It was just reported in the Charlotte Observer that the high school jersey Michael Jordan wore, stolen 20 years ago, was returned in a large envelope.

The only notation - a verse from the Bible, and a request for forgiveness.

Whoever it was, I applaud them for taking a hard look at their rogue state of heart, and responding to the light God shone on it.

I am curious what verse it might have been…aren’t you?

Say good-bye. Sayonara. Auf Wiedersehen. Riva derci. Hasta la vista, baby. Time to go back to work.

Well, I guess it’s time to post again also. I took off the month of August to relax, take care of the home, and spend some family and friend time before jumping back into the fray. Now that summer is over, school is starting, and we’re all racing around at 93 mph with the church fall programming in gear, it looks like it’s time to roll up the sleeves and start finger smacking the keyboard again.

I’ll start posting some thoughts, observations, and other tid-bits again this month as we continue our journey. See you soon!

I went to my buddy Dom’s for a little summer hair cut. He’s a fellow rogue, able to dialogue about the wide and wild experiences life throws at us - the highs & lows, peaks & valleys, and even the darker issues we wrestle with. We can go from telling stories about the kids to revealing the ‘adult’ issues that haunt us.

In other words, he’s a cheap psychologist with a trim to go.

Anyways, he passed along a great quote from CS Lewis concerning the nature of the changes inside us God desires to make, and how we resist the very things that could breathe new life into our soul. I thought I’d pass it along for you to enjoy: 

“Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real man. It would involve turning the tin into flesh. And suppose the tin soldier did not like it. He is not interested in flesh; all he sees is that the tin is being spoiled. He thinks you are killing him. He will do everything he can do to prevent you. He will not be made into a man if he can help it.

 

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself; He is beginning, so to speak, to ‘inject’ His kind of life and thought, his Zoe, (spiritual life) into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.”

CS Lewis perfectly describes the rogue state of heart inside us.

Thanks for the quote, Dom. And no offense about the shrink joke, right?

Guess I’ll know if I walk out with a mohawk next time.

HT to Aaron K for first passing it on to me. You have a poet’s soul, bro…

(excuse the 10 second commercial that come up first. Gotta pay the bills somehow)

Lyrics:

Wait, I'm wrong
Should have done better than this
Please, I'll be strong
I'm finding it hard to resist
So show me what I'm looking for

CHORUS
Save me, I'm lost
Oh lord, I've been waiting for you
I'll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for…oh lord

Don't let go
I've wanted this far too long
Mistakes become regrets
I've learned to love abuse
Please show me what I'm looking for

CHORUS
Save me, I'm lost
Oh lord, I've been waiting for you
I'll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for…oh lord

Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for

CHORUS
Save me, I'm lost
Oh lord, I've been waiting for you
I'll pay any cost
Just save me from being confused
Wait, I'm wrong
I can't do better than this
I'll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for…oh lord

I meant to post it last month, but forgot. Thanks to Jerry P. for the reminder to do it.

I am amazed at the way God designed us to be connected. It is everywhere. It’s instinctual; it’s intrinsic to who we are.

A few months back, I went to my chiropractor because I was having some leg tingling and numbness caused by some back issues. We were still in the discovery mode at the time of just what exactly it was (we learned later a herniated disk was to blame), and how serious it was.

In the office, a neuro-technician checked me out with all kinds of wires, plugs, and sensors. I laid on the exam table while he plugged me in extensively up and down my right leg. I looked like some test experiment out of Frankenstein or Total Recall.

First, he sent a pulse down my leg in the form of a humanized cattle prod placed on my skin near the nerves. In healthy legs, it would have taken only a small shock to get a reading. In mine, I was moving into first degree burn territory because the levels were so high on the prod before it registered in my toes.

“Not good,” he said.

Next, he stabbed my right calf muscle with a needle containing an embedded microphone at the tip. Apparently, neurologists use sound to evaluate the health of muscles and nerves in your body. I had no idea. In a healthy leg, the sound that should be heard is like rain falling on a roof – a slight rushing sound.

Unfortunately, mine did not make that sound. It made more of a “snap…snap” sound, like a loud clock ticking every 2 seconds.

“Do you know what that is?” he asked.

“Is it good?” I replied.

“No,” he answered.

“That’s the sound of your muscle crying out to your brain – ‘Hey, where’s the signal? What should we do next? We need to get some direction down here!” he explained.

I was dumbfounded. Here I am witnessing a physiological design by God for connection buried deep in my leg. Because of the pinched nerve in my back caused by the hernia, my leg was not receiving the necessary commands from my brain. My leg was isolated, and it was crying out to be re-connected. It reacted instinctively that this dis-connection was a bad thing that needed to be addressed and overcome.

We truly have an intrinsic need for connection. Nature abhors a vacuum, and our relational version of a vacuum is isolation. When we are not involved in meaningful significant relationships that God can use to transform us on the inside, then we are missing out on one of the key components for living. We are empty. We are one-dimensional. And despite our attempts to suppress the truth, our hearts are crying out to re-establish a healthy connection that will bring life, health, and healing to our bones.

I had surgery a month later, and have been slowly healing since. The nerves in my leg have not totally healed. I still have the tingling, numb, ’sleepy foot’ feeling all the time. While my muscles are strong and ready to exercise, the nerves in my leg are not ready to handle the rigors. There’s a chance I may have some small permanent damage for the rest of my life.

Don’t miss out on the importance of being connected in quality meaningful relationships. Don’t settle for isolation; the consequences you reap can limit you for a lifetime.

When I hear of people claiming to be followers of Christ whom I respect admitting to extramarital affairs, I get a very stirred-up reaction. Actually, it’s a variety of emotions—sadness, disappointment, anger, and more. And with this particular episode of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, all of those came in spades.

I was immensely let down by a man whom I knew very little but respected from articles that I read about him turning out to be such a disappointment in some extremely important areas of his life.

I felt strongly for the state of his heart—what is the condition of his soul that would encourage him to repeatedly make destructive and hurtful choices over and over again?

I was angry that he’d break his vows, and put his wife through a tremendously public humiliation—and his sons through a bewildering series of painful life situations.

But I also felt something else: a very humbling sense of kinship.

No, I have not had an affair with another woman. But I have hurt my wife deeply with my own selfish sins. I have lost her trust and respect for me with stupid words or actions at times that revealed my own blackness. I have had to admit to my own dark heart and my own black thoughts that would prompt me to attempt irrational acts in the name of my own personal satisfaction.

My guess is that many of you can also.

Every time I hear of a situation like this, I immediately think “there but the grace of God go I”. I recognize that in every one of our hearts, this impulse to stray and betray is just one bad choice away from doing real damage and pain. Cal Thomas called it “the voice” that calls out to us in seductive, enticing tones, promising us something that it will never deliver. We must be vigilant with the rogue state of our hearts, lest we too, suffer great pain while inflicting it upon the ones we love most.

If nothing else, may situations like these resolve us to be faithful to our vows of loyalty, commitment, and love for our spouse.

And more importantly, may we find in Jesus the salve to the ache in our souls that would prompt us to look over the fence and be tempted to stray away from the path of life and wisdom.

As I enjoyed our Sunday baptism service, which was all about people telling stories of how they came to Jesus, I hearkened back to a chapter in 

You may recall that before Jesus arrived, John the Baptist was calling people to repent—that is, to change their strategies for living and coping and seek God’s way instead. It was time to make a clear and decisive change from the past, humbled by the reality of personal darkness and aided by the Spirit of God. It’s easy to see why everyone else was “going under” – they wanted to stop living independently of God’s truth and love and forge a new direction in a right relationship with Him. That’s a no-brainer.

So why did Jesus do it? What did he have to repent of?

This part is way cool: Jesus doesn’t go under because he’s got “issues” of his own to address. He’s doing it for me. You see, I am imperfect (like, duh!). So nothing I do will ever be perfect—even my repentance. Even that will be tainted with an imperfect approach, an imperfect commitment, an imperfect resolve, and an imperfect outcome. In fact, I’d need to be dunked daily throughout the day to repent of the sinful actions committed in…oh…the last 10 minutes since the last dunking.

Only a perfect man could offer the perfect repentance, the lasting kind that will reflect a truly changed life over time. Since Jesus is perfect, he is in effect carrying out the perfect repentance I need to make but am unable to accomplish. His ‘act of repentance’ is sufficient for me to cling to in my darkest moments when that habit rears its ugly head, when that sinful attitude bests me again for the millionth time, when I look around the landscape of my heart and realize I am incapable of pulling myself up by my own bootstraps. In that moment, the perfect repentance of Jesus can become my repentance, my resolve, my cleansing from the chains of a rogue state of heart.

And Jesus wasn’t just putting on a how-to clinic. He is not just modeling a good idea. His act that day in the Jordan was the embodiment of perfection—and I get to be the recipient of it.

I had two reactions to this: One was “yeah!” I felt an immense freedom from the weight of trying to bear my own burdens on my own. Ironically, there’s a release in realizing that I am incapable of even offering a complete repentance for my own sins. Jesus needs to provide it. Things are so dark inside, I can’t even muster up the wherewithal to get the ball started and begin to change. Jesus enables me to do even that.

The other reaction was one of heartfelt and humble gratitude. Jesus was willing to undergo a procedure unnecessary to him, and even looking a bit odd to the outsider—all because he loves me enough to do it. What profound love. I am undone with an overwhelming sense of a love that is more grand and seismic than I can even imagine.

This weekend, we had our annual Father’s Day weekend camping trip (which should really be called Mother’s Day Two camping trip–but that’s another post). Anyways, a bunch of us survived the Saturday morning ‘wall of water’ that greeted us as we awoke.

Afterwards, the clouds eventually broke, and, as a matter of fact, it became a pleasant day by sunset. We even had fires going by the afternoon, much to our children’s delights.

At one point in the afternoon, I was horsing around near our fire pit with Riley, the four year old son of my friend Nathan. I’d lift Riley upside down and pretend to lower him to the ground. He would giggle and squeal about letting go, but then jump back at me for more. 

At one moment during our tussle, as I held him in my arms, a stub of a fresh green pine-cone dropped right between us—amazingly accurate targeting by the tree, I must add. He picked it up and laughed. I told him it was a gift from Mr. Tree.

We played it up for a bit, and then I turned and talked to the massively skyscraping 200 ft long pine tree next to us and said “Hey, Mr. Tree, where’s my gift?”

One of the reasons I love to go camping is because it’s such a positive memory builder with me and my kids. It’s become a highlight of their summer. With all the busyness of life and rushing around that we so often do, I get concerned that I’m not imprinting fun and positive memories with them.

I want them to remember the times we spent together and smile–not because I am being their friend, but because even as their dad, we could laugh and share fun times together.

Whether Aidan is catching tadpoles in a cup, or Gareth is climbing to the top of a summit and spotting timber rattlers, I want these times to be ones that build the bridges of love and relationship between us into the future as they start to tackle the bigger issues in life.

Fast forward about an hour later. The kids are milling around the fire pit when suddenly a “thunk” occurs next to one of the sitting logs circling the pit where they’re at. Riley immediately shrieks, grabs what hit the ground behind the log and runs over to me.

It was a large, fresh, green pine-cone from Mr. Tree.

“Another gift! Another gift! Another gift from Mr. Tree!”

And he gave it to me with the widest eyes and biggest smile a four year old boy can muster.

Yes it was—another gift courtesy of Mr. Tree.

These were guys from our church who went WWR out in western PA last month.