Let Your Heart Be Courageous

Happy Friday!

Someone I love a lot but haven't spoken to in a while sent me the following passage out of the blue today, as encouragement:

"I believe that I will see the goodness of the Lord in this world of the living.Wait with hope for the Lord.Be strong, and let your heart be courageous. Yes, wait with hope for the Lord." Psalm 27:13-14

I love how these words convey the idea that God is not far from this Earth, and that His character will shine through here. It's an idea that I think my housemates and I are focused on building our home around. I think the message is both simple and stunning. The verses' themes of hope and redemption greatly encouraged me today, so I thought I'd share it with you all.

Hope you all enjoy your weekend. Looking forward to sharing more 30Cent stories with you all next week.

Dan Dishes His Most Important Question

Readers,

I'll be posting another construction theme later this afternoon, but in the meantime, I wanted to share this gem. Our housemate/landlord Dan spoke at Reunion on Sunday on his most important question of faith, as part of an awesome sermon series the church did, examining the role that questioning plays in your faith. You can stream, download, or podcast the message. His question comes toward the end, but all three speakers were incredible, so it's worth listening to them all, if you ask me. I thought I'd share this with you as a way of painting a more vivid picture of what our community looks like.

EMK

Tearing Things Up And Crushing It: Part 4- A Glimpse of Something Greater

I remember the first time I got a real, concrete (no pun intended) understanding of why we’re doing this construction. It was a couple of weeks ago and I went upstairs to clean some lead paint dust on the third floor. The last I had seen the space before that, most of the wall studs were still up, and the apartment basically looked like a more bare, messier version of what we had originally moved into in early June.

But my glimpse two weeks ago painted an entirely different picture. The third floor was no longer the narrow space that defines many Boston triple-deckers. It was a new creation. Granted, the floors were still covered in sawdust, the apartment was sliced in two by plastic sealing, and the walls were exposed, but beyond all that, it was a completely different floor. The kitchen, living room, and tiny bedroom in the back had all been fused into one giant great room. It was an open, gorgeous space.

True, it’s just a shell of the finished product. But even that shell got me giddy for how the entire house is going to look when it’s all done. Way better than it looked when it started, that’s for sure.

Before I caught a glimpse of what’s to come, the construction process to me was the sum of its parts: sealed-off rooms, plastic, duct tape, sweat, frustration. I think we have all asked ourselves several times a day throughout this renovation process: “why are we doing this?” But once I saw the layout they were shooting toward, I had my answer. Not every floor will follow the exact same blueprint, but getting a glimpse of the new design gave me a visual reminder of the more beautiful home that we are working toward. And it brought sense to the madness that is the renovation process.

So it got me thinking about how this relates to my faith and life as a Christian. And here’s spiritual lesson #3:

3) Show People the Purpose

The construction process has no intrinsic value. I don’t think most people rip out walls, rework the electricity, replace leaky pipes, and sand floors simply because they think the act of doing it is fun all on its own. (And if you do, you’re crazy. Just kidding; you can come over and help any time!). People put in the hard work in order to get something better as a result. Construction is a means to a very beautiful end. But before seeing even a shred of this end result, the construction at times seemed senseless.

I think much is the same when it comes to calling ourselves Christians. It isn’t something I do for the sake of itself. Following Jesus isn’t about the title, or the religion, or being a member of a cool social group. Following Jesus is about falling in love with the one who has saved me, learning to look at myself in the way that He sees me and has created me, and using all of those things to bring His kingdom to Earth. But people will not know that unless, as Christians, we give them a taste of who God is.

So I must ask myself, how can my lifestyle give people a glimpse of what’s to come? How can I show people that Christianity isn’t simply a sum of doing certain things while abstaining from others? To an outsider, many aspects of a Christian's life may seem like things to be done simply for the sake of themselves. I pray that somehow God can peek through my actions to reflect how much bigger and more beautiful He is than a blend of busyness, doing, and earning. Instead of people viewing my life as a Christian as a self-serving pattern, I pray that they can see elements like justice, forgiveness, selflessness, hope, sacrifice, and mercy. And I’m not very good at these things on my own, so it’s going to need to be God who works through me.

As far as this house goes, I’m challenged to look at how we can show people that everything we do there isn’t self-serving and simply for the sake of itself. I want this home to be more than a sum of the laughter, TV shows, meals, prayer, and conversations that occur there. Don’t get me wrong: we do plenty of eating, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company, and I absolutely love it. But I want all of these things to give people a glimpse of what’s to come: God’s kingdom. I want this home to reflect what it means to bear one another’s burdens, to push each other, to correct each other, and to ultimate look at each other’s needs as greater than our own individual needs.

Jesus came not to do things simply for his own satisfaction, but to show people His Father.

“… Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” John 14: 9-10

I hope that my housemates and I can give others a look at the greater work that is being done in our lives.

Tearing Things Up And Crushing It: Part 3- A New Thing

As promised, I’m revisiting the construction topic I introduced to you last week. Things have continued to be a whirlwind in this area. We’ve packed up entire rooms of stuff on to learn that we don’t need to do so. We’ve even had a few injuries along the way. And we’ve certainly grown closer to each other in the process and have developed a new understanding of the term easy-going.

I spent much of last Sunday afternoon ripping stucco off the walls with my housemate/landlord Dan (derivatives trader who eats like a 6-year-old and drives like a maniac). There’s at least one stucco-filled room on each floor of the house. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, picture a bumpy wall produced by gobs of paint and plaster, that’s supposed to add texture and interest, but ultimately adds mess. In some rooms, these bumps are subtle, but on the first floor, i.e. the bachelor pad, they are rather pronounced.

Our task was to file down the uneven stucco so that our plaster guru could come and in and cover it to produce flat, smooth walls (not a super technical description, I know). In most rooms we could simply chip off the protruding stucco bumps. But Dan and I were having a hard time in the hallway of the first floor, where it was stucco on steroids. We started with our chipping technique, but at one point we each produced a hole in the stucco that tore all the way down to the original plaster wall. Below the stucco that we saw on the surface were several more layers of paint and wallpaper, going back what was probably decades’ worth of wall. Once we opened one hole in these layers, we could grab it and pull all the way across, to strip down the entire span of wall to its original surface.

I would be lying if I said we were any less than terrified at what we produced. It was ugly. In some cases that original plaster wall was completely crumbling and punctured. At best, it looked utterly exposed and barren. We were also worried that the contractor would not be able to properly affix the new plaster to the raw material that we had exposed.

On the other hand, ripping things down the root and removing all the wallpaper and paint clutter could have been a very good thing. Removing the decaying wall materials could have provided a clean slate for our plaster expert to work off of, reconstructing a better wall than we originally could have expected. But we had no way of knowing this. We wavered in where we stood on this all afternoon, but ultimately decided to continue what we had started and ripping things down the bare bones. The next morning we held our breaths, until hearing that we had done good and that the raw exposed wall was a great surface to work from.

And yes, there’s a lesson in all this. If I had to sum it up, it would be:

2) Look below the surface. In thinking about the things in my life that don’t look great on the surface, much like the stucco, there’s usually something even worse (the layers of wallpaper and paint) below that is really the problem. So in our lives, rather than simply trying to correct a habit or behavior that shows up to the outside world, I think God wants us to get at the root of what pushes us to do certain things. This can be feelings of unworthiness, past hurt, insecurity with the present, fear of the future, anger, jealousy, hopelessness, and so many other things.

The good news is that He’s the one that does this work, not us. He’s happy to build with our raw, exposed selves, no matter how scary and ugly we think it looks. Forgot trying to build on top of the layers on the surface, just because we are afraid to expose what is beneath. He doesn’t want us to hold onto our baggage, our insecurity, our constant justifications, and our false pretenses. He wants us to give our all to Him, to do a new thing. Here’s a verse that I think explains the refreshing that comes from God when we get rid of the old.

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:18-19

Sure, it might be easier to just chip away the bumps on the surface and smooth out what’s on top, but like our stripped down wall was ultimately a better root to construct the new wall on top of, I think the greatest spiritual growth comes when we are willing to examine and rip everything out that has piled on top of the relationship that we are meant to have with God. That’s it for construction lesson #2. Thanks for listening to me make spiritual similes out of (former) stucco walls. I’ll be sure to let you know how the new, smooth walls turn out.

Also, here's a picture of the house, for those of you who are interested! Photo credit to my housemate/landlord Tara (who lives on the third floor and works in campus ministry with her husband).

Let Your (Christmas) Light(s) Shine

Magen (the nurse practitioner student) thought she’d bring a little bit of her Oklahoma roots to 30Cent this last weekend. She and another close friend of the house’s were craving a night of wine and appetizers in the outdoors, but didn’t want to pay the prices that come with those elements at Boston eateries. So we decided to recreate the restaurant patio vibe on our own front porch.

Apparently bringing the vino out to the front stoop is big in Oklahoma and a bit tacky, Magen says. I always wanted a porch growing up, so I was excited to set up shop on 30Cent’s, even if it was concrete and located about six feet away from our garbage cans. Magen cooked a fancy pizza with the spoils of our trip to Boston’s Haymarket---where virtually every produce item you can think of us costs $1. We also brought a fruit-and-cheese platter, a few bottles of wine, a bright blue quilt, and some Michael Buble tunes. Magen strung a set of Christmas lights across the metal front that separates our porch from the sidewalk. These impromptu decorations made our house stand out a bit from the rest, visually speaking. After all, it is July.

As the housemates snacked and enjoyed each other’s company, we had the opportunity to chat with the neighborhood dwellers that strode past the 30Cent Bistro (which will definitely become a house tradition). Later in the evening, a man who referred to himself at “The Boss” walked by us with an adorable boy on his shoulders, named Maximilian.

We offered Maximilian a brownie (my contribution to the Bistro menu), and chatted with The Boss. Out of the blue, he looked at the group and commented on how glad he was that we were all there in the neighborhood, and for each other. He encouraged us to keep each other strong. He said he had seen a lot in life, and that he thought we were going in the right direction. (I pray that none of this comes of as self-congratulatory. I wanted to portray this episode as candidly as possible, as we all felt that it was refreshing, unexpected, and completely due to God’s work and not our own).

Things at the house so far have felt relatively unsettled, due to the aforementioned construction, the roommates we are still waiting on to move in (get here already!), and the furnishings we are still scavenging for. In this period of getting the place together, I have often wondered if we have even had the opportunity yet to let God use us in the neighborhood. Sure, we can smile and say hello to the people we pass on the street, but does that really DO anything?

Well, apparently it does. I often overcomplicate what it means to do God’s work in a certain area or to show people that I am someone who follows Jesus. Those comments from The Boss made me realize sometimes it is just as simple as this:

In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16

I’m an optimist, but even my rose-colored glasses aren’t big enough to make me think that just a few smiles and warm hellos are enough to bring world peace. But in this case, those things were a start in connecting us with the people were are eager to build relationships with in the neighborhood. I pray that God can work through us in these small ways early on, and take us where He wants to go as our time in the neighborhood progresses. We just have to be open and willing.

Happy Friday everyone!

Tearing Things Up and Crushing It: Part 2- Vessels

OK. I lied on several levels on Monday. For one, this post is coming two days after Part 1, instead of the next day. And it looks like this is Part 2 of several installments of the “Tearing Things Up and Crushing It” entry, instead of the second of two parts. Rather than listing all the lessons and symbols I’m observing in the renovations at once, I decided each thought would be more compelling if it stood alone as its own entry. So here is the first spiritual symbol that has stuck out to me in the renovation process:

1) It’s necessary to shed the sullied, crumbling parts. This might seem like a “duh” sort of statement, but I thought the spiritual lessons that can be found in ripping out old, decrepit, weak, and downright ugly structural elements were pretty striking. As I explained in the previous post, my housemates and I are largely pursuing these renovations to make our home better suited to hosting the people in our lives. I’m not saying that God can’t use our house if it stayed exactly the same as it was when we moved in, but our moves in shedding the old and replacing with the new are done with the aims of creating something better, more refined, and more effective at carrying out the mission we are passionate about. I can find parallels between this particular process and the words in this passage:

In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 2 Timothy 2:20-1

To me, the weak, crumbling, and old aspects of our house mimic the articles used for ignoble purposes in our spirits. Over time, the bad things in our house that went unnoticed would only get worse and ultimately pull down the value and function of the home. In shedding that which is unsightly and even harmful, we are transforming our home into something that is stronger and more beautiful. In much the same way, the ignoble aspects of our lives, personalities, and spirits bring down our entire being when we try to just look past them. Spiritually, these ignoble articles could include an area of our life that we just won’t trust God with, a past hurt, a feeling of inadequacy, a bad habit, and much more. In willingly entering the painful process of removing the elements of our lives that dull and weigh us down, we are taking the steps to be better used by God for His plans.

In this stage of construction, my prayer is that we could not only rip things out of our house, but also our hearts. (Sounds violent, I know). I hope that God further teaches us all how to be people who care more about others than ourselves, people who are focused on the end result rather than the often discouraging present circumstances, and people who desire to be part of something bigger and lasting, rather than follow our own whims. I know that I have a long way to go in these areas, and I am thankful that I have a community of people to grow with on this level. I am excited to see how God transforms us as a group into instruments for noble purposes.

I could be logical and discuss themes #2 and #3 in my next post, but I probably won’t do that. There are some pretty cool experiences we had in the neighborhood this past weekend, and I want to share them with you while they are still fresh. “Tearing Things Up and Crushing It” will be back soon though.

Tearing Things Up and Crushing It: Part 1

So there’s a pretty huge aspect of our community life that I haven’t really talked about yet. The house is a bit of a fixer upper, and we’ve already entered into a stage of massive construction. My landlords are looking to add value to the home and bring a good return to their investment. As a community, we are also looking to transform the space into one that is better suited to hosting our friends and neighbors.

The construction started a few weeks ago on the third floor unit belonging to the married couple in college campus ministry who I described in the intro post. (FYI, I haven’t actually asked my roommates yet if I can use their names, so that’s why I’m still using only descriptions). I’ll give you a quick glimpse of what renovation stage looks like on the third floor. The kitchen, bathroom, and living space are sectioned off by painter’s plastic, sealed tightly so that lead paint dust from the walls that are being ripped out doesn’t infiltrate the rest of the house. Speaking of lead paint, we say those two words no less than 600 times a day between the group. The third floor’s once-gorgeous claw-foot tub is in pieces on the bathroom floor, which has also been ripped up. The walls are skeletons of their former white plaster selves, and saw dust abounds.

In the process, I have carried sheet rock up several flights of stairs, have ripped up sticky linoleum flooring, and have become more intimately acquainted with the aisles of Home Depot than I ever thought was possible. And I have it EASY compared to the others (roommates and generous friends) who have been working there for countless hours a day. The quarantined space has no fans or airflow, and they have been up there every day of the near-record July heat. The construction has also affected the remaining two stories of the home, as we are compressing three floors of people into two bathrooms and two kitchens. My unit has a living space that resembles Goodwill, crammed with spatulas, toaster ovens, artwork, headboards, and myriad other items that have become displaced as we make room for power sanders and pry bars.

I say none of this to attract pity, but to paint a vivid picture of what life in the house looks like on a concrete level (no pun intended). I think there are many valuable spiritual lessons and symbols that can be pulled from the demo zone that identifies much of our house at this point.

Early on, it became clear that this wasn’t going to be as easy or fast as originally expected. And it’s even clearer now, given the meticulousness required to comply with the EPA’s new standards on how to handle and dispose of surfaces that may or may not contain lead paint. There’s really just no way around that at this point. The situation is far from ideal, but we there are a few ways we can handle it. We could complain a lot. We could complain a little, and bottle the rest inside. Or we could look to this time as one in which we truly rely on God to carry us through it. We could ask Him to bring beauty out of what is a not very beautiful process, to make us more patient, trusting, willing, and easy-going people. In the process, we could learn that having a perfectly put-together home pales in comparison to having a rich community and intimate relationship with God.

Here’s one of my favorite verses expressing that idea of looking to areas of exhaustion and helplessness as spaces in which we draw closer to God:

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

So as we continue to rip up and replace walls, floors, and studs, I’m asking God to bring strength to our weakness. I see this process of being refined in a less-than-perfect environment as similar to the process of learning to live in and relate to what God has for us on this Earth. It is a reality that things on this planet are not living up to an ideal or a state of perfection. In reaction, we can sit back defeated, or we can ask God to transform us and use us as part of His greater transformation in the meantime, until a better day comes. We can use the Earth’s state of disarray as a time to become more intimately acquainted with and connected to God, and use that bond to guide us through turmoil that will inevitably arise.

I’ve found other spiritual implications of this renovation process, in addition to asking God to teach us patience and show us that His grace is enough to carry us. This post is already getting long, and I don’t want to lose you, so I’m going to list those in a Part 2 entry tomorrow. I’ll close below with another verse that always reminds me to look beyond that which is just in front of me.

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

"This is the way. Walk In It."

I haven't had time in the past few days for another post on the specific happenings of the house, but I'm hoping to get to that this weekend. Speaking of hope, I wanted to share a passage rich in that theme, which popped into my head on my morning commute. I first read it about a month ago, literally the morning that God answered some things I had felt like I had been praying about for years, to what seemed like no avail.

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Isaiah 30: 18-21

These verses make me almost giddy of all that things that God does while we wait on Him. So often it feels like things in our world are not as they should be, but that doesn’t mean God isn’t present. Waiting is one of the most challenging things I feel that I am faced with, but hearing that God will rise to show me compassion and bring justice gives me a sense of peace to help endure the periods of life that feel like mid-air suspension.

Sorry this doesn’t have a ton to with the happenings of the house right now. I guess in a way, we are definitely waiting on a lot---both within our neighborhood and within our four walls (expect a much longer post on that this weekend).

Regardless, I thought this would be a good Friday pick-me-up for you readers. (All eight of you. And thanks, by the way). I hope you hear His voice today and the words: "This is the way; walk in it."

When Things Don't Turn Out as Originally Intended

[[Quick Blog Disclaimer: I actually borrowed the “Becoming Who We Are” portion of my blog title from a series recently preached at my Boston church, REUNION. My apologies for any copyright infringement, but I thought the words were an amazing summation of the process of figuring out what it means to bring God’s kingdom to this Earth and live the way He originally intended us to. Those four words represent to me what we are trying to do in this house, so I brought them to the blog, which is meant to be a reflection of those attempts. You should check out the messages from the sermon series on REUNION’s website though.]]

Yes, a few weeks have passed since I first pounded out that description of my housemates, our mission, and my reluctance to start blogging. I know: I’m going to have to get more disciplined if I’m going to be a successful blogger, but hey, I’m working on it.

This post is actually a reflection on a conversation a handful of us had during our first week in the house. We had little furniture save for some wooden kitchen chairs, but we all gathered in the second floor living room over a dinner of chicken parm to watch the Celtics (a week or so before their heartbreaking Game Seven loss). So my exact recollection of it might not be 100 percent accurate, but I still find myself pondering and questioning the themes we discussed that evening. I think it has important implications for our mission in the house and on Earth, so I wanted to relay it to you readers as a kickoff.

As we watched Pierce & Co dominate the court, one roommate asked if we thought sports and athletic competition were part of God’s original plan for humanity, if they fit into the vision He had with the creation of and life in the Garden of Eden. I think the immediate answer is no. But I also believe God has followed us throughout the ages to still make His voice known and His kingdom come, despite modern technological and societal advances that people have come up with in the meantime.

My suspicion is that world is far from what God intended it to be when He first put things together in paradise. Humans have strayed from perfect communion with God, into a land of pride, greed, selfishness, anger, jealousy---you name it. These negative emotions, motivations, and forces worked their way into society long before our modern world came into being. And there are plenty of things that have since evolved along the way that aren’t inherently bad, but probably weren’t part of God’s original design. Highways, iPhones, the Internet, high fashion, political parties, top-tier universities, investment banks, skyscrapers, credit cards, and yes, professional sports leagues are just a few of the things I can think of that wouldn’t have come into being if we had all stuck to the initial plan.

Clearly things have gone a different way. But, I don’t think that God’s spirit of love, grace, redemption, forgiveness, and compassion can’t infiltrate these modern day entities. One of my favorite Bible stories summing up this idea of good coming from bad is illustrated in Genesis 50:20 (a story that was brought to life for me in another REUNION sermon).

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."

This was said by Joseph, when he met face-to-face with his brothers years after they had beaten and sold him into slavery in a jealous rage. This act of violence and familial betrayal was undoubtedly a departure from the ideal vision God had for these brothers and how they would relate to each other. But it also turned out to be a blessing that put Joseph in pharaoh’s inner circle, giving him access to resources that could spare and save his family once massive famine hit. Powered by God’s love and forgiveness, Joseph brought life and shalom to a place where things weren’t exactly the way they ought to be. (Read Genesis for the full story; my few bullet points definitely aren’t doing this redemption story justice, but I hope they work for the point I’m trying to make.)

Not all of us have had experiences of pain and backstabbing that rival Joseph’s, but I think we can all recognize instances of where things in our lives and world have gone astray. And I’m not saying that God was chipper about the hatred Joseph’s brothers enacted on him, or that He’s thrilled about all the things that have been created to counter His perfect nature; I’m just saying God is bigger than all of that. That’s what the resurrection is about. God has done things that have accomplished His will through objects and structures that were created for reasons far from honoring and growing close to Him.

And I believe this carries over to the institutions that even stand against God’s idealized vision for how humanity was meant to relate to Him and to each other. I believe God can be seen by a famous athlete who conducts himself with dignity and composure, to bring peace to a culture that was originally created largely out of the desire to prove one’s superiority over another. I believe God’s kingdom can be furthered in products powered by modern technology, when those gadgets are used to bring water to the thirsty and food to the hungry. I believe God can be present in the boardroom of a massive financial services institution, when the people who work there treat each other with compassion and honesty. Yes, there are aspects of each one of these entities that stand against the kingdom of God, but when they are powered by people looking to become more like Christ, those smears become vehicles for redemption. I believe that what God did on the cross and in the resurrection was so big that its fruits can stomp out the self-seeking motives that are at the root of most of the things around us today.

I’m fairly certain my job at a technology news blog isn’t anything that can be found in the first few chapters of Genesis, but I am compelled to figure out what it means to live as a reflection of who God is at my workplace. I don’t think our steel-and-concrete, grid-lined city neighborhood looks like the tree-laden Garden of Eden, but I believe my roommates and I are challenged to figure out how we can bring the peace, joy, patience, grace, and love of God to a place born of centuries of man going astray.

So little in our world is perfect and spotless, but my prayer is that God can use us in bringing His resurrection to this place nonetheless. I don’t have to know exactly how to do this, but I do have to believe God is capable and ask Him to use me in His restoration.