But a perfect score really wasn’t the idea of the outing. Some of us were meeting each other for only the second or third time. The objective was to get to know each other, enjoy one another’s company, and just be guys. And we succeeded. We gave each other a hard time, traded tips, and pulled a few pranks. That said, we did sincerely try to hit our marks. But when we walked away, we did not walk away with a ratio at the front our minds. We did not walk away thinking, “Man, I only hit two out of ten.” Nor did we think, “Man, Jimmy only hit 1 out of 10. I probably won’t be his friend.” Instead we were thinking, “That was fun. I can’t wait to hang out with these guys again.”

I think that’s the kind of relationship God wants with us. But too often we get caught up in our fears of making mistakes. He did not send His son to die for us so that we could live in fear. Still, we continue to think we have to follow the rules ever so closely lest we become distant or smote. We obsess ourselves with the law, because that’s what makes sense to us. Laws provide us with predictability and thus lead us to understanding. But the glorious truth is this; perfection is not the goal of Christian living, it is a byproduct. Pursuing holiness doesn’t bring one closer to God, pursuing God brings one closer to holiness. Christianity is about communion with God, something that He made possible for us solely because we were unable to do it ourselves. Yet this does not mean we have a free pass to abuse grace, and I doubt a true follower of Christ (a new creation) could stand to do that anyway. It simply means we are to put and seek God above all things, even our own perfection. His Holy Spirit exists to guide us. We must trust it and not guide or accuse ourselves. For we are unworthy of such a venture. What God wants most from us is our attention and affection. I trust His grace can handle the rest.

“Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.” Matthew 5:17

John 8:1-11

This room is 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Only humans shed emotional tears. People who drink coffee are less likely to commit suicide than people who don’t. God loves you. Assuming these statements are true, I am tempted to classify all of these pieces of information the same way; as knowledge I can learn in an instant. But I would be wrong. God’s love is not something I can learn in an instant (or even a lifetime), although it often gets treated as so. Sometimes the cross gets treated as if it’s God’s only expression of love, but, contrary to popular belief, it’s where it only begins. God’s love for us is not something we learn in a moment as if it were an interesting fact, it’s an infinite well in which we continue to make discovery. Our satisfaction in Him and His glory in us relies on the degree to which we discover and receive His love.

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies (Psalm 36:5).

Have you ever been told a true story, then seen a picture or interview with the real life participants only to be shocked by the fact that the characters you see in front of you do not look or talk anything like those who once lived and breathed in your imagination? Adjectives can only be so vivid. Until we actually see whatever is being described to us, we can only hypothesize what it might look like. In the same way, I can know the definition of the word “good,” but I can not correctly imagine what good looks like without ever having seen it. I can have it described to me, but until I actually see it, I’m only hypothesizing. For too long of a time, I’ve been imagining God based on my own definitions of words such as “good” and “Holy.” The problem with that is that the only place to see and know good and Holy in their true form is in God. I can’t fully know what Holy is in it’s entirety unless I know who God is. That is what makes God truly indescribable. He is the sole proprietor of His descriptors. God is not defined by “Holy” or “Good,” good and holy are defined by God. If I want an accurate view of God, I simply need to know Him. And the more I do, the more I see that He is far greater than I ever imagined.

James 1:17
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Due to the nature of a blog, this thought will be slightly less expounded than it probably should be, so I’ll be counting a little more on you to connect the dots. Now surely I’m not the first person to feel the weight of his mistakes. What is the natural response of an unholy one who is suddenly made more aware of God’s holiness? For that, we can look to a man named Isaiah who lived during the 8th century B.C. in the Kingdom of Judah. “And I said, ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5). Here we see an awe for God and a woe for self. Nothing could be more natural in all of creation. But what happens when, amidst the collision of holy and unholy, grace is abandoned? By this I mean, even as believers who are still in the process of sanctification, we are often quick to exchange our view of sin for one more ugly. What if, in our transaction, we forget, or are even slow, to exchange our view of grace for one more beautiful? What if, at the altar, we forfeit an all sufficient grace that is larger than the sins of the world? For some, the result is self-righteousness by means of comparison. For others, the result is responding to our woes instead of responding to God, unable to forgive ourselves. “…Healthy people don’t need a doctor–sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners,” (Mark 2;17).

As partakers of grace, we must understand that grace is a trait of love and love a trait of holiness. As worshipers, we must understand that worship is our response to worthiness. When we worship God, we are responding to His worth, as determined by His Holiness. If we are bent on responding to our woes, we can’t respond to God. We end up “worshiping” Him out of sheer politeness, out of courtesy, or some other sort of perceived deserving obligation (Isaiah 1). When we attempt to love God out of cordiality, we are not in love. We are in debt. This is why we are unable to forgive ourselves. This is why we carry guilt and shame much further than we should. We find ourselves attempting to climb up on the cross with Him, not out of some righteous desire to welcome persecution (Matthew 5:10), but out of guilt to make payment. With our good intentions, we offend God.

I’m going to briefly check back in with Isaiah in chapter 6 verses 6 and 7. “Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” The immediacy of this act is of no coincidence. 2 Corinthians 2:7 says, “so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.” As we’ve already seen, if woefulness is not immediately followed up with grace, it often turns into feelings of disgrace towards oneself. And when we do things like attempting to add payment to Christ’s sacrifice to compensate, we only end up worshiping ourselves. We do this, either intentionally or unintentionally, by declaring our own worth; an act we are not qualified to do. We are worth nothing when we belong to ourselves. Only when someone is willing to pay for something is it deemed valuable, and we have no currency in the economy of mercy. Only when we belong to God do we have worth. Put simply, we have nothing to offer for ourselves. We must recognize this so that we can learn to accept His glorious grace.

1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” God is holy, we are not. Psalm 103:9 says, “He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.” If God doesn’t keep His anger forever, why should we? Isaiah 43:25 reads, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.” If God doesn’t remember our sins, and He forgives us for His own benefit, for what purpose should we remember them? 1 Corinthians 13:5 says love keeps no record of wrongs. 2 Corinthians 7:10, perhaps the most relevant to this topic, says, “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.” Godly grief is without regret.

One last time, I return to Isaiah in chapter 6 verse 8. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!” A true comprehender of grace produces an eagerness to share it. A true understander of grace recognizes that the life of the redeemed has nothing to do with him/her. A true grasper of grace is with awe and without regret, because he/she has taken hold of a grace that is not equal to but more beautiful than his/her sin is ugly. That makes me want to worship Him way more than any debt, obligation, or guilt ever could.

Isaiah 1
Philippians 3:13-14, 1 John 1:9, Psalms 69:3

This verse is taken from Hebrews 1, where the Son of God’s status is being made known. That last part of the verse evokes an interesting suspicion. Was Jesus the most joyous person the world has ever seen? This thought kinda blew my mind. I never would have described the Jesus I grew up hearing about as joyful. I picture him tossing tables and weeping behind closed doors. I paint him as pensive, not that I blame the guy. After all, he lived his whole life knowing that he would die a young and gruesome death. For three years he was hated for stirring up traditions, made claims no one else dared to make, and was a teacher to a group of people who rarely seemed to grasp the material. It seems like every time he turned around someone wanted him to heal something or answer a question. If anything, I would bet the man was mournful and maybe even a bit frustrated. On the other hand, if joy comes from God the Father, and Jesus, being God’s Son, has perfect union with the Father, then who else could compete with him in terms of joy? If Jesus didn’t have joy, who does? In actuality, Jesus being the most joyous person that ever lived makes perfect sense. So what’s amazing here, is the fact that Jesus had joy in the midst of all the anguish he went through. But how? Let me tell you what I think. Everything he went through didn’t steal his joy, it gave him joy. Jesus was fully obedient to God. Not only that, but He wanted the things God wanted. He wanted to glorify God, and God wanted to rescue mankind from depravity. Thus, to please God, to fulfill God’s plan, to be obedient to God, gave Jesus great joy. And since Jesus never disobeyed God once, I can only imagine the amount of joy he must have had. May I learn his love for justice and his hatred for evil in my life.

Identity. Countries, cities, generations, races, schools, businesses, ages, genders, presidents, individuals all have identities. Some parts of an identity are assigned, some parts are assumed, and some parts are fought for, but all three create for us an identity. For centuries people have fought for their identity, even before they had one. America fought for its own identity separate from Britain much like a teenager fights for their identity apart from their parents. My generation, my parents’ generation, and my grandparents’ generation all have different identities. Make us all the same age, give us the same clothes, put us in a room together and you’ll still be able to tell us apart from the choices we make to the way we spend our money. Identity. I wonder what identity the human race has. We’re born into an existing one. What have we accepted as part of our identity? Is there anything we’ve rejected? Is there anything we fight to lose? To gain?

27 million people of our living human race are currently enslaved around the world. Atlanta, the city in which I was born, happens to hold the highest amount of human sex trafficking in the United States of America, aka the “land of the free.” As an Atlantan, that’s not an identity I want to have. For some reason, it’s easy to accept shortcomings as part of an identity. But there’s a funny thing about identity, it can be changed. It can be fought for.

I am not naturally outgoing, but sometimes I must fight to be. I don’t think naturally I’m all that musical, but because of my passion for it, I fight to be. The human race is not free, but we must fight to be.

When you see 12-17 year olds selling themselves downtown on a corner, they aren’t prostitutes, they’re slaves.
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/ streetgrace.org/

“With a few hours to kill, the yuppie strolled out of his hotel room and onto the disorienting carpeted floor. He kept his head down as he quietly made his way to the elevator. Staring at the design as it passed quickly underneath his black lace-less shoes, he asked himself, “What kind of mad artist would create such a confusing design?” It was dark with swirls and shapes which had no name or pattern. “The person who designed this must have been a very confused person themselves, secretly wanting the world to share in their pain. They thought no one would ever notice, but I did.” He tried to picture what the floor artist might look like sitting in her art studio. At least, he assumed it was a she. Maybe many floor artists were he’s. He did not know. He had never met one. Although one time in college he met a graphic design artist and she was a she. This made him think of his old dorm room. The room was small with faded walls and a smell so unique that Captain Planet could not identify. Captain Planet had been his childhood hero. For Halloween one year, his mother had sewn for him a red cape from her old bedsheets. He was nine at the time. Or maybe he was six. Or perhaps 17, he could not remember. Slowly, he continued to make his way toward the elevator. Still looking down, he began to focus his attention not on the carpet but rather on his shoes. His black, lace-less, reflective shoes. He remembers pulling them out from the top of his closet as he was packing for his trip. They were covered in dust and he had to stand on his toes to reach them. When his fingers finally brought the shoes to motion, they fell and one of the heels struck the corner of his yet to be shaven chin. He hadn’t said “ow,” but he thought it. Years ago he had received the shoes as a gift. He never liked the shoes until today, and even now he’s not sure why. Feeling his chin as if checking for a scar, he soon made his way onto the lobby’s white marbled floor. The marble was a nice change from the carpet upstairs. It looked cold like ice, the kind of floor a barefoot person would be wise to avoid in the winter time. His shoes clanked as he made his way across the lobby. “Penguins are neat,” he thought to himself. Once outside, he made his way aimlessly down the shadowless sidewalk, all the while painting a mental picture of his location in relation to the hotel. Still staring down, he watched his feet decide whether or not to step on a crack. A picture of his bed-stricken mother entered his mind’s eye. It had been years.”

And all that to say, “Business man leaves his hotel.” I’m telling you, 10 percent story… 90 percent rabbit trail imagery. Is this really what some authors do all day?

As a kid, I hated getting shots more than anything in the world. I didn’t understand them. I couldn’t comprehend the necessity of such a painful experience. I remember this one time, I tried to bargain with the nurse who was going to give me a shot. I told her if she didn’t vaccinate me (i had a bigger vocab then), I would gladly go home, find a stick in my backyard, and poke myself with it as a substitute. Man, my childish little mind just didn’t understand how thankful I’d be for those shots (not the pain) later in life. Funny how our minds work. The familiarity of this situation dawned on me the other day. Imagine this, you’re a child with a father whom you love and trust. He leads you to the car and you follow. He takes you to an unfamiliar place. The doctor pulls out a needle and you get nervous. All this time your father knows the pain that lies ahead, for both of you, and he knows it’s necessary. The needle pierces your skin. You cry out in pain. Maybe you even take a few verbal strikes at your father for leading you to such an awful place. And he, lovingly, takes them because he knows the medicene in the shot, not your pain, is necessary. And he knows that oneday you’ll understand in full. Oneday you’ll thank him. But even though it is necessary, he does not enjoy watching you suffer. And even though it hurts him to watch, he does not leave the room. He’s right beside you, letting you grip his hand as hard as you can throughout the pain. I don’t think it’s God’s intention for us to suffer, it’s just the effects of imperfection and the process of correction. Sometimes the things that cause us to suffer are necessary even when the pain isn’t. Whatever you’ve been through, are going through, or will go through, know that you can reach out to God’s hand and it will be there.

1 Corinthians 13:11-12
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.