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Overview
Your life is filled with pressure and pain and heartache and disappointment. So was His.
If you’ve ever tried to pick up the shattered pieces of your life and put them back together again without help, you know it’s an impossible task. When you lose your job, when divorce divides your family, when a loved one commits suicide, or when cancer claims a friend, it’s easy to lose perspective and abandon hope.
According to Jon Weece, Christianity does not require you to smile through your pain, much less praise God for tormenting you. God doesn’t enjoy your suffering. But he does understand it—and he knows exactly how to fix it.
That’s what Me Too is all about: A God who turned the ugliness of the cross into a spectacle of eternal beauty. An all-powerful Lord who will do the same with the pain of this world. An eternal Father who specializes in wiping away tears and putting you back together again. If you’ll allow him.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781400206933 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nelson, Thomas, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 02/02/2016 |
| Sold by: | HarperCollins Publishing |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 585 KB |
About the Author
Jon Weece is the lead teaching pastor at Southland Christian Church, a community of 14,000 Christ-followers in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the author of Jesus Prom. Prior to Southland, Jon was a missionary to Haiti for four years, where he met his wife, Alli. They have two children.
Read an Excerpt
Me Too
Experience The God Who Understands
By Jon Weece
Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2016 Jon WeeceAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4002-0693-3
CHAPTER 1
VULNERABILITY: A THREE–LEGGED RACE
WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, THERE WAS A BULLY AT MY SCHOOL WHO USED HIS size to intimidate everyone he encountered. He would frog me on the arm, sending what little amount of muscle I had into terrible spasms.
I used to pray that God would send Rocky Balboa to beat up the bully.
"God, forget the Russians," I would implore. "I need Sylvester Stallone to get in the ring with Ashley Tucker!"
Yep, the bully's name was Ashley. I was getting beat up by a boy with a girl's name! That made the torture even more unbearable.
On the playground at Rockbridge Elementary were two small hills with monkey bars spanning the gap between them. Beneath the monkey bars were tires that were supposed to serve as padding in case we fell. I never considered tires to be soft, but obviously someone else did.
One day Ashley decided to try his luck at climbing across the monkey bars. Halfway across, his luck ran out. "Please, somebody help me!" is what I remember hearing as I stood in line to play tetherball.
Ashley had pummeled so many kids that no one responded; no one ran to his rescue. We all just stood there, watching him hold on for dear life — legs flailing wildly, with a panicked look on his face. And that's when it happened.
All eyes watched as Scott Graham cautiously made his way from the basketball court to the monkey bars. Scott was from a great family and was loved by everyone in our class, so no one was too surprised that he was going to play the part of the good Samaritan in this unfolding drama.
But Scott had different plans that day.
Scott had watched Ashley rule the bathrooms and the hallways and the bus stops with an iron fist. Scott was acting on behalf of every other scrawny kid in school when he reached up, took hold of Ashley's sweatpants and underwear, pulled them down around his ankles, and walked off.
Girls gasped and covered their mouths. Boys raised their arms in the air and cheered as Ashley hung there, in all his chubby glory.
Scott's parents got a phone call from Mr. Calhoun, the principal, but Scott didn't mind the punishment because he had achieved hero status among his peers. Had we been allowed to throw a ticker-tape parade to celebrate the downfall of the great dictator, we would have hoisted Scott up onto our shoulders and marched him around the playground.
Scott became more than a legend that day. He became my friend.
Jesus had friends. He frequently stayed in the home of his good friend Peter. Houses in Capernaum were typically two-story square boxes with open courtyards in the center. What covered the courtyard was a mixture of sticks and grass and fabric that kept rain out but allowed cool air in.
Jesus had been teaching for days, so the house was packed with people. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, standing-room-only situation. Scalpers were selling tickets outside, and Mark gave us this descriptive detail in the narrative: "Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat" (Mark 2:3 NLT).
We don't know if the man was born paralyzed or if he fell and broke his neck. We don't know if he was a single man or a married man. What we do know is that he had four friends who carried him. Four friends who loved him.
"They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus" (Mark 2:4 NLT).
Not even a kid could have squeezed between the people jammed into this room! This man's friends cut a hole in the roof of a stranger's house so their friend could gain a hearing with Jesus. I have some good friends in my life, but I'm not sure any of them would crank up their chain saws and ruin someone's roof for me!
There is a thread of empathy in this story. This man's friends put themselves on his mat and wondered, "What if that were me? What if I were paralyzed? What if I couldn't walk, if I had to beg to survive — what would I want my friends to do for me?"
This is a "me too" story, and it's in the Bible because Jesus was God's visible version of "me too." Every pain you've ever experienced or been through in your life, God can say, "Me too." Betrayal, misunderstanding, confusion, heartache, suffering, physical pain, fatigue, hunger, you name it — Jesus understands. Jesus can look at any situation in anyone's life and say, "Me too."
What I've learned from the four men who cut a hole in a roof for a friend is this: Everybody needs somebody. That is at the heart of living a "me too" life and building a "me too" culture.
"As a rough rule of thumb, if you belong to no groups but decide to join one, you cut your risk of dying over the next year in half," wrote social researcher Robert Putnam. "The single most common finding from a half century's research on the correlates of life satisfaction, not only in the United States but around the world, is that happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of one's social connections."
I can't imagine anyone not being interested in cutting their risk of dying in half!
I have a friend who loves to run. Over lunch he told me about a man who finished the Boston Marathon in two hours and another man who finished in seventeen hours. It would take me a week to finish that race!
The second man has muscular dystrophy, but he completed every mile of the 26.2mile race. Even though the winner of the race finished fifteen hours before him, the man with muscular dystrophy never gave up. And at the end of the race he paid tribute to the two people who walked beside him the entire way. Two people who never left his side. Two healthy people who have put themselves in his shoes and have come to realize that everyone needs someone. Who is that someone in your life?
Who would walk with you through death's valley? Who would carry you across the finish line when your legs give out?
Can I suggest someone to you? His name is Jesus.
And the reason you need him as a friend is because Jesus is God. I have a lot of friends, but none of them can make that claim. And some people struggle with the idea of a man being God.
"For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Col. 2:9 NIV).
If Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt entered a three-legged race — running with one leg tied to a partner's leg — it wouldn't diminish his innate running ability or change his status as the world's fastest sprinter. But he would be voluntarily limiting the use of his abilities. Likewise, Jesus' status as fully God was not diminished in the incarnation.
"The incarnation was more an addition of human attributes than a loss of divine attributes," noted theologian Millard Erickson.
Jesus was God's primary response to the pain we see in the world around us and the pain we experience in our own lives. He didn't send a bouquet of flowers and a greeting card. God sent his Son. He entered this world the way we entered this world — crying. And he left the world the way we'll leave the world — dying.
But he didn't stay dead. And that's what separates him from any other friends you have.
The kind of people you surround yourself with will determine the kind of person you become. Buzz had Woody. Laverne had Shirley. Bert had Ernie. Batman had Robin. And Bonnie had Clyde.
"Jon, you can't live the right life with the wrong friends," my parents used to tell me. Maybe you've heard the old adage: "Show me your friends and I will show you your future." Friends matter.
Jesus had friends. He ate with prostitutes, which makes religious people squirm. It makes me smile! I can see Jesus leaning over and saying to the prostitute seated next to him, "Hey, you gotta try these mashed potatoes! Go on, take some off my plate."
When religious people saw Jesus eating with prostitutes, they said, "Why does [he] eat with such scum?" (Matt. 9:11 nlt). The people the world called scum, Jesus called friends. And that includes you and me.
Years ago I went to New York City to talk to a wise friend. He's not just smart; he's experienced. Paul has lived. I sat in a comfortable chair in his office and unloaded the uncomfortable tension in my heart.
"I'm so tired I can't see straight or think straight," I said. "Physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I have nothing left to give. I just feel like quitting."
Paul didn't say anything. He just leaned in. And for the next four hours I dumped all the debris that had piled up in my heart and mind over the years. I talked about the stuff I couldn't talk about with other people. And Paul didn't try to solve any of my problems or tell me that I was wrong or that I needed to see things differently.
No, Paul listened to me.
And at the end of the four hours I took a deep breath, and we just stared at each other for a brief moment. Then Paul smiled and broke the silence with, "Let's eat! Food makes everything better!"
So we walked a few blocks to a dimly lit restaurant, and over a rib eye and a glass of sweet tea, Paul poured his wisdom into my empty heart.
We impress people with our strength, but we connect with our weakness. When we open up and admit that we need help, we run the risk of being hurt. But if we don't open up and admit that we need help, we run a greater risk of not being helped.
Vulnerability is the key to intimacy, and all of us need to experience intimacy. It's at the heart of every great friendship. I think some people are afraid to open up because they fear it will make them appear weak to their friends. But I'm convinced that we don't really have friends until we open up to people. Vulnerability strengthens any and all relationships that it flows out of.
I've noticed this dangerous trend between the genders: Many men struggle with the idolatry of independence, while many women struggle with the idolatry of dependence. Many men think they can live without anyone, whereas many women think they can't live without anyone.
We need each other, but we need Jesus even more. The closer we get to Jesus, the closer we can get to one another. So take some time today to get closer to Jesus. And if you need help, ask a friend to help you. Your vulnerability will strengthen you both.
CHAPTER 2ACCESSIBILITY: LUCILLE
I'M FRUSTRATED AND I DON'T KNOW WHY," RON SAID, LEANING FORWARD IN his chair. He owns his own business, and the stress of his life recently reached a boiling point.
"I feel like I'm hiding from my family," he admitted. "I love them, but everything they say and do gets on my nerves and I snap. And after I yell, after I lose my temper, I feel horrible."
"Why are you so stressed out?" I asked.
"I don't like my job. Actually, I hate my job," he said as he shook his head in frustration. "The only reason I haven't quit is because I can't afford to. I owe the bank too much money and I've created a lifestyle that my family is used to now. I'm afraid I'm losing my mind. I'm afraid I'm going to do something stupid. Tell me what to do and I'll do it. I just can't keep living like this."
I hear it a lot. Pressure.
My mom has a teapot that whistles once the water reaches a boiling point. The lid pops open and a screeching sound follows the steam that shoots out. People don't have lids, but we do have hearts. And our hearts can only take so much pressure. Final exams. Tax season. Tryouts. Deadlines.
Burned-out. Stressed-out. Freaked-out. Worn-out. How do we dig out of the hole we find ourselves in?
During the summer of 1994, I worked the third shift in a factory that made heaters for hot water tanks. My job on the assembly line was to connect a little piece of copper wire to the back of each heater using a propane blowtorch. For eight hours every night, I stood in the same place doing the same thing and was paid minimum wage to singe the hair off my arms!
I should never be in charge of anything that has fire coming out of it.
When you work on an assembly line, you have no choice but to get to know the people working beside you, simply because of their proximity. To my right was one of the funniest people I've ever worked with. Her name was Lucille.
Lucille and I hit it off from day one. She was a large, gregarious, middle-aged woman who had a resounding, full-body laugh that was contagious. She kissed me on the cheek at the beginning of each shift and said, "How's my little baby doin' tonight?"
"Skinny as ever," was my standard response.
We became such good friends that she and her husband had me over for breakfast when our shift ended. I loved Lucille.
But Ray? Ray wasn't as easy to love.
Ray stood on the other side of me and smelled like a mixture of diesel fuel, sweat, Bud Light, and Old Spice aftershave. I'm guessing he was in his midseventies, and he couldn't have been more than five feet two inches tall. Soaking wet he might have weighed a hundred pounds. And for some reason, Ray didn't like me.
Every so often and out of the blue, with more chewing tobacco in his mouth than teeth, he would snarl and say to me, "Boy, one of these days, I'm going to take you out back and whoop you!"
I tried to connect with him by talking about the next monster truck show or tractor pull at the fairgrounds, but he wouldn't budge. He had made up his mind about me. Ray didn't like anything about me.
But every time Ray threatened me, Lucille would lean over, shake her finger at him, and say, "You touch this boy and I will turn you inside out!" I really don't know what that means, but if anyone could turn another human being inside out, it would be Lucille!
I don't know why Ray was so angry, but I've dealt with enough angry people in my life to know that most of them are wounded. Someone probably hurt Ray in the past. Someone who was supposed to hug him probably slugged him. Ray's anger boiled over. There's no way to keep that much anger inside.
What's the old line? "Hurt people hurt people."
Ray was feeling what Ron was feeling. Pressure.
Ron dealt with it by buying sports cars. Ray dealt with it by threatening people like me. We deal with pressure in different ways, but what we all have in common is that we all feel pressure.
Think about the pressure Jesus felt. He had to save the world. He had to solve a problem he didn't create, and the solution to the problem involved him dying. Jesus was so stressed out about saving the world that he sweat drops of blood. The medical diagnosis for this is hematidrosis. It happens when a person is so overwhelmed from a crisis that the capillaries in the forehead burst. Blood mixes with water in the sweat glands and is released through pores in the skin.
Jesus didn't want to suffer, and who could blame him? He knew what a crucifixion entailed, the brutality it involved. And he knew there was no one who could or would take his place. One friend had already betrayed him, and the other eleven friends he had were sound asleep.
So what did Jesus do when pressure had him by the throat? He prayed, "Father, if possible, remove this cup from me."
Pressure leads us to believe that everything is impossible. We won't know what is possible until we ask God for help.
When I was four years old, President Jimmy Carter visited my hometown. My dad put me on his shoulders so I could see the leader of the free world board Air Force One. A few years later, when President Ronald Reagan drove through the downtown district where I grew up, I stood on my tiptoes to see him pass by. When I was in high school, a buddy of mine and I learned that President George Bush was coming to town, so we stood on the edge of a local highway with a banner we had made. For some reason, the Secret Service didn't ask us to leave, and when the motorcade passed, President Bush leaned forward in his limousine and gave the two of us a thumbs-up. It was worth the sunburn we received while waiting!
And after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, I was invited to the White House with other pastors to discuss rebuilding plans with President George W. Bush. After passing through two security checkpoints, we were ushered into a room where the most powerful man in the world sat fifteen feet away from an ordinary man like me. The minute I sat down, I decided not to say a word unless called upon. But the pastor sitting across from me decided to do just the opposite.
He started talking and didn't stop. I was not thinking, Love thy neighbor. I was thinking, Beat thy neighbor. He talked so much we didn't get to hear what the president had to say.
Every morning I have an appointment with someone far more powerful than the president. I close my office door early in the morning — and before I turn on my phone or computer, before I pick up a book or look at my schedule, I sit in a chair and don't say anything.
I invite the God of the universe to speak to me.
Those ten minutes of silence do more for me than anything else I do in the course of a day. In the midst of all the voices that clamor for my attention, hearing the voice of God centers me and calms me.
God is a dad who loves to speak to his children. He's also a dad who loves to hear his children speak to him.
Throughout the Gospels Jesus refers to God as Abba — an Aramaic word meaning Dad. And Jesus invites us to refer to him that way too.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Me Too by Jon Weece. Copyright © 2016 Jon Weece. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Begin Here — All of Us Are Like the Rest of Us, xi,PART 1: THE CROSS — WHAT JESUS DID, 1,
Chapter 1 Vulnerability: A Three-Legged Race, 3,
Chapter 2 Accessibility: Lucille, 11,
Chapter 3 Ability: Give Me Your Lunch Money, 21,
Chapter 4 Personality: Baywatch, Beethoven, and Bacon, 30,
Chapter 5 Identity: You, Me, and ET, 40,
Chapter 6 Humility: Kintsugi, 50,
Chapter 7 Receptivity: Some Dirt Under Their Nails, 59,
PART 2: THE CHURCH — WHAT JESUS IS DOING, 71,
Chapter 8 Inclusivity: From Crumbs to Communion, 73,
Chapter 9 Opportunity: A Dad Who Understands Moms, 84,
Chapter 10 Integrity: Crooked Lines, 94,
Chapter 11 Responsibility: Baby Powder, 103,
Chapter 12 Hospitality: Welcome Mats and Black Magic Markers, 113,
Chapter 13 Availability: Trapped on a Plane with a Skunk, 120,
Chapter 14 Unity: Good Donuts, Bad Theology, 129,
Chapter 15 Spontaneity: A Boat in Commerce, Oklahoma, 139,
PART 3: THE CITY — WHAT JESUS WILL DO, 149,
Chapter 16 Sensitivity: Flight 5191, 151,
Chapter 17 Reliability: Simplexity, 160,
Chapter 18 Absurdity: Bother Him, 169,
Chapter 19 Priority: Interrobang, 178,
Chapter 20 Eternity: The Already Not Yet, 183,
End Here — Rest for All of Us, 195,
Acknowledgments, 199,
Notes, 201,
About the Author, 205,