The Golden 29 on 29th.

I just realized today that it has been a month since I posted anything on the blog! Yikes! I thought it was only a couple weeks. The time has been taken up with traveling, interviewing and reflecting on my life. Thus, it seems fitting to write today about a birthday I had two days ago. Especially as you get older birthdays are a good time for a gut and heart check on where you are. Have I accomplished what I hoped for until now in my life? What does the next few years and seasons look like for me? Where am I going? Am I giving God glory with my life? All those questions have been, and were particularly on my mind and heart as I celebrated a special birthday...

... on Monday I turned 29 and my birthday for as many years has been November 29th. When I realized this one of friends said: "It's your golden birthday!" I don't think I had ever heard that expression before, but perhaps that is because I haven't experienced it until now. I imagine it is much less weighty if your birthday was on the 3rd of the month, like my sister's, but when it happens later it is a reminder of how "old" you are getting. Age is a relative thing, I am certainly not old in comparison with many, but it is significant when you leave a decade of your life as I am about to do. When I think back over the last 10 years so many significant milestones have happened in my life. Here are just a few:

1. I graduated from college with my BA degree.
2. I moved across the country and lived in Colorado for 5+ years.
3. I graduated from seminary with a Master of Divinity degree
4. I moved again, to California.
5. I have been to so many places in US I never thought I would go when I was younger: Mississippi, Louisiana and New Orleans, Alabama, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico, Latvia, London, Arizone and New Mexico, to name a few...
6. I have made some of my best friends in the world...
7. I have worked as a long term substitute teacher, and a youth pastor...
8. I first purchased a macintosh computer.
9. I left my teenage years.

These are just a few of the things that have happened in the last ten years of my life. When I look back on those things I feel grateful. I have many friends who have gotten married and are starting families by now. If you asked me ten years ago if that is something I would have thought would happen to me I would have said yes. And to be sure, those are hopes and dreams of mine for the next ten years of my life. But I have had the opportunity to do many things, such as moving, getting degrees and traveling, that my friends didn't have. I am very thankful for what the Lord has given to me.

On Monday, I had one of the best birthdays I've ever had. In the morning, before I left I had breakfast with two of my dearest friends in the world, Josh and Hannah. I left Los Angeles and drove through some of the most beautiful beachfront I have ever seen in the US along the Pacific Coast Highway. I stopped in Malibu, CA and bottled up a piece of the Pacific Ocean to remind me of my time there. I continued the drive up through Santa Barabara and San Luis Obispo until I came to San Jose. I spent most of the day driving... but that was just find with me. It was time to reflect, dream and decide where I was going to go for the next season of my life. In the evening, back in San Jose, I had dinner with my other dearest friends in the world: Jason, Laura, Chris, Cassie, and my newfound friend KP. My birthday was simple... two meals and a drive... but it was incredibly life giving to me. I suppose as you get a little you appreciate the little things.

As I looked out at the Pacific Ocean during my stop in Malibu I realized one very defining reality for the next season of my life: I'm an adult. I entered my twenties as a college kid with no cares and the hardest thing I had to do was set my alarm. Now I have bills to pay and more time behind me. I'll be 30 next year... but one thing I resolved on the shores of the Pacific is that I will never stop living life with joy, laughter, awe-inspired passion, and a love of people. No matter what happens. Life will get hard and I will never be a kid again... but I hope to live with youthful passion until the day the Lord calls me home--whether that is tomorrow or when I am 100-- for the Glory of God and the Sake of Gospel.

PS--- I have like five posts I had in my head that I haven't written... stay tuned for "City of Angels" tomorrow!

Balloons.

Yesterday was Halloween. I am not a huge halloween fan but it usually provides opportunities for fun with kids. And as Christians, it often provides an opportunity to engage the culture for the gospel. Enter Willow Glen Baptist Church in San Jose, CA... a church I have been attending for the last month and where one of my best friends pastors. For the last 22 years they have put on a "Harvest Carnival" on a Sunday around Halloween and where no less than 700 people come and attend. This year there were 1300! In a matter of three hours! People from all walks of life and all sorts of costumes showed uplast night. I saw cops, transformers, scream characters with a bloody face (which made me scream), animals, etc. They all came to jump in the jump house, throw bean bags at a huge wooden clown, try to catch gold fish, and... get a free balloon.

At the end of the night I looked up into the roof of the rented tent to see a vast array of balloons which had been released by small children. Perhaps this is the reason many children came back to get a second balloon because they had "lost" the first. It always amazes me what enthralls little children. Give them a balloon and it can calm the loudest cry and dry the wettest eyes. As I considered this I wondered: are we as adults any different?

Of course I am not speaking about something as simplistic as balloons, but there are things in our lives that serve as our adult balloons. So many of us worry and stress about our financial security. We are on the verge of tears. We are wailing and crying because we are scared of what will come next in our lives.... and then we receive a paycheck, or a monetary gift, and we are happy and pleased. We received our balloon. And just as quickly as we received that pacifying balloon, we lose it by spending money. Or maybe for some of us it is security in relationships. We feel like our lives are falling apart and then that person whom we hurt comes back and accepts our apology, only to have us hurt them again the next day. Or maybe it is our jobs, our family, our homes, our future, the political figures we follow, etc... you get the point. We all carry (and lose) balloons.

Now, certainly I am not against giving balloons to children. I love balloons too! What I am calling our attention too is how often then can control our lives. I would even say that so many of us put our hope "in" those balloons. When we do this they become, as I have mentioned in previous postings, an idol. A false god. Recently I was attending a group and the topic of hope arose in conversation. A distiguishment was made between things we "hope for" and things we place our "hope in." When we hope in something we are placing all our trust and faith in that item or person. When we hope for something, we recognize that, while we desire that person/item/security/etc., our ultimate trust is not in that thing but in something greater. Consider Paul's words in the letter to the Romans:

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his won Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died---more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? [...] No, in all these things we are more than conquerers through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:31-39, ESV)

Indeed, I pray that our hope is found in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross. I pray that our hope is in the Gospel of Grace. Balloons are not bad, but when our hope is found in them it is sin. When our hope is in anything but the living God of the Bible it is sin because we have elevated that thing to the place of God in our lives. We can hope for other things. It is not bad to hope for financial security, or a marriage relationship, or a vacation, or a better job... but don't hope in those things.

I was reading today in Time Magazine an article about the future of the United States. It actually was a very interesting article about how we need to focus the majority of energy and investment on our major metropolitans areas because they are the wave of the future. The argument was that they produce most of our GDP and 2/3 or the people in our country live in them. As I read this I couldn't help but wonder how many of those people who live in those cities have placed their hopes in balloons that will eventually fly away or get popped.

I pray today that we will not hope in balloons, but that we recognize one day they will deflate, or fly away, or pop. And when they do... I pray that we will laugh and move one, because our hope is found secure in Christ.

For God's Glory and the Sake of The Gospel.

Chocolate Covered Bacon.

Since I advertise that I write about God, life, and food... I feel the need to commnet briefly on a nee item I consumed last Friday in Santa Cruz, CA. The town is a laid back beach town with a beautiful pier reaching out into the Pacific Ocean. On this pier there are numerous shops for clothing, souveniers, and food. On this Friday afternoon all I wanted to do was grab a cup of coffee and go sit at the end of the pier, staring out into the ocean. As I walked into this espresso shop I discovered that they also had lots of sweet treats to complement your coffee. One they advertised was chocoloate covered bacon.

I couldn't resist trying at least one, because it seemed like an odd pairing to say the least. They even promoted a "hot and spicy" bacon, which I chose not to eat. After I grabbed me coffee I went down to the end of the pier, sipped my coffee and took a bite out of the bacon. The sensation was one of chocolatety goodness of the outside, but then I hit the bacon. It was chewy, as you expect bacon to be, and I had to chew it for a few minutes. After the first bit all I remembered was the bacon; the taste of chocolate had been swept away. Thus, chocolate covered bacon really turned into me eating bacon and drinking coffee on the end of the pier. Which begged me to ask the question: who's idea was this? Because it was an awful idea.

The San Francisco Treat--Part Three--Reflections on The Gospel In The City

Every day that I wake up I am burdened and saddened by the amount of people in this world who need Jesus yet are blind to experiencing his saving grace. Even now as I sit at a coffe shop in the middle of San Jose I pray for all the people here who do not call Jesus their savior. It is rare that I find someone who calls Jesus God in this place and I am sure it would be even less if I were sitting in San Francisco. So, I would like to offer a few reflections from my trips to San Francisco and provide some suggestions on how to pray for, not just San Francisco, but so many of our American cities.

First, as Christians we need to recognize that humans being want to ultimately live for themselves. This is the definition of sin: when we put ourselves in the place of God. I tend to think that many people who come to large cities, especially if they are not Christians, are into living life however they want. They generally have a lot of money (Because you need it to live in the city). They perhaps want to be in the party scene. Or, as is the case with so many people in Manhattan I have found, they want to see what the city can do for them. Those are of course charicatures of the city, but in general we as people want to live for ourselves. We need to pray that God would break and humble our own hearts as well as people in the cities.

Second, there are all sorts of temptations that come with the city. I imagine there is all sorts of trouble and debauchery to get involved with if you live in the city, and especially San Fran. As I walked down Haight I caught wind of several people smoking marijuana and who knows what else. The city is filled with eccecltic people who need Jesus. We need to pray fervently for their salvation.

Third, we need to realize that people in the city NEED JESUS and the freeing power of the Gospel. When Christianity first started to spread in the first century it spread first and foremost in THE CITIES! Rodney Stark did a great job of chronicalling this phenomenon in his books The Rise of Christianity and Cities of God. The Gospel spread because people were living so close to one another that there was constant contact with other people. Once people were converted the good news spread quickly, almost like a virus. If someone gets sick and they are living in a city filled with people there is a good chance that other people will get sick also. If the missional code can be cracked in cities like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago then the Gospel will spread like wild fire. Especially in cities like those where the urbaness is compact.

We need to pray for our cities. We need to pray that the Holy Spirit does an amazing work of revival among the cities. We need to pray the God raises up people with a heart for the city and a desire to enter into the mission field. We need to pray especially for the cities where people don't want to go. I specifically think of San Francisco and New York. Those are two cities that I love and want to see people come to know Jesus. Imagine if people caught a vision for those two places and those cities became known for their spiritual ferver rather than lostness! We have a big God with whom all things are possible!

San Francisco is for sure a lost place. There are not many Christians there. And that is precisely why we should pray for the city. That is precisely why we should pray about living there and transforming it fort he sake of the Gospel and the Glory of God!

The San Francisco Treat- Part One

I visited San Francisco for the first time 10 years ago and, I must admit, I was not incredibly excited about it. It was part of a week long tour that took me all over California. San Fran was the beginning of the week and I remember thinking..."Ok, New York is way cooler." I enjoyed some of the sites we went to, but perhaps I wasn't seasoned enough to completely enjoy it. This was not the case on my third visit yesterday (My second one was very brief a few months ago). I had the grand fortune of visiting with my good friend KP, who gave me "The whole San Francisco experience." :) Thanks bud! Since I generally try not to write a novel on my blogs, I decided there is too much for one blog. I labeled this part one, but I am not sure if it will stop at part two or continue. Over next two months I hope to go back a few more times. Because San Francisco freakin' rocked! With cultural savviness, a strong public transportation infrastructure, and sports experience to rival New York and as beautiful as any city you will see, San Francisco is well worth at least one trip in your life time. I am fortunate I am working on 3+. So here you go...

THE FULL HOUSE: Pridefully I will admit that I was a huge fan of Danny Tanner and his kids when I was a wee lad. DJ (The older sister) was way cute but far too old for me. I had my eye on Stephanie since she was my age :). Additionally, who could argue with the adorable Michelle, as portrayed by the Olson twins before they went insane. Uncle Jesse was soooooo cool (John Stamos seems to not have aged a day since the early 90s) and Joey was the funniest guy ever (Rush Hour Renegades anyone??????). The best thing about Full House was... the house. They lived in this cool row house in the middle of San Francisco (I had no idea where it was when I was younger, but I liked the 49ers). In the opening shots they drove over the Golden Gate bridge and chilled in Golden Gate park, which I found out yesterday is nowhere near the actual house used in the shots for the Tanner House. The acual house is a good 5-10 minute drive away and is part of a section of houses called "The Painted Ladies." KP and I drove up and had a difficult time getting a parking spot, but KP made it work out because, as he said: "This is San Francisco-THEY DON'T CARE!" This would be a recurring theme this weekend. As we got out and looked at the Painted Lady Houses the most AMAZING thing happened. On the front window of one of the houses there was a sign that simply said "THIS IS NOT FULL HOUSE." I wondered if numerous people had walked up to the door and asked for a tour of their house to see, ignorantly, where the show was filmed. KP and I had a hearty laugh and then walked around the back of the houses to see where Kimmie Gibbler lived.

GOLDEN GATE PARK: Our next stop as a little less exciting. We drove through Golden Gate Park on our way to Haight Ashbury. This was the Central Park of San Francisco, although as KP said, not quite as nice. However, I thought it was quite beautiful and green. There wre lots of museums and paths to walk/run along. There were plenty of people sporting small dogs throughout the park. As we exited along the coastline, we made a left on Fell Street on our way to the next destination. Along that road we saw, what seemed to be a police car, with an interesting marker on the tail. It said "UFO PROTECTION FORCE." I made it known that I wanted a picture of it and KP immediately made an illegal U-Turn with the mantra "It's San Fran I do what I want!" We pulled up behind the car and I snapped the ridiculous photo as we continued on.

HAIGHT-ASHBURY DISTRICT: Unfortunately our adventures must conclude today with this entry due to time. If you are not aware, Haight Ashbury was a magnet for a huge hippie population in the 60s. People would come to play their guitars, do all sorts of illegal things, and just hang in San Francisco. It became quite famous over the years and is a standard tourist stop if you come to the city. Fortunately, we went during the week so it was not quite as busy, so we busted out our guitars and decided to jam on the street. However, before that our stay in "The Haight" began with an amazing parking spot right at the corner of the Haight Ashbury. We were blessed with parking spots the entire day, which made us postulate that perhaps Jesus wanted us to be there that day :). After eating at an amazing restaurant (They had an unbelievable crepe special with some minty water!) we walked through the district with our guitars to Amoeba Music, looked inside, and walked back to find our corner.

KP and I had decided a few days before that we would bring our guitars to jam in The Haight. Our mission: to write a worship song in the minor key. We plopped ourselves down, KP decided to take some "Facebook" pictures of me, and then we played. Playing your guitar on the street was not an uncommon thing in this part of town, I had already seen numerous people on our walk. Still, we managed to attract some attention with people who were walking by. One gentleman even stopped, got really excited to see us and gave us both a fist bump. At that point we felt we had arrived as hippies in Haight Ashbury. So we decided to pack up our guitars and head to Pier 39....

That's all for today unfortunately. Stay tuned for stories from Lombard Street, Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, and if you are lucky, our walk around Giants Stadium during game one of the 2010 World Series!

When Dreams Go Unfulfilled.

It's 12:41am and I am the need for sleep is starting to capture my eyes... but I just came home from having a conversation about disappointment and life. I have recently been pondering on my life when I was a high school senior. I remember all the dreams that I had of changing the world. Dreams of traveling to different countries, perhaps just to visit or to do mission work. I had dreams of meeting the love of my life and starting a family. Dreams of going to Hollywood or New York City and starting a ministry that would save people through the Gospel and for God's glory. I had dreams of being an actor and meeting famous people. When I graduated from college I moved across the country to Denver on a grand adventure to experience life outside of the Jersey Shore. I enrolled in seminary with the dreams of being a pastor and changing the face of the American church. I was passionate about youth ministry, about family ministry, about proclaiming the Gospel. I was passionately about the city. Not a particular city... just the city in general because that was where the people were. I was passionate about people.

I'm turning 29 next month and I was reflecting with a friend about how life has changed as I approach 30. First of all, I don't feel 30. That seems old to me. In some ways I feel older, as if I have lived longer and am more mature. In other ways I feel like a kid who has just graduated from college trying to figure out how to live in the adult world. The truth is, I'm not. I am an adult and all the dreams that I still have of living in different areas of the world and experiencing different things.... well it feel like that time is fading even though the desire is still there. The expectation is to settle down and start a family. That is the difference between my late 20s and my early 20s... its feel like there is less time and more expectation. So, as I reflect on those dreams I had... some of them I achieved, but others have gone unfulfilled.

I wonder what dreams you had for life that went unfulfilled? As you look back on your life.... is this where you pictured you would be when you graduated from high school? I suppose I pose that question because recently I have been struggling with some disappointment in life. To make it real... I have some much desired to have a full time pastoral ministry position and to find my wife. Over the last two years I have watched many of my friends achieve those things while it feels like I've been left behind. I believe in a Sovereign God who is in control of everything in my life... but there are times when I deal with the human response to disappointment. I once heard it said... "All you need to do is live long enough and you will suffer." Not that I am suffering as much as the person being persecuted for their faith in Africa, or the person with a terminal disease, but we all have or will experience suffering. And we also will probable have some dreams that go unfulfilled.

What does the future hold for me? I hope I get to rejoice as the Psalmist did when he said "Though sorrow may last for the night, joy comes in the morning." The truth is, wherever life takes me and wherever the Spirit leads, I hope to live life with joy. We often equate happiness and joy when they are not the same. We can be joyful... but still be suffering a great deal. We can be joyful even though our dreams have gone unfulfilled. We can be joyful because through everything Jesus has won the victory on the cross and our hope is secured through him.

Some of my dreams have not been fulfilled. But many have been. I hope that wherever I go I would be joyful and give glory to God.

Its 1:04 am... and sleep has taken me.

When Idols Die.

It was difficult to get out of bed this morning. I wanted to stay asleep and not really believe what I had witnessed the night before. The pain was still too near. 12 hours ago I sat on the couch in my living room taking in the horror that was a New York Yankees defeat. The Yankees loss was not just a loss, it was a slaughter. Worse still it came at the hands of the Texas Rangers, who while not of par with the Boston Red Sox, were one team I did not want to see beat the Yankees lose to and inflate the already disproportionately large egos of Texas people. As I write this the Yankees have already won game five and still have a chance in the 2010 American League Championship Series, but hope still seems difficult to find. When I woke up this morning... one of my idols was about to die.

The language I use may seem harsh, but think about the idols in all our lives. An idol can be defined as something so important in our lives that, should we lose it, our life would feel hardly worth living (kudos to Tim Keller on providing a wonderful definition). Sports is a huge one. When I lived in the NYC area people would call the talk radio shows and complain for HOURS about how bad their sports teams were doing. If the Yankees, Mets, Jets, Giants, Knicks, Rangers, etc.... lost a game it was as if the whole city took a punch to the gut. The same thing was true when I lived in Denver and the Broncos lost. On Monday morning lots of people would call in sick because they had to recover fromt the loss. In the same vein, let's consider a variety of relationships. Right now I am sitting in a gelato cafe in Palo Alto, CA... minutes from the headquarters of one of the most powerful social networking sites in the world: Facebook. People will go into a state of depression once a relationship ends (Even if it is an unhealthy one). Additionally, people have no problem sitting on Facebook for hours hoping that someone will post on their wall, write them a message, IM them, etc.

Idols run rampant everywhere. I could offer more examples but you get the point. The other problem with idols is, even if we recognize them in our lives, most times we don't want to kill them. Idols have given us a false purpose or meaning. They offer promises they can't fulfill. For instance, I walked into this gelato shop tonite thinking that the creamy goodness would make me feel wonderful... then they tried to charge me 5.75 for a very small cup. Worse than Dippin Dots! Idols most times paralyze us from achieving the things we dream of, even were meant to do. Consider the porn addict, or the drug user who just can't stop, or the person who continues to fall into debt and cannot stop spending, or the person who feels like they need to be the savior in all the relationships they get into. Idols weaken us. They keep us from greatness. So why can't we just let idols die?

Today I made my second California off day adventure. I went to Stanford University in Palo Alto, hence why I am here. The campus is GORGEOUS. Palm trees line the main entrance. Either side of the road had open green areas. After I parked next to Foster Field I walked the campus, which was filled with historically spanish looking buildings that screamed education. I had to dodge the people on bikes... which seemed like everyone on campus! All this was as I made my way thru the history building, campus bookstore, and others so that I could find the "main quad." Once I finally found it after an hour of walking, I sat there and thought... "Wow! What life is here on this campus!"

Then I began to think back to my days of graduating high school and heading to college. I remember the youthful vigor that I had and a passion for changing the world and achieving my dreams. I still have many dreams and many things I want to do before the good Lord calls me home by his grace. But I couldn't help but think that I need to kill the idols in my life that are keeping me from living every second of every day for Jesus. Those 18-22 year olds at Stanford will experience the same thing. They will have to combat idols for the rest of their lives (especially if they are Christians and recognize that idols are bad). My hope and prayer is that they will work on killing their idols and letting them die. I want to kill mine so that Jesus has COMPLETE control of everything that I do.

Because the truth is: when idols die... then we can truly live.