My Friends | a letter to you

I have lots of friends. A lot of people have a lot of friends, in fact.

Still, I think I have them differently.

I have been blessed with a handful of friends that beyond trial and fire will still stand with me, for Christ has bound us tighter than bickering and broken hearts.

We’ve spent years of our lives growing in our separate walks and yet continuing to be quite fond of each other. The Merry Men and Maidens as they are more formally know, will forever be as close as family can be. They sit at the top of this list because they are certainly my first true friends. It is because of the Merry Men that I am the believer and Jesus lover I am today. Encouragement, support, love, grace, brotherhood, family. These are some of the words that come to mind when I think about my dearest friends.

Amongst my time in college I have been encompassed in a growing group of people that are no doubt going to be very special to me as the years go on. I even have the privilege to live with two of them.

In Chicago, in the neighborhood of Woodlawn, there lives another group of people albeit more family than friend. I’d wager these very special people will continue to be something more than, well, just special. From them I have learned and grown so much more than I can ever fully be thankful for. The Sunshine family is one I am privileged to be a part of.

I have a handful of friends that I have been blessed with that reside in the state of Oklahoma, whom, without a doubt, are the most persistent people I know. They are also very quick to show how much they love you. They continue to open their homes and share their lives with me. I never gave Oklahoma much thought until I gained such dear people in my life.

There is one more group of people in Chicago that I have been so very blessed with. The Hamernicks. I owe the Hamernicks more than I can comprehend. They continue to be more than I deserve, and I thank God everyday for allowing me to live life with them. I truly love this family, my other family. There is a special place for each of them in my heart. I look forward to continuing to love them well into the future.

Now there is one person amongst all of these that I am most grateful to have in my life. He is in fact a Hamernick. He is my best friend. Josiah Hamernick may be 6 years my junior, but he is an inspiration, an encourager, a brother, a mentee, a peer, competition, a supporter, and so much more to me. Josiah and I have not been friends for very long, but it seems like we have never not known each other. We have had our differences and even almost what at the time felt like a falling out. We have shared with each other our dreams, our tears, our fears, and our mistakes. He is the kind of friend that I pray everyone gets to have in their life at one time or another. He’s the kind of friend that I fear losing. I dread the day that I’m going to have to say goodbye as he goes off to college, and I will cherish the days that he comes home on break or I get to go visit and disrupt him during class. We couldn’t look any less like siblings and yet we have been mistaken for brothers on multiple accounts. He has taught me so much, and I hope I have shared as much with him. He’s the kind of friend that when you hurt each other you grow closer and stronger because it means you have to make up and forgive one another. I ask Josiah regularly, why he thinks God brought us together the way He did. He usually responds with, “because, we’re supposed to be.” There is so much more that I could write about Josiah, my best friend, but I’m trying to keep this somewhat short. I simply love him.

And so my dear friends, I hope that this little rambling finds a place in your heart. I am so glad and blessed to have each of you as you are. You are gifts that I cannot reason. God has certainly used each of you in unique ways to shape me and simply tell me how much He really does love me.

What does take?

I would like to understand what it takes. When does God plant in you the seeds that spring into life the thing that produces missionaries, apostles, or just die-hard Believers? Sometimes I feel like I just want to crawl into my made bed and pretend like my responsibilities have passed and are not really that important. Sometimes I forget that I was, at one point, passionate about this. Yet, sometimes I feel like I’m in 6th gear doing 120. The creative juices are flowing. I can’t wait to share with others the work that needs to be done. I’m in rally mode.

I once was tricked. I was tricked into this false sense of God. What I mistook God’s presence as was simply my ability to relax in the comfort provided me by my parents. I can tell you with a little less haze now, that God is not the ability to not worry about your next meal. God is not taking for granted the material possessions in front of you. God is not your ability to purchase that new MacBook. What I thought as God’s closeness was simply my comfort. I can see now that it is through great need and discomfort that there is great faith. I have found that it is now more difficult than ever to maintain decent prayer time, foundational reading time, and a constant grasp on God’s presence in my life. I have to be intentional. I have to be disciplined. How is this a bad thing? It is certainly inconvenient and sometimes, well, difficult.

So I would again ask what it takes?

I have this suspicion that all the answers I am looking for are right in front of me. Those things like hope, proactive faith, fellowship, incredibly inspiring Bible stories; they are all tools that God has provided. It may not be comfort. It may not be easy – no one ever said it was.

Have we convinced ourselves the institutions like mega churches and MTV-esque charitable organizations are justice and the replacement for God’s soldiers? It can’t be that easy, can it?

Church on a pollitical collision

This post might get me into some trouble, with whom I’m not definite about. I just have a feeling.

It’s Valentine’s Day if you were not aware of it already. On this holiday it has become tradition that we celebrate relationships, intimacy, and good old-fashioned romance. Yes it’s a Hallmark holiday, but at one point it wasn’t. This post actually has not much at all to do with Valentine’s Day except for the fact that it is Valentine’s Day.

Right… So, on with it already.

On my way back to suburbia from class this morning I tuned into Moody radio. For you Chicagoans that’s 90.1 FM. This radio show, “Talking it Over,” was on. If you have never tuned in for this – as I had never done until today – it’s a talk show that focuses on inviting discussion from callers and a guest specialist(s). The host facilitates the discussions. At least this is what I can deduce from my first time listening. Now, the topic of today’s radio show was every Christian’s favorite political agenda, gay rights, or what ever the antithesis of that would be. Ok that’s a little harsh, so how about a quote from the show to sum up the topic.
“There is perhaps no greater issue that challenges the Church today to speak the truth in love than the issue of homosexuality. From television shows to court decisions, it seems everywhere we turn the Church is confronted with this subject. Joe Dallas of Genesis Counseling will teach us how to have a sensitive, balanced and biblical approach to homosexuality.” - www.moodyradio.org/talkingitover.aspx

Now being of solid mind (at least I think so) and a product of Chicago’s liberal culture I have my own opinion on all sorts of things, and my personal opinion on this issue is similar to what is being stated here on the synopsis of the show.

That is, the homosexual community needs to be ministered to just as much as any other community out there, and we need to do so in absolute love.

That of course sounds good until we need to start applying truth in our ministering efforts. How do you tell an entire culture that your culture is based around sin and still sound loving? How do you tell a whole community that demands equality - something that is so Biblical - “The things your equality represent are biblically wrong.”

This radio show, as is in its regular program, brought in callers that offered their two cents, and each sounded, well… sound. The thing is after listening to these people discuss the depravity of the homosexual and the Bible’s stark black and white stand on homosexuality, I felt angry. I was literally fighting myself. If these people are preaching truth, truth that I believe in, why am I angry?

I was angry at the way that these people and this specialist were obsessing over the possibility of the passage of bills that allow gay marriage. I was angry that even though this sub title said, “will teach us how to have a sensitive, balanced and biblical approach to homosexuality,” they didn’t teach it. They didn’t tell me how to approach my homosexual neighbor with love. They didn’t tell me how to be sensitive toward the subject. In fact they were quite harsh. One woman called in sharing her experience with her lesbian sister-in-law. The woman had said that she and her husband both shared with the sister that they did not agree with her, but she was careful to add in the point that we still love her of course. I kept hearing people speak similar things, who would say what and quickly follow it up with that validating, “but of course we love them.” Only I wasn’t buying it.

Yes, the bible is black and white on the homosexuality thing, but I kept seeing this image of Jesus in my head that was saying, “love.” And I kept thinking, if all sin is equal then why do we stress this so much. It seems we are faster to reconcile with a murderer than welcome a homosexual into our church.

I don’t know. Am I wrong? Is this not the case? Then why was I getting angry? Am I subconsciously being saturated by our culture telling me, “Equality is justice.” Maybe I’m getting soft.

Or could there possibly be something a little more important for the Church to be focusing on than trying to blend worldly politics with God’s law. I’m listening to this radio show and there at every 4 seconds a child dies of starvation or some curable disease. I’m listening to what seems to me like political jargon and teams of people are scavenging a burnt plane wreck for peoples loved ones. There just seem to be so many other things that are simply more important for the church to be focusing on than driving a bigger wedge between the Church and people who have a different sexual preference.

Ok I’m done. I’ll be lucky if any of that made any sense.

Embark on something new

In roughly one month's time I will embark on the newest chapter in my life.

A new neighborhood.

A new job.

A new community of people.

A new church.

Certainly that's enough material for God to do some major work in my life. Certainly that's enough material for me to sit down and just pray. And pray I most certainly have. What is ahead of me is simply unknown. I have always been a dreamer and a planner. This time around is going to be different. The plan...

Well there is no real defined plan.

I will move back to Chicago in March to live with a family that I have known for about 3 months time. While living with them I will turn the page to a new job and leave an old one. From Willow Creek Community Church, the example of mega churches, I will transition onto staff at Sunshine Gospel Ministries, a ministry that has dedicated it's long existence to the renewal of the city starting with the margin. Literally, the opposite image of Willow world that started in Palatine with the question, "how do we reach the rich? Someone needs to church the rich."

I will leave the security of the affluence of my family's home for, quite literally, "the hood."

I have never been attached to a congregation before, but I have also never considered before being part of a church so, well, black.

Excitement doesn't even round the edge of how I am feeling about this next big step. I certainly have questions about this whole thing, but you know, I am going to leave the answering up to when and how God would like to take care of them.

Anxious yet calm...

Get Up God is Moving| Hope

Hope is…

Beauty.

Future.

Reliance.

It’s such a casual word, but like so many words that we toss around it has literally unspeakable, indescribable, context. Hope is grasping at air and relying on the glimmer that something or someone bigger than us is waiting to catch us before we fall too far.

It is my opinion that Hope cannot be defined. It’s just far to abstract for words to bind it to earthly understanding. Hope is set in us. It is deep in our souls. Hope reaches from something so central to what it means to be a creation of God I can only attempt to describe what hope looks like, and at that it may only be of my own imagination.

There is this sense of future, of motion, in the word hope. It is like when we hope we are anticipating something better. That’s another aspect of hope. It’s never about something worse. We hope because there is something better to look forward to, isn’t there? We have an understanding set in us that what is in front of us isn’t right. It isn’t how it can be.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

I wonder if hope is part of the sense of eternity that God has instilled in each of us…
Hope also has this aspect of faith as well. Pastor Ford, this weekend, reminded the congregation that Jesus isn’t just there to guide the blind. We are to put our complete reliance in the power of Christ. I love this aspect of overwhelming reliance.

Psalm 42 is my second favorite Bible passage. The psalmist speaks on the intensity of God’s presence when we place our hope in Him.

Psalm 42:5| Why are you cast down my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again Praise Him, My salvation and my God.
Psalm 42:7| Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves fall over me.

If we put all our hope in Christ we are given a picture of eternity and beauty. Eden.

If we put all our hope in the power of the LORD we can expect to be overtaken by His incredible presence. He protects the weak. He lifts the poor and rejected.

We have every reason in light of the brokenness of the world we live in to put all we are into the hope that Jesus presents humanity.

I pray that you would put your hope in Him. Your (my) Savior and king. Rest in Him. Rely on His awesome power. There you will find strength to overcome, pursue, and run that race set out before us.