Eddie

I have a fraternity brother, his name is Eddie. Eddie has had a crappy week. I have had crappy weeks. Today, Wednesday was a crappy week for a few hours. I had a hard counseling session with a guy.

This is what I told Eddie. I'm going to read it. Maybe the Lord will speak to me through what I wrote. Sometimes it feels like He does. But really what we should be reading is scripture. In this case the one that inspired this writing was 1 Peter 1:3-12....Now that I look at it verses 13-21. They relate to my last post and to Hebrews 12.

To my friend Eddie;

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Eddie I have sincerely had weeks like the ones you are experiencing. Worse weeks in fact. I share that burden with you. The reality is I, we, will forever have shitty weeks. I--by my own skill, self-reliance, knowledge, and strength--have NOT been able to climb out of weeks like this.

The only thing to pull me out, to give me hope has been the unbridled faith in the love that God has for me by sending His son to the cross a long time ago to pay my debt for the sin I have committed against others AND Him. By Jesus God has brought me into a forgiven and reconciled relationship with him. It has taken repentance, apology and a lot of work, years of it.

It is that new, authentic, REAL relationship with Jesus that I can get through any terrible thing that happens in this life. Because with faith in Jesus comes a hope Eddie, such a hope that one day I will be in heaven with a father who accepts me and loves me. On that day I will enter heaven and all my accusers who say I am a creep and a duesch and lie about me will be silenced. Why?

Because in the eyes of my father Jesus paid the debt for me by his death on the cross. Then by a crazy supernatural, almost unbelievable act He was raised from the dead, overcoming all those who sent him to the cross. He is the only person I have ever heard of in my entire life to completely deliver on ALL his promises. And to meet literally ALL the prophecies of men that lived over 3,000 years before him. (I have read all those ancient writings and Jesus meets all the expectations. That is weird, it is crazy.) I put my faith in that scholarly fact.

The hope to get me through terrible weeks stems from Jesus' miraculous resurrection! I cant explain it. My friend, it gives me in-expressible joy knowing one day--the same day that my accusers will be silenced in fact--I will enter into heaven and i will no longer have weeks like the one you are having.

That hope spurs me on to honor my heavenly father with my life in spite of weeks like this by saying, "Lord, because of what you have done on my behalf, in the midst of the deepest possible pain your grace is sufficient and the hope I have in you is enough."

I share this with you not to persuade you to be a Christian, ultimately that is between you and God. However, I would be overjoyed if the Lord opened your eyes to the truth in this, because honestly Eddie (and hear me now, I mean this with the most genuine sincerity my heart has to give) it is the most authentic and life changing truth that I have ever been met with and it brings me more hope than anything in the world.

I want you to read a story, my favorite story in fact, about a girl named Renee. She experience the power of God's love through a group of people who ended up starting a non-profit called "To Write Love On Her Arms." This is her story.....
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Start at "Begin"

http://www.twloha.com/page.php?id=6

Your friend,

Landon

Snid-bit

This was a blank screen before I began typing. I don't really have much to say. Not because my mind is empty of thought, it's not. It's overflowing in fact. Thoughts of theology, ravaged past, and summer plans.

The Gospel Coalition was awesome. I posted a talk from one of the guys--Tim Keller. That talk illuminated a lot of personal idolatry I have in my life that need to be uprooted. He was right when he said, "Let's not be so naive as to think idolatry is only physically bowing down to a wooden statue." There is soul idolatry as well. You can listen to Keller's sermon on it for a more expounded biblical definition.

It's weird when paper rebukes you. Reading scripture lately I can fully agree with the first point of Calvinism; which is Total Depravity. With that said however, I can also see such an outpouring of grace from the Lord's mouth.

Not the false grace that says, "I love you no matter what you do." (That is not a complete picture of biblical grace I think. ) Rather a true, real, grace that says, "Landon I will break the legs of sheep to keep them from running from me. You need to learn I am your satisfaction, fulfillment, greatest pleasure, highest joy, lasting hope. I am your security." I believe the Lord is bringing me under His righteous discipline.

First by showing me areas of sin of which I NEED to repent. Second by guiding me to confession. Third by repenting (by this I mean turning AWAY from depravity and turning TOWARD sanctification and righteousness that is in Christ.)

This discipline has been a good thing because in it I am learning one thing and gaining confidence in another. I am learning that dying to our sinful nature, our natural ways of living, which are self-pleasing, is good because being satisfied in the Hope of Christ is deeply consoling and inspiring and pleasing and and and. Fill in the blanks. It is. It's peaceful and shockingly restful to indulge in Christ. As for the confidence, Hebrews 12 speaks clearly that the Lord's discipline is a good thing because it confirms our inheritance. If you are a parent, teacher or coach I'm sure you can agree with the following story.

In high school I had a baseball coach who often said, "I'm yelling at you because I want you to be better. If I'm not yelling at you be worried because that means I have given up on you." I think that is biblical and I think it parallels the Lord's heart in regards to our growth. Read Heb 12 and you'll see.

I don't want to expound too much on it because honestly the scripture can speak for itself and God's word is what matters. I suppose the more vague I make this entry the better than. Because that would force you to read the scripture references to try and figure out what on earth I am talking about.

Ahh just kidding. But do read the scripture.

So this would be a small, micro-cosmic, snid-bit of a life update.

John Mark McMillan

Get ready to cry

Idolatry

Last week I went to Chicago for the Gospel Coalition. I will shamelessly drop a few names of the guys who taught at it. Ready? Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Josh Harris, C.J. Mahaney, D.A. Carson, Ligon Duncan, Ajith Fernando, ect. ect. ect. Needless to say it was awesome.

The following is the link to Tim Keller's talk on Tuesday. It was about idolatry and it rocked me.

The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry

1:37

I am getting up at 8am and have breakfast with John. He is one of my besties. After than I am playing disc golf all day until 2pm (read the quote by Shel Silverstein from earlier today). Then I have work from 3-11pm. I need to quit that job.

...It is 1:39am now. It was 1:37am when I began writing this.

Point is I need to go to sleep.

Want to hear something funny though? When I wake up I wont need to drive over to John's house to pick is car-less self up for breaky-fast (that means breakfast, ie the first meal of the day) because I am going to fall asleep on his living room couch in a second.

Jessica is a breakfast eater. She says she is not one of those people who can forgo on that meal. I like that about her. I like most things about her. Even her hair color, whatever color she decides to keep it. (I will be getting a smile from her about this.)

....Unless maybe she dies it aqua blue, then we might have a problem. Just kidding, but seriously.
....Actually now that I think about it I wonder if I would dig the blue?

Crap its 1:44am now. I am going to cry. Don't take anything I just said seriously. I am going to bed....or couch rather.

I Know You Like to Think

This is a song by OutKast-Roses
"I know you'd like to thank your stuff don't stank
But lean a little bit closer
See that roses really smell like boo-boo
Yeah, roses really smell like boo-boo"

I think we all should realize the inflated version we have of ourselves is faulty. We are not as firm and strong as we like to think. We are easily broken, like toys. We need at times. We are children in so many ways. This is something I have been learning.

Tonight I listened to a young lady speak about some truth. The truth and weight of what she said sat down in front of me, stared at me for a few moments before opening its mouth to ask, "Why wont you melt for the God that created you?"

"I suppose I am a fighter" I answered. "I have been sinned against and I am trying to live the best and strongest way I can. I am taking control of my life and getting it back in order."

The truth is I am fragile and broken. I was offended and I am now. not only putting up fortresses in defense to a messed up world. (This fortresses are in the form of my attitudes toward things; ie my self-reliance, skepticism, pride and self-esteem.) I am also indulging in music, sin, friends, activities, and attitudes that bring me peace, euphoria, joy, stabilization and protection. It is all managed and manicured to bring Landon what Landon wants. Comfort. "Growth." "Manicured Growth" I call it.

Can you relate?

We all give ourselves lordship over our lives at times. Often times because, at some point down the road a long time ago or recently, we got burned. We often create our own religion, philosophy, or worldview that "works for us." Universalism.

For Christians it is one part true biblical Gospel, and two parts "exception." Exception meaning, "I deem myself the exception in crazy situations therefore I conclude that I have the privilege of expanding on the Gospel to fit my circumstance." Catering to fit what we want to believe.

Can you relate?

You are not the exception, trust me. Go ask a counselor your story and ask if yours is any more unique than the general populous. Then after shelling out that $150 to get that question answered begin to read your bible and seek out what Jesus says about you. You may find it interesting, as do I, to see that you are much like the people He interacts with in the Bible. Read John 8:1-11. We are at times the Pharisees and the woman.

Here is the point in all my scatter brained thoughts. We can all relate to being sinned against, and to sinning against. We need to learn we are broken and our outlook on life is very flawed. For this reason we need Jesus.

We need to base our life on what He says. Why? Because He was resurrected after saying he would be in the witness of groups of people who documented seeing him alive after they saw him dead.

We cannot afford to come up with our own world view. We cannot become so reliant on ourselves that we forge past acknowledging and fearing the God who tailored us together and wants to take care of us out of unbridled love for us.

OutKast had a good thought when they called us out on being too arrogant. But Matt Chandler has a better one. He tells us that even though we are messed up and broken we can still be loved, redeemed, rescued, saved from the filth we has committed and the filth that has been committed to us. There is more to his message, I would encourage you to watch more of his stuff. Start with the video below.

Roses.

Susan Boyle rocks my Knickers

Britian has talent. I watched this video of my friend Susan, I met her on line....Okay so that is a lie, I don't know Susan and I didn't meet her online. I also did not find this video. I stole it from my friend Barrett who I met online. That is a lie too, I didn't meet Bear online. I did meet him once upon a time though, and now we are friends. He is in a band of musicians called See The Light. I know they are going places because they are on myspace.com....yeahyers its a big deal.

Introducing Susan....
Susan Boyle you tear my heart out.

It's pronounced "Zac Efron"

Because of this video I am now a fan of the star of High School Musical 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and soon to be released College Musical 1: The Freshman 15.

Enjoy this, family and friends...

Zac Efron

Ghost Ride The Whip

This is Sean's new chariot....

MiniUSA

Discipleship

I was speaking with a friend at work today. He is hesitant to follow my blog. I assured him he would still be a normal human being if he decided to do so. He was fearful about becoming a disciple of my blog. I on the other hand am not fearful at all. In fact I think its biblical.

His name is Sean.....pray for him.

There Is A Place

"There is a place where the sidewalk ends,
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind."
— Shel Silverstein

This place is called the Disc Golf Course. This week I will call it home.

TWLOHA.com

To Write Love On Her Arms

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.

She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.

The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.

She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.

I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes

more

Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.

She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.

On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.

Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.

After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.

She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.

As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.

We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.

We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.

I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.

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Holy Sonnet # 14

In my English class we are reading through the poetry of John Donne. He was born in 1572 and died in March of 1631. Despite his great education and poetic talents he lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He grew up Catholic but later converted to Anglican.

Many of his early poems were erotic in nature dealing with very unconventional metaphors. However, in his later years his poetry began to transition to taking a more Christ-centered theme. In 1615 he became an Anglican priest and, in 1621, was appointed the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Of the many poems we are reading this is one of my favorites.

John Donne's Holy Sonnets #14

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'er throw me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new,

I, like an usurped town, to another due,

Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captive, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betrothed into your enemy,

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor chaste, except you ravish me.

Reconcile

In the context of this post I define "reconcile" as figuring out.

I have been challenged lately with a lack of confidence and doubt.

A lack of confidence in my discernment, other believer's advice, words, actions and namely wisdom. I have been closed to what I will listen to and who it comes from. I think this is wise and prudent. The problem is lacking confidence in others is closely followed by a lack of grace.

Doubt of the stand-alone transformational power of the Gospel to our actions and habits.

A lack of confidence in other's discernment.

A lack of confidence in the general held theology of my peers, most christian music, books and sermons.

Doubt in the active work of Jesus in my life now, each day.

Even doubt in the validity of Christ. At this doubt is where I will stop and make an observation. I have been trying to "reconcile" (figure out) Christ to my logic. Trying to figure out the Gospel in light of what I know, what I experience and what I observe about my microcosm of culture. Instead I should be "reconciling" my life in light of Christ's finished work a few thousand years ago and the word of all the prophets a few thousand years before Him! I should recognize He was not just a man who lived and died for my sins. Stopping there is one of the greatest lies of Satan in our world today. Yes Jesus did live then die for my sins, but then He was raised by the power of the Holy Spirit to sit at the right hand side of God in a place called Heaven. In the Resurrection we see the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the core and climax of the Gospel. It is the confirmation of our faith in Christ's redemptive work and active power in our life now, each day.

Another observation. The reason why I am experiencing some of these doubts is because I have not been being "transformed by the renewing of my mind" which comes through, not only reading scripture--both Old and New Testaments, but by also studying and memorizing it. It being scripture. Paul encourages us to do this.

The reason why I am sharing all this with anyone who so cares to read this blog is to spur you on. To show you what happens as a result of "taking time off" or "letting your guard down" to phrase it in a more warfare sense. However you decide to phrase it the point is we must consistently stand firm on the truth of the Gospel, remain hydrated by scripture, and steady in the pursuit of Christ.