I want them to thrive.

I'm not a big fan of kids. In fact, the little booger eaters frighten me. Even after 6 years of marriage bliss, the thought of having children makes me squeamish. I'm just not ready to trade my life of late nights out with friends, traveling the world, and generally doing whatever I want for one of constantly cleaning fecal matter and pretending to ignore cries more shrill than a screaming pterodactyl.

I always refused to hold babies, but Matt made me hold Reed.

Yet even against my loudest objections, some of my closest and most beloved friends have begun to have kids of their own. At first I thought they had simply failed to take the necessary precautionary measures, but to my horror I learned they are procreating voluntarily. While I am still bewildered by their motivations, I'm surprised to admit I've come to love their little ankle biters. Much to my chagrin, one of my new favorite pastimes is magically turning a cardboard box into a fighter jet that I help 2-year-old Reed pilot at Mach 2 throughout his house until his mom grounds us out of fear for her toddler's life. To make matters worse, I also have a church family that I cherish and care deeply about, and it's riddled with rugrats - and even scarier, teenagers! However, without fully knowing why, I've developed a strong desire to see these kids   succeed. And not just the cheap, get-a-decent-job-a-house-a-nice-car-and-a-moderate-amount-of-credit-card-debt kind of success, either. I'm talking about the changing-the-world kind of success. On the long list of things I want, seeing the children of my friends and my church absolutely thrive is right at the top. Yet I'm still wrestling with what the means for me, a childless guy in his late twenties whose biggest hobbies are pipes, firearms, whiskey, and extremely hoppy ales. Not exactly the recipe for a youth pastor.

Reed now at age 2

My friend Joe told me about a book he read recently titled Sticky Faith. The authors of the book did a study of the youth who grow up in the church in America, and got some shocking results. Of the kids who grew up active in church - going to church every Sunday, learning Bible lessons in Sunday School, memorizing verses at VBS in the summer, going to youth group, praying before every single meal with their families, doing all of that "Christian" stuff - 65% left the faith after graduating from high school. So if you have 3 kids and you're doing everything right, teaching them spiritual truths and leading by example as a humble servant of God, guess what - chances are only one of them will ever darken the door of a church again after getting their diploma. Something has gone horribly wrong - our model is broken.

The good news is 35% do stay in the church after turning 18, and those 35%'ers have something in common: they're all terribly boring...just kidding. Actually, the Sticky Faith study showed that the kids in the 35% each had 7 Christian adults involved in their life. Not co-parenting in their family and disciplining them, just involved in their life. When Joe was telling me this, I immediately started thinking about my already packed schedule, and how many kids I see every week sprinting feverishly around our church like squirrels on cocaine. "It's impossible" I told him, "there's no way we can get 7 adults for every 1 kid." "I don't care about possible - it's necessary" he responded.

While I struggled with how in the world we'd get 7 adults to be involved in the life of each kid, I started to remember all of the amazing adults who invested in me when I was growing up. Nelson Scott helped teach me how to play guitar, was always ready for a jam session at full volume, took me to concerts in Virginia Beach, and even convinced me to start playing in front of the church. Dave Faith was a postman who was also a roller coaster fanatic and could've been the third Blues Brother. In the summers during middle school, he used to pick me up and take me to Busch Gardens to ride coasters all night. On one particularly slow evening, we rode Drachen Fire 12 times in a row without ever getting out of our seat. (I'll never forget the first time he invited me after church one Sunday. When I started writing down my address so he'd know where to pick me up, he said "No need to do that - mailmen know where you live." I always loved his wit). Dave Hileman is one of the deepest thinkers I've ever met, and he always challenged me with what I believed. He didn't just answer the questions I had - he actually gave me more questions to wrestle with! I know that sounds counterintuitive for the man who baptized me, but for Dave, sowing seeds along the path was not an option - he would only use the finest soil, even if it required conflict along the way. I still think of him every time I read CS Lewis or Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The truth is, I didn't have 7 adults closely involved in my life - I had closer to 20. They were all men who had careers, packed schedules, families and children of their own. Yet for some reason they all believed I was an investment worthy of their time, and for that I am extremely grateful.

I was having lunch with a coworker recently, and she told me the reason 65% of kids leave the church after graduating is because their parents had just brainwashed them, and once they got to college and got an actual education, they realized it was just a bunch of nonsense. While I appreciate my colleague's candor, I certainly don't think I was brainwashed (I know, I know, that's exactly what someone who was brainwashed would say, but hear me out). These men never proselytized me. Heck, they hardly ever even talked about God unless I brought it up. No, what they gave me was something far greater - a front row seat to their lives. I saw their faith in action - in the way they treated their wives, in the way they raised their children, in the way they handled disagreements. I saw it in the way they worked, the way they dealt with their vices, and the way they used their resources. And that gave me more perspective on a life of following Jesus than any other Sunday school class or church activity. In them, I saw true greatness, I saw adventure, and I saw them thrive.

It's taken over 10 years of maturing to fully appreciate what these men did for me and there are some I still need to call and thank profusely. In addition to that, I want my gratitude to shine through my actions - I want to be one of the 7 for a few of the kids in our church. I'm still struggling with how to do that, but my friends are helping me figure it out. My buddy Justin has the spiritual gift of basketball. He used to play for the almost-upset-Baylor South Dakota State Jack Rabbits, and every Tuesday, he shoots hoops with a few of the high schoolers at our church. I tried doing that, but found out I play basketball about as well as a politician   cuts the deficit - I can flail my arms around, but nothing ever actually happens. Instead, God has granted me the spiritual gift of a love for Taco Bell. Last week, I took a few of the guys who were as disinterested in basketball as I was to try the new Doritos Locos Taco, and great conversation abounded. No, I didn't follow some formula to proselytize them, I just encouraged them to thrive. Still, I hope, and I believe, Kiere and Alejandro will be in the 35%.

What I'm listening to during this post: "The Fighter" by The Fray

We like to party.

Last Saturday night was legendary. 70 of the most beautiful and amazing people in all of Atlanta gathered in our humble townhouse for an early St. Patrick's Day party, and it was astonishingly fun. Green cupcakes were baked, bread bowls filled with delicious spinach dip were cut to look like shamrocks, and plenty of U2 songs were added to the playlist. Kegs were tapped, bottles were uncorked, unique cocktails were shaken, and fine cigars were lit. Eventually, our entire neighborhood was lined with cars, and every common area was packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Many people there didn't know each other beforehand, and countless friendships were started that night. The smiles were wide, the laughs were hearty, and the welcomes were warm.

My friends and I throw a lot of parties. I guess we just have so much to be joyful about, and we enjoy sharing that joy with others. So we do that the best way we know how - we open up the doors to our homes, we invite others to join us for meals, and we celebrate the beauty of living life to the full. The notion that the Christian life is one filled with rules, regulations, and boring rituals is a complete farce. Jesus said he came so that we "may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10).  In fact, he spent so much time eating and drinking with people that the religious leaders of the day accused him of being a glutton and a drunkard! (Matthew 11) I think Jesus would've had a blast hanging out with all of the wonderful people at our parties.

Brittany passes out some green cocktails

I like the way Robert Hotchkins, a theologian at the University of Chicago, put it: "Christians ought to be celebrating constantly. We ought to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment. We ought to give ourselves over to veritable orgies of joy because we have been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death. We ought to attract people to the church quite literally by the fun there is in being a Christian." What grabs me most in that statement is "liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death" - because I think that's the source of our joy, and it's what we find in Christ. 

In reality, my friends and I don't have it all figured out. We've been beat up, burnt out, and dragged down. We've been laid off, cussed out, and turned away. But in Christ, we've traded in a life of keeping up with the Joneses for one of freedom and purpose. We're not naive, we know there is pain in this world - that's why we spent the day after the party fixing up a local school, and spent the previous Saturday cooking and serving dinner at a local homeless shelter. Yet even in the midst of that pain, our joy perseveres because we know this life is not the end of the story. And that is why we party.

What I'm listening to during this post: "I love this" by Jamie Cullum

I went to the red light district.

Amsterdam's red light district, known as De Wallen, is one of the strangest spectacles I've ever seen. While most cities' red light districts are filled with violent crime, broken glass lining the sidewalks, run-down motels that charge by the hour, and prostitutes who look nothing like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, De Wallen is actually quite charming. White swans gently paddle on the canal that cuts through the middle of the street, picturesque brick buildings share the same quaint architecture as the rest of the city, vendors sell sweet stroopwafels (my favorite Dutch treat), and the prostitutes - well, some of them actually do look more like Julia Roberts. They pose behind floor-to-ceiling windows, dressed in provocative lingerie, and tap on the glass to get your attention, then ask you to join them inside.

De Wallen at night

Yet this comparatively peaceful image of the world's oldest profession is deceiving, and one of the greatest fallacies of Amsterdam is that since prostitution is legal, all of the working girls are there by their own volition. In reality, authorities estimate that between 50% and 90% of window prostitutes in Amsterdam are there against their will (source article). Many of them are trafficked from eastern Europe and sold into sex slavery, while others haven fallen into the "loverboy" trap - they fall in love with a man who gets them into debt, then convinces them that prostitution (with him as their pimp, of course) is their only way out. In one interview I read, a prostitute said she did it simply because she had "problems" and the money is good. Knowing all of this, I went to De Wallen to pray. I prayed for the girls in the windows - that they may be freed from the bonds of slavery, that they may know they are valuable and loved by God, and that they may be able to utilize the wonderful talents God gave them to find a fulfilling career that has nothing to do with pleasuring gross old men.

While I was waiting at the gate to catch my flight to Amsterdam, I was happily surprised to see that my colleague, Lourdes, was on the same flight. Lourdes is someone who I greatly respect and admire. She grew up in Peru, where she eventually became a professional bull fighter. Later, she got into the mining business, one of the most male-dominated industries in the world, and worked her way up through the company, overcoming numerous cases of discrimination along the way, to become a highly acclaimed executive. She's smart, she's tough, she's beautiful, she drinks tequila straight up while remaining as sober as a nun, and she's a master of the bossa nova on the dance floor. If Dos Equis were ever to do an ad campaign featuring "the most interesting woman in the world," they would have to cast Lourdes for the part.

Yet when Lourdes approached me that evening, she shared some somber news - her father had passed away the previous week. She had flown back from the funeral in Peru that same day, and was about to get on yet another long, arduous flight. To make matters worse, the gate agent had just announced that our flight would be delayed by at least an hour, meaning we wouldn't leave Atlanta until after midnight. So I asked Lourdes if she'd like to join me for a drink in the lounge, and she accepted. I, too, know the pain of losing a father, so I wanted to give her the opportunity to tell me about her memories of her father - that was always the best grieving medicine for me.

Lourdes told me that her father grew up very poor. As a teenager, he went to live in the jungles of Peru. The government was building new roads there, and he worked on the construction crew. Yet he knew his talents extended beyond construction labor, so he took accounting classes through the mail. After long, grueling days of working with pitch black tar in the scorching heat of the jungle, he would diligently read about the thrilling topics of assets, liabilities, and owner equity, and complete his assignments. He eventually started his own accounting firm, and became very wealthy.

Lourdes said her dad always had a gift for working with numbers, and just needed to nourish it with those accounting courses. She went on to claim: "I think God is fair - He gives us all gifts, we just have to use them." Lourdes told me that her gift was business intuition - she's able to envision how business deals with play out in the long term, and she uses that information to make more wise decisions. She doesn't know where it comes from - it's just a gift. And while she didn't have to take correspondence courses to develop her gift, she had her own set of struggles - constantly having to prove herself and fight prejudices every step of the way.

As I strolled down the streets of De Wallen and prayed for the spiritual gifts of the prostitutes, I thought of Lourdes, her father, and myself. I thought of how many gifts I have been given by God that I should nourish, but haven't because I am too lazy to take the correspondence courses or fight the prejudices. Instead of pursuing the things I could be truly great at, I settle for the mediocre skills I'm comfortable with, simply because they pay more. In short, I'm just like the hookers behind the red lights - tapping on the glass and selling myself out to whomever will finance the debt of my earthly desires.

In Matthew, Jesus tells a parable about a wealthy man who is going away on a long trip. He has three servants, and he entrusts each of them with a sum of money to look after while he is away. He gives one servant 5 bags of gold, 2 to another servant, and the final servant gets 1 bag. The servants who received 5 and 2 bags, respectively, each invested the money so that by the time their master had returned, the principal had doubled. Yet the servant who received 1 bag was scared to use it, so he dug a hole and buried it. When the master returned, he was very pleased with the first two servants, and gave them even greater responsibilities in his household, but was furious with the third for being lazy and not using the talent he was given.

Too often, I see a lot of myself in that last servant. I'm intimidated when I see others around me have more natural gifts than I do, wondering why they have 5 or 2 bags while I only have 1. I'm afraid to take risks or really send my talents to the crucible for refining out of fear of what the heat may do to my comfort level. And it's not just limited to what I do for my occupation, either - it spreads to my ministry, too.

In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning writes something about this parable that really convicted me: "The third, who prudently wraps his money and buries it, typifies the Christian who deposits his faith in an hermetic container and seals the lid shut. He or she limps through life on childhood memories of Sunday school and resolutely refuses the challenge of growth and spiritual maturity. Unwilling to take risks, this person loses the talent entrusted to him or her. 'The master wanted his servants to take risks. He wanted them to gamble with his money.'"

I can't stand to be the third servant anymore - I'm ready to gamble. I'm closing down my window on De Wallen, and I'm following Lourdes's lead. I'm going to utilize my talents to serve the Lord, even if it takes a few correspondence courses and fights with prejudice along the way.

I never saw the Vasa.

In 1628, Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus commissioned the most glorious ship ever built, the Vasa. The Swedish Empire was at the height of its power, and the king wanted a ship that would reflect that image. So not a single expense was spared, and the ship was loaded up with the finest bronze canons and ornate sculptures, just as the king insisted. Yet no one had the guts to tell the king what all of the engineers so obviously knew – all the stuff he required be on the deck made the ship top-heavy, and the vessel was not seaworthy. The Vasa never made it out of the Stockholm harbor – 200 meters into its maiden voyage, a light breeze caused the ship to sink – and it remained at the bottom of the harbor for over 300 years.

In the 1960’s, they pulled the Vasa out of the water almost completely intact (the frigid Scandinavian waters had apparently preserved it quite well), and today it is the most popular tourist attraction in all of Sweden. At least that’s what Wikipedia tells me – because I’ve never seen it for myself. I may have spent 100 days here in 2011, but I never really had much interest in seeing it – anyone could tell you that a ship built purely for pride’s sake is destined to sink.

Instead, I spent most of my free time in Sweden at Blasieholmens Akvarium o Restaurang, B.A.R. for short, eating the best fish I’ve ever tasted. Ashley and I discovered it on a whim a few years ago, fell in love with the place, and it’s been my home away from home ever since.  Tonight I waddled atop my usual bar stool, like Norm settling in at Cheers, and Dave asked me “So what will it be tonight, Jay – an aviation, or an old fashioned?” He knows me too well. Dave has a pretty cool story – born in Hong Kong, his family immigrated to Manchester, England when he was a kid, and he moved to Sweden a few years ago just for an adventure.

A Superb Aviation Made by Dave

Tonight I told him my role with the company had changed, and that I wouldn’t be traveling to Sweden anymore. I was surprised by how genuine he seemed when he told me how much he was going to miss having me as a customer. He said he appreciated how I always challenged his mixology skills and took the time to learn his story, and he asked me if I minded him adding me as a friend on Facebook because he wanted to keep in touch. I don’t know why, but that meant a lot to me.

Yet the greatest memories I have of Sweden are the times I spent with a Welshman and a Brit - Rhys and Roland. Anyone who has ever enjoyed one of my cocktails has Rhys and Roland to thank – they introduced me to the Pegu Club in New York, bought me my first aviation at Restaurang 1900 in Stockholm, and Rhys made me my very first old fashioned at the house they used to rent on the island of Lindingö.  During our dinner discussions, we solved all of the UK and US political problems, they shared their superb advice on entrepreneurship with me, and they gave me some of the heartiest laughs I’ve ever had. After sometimes tumultuous weeks of working with my Swedish colleagues, they were always a joy to share a meal with.

My Swedish coworker, Fredrik, and I used to have a difficult time getting along. We’re pretty different, and just had trouble seeing eye-to-eye for whatever reason. Yet one night we were having dinner at a traditional Swedish restaurant, and as I was biting into my Lörjom on Raggmunk (imagine bright orange caviar spread on top of a potato pancake), he said “See, this is what I like about you. You don’t come here and order the cheeseburger – you always dive into the most Swedish thing on the menu.” We’ve been friends ever since, and now we joke about how different we are.

Lörjom

Sharing a meal with others is just innately special. Every country I’ve been to and every culture I’ve experienced puts sitting down with others to eat in high regard, and always has unique traditions for celebrating it. When Jesus had some important concept that he needed people to understand, he made an analogy to a feast or a banquet. When Jesus was about to die on the cross and wanted to give his disciples a way to remember his sacrifice, he chose the last supper. Jesus didn’t just talk to “tax collectors and sinners,” he dined with them in order to fully enjoy their company, which was considered an honor. This perplexed the religious leaders of the day – “Whydoes your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

When I think about where I’m investing my time and life, I look at where I’m having my meals. As I look back on my adventure in Sweden, I’m satisfied with how I spent my time here. While I never made it to the Vasa, I had some awesome meals that created some great relationships, and those are the kind of ships that aren’t built on pride and don’t sink in the harbor.

Jazz & Freedom

This morning, my friend Jared sent me a link to a superb folk song – Hymn #101 by Joe Pug. Yesterday, he had heard a sermon on the perplexing verses of James 5:1-3, and as he wrestled with the question of “What is the testimony of my stuff?” he couldn’t seem to get this song out of his head. I clicked on the link again and again – and with each listen, I too began to wrestle. “Oh they say I come with less / than I should rightfully possess / Isay the more I buy the more I’m bought.” Certainly music has the power to convict.

In 1964, the city of Berlin, Germany, held its very first Jazz Days, and the organizer of the concert asked Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to write the forward for the program. As expected, Dr. King had some brilliant words to share about jazz and its ability to help man overcome. “Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from the music. It has strengthened us with its sweet rhythms when courage began to fail. It has calmed us with its rich harmonies when spirits were down." 

The Berlin Wall was constructed just a few years before Dr. King wrote these words, and I believe MLK knew that the power of jazz wasn’t limited to fighting for civil rights in America. Surely, God intended music to comfort all of the oppressed, from those suffering under the thumb of Jim Crow to those clawing desperately to tear open the Iron Curtain.

For me, 2011 was the year of Otis Redding. I simply couldn’t get enough of the King of Soul – I must have listened to “Cigarettes& Coffee” at least 130 times. “Try a Little Tenderness” was probably the best piece of marriage advice I received all year. I spouted out Otis Redding trivia at every opportunity: did you know that Aretha Franklin’s hit “Respect” is actually an Otis Redding cover? She never would have been crowned the Queen of Soul if it wasn’t first for the King.

As I was shaving this morning, Redding’s cover of Sam Cooke’s classic “A Change Is Gonna Come” randomly played on my iPod. Already reflecting on the MLK holiday, I paused and prayed for those who are oppressed yet continue to cry out with hope “It’s been a long time coming, but I know, a change is gonna come.”

Tonight, I had dinner with a colleague at a little Italian joint in Stockholm called Ciao Ciao. I had a bourbon straight while he drank wine, and we joked about the differences between Swedish and American cultures. “How much fun would it be to hold our next team meeting in the States?” I proposed. He agreed that he’d love to try all the fun things the US has to offer that are outlawed in Sweden – handguns, low taxes, and beer that costs less than $20 a pint – but that he didn’t think it would be possible.

You see, one of the colleagues on our team is based in a country that has its own Berlin Wall of sorts. There, unless you’re related to some sort of dignitary, it takes a miracle for one of its male citizens under the age of 40 to get a visa to the USA. Even if the US granted him one, his country wouldn’t let him use it – they’re afraid that if he tastes just a bit of freedom, he wouldn’t come back.

“God has wrought many things out of oppression,” Dr. King wrote in that Berlin jazz program, continuing: “Everybody longs for meaning. Everybody needs to clap hands and be happy. Everybody longs for faith. In music, especially this broad category called Jazz, there is a stepping stone towards all these.”

I’m still wrestling with that Joe Pug song. But I know this – I want my stuff to shout a testimony of freedom. Perhaps I’ll start by sending my colleague a CD of Otis Redding tunes. It’s been a long time coming, but I know, a change is gonna come.

Lessons in baseball history in Sweden.

Some of my friends and I are going through a book together called The Tangible Kingdom Primer. The premise of the primer is that when communion with God, community with others, and mission all come together in our lives, that’s when we’re able to see God’s glory most visibly – right there in front of us. Each day, the primer challenges us to think and act a little differently in order to make the kingdom more tangible.

Today’s challenge was to “cross a social, political, or ethnic barrier,” and considering I’m currently in a foreign country, I figured this would be quite easy for me to do. After some googling, I found a church here in Stockholm that held a service in English, and off I went. When I walked into the small basement auditorium, I immediately noticed that the majority of the congregants were black (I apologize if that’s not a politically correct term, but I don’t know what else to say – “African-Americans” isn’t exactly accurate. Afro-Swedes perhaps?). Before this point, I had seen maybe a total of 3 black people in Sweden throughout my 15 or so trips here and never did I think it possible for a white, blonde hair, blue-eyed male to be in Sweden and be in a minority.  Yet there I was, and it was beautiful. They welcomed me with open arms and warm smiles, offered me coffee, and together we sang old gospel-hour hymns that I hadn’t heard in years. I praised God for giving me the opportunity to worship there, and for showing me a wonderful community of brothers and sisters in Christ in a country I thought had completely turned its back on God.

The sermon was about friendship, and how having strong friendships with fellow believers is crucial to having a relationship with God. The pastor told a story about Jackie Robinson’s first error. It was at a game in Boston, and a ball went right through his legs. The crowd must’ve taken that as some kind of confirmation of their racist views, because they began to chant in unison “White. Man’s. Game. White. Man’s. Game” – their taunts echoing off the Green Monster and piercing Jackie Robinson’s heart. At that moment, one of Robinson’s white teammates, Pee Wee Reese, walked up to Jackie, put his arm around him, and stared down the crowd. Robinson would later say that was one of the greatest moments of his career. It’s amazing how friendship can turn a time of dire agony into a memorable highlight, even amongst a stellar career filled with great moments.

Later this afternoon, I read the book of 1 John, and it sounded like the tape at an Ashlee Simpson concert – it just kept repeating. Over and over again, John harps on how important it is to love our brothers and sisters. He goes so far as to say that it is impossible to be in community with God while hating a brother or a sister. God simply refuses to associate Himself with those who hate. John doesn’t mince words: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or a sister is a liar.” Whoa.

I think The Tangible Kingdom Primer is right. If we really want to see God’s glory be tangible here on Earth, and live the kind of lives worth making movies about, we can’t do it alone. Life is meant to be lived in community, with relationships that cross all barriers, and with friendships that sharpen iron with iron.

There have been times when I needed to be a Pee Wee Reese for a brother or a sister, yet instead I was in the crowd at Fenway, hurling obscenities. I regret that with every fiber of my being, and I humbly ask you to forgive me. There have also been times when I have been hurt by a brother or a sister, but all has been forgiven, and I love you.

My plans turn into train wrecks.

I used to roll my eyes every time I heard someone mention “God’s will.” 90% of the time, it was said in conjunction with something stupid, and it just made me cynical. All the “Please let it be God’s will for me to get an A on this test” and “Tebow threw for 316 yards, it must’ve been God’s will for him to win” made the term “God’s will” sound cheap and petty to me. I may not know all that much about God, but I certainly don’t think He’s cheap and petty.

Yet lately I’ve been learning that perhaps submitting to God’s will is more complex than I thought, and maybe it does extend beyond the realm of being a magic 8 ball for football games and calculus exams. On New Year’s Day, my friend Rob Irvine preached about submitting to God’s will in 2012, which he described as trading your plans for God’s plans. The plans I make tend to turn into train wrecks, so I loved the thought of trading them in for something more grand.

I’m in the middle of reading a biography of one of my all-time heroes – Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a German pastor in the 1930’s who fought against the Nazi takeover of the German church, and who started underground, illegal churches that continued to preach the Gospel after the Nazis made the German church a puppet for Hitler. Bonhoeffer later joined the Abwehr (the German military intelligence agency) as a double agent, used his position to smuggle Jews into Switzerland, and also got involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

Eventually, the assassination plot was discovered, and Bonhoeffer was sent to a concentration camp, where he was hanged naked with a thin metal wire - just 2 weeks before the Americans liberated the camp. The camp’s staff doctor witnessed Bonhoeffer’s execution, and said this about it: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer kneeling on the floor, praying fervently to God…so certain that God heard his prayer…I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” Bonhoeffer’s complete submission to the will of God gave him a wild, adventurous, and dangerous life that utterly frightens me. Yet at the same time, something deep inside of me desires it.

Recently, my company went through a restructuring that left the future of my career in question. For four months, I was in an agonizing state of limbo. During the height of my worrying, I met up with my friend Matt for a beer. I told him how I was frustrated with God for not telling me what to do. I was fine with anything – if God wanted us to foreclose on our house, sell all our possessions, and live as missionaries in Africa, I was willing to go – I just wanted to know. Matt told me that’s not how God works. He said that submitting to God’s will is a daily act – to ask Him “how can I best serve you today?” I was disappointed that God wasn’t going to give me the life-long roadmap I wanted, but I started taking Matt’s advice anyway.

What makes God’s will simultaneously beautiful and frustrating is that it doesn’t fit a formula. The last community group I led was an absolute disaster. I had led a few groups before and they had all gone quite well, so I thought I was pretty good at it and had figured out the formula for what makes a good community group – the right study materials, the right meeting length, the right questions to start discussions. Yet this time my plans just didn’t work for some reason, and our group was a complete failure. At one meeting, I asked the group to pray for a close friend of mine whose dad had just been killed by a car that ran him over while he was riding his bicycle. Before I had even finished, one of the women in the group cut me off, “That’s why I always say bikes should not be on the road.” Another chimed in “and that new law that says cars have to give bikes at least 3 feet of space is stupid.” I was livid. The father of one of my best friends has just died - leaving behind a wife, 5 kids (including a toddler he and his wife had just recently adopted), and 4 beautiful grandchildren – and you want to make this a political discussion?! All I wanted to do was scream “Get the hell out of my house – I never want to see you again!” I pulled the plug on the group after that night, and we left that church with a disgusted taste in our mouth.

I swore I would never lead a group again. Obviously, I was a terrible community group leader, and my methods sucked – there was no sense in putting people through that again. Yet now I find myself leading another group – and it is flourishing. This community group is thriving like SEC football, and it’s all because I traded my plans for God’s plans. Perhaps it’s because I’m so aware of my past failings, but I don’t so much as send out an e-mail to this group without praying and seeking wise counsel on it first. I have no idea what the group will look like in 2 months nor am I basing what we do together on my narrow formula for community, I just follow Matt’s advice by daily asking God how we can best serve Him.

So what is God’s will for my life? I still haven’t the faintest idea. For now it must be sitting in my hotel room in Stockholm eating a Daim bar, because that’s what I’m doing. But as I continue reading about Bonhoeffer, I quiver at the thought of how God may answer my daily question tomorrow.