Tenth Avenue North : Journals

God Has Forced Himself Upon Me

January 31, 2008

In reaction to a book I have just read, I would like to express the following:

I did not choose God.
I do not choose God.
In fact, I think it’s fair to say that,
I have never, ever,
not once in my whole entire puny existence,
chosen God.

But praise Jesus, he chose me.

“Lazarus, come forth.”
Jonah to the sea.
Saul struck blind.
Jacob renamed.

I am a product of the Lord’s great mercy.
and NOT the sum of my choices.
Do you hear me?
Do you understand what I am saying to you?
I do not choose God.
I did not choose God,
but He chose me and appointed me to go and bear
much fruit. Fruit that will last. Fruit that has nothing to do
with my faith, my willingness or my obedience.
Fruit that is born from the perfect life of Christ.
Fruit that was his to give in the first place.
He gets all the credit.
He gets all the praise.
“He is not served by men’s hands as if He needed anything,
but gives to us, life, breath, and all things.”
All things. Including the ability to believe.
Including the ability to see Jesus for who He really is.
God removes the scales, I walk toward beauty,
and that’s all there is to it.
And for his sake and mine, I’m glad.

I am glad that Jesus offends my pride.
I am glad that He has not left me to myself, that I am not the captain of my own fate.
I am glad that the Lord forces himself upon me, even when I “force” Him away.
I am glad that He is faithful, even when I am faithless.
I am glad that He has chosen me.
I am glad that I did nothing to deserve it.
I am glad that He has rescued.
I am grateful to be overrun.
I am honored to be nothing.
I am humbled to be saved.

I am undone.

Because honestly, Him and I both know;
Had He simply left me to my own choices,
to my own will, and to my own pitiful suicidal self,
I would never have walked out of the tomb.
I could never have walked out of the tomb.
I would have chosen the tomb.
“No one comes unless the Father draws Him.”
And if that makes me a robot, well then I’d rather
be a robot for one day in the courts of God,
than spend a thousand in a place of my own choosing.
After all, “no one seeks God, no one is righteous,
all have turned away,” and everyone chooses death.
“It therefore no longer depends on man’s will or effort,
but on God who shows mercy,”

I mean really, people, come on.
My track record confirms this.
Your track record confirms this.
Left to ourselves, we choose death.
And in spite of ourselves, He gives us life.
Oh praise God, He gives us life.
-MikeD

“I stand and rub my eyes and walk to you,
because I have no choice…”
-Derek Webb

“Apart from me you can do nothing.”
-Jesus

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Love is Here

January 17, 2008

This is a song born out of frustration. Frustration from hearing the all too
common phrase, repeated all too often. It goes something like this, stop me if you’ve heard it:
“You know, I would know that God loves me, if He would only…..”
And therein lies the problem.
If He would only what?
What, pray tell, does God need to do to convince you of His love?
Does He need to give you the man of your dreams?
Land you the dream job you’ve always wanted?
Give you straight A’s?
I don’t know.
But I think it’s fair to say, we play a dangerous game
when we start demanding that God prove something that He’s already proven.
“God demonstrates his love in this; that while we were still sinners
Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
Which means, if I am feeling unloved, if I am dissatisfied, then I must look to the cross.
“This is how we know what love is, Jesus Christ laid down his life….(I John 3:16)
No games, no gimmicks, no self-help steps to a better me, just Jesus. Just His blood.
The duty of the Christian is no longer to work in order to earn God’s merit,
Christ has already done that on our behalf,
rather, the new responsibility for those who are in Christ,
is to put all their effort, all their desire, and all of their work
into simply resting in what Jesus has done for us.
He demonstrates and proves his love one way; by suffering the wrath of God in our place.
Over and over. Day in, day out. One sacrifice for all eternity.
What other proof do we need?
What act of love could surpass that of the Son of God dying under the weight of our shame?
The love we’re looking for is here. It’s now. It’s at the cross.
“In this is love: not that we love God, but that He loved us and gave His Son
as a propitiation for our sins.” (I John 4:10)
As Brennan Manning would say, “we already have what we seek,”
and this, my friends, is what we will fight our whole lives to believe.

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I am Loved

January 16, 2008

I took the stage at the Summit on Friday night
with a fist in my stomach. Fingers locked, a stone tightly held.
I don’t really know what came over me, but once I started,
it all sort of spilled out of my mouth all at once, and I couldn’t seem to stop.
“stop thinking about what you need to do for God,
and start thinking on what Christ has done for you.”
It sort of bubbled out like a river of frustration and hope,
wanting so desperately for people to be free from willing themselves to change.

“it no longer depends on man’s will or effort, but on God who shows mercy.”

The theme of the event was “Irresistible people.”
Indeed.
I admit, I want to be exactly that.
A part of a revolution, that loves God, that loves people.
So much so, the world will see us and come running.
However, what hope do we have to become an irresistible people?
One speaker implored with the crowd,
“we need to love people, we need to love God!”
I completely agree, but tell me, somebody please, tell me….HOW?

No one seeks God.
No one understands.
No one is righteous.
So how do you expect me to change myself
in order to obey the greatest commandments?

By will power?
By dedication?
By guilt tactics?

Hmmm, sounds like self-help to me.
Perfect instruments to build an empire of pride.
Love God. Love people. Do it.
You can’t do it, but do it.
And when you succeed, once you become a better you,
make sure you give yourself a big pat on the back,
a big smile in the mirror, and all the while, make sure you
look down on everyone who still struggles with your old temptations.

So the question remains.
How does one love God?
Well, John says, “we love because He first loved us.”
And if that’s true, then my whole approach must change.
No longer am I condemning myself in the mirror,
saying, “come on Mike, get your act together.”
No. Instead I simply incline my gaze to the cross.
If I’m not loving God, it’s because I’m not believing I’m loved.
And how do I know that I am loved?
“This is how we know what love is, Jesus Christ laid down his life…”

This is why I get frustrated.
We point out the problem, but fail to give the solution.
Like my pastor in Nashville says,
“don’t show me a church that loves God,
show me a church that believes they are loved,
and I will show you a church that God uses.”
I hope this is making sense.
“What is the work of God? to believe in the one he has sent.”
Oh that would be offensive enough to believe we are loved.
Go ahead, try it. But please, for the love of God, remember that
it’s only by his grace that you can.

“I worked harder among you than any of you, yet it was not I,
but the grace of God in me.”
-mike

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A Half Naked Exchange Student and Other Matters

January 04, 2008

Here’s a little something I wrote for a magazine.
It calls to mind my college life and all the travesties that took place.
Enjoy.

Craig lived a few doors down from me my freshman year of college.
Just across the hall on the fourth floor of Rinker dorm, he lived and
moved and had his being.
Hailing from the West Coast of Florida,
from a little piece of earth called Sanibel Island,
Craig came to us a drummer, a lover, and
in the hearts of his fellow suitemates, a legend.
Now, it’s really quite impossible for me to convey to you the full realm and
reason of Craig’s existence, but let me just say that he was a bit of a free spirit.
And if you don’t know what I mean, and of course, unless you lived there, you
won’t know what I mean, well, my hope is in the few words that follow,
I can begin to pull back the curtain into the magic and mystery that was Craig Stewart.

I came to Palm Beach Atlantic University at the tender age of eighteen with
all of the wild hopes, dreams, and obnoxious energy that seems to accumulate
in one’s veins during that long-awaited summer between high school and higher learning.
When you’re a freshman, you call it excitement, but by the time you’re a senior, you call it nauseating.
Like a shaken can of mountain dew (which I can assure you, I drank plenty of),
I arrived on campus that first day, ready to burst with life and optimism.

It was the fall of 1999, but coming to south Florida from the great state of
Virginia, one would have to watch the weather channel in order to have any idea
what season it really was. I guess I just wasn’t used to September requiring sandals and sun-block,
and so I admit, it was pretty disconcerting at first. I was thinking sweaters, pants, shoesÖ.
you know, all the things normal people wear in autumn.
But no. Not West Palm Beach.
It’s shorts and t-shirt or it’s nothing. If you even try to wear pants in September,
you’ll be swimming in your own sweat by the time you get to your first class.
So needless to say, it was a difficult transition that first month, but after a few
rather nasty sun burns, followed by the illumination that I could go to the beach
every single day of the calendar year, I’d say I acclimated rather quickly.

But for Craig, growing up on an island down at the bottom of the United States,
he came to school prepared for hot days, warm nights and plenty, and I do mean
plenty, of practical jokes. I lived in room 410, while Craig and his suitemates
were just across the way in 408. Oh 408, how I miss you.
And for those of you that haven’t started upon your college experience just yet,
let me explain a suitemate. A suitemate is essentially a roommate that lives in
a separate room, but closely connected to your room.
In this case, each suite, (i.e. 408) contained four rooms therein,
where you would live with a roommate, and also, six other suitemates.
You’d share a set of bathrooms, and a lovely living space, where many of the
strangest, funniest, and most memorable moments would take place.

Now like I said, Craig loved his jokes, and when we weren’t his subject,
we loved them too. The best times coming when we could all get it
on the action together. All for one, at the expense of oneÖfor all of us.
You know how it goes. Flour in the face, water balloon from a
well-positioned balcony, practical jokes are just as much a staple of dorm life
as Little Debbie’s and ramen noodles.
And after a good solid semester of fun, sun, and occasional studying,
the spring semester of 2000 was upon us, and we were ready to embrace her
with grander schemes and fresher victims.

Luckily, our beloved college had something special in store.
Unbeknown to any of us, we were about to be given the gift of a lifetime.
PBA called them, “perspective students,” but by the time we were done with them,
there was nothing perspective about them.
Now, for those of you that don’t know, these are simply,
up and coming seniors in high school, trying to see what college life is all about.
They come and look around, and in this case, they stay in a suite to experience
dorm life first hand. Poor guys. They never knew what hit them.

Let me just see if I can paint this picture for you.
Imagine you’re going to see a school that you’re fairly excited about.
Located in south Florida, right by the Atlantic Ocean, you’re visiting
Palm Beach Atlantic University, and you’re overwhelmed with joy.
You’ll be hitting the surf, laying in the sun, and hopefully hanging
with some cool college kids.
Hands down, you know that it’s going to be the time of your life.

So after a visit with the admissions office, and a thorough inquisition on the beach
and its whereabouts, you’re shown the way to Rinker dorm, where your
counselor kindly escorts you to the door. They tell you to ride the elevator up to
the fourth floor and turn right, room 408. You do. You give a knock but no one
answers. You wait. You try again, but this time you give the door a little nudge
of frustration, and to your surprise, it swings open. A bit apprehensive now,
you make your way down a narrow dimly lit hallway and into a living room
where you’re greeted, not by some beachy college dudes, but by a half-naked
exchange student, beating a hand drum and screaming in horrible goat noises.
Think Empire Strikes Back, like the Ton Ton that Luke splits open and crawls inside?
Well, he sounds like that. And suddenly, to your horror, he looks at you
hollering something in what seems to be Russian, and then resumes to
beat his drum while dancing hypnotically to the rhythm he’s creating.
In a bit of a panic, you scour the room with your eyes, hoping for someone
or something to save you from this intensely awkward moment you’ve just walked
yourself into. No help. Nothing but a few lit candles, and empty rooms surround you.

You stumble. You notice he’s wearing what appears to be a diaper
constructed from bed sheets, and nothing but a large fur hat on top of his head.
He’s getting angry now, and with no other alternatives, you simply turn and run.
This is not what you signed up for, and it’s definitely not what you were expecting.
This isn’t even something you could imagine seeing in a movie.
But then, who could ever be expecting the fantastical ideas that Craig would concoct?
None of us, I can assure you, and certainly not any of the students
that came to visit that fateful year.

Every time it was the same story. Students come. Students go. After just one night, they would inevitably ask to be moved to another room. Something about feeling creeped out by the guy in 408, and then we’d never hear from them again. Oh, those were good times, and looking back, I suppose, quite scandalous. I can’t help but wonder how many more freshmen PBA might have had that next year, had they not first sent them to the land of Craig. What might have happened had I not been placed on the fourth floor of Rinker dorm? I can’t be sure, but I do know, for your sakes, I hope you have a friend like Craig when and if you finally do make it to college. A friend, who for some reason knows random phrases of Russian, and who really knows how to have a good time. I’m telling you, with a kid like Craig Stewart, your life will never be the same.

Cheers,
Mike

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