My First Thanks(full)giving

My Thanksgiving in 2008 was one of the most unique and painful of my life. I had come to the realization that my business was beyond repair. Having not pulled a check out for months on end, revenue had dropped to such a level that keeping the lights on and the rent paid in my office was no longer an option.

I had successfully rented half my office out to nice Indian man who brought along his Hindu idols and gongs into the office. To this day, I still laugh at the irony of my prayer room in my office becoming a shrine to some multi armed Hindu God. But hey, he paid cash and it helped my landlord out.

As I had not informed my landlord that I was not going to make the December rent, nor any rents thereafter, I decided to go early in the morning to pull out as many ‘valuables as possible’. Basically, I didn’t want my stuff to get locked up for not paying rent.

As shame and guilt were a huge part of my life at that point, it only made sense to empty the office then call the landlord for coffee to let him know what was going on.

So, there I was on Thanksgiving morning at 3 AM, folding the seats down in the mini van driving over to my office to start packing up. I figured no one was going to be around on Thanksgiving morning.

I packed up all my files, products, books, computers and nick knacks. Trudged them down the steps to my waiting car and loaded things up. Not wanting to get caught, I emptied my three room office in about 2 hours. Leaving only the heavy stuff, like my desks and file cabinets behind. Hoping that one day I’d be able to get these items. Especially my desk, which my wife Sarah bought for me on our anniversary a few years back. (It is a gorgeous mahogany hand carved desks that is just stunning.)

As I finished up my last load for the car and finished off dumping trash, I got in and started my drive home. There is no one on the streets at 5 AM on Thanksgiving morning. It was dark, cold and lonely. I felt like a huge part of my life was dieing. What had started as an effort to get my staff on the same page and in the same office to get more things done, turned into a $50,000 mistake. Staff gone, credit cards maxed out, revenue depleted and marriage on the rocks, I drove slowly home in shame, guilt and depression.

How could God allow this to happen? Didn’t he hear my cries? Wasn’t he impressed with my prayer room? Or the amount of money I gave to further his kingdom? And what about my kids and wife. It was fine for me to go through this, but why did they have to suffer so much?

As I drove I thought to myself.. “God, you opened the door for me to move into this office. It seemed like it was your plan, the doors opened perfectly for this to happen and now this!? Why would you do this to me? I am your servant.  I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. ”

At that point, as I pulled onto Rea Road, that I turned on the radio.  I had tuned into a show that was discussing what the Pilgrims went through that first year in the new world. Having departed Europe in late fall, not knowing where they were going, tossed about by the late fall storms at sea, they limped into land in late October.

Cold, beaten, a number of their fellow passengers dead or dying, they found land and eventually set up camp in the New World.

You would think it got better from there, but it didn’t. The next year was so hard, they lost more of their fellow settlers to disease and malnutrition. Their crops struggled, they had come to a place of total and complete brokenness.

Here was a group of settlers who prayed, and worshiped God. They felt a call on their life to leave the oppression in England and the Netherlands to start a new life on their terms.  They had contemplated and prayed this to God for years before taking on this journey. You would think that God would make the way easy for them to succeed.

He did not. Their journey to the New World on the sea was horrible and horrifying. Rarely coming out from the hole of the ship. Then to get to the New World and struggle through the first years. Losing half their fellow settlers.  What a nice God.. eh?

When the fall came that next year in 1621, even though the times had been tough, they celebrated the small victory of making it a year. I don’t think there was a huge feast, nor was there any football, fried turkey, apple pie or late afternoon naps. No, according to the accounts it was a simple affair.  Much like my Thanksgiving was going to be that upcoming evening.

As I drove towards my house listening more intently to this program about the Pilgrims, it struck me how similar my life had been these past years. As they ended the radio program and I pulled into my driveway listening intently to the show, they shared one more interesting fact.

It seems one of the wives decided to place three small kernels of corn at each dinner place.  As the meal started and progressed, each person sitting at the table would take their kernel of corn and drop it into a bowl. They shared three things they were thankful for that year.

Can you imagine? Let’s say in the past year you lost your wife to the flu, your only son to another sickness. You have lost 40 pounds, went days without eating, struggled to provide food and you are going to share what you are thankful for that year? I would imagine most of us would flip God the bird or worse. No matter how strong our faith.

That night as my family sat down for dinner, with my in-laws who had brought a turkey so we all could enjoy a nice dinner, I decided to do the same thing. At each plate sat three kernels of corn. I explained the pilgrims of past and asked each person to take time throughout the dinner to share how they were thankful in the past year.

To this day, I can’t remember what was said. I think I was self confident that my wife, or in laws would think I was nuts. But looking back, I can tell you what I was thankful for. I was thankful my marriage, albeit rocky, was still together. Sarah and I had separated that summer. She took the kids to Michigan, I was left in the 3600 square foot house alone. That summer was long, lonely and hard. But it gave Sarah and I time to reset the clock and start again.

I was thankful for the small miracles God had done. Mailbox miracle checks to make the mortgage, the extra savings my wife had set aside, which allowed us to keep things current.

Finally, I was thankful for the man I was becoming. I was not thankful for what God was taking me through. Frankly, I was pissed off at him. The friendships lost, the shame, guilt and despair was more than I could bare. But my prayer for years had been “Lord show me how to become the husband and father my family needs.”

Little did I know he was answering my prayers. In a hard painful way… but my prayers were being answered.

And for that I’ll be eternally thankful.

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Jesus Paid It All, All To Him I Owe?

When I’ve sung this song, it often produced feelings of guilt and stirred feelings of “I gotta pay you back, Jesus.  Thanks for covering me. My turn.”

I’ve heard people say many times, “You’ve got to count the cost of following Jesus. It’s going to cost you everything.”

What does that mean?  Isn’t grace free?

We live in a culture where we demand equality.  Especially in financial matters.  We will not allow someone to give us anything without feeling obligated to send something in return.

When we get a great gift, we feel obligated to give a great gift back.

We get increasingly competitive at Christmas, and constantly try to out-do each other.

We never want to be in a position of “owing” anybody anything.  We try to make good with anyone that we’ve been given something from, because we’re totally uncomfortable until we even up.

We do this with the crucifixion.  We try and put ourselves into a state where we grieve over and over for Jesus and the beating he took for us.  We cannot stand that Jesus had to suffer and die FOR ALL THE SINS I’VE DONE.  We drive up the “debt” of guilt and spend all our time working to free ourselves from that debt.  All our service and activity is geared toward relieving that guilt.  That makes us feel better.

What did Jesus really demand when he talked about “the cost” of following him?  Could he mean something way different than money?

One of my friends sent me an email a while back, and he said he had a dream about me.  In his dream, he was watching a man shovel hay in from a huge pile into a bigger barn.  The man was doing the work himself.  On a bench away from the action, another man was sitting there watching the other man do all the work.  At closer inspection, my friend identified the man working as Jesus (don’t know how, but he knew), and the man sitting on the bench was me! Jesus turned to my friend and told him that the work he was doing was for Bob and he looked over at me on the bench.

When I heard of the dream, immediately I had 2 reactions – I am seriously allergic to hay, so the thought of taking a pitchfork and shoveling hay into a barn on a hot day closes my lungs up.  Yet even with my aversion to hay and what it would do to me physically, I felt really guilty and had a desire in my heart to pick up the fork and help him.

Then it hit me with 100-ton force – I am a bad receiver.  I cannot accept grace from anyone — even Jesus himself.

I HATE receiving gifts, and NEVER feel comfortable receiving anything for free.  I always position myself as the giver, and absolutely love giving the bigger and better gifts and the feeling that produced in me.  I never allow myself the grace to receive anything from anybody without giving back in return.

Strip that all away and it is nothing more than pride and false humility.  It’s not humility at all – it’s sin.

So when I had my breakdown, and I had to give up everything, I had to let Jesus start doing things for me. I had to let others start doing things for. It made me really uncomfortable.  I mean physically uncomfortable.

Think about that dream.  It was as if I was embarrassed and unable to allow Jesus to work for me.  I wanted to take his place even in a state of weakness.  How in the world do I resolve in my mind that me doing something like shoveling a mountain of hay is not something I can allow Jesus to do for me, even if it will kill me?  I remember Peter had the same issue.  “Jesus you ain’t washing my feet, dude.”

Jesus WANTS to do the work. The work would kill me, but for him it’s easy and enjoyable.  Why is it so hard to let someone else do the work for me, let alone my brother and savior Jesus Christ? This attitude makes it impossible for me to accept grace from him, or get it from others.  I just could not receive anything from anybody, especially God himself.

I have to think that in the scheme of things, this extended season I am going through is as much about me giving up the things which drove me – pride, approval of others, being the giver not the receiver, always being the “fall guy”, doing the work myself when others need to do it, taking financial and emotional responsibility for people that willingly give it up to me, always being the “responsible one”, never accepting a handout, never accepting a gift with grace, and countless other flaws.

Letting all of this go has been painful – for me and those around me.  People are confused, upset, and judgmental.  It’s been a horrible ride for people that counted on me in the past, and I can no longer provide the support or be counted on doing the work. There’s people I even owe things to that I cannot pay back right now.

I am in a season where I am limited in what I can do, and limited in where I feel free to roam.  My “ministry or service” is nothing anyone would sanction with a budget or fanfare.  Loving people one at a time and engaging them in conversation seems too simple and small, yet it’s what he’s showing me to do.

He’s got my spiritual life, my business, and my relationships in a purifying fire to burn away all the crap that I’ve allowed to pile on.  I’m betting there’s a lot of crap in that hay pile that Jesus needs to shovel away too.  It’s getting to the pure gold and burning away the garbage I’ve built up on it.

I am accepting the fact that Jesus paid it all. I am accepting the fact I don’t have to pay him back.  I am accepting the fact that in this season I will let a lot of people down that used to count on me, and people will continue to question, judge, and be upset with my lack of action.  There are people that have given me financial help, physical help, spiritual help, and advice for which I am unable to pay back now, or maybe ever.

My life has been simplified to a being totally engaged with Father, Spirit, and Son and figuring that out without distraction.  Being totally engaged with my wife and daughters  and family in a new way.  Getting real with a few old and new friends who are accepting this new me and totally supporting me, even while going through their own process. Being a person that lives in the moment, and has eyes to see what’s going on around me right now and totally live in that.

My question to you is this – are you trying to pay back a debt for something you cannot pay? Is Jesus someone you accept gifts from, or accept and try to pay back?  Are you able to accept gifts from others?  What have you experienced?

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The Fear of Disqualifying Yourself – An Interview With Darin Hufford

Do you feel afraid that you screwed up your future success in business because you’ve made mistakes, had failures, or made poor decisions in the past? Do you believe that you’ve disqualified yourself from your “destiny”? Do you doubt God’s ability (or desire) to make you successful again? If these feelings have crossed your mind, please join hosts Matthew Gillogly and Bob Regnerus as they interview Darin Hufford, author of the amazing book, The Misunderstood God. In it, Darin uncovers the character of God using 1 Corinthians 13 – yeah – the famous passage of love we hear at every wedding. You might be surprised about how God feels about your past mistakes and failures!

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