discounts

It's crummy being a restaurant owner. You're the victim, that manipulated guy that all your friends walk in expecting a 30% discount and appetizers on the house. My heart goes out to them. Feel free to join me in my annual April 23rd moment of silence for all restaurant owners with friends.

Never do I walk into a friend's workplace and expect to give, but I do feel entitled to receive a whole lot. After all, we're friends right? *nudge nudge*

A radical idea crossed my mind... What if I went into a friend's restaurant and expected to pay more? What if I tipped 40% because they were my friend and I wanted to honor them? What if I expected to give instead of get? And that got me going...

It says a lot about how much we respect and love our favorite musical artists when we pirate their music, how much we love our church by demanding they meet our needs, how much we love our roommates when we count the number of times we clean the house without their help, and how much we care about our friends who own restaurants when we expect to be treated like kings.
"Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 25:17)
To love God and to love your neighbor is altogether something radically different.

Chris

quite poignant

I want you to stop running from thing to thing to thing, and to sit down at the table, to offer the people you love something humble and nourishing, like soup and bread, like a story, like a hand holding another hand while you pray. We live in a world that values us for how fast we go, for how much we accomplish, for how much life we can pack into one day. But I’m coming to believe it’s in the in-between spaces that our lives change, and that the real beauty lies there.
Most of the time, I eat like someone’s about to steal my plate, like I can’t be bothered to chew or taste or feel, but I’m coming to see that the table is about food, and it’s also about time. It’s about showing up in person, a whole and present person, instead of a fragmented, frantic person, phone in one hand and to-do list in the other. Put them down, both of them, twin symbols of the modern age, and pick up a knife and a fork. The table is where time stops. It’s where we look people in the eye, where we tell the truth about how hard it is, where we make space to listen to the whole story, not the textable sound bite.
We don’t come to the table to fight or to defend. We don’t come to prove or to conquer, to draw lines in the sand or to stir up trouble. We come to the table because our hunger brings us there. We come with a need, with fragility, with an admission of our humanity. The table is the great equalizer, the level playing field many of us have been looking everywhere for. The table is the place where the doing stops, the trying stops, the masks are removed, and we allow ourselves to be nourished, like children. We allow someone else to meet our need. In a world that prides people on not having needs, on going longer and faster, on going without, on powering through, the table is a place of safety and rest and humanity, where we are allowed to be as fragile as we feel. If the home is a body, the table is the heart, the beating center, the sustainer of life and health. Come to the table.
- from A New Approach to the Table by Shauna Niequist

Chris

control

I have responsibilities. I have clear work I need to do, and some things are certain - if I choose not to do the dishes, my kitchen will be dirty. Sometimes I'd like to say, God, why don't you find me a maid or something. But there's no point blaming God for responsibilities I have, because I'm fully aware.

But often when I've taken care of everything I need to, I stress out that people don't act the way I want them to, my heart doesn't go the way I want it to, and that the stars don't align so I can live out my Disney fairytale life.

This past week I had to face being emotionally distraught over something someone said. They meant no harm, but it hit a sore spot I barely knew I had. Then I wonder whether I should be doing more to toughen up to make sure I don't get hurt. I wonder what walls need to be built up to protect myself. I hated the fact that I wasn't in control of my own emotions.

I scheduled my entire Monday out only to find that for various reasons, everyone who I was slated to meet with canceled on me. My natural inclination was to get frustrated at how others were being inconsiderate and/or irresponsible.

But it's really not a dog-eat-dog world, it's a God-is-God world. God asks a few things of us, and we can do it faithfully. Then we trust Him for the rest.
Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (Phil. 3:16, ESV)

Chris

holy

For the Love of God - April 8, 2013
At its core, holy is almost an adjective corresponding to the noun God.

Whoa. What a sweet definition of a loaded term.

Chris

proverbs

Just in reading today, I found Proverbs 18 crazy because I've encountered these truths at some point this past year:

"Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment." (Pr. 18:1, ESV)
"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his own opinion." (Pr. 18:2, ESV)
"Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys." (Pr 18:9, ESV)
"Before destruction, a man's heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor." (Pr. 18:12, ESV)
"To answer before listening - that is folly and shame." (Pr. 18:13, NIV)
"The human spirit can endure in sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?" (Pr. 18:14, NIV)
"A brother wronged is more unyielding than a fortified city; disputes are like the barred gates of a citadel." (Pr. 18:19, NIV)
"A man of many companions soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Pr. 18:24, NIV)

Chris

issues

'Severing Love From Diapers': The Other Case Against Gay Marriage

Thought this was a fascinating read. Not that I particularly agree with it or disagree with it one way or another. It almost seems like the debate of the generation has become a debate about gay marriage. I don't remember the last time someone's talked about creation and evolution with me though that seemed to be a hot-button thing in years past. I'm sure somewhere out there an argument is still raging.

I think an interesting point that was made was that our definition of marriage has devolved into a simple extension of romantic love. I somewhat think that's true. When the romance fades, the divorce comes. In addition, gay couples are eyeing the financial and social benefits of being recognized in a partnership. I'm sure some heterosexual couples are in it for that, too.

Still simmering...

Chris

Honduras

I'm heading over to Honduras in a couple weeks and I wrote out a testimony that I shared with our church during our missions presentation a few weeks ago. I'm inspired to put it on my blog because one of my fellow brothers who shared alongside me put it up on his blog so I figured I would, and plus some people have been requesting it so here it is....

Since this past August, God has been showing me that His heart is for the world. Last summer, I took a trip to Colorado to visit my sister and brother-in-law and had a moment to take a tour of my brother-in-law's workplace at Compassion International.

It was a simple 15 minute tour with an elderly volunteer lady who was kind enough to take us around. My sister was trailing behind me with her daughter in the stroller, but it was her fiftieth time going through it with out-of-town guests, so it basically ended up as a one-on-one tour. (This made it a little difficult when I had to hold back tears halfway through the tour because it wasn't like she had anyone else to redirect her attention to.)

A couple things struck me during this tour. One was how Compassion began - a man saw orphans abandoned from the Korean War and couldn't turn away without doing something. That could have very well been my parents or any one of my friends' parents. The second was the magnitude of what it means when it Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me." As I left the facility, I bought a book called Fast Living (more on that here) and read it on the plane ride back. The book focused on the meaning of true fasting, especially through Isaiah 58.

Isaiah 58 talks about God's heart for injustice, for the oppressed, for the poor, the naked, and the hungry. As I read through the book, it clicked that for something God cares so deeply about, I was simply apathetic. I was learning in this time that how I felt shouldn't dictate the decisions I made, because I was an indifferent mess. The dissonance I felt in me led to a yearning for God to work on my heart because it didn't line up with his.

When our church threw up possible opportunities to serve and commit to God's work during our annual Missions Week, I wanted to take the first opportunity I could get to see God's heart for the world firsthand, and I ended up applying for the Honduras trip.

As we prepare to leave in a couple weeks, I'm a little afraid of safety - how it will be there and what could happen. God is continually working on my relationship with my parents through this situation. They're worried about me and I'm worried about them being worried and even where they stand in their relationship with God. A fear I've had is the thought: if something happened to me, would they blame it on God and turn away from Him?

 But God's been addressing those fears and making clear to me - even through the two week fast our church went through recently - that He is sovereign and He has perfect plans. Those thoughts are summed up in this quote from Betsie ten Boom to her sister Corrie:
There are no "if's" in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - O Corrie, let us pray that we may always know it!
There's no safer place for myself or for my family to be than in the center of His will. I'm excited to see what God's gonna do.

Chris

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