This originally appeared as a weekly evo for Western Hills.

I don’t particularly enjoy hospitals. I think I can actually feel the germs crawl on me when I enter the hospital. Those little cans on the wall for hand sanitizer? I run from canister to canister, treating them like dispensers of hope. The foam reminds me of whip cream and instantly takes me to a happy place.

I’m also pretty much the world’s worst small-talker. I’m not anti-small-talk. I know that it is often necessary to go through the small-talk to get to the big stuff. I just wish I was better at it.

And then of course are the feelings of helplessness and inadequacy. How many times have I heard the doctor’s report and just cringed, knowing there wasn’t a thing I could do for them?

All of this can make a trip to the hospital incredibly awkward and exhausting.

However, I’m pretty sure none of that really matters. I’m learning that whatever awkwardness I’m feeling, the folks I’m seeing are oblivious to. They are consumed by something much larger and more important at the moment: that huge STOP sign that life has just thrown in the middle of their world.

Cancer, surgery, sickness, pain, disease – it comes in many different names but with the same stunning result. It has the power to stop everything else that we THOUGHT was so important moments before. It can be the wake-up call for some, the valley of the shadow of death for others.

All of this can make a trip to the hospital an altar moment.

It doesn’t always happen this way, but sometimes that room becomes an altar. Not the false god/idol kind of altar but an Abraham kind of altar. A marker to remember the faithfulness of God. Could be a healing, could be a moment of insight and change. Could be a surrender point. I’ve seen it be a place of reconciliation for wounds long suffered. At times it’s a homecoming, the kind that those of us on earth have to mourn through.

A place of deep, profound worship
Ironically enough, these are the moments I enjoy. “Enjoy” isn’t exactly the word I’m looking for. The moment itself is normally not very fun or enjoyable at all. It does have profound meaning, though. Full of raw, unvarnished emotion and heart. There is no mask of “I’m okay” nor the comfortable distractions of grocery lists or bills or errands. It’s just them and God.

When I get to be in these moments, there is joy. Not the cheerleader, rah-rah joy. That’s not joy anyway. But a “in-the-now” sense of peace. Not that everything will be alright but that everything will be with Him.

It’s hard to explain, maybe impossible. But it’s real and probably it was that kind of experience that inspired David to write Psalm 34:18.

God is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

This originally appeared as a weekly devo on whillschurch.org

There is a running joke at Western Hills – Grant is a good hand to have on a job. He can turn any 2 hour job into an all day job. I’ve also been asked if I have brought my Barbie tools from time to time. To be fair – I have a very nice 18 volt drill and saw. Plus two circular saws and even a jigsaw. I’m fairly adept at minor fixes and major demolition. I don’t have a table saw or a chain saw for reasons that will remain unsaid. I’m a quick study.

But every time I see Shane Koci’s toolbag or Terry Randall’s toolkit – it is painfully obvious that in the world of tools – I am Fisher Price, they are Craftsmen.

It’s not just they have more tools than I do…the tools they have are infinitely better than mine. They’ve had a lifetime to build that up. And when they buy a tool, they buy the best. And they know how to use those tools. We’ve been major blessed by their skills and knowledge of these tools. Watching these guys work, I want to be good like that at fixing things.

Ever been around someone like that?

That’s exactly the thinking behind our equipping classes that start this Sunday. We’ve been talking for over a month about the new change at Western Hills, new service times (8.30 and 11 am), and how this is a temporary fix buying us time until we can move down to the gym, and how the north side of our campus will now become all children and youth.

But one of the HUGE benefits to the changes are these equipping classes. It’s like being taught on a certain topic by someone who has an incredible tool kit in that area. And these classes give us an opportunity to improve our tool kits.

Life groups are core to who we are and who we want to be at Western Hills. We say it all the time – you won’t feel connected until you are in a life group because you aren’t connected. Life groups are the central life change, spiritual transformation agent of the church. It’s where we learn to apply and encourage and live out what we are learning in the scriptures. It’s where we serve all.

BUT we also need a place to get the basics of spirituality. There are times when we need focused attention on a specific topic with the help of an experienced “craftsman.” We need these times of learning (equipping class) so that we can then go to the lab (life group) to test it out.

I’m super excited about these classes. We’ll be offering new ones in another 8 weeks, some we will be repeating in case you missed the first offering.

But the equipping classes offer an unique opportunity to add some tools to your toolbelt in a way that a worship service or just a life group could never do.

Now, I’m off to the hardware store to work on my sin of envy.

This originally appeared as the weekly devo on whillschurch.org.

I wish I could say that Whitney Houston’s death came as a surprise. When the news broke, I thought to myself – this is going to play out with typical Hollywood shallowness. Sure enough, the Grammys became part love-fest for Whitney. I wonder how many of those people really liked her. Just the night before, Whitney was escorted away from a party due to her own abrasiveness.

The real tragedy in Whitney Houston is we have seen this before, we will see this again. An artist or star who blows us away with their craft and their talents, all the while on the inside they are slowly decaying. They have this sense of longing or inadequacy that needs to be fulfilled. They are not limited in their resources in searching for this something to fulfill this void in their life. No matter how many movies they make, hit songs they sing, or famous they get, that empty void still haunts them. Since they are not limited by resources, they will try anything to fill this void – sex, drugs, cars, houses, charity, business. And for some of them, the search will kill them.

Whitney Houston’s voice was unmatched. Her rendition of the national anthem for Super Bowl XXV in 1991 will leave you speechless. In fact, I think they should just play this version from now on, I doubt any artist will ever come close to matching that performance.

As pure as her voice was, what was going on inside her wasn’t. She shocked the world with her marriage to bad boy Bobby Brown. She shocked us again by telling us she wasn’t all that different from him. Then their reality tv show removed all doubt that the Whitney image of the 80s was just that – an image. Her rocky marriage, the drug and alcohol abuse, and the violence just made most of us extremely sad for her.

And Jesus loved her.

Houston always said that was her favorite song – Jesus loves me. Despite the profane lifestyle, the failures and the escapades – she consistently said that “Jesus Loves Me” was her favorite song.

Why couldn’t she grasp that in a deeper way that translated into a different lifestyle? The same reason so many of us can’t. It is difficult to see Jesus among the deadly distractions this life has to offer. My distractions may not be prescription pain killers or alcohol, but I’ve got them. And so do you if you are honest with yourself.

One conversation my kids and I constantly have when an artist comes on tv and mentions God is – “So you think he’s a Christian? You think she’s a Christian?”

It breaks a parent’s heart to tell their kid that their hero or favorite artist is just a broken, messed up person trying to figure out life. The only difference is they have the money to make some really, really bad mistakes that last forever. But if the music and entertainment industry has taught us anything – that is it. Fallen, messed up people are fallen, messed up people no matter what their income is.

And one of Houston’s songs seems to sum it up fairly well – Didn’t We Almost Have It All? Almost is still NOT having it all. Houston’s distractions cost her life. For whatever reasons, it never seemed she allowed Jesus to have the last word in her life. It’s easy to see this in her life, harder to see it in our own. But are our distractions of kids or marriage or success or titles or houses or money any less deadly? Is our obsession with our own happiness any different than Houston’s?

Scale – maybe. The question is still valid for us all – What does it profit a person to gain the whole world but lose his soul?

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:35 NIV)

This originally appeared as a weekly devo for whillschurch.org.

This has been one heck of week for our family. My ongoing battle with the pinched nerve in my neck has sort hit a stand still. I got better but I still have sporadic shots of pain down my arm depending on what position I get my neck in. I haven’t been able to play basketball in over a month and my exercise plan has sort been non-existant.

So the doctor ordered an MRI. Easy peasy, right?

I’m not claustrophobic. So the idea of laying down in huge magnetic coffin isn’t all that terrifying to me. The problem is they lie me flat on my back, strap my head down on the board exactly in the position where that nerve is pinched and it sends this flaming stream of pain down my right arm.

The pain was intense. Couldn’t finish it. Tried it again yesterday with some hydrocodone — lasted all of 5 minutes when the tech said – “This isn’t going to work.”

So today, we upped it to Valium. The last time I took Valium…well the nurse said I was extremely funny and ought to think about a career in public speaking. And that was how I got started in ministry…

In fact, I’m starting to feel the effects right now as I type this. jfkla;sdifq9′j’m3ic Just kidding…sort of.

Yet for all the bravado and macho talk, I hate pain. I realize that most of us do…

More to come after the Valium wears off…

LATER: The valium didn’t work. Well…it sort of worked. It made me sick at my stomach and groggy but could not cut through that pain once I got on the table. So now they are going to schedule me for an IV sedation. I’m not confident this will work either but hey…

My point? My point is that we spend an inordinate amount of time avoiding pain. A friend of mine told me yesterday (he just got done with a knee surgery) that pain was God’s way of reminding us that we are still alive. As we talked, we joked that between the two of us there was one whole, healthy person. We enjoyed a good laugh but he reminded me of another famous person’s perspective on pain.

C.S. Lewis said “Pain is God’s megaphone.”

Pain is inevitable. It has been that way since Genesis 3. I don’t believe that all pain is God’s fault but I do believe that he USES all pain. That’s the subtle message of Romans 8:28 – ALL things work for good…, not all things ARE good.

So the real question for the Christ follower in the middle of their pain is this – what good is God going to work out in all of this? Hard question to deal with at times because not all pain is equal. But…all pain is painful.

In a few weeks (after the Go! series) we will start a series called Beyond Pain. We’ll get to explore these kinds of questions and more by studying how some of heroes in scripture dealt with pain. Some of the insights are going to be very, very surprising. We’re going to see that God Himself is not immune to pain.

In the meantime…hang in there. And find a friend to laugh with.

Image is of Stirling Castle in Stirling, Scotland. More info can be found here.

This originally appeared as a weekly evo for whillschurch.org

Last night we opened Christmas gifts from my Dad and Mary while they were on FaceTime. (By the way, this is just one more reason why I think the iPhone is best invention ever. But I digress.)

Mary is my stepmother who turned my son and daughters to the dark side. She discipled my own kids against me right under my nose to become Auburn fans. I was powerless against her. My dad has questioned my paternal leadership because of this. My only response has been – she’s your wife and you couldn’t stop her either.

As the wrong kind of orange and blue presents were being unwrapped, my dad asked me – “How many Christmases is this for y’all?”

“Too many. I’ve quit fighting it.”

We will have Christmas with my Mom and Dad (stepdad). Christmas with Dad and Mary. Christmas with Amy’s parents. And then our kids will get the gifts we got them as well. It’s ridiculous and I’ve fought this for so many years and lost every single time. It’s hard enough for parents to win against one set of grandparents. Try three.

But 35 years ago, I would have never seen this day as a possibility. That was when my world was put upside down by my parent’s divorce. It wasn’t common back in the 70′s particularly in the Deep South. I had never heard of it. Didn’t even know that was possible.

But it was happening to me and it wasn’t pretty. At age 7, I understood little of what was going on. I just knew that my world was completely shattered and changing in ways I had no control over.

A very dark thread.

Black threads on a tapestry add depth, perspective, and balance. In the hands of a master artist, they give a framework for the masterpiece. They are never the focal point. But without them, the focal point never takes center stage. Those that enjoy the art hardly ever notice the black threads. We are too overwhelmed by the rest of the picture. But they are there.

We all get black threads. The question is what to do with them. Do we stuff them away? Denying the shame, guilt, and hurt? Believing that there is no place for them in our lives? Or do we make them the centerpiece? Choosing to be a victim forever more. Focusing on the darkness, believing that there really is no color left in life?

Only a true, gifted master artist can take a mistake, a blotch, a dark thread and weave into the larger picture to make it look like that it belong there all along. Using the mistake as a strength. Taking the bad and make it reflect something good.

But this requires leaving the black threads in the master’s hands. Allowing him to use it when and where he sees fit. It might not be immediately seen what he is doing but we trust his handiwork. We’ve seen him do this before – over and over again. So we trust him, even though it looks unfixable, unredeemable.

35 years later, I’m living in the middle of a rich, deep, wonderful tapestry. All of the in-laws, out-laws, and step-laws love each other. They exchange gifts between themselves. They’ve spent holidays all with each other over the years, stayed in each other’s houses. Impossible? 35 years ago – yes.

But God does his best work in the 9th hour with the darkest threads…when He’s given the chance. His own birth is proof of that.

Merry Christmas. And know that He still uses the dark threads.

Photo is of the Scottish Highlands from the personal journal of actuality.log on emphaticallystatic.org.

I first heard the term ‘Thin Place’ from my closet-mystic buddy in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a brilliant mind, worked in the medical field and for all exterior looks was a very rational, cerebral man. But on the inside he longed for the ‘thin places.’ Those places where the holy and mundane collide. Those places where we get a surprise glimpse of the eternal, the Kingdom revealed – he used to tell me.

The phrase stuck with me – Thin Places, holy moments. He always slipped into an Irish brogue when he said it – so I’ve always equated Thin Places with the Scottish Highlands. Even though Scottish and Irish are different…I know. The point is we had a Thin Place moment this weekend in our service.

You wouldn’t think a Thin Place moment would happen in a service where all the kids under 5th grade were at the front in a conversation with the pastor. At least, I wouldn’t have ever thought it would happen in that kind of setting. My biggest goal was to stay as engaging and active with the kids as possible so they would understand the concept of Wonderful Counselor.

I also was prepared in case it went pear-shaped (see last week’s devo).

It’s a double-edge sword working with kids like this. They have no filter. Which means awesome interaction as well as …”Hey look, it’s a squirrel” moments.

And we had some squirrel moments. One child saying she hated wearing clothes for Christmas. Another saying that her cat was the most wonderful thing in her life. Another talking about how wonderful ninjas are.

And then it happened.

“What else is wonderful, beyond words wonderful in your life?”

Adopted.

The. Room. Just. Stopped.

Thin Place. Holy Moment.

It felt like eternity was stuffed in those 3 seconds.

Adopted.

The boy was in our life group. He and his sister loved coming over. I looked at the boy’s dad. He was in part shock, part awe. I knew him well. I wasn’t sure how he was keeping it together. I figured he’d be a blubbering, crying mass of emotions. I looked at the mom. She was beaming, like she was going to float right out of her chair.

The entire room took a breath.

Adopted.

The parents had already raised their own kids – gone, on their own. They were looking forward to some grandchildren. Then the someone asked for the largest favor on the planet – we need help. We’ve got these two kids – a brother and a sister – they don’t have anywhere to go.

What were they supposed to do? Say no? On the other hand, what were they thinking? Start all over again? Did they have that many more miles on the tread?

Adopted.

It’s been a year or two. The adoption was final just in the last couple of months. There’s never been any regrets. The kids think they got the coolest parents in the world (they do), the parents wonder how they are still doing this and loving this (they really do know the answer to that as well).

Adopted.

What a word for the rest of us at Christmas. The boy was talking about himself but he might as well been talking about all of us. Christmas is about adoption. Our adoption into the family of God through our faith in the Christ-child.

Adopted.

Christ was born and lived so that we could say the most wonderful thing in the world is…

Adopted.

What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are. I John 3:1 MSG

This originally was written for the weekly evo on whillschurch.org

Cooper and I stayed up to midnight Monday night to get the ‘new’ Halo:Anniversary Edition video game. It’s actually an old game that they’ve digitally remastered. Think the Star Wars movies in the ’90s without making Han Solo shoot second. (Yes, Lucas…we are still mad about this. And it’s not going to matter if you put it in 3-D. Han shot Guido first and it should stay like that. And I’m not thrilled about the end of Return of the Jedi on the Blu-Ray either…another post, another time.)

We do things like this. We did the midnight Harry Potter movie experience – both part 1 and part 2. We did the midnight Star Wars experience. And now the Halo Midnight Experience. And so far, they’ve always been fun but last night was a bit different. The crowd was a bit different. Lots of black, wallets on chains, goth, boot wearing kind of people. Not really what I was expecting.

I’ll let my texts between Amy and I tell the story…

Amy: Lots of people there?

Grant: (Sends above picture) Yep.

Amy: Anyone Coop’s age or all older?

Grant: All older. And probably all live in their parent’s basement. With Cheetos.

Amy: Ha ha

Grant: I’m dead serious. I honestly think that most of these people are not normal.

Grant: Cooper just informed me that if he had a Master Chief outfit, he’d totally be rockin’ it right now. I told him … “By yourself.”

Grant: The guy behind me just said that this line (around 75 people) is small compared to last week. (It’s like this is church or something..) I’m tempted to turn around and ask how does he have the money to buy new games every week but then that would probably lock me into a conversation with a guy that I really don’t want to talk to.

Amy: No need for weird random conversations at midnight.

Grant: Amen to that.

A few seconds of silence…

Grant: There are some REALLY weird people out here. I really need to tweet some of this stuff.

Amy: Don’t forget – you are in that line as well.

Awkward moment of realization.

Two things that are important about this experience, though. First, there was another game released beside Halo this week. Some game called the Elder Scrolls or Trolls Are Us or Dark Magic. It explains all the goth that was being thrown down in the line Monday night.

Second, I really wanted to stay home. But I’m glad I went. That’s a night that won’t happen again. That’s laughter and a memory that one day we will both tell around the Thanksgiving table with multiple generations. And all it cost me was just a few hours sleep. That’s it. Small price to pay.

I’ve caught myself at times taking the lazy way out of parenting. Saying ‘no’ to things that really don’t have a moral or value judgement behind it. More like – “I’m tired and I want to be left alone” value. And there are times when I absolutely need some alone time to recharge and refocus…but it can’t be at the expense of my family. Can’t.

Ephesians 1:3 got me thinking about this. Our Heavenly Father has given us every spiritual blessing in Jesus. Anything that has to do with a relationship with Him, deepening an experience with God, He has said “YES” at every single point. Jesus was the biggest YES in history. No – you’re to sinful, messed up. I’m too busy, too pure comments from God. Jesus was his “Yes” to every relational question and pursuit to humanity.

I want to be that kind of dad to my kids as well. Anything that is going to deepen my relationship – yes. Anything that is going to further their journey towards and with Jesus – yes. And when my first reaction is to say “no”, I’m going to pause and ask ‘how come?’ Is there a deeper value at play here? Is this a situation where I need to protect? Or is the ‘no’ just part of being lazy?

We got home and played the first mission. Coop crawled into bed by 1 am. We were both seriously dragging Tuesday morning…but it’s just sleep.