As I left the gym yesterday from another exciting elliptical machine experience (I hate it and can’t wait for my stinkin’ wrist to heal so I can get back to the weights!), I caught the tail end of the Davin Joseph radio show. He is an offensive lineman (Right Guard) for the Bucs, who has recently come back from a foot fracture.

When asked about his return to game action, he commented how other members of the line played a part in his decision on when to come back. He said his fellow lineman “know” him, meaning that they know his competitive nature and desire to get back in the games. He also said, “They know me, and they know me.” His 2nd reference to “know” was referring to the fact that they know his competitive nature often clouds his judgment. If left to his own, he would return early from injury and thus do further damage to his body.

So they knew his strength (competitive nature) and they knew his weakness (tendency to come back early from injury). As a result of being in community with these guys, Davin decided to come back in Week 5. His teammates commended him for his desire, but graciously encouraged him not to come back too early. Fortunately for them, and for me the fan, he listened. He seems fine now.

This once again shows us the importance of living in community, not in isolation from others who can affirm our strengths and help us in our weaknesses.

Recently on one of the 48 Hours mystery shows, or maybe it was a Dateline, they interviewed former kidnapped victim Sean Hornbeck. He was gone for 4 1/2 years until finally rescued. The strangest and perhaps saddest part of the whole ordeal was that he never ran away. Even when stopped by police for something else, he never turned his captor in. It took someone outside of himself to enter into the situation and come rescue him.

You see, his captor told him that if he ever left, he would find and kill him and his family. So the then 11 year old was paralyzed by fear. He knew exactly what needed to be done: run away. But he couldn’t. He was in a state of perpetual slavery. More so than that, he had no hope of coming out of that slavery.

That’s a picture of what Calvinist’s call Total Depravity. Some also refer to it as Total Inability. Just like the aforementioned child Sean, we may intellectually know we need rescue from slavery to sin. However, if left to our own devices, we will do the same thing as Sean: stay! We’re unable to leave. It takes the Spirit of God entering into our hearts in order to choose freedom. At that moment, one experiences what the great Hymn writer Charles Wesley writes in And Can it Be, “My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose went forth and followed thee.”

Yesterday I went to get on the Elliptical machine at the gym and felt my hamstrings tighten. I hadn’t been on the thing in days. What could it have been? Then I realized I had done a little bit of inadvertent exercise on the kayak Monday morning. Only the exercise had not been exactly “on” the kayak. I was running to the kayak in waist deep water.

When I fish, I usually wade and tie a rope attached to the kayak around my waist. Then I proceed to go wherever my little ADD mind will take me. The only problem was that I was wading without my kayak. I had forgotten to tie the rope. After about 10 minutes I realized there was no resistance, so I turned around looked behind me. And there was my kayak. Floating the opposite direction. At least a 100 yards away. With the wind blowing from the East (in the bible the East wind is a wind of judgment….), pushing my kayak across Sarasota Bay.

Unfortunately it was blowing quickly and moving the kayak to deeper water. So I raced across the grass flat hoping to get there in time. I can’t describe to you the helpless feeling of watching your only ride home just drift away. I didn’t know if I’d get there before it hit deep water. So I casted my lure to try and catch it. Once. Twice. No dice. So I put the cell phone and wallet in my ziploc bag and went deep. I was up to shoulders when I finally reached the rope. I was out of breath but thankful it hadn’t drifted to the other side of the bay.

Eventually I did notice that the normal weight of a kayak dragged against the wind was missing. I eventually realized it on my own, feeling led by the prodding of God’s Spirit. But I sure wish I would have had someone point it out to me earlier. It would have saved heartache and hamstring ache. There are some things which God will (if we are not quenching the Spirit-which is always a possibility) eventually convict us in time. But why wait until that point? Wouldn’t it be better to have someone we love tell us that we are walking forward, yet leaving our proverbial kayak behind us? Just some thoughts I had Monday after I got in from fishing.

This is the 2nd part of the Nostalgia Trilogy. I had previously mentioned the danger of expecting your worship time to mysteriously transport you to a time when you felt close to the Lord. But there can also be a nostalgic danger in sanctification: the work of God’s free grace where we are made more like Jesus.

Nostalgia can pop its ugly head when we wish to return to the feeling we had during a retreat. At other times, we may simply wait for that feeling to return to us before we press on in our spiritual disciplines like bible reading, prayer, fellowship, etc…When that feeling returns, I’ll get back “on board.” But Habakuk reminds us that by faith we have to choose to rejoice in God as opposed to waiting for situations and feelings to return (Hab 3:18).

A final danger of nostalgia I’ve noticed is the constant tendency to compare. When we don’t compare ourselves with others, we often compare ourselves with ourselves in the past. For instance, we might despair when we realize that we struggle with the same sins we’ve always struggled with. Or we might look back and feel we’ve gone “backwards.” We might feel discouraged when we struggled with different stuff earlier in our journey and now we struggle with things we feel are “bigger.”

The apostle Paul lays forth a healthy dose of present reflection (on how far he hasn’t come), yet tempers it with a forward focus. For instance, he admits near the end of his life that he feels as though he is the “foremost” sinner (I Tim 1:15). That’s a far more self deprecating title to describe himself than earlier in his life and ministry. But he still presses on toward the goal of finishing the race (Phil 3).

It is helpful to recognize how far we haven’t come. But that is only for the purpose of relishing God’s grace and to receive encouragement to press on. When that backward glance becomes nostalgic, making you wish you could just become that person you once were, you can rest assure that thought has the smell of smoke. Because it doesn’t come from these parts, but instead from down below. Way below.

Today our presbytery’s missionary to Haiti Esaie Etienne picked up some clothes and other stuff like books, computer, and a mattress from our church. He’s distributing them to his family and countrymen in Haiti. I asked him about other sister PCA churches’ involvement in this “drop-off.” I was really wanting to know because I felt convicted about not giving enough and was hoping the shorts I had worn the previous day could serve as a donation for another drop-off time.

But he told me that really not much had been done by some other larger churches in our presbytery. The one’s participating were the smaller churches. Now perhaps the big dogs are running just a bit behind or they already gave graciously by shipping stuff. So I’ll reserve frustration, table my “verdict” for a bit, and maybe ask some of them in person.

At the same point of discouragement, I was encouraged as well. You see, there are a number of smaller churches in our presbytery. Some of them may die off some day. And that may not be a bad thing. Yet, the churches responding were all quite small. What they lacked in size, they made up for in passion to help those less fortunate. And by this passionate giving they will be assisting Esaie in bringing Jesus’ Kingdom to a place ripe for its reception.

Some of these churches, including ours, acted like Jack Russell Terriers. Small but full of life.

After 31 years of life, I’m beginning to see the need for structure. For instance, take prayer. If left to pray without any direction, I will pray about the trinity of Me, Myself, and I. I’ll not pray globally. I’ll not pray for missions. Even when I want to pray for missions, I’ll often find myself praying generic prayers I assume would apply to all missionaries.

Not that God doesn’t hear those prayers and respond, but I’m ignoring a ton of personal stuff such missionaries actually are requesting. Not only that, but I can only pray generically for so long before I feel like a broken record. Without some direction, some structure, I can quickly lose interest. I can quickly lose passion. Who would have thought, without some structure, plan, or direction, I could actually lose passion?
Structure and direction enhance my joy and freedom in prayer. They don’t kill it!

So in order to “spice up” my prayer life, to get Amy and I on the same page praying globally, and to unite with our church, our denomination, and hopefully anyone else who wants to join up, I’m committing to pray through the “31 days of prayer” MTW (our denomination’s mission agency) has constructed. It allows us to focus our prayers on people we wouldn’t normally focus on. It also gives info on HOW to pray. Info like how to pray for persecuted believers in Egypt and church planting in Mexico. I would highly commend this opportunity to you. You can download and print out this calendar here under the post entitled “Missions.” I think you will find it helpful to you and your family, so take advantage of it or something similar.

I was watching Dallas Cowboys’ receiver Terrell Owens fielding reporters’ questions today. As is usually the case, he was not responsible for his team’s loss to the Redskins. According to the most selfish wide receiver in football, the Cowboy’s needed to throw the ball to him more. It was thrown his way 17 times yesterday, and he ended up with only 7 receptions. He needed more touches.

The funny thing was that he “touched” the ball more than 7 times. Since this interview wasn’t live, ESPN juxtaposed video of several of his dropped passes. Passes that normal wide receivers are supposed to catch. So while he was blaming the coaches for not giving him the ball more, they simply looped “highlights” (at least they were for me!) of him dropping simple passes. His mistakes. He looked ridiculously ignorant of his own stuff.

It reminds me of how prone we all are to ignore our own problems, our sins, our own junk that we “bring to the ball club.” If only we had a “highlight” reel to see our own “dropped passes” in life, in our relationships, in our churches, we might blame, criticize, complain and hold grudges far less. But since we don’t have that technology just yet, we need to take a better look at the cross. For when we look upon the cross, we see the price Jesus paid for our sins. And He did so, that we would be mindful not to make others pay their debt to us (Matt 18:33).

Last night I had a little time a bit of the USC-Oregon St. game. One of the commentators of that game was Jesse Palmer. You may remember him as former quarterback of the Florida Gators and back-up for the NY Giants. Then again, you may remember him as The Bachelor. Yes, he was actually on the show “The Bachelor.”

It’s hard for me to take him seriously after going on that show. And it’s even hard for his fellow play-by-play buddies and analysts to forget that low point in his life (not that he would necessarily see it that way…). During the first game of the season, after making a decent comment, an announcer said, “Jesse, good point. I’ll give you a rose for that.”

And that reminded me of the gospel. In the gospel, we are promised new life without any condemnation. We are completely forgiven and our stupid decisions will not be used against us. Our sins have been removed from us and are as far as the East is from the West. So we can literally begin each day freshly reflecting on God’s mercy toward us (Lam 3:22-23). Those sins of yesterday (literally) or yesteryear need not/cannot be atoned for by myself.

My sins pretty much ruined my evening last night because I was trying to atone for them. Finally I got home, confessed, and began to feel the weights drop from my shoulders. I had a fresh day today.

Now I’ve never been on “The Bachelor,” but I’ve done lots of things a lot worse. And I’m thankful that I need not fear comments like, “Wow, good point, you get a rose for that!” That’s freedom. Maybe I should “forgive” Jesse for going on The Bachelor…..

Before there were “boy bands” like N-Sync, there were band with boys who looked like girls. Pictured to my left is Poison, one of my childhood favorites. Which of course causes some nostalgia.

I’m now going to start a trilogy, or perhaps a quadrilogy on nostalgia. While nostalgia isn’t completely bad in and of itself, it can have harmful effects on a number of different key areas of our faith. First of all, I want to address its ill-effects on worship.

The other day Amy and I were watching a TV ad for a Time Life CD compilation of 70’s-80’s power ballads with bands like Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Boston, 38 Special, etc… The collection was absolutely unbelievable. I thought, “There goes Amy’s birthday present.” Until the price flashed on the screen. So I settled for the leather bible. Probably a good decision.

Amy and I were deeply moved by the songs. By the lyrics. By the melodies. The songs brought back memories. Not memories of “better days,” just good memories. The music really took us back.

But should worship take us back to pondering the “glory days” of our faith? No, not at all. Worship is supposed to move us forward. We press on toward the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil 3). Worship ought to move us forward to delight in God, in who He is, and what He has in store for His children. It is not designed to give us sentimental feelings about when we first came to faith or when we grew spiritually.

I don’t want to specifically sing songs that I sang in college so that I can remember a time when I may have felt really “on fire” for Jesus. If I sing them, great. If I don’t, great. I’m not trying to get back to that place. But I do think many are hoping for just that in a worship experience. To get back that “happy place.”

Many times I would rather sing songs I know. Most people would. But I don’t think that desire is devoid of unhealthy nostalgia. I think that new songs and new tunes add a forward focus to our worship. I’m not saying having familiarity with tunes and songs is bad. I’m not saying old tunes and old songs are bad. They belong as well. But even old tunes and old songs must not move us to nostalgia and sentimentality. Yet I know such feelings often drive our desires.

The Time Life CD commercial was hosted by some burnt out rocker and another woman wishing to relive that decade. I don’t want to be “that guy” or “that girl” in my worship of Jesus.

This is my last post on The Shack, hopefully. I’ve composed a review of the book highlighting some positives and exposing some dangerous thoughts presented. All in all, I’m not fearful that it will become the next Pilgrim’s Progress, as one author hinted at. It will eventually pass and the next trendy book will eventually take its place. I try not to be another angry person reviewing the book. I also don’t want to be another undiscerning evangelical lemming either. So without further introduction, you can click here to link to and open my review.