mrcrowder.com

Taking Advantage of Rest

Tue, 29 May 2012 11:00:13 -0500

In this morning’s Psalm (123) from the Lectionary, the wording from the Voice Bible struck me:

O Eternal One, show us your mercy. We
beg you.
We are not strangers to contempt and pain.

We have suffered more than our share
of ridicule and contempt from self-appointed
critics who live easy lives
and pompously display their own
importance.

The words immediately reminded me of Jesus’s confrontation with the religious culture of his people, the Jewish people, in his days.

They remind me of the religious culture in our day.

The religious leaders of Jesus’s day had created this whole culture that elevated themselves while burdening the non-relgious-elite: they would never be good enough, always bearing the weight of their guilt, mistakes, and distance from God.

Maybe that’s what gets me the most—the distance from God.

In our culture it’s sometimes hard to nail down what various people mean by sin, guilt, mistakes, etc., but I think we all understand the effects of our separation from God. And not simply in physical sense, but in the sense of rest.

What I mean, in a simplified form, is that our non-separated-from-God self would be at “rest” (we could also use the Jewish word “shalom,” or peace, or whole, for this). It is not, internally or externally, at strife. We are comfortable with who we are because God loves us and finds us valuable, so we are no longer constantly striving to feel better about ourselves. We are also growing at “rest” with the world around us—we see others as loved by God and, therefore, loved by us. They are no longer competition in any degenerative sense of the word.

In contrast, our separated-from-God self is not at “rest.” We would call this un-whole, not at peace, disrupted, fractured, broken… you get the picture. This is actually what we mean when we say we are “sinful.” We’ve missed the mark. The mark is wholeness, or at-rest-with-God. We’ve missed it. The insecurities, or restlessness, that we feel both inside us and in the world around us often drive us to fight and scrape for every sense of security we can muster or grab on to. This causes all of the effects of “sin” we see that exist in the world.

Back to the religious culture of Jesus’s day and Psalm 123…

What had happened was that these religious leaders took the not-at-rest-people and used their restlessness for their own personal gain. They made themselves the arbiters or truth, goodness, and at-rest-ness.

Being at-rest only came through their rules, oversight, and approval.

At the same time, these religious leaders did everything in their power to make sure they lived easy, comfortable lives, feasting on the insecurities of those they were supposed to shepherd.

So they were supposed to help move them towards rest but, instead, they found their own personal (false) rest in taking advantage of the restlessness of the people they were “over.”

Here’s my warning: Don’t take advantage of the restlessness around you so that you can feel more (*temporarily) at rest. Rest is found in Jesus, in knowing that God himself has loved you and set you free by putting you fully at rest. Trust in Jesus, trust in the rest he gives. And then you will, by your very Spirit-led nature, be bringing the rest of Jesus and not the restlessness of your broken nature into the world.

Passivity: Do you agree?

Thu, 24 May 2012 11:11:43 -0500

In Mark Sayers’ The Road Trip that Changed the World, he mentions the following progression.

Passivity leads to withdrawal.
Withdrawal leads to distance.
Distance leads to objectification.
Objectification leads to abuse.
Abuse leads to violence.

He draws this, interestingly enough, from Adam’s passivity as the Serpent tempts Eve, and then correlates it to the uncontrollable spiral of violence in the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

Do you agree that passivity sets off a sequence of values that leads to the spread of violence?

And let me throw another twist in there: In our undeniable cultural obsession with comfort, safety and protection, have we unwittingly added layers of passivity and disengagement to our lives?

Could the segmentation caused by the race to safety and comfort be the root of the festering violence in our culture and the world?

"The culture of the road has created a world of objectification. It is only in an objectified world..."

Wed, 23 May 2012 15:32:34 -0500

“The culture of the road has created a world of objectification. It is only in an objectified world that millions can starve while we drown in a sea of fast food, gadgets, and stuff.”

- Mark Sayers, The Road Trip that Changed the World

Don't manage your life

Wed, 23 May 2012 11:23:00 -0500

I sometimes find myself clock watching.

Tick,
tick,
tick,
tick,

One moment, in a few hours, my watch will show a certain time and I’ll pack my bags, walk to my wife’s office, and then we’ll go and pick up our daughters from school.

And then we’ll figure out something to do—go to the grocery story and grab a few things, go for a walk to the park, etc.—we’ll make it to dinner time, and then bath time, and then read a couple of books and put them to bed.

We’ll catch a few innings of the Rangers game, or the latest episode of some tv show, and then crawl into bed seemingly too early and read a few chapters of a book.

Tomorrow I’ll do something similar.

Tick,
tick,
tick,
tick,

Ladies and gentleman, you’re probably thinking “this is what a rut looks like.” But it’s not a rut—it’s life. There are variations and of course, vacations and abnormalities. What if we admit that the everydayness, the mundanity, is what we are destined for?
How would it revolutionize our perspectives if we didn’t spend so much time managing the mundane and waiting for the spectacular but rather, we reveled in the everyday things?

I will admit, there are days and weeks and times when it feels like we’re just eeking by.

That’s a pretty crappy existence, by the way.

We just watch the clock.
We can’t wait to get to lunch,
to the end of the day,
to get married,
to find that perfect job.

We run out the clock.
To find that life is still going. And going.

Tick,
tick,
tick,
tick,

But let me encourage you. Do NOT manage your life. Do NOT clock watch. Do NOT wish away the every day moments.

Embrace them. Enjoy them. If you can not find joy and peace and, especially, God, in the midst of the wake-up-go-to-work-come-home-go-to-bed then you won’t find God anywhere. He’s not usually in the mountaintops or the valleys or the tornado or the explosion but in the whisper.

tock.

"God’s will for our lives is to see us transformed into the likeness of Jesus—to become people who..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 09:15:54 -0500

“God’s will for our lives is to see us transformed into the likeness of Jesus—to become people who walk more and love more like Jesus Himself.”

- Alastair Bryan Sterne, “God’s Plan Isn’t a Roadmap”

What have I learned in 7 years of marriage?

Mon, 14 May 2012 10:03:13 -0500

Today is a special day.

And not because our adopted daughter woke up at 3:30 and kept Ashley awake until 5:30 before waking up for good at 6:30 (but it does add to the special-ness!).

It’s a special day because 7 years ago, my best friend became my bride. This was after knowing me for only about 1 year, so it was quite a bold leap for her to take.

I’m incredibly thankful she did.

We’ve driven across the country a few times, lived in 6 (!) different houses, and have two children. In that time I lost my dad, we owned and gave away a dog, I went through grad school, and Ashley’s had a smattering of employers from the College of Science at Oregon State University to Hallmark.

We’ve learned a ton and yet we still have years to go. Years and years, God willing.

And if I had to sum up what I’ve learned, so far, it would be this:

When I choose to live without daily assuming the sacrificial nature of Jesus, my marriage is worse. I’m selfish, I’m annoying, I’m a drain, and my wife is annoyed, drained, and less-at-peace because of my existence. When I choose to submit to the way of Christ, my marriage is better. We support each other when we make mistakes, rather than complain or accuse. We make decisions together, and we live considerately and hopefully that two (and really, four!) are better than one. And I start to care more that my wife is experience the love of Christ. It’s actually pretty simple: it’s hard for me to follow Jesus and be a jerk to my wife.

Any questions or topics you’d like me to specifically answer when it comes to marriage? You can ask them here.

Read with me! Read with me?

Wed, 09 May 2012 13:25:14 -0500

I’m about 1/4 into an amazing book, and would be willing to buy anyone local (in Dallas…otherwise, sorry..) a copy of the book to read along with me and discuss it.

The Road Trip that Changed the World by Mark Sayers. Please get in touch with me if you want to join the fun!

Petey, there is a television series called 'Biblical Mysteries Explained' on the History channel that talks about texts that weren't included in the Bible, Jesus' death and resurrection, among a few other topics (you may have seen/heard of it). After watching the show, my mind went silly and I started to question my faith given they say 'this is what happened.' What are your thoughts on this and why do you think producers make this kind of stuff? Is it to harm or enlighten us? Have a great day!

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:41:00 -0500

I think those are great questions and I’m sure lots of people wrestle with them on a regular basis, with the popularity of these shows and what not. I’ll try and be brief and helpful, answering your questions in reverse order.

1. Is it to harm or enlighten us? Well, fortunately, neither. The History channel is creative and entertaining, and thus largely falls in the category of “pop history.” I think it is primarily intended to entertain, not educate.

2. Why do you think producers make this kind of stuff? This is answered by the first question, but I think producers make things that sell. Controversial religion topics are always en vogue, especially when they challenge (historically) dominant and pervasive religions. You said “my mind went silly and I started to question my faith given they say ‘this is what happened’,” and that’s exactly what they wanted. They wanted you to buy what they were selling, hopefully drawing you back so that (a) the History channel gets more market share so that (b) they can get more advertising revenue, therefore a + b = c, (c) that this producer makes more money and continues to get jobs producing TV shows and documentaries.

More importantly,
3. What are your thoughts on this? That faith is not a certainty, that if you can explain a mystery then it’s no longer a “mystery,” and that true faith is never based fully on factual evidence but based on reliable and relational trust—essentially that God is who is says he is and has done for us what he said he’d do for us.

Take the Bible for instance. We have lots of terms that we throw around and cling to when we describe the Bible, such as “inerrant” and “inspired” and “infallible.” And therefore someone could make a show on the contradictions in the Bible and ask, since we couple all those words, “If we can prove that it is not, in fact, inerrant, can’t we also prove that it’s not inspired or infallible?” That, logically, would lead us to believe that Bible is impotent and worthless.

But this actually misses the point. We use all those words because they are perhaps the best words our culture and society and language give us, but we are primarily trying to say this: The Bible is fully capable of doing what it intends to do.

Therefore it finds its power, effectiveness, and even reliability from its capabilities. These are the words & truths that we as Christ followers say lead us to life, true life, and we first and foremost stand on the promise that Scripture is fully capable of illustrating and drawing us, with the Holy Spirit’s power, into that fullness of life.

All that to say, I think, that faith must not be based on or shaken by an entertainment-driven series of shows based on soft theories, shadows of evidence, and pop history.

We either find Jesus fully satisfying or we find him wanting, God forbid. My prayer is that you find him fully satisfying, and if you do, my prayer is that he is satisfying enough that “new” discoveries and explanations can be entertaining yet not fulfilling.

So yeah, this happened… believe it or not. Who would have...

Sun, 06 May 2012 08:46:34 -0500

So yeah, this happened… believe it or not. Who would have thought to combine “Hallelujah” with “Moves like Jagger”?

"the followers of Jesus are no longer faced with a decision. The only decision possible for them has..."

Tue, 01 May 2012 09:58:13 -0500

“the followers of Jesus are no longer faced with a decision. The only decision possible for them has already been made. Now they have to be what they are, or they are not following Jesus. The followers are the visible community of faith; their discipleship is a visible act which separates them from the world—or it is not discipleship. And discipleship is as visible as light in the night, as a mountain in the flatland.
To flee into invisibility is to deny the call. Any community of Jesus which wants to be invisible is no longer a community that follows him.”

- Stanley Hauerwas

Pictures from inside Yeni’s orphanage. I found it...

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:13:45 -0500

Pictures from inside Yeni’s orphanage. I found it fascinating and thought it might provide an interesting perspective on a small part of the Ethiopian adoption process.

It may be too strong to say that we’re always sinning or not sinning. I did, in fact, once...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:26:40 -0500

It may be too strong to say that we’re always sinning or not sinning.

I did, in fact, once make that statement. Years ago. It cannot really be defended or justified.

After some conversations and thinking today, I would rather put forth this:

We’re constantly being drawn towards Christ and his vision for life or we’re being distracted from Christ and his vision for life.

Or,

We either perpetually have an ear turned towards the Holy Spirit’s wooing & formation or we don’t.

Much to our dismay and dislike, we’re never in neutral.

Being in neutral is actually a state of distraction.

Do you routinely take time to understand which way your life is slanted? Towards Christ or distracted? Do you have times, moments, and activities in your week that reorient you, people in your life that help calibrate you?

If you don’t you should.

"What’s the point of telling the story of Jesus as the climax of the story of Israel? What..."

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:58:57 -0500

“

What’s the point of telling the story of Jesus as the climax of the story of Israel?
What relevance has that got to the rest of the human race and to the wider world?…

Understand this point, and you will understand everything:

In Israel’s scriptures, the reason Israel’s story matters is that the creator of the world has chosen and called Israel to be the people through whom he will redeem the world. The call of Abraham is the answer to the sin of Adam. Israel’s story is thus the microcosm and beating heart of the world’s story, but also its ultimate saving energy. What God does for Israel is what God is doing in relation to the whole world…Grasp that, and you have a pathway into the heart of the New Testament.

”

- NT Wright, How God Became King

"Always-on/always-on-you devices provide three powerful fantasies: that we will always be heard; that..."

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:40:39 -0500

“Always-on/always-on-you devices provide three powerful fantasies: that we will always be heard; that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; and that we never have to be alone. Indeed our new devices have turned being alone into a problem that can be solved.”

- Sherry Turkle, “The Flight from Conversation”

Wow. This article overwhelmed me and punched me in the gut. Then it laughed at me. Please take a few minutes to read it and consider.

There we were, on our last day in the orphanage. After a busy morning of goodbye parties, playing...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:31:39 -0500

There we were, on our last day in the orphanage. After a busy morning of goodbye parties, playing with kids, giving gifts to caregivers, and other things, Ashley and I found ourselves sitting on a couch quietly interacting with Yeni in the common room.

A couple of birth parents were at the orphanage that day, one a mother in town to meet a family before they took their new little boy home, the other a single father in town for his court date where he told an Ethiopian judge he intended to wave his right as a parent.

The father’s son was there that day and they got to share a few last moments and lunch together before they’d likely never meet again.

As our family sat on the couch, this little boy who is probably young elementary school age walked into the room and started playing with the pile of toys on the coffee table in front of us. The day had wound down, most of the children were already taking naps, and I had assumed the birth parents were back in the car with the social worker on their way to the village.

But then, unexpectedly, the boy’s father slowly crept through the open glass door behind us.

He walked up to his son, pulled out 5 birr (about 17 birr equals 1 US dollar), showed it to the little boy, and tucked it in his pocket.

He then looked at us, gave us the universal sign for “shhhhhhhh,” and disappeared the way he came.

It’s so simple, yet it blows my mind. And I get it.

But it’s still difficult. It’s difficult because it reinforces that these children, even my child, have parents that love and care for them and want the best for them, yet they couldn’t keep them.

They were not orphaned by death or destruction or volatile circumstances.

They were orphaned by the tragedy of poverty. Of unsustainable life.

I haven’t figured out what it means, or how to reconcile it, or if I even need to. But every time I re-live it in my head, every time I see that poor, broken-hearted, rail-thin man slip that money in his son’s pocket and give him one final kiss on the forehead, it breaks my heart. It seems so cruel.

And yet I know, because I’m experiencing it now, that new life comes from hard things. But it doesn’t make them easier.

I haven’t written anything about our experience in Ethiopia, and I’ve stayed away from...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:36:08 -0500

I haven’t written anything about our experience in Ethiopia, and I’ve stayed away from writing about the transition of Yeni, our adopted daughter, into our home over the past 10 days or so.

It’s not for lack of stories to tell, or insights to share, or moments to capture. Quite the opposite actually—I don’t think short posts and videos and pictures could tell much of the roller-coaster-like reality that we’ve been facing.

We all know those people, and if we’re honest we all are those people, who use Facebook & Twitter to take every opportunity to show their “friends” how awesome their family is, how wonderful their spouse is, how their daughter is the cutest girl in the whole world, how their son is a fabulous speller. Perhaps their lives are so overwhelmingly awesome that they have to escape it to spend so much time on Facebook or their heads will explode.

I don’t know.

But what I do know is this: though most people have avoided this conversation, at least in person, like the plague, the reality is that transitioning a two year old who doesn’t know you and doesn’t speak your language and has spent her entire life in an orphanage into your little American family is hard. Hard.

So I’ve refused to use Facebook and Twitter to daily post about how great this is, and “oh here’s a video of this awesomeness,” though my wife & I will both admit that we’ve done it once or twice. We’re only human, after all.

But I mean to say that I have, very intentionally, refrained from using social media to paint this picture of how wonderful things are when they are, quite honestly, sometimes painful. And, if you’re wondering, I also refuse to use social media to lament all day long, therefore there’s been next to no posting.

Now this isn’t to say that we are overwhelmed, or disappointed, or regretful. Again, quite the opposite. We are incredibly blessed. Incredibly empowered to be like Jesus to this new addition to our family, no matter how hard she unintentionally tries to be frustrating.

Though we didn’t share it often in public, Ashley & I both knew this is what we were in for. We had no grand delusions of pie-in-the-sky easiness, or dreams of continuing our life as-was without making major adjustments. I mean, come on, going from one kid to two kids is a hard move, adoption or not. So while we have had hard moments, we are adjusting. We are getting used to this new rhythm of living slowly, with more structure and less willy-nilly hop in the car and drag our one kid with us.

Life is not easy, and neither is adoption. But life is a gift, and a blessing, and adoption is every much the same. We are incredibly thankful for Yeni, and for this process, and for all of our friends & family that helped us bring her home in a myriad of ways. We especially continue to covet your prayers and support.

Tonight when I was in the drugstore picking up some ringworm medicine, I paused in the aisle when I remembered a particularly poignant moment in the orphanage on our last visit. I paused, I stood still, and tears rolled down my face as I considered what unfolded in front of our eyes.

And that story will actually be the content of my first official post about our trip. Stay tuned.

We’re coming home.

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 11:59:41 -0500

We’re coming home.

Yeni & Amare’s “thank you” party for all...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:45:43 -0500

Yeni & Amare’s “thank you” party for all of the workers at the orphanage.

Well hello, beautiful.

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:43:35 -0500

Well hello, beautiful.

One of the worst parts of us, as humanity, is that we want the...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:31:01 -0500

One of the worst parts of us, as humanity, is that we want the benefits of the covenant without the covenant.

We want the pleasure without the commitment.

This makes us slaves to instant gratification—a sort of walking dead of those with insatiable appetites that we do fairly decent jobs of disguising until they burst forth in actions that are rooted in nothing even resembling stability.

Chaos.

Enjoying the pleasures of the covenant without the binding stipulations leads to chaos.

Anything sustainable, lasting, and therefore satisfying over time is rooted in a set of practices and commitments that bind us. This is the essence of how freedom is only truly found in commitment.

Where there’s no commitment, there’s only slavery. There’s slavery to every impulse and desire that comes our way, and we find ourselves floating in a debased, undefined pursuit of gluttony and addiction that supremely governs us.

It enslaves us.

And this is what I mean when I say it’s one of the worst elements of our breed: we are defined, not by who we love or what we care about, but what we want. Our immediate, short term, fleeting desires. We’re not defined by a covenant relationship or the covenant boundaries, or the covenant at all, but by the perceived pleasures that are derived from the covenant.

A world where people exist based on gratifying their immediate wants cannot be sustained.

mrcrowder.com

Taking Advantage of Rest

Passivity: Do you agree?

"The culture of the road has created a world of objectification. It is only in an objectified world..."

Don't manage your life

"God’s will for our lives is to see us transformed into the likeness of Jesus—to become people who..."

What have I learned in 7 years of marriage?

Read with me! Read with me?

So yeah, this happened… believe it or not. Who would have...

"the followers of Jesus are no longer faced with a decision. The only decision possible for them has..."

Pictures from inside Yeni’s orphanage. I found it...

It may be too strong to say that we’re always sinning or not sinning. I did, in fact, once...

"What’s the point of telling the story of Jesus as the climax of the story of Israel? What..."

NT Wright, How God Became King

"Always-on/always-on-you devices provide three powerful fantasies: that we will always be heard; that..."

There we were, on our last day in the orphanage. After a busy morning of goodbye parties, playing...

I haven’t written anything about our experience in Ethiopia, and I’ve stayed away from...

We’re coming home.

Yeni & Amare’s “thank you” party for all...

Well hello, beautiful.

One of the worst parts of us, as humanity, is that we want the...