One of the things I’m glad about is that I’m still alive! I know that may sound silly, but bear with me. There is a sort of depression, whether extreme or subtle, that can creep up on us and rob us of the joy of living. That nagging sense that my life is all out of whack, that nothing really matters, that everything is just a little bleak around the edges. Certainly it’s possible to find moments of pleasure in the midst of all that, and I’m not necessarily talking about a suicidal mood — although certainly prolonged periods of gripping depression can edge dangerously towards that.

The question is one of quality. As a Christian, I’m called to a higher state of being than simply “going through the motions” and seeing one dreary day of drudgery pass by after another. If being in a love relationship with the Creator of the universe and the Savior of my soul is not enough to stave off weariness and frustration, than something’s seriously amiss. Frankly, I don’t buy the oft-spoken axiom that happiness is a fleeting emotion and we shouldn’t bother chasing after it. Balderdash! I absolutely want to be happy, and I believe that Jesus wants me to be happy. But perhaps happiness isn’t what we think it is.

I’ll define happiness this way: I know who I am, I know Who loves me and I love Him back, I know what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m doing it. Following after that God-given sense of purpose and direction, no matter the odds, no matter the cost, no matter the hardships that might come along with the territory, that’s what brings true happiness. That’s what makes you glad to be alive!

God wants to anoint each of us with the oil of gladness. We were never meant to live in a world of dull gray. We were meant to live in a world of radiant technicolor, full of excitement, danger, adventure, romance, and creativity. Chase after this mighty, awesome God, and let Him fill you with His joy, His pleasure, and His gladness today and every day!

Chilling is hard for me. I’m not the kind of guy that just goes and hangs out to yak it up, have a few laughs, have a good time, do the work, get paid, go home. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly know how to enjoy myself, but my normal tendency is to be always living in tomorrow, planning, pondering, thinking about the future, wondering if I’m actually accomplishing anything I’ve set out to do. Some people worry, worry, worry about everything that could go wrong. Not me — I worry about not doing anything at all. Nothing stresses me out more than inaction on the things I care about.

Mark Batterson talks about sins of “omission” — the right things that we fail to do, as opposed to sins of “commission” which are the wrong things that we do. Sins of omission frighten me. There’s a riveting scene in The Two Towers where Aragorn asks Eowyn: “what do you fear, my lady?” Her reply: “A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.”

My grandfather on my mom’s side died before I was born, so I never got to know him. One thing I know about him, however, is that he never finished anything. He married multiple times, he made and lost several fortunes, and then he died. His legacy? Nothing, expect for the fact that he did love my mom, his daughter, and was a much better authority figure for her than her dysfunctional mother. Aside from that, though, it was largely a waste of effort all those years. Every time he “conquered” a mountain, he moved on to the next one. He never learned how to occupy the territory he had taken.

In my quest to chase after my dreams, nothing scares me more than to imagine myself at the end of my life looking upon an empty legacy. But there’s a subtle lie that creeps in when you are driven by this kind of fear-based motivation. The lie is that you are defined by what you accomplish. In the past, my identity always lay in my artistry, which meant that I was unfulfilled and unsuccessful unless I was making art and being recognized for my talent.

But as I’ve come to understand more about who God says I am and how he values me and defines me, I’ve come to realize that my identity lies in my relationship with God. I may be an artist, but first and foremost I am a child of God. And therefore, as long as I am loving on Daddy and listening to His voice, I am successful, and I am fulfilled.

Which brings me back to my original topic. I need to chill. I need to stop striving so hard, always looking towards the “next big thing” that I need to accomplish. I need to learn how to be content just…being. Being at one with God and my fellow man. What I do is a by-product of who I am, which actually means the less I try doing the right thing and the more I try being the right me, the more likely it is that the right things will get done.

There are times for fighting and times for looking ahead, but sometimes, it’s time to stop fighting and just, well, chill. And believe me, whenever I am able to get into that zone and chill out, it’s the best way to live. So, dude? Chill.

Then I realized something that’s increasingly been bothering me: our society’s addiction to controversy. With the 24 hour news cycle and the YouTube no-holds-barred coverage of every little tiny gaffe or strong statement, controversy is an industry and smears and attacks a modus operandi of the media. It isn’t their fault, of course — they publish controversy because people want it. People buy it in droves.

When’s the last time you read a news article talking about how folks came together for a common good to do something really lovely? Sure, you see something like that occasionally, filed as a “human interest” story — perhaps after some terrible disaster has struck. But, by and large, news is always bad news and our national conversation always negative.

I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the pundits. I’m sick of the stupid “watchdogs” that act like they’re protecting our interests. I’m sick of hearing about the latest leader’s screwup. There are better uses of my time and better ways to spend my energy.

Of course, by talking this way, I’m generating controversy over the idea of controversy. Ironic. Perhaps it’s just an inevitable aspect of human nature, and I should accept it for what it is. But somehow I’m still too idealistic to give in.

He’s started a very intriguing series on Grace’s blog entitled “The Middle Way”, and if future posts are as excellent as the first, I think we’re in for a real treat. Chris and I have talked a bit about this subject in the past, and though we see eye-to-eye on a great many things, nevertheless everyone has their own unique take on a topic, so I look forward to seeing where he goes with this.

But there is something I’m concerned about, and it’s this: there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of cross-pollination going on between us and other segments of the Christian Church in America. Now I fully understand maintaining a respectful distance from the fundamentalist critics who can’t stand the apostolic-prophetic movement and think we’re all a bunch of holy-roller heretics. It’s better just to smile and walk away. But there are a whole bunch of tremendous Christian leaders, thinkers, writers, and ministers out there who are on the cutting-edge of the evangelical mainstream or what some might dub the “emerging church” that we really should be in dialog with. Folks like Mark Batterson, Steven Furtick, Craig Groeschel, Dan Kimball — even Rob Bell. Bell in fact wrote a book I read a while ago called Velvet Elvis, and a lot of what he said was a spooky mirror image of what Bill Johnson wrote about in his book Dreaming with God. It’d be funny if they compared notes.

I don’t necessarily mean these people have to all get up on stage at a conference together and have a group hug. All I’m saying is that there are established networks of Christian leaders out there in various segments of the church, and it’s great that those networks exist, but they’re only networking with “each other” — i.e., the people that sort of think just like them. I think we do the Church a great disservice by only hanging out with our own theological kin. We need to be reaching out to people with all kinds of different viewpoints. If we truly love the Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves, and follow God’s commandments, then we should be in fellowship together. Heck, let’s even get a few charismatic Catholics on board — they’re a pretty interesting bunch.

So what do you say, O apostolic-prophetic people?

On a more amusing note, here’s my crazy pipe dream: I would love to see Mark Batterson (pastor at National Community Church) and Banning Liebscher (founder of JesusCulture and youth pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, CA) do a joint session some time. Mark is this jolly easygoing pastor dude who can make any spiritual challenge sound like a load of fun, and Banning is this crazy prophetic dude who is so engaging that he can get me thinking that going out and changing the world is actually doable. They may have different theological backgrounds in some respects (although Mark is an Assemblies of God guy, so he’s not completely out of the loop), but they’re both out of the box thinkers with gobs of energy. I love ‘em both.

I’m 24, going on 25 next month, so I’m right in the bullseye for this topic. It’s interesting to read this report, as some of it I can certainly identify with. I was homeschooled by caring parents who instilled in me a healthy sense of self-worth, and I’ve basically been working since my pre-teen years. Seriously. I have done freelance Web development and graphics design, performed music, and made real cash for years already. I haven’t even gone to college, yet I own my own home. It’s definitely a strange new world from the one my parents inhabited.

The key question is whether all this opportunity, skill development, technological prowess, and self-esteem translates to having a genuine impact on the world or simply produces a bunch of selfish brats. Thankfully, my parents always challenged me to pursue what is noble and excellent and not settle for personal indulgence and trite fluff. Believe me, if I started to act like a hotheaded jerk, I definitely knew about it.

But I can see how us kids growing up on video games, iPods, wads of credit cards, and a doting parenting style end up thinking so highly of ourselves that we think the world owes us a living and how dare anyone expect us to tow the line and prove we got what it takes. And as for submitting to any kind of authority, ha! It’s a YouTube world now. Everyone is a celebrity, and we got it all figured out.

But what if the Millenials have a point? The “adults” don’t have it all figured out. Our world is on the verge of economic, spiritual, and governmental collapse because of failed institutions that were unable to live up to their expected potential. And whose job is it going to be to fix all of this? Us. We’re starting to become the next generation of leadership. We’re now beginning to launch the companies, the churches, the creative culture, and the policies which will dominate the first half of the 21st century. We’re moving forward so fast with our new technological, decentralized, equalized vision of the world that our mindset is completely different from those people 15-20 years older. They’re comfortable with e-mail. We’re on Facebook, AIM, Twitter, Digg, and bunch of other sites I can’t even keep track of (scary, isn’t it?). Heck, we’re inventing whole new planets in places like Second Life.

I don’t claim to know what the future holds, but one thing is for certain: Millennials are not impressed with the dregs of the 20th Century. It’s a bold new world out there, and we’re going to reinvent everything from the ground up. No stone will be left unturned, and why should it? The adults screwed up, right?

Except soon we’ll be the adults…and we’ll have kids…and thus the cycle repeats itself all over again….

No, because the fact is that there is no single leader ever who has not failed at one time or another. We all fail, because we all make mistakes and we all have our moments of pride and “blindsightedness”. In short, we’re all human (surprise!).

So what we really need to be doing is a much better job of anticipating our weaknesses and our rough areas and preparing for them. Organize your life and your relationships in order to anticipate, recognize, and deal with failure. The success will come gradually as you learn from your mistakes, suck it up, and move forward. If you set yourself up for success, you’re basically tacking a huge sign on the back of your behind that says “Kick Me” and telling the universe you’re here. And the universe is not a kind taskmaster.

Set yourself up for failure, and when failure comes, you’ll be ready for it. In the long run, that is the only way to be truly successful.

Reading this article about the modern phenomena of boredom, I recall the stories I’ve heard of children and teenagers driving their parents nuts during summer break because they were bored. Bored? School is out, the weather is fine, the world is your oyster, and you’re…bored? Somehow I missed out on that when I was growing up — not because I’m anyone special whatsoever, but because I was blessed to be raised by parents who loved life and were interested in many things, and I was also blessed to be home schooled by them and taught that all of life is “school” and that we have something new to learn and discover each and every day.

So with that in mind, stop allowing yourself to wallow in boredom, and find something that pulls you out of yourself and pushes you into serving a higher purpose. In fact, I issue a challenge to you right here and now: go seek God with your whole heart, and do whatever it is that He commands you to do. I guarantee that your life will never, ever be boring again.