I’m a little bit excited to be staying here…
That’s the Mandalay Bay Resort. It has an artificial beach. Next door is a giant pyramid. My room has a view of the strip. All expenses paid, tons of cool stuff to learn… pretty much the best business trip ever.
Wish Nicole could come…
I sat through a sermon a couple weekends ago. The preacher was not our usual pastor, but someone who spoke at a retreat we were at. His talks had some ups and downs — he certainly shed a lot of light on the Hebrew context that Jesus lived in. Toward the end of the weekend he espoused what I’ve come to call the “yard theory” of life. This is the idea that the world is a big playground that God has placed us in: that there is a whole array of options in front of us, many equally good, a few bad, and that He provides boundaries that He wants us to play within, and correction or repercussions if we push at those boundaries too hard, then sets us free to do whatever we want with our life.
While I like that this theory positions God as Father, watching His kids play, I don’t personally buy into it. I think our fallen world, and the forces at work within it, dictate that God has more in mind for His kids than random play. I think that there’s an over-arching plot-line, with Jesus as the main protagonist, and with each of us asked to play a specific supporting role.
I don’t mean, of course, that His plan won’t unfold if we don’t find and play our part — I know with confidence that He doesn’t need us in order for His will to be fulfilled. What I mean is that He’s inviting us to have a part in His incredible plan, and that at the center of His will is a role and purpose unique to each of us — as His handcrafted creation.
My theory (and I’m sure its not unique to me) is what I’ve come to call the path theory. And in it, the redeemed look a little something like this:
I’ll call this the train-truck, because I don’t know what its name actually is. The important thing about this vehicle is that it has two sets of wheels. One set is made to follow a track, the other set allow the truck to go off on its own course. I propose that we are all born with normal wheels, and that when we are saved, God gives us railroad wheels. At no time (in this life) does He remove our original free-will wheels, but He equips us with a mechanism to stay on track.
None of this is really profound or controversial, but what I’m going to say next seems to be debated a bit: I believe that no matter how many times we go off the track, when we repent and re-engage our God-wheels He restores us to the same track. Maybe our wandering costs us some progress, and definitely it seperates us from God’s best, but when we screw up, God doesn’t say “Great, now I’ve got to put you on a new track and adjust my plan!” He says, “OK, you’re forgiven, now get back to where I had you heading.”
We can, and probably will, get to the end of our life without reaching that perfect destination He had in mind for us… but how close we get to that destination is determined by how much time we spend on the track.
Here’s the really wonderful thing about our God-wheels: using them means we don’t need to worry about what comes next. When we’re wandering on our own, decisions like which direction to take, and what roads to follow, are stressful because we’re wandering randomly, hoping to find roads that go roughly in the right direction. When we’re on the track, what comes next just unfolds on its own — a train doesn’t worry about which off-ramp to take. All we need is obedience, and faith that the track will still be there on the other side of the hill, or around this difficult bend, or when we come out this dark tunnel…
I don’t know if I’m communicating this clearly enough, but what I’m suggesting is that the only thing necessary to have a successful, effective life in Christ — where we fulfill our potential, grow, help others, and impact the world according to His plan — is to focus on surrendering our wheels to His. That’s it! There are no critical decisions to make, there’s no reason to worry or fret about what comes next, there’s nothing to debate or argue, there’s nothing we need to convince ourselves or others of. All we need to do is obey.
That track will lead us to our divine appointments: to the people we’re supposed to witness to, or disciple, to the jobs we’re supposed to take or schools we’re supposed to attend, to the places or countries we’re supposed to live in. And if we’re all living surrendered, then none of us have anything to fear.
Of course sometimes there are choices — and sometimes we put more weight on them than God does. Sometimes there are three or four apparent directions on our track, and we freak out and think we’re never going to be able to choose the right one. But God knows that they all lead to the same place, and He’s simply giving us multiple good things to choose from. The only option that’s wrong is to engage our old wheels and take off in a selfish direction.
For my family, this then is our only plan for the future. To work hard at the tasks in front of us, and to surrender our wheels and rely only on His. Knowing that it is our desire to follow God’s track with complete obedience where ever it leads, we will be dilligent stewards and attentive students, so that nothing hinders us from following His perfect path.
When I was 6 years old, my family moved to Bangladesh for a year. Among other things, this left a very young version of myself with an incurable restlessness that my wife would eventually learn to understand, and even share – on occasion.
Five years ago, we responded to a growing passion for missions by booking a trip to Asia. The intent had been to bring a team of students interested in missions… and then just one… and then even that didn’t work out. I’m not sure what to chalk that up to, but it was clearly not His timing for anyone else to go. Thankfully, He allowed Nicole and I to make the trip.
We stayed with new friends in Penang, Malaysia and learned from them, and lent our skills to the daily needs at their YWAM base. We went to Thailand, and learned about the efforts there to rebuild after a tsunami had wiped out thousands of homes and lives, and lent our strength for a few days building a house. We saw both the beauty and darkness of Kuala Lumpur. And we came home changed.
Then we moved to New York. The intent had been to learn about moving to another country, while growing my career and getting involved in serving. Like our trip to Asia, we learned a lot, and found we had a lot to learn – and still do.
But we’ve grown in the past 5 years, and it seems that maybe this time, God will allow us to bring someone along while we go, again, to learn about missions in Asia. Sunday we booked our tickets. We fly to Hong Kong on June 7, for a whirlwind tour of as many countries as we can manage – and this time, its not just our hopes and dreams that we are going to explore.
We discovered, not long after we met her, that our babysitter’s older sister has had a burden on her heart for Asia since 4th grade. Even as a 9-year old, Tatum took this challenge seriously, and began studying Cantonese and saving up her babysitting money, in the hopes that some day she could get to Hong Kong. She’s a young adult now, proficient in the language, a dozen connections cultivated on the continent, and money in the bank. All she needed to get her parent’s blessing was someone willing to take her.
With us itching to get back to Asia, and my parent’s living in Malaysia and connected in Cambodia, it doesn’t make sense for us not to accompany her.
The planned itinerary includes Beijing, Hong Kong, Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Hanoi (Vietnam) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). Its an ambitious trip for only 2 weeks, but we’re looking forward to it. Asia is a beautiful continent, with so much to see, and so many people who need Hope. We go for the adventure, for sure, but more than that, we go out of obedience. The Word says to go into all the world and make disciples, and as 29-year olds, we take this challenge seriously.
Our own kids will be sitting out this trip – perhaps in another 5 years they’ll be old enough to come along and get something out of it. For Asia 2010, we could use prayer that all 3 of us are able to discern and follow His direction as our trip takes shape.
Yesterday I was terrified that I’d finally caught this Swine Flu that I’ve been (probably narrowly) avoiding for the past two months of travel. My throat was sore, my nose was running, and I was feeling achy. I prayed a lot and had a giant vitamin C smoothy and chicken noodle soup for lunch. By the end of the day I felt a lot better — only a runny nose remains.
This is important because I’m in Seattle, and Nicole is flying out to join me. The kids are with her parent’s and she was up at 2am this morning, giving herself plenty of time at the border, so as to make it to Buffalo in time for her 7am flight… which got cancelled! Fortunately, the border had gone smoothly and she’d arrived so early that they were able to get her onto an earlier flight so she wouldn’t miss her connection in Chicago.
I haven’t been this excited to see her since… like our wedding day or something. All these places I’ve been and things I’ve seen over the past 2 months, and she hasn’t seen any of them. I can’t wait to show her around the campus, and explore Seattle with her. We have a fancy Christmas dinner tonite, at a super posh private club in downtown Seattle. Tomorrow we’re meeting our friends from New York, Jon and Virginia, who moved out here a few years ago. And most importantly, my hotel room won’t feel so alone… of course, knowing Nicole, it won’t be as neat and tidy either, but I’ll put up with that, because she puts up with me — and I sure like having her around!
Pictures to follow.
Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
As a team building event, after day 2 of PDC 2009, and maybe as a consolation prize for the fact that employees were not allowed to receive the free laptop that all other attendees got, my team went out for an LA Kings game — but when this group goes to a game, we do it in style.
We had choice seats (not box seats, like I thought, but almost as good) and our own hang-out room that we could use before and during the game. There was food, drinks, and behind-the-ice access. We were across the hall from the team’s locker room, and hung out there while they goofed around before the game. We also snuck a couple pictures of the Philidelphia Flyers getting pumped up to play.
They also gave us free hats, which I accidentally left in the “bunker room” so after the game, I decided to see if I could still get back down. I flashed the special badge they gave us, and was ushered in. My hat was gone, but the team was hanging out with some press, so I figured I’d hang around and see what post-game activities were like. Then the team left, and Vince Vaughn walked in and started chatting with the reporters. He flirted with a female news correspondant, and comiserated with some officials about the Kings’ loss, and was generally friendly with everyone.
Then an usher walked by, looked at my badge and said “Who’s your escort? The bunker room is closed!”
Then I had to leave.
Oh well, I was ignorant, not guilty, and besides, it was pretty cool. I’ll get some lousy phone cam pics of the evening up in the sidebar later. It’s 11pm here, but it feels like 2 in the morning.
Traveling for work is an unusual challenge. Much of my business is done on the west coast, which means that while most of my co-workers have 2-3 hour flights to meetings, I have a whole day of travel.
Last week I was in Redmond, at HQ. The facility is amazing, the people were incredible, and the trip was well worth it. The best word I can use to describe it would be “intense.”
There was a moment, while I was at SEA-TAC airport for my trip home, waiting for a taxi to deliver my passport (which I had carefully hidden in my hotel room, then forgot to bring with me, but didn’t realise until after I’d returned my rental car) so I could get through customs, equipped with only a smart phone and a pad of paper, talking to partners while wheeling my luggage through the terminal, with a maxed-out personal credit card and an empty bank account from traveling across the continent, temporarily at my own expense, after 3 weeks of not being paid, when I told God that maybe this was too much for me to handle on my own. But then He reminded me that I’m never on my own, and by the way: ISN’T THIS A BLAST?!
And it is! This company is huge, their pockets are deep, their products are generally world-class, and my partners are some of the coolest companies in their space. Now that my first pay check has hit the bank account and my corporate credit card has arrived, this is officially the best job ever.
Of course, there’s some down-sides. Nicole and the kids picked me up at the airport when I returned home, and Ben practically jumped out of the stroller to see me. The conversation went like this…
Ben: DADDY! Daddy, WHERE DID YOU GO?!
Me: I was on an airplane, buddy
Ben: W-W-Why did you do THAT?!
Me: I had to go to work
Ben: OHHH!
It’s great to come home and see them. Its even better when I don’t have to leave them at all. Obviously its an additional challenge for Nicole too, having two toddlers by herself. Fortunately, when I’m home, I’m really home. My work day has even more flexibility than my last job. Because my co-workers are in a different time zone, its actually helpful to carve out a chunk of work time and move it until after the kids are in bed. And because I’m a mobile worker, when they’re napping, I can go work at Starbucks and not miss a beat.
Old job (3 computers) vs. New Job (3 phones)
I joked with Nicole that my old job gave me 3 computers, my new one has given me 3 phones. And that fairly accurately illustrates the role-change: before it was about code, now its about relationships.
I just gotta figure out how to balance those work relationships with the ones important to me at home…
So this week was Redmond, the company HQ, for most of the week. More on that later, maybe. But before my sister gets her knickers in a bunch, I have to get up this post about the people I got to see along the way.
We’ve never really found the west coast all that aluring, but a lot of people head that way. On our own dime, we can’t really afford to go visit those we know who’ve gone westward, but when someone else is paying, its a real treat to connect with friends and family!
I realised, at the last minute, that I had a 5 hour stop-over in Calgary en-route to Washington state. Coincidentally, that’s where my brother and sister live. Dave picked me up from the airport and we met Liz and her boyfriend for a nice lunch, and a visit at her apartment.
My old friend, Jon Bates, currently a submariner with the U.S. Navy, lives in Washington, so he popped over for a little tour of the MS campus. We had lunch, did some shopping, and he kicked my butt at checkers on a Surface computer.
I might have chance to reflect on this trip some more… but there are 3 more trips coming up, so I might not.
Well I talked about how much I love to travel, and how I didn’t get to do it very often with my old job. I guess you should be careful what you wish for!
In the next 4-5 weeks I’m going to be in Seattle, San Francisco, somewhere in Europe and in Los Angeles!
When I was told this, it was with almost a tone of apology. Perhaps they thought the sound I made was one of disappointment — actually it was a squelched squeal of excitement! I’m going all these places, and someone else is paying for it! Could my new job BE any better?!
There was one point this weekend, as I woke up from a nap in the “bunky” with trees all around me, and a lake in front of me, the sun making the water sparkle as the wake from a motorboat in the distance, pulling teenagers on inner tubes, who’s delighted screams and hollers echoed around the little island, lapped gently on the shore, and considered a future that only looks bright and exciting from here, where I broke out laughing — completely spontaneously, and out of sheer joy…
On very few occasions have I ever been so happy and content.
Discussion
