These Wednesday posts are supposed to be dedicated to
ministry, so at first I thought I could just rehash whatever we were talking
about in the youth group. Turns out that I actually have no idea what I’m
talking about because that post wasn’t just bad but also based around my
entirely inaccurate thoughts about the story of Samuel. Ask Kate. It was
terrible.
So then I wrote a post about how terrible my first post
would have been. Guess what? Yeah, it was also terrible.
So I didn’t upload either of those, and you’re probably
better off because of it, cause God knows you would have gotten halfway through
them thinking “maybe this actually gets good at some point,” but luckily
something happened to me today that reminded me of what I wanted Ministry
Wednesday’s to be about. Not about lessons, or me preaching to my loyal
readers, but about what it’s like doing ministry in Montebello when I grew up
in Orange County and don’t speak Spanish. Sometimes it’s amazing the kind of
weird stuff I face and have absolutely no idea how to deal with.
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| Clearly Dr. Polmar did not get his degree in Graphic Design, but it's cheaper than Rosetta Stone. |
We have this awesome ministry called Homework House where we
offer free tutoring to the 1st-8th graders in our
community. It’s been such a huge blessing to the church and to me but it
certainly has been my biggest trial as well. I’ve never been great with kids*,
and I really didn’t do well in school so putting the two together for the
purpose of ministry ends up presenting some unique challenges.
Today one of the kids came up to me while I was helping a
girl with a word problem (they always need help with word problems) and he
says, very plainly, “is the world going to end?” and as a knee jerk reaction I
say “yeah…” and start to think of how to respond. Apparently yeah was a bad
choice of word because he fell to the
ground bawling. Yeah you read that right, he literally couldn’t stand
because he was so devastated. He looked like a tween-girl seeing Robert
Pattinson in person for the first time (or anytime really).
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| An honor once reserved only for The Beatles. |
I had no idea what to do and all I could think of was… “so
is he post-millenial or pre-millenial? I’m not sure what the logical arguments
are for any of these things. Just don’t repeat the plot of Left Behind and I
should be good.”
I tried to reason with him at first. “Well, of course the
world is going to end at some point, but not anytime soon.”
And my mind went back to Bible College mode. “I can’t really
say that, cause well, it could end right now, but I’m not going to tell some
little kid that the world could end right now, but I can’t lie to him either.”
So I stuck with the lie.
He wasn’t appeased.
As tears continued to roll down his face I grasped at straws until he finally said “I don’t want to die.” Now I have my in.
“Well you believe in Jesus don’t you?”
“yea…yea…yeah…” tears still rolling down, tons of snot
coming out of his nose, his face all shiny with pure devastation.
“Well he offers us eternal life if we believe in him.”
Still not good enough.
Now this exercise in applied theological theories wasn’t
helping this poor little 10 year old and I started to realize that this stuff
just really isn’t going to make sense. I’d say things like “God’s going to
renew this earth and take out all the bad stuff and it will be like this but
way better. You like pizza right? There will be pizza. And of course your parents
will be there, but they’ll be better, they won’t be sick or tired and they’ll
love you so much. It’s like when school gets out for the summer, you’re not
sad, you’re excited about all the new things you get to do and all the free
time you’ll have.”
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| What I think heaven is like for a 10 year old. |
Now I took an exegetical class on the book of Revelation and
there were plenty of conversations throughout my time at Bible College about my
eschatology, but never once did they consist of “yeah, there will be pizza, and
it will be like summer vacation.” That whole, “I’m not going to lie to this
kid” thing just flew out the window for the more noble thought of, “I’m gonna
do whatever it takes to get this kid to stop crying”.
The tears continued, even with the pizza comment, until
finally I said, “well, that’s it. You done?” and offered my hand to help him
up. He looked at me confused and stopped crying and then got up and walked out.
He was fine.
I thought about it later as I was driving to Kate’s house
(mostly cause I was thinking, “how the heck can I turn this into a post?!”) and
I realized that when it comes to all of these discussions about heaven and hell
we all have to accept two things.
1. We have no idea: I don’t care if you have a doctorate in
eschatology or if you somehow cracked the “Bible Code”, you don’t know what
heaven is going to be like and you don’t know what hell is going to be like (or
not be like) outside of words like “good and bad” “awesome and terrible” and
whatever else comes up in that ol’ thesaurus (I remember being so disappointed
when I found out thesaurus’ weren’t dinosaurs, I cried almost as hard as the
kid today).
2. We have all been lied to at some point. When we approach
pastors and teachers with tough questions that they don’t know the answers to
and they’re well aware that you’re on the verge of some sort of existential
crisis they think of whatever answer will calm you down.
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| Preventing existential crises, but not bringing me the puppies I asked for... |
Now knowing these two things we need to respond in these two
ways:
1. Stop pretending to be experts in the unknown. The reason
why God is so awesome to us is mostly because he is just awesome, he embodies
whatever the word awesome means and that makes him bigger and stronger and
greater than anything else that could ever be. Now when you say God is awesome
it is not helpful to break out the Webster’s Dictionary and say “thus God is
limited to: Inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration or fear.”
You just ruined the word awesome, that’s all you did. You somehow are such a
huge buzz kill that you could un-awesome awesome-ness itself. Good job. Note:
As bad as it may be to do this with the Webster’s Dictionary it is infinitely
worse to do this with the Urban
Dictionary.
2. Get over it. Think about the fact that 5 minutes from now
whatever huge question you can’t answer is still going to be there but you’re
going to feel fine. Think about how little you thought about this question when
you kissed the person you loved or were helping out at some charity. The answer
to this question, whatever it may be, was not essential for you to enjoy your
life and to share it with others.
So in case your wondering, whatever the answer is to heaven, hell and the fate of every person who ever lived it cannot change the call that
Christ has given us to honor Him, to love others and to share ourselves with
the people He’s created.
Hopefully this post was better than those two I didn’t post,
but if not you’ll never know J
*Kate calls BS
"Think about how little you thought about this question when you kissed the person you loved or were helping out at some charity."
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a c.s. lewis quote:
But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away “blindly” so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not
given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
I have always found this to be true. It is aways the times that im being the most idle that i worry about death. whenever I am really living to the fullest and in tune with God, those things fall away.
another less relevant but still good quote:
“Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of--something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clap-clap of water against the boat's side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possesed your soul have been but hints of it--tantalizing glimspes, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.' We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the things we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”
great post!
haha! I read your comment and saw that you quoted Lewis and before I even read it I was like "well of course C.S. Lewis already said something like this, it's totally like how C.S. Lewis said not to bother about being originally." And then I read the first quote and couldn't help but laugh cause it was totally the one I was thinking of! Haha! Thanks caboose face! Can't wait to talk more tomorrow! (and hopefully you'll enjoy my post for tomorrow too)
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