The fact that God created humanity in this extra-special and personal manner should not be lost on any of us. It was a foreshadowing of a time thousands of years later when He, once again, got “down in the dirt” and by His shed blood rendered Satan’s WMD powerless forever!

Post-Eden, all of Biblical history leading up to and including the now has been a recycling of the same old tired story. It is a human genealogy of men trading their Imago Dei for something infinitely less valuable. Adam’s son Cain searched for his identity in the works of his hands. I can almost hear him proclaiming to anyone who would listen, “I’m Cain the hard-working farmer, see what I grew!”  How about Esau? He actually sold his identity for a bowl of stew! King Saul worked so hard to preserve his, that he went on a manhunt to exterminate the Davidic line. David, a man after God’s heart, managed to credit himself for God’s victories by creating for himself his own identity of a powerful King who could take anything or anyone he so pleased!

It would be easy to travel through the rest of the Bible and cherry pick more examples, but instead let’s look at more contemporary examples. What about the professional athlete who finds his identity in being a star and somehow manages to have no money left when he retires? What about the rock star who buys into the hype of thousands of screaming 12-year-old girls and snorts his way to an early grave? What about the intellectual who has found his identity in Atheism and deduces that the way to ignore your created image is to ignore the Creator?

So, you’re thinking, “What about normal people like me? I’m not a rocker, movie star, or pro quarterback. I’m just plodding through life trying to raise a family and earn a living to support them.

I would beg you to ask yourself the question? Would you be able to stand on firm ground if things were taken away from you? If you lost a child, if your spouse left you, if your company downsized and left you flipping burgers, if you worked with your hands and they were amputated in an accident, if you were an honor student with multiple degrees and you find out you have a brain tumor?

If you answer any of these questions with answers like, “I couldn’t go on, I wouldn’t want to live, I would end up in a mental hospital” then it’s probable that you have made these things, mind you, blessings from God, the identity that you are pursuing at any cost.

Life is a delicate balance. God has blessed us with life, good health, family, talents, skills, intellect, and a whole slew of gifts, but for what purpose? Why did God give Adam and Eve a paradise?

It certainly wasn’t so they would seek their own identities, which essentially meant leaving paradise. That’s the thing; the bowl of stew they chose drove them from paradise! It drove them from the One who made Eden a paradise. God Himself!

I just turned 45 last month, and my journey has not been much different from those in the Bible or those who walk the earth now. I have worked like hell to peddle my identity to the highest bidder. As someone who has played music since age 5, I tried to find my identity in being a musician. I had dreams of being famous, rich, successful, and powerful, and all this, because God blessed me with a gift.

That’s what Satan has done for centuries as he entices you with the very gifts that God bestows. He tries to convince you that God gave them to you for your glory and not his. He tries to convince you that your gifts will make you a god and that God doesn’t like that. There’s always a little bit of truth swirled into his lies. Yes, God doesn’t want us to be “gods”, but it’s not because He’s some petty, jealous human like we are, but it’s because there is only one God and He’s it! God being God IS our identity!  God being God is our paradise!  God is the context where all of our gifts and talents should be cultivated! In effect, God is our Eden.

Here is my mantra for 2012, and while I expect to get off track like I always do, I am really praying to God to rest on this for the coming year.  These words come from Eric Mason, pastor of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He said “Whatever talent or gift has been affirmed as yours, hone it, study it, fuel it with bible and gospel and unleash it for God’s glory!”

If you are a musician like me, don’t let “musician” be your identity. If you are a stay-at-home mom, don’t let that high calling be what defines you. If you are an athlete, teacher, civil servant, minister, CEO, burger-flipper, ditch-digger, whatever, don’t allow the allure of these callings replace your Imago Dei.

All of our good gifts come from above and can be taken away, and in fact will be. The only thing that has a chance to remain standing is our identity, provided we haven’t traded it away for a bowl of stew.

The book also affords details about Jobs’ philosophies and worldview. This blog is not the place to explore them all, but one in particular I find enlightening is his philosophy in the conception and creation of new products. He disavowed market research which seeks to find out what people want in a product, whether that be a computer, music player, or cellphone. Rather, his quest was not to produce a product that people wanted or asked for. His goal was to determine what we, the consumer, wanted before we even knew what we wanted. This idea speaks volumes to his genius as a visionary. But something else struck me. This was a quality that I find very God-like. Although there were dozens of ungodly characteristics that defined Steve Jobs, this one particular quality is one I think brings glory to the Creator of this great inventor.
Jobs’ conviction was that people did not know what they want until he devised a product coupled with intuitive software that would reveal to consumers what they never knew they wanted. Products like the iPod removed the blinding scales from the eyes of future consumers and spawned a new culture as a result.

Often, mainline Christianity paints God as someone who consults market research before He blesses and prospers His children. We hear how God wants to prosper us, in the sense of material luxuries, personal happiness, and fulfillment. So, when life is not going as we hoped, our nature is to blame God and call in to question His unwillingness to grant our desires for a comfortable and painless existence. When our dreams don’t materialize, or we are in the throes of mid-life crisis, we wonder why God didn’t do more to relieve our angst.
But God is not our cosmic butler.  He does not consult Gallup polls to find out what will make us happy. He is not indebted to rain on our famished crops, He is not obliged to cancer-proof our bodies. He does not prosper us according to our definition of prosperity. God is not a mere inventor of human happiness, He is the Visionary of Eternal joy. Foreknowledge is not a crystal ball that equips Him to response, but a ruling scepter by which He sovereignly governs the future. He didn’t merely react to our rebellion, He planned for it from before the foundations of the world. He not only created the Serpent that invaded His holy garden, but He gave him fangs for the expressed purpose of bruising His Son’s heel, the same heel that would crush the Serpent’s head the way God planned.

In a sense, God aims to do the same thing with the Gospel that Steve Jobs did with the iPad. That is to provide something that we could never conceive of, to satisfy a need we were unaware of. Steve Jobs would not allow us to settle for inferior electronics, although most of us would have. Likewise, God will not allow us to settle for inferior glories. He knows that we prefer “making mud-pies in the slums over a holiday at the sea”. (to quote CS Lewis) He knows our heart’s natural desire is to be affirmed, exalted, and appreciated by men. But God’s eternal vision for us has nothing to do with granting us a comfortable life on earth.

He will not let us find satisfaction in His good gifts. He won’t permit us having perfect sex, sports teams that never lose, cars that never malfunction, family members who never die, friends who don’t betray us, or bodies that resist all manners of disease and trauma. He willfully and actively frustrates our good intentions. He regularly thwarts our plans. God is the Visionary that Created us as receptors of His glory. He knows what we ultimately want and will increase our joy for Eternity, even if we don’t know it yet.

So let it fall down
There’s freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground

What are the walls you’ve built which limit your freedom? What is the self-imposed obstruction, the dense buffer between your heart and peace?

For me, it’s the need to lead people to believe that I live a regret-free life. In reality, I have many regrets. I have walked a dirt path marked by regrets. But worse, I am one who daily recounts, relives, and returns to them.

So I build walls. Some walls are designed to hide the fact that I’m self-centered. Some exist to hide secret sins– lust, red-hot envy, bitterness, and anger. Still, there are those which serve to conceal my failures as a husband, a father, and a steward.

Even the last paragraph and the way it’s worded is a capable facade. It’s easier to list shortcomings in generalities because everyone deals with them. However, there is a specificity to these daily struggles, ones where new mercies are daily required before my feet even hit the floor beneath the night stand. So the lyricist corroborates:

So you thought you had to keep this up
All the work that you do
So we think that you’re good
And you can’t believe it’s not enough
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside 

There’s a warring opposition, outward but mostly inward. The devil desires to play his sifting melody, but more often than not, settles for a 2nd-chair-blasting horn of daily introspection. More often than not, his predatory role is hyena, perfectly content to devour what the brooding lion has slaughtered.

I sin. Worse than anyone can imagine. Mostly in heart if not deed. So shine the light in the basement, let the walls come down. The lyricist is relentless:

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

I’m tired of being the hireling of regret, working overtime for slow death pay.  The lyricist consoles:

Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don’t fight
This coming light
Let this blood come cover us
His blood can cover us

Bring on Psalm 51:17! Let it sink in, for I have built walls, but not altars. You won’t require I fall on the sword, yet by the Sword I must die. Tonight the Lyricist reminds:

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you’re broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

I am sure at the time that many fans, while disappointed, were able to reflect on the 1975 football season with a sense of pride and admiration, but as a 9 year old boy, it was not so easy for me, for my captivation had birthed expectation. In short, I had been enthralled by the sports miracle, and when another Staubach miracle fell short in the Super Bowl, I couldn’t soothe the pain with the proper reflection. As it became apparent the Cowboys would lose this game, I began to cry. I was crushed in the moment. My dad, either realizing the absurdity of a 9 year old boy crying over a football game, or as a means of hiding his own tears, sent me to my room and scolded me for taking the loss so hard.
Since then, there has followed 34 years of elations and disappointments while following the journeys of our local sports teams. Everything seemed to come full circle last night in game 6 of the World Series as my beloved Texas Rangers came with one strike of winning it all. Twice, in fact, they came within one strike only to fall prey to a Staubach-esque comeback to the St.Louis Cardinals. The disappointment I felt at game’s end is nothing like I ever felt in all my years of watching sports, but unlike my childhood experience I did not cry even though I wanted to. Perhaps my heart is too hard, or maybe I’ve experienced too much disappointment to be taken by surprise. After watching my team becoming immortalized in the wrong way last night, I have to say that in that moment, I once again was crushed.
Now it’s the morning after, and God’s mercies are new even for sports fans like me. With the proper perspective, I realize I witnessed one of the greatest games in World Series.
It is a realization that sports, while they are to be enjoyed, should never be joy. It is time, I feel, to step back and reflect on what all of last evening’s tense moments, rapid heartbeat inducing, and eventual crushing of spirit have taught me.
I am thankful today because of God’s grace through the consistent Gospel-centered preaching of the Village Church I receive each week, and the community of faith I am experiencing, that I can withstand anything that would try to crush my spirit ultimately. With grace-filled perspective, I see all too clearly that if I embrace this temporal world too tightly, I will fall as flat as the house built on sand. It’s not just the entertainments like sports, art, and music that I should not build my happiness on, but it’s everything that is temporal like career, money, marriage, parenthood, philanthropy, and anything else one can conceive of as being of utmost importance in this world. Everything created is temporal, but it’s also a gift from the Creator, not as a foundation for joy, but as a pointer to the only true Joy.
In the aftermath of disappointment, I am convinced that God gave sports as a gift to us. Its value as a gift however is not derived from its joy making capacities, but rather from its utter inability to sustain joy. Sports, like all temporal creations, are meant to show us that it is itself a dead end and there is only one person where Joy thrives and derives.
Holding on too tight to the temporal will eventually crush your spirit, but holding on the One who was crushed, body, soul, and spirit will provide you with the only foundation that can stand up to an ever increasing Joy that never fades and never disappoints.

Of course, this is not the biblical model for marriage, in part, because we have either forgotten or never been taught that marriage as John Piper has stated, “is about keeping a covenant, as Jesus does with his bride the church”. Contrary to the predominate philosophy found in Christian bookstores, a happy marriage should not be the end goal in of itself.  Rather, the end goal for which marriage was instituted was to model the covenant-keeping, selflessness, and sacrifice of Jesus for His bride. God did not send His Son to die so that we would have happy marriages, He instituted marriage so that the Glory of His covenant-keeping Son would be known.

In Genesis, we are told that Eve was created as a help meet for Adam, so naturally our minds race to the ways a spouse can help her husband. She can cook, clean, make babies, and stroke his fragile ego, right?  But if we focus too much on the practical implications, I believe we miss the point of what a helpmeet’s responsibility is as revealed in scripture.

I find it interesting that in Genesis 2:15-17 after God lays out Adam’s responsibilities: work and keep the garden, refrain from eating the tree of knowledge of good and evil,  in verse 18 God identifies that “it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.”  So it would appear that Eve was created, in great part, to help Adam obey the command not to eat the tree. Disobedience would interrupt the rhythm of creation, bring chaos into the garden and would defile it’s purity. In summary, Adam’s failure to heed God’s command would desecrate the holiness of it’s surroundings by fracturing the relationship between God and man.  Adam was to protect the sanctity of the garden through cultivation and obedience. Eve was created to help Adam with this calling. In the first marriage, Adam and Eve were joined together in holy matrimony by God for this purpose. In other words, marriage was not only a covenant between man and woman, it was/is a covenant between man, woman, and God.

Tragically, by one man’s sin, the landscape changed catastrophically, and death became the norm. Miraculously, God has has since redeemed the garden (His holy dwelling) by the covering of guilt and shame through the sacrifice of His Son (foreshadowed by God for the first couple with an animal sacrifice). In time, the Serpent’s head was crushed by the bruised heel, and now redeemed, man is called once again to cultivate the “garden” within the confines of marriage. The wife still maintains her calling of helpmeet and fulfills her calling to help her husband maintain and cultivate a holy dwelling place for God.  Of course, cultivating is as much about pruning and weeding as it is fertlizing and nourishing which means there are practical implications in how we love our spouses that we work out each and every day. But the problem with the age with it’s techniques and how-tos is that it often results in begrudging submission.  A healthy biblical model of marriage is one that begins with God and makes Christ the center as was designed by Him.

A Christ-centered marriage tells a story, but it’s not our story, it’s His story. For He alone loves freely and not begrudgingly.

On our vacation trip, we witnessed this marvelous image somewhere in Arizona.  There is rain and sun originating from one sky.   I imagine many are scrambling to stay dry while others, miles away, are basking in the sunlight. One sky, two perspectives, on source, one God.

Then on our way home, we saw this.

Rain on the right, rain on the left, smoke from a wildfire in the middle. We prayed the rainclouds would hover over the fire, but as far as we could tell, it never did.

Many questions arise regarding the sovereignty of God. He is powerful enough to create rain, enough rain to flood the entire earth, and certainly enough to douse a fire that is but a tiny candle beneath His feet.  Yet he does not. Not this time.  We believe He's powerful. We believe He's good. We know He's good because these rain clouds are healing someones parched land. We don't know what good, if any, this fire is accomplishing. So far in the distance, we are unable to know if someone is losing their home, their memories. We don't know if a farmer is losing his crop, his business. We also don't know if this fire is sweeping away an unknown pestilence which brings longer term grief. 

We're confident this fire-ravaged land was once the recipient of healing rainwater and sunlight and perhaps the rain soaked land itself once experienced flames.  In this life we may never know what God is accomplishing with this rain and fire.  For eternity, the echoes of "where were you?" might ring as an incessant salve to our souls.  But denying His supreme sovereignty on this side, without the benefit of His vision, is not an option.  Thankfully, mercifully,  I don't have to choose between his sovereignty and His love.  I don't have to choose how God's will is accomplished.  It's God's choice. His alone.

The idols I have created are far too many to name, but I will let you in on one of them.  One of my biggest idols has been identity seeking. Before I was in ministry, I developed a pattern of moving from job to job.  I would be content for 2 or 3 years until I realized it wasn't fulfilling enough.  Instead of sticking it out and enduring the trials I was facing which usually centered around my relationships with superiors, I opted for lateral movement hoping something would click inside and I would settle down.  After being laid off from a company after 8 years of employ, I bounced around some more all the while thinking that my musical gifts had to be the ticket to escaping this volatile existence.  I thought that once I became a vocational worship leader that my heart would be filled, that my identity would be fulfilled. Many good folks along the way were enablers to maintaining the sheen of this idol.  Anytime someone complimented something I did or a song I performed, my idol was being polished. It wasn't their intent, but I was more than willing to let them.  I wish I could say my motivation behind serving in the church has always been to lead people to Christ, but mostly it has been done to lead people to myself. 

As a worship leader, I soon realized the frustration in securing my idenity through my career.  The biggest problem in finding your identity in anything other than Christ is that there is always opposition. There is no clear path to finding yourself in this world or anything in this world apart from Jesus.  You discover the opposition comes from other identity seekers like the people you work with and those you work for. The evolutionary theory almost seems plausible as the larger egos win out in a spiritual survivor of the fittest. 

I struggled mightily behind the scenes trying to reconcile my identity with the self-image I created. Thankfully the fork in the road arrived prior to the breaking point. Through wise counsel, I took the honest path which seemed to lead through the forest of uncertainty, while the disingenious path looked clear and comfortable. Now, here I am 2 years later and not where I expected to be. In fact, I would have fought this path tooth and nail 5 years ago.

Someone asked me recently if I enjoyed my job.  I told him that I don't enjoy what I do,  but I have more joy in the midst of what I'm doing if that makes any sense.  I want a life like that tree in Psalms, the one planted by the stream.  Though it's leaves wither, the tree never dies. It flourishes in all seasons. That's my desire, to not only weather the conditions of each seasonal turn, but to flourish in fruit-bearing joy. That is the identiy I long for.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/god-of-victory/id427878221