criticism

I don't really know how to deal with criticism.

We always got comment sheets from our school growing up, with a bunch of checkboxes to mark off - and there would always be a positive checkbox side and a negative checkbox side and the moment the negative side had any trace of ink on it, I would freak out. One time, I shredded them all, hoping my parents would never see anything to possibly suggest that I wasn't doing perfectly fine.

Needless to say, the box labeled "Accepts criticism well" was always left blank.

I've always thought that understanding the gospel would help with that. People can't take the bad news because there's no good news to save us from the bad. I think that's why we get defensive.

A quote within a quote within a book I'm reading expressed it really well. This is why I need Jesus.
In light of God's judgment and justification of the sinner in the cross of Christ, we can begin to discover how to deal with any and all criticism. By agreeing with God's criticism of me in Christ's cross, I can face any criticism man may lay against me. In other words, no one can criticize me more than the cross has.
- Alfred Poirier, qtd. in Worship Matters p. 223

Chris

no turning back

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."
- 1 Corinthians 9:24
I've done my rounds and as we're hitting the final stretch of this season, I'm tired, beaten, and bruised. I don't feel like I know what I'm doing anymore, and of the things I know I should be doing, I don't feel like I have the strength to get up and do it. Sometimes, I want to give up and slink to the sidelines. But no, God offers a power I could never muster up on my own.
"I was pushed back and about to fall, but the LORD helped me. The LORD is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation."
- Psalm 118:13-14
"Jesus replied, 'No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.'"
- Luke 9:62
It's painful to say, but sometimes the only way past the fire is through it.

I watched the movie Chariots of Fire with a friend yesterday and something amazing about the story is just the heart of the men who don't stop running the race they're given. It's inspiring. Easier said than done, for sure.

The end for us is more than just tape marking a finish line. It's the hope of finding good rest without regret, it's the hope of seeing and enjoying the treasures we stored up in heaven. It's the hope of meeting Jesus face-to-face one day and hearing, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." We don't stop running this race until we die. No turning back.

Chris

worth

But God drags away the mighty by his power; though they become established, they have no assurance of life. He may let them rest in a feeling of security, but his eyes are on their ways. For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone; they are brought low and gathered up like all others; they are cut off like heads of grain.
- Job 24:22-24
For a little while they are exalted, and then they are gone.

I've lived off of man's praise for a long, long time. I've had daily doses and injections of ego from teachers, parents, friends - whether direct or indirect - references to intellect, discipline, maturity, talent, skill, achievement, whatever. And it feels good. But it's most surely a fleeting joy. Who will remember me in a century? Who will remember Steve Jobs in even 20 years?

He may let them rest in a feeling of security...

Again, it feels good. To feel like I'm capable, to have a high GPA, to get a nice job, to feel accomplished, secure, to be constantly told that I will do great things. And perhaps all those things are true.

They are brought low and gathered up like all others...

But in the end, one day I will grow old and my brain will slow down. Perhaps, I contract a mental disorder and I can't be the smart kid anymore. Perhaps I end up crippled. Perhaps I get caught in a fire and half my body is burned. These things are surely implausible, but not impossible. I'm sure Job (in the Bible) didn't think he was going to lose everything so abruptly.

I thank God that our treasure is in heaven.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
- Matthew 6:19-21

Chris

we are but trees

Five interesting things I've run across this past week:

1) When is Indecision Loveless and Sinful? (A Lesson from Bonhoeffer)

2) Just Do Something - Kevin DeYoung

3) How He Loves - David Crowder Band
"He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy"

4) "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire." (Luke 3:8)

5) "So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor." (1 Corinthians 3:7-8)

Chris

hopelessness

As a computer scientist, I live and breathe problem-solving. An average workday looks something like this.
"Chris, the website's not working. Something's broken."

"Oh, is that so? Let me fix it."

Chris tinkers around for anywhere from 15 minutes to 6 hours...

"FIXED IT I'M THE BOSSS POAMEFWMF!!"
Unfortunately, life isn't just a bug list that you can knock out one at a time. And the huge problem with computer scientists like me is that it's just too hard to break out of that mentality.

Recently, God's been challenging me with the idea - what if the problem isn't the problem...
What if the problem is you?
That is - what if in reality, it wasn't the bug that mattered so much as the programmer who caused the bug. Because if you had perfect programmers, you'd have perfect programs. And unfortunately that will never happen.

I've made a mountain of blunders this past week in various contexts with various people, and I impulsively want to go hide away in a cave somewhere and seclude myself from humanity. But since that's not very practical, instead I address my failures by trying to asking, "Chris, how can you fix/make up for/rectify this situation?"

And I think there's one thing I need to understand - that I didn't "make a failure," I am the failure. The sin can't be separated from the self because the self is sin - as Paul refers to the sinful nature in Romans. And this is very depressing and seemingly hopeless.

In a book I've been reading, a dude named Bob Kauflin talks about hopelessness. And he shared about how his testimony came together when he only realized how hopeless he was:
About a year into the process I talked to a good friend, Gary Ricucci, whom I am now in a small group with at Covenant Life Church. I said, “Gary, I feel hopeless all the time.”

He said, “You know, Bob? I think your problem is that you don’t feel hopeless enough.”

I don’t know what I looked like on the outside, but on the inside I was saying, “You are crazy. You are crazy. I feel hopeless.”

He said, “No, if you were hopeless, you would stop trusting in yourself and rely completely on what Jesus Christ accomplished for you." That was the beginning of the way out. And I remember saying to myself literally hundreds of times—every time these feelings of hopelessness and panic and a desire to ball up in a fetal position would come on me—“I feel completely hopeless because I am hopeless, but Jesus Christ died for hopeless people, and I’m one of them.”

Over time I began to believe that. And today when I tell people that Jesus is a great Savior, I believe it, because I know that he saved me. That’s where my joy comes from. My joy comes from knowing that at the very bottom, at the very pit of who I am, it is blackness and sin, but the love and grace of Jesus goes deeper.

- Hope for Your Dark Night of the Soul
I never thought it could feel so good to be hopeless. I'm going to screw up today, you know. But the awesome thing is that that's not what matters. The awesome thing is that today, tomorrow, forever, God is making me more like Jesus and strengthening me to please Him. And one day, I'll have eternal life in a world with God and without sin.

Chris

think before you do

(http://thealphanetworkeralliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/house-on-sand.jpg)

I remember reading the Mythical Man-Month in class last semester and reading that in a programming project, we should only spend 1/6 of our time actually coding. I heard that and it made sense, but I didn't really believe it.

So here I am, working at truApp and thinking I've got this whole programming thing down. When I'm given a task, I dive in and start hacking away. What I've noticed: I get it done quick, but I don't understand what I wrote, and it takes longer to fix bugs than it took to write the code in the first place. I might as well start over, take some index cards, sit down, plan thoroughly, and start over. And I've done that many times.

What I take from this is that execution is never the most important part. If I'm planning an event, the actual event is the easy part but if the preparation and the planning isn't done well, the damage control required afterward is huge.
Preparation > execution.
Sometimes I think that when we're worshiping together at church and people are mute and unwilling to sing, we need to come up with more gimmicks and better teaching methods to get them to sing. But the execution is only a sign of the lack of preparation. No amount of pestering people is going to change that. And we can modify behavior, but that's only doing the bug fixes. It will take forever, and nothing will really change.

Instead of trying to fix what's broken, we can start over. And do it right from the get-go. Start on the right foundation.
"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand."
- Matthew 7:24-26
People will come and worship God when they're genuinely in love with God. And until then, all we can do is tell them how beautiful God really is.

Chris

gold is not all that glitters


This past week I was going through our church's Bible reading plan, and read the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19. It's a story that's remained in the back of my mind as far back as I can remember. And it's funny because I don't think I can even properly remember the story of Samson with all the VeggieTales videos and storybooks, but this brief encounter between Jesus and one man embedded a deep fear in my heart that I couldn't shake.
A rich man comes to Jesus and asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus replies with a few of the Ten Commandments and to "love our neighbors as ourselves."

Check. Chris, you are golden. One-way ticket to heaven!

The rich young man replies, "All these I have kept. What do I still lack?"

Wait. This guy sounds a lot like me. "Lack"? Am I missing something here?
Jesus says, "If you want to be perfect..."

Yes, indeed. We must be perfect to get to heaven. I want to be perfect! What's the catch?
"... go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

And the young man went away sad because he had great wealth.
Later, Jesus goes on to say that it's harder for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to enter the eye of a needle. As a child, I thought that was too tight a squeeze for me, and therefore resolved never to be rich, period.

Now, at age 20, I succeeded. I am not monetarily rich, and don't plan on ever really being rich. But I do have a CS degree from one of the most prestigious universities in America, and apparently that's worth a pretty high-paying entry level job at companies like Amazon, Facebook, or Google. I'm a good person; I've followed every rule. I'm generally regarded as highly intelligent. I haven't rebelled against my parents. I'm pretty generous. I know how to welcome people. I know how to share about Jesus with people. I serve faithfully in the church. I'm pretty athletic, and I'm at least above average in most things I can think of. They aren't literally gold, but these are very shiny things. And what the Apostle Paul thinks about himself, I often think of myself:
"If someone else thinks they have reasons to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless."
- Philippians 3:4b-6
But then he goes on to say:
"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ."
- Philippians 3:7
All that he had going for him was going against him. It's like how the wealth of the rich man keeps him from passing through the eye of the needle. It's like a man whose house is on fire and when he stops to grab his possessions, he ends up burning to death. It's like Lot's wife who looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. It's like putting your hand in a Pringles can and being unable to pull it back out because you're holding on to too many chips. It is like many, many things.

But more than anything, it is like the rich young man who went away sad.

And I am not super rich in terms of money and possessions, but I am rich in terms of gifts and talents. And I always wondered how I could give all those things up; that is, how I could stop trusting in my talents as my backup for finding a job, stop trusting in the wisdom I have to counsel people, and stop trusting in the comforts of everyday life to carry me another day.

So cliche, but the answer is always, always Jesus. Because Jesus is the One who opens my eyes to see that the key words are not go, sell your possessions, but they are you will have treasure in heaven. And as my eyes widen daily to see just how awesome the treasure is - talking with God, being in His presence, knowing God's truth, feasting on His Word, having His guidance, being part of His Kingdom and will - my talents and gifts are indeed loss for the sake of Christ.

All this to say that: gold, my good sirs, is not all that glitters.

Chris

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