Just Dialed 9-1-1!

In 2010 I decided to run an ultra-marathon, which is any distance over 26.2 miles.  I tackled the race hosted by the canyon trails of the Texas Panhandle, a 50-mile venture.  Part of the running appeal is its individual nature - just me,  a pair of shoes (yes, clothes too), and dirt trails.  If completed I knew I would stand - okay sit, or at least lean on a post - and say, "Look what I did!  Just me!"  But I deceived myself!  Although my feet covered the 50 long miles, preparing and running an ultra was far more than an individual effort.  I needed help...

1. I relied on a 16-week training plan to get my non-athlete physique in shape.
2. If it were not for the company of Perry Noble, Steven Furtick, Rick Atchley, Matt Chandler, and Bob Babbit I would not have survived the 4-5 hour training runs.  Thank you iPod and long-winded preachers!
3. I fueled my engine with Gatorade and Cliff bars.
4. My wife gave up Friday-Saturday mornings so I could get up at 4 AM to trot around the dusty roads of the West Texas oilfields for 4-5 hours.
5. A headlamp kept me from dining on dirt.
6. On race day, the race organizers plotted a 12.5 mile loop.  After the 4th go around I knew to stop.
7. Carefully placed aid stations, stocked with PBJ's, chips, Snickers, pretzels, fruit, were beacons in the night.
8. Volunteers filled my water bottle with ice at every station (it was 86 degrees).
9. Encouraging words from fellow runners and spectators propelled me forward when my legs were screaming, "Stop, you idiot!"

So I finished 50 miles in 8 hrs and 55 minutes but I had help!  I needed help!  So do you.  Coiled somewhere in America's DNA is the independence lie - that somehow I can achieve and succeed based on sheer determination, ability, and perseverance.  We admire and "pedistalize" individuals who overcome great odds "on their own."  I stress to my boys, "You need to learn how to do this because one day I won't be here and you'll have to do this by yourself!" As a result, we hesitate to ask for help.  In fact, we tend to look down our noses at those requesting help!  But we all need help!

Take Moses for example.  I want his epitaph: "Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel" (Deut. 34:10-12).  He was a powerful leader for Israel, the greatest of the prophets.  He stood toe to toe with Pharaoh; he led a whiny-baby group of people through the desert; he fought before God on behalf of the people, but even Moses needed help.

In Exodus 18, Israel has fled Egypt and taken up a nomadic desert life.  Moses' plate was full, so full he needed a salad plate for the extras.  Not only did he serve as God's mouthpiece but also as Israel's judge.  Some days Moses skipped lunch and his cigarette break to meet his dispute-settling quota.  He was on a one way train to "Burnout" when his father-in-law not only pays him a visit but offers some wise advice.  His father-in-law's advice? "Ask for help!"

“What you are doing is not good.  You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.  Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him.  Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave.  But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.  Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you.  If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” (Deut. 18:18-23)

Moses took his father-in-law's advice and went on to become the Moses we all know.  Perhaps if he had refused to ask for help he would have wound up popping anti-anxiety medicine and running far away from his calling.

As Americans, we glorify rugged individualism - Lone Ranger, Rambo, John McClane, Malboro Man... We hesitate to ask for help.  Actually, we avoid having to ask for help at all costs.  We see it as weak.  It is.  That's the point, we ARE weak!  We live under the illusion that we are self-sustaining and independent, but we are only one clotted artery away, or one ruptured blood vessel, or one driving text message, or one sinful decision, or one sinful decision by someone close to us, or one in-home spark, or one blown ACL, or one... from getting slapped in the face with reality - YOU ARE DEPENDENT and not just upon God and his Spirit but upon people.  God made us dependent!  God made us to need others.  When we ask for help we embrace the truth that life is greater than my existence, that the universe is large, that I exist by grace alone.


So, do you need emotional help?  Do you need spiritual help?  Do you need financial help?  Do you need mental help? Do you need marital help?  Do you need physical help?  Ask for it!  It is humbling.  It is hard.  It is weak.  But, it is REAL!

God Wears Asics

I think about the prodigal a lot, Luke 15:11-31.  The more I live in and live this story the more I believe it is at the center of the gospel.  I think it should be the preacher's first sermon and the preacher's last.  To rehash... the boy gives his father a death wish by asking for his inheritance early. He journeys far away and burns it all on idiocy.  He ends up finding himself jealous of mud-wallowing pigs and so plots to return home broken and repentant, to beg for a position, not at his father's table but in the bunkhouse.  He makes that fearful journey home and...

 “...while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

You, the reader, knows why the prodigal returns.  You have access to his inner thoughts, "I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants."  But the father has no idea! For all the father knows, the boy may be on his way home to demand more money or curse him.  All the father knows is that in the distance a silhouette of his son approaches and so he...

Yells,  "Is that you, you ungrateful brat?  Who said you were welcome here!"
OR
 Says, "Hey Mother! Look who is coming.  Don't you go crying now.  Let's wait and see what he wants."
Or
"Security!  Please escort him off the property.  He is not my son!"
OR
He stood with arms crossed and when his son reached him he looked down and said sternly, "So, are you here because you've repented? Because, if you haven't then you are not welcome here.  If you have, then you are welcome but you have some proving to do."

No! Read it one more time:  “...while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."   The father's love for his child was not based on the son's repentance.  He loved his son even if he were still in sin, for all he knew he was.

God hates sin because it destroys but he loves you!  ALWAYS! ...when you are good, when you repent and come groveling home, when you are blatantly sinning.  That should blow your mind.  It should make you cry! So if you are reading this and are choosing sin, trust me, it will break you and those you love but GOD DOES NOT LOVE YOU ANY LESS NOW THAN HE EVER HAS!  When he sees you, no matter where you are, he runs, throws his arms around you, and kisses you! (Yes! I'm crying!)

To Tale or Not: Mulaff Bakes

Mulaff was too thin to bale hay, and everyone in Dliev baled hay.  His peers called him Twiggers, because his arms were kindling in a city of logs.  His nose was too large for his face; his teeth more resembled projection screens than instruments of mastication.  So what does a large-nosed, big-toothed twig do in a city of burly hay balers?  It took Mulaff 20 years to figure it out, but when he did it changed his life and then changed his life again.

To find the answer, take Center Street to Bulong Road.  Turn left.  Drive past The Ancient Barber and on the left, across form the cozy park and crystal clear pond, is a small eatery with "Guten Brotes" hand-painted on the giant windows, windows that let you peer into a wonderland of flour, sugar, yeast, milk, and eggs.  Only a few tables hold "Guten Brotes" to the ground, two lining the inside of the bakery and three keeping the outdoor sidewalk company.  Although this tiny pastry palace seats no more than 20, the line of customers adorns the neighborhood like tinsel on a Christmas tree.  And there behind the counter, his face still powdered in flour from the early morning, stands Mulaff greeting every customer, taking every order, and wrapping each pastry as a newborn in swaddling clothes.

Mulaff contributed his baking success to his handcrafted rolling pin.  It took him three years to make it.  He poured himself into its creation.  Some nights he couldn't sleep, not because exhaustion hadn't set in, but because he couldn't turn it off: the planning, the sculpting and the completion of the rolling pin. When adored Mulaff never referenced the ingredients or his knack for the culinary arts but the rolling pin.  Everything he baked he rolled and if it could be baked without being rolled, that item would not be found in his bakery.  Mulaff became so enamored with his rolling pin that he forgot that The Guardian had taught him how to make it. As a young boy The Guardian would stand him on a little stool in his kitchen and teach him, not only how to roll the dough, but how to craft the roller!  Mulaff forgot, but he never forgot his rolling pin.  He would often stare at it and smile.  At night he had a reserved spot on the shelf where he tucked his rolling pin away for the night.  If it weren't too bizarre, he might have whispered, "Good night, friend!" But his attachment to this rolling pin was already off-center.

Outside of "Guten Brotes," there was one other dream camped in the back of Mulaff's mind: racing - not on foot, not in cars, nor on horseback, but boats.  He longed to race remote control boats in the big city of Kudrov only 25 km away.  Remote control boat racing drew crazed fans and big dollars.  In the moments when Mulaff wasn't in the kitchen he was at the crystal pond practicing for the broad ponds of Kudrov.  He would never get a chance.  Even if he possessed the talent it was too hard to get in and too hard to catch a break until that morning when the man in the long coat ordered a cheese danish.  As the man with the long coat fell in love with the danish he began to inquire of Mulaff's ability, "How do you do it?  This danish...this danish..." The rest of the conversation is a waste of your time.  Here's what you need to know.  The man in the long coat had power within the boating world and Mulaff told him, as with all his baked goods, "The secret is the rolling pin." By the end of a 30 minute conversation Mulaff sold his rolling pin to the man in the long coat for a chance to race in the big waters of Kudrov.

Race he did, but he could never shake that in his soul he was a baker.  And so an ache grew in his heart, at first dull, but then crippling...so crippling that he returned to "Guten Brotes!"  Nothing had been put on the shelf for months and nothing would still.  Because no matter his longing to bake, he had no rolling pin.  Worst still, he had forgotten how to craft one.  He was at a loss, heartbroken, afraid.  He was too weak to bale hay, disenchanted with remote boat racing, and he could no longer do what his heart was made to do.

The moment came when Mulaff prepared to ask hope to exit the doors of his life, and then Griegor the lumberjack walked in:

"I'm famished!"
Mulaff, "I'm sorry.  I have no baked goods.  I am without my rolling pin."
"Well, buy another!"
"I can't; it is handcrafted!"
"Craft another!"
"I have forgotten how!"
"I don't know either, but I'm gonna guess you need wood!"
Mulaff nodded.
"I can at least do that," the lumberjack offered. "In fact, I know where the greatest of trees stands in all of this land.  I will bring her wood to you."

Mulaff felt indebted, and he was.

Griegor's offer became the refrain in "Guten Brotes" over the next several weeks.  After Griegor, Camelia, the finest carpenter in Dliev, showed up.  She offered to help him shape the rolling pin.  Then Elena, the artist, helped craft the design, Victor the finish, Tulag the assembly.  Another dozen or so hands merged to make Mulaff a new rolling pin.

Finally, the morning came when Mulaff rose in the darkness and rolled and baked, rolled and baked.  Six AM hit and Mulaff flipped the sign, "Open."  Day one, no one came.  No one.  "I hear Mulaff reopened but is using a new rolling pin. It can't be the same"  Dlievians were skpetical and rumor was the pin was scarred, ugly to the eye."  And they were right.  The pastries and breads weren't the same and the rolling pin was scarred.  Mulaff had designed it that way, depicting his scars on the pin so that it might never take center stage again.  But day two came and Mulaff rolled and baked, rolled and baked.

Day two.  No one, but Mulaff rolled and baked, rolled and baked.
Day three. No one, but Mulaff... and so it went.
Day 17. A family of 5 stopped for breakfast on their way to Kudrov for the Saturday boat races.  They ordered.  They ate.  They noticed the rolling pin, winced at it's scars but left saying, "That was better than the last time we ate here!" They spread the experience and the lines returned to "Gutten Brotes" and it was always the same response: shock at the rolling pin's scars but a surprise, "This bread is better."

And the bread was better and it was better because of the rolling pin, but now when Mulaff looked at the scarred pin, he didn't admire it for its sake.  His heart was filled with gratitude for all the hands that built it, all the hands that were not his hands, all that hands that made baking possible again.  Every time he rolled the dough he thought of Griegor, Camilia, Elena, Victor, Tulag and the rest.  And unlike before, when people asked, "Wow, what is your secret?"  he no longer pointed them to the rolling pin, but rather said, "The hands that make these breads are far more than two, and my two are the least important."