True Confessions of an Originaljoesnake

There’s no good way to say this, but for the seven some years I’ve been a Christian, prayer, the communication between us and God the bible considers vital, was boring.

Sure there’d be times when prayer was exciting, for instance, the night I prayed to receive Christ, or listened as others did the same. There have also been numerous times when I’ve felt blessed, humbled, and thankful and I’ve turned to God in prayer to let him know. I’ve received some amazing insights and wisdom from God too. So, don’t think it was all drudgery.

But, for the most part, I couldn’t stop viewing prayer as a chore. It was something that the bible said had to be done, so I did it. Most of the time I didn’t want to, it was hard to, I only did it when I felt I really needed to, and in many cases my prayers were little more than a spiritual tip of the hat to a creator God that had to be longing for something more in depth in our relationship.

Prayer, at times is downright agonizing for me. To sit at a prayer meeting and pray, while knowing I was doing something right and biblical, yet feeling like I couldn’t wait for someone to say “Amen” and end it all often times made me feel sub-human. Then there were the people who liked to pray longer than the time I’d mentally allotted them. Could they just finish up, please?

Witnessing, or the act of sharing my faith with others who aren’t like minded, has always been difficult for me too. I don’t know if it’s the proposition of being “found out”, rejected, or the fact that I’m just selfish and don’t like to move outside of comfort, but over the years I decided to chalk up my lack of witnessing to the fact that it just wasn’t an area that I was gifted in. How hilarious is that? Instead of blaming the deficiency on myself, I shifted the burden to God, who obviously didn’t want me to do a whole bunch of sharing the gospel because he didn’t make it extremely easy and successful for me.

I’ve always been a hard worker, a doer, someone who likes to quickly figure out how things are done and start churning them out. I’ve always had a lot of success this way. I remember intensely despising the first few days of a new art class in elementary school. It meant we wouldn’t be painting, instead we’d be talking about the art, assignment, or directions. I just wanted to scream out, “Let’s go already! Give me my pencil, I know what to do! Just let me draw!”

This attitude has naturally carried over to the spiritual work I do for God. I’ve been eager to learn about God, taking classes and participating in teachings and cell groups. But, as soon as I thought I knew what God’s assignment for me was, I darted off to get started.

As I said, I’ve experienced difficulty, in addition to much failure, in the arena of prayer and evangelism. I always thought this was just who I was.

God, however, is conducting a revolution in my life.

It started to hit me when I met Josh, an autistic teenager who started attending the high school bible studies I’m helping to lead. Josh is extremely intelligent and seems to remember even the most minimal details of every conversation he has. One night, I drove him home after a meeting and we began to talk. Usually, I’ll ask high school kids who I drive home what they thought of the teaching and receive little more than “Ummm, it was OK” back from them. I ask them what they thought because I feel like this is my duty as a bible study leader and when they don’t really answer we just change the subject or crank the radio up.

Josh was totally different. When I asked him what he thought, he actually answered me! It took me by surprise and the few seconds after he began to respond I was just doing my best to hold the car on the road. He had questions about the teaching and about God. They were honest questions coming from someone who was genuinely intrigued by the question of a personal, loving God he could have a relationship with.

Something kept telling me to push the issue with Josh. Every time he’d answer one of my questions, I’d fire off another and he’d begin to think and answer. Normally, I’m a passive person, but the Holy Spirit was there moving me to probe further. Normally, I don’t pray during these situations, but this time I was praying to myself as we conversed. Normally, these type of conversations don’t go anywhere when I have them.

Immediately, I knew what was different. It was the prayer. People had been praying for Josh, so the Holy Spirit was convicting his heart beforehand. I was praying and giving the Holy Spirit a chance to work, instead of blocking him like I normally do by rushing off ahead in my own direction.

All of my Christian life it’s been me running foolishly ahead and waiting for the Holy Spirit to follow. When he didn’t, I’d just assume that the problem had something to do with God’s end of things. God showed me in the car, as I drove Josh home, that for years I’ve had things backwards. I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to actually understand this very basic scriptural truth. I’ve had Acts 1:8 memorized almost since my salvation, that “you will receive power when the holy spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses”, yet I’ve never truly believed it in my own life until now. The implications of the verse are simple: the power doesn’t come before the Holy Spirit does and without it, it’s going to be impossible to be witnesses.

As I attended a seminar on Prayer at the Xenos Summer Institute that I went to because I know I suck at prayer and felt I should go even though I don’t really do the whole prayer thing so well, what God had been showing me through my time with Josh began to cement. Mark Bair, who taught the session, shared insights and scripture on prayer and the nature of ministry. He explained that as Christians, we’re doing something we’re horribly inadequate to do every time we do spiritual work for God. I mentally knew this before, but I think this was the first time I’d ever actually realized this for myself and believed it. Why wasn’t I having the success I’d hoped for in ministry? I wasn’t praying and I wasn’t tapping into the power of the Holy Spirit. I was lunging off ahead, instead of following my rightful leader into battle. Of course I had failed on my own.

I feel like there’s a revolution going on in my life and in my thinking. As I pray and consider people I love and care about, I’m fired up to talk and relate to them. Sometimes it’s hard for me to break from my laid back, passive demeanor, but when I’m praying and looking to the spirit for guidance, I find myself being more bold. I’m thinking about people in a loving and caring way like I never have before. Instead of no answers, or “Ummms” and mumbles when I ask spiritual questions, things are starting to happen in the conversations I have!

Prayer is truly a revolution and a rebellion against living life feeling stuck or resigning yourself to mediocrity. It’s okay to realize we can’t do it on our own, but that’s right where we need to be. Instead of pushing ahead without direction, feeling like we’re beating our heads against the wall or coming up with another solution to the problem the answer is simple: just let God work. Prayer says, “I will not go down without fighting. I know I suck, so I’m bringing the big guns!”

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“A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints” is different. It has a grimy New York feel like ”The Warriors” had and it reminds me of “Kids” with morals. It starts out slow- flashing back from the present to 1986 where a group a street-tough kids in Queens experience tragedy. I think the vivid characters were what I liked most about the movie. Maybe it was because you felt like you knew the characters by the end, that you were rooting for them to get back together and resolve their differences. Dito, the main character, abruptly leaves his friends and family in New York and moves to California for 15 years after an argument with his father and his best friend. When he finally comes back years later, his dad is dying and his friend is in jail. There’s the sense that he’ll be able to work things out because he’s back now, clear resolution is never established, but I was wanting Dito to give Antonio a hug when he visited him in prison even before he actually did.

There’s the sense that you can never go home again- by the time Dito actually came back to Queens his neighborhood and his friends had changed. Nothing turned out OK like his father had promised. People died and lives were ruined- nothing he could do now could change that. Laurie, his old girlfriend, played by Rosario Dawson, in one of the best scenes in the movie tells Dito, played as an adult by Robert Downey Jr. , that in order to act like a man he needs to go and make amends with his father and stop running away.  

I don’t know that “Saints” was trying to send this message, but I couldn’t agree more. There’s nothing you can do to change your circumstances or your past. What you can do is move forward from there, be a man, and do what’s sometimes difficult to do what’s right. Dito felt so mistreated and misunderstood when he was younger, so he wrote his loved ones off, but he realized that his family and friends were just loving him the way they knew how even though it was a little fucked up. Then it was up to him to humble himself and go back and reconcile those relationships. I can relate to that.

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Yesterday was my 25th birthday. I’m always pretty excited about July 10th, however, I do loathe fielding all the “Do you feel 25?” and “Do you feel a year older?” questions. Since it’s my birthday and all, can my one wish be for next year to not be asked these questions?

Am I sounding a little bitter? I’m not. Really, I love my birthday, I love having a free pass on the day, getting presents, having people do nice things for me because I was born on the day. I love July, the month my birthday is in. It’s summer, it’s nice weather, it’s all BBQs and used to be summer vacations.   

Here’s the thing, to answer your question, I don’t feel 25. I didn’t feel 24 or 23. I didn’t feel 21- actually, I felt like I was getting away with something ordering a beer. I still feel that way. I don’t feel old at all. Is it wishful thinking? Sure, I’m more mature than I was at 16 and I’m different- way different.

But, I still feel angsty. I’ve never lost my “teen angst”. When I do that’s when you better start getting worried. Maybe it’s from working in the high school ministry in my church or maybe I work with the high school because of it. I don’t know. What I do know is that feeling I had that the world sucked, that it wasn’t right, that I never wanted to work for “the man”, that I wasn’t going to become some suit- that feeling is as strong in my gut as it was when I was 15 listening to “In Utero” and stewing about being misunderstood. Kurt Cobain- he got it- life sucks. However, he was a rebel without a real solution to a problem he didn’t understand.

The difference between 15 and 25, isn’t years, it’s God. I remember as a teenager hating the world and everything it stands for. I remember feeling lonely and uneasy about my life. I would stay up at night and wonder if a girlfriend, money, being cool, or being grown up would put me at rest. It never did. I think most people move on from their “teen angst” and resign themselves to a life a working for the man because that’s what you do when you’re grown up. Instead, I found God. I found out that Jesus hates the world’s system just as much as I do. Jesus is the ultimate non-conformist rebel with cause and a real solution. I live for showing people, like God showed me, that there’s more to life than material stuff and your job.

Now, I still feel like I’m getting away with something when I clock into work. I don’t play by the company’s rules- while other people take their identity and happiness from their job, slaving and going the extra mile, I put in what’s required and little more. Am I lazy? No, I work hard while I’m at work. Most bosses that I’ve had say I’m a great employee. I just prefer to dedicate myself to more worthwhile persuits. Sacrificing for the sake of the company? That’s slavery- the company doesn’t care about you. I’ll do the work, but just give me the paycheck. I don’t think about work at lunch or after work, while most of my co-workers have nothing else to talk about besides work even when they’re not in work, it’s far from my mind as soon as I leave for the day.

What is important? Well, God has taken my angst and shown me his world- a world where people matter, things are meaningful, and there’s real fulfilment. I’d gladly trade a few thousand dollars a year for these things that are valuable, rather than have more money in the bank and feel like life wasn’t complete. For me, at 25 years old, I feel younger than ever. I’ve got a great life, a great wife, awesome friends and I’m truly happy.

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