Wrapping and Unwrapping

Welp. Here we are. End of one year and cusp of another. I'll be honest, I never make New Year's resolutions, I think they're a bit hokey and lend themselves to huge failure rates. But recently I have been thinking a lot about this past year and growing more and more excited for 2011. Which, honestly, is really kind of strange for me because I'm really not a big event-type guy. Here's my view: if you weren't doing it before, you most likely will not do it after. And I don't mean for that to sound pessimistic, but I just think it's rational. If you weren't working out and eating right before January 1^st, what makes you think you'll do anything different after? Changes like that are lifestyle choices, in my opinion. If you don't change your lifestyle altogether, a different day on the calendar most likely will not change things for you. That and I worked membership sales at a gym for some time, so I know first-hand how true this is.

I've mentioned this before, but working these wackadoo international hours really gives me a lot of time to reflect-sometimes probably too much. But here recently, it's been good. As I look back over 2010, I can't help but feel thankful for where I am. It has been a good year. It has also been one of the most trying years I've had in recent memory, but it has been great nonetheless. So far, here's a few things that I picked up:

• Cherish friendships. If there is one thing that got me through 2010, it was the people around me. Which in itself is a bit of a contradiction, because this year, more than most, I've let people go out of my life. And not that that's a bad thing, but I realized this year that I was investing a lot of time and energy into friendships and relationships that really weren't reciprocating much if any of that investment. So slowly and quietly, I slipped into the background of a lot of scenes and let my 'friends' seek me out a little more. I had a suspicion as to which ones would and which ones would inevitably fade themselves. And for the most part, I was pretty spot on. I'll say this though, it was a bit surprising when some people, who at one point had poured out their heart and pledged their undying allegiance to our friendship, fell off and became no more familiar to me than my local Starbuck's barista. There were those that I could almost predict were calling for some favor or reference; a job opening, an introduction to so-and-so, who knows so-and-so and just as quickly were gone without so much as a 'thank you.' Or the ubiquitous 'can you help me move Saturday?' friends. But that's ok. That's life. But this, more than anything, taught me to cherish those that are in my life simply because they care about me and want the best for me. These are the ones I invested in and these are the ones that got me through this year.
  
• There is wisdom in counsel. This is one of those things I've 'known' in the theoretical sense, but this year I've seen become more real in my life than almost any other 'epiphany' I can readily point to. In fact, so many of my solid decisions that I've made this year I can point to phone calls made to a select three to four people that honestly took the time to pray for me, pray with me and lend the best advice they could garner from their God-given wisdom.
  
• Take care of yourself. This seems really simple, but I think this, too, has come into a pretty sharp focus this year. It was either Rev. Run or Russell Simmons that said 'you're no good to anyone, if you're not good to yourself.' And I realize that comes across as some privy little fortune cookie quote, but it was really something that stuck with me. Be good to yourself. All the time. As much as you can. And not in a conceited, self-centered way. But I honestly believe I am a son of God. A prince of the Most High. Co-heir with Christ. All those things we're supposed to believe, but we never really do—I mean we don't really believe them in such a deep-rooted way that it shapes our daily lives. So I learned to be good to myself. Maybe it's because I realized I'm closer I'm closer to 30 than I am to 21, but I want this body to last me for a while. I want to play catch and basketball with my kids. And at the rate I'm going, those won't be around for quite some time. So I lift and run and try not to put too much junk in my system. But not just physically—emotionally, spiritually. As much as I can feel when I eat junk food and forget to work out for a few days, I can feel when I haven't been consistent in the Word or forget to include Jesus in my day-to-day. This was also part of the reason I cut off some people from my life. If they became too emotionally taxing, they were gone. And not that they were bad, but I'm good to myself. I respect and cherish myself. So if I don't mistreat myself, why would I allow someone else to? Yeah I'm talking a little about relationships here, but seriously, if you don't respect and honor yourself, why would you expect someone else to? I have this rule when it comes to 'talking' or 'seeing' someone. And maybe it's off and could perhaps use a little tweaking, but it's something like this: I am really, REALLY good at being single and I honestly enjoy it. And, in my mind, if I'm allowing someone else in my world and possibly looking at the chance of starting a relationship with her, she ought to bring more to the table than she takes away. Simply put, if it's harder being with someone than it is being single, what's the point? I don't have to argue with myself when I'm single. I don't have to apologize to myself for being rude or disrespectful. I'm good to me. So if someone comes along and isn't as good to me as I am, I move on. I realize this seems a little ego-centric, but it's a simple cost-benefit analysis, if the person I'm looking to possibly start a relationship with takes away more than she deposits in my life-it is unhealthy. Be good to yourself.
  
• Be humble. I'm obviously still working on this one, but it's one of the things that God's really been pulling on my heart about. Short and sweet—if you have to tell everyone how great you really are, you're probably not that great.
  
• Be who you are and let others worry about whether they like it or not. This year, I've had some pretty good discussions with other Christians on everything from politics, to the role of the church in society to beer. And that's cool. There are some gray areas that are just open for interpretation. I don't think anyone is going to hell for disagreeing with me. But at the same time, I quit worrying about impressing others. I was never very good at it to begin with, so why bother? I am who I am and that's all that I am. Pretty good right? Popeye. It simply comes down to this, if you wouldn't like me for who I really am, why would I mask some of that to meet your comfort level? You can have your views and I'll have mine. I love Jesus and he loves us both, so why sweat the details?
  

And while none of these have really turned into a checklist of resolutions for 2011, there are some definite areas I would like to improve on.

• I would like to make wiser decisions with my life. Now, more than in other years I'm seeing the consequences of making dumb choices when I was a dumb kid in the world. Yeah, there's grace that covers your sin, but there are also consequences for living an undisciplined life. I don't want to have to look back in my 30s and wish I had made better choices in the bottom half of my 20s.
  
• I want to be known as a man of my word. A man of integrity. I think of my dad here. But the man was old-school. I mean old-west, old-school. He was a man that would say no before he said yes to most things. And while that aggravated everything in me when I wanted a new toy, I can appreciate now that he was also a man of his word. If he said he would do something or he would be somewhere you could write it in stone. In fact, in the years he raised me, I can think of only one time he ever said he would do something and it fell through. We were playing basketball one day and had to cut it short. He promised me we would pick the game up the following week, but never did. The reason? Shortly thereafter, he was admitted into the hospital to fight a two-year fight that would eventually take his life. He was a man of his word. He wasn't a man that 'overcommitted' or 'double-booked' himself, fancy lexicon we've come up with today to diffuse a situation when we drop the ball and show there is a flaw in our integrity—a lack in the value of our word. I want to be known as that man.
  
• I think, finally, I want to be more of a man of purpose. I heard from a friend recently that I had not talked to in almost a year and in the catching up, the most honoring thing I think she said to me was 'César, you're a man that sets goals and reaches them.' She reminded me about a year ago when, over coffee, I mapped out my 12, 18 and 24 month goals. Life happened and we just kinda fell off for almost a year, but it was cool to be able to show her how in a little less than a year I was past some of my 18-month goals. I wasn't bragging, honest, we were just catching and she was the one to point out where in the map I was.
  

I want to be more of that man. A man that can reach and achieve. A man that can lead with diligence and honor. A man that can have a life of integrity, honor and honesty. And even if no one is around to see it or cheer for it, I'll be that man. Because if 2010 was any indication, most won't notice and the few that do, most may not care. And that's ok too, I don't do it for anyone to laud and applaud. I do it to impress my God and appease my conscience. And while I know this isn't quite some tangible checklist of resolutions for 2011, this is what I'm shooting for. So bring it 2011. I'm ready for you.

Why Are You Chasing Me?

This is something that has been on my heart a lot lately. I heard it quietly in my spirit some weeks back and has recently become a banner. A loud, obnoxious inescapable question I keep finding over and over again.

Let me explain. I started this whole "I'm not dating" experiment some months back, and not because I thought it would be fun, or even honestly because I thought I needed it. I haven't dated in about a year and a half now. But it started, like many things of the faith do, with a whisper. I felt it in my spirit one day and after praying about it and talking to my counsel about it, we all felt pretty comfortable that this is what God was leading me to do. Shortly after starting this process, I really felt like God was impressing on me that this was a time for preparation, a season to grow and learn and to sort of 'make room' for the woman he has in store for me. So I went with it. I took up cooking, I picked up a few new hobbies, read a few more books—wanna know a secret? I even listened to country music. Crazy right!? Don't be too impressed, it was very sparse and I was very snobbish about it. I listened to like, two songs, and they were either classics-Cash or very well written-Asleep at the Wheel. But point is, for the first part of this, I very much felt like God was literally preparing me for my wife. The balance to this is that I'm not always a hopeless romantic. I try to have a pretty good balance between Cloud Nine romanticism and real life pragmatism. So I insist on opening every door, every time when I'm with a girl, but I'm ok if she picks up the tab from time to time—I'm not trying to go broke dating a girl. So I knew that in this preparation God wasn't necessarily promising me that at the end of this season he would magically fabricate the perfect woman and divinely place her in my world. I try to not treat God like my magic genie. But I knew there was a reason this was the season he had me in.

Lately this season has taken an interesting turn. One of the things I've felt a lot recently is this very question:   Why are you chasing me? Initially, I wanted to have a very holy, Sunday School-esque type answer. Oh thou Lord Almighty of the Heavens, who am I that thou shall thinketh of me? I am but a vessel at thy's…thou's..beck and call…. Haha. Right? But Jesus and I have a strict no BS policy. See, the way I see it, he already knows what I feel and think, so why lie to him about it? And if I was real honest with myself, and with him, I knew what I was doing. I was chasing him in this season and going through this 'exciting' adventure of singleness and learning and 'character growth' really, really hoping that he has an amazing woman for me at the end of all this. A really fine, gorgeous woman that happens to be amazed at the character growth I've experienced and thinks there is an impressive, understated, eloquence to my walk and the discipline and self-control I've exhibited during these last few months. Haha. He caught me. I knew and He knew. While I wasn't necessarily treating God like my personal magic genie, I was definitely in it to see what I was getting out of it more so than out of simple obedience. That's when he said it. Why are you chasing me? Isn't it funny that God will ask you questions you both already knew the answer to? So I went with it. –OK Lord, you know why and I know why. Obviously it's off somewhere or it wouldn't be a topic right now. So what do I need to change? The answer was simple.

Nothing.

              Nothing?

                 Nothing.

Keep doing what you're doing, but answer this: if you got nothing out of this. Absolutely nothing. No wife, no epic life lessons, no promise of an amazing wife, no divine intervention in your dating game—would you still be doing this? And there it was. That's where I was off. While I wasn't banking on the idea that God was magically orchestrating the cosmos to improve my dating game, I was really, really, really hoping he was.

So it comes down to this. Am I chasing him in this season to see what I can get out of him? Or am I chasing him because he's my God and my Father that loves me and wants to spend time with me?

It wasn't the easiest or deepest revelation in this whole season—in fact, I feel like a lot of these 'revelations' aren't really all that Earth-shattering. But it was something I was off on. So here's me. Chasing Jesus on this season he told me to go on, with absolutely no promise of anything. Funny thing is, I don't hate it. I don't want to be uber-pious or anything, but it's ok. He's never cheated me and He's never shorted me. If He has an amazing wife for me somewhere down the line, that's great. If she's just around the corner that would be amazing. If not, that's amazing too. See, while you can chase God for what He has in his hands; I believe, you don't really get to know God and experience God until you stop caring so much what He has in his hands and start seeking His face.

Paul said something like –I wish you were all lifetime bachelors like I'm a lifetime bachelor, for the call of God. I don't think he had a sweet bachelor pad though. But what if? What if that's what God had for you? Would you be willing to chase after that? What's our belief system? Is it that God is bigger and greater than our dreams and wishes? Or is it that He has to fit into our dreams and wishes? I don't believe God will ever cheat you or short you. Ever. "You can't out-give God," that's what the preacher says when he wants you to give more money right? But what if you really can't? What if you can't out-give God and the single life he has for you is a thousand times more amazing than the married life you thought you would have? Crazy talk? Maybe. But what if? What are we really seeking Him for? For what he can give us? Or to give him a miniscule of an offering for the life and salvation He's given us? Maybe he wants me to be single the rest of my life and move to a monastery-that might be kind of cool. Those dudes practice Kung Fu right? Or maybe He wants me to learn to chase him for no other reason than He is God. Either way, I have to trust and know and believe that he is God and he knows what he's doing.

Why are you chasing?

Time Out

I'm a little more than halfway through this little journey I decided to take on. And what's funny is that I feel as though I should be so much wiser and so much more 'enlightened' by now. But sadly, nothing. At least nothing exciting. So what have I picked up in this endeavor so far? Honestly? Not a whole lot. Seriously. But I kind of expected this too. In fact, I knew going into this, that it was more of a 'discipline' exercise than it was a 'huge-earth-shattering-epiphany' exercise. I have learned a little about myself and some about the environment and the season I'm in, but nothing exciting or even all that uplifting. Ha!

But here it is:

• When you're focusing on being single, everyone around you decides to get married. Literally. Everyone. I almost feel bad for how many weddings are going on around me because at this point it's just kind of another date on the calendar for me. Not that I'm not ecstatic for my friends that are getting married and starting this wonderful life together, but when kids I used to teach in Sunday school start sending wedding invitations, it starts feeling more like a joke that's been beat to death than a new, exciting chapter in someone's life.
  
• Which brings me to my next 'revelation.' The danger in being single for so long is that it can make you very jaded and very cynical. This is dangerous for someone that naturally has a no-nonsense approach to romance and life in general, but again, when my old Sunday school kids are getting married, it's hard not to laugh at the irony of it all.
  
• Not thinking about pink elephants will inevitably lead to you thinking about pink elephants. That's the old idiom right? I've been single for well over a year and a half now and for the most part, it wasn't that bad. In fact, I think I got to be pretty good at it. But now that I'm 'focusing' on being single it's like a whole new season just appeared in my life. Nothing has really changed, but now that I'm focusing on it, it seems so much more difficult! It's weird, I'm usually not one of those relationship guys-I mean, I'm not the type that always wants to be in a relationship. In fact, my track record is one where I'm usually single for a very long time before I decide to commit and settle down with one girl. But this season for some reason seems so much more difficult to not get nostalgic or daydream about has been and what could be.
  
• God works in the little things. I don't necessarily think I 'learned' this here, but it has definitely served as a bold reminder. This season has me spending so much time alone that it's like I have no choice but to talk to God. All the time. But this has probably been my favorite part of this whole journey so far. I do almost everything alone. And not in a negative connotation, but I'm pretty consistently on my own, which has forced me to grow and learn about everything I never wanted to know. I've spent more time in the produce section of HEB picking out bell peppers these last few months than I ever have in the last 27 years! But all this alone time, I have so much more time to talk to God. And it's been awesome. I wish this could also mean that I've been a 'great' Christian for the most part, but sadly, I've dropped the ball more times than I'd like to count. I'll spare you the details, but even in my alone time, God has not left me. Which is comforting and sobering at the same time. Anytime I drop the ball, he's there to quickly rebuke and rebut. But on the other side, when I'm feeling just kind of down and out, he's there to encourage and speak life into me. In all this time, I've also gotten some pretty heavy---'revelations' I guess you could call them. Which is also exciting. And scary at the same time. One of the things he's impressed on my heart pretty heavy lately is the desire to pray for my wife. Which I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of. I love the idea that I'm praying for this woman that I've never met and that somehow, spiritually, the things that I'm praying for now, somehow have some huge, tangible impact on her life. But honestly, it's hard. It's like if I'm trying not to think about pink elephants but I have to pray about pink elephants at the same time, I'm just pulling at myself from opposite directions…
  

I'll be real here and a little raw. I hate how much this season has made me dependent on God. There. I said it. I. Hate. It. It's hard and it's humiliating. To think that at 27, I still don't have my world put together enough that he has to set me apart for some season of God-knows-what to learn God-knows-what. I feel like a little kid that got grounded. I feel like so much is being taken away from me, even though I never had it to begin with. Like I did something wrong and I'm having to sit in time-out to think about what I've done. And it sucks. It sucks that there's no appeal process, no bargaining, no pleading. Just take it for what it is. And the worst part is, I have a choice. I can choose to go through this season and be obedient or ignore it and do whatever the heck I want. And I honestly wish sometimes, I would just choose the latter. But history and experience have taught me that when I do that, I'll inevitably end up right back here doing this exact same thing, wishing I had done it earlier. It sucks.

So I sit and think. And learn. And promise to grow and be nice and kind and thoughtful and whatever else I'm supposed to pick up from this season. I know this isn't all that uplifting and encouraging, but I just want to be real for a second. I don't like being disciplined. But more than that, I don't like being undisciplined. I've been there. I've made undisciplined choices with my life before and suffered the consequences of it. So if there is a silver lining here, it's a small one. A very small, faint one that I have to cling onto for dear life. If going through a season of learning discipline and building character and integrity sucks. It's infinitely better than going through a life never having learned those things.

And that's what I hold onto. The fact that God knows what he's doing. The fact and the history that he's never let me down and he's never cheated me or shorted me when he promised me something big. So I sit. And wait. And learn. Wishing I could plea and negotiate some sort of clemency, but deep down knowing even if he granted it, I wouldn't take it.

Proverbs 15:5. Only a fool despises a parent's discipline; whoever learns from correction is wise.