The Bad News About Good Things

Years ago, I started my own church.

It’s a super long story, but Elaine and I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas for a year of training, preparation, and fundraising, then to Denver where she would work at a local hospital, and I would get started with something I had been dreaming of for a long time.

At one point in our prep year, a guy I had just met offered to donate a few pieces of art that he wanted to get rid of. He made it clear that he didn’t want to donate any money but thought his art might help. I didn’t expect much — motivational posters maybe? Instead, he handed me three original works, one by Marc Chagall, the other two by some guy named Picasso, and all the accociated certificates and paperwork.

I was blown away, as you might imagine, maybe a bit convinced that God was involved in what we were preparing to do, working a little magic here and there.

On the day of the acquisition, loaded with cardboard and bubble-wrap, I wandered around my friend’s very large front yard, waiting for him to get home. His sketchy dog followed me everywhere I went and, when the time was right, bit me on the leg. Did God do that too? Was it a sign? What did it mean? I applied my keen, theologically attuned mind to the situation and concluded that the artwork was clearly God’s seal of approval. The dog was just evil.

A few Band-Aides later, Elaine and I packed up, said goodbye to Little Rock, and headed West. As I made the 15-hour drive to Denver with $90,000 worth of art, bubble wrapped in the front seat of my U-Haul, I was full of hope. The world spread out before me like an empty high plains highway.

I couldn’t wait to get started. Our church was going to be different, finely tuned for the many in Denver who are curious/interested in hearing a bit more about Jesus, but no interest in mounting the cultural barriers so endemic to modern American Christianity.

I’ve pursued many good ideas in these 56 years of living, but few exploited my weaknesses like this one. Within two years, convinced that things shouldn’t be as hard as they were, I threw in the towel.

To this day, I question that decision. On one hand, you wouldn’t believe the mistakes I made; moments of selfishness and immaturity that still haunt me. On the other hand, what was I expecting? How could something that big be easy?

Since then, there have been a few other pursuits — equally impossible — that I’ve managed to stick with over the years. They, too, have been really good ideas, and taught me one important, albeit unfortunate truth about good pursuits.

Nothing good is easy

It’s an awful reality: if we set out to something truly good in this life, it will come bubble-wrapped in trouble.

I didn’t understand this until Elaine and I were a few years past our church planting days, two kids in, and 10 years of marriage under our belts. Up until that point, I was living under the idea that, if my life is frequently difficult, I must be doing something wrong, and/or the people I’m trying to do good things with are somehow getting in the way.

Like most humans, I’ve often blamed others for making things so difficult. Married folk know how easy that is. If your spouse would just stop/start doing XYZ, things would be so much better.

We need a scapegoat, a human one. If it’s not ourselves, it’ll need to be someone else, which is the easier of the two options, but one that will bring the most anger and bitterness into your life should you choose it.

The same goes for parenting, especially in the teenage chapters. Our kids can be impossible at times (directly proportional to their proximity to 16). In those moments we either blame them for their behavior, or we blame ourselves. In both scenarios, we’re tempted to quit; if our kids are THAT bad and/or we suck THAT much at parenting, what’s the point of engaging any of this mess?

Though I have limited experience in the pursuit of good things, I would impart one piece of wisdom to anyone hoping to help, change, feed, redirect, or otherwise improve all or part of world: you’ve chosen to dance on the devil’s lawn, and he/she/it will respond, sometimes with lethal force.

The greater the amount of good in the pursuit, it seems, the stronger the resistance.

As a believer in an all-powerful creator who self-identifies as “love,” I have no idea why the world is set up this way. Sure, many good things come out of this arrangement, but why set up the world where those good things can’t come a different way?

The reason might lie beyond our ability to understand, anathema as that is, so why not go ahead and stick with the good stuff? A life entirely void of good pursuits is going to be just as difficult, right?

The ones that I’ve stuck with have shaken the weakest, most selfish parts from me, leaving behind a fuller expression of myself and, I believe, the person God wants me to be. So, I say go, get married, start that church, adopt those kids, give till it hurts, love those teenagers, make insane sacrifices on behalf of others. When it hurts, that might be confirmation that you’re on the right track.

While I have alot of quits in my history, some of them were needed. I’ll never forget the phone call I had with my mentors a few days before we closed the doors of our church. None of them said, “NO! You’re so close. Hang in there!” They agreed, along with a few other close friends and one wife, that this might not be a good fit.

I’m still haunted by the hell of giving up on such a big dream, and the relational fallout that Elaine and I experienced afterward. Watching my friends go on to start churches that are today successful and thriving makes me feel like a bit of loser sometimes.

But I know that all good pursuits are, in addition to being difficult, very risky. Failure happens sometimes (or worse) and we’re compelled to pat ourselves on the back for trying (if we’re still alive), and move forward.

So, moving forward, I don’t want to pursue good things in a vain attempt to make myself feel better, or prove something, or redeem myself. Our world requires a bunch of people who are willing to pursue good things — damn whatever torpedoes. Some might call these folks idealistic, but the world doesn’t turn without them.

We are all tasked with the care and feeding of each other and for some reason that’s going to hurt.

And that’s a good thing.