What's so good about Friday

I can't say this for too much longer but for most of my life I've been a non-believer in the Christian sense.  When I was 19 that all changed, but before then I had some really good developmental years to form some opinions and make some (hopefully mature) observations about the world around me.  One general observation I'd made by that point was that many Christian traditions & celebrations seemed odd and were on the list of reasons of why I'd never become a Christian.  On a more specific note, I never understood the Good Friday thing, and I may not fully understand it years later but here's a go on what I've come to think of it.

I recall a few months into my new found faith I had heard people calling the Friday prior to Easter "Good Friday" and for some reason they were really excited about this season and this Day.  I'd heard of Good Friday before but I didn't really associate it with Easter, or Jesus...prior to being a Christian I didn't really associate most things I saw in christianity with Jesus (that is a whole other post for another time).  Now that I had an encounter with Jesus, I was trying to make everything in my life about Jesus.  This 'Good' Friday was a day as Christians that we are to celebrate Jesus' torture and death!? really??? That perplexed me, I had been learning about how awesome this Jesus in the Bible was, how much He loved me (and everyone), how much I really loved Him and what He had done for me and everyone else; there I stood around a bunch of people who seemed excited that He got the shi...everything beat out of him and was hammered to the best torture/killing device the Romans could come up with (and they had put research into this) and was left to slowly suffocate to death.  "Is that really worth celebrating?" I remember thinking.

There are times, seasons in my life that I wish had turned out another way, that I'm not proud of or that it would be nice, maybe, if it could be written into my life’s story another way. Sometimes because of petty things- I didn't get what I wanted, someone at work wasn't happy with me or other childish, self-centered thinking were the cause of my feeling.  Other times, it was because of encountering those areas in life no one wants to come across, the tragedies that can break us all.  Over the years, a couple of times, I've felt like life beat the shit out of me.  For me the biggest has been the three times that my wife has fought cancer.  No one wants to hear the 'c' word, and when it is close and is someone you love deeply, the wound is that much more deep.

One of my favorite writers, C.S. Lewis, once wrote about hating cancer.  When I first read his words, I didn't understand how one could hate something so nebulous but now I can understand a little more where he is coming from.  Thankfully, today my wife is healthy and cancer free.  As much as we'd like to wipe those seasons of our life away however, they are still real.  While it isn't something that we talk about every day or to everyone all the time, it is part of our story.  In that, it is a part of the story of what God has done, and is doing in our lives. And, the story is good, even with all the mess, pain, doubt...the whole of it.

I recall hearing from a person once that they didn't necessarily dislike the stories that Christian's told of their lives/faith it was what they left out.  It was that they didn't tell the whole story, which in turn, was a lie and they didn't like the lie.  The christians they had encountered had left parts out, not because of discretion or that it wasn't pertinent to what was being shared but because those parts were the difficult, dark parts of the story that the person who had lived them decided they didn't want to include.  Nobody's story is perfect- including God's (read through the Bible, it has ton's of screw-ups) and that is why we have a Good Friday, and a Resurrection Sunday that follows.

I think it comes to this, on its own Good Friday is a very sad day; it is a dark day on the spot of humanity really.  When coupled with Easter however, and an understanding not only of the goodness of Jesus, but why He came and what His mission was Good Friday, as brutal as it was, is part of an overall story that is so much more.  And it is good. Some may say that because of how brutal Friday was, we should just skip over it, pretend it didn't happen, that we should just move on to Sunday and wear pastel colors and hunt for eggs.  I'm sure that some do that, and in doing so, they change the story of who Christ is, and what Easter is about.

After 18 years of being a Christian, I can answer the question I had on my first Good Friday as a believer- yes Good Friday is worthy of remembering and celebrating.  I know now it isn't celebrating defeat, torture or death.  I know that because God the Father raised Jesus from the Dead shortly after the first Good Friday and also like the story of my life, there are parts that are painful, brutal...just flat out crappy but they offer a contrast that illuminates that much more the greatness of who God is, and how much he really loves you and I.

Peace to you on this Good Friday,

Resolved: New Year's Resolutions are a waste of time

We're about halfway through January, which according to my calculations (which is me mostly making crap #'s up, adding them on a calculator and saying "yep I'm right") means a whole lot of people out there have broken many, most or all of their New Year's Resolutions.  My favorites are the ones who joined a gym, worked out 2 or 3 days and won't go back, some of them still paying a monthly due.  When you step back and think about it, it is really silly.  I'd even dare to call it stupid. Either way it is a complete waste of time.  

Back in High School I took debate class, in the class we often did daily resolutions. It was the focal point of the debate or talk.  Mrs. Khan would write, in BIG letters, on the chalk board "Resolved:" and would ask the class what the resolution of the day should be.  As the class went on and we were assigned topics the person or team that was on the affirmation side of the resolution had the privileged of writing on the board.  I still remember writing "Resolved: Why you shouldn't use steroids" and using the opening statement "If you want your balls to shrink, use steroids!".  Have I mentioned that I'm a misfit and I love exploring shock value?  

Over the years I've attempted, and failed most if not all of my, various New Year's Resolutions. Recently I even thought of making a resolution to writing and posting more on this Blog, however I know that it won't work so I'm not doing it.  Will I make more efforts to write, to post here?  Yes.  Will a resolution be the thing that helps me?  No, I know myself, my current commitments, cynicism and drive and honestly, while I'd like to write all day, I won't, at least not with what I have in my life today.  

In the past my resolutions have ranged from the normal stuff like lose weight, eat healthier, save the world, learn to juggle, wake up earlier, or be nicer to people...to more ambitious/strange resolutions that I'm not going to bore you the details of here.  Each time, I find that while I'm eager to get started on these new found pacts of imminent failure, I typically run out of gusto within a week or two.  Sometimes I'm able to hold onto something for a couple months but typically by the start of March I've forgotten that I even made a resolution and I'd be hard pressed to remember what is was for.

So why do so many people fail, why do I say that they are a waste of time?  That is a really good question! I'm so glad that someone smart like you is reading this.  I do know that for some people resolutions are great & they have experienced amazing life transformation as a result of a drunken (or more sober) resolution they made relative to New Year's Eve/Day.  Still, for the rest of us, or at least the people I come into contact with the most, resolutions don't work.  

I believe that the problem isn't that we fail in starting new stuff as much as it is that we fail in ending the things that need ending.

One of the great things about December 31st is that no matter how much you don't want it to, at midnight the day, month and year are over.  It is a great way to start over and really, no matter how much you want to try, you can't get back into December once it is January.  December ended and January started and that is it.  Too many times in areas outside our calendar the things that need to end don't. 

I know someone (several someones actually) who didn't end a relationship in their heart when the relationship ended and many years after the fact found themselves married to someone else, in what seemed to be a good relationship.  Later down their journey, too often in the story, the ex pops back up on the radar and these people I know found themselves in a world of confusion and pain.  Often they made poor decisions, carving out valleys of pain in many peoples hearts and too many times the people I know who didn't end the relationship in their heart when they should have years before were left standing alone once the dust had settled because they pursued ex lovers, forsaking their at that time current partners.  The end should really mean the end.  Driving past the dead end signs because you don't believe them will not keep you safe when the road ends. So too will relationships that should have ended but didn't don't have much hope in their future. 

When I first met my wife, I was dating someone else, my wife had a boyfriend too.  Our story is a whirlwind of a tale in which we went on our first date, not even acknowledging it was a date, less than a month before we were engaged.  It is a fun, crazy story we love telling and retelling over the years.  We were young, in love and in many ways stupid but we knew that we were the right ones for each other.  We also knew that we had baggage and that we had to make sure that we addressed it.  If we didn't, no matter how much we wanted the relationship to work, we would have been doomed.  We needed to make sure that our past relationships were ended.  Almost Seventeen years later, I can tell you had we not ended the things that needed ending properly, we wouldn't have the joy and security in our lives as we do today.  It isn't the only thing that has contributed to a good matrimony for us, but it was something that is part of the foundation.  

Typically when we need to end something, it is one of two basic reasons.  First the purpose or time of the thing has been completed, for example (and I'm over simplifying here) a company gets a contract to build a road, once they finish building the road, they don't need to continue to build the road. Another example is a college student doesn't need to stay in college once they've taken their course work, unless they are going on to advanced studies or they are wanting to do the whole 'lifetime student thing'...either way once the purpose of the 'thing' has come to completion, there is no longer any reason to continue to continue acting on, pursuing, partaking in or whatever else you would do with that 'thing'.  The other side to this, the more difficult and where I've encountered difficulty and seen others struggle as well is ending things because it is time, often before we would like them to end, often when it is out of our control and often when we really don't want it to end.  

Kelly, my wife, and I served as leaders for the college aged ministry at a church we were once at. We had hopes and dreams for the group. One day in our journey it became very clear that our dreams and visions weren't going to happen and that we had to step down, let go and move on. We had to end it.  We didn't want to end it but we knew we had to.  

It wasn't an easy decision, making the decision and executing on it caused pain for us and others.  We spent months talking with wise people we trust, praying, examining ourselves trying to figure out if there was another way, something other than ending our part with the ministry.  In the end there was only one option, it needed to end.  Does that mean that we had to end it badly, with a bunch of drama and venom?  No.  It simply meant that 'thing' in this case, our involvement and leadership related to that ministry and involvement in that faith community needed to end.  So we ended it.  There is a way to end things well and a way to end things very badly, in this case we were able to end well.  In a way that minimized pain, strife and bitterness.  I believe that had we continued to try to make it work rather than ending it, we would have had terrible results.  As difficult as it was, ending it was the proper and right thing to do.

Kelly and I have found ourselves in other situations, big or small where we need to end stuff.  When it is the second reason, that it just has to, is never easy but it is necessarily.  Too many times though I've seen bright and intelligent people make the decision to either not end 'it' or ignore 'it' only to have 'it' turn into 'that' thing in their life that seems to takeover and cause damage in so many other areas.  

I could go on but I won't, at least much more.  

Again, I say resolutions don't really work, they are a waste of time.  I don't think they are the problem.  I believe that the problem isn't that we fail in starting new stuff as much as it is that we fail in ending the things that need ending.  In turn, when we properly end the things we need to end, we can then start the new things that we want/need to start.  When we start doing that better, we may find more success in the new resolutions.

Cheers-