Last night my basketball team lost in a single elimination playoff game.  If you know me, you know I like this as much as I like watching my sister in laws dog for 5 weeks.  We didn’t play well, and it was quite frustrating, but there was a bright side, a proverbial lesson to be learned.

One thing I’ve learned in my 10 +years of doing what I do is that you can’t win all the time and sometimes you lose, but how you lose can be just as important to your natural growth as a person than actually winning all the time.  The person who wins all the time isn’t mature, for they can’t understand what it is to feel loss, and to know loss is to grow up in ways that winning can’t provide.  So here is just one of a few  thought I had on losing well fresh off our playoff loss last night:

If you’re going to lose, lose with a great team. I can’t tell you I enjoyed losing last night, but I can tell you it will be that much easier to play again because of the group of guys I play ball with.  There are teams in our league that have killed us in the past, and they’ve bickered back and forth about everything – and the next year they were on a different team.  There were a few years at Fellowship when my predecessor made some hard decisions and things were really lean for a while people wise, which of course led to hard financial struggle.  After feeling the joys of winning before, this felt like losing.  But we were able to walk through those difficulties because we enjoyed working together through those valleys.  Last night’s playoff loss produced a bitter tasting puddle in my mouth, but thankfully I love to play with the group of guys I play with each week, so on to next season.  Interestingly enough, this is also one of the reasons I love being at Fellowship now as the lead pastor.  The last two years haven’t always been peaches, but I’ve walked with some truly wonderful compadres, and this makes all the difference in the world.

Now, if I could just find a bright side to dog sitting, we’d be all set.

Monday night I played basketball for the first time since I sprained my thumb more than a week ago.  Also, my team achieved their first win after a lot of close games.  We won big.  It was nice.

Toward the end of the game, I drove down the court and basically walked in the middle of four guys who thought I was going to pass to the outside.  I decided to take the layup and headed for the basket.  With relative ease I went into the air, until a player from the other team attempted to block my shot.  The result was he grabbed my arm and the rest of his body slammed my body immediately onto the hardwood floor.  With no defenses, my elbow and knee hit the floor.  Thankfully I was not hurt, but I was madder than a hatter in Wonderland because no foul was called on the play.  So were my teammates as they quickly came to my defense with screams at the referees, who apparently were oblivious to…well, anything at all.  My emotions were getting the best of me so immediately I asked someone to come into the game for me, and I walked out to the hallway of the school to calm down.

It was great that I had friends to stand for me at that point, but I learned a far greater lesson tonight.  There are some situations in life that have no resolution.  You can get mad.  You can yell.  You can lose your cool or cry or blame everybody.  But the result will be the same.  After the game as we had handily won by 40 points, I calmly walked to the ref who missed the call and asked, “What was up with the missed call?  Did you see me fall to the floor when the guy crashed into me.”  His response was, “I was looking at the ball, and didn’t see the foul.  I asked the other ref and he told me he didn’t think you were fouled.”  And he didn’t have to say, End of story, see you later crybaby.

And that is it.  No resolution.  No playback.  Just me getting hit, no foul being called, and life goes on.  I imagine if the stakes were higher it might me more difficult.  If someone I loved piledrove me into the floor, (figuratively speaking of course) I would probably want resolution or some sort of vengeance, but sometimes it just doesn’t come, and we’re left wanting something more, feeling like God and friends have left us in some way.  If the backstabbing hurts or the gossip cuts and there was nothing anybody could do, how do we feel?.

This happens.  And it makes me sad for all parties.

I’m wondering.

Who was the person that has impacted your life the most that you have met in 2009?  I mean with 288 days gone in this calendar year, there is certainly someone new in your life who has made a dent in that complacent life of yours.  Someone who has changed and challenged all the previous rules and driven you to think that more is possible in your life.  This year I’ve met two individuals, Sean and Michael, who normally rock my world each time I chat with them.  So I respond by thinking more and wanting to be more in terms of where I’m at in life.  Husband, future father, pastor, leader, friend are all ways that these guys push me.

So I’m pretty excited about other people I’ll meet in 2009 and 2010 who can impact where I’m at and where I’ll be going.  And I’m thankful to God for continually bringing people into my life to help me grow…

And really, 6′3″ is not enough.

One of the biggest enemies you have concerning making and keeping friends is you.

Your own insecurities tell you that that person meant something else when they said that or when you read that email, you were sure that the implication was somehow against you, and so you started dwelling on how you could reply – and more times than not it’s defensively.

In recent years I’ve stopped trying to read people because a) I am not that person and b) even if that person thinks what I’ve perceived that person to think, it doesn’t matter anyway.  They are entitled to their opinion and I am entitled to be me.  The problem arrives when I expect them to be me, which they are not.  But here’s what you can do.

If you believe they are thinking or implying something inappropriate, then ask them.  And instead of holding all sorts of false beliefs about how another person thinks or feels write an email and ask (or better yet, make a phone call) and take the guesswork out of it.  You’re no better at reading people from an email or a 20 second quote than I am at snow skiing, and believe me, that’s not all that good.

So today, instead of criticizing what that person might have meant by that word or that line in the email, believe the best and take the guesswork out of the equation or don’t have friends at all.

Your choice.

I’m freeing myself slowly from it.  The need to be everyone’s friend.  Sure I’m friendly with everyone, after all, it is my personality. But friends – I’m getting away from the addiction.

I used to believe that as a pastor of a church, I had to be friends with everyone in the church.  Consequently I would bend over backwards trying to please everyone, pour into everyone’s life individually, and in the end have a heaping full of watered down relationships.

Recently I’ve realized a better way.  Friendly towards all, but friends toward a few.  Real friends are hard to come by and they are not going to be made once a week in an hour.  Real friends develop connections through long conversations, time spent in mutual activity, and being real with one another.

I still believe the church is an amazing place to find real friends of character, integrity, and sacrifice, I just don’t believe that that friend has to be be me anymore.  It could be a life group leader or a band member, a nursery volunteer, or just a wise individual who happens to be in a seat each Sunday.  Just because someone has a title doesn’t mean they are your friend.  A title doesn’t make a friend…

a sacrifice does.

There’s certain times in my week that I love.  Those are times that I look forward to, that I realize will someday go away, and that I try to get as much out of as possible.  They are my weekly regular times with my friends.  Without these times I would know half as much and be twice as bored.  They come at different times throughout the week and in various communicative ways.

Date night with Carie.

An early morning phone call from Garret.

A late night drive back home from a basketball game with Jay.

Sitting in St. Arbucks with Jeff.

Sunday early mornings with Steve and Al.

In the office with Billy.

Watching football with Sean, Steve, or Dave.

Text messages from Brian and Brandon.

Regular long distance convos with Clay.

Occasional Tuesday nights with Deric.

Sunday Mornings @ Fellowship.

Game nights with Steve and Priscilla and Jake.

Friday at Finders Pub.

Hang time with my life group

I not only have these times placed in my calendar, I thrive on these times like Popeye to spinach and Tammy Faye to make up.  I think it’s important to invest in relationships, and to set aside time to pour into others and to allow others to pour into me.  Sure it would be easier and cleaner and require less time to simply keep to myself, but friends are more fun and make me want to be a better person.

Cheers to friends and growth.

I’ve written in the past about some of the interesting relational things about facebook. And now…another one.

I’m writing this on the day where I write about relationships with enemies, but that might or might not be extreme for the topic today.  You see, one thing that is fascinating about Facebook is the ability to be friends again with people you’ve been around in days gone by, in different eras of your life.  This is great in one sense, because I love seeing friends I haven’t seen in a while.  In another though, we must meet up with the realization that there is a reason we are no longer in that season of our life.

For instance, I grew up in the thriving metropolis of Fremont, Ohio.  A set of my friends live there or know me from there.  The theology was rigid and the music was bad.

At 17, I moved to Pensacola, Florida to attend college.  A big number of my friends attended there with me.  The theology was also rigid, but the music was good.  By good, I mean professional as opposed to a type that I liked.

When I moved to Florida, my parents moved to Arizona, so during the summers I lived there.  A small portion of my friends live or lived there.

After college, I moved to Atlanta, GA where I taught school and other odd jobs for the year of 1998.  It appears that I have a lot of facebook friends from this are of my life.

Then I moved to Massachusetts in the middle of 1998 and have been here ever since.  Meeting friends, seeing people move away.  Meeting new friends.

I bring all this up because I wonder whether it’s healthy to have an eye on all these people from all these various stages of life.  I’m really glad the technology exists, and I have become close again with friends from my past, and in some cases closer, but for the most part, it has been just a means of seeing that they ate chili this morning for breakfast or that their kid puked all over their back seat because of travel sickness.  But here’s the interesting predicament I’m processing.  I wonder if they (meaning my friends from a different era) like the ideal of the old Marty, who was sheltered and didn’t listen to rock music and didn’t say things like “crap” and “screwed”  and who towed the party lines when it came to eschatology and the church?

Then I wonder if I’m just creating a new crop of enemies for myself by having a facebook account?  I could just as easily write the names of the people who I’d really be in contact with, and get on with my life post facebook.  Wow!  That’s a lot to think about.

I’m just glad I didn’t grow up a Calvinist and jump out of those circles.  I would be so screwed.

The last 5 days have been pretty much a summary of my current life in reference to my relationships, with the possible exception of my friends I talk to via the telephone who live away from Massachusetts.

Friday for lunch I met with a group of guys I meet up with every Friday at noon at the Finders Pub. We talked about marriage and why Billy was scared of it and about how our weeks were good or bad and how we could change them.

Friday after work Carie and I spent our date night double dating with our neighbors across the street.   We had a blast chatting and enjoying the company of a great couple we’re getting to know better.

Saturday we volunteered our time to help an incredible cause and some incredible friends who lead that cause.  Hearts for Heat held an awards/volunteer appreciation dinner and I was able to speak and help clean up afterward.

Saturday night was spent talking to my dad for an hour or so, watching Michigan football, and studying for Sundays message.  You can download the talk (and any of my Sunday messages) here.

Sunday morning @ Fellowship was awesome as I was able to serve our church community, fellowship with great friends, and hang out with a group of new college students in our church.

After a sweet nap, Sunday evening served as date night for Carie and I, and we had a great time “dating”.  Lots of great conversation, playing “Lost Cities”, and watching “No Country for Old men” (definitely not a date movie)  brought on a great time together, which was good because Monday we wouldn’t be seeing much of each other.

On Monday after work, my basketball team came together again to play in our Rutland league.  We didn’t win, but I love playing basketball with those guys.  They are such a good group of guys, and it was really fun seeing them again.  After the game, I stopped by a friend ’s house who was watching the Pats/Bills game on his patio with his sons.  We talked and watched and enjoyed MNF on the patio.

This morning, after a whopping 4.5 hours of sleep and continued soreness as I jumped out of bed, I drove to the Y, where I played some more basketball with more guys who I love to play with every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I’m paying for it now, but I love being able to play ball and spend time with this group of guys.

I tell you all this because about 3 years ago I felt like I didn’t really have very many real relationships.  I talked to a lot of people on Sundays but during the week it seemed like I had fallen into some sort of relational slump brought on by laziness and complacency.   I then made a conscious effort to take myself out of my comfort zone and do some things that I hadn’t done in a while because I was comfortable and my life was good – things like meet new people and exercise and pour into my already existing relationships and yes, even walk away from others if they were in any way pulling me down.

So today I sit here in a local coffeeshop, soaking in the current silence of the atmosphere, not talking to anyone, and thanking God for the people He’s putting into my life…

and the people He’s going to put into my life.

Good conversations and growth in my relationships with friends seem to happen when I lay aside something of importance that I’m doing or attempting to accomplish and give time to others.  Yesterday I skipped my weekly Monday volleyball game to work on a house project I’m trying to finish by the end of the summer.  When volleyball ended, two friends from church came over (they were sporting their beach vball ‘tudes) and chatted for a bit in an impromptu conversation about God, seminary, evangelism, being missional, and life in general.  This caused my work to not get accomplished, but in the process, something better happened.  By the time Jake and Ben left my house, I was thoroughly encouraged about what God is doing, not only in my life, but in the lives of some of those who are very close to me.  I really need to make a habit of putting away things I’m trying to accomplish more to chat with friends.

Thanks Jake and Ben!

This morning I asked this question via status message:  “If you could twitter or facebook status a piece of advice to me right now based on what you’re going through, what would it be?

Here were your answers:

Via Twitter:
“Grace is far more powerful than justice.  Live above the line.” @dbpayne
“Make a list and knock it down 1 by 1.” @k_seas
“Cling to God in desperation as if your very life depended upon it (in all actuality, it does). This is the essence of true faith.” @ianmatthewrice
“Keep looking forward.” @Brandonwhittall

Via Facebook
“Suffer well.” Ryan
“Buy cheap sunglasses, so when you break them, it doesn’t hurt as much.” Clay
“Pick a career you enjoy.” Tony
“Put all your cares and fears in God’s hands – for He is in control.” Denise
“Watch out for cheap cocaine.” Mike B.
“If part of the everyone is missing is missing, part of the needy goes missing as well. Acts 2:44-45″ Steve B.
“God is so good to provide what we need at the perfect timing – not mine – So very thankful.” Melaney
“Parenting is alot tougher than what it seemed at 18.” Michelle, Part 1
“More income and less hours worked for it.” John
“For every mountain, there is a miracle.” Tina
“Parenting is also tons more fun than I thought at 18.” Michelle, Part 2
“Patience is a virtue and understanding is a must.” Darlene

All right, your turn.  You have any wisdom to add to this list?