Events of Thanksgiving Day for which I’m Thankful

1. Teaching my crazy family to play Mafia (they were terrible and hilarious – instead of trying to figure out who the Mafia ACTUALLY was, the towns people kept accusing one another, citing personal vendetta reasons that were not at all game-related. Ridiculous!).
2. My daughter, who seems to be learning her social skills from Curious George. Lots of grunting. Lots of risk taking.
3. Noticing that my son’s face lights up with a great big smile when I’m in the room. His eyes follow me around the room wherever I go.
4. Chili Dip
5. Knowing that I’m living the dream because I’ve got the best job in the world: working at a church that loves me and prays for me. Not many people like their jobs; I feel very blessed to get to do what I love most in life.
6. A mother and father-in-law that love blessing other people. Every holiday season, they have people in and out of their house for weeks. I am grateful for their example of hospitality and celebration of life and family.
7. Good books. I’m reading 3 right now: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Against All Things Ending by Stephen Donaldson, Surprised by Hope by NT Wright, and Accompanying Them With Singing by Tom Long.
8. A wife who puts up with my constant insanity, instability, and infatuation with her. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
9. Talking archeology, theology, biblical studies, and American History with Michael Fosha.
10. Football

 

Things I could have done without:

1. student loans
2. mustaches
3. male pattern baldness
4. cholesterol
5. green beans
6. calvinism
7. baby poo
8. the cowboys and the lions
9. snuggies
10. making the bed

 

“30 for 30″ #5: The Little Guy Always Wins

My brother Travis and I are always in the mood for a good dog-pile. We’ve been known to dog-pile my dog Jet, sometimes toddlers, and quite often my wife.

The funny thing about my wife is that when she gets dog-piled, she keeps on mouthing…in her own Cassie sort of way. Even when she’s on the bottom of a Fuerst Brother’s Dog-Pile, you can hear her screaming, “THE LITTLE GUY ALWAYS WINS!!!!”

It always makes me laugh because clearly the little guy is losing.

Yet over time I have realized there’s a bit of truth to what she’s saying: the gospels teach us that the little guy does always wins. From the beginning of the New Testament, the message has been that God will overthrow the mighty and uplift the broken, the arrogant cannot stand and the poor in spirit are blessed.

The Little Guy Always Wins slogan was best embodied by Jesus, who taking on the form of a human being, died on a cross under the weight of Roman power, only to resurrect 3 days later and proclaim, “Death has no hold on us! We need not be afraid of the bigger, more powerful guys! The little guys always win!”

It is the Apostle Paul (whose name literally means “the little guy”) who tells us of Jesus’s humility in Philippians 2. I won’t bore you with the Greek grammar, but the point he’s making is that central to God’s character, before the foundations of creation, was the fact that God is humble. The incarnation of Jesus is just the logical and natural manifestation of God’s humility.

“THEREFORE,” says Paul, “HAVE THIS MIND IN YOU!”

It may not look like the little guy is winning when he’s hanging on a Roman cross. But 3 days later, when death could not hold him, the truth became earth shatteringly clear:

THE LITTLE GUY ALWAYS WINS!!!

“30 for 30″ #4: The Pain Doesn’t Go Away, You Just Learn to Live with It

I stood by my dad’s casket at the visitation preceding his funeral nearly 3 years ago. People were coming by expressing their condolences in their own, often uncomfortable and frustrating, ways.

At some point an elderly man came up to me and hugged me. He had lost his wife a few years before and, obviously, still mourned her passing even though life had gone on for him. He knew something of the pain of death and its lingering effects.

As he hugged me, he whispered something in my ear that has never left me, “The pain doesn’t go away, you just learn to live with it.”

I know on the surface it might sound a bit morbid or even an ill chosen group of words. But that was EXACTLY the thing I needed to hear. I didn’t want people solving my pain ‘problem.’ I didn’t want cheap cliché’s and easy answers. I wanted someone to feel my pain with me, which means they needed to be HONEST with me.

What he whispered in my ear has rung true. To this day I cannot remember a single, cheap cliché someone said as they shook my hand. But I will never forget the elderly man who embraced me with honesty, vulnerability, and love.

In some ways, I think his words are almost the thesis sentence of my life. In some ways, I think they were the theme of Jesus’s life. They said to me, ‘I know the pain doesn’t just disappear when the funeral is over; I’m with you through the journey.’

The pain doesn’t go away. You just learn to live with it.

Blog Recommendations

I have found both writing blog posts and reading other people’s blogs to be an immensely encouraging practice. Due to this, I am always on the look out for new blogs to read and to recommend. So here are some of my favorite blogs on a variety of topics and from a variety of perspectives. If you have any that you would like to recommend, please comment and give me a link.

Biblical Studies and Theology:

The Koinonia Blog – Multiple Contributers: http://www.koinoniablog.net/

Rodney Reeves – Professor of New Testament at Southwest Baptist University: http://agenuinefaith.blogspot.com/

Ben Witherington – Professor or New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary: http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/

Ken Schenck – Professor of New Testament and Philosohpy (I think) at Indiana Wesleyan University: http://kenschenck.blogspot.com/

On Women in Ministry and Biblical Feminism:

Women in Ministry: http://strivetoenter.com/wim/

Christians for Biblical Equality: http://blog.cbeinternational.org/

Suzanne McCarthy – Suzanne’s Bookshelf: http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/

Missions and Evangelism:

Timothy Tennent – President of Asbury Theological Seminary: http://blogs.asburyseminary.edu/global-talk/

Preaching, Ministry, or Just Living Life in Light of the Gospel

William Willimon’s A Peculiar Prophet: http://willimon.blogspot.com/

Ed Setzer: http://www.edstetzer.com/

Donald Miller: http://donmilleris.com/

JD Walt (Who won’t be updating for a few months, but is still worth exploring his achives) and his Poetic and Theological Musings: http://jdwalt.com/

Other People Well Worth Your Time:

My Beautiful Wife’s Fuerst Steps into Motherhood: http://fuerststepsintomotherhood.blogspot.com/

My BFF, JR Forasteros: http://jrforasteros.com/

Caleb Henry and His Philosophical Musings on Life and Academics (He’s one of the smartest people I know): http://calebshenry.blogspot.com/

Eric Crisp’s Dwelling: http://ecrisprun.wordpress.com/

Chad Brooks’ Outside is Better: http://outsideisbetter.typepad.com/

Be Jealous of My Amazing Wedding Sideburns (2003)

The Underappreciated: My Wife

The Underappreciated: My Wife

I’ve been wanting to write a blog series on people in my life (in my family, around campus, at church, etc.) that I think are underappreciated. I want them to know that I notice their little acts of service, their hearts of service.

There is no one more appropriate for me to begin this series with than my wife.

She is quite simply the most amazing person I’ve ever met. And probably the most amazing person YOU’VE ever met. The thing is, you don’t realize it! Her humble, gentle spirit does not seek its own glory.
You won’t find her out there blabbing about herself all the time like me.

She’s simply an even-keeled, down to earth gal who you might not even notice if she wasn’t perpetually sitting right next to the obnoxiously loud guy who’s trying to pick a theological fight with everyone.

She’s an incredible mom. She works all day as the manager of the Asbury Seminary bookstore, then comes home and gives everything she has left to Phoebe (and me).

She’s a clear thinker and writer. She’d never tell you that she has an MA in Journalism from one of the most prestigious Journalism schools in America (but I’ll tell you!), nor that she graduated with honors in the program! And even though she’s done all this, her heart still serves my dreams by putting me through 4 years of seminary.

She’s the only person I know who can balance me. She has the perfect listening ear, which levels out my constant jabbering. Her heart breaks with compassion for hurting people, while mine is often filled with rage. She has a lot of common sense, whereas I am often an idiot about all things common sense.

I think she’s way underappreciated. And I think you should know that.

I’m Learning to Walk. Someday I’ll Run.

Learning to Walk

Phoebe’s face is now flawed with three distinct bruises. The first is from falling down about five stairs, all tumbling like Charlie Brown after getting hit by a baseball. The second is from tripping over the carpet and face-planting on the hard wood floor. And the third is from losing her balance, collapsing straight down onto her butt, going limp on the way down, and face-planting (head between her legs!) onto the concrete sidewalk.

Many tears ensued after each fall, and most of them weren’t even Phoebe’s.

But she’s learning to walk. And walking takes practice. Walking perfectly is not a skill Cassie and I, as reasonable parents, can expect from her right now. And if we did expect it, and got frustrated when she fell or was too slow, it would be our problem and not hers.

This is the case with God our Father, as well. In our efforts to follow His Son – to walk after Him – He knows what should be expected of us; He knows what stairs are too steep; and He knows that children who can barely crawl are still a long way from running a marathon. And not only does He know these things, He’s not upset by them!

To the contrary, He smiles with joy with every feeble attempt we make, and probably sheds more tears than we do when those attempts end in discolored faces, bleeding knees, or deep scars.

Even as a little baby, Phoebe never really liked to sit still. She always had to be on the move and would express great frustration at the physical incapability’s which hindered her free movement.

In the same way, I, too, forget, in all my frustrating inabilities and failures, that God is not standing at the finish line checking His stopwatch, eyeing it in irritation, waiting for me to appear on the horizon.

No, rather, God is standing there with me in the midst of the race. When I fall, like a good Father, He picks me up and holds me as I mourn another failure. His heart laments with every bruise I acquire as I try to climb stairs or just walk on the sidewalk. But this isn’t just amazing grace, this is simply good Parenting.

Maybe it’s a bit overdone 20 years later, but I still think this is one of the most powerful images of this reality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9wV8AUe6_A&feature=related

(And who better to narrate than Morgan Freeman? :) )

I Have Produced a Man-Child

 

It’s a Boy!!!!!

My Stocking Gift to My Wife

In a scene reminiscent of July morning a little over 18 months ago, my wife woke me up this morning waving a pee-stick in my face saying, “I’m pregnant!”

Groggy and half-dreaming, I said to her, “Well, that’s my stocking gift to you.”

We don’t really know anything else at this point, but we’re extremely excited. Maybe this one will have testicles! And if not, we’ll be just as happy.