1. A Bright Shining Lie – John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Pulitzer Prize Winner Neil Sheehan. WOW…WOW…WOW…

2. That Used To Be Us – How America Fell Behind In The World It Invented AND How We Can Come Back – by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum…I have waited a looooong time in anticipation of this work… Prescient, sobering…a call to action by two authors who care deeply about the present future of the ongoing American experiment. In the running for my favorite of 2012.

3. Vietnam: A History – by Stanley Karnow – Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Waiting for:

a. Thinking, Fast and Slow

b. Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

Michael Lewis

c. Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius

Sylvia Nasar

It’s become very clear to me that the inspiration for this book is priceless, and it should be shared with you in print, without cost.

I hope you enjoy it.

Now a few important introductory notes: Don’t Skip This Section.

I didn’t choose to write this book. I confess that the book is an act of obedience solely from the standpoint of getting God off my back. For me, sometimes “my obedience” is that simple, to be brutally honest. I’m still learning and trying to take the risks I need to take to continue to grow in Him. I’m finding that many of these risks require me to extend beyond boundaries that I have heretofore been comfortable hiding behind….He’s just not allowing me to live that way anymore.

Structure of the book: A Prologue provides the conceptual context for the reader. The Prologue is followed by four sections with ten, 3-5 page stories ( Beginning at “Day 41″ through Day 80 ). The lead-in that starts each new “day” is a brief statement about my actual observations of Porpoise. This lead-in is followed by a non-fiction story about people I have encountered in my own life, along with a discussion of what the interaction with them has come to mean to me from a “Porpoise Diving Life” perspective. I tie in the initial observation about the Porpoise that began the story into the final paragraph. These are true stories. I use pseudonyms to maintain confidentiality, with the exception of Day 41 and a few others that I won’t point out.

My life continues to be shaped by words, as well as experiences and interaction with others. I remain deeply grateful for those whose writings have served to mould my heart and soul. To share my story without including some of these authors and their words, would not be possible. This book is as much a spiritual journey memoir as it is anything else. I continue to be challenged, formed and reformed by God. This book/spiritual memoir has absolutely nothing to do with an attempt to get you to buy into a bunch of beliefs. I do hope it causes you to think, to ponder, to wonder, to desire to move beyond wherever you’re at toward the God of More.

I do believe the following and hope the book addresses this: “There are millions of people, a species if you will, who are terribly confused, wounded, angry and fearful about life and God. No matter how deeply folks feel about their faith in God, their lives don’t seem to match up with all the promises that are being sold in the name of Christ in this world. Deep within every human being is a voice that whispers (some more frequently and intensely than others)…”What have I done wrong? I never expected this to happen? Life is not turning out as I had hoped or had been led to believe. What did I do to deserve this? Where’s God? Am I some sort of exception? Is there a reality for the rest of us?”

The book is about the ordinary, everyday of our lives over the past 20 years. I’ve become exhausted reading books from pastors, ex-pastors, missionaries, theologians…everybody that has some sort of present or former connection with the established church…or those on a mission from God. That’s my problem…I’m trying to get over it. As such, The Porpoise Diving Life is a voice that needs to be heard today. It is the voice of those, like us, who have sat in the pews of organized religious practice for some of our lives, yet, lived with Jesus, outside the church and/or programmed or professional ministry. It is a voice of experience. It is the layman’s life – A life populated with uncertainty, the unexpected, the joy, the humor, the irony, the inexplicable, the mundane, the marginalized, the mediocrity, the ups and down’s of it all. It’s all about us…God, you and me. It’s The Porpoise Diving Life. There’s a reality for the rest of us…the truth that Jesus ruthlessly adores those whose life experience seems to occur outside the confines of the theology of linear living espoused by mainstream evangelicalism….yet, it is the lives of the children of The Creator.
There are millions of people on this planet who are never going to buy and read The Purpose Driven Life authored by an avowed U.S. evangelical preacher. Like I’ve said a number of times publicly, I’ve read the book three times and have been blessed by it. The Porpoise Diving Life is NOT a dig at the other book. It is a work that moves beyond purpose-driven, as evidenced by our lives, and the millions of others, like us, who don’t swim within the purpose-driven safe harbors where many have come to reside in the seas of faith.

However, The Purpose Driven Life crowd was never intended to be The Porpoise Diving Life’s audience. Interestingly enough, I have been absolutely astounded by the sheer thousands of people who have sent email to me who are perplexed about Pastor Warren’s theology and book, and anybody remotely associated with this “purpose-driven” stuff. (Frankly, the world’s religions are filled with angry people — Christianity is no exception. The people who put their lives and beliefs in print (including yours truly) become unwitting targets for the spewing of rage and anger – pray for the angry people you know today). This type of feedback has come from hundreds in the mainstream evangelical community (including dozens of pastors) who feel that the “purpose-driven/Warrenites” have come to constrict the path that God’s Spirit is urging them to follow. However, “popular support” would not allow them to journey beyond the boundaries the purpose-driven proponents have defined. (Some of you in full-time ministry work would probably understand these comments much better than I pretend to). Strangely enough, many of these folks are terribly attracted to The Porpoise Diving Life as a path to move them beyond the confines of purpose-driven.

Frankly, the emergent movement (and The Porpoise Diving Life) owe Rick Warren and the purpose-driven theology he authored, a great deal of gratitude. My faith journey is one where I have learned that most often, God leads me one step at a time. However, I need to be careful that I pace myself, and don’t trip on others, or myself, as I attempt to follow His leading. What Warren’s theology did for me (and I hope it does for you) is illuminate the pathway ahead, beyond where he left off. The emergent movement has an opportunity to consider Warren’s journey for what it is – the chronicle of a fellow faith sojourner. This is what the sub-title to The Porpoise Diving Life actually refers to: “Picking Up Where Purpose Driven Peters Out.” Our journey may not be in the same direction, encounter the same terrain, have the same demographic characteristics as the Warrenite expedition. We may not use the same compass, or even interpret the opportunities to define the mission and plot the route the same way as the Warrenite’s did, or are doing. Frankly, we may have the opinion that the Warrenite’s are headed in the wrong direction, or exploring terrain that has already been mapped out by others. Finally, you might have the opinion that the Warrenite’s are lost and taking a whole host of other folks with them. Fine!

However, I think it is incumbent upon us as faith adventurers to use the chronicles of the journey of other faith explorer(s), as reference material that cause us to intentionally evaluate the coordinates and mission for our own, ongoing, expedition. There’s nothing worse than being out on a hike with people who spend the day bitching and disparaging the people who recommended the jumping off point, the map, or the suggestion of going for a hike today, when, after all, we’re the one’s who are responsible to “take it from here and make of this day all that it can be.” You see, it’s all God, you and me. As I’ve said, it’s all about us. We’re the ones on this part of the hike together. We need to re-focus on our Leader, The God of More, Jesus Christ. An essential part of this re-focusing is to examine the route, beliefs and methods of the faith explorers who have preceded us, as well as the tenor of the dialogue amongst ourselves.

Does the above sound like a ringing endorsement for purpose-driven theology? It’s not. Does it appear to be the extension of an olive branch to people who have adopted a purpose-driven worldview? I hope so. Am I suggesting that the intensity and expression of cynicism I have recounted above from too many inside and out of the emergent movement is wearisome, as well as a cause for concern? Absolutely.

We can and must move beyond where purpose-driven peters out toward a reality for the rest of us. In concluding these opening remarks, please understand the fact that I remain deeply grateful, blessed and encouraged by the emergent movement as “God has often used those with troubled hearts to speak in their society and to call His people closer to Himself.” (1)

Jesus never promised us that our existence in this world and journey of faith with Him would be without pain, uncertainty, the unexpected, the inexplicable, the incomprehensible and hardship. Perhaps there’s another dimension of truth to the Gospel message that people are yearning to hear that is outside the confines of a well-ordered, trouble-free, formula-based, prosperity laden, purpose-driven life. There is. It’s The Porpoise Diving Life ©. There is a flip-side to the “It’s not about you” theology from Pastor Warren that people are desperate to hear; “It’s all about us,” is the tag line for The Porpoise Diving Life © that appears to be terribly inviting to people, particularly when it’s coupled with the sub-title “Reality for the Rest of Us.”

It’s about God, you and me. “It is time that we demand more of ourselves as Christians. We are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, and if the world is going to see, feel, and touch him, it will have to be through us.”(2) It’s all about us! God, you and me.

Yet, there is a vastly larger audience outside mainstream evangelical Christianity whom God loves and seeks. These are the folks who know there is MORE to what evangelical Christians say there is. My Jesus yearns for relationship with these folks beyond the confines of the safe harbors evangelical Christianity has constructed. Many of these folks have been “exposed” in some way to various flavors of Christianity. Many are wounded, confused, curious, hopeful…in need of the reality that they are “not alone…not exceptions” to the love of Jesus…that perhaps, there is vastly “MORE” to Christ that what we Christians have led people to believe and experience in their lives. What about those who are curious about God, yet don’t want anything to do with what denominational (and “non”) Christianity has to offer….and have nobody to turn to safely express their doubts and concerns or ask questions Christians have been trained to ignore, reject, argue, dismiss or overlook.

I’m not a gimmicky guy. I can’t pretend to explain to you why God decided to do what He’s done to my heart that motivated me to obey by writing what he injected into my soul. Frankly, as I have said above, “obedience” for me in writing this book has been an outright attempt to get God off my back, rather than some lofty, fuzzy explanation that makes me look good. As the book may indicate, “some of the greatest gifts that have been granted to me have been given to me against my will.” Translation….I would NOT have chosen the people, circumstances and events that have come to populate my life, if I had been the one doing the choosing. However, The Porpoise Diving Life has forced me to recall them, and to confess how God has both revealed Himself, transformed others and me through the everyday, the everyone, the everything…a process that continues today. It’s an encouragement to you to reflect on this reality in your own life.

I hope the book causes people to become able to see God in new ways that they have become socialized to overlook. Christianity is a way of living to be lived outside “the church.” That’s the way we’ve lived our lives. He is “among us,” wherever that might be. There exists an incredible appetite for God in humanity today. However, the way God has become “packaged” in evangelical Christianity is missing more people than it is impacting. The results of social research regarding the impact of Christianity is one of overwhelmingly diminishing returns.

Yes, Jesus Christ, The God of More, is at work in the lives of those outside the aquariums post-modern man has come to define and confine Him to. It is in the lives of divine nobodies like us, that the precious evidence of an undeserved, unearned grace, mercy and love, utterly incomprehensible, evidences itself each and everyday…Perhaps, for far too many, it’s the place where purpose-driven peters out. When the promises of evangelical Christianity are confronted with the realities of life, people become perplexed…”What have I done wrong? Maybe I’m an exception?” Petering out does not define an end point…it’s the beginning of a new opportunity to embrace a dimension of Christ we have heretofore overlooked…a place where we need help to see the breadth, depth and essence of THE God who cannot and will not be confined.

Our lives are an indication that maybe, just maybe, there’s more to the Christian life than what the “professionals” have led us to comprehend. Perhaps, it’s time for us to tell our stories.

Thanks for reading ours.

We hope it blesses you.

We look forward to your feedback. Send us your story.

Best,

Bill

NOTES

(1) Taylor, Daniel The Myth of Certainty – The Reflective Christian & The Risk of Commitment, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL Copyright © 1986, 1992 by Daniel Taylor, p. 26.

(2) Perkins, John M. Restoring At-Risk Communities – Doing It Together & Doing It Right, Baker Books Grand Rapids, Michigan © Copyright 1995 by John M. Perkins, p. 12

Words Cannot Describe It

When I stand on the beach watching a pod of Porpoise, I’m at a loss for words. Yet, the reality of the experience becomes indelibly etched on my brain. It’s kind of like Suzie Marie Pena. Yes, Suzie Marie Pena. Have you heard of her before? After you read this, I hope you never forget her.

Suzie was buried during the summer of 2005. She was nineteen months old. She was gunned down on July 10^th 2005 by a bullet from the LAPD during a standoff with her father in Watts, who held her in his arms as a human shield as he fired upon the police. Her dad died in the gunfire as well. The police officers involved have lost part of their souls. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said: “This is a time for mourning and reflection. Our entire community is going through an inexplicable pain. Words can’t describe it.”[i] It was a terrible accident; a tragedy beyond anybody’s ability to imagine that life would hold such horror.

There’s so much to life that occurs where words cannot describe it. It’s unintentional. It happens. It’s inexplicable. Nobody purposed it. Honestly, there are no answers. We arrive at a place where we must surrender amidst the powerlessness of our humanity and cry; “I don’t get it God!”

Christians and Christianity do not have all the answers that can be expressed in words. There are some things that simply defy explanation. One of the most powerful things a Christian can say to a person overwhelmed with the inexplicable in life is absolutely nothing. To sit with the wounded in the midst of their mourning is a sacred privilege. We need to learn to shut up. When confronted with situations that words cannot describe, we need to do just that; stay speechless. There is a depth and dimension of beauty that God’s Spirit is freed to display when we confess, “I don’t have a clue.”

The authenticity of the Christian witness to one another, the world and our God is compromised by the infernal propensity to have all the answers or know where to find them. It’s time to embrace humility. We must move beyond the superficial, surface level exhortations we so readily distribute to one another and a wounded world.

Sometimes, the stuff of life makes me numb. It’s beyond me to comprehend. Occurences like this make my moral, emotional and intellectual seas boil. It’s almost as if the rocks are attempting to cry out with the pain, sadness and astonishment that such a tragedy is even possible in life.

One thing I am dedicated to is that when I meet God face-to-face in heaven, I’m going to have far more questions for Him than I have answers. One of my questions will be, “Where’s Suzie?” I’m going to find her, hug her, and go for a walk together. I want her to show me her favorite place in heaven because, I’m certain, words cannot describe it.

NOTES

Are You Threatening Me?

The only time I’ve been threatened by a Porpoise was when one popped up next to me while I was floating on my boogey board in the ocean, waiting for a wave to ride into shore. It startled me. God startles people too. We should expect to be startled by God.

One day we were at a gathering with friends. The only thing out of place with the setting was the presence of a middle aged black man, hunched over and disheveled, sitting in a corner of the gathering. My friend Brian introduced me to “Jerald.” This guy STUNK!…I mean STANK! I shared a few surface niceties with Jerald and then quickly meandered off into the crowd, delighted to escape the stench.

As the gathering was about to break up, my friend Brian asked me to do him a favor. Brian said he was going on vacation for 2 weeks and that he had been giving Jerald a ride everyday from a convalescent center to his doctor each day. Brian asked me if I would do so for the next two weeks while he was away. I looked over at this guy Jerald and said to Brian, “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong guy.” Brian took me to the side and looked directly in my eyes and said “it’s about time you did something for somebody else without expecting anything in return. If you refuse to help this man, our friendship is over.” I looked at Brian speechless thinking, “Are you threatening me?”

That evening, I drove Jerald back home to the convalescent center. I was “ticked” as I was really cooperating with all this against my will. Jerald said “thank you” as he shuffled to get out of the car. He looked down at the ground and muttered “you gonna pick me up tomorrow?” I said, “yes I will.” I picked him up the next day and took him to the doctor. I drove him back to the convalescent center afterward. This went on for two weeks.

Something amazing happened to me during those two weeks. The “hardness” that inhabited my heart began to melt. The time I knew I didn’t have to give to this man seemed to appear out of thin air. Jerald and I called each other by name. I made him laugh. He made me smile. We didn’t go directly home from the doctor, we stopped for meals and chatted with each other. I began to introduce him to my other friends. I started to develop a deep affection for this guy. I began to schedule my worldly affairs around the needs of Jerald.

Brian returned from vacation and asked me, “How’d it go with Jerald?” I replied, “If you don’t mind, I’ll continue to assist him.” Jerald and I were on our own. I introduced him to my wife Jacki, our children Liz and Andrew and our black Lab Seymour. He loved my family and was very much a gentleman around them. Jerald adored Seymour and it was reciprocal.

We learned that Jerald had become warehoused in a white, upper class convalescent center through a special grant available through the Department of Social and Health Services in the State of Washington. Jerald required medical attention and daily medication as he had seizures quite regularly and couldn’t drive. He wobbled when he “walked.” He had been hit by a Metro bus in the skid road district of Seattle a year earlier. The accident had left him with head, leg and back injuries from which he would never recover. He had no living relatives, friends or family that he could recall. We incorporated Jerald into all the activities of our family. He couldn’t even read. I helped him try to get better at it.

One day, I picked up Jerald and he was very sad. He said his residency was about to be up at the convalescent center and he would be moved to another facility “somewhere.” Jacki and I spent the next several weeks obtaining the authorization for the state to release him into our care. Although the State said this was “impossible,” within three weeks, Jerald was living with us.

Jerald became a member of our family. The seizures he would have, arriving home to find him unconscious, sprawled out on the floor of our living room, having lost control of his bowels and vomited on himself, just became part of living with Jerald.

We live in a world filled with threats. We’ve even got them color-coded now for the entire country. Jesus Christ is the single greatest threat to ever walk the face of this planet. As a newborn, Jesus’ mere existence threatened King Herod. Heck, Herod never even saw Jesus. Herod simply heard of his birth and wanted Jesus found and brought to him to be killed.[i]

My initial reaction to Jerald was the same one I had one day while paddling my boogey board, when I observed a Porpoise fin above the water line about twenty yards from me in the ocean. I was threatened. I was desperate to get away from it as quickly as humanly possible. Unfortunately, today many people react to the image of Jesus and/or Christianity in the same way. They move away at the sight of the fin and never take the opportunity to become familiar with the wonder of the blessing. I like what theologian Brian McLaren says about this: “When the fervent furnace of religion kindles sparks of fear in people’s hearts, a dangerous wildfire can rage out of control, and a lot of people can get hurt-especially the people who have been characterized as threats.[ii]

Jesus and Jerald have a lot in common. Jerald was “not our idea.” We didn’t choose him. As I said above, I really met Jerald against my will. If it were my choice, I would never have picked this fellow to come into our lives. Let’s face it; Jesus was not your idea anymore than he matched up with the expectations of a Messiah by the first century Jews.

Jerald taught us the value of doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return. This man was developmentally disabled, helpless and homeless. We did what we did for Jerald because we learned to love him, just as people in our lives learned to love us. I think that’s what Christianity really boils down to anyway; a group of people doing something for somebody else without expecting anything in return, simply because God loves us with a love that must be shared with the people we encounter on our journey in life.

Just like Jesus, Jerald taught us that the Lord sends His miracles and messengers in forms and in circumstances that we cannot anticipate. He doesn’t ask our advice when delivering His blessings to our lives. They seem to pop up above the surface of life, just like the Porpoise.

Jerald changed the lives of far more people than just my family and me. I think we can all agree that Jesus has always and continues to do just that. God has an uncanny knack for using the powerless, the vulnerable and those most deeply wounded for His most powerful displays of life changing power. These displays of power and blessing are not always convenient and on-demand.

Today, we find it interesting to be able to tell you truthfully that Jerald is one of the most powerful, life changing human beings that we have ever had the privilege of interacting with in our lives. We hope you think about this the next time you see somebody socially, economically, developmentally, psychologically, medically and/or physically disabled. Somebody who wobbles when they walk, slurs when they talk, looks different than the rest of us, might smell distinctly different as well, spills coffee as they attempt to lift the cup to their mouth, is unable to drive because of a medical condition or read because nobody took the time to teach them. We hope you think about this if you call yourself a Christian and have yet to meet your Jerald. It’s not likely that you will meet people like Jerald within the safe harbor of your present, daily routine. You will meet them out on the open waters of life; those uncharted waters where you have been reluctant to explore. As one author puts it, “Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory.”[iii]

In American society, Christianity has become moored to the dock, the physical building of the church where we go to worship God. Christianity was never intended to be tied up to a pier. There’s no Porpoise in these places. Another author writes, “If our theology is to be an authentic reflection and witness to God who is revealed in Jesus Christ as the God of the excluded, then we need to embark on the often painful journey to meet with Jesus the Christ outside the camp, among the excluded. Such a journey will leave us uncomfortable and displaced in the carnivalesque, post-modem world.” [iv]

Christianity in American society has suffered because of the lack of people like my friend Brian. People who are willing to confront you when you’ve become satisfied with your lot in life (moored to the dock), and are courageous enough to point out that you must embrace change. People like Brian are rare, but can be found if you pray that God will put them in your life. This may mean that you have to get off the couch and seek them as well. People like Brian are folks who are willing to tell you the truth even if it hurts your feelings or risks your friendship.

In the Christian life, there is a supernatural beauty hidden behind many of the perceived threats we have come to define in this world. We’ve got news for you; if you move beyond the notion of being threatened and get close enough to befriend people like Jerald, you’ll find some very powerful messengers of God disguised just like him. I promise you, God will change your life through them.

If you get to heaven, look up Jerald. You can’t miss him. He will be the strange looking, middle-aged black guy seated on the ground with Joseph and Brian, laughing his fanny off, while rolling a ball back and forth to a giggling infant named Suzie Marie Pena. There will be a black Lab barking at all this, wagging his tail next to Jerald. His name is Seymour. He won’t bite. Don’t be threatened by these folks. Join them. On the other hand, why wait to get to heaven?

NOTES

[ii] McLaren, Brian A Generous Orthodoxy, Zondervan Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI © Copyright 2004 by Youth Specialties p. 246

[iii] Nouwen, Henri J.M. The Wounded Healer- Ministry in Contemporary Society, IMAGE BOOKS DOUBLEDAY, NYCopyright 1972 by Henri J.M. Nouwen p. 77

[iv] Rieger, Joerg Opting For The Margins – Postmodernity and Liberation in Christian Theology, Oxford University Press, NY, NY © 2003 by The American Academy of Religion p. 59

Gasping For Air

As I watched the Porpoise, I realized that they broke through the surface because they, like me, were built to breathe. Sometimes they would disappear beneath the surface for several minutes only to reappear for some another breath of fresh air. That’s the way most people in my life seem to live. We submerge ourselves in life but are required to come up for air. As I watched the Porpoise, I decided to hold my breath while one of them was submerged until he/she breached the surface again. I don’t recommend that you try this as Porpoise are sometimes under water for a couple of minutes. You’d probably pass out face first in the sand, gasping for breath. I almost did. This experience reminded me that this life is filled with times when we come up gasping for air.

Air is a weird thing. You can’t see it, smell it, hear it, feel it or taste it on most days. Frankly, you rarely ever even think about it, except when you can’t seem to get a breath of it. As I write this, Pope Bendict XVI remarked that the church in the West is dying. He said “the West was a world that is tired of its own culture, a world that has arrived at a time in which there’s no more evidence of the need for God, much less Christ, and in which it seems that man alone can make himself. This is certainly a suffering linked, I’d say, to our time, in which generally one sees that the great churches appear to be dying,” he said, mentioning Australia, Europe and the United States.” [i] It sounds like the Pope is saying that the Christian church is gasping for air.

Saturday April 23^rd 2002 was a beautiful day in southern California. One of those days filled with sunny, blue skies and seventy-degree temperatures. I played racquetball with some guys in the morning, lunched, read a book and took a nap in the afternoon. I went downstairs after my nap where my wife shared gleefully that “Niki’s on the way to the hospital!” Our daughter Nicole was about to give birth to her first child in Corvallis, Oregon. We prayed together.

All the arrangements had been made. Niki and our son-in-law Brendon had our cell phone numbers. The cell phones were on and charged to the max. There was no need to sit at home by the phone. We decided to go ahead with plans to attend a dinner party with friends.

On the drive to the dinner party, a strange sensation overwhelmed me. I blurted out, “Amanda! Amanda is going to arrive tonight.” My wife smiled and said “So that’s what you think her name will be huh?” Like I said, for some strange reason, I was absolutely certain about this, even though we had never discussed a name for the baby amongst ourselves, with Niki, Brendon, or anybody else.

During dessert, my wife’s cell phone rang. It was our daughter Niki. Amanda Shelby Kelley had arrived in this world about 30 minutes earlier. She was dead on arrival. She never had the opportunity to enjoy even one breath. We got up from the table and left for home, comforted by the attempt of well-meaning friends who uttered words we never heard. We were gasping for air.

It was during this time in our life that I realized that ours is the God of more. Just when I think I have this Christian faith thing figured out, something in life occurs that leaves me gasping for breath. It causes me to grow, to challenge what I think I know, to desire to learn again, to throw myself at the feet of Hope in Jesus Christ clinging to the only thing I know; He is with me. He is with me retching and balling His eyes out at the horror that is wracking my wife’s soul as she soaked another pillow case, with tears of incessant, uncontrollable sobbing. He’s with me during my inability to come up with words to describe the terror that is racking my life. He’s with me during the unthinkable.

We never received a card, a call, or a visit from anybody at our church during this time. However, we did have relationships with people who had a distinct appreciation for the necessity to need God in this life. These are people who had embraced the reality that life will serve up suffering the likes of which no person should attempt to handle alone. They are friends who live contrary to the Pope’s observation that people in the West live as if man alone can make it by himself. When you’re drowning beneath the unfathomable in life, the hope that God can and will reach down and pull you to the surface is indispensable. This is my Jesus. This is the God of More. He is there beyond the surface of it all.

Don’t expect some animated, supernatural demonstration of Divine power to display itself in front of your eyes like the scenes you are familiar with in today’s action-adventure thrillers. Our experience is God uses ordinary people to assist Him in his compassionate care for those He so desperately loves. When you’re drowning in life, it’s essential to have some people close to you who are floating on the surface, splashing the water so you know which way is up. These are people who can grab your attention to kick for the surface because they too have been where you are, submerged in the depths of despair. They are people who are willing to descend to where you are, grab your hand and drag you to the surface when you’ve lost the ability to kick for it.

For most of us, the concept of God is a weird thing. Just like air, you can’t see Him, smell Him, hear Him, feel Him or taste Him on most days. Frankly, for most people, you rarely ever even think about Him, except when you can’t seem to get a breath from Him, whilst suffocating in the circumstances of life. My prayer is that you will seek to become more familiar with my Jesus, The God of More. Kick for what He has for you beyond the surface of what you presently know about Him. Kick to know Him. I’m convinced He’s the One the Porpoise celebrate every time they breach the surface, gasping for air.

On September 14^th 2004, Samantha Ellen Kelley was born, two and one-half years after her sister Amanda. Samantha is healthy, happy and full of life. She is living proof that the God of More is with us.

If you get to heaven, the little girl throwing the stick in the river for the black Lab named Seymour; that’s Amanda. Jerald is standing next to Joseph holding Suzie Marie Pena. If Seymour is all wet and looks like he’s gasping for air, don’t worry. He’s doing what he’s always dreamed of. He’s living eternally with people who are enjoying the reality that “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” [ii] Just like the Porpoise.

By the way, you don’t have to wait until you get to heaven to live like this. Take a deep breath and ponder this for a few minutes.

[ii] Job 33:4

People Are Strange

As I watched the Porpoise from the beach, I wondered what they thought about people like me hanging out on land. I figure they think my presence on the beach is about as odd as my feelings about their life in the ocean. When they leap above the surface and get a glimpse of the people on the shore, I’ll bet they think “Wow! There’s one of those strange creatures again.”

In the book of Matthew, the first guy Jesus ever met was a very strange dude named John. He was born to his elderly parents who died while he was very young. John lived in the desert by the Jordan River. He wore clothes made of camel’s hair and a leather girdle. He ate large grasshoppers and honey. [i] I saw people dressed like this in west Hollywood last week. It didn’t take reading the Bible or a song by the Jim Morrison and The Doors to enable me to figure this one out. Hey, people are strange. Christians are even stranger.

My wife called me one evening while I was in the middle of a meeting. This was unusual. The person who delivered the note to me wrote “Wife on Phone – URGENT” in big bold letters. There had to be something strange going on.

Jacki said she answered a knock at our front door. There was a young man we knew named Erik standing there sweating, shaking and wild-eyed. He asked to come in and speak to us. Jacki told him that I wasn’t home. Erik begged her to come in and talk with her for a minute. He also told her he needed to borrow a drill. Jacki consented. Within two minutes, she was calling me.

After returning home, I threw Erik in my car and sped off to the Emergency Room. The nurses loaded Erik on a gurney and paged two doctors over the intercom. I took a seat in the waiting room. About twenty minutes later, an ER physician came out and called my name. He told me Erik was in critical condition and could die at any moment. He did not expect him to make it. He said I could see him and should get in touch with his next of kin immediately.

I pulled the curtain back and sat down in a chair at Erik’s bedside. His eyes were bugging out of his head. Torment and horror scarred his face. He was trembling, sweating and his eyes were darting uncontrollably around the room. He had an IV in his arm and was hooked up to a monitor that kept making distinct, eerie, alert noises every few seconds that only added to the insanity of the situation. I grasped one of his hands, prayed silently and left.

I found a payphone in the lobby and called Erik’s parents. I had never met them. I introduced myself by name and quickly went on to describing the seriousness of the situation and the need for them to come down to the ER immediately. “We don’t know him!” his dad said forcefully. “I’m sorry. Do I have a wrong number?” I asked. “Nope. You just need to know we gave up on Erik a long time ago. Thanks for calling.” I heard a click and then a dial tone.

I stood there with the phone in one hand, staring in the direction of where Erik lay dying. My mind wandered to a passage in the Bible where Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River. This weird guy I mentioned above named John, John the Baptist, did the honors. When Jesus emerged from beneath the water, a voice from His father was heard to say “This is my Son, Whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”[ii]

Porpoise are fortunate. They are unable to hear the cruel things we humans say to one another. I wondered how many wounds Erik’s soul was perforated with by years of verbal jabs by his parents about not measuring up, by being different, by being strange. I pondered the question about the relationship between that sort of verbal abuse and Erik’s struggle with cocaine, an attempt to cope with something very deep within the wounded soul of this young adult.

Most people make the mistake of translating the experiences they have in life into a sense of what God is like. It’s the same process Erik’s parents imposed on their son. They created a box for Erik and when he didn’t fit in it, they ridiculed him, chastised him and progressively excluded him from their lives, callously unaware of the pain this rejection was incurring in their beloved. Nothing grieves the human heart more than this strange distance between a parent and a child, the Creator and you, His creation.

The drill that Erik wanted to borrow — he just wanted to release the pressure pounding inside his head. He was absolutely convinced that a few holes drilled in his skull with the drill he had seen in my garage would relieve his excruciating pain. As I recall this day in my life, I am compelled to ask the question: “Who really had the holes in their head?”

As you ponder this story, what is your reaction when I ask you to hear the voice of your Creator say, “This is my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.” If His voice is contorted by voices from your past akin to Erik’s parents, you have boxed God inside some strange confines within which He was never intended to reside, nor can He be contained. It’s time to blow up your God box. Sound strange? There’s a term for this, it’s called reaching out in faith, knowing that there is more to the God of More than you have crammed into your cranium. As one author says, “There’s a word for this reaching out in confidence and hope beyond our current understanding: faith.”[iii]

Throughout His live on Earth, Jesus hung out with the strange one’s, frankly, the strangest of the strange. Guess what? You’re one of us. If you don’t think so, stop a few strangers on the street and ask them the same question Jesus posed, “Who do you say I am?”[iv] You’ll get the answer from the look on their face as they scurry by.

Pray with me for Erik’s parents that there will be someone sitting by the side of their deathbed, holding their hand, whispering, “This is my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.” If you’re wondering whom the God of the Christian faith is, the One who asks, “Who do you say that I am?” He’s the one seated beside Erik’s parents’ deathbed when nobody else on Earth showed up because they were too strange.

In some curious way, those Porpoise swimming out there speak to me. It is unspoken yet, it is understood. They remind me that my God, my Jesus, is the One who is constantly whispering to me, “You are my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.” My apologies if this sounds a bit strange. God’s like that.

NOTES

[ii] Matthew 3:17

[iii] McLaren, Brian D. The Church On The Other Side – Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, Zondervan Grand Rapids, MI., © 1998 and 2000 by Brian D. McLaren, p. 199.

A Crying Shame

I’ve walked the beach on some days hoping to catch a glimpse of the Porpoise. Nope. Not today. No matter how deeply I yearned to see them, it simply was not in the cards for this particular day. I felt like crying.

Jesus had similar experiences during his life here on Earth. When Jesus saw Mary and her friends mourning the death of Lazarus, Jesus wept.[i] It’s incredibly comforting for me to know that Jesus is equipped with all the emotional responses that I am. Who would be interested in a God who couldn’t relate to what you’re feeling? The Bible says we’re created in His image.[ii] It says that our journey is intended to provide us with the opportunity to become more like Christ.[iii] Yet, when you look at the research results about Christians in the U.S., they indicate the following, “We witness a born-again population that is indistinguishable from the rest of the nation – and has very little credibility when it comes to promoting genuine Christianity…At some point, poor products come back to haunt the producer. Welcome to the haunting time.”[iv]

Most Christians don’t like to talk about the quote from the research results above. It makes them uncomfortable, self-conscious and insecure. It’s seems like the current day research results are asking, “Hey Christians, where are you?” We people have been trying to hide from God since shortly after He created us. God asked the same question of Adam in the Garden of Eden, “Where are you?”[v] This was after Adam had eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After Adam blamed the deed on Eve, God turned to Eve and asked her a different question, “What is this you have done?” [vi] As they say, the rest is history, or is it?

We Christians try our best. Yet, we get it wrong. The problem with Christianity has never been the truth about Jesus. History reveals that the crying shame of it all is located with the people who claim His name as Lord and Savior of their lives. “One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.”[vii] For those who claim the name of Christ and refer to themselves as Christians, one question must be: “What’s wrong with us?” I believe we have to return to the third chapter of the book of Genesis to appreciate how long we humans have been grappling with and attempting to avoid this one. What are we afraid of?

We received a call from a Pastor at our church that asked us to come down to meet a mother and her son. The son had just been released from prison on parole. The mother had no place for him to live as she was imposing on a friend, living temporarily in cramped quarters and had no money to put him up anywhere.

Greg was in his early thirties, about five feet tall and completely embarrassed about standing in the foyer of a church with his mom publicly blubbering on a Pastor’s shoulder, waiting to meet two people from the church his mom happened to attend at the time. As we introduced ourselves, Greg kept cringing and looking around at other passersby, as his mom vomited her despair all over the lobby for everyone to hear. I made eye contact with Greg, pointed to his gear on the floor and motioned with my head toward the door, as his mom continued with her unrelenting emotional hemorrhage.

Greg became a part of our family. We became friends. Honestly, he became a son to me. I learned to love Greg as if he was my son. Greg adored our family and especially our black Lab Seymour. Those two were inseparable. Greg’s diabetes was out of control most of the time. He had liver and kidney problems as well. All this was from years and years of drug and alcohol abuse. His doctor said he only had a few years to live.

Greg, like most people with a lifestyle like his, struggled with getting his feet moving in a new direction. After about six months of going back and forth hanging out with the wrong people and getting into the same fixes he said he wanted to avoid, his behavior started to match up with his intentions. He became honest, dependable, hard working, trustworthy and fun loving. He began to laugh. When Greg laughed, it was contagious. You didn’t care what He was laughing about. The sheer joy expressed in his laugh caused you to spontaneously erupt in a similar outburst.

Greg became ravenously curious about God. We spent countless hours together exploring the Bible, praying and thanking God together. When Greg would pray, it was like listening to a child talk to Jesus for the first time. There wasn’t any apprehension or pretentiousness in Greg’s prayers, just blunt, bold, childlike honesty. Every time Greg prayed, I was refreshed. So was everyone within earshot. He was a blessing.

It was a typical Saturday night in our home. It was around 9:00PM and we were laughing with friends in our living room. The phone rang. Greg was dead. He had been found naked on the floor of an apartment in the area. He died of an overdose.

For the next two years, the lights in my life went out. It was dark, lonely, confusing. I was angry. I was afraid. I was ashamed that Greg had died while in the loving care of my family. I shouldered all the blame. It was awful.

It was during the end of this period in my life when I began to hear God’s voice meekly, gently whispering, “Bill, where are you? What is this you have done?” I started to ask myself the questions, “What’s wrong with me? What am I afraid of?” I began to realize that Greg’s death was about the insidious power of shame. The same shame that Adam and Eve had experienced when they attempted to hide from God in the Garden of Eden. Greg’s return to the use of narcotics had killed him because he could not overcome the shame of returning yet again, from his failure to avoid it. Greg became a fatality of shame.

Today, the voice of God can be heard calling out to you saying “Your name where are you? What is this you have done?” When you hear that voice, what do you really hear? Does it sound like a thundering, condescending, threatening, accusatory voice? If so, it’s not the voice of God. It’s the voice of shame attempting to keep you trapped in the vicious cycle of your own limitations. It’s an ongoing effort by the evil one, the same evil one that deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden, to get you to continue to cover up and attempt to hide from God some more.

One day, I realized that God’s voice asking me, “Bill, where are you? What is this you have done?” had a face. The face of Jesus had tears streaming down his cheeks. The tone of His voice was one of unconditional love, sincere, heartfelt and intimate concern. He wasn’t cursing or accusing me for where I was at in my life. He cares! His question about “What is this you have done?” was really “What are you doing to yourself? Take my hand. Let’s move on.”

One of the unfortunate and avoidable aspects of Christianity and Christians today is that we have a tendency to be deceived back into the shadow of shame. We try to cover it up. We conceal our questions, doubts and confusion. Everybody can see the falsehood in it. As one author writes, “Those of us who follow Christ in this culture will never achieve all that He desires for us until we are willing to open every nook and cranny of our own behavioral house for remodeling and cleaning. Only then will we begin to live the kind of lives that others will find intriguing and distinctive.”[viii]

If you get to heaven, you can find Greg by listening for his laugh. Trust me, it’s unmistakable. Greg would want me to tell you that you don’t have to wait to get to heaven to enjoy laughter like that.

NOTES

[ii] Genesis 1:27

[iii] 2 Corinthians 3:18

[iv] Barna, George The State of the Church: 2002, Published by Issachar Resources, a division of Barna Research Group, Ltd., 5528 Everglades Street Ventura, CA 93003 Copyright © 2002 by George Barna p.128.

[v] Genesis 3:9

[vi] Genesis 3:13

[vii] Merton, Thomas No Man Is An Island, Published by Barnes & Noble, Inc. New York, New York by arrangement with Harcourt, Inc., Copyright © 1955 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, Copyright renewed 1983 by the Trustees of the Merton Legacy Trust, p. xiii.

[viii] Burchett, Dave. When Bad Christians Happen to Good People, WaterBrook Press Colorado Springs, CO Ó Copyright 2002 by Dave Burchett p. 5.

Goodnight’s Sleep

As I watched the Porpoise moving ever so gracefully before me, a silly thought popped into my mind, “I wonder if they sleep?” They do. I looked it up on the Internet when I got home. Did you realize that fifty percent of all adults say they have trouble sleeping and that forty percent of us suffer from some type of sleep disorder?

God had a myriad of choices when He created us you know. He could have created us to require no sleep at all. He could have programmed us to turn off after we’ve been awake for sixteen hours, fall asleep for eight, and then turn on again, ready to roll. He didn’t. Yet, we continue to push the envelope, attempting to deny the reality of the way we were made. According to a recent report from the U.S. government, drowsy drivers are involved in about 56,000 crashes a year that result in 40,000 non-fatal injuries and 1,500 fatalities.[i] It is one of the most rapidly growing health disorders in the U.S.

Drowsy disciples have been a problem for Christianity since the days Jesus selected the initial twelve to follow Him. In one instance, Jesus needed time to get away and pray. He asked Peter along with eight other disciples to keep watch for those Jesus knew were after Him. When he returned to the place where He left them, Jesus exclaimed, “are you asleep?”[ii] Once again, Jesus departed to pray. When He returned, you guessed it; they were asleep again. Jesus exclaimed, “Are you sacked out again? Enough! Get up and Let’s move on.” It’s so easy for the spoken words of God to become a fading echo, spoken seemingly for the moment in which they were uttered, losing their vibrancy as they ricochet through the corridors of time. I believe we are living in a moment in time when we’re treating the spoken word of God as an echo, rather than a vibrant call to action, led by the living God. We’re all mixed up again about what counts in life. As C.S. Lewis said, “The man who has not learned to count is free from mathematical problems. A man asleep is free from all problems.”[iii] I disagree.

I walked into my buddy John’s house to play cards with the guys one winter night. There were several guys there I had never met. We introduced ourselves, got a beverage and sat down at the table. As the evening progressed, the idle conversation turned, as it often does with a small group of men, into a bitch session. All of us seemingly took turns complaining about the current annoyance in our lives, except one guy.

Jim looked like a poster-child for former bikers; full beard, fading tattoos on his forearms, bushy hair and penetrating eyes. He dwarfed the chair he was seated on. This particular evening, his appearance was akin to a Grizzly bear who had just tumbled away from sticking his tongue into a live electrical outlet; a bit disheveled, somewhat stunned and quiet. He looked tired.

Our host John turned to Jim and said, “Hey Jim! What about you?” Jim took a deep breath, paused for ten seconds while collecting his thoughts and said, “Well, I sure could use a good night’s sleep.” John asked “What’s up with that?” Jim shared that he had been sleeping on a car seat on the floor of an automotive repair shop where he had just been hired. There was no heat in the place. (Nighttime temperatures had been in the low to mid twenties in the Seattle area during this time). He was grateful that the owner was letting him stay there at night, until he earned enough money to get a room somewhere. He was also grateful for the three pairs of thermal underwear a co-worker had bought him and the two sleeping bags he had to bundled himself in attempting to keep the freeze off of him. However, it was still difficult to get a good night’s sleep.

There was an eerie silence that filled the room for a few seconds after Jim was done. The guys around the table seemed to be staring at the cards in their hands a little more intensely now. Jim interrupted the silence saying, “It’s not the cold that bothers me. It’s the rats. They seem to know when I doze off because that’s when they start running over the top of me.”

I invited Jim to follow me home that night. I had to drive a bit slower than usual because Jim drove a beat up pick up truck that his brother had loaned him that at best, could wobble down the freeway at 50 mph. Jim became a part of our family. He developed an insatiable appetite for God.

Every Friday around 5:00PM, you could hear the sound of Jim’s truck coming down the hill to our home. Friday was payday for Jim. He would burst into our house shouting greetings, smiling, proudly carrying two huge bags of groceries. In the kitchen, he would lay out loaves of bread, mustard, mayo, cheese, lettuce and some lunchmeats. He created this amazing assembly line to produce sandwiches. He wrapped each one in plastic wrap and placed it in its’ own brown paper bag along with a bag of potato chips and a napkin. He would place the bags in a large cardboard box and say, “See ya Sunday!”

Jim would spend the weekends with his mom. He adored her. She lived across Puget Sound in the city of Bremerton, an hour commute by ferryboat from downtown Seattle. On his way to the ferry every Friday evening, Jim would park his truck near Seattle’s Pioneer Square and walk along the street passing out the lunches he had prepared for the homeless in the skid road district. From there he would hop on the ferry to visit his mom during the weekend. He was always back at our place on Sunday evening for dinner.

Today, Jim is married to the love of his life and they have two fantastic children. They are a very happy bunch. He looks the same today as when I met him ten years ago. Jim and his wife hold a meeting in their home each week for people hungry to change the way they have been living by feasting on God’s Word, encouraging one another and sharing the reality of the struggle to change together. Jim is employed. He picks up and then delivers several thousand pounds of food each day to area food banks, as he has done for the better part of the last 8 years. He has maintained his insatiable appetite for God, coupled with an ever-present sense of gratitude and a desire to do for others what was done for him, through the grace of God. He has no problem getting a good night’s sleep.

One of the problems with Christianity today is that people think the purpose of our faith is to become blessed. As one author states, “When religions assume that their adherents are chosen only to be blessed, and forget that they are blessed to be a blessing, they distort their identity and they drift from God’s calling for them. When they assume that they are blessed exclusively rather than instrumentally, when they see themselves as blessed to the exclusion of others rather than for the benefit of others, they become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.” [iv]

My friend Jim is someone whose life reveals the wake up call that Christians require today. Listen to the words of Jesus as he bends down and caresses your forehead as you toss and turn recounting another day of surviving the days chaotic meandering during another night of sleeplessness, “Enough! Get up and Let’s move on.” Take His hand. Ask Him to instill in you an insatiable hunger for the God of More. Desire to become a blessing to the world around you. Like Jim, then, you will be able to enjoy a good night’s sleep as the wonders of His blessings are dispensed through you.

[ii] Mark 14: 32-42

[iii] Lewis, C.S. The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis, Family Christian Press & Wm B. Erdman’s Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Mi.Inspirational Press Edition, A Division of BBS Publishing Corp. © 2004 p.211

[iv] McLaren, Brian D. The Story We Find Ourselves In – Further Adventures Of A New Kind Of Christian, Jossey-Bass Publishers – A Wiley Imprint, Copyright © 2003 by Brian D. McLaren, p. 64.

Life’s A Beach

TV cameras routinely capture incidents where a number of Porpoises are found stranded on a beach. If found alive, rescuers attempt to return them to the sea and get them headed in the right direction. Oftentimes, this doesn’t work out as successfully as we would hope. Within a matter of days, these same Porpoises who were returned to the ocean end up back on the beach again. Why? Science doesn’t really get it.

Jesus was surrounded by people who just didn’t get it. At times, He would become frustrated, I would suggest somewhat exasperated, with those around Him. Jesus made remarks like, “How long shall I put up with you?”[i] “Do you still not understand?”[ii] “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?”[iii] The Bible also makes specific reference to the fact that Jesus’ disciples were befuddled by what He was saying. They said things like, “We don’t understand what he is saying.”[iv] Finally, the Bible makes specific contextual references to the fact that “they did not understand what he was telling them.”[v]

Let’s be honest. Jesus is still surrounded by people in the twenty-first century who claim His name who just don’t get it. Both Jesus and John the Baptist used a term that seems to have faded from the vocabulary of present day Christians.[vi] It’s repent.

We’ve developed other terms to replace repent in our ordinary course conversations like change, reconsider and have an open mind. Unfortunately, none of these terms carry the meaning that Jesus and John the Baptist used. According to the footnotes in my Bible(s), repent means to make a radical change in one’s life.[vii] It involves thinking differently, regret and most importantly, a positive change in your behavior that is visible to other people.[viii] This opportunity to change your behavior is supplied by the power of God, not human willpower. It’s not something you talk about with other people, asking them whether or not they recognize that you have shed a few pounds because you need a slap on the back. It’s like saying “God, I just don’t get it. I can’t go on like this. I give up. I need you. Please help me.” It’s feeling like a beached Porpoise.

It was a nice spring evening about 7:40PM. Our home was filled with about thirty young adults seated wherever we could put them and jammed together on the floor. Every Thursday at 7:00PM we had a gathering of this group in our home (They usually began to show up at 5:00PM to eat before the meeting began). We would share what was going on in our lives, study the Bible together, encourage one another, laugh, cry and pray. One of the guys named Jess (not his real name) was very concerned about his brother Jeremy (not his real name). He had not seen or heard from his brother for several weeks and was becoming increasingly concerned. Everybody knew that Jeremy and his wife had struggled with drug and alcohol abuse. Nobody in the group had heard a word from Jeremy. Until 7:40PM when there was a knock at the door.

I guided Jeremy from the front door to my seat in the living room. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing fresh, white bandages around his torso from his navel to his breasts. His right arm was in a sling. He was released from the hospital earlier that afternoon. As he shared his story of a drug purchase gone bad with the group, He lifted the bandages to reveal a gunshot wound and the stitches from the middle of his rib cage to the top of his navel. The doctors had saved his life.

For the next ten minutes Jeremy went on and on tearfully recounting the horror that drugs and alcohol had caused in his life. I can distinctly recall him saying several times “Never Again!” What he was really saying was “God, I just don’t get it. I can’t go on like this. I give up. I need you. Please help me. I’m as helpless as a beached Porpoise.”

Six weeks later I got a call from Jeremy’s brother Jess. He begged me to drop whatever I was doing and meet him at Jeremy’s apartment. It was dark. There were no lights on in the apartment. Jess had yet to arrive. I got out of the car and could hear a baby screaming inside one of the units in front of me. I grabbed a flashlight from the glove box. As I approached Jeremy’s apartment, the sound of horror coming from the lungs of a small child kept getting louder and louder. I pounded on the door for a minute and hollered Jeremy’s name several times. Nobody responded. The screaming child was obviously inside. I turned on my flashlight and aimed it through a crack in the drapes. I kicked in the door to find Amy naked in her crib, writhing in her own excrement. Within an hour or so, little eight-month-old Amy was on her way to the hospital with an agent for Child Protective Services. Amy had apparently been in her crib in that apartment alone, for several days. She was safely back at sea now.

As I drove home that evening, I was shaking, I burst out crying and pleaded out loud, “God! I just don’t get it! I can’t go on like this. I give up. I need you. Please help me!” My mind started asking all those questions that can never be answered at the moment you ask them like, “Is there really such a thing as repentance? Is repentance some sort of privilege for a select few? Who decides? Why do unrepentant people cause harm to others?”

After several months, I began to realize that repentance is not an event; it’s a process…a daily commitment to humbly embrace the fact that “God! I just don’t get it! I want more of You. I surrender this day to you. I need you. Even when I think life is going on just swimmingly, I know I’m just one wave away from being stranded on the beach. Please help me!” As one author succinctly puts it, “Dependence, sorrow, repentance, a longing to change-these are the gates to God’s kingdom.”[ix]

Pray for Amy.

NOTES

[ii] Matthew 16:9

[iii] Mark 4:13

[iv] John 16:18

[v] John 10:6

[vi] Matthew 4:17 and 3:1

[vii] Footnote – Matthew 3:2

[viii] Footnote – Matthew 3:7 – Life Application Study Bible

[ix] Yancey, Philip. The Jesus I Never Knew, Zondervan Grand Rapids, Michigan Copyright ©1995 by Philip Yancey, p. 114.