Be There

Al Nixon spends almost every morning in Vinoy Park overlooking Tampa Bay. He sits on the same bench and watches the sunrise before going to work at the city’s water department.

Al noticed that he wasn’t alone in his morning routine. He’d see the same folks out for a walk or a run or a bike ride. He’d smile and nod at the regulars. Over time the smiles and nods turned into “hellos” and then into conversations.

Al is a constant. You can count on him to be on his bench most mornings.

That’s probably why so many people seek him out. He’s always there.

It’s not uncommon to find a line of people waiting to spend a few moments with Al. They just want to talk – to vent, to share, to be honest.

Al doesn’t claim to have anything to offer but his presence. He just wants to listen.

He was interviewed by the CBS Evening News a couple years back and said, “listening is the number one skill all mankind needs to know really well.”

Al has a line of people waiting to talk to him because so many are starved for a listening ear.

Al – as far as I know – has zero “credentials.” He’s just a guy that cares about people. He’s just a guy who is reliably there.

You don’t need any letters behind your name to be reliably there.

Al made a difference because he was a friend. He showed up. He was available. He listened. And he has changed lives (as reported by a number of people that spend time talking with Al).

Don’t make making a difference harder than it has to be.

Show up. Be available. Listen.

Blind

I love snow.

It’s beautiful.

It just invites me to slow down and curl up next to a fire with a cup of coffee and a book.

But there’s a downside to snow. It kind of gets in the way of everyday life.

A couple of years ago we got a massive amount of snow (at least for St. Louis). The meteorologists called it a “polar vortex.” I’m still not entirely sure what that means. I do know that we got a lot of snow.

Crews were sent out to clear the streets and parking lots so that people could get out.

The challenge of clearing a parking lot, though, is that there aren’t a lot of places to put the accumulated snow.

So, at the grocery store I frequent, they simply shoveled it all to the end of an aisle. They freed up parking spaces but effectively created a “no outlet” situation.

I pulled into a row of parking spaces only to find that there were none available, and the plowed snow was blocking my way. I had to do a twenty-point turn to get back out the way I came.

Another car had followed me. She couldn’t see that the road was blocked and that there was nothing to do but turn around. She was livid at how long I was taking to get out. The whole time I was trying to correct course she was flipping me off and even rolled down her window to hurl curses at me.

I rolled my window down, too, and tried to explain that there were no parking spaces and that the snow was blocking the way but to no avail. She kept yelling about how I was wasting her time and needed to learn how to drive.

But she didn’t know what I knew. She didn’t know there was a roadblock ahead.

As I pulled forward, I saw her doing the same twenty-point turn in my rearview mirror.

I wonder how often I do that. I wonder how often I criticize others simply because I can’t see what they see. I wonder how often I’m blind to what lies ahead. I wonder how often I’ve failed to pay attention to those that have gone before me and heeded their wisdom.

Let’s make sure we have all the information before we get impatient or angry.

It may be that we don’t have the whole story.

The Illusion of Independence

I spent a lot of time in Chicago growing up. It was just a four-hour drive from our suburban home in St. Louis, so it made for an easy weekend getaway.

By the time I was about ten years old I knew the streets of Chicago better than any other city – including the city in which I grew up.

My two younger brothers and I started asking our parents to let us venture out on our own. I’m not sure where we planned to go but I’m guessing we wanted to get Garrett’s Popcorn or hang out at the Oak Street beach.

To our shock and delight, they let us go.

We felt so old, so mature, to be walking the streets of Chicago without adult supervision.

I didn’t find out until years later that we were absolutely under adult supervision.

My dad wanted us to learn to navigate the world. But we were ten, eight, and five. We weren’t exactly ready to fend for ourselves.

So, he followed us around the city. We were never out of his sight. We spent an entire afternoon believing ourselves to be independent.

But we were never more than about twenty feet from a loving father who was ready to protect and provide for us at a moment’s notice.

That was twenty-five years ago. I’ve walked a lot of city streets alone since then – without adult supervision.

But I’ve never once been independent.

Independence is an illusion.

We are never out of God’s sight. We are always entirely dependent upon Him. We have a loving Father that is there - ready to protect and provide for us. We may not always be aware of His presence in our lives, but He is always present.

I don’t know who you are or where you are. I do know that you’re not alone.

You never have been and you never will be.

Linguistic Fingerprints

There is a fluidity to language.

Sure, there are linguistic rules that provide structure and proper grammar and all that, but the truth is that we each use language a little differently.

Scholars call this "linguistic fingerprinting."

My particular use of language is unique to me and yours is unique to you.

For example, I lived In the South for a while and picked up “y’all.” I still say it - even though I now live in the Midwest where no one says y’all. I also have a slight St. Louis accent which means I pronounce “both” with an “l” - as in “bolth.” It’s an odd combination.

Linguistic fingerprinting is usually done by computer, as the subtle variances in language are nearly impossible to detect in daily conversation. But that linguistic fingerprint still leaves a mark.

Chances are, no one will pick up on your linguistic fingerprint. They won’t notice your use of pronouns versus proper nouns. And no one will notice how often you end a sentence with a preposition on any given day. They may notice how you pronounce that one word a little differently (as in my example - “bolth” of which have been pointed out to me), but that’s about it.

They will, however, remember how your words made them feel.

They will remember the tone with which you spoke.

They will remember if you communicated with love and grace or criticism and callousness.

"Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person,” wrote the Apostle Paul.

Your linguistic fingerprints are left on every conversation, every encounter, you have.

What kind of a mark are you leaving?

Red Carpet

Tom Haverford is a low-level government employee in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana – in the brilliant and hilarious Parks and Recreation series.

But Tom has big dreams. He imagines for himself a glamorous future. He dresses audaciously.

In one episode, he’s tasked with preparing a press event for Leslie Knope – a candidate for city council. He insists on getting her a red carpet for her grand entrance for her speech at a local ice rink. Unfortunately, his budget doesn’t allow for a carpet that will actually reach all the way to the podium and, of course, disaster ensues.

That’s not the point.

The point in that Tom justifies his decision by explaining that everyone should get to make an entrance. There is nothing that says “I matter” like a red carpet (I’m paraphrasing).

Then, he holds up his shoe to reveal custom inserts made from – you guessed it – red carpet.

“Everywhere I go,” he says, “I’m walking on red carpet.”

That struck me.

You may not have custom inserts made out of red carpet (though if you do, I would love to see them and high-five you).

But when I come into your presence, I come into the presence of someone that might as well be walking on red carpet.

I come into the presence of someone that matters.

I come into the presences of someone made in the image of God.

I come into the presence of someone purposefully created – to be amazing and glorious.

I come into the presence of someone formed and fashioned with inherent worth.

How would it change the way we treated people if we thought of them as walking on red carpet?

You may not be impressed by celebrity – I’m not either.

But what if we were impressed by God? What if we were impressed by what He’s done – by who He has made? What if we were impressed that though we’re all made in Him image we all bear that image differently?

What if we treated one another as the most important person in the room?

I’m not talking about stroking egos or coddling pride.

It’s nothing we’ve done, nothing we’ve accomplished, nothing we’ve achieved.

I’m talking about showing deference and dignity.

I’m talking about stripping our love of conditions.

I’m talking about loving people simply because they’re worth loving.

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.

Grace and Gratitude

There was once a debate among scholars at Oxford. What is it, they wondered, that makes Christianity different than every other faith system in the world?

After they had been going back and forth for hours, C.S. Lewis wandered into the lecture hall and asked what they were discussing.

They told him. “Oh, that’s simple,” Lewis said. “It’s grace.”

Grace is what makes Christianity utterly unique.

In the prayer Jesus taught us, He included a prayer for forgiveness. He called us to seek it from God and extend it to others.

We’ll get to the latter, but we need to spend a little more time on the former.

The forgiveness of God is nothing less than a gift of grace.

It is totally undeserved. We cannot erase or undo that which requires forgiveness. We cannot do or say anything to earn forgiveness.

It is a gift of grace and can only be received by humble faith.

That messes with us, though. It grinds against our feeling of independence. It challenges our American dream, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps sensibilities.

We want to contribute. We want to feel as though we are worthy of such extravagant grace.

Last week was “birthday week” in the Jordan family. The three boys – my father and both brothers – have birthdays within six days of each other.

Imagine the three men I love most in the world came to me and said, “We searched Amazon and figured out how much you spent on us. We want to pay you back. Here’s a check for what you paid. Oh, and we included a bonus for the card you included telling us how much you loved and appreciated us.”

I would be heartbroken – and so would you. Gifts are freely given. We don’t expect – or even want – the people we love to reimburse us for the gifts we give. That negates the whole point of a gift.

We do that with God. We want to earn what He has freely given. We want to prove our worthiness. But we can’t pay God back. And it breaks His heart when we try to.

Now, don’t get me wrong. God does call us to obedience. But our obedience is a response of gratitude to His grace. It’s not a payment on a loan. It’s not a way of retroactively earning His grace.

As you go about your days, pay attention to why you do what you do. Think about why you spend time with God, why you give, why you serve.

Do you do what you out of gratitude or out of guilt?

It matters.

Forgiveness – and the grace that drives it – is a gift and there is only one appropriate response to a gift.

Gratitude.

Lessons from Aidan (Part One)

I had the distinct honor of meeting Aidan Mackey in England a few weeks ago when I was in England. I had never heard of him before, but I learned quickly that he is regarded as the foremost scholar on G.K. Chesterton.

Aidan did not claim such an honor for himself. He was adamant that he was neither a scholar nor an academic in the proper sense. But, he was, after all, president of the G.K. Chesterton Study Centre and if the British Library entrusts you with eight boxes of the renowned Chesterton’s personal belongings, you’re a scholar – proper or not.

Aidan served in the British Air Force during World War II. He said he was stationed in Africa because it was where they believed he would do the least damage. After the war he spent most of his career as a teacher and headmaster. He had seven daughters and speaks of them with warmth and pride and delightful British humor. He told us that when a young man asked his blessing for his daughter’s hand in marriage, Aidan said, “I would love to give my daughter to you in marriage, but I need to know that you can provide for a family. After all, there are nine of us.”

When we asked how he came to be the foremost scholar on G.K. Chesterton, he, again, denied it and gave the humblest answer I could have imagined.

“There have been many unfair things that have happened in my life.” he said, “Mostly to my benefit.”

Aidan takes no credit whatever.

He isn’t suffering from low self-esteem. He’s embracing self-forgetfulness.

When I think about the unfair things in my life, I focus on things that have not been to my benefit.  I’m happy to take personal credit for those things that were to my benefit.

But, the credit for success is not mine to take.

Every good thing I have has been given to me by God.

I can decide what I do with what I’ve been given, but I can’t take credit for the good things I’ve been given.

I could use a little more self-forgetfulness.

I could do to express gratitude for the graciously unfair things that God brought into my life.

I could learn and live the humility of Aidan.

Circles

Let’s try an experiment.

You’ll need a bandana, sidewalk chalk, an empty parking lot, and a friend (to make sure you don’t walk into a wall).

Draw a long straight line and stand at one end. Your task is simple. Walk that straight line blindfolded.

You can’t do it – at least not for more than a couple of yards.

Researchers have tested this and found absent external references points people will walk – get this – in circles, all the while convinced they are walking in a straight line.

What researchers don’t know is why this happens.

I don’t know either. But, it got me thinking.

Could it be that we weren’t made to be internally directed?

Could it be that we were made to orient ourselves to an external reference?

Here’s what I’ve noticed. When I take my eyes off of God – off of who He is, what He has done, and who He created me to be – I end up walking in circles.

I don’t need just any external reference. I need Him.

He the standard by which every part of me is measured. There is no other.

That’s why the author of Hebrews encouraged us to keep our eyes on Jesus, “the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.”

He is the beginning and the end and everything in between.

He has His heart set on me – and on you.

Let’s stop walking in circles.

Let’s set our eyes – and our hearts – on Him.

Buggy

If you’ve never read the Dilbert comic strip, you’re missing out.  It’s really funny.

The comic pokes fun at the craziness of corporate culture – culture that stifles productivity, fosters laziness and awards incompetence. The cartoon’s observations of human behavior – though caricaturized – are remarkably astute (and not all that exaggerated).

In one strip, Dilbert is meeting with his Pointy-Haired Boss and the company CEO to update them on a recurring set of internal business issues.

“I found the root cause of our problems,” says Dilbert.  

“It’s people. They’re buggy.”

They sure are.

I sure am.

We are the root cause of nearly all of our problems. 

We are the root cause of our greatest miscommunications. We are the root cause of a lot of unresolved conflict. We are the root cause of most of our relational breakdowns.

We are all buggy.

It doesn’t do us any good to pretend otherwise.

So, let’s be gracious with one another. 

Let’s not be so hard on the flaws of other people.

Let's, instead, spend a little more time working on ours.

We might just change everything.

Represent

The departure time was approaching and we still hadn't been assigned a gate, so I lingered around the departure board in my usual terminal at the Charlotte airport, waiting for my flight to St. Louis to update. My family didn’t know I was coming in for the weekend and I couldn't wait to see the look in their faces when I walked in the door.

Instead of assigning us a gate, they delayed our flight by fifteen minutes. Then another fifteen. Then thirty. Three hours later, we boarded.

And, for thirty more minutes, we just sat. No one came on the speaker to update us on the further delay. We didn't see a pilot or anything resembling a crew. Finally, a flight attendant emerged and informed us that they were fixing a minor maintenance issue and we would be off in no time. Another twenty minutes passed.

People were clearly getting agitated. If I'm being honest, I was too. I was supposed to be home hours ago. The man sitting next to me started to complain loudly about the poor communication (it really was pretty bad). The woman on the other side of me was really struggling with the concept of personal space. The kid behind me started to kick my seat out of boredom. Everything in me wanted to commiserate with the man on my right, elbow the woman on my left and whack the kid behind me. The only thing that kept me from being a complete jerk was my t-shirt.

It was from my church… where I work.

When I put on that shirt, I became a representative of my church. How I behaved, how I spoke, how I reacted would communicate something about my church and the kind of people that have aligned themselves with its mission. It’s like an athlete putting on his jersey.

It says, "This is who I play for. This is my team. This is who I represent."

As I sat on that hot, noisy plane, thinking about all of this, I realized that this is actually my every day.

When I wake up in the morning, the Bible says that I am to "put on Christ." I play for Him. I am on His team. I represent Him. How I behave, how I speak, how I react communicates something about the kind of person that follows Him. The question, of course, is whether or not I'm communicating what Jesus would have me communicate.

My motive for keeping calm in a frustrating airplane situation should not have been my t-shirt. It should have been Jesus.

I have aligned myself with His mission. And so now, I represent Him. In everything.