Year: 2016

When You figure out what you’re here for

Over the years, there have been movies that have imprinted themselves in my mind. Movies that have triggered thoughts, ideas, and even emotions that I was not anticipating as I watched them. For a variety of reasons, they have pointed me to consider more deeply what it means to be a follower of Christ. One of those moves has been Sister Act.

Movies are made to entertain and even to inform. But, to me, movies expose some of the fundamental needs of the human soul. We have to be watchful and observant. We have to be self-reflective if we are going to see what is often overlooked. There is a scene in Sister Act that every time I see it I get goosebumps.

It would take a long time for me to mark out the many lessons that I have gained from this film. One of them, however, revolves around the youngest nun, Sister Mary Roberts, in the convent. She has always believed there was something inside of her that God wanted to us. It is not until Sister Mary Clarence arrives (played by Whoopi Goldberg) that she finds it. She discovers her purpose and it was something that she had never considered as “the thing” for which she existed.

The older I get the more striking it becomes that many of us do not know why we are here on this earth. We seem to be going about our lives randomly bumping into each other but with no true direction. We have been told over and over again that we have a purpose. That God has a wonderful and beautiful plan for our lives, and yet, we do not know what it is. Or worse, we do not know how to get started in living it out if we do.

There are many tragedies that happen in life. However, one of the greatest has to be living a life without purpose. I want to live a life filled with purpose. And, that purpose will be unique to me. It will be fulfilling for me. Therefore, I have to do all that I can to find it. Then, when I find it, I have to fight to stay true to it.

I think this is what makes this realization by Sister Mary Roberts so powerful to me. Watch the video below and watch the change in her face as she begins to believe in herself and her purpose. After you have watched ask yourself this question, “What are you doing to find and live out your purpose?”

The truth of the matter is that you never know where you will be when you find out what you’re here for.

Make every worship song your own

Over the last few years, I have found my understanding of what worship is changing and expanding. The main reason is that I have been leading worship more often. My learning to play the guitar started as a necessity. It then became something far more personal. It was not something that I wanted to do. It just sort of happened. It needed to be done, and I was able to lead, so I did.

What makes worship so challenging, at least, to me, is that it can be difficult to get people to worship. Part of the problem may be that most of us do not know how to worship God. We have been exposed to an entertainment culture. So, that gets transferred into the church and we come waiting on the “show” to begin.

This is a dangerous and sad state of affairs. The conversations about worship no longer revolve around content but rather have shifted to style and preferences. It really should not matter the style of music that is being used, if you are a child of God, you should be able to worship whenever God’s people have gathered for that purpose.

I am not diminishing the reality of our own preferences. However, when these preferences dictate our ability to connect with our heavenly father, we have given far too much power over our worship to something that changes from one generation to the next. I do not my worship held hostage by the style of music. I must work to keep our worship focused on the one who is worthy of worship. And I must do this independent of what style is employed my the assembly I happen to be in.

It is a true statement to say that the distance between what was expected in the Temple during the sacrificial system and today is so great. By this, I do not mean the sacrifice itself. That would be too easy to identify as a difference. I am talking about the intimacy of having to watch that sacrifice being slaughtered because of my brokenness and sin. That connection, the connection between sin and sacrifice to atone has to be reconsidered and reestablished.

Yes, we can sing about the promises and the love of God. We can sing about all the great things God has done. We can sing about heaven and the power of the Spirit. All of these things are appropriate and necessary subjects of our praise. However, the underlying reason for all of these things, the reason we can sing about these things at all is because a Lamb was slain for the sins of the world.

When we fail to ground our worship in the truth of Christ’s death and resurrection, our worship is untethered from the only mooring that gives our worship meaning.

I have basically come to the conclusion that the problem is we do not take ownership of the worship we are are supposed to be giving to God. In other words, when I join the church to worship I have been called to belong to and the worship leader is leading in a song, I have to make that song my song. I have to make the words that are being sung my words. I should be joining my voice with the voices of the rest of the church as we say to ourselves and to God that we believe what we are singing together.

Each song is communicating something. There is a point to the lyrics and the music helps to communicate that idea. Therefore, if I am going to worship I have to engage all of my faculties. My head and my heart must be joined together. The emotions and ideas that I hear and contemplate may begin in the mouth of the leader but, eventually, they must come out of my mouth too. Not just to parrot what is happening. But because I believe what is being sung is true for me too.

When I worship, those who see me doing it, those who hear me sing should be able to say that they believe that I believe what I am singing and saying. Those around us should be convinced that I mean every word of the song I am singing.

I do not always do this, but I want it to be truer of me every day.

The Boy Who Loved: Severus Snape and Alan Rickman

There have been many characters conceived in the mind and given life by the pen. There have been innumerable attempts to capture the imagination and the heart of readers and engendering a true affection for these characters. And there have been a rare few who have achieved the seemingly unattainable feat.

Professor Severus Snape, in my estimation, is one of those rare characters. He was brought to life within the pages of J.K. Rowling’s masterfully woven tale of the boy who lived.

As I have reflected on the death of Alan Rickman over the last twenty-four hours, a variety of tributes have surfaced all over social media and the internet. All of these has been a testament to the life and gifts of this singularly talented man. Over and over again, his reprisal as Professor Snape garnered him a following among devoted Harry Potter fans.

Severus Snape was a man who was loathed and feared, who had seemingly little depth, was able to hide a depth of strength so little found in the human experience. The power of Rowling’s character was brought to life and put on display by Rickman’s interpretation. It is one thing to read the tale but, to watch it and have every one of your senses engaged in the experience truly impressed upon your mind, and dare I say, soul, the beauty of the story.

I cannot rightly explain why Severus Snape has captured my imagination. I do not know what it was about the unfolding drama of his story that pulled me to love rather than loathe him. I am shocked at how deeply I feel his pain and, at times, try to justify his actions.

Even as I write these words, I am perplexed by the seemingly irrational emotions I feel about a person who never existed. And yet, the connection is no less impactful. Could it be that those of us who have identified with Severus Snape have seen our own struggles for acceptance personified? Could it be that, in Professor Snape, we see the nuanced reality of life? I do not know what it is. I just know that it is there.

One of the truly brilliant aspects of Rowling’s story is how she managed to hide Snape’s motives for over 4,000 pages (US Editions). The speculations and theorizings marked the passage of time between the books publications. Then, when the revelations were made and the answers given, I (we?) were left in shock as to what was really driving the potions master. It is almost as if his impenetrable skill at Occlumency worked on all of us as weel. For we were not able to discern or divine the reasons for his actions.

The story of the boy who lived is wonderful and powerful for so many reasons. It is a story that I will continue to read and encourage my children to read as well. However, for me, the story is given its proper context and it is brought into its starkest relief because of another character. That character was Professor Severus Snape, the man who began his journey as the boy who loved.

I WILL be more productive this year… so help me!

I don’t know about other people but, I sometimes have the hardest time staying on top of my todo list. One of my commitments for this year is to be more intentional about my work. There are so many things that have to get done on any given day. I don’t think I am particularly busy. I just know that I suffer from a special case of lazy. Ok, maybe not so special. However, if I am not careful I can get myself into trouble and fall behind.

My thinking is, if I can keep things simple then I will not get overwhelmed. That, however, does not always work like I want it to. So, I have decided to do two things. First, I will be reading about productivity and time-management this year. I hope to learn a few tips and tricks that will help me stay focused and on task. Second, I have started using a productivity app (I will share more about in a later post).

In the process of doing these two things, I hope to raise my awareness of potential problems in my workflow. And, I am hoping I can start accomplishing several things I have been putting off because I “did not have the time.”

Over the next few weeks I hope to write about what I have learned in the hopes that it will be of benefit to others. I am excited and I am looking forward to this next leg of the journey.

My marriage is a TEENAGER!

I am so blessed. God brought an amazing woman into my life eighteen years ago. For the last 13, I have had the privilege of calling her my wife.

It is amazing when I think about it. She has been a part of my life for more than half of it. The crazy part is that we are still here. Still working it out. Still trying to figure out what we are supposed to be doing. Through it all, we have learned a lot about ourselves and each others.

Miranda, I love you. 

Hello 2016!

One of my goals for this year was to update the site. I have been doing that. However, because this is a work in progress I better not wait too long to get started on some of my other goals.

I hope to go through and make this entire site more user-friendly. That means going through all my past posts and bringing them up to date. This will take some time. The main reason for doing this is so that this site will be more accessible to me as I an archive of my own thought but, also as a resource to anyone who comes to it. So, that is one of the big goals.

A second goal is to write at least once a week and to make a second post that points to some useful content around the web. There is a lot of good stuff out there, written by a lot of smart people. By pointing to them I can also keep a record of ideas that have been helpful to me in some way that I hope will be helpful to you the reader.

I will also be creating a reading list for this year. There are so many books in my library that I have used to study and have perused but never really read all the way through. I want to begin to read many of them more thoroughly and engage their ideas more intentionally. My hope is to provide a cliff notes of sorts. Basically, I will pull some of the quotes that really caught my attention and possibly provide some annotations as well for context.

Thanks for stopping by and reading. I hope you find something beneficial to your spiritual journey here at Jeremiah’s Vow. If you find something that needs to be fixed, please let me know by contacting me. That would be great!

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