February 2007

I’m neither an etymologist[1] nor a lexicographer[2].  I’m not one who knows a whole lot about meanings of words.  But I do know what submission is.  And I know what a mission is.  And I even looked up “sub� in a dictionary to make sure I was using it correctly[3].  

I say this as a warning to all those who know lots of words and even more about them.  What I’m about to write may be disturbing to you as I hold no apparent regaurd for the real etymology of the word submission. 

I like the idea that the word “mission� is in-bedded in the word submission

This conjures up a couple thoughts for me.  First, we are under mission.  We are not greater than it.  It comes first.  We are not to put ourselves ahead of our mission.  It is the one who assigns the missions who is greater, not us. 

Second, our mission is submission.  Over and over we are instructed by the Biblical writers to submit to one person or another whether it’s our spouse, a government official, or each other.  We’re even to submit toGod[4]. We are to submit our will to God and allow His mission to become our mission. 

[1] Big word #1

[2] Big word #2.  It should be noted here that I didn’t even know that word existed until I searched etymologist on dictionary.com to make sure I was using the word right. One of the definitions gave me lexicographer.  Even before I searched the words meaning I knew I had to use it somehow.  I will now attempt to use it in daily life as much as possible.  Doesn’t using big words make us feel better about ourselves? 

[3] Turns out I was right.  “Sub� isn’t just referring to boats that go under water.  Although, interestingly enough, a submarine shares similar properties with all those who submit to something. 

[4] You really shouldn’t be surprised by my saying that.

You’ll notice lately that my thoughts haven’t been too profound or theologically focused.  I guess there’s just some other stuff fighting harder to get out of my head at this moment.  Survival of the fittest for thoughts?  I don’t know.  This thought came to me as I was brushing my teeth last night. 

Do paparazzi ever get hired to do weddings?  I mean, would a paparazzo ever hire themselves out to do wedding photos? 

Imagine what those photos would be like.  You’d have the wedding party and all their guest caught in the worst most embarrassing moments. 

Or worse yet, what if you had a celebrity friend and your wedding photographer spent the entire time taking photos of only them. 

That would stink.  You’d get your photos back and there isn’t a single one of the bride and groom.  Oh, but you’d have plenty of this celebrity friend of yours. 

I wonder too, if anyone ever hires a photographer to follow them around and give them the “celebrity� treatment.  You could hire your own paparazzi to stalk you around snapping your photos all day.  You’re at the beach and they’re in the bushes snapping away.  You’re fueling your vehicle and they’re across the street in a dark sedan.  Every time you turn around there they are taking your picture.  I can think of a few people who would enjoy that. 

That being said, I’ve got a camera and I could use a few extra bucks.  Hmmm, maybe I’m on to something here. 

Sheena made the most incredible food the other night.  It was some casserole thing with oodles of cheese, loads of salsa, the creamiest sauce, pounds of poultry, and all held together by a tortilla crust.   It was amazing. 

I’m salivating just thinking about it.   However, interestingly enough, almost equally amazing was that it was super easy to clean up.  I didn’t even have to soak the dish.   

Did you read that bit about oodles of cheese and cream sauce? And it all just wiped away.   

I was expecting it to take days of pre-soaking, and a couple hours with a scrub brush before I could see any light reflecting on the corning ware.    I still sit in amazement of that dish.   

It’s so nice when dinner clean up goes well. I think the clean up is far too often overlooked in cook book writer’s circles.  I mean, they should consider a chart that tells you how easy it is to clean up after the meal.  Perhaps, an estimated scrub time, or E.S.T. for short, could appear right before the ingredients list.  That would definitely save me from a lot of unnecessary reading.   I mean, it doesn’t matter how amazing a dish is, if it’s going to take an hour to clean a pan, I’m not interested.  I’d even think twice about that dish Sheena made the other day if I knew I’d be scrubbing the pan all evening.  It doesn’t matter how amazing a meal is.  If you looked up “yummy� in the dictionary and the very meal described was going to be difficult to clean, I’d pass.  No thanks not worth it. 

See, if E.S.T. became a standard part of recipe books right after the title of the dish, I wouldn’t spend all that time reading the recipe before asking the question, “What’s this going to be like to clean up?�  And I certainly wouldn’t be tricked into hours of cleaning by a dish that sounded tasty.  An evening of washing dishes leaves a far more foul taste in your mouth than Brussels Sprouts ever did.  I know if there was a cook book that included E.S.T. I’d go buy it today.   

Well, maybe, how much work is buying it going to take?

I learned yesterday that there are some things in life that no one ever teaches you to do.  I’m a big fan of higher education.  I enjoyed, and tried, very much to get the most out of my four years of post secondary education.  And I highly recommend that everyone goes to college, university or trade school. 

 However, yesterday I found myself in a situation that schooling never prepared me for.  My degree was supposed to prepare me for my career, but my career had me in a situation that my degree never prepared me for.  Not a single one of my professors ever covered this topic. 

Yesterday I was out shopping for bedpans. 

Now you’re probably wondering why a youth director would be out buying bedpans.  While those who know me probably aren’t surprised by that, fans of the T.V. show “Scrubs� might have the best idea why a youth director would be out purchasing bedpans.

While shopping for bedpans I realized there’s a lot to know.  And I knew nothing.  I phoned a shop to ask if they sold bedpans and that wasn’t enough of a description for them.  They wanted to know what kind of bedpan. 

There are kinds?

Oh, yeah, there are different kinds of bedpans.  I was not prepared for that. 

I thought that at most they would be made of different materials, but not different styles. 

Suddenly I felt in over my head. 

Why wasn’t Bedpans 101 a course offered by my college? 

Today I’ve come to accept that there are far too many possible situations I could get into, and that it would be impossible for a school to prepare me for any circumstance.  Now, should anyone need advice on purchasing a bedpan, I’m your man. 

I’m becoming convinced that no amount of right action will make us truly right.

When Moses wrote Genesis, he didn’t include much info on that time so we don’t know a whole lot. All we know is that in the Garden of Eden, there was Adam, Eve and God hanging out with Lions and Tigers, and Elephants (did you think I’d say bears?) and every other living creature on the earth.

Then one of the creatures, a snake no doubt, decided he’d do something to change that. See, he didn’t like God. He wanted to get back at God for kicking him out of heaven, so he decided to hurt God by getting God’s most loved creation, people, to sin against Him.

Often, because we think we matter far more than we do, we think that Satan tricking Eve was all about us. We think that the serpent was just out to ruin our fun. When we think along those lines we forget that when we sin it’s not against ourselves. We forget that when we sin we hurt God a lot. And, most importantly, we forget that Satan would do anything to hurt God.

This was not about us. This was Satan doing whatever he could to hurt God. It just turns out people are easy marks.

Interestingly enough, we even begin to think that making it right is something WE can do. God didn’t make the problem of sin our responsibility to clean up. He took care of it.

There are no easy steps to getting right that we could just do A, B, and C and then be right again. God says there is just one thing we can do. We must accept His solution.

It we are to ever be right with God again we have one huge hurtle: we have to get over ourselves.

We need to realize that everything is about Him.

I like being right. I love it when someone tells me, “You know what? I think you’re right.� Those are blessed words. I love being right. I’m not right often enough.

It’s crazy to think that there was a time when people were right: when there was no sin on the earth. There was a moment in space and time when people didn’t just do the right things, but they were right.

Think about that for a moment.

There is a difference between doing the right things and being right: especially when it comes to being right with God.

I’m sure most of us are familiar with the story of Adam and Eve.

After Adam and Eve were created, and we don’t know how long this lasted, they were without sin. They did nothing sinful and enjoyed an intimate relationship with God because there was no sin separating them.

I’d love to be right again. Sadly, so many times I think that doing the right things will make me right. I’m convinced I’m not alone on this.

Don’t we go around doing nice things for people hoping that somehow that will make us right with them?

Will that ever work?

Will doing the right things ever make us right like Adam and Eve were right?

What makes someone great? 

This is a question I’d love to have the answer to.  I’d love to be great. 

I’d love to be “the
Man.� 

Wouldn’t it be great to walk down the street and have everyone look at you in awe and reverence?  Maybe someone would shout out, “Yo Chris, you da Man!� 

That would be excellent.  

I’m at my desk right now considering the things that God considers great, because I’m supposed to be speaking on that topic this Sunday.  I look left and there is a poster of Gerry Lopez standing tall on Pipeline.  Here’s one of the greatest surfers ever riding one of the toughest breaks ever.  Then to my right is a poster with a little old lady sweeping the church floor. 

It just occurred to me that, at this very moment, I’m surrounded by greatness. 

To my left is a prime example of what the world considers greatness.  To my right is everything that God considers great.  And here I am in the middle. 

If I continue with my natural tendencies I will achieve neither form of greatness.  I’m not a good enough surfer to be great in the surfing world.  And I’m too self-focused to be great in theKingdom of
God: for the Bible says that the least shall become the greatest. 

So I guess I’ve got a couple of options.  I could either give up my job, and move to a little shack on the beach and dedicate the entire rest of my life to surfing so that I might become a better surfer.  Or I could give up my self, any notion that I deserve to be great, and become a nameless servant like this little old lady in the poster whose only concern is serving God.

While surfing 24/7 sounds like a lot of fun, the idea of becoming the servant sits better in my soul.  Is it possible that I was actually created to be a servant and not a surfer?  I can’t help but think that in reality I am among the least, and by accepting reality I will find freedom like no other: freedom, and enjoyment, in being the least, and the servant of all. 

I Armor All-ed my car yesterday.  Not that it was a big accomplishment; I just thought I’d share it with everyone. It was so quick and easy to pull a pre soaked cloth out of a tube and wipe away the dust leaving a nice shine and a sense that I’ve done something good to protect the interior of my Eurovan. 

Today it still has that shine to it.  It looks so good as if it were actually wearing a nice shiny coat of armor. 

That got me thinking today about how much effort we put into protecting things.  We put up safe guards to protect everything: especially our houses.  This leads me to think about the other significant event of my day yesterday. 

I locked myself out of my house. 

While surveying all possible entry points to find the weakest one through which I might break in, I was taking stock of all the measures in place to protect my stuff.  There was a mixed sense of delight and disappointment every time I found a locked window or door.  I probably would have enjoyed this more, had it not been raining and this unexpected security inventory was about to make my wife late for work.

Someone, (I say someone because all the security measures are left over from the previous tenants) has done a lot of work to protect my house.  Protection takes effort.  Yet eventually our laziness kicks in and we search for ways to offer the same level of protection with minimal effort.  We, use pre soaked clothes instead of soaking our own and washing them after. 

Things that aren’t easy to protect we often don’t. 

In Ephesians 6 we read about the Armor of God.  Paul’s writing this to educate readers on how to be protected from spiritual attacks.  How many of us read it and go, “wow that sounds so easy.�?  So often when I read this what stands out most is the stuff about us being attacked.  That doesn’t sound easy. 

What happened to Jesus saying His yoke was easy and His burden light?  I like that kind of Christianity.  I like the idea that following Christ is easy. 

Dallas Willard offers that as we become more like Christ the yoke gets easier and the burden lighter.  Then Willard writes chapter after chapter about how to do that by practicing spiritual disciplines.  It sounds like finding the easy yoke is a lot of work.

I can’t help but think that so many of us have searched for easy Christian lives.  We believe every one of Jesus words that we like, and we definitely like the ones about an easy yoke.  Okay, so we like the word easy, how many of us even bother to figure out what a “yoke� is? 

In search of this easy yoke of Christ, or an easy way of protecting ourselves, we go into hiding, and take on a Christian life that is far from what God wants for us.  Life is easier, and we face fewer attacks, when we hid our faith.  So we hide, or become soft on the things that Jesus cares about because hiding is an easy way to protect ourselves.  The burden is light when we take up no burden at all. 

We do this because we have an inverted idea of easy.  Easy isn’t avoiding the workload, it’s inviting Christ to help us with it. 

Paul’s really just reminding us to pray.  Paul writes in verse 18 an exhortation to never stop praying.  Prayer is something I’m supposed to do everyday.  Prayer is inviting Christ to be with us in our daily lives.  Prayer is allowing God to be our protection. 

Why? So that we can “stand� when under attack.  Through prayer we’ll be able to stay on our feet and not get knocked to the ground by “the devil’s schemes.� 

When we’re actually living as God wants us to live we will face attack.  Paul writes “so that when the day of evil comes.�  He doesn’t say “If� he says “when.� 

Will we stand on that day?  Are we protected? 

Okay, go easy on me I’m new at this. I’ve never posted a real journal before. I’m not even entirely sure why I’m doing this. I was recently asked when I was going to begin blogging. So, now I’m beginning.

I’m not really sure why I’ve waited so long to begin a web journal. Sometimes I say or write something and in my head I respond, “Wow that should really be in a blog somewhere.� Then nothing happens with the thought.

There is something that concerns me about the whole journaling thing. I’m a bit afraid that once I begin letting out my thoughts too much will come out. It occurred to me today that there is too much stuff in my brain. It’s crammed packed and every thought is fighting to get out. There are some things that shouldn’t be let out.

It’s not that anything is bad, it’s just weird. Sometimes, what’s in my head, is just plain weird and makes no sense. I don’t really want everyone in the world thinking I’m a weirdo.

What if once I begin releasing the thoughts, other thoughts, sneak out? What if, once I begin shaking the thoughts out of my brain, everything falls out? Then the whole planet would know that Chris Miller is not the sane, normal, un-weird person everyone thinks he is.

For this very reason I avoid trampolines. You can’t control what happens on a trampoline. Sometimes on trampolines you get hurt, or your body makes weird noises, or you learn that parts of you bounce, or you rattle your brain around and it gets all scrambled and messed up.

To me, rattling my brain around sounds like a bad idea. My brain is precious to me. Generally, I don’t like tipping my head to the side and shaking until stuff comes out. Yet the voices in my head need to be set free. So here I go, off on a journey of web journaling. And, like so many others, I now have a blog.

Go easy on me I’m new at this.