Lord, I'm Tired

I'm a pretty emotional dude. When I was preaching and leading worship in the institutional church, rarely would a Sunday go by when I wouldn't find myself choked up by the emotion of the moment. Certain stories or songs or situations would hit me in the gut and I would lose the ability to speak or sing, overcome by emotion. It kind of became what I was known for.

Over the years, the songs that choke me up have changed. I remember a season when my good friends Mark and Connie White were having lots of problems with their children's inability to have children. During that time, "Blessed Be Your Name" was an impossibility for me to sing, especially when they were in the sanctuary. "You give and take away" became a series of sobs and silences. When my life blew up in the summer of 2004, I couldn't get through "Everything" by Lifehouse. Literally cried my way through a special music at church. "Victory in Jesus" was one of mom's faves, and my dad and I both struggled through that chorus at mom's funeral. I inherited my vocal volume from my father, and it must have been quite and auditory spectacle (is that even possible?!) for the people on stage at mom's funeral. Here dad and I were, sitting in the front row belting out this great hymn; then, at the same time, we got choked up and unable to sing, and the decibel level had to drop by about half!

The flip-side of that type of emotion was also a characteristic of my worship leading. I could laugh and rejoice and celebrate with the best of them during worship. Give me a set with the right David Crowder songs, and I would be having the time of my life, with or without you. "Undignfied." "No One Like You." "Wholly Yours." We had so much fun with those tunes.

But there is one old school Crowder song that I have never been able to lead corporately because, every time I try to sing it, I get overwhelmed with the imagery of a God who never leaves or forsakes that I become a blubbering mess. And since it is such an obscure Crowder song, I'm usually the only one who knows it. Which makes it hard for people to sing. I'm listening to it now on Amazon Prime and the lyrics are, again, taking over my emotions. The song is the title track from their under-appreciated "All I Can Say" album. If you haven't heard it before, it's worth a listen. Here's a YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5L97ygGwok. And here are the lyrics of angst, abandonment, and hope:

Lord, I'm tired
So tired from walking
And Lord, I'm so alone
And Lord, the dark is creeping in, creeping up
To swallow me
I think I'll stop
And rest here a while

And this is all that I can say right now
And this is all that I can give
And this is all that I can say right now
And this is all that I can give
That's my everything

Oh, did you see me crying?
Oh, and didn't you hear me call your name?
Wasn't it you I gave my heart to?
I wish you'd remember where you set it down

And this is all
This is all that I can say right now
I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, that's my everything
This is all that I can say right now, right now
I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, that's my everything

I didn't notice you were standing here

I didn't know that that was you holding me

I didn't notice you were crying too

I didn't know that that was you washing my feet

And this is all

This is all that I can say right now
Oh, I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, That's my everything
This is all that I can say right now, right now
I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, that's my everything

This is all that I can say right now
Oh, I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
And that's my everything
Yeah, that's my everything
Yeah, that's my everything
Everything

Find the hope in the midst of the darkness. He. Is. There.
Blessings.

Bringing Resurrection, Easter 2012

Today in the place in which I live, good Christian people gathered all over the city in beautiful buildings to celebrate a risen Savior.  Songs of resurrection were sung and prayers of thanksgiving were prayed.  Sermons were preached extolling the significant, world-altering event that took place 1985 (or so) years ago and the importance that it still has today.  Thousands of dollars were spent on new dresses and ties and suits.  Twitter and Facebook feeds blew up with pictures and Scriptures and praises and celebrations.  My cousin participated in one of the 35 Easter services that his church put together.  (He doesn't live in Lubbock, by the way, in case you were racking your brain to think of a Lubbock church big enough to pull THAT off.)

Also today in the place in which I live, good people gathered at major intersections to sell Sunday papers to try to earn some meager money for their massive needs.  Others sat at hospital beds weeping over parents who were slipping away.  Good families hunkered down in rooms waiting to hear news about the health implications of complications from a child's surgery.  Brokenhearted people sat in desperate need of having their hearts bound up.  Poor people waited desperately for someone to come and preach them some good news.  Captives wondered who would come to them and proclaim freedom.  Prisoners sat again in darkness, wondering where all the light had gone.  Mourners looked around for someone to bring them comfort.

Maybe it is because today was the first Easter in my life that I didn't darken the door of a church building.  Maybe it's because the things that God has been stirring in me are moving me toward action of a different kind.  Maybe it's because I have surrounded myself with people who have challenged me to see the world as broken and in need of redemption.  Whatever the reason, the dichotomy of the first two paragraphs that I wrote above hit me hard this Sunday.  Today, churches across our country gathered for their high holy day -- Resurrection Sunday.  Churches beefed up their greeter force and rocked out their worship.  Churches spruced up their signage and weedeated (weed-ate???) their parking lots.  Churches spent dollars on egg hunts and advertising.  They gathered in their places of worship, counted their people and offerings.  Compared this Easter's attendance with the year-to-date (and with the ghost of Easters past).  Felt really good about what they did today.

And redemption happened.  I have read tweets and posts about all of the good things that happened this morning.  My friends at Ecclesia Houston had an overwhelmingly blessed Easter gathering in the heart of that city.  My friends in Lexington, KY, brought hope and redemption to the lives of hundreds.  My friends at Experience Life here in Lubbock lived up to their name and helped a packed house at their downtown campus experience that life.  And while I haven't heard much from my family at Raintree, I know that it was a weekend of blessing and being blessed.  There is no doubt that redemption took place in the midst of these gatherings that took place.

But just in the relatively modest city that we live in, there were so many missed opportunities to live out the Isaiah 61 reference alluded to above.  God-followers would have had their pick of places to bring redemption to Lubbock today.  Almost all the social organizations had opportunities to serve today -- Christians were busy gathering in their houses of worship and forgetting just what the Savior that they were celebrating spent most of his time doing.  I am not saying this to minimize the amount of redemption that took place in those gatherings.  I am saying that to try to get us to think about where God is already working and to get in line behind him.

One of my favorite authors, Leonard Sweet, made the contention SEVERAL years ago that God might just be more active in the world these days than he is in the church.  When I first read that, I almost went ahead and dismissed him as a heretic.  Seemed like an appropriate thing to do.  But the more that I reflected on it, the more truth it seemed to hold.  If God is a God of the oppressed and broken-hearted, then wouldn't it make more sense that He was doing His thing right in the midst of an oppressed and broken world?

I hesitate to tell you our story from today, because the last thing that I would want to convey is that I have it all figured out.  That this is the only way.  That I'm right and others are wrong.  I merely tell you our story to try to get you to see that there just might be another way -- a more redemptive way.  Today we loaded up our family at 6:40 am and headed to the Ronald McDonald House in Lubbock.  For those of you unfamiliar with RMH, it partners with local children's hospitals to provide a place to stay for out-of-town families who find their children sick and in the hospital.  A group of us went to cook breakfast burritos for the families that were staying there.  And to bring them Easter baskets with games and activities designed to restore some sense of normalcy in their lives.  And to generally let them know that, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Jesus loves them.  Dearly.  And their sick children.  Especially their sick children.

The lady in charge said that we would probably see parts of two or three of the ten families staying there.  Most would prefer to stay in their rooms, hunkered down for the fight that they were in.  I think we ended up meeting 7 or 8 of the families.  Their stories were absolutely heart-breaking.  A one-year-old experiencing complications from a second heart surgery.  A 17-year-old on life support.  A 17-week-premature baby fighting in NICU.  A 7-week-premature baby that mom and dad are hoping to take home this week.  And a kitchen-full of breakfast burritos gave us the opportunity to hear these stories.  To encourage these families.  To pray for these children.  To bring life and hope and resurrection and redemption into a culture of hurt and brokenness and pain.

I feel like it was the first time I have ever really celebrated Easter.

A Place at the Table, Feast Day 1

Yesterday was one of my favorite days in a long time.  The way that this Place at the Table fast is laid out is that on Sundays, we are encouraged to feast with friends -- eat, drink, laugh, enjoy.  So I had been looking forward to Sunday all week.  It had been a long time since I had planned out my meals quite so fully.  I was going to eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Heart (or 2) at midnight, and then get up early for a bowl of cereal loaded down with milk.  Then, on my way to work, I was going to get a Cinnamon Dolce Latte (that girly coffee again).  Lunch would be large quantities of meat, and dinner would be a feast as well.  There was even a thought that I would squeeze one last meal in before going to bed.

Well, reality was less sexy.  The Resse's happened at midnight (glorious!), but when I woke up, the cereal didn't seem so appealing.  So I did the CDL from Starbucks and went to church.  The conversation at church was awesome.  Several of us chatted about what we had been learning about ourselves and our lives during this fast.  After church, a group of us went to Texas Land and Cattle and waited forever to get a table.  But it didn't matter (at least not to most of us) because the conversation was so life-giving.  I ate red meat for the first time in a while, but it was again the community that was being formed around the table that was the most fulfilling.  As a matter of fact, the burger and sweet potato were a little too much.  I felt a little bloated.

So much so that when our community gathered last night for table fellowship and discussion, I wasn't really hungry.  But I bought a chicken sandwich and a coke and was off to our meeting.  It was again the community that was life-giving.  It was our first gathering since we initially launched this lent fast, so we spent some time discussing what we had learned.  I was blown away that, since our first meeting, three of our families had begun sponsoring Compassion kids.  Our little community of 15-20 people had committed to changing 3 lives and bringing kingdom to earth in a tangible, food-on-the-table sort of way.  We then discussed things like contentment and overindulgence and appreciating simple things.  It was again an absolutely life-giving discussion.

We ended our time with some talk about healing and then we took communion together.  The last thing we did was feast on some cake for one of our group's birthday.  Not sure I've ever enjoyed birthday cake quite that much. I went home from that gathering, chicken sandwich in hand (I hadn't eaten it yet; I was still full from lunch!), very happy to have a community of faith that was trying to be intentional about hope and healing and redemption.

So now I begin the first full week of the fast.  I'm sure there will be days of hunger and anger, frustration and exasperation.  But, if week one was any indication, there will also be days of reflection, healing, community and shalom.  Stay tuned.

Give Us Rest

I've spent the better part of this year listening to the final David Crowder* Band album, Give Us Rest (a requiem mass in the key of C [the happiest of all keys]).  I'm a firm believer that seasons of our lives often have soundtracks, usually not ones that we would choose.  When I went through my divorce 7 years ago (goodness! 7 years?!), the soundtrack was Third Day's Wire.  I have always thought that this was an odd soundtrack.  Nevertheless, whenever a song from that CD plays, I am taken back to an eggplant minivan, a rent house on Lasalle, and a three- and one-year old daughter.

Even though I'm not sure what is just around the corner for me, I have this feeling that there is some change on the horizon.  And I think that Give Us Rest is turning into the soundtrack for this season.  The feelings of despair and hope, of death and resurrection, of darkness and light that permeate the album have struck a chord deep in my heart.  "O Great God, Give Us Rest," "Fall On Your Knees," "Oh My God" & "Oh, Great Love of God" have especially resonated.  But, like most of Crowder's art, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I look forward to continuing to see how Crowder's requiem speaks to this season.  This probably won't be the last blog about this masterpiece.

How about you?  Which songs are resonating with you?  What is the whole album saying to you?