I'll Live to Tell About It

I am not well versed in the ways of Apple products, given the fact I own a Compaq (a company which doesn’t even exist anymore) laptop computer which will turn fourteen years old this year. Yes, you read that right - 14 years. The poor thing is maybe one step away from a needing a hand-crank to turn it on. If one year in human years equals seven years in dog years, then let’s suppose one year in human years equals 10 years in technology years. With that being the case, that means my laptop is, in fact, 140 years old. Sounds ‘bout right.

But rumor has it that Apple has this pretty cool feature called FaceTime. This is total hearsay on my part, as I also happen to have a 50-year old Android phone (remember, 1 human year = 10 technology years), so I’m assuming a lot when I say FaceTime is “cool”.  Nevertheless, notice that it’s called FaceTime. Not TextTime or SpeakTime or ChatTime. The central point to the tool is you get to lay eyes on someone’s face.

Faces matter. When you listen to the radio, don’t you always imagine the face of the deejay looking a certain way based on the way his voice sounds? And when you’re missing someone special, aren’t you picturing his or her face in your mind? Isn’t that what makes long-distance relationships so hard, the fact that you don’t get to see that significant other face to face on a regular basis? When you’ve got a friend who is trying to set you up with someone on a date, isn’t the first thing you want to see is a picture of the mystery person’s face? We love faces. They are how we identify people. They are how we detect emotions and thoughts, based on facial expressions. They are how we can tell siblings and parents and who belongs to whom, based on similar facial characteristics.  Faces matter.

Both apostles John and Paul said emphasize this several times in their letters to the churches and people of the New Testament:

“But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face…” (1 Thessalonians 2:17, ESV) 

“…as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?” (1 Thessalonians 3:10, ESV) 

“Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” (2 John 1:12, ESV) 

“I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, every one of them.” (3 John 1:14, ESV)

Face time. It’s what is most critical in cultivating and sustaining relationships.

When I think about heaven, you know what I think about most? I think about seeing the face of God. If there’s anyone I want to FaceTime with, it’s God. You may have had someone ask you before, “What do you think we’ll do in heaven?” or “What do you think heaven will look like?” Some people picture harps and clouds and angels and an eternity of sunshine and rainbows. I think when we get to heaven we’ll be so busy looking at the face of God that we won’t be able to take our eyes off him. We’ll be so captivated by his beauty, his glory, his majesty – harps and clouds will hardly be what fill our minds.

But why is that significant? Why is seeing the face of God going to matter?

When the people of the Old Testament wanted to encounter God, they were always told they could not see the face of God and live to tell about it. To witness him as he was would leave them stone cold dead. He was too much for them to take in, so he would veil his glory in such a way that they would only catch what amounts to a shadow of God. When Moses asked to see the glory of God, God responded by saying in Exodus 33:19-23 (ESV):

"I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The LORD.' And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But, he said, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. And the LORD said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen."

You can’t see his face and live to tell about it. Not back then anyway.

But there’s going to come a day – a sweet, beautiful, overwhelming, breathtaking day – when I’ll get to see the face of my God. Revelation 22:3-4 proclaims, “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”

I’ll see his face.

And live to tell about it.

I’ll see him face to face, as he is, in all his glory, and then spend all eternity proclaiming, “I have seen the face of God.”

I long for that day – when I get to see God face to face. To encounter this God, to have a never-ending session of FaceTime with him – when that day comes, that’s when I’ll realize that his face is the only face that ever mattered.

I Thought I Knew

So what do I know of you / who spoke me into motion? / Where have I even stood / but the shore along your ocean? / Are you fire? Are you fury? / Are you sacred? Are you beautiful? / So what do I know? What do I know of Holy? / I guess I thought that I had figured you out / I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about / How you were mighty to save / Those were only empty words on a page / Then I caught a glimpse of who you might be / The slightest hint of you brought me down to my knees… – Addison Road, “What Do I Know of Holy?”

I’ve had a startling revelation several times here lately, and each time it’s like I’m realizing it for the first time. I grew up in the church and made a decision to embrace Jesus as my Savior when I was just a teenager. I’ve heard about him for 32 years and have been following in his footsteps for nearly 19 of those 32 years.

And with each passing day, over and over and over again, one thing is becoming strikingly and unsettlingly clear:

I know absolutely nothing about this God I profess to believe in.

With the passing of time, I’m becoming convinced the longer I seek after him, I somehow come to know less about him.

It’s certainly not because he is revealing less – no, certainly not.

It’s because he’s revealing so much more – and in the revealing more, I’m finding he’s nothing like I thought he was. I spend my days feeling like David when he wrote Psalm 139:6, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

The longer I follow God, the more out of reach he becomes - in this raw, majestic, infinite, unfathomable, too wonderful, unattainable, lofty kind of way.

But I was doing such a splendid job of convincing myself the other way for so very long, convinced I was making some headway in acquiring knowledge of him.

Oh, how I thought I knew Him.

I thought I knew what it meant to follow him.
I thought I knew his Word.
I thought I knew he loved me.
I thought I knew his peace.
I thought I knew what his presence felt like.
I thought I knew his strength and his power.

I thought I had him figured out.

But it turns out I know nothing.

I know nothing of this God and his love.
I know nothing of this God and his grace.

The more I come to learn about him and spend time in his presence, the more absurd and outlandish he becomes to me, in the most humbling of ways.

Because, if I’m honest, what I think I know about Him are, in fact, the fractured and broken pieces of a God I have made up. Pascal said, “God made man in his image and man returned the favor.” I have returned the favor a hundred-fold over, day in and day out, for years, if not decades. I have this image of a God who is perpetually disappointed with me and perpetually upset with me, a God who is quick to anger and slow to love, instead of slow to anger and quick to love. I got “his anger is but for a moment” and “his favor is for a lifetime” all mixed up (Psalm 30:5), and instead have come to believe his favor lasts for a moment and his anger for a lifetime. That’s the God I know.

And it’s all wrong, this picture I have of him. It’s messed up and broken. This image I have of him that I carry around is heavy and burdensome. Didn’t he say his yoke was easy and his burden light? Then why is this image I carry around of him so heavy?

Because I’m carrying around the wrong image.

I’m buckling underneath the weight of a God I have created for myself, one that does not even remotely resemble the true character of God.

You ever feel a little stunned when you think about how little you know Jesus? Especially those who have walked with him awhile, has it occurred to you that you know only about one iota more about him than what you started out knowing? We get so full of ourselves, thinking we know so much when we know so little. My God, how could we be so arrogant?

Somehow, someway, I have to do the hard work of unraveling all of these twisted and broken images I have of him in my head, these false pictures of who I think he is. The Jews wanted a savior, one to save them from Roman rule. But Jesus wasn’t a Savior like they thought of a Savior. They wanted a king to extend his hand and wield his power on their behalf. But Jesus wasn’t a King like they thought of a King. They wanted a political leader, one to usurp earthly kingdoms and establish his own rule and kingdom. But Jesus wasn’t a ruler like they thought of a ruler. They wanted a prince, one who would brandish his sword and spill the blood of their enemies. But Jesus wasn’t a Prince like they thought of a prince.

And he’s not God like I think of God.

“’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,’” wrote the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 55:8-9.

He’s not God like we think of God.

And with each passing moment, I find that he unravels all that I thought I knew about him, replacing all those wrong images with the right ones, ones where he grows bigger and bigger, and I grow smaller and smaller.

In C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s work, Prince Caspian, he captures a tender moment between Lucy, the young girl who first entered the magical land of Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Aslan, the Jesus-like Lion of the story. Lucy and her siblings are returning to Narnia after having been away for quite some time, but they have yet to encounter the great Aslan they had met in the first book. Just as Lucy was the first to enter Narnia, she, too, would be the first to encounter Aslan on their return trip:

For he was there: the huge Lion, shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath him…[Lucy] never stopped to think whether he was friendly or not. She rushed to him. She felt her heart would burst if she lost a moment. And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far around his neck as she could and burying her face in the beautiful rich silkiness of his mane.

“Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan,” sobbed Lucy. “At last.”

The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face.

“Welcome, child,” he said.

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”

“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.

“Not because you are?”

“I am not. But every you grow, you will find me bigger.”

Every year you grow, you will find Him, the True Lion, bigger.

And you will find yourself smaller.

And perhaps in Him becoming bigger and us becoming smaller, perhaps in knowing nothing, we realize one thing:

That’s all we need to know.

My Mad Money Savings Plan

I love saving money.  I like spending it, too, usually on travel, but I love saving it even more so.  If you ask my family, they would say I am a tight-wad.  If you ask me, I'm merely frugal and generally choose not to spend my money on things that most other people spend their money on.  I'm not much of a shopper, so I don't enjoy spending money on clothes, or shoes, or purses, or things like that.  I quit buying books for the most part, and instead make extensive use of the public library.  I'm not a coffee drinker, so I'm not kissing my dollars goodbye every day on a mocha latte.  Heck, I'm not even a good gift-giver, so I don't even really spend that much money on buying things for other people.  I'm just not a fan usually of buying "stuff".  When you live in 350 feet square feet, there really isn't space to acquire much "stuff".

But traveling?  There's my weakness.  Overseas, domestic, fly, drive, spring, summer, fall, winter - wherever, whenever, whatever mode of transportation is most efficient.

About a year ago, when I began planning a return trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I took a look at how much I planned on spending versus how much I needed to save.  I figured if I saved my tax return, the money I made from house/pet-sitting, and any extra money I had from mileage reimbursement from work, I could save a tidy sum.  I would, of course, save some money from my regular paycheck in addition to all of that, but I knew I would need to still set aside a few extra dollars. 

It is at this point I got a little bit of a hare-brained idea. I asked myself, "I wonder how much I could save if I didn't spend any $1 bills I got back in change?"  That's a bit of a strange idea, I realize. But I decided to give it a whirl and see what happened. 

So, the deal was anytime I paid cash for something (which is what I do for all day-to-day spending) and got $1 bills in return, I would set those aside in a jar in my closet.  I started in late December 2015, and by mid-January 2016, I had saved about $80, all in one dollar bills.  By May, I had almost hit the $400 mark. 

After awhile it became a game of sorts, a self-imposed challenge.  I occasionally would need $1s to catch the bus around town, and I thought the bus driver was going to have to pry the bills out of my hand, I hated parting with the ones so much.  I would sometimes intentionally pay for a purchase with a certain amount of $10s or $20s just so I could get more dollar bills back in change.  I was now on a mission.  And I just kept watching the amount slowly grow.  As I got a certain amount set aside, I'd run to the bank and deposit it into my travel account.  Fifty dollars here, forty dollars there, maybe a hundred dollars on the rare occasion.  It would maybe take me a month or two, but I'd eventually getting around to saving a small sum.  I would jot down how much money I deposited and when, so I at least had a basic ledger to track my savings.  

I was loving my new plan and was having a ton of fun with the game.  Maybe it was a long, slow way of saving money, but it was working for me. 

Do you know how much money I saved by the time I went to Jackson last September?

Almost $600.

Think about that  - $600 in less than 10 months!  Just by not spending one dollar bills!

I was gone for two weeks and that amount paid for all of my meals and souvenir money.  It was a fabulous way to just slowly and methodically set money aside and then use that money to splurge on travel plans.

The game continues to this day.  As I save up a certain amount of $1 bills, I deposit them into my travel account.  Save, deposit, save, deposit.  Watch it add up. 

But what about you?  What's your mad money savings plan?  Maybe give my $1 bill challenge a try, and see if you can save $700 in one dollar bills in 12 months.