Jon Acuff's Blog, page 115

The God you least expect.

The first year we were married, I decided to make a nightstand for my wife Jenny for Christmas.

Why?

Because I am stupid.

I'd never built anything in my life, but in my arrogance thought to myself, "How hard can it be?"

So I tore out a picture of a nightstand from the Pottery Barn catalog and went to Home Depot. Without any sort of plan, I walked the aisles picking up random items. "Jigsaw? Probably going to need that. Hand saw? Why not. Hammer and nails? Of course." Then I bought a bunch of lumber.

Driving home I thought, "This is going to be too easy for me. I'll probably finish too quickly. Why don't I learn woodcarving too? I'll get some carving tools and carve out a topiary into the front of the nightstand. How hard can it be?"

So I purchased some more tools and retreated into our basement in Arlington, Massachusetts.

Hours later I emerged with the world's heaviest, nail-iest box. It weighed 14 pounds and had 27 crooked nails jutting out of it. My dad advised me to take the wood to a retired carpenter from our church. He was in his 70s and agreed to help me build the nightstand in his shop. In about 15 minutes, disgusted with my complete lack of skills, he asked me to leave the shop and said simply, "I'll call you when this thing is done and you can come pick it up."

If you ever come over to our house, you can see the nightstand, a shameful monument to my completely warped expectations of what I am capable of.

Expectations are a funny thing. The tighter we hold on to an expectation, the more it shapes the actual experience. When you think something is going to go a certain way, you tend to judge how it actually went by your preconceived expectations. They become your measuring stick, filter and scoring system. What is ultimately just an idea in your head can strongly impact the reality in your life.

And if I'm honest, I do that sometimes with God.

I caught myself doing that a lot this fall. Once my book Quitter released I felt a great sense of "What next?" There's this weird feeling of emptiness that happens once a book is released. You write and write and run and run and then things go quiet. This project that consumed you is suddenly complete. And, in those moments, I started to wrestle with God about what he was calling me to.

The path forward didn't have the clarity I would have liked. It was darker than I liked. It was murkier than I wanted it to be. As I've said before, I felt like everyone else had a plan for their life except for me.

This was frustrating, in part, because of one of my favorite verses. In 1 Peter 5:6 it says, "Humble yourselves, therefore under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time." I felt like I was doing that. I was humbling myself under God's mighty hand. So why then did it feel like I wasn't making any progress? Why did it feel so dark? Why did it feel so uncertain?

Because of my expectations.

I failed to realize that sometimes being "UNDER God's mighty hand," can feel a lot like being in a cave. That's the reality of being under something. Have you ever been under a blanket? Or under a bed? You're hidden. It's quiet. It's safe.

But it's not what I expected. I didn't want the David experience, where he retreated to a cave with his men and his God. I wanted the verse to say, "Humble yourselves, therefore on top of God's mighty hand." I had a secret expectation of what it means to be protected by God and it didn't include the word "under."

I also hadn't expected the phrase, "due time." I expected the verse to read "your time" or "Jon's time." Due time? What does that even mean? Can we get an ETA God? Can you set some expectations please?

But he doesn't, not always, and not in the way we might want him to.

Right now, it might feel like you're in a cave. You're in the middle of a divorce you didn't want from a person you don't think you can live without. You're staring down graduation, and your future is looming in a menacing way. You're unemployed, and "due time" feels like "never."

Don't listen to the voice that tells you that you've failed if you find yourself in a cave. Sometimes, that's exactly where God calls us when we find ourselves under his hand.

Why?

Because it's safe and secure and maybe even quiet enough for you to hear him say, "I love you."

SCLQ – Does God care about football?

God's had a pretty big NFL season this year. I don't know if he was on strike last year, but this year, he's all over the place.

"Tebowing," the act of bending down on one knee to pray like Tim Tebow, became a trend.

Saturday Night Live did a skit in which Jesus visited the Denver Broncos locker room.

Media headlines credited or discredited God for NFL victories or losses. (Sunday's Broncos game for instance. Tebow threw for 316 yards. Hellooooo John 3:16 comparisons.)

God was so busy around the league that Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs felt like he had to set the record straight and was quoted saying, "With all due respect, we don't need God on our sidelines."

At which point, God responded, "You lost to the Jaguars. I'm not on your sidelines, dude."

Or something like that. God rarely speaks to me directly about the AFC. But it all begs the question, "Does God care about football?"

There are three possible answers:

1. Yes, in the way that he cares about all things. Like tiny flowers, baby birds and even the sport of cricket.

2. No, he's got more pressing things to attend to.

3. Who cares? It's only the second week of January, and I'm already two weeks behind on my read through the Bible in one year plan!

I don't have the answer for this question, but I do know he cares about college basketball. That's why the sky is Carolina Blue. Go heels!

Question:

Do you think God cares about football?

Sonic Happy Hour or "The Christian Happy Hour."

Dear Sonic,

I think I've been pretty clear about my love of all things Chick-fil-A. The food is delicious. The service is impeccable. And as every Christian knows, eating there is a like tithing.

I've showered love on the Hamburger Chick-fil-A as well. (You might know it as In-n-Out.)

But you, I've ignored you. Like Johnny Gill in New Edition or Chris Kirkpatrick in NSYNC, you've never really gotten the attention you deserve.

Especially when I look into your ice.

I don't know what shape that ice technically is. Balls? Diamonds? BB's? What the industry term is I know not. I call it, "Frozen heaven."

So round, so perfect, so readily available from someone wearing roller-skates.

It's your ice that made me like you, but it's your happy hour that made me love you. Half price drinks from 2-4? What a gift! What a beverage blessing. What a delightful two-hour window of liquid enjoyment. I drive up and order like a boss. Drink upon drink upon drink. And my bill? $2.98.

Even better, the reason I ultimately broke my long silence about you, Sonic, is the nickname my friends have given that 120 minutes. They call it "The Christian Happy Hour." If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that phrase belonged on SCL, I could buy Powerade slush for the residents of an entire small hamlet.

Why do we call it "The Christian Happy Hour?"

It's complicated.

For a long time, Christians judged you if you had an alcoholic drink. They'd argue that when Jesus turned water into wine that was not really wine. It was like "super grape juice," completely different than say Yellow Tail. Then, things kind of flip flopped. So many Christians started drinking wine and microbrews that people started judging you for not drinking.

My friends would say, "Oh, you don't drink? You must be small-minded and judgmental."

We started judging people for being judgmental. Isn't that rich? Oh me!

It's all very confusing and the more I write about it. The more I realize something.

I need a drink. A beverage of some sorts that will wash away these perplexing times. Small grains of ice that will pulverize these perplexities.

It's time for me to head to the Christian Happy Hour.

Yours in slush,

Jon

Question:

Have you ever heard Sonic called the Christian Happy Hour?

SCLQ – Booty, God, Booty the Video: Part 4

Here's week 4 of the new video series I did with LifeChurch.tv. It's the conclusion of the series, which was a blast to make. (Here are the links to part 1,  part 2 and part 3 if you missed them.)

 

Cloves, Hookahs, and Other Non-Cigarettes

(It's guest post Friday! Here's one from Joe Bunting.  He writes and teaches people to write over at The Write Practice. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here's how!) 

Cloves, Hookahs, and Other Non-Cigarettes. – By Joe Bunting

I was still in high school the first time I saw someone smoking a clove. I thought he was a heathen. My conclusion: cloves must be like cigarettes for pot smokers.

I had to go to a Christian college to see how wrong I was. The Christians who smoked cigarettes at my SoCal Christian college were outcasts, pariahs. They might as well have been Democrats (some of them were Democrats). Our campus was tobacco free. To smoke their sticks of sin they had to go hide in the "smoker's bush" where they wouldn't be caught by security, but we all knew their shameful secret. They came back reeking of guilt.

Cloves, however, were another matter. Cloves, compared to soul- and body-destroying cigarettes, smelled like a warm summer breeze through a flower garden. They weren't "real" cigarettes. The box even denied it—they were cigarillos. We would go down to the beach beside a resort for the disgustingly wealthy and smoke them while watching the waves break. It was what the cool Christians did.

Later, Dr. New Testament told our class that he smoked hookah. What the heck is hookah, we asked. "It's a water pipe with a very weak tobacco," he informed us. We stared in shock.

Why don't you tell us what it really is, Dr. New Testament? It's a BONG! You're telling us you smoke a hippie peace-pipe bong, Dr. Christian-Professor-Sir?

Despite our initial horror, all we wanted was for Dr. New Testament to invite us over to smoke with him. What could be better? You're doing something that looks really terrible, like smoking a bong, BUT in reality it's totally okay because it's not even real tobacco. Besides, you're doing it with your New Testament professor. It looks like sinning, but you get a pat on the back and a gold star instead of eternal damnation.

We didn't get invited to his house to smoke his hookah. Instead, we found a Persian restaurant called Zaytoon's and smoked it until we felt dizzy and sophisticated. We were guiltless. We didn't reek of foul-smelling smoke. We smelled like Cherry Sunrise and Vanilla Grapefruit and Coca-Cola Clove and other rejected Starburst flavors. It was wonderful.

Who cares that, despite my professor's proclamation, hookahs contain the same amount of tobacco as a cigarette, and maybe even more because of how you smoke it? So what if cloves are 70% tobacco, and because of the throat-numbing qualities of the cloves, some people think you inhale more lung-killing smoke than in a normal cigarette? It didn't matter because you didn't smell like cigarettes. That's the difference between transcendent holiness and unredeemable spiritual delinquency. I'm pretty sure it's in one of Paul's letters.

Through my college and post-college years, I experimented with cigars, pipes, and menthol cigarettes. (They're not real cigarettes, right? They smell like mint.) But whenever someone offers me a real cigarette?

"Ewwwwww. Gross, no. I don't smoke those things. Are you even a Christian?"

Question:

Have you ever experienced the Christian clove phenomenon?

For more great stuff from Joe Bunting, check out his blog, The Write Practice.

 

The question.

Two videos in one day? Outrageous!

Same video on SCL and jonacuff.com? Unbelievable!

A question from an elderly woman that shook me to the core and a quick explanation of the Quitter Conference all in one video? Exactly.

SCLQ – The Pre-Sermon Video

Last November, I had the opportunity to speak at Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas. I'd never spoken in Vegas before and had only visited the airport while making connections to other cities. Everything I knew about Vegas I learned watching CSI and Ocean's 11.

Therefore, my expectations were that I would probably have to solve a showgirl murder and possibly pull off an amazing casino heist in a tailored grey suit.

Neither happened. But what Canyon Ridge did pull off what might be the funniest pre-sermon video I've ever seen. It's hard not to watch this video and realize how far my star has really climbed amongst the masses. Given the responses, I'm surprised I was able to walk through the Vegas airport without being accosted by fans. Check it out for yourself, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Question:

Does your church do any sort of "Pre-Sermon Videos?"

 

The beautiful reason God might not be talking to you right now.

Do you ever feel like God is ignoring you?

Like he's screening your calls and hitting decline when he sees your name pop up on his iPhone?

You keep throwing out the same question to him and you're getting nothing.

No nudge from the Holy Spirit. No wise counsel in the form of friends. No handwriting on the wall.

I have and I'm in the middle of one of those moments right now.

I feel a great self-imposed sense of urgency to figure out what I'm supposed to do next. Maybe it's because I turned 36 a few weeks ago. I feel like everyone has a clear plan for their lives but me. (Whenever you feel this way, you always run into people who say things like, "I've got the next 20 years of my life mapped out. What do you mean you don't have a 20-year mission statement?")

I told my wife a few days ago, "I'm 36 now, which means I'm exactly 40 years from the average life expectancy of U.S. males. And we only have 10 years until L.E. graduates from high school and is out of the house. I need to figure out a 40/10 plan for my life."

That might sound a little ridiculous. But at some point, all of us come to a place where we feel a little lost. You get a divorce and the person who was a big part of your identity for 8 years is no longer even part of your house, and you suddenly have to figure out who you are all over again. You lose your job and are unemployed way longer than you anticipated and restlessness sets in, followed by sadness and eventually apathy and hopelessness. You're staring graduation in the face as the New Year comes and don't know what to do next. You bump into a bruise from childhood that you had hoped time would heal by now, but it hasn't. If anything, it's shaped your adult life in ways you're only now beginning to fathom.

In moments like that, we turn to God. And we ask questions. We call out. We cry out. We plead.

And sometimes in response, we hear … nothing.

God is silent.

He does not answer.

No response comes.

And our first thought when that happens, is this:

"God is mad at me. He does not care about my hurt. He is distant. He sees me as a failure. He is not answering me because he is disappointed in me. If he really loved me, he'd talk to me. He'd answer my questions and my prayers. A loving God could not possibly go silent at a time like this."

I am not immune to that thinking. Those are not words I'm writing about you, those are words I am writing about "we."

But I saw something recently that had always escaped me. I'd looked at it 1,000 times and missed it. It was right there all along. A lesson about silence, a lesson about love, a powerful secret hidden in my favorite story.

I've written about the parable of the prodigal son too many times to count. After I finish my next book, I hope to write a book about that story. But until I do, this will be the space I share a few ideas.

You know the story of the prodigal son. A young son asks his father for his inheritance, leaves the farm, spends all the money and falls on hard times. In a pigpen, he comes to his senses and returns home expecting to work as a servant on the farm. Instead, the father sprints to him when he sees him on the road and throws him a lavish party.

It's an amazing story, but do you know what the father, who represents God, says to the prodigal son in those verses in Luke 15?

Absolutely nothing.

The father does not say one word to the prodigal son.

We read the story like he does, but he doesn't. Check the verses, it's true. In Luke 15:12 when the son asks for the inheritance, it just says, "So he (the father) divided his property between them (the two brothers.)" The father doesn't speak to the prodigal son.

But what about when he comes home? Doesn't he run to the son and say in Luke 15:22-24, "Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

He does say those things, but not to the son.

Verse 22 says, "But the father said to his servants…"

He wasn't speaking to the prodigal son. He was talking to the servants.

What does that mean for you and me?

Well, here's what I want you to consider the next time it feels like God is not talking to you.

Instead of thinking that God's silence means he is mad and disappointed with you, what if he might be quiet because he's too busy planning a party for you?

What if, even as you come home dirty and fallen, God is not ignoring you? What if he's embracing you on the road back home, and he's not talking to you because he's so focused on planning a party for you?

Can you imagine a God like that?

I can.

And when God goes quiet, that is the hope and the truth I am going to cling to.

The friend who goes on a mission trip and then tells you that you've got such a "Western approach to faith."

Are we friends?

I feel like we are. Some of you have read SCL for close to four years. I've met a bunch of you. I've been to your church or hung out at conferences with you. You've mailed me Cadbury Creme eggs to this address: Jon Acuff 1749 Mallory Lane, Brentwood, TN 37027.

We're friends.

Except for about six of you. We are sworn enemies. If we saw each other at a square dance, we would most definitely stop square dancing and try to sweep each other's legs like the karate kid. You know who you are. Don't let me catch you out square dancing.

So when you read the title of this post and think, "Nope, I don't have a friend who has done that," I need to let you know you're wrong. Because I was almost that friend.

A few weeks ago, I shared a Serious Wednesday idea about something I learned during my trip to Vietnam. But as I was writing the post and thinking about the trip, I started to catch myself thinking things like, "Oh, these Western Christians. These American Christians are so silly sometimes."

There is one big problem with that line of thinking.

I was in Vietnam for a grand total of 7 days.

Have you ever had the friend who goes on a one-week mission trip to Africa and comes home as an expert on the country? They were gone for like an hour and a half and suddenly are using a Sudanese accent when they speak and complaining because Des Moines, Iowa doesn't have a good Ethiopian restaurant. Ridiculous. And this was me last week. I was going to tweet:

"Vietnamese coffee makes Starbucks taste like hot, brown water."

Is it true? Without a doubt. Am I all the sudden better than Starbucks because I had 7 days of coffee in Vietnam? Not really.

My ability to become internationally pretentious is unbelievable. I would medal in that if it were a sport.

But it's tempting, isn't it? To go on a mission trip, experience faith in a different culture and come home and tell all your friends about "faith in the states." By the way, don't refer to the U.S. as "The States" unless you grew up outside of the country. I caught myself saying this to a friend the other day, "It's good to be back in the states." Oh stop. Why didn't I just say, "It's good to be home." Or "It's good to be back in Nashville." Or just "It's good to be back." I probably said, "It's good to be back in The States" because I wanted him and anyone else who was listening to think I was traveling internationally so often that I didn't even have time to say "The United States." I had to shorten it for speed to "The States."

And even if you did go out of the country and want to talk about the differences between how you saw faith lived out, don't lead off with shame. Nothing kills a post-mission trip conversation like saying, "You know who really loves Jesus? Jamaicans. You know who doesn't? You Westerners, who I am apparently not one of having lived in Cleveland, Ohio for 27 years but recently spent 72 hours in Jamaica."

I promise I'll try not to write pretentious posts that make me look like an expert on world missions after seven days. And you? Well, you should keep an eye out for the friend who goes on a mission trip and then tells you that you've got such a Western approach to faith. Feel free to add them to my "leg sweep list." Just don't ever go square dancing with them. I feel like I've been pretty clear about that point.

Question:

Has a friend ever gone on a mission trip and acted like this?

Wearing the same clothes you wore to church on Sunday to work on Monday.

Don't judge me.

Let me explain first. Let me tell you why, if you saw me on Sunday at church, you might realize I'm wearing the same exact clothes to work on Monday.

1. I'm not talking about the same underwear or socks.

2. I don't go to a charismatic church, so I don't get sweaty during service by dancing or rigorous clapping.

3. I hate picking out clothes and am horrible at "matching things." Sometimes I'll come home after work and my wife will say, "Is that what you wore all day?"

4. I take my church clothes off as soon as I get home from church. (And immediately change into work out clothes, but you probably assumed that already given my American Gladiator-like torso.)

5. I'd wore a uniform if it was socially acceptable. Not like Superman, with the tights and all, but same pair of jeans, same black t-shirt, every day if I could.

And I'm not saying this will work for everyone. Here are a few exceptions you need to consider if you're going to wear your church clothes to work:

1. Do you wear a big Sunday hat? One of those old-school hats that is so large it has its own weather system? Probably can't wear that to work.

2. Does your job require you to wear overalls without a shirt underneath? I'm talking specifically to every guy on every new reality show (e.g. Moonshiners, Swamp People, The Call of the Wildman, etc.) If so, don't wear that to church.

3. Are you in the choir and have to wear a robe on Sunday? Don't wear that to work on Monday. Unless you work at Hogwarts.

4. Do you volunteer in the kids' Sunday School department? You're going to be covered with glue and glitter by the end of the day. Don't wear those clothes to work. Unfortunately, the first thing some folks will think when they see glitter all over you is not, "I bet that guy teaches Sunday School." They'll think you went to a dance establishment.

There, does that make you feel better at all?

Again, not talking same underwear. I'm talking same jeans, same sweater, same shoes, same beret. What? People aren't wearing berets to church where you live? Oh man, you're missing out. "Bible Berets" are huge in Nashville right now.

Question:

Stand proud, have you ever worn the same clothes to work on Monday that you wore to church on Sunday?