Eight years ago today, Tammy called me at my office to tell me a plain had just creamed into the World Trade Center. What she described was gruesome enough, but who knew what a few minutes would tell. I rushed to a nearby television and watched history morph and tangle before me. You know the rest of the story. Our American naivety was disrupted and then completely washed away.

The next two anniversaries I winced whenever the footage was rehearsed over and again. Don’t stop showing us those plains, I thought. We can’t forget what this day cost.

Today, I woke up at 5A.M., lit up my phone and saw the date 9-11-09 displayed. Not even a flench. Before 9A.M., I had taken my kids to school and was ordering my dark roast at Starbucks. Still nothing.

Copies of The New York Times were piled in a news rack and I picked one up to thin-slice the front page. I got sucker punched, though, by the oversized photo on page one. It left me stifled. It was New York City. Below the pic was an article on how she had changed since that horrific day eight years before.

Today was 9/11.

I was ashamed; sorry that I had already spent four waking hours forgetting the price. Death. Loss. War. Now, as I write these regrettable sentences, I pause to pray for this place I call home, this vast heartland that beats strong through my veins and history.

America is still here. Thanks you God. Light our way.

What if I could go back in time–Marty McFly style–and talk to myself about the future? What if I could give myself advice or warnings about the road ahead? Well, today I proved that time travel is possible. Yes, I spoke to myself from 10 years back.

Stay with me. I’m not loosing my grip on reality…yet.

Here’s how it happened: A guy contacted me last week and asked to meet. I agreed and we connected at my favorite coffee shop this morning.

His story is freakishly similar to mine at twenty-three. He is young in his marriage, insecure in leadership and overcompensates by staying guarded. He has become the “accidental pastor” of a church here in Lynchburg. How he got there is bizarre, but not unlike my own story a decade before. One day recently the former pastor walks up to him matter-of-factly and says, “I’m leaving. Can you lead these people now?” So, my new friend stands there and wonders why he’s not in Kansas anymore. And does God know that some twister just threw him over the leadership rainbow?

Deja Vu distracted me a bit, but I refocused and ask myself the question: If I could go back in time what would I say to myself? These were two things I covered based on that question.

1) Figure out how God has wired you ASAP. I wasted a few years distracted by things I’ll never be great at; they’re weakness I can manage, but not sharpen. The church was held back because I was trying to be a leader that isn’t my skin (insert the Saul’s-amour-for-David clipart here). With that, it’s one thing to have heros and mentors, it’s another thing to subconsciously imitate them. One day God said clearly, “You’re not that guy. You’re Jon. So stop trying to be him.” Got it…most of time, a little T.D. Jakes still gets loosed when I’m not looking.

2) Leading is your role, not your relationship with God. I had to realize that before I’m a leader, I’m man who must seek to know and experience God. There were seasons I tried to cut and paste leadership principles overtop what required God’s revelation instead, the stuff He was saying to me, not the conference speaker or best-seller. Me. Read great books and listen to the latest speakers, learn principles and apply them, but remember they have little power without God’s unique voice and vision ringing loud from within a man’s heart. Bottom line: Success in leadership depends on me being personal with God. Sound obvious, but you’d be surprised.

There are other makeshift proverbs I shared, but I thought these needed a some light for now.

Meanwhile, try asking yourself the time travel question and see who God puts across the table. You may be surprised how He teaches you both from your former self.

“Entire chunks of my life make sense to me now,” seems to be the Quote-of-the-Day after our three services. Pretty bold, I know.

But I’ll admit, this Sunday’s truth was liberating for me too. I’ve grappled with the same questions you did. How do I get fired up about tough times when I don’t get the point, when I’ve barely survived, much less flourished from them (James 1:2, 3)? How do I trust that good things happen in the foulness of life, when all I feel is destroyed by it (Romans 8:28)?

Song writer Imogen Heap broke it down, “Everybody says, that time heals everything. But what of the wretched hallow? The endless in-between? Are we just going to wait it out?” Such a necessary question for you and me. How do we make sense of a breaking point or breakdown? Do we “wait it out” and hope that time just fixes it? Or is there something else?

God gives us two effects:
1) The Point: Sometimes He just unveils exactly why we went through X, Y, and Z. God sneaks up in a blah moment, flips on the light and says, “Hey, do you remember when you went through that tar pit back-in-the-day? Well, here’s the reason why…”

Otherwise, we get something else.

2) The Promise: A lot of times we don’t get any explanation for the trial; it’s just God doing what He does to grow us up. So instead of getting The Point, He gives us a promise instead. What promise? Someday He will renew everything (Heaven, Earth and History), walk among us fully (no shrouds) and unfold the mysteries of space and time, and, if we still care, the brilliant colors of our human story (Rev 21:1-5).

Like it or not, The Point or The Promise is the essence that fills the “in-between.” It’s what allows joy in the sadness, and good-stuff to shine through the bleariness ahead or behind.

Makes me HOPE BIG and a little hope world.

I question why God lets me be a dad sometimes. Yep, I broke my daughters heart recently by trying to fit her with a dream that was not her own.

Landyn came home from 4th grade and said she’d picked the instrument she wants to learn throughout her school career. This is great, I thought. She’s probably chosen wisely, something that will take her far in life, like the piano or something with strings. Think Alicia Keyes on the ivory, or Taylor Swift on the guitar. It’s terrible, but I tuned out for a second and daydreamed her performance at the Grammy Awards; the family was all front and center with John Mayer.

Then she said, “I’m going to learn the flute, Daddy.”

“The flute? Oh? Okay…that’s nice.” Like her mother, she can smell pretence from miles away.

“Do you like the flute, Daddy?” I don’t think the question was a trap, but definitely some female sonar.

“Do you like the flute?” I deflected. Inside, I was thinking, she can’t be serious. What good will it do her future? Unless she’s in a Jethro Tull cover band, she’ll never make a living as a musician. It just didn’t make sense to play the flute.

So, the next morning I delicately asked her, “Landyn, what do you think about learning the violin instead of the flute?” Here’s how I figured it: Choose the violin and learn the notes, transfer it someday to the fretboard. You know, play guitar later in life. My plan was foolproof.

She looked in my eyes and then down towards the floor and then back at me again. Tears now dripped down her skin and then she sniffled. Her heart was smashed like a warehouse pane and I had been the vandal.

Immediately, my aloofness came full circle and it was clear that I had wounded her. She accepted my repeated apologies and later said I was taking it way too serious.

Truth is, I didn’t get it at first; I had missed the point. The flute isn’t about a foreseeable step towards her future career success. Instead, it’s her learning to truly love the beauty and mystery of music…and all that. But more so, it’s her knowing that her dad will be there and be proud of her dreams.

Step back, Jon, embrace her dreams and have a relationship with your daughter.

Just say you’re sorry. Yes, we want to be right and make him or her wrong, but life’s too short to stonewall an offense we’ve caused.

“Prove it,” you say.

Below is a text messaged conversation I had with Tammy this morning. Backstory: I rushed her off the phone, because I strenuously dislike (hate) talking on the phone…with anyone. Ironic, I know, because my calling is communicating with people; but the phone is to me what snakes were to Indiana Jones. Too strange to discuss now, but I’ll explain in a future post. Bottom line, I was a jerk to my wife.

Text from Jon: “Sorry 4 my insensitivity this a.m. I was putting preference above your feelings & I’m sorry. Forgive?”

Within seconds she responds.

Text from Tammy: “Absolutely, sorry for being so sensitive. Love u!!! Actually I am crazy about u!!”

I’ll admit, an apology is not usually this simple. Sometimes it requires more than a couple emoticon laced sentences for someone to gage its authenticity. Furthermore, the forgiveness is not typically that available.

But, the principle is still enduring. Sorry can heal the cracks and caverns of generational wounds. Start with the small ones and work up to the big ones as you go. It will transform your day, but more so your life.

In American culture we try to live by the principle “get what you pay for,” or least we expect it. That means if we pay or work for “x” then we want to reap the conventional benefits of “x.” Sounds good, but we all know that reality doesn’t always deliver on that. True, sometimes we get more, but often times we get less or even nothing.

Maybe you bought the $200 warranty on the Gizmotron, and it promised to fix or replace itself if something trivial or nuclear happened. Well, it happened and the warranty loop-holed you into not paying up. Insert emotional response here…

The challenge with get-what-you-pay-for mindset is that it doesn’t always apply to things like relationships. And Christ is unapologetic about teaching us that it does not. Example: Sometimes I invest tons of our energy into someone, and they rarely or never seem to give back what I paid for. Seems unfair and makes me question everything Christ teaches about why to love, serve and lead the people in my life no matter what they do not give back.

Come on, we’ve all asked ourselves why we keep putting up with that person or those people; they never pay anything but heartache.

But then stop and ask yourself: Is God always getting what He paid for in me? He sent His Son to die for my sins, to suffer and pay for my guilt and baggage and heartache. Does He ever scratch His head and think, I’m definitely not getting a good return on my investment with him or her?

Hmmm? Ouch.

The bottom line is, we hope not. In fact, He promises us that He doesn’t, and that we don’t want Him too. His ask of you and me? Give away that same grace and patience to those people that I give to you.

As a leader, I’m a sucker for the touchy-feely seasons of leadership, when the momentum is unstoppable and everyone’s giving a thumbs-up to the vision. But then it happens…BAM…crisis or doldrums sack me like a spine-cracking linebacker.

So, I lay there on the turf and look up at the stars before I blackout. I want to give up, or at least whine about it. But then I try to remember the coaching God gave guys that came way before me, and had a much bigger part to play in the Big Game. Look what He says to Joshua (1:5), “No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

God gave Joshua a bottom line: “Before you take these people to fight for their destiny, remember that you’re protected and not alone.” No alone? Yep, God has too much invested in you and me to leave us hanging on the mission He’s given us.

Christ shouted it out too. “I’m with you ‘til the end of the age,” he told his crew–which includes us, now.

Does God allow us to feel the impact of the world we’re helping Him rescue with His Gospel? Absolutely, but remember this when the touchy-feelies have been knocked out of you temporarily: Stay on mission and God will block for you; He’s got your back and until the game is over.