Better with Age

I don’t really drink bourbon.

It’s not that I dislike it – I just don’t know a lot about it and can’t appreciate what I’m tasting. So, I’ll sip at whatever I’m offered and occasionally enjoy a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned (mostly if my brother makes one for me).

A couple weeks ago, though, I went to Kentucky with my dad to experience the Bourbon Trail.

We went on a tour of the Maker’s Mark distillery, and it was incredible. If Disney put on a distillery tour, they’d do it like Maker’s Mark. The grounds are beautiful, the buildings pristine, and guides as friendly and knowledgeable as you’ll find anywhere.

Again, I know nothing about bourbon – so I had a lot of questions and our tour guide patiently answered them all.

He mentioned that Maker’s Mark bourbon ages for five or six years – to get it just right.

That got me curious.

I don’t have a particularly refined palette. So, I wondered if I’d be able to tell the difference between a bourbon aged, say, four years, versus five or six when it’s fully matured.

“Oh yes,” he said. “A year makes an extraordinary difference in the quality of the bourbon. Tasting it at four years compared to five years would be an entirely different experience.”

Bourbon has no free will – no power of agency. Yet it manages to get better over time.

I do have free will – I have the power of agency. But I’m not sure I’m getting better over time.

I can’t help but wonder if I’m living the same year over and over again.

I don’t want that.

I want your experience of me today to be different than your experience of me a year from now. I want you to detect stronger notes of grace, to sense more humility, to taste more love and joy and kindness.

I hope you want the same.

Let’s resolve – together – that we’ll be better a year from now than we are today.

Resolutions

There is an old Jewish story about a rabbi named Zusia.

One day Zusia came to his disciples. His eyes were red and swollen from crying and his face was pale.

“Rabbi,” one of his disciples exclaimed. “What is the matter?”

“I was thinking about death,” said Zusia. “I was thinking about what it would be like to stand before Almighty God. I realized that if God asks me, ‘Zusia, why weren’t you a leader like Moses?’ I would say, ‘Lord, you did not give me the leadership of Moses.’ If God asks me, ‘Zusia, why weren’t you a poet like David?’ I would say, ‘Lord, you did not give me the eloquence of David.’ But, if God asks me, ‘Zusia, why weren’t you Zusia? Why weren’t you all that I created you to be?’ I will have no answer for Him.”

Resolutions are so often about creating ourselves. They're about creating a stronger body or a slimmer waist, a larger bank account or a smaller debt to pay off, to stop smoking or to start reading.

There's nothing wrong with those sort of resolutions.

But, what if, this year, instead of resolving to create ourselves we resolved to discover what God created us to be?

What if you took the first step towards Him and began considering what a relationship with Him could mean for your life?

What if you asked Him to show you where your character needs developing that you might better represent and reflect Him?

What if you began exploring how He could use your unique personality and gifts and passions to impact the world?

Let's resolve that a year from now we will be more of what God created us to be.

I can think of no better resolution.

The Mechanics of Change

Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, consistent in both speed and direction, unless either is acted upon by a force greater than itself.

The law is fundamentally about change.

The implications extend well beyond physics.

In fact, we watch this law at work in just about every area of our lives.

We all have situations and circumstances in our lives that we would like to change. We want to change our bodies so we go on a diet and start exercising. We want to change our career so we take new jobs and move to new places. We want to change our relationships so we find new friends or get married or have kids.

When we want to change something about our lives, we simply exert the force of our will and that which has been at rest will spring into motion or that which was in motion will change directions.

While it may seem to work for a time, sooner or later we realize that a deeper change is in order.

We need more than an external change of behavior. We need an internal change of heart.

Our hearts, though, cannot be changed by the force of the will.

We need something greater than ourselves to act upon us, to set our hearts in motion.

God Himself has acted, not by impersonal force, but by personally stepping into history as one of us.

By living the life we should have lived. By dying the death we should have died. By offering to get our still hearts beating again. By shaping us from the moment we receive His forgiveness to the moment we take our last earthly breath.

We cannot encounter Jesus and not change.

How has He changed you?

Still in the Boot

Near the end of my brother’s freshman year in college, he broke his ankle. He had a buddy – let’s call him Dave – who saw him limping in his boot around campus those final days of the semester. When they came back for sophomore year, their paths no longer crossed. Michael lived at a fraternity house on campus and Dave lived in a house off-campus. They didn’t have any classes together. An entire year passed without the two seeing each other even once.

Then, in Michael’s junior year, he sprained his ankle and, once again, ended up in a boot.

He ran into Dave.

Dave hadn’t seen him since freshman year – when he was in another boot. It didn’t occur to Dave that Michael had a different injury.

“Are you still in that boot?” he asked.

It’s kind of that way when we run into a friend from a past season of life, isn’t it? They assume we are who we were then. They assume we haven’t changed, haven’t grown, haven’t healed. And we assume the same of them.

We see this a lot in the media. Reporters dredge up a clip from twenty years ago that “proves” the subject doesn’t mean what they said today. Are we really assuming that there is no difference? No growth? No change of mind?

I wouldn’t want to be held to that standard. Twenty years ago, I was fourteen. I would respond differently to almost everything. Shoot, five years ago I was twenty-nine. I wouldn’t want to be held to what I said and believed even then.

I’m not suggesting that there aren’t consequences to our words and actions in the past. That’s not at all my point. My point is simply that if we really believe that people can change and grow, we ought to extend grace. We ought to take people as they are now and not as they were then.

People change. People grow. People heal.

Not everyone, of course. We can all probably think of high school friends that never really graduated.

But let’s give folks the benefit of the doubt. Let them prove us wrong, rather than never give them the chance to prove us right.

Let’s allow people to think and believe and behave differently.

Let’s not assume they’re in the same boot.

Rigidity, Regret, and Repentance

We all fail. We do things that we know aren't right. We say things that we know aren't fair. We break promises. We choose selfishness and all the destruction that comes with it. We allow our pride to rule over our hearts. We all fail.

As I see it, we have three choices when we do.

We can be rigid.

We can be regretful.

Or we can be repentant.

To be honest, the tendency of my heart is to be rigid.

I want to defend what I've done. I want to justify my actions. I want to explain why I wasn't really at fault. I want to offer all the reasons for why I had no choice in the matter. I want to shirk responsibility and assign blame.

But rigidity doesn't restore relationship. In fact, far from serving as a bridge to relationship, it builds a wall against it.

Sometimes, when I'm able to catch my heart growing rigid, I manage to muster up some regret.

But that's not much better. You see, regret is little more than a negative emotion. I feel bad for what I've done. I wish I hadn't said what I said. I'm sorry I did that. But given enough time, the regret will pass, and I will be left unchanged.

In some ways, regret is as destructive as rigidity, for it allows me to continually hurt the people I love and believe that feeling sorry – and even saying it – is enough.

It's not. Instead, trust deteriorates as I habitually make the same choices over and over again.

Failure calls not for rigidity and not merely for regret, but for repentance.

To repent simply means to change directions. It means that I choose to not only stop going one way, but to start going another.

It calls us from something to something. From greed to generosity. From criticism to encouragement. From lies to truth. From unforgiveness to grace. From hurt to love.

Rigidity creates distance. It results in a hard heart. It makes intimacy impossible. It drives a wedge between relationships.

Regret requires nothing of me. It does not ask me to seek forgiveness. It does not compel me to change. It does nothing to pursue relationship.

Repentance is hard. It takes humility. It takes work. But it is decidedly for relationship.

And it's worth it. It is always worth it.

Superman

I’m not a movie person. I could count on one hand the number of movies I’ve seen the last five years (Unless you count The Princess Bride, which I watch at least once a month because it’s the greatest movie of all time).

So, my friends set out on a personal mission to broaden my cinematic horizons.

They decided I need to be initiated into the world of DC Comics. So, we watched the Superman movie, Man of Steel. (That’s DC, right? I’m honestly not sure.)

Though most of the movie focused on Clark Kent's adulthood ventures, the story would sometimes cut to defining moments in his childhood.

In one scene, a young Clark is being bullied by some older kids. Having already discovered his supernatural strength, Clark knows that he could take them out faster than a speeding bullet. But he doesn't. Instead, he resists the urge to fight back. Just as they're about to pound him, Clark's dad shows up and the bullies run off.

Clark, who had been cornered against a chain link fence, gets up and says, "I wanted to hit that kid. I wanted to hit him so bad." His dad nods. "I know you did. I mean, part of me even wanted you to. But then what?"

And he says something profound.

"You have to decide what kind of a man you're going to grow up to be, Clark. Because whoever that man is, good character or bad, he is going to change the world."

His dad saw in him both an enormous potential for good and an enormous capacity for evil. And he understood that every decision would be a step towards one or the other. But either way, Clark Kent was destined to change things.

And so are you. Every day, with the choices you make, you are deciding what kind of man (or woman) you are going to be. And good character or bad, you too change the world.

You change the world of your spouse, of your kids, of your friends and your co-workers and your neighbors.

The question, then, is whether or not you will change things for better or for worse. Will you grow into the man or woman you were made to be, walking in step with the One who made you? Or will you walk away from Him and, by extension, oppose His plan and purpose for your life? There is no third option. Every single decision you make- even the most seemingly unimportant- is a step towards one or the other.

But make no mistake. Good character or bad, you will change the world.

Glass Idols

Repost from 2016:

(Because every once in a while I need this reminder. Maybe you do, too.)

Each morning begins the same way. It begins with worship.

But not the kind of worship you might be thinking.

Each morning, I roll out of bed and go immediately to the shrine I have established in my bathroom. A little blue scale.

If yesterday I sacrificed an offering of oatmeal raisin cookies on the altar and demonstrated my devotion by paying penance at the gym, then today the weight gods will reward me with a favorable number. But if I, instead, ate my offering and skipped my penance, then I will be punished with a less than favorable number.

More than I would like to admit, my happiness rises and falls with that number.

It is nothing short of worship.

But this god of mine is far too small. It cannot love me or care for me. It cannot comfort me or encourage me. It cannot listen to me or cry with me.

It cannot die for me.

In fact, it is really no god at all.

So today I disassembled my shrine. The scale is gone. My glass idol lies shattered at the bottom of a garbage truck.

Tomorrow, my day will begin quite unlike it has of late. With worship, still, but of a different kind. You see, everything I have belongs to the God who gave everything for me.

My life.

My heart.

My body.

My worship.

If you are worshiping anything less than that God who made you and loves you and died for you, then your god is far too small. Maybe it's time to shatter your glass idol- whatever that may be.

A Purpose Greater

Today, we remember a great man.

A man who stood up for justice.

A man who refused to resort to violence.

A man who rallied millions.

A man who paid with his life.

A man who changed our nation.

“Use me, God,” he once prayed. “Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.”

We need more men and women like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We need more men and women who will seek God and submit all they are, all they want to be, and all they can do for the sake of a purpose greater than themselves.

Let’s not just remember him today and, tomorrow, remain unaffected.

Let’s be those men and women.

Our nation – our world – needs us.

The Day After Perfect

So, here we are.

A full week into the New Year.

Studies show that, by this point, a quarter of us have already given up on our resolutions. By February, only one in five will still be standing and, by the end of the year, less than one in ten.

Why are we so bad at keeping the commitments we make to ourselves? Why am I so bad at it?

Well, for any number of reasons, I suppose.

Maybe I set unrealistic goals and quickly get discouraged.

Maybe I didn’t properly prepare and quickly feel lost.

Maybe it’s because of what Jon Acuff calls the “day after perfect.”

The “day after perfect” is the day after you fall short – the day after you cheat on your diet or skip a workout or spend more than your budget allows.

I don’t know about you, but, for me, “day after perfect” is usually the day after I get started. I’m always in that quarter of people who fall a week in.

And, usually, I stay down.

That's because I'm after perfection - not progress.

You'd think I would have learned by now.

When I pursue perfection, I'm inevitably disappointed. I give up and, in the end, make no progress whatever.

The cycle ends now.

Here’s to committing to get back up and keep moving forward the “day after perfect.”

Here’s to thinking differently about how we keep our resolutions.

Here’s to progress.

The Middle of Stories

When Steve Jobs passed away a few years ago, his sister, Mona Simpson, gave his eulogy. I remember reading it in the New York Times the next day and something she said leapt off the page at me. "We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories."

She's right.

But life, as well as death, happens in the middle of many stories.

People have moved in and out of mine. Some stepped out of my story far too soon and others overstayed their welcome. Some have been a source of great joy and others have left pain and hurt in their wake. Some have changed me in ways I can hardly explain and others I can barely remember. But all have left their mark.

We live and die, work and play, laugh and grow, in the middle of stories, of many stories.

We shape each other's plots.

We impact each other's stories.

We change each other's lives.

What an incredible responsibility it is to know that, for better or worse, we leave a mark.

What mark will you leave?

Off with His Head

In the 2010 remake of Alice in Wonderland, there's a scene in which the evil Red Queen discovers that her tarts have been stolen. To say that the Queen has a bit of a temper would be an understatement. She also, apparently, really loves tarts. When she realizes that they are gone, she sort of loses her marbles.

Infuriated, she bursts into the hallway and begins inspecting each of her servants, intent on finding the perpetrator. When, finally, the guilty servant is found, exposed by a hint of raspberry jam at the corner of his mouth, she bellows, "Off with his head!"

Every time I watch that scene, I just want to pull the Queen aside and say, "Look, I know he stole your tarts and all, but I think you might be overreacting just a little."

It's comical, of course, but the truth is that I often overreact myself. And when I do, it is anything but comical.

The man that just cut me off in traffic without using his turn signal? Off with his head!

The woman that won't stop talking excessively loudly on her phone in an otherwise quiet waiting room? Off with her head!

The guy at the gym that sits on the machines in between sets so that no one else can use them? Off with his head!

I could go on. You probably could too.

Thanks to a good bit of socializing, my irritation and impatience rarely surface. Yet there they are- right on the edge of my heart.

Therein lies the problem- my sinful heart.

The content of my heart comes pouring out when I get bumped. It spills over and exposes who I really am. It is evident in the words that escape my lips and in the ones left unspoken. Often, I turn out to be far less impressive than I thought myself to be.

If I am the problem, though, I cannot also be the solution. A sinful heart cannot remedy a sinful heart.

Jesus conquered my sin on the cross – and He conquered yours. His sacrifice on our behalf not only saves us, but changes us.

How has he changed you?