My Life Sucks

What is the opposite of self-absorption? Wherever or whatever that is, I'm stumbling towards it. 

Of course, each time I catch myself in a self-absorbed moment, I see the futility and I ask myself the question: What do I gain? I'm stuck with this shell of a body in this temporal existence. I exercise. I recreate, a temporary fix. I eat, I drink, probably things I shouldn't at times.

And time keeps marching on, oblivious to my inevitable failures.


Yet I continually vow to live righteously (usually right after I do something unrighteous). I keep trying, and that's the beauty: persistence. 


Because I know my life is not meant for Here. 


That's where a transformation is happening. With the realization that I was created for something else and for Someone Else, my focus switches from me to the One whose image I bear. And when I inevitably see things I hate, I trust the Maker because the Maker only makes Good things.  I gave Him my life and His leadership is perfect.


Thank God.  Literally. If my life depended on my insight, my ideas, my worldview, my emotions, my way of thinking, I'd be a greater mess than I already am.    


It works like this.  I make a decision. How do I know if it's a good decision or a bad decision? On my own, the badness or goodness of a decision is based subjectively on how I feel about that particular situation and others around me. It's all relative. What a mess. I can't function like that.


What if there was a Guide? 


Thankfully there is. Yahweh wrote a book. Everything I need is in there. Trouble is, Loren in his depravity doesn't want to follow it. 


That's why I need the Holy Spirit. God, in His unfathomable wisdom, decided to not only send His only Son to live from a human perspective and die in our place, but He threw in the Holy Spirit to live inside of you and I and help us live rightly. That's right, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives inside of me. Crazy.   


So it's this Guide Who tells me what I truly can and cannot do. And I obey it, not because I have to, but because, at some point in my short life, I realized that I suck at life and needed some Divine Perspective. I picked Jesus to help me with that perspective, and He came inside to clean house and get of the things that remind Him of my old life.  A divine dictatorship. Doulos. It's glorious. And it's out of a conscious love that I chose to surrender.


Now, I'm not living my life, I'm living His.  Day by day. I have an 80-year internship to show the world the unquenchable love of Jesus. I've got the Creator God, Son of God, and Righteous Judge coming back to rule the earth as my friend. He's got everything under control. It's my job to trust and obey. 

"Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" -Matthew 16:25-26

My Testimony

My journey to God began at a young age. I was raised in a Christian home to loving, God-fearing parents. I was raised to honor God with my life, but I think the knowledge got stuck in my head and never made it to my heart for years. I began playing drums at age 10. Quite quickly, I began to play drums for our church of about 800. It was in this environment that I learned how to move with the Spirit and work with other musicians. Yet throughout all this, I didn’t personalize my faith.

In 2000, we relocated to Muscatine, IA from Seattle, my home of 15 years. All I knew, uprooted. I grew rebellious, if not outwardly, inwardly. They told me not to date, so I did anyway. Not do drink, so I did. Not to smoke, so I did. High school was a rough patch for me, mainly because I had just moved away from all my friends of 15 years from Seattle to a new school, a new town in eastern Iowa. I uprooted everything familiar for the unknown, a completely different state and climate. This, along with my head knowledge and anger and resentment towards God and my parents made for somewhat rocky high school years.

It was during high school that I made my first visit to IHOP-KC. We visited friends in the area and checked out IHOP when it was still in the blue trailers. Because the nature of my spiritual life was relegated to Sundays, I was not that impressed with the setup, but the seed was planted.

It was my senior year. A local church was taking a group to OneThing ’03. I was originally motivated by seeing my friends who were going to be there from Seattle, but God knew better. I came away from that time with a better understanding of how Christians can live victoriously and righteously and radically. I saw Jason Upton pouring his heart out at a piano, passionately talking about God in a way I’d never seen. Allen Hood’s son was praying and he was about 9 at the time! I’ve never heard such a passionate prayer coming from a child! I saw a leadership team dedicated to living lives that touch the heart of God and touch a world in need. The burden was stirred in my heart, though I knew not yet the path that I would need to take for me to begin this journey to living as a radical follower of Christ.

It was after this conference that I desired to do an internship after high school but got distracted. I started dating a girl shortly after onething 03 the last semester of my senior year. I allowed my emotions to dictate what my next course of action would be rather than doing what I had felt God leading me to do. This relationship lasted until about June 2006. I look back at this time and I see a man struggling to embrace spiritual maturity and torn away from that path by the flesh. Satan used this relationship to distract both of us. I was called to be the leader and I failed at that. Rife with compromise, I still saw God’s at work in my own life. God showed me time and time again that He continues to use imperfect vessels to do His will. It is humbling to be in the service of such a being.

The struggles that I went through have been used by God for His glory. My spiritual foundation has been strengthened, roots deepened, and most importantly, my faith personalized. Before, my head knowledge got me through, but there was little relationship. Within the last few years, God has beckoned me back into His family with open arms. I now endeavor to live a bit more like Jesus everyday. The struggles I have dealt with have made me stronger, prepared me to walk in my calling. My musical abilities have always been a driving force in my life and I strive to use my talents for good. This internship will continue to develop those roots that have deepened, continue to personalize my faith, increase and expand my abilities as a musician, and deepen my understanding of God’s Word. I look forward to spending a portion of my life in service to the King of Kings.

The Priority

For those who know me, I am opinionated and political. Normally a dangerous combination. Lately, my own thoughts and debate on the divisive issue of healthcare have caused me reevaluate my priorities through the lens of scripture. My own passion often neglects compassion when discussing matters of such importance.

Jesus is the ultimate example of love and justice for the Christian to follow. Sometimes I get so focused on my opinion, my paradigm being right, that I lose sight of the first commandment: Love God with everything within me. Such profound simplicity.

These Old Testament words are echoed again by Jesus in Matthew 22 after being questioned by the Pharisees. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Jesus understood this truth more than we ever could. In order to fully carry out all the rules and rituals that the Jews had to follow in that day, a love for God was required.

Tonight, for the first time, I began to understand this more clearly. In my quest to spread the love of God, I neglect to love God fully! I fall short in other commandments simply because I have overlooked the most important one-loving God! It is out of this love for God that I can begin to understand His heart for the world.

In relationships, one gets to know the other by spending time with that person. One doesn't suddenly develop intimacy overnight; it is a gradual process. Since we are created in God's image (Gen. 1:26) it makes sense that this human analogy fits so well with the relationship between God and His ultimate creation. We develop intimacy with God by cultivating a relationship with Him through surrendering our will to His, accepting He is the only way to God. We enter into this faith and continue our journey through discipleship--spending time in God's word, reading and absorbing the living truth-treasures found between the pages. Through our daily lives we interact with other humans and see how God's purposes and divine will work through our lives and the world around us.

Consequently, as we get to know the Creator, we gradually see things through His perspective to a limited degree. We develop compassion for the hurting, the poor, the sick, the "least of these" (Matt. 25:40). Yet it is only by and through this intimacy with Christ that my motives can be pure. I will love others simply because He loves them and is not willing that any man should perish without repenting (2 Peter 3). God so loved the world that He sent His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him (John 3:16-17).

What a great hope! What a promise! Three sentences in John's Gospel sum it up this way: "This is My command: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you."

Oh that I would love like that! That is my prayer. That is my priority. Is it yours?

The Only Way

There is an absurdity of vast proportions. An innocent man propitiating for innumerable human failures without protest. Calm surrender and humility cover His countenance. Sacrifice for the sin time line was His purpose. The same heart of ultimate justice that consecrated a temple, broke spiritual chains, drove out demons, and showed mortals the way to immortality will be pierced to pay a debt He did not owe.

In a conversation with His Father, this God-Man weeps unto the point of blood for another solution, yet knowing one does not exist. His face is etched with the insurmountable anguish of forthcoming doom, exacerbated by the intense sadness triggered by the rampant immorality from time's dawning.

The time comes. The Savior of the world approaches the moment of death. Unimaginable weight is upon these broad, carpenter shoulders now burdened with the combined eternal sin consequences of all humanity. In these final moments this only Son's sovereign, hallowed Father is forced to look away, unable to gaze upon the weight of sin that now rests on these shoulders.

"It is finished" the final words. A bruised, thorn-crowned head droops towards an emaciated, lifeless body. Is it really finished?

Three days later, a figure who is fully God and fully man defeats death and walks out of a sealed Roman tomb! The price now paid, His scarred arms forever proclaim the vastness of true agape love. He is the epitome of mercy, and compassion's definition is imprinted in His side. The united Jew and gentile families are forever liberated from a life of ritual and rhetoric and can now enjoy unfettered fellowship with the Creator of the universe. Forever.

There is but one road that leads to Heaven. There is a narrow gate guarding this way. Acceptance of the Ultimate Sacrifice as the atonement for sins is the first step on the Journey of Eternal Life. Upon entrance, one reenters the Road of Life, one already paved with many trials and tribulations. The difference is that a previously dark and unknown path is now well-illuminated by the author of Light Himself. Under this intense light, the potholes in the road seem small in comparison to the end-of-time eternal glory awaiting all those who travel this road.

This man, this Jesus of Nazareth, wills that everyone choose this Path. It is free, but it will cost you everything. The cross is for you. It is for me. It is the only Way.