Tonight I performed in a storytelling show in Mckinney, TX. After every storyteller, an improv troupe would come to the stage and improvise based on the story. It was so weird to see people take bits and details from my real life and turn them into scenes. It was like a weird therapy.
Jesus and Why I'm Afraid of Being Wrong
All throughout Luke’s gospel account the pharisees are trying to trick Jesus into saying the wrong thing. In Luke 20 they ask him who gave him the authority to do what he does. He answers their question with a question: “I also will ask you a question. Now tell me, was the baptism of John from heaven or man?” The pharisees huddled up to come up with a good answer.
“If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From man,’ all the people will stone us to death, for they are convinced that John was a prophet.”
Then they decide to just say “we don’t know” and Jesus is like “hey, if you won’t answer my question, I won’t answer yours.” What a smart guy.
But notice what the discussion between the pharisees is about. They’re not trying to debate the right answer to give. They want to make sure they give the answer that makes them look the best. They realize it’s a trick question and neither answer will give them what they want. If they say it’s from heaven, then they’ll have talked themselves into a corner where they HAVE to believe that Jesus really is who he says he is. If they say it’s from man, people are going to TURN ON THEM.
It’s not the truth that they’re after, it’s self preservation. Jesus on the other hand, doesn’t give a rip about self preservation.
He doesn’t care about keeping the crowd. In John 6 he gives a teaching that is very hard for his giant crowd of followers to swallow (pun!) and in verse 66 it says "After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.”
He doesn’t care about keeping any sort of status. First of all, this majestic king from heaven comes down to earth as a weak little baby born to two poor random people no one knows about. His grand entrance into the world is covered in placenta next to some donkey poop. Not only that, but after he’s grown in popularity as a traveling rabbi and miracle worker, one night at dinner he washes his disciples’ feet. WHAT?! That’s what a servant does. That’s not dignified. Your disciples are beneath you. The whole reason they’re following you around is because you’re so great and they want to learn from you. But he places himself beneath them as an act of service and love.
Jesus gives it all away. He speaks truth and he speaks in love.
I’m just as afraid as the pharisees of giving the wrong answers some times. Not wrong as in “untrue,” but wrong as in “could negatively affect me.” My flesh is desperate for self preservation. Put the walls up. Keep the defenses high. Don’t make one wrong step. Sacrifice all truth and love, don’t even worry about those silly things, because my identity, pride, and status could be on the line. That’s who I’m prone to be.
I want to spend more time with Jesus so I can be more like him.
What's the worst that could happen?
My friend Isaac got to interview Sidney Gish for his music blog, Born Loser. I got to tag along with him because I’m the one with the camera and microphones. The whole interview is great. Isaac makes it funny and awkward and Gish is so well spoken.
One of my favorite moments is when Sidney Gish talks about making music just for herself and how that takes the risk out of the equation.
“If I make something that’s just for myself, then no one can be like ‘hey your production’s bad.’ And even if it is bad, and they’re right, then I can be like 'so what’s the worst that can happen? Like, who’s disappointed with me? You, because you wasted you time listening to my song?’”
What’s the worst that could happen? When you’re getting ready to start something new your imagination can run wild with all the worst case scenarios that are always way more severe than what could actually happen in real life. The world will not explode if you make a bad song, ugly painting, or stupid poem. You won’t get fired from your job. You won’t lose your home or get arrested (unless it’s REALLY bad).
It reminds me of what Conan O’Brien said on the Armchair Expert podcast: “you have less to lose than you think.”
That’s a great reminder anytime you’re starting something new.
Social Media Is Never the Full Story
Last year I made a series called Goodnight with Taylor Johnson. It was just a little experiment where every night for a week I posted a nice little thought before bed.
This video is all about the shame can get trapped in when we assume the perfection everyone else is showing online is real, when we know the perfection we’re showing is all fake. We’re only aware of the mess we’re hiding from the internet, and we just assume we’re the only one. But we’re not. We’re all curating our online persona.
I give a very simple and ridiculous thought experiment to help people release the tension that can build up from shoving too much social media into our brains.
4 Things You Must Do if You Want to Write a Book
Ever since my book came out people have been asking me for advice. There’s a lot of little things I learned along the way but they’re probably not going to be effective for everyone. It’s just what worked for me.
There are, however, 4 nonnegotiable things you must do if you want to write a book. In my mind, these are universal. No exception.
You want to write a book? Here’s what you have to do.
1. Read
You need to have time to read a lot. You can’t be a writer without being a reader. If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write. Read a wide variety of books. Don’t just read one author or one genre or you’ll end up sounding just like them. Spend time reading outside your comfort zone. Who knows what you can learn from books outside thee field you’re hoping to write in.
You know the old sayings. Leaders are readers. Writers are readers. Breeders are readers. Feeders are eaters.
Just go read.
2. Write Everyday
EVERYDAY. 1000 words a day. At least. If not, you’ll get rusty. You’ll lose your groove, your rhythm. You’ve got to build that muscle by working out every day.
3. Set Deadlines
Real deadlines. Reasonable deadlines but ones that still kind of scare you. That was the biggest help for me. Before I sat down to write I decided when I wanted my book to come out and then I worked backwards, setting all my deadlines. If I wanted it out on Sept 16, that meant I needed to have the text finished by this date. That means I’d need to finish my 4th draft by this date. That means I’d have to start my 4th draft by _______. You need to have clear and specific deadlines. Without them it’s so much easier to lose focus and give up.
4. Tell People!
You can’t keep it a secret. Tell people you’re working on a book because that way there’s some accountability. People will check up on you. They’ll encourage you. Hearing “I’m excited to read your book” is an incredible motivator.
Books that make you laugh out loud
Today I picked up John Hodgman’s new book of comedic essays, Medallion Status and now I’ve spent most of my night enjoying it. Most. Other parts of my night have been dedicated to the bathroom because, well, Chipotle.
I’m 50 pages in and I’ve already laughed out loud at least a dozen times. That’s crazy. Making someone laugh with just the words on a page is one of the most impressive things someone can pull off. As a writer you’re stripped of all these tools comedians can use to trick a laugh out of an audience. They can’t hear your delivery, inflection, funny voice. They don’t see your face, expressions, or what you do with your eyes. Zero physicality is possible. It’s jus the words. And somehow there are writers that can still surprise a laugh out of me. Not a quiet thoughtful exhale. Not an intellectual, “oh that’s funny,” with no actual noise. Laugh out loud.
According to Stephen King writing is a telepathy. You are transferring thoughts and images from your brain to the brain of the reader. I love the way he talks about it in On Writing. Especially this passage.
If writing is telepathy then the best comedic writing (the kind that makes you laugh out loud) is only possible by those with the most powerful psychic abilities.
Can you think of a book that has made you laugh? There aren’t that many for me. John Hodgman and Simon Rich are the only two authors who have been able to do it consistently.
What an incredible skill to have. I wish I could convince more people to read funny books. The biggest roadblock is that I think for most people humor books never end up on the list of books they feel they need to read if they’re to be respectable. With a lot of pastors it’s hard to convince them to read anything besides leadership books (not even a theology book but..you know..we don’t have to get into that). I think everyone has in their heads those books they’re “supposed” to read, but, like I’ve said in a previous post, that’s a dumb way to live your life.
Read outside your comfort zone!
If you’ve never found a book that’s made you laugh out loud, you are missing out. It’s one of the most amazing magic tricks the written word can pull off. It’s harder than you think. Don’t believe me? Go read most of Twitter and you’ll see what I mean.
Are you ACTUALLY "easily distracted?"
I wish I lived on paper so I could crumble up all my distractions. My living room would be littered with crumbled up balls of paper. And I would be alone, in silence…still not wanting to work. Looking for something else, some new way to keep me from my To Do List.
I’m not “easily distracted.” I secretly want to be distracted because I don’t want to work so I’ll look for anything that can distract. That’s my secret.
Your Vocation
How do you discover your calling in life?
Frederick Buechner gives this insight:
Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need.
When Viktor Frankl talked about finding meaning/purpose in your life, he never wanted to discuss the Big Picture MEANING of your whole life, instead he wanted to focus on the now. What is life putting in front of in this very moment, in this season of life? If you try to zoom too far out to see the whole scope of your life, you’ll get overwhelmed. You not see the Big Picture MEANING until you’re lying on your death bed looking back at the whole thing. So put that off until then. As for now, what can you do now?
This is what can be frustrating about college students who feel called to ministry. A lot of the time they act as if they have to wait until they’re on staff at a church getting paid full time to start ministering. No! There’s ministry to be done now! There’s discipleship and evangelism.
Can you give it 40 hours of focus every week right now while you’re in college? No. Will it pay the bills right now? No. Will you have a large reach and influence right off the bat? No. But there might one person in your church you can pull closer and walk with. Maybe right now life is has put this in your path and it’s how you can fulfill your calling in this season.
You don’t have to wait until it’s perfect. You don’t have to wait until you have all the answers.
Where is your joy?
Where is the need?
What does the meeting of those two look like right now, in this season of life?
Assemblies in Louisiana
In less than a week I’ve spent roughly 27 hours in a car. Spoke Sunday in Tomball, TX. Monday night in Houston. Wednesday I did assemblies in Louisiana. Now I’m in Wichita, KS for a service on Sunday.
We were in a tiny tiny town in Louisiana.
I think those are some of my favorite assemblies to do. You visit schools where there are only 200 students in the whole building and they’re so excited to hear you because they’ve never had a good assembly before. Not many high quality assembly programs are seeking out these tiny schools so we get to go in and absolutely blow them away. “People care enough about you to meet you in the middle of nowhere.” That’s the message we get to bring simply by showing up.
I love it.
If Loving God Was a Competition
The following is an excerpt from a guest blog I wrote for my friend Cameron Combs.
If you wanted to sum up Jesus’ central message to the Pharisees it would be “Loving God is not a competition, and even if it were, you’d all be losing.”
When a sinful woman barges into a pharisee’s house to anoint Jesus’ feet with expensive oil from her alabaster jar, the religious leaders look down on her ridiculous act. If she really loved God, she wouldn’t be so sinful, and she wouldn’t have wasted that oil. She would have sold it and given the money to the poor. Duh. Obviously.
Jesus then shows them that they’re judging this competition all wrong. In pharisee’s eyes, the one who is the purest, cleanest, most right standing is the winner. They’re the ones who love God most. But that’s not how Jesus sees it. It’s actually the one who is the most sinful, yet turns to God. It’s the one needing the most forgiveness who would love God most because they would be the one who fully understands how incredible His love is.
It’s almost like Jesus is being sarcastic.
Those poor Pharisees. If only they weren’t so perfect. If only they were open about the sin in their hearts, then maybe they could love God as much as this woman with the alabaster jar. But alas, from how they speak about themselves, you can tell they’re far too good. If it really were a competition for who loved God most, they’d all be losing.
This is from a post in a series of reflections on Flannery O’Connor’s short story, Parker’s Back. It’s a great short story. You can read it here. Then read the rest of my post (here) to see how this ties to O’Connor’s story.