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| At this college at has becoming increasing and disgusting vogue to yell at God. I've definitely been there in the past and had my fair share of ugly words with the Creator Almighty, but it's amazing how many of us think that this is a healthy response. For some reason, since we feel the need to vent our emotions to God and sincerity is put on such a pedestal, we say some incredibly bold things to He who breathed us out of dirt. I say all this not because I have a person in mind I wish to single out, but because in the past week or so I've had the urge to give God a few choice words of my own. It's not that I hate Him by any means. Just some disgruntled discrepancies that have been eating away at me. But I wisely bit my tongue and rather than let it all out in a fury of resentment, held it in and let it eat away at me. Have just made it my furthest ever in abstaining from pornography, I began a new run and made it to day 8 when finally the unvoiced bitterness took its effect and left me cold and separated from Him. I still stand firm by my decision not to blow up in the face of God, but ignoring the problem didn't leave me any better off.
It's amazing how much my spiritual life carries the echo of a daytime soap opera.
Which though sounds like a bad thing, does wonders for opening my eyes to the beauty of what it means to have a relationship with God. I've spent some time thumbing through Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What and reminding myself just how personal he is. The image still sticks in my mind of Miller explaining a quote of a guy explaining faith as a chair you must sit in before you can fully believe in it. And how Jesus gave us all these powerful metaphors of a husband to his bride or a shepherd to his sheep or a head to his own body. Meanwhile, we all run around thinking of Jesus as a chair, and He must get awfully upset with a bunch of people always trying to sit on him.
This struggle I am enduring has always etched itself in my mind as a gladiatorial fight between myself and whatever wicked demon it is tempting me. Sometimes he bears the image of myself, other times he dons the visage of one that I love, and occasionally I can see him for the monster he is. But no matter the case, the fight begins blow for blow at an even exchange. Each successful evasion of temptation is a powerful thrust knocking him back and off balance, and each minor lustful thought in my mind is a swing he gets in under my guard which cuts either shallow or deep, depending on the situation. So as invigorating as this image might appear at first and appealing to the masculine desire for a battle to fight, it really kills you in the long run. You see, you can launch an offensive maneuver one after the other, eventually disarm your opponent, and when you swing to decapitate the beaten fool, he simply disappears and re-spawns behind you, only stronger and better equipped. You can keep from losing, but you'll never win.
That, in and of itself, is more insight than I'd like to admit as to why I was so frustrated with God. I couldn't imagine life continuing on like this raging duel forever. I kept it up for so long in the semester by telling myself that the fight would only get easier as I trained harder and harder. Well for that last week it was harder than ever before. My body tells me that if week 1 can do 20 pushups and then week 2 I find myself able to do 25 pushups, then week 3 I should expect my body to be able to pump out at least 25 pushups, perhaps more. So in the spiritual analogy, when I was used to no sweat grinding 500 spiritual pushups of resistance, then 600, then 1000, I felt betrayed when my body started giving out on my next set at around 200. If this were a reflection of my activity in the weight room, I would know something was wrong with me. Either I wasn't resting enough or eating poorly or something. But then I'm reminded that as much as God isn't a chair to sit in, He isn't iron to pump either.
My relationship to God was meant to be as a lover, not as a fighter. Which is somewhat relieving because I'm a terrible fighter it turns out. Dave Wheeler's self-initiated "Sexual Purity Emphasis Week" (SPEW) sermon helped bring these thoughts to life, but from the moment I really turned my back on God I knew that I had done something far more profound than injure myself on the battlefield. I had betrayed the fidelity of my bed I keep with God.
My image of a soldier was convenient because one false step only meant impending doom for my own body. But when you take a more accurate look through the lens of God the lover, I find the dagger protruding from his back.
Still, all this understood, I haven't simply reemerged into the presence of God with tears-a-flying and sobs-a-wailing. I can sing "Wedding Dress" by Derek Webb 100 times and still not guilt my heart into a scene of painful sincere repentance. I've said with as much honesty as I can that I'm sorry to God and that I don't want to keep on living in denial of the love we once shared (I say it as if we've been separated for years; it has been 4 days). But that emotional spree of change isn't happening. Normally, God is always right behind me when I turn to Him and He does all the hard work of reconciling us. This time I feel like I actually have to seek Him for a bit. Will I actually be the one to find Him? Not likely. Inevitably I will take 3 steps in his direction and He will appear from out of thin air and remind me He was always there. But right now it feels so strange to be taking baby steps with God.
Almost like a real relationship might.
All day long it's been quick little dialogues back and forth as if we're slowing reestablishing connection. It almost feels like that awkward "talking" phase you have to go through when you meet a girl before any deeper connection can form. Our society put knowing one another on a cognitive, intellectual level as a prerequisite for romantic interest. Odd as it may be, we're all hard-wired into this idea. So it's been amusing today as I'm testing the waters with God in my calls to Him, trying to figure out what kind of God He is as if I haven't known Him at all in the past 20 years. Good grief, it feels more than a little absurd to start back at square one at this stage of the game. But isn't that how we do it with one another? If the relationship (I am still using this word outside of it's usual JBC meaning) did not end in a instantaneous fiery gambit, it surely won't rise from the grave in one either. Slowly, we get to know one another through repeated exposure until we're a close, if not closer, than ever before. And when I know I have a God that is better at all this than you or I, it's nice to know he's just waiting on me and is gonna let me take this slowly. God is patient. Wait... Love is patient? Perhaps... God is love?
When Him and I chat on the phone late tonight, I'll bring it up between stories of how our days went.
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| I've always wanted to start a revolution. You know, something epic that would change the face of the world around me in some way. Maybe not history-changing, maybe little more than a footnote in your Western Civ. textbook. And not for any arrogant, egocentric reasons either. It would make no difference if my name and face were plastered to the front of every sign of our movement. I just want to do something phenomenal enough to move the population out of their seats. I came to JBC for the same reason many of you did; I want to change the world.
And it is that exact desire for the grandiose in life that often betrays my good intent because when Monday the 24th came and a whopping 8 people were waiting in the lobby, I was blown to bits. I had been striding around campus for days beforehand with my cape flapping in the wind.
"Oh, the veil?" I might say. "Yes, well I just came from my meditation time with God and I'm glowing to brightly it would blind you. And I'm terribly sorry I'm late. You see, I stopped to evangelize to everything that moves on the way here. But have no fear, Marvelous Man is here!"
The car wash was designed to run with about 20 people or so. This gives us 4 people on sign crew, 2 hoses running, 2 people scrubbing tires, 8-10 people scrubbing, and then extra support so we don't kill ourselves from non-stop washing as well as enough people so that we get genuine witnessing opportunities to people as we wash their car. None of that happened.
With the last minute addition of Juan and myself, we had 10 people. We had to start with all 4 signs going if we were going to get anyone to notice us, leaving only 6 of them back to wash the cars. We only used one hose and had a small little spot for washing one car at a time. And we were so focused on getting those cars done and out that we didn't have time to really stand and talk with the people we were ministering to. With a string of 2 or 3 cars always waiting, it was "Ok, you're good to go. Thanks for coming... NEXT!"
Now, don't get me wrong, I think we made an impact on a few lives that day. People called us everything from "wonderful" to "freakin' nuts." If nothing else, we caught people attention and peaked their curiosity, but only a few came to answer those questions. Perhaps we planted a valuable seed here or there, but I believe more than anything, we found new perspectives on our own ministries.
An absolutely free car wash, no donations accepted was the well-advertised deal. "Keep your money," we would yell from the curb. "We just wanna wash your car!" And people would do everything in their power to either avoid eye-contact with us or hide their looks of unabashed intrigue. For the hour or so I held signs with AJ I don't believe one person simply pulled up and asked "Where?" There was a more important question on their mind: "Why?" It's difficult too difficult to explain through a car window in 5 seconds before people start honking at you, so we directed the cars on down and told them to ask the washers themselves. But no matter how much we made it clear that we were not looking for money, they would still try and offer it. The very first car of the day we washed the guy insisted that if I would just turn around he'd slip a few bills into my pocket and no one would know. But more important than my refusal of temptation was the peculiar sense of justice the world possesses. From a purely logical standpoint, people should have been diving left and right for a free service with no hidden cost. But as we stood there shouting and jumping for people to come and have their cars washed, the dirtiest cars would roll right past us without a second thought and write us off.
The problem was not that their car did not need washing. Nor was it a price too heavy. Time was not even an issue since most people parked their cars with us and went in to do their shopping. It was something else. And while no revolutions began or movements started, those of us who stood with sponges waiting for someone to come and be cleaned received new perspective.
How in the world are we supposed to dispense God's absolutely free, no donations accepted grace, when people won't even accept a car wash?
Whether it be pride or justice or apathy I cannot discern, but the forces holding people back from finding Christ rarely seem to be a matter of faith. Or if it is a lack of faith, it is not coming from a feeling of mistrust to God himself but apprehension toward a doubtful humanity. Is it possible that we have so wronged one another in this life that we no longer believe in a pure heart? We joke that "nothing comes for free," but how many people out there live life by that motto?
Perhaps I have simplified the call of the gospel too much. Grace is not simply a "grab and go" phenomenon and you're a little better off for having it, like a car wash. Grace comes for free, but once you've got it, it might cost you everything. (The hidden joy is that you'll be more content than ever before, but rarely does that appear without hindsight.) But a car-wash costs nothing, and yet we struggled at first to find but a few rare people willing to let someone serve them without an opportunity to return the favor.
Kind of explains why were so anxious to return favors to God. I wish we could all do it in pure response to his love, but far too often I spend my efforts trying to clear the slate and level the playing field. And so I will finally admit it. The car wash, no matter how small the turnout, was an incredible joy of service like I haven't felt in so long. It wasn't me trying to "make it up to" God. It was me stopping to realize that nothing I do can ever bridge that gap of dependency, so instead of filling an infinite hole with my finite deeds, I turned and tried to be like Him rather than be on the same level as Him. As the chapel speaking, my father Jeff Snell put it, we were "'Jesus'ing around." Yes, 'to Jesus' is a verb.
A million thanks to those who made the effort to be there, especially with the high cost some of you payed to be available. I hope the experience impacted you as much as it did me. And for everyone else who couldn't make it reading this far, I hope I've peaked your interest enough to take part of the revolution of grace next time an opportunity like this rolls around. Hey, you don't get a chance to change the world everyday, now do you?
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| and strike up the band... because I'm back, and in more ways than one.
Obviously, I have returned to my throne on the campus of Johnson Bible College, serving as some sort of sage/weapons master/advisor on the glorious kingdom of Brown 1st North. And I must admit, I feel somewhat overwhelmed with anticipation for this upcoming year. Just look at the scene that has developed around me:
-I am now an upperclassman with a scarce, prominent position on the hall (technically, Mike and I are the only juniors on all of 1st North I believe, though Neil and Bosshammer probably fall in there too I suppose).
-I knew very few graduating seniors last year, and though we mourn the loss of Ryan Heathco, the wise Dave Schneller is rightfully in his place. I have made many a friends in the class below me, have several friends in the class above me, and even in freshman class this year seems to be fitting in already. The losses next year to our hall will be devastating with legends such as Duff, Dave, Justin, Keeler, Vinny, and even TC leaving us. This is the year to shine.
-Beyond the community around me, I too am ready for this adventure. My freshman year was almost entirely experimental, learning almost exclusively from trial and error, mostly error. Last year I felt like I had things down to a bit of an art, but I'm afraid I may have let my confidence steal away much of my learning experience and I "coasted" when I should have been "striving." It's time to find out what I'm really capable of.
-Though those of you reading this without high levels of testosterone will probably find this boring, but I will say it anyway. I am focused. I am resolute. I stand determined to look past the petty concerns of my past and to the legacy emerging around myself and take charge of it. Lives hang in the balance, futures by a thread, and I'm tired of idly sitting by and doing nothing. Or even worse, exhausting my efforts by trying to accomplish goals on my own (concretely speaking, to write a paper, to preach a sermon, to deepen friendships, and even win the heart of a girl). I have in the past years engaged each and every one of those examples and probably hundred more by my own accord and desire.
That has to change. There are new frontiers in front of me, but there is also much that I have lost and must be found once more. I said once before (though I doubt many of you check your protected post list) that I would not sit by and watch the ruins of what I have lost grow cold. Well, if you are one of the lucky 10, you might have noticed I made that entire post without even referencing God. So let me say now, that neither do I wish to approach these ruins with hopes of restoration on my own accord. And restoration is what I desire more than anything else. Before I can travel forward, and feel I must retrace my steps to save what I have carelessly thrown away along my path. The direction I intend to take still feels a bit foggy, but I have every bit of faith that God will clear the path as I travel it.
So let me say the one thing of value beyond my own personal musing that I intended to when I sat down a bit ago. This summer a missionary family of Tim and Tammy Aho visited our church to tell us of some of the amazing things taking place with their ministry in England. During their presentation, they encouraged us to use any Land Rover vehicle make we pass on the road as a "prayer trigger." The idea sounded vaguely familiar, but not something I had ever set out to do intentionally. They said that because all Land Rover cars are made in a city only about an hour from where they live, we could remember them when we see one and then pray for them. Well as cheesy and rather odd as it sounded at first, it stuck with me. Since then I've passed dozens of Land Rovers on the road and every time I remember to pray for the Aho family. I mean, I've probably prayed for them more often than I've prayed for the most crucial decisions and events in my life, and it's all because I have something tangible to draw me to God with them on my mind.
I don't know if it has to come in steps, or if God will simply turn on the magnetism the moment I start calling, but one way or another I want the world around me to be one gigantic prayer trigger. I want nature itself and all God created to beckon me to him. Every tree, every cloud, every gorgeous sunset I want to transform into an awe-inspired "look at Me" from God himself. I have much to learn, and much to achieve, and probably much to apologize to a whole lot of friends that I have let wither into acquaintances. But before I can revitalize that, I'm going to start chatting with my prophet, priest, and king on my side.
Normally I'd tell you to brace yourself for a new, more powerful Allen, but that would be misleading. So instead we'll try this:
Brace yourself, for a dead, less powerful Allen, and a new, more powerful Christ living in him.
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| Of all our Christian metaphors to try and explain the gospel, some are worth holding on to but most are just open to mockery. Anyone who has taken Word Missions and Evangelism has taken their fair share of pot-shots at the bridge illustration and even the more biblically centered "Roman Road."
But one analogy I had not heard reference to in a long time is one that Donald Miller brings up in his book I finished while in Mexico, Searching for God Knows What. He just casually throws in how he has heard it described that Christianity is something like a chair. You can have faith that the chair will hold you, and you can learn all you want to about the absolute truth of the chair's presence and it's value, but you can only go so far from a distance. Eventually, you will have to sit in the chair to fully understand it. I somewhat casually nodded my head to silently agree as I read it, as it did seem quite theologically safe and sound. I probably should have seen it coming given the subject matter Miller was harping on, but as I'm sure he intended, caught me quite off guard with the end of that chapter.
"I wondered as I heard this if the chair was a kind of symbol for Jesus, and how irritated Jesus might be if a lot of people kept trying to sit on Him.
And then I wondered at how Jesus could say He was a Shepherd and we were sheep, and that the Father in heaven was our Father and we were His children, and that He Himself was a Bridegroom and we were His bride, and that He was a King and we were His subjects, and yet we somehow missed His meaning and thought becoming a Christian was like sitting in a chair."
To be fair, I should have seen it coming. The 156 pages prior to this passage had been almost entirely devoted to restoring our "relational" view of Christianity rather than mere propositional truth. Sure the bridge and the Roman road are valuable tools, but it's no accident God didn't put them all together in one place for us. He spread these essential truths that we use in our game of "Genesis, the gospels, and Pauline epistles proof-text wars" throughout a rather over-sized narrative if all we needed were the basics of truth. God has always spoken through story; it is the very substance of our lives.
Funny how the simplest, most obvious lessons are the hardest to learn, huh?
Just a few weeks ago, right before I left for Mexico actually, I had reached a point of frustration in my ongoing (yes, still ongoing) battle with pornography. After failing what should have been an easily little trial I decided it was time to straighten out a few things in my mind. I found a pen and the only source of blank paper at my disposal downstairs: a pink post-it note. Without stopping to formulate a structure or flow, I just started writing:
-Because I am not my own; I was bought at a price
-Because God's joy is greater
-For my future marriage
-For my present relationship endeavors
-For the potentcy [sic] of my ministry
-For the souls at stake
-Because I hate shame and guilt
-For the girls I would lust after
-Because . . . deserves better
-Because God demands more
Nearly out of breath from a rather intense stream of consciousness, I stopped to realize I had compiled a rather complete list of 10 reasons why I should fight harder to get clean. Since then, I have taken the time before I sleep, whether the day had been a success or a miserable failure (most likely the latter), to read off this list aloud as a sort of mantra in hopes of indoctrinating myself into perfection. And while I'm certain it helped my mind to rattle off these ideals into writing that I had been abstractly fighting for all this time, there was one small problem. It didn't help matters. In fact, if anything, it made them worse. The end of my internship means I have my laptop back at my house again with free reign of the wireless, hi-speed internet. And no matter how many times I read this remarkable little list, it didn't help me once.
Not ONCE!
So in my usual ignorance, God decided to repeat the lesson again in the next book I had picked up: The Sacred Romance, by Brent Curtis and John Eldridge. Read the book yourself because no paraphrase of its message will do justice to the beauty of it all. All I can say is that I realized within about four chapter that my list was terribly incomplete. I had one last battle cry, one last motive that I had been fighting for.
-Because He loves me.
And I noticed that as I scribbled these four words, all the other ten reasons seemed to melt off the cheap, pink paper. They became either terribly redundant or wholly unimportant. In the first case, of course God's joy is greater--He loves me! And in the second case, well who cares about marriage or ministry--He loves me! And the best part is that I don't even care if you criticize me for sounding dangerously cavalier regarding such sacred issues as marriage and ministry. I implore you to try throwing caution into the wind and imagine what it would be like to cease all concerns and worries in the world (Can if afford this? Am I smart/strong/handsome enough? Do I have to go to work tomorrow? Does she even know that I'm alive?) and breathe in the untainted, never diluted, 200-proof oxygen of God's love.
But our guiding light is not the sentimental intoxication we feel from our spirituality. This idea of a relational approach to morality deserves to be tested, in all fairness. This notion hit me late Friday evening... and now as I stretch into the late hours of the night to begin this Monday, I'm pressing onto day 3, JBC or bust.
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| With the sermon and article done, I am officially out of reasons to keep avoiding xanga. Unfortunately, I don't really have much on my mind right now, so rather than waste your time with rambling, here's a nice quote.
"When I was a kid in high school it used to be really popular to wear little buttons on your coat that said, 'Smile, God Loves You.' And that would always hack me off, 'cause I go, 'You know what? God loves everybody. That doesn't make me special. It just means that God has no taste.'"
--Rich Mullins
Oh, and if I can't get a video feed of my sermon, I'll probably post the manuscript up here. Either way, you win.
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