Artificial Mentorship - The Lament of a Mentor-less Mentee

I currently find myself in an interesting season of life. Shannon and I will be celebrating our fourth anniversary in just a few months. I am a proud dad who gets to watch my son grow and learn by leaps and bounds while another little one is knit together in Shannon's womb. I am a grad student at seminary and get the privilege to study alongside great men of God. I get a chance to occasionally stand in front of hundreds of people and proclaim the incredible gospel of God. I am working hard to get my teaching certification so I can get our student loan debt completely paid off. I am 26 1/2 years old, which means that my prefontal cortex is finally 100% finished developing, giving me the ability for complete, rational, decision-making. So I finally have to come to terms with this ugly truth and admit it...

I am finally an adult.

However, while I do adult-ish things and do my best to lead my family, I have a problem. I am lazy. Unmotivated. Easily distracted. Un-evangelistic. Hard-hearted. Lacking direction. Lacking accountability. Lacking depth that I used to crave. Okay, so maybe I have a few problems.

To boil it down, I am childish and desperately in need of a mentor. I never truly understood this need until I saw others benefit from having someone to sit under and speak into their life. I have had great friends over the years who have been a great benefit to me, but this need goes beyond what can be procured in a simple friendship. After spending years in the ministry you get used to pouring out time and time again without anyone to pour into you. It is pretty exhausting to give out and never really take in.

Well, that leads to another problem. I don't have anyone to mentor me. Being new to Fort Worth, we simply do not know that many people. Those who I think would make great mentors are already filling that role for others (not to mention my own fears of truly opening up to others, but that is for another time).

So what is my solution? Well, I could just wallow in self-pity (I'm actually pretty skilled at that). However, I am finally fed up enough to act on this problem. Since I cannot buy a mentor or just conjure up such a relationship out of thin air, I am working an "artificial mentorship program" for myself where I can regularly sit under the teaching of great men of God. Here are some of my goals:

• Listen to the entirety of the sermons from The Village Church's resource archive as part of my daily devotional. While I haven't added it up, my estimation is there are about 350-400 sermons. I plan on listening to 1-3 per day, so this may take up to a year or more to complete. Why did I pick The Village? Shannon and I formally attended there before moving to The City Church in Fort Worth to be apart of their missional community. For many years I have looked at The Village and Matt Chandler's theology as some of the most biblically sound theology/doctrine I have ever seen. I have been moved and inspired by Matt's current battle with cancer, but his doctrine and teaching have always been rock-solid and I would love to sit under that. As a person who one day would love to pastor/church plant, I cannot think of a better place to learn from.
• I will keep a hand-written journal with notes/thoughts from each sermon along with prayers. I stink at journal writing so this is going to be a struggle, but I think it is important to document what I am learning.
• I will also spend time in my Bible daily. Instead of doing a particular Bible reading plan, I will follow the passages the books from whatever sermon series I am listening to at the time. Pretty pumped to start in Ephesians.
• For the summer, I will be reading books from some of my heroes. Keeping it in the reformed family, I will be reading some classic John Piper books. I have already ordered an "essential" set that includes Desiring God, The Pleasures of God, and Future Grace. I also am going to try to fit in reading one chapter of Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion each day as well.

I know this is a bit ambitious, but I am tired of living a cyclical life that consists of the same old struggles (see blog name :). I want to be filled up with rich teaching from Scripture and pour out into my family, community, and church through the overflow of grace in my life. I am giving myself some time to formulate a plan and I hope to begin Monday, April 27th. I will be periodically blogging on what I am learning and what God is showing me. I would appreciate your prayers for my "artificial mentorship" to reap results but also that a true mentorship will emerge at some point. I certainly hope it does.

I love you all so very much...

Jesus of the Scars

Okay, so it is obvious (especially to those who have known me for years) that I stink at blogging. Years ago I used to blog very frequently but I've fallen off the wagon and have never truly recovered. Isn't it appropriate that this blog is called "sameoldstruggles" as I continue to struggle with this issue. So, I will not bear false witness by saying that I am returning to blogging, but I just felt like writing a bit tonight.

At times I think us Protestants (even though Baptists refuse to call themselves such, but that is for another time) could benefit from following a liturgical calendar. Celebrating Advent, Lent, etc., if done well, can have an amazing impact on how we view our day to day lives with God. Personally, I need a constant, even by the minute, reminder of the greatest of the Gospel. Today is the day that people celebrate "Maundy Thursday," the day of the Last Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane. On this night Jesus prayed to the Father that the cup of His wrath would pass, but as an obedient Son and loving Savior, He accepted the task and went to a painful death.

(Quick tangent coming...) I constantly marvel at my own weakness and darkness of heart. I struggle with living missionally/evangelistically because I don't know how to seek out and let people into my life. The funny thing part of that is that I desperately long for community. I can talk a good game but the real test is living and quite often I flunk out big time. However, I can sense God opening up new doors and channels in the dark recesses of my heart and calling me to love people (and maybe even allowing myself to be loved) and that is comforting and disconcerting at the same time... which is how it should be, I think... (Tangent over.)

What I really want to address are wounds. How often do we wound others, and we do so often in the same way that we have been wounded time and again. Biting words, selfish actions, using others... these barely scratch the surface of what one human can do to another. I have done and have had these things done to me over the years. I have had serious wounds. However, through the very wounds of Christ, our wounds can be healed. Sure, on this side we still carry the scars of our rebellion, but Christ victoriously bears the scars that seal our redemption. 

There is a poem that a friend introduced me to years ago called Jesus of the Scar"  by Edward Shillito that I wanted to share:

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow;
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars we claim Thy grace.

If when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know today what wounds are; have no fear;
Show us Thy Scars; we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong, but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

What has wounded you in this life? Will you let God heal your wounds? We have a God who has felt temptation, pain, loneliness, hunger, and thirst. On this night nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus had the chance to walk away, but He knew the healing and redemption that would come from His wounds. 

But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.

- Isaiah 53:5 

Don't let this amazing weekend where we celebrate the greatest act of love in history pass by as another weekend. As the poem states (and Scripture agrees), we should seek Jesus for He is the only balm for our wounded souls. By His wounds we can have peace and healing.

I love you all so very much...