What I love

“YOU ARE A FOOL!” he bellowed at me, “you can’t believe the Bible, man wrote it!” The man standing opposite me is shirtless with the devil tatooed on his left pec. He’s now been yelling for the last 2-5 min, which is a sign that he’s listening. “Yeah, isn’t it amazing that God would use people to help Him?” I smile back. “You don’t understand a thing!! God isn’t real and the Bible is just here to manip–MAN! ITS WEIRD YOU’RE HERE! Someone just stole all my money and…I was getting…ready to…” We just stood there for a moment. “What do you make of that, Bob?” I ask. More silence as he stares off to my right.

“God totally sent you,” he finally said much calmer now, a little forced. I can’t describe the kind of shock I experienced at this moment, but it was hard not to laugh out loud. After another moment, “Is it a sin to smoke weed?” We talked for another 20 minutes about what was and what wasn’t sin and why God hated sin and why sin is just my own freedom used wrongly. Bob had experienced God sending someone to his door in his little corner of the world at just the right time. “Man, we’ve been talking now for awhile you must be thirsty. I got some Pepsi” I agreed and soon we were talking almost cordially about what God is trying to do with us, and why He seems to care so much about how we live.

“Alright Bob, decision time. We’ve been talking for a while now. What do you want to do next?” I ask. Pause. “I gotta give my life to the Lord.” Again the shock, and I tried to stay calm. “Hmm, do know how to do that?” I continued. He shook his head and I explained that we all have evil ways we need to repent of, and that its kind of like asking a coach to join His team. “Our sins score points for the Devil’s team, so when we want to join the Lord we have to beg Him to let us switch sides and then if He lets us on, He begins teaching us His playbook.” Bob was in and knelt instinctively.

Bob begged God to take him onto His side and train him up. A month late he was jumped and fought back. He had to leave his apartment because he was no longer making money illegally and we soon discovered that Bob was one of the reasons the neighborhood we were living in was so violent. Namely when the violence took a nose dive, after he left to get a handle on his life. Bob would later forgive a number of people even one who stabbed him twice. Effectively saving the man’s life by not going back to his old ways. This is why I love mission work.

Hate

Pools of yellow light slid up the hood and into the van, as my compatriots and I made our way home. We, still smoldering in the remains of awesome conversation, coasted to a stop before the red light. Then from our right, came the anxious words of a man’s voice spewing profanity and insults. There was no music, no beat to speak of, just his voice and with it the sign of our time. It was like a final summit, a kind-of culmination like ‘lets just cut with all the art stuff and get to the dirt.’

This bald track of human stuntedness sings inspired by the muse of human selfishness. It’s noteless tones soaking sidewalks in the refuse of humanity’s little-mindedness. I know it in the frantic yelling next door as one young man claims he’s “’bout dat life” and the country music on the radio infatuated with some girl’s jeans. It even comes in sophisticated flavors for the crowd who play at depth, but can’t keep their relationships going because ‘they just don’t feel it anymore.’ At best we’re becoming impetuous band kids who can play at the most moving pieces of human art, but prefer to make bathroom jokes, quote movies all day, and who take in the world totally explained. All of this without awe we turn the world into some monolithic grey pile of vinyl covered advertisements for stuff I will never need, and at the same time we hollow out our hearts with the feverish pursuit of sugar-coated pleasures and distractions so that like a fix we’re left only lonely and shaking. Unmoved by the mount of human suffering or only moved to buy differently, or simply buy more expensive things we add power to this trash heap and make everyone else wish they had our garbage. Truly this is the what I hate, with all my heart. That we replace things for people and riches for relationships. I hate sin.

What might be the only thing worse is when those called to Repentance themselves fill up their own homes with this soaking garbage of decisions, making them good in appearance only. Those that hold the keys to Life and misunderstand God’s heart, have chosen instead the trappings of goodness over the thing itself. These when confronted by Jesus scorn, mock and crucify Him. Shutting the doors to the Kingdom in people’s faces, by refusing to meet or even see the Lazarus at out gates, along our elevated highways to work, pumping the various flavors of modern mimicry we have been found bereft of love or impotent to deliver as our own sewer stewed choices deafen us to God’s cry. Sin, I hate it.

Clear and Present Gospel

What would you like us to do now?

Evan Lent, Charles Chow and I on hitch hike mission trip to Paducah May ’12

The blast made no sound, but inside our boots our bones buzzed. The three of us stood on the shoulder of State Road 68 facing the underpass which also formed the gaping mouth of the mine entrance. “Lord,” I started, “what would you like us to do now? We could preach to the miners or continue to Dale?” I looked down at the pebbles that made up the shoulder. Silence. Another buzz. “You boys headed to Dale?” A black truck pulled to a sharp stop in front us. “Yes,” I yelled back smiling at Joe and Ryan, they smiling back, and all of us knew God was here. We climbed in and sped off.

I am a Christian, a street evangelist seeking to walk the length of the Mississippi, asking, “what would you like to do now, God?” These are my questions and my stories.