In my previous post, I
talked about 2017. In this post, I'd like to talk about 2018. Actually, there
are several different ideas floating around in my head right now, and I hope
they come together OK.
"Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build
it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain."
(Psalm 127:1)
I work for an insurance services company, and I look at pictures of
houses all day. Since I don't have a construction background, I've been
learning a lot -- from the ground up. (Ha! Couldn't resist making a pun.) One
thing I've learned is that apparently not everybody cares about making a good
impression on a home inspector.
Some of the homes that I get to see pictures of are very nice. Most of
them are plain and simple, with nothing too out of the ordinary to report.
Every once in a while, I'll see a huge mansion-like place and wonder what kind
of high-paying jobs the owners have. And, unfortunately more often than not,
I'll see a neglected old shack-like place.
Maybe at first glance, just from the front of the house, you'll see a
nice-looking home. But if you walk around to the back yard, you'll see junk
strewn everywhere, and it won't even seem like you're at the same house.
Or maybe you'll see an immaculate-looking home, but for some reason
there will be one or two shrubs that are overgrown and unruly. Or maybe
everything about the house will be perfect, except for the minor detail that
whoever designed the house forgot to install the gutters or a handrail or a
porch. Or an entire wall has grown mold or mildew, and no one has fixed it yet.
Or maybe a storm ripped off a huge piece of siding, and the owner is taking
their sweet time in replacing it.
But what still shocks me a little bit is the homes that are so covered
in trash and overgrown shrubbery that you can barely tell what kind of house it
is. And maybe there are also some broken windows or huge pieces of dry rot.
Maybe there's also an old car that doesn't run anymore, and it's just sitting
in the back yard, probably next to a couple of old appliances or maybe a broken
commode. Usually with that type of scene, I'm really glad I'm only looking at
pictures and not actually smelling the house.
So, every day at my cubicle is like an intriguing mini-study in human
nature. It kinda makes you wonder... Why would you meticulously manicure your
front yard but treat your back yard like a giant trash can? Why would you take
the time to design a perfectly good house but not install some important items --
like an air conditioner or a driveway? And why the heck would you pour so much
money into your house only to neglect it? If you know that your foundation is
crumbling, why wouldn't you drop everything to fix it so that everything around
you won't just collapse into the ground? It kinda makes you wonder what kind of
emotional rock some of the homeowners are living under.
I've probably just lived a sheltered life, but when I first started
working at my job, I was amazed at how many different kinds of building
materials can be used to create a house. There's brick, wood, stucco, metal,
and a zillion different ways to combine them, paint them, arrange them, and permanently
set them into the ground. Maybe if you drive down a certain neighborhood,
you'll see a street lined with houses that all look the same; but if you look
closely enough, you'll notice that they aren't all exactly the same, and they
certainly don't all have the exact foliage or upkeep. Behind those four walls
(or twelve walls) there are hopes, dreams, histories, and possibilities.
In case you haven't figured it out, what I'm trying to say is that
houses remind me of people.
"And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will
build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."
(Jesus talking to Peter in Matthew 16:18)
As I've mentioned on probably multiple occasions, Jesus was a Carpenter
(actually, in a sense, He still is One), so the Bible has multiple references
to "houses" and "building" things. Jesus knew how to build
things when He had a Carpenter job, and He still knows how to build things
spiritually.
Metaphorically speaking, I often take a step back and examine my "house,"
and I wonder what the heck is going on. I hope I haven't permanently damaged
anything, I hope the foundation is strong enough to withstand the storms, and I
hope I've been maintaining the grounds in the way that the Builder has been
wanting me to. And, lately, I've been wondering what the heck has been going on
with all these crazy renovations. Should I move? Should I check in to a hotel
for a while? And the Builder will say, "I know what I'm doing." So,
I'll stay put, and I'll trust Him.
"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every
branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that
bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit." (Jesus talking in John 15:1-2)
The main word that I keep hearing for my life for 2018 is
"brazen." When I first started thinking about this concept, I got
really worried that I would get in a lot of trouble in 2018, because one
definition of the word "brazen" is insolent, rude, or harsh. (And you
know how I can be.) But God has been encouraging me that the word
"brazen" will mean so much more than that. For instance, if you're
going to pursue creative endeavors, you need to be pretty darn brazen. Artistically,
you need to push envelopes, defy boundaries, and really put yourself out there
if you're going to create something that's really good. Maybe 2018 will be like
a personal renaissance for me (like 1999 was, when I wrote a ton of songs).
Maybe God will be brazen for me -- maybe He'll fight for me in ways that I
haven't let Him fight for me before. Maybe He'll defend me in ways that I've
never gotten to see Him defend me before.
I've also heard that 2018 will be the year of the "suddenly."
And, in the same way that 2017 was a year of pruning, 2018 will be a year of
shaping.
I would like to offer a disclaimer on what I'm about to say. God knows
me. He has a relationship with me. So, He knows how to talk to me. The way that
He talks to me may not necessarily work with somebody else. And why should it?
I'm me, and you're you. Ain't nothin' wrong with that. So, with that said...
As God was talking to me at random one day (as is one of His many customs),
He said, "Next year is going to be f----ing awesome." I've censored
it here, but He didn't censor Himself when He spoke. Of course, this alarmed
me, because since when does God cuss? So, when I asked Him to confirm that it
was really Him speaking, He said, "Did you hear the brazenness in My
voice?"
Why, yes, I did. That makes perfect sense. And I totally look forward
to having a f----ing awesome year!
Changing the subject, I would like to say that MeepMeep is quite different
than my previous cats. She's a very good cat, but different nevertheless. In
retrospect, I think maybe Macho and Choochie (my tiger and my puma) were kind
of wussy in comparison to MeepMeep (my panda bear). Macho and Choochie would
vomit every once in a while (either hairballs or undigested food), but I
haven't seen MeepMeep vomit at all in the two months that I've known her.
(Maybe she passes her hairballs in the litterbox?) Well, it sure is nice to not
have to spend so much time cleaning the carpet.
Maybe one thing that made Macho and Choochie so soft and relatively
wussy is that they were adopted when they were kittens. They were fully
domesticated pretty much all their lives, minus their first few weeks of life.
My sweet little babies.
MeepMeep, however, didn't begin her domestication process until she was
maybe a couple years old, and she didn't move in with me until she was about
three. She's been a feral cat for most of her life, so she has some street
smarts. She's alert, she has quick reflexes, she moves at lightning speed, and
yet when she communicates with humans, it's usually with a high-pitched, quiet
"meep." These are some very strong survival skills that I think helped
keep her alive before she was domesticated.
However, a side effect of all these cool skills is that she's still
pretty wild. Several paragraphs up, I shared a photo of what I found one
morning when I was trying to make my lunch. I noticed that my loaf of bread was
shredded in a few places. Like a chew toy. My gosh. I didn't know cats DID that
type of thing. So, I store my bread inside my pantry now.
MeepMeep is also wild in the way that she plays and interacts with me.
Her nails have scratched me multiple times, so I've been plotting a way to
subtly ambush her to trim her nails. And she playfully gnaws on my arm from
time to time. I think maybe she's still learning that Mama doesn't have fur
like she does and that she can accidentally hurt me. Lately, she's also begun
biting my leg and knee. (I wouldn't get arrested for gently pinching her in
self-defense, would I?) I've shared a video here of her biting my leg one evening.
Ha! Literally an ankle-biter.
Here's the part where you might get offended. (Did you hear the
brazenness in my sudden disclaimer?) I've felt like God has shown me that Macho
and Choochie taught me how to love God and let Him love me (e.g., pretty much
everything I've blogged about in the past eight years or so). But I've felt
like He's shown me that MeepMeep will teach me how to love people.
I love MeepMeep -- my adorable little panda bear cat -- but when she
bites me, it hurts. Sometimes I yell in pain. She wants to play, or maybe she
just wants attention, but she doesn't understand that her survival skills have
the power to do some damage. If she leaves a scar, that damage could be
permanent.
What I've been learning to do is hone my own survival skills to match
hers. Most of the time, I hide my pain so that I won't be a whiny little
helpless human, but sometimes I fight back (in ways that won't get me
arrested). I've growled at her a time or two, and when her ears got wind of the
sound I made, she backed off. And yes, I've gently pinched her a time or two.
But most of the time, I either scurry out of her sharp-clawed grasp or
I scoop her up into my arms and love on her. (The latter kind of freaks her out
a little.)
So, if God is training me on how to be a pastor someday, I'm learning
how to deal with people. Sometimes God's people don't know their own strength.
In their quest for attention, they bare their fangs and cause some pain, and
they often couldn't care less about the damage they're doing. (Of course, when
I say "God's people," I mean me, too. I can totally be a jerk.)
But the truth is, I wouldn't trade MeepMeep for anything. I want her
exactly the way she is. Years from now, when she's older and slower, I'm going
to miss when she was younger and stronger. I'm choking and tearing up just
thinking about it. She has some wildness, but I believe that wildness can be
tamed.
I think I'm living proof of that.
The other day, my boss sat me down and told me that I'm doing a good
job. She asked me if I had any questions about the job, which of course I did,
and she clarified some things for me. After our conversation -- at my job where
I look at buildings all day, and probably when 2nd Chapter of Acts' song
"Mansion Builder" was playing on my iPhone -- I felt like I heard God
ask me, "Would you like to help Me build My church?"
Yes, absolutely. I would love to. I would be so honored to. Whatever
You want, here I am.
I know God's house is full of wild, crazy people who sometimes pick on
their overseers for sport or bite the hands that feed them. But wildness can be
tamed, and it's really something to get to see it happen over time. I know
there are parts of God's house that are so fragile and sensitive that if you brush
against them the wrong way, you'll make a mess and you'll have to clean it up.
But being a part of restoring a treasure can be such a rewarding process that
you'll remember for the rest of your life. I know there are parts of God's
house that have been neglected and are now rotten and dilapidated, so He's had
to step in and do some major repair work. But if He'd like some help during the
renovation process, I have a pair of slightly scarred hands that are eager and
ready to work.
Just as long as I get to be with Him. That's really all I want.
F----ing awesome!
