Life is a Zig-Zag

I attended a small Christian college in western Pennsylvania where we were required to attend morning chapel 16 times a semester. Very few people enjoyed it. Partly because it was in the morning and it was forced and partly because the majority of the speakers in chapel were bogus. The message was rarely convicting or Bible-based and therefore soon forgotten. But there were some, every now and then, that would speak truth and it would stick with you forever. Today I am remembering a particular service where a Sovereign Grace pastor stood up and told us that, "Life is a zig-zag." In his presentation he mapped out for us the path that Israel took from Egypt to the promised land. When he showed how Israel went forward, then backwards, then sideways; it was quite baffling. Why would God do this to his people whom he loved and redeemed? Why not take them straight to Canaan? It would have been so much easier and shorter. Why did he have them fight so many battles? Why did he make them feel tired, hungry, and thirsty? The answer lies in the fact that the deliverance from Egypt and the wilderness wanderings were pictures of the  gospel and the Christian life. Like Israel, we were comfortable and at ease serving a cruel King whom did not know the LORD. We lived in a dominion of darkness. And like the people of Old under the deliverance of Moses our bonds to sin were broken when we believed in  Jesus the great Redeemer and fled to him. But the story wasn't over at the Red Sea and our lives are not over when we believe the gospel. There is still the hard and grueling trek to the promised land. The great truth that I heard that morning was that, for the Christian, this pilgrimage is never a straight line. It is always a zig-zag. Sometimes you will feel like you are regressing and going backwards and sometimes you will feel stagnant. These are the times of frustration. Of grumbling and murmuring against God and his servant. "Why couldn't you just leave me alone, I am not better now than I was before I became a Christian." "Where is the land flowing with milk and honey that you promised? All that I know is this desert wasteland."But we must remember that it is in these times that God is testing us. He is refining us and removing all of our dross, weaning us from the love of the World, teaching us to trust and depend solely on him. He sends us backward because we need to be sent backward. Trusting continually in Christ is foreign to us and God must teach us over and over again. I remember this message so clearly because I need it so much. Lately life seems stagnant, I don't feel like I am becoming more like Christ. I have been getting frustrated and angry because life seems hard. But I need to stop and remember that for the Christian, life is promised to be hard. And while it is hard, I must also remind myself of the staggering benefits that I have received from the gospel. I have the presence of God travelling with me day and night and the wonderful promise of glory before my eyes. If God is with me and for me, then I can meet setbacks and seeming diversions with joy and with confidence. Life is a zig zag because we need to learn much from God. We have so much sin and self-trust lying in the corners of our heart, that we must always be humbled by God. What about you? If life seems like a zig-zig... it is and that's ok. Just remember that God is with you and for you and will not leave you until he presents you perfectly on the golden shores of the heavenly Canaan.

Fading Glory update!

I apologize to all my fans (Heidi) for the blogging slump but am proud to provide you with my first update of my summer physical fitness goals. In case you forgot, I am out to dunk, run a 4.7, and lift 275 pounds. I decided to go after it one goal at a time. So here is a clip of me trying to dunk. As you can see I do not succeed, but I feel like I am pretty close. Also I am wearing like these weird adidas skater shoes that my wife picked up at the consignment store. I feel like if I was wearing real basketball shoes I could have made it. After all of these attempts (There were about 10 or so) I left feeling like I had pulled my groin muscle. While it was funny, it was yet another reminder of my feeble and frail physical state. I am out to try again today and will start doing some sprints today. So stay tuned for more fading glory updates. I expect that my next one will be a successful one.

Talby Wedding Interview

Wow! What a weekend. Getting to see all of my friends was such a blast and of course seeing Talby met and exceeded all of my expectations. He did several ridiculous/hilarious things over the weekend that only Talby would do. I will share some of those stories with you later. Yes, Talby provided me with about a month of material in just two short days. But for now, be contented with these up close and personal interview with this interview with GQ Talby.

Wedding Weekend

      Sorry MCN that it has been so long since I last posted. I have today off from work and thus I have some time to catch you all up on my life (because I know you are so interested). Well we just got back from a great wedding weekend where two of my favorite people got married, Andie and Andrew. The whole weekend was a blast.  There was golf, food, cards, video games, dancing, music, and a bunch of stories to go along with.
But the best part of course was the wedding itself. Seeing two people who love Christ and who both know that they were brought together by him was such a joy. Also seeing all of my friends from college was such a blessing. My friends have a strange ability to be both incredibly goofy and spiritually challenging at the same time. It seems like at a moments notice we can go from sharing stories and impersonating our old football coach to expressing what God has been teaching us in our lives. I truly believe that I have some of the best friends in the world. So with that I will leave you with some photos from the weekend.

The Beautiful Bride

Chris  being nice to Jo

Zach and Ahna

The bros in the old Pi Pew in Chapel

Dave being dumb

The bros at Rachels

Anxiety

Worrying has never been something that I have been prone to do. On the contrary, people usually think of me as carefree or careless. My Mother seems to have an endless supply of stories of me forgetting my football equipment, leaving my baseball glove out in the rain, or neglecting to do some important school project. Growing up, anxiety was the least of my concerns. But while I may have paraded this off as virtuous, I am now realizing that I never worried because I never really had responsibility. My parents took care of me in so many ways, that I was left to live a carefree life. But now that I live on my own, have to pay my own bills, have a wife to take care of, and a career to think about, I find myself worrying a little bit more. I am coming to see that as you go through different stages of your life, there seem to be certain sins waiting to entangle you. All this is to say that I have found myself a little anxious about my life and future and God seemed to place this devotion from Charles Spurgeon right in my lap. It was perfect for Lissa and I and we read it together several times because I thought it was so good. Enjoy....

"Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee."—Psalm 55:22.

Care, even though exercised upon legitimate objects, if carried to excess, has in it the nature of sin. The precept to avoid anxious care is earnestly inculcated by our Saviour, again and again; it is reiterated by the apostles; and it is one which cannot be neglected without involving transgression: for the very essence of anxious care is the imagining that we are wiser than God, and the thrusting ourselves into His place to do for Him that which He has undertaken to do for us. We attempt to think of that which we fancy He will forget; we labour to take upon ourselves our weary burden, as if He were unable or unwilling to take it for us. Now this disobedience to His plain precept, this unbelief in His Word, this presumption in intruding upon His province, is all sinful. Yet more than this, anxious care often leads to acts of sin. He who cannot calmly leave his affairs in God's hand, but will carry his own burden, is very likely to be tempted to use wrong means to help himself. This sin leads to a forsaking of God as our counsellor, and resorting instead to human wisdom. This is going to the "broken cistern" instead of to the "fountain;" a sin which was laid against Israel of old. Anxiety makes us doubt God's lovingkindness, and thus our love to Him grows cold; we feel mistrust, and thus grieve the Spirit of God, so that our prayers become hindered, our consistent example marred, and our life one of self-seeking. Thus want of confidence in God leads us to wander far from Him; but if through simple faith in His promise, we cast each burden as it comes upon Him, and are "careful for nothing" because He undertakes to care for us, it will keep us close to Him, and strengthen us against much temptation. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee."

Books to have on your shelf

I enjoy reading. This was not always the case, for as a young boy I was highly uninterested in reading anything that was not sports related. But when God started working in my life, I became interested in reading the Bible. For a kid who grew up in church, I was shocked how little I knew about the content of scripture and once i started reading it I became fascinated with it. About the same time I began reading the Bible, I also began to like books that dealt with God and faith. I will not lie, my interest in reading books was gradual and was assisted by men like John Piper who serve as a bridge to the great minds of the past. I still remember reading Piper's "Legacy of Sovereign Joy," that was assigned to me my freshmen year at Grove City. The book was a brief biography of the lives and works of Augustine, Luther and Calvin. The common thread that Piper saw in all of their lives was a deep rooted joy in the goodness and sovereignty of God. I was actually interested in this book. I was shocked. The book was not written merely intellectually but had an interesting and pastoral feel to it. It rocked my world.

        My first book recommendation on the Man-Cave was John MacCarthur's 12 ordinary men and my second will be Piper's the Swan's are not Silent Series. There are 4 separate books (I think) Which deal with the life and times of 3 different Christians throughout history who were united by some common theme. The aforementioned "Legacy of sovereign joy," was about finding joy in a sovereign God and other books deal on topics such as suffering and fighting for doctrinal truth. I am so grateful for books like these cause they were the first ones that guided my steps as a Christian and taught me to be a discerning yet grateful believer. If you are a bored church-goer, check out these books. Piper highlights the theology and beliefs of the greatest and most influential christians in history. I guarantee if you read them your eyes will be opened to unchangeable truths that have been blurred out in our age and your heart will be strengthened to fight for those truths. It was books like these that took me from a box-score reading champ  and turned me into someone who was banned by his family from reading anything "theology" related on vacation. (P.S.- I still snuck a copy of Augustine's Confessions onto the beach! Thank you John Piper.)

The best last hole of golf ever

2 weekends ago, I went home to Pittsburgh to visit our family and our friends. During my time home I had the opportunity to play golf with two of my favorite people; my bro Andrew and my bro-in-law Dave. While we had grand plans of going to play 18 somewhere new, we ended up going to Frosty Valley which is our local go-to. Dave is a good golfer, Andrew is not, and I am somewhere in between the two of them. This day I was closer to Andrew than Dave. Andrew has one of the worst slices I have ever seen. He used to have to point himself almost 90 degrees away to get his ball to land in the fairway.
        Despite Andrew's golfing inadequacies it has always been one of his goals to beat me in golf. You must understand that Andrew and I are quite competitive when it comes to sports. He is my best friend but that does not stop us from getting unnecessarily heated over small and insignificant competitions. Games for nintendo 64, home-run derby at the batting cage at cool springs, checkers, wiffle ball, one on one basketball games, and corn-hole have all been taken far too seriously by us.

The most notable and shame producing event has been 2 on 2 beach football. We always guard each other and in these matches I have been driven to spiking a football, storming off the field, and elbowing Andrew in the face after he had his wisdom teeth out.

So while I usually beat Andrew in Golf with ease, this day was much different. I was shanking the ball all over the place and bro was actually hitting the ball pretty good. Entering the last two holes, Andrew had a 5 shot lead. Insurmountable right? We both got 4's on the last hole, which left us with the 9th hole to determine the winner. I was already conceding in my mind that this would be the day when bro finally beat me and I was prepared mentally to accept this. But the 9th hole at Frosty presents problems to people who have a bad slice....
      I stepped up to the tee box first and I was beginning my swing Dave cracked some joke and i duffed one off to the left. Because of poor etiquette I got a mulligan. I sliced one to the right where there is a set of train tracks then a vast abyss of rocks and wilderness which has stolen many of my golf balls. Surely this shot was to seal my fate. But by some stroke of Divine Providence my ball hit the side of the train track and shot back toward the fairway, bounced off the cart path, and landed right next to the fairway. A sign of things to come?
Bro was up next. He stepped up to his ball and said, "Bro, I am aiming way to left, I have to get this one into play." Aiming at the 1st hole green, bro proceeded to rip a huge slice over the track. It must have sliced at least 150 yards. "Frick," Bro blurted out. This was bad, but I still thought my deficit was too big to erase. Bro dropped and sliced another one over the tracks, "Frick!" Bro marches forward, drops again, and unbelievably rockets one over the tracks again. "Frick!!!" Now he is shooting 8 from the top of the hill. I had my opening.
       I shoot a 3 iron 60 yards from the green. Easy pitch and put and I have it. Bro, from the mountain-tops of frosty chips well over the green. This time there is no "Frick," but a nervous pace towards the ball. All I have to do is chip on and 2-put and I will have done it. But I chunk my shot into the sand trap, and have to pitch out. Bro chips on but leaves himself a 50 foot put. After two putting bro finishes with an 11. I have a 7 footer to tie it all up. All I could think about as I stood over that put was, "I do not want to have to listen to Andrew talking about how he beat me," and "If I make this, this will be the funniest hole of golf I have ever played." So with an "Arnold Palmer," like confidence I sink the put. I did it. 5 strokes in one hole. Andrew will have to wait yet another day. It was the worst round of golf i have ever played with the most hilarious finish. One of the many reasons I love competing and golfing with friends is stories like these. Thanks bro for the best last hole of Golf ever, may we have many more (With me winning of course!)