In one of his first lectures, he told the class, “I’m not here to make new ideas safe for you, but to make you safe for new ideas.” 

I was in my early twenties and emerging from my own youthful overconfidence about pretty much everything. Along with other professors and people I admired and looked up to, Dr. Freeman made learning and curiosity attractive to me. I wanted to be like them as they seemed to me to have the ability to sift through complex ideas and offer wisdom. So I tried to listen better, think more deeply, and follow the voice of wisdom. That was thirty-two years ago, and here’s the thing: I’m still listening, thinking, and taking baby steps with wisdom!

I’m learning that the list of things we can be absolutely sure of is short. I’m not saying there aren’t absolutes; I’m just suspect of our ability to see those clearly for what they are. The longer that list grows, the more concerned we should become; the longer our list, the greater chance that others are probably experiencing our sharp edges. 

Case-in-point: the current climate in our public discourse! When we get overconfident in our viewpoints, we have more to lose in every exchange. Conversations are experienced as zero-sum, with a winner-takes-all mentality. This kills much-needed dialogue.

Let’s slow down, talk through essential topics, and listen and learn from each other. Then, we can find a way to a better place, a better way to be human as we commit to learning and growing together. 

Good Friday

What is so good about today? 

The death of Jesus may seem like a terrible day to call good. This would be correct if Jesus's death were the end of a good man's time on earth. Jesus is the kindest, gracious, and loving person ever to walk the planet, so why do his followers call the day they remember his death "Good Friday"? 

Jesus came to earth to bring the gift of God, which is God's grace for the healing and forgiveness of our sin. The good news of Jesus's death, then, means that he destroyed death. Death no longer holds us hostage with fear and worry, threatening to end our life. The death of Jesus destroyed the threat of death and erected the hope for life eternal in its place.

By faith, we are joined with Christ in his death so that we are with him in his resurrection. We walk out of the grave with Jesus into our new life. With every step we take in this new life, we discover more and more grace! We realize that even when we feel stuck in our sin and can't seem to shake bad habits that linger, God's grace floods our hearts in abundance. Instead of turning from his grace out of shame and embarrassment, we can dive headfirst into his grace and love shown to us in Jesus!

For people of a particular religious persuasion, this message of grace sounds like permission to go on sinning. They hear me permitting sinful desires; they have mistaken my words as permission to indulge oneself with the guarantee that God will forgive. Paul was accused of this very thing and responded to the accusation in Romans 6:1-4.

"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."

I'd go so far as to say that when we are teaching, preaching, or just talking about the Good News of the Gospel, rule-keepers in religious circles will misunderstand the heart of the message: You can't expect to do whatever you want in your life and just turn around and find the same grace extended to you as to those who have followed God their whole life. Conversely, habitual rule-breakers and misfits will hear something astounding: You cannot out sin God's saving grace! If and when you get tired of living in a death-spiral of your own making, Christ will be waiting right there for you with open arms and fathomless grace!

God's grace, which is a gift, empowers the new life we have always wanted but couldn't find on our own. Far from indulgences for continued sin, grace brings the strength we've always needed but didn't have within ourselves.

"Walk in newness of life," Paul writes. This is both a directive and a description for those receiving God's grace. The apostle says, "do this," and he is saying, "this is what you'll do." Taking a walk is a means of moving from one place to the next; a walk changes our surroundings; a walk gets us from where we are to where we want to be; a walk is a step at a time; a walk is a journey.

As we take the hand of Jesus extended to us no matter how much of a failure we think we are, he helps us to our feet and takes us for a walk. On this journey with Jesus, death is defeated, and grace is more abundant than all of our sins. In his book Gentle and Lowly, Dane Ortlund writes: 

"He does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness, for renewed pardon, with distress and need and emptiness. That's the whole point. It's what he came to heal. He went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limitless supply of mercy and grace to his people" (36-37).

That is why today is do good.

Amen.

The Major

Num 29 of 51: Major Ian Thomas was the first bible teacher to explain the mystery of how I am joined to Christ by God’s grace and my identity is thus forever changed.

There are people in my story who had a tremendous impact on my life and with whom I no longer have any interaction. Major W. Ian Thomas, or "The Major," as he was known, is one such person for me. He died in 2007. Before that, I hadn't seen The Major since probably 1988 or 1989. 

I met The Major when I was in middle school. My family lived at a retreat center that would invite different lecturers, preachers, and teachers throughout the year. We lived there for about three years, and The Major spoke twice during that time. Two things drew me to The Major as a young boy. One, my parents and their friends talked about The Major with reverence and awe that I took note of. They all looked forward to his coming with great anticipation. Second, his British accent was crisp, clear, and entirely novel for my East Texas ears! Many years later, the simplicity and clarity with which he taught and wrote about the gospel became foundational for me. 

As you might imagine, "Major" was an official title that he had earned for his time in the British Army. He was a hero of World War II. The Major was a decorated British soldier for bravery in taking out a German machine gun nest. He was also present when the Germans surrendered at the Battle of Monte Cassino took the flag of surrender. (I had heard this story when I was younger and recently verified it at pastorlife.com.)

He had published a book in 1961 entitled The Saving Life of Christ. My parents owned the book, and my dad had given it to me to read when I was in high school. Not long after I read that book, we were reunited. I was around 16 years old and struggling with my faith and my identity in general (we had made an enormous move a couple of years before this.) My dad rightly assumed that I needed time with The Major again, so he took me to see him preach at a nearby church. The Majoor's clear teaching and his kindness that changed the trajectory of my life that night. 

When I had met him several years before this, he had asked for one of my school pictures. He took it and tucked it into his wallet, assuring me that he would be praying for me. I was probably 12 years old, and I remember feeling honored that this man, a WWII war hero who was short in stature and giant in wisdom and faith, committed to pray for me. After his lecture, my dad and I went forward to say hello to him. We waited as folks visited with him and then stepped toward him when our turn came. As best I can remember, The Major no sooner had seen our faces than he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and took out my middle school picture. This man had been praying for me. He remembered me. 

That was a turning point in my life. The Major led the Torchbearer organization, which ran bible schools all around the world. I would eventually attend the school in Estes Park, Colorado, upon graduating from high school. I reread The Saving Life of Christ that year at bible school. I went searching for quotes from that little book that stood out to me then. Some of what I found included:

"To so many people, the Lord is in danger of being no more than a patron saint of our systematic theology instead of the Christ Who is our life." 

"Again, "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17), and here the word to pray does not mean to beg or to plead as if God were unwilling to give--but simply to expose by faith every situation as it arises, to the all-sufficiency of the One who indwells you by His life." 

Or this poignant and humorous reminder:

"Make sure it is God's trumpet you are blowing- if it is only yours it won't wake the dead, it will simply disturb the neighbors." 

The Saving Life of Christ (Zondervan Publishing, 1961)