I wrote this about two months ago, the day I found out I'm gonna be a daddy. We're now three months in and enjoying every minute of it. Thanks to all who are supporting us; who are going to make sure our kid has the best life ever! -Joe

Today I find myself not at a loss for words, but confused about which words should actually come out of my mouth. I’m all at once joyous, fearful, nervous, excited, guilty, angry, sad and triumphant. For today I discovered that I am to be a father.

Just seeing that word in writing reemphasizes the foreignness of it. Father. The word that for all my life has only applied to men older, wiser, and better than myself now will apply to me. My own father is to my mind and heart like a god, rarely capable of wrongdoing and full of wisdom, a seemingly bottomless pit of proverbial goodness. And my God… my God has been Father to me for as long as I’ve known him; at times He and I have been intimate and I have known Him as Abba, or Daddy, and at other times He has been stern with me, lovingly disciplining me and I have been unable to see Him as aught else than Father: definite, strong, lovingly firm.

How can this world apply to me? How can I be worthy of a term that means so much?

It does not help me to know that the title has oft been tarnished by lesser men; there are mere boys who have been given the title and squandered it by ignoring their duties or by “deleting the problem.” Surely, I can be a better father than these, but God’s holiness and my own father’s example are such stronger images to me that I find little comfort in the failure of others.

My trepidation is accompanied by a sickness to my stomach and a fear—not that I will make mistakes and damage my child… surprisingly I don’t fear that, perhaps because I accept it as a forgone conclusion. No, I am afraid for what my child will endure in this beautiful broken world we call home. And that is why I feel guilty. In my God given desire to reproduce, to bring more life into this world, imitating my Creator, I have sentenced my offspring to the same sorrows, pains, and difficulties I have experienced. My little boy or girl will someday become acquainted with pain. He will have to have his first experience with the soul jarring moment of a funeral; she will know the confusion of trying to reconcile the wickedness of the world with the goodness of the God her parents love and serve. And I fear what conclusion she will come to in the midst of that confusion.

I am angry that the world is so broken that I fear for my child growing up in it. I should not have to fear. I should not feel guilty for bringing a life into the world. So I am angry.

Yet this is all overshadowed by my joy, my excitement, my triumph! I have been successful in carryout God’s first mandate to be fruitful and multiply. The very thing God has created me to be and to do – I have done! And so I feel closer to God, for I am now more like Him. Surprise… I am surprised at the depth of love I can feel for a being that barely exists… joy. Depth of joy for this child is to be my own flesh. He will carry my DNA. She will have my eyes. He will be like me, but completely different. She will be new and beautiful. He will think like me, and yet have his own way of making sense of the world. She will disagree with me, but in a way I can understand. My child will be a person in fullness. And I will love him. She will be the apple of my eye. He already is.

It smells like fresh ground coffee.

I think fresh ground coffee must be one of the best smells in the universe. I am sitting here in the Mt. Vernon Starbucks on College Way; it’s 7:36am and I’ve been up for over an hour… and I’m happy.

There are a lot of people to whom this won’t come as a shock. These are the people who mostly knew me in my pre-college days when I was primarily cheerful (though my journals reflect that I regularly engaged in self-hatred), and there are the people who have not known me long, or do not know me well. But there are a lot of people who will be pleasantly surprised at my admission of happiness.

About a year and a half ago I was diagnosed with depression, and given medication to help treat the symptoms – you know, help me sleep better, give me more energy, allow me to stop thinking all the time about how much I didn’t like my life – and fortunately, the medication helped out for a time. It allowed me to come up from the depths for a breath of fresh air. And the air tasted good.

Besides my depression, the last two years have been rather horrible at times. Between having few friends, disliking my work environment, missing the church that formed much of who I’ve become (props to G&G!), getting shafted by Multnomah two days before graduation, my wife slowly progressing toward blindness, and a whole host of minor annoyances, well, my life kinda sucked at some points. It actually made it impossible for me to go to the dark and difficult places in my own soul and let God’s light illuminate them. And so the darkness continued.

Until now. In the past few months, I have begun to see myself again. As I’ve done so, I’ve seen a lot of things I don’t like, but instead of retreating into my self-hatred, instead of becoming overwhelmed to the point of despair, God has allowed me to embrace his cleansing light and start becoming a changed me.

And so today I’m happy. My mind and Spirit are full from the times I’ve spent with God in the last month, and my muscles ache from the time I spent in the gym yesterday, and I’m a little hungry from my change in diet… and I’m the happiest I’ve been in… well, I’m not sure, but it’s been a long time.

And now for some coffee.

Yesterday was the anniversary.

It wasn’t the anniversary of the day I married my wife; nor was it the anniversary of the day I gave my life to Christ; and it certainly wasn’t the anniversary of the day I graduated from high school or college. All those would be wonderful anniversaries worthy of great festivities and celebrations.

No, yesterday was the anniversary of one of my best friends’ death. My dear friend, Vinnie Hovland, shot himself on November 24th, Thanksgiving, last year. Yesterday, to remember him, and because it seemed the appropriate thing to do, some friends and I visited his grave.

I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t the feeling of normalcy and contentment that I experienced standing next to Vinnie’s grave. It’s hard to describe, but I didn’t miss him any more than at any other point in my life. And after giving it some thought, I think I know why that is…

I miss Vinnie most in the places I knew him. I miss him in the places I remember being with him. So I miss him in my old apartment, because he was there every Tuesday for small group. And I miss him at Red Lotus, the Chinese restaurant down the street from where I lived, because we met there once for accountability (and had one of the best meals of my life). I miss him most when I lead worship, because I remember looking out into the congregation and seeing him raising his arms in undignified and unencumbered praise. He worshipped like there was no one in the world to watch him except Jesus, and he loved Jesus so much that he didn’t care if he looked like a crazy person.

But I didn’t miss him at his graveside, and I think that’s because I never knew him there – more than that, Vinnie was never there at all. Sure, his name is carved on a rock, along with a verse he liked, and people drop off flowers (I’m not sure Vinnie was a big flower man, but it’s nice for the family), but he’s not there. And yeah, some bits of his body are there, buried under the ground (though the grave doesn’t seem big enough for Vinnie; he was 6’4” and not a small man), but Vinnie isn’t in those bits of his body any more than I am.

Vinnie was a long way away before they ever put his body under the ground at Washington Park Cemetery. And while we stood around his name-carved rock and smoke his favorite brand of cigars, talking about how we remembered him, Vinnie was busy doing the thing he was best at on this earth; he was standing before the throne of Almighty God, praising him for his marvelous grace and glorious mercy – likely dancing an undignified jig with all of his glorified 6’4” spiritual body. I know that before long, I’ll be dancing with him.

Until then, I hope to worship like he does now.

“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23 (NIV)

The book of Hebrews is probably my favorite book in the Bible. I’m not sure why – maybe it’s because of the emphasis on Christ’s redemptive work; maybe it’s the no-holds-barred take on salvation and the part we play in it; maybe it’s the way the author connects the Old Testament to the New; maybe it’s just the mystery of us not knowing who wrote it – but I know that I’ve loved it for some time and turn there when I need encouragement. Which is why I’m so excited that the text for this week’s message on encouragement is coming out of Hebrews.

I’m not going to cover the entire passage we’re looking at (if you want that, you can come to Crossroads this Sunday and hear Bruce talk about it yourself), but I do want to take a moment and talk about hope.

Whenever hope is talked about in the Bible, it is with the idea that hope does not disappoint. You see, people in that culture understood hope differently than we do today. Today, it’s common to here a child say, “I hope to get some ice cream after church today.” Or I’ll say to a friend, “I hope some extra money comes along this week for groceries.” In today’s culture, hope is an uncertain wishing for something we do not yet have. There is no assurance of the fulfillment of our hope.

In biblical thought, hope is inseparably tied to assurance. Biblical hope leaves no question of whether or not that hope will be fulfilled; biblical hope is the waiting for our assurance to happen. You see, biblical hope is always predicated on the past, the way things have happened before. Themes of biblical hope are God’s patience, redemption, mercy; they are founded on the character of God, who he has proven himself to be.

A woman might throw her pen into the air and say, in a biblical sense of hope: “I hope my pen comes back down.” There is no real question as to it coming back down or not; the pen has come down every other time it’s been thrown.

In the same way, I might say: “I hope God is faithful to me in this trial.” God has been faithful in every other instance; he certainly will be faithful to me in this one.

Or, in the sense of the passage: “I hope for the redemption that will come when Christ returns and sets all things right.” This hope is based on the truthfulness of Christ, who has promised to return. He has never lied; I have no reason to doubt his promise.

Last Saturday, some friends and I played a concert at Common Ground Coffee House and Deli. We closed with a song I wrote, called “The Sun Will Rise Again.” The chorus says:

The sun will rise again, just wait and see
It always has before, the sun will rise
The sun will rise again, just like before
and hope does not disappoint, the sun will rise

The sun has always risen, and it will again tomorrow. So let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.

-Joe

“They came to [Jesus] and said, ‘Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.’” -Mark 12:14

Recently, I went to see the movie, “The Last Kiss,” starring Zach Braff (the crazy guy from Scrubs and Garden State). It’s a movie about a 29-year-old guy struggling with his quarter life crisis. He just found out his girlfriend is pregnant, and he doesn’t want to commit to marriage; his brainiac solution is to go have a one night stand with a college girl. Afterwards, he realizes his mistake and goes back to his girlfriend and tries to win her back. Though the movie was pretty disappointing (the characters were poorly developed and the plot was disturbing), one scene stood out in my mind. When Zach Braff’s character goes to win the girl back, he has a conversation with her father. The father asks him, “Why… should I let you try to win her back?”

“I know what I did was wrong… nothing I do could ever make it go away… I wish I could… but I love her. I really do. I love her.”

And then the dad says the line that made the $8.50 worth it for me.

“What you feel doesn’t matter to anyone but you. What you do to the ones you say you love – that’s what really matters.”

I think that’s a good explanation of integrity. Integrity is not so much about what goes on inside a person; it is about the extent to which what they do reflects what goes on inside them.

When the teachers of the law came to Jesus, they said to him, “We know that you are a man of integrity…” How did they know? They had seen him demonstrate the very things he taught. He didn’t take bribes, he wasn’t impressed by bigwigs, and he taught in accordance with the truth. His actions reflected the goodness in his own heart.

Being real is about showing what’s inside of you. Integrity is about having something inside worth showing off, and then being real about it.

“And on a cold night, two under the same blanket can gain warmth from each other. But how can one be warm alone?” -Ecclesiastes 4:11

A few years ago, four of my college buddies and I decided to take a camping trip right after school got out. Now, you have to understand that our college semester ended in May, pre-Memorial Day, and we were located in the Pacific Northwest, where the sun rarely comes out before the middle of August. In May, the temperatures hover somewhere between forty and fifty degrees Fahrenheit. And it always rains. But we were college students, with untarnished appetites for adventures and hooligan-ing.

In our preparation, we decided that the most beautiful place within driving distance was Orcas Island, in the San Juans (whether we were right or not is still up for debate; other candidates include the Columbia Gorge, Mt. Rainier, and Canada). So we planned our trip; we were going tent camping in the San Juan Islands in May. Awesome…

We wanted to get as early a start as possible, but one of the other guys and I had a prior commitment the night school got out. Our solution? Leave after the evening commitment. It takes approximately five hours to get from Portland (where we went to school) to Anacortes (where the ferry leaves for Orcas Island), so we decided to drive all night. We left around 10:30pm, and made several stops along the way, so we got to Anacortes around 4am. The first ferry that day was scheduled to leave at 6:30am. We passed the time by tossing a Frisbee and hooligan-ing.

We got to the island at 7am, and found our campsite by 7:30am. As we drove past, we were surprised to find somebody in our site.

“Dude! Someone jacked our site! What’s up with that?” someone exclaimed.

“Dude. It says here that check in time is 1pm. We don’t have the site until this afternoon.”

“Oh.”

We collectively realized that in our excitement, we had traveled to the island way too early.

So we busied ourselves with more hooligan-ing.

By the time we got into our site and set up our tent, we were fatigued beyond recognition. None of us had slept for around 30 hours. We laid our tired bodies down for sleep, four college guys on the best adventure ever, yet too tired to enjoy any of it.

And then we had our second collective realization:

The San Juans in May are COLD!!!

After 10-15 minutes of trying to deny the cold and pretend we all were sleeping, someone finally broke the figurative and literal ice by shouting, “I’m freeeeeziiiing!”

Swallowing our last shreds of pride, we huddled together and engaged in the millennia old stay-warm technique of spooning. And as we slept in the warmth of each others’ embrace, it was good. It was very good.

I believe there is a lesson to be learned from this story (beyond “don’t go camping in the San Juans in May, and if you do, then bring a mummy bag and many layers of sweat pants”). Ecclesiastes talks about how people huddling together can keep warm, that no man can stay warm by himself. People need each other. We need community to survive against the many terrors the world throws at us. But within the story, there is one other small detail of vital importance: before warmth came to us, we had to admit to each other that we were freezing.

Often in life, we long to help people, to be a savior to them and care for their needs. Sadly, we are robbed of this pleasure by people refusing to open up and share their needs and weaknesses with us. For that matter, I am often guilty of hiding the fact that I’m cold, because I don’t want to appear needy. I don’t want other people to know that I can’t make it on my own.

I don’t know if we would have frozen to death that afternoon in Orcas Island (it certainly felt so at the time), but I know that life would have been more miserable if we hadn’t admitted our need for each other. And I know that life is going to be pretty tough for all of us if we don’t share about our needs with people we can trust.

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
words and music by Bob Dylan

It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
Iffen you don’t know by now
An' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
It’ll never do somehow
When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
Look out your window and I'll be gone
You're the reason I'm trav'lin' on
Don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
That light I never knowed
An' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
I'm on the dark side of the road
But I wish there was somethin' you would do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talkin' anyway
But don't think twice, it's all right

It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
Like you never done before
It ain't no use in callin' out my name, gal
I can't hear you any more
I'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' a walkin’ down the road
I once loved a woman, a child I'm told
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don't think twice, it's all right

So long, honey babe
Where I'm bound, I can't tell
But goodbye's too good a word, babe
So I'll just say “fare thee well”
I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
You could have done better but I don't mind
You just kinda wasted my precious time
But don't think twice, it's all right

I've been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan lately, and this song just stood out to me. Pretty much the best break-up song ever. Don't worry, Rachael and I are doing great.

-Joe