Initial Start of my Book...Bachelor Street

Someone once said that the only thing constant is change. I quoted that person time and time again when I was evangelizing the disillusioned. Like a platitude that someone makes at a party to impress you and to divert the lulling conversation to some other mundane topic that seems impressive at the beginning but as usual leaves you, well, wanting.

I now have joined the ranks of the disillusioned. I don’t think I believe my mantra about change anymore. Oh sure there are things that do change. It takes me longer at the urinal. I have to actually stop and think “Where was I going?” more frequently. The skin on the top of my hand doesn’t just snap back like it did when I was twenty and there are actually lines on my face that aren’t just there when I laugh or cry. They are always there and they seem to be multiplying rapidly.

But the fact of the matter is my heart hasn’t changed. I so didn’t believe that when I was young. I ran with vigor against my heart with all the zealousness that youth could muster up only to come to the revelation 20 years later that in fact nothing in my heart had changed. I had circled back one more time like the Hebrews in the desert wandering through this labyrinth of ideals with the Promised Land just around the next corner. The joke’s on me. I’m beginning to realize that there really is no way out of the maze. It’s not even the goal! There never is the final corner. The place where you sit down, exhale and say “I did it!” It just doesn’t exist. I’ve gone down the wrong “labyrinth” altogether and the Promised Land isn’t even down this road!

So now here I sit, on the edge of insanity, thinking, "Ok, now what?" How do I swallow this pill? The "This is it Pill!" How do I accept it? How do I say yes and amen to the very thing I have run from my whole life and accept all of the "fruit" that has matured due to those choices. I have walked up stream my whole life. Now I am getting out into the middle of the river far enough that I can pick my feet up and see where the river takes me. Now I bump into rocks. I don't fall or slip on them from climbing up the river.

The problem is that now that I am floating down the river, I have a huge millstone around my neck that is making this floating business extremely difficult.(more to follow)

Pig Pen Delivery

"Above all else, guard your heart, because it's the well spring of Life. Proverbs 4:23"

What in the world does that mean! I mean I always thought it meant to protect yourself from sin. To stay away from all those “ugly and unrighteous” things and consequently you would have life more abundantly. That if you did the right thing you would work your way up the spiritual ladder and reach nirvana based on what you did. Right? Wrong!

I saw it in the story of the prodigal son. I have spent most of my life as the Elder Brother. I had no idea. I lived my life under the auspices that I was doing the right thing. I didn’t realize that most of my anger and frustration was coming from the fact that I was doing the right thing and not following my heart. Surely God couldn’t love me unless I was doing the right thing. I mean, how was I going to qualify? The church is full of elder brothers. We have denied our hearts for the sake of doing the right thing. Our hearts are saying one thing, our "religion" is saying another and we’re pissed off about it. Oh and there’s no life coming out of us…is there?

I served the poor because it was the right thing to do and I did it with my “un-religious” Pharasitical robes dragging along behind me. It was the subtext of my message. I went to London, gave everything away, for the sake of the call and no one threw me a party. I was working for the kingdom around the clock and getting madder by the second. I was the Elder Brother.

And if that wasn’t bad enough… I evangelized the rest of the weak to follow suit. I knew the best way for everyone. I could save you so many steps and get you down the path of righteous much quicker if you just looked like me and smelled like me and did what I did because I knew the best way. I kept so many people from their pig pens and they kept getting madder and madder by the second. I had no idea.

We only operate out of our own revelation. That's why Jesus said it over and over again. Those who have ears….. And until you’re ready to hear, my words are wasted breath. You have to see it to hear it. Not me teaching you to hear it. So I robbed so many people of the opportunity to find out on their own. To come to themselves as it were. I kept trying to keep people out of their pig pens. When what I should have done was kept my mouth shut and financed their trips. That grace is what the world is hungry for. And that is ultimately what Jesus did for us. Gave us what we didn’t deserve and financed it.

The wisest thing the Father did in the Prodigal Son story was that he kept his mouth shut. Lord send us the Christians who will keep their mouth shuts, love unconditionally and finance what they don’t believe in!! Where are those Christians? Because then you can love unconditionally. Because then it doesn’t matter. Because then it's not about me it's about them. I don’t have to agree with what you’re doing…because remember… Love keeps no record of wrong. The minute that I think I know the better way I have started a list. “Well you know if you just did this then you could be free.” I have a record. The freedom comes when it doesn’t matter any more.

I want to be able to love without an agenda. To bless what I don’t believe in…(which is grace by the way)…to love the unlovable…the ones who keep getting it wrong over and over again…the sinners.

How can I help you get to your pig pen now? That’s where the freedom is. I don’t know the best way. Only you can know. Go be the best at whatever your heart so desires and that will alter the world. Well what if it’s sin? Anything done without faith is sin. I believe that God is big enough even for that. I believe you will pass down a road and come to yourself in a way that legalistic discipline will never touch.

So now I ask people “What do you want? What does your heart say?” Most people don’t know because they’ve never had the opportunity to think for themselves. We told them what to do and what to think and how to be and they’ve never had that chance. Our schools, the church, our society has dulled us down to sleep. We’re just going thru the motions.

By the way, the prodigal son followed his heart. Look where it got him. Who was better off at the end? Could it be the God chose Paul to write the end of the book not because he was getting it right but because he had unbridled passion to follow his heart in what he believed at the moment to be true even if it wasn’t “right?”

Where’s your heart? Where’s your passion? Where are the people who love enough to bless someone for their passion and not for their business plan?