To My Spiritually Backslidden Friends

Colossians 4:12-13 - "Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis."

To my spiritually backslidden friends - my MCCC friends that I see once every few years and my AIV friends that I only see now during weddings - I'm praying for you. For some of you, I've known that you haven't gone to church in years and probably don't even self-identify as Christians anymore. Even though I didn't ask you about church or God because I didn't want to embarrass you or force you to pretend to care, your distance from God continues to break my heart. For others of you, your spiritual regression, though fairly recent, was not surprising to me. And maybe you even knew that I knew (or could guess) that you stopped going to church even before I asked you about it. And then there are the handful of you that surprised me with your renunciation of Christ and his Church, leaving me sad and speechless.

Whoever you are, I'll be your Epaphras. There was once I time that I was physically with you and could make a real difference in your life. But those times have passed, and for most of you, I am no longer in a place relationally or geographically where I can drag you to church or discuss spiritual things. Even though I can't engage you on what I believe to be meaninglessness and futility of life without Christ, I can and will struggle on your behalf in my prayers.

But I must admit that as one guy, I feel a bit overwhelmed - there are just so many of you and I am so powerless! As my mind sweeps through all of your names and faces, I simultaneously mourn and rejoice in my utter powerlessness to change you. Though my heart's combination of brotherly love and a prideful Messiah-complex makes me wish I could make a real difference in your life, the reminder of God's sovereignty and the gift of prayer is my lone hope and comfort.

And so I'll continue to pray. I pray knowing that I join in with the saints who love you and want to see you love Jesus - your mom and dad, your childhood church friends, your college fellowship friends. I pray trusting in the sovereignty and goodness of God, soberly aware that your salvation is not dependent on the number of my prayers lifted or tears shed. And as a weak, immature, oft-distracted, poor-man's Epaphras, the times that I struggle to struggle on your behalf in my prayers may be frequent, but I pray trusting that the same God who took a Lunchables of fish and crackers and transformed it into a feast can similarly transform my unworthy prayers into power spiritual weapons.

And obviously, I post this not to get spiritual high-fives but to let you know that I care, I'm thinking about you, and I'm here if you want to talk.

I love you all. Come home to Jesus.
Caleb

Closest Game of Nertz

Yesterday Chough had a bunch of Joywok collegians and working people over at his place and after having a blast stuffing ourselves, playing Pulse and Heads Up, we decided to cool down a little bit and play Nertz. Splitting up into two groups of three teams, I played the closest game of Nertz ever. Here's the score sheet and a "game flow" visualization kind of interactive graph. Notice the big lead that Martin and I had in Round 6 and the major one-round comeback by Jensen/Phoebe in Round 11.

Thanks to Martin for carrying me yesterday. I was out of my league.

If anyone has an amazing Nertz story, I want to hear it!

Final Scores
Jonny/Phoebe	Caleb/Martin	Jensen/Sam
101	99	99

Score Sheet

The Real War on Christmas

The so-called "war on Christmas" is always a common source of contrived contention, and though I know that no none of you asked for it, here's my take on this "war".

To me, the war against Christmas isn't only waged by the secular - it's one that Christians wage inwardly daily. You see, if the glorification of Christ and his sacrifice is the true "reason for the season", any self-glorification or stuff-glorification is a declaration of war on everything Christmas stands for. This battle between the Christmas spirit of Christ-glorification and self-denial and the secular Grinch spirit of idolization and distraction is a battle that every Christian fights - a battle that's fought as much during the holiday Christmas season as much as any other time in the year.

This is a battle that we lose when we neglect to meet with God after sleeping in, as we spend our days off in either idleness or meaningless busyness, a battle we lose when we catch up with all of our old friends except Jesus and when we spend time with all of our family except for our heavenly Father. We wage war on the ultimate gift of Christmas when we're more preoccupied with both giving and receiving trinkets, an act of aggression far more profound than any mindless "Happy Holidays". Like all sinners, we fall into the trap of valuing and enjoying the benefits of Christ over Christ himself - be they externally admirable gifts such as friendship and family or overtly materialistic pleasures.

So this Christmas, when we hear talk about the "war on Christmas", let's not condemn the secular or scoff at the overzealous religious. Let's reflect and self-examine how we ourselves have been waging a war against Christmas.

Merry Christmas, all!

Anderson Silva, Please Retire

[I wrote this post months ago but never got around to posting it. Anderson Silva's fight is next week, and I'm so nervous about the fight I don't even know if I'll be able to watch it...]

Anderson Silva,

You've always been my favorite fighter, and you're the reason I'm into MMA. You could actually say that we got into the UFC together, as I started watching MMA around the time that you had your first UFC fight against Chris Leben. The streak of knockouts under 2 minutes allowed me to witness ingenious striking as I've never seen it before. You were as close to invincible as I've ever seen anyone until you fought Chael Sonnen, but as a true champion, you still eked out the victory.

I've never taken any sports loss as hard as I took your loss against Chris Weidman. Not even the Eagles losing the Super Bowl or Michigan losing the NCAA Basketball Championship game. I watched the fight at Bdubs in Ann Arbor, after Jenny and Steven's wedding, dragging along a couple of friends with me, only to have my night ruined. And not just my night, my love for MMA came to a screeching halt. I haven't been able to watch anything about the UFC, as every reminder of your loss triggers the mental picture of you lying on the ground knocked out, and it makes me want to cry. I didn't even watch the post-fight press conference, and it wasn't until my friends told me that there's going to be a rematch did I even find out about that.

And so, Anderson, here's my plea - hang up those gloves. You're 38. You have nothing left to prove. You're the Greatest of All Time. Please don't end your career being knocked out like Liddell or Wandy. Sure, you'll probably earn thousands from these fights, but for young and new MMA fans, all they'll know about Anderson 'the Spider' Silva is that he's this guy that used to be good but is knocked out a lot. They won't know about your underrated chin, your uncuttable face, and your unhittable head.

A lot of people have criticized you for playing with Weidman and for not taking him seriously, but I've watched all of your UFC fights multiple times, and I know that just isn't the case. Just as certain as your "feeling out" first minute of the first round is the mental games that you play with your opponents. Your mental game has been a hugely underrated aspect of your fighting, and your head movement has always been good enough to allow you to counterattack and knock guys out, even with your hands down. Where were all of the critics when you knocked out Forrest and Okami after dropping your hands and playing with them? It's been known within the MMA community that "When Anderson's hands drop, you drop." But the critics will be critics. They don't know the hard work you put into preparation, evidence that you take no one lightly, just that you approach them differently in the Octagon.

So I know that you weren't playing with Chris. You were doing what you normally do, trying to cause a mistake and to counter it. But you got caught. By a powerful guy. You got caught. I don't think you got caught because you were playing around too much. You got caught because you're 38 and just don't have those kind of reflexes anymore. There's no shame in getting old, and Father Time always catches even the best of athletes. But please, Anderson, I beg of you to retire and preserve your legacy. Quit while you're on top. I know you've tried before, and Dana White wants to continue using you to earn money. But quit. Anderson, you've given the sport all there is to give. It's time to hang'em up.

I'll continue mourning your loss until you beat Chris in your rematch. But after that, please retire. I don't think I can take any more of this. And when you retire, I'll mourn your retirement. I've always loved you and will keep on loving you, but please don't make me go through this again. My heart can't take any more of it.

Sincerely,
Your Biggest Fan

Jesus and Paparazzi

Quick quiz! Without looking, what is the event that directly preceded Jesus feeding the five thousand? 

When we read the gospels, the uninspired section headers paired with our paragraph-by-paragraph Bible-reading habits can causes us to read the gospels as disjoint short stories instead of the unified narrative that it is (which is why manuscript study is often very nice).

I noticed something for the first time the other day, something that I've never seen before. Directly preceding the feeding of the five thousand are these verses:

"And [John the Baptist's] disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus [that John had just been beheaded]. Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick." -Matthew 14:12-14

Here's the scene. Jesus receives word that his servant and friend, cousin, and the guy who he said was the greatest man ever had been executed. Wanting some time alone to grieve and pray, he withdraws to be by himself. BUT the mob of people follow him, presumably cutting short his grieving time. Despite the crowd's insensitivity, Jesus still has compassion on them.

I recently spent a good amount of time watching videos celebrities fighting paparazzi. Be it those bothering Justin Beiber, Jay-Z, or Kanye, I just love to hate paparazzi, people who basically make a living by making others' lives hell. Camping outside of Kanye's house at 4AM? Come on. Leave the guy alone. The nosiness, insensitivity, and generally scumminess of paparazzi even makes me root for Justin Beiber when he kind of runs one guy over with a car (link above).

Having mobs of people following you that want things from you must be truly awful. And this must have been even worse for Jesus, as he was mourning the loss of someone he loved and regarded very highly, and the crowd relentlessly didn't allow him to have his privacy in his time of loss. And yet "he had compassion on them". Jesus is amazing. If it was me (or Kanye or Beiber), I would have thrown a hissy fit, probably punching some people, cursing them out, and possibly running one over with a car. Having relentless crowds tailing you is bad enough, but in time of mourning? That must be unbearable.

How great the compassion of Christ that he had compassion on and served people who were rudely intruding on his life! How foolish of us to doubt God's care and hesitate to bring our burdens to him when we know that he is a God of utmost patience and compassion!

[In case any of you were wondering if this is in fact chronologically accurate, in all four Gospels, it seems that Jesus either hears about John's death or is speaking about John right before he feeds the five thousand. Mark 6:29-30, Luke 9:7-10, John 5:33-6:1]

Signs You Might Love Football More Than Jesus

Football, like anything else in life, can be idolized. We, dear reader, are tempted more than ever in this NFL-mobile-app, sports radio culture to elevate football over Jesus. But sometimes gauging our hearts can be hard to do, so for the sake of the kingdom, I've put together a small list of signs that you might love football more than Jesus. If you find that any or all of the statements below are true, I strongly urge you to promptly burn all of your football-related possessions, throw your TV away, and if necessary, gouge out your eyeballs (Matthew 5:29 - it's biblical). I thought about attaching images for each of these points to spice up the post, but I decided that I didn't want to stoop to the depths of Buzzfeed, so here is the pure, unadulterated list:

1) You have more sports apparel than you do Jesus apparel. 
I'm sure you've all heard the Biblical truth: "You might be the only Bible someone reads". If you don't wear Christian T-shirts, how will people hear the gospel?!?! Bonus points for wearing T-Shirts with Bible Verses on them! Or if you want to be a Christian hipster, get a Scripture tattoo!

2) Your idea of "righteous anger" is hating your bitter rival.
Let's be honest. Urban Meyer and Nick Saban are easy to hate. Eli is easy to tease too (though I suppose that teasing the disabled is bad taste).

3) You pray more during football games than during the week. 
This is especially true if you are a Michigan fan and have been forced to watch Devin Gardner this year. Living on a Prayer, anyone?

4) Church is just your Christian pre-game.
Church for you is just the necessary tradition before a game where you get together with friends and talk about the upcoming football for the day, updating your fantasy team while some guy talks about something on stage. Crackers and grape juice ain't no burgers and beer, but hey - it's holy!

5) You do your quiet times in hopes that God will bless your fantasy team.
Beware of the up-and-coming version of the prosperity gospel - if you live a "good" life and do the right things, God will bless you and your first round pick won't get injured and your waiver wire pickups will exceed expectations. "Bad fantasy week? There must be some sin in your life - check your heart, bro."

6) You hate Ohio State so much that you can't bring yourself to worship God at a Asian-American InterVarsity Conference because of the Ohio State-comprised worship team.
...This is all hypothetical of course...and hypothetically if this is something someone experienced, that someone probably had a lot of heart issues to deal with and repenting to do.