I asked Jeremy whether it felt like a burden to carry the hopes and expectations of so many Asian-American men upon his shoulders, and he answered that he couldn’t play for other people.  ”I can’t even play for myself.  The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for God.  I still don’t fully understand what that means.  I’m still learning to be selfless and submit myself to God and give the game up to Him.  My audience is God.”  He does, however, have a responsibility to be a “godly role model,” and when I asked whether it would please him if his success shattered negative stereotypes of Asian males, he broke into a big smile.  ”I would be pleased,” he said.  ”Absolutely, I would be pleased.”

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2. Church announcements during Sunday morning services are incredibly lame. They’re absolutely necessary but they’re a kill joy because they rarely add to the day. Gary Molander wrote a great post this week about what needs to change with announcements so they add to our church gatherings instead of sucking the life out of them.

The best church announcements happen when people speak to people with an acute awareness that God is sitting there, too.

And it’s the church communicator’s job to spend time framing those verbal moments in preparation for their church services. If you buy into what I’m saying, then church announcements can take on a whole new priority.

They can actually matter deeply to people.

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3. I’m constantly thinking of ways that I can step out beyond my small bubble of a world, so finding this post on ways to love our cities with a Gospel-centered love piqued my interest. I hope it intrigues you as well.

-Stay put.

Most cities have a sort of “revolving door” as people move in and out. This is one reason why in places like Seattle most people put little effort into trying to get to know their neighbors. So dig in, stay put, and make an effort to develop your relationships.

-Give a gift of artistry.

Get your artists together and create a mural that blesses the city. Open your building to your city’s artwalk.

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Happy Friday. Have a great weekend. I’ll be busy finishing my book (it feels extremely bizarre to be saying that).

In many conversations I’ve had recently I sense many of us struggle to know what God’s will is for our lives. Especially in the emerging adulthood time of life, direction can be tough to come by while working dead end jobs, looking for a significant other, and trying to find ways to live a life of significance.

I often find true Christian faithfulness to be doing something without realizing God was pushing in that direction all along. God often calls the unqualified to do miraculous things in His name.

I’m a realist. Meaning I never ever dream big. I never think about what God could do through me, because I always go back to what God “will” do through me. I go with the predictable. The comfortable. The easy button. I never ever move without direction. I make calculated, logical decisions.

So much of what makes me who I am seems disconnected from many of our favorite Biblical stories.

Consider the story of David and Goliath. Never in the story do we read…And God came down in the form of a magnificent white light in the darkness and spoke to David telling him to fight Goliath, because he would easily be able to kill the great giant of the Philistines.

No that isn’t the story at all. In actuality we see that Saul says to David, “The Lord be with you.” And on numerous occasions David says that the power of God is fighting against Goliath, not merely himself alone. David moved ahead into the battle without a specific direction from God. The story of David and Goliath is an easy one, but looking at many of the stories in the Bible shows that one of the common themes in our favorite people in the Bible is their willingness to forge a path without a specific word from God on what direction to go. God provided in the midst of the uncertainty.

What can we learn about moving without direction knowing God calls us to do so all the time?

Be Rooted in Relationship

Often God’s direction is given underneath the surface in subtle ways. Through prayer, meditation, and time in His Word, God often provides direction even when we don’t realize it. The only way to receive this direction is the value the relationship that feeds these quiet nudges. By being rooted in relationship to God, he’ll be providing direction even when we don’t realize it.

Be Faithful In the Small Things

David had prepared for the battle against Goliath. He had served his father and his family well by tending to their flocks over many years. David wasn’t new upstart who got lucky. No, David had been faithfully stewarding the resources and role God had given him previously. Be a steward where God has placed you.

Go

He’s calling you to something. It’s likely something you don’t sense His leading toward. It’s likely something you feel unqualified to do. Move forward in faith, knowing that God will provide for those who stay rooted in Him and faithful to Him.

Make the leap.

(Photo: Laura Scarlett)

The Orthodox priest describes icons as a lens to show the Kingdom.

To me, the icons were, at first, nothing more than old pictures, but for the priest they delivered Him to a place of experiencing the Divine.

Madeleine L’Engle describes icons as vehicles to oft-hidden truths.

On the surface icons are merely pictures drawn anonymously many years ago, but each picture is drawn for the purpose of leading us toward the truths we often miss in life, or the person who brings all of life together. Each drawing is not meant to be an accurate representation of the person, but they each are honing in on a characteristic of this person.

One of my favorite icons is an icon of Jesus showing his left eye to be bigger than his right. While this may have been true of Jesus, the point of the icon is to show that Jesus sees and convicts us of our sin (the left eye and left arm), while at the same time bringing forgiveness and grace for those who come to Him (the right eye and right arm).

Consider the similarities between holy living and icons:

• Our interactions with holy people draw us closer to Jesus and His Kingdom. Each of us likely know people where we walk away from time with them sensing we encountered a taste of the Divine. Being around a truly holy person helps us catch a glimpse of Jesus through the window of their lives.
• Holy people first introduce us to the Jesus inside of them rather than introducing us to their pastor who can teach us about Jesus instead. Icons don’t save us but they point to the person who saves us.

So what does it mean to live a holy life? What does it look like to be pointing others to the One who saves?

Paul tells us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” similarly to the way we clothe ourselves every morning (Romans 13:14 ESV). We are not to merely imitate to the character of Jesus, we should be in such a close relationship with Him that we continue to reflect more of who He is with our lives.

This deep intimacy with Christ should lead us toward devotion to Him infectious enough that those who encounter us cannot help but see Jesus through the window of our lives.

We are windows to the Saving One.

Sunday marks the biggest television and sporting event of the year. So the first two videos have to do with the game and all it entails.

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1. Starting with one of the great comedies of all time…Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and the spin Honda put on it for this extended commercial. I’m sure a shorter section of this will make it on during the game and it will be a big favorite for best commercial.

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2. Most of you will watch the Super Bowl, either with your own family or at some sort of Super Bowl Party. Here’s a nice little video to help you with your etiquette at that party. Enjoy.

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3. And lastly this is one crazy dunk. One 6 foot 10 inch guy dunking over (with authority) one of the best defensive centers in basketball who is 7 feet tall himself. Hard to imagine seeing a better dunk than this over the course of the season.

Have a great weekend friends. I’ll be rooting for the Giants because Victor Cruz helped end my fantasy football season. It’s decision I’ve made out of respect mostly.

As you’ll see the title of the book has already been determined and it is Why Holiness Matters || We’ve Lost Our Way  — But We Can Find it Again.

I’ll admit it’s extremely surreal to see your own name on the covers of books, but at the same time it’s a bit surreal to have been working on the same project for almost half a year now too.

I’m excited to see what all of you have to say about each of these. You can vote in the poll at the bottom and feel free to leave more detailed thoughts in the comments.

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I bragged to Rose about how good it was. Surely, I thought, this would gets lots of traffic. By the end of the day it hadn’t made much headway. Sure it had a few hits, but nothing substantial, nothing even close to what I had I hopes for.

And then almost the second after having that thought I had another thought.

Where does my satisfaction in life come from? Why am I even disappointed in numbers or hits?

I’ll never get enough followers on Twitter, friends on Facebook, or hits on this blog to ever come close to fulfilling myself day after day, moment by moment. It is simply not possible. The moment I am comfortable with a certain level of achievement then I start to place higher demands on my capability. At the end of this rat race is the empty life of a worn out man seeking to make much of himself for the sake of himself.

None of it will ever be enough to meet the high demands of my low self-esteem.

Maybe the point of it all isn’t about self-esteem, but instead maybe it’s about self-emptying for the sake of Jesus.

Have you learned this lesson the hard way?

I think it’s always important to understand the context in which a book is being released into. The context of a book on holiness means that in some ways my book will be grouped with these works. So it was key for me to see where and how I differed from them, while not just regurgitating the same things they already said. If I had nothing unique to say what need is there for another book on the subject to be put out.

Certainly I have not read even close to all the best books on holiness, but I think I’ve covered some of the key ones and hopefully some of you have a few to add to the list.

• The Holiness of God // R.C. Sproul. My professor called this one a classic which seems a bit weird since Sproul is still alive and well. Sproul does a great job of engaging the Biblical texts that have a strong emphasis toward holiness. He never comes across as leaning too far in any particular theological bent which is also important to me.
• Rediscovering Holiness // J.I. Packer. You’re thinking…is there some kind of prerequisite of having two initials in your name to write on holiness? I’m glad there isn’t. Packer is one of my favorite writers. This is not one of his most popular works, but I did appreciate the piece added on Mother Theresa when the book was republished in 2009.
• Knowledge of the Holy // A.W. Tozer. While this isn’t really a book on holiness, Tozer does have one chapter on the holiness of God and it is quite great. The book as a whole is top notch.
• Holiness // John Webster. Easily the best book I read emphasizing Trinitarian theology within this subject of holiness.
• The Pursuit of Holiness // Jerry Bridges. For the average reader I found this one to be the most accessible. While Bridges does cover some of the difficult subjects surrounding holiness he does it in a way that makes it quite understandable.

What are some of the best books on holiness you’ve read?

The television show Friends remains one of the most watched shows ever on television. Running for 238 episodes over 10 full seasons the show is one of the few over recent history to have such longevity. I’ve often wondered what sets apart certain television shows from the other. What made Friends such a raving success compared to other shows of its time?

In Friends we see a community of otherwise unlike people (though not really diverse either, I admit) come together in order to share life with each other. Outside of the show being fairly funny (admit it, Joey and Chandler made you laugh), I believe its success comes from an interior desire of all of us to be able to share life in a similar, intimate way. I’d argue that on the deepest of levels we were made for life in this way. Lost in the recent debate of relationship vs. religion is that truth that relationship with God thrusts us into religious community for the sake of our faith journey.

It’s common today for people to say they are “spiritual but not religious.” Being religious has a stigma that goes with it today. Much of this is due to the crimes of religion in the past. Christians often have a relationship with Christ but do not practice religion, or so they say. Let’s consider for a moment how a relationship with God IS a religious practice due to the communal nature of the relationship.

Read the rest of the post over on Preston’s blog. I’m taking part in the At the Lord’s Table blog series and conversation, and I hope you’ll engage with it as well.

Here’s how Preston describes the series:

“The essential idea is that while we all have different perspectives on the Eucharist, on Communion, we all recognize it as the gathering of the one Body of Christ. Our myriad and differing voices come to the same table of the Lord and there we meet, discuss, and marvel at the beauty of the Church, warts and all.”

My favorite lyrics have always been the last verse which say:

Exposed beyond the shadows
You take the cup from me
Your dirt removes my blindness
Your pain becomes my peace

The song has always resonated with me because of it’s comfort with recognizing human frailty and failure. While I have loved and pursued God for most of my life, it rarely looks pretty and put together.

As I’ve been finishing some of my final edits to the book manuscript the past few weeks I’ve been camping a lot on the idea that God makes a masterpiece out of our mess. It’s my experience that the model Christian always has his or her life put together in an immaculate way. And my frustration with that is my life never seems to be match up. I tend to always feel inferior to the “Godly” people around me. They seem to have perfected this whole faith and life thing a lot better than me.

The model Christian often presented and placed on a pedestal never seems to have a messy closet. The dishes in their kitchen aren’t stacked up in the sink. They have don’t have huge piles of laundry beside their bed. Their hearts seem to rise and set with motivations to love and pursue Jesus. Their stories of struggle always end on a positive note.

It’s all disconnected from my life and my mess. I’m continually drawn toward the things of the flesh, or the sins that can easily entangle my life. I always find ways to remove Jesus and my love for him away from the center of my life to focus on empty and fleeting things.

I love what Mandy Steward says about our messes in her book Messy Canvas. Our lives are about “believing in a Master Artist who created redemption and loves us so much that He paints over our imperfection with His perfection. It is seeing the real, the mess, in light of the ideal, and so transfiguring it. It is accepting mess and then challenging it to become something more” (page 38).

We have a Savior “whose dirt removes our blindness.” He is for us. He loves us enough to not only see past our failures, our mess, our sin, but He loves us enough to transform us in the midst of it. He extends His hand to us in the darkest hours of our lives. Through the incarnation of His Son, Jesus, we see that God cared enough about us to enter into the mess of our lives.

The model Christian is not the perfectly tidy man or woman. The model Christian is one who continually seeks after Him in the midst of mess, wading through the murky and muddy waters of life scouting after the divine. It’s this process that makes something beautiful.

He’s making a masterpiece out of our mess.

I would say that 20somethings are trying to redefine what success looks like by desiring significance more than what others deem to be “success.”

Significance is not driving a BMW by 30, owning a 3 story house, moving up the corporate ladder, or having enough money to travel in Europe. Don’t worry, none of these things are bad on their own and kudos to those who have been able to do accomplish those things by 30, but when they become how we define our significance I think we’ve completely failed ourselves.

I’d like to share a few ways that I believe lead to becoming a significant 20something.

1. Have someone speaking into your life. Your spouse or significant other does not count. This means having honest conversations which are never easy. This means being vulnerable and humble enough to ask for advice. We need outside perspective otherwise we become no different than the people we call narrow minded.
2. Speak into someone else’s life. I know we’re young, but this doesn’t mean we don’t have something to offer others. Even though we’re willing to be humble enough to admit we need the help/perspective/advice of others, we must also recognize that God has equipped us to provide the same thing to another (or more) around us.
3. Discover something new. For me this was discovering the joy of long distance running in order to live a healthier life. It took me until the age of 24 to find it, but what it really took was a willingness to step beyond the box I had placed around my life of how I operated day in and day out. No one at any age should get stuck in the rut of doing life the way we always have, but especially not someone in their 20s.
4. Help build a community. I think true community is a lot harder than we make it sound at church. True community means being with those we would often choose to avoid and giving space in our lives for people we would have previously ignored. Anyone can have community with their college friends, but few people can help build a new community.
5. Make it a practice to give something away. I’ll never forget the reminder that Rose and I received after helping a couple in need from our church. We only gave up a few hours and some sweat but we left saying to each other, “it’s always better to give than receive.” So often we lose sight of this fact.

Are 20somethings really redefining what success and significance looks like? I doubt it, but I do think that we can choose to pursue these 5 ways (and others) in order for our success to be defined by things that have nothing to do with monetary value.

What would you add to the list?