silly Pixar movies and deep longings of the soul

The deep longing started in me back in late middle school.  I was becoming more and more committed to following Jesus, and I was also a big reader.  My dad started giving me some of the books that had shaped his life, books from the Joshua series and Mike Yaconelli.  

One book that left a deep mark was Unveiled at Last by Bob Sjogren, which bore the subtitle "Discover God's Hidden Message from Genesis to Revelation."  It revealed God's heart for the world, and how He so much desired to see people from every tongue and tribe and nation come to know Him, much like the Perspectives class does.  

As an eighth grader, I was a pretty analytical guy. "I've only got one life to live.  And if I don't live it for God, it doesn't really count for anything.  And if I want to live for God, I should do all I can to tell people about Him and let them know who He is."  Seemed simple enough.  So from there to sum it up, it's basically been my heart cry that "I want to change the world for the Kingdom of Heaven."  

From there, I started to brainstorm this huge story-arc of my life, where I would get passionate about going to a certain place and doing certain amazing things.  But then as I went on I would find out about something else and decide "oh, this is it!  This is the thing I'm passionate about that I want to go for it and use to change the world!"  After getting passionate about a few different things, I started to instead see my life as a miniseries of adventures.

I wanna do it!  I wanna dream big dreams, go far and deep and wide!  

And God's been dealing with me on that a little bit.  Of course He would use the movie Up by Pixar, should have seen that coming, right? My roommate Chris is getting married soon, so he's been looking for any extra reasons possible to hang out with us.  Dollar theater Pixar movie was a great choice.

If you've seen Up, you'd know it's a surprisingly melancholy tale of love and loss and unfulfilled dreams.  Carl, the progatonist, falls in love with a young wild-eyed girl named Ellie.  Ellie and Carl start their very own young explorer's club.  Ellie shows him a big leather bound edition that has a front cover stating, "My Adventure Book."  She thumbs through the blank pages and speaks of the great and wonderful things she's going to do with her life to fill those pages.  Life fast-forwards quickly with a moving montage of clips.  Carl and Ellie get married, buy a house, fix it up, try and save up multiple times for an adventure, try and have a kid--seeking a doctor's help multiple times, and grow older until Ellie passes away peacefully, but in an untimely fashion.  They never had the big adventure that they wanted.

The movie goes on, and Carl finally sets off with a bumbling 9 year old boy scout and they have the adventure that Ellie had always dreamed and spoken of.  In a dramatic moment about 2/3 the way through the movie, Carl get's out the large volume, "My Adventure Book," to finally fill one of the old empty pages with the long awaited adventure.

When he reaches the final pages that he expects to be blank, a surprise awaits him.  Before Ellie passed, she DID fill all those blank pages that were waiting for lifetime adventures.  But instead of pictures of waterfalls in South America, the pages are full of Carl and Ellie.  Their wedding day, their first house, the times in life where they were the CLOSEST.  

At this point I was a wreck.  C'mon, how can a stupid computer animated cartoon get emotional like that?  After the movie, Chris and I were walking to the car and he lamented that he gets too emotional at silly things like that.  I confessed that I, too, was moved in a deep way.  At that point, we both decided to stop feeling wrong and unmanly about the movie, but let it speak to us.  We went home and worshiped God out of this openness.

With worship music in the background, I found myself on my knees with my face buried in the carpet, getting it wet with tears.  God brought back to mind the "My Adventure Book" from the movie.  I already have a "My Adventure Book," at least mentally.  I felt like He was saying to me, the most monumental and memorable things from your life are not when you accomplish the most, Lance, but when you and I are closest.

wwwwwwwwwWWWWhoooooaaa

Thank you, Jesus.  I love you.  Really, I do want to love you.  Draw me closer to you.

And here's the clip from the movie, what I could find of it on YouTube.  Except the book title is in Russian.... but just know that it spells out "My Adventure Book."

just gotta write these down -- Red Hat at Army Football game

Okay old defunct blog, you ready for some new life? Cuz we're cominatcha like a frieght train. Jesus, you've just been so ridiculous in my life lately that it NEEEEDS to be chronicled. Gotta write it down somewhere, so this is the place. Buckle up, here we go!

It was the last Iowa State home football game against Army, September 26th. Iowa State games are... well, at the risk of quenching the school spirit.... the games are boring. There, I said it. So to spice things up, a couple friends and I prayed together before the game, asking God to direct us in any way he wants. There are 50,000 people gathered, surely someone out there could use a little more Jesus in their life!

Our prayer time was short, but long enough to hear from God. One of my roomates heard "my faithful" and it was cool because later he was able to have deep discussions with some of his faithful leaders that he's been discipling. Grant saw the pine trees behind the hill we stand on at the game, and a vapor trail circle appear there. I saw two things, the first a blonde woman in a red hat under the bleachers with her back to the game. The second was a dark haired guy with an E on his chest on the jumbotron or something, not totally sure what he was up to. I mean, it's not all 100% science here, people!

So at the game we basically just watched the first half like normal. I wanted to step out and do something risky, but hey, start slow. Finally about half time we were back by the pine trees on top of the hill and my friend Kyle was there. His eye was hecka red, he said he was helping his roommate with a car problem and ethanol splattered in his eye. So we circled around him and prayed for his eye. After praying for a lil bit, we stopped and asked what he was feeling. He looked like there was something tugging on his heart, and said that more than his eye he was feeling God dig at some unconfessed sin in his life. He said a little bit about it, and it was actually something that Grant had just had a new release of victory about in his life. Awesome! So Grant and Kyle went off to share and pray together.

I still had my list of people burning a hole in my pocket. Kendalle showed up and was excited to walk around with me. We did a lap around the concourse, looking around, talking, trying to stay in tune with God. Nothing. I start to review what we're looking for: "well, i have two things on my list, but we could also pray for anyone with a physical ailment." Bam, right then the crowd parts and there is a guy on crutches as I finish saying the "ment" on "ailment." *Gulp* guess that one's for us. We walk up to the guy, ask him how he hurt himself. He tells us the story, really nice and warm guy. We told him that we were praying before the game for chances to pray for people to be healed, and can we pray for him now? He says great, he's catholic and asks for prayers all the time. So we laid hands on his shoulders and prayed that God would heal and reveal himself to him. It was cool. Didn't see the compound fracture in a cast immediately snap into alignment with heaven, but cool nonetheless. He sincerely thanked us and headed back to his family.

With that one in our belt, we were feeling encouraged and bold in the Lord. But time went on and Kendalle and I kept walking around the concourse. And walking. And walking. Nothing. I see a blonde woman under the bleachers with her back to the game, but NO red hat. Three out of four ain't bad, right? I almost walk up to her, but she bolts. Humph.

The game is kinda winding down now by this point. It's midway through the fourth quarter. I ask Kendalle, "do you really think we're going to find a blonde woman with a red hat under the bleachers?" And he says "you mean like that woman over there?" Sure enough, right outside the concession stand was a woman in her concession stand uniform talking on her phone. The hat was red, her hair was blonde, we were under the bleachers! I blurt out:

"Wow, that's awesome! But her back is not to the game."

At that very moment, she walks over to the fence and turns her back to us. And to the game. Okay God, we got it! But now what? She ends her phone conversation and goes right back in the concession stand door. It's obvious that with her red uniform, she is in charge, and she is standing behind all thes people in black vests who run the cash registers. So how do we talk to her? They are starting to close the outside windows of the concession stand, leaving only the middle one open!

Kendalle and I just kinda gawk at the menu and stand awkwardly just out of line. Finally, red hat lady is close to the counter, so we walk up.

"Can I help you?" she asks.

"Well, not exactly..." I mumble.

[awkward pause as we look up at the menu again]

"So you're not going to order anything?"

I finally say, "Well, actually maybe we can help you. This is goinog to sound really strange, but before the game we were praying, and I saw a picture of a blonde woman in a red hat under the bleachers with her back to the game, and just a second ago when you were on your phone, that was YOU."

She is pleasantly surprised. She looked really tickled at the idea, but she didn't know what to say at all. One of the cashiers chimed in, "Are you some kind of forture teller or something?" I quickly replied "No, but I'm a follower of Jesus, and He loves this woman so much that he knows every hair on her head, every hope of her heart, and he certainly knows when she's under the bleachers in a red hat." Okay, it wasn't quite that eloquent, but that general idea.

From there, it came out that these cashiers, and actually ALL the cashiers were volunteers from Christ Community Church in Carroll, Iowa. They do this as a fundraiser for their youth ministries. And the red hat woman, Pat, is the one employee from Iowa State who oversees all of them. One of the cashiers chimed in and said "Ya know, Pat, God put it on my heart a couple quarters ago to really ask you how you were doing. I didn't take the time then, so here we are now!"

Pat couldn't really think of a reason why God would be getting her attention. The word I had as the tag-along with the details was "God wants to whisper in the silence." So that's kinda what it seemed like here, mostly silence in her life and here we come whispering. She said that her foster daughter goes to Cornerstone, my church. But it seemed like she didn't really have a church home or anything going on in that area of her life.

Well, from there Kendalle and I prayed for her. Just that God would reveal himself to her, and thanking Him that He made this happen. It as neat. We walked off, the, as the cashier who had more of a pre-existing relationship with Pat talked with her more. It was really encouraging. Kendalle and I did a dance for Jesus once we were mostly out of sight.

We were riding cloud nine, but was there more to come? Kendalle pointed out that we didn't have a guy with an E on his chest yet. And Grant said he still didn't know what to make about the word he had about "circle by the pine trees." Kendalle and I said, wait, didn't a circle of us pray for Kyle by the pine trees? Ohhhh yeah forgot about that one! So yeah, I don't know where to end the story really except from there we left, praising Jesus, and encouraged to step out more in His name.