All you’ve got

I hesitate to write about the devastation of the fires that currently rage in Southern California. Lives have been lost and dreams have literally gone up in smoke, but it’s not my story to tell. I haven’t been personally touched by the flames that have destroyed so much and yet, here I am, heartbroken and at a loss for words as I grieve with those who grieve. When we talk about loving our neighbors, it’s not a matter of geography. Our call isn’t just to love the ones who live in our neighborhood, who look like us or believe all the same things we believe. Love your neighbor in a concept that goes deeper than proximity. It is a mandate for us love one another without any fine print.

I have to confess, as I was reading news about the fires on BBC, for a split second I was offended to see articles of people celebrating a sports victory or a multi-million dollar business deal. I briefly thought to myself, “how can they be going on with life while thousands of people are suffering in the trauma of wildfires?” Quickly I realized….I am doing that all the time. Wars rage throughout the world. Famine and genocide and disease plague humanity. Fires, floods, death, and divorce are happening daily and yet all-to-often I go about my day without a thought for the neighbors I can’t see, let alone the ones right in front of me.

Again, this particular tragedy is not my story to tell. The stories of people losing lives, homes, treasures, and dreams are unique and sacred. My story, and probably yours as well is, how are we loving our neighbor? None of us can love perfectly, but we can choose to love; to show compassion. To weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. We can be generous to those in need, comfort the brokenhearted, and give kindness to the weary. I don’t really know how that looks practically for you, or myself for that matter. That’s the great thing about humanity is that we’re all different, with various gifts and resources. I would simply encourage you (as I’m encouraging and challenging myself): Love with all you’ve got. Whatever talents you have, use them to bless others. With your resources, be generous to those in need. Be gentle and compassionate with your words to people and believe the best about them. Most people are just doing the best they can with the knowledge, abilities, and resources available to them. And if they’re not, what is that to me? The moment I judge someone else is the very moment I condemn myself as well. So, give grace and kindness and mercy. Whether I’m experiencing tragedy or riding on the wings of prosperity, let’s be people who are actively loving our neighbor with all we’ve got. I believe that’s the way we’ll all experience a more beautiful world.

Now what?

Every year we experience this no-man’s land in time between Christmas and the New Year. We have months of build up to the holidays with shopping, parties, lights, and family time, and in one glorious day the wrapping paper gets shredded, Christmas dinner gets devoured, and when it’s all over we look around and think….now what? It’s how I often feel coming home from a vacation. Reality starts to set back in as all the excitement fades from anticipation into memory, and we can often feel a bit disillusioned like, “Is that it? Is it all over?” This used to be a big struggle for me (I’d be lying if I said I don’t still struggle with this sometimes), but I’ve started to reshape my thinking a bit to find the things I love in these epic moments of life that I can carry forward with me. They aren’t just good memories, but they are formative moments that will help me create the life I want to live, and for me that has been a monumental shift.

A couple years ago we bought a camper van to do some traveling and we had a blast! We drove through several national parks, camped on the beach, laughed a lot and made some great memories. However, I would often find myself sliding into depression when we would get home, always dreading the return to normal, everyday life. The joy of the trip was overshadowed by the darkness of discontentment and always looking for some next adventure to fill the void. This constant ebb and flow left me unable to fully appreciate the past or embrace my future. Being stuck in the middle between memories and dreams robbed me of the joy of here and now. We have since sold the van, but the life lesson from that season has stuck with me and will continue to help me navigate the ups and downs of life.

So, in this season of looking back and looking ahead, back over the last year and forward to the next, we have a beautifully divine opportunity to blend our past and our future into our present reality. We reflect on all the lessons learned, the highs and lows and all the in-betweens, and allow them all to mold us a little bit more into the image we were created in. We carry them like scars on our hearts, as both memories of pain and miracles of healing. Perhaps 2024 didn’t quite go as you hoped it would. Life seems to throw us curveballs sometimes, and quite honestly can knock us on our butts now and then. Or maybe for you the past year was awesome and you wouldn’t change a thing. Either way, we have 365 days worth of experiences to learn from; the good times and bad, the births and deaths, marriages and divorces. We don’t just leave those things in the past, but we learn from them and grow through the experiences to shape a better future. We learn to love more, to be a better friend, and strive for peace. We build a life of patience and kindness and let go of the hatred that divides and tears down.

As you reflect on this past year and look forward to the next, allow yourself to be filled with a mix of gratitude for the past and hope for the future, blended together to live a life full of love, joy, and peace in your present moment. There’s more I want to say regarding new beginnings, but I think I’ll save that for another time. For now, I wish you an amazing 2025. May you discover the beauty of your true identity as one who is loved by your divine creator. May you find healing for the wounds of your heart and discover the depths of love and joy that life has to offer. May you be slow to anger and quick to forgive. May you show kindness and patience to yourself and to others. And next December, may you look back over 2025 and be proud of yourself for not giving up. Peace, love, and all the best to you.

Merry Christmas 2024

As the years click by, time just continues to feel like it’s accelerating and in all honesty, it’s hard to keep up sometimes. Like a smooth Miles Davis LP played at 45 rpm, the sounds are still recognizable but something just doesn’t feel right. It’s just off a bit. But drop it down to 33 and you hear the pauses. You can sense the breath and feel the depth of joy and pain in every note as the record spins. That’s what this year has felt like to me. Slowing down, reevaluating priorities, and redefining the moments of my life with purpose and intention. Well, at least that’s what I’ve tried to do. It’s almost as if every natural inclination and outside influence are all working against us, pushing against our desire to slow down and forcing us deeper into apathy as we race through life, unaware and wandering.

I’m sure you’ve received Christmas letters telling of all the wonderful things people have done over the past year. Vacations, weddings, new babies, and graduations. In fact, that’s pretty much what my Christmas letter was last year, too, and honestly probably will be again next year. Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s fun to see the amazing gifts and experiences people have received throughout the year. But our Christmas letters don’t seem to talk about the difficulties much. The divorces, the loved ones lost, the disappointments, and heartaches. Those things are messy and who wants to hear about that stuff at Christmas time? But these are the reality of our lives. Joy AND pain. Victory AND defeat. Triumph AND tragedy. Sometimes we just have to slow down enough to see the magic in it all.

God brings beauty from ashes. God works all things together for good. God comes to us in our darkest nights, when we are hopeless and desperate. And that, my friends is the story of Christmas. It’s easy for us to get distracted and miss the wonder of the moment, that God so loved the world. The world. This messed up, divided, hateful, selfish, lustful, and greedy world. Me. You. Us. He so loved US. He came. He lived and walked among us. He experienced the tragedies and pain. He was ridiculed and rejected. He knows of our temptations and suffering. God came so he could know us. He came to heal our brokenness. He came, as a refugee infant, to redeem us and give us a better story. Let’s all take some time this season to slow down and take a breath. Consider the darkness we see in the world, the darkness of our own hearts, and all the messiness and evil that constantly fight against us, and take a moment to thank God that he came. Into all of it, he came to bring peace to our hearts and to the world. He is our Christmas miracle. Let’s celebrate him this season, and every day whether in good times or bad, because he so loved us that he came.

May this next year be full of life and joy in all things. May we love one another more, and strive to bring peace and goodwill toward all mankind.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Living life backwards

Our kids were 13, 11, and 9. All 5 of us in a Honda Accord road-trippin to Disneyland. We all had a blast in the Southern California sunshine. Two days in Disney, playing at the beach, swimming at the hotel. It was all an epic trip and great memories. It also sucked. I remember on the way home, after being on the go for several days straight, I was exhausted…..and grumpy. Four of the car’s passengers wanted to take a small detour to Hollywood. One of us didn’t. Four of us were laughing and playing road games. One of us wasn’t. Four were having fun and enjoying the journey. One of us was not. One of was tired, stressed out with SoCal traffic, and definitely not excited about the long drive home. In my defense, I do have to say this was before we had Siri and Google maps. We had a huge paper map to figure out the complex system of freeways and my copilot, well…..she has many gifts and is an amazing wife, mom, and Mimi. However, navigation is not one of her gifts. It’s actually more like her cryptonite. I remember sitting on the curb in a parking lot, in a mostly deserted town about an hour off course, pouting like a spoiled toddler. It was not my finest moment.

I’ve said many times that Google maps has saved many marriages and family vacations. We didn’t have it on that trip, but the principle is saving me in more ways than I can even express. The principle is this; you have to know where you want to end up in order to have clear directions of how to get there. If you simply look at where you are in life and try to navigate from there, you’re bound to get lost almost every time. Looking ahead, find the destination where you want to end up, and plan your route to get there. My good friend Pete, who passed away several years ago, described this as living life backwards. If you want to end up with a happy marriage, rocking on the porch together at 90 years old with your wife you fell in love with in your teens or twenties, live your life today in a way that will build that relationship over the coming decades. If you picture the end of your life having a houseful of kids and grandkids to love and pass on your legacy to, set your priorities to invest in them now. I regret to say that I certainly haven’t always lived this way. Honestly, I know that I still don’t most of the time. But I want to. I see the value in it and I’m trying to grow in that and get better at it with every passing year. Well, I hope I’m getting better at it.

Life has a way of just sneaking up on us. If we aren’t paying attention, before you know it we’ve veered off course. We can find ourselves, like I did, in the middle of nowhere, pouting, and wondering how we ended up there. I’m finding that the key for me is living intentionally. If I just let life happen, it’s a bit like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. I end up crashing through walls, running people off the road, and essentially just going in circles. Living life backwards, with intentionality and focus, helps me to stay on course. Perhaps you have found yourself in similar situations in life, wondering what happened and how you have ended up burned out or broken down. Try taking a step back. Look at the big picture of your life and decide where you want to end up and then map a course based on your desired destination. We’ll still have breakdowns and traffic and perhaps even lose our way at times. But hopefully, we can minimize the impact by being ever-mindful of where we’re going so we can correct our course quickly and avoid the catastrophe ahead.

Finally, I will say this. When you find yourself off course, it’s never too late to turn around. You’ve never strayed too far to choose a new path for your life. Never. If you’re driving down the freeway and have a tire blow out, you get out of the car, put on the spare and continue on your journey. You don’t get out and slash the other three tires. If you screw up in life, don’t self-sabotage by screwing up more. Own the mistake. Learn from it. And move on with life. Sitting on the side of the road pouting will never get you where you want to go. Live life backwards and you’ll find your way back home.

The wall

November 9, 1989. The Berlin Wall came down. It was a monumental day in the history of Germany, as well as for humanity. Hard to believe that was only 35 years ago. As I pondered the anniversary of that pivotal moment, it made me consider the walls I’ve built up to protect my own little kingdom. Whether they are physical boundaries of picket fences or barbed wire walls, or the imperceptible borders I set in my life and mind that only allow people to see whatever propaganda I want them to see, we are surrounded by walls of separation keeping some things in and others out.

I’m tempted here to talk about the heartbreaking tragedies that happen around our borders. I’d like to discuss Leviticus 19, where God says, “When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don’t take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own.” That seems like a pretty good place for us to start when we consider how to make America great. But, I’m going to save that for another day. Today, I want to look inward. I want to be real and honest and vulnerable. I have my own walls that need to come down. Next week I’ll turn 49, starting my 50th trip around the sun. I’d say that’s long enough to be imprisoned behind the walls I’ve built.

Sometimes when I feel too exposed emotionally, I deflect the attention away from myself by generalizing my feelings rather than acknowledging them honestly and admitting my own struggles. If I feel afraid, I make a joke so I don’t have to face my fears. When I feel rejected, I put up walls and withdraw in order to protect my fragile ego. God forbid I disrupt the false peace I’ve established in my mind and expose myself to anyone or anything might push me beyond my personal comfort. Meanwhile, I have family and friends standing outside my walls begging to get inside and know the real me, to hear my honest thoughts, to see my faults and watch me fall and get back up again. But it’s scary. What if they see how much of a mess I really am? Will they leave? If I remove the happy, plastic mask to expose my own brokenness, am I still enough to be loved?

I’m inviting myself to remove the mask. I’m giving myself permission to be seen, to be known, to be honest and vulnerable and……free. I have nothing to prove and no one to impress. There is nothing wrong with me that God doesn’t already know, and he chooses to love me anyway just how I am. Here is a poem I wrote a while back, and it carries particular significance for me in this season, as I consider who I am and how I want to live and how I want to show up both for myself and for those around me. If this is a struggle for you as well, I invite you also. I assure you, it is safe, and you are enough. 

Welcome to the king's masquerade.
We all dance around pretending
with smiling, shiny masks that hide our pain.
"They won't love me if they see the dirt, 
the cracks in my skin, or the ugliness"
so, we all hide to protect ourselves, 
to protect each other from ourselves.
We've come to dine at the king's table 
without truly even knowing who sits right next to us.
We may at times catch a glimpse
of a tear in their eye,
but the smiling mask fools us to believe 
they must be tears of joy.
They are truly happy, while I alone hide my misery.
Everyone else's perfect mask reflects
who they really are.
Mine is just pretend.
Then the king steps forward, taking his place.
He looks at us with compassion, us in our silly masks
His eyes somehow gaze at each of us at the same time,
and he bids us to remove our plastic face.
"Never!", we all cry at once.
They could never accept my true self.
The king then rises from his high place,
and kneels at the feet of each of his guests.
Something in his eyes told me it was safe.
With slow uncertainty, we all took down our masks.
I looked to my side and saw it was my wife,
sitting next to me the whole time.
I couldn't see her clearly.
The mask had blurred my vision.
She looked at me, now unmasked, 
with the same loving gaze as the king.
"You're enough still," she said with a smile.
"You are enough."