It Ain't Easy

I read this morning in Psalm 90, where Moses said, "Even the best years are filled with pain and trouble." I read that and I began to think about my life. The last few weeks have been pretty tough around here.

I haven't blogged in a while. I've planned to, but haven't felt like it. Three weeks ago, Karen and I took Jude over to Shreveport so he could have surgery on his thumb. (It wouldn't straighten out - the surgery went well and his thumb is normal.) While we were there, I got a call saying that Larry Yeagle, one of the great men in our church, was killed while riding his bicycle north of Ruston. That news hit me and Karen pretty hard. We were standing in Target, Jude in the buggy, when we got the news. I hung up the phone and told Karen. Jude looked at us and said, "Daddy and mommy are sad." We were.

Larry had been working on a project with me, building a cart for I.A. Lewis Elementary School. His son told me that Larry had been working on the cart that afternoon just before he went on his bike ride. This is the most a death has ever affected me. It sucks.

That's tragedy. The rest of what I type here is inconvenience. It seems like for the past month and a half, some member of my family has been sick with something. Owen can't sleep through the night, so Karen feels like a zombie most of the time. The flowers I planted last month are dead. And last night the torsion spring on my garage door snapped in two so I can't get my scooter out. None of these things are that big a deal, but taken together they have really frustrated me. I mean, my flowers died!

And then I read what Moses said. "Even our best years are filled with pain and trouble." What do I expect out of this life? What our souls long for is "rest on every side." And I think that's what I keep waiting on. But it ain't gonna happen here - not until Jesus comes back and makes everything right. Something will always be broken; someone will always be sick; bills will always be due; weeds will always sprout up.

So I've got a choice to make. Either I can keep being frustrated that something isn't right, or I can learn to be a person who focuses on what is right. Spiritual maturity is not pessimism. It's peace, joy, and thankfulness no matter the circumstances. And I've got to believe these are some of the best years of my life. And even though I'll have trouble, I'll also have hope. Because Jesus has promised me that one day I'll have a life without junk. But it ain't this one.

Things That Kill Worship: Self-Awareness

Sixth grade was really hard for me. At the beginning of that year, the cruel realities of social order and brand-name clothing came crashing in on me. That reality became more cruel when I quickly realized that I was at the bottom of the social order, and that my clothing style was the example of how not to dress. Everything I enjoyed turned out to be uncool. Like to play the trumpet? Guilty. Uncoordinated and can't dribble a basketball? Guilty. Are you so skinny that no one can tell the difference between your sternum and your spine? Guilty.

At the risk of sounding like a nutcase, I hated my life that year. Not because my school was depressing, although it was. And not because I didn't have many friends, although I didn't. I think I was miserable because I didn't like myself that year. And I think I didn't like myself that year because I thought about myself incessantly. Everything I did or said was filtered through the questions of "how will this appear to them?" or "what will they think of me?" As I think back on that year, I remember it as overcast and cold, always rainy. I would wake up early in the morning, look and the mirror, and just dread going to school. I remember having the thought, "Who is going to be mean to me today?" I tried so hard to be perfect, to make sure everything on my person was in its proper place. That way I wouldn't be a target for anyone. So I was careful that my braided leather belt was straight, and that my brown Eastland loafers were tied just right.

I was drowning in my own self-awareness.

Now my job is to lead people in worship through music. There are lots of people who participate and sing along. But there are lots of other people who just stare back at me with their hands in their pockets and wait for the service to be over. Part of my job is to figure out how I can lead those people to a place where they can experience God in worship. What are their obstacles?

I think one of the things that keeps people from worshiping is the same thing that made me so miserable in the sixth grade: self-awareness. Some people have such a preoccupation with how they appear to others that they can't see God for who He is. And that's where worship has to start: seeing God.

True worshipers are never self aware. At least not primarily. You know this intuitively. You've seen those NFL playoff commercials where people are body-slamming each other, or grown men are jumping up and down hugging, because their team wins the game. That's the absence of self-awareness. Self-awareness fades when you place your mind's attention and your heart's affection on something beautiful. That's when true worship happens. That's when it doesn't matter if you sing on key, or if your posture is different from those around you.

Now, of course, self-awareness has a place in worship. But it's only after we see God for who He is that we can have a healthy self-awareness, a different kind of self-awareness. It's the kind of self-awareness that comes when you're watching a movie with your grandmother and a sex scene comes on. You become aware of something that you normally wouldn't be aware of because you're in the presence of someone better than you.

So maybe you're someone who doesn't really get anything out of a corporate worship time. It's possible that you aren't experiencing anything because you're looking no further than yourself. Lift your eyes, see who God is, and worship Him.

What Is Failure In Leadership?

I lead worship. Have for a long time. The first time I led worship was from behind a Yamaha 56-key synthesizer at FBC Ruston, LA on a Wednesday night when I was 13. The songs included "Sanctuary," "Lord I Lift Your Name on High," and a stirring rendition of Steven Curtis Chapman's "When You Are a Soldier." You only wish you were lucky enough to have been there.

As I think back over the past 17 years of leading worship, I think the greatest challenge I've had to overcome is internal fear. There's always a voice in the back of my mind saying, "What if no one follows you? What if you are completely wrong in the direction you think we should go?"

My fear came true once. It was terrible. "It" happened during my sophomore year of college, in a worship service called "Thursday Night's Together," a gathering of 300-400 college students. Back then we would have an extended worship set each week after the message. This particular week the feel was particularly intimate, and we were finishing up a slow song. I instructed the congregation to spend a few moments in silence, meditating on God's nearness and the truth that we just sang about. And in a moment that I will forever ask "what was I thinking?", I thought it would be a good idea for everyone to shout for joy at what God has done for us. Honestly, I thought it was right. And I thought people would follow. Wrong and wrong. I yelled, "Let's just shout to God!!!!" Then time stood still. An outcry bellowed from my loins, up through my diaphragm, lungs, into my throat. By the time the guttural shriek produced sound, I realized that no one else would be participating in my shoutfest. My scream ended much more quickly than it started, as I tried to play it off. It ended up sounding like part's of Dana Carvey's "Chopping Broccoli." As you can imagine, no one bought it. And I felt like a doofus. The Supreme Doofus.

Was that leadership failure? If that question means "did I make a poor decision?" then the answer is yes. But I don't know that I failed as a leader.

I've been reading in Leviticus, and I came across the Year of Jubilee that Israel was to celebrate once every 49 years. (Chapter 25) On that year, all slaves were freed, and all land went back to the family that it was originally allotted to. The Year of Jubilee would ensure that no one in Israel would ever be stuck in poverty. All bets were off, and people celebrated freedom and forgiveness.

Great idea - but no one followed. We have no record of Israel ever celebrating the Year of Jubilee. God spent all that time, ink, and paper - or chisel and stone - to lay out the call for Israel. But they sat silent. 

Did God fail? Of course not. So maybe success in leadership isn't based on whether or not people follow. The greatest failure in leadership is not leading. It's way better for me to fail, admit it, and move on, than for me to never challenge people to go anywhere.

In worship leadership, the fear can be paralyzing for me. "This is different from what they're used to. What if they don't like it? What if they leave me hanging and I fall flat on my face?" All those questions are still there. But if I'm called by God to lead these people, then I must lead, regardless of their response.

What fears keep you from living out your calling?

Worship As Diligence

The Bible is really clear: as Christians, we are supposed to worship God with our whole life - whether that's at church, work, home, hanging out with friends at the park - it's all worship. Even the most mundane tasks in life can be dedicated to God as acts of worship. The way I spend my time should be an act of worship to God. Let's face it, it's worship to someone (or something) -- myself, my favorite sport, a video game, a reality show, etc.

By giving my time to something, I'm declaring that it has value.

So here's the kicker for me - and it's really not fair. I've found that in my own life, laziness produces laziness, and productivity produces productivity. On weeks that I'm busy, I have all this energy to get stuff done, I exercise. I find that when I finish a task, I don't just want to go sit and do nothing, but start something else. 

But when I have a slow week, I tend to watch more TV, lay on the couch more, and eat more candy. You'd think that in those times I would have more energy to do the small, less important things that are more nagging than stressful. But I don't. When I have more free time, I spend less time in a productive way.

There's a difference between Biblical Rest - the kind that we all desperately need and pleases God - and laziness. One is an act of faith, of dependence, of devotion. The other is an act of selfishness. One pleases God, one insults God. (Compare Leviticus 23:3 and Proverbs 6:6-11)

So how do you spend your time? Do you feel unmotivated? Get up and do something! It'll make you feel better, and it will produce in you more energy to do something else. Turn off the xbox. Get something done. And do it with a heart of worship.

How'd You Get Here?

I think I'm in a really good place right now. My job is aligned with my passion and my gifting. I've got an incredible family. But how'd I get here?

In 1995, Christ Community Church (CCC) in Ruston went through a terribly painful church split. Dozens of families who had been an integral part of planting the church a decade earlier broke fellowship with many of their closest friends. Lifelong relationships were shattered. It was yet another ugly display of church division in Ruston, LA.

I wasn't there. I grew up at another church in Ruston, First Baptist. In the mid-90's, our church was thriving under the leadership of Danny Wood. It was a great time for me to be in high school. During my freshman year, we experienced a huge influx of families from the CCC split, and I got to know many of those people.

In 2000, my church began to experience tough times. Through leadership failures and competing ministry philosophies, the unified vision of my church morphed into a PR campaign to make sure everyone was happy. My closest friends were hurt, and I was hurt. I took a couple of church jobs in the area in an attempt to find excuses not to go to church in Ruston. I was bitter, and I was wrong. But God used my mistakes, and the mistakes others to open doors that never would have opened. In 2002, many of the families who had left Christ Community in 1995 planted a new church in Ruston called Crossroads. They asked me to be part of the team and lead worship on Sundays. Karen and I decided to give it a shot.

If the 1995 split at CCC had never happened, Crossroads would not have started. If FBC had not hit such hard times in the early 2000s, I would not have taken a ministry job in my hometown, because I wouldn't have been able to leave my home church.

God has a way of taking our screw-ups, raking through the carnage, and rebuilding something beautiful. That's essentially the story of planet earth, right? We destroy, He redeems. We sin, He forgives. Beauty from ashes.

In Genesis 50:20, Joseph says that what was originally intended for evil, God used for good. The ultimate example of this, of course, is the cross. Jewish leaders thought that by killing Jesus they would destroy His influence over the region. But God used their sinful decision to redeem fallen humanity.

Take a look behind you. How has God used your mistakes or painful experiences to bring you where you are today?

What's broken in your life right now? Maybe you're going through something terrible, devastating. You've got reason to have a lot of hope in the middle of that circumstance. God's probably sifting through the rubble, gathering materials to build something that you wouldn't believe.