Fireproof Junk Drawer

The days of teenage heartthrob Kirk have long since passed but I admire Kirk's desire to create movies that share his faith and can potentially change people’s lives. However, growing up in the early 90's I was personally a bigger fan of his sister and looked forward to the TGIF lineup like none other day of the televised week. Digressing, yet admittedly reminiscing on crushes from Junior High (not that I had a crush on a certain Full House actress but I am just saying...) is not what has prompted me to my current struggling perspective and desire to share it here. As Crystal mentioned in her blog we recently went to see Kirk Cameron's new movie Fireproof and we both enjoyed it quite a bit. Unfortunately, seeing the movie has only personally added to a mounting level of conviction in my own heart which promises to make this post apologetically longer that it probably needs to be.

However, before digging into the movie, I think I have to start with a number of recent influences in my life to put the complete picture in alignment.

The first of influences is the book I am in the middle of, Mark Driscoll's newest book "Death by Love".



Illuminating Christ’s love for us through all the junk that happens in life and how only in Jesus' death on the cross can we truly find freedom from that junk. The book is a compilation of a series of letters to whom I believe are all based upon the real lives of people he has pastored through the junk. I like to call it junk because I can think of no better way to explain the sins we commit against each other (the stealing, lying, cheating, gossiping, back stabbing, pillaging, and killing we continually do to each other).

As a kid growing up I had a junk drawer where I stored all my favorite possessions. My dresser had four drawers and I had one whole drawer dedicated to my junk. Allocation of my clothes was often times an issue but the bottom drawer always remained sacred and wholly devoted to the junk. Even, at this time in my life I can still recall many of the trinkets I kept within this drawer and most of them had little monetary worth but for some reason they meant something to me and I kept them safely hidden where only I could find them, out of sight from anyone that passed through.

In the same way, today I have a junk drawer within me that hides all of the junk in my life so that no one knows what’s inside it. A lot of us deem a special piece of our heart where we can sacredly store our secret sinful desires and problems. It’ s really cumbersome and I have to admit that carrying the junk around ends up getting pretty tiresome after awhile. Unfortunately, not very many us are really that good at keeping it completely separate and it has profound consequences on other areas of our lives. Sadly I think many people get so tired of carrying around the junk for so long that they feel they cannot escape from the weight and become hopeless to the point of wanting to give up. As Mr. Driscoll points out through each of the letters in his book, it is only through Christ that we can find liberation from all the junk in our lives.

Secondly I have been making my way through Mr. Driscoll's current sermon series on Song of Songs. With your imagination running wild on all the things that you have ever heard about the Song of Songs imagine a whole sermon series devoted to the book. If you don't know what the book is about, its goes on with phrases such as "lips like a scarlet ribbon... breasts like fawns..." well, you get the idea. The book is really all about a relationship and a dialog between the lover and his beloved. What I appreciate most about Pastor Mark's preaching is the fact that he is willing to discuss any and all issues that arise from the topic of having a relationship with your spouse and what God had in mind for us to intimately love our spouses. The things you were told as a kid not to talk about in public, he talks about them with a biblical perspective that is both refreshing and enlightening. It is not just about sex, it’s about being the husband God wants us to be and truly loving our spouses. It is so humbling to often reflect on his messages and be so disappointed with the husband and father I am when God has so much more in mind for me.

Thirdly, a song has been continually on repeat in my head from David Crowder, "Surely We Can Change." If you haven't heard the song before here is a youtube compilation I found with the song playing.



I thought it was a neat compilation but its been singing the lyrics out loud that have truly captivated my soul. The verses are my burdensome questions and the chorus my prayer. All this carries to a crescendo of resolution with "the world is about to change." Then much to my dismay the song ends and I am left sitting here in tears because I really do want the world to change and it hasn't. I guess it probably never will as long as I am just sitting here singing a song... as Mr. Crowder so eloquently has put it, "the problem it seems is you and me." This is what has been weighing my heart down lately, the problem of you and me.

Before I get focused on you and me though, I promised the movie. Fireproof is a man living his life for all the reasons we are continually told by everything around us to live our lives for. As his marriage is dissolving and divorce is imminent his dad convinces him through a dare to give it one last chance for 40 days. In that 40 day dare the man discovers Christ’s love and begins to understand what it means to love your spouse. Not to give away too much of the movie, if you haven't seen it, but it works both ways and the wife learns what it means love her husband as well. As with any Christian based movie there is a certain amount of cheesy dialog that causes you to cringe a little but that is expected and must be some sort of production requirement unbeknownst to the rest of us. Never the less, as I mentioned above, the movie is very enjoyable and a great conversation starter with your spouse. I would recommend seeing the movie and then having dinner with your significant other if you can arrange it. The car ride home just isn’t quite long enough.

The underlying message of the movie is pretty strong and, as alluded to previously, what has been troubling me the most as the common theme in all of the above influences I mentioned, is me. Wanting what I want when I want it and constantly wanting it. “It” is not a specific thing like a new car or a bigger house or anything like that, it's what I don't want or don't want to do in a particular given moment.

Maybe like changing a smelly diaper. Who wants to do that anyways? But rebelling and fighting my wife over the matter, that’s where the problem is introduced. Those of you that are parents, you know it really isn't that big of a deal and it takes a minute (or ten for some of us) and your done. The kid is happy, the smell is gone, and you can get back to what it was that was so important you didn't have time to change the kid to start with. The truth is the diapers don't really have much to do with it. It's having to do something other than what I had intended to do before the smelly kid came along.

Each day I find that so much of the day that I had planned out in my mind doesn't match the day that my spouse, kids, family, job, or friends had planned out for me. So what can I do with that? I wish more than anything I could rid myself of my own self-absorption and seek to serve. It sounds easy but it is so terribly hard and it is not like I am even succeeding a small portion of the time. I know in my skewed perspective I think I am bending over backwards but that I truly serve others very little in comparison to the opportunities that are presented to me.

I think that so many of the troubles that plague our relationships stem from this self-absorption with wanting to continually please ourselves before others. Personally, half the time I don’t even mind completing the requested act for someone else but what ends up killing me in the end is not getting recognition for what I have done. My pride takes over and I tell myself I am better than this, I don’t deserve to be treated like this, its my turn now, and you don’t understand what its like to be me. I go off and do whatever it is that I have convinced myself is the right thing.

I often like to think that I fulfill what it is that I have previously committed to do even at the sake of frustrating others when something else comes up. I remember being told growing up that you are a man of your word and as many things fail you follow through with what you say you are going to do. I was taught to believe that it doesn’t mean you can’t fail but if you do you make sure to apologize and do your best to make the situation right.

I find it is all too common for all of us to point fingers when things don’t end up in the outcome we want them to. When you have committed to do something and it ends up in conflict with something else you could be doing how are you supposed to resolve the conflict? I list priorities in my head in order of importance and that is what I follow despite introducing discord into what someone else has deemed a different list of priorities. It is often difficult when the situation changes and you can no longer do what you once thought would be no problem. Sometimes someone will point this out or I sometimes come to my own realization and then I end up plagued by guilt and it tears me apart within. I am frustrated with the other person because they don’t understand the situation like I do and I am upset with myself for not being able to do what I wanted to do. The guilt takes my legs out from underneath me and I fall down believing in my own failures and telling myself that this is all I will ever truly amount to. It’s a downward spiral and amounts to more of that junk I mentioned earlier.

Finally, I turn to God and he gazes upon me and says “My son, what are you doing? Have you forgotten again? It’s not about you and what you do or don’t do. I have already done everything that needs to be done and instead of you spending your time on all those things that aren’t really important, I just want you to focus on me. Leave the other things behind and just focus on me and doing what I told you to do. All else will happen when it happens. I love you and I want you to be telling other people that I love them too and that’s it. I’ll take care of everything else and I promise to be here to go through it with you.” Gaining the strength to get back on my feet I push aside many of the feelings. Never completely wanting to let go, I close the junk drawer again and act like nothing has ever bothered me nor ever will.

I think we all need to empty our junk drawers and stop hurting each other. We spend so much time focusing on ourselves and if we could choose to focus just a little of the that time on others, especially those that are in our immediate families, I think it would transform our relationships. Maybe the remedy really is within each of us individually? My prayer continues to be:

Where there is pain
Let us bring grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Let us be brave
Where there is misery
Let us bring them relief
And surely we can change…