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Monthly Archives: April 2010

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My Love/Hate Relationship with Syrup

Apr 26, 2010 3:52 pm by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evangelism, Evotions, Family

1 John 4:21
And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Last Saturday, I blew my daughter’s mind. I had finished my long run, Wendy was fixing a brunch that eventually became lunch, and we were both on the second pot of coffee. It was pretty typical eating conversation around the table and one by one we started to finish and leave. Soon, it was just me and Sydney, and we were both finishing the last of the pancakes. I had put butter and sugar on mine since we were low on maple syrup, and Sydney had gone with the cane syrup, which everyone in the family likes but me.

It’s important for you to know that Wendy absolutely LOVES cane syrup. I don’t. It’s way too thick, tastes funky and looks like motor oil, so it is out as a pancake topping in my book. So you can imagine the look on my face when Sydney held up a piece covered in the stuff and said, “Here.”

Now, I’ve eaten stuff that I wasn’t crazy about so that my children get the joy of seeing me try something they “fixed.” Shoot, just this week-end I gave my cup of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins to Sydney and ate her cup of cotton candy ice cream because she ended up not liking what she’d gotten. I think I have a pretty good track record of taste-bud-denial, but you’ve got to make a stand somewhere, and for me, that line is pretty clearly seen in front of a bottle of cane syrup. So, in my best “Father Knows Best” voice, I said no to Sydney.

Here response took me by surprise. “But, it’s mom’s favorite.”

Ooh, I wasn’t expecting that. I tried the “give it to her straight approach.”

“Well, I know, honey. Mom loves that kind, but I don’t.”

“You love Mom, but you don’t love her syrup??” Sydney was obviously struggling to process this world-shaking revelation.

“That’s right,” I said. I watched her forehead crinkle a bit, and it took what felt like hours for her to finally come up with her response, and the only way she could make sense of it all was with 3 simple words:

“Well, that’s weird.”

The more I thought about it, the more I have to agree with her. It just makes sense that if we love someone, we’d love the things that they do, too. I do realize that that’s not going to happen here on earth. After all, there will be Michigan and Ohio State fans that marry, Republicans and Democrats, Devils and Tarheels. But think about this: on a supernatural level, on the level where a powerful and merciful God can change the heart of a man, it only makes sense that if we love God, we’d love the things He loves, too.

We would be all about mercy, and justice, and the redemption of mankind to His arms. We wouldn’t be able to get enough of His people, His presence, or His purposes. We would stop liking what He doesn’t, and start giving ourselves totally to what He’s committed to. To borrow a popular poker phrase, we’d be all in for the things of our Father.

It doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t come naturally. It takes time and commitment, but it is an amazing, transforming process, and in the end our hearts are one with our Father’s, and the world will no longer be able to look at the way we live our lives and respond with “well, that’s weird.”

And the best part? I still don’t have to eat cane syrup.


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High Baggage Fees

Apr 19, 2010 4:01 pm by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions

1 Samuel 10:22
So they inquired further of the Lord, “Has the man come here yet?” And the Lord said, “Yes, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

In case you haven’t noticed, airlines charge for almost any baggage now. They charge for the first checked luggage, then the second, now some may even charge for the carry-on. Won’t be long now and they’ll say that both of our arms are carry-ons and they’ll charge for that, too. I guess then we really would be paying an arm and a leg, huh? At any rate, the point here is that baggage has always come with a fee, even long before the airlines tried to capitalize on it. In fact, Saul almost paid the most expensive baggage fee in history.

A little background on our passage may help set the stage for the verse above. By the time we get to this point, Israel has decided that God needs some help with his country and has asked for a king, Saul has been anointed as that first king, and his coronation ceremony is in full swing. Samuel has just gotten up in front of the crowd and has introduced King Saul to his country. As the praise team hit the highest point of musical energy, Samuel proclaimed, “Ladies and Gentlemen! Here’s…your…King…SAUL!!!!” The spotlights probably went crazy, darting in and out and around the crowd, before finally coming to rest on the entrance where Saul should have been standing and taking in all the applause. Everything was perfect, except for the fact that Saul wasn’t there.

Naturally, this raised a few questions. Most noticeably, “Where’s the king??” And that is where our verse picks up the story. The people asked God if Saul had even shown up yet, and the Lord’s response was that the freshly anointed king – the man who stood head and shoulders above anyone else in the nation – had indeed come, but was now cowering in the baggage.

We could get into all kinds of discussions about whether or not it was the perfect will of God for Israel to even have a king (umm, it wasn’t), but let’s at least admit that Saul was most definitely God’s choice to be the first one. In fact, 1 Samuel 10:1 said that Saul had been anointed over the Lord’s own inheritance! That is a high calling, and yet even after countless events that could only be explained as God confirming His hand on Saul, the man who would be king is hidden in the baggage, hesitant to take his place in God’s plan.

Now that is a high baggage fee, and if we’re not careful, we’ll pay it, too. Our baggage continually haunts us and taunts us, trying to convince us that we’re not ready for the very place in God’s plan that He has prepared us for (Ephesians 2:10). I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of paying such a high price for carrying my baggage, and instead of looking around for another airline, I think maybe leaving the baggage behind and trusting God on the flight is my best option.

Finally, I’m truly free to move about the country, and I don’t even need Southwest Airlines to take me there. Want to come along?


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My First Marathon

Apr 9, 2010 12:07 pm by Paul Jenkins in Family, Fitness, Running, Sports

I’ve waited way too long to write this and I’m not sure why. It wasn’t a bad race, although there were definitely parts I’d like to forget. I think it took much more out of me than I expected, and I never felt fully recovered for a good 2 months and by then I figured, “What’s the point?” But, I would like to record the experience I had at my first marathon, even if it was 5 months ago. Perhaps it will encourage someone else as they prepare for their first.

I had decided to run Richmond SunTrust Marathon as my first almost a year ahead of time. It wasn’t because Richmond is that special, but rather because the date was. The race would be run on November 14, which was my brother’s birthday and would have been his 40th if he hadn’t passed in 2003. I went all out and made my family custom tees that matched my custom race shirt.

Race shirt front:

Back:

We had a bit of a celebration the night before in Williamsburg (where we were staying) and I gave them all their shirts and then we shared stories and memories about Stephen and talked about how excited he’d have been if he were with us. It was emotional for sure, but encouraging. I thought a lot about those stories during the race the next day.


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Easter and Ugly Yards

Apr 4, 2010 7:22 am by Paul Jenkins in Evotions, Worship

John 11:39
Jesus said, “Move the stone away.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, “But, Lord, it has been four days since he died. There will be a bad smell.” (NCV)

I have an ugly yard. I guess I can say that and not hurt anyone’s feelings because I’m the guy who takes care of it (and I use that phrase loosely). Our yard is the final resting place for the bad plants, kind of like The Green Mile except that, well, there’s not a lot of green. Bushes last only a few seasons, there are rocks embedded in the lawn, and the only things that seem to flourish are weeds. It is, as I said, ugly.

But every now and then I look at my yard and see beauty. Typically it happens once a year, on the day of the first mowing of the season. I start with a yard full of sticks and leftover leaves from the fall and end with a yard that is clean and a little more green than the brown it was before I mowed. I edge and trim it and then blow the clippings away and it always strikes me how much just cleaning away the junk can make even my ugly yard look good.

Our faith is like that, and Easter is the perfect reminder of it. We spend so much effort and energy trying to keep covered up what we feel is ugly, and yet our Lord knows that the first step towards beauty is the uncovering of the ugly. Martha knew that, and tried to warn Jesus that moving the stone would release a bad smell, but Jesus wasn’t buying it. If He really is the resurrection and the life, then not only can He bring life where there was death, but He can handle all the old smells that try to linger around, too. He told Martha that if she truly believed, she would see the glory of God.

What shows His glory? The dead live, the old is new, and there is no longer any hint of the previous ugly condition. Hope springs eternal and in a moment, the uncovering of what we fear is the most ugly gives way to a beauty and a hope that we could never have imagined.

On this Resurrection Day, know that He has uncovered the myth behind the enemy’s greatest tactic: the ugliness of death is no longer to be feared because even in that, our Lord brings life. He is the victor, and finally, I am made new.

Now, if I could just sprinkle some of that on my lawn…