Privileged ...

As many of you know, I am graduate of Michigan State University and a HUGE Spartan athletics fan.  There have been only a handful of football games I've missed over the past twenty-eight seasons when I began attending.  Of all those seasons, even one that included a trip to the Rose Bowl, this season has been the most special for me.  Why? Kirk Cousins.  Character is contagious. Character in others makes me want to better a better man. Kirk's luncheon speech on Privilege was just that - a privilege.  Thank you, Kirk.  Enjoy!

When I Became a Man ...

When I was eight years old, one of my best friends was named Roger. Roger loved cars and he owned about every Matchbox car ever made (scores of them) and he built elaborate Hot Wheels racetracks which enveloped his entire living room in a web of orange plastic strips. I often stopped by to visit him after school and we would race for hours.  Roger, the more experienced Matchbox driver would win almost every time.

And while the racing was fun, the part I looked forward to most was the massive, 200-car Matchbox pileup which always marked the conclusion of our play time. Roger loved this part, too. And he would bring out his toy tow truck and start picking up all the Matchbox carnage, car by car, and deliver each one to his Hot Wheels garage.

I think the reason Roger liked this part so much was that his dad was a tow truck driver and he though that was the greatest thing in the world. Once Roger's mom took us out for ice cream and we drove by the lot where his dad worked. Roger pointed out a wrecked car his dad had picked up the night before. Then he pointed out his dad's tow rig. It was really cool, all decked out with a massive wench and dozens of lights . When Roger's dad came home at night, it looked like a spaceship was landing in his driveway.

Roger loved his dad and would often talk about how cool his dad’s tow truck was and how smart his dad was and how his dad got to pick up twisted metal and how strong his dad was. In short, Roger thought his dad was the greatest.

This was a problem for me, because I thought my dad was the greatest. I thought my dad could do anything. In fact I believed my dad was the strongest, coolest man in the world.  What Roger was saying about his dad was outright blasphemy!  

But then I thought, “Roger’s dad drives 2 tons of metal-moving power to work.  My dad, is a salesman for Hostess Cakes and drives a step van filled with Ding Dongs and marches in the Apple Festival parade dressed as a 6'3'' Twinkie! Oh,no!"

The image I had of my father was beginning to change.

So … I did the only thing I could. I lied.

“Your dad may drive a wrecker, Roger, but my dad’s so strong, he broke out of jail with his bare hands!” I proclaimed.

“His bare hands?” he asked.

“Yep!  His bare hands!  He bent the bars with his bare hands and broke out of prison. And he beat up some police officers and he’s gonna come over to your house and beat up your dad, too!”

In less than a minute, I had transformed my dad from Twinkie the Kid into Billy the Kid.

Roger ran away crying and that somehow made me happy.

As a child, it seems I had this need for my father to be the greatest man on the planet. I needed him to be good, strong, and invincible.  So much so, that when that notion was challenged, I could not accept it. In a sense, I expected my dad to be ... God.

There’s a verse in the bible:

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

For me, the childish way I needed to give up was thinking my father had to be more than he humanly could be. 

My parents did so many good things that shaped and molded me as I grew up. They loved me and I knew this. But the truth is, along the way, they did some things that were painful, too. They made some mistakes. They messed some things up; just like I sometimes do with my children.

But when I became a man ... I realized my parents are human.

My parents are humans trying to make their way, doing the best they can in a broken and hurting world; humans who are in need of much forgiveness and much Grace.  Just like me.  Just like you. Just like all of us.

The Good News is our ultimately strong, perfect and loving Father in Heaven offers us unlimited Grace, Love, and Forgiveness freely, if we accept it, so that we can offer this to others.  The distant relationship I had with my father changed significantly for the better when I understood this. It took off a lot of unnecessary pressure I was placing him and on myself because the realization of God's Grace is freeing on every relational level.  

Steve Jobs's Last Words

I found this article in The Week Magazine and thought I would share some of it with you:

“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” These were Steve Jobs’s last words before he slipped the bonds of earth on Oct. 5, 2011. We know this because we heard it from his sister, the writer Mona Simpson, who was with him in his final hours and described them in an eloquent eulogy published this week in The New York Times (Best columns: The U.S.). Like the rest of us, Simpson had no idea what Jobs was seeing when he uttered his last words, but she invites us to ponder their meaning in the context of his life. She speaks of her brother’s “capacity for wonderment,” and his last words indeed seem apt and authentic for an enthusiast given to phrases like “insanely great.” It is tantalizing to think that in his final moments of consciousness, Jobs was privy to a wondrous vision of the other side ...  

As I consider how instrumental Steve Job's work was in giving millions access to the Internet (sometimes called the cloud), I wonder if God didn't give Steve a small glimpse of just how significant his work was:

Luke 21:27 - At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.