I seem to attract phone calls between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am, or maybe it’s my job, though many of the calls I receive are not tied to my job.  The first one I remember receiving was the summer of 2000.  In the summer of 1999, The crew I hung out with at the time and I made a habit of doing foolish things.  Among those foolish thing – pick up lines.  We would make up these wretched pick up lines and practice them before going out and using them as a means to meet new people.  The lines weren’t really to be used for “picking up” females, but as a tool to start conversations.  This was, at least, what we told ourselves.  Creativity was important, as was shock value.

My favorite:  We would pass our gospel tracts to ladies we would pass in the town where a few of us lived and say:  “Excuse me, would you be interested in hanging out with me in paradise someday?”

But there was one that we all had in our minds was amazing, that as I look back now, I think was really kind of stupid.  But it was the one no one would try.  One night we stayed out till late doing whatever it is that we did, and eventually I had to leave and go to bed.  I worked as a DJ for a radio station at the time and had to be up at 4:00 am, so I figured I should at least be asleep by 2 am.  The rest of our crew went to Denny’s for a late night snack.  While they were there, Roo (one of the crew) saw this “amazingly beautiful” girl and decided to walk over the the booth where this girl sat with three of her friends and try the line that had not been tested.

So he strutted over to the booth that held the girls in place, and sat next to the girl in question.  With his deep blue eyes (please understand, Roo had deep blue eyes), he smiled at her and said the words, “Those are nice shoes you’re wearing, wanna make out?”  A dramatic pause hung over both tables as the girls at the table digested what the strange young man had said, and then as the “amazingly beautiful” girl mulled over what her response would be.

“No.  But you guys can come over here and talk to us.”  She replied.  More awkward silence, and then everyone laughed.

Ironically after an evening of conversation and fun, the “amazingly beautiful” girl decided to ask another one of the guys in the crew out, and they went out.  (We’ll call him Joe)  Joe was much younger than Roo and “AB girl”, but evidently they had a fabulous time on their “date” and decided to go out again.  This relationship took off, but the problem was that they lived two very different lives.  Joe was a missionary kid who was currently enrolled in Bible college, and “AB girl” was none of those things and more.

To make a long story short, “AB girl” never became a Bible college student or a missionary, but Joe became the opposite of those things, eventually deciding to start living with “AB girl” and hanging out with a different crew of people all together.  I don’t judge him for that, but I do judge me for not knowing how to encourage him properly through the process.

One summer night  in the summer of 2000 while I slept deeply as I like to do, I received a call from Joe, crying his eyes out, and begging me to come get him.  I said, “Where are you?”  I asked in my normal voice at 3:30 am, which I’ve been told, sounds a lot like Katherine Hepburn talking over a vacuum.  “At her house,” he responded, sounding defeated and lost.  “Just come get me quick.”  I woke my eyes up, jumped out of bed, and drove the 10 minutes to his new/old house, where I picked him up on the curb that humid summer morning.

I never went back to bed.

September 2, 1993 – Fremont, Ohio

It was the last day I would ever live in Ohio.  I had been there for 18 years of my life, and now sat at a crossroads.  My dad would be taking me to Florida the next day for college, so I sat on Hayes Ave at a party with some of my closest friends.  They each wrote a letter to me in a notebook (it was pink), sharing with me the hole my exit would leave in their lives.  I still have the notebook and read it every once in a while.

Jon Weber, my math teacher was there, along with Eric, Melinda, Tony, Marci, and Kelly.  Stephanie made an appearance too, though I hated that she showed up. She was the first female to ever hurt my heart.  I had never felt that before and would have preferred it to never happen again.  She wrote a nice enough note in the book, but still.  Then Angie surprised us all with her attendance too.  Angie worked with my best friend Clay and I at Pondegross-a (formerly known as Ponderosa).  She sported an amazing smile and also happened to be the local public schools homecoming queen.  Though we were not very close with her, Clay decided to do me a favor and invite her to my “going away” party.

I was thankful, and it also made me feel better about Stephanie being there.

Angie and I exchanged new addresses and she promised to write me soon, which she did. (pre email, or even cell phone)  I wrote her back.  She returned the letter with another which I swore held a hint of Chanel #5.  I never returned the letter.  I was never very good at letters.

And of course, Clay, Mark, and Carrie were there too.  We were minus another of our best friends, Jeremiah, who had already shipped off to the Marines.  But these were the closest people I had in the world, and you could see it in their eyes that they hated that I was leaving.  They wrote amazing, wonderfully sappy notes and though happiness maintained its place in my emotions, I understood my leaving would indeed leave a hole in the lives of the people in whom I had made an impact.  But I was doing the leaving, and as I learned that fall, doing the leaving is almost always the easiest when it’s on good terms.

This week I found out that two of my really close friends are moving away from this area to another place, which will allow for more opportunity and a different path.  I find myself getting emotional just thinking about it.  I am happy for them and for the lives they will lead, and yet there is an instant hole that I know will be left inside of me.   I wonder if I’m getting old because I almost want to cry thinking about it.  So what I’ll do is remember the time I drove away from Fremont, Ohio, seeking a different, even better story for myself, and praise God for new technology.

The journey from face to face chats to Facebook begins.

This is Dave.  I’ve wrote about him before here and here and here.

Dave is getting married on Saturday and I have the honor of standing with Dave on this special day as he finally gives up a life of bachelorhood for a life with Cherie.  Dave is a good friend and I’m really thankful for his presence in my life since 1995.

On this special weekend, please congratulate Dave and Cherie with me!

p.s. I took this pic 5 minutes to go in Dave’s new home in Hotlanta

The more I do what I do, the more I begin to realize the difference between someone I  may like and someone I want to be around.

I may like you if you can talk about sports and music and how your day is going.  But I want to be around you if you can tell me the way something should be in real life.  I may listen to you if you come to me and complain or you’re having a rough day and need to get it out, but I’ll want to stay there and keep listening if you then go into how things can and will be better eventually.

When someone paints a picture of how things could be and should be in the world, people follow.  I follow.

So today if you talk to your friends and share how things are going and maybe you get the urge to complain a bit about all the bad things going on, follow it up with how things will eventually turn around, and maybe even share with them a vivid picture of what that looks like.

If we were only as descriptive about the good things that are happening as we are about the bad things…

In the church world, we are constantly pushing people to become better God followers.  From sermons to bible studies to discipleship programs, we make a habit of motivating, pushing, and for some houses of faith, manipulating people into a “better relationship with Christ.” I absolutely see nothing wrong with a better relationship with Christ, but there are some other things I want to work on too.  Like becoming a better friend to people.

We use these verses about sacrificing yourself for God as a means to motivate, and then ignore a lot of relational practices in Scripture because they interfere somehow with our path towards “building the kingdom of God,” as if our being a real friend to someone is ever going to stop us from doing that.

In a few of the gospel accounts, some people come to Jesus, evidently trying to trick him into saying something wrong, and ask him what is the most important or greatest commandment in the law?  Without the benefit of Jesus’ words in front of us, I fear that most of our answers, should we be asked this same question today, would be very focused on what we want our church to become.  “Know your Bible” or “Pray a lot” or “Get out there and serve” are three answers that aren’t wrong to do, they’re just not the greatest thing God wants us to do.

Jesus answers them by quoting Deuteronomy:  ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

But Jesus didn’t get asked about the top 2 greatest commandments, so why does he link them together?

Because they are indicators of one another.  Hey, are you loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind?  Then let me see how you’re doing with your neighbor.  How is your ‘growing relationship with God’ doing anyway?  Don’t tell me it’s doing great and then use your friends as a means to an end.

In Scripture, real friendship is painted as synonymous with sacrifice.  David and Jonathan’s friendship meant that their souls were “knit together” and Jesus said that there is no greater love than when someone gives their life for a friend.  Then he proceeded to exemplify this by giving his life, not only for his friends, but for his enemies too.

I confess that this is one of my biggest struggles.  Oh not working on my friendships, I actually love doing that.  But forgiving those I feel have wronged me in some way.  I have so many friends and work so hard on my relationships that it’s easy for me to tell myself that I don’t need that person as a friend, because I have plenty of them.  And while that very well may be true, I don’t like the hole that occurs in my heart after I decide to walk away from the person who has hurt me.  This whole devastates not only my future relationships, but also my walk with God.

So I’m not asking you not to work on your relationship with God.  I’m simply challenging the notion that it is more important than working on your relationship with others.  I would even contend that every time religion goes awry and you hear a story about a suicidal tribe of religious nuts who give their lives to be taken up to God in a UFO or a group of people (many times religious) who believe that another group of people should be eradicated from the earth or are inferior to them in some way, that these are instances where you are trying to get only half of the greatest commandment right, and are failing miserably even at that.  For in order to love God, you HAVE to love people.  Your friends.  Your enemies.  Your neighbors.  The wait staff at the worst restaurant you’ve ever been to.  Your local and federal politicians.  Gotta love ‘em.

Sucks, doesn’t it?

A long time ago I did something really stupid.  I made some decisions that affected a lot of people, hurt my reputation, and disappointed people who were close to me.  The last consequence I wrote was the one that really got to me.  I knew that I had hurt two people in my life that I really cared about, and I had disappointed each of them when I told them of my failure.

At the time, and even today, these two people had poured so much into my life and I really cared what they thought and how they felt about the way I was going about my life.  So when I told them what I had done, I totally regretted the decisions I had made to get myself into this particular predicament.

They both gave me sound advice and were very bold in the way I needed to treat the matter for the future, and they both reiterated their love for me.  But the damage was done, and my heart pounded like a sumo wrestler trying to outrun the bulls in Spain.

How much better of a friend and father is my Heavenly Father, who created me and cares for me every single day of my life?  How much more amazing is my God who loves me through every decision, good or bad, and walks me through things I could never journey through alone?

So what is my disappointment level when I let Him down?

Looking for some advice on todays post please. Been thinking about this a lot lately, so please don’t just sit back, but participate…Please!

For those of you who in any kind of leadership positions, in the family, in a small group, a church, or a business, I’d like to know what you think the proper balance is between leadership and friendship.  Can a person be a friend with someone they lead?  How does this affect the leadership role?  In what ways do the leadership roles affect the friendship?

Your thoughts please.