And yet sometimes it is hard to find the new man in all of the old clothes. Especially when the old clothes threaten to sink the new man right into the earth. And yet we are still new men.

new men drowning

but still new men

^“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

I have been reminded recently of how much we should rejoice in our new self, and constantly remember all the things that God has does for us at the very moment we are saved. It is easy for me to fixate on the sin in my life and completely crowd out the joys that God grants us in salvation. We are not merely given a quick tune-up and set into the fight against sin.

We are new men.

And just as the old man could do nothing but wrong on its own (for it is, in its core, dead), the new nature can do nothing but good (for it is, in its core,  alive). Now we are all aware that dead men do good things sometimes and alive men do very bad things often. There is still a push and pull. There is still a tension. One has not yet defeated the other at the end of days. Until then, we will fight.

But I am still learning what it means that we are no longer doomed to be bad; we are destined to be good. What does this mean for my temptations? What does this mean for my desires? What does this mean for everything? This massive change in how God sees us (from objects of wrath to children) should produce a massive change in our lives. But I find it silly that I continue to try and produce this change by near-exclusively warding off evil instead of accessing the power of the Holy Spirit (who is a major difference now between old man and new man) through prayer and understanding.

It just boggles my mind that a fundamental change (from bad people who could maybe do good to good people who could maybe do bad) has happened. We are still depraved, because having even a speck of the old man in us ruins the whole loaf. We are not perfect. But we are new men. And that is enormous.

I was looking forward to my after work to-do list yesterday morning. Lots of writing, some fun research, good times all around. But then I got sick, and I ended up eating lots of food, reading, resting and not doing anything I had intended on doing. It was frustrating that I couldn’t organize my thoughts in an effective manner due to physical malady, but it was nice to have an excuse to break from the regimen (however entertaining that regimen may be).

It makes me think of sin as a malady, stopping us from what otherwise would be joy (which, I sometimes need to be reminded, is better than sin). I don’t have any deep and powerful notes on the subject; just these few sentences. Any reminder that sin does take us from joy, no matter how unrealistic the thought seems at the time, is a good reminder.

I am still chewing on all the food for thought that I found today. This filling of my brain and soul with new thoughts of God is a blessing that I can barely put into words. Praise God, who gives what we need in his time. Hallelujah!

“You will be giants in the land.”
Yet we did not believe.
So as we passed our peers in height
our hearts started to freak.

We quickly found that extra height
is a burden not easily borne
We can not fit in human homes
yet see over their heads.

It’s not easy for men to know
that giant hearts to tick too
And as our man friends dwindle
Our use for height does too

“Cut me off at the knees,” some cry
“And then I’ll be like you!”
Others stop their growing
And from then on, just make do

But what of those who keep on growing?
Where do they call home?
Their footsteps fill the world but I
still don’t know where they’re going.

And I am at the trailhead.
I see wanderers ahead
Those who beg on crippled legs
and ignorers behind

I will grow strong and mighty
but mostly go alone
Does being what we’re meant to be
replace the yearn for home?

I’m either really good at being a half-drunk Christian or really bad at being a sober one. Whenever I get even remotely intoxicated, I start talking and thinking about Jesus much more than I usually do.

This might have to do with the fact that fear of man’s repercussions (otherwise known as “inhibitions”) disappear. Perhaps it’s because I spend most of my time with non-Christians at parties. Either way: Oh, that I would be so uninhibited when sober!

My latest escapes in half-drunk Jesus talk included a keg, a Canadian and the world’s economic policies.

I had been talking off and on throughout the evening with a Canadian traveling the States while at a friend’s going away party. When the evening wound down, I found myself, him and two others on the porch, shooting the breeze.

We talked about economics for two hours. He argued for pure capitalism with two checks; we argued that pure capitalism with any checks wasn’t pure capitalism. He argued somebody will always want to make more, even if you tax them egregiously; we said that taxation disincentivized motivation and therefore was not pure capitalism. He finally came to this point: capitalism works if you have enforced compassion (i.e. taxation).

All along, I wanted this point to come out. The dirty little secret of economics is that it all boils down to moral questions and not monetary ones. Here’s the basic economic problem: who has a responsibility to poor people? No one? Everyone, through voluntary giving? Everyone, through forced giving? The richest, through voluntary giving? The richest, through forced giving?

Be it on a local, state-wide, national or global scale, the moral question of poor people is one of the fundamental questions of economics. And, as much as an economist will try, you can’t answer moral questions with money answers. It’s the same reason that scientists can definitively state that they have not proved the existence of God empirically, but should not make the statement that Jesus Christ was not God. It’s outside the realm of the field.

Who is responsible for poor people? Everyone, through voluntary giving. I find that the easiest way to motivate that is as a proper response to the immeasurable and unfathomable gift of salvation. Properly understood, why would we not be generous? We have already been given generosity beyond what we can possibly comprehend. And that’s why we should work together with our fellow partakers of grace to distribute grace in the form of assistance, justice and (yes) even money to those who have less.

Forcing someone to do it will cause a disgruntled populace (see current American situation). Motivating someone to do it brings joy in the giver. Because Jesus Christ has given us infinitely more than we could ever fathom in saving us from the punishment we so rightfully deserved. He causes us to live, to die and to go on to Heaven. He causes us to have or have not, not our own selves or our own work. How could we be so selfish with our time, money and affections?

It’s a hard thing, especially without a concept of grace (it’s no coincidence that God worked yesterday’s lesson directly before I needed an understand of it and its application in a conversation). I’m still working out how best to do it and be it. But that’s the economics of God: I gave you everything. Now give what is not yours away in my name.

My heart was once owned by legalism. When I became a Christian, grace was born in my mind, replacing legalism. In the years since, grace has been drilling down from my brain to my heart.

At ten a.m. today, grace made it to my heart.

See, my legalism still makes it hard to breathe sometimes.  When I want xx really bad, I try to act as good as I possibly can, in hopes that God will smile upon my efforts and give me xx. There are all sorts of mental gymnastics to convince myself that it’s not legalism, but it is. It’s all I know how to do.

And when I want something so bad, so horribly bad that it feels that I’m not even whole without what once was and hopefully will yet be, I try even harder.

And the subsequent failure is that much more disappointing. It feels as if I have pushed that which I desire so much farther away than it would have been if I had just not failed. come on. stop failing. just freakin’ stop.

I was distressing over my latest failure at convincing God to grant me any form of intimacy (friend/romantic/emotional/spiritual/physical/other) and obsessing over slights actual and perceived when “Graceland” by The Tallest Man on Earth came on my headphones.

It’s the title track from the legendary Paul Simon’s best album, but The Tallest Man on Earth tops the original with just a guitar and a voice. It haunts. It calls. It yearns. And the refrain: “I’m going to Graceland.”

There are raging debates over what Graceland is supposed to be. Some literalists say it has to do with a literal journey to Elvis’s home. Others say Graceland is South Africa, or a state of mind (either positive or negative, but never neutral), or heaven. And the last one caught my thoughts.

Is Heaven Graceland? Why would it be? What is grace, that Heaven would be the land of it?

My theological core ticked off “Unmerited favor” as the definition of grace. But the tugging wouldn’t quit. What grace? And so my emotional self said to my theological self (for they are as yet still divided), “you know, getting stuff you don’t deserve. You don’t deserve anything, you know.”

And my theological self, so cunning, said, “Yes, I know I deserve nothing, oh wretched wretch as I. You must work hard with me to atone for this.”

And, much to my wonder and amazement, my emotional self responded with a phrase that I can only attribute to the holy and inerrant work of the Holy Spirit:

“No. Grace means you are as likely to receive the blessings today as you are any other day. Your acts have nothing to do with when and how God dispenses blessings.”

I almost fell out of my chair. And at that moment, that’s when grace broke through.

“I’m going to Graceland.”

There are some who say that Graceland is merely a fill word, like “yellow” in Coldplay’s “Yellow.” And while they may or may not be right in their assessment of the song’s lyric, the word to me is exactly that. I felt a filling of soul that I haven’t felt in years except when I have purposely retreated into the safety of my camp. I felt as much euphoria as you can while still doing a desk job (I am of the opinion that true euphoria demands wild dancing).

My sinfulness or lack thereof does not impact the goodness of the Lord God. It could very well be a day where I feel I have sinned repetitively and miserably that I meet my wife. My book could sell on a day that I feel unsalvageable. We don’t affect how God thinks about us, how he loves us, how he blesses us or how he cherishes us. Nothing bad that we do diminishes any of his love, devotion, affection and blessings. Nothing. Period.

I’m going to Graceland.

It’s hard to explain the transforming emotion that came with my discovery of grace. None of my words can do it justice. I wanted to cry. Music sounded sweeter (I will definitely never listen to “Graceland” the same way again). “Amazing Grace” makes infinitely more sense. I question why every female in the world isn’t named Grace. Grace is beautiful.

It is the entirety of the Christian message, and I’d been missing it. I saw the depravity. I saw the need for a savior. But I hadn’t understood the concept that makes a peace that surpasses all understanding. For in grace is peace.

Grace be with you.

“I’m going to Graceland.”

I have run races.

After the initial euphoria drains, the work sets in. Only x amount of distance. Break it into chunks. Give yourself points along the way. The first goal is passed. A little shot of adrenaline, but it must be kept down. I’m going to need that later.

The second, third, and fourth pass with diminishing levels of accomplishment. By the fifth, teeth are gritted. By sixth, endlessness has set in.

Academically, there must be an end. Nothing can go on forever. There must be an end.

Yes, I have run races.

And that’s why the endlessness is so frustrating. I’ve been at the end before! I know there is one! But with every step, the memory of finishing seems more like a dream. Soon it becomes nothing but a thought: Have I ever finished a race before?  Or am I just imagining what it is like? The flat seems like it will never go up or down; there is nothing but the rhythm of foot in front of foot.

I have driven hundreds of miles.

And when it seems that there can be nothing anywhere in the whole world except a flat expanse, there. Right in front, a tiny rise. It’s the hill. The hill that must be the hill before the end of the race; the last push to the sum, the final element to be conquered. I don’t have enough left to start powering now; I have to get closer. The hill looms larger, and the memory of finishing is a neon lightbulb, slowly flickering to life. The hill is here, and everything in the legs and guts screams out just to make it to the top of the hill and this will all be

not over. It wasn’t the hill. It was just a hill, and there is, unfathomably, unbelievably, unreasonably more. More flat. The world constricts; there is now nothing but foot in front of foot in front of foot. A hill! This must be it! Digging deep, with all that is left, pushing to the top of the hill

for yet, yet, yet more.

I have swam distances.

And it’s then that the despair sets in. Any memory of finishing is gone, the neon light crushed by a baseball bat. Why keep on? Why keep pushing? When every hill is just a let down because it’s not the hill, and every bit of life seems to be sapped because you left it all on the uphill of that last one, it is hard to keep pushing. But who knows which hill will be the hill? Those littering the side of hills before never made to the last one; but if I go off to the side of a hill, will I have quit just before the end? How will I know?

It’s a trap, of sorts. The body will give out, no matter what the mind says. There’s just a point where it has to happen. A body can’t be stretched this hard. A cadence, matched with breathing: Give up. Or one more hill. Or give up. Or one more hill. Or give up. Or one more hill.

Yes, I have run races.

And right at the moment when it seems that there will never be a last hill, when there will never be an end, when it seems that all was a futile effort, put up by a failure who shouldn’t have even tried, when hoping stops from the amount of times it’s been crushed (it hurts even to think of hope, much less to have it, because that next hill must be as false as the last, and the one after that just the same), and it’s nothing but the routine the routine the routine because it is because it is because it is, when there is no pride but one slowing foot in front of the other in front of the . oth . er .. in … front …. of ….. the …… oth …… er …….. in …….. front

the sound.

The roaring sound, yet but faint but unmistakable. The sound of a crowd. The sound of a finish line. The sound of finishing.

I’m never doing this again.

And with the sound buoying, reaching deep into the muscles that have no life in them and drawing out whatever stores of purgatory or (yes) even hell, something, anything that has a bit of energy to squeeze out: the final hill.

In the middle, it seems that it would never end. And it makes it all the more confusing and elating and euphoric that there is actually an end. And it’s right over there! The hope that was a flicker just over despair now is a full flame! There is a rest! There is a goal! There is there is there is!

Suddenlyfootinfrontoffootinfrontoffoot and all is forgotten; the middle saga nothing but something that had to be powered through, the beginning nothing but a reason, the future nothing at all, all in the joyous now, the line in front, the tape unbroken, the realization that this has all not been for naught, that you are in the lead, that this is what you were made for and go, Dear God, legs, go! I don’t care if you never work again, just go!

And the tape breaks

and the crowd screams

and the tears flow

and your body

gets

to

stop.

victorious.

victorious.

victorious.

-

and on the ground, body given out, everything screaming, but with the knowing that only finishing can know; that is real. And there is water, and food, and you get up. You go home, you rest

and you start over.

you still won’t know which hill is the last.

but you start training again

because you run

again

it’s what you do.

hopefully training with ________,

but always training

always running.

He said to.

-

I am running a race

and I don’t know which hill is the last

and I know that it has only just begun.

And this is what my faith looks like:

that I keep on doing the little things

for reasons I don’t know

for I don’t know how long

for rewards I can’t fathom

and returns on Earth that might not come

in hopes that the heavens won’t be as brass someday

and the Lord won’t be so far from me

and I will sit down quietly

and my spirit do the same.

Sometimes all my writing at Gospelized is done before I even sit down to my laptop. On others, I stare at the screen blankly for minutes on end, trying to sort through my day and point it in the direction of the gospel. These are the harder days of my life; if I had been reminding myself of the gospel throughout the day, I would not have to sort through the day at its end and figure out what God was doing. When I do remind myself of the gospel throughout the day, I find Gospelized posts easily.

Today was not a gospel day. I was really busy all day with work (at work, at home, on the Internet), and I didn’t take time to stop and appreciate the gifts that God has given and find the ways that the Gospel applies to my life. Because it does, every day. No, I got to the end of my day and didn’t have a clue what to write about.