Rejecting the Pursuit of Christian Values

Last night, in the beautiful home of an airline pilot, I sat eating brats and chatting with several men decades older than me. While slightly out of place, I’ve grown used to relating to men in their 50s and 60s and I find myself fascinated by this generation.

While they complimented each other on the chili and reminisced about their kids and grandkids and the deer they’d shot last fall, the conversation turned slowly toward the state of the nation and how to live as a Christian in our increasingly secularized world.

Instead of the flippant judgmentalism I often see in American evangelicals, I saw an earnest concern on their faces as they spoke of dangerous movements in politics, education, and theology. They were genuinely worried for their children and grandchildren living in a post-Christian society.

At one point, evolution came up and one by one, they soberly discussed the evidence for a young earth and quietly told stories of children who had walked away from the faith when presented with this “theory”. One man turned to me and said, “What do you think, Nate? Do you see your generation turning away from God over this issue?”

I swallowed hard.

“Well…” I began tenuously, wondering if this high-powered group of guys would actually sit still long enough to hear my opinion. But their eyes fixed on me quietly and widened slightly when I told them my mother-in-law is an evangelical biology teacher who teaches evolution. “You mean they force her to teach it?” one man cut in. “Well no…” I replied. “She believes it. She’s a theistic evolutionist.” Slow nods around the table.

“I think,” I continued, “that what causes young Christians to walk away from their faith is when Christian scientists are not careful in presenting good science and research about evolution. It makes us feel like Christians have something to hide. I think that does as much damage as anything else…” More nods and the topic moved to politics.

As I think about it, what I really want to say to Christians is this: The growth of secular humanism may seem alarming and threatening. And yes, I think it is dangerous. But equally dangerous—equally alarming and threatening—should be the rise of legalistic, moralistic, Christian fundamentalism. I think bad experiences with the church and with a Christianity that is inextricably married to culture are just as much a catalyst for young folks leaving the church as anything Secular America can offer.

I think we often look at secularism as the “great Satan” and legalism as a naughty little habit that mature Christians should overcome. But it’s time to understand that Satan is just as insidious inside the church as outside and the stuff we buy into as Christians becomes JUST as toxic spiritually as atheism or humanism. Or let me say this for shock value: a church that glorifies Christian values over Christ himself, that falls into hypocrisy, that reduces Christianity to the judgmental pursuit of morality... This church is more repugnant to God than a Pride Parade for gay abortion doctors. Dead serious. Looking at Jesus, who he condemned and who he loved... that's the conclusion I come to.

I recommend a careful rethinking of our irreducible minimums. What makes a person Christian? What’s the bottom line? I mean, beyond an intellectual acceptance of Christ’s atonement, what does it look like to follow Jesus? I think if we can answer this question thoughtfully and biblically, we’ll see a lot of young people coming back to the church. In fact, I think THAT question needs a heckuva lot more attention and debate than abortion, gay marriage, and evolution put together. Just sayin’.

10,000 reasons to party!

Right now this very minute sitting the Washinton DC airport, I watched as my blog registered its 10,000th hit! Hurray! Party! Seems fitting to get there on my final leg home from Ethiopia to reunite (finally) with my beautiful family. Thanks to all who've faithfully read and given feedback. (Not like I'm keeping track, though I do have a secret competition going with my wife who's consistently a couple thousand hits ahead of me!)

Speaking of party!! I could not possibly convey to you how it felt to be IN Ethiopia during the Africa Cup when the Ethiopian team slammed the ball into the goal post bouncing it narrowly into the net. I was in the hotel lobby about to drive to the airport when screams erupted from the bar area and over a hundred Ethiopians pressed into the lobby shouting, cheering, leaping into each other's arms! "Uh oh. Time to go." On the drive to the airport, shirtless mobs chanted, sang, danced, and sprinted through the streets, cars honked and honked, total strangers greeted and congratulated each other. The streets filled and our car slowed to a crawl, barely making it to the airport before the authorities closed the roads. I couldn't help grinning at every overjoyed Ethiopian we passed. One hollered from his car, "the nech och (white guys) need to be dancing for our team!"

I suppose I was also grinning at the thought of coming home, bags full of fresh Ethiopian coffee to a sweet family, a swinging bed, my own home with new stories to share, new friends to make, new futures to dream of. Yes I'll be happy to be home. Even with oversold planes and the post-inauguration throngs heading home, it would take a lot to bump this homesick fella!

No Stomach for Africa.

I’m done. Phew. I gave my final sermon today and I’m heading home tomorrow night. This place is beautiful, intriguing, intense, exhausting. As I sat with my hawkish republican pastor friend Zekarias today speaking intensely for over an hour about the profound threat of radical Islamic expansion in Ethiopia and the ever-present memories of civil war, I had a moment of hesitation. Am I cut out for a world like this? Do I have the energy and resolve do deal with the mounting crises of Africa? Or will this place ebb away at me until I’m too tired to return?

So I lay on my bed exhausted this afternoon unblinking, unseeing while a cool breeze came in with the afternoon sun through my patio door. 3 stories below, under the endless canopy of tin roofs and smog, the constant religious noise from one holy day or another came pulsing uninvited through my door. And I thought to myself, I really don’t think I have the stomach for this place. I really don’t. As beautiful the people, as rich the opportunities, the risk and messiness and intensity is also here. I want to retreat from dirty streets and ancient rivalries to my comfortable cave of moody music and snuggly kids. Yet somewhere in my heart, deeper than resolve, vaster than determination, there this tiny whisper of compulsion that has driven me for over 16 years. I’ve labeled it “calling” and for the sake of calling I’ll keep coming back to this rich confusing joyful tragic continent.

Over and over. As long as I have strength and the Spirit’s go-ahead. My deepest sense of personal destiny is anchored intrinsically to Africa. What else would I do with my life?

Our seminars on Friday and Saturday were exceptional. I mean that. These people, like the biblical Bereans, are checking out the stuff we’re teaching. They are analytical and brilliant. And I’m telling you, I’m watching them move from skeptisim to conviction and it gives me shivers to think about what they might actually DO with this stuff. Of course most will tuck the teachings away as simply “inspiring stuff” but I really believe that a few of them are actually going to start DOING discipleship and that’s thrilling to me. The pastor from one of the biggest churches reflected critically on his own ministry, “I’m asking myself… who’s my ‘Paul’? Who’s my ‘Timothy’? I don’t have a Paul and I don’t have a Timothy. So really, what am I doing in my ministry? This is what’s been missing.”

Last week, Zekarius prayed for us and said to me (by way of prophesy) that God is teaching me to rely on the Spirit in all I do.  Well I think he’s dead on.

After having the fear of God put in me by last week’s preaching debacle, I was very intentional about preparing this week’s sermon with a desperate ear open to the Holy Spirit. In prayer he dropped a mysterious reference (1 Pet 2:11) into my head, which evolved into an 11-page sermon manuscript. I resolved a couple things along the way: 1.) I would pause frequently in my prep to invite the Holy Spirit into the process and redirect accordingly. 2.) I would spend a large amount of time preparing and not assume I’d “wing it”. 3.) I would make a concerted effort to apply the verse to my own life this week. Well, I’m learning slowly. I gave the sermon this morning to a slanted church (the foundation of the church literally sat on a sideways incline!) and I think it went very well.

Even more profound this week, there was a “moment of reckoning” for me personally before getting up to teach on Friday. I was praying, feeling rather nervous, begging the Holy Spirit’s involvement… when a sudden clarity of thought seemed to settle on me. I suddenly knew what I wanted to communicate. I don’t think anybody saw it, but I was trembling and unusually bold when I got up to teach. Zekarias kept glancing up at me curiously. He later said he literally he saw the “glory of the Lord” resting on me and it took him by surprise. I saw the pastors straighten a bit and I think the Holy Spirit was speaking to them as well with that same sudden clarity. It was one of those moments that stands out for me in all my time in Africa. And of course it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the Father’s passion for people. I’m learning that that’s the point. He wants me to rely on him for everything he leads me to. He wants me to rely when I think, “I’ve got this.” And he wants me to rely when I have no stinkin’ clue what I’m doing.

Because I’m not the point.

He’s the point.

Get it? :)

So what can I say now? Is Africa a place for grim determination based on calling? Or is it a place of profound Spirit-filled purposefulness? I guess for me it’s both. And in the future my expectant hope is that it will more and more become a place of authentic laughter, transformation, and friendship.

Raw uneditted history.

 

Stepping onto the tarmac in Lalibella, Ethiopia, you get the immediate feeling of being in a very old, if not sacred space. Arid, rock-strewn montainsides on which ancient kingdoms were built surround primitive villages where sheep and cows meander freely on the “roads”. White-clad figures—monks, priests, pilgrims, tour guides—go about their business among Lalibella’s 11 famous rock-hewn churches. When I say rock-hewn, I mean that 700 years ago with adz and hands, people dug down into the earth’s crust until all that remained was a 4-story church carved from a single stone surrounded on every side by 4-story cliffs connected by tunnels. Small pocks in the cliff face still serve as prayer hermitages for ascetic monks. Raw, unsanitized, still in use, we walked into an ancient chamber where monks chanted 6^th-century worship songs in the haunting “Geez” language and lilt to the slow baritone whoom of a goatskin drum. At one point, we crawled through a long narrow cave carved from the rock to represent the darkness of hell. After about 50 feet in pitch blackness, a sliver of daylight appeared representing the hope of heaven.

The next day, we drove around mountain dirt roads alongside oxen-pulled plows where ancient gnarled sycamores dotted the open fields. This is Ethiopia, I thought. In so many ways, this is Ethiopia… Pulling into Gondar 7 hours later where a 16th century palace come WWII Italian barracks sat intact in a grassy walled enclosure. We were guided around the royal throne room, steam bath, and yes… lion cages.

Finally, a couple more hours brought us to Bahir Dar (“near the sea”), a verdant town where the source of the Blue Nile, Lake Tana laps against small islands where we saw ancient monastaries. In one, a 12-year-old nun droned a memorized speech about the priceless 900-year-old relics she was responsible for guarding in her small tin-roofed cottage. On another island, a 900-year-old church housed inside included the original doors and supports made of acacia and juniper. The “museum” (open glass cases in a little hut) casually displayed relics from the crusades era!

That was it for our “tour”. Museums and galleries tend to bore me. But this unpolished crawl-through-on-hands-and-knees version of Ethiopian history was exhilarating and enlightening. It deepens my understanding of the beauty and challenge of this nation’s rich Christian heritage and its staunch dedication to tradition. As I write this from my hotel room, 44 churches around the capital are loudly parading their symbolic “arks of the covenant” to a single convergence in the middle of the city where tens of thousands will gather today for Timkat, the celebration of Christ’s baptism. All the major roads are closed. We barely made it to our hotel! What a unique place. Definitely NOT the Africa I’ve come to expect!

The Chill of Inadequacy and Exorcism

It’s hard to tell you how strange and chilling it was to chat casually with a friend after church while 20 feet away, a demon was being cast out of a young woman. While volunteers stacked chairs and the pastor’s kids played rambunctiously, the woman in the back writhed, gagged, and fell down while a young man prayed/shouted in a commanding voice. Then the woman/demon/whateveritwas issued the most chilling, metallic, two-toned scream you can imagine. It was so loud that it was hard for me to hear my friend talk earnestly about his discipleship journey. (I heard that same metallic scream one other time 13 years ago, but that’s another story for another campfire.)

I made a concerted effort to act casual (since apparently this is standard fare here) but honestly, I was quite shaken.

I had just finished preaching to a couple hundred in a canvas-tent church about following Christ’s example as a missionary, disciple-builder, and failure for God (meaning just that he had God’s priorities in mind even though his ministry led him to a place of suffering and seeming failure and notthesexyministryeverybodywants). The sermon went okay, I guess. Truthfully, I underwhelmed myself, but I’ll spare you the gory details of my self-flagellating. Everyone said it was great and timely and challenging, which is wonderful. But I left feeling embarrassed and rather like a failure.

Part of it may be that I’m working with Pentecostals and their religious experience is so fervent and their lives are so regimented and I keep thinking… Gosh, I believe these guys have the Spirit and I want some of what they have. But if my life and spirituality were exactly like theirs I’d just feel tired all the time! I mean, I’m Pentecostal in a sense. I get dreams and prophesies and pray healing prayers and pursue Holy Spirit stuff. I've never spoken in tongues (though I'd like to) or had what I would call a “baptism of the Spirit”. I also don’t follow the strict lifestyle choices of many Pentecostals. I'll have a beer, dance at a wedding, etc. I’m not loud or flashy or authoritative. I’m just me. But when I get around these guys part of me feels inadequate.

Okay I confess! After the sermon, my translator looks at me and says, “oh. Is that all? I think the people are expecting more. Do you have another message?” Panic. Blood to face. Mind blank. “Um…. No?” So I said, “let us pray.” And the embarrassing confession is that I tried to act more Pentecostal than I am. I did a response invitation thingy and I think God was doing something. But honestly, it was more for the benefit of my hosts and translator than me being responsive to the Spirit or caring for people. I got scared. I wanted to please them. I caved. And then I felt mortified.

Anyway, I don’t think any real harm was done (not like I was giving bad theology or something). People are resilient and maybe some people were really moved. And I’m still slated to preach in that church next week. I’ll tell you what though. Next week, I’ll spend more time listening to God before choosing a topic, spend more time preparing, and be ready with enough material! I won’t recycle an old sermon (even if it was wildly successful last time) and I’ll try to just be me.

It reminds me of the constant up and downs of the disciples. With Jesus they’d have this huge high and then a big reality check. Mount of transfiguration followed by inability to cast out a demon. Must be some divine tactic for character formation… okay, well THAT’S off my chest! J

Earlier in the day Zakarias preached to a couple thousand at a Lutheran church about discipleship. Thrilling stuff really. He’s a pretty gutsy preacher and knows how to win people over and then “stick it to them”. That church is starting a 5-week preaching series ON discipleship so our seminars were a timely confirmation to them that (as they said) “This is God’s time for discipleship in Ethiopia.” After the sermon, a couple got married right there in the church service! I especially liked the lighting of the unity candle. After lighting it, the groom snapped his individual candle in half and chucked it onto the floor with disdain! (“Tired of being single thank you very much!”)

After lunch, the pastors and leaders sat us all in a circle outside the church. While a woman sat roasting coffee beans over some hot coals, we munched on toasted barley, chatted about Amharic, and laughed heartily when I told them about the Amharic nickname given to me in college (“Nati Tota”: Nate the monkey). Then they asked Dave some implementation questions regarding “next steps” for discipleship and communicated their eagerness to forge an ongoing relationship and have us back soon. We said we’d love to do that and feel free to send us to other parts of Ethiopia next time where there’s a need.

Did I tell you about the two-year-old girl in our seminar yesterday? She was sleeping in her mothers lap and when she woke up, she rubbed her eyes, turned slowly and gave the sweetest sleepy grin ever! Then she flirted with me for the next 20 minutes. Absolutely stole my heart. So, I was already in a weakened state when after dinner tonight, we got a tour of an orphanage run by one of Zakarias’ friends. Dozens of babies and little kids, all absolutely adorable beautiful human beings in various stages of adoption. I can only imagine how the Father must feel about these kiddos. I wanted to stay all night and hold babies, but maybe that’s just me being sentimental. I've NEVER wanted to adopt. Then again, I've never been to an orphanage!

So now I’m back at the guesthouse in my melty, inadequately-Pentecostal, shaken, hopeful, embarrassed, visionary funk… trying to sort it all out. I’m tired and need my rest but am glad for a few sweet moments in my pajamas without the constant presence of other people.

I’ll try to sleep in tomorrow, but between mosques, churches, and loud Arab-speaking neighbors… we’ll see! At some point, we’re supposed to go to the ancient Coptic sites up north. I’m sure you’ll get an earful about that!

(Update: I slept til 10:30 and had a gorgeous quiet morning writing music and just enjoying some alone time with the Father. So happy about that! Our trip north has been moved to tomorrow morning. Looking forward to it!)

(PS- for the record, Ethiopia has been a wonderful experience and it's clear every day that God set it up. I've also had wonderful experiences in other parts of Africa. I love the genuine friendships I've built with people in Congo, Kenya, Zambia, and Guinea. I'm deeply grateful for each one of them and the unbelievable warmth and hospitality they've showed toward me. I love this continent and the rich promise of God's Spirit so evidently working within the diverse cultures of Africa.)

Amharic for "open door" = ufda

“You know, our church is very slow on inviting ‘Farenje’ (foreign people),” Zakarias said as we huffed our way 3 miles up the hill in Addis Ababa. “Because of the language difference but also because many of the white people’s content is not good, in the area of inviting foreigners, our church is very strong (Zakarias’ word for suspicious and strict).” I stopped to catch my breath and take in the panorama of Addis surrounded by mountains and crowned with Coptic churches. “You know,” he continued, “these people are very slow to open their hearts to strangers but once they trust you, they are really wonderful. So I know God’s favor is on you guys because the people, they really like you.”

We could tell God was doing something because in our first two days of seminars the attitude of our participants has changed dramatically from skeptical cordiality to warm welcome and genuine excitement. People were telling Dave they “really felt something like the Holy Spirit” when he was teaching. Even Zekarias breaking from his cool calculating demeanor, leaned over wide-eyed and whispered “Whoa. He is… wonderful.” Though of course if you know Dave, you know he’s implacably humble (which is part of what endears everyone to him.) I’m neither humble nor wonderful but I felt my sessions went well and were generally well received.

I've been thinking a lot about how Jesus said, “take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart,” and how those of us who aspire to ministry have take on a dozen other yokes besides the easy/light one Jesus offers. We imagine we can outgrow the humility and self-sacrifice Jesus modeled in favor of big successful ministries. Sitting there in a tiny coffee shop sipping tiny espressos with deep-eyed pastor Melki today, we wondered aloud together why discipleship has been so widely abandoned worldwide. And I nearly teared up as I shared that fear… that in spite of what we read in the gospels, we tenderly lay it aside as just a bit too idealistic or unattainable… and follow the model of the successful pastors in big churches instead, surrendering love-filled discipleship on the altar of “impact”.

Everyone we talked to agreed that discipleship was the church’s number one issue--especially as a rapidly-growing church of young believers—and that the teaching met a very real felt need. In turn they paid close attention to the material and were unusually astute in the group exercise.

One pastor who frowned seriously through most of the day issued a sober invitation for us to teach 91 pastors he works with in the far western rural parts of Ethiopia. (We’d be getting closer to the people I love, the Fulani. Yes please.)

Zekarias, when it was clear that we would NOT be extending our tickets an extra two weeks for additional seminars (Debra, I guessed you wouldn't be happy about that one), asked us to pray about coming again in May. Urgh….. dare I pray about it?

The real proof for me that we are “in” is that after attending the seminar, the pastors changed their Sunday plans and asked us to preach. Knowing their distrust for foreigners, we felt this was a huge step for them in trusting us.

Ethiopians as I've said, have shown themselves to be dignified. They’ve insisted on treating us to classy restaurants and paying for everything that touches our lips. While more suspicious and reserved than other Africans, their hospitality is genuine and they treat us as equals (refreshing in light of the exaggerated deference we sometimes receive.)

THESE Ethiopians are a particularly exciting group to work with because they are well outside the range of groups WDA would normally train. It really is only through a “fluke” seating assignment on a plane and God-nudges on both sides that we've received favor and open doors with this group, which is usually inaccessible to people like us. I think that’s absolutely a crazy-providential God thing. We've all thought so from the beginning.

Should a good missionary confess to a day spent soaking in natural hot springs? Maybe I'm not a good missionary... but after swimming in an olympic sized pool of warm mountain water surrounded by monkeys and palm trees... Zekarius took us to a "shower room" where huge pipe dump a gallon per second of untreated near-scalding spring water. Then we went to a smaller pool where 3 levels of nearly-unbearable but incredibly relaxing water effective gelatinized all 3 of us. As is his custom, Zekarias took us to a restaurant where the waitress brought him a full kilogram of raw steak cut fresh from the cow 20 feet away. As is our custom, we asked her to please cook ours!

By the way, Zekarius told us this morning that we are the 3rd and 4th white people he remembers being allowed to preach in the Full Gospel church in Ethiopia during his 17 years there. 

2nd seminar starts tomorrow. Hoping for another good response and good implementation after we leave!

Santa Claus takes Ethiopia by Storm!

Have you ever seen an African Santa Clause (red suit, beard, the whole getup) dancing with a giant candy cane outside a shopping mall to the beat of indigenous Ethiopian music blaring across the loudspeakers? Now I have. I guess it’s just one more thing off my bucket list!

The Ethiopian Coptic church is celebrating their Christmas on Monday and apparently it is just as commercialized here as anywhere else! Holiday grasses and actual pine boughs are being sold by the wheelbarrow while hundreds of sheep line the road ready to accompany shoppers home for their holiday meal.

Ethiopia is an Africa I never expected. Caught somewhere between black Africa, Europe, Arabia, and it’s own rich history, I’m constantly surprised by what I see and taste and hear! Uneven dirt paths wind away from familiar African tumbledown kiosks to cobblestone streets where little coffee shops proudly serve macchiato and lattes frothed to the extreme and incredibly smooth. Any moment, I expect a tousled British woman in a khaki shirt to stroll down the street in front of a Travel Channel camera speaking news-anchorishly about Ethiopia’s rich cultural heritage.

Huge Coptic basilicas stand erect next to equally imposing mosques. Early this morning those mosques issue their haunting call to prayer and when the finish, the churches begin to slowly ring their deep resounding bells calling their own devotees to worship. Singing in ancient church scales, figures clad in white robes shuffle towards church. With their thin features and deep-set eyes, I can understand why the ancients called Ethiopia, the “Land of Ghosts.” Indeed the whole effect is quite haunting and you get the sense of being in a very old place among people with long memories. For them, the expulsion of Italian would-be colonizers happened yesterday, not a hundred years ago. Perhaps that’s why so many have remained active in the Coptic church: a deep Ethiopian pride that one’s life is not one’s own, but is part of a long and colorful story… and that one owes a debt of continuity to the thick veins of tradition running throughout that story. So this is NOT the wild frontier like Congo was but a place where deep-set eyes look reflectively backward across thousands of years as well as forward to new horizons.

I hope to part of a new horizon in Ethiopia, a seminal idea infecting the church that maturity matters, that every person can have a deeply personal relationship with a very present God, and that the church can and must take the call to build real disciples seriously.

But to be part of anything new here, I intuitively sense a person MUST understand the old. So on Friday, Zekarias (our host) will take us to some of the nation’s oldest places: Lalibela and Axum. They are holy cities where churches were literally carved into the rock. Zekarias has expressed this keen interest to introduce Dave and me to the richness of Ethiopia, hoping that God will give us a heart for this place and we’ll return. Zekarias has insisted that this trip should be as much about experiencing his home as teaching seminars. We were a bit surprised since our hosts typically work us to death and this one is very intentional about giving us time to rest.

We have at least 3 short seminars scheduled over the course of the next couple weeks. Zekarias has taken a major step of faith to arrange these programs: Having just met us on a plane, but believing God had arranged it, he has put his reputation on the line over and over. When pastors have called him to question our credentials and theology. He has told them point blank, “Look, you know me and I know them. If you trust me, then you must trust them.” Of course he doesn’t know us that well and we COULD be raving heretics, but he’s chosen to trust us almost entirely on a gut feeling that God wanted us to be here!

He’s also been touched by our willingness to trust him even though we don’t know him that well. To be honest I had my doubts. Did this guy really have the connections and authority to arrange these seminars? Would he follow through and be faithful to arrange the logistics? But I’ve learned that most African cultures are full-service cultures (whereas ours is a self-service one). Here, if you don’t trust your host, you’ll have a miserable time because nothing is explicit and EVERYTHING is implicit and you need the help of people just to get around. Self-reliant individualism in Africa is a joke. It doesn’t exist. Well Zekarias has exceeded our expectations and taken care of everything. He’s given most of his time to showing us around the city and to his credit, has insisted on paying for most things (including the countless macchiatos I’ve enjoyed here). Any lingering doubts about his credentials disappeared on Sunday when I watched him expertly preach to a packed church of at least 3,000 believers. He’s connected. I think we’ll have a great time. Pray that these seminars would “sow a seed” that discipleship is a process and that we must engage people in that process.

Listening Prayer and this morning's "Jesus adventure"!!

There's not much I hate more than talking to strangers. It makes me extremely uncomfortable. And when God tells me to talk to a stranger, it's even worse because of all the horribly uncomfortable things He might ask me to say.

On Monday, I walked past the spot where 3 years ago, God asked me to talk to a tough-looking guy smoking a cigarette in the middle of Atlanta. I remember standing 10 feet from the man having a battle of wills with my creator and eventually losing. With the lamest possible attempt at conversation, I actually asked if I could bum a cigarette off the guy and was then stuck smoking the thing in silence until finally I piped up, "look, I'm a Christian and I felt like God told me to talk to you. Is there anything I can do for you?" That led to an evening together, a church service, and a very grateful man who said I was the first person to befriend him since moving there.

On Monday I evaluated again the cost and benefit of listening to the Holy Spirit and to be honest the verdict was still out for me. Even though this habit of listening prayer has led to good things, including my career with WDA and a drastic move to Georgia, it has not ceased to cause me profound discomfort when I consider that God may ask me to do anything at any time. He may derail my entire agenda at a moment's notice. He could ask me to sell my guitar, to talk to a stranger, to get on a plane to Africa, or worse, to stay home for the next 20 years. Even for an admitted risk-taker, some of these things are way beyond what I'm "willing" to do. And though I trust His heart towards me, I know how fond He is of my growth and usually that means discomfort… that sick-to-the-stomach feeling of NOT being in control of one's destiny.

I suppose the best "resolution" I can make for 2013 is to renew my commitment to listening… a commitment which always seems threatened by that universal tendency to predict and control. (This tendency seems especially prevalent among people like me with enough money, influence, and dumb luck to get their way much of the time.) 

So. I'm "renewing my subscription to the Holy Spirit" as it were… knowing I would never be happy skirting around the edges of the Jesus life. I'm compelled to walk INTO it--regardless of cost--knowing it's my only hope of learning to "think, feel, and act" like Jesus. Believe me. If I saw another way, I'd be all over it.

In 2 days I'm traveling to Ethiopia where I'll co-teach a course on discipleship for hundreds of pastors, theologians, and "lay leaders". It scares the hell out of me. It always does. I mean, ME teach on discipleship? What a joke! When I take honest stock of what I have of value to offer these men and women, I don't come up with much. I'm not an expert. I'm not even terribly mature.

In the final analysis, I think the only thing of REAL value that I can offer is my own authentic journey with Jesus, my deeply personal experience of the Father's love, and my commitment to listen to Him even when it leads to those kicking-and-screaming kinds of choices.

I'm just asking that Jesus would go with me (which, as Annabel points out is a silly thing to ask because of course, "He follows you everywhere you go.")  and that I would have the guts and humility to listen to Him really carefully over the next few weeks in Africa, and for the rest of 2013. Here goes nothing!

PS- after writing this blog, I was sitting in the bathroom (!) when in my head, I heard God say, "go to the post office at 10AM" (which happened to be in 3 minutes!) After a minute of hesitating, I quickly  bundling the kids up and said, "alright kids! We're going on a Jesus adventure!" I stood in line at the post office and had a nice chat with the guys standing there. God seemed to smile at me and say, "now that wasn't so bad was it?" Then we went to McDonalds where using a coupon, we bought extra food which we offered it to the grandma with two kids sitting next to us who hadn't ordered enough food for her veracious grandbabies. The grandma (her name is Maureen) was touched, accepted the food, and we had a great conversation for the next hour about life in Georgia and the adventure of faith it's been for us. 

When we were leaving, she pulled me aside and gave me a tiny medallion depicting a woman kneeling before a cross on one side and two hearts being molded together on the other. She explained that in her Catholic tradition it represented Mary's love for Jesus and the molding of her heart to His. She said I should keep it close to me when I'm on "God's mission" in Ethiopia and he would honor my faith and help me. While Marian theology makes me kinda squirmy, I took it as her way of blessing me. So I'll gladly bring it with me as a symbol of my solidarity with Mary in her simple devotion and parental heart of love, and though I don't feel I need Mary to pray FOR me, I'm delighted to kneel alongside her before the cross. I thanked the woman and told her how God had directly led me to go to the post office that morning and that's why we were able to meet. She seemed deeply moved. I didn't have an agenda on this adventure or feel that I needed to accomplish something of "spiritual value" to feel the trip was worthwhile. I just felt like it was God's way of saying, "I love you. I'm with you. You're not just imagining this stuff!" And that's a good message for my heart to hear!