Boogers, Yo-Yo's, and 8-Year-Old Prophets

This morning as I was picking up my son's carpool buddies (approximate ages 8 and 11) to take to school, one of them spoke a prophetic word to me.

Before we moved onto the scintillating eight-year-old-boy world of songs about boogers, he pronounced to me very matter-of-factly, "My yo-yo's broken, so it doesn't rest."

Apparently, at least in his eight-year-old-mind, a fully functional yo-yo would be able to rest. Perhaps he was talking about a specific trick--maybe someone out there can enlighten me on a yo-yo maneuver that would require the yo-yo to "rest."

Regardless, it does seem that the inability to rest is a sure sign of brokenness--in yo-yo's and in people.

For slightly neurotic over-functioning people like myself, that doesn't come very easily. I can do diversions or be entertained, but figuring out what true rest looks like for me has always been a challenge. My very first supervisor told me that my biggest problem in ministry was that I needed a hobby.

I'm still working on that. But in the mean time, I'm grateful for some heaven-sent trail guides who keep me on the path of learning what it means to rest--to search for the true rest that restores my soul and keeps me operating within the holy confines of my God-given humanity.

And I pray for ears to hear that call. It can be kind of tricky to catch it in between all the talk about boogers.

Slip-N-Slide, World of Warcraft in Mom's Basement, and God's Delight in Play

My junior year of college, through no one's fault but my own, I became suspicious of 'play.' It seemed that there were so many important things to do, not the least of which was a big God to get to know. I needed to get to work.

Once I arrived at this conclusion (somewhat sub-consciously) it became almost impossible to do anything that didn't seem productive. I felt like I could "see through" all my attempts at recreation.

I couldn't just forget myself and engage in something for fun. If I was doing something fun it was because I was trying to force myself to relax...which stressed me out, which made it hard to relax.

I know, I was (and still kind of am) neurotic. It's that over-achiever wanna-be in me.

This past Sunday, as I was in my post-Rockbridge daze, the wife and kids broke out the Slip-N-Slide for the maiden summer voyage. And my six, four, and two-year-old took to it with such a delightfully innocent reckless joy that my soul ached for gladness.

I love my kids. But in that moment I took particular delight in their enjoyment of the divine mixing of plastic and water. I wanted us all to stay frozen in that moment forever--them laughing at and with one another, hurling head-long down the runway. Kelly and I sitting in plastic chairs delighting over their glad squeals in the perfect late-afternoon May sun.

And in that moment the Lord again reminded me of the lesson he's had to teach and re-teach me over the years: he delights in our play. The Good Father delights in his children delighting in the world that he gave them to play in.

If I can enjoy my kids that much as they careened head-long down the Slip-N-Slide, how much more delight does the Father have as we play cards with friends, read a good book, throw a Frisbee, go on a long walk, throw a mean party.

Of course in our culture we've taken entertainment and turned it into a god. As such, play gets wrenched from its rightful place in our lives and tyrannizes rather than blesses many of us. If you're 35 and still living in your parents basement playing World of Warcraft 'til 3 a.m, you're exactly who I'm talking about. And there are, alas, plenty of other pictures of play gone wrong.

But for those of us who struggle with over-seriousness, it's high time we repent of all that self-importance and learn how to play. Maybe next time, I'll be the one leading the lemming-like charge down the twelve feet of glorious plastic famously known as "the Slip-N-Slide."

Back to Work Day 10: Celebrating My Superfluous-ness

So I've wrapped up ten straight days of work after a four month sabbatical from my work on campus. Looking back at the fall, things started off fairly atrocious but they were in stable, if not spectacular, condition when I left.

I'm delighted to report after ten days back that things in our community have improved greatly in my absence. At points in my life this would have been somewhat disheartening. Who doesn't like to feel like the world would stop if they disappeared?

But for this season (today, at any rate), I'm celebrating my superfluous-ness. This was, after all, the original point of rest in the Scriptures.

The commandment to take "sabbath" in the Old Testament was radical in its context. In an agrarian society, when the crops need to be planted, you plant. When they need to be picked, you pick.

Taking a day off no matter what stage the crops were in was reckless. The command to rest on the seventh day was the command to take a day off and trust the Lord with the results. It was to be a reckless rest of faith. God was to be their provider. This was a weekly reminder of his sovereign provision for them.

And so as I return to this InterVarsity community that I am certain that God has called me to serve, it is great news to me that I am not as important as I often like to think that I am. This is God's work. He was here long before I got here and will continue to be here long after I leave.

This relieves me of thinking of myself too highly, as too important or central. And this is the only way I can be free of the tyranny of a burden that is too great for me to bear. The weight of the ministry is not on me. It is on God.

I am not as important as I like to think that I am. Instead, I am more deeply loved than I ever hoped or imagined.

Work, Rest, Control, Pigs

Friends of ours did this cool thing when they had a baby: they took pictures of their child each month with the same stuffed animal. That way you could see how much they'd grown each month.

Davis loved this pink pig. Sometimes when Davis was fussing, I would pick up his stuffed pink pig (other kids have teddy bears, Davis loved his pig) and I would animate it—voices, hand motions, break-dancing, whatever.

Davis, of course, was enthralled. His response was to reach out and grab the pink pig. Of course, once the pig was in his hands, the "life" that was in it was gone. It went back to being an ordinary stuffed pink pig. Not a bad thing, but not what had enthralled him with the pig to begin with, not what he was looking for. As soon as Davis had control of the pig, the very life that he had enjoyed about it was gone.

The same thing is true for us when it comes to our work and the bigger purposes behind our lives. The only way for our lives to have real meaning, to have real life, is for Someone Else to be in control of them. Our control is an illusion. It is something to be released and repented of again and again, any time it rears its' ugly head.

Rest re-aligns our souls with the fundamental realities of the universe. It cuts against the lie spoken to our first parents that "we might be like God." Rest reminds us that there is only one God. And we are not Him.