Lucas Kitchen's Blog
September 15, 2020
August 12, 2020
Lucas' New Book, Naked Grace
THE GRAND RELEASEI'm pleased to present my new book, Naked Grace: A quest for clarity in a world of confusion. I'd like to say, "Thank You" to all of those who pre-ordered! Due to your pre-order support, Naked Grace released with a top 100 status on Amazon. (It's #1 for its category as of this writing), no easy task. I'm so thankful to the readers who have shown this book such generous support so far.Get the Paperback // Get it on Kindle // Get it in Audiobook (coming soon)GET IT WHILE IT'S CHEAP
If you don't have your copy yet you may want to get it soon. It's only $.99 for a limited duration. We've decided to leave the pre-order price up for a short time as a celebration for its solid release position. If you hurry, you can still get it while it's just under a buck.Get the Paperback // Get it on Kindle // Get it in Audiobook (coming soon)BOOK DESCRIPTION
In NAKED GRACE, Lucas Kitchen uses wit, humor, brutal honesty, and visual storytelling to invite you along for his life-long quest for answers. Confusion about the Christian faith plaguing every leg of the journey, clarity was always beyond arm's reach. The search seemed hopeless. He was about to give up when everything changed. This self-deprecating tale will resonate with anyone who has wrestled with unanswered questions and is dying to know the truth.Get the Paperback // Get it on Kindle // Get it in Audiobook (coming soon)
February 5, 2020
A Deadly Hike
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Before setting out on a multi-day hiking trip with a few of my friends, I was given a small orange notebook by my brother. As I started my frantic last-minute packing session, I threw the field notes booklet into my bag, along with my favorite writing utensil, an unassuming Bic #2 mechanical pencil. Among all the extras, I crammed into the 90 litters of packing space my bag afforded this notebook and pencil would become the most important. Without its 48 waterproofed synthetic pages, I would have no safe space to process and ultimately come to understand what I went through on that mountain. I honestly laughed and wept as I filled the pages of this little book.
I was scared. It wasn’t one of those centralized fears that drives firm decisiveness. Instead, it was the type of blurry fear that lurks around the fringed edges of thought. By the time I slid my first pair of wool socks into my enormous hiking bag, I had already run a dozen simulations in my mind. Horrifying things bubbled to the surface, things with fur and teeth and claws. What if we encountered a bear? What if we ran out of water? What if I fell off the mountain and had to lay with a broken body for days before being found? The frightening options were endless. I kept these fears silently bundled, tucked away beneath the ample tubes of sunblock and extra toothpaste.
Though my bag was packed with the evidence of my fear, in the fabric of social interaction, I wore a different suit. I wanted my friends and my family to think that I was fearless. That was as far from reality as I was from the peak that we would attempt to summit.
Little snippets from the first day still stand out to me. Rising early, we wanted to make it to the ranger station before anyone else. The young park ranger, probably in her early thirties, was friendly. She sipped her morning coffee as she explained what was expected of anyone who carried a back-country permit. After looking over the map with her, she slid a page which was absolutely packed with text to Josh. Being the de facto trail leader, Josh scanned the page. Being the de facto worry monger, I looked over his shoulder as I inwardly bit my fingernails. One section said, “I know the symptoms of altitude sickness and how to treat it.” I watched as Josh signed his name below. I thought I’m glad he knows what the symptoms are because I certainly don’t.
There was a velvety quiet, that sat on the ascending foot of the Rocky Mountains, as we took our first steps into the wild. The burgeoning orange of the sky was boasting of the adventure that awaited up the mountain where the air was thin, and the aspirations were high. I was accompanying Josh, an electrical engineer on weekdays and an adventure vender on the weekends, and Losha, a musician and tech expert who immigrated from Moldova years ago. We would be together for the 24-mile, three-day backpacking trip. My concern was nearly palpable as the gravel of the trail crunched underfoot. We would find our way up the route that other reviewers had labeled ‘advanced’ on a popular adventure site. Though my buddies were as fit as wild mountain goats, I was anything but advanced. Tonahutu trail would peak out on Flat Top mountain. Approximately eight miles a day through bear and mountain lion country would have us crest into the treeless expanse of alpine somewhere in the upper altitude of 13,000 feet.
I wore the marks of an inexperienced hiker all over. A month before the trip, my neighbor’s dog had stolen one of my hiking boots from my back porch. After chewing the ankle supporting high top off, the Alaskan husky left the lone shoe in the front yard where he had amassed a hoard of hot neighborhood items. After trespassing to relocate my gnarled footwear, I sewed it back together. My mom taught me to sew buttons on when I was in the third grade. My sewing skills never progressed any further. Consequently, my shoes looked like a mismatched pair of shark attack victims sustained only by surgery and prayer.
The bag I had precariously strapped to my back was a classic case of excessive overpacking. Ever since early childhood, I've been the cautionarion of any group I lock step with. “Are we sure we want to do this,” was my famous childhood motto. My danger-avoiding DNA drove me to fill every zippered pocket, pouch, and net crevice of my massive bag. For many of the unneeded and redundant items that weighed me down, I would later be lovingly chided.
Some of the more eccentric contents of my bag included a full 32 tablet container of chewable Tums with gas relief, a vast quantity of Vaseline such that I could keep a lubricant layer on all moving parts of my body, and enough bug spray to protect the entire Congolese army from malaria.
The vinyl straps bit hard at my waist and shoulders, probably being tested at the upper echelon of their 3000-pound tensile strength. The triple redundancy of flashlights, batteries, water purification, and about a dozen other supplies went unnoticed by my more experienced companions. They afforded me the dignity of not pre-checking my wilderness accouterments. A half dozen pill bottles acted as trail maracas that played in rhythm with every labored step. Needless to say, I was carrying the heaviest and most musical pack of all.
My buddies charged the trail with effervescent ease. As I laboriously lugged the combined contents of a mid-sized Walgreens. After a break on the first day of hiking, one of the guys went to lift my pack to help me strap it to my aching back. He groaned and struggled as he hoisted it to its unwelcome perch.
“Why is this so heavy,” he said, after exerting the kind of divine power reserved for extracting Excalibur from the stone.
“Uh, I just brought stuff I thought I’d need.” I went on to explain the kinds of things that I deemed as need worthy. Apparently bringing nine extra partially discharged batteries, an entire gallon of fluids, and three different Bibles was not his idea of responsible trail packing.
“On all future trips, I will be auditing the contents of your bag,” he said with a laugh. I strapped the cumulative mass of an anvil factory to my back, and we continued up the trail.
There is a kind of immeasurable beauty that lives out in the quiet corners beyond civilization. The gentle motion of a clear stream snaked through the valley between the mountains. It ran as cold as winter through the billowing green meadow, slowly carrying the season’s snow meltdown to the lakes below. The wind sang like a million-year melody as it massaged the waist-high grass bringing out notes of a high rustling timbre. Buttery sunbeams, unfettered by haze and smog, complimented the cool breeze which whispered through the valley where we rested before the great climb.
The inner peace that the scenery brought was balanced by the exterior turmoil I was feeling in my nether loins. Around the sixth mile, I began to notice an embarrassing discomfort in the skin covered by my sweaty underwear. I’m not as thin as I once was, which means that my thighs were forced to do a meet-and-greet every time they passed each other. The weight which seemed to buckle my knees sent my leg flesh sprawling ever inward in a kind of meaty slap. With each passing assault, all the moist flesh located north of my thighs was compressed awkwardly upward and forced to grind until everything that the sun didn’t shine upon was as raw as uncooked steak.
Luckily I had thought to pack an oversized jar of petroleum jelly. Only the Vaseline brand would do. I scooped massive palm fulls of that slimy relief into my sweat-soaked shorts when the guys weren’t looking. The pain would subside for a glorious nineteen seconds before I needed a fresh helping. This raises a question that even physicists could not likely answer. Where exactly does the Vaseline go? After applying a healthy fourteen pounds of the stuff, it takes only a few seconds for it to vanish into the cosmic ether. Does it evaporate? Does it liquify and soak into the skin? Why is there never enough? These kinds of deep mysteries kept my mind, so occupied much of the incredible scenery went unnoticed.
Toward the end of the first day, we topped out at an altitude that was slightly above the International Space Station. The air was as thin as a Parisian fashion model. The last quarter mile of our first day was like dragging a dead motorboat through quickly drying concrete. By the time I was in sight of the camp, the guys were already planning their afternoon jog up to nearby Granite Falls. I was busy charting my last 13 steps with optimistic thoughts like:
Step 13. Don't trip here, or you'll skewer your gut on that shattered pine stump.
Step 12. don't blackout here, or you'll fall and turn your skull into a soup bowl on that sharp rock.
Step 11. don't die here, or the search and rescue team will have to go through your belongings for I.D. only to discover that you packed nine pairs of underwear, in case of emergency after emergency after emergency.
It didn't help my morale to arrive at Camp looking like I needed quadruple bypass surgery. While my friends looked like two expert members of a Jacques Cousteau expedition. They already had the tents erected, camp laid out, and river water filtering. I plodded like a dying elephant into the patch of cleared forest where the tents were. The impact thundered through the trees as I dropped my three hundred ton backpack. I collapsed on the ground with all the rigidity of a wet towel.
The reward at the end of a long hike. I'm told, is a mountain house meal. It’s a freeze-dried gourmet dinner in a sealed bag. Just add boiling water, and you're suddenly transported to an exceptional dining experience that can't even be rivaled in Venice, Italy, or, so I'm told. We began to boil water. The guys read the side of their meal bags and discovered that each of theirs required two cups of water. They are read before you do kind of guys. I glanced at the instructions on the side of my chicken fried rice supper sack. I don't know if it was my shaky hands. My blurry vision or the fact that the directions were as long as Homer's Odyssey, but I gave them something less than a thorough reading.
The other guys did two cups of water. So that’s what I decided to do. It turns out that there are benefits to being a read before you do kind of guy. I flooded the freeze-dried contents with twice the amount of fluid required, making a watery pseudo-soup. My chicken fried rice only required a thimble full of water; I had poured the entirety of Lake mead over the rice. Effectively I turned a $10 gourmet dinner bag into a worthless sack of baby puke.
What I realized, as I chased the floating contents with my spoon, was that I could hardly stand to eat anything anyway. Josh and Losha hummed with delight, as I bemoaned my embarrassing culinary faux pas. Apparently, I had left my appetite at the bottom of the mountain. This was the first sign that something was wrong, but it wouldn't be the last.
When our afternoon meal was done, the guys were off for another adventure. They wanted to see the falls. I wanted to fall asleep. After removing my sweat-filled boots, I crawled into the orange tent Josh had set up before I arrived. It was a comfortable 60 degrees outside, but in that nylon sarcophagus, it felt like a Ukrainian sauna. After a half-hour I couldn't take it any longer.
I was surprised by the amount of effort it took to roll over. I fumbled with the zipper as I realized my coordination was less acute than usual. I slithered out from the smoldering tent like a dying reptile. I rolled across the needle covered ground until I found a shaded spot beneath the towering pines.
I stared at the cloud of mosquitoes that hovered above me. I probably looked to them like a cruise-ship buffet. It didn't matter. Maybe a little bloodletting would do some good. I'm not sure how long I laid there, but it was long enough for my friends, Lewis and Clark, to explore the Continental Divide and report back to Jefferson in Washington. As I stared listlessly upward, the sky’s assembly line of clouds passed me by.
Like an uncouth amusement park guest, a rude realization shoved it’s way to the front of my mind. Though I'd been lying motionless in the dirt since the present epoch began, my heart rate had not decreased. It was beating way too fast. Palm to chest, the thumps reverberated with heavy rhythmic desperation. I was beginning to realize that I was not merely tired. Something was going wrong behind my ribs.
When the guys returned from the second hike of the day. I asked Losha, who had just hiked an extra two miles at a 10,000-foot elevation, “What is your pulse?” He checked.
“I don't feel anything.” He said.
“Mine’s normal,” Josh added with finger to neck.
Trying to preserve a modicum of ego, I explained, “Weird. My heart rate seems slightly elevated, even though I've been lying here for over an hour.” Slightly elevated! I should have said, “My heart is kicking like a crack-addicted racehorse.” My blood pump was about to fracture one of my ribs, and all I could say was “weird.” I was beginning to get scared, but on the balances of manhood, ego still weighed heavier than vulnerability. I continued to pretend as if my flight equipment was nominal, but in reality, there was a fire in the cockpit, and my fellows would soon begin to see the smoke.
The sun drove west at a sluggish pace. The slender pines played an artifice of elastic dusky light, not easily revealing the true time of sunset. The night creeps upon the forested mountains more slowly than flatlanders are used to. “Get on with it,” I could have shouted at the amber skyline. Twilight was a taunt in shades of orange and red. With every deepening color came a dark forbode that tickled the nervous centers of my brain. With the dark came fear.
As we crawled into our sleeping bags. It wasn't long before I could hear the shift in breathing, that shift that marked off the boundary between lucidity and peaceful dreaming for my companions. They slept like tired hikers ought. But for me, sleep wouldn’t, no, couldn’t come. I lay like a fallen and shattered statue. I was made of stone and stillness. No matter how motionless I remained, my heart continued to thump, like I was striding in mid-marathon.
How long can a heart race before exploding? I wondered. I could imagine my cardiac muscle popping like an overripe tomato in the dark hours of the early morning. In a restful night of sleep, your heart should beat about nineteen thousand times. My heart was going for an all-time record.
A little past two in the morning, I began to pray. Now I pray every day, but not like this. It started with pleading as I thought of the angelic faces of my kids. How would they respond to hearing their daddy had died on a mountain? What would their lives be like living without me?
“Lord, please help. I'm scared,” I said, simultaneously wondering if I could walk down the mountain in the dark. Sheesh. I could hardly walk across the campsite, while the sun was still up. There was no way. The deep stabbing anguish of fright blasted holes in the tissue paper of my mind.
“Lord, please comfort me. I don't know what to do,” I continued praying, as I practiced heavy breathing. I started to think about my dad, who recently underwent surgery for an irregular and racing heart rate. What if the altitude has triggered the genetic heart condition that I've known runs in my family? This is what happens before a heart attack, I realized. The heart races wildly until it can't go on. Is that chest pain I just felt? Is this the beginning of my last chapter.
Even if I woke up, my friends, with a scream of pain. It would be hours before either of them could get close enough to civilization to call for help. I began to wrestle with how incredibly exposed I felt. I was a five-hour walk from anything, and I possessed about five minutes' worth of stamina. Walking down a mountain could exasperate whatever was happening to my heart.
Like a hammer blow square on the forehead, the realization hit me. I could die up here. There was nothing within my ability, nothing in my knowledge base, nothing within reach that could help. This was when my prayers began to shift.
“Lord, if this is your plan for me. If you want me to die, help me be okay with it,” I whispered into the cold night air. My breath swirled above me like the fragrant incense at a funeral. I didn't want to be dragged, kicking and screaming into the presence of my Savior. I wanted to put my affairs in order and prepare for the inevitable.
Years earlier, I had believed in Jesus for the free gift he offers. Whether this heart kept ticking or not, I knew my life would never end. As soon as my eyes close in death, I will breathe in that sweet air of the Kingdom of Heaven. I will wake in that grand country beyond the sea. Knowing this is a separate matter than being ready to cross over. I set about the business of coming to peace with my own death.
“Lord, if it's your plan to have me come meet you tonight. Please take me now,” I said it with utter conviction. Resigning myself to my own inability, I was attempting to surrender my body to the mysterious will of God.
Even as I write this, as my pencil scratches across the paper, I am crying. I have to take a long pause to let the tears abate.
After hours of wrestling with the divine, I eventually was able. I reluctantly whispered into the chilly night air.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
I felt those ancient words running over me like a refreshing waterfall dripping down into the cracks that my fear and shame and ego had rendered. Little by little, the mountain moved. The Colossus of rock and Earth, my doubt, and my worry my fear was cast into the sea, piece by piece. After hours of struggling. I am convinced that I was ready to die, somewhere between dark and Dawn. I drew a deep lungful of that thin mountain air as I entrusted my life into the unknown will of the one who gave it to me. It took whatever strength I had to let go.
“How'd you sleep,” my tent mate asked as he sat up at 5:03am.
“Not well,” I admitted, leaving out the excruciating details of the previous night. I gave only the surface facts. My heart was pounding all night. I couldn't sleep. He began to gear up for the day as I crawled out of the tent, like a fish who'd never adjusted to living above the waterline. I got the cookstove lit in the dark, mainly because it was the only campsite chore I could do while sitting down. It poured out precious BTUs of heat, as I had a silent little chat with myself.
“Drop the ego Lucas, tell them how you feel.” It had been hard to wrestle with my mortality the night before. Apparently, I would live at least a bit longer. Now I had a new battle, one that I should have been fighting long ago. My pride, I realized, had led me here. I had been scared to take the trip, but I wanted my friends, my family, especially my wife, to think of me as a courageous mountain man, charging up every rocky crag with a fearless abandon.
In my most profound reality, I was still that same kid who found a false reason to excuse myself from the Boy Scouts canoe trip, the boy scouts hiking trip, the boy scouts ski trip. They all sounded frightening to me. I have been afraid all my life.
“You need to talk about what you were afraid of instead of pretending not to be scared,” I whispered to myself as I dumped the oatmeal into the metal pot. This time reading the side instructions. I stood up shakily as they devoured their breakfast. I could feel my heart thumping in my ears as my hands trembled lightly, and my knees felt weak. I could hardly eat any of the oatmeal. Seeing my weakness, Josh offered to wash the mostly full dish in the river.
The time had come to pack and plan for the day. We were supposed to ascend another 3000 feet, walking miles above Timberline. We were told by park rangers that it was crucial to make this day's hike, certainly the hardest yet, at a fast pace. Urgent speed was critical because thunderstorms would roll in by noon, and the chance of being struck by lightning above the tree line is very high. All of this put a bigger knot in my stomach than my breakfast had. As we stood discussing the day, I finally let it out.
“You guys, I'm really scared. I know I can't go up anymore. I thought I might have a heart attack last night. I thought I was going to die. I've got to go down.” I glanced the other way. I continued. “I want you guys to go on without me.”
Though this was true, I stopped short of expressing yet another fear. What if I started to descend only to find that my condition got worse. Then I would be alone with a heart like a dying star. I could hardly imagine the kind of terror I would face then. As I was considering this, Losha spoke up.
“No, we have to go down with you.”
“Yeah,” Josh added. “I want to make the summit, but it's not worth it. We can't take the risk. We need to go down together.” Again, I looked away because I didn't want them to see the tears of relief I felt at their words.
“We need to take some of the weight off of your back,” Losha said. Whoa to the one who walks alone, that a cord of three is not easily broken. I could feel the deep meaning in those words. These men had been dreaming of this trip for months. They had summit fever. Josh called it the experience of a lifetime. They wanted to hit the Alpine so bad I could feel it. This was their bucket list trip. And here I was, a mouth breathing knuckle-dragging softy standing right in their path to the top. In an instant, they had taken all that excitement and drive and let it go.
These Christian brothers had me empty, the heavy items from my overstuffed pack. They took them up on their own shoulders. I can't help but think of Apostle Paul's words, “bear one another's burdens.” In this case, they did it literally. Had they not been men of deep faith, and committed to Christ-like compassion, they would have probably taken me up on my offer of leaving to descend alone. They carried the consequence of my ignorant overpacking mistake down the mountain for me.
Even then, it felt overwhelming as I strapped my now lighter bag to my aching back. Nonetheless, I began to walk down the mountain. There was comfort in knowing that these brothers in the faith would literally carry me down if they had to. I don't know if this is overstated. But I will tell you what I feel is true, their willingness to descend bearing most of my load could have saved my life.
When we got down, we stopped at the ranger station, after explaining what happened and that we were cutting our backcountry permit trip short and explained my symptoms the Ranger said, “You did the right thing. Thank you for not trying to go on.”
We found a campsite at the much lower altitude and set up camp there to allow me to recover. Within a day, my heart slowed, my strength returned, and a little Google research told me I had experienced a case of altitude sickness. Although some altitude sickness can be common, multiple types can be fatal. Judging by the fact that I've filled up this book while camping out in the valley tells me that I didn't have the fatal kind.
Once they saw that I was okay, Josh and Losha went on to tackle Longs Peak, the most challenging climb in the national park. I can see it from where I'm sitting as I scribble my thoughts in this little book.
My experience on the mountain leaves me with so many thoughts, as I come to the last pages of this notebook. Someday maybe soon, I will once again face my own death, maybe by heart attack, perhaps by cancer, possibly by being hit by a runaway apple cart while riding a unicycle. I don't know. The point is, I cannot imagine facing death without being certain of my eternal destiny.
Jesus promised eternal life to all those who believe in him. JOHN 3:16. Not only can I not imagine facing death without the promise of a Savior, but I can't imagine facing the rest of my complicated life without the help and companionship of Christian friends and loved ones. God has designed us to bear one another's burdens, most often when you feel like no one is carrying yours, it's because you won't let them.
I want to leave the last three pages for a few sketches of these amazing mountains and my mountain men friends. So here are my final three instructions. Number one, believe in Jesus for eternal life. You won't regret it. Number two, let other believers help you bear your heavy load. And number three, never, ever overpack.
Before setting out on a multi-day hiking trip with a few of my friends, I was given a small orange notebook by my brother. As I started my frantic last-minute packing session, I threw the field notes booklet into my bag, along with my favorite writing utensil, an unassuming Bic #2 mechanical pencil. Among all the extras, I crammed into the 90 litters of packing space my bag afforded this notebook and pencil would become the most important. Without its 48 waterproofed synthetic pages, I would have no safe space to process and ultimately come to understand what I went through on that mountain. I honestly laughed and wept as I filled the pages of this little book.I was scared. It wasn’t one of those centralized fears that drives firm decisiveness. Instead, it was the type of blurry fear that lurks around the fringed edges of thought. By the time I slid my first pair of wool socks into my enormous hiking bag, I had already run a dozen simulations in my mind. Horrifying things bubbled to the surface, things with fur and teeth and claws. What if we encountered a bear? What if we ran out of water? What if I fell off the mountain and had to lay with a broken body for days before being found? The frightening options were endless. I kept these fears silently bundled, tucked away beneath the ample tubes of sunblock and extra toothpaste.
Though my bag was packed with the evidence of my fear, in the fabric of social interaction, I wore a different suit. I wanted my friends and my family to think that I was fearless. That was as far from reality as I was from the peak that we would attempt to summit.
Little snippets from the first day still stand out to me. Rising early, we wanted to make it to the ranger station before anyone else. The young park ranger, probably in her early thirties, was friendly. She sipped her morning coffee as she explained what was expected of anyone who carried a back-country permit. After looking over the map with her, she slid a page which was absolutely packed with text to Josh. Being the de facto trail leader, Josh scanned the page. Being the de facto worry monger, I looked over his shoulder as I inwardly bit my fingernails. One section said, “I know the symptoms of altitude sickness and how to treat it.” I watched as Josh signed his name below. I thought I’m glad he knows what the symptoms are because I certainly don’t.
There was a velvety quiet, that sat on the ascending foot of the Rocky Mountains, as we took our first steps into the wild. The burgeoning orange of the sky was boasting of the adventure that awaited up the mountain where the air was thin, and the aspirations were high. I was accompanying Josh, an electrical engineer on weekdays and an adventure vender on the weekends, and Losha, a musician and tech expert who immigrated from Moldova years ago. We would be together for the 24-mile, three-day backpacking trip. My concern was nearly palpable as the gravel of the trail crunched underfoot. We would find our way up the route that other reviewers had labeled ‘advanced’ on a popular adventure site. Though my buddies were as fit as wild mountain goats, I was anything but advanced. Tonahutu trail would peak out on Flat Top mountain. Approximately eight miles a day through bear and mountain lion country would have us crest into the treeless expanse of alpine somewhere in the upper altitude of 13,000 feet.
I wore the marks of an inexperienced hiker all over. A month before the trip, my neighbor’s dog had stolen one of my hiking boots from my back porch. After chewing the ankle supporting high top off, the Alaskan husky left the lone shoe in the front yard where he had amassed a hoard of hot neighborhood items. After trespassing to relocate my gnarled footwear, I sewed it back together. My mom taught me to sew buttons on when I was in the third grade. My sewing skills never progressed any further. Consequently, my shoes looked like a mismatched pair of shark attack victims sustained only by surgery and prayer.
The bag I had precariously strapped to my back was a classic case of excessive overpacking. Ever since early childhood, I've been the cautionarion of any group I lock step with. “Are we sure we want to do this,” was my famous childhood motto. My danger-avoiding DNA drove me to fill every zippered pocket, pouch, and net crevice of my massive bag. For many of the unneeded and redundant items that weighed me down, I would later be lovingly chided.
Some of the more eccentric contents of my bag included a full 32 tablet container of chewable Tums with gas relief, a vast quantity of Vaseline such that I could keep a lubricant layer on all moving parts of my body, and enough bug spray to protect the entire Congolese army from malaria.
The vinyl straps bit hard at my waist and shoulders, probably being tested at the upper echelon of their 3000-pound tensile strength. The triple redundancy of flashlights, batteries, water purification, and about a dozen other supplies went unnoticed by my more experienced companions. They afforded me the dignity of not pre-checking my wilderness accouterments. A half dozen pill bottles acted as trail maracas that played in rhythm with every labored step. Needless to say, I was carrying the heaviest and most musical pack of all.
My buddies charged the trail with effervescent ease. As I laboriously lugged the combined contents of a mid-sized Walgreens. After a break on the first day of hiking, one of the guys went to lift my pack to help me strap it to my aching back. He groaned and struggled as he hoisted it to its unwelcome perch.
“Why is this so heavy,” he said, after exerting the kind of divine power reserved for extracting Excalibur from the stone.
“Uh, I just brought stuff I thought I’d need.” I went on to explain the kinds of things that I deemed as need worthy. Apparently bringing nine extra partially discharged batteries, an entire gallon of fluids, and three different Bibles was not his idea of responsible trail packing.
“On all future trips, I will be auditing the contents of your bag,” he said with a laugh. I strapped the cumulative mass of an anvil factory to my back, and we continued up the trail.
There is a kind of immeasurable beauty that lives out in the quiet corners beyond civilization. The gentle motion of a clear stream snaked through the valley between the mountains. It ran as cold as winter through the billowing green meadow, slowly carrying the season’s snow meltdown to the lakes below. The wind sang like a million-year melody as it massaged the waist-high grass bringing out notes of a high rustling timbre. Buttery sunbeams, unfettered by haze and smog, complimented the cool breeze which whispered through the valley where we rested before the great climb.
The inner peace that the scenery brought was balanced by the exterior turmoil I was feeling in my nether loins. Around the sixth mile, I began to notice an embarrassing discomfort in the skin covered by my sweaty underwear. I’m not as thin as I once was, which means that my thighs were forced to do a meet-and-greet every time they passed each other. The weight which seemed to buckle my knees sent my leg flesh sprawling ever inward in a kind of meaty slap. With each passing assault, all the moist flesh located north of my thighs was compressed awkwardly upward and forced to grind until everything that the sun didn’t shine upon was as raw as uncooked steak.
Luckily I had thought to pack an oversized jar of petroleum jelly. Only the Vaseline brand would do. I scooped massive palm fulls of that slimy relief into my sweat-soaked shorts when the guys weren’t looking. The pain would subside for a glorious nineteen seconds before I needed a fresh helping. This raises a question that even physicists could not likely answer. Where exactly does the Vaseline go? After applying a healthy fourteen pounds of the stuff, it takes only a few seconds for it to vanish into the cosmic ether. Does it evaporate? Does it liquify and soak into the skin? Why is there never enough? These kinds of deep mysteries kept my mind, so occupied much of the incredible scenery went unnoticed.
Toward the end of the first day, we topped out at an altitude that was slightly above the International Space Station. The air was as thin as a Parisian fashion model. The last quarter mile of our first day was like dragging a dead motorboat through quickly drying concrete. By the time I was in sight of the camp, the guys were already planning their afternoon jog up to nearby Granite Falls. I was busy charting my last 13 steps with optimistic thoughts like:
Step 13. Don't trip here, or you'll skewer your gut on that shattered pine stump.
Step 12. don't blackout here, or you'll fall and turn your skull into a soup bowl on that sharp rock.
Step 11. don't die here, or the search and rescue team will have to go through your belongings for I.D. only to discover that you packed nine pairs of underwear, in case of emergency after emergency after emergency.
It didn't help my morale to arrive at Camp looking like I needed quadruple bypass surgery. While my friends looked like two expert members of a Jacques Cousteau expedition. They already had the tents erected, camp laid out, and river water filtering. I plodded like a dying elephant into the patch of cleared forest where the tents were. The impact thundered through the trees as I dropped my three hundred ton backpack. I collapsed on the ground with all the rigidity of a wet towel.
The reward at the end of a long hike. I'm told, is a mountain house meal. It’s a freeze-dried gourmet dinner in a sealed bag. Just add boiling water, and you're suddenly transported to an exceptional dining experience that can't even be rivaled in Venice, Italy, or, so I'm told. We began to boil water. The guys read the side of their meal bags and discovered that each of theirs required two cups of water. They are read before you do kind of guys. I glanced at the instructions on the side of my chicken fried rice supper sack. I don't know if it was my shaky hands. My blurry vision or the fact that the directions were as long as Homer's Odyssey, but I gave them something less than a thorough reading.
The other guys did two cups of water. So that’s what I decided to do. It turns out that there are benefits to being a read before you do kind of guy. I flooded the freeze-dried contents with twice the amount of fluid required, making a watery pseudo-soup. My chicken fried rice only required a thimble full of water; I had poured the entirety of Lake mead over the rice. Effectively I turned a $10 gourmet dinner bag into a worthless sack of baby puke.
What I realized, as I chased the floating contents with my spoon, was that I could hardly stand to eat anything anyway. Josh and Losha hummed with delight, as I bemoaned my embarrassing culinary faux pas. Apparently, I had left my appetite at the bottom of the mountain. This was the first sign that something was wrong, but it wouldn't be the last.
When our afternoon meal was done, the guys were off for another adventure. They wanted to see the falls. I wanted to fall asleep. After removing my sweat-filled boots, I crawled into the orange tent Josh had set up before I arrived. It was a comfortable 60 degrees outside, but in that nylon sarcophagus, it felt like a Ukrainian sauna. After a half-hour I couldn't take it any longer.
I was surprised by the amount of effort it took to roll over. I fumbled with the zipper as I realized my coordination was less acute than usual. I slithered out from the smoldering tent like a dying reptile. I rolled across the needle covered ground until I found a shaded spot beneath the towering pines.
I stared at the cloud of mosquitoes that hovered above me. I probably looked to them like a cruise-ship buffet. It didn't matter. Maybe a little bloodletting would do some good. I'm not sure how long I laid there, but it was long enough for my friends, Lewis and Clark, to explore the Continental Divide and report back to Jefferson in Washington. As I stared listlessly upward, the sky’s assembly line of clouds passed me by.
Like an uncouth amusement park guest, a rude realization shoved it’s way to the front of my mind. Though I'd been lying motionless in the dirt since the present epoch began, my heart rate had not decreased. It was beating way too fast. Palm to chest, the thumps reverberated with heavy rhythmic desperation. I was beginning to realize that I was not merely tired. Something was going wrong behind my ribs.
When the guys returned from the second hike of the day. I asked Losha, who had just hiked an extra two miles at a 10,000-foot elevation, “What is your pulse?” He checked.
“I don't feel anything.” He said.
“Mine’s normal,” Josh added with finger to neck.
Trying to preserve a modicum of ego, I explained, “Weird. My heart rate seems slightly elevated, even though I've been lying here for over an hour.” Slightly elevated! I should have said, “My heart is kicking like a crack-addicted racehorse.” My blood pump was about to fracture one of my ribs, and all I could say was “weird.” I was beginning to get scared, but on the balances of manhood, ego still weighed heavier than vulnerability. I continued to pretend as if my flight equipment was nominal, but in reality, there was a fire in the cockpit, and my fellows would soon begin to see the smoke.
The sun drove west at a sluggish pace. The slender pines played an artifice of elastic dusky light, not easily revealing the true time of sunset. The night creeps upon the forested mountains more slowly than flatlanders are used to. “Get on with it,” I could have shouted at the amber skyline. Twilight was a taunt in shades of orange and red. With every deepening color came a dark forbode that tickled the nervous centers of my brain. With the dark came fear.
As we crawled into our sleeping bags. It wasn't long before I could hear the shift in breathing, that shift that marked off the boundary between lucidity and peaceful dreaming for my companions. They slept like tired hikers ought. But for me, sleep wouldn’t, no, couldn’t come. I lay like a fallen and shattered statue. I was made of stone and stillness. No matter how motionless I remained, my heart continued to thump, like I was striding in mid-marathon.
How long can a heart race before exploding? I wondered. I could imagine my cardiac muscle popping like an overripe tomato in the dark hours of the early morning. In a restful night of sleep, your heart should beat about nineteen thousand times. My heart was going for an all-time record.
A little past two in the morning, I began to pray. Now I pray every day, but not like this. It started with pleading as I thought of the angelic faces of my kids. How would they respond to hearing their daddy had died on a mountain? What would their lives be like living without me?
“Lord, please help. I'm scared,” I said, simultaneously wondering if I could walk down the mountain in the dark. Sheesh. I could hardly walk across the campsite, while the sun was still up. There was no way. The deep stabbing anguish of fright blasted holes in the tissue paper of my mind.
“Lord, please comfort me. I don't know what to do,” I continued praying, as I practiced heavy breathing. I started to think about my dad, who recently underwent surgery for an irregular and racing heart rate. What if the altitude has triggered the genetic heart condition that I've known runs in my family? This is what happens before a heart attack, I realized. The heart races wildly until it can't go on. Is that chest pain I just felt? Is this the beginning of my last chapter.
Even if I woke up, my friends, with a scream of pain. It would be hours before either of them could get close enough to civilization to call for help. I began to wrestle with how incredibly exposed I felt. I was a five-hour walk from anything, and I possessed about five minutes' worth of stamina. Walking down a mountain could exasperate whatever was happening to my heart.
Like a hammer blow square on the forehead, the realization hit me. I could die up here. There was nothing within my ability, nothing in my knowledge base, nothing within reach that could help. This was when my prayers began to shift.
“Lord, if this is your plan for me. If you want me to die, help me be okay with it,” I whispered into the cold night air. My breath swirled above me like the fragrant incense at a funeral. I didn't want to be dragged, kicking and screaming into the presence of my Savior. I wanted to put my affairs in order and prepare for the inevitable.
Years earlier, I had believed in Jesus for the free gift he offers. Whether this heart kept ticking or not, I knew my life would never end. As soon as my eyes close in death, I will breathe in that sweet air of the Kingdom of Heaven. I will wake in that grand country beyond the sea. Knowing this is a separate matter than being ready to cross over. I set about the business of coming to peace with my own death.
“Lord, if it's your plan to have me come meet you tonight. Please take me now,” I said it with utter conviction. Resigning myself to my own inability, I was attempting to surrender my body to the mysterious will of God.
Even as I write this, as my pencil scratches across the paper, I am crying. I have to take a long pause to let the tears abate.
After hours of wrestling with the divine, I eventually was able. I reluctantly whispered into the chilly night air.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
I felt those ancient words running over me like a refreshing waterfall dripping down into the cracks that my fear and shame and ego had rendered. Little by little, the mountain moved. The Colossus of rock and Earth, my doubt, and my worry my fear was cast into the sea, piece by piece. After hours of struggling. I am convinced that I was ready to die, somewhere between dark and Dawn. I drew a deep lungful of that thin mountain air as I entrusted my life into the unknown will of the one who gave it to me. It took whatever strength I had to let go.
“How'd you sleep,” my tent mate asked as he sat up at 5:03am.
“Not well,” I admitted, leaving out the excruciating details of the previous night. I gave only the surface facts. My heart was pounding all night. I couldn't sleep. He began to gear up for the day as I crawled out of the tent, like a fish who'd never adjusted to living above the waterline. I got the cookstove lit in the dark, mainly because it was the only campsite chore I could do while sitting down. It poured out precious BTUs of heat, as I had a silent little chat with myself.
“Drop the ego Lucas, tell them how you feel.” It had been hard to wrestle with my mortality the night before. Apparently, I would live at least a bit longer. Now I had a new battle, one that I should have been fighting long ago. My pride, I realized, had led me here. I had been scared to take the trip, but I wanted my friends, my family, especially my wife, to think of me as a courageous mountain man, charging up every rocky crag with a fearless abandon.
In my most profound reality, I was still that same kid who found a false reason to excuse myself from the Boy Scouts canoe trip, the boy scouts hiking trip, the boy scouts ski trip. They all sounded frightening to me. I have been afraid all my life.
“You need to talk about what you were afraid of instead of pretending not to be scared,” I whispered to myself as I dumped the oatmeal into the metal pot. This time reading the side instructions. I stood up shakily as they devoured their breakfast. I could feel my heart thumping in my ears as my hands trembled lightly, and my knees felt weak. I could hardly eat any of the oatmeal. Seeing my weakness, Josh offered to wash the mostly full dish in the river.
The time had come to pack and plan for the day. We were supposed to ascend another 3000 feet, walking miles above Timberline. We were told by park rangers that it was crucial to make this day's hike, certainly the hardest yet, at a fast pace. Urgent speed was critical because thunderstorms would roll in by noon, and the chance of being struck by lightning above the tree line is very high. All of this put a bigger knot in my stomach than my breakfast had. As we stood discussing the day, I finally let it out.
“You guys, I'm really scared. I know I can't go up anymore. I thought I might have a heart attack last night. I thought I was going to die. I've got to go down.” I glanced the other way. I continued. “I want you guys to go on without me.”
Though this was true, I stopped short of expressing yet another fear. What if I started to descend only to find that my condition got worse. Then I would be alone with a heart like a dying star. I could hardly imagine the kind of terror I would face then. As I was considering this, Losha spoke up.
“No, we have to go down with you.”
“Yeah,” Josh added. “I want to make the summit, but it's not worth it. We can't take the risk. We need to go down together.” Again, I looked away because I didn't want them to see the tears of relief I felt at their words.
“We need to take some of the weight off of your back,” Losha said. Whoa to the one who walks alone, that a cord of three is not easily broken. I could feel the deep meaning in those words. These men had been dreaming of this trip for months. They had summit fever. Josh called it the experience of a lifetime. They wanted to hit the Alpine so bad I could feel it. This was their bucket list trip. And here I was, a mouth breathing knuckle-dragging softy standing right in their path to the top. In an instant, they had taken all that excitement and drive and let it go.
These Christian brothers had me empty, the heavy items from my overstuffed pack. They took them up on their own shoulders. I can't help but think of Apostle Paul's words, “bear one another's burdens.” In this case, they did it literally. Had they not been men of deep faith, and committed to Christ-like compassion, they would have probably taken me up on my offer of leaving to descend alone. They carried the consequence of my ignorant overpacking mistake down the mountain for me.
Even then, it felt overwhelming as I strapped my now lighter bag to my aching back. Nonetheless, I began to walk down the mountain. There was comfort in knowing that these brothers in the faith would literally carry me down if they had to. I don't know if this is overstated. But I will tell you what I feel is true, their willingness to descend bearing most of my load could have saved my life.
When we got down, we stopped at the ranger station, after explaining what happened and that we were cutting our backcountry permit trip short and explained my symptoms the Ranger said, “You did the right thing. Thank you for not trying to go on.”
We found a campsite at the much lower altitude and set up camp there to allow me to recover. Within a day, my heart slowed, my strength returned, and a little Google research told me I had experienced a case of altitude sickness. Although some altitude sickness can be common, multiple types can be fatal. Judging by the fact that I've filled up this book while camping out in the valley tells me that I didn't have the fatal kind.
Once they saw that I was okay, Josh and Losha went on to tackle Longs Peak, the most challenging climb in the national park. I can see it from where I'm sitting as I scribble my thoughts in this little book.
My experience on the mountain leaves me with so many thoughts, as I come to the last pages of this notebook. Someday maybe soon, I will once again face my own death, maybe by heart attack, perhaps by cancer, possibly by being hit by a runaway apple cart while riding a unicycle. I don't know. The point is, I cannot imagine facing death without being certain of my eternal destiny.
Jesus promised eternal life to all those who believe in him. JOHN 3:16. Not only can I not imagine facing death without the promise of a Savior, but I can't imagine facing the rest of my complicated life without the help and companionship of Christian friends and loved ones. God has designed us to bear one another's burdens, most often when you feel like no one is carrying yours, it's because you won't let them.
I want to leave the last three pages for a few sketches of these amazing mountains and my mountain men friends. So here are my final three instructions. Number one, believe in Jesus for eternal life. You won't regret it. Number two, let other believers help you bear your heavy load. And number three, never, ever overpack.
September 12, 2019
Suicide In The Church
A few years ago my brother-in-law committed suicide on Easter day. It was a horrifying time of confusion and remorse for the entire family. I've seen first hand the terrible effects of depression and. In light of that, I've been thinking about this story that has been going around. I've seen it on sites like BBC, Foxnews, NBC, and I'm sure many others. The story I'm referring to is that of a young pastor named Jarrid Wilson who died by suicide not long ago. This recent suicide of a some-what well-known pastor has brought the issue of depression to the surface and given us some space to talk about it openly. It seems timely to share my thoughts on the subject, it just might save someone's life. I recently did a talk on the subject and created a graphic to help those who struggle with both the normal lows of life but also that which is debilitating.
How to beat porn. (Parental Advisory)
On Facebook, someone asked for advice on how to stop looking at porn. I started writing... and writing... and writing. After about an hour I hit enter. Facebook informed me that they do not allow comments longer than 8000 characters. I guess I have a lot to say, but facebook won't let me say it. That's probably for the best anyway. This post may not be appropriate for just anyone. The following is the comment that facebook would not let me post. I hope it helps.
I've been able to overcome porn through a few habits and methods. I'm going to be a little bit graphic in this comment, so proceed with some caution. I'm going to share 10 methods for overcoming porn. These are primarily directed at married men and women, though I expect some of them could help single men and women as well. Shawn if these are too graphic I understand. If you need to delete this comment I get it. I'll post it on my own site, so it won't be lost.
1. It's time to tell the wife. My wife is my biggest ally in the fight against porn. My wife is very understanding and has been willing to help from the beginning. Many men who are engaged in porn, are lying to their wives about it. This is one of the main excuses: "My wife thought I quit a long time ago, if I tell her now, she'll know I've been lying to her for years." Here's the problem though, our wives are our one shot at beating, beating off. Seriously, it's how God designed us, and we have to lean heavily on the help of our wives. (I never was able to overcome porn and masturbation while I was single, so you'd have to talk to someone else for that.) You need to begin talks (not one talk but many) with your wife about porn. I know, she doesn't get it. That's why you need to talk. I know the stakes are high. Proceed with caution. I know there are people that will tell you not to talk to your wife, but I'm convinced that your wife is your best chance of beating this thing. My wife has been very understanding, I know not all are. I don't envy you for having to tell her. It's going to be hard. There are two sins being committed, porn and lying to your wife. You can stop one of those almost immediately. Once you stop lying to your wife about it, or at least being completely silent, you can begin to talk about how you're going to fix it. I say this with one caveat. Talk to your wife about it when you are actually ready to fix it. It's not fair to tell her if you aren't ready to do something drastic about it.
2. Drastic you say? Yeah. I did, and it worked. Once I got serious about beating porn, I realized I needed my wife's help. I had my wife set passwords and parental controls on my devices. All. Of. Them. This is the biggest help I've ever had. It eliminated probably 95% of the temptation. The 5% of temptation that comes up, I prepare for with prayer and a steady diet of setting my mind on things above. You may say, "That would be so inconvenient." That's garbage. That mentality is valuing your own right to look at whatever you want over the health of your family. You need to win, or your family is going to lose. When you're ready, have your wife set up passwords on all your stuff. She'll be around to put in the password when needed. This is why it needs to be your wife. She's available when you need her to unblock a site. When she's not available, you probably don't need to be looking at a blocked site anyway... am I right?
3. So this eliminated about 95% of my temptation. The extra 5% can be combated with prayer, a healthy sex life, and setting my mind on higher things. What I mean by that is, remember eternal rewards. A married man once told me that he used to think, "I'm saved, so why should I stop looking at porn?" He thought that until he heard about eternal rewards. Once he realized that he's got some skin in the game, (figuratively) He was able to begin having some measured success. Here's a practical example. The last time, (which it's been a while now) I was tempted to masturbait, I was literally reaching for the lotion as I was praying. Lord help me overcome this temptation. With the lotion in my hand I said, "Lord I believe you will reward me if I put this lotion down." Guess what, it worked. I put down the lotion and have maintained a good track record since. What was running through my mind in that moment was the literal reward that Jesus will give me at the judgement seat for overcoming sin. It worked. Since my wife helped me overcome 95% of the temptation by putting parental controls on my devices, I can combat most of that extra 5% with prayer and a healthy thought life. That doesn't mean my performance is perfect, but I can say, I'm doing well because of these things.
4. When I do fail, I confess very specifically to God, and less specific to my wife and close male friends. As far as confessing to God I speak aloud the gritty details in prayer. Hearing myself say it to God is embarrassing and hard to do. Now that I'm no longer looking at porn, I do this with specific lusts and fantasies I've fallen prey to. I confess to God the details of what I imagined, down to what I was doing in the lustful imagination. "Lord, I'm sorry, I envisioned unbuttoning her pants and..." well you get the idea. I've literally hung my head in shame after speaking these kinds of things out loud to the Lord. It helps me realize how serious they are. In addition, I confess to my wife and to my close male friends, but I don't confess in such detail. I tell them that I've messed up and give some generalizations. This helps as well because it allows me to stay in good fellowship with my wife, (which is vital to having a healthy sex life) and keeps guilt from building up. The build-up of guilt leads to more sin usually.
5. I've set my aim at getting 100% sexual gratification from my wife. In the first few years of marriage, this would have been unimaginable to me. I probably was at a 60% self-gratification 40% intimacy with my wife. This was fueled by porn for some time. Even after I stopped looking at porn, for about a year I still was strongly tempted to gratify myself without her being involved. This was because I had trained my body to want self-gratification. It was a many-years habit. I liked sex ok, but I preferred doing it my way by myself. Weird, I know. What I noticed is that over time, the longer I went without porn the less I desired to self-gratify and the more I desired to have intimacy with my wife. Once that began happening, the fight against porn became easier. A married man's best bet to overcoming porn is to have sex with his wife... often. More than he "needs." You need to be having sex more often than you feel physical need for it, because by the time you let the libido build-up, the temptation will be stronger. It's like eating regular meals. If you eat a normal portion more often, then you won't become starved and be tempted to overeat. Same concept, have sex with your wife more often than the minimum and it's like armor against porn.
6. Put yourself in situations where there is raised expectation. Many men I've talked to decide not to volunteer in their church, or take spiritual leadership because they know they are living with a porn habit. They feel like they need to clean up their lives before they are worthy to do anything valuable. I take the opposite approach. Put yourself in a situation where there is raised expectations for you to excel. Lead a Bible study, start a prayer group, share the gospel on a regular basis, volunteer at church. Inject yourself into a situation where there is a higher standard of expectation. This alone probably won't fix the problem, but it helps take care of a small percentage of the temptation. Minor temptations can be brushed away by thinking, I can't be looking at porn, What would my Bible study group think if they found out? This can help, though don't rely on this method completely. For me, I'd say this has helped me maybe one out of ten times I've been tempted. it's part of a winning plan, but it certainly isn't the knockout punch.
7. Insist on sex before your wife goes out of town. My wife and I call it, 100% optimized. That means that I have not looked at porn or masturbated since the last time we had sex. My goal is to stay 100% optimized and I have for quite some time now. We both know that I'm most tempted when she and the kids are out of town visiting her family, and I'm at the house alone. We do a few things. First I make sure and log out of any TV services on our TV that aren't blocked by parental controls. It's important to do this before she leaves town because once she's gone my hormones are in a full-court press. Secondly, we try to make sure and have sex the night before she leaves. I need every advantage I can get. I usually am set for a few days after sex. I'm least tempted if I'm most recently satisfied.
8. Get good at sex with your wife. I was a virgin when I got married. In addition to being a virgin, I'd been masturbating for years. The goal of masturbation is very different than the goal of sex. Masturbation is about getting pleasure as quickly as possible. If I could reach pleasure town in 15 seconds, then great. Though, that doesn't work well for actual sex with a real person. 15 seconds is a pretty crummy Friday night. So, there was a steep learning curve for me and my wife, who was also a virgin. I had to figure out ways, and am still trying to figure out ways, to make the whole thing last longer than a yellow traffic light. We've figured out a few things that really help this. I'm not going to tell you what they are, because I think that's too much information for this location. Here's why I'm telling you at all though. I was so embarrassed at my crummy performance in bed for the first seven or eight years of our marriage. Men don't like being embarrassed. I, therefore, didn't look forward to being shamed so I avoided regular sex. This made my porn problem worse. Here's the fix though: figure it out. Get good at sex. Ask her what she likes, and do it. Make it your goal to give her the best time of her life, and you will enjoy it more as well. My wife and I are much more satisfied with our performance in the last two years. We're nearly to our ten year anniversary and it finally seems like we're getting the hang of it. Now that I don't feel embarrassed, I'm more likely to want to do it. this makes me 98.2% less likely to want to look at porn.
9. Get off of Instagram. Instagram was the last hold out for me. I told myself I wanted to keep it around to keep up with my friends. Though the last few times I was even tempted was through Instagram. Instagram is officially against porn being on their site, but they do virtually nothing to stop it. Tumblr is the same. Get them out of your life. Facebook is much better at filtering, and Twitter is fair to middling. Facebook seems to be the safest, though for good measure I've removed Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, actually all social media from my phone. I do social media on a desktop or laptop exclusively now. It would be weird for me to go into the bathroom with my 15" MacBook Pro. The phone is much more discrete, which is why it's the preferred porn delivery system. So I decided to remove all of it. You're probably thinking, but what will I do on my phone while I'm on the toilet? I've been really pleased with the NEWS app on iPhone. It gives me, basically the same things I like about Facebook, (a scrolling news feed) but what's in the feed is actually news. So it's been a good replacement, and I haven't really missed my phone-social media. All social media that needs to be done, I can do during the day on my computer when there are other eyes of colleagues present.
10. Finally, face your screen toward the door. In your office, make sure that people passing by can see your screen. Set your screens up in ways that someone can happen in on you. I give a buddy free office space at my home office for this very reason. He can see my screen all day long, and I can see his. It's helped us stay wholesome. It's worth it to me to have someone else around to keep me honest. Another example is, my TV in my living room can be viewed through security cameras set up in my house. My wife can log in and see what I'm watching at any time. In fact, she could be watching me right now and I wouldn't know it. That's the point. We behave better when we are being watched. The more hours of the day you can put yourself in situations where you are being watched, the better you will behave. This will help you build solid habits that strengthen your tolerance for avoiding porn.
Now let me tell you why you want to do all this. Your sex life with your wife will be better. Not right away, but after the poisonous porn residue begins to leach from your body and mind you will begin to feel more desire for a natural intimate relationship with your wife.
This affects the whole family. Parents with an improved sex life, treat their kids better. Their home is more loving and peaceful, when Mom and Dad not only are committed to monogamy but living a romantic existence.
Your relationship with God will change. You have dark corners when you're living with a porn habit. It's like visiting the temple of Zeus. Sure, you can do it while being a Christian, but it's a dark secret that you wish God didn't know. Come into the light, and you'll feel a freedom.
My life, my family life, and my spiritual life is richer since I let my wife help me quit looking at porn. It is so much better.
Hope this helps.
August 14, 2019
We Chose To Follow Children, (Josh Harris & Marty Sampson)
Marty Sampson and Josh Harris, two huge Christian influencers who have publically announced that they have left the faith, share an interesting similarity. I'll get to that in a moment, but let me explain what these guys have done first.
Josh Harris wrote I kissed dating goodbye, along with loads of other Christian books. He's sold millions and influenced so many people with his writing.
Marty Sampson has written and performed worship songs as a Hillsong leader. You've certainly heard his songs Mighty To Save, Tell The World, and about a billion more.
Both of these guys became very famous. What occurred to me today, and I double-checked to make sure, was kind of startling and it connects to something I can relate to.
Marty was 19 and Josh was 21 when they got their "big break."Both Josh and Marty became famous at a young age. They then were ushered into the mega-machine of world-wide publishing (both literature publishing and music publishing). In both cases, they were given a huge platform. They became mega-movement leaders at a time in their lives when most young men are still trying to figure out how to pass freshman algebra.
I'm thinking back to when I was between 19 and 21. I badly wanted to be a Christian celebrity. I wanted to become a well-known Christian speaker. I spent my weekends speaking at regional youth events. I was also in a worship band that had a measure of regional success, I dreamed of us rising to the highest heights in our music career. With each invitation, whether to speak or play with the band at gigs, I wanted more, more, more.
I recall being frustrated that God did not allow me to have the kind of success that I wanted at the time. I now know it would have ruined me. It would have forced me to set my thoughts in concrete before they were ready. The point: I wasn't ready at 21, and certainly not at 19. Heck, I wasn't ready to do what I'm doing now until I was in my early 30s.
That's because, when I was nearing my thirties I began to question a lot of things. I removed myself from ministry and had frustrations and bitterness I needed to wrestle with. I was pissed off every time I sat in a church service. Maybe it was jealousy or bitterness, or possibly I hadn't eaten breakfast and the sermon was going too long. I even questioned the fundamentals of my faith.
Fortunately, I was able to do all of this in privacy, and among close friends. I can't imagine the pressure of having to wrestle with these kinds of questions as a public figure. I'm so glad that I had not found fame, because it would have made that wrestling match a point of public shame.
This is especially true for guys like Josh and Marty, who both have an entire 'industry' relying on them continuing to think, write, and teach what they became famous for. It's hard to imagine the intensity of what they are facing. There is a host of issues everyone has to deal with when they hit their mid to late twenties. I'm convinced that anyone who is thrust into roles of mega-leadership before they've dealt with those issues is in danger of this same phenomenon.
I'm convinced that this is why God (through Paul) explained that the church should be lead by elders (1 Peter 5:5). Though there may be disagreement on how old an elder should be, hardly anyone would argue that a 19 or a 21-year-old kid could be an elder. These guys, along with many others, were put into roles of leadership because of their talent. It's regretful they never got the privacy to wrestle with the big questions. Though I think the blame doesn't really fall on them for this, it falls on us, the church.
We chose to follow children! We are still doing it. The modern church puts the pretty faces and the angelic voices in front of the crowd and calls them leaders. All the while, ignoring the elder's leadership.
The church has become like:
Rehoboam [who] rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. (1 Kings 12:8)
It's our fault, we chose to follow children.
July 19, 2019
Do you need the Law to get the Gospel?
Got this question from a reader recently:
Wouldn't it be a good idea to introduce someone to the Old Testament law before I share the Gospel with them? Don't they need to know they are a sinner which the law proves before they can understand the Gospel?
First, John is the evangelistic book in the Bible. You want to get saved, you go to John. We know this because John himself said so. (John 20:30-31)
In the Gospel of John, rather than focusing his efforts on convincing average people they were sinners, Jesus focused on the fact that people need eternal life because they were going to die and remain in that state forever.
He did mention sins a few times to the authorities in his debates but His general evangelistic message was not so much that "you're a sinner in need of someone to wash your sins away." It was, "You're a mortal who will die and you need eternal life." It's not so much a discussion of sins and forgiveness, but of death and life. He chose the message that pretty much everyone already agreed on. Everyone knows they're going to die and those same folks would love to have access to eternal life.
Some say a person needs to admit they are a sinner before they can get saved. I don't see that requirement in the Gospel of John. It's true that many people do come to that conclusion, but it's not presented as a requirement for salvation in the Gospel of John.
Jesus was trying to convince people:
I will give you eternal life if you believe in me to accomplish it.
It seems to me that that does not require having the law explained to you. In fact, it seems that explaining the law first might confuse the issue.
I'm convinced the basics are in John 11:25-27. Jesus said,
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-27)
So here is what's in the verse.
1. Jesus
2. gives free eternal life
3. which you can never lose once you get it
4. to those who believe in Him
The basics above are what a person needs to know.
You're going to die. You need Life. Jesus offers that life to people who believe in Him for it.
July 18, 2019
Believes In VS. Believes That VS. Believes
This was a chapter that I decided to remove from my book Eternal Life (forthcoming), but I think it has some important stuff within.
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 11.2px; font: 11.0px Cochin} p.p2 {margin: 12.0px 0.0px 12.0px 36.0px; text-align: justify; font: 11.0px Cochin} One of my favorite lines in any movie comes from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, which is a spoof comedy. I'm not suggesting you watch it. In fact, I'm suggesting you not watch it. Not only are there graphic scenes that earn it's R rating, but it's a pretty crummy movie in general. I'll give you the one worthwhile line in the whole film. My wife and I quote it pretty often and it never fails to get a giggle. Dewey is trying to nurture his budding music career, and it's taking a toll on his family. His wife Edith is becoming more frustrated about the musician's lifestyle.
“Edith, I’m startin’ to think that maybe you don’t believe in me at all,” Dewey says standing in the doorway of the kitchen. His wife responds with her reassuring southern drawl.
"I do believe in you. I just know you're gonna' fail."
Edith’s ignorant line is funny because it illustrates something the audience knows is self-contradictory. We know what it means to believe in someone. If Edith believed in her husband, it would mean she knows he's going to succeed. She can't believe in him and know he’s going to fail.
You might be wondering what a spoof film from 2007 and the Gospel of John have in common. The answer is, they both expect their audience to know what it means to believe in someone. Even though the idea is reasonably self-evident, it's an essential stop along the way.
The Gospel of John often says that a person must believe in. This phrase is used 36 times in the Gospel and is the primary way Jesus explains what a person has to do to receive eternal life. Any time this wording appears there is an object one is supposed to believe in. Many understand what it means to believe but have tried to add extra meanings to believe in. They claim it means something other than simply believing. Artur Weiser compares the Greek for believes with believes in. His conclusion is that the linguistic variation contains no material distinction. In other words, believes is the same thing as believes in. In another place, he notes that the phrases are used interchangeably. You can see this when you examine what’s in the Gospel of John.
believed in Him = believed Him Though believe in is the dominant way Jesus and John describe the requirement for gaining eternal life, it is not the only way it's described. There are various wordings that Jesus uses to describe the requirement for salvation. All of these variations contain the word believe but are followed by different prepositions, and sometimes no preposition at all. The preposition describes the relationship between belief and the object which the belief is directed at. John chapter eight shows that believed Him and believed in Him are the same.
As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him... (John 8:30-31)
Obviously, John is using these terms believed in Him and believed Him as synonyms. One is an abbreviation for the other. To believe in Jesus is to believe His words or claims. To believe in Jesus is to believe that He is telling the truth.
believe = believed in HimIt can be further shown that Jesus uses the wording believe that in the same way. In this case, the focus is on the claim He makes.
Therefore they could not believe… Nevertheless even among the rulers, many believed in Him… (John 12:39, 42)
Here, the simple term believe is used as a synonym for believed in Him. This is not the only instance we see synonymous phrases in the Gospel.
believes in Him = Believes in His nameThe first chapter contains a phrase that appears later in the purpose statement of the Gospel.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name… believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. (John 1:12, 20:31)
These two verses appear at the beginning and end of the book, but they reiterate the same idea. The phrase believed in his name only appears once more in the Gospel of John, (John 2:23) but it is clearly a phrase that is synonymous with other phrases about salvation belief. His name means God is salvation. Thus, to believe in His name is to believe in Jesus specifically as God’s salvation.
believes in Him = believe that Jesus is the ChristAnother important note from John 20:20-31 (above) comes when we realize that to believe in His name is a synonym for Believing that He is the Christ. In the Gospel of John, Christ was the one who gives free irrevocable eternal life to those who believe in Him. So believing that He's the Christ is the equivalent to believing in Him for that eternal life.
A list of statements about salvation in the Gospel of John shows that the terms, believe, believe in Him, believe in His name, and believe that He is the Christ, The Son of God, are all able to be used interchangeably. Each of these phrases simply look toward Jesus with belief in slightly different ways. There are variations on one idea. One must believe in something, but what is that something.
July 13, 2019
How does repentance connect to belief?
I'd like to explain a few things about how repentance and belief fit together. I do not believe that repentance (turning from sins) is a requirement for receiving eternal life. I have some reasons for this, I'd like to share a few.
John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” (Acts 19:4)
He was baptizing people to prepare them for believing. Part of that preparation was to have them repent of (turn away from) their sins. However, it wasn't a given that those who repented would then believe in Jesus. Some who repent don't go on to believe.Of those that got baptized and repented of their sins, many would go on to believe in Jesus. However, there were lots who were baptized by John, repented of their sin, and did not go on to believe in Jesus. We see this in John 3 as John The Baptist's own disciples still don't believe in Jesus. (John 3:26) So what we discover is not everyone who repented then went on to believe in Jesus.
Some who do believe didn't repent first. What's even more interesting to me is that the Gospel of John does not mention that repentance is a requirement for receiving eternal life, only belief is. This is in spite of the fact that John's Gospel is THE book in the New Testament with the stated purpose of showing people how to receive eternal life. (John 20:30-31) In John, there are a number of people who suddenly believe without repenting first. (John 4:25-30, 8:30, 9:38) The most interesting of these is John 8:30 when it says:
Even as he spoke, many believed in him. (John 8:30)
"Believed in Him" is the phrase the Gospel of John uses to indicate that a person has experienced saving faith. So this means there were people who believed in Jesus who did not repent first.Some who do believe don't repent after.The Apostle John, who wrote the Gospel that bears his name, used the word "repent" a number of times when he was writing to believers. So what he encourages people to do once they've believed is repent (turn away from) sins. (Revelation 2:5, 16, 21, 3:3, 19) The fact that he has to tell people to do it means that it doesn't happen automatically. That means that not everyone who believed in Jesus follows it with repentance. So here are a few scenarios that we can derive from all of this.
Unbelievers can repent and remain unbelievers.
Unbelievers can repent and then later become believers.
Unbelievers can become believers without repenting first.
Believers can refuse to repent and remain believers.
Believers can repent.
Repentance sometimes precedes belief, and sometimes it doesn't. There are certainly times when repentance facilitates an ease of belief. So there are many examples where repentance precedes belief, but there are many where it doesn't.
Are individuals condemned if they don't repent?
We received this question:
In Matthew 11:20-24 is Jesus saying that the people of those cities will go to Hell because they did not repent. Specifically v23 where it reads “and you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to Heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades;...” Does that imply repentance is required for salvation since Jesus seems to be saying those cities (or I assume their inhabitants) will go to hell specifically because they did not repent? Can you help me understand this?
Great question.
There were basically two things that the nation of Israel (including the cities Jesus mentioned) had to do in response to Jesus. They needed to repent of their wicked ways and return to fellowship with God. (Lev 26:40-45; Deut 4:25-31; 30:1-10; Jer 3:12-18; 18:1-11; Matt 23:37-39). The second thing they needed to do was to believe in the man God would send as the Messiah. (Gen 15:6; Jer 31:31-34; Zech 12:10; Matt 23:37-39; John 1:11-13; 8:54-59; Gal 6:16; Rev 7:1-8).
You can think of this as the difference between a personal and national action and outcome.
Any individual could receive the personal benefit of believing in Jesus: everlasting life.
It would take the entire nation to both repent and believe to receive the national benefit: The Kingdom of Heaven would begin.
Do you see the difference? An individual can have everlasting life by believing. The nation had to both believe in the Messiah and repent of sin for the Kingdom to be inaugurated.
Now let's look at the passage you mention with that in mind.
Then He began to rebuke the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.” (Matthew 11:20–24)
What I see in this passage is Jesus talking about both an individual consequence and a corporate one. The individual result of the cities rejecting Christ is what happens on judgment day to individual people. However, I also see a corporate consequence of rejecting Christ and not repenting, in that Jesus implies that their cities will be physically destroyed. He does this when He says Sodom, "would have remained until this day" if it had repented. The implication is that Sodom was physically destroyed because of its refusal to repent. Would the individual people of Sodom have lived that long? No, He must be talking about the physical destruction of the city, in addition to talking about the individual judgment of its people.
So, here's what I'm proposing. As a city (or a nation), the two steps of God's kingdom plan were (1) repent of sins, and (2) believe in Jesus as Messiah.
The majority of Chorazin and Bethsaida didn't even accomplish step one. They had the opportunity to repent even before Jesus arrived, under the ministry of John the Baptist. They rejected John's opportunity to repent, and then they rejected Jesus'. Thus, there would be a physical consequence for those cities. They would be destroyed. BTW, they lay in ruins today. On a national level, since the nation would ultimately reject Him, God's Kingdom plan would be postponed for a few years... we're still waiting, obviously.
This leaves us to question what the individual options in Chorazin and Bethsaida were. Even if the city as a whole didn't repent, does that mean that no individual Bethsaidians believed in Jesus? Does Jesus mean that every single individual person from Bethsaida would go to Hell? Obviously not! How do we know this... wait for it... Philip, Andrew, and Peter were from Bethsaida. We know of three Bethsaidans who believed in Jesus and were saved. Even though Bethsaida would be destroyed, miss out on the Kingdom plan, and the majority would have a really bad time on judgment day, not all of Bethsaida would have this same fate. Some believed in Jesus and were saved.
If you lived in a city that refused to repent of pagan practices and sins, and rejected Jesus as the Messiah, how likely are you as an individual to believe in Jesus? A refusal to repent makes belief that much harder. John the Baptist came first because people were much more likely to believe in Jesus if they first repented. It's not a requirement, but it does clear the mind a bit.
For example, A person who repents (turns from) worshiping idols will find it easier to hear and accept the saving message of Jesus. A person who repents (turns away from) a life of drunkenness will be sober enough to listen to the gospel message. Examples abound, but the point is, that national repentance would have made it much easier for people to believe in Jesus.
Since the nation as a whole didn't repent of their sin, those individuals who did believe were doing so against the general consensus of their countrymen. The fact that repentance sometimes precedes faith does not mean repentance is required on the individual level in terms of salvation.
So is repentance a requirement for and individual to receive everlasting life? No. Was repentance a requirement for Israel (and her cities) to experience God's Kingdom plan? Yes.
