Something Stopped Me in My Tracks (1)

Impromptu "Date Night" with a couple of other couples.  That is how we travel these days, in couples of couples.  We went downtown to see an Improve Comedy group and then decided to grab one last drink and sit on a roof deck bar to enjoy the summer's cool night air.  As we walked the roof deck scanning tables to see if one was open or opening soon, I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye.

Nothing looks quite like the greenery of rolling hills and small stone and mortar houses of France.  The screen was blurry with green fields with only one thing in focus: a man on a bicycle.  "The Tour."  I stopped, turned my head fully to the right and looked at the TV full on.  My accompaniment, not seeing me stop dead in my tracks, continued the hunt for a table top big enough to sit all of the couples.  There was no sound, no closed captioning, so I had to go off of the small writing on the corners of the screen to show what race it was, what country it was in and what leg it was.  Nothing I could glean of the TV helped my anxiety.  Then I turned to the background.  I tried to spy any flag or sign or anything that would give me a hint as to where it was.

A couple of minutes later, my wife comes up to me and asks me, "has the Tour started already?"  I had no clue.  We both sat there, glued, until it finally went to commercial and flashed some other series logo.  "Phew," we both let out as the pressure of possibly missing the first leg of the Tour left our shoulders.

The rest of the night was filled with great couple-conversations smattered with laughs, memories and me quizzing my wife on the limited information we knew about the Tour.

You see, we knew nothing about the Tour last year.  Well, we knew as much as every other American, "It's a bike race around France and Lance Armstrong dominates it every time he is in it*" (asterisk included for reasons widely publicized).  Last year while sitting at a Happy Hour, we had a cycling enthusiast friend fill us in on all the things going on during the race.  It is fascinating.

The race, the teams, the jerseys, the course.  It was fun to follow along with what was going on.  Soon, we were the only table that was loudly cheering the projected images on the wall.  Someone would make a break or a pass, and we would cheer and make loud zooming and whooshing noises.  Needless to say, we stood out.  The biggest distraction to the other bar customers was the sprint to the finish when we were all standing up and cheering on the guy trying to catch, pass the leader and win his first ever leg.  It almost happened and with a loud and boisterous "AWWWWWW, man he was sooooo cloose!" we sat, paid and then eventually parted ways with the bar.  However, we never really parted ways with the Tour.

We watched every leg we could and picked our favorite guys and it became THE sporting event to get us through the low valley between the Stanley Cup Finals and the beginning of College Football.

NDC Stories

"There is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity."

Leonard Ravenhill

"If you live a life on continual mission, you are going to suffer."

Bernie Boudreaux

The second time I heard God speak was on a summenr afternoon in my parents kitchen when I was drunk.  I had hit bottom.  And in that dark pit of dispare, I cried.  I cried out, I yelled, I paced, I shook my fist.  And God answered.  That moment was the beginning of the journey that sets me before you today.

Shortly after that moment, I moved to Texas.  I started going to church and I started to see what it meant to be "Christian."  I saw men in suits with beautiful wives, well behaved and well dress children who seemed to be unshakeable.  To me, at that moment, they looked like they had it all together, they knew all the answers, they had all the keys.  I thought to myself, "I cannot wait until I know God, the bible, the church, and myself like they do.  They must live an awesomely blessed life and must feel like walking through double rainbows all day, everyday."

Little did I know then, those men and women didn't have all the answers.  They didn't live carefree and double rainbow filled lives.  Little did I know then, they had issues, problems, vices, temptations, bad behaviors and some lived a life almost totally devoid of daily interaction with God.  They cleaned up on Sundays real nice though.

Now that I have been through years of trials, tribulations, defeats and victories, I know that the relationship that I have with God is something I have worked hard to gain.  I dug into Him deep at times when I couldn't hear his voice.  I gained insight, wisdom and freedom over the issues that held me back from diving deeper into the ocean of God's grace and it didn't come easy.  Days were not filled with double rainbows, or even rainbows.  But rather filled with the prescense and knowledge of God while enduring some pretty nasty garbage.

If you have loved God for any length of time, you know what I am talking about.  If you are just starting out on your journey with Jesus, relish these early days.  The days of first meeting God and being enamered with who He is, what He is like, how He loves you and ultimately who you are to Him.  Draw as close as you can.  Linger in His presense for as long as you can.  Lift your hands, cry out to Him, dance, get wild and crazy because the sweetest time of any relationship is the meeting and getting to know you period.  No one thinks new believers are weird when they do crazy things, they are new.  We all need to retain those feelings for the length and bredth of our relationship with God.

To the young and old in Christ, never be complacent with where you are with God today.  Whether you have tasted victory over this world or if you are pushing, striving, looking, hoping and praying for that day, draw close to God.  When running a race, after you cross the finish line, you stop.  The christian life is a race, but overcoming an addiction, a bad behavior, family issues, doubts and unbelief is not the finish line.  Gaining victory over those things just to stop at what you thought was the finish line will end your growth as a man or woman of God.  This race, our race, is not done until we meet Jesus seated on His throne.

So what does this look like in my life?

If you have talked to me for ten minutes, then you probably know two things about me: 1) I love college football (specifically Texas football), almost as much as I love my wife; 2) I really, really, REALLY don't like my job.

My job is a burden to me.  I don't find life, passion, excitement or even a sense of satisfaction in a job well done there.  For the last couple of years, I have been complaining to my friends, family, D Group, Crown Class and now ... you.

Taking the angst down a notch, do I feel like God gave me this job?

When Rebeeca and I moved here in 2009, I was out of work for about six months.  During those months, I prayed that God would find a place for me in a company where I could shine my light, witness and live for God boldly, a place where I could live and work on continual mission.  I believe that He placed me in this job.

Outside of New Denver Church where is my greatest investment in people?  My company.
Where is my greatest opportunity to witness to non-believers and the unchurched?  My company.
It was once said to me, that if you live a life on continual mission, that you are going to suffer.
Great.  What do I do with that?

I dig in.  I dig deep into God.  It is hard for me to hear God's voice in the midst of all of my voices constantly complaining.  I can make quite the racket when I want to.  I do not want to abandon my mission field which God gave me before He has reeped the benifits of giving it to me and given me something else.  So, I continue sowing into the field that feels like an asphalt parking lot at times.    I push for opportunities of greatness in my life, in the life of my coworkers and bosses, all the while listening hard for the voice of God to tell me what to do next.  I shake off complacency like a winter coat and run towards God.

I really wish that this story was wrapped up with three easy steps for you to follow and an exclaimation point rather than the question mark or ellipses that I have for you today.  But, life is not like that a lot of the time.  Our stories are continually moving, changing, shifting and we along with them.  I believe the take home message is that in the midst of the our missions, which can feel like suffering, we need to listen for God as much as we did the day that we first believed.

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you today.  I appreciate it.

Beliefs like Jenga

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

-Isaac Newton

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

- Jeremiah 29:12-14 

 
What are your toughest questions? The questions that grind on you, that gum up the works, ceaselessly irk the iron of your mind, the nagging thoughts which buoy you up in the depths of God's grace, the paved parts of your heart that stymie growth.

I believe there are answers, solutions, frameworks, theologies out there that will help answer and, sometimes more importantly, identify these questions that end up holding us back from delving deeper. But, at the same time, are the answers themselves what allow us to dive deeper with God?   Will they free us up to get to know Him as He truly is to us?  Will the answers unplug our ears and allow us to hear our Shepard’s voice?

The problem isn't in finding answers; there are millions of answers out there to suit whatever you want to hear.  The problem is in identifying the problem. Hearing the rattle in the engine and feeling it plod along the freeway is easy. Pulling the engine apart and finding the bent push rod is the difficult part.

When I first started being discipled, I had no questions. I knew there was something holding me back from diving deeper with God, yet had no idea what it was.  I had agreed to meet with Bernie, my mentor, and placed myself across the table from this man for a reason.  But I had nowhere to begin. Bernie and I met every week. We talked. He assigned homework, readings, booklets and writings and I completed them all to the best of my ability. And then we met again go over what I had completed and do it all over again.

It went like that for months. Months of reading, talking, homework, figuring out what I believed why I believed it, and how I could back it up with reason, answers, verses, philosophies, dogmas, boyhood experiences and general feelings. I thought he was just poking and prodding around in me identify and isolate the problems. I felt like he was doctor trying to complete a MRI from the outside of the body with nothing more than a stick and a notepad.  He wasn't.

What he was doing was showing me the wall of beliefs I had carefully constructed around my relationship with God.  The more we met and talked, the more he would gently push the blocks to see which ones were loose.  If he found a loose block, he would push, pull and slide the weak piece it out of the wall.  He never replaced any of the blocks; he pulled out weak information and left the void.  Eventually, all of the missing blocks left my conception and perception of God feeling weak and rickety. The slightest shift in the spiritual wind and my wall of beliefs would move to and fro as a palm tree in a hurricane. I could feel that I was no longer "sure" in my specific beliefs about God.  My belief in God never wavered, it was my specific view points that were carefully constructed
I stayed in that weakened state for a couple weeks as we continued to talk about God. His Grace. His righteousness. And Who I am in God's eyes. How I communicate and related to a being that created me.

Then, it all fell down.  I sat there. In church. On a Sunday like every Sunday before it and it happened. As I worshiped and sang songs I had sung before, He showed up. With my eyes closed, I saw Him. Standing there. Like I had never seen Him before. As the rest of the congregation filed down the aisles to celebrate communion, I hit the ground on my knees. I celebrated one of my first meetings with Jesus that day. Weeping, sloppering, snot dripping down my face, I was never happier to meet the God that I had searched so hard for and had finally found. Right there in the church. Who knew, He was there all the time?

The wall that I had built surrounded God.  I had imprisoned Him in the beliefs that I had set around Him.  He was trapped and was only allowed to operate in the ways in which I let Him.
I thought my mentor was destroying the wall of my beliefs to build them back up, but what was really happening was something more delicate and deliberate than I could have imagined. He made all of the arguements and assumptions that I had built around God weaker and removed just enough blocks so that God could show Himself through the wall until, ultimately, I tore down what I had built up in order to get to Him.

What have I learned is this: whatever someone can convince you of, someone else can un-convince you. Jesus, God, Christianity are no ideas to give accent to in order to gain the access to Heaven. Christianity is a living relationship with the living God. Once you have been introduced to God, who could unconvince you that who you met was not God? Who would or what could bribe you into forgetting the powerful and meaningful relationship you have with Jesus? Nothing.
That day was a game changer.

No longer did I just think about God, pray to Him, learn systems of thought that I could tightly wrap up with three memorized verses which I could translate into Greek and make sense of in my head and explain to an unbeliever, but I met God. I knew His face, heard His voice, touched His robes. Everyone in the Gospels that meet Jesus are changed. They either go away blessed or jaded, but they do not go away unchanged.

I believe there is an answer for your toughest questions. The answer is not "Jesus" as we were taught in church, but rather the answer is: the heart of God for you. Getting through our walls of beliefs is usually difficult and it demands of you your whole heart.  Meeting God is something that every believer and cultural Christian needs to do.  How is it that we have lived so long without God?  The living God that has input for us everyday, every moment who wishes to be with us, upon us and in us all.

 

Living like a snail in our shell.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world."

- Marianne Williamson

 

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

-Ephesians 2:10

 

In a large conferance room full of people, I found myself lazily looking around the room for someone with their hand raised.  The pastor leading the service had taught us about God's Kingdom, His love for us and His desire to see us whole.  At the end of the teaching, he asked to have people with cancer raise their hands so that the congregation can pray for them.  This was supposed to empower the people listening with boldness and to provide us a safe environment to pray for the sick to see them healed.

 

It isn't that I didn't believe him.  I did believe him.  I did believe that God can, does and will invade this world for our benefit, but I found myself not running to a person with their hand up.  Was I scared?  Was I afraid that I would lay hands on someone and ask God to move and He wouldn't?  Or was I afraid that He would?

 

The world is a messed up place.  You cannot generously give someone on the street corner a $5 bill without thinking that he "will buy booze with it," you cannot help someone load groceries into their car because you think they will think you will steal their stuff, their car or even kidnap them.  The world actively causes us to curl up farther into our shell.  It pushes us into isolation.  It makes us think that the only life you can affect in a positive way is your own.

 

In my shell, I walked around that conference room.  "Oh, that person has 10 people already praying for them, they are good."  Then walking a little farther, circling around the outside of the room because everyone had moved into the middle to find those with their hands raised.  I was actively trying not to find someone.  But, as luck (or God) would have it, someone walked into the door at the back of the room right in front of me. 

 

Don't put your hand up, don't put your hand up...  Boom.  Oh. Man.  His hand goes up.  He was in the bathroom, but had heard the challenge / opportunity to be healed. 

 

I am gregarious, so I started to chat with him about what his name was, where he was from, what he had been diagnoised with, how bad it was, all the while encouraging him to keep his hand up because God is going to need more than the two of our faiths.  Another couple people started to come near, so we (read: I) asked them to join us.  We covered the small talk again with the others, and then we started to pray.

 

I do believe that God is actively seeking opportunity to work through us to change the world.  I do.  I think He interceeds for us on a daily basis and is talking to us in a soft whisper all of the time.  Maybe this is why we have a hard time being in complete silence.  We are unconciously turning up the noise so that we cannot hear the whispers of God. 

 

We hear the less frequent yelling of God alright, but the subtle whispers of daily direction, challenge and opportunity are something we drown out.  Why do we do this?  I believe it is so we do not see the worth of random strangers.  So that we don't have to put ourselves out there when we don't want to be hurt.  We don't have to say the difficult thing, to reign in our daily desires to do what we want, to crawl out of our shells and see the world for what it really is: broken.

 

As we prayed, we pulled together all of our belief that this could happen.  He moved around not feeling much different.  We prayed again.  Nothing seemed to happen.  He thanked us and we all went our seperate ways.  Just then, I heard screaming.  Not bad screaming, but good screaming.  The screaming of "Holy crap that tumor in my neck just disappeared!"

 

God was in the building and we all knew it.  I was suddenly faced with something that I was not prepared to deal with, and yet it was there the whole time.  The fact that this is real.  This can happen.  The concept moved from the "I believe" part of my brain to the "it is" part.  Reality set it and I was faced with one overwhelming fact: what I believe, what I say, what I pray, who I pray for, all matter.  Not just to me, but to the people around me.  The world became very big.  All the world's problems became mine.  In this one moment, I had inherited something that was already mine: the broken world.

 

I believe that this realization is key to every believer's experience.  We need to understand and know that God loves us as much as He loves everyone else.  To the people that don't know Him, He wants us (read: you) to introduce them to Him.  How?  He will tell you, show you, whisper to you how, we just need the ability to hear Him.  Whether it is praying for their broken leg, buying a homeless man breakfast, "reading someone's mail," mowing your neighbor's lawn, rebuking the crazy guy's demons or insulting your local barista by calling them out on their stuff, He will tell you.  All you have to do is realize that the person is in your broken world and you have the power to introduce them to the living God.  The God that saved you from your mess.  The God that heals not only the inside, but the outside as well. 

 

Once you have that realization, you can do one of two things: move forward and grow into a deeper relationship with God or stop where you are, cover your eyes and try to back out of the room you just walked in to.  After you see something, you cannot un-see it.  Once God has revealed it to you, you cannot put the viel back over it.  You have to deal with it, process it, weep over it and then accept it and boldly move on into the Kingdom.

 

When I first realized this, no joke, people on crutches were everywhere.  On the street as I drove by, in front of me in line, on the bus, on my friends.  Seriously, they were everywhere.  I had the overwhelming feeling that all of these people could be healed if I only had the faith and the boldness to step up and pray for them.  To introduce them to the living God.  I felt a responsiblity for them.  They were no longer strangers, but rather opportunities for God to work. 

 

What did I do?  I closed my eyes and tried to back out of the room.

 

I am not proud of it, but that is the truth.  Admittedly, I sat on the sidelines watching my friends go for it on the field.  I watched as others boldly went out and sought every opportunity for the Kingdom to invade others' circumstances.  I saw people healed, delivered, and I saw nothing happen as well.  Amazingly people are blessed that total strangers would interupt their lives with an awkward opportunity for greatness. 

 

I have since embraced the fact that the world is bigger and more messed up that I can imagine, however, I know the One that can fix it.  God took mercy on me.  He took me back to the beginning.  He closed my eyes to the crutches and wheel chairs and leg-less and took pity on me.  We started over. 

 

I have since peaked through my fingers at the world around me.  I have prayed for people and seen nothing happen.  I have also prayed for people and seen something happen.  God is good.  All the time, He is good. 

 

Everyday is a new opportunity to speak into the darkness in the lives of the people around us, to walk in the good works that He prepares for us.  Each moment is pregnent with the possiblity for greatness.  Who knows what will happen next.

 



Like the Shadows of Great Men - The Jesus Year

When I turned 27, I began to compare myself to famous men who have died during their year that I was currently living.  It started at the age of 27.  For some reason, many young stars burned out and exploded before they could reach 28. 

I would walk in the forest of shadows of lives past and find one to inspire me to live a rich, fulfilling, challenging life.  Each year, I compared, took measure, held up my life in comparison to theirs.  Last year, it began to become more serious.  Thirty-two is the year of the Dragon.  The year of Bruce Lee.  Stated as one of the most "Badass of the 20th Century," (Badass, Ben Thompson) the bar was set high and I could see how far I was below the bar.  I could see the shadow of his life envelop both my body and my shadow.  I shivered to think that we had nearly spent the same amount of time in the world and he accomplished so much. 

I watched Spike's special on Bruce Lee, "I am Bruce Lee" and was inspired, or rather disgusted, by my lack of enthusiasm for life.  My life was nice, quiet, peaceful, relatively stress free, but it missed that sense of adventure, manliness, epic-ness that Bruce Lee seemed to live on a daily basis as an undercurrent to his entire being.  For crying out loud, he had muscled wings under his arms pits.  All I have is hair and soft skin.  I don't even think I have those muscles.

To remedy the situation and to try to gain some ground on the Dragon, I started to take practical steps towards regaining some of what I had never had, but Bruce had left for me.  I signed up for the Colorado Tough Mudder, I began crossfit and watched, listened, learned everything I could about Bruce Lee.

The Tough Mudder came, I conquered it (but nearly did not).  The training did not prepare me for the metal aspect of what the obstacle course is.  The hills (read: mountain, because it was in Colorado at a ski resort), the elevation, electrocution, snow, water, mud and walls taught me that I am tougher, stronger, deeper, grittier than I could have imagined.  It gave me a sense of just what I could do, what I could accomplish, what I could affect.  I was actually like water.

My Bruce Lee Year ended.  I had learned a lot.  I had tested myself physically more than almost every other year of my life.  Now I was looking forward to the next year, the next challenge, the next person that I would judge myself against in order to challenge myself by their standard, by their legacy. 

Thirty-three is an interesting year as far as the smattering of people whom passed during their third year after the big "three oh."  There are a couple of choices to choose from, but I picked a person that would set the bar as high as I could: Jesus of Nazareth.

How can I compare myself to Jesus?  Physically what could I do?  What about spiritually?  What about relationally?  These questions have been in my head and in my heart since February.  What I want to find out was: who was Jesus.  Who was he to himself, to his family, to his friends, to his government, to his boss, to his homeless guy on the street near his house?  And then how can I gain inspiration from that to change my life.

Easy?  No.  Good?  Yes!  I think this year will be a fantastic adventure.  A challenge to not only find out who Jesus was, but how would he act in the overall situations of my life.  Would he walk out on his job to find a group of men to invest in and then go out and change to world by introducing the darkness to the light and watch as God invades peoples' circumstances?  That is what he did, but how do I compare my life, my circumstances, my journey to his?

This will be fun.

This will be hard.

This will be good because he is worthy.  Worthy of emulation and so much more.

Like a New Book

Sitting down.  Getting comfortable.  Settling in.  Picking up a new book is an interesting and unique feeling.  If you are reading it for the first time, you have no idea what kind of journey you are about to embark on.  Yet, you know enough about the book to be pick it up and snuggle into your favorite chair or coffee shop to invest your life into it.  You have weighed your life without this tale and with it and have decided that the time lost consuming the pages is nothing compared to your life with these stories, characters, victories and loses.

For me the hardest part of the book is the last ten pages.  In movie terms, this is the last scene just before the credits start to roll.  It is after the climax, where the plot is resolved.  The losers have lost and the winners have won.  The only thing left is the final resolution.  All the strings are tied neatly into one cord.  Sometimes there is a one string left unresolved or cut loose from the rest at the last moment to get you hooked for the next movie, but I think this is greedy.  Just finish the book already.

I feel like getting to know God is like reading a new book.  We hear about Him from others in our lives, from ladies with big hair on TV, in music and from the echoing well deep within us.  One day we sit down, focus and open the relationship with Him to see where it will lead us.

The beginning are the character introductions.  This is God.  God.  This is me.  Then the setting starts to get laid out.  Where are you in life, who else is around you, what are the circumstances of your existence, what are your struggles, your faults, your failures.  I don't think God is interested in nature anymore.  He created the mountains, seas and animals, enjoyed them, saw a million sunsets and then decided to create man.  He wanted someone else to enjoy them.  He wanted to enjoy someone else enjoying them, like a chef watches the critic scoop up the first soup full of soup or a mustached custom bike builder has a big reveal of his new creation and revs the engine so that everyone can feel the power.  I think He sees the settings of our lives not in location, but in station.  Who are we surrounded by, who do we influence, who influences us.

The conflict is already in the setting of people, but God starts to work.  The conflicts are resolved.  Small ones, big ones, ones we didn't even know existed.  The conflict resolution stage of my life lasted a long time.  My conflicts are never done, but after the beginning stages, I feel like the conflicts are less of the story and the relationship that has begun becomes the spot light. 

No longer does my life revolve around conviction, confession and accountability, but it becomes about living in the victory that has been gained.  The adventures are not longer internal, but they become external.

I think that this is where a lot of people stop growing because the story stops becoming about me and God and starts becoming about God and you.  The main character in my story, me, becomes the vehicle of introducing people to God and getting them find a fire place, a comfy chair, a coffee shop with a corner window and to open their books.

Our lives after that moment are never the same.  They may not be the adventures of David, Samson, Rambo or the 300, but we are never the same.

Your story with God is always evolving and always changing.  I missed this for the first part of my life.  I thought the book of my relationship with God was a short story.  I read it.  I knew it.  I recounted it every time that I recited my testimony in front of others.  I thought it was published, bound and sealed for His glory.  Little did I know that my story with God was like the unresolved stories that frustrate me unceasingly.  The story evolves, grows, dies, changes venues, characters, scenes and plots.  It flows like a storm cloud across the blue sky of Montana.  The wind pushes, pulls, up-heaves and saturates me with no end. 

I think the thing that I crave the most is the adventure.  Sure, there was a stage of my life where I only wanted the pain to stop and never thought it would.  But then it did.  Then I was bored.  Then I was challenged, and challenged and then challenged some more by God and the people around me.  Hell can be other people, but so can God.

My story is never over until it is over.  He will never say I am done, until I am done.  To get to hear those words is my goal, my dream, my desire.

Like that

I sat there.  In an overcrowded Starbucks east of campus.  I was nowhere near my comfort zone.  I didn't like burnt bean soaked water.  I didn't consume products from the chain in which I was holding an empty table.  As a matter of fact, I was in the beginning stages of a life-long boycott of that particular chain coffee distributor; but, it is where he wanted to meet.  So I set my convictions aside and obliged graciously.  Like a good Christian should.

I saw him come in before he saw me.  A short, staulky man wearing an old beat up LSU ball cap and glasses.  I stood quickly as he approached so that he knew that I was the one he was meeting.  We had met once before, but it was at a party, so I doubted he would remember me.  I slid the chair back so fast it banged into the girl behind me, helping her spill her drink down her front.  I turned to apologize adamantly.  Then I turned back and he was standing there, with a smile from ear to ear.

"What happened, champ?"

As I tried to explain what happened with the chair and the crowd and her drink, he was instantly talking to her.  "What did he do?  Awww man, you ruined this girl's shirt.  Why did you do that?"  He said this chuckling with an aggressively firm punch to the arm.  He spent the next few minutes talking to the girl and her friend while I stood there, hovering.  I was standing over the entire conversation like I was sitting in the cheap seats watching this all go down.  An observer of a situation that I caused.  A muted participant as they bantered about this and that.  Poking fun at me with a sly realism that made it acceptable to do so.

After the introductions, laughs and other random comments on tattoos, everything was smoothed over.  They let me go without paying for dry cleaning or buying a new shirt, both his ideas.

He looked at me with the same huge grin as we sat and said, "You want something?  I am buying."

Great.  This is off to a fantastic start.  I explained my position on coffee and the current franchise boycott was was involved in.  He listened.  He laughed, got up and got himself a coffee and sat back down after making it through the twenty person line backed all the way out the door.

As he sat back down, we started discussing why this meeting was taking place.

I had moved to Texas two years prior to that meeting.  In those two years I went from drunk pot-dealing surf bum to good Christian student.  After doing the "good" thing for two years, I felt a thirst.  A drawing.  A pushing, pulling, yearning for something deeper, something more, something hard to explain, that thing that we all know what it is, but cannot explain.  It is the feeling that you have when you get to the last chapter of a novel and you want to know how it ends or and what happens to the characters you have grown to know and love.  No one can put a book down on the last chapter.  No one can walk out on a movie when it looks like the good guy is going to lose.  It is the feeling of needing more, needing to see the turn, to see the where the end will end.

I needed to know more of Jesus and his disciples and what He wanted of me before I could spend another Sunday in a pew, or Thursday night in a meeting or Wednesday morning feeding the homeless.  I couldn't take settling for the mediocre Jesus that everyone seemed to have tucked in their back pocket.  I knew there was more to the story, more to Him, more to me than to settle for that.  I just didn't know how to get it.

After voicing my concerns and gripes to my friend, she recommended her father who was a pastor of a small home church.  He knows guys, he loves teaching people, he is a ... um ... motivator?

I thought it was worth a try.  Hell, anything was better than sitting in another "What would Jesus Do" symposium with three steps to better your life.

So here I am.  In the place I was not comfortable, disgruntled in where I was as a christian and having embarrassed myself mere moments before meeting a man that could potentially change my life.  This is how life is, isn't it?  Right before something great happens, you are made to feel upset, placed in an uncomfortable spot, embarrassed and then it hits you.  An opportunity of a life time.  Granted, some of this is shear coincidence, but I see it too often to consider it to be unconnected to something else.  Something bigger.  Something that ties it all together, us all together.

And that is how it all started.  With a meeting over a coffee in a spot that was frequented by so many people that, by odds alone, one person had to have a life-changing event there every day.  That day was mine.  After that day a lot changed.  How I saw the world, God, myself and just about everything in between.