The Beauty of Dying Things

Saturday, as I was pruning a bush in the back yard, the little stems that fell to the ground were loaded with bunches of tiny little white berries. They were simple and pretty, so I decided to take them inside and fill a couple of vases with them as center pieces for my birthday party.

As I trimmed off the extra leaves and poked the stems into the glass containers, the arrangements weren't turning out as I had hoped. So, I headed back to the yard to cut a few tall seed pods from the clump of ornamental grass next to my compost pile. They had caught my eye earlier, and I thought a few of those pods gushing out of the middle of each vase might make them more striking. 

Just before I made it back to the house, I noticed that one of my perennial mums was in the height of blooming, and with stems loaded with swollen blossoms, it actually had split in two. So, I cut a few of those as well.

Supplied with berries, seed pods, blooms and stems, I trimmed and poked and arranged all the nearly dead things I had gathered from my yard, and eventually, two beautiful arrangements emerged.

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Everywhere I look these days I am surrounded by dazzling color. The blazing red bushes, the fiery orange trees, the glowing yellow and purple mums. I love fall. Like a lot of people, it's because of the colors and the crisp air. Like a few other people, it's because my birthday comes in the fall.

And like no one else I know, I love fall because I see the beauty of dying, and it makes me a little less afraid.

I don't know why it suddenly hit me recently that these leaves and blooms that bring so much brilliance to our fall landscapes are just one big wind gust away from the death. Maybe it's because in the midst of celebrating a milestone birthday and waiting anxiously through my great restlessness, I have realized that perhaps my life might also get more, not less, beautiful as one by one I check off the days allotted to me.

Birthday Requiem

It seemed like the perfect way to end my birthday. So Sunday evening, I went with my friend, Bess, and her son, Benjamin, to a Giuseppe Verdi concert at Second Presbyterian Church just a few minutes from my house.

The church's sanctuary choir and festival orchestra were joining with the Bach Chorale Singers of Lafayette for a free concert. I had attended other such events in the same venue with Bess and her family and was sure we were in for a treat.

We arrived just a few minutes before the concert, and by the time we wove our way through the massive parking lot, the giant educational wing of the church, and then to the back of the sanctuary, we were lucky to squeeze into the next to the last pew, which they had just opened for latecomers.

In the minute or two before the choir entered and the orchestra performed their final tuning and after I had again taken in the splendor of the French Gothic Cathedral, I glanced down at the program: Messa da Requiem, a mass for the dead. I chuckled. Only I could celebrate my birthday at a Requiem written "in memory of all the faithful departed."

The double choir and four soloists all sang in Latin, but thankfully the words were translated into English for the audience. There also was a musical interpretation in the notes to help those of us who are less musically inclined make the connections that would be obvious to most.

I discovered there that in the opening section, the chorus "enters in a whisper, uttering a single word - Requiem" to help us enter into the tomb of death where the departed are. In a later section titled "Lacrymosa" (from the Latin "lacrima" meaning "tears"), a "variety of countermelodies" by the chorus and the orchestra evoke sobbing. And in the movement called "Sanctus," the split choir sings in "brilliant imitative texture," bringing to mind "angels twirling and dancing in exuberant joy."

But no commentary was necessary during the section "Dies Irae," or "Day of Wrath." The blaring trumpets, thundering drums, and screaming choir were obviously depicting the terror of judgment. No one could hear that movement and be left unshaken.

The "Dies Irae" was revisited in the closing movement, but the piece ended with a pleading prayer, "Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death in that awful day, when the heavens and earth shall be moved, when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire."

And by that moment, having visited the depths of hell and the heights of heaven and lived to tell about it, I realized that perhaps I should spend every birthday listening to the Requiem for the dead.

Ladies and Gentlemen

On Sunday, my friend Kelly and her sons took me out to lunch for my birthday.

As we entered the restaurant, Jensen, who is five, went in first, and Alex, who is seven, was also about to enter ahead of us, but Kelly stopped him.

"Alex, would you please hold the door for me?" she requested. He obliged. 

And because his mom knew he would soon be distracted by the balloons and the games and the bright lights of the restaurant, she added, "And for Charity, too?"

So, he held the door a little longer, the perfect little gentleman-in-training, letting the ladies go first.

It was a beautiful moment. A mom, wisely training her son. A son, happily obeying his mother. The creation order of masculinity and femininity being played out in such a gentle way.

The evolving etiquette of door holding could easily be a meter for the rapidly changing views of gender and roles in our culture. According to an April 2010 article in the Chicago Tribune, age, social rank, physical ability, and who gets to the door first all outweigh gender in deciding who holds the door for whom.

I've found myself scrambling to hold the door for men and women of all ages, no longer sure who would be offended or not by such a gesture. A man who works in the same building as me calls it "the woman's burden." More and more, however, I am seeing it as the man's burden when he is not allowed the privilege of holding the door. He is losing his place in the world as the one who goes ahead and takes care of things.

Alex's lesson on Sunday was the second time this weekend when I felt like "the lady" to a gentleman's kindness, however. Saturday evening, just before my birthday party, I ran to the corner convenience store for a couple of bags of ice. They weren't all that big or heavy, but since there were two of them, they were kind of awkward. I was obviously fumbling with them as I waited in line to pay.

The man in front of me, who appeared to be in his mid-30s, stepped aside and said, "You can go before me." 

It probably saved me only 30 seconds or so of juggling the ice bags, but I appreciated the gesture. I accepted and stepped ahead. When I continued to readjust my grip on the bags, the man made another offer.

"Actually, I could carry those to your car for you if you want," he said.

I was touched. Little did he know that when I got home I would have to lug them from my car to the house by myself and even break them apart and dump them in the cooler of drinks. He had no idea that every month I have to carry 40 pound bags of dog food from the store to the car and the car to the house by myself. And I'm sure he didn't even think about the fact that I take out my own garbage, mow my own lawn, pump my own gas. I could easily have carried the ice to the car. 

But in that moment, a gentleman was offering to help a lady. And since there are very few moments in my day when I am so kindly reminded I'm a lady, I took him up on the offer. 

I felt taken care of as I waited for him to buy his cigarettes and then grab my bags of ice and follow me to the car. I felt concerned about as he asked if I would like him to crunch up the big chunks of ice into smaller pieces, slamming the bags together as he walked. And I felt like things were as they should be as he put the bags in the car, closed the door, and told me to have a nice day.

Apparently there was another mother some 30 years ago who wisely trained her son that gentlemen hold the door for ladies. And I am grateful.

My Last Day in my 30s

A few weeks ago, I decided to have a birthday party for myself to celebrate 40 years. At that time, I thought that Saturday night sounded better for a party than Sunday, which is the day of my actual birthday. So, I began to make plans.

Now that the day of the party is here, and the treats are baked, the crock pots are heating, and the decorations and chairs have all been laid out, I realized that there was even a better reason to have the party today. Not only can I look forward to 40, I can celebrate my last day in the 30s.

I've gotten some funny and interesting comments about this milestone event. One friend suggested I now tell people that I am 30-10, rather than 40. Others have quoted the "Lordy, lordy" phrase to me. And people from an, er, "older" generation have called me a "pup." 

Last night, as we were chopping broccoli and mixing lemonade for the party, my friend Kelly asked me how I was doing on the inside with all of this. I told her there was definitely a part of me that never thought that this was what my life would look like at 40.

This morning, as I was thinking about that statement, I wondered what age I was when I first started picturing my life at 40. I was probably around 17 or 18, choosing a career path and college. That teenage Me made some good choices to be sure, but why would I want to trust that Charity's vision of life at 40? She probably thought 40 was old. She also teased her bangs to an unnatural height. 

From that perspective, I should be glad that life isn't what I imagined at 40.

I also answered Kelly's question last night by saying that mostly I am just really, really grateful. Particularly during the late months of 2007 and the early months of 2008, when my 37th year seemed more of a nightmare than a life, I was certain that I wouldn't make it to 38, much less 40. I had to hunker down and live one day at a time in a way that I never had before. When I discovered in late May 2008 that the cancer was still there, I was convinced my life would end within a few months.

But somewhere along the way, sometime just before my second surgery at the end of June that year, I found a boldness before God that I hadn't known before. I wrote about it in a blog then:

I have recently begun praying that Jesus would heal me. I realize that He may not, but it is a deep desire of mine. And by asking, I feel I am saying to Him that I know He alone can do it. Either way, I know that He is completely good, completely loving, and completely powerful. And I trust Him.

My story is certainly not over, and who knows if cancer lies just around the corner again. But today, the last day of my 30's, I am cancer-free and healthy and happy again in a way I thought I never would be.

Thank you Jesus, this day is a gift.

The Gift of Perspective

I received an early birthday gift last week, though the giver has no idea what she handed me that evening.

A new friend and I were having coffee. She had just moved to the area and was feeling homesick for the West Coast. And I, of course, have been living in the midst of this great restlessness. And since we didn't really know each other well, we started from the beginning.

We're a lot alike, the two of us who on the surface have little in common. Though we were raised in different parts of the country and were born in different decades, we've both struggled to find our place in the world, to do big things for God by going far or sacrificing much. And we've both wondered if we are settling by doing small everyday things for him in regular jobs and regular lives, where widgets are built and money is made.

Because I didn't want to monopolize the conversation with the minutiae of me, I used broad strokes, just really putting chunks of color on the canvas. As I shared my life with her that night, I felt in some ways like I was hearing the story for the first time myself.

Seeing my whole life, all 40 years of it, as one picture, I began to notice themes and patterns I hadn't picked up on before. I realized that my first few years out of college felt too small -- I had wanted more. And what I mistakenly thought was a desire to build God's kingdom was actually a need to build my own. That's probably why the transition from "secular" work to "sacred" work didn't pan out for me. There were still too many small things involved.

Then there was the section of the canvas I think of as the shrinking years. When my vision for my life slowly deflated to the size that my ill body could handle. Over a six year period, I had twelve hospitalizations, two stays in a rehab facility, two surgeries, two rounds of radiation, six rounds of chemotherapy. I gave up dreams, quit thinking about the future, and did really small things for Jesus. It was all I could do.

After I had blocked out the landscape for my new friend that night, I noticed a patch of light just beyond the horizon. Slowly I began to understand my present restlessness. This season is not about being discontent or disappointed. I'm surprised.

I can't believe I am still alive! And not only am I alive, I seem to be well. With a future. And room to dream again.

Soon enough, we finished our chai lattes and left Starbucks. My friend felt a little better about missing home, and I felt a little better about missing out on life.

Neither of our situations had changed, but with the perspective we had given each other, we could look at them a little differently.

Losing Hurts

On Saturday, I was able to join the crowd at one of Indianapolis' urban soccer fields to see my little friends Alex and Jensen, ages 7 and 5, scramble between the goals.

Before the game began, Jensen ran over for a water break on the sidelines where I was sitting. I hugged him tight and said, "Jensen, I'm so excited to watch you play soccer."

He kind of nodded as he slugged back some water. "We're probably going to lose," he said, matter of factly.

"Well, you might," I said. "But you might win. And you'll have fun trying either way."

"Yeah, we might win," he said to be agreeable. "But we'll probably lose. We already played this team before, and we lost." He was convinced.

The boys' mom, my friend Kelly, had kept me apprised of the team's progress. They didn't have a particularly good record. And the other team had some larger, more athletic players. But still, the little guy could hope, couldn't he?

The first half of the game ended with the score tied, 0-0. As goalie, Alex had stopped a couple of shots from the other team that would have ended in points. Jensen had bent it like Beckham, attacking the ball and stealing it from opponents, even if they were twice his size.

After half-time, however, the game kind of went down-hill. The boys were still digging deep and playing hard. Alex blocked kick after kick, taking a few painful hits to keep the ball out of the net. But a couple got away. When the game ended, the other team was ahead 3-0.

While the coaches gave their end-of-the-game pep talks, the parents and spectators made a tunnel with raised hands. Then, both teams ran through as a way to leave the field in celebration.

Jensen was philosophical about the loss. "I knew we were going to lose," he said. Still disappointed.

But Alex was heartbroken.

Despite the fact that he had blocked at least 10 goals by the other team, never mind that he had improved from previous games, and not to mention that in less than 24 hours, he would be in Disney World: a trip he had been looking forward to for months.

When I drove away, he was sitting on the ground next to their vehicle, legs crossed, hands holding his drooping head.

In that moment, the loss of the game was real and painful.

I Spent the Evening Outside

Yesterday, I spent the evening outside.

I haven't been outside much the past several weeks, mostly because it's been so hot and dry here that the garden stopped producing and the grass stopped growing and outside became a whole lot less appealing.

But Fall is here, and I needed to mow and clean up brush and pick up trash, so I spent the evening outside.

My first task was to bag up with pine needles and branches that had been cut more than two months ago. Each time I would attempt to tackle the job, the branches were still too green to break or the bags weren't sturdy enough. After a three-month drought and a trip to the grocery store, I was ready.

The heavy brown bags (on sale 5 for $2) were sturdy and stood upright about four-feet high all on their own. With gloves donned, I found that the branches snapped easily in my hands, and within a few minutes the job was done. The job I had dreaded all summer was done, just like that.

Then, after picking up the liquor bottles tossed by passing motorists into my front lawn, I started the lawn mower and began the dance of weaving one pass after another right there in the front yard, before God and everyone. I started by making three rows around the perimeter, then I waltzed from one side to the other, box stepping at the ends. When I finished one section, I promenaded across the driveway to the next section of the lawn.

At first, my thoughts were fixed on the job at hand, straight rows, sharp corners, grass clippings being thrown in the right direction. But soon enough, I was thinking about the change of seasons, the Chilean miners, Alex and Jensen's soccer game, my fortieth birthday.

I continued on, the rise and fall of the yard dance creating a rhythm for my mind to explore and imagine. Soon, the sun began to set, the temperature to drop, and the lawnmower to grow low on gas.

But it was finished: the lawn, the dance, the day.

I had a lot to do outside last evening, but I had a lot to do inside, too, in my mind and soul where I have been restless lately.

It was good to spend the evening outside.

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This is where I am on this rainy Monday evening - or at least this is where I was last night. Where are you? See where others are by joining LL in "On, In, and Around Mondays."

Preparing to See

Two years ago, a friend invited me to go bird watching in northern Indiana.

I'm not really much of a "birder," but I do really like my friend, and I decided that at the very least, we would be able to spend the day together.

She certainly must have told me the name of the birds we were going to see, but I kept forgetting. And so a few days before we went, I did some heavy duty Googling.

We weren't just going to look at birds, I discovered. We were going to be part of an annual migration. The Sandhill Cranes stop over in the wetlands about 3 hours northeast of Indianapolis in gaggles hardly imaginable. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources keeps statistics about the thousands, yes thousands, of cranes that are sited each year. In 1991, they estimated one of the largest migrations of more than 32,000 birds. Recently, the sitings have been around 12,000.

Once I realized what it was we were going to see, I did more research. I looked at migratory paths, heard a sample of their call, saw pictures of their body structure and wing span.

When we finally made it to the nature preserve that cool fall day, we were running late, and the clouds made it darker at dusk than we expected. We were trying to time our visit with their evening nesting.

But as soon as we got out of the car, I heard that familiar call from the internet. We followed our ears and were amazed by the sheer numbers of birds already settling in for the night in the field. Others were flying in from all around, calling out to their mates and their families to reunite for rest and feeding.

If I had accompanied my friend on the trip without preparing, I still would have seen a bunch of birds that day. But by looking ahead and understanding what I could expect, I became part of history.

That's the lesson I recently learned from Anna in the New Testament.

We know very little about this prophetess from the tribe of Asher, except that she had been waiting her whole life for Messiah. In that way, she wasn't much different than the rest of Israel. But the way she waited -- by fasting and praying and serving and committing -- she was one of the few who actually recognized Messiah when she saw him. Even when he was only 41 days old.

It's one thing to be looking for something in life. It's another to be prepared to recognize when it comes.

Lord, help me to be ready to see.

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Today, I am writing in community with Ann Voskamp and friends, discussing the spiritual practice of Seeing. Follow the link above to read Ann's thoughtful post and then scroll to the bottom and see what others have written.

Photo from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources

A Christian Mid-Life Crisis?

I think I am having a midlife crisis.

Lately, I have felt restless at work, restless at home, restless in relationships, restless in ministry. 

At each turn, the same questions keep popping into my head: am I doing enough? am I doing too much? Does what I do matter?

And then there's the little matter of my 40th birthday just around the corner. In less than two weeks, I will be entering a new decade, as well as moving one step closer to the grave.

For all I know, 40 is probably not the middle of my life. If you had asked me three years ago, I would have sworn that I had experienced "midlife" when I was 19. In the fight with cancer, I never thought I'd make it past age 38. And now, with the threat of cancer shoved a little more in the background, I don't know that I won't live well into my 90s. Modern medicine is making it more and more possible. Even for cancer survivors.

But despite the number of my days, right now, in these last days of my 39th year, I'm asking myself the big questions. I don't think I'll buy a sports car or join the Peace Corps. But I can't help but wonder, is this the life God has for me?

Recently, the BBC radio program "World Have Your Say" posed this question to listeners around the world: do you expect too much from life? and what's behind the increasing numbers of people having midlife crises? Callers from Kabul and Louisville and Georgetown, Guyana, all called in to talk about finding themselves in the middle of their lives. They referred to taking risks, making choices to reflect new values, and gaining perspective on their aging selves.

One man commented, however, that whoever coined the term "mid-life crisis" must certainly have been part of the developed world because people living in extreme poverty or war-torn conditions experience crisis every day. In other words, a "mid-life crisis" is a luxury.

The international conversation got me thinking about my own sense of restlessness, recently. As I thought about the places God has taken me and the experiences God has given me, even the trials He has walked through with me, I wonder: should Christians have mid-life crises?

Of course the Bible doesn't refer specifically to that term. The most likely explanation is that life was harder than, like the third-world conditions of today, and men and women had few choices except to do what they could to survive. A mid-life crisis was a luxury they couldn't afford.

But God does have plenty to say about his people and transitions. In fact, if you approach the book of Philippians from within a mid-life crisis, you might say the Apostle Paul saw this coming.

So, whether I am having a mid-life crisis, or just in need of leaning in a little harder on Jesus, here's the truth that is getting me through these days: 

• He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus
• Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ
• Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling
• But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
• Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me
• Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
• Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
• Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
  
• I can do everything through Him who gives me strength

Stories Stick: Showing Not Telling

This weekend, my mom came for a visit and helped me paint my garage. It was an arduous task. The garage has needed a paint job since the day I moved in. With its three colors of paint, the writing with a black marker, and drips and drops of God only knows what, it was the last frontier of a house that has had a lot of sweat and love poured into it.

The job was even harder than I had expected. We painted a section of the ceiling that had been dark pink with four coats of flat white paint, and there are still shadows peeking through. My step ladder was barely tall enough for me to do the trimming, and I underestimated how much paint we would need and had to run to the hardware store right in the middle of the job.

When our deadline of 7 p.m. arrived, I was ready to quit and just finish the job another day. But my mom talked me into continuing. She was convinced that we would be able to finish in just an hour or so. And she was right. By 8 p.m., everything was cleaned up and we were ordering pizza.

My mom's persistence is one of the deepest traits of her character. When I was young, I saw this quality as a fear of change. From my adult perspective, however, I see this as perseverance.

I recently remembered a story that felt really significant in light of my adult perspective on Mom's stick-to-it-iveness. During my last year of school, I was cut from the volley ball team. It was a good choice by the coach. There were underclassmen who were more talented than I was. But the disappointment was acute.

In spite of that, I offered to be the team manager so that I could still be part of the team, which many of my friends were on. The next day after I was cut, I packed my duffel bag again and arranged with my mom to pick me up from practice. She hugged me and told me how proud she was of me. "I could never have stuck with this after being cut from the team."

I was touched at the time, but in hindsight, this comment is even more meaningful because I see just all my mom HAS stuck with.

This past Sunday, after we had finished painting and were getting ready for church, I told my mom how much I admired all the things she had persevered in over the years. I could have just used those same words, told her I appreciated this quality. And she would have been touched.

But instead, so she would really understand how important her example has been to me, I told her the story of my senior year and the volleyball team. And how after all those years, I remembered that moment.

The compliment stuck.

Today I am writing in community with other bloggers from the   TheHigh Calling community. We are discussing the Heath brothers' book Made to Stick. If you would like to read what others are saying about this week's chapter from the book, click on the button above. If you are a blogger, read and post along!

Soup's On

The last few weeks have been a culinary challenge for me. This happens every so often; despite my love of food and cooking, I just don't have it in me to cook or even eat the healthy foods I believe in.

For a while, I found myself eating out a lot, eating leftovers, eating one dish for a meal.

I tried pulling myself out of the funk by trying some new recipes. I bought fancy, expensive ingredients, and used spices I had to buy special. But after a week of new dishes, the malaise persisted.

Eventually, I went back to what I know. I made macaroni and cheese, omelets, chicken salad, tacos. And then, when the chill returned to the air, I returned to soup.

In the past two weeks, I've made potato soup with friends, beef and veggie soup with whatever I could find in the fridge, kale/potato/turnip soup with the last vestiges of my CSA subscription, and then there was the butternut squash soup.

This past weekend was rainy and cold after our late summer heat wave, and I finally felt inspired to pull out the recipe book to find a way to use the butternut squash that has been in the fridge for a few weeks.

I paired it with a slice of fresh baked wheat bread, and for dessert, a piece of pumpkin bread. It was the perfect fall meal, and a perfect way to end the food slump.

Gingery Butternut Squash Soup
adapted from a recipe from Simply in Season
2 onions (chopped)
2 tablespoons fresh ginger (peeled and minced) (NOTE: I used ginger powder and added it with the squash and apples below)

In a large soup pot saute in 1 tablespoon oil until onion is translucent.

2 apples (peeled, seeded, and chopped)
1 butternut squash (peeled, seeded, and cut into cubes; may use 2 cups cooked winter squash) (NOTE: I poked holes in the squash with a knife and cooked it in the microwave for about six minutes. Then, I cut the squash in half, scraped out the seeds, and cut the squash pulp out)
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

Add to pot (NOTE: I added about 1 tsp of salt and several shakes of pepper here) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until squash and apples are tender. Puree in blender until smooth. Salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley (optional) and serve. (NOTE: I also added some bacon crumbles on top.)

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Today, I am joining Ann Kroeker for Food on Fridays when she discusses all things food. Since I am a bit of a foodie myself, I plan to join her discussion often. Stop by and visit her yourself, too!

Playing Favorites: A Mystery Revealed

I thought I knew her -- Mary, the mother of Jesus. I had read her stories so many times that I was sure there could be nothing new.

And so when I came to her again this past week, came to her with the intensity that comes when you have to explain a person to others, I was at a loss. So much has been said about her. What more could there be?

And so I began to pray.

Not to Mary, as some traditions would teach. But to Jesus, her Son, her Lord.

"Jesus, what do you want us to learn from Mary?"

Was it her response to your incredible plan? Her willingness to serve from within a scandal? Her deep spiritual bond with Elizabeth? Or the faith she had as she watched her boy die a torturous death?

Are these the things you want me to learn from Mary?

Maybe. But there seemed to be something more. Some other truth from this woman who carried God in her womb that He wanted me to learn, to share.

So I went back to the pages of her story once more. Those pages I thought I could recite from memory. And as I read, I saw the glimpses of something else going on in the story of the pregnant teenager from Nazareth.

"Greetings, favored one."

Favored one. That's what the angel Gabriel called Mary. Favored one. What was there about Mary which earned the Lord's favor?

It perplexed Mary, too, the text says. So the angel repeated it, this time with feeling.

"Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God."

What would it be like to be favored of God, I wondered? To be singled out and redeemed for his purpose. I scoured scripture to discover the secrets of God's favor. Abel was favored over Cain; Noah was favored out of a wicked generation. Abraham, Joseph, Moses, even the Israelites. All were favored by God. 

But then why Mary?

It seems God's favor from Abel through Mary was his way of keeping his covenants and preserving his plan of redemption. The scandal of Mary's pregnancy was just one of many scandals in a long line of God's picking and choosing to eventually deliver His Son to earth. Some call it the scandal of particularity -- that God would favor, prefer, choose one over another to accomplish his purposes.

But it wasn't about Cain or Joseph or Mary, really. It was about God, and what he was accomplishing.

Because in His time, his favor would rest on the whole world. He would choose us, yes us!, over His Son, the sin of the world dripping off of Him there on the cross. God would favor the world and choose us from every nation and language and family while He turned his back on His Son. 

The mystery of mysteries was solved. God doesn't actually believe in picking favorites. In choosing one, he was making a plan to eventually choose all!

He favored Mary in Nazareth more than 2,000 years ago so that he could favor Charity in Indianapolis today!

Favored, indeed!

October 3, Again

Three years ago today, I first heard the word "cancer" referring to me.

It took a few more days to confirm the diagnosis and many months to treat it, but it all started with some pain three years ago today.

Over the next few days, I will no doubt be reflecting on all the Lord has done for me in the recent years. But today, three years later, I am healthy, and thankful.

Is the Gospel Sticky Enough?

It was going be just another trip to the gym for me. I haven't been running as much as I would like, so I was trying to motivate myself to push through three hard miles.

I walked up to the sign in desk and was greeted by an excited young man who seemed glad I was there. I scanned the membership barcode attached to my key chain, and he smiled even wider. "Great!" he announced, welcoming me to my workout. I was about to walk away when he asked, "What's the red, blue, and green "C" about?"

I wasn't sure what he was talking about at first, but then I noticed the keys in my hand. One of my key chains is the symbol for the national flag of the country of Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic. I carry the key chain to remind me to pray for the people of that country.

When I explained as much to the man behind the counter, he wasn't satisfied. He started Googling.

"Did something happen there recently? Why are you praying?"

And so there it was, my perfect opportunity to explain the gospel: the treachery of sin, the grace of God, the supremacy of the cross. 

Instead, I kind of hemmed and hawed.

"No, nothing has happened. It's just that . . . well, under the Soviets, atheism was the national religion . . . now they are culturally Muslims . . . I am just praying for the country to know who Jesus is."

"Oh," he said. "Do you have family there or something? Are you planning to go there some day?"

I told him about some connections through my church. Explained that maybe someday I might go. And that was that. I doubt that door will open again.

Had I been ready for the question like the Bible says I should, I might have told him about a man I know of in the region who came to know Jesus after experiencing the futility of Islam. I might have mentioned the new Azeri translation of the New Testament that my church helped to fund because we so desperately want the people there to have true hope. I might have even told him my own story of sin and God's remarkable grace which saved me from his wrath, prompting me to want the same for others.

According to Chip and Dan Heath in Made to Stick, it's not enough to get people to believe our ideas are credible; we also need to help them care. Had I used one of the answers above --  creating empathy, developing associations, appealing to his self-interest -- I would have made the message of the gospel "sticky" for him. Instead, I gave him a history lesson.

But appealing to emotions to help people connect to the gospel isn't always the best approach, either. When the gospel message is delivered to play on people's felt needs and self actualization, inviting people to get their lives together by accepting Jesus, we risk changing the gospel into a "sticky" but powerless message.

In his book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, David Platt says that our emotional appeals with the gospel message may actually keep people from understanding the one true gospel and responding humbly.

The danger of spiritual deception is real. As a pastor, I shudder at the thought and lie awake at night when I consider the possibility that scores of people who sit before me on a Sunday morning might think they are saved when they are not. Scores of people who have positioned their lives on a religious road that makes grandiose promises at minimal cost. We have been told all that is required is a one-time decision, maybe even mere intellectual assent to Jesus, but after that we need not worry about his commands, his standards, or his glory. We have a ticket to heaven, and we can live however we want on earth. Our sin will be tolerated along the way. Much of modern evangelism today is built on leading people down this road, and crowds flock to it, but in the end it is a road built on sinking sand, and it risks disillusioning millions of souls.

So, if I have another opportunity, and I'm standing there holding my Azeri key chain, and a kind young man sincerely asks me why I pray for a whole nation I have never visited, do I really tell him that his only hope is the difficult road of trusting the Man of Sorrows? Where's the appeal in that message?

Above all, God himself makes his message "sticky" through His Spirit who moves like the wind: we see only the evidence of Him.

But the real irony is that if I want the gospel message to stick with the people I meet, I need to follow the Heath brothers' last point about emotions: I should appeal to their identities.

We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities--not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be. 

I don't need a special gospel presentation for waitresses, for gym workers, for doctors, for stay-at-home moms. I just need the one gospel message, the one that starts with our sin that separates us from God. And then I must carefully show reveal to each person I meet his true identity, that we are all just sinners in need of a Savior.

Today I am writing in community with other bloggers from the High Calling Blogs community. We are discussing the Heath brothers' book Made to Stick. If you would like to read what others are saying about this week's chapter from the book, click on the button above. If you are a blogger, read and post along!

Also, if you would like to read David Platt's Radical along with others from my church, visit the church blog where we are discussing the book.