Travel Plaza Tuesdays: When What We Say is a Little Bit Gray: Part 1

In my high school year book I was voted most opinionated. It was a polite way to say I busted everyone’s chops and would most likely end up forty-five, some kind of activist, and single (boy, I showed them). I don’t like being such a dogmatic person. I work hard to shake it off.

You probably know what’s coming.

I’m about to get opinionated about something. The reason I hesitate is opinions are often rooted in being against something—and that usually ends in some sort of criticism. And while overpriced grocery stores and other common targets of my criticisms can afford to take a hit now and then, the church has been criticized within an inch of her life over the last few years. And quite frankly, we should look for ways to give her some credits instead of the continual withdrawals. So I want to be careful when I say…

There is a song played on Christian radio that bugs the heck out of me. I recognize the musical lead-in and switch the station before I have to hear a word of the lyrics, which start like this:

Give me rules, I will break them
Show me lines, I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet, it’s gotta be

Having no idea who wrote the song, I googled part of the chorus. In my googling, I discovered a wonderful website The Rabbit Room. On it are some blog posts written by Jason Gray explaining the criticisms he received for his song, “More Like Falling in Love”. Despite my extreme dislike for the song, I immediately had an affinity for Gray. Similar to me, he has a love of words, ie. he likes to use a lot of them. His blog posts are incredibly long, rivaled only by the length of his comment responses.

Proven by the 160-some comments on his post, Gray has gotten a lot of push back on the song. (It should be said that a huge chunk the comments were from ultra-Calvinists who were—well, doing what ultra-Calvinists do best and I won’t even bother going into it). As I hit the scroll button again and again (and again) to read what Gray had to say about the lyrics, I realized he’d fallen into a familiar pit: when you’ve said or done something people have a problem with, and now you begin to attempt to explain yourself in a hundred different ways. You mount a defense, using analogies, metaphors, and every bit of literary arsenal to explain how you were really trying to say this, not that, and so on and so forth. Been there Mister Gray. About fifty-million times. And now experience has taught me that if I say something and a large amount of people draw the same conclusion about what was said, I can’t continue to argue they heard me wrong. In humility I have to admit that I did a shoddy job of communicating and retract whatever I said. I think Gray would be wise to do this. However, I understand it is hard to renege on a song currently on the top 20 Christian music charts.

Tomorrow I’m going to write about the song “More Like Falling in Love” and the problems I have with the message it conveys, even if unintended. It’s rooted in opinions, those pesky things that plague me.

Travel Plaza Tuesdays: Kindles, Pickles, and Other Little Things

Do you know the best thing about turning thirty-one? You spent so much emotion on the trauma of turning thirty, you just don’t have the energy to feel bad about age again. Thirty-one is quiet and uneventful, like an afternoon rain that comes and goes before it’s noticed.

Like a little daisy sprouting up after that rain, Phil bought me a Kindle for my thirty-first birthday. It was unexpected—we aren’t big gift givers. At first I was hesitant. I suspected he purchased it for financial advantages: the Kindle downloads could prove less expensive then the library fines I tend to rack up (when we moved from Indiana two years ago, Phil pointed to the town’s under-construction-library and remarked the project would probably come to a standstill since the funding was being pulled). I was also skeptical about reading from an electronic screen. There would be no paper and ink smell, no chocolaty fingerprints from the last reader, no sound of the page as it turns. What a surprise! I love that little device with its slender, gray cover. It is by far the one of the best gifts I have been given.

When we moved to South Carolina, I was determined to have a new couch. Our old “corduroy gold boat” was left in our rental in Indiana, so we were couchless. However, after a little shopping and the shock of the huge retail price tags, I baulked and ended up buying a used microfiber off craigslist. It was nice, but wasn’t really what I wanted. A few days after the purchase, my boys ran into the kitchen to tell me a water bottle spilled on the couch.

“Okay,” I sighed, “It’s just water. I’ll soak it up.”

“Actually,” said my four-year-old matter-of-factly, “It’s pickle juice.”

Later that evening, we snuggled up on the (slightly dill smelling) couch to watch the movie The Prince of Egypt. We ate popcorn, and I suddenly felt grateful for our second hand couch. If it was new, I would be way too uptight to let the kids eat on it. The pickle-juice-fiasco would have put me over the edge. With a used couch, I just half-laughed and cleaned it up.

Kindles and pickles. They got me to think about how things that are unexpected or don’t happen quite as planned often end up being the sweetest things in life. So often what I think I want is near-sighted. But I have a God who sees the big picture. Often if I rest in Him and His sovereignty, He shows me a glimpse of what I couldn’t see close up. In big and little things.

Travel Plaza Tuesdays: It's a Scary, Scary World, but Take Heart

As July melts into August, our little family settles into life in the South. While the majority of southerners hibernate in air conditioned living rooms, I prefer to take in the heat, as if still defrosting from thirty-one years of below freezing winters. Bike rides in the front yard, homemade lemonade in the afternoons, and long hours at the neighborhood splash pad. I love the fact that clothes put on the line at one o’clock in the afternoon are dry by one-thirty. For a girl who said she would never go south, I’ve gone south, if you know what I mean.

There’s a stereotype about the south that people are friendly. It’s so true. We know our neighbors fairly well already and I always get chatted up at BI-LO. Two Sundays ago when we arrived home from church, we even had a visitor. It was a four-foot brown snake curled up in the shade of our porch.

I am not even kidding.

It was almost enough to make me price moving trucks back to Ohio. Instead, in a panicked state, I texted my sisters. My younger sister’s response: You’re kidding me. Oh, I wish.

“Is it poisonous?” my older sister texted back.

Of course I had already checked online. There are no poisonous brown snakes in upstate South Carolina.

“So what’s the problem?” she asked.

Um, it’s a snake? Maybe that didn’t register from her townhouse in downtown Columbus’ Victorian Village where the nearest snake is fifteen miles north and in a zoo. Or maybe she just simply forgot snakes are inherently evil.

But I had not forgotten. That is why I did not go outside for the rest of the day, even after the snake had moved on. This was a normal reaction to an encounter with a snake longer than my first-born child. However, some other reactions were a little less rational. As Phil reentered the house from a brave, brave venture out, I screamed,

“Shut the door, shut the door!”

The door was hastily shut.

“Lock it! Lock it!”

This time there was only a look.

I got the same look later in the day as I folded laundry in our bedroom. I couldn’t shake the image of a snake slithering around and in a fit of mania, grabbed my unprotected ankles and leapt onto the bed.
Just a long, long stare.

“What? You never get the heebie-jeebies?”

I’ve heard it said many times that fear is not a rational emotion. I beg to differ. When you take into account the things that can and DO happen in life, you begin to realize how legitimate fear is. People get cancer, die in car accidents, miscarry babies, lose jobs, produce prodigals, and a myriad of other unhappys. The chance that you or I will experience one, two, or possibly even three of these pains is almost certain. That’s some seriously scary stuff.

Jesus’ talked a lot about fear. Often He acknowledged the reality of something to be feared, but offered a word of instruction or comfort. An example of this is John 16, when He plainly told His disciples they would have tribulations, but told them to “take heart—I have overcome the world.”

To put it in my modern-day parallel: Yes, you will encounter evil-eyed serpents, but take heart (and stop wearing those ridiculous rubber boots in the yard)—I am the one who crushed the snakes head.”

It comforts me to know that Jesus never said, “Oh don’t worry about such and such, it’s no big deal and probably won’t even happen.”
No, Jesus laid the snakes of life out on the table...

It’s going to be scary.

But I am in control. I will be with you.

Take heart.

Travel Plaza Tuesdays: Saving the Kids

Sometimes the Lord gives us practical object lessons to show an element of truth. This past Sunday the youth pastor at the church we attend, Seth Buckley, shared one such story. I’d like to pass it on to you.

On a family walk in some deep woods near their home in South Carolina, Seth’s two sons asked to take a different trail. Because the two trails ran alongside one another, eventually merging, he agreed and the family split into two groups. Seth and his wife walked on for some time, enjoying the time alone together and the beauty around them. But suddenly, Seth heard a scream. It wasn’t the scream of the boys playing or even someone possibly hurt. It was a scream of pure terror. The barks of wild dogs accompanied it.

Seth took off sprinting through the woods. The distance between the two trails was not great, but the brush was thick. He tried desperately to push branches out of the way as he ran, but he found himself wildly careening into brambles, limbs, and stumps as he ran madly towards the screams of his sons. When he got to the clearing, he saw both of his boys lying in the dirt. The older son had pulled himself on top of the younger. A few wild dogs advanced toward the pair. Seth burst out from the woods like a man possessed. He hurled himself in the direction of the dogs, and screamed like a wild man.

Amazingly, the dogs retreated and ran back into the woods. He helped the boys up and they ran the rest of the trail. It was only when they were clearly out of danger it became apparent that Seth was hurt. He had a couple of deep gashes that were bleeding and the rest of his arms, chest, and legs were scraped and stuck with burs. As his wife attempted to temporarily stop the bleeding, Seth’s younger son asked him, “Does it hurt real bad?”

As Seth tried to explain that the pain didn’t really matter when he compared it to having his boys safe, he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit come on him. He realized what a clear illustration the Father had just given of His own love. He began to tell his sons that when he heard them scream, he didn’t stop to think about anything. He didn’t consider retracing the trail, which would have been safer and without obstacles. He just ran to save his boys. In the same way, Christ didn’t consider Himself when He came for us, when He died on the cross for us. We were the helpless boys, lying face down in the dirt, desperately in need of a Savior. And Christ—because of His deep, unyielding, unmovable love towards us—was the Father, running at full speed, the only thing on His mind,

“I’ve got to save My kids.”

Travel Plaza Tuesday: Grace Requires Obedience, Obedience Gives Grace

by guest blogger Stacy Guevera

I don’t know why I get so surprised in my walk with King Jesus when I find He wants me to do something and it’s truly the most uncomfortable thing I can think of.

Confronting.

Just thinking of that word I want to hyperventilate (where’s the brown bag?).

A situation arose recently with another family-member-in-the-Lord who I know only to a small degree, and what transpired in this situation in front of some who DON’T follow Christ, truly broke my heart into a million pieces. I just knew, almost from the get-go, the Lord would ask ME to confront them and share (in love and a gentle spirit mind you - Gal 6:1) how the Lord was not pleased, nor glorified. The Lord gave me verse after verse I was to share with this person. But my heart beat fast at just the thought of this. I need You to help me do this, I was already praying to God.

So, I took a couple days and prayed and sought the Lord as I knew the time was getting closer for me to confront. My heart was beating faster and faster and the “collar on my shirt” was getting awfully tight around my neck with the anxiety that swelled up in me. But I knew it had to be done. If I’m going to be a follower of King Jesus myself, I need to know, accept and obey that the “uncomfortable-ness” of these kinds of things that will, do, and are happening, every single day – and yes, even in the Body of Christ. We are commanded to confront our brothers and sisters (James 5) and bring them back to the Truth.

After some serious prayer and even seeking counsel from an elder - I obeyed. I have not heard back from the person I confronted, and yes, my anxiety is still there. All kinds of thoughts race through my head. But I have been reminding myself that it’s not about me in this situation if this person is going to be mad or offended or fill in the blank, but it’s about our Lord, His kindness and Kingdom. I myself have been on the receiving end of confrontation too many times to count and so I have been praying for this person to receive it with God’s grace.

Underneath all this uncomfortable-ness though, the Lord has filled my spirit with His peace that surpasses all understanding (and boy does it really surpass understanding!), and I find myself with a heart of thankfulness. I’m thankful that He chose me to speak for Him and that He also trusted me to follow through with it. Confronting was a true test of faith and obedience. Though it's not even really about me.
The saying is true: “The Lords Will, will never take you to a place His grace won’t follow”.

Travel Plaza Tuesdays: The Importance of One Thing

“Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.” Psalm 86:11

Around the time our oldest son learned to walk, he developed an interest in vacuums. In a short period of time, he could distinguish between brands. As we walked through the household section of stores, he pointed to various ones.

“Dat’s a Bissell. Dat’s a Hoover.”

Initially we thought thought it was cute. We even bought him a little toy vacuum that ran on batteries. But as the months went by, the vacuum interest morphed into obsession. If we visited a friend’s house, he instantly went to a hall closet to look at their vacuum. He managed to find vacuums in every book we read and every place we went. With a limited vocabulary, he talked about vacuums incessantly. We became worried. A vacuum fixation at 16 months was funny. At 16, it would mean becoming a social outcast.

Then, as quickly as it began, the vacuum fascination ended. Dirt Devil was no more. He was replaced by Fender and Gibson. For around a year, everything in our son’s life revolved around guitars. I breathed a sigh of relief. If he didn’t grow out of the interest, that would be okay. No one got beat up in the locker room for wanting to be a rock star.

But that’s not even an issue in Marvel world, where our son has lived for the last two and a half years. It has been the longest and most intense of his obsessions. You might think obsession is a little too extreme, but only if you’ve never spent more than 30 seconds with him. Everything in life revolves around Black Box, Wolverine, Gotham City (DC—I know), superpowers, and “who would win if the Abomination and the Hulk got into it?” (The answer: it has gone both ways). He gleans superhero information from random strangers, video clips from relatives’ iPhones, and a tendency to make friends who happen to be a few years older and have Thor figurines.

To be honest, a child with a one-track mind can be exhausting. It’s frustrating to turn your back in the library and find that he snuck off into the comic book section again. Sometimes I wish we could go to the playground and simply swing and go down slides instead of pretending we’re at the Stark Mansion. But the absolute hardest part of a child who is single-mindedly absorbed in one thing is that he can’t understand why you aren’t too. He has such a deep, profound, untiring love for superheroes that he can’t comprehend others don’t feel the same.

However, I have learned an incredible lesson about whole-heartedness from my son. His love of superheroes invades every area of his life. On the days that I feel overwhelmed by the intensity of it all, it humbles me to remember that if I pursued Christ with the passion and abandon that my son approaches superheroes with, life would be drastically different. The annoyance melts away and I feel challenged by the passion with which he lives life.

He is fearless, bold, dedicated, focused, and intent. Sometimes I think about what will happen if Jesus becomes the primary love of his life, instead of vacuums, guitars, or superheroes. It takes my breath away.

There would be no stopping this single-minded kid.

Travel Plaza Tuesdays: Where Have All the Overalls Gone?

On a drive home, I heard a news story about a recently conducted study at Kenyon College. Researchers carefully evaluated 5,666 items of girls clothing found in the children’s department at popular retailers (not juniors) to see what percentage of items were sexualized in nature (read more about the study at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110509091420.htm).

The result? 30%.

As I cruised down the street, my eyes flickered to my two boys in the backseat. Feeling dismayed by the new knowledge that push-up bras for seven year-olds are sold at Abercrombie Kids, I found solace in the thought, “I’m so glad I have sons. I will never have to deal with this.” We passed a soccer field just as a panel began to discuss “what on earth possesses a parent to plunk down money for skimpy shorts with bedazzling on the booty for their recent preschool grad?”

As I mulled over the points made about safety and loss of childhood, I thought about the lessons a parent teaches their daughter about value when they dress her in provocative clothing. For $24.99, a little girl is taught to show off her body to find value from an on looking world. What a challenge it will be for such a little girl to ever remove the lie that her body is a tool for approval! How foreign will be the reality that value and worth are not found in sexualizing herself for anyone who cares to see, but in Christ’s love that bled and bore her sins!

I sat at a light and watched the kids playing on the soccer field. Little boys and girls ran towards the goal together, and it occurred to me I wasn’t off the hook. The little girls in halter tops will grow up alongside my sons. They will sit next to each other in class from now until high school graduation. As my sons grow, I need to teach them to look at women with the value that Christ puts on them. Because they will either echo the voice of the world, or the voice of the Lord to their female peers. My heart goes out to my friends with little girls. Teaching modesty and true beauty in a world hostile to the idea will be no easy task. Please know: You will not fight alone.

I will work hard to raise sons who will support your efforts.

Travel Plaza Tuesdays: Half-Inch Deep

When last Tuesday rolled around, I had no post written. A few weeks ago I wrote a post called I Don’t Want to Sell my Soul for a Prius. It described my frustrations with the tendency for some Christians to live hip, and tag their faith on the end like a p.s.

After a one week postponement, I was still stumped on a conclusion to that post. The problem was: I regretted the first post as soon as I hit enter and it appeared on the blog.

All through the day, I didn’t know why. Was it because it was critical? Unclear? Badly written? Too many thoughts unformed? The truth is, while the post was all these things, none of them was the reason I felt unsettled.

But later, as I left work and stepped into the streetlamp lit night, the Lord spoke it to my heart.

You haven’t scratched the surface.

“You’re right,” I whispered back.

He didn’t need to hear that, but I needed to say it. Instantly it was clear to me what a shallow grip I had on my own heart’s desire for identity from things other than Christ. I admitted in the Prius post that it was a struggle for me not to seek approval, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I was further along with it. Maybe it is just me, but I feel pressure about everything from what books I read to how to decorate my house to how I dress my kids. Where does the pressure come from? Well, things like Facebook haven’t helped. But the biggest problem is me. It’s my own desires for both direct and indirect affirmation, often from an unbelieving world. The reason a cool Christian culture annoys me is the same reason my mom’s idiosyncrasies get under my skin. Because I struggle with the exact same thing. In a back alley quiet moment, I found out it’s not the Christians in the “Live Simple.” t-shirts I’m frustrated with.

It’s me.

The apostle Paul said, “For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). I’ve always focused on the dying part of this proclamation. But in the past few weeks I’ve thought more about “to live is Christ” and how Paul was only interested in that one thing. Both his words and his life showed it.

When I haven’t scratched the surface, it probably isn’t wise to point out ways for others to address this in their lives. This is why I delayed the post. Maybe I thought three weeks would bring me some legitimate insight. But I’m only about a half inch deep. For now, that’s my only conclusion.

Travel Plaza Tuesday: Come and Hear About the God Who Saves

-The conclusion to last weeks post "I Don't Want to Sell my Soul for a Prius" will appear in next weeks Travel Plaza Tuesday.-

Years ago, before our children were born, Phil and I went camping in a Michigan State park with some friends. On our last night there, I woke in the middle of the night to the sounds of something in our camp. Whatever the animal was, it rustled around the cleared area, pawed at the ground and knocked over the Tupperware container that stored some pots and cleaning supplies.

Maybe it was the heightened anxiety that night brings, or the fact that I have a propensity towards drama. Earlier in the day we saw a group of park rangers leave the camp station to pursue a black bear spotted around the camp. I think this may have played a factor. Whatever the case, as I lay in my sleeping bag and listened to the heaving breath of the animal just a few feet from our tent, I was terrified. Too frightened to move or even say Phil’s name. Fear filled every pore of my body, and it felt like an ice-cold hand was squeezing my heart.

Without the slightest movement, I began to cry out to God for mercy. My mind was flooded with my own selfishness, need for control, and rebelliousness against Him. His presence flowed over me, and tears began to fall. I saw clearly how often I sinned against the God I loved. As I repented and pleaded with God, it seemed unfathomable that if He did save us and we lived through the night—if the animal did not rip through the thin nylon barrier that separated us like I feared it would—that I would ever go back to behaving that way. I would walk out of the camp changed.

The obvious fact is we did survive. The animal left the camp. Morning came and the sun appeared. We broke down our tents, packed up the jeep, and headed back to Indiana. The memory of that night faded into the past.

During a study of Psalm 66 this week, the Lord brought it back to my mind. In the psalm, the writer says, “Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His doings towards the sons of men. He turned the sea into dry land; they went through the river on foot.” He goes on to remind the people of all the Lord had done in their midst. He recounts the works of the Lord and makes the appeal, “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what He has done for my soul.”

To be honest, I don’t know if the Lord saved me from death that night in the woods. Maybe it was only a raccoon scuffling outside our tent. But I do know He has saved me from death through His son Jesus. And in the same way that I forgot so easily about that Michigan night, the danger is to forget that everything I have received from Christ is a mercy and grace. I begin to live as a person entitled. While I didn’t deserve to walk out of the woods that day alive, I certainly didn’t deserve for Christ to die in my place.

But He did. And now my life should cry out this verse-

“Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what He has done for my soul.”

Travel Plaza Tuesdays: I Don't Want to Sell my Soul for a Prius"

Lately I’ve had the urge to get some Christian bumper stickers. One that says, “1 Son + 3 nails = 4 given” and “In case of rapture, this vehicle will be unmanned”. The later will serve double duty, because many Christians not only ridicule bumper stickers about faith, they also laugh at people who read the Left Behind Series and believe in the rapture. If you haven’t guessed, my bumper-sticker-buying urges are a little reactionary.

At a small group meeting a friend of ours made the remark, “I don’t have to drink, smoke cigars, and join the Acts 29 Network to be cool.” I loved both his ability to poke fun at himself, (our church is in the Acts 29 Network) and the heart behind his comment. It acknowledged the present pull to be culturally defined, and his refusal to succumb to it. That’s the heart of my bumper sticker-buying urges.

There is an overwhelming pressure among Christians to be as instep as possible. We recycle and hit up the farmer’s market. You won’t find any Christian music on our iPods. It’s like the ultimate goal is to convince people around us we are appropriately hip, so we can later slide in we are also Christians. If we can win them over to us, maybe we can convince them Jesus is alright too.

The danger is a temptation to build identity around the world, rather than the Lord Himself. I’ve seen some people head in this direction and noticed that it wasn’t long before they no longer felt the need to tack “Christ-follower” at the end of “organic gardener, sushi-lover, and city-dweller”. That’s when the phrase, “I don’t want to sell my soul for a Prius” began to knock around in my head.

In Mark 10, we see the story of a rich young ruler who comes to Jesus, asking how to enter the kingdom of God. Jesus first instructs him to follow the teachings of the commandments. When the man responds he already does, Jesus says to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me” (vs. 21). It says the man left sad, “for he had great possessions” (vs. 22).

I’m nothing close to wealthy, but Jesus gives me a similar challenge. He asks if I need the acceptance of the unbelieving world. He asks if I would walk away sad before I would lay down my ability to function well in the culture. He asks if the reason I spend so much time trying to identify with the people around me is because it’s the better way to witness, or if it’s actually because I cannot say along with Paul, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16).

In the next Travel Plaza Tuesday I’m going to explore a couple ways Christians (myself included) get off base in an attempt to be culturally astute. I’ve come to the conclusion it will bear more fruit to rid myself of these things than buying a bunch of bumper stickers will.

*Note: Already someone has said, "But Corrie, you recycle. You like sushi". It's true. I even have an iPod (but it's loaded with Adventures in Odyssey episodes). I didn't make it clear enough in the post- the problem is not culture, the problem is finding identity in the culture. Next weeks blog will bring more clarity.

Coming Soon: Travel Plaza Tuesdays

High Mileage Hermeneutics is doing something different.
 
When I was a kid, a long car trip could quickly go from exciting and fun, to long, monotonous, and frustrating. I have found Biblical academics to be much the same- a necessary and beneficial journey but at times too devoid of the everyday life and conversation of simple Christian living. 

A travel plaza stop on those long trips as a kid meant a chance to get some fresh air, stretch the legs, eat an ice cream cone...Travel Plaza Tuesdays will be a "pit stop"each Tuesday from anything academic. Posts will be reflections, devotionals, stories, a scripture.

Hopefully it will have the same effect that pulling over at a travel plaza always did- a renewed excitement for the journey.