The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

I've been reading the The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe to my kids. C.S. Lewis was an absolute genius when it comes to taking complex theological ideas and boiling them down to something a child could understand, and at the same time would sound refreshing and encouraging to someone who has believed for a while. A couple of conversations in the book stand out to me... 

Chapter: A Day With The Beavers

    Mr. Beaver makes a statement introducing for the first time to our ears the name of him who will become the main character of the series (that is... if you start with this book instead of the Magicians Nephew... I actually prefer to start with the Magicians Nephew, but I found that The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe captured my kids attention more quickly.... anywho... ) "They say Aslan is on the move - perhaps has already landed"

   Then we get the kids reactions... "At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.

Chapter: What Happened After Dinner

    "Oh, yes! Tell us about Aslan!" said several voices at once...

    "Who is Aslan?" asked Susan.

    "Aslan?" said Mr. Beaver. "Why don't you know? He's the King. He's the Lord of the whole wood, but not often here, you understand. (further down in the conversation...)

    "Is... Is he a man?" asked Lucy.

    "Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of Beasts? Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion." (a little further down...)

    "Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

    "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.

    "I'm longing to see him, " said Peter, "even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point."

Chapter: Deep Magic From The Dawn Of Time

    Aslan is basically standing between the White Witch and Edmund, and she is staking her claim on him due to his treachery. "Yo know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have the right to kill.", states the witch... "And so, that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property."

    The great accuser this white witch is calling Aslan out on the "Deep Magic" from before time that says she is owed Edmund's life and her right is to kill him. The part that I love is where the camera shoots over to Edmund to get his whole reaction to this...

    "Edmund was on the other side of Aslan, looking all the time at Aslan's face. He felt a choking feeling and wondered if he ought to say something; but a moment later he felt that he was not expected to do anything except to wait, and do what he was told." In the face of the great accuser, Edmund is at peace and waits upon his savior Aslan to answer the accusations of the White Witch. Aslan stands between, and shortly thereafter works out the deal with the witch where he will forfeit his own life, for that of Edmund.


There are really more parts than I could list here. So many amazing parallels to the story of Christ and his sacrifice for us and ultimate victory. This story begs to be read once a year. It's not just a kids story. It's for everyone. In my opinion it enhances the gospel story and enriches it much like a great poem, or song lyric can occasionally do for me. The line that Peter gave in the chapter entitled "What Happened After Dinner", the one I wrote out above, leveled me emotionally, even while reading it to my kids... "I'm longing to see him, " said Peter, "even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point." What an amazing statement that completely captures the wonder, fear, and longing of all humanity and their ultimate purpose, delight, and fulfillment in Christ...

Tension

I struggle with writing. I use to love to write. Lately I feel like I want to write badly, but when it actually comes to sitting down and doing it, I'm defeated before I start.

There is so much going on in my head lately that I feel weathered and worn from trying to battle it constantly. I can't keep the noise out. The still small voice that is in the mix somewhere is being over powered. I've tried to cut out all that doesn't need to be there. When I did that I just found myself to be restless. I can't stop thinking that I should be doing something. I don't know what that something is. It's driving me nuts. I don't mean that in the figurative "oh I'm going to go nuts" type way... I mean it's actually driving me nuts. Cuckoo... Bonkers...

I need to hear that still small voice more than anything else, but right now it seems that He caught laryngitis from trying to scream over all the noise. Now that I've gotten it quiet... He's tired of trying. And so, comes screaming back, my inside voice... "Do this... Do that... you should be reading more... exercising more... eating better... writing more... serving more... doing more, doing more, doing more, doing... busy busy busy"

There's all the external voices as well telling me how I should live. The voices that say sell everything, give it to the poor, and go serve somewhere. The voices that say write your music and devote yourself to it. Make a living doing what you love. Start charging money, start touring, start (fill in the space)... Do something... The voices that say "relax.. just be patient"... Then the voices that make me feel guilty for trying to be patient, as though I'm not moving fast enough... I'm not doing enough... I'm not good enough...

All the while, my wife needs me home. My kids need their dad. My family needs a leader. My employer needs a devoted employee. My friends need a friend. Others need a comforter, or a counselor, or somebody to pray with them or for them. I'm responsible to so many people in so many ways... I feel like I walk a tight rope of failure and the audience is expecting me to fall at any moment...

I find tension, stress, and frustration to be the trademarks of my early 30's thus far. I'm in this weird in-between stage of life where my main responsibility is to be a good father to the 4 kids I've helped bring into this world, and a good husband to the wife who's joined me on the trip. Everything in my life is fantastic... and at the same time, I've never felt more frustrated.

I was able to rid myself of the TV, which is pretty cool, until I realize I've got multiple hours to sit and think. When I think, I realize how broken I am. My mind churns over it. Then my mind churns over how broken it is.

I talk to myself. A lot. Over the past year or two I've lost a lot of time with my closest friends and now I find that to compensate I talk to myself. Like I said... bonkers...

I feel lonely... While surrounded by people constantly.

I am asking God lately to give me some clarity. Some direction. Some peace, joy, sanity... whatever... Just give me a sign... Something beautiful to inspire me... Something to sway my heart and move me... Just a little of His presence and Spirit to fill the space I've tried to create.

Occasionally, He is happy to oblige and I get to experience that fleeting moment of whatever it was that I needed the very most at that very moment. He gives me just enough so that I don't snap and end up in a mental institute... Thank you Lord for keeping me sane...

I look around at the world, and I realize how amazing my life is. I'm not starving. I'm not homeless. I have a job, cars, clothes, food on the table. I make more money in a year than most of the world dreams of seeing in a lifetime... My kids are healthy, my wife is beautiful, my life is great. Yet, there is this insatiable desire for more. I don't want more stuff. I don't want to sit and let my brain rot on facebook, twitter, or television... I don't want more accomplishments...

I want more of Him. I want more of God. I'm asking Him to make me who He wants me to be. Use me in whatever way He needs to use me. He's telling me to be patient... and I want to scream... The tension... The tension is about to break me. Maybe it's what He wants. Maybe He wants to break me so that I'm of some use that I can't possibly see right now.

Maybe I'm just talking to myself again. Maybe He's doing something.

God I hope so. I need to see something beautiful Lord.

Be Still... Remember Books...?

Sorry... It's been a while I know. I find however lately that I prefer to stay quiet. There are enough voices out there in the blogosphere. I don't care to add to the clanging of symbols. I'd rather be still.

Do we all need to be reviewers, commentators, and critics? Do we all know everything there is to know, and is everyone else wrong? Is our way always best? Are our hearts more pure than theirs?Are our religious doctrines or political opinions just plain right, and they are just plain wrong? Do you really need to know the minutia of my every day, and do I need to know yours?

My absolute favorite thing to do as of late is to sit in my brand new desk chair with my desk lamp on and no other light... drink some hot tea... and just read. I read books. Books are those things with all the words in them that we use to have before people gave up on them to read the opinions and general blather that makes up most of these blog sites nowadays... including this very blog you are reading at this very moment :)

Do yourself a favor... Get away from your computer. Leave Facebook / Twitter / Youtube / whatever other social site you're addicted to. Put your "smart" phone away somewhere that you won't hear it ring or feel it vibrate. If you're work and life allows go back to the "dumb" phones we use to have that kept us less dependent and caught up in all the all that's always going on that we can't miss at all not even one second.

Pick up a book. I'd suggest the Bible, but if you want to start simple than pick up the Chronicles Of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, The Space Trilogy also by C.S. Lewis, or even your favorite book from when you were a kid. My favorite book when I was a young lad of 10 or 12 was Stuart Little. I loved that book, along with Where The Red Fern Grows... Just learn to enjoy reading again. It's good for you.

Also, get involved in other peoples lives and start praying for and caring for them. I think that will be time better spent than sitting on Facebook.

P.S. I will probably be back on Facebook in a month or so at which point I will deny that I ever wrote this blog post and it will probably disappear shortly thereafter. However, until then... I've really enjoyed my quiet time. Unplugging for a while has helped me to spend more time with God that has been more rich than normal. I dare you all to give it a try.

The Stars

Last night, after a difficult evening, I decided to go out for a walk. Earlier in the evening my wife and I visited a friend who is in a hospice facility in Grand Rapids dying from cancer. I sang some praise songs for her, we talked for a while, and we prayed with her before we left. We hugged her and walked out of the facility and left to go home. She said a few things while we were there that became amazingly difficult for me to process. She has two little girls, and they didn't like to come visit her because it scared them. That was hard to imagine and process for me. However, the one thing she said that I can't get out of my mind is that she's scared to die, and she has been praying that God would take her in her sleep. I couldn't get out of my head last night that when she closes her eyes, she doesn't know if she's going to open them again. While that is true for all of us if we really consider it, the reality of it is completely concrete for her. It's not just this theoretical concept. When I close my eyes to go to sleep, I will more than likely open them again and get to go on enjoying my healthy wife and kids, my nice home, my cushy job, my friends, and on and on... I lost it a few times last night. Reality was a little too much for me. I decided to go for a walk.

As I was out walking, I was listening to one song over and over called "The Reckoning" by Andrew Peterson which is all about the longing for God to come back and make things right. I was sobbing like a baby. I mean full blown chest heaving, body shaking bawl fest... I can honestly say I haven't felt that broken since I lost my best friend in high school. While I am good friends with this woman, it wasn't losing her that was getting me. It was that her family was losing her, and that she was losing her family.

As I walked up the hill next to the local high school my eyes were drawn upward and I noticed that it was an incredibly clear night and all the stars were out. It was an absolutely amazing sight. All around me there was no lights on so it really brought the stars out. Saranac doesn't have much of a glow like a bigger city does so it made for some great star gazing. As I continued to walk and gaze up a thought started to stir in my head...

How often do you look up at the stars and not fully take them in? What I mean is that usually my star gazing experience consists of a quick glance up to see the neat little lights in the sky. I never take the time to look at them and think about just how unfathomable they really are. These little blinky lights are actually gigantic balls of fire and fury that are millions of miles away! It's easy to say that and not really let it register so let me say it again. These little twinkly lights are actually gigantic balls of fire and fury that if you were to even get within a 1,000,000 miles of you'd be incinerated. They are on a scale of size that you can't fathom, and they are a distance away from us that is so astronomical that if we traveled at the speed of light we'd never reach most of them in our lifetime. Does that strike anyone as completely unfathomable and unbelievable? I mean we know it's true because all the scientist who have done the leg work tell it is true, and because we can simply look up and see them. So we know they exist, but how seriously do we take them?

They are beautiful and terrifying. They are infinitely distant, but we are comforted by their light which doesn't seem so far. They are so unapproachable that if we get within 1,000,000 miles we'd be completely incinerated, yet we are drawn to them.

My gazing up at the stars turned into worship of the God of the universe. Everything in us, if we are honest, knows there is more to this existence then what we see. He's there. We can all see Him. Creation is screaming out His existence. We can give him a quick glance and walk away never taking him seriously. Or we can gaze full on into His amazing face and stand in awe at how incredible He is. He is holy and exists in unapproachable light... yet we long so desperately to be drawn into Him. He is beautiful, but He is fire and fury and will not take second place in our hearts to anything else.

Decide for yourself, but I feel that gazing at the stars and the cosmos may be just about the most convincing proof for the existence of God that there is. I was comforted by that last night as I was thinking about my friend who is losing her life. My prayer for my friend is that, that God who is bigger than the stars and closer than we can bear sometimes would bring her peace as she closes her eyes at night with the uncertainty of whether she will open them again here on this broken planet, or within His presence.

Worship

2 Samuel 6:5 - "David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating WITH ALL THEIR MIGHT before the Lord..."
2 Samuel 6:14 - "David, wearing a linen ephod, danced before the Lord WITH ALL HIS MIGHT..."
2 Samuel 6:16 - "And when she (Michal, David's wife) saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart..."
2 Samuel 6:21,22 - "I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this..."

Do you celebrate with all your might before the Lord, or do you look on at those who do and despise them?.... Just a quick note from a worship leader... It'd make my job way more fun if we all worshipped WITH ALL OUR MIGHT before the Lord!

Hope

Sometimes the brokenness of the world just seems to be too much. Maybe I'm just getting older and my mortality is becoming more real. Maybe the feeling of invincibility from youth is starting to wear off. Maybe I am just starting to realize how broken this place we call home really is.

Seems like the number of heartbreaking stories I hear is on the rise. The number of success stories is in steep decline. At least once a month I hear another story about someone being diagnosed with cancer. Every couple months I hear a story about a pregnancy or delivery that goes terribly wrong and the child is born with severe health problems, or is not born at all. Every once in a while you get the sudden death of a loved one, or one of your friend's loved ones, or one of your friends, or your friend's friend...etc, etc. You turn on the tv for more than 1 minute and you'll see a tragic story about death, or genocide, or natural disasters that kill in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or even the hundreds of thousands... the numbers and the stories become too much for me. They become unreal in a way.

When was the last time you lost someone? Are you losing someone? Are you losing yourself?

My grandma Rose died a few years back. While I wasn't close with my grandmother, seeing the reaction of all my aunts and uncles and my mom, all her children... it was terrible. I sang at the funeral. My mom asked if I'd sing "The Old Rugged Cross". I barely made it through the song. Not because I was in mourning as much as I felt like I had a front row seat to watch a room full of people mourn. I don't know if that song helped them or not, but I certainly hope it got them through that.

When I was in high school my best friend Rob Mason was killed in a tragic car accident along with another young girl. There was another young guy in the car as well named Doug. From my understanding of what happened, when the car crashed Doug was thrown from the car and that is basically why he survived because the car then exploded into flames. I can remember the look on Doug's face at the funeral. I can remember the look on the face of my best friend's mom. I can remember how his little sister seemed to understand what happened, and his little brother didn't. I can remember being a pallbearer and helping to carry out his casket. I can remember when they lowered my friend's casket into the ground. I was 15.

I guess I don't know where this post is going, but to say this... I don't know how anyone makes it through this life without a faith and hope that comes from believing in the one and only God who loves us.

I don't believe having that faith makes it easier to be here, but it certainly increases the longing for the place where we know we should be.

We weren't built for dying. We were built by two strong hands. My hope is in those hands.

Stop Trying So Hard...

So it's been a really long time since I posted anything on here and I've missed writing. Writing has a feeling of therapy to it sometimes and I've needed. I don't have a lot to say really, but it seems like a lot of life has happened.

My wife and I welcomed our 4th child about 5 months ago and I started a new full time job at the same time. The combination of these 2 life changes has kept me extraordinarily busy, and a lot of things I like doing such as writing (blogs and songs), recording, playing shows and all things music related have suffered. However I don't mind so much because I love my family. My kids and my wife bring me more joy than writing music for you all. I'm sorry but that's just the truth.

I've also learned a hard lesson it feels over the last couple years. I keep waiting for this ... this something... some event, some thing that's going to happen and it's going to blow my mind and change my life... and that "it", whatever "it" is, just never happens. But I keep waiting for "it". For a long time it was this idea that I was going to be discovered as a musician and that I'd be picked up and whisked away from this life I have here and I'd be a famous musician touring America spreading my music and message. While it's not bad to want to spread the gospel through music... I wasn't thinking about that. I was just trying to not be a victim of my circumstances. My circumstances being that I am married father of 4 with a full time job that isn't exactly what I want to do all my life so I keep hoping for this "something" this "it". I really feel like my waiting for this thing to come along has caused damage to the family I have. It makes them feel like they are holding me back. My wife has said as much.

Have you ever wanted something so bad that it hurt? I was telling myself that I wanted to be doing this for God, all the while I occasionally dragging my family through trials because I can't stop whining that I don't get to have my way. All the while, God has blessed me amazingly with beautiful kids, a beautiful wife, a job that pays the bills, and generally just way more than I could possibly deserve.

I guess I'm not sure what I'm saying here... While I am still writing music and trying to record it so that I can give it to you... It's not my goal to write songs that will please everyone, and I am not planning on kicking them out on a regular basis. I'm not going to force anything in regards to writing / recording / performing music. I want to write songs that will be pleasing to my Heavenly Father, and I want to be a father / husband that reflects what that Heavenly Father wants for me.

I really feel like God has been telling me to let go of a lot of things lately. One of them being music. He's not telling me to give it up... not at all, but I do feel like I need to let go of this fretting and calculating and trying as hard as I can to make something of myself. If God wants it, it will happen. In the meanwhile, live and be a witness for Him where I am.

He's also telling me to relax in regards to how I am pursuing Him. I've been in this ridiculous dry spell lately in my relationship with God. It's hard to read and be in the Word. It's hard to spend time in thought and prayer. I just can't seem to get my mind to go deep lately. I am too consumed with life, work, family, music... etc, etc, etc... It's been unbelievably frustrating, and I have no idea what to do with life right now. All days seem to be filled with frustration and tension and discomfort. I want to have a that really close relationship with God, and I think He knows my heart well enough to know that I'm being honest with Him. I want that relationship, but life seems to crazy right now to achieve it. Then I hear him saying (through various friends voices) ... "Relax. Slow down and live for me where you are. Stop trying so hard."...

So anyways, all this is to say, God is good to me. He is more than I deserve. Lord help me to relax and enjoy the blessings you have given me and the place you have me at in life right now. Use me today and tomorrow and whenever and wherever you need me and move in me in a new way today Lord. Help me to reflect you to my family and to those I come in contact with. Lord use the gifts you have given me and the abilities you have blessed me with to accomplish what you want. Take my motives and desires out of it, and change them so that my only desire is to please you. I love you Lord. Give me the desire to only want you in this life, and to give you to others.

I feel like this post was kind of random and all over, but that seems to be my life right now... Thank you Lord for it.