I surrender all

Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. my life has been "a crazy town" as Mallory Jones would say.

So I was in church the other day and I sang these words:

All to Jesus I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

Then it struck me "good night, that is a frightening thought."
I had to stop singing.

Not that I think it's bad to surrender all to Jesus, but rather, it has frightening implications. George McDonald once said that asking Jesus to fix something in your heart was dangerous because as soon as He was in He would start fixing all kinds of things you didn't ask for. And soon he'd be tearing down walls and building additions and doing any number of things you're uncomfortable with. For those of you who loved the 90's imagine inviting Tim Taylor from Home Improvement to remodel your bathroom.

Anyway, it is easy to surrender stuff to God when it’s the stuff you expect to surrender. You are ready to make hard sacrifices as long as they are the sacrifices you expect. For example, as Christians we are probably on board with the fact that money should not be our ultimate priority and God might “call” us to a career that doesn’t make a lot of money. Ok, done. But what if God wanted you to surrender something surprising?

For example, I think of myself as a pretty intelligent guy, and I’m finishing up my masters degree. So you could say I am willing to surrender all and use my intelligence and my degree for the Lord any way He sees fit…As long as that means I actually get to feel like I’m using my intelligence and my education.

What if, (horror of horrors) God “calls” me somewhere where I don’t get to make use of my brain? Henri Nowen decided to leave his position as a regarded priest and scholar to work at a mental institution where patients neither understood nor appreciated his words, his experience, or his education. It was hard and humbling. But he CHOSE that. What if that just kind of “happens” to me? What if God wants me to surrender many of my skills and passions not by using them for Him, but by not using them at all?

“Oh no Steve, that could never happen,” I can hear you say. “God does not work that way.” Oh really? God’s ways are beyond my ways. Maybe to him me “wasting” my talents isn’t a waste at all. Maybe that’s His way of making me humble, and to Him that is a great use of my talents.

It freaked me out. Because I realized that God could actually ask me to surrender anything, and according to the song I was singing, I’m just going to go along with it.

And I will, (I hope) but sit back and think about it. Could you surrender your health? Your friendships? The best years of your life? I think that my whole life I’ve really been singing

“I surrender all, as long as I think it’s a good thing to surrender.”

Now I am not suggesting that God is going to make me "surrender" by committing crazy sins and doing things that are inconsistent with God's character but I think that as a 21st century American evangelical I am tempted to imagine that God's character is pretty convenient for me.

The privilege of calling

The title of this post was suggested by the one and only Ben Taylor, who’s first album, entitled fist full of nothing should be released this coming summer.

But earlier I went on a rant about how we are doing ourselves a disservice by looking so hard for a vocational “calling” that it becomes a source of guilt and stress. Since I know both of my readers have already seen that post I don’t need to reference it any more.

But now I would like to offer an alternative. Did you know that the Apostle Paul made tents for a living while he was doing his ministry?* Paul probably went home every day feeling like a loser because when he went to work he made tents and that is SO unfulfilling and insignificant. I think we would all agree that Paul the tent-maker wasted his life. So sad. Too bad he couldn’t find a calling.

Paul had other things he wanted to do in life. Things that he valued. So he took a job that paid him money (gasp). But we don’t call him Paul the tent-maker; we call him the Apostle Paul, because we know that his job wasn’t his identity.

Now some of us can get excited and feel satisfied about our jobs. That’s honestly great. It really is. I hope I fit into that category some day soon.** But for others lets consider a few things.

Who are you while you’re at work? Can you be a witness or a loving, caring person?
Can you honor God with your money? If so, work can provide you with resources to honor God
Can you envision your work as an act of service?
Who are you after work?
Do you honor God where you are?


* Of course you did Ben. Why don’t you stop reading my blog and start working on your album?

**I actually really like the job I have now but I am getting kicked out of Huntington after graduation

Coaching

Hey everyone. Sorry I've been gone for a while. It has been a crazy few weeks. Last Wednesday I set the record for being in the HUB at Huntington for 12 hours. Literally. It has a bathroom and it serves food. I didn't leave. But now that I have a spare moment I thought that I should share it with all of you.

So you know what "they" say about coaches yelling at players? It's ok when they yell at you. In fact it's a good thing. The time that you really have to worry is when they stop yelling. That means that they've given up on you.

I actually had that happen to me. My Senior year of football I was going to start on the 0-line but then this other guy walked onto the team and he was probably the best natural athlete in my highschool. Three weeks into the season it became abundantly clear that Steve Conn wasn't going to see much playing time that year, and since he was graduating, he really had no future with the team. So why not just let him slide.

I never got called on to play special teams, I never had to demonstrate drills, and I never got yelled at. The only time my name ever got mentioned was in a positive way. It was pretty awesome. Although, I never got to play, and everyone on the team realized that I wasn't really a part of the team in a real sense. I had been put out to pasture.

When I'm thinking about how I want to grow in humility, I remember incidents that humiliated me and I think of some of the "hard knocks" my ego has to take from time to time (for example, I belive I am going to be unemployed in the near future). But it makes me happy that God hasn't given up on me yet. These humiliating experiences that I so hate are really coaching moments. And thank goodness God hasn't put me out to pasture. The fact that god keeps humbling me is evidence that I'm still "on the team."

Tonight's Ramblings

I'm sitting here watching the NCAA finals and realizing that I don't like basketball as much as the rest of the people in the room. But we all agree that that white dude should shave his crappy little mustache.

Some conclusions I've reached this weekend.

I like "courier" font because it looks like a typewriter
I like McCafe Mocha frappichinos and you should too
I wish APA sixth edition was a person so i could punch him in the mouth
I like shag carpet better than "burbor"
Pirates get a worse wrap than they deserve (I read a book)

I had a lot of deeper thoughts last week but I was working really hard on my thesis and I kind of forgot most of them. But I wrote a few down so don't you fret.

Remember, if you aren't actually watching the game do what I usually do and look up the score Tuesday morning so you can talk about it with such phrases that make you sound like you know what's going on like

"Oh yeah I know"
"Could you believe that"
"That was such a close one"
"That reminds me of an unrelated sporting anecdote that I DO know about and makes me look like a competent contributer to this conversation."