Category Archives: Musings and Stories

Dear God, I have a friend who is dying. While I sat watching him lie in bed yesterday and then listened to people talk about him in the times when I wasn’t in the room with him, I started to kind of put some things together.

First, earlier in the day, he wasn’t ready. He was scared. He was fighting the oncoming death. He’s been on hospice for weeks. He’s been terminally ill for years. But he wasn’t ready. He didn’t want any medications to ease his pain or anxiety. Yeah. He wasn’t ready. Then, and for his privacy’s sake I won’t go into too much detail, but about the middle of the day he was tired. He was ready.

So what was he ready for? Well, as I sit and think about myself and what I hold onto in life, I think there might be a few things.

• Ready to stop participating in the world and its history.
• Ready to stop contributing to the lives around me.
• Ready to accept that I’ve done all I will do and the world will now go on without me, perhaps forgetting me completely.
• Ready to say goodbye.

So how does that relate to the title I gave this prayer? Well, when one mom was talking about this friend’s influence on her children, she said he always instilled in them that they could do anything they wanted to do, but it would take hard work. When I heard this, I started to put some things together–even in my own heart. For so many of us, this is how we approach life. We have things to accomplish. We have things we want to achieve. We have power to attain, influence to acquire, and admiration to earn. Ultimately, we want to be able to stack up our life against someone else’s and hope we compare favorably. And I use all of this broadly and from a worldly perspective because these are the things the world calls us to do.

But what if we take the philosophy of doing anything we want in life and bring it under your authority? When we get to the end of the road, what is it that you would like us to stack up for comparison?

• We we able to be humble, admit our faults/weaknesses, and share them with others?
• Did we pursue relationship with you and become more Christlike in the process? In other words, were we Jesus followers, and not just Jesus believers?
• Were we in close enough relationship with you that we knew to stop and listen for your still, small voice to call us to action?
• Did we love richly and give your mercy to others?
• Did we bring others the hope and peace of relationship with you?

Out of the 350 million Americans, or 6+ billion people in the world, the odds are long that my life will be remembered more than a few years beyond my death. Few people achieve the notoriety of leaving a mark on the world like presidents of the United States, great captains of industry like Steve Jobs, etc. No, my life will be smaller than theirs. But that’s okay.

Father, what I want in life is to be found faithful. I want to be open-minded to the idea that I don’t know as much as I think I know–about the world, or myself. I want to be willing to do what I think is right even though it might cost me the love of someone I love, even if what I’m doing is for their good. I want to have touched lives in a way that plays throughout history, and it’s okay if I do this anonymously. It’s okay if my name is lost to history. I know it is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. That’s all I need.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

Dear God, I was just scanning headlines this morning when I came across this article from Buzzfeed. Let me just list the 17 reasons really quickly:

• I have never seen a person with children and thought to myself, ‘I want that life.’
• I’m too mentally ill from childhood trauma and have various autoimmune diseases It wouldn’t be fair to have a child when I’m not completely present for them. I love kids, but not for me.
• Once I’m a mom, I can never not be a mom. I like deciding what I can do whenever I want to without having to care for a child. I feel like a partner is already ‘compromise’ (for lack of a better word) of free time.
• I understand the immense responsibility and sacrifice they are, and choose instead to work on myself and continue to nurture my own experiences and growth through the one life I have.
• Pregnancy is terrifying to me. I never want to try it.
• I’ve just never had that desire. I always thought it would ‘kick in’ as I got older, but no. It’s been kinda hard to come to terms with it in regards to society’s standards and expectations.
• I don’t want to go through birth and don’t like the baby stage. Children and toddlers are fun and can be adorable, but not 24/7. I like money and the peace of mind that I won’t do anything to screw up their lives, and finally, I’m not responsible or mature enough.
• I love my life too much. I hate mess and noise, I love traveling whenever I like, I love going for trips and meals out with my husband, and I love being able to do what I want whenever I want. I don’t want to spend my days listening to crying, arguing, whining, doing the school run in the rain, and shopping for food. The planet has plenty of humans and we have done a great job of wrecking the planet and treating animals so cruelly, I don’t want to add to that problem.
• In my opinion, I should justify why I want kids instead of finding reasons why I don’t want them. In my case, I don’t have a reason to want them.
• On the relationships front, I remember seeing a statistic that more marriages with kids end in divorce than marriages without kids — having kids wrecks marriages. Other studies have found that child-free couples are FAR happier than couples with kids.
• I don’t have the delusion that having children will somehow guarantee love or that I won’t be alone on my deathbed. Lots of people are alone on their deathbed anyway (I work in end-of-life care). Also, given the state of the Earth with regards to climate change, I feel it’s kinda s***** to keep making more humans. We probably can’t turn this ship around.
• Our society is structures so that nearly everyone but the wealthy are living hand-to-mouth. I feel no security in my life and find life stressful. I can’t imagine how bad that would be if I had to worry about another soul.
• I’m selfish, so I’m not going to sacrifice my time for them. I don’t want to bring kids into this world if they can’t be unconditionally loved.
• I’m absolutely terrified of developing postpartum depression.
• I’m stingy. I don’t want something that takes up the majority of my life for the foreseeable future.
• I’m the kind of person that often changes his mind. Like, to do whatever he wants and go back if need be. Where will my return option be if I have a child?
• I’d rather regret not having children than regret having them.

Wow, that’s quite a list. My responses to it have morphed throughout the day. My first response was to focus on the selfishness that most of these quotes claim for themselves and how it’s good for all of us to be broken from our selfishness. This is something that needs to be purged from all of our lives, and children is not a sure-fire way to do it, but it’s certainly a side-effect if I let it be. But the more I think about that the more I think about the caveat “if I let it be.” Too many parents do not sacrifice for their children the way they should. Perhaps the father shirks his responsibility and leaves the mother with all of it. The opposite can be true as well, although this can be less common.

And I’m not going to get into who the children become when they grow up, being damaged by their childhood (childhood trauma was mentioned a few times in the list). That’s a whole different topic. I’m talking about the parents now.

Back on topic, the more I thought about it the more I realized that a lot of key Bible characters were not fathers. We know that Jesus wasn’t a father. Saul/Paul wasn’t a father. I don’t know that we can be sure, but it appears that John the Baptist wasn’t a father. I don’t know about the others such as Peter (we know he was married), Timothy, John Mark, etc. But I think it can be concluded that it’s not a sin to not be a father (although there are some churches that hold birth control up as a sin, and I’m not going to get into that either–not the point of what I’m writing here).

So if it’s not a sin to not be a parent (the birth control debate not withstanding), how do I feel about these reasons? Am I willing to embrace them as legitimate? I have two children who are now in their 20s. Suffice it to say, things did not go as I hoped for them, but that doesn’t mean their lives haven’t played out so far exactly how you’ve needed them to play out for their sakes. I will say, as I think about them each possibly having children one day, I do worry about their ability to fight against the tides in society as they raise any grandchildren my wife and I might have. It was more complicated to raise them than it was for my parents to raise me. Technology made taking away privileges almost impossible because they had so many more ways to sneak around “grounding” than I could ever have imagined. Now you add the increasing toxicity of social media and the media to which they will be exposed without my ability to control it–it’s frightening. I was 26 when our son was born. If I were 25 now, I would seriously think twice about having children simply because of the current I have have to swim against.

At the same time, I heard someone say one time, if Christians stop having children then who is left to have children? The same is true for things like public schools. If Christians take their children out of public schools, who is left in public school?

I don’t know. I’m not getting as far with this topic and article as I had hoped. I guess I would say that I understand each individual’s reluctance to have children. I understand the fear. I understand the selfishness. I understand the philosophical question of whether the Earth can handle more children. I guess what I would counsel anyone wrestling with this question–or not wrestling–to keep an open mind as you go through life. Of course, if they are Christians, listen to your still small voice. Listen to the Holy Spirit. Be willing to have your life turned upside down and even made miserable. Maybe that’s what you have for us. Maybe that’s the road you need us to me or them to walk to turn us into the people you need us to be. Maybe our lives are not about us, but about you. But one thing I do hope–that each person who decides to not have children will refrain from giving parenting advice to those of us who have them. 🙂

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

Dear God, it’s 9:20 at night and I’m sitting in front of my house, cooking off after a workout. The last 28 hours have been quite something. Really, I have to add the 12 hours leading up to it, so we will say that I’ve been in a bit of an emotional state since yesterday morning. I have so many things I’m thinking, and one of the challenges is that, for privacy reasons for others, I cannot explicitly say what I’m thinking if I post this on the blog. But then again, maybe speaking of my thoughts vaguely will be a good exercise for me to look beyond the actual circumstances and see what deeper issue(s) might be at their core.

It’s hard to watch someone else struggle. It’s hard to watch them have to walk a road you’ve already walked, at least to some extent, and know the strain that’s ahead for them. But I also know something they cannot quite yet appreciate. Actually, I know two things. One, the difficult path they’ve already walked has made them someone they’d never have otherwise become. Two, the difficult path ahead will teach them more about themselves and help them accomplish more than they would without the struggle. It looks bad now, but they will look back 10 years from now and see how this path made them who they are.

Father, help my friend. Make this count. Make their pain count. Don’t let it be wasted. Make it count for them, for those in their life now, and those to come. Show me who you need me to be in their life. And help me to not get in your way and short circuit anything you are trying to do. And use this to teach me as well. To thine, be the glory, oh, Lord.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

Dear God, I was reading a Wall Street Journal article this morning about marrying up modern theoretical physics and Genesis when it comes to the creation story. How we must amuse you! We try so hard to understand. We stretch our brains. We think and ponder. And I’m sure in some ways you’re really proud of us, like when a parent is proud of a child for learning something new. But there’s still so much we don’t know or of which we can’t conceive.

The weird part is how we argue with each other through our ignorance. “No, God created the earth in 144 hours (six days)!” “Are you crazy? There is no God! Nature just formed!” Such foolishness! Such arrogance! Such pride! It must look completely ridiculous from your perspective.

Father, help me to major in the majors. I don’t need to know everything. I don’t need to be right about everything. What I need is a heart of worship. So as I prepare to worship in church this morning, the words to “How Great Thou Art” are in my head: “MyGod, how great thou art!”

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

No verse.

Dear God, it’s been 52 weeks to the day that I was in a high state of alert with the pandemic. I took on on Thursday, March 12, to attend a court hearing with a relative, and that was the day a lot of national organizations such as the NCAA started to shut things down, realizing the COVID-19 was serious and was worthy of draconian measures to stop it. I knew that the staff at work was of two minds. Some were insisting that this was all overblown and some were insisting that we weren’t taking this seriously enough. I felt like my job was to find the correct path–your path–forward. We had a fundraising dinner coming up. We had patients, volunteers, and staff who needed to be protected. We had a role to play in our community’s response to the new pandemic. What did you want us to do? What did you want me to do?

My response was to take this Sunday one year ago to fast and pray. I actually went down to the clinic where I work and went to the chapel. After praying for a little while, I got my laptop and typed an email to our medical director, dentist, and therapist, outlining my thinking and what I heard the Holy Spirit telling me. I won’t go into the details of everything we decided, but I can tell you it was a time of pressure that pushed me into a state of desiring to be as close to you as possible. I wanted to get this right under your blessing and leadership. Looking back, I think that happened. I think you really provided for us.

So now I sit here one year later, and I can see that you’ve done some amazing things. But there are still some decisions to be made. What do we do about loosening up any restrictions? How far do we go in opening up our facility at work to anyone who wants to come in the door? What do we do with our fundraising events for the rest of the year? How should we work with our donors? What role do we have to play in our community’s continued response? How do I bless the staff and balance between making their lives easier/safer, and ensuring we help every single person you bring to us? Then there are the personal things. What kinds of precautions do my wife and I still need to take? Church? Eating out? Shopping? Visiting family. We’ve both been fortunate enough to be vaccinated, but there is still so much that is unknown about the variants of COVID-19. What do you have for us to do?

Father, I want to take this day as well to fast and pray. I’ll admit that I’m not as much looking for guidance and I am wanting to center myself on you. Selfishly, I am hoping you will see this pious act on my part and reward it. Hmm, that is an interesting thing to admit to myself. What is my motivation? It’s actually pretty selfish. I’m sorry. No, what I want is your insight into this situation. I do want your guidance. Please help me as I go through this day to use this as worship of you and draw me closer to your still small voice through the Holy Spirit.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

Dear God, as our nice, crisp American society here in Texas has crumbled to some extent this week–millions without power in sub-freezing temperatures, indoor plumbing ceasing to work, grocery stores either empty due to resupply trucks not being able to run or employees not being able to arrive to open up–it’s made me think about societies that truly live in even worse conditions all of the time.

Haiti, for example. Puerto Rico after the hurricane a couple of years ago. In those areas, organized crime is high, as is petty crime. The privileged live in compounds with private security guards while the commoners are left to fend for themselves. Every day is a day of waking up wondering if you will be able to meet the most basic of human needs. Food. Water. Shelter. And if I find those things, will I be able to provide them to my family, or will they be taken from me through either organized for petty crime? The inability to defend my family or depend on the authorities to defend me would be unbelievably hard.

Then there are the stories you read in the Bible about a king laying siege to a city. One of the strategies was to surround the city and cut off their supplies. It’s a tactic still used today because it is very powerful. As I saw the food disappear from our own grocery stores and their inability to restock because the trucks couldn’t get through, it made me think of these situations as well. You can have all of the numbers of people you want, but they must be supplied with life-sustaining materials in order to function. What if those supplies are cut off?

And now there will still be thousands in my county alone who will likely be without power for the next week to two weeks. The weather will get warmer so it will be easier to be in their unheated homes, but there are still all kinds of problems to address with no electricity. And then there are the broken pipes. It will be very hard.

Father, there is a movie called Say Anything. In it, the main character, Lloyd Dobbler says a line that I’ve always liked: “I don’t know. But I know that I don’t know.” There are so many things to which I simply cannot relate. I cannot relate to being raised in deep, multigenerational poverty. I cannot relate to not knowing where my next meal will come from. I cannot relate to not feeling like I can physically protect my family. I cannot relate to not feeling like the police or the military are on my side. I cannot relate to being sexually violated. There is so much that I do not know, and I’m grateful to not know it (although I’m sure I take it for granted). But I think the good news is that I know that I don’t know. I know that someone motivated to travel hundreds or thousands of miles on foot or in incredibly uncomfortable conditions to illegally cross an international border only to end up in indentured servitude has experienced things I can’t even imagine. I know that someone who saw her mother stab her father and has no role models in her life might grow up to get pregnant early just to have someone who will love her. I know that someone who cannot provide for his family might be motivated to do whatever he can, including selling drugs, in order to get money to provide. I know that someone who lives in a slum might take their tax refund and, while it is too little to improve their living conditions, it might swing a 60″ 4K TV so that’s how they will use the money. I know that a parent, out of desperation or exhaustion or fear, might make a parenting decision I think I would never make. I don’t know what it’s like to be in these situations (well, maybe I’ve been in at least one of them), but I know that I don’t know. So I cannot solve all of this. I cannot solve the problems of everyone who is suffering in my city, my county, my state, my country, or my world today. I can’t do it. But I can try to solve a least a couple of problems for someone else. So help me to do that today. Help me to do it well and selflessly. And bring your presence into the world for those I help in your name and your power. And raise up others as well as we work together. Use this as a uniting opportunity. Make this pain and suffering count for your glory. Don’t let it be wasted.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

No verse.

Dear God, I was talking with a friend yesterday about the interview with a pastor who had survived COVID that I journaled about back in July. He said that we had made an idol out of certainty. We put our certainty in our health, our economy, our government, our military, our spouse, our children, our parents, etc. But all of those things are uncertain. Only you are the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The reason I bring this up today is because she asked what kinds of things I put my certainty in. What are my idols? Money was the easy answer. I don’t need more money than I have, but I certainly like knowing I have enough in the bank, whether personally or at work, to not have to worry about how I will pay my bills or even purchase a moderately-priced impulse item if I want. Yes, money is one.

But I had a new thought. It’s easy to say I don’t make my government an idol or that I don’t put my certainty in my government, but how would I feel about our country if it didn’t have the number one economy or military in the world? Even today, as people plan to protest the Electoral College vote count in congress, how many of them are putting their faith in the government? Would Jesus have shown up at one of these protests? Was he worried about who the top of the government was in his time? Did he lead a protest against John the Baptist’s beheading? No. He just mourned and moved on. But I want to read the news and I get bothered by political events and outcomes. I get angry and frustrated. I get scared.

Father, I would ask you to keep revealing my idols to me, but my fear (and here I go back to certainty again) is that you will rip one away from me and give me pain. But whatever. I’m yours. My health is yours. My wife’s health is yours. Everything is yours. My hope is in you and you alone. Help me to truly live in that peace.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen

Dear God, I was thinking abut topics for my prayer time with you today, and then it hit me. It started with how I feel about Christmas Eve now vs. when I was a child.

When I was little, it was all about the presents that were coming for me and the presents I was giving others. Presents, presents, presents. Then, when I was about 9 or 10 years old we started doing church on Christmas Eve. Christmas started to take on a more appropriate celebration of Jesus’s birth and incarnation. Later, as I moved away, it became about going home to visit for the holidays and then taking my wife and eventually children to visit our families at some point around Christmas. Jesus was still there, but there were, I don’t want to say “obligations,” because the word is more positive than that. I suppose there were emotional pulls to try to see family.

Of course, then we had children and it became about making it fun (and yet somehow meaningful in a Jesus-centric way) for them. Outside of my own childhood years, those might have been my favorite. It was a lot of fun to shower them with love, and they were young enough where they could receive it with complete joy.

Now, I am at the age where the kids are living in other places and there aren’t really things they want that they don’t just buy for themselves. This is the first year for my wife when both of her parents are gone. In fact, she told me it struck her that she doesn’t have anyone to buy a Christmas present for from her family of origin this year. That’s a weird feeling that I haven’t experienced. So we have each other. It’s Christmas Eve. I saw my parents briefly yesterday, in a safe, socially-distanced way. Our son and his dog will be here for the day tomorrow. And we will Zoom with my family of origin and our daughter tomorrow as well. We bought some presents for our children and my parents to express our love, but it’s more about the thought of the gift rather than what the gifts are. It’s different.

Which leads me to what I want to talk about this morning. I realized that all of the cultural Christmas things I have been experiencing over the last four weeks are completely secular. The TV shows and movies have nothing to do with you. In fact, I looked at the top 10 Christmas movies as rated by some group. They were 10.) National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 9.) The Nightmare Before Christmas 8.) A Christmas Carol (1951) 7.) The Apartment 6.) Elf 5.) The Muppet Christmas Carol 4.) Home Alone 3.) Miracle on 34th Street 2.) A Christmas Story 1.) It’s a Wonderful Life. Even A Christmas Carol, in any of its renditions, really doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s about the human heart, but nothing about reconciliation.

I probably need to go back and watch The Nativity. It was a really well-done depiction of Mary and Joseph’s journey up to Jesus’s birth. I think I’ve watched it twice. I supposed I should have watched it more. Why haven’t I?

Father, I really do want to spend this day in gratitude for you. My wife is important. My children and family of origin are important. Helping a family that is unknown to me with Christmas presents is important. But I don’t want to take you for granted any more than I already do. I am really grateful to you. Please help me to love you and then channel your love to others. And thank you for Jesus’s incarnation.

I pray all of this in Jesus’s name,

Amen