Good Gifts

In everything give praise: for this is the purpose of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thess 5:18

My mother-in-law is part of a body of believers that make up a small church in a small, rural town in West Florida. My wife and I, along with the rest of her family, attended this church for the first time while visiting last December. This blessed, genuine congregation is one that still openly shares their praises and prayer concerns intimately and openly. Their worship, both in song and teaching, has seemingly left a quiet, available space for the Holy Spirit to move, inform and sanctify. I have been blessed by worshiping with this church on visits to my wife's family's home.

A few month's ago, this church's pastor and I started corresponding via email about our love for music. We talked about guitars, weissenborns and our affinity for all things wood and string. Unexpectedly, he asked if he could bless me with a musical instrument. Over the years, he had acquired some and no longer had a need for this collection, but, moreover, he wanted to bless others with them as gifts. At his kind insistence, I accepted a ukulele after mentioning that I had been wanting one. My mother-in-law delivered the instrument on a visit just a couple weeks later.

I opened up the tiny case, which I couldn't help but think looked like the perfect cover-up for an old-timey mafia member's automatic weapon, and pulled out a beautiful hawaiian-made, acoustic-electric ukelele. I immediately started making up chords and songs as well as trying to improvise the obligatory, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Along with my initial excitement, I started to reflect on God's good gifts. My life is full of them. Around each corner. However, I usually fail to recognize them. Most often, I use His abundant gifts to glorify myself until they no longer hold my attention or bring me joy. Or, conversely, they become little idols, overly-worshipped with my time and attention. However, I have witnessed another option. I've watched my wife use her car as an instrument to further God's kingdom. Our small SUV has been a part of beautiful events where God simply needed four wheels for transporting or hauling, along with an obedient driver. I praise God that my wife has humbly and quietly shown me this example. Considering this, I wanted to allow my natural response to this gift to be the Holy Spirit moving me to praise. I've recorded five songs that have encouraged my faith over the years using the ukulele. I'm a guitar player faking it as a ukulele player and singer, but all for God's glory. This is to give great thanks to the Giver of good gifts as well as to my pastor friend who allowed his blessings to flow through him.

Uke Praise by mattmccutchan

But who do you say that I am?

I first heard about Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life" this spring on NPR. A lot of descriptive words were used, but very few actual details about the plot. Sometime later, I remember discussing this NPR segment about the film with my brother-in-law at the beach in Florida. Our conversation went something like, "Yeah, I don't totally know what it's about. I hear it has Brad Pitt, Sean Penn..and *dinosaurs*..it must be good." The mystery surrounding the movie fueled my anticipation to see it at the local art house movie theater. And, then it came. Days and weeks went by in which I would ask my wife, "hon, do you think we can see that "Tree of Life" movie tonight?" She'd ask each time, "which one is that?" and I'd reply, "You know, the one with Brad Pit..and dinosaurs." For some reason these details did not entice her in the same way they did me. So, finally, with only two showings left at The Belcourt Theater, I left straight from work one evening and attended the film alone. The movie opens with a quote from Job, "“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.” I had the feeling right away that this would be the perfect film to watch alone (However, my wife would regret it as I would later ramble on and on trying to describe the scenes and how it made me feel.) The word "epic" has been wasted on films like Harry Potter and Star Wars. When in fact it should be reserved, kept aside for special pieces of art that dare to contemplate such things as the beginning of existence and how we fit into the life of God's creation. The movie isn't perfect, sometimes it's a bit big for it's britches. However, I got completely lost in the visuals created to showcase the vastness, deepness, grandeur of the everliving God of the Universe.

You see, I really like Jesus. I strongly adhere to the thought that Jesus is my friend. I'm like the children (read spiritually uncoordinated and full of drool) in Luke 18 who run to Christ. However, Malick has created a great reminder, that while, through grace, we have been given a savior we can run to, it is a forgotten act of worship to fear God. More than anything, "Tree of Life" made me want to fall on my face in humble adoration of the author of a story in which I am, at best, a single letter of a word that makes up volumes in a story that stretches beyond my imagination. This is a God that existed before creation, designed the universe, flawlessly sewed together the elements to bring forth an awe-inspiring landscape of galaxies. When I am lost in self-pity or searching for further meaning it is a wonderful reminder that God spoke "“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding." There is Alpha and Omega and in the middle is Godly order and design not meant for my understanding.

"No, I'll baptize you," "No, no, no, I'll baptize *you*"

Moving forward in Matthew, the story of Christ has leaped forward about 30 years in a matter of paragraphs. Matthew 1 serves as the opening credits..kind of a "who made this story possible", Matthew 2 gave us the back story and we join Jesus at the beginning of his ministry in Matthew chapter 3. However, structurally, in a somewhat surprising manner, this chapter doesn't begin with details about Christ, but of his second cousin, John the Baptist. John the Baptist has always been one of my favorite characters of the bible. I don't mean to say "character" to suggest the Bible is merely a collection of moral stories, but the details that we know about John allows us to paint a vivid picture of his personality and disposition. I imagine John to be the original alternative bohemian. A Deadhead in a hippie van has nothing on this guy. Matthew makes a point to say that "John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. " Basically, John had no interest in the trappings of this world. His exterior, his consumption, would be in sharp contrast to the treasures and idols of Earthly success. And, it seems as though John's ministry was set up for great success. After all, "People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River." Yet, into this budding, successful ministry, steps Jesus and a conversation that is the central focus of the unfolding story. John is ready to be baptized by Christ, but Jesus let's John know that He, in fact, needs to be baptized by John to "fulfill all righteousness." Even though it seems counter-intuitive to John, this moment has to be about Jesus and the fulfillment of a larger story.
This passage has had me thinking a lot about how we/I wrestle with "callings" or the career path. I know there have been times in my life where I was certain God was nudging me towards a certain dream, project or career. After a great deal of pursuit, I was met with a brick wall. Why would God lead me down a dead end road? I've also struggled with wondering if God has any interest in my creative expression, my vocation or if, ultimately, I/we are all rebelling against a greater calling towards missions. For me, the story of John and Jesus leads me to believe that God gives us room for our own creativity (camel's hair and leather belt) but that our pursuits should be pointed in the direction of the Kingdom of God and the glorification found in our success should never be about us but our Savior.

The crooked path of God

Over the last month many of us have probably heard the story of the birth of Christ. Whether it was in church, from Linus' spotlighted moment in "A Charlie Brown Christmas," or in a Christmas card or some other holiday paraphernalia. Now that the season is officially over, I wanted to pick up where the story has left off. It made sense today to start reading my bible at Matthew 2:13, just after the magi had left and gone home (toting with them all the leftover garland and stale candy canes). Starting in verse 13, we see the angel of the Lord directing Joseph to pick up all his belongings and move to Egypt, about 200-300 miles away. This wasn't a short donkey ride down the road. This is like Joseph, his wife, his newborn child, and all their belongings trekking it either on foot or donkey from LA to San Francisco or more familiar terms to me, Nashville to St. Louis. This would take weeks. But this isn't what really jumps out to me about the latter part of chapter 2. The second journey, after the death of King Herod, is even more ridiculous. Joseph is again directed by an angel of the Lord to get up, take his family and belongings back to Israel, yet another couple hundred miles backwards. But wait..it seems God didn't know/remember that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod. So he instructed Joseph, through an angel of the Lord to withdraw to the district of Galilee to a town called Nazareth, about 70 miles out of the way. This seems so counterintuitive. How could an omniscient God forget that a dangerous king, a potential threat to the unfolding story of Christ the Savior, was reigning in Judea? The inconspicuous answer lies in the final verse of the chapter. "So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene." This nonsensical journey, this crooked path was all to fulfill something most likely unseen and unknown by those on the journey. It was to accomplish something much larger that neither Joseph or Mary could have ever planned. As I look at 2011 and dream of resolutions and reflect on 2010 at those things planned that I did not accomplish, I pray that I am a faithful journeyer willing to accept that all the scattered dots of my actions will one day be connected by a perfect crooked line that leads to a purpose much larger than anything I could have ever conceived on my own.