What Are You Known For?

I’ve had a big question on my mind this week thanks to Jeff Henderson’s excellent book “For”. What do I want to be known for?

My answer to this question has changed so many times. As a I teenager I wanted to be known as a great basketball player. Too bad I was always a little too slow, a lot too skinny, and the youngest guy on the team. In college I wanted to be known as a great musician, and to an extent I was. For most of my life these three words describe what I’ve been known for, “the smart guy”.

None of those describe what I want to be known for. I don’t want to be known for basketball, or music, my intellect, or my writing. And, even though at momentary intervals I may have looked for validation from others in these things, I don’t anymore. Those days are all long behind me.

But what am I known for? I can’t answer that. Mostly because I don’t possess Professor X level telepathic mind reading powers. Wouldn’t that be cool? I wouldn’t mind being known for that, but I digress. I don’t know what I’m known for.

I only know what I would like to be known for. It’s not my intellect, my musicianship, or my step-back-three. I want to be known for the way I love. That’s it. That’s all.

I want to love my family exceptionally well. I want to love my friends, our church, my neighbors, and my students—I want to be known for the way I love. But loving those people should be pretty easy. What kind of person doesn’t love their friends and family?

I want to be known for loving others. It’s that simple. It’s that hard. Have you met some of you? Some of you are hard to love. Some of you don’t make it easy. But I don’t want to be known for doing what’s easy. 

It’s so easy to love people who are educated middle class conservative evangelicals—most of the time. Those are all things that describe me. It’s easy to love people who share common interests. You like Captain America? Me too. We can be pals. But what about everyone else. I better be known for loving the easy ones. But I hope I’m known for loving the “everyone else’s” too.

What do you want to be known for? What are you known for? Is there a discrepancy?

Here’s my challenge to you. Ask someone around you to tell you what you are known for. 

Be Help

When my phone rang a few hours ago I was in the middle of making dinner for my family. It’s Friday—steak night—and the cast iron skillet was warming up. But then Amy was on the other end of the line and she was stuck with her four daughters on the side of the interstate. She needed help. I turned off the stove. Put my boots back on. And got in my car to go help. It’s what friends do.

We’ll all been on the receiving end of help. Also, we have each needed help when there was none to be had—and had the sundering effect of its lack come crashing down around us. Because help is sometimes hard to find.

Maybe you’ve heard or even said, “good help is hard to find.” But it doesn’t have to be. Not wherever you are. You can be the good help someone needs.

How do you know who you are supposed to help? That’s easy. Who is asking? Who is within your reach? Can you get there?

Several years ago I heard this challenge and it has stuck with me. “Do for one what you wish you could do for many.” That’s a powerful affidavit when it comes to helping. You can’t help everyone, but maybe you can help the friend standing in front of you right now.

So welcome the interruption. Shelf your agenda. And get busy helping. The world will be a lot different—and you’ll help make sure it’s different everywhere you are.

How Are You Doing?

​“How are you doing?”

“How’s it going?”

“How’s life?”

I don’t know how I’m doing. I should probably have a better answer for this because I feel like I get asked this question at least a dozen times a day.

The default answer is “good”, but am I? Like Gandalf in the Hobbit, there’s a bit of confusion for me about whether the intended query is speculating as to the nature of my health, my moral disposition, or something else entirely.

Recently one of my favorite speakers/authors defined this in a very illuminating way. How I am doing may best be defined by how those around me are doing? Want to find out how I’m really doing? Ask my wife. Ask my kids. Ask the team of people I lead in our church.

Maybe I’m getting it right. Maybe I’m acing it. Maybe not. I’ve learned who I need to ask—and I’ve tried to grow the habit of actually asking.

But here’s a picture of how good I hope I’m doing....

I want my life to be uplifting. I want to help everyone in the room get better by my having been there. I want to hold the collective gathering of those in connection to me to a higher regard and somehow help them stretch for a higher goal.

They may not make it. They may not even let go of the ball. But let us greatly enjoy the rise to the occasion and camaraderie built along the way. We aren’t just good with that. We are better for it.

September 19 - With a Kiss

Luke 22:1-6, 47-53

but Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48 ESV)

A kiss is not typically thought of as the sign for rejection, betrayal, and pain. The Bible even reads in one passage that believers are to "greet one another with a kiss." So it makes it that much more interesting that Judas chose a kiss for his method to signal the mob.

Chances are pretty good that you have been rejected in your life. Perhaps you have suffered a horrible betrayal at the hands of someone very near and dear to you. Jesus can sympathize. In fact, he often warned his followers that such would be the case for those following him.

We all know that the sting of betrayal is bitter. It hurts a lot. With that being said, we should strive to take extra special care not to wound our friends and neighbors. When we greet them it should be with the kiss of friendship, not that of betrayal.