I've Moved my Blog

HERE

(http://wordslinesthoughts.wordpress.com/)

3 Things I'm looking forward to

1. Church - I'm excited to get into the rhythm of worshiping with friends and being challenged by the body of Christ at Vestavia.

2. Challenge - I don't miss the homework one bit, but I miss wrestling with ideas and being forced to think through Biblical, theological, and spiritual things with my good friends at seminary.

3. Community - it's best when you're learning and living with people who love you and push you, and i'm excited to enter back into my birmingham community.

thoughts on "living a better story" PART 2

Of course the best thing about the desire to want to live a better story is that it reveals a deep hunger in our lives for making an impact, for joining a cause bigger than ourselves. It can be just the right message for someone who’s listless and wandering through life without any kind of anchor. It can also be a good wake-up call when you’ve sort of dozed off at the wheel and gotten too complacent and comfortable with life.

So for all those reasons I think the “living a better story” philosophy has some great things going for it. But I think in the end it’s really just a distraction from a deeper commitment, a commitment that is harder and less glamorous than we might like. One of the great attractions of “living a better story” is that it makes you think of all those stories you love the most. Whether they are tales of adventure, love, war, or whatever, you immediately identify with your favorite characters and think about how awesome it would be to start living a little bit more like them.

But the problem is that most stories highlight the 10% of life and completely gloss over the 90%. The most dramatic scenes are often what we remember the most, but we forget that the decisions made in the most dramatic scenes are cultivated over years and years of making everyday decisions.

N.T. Wright recently penned a book entilted After You Believe which deals with the exact thing I’m referencing. He argues that character isn’t something you make a decision about one day and then immediately become a person of good character. He reminds us that character is forged over time, through days, months, and years of making small, seemingly insignificant decisions.

I’m realizing that when I pay too much attention to the big moments in life (the “most dramatic” ones) I miss so many little things. The decisions I make every day are often so much more significant than how I make them out to be. How I treat people, how I attend to the responsibilities that God has given to me, how I speak and use my time all make up the 90% of life that isn’t so glamorous. I don’t know about you, but most of my days aren’t filled with uber-dramatic moments where I’m deciding on some heroic course of action. But then again maybe they are, but maybe they are hidden in the guise of the plain and simple and everyday.

It’s not that I’m against living a better story. It’s just that I think it’s too weak a philosophy to build your life upon. In the end, as a follower of Christ I am to make him my foundation. My life already has significance and meaning. I don’t have to go around searching for it. Jesus Christ, the Word, the Creator, lives and dwells inside me and has redeemed me from myself (read: sin). He is renewing me everyday, transforming me from the inside out. Even when I can’t see or feel him at work.

And that is where it is sometimes hardest to have faith. That is where my faith has to be placed in Jesus Christ, not myself. So I guess what I’ve been trying to say is that living a better story isn’t a bad thing, it’s just an incomplete thing if it’s not anchored in Jesus Christ.

New Andrew Peterson music

thoughts on "living a better story" PART 1

Life seems such an adventure when you're traveling about. You feel excited about exploring new places, seeing new things, and even the little moments have a tinge more mystery to them than usual. It's pretty much the way I felt for an entire semester back a few years ago when I studied in London. Around every bend seemed to be something fun and new to do, and that season of life was filled with exploration. The hard part, though, is finding the adventure when you're not traveling about. Which is exactly where I am.

Summer is always the time when everyone is moving around. Vacations, mission trips, weekend trips, moving to a new city. Summer seems to be a great time to do all those things. And usually I'm right there with all the other travelers. But not so this year.

I don't think I would have appreciated Wendell Berry's writing while I spent my semester in London. His is a writing style that embraces a two-feet on the ground kind of approach to life, that rooted "I am here", "I know every inch of this property" philosophy of life that seems kind of old-fashioned. Until you are in the thick of it yourself.

There are times for moving, times for exploring, and times for growing in the shoes you are already in. Ecclesiastes says there's a time for everything, and maybe this is what it's hinting at. It's much easier to look back fondly at the adventurous times in life and gloss over the more ordinary bits. I can spend hours remembering London but I have a hard time doing the same with other parts.

I've noticed a trend in people my age, and maybe I guess just "my generation" in general. A trend of wanting to "live a better story". I don't know where it started, and I'm pretty sure it's not just something that's sprung up in the last few years or so. But it's been gaining a head of steam, and it's cropping up in books and blogs and all sorts of other media. I've sort of latched on to it myself because I really like a lot of things about it. But I've become equally wary of it as well over the course of the summer.

If all I do is think about how to live a better story and then go and pat myself on the back when I go and do adventurous or bold things, I don't think I'm doing anything other than seeking to fill an empty void. A carpenter doesn't spend all his time transfixed by the beauty of his hammer, unable to work, and then when he actually does use the hammer, stop and marvel at its power. No, he rather gets on with it. He makes things.

Maybe this whole thing about wanting to live a better story is really just a lack of faith that God can work in the mundane and ordinary parts of life. I certainly do want my life to count for something greater than what I can do on my own, and I want people to see Christ in my actions. But sometimes it's not about helping another person. Sometimes it's about confronting the great fear and doubt and uncertainty raging inside my own heart, the fear that maybe God isn't actually working in my life. Sometimes it's about slowing down enough to be in communion with him, to be still with him. To find him in the everyday, the ordinary, the plain.

Halfway to Christmas

August is almost here. And august, at least for students and teachers, is a transition month. I've gotten used to the day to day routines of summer life, but those are about to go away. I don't really know what to expect with this new school year. I'm nervous and excited all at the same time, which isn't really any different than how things were last year.

This time around, some of my dearest and closest friends won't be around for the day to day and week to week. We're all setting out in different directions (well, at least they are) and it seems adventurous and exciting to see them go and follow where they've been led. Every now and then a good shake-up is what you need in life, and even though I'm a mixture of sad and hopeful about this next year, I'm comforted when I look back and remember what God has done in the past when I've felt similar apprehension about the future.

Things won't be the same, but they don't need to be. I try to remind myself of Moses and Abraham and Joshua, how they all must have felt as they set off in new directions. In a way, you've got to be kind of crazy to really follow where God leads.

Lifelong friends are a precious gift from God. They are the people who you can come in and out of life with, not see for long periods of time, and still find warmth and connection. People are the best gift God gives to us outside of our relationship with him, and I feel so blessed to have people in my life who I can share life with, listen to, and share struggles.

To my friends who have moved and are moving (the farmers, James, Paul and Andrew) I want you to know how much I love y'all. You have blessed me beyond measure, and it's been an honor to be your friend.

I look forward to the new roads ahead, and to following where the Lord leads.

Walking, not running

I was out running the other night, making my way through a dark trail because in Texas you have to wait until the sun is long gone before it's remotely possible to enjoy outdoor activities not including water. Things were going along smoothly until about 10 minutes into the run. That's when I started to realize that I should have waited an extra 30 or so minutes because dinner wasn't done digesting. What I thought would be a good long run turned into a walk instead.

But it was awesome. It was great to be forced to slow down, to actually hear the crickets chirping and the water moving in the creek by my side, to hear the big swoosh of tree limbs as they swayed with the force of wind. I had wanted to run, but it turns out I needed to have that walk, instead. I sort of laughed because this happens to me a lot. I want one thing, but it turns out it's not really what I need. A great reminder to me that being in control isn't always the best thing.

just take a few minutes and appreciate some good music

Rediscovery

It's beautiful when you can come back to a place you've been before and find something new. As you realize new dimensions to a familiar thing, that familiar thing becomes something more dear to your heart. It's why friendships and relationships get better with time. It's why the best music gets better the more you listen to it. It's why you keep coming back to something long after the initial thrill of excitement has worn off.

And it's something that I am discovering in my walk with God, too. I read a few chapters from Hebrews last night, and the Word spoke to me anew, even though I've read it before. I guess I am learning to be thankful that walking with God isn't a transactional thing, where I learn a set of precepts once and then go on about my life. I'm more like a small pile of embers that continually needs to be fanned into flame by the Spirit.

And as I continue to apply myself to reading the Word and doing what it says I am involving myself in the process of rediscovery. I make too many mistakes and fall too often for my walk with God to be defined in terms of progress of some sort. I am infinitely glad this day that the progress that our world defines itself by and prides itself in is not the benchmark of faith.

I have a hard time being content

"But wherever it is recognized that the power of death has been broken, wherever the world of death is illumined by the miracle of the resurrection and of the new life, there no eternities are demanded of life but one takes of life what it offers, not all or nothing but good and evil, the important and the unimportant, joy and sorrow; one neither clings convulsively to life nor casts it frivolously away. One is content with the allotted span and one does not invest earthly things with the title of eternity; one allows to death the limited rights which it still posses. It is from beyond death that one expects the coming of the new man and of the new world, from the power by which death has been vanquished."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Ethics

I read this and stopped and thought about it for a moment, because I have a tendency to think of the boring or dull moments in my life as things to be avoided. I want it all to be exciting, "meaningful", when in reality it is all meaningful already. To find God in the everyday is sometimes the hardest thing to do when I'm blinded by my own expectations.

What was it like, for you?

So it's Saturday morning. I'm finishing up my little pot of coffee I made earlier, enjoying the quietness of the morning. Summer has flown by, don't you think? I realized just the other day that summer is already half way over, and the way that realization dawned upon me it was as if I had been spinning my wheels inside a windowless room, unaware of time.

The pace of life during school this past semester was always hard to describe. It would be slow and steady some weeks, while others were just horrendously jam-packed. One week I'd be able to enjoy and think about the stuff I was assigned to read and write about, while the next I was trying my hardest to cram it all in and crank a decent paper out. This summer though, has been different. Very steady pace, with limited variation. And you know what? I'm finding that I like both.

But one of the constants among the two different paces of life has been weekend retreat. A few years ago I went on a spiritual formation retreat where the speaker talked about Sabbath and how we as busy college kids could learn a lot from the habits of ancient Christians who practiced rest, solitude, and reflection. At the time it was a revolutionary concept to me. It sort of took me by storm. At first I had to be really make an effort to make time during the weekend for sabbath rest. Then, slowly, it sort of sunk into me and became something I looked forward to, anticipating throughout the week.

Everybody has a different idea of what Sabbath is, and I think that's one of the great things about it. Some people really get into the solitude thing, while others just enjoy feeling free from work. I've found that I just really like the openness of the time. What I mean is that I like having (even if it's brief) unscheduled time, time where I can sit and hang out with friends if that's what's going on, or time to read a good book, or any number of things that brings rest and relaxation.

If i don't watch it, it becomes difficult for me to unplug. I know most people have an easy time just hanging out and doing fun stuff, but for some reason I find it sort of difficult after a heavy week in the books to disengage. That's where the unscheduled time comes in. I found that most of the time I needed a bit of time to fully unwind, and that's where the old habit of sabbath came back to help me.

I was thinking about all this as I was sitting down with my coffee this morning. The quiet all around me, unscheduled time before me. It's good to work hard, to be stretched, to do something hard. Because that's when the rest really becomes valuable. It's when you're able to appreciate the people and blessings in your life that they start to mean more, and sometimes it takes a little unscheduled time in order to count those blessings.

all kinds of debt

I recently had lunch with a good friend of mine who is a successful banker. He has an MBA and is working towards a doctorate, and I was enjoying soaking up his knowledge and wisdom about all things economics. In just a few short minutes I realized how much I do not know about all that kind of stuff, and how much I base my decisions about both personal and governmental finance on large generalizations I've made through the years. Needless to say it's great to have friends who are gifted and knowledgeable about things that I am not.

One thing he recommended me to do was to start reading some business magazines. He said the Economist was usually pretty trustworthy and went in depth in its articles. I decided to pick up a copy, and I've spent some time this week reading through its sections. Just last night I finished their special section on debt. Each week they tackle a specific issue or country with about 20 pages of analysis, and while it's a bit overwhelming at first, the writing style was easy to read and i found that i was beginning to understand how debt works and how it has affected our world so much in the past few years.

But I'm not interested in just the pure economics of debt. I'm interested in what it has done to us as people, as individuals within a system, living and breathing and making real-time decisions. As I was reading the article, it became clear to me that the culture of debt that we live in has seeped through to every part of our lives, and affects us in more ways than we even realize.

One of the reasons we have piled up such an enormous public and private debt as a country is because of our "buy now, find the money later" attitude. Since there are so many ways to finance something, buying a product doesn't seem like a monumental decision in the moment. We learn to buy from impulse, and the whole business world has learned to cater to this impulse nature by focusing on design and aesthetics in a product, figuring out how to make us become emotionally attached to the products they are selling. As a result, many of our purchasing decisions are made on the surface, on the fly, if you will.

Because I believe that habits in one part of life affect every part of life, I think that the "impulse buy attitude" we've cultivated in our society permeates all parts of our lives. It's clearly a part of social networking, where we learn to connect on multiple fronts with tons of people, but few of the interactions achieve a level of meaning that a personal interaction achieves. It's a part of our educational system, where learning how to skip and flit through large tomes of data by boiling them down to the "essential points" has adversely caused us to misrepresent and mischaracterize entire movements of thoughts. Our society values nimble thought, and we've learned how to achieve it.

You may not see the connection as intertwined as I see it, but I think our shopping (read: consumeristic) habits have bled into our entire lives and led us down pathways with consequences we haven't quite fully realized. We are people, in many ways, dealing with all kinds of debt. Learning how to save and be smart with resources is the same remedy that would help us with many of our other social problems as well. Learning how to value and invest in people, diving deeply into subjects of interest and becoming good at them. Overcoming these kinds of impulse habits doesn't happen overnight, and doesn't require us to chuck the baby out with the bathwater. Impulse is a positive part of our human nature, as is our ability to critically think and evaluate. But we need to learn how to effectively achieve a balance between the two.

Essentially an Ethical Problem

I've been trying to figure out what exactly is going on with the gulf oil spill, and I'm running into the same problems you are probably running into as well. There seems to be confusion everywhere: from both BP and the government. We're seeing the classic battle of government vs. business being played out, and I'm already tired of the partisan answers that have been flashed by both sides. Political opportunism reeks as I hear politicians use this disaster to further their own ends instead of trying to come up with a way to help the people most affected.

Some people think the disaster proves we need more government oversight of industry. Some claim that this is the turning point for the environmental movement, a salient visual reminder of the consequences of industrialism. Others blame the government for the confusing response. There's plenty of blame to go around, sure, but is now the time to be trumpeting the blame so loudly when real peoples lives are, to put it mildly, in upheaval?

I think the oil spill further reveals the ethical problem facing America and it's leaders. From a macro to a micro level, ethics is eschewed as a tangential issue of little relevance to a society which has more to worry about than what is right and wrong. After all we're on the cusp of technological breakthroughs and business innovation. Who has time to stop and wonder if what we so blatantly term "progress" is actually the right kind of progress?

We don't need, as some would assert, to harken back to our "Christian roots" at the founding of our country. The fact is, there was very little that was Christian about our founding, unless you equate Christianity with a kind of therapeutic moral deism. Rather, we need individuals inside the Church to take civic responsibility seriously. We don't need to "take back the government", we just need people who will actually listen, discuss, and be willing to come up with smart solutions to tough problems.

The gulf oil spill is a complicated mess, too complicated to neatly place blame on one side or the other. It shows, however, that we as a society have more to do in terms of catching up morally and ethically to the vast complexity of technology that we let rule our lives.

Technology vs. Creation = Creation Wins

I crave beauty. As I spend more time with technology, gadgets, and web development strategies, I am constantly aware of a nagging urge to be in the presence of beauty. The natural world is alive in a way that exudes beauty and energy. Technology only approximates beauty. It attempts to mimic what we find everywhere in nature.

I've been researching design over the past few weeks, looking at it mathematically, conceptually, visually, and ideologically, asking the question: “what makes something beautiful?” One thing has become clear throughout my research: God is the ultimate designer, and anything we humans design is nothing if not a distant approximation of what he has already done. Technology is driven by functionality on one side, but equally as important it is driven by design. If something doesn't both feel right and work right, it's hard for that piece of technology to gain widespread use. From cars to cell phones, design and functionality are the two key principles driving technology.

But the more time you spend with technology, the more lackluster it becomes in comparison with the grandeur of God's created world. There are constant annoyances, bugs, caveats, and problems with every single piece of created technology. Show me, though, one design or functionality flaw in an oak tree. What about a duck? Each thing that God created was and is perfectly designed for the role for which it was created.

I see so much arrogance and greed in the world of technology. I start to adapt these habits myself when I'm blindly following where they lead. There is a constant urge under the surface to have something more, something better, and to have it exclusively. It's why people wait in line for a product, why people devote their entire lives to blogging about a particular device and/or company. Of course technology is not all bad, and I would hate for that to be the point taken from this little rant. However, I've noticed firsthand how difficult it is to turn off the roaring engine that is the desire to possess something new. It is perhaps one of the most silent, yet dangerous dispositions to let creep in to your life. It is the exact opposite of contentment, and the Bible is clear throughout that a constant desire for material possessions (mammon) is sinful and idolatrous.

And that is where beauty comes in. All around us is a world created by God that we all too often fail to recognize. Technology drives us inward, but creation points to the Creator. With such created beauty everywhere around us, it should sadden us all the more when horrific man-made disasters like the gulf oil spill occur. We would all go up in arms if someone were to throw a can of oil on a da Vinci, Monet, or Rembrandt painting, yet I am surprised and confused by the response, or lack thereof, of many professing Christians to the oil spill. Where is our sense of creation care? We are highly protective of our “own” possessions, but when it comes to the world that has been given as a gift for us to live in, we balk at our responsibility.

I appreciate technology, and I get excited to think about the possibilities and new horizons that it opens up. But I am equally aware of the frightful limitations and negative consequences that it brings our way as well. More on this later.

What Lies Beneath

A few days ago news came out that nearly $1 trillion worth of untapped mineral resources lies beneath the surface of Afghanistan. The New York Times article gives more detailed facts, but I want to focus on the implications behind this discovery. I happened to first hear the story while driving back from spending the day with Andrew Crosson at Schlitterbahn water park in south Texas. We were listening to NPR at the beginning of the long drive back, and they had a 5 or 6 minute spot about this particular story.

Honestly, the first thing I thought about when I heard this news was not how great it would be for Afghanistan, but how much more oppression, greed, and manipulation would follow. While having that much untapped potential under the surface seems like an incredible blessing, I can’t help but think about the multinationals that are licking their chops, ready to pounce on this already impoverished nation in order to simply gain a larger profit.

This seems like the story of DR Congo and Nigeria all over again. Relatively poor, unstable countries that were found to have huge natural resources which huge multinationals soon began to extract, only to lead to terrible exploitation and poverty for the vast majority of citizens. Hopefully Afghanistan won’t go the same way, but it has the conditions needed for this same tragedy to take place.

For one, it is a nation that in the middle of a war. Politically, its stability teeters on the edge of survivability at the best of times. In the worst, it’s been labelled as one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Then consider its economy. Because of the war, long-term planning that we take for granted in the relatively stable and secure West is not an option for people that are just trying to make it through the winter. As a result, cash crops are by far the easiest and most profitable business for most citizens, and the most lucrative cash crops are the ones that become illegal drugs.

The government is not quite stable, while the economy still searches for profitability in something other than illicit drugs. One would hope that the news of all this new wealth under Afghanistan would lead to a more stable, peaceful, and prosperous future for these people. They have endured a tremendous amount of both internal and external strife in the last few decades, and they certainly deserve a brighter future.

Let’s hope the story of DR Congo and Nigeria (along with numerous others) doesn’t repeat itself in Afghanistan and that, indeed, this is news to celebrate for a people who surely deserve some good news.

Think of it as a Gift

I'm slowly reading my way through Karl Barth's Dogmatics in Outline. I was caught by an idea that corresponded to what I was reading in Scripture, and it helped shine a light of gratitude into my heart, so I wanted to share it.

In one of the first few chapters, Barth talks about proving the existence of God. He thinks these proofs we've constructed about the existence of God don't really do anything but prove our short-sightedness. He thinks the other way around. To him, the idea of God is more concrete than the idea of himself. The experience of life can seem like a dream; how do you know it's real? Basically, he is working from the framework that God is the solid rock of understanding and that we are like shifting sand.

It's a highly philosophical point, and one that I don't quite know that I fully understand, but the Spirit brought an "aha!" moment to me as I was reading this section of Scripture in 1 Corinthians 2:

For the Spirit searches everything, even p the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts q except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now r we have received not s the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.13 And we impart this t in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit,u interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual

The realization dawned on me: knowing God is a gift! To interact with, to think about, to have a relationship with God is quite an astonishing thing when you stop to think about it. It is a precious gift to know him. It's undeserved grace. Knowing God. It helps to think of it as a gift. This isn't a relationship I control or manage. It's interactivity, it's submission and obedience, and it's joy.

I'm not sure that's what Karl Barth intended when he wrote that section of his book, but the beautiful thing about communicating the things of God is that the Spirit works to bring understanding in mysterious ways.

3 things

1) 3 songs i'm loving right now

Susan Enan Bring on the Wonder

The Boxer Rebellion These Walls are Thin

The Radio Dept. Heaven's on Fire

2) 3 books I'm loving right now

Philip Yancey & Paul Brand Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Khaled Hosseini (sp?) A Thousand Splendid Suns

C.S. Lewis The Grand Miracle (a collection of selected essays)

3) 3 observations from happenings this week

The Armando Gallaraga almost-perfect game fiasco seemed to get everyone riled up except Armando Gallaraga. Do we place too much emphasis on sport in America when an umpire is getting death threats because he missed a call?

The Oil Spill disaster continues. BP has not responded appropriately, and most Americans don't seem to care that this might be the biggest national environmental disaster in our history. Should this teach us a few things about how we live in God's created world?

Sprint showed off its newest 4g phone this week, the HTC Evo. Added to Verizon's HTC Incredible and the new iPhone due out in a month, phones are getting more powerful and will vie for more of our attention. But as much as I love technology, I'd rather have a nice, long, personal, face-to-face conversation with a good friend any day.

some thoughts on translations

Good morning! The last few days I’ve been working backwards through Proverbs. I started with chapter 10 and read backwards because that’s not something I usually do, and I wanted to see what it was like. I spent an evening in the section about staying away from the adulteress, trying to soak up the wisdom of “can a man put coals in his lap and not be burned?” (6:27).

I’m bad about placing differentiations on sin. I’m a pro at rationalizing what’s right and what’s okay, and what’s not okay but probably isn’t too bad. But reading these chapters, and really, this whole book, is a solid reminder that the way of wisdom turns away from all unrighteousness. Not in a holier-than-thou elitism, but in a pure, humble heart that honestly desires to please God. If I’m honest, more often than not i’m more concerned with pleasing myself than pleasing God, and my actions, words, and thoughts reflect this.

So Proverbs is turning out to be a wonderful dose of medicine to my heart. I’ve been reading it in the NLT, because I enjoy the beautiful translation that they employ. It is so difficult to balance beauty with precision and accuracy in translating. I know this from the last year of Greek. Sometimes you want to force a word here or there but the context just won’t let you do it. But the thing I like to keep in mind when I’m translating is this: as a translator, i’m trying to make the text as clear and as beautiful as it is in the original. I’m not spinning my own narrative. I’m not pushing my own theological opinions. I’m trying to do the best I can with my knowledge of english and greek/hebrew to bridge the gap between the two.

Peterson’s Message is a little bit too much on the side of subjectivity. When you stray as far as he does from original meaning you begin to make leaps that you just can’t sustain. But texts like the NIV, the NLT, which are closer to the original while still being readable, are a better blend of the beauty/clarity/precision triangle. If I’m honest, after learning Greek I have a hard time reading a looser translation of the New Testament and would rather have a more literal translation. But the Greek language, just like English, deserves to be unchained from the strict shackles of literality if we’re going to let the Spirit speak in various ways.

Achieving a good balance is the goal, at least it seems that way to me. I need the hard-nosed literal translations (NASB) as well as the looser, freer translations (NLT, Good News). And in between, the NIV and ESV emerge. All of these translations are worthy of our time and attention, because they bring us closer to the Word, and that’s the whole point of it all. Not to develop some uber particular way of interpretation, but rather to just spend time with God through his revealed Word. As I’m reminded in Proverbs 4, “My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart.” That’s the whole point. When the words penetrate our heart, our actions can't help but be changed.

beautiful reminder

Wisdom has built her house;

she has carved its seven columns.

She has prepared a great banquet,

mixed the wines, and set the table.

She has sent her servants to invite everyone to come.

She calls out from the heights overlooking the city.

"Come in with me," she urges the simple.

To those who lack good judgment, she says,

"Come, eat my food,

and drink the wine I have mixed.

Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live;

learn to use good judgment."

Proverbs 9:1-6 (NLT)

Learning from Lebron

I’m not going to spend an entire post exclusively talking about sports, even though that would be so much fun (i’ve always wished I could blog for ESPN, ha). But something kind of hit me as I was watching the collapse of the cleveland cavaliers in their playoff series against the Boston Celtics. A collapse few saw coming, but when you really begin to think about it, it’s easy to see why it happened.

In case you’re lost, here’s a quick rundown. So the Cavs were favorites to win the NBA title going into the playoffs this year. They have the best player on the planet in Lebron, and, did I mention, they have the best player in the planet? They don’t really have many other marquee guys but that didn’t seem necessary. They had Lebron. Lebron would carry them to the title.

They cruised through the first round, but then the collapse started. They met the Boston Celtics, a tough, veteran, talented team who absolutely crushed them into the ground. I was watching the game at the Farmer’s house, and Andy and I both marveled at the way Boston was simply beating the Cavs at all the fundamentals of the game: desire, teamwork, focus, hustle, leadership. You name it, the Celtics were outshining the Cavs.

Lebron mostly had amazing statistical games during the series (except for one game), including the final game where he had a triple-double. But the problem wasn’t so much with Lebron as it was with the rest of the Cavs team. They looked scared, tentative, even disinterested at times, as if they expected Lebron to make every big-time shot while they spectated.

Shortly after the game I was left trying to figure out how something like this happened. The best team in the NBA loses embarrassingly without even putting up much of a fight. And then I realized, it’s the Lebron effect. The Cavs employed a “we can win it all without really working as a team or being interested in each other because we have Lebron”. And, you could see a little bit of that ego surfacing in Lebron. He didn’t need help. He could carry the Cavs on his own.

The 2010 Cleveland Cavaliers teach us that you can be successful with a one-man show, but you can’t make it through adversity as a team with one guy. Every player on the court is important and needs to do their part. And when one player sees another player who’s disinterested or frustrated, it’s their job to encourage their teammate and get them back on the same page. You can’t do it alone. You’ve got to stick together. These are the kinds of lessons that, while they come from a game, transcend sport and touch the very center of our lives as human beings as well.