(I first met author Jason Boyett when he interviewed me for an article about faith and humor in Collide Magazine. I told him it was my belief that by writing a Christian book I would soon be able to sleep on a bed made of money and own pants carved of gold. He laughed. A lot. We’ve been friends ever since. Today he jumps in with his second guest post on Stuff Christians Like. The first one was a lot of fun and I think this one is too. Enjoy)

Taking the pursuit of holiness too far.
Raise your hand if you have ever exceeded the speed limit and felt guilty about it. Or if you’ve ever asked God for forgiveness because the cashier gave you back too much change, and you totally knew it but didn’t say anything about it. Or if you have ever worried over the mental brainteaser “When does it become lust?”

(Possible answers to that last one include A: The moment the thought enters your head; B: When you choose to return to that thought or dwell on it; C: When you take a second, lingering look at that Megan Fox* photo; D: Right this moment, jerk, because now I’m imagining Megan Fox.)

* Female readers: feel free to substitute the male celebrity equivalent for Megan Fox.

At various times in my Christian life—by which I mean “on the way home from youth camp”—I have become fixated on personal holiness. “Be holy because I am holy.” Be in the world, but not of the world. And what most often happens is I get caught up avoiding some specific temptation—lust, greed, watching “90210”—and I waste a lot of spiritual energy trying to steer clear of this sin. Looking back, I wonder if maybe it would have been a better idea to spend that energy and prayer in the pursuit of something positive. For instance, becoming a more gracious person.

An example: I’ve heard Bible teachers tell men they should never look at Renaissance art because of the female (and male) nudity. Or tell husbands to avoid friendly, casual, interpersonal communication with other women even if it means being rude. Why? Because anything that might come across as normal or, you know, human could apparently lead to extramarital hanky-panky, I guess. Don’t give sin a foothold, etc. This is a problem. What happens when our pursuit of personal holiness becomes so self-interested that it loses sight of what followers of Jesus really ought to be doing? What happens when we focus on ourselves so much we forget to love God and love people?

Serious commentary: END.

To help you avoid these pharisaical pitfalls, I will now offer you some examples of well-meaning Christians who became too focused on personal holiness. All of these examples have been canonized as Christian saints. (Disclosure: yes, there is a reason I am interested in saints.)
These folks, in my opinion, took personal holiness to unhealthy extremes.

Your pursuit of holiness has gone too far when…

You remain chaste even after your wedding night.
In the seventh century, St. Bertilia married the love of her life. Then she and the groom took vows of chastity and remained virgins until they died. Presumably to make a long, uncomfortable point about self-sacrifice. Point taken. True love waits, and waits.

You abstain from all food and drink except communion.
That’s what St. Catherine of Siena did for long periods in the 14th century. This mortification of the flesh allowed her to avoid foul human temptations like, you know, daily sustenance. She also denied herself sleep. You know what happens when you don’t sleep, don’t eat, and only drink Eucharistic wine? Let’s just say St. Catherine should have been the patron saint of the hungover.

You cut out your own eyes to escape admiration.
That’s what St. Lucy did. As the story goes, she had a particular suitor who wouldn’t leave her alone. Dude kept going on an on about how much he admired her beautiful eyes. But Lucy, wishing to remain virginal and avoid the sin of pride—two birds, one stone!—put a stop to the man’s admiration by plucking out her own eyes. She had them delivered to the suitor. (Maybe God approved of this wee-bit-dramatic gesture, because he miraculously restored Lucy’s eyeball-less sight.)

You pray for ugliness to avoid temptation.
St. Wilgefortis was an attractive young Portuguese princess who took a vow of virginity. But, lo, her father wanted her to marry the king of Sicily. Marriage tends to complicate virginity vows—not talking to you, St. Bertilia—so Wilgefortis asked God for a special favor: to make her ugly. God answered her prayer by blessing her with a holy mustache and beard. When the foreign king backed out of the wedding (guess he couldn’t handle the prickly kisses), Wilgy’s angry father had her killed.

You live naked in the desert.
You might think nudity is always a bad thing when it comes to holiness. But what if you live in isolation in the desert? And what if exposure to the baking sun and biting flies is a way to deny the flesh? Then you might do what St. Mary of Egypt did. Which is: live naked in the desert, so long as you grow your hair long enough that you can arrange it, Garden of Eden-style, to cover up the naughty bits.

You refuse to wear shoes, and demand others to do the same.
Another way to “put to death the misdeeds of the body” is to stop protecting your feet from thorns and sharp rocks, which is why St. Teresa of Avila, in the 16th century, decided shoes indicated an embarassing lack of discipline among nuns. So she started a whole nuns-should-be-barefoot campaign. (Possible picket sign: “Saving souls by shunning soles.”) It caused a big schism amid the Carmelite community, dividing the shoe-wearing nuns from the shoeless. The nasty results included public lashings, imprisonment, and some really sick calluses.

You disrupt dinner by resurrecting the main course.
St. Nicholas of Tolentino practiced personal penance by refusing to eat meat. Once he was mistakenly served chicken. Horrified, Nick made the sign of the cross over the roasted bird. It came back to life and flew away through the window. Good thing the dish wasn’t wild boar. Or swordfish.

Let these saintly examples be a lesson to you. Sure, doing weird stuff may give you the appearance of holiness. And yeah, if you’re super-holy you’ll get churches named after you and people will be healed at your gravesite and all that stuff. But will you be more like Jesus?

Hard to say. Except I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t a eyeless, shoeless, bird-resurrecting, vegetarian nudist who only ate at Passover.

He did have a beard, though.

(For more awesomeness from Jason, make sure you check out his site, jasonboyett.com or www.pocketguidesite.com)

I recently found myself at a crossroads with Facebook. You can only have a certain number of friends and I am about to hit that number, which unless I am mistaken, means I can’t accept many more friend requests.

So, I did what I always do when I face social media quagmires, I asked myself, “What Would Teen Wolf Do?”

The first two answers to this question are always the same. When faced with a dilemma, Teen Wolf would:
1. Turn into an adolescent canis lupis and throw down a sick dunk in the middle of a basketball game against the team that the rich jerk is on.

2. Turn into an adolescent canis lupis and surf on the top of a van despite that fact that Boof is going to be really disappointed in him.

But the third thing that Teen Wolf would do when faced with my situation is register a fan page on Facebook. I tried to argue the very obvious ego ramifications of registering your own Jonathan Acuff fan page but what can you do, that is one radical wolf.

So I did. Here is the link to the fan page, which I will be updating with a variety of things including some info about the new version of the Stuff Christians Like site that is in the works. You should befan me (befan is the new befriend) by clicking right here.

And in case all that Teen Wolf talk got you interested, here’s a fan page for the wolf himself.

A few weeks ago my five year old was given a loud New Year’s Eve party type plastic horn during Sunday School. I think the horn had something to do with the celebration the prodigal son was thrown when he returned home but I’m not 100% positive because it was hard to hear her explanation over the loud horn blowing she was doing in the church hallway. And then in the parking lot. And then in the car. And then in our kitchen. Needless to say, when she took a nap, I Houdini’d that horn out of our house never to be seen again.

But it got me thinking, what other Sunday School items send instant dread into me? The horn is a starter, but what other things should never, ever be given to kids in Sunday School? If only there was a comprehensive, yet short, list, perhaps called:

Things we should never give kids in Sunday School:

1. Marshmallows
I feel like we already voted on this, goldfish crackers are the official snack of Sunday School, but occasionally my five year old will emerge from class with a Dixie cup full of marshmallows. She tends to pack for the road, and never eats the snack in the class but instead enjoys eating it in the car while sitting next to her three year old sister who happens to not have a lap full of delightful marshmallows. This is torture. This needs to stop. I can only negotiate so many more marshmallow exchange programs in the backseat. Let’s stick with goldfish please, the marshmallow is too delicious and volatile of a snack for a Sunday morning.

2. Wet paint
I don’t know that a Sunday School project is ever really dry. You could probably leave it in the desert, under the relentless glare of the yellow sun for a year and when you returned and picked up the Noah’s Ark painting, some paint would get on your hands. And your shirt and your back seat and your couch at home and eventually your fridge. Granted, most kids are surrealists when it comes to painting and act like they’re making topographical maps they layer on the paint so thick, but let’s lean into crayons hard instead of globs of paint. And not Prang, those things are horrible. Real, honest to goodness crayons. Death to paint. Long live Crayola, even though that “sharpener” thing on the back of the box is useless.

3. Cool things that only one class gets
If the five year old class gets a lamb puppet with a horn nose and the three year old class gets a piece of paper that says, “Jesus Loves You” you might as well send them home with a UFC fighting octagon as well because it’s “go time” at the Acuff house. I don’t want to say that we’re raising little communists, but equality makes the world go round when it comes to kids. Please don’t do some amazing handout or toy or gift for one class and then just give the other kids hugs as the take home.

4. Glitter of any sort
I will write about the horrors of glitter until the die I day, which is also how long the glitter from a Sunday School or Vacation Bible School project will remain in your home. You can’t clean up glitter. It laughs at vacuums, giggles at wet paper towels and somehow multiples like a craft bunny. “Oh, cute, they used blue and pink glitter to design this fish during a story about God creating the world” you’ll think the first time your kid comes home glittered. Think again, because years later when you grab your keys to take your now college aged kid to Freshman orientation your hand will emerge with glitter on it from the junk draw where you keep the keys. Glitter never dies. You’re only hope is to never bring it home, but do you really want to be that guy who throws his kid’s Sunday School project away in a trash can in the hall at church? No you don’t.

That’s my list of things we shouldn’t send home. But what do we want kids to get in Sunday School? Well, I’ve only volunteered twice in our church’s Sunday School classes but do you know what I sent those kids home with? Exhaustion.

I ran them like they were on some sort of toddler P90X program. We played chase and tag and cars and princesses until they could barely move. That’s what we should give kids in Sunday School, reasons to have long Sunday afternoon naps. Until the rest of the world subscribes to that theory though, please just promise me no more marshmallows.

I got fired once, well twice if you count the “carnival incident” but you really shouldn’t count that one.

I was writing for an advertising agency. I didn’t understand what it was they wanted me to do and I had a bad attitude about that. So a few times a week, my bosses would pull me into a break room and explain the job to me. Then I’d go write something that was different than what they asked me to write. Then they’d pull me back into the break room. This cycle of instructions given, instructions poorly followed continued for a few weeks until finally I didn’t get pulled into the break room. I got pulled into a conference room.

There, the president fired me and told me something like, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be a writer. Have you ever thought about being a salesman instead?” And it was the right decision on their part. They had given me a series of tasks, explained them over and over again and I had blown it. I didn’t get what they needed me to do and when I didn’t enough times, they didn’t need me anymore.

Sometimes I worry that God might treat me the same way. Maybe He won’t out and out fire me as a Christian, but I fear that He must be getting tired of explaining the same things over and over to me again.

There are a handful of things that I think God is trying to tell me and I just can’t seem to understand them nearly as quickly as I think I should. Things that if I were a better Christian I would be able to figure out or see clearly.

Have you ever felt that way?

Continue Reading after the jump

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I don’t have any scientific proof of this but I think my kids punkitude goes up the longer they watch television. It’s difficult to measure but it seems like on the days when for whatever reason they watch more than their usual 30 minutes of television, they start getting a little fresh. And I don’t mean “phresh” which usually involves breakdancing and is completing acceptable at the Acuff house. I mean short tempered, a little grumpy, and 12% more belligerent than normal.

On days like that, my wife and I sometimes talk about getting rid of cable or maybe even television all together. But if we do, although there will be benefits, I’m also afraid that one of the consequences will be that I start to judge other people that watch television. In addition to becoming one of those people who brags about not owning a television, I might actively and aggressively judge you for watching what I’ll probably start calling “the boob tube.”

If that happens, I want you to be aware of the hurricane of condescension you can probably expect from me. In fact, we should go ahead and use the hurricane rating system to measure my levels of judgment. (You probably know it as the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale because who doesn’t call it that?) Let’s break down the oncoming television-flavored judgment I will probably release on the world if I ever give up my TV.

The Stuff Christians Like Hurricane of Judgment Rating System

Category 1:
You don’t own a television but you still watch shows online.
Speed of my judgment:
74-95 MPH. This is the slowest my judgment is going to move in part because when you told me you didn’t own a television I paused my hurricane like judgment down to a crawl. Until I found out you watch Hulu and Lost on ABC.com. Then I sped it back up.
Damage:
There won’t be any serious structural damage to our friendship in part because I secretly believe that you’re almost in the “no television” camp like me. I feel like you’ve already made the hardest leap, getting rid of your television and perhaps I can give you that final shove.

Category 2:
You own a television.
Speed of my judgment:
96-110 MPH. We’re picking up some speed here. I saw your television when I came over. It’s right there in your television cabinet in your living room. You have a piece of furniture dedicated to it, a throne if you will. I can feel the winds of judgment whooshing a little faster as we speak.
Damage:
No permanent destruction will be done to our relationship but I’m not going to lie, we’re probably going to lose the equivalent of some roofing shingles during our conversations. You’ll ask me if I saw what happened last night on 24 and then I will get a really horrible look on my face and say “No, I haven’t watched that show since the first season, I was probably reading a book last night. Hard cover. Literature.” Just be glad I didn’t say I was reading the Bible. I haven’t brought God’s desire to leg drop you for watching television yet into the conversation. But that’s coming in Category 3.

Category 3:
You own a television and have cable.
Speed of my judgment:
111-130 MPH. The range of this speed depends largely if I see a satellite dish on your roof when we come over for dinner. If I do, get ready for 130 MPH. If you’ve got your secret doorway to 800 channels of nonsense more discreetly hidden, expect 111 MPH.
Damage:
At this point, mobile friendships are going to get annihilated. Casual friendships that were built on our ability to discuss shows that I am no longer watching or sporting events that everyone in the country but me saw are going to fall apart. I’m now the guy that during the Olympics didn’t know who Michael Phelps was because they weren’t broadcasting his races in the books I was reading.

Category 4:
You own a television and have cable and a TiVo.
Speed of my judgment:
131-155 MPH. Fast, the judgment is getting fast at this point, especially if I hear that telltale TiVo “bong” that chirps an alert when your TiVo is too full to record other shows. You’ve filled a TiVo, good sir. For shame, for shame.
Damage:
Although I admire your desire to break free of television scheduling with a digital video recorder, to essentially tell your television, “No longer will I be enslaved to the whimsy of live programming,” I can’t support your desire to buy an additional device to get better at watching television. You’ve moved into “television accessory” territory and I will now expect you to subscribe to TV Guide and perhaps eat your meals in front of the soul sucking glow of that piece of modern machinery.

Category 5:
You own a television and have cable and a TiVo …in your bedroom.
Speed of my judgment:
Greater than 155 MPH. We’re off the chart at this point. The judgment is so fast it can’t be measured.
Damage:
Great, now, in addition to judging you for owning a television, with cable, in your bedroom, I have to start giving you marriage advice. Like the person that once told me that if I got rid of the television in my bedroom I would instantly experience a dramatic change in my marriage, I have to start equating poor marital communication, intimacy and overall lack of awesomeness with that flat screen you’re practically spooning in your bedroom. This is embarrassing for both of us.

Those categories might feel a little extreme, but television makes people do crazy things. A friend of mine once got so mad at the amount of television that was being watched in his house that he threw the TV outside. Off a porch. In the winter. Into a pile of snow.

I don’t know if it will ever come to that for me and my family, but if it does, please refer to the chart above for your own safety. I’m probably going to get pretty judgy on you.

Question: What’s your opinion about television?

If Zondervan lets me write a second book, I’ll probably title it “How to grow a huge church in 1 easy step.” And inside the book, which I will insist on having my picture on, will be a single piece of paper. (Talk about being green!) And on that piece of paper will be the secret to instant church growth.

Want to know it? Want a sneak peek or really I guess it’s not a peek so much as it is the whole book? Here it is:

“If you want to grow your church instantly, do a sermon series about sex.”

Many of you have probably already stopped reading this post and are currently hanging billboards around your town advertising the new sermon series your church is going to do. But maybe that book needs a second page. Maybe that one sentence is not enough. Maybe it’s not easy to name a sex sermon series. So I did some research and put together a little quiz that will hopefully help you think through what you should title your series. Below are a bunch of names for sex sermon series, including some websites. Some are real and are from actual churches. Some are fake and are from my head. See if you can guess which ones are which:

Sexy sermon series or something Jon made up?

1. “Yourultimatelover.com”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

2. “Great Sex for You”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

3. “Bringing Sexy Back”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

4. “Electric Sex”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

5. “Whatsbetweenthesheets.com”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

6. “Desperatesexlives.com”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

7. “Solomon is the OT’s version of the musician Prince. Love notes from a man whose awesomeness with the ladies eventually brought him to ruin.”
A. That’s a real sermon series.
B. Jon made that up.

How’d you do? Want the answer key? OK, they’re all real. Each one of those titles was from a church sermon series. Whoa, curve ball. I zigged right when you were expecting a zag, I bobbed when you were expecting a weave, I Marloned Wayans right when you were expecting me to Kenan Ivory Wayans. Or maybe you saw through the whole thing, even the fake one I threw in at the end.

I’m not sure what the approach some churches are taking with the subject of sex says about us. Are we talking about it too much? Are we using it as a subject because it garners lots of attention? Or are we not talking about it enough?

I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, the world has a loud, noisy, colorful campaign about sex. They are constantly bombarding us with messages about it and for us to remain silent or to allow the world to try to claim that topic as their own domain seems foolish. I cheer that the churches on this list are sharing God’s word with our culture with creativity and funk. But at the same time, I think it’s really tempting to use that topic as a neon sign that will attract people to a topic but maybe not the Lord. Pastor Craig Groeschel dropped some bombs on this subject at a conference I went to when he talked about the foolishness of doing a sex sermon series just as a way to make your church look cool. And I confess that even as a silly blogger it’s tempting to write about controversial subjects in the hope that controversy will attract more eyeballs.

Where do you stand on that?

Does the church talk about sex too much?

Or not enough?

A few weeks ago I had dinner with a friend of mine named Brad Lomenick. He’s the Catalyst Conference guru and has been incredibly kind to me. Basically, every few months we get together and I ask him questions about leadership and changing culture and how not to completely fail at whatever it is God has going on with Stuff Christians Like.

Last time we met, he told me that one of the things I need to actively work on is “celebrating my rivals.” He said there are going to be people I’m jealous of and that jealousy is poison. He said a great way to work on that is to ask yourself, “How can I help this person win?”

I thought that was really good advice and I want to live that out today.

So below are four of the people I find myself jealous of. I want to tell you about them because they’re actually great people and hopefully you’ll go check out what they do. And then, I’d love to hear who you’re jealous of and if they’ve got a link or a blog or anything, tell us all about it. Help that person win.

Here is my list of people I sometimes get jealous of: (because I can be shallow, insecure and sinful not because of anything they’ve done.)

1. Carlos Whittaker
Carlos or “Los” is one of the kindest, most open hearted people I’ve ever met in my life. He pours out grace on people like few others I’ve ever known. And he’s been a great friend to me. But if I’m being honest, sometimes I go to his site, ragamuffinsoul.com and instantly get really jealous. He’s just so great at community building and technology and video and a million other things that I suck at. When I see all the cool things he’s doing and places he’s going I get jealous and that’s not what I want and it’s definitely not what God wants. So go check out Carlos. His site is fantastic and so is he.

2. Tony Morgan
I’ve never even met Tony Morgan, but this is another guru that I get jealous of. His site is great, he’s brilliant at figuring out all the ins and outs on how to run a successful blog and he’s a leadership expert. From all accounts he’s a really nice guy to boot. (Anne Jackson, who I am also jealous of, speaks highly of him and I tend to trust her assessments of folks.) Check out his site, tonymorganlive.com and his book, “Killing Cockroaches” if you get a chance. He’s also a consultant with a ton of strategic church experience and is available for awesomeness should you require any.

3. Ben Arment
I’m starting to see a theme develop here, I’m apparently jealous of warm hearted geniuses. Ben Arment is the mastermind behind the upcoming Story Conference in Chicago. (That’s the genius part, the warm hearted part is that he put together the original “Off the Blogs” event that I got to speak at and reached out to me in such an awesome way.) He’s hard to capture in words but he’s kind of like the Christian Seth Godin. He’s living a big, crazy God-centered adventure right now and sometimes when I get jealous of other people’s adventures I take my eyes off my own and in doing so, take my eyes off of God. Please check Ben out and please go to Story, it’s going to be ridiculous.

4. Donald Miller
If you’re a first time author you have to be jealous of Donald Miller. It’s an official Christian publishing rule. Actually, first you have to be jealous, temporarily suspend your jealousy when there’s a glimmer he might quote on the back cover of your book and then ramp it back up when that doesn’t happen. Regardless, there’s no denying that for a ton of people, Donald Miller started a fresh, honest conversation about faith and his willingness to go first with honesty and humor made it possible for people like me to do so as well. (And a few years ago he encouraged me to write at a time when I really needed some encouragement. As a thank you for that brief phone call I made it seem like he and I were incredibly tight when I would talk with other Christians and I had perhaps saved his life in Nam. I am a lunatic.) Check out his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and his website http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/.

There’s my four.

How about you?

Ready to celebrate your rivals?

Want to say goodbye to some jealousy with me?

Last Sunday, Pete Wilson and the insanely talented staff at Cross Point Church in Nashville and Dickson invited me to come speak. I’d never spoken at a church before and I’m not going to lie, the prospect of doing it four times in one day had me a little sweaty.

The title of the message is “Adam & the Three Questions” but if you watch it you’ll notice things from Stuff Christians Like such as Booty, God, Booty, the Prayer Shotblock and Thinking You’re Naked. You’ll also notice the robot, which I did within the first 5 minutes.

I can’t thank Pete and Dave and Anne and the whole Cross Point staff enough. Without further ado, here is the message from last week. Happy Friday

Here’s the thing Amy, turns out I’m perfect. I know, surprising, right? True, there was some sin in my life in the fall of 1997 and then again during Labor Day weekend in 2001, but those days are long gone. I’m flawless and I thought you were too. I thought you were one of us, but then you went and got a divorce.

Soooo, I had to stop listening to your music. It was bad enough that in the video for your pop crossover hit, “Baby, Baby,” you agreed to dance around with some dude as if the song was about loving a guy when all your real fans, the people that have supported you through thick and thin, knew that wasn’t the real meaning of the song. That’s when I first got nervous that you might actually be human. But as a diehard fan I cut you some slack, approximately .2 inches of slack.

But then you got divorced and married Vince Gill. Apparently you forgot you’re a role model Amy, not a human.

Sure, I could see how this approach might help create a Christian culture where we put famous Christians on pedestals. I could see how this might encourage our leaders to never admit small mistakes. I can understand how this might help contribute to prominent Christians lying about the little things for fear of losing my attention until finally those little things stack up and fall over, crushing the leader under the weight of decades of secret sin and stunning his followers who never saw a single crack in an otherwise perfect façade. But I didn’t say being perfect was easy. I just said I expected it.

I got rid of all of your CDs. Don’t worry, I didn’t burn them. I learned my lesson the hard way in high school when I destroyed all of my music after getting really fired up after a retreat. A month later I started buying the same CDs again when the fervor of the retreat wore off. (Again, a fairly dark period of my life that involved repurchasing and throwing away the Bangles, “Walk like an Egyptian” and perhaps even wearing my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can, see the light that’s right between my eyes.)

Nope, instead of throwing away your music I just put you in my “judging box” in my closet under the stairs. That’s where I keep the things that I might need to keep my eye on for the next few years. If you want to earn your way out of there I suggest a documentary about how you blew it. Maybe an apology concert of some sort and perhaps one more television show where you make the dreams of the less fortunate come true. Only this time, make sure it’s on TBN and not NBC Amy. You’re not going to earn your way out of the judging box with a show on any of the major “netjerks.” (wordplay!)

I met Michael Jordan one summer while he was golfing at a country club in Pinehurst, North Carolina. My uncle and his family lived on the golf course and I was spending a few weeks there before I started the eighth grade.

When word spread that Jordan and a gang of other important people were in the clubhouse that morning we all went down to get a closer look. This was before Jordan became human. Before the gambling and the baseball experiment and the tabloid fodder. Jordan was a god at the time and I had a Nike swoosh mark shaved into the back of my head to prove it. I told everyone in Pinehurst that summer that I had my haircut that way as a tribute to a friend in Boston that had been shot and killed for a pair of Air Jordans.

I’m not sure why I lied like that. None of that was true. Maybe I’m like Samson, razors bring out the worst in me, but Michael Jordan didn’t know any of that. Neither did Dean Smith the legendary coach of UNC or Dr. J, who were both with Jordan that day.

They all signed the back of my shirt with a big marker. Later that afternoon, with the autographed shirt safely tucked in a drawer, I went back down to the clubhouse. It had been 3 or 4 hours and I wanted to see if I could get Jordan’s autograph on a piece of paper I could frame.

The party had already finished golfing and all the fans had gone home. I saw Jordan walking to his car in the parking lot. I ran out after him as fast as my little seventh grade legs would carry me and said, “Excuse me Mr. Jordan, can I please have your autograph?”

He stopped in his tracks and turned, a golf bag resting high on shoulders that towered over me. With a look that froze opponents on basketball courts across the planet he said, “Didn’t I already sign you kid?”

Life is Limited
In the real world, in parking lots in Pinehurst, North Carolina, life is limited. Your hero turns to you and tells you that he’s not going to give you another autograph. Your hero tells you he remembers you and that you’re not getting a second signature, the only thing you want that day. That stupid summer, with a lopsided swoosh mark growing in the back of your head and a mouth full of lies.

Sometimes I think God is like that. Bothered by me, tired of my requests for His time, even if it’s just 3 seconds for Him to sign off on some prayer I’m saying or need I’m sure I can’t live without.

He’s on His way somewhere important after a round of golf with Moses and Elijah or Elisha whichever one plays. I’m chasing Him down in the parking lot. He turns with His big God golf clubs and He looks down at me. And He says in that massive voice of His “Didn’t I already forgive you kid?”

Forgiveness is the thing I ask for the most. In my head maybe I know that God’s forgiveness is eternal and inexhaustible but in my heart I feel like He’s going to run out of it. That He’s got a limited supply. And I’m burning them up, one by one, sin by sin.

The Day After the Party
I’ve read the story about the prodigal son more than anything else in the Bible. If you’ve messed up life like I have it’s a pretty good read. I think when you get arrested they should read that to you right after the Miranda rights. I think that’d be a nice way to take a little sting out of going to jail.

Part of the reason I’ve read that story so many times though is that I think there’s something missing. I feel like there’s some verse or passage that I must have skipped that makes the whole thing make sense. It seems too good to be true. The prodigal son takes his inheritance, blows it on fast living, ends up in a pig pen and then gets a party thrown for him when he returns home. I’ve always wondered what the day after the party was like:

The first rays of sunshine crept across the floor and landed on a pile of party favors being swept up by a servant. A welcome home banner was being taken down and across the house the sounds of morning reverberated.

In his old bedroom, the prodigal son rolls over and opens his eyes. He’d dreamt it so often, dreamt of this place so often, he didn’t believe it was real. Those nights in the dark, curled under a bush or beside the barn when his money was gone and his hope with it, he’d wondered if he’d ever know safety again. He sat up, surprised to find himself there, laughing at the memories of the night before. The feast, the party, the ridiculousness of it all. His family who celebrated his return as if his absence had increased their love for him, amplified it. None of it made any sense. There was a knock on the door. He had a door again, that was something he had missed.

The head of a servant peered in:

“Sir, your father is waiting for you in the kitchen.” This servant didn’t go to seminary either and didn’t seem that concerned that in Biblical times “kitchen” was definitely the wrong word to use in that context.

“Well, you’ve got the rest of your life for it to come back to you.” The father said taking out a pen and writing “family inheritance” at the top of the list.

For most of my life this is how I would have written the second part of that story, the directors cut if you will, an alternative ending that was too harsh for the version they released in the Bible.
The father’s anxious sprint toward the lost son doesn’t make any sense. That’s not how life works. People pay for their mistakes. They don’t get a party for them. When you return home from wasting your inheritance on the world your father says “Didn’t I already bless you kid?” End of story.

Forgiveness
I don’t understand forgiveness and it’s always depressing to me when I read a book that tells me that’s the first step of the Christian walk, believing that God forgives you. If I can’t get past that first step than the rest of it, all the rest of it remains completely closed to me.

It’s not that I think I don’t need forgiveness. I just don’t understand how it’s possible. If I can’t earn it, than it’s out of my control and I’m powerless.

I remember the first time I ever knew how outrageous and insane real forgiveness was. I had gotten myself into some serious trouble at work. The kind of trouble that’s so big and ugly it makes you ashamed that there are people in your life close enough to you to get some of the trouble spilled on them. I wanted to push everyone away, to expel people from the planetary system that was me and just go float somewhere and die.

I called my wife on the phone and told her as much.

“I’m sorry you met me.” I said through angry, frightened tears. I was desperate for her to go, to pull away from me so I could inflict pain on only one person. The person I felt deserved it the most. Me.

“I love you!” She yelled through the phone.

“How can you say that? That doesn’t make any sense.” I responded.

“You don’t get to decide who I love. I love you. That’s my decision. You can’t take that away from me. I love you. I choose to love you.” She repeated words like these over and over again. She attacked me with love that day. And forgiveness I didn’t deserve. Forgiveness I couldn’t earn or make sense of.

I was overwhelmed that day. And I think that was such a thin sliver of what God’s forgiveness is like, how big and nonsensical His love is. I heard a minister once say that His forgiveness, God’s grace, is given wastefully. He pours it out on us in such abundance that it’s almost wasteful.

The Tenth Party
I have to confess that some days I still think there’s a list God will ask me to work through the day after He throws me that welcome home party. I have a hard time understanding how something can be true and illogical at the same time. And so much of God is that way.
But some days, when I least expect it, in ways I can’t control, I believe a different story about God’s forgiveness.

The first rays of sunshine creep across a dusty road and grate against the eyelids of the prodigal son trying to sleep uncomfortably on a bed of gravel. His teeth felt dirty, his mouth and hands stained with the red of cheap wine. A long scratch ran across his cheek, a shoe was angled beneath his head for a pillow. “How many times did this make?” he thought from the part inside him that still remembered returning home. He was doing so well, things were so happy but his never agains always seemed to fail him in the end. How long would he be gone this time?

Miles away, an concerned father stood by the front window of his house as a servant approached with a message.

“Sir, I checked his bedroom and the barn. His things are missing. He’s left again.”

“I know.” The father said with sad eyes.

And then with slow steps he walked to a large closet and motioned to the servant.

“Help me with this Welcome Home banner.” He said pulling one from a pile of a thousand.

“Today could be the day my child returns.”

(This was originally something I wrote for the prodigal Jon site.)