VINN: Exodus 14

This year I've gotten back on a reading plan to work through the Bible in a year. Last year I tried the "Bible-In-A-Year Chronological Bible" but got bogged down in February (when I started my 60-minute-a-day commute to Richmond) and I never got back on track. This year I'm hoping to do better.

I know for a fact I've read the Bible through cover to cover, and I've read every passage multiple times. And yet every time I read, I find verses that I've apparently never read before. I'm sure nobody snuck in and added them, so it's just that they made no impression on me until now. This may be a one-time thing, or it may become a recurring segment: Verses I've Never Noticed.

Last week I read Exodus 14, and this popped out at me:

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.

How wild is that? God's people are frightened and helpless, and Moses starts talking up what God will do for them. "Be still! Stand Firm! The LORD will fight for you, you need only be still!" There's a certain logic to this. God can do what His people cannot, and when compared to the power of God ours is insignificant. So it makes sense to passively let him handle the problem for us. And yet God's response to Moses is priceless: "Why are you crying out to me? Get moving!"

God indeed accomplishes what His people cannot: he opens up a way for them through the sea. No amount of work on their part would have gotten that done. But neither does God let them off the hook: if they want to break free from their captors, they need to do some of the movement themselves. To steal the relational wisdom of Hitch for a moment, God goes 90% of the way and waits for his people to go the other 10.



There's some obvious salvation implications here (Paul makes a baptism comparison in 1 Corinthians 10), but I'm more interested in the spiritual formation implications. How does this play out in demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit? In pursuing holiness? In breaking free of addictions?

Right now they're only questions, no answers. But it's fascinating what we miss when we only hit the bullet points of the Bible, instead of actually reading the text.

Back in the Habit

So as most of you know, I'm officially back in the saddle. December 22nd was my last day at the old job, and on January 1st I started as an Associate Pastor at Vineyard Community Church in Lexington, KY. That's fun.

I've got two primary areas of focus: spiritual formation and outward focus. My two favorite things! That's fun too.

As of yesterday, a new piece has been added to my job description: staff point of contact for our (excellent) volunteer IT team. Also fun.

I have a new schedule: Mondays off, work Tuesday through Friday, and then half days on Saturday and Sunday. Since I was already taking the kids to church Saturday nights (to give Judi time for homework) and Sunday mornings (all of us as a family) I basically get one free day a week, while not really losing any time. More fun.

I'm getting paid to do the stuff I would naturally do (and have actually done) for free. I'm getting to flex muscles that have gotten weak. There's clearly some significant workouts needed in the future to get back into game shape, but I'm already seeing the improvements. Fun.

In case I'm not being clear, life is currently fun. I know a part of that is that I enjoy novelty, and what's fun now may not be fun in 3 or 5 years. But right now I feel really blessed to be in the role I'm in. It's not always rainbows and butterflies, of course. Our budget's a little tighter than it was two months ago. I felt like God used the time off in extremely formative ways, and I didn't feel like I was necessarily done with that formation. And for all that I wrote this, it's hard to say that I lived that as well as I could have this year.

Still and all, it feels pretty darn good to be back to doing what I love. I leave you with this video of Whoopi doing her thing:

Leaving Las Vegas

True story: on my 21st birthday, I was living with my parents in Las Vegas. I'd just graduated from college, and came out to Vegas for what was supposed to be a 2-week vacation (I stayed until I was 25).

So I'm turning 21 in Sin City. Mid-afternoon, my dad comes home and says "get your shoes on, we're going downtown." We drive to a casino, and he hands me a roll of quarters and points towards the slot machines.



I lost the whole roll in ten minutes.

When I finished, he said "You get the point?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright, let's go home. Your mom's got cake."

======

I've been in town for an emergency management trade show, and it's been shocking how little I've emotionally connected with visiting a place I love. Other than a fantastic dinner with my aunt and uncle, I might have been anywhere. A big part of it is that we're staying at one of the seedier casinos (the Rio, best known for hosting the Chippendales), and I've had no transportation or time to visit my old haunts. Some of it is my Vegas-local disdain for mingling with the tourists. And a lot of it is that at this point I'd much rather be home with my family.

But as we drove to the airport this morning at 3:30am, I started getting nostalgic for the first time. I've not flown out of this airport on a return trip before... This was always the launching point for new travel. I flew out of this airport to propose to Judi, and again to marry her. I flew out for friends' weddings, for family reunions, and to visit Cincinnati to interview for grad school.

Arriving at McCarren is "coming home," but leaving is "starting a new adventure."

I'm ready for the next adventure.

Finding Proper and Appropriate Labels

I'm a resident of Wilmore, Kentucky. What does that make me?

Wilmorian?
Wilmorite?
Wilmoron?

Liked that joke, but had to cut it from something else I was writing. So I put it here. Hope you don't mind.

Why I Don't Work at a Church, Part Two

Take a moment and catch up on the backstory here.

When we left Cincinnati and moved to Lexington/Wilmore, I didn't have a job. It terrified me. I'd put my resume in with all of the local temp agencies, hoping to find some technical writing work (falling back on the Las Vegas skillset). Two days after we got here, I got a call saying there was a local business needing a short-term receptionist who could also do some technical writing. No chance of long-term placement, no benefits, lousy pay, just an interview on Friday if I wanted it.

Receptionist? Really? This is what you have for me, God?

So I went to the interview and got it. I worked hard there for a month. And at the end of the month, when the real receptionist (office manager, actually) came back, I was offered a permanent role with the company. The people were good, I liked the work, and I had no other offers. Not a hard choice: I took the job.

But taking the job meant I was doing something I figured I'd never do again: working outside the local church. That was harder than I expected, for a couple of reasons. The first is what I explained in Part One: two men I respect had judged me unfit to work in paid, vocational, full-time ministry with their particular local body. That was a kick in the teeth.

The second, though, was something I'd never really admitted to myself, or even fully realized. I drew a tremendous amount of value from my work as a pastor. Not the paid gig I'd enjoyed for five years, necessarily, but the actual pastoral role I've had for the past decade and a half. "I'm a valuable person because I do useful things for God!"

If you'd asked me flat-out, I'd have denied it and believed I was telling the truth. I know my value comes from my identity as God's child, not from what I can produce! I'm not a utilitarian! I read Search for Significance when I was sixteen!

I might get it intellectually, but in my gut it's so easy to believe that my worth as a person comes from my accomplishments, my relationships, my successes. It's a lie from the pit of Hell, and I do not exaggerate.

Let's sidebar from my therapy session for a moment, and let me get preachy.

====

You have intrinsic value, and it has nothing to do with your accomplishments. Or, for that matter, your failures.

Your virtues do not make you more valuable. Your vices do not make you less so.

Getting a better job, making more money, finding "the one," losing your job, going broke, losing "the one"... these things are irrelevant to your worth.

You are valuable because you are God's child. Doing well at life may make your Father proud, but it will not make him love you more or value you more. And the value he places on you is the only one that matters. Whose appraisal do you trust more than his?

====

Somehow, in my time "working for God," I'd forgotten how to live this way. And I'm convinced that this lesson is the primary one God has in mind for me to learn before he invites me back in the game. I'm not working at a church just because I blew two interviews, but also for my own protection. Until I get my worth from the right place, doing good will be bad for my soul.

So it's something I'm working hard to learn. Not that I've already attained this, but it's a start. We'll be here two more years at a minimum, and only in the past few weeks have I really started accepting that this might be the plan for the whole time. However long it takes to learn the lesson, I guess.

Only way to find out is to walk it out.

Public Service Announcement: Forty What?

Wow. Fascinating what a simple link from Rachel will do to your Analytics numbers.

For those that asked, here's the reason for the blog title:

http://mrodor.blogspot.com/2009/08/whats-in-name.html

You can also get there by clicking "Shakespeare It Ain't" in the blog title.

Ignoring the Troll

It pains me to watch so many respectable Christians rushing to refute Pat Robertson's latest idiocy.

For those unaware, Pat rebuked a guy who's been dating while his wife is in a nursing home with Alzheimer's, saying that the guy should divorce her instead.

Yeah.

So Christian leaders and thinkers, in a rush to show that Pat doesn't speak for Christians, have been writing serious rebuttals of Pat's comments. It's enough to make a (young) grown man weep.

Robertson's been saying ridiculous things for decades. It's all he does. There's a word we use on the internet for people who say ridiculously hurtful things just to get a rise out of other people... we call that person a troll.

The thing about a troll is this: it doesn't matter how good your rebuttal is, the troll won't hear it. They're just excited your talking to/about them. And the fact that you're even having a dialogue with them elevates their status in the eyes of an outside observer. A thorough and well-thought out response doesn't diminish their credibility, it implies that their ramblings are worthy of a thorough and well-thought out response.

The act of dialogue is, at its heart, an affirmation. Trolls don't need to be affirmed, they need to be starved of attention until they learn to behave like a grown-up.

I was raised in a pretty conservative Christian environment, and I've never met anyone who thought Pat was even close to representative of Christianity. So why are we so concerned to point out that "Pat Robertson Doesn't Speak For Me?" Why can he still push our buttons? The guy will meet his Maker soon enough, and he probably won't get straightened out until he does. What do you think your blog post, Facebook status, letter to the editor, or twitter comment is going to accomplish, other than keeping his name in circulation?

If you're a Christian and someone asks you about Pat, just shake your head and say "I'm sorry you had to hear that." And then have a conversation about something that matters or go do something worthwhile. Naming He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named just gives him power. Ignore him and he'll go away.

Or he'll just be ignored, which is just as good.