I love courage but not the situations that call for it.

I love being free but I don’t like being freed.

I’d love to see a miracle but honestly, I don’t really want to need a miracle.

Sound familiar?  So often, we love things but we don’t like to need things.

We love Jesus, but we don’t really want to need Jesus, or at least not in the “clinging to the only branch on the side of a cliff” way.  We’d much rather keep Him close in case we possibly, potentially – on the days when our American, “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” bravado doesn’t work – need Him.

But the daily call to risk it all for the sake of seeing the world know Jesus?

That’s just crazy.

Right?

Maybe that explains why God loves crazy people.

People like Abraham, who was crazy enough to risk it all by leaving behind his home and family without even knowing where he was going (Genesis 12:1).

People like Moses, who was crazy enough to hang onto a bad job in order to point a bunch of grumpy people to a good God (Exodus 32).

People like Caleb, who was crazy enough at 85 years old to still be looking for a fight (Joshua 14:6-15).

I’m drawn to stories of an unnamed armor-bearer who was crazy enough to follow Jonathan up a hill to an outnumbered fight on nothing more than a maybe (1 Samuel 14:6-7).

I love reading the testimonies of people like Kathryn, a woman I’m honored to know who is crazy enough to tell the world that she isn’t going to live hidden even when everything in her tells her to play it safe.

I’m constantly amazed at people like Allison, who could have allowed a tragedy to swallow her up, but instead was crazy enough to choose to put down the poison she was drinking.

I’m not gonna lie, there’s a price for making our lives count.  But the people who are actually making their lives count have stopped counting the cost.

They counted it once, and still chose to push their chips to the middle of the table.

People like that are loved by Jesus, because Jesus went all in.

He gave 100% when He went to the cross.  It was risky, it was scandalous, and it was breathtakingly crazy. A king on a cross like a thief.

As a result, Jesus stole my heart, and now a safe, comfortable and calculated life pales in comparison to the price He paid.

God gives us courage because He is calling us to scary places.

Places full of people who cannot free themselves, who need a miracle, and who need people who don’t talk theory, but instead show the mercy that left them speechless.

Only those who have risked it all can stand tall in the places where God is calling them.

He has a crazy plan for bringing His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, and He wants me and you to be a part of it.

All it requires is that we choose to get a little crazy.

I’m in.  Are you?

Just to be totally up front here, this won’t be a post about Robin Williams and his suicide.  There are plenty of people out there who are writing about that, and you can Google them to read their opinions (or just go to Matt’s blog and skip the Google search).

My goal isn’t to make some judgement call about the status of Mr. Williams’ soul before he took his life, or even to paint the picture that if he really loved Jesus, he wouldn’t have chosen what for many seems to be an  unthinkable option.  Instead, I’d like to take this post to talk about me and my choice to live.

I don’t talk about it much, but I spent the majority of my high school years sitting in a tuba cubby in the band room storage closet during my lunch break.  I spent a lot of time alone, and my best friends were Charmin, Lassie, and Lady.  No, that doesn’t mean I was close to toilet paper, the television and a woman.  It just means that we picked strange dog names.

My afternoons were mostly spent behind the barn playing basketball by myself or walking in the woods by myself.  If I brought along some company, it was one of the dogs.

Looking back, I realize that I spent a lot of time alone.  At the time, I thought nobody liked me, but now, with the perspective that can only come from living long enough to get it, I realize that I spent a lot of time alone because I didn’t like me.

Bad grammar, sure, but dead on truth.  And so, while I could add to the millions of words being written by people trying to point out all the problems Robin Williams had and all of the ways he could have handled them differently, I’d rather talk about some things I’ve learned over the years that have helped me in my own fight against depression.  These aren’t scientific, mind you, but I pray that they’re helpful.

We weren’t made to deal with depression.

Proverbs 18:14 says that man can endure physical sickness, but no one can endure a crushed spirit.  I know that in my darkest times, it helped me to hold onto the promise of this truth by remembering that God didn’t make me or you or anyone else to handle depression.  It isn’t a cross to bear, because we weren’t equipped to bear it.  Sometimes, when we are in the dark places – and only those of you who fight depression at its various levels of intensity will understand that darkness – it is so easy to buy the lie that we’re trapped there.  That our “lot in life” is to be down while the fortunate ones were dealt the winning hand of happiness.  False, false, A MILLION TIMES FALSE!!!  When I feel the slightest twinge of depression coming on, I remind myself that I wasn’t made to handle it, and simply hearing myself say that can flip the switch.

God doesn’t call us out of our pain without first coming into our pain.

There are a lot of things about the gospel and the story of Jesus that I love, but this is the one that I love the most: Jesus became like us in order to bring us near a God who wants us to be like Him.  He didn’t have to do that!  God could have sat on His throne and called to us in the distance, “Hey!  What’s wrong with you!!  Get out of that pit and get close to Me!!”

He could have done that, but He didn’t.  Instead, He sent Jesus into the pain of our existence in order to raise us to the glory of God’s presence.  The author of Hebrews wrote that Jesus is able to empathize with our weaknesses (4:15) and save us because He has experienced everything we have, minus the sin (2:17-18).  No matter what some want to say about God based on how His kids keep their distance from the hurting, He is a compassionate Father who runs to the hurting.  In fact, Psalm 34:18 says that He is a God who is “near to the brokenhearted.”

Of all the tips that have helped me, knowing that God is WITH ME in the times when depression raises its ugly head has helped me the most.  Depression wants to limit our perspective, but God wants to lift up our heads and give us a greater perspective by taking the limits off.

Good stuff for sure, but let me leave you with 3 practical ways you can fight depression (and you’ll be glad to know that these will help you even if you don’t love Jesus):

1. Know your seasons.

Everyone has good days and bad days, and most people can just kind of roll with the punches.  But for people who battle depression, a bad day can turn into a bad week that becomes a bad month, then a bad year, and then a… Well, you get the picture.

But sometimes winning the fight is knowing the fight is coming, and that’s what it means to know your seasons.  What events and circumstances routinely send you to the edge of that bad cycle?  When you know that, it makes it easier to fight.

As an example, I never really understood all the excitement around New Year’s.  I get that it’s a holiday and all, but I always felt like I was in a funk around that time.  People would be happy about a NEW year and I’d be depressed at the thought of ANOTHER year.  But after a handful of bad Januarys, I realized that it’s just a bad season for me.  I could have beat myself up over it and “put on a happy face” but instead, I decided that I would never quit my job in January because I wanted to quit everything in January!  Knowing my season helped me make a plan, and sometimes that’s all it takes.

2. Open the windows.

When depression starts to grab us, the first thing we want to do is go home, pull the curtains and get in bed. But nothing ever gets better by being alone for long periods of time, because at some point you will need to talk to somebody, and usually you’ll talk to yourself.  That’s a recipe for disaster, because depressed you will never be able to talk yourself out of depression!  Instead, open the windows and let the outside in.  Depression’s biggest weapon is loneliness, and so we’ve got to refuse it!  Sometimes, physically opening the curtains and the windows is enough to remind ourselves that there’s a world out there bigger than the junk in our heads.

3.  Ask for help.

I love living in America and I think it’s the best country on the planet, but I hate the way we’ve allowed American individualism to convince us that the strongest among us never need any help.  If you’re struggling with depression, TELL SOMEBODY!!  It’s not a sign of weakness or insanity or an inability to cope. It’s a sign of wisdom that you can recognize that you weren’t equipped to deal with a crushed spirit and that others around you can provide the support you need.

James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so we might be healed.  I’m not calling depression a sin, but please see the principle of needing help and asking for it!  Allow others to see you – the real you – and let their strength give you strength.

My prayer for all of us is found in the challenge spoken many years ago from Deuteronomy 30:19:  “Today I have set before you life and death … now choose life…”

…and really LIVE!

My first kiss was going to be epic.

It was early in the school year, and I had a plan.  Armed with as much courage as a middle schooler could muster, I shared it with some friends at the lockers before school, and much to my surprise, by lunchtime my plan had become theirs. They talked about it extensively over pizza with curled-up pepperoni that doubled as grease pools.  They mapped out the best place and the right time: just after school outside the main building in the courtyard.  I could feel the pressure rising as I left the cafeteria.

They must have sent out invitations, because by the time I got to the designated place, it seemed like “The Kiss” had drawn as much attention as “The Decision” would years later.  The only difference would be my lack of any real talent to take to South Beach.

My Grandma could barely see over the dashboard!

Adding to the growing fear was the fact that my Grandma was picking me up from school that day, and I could see her Dodge Omni, which meant that SHE COULD PROBABLY SEE ME!!  None of this was going according to plan, and when my friends started turning up the heat by telling me to quit being so scared, I closed my eyes, leaned in with quivering lips, and…

…missed.

In fairness to me, she turned her head at the last second, and what was supposed to be an epic kiss on her middle school lips turned into a passionless peck in no-man’s land somewhere between her nose and her eye.

At the time, it was humiliating.  Now, it’s just a funny story about a skinny kid enduring the shame of a failed middle school “romance.”  It’s also a really good picture of how screwy our world is getting.

In case you haven’t noticed, the tolerant are growing increasingly intolerant.

Tony Dungy (yes, THAT Tony Dungy – the one who has been hailed by many as the greatest man to walk the planet since Jesus) is being demonized because he said that he probably wouldn’t have drafted Michael Sam in the NFL draft.  Not because Sam made sure that everyone knew he was gay before the draft, but because Sam wasn’t considered good enough to be drafted by EVERY FREAKIN’ NFL TEAM except one, and even they waited until the draft was almost over before selecting him.

The statement that has gotten Dungy into so much hot water happened during an interview with the Tampa Tribune.  Dungy said that, if he were still coaching today, he wouldn’t have drafted Sam “(n)ot because I don’t believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it. It’s not going to be totally smooth…things will happen.”

The “it” that Dungy was referring to is the media circus that is bound to follow Sam wherever he ends up trying to make the team.  Of course, Dungy saying this has turned him into the worst kind of homophobe known to man instead of possibly the best coach known to man.  It has led to vile, hate-filled social media backlash low enough to even accuse Dungy of driving his son to suicide.

You know, just the kind of thing you’d expect from really tolerant people.

It’s funny how quickly the tolerant can turn into playground bullies when you say anything even remotely opposed to what they want you to tolerate.

Need more proof?  Just consider the backlash and outcry raised against the NFL head coach who was quoted saying this: “He seems like a great guy to have on a team, and I’d be tempted to bring him in as our backup. But it’s just not worth dealing with all the stuff that comes with it.”  That coach suffered the same social whipping as one of his colleagues who made this statement: “You don’t want to put up with the circus.”

Oh, wait.  My bad.  There was no social outcry or media frenzy pointing out those coaches.  In fact, they were allowed to remain anonymous.  Why?

Because they were talking about Tim Tebow.

One creates a lynch mob, the other barely a yawn.

And both bring me back to that day outside the middle school when I leaned in for a kiss and missed.

It doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to see the failed connection between faith and culture.  Today, everyone appears to want to connect on a deeper level than just a kiss on the cheek, but the only way to do that is to risk something in order to connect.

Dungy risked something by giving an honest answer.  I risked something by leading with my lips.  The people on the other end of both of those reacted exactly the same: they turned away because they didn’t really want what either of us was offering.

There is a risk in honest conversation, just like the risk of a kiss.  But the reward is a foundation that can support the awkwardness that may follow.  In a culture that preaches the religion of tolerance and acceptance – in other words, a culture that appears to want to “kiss” everything and everyone – we may have forgotten a very simple truth about kisses: they mean something.

They are a sign of a heart and a soul that are intentionally given to the person being kissed, and when you start throwing them out like candy, they stop seeming as important as they should.  It seems odd that Proverbs 24:26 equates an honest answer with a kiss on the lips until you really start to think about how honesty is what all of us really want in our closest relationships, the ones that typically have a lot of kissing.

None of us grew up hoping to fall in love with a liar.  We didn’t include hypocrisy as part of our wedding vows.  I can’t think of a single time that someone I loved lied to me and I was glad they did.

Honesty is at the core of the best relationships, and it will be no different with the best cultures.  Sometimes the apparent acceptance of everything just masks the real rejection of something.  I want to build a life with Wendy (The B99) because she loves me enough to tell me the truth and then stay with me while I work through it.  Michael Sam’s response to Tony Dungy’s honesty was to tweet later that he’s glad Tony Dungy wasn’t his coach.

Really?  You wouldn’t want someone with the character to speak consistently and courageously about tough issues in your corner?  If Sam really means that, then I wonder if he wants to be known more as the first openly gay NFL player than as the greatest late-round find since Tom Brady.

I know this post could easily be seen as “anti-whateveryouloveandthinkIdon’t” by the people who read it, but that’s not the point at all.

The point is that if we really want the truth, we’ll hang in there when the heat rises and we won’t turn away with smokescreens about issues that don’t matter. We’ll be consistent, we’ll be fair, and we’ll be honest.  And while we may not always agree with what is said, we won’t run away from the people who love us enough to tell us what we need to hear, even when we don’t want to hear it.

Until then, we’re just a couple of middle-school kids too afraid to kiss.