The Unfinished Field of Dreams

All the best movies about sports are about baseball.
For some mysterious reason football, basketball, soccer, hockey, golf or whatever sport you love can not consistently inspire great films. Sure they are some out there: Hoosiers, The Big Green, Tin Cup, The Mighty Ducks 1, 2 and 3.
Since football seems to be the main sport people in America care about, football probably comes in second: Rudy, The Little Giants, Remember the Titans, and Brian's Song are all excellent films.
But I ask you, do they compare to the consistent quality and inspirational power of movies like Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, For Love of the Game, Eight Men Out, The Natural, Major League, The Sandlot, A League of Their Own, The Rookie, Fever Pitch, Rookie of the Year, Angels in the Outfield, or Moneyball?
I'm sure you could pick out one or two of those that suck, but any cinephile will agree that baseball is the most inspirational sport when it comes to film. Why? I'm honestly not too sure; you'll have to ask Kevin Costner, but that's not what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about catalysts. Change agents. Heavy moments. You see, all films, all good stories have them; baseball movies especially. These are those moments where you realize the way things have been need to change and they need to change right now. It's the voice that says "If you build it, he will come." Or it's a beautiful woman that won't have you unless you straighten up. Or it's hitting rock bottom and realizing the only job you can get is coaching girls baseball. I could go on and on, but in every good film, novel, or bedtime story there is a "but one day" moment. And it's my opinion that one of the major differences between real life, or my life at least, and that of the characters in stories is that most of my "if you build it he will come" moments have been ignored. If I was in that corn field, picking corn, going about my day and all of a sudden I heard Kevin Costner speak to me from heaven, I would turn my iPod up and pretend nothing happened. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. Maybe I would listen. Maybe I would plow under my corn and start building. But using every moment of my life as evidence, there is no way I would have finished that field. There is no way I would have waited for whatever to happen. There is no way I would have finished it. In fact, I think that's probably true for most people. Stories about normal people doing normal things that most of us do aren't interesting. Stories about men and women doing extraordinary things that none of us have ever done or will ever do but all wish we could do; those are interesting. Even stories based on true stories are always altered or improved because the true, true story always disappoints.
Let's look at me.
I was a soccer player. I loved it more than any other thing on God's great planet. You put me on a field with a ball at my feet and a goal in my sight and a few other guys in my way, and I would do anything to get that ball in that goal and when I did, even now as I write about it I can taste the immense joy that filled my body once it slides past the goalie and bounces off the net. Or that beautiful rush I got when I relieved another player of the ball, made that perfect pass, slide the ball between someone's legs, fouled someone and got away with it, or just made a fool out of the guy trying to defend me. And there was nothing more frustrating than a red card, or a ref not seeing a foul, missing an off sides call, watching the ball slide between my own legs, missing a pass, or the mother of all mistakes: an own goal. For all it's frustration and pure joy combined I loved it. For me, there wasn't anything on earth like that game. And luckily for me, I was good at it. From five years old through college I played the game and I loved the game. It was my life. I could write and write about the many great moments of my soccer career: the wins, the losses, the hat-tricks, the injuries, the recoveries, and my many nemeses (Kyle Hopkins being the biggest), but I want to talk to you today about the last second in the last game on the last field I ever played on. Because that was the moment where I looked back and saw all of the catalytic moments of my life and realized that I had heard the voices, but never finished building the field.
It ended with a loss. It ended suddenly. It ended with me on my knees crying, crying as if someone had just stolen all I had worked for and burned it in front of me. It ended before I was ready.
Let me back up. I played college soccer at Southeastern University from 2000-2004. I started my first year and by my second, I was made captain. It was a stupid coaching decision to put me as captain, but it was done. That year was my best year. I made all conference and I was put on the all tournament team at the regional tournament. Junior year, we had a new coach and I wasn't captain anymore, but I was on track to outdo my previous season. Then I tore my meniscus and was out for the rest of the season. That summer I trained harder than I had ever trained my entire life. I had never wanted anything more than to go all the way to the national tournament that year. I wanted All-American. I wanted 20 goals. I wanted records broken. I wanted interest from pro teams.
I got none of that. 4 games in I had lost my starting spot and sat the bench most of that season. In the last game of my life on a breezy, chilly day at Clearwater College, with my parents and girlfriend watching, I played about 5 minutes. I contributed nothing to that game nor to most of that season. I received no awards, no honorable mentions and no interest from anyone. So when that whistle blew, I landed on my knees and cried. Even as I write about this, I can think of nothing else but the feel of the grass on my knees, the breeze on my neck, the cold on my cheeks as the frigid wind blew my tears away, and that gut-wrenching feeling that it was over. From age 5-21 my life was about soccer, and there on that field, on that day, when that whistle blew, for that brief moment, I had no idea what my life was supposed be about. I was kneeling on a metaphorical half-finished baseball field with Kevin Costner's voice sarcastically calling from the heavens, "Nice work, idiot."
Sad story right? Well, there's a reason for it. Even though soccer was all I wanted, I never treated it that way. When I said that summer before my senior year was the hardest I'd ever trained in my life, what I should have said was it was the only summer I actually trained. I never gave it my everything. I never pushed myself to be the best. I never dedicated my time, my body or my mind to the sport. There were many times when I heard Costner's voice in the field in the form of coaches saying, "He's got great potential, but he needs to improve _____." Or my mom pushing me to run in the off seasons. Or watching my friends, like Derek Britt or Thomas Whited, train and train and train and constantly get better. I had so many catalytic moments where things could have gone the other way where I had the opportunity to get better and give 100%, but I didn't do it. And I believe sitting on that bench that year was God showing me the rewards for such behavior.
After that lesson, I found a new God-given passion in teaching young people and it has consumed my life to this day. But really that passion is a passion to please God. I fail constantly in that area, but it's still all I want. And on that last day, I want to fall on my knees and for tears to stream down and for Him to lift me up and say (probably in Kevin Costner's voice) "Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come and share in my happiness."
So I ask you now,
What are you doing with your life? What are you passionate about?
Whatever it is, God has placed catalytic moments in your life to spur you on that path and push you to do more and be better. Don't ignore them. Take them. But ultimately know this. If your greatest passions are placed on things of this world, there will come a day, maybe tomorrow or 65 years from now, where it will be taken from you and there will be nothing you can do about it. I could have tried to steal that ref's whistle or maybe tackled him to the ground when I saw him reaching for it, but inevitably that game would have ended no matter what I did.
Within all of us, believer or non, there is a seed. For many that seed stays a seed for their whole lives. For others, something happens that brings us in to faith in God and that seed gets planted. And if we trust in His work and His plan for our lives, it will grow and grow and grow and bear fruit and ultimately break free of our bodies and dominate our whole lives and change the lives of many others. And when our lives are over, we leave the body behind and move into our true purpose in a land free of disappointment, failure or sadness.  Put your trust in He who planted the seed and be passionate and diligent about laying your self down for His sake and when it's all said and done no story or movie in the world will have been as inspiring or interesting as the life you led and are going to lead with Him as your catalyst.
Amen. 

Zach Time Out

Lately I've been watching more Saved by the Bell than usual. If you are currently googling "saved by the bell," I'm shocked and dismayed by your cultural unawareness, but also excited by what you would pull up from a google image search.
Like this:
 The cast of the greatest TV Show about High School ever.

And here ^ we have a screenshot from my favorite episode where the 

writers made the bold choice of having Jesse (girl in front) experience a drug 

addiction, and by drug I mean caffeine pills, and by addiction I mean she 

took a few too many and got a little wired for an hour or two. Bold.

Anyways, I've been watching it a lot and one of my favorite parts of the show was Zach timeout. Zach, the blonde guy, was the main character and each show, at least in the early seasons, would start out with him breaking the fourth wall and talking to us, the audience, about whatever scenario we were going to be watching unfold this week. And occasionally, he would stop the action in the middle of the show by holding his hands in a T and saying "Time Out!" At this point, he would step away from the action and engage us again. He would analyze whatever was going on and figure out exactly how to deal with whatever odd situation he was dealing with at the time, then he would say "Time In" and the action would continue. 

I have always wanted that power. There was a duck tails episode that had a similar premise where the ducks could stop time and of course there were like five Twilight Zones about it, an X-Files episode, and then Adam Sandler lived it out in the movie, Click. It's an awesome power, a power that I've never longed for as badly as I did last night. 

Last night I tweeted (@thenickrob) that I was going to sleep before 9 and that's exactly what I did. I turned on an episode of King of the Hill and fell asleep on the couch. Why the couch? Two reasons:

1. The netflix on our Wii isn't working so I have to watch it on my phone when I'm in my bedroom.

2. There was a bunch of laundry on the bed that I didn't have the energy to move let alone fold and put away.

I should also note that I was alone in the house. Rachel was in Houston and the babies were at their grandmother's house so I was able to make such silly, bachelor-like decisions. 

So I fell asleep on the couch.

Around 11:15pm I was awoken by the sound of the doorbell and my dog, Amie, barking her little canine brains out.  After checking the time, I decided that 11:15pm was too late a time to be ringing my door bell and expecting me to answer. So I just kept laying on the couch. After about 45 seconds, the bell rang again. The way my house is laid out has the living room right next to a large window facing the front porch, but the shades were drawn so I couldn't see anything. And the front door faces the wall of the living room so I couldn't see anybody at the door either. So after the second ring, I started to get a little nervous. However, I remembered that back in our old house in Tyler, TX, the doorbell would randomly ring in the middle of the night and it turned out to be a faulty wire that was causing it, so I thought maybe that was the case here. Also, usually when someone rings a bell and no one answers they will maybe try knocking or calling out "Hello." That is, if they really want someone to come to the door. 

Then it rang again. Now I was freaked out. I didn't hear any voices. I didn't see any shadows moving. But I was starting to hear the sound of someone walking in the grass outside. Then after about a minute of petrifying, paralyzing fear I began to think maybe it was over. 

It wasn't.

All of a sudden, I heard some scuffling around on the front porch and then the sound of the window screen being pulled up. Then the window started to open and a person put their head through the window.

With my heart pounding like a drum-line, sweat pouring down my face, and every protective instinct in my body exploding all at once I jumped up and yelled the only word that came to my mind
YO!!!

Upon hearing my barbaric yawp, the villain pulled his head back out of the window and quickly closed the window and replaced the screen. 

I called 911 for the first time and in a frightened stutter told them what happened and they told me a police officer was coming. I quickly turned on all the lights in the house, locked the window and stood terrified, not sure what to do next fearing they might regroup and return. After about 8 minutes of this I decided to man-up and go stand outside on the porch and wait for the cops. As I waited on the porch beginning to calm down and regaining some of my senses, I started to replay the events of the last 15 minutes in my head. Should I have jacked this guy in the head with something hard and sharp? Should I have got my gun? Should I have let him in and then tried to share the gospel with him? It was at this point that I started to think about Saved by the Bell.  

If there was ever a good time for a Zach timeout, it was then. If only I had the powers of Zach Morris, I would have made a T with my hands, shouted out "Time Out!" and taken a moment to analyze the situation. I would have gone outside and seen exactly what I was dealing with here. How many are there? Do they have weapons? Is it someone I know pulling a prank on me? After all the stuff I've done to people, I guess I would have deserved it. Then I could have done something awesome like pick them up and arrange them into a kissing position, or if it was just one person, I could have poked him in the eyes, tied his hands behind his back and stuck a large pointy stick up his ... uh ... mouth. 

Then I could have just said "Time In" and everything would have been fine the studio audience would have laughed giving me a great laugh track to use for later. 

The fear would have been gone and I would have been in control. 

Now that the dust has settled and I've had a chance to really think about things, I feel like a hypocrite. I've spent a lot of time teaching students the power of Joshua 1:9

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. 

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord 

 your God will be with you wherever you go.

When I was face to face with a situation not nearly as frightening as the many situations Joshua faced, I cringed with fear and became paralyzed, unable to move, think or say anything more than Yo. The fact that bothers me most, was I didn't even go to God during any of it. It didn't even enter into my mind. Despite the fact that I know that God is with me wherever I go, that he was outside that window, that he was on that couch with me, that he was there the whole time, I didn't once acknowledge His presence.  

I'm such a fool. 

I've spoken to Him since and apologized, but I still feel foolish. 

I wanted a Zach timeout, but all I needed to do was claim the power of Joshua 1:9, acknowledge the sovereignty and love of God, and things would have been different. Through this situation, God has revealed some sickness in my heart that I need to deal with. I need to spend some time praying for courage and trust because when the going got tough, I relied on my own power and strength instead of tapping into the great and awesome power promised by the Holy Spirit.

If you are a fellow believer, would you take a minute after reading this and go to God on me and my family's behalf. Pray for a blanket of safety around our home and for an infusion of courage and wisdom from the Holy Spirit that I might remember God's sovereignty and love for me when fear begins to grip my heart.    

Thank you. 

A Boring Love Story

Since I started writing here, my parents have been 

pestering me about "sharing too much." 

So today I'm going to write about my parents.

Yesterday, our family went to the Village Church at the Dallas campus and it turns out this weekend was one of their baptism weekends.

*Quick theology note* I am very much in favor of full-immersion baptism. 

There was a baptism at HPPC yesterday morning that was done by sprinkling 

and when I compare the two, full-immersion seems to more 

deeply and intimately symbolize the meaning of baptism.

During the baptisms at The Village, each of the soon to be baptized would share their testimony and then a friend of theirs, typically someone who was a key player in their salvation, would baptize them. As I sat and watched this great display of God's grace and glory, and listened to so many stories of how they grew up in a Christian home with a life filled with Godly influences and consistently attending and being involved in their church, I couldn't help but think about my parents.

My parents grew up around the corner from each other, but their childhood's couldn't have been more different. In order to save myself an angry text from my mom, let me just give you the very short version: my grandparents on my mom's side adopted three boys from a very abusive situation with their birth parents. My mom was a little miracle in that my grandmother had multiple miscarriages until God finally blessed them with little Debra Diane Griner.

My dad started life as the baby in the family with two older brothers. He remained the baby of the family for about 7 years when his younger brother was born. And from what I can piece together from the many stories he told to my sisters and I as children, the Robinson family lived a somewhat normal, typical family life there in Sanford Florida.

My parents families attended the same church for a while and became good friends. My parents however, to hear my mom tell it, did not get along. All the years they knew each other as children, my mom found my dad annoying and obnoxious (which if my childhood is any resemblance to my fathers, he most certainly was annoying and obnoxious). My mom had a lot of family troubles and as a result, she went through a fairly rebellious stage of life as a teenager. My father, however, fell in love with Jesus at a very young age and was very involved in the Church and his own mission to bring to Christ everyone around him.

I like to think that if Jesus himself had come down and shown my teenage mom a snapshot of what her life would look like when she was 30 something, being married to that annoying super-Christian kid, Dennis with three kids, living in Hawaii, she would have laughed in His face and turned her bell-bottomed booty around and walked away.
So when God finally did put them together, it got a little weird.

(mom and dad, i'm sorry if some of the details are wrong, 

but i'm gonna take a little artistic license here)

 

After my mom's little rebellious stage had sort of come to a close, God began to press on her about my dad and she began to see him in a new light. It wasn't like she needed to get to know him because she knew him his whole life and knew every little thing there was to know about him and he knew the same about her. So after Dennis had pursued her for a while, she gave in and went on some dates with him. Things were going well, but Debbie was having trouble really committing and confessing her feelings. So one day they were parked in Dennis' car just sort of "talking" (that's their version, but i don't know if buy it. i've sat in cars with girls "talking" before too) and God started to press on Debbie. She knew she needed to tell Dennis how she felt, but she really didn't want to. So, she did what any normal person would do in this situation and started pacing outside around the car. She was pacing and mumbling and occasionally shouting things as if she was hoping to get out of this by scaring Dennis away, but it didn't work. God must have been pressing on the parking brake. Finally, after a sufficiently crazy outburst, Debbie gave in and yelled out "I LOVE YOU!!!"  Somehow, I'm not entirely sure why after such a display, Dennis reciprocated her feelings and their new lives together began.

As I mentioned earlier, while hearing the stories of how these soon to be baptized men and women came to finally accept God's pursuit of them and surrender their lives to Him, I couldn't help but think of my parents' story; because it's my story too. Just like my parents grew up with each other, I grew up with God. I grew up with God like He lived next door my whole life. I knew all about Him and of course He knew all about me, but I didn't really want much more than to just know Him and occasionally ask Him for something as one might borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor. As much as I thought I was avoiding true intimacy with God during my childhood and teenage years, God was filling my mind with knowledge of Him, surrounding me with excellent examples of Godly men and women, and consistently exposing me to the work of His Holy Spirit. So when God finally pressed on me to surrender myself to Him in such a way that was irresistible, I paced around the metaphorical car while He sat inside watching me until I finally gave in and shouted out "I LOVE YOU!!!" The best part about this story is that once God claimed me, I already knew Him. I had spent my whole life learning about Him and I was already surrounded with great Godly examples and, without even knowing it, was already on the trajectory toward the work He had planned for me.

I remember being young and foolish and wishing I had one of those cool testimonies like being pulled out of drug or sexual addiction or being a murderer on death row or something equally crazy. Those are exciting stories, but I wouldn't trade my boring love story for any other story out there. I'm blessed with a life long relationship with the God of the universe, and I pray the same story for my children and their children and their children until the day of the Lord comes and we can all kneel together at the feet of the Almighty and lavish Him with gratitude for the amazing grace He poured out on us.
Amen.8

A Rebel with Some Purpose

I'm a pretty rebellious guy. Some of my earliest childhood memories are eating mushrooms my mother told me not to eat, leaving the house early in the morning without telling my parents, peeing in the fake plants at church and generally terrorizing my sisters. These were all, of course, things I had been told multiple times not to do, but that almost seemed to urge me to do them even more. I have a very rebellious nature. What am I rebelling against and why? I'm not sure. Most people who have such a rebellious nature had it beat into them from growing up in abusive or neglectful homes where following the rules meant doing things like

"Put that cigarette out on your arm." 

or 

"Gimme that baseball bat so I can teach your mother a lesson!"

or 

"If you tell anyone what were doing, I'll kill you." 

Me? I never experienced anything close to that. I had two amazing parents who never laid an abusive finger on me. I never lived in the ghetto nor did I ever want for anything. I was always well taken care of, loved and abundantly blessed. But still I rebel. It wasn't beaten into me. I was, it seems, for some reason, born this way. 
You're probably thinking that disobediently eating mushrooms and public urination are hardly examples of a very rebellious child.
Well, I've got more. And to share them all with you would take up more time, space and energy than I'm willing to part with right now. So you're gonna have to settle for some highlights.

In junior high, I used to put thumb tacks on people's chairs.

After watching the movie Hackers with Angelina Jolie, my friends and I decided we were hackers. So we, mostly me, partook in some light computer vandalism at every chance we got. We used to go in to our English teacher's computer when she left the room and viciously delete everything we could. Every time I'd go to the computer section of any store, I'd do whatever I could to totally jack up whatever they had on display. 

One time I even got on my Science teacher's computer and changed the grades of everyone in the class to A's and B's. It was surprisingly easy.

I used to cheat in high school. All the time. I basically cheated my way through all of Chemistry, Algebra II, Business Law (ironic, yes?), and every other class I hated.

One time for a Biology test, I made a tape of myself reading all of my notes and review sheets. And that morning I wore a jacket during the test with the walkman in my inside jacket pocket with the earbuds running up my sleeve so when it looked to the teacher like I was just resting my head on my hand, I was actually listening to the answers. 

I smoked cigarettes.

I snuck out in the middle of the night.

I skipped school. I skipped a lot of classes.

I could tell you a lot more, but I think this proves my point. I was a rebellious idiot. Some of that rebellion was born out of laziness, i.e. it was easier and more fun to cheat than it was to study. But most of it was born out of some innate desire to go against the natural order of things. 

Somehow, during all of this rebellion, I not only regularly attended church and youth group, but I was a born-again believer. I spent regular time in the scriptures and in prayer. I played in the youth worship band. I participated in and sometimes led Bible studies. 

How did I do this? 

How was I able to live such a rebellious life while constantly being exposed to and experiencing the regenerative work and power of the Holy Spirit? 

I think I can answer that. 

Despite the fact that I was living a double, sometimes triple life, God was working on me. He had a plan for me. During those formative years He built into me a wealth of Bible knowledge and understanding, great Godly examples in my parents and some of my friends, a discerning ear to hear the voice and prompting of the Holy Spirit (though I mostly ignored Him or went the opposite way), and a critically thinking mind. He was also touring me around His amazing creation by bringing me to live in and visit places like Hawaii, Philippines, Italy, Germany, Spain, England (and basically all of Western Europe), Poland, Romania, Hong Kong, Guam, the Azores and more. He let me see the ruins of ancient Rome and Florence. I became infatuated with the amazingly intricate details of European cathedrals and old churches. I've seen and secretly touched many of the great artistic masterpieces in Europe. I have a very healthy fear of Gypsies (okay God probably didn't want that one, but they're CRAZY). I've felt the heat of lava flows, cowered during tornadoes, leaned into the winds of hurricanes, watched the earth literally ripple like waves during an earthquake, swam in flood waters, witnessed bright red lightning flash over a pitch black sky at 1 in the afternoon. I've seen the lingering aftermath of the battle of Pearl Harbor. I've walked through the somber streets of the Dachau concentration camp and seen the incinerators and the gas chambers. I've known men who have fought and killed the enemies of America. I've been in Hitler's mountain hideaway (Eagle's Nest). I've looked out over the unending peaks of the Alps. I've swam with hundreds of species of tropical fish surrounding me. I've built sand castles with black and green sands. I've kissed girls on three different continents. 

I'm enormously blessed. God brought me to all of those places. God gave me all of those experiences. God did all that. And I think I know why. 

I'm now a cultured, experienced, young at heart, rebellious man with a heart and passion for God and His people. 

I'm called by God to serve in His church by teaching, building relationships with, and loving His young people -His children. And I think God has a better plan for His church and a better purpose for His people than what we are currently doing. I think God has a part for me to play in the rejuvenation and revival of His church. I think God has built in me such a unique wealth of experience and a desire to break the chains placed on me so that I might serve some greater purpose for His kingdom. 

This may sound arrogant, but I think if all of us are honest, we can look at our lives, our experiences, our strengths, our weaknesses, and begin to see some idea of what God might have in store for us. God tends to use crooked sticks to make straight lines and He's the one who bends us and molds us into just the right amount of crooked that will bring Him just the right amount of glory when He does great things through us. 

Amen.

The Cask of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei

My friend Shawn and I used to drive around in the forest.
He was a "car" guy and was all into street racing and loved taking care of HIS car, not mine, but HIS. Granted, I owned a 1981 Ford Fiesta that, on its last legs, topped out at about 35 mph, but still.
So Shawn would come over to my house and park his (insert cool car adjective here) Jetta in the garage and we would get in my junky, nearly broken slice of car hell and take it on the paths in the forests of southwest Germany and drive around.
It was pretty entertaining and we'd often see some interesting things on the way, but none as interesting as the time Shawn, our friend Kevin and myself took a left where we normally went right and wound up somewhere we really didn't belong.
Before I tell you what we ran into, I should remind you we were in Germany; we were teenagers; Shawn is African American; Kevin and I are not; and we were all stupid.
So there we were one chilly late afternoon near Miesenbach Germany in a white 1981 Ford Fiesta driving around the paths of a beautiful forest, avoiding fallen branches, laughing and joking around, basically having a wonderful time as three free young men on the Earth exploring unknown territory when all of a sudden Shawn starts to slow the car down. Kevin and I start to pay attention and we realize we are on a very skinny, precarious road going down a hill at a rather steep angle. We'd already gone far enough to the point where it would be more dangerous to try and reverse out so we just kept going. As we started to feel a bit safer, we noticed a couple people walking down the hill in front of us. It was two men in dark coats just walking down the hill. As we slowly approached behind them in the car, they both simultaneously turned and looked directly at us.
We waved.
They did not.  
They just stared.
Now to be fair, the staring was normal for us. For some reason I have yet to understand, European people have a much higher tolerance for staring. They will lock eyes with you and even after we Americans reach our time limit for comfortably locking eyes with another human we don't know, they will just keep on going.
So we weren't really taken aback by their staring, even when they both split to opposite sides of the road so we could pass and both of them kept staring directly at us as if piercing into our souls with their dark eyes, we didn't yet feel the gravity of the situation.
Then we turned the next corner and there it was in all it's red, white and black infamous glory. From a man made flag pole sticking up from the dirt flew the one flag that immediately evokes terror, anger and sadness all at once --the flag of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, in English the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or more commonly known around the globe as the Nazis. 
It now became clearer why the two men behind us were staring and even more clear why they had completely shaved heads. Once we were able to unlock our eyes from the least welcoming symbol of all time, we noticed there were about 20 or so similarly attired and hair styled men standing around at the bottom of the hill. Kevin and I were nervous, but I can only imagine the deep, penetrating fear Shawn was experiencing in that moment. Either way, fear or not, Shawn kept driving. I don't know if many people know the feeling of 20 skinhead nazis staring you down, but it is a heavy feeling. Once we passed them and made it out of the forest without saying more than a couple words to each other, we drove straight to my house and just sat for a couple minutes trying to shake off the moment. 
Who knows why we made it out of there without so much as a word or gesture from a group of hate mongers who are not known for leaving people alone, but we did. And even though I was afraid of those men and a little angry that they were still meeting under such a cause as that of the nazi party, there was another emotion that overwhelmed all of those. I knew I did not belong in that place. And it was that feeling that drove Shawn, Kevin and I out of that forest as fast as possible. We did not belong there. We knew what they believed, what they thought about us as Americans and about Shawn as an African American, and we knew we had extremely differing views on most likely everything going on in the world so it was very clear that this was not where we should be. Who knows why they were gathering, but we knew we weren't going to participate or get anything out of whatever their plans were. So we left. 

Isn't that how we all react when we find ourselves mistakenly in a situation where we know for sure that we don't belong? 
It's like when you pick up a glass of what you think is soda and it turns out to be milk. You spit it out.
It's like when you go to quickly hug your Aunt and she gives you a big, sloppy kiss on the mouth.  
It's like when an unbeliever goes to a church and people around them start passionately singing and praying and confessing their sins and the preacher opens up the scriptures and passionately teaches his congregation how to aggressively and lovingly go about the business of reaching their neighbors, friends and coworkers with the truth of Christ. 
...

Right? 

...

That's okay, right? It's okay if their uncomfortable, right? Can I say that?

In fact I think it's true that if an unbeliever attends your church, but never feels like he/she doesn't belong or maybe thinks the people around them are a bit weird with all the singing, praying and confessing, then maybe you're in an ineffective church.
The Gospel is a penetrating force that cuts into the hearts of men and women. The truth of Jesus is not soft or easy to hear. It's powerful, incisive and mind-blowing. So when we take that powerful, incisive truth and soften it up, ease it back a bit so that everybody feels comfortable with it, we are robbing those unbelievers of real truth. We are making them feel comfortable rather than convicted, spiritually assaulted and broken down which is what the raw truth of the Gospel should do to those who have not accepted Jesus as their savior and King. We are dulling the sword of truth until it's about as powerful as the foam swords my daughter and I play with.
Let the Gospel be sharp and powerful. Let the Gospel be what it is. Don't be afraid to make people uncomfortable.
C.S. Lewis, one of the great modern fathers of our Faith said this:
"If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.”

In Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale "The Cask of Amontillado" the villain is able to kill his victim by getting him a little drunk and therefore making him comfortable and oblivious to the fact that he was walking him into a dark basement and brick by brick building a wall around him so he could not escape.

With every watered down, comfortable worship service we attend, we are becoming more and more drunk on the Cask of Comfort and slowly laying brick after brick which will eventually surround us and lock us into a deadly casual, lukewarm faith.

If that nazi flag hadn't been waving, or if those men had seemed the least bit inviting, we may have stopped the car. We may have gotten out and mingled.  
And if we had done that, who knows how that story would have ended.

1,000,000,000,000 Years From Now

I'm 30.

That's hard to read. It's easier to say because I can just say it and it goes away. Thank God I'm not a cartoon where everything I say sits above my head in a white box that I can see.
But when I have to write it out
I'm 30
I have to look at it. And as I look at it, I'm forced to deal with the unchangeable reality that I've been on this Earth for 30 years.
Here are some other facts about me that are strange to look at.
I'm married.
I have two daughters.
I have a career.
I'm chubby.
I'm losing my hair.
That's enough. I can't look at anymore.
I realize that 3 out of 5 of those facts listed are highly sought after by many and are even seen as signs of a successful life, but when I look at them there on the screen, I begin to wonder how long they will last.
Let's start with the marriage thing.
How many people do you know who aren't somehow touched by divorce? Any? I bet you don't.
I bet every person you know is either dealing with divorce themselves or has a family member or close friend who is.
I've been married for 6 years and it hasn't been easy. It's been wonderful in many ways and I love my wife more than anyone on this planet, but we are both human and stupid sometimes.
I'd like to believe that because our marriage is rooted in our similar faith in God that we are going to make it, but I've known many who haven't. Too many.
There is no guarantee.
The same can be said of my children and my career. If my kids survive 18 years on this Earth, they will more than likely leave me and not call or visit nearly as much as I would like.
And one day someone could very easily realize that I'm not qualified for my job and *poof* it's gone.
Marriage, kids, job --meaningless, temporary, a vapor.
Being 30 --meaningless, temporary, a vapor.

Ecclesiastes 1:2

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”

I love my wife and my kids and my work, and I even kinda like the fact that I'm 30, but I realize that all of it will be gone someday no matter how tightly I hold on. 

One day, maybe, I'll be 60, 70, or 80. 

One day, maybe, my work will be done. 

One day, maybe, my kids will leave my house and no longer need me. 

One day, maybe, my wife will leave this Earth, or I will, and our marriage will be over.

So I don't put a lot of hope or faith in any of those things. I don't waste a lot of time staring at the number 30. 

I try and spend my faith and hope on stuff that lasts even beyond my length of time on this Earth. 

I'm looking toward the next trillion years, not the next 50. You should join me.