Jim Gaffigan is the funniest man on the face of the earth.  No one can talk about laziness, cake, bacon, and Hot Pockets with the same wit and humor as The Pale One can.

Today’s RLT Cinema feature shows Gaffigan taking on the Pope.  Very funny stuff.  Gaffigan can talk about religion in a way few people can.  Many of the things he says border so close to offensive for many people, yet you walk away laughing so hard you want a Hot Pocket.

Enjoy.

I’m going to miss her.

We bought her back in January 2002, a month before our oldest daughter was born.  We needed a new car with a little more room for a baby.  She outlasted three other cars (plus three years of our mommy van).  In the past year, I’ve essentially paid a car payment each month replacing old parts.  Last week, I pulled into the driveway and smoke started pouring out of the hood.  Antifreeze was everywhere.  I suspect a weak head gasket, which I’ve been nursing for several years.  As badly as I want to fix her and keep her going, I can’t do it anymore.

Although I’m a little frustrated at the inconvenience, I’m not worried.  If this would have happened five years ago, I would have freaked out and worried as if God did not exist.  I know better now.  This isn’t worth worrying about.  I’ll say my good-byes, and hopefully trade her in on one of these bad boys:

Aw, snap!  The ultimate in octogenarian luxury.  The definition of “Chaplain Car”.  And the standard in dependability (my father swears by these Buicks).  I’m past the age where I care about what my car looks like.  I just want something that’ll stay out of the shop.

Although some 26′s with spinners and a sub in the back would thug it out.

On April 24, 1996 at 10:20 PM, we started dating.  She was wearing her Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt, her red hooded seatshirt, her cut-off jeans, and her Chucks.

On April 24, 1997 at 10:30 PM, I asked her to marry me.  She said, “I can’t believe you!  I can’t believe you!”  I had to ask if that was a yes.  It was.

On August 1, 1998, we got married.  It was a storybook wedding.  Over twelve years later, we still have people telling us it was the coolest wedding they’d every attended.

In April, we’ll have been together for fifteen years.  In August, we’ll have been married for thirteen years.  They’ve been the best years of my life.  I’m the luckiest guy on earth.  All you fellas should be jealous.

I love you, babe.  Thank you for loving me, way more than I deserve.  Yoda one for me (always have been, always will be).

The RLT Cinema player is located in the widget sidebar to the right.  Simply click the video, which is the feature of today’s post.

This is simply the greatest TV commercial of the last thirty-five years.  And maybe the greatest advertisement ever.  To the geniuses of Volkswagon, I salute you.  The force is strong with this one.

So head on over to The New Inklings. Here’s a clue to our first musing:

I realize I’ve had a lot of music videos featured on RLT Cinema recently, but these have really struck me in one way or the other.  Today’s feature comes from the coolest Jewish dude since Jesus, Matisyahu.  I’m not a huge reggae fan, but Matisyahu is off the hook.  His “Live at Stubbs” live CD is ridiculous.

Today’s feature is an acoustic version of a song he previously did with Akon called “One Day.”  I personally think this version is much better.  The lyrics speak of looking forward to a day when we no longer have to worry about wars, violence, and the things that tear our world apart.

What are you (as the lyrics say) waiting and praying for?

I want to plug a site that I’m involved in called Stake.  I was asked to participate on the editorial board of this site.  The purpose, as the tag line says, is to challenge Christian risk-takers.

If you’re a Christian leader, you need to check out Stake.  If your simply a Christian, you need to check out Stake.  So…

…go check it out here.

I’m really excited about a new blog project I’m involved in called The New Inklings.  It’s a joint project between myself and my good friend Fran.  About a year and a half ago, Fran and I started a great conversation about God, and this blog is the result.  The coolest thing about it is this:

I’m a Christian.  Fran is agnostic.
We talk.  We don’t want to kill each other.

Thus, a Christian and an agnostic can walk into a bar, pull up a stool, and talk about faith, theology, or being unsure of either and still be great friends.  The creation of The New Inklings has been great fun, and has served to strengthen my faith.

Regardless of your faith view, go check us out.  This week will serve as an introduction to The New Inklings – who we are, how the site works, and what the process will be.

Do yourself a favor and check out The New Inklings.

So while this may technically be more of a “white board session”, I did transfer this silly little poem that I wrote in a shade under ten minutes to the ol’ Moleskine and did a little editing.  So here you go.  For your enjoyment, I present…

“I Have To…”

Between yon’ fertile crescent fields
And ‘neath the emerald tree,
Methinks I saw some wayward boys
Standing there to

Peter, Paul, Bartholomew
Apostles, they are three
But mortals all, like me and thee,
They’d sometimes halt to

Penal codes and papal bulls
Will ne’er forever be
Able to cease that carnal urge
To take time out and

Eat.

Today’s RLT Cinema feature is the trailer to The Rite, which releases today nationwide in theaters.  Nothing says a good movie like Hannibal Lecter vs. Satan.

I’m looking forward to seeing this because (like all exorcism movies before it) The Rite looks like it will explore the dark side of faith and things that pure reason cannot explain.

Insomnia (Psalm 4)

Have you noticed the increasing number of mattress commercials?  All your sleepless nights can disappear with a new memory foam, air-inflated, gravity-defying mattress.  Just try it out for half a year, and if you don’t sleep like the dead you can return your new space-aged mattress with no questions asked.

While a new mattress may help alleviate some causes of sleeplessness, there some nights where sleep won’t come regardless how comfy our mattress is.  Sometimes we’re so exhausted we can’t sleep. Our brains won’t shut down because they keep replaying the events of the day.  We rewind to the events of the past week, or month, or even years gone by.  During those sleepless nights, our brains rarely recall happy memories.  It’s usually the stressful stuff:  how will I pay the bills this month, why did my uncle get cancer, why isn’t my marriage better?  The list could go on and on.

Insomnia.  Welcome to zombie land.

Psalm 4 is an extension of Psalm 3 in which king David again cries out to God to relieve him of his stress over his son Absolom’s rebellion.  He pleads to his enemies to repent of their anger and get right with God.  Look what David writes in Psalm 4:7-8,

You have put gladness in my heart,
more than when their grain and new wine abound.
In peace I will both lie down and sleep,
for You alone, O Lord, do make me to dwell in safety.

Chaos ruled David’s life when he wrote these words.  His son was trying to overthrow him and steal the kingdom for himself.  He had been chased out of Jerusalem and was living in exile outside the city.  Yet, in the midst of his heartache and uncertainty, David found gladness, security, and peace in God’s protection and love.  And thus, thousands of years before our modern sleep technology, David could sleep peacefully.

Sleepless nights usually result from stress, which affects everything from appetite, mood, energy, health, as well as sleep.  We can learn from David’s example in times of stress.  David looked above his dire situation and saw God really was in control, which resulted in joy.  True joy isn’t an emotion, because emotions wax and wane depending on the situation.  True joy finds contentment and peace in God regardless of the situation.  Putting faith in Jesus does not guarantee a safe, comfortable life with a great marriage, steady income, and a home in the suburbs.  In fact, we can be sure that life will be hard at times.  But it does mean that we can find peace in spite of our circumstances because of Jesus.

Jesus did not sleep the last night of his life.  He went through five illegal trials.  His friends deserted, denied and betrayed him.  The next morning, he was beaten beyond recognition and nailed to a cross.  Three days later, God raised him from the dead.  Look at what the Bible says about that in Romans 5:1, “Therefore having been justified (proclaimed innocent) by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Think about the phrase “we have peace with God.”  It implies that, before following Jesus, we were at war with God.  Talk about a losing cause.  The almighty, all-powerful, completely holy God was at war with us because of our sin.  Yet, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we’re at peace with God.  Forgiveness through Jesus means no longer fearing God’s wrath or punishment because Jesus took those things for us.  Part of having peace with God is knowing that, in spite of all the evil in the world, God will make everything right again.  The final victory has already been won.  Guaranteed.

Yet, we often live like the end of Revelation can be rewritten.  We live like Satan can still pull out a win.  We worry and we stress.  We lose sleep.  We forget that God provides for the lilies and sparrows, and we’re much more valuable to God than they.[1] There’s a huge difference between knowing about God’s ultimate victory and living it out now even though it hasn’t been totally realized.  Like the man who begged Jesus to heal his son, we must say, “I believe.  Help my unbelief.”[2]

In the midst of his suffering, David found peace in God because he believed in God’s goodness.  He knew God was bigger than his problems.  He knew that no matter what, God alone was his protection and provider.  Therefore, he could rest his head in peace.

So when life has your head swirling, and you’re having trouble finding sleep, don’t count sheep.  Count your blessings.

Haunted (Psalm 3)

It is scary how the ghosts from our past come back to haunt us.  I’m not talking about the mysterious apparition of your great aunt Sally that appears at the top of the stairs on dark and stormy nights (if that’s you, then you need to call the Ghostbusters).  I’m talking about the poor de-cisions from the past that caused pain—the hurtful things we said or did that ruined a relationship or destroyed a reputation.  Every time we see or think about that person, the guilt rushes back.   The questions race through our minds:

“Why did I say those things?”

“How could I have approached the situation differently?”

“Can I ever make things right?”

Sin will come back to haunt us.

One of the reasons I’m convinced the Bible is from God and not merely the work of men is the way it portrays its “heroes.”  They aren’t portrayed as perfect people with perfect lives who did no wrong and who always saved the day.  Instead, the Bible portrays them with brutal, raw honesty.  They are people with personality flaws and moral failures.  In many cases, their ghosts return to haunt them.

Psalm 3 reveals the emotional state of a man haunted by his past.  Psalm 3 is King David’s cry to God concerning his enemies, namely his son Absalom.  Handsome, athletic, persuasive, manipulative, and evil, Absalom was both every father’s dream and nightmare.  He murdered his half-brother.  He ran a grassroots political campaign that would make any third-party candidate jealous.  He raped members of his father’s harem in broad daylight in public view.  He rebelled against his father to take the kingdom for himself.[1] He nearly succeeded, but his ambition lead to a violent death.

What is so tragic is David should have known what Absalom was doing.  Even if David did know, he did nothing about it.  David was a great king, but he was a terrible husband and father.  David’s weak parenting skills contributed to Absalom’s rebellion.  In Psalm 3 David reflects on the rebellion while it was in process.  David’s terrible fathering skills and his ignorance of Absalom’s subversive activities came back to bite him.  David was haunted.  Yet, in spite of the dire circumstances, David writes this in Psalm 3:3,

“But You, O Lord, are a shield about me.”

Shields have one purpose:  to protect from enemy attacks.  In ancient times, a soldier without a shield would have been as good as dead, vulnerable to whatever his opponent threw at him.  In a spiritual sense, David called God his shield—his protection.   Even though David was par-tially responsible for Absalom’s rebellion, David knew God would protect and forgive him.  Eventually, God allowed David to return from exile and reclaim the kingdom.

Like David, each of us has ghosts from our past that occasionally haunt us.  Satan uses those ghosts to inflict guilt, shame, and regret.

In the midst of spiritual warfare, when Satan throws everything at us, we can take refuge in God’s mercy.  We can trust in His protection.  Jesus’ death and resurrection secured the final victory over Satan, sin, and death.  Our guilt has been removed.  Our shame has been erased.  Our regret has been forgotten.  Even though the enemy continues to fight with guerilla tactics and even though there are battles to be fought, we can take refuge in God’s protection because the war is already over.

Our ghosts have a way of scaring us when we least expect it.  A song, a scene from a movie, a location, a person—anything that reminds us of the past—can stir memories and dredge up remorse for what we did.  But with God as our shield, our protector, we no longer have to fear.  We can trust in God’s protection and forgiveness no matter the circumstance we find ourselves.  Sometimes, knowing God is our shield is the only thing that keeps us sane and gives us hope.  Other times, when Satan’s attacks have ceased for the time being, we can look back and see God’s protection.  It may have come through a scripture we meditated on, an encouraging word from another follower of Jesus, time spent with our church, or even something as simple as a brief, silent moment.  No matter what He uses, we can in hindsight see God working to protect us in the midst of Satan’s barrage.  We can say what David did in Psalm 3:5-6,

I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around.

Rest easy.  Your ghosts don’t have to haunt you any longer.

Recognize (Psalm 2)

Who said the following?

“As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.”

These words sound like they flowed from the lips of a legend of faith—maybe John Calvin, Augustine, or Martin Luther King, Jr.  The person who actually spoke them?

Adolf Hitler.

History is filled with godless men who have used religion as a weapon to bully their way to power.  They twisted religion, used political coups, and flexed military muscle to grasp authority and maintain control over those they ruled.  Millions have died under the likes of Nero, Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein.  These godless tyrants and many like them have spilled oceans of blood onto the pages of history.

Yet, you don’t have to read a history book to see how power corrupts.  The latest news headlines reveal people who will do anything for power.  Bank executives receive multimillion dollar bonuses while their insti-tutions deny hard-working people loans.  Politicians barter back-room deals to gain clout while their constituents wonder why nothing gets done in Washington.  Athletes use banned substances to gain a competitive edge while children idolize them, hoping to “make it to the big leagues.”  Men boost their reputations with friends through sexual conquests while the women they sleep with deal with the baggage.  Some of us have suffered abuse at the hands of someone who wished to wield power over us.

Sometimes we want to take a permanent vacation from all the brokenness.

The author of Psalm 2 (an ancient king of Israel named David) felt the same way about the world he lived in.

Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let us tear their fetters apart
And cast away their cords from us!”[1]

As a warrior king who was constantly at war, David often expressed anger, frustration, and depression at the rogue people-groups who surrounded Israel, infecting the land with their godless culture and religious practices.  Yet, David knew there was Someone far stronger than any nation who would make things right again:  the all-knowing, all-powerful God of the universe.

The New Testament writers quote Psalm 2 seven times, all in reference to Jesus.  That means Psalm 2 looked forward to Jesus, speci-fically His resurrection and rule over the universe:

‘Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance,
And the very ends of the earth as Your possession.
‘You shall break them with a rod of iron,
You shall shatter them like earthenware.’”
Now therefore, O kings, show discernment;
Take warning, O judges of the earth.
Worship the Lord with reverence
And rejoice with trembling.
Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry,
and you perish in the way,
For His wrath may soon be kindled.
How blessed are all who take refuge in Him![2]

Rebel against Jesus, expect His wrath.
Find refuge in Jesus, expect His blessing.

How can we reverence God and rejoice with trembling?  How can we take refuge in Him?  We must recognize Jesus for who He is:  the King of kings and Lord of lords.  Only then can we have the proper perspective on the evil that infects our world and the people that power corrupts.  Right now, the world is a dark place.  But one day, the One who rules because of His death and resurrection will return and restore order, peace, and purity.

It’s alright to get discouraged and disillusioned.  Who wouldn’t living in such a messed up, sinful world?  The good news is that victory is already certain.  We’re now waiting for the return of the King.

We must recognize Him as such.  Now.

Root Down (Psalm 1)

Everyone has a “guilty pleasure” song. You know what I’m talking about.  A guilty pleasure song is that tune you crank up in the car when you’re driving alone.  It’s the song you sing in the shower when no one else is home.  Some people don’t have just one guilty pleasure song.  It may be a particular band or an entire genre.  My guilty pleasure music encompasses an entire album.

Ill Communication by the legendary rap group Beastie Boys.

Released in 1994, Ill Communication was a critical and popular success.  The first single, “Sabotage”, spawned a wildly popular music video in which the band spoofed a ‘70’s cop show.  In all, the band released four singles from the album, the last of which was “Root Down,” which sampled a song by jazz artist Jimmy Smith.[1] In the song, the Beastie Boys rap about their musical roots.  In fact, one of the meanings of the phrase “kick it root down” is to get back to the roots—to the basics —of something.[2]

Something weird happens to people when they submerge themselves in American Christian culture.  Most become complacent—they show up to church, sit through the service, throw some spare change in the offering, and go home.  Others get so involved with “church work” (Sunday ser-vices, Sunday School, small group, ministry teams, volunteering) they lose focus as to what their faith is really about.  Spiritually speaking, we need to kick it root down.

We need to get back to the basics.

Psalm 1 identifies the root of our interaction with God—faithful obedience.  The author says a righteous person does not live like a wicked person.  The righteous person pursues God by conforming his life to God’s standards.  The results of his pursuit of God?

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.[3]

Most trees must have deep roots to survive.  A tree firmly rooted on the river’s edge receives constant nourishment and hydration.  Such trees sustain their vigor and produce abundant fruit, even in times of drought.  Similarly, God strengthens people who strive to live out His commands.  Are their times of struggle, doubt, and suffering?  Yes, but their whole life reflects consistent dependence on Jesus.  Their words reflect Jesus.  Their attitudes reflect Jesus.  Their actions reflect Jesus.  Even their repentance reflects Jesus.  They thrive during life’s droughts when others struggle to survive.

My mother-in-law is a classic southern lady.  Dignified and softly spoken with a slight southern draw, she enjoys good novels, her grandchildren, and an ice-cold glass of sweet tea on a warm summer evening out on the deck overlooking her rose bushes.  She has also suffered with rheumatoid arthritis for most of her life.  She’s had both of her knees replaced.  She’s had knuckle replacement surgery to straighten the fingers on her right hand.  There are days she cannot get out of bed.  And yet, I’ve never heard her complain.  I’ve only seen her tear up from pain a handful of times.  Her faith in Jesus has never wavered.  She has suffered well because her spiritual roots run deep.  Those roots have produced the spiritual fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentle-ness, faithfulness, and self-control.

If we’re honest, we would admit there are areas in our lives that have shallow spiritual roots.  In many ways, our lives are no different than people who don’t know Jesus.  Christians struggle with divorce, adultery, pornography, greed, envy, jealousy, and anger as much as those who do not follow Jesus.  Is it any wonder many look at us and say, “I’m just as good as that Christian.  Why do I need the church?”  They look at us and see themselves when they should see Jesus.

Something needs to change.

According to Psalm 1, the righteous person “delights in the law of the Lord” and “meditates on it day and night.”  I once had a conversation with a guy who told me he was more interested in doing what the Bible said than reading it.  My response:  “How can you do what the Bible says if you never read it?”

The only way we can delight in God’s word and meditate on it is to dig deep into the Bible regularly and read, study, meditate, and apply it practically to our lives.  As we make the Bible part of our life’s rhythm, our spiritual roots dig deeper, gaining much-needed nourishment and sustenance.  As we integrate the Bible into our lives, we’ll start reflecting Jesus to the world around us.

And when the river rises, we’ll be able to weather the storm.