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Serious Wednesdays

1243. I want destiny, not a desert.

Serious Wednesdays July 11, 2012 • Comments

We tend to romanticize the idea of “being called” by God.

We imagine an adventure involving a machete, a rope bridge, and a country with a lot of vowels in the name. It will be tough, but at the end of the day we’ll be so firmly planted in God’s will that even the hardest parts of the journey will be kind of magical.

And then you answer a call from God, and it doesn’t go that way.

In fact, it goes the opposite of that way.

You find yourself not in the middle of a destiny, but in the middle of a desert.

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1233. The 1 question I ask when I’m afraid.

Serious Wednesdays June 27, 2012 • Comments

I’m pretty confident on the outside. But on the inside, I’m pretty fearful.

I think psychologists call this scientific state, “being human.”

And when I’m afraid of something, I don’t just casually fear it. I go all in, marshaling every degree of creativity I possess as I dress up the monster hiding under the bed. (If you ever doubt you’re creative, just look at the exquisite colors and words you give your fears.)

When I face new decisions, like say writing a new book that I may have turned in a few weeks ago to the editor, I often feel like I am one mistake from being a hobo.

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1228. Typos in the Bible.

Serious Wednesdays June 20, 2012 • Comments

Recently I wrote the entire book of Proverbs by hand.

I did this because I’m holier than you and want to have a waterslide at my house in heaven.

You might be satisfied with just a regular mansion, but I have pretty high hopes for a ridiculous tree fort when I get up there. Booby traps, rope ladder, fire place, the works. Granted, it’s probably not nice to have a booby trapped treehouse in heaven because so many people won’t be expecting to encounter a booby trap behind the pearly gates. But that’s kind of what makes it even awesomer.

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1187. Signature sins.

Serious Wednesdays April 11, 2012 • Comments

I took a breakdancing class when I was in the third grade.

In Ipswich, Massachusetts, a beautiful, little New England village, our elementary school offered breakdancing lessons.

Maybe they were swept up in the hype of Breakin’ 2, Electric Boogalo, in the same way all your friends took swing dancing when the movie Swingers came out.

I’m not sure. I was in the third grade and not focused on pop culture trends. I was focused on making sure I brought my square of cardboard to each class. That was our version of the yoga mat. Unless you grew up on the mean streets of coastal Massachusetts, I’m not sure you can relate.

My signature breakdancing move was the worm.

Recognizing that I couldn’t windmill to save my life, and fearing that if I spun on my head long enough I’d develop some crazy skull callus like wrestlers with cauliflower ear, I focused on the worm.

It worked. My worm was ridiculous. It was the one move I was the best at. And it should have been because it was my signature move.

Now, a bajillion years later, surveying my life, I’ve started to realize I have “signature sins” too.

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1180. The map & the plan.

Serious Wednesdays March 28, 2012 • Comments

I want a plan.

I want a 10-year vision with details and steps and instructions.

I want to map out the next 40 years of my life and know exactly where I am going and how I am going to get there.

And every time I pray about that desire, every time I ask God for that, his answer is really simple:

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716. Mice in our couches.

Serious Wednesdays February 24, 2010 • Comments

“We found a family of mice that nested inside the cushions of your couch, so we need to throw it away.”

That was what a woman on a recent television show said to a homeowner. This is the moment where the homeowner says, “Wow, I had no idea. Gross, a whole family? Ugh, let’s throw that out.” But because the show I was watching is called “Hoarders,” that wasn’t the response she gave. Instead, the old woman whose home was on the borders of being condemned said simply,

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701. Hope.

Serious Wednesdays February 3, 2010 • Comments

“Promise me if you go on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, you’ll take me so I can sit in the audience.”

This is my father’s only request when it comes to the book release of Stuff Christians Like. I’ve never been on television. Two people attended the only meet and greet I’ve held. I’ve been assured by one of the biggest publishers in the world that Christian humor books simply do not sell. But I think that parents are required by DNA to hope. To believe that anything is possible if not down right probable.

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696. Regret.

Serious Wednesdays January 27, 2010 • Comments

“Can I talk to you for a minute in a conference room?”

A co-worker asked me that a few weeks ago. My first thought was of course, “I’m about to get fired.” Even though this was a peer and not a superior, I still thought that maybe I was about to get the ax. Call me paranoid, I just assume that when a girlfriend says, “We need to talk,” they’re about to dump you and when someone at work asks to “talk to you for a minute,” they’re about to fire you. I admit, it’s a very sweaty existence I lead.

But when we went into the conference room, the one that smells like dry erase markers and disappointment, he turned to me and said something I wasn’t expecting, “I watched someone die yesterday.”

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691. Caring too much about failure.

Serious Wednesdays January 20, 2010 • Comments

In the 8th grade, the other wrestling team burst into laughter when I got on the scale in the locker room in my tighty whiteys because I was so skinny.

In the 9th grade, I shaved stripes into my eyebrows so that I would look more like Vanilla Ice.

In the 11th grade, I got dumped by a girl in a coat closet of a dance at the Polish American club in Worcester, Massachusetts.

In college, every frat rejected me.

I’m no stranger to failure and it’s many flavors, but what about you?

What if you fail?

What if that thing you want to do, just bombs? What if you get embarrassed? What if you leave a safe job for a new adventure and it’s all a big mistake and you regret every stupid minute that you thought you could do it and you end up gaining a lot of weight because you’re unemployed and eat macaroni and cheese for breakfast? (My summer of 2001.)

What if?

We worry about and that makes sense. I know right now, that if you’re like me, you wonder if you’re really doing what you were designed to do. You wait for the weekend and wonder if there’s a job where that wouldn’t happen. You wonder if there’s a mission or a goal or a journey you’re supposed to be on right now because such a small percentage of who you are, who you really are deep down is getting used at your day job.

And you think about trying something new, but that voice comes back in and you wonder,

“What if I fail?”

I wonder that too. The Stuff Christians Like book comes out in April and I sit down at night with my wife and talk about it not selling. At all. People have said that. Smart people with pleated pants and straight teeth have told me Christian humor books never sell. And I worry about that, about failing.

But I think as Christians, we have a duty, a responsibility, a call from on high to look at failure differently. So in the last few weeks I’ve come up with 3 new ways to answer the question, “What if you fail?”

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