Stories that the couch can't tell

I'm about to take a plunge, a leap of faith; Over the next eight months, with a team of six guys, I am going to raise 100,000 dollars, build a house and put on a concert like Baylor University has never seen. Am I scared? a little bit; could I fail? yes; will it be a great story regardless? hell yes! Will I have any time to be bored? nope. I'm talking about the 45 year old Kappa Omega Tau tradition of hosting Christmas on Fifth, a campus wide concert event and Christmas celebration.

Today, I met with the head of the Waco area Habitat for Humanity along with Cramer and John, two of the Christmas tree chairs, to discuss what a partnership for this event might look like. I have spent the past week calling band after band, everyone from Pat Green to Josh Abbott to Randy Rogers gathering pricing info, but today, as I sat across from the Waco Habitat for Humanity president, it all became real. I'm about to start writing a story that I have an obligation to finish because if I don't, people will be let down, a Waco family will stay without a home and I will be known as the guy who lead the charge for Christmas on Fifth and failed. Sounds like a pretty good story right? Of course it does, the hard part is, now I have to write it.

It's no secret that Christianity is in decline in America. It's not too hard to figure out why. As Christians we need to tell better stories with our lives. Smiling and being friendly only gets us so far. God created us to play a role in the domain that he has placed us in. He needs each one of us to step up and be who were created to be, to run after him and to tell a good story with our lives.

What makes a good story? Think about all of the movies you love, what do they have in common? Characters you like and a cause worth fighting for. Take "The Hangover" for example, even as crude as this movie is, we all love it because Alan is hilarious and Stew is likable and we all genuinely want this group of friends to find Doug. All good stories involve a character or characters who want something who go through conflict to get what they want.

What kind of story are you living? Is it one worth reading or are you in the same boat as so many of us are where you go to extensive lengths to stay comfortable? Comfortable is boring. As humans, we always seek the way of least resistance, but sometimes as Christians we are called to take the narrow road and I can guarantee you that this road is filled with resistance. Have you ever read a story about someone who sat on the couch all day and watched TV? No, of course you haven't, there's no story there.

This is not a guilt trip trap where you are supposed to feel like you should move to Africa or go live in a box (unless that is really where God is taking you). All I'm saying is that in Matthew 10:39 Jesus says, "Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it." Losing your life for Jesus' sake involves risk. Right before this verse, Jesus talks about how hard it is going to be to forsake everything and follow him. He goes so far as to say that he has not come to bring peace, but a sword. This is not to say that Jesus is not peaceful, but that he did not come to hold our hands and walk us through the daisies of self-help sermons. Jesus is calling us to live better stories and live up to what we have already attained in him. Our faith demands it. What better way to spread the Gospel than to live engaging lives the exude the joy that God has given us? What are you waiting on? Get writing!

Oh SH....the couch is about to fall out the back

School is back in full swing but I am not. Can anyone out there relate to me? I think that every semester I say "heck yeah," this is my time to do school right, to go to bed on time and to be super intentional with the group of guys the Lord has placed me in. I go out and buy a planner and make lists of people who I want to dig in with. In my head/on paper my plans and tactics are flawless, but then something called life happens. My roommates are up late hanging out and I can't help but do the same, I see an opportunity to take on a job and I do it, people around me need help and so I drop my own agenda and help them and in the process of all these great interruptions, my grand plans are diminished.

This summer when I went on my epic craigslist adventure to pick up the vending machine and the massive sectional couch we almost had a catastrophe. We made it to the hottest, most miserable place on earth, college station and loaded up what I call the pink monster: a 5 piece sectional couch complete with a folding bed, recliner and one dysfunctional recliner that will end up never getting repaired (maybe after float season). After manhandling the couch onto the trailer, we headed to Houston to pick up the whale of a vending machine. Along the way, Kip, Will and I were talking, laughing about the adventure when out of the corner of my eye I saw the pink monster begin moving. Straddling my vision between the road ahead of me and the crisis behind me, I observed the wind pick up one of the sections of the couch flip up and begin waltzing toward the end of the trailer. I had a sudden flash of the calamity behind me which was potentially about to ensue; an oversized, bulky couch section punching through the radiator of the sedan behind me or even worse, the windshield destroying the drivers. None of this was happening at breakneck speed, but it was definitely something that needed to be dealt with. I made the call to pull over and rearrange and re-strap everything on the trailer. From there, it was smooth sailing.

Right now, in slow motion, the pieces of my life are shifting around and some of the sections even want to flip off my trailer. For the most part I have kept driving, keeping an eye on the status of everything, but pretty soon, if I don't pull over, I'm going to pay for it. Does this mean that I have the wrong pieces loaded? No, it just means that I have loaded my pieces incorrectly. (I realize that this analogy only really makes sense to me and the handful of people who have loaded a trailer down with ratchet straps.) The idea is not necessarily that I am involved in the wrong things, it's just that I am missing the essential element for balance in my life, my own personal time with the Lord. My faith is what holds my life together and as I get busier and busier, the ratchet straps that hold my life together begin to loosen.

For me, I know that this is happening, because my life is full of great things and great people, I am not facing any major crisis right now and I have every reason to be totally satisfied with life, but I'm not. I accomplish a lot every day, but it is not enough. I need to get away and spend time with Jesus on a daily basis. That is the only way that the air will taste sweet again and the only way that I will be able to love those around me the way that Jesus has called me to, Live the dream, life is too short not to.

Directionally Challenged

You would think that after spending five plus years in Boy Scouts my sense of direction would have been honed to the point that just by instinct I would be able to tell which direction is north. Unfortunately, this is not the case. By the grace of God I was born in the era of GPS and I am able to overcome my DCD (directionally challenged disorder) by relying on my trusty Garmin. (for those of you who know me closely, you know that I am a sucker for name brand items and that is why I mention that my GPS is a Garmin...I guess it's because name brands are fratty...) Ninety five percent of the time I can navigate to just about anywhere as long as I am linked to one of the 24 orbiting satellites that can steer me turn by turn to the place I need to go. It's that five percent of the time that really kills me...

This past weekend I spend some time down in San Antonio hanging out with some good friends, enjoying the hill country air and the excellent Mexican cuisine that San Antonio offers. As much as I love the open road and the beautiful scenery that this part of Texas offers, I saw a little too much of it yesterday. A good buddy of mine, Austin Roberson and I were heading out to my grandpa's lease about 20 miles outside San Antonio and after we had been on the road for about forty minutes something just didn't feel right. We started seeing signs for Laredo and none of the land marks looked familiar, so we pulled over to the side of the road and looked at the map that my grandpa had supplied us with. Sure enough, we missed the Del Rio exit. We had gone 40 miles in the wrong direction, but after studying the map a little closer I plugged in an intersection near the lease into my GPS and we finally started heading in the right direction.

The funny thing about that experience is that all along I had all of the tools that I needed to find my way. I had a map and I had a GPS, but I thought that I could find the place on my own and it cost me. How many times do I do that in my everyday life? I think that I can do it on my own and end up in a place I never thought I would be. Ultimately, the only way that Austin and I found our way to the lease was by taking a second and figuring out where we were and where we needed to be. There is an acronym that I learned in a wilderness survival class a long time ago that sums up the best way to get "un-lost": STOP. Stop, think, observe, plan. No one sets out on a road trip with the intent of finding themselves hopelessly lost, but it happens. We miss exits, become distracted or misread our maps. Finding the way back to the right road can sometimes be difficult, but ultimately that is the only way we get where we need to go.

The same is true in our spiritual lives as well. When we start doing things that go against who we were created to be and they don't feel quite right, STOP. Pause and think about what lead up to the moment when you started feeling a little off. So often our actions lead to something much deeper and many times "this is really about that." In doing this you will probably feel the depth of your fall and that is ok, we have to collect all of the garbage before we can take it to the curb. Observe your surrounding and analyze what you have been filling your head with (what movies you have been watching, who you have been hanging with, where you have been spending your time) and what you have been giving your heart to. Finally, plan, call a friend and let them know what is going on, enlist a group of guys to support you in your quest to be who God created you to be and ultimately, know that although you may be lost right now and you might not be satisfied with you are becoming, Christ has already found you. He found you when he climbed up on the cross and he can handle all of our brokenness and junk. Jesus loves you just as you are, not as you should be. Be found.

Buy a Vending Machine

In the movie "Big" Tom Hanks plays a young adolescent who makes a wish to become a grown up and all of the sudden, boom, he is an adult. I saw this movie when I was seven or eight and I don't remember many of the details but I do remember that in the apartment that Tom Hanks lived in he had a vending machine. He would throw a baseball at the Pepsi machine and out would drop a ice cold coke. For the past 12 years I have dreamed about having a vending machine of my own and two days ago that dream became a reality.

I just moved into a new house in Waco. I'm taking a few summer classes, building an ark (not really, just an epic lofted bed) and having a blast. There are only 3 guys in the house this summer and on Friday my roommate Kip and I started dreaming about what our vacant main room could be. We decided that the top two priorities were going to be seating and....a vending machine. We hopped on craigslist Friday evening and started emailing people about different sectional couches and vending machines. By Saturday morning we had a 5 piece (1 fold out bed, 2 lazy boys, a corner piece and one other piece) sectional locked in for 300 bones down in college station (whoop..i guess?!) and we had yet to hear back from any of the vending machine sellers. I left to go into work and not too long after arriving at Viteks (my newly acquired employer-it's home of the gut pak and many other BBQ creations) Kip sent me a text filled with exclamation points announcing that he had located a vending machine for 150 bucks in Katy, TX, just down the road from college station. I clocked out, raced home, and quickly called my buddy Trip Hillman to see if I could borrow his trailer. I received the green light and Kip, Will Glasscock and I loaded up in my truck, college station bound.

The sectional was a breeze loading onto the trailer and 2 stops to re-adjust the ratchet straps later we were on our way to Katy. As we rolled into town it started pouring and we were "tarpless" with 5 pieces of a what was soon to become a very soggy couch following us. (I think that the rain ended up cleaning the couch more than anything...we bought it on craigslist, what did you expect?) My GPS took us right up to the door of the veterinary clinic where we were met Freddy to claim our prize.

Our enthusiasm began to fade when we realized that the vending machine weighed 800 pounds. Yes 800 pounds, as in the same weight as an Orca Whale, but ninety minutes later we had the beast shimmied out the door of the clinic and onto our trailer. Unfortunately the most difficult task still awaited us 166 miles away. After backing the trailer within inches of the Estate (my waco house) it took us 3 hours just to get this huge piece of machinery standing upright, but after some innovation, combing my knowledge of tow straps and a combination of simple machines, thank you seventh grade physics, the pepsi machine stood upright. We tried to get it through the door but at 3 AM we were drained and had to wait until the next day where the Delta Tau Deltas bailed us out and with 5 guys and an appliance dolly, the Eagle landed in the corner of our man pad.

I tell this story because it is ridiculous and buying a vending machine is something you can only do in college. When else in life will I buy a sectional couch and vending machine in the same weekend for 450 dollars? Life presents us with opportunities all the time and sometimes they seem crazy, but those are often the best ones to take. "...make the most of every moment and every encounter. When you speak the word, speak it gracefully (as if seasoned with salt), so that you will know how to respond rightly to everyone." (Col. 4:3).

Summer is winding down and you have probably met some new people over the past few months and in the months to come with a new semester ahead there will definitely be new people and new opportunities to take. Make the most of every moment. Invest deeply in your roommates, friends, family, fraternity brothers, teammates and co-workers and don't be afraid to ask tough questions. Be courageous and step out in faith when there are moments that are seemingly insignificant and talk about things that are significant beyond the everyday BS where most of stay 90 percent of the time. Seasoned with salt...we are the salt of the earth. Salt preserves or cares for and enriches, so do the same in your community wherever you are, making the most of every opportunity and if you are ever in Waco, bring your quarters. There is a vending machine in my living room.

P.S.
If you are one of my roommates, this was supposed to be a surprise, but since you made it all the way through the blogg, good for you. We own a vending machine.

Encouragement from Eminem and Freedom in Confession

I have been back from camp for a full 7 days now and I have been shocked by how easy it has been to slip back into my same sin struggles. I mentioned this in an early post, but as the week progressed I realized that I couldn't deal with my problems alone. One of the biggest areas that this comes into play for me is with lust. If you didn't grow up in the laptop generation or if you are a chick you probably can't relate to my struggle, but if you are in the same boat as I am then you know how unbelievably easy it is to wander while online. I'm checking my email, on facebook or youtubing and all of the sudden my wicked heart kicks into gear and I find myself somewhere online where the kingdom of God is not near, a place where I really don't want to be, but for some reason I consistently go back to. With this sin struggle I so often play the, "this is the last time" game, I throw down the "it won't be like this tomorrow" card and quite frankly on my own strength it is never the last time and it always happens tomorrow.

I went camping this past weekend and on the way out to the Ranch I just didn't feel like myself. The baggage of my sin was weighing me down and keeping from fully enjoying the moment so I leveled with one of my good friends, Robert Boone and just told him what was up. Together we worked through my struggle with maintaining my integrity while online. As I formed the words in my head to start that conversation my heart raced and even though we are really good friends and go way back it was still scary and humbling, but after we worked through things the anxious feelings were replaced by peace that can only be found in confessing your struggles. James 5:16 says "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."

God is a God of restoration and wants to restore us to our full potential, but he cannot do his work in us if we keep our struggles bottled up inside. Find someone and confess your struggles to them no matter how dark or how scared you are. Ultimately our identity is in what God says we are worth and he says we are worth dying for. That's why he sent his son to this earth to hang on the cross for us. Maybe you are in the same boat as me and you need accountability and encouragement to maintain your integrity while you are online, maybe you error toward eating less than you should and when you compare yourself to others you want to stop eating, maybe you are in a relationship that is abusive or you have this unbearable guilt because you gave your purity away or maybe you feel like life has lost its purpose. Whatever it is God can handle it and he understands. Find someone to share your sin with. If not its going to be like that screeching sound coming from your engine. You try to drown it out with your stereo, but deep down you know something is wrong. Whatever it is, pull over, open up the hood and find someone to confess your struggle with. We are all broken people and need the love, support and accountability of others. As brothers and sisters in Christ we are called to bear one another's burdens and to take a stand, so in the words of Eminem

"I'm not afraid to take a stand
Everybody come take my hand
We'll walk this road together, through the storm
Whatever weather, cold or warm
Just let you know that, you're not alone
Holla if you feel that you've been down the same road"

"And I just can't keep living this way
So starting today, I'm breaking out of this cage
I'm standing up, Imma face my demons
I'm manning up, Imma hold my ground
I've had enough, now I'm so fed up
Time to put my life back together right now"

If you've never listened to secular music those lyrics are from Eminem. He's not a worship leader, but he speaks prophetically when he challenged us to walk the road together and to take stand, so break out of your cage, tear down the walls. Confess and find freedom.

Carpe the Kingdom

Towards the end of last semester I began embracing the "carpe college" mentality. Taking advantage of all the opportunities and freedoms that college affords is a great thing, but I allowed this mind set to seep in too far. It began translating as "College is all about me and I am going to do whatever I please." In other words, I began embracing selfishness and forgot my bigger purpose in life: to Carpe the Kingdom.

What does Carpe the Kingdom even mean? It means living a life that is not about you. What?! College is supposed to be all about me...making the grades to obtain a lucrative job, finding a hot wife, looking as fratty as possible... Those are not bad objectives, but carpe the kingdom is about much more. Carpe the Kingdom embraces that if we are in Christ then we are promised eternal life and we are going to live forever with part of our stay on earth and a much larger portion of eternity in Heaven. Let's start living life, realizing that Christ conquered death and if we are in him, death has lost its sting, meaning that it has no authority over us. We are not going to stay six feet under, but be elevated to live with Christ in Heaven forever after we breathe our last breath on this earth.

The opportunity before us is huge. We can make decisions on this earth that echo into eternity. The way we choose to love others, the way we invest our time, and ultimately the way we live out the Gospel are all things that are important to our creator and are things that we should be intentional about because they matter. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that we all become monks and nuns and stay in Bible study all day. In fact, I think that if Jesus was in college today #1 he would be the biggest frat star of all time #2 he would go to a school in the Big 12 (sorry Nebraska...) #3 he would be the life of every party. Following Jesus in college should not make us dull, but we should be the most fascinating people in our communities, clothed with love, humility and compassion.

Be in college, embrace the freedom, take random road trips, put off your term paper until the last night and pull an all nighter, frat hard, make good grades, make better friends, but ultimately embrace the Kingdom. Jesus is calling us to bring His kingdom closer to our universities, roommates, families, teams and fraternity brothers and the only way to do that is to be more about loving God and loving others than ourself.

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporary but the things that are unseen are eternal. "

2 Corinthians 4:16-18