Life Lessons #1

I am going to write a series of blogs chronicling my life experiences of the last 50 years.  Although I did not repent and believe the Gospel until I was 36 years old, I see God keeping His promise in Joel 2:25 "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,...."  Kelley & I notice all the time that God used life lessons to help me understand God, to contextualize the Gospel to sinners, to relate to narcissistic people, to love lost and hurting people, etc.  Some stories will be fun, some tragic, some awful, some funny, some downright scary, some without clarity, some not redeemable about a man lost in sin without Jesus, but all part of who I am when looked at through the lens of redemption.

In 1979, I was a nineteen year old kid, and my dad lost his mind and sent me to New York City into Manhattan to help supervise a crew that was doing the cost estimation on building the entire cable television system into the entire NY metro area (all the boroughs) - about a $1 billion project.  This was my summer job between my freshman and sophomore years in college.  He sent me with a whiskey drinking partner and his own car, stating that if I returned the car without dents after driving there for a month, there would be a bonus in it for me.

The stress was unbelievable.  I did not drink in high school at all as I was a really serious basketball, but when I did not play much at the beginning of my freshman year (too thin and couldn't guard a kitchen chair), I figured, "what the hell, might as well fit in with alcohol and weed, not getting to live out my sports idolatry anyway." My morals were not as a result of God transforming me; they were circumstantial. Desire to be a great athlete - all about me - no drugs or alcohol.  Really kinda homely and too skinny - no sex.  So, back to the story, as we drove off the island everyday into Queens, the Bronx, or Brooklyn and back, taking almost two hours to go ten miles and then seeing the insane things we saw trying to do the job (another blog later), when my partner suggested a lot of bourbon as we ate dinner in bars to calm each day, I was in.  Even though I thought I was a Christian AND had led my church youth group, it was easy to fit into a Greenwich Village lifestyle of relying on anything but Christ to handle getting the job done and the speed of the city -- the stress.  The speed of the city was just a 'little' different than House Springs and even St. Louis, where I had grown up. Same nation, different world.

Those were some blatant negatives.  Some apparent positives were that my self confidence soared, I realized that I was very capable and talented, and that I could handle a lot of responsibility.  I remember jumping on the subway to find a street basketball game in the Bronx. I handled the city AND the game (the brothers had never seen a white dude dunk quite like that), and my opinion of myself soared. I found that while the job was difficult that I had enough natural talent to get it done. My opinion of myself soared as a I never gave a second thought to God. One day right before we were to return to Missouri for a couple of days and while on Coney Island in Brooklyn, we saw boats come in full of lobsters.  We found coolers and negotiated with owners of boats bigger than Leadington for a cooler full of lobster to take home to family and friends (who does that?). And, we worked in neighborhoods that more resembled war-torn Beirut at the height of war there than an American city. We never prayed over that - we just became street savvy and capable, once again presenting the facade that I did not need the power of God. The world loved me, cheered for me, paid me well. This only heightened my idolatry of self and drove me farther from the Gospel.

There are funny stories about accidentally straying into gay bars, not noticing that there were all men in the place until we had talked to at least 3 or 4 dudes, and into 'Devil's Kitchen' after dark that reveal the providential protection of God's sovereignty. I should be dead. Not from the gay bar - that was actually just very interesting, but from some violent places. I "escaped from New York" with a great sense that I was pretty awesome, and no sense of any need for God in my life because of my awesomeness.

God has used a lot of the life experiences here now though as He has redeemed the time. The Gospel makes us fearless, and by His grace, I am given some opportunities to occasionally preach the Gospel to Muslims and Hindus on THEIR turf.  If I have a moment of fear about that or boarding an in-country plane in India (not real confident in their maintenance programs), God has fun reminding me that he took care of me the day that when I was playing on a court that no sane person would have been on.  He says, "I was taking care of you when you were paying no attention to me. Be bold -- The Gospel eliminates fear - I got you."