I spent Thanksgiving in Morro Bay, along the coast of central California, with my friends Phil and Kari Ann and Phil’s grandparents. We did all the usual turkey day stuff—watched the Macy’s parade, played games, watched football, and ate too many carbs.

Also there for the fun were the couple’s two little girls, who are ages three and six. The girls are a joy in my life—we cuddle and read books and catch tree frogs and color pictures and watch “My Little Pony” DVDs until I’m nauseous—but they are three and six, and therefore susceptible to temper tantrums, crankiness, and general drama.

Since I traveled and basically spent every waking moment with them, I got to see quite a bit of the drama. Tears when being forced to go to bed or take a bath or put shoes on or take shoes off. Squealing when confronted with unfamiliar food, too-hot food, too-cold food, or not enough food. Or, my favorite, the three year-old’s complete meltdown when—although she is dripping wet, covered in sand, and shivering uncontrollably from playing in the ocean—she absolutely refuses her mother’s offer of clean, dry clothes because they’re not pink.

(It may be best if I have sons.)

I don’t recount all that to pick on these sweet girls. They’re no more ornery than any other little girls who haven’t had their naps. I mention it because it struck me, as Avery screamed “No black pants!” at the top of her lungs at Pismo Beach, that I usually behave like a tired preschooler with God.

I don’t understand when he “forces” me to do things that are good for me, and I often refuse his expressions of care and comfort because they don’t look like I want them to. (They’re not pink, in other words.) I cry when I don’t get what I want, and when he does lavish gifts on me I grab them with a sense of entitlement and then look around for more. I get tired, and overwhelmed, and I lash out at the Father who cares for me most.

The girls will eventually mature and grow out of these behaviors with their earthly parents. I hope I eventually grow out of behaving this way with God.

Today’s edition of the Christian Standard enewsletter included a short quote from Brian Jones’ book Second Guessing God. “Nothing ever happens to us that doesn’t ultimately accomplish God’s goals for our lives,” he writes. “God’s providence means he is always working behind the scenes, outside of our view, to provide us with something, even when we don’t understand what’s happening at the time.”

I live most of my life in that space—not understanding what’s happening at the time. Occasionally God allows me to look back and see the way he orchestrated situations and answered prayers to bring me good. More often, he does not, and I must simply trust that this time—like all the others before and in spite of what I may be feeling or experiencing in the moment—he is still working for my good.

I love these lyrics from “The Wood Song” by the Indigo Girls:

no way construction of this tricky plan
was built by other than a greater hand
with a love that passes all our understanding
watching closely over the journey

but what it takes to cross the great divide
seems more than all the courage i can muster up inside
but we get to have some answers when we reach the other side
the prize is always worth the rocky ride

sometimes i ask to sneak a closer look
skip to the final chapter of the book
and maybe steer us clear from some of the pain it took
to get us where we are this far
but the question drowns in its futility
and even i have got to laugh at me
cause no one gets to miss the storm of what will be
just holding on for the ride

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for a God who for some reason loves me so much that he works even my not-so-good into good. I’m thankful I have that God as a traveling companion through the storm of what will be.

I’m actually thankful I don’t get to see the next chapters of my life. And I’m really thankful for the final chapter in The Book, which makes it all worthwhile.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

McChurch

Yesterday was fun—my dad and I drove from Monterey, CA through Big Sur along the Pacific Coast Highway. We saw beautiful ocean views, walked through a forest of redwoods, and ate locally-grown artichokes and fresh shrimp.

After several hours enjoying this beauty, we turned off the PCH to take the 101 south to Los Angeles. Almost immediately a landscape of Home Depots, AMC movie theaters, and fast food restaurants replaced the views of rocky cliffs, beaches, and privately-owned B&Bs.

What struck me was not just the abrupt transition back to the land of a million Targets, but how similar the next 180 miles looked. Every exit ramp had some combo of the same national retail outlets and chain stores. Except for the palm trees, we could just as easily have been in Indianapolis, Kansas City or any other American suburb.

To find stories for Christian Standard, I spend a lot of time surfing around church websites, leafing through church papers, and even visiting different churches. And it strikes me that our congregations—and many other evangelical churches—resemble those exit ramps. Every church has many of the same programs and services—Celebrate Recovery, a youth group with a name like “Surge,” a kids-and-parents service modeled on North Point’s, a Christian preschool, a variety of men’s and women’s small groups (men studying Wild at Heart, women studying either Captivating or something by Beth Moore), a wanna-be Starbucks coffee area named “Hallowed Grounds.” Many even preach the same sermons, often based on popular TV shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives,” in an attempt to reach that ambiguous goal of “cultural relevance.”

These are all okay, but as we adopt more and more of the same strategies our churches all start to resemble one another. Of course it doesn’t make sense for all of us to start from scratch on everything—we do well to learn from each other and adopt what works. But I find it concerning (and, frankly, boring) to see so many of our bigger and newer churches become so much alike.

I can go into any McDonald’s in the country and eat the same meal, prepared the same way and guaranteed to provide the same (minimal) nourishment. I’m not sure I want the same experience when it comes to spiritual food.

I once received a card that said, “May your relationships be satisfying, your career rewarding, and your thighs thin. Actually, if your thighs are thin, that other stuff’s not as important.”

So I did the treadmill tonight.

The whole Ted Haggard thing makes me so sad.

I’m not disputing that he messed up big time, but I feel so sad for his church and his family—and, actually, for him. To go from being a huge evangelical leader to losing your church, your influence, and basically life as you know it—I can’t imagine.

As those oh-so-NOT-eloquent sentences show, I don’t have anything profound to say on the subject. For that I turn to Gordon MacDonald, who himself had an affair and once lost a very public ministry, and who had this to say on this latest tragedy:

It seems to me that when people become leaders of outsized organizations and movements, when they become famous and their opinions are constantly sought by the media, we ought to begin to become cautious. The very drive that propels some leaders toward extraordinary levels of achievement is a drive that often keeps expanding even after reasonable goals and objectives have been achieved. Like a river that breaks its levy, that drive often strays into areas of excitement and risk that can be dangerous and destructive. Sometimes the drive appears to be unstoppable. This seems to have been the experience of the Older Testament David and his wandering eyes, Uzziah in his boredom, and Solomon with his insatiable hunger for wealth, wives and horses. They seem to have been questing—addictively?—for more thrills or trying to meet deeper personal needs, and the normal ways that satisfy most people became inadequate for them………..No amount of accountability seems to be adequate to contain a person living with such inner conflict. Neither can it contain a person who needs continuous adrenalin highs to trump the highs of yesterday. Maybe this is one of the geniuses of Jesus: he knew when to stop, how to refuse the cocktail of privilege, fame and applause that distorts one’s ability to think wisely and to master self………..And so I pray: Lord and Father, how sad you must be when you see the most powerful and the weakest of your children fall prey to the energy of sin and evil. There is nothing any one has ever done that we –each of us—is not capable of doing. So when we pray for our brother, Ted Haggard, we pray not out of pity or self-righteousness but with a humble spirit because we stand with him on level ground before the cross. Father, give this man and his wife the gift of your grace. Protect them from the constant accusations of the evil one who will seek to deny them sleep, tempt them to talk too much to the public, arouse conflict between them as a couple and with their children. Send the right people into their lives who can provide the correct mixture of hope and healing love. Deliver them from people who will curry their favor by telling them things they should not hear. Restrain them from making poor judgments in their most fearful moments. Lord, be present to the leaders and people of the New Life Church. And to the NAE leadership which has to live with the side-effects of this tragedy. And to people in the evangelical tradition who are wondering today who they can trust. What more can we pray for? You know all things. We so very little. Amen.

Two more things to move

Yesterday I crossed another experience off my “to-do-before-potentially-leaving-California” list and attended a taping of the Ellen Degeneres show. (Lest you think all the field trips on my list involve show business, I also plan to visit the graves of famous movie stars at Forest Lawn cemetery and tour the LA Museum of TV and Radio. Okay, so they do all involve show business.)

Anyway, I’d always wanted to see the Ellen show and I’m glad I had the opportunity, even though it meant getting up at 5:30, standing in line for hours to get a confirmed seat, then waiting a couple hours more to get through security and finally collapse onto a seat in the studio audience.

The show was themed “As Seen on TV;” it included flashbacks to favorite infomercials, Ellen’s mom trying out a variety of exercise products, and interviews with Richard Simmons and the inventer of “huggable hangers.” It was fun, even though I think “favorite informercials” is an oxymoron and I have yet to buy anything advertised only on TV.

Ironically, though, I now own two “as seen on TV” products—every member of the studio audience received a Ronco rotisserie barbecue thing (you know, “set it and forget it”) and Richard Simmons’ new programmable food steamer. It was hysterical to see hundreds of us lumbering toward our cars (all of which were blocks if not miles away) with quite heavy armloads of unnecessary cookware. Only in America.

We also received a box of the huggable hangers, which are supposedly extra-thin (so they don’t take up much room in the closet) and made of velvet (so your clothes don’t fall off.) To share my good fortune I’ll mail the box to the first person to send me an email at buzz@standardpub.com. You’ll have a fun present and I’ll have one less thing to load on the moving van—it’s a win for both of us.