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The Curse of My American Weight

Tuesday night marked its being two-weeks since I returned to St. Vincent and I’ve been incredibly busy getting my barrels unpacked, signing a contract on a rental home in Barrouallie, and purchasing furniture along with appliances. Thankfully a Church member has allowed me to stay at her rental property for a few weeks in a nearby area pronounced “Curtain” while the house is getting set up…looking forward to moving in next Wednesday.

The only problem with the Curtain property is it happens to be a fifteen minute walk from Barrouallie and has no internet. So checking an email or sending updates meant I would arrive in town soaked with sweat and totally out of breath 🙂

**Though the walk from Curtain to Barrouallie wasn’t always fun, after doing it for two-weeks I can see how God is using it for His Glory,

While in the States I went out of my way to indulge in junk food, going as far as to instagram Krispie Creme donuts that went along with my pepperoni pizza the day before flying back. This is partly because you can’t get Krispie Creme or a Little Ceaser’s five-dollar pizza in St. Vincent, however I also knew it wouldn’t take long to lose all those pounds I packed on.

While the weight is coming off fast my being out of shape because of over-indulgence has affected the ministry in another unexpected way.

It hasn’t affected my relationships with the people though they greatly enjoy making fun of my added weight [1]and agreeing that America had made me fat. Instead those extra pounds kept me from having the self-discipline in other areas that are necessary for ministry.

It’s easy to forget that missions is a very active type of ministry with a long list of needs to meet, people to care for, and projects to complete. The need for physical fitness is even greater in SVG where you experience a tropical climate, and people normally walk from one place to another [2].

However this isn’t too serious of an issue because most of that extra weights lost within a month (I’ve already lost most of mine). The real issue is my American weight (indulging in junk food) got me out of the practice of self-discipline

Jerry Bridges in his classic book “A Pursuit of Holiness” says this about our connection with physical discipline and Holiness in other areas of life.

”As we become soft and lazy in our bodies, we tend to become soft and lazy spiritually. When Paul talked about making his body his slave, so that after having preached to others he himself would not be disqualified, he was not thinking about physical disqualification, but spiritual. He knew well that physical softness inevitably leads to spiritual softness. When the body is pampered and indulged, the instincts and passions of the body tend to get the upper hand and dominate our thoughts and actions. “ Bridges, Jerry (2014–02–01). The Pursuit of Holiness: Run in Such a Way as to Get the Prize 1 Corinthians 9:24 (Kindle Locations 1069–1073). NavPress. Kindle Edition.

To explain it another way every time I’m not able to turn down a Krispie Creme donut it makes choosing God’s way instead of my own in other areas more difficult. And if indulging in donuts becomes a habit (particularly in certain situations like when I’m emotional or frustrated) then it will be easier to develop habits of laziness or pampering myself in other ways.

Please understand I’m not saying eating a donut is a sin (I love them)! But I’m noticing a habit of physical indulgence I took part in during April is not just affecting me in physical ways.

Suddenly disciplining myself to do things like writing, Bible memorization, and reading Christian books that used to be easy require a lot more work and determination. It’s as if allowing one part of my life to become soft and undisciplined affected all the others!

Will I eat donuts again? You better believe it! And I can guarantee you the first thing I’ll want after seeing my family in the States is a Little Caesars pizza! But at the same time I know my American weight will be a lot less next time since with the Lord’s help I’ll use a lot more self-discipline when it comes to eating. Because it takes a lot longer than two-weeks to rebuild habits of self-discipline.

a friend meeting me at the airport told me your overweight! At first I thought he was talking about my baggage…but he wasn’t ↩
there are vehicles in Barrouallie of course, but because its small most people just walk from place to place ↩

Fear of Man

When Activity Becomes Your Identity

SAMSUNG CSC

About a month ago I had a life-changing moment in Wal-Mart. It actually surprised me since I’m not used to having earth shattering revelations beside the fruit and produce section, but that moment is guiding my thinking a month later.

Pretty much everyone who knows me realizes this but I am a “doer” (or spaz but I use that term lovingly) who absolutely loves action and “doing things.”

Theres nothing wrong with this because God creates some of us with a love for activity. Recently when a ministry team came to Barrouallie I noticed a group of them outside talking while everyone else was having a meeting inside. “Oh don’t worry about them they are doers” someone told me after I asked about it, “they think planning is boring.”

For me being a doer used to mean spending as little time home as possible…days were filled with mentoring, english as a second language, discipleship, tutoring, volunteering and pretty much anything else I could fill my time with.

When I came back for a two-month furlough however things were very different.

There were no more volunteering opportunities

No training runs

No mentoring or tutoring sessions at school

Instead I was just home

Now before you get any ideas I’m not sitting around watching Netflix and eating potato chips all day, there are plenty of things for me to do at home before the return to St. Vincent

Finish a sermon series on Joshua
Create power points for discipleship material on Evangelism
Create new discipleship material on how to study the bible, and approval addiction
Get barrels packed and shipped to St Vincent
Report to Churches (travel and meetings)
Start blogging again (and this time I mean it!)
Further education in Church growth
Create a long-term plan for growth of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Barrouallie
Communicate with Churches and supporters
Bottom line is I’m busy

The problem is 90% of that work is done at home staring at a computer screen which for a doer who is geared towards interaction with people can be pretty frustrating.

In a deeper sense this activity (ministry with people) became something that I used to gauge how successful my day was. If there were four ministry opportunities that day then I viewed it as a success. It’s harder for a doer to view completing four sessions on the bible study methods class as a success

Every day that passed with little activity (face to face ministry) I became more and more frustrated till finally I began leaving the house in the afternoon to find something that was activity based so at the end of the day I could feel better about myself. Which brings me to Wal-Mart four weeks ago.

While grabbing some groceries it occurred to me how many times I choose activity that brings immediate gratification over deeper work that would truly make a difference like wrestling with a blog post or creating discipleship material to train future leaders.

The thing about work like that is it isn’t flashy or fun (especially for doers) however in the long run it’s those ministries that make an impact. A sermon or lesson that I’ve spent hours over will make a bigger difference on someone’s life than a 30-minute tutoring session.

Since that time I’ve spent most of my time at home and with the Lords help have embraced the less exciting aspects of ministry. It does make it harder to view my day as successful at night, but I know this hard work will create great opportunities for activity on the island.

A Theology of Singleness

Learning to Love the Friend Zone

In the corner

As a teenager I spent a lot of time in whats commonly called “the friend zone” [1]. It usually began with my showing interest in a girl and included a conversation that began with the words “we need to talk” and ended with the words “your a nice guy” while a knife was stuck in my heart 🙂

For a young man the friend zone is the last place you would ever want to be since your constantly reminded there’s no possibility of a relationship. But looking back on my teenage years I can see it as an important part of healthy relationships.

The key difference is instead of coming on too strong and being relegated to the friend zone awkwardly, men must choose to enter it at the beginning of a relationship before dating begins.

Normally the friend-zone isn’t something you would enter willingly
1. You will usually be spending time with the young woman and her friends instead of yours which can be sort of awkward
2. Anyone who enters the friend zone realizes there is absolutely 0% chance of dating her
3. And its common for the young woman to interact with you in a different way than other guys [2]

So why should I subject myself to something like this willingly? Because in the friend zone you can discover what they are really like.

its my personal opinion there needs to be a relationship stage before the initial “coffee dates” where we truly learn about the person. This isn’t just to think through compatibility, but for a Christian its to ask whether or not this is a person God may have chosen for them to marry.

It is possible to learn about the person while going out for coffee or ice-cream, but in reality a commitments already been made [3] and they won’t be sharing too much of themselves at that point anyways.

The common pre-coffee stage for Christian young men is something I call a “stalker stage” which involves spending time with her whenever possible, and studying like theres an exam on her life next period [4]. While you may gain some information this way its way too obvious, so your not really accomplishing the goal of finding out what kind of person she is.

The friend zone is different because the emphasis is on learning what kind of person they are by observation instead of asking lots of questions. Being a guy they could never see themselves dating is awkward…but you can see how she responds.

To discouragmeent-what is she like on a bad day?
To failure-does she just give up or keep trying?
To anxiety-What worries her? How does she respond to things that are frightening?
Or to anger-Does she have a temper problem? The she does get made what kind of things calm her down?

It won’t take long to get a firm understanding of what she is like on her best and worst days. You will also know whether or not this is someone you want to pursue a relationship with.

Of course if you do find out this persons someone your interested in then you have to successfully “escape the friend zone” which definitely isn’t an easy feat. However many times being able to observe people over time allows us to work past the initial emotion, and realize they aren’t as perfect as we imagined them to be.

for those who don’t know, this is when a person your interested in isn’t interested at all in dating you, but still wants to hang out as friends. Its leads to very awkward situations ↩
she will talk and interact as if your “one of the girls” ↩
One to find out if the other persons truly interested in you, and express your interest in them ↩
constantly asking her very personal questions, and grilling her friends for information ↩

Fear of Man

When God fills my Psychological Cup

There comes a moment for each of us when our psychological cup runs low; a moment when we don’t feel loved, accepted, or confident in ourselves. There is nothing sinful about those moments because it reminds us we are dependent creatures on other people for our happiness instead of being self-existent like God.

The dangerous part of this is the question “when your psychological cup runs low how are you going fill it?” Normally we will turn to the encouragement or acceptance of other people to make us feel better (eventually this can become a sinful habit because others are just used to fill our cup) but sometimes we will do even worse by using God to fill it

We use God to fill our emotional cups by claiming promises of God in Scripture or in a moment of discouragement I just remind myself that God loves me more than I think.

Dr. Ed Welch in his book “When People are Big and God is Small” explains how this approach overlooks an important step of introspection and repentance;

The love of God can be a profound answer to just about any human struggle, but sometimes we can use it in such a way that it becomes a watered down version of a profoundly rich truth.”

For example sometimes because of shortcomings in us the answer ignores personal repentance. It still allows us and our needs to be at the center of the world, and God go comes our psychic errand boy given the task of inflating our self-esteem” (pg.18, par.3)

Dr. Welch’s point reminds me of a class during college where our professor explained how Christians use Bible verses like aspirin. So when someone’s discouraged you tell tell them that all things work together for good to them that love God (Romans 8:28) or I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me (Philippians 4:13). This usually brings a flood of encouragement and suddenly our psychological cup goes from almost empty to full.

The sad thing is this can create a dependence to encouraging Scriptures when we are discouraged or frustrated.

Of course God wants us to be encouraged and loved, after all He is the one who created us with that desire in the first place! But instead of using Scripture for a “quick fix” He desires that we spend time meditating on His character. This may not take away the feelings of discouragement right away like we want, but it focuses our eyes on God instead of our own circumstances or emotions. And often this leads to repentance of allowing our own psychological cup to become the most important thing instead of Gods purpose.

A deeper danger of filling my emotional cup with the Bible is it changes the way that I view Scripture. Now whenever I open God’s word instead of looking for a truth that will focus my eyes on Him, I’m looking for something to make me feel better about myself. And when interpreting Scripture instead of asking “what is the Lord showing me about Himself?” I ask “what encouraging truth does God have for me today?”

Of course this way of approaching God’s Word will only work for so long.

Because Scripture isn’t meant to be used this way eventually the day will come when either God won’t provide those encouraging truths to fill my cup (they weren’t meant for that anyways) or those verses don’t fill my heart with happiness anymore recuse I’ve lost sight of the person they point to (God).

Interpreted correctly the truths of Scripture will lead me to worship of God and submission before Him as I understand my emotional needs aren’t nearly as important as I thought. Interpreted incorrectly God becomes as Dr. Welch called him “a psychic errand boy.”

A Theology of Singleness

There needs to be a dating stage before the “Coffee Stage” of a relationship

A few months before leaving Barrouallie I began teaching on relationships at our Young Adults meeting every Friday. During each these lessons we discussed what a dating relationship would look like if our final goal was marriage with the person who God had chosen for our lives.

Some of the changes this would bring were obvious (you ask “is this a person God may want me to marry?” Instead of “am I attracted to this person?”) but others took a lot more time to truly understand. One truth in particular took them weeks to grasp because it goes against pretty much everything they believed about relationships.

There has to be a dating stage before your pre-dating stage

I know this is confusing so allow me to explain…

95% of the time a couple won’t go out and start dating right away since even though they may be really interested in a person, they don’t truly know them. Therefore instead of asking that person out on a date you would invite them to something that had a lower commitment level like going to get coffee or ice-cream. This would allow you to get to know each other after working through the initial “awkward silence” and if your careful it can even be done without anyone else finding out. The general idea is after going to get coffee or ice-cream a certain number of times your ready to make a decision about entering a dating relationship.

Now I have nothing against the coffee stage of a relationship because it keeps things from becoming too serious right away. This is especially true if your thinking of marriage in the coffee stage since there’s no way to know whether or not that person is someone God may want you to marry without learning more about them.

My point isn’t that the coffee stage is a problem….instead I think we should make it longer by creating a separate relationship stage BEFORE the coffee stage begins.

Now before you start looking for a Bible passage that teaches this there isn’t. My belief that there needs to be a pre-dating stage for our pre-dating stage comes through my own teenage years.

Take a few moments with me this afternoon and remember what it was like to be a teenager (go buy some stridex pads for your acne if it helps). How long did it take you to go from “wow that persons beautiful!” To “do you want to get a cup of coffee?” If your anything like me while the physical act may take a week or so , mentally you were already thinking of conversation starters and jokes for the upcoming coffee “date”

Did you notice that there was no real evaluation stage where I focused on learning what kind of person she was before entering the coffee stage?

“Oh come on!” You might say, “the coffee is all about learning what kind of person she is!” That’s true, but in all of my first coffee stage dates I didn’t really learn too much about the person

Because I was too busy trying to get through the awkward silence
Thinking about what I should (or shouldn’t) be saying
Trying to make myself look awesome (I am awesome, but it’s hard to be that way in a stressful situation)
And attempting to find the deeper meaning in everything she said

After the first or second coffee date one of two things happens…either you become comfortable with each other and move into a dating relationship, or drown your sorrows in pepsi and baked goods. Either way the result of a coffee stage proves there needs to be a relationship stage before it.

For those who don’t move on a pre-coffee stage would save heartache and empty calories

And those who move into the dating relationship still don’t truly know the other person….they are in a position to get to know the person better, but following the coffee stage have just become comfortable with one another.

Think about all the pain, sorrow, and empty calories that could be avoided if there was a stage before coffee.

What if we knew that guy was an egotistical jerk, or that girl was incredibly controlling BEFORE the pre-dating stage.

What if it was possible for us to honor God by only taking that first step with those who we feel may be God’s will for marriage instead of going from interest to coffee in seconds?