But there’s something a little different about Froning. He’s a believer.

A real believer. Not just in a name but in deed. His behavior, attitude, actions and witness have been an inspiration to all who follow him. One of his contemporaries and friends Dan Bailey is also a believer. This year, Dan Bailey has his eye on the prize as the Fittest man on earth, and I think he has a good shot at it. It’s exciting to see two of the top competitors who are such outspoken believers.

In this photo after the first day of events, where both Dan and Rich broke world records, you can see on Rich Froning’s headband the reference to Psalm 18:29-36. Below is that passage:

²⁹ With your help I can advance against a troop^[a];
with my God I can scale a wall.
³⁰ As for God, his way is perfect:
The Lord’s word is flawless;
he shields all who take refuge in him.
³¹ For who is God besides the Lord?
And who is the Rock except our God?
³² It is God who arms me with strength
and keeps my way secure.
³³ He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights.
³⁴ He trains my hands for battle;
my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
³⁵ You make your saving help my shield,
and your right hand sustains me;
your help has made me great.
³⁶ You provide a broad path for my feet,
so that my ankles do not give way.

What an incredible passage. I can visualize the warriors of old, relying on the strength God provides. It’s inspring to see modern day athletes who rely on God for strength, and glorify Him for it.

I tend to obsess about whatever my current crush is whilst in the middle of it, then the fire dies and I go back to my normal life…or I lose time to devote to whatever it is, and the excitement wears off. Last night, my wife and I were watching a short documentary called “Killing the Fat Man“, in which a guy starts Crossfitting as an effort to regain control of his own fitness. It was really interesting, but the thing that stood out to me as a Christian was how excited he is about it once he gets into it, how he can’t shut up about it.

As  I was watching this guy gain new control, and go through what can be called a salvation experience, I immediately noticed how evangelical he became about fitness, nutrition and the subject of health in general. He wanted others to experience what he had experienced, he wanted his family to feel good about themselves in the same way he did. He might not be able to articulate it, and might be driving them crazy with his newfound life, but he wanted his joy to be their joy. He was experiencing something he never thought possible. He thought he would be a candidate for open heart surgery at an early age.

He couldn’t avoid being “evangelical” about his situation because he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He was so amazed that he could be in the place he was, that he was continually dumbfounded. I know this feeling…and I so identify with him. I never thought I would be in this place either.

I see this same passion in the story of the woman at the well. In John 4, Jesus meets a woman who no longer believes in herself. She has no husband, and is living with a man who is not her husband. If you read between the lines in this text and try to put yourself in her shoes, you see a familiar picture of a woman who has lost hope in herself, and has resigned herself to the misery that is her life. Then she meets Jesus. After her experience with him, she runs into the village and tells everyone, and others believed in Jesus because of her.

Much like the man in the documentary, this woman couldn’t and wouldn’t shut up. She had been redeemed.

Her struggle was not about fitness, but about a dream, a vision, an idea of a life that she grew up with as a little girl that was completely lost. In fact, just thinking about my daughters, and what I want for them, it breaks my heart to think about all the women in the world who don’t see themselves as beautiful and worthy. In God’s eyes, we’re all worthy of redemption, we’re all worthy to be loved. This is one reason Jesus speaks so strongly about judgement (Matt. 7:1-2), because we’re unable to love unconditionally like God.

And by the way, your feelings about God don’t and never will change the way he loves you.

Romans 5:7-8
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God wants to redeem our busted life and make us into new people that we never thought we could be. When that happens it’s exciting, and hard to keep quiet.

As a closing note to men, Love your wives and your daughters, affirm them and let them know they are beautiful and loved.
This your job, don’t drop the ball.

So I started looking at Jesus’ prayers with God, and though I’ve seen them before as I was reading through various gospels, the spirit in which he goes to God never really stood out to me until our pastor Mark illuminated how when Jesus taught about prayer he taught to use the words “Our Father…”

Jesus is inviting us into his prayer life. When he prayed, he conversed with God, he got alone, he spent intentional time, so that to him, prayer wasn’t some arduous task that needed to be strictly adhered to or he would lose his righteousness, instead it was a rhythm that he lived in. He didn’t worry about tomorrow because he knew and trusted that God had it all taken care of. He asked God to heal people, to bless the food, to heal the sick, and to be with him in his darkest hours.

God is a good father, who knows the ins and outs of every situation in your life, and regardless of whether or not you believe in yourself, or your ability to ask of him, that doesn’t change the fact that God is loving and generous and wants you to come to him. Jesus gave us his spirit to pray to God, when he sent the “helper”, which we call the holy spirit, he allows us to engage God in the same way he did, as God’s children.

Below are some photos of Fathers and their small children. Think of the children of these photos, do they worry? Are they concerned about how good or worthy they are to be loved by their father? Are they thinking they need to make sure and work up enough righteousness to be deserving? They’re not.

I must release the idea of trying to be righteous before I come to God, and before I can “establish my prayer life”. Prayer was a part of Jesus’ life because it was his life. It was as natural and as necessary to him as breathing and eating. He trusted God and came to him regularly because he KNEW him.

I’m still working through some of the false narratives I have about God, but for some reason, these images above help me. Thinking of myself as the those little children is helpful, but thinking of God as the father is even more helpful, because I am a father. I know what it’s like to wish so badly my children knew my love for them. And I think that’s how God is, he wants us to know the depths of his love, just as Jesus did.

One of Jesus’ most well-known parables is the story of the prodigal son (If you know the story, skip to paragraph 3). In the story, a father has two sons. The youngest of which asks his father for an early inheritance – all the money he would receive if his father were to die. He then takes the money and lives a brief and lush lifestyle until he has spent it all. In the story he realizes that he is less than a hired hand in his father’s household, and decides to return and request that his father treat him as an outsider seeking employment. When he is a long way off, his father sees him coming. The father runs to him, kisses him and welcomes him home. He then calls to his servants to prepare a feast with the finest of their livestock because his son is home and has returned, there is to be a celebration.

The older son was busy working in the field and as he was coming home heard the party. When he found out what the ruckus was about he became angry. He had been loyal to his father, he had never disrespected him, and could not join in the celebration. The father speaks to the son about his anger and says, “…we should be glad and celebrate! Your brother was dead, but he is now alive. He was lost and has now been found.”

In this story, the father is like God, who accepts us regardless of our actions and loves us consistently and unconditionally. We are one of the two sons. Often times, the focus is on the prodigal son who goes off and lives a lavish and foolish lifestyle, but how often are we like the older son who is unwilling to accept the grace given by the father?

It’s often easier for me to accept God’s grace for others than it is to accept God’s grace for myself. Maybe you’re the same way. Maybe you get too caught up, like I do, in self-loathing about your failings and shortcomings to realize that God accepts you where you are and wants to work with you now.

It is never our sin that keeps us from God. It’s our self-righteousness – our unwillingness to accept his grace, either because we think we don’t need it, or because we think we don’t deserve it.

In his book, the Good and Beautiful God, James Ryan Smith shares this poem by George Herbert, I’ve replaced the word Love with the word God to make it clear what this poem is referring to.

God bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d God, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.

“A guest,” I answer’d, “worthy to be here”;
God said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
God took my hand and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”

“Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says God, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says God, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.

- Love III, by George Herbert

Rest…

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

- Matthew 11:28

Being in the presence of Jesus is truly rest for your soul. He is a stable craft in the stormy sea. We learn first from him, and he changes us to be more like himself, to be more like God.

God wants to set things right. God wants to welcome us in to dine with him. It is not our sin, but our self-righteousness that keeps us from God. He forgives the sin, but cannot force you to accept his grace. He freely offers it, but only you can accept it.

I know some people who have screwed up in their lives. We all do, we all have. Many times though, our failures are used by the enemy to make us feel like we aren’t worthy to come to God.

The other day I thought to spend some time with God in prayer, but a voice in my head said “No, you’re not worthy to come to God, not by the way you treat him. You neglect him so frequently, why should he accept you?”

For a moment I paused and believed the lies, then I pushed through that and in my time communicating with the father I was reminded of the ceaseless unchanging love and mercy of God.

Whether your failures are of the flesh or the Spirit, God isn’t waiting for you to clean up your act before you can come to him. In fact, the bible says “…there is none righteous, no not one…”, and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

The well don’t need a doctor.

Jesus was once eating with some questionable people when some of the religious leaders turned up their nose at them. Upon seeing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the well, but the sick that are in need of a doctor.”

Jesus, the son of God, the author of our faith, intentionally met with, communed with and redeemed the screw ups. That’s what’s so fantastic about our story. Jesus wants to redeem us, right now, as we are, in the middle of all our mess. In fact, he WANTS to glorify us in the midst of it. God wants to do a life-changing, tremendous work in all of us, how can he glorify himself in your mess if you spend all your time cleaning it up?

In the entire Bible, I can’t think of one instance where God required a person to “clean up his act” before he would use them. In fact, Moses, Abraham, David, and most of the heroes of our faith were screwups. Moses killed a man, Abraham didn’t trust God and got another woman pregnant just in case God didn’t come through for him. David committed adultery and second-hand murder to cover his sins. Do these sound like completely righteous people to you? They weren’t but God used them and glorified their messes to produce people who were steadfastly about his work.

My wife was walking around the house this morning singing a familiar tune. A tune I had heard many times before in my life and never realized the beauty, truth and clarity contained in those age-old words. You’ve probably heard this old hymn, but read and meditate on the words below.

“Great is Thy faithfulness,” O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!”
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—
“Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is his faithfulness. Even when we are faithless. And I’m here to tell you this, as a person who frequently struggles with faithlessness. God is not waiting for us to be perfect, instead, he is waiting for us to let him perfect us.

When you are tempted to get your act together, don’t. God wants to redeem your mess. He wants to show you just how powerful, how wonderful, how abundant he is.

Let Him.

More coming soon.

Last night was fun. We were young again. My wife and I talked about what it would be like if we didn’t have kids, and how much time and freedom we used to have before we had kids…but then sighed and, “But isn’t life so much richer with them?”.

My wife asked me this morning what I liked most about being 30. I said it was that I felt complete. I have a wife who I’m crazy in love with and whom I would rather spend my time with than anyone else I can think of. I have two beautiful daughters with so much personality it makes me laugh, a wonderful home, terrific neighbors, a job I enjoy very much, a church I’m honored to serve and be a part of, and I am loved by God. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get much better than this.

I know that success can be defined in several different ways, but I feel very successful. Not to say that I’ve done all this, because I haven’t. I’ve been blessed in an amazing series of events all orchestrated by God to write my story, I cannot, and do not take credit for any of my successes. I credit them all to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ in my life. I credit all of it to Him.

I have so much to say, and as I sit down at the keyboard it starts to come pouring out, but let me first say what I sat down to write: As far as I’m concerned, anything I could gain in this world I already have. A loving family, a roof over my head, a job I enjoy, and a church that believes in the transformative power of Jesus Christ. I don’t think there’s much else. In the words of Johnny Carson: The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money.

But enough about that. The point is, that I’m satisfied. As I wrote in a previous post a long time ago, if my name means nothing but the father of Hannah and Norah, and loving husband to Meagan, that is sufficient, and that is my fulfillment. I don’t want to hear arguments about my needs, because I know they exist, and I tend to them, but the point is, I’m not blinded by any dreams of material gains. I’m at peace with where we are, regardless of our finances and material possessions. I’m happy to have these days.

Make it count.

About a year and a half ago my wife and I were taking a walk around our town home community with our, then 2 year old daughter. The weather was beautiful so an older man was sitting on his front porch and struck up a conversation with us. We talked for a few minutes, and while we were talking he looked at me, put his hand on my shoulder and said the following:

I know you didn’t ask for my opinion in parenting, but I’m gonna give it to you. Make it count. Enjoy every moment you have with them when they’re little, because when you get to be my age, you’re gonna look back and wish you would have. You’re gonna wish you spent less time at the office and more time being with them when they were growing up, when they wanted to be with you.

My daughter’s grown now, and she’s got a daughter who’s a little older than yours. She started school this year, and I just happened to be there for her first day of school. She wanted me to walk her to the school bus, so I did.

We were all standing there when the school bus pulled up and she excitedly ran up to the bus, then stopped, turned around to wave bye… [he then begins to tear up]

…and I saw my daughter standing there, at five years old, getting on the school bus for the first time…

I’m tellin’ ya man, make it count. ‘Cause you never get those years back.

I’m 30 years old today. I have two beautiful daughters, and a wife I am in love with.

We have dance parties in the living room, we color and do crafts together. We make big breakfasts on Saturday mornings and our daughters lick the spoon. We make it count.

If I’m not living the dream…I don’t know what is.

I didn’t want to give my life over to him, to fully submit to Him the future of my family and my children. I didn’t even realize I was doing it, but I was keeping them from Him, as if  I could provide for them better than He could; as if the life I had for us was better than the one he had prepared. The first time I realized this, I didn’t know what to do with it. So I sought the root problem of why I didn’t trust God, and as it turns out, I didn’t believe that God was good, I was afraid he would send me where I did not want to go, and make my life miserable to teach me about himself in ways I did not want to learn.

It was a sobering realization that I didn’t know God the way I thought I did; a confirmation that I don’t have it all together spiritually.

I was talking to a friend of mine about it and told him about how I was hesitant to trust God because of what that meant, and how that really shook me up that I didn’t understand God in that way. His advice was so full of common sense and such a logical approach to faith, that it was impossible not to take it.

Why don’t you and your wife commit to praying about this. Ask him to show you himself and show you his goodness.

And that’s basically where it started.

A new understanding

God is supreme

Everything that exists on this earth was made by Him, for His glory and purpose. That’s just the way it is. Some people might say that God shouldn’t have the ability to do with us what he pleases, but the fact of the matter is that if they even begin from the presupposition that he is God, then they’re cutting off the branch they’re sitting on. I don’t care to debate this. My point is: God is God, he is the ultimate power, there is nothing higher than him, no other power above him, so whatever He says goes.

But he gives us a will, and freedom. Even the angels had a choice. And even some of them chose to rebel. I think this again speaks to the fact that he doesn’t want mindless robots, he wants a response of faith, loyalty, he wants us to see that he is a God worth our allegiance.

God is gracious.

Throughout history, God has invited us in to his plan and purpose. The bible is replete with examples of God showing himself to his people, then trying to remind them of how he showed himself. We easily forget, yet he is gracious with us when we do. He knows our weaknesses, our tendencies, he understands that we will forget, that’s why in the bible the phrase “Remember” is used so much.

How quickly we forget, and how frequently he forgives. We’re like babies sometimes, forgetting about him as soon as our attention is drawn elsewhere. yet he forgives.

God is love.

God loved the world so much, that he gave his only begotten Son, to become a baby, to live with us, to have bad days, and colds and heartaches. To be fully human and deal with everything that comes with it. To give up all the power in the world, to live 34 years on this fallen world, and be killed, then rise again in order to defeat everything that is broken in it.

God is love, any true form of love is a testament to the presence of God in our lives on this earth. The hope that we have, is his presence. And not just Christians, unbelievers too. He is present in all of our lives, constantly providing a way to himself, if you only begin to look. That’s why hell is so frightening, it’s more than likely not made up of fire, red demons and pitchforks. It’s the complete and utter separation from God, which no human has ever known on this earth.

And that is love. To provide yourself, your love, your forgiveness, your hand of comfort, to those who do not love you, even to those who hate you.

God is good.

I believe that now. And as much of my spiritual discovery has been, it wasn’t through ah-ha moments, but through simple things that happen then set in until all of a sudden I’m in tears about how wonderful He is.

I am against abortion. I stand against it because, as Mother Theresa said, “It is a poverty, that a child should die so that you and I may live as we wish.” For the same reason I believe we must act to save lives, to preserve hope in others. As a Christ Follower, it is my responsibility to care for the orphans of the world. I believe that one day, we will come to judgment, and in this day, we must answer to the gray areas that we rationalized in order to ease our conscience. This is what I believe.

I’ve stood by the war in Iraq, for the freedom of an oppressed country; but is it right? I don’t know much about it all, except that Saddam was a Tyrant, and shouldn’t be in power, but somehow tyrants always do rise to power don’t they? Whether it’s right or not that we’re at war in Iraq, American soldiers are still in miserable conditions and putting their lives on the line every day.

Thousands of American lives have been lost in Iraq. This number didn’t bother me until today. Many parents lost their children in this war. The trauma that war inflicts on soldiers is nothing to take lightly either. Families have been ruined because of this war. I’m not saying I think the war is wrong, but I don’t want to shrug off the effect that it is having on households around our country. Today I was listening to Derek Webb’s “Love is Not Against the Law” song, when the line “Are we defending life, when we just pick and choose, lives acceptable to lose, and which ones to defend…” shook me.

I guess the point of all this is simple: Just because a person volunteers to go into the military and serve his country, does not mean that country can justify his death by the fact that he signed up. He signed up in good faith that the people of his country would not waste his life, and devastate his family for a war that is not a righteous, justified cause.

To whoever stumbles upon this thought and wants to drop me a note about the war and politics and what-not, you’ve obviously missed the point. The point is that life is sacred, and should be protected. And so, while I believe in defense, I will protest the sword if it is not wielded well. I am now called to examine this, no longer as an American, but as a Christian.

Tonight I was thinking about the story of Naaman from 2 Kings 5. Naaman was a great soldier, and well respected by his king (the king of Aram), but he was a leper. He went to the king of Israel because he heard he could be healed by a prophet, then Elisha told him to wash in the Joradan River seven times. He thought the idea was rediculous and was about to go back to Aram when his servants encouraged him saying:

“had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”

He washed in the Jordan and was healed.

His healing was from his act of faith — but to wash seven times. If he had washed 2 or 3 times, gotten fed up and left, he would not have been healed.

I believe that God is making me stronger through my suffering, or calling me to trust in him, to depend on him. I have not dipped seven times in the river.

I am not through with this pain, because I have not learned what it is he wants to teach me. Not yet.

Links to Follow: The story of Naaman | Streams in the Desert Article

It was a grandiose idea. We were young and passionate and eager to be used for God’s Kingdom; We didn’t know what that looked like, but we figured it was big, so why not be missionaries? I mean, that’s big right? That trip went much differently than we thought it would go. And ended especially more so. And to be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what it was about. But we learned from it.

When I was in another country, researching to find out if it was feasible for us to live there and prepare a cross-cultural training ground, I was facing down several challenges that were all new to me.

1. The people spoke a different language
2. They people were from a different culture
3. The people were entirely ignorant of the gospel of Christ, and to them, Christian was literally a reference to their enemies.
4. I had no experience doing any of this

As mentioned previously, we were young and eager, but somewhat naive. Being there felt so heavy and so overwhelming that I remember realizing the following:

I traveled half-way across the world to be used for God’s Kingdom, and I don’t even know my own neighbor’s name.

When our plane landed in the states, I remember thinking, “If I can do it there, I can do it here. I’ve got to be more intentional about the way I live.”

So weeks go by, I get busy, I forget. I continue on with life, as we all do, going from day to day, without thinking about my direct community. Then (four years later) I start looking through one of my old journals, I see my notes from after we got back from our trip. In the margins of church notes I scribbled: To be a Christian is to be a missionary.

The point is, I believe Christ has a plan to redeem all things. And he has invited us to be part of this process. Missionaries are the ones who are seen as being involved the most. But why just them? Isn’t it on all of us? The question kept coming up in my mind again and again:

If I believe that Christ really does have the ability to change the world, that He brings about world change, how is my world changing?

And that’s the question I want to intentionally ask myself. How is my world changing? If the answer is: it isn’t. Then maybe I’m not doing something right.