When I Die.

As I was dropping off my teenage son at school today, we were listening to Blackbird by Alter Bridge.  Since he is learning to play electric guitar, I asked him to learn this song and play it at my funeral.  He laughed and went in to school.

As I drove on to work, the incident made me stop and think seriously about my death.  Don’t think me too morbid.  I had a NT professor once who confessed that he lay awake at night thinking of his death on a regular basis.  He was 38 at the time.

I listened to the song over and over as I drove, imagining the band at the Vineyard, with all the electric guitar players stepping up to play various solos.  The song tells the story of a friend who had died too young, but whose work would live on.  Here’s the pertinent line in the song:  “Ascend may you find no resistance, Know that you made such a difference, All you leave behind will live to the end.”

What on earth am I doing that is really making a difference?  And especially, what am I leaving behind that will live to the end?!?  Now I understand the sentimentality that accompanies the experience of telling your friend goodbye, and the emotion of wanting to say to them that they mattered.  I’ll let you say those words without protest.

I spoke on the parable of the talents this past weekend.  That story will get you thinking about your life, and meeting Jesus when you die.

It does you (us all) a world of good to pause on a regular basis, and ask whether you’re living the life you were created to live.  And when your master returns and meets with you to settle up, will he refer to you as ‘good and trustworthy’ or ‘evil and lazy/irksome’?

For one thing, it will be pretty hard to answer that if you don’t know what you’re for.  Spend time thinking about what you’re made for.  What’s your life mission?  Or, what’s the fire that burns in your core?  If you could really be known for something, what would it be?  What do you want to be remembered for?  What if you really could make a difference?  What would you want that to look like?

A friend once told me that he wanted to live such a life that when he died, no church in town would be able to hold the crowd.  His intention wasn’t to be famous, but to be that well loved, which required him to live well.  That’s a noble goal.

I’m not sure that’s quite what I’m digging for here, though. I’m not talking about simply being a quality person (which IS worthy) but what are you called to DO?

As I imagined that band playing my funeral, I wanted to think that what I had started in my short days was so important that someone would think, “We can’t let this work stop.”  Frankly, I don’t want to waste my life.  I have no need to be famous, but thinking about my funeral has been a real motivator to know what I’m for, and not to waste my life.

But in case I’m near the end, we’ve got to get Blackbird covered.  Let’s see,

Derek and Taylor should do the vocals
On electric guitar, I want Ryan, Matt, Jonathon, and Chris
Ian and Tim can carry all the percussion
Matt and Josh can carry the bass . . .

Meditation on Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, and a day when many Christians will gather somewhere and get a cross made of ashes swiped across their forehead as a sign of repentance and reminder of mortality. A clergy person or, in some cases, a lay person, applies the ashes with variations of the phrase: “Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”

Thus the season of Lent begins.

A lot of Christians, on the other hand, don’t observe lent at all. But they’ll hear others talk about what they’re giving up for lent. Usually, people give up something like meat, chocolate, alcohol, or some other type of food. Others give up things like complaining, movies, or maybe Facebook. I even read from a few people who were giving up giving up, or giving up religion. Whatever.

But, what’s the point?

Giving up things for Lent (40 days before Easter, excluding Sundays) is a way of imitating Jesus who withdrew into the wilderness for 40 days, fasting and praying before his ministry began. In denying ourselves some pleasure or good thing, we’re also remembering the sacrifices Jesus made for us, joining him in that self denial. The scriptures teach that Jesus endured the cross ‘for the joy set before him’ and I think about that whenever I fast, or deny myself something for the sake of Jesus. Whatever I’m giving up can result in a joyous end.

As a matter of fact, Paul talked about how losing all his earthly gains and credentials were worth it as long as they resulted in him gaining Christ. Compared to knowing Jesus, all this stuff we think is important, is rubbish.

So, why don’t you join me this Lenten season, and intentionally deny yourself something, especially something that distracts you from Jesus. All that business about being mortal and all, that’s pretty true. The clock is ticking, and time is passing by. All those opportunities to gain Christ . . . well why not use this Lenten season to give something up that will work to your advantage?

Happiness

This article got me thinking about happiness and our unquenchable thirst for it.  The article is about online dating, and how it can be risky, esp. since it feeds our insatiable need to follow unrealistic feelings which are built upon scary foundations. Here’s a quote from the article:

We are living in a “Have it your way” culture. When we want it we got it, from on-line shopping with next day delivery, to bootleg movies being sent to our cell phones before coming to theatres. We have created a culture in which we expect to get what we want when we want it, and in the way we like it. It is no wonder then that on-line dating has exploded as a means for finding that special someone. Just log on to the site and search through a menu-list for your perfect soul mate.

What we do, however, is find this perfect soul mate, and a few years later, dump them for a more perfect soul mate.  After all, I haven’t been happy for a long time!

But such we are.  We have been trained in our world that we deserve happiness and have the right to pursue such happiness, regardless the cost to others around us.  J.P. Moreland does an outstanding job of pointing out, in several places, that our definition of happiness is  a pleasurable feeling, specifically, a sense of pleasurable satisfaction.  He goes on to demonstrate that due to its fragile and volatile core, we can never keep this feeling going.  We’re left with longings, tied in with a disconcerting feeling that we’ve been cheated, and we go on our journey in the pursuit of happiness, which we can never ultimately find – at least not the way we understand it.  We actually end up depressed in the midst of abundance.  I cannot recommend highly enough the two books linked above.  You see, people of old (like those who first wrote about the pursuit of happiness during our country’s founding) defined happiness as a life well lived, a life of virtue and character, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness.

The implications of our current pursuit of happiness are at least 2 fold.  1) we’ve been duped.  Our goal is impossible to attain.  2) it makes us self-centered and selfish.   If we had grown up with the classic definition of happiness stated above, we wouldn’t be living selfish lives pursuing feelings of happiness, but we might have a shot at living the kind of life that yields a deeper sense of a life well lived (and feelings of well being, satisfaction, and – happiness?)

Honestly, look at your life, and think of how many decisions you make based on what will give you those pleasurable feelings we call happiness.  How often do you feel cheated by life because you don’t have those feelings more often.

Working in the field I do, I am constantly torn by this dilemma.  You see, I have a really merciful disposition, so when someone is in my office telling me how unhappy she is with her husband, or he’s explaining why he doesn’t like to sacrifice for people who have less than he, because . . ., well, I feel their pain.  I find myself identifying with them and their pain.  It’s how I’m gifted.  But if I give in to it, I cheat them out of redemptive truth.

Someone close to me recently left her husband for a wealthy man.  She’s “happier than she’s ever been.”  It’s those fragile pleasurable feelings that make us do whatever it takes to find happiness.  She’s being duped.  She has left a lot of hurt people in her wake.  She doesn’t understand why I’m not happy for her.  After all, we’ve been trained to believe that someone’s happiness is what we should wish for them above all else (A major talk radio host has interviewed hundreds of people over the last few years by asking the question, “What did your parents want most for you – success, wealth, to be a good person, or happiness?”  85% said “happiness”)

Would it surprise you to find out that I believe the pursuit of happiness is wired into our very being, and that God passionately wants us to devote our lives to finding it?  John Piper explains it well in Desiring God.  The difference between our current pursuit of happiness and the biblical call to pursuing happiness is that the scriptures direct us to finding our happiness in and through a relationship with Jesus.  In that relationship, Jesus will direct us to lose our life to find it, and take up our cross (die!) and follow him.  In studying Jesus’ call to life and happiness, we find out that the ancients got it right.  Their understanding of a good life was one lived well, not one lived selfishly.

Jesus designed the world such that in pursuing happiness through him and living like he insists, we find that well spring of life and satisfaction, AND we don’t leave a scattering of hurt people and shattered lives in our path.  Instead, we GIVE life, and FIND life.  And happiness.

Go get it.