There Is No Growth Without Failure

(Today's Music: Bounce by Thousand Foot Krutch)

Lesson Four: There Is No Growth Without Failure

And so we graduate from the repeatable phrases that can be yelled in the pre-game huddle to the underlying messages about basketball, about all sports, and about life in general.

Lesson four is one of the basic instructions that lurks behind the cries of "Not Today!" and "It Doesn't Matter!" Not Today sets an attitude of success and a determination not to fail. It Doesn't Matter accepts past failures and dismisses their relevance to the present. But while an attitude that focuses on success and doesn't dwell on failures is important to achieving success, the cold hard truth is this:

No one grows through success.

Success boosts confidence and that's a good thing. Success helps build a positive self-image and creates a bond amongst teammates. Also a good thing. I'm not saying that success is bad. If success was bad, we wouldn't pursue it. Success is an end for which we all strive. But success is an end. Success, by it's very implied nature, means you're done. You finished and you won. There is nothing left to do. There's no more growing to do.

And where self-confidence and positive self-image are great things, they aren't growth. Growth, fortitude, integrity, and character are a sword forged in the searing fire of failure. These are the weapons used to endure future trials.

In the end, feelings of self-worth won't bring about the Kingdom of God. Character will.

Self confidence is, especially in young men, a brittle thing. It can be easily constructed and even more easily destroyed. The point of growth is not to change what you are, but to change who you are.

Success, once achieved, requires no more effort. Failure requires work to overcome.

Failure often requires introspection. Failure means examining the details, identifying things that need to change, then changing them. Of course, when we're talking about our personalities, making changes is no trivial task.

In John 15 Jesus says, "[The Father] cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." We, the Christians of the world, are the branches from the Vine. When we live for Christ, we bear fruit. But we still sin every day. We still covet things and strive for things that have nothing to do with glorifying God. These are branches that God prunes. The method of pruning is often personal failure. Why? Because, like weeds, branches that bear no fruit suck vital nutrients from the branches that do bear fruit. If your mind is focused on wealth or power or sex, then it is distracted from what God wants you to be doing. And so we screw up and the money is gone. We fail and our power disappears. And now, when we've told ourselves It Doesn't Matter and we've pushed our self-pity aside, we can look at the failure and recognize it for what it was - God gift of an opportunity to grow to be more like Him.

So, again, what does this mean for the boys on my team? It means this: Declare that you will not fail today, but don't be afraid of failure. Fear of failure means fear of growth and learning. Failure is a powerful tool that you can use to build a better, more lasting success later. Don't dwell on failure when it occurs by immersing yourself in self-pity, but examine your failure to identify why you failed, then establish a plan to change it.

Boys, you're 14 years old. Right now, everything about you seems to be about growing. So use everything you are right now to strive for success. And when you fail, grow. Become something bigger and better and new. Then do it again.

Finish It

Lesson Three: Finish It

This one isn't so much a yell and respond sort of message. I had intended to hold this one off for a while so that "Not Today" and "It Doesn't Matter" could sink in a little more, but once again circumstances (or, more likely, Providence) have intervened.

We had a game last Thursday. We led the whole game. Never trailed once. But in the 4th Qtr, the other team pulled it together. Oh, and they pressed too. Now, we've practiced press breaking, but the boys started to panic. And with the panic came the mental errors. The other team only led once, but it was for the last 2 seconds of the game. Like so many of my favorite teams (Cubs, Chargers, Notre Dame), we couldn't close the deal.

So, the third lesson is Finish It. Finish It is about perseverance. It's also about sustaining the intensity necessary to win. I want them to learn that a success hasn't been achieved until the job is done.

There's no such thing as success at halftime.

This lesson is also about the inherent uselessness of good intentions. As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." In order to finish it, you must first start it. But even that isn't good enough. Once you've started it, you stop at nothing until you've seen it all the way through.

"Not Today" and "It Doesn't Matter" are about orienting your mind toward success. "Finish It" takes it from your mind and implements it into physical activity that accomplishes a goal. It isn't enough to try. Maybe Yoda summed it best.

"Do or do not. There is no try."

On expansion, this may well be the most difficult of the three lessons to accept in a Christian life. We frequently hide behind the lie that "trying" to be a Christian is good enough.

"I tried to be good, but I just couldn't help myself."
"I tried. I really did. But it was just too much."
"Believe me, I tried to hold the marriage together but it just didn't work."

Lies. All of them. The first one is a common phrase from my 6-year-old. The second is just someone's way of saying that they didn't want it badly enough. The last is an extension of an underlying pride that has forgotten that the entire purpose of our lives is one of servitude and that what we do or don't get out of it is totally irrelevant, popular psychology to the contrary. Just another smattering of excuses for failure for which we don't want to accept personal responsibility.

Christianity is a life-long battle that is renewed every day. There is never a time at which you've "done your part." It's never someone else's turn. No matter your age, you are never entitled to retirement from God's service. Not until you hear it from the Father Himself. When you stand before Him and hear the words we all work for, "Well done good and faithful servant," then and only then are you done.

Ask my parents about this one. My Dad and Mom graduated college together at 66 and 63, respectively. Then started their own business. Now, with my Dad in his later 70's, they aren't killing time in Florida living the good life. They continue to suffer through one harsh South Bend winter after another, teaching the Word to those who want to learn, marching and praying to protect the lives of the innocent, and working to stabilize the lives of two divorced 50-year-old children whose lives have fallen apart. My mom's brother has one home in northwest Indiana and another in Fort Myers, Florida. He has all the money he needs and plays 200+ rounds of golf per year. It isn't fair, but then if you've read enough of this blog you'll know what my views on "fair" are. But Mom and Dad will be ready. Uncle Ed's going to need to explain why he buried his talent instead of doubling it.

So, getting back to the boys and their basketball. Gracious, did I ever wander on this one.

There are lots of ways to apply this one:
When they are tired of running ladders (aka line drills) and start to jog the last few yards instead of sprinting. It's time to give whatever they have left and finish it.
When they miss the layup. It's time to grab that rebound and put it back up. And if they miss, get it again. No stopping until the bucket has been made.
When they miss the jump shot. Follow every shot and get the rebound. Don't stop until they have scored.
When the temptation is to relax, become more aggressive instead. If we have the lead, protect it with the press.
Focus. Use the game clock wisely. Use fouls intelligently. Employ every trick to preserve the lead instead of assuming it will preserve itself.

Finish it. If you haven't succeeded, then you aren't done.

It Doesn't Matter

(Today's Music: My Heartstrings Come Undone by Demon Hunter)

Lesson 2: It Doesn't Matter

Me: "He's bigger than you are!"

Player: "Doesn't matter!"

Me: "Last time you tried that, you screwed up!"

Player: "Doesn't matter!"

Me: "You've been out there all game. You're tired and your mouth is bleeding."

Player: "Doesn't matter!"

Me: "You're slacking! Their team obviously wants it more!"

Players: "No coach. Not today!" (I love it when they figure out my tricks)

So what's this one about? This one is about overcoming adversity. Where "Not Today" is about refusing to fail, "It Doesn't Matter" is about recognizing the inevitability of failure and putting it behind you quickly. It's about not losing confidence in yourself and your teammates when shots aren't falling and the other team is killing you with the press. It's about getting angry instead of getting depressed. Low morale feeds on itself and makes pessimism a reality because that's what they expect to happen.

Thus, you get quitters. Quitters in basketball become quitters everywhere else too.

And so, I take their perceived failures and amplify them. I force them to fail even worse. If they are failing to make the shots, I'll harass them to make them miss even more. If they keep losing the dribble, I'll steal it too. If they fall down, I'll push them down again when they get back up. Again. And again. And they get frustrated. Some start to cry. But those are the ones who will then get mad. Then no matter what I do, they will get back up and get in my face just to defy me.

And then I win.

Because now they know that I can push them down. The other coach can push them down. The other players on their team can push them down. The other team can knock them down and elbow them in the face and punch them in the crotch. But defeat is a decision they, and only they, make. Others can and will knock them down, but only they can keep themselves down. Because the enemy is in their heads, not on the court and not in the classroom and not in the world. Despair is a choice and if they believe that no one can keep them down, then no one can.

Of course, this technique comes with a bunch of caveats. The "push them down" thing is entirely metaphorical. I'd have a mess of lawsuits on my hands if I really went around shoving my players to the floor. And some, many in fact, just don't have the personal courage and character to endure this kind of punishment. The point is to forge them, not to break them. The 13-year-old ego is a fragile, complicated thing. But the leaders, the good ones whose parents and teachers have done their jobs, will grow.

You've never been good in math before. Doesn't matter.
They tell you you're too slow. Doesn't matter.
He said you suck. Doesn't matter.

You got up this morning and lifted your eyes to Heaven and faced the day with the conviction that today you weren't going to let your Savior down. But now you've done it anyway.

You had a chance to defend that younger kid when others were making fun of him and you didn't because you were afraid of what others would think of you. You failed.

You had a chance to turn and walk away when your buddy pulled out Uncle Mike's stock of old Playboys. But you didn't. And you fed your mind with images that turned these women into things instead of people. And now they replay in your mind like a song you can't shake. And you see them over and over. And the guilt wars with desire. And you failed again.

Then your mom came home from work and was clearly anxious. She was frazzled and trying to get dinner ready and still stressing over the things that happened today. And you were so wrapped up in your own self-pity and guilt and anger that you walked away and shut yourself in your room instead of helping her. Now you failed again because you failed earlier.

It doesn't matter. So you failed. Get over it.

Self-pity has no place in this world, or the next. There is no benefit to self-pity. It is evil. It is sin. Always. Every time.

So your failures do not matter. Get on your knees, lift those eyes to Heaven again and tell your Redeemer that you failed and you're sorry. Really sorry. But you know it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter now because you know He has washed it away. Now it doesn't matter to Him either. Because when you've failed in the past, it doesn't matter now. It doesn't matter how badly you've failed because Jesus will never leave you, even if everyone else does.

Because Jesus knew what mattered - and what didn't. Money doesn't matter. Pride doesn't matter. Power doesn't matter. Control doesn't matter. Sex doesn't matter.

Life matters. Salvation matters. Looking to God for the answers matters. The Bible matters.

So why didn't He come down off that cross and smite the Pharisees and fry the unbelievers and put Caiphas up on that cross? Why didn't He save Himself? Because it didn't matter. He loves you. That matters.

Not Today

Lesson 1: Not Today

So how do these lessons work? It goes something like this:

The boys are doing a drill. Maybe it's a shuffle drill or a defensive drill or a rebounding drill, or whatever. As they are doing the drill, I'll come up and yell in their faces.

"You're gonna miss that shot!"

And they yell back.

"Not today!"

See how that works?

"Their forward has scored at least 20 points in the last 3 games!"

"Not today!"

It's about overcoming the odds. It's about determination and refusing to be intimidated. It's about believing in what you can do, not just what you have done. Some of these boys haven't grown much yet. Others are monsters. I only have 9 boys on my team this year. Three are under 5 feet tall. One is 6'5". Remember, these are 7th and 8th graders. 12 to 14 year olds. As they grow, their coordination is, well, questionable at times. So they've become accustomed to being clumsy. They have resigned themselves to a certain percentage of failure.

That attitude has no place on my basketball court. That attitude has no place in this life.

It doesn't matter a whit what they did yesterday. It's irrelevant what they do tomorrow. They have a choice to make right now. A choice about today.

Have they dribbled it off their foot? Oh, yes. But not today.
Have they airballed a shot? Many times. But not today.
Have they been out-rebounded by teams that work harder? Yep. But not today.
Does that other team want it more? Not today.
Does that other team have more heart? Not today.
Are they going to fail? No. Not today.

They have fun with it because they quickly start to understand that it's not always about basketball.

Are they going to be lazy and skip their homework? Not today.
Are they going to feel sorry for themselves because that girl didn't smile back? No, not today.
Are they going to make any of a thousand excuses for failure instead of getting the job done? Not today.

And the end of season lesson?

They failed to prepare for a test, and now they have a perfect opportunity to cheat without anyone else knowing. Will they do it?
The world will challenge them every day to choose it over the Will of God. Are they going to listen to the lies of the world?
Their hormones will tempt them to break faith with Jesus and to use their bodies in a way not meant outside marriage. Will they give in?
Satan is waiting around every corner, within every decision. Every decision of every day is a choice to accept the Will of God or to turn away from God and sin. Each morning, these boys will face the sunrise with the opportunity to be righteous or to sin. Will they defy their Maker? Will they take the easy path and give in to Satan's crooning?

No. No way. Ain't gonna happen. Not today.

Basketball's 5 Lessons for Life

I coach basketball for the 7th and 8th grade boys at my daughter's parochial school.

I make a special point of mentioning "parochial" so that later when I admit I use the word "Jesus" in front of these kids, I won't get some self-absorbed, screwed-up, card-carrying ACLU freak calling local lawyers trying sue me.

Oh. sorry for the redundancy.

To my knowledge there are no ACLU types who aren't self-absorbed screwed-up freaks.

Anyhoo, each week I've been introducing a theme to the boys. A short, easy to remember phrase for the week. Then I yell at them to provoke them to yell the phrase back at me. Since I consider these little lessons to be even more important off the court than on, I figured I'd jot them down here. It would be a hoot if one of them were savvy enough to find this blog.

So, let the 5 basketball lessons for life begin...

Hope: It's not just a means, it's an end.

(Today's Music: Falling Further by Spoken)

So, while I was sitting in another of my company-sponsored voyeur sessions (in Cincinnati this time), I got the news: my job and all the jobs in my current building in northern Indiana are being relocated to New York effective sometime 3rd quarter 2006.

Great. Well, that sure inspired me to work harder, didn't it?

So, while I worked long hours in Cincinnati, I must admit that my motivation was precisely nil and I spent much of the time worrying about how I was going to make it. My wife and I had moved away from Indiana once (before the kids) and it really didn't work out very well. Trying to imagine moving with the kids was almost more than I could comprehend.

Thus, the despair set in. That took a few days.

And then I got to talk to my friend Phil again. He reminded me of something I had noticed before. Not that he said anything, because he didn't have to. It's just the way he and his wife Christy live their lives. They live in hope. See, Phil and Christy have 3 beautiful girls but they have had some real problems having a 4th child. Lots of miscarriages. Lots of dashed hopes as one child after another was lost before they ever got to see him or her. Yet, for a reason I couldn't understand, they kept trying. And trying. And every time they laid their hearts out to the Lord and each time another piece was cut out before being returned to them. How could they be so masochistic about it? How could they keep doing this to themselves?

And then, after they got pregnant yet again (Christy's in her 32nd week or so now and we're all praying like crazy), the Lord opened my eyes to the gift of hope.

Now, let's back up for a sec. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul is expounding on his quite famous lecture on love. This is the passage that gets read at almost every Christian wedding to which I've been. You know the one, "Love is patient, love is kind, etc etc." But at the very end, Paul makes this statement: "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Fair enough. The greatest of these is love. And the whole Bible is one huge, overwhelming message of love. And the Bible is one example after another about people of faith who mirror a God of faith. As Christians, we have no problem grasping that without love we are false and without faith we are lost. We may not successfully live these things every day, but intellectually we "get it."

So why have we ignored hope? What is hope, anyway? Hope is the optimistic longing we have that we will receive something we want. Please note the 2 key words there: optimistic and want. So what happens when we don't get it? We are disappointed. We pray and put our hope in our prayers and then we don't see our prayers answered (which doesn't mean they weren't, of course) and our faith is shaken. But we get over it and the Bible strengthens us to never stop loving and to "keep the faith." So we love some more even though it might hurt and we are faithful even when it seems the world around us is not. But the hope starts to die. We forget that hope must also be strengthened and renewed.

Why?

Because our Christian teachings have drilled it into us that love is an end, not just a means. Loving is good because it is loving, not because loving gets us what we want. Faith is an end, not just a means. Faith is the openness to Christ's saving love and faith is good because it is faith, not because faith gets us what we want. And hope? Err.... And here is the problem. We still see hope strictly as a means, an optimistic means of getting what we want. It rarely, if ever, occurs to us that hope is an end too. There is blessing in hope. Not because hope gets us closer to something else, but because hope is so intertwined with love and faith that the separation is quite impossible. Love without hope is just resignation. Faith without hope is just a lie. Hope has to be there too because hope is the thing that lends the optimism to the equation. Hope means that we trust that God knows what he is doing.

So, here I am now facing unemployment. But I'm fairly young and I have some decent skills and my family is strong. So I throw the updated resume out onto monster.com and dice.com because I have an optimistic desire that the Lord will find me something else that will bless me even more than I'm blessed now. So what happens when this job disappears, the severance is gone, and the savings are depleted? I don't know. But hopefully I'll remember that even though my hopes weren't actualized that I was blessed anyway because I had hope.

Just like Phil and Christy. And their hope is named Anna.

The FLWM's Hidden Eyes

(Today's Music: Caroline by Seventh Day Slumber)

I'm sitting here in Chicago at a user study for one of our products. The setup in so conspiratorial that I feel like I'm in some prime time cop show. I'm sitting in a darkened room behind a two-way mirror watching people respond to questions. I can see them. I can hear them. They don't know I'm here. I can sit less than 5 feet from them and look deeply into their eyes and they don't know. They can't see me or feel me.

The repressed pervert in me thrives on this sanctioned voyeurism. This is better than a movie. This is better than spying on my sister's friends through the hole I drilled in her closet wall. I find it exhilarating and very naughty all at the same time.

But it's what I'm supposed to be doing!

My conscience tells me that this can't be right. This can't be moral. I must be offending God somehow. And maybe I am. Not because what I'm doing is morally wrong but because I'm getting such a sexual thrill out of the whole thing. How do I stop feeling like this except to leave? But I'm taking notes on the answers and am expected to use that information to make the product better.

Thank you Lord for not making me work in marketing where I would have to face this conflict 6-10 times per year! For now, I'll look at my legal pad while I write and I'll focus on the engineering issues and I'll try to not look at the people so much.

"Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil..."

Putting the "Rat" Back in "Pack Rat"

(Today's Music: Fall In Line by Seven Places)

Scattered throughout the house - in closets, in the attic, littering the garage floor and usurping vehicle storage - are "reminders" of our children when they were younger. Of course, the kids are only 6 and 3 now, so the collection has only begun, I'm sure. We have bibs, but they're "special" bibs. We have "special" jeans and oodles of "special" frilly dresses. For the love of Pete, we even have "special" onesies with poop stains! The ultimate, of course, is the christening gown - in a frame on the wall. I don't even want to think about what that has been through.

*shudder*

These are precious, priceless, irreplaceable items, or so my wife tells me. My wife tells me that these things are dear to her heart and make her happy. Then, when they have been buried amongst the other "treasures" for a few months and my wife discovers them again, she cries. They aren't tears of joy. They are tears of sadness and regret that the kids have grown past these things.

Hmmm...so let me get this straight...

These items that occasionally phoenix themselves into view every so often that have no practical value that will never be used again that make you sob in depressed anxiety are precious and irreplaceable and make you happy???

Huh.

So I just have one question. Why do I get nothing but scorn when I insist that the holes in this pair of underwear are meaningful? Why do I get flinty looks when I insist that those sneakers are fine and have plenty of life even though the soles flap on the bottom and are only attached for about an inch at the heel?

OK, that was two questions.

But why is it sweet and wonderful for you to keep old nasty clothes and insensitive and disgusting when I do it? Why am I the pack rat while you get to be the pack angel?

"You wouldn't understand. Now throw those disgusting things away or I will when I do laundry."



*sigh*

Yes dear.

Redeeming the Declaration of Independence

(Todays' Music: Falling by Radial Angel)

So I went and did it, didn't I? I poo-pooed all over the (unfortunately) most sacred text in the United States, the Declaration of Independence. I spat on the flag. I flipped the bird to all those soldiers and public servants for the last 240 years who have fought and died to give me the freedom I use to belittle them.

*sigh* It looks that way, doesn't it?

But let's move to Part 2 of the point. K?

I talked over what I posted yesterday with my brilliant wife last night. And she challenged me to come up with a better way to set up a country. She reminded me of what the founding fathers were trying to do and the message they were sending to those bloody Brits when they wrote the Declaration. And when we got done talking, I came to understand how it works. It started to dawn on me how this country has become such a great place to live.

It wasn't about them.

Who "them"? The founding fathers "them". It was about Josiah Smith the tobacco farmer. It was about Miles Jones the cobbler. Later it was about Paddy O'Reilly the plantation worker. And about Stan Klosky the meat-packing worker. Made up names, of course, but you get the point. The "rights" identified by the Declaration of Independence are guides to the rights of others.

The Declaration of Independence breaks down when Bob Johnson holds them up and says, "These are my rights!" Those rights (gifts), like our lives of faith in the Father through Christ Jesus, aren't about us as individuals. To point to them and say "My rights!" is to abuse them. They are examples of the way Jesus treated others. And so, they are examples of how each of us should think about everybody except ourselves. Let me expand.

Life. The greatest gift given to us by the Lord. Certainly Jesus was all about life. The beauty of the lives of our children. Eternal life in heaven. Jesus even identified Himself as the Life. But when it was all on the line, it wasn't about His life. It was about ours. He could have saved His life and been no less the Messiah for it, except His Father asked for more. Jesus treated us all as if we had the right to live, as long as we were willing to recognize our place and our service to the Father.

Liberty. Jesus sure seemed like a free spirit, didn't he? All of my images of Jesus were of a man who wouldn't have been particularly out of place at Woodstock. But the irony of it all is that His freedom, His liberty came because of a slavery so profound that we can't even comprehend it. He was a complete willing slave to the Will of the Father. And in doing so, he used his freedom to guarantee the freedom from sin we all now have. Nothing binds us, tortures us, and controls us like sin. But in slavery to Christ, we have freedom. Now use that to free others. It's not about my freedom. God wants my life to be about your freedom, because I love Him and I love you. That's what the founding fathers did. They made personal sacrifices, their lives when necessary, to free those around them that they loved. That's what all of those proud, heroic soldiers and public servants have done for the last 240 years - sacrificed for the freedom of others. And that's what it's really about. That's why freedom isn't free. That is the story of the United States. That is Christ.

Pursuit of Happiness? Hmmm...I may have to mess with this one a little. The greatest lie I have ever heard told amongst Christians is this: God's greatest desire is for you to be happy.

Nope.

God's greatest desire is for you to be holy. Does God, then, rejoice in your suffering? No, but you should. In order for you to bear fruit, you need to be weeded and pruned on occasion. In order for you to become like Jesus, for you to become like the Father, you need to grow. And in case you never noticed, you never grow with happiness. You never gain with pleasure. Growth comes only through struggle. Maturation requires pain. And satisfaction comes only with the risk of devastation.

Ask any parent.

If you are aligned with God and His Will, then His Will becomes your will. Then, in holiness, you will find the only true happiness instead of this perfumed fecal matter the world sells you as happiness. So, I suppose working toward others' pursuit of happiness (and your own) is valid, as long as it's true happiness.

"This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you."
There it is. This is how Jesus has loved us. By working toward our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of eternal happiness - all at the cost of His own. So this is how we live now, by working toward these goals for others, at the cost of our own. This is Christian America. This is the real United States.

Fair. Deserve. Rights.

(Today's Music: Cornerstone by Day of Fire)

I subscribe to a number of Internet user forums as a way to connect to other people and to feed my continuing Internet addiction. I get a lot of growling from people about my sig. I don't mind because it's a challenging statement. It goes something like this:

There is no "fair". There is no "deserves". There are no "rights". There is choice and there is Grace. Everything else is just an excuse to live a life of sin.

Cynical? Maybe, but I don't think so. We spend so much time coming up with reasons why it's not our fault. We depend on someone else to establish excuses for our inability to abide by the most important rule: to love the Lord God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength.

Are there absolutes? Yes. Dare I say, "Hell, yes." Hell is one of them. God is another. Orange is a third. Justice is not - at least not earthly justice. Therefore, there is no "fair" because fair implies an objective justice, which only exists with the Father. "It's not fair" is a subjective statement which really means "It doesn't comply with my personal views that are heavily tainted by self-interest."

"Deserves" is no better. I go back to my favorite movie line ever. Clint Eastwood, at the end of Unforgiven, sums it up beautifully as the Gene Hackman character lays dying on the dirty saloon floor - "Deserves got nothin to do with it." Do you know what we deserve? Death. Hell. Eternal torment. That's it. Nothing else. We don't deserve forgiveness. It amazes me how Christians have taken all these years of Biblical teaching and have turned it in their minds into "I deserve God's forgiveness." Because God's forgiveness is freely given if we are willing to confess and repent, we believe that it's our due. So we sin with the expectation of forgiveness when it's over.

Newsflash - you aren't forgiven.

When you sin with the plan to ask forgiveness for it later, then do so without conviction you have accomplished nothing except to further delude yourself that God is subject your overinflated ego. You are not forgiven unless you are really sorry. Chew on that for a minute because it's just become words. If you are not really truly ashamed and deeply regretful that you just flipped that crazy driver off, you are not forgiven. Christianity is not that easy. The message is simple enough: Be like Jesus. The execution is much more complicated. Every time you aren't like Jesus, you sin. For every sin you deserve to die. Without repentance (we won't go down the confession to another person road today), every sin still merits death. I'll leave the "deserves" topic with that for now.

And finally to our last and favorite crutch - "rights". Bad news, people. The Declaration of Independence does not hold equal weight with the Bible. I'll bet that really makes you mad. Too bad. The Heavenly Father did not write the U.S. D.O.I. It is not divinely inspired Scripture.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Horse-hockey.

I'll give you the first part. All people are created equal in the eyes of God.

The rest is a lie. These are not rights. These are gifts. They are gifts given to us by God that are given entirely out of His love and mercy. We do not deserve any of these things. We deserve death. Okay, I'll waffle a little on the Life thing. I still stand by it being a gift, not a right, but I believe that Life is the most precious of gifts and that life given by God is not the province of men to take away. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness? No way. These are the words on paper that we cling to when we want to love ourselves instead of God. Liberty is about us. Pursuit of happiness is about us. When we cling to the things about us, we are not loving God with our whole hearts, minds, souls, and strength. We are loving Him after we've taken care of ourselves. It's a lie. It's a lie that has been falsely allowed to become Gospel because we want it to be true. Truth, however, is another of those absolutes that has nothing to do with what we want.

Like orange. Wondered when I would explain that, didn't you? It doesn't matter who you are, what you think, or even if you're color blind. Red and yellow still make orange. A demonstration in front of the White House won't change that. Lobbying and filing a case in front of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (which will challenge anything) won't change that. Having a "right" to believe that red and yellow make green won't change that. You can wallow and splash in your rights all you want, but you ... will ... be ... wrong. We don't challenge orange (well, DesCartes might, but he was wrong about a lot of other things too) because we accept it. Yet we challenge other things that God has told us are true:
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."
"Thou shalt not kill."
"This is my commandment: Love one another as I have loved you."
"Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church."

These are as fundamental and unassailable as "Red and yellow make orange" but we don't like it, so we rationalize it away as restricting our "rights".

Enough for today. I'm sure you're as tired of reading this as I am of writing it.

Distractions

What is this sickness of the Internet that draws us in like moths to light? I actually had to resist posting another entry in this stupid blog yesterday because I wasn't willing to admit that I'm that addicted to the Internet. Yet here I am blogging on a Saturday while my wife and kids play together.

Somewhere inside is a deep, clawing need to be distracted. No matter what I'm doing, I feel the need to be distracted. I think it's another of those signs that it's time for me to get on my knees and pray. God in my life is a powerful focus mechanism. Plenty of prayer, Scripture study, and the constant mental conversations with God that mark the pious, holy people all bring a sense of purpose, direction, and especially focus. So, when I spend all day at work looking for ways to be distracted from my work or when I spend a day at home doing something meaningless then it's a sure sign that I have drifted. Again.

Don't see it? Look around.

The world around you is obsessed with distraction. The Korean youth has turned it into a lifelong passion with online gaming houses and murders for virtual weapons. We men latch onto the internet porn as a way to distract ourselves from our marriages and our families. Wives are work. Internet porn is a distraction that provides instant gratification. Our wives, meanwhile, latch onto more "acceptable" things - romance novels, keeping the children mindlessly busy by enrolling them in a thousand activities a month. The women run themselves into the ground with a million niggling details while the men hide in the office with their virtual smut and punch the clown.

What are you doing here?

Get on your knees and get your life back.

What the hairy heck am I doing here?

(Intrigued? Email me: tromos@mail.com)

I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm supposed to be working. It's a downright miracle that I'm able to get to this site at all through my corporate firewall.

It's all Google's fault. I was trying to look up information on a Christian rock group from Indiana called Grace On Demand and ended up looking at the blog of some user here named XOC. I got sucked into reading through his blog and found myself having way too much in common with this guy (age and world perspective, if nothing else). He claims to be part of the "last true minority: God-Fearing, Gun-Owning, White, American Males" I got a chuckle out of that. Granted I don't own a gun, but only because my wife won't let me. Not that I would shoot anyone with it. To me a fundamental truth of Christianity is respect for life. All life. Born and unborn. Innocent and guilty.

But I'm not here to launch into a monologue on abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment ... today. Maybe some other time.

So here's my life in a nutshell:
- It's all about Him.
- It's not about me.
- Christian rock has come a long way in the last 15 years and I regularly indulge myself in Christ-focused music that doesn't lull me to sleep or make me gag: Skillet, Kutless, 12 Stones, Day of Fire, Relient K, Seventh Day Slumber, Falling Up, Seven Places, Radial Angel, Subseven, Dakona, Spoken, Disciple, and many others. Now why won't any of these bands come to north-central Indiana??!?!
- Thank God for RadioU.com and cmradio.net.
- Fatherhood is the toughest thing I've ever done. It continues to challenge me every day. God didn't make me an instinctively great father, but He expects me to do it anyway.
- Is anyone still using Apple computers? Why?
- Linux and the open source community are worthwhile ventures and worthy of pursuit - in academia. Like it or not, the real world uses Microsoft so step off that self-righteous open-source-will-save-the-world platform before an airplane takes your head off.
- Geeks rule. But if you have reprogrammed your handheld and your cell phone to run the latest distro of gentoo or you think it's only a matter of time before Opera topples Internet Explorer, then you need to find some real skin-and-bones friends and get a life.
- Star Trek is better than Star Wars.
- Car manufacturers need to stop building the dashboards so far toward the driver. Of the 2005 model cars, trucks, and SUVs made by all of the major auto manufacturers, I fit in less than a dozen models.
- People shorter than 5'10" have no right to sit in the Emergency Exit row of an aircraft - especially if the flight includes someone over 6'4" who is crammed in a regular seat. I already stated I'd never shoot anyone, but these people sure tempt me.
- The Wheel of Time PC game is the greatest FPS ever. Too bad Infogrames screwed the developers and Atari continues to screw the user community.

Wow. I think I've used up all of my blog topics for the next month. How stupid was that?