There is Nothing New Under the Sun

One thing I've learned, particularly in this last year, is that there is nothing new under the sun. What I mean is, there's a rhythm, a continuous cycle to things. In Malachi 3 we read, "I the Lord do not change". He is constant. We can see how constant and rhythmic He really is by looking into the heavens. At first glance, everything appears at random. Yet, there is nothing random about it.

Stars are not spread out randomly in space, rather they are positioned in vast groups called galaxies. The Sun belongs to a galaxy called the Milky Way. There are an estimated 100,000 million stars in the Milky Way alone. Outside that, there are estimated millions upon millions of other galaxies. Think about the perfection of that design; the intricacies and details and organization of that system and the unchanging laws that govern it.

And here we are, God's most intricate design, the handiwork of His creation. We were created to know Him, to be in relationship with Him. And when our imperfection in sin created a mass divide between us and God, His perfect plan just continued to unfold, creating a way for us to come back into relationship with him. The plan of redemption was set in place at the moment of creation, not after. God wasn't looking for a Plan B. Everything was prepared from the start.

Funny then, how life can surprise us. I've recently begun to emerge from a most dark season of life; one that I wouldn't wish on anyone. While living through one of the most difficult and trying seasons of my life, I often felt hopeless. I felt discouraged and abandoned, defeated and punished. And most of all, I felt confused.

How did I get here? Why did I get here? What could I do to emerge?

I knew the Bible. I had read the stories and studied the men and women whose lives unfold in scripture, but there was an obvious disconnect. Those people weren't me. My situation was different, unique, complicated. I was treading in new territory. My situation required outside input, from friends, counselors, anybody. As much as I loved and studied the Bible, I was disconnected, at least during this dark season of my life.

Then I read a book, A Tale of Three Kings. For me, it was a moment of divine illumination. The scales fell off, the discouragement scurried away, my defeat turned to triumph. Why? I realized that there is nothing new under the sun.

As I read the book, which was based on the lives of Saul, David and Absolam, I felt like I was reading my own biography. I could see how things happened, why things happened and what it would take to get the results I so desperately wanted without any surprises.

I realized that I was living a story that had already been told. And it repeated throughout all of history, over and over and over again. I realized that there is nothing so unique or overly complicated that we can't plug ourselves directly into scripture and find the answers. I've always known that, but living it is a completely different thing.

We are all a part of a perfect and unchanging system created by God and governed by perfect and unchanging laws, both physical and spiritual, and the outcomes of life's most greatest and difficult challenges depend solely on our willingness to submit to His perfect and unchanging plan. When we do, there is freedom.

There is no use trying to fight our way through life. God's design and plan for us is perfect. Part of His plan requires us to be tried and tested, shamed and rejected. Part of His plan takes us through a grueling detour, through the lonely desert. But it's perfect nonetheless. And the moment we realize and accept God's perfect and unchanging design, the moment we can experience the freedom of life, even in the most difficult and trying seasons.

Our stories play out the same way the stories of the great men and women of the Old and New Testament play out. There is no need for life to completely catch us off guard. Sure, there will be surprises and times when we are blind sided by unexpected challenges, but what shouldn't be unexpected is the resolution of those challenges. Our stories have been told for thousands of years and are intricately recorded in scripture. If you are looking for answers, if you are looking for a way out of the grueling pit you've found yourself in, know this -

God's ways are not our ways; His thoughts are high above our human understanding. He is perfect and unchanging. He loves us. And...

there is nothing new under the sun.

Crazy Love

I just finished reading a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and I have to say, it's one of those unassuming books that packed more punch than I was expecting. The concept is simple; the ramifications are far from simple - they're crazy.

Here's what crazy means (dictionary.com):

• Mentally deranged, demented, insane
• Senseless, impractical, totally unsound
• Intensely enthusiastic, passionately excited
• Very enamored or infatuated
• Unusual, bizarre

I remember the moment at the Catalyst Conference last year when someone attempted to break the world record for highest dive into one foot of water. I watched, along with the more than 12,000 in attendance as Dana Kunze, who also held the world record for highest dive at 172 feet, prepared to make the head first plunge into 12 inches of water from 35 feet, right dead smack in the middle of the convention center.

I'm sure I can speak for just about everyone there that day - our stomachs were tightened, teeth clinched, all thinking the exact same thing - "This guy's crazy!".

Let's face it, no one was really expecting this experienced diver to fall to his death right in front of the main stage where worship was supposed to take place a half hour later. To his credit, it wasn't like this was the first time he had tried something so drastic, so crazy. He must have started practicing at 3 feet, 10 feet, 20 feet, 25 feet...and so on. No one decides one day, without any real experience that they're going to break such an insane record.

Yet there was still the thought - I'm sure everyone felt it - that said, "Oh my God, this guys about to die, right here, right now!". The thrill, the anticipation, the risk of failure...we were all clinched.

A world record was made that day. Dana Kunze was the first man in the world to dive head first from 35 feet into 12 inches of water. People cheered, and no doubt, some crazy person who witnessed the event or someone watching it on YouTube is going to try to do bigger and better.

That's why records are constantly being broken - every Olympics. It's in us, deep within us, to be great. It's in us, particularly in every man, to test the limits, to risk even our own personal safety just to see if we can do something that everyone else thought was, well crazy.

Yet, upon hearing Jesus words, "Whoever loses his life will gain it", "Sell everything you have and follow me", "Love your neighbor as yourself", most tend to respond in a similar fashion to the rich young ruler. Upon listening to Jesus tell him to sell all of his possessions and give everything to the poor and follow Him, the rich young ruler went away sad. He couldn't do it. There was too much to lose.

It's as if the drive in every human to be greater, to do more, to take risks and to challenge the status quo finds its end when it's no longer about achieving notoriety for oneself.

In his book, Francis Chan makes the following statement: "If one hundred people represented the world's population, fifty-three of those would live on less than $2 a day. Which is more messed up - that we have so much compared to everyone else, or that we don't think we're rich?"

Perhaps being born into the most powerful and wealthy superpower of all time has clouded our vision as to what's really normal and what's really not. For people around the world, what we spend at McDonald's on the dollar menu every week is crazy. And still, people starve, people die because of a lack of basic needs that we take for granted every day.

I remember sharing this story with a group of young people last year. There were about 500 of them and it was a cold December night. At the end of sharing the story of the rich young ruler I told them that I honestly believed that it was not the intention of any young person listening to my words to deny Jesus if He personally asked them to give up what they had in order to follow Him. I can't imagine anyone would think of themselves as walking in the shoes of the rich young ruler and not making the right decision.

Then, came the challenge. It was a test. I asked every one of the 500 plus young people to look down at their shoes and consider their value. I asked them to consider how much their shoes meant to them, how attached they were to something as trivial as their shoes, knowing full right that most of them probably had upwards of 10 or more pair sitting under their beds in their comfortably heated and fully furnished homes.

Then I asked them to do something that I knew would be gut-wrenching. And I hate to even acknowledge how gut-wrenching it actually is - but I asked them to take their shoes and socks off and leave them at the front of the stage so that we could give them to a homeless person in the community. For one night, all I asked was that this particular group of young people would go home cold and barefoot so that someone in the community who was without for 365 days a year could be blessed and walk in their shoes.

We had an overwhelming response - hundreds of shoes were heaped at the front of the stage. But after the night was over and I watched one after another leave the auditorium and head out into the cold, snow and ice covered parking lot, I noticed that though we had hundreds of shoes left for the homeless, there were still hundreds of shoes left on the feet of those who heard the message but failed to respond.

I talked with a few of them. Each had an answer. One young girl told me her parents would be angry. Come to think about it, I never got a call from an angry parent. If I had, I would have gladly bought their kid a new pair of shoes out of my own pocket. What's crazy? Me buying a kid a pair of shoes or parents complaining that their kid gave her shoes to a homeless person?

One young man told me that he didn't want to give out of obligation and because he felt pressured and his heart wasn't really in it, he concluded to keep his shoes until God spoke to him directly.

That explanation particularly angered me. Hasn't God already spoken? How much more clearly does he need to speak? How far from the truth have we gone? How blind are we? How deaf are we? How conditioned have we become toward the need and preservation of our great wealth.

The reality is, whether we acknowledge our wealth or not, being rich is a serious disadvantage spiritually. Jesus said that it would be as hard for a rich man to enter heaven as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Not because the rich are bad people, but because it is so much easier for the rich to gain comfort in their wealth, to consider ways of preserving their wealth instead of ways of caring for the less fortunate, which is the message of Jesus. We are, in fact, the less fortunate, for which Jesus himself gave the most valuable and precious gift one could ever give - his very life. How much more then, can we willingly sacrifice for those who are without - without faith, without hope, without love, without the freedom of salvation in Christ?

Consider the priests of Malachi's day who thought that just because they were giving God something, it would be pleasing to Him. God rejected their offering. Why do we think it's okay to hand God our leftovers and feel no shame? We assume that God will be pleased because we give him something, yet we keep the best for our own personal gain.

Jesus doesn't say, "Come follow me and just do what you can"...No...

He tells us to dive in, head first, into seemingly 12 inches of water from a world record breaking height. He tells us to give him our best. Take risks, test Him, be crazy about it. Be intensely enthusiastic and passionately excited in what we give our lives to, what we spend our time and money on - holding nothing back.

There needs an awakening of Christianity in America. It's not going to come from people who just do what everyone else is doing. It's going to come through crazy people, people willing to challenge the status quo, take risks, dream big and follow Jesus with everything...

People with Crazy Love.