Message @ Metro

Well, it has been one week since I shared my final message at Metro as the Student Pastor. In part, it was my families next chapter but there was also some good stuff for us all. Here's the nuts and bolts of what I shared...


Karie and I have many wonderful memories of Metro.
We actually got married in the old building... We have dedicated both of our children here in this room... We’ve been a part of your families big moments… from funerals to weddings, to baptisms and baby dedications... I have had the privilege of sharing family communion with many of your families and have been a part of some tough times with you as well.

As I look back over the past twelve years of my life… there have been numerous happenings that both I and the youth group have been involved in… some of which I have been directly responsible for and others I have been only indirectly responsible for…

(as I read these, please remember that many of these were your children)

(1) We have been kicked out of a mosque in Washington DC
(2) We failed to stop at the border crossing between Mexico and the United States
(3) I have been threatened by hotel security because I had about a dozen high school students playing on the fire escape outside of a fifth floor window in San Francisco
(4) I lost $800 in San Francisco
(5) I lost $700 in Gulf Shores… both of which I found
(6) I left two students in Gatlinburg, TN
(7) I’ve been kicked off the ski slopes in Snowshoe, WV
(8) I was a passenger on a bus that actually slid through the front wall of a ski shop in Keystone, CO
(9) I have spent a total of 56 nights sleeping on the floor of a school
(10)I’ve been personally liable for countless numbers of broken items in hotel rooms (ranging from beds to air conditioning units)
(11)I have driven a church bus for 1,743 road hours (468 of those well after midnight)
(12)I have employed the services of two K-9 drug-sniffing dogs
And…
(13)I have witnessed first hand a gang brawl in Orlando, FL

Over the last year and a ½ I have also been learning a deeply personal lesson. On the mirror in my bathroom at home has been a piece of paper with the following scripture on it. There have been some days I read it and some days I completely overlooked it…

It is a simple and familiar passage, but one that for me has a new level of meaning.

Proverbs 3:4-6 (New Living Translation)
“Then you will find favor with both God and people, and you will earn a good reputation. Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”


This scripture uses the term “path”… and today I want to ask you to take an introspective glance back over your life and revisit the “path” that to this point in your life you have been traveling.

Some of our paths have been rocky and treacherous. Some of our paths have been full of blessing. Maybe some of our paths have been a mixture of both good and bad.
But nonetheless, we have all traveled a distinct path to get us to where we are today.

As we examine our path of the past and look forward to our path of the future, let’s look at our journey from the viewpoint similar to that of a story.
It has a beginning. It one day will have an ending. It has adventure and maybe romance. Your story is full of characters. Your story has chapters and pages

Imagine with me that you have a blank sheet of paper in your hand. On this blank page is where you will continue your story…
You have full writers rights. You can write the next chapter any way you want to. No one else can write it for you. It is the NEXT PAGE in your book.

As you sit there ready to write… what your NEXT CHAPTER will look like… it becomes a little blurry…
You experience writer’s block. You know how you want it to end but it is difficult to put in to words. Maybe you are even contemplating your dissatisfaction with the previous chapters.
You are stuck in the moment of not knowing exactly what to write.

And maybe one of these thoughts comes into your mind…

I didn’t know I only got one sheet…

Allow me to let you in on a little secret about life… everything counts.

Everything you say counts.
Everything you do counts.
Everything you don’t do counts.

Every time you tell someone that you love them… it counts.
Every time you skip over the chance to tell someone you love them… it counts.

Every hand you offer to someone else… counts
Every time you ignore someone… it counts.

I’m not referring to grace here because God’s grace allows you a re-do for the things that you royally messed up. What I’m trying to simply say is that everything you do or choose not to do is recorded in the paragraphs of your life’s story.

These actions are the things that make us who we are. These actions of our everyday life are literally our biography.

Your not coming back one day as somebody else and getting a chance to do it over again… you only get one chance.

James 4:14 says that “You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

You only get one piece of paper to work with. Make it count.

As you sit there with your blank sheet of paper, maybe you feel this way…

But my paper is all wrinkled and torn.

I think about my two daughters on this one. As a parent, one of my responsibilities it to protect them. But already, no matter how hard I may have tried… they have been banged up and bruised. At times I worried about sending them to school/daycare because their little legs were so bruised where they had fallen when playing and running.

Bruises unfortunately are a part of life. Not just physical bruises but emotional bruises. Scars of the heart are all too common.

Maybe it was the hateful words of a clueless mother or father.
Maybe it has been the foulness of a spouse who didn’t know how to love themselves much less someone else.
Maybe it was the belittling of an employer or the mistreatment from a fellow church member.

No matter where it came from, it hurt. The pages of your story have become wrinkled and it’s not your fault.

Have you ever heard the saying, “With friends like that… who needs enemies?” It is no secret that the people, who are often closest to us, hurt us the deepest.

Maybe the pages of your life have been scribbled on by someone else and all you can think about is what a mess your story is.

Maybe it is increasingly difficult for you to see how your story can ever have a happy ending.

Happily ever after just doesn’t seem to fit for you.

Or maybe you have this thought…

I wrote in pen and now I can’t erase it.

(for this one to work… ignore the fact that erasable pens have been invented)

Have you ever felt the anxiety that something from your past was going to come back and haunt you? It’s that skeleton in the closet feeling that lingers throughout your life.

It is true that you can’t “un-do” things in your life but let me just remind you that being spiritually paralyzed is not what God intended for His believers.

In fact He even said in John 10:10, “I have come so that you may have life and may have it more abundantly.”

My trusty online dictionary tells me that the word abundantly is defined as: “more than adequate” and “richly supplied”.

I can’t un-do things in my life that I am ashamed of no more than I can annul the birth of a child … but according to Jesus Himself… I can have freedom from the spiritual paralysis of my past sins.

What seems like is written in ink can only be erased and covered by blood.

Or maybe this is where you find yourself…

I don’t know what to write.

Wouldn’t it have been nice to be born with an innate capability to make the right decision every time?
Imagine how successful you could be in the marketplace… every decision is the right one.
If I had that in me, I’m afraid I’d be moving to Vegas…

I once heard it said that “Instinct is a booger… because you never know if it is right until much later.”

The truth is none of us know exactly what to do or how to write the stories of our own lives. It’s been proven that when solely left up to us humans… we mess it up.

That’s why the leading and direction of God’s Holy Spirit is crucial.

Psalm 25:8-10 (Message) says, “God is fair and just, He corrects the misdirected, sends them in the right direction. He gives the rejects his hand, and leads them step-by-step. From now on every road you travel will take you to God. Follow the Covenant signs, read the charted directions.”

My favorite phrase is “He leads them step-by-step”. That is my truest desire. God, I am bound to get lost, I am sure to loose my own way. I’m just like the hymn we sing…

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,Prone to leave the God I love;Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,Seal it for Thy courts above.

How can I alone write the next chapter of my life? I can’t.

Lead me O Lord as my story unfolds… step-by-step.

And lastly, maybe these are your thoughts as you sit there with pen and paper…

I don’t like what I’ve written; can I start over on the back?

Listen to these words: Fresh start… clean slate.

Imagine the people that would have loved to hear those words…

Adam & Eve…
Judas…
Martha Stewart…
Mike Price…
Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, Andy Petite, Roger Clemons
Bill Clinton…

Here is the beauty of the story of our lives…

Even though the pen is in our hand and the paper is laid out in front of us… the God who created the universe in all of its mystery and massiveness, the same God who set our life into motion with a single breath, the God to which every knee will bow...

He has made the provision for you and me to turn our messed up and scribbled on pages over and start again.

Fresh start… clean slate.

In the words of the not-so-great secular theologian Natasha Bedingfield in her song Unwritten…

The pen is in your hand… ending unplanned.
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window let the sun illuminate the words that you can not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins…
The rest is still unwritten.

Not only do you have an unwritten story… but Karie and I have a story that is also in the process of being written… (our story & our future)

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.
Henry David Thoreau

Thank you for allowing me to serve you for 12 years. Thank you for believing in me and supporting me. Thank you for allowing me and Karie to be a part of the spiritual development of your children. Karie, thank you for chasing dreams with me. I thank God for each of you. It’s been a beautiful chapter of my life that I will always cherish. It’s been a great ride.