king

When I was a kid I used to peg my pant legs. Remember that? I had it down perfect.
I tried pegging my pants the other day and it looks ridiculous. I can’t believe that was ever cool, and yet I see on commercials the Gap has these new “skinny jeans” that taper at the bottom. I wonder if it’s gonna make a come back.
It’s weird how fashion and culture flow and weave in and out and change in such a way that we can quickly adapt and change with it.
There’s a story in a book called Deuteronomy where the nation of Israel asks God if they can have a king. They want a king because all the other nations around them have a king. God responds by saying, “well, I wanted to be your king, but if you want a king, then you can have a king, but he’s not going to act like all the other kings.” So God makes these rules saying that whoever they pick to be king can’t have too much money or horses, and he can’t have a lot of wives or exercise certain privileges which was exactly the opposite of all the other kings in the surrounding nations.
Why?
Why didn’t God just say yes or no? Because in the midst of this cultural wave that crashes against our minds and sways us back and forth and back and forth, somewhere deep down there’s God who doesn’t get swayed by the current. God doesn’t compromise his morals just because this summer’s newest skirt shows your underwear, or last years car is out of style. God’s not swayed by what other people think or say or do. But I am. I constantly evaluate myself against the changing pattern of culture around me. Do I fit in? Do I have the right hair cut, or clothes or am I the right weight? When the reality is we are defining “right” by the always shifting, never stopping surge of chaos around us. What if underneath all of that God’s waiting for us to look to him to tell us what’s pretty, and what’s fashionable, and what’s the right weight, and when we really need a new TV or car?
What if instead of patterning our perception of values around the morphing culture, we patterned our perception of values around a God who never changes?
I guess I kinda wonder how different my life would look if I really allowed God to reign as my King instead of Nike, or Gap, or Chevrolet or whatever else sways me.

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journal

I keep this black and white picture of my wife and I in a journal I use to pray. Often it’s a journal I use to question God, and if I read back through it’s pages, it’s a journal I’ve used to yell at God and sometimes even accuse God.

There are blank pages too. Pages where I’ve tried to pray, and I’ve come up with nothing. There are pages where I’ve drawn my feelings or lack of, and pages where I’ve babbled out phrases that I didn’t really understand or words that I didn’t mean.
But in the front there’s this picture.
It’s from the fall before I was married. Amy and I are standing in front of this old oak tree that’s massive trunk is wider than both of us together. I’m standing behind Amy with my arms wrapped around her shoulders and we are both smiling. You might look at that picture and say something like, “oh that’s nice,” or “that’s a big tree.” If you turn the page, and look just behind that picture that’s where you will read pages of chaos, and frustration, and questions, and confusion.
I didn’t put that picture there in the front to remind me to smile even when things inside might not feel like smiling, nor did I put that picture there to create this façade that might paint a picture over the realities of that which follow. I keep that picture in the front, to remind me that in the midst of everything; confusion or joy, frustration or happiness, there’s peace.
You may have heard God described as a rock. There’s this book called Psalms where poets describe God as being steadfast. There’s even a story where Jesus is sleeping in this boat in the midst of a huge storm. The other people on the boat freak out thinking that the storm is going to capsize the boat and they are all going to die. Jesus wakes up and with a word, the seas are stilled and the storm vanishes.
I keep that picture in the front of my journal to remind me that there’s peace. There’s this stillness. There’s this sense of calm. When I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around whatever just happened, or something that is about to happen, there’s peace. There’s something I can trust in. There’s something that doesn’t fade, or pass away, or change. As I cry out, or yell, or beat my fists against the chest of God, he hears me, and he sees me and somehow he breathes peace into the midst of my storm. That’s why I keep that picture in the front of my journal.

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