So how is 2011 panning out so far? Not bad so far. I think I have too much on my heart to really spill all of it here, but I'll try to hit some of the bigger things. Seriously, I have such an expectancy for this year that I'm probably writing on a daily basis, most, I'm obviously not publishing, but God is really pouring some things in my heart here that I'm really excited about.
Integrity. Again. I know I've talked about this a lot over the past six months, but it won't go away. If anything, it's moved itself in and made itself comfortable in my space and invaded just about every nook and cranny it could find. And I love it. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the truth. But this is thankfully one thing God has really been dealing with in my heart. I want to be a man of integrity. I want God to say that I'm a man of integrity. And recently, I've come to a bit of a new understanding of what exactly this is. In 1 Kings 3:6 Solomon says of David …"You showed faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you." Honest and true and faithful. David. This dude messed up more times than most other biblical figures, but God still honored him. And loved him. And called him faithful! Why? We've all heard the sermons that David was a man after God's heart etc. etc. Personally, I think the key is in the first two words, honest and true. I'll cut to it. If I can't be honest and true with God, then how can I ever be honest and truthful with anyone else? Not with myself, not with my friends, not anyone I come in contact with. But because David knew God in such a deep, intimate way, he had the allowance to be honest and true with God. If anyone understood God's mercy and grace it was David. If anyone understood God's redemptive power and perfect timing, it was David. I'll never be David; which is probably both good and bad. I never want to steal anyone's wife and then murder the man, but I also will probably never slay a literal giant in front of my countrymen and have the king give me his daughter. But I do want God to say that I have been truthful and honest with him. And for the most part, I am. In fact, that's one of the things that I have absolutely loved about these last six months. It's no secret that at times it's been a bit lonely, a bit disappointing and a bit disheartening. But if there is one thing I learned in the process is to be honest with God. So I am. He's heard my frustrations, he's heard and seen my tears, he's heard my excitement. And I can honestly say that to this point, I've hidden nothing from him. So if David was counted as faithful because he could be honest with God, then honest is what I'll be. Sometimes I tell God how psyched I am about what he's doing in my day-to-day and other days, I just have to be honest and say –God, this sucks! One last thought here, ever notice how Adam, who hid from God, was never described as honest and true? Just a thought.
February is here. And while that is exciting on some level it's also a bit anti-climatic. I've dedicated these last six months to not dating anyone. But I would be lying if I said I didn't want to. More than that though, I want to be a man that can keep his word and can honor a commitment. And not that being single was all that difficult, but it's just one of those things that when you focus on not doing something, all of a sudden it becomes this huge elephant in the room. There were ups and downs at work, with my family, personally; just some good days and bad that I wished I had someone to share them with. But I didn't. And that wasn't horrible; this was just the season God had me in. So what did I learn? A lot, actually. And while I won't pretend like I would not love to have someone to share and do life with, I also don't expect God to magically drop some amazing woman in my life as a reward for some semi-pious endeavor and study into the dynamic of being a single man in his 20s. But none of this changes the fact that God is good to me. All the time. When I feel I deserve it and when I feel like I don't. What did I learn? This might be the biggest thing. Bigger than integrity. Bigger than discipline. Bigger than even the person I marry. I want to look like him. I want to act like him. I want to love like him. I want to hate like him.
I re-discovered what it means to love Jesus on a deep, molecular, root-changing level. I want to be like Jesus. Forgive me if this isn't some Earth-shattering theology or epiphany, but this is what he's spent the last six months engraining in me and maybe just recently allowed me to discover. I want to love like Jesus loved. I want to treat people the way Jesus did. When I try to imagine how Jesus would treat people today, I think of two sets of people that deeply impacted and shaped me to be the man I am today. I want to be as cool as a bartender and as solid as a youth pastor. I think that's how Jesus would do it. For all the years I spent in bars and parties trying to 'find myself' and just being a dumb kid, I always remember the bartenders. Well, sort of remember. But you know what I remember? The bartenders are always the life of the party. They talk to anyone, befriend anyone and serve anyone. And they always want you to have more. The bartender's sole purpose at a bar or party is to make sure you are enjoying yourself. I don't mean to offend anyone's sensibilities about Jesus, but to me, that's how I see him interacting with people. With bad people. With screwed up people. With lost people. He would say things like 'I have life and life abundantly.' 'Drink from this well and you will never be thirsty again.' 'Your faith has healed you.' I don't see a pissed off Jewish guy telling people where they're screwing up, I see a man that loves people and wants the best for people. I want to be that man. Then there were my youth pastors that always believed in me. Even when I gave them no reason to believe in me. They prayed for me, they cared for me and they were there for me every, single, stinking time I dropped the ball and needed an ear or a shoulder. I see Jesus treat people like that too. Who would have the gall nowadays to stand between a woman caught in adultery and her accusers? We're happy with ourselves if we give the homeless guy on the corner our left-overs and make small talk and pretend to remember his name. I want to be like Jesus. I was really good at being a bartender at a lot of parties and I love watching God turn even the most screwed up people-like myself-and give them a purpose, a hope and a life. I want to bring that to people. I want to love like him. I want to love his people—the screw ups, the misfits, the oddballs and even the hypocrites. You know what's crazy? For as much as we like to bash the religious hypocrites, these are the very same people Jesus cried over! How easy it is for me to forget that Jesus loves them too.
I want to hate like him. Yeah, God hates. And I know this is almost taboo to talk about because of all the wackadoos that claim to know who God hates and never focus on what God hates. But I want to hate like him. Read your Bible, there are lists and lists of things God says he hates, injustice, sin, uneven scales, his people not being cared for, hypocrisy. See, God doesn't hate anybody. He does hate things and circumstances. I want to hate the things he hates. I want to hate injustice so much that it moves me to action. I want to hate poverty so much that it brings me to tears. I want to hate sin destroying people's lives so much that it brings me to my knees. I want to bring Jesus to people. The Jesus that loved people and hated sin. Not the bitter, lame, ignorant, handicapped counterfeit so many churches and Christians try to pass off as legit. Not the version of Jesus so many people have seen that it scares them from his church and his presence altogether.
And what about this whole dating sabbatical? I honestly can't tell you how much closer I am to finding my wife now than I was six months ago. All I can do is trust and know that God knows my heart and knows what He's doing. I have to trust and believe his word that he has only the best for me, that he takes my biggest, baddest, wildest imaginations and uses that as a starting point for my life. Who is she and what does she look like? Only he knows. But if the ceiling of my imagination is his starting point, I've given him some pretty good material to start with, but my Jesus has never cheated me and he's never shorted me. So whatever he has in store for me, I know he'll blow my mind. There are some very specific lessons and thoughts I picked up in these last six months that I might jot down later. But for now, I control what I can control and focus on bringing this party to the world. And maybe, somewhere in this big party of the Redeemer gathering his redeemed, I'll find her—sharing her cocktail of love, kindness and cool with this broken world.
