Chris Cree

Whatever I find interesting

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What Do You Want?

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Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”
—John 1:38

If you arrange the Gospels chronologically, this is one of the first things that Jesus was recorded saying to his disciples. It’s a very big question that encompasses a whole slew of other questions.

What do you want?

  • What is it you are looking for?
  • What do you want to see happen?
  • What do you want to achieve?
  • What do you want to be a part of?
  • Whom do you want to get to know?
  • Where do you want to go?
  • What do you want to possess?
  • What do you want to give?

The is an unbelievable depth to those four little words in that question. I’m just scratching the surface.

Just like the disciples Jesus first asked the question just scratched the surface. Their answer? “Where are you staying?” Very superficial. It was sort of like asking, “Can we hang out with you for a little while?” I’m not sure the disciples really knew what it was they truly wanted.

I’m not sure I know what I want either.

As usual, Jesus answered their question and a whole lot more at the same time. “Come and see,” was all he said. Basically Jesus was telling them to spend some time with him. Then they’d find what they really wanted, that thing they were looking for.

Most folks don’t see Christianity as very relevant to real, day-to-day life these days. Yet the first thing Jesus asks his would-be disciples goes right to the core of who they are. By extension he is asking us the same exact thing.

What do you want?

You may have your life’s plan all figured out. If you do, I’m genuinely happy for you.

But I’m not there with you, though. Even though I’m rapidly approaching 40, I still don’t really know what it is I want to be when I grow up. One thing I learned flying in the Navy: You’ll never hit your target if you don’t decide which target to aim at.

Therefore I am going to take some down time by lowering my priority for the blogging scene while I wrestle with the question. When I come out the back side of the process I fully expect some things will change. What, exactly, I have no idea at this point. Nor do I know how long it will take.

But I’m sure it will be an interesting process.

Do you know the answer to the question?

What do you want?

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Changing Our Thinking

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Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
—Romans 12:2

I have a confession to make. I struggle with destructive thought patterns.

ThinkingThere are times when I fool myself by rationalizing away behavior I know is wrong. My natural tendency is to be a “glass half empty” sort of guy. I instinctively see first the reasons why something won’t work before even looking for ways it might work. If something gets challenging or I run into obstacles it is not unusual for me to start questioning whether the idea is really “of God”. My track record is littered with things that I quit when things got a little difficult.

Don’t get me wrong. My reality is not all doom and gloom. But according to Paul, the author of the Book of Romans, it would appear that I often copy the behavior and patterns of this world with my thoughts. It is something he tells us we shouldn’t do. At least we shouldn’t if we want to know what it is that God wants for us.

There was a time when I really didn’t believe that it was really possible for me to have any sort of control over my thoughts. To me it seemed that my thoughts just happened. How was I going to control something that just happened all on its own?

I don’t buy into that anymore. I mean why would Paul tell us that we should change something if there was no possibility for us to have any control over it in the first place? Paul was a really smart guy. If it was impossible for us to have any control over our thoughts he wouldn’t have told us that we need to get a grip on them.

In another place, the same guy tells us some of the things that we should think about.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.

Paul tells us the kinds of things we should be thinking about that have the ability to change our behavior for the better and ultimately put us into the very presence of God.

A Question

So here’s my question for you: How do you personally go about the process of changing your thoughts, or what other translations call “the renewing of your mind”?

I said at the beginning that this is an area where I struggle. I haven’t rolled over and given up here. This is one battle I want to win. I figure learning to conquer my destructive thought patterns is one of the keys that will unlock success in much of the rest of my life.

So go ahead and share some of the practical things you do that help you in this area.

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Prosperity Preachers

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Here’s a potentially interesting topic for discussion. TIME Magazine has a photo essay on Prosperity Preachers.

What do you think of what these folks have to say?

There is no doubt these people are popular and they attract large followings. Do you think that God wants you to be rich?

Most of these folks say some form of “God wants you to be successful.” Are they on target or off base?

Joel & Victoria OsteenThe new blog I’ve started up is SuccessCREEations. Do you suppose that means that I am aligning myself with these folks? Or would you say that I’m on some other track?

When you Google “prosperity preacher” Joel Osteen’s name shows up twice in the first ten results. Now I don’t know much about him other than I caught part of one of his messages once when I was getting ready in the morning at my hotel room in Dallas at a conference one time. But apparently folks say his church is growing because he tell them God wants them to be rich.

There are other folks who say that those who oppose the “prosperity gospel” crowd are just selling God short, or maybe they are lazy and don’t want to do their part to be successful.

What do you think?

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We’re Forgetting to Remember

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It was a Tuesday, happened to be my day off. Five years ago this morning, when everything changed for me, our country, and the whole world.

Yet today, as I reflect on the memory of the horror of that moment, very little is really any different than it was when I woke up that morning.

Because it was my day off I had slept late that morning. I remember that I was reading, as was my morning habit, when the phone rang. It was one of my wife’s girlfriends, which again was fairly normal. What was not normal was when Gorgeous put her hand over the receiver and said, “Chris turn on CNN. A plane just hit the World Trade Center.”

Being a former Naval Flight Officer I remember thinking as I hunted for the remote, “Man. Some bug smasher pilot must have really screwed up!”

Even after I tuned in to the all news channel I tried to mentally calculate how a private plane could account for the damage and the smoke that I was seeing. I didn’t want to consider that it could be anything more than a horrible accident.

While I was watching I thought about my four years in New York City. How I enjoyed leaving campus in the Bronx early on weekend mornings to head into “The City”, which is how we referred to Manhattan. I would often make my way down to the financial district because I liked the solitude of walking amongst such huge buildings with so very few people around. The streets were often still wet from the night action of the street sweepers, or maybe a passing rain shower.

Somehow that part of the city at that time of the week would smell surprisingly clean to me. And that dichotomy of smell and place was one of the things I like most about making the trip that early when most of my classmates were still sleeping.

I liked to wander around the World Trade Center complex. The big buildings fascinated me. And the twin towers were the biggest. Sometimes I would get right up beside them and lean back. Looking up from that perspective the huge towering building seemed to curve back over my head. I remember feeling the building sway in the wind up as I looked down at the helicopters scurrying around the city from the observation deck 107 stories up.

Then I watched the second plane hit the second tower.

It was no bug smasher. At that moment I knew I was watching something to horrible to understand fully. And the images kept pouring in.

There were the shots of that second plane hitting the tower which were played over and over like the instant replay of some sporting event. There were the long shots of the smoke billowing out from the upper floors of those two towers like the were some big candles burning far away.

But eventually the cameras got in closer and we saw people looking down at us through the tears in the building as they desperately tried to find some clear air to breath and escape the heat and flames. And then the unimaginable started happening. We saw film of people falling 1,000 feet or more from the burning areas of the buildings. Not just one or two but dozens.

I watched in disbelief as the first tower collapsed in on itself in a cloud of concrete and smoke. How could this happen?!

By the time I watched the second tower meet the same fate as the first my disbelief was turning to anger. I was angry at the people who did this. But mostly I was angry because of what I knew.

Deep down I knew that no matter how much changed as a result of that day, there was one lesson that we would likely fail to learn. And now, five years later, it seems I was right.

The events of September 11, 2001 really are too horrible to fully comprehend. And doesn’t matter whether you believe the conspiracy theories that are gaining ground these days that claim the government somehow caused all the destruction that day as a pretense for going to war. Or if you believe that it was a deliberate attack by some extremist who are on the fringes of a religion subscribed to by over a billion people on this earth whose holy book teaches that each of us should be killed if we don’t convert to their religion.

The bottom line is the events of that day are also a warning to us. The reality is this: Our safety and security, our prosperity, our very success as a nation on the stage of history is not solely dependent on our Government.

The Bible teaches that God is at work in the events of man. It is God who raises nations up. And it is God who brushes them aside, sometimes in a moment.

If the USA is currently the world’s only superpower it is because God has made it so. And God can change that status in less than a day if he chooses. It is God that can cause the most powerful army in the world to be defeated by peasant fighters if he chooses. God can see that every single attempted terrorist act is discovered and stopped before it happens if he chooses. And God can allow a wave of terror to envelope a nation if he chooses.

Our failure is that we neglect to acknowledge this reality. 9/11 taught us a lot. But this is one lesson we have chosen not to learn. In stead of turning to God and asking for his divine protection we turn to our government to keep us safe. We expect our technology, our powerful military, and our security procedures to be able to protect us from all harm.

And we forget the one person who has the certain ability to keep us completely safe and secure.

Many people in our nation today will take off their shoes going through a security checkpoint more frequently than they will acknowledge God and seek his protection. They grumble about the bureaucratic approach to security that involves frisking grandmothers, yet trust that the bureaucracy will keep them safe.

Yet there is one who can make our security precautions completely effective. There is one who can divinely compensate for any shortcomings in our systems and procedures.

We turn our backs on that one at our own peril.

As you scroll down through the photos that remind us of the horrible suffering of so many that fateful day 5 years ago, think about the words written by a leader who understood how dependent his country was on God for their protection.

In times of trouble, may the LORD respond to your cry.
May the God of Israel keep you safe from all harm.May he send you help from his sanctuary
and strengthen you from Jerusalem.

May he remember all your gifts
and look favorably on your burnt offerings.

May he grant your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans.

May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory,
flying banners to honor our God.
May the LORD answer all your prayers.

Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed king.
He will answer him from his holy heaven
and rescue him by his great power.

Some nations boast of their armies and weapons,
but we boast in the LORD our God.

Those nations will fall down and collapse,
but we will rise up and stand firm.

Give victory to our king, O LORD!
Respond to our cry for help.

9/11 Impact

9/11 Impact2

9/11 Impact3

9/11 Fire1

9/11 Fire2

9/11 Fire3 Flags

9/11 Fall1

9/11 Fall2

9/11 Fall3

9/11 Fall4

9/11 Tower Collapse

9/11 Flag rasing

9/11 Cry

Warpaint

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Fear and Death

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I’ve been saying it for years. Unfortunately this weekend I was shown to be right.

I don’t feel good about it at all.

Years ago I said, “One day that Crocodile Hunter guy is going to get too close to some nasty creature that is going to kill him. And the cameras will be rolling as he dies.”

Crocodile HunterThat is exactly what happened to Steve Irwin this weekend.

Apparently he was filming an encounter with a stingray when it flicked its tail into his chest. The stinger went right to his heart.

His death is all the more tragic, not only because it was senseless and entirely preventable, but because it was so very predictable. We can discuss how relatively safe stingrays are and how few people are actually killed by them until the cows come home. But that misses the larger point of the pattern of behavior that totally tempted the odds which were heavily stacked against him.

We are all wired with certain healthy fears which help us to live longer and have better lives. Steve either ignored his fears or didn’t have them in the first place. The results speak for themselves.

There are some who will try to lesson the tragedy by saying things like, “Well at least he died doing something he loved.” But I’d be willing to wager that if he knew when he got up that morning that he could have the choice between one last swim with the stingrays and watching his two small children grow up, he probably would have been willing to never go in the ocean again.

They say that the most common fear we all have is the fear of death. No one really knows for sure what is beyond life. Some speculate that it is just nothingness. Other people have an understanding of paradise and hell – places of everlasting pleasure and suffering respectively.

But the point is none of us really knows for absolute certainty. Even the most sure are exercising a degree of faith because they have not seen it with their own eyes.

Perhaps the clearest picture of what happens after we die was given to us by Jesus. Here is what he said about the subject.

Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed and who lived each day in luxury. At his door lay a diseased beggar named Lazarus. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally, the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.”The rich man shouted, `Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in these flames.’

“But Abraham said to him, `Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. Anyone who wanted to cross over to you from here is stopped at its edge, and no one there can cross over to us.’

“Then the rich man said, `Please, Father Abraham, send him to my father’s home. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them about this place of torment so they won’t have to come here when they die.’

“But Abraham said, `Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read their writings anytime they want to.’

“The rich man replied, `No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.’

“But Abraham said, `If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t listen even if someone rises from the dead.’ “

Jesus shows us there are two possibilities after death. Taken on its own this story might be interpreted to mean that rich people will never get to heaven and poor people are guaranteed a ticket in.

Steve IrwinBut that is not what Jesus is getting at here. The one who ended up in heaven read what the Bible had to say on the subject and took it to heart. The one who ended up suffering either chose not to read or read and didn’t believe.

The Bible is very clear on what is required for a person to “make it” into heaven. There is no reason for anyone to doubt. And we can face even death without fear.

The Bible explains it this way:

For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.

I can’t make it any clearer than that. I only hope that Steve Irwin chose to believe before he went swimming with the stingray this weekend.

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Love Without the Squishiness

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I pulled a book off my shelf this morning as a reference for an article I was writing. It is not at all a spiritual book. In fact it is a book about how to make money.

I only bought it because I heard the author speak at a conference one time years ago. I liked his story and what he had to say. In fact I caught up with him for a second afterwards to let him know that I appreciated what he had to say and he offered to sign my book.

Being a book guy I think it is pretty cool to have the author’s signature so I gladly handed my copy over for him to scratch his name in. Instead he wrote a short, personal little note. It took him maybe 30 seconds.

I’ve had that book 10 years now. No, I’m not a millionaire. But then I haven’t really applied many of the principles he wrote about, so I can’t pretend it is the fault of the book.

Regardless, today I picked it up from my shelf to look through it and I took a closer look at his note. At the end, after he signed his name, he put a scripture reference. Now I know I’ve looked it up before but I couldn’t remember what it said. So I looked it up again this morning.

And I was blown away. Here is the passage:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge””that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I’ve seen that passage before, especially the second paragraph. I talked about it a couple weeks ago in this post about Big Questions from Stepping in Something Squishy.

We say those words about God being able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine every week as we head out of church.

But until this morning for some reason I never associated them with the knowledge of how totally consuming and all encompassing the Love is that Jesus has for each of us.

Hazy SilhouetteThe Bible says that perfect love drives out fear. And I am dealing with a little bit of a fear issue as I start something new.

Perhaps God is trying tell me that I should put a little effort into understanding how much Jesus really loves me so that I can get a grip on the whole fear thing. Frankly the whole concept of “love” is one of those squishy things that I mostly don’t want to think about.

I’d honestly rather think about guy concepts like victory, conquering, overcoming, power – pretty much anything other than love. (You gotta read it with a sarcastic emphasis on the word love to get the full effect here.)

But maybe that is the basis of my fear thing I’ve got going on. Until I get over my infantile aversion to the concept of love (I can’t help the sarcasm yet. Sorry.) maybe I’ll never move forward.

So. As I go through the day today I am going to be thinking about Christ’s love for me. And I’ll work at not giggling or getting weirded out while I think about it. Because this whole fear thing is for the birds.

I’ll let you know how I do.

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Fear and New Things

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Why are new things often so challenging for us?

I am getting things lined up for a new endeavor, trying to get my ducks in a row before I kick things off so that the ride will have as few bumps as possible. I woke up early to have a little extra time to work on a few things for the project. When I came into my study and turned on the little desk lamp, the bulb blew. It’s a weird size and we usually don’t keep spares for it. And I don’t like having the big overhead light on. Well, at least until I wake up a little.

Hiker at Base of MountainThe more I think things through, the more I realize how many other things could go wrong. I feel like a mountain climber looking at a towering peak wondering if he’s got what it takes to make it to the top.

There is risk involved because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

I have to admit that even though I really am a new creation, I still have some messed up thinking patterns. Truth be told I am still pretty much a skeptic. Steve Pavlina suggests I should kill my skepticism.

He makes a good point.

I said it the other day. Before the event desirable outcomes are just as possible as undesirable ones. So in theory I could chose to expect the desirable outcomes rather than the undesirable ones.

Really what it boils down to is fear. Fear is a toxic paralyzing force that keeps us from moving forward. They say that courage isn’t the absence of fear but rather continuing on in spite of the fear. And I don’t disagree with that.

But one of the surest ways to be rid of fear is to have a firm understanding of what to expect. When you are in a team environment that plays itself out in the trust that is built up with your teammates, knowing they will do their part when the time comes.

If I fear moving forward it could be because I don’t really completely trust the God who I feel is moving me in that direction. John said it this way

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

It could be that deep down I still have some lingering fear that God is not trustworthy, that He might be setting me up to fail. Because I think I deserve to fail then God must be planning to give me what I deserve.

Don’t get me wrong, it is completely twisted thinking. I know that. But those are some of the thoughts I’ve had this morning.

Climber at SummitMy desire is to get to the top of that mountain. And not just to say that I made it, either. I sincerely want to be in a position to help other folks get up there too. I think my motivations are along the right lines even if my thought patterns still need a lot of work.

Funny. As I was working through all this and typing this out just now the desk lamp came back on. By itself. Coincidence? Some might say so and then offer up scientific explanations about how the bulb really hadn’t blown or there is a loose connection somewhere, blah, blah, blah.

But I think God decided to communicate with me in a way that would be uniquely crystal clear to me.

“Keep going, son. You’re on the right mountain path this time.”

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Big Questions from Stepping in Something Squishy

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The mind is a terrible thing.

This morning as I shuffled up to the coffee pot in the dim glow of the light under the microwave with sleep still crusted in my eyes to get that first cup of wake-me-up…

I stepped in something. Squishy. And cold.

My mind instantly went into overdrive as it explored the possibilities of what that squishiness between my toes could be. I took a step back and looked at the bottom of my foot. Nothing. At least it didn’t stick.

But as I peered through the left over sleep into the dark corner of the floor by the coffee pot I couldn’t make out the ick on the rug by the sink that had assaulted my right foot.

My first thought was that Fat Boy had another episode. Every once in a while something follows him out of the litter pan and gets randomly deposited around the house. It’s kind of embarrassing for him really and we don’t talk about it much. But he’s had his issues in the past so my mind immediately went there. The math made sense.

(Cold + Squishy) x Stepped_in / Before_coffee = Fat_Boy_Present

Needless to say I wasn’t going to just reach down there and pick up that nastiness in the dark. (Not that I’d grab it bare handed in the light, mind you.)

Fat Boy ProfileSo I flipped on the room light, stifled a groan as brightness assaulted my ocular system, grabbed a paper towel, and gingerly reached down to collect the piece of grossness that had so unpleasantly disrupted my morning routine.

It was a piece of mushroom. I guess it fell on the corner of the floor unnoticed by Gorgeous when she was doctoring up our pizza for dinner last night. No big deal.

I tossed it in the trash, turned off the oppressive artificial fire that was making my eyes water and went about my normal morning routine.

But it made me think.

Why did my mind instantly jump to what it conceived as the worst possible scenario?

Is that even healthy? I know I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to go through life with a doom and gloom attitude focused on all the bad things that might happen. The Bible says

The LORD knows the thoughts of man;
he knows that they are futile.

MushroomsDoes it have to be that way? I mean I’d rather focus on the wonderful possibilities of the truly beneficial things that could happen. I mean before any given event aren’t positive outcomes just as possible as negative ones?

What else might change if I were to change my expectations regarding outcomes? Could something as simple as changing my expectations actually change how things ultimately work out in my life? Would life be more enjoyable?

There is a passage from the Bible that we read every week as a closing blessing right before we leave the service

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

I say it week after week. But do I really believe that God is able to do so much more than I can even image that it can’t be measured?

Or, more importantly, do I really believe that He will if I ask Him to?

And that’s a pretty big question to come out of stepping in a little bit of squishy first thing in the morning!

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Exploring Our Interconnectedness

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I mentioned that my folks are in town. I don’t get to spend as much time with them as I’d like.

Partly it is because of the distance. They live up in Virginia.

But my work has always played a big factor. Vacation time is always limited, and I never seem to get a chance to do everything I want.

Even when they come to see us I have to work. I guess someone forgot to tell the ships to stop running so I could have a better personal life!

I had to go out to a ship last night. It should have been a fairly easy deal. Just an hour or two of work and then back home to the family.

Except the ship was late. Very late.

It was late enough that I had time to catch about an hour’s snooze while I waited. I’m sure that is one of the safer things I do in this job. Sleep in my car on the docks in the middle of the night.

Of course it was smoking hot here in Savannah, even well after sundown. With the humidity up on into the Tropical Jungle scale. But I still managed to nod off for a bit.

I woke up when the ship got to the dock but it still took a while before I could get aboard to do my thing. While I was waiting I got to thinking about how many people are somehow involved in a container ship’s cargo operation.

The list really is pretty long. You’ve got the ship’s crew, longshoremen, stevedores, machine operators, mechanics and repairmen. Depending on the operation that could bring us to the hundreds already. And it doesn’t count all the individual shippers and receivers of the cargo, the folks working in the warehouses on either end of the shipment, the various customs and enforcement officials at either end, and all the functionaries who make sure the paperwork gets processed correctly.

Oh, and then there’s a handful of miscellaneous consultants like myself who make their living helping the process run more smoothly.

Global trade really does involve a lot of folks, all of them interconnected by a common goal. And that’s just in one industry. Imagine how totally interconnected we all really are when you stop and think about all the things we do, consume, and produce.

Yet even when I was thinking last night during my wait about such a large and diverse a group of people spread all over the world like that I couldn’t help but think that God was looking down on the whole thing, keeping a watchful eye on it all. Check out this passage from one of the Psalms:

Let everyone in the world fear the LORD,
and let everyone stand in awe of him.For when he spoke, the world began!
It appeared at his command.

The LORD shatters the plans of the nations
and thwarts all their schemes.

But the LORD’s plans stand firm forever;
his intentions can never be shaken.

What joy for the nation whose God is the LORD,
whose people he has chosen for his own.

The LORD looks down from heaven
and sees the whole human race.

From his throne he observes
all who live on the earth.

He made their hearts,
so he understands everything they do.

The best-equipped army cannot save a king,
nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.

Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory–
for all its strength, it cannot save you.

But the LORD watches over those who fear him,
those who rely on his unfailing love.

He rescues them from death
and keeps them alive in times of famine.

Just a little something to ponder as you are out and about this weekend.

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