Adventureinrandomness

I have discovered something today that I think is profound.  At least it is profound for me.  I am broken.  I know it is a shocker.  For many of you I’m sure you could have told me this a long time ago however it has taken a long time for me to figure this out.

I’m broken, I don’t know what perfect is or if what I do is the right thing.  All I know is that I keep trying.  I keep pressing on to try and figure out what this life is suppose to look like.  It is an odd feeling to admit that I may not know what I’m doing.  To know that what I have thought is right and good really is just another way for me to hide my sin.  To hide my true identity, really a place for me to be good.  Looking back I can see how many mistakes I have made.  Mistakes that at the time I thought were the right things.

I remember when I was just starting college I had an opportunity to allow a family who deeply cared about me and supported me to show their support but I allowed my own pride and self-righteous attitude get in the way of seeing their deep love and care for me.  It almost cost me a friendship over it.  And yet I remember feeling so strongly that I was right and they were wrong.  I wish I could take that back.

I once felt so arrogant that I knew how to care for a student in crisis that I just ran over their deep feelings.  As a result they didn’t trust that I cared or listened to them, the end product was a family that became torn apart.  All of this happened because I knew what was right, I was right.

I have made so many decisions that have impacted hundreds of people and I find myself wondering how many of those decisions were right, I wonder if I really have helped or if I have just added to their confusion and frustration.

Here is the reality, I have made wrong decisions, I have done these things and will probably do things wrong in the future.  Doesn’t sound very comforting, except for the reality that it really isn’t about me at all.  If it was about me then I think we are all screwed.  It is about God’s Kingdom and how I am just along for the ride.  If I truly believe that I am in the process of being restored to what God designed from the beginning then I have to accept the fact that I am flawed, that I am broken.  I don’t always know the right answers or have the best ideas and to even think that way is so arrogant no wonder I fail.  I can say that without the experiences that I have had over the years I could not have done half of the things I have done this year.  I would not be where I am today in my relationship with God.  I would not be in the place that I am, I would not feel God the way I feel Him right now.  There is no possible way that I could have learned this without going through the pain, the mistakes, the failures.  But, I tend to forget that, I tend to not allow myself the reality that I will fall, and the result is a false life, a life full of expectation that I just can’t live up to.  Throw in the guilt and shame that comes from not living up to those standards and you have a depressed and ineffective person.

Here is the good news, I am growing.  I am learning from where God has brought me and I truly feel like I am starting to figure it out.  Unfortunately it is still a process and while I have put a lot of the pieces together I still don’t have them all yet.  The result is that I will continue to screw some things up from time to time.  I will make decisions that are going to cause others pain.  I recognize that there may be some relationships that I won’t be able to restore because the frustration or pain runs to deep.  I want to apologize to those of you who feel that frustration, I wish that I could take it away or do something to make it better.  All I can do is continue to move forward, continue to press into Jesus and ask for your patience.  Hopefully you feel some of what I’m going through and will journey with me.  It will be messy, it will be hard, it will be amazing…

Brian

PS.  Read the comments, I think Mike brings up a great point and hopefully my response below helps to clarify a bit about the difference between self loathing and compassion.

Life is messy, it is the reality of our broken existence.  It wasn’t intended to be this way.  It was never the design of God for us to have to experience the suffering, pain, and devastation that we experience.  God’s desire was for us to walk along side Him, to experience all that His creation is including experiencing relationship with Him and others.  For us to truly experience this life there had to be a choice.  The result of that choice has forever changed or ability to experience the life that God intended for us.  But, this isn’t God’s fault it is ours.

When will we realize that God is the one who is longing for us to be restored, to be made new.  His desire is to see us experience the life that we were suppose to have to be restored to His original purpose.  He isn’t the one who is causing all of the problems of this world.  He isn’t the one who is allowing so much destruction, He isn’t the one responsible for our problems, we are!

We are to blame, we are the reason this world is broken, the question is what are we going to do about it.  We can sit back and make all kinds of excuses for why it isn’t our fault.  We can blame our parents, we can say that it is because we didn’t have enough support, we are good at passing on responsibility.  In fact we have mastered the art of blame.  So as soon as things get hard, as soon as we start to feel pain or feel like we are wronged we look for something to blame and usually it ends up being God.  We turn our backs on the one who is right, the one who can restore us, who can save us.  And we run to excuses to find reasons for why we exist on this planet, we justify our feelings and thoughts and claim that God is just a crutch.  We reject God because we don’t want to deal with what really is the issue.

It is us that is the issue.  It is our sin, our brokenness that keeps us from experience life, from experiencing God.  We claim that we can’t see God or can’t experience Him and say things like, “if only I could feel His presence.” or “I just don’t by into God because there isn’t enough proof.”  It isn’t that we need more proof, I think you could have Jesus staring you in the face and that still wouldn’t be enough proof.  Because while you claim to love God, to have a relationship with Him, you turn around and slap Him in the face.  Your life reflects your heart.  If you can’t see that claiming to desire God and at the same time having an unwillingness to deal with your sin is what is keeping you from God then you will never get it.

It is time to get real, to drop the bullshit and be honest about who we are.  To admit that we don’t have everything figured out and start to recognize that until we deal with what is deep inside our hearts we won’t get anywhere.  We need to understand who we really are so that we can experience God.  We need to let go of all the fake reasoning and appearances and get to the mess that lives inside all of us.  I never understood this until just a few years ago.  I had always done what I thought to be the right things.  I wanted nothing more than to have people tell me that I am wonderful and good.  I put up a front before God and everyone else hoping that I wouldn’t be found out.  So, I lived this life in the shadows of my soul that I didn’t want anyone to see.  Until I came to a point and realized that I just couldn’t do it anymore, I needed something more, I needed to experience God and I don’t think I ever had truly experienced Him before then.  As I unpacked this false self, this sin that was deep in my soul, it was painful.  I don’t think I have experienced pain as deep before, it effected everyone around me, but I began to see a change, I began to see as I truly dealt with the mess glimpses of life, and soon those glimpses turned into a deep hope and longing for more.  Life is messy, we still live with our own brokenness and even when we start to figure things out we live in a fallen world that is messy, there are going to be times when we feel hurt or abandoned, when we feel guilt and shame, and we will look to blame someone or something.  I wonder if instead of looking to blame someone we should be looking at ourselves.

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it makes you look.*

PS: I encourage you to take it out of one album and really put in on shuffle. Trust me on this one.

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
“La ‘Elima” Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (song is about an earthquake that triggered the tsunami) Interesting

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
“Coming Back” Delirious?  Ha, I think that fits

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
“Fake” The Frames (yup that is Julie alright, what in the world?)

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
“Boy on a String” Jars of Clay (scary)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
“Nobody Knows” World Wide Message Tribe

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
“Intoxicating”  David Crowder Band (I would have to agree, ha)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
“Lord, The Light of Your Love” Trammel Starks

WHAT DO YOU OFTEN THINK ABOUT?
“Need”  Grammatrain

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“I Can’t Drive 55″ Sammy Hagar

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
“Cannons”  Phil Wickham

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
“Earthquake”  Family Force 5 (weird)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“Believe”  Grammatrain (two songs from Grammatrain not very random when I only have one cd and 4000 songs).

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
“Viva La Vida”  Coldplay (Interesting, I see ballroom)

WHAT THEY WILL PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
“Shout to the North” Delirious? (Hopefully)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
“Settle for a Slowdown”  Dierks Bentley

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
“Ten with a Two” Kenny Chesney (This is not true)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
“We’ve Got Some News” Veggie Tales (yes, yes I do have veggie tales on my ipod, and no I don’t have kids).

WHAT WILL YOU NAME THIS POST?
“Papa Loved Mama”  Garth Brooks

Ok, so that was pretty fun, I actually found myself wanting a few more questions.  It is interesting to see what is on my ipod.

This all started as we have been working on a plan for Wednesday nights.  It started with the idea of not wanting to do the same old things that I have done before or have seen done.  I wanted to see Wednesday nights look and feel different.  The reality of this of course is it isn’t so much what it looks like that matters it is what it is about that makes the difference.  If we aren’t looking at who God is, who Christ is, and who we are then we are missing the point.  With that said I have been really wanting to shift our way of thinking to focus on how as a staff can we help students to experience and know Christ.  We have been processing this idea and one of the thoughts is to create space for students to be creative.  We want to use different art forms to help students express their thoughts, ideas, and themselves all as an act of worship.

Initially this idea was a result of a couple of things.  First, we have said all along that God created us to be creative beings and that we need to foster that creativity.  Second, having a church that is in downtown Vancouver and having a high school that focuses on the arts lends it self to incorporate art into what we do. Both of those reasons are valid and have been the driving force for a lot of our planning.  And then this morning it hit me like a ton of bricks.  There is something else about being creative or helping students to be creative that is the most important.  The Bible says in Genesis that God created men and women in His image.  Often we are called “image-bearers”, which sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings, but the term fits because it shows that we reflect some of the attributes of God.  If you think about that in the context of creativity it is even more significant.

There is no denying that God is creative.  All you have to do is look around and see that God has created something that is so beautiful, so amazing, and so creative to know that God is creative.  As “image-bearers” of God we too possess in all of us the ability to be creative.  That creativity can look different from person to person.  Often we think of creativity and art as paintings or poetry and we find ourselves saying, “I’m not creative.”  The reality is we are.  We all have the ability to be creative and it isn’t that we aren’t it is that we need to figure out how to express that creativity.  Also, we often look at someones creative work and make a judgement as to whether or not it truly is creative.  When we do that we can then miss out on the act of creating.  There isn’t a wrong answer when we start to be creative rather it is an expression of who we are and as a result allows us to reflect who God is.  It can be too that we haven’t found the creative outlet that we connect with the most.  Julie for example took a pottery class when she was in college.  While she tried hard to be creative in that class it was not something that she felt good about what she created.  I think her bowl looked more like an ashtray that didn’t hold cigarettes instead looked like a lung of a person who had smoked cigarettes.  It has been art forms like pottery that has caused Julie to say, “I’m not an artist, I’m not creative.”  However, Julie took dance growing up, and I remember the when she choreographed a dance routine for a worship service, it was incredibly creative.  And more than that it was a reflection of who Christ is.

How does this all tie together?  Becuase God is creative and because we are made in the image of God it would make sense that if we are trying to know God, to really know who He is and all of is attributes then we would need to experience God’s attribute of creativity.  By dismissing this need to be creative we are taking away on of the ways in which we can know and experience God.  Here is the cool thing, there isn’t a right or wrong when it comes to creating.  Creating is all about you being you and God being God and as you create those two come together becuase we are sharing in our “likeness”.  All of this is to say that if you are feeling dry spirtual, if you are feeling like God isn’t near and no amount of prayer or Bible reading seems to draw you closer, maybe what you should do is put down your Bible and Dance!

Friday:  Had my mother-in-laws BMW Z3 on a beautiful sunny day.  Lunch on the waterfront with my sister.  Shopping with my mom for a jacket that I have wanted.  Dinner with my parents.  Back to the in-laws which I received a North Face jacket that I have wanted (sorry mom I took back your jacket, actually she already knew and understood).

Wednesday: Julie decided that she had enough of my shirts that I wear for work and took me clothes shopping.  While this wasn’t necessarily considered my birthday present, it sure felt like it.  I now have a bunch of new shirts for Sunday’s.  Pretty awesome.

Thursday (Actual Birthday): Besides all the really awesome birthday wishes between texting, phone calls, myspace, facebook, and email.  Julie took me out to dinner at my fav. restaurant, Red Robin.  We then came home to find my present from her a Wii.  On top of that I received some cash from family and friends so I was able to purchase a game too.

Friday:  Spent the day with a few friends playing disc golf at Milo McIver Park (really awesome course has a 1065ft hole).  Not only that but was given a sweet new disc from Steve.  Then I came home to a party with some of our friends playing board games (Monopoly rocks), eating cake, and having a bunch of laughs. Oh and with money I was given for my birthday I was able to replace my Teva’s that didn’t survive the high school retreat.

The rest of the weekend wasn’t really eventful it was a weekend of hanging out with Julie and getting to spend time with the Compass staff.  All in all it was a pretty cool way to spend my Birthday week and I just feel very spoiled to be honest.

It is this feeling of being spoiled that leads me to the conclusion that God is ridiculous.  I feel like God continues to provide above and beyond what I could imagine.  Yeah, there is always things I want or want to do but man God has definitely given Julie and I more than I could ask for.  We have an amazing roof over our heads, friends, family, great jobs, opportunities to care for people, and I get to do things I love.  I don’t think I could ask God for more.

What is interesting is that I still get caught up in feeling sorry for myself at times.  I feel stress to do a good job, stress to look a certain way, act a certain way.  I get so caught up in myself that I can miss God.  Yet, He is hear, continuing to provide and challenge me.  I try and hold on to so much of what I really don’t have any control of.  I am guilty of thinking that all of what I have has been because of me.  Even writing that sentence makes me laugh because I know me and I know that what I have has very little to do with my skill or financial savvy.  I don’t think what God has given me is because I have done really anything special, it isn’t because of my prayers, or because of what I do, I think God is providing this for us so that we can care for others.

I remember our prayer when we started looking for this house, it was a prayer not that we could have a bigger better house it was that we could have a house that we would be able to care for other people.  A house where our family and friends would feel welcome and a refuge for us as we continue to live our lives.  It has definitely been that.  Friday we had like 14 people here, something we couldn’t do at our old house.  I remember our prayer for jobs for Julie and now she is in a place where she can serve God and have time to care for us.

I wonder sometimes, why me.  I know me.  I know what my thoughts are, that my life isn’t just roses and sunshine.  I have made plenty of mistakes, I have done things that I regret and yet God still provides.  I then look at some of the guys like David, Moses, Peter, etc… they all had flaws, they probably didn’t deserve anything that they were given either but they were given it.  That really is the point we don’t deserve anything.  There is nothing that we can do that would erase or overcome our flaws, but that is why God is big.  God provides for us to show us that He is good.  We need to understand it isn’t about us, it is about Him.  We need to hold the things that we have been given lightly.

I don’t think these are my complete thoughts and I still am working through this a bit, so I’m sure that you will hear more on the subject, but for now…

It amazes me how quickly time gets away from me.  I can’t believe that the summer is almost already over.  I have had a crazy summer and the next few weeks are only going to get busier but Ithought I would give you an update on my life.

I think I have only been around two weekends this summer.  We had a funeral again, we can’t seem to go any significant length of time without one and this one was hard because of the impact it has in my sister’s family.  Marlene was awesome and a very Godly woman.  It was crazy because the funeral was at the church that I grew up in until high school.  I was able to spend some time with people I haven’t seen in 10-15 years.  It is amazing how much life has changed in that time.  Julie and I were reflecting on how life is strange in that our lives could look so different if one little thing in our life changed.  What would life be like if I didn’t move toPuyallup in high school or if I would have hung out another year with my friends, I have friends that have made some really poor choices but because I moved and because I found a new group of friends and didn’t stay that close to the old ones I avoided a lot of pretty crazy stuff.

This summer I have been fully involved in student ministry stuff and it has been crazy.  I have had camping trips, beach retreats, andBBQ’s that seem to take so much time that I haven’t really gotten a chance to just hang out with students.  Don’t get me wrong I love the retreats, I’m looking forward towater skiing and camping for 5 days next week with High school students and the weekend after going to the beach with College students, it just seems like it is so easy to be busy doing all of these things that just getting a chance to hang out with a student seems to take a backseat.  I say this because this is something that I wrestle with a lot.  This idea that I need to be doing all of the crazy youth type stuff rather than just being with students, getting to journey with them.  It makes me want to do something like cancel youth group for the summer and just plan time with kids instead of the big production that usually happens.  Maybe next year.  I’m excited though, this summer has been good and the events have provided some of what I’m talking about.

Julie and I celebrated 10 years of marriage last week.  This is another thing that amazes me, the fact that we have been married for this long.  It sure doesn’t feel like it.  I love being married to Julie.  She challenges me in so many ways, but more importantly she is such a huge support and encourager in my life, I know that I couldn’t possible have grown as much if it wasn’t for her in my life.  We have so much fun together and it sucks when we aren’t together, and to think it has been 10 years of feeling this way, and we are only growing closer.  Pretty dang cool.  We didn’t do anything super exciting for our anniversary except shut our phones off for three days and just enjoy playing around town.  We went to the zoo, a car show, and hung out together.  It was nice to just relax together and not feel like we had to go do anything.  We are hoping to get a trip to possible Hawaii in November however that might be a long shot.  Our finances are tight as always but it would be great to get a trip away together.  It doesn’t really matter as long as we get to be together (cue the cheesy music and sighs from the audience).

In the midst of this busy summer I have also been working on my first wedding in September.  I am going to be marrying Julie’s brother Joe and his fiancee Bethany.  It has been fun to get to know them better through the counseling but it has been a challenge to try and fit that into an already busy schedule.  I sometimes have a hard time thinking that I would have any wisdom to contribute to anyone else but again I realize that it isn’t my wisdom rather what God has revealed to me through my own journey.

Ear piercing, I know I have already posted on this but I thought I would just follow up, it really has been interesting to hear people’s reaction to my piercing as if they could understand the reasons behind why I would do something.  It amazes me how quickly people pass judgment, he is doing it for attention, to fit in, to be young, he is stupid.  Even after I explained to people what I was experiencing with God that lead to the piercing they still think it was for some other reason, as if my explanation wasn’t good enough.  Really, do you know my walk with God, have you experienced what I have experienced?  Didn’t think so, I still don’t know what I think about the piercings but given peoples reaction it makes me want to go out and get more piercings and a crap load of tattoes.  Don’t worry that isn’t happening.  But, if nothing else peoples reactions have just varified my reasons for the piercings in the first place and that I guess is all that matters.

Also, yesterday as a staff we had a chance to listen to Peter Scazzero and his wife present on going back to move forward.  The idea of by understanding our personal history specifically family lines we can understand some of what motivates us in ministry.  It was really interesting especially working on our own genogram (family tree with a relational, emotional, and social bent) it can be hard to look at and see some of the dysfunction that exists and see how even though you work hard to not make some of the same mistakes as your family they do happen.  After the lecture we had a chance to hand out with Peter and his wife Geri.  It was cool to hear there heart for churches and pastors.  If you haven’t read their book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality you need to and you need to NOW.  I’m serious go get it now.  I will wait… It has had a significant impact on our leadership team and continues to challenge how we look at life and ministry.  Good stuff.

Also, I went through a bit of technology hell this last month as my computer which is pretty new and pretty awesome was being stupid, forcing me to reinstall Vista.  The frustrating thing besides taking almost two weeks to get my computer back up and running is now it works perfect in fact it works better than when I first got it which leads me to believe that the smart people of Dell didn’t have things set up correctly from the start, I don’t know what is more frustrating the fact that it took me two weeks to figure out how to get it all back up and running or that for 4 months I have been using a gimpy computer.  Good news is it is working and working well.  Of course now I’m having some mobile phone issues we shall see what happens but it could lead to getting a new windows mobile phone which sucks but is also exciting for a tech-junkie like myself.  Currently I’m trying to see if it is a battery and am upgrading the operating system on my current phone to see if all is fixed but it might require being replaced to truely be fixed.  Stay tuned I have been thinking about writing a blog about technology I can’t live without because, “I love technology, not as much as you, you see…”  (anyone guess the movie quote, for more bonus points)

To sum up my summer I don’t think there is room to fit much else into it but it defiantly has been an adventure and I’m learning a lot about myself, God, and church in the process.