When it’s okay for someone to neuse-hang a mannequin in the likeness of Sarah Palin outside their house and its called free speech and freedom of expression, but it’s not okay for a police chaplain to say the name of Jesus in prayer, well…I’ll take a one-way ticket to anywhere but here. That’s how I’m feeling today.

These words, immortalized by your friend and mine, Axl Rose, speak perfectly the question in the mind of so many people, Jesus-followers notwithstanding. The question of what we refer to as “God’s Will” is something that can oft times be slippery to say the least.

But how do we discern it?

Let me tell you a story. The year was 1995, early 1995. I was rapidly approaching graduation from college and had (months earlier) given God a clear timeline that I expected Him to follow, as it pertains to getting me a job. I distinctly remember advising Him that He’d better get me a job by the time I graduated. “God, what are you still doing here?!? I thought I told you what I want–now go make it happen!” That was the attitude with which I approached Him. Bad move.

But God, I suppose, chose to humor me. Funny God. In fact, I had a solid interview weekend scheduled before spring break that year, just as I had ordered. “Good job, God. You can stick around.”

So, there I was on the Saturday afternoon of my weekend-long interview visit in the sweet little Americana town of Winchester, Virginia. Those who had invited me gave me a car to drive around and gave me a few hours for a self-guided tour of the town.

As I drove through the quiet town, I decided to turn on the radio. I kid you not, these were the first words that came through the speakers, sung by Rod Stewart:

“Leave Virginia alone, she’s not like you…and me…she’s not like you…and me…”

Spiritual Law #1: “God loves you and Rod Stewart has a wonderful plan for your life.”

As it turns out, I dismissed the words of Rod Stewart as silly coincidence and took the job anyway. More on that later….like never. I’ll just suffice it to say that the next 2 years were fairly rough ones. Maybe I should have given more heed to Spiritual Law #1. Especially the Rod Stewart part.

God’s will is a complicated thing–but that’s our fault. I’ve found that there are 2 parts to God’s will. The first part is His “everybody” will, and the second part is His “individual” will. Most people I’ve found give only a quick, passing glance to the everybody part and really get mucked up in the individual part. And therein lies the problem.

God’s will for you and me is only played out and seen through God’s will for everyone. As I live out God’s will for everyone, His will for me becomes clearer and clearer.

My birthday was last month. One of the gifts my kids gave me was a dinosaur dig. Not familiar with the concept? It’s an idea that is pure genius and the guy who thought of it is probably at the bank right now, cashing another check. Essentially, you take a box, put a bunch of plastic pieces of dinosaur bones in the box, and fill the rest with mud. The mud hardens into clay, you slap a label on it called “Dinosaur Excavation Kit” or something adventurous-sounding like that, and voila–order the Porsche.

So, as my kids and I were collectively digging for pieces of the dinosaur puzzle, I was reminded that the revelation of God’s will only comes when we dig. And digging is dirty.

I’ve got a friend who is living the dig right now. He’s essentially said to the staff he’s on, “I’m outta here.” But outta here to where? Not sure yet. He’s still digging. But you’ve got to admire the kind of faith that would cause someone to pick up a shovel and start digging, while not being quite sure of what will be unearthed.

But we often think God is in hiding–giggling to Himself in a closet somewhere; thrilled to death that He has successfully hidden from us and left us clueless…again. But God’s not like that. To stick with the hide-and-seek analogy, if God “hides” at all, it is the way that I hide when I play that game with my kids. I’ll be careful not to be TOO quiet, or I’ll cover my mouth and in a loud whisper say, “I’m over here!” No, God’s not interesting in frustrating us. He’s interested in creating a passion within us to find Him, follow Him, and delight ourselves in who He is.

I’m not kidding.

This is my oldest son Crews, in his halloween costume. He’s a glow-in-the-dark skeleton. At least that’s what the package said. But alas, he is neither in the dark, nor does the costume glow, even when it is.

Scary, you say? Fiendish? Ghoulish? Unfit for an 8 year old boy?
Poppycock.

The second he saw this costume, he just loved it.

Softie that I am, I conceded. On one condition…

I told him that we’d hang a sign on his back:

“Don’t die without Jesus.”

That should do the trick.

I was just reading a blog of a guy I never met. He was describing his life, his house, his wife, his kids, his neighborhood, his education, his past-times; he summed it up with “Life is good.”

It immediately made me think. I think slowly, and I just finished reading his blog less than 2 minutes ago, so I want to wash my hands of anything I choose to write about in the next few minutes.

I want to take you back to a very specific moment in time in my life. The year was 1990 and the month was June. I was in the foothills of Altoona, PA with several tens of thousands of people at a little party called “The Creation Festival”. Never heard of it? Get a glimpse here.

Let’s just suffice it to say that it’s a 5 day campout with Jesus. And loud music. And renowned speakers like a guy named Tony Campolo.

At least, Tony was one of the speakers when I was there. In fact, as far as I’m concerned he was the only speaker there, because I don’t remember anyone else. That’s the impact he had on me.

One of the many statements I remember Tony saying was this:
“If you’re living a safe life, you’re not walking with Jesus.”

And I look around at my neighborhood. My house. My car. My ministry. My paved driveway. My lawn. My suburbia.
And I think to myself, “Is this relative safety a mark of a contentedness of sorts?” I mean, because I live in a white-bread suburb of Richmond, VA…does that make me or my ministry lame? What was Tony getting at? Was it an indictment on the relative quiet of suburbia and the ministry that happens there?

Is the so-called “American dream” of living in an established environment a sure sign that I’m ready for the ministry morgue? I don’t think so.

Here’s what I think Tony meant. And if you know anything about him, you’re likely to agree.
It’s more about radicalism. It’s more about activism. It’s more about making sure I’m being, but just as sure that I’m doing. It’s about running past the gates of Hell and dragging people out. It’s about wrecklessness, wild-eyed obedience to Jesus, and doing and going where others won’t go, doing what others won’t do. Because life like that isn’t likely to be comfortable, or stay comfortable, or be concerned or consumed by comfort.

I’ll put the screeching halt on this before it turns into some full-blown manifesto. The world doesn’t need any more of those–what it needs is Jesus, alive and well in me.

How do we know what we know? No matter how we know it, we know that we know it. And typically no one can tell us no when it comes to knowing what we know. Why? Because we know it.

Every so often, I find that my wife needs a bit of, shall we say “correction” when it comes to song lyrics. For example, an old Michael W. Smith song contained the lyrics “So be strong and courageous…” I’m pretty sure those lyrics are from the song’s title, “Be strong and courageous”. But when I overheard my wife singing this song, I heard the words, “Sophie’s gone, and courageous.” Which made me wonder a few things:
1. Who the heck is Sophie?
2. Where did she go, if in fact she’s gone?
3. Why would Sophie being gone necessitate me being courageous?
Needless to say, my wife was a good sport and we had a good laugh over the lyrical faux pas.

Then just yesterday, she was singing the theme song to “Good Times”.
Let me stop here and say that as a child, I loved the “Good Times” tv show. Not that I found it terribly relatable to my life; a comedy of the innercity plight of the ghetto didn’t have much overlap with my life. But it WAS funny. And when it comes to funny, I don’t discriminate.

I loved the show so much, in fact that I took some drastic measures to connect with it in every way possible. I vividly recall one day in 2nd grade. A young Jerry Varner sat at his desk and earnestly wrote a note to his teacher, folded it somberly, and walked it to the teacher’s desk. My teacher, Mrs. Harlan was, as I recall a childhood crush of mine and I would certainly not do anything to embarass myself in front of the future Mrs. Varner. So, don’t think I took this note lightly. On the contrary, I knew for sure that the contents of this note would show Hottie Harlan just how mature and grown-up for her I really was.
She took the note from my hand, carefully unfolded it, read it silently, gave a smile, and said tenderly, “You can sit down now, Jerry.”

What was on that note, you might ask? These words:
“Dear Mrs. Harlan, from now on I don’t want to be called Jerry. I’m changing my name to J.J.”

So, not only was I serious about Mrs. Harlan, but I was even more serious about “Good Times”, and my personal hero, J.J.

So, you can imagine my chagrin when just yesterday, I hear my wife sing these words, “Keep your head in the water, making the way that you can…”

I immediately stopped her. “Keeping your head IN the water?!?” If you keep your head IN the water, you’ll drown! It’s “Keepin’ your head ABOVE water!” In true free-spirited fashion, she again laughed at herself and my correction. She takes great joy in not caring at all how badly lyrics are butchered, it seems. Just as long as she’s having fun.

Well, not on my watch. And absolutely NOT with the Good Times theme song!

Later, as the conversation resumed, I asked her to keep singing and she was of course happy to oblige. And this is what I heard…
“Temporary layoffs,
Easy credit rip-offs…”

Hold it right there. Did she just say “Easy credit rip-offs”?!?
She had. Without even blinking.
I laughed aloud and said, “Easy credit rip-offs”?!? No way the words are “easy credit rip-offs”! Another line of Good Times had fallen victim to her lyrical shenanigans. And I was going to prove it.

Within 10 seconds of our verbal exchange I was typing the words “Good Times theme song” into my nearby Google search.

With a gratified look in my eye, I clicked on the link that took me here.

Click here and have a listen for yourself.

Did you hear it?
She was RIGHT.
She was ABSOLUTELY right!
“Easy credit rip-offs”
I couldn’t believe my ears, I really couldn’t.

Because I KNEW that the words “easy credit rip-off” were NOWHERE in the lyrics of the Good Times theme song. I knew that I knew.

We usually live lives of certainty in what we know until something or someone comes along and questions it. And like I did with my wife, we scoff at the idea that what we know isn’t really what we think we know. But pride creeps in and whispers, “There’s no way you’re wrong. You know it.”

Last week, I found myself struggling with the idea that what I have come to know is not all there is. In the changes that are going on in my ministry, for example, I’m finding that there is a great deal more for me to know. And while I acknowledge that cerebrally, it’s a different matter entirely to have an attitude that constantly welcomes the possibility that what I’ve known is not what I need to know; and certainly not all there is to know. I’m not saying that I’m a “know-it-all” (at least I’m not trying to say that), its just that when someone comes along and suggests that there’s a different/better way of doing things, I’d bet that most humans dig their heels in, stick their nose up, and rebuke the idea that the way things have been done are indeed the best way of doing them.

So, I make a conscious effort to stay as malleable as possible. Because have you ever interacted with someone to whom you can’t seem to tell them anything that they didn’t already know? It’s exhausting.

So, even while I know what I know, and I know that I know it…well, when it comes around again (likely in the next 30 seconds of life) that I hear/discover something that either conflicts with what I know or adds to it, I want to make room for knowing more.

(Just for fun, here are the lyrics to the entire Good Times theme song):
Good Times.
Any time you meet a payment.
Good Times.
Any time you need a friend.
Good Times.
Any time you’re out from under.

Not getting hastled, not getting hustled.
Keepin’ your head above water,
Making a wave when you can.

Temporary lay offs.
Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs.
Good Times.
Scratchin’ and surviving.
Good Times.
Hangin in a chow line
Good Times.
Ain’t we lucky we got ’em
Good Times.