A win beyond golf

Rick Reilly (ESPN.com) has a fantastic summary of Phil (and Amy) Mickelson's win at last week's Masters.

An excerpt:

"I saw Amy just before I putted," Mickelson said. "That was so great. I mean, I didn't know if she would be there. To walk off the green and share that with her is just very, very emotional. We'll remember this the rest of our lives."

Contrast that with Woods, who spent the week reverting to form -- acerbic answers, sprayed swear words, and curt interviews. He finished fourth, which shows that the golf game is very close. The personality makeover, though, looks like it needs some work.

Soon enough, though, Woods will win tournaments like this, pass Nicklaus, and order will be restored in the universe. But for this one Sunday in a flower-stuffed pocket of Georgia, the good husband, the good son, the good man actually got rewarded.

Lyndsey Jacobellis, the Olympics and religion

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them. (Galatians 3.10–11)

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. (James 2.10)

Religion is a deadly trap. Religious people rely on their adherence to some legal code to obtain justification or righteousness. Anyone who truly considers their life for very long realizes the futility in this arrangement. There may be no better display of the strict requirements of the living by a legal code than the Olympics. Even the New York Times uses religious language to describe it ("Redemption, But not for Jacobellis" - 2/17/10).

Consider Lyndsey Jacobellis. Lyndsey has spent the last 4 years of her life working for her own redemption. In the Torino Olympics in 2006 she lost the gold medal in the snowboard cross; falling down after a premature celebration with some "method air" on the last jump of the race. It was the most bitter silver medal of the 2006 Winter Games. Yesterday, the rigid legal code of the Olympics erased that 4 year pursuit with one fall. The favorite Jacobellis will not visit the podium in Vancouver. One sin disqualified her.

It is a bitter lesson for any of us tempted to find justification (or redemption) by adherence to any code be it environmentalism, corporate-ladder-climbing-ism, I'm-a-good-parent-ism or religion of any form. We cannot justify ourselves. Everyone of us has fallen down in the semis of the snowboard cross or in the skating short program and there will be a day where we fall again. We need something more. If God doesn't provide our righteousnes (or if we don't accept what He provides), we are forever cursed. The Good News is... He has!

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3.21–25)

May Lyndsey find redemption and justification not through her own efforts but in the efforts and perfect righteousness of the Savior.

Sally Jenkins (Washington Post) on Tim Tebow

(HT: Josh Harris)

Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins writes about the controversial pro-life commercial Tim Tebow helped make for the Super Bowl:

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't.

Read the full article

Monotony or Encore?

Yesterday's sunrise over the Nebraska plains and a morning of cross-country skiing this morning has me thinking of "The Ethics of Elfland" (from Chesterton's Orthodoxy). The sunrise took us by surprise yesterday as we were heading to Cedar Falls for Christmas. The sky was exploding with pink and blue streaks and it seemed we were driving into ground zero. The skiing came after nearly an hour of searching for decent trails in the river bottoms of the Cedar. I discovered kilometers of the most well-groomed trail I had skied since my last race almost 20 years ago. The next hour felt like soaring.

What had me thinking of Chesterton was that these events were normal and staggering. While the sunrise was captivating, it has happened before. I've seen hundreds. The soaring feeling on the skis this morning came, not from something novel, but from something known. The frustration of trying to ski on poorly groomed trail for an hour, left me longing for an old muscle memory. When I was finally able to ski, flat out, I was rejoicing in the familiarity of it all. It was exhilarating. Enter Chesterton:

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstasy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.

Hear the encore as you slow down this Christmas.

Additional Resources
Fear Not! My very first blog post (2004 and at Christmas no less)

Albert Pujols: An honor "far greater" than the Hall

From the Pujols Family Foundation site:

"Perhaps one day I could be honored with an invitation into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. That would certainly be a boyhood dream of mine come true, but it is a far greater honor that one day I will be in heaven with God to enjoy Him forever." - Albert Pujols

The Pujols family is not siting by idly in the meantime, though. Albert and his wife Deidre are dedicated to bringing good to Pujols' native home, the Dominican Republic. The Pujols Family Foundation is dedicated to provide care to a wide variety of children through Compassion International's Child Survival Program (CSP).

"They [Albert and Deidre] come to our bateys [neighborhoods] with teams of dentists, eye doctors and medical doctors, and the help everyone, Compassion or not," says Bernard Okeke (who works for Compassion in the Dominican). "Today many of our children have eyeglasses and healthy teeth, thanks to the Pujols. Most of the mothers in their sponsored CSP project not only can show off their beds, but their self-esteem is way up high...We will ever remain grateful to our Lord for the Pujols family and their foundation."

Check out more of Albert's work with Compassion International here (.pdf).

Thanks Albert. As a baseball lover it's nice to like a baseball player again.

HT: Tim Brister and Scott Lamb

Why I Run ("Cheating the Thief" Preview)

THIS POST HAS BEEN RECYCLED IN PREPARATION FOR: "CHEATING THE THIEF" (Please forward to everyone who may be interested and watch for a series of posts this week.)

The silhouette on the water awakened conviction. Actually, it was a little more than that. My oldest son proclaiming “Daddy’s fat!” was integral to the illumination. Bouncing (in every sense of the word) on the diving board of my parent’s pool on a hot July day, I realized my utter lack of discipline.

Old-fashioned vanity got me on a pair of rollerblades a week later. I was not going to be called fat by anyone – especially my son. The "fat daddy" would not be attending the tenth anniversary trip to Boston that year either. In his stead would be “daddy fightin’-weight.”

Flying Men series
Originally uploaded by Arnold Pouteau.

So my pursuit of fitness began - shallow and self-obsessed. The only possible redeeming quality to my motives was a desire to be fit and trim for Shelli. Basically, though, I wanted to look better for myself. That day on the diving board exposed more than a spare tire. It grabbed my attention because I had a spare tire around my whole life. The condition of my soul was exposed and my inherit reaction was to run for the bushes. A fit exterior is a great place to hide.

My life had fallen into an anxious hell. I always felt behind – lacking sleep and frequently unfaithful with my commitments to work and home. My connection with God was wildly erratic and shallow. As a pastor, demands can be extreme (at least I think they are) but that can be offset by a flexible schedule (well, that’s the idea anyway). But the flexibility in my schedule wasn’t helping. I started to get the impression that it was actually hurting. I was becoming a bad father, husband and friend who was seriously underproductive. The idea of physical fitness was a life raft in a sea of confusion. It was something I could control.

Eventually, I started running. I knew enough from days gone by that I would need to start slow and get a good pair of shoes. I did. Months passed and something dramatic happened – I became a “runner.” Months later I was enjoying it for something beyond my initial “noble” cause. It wasn’t completely clear yet, but something in my soul began to transform.
A close friend invited me to run the Bolder Boulder on Memorial Day of 2005. This specific goal engaged something intentional. Now I had a workout schedule complete with intense days on the track and long days on the trail. This was the context for what I can only now call a work of grace.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.  1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrews 12:1-2

While running, my mind would often fix on these passages. While it may not be novel that a running pastor might eventually think of these passages the meditation did lead to something new.  Up until that point, I had a sensitivity that is common among Christians my age. I was very sensitive to anything in my faith being an “effort.” Surely that would be self-righteousness. Indeed Paul himself said "the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,"(Romans 4:1-5)

“Certainly, spiritual progress isn't made by effort – that would be denying the gospel. Right? Isn't that what Paul is saying”

This logic can be a trap because my ugly, lazy side really likes it. Wisdom recalls that this same Paul did say “I discipline my body and keep it under control.”

“But isn’t this talk of discipline burdensome? I thought Christ’s yolk was easy and his burden was light. I thought my focus, as a Christian, was to:

Delight yourself in the LORD,
and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

Yes, but lightness only comes when my heart finds rest in the form of real, lasting joy and something opposes that pursuit of joy. Something that can disqualify me from this race of faith; my flesh. 

There is an unredeemed part of my existence that still wants to reside as king of the world – receiving all comfort, all honor and all dominion. It needs to be beaten... mercilessly. This self-centered, self-serving old man is an enemy of God and, if Christ is my only source of joy, my enemy as well.  My flesh desires comfort, security, control and short-term pleasure at the expense of substantial joy, worship, freedom and long-term pleasure.

So I must beat it back. I must grow in my ability to refuse the flesh the right to make my decisions. Real joy hangs in the balance. So, even though the spare tire is gone and I could keep it off fairly easily, I run, not for leisure but competitively, to eradicate my flesh’s tendency to play it safe, because the spare tire around my soul still lingers.

In the middle of a day of mile repeats, when my body is screaming to stop, I have an opportunity to put that bag of dirt in its place. That is the time to keep moving and remind the flesh that it does not make my decisions. If I make any provision for it, it will someday dominate me and I run the risk of disqualification. There is no grace here – my body must sacrifice to the road.  Not for my righteousness (Christ has given me that) but for my joy.

Staying faithful to a regime and to specific goals has caused me to question the lack of discipline in all areas of my life. When your heart rate is 190+ and you have a mile to go, you start asking yourself things like “What is so hard about reading the Bible regularly?” and “Why do I find it so hard to pray with my kids?” Eventually those have changed as well. Indeed my whole life is more ordered and less crazy – I feel like a sharper tool.

What I have found is that discipline is not something that gets exercised in one area of life. Discipline becomes a part of your whole life or it eventually fades. And this is not burdensome. At its essence, discipline is an effort to cheat the thief. The thief is our flesh and it seeks to steal lasting joy. This is why David encourages us to make friends with faithfulness:

Trust in the LORD, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Psalm 37:3 (notice the context this provides for Psalm 37:4)

The surprise is that this has not encouraged pride; instead it has reinforced a sense of my frailty. Every day I am confronted with the weakness of my flesh. Some days, I desperately want to foreclose on the whole thing. Always I am reminded that apart from Christ, I can do nothing. My flesh is too weak and Christ must do the great work of changing my motivations from self-worship to Christ-worship or it will never happen.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am that He corrected my initial silly and shallow motives. It has been almost five years since I started and I hope to keep running, but I have a greater hope that cheating the thief and looking more to Christ will change my affections and bring Him glory.

The fight for joy may require more than a silly workout someday.

God Isn't Like Whitney's Daddy...

A couple of mornings each week, Whitney and I will go for a run.  When we head out in the double-wide jogger stroller, she's all bundled up and ready to commune with her daddy who is tired and limited.  

Recently I've been impressed by how unlike God I am with Whitney on those runs. I was again this morning.

Daddy gets winded and can't answer all of Whit's questions. God never tires.

Whitney is two and a half and, therefore, filled with questions.  On days when the workout is hard, I'm not much of a conversationalist. When she asks a question on those days, all she gets is a breathy "Daddy can't talk right now sweetie" to which she replies "oh."

God is not like that.  He is never limited by his other activities to hear my prayer or give me strength.

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. (Isaiah 40.28)

Daddy can't always hear Whitney. God's hearing is perfect.

In the midst of the wind and heavy breathing, I don't always hear Whit's little voice.  Much of our dialogue includes "what honey?"   God is not like that.  When I pray, He hears.

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. (1 John 5.14)

When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. (Psalms 34.17)

For the LORD hears the needy and does not despise his own people who are prisoners. (Psalms 69.33)

Daddy can be impatient under pressure. God experiences no "pressure" (Psalm 115:3) and has perfect patience.

If the heart rate is over 170, I struggle with patience.  I'm interested in getting done and not in addressing Whit's question about the fox poop on the trail.

In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. (Psalms 40.6)

As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God! (Psalms 40.17)

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4.14-16)

Daddy is limited in the focused time he can give to Whitney. God is unlimited and never distracted.  

At the end of our run, I have to speed off to another activity or address another child. I'm limited in the amount of things I can address simultaneously. God is not. His sufficiency ensures that His children have His attention.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. (Isaiah 40.11)

Be grateful today.  Your Father is not like Whitney's daddy.