I’m a theologian only in the sense that everyone is a theologian, because we all have ideas about God.

I am a theologian of the cross because I feel acutely the weight of my own sin, weaknesses, failures, and fodlishness. If perhaps I were a “better person,” more resilient, more self-confident, who was alway on time and had a bunch of trophies and awards, I would be making several thousand dollars per week as a theologian of glory, inspiring greater hope in good people that they could be even better.

As it is, my teachers often said wasn’t performing to my potential. I know what it feels like to be a disappointment, to miss homework assignments and forget to pay the light bill.

I was the person picked last for sports teams. I have never been photogenic. Girls laughed when they found out I had a crush on them.

I have never even lived up to my own expectations for myself.

I’m not sharing this to put myself down or elicit sympathy. I’m simply sharing, that, as a minister, as a preacher, as a “divine,” as they used to call them, I really only know how to preach the Gospel to messy, unimpressive people like me.

I wouldn’t really know what to say to impressive people, driven people, or people whose plans succeed most of the time. Except to tell them the one person they can’t impress is God, so they don’t need to be trying so hard. There’re allowed to have messy kitchens, bad hair days, maybe even a nervous breakdown or a failed marriage or even a foreclosure, like the rest of us.

Who knows what God might be able to do with you, if you learned to fail good and miserably every now and again, and own it!

[I suspect, but was never actually told, that it was preaching like that, that got me fired from my last preaching job. But in my defense, I was preaching through Galatians, and they never let me get to chapter 5, where I was going to gush on and on about all the delicious fruit the Holy Spirit grows in a mosh pit of ordinary sinners who have given up on trying to be impressive. But I never could have gotten them there until they were willing to confess that every quivering molecule of salvation is none of self, and all of Thee. That the only contribution you make to your salvation is the sin that made it necessary. That by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone; are the wax on, wax off, the sand the floor, and the paint the fence of Christian discipleship.

These develop the muscle memory of the soul, and train us as Daniel LaRussos of the faith to compete in the All Valley Tournament of the ordinary Christian life, where the actual battle is with Satan, a fallen world in the throes of its rebellion, and our own sinful flesh.

Without grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone as our reflexive mantra, we are Johnny Lawrences fighting Cobra Kai style. I hope you have seen Cobra Kai to understand that this will only lead to pride or despair.]

Now, where was I? Oh, yes.

I am a preacher of what David Zahl calls low anthropology, which simply means the less I trust in myself, my good intentions, my religious affections, and my own ablities and accomplishments; the more I’m going to look to Christ alone as my wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30).

I am not a particularly profound preacher – theologian; nor a particularly original one, or even—truth be told—a very disciplined one.

Recently, at the tender age of 43, I was diagnosed with profound ADHD, and possible autism spectrum disorder.

I’m only sharing that to share this. My faith is rooted in the Great Tradition: the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds; a Christ-centered approach to the Bible; Classical Theism; an exacting Law – Gospel distinction; and the humbling knowledge that I am standing with a great cloud of witnesses who would recognize my Christian faith as common and “like precious” to theirs (2 Peter 1:1). These provide me with the boundaries and stability my neuro-spicy brain so desperately craves.

People like me aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel. We’ve told Jesus to please take that wheel, because we see that He has gotten countless generations of saints to glory in this same vehicle, going the same way.

The Lord’s Prayer, the Psalms, the Book of Common Prayer, the words of old hymns by John Newton and Isaac Watts are the “stimmies” of my soul. A passage from Augustine’s Confessions, or Luther’s lectures on Galatians, or one of Bernard of Clairvaux’s homilies on the Song of Solomon are my fidget spinners. They protect me from sensory underload or overload.

But here’s what I’m learning: I don’t think that only neuro-atypical believers benefit from ordering and reguating our interior lives along these lines. Rather, I suspect having these sorts of rhythms and boundaries is essential for every believer.

Where prayer begins to flow as natural as breathing, and the Scriptures are engraved by the Holy Spirit on our hearts, so they’ve captured our imaginations, our wills, our desires. When we learn to rest in Christ while we’re in rush hour traffic, or changing a diaper, or folding the laundry. And we don’t feel the need to calculate good works—we just do them. When we come to understand that going to work, changing the baby, and doing the dishes are good works, holy and acceptable to God.

I hate how the Pietism Brigade will tell you those everyday good works aren’t “enough,” because even unbelievers do do them. That’s not pious or holy on their part, because it means they dont actually trust that doing ordinary things in Christ makes a difference.

Do you see what there doing? They’re trying to draw you back into being impressive.

If they want to be bears who have learned to ride unicycles, that’s between them and God. But they have no right to shame you into leaving the den God Almighty has given you to take dominion over, to go ride unicycles with them.

I’ve read somewhere that everyone wants to change the world, but nobody wants to do the dishes. But I swear to you, beloved, Jesus will meet you in the pots and pans of your life: Christ plays in ten thousand places (Gerard Manley Hopkins).

But if you’re too busy trying to be impressive on the unicycle, He’s liable to have to knock you off that thing before you ride it straight to hell.

I have aready explained that I am not particularly original, clever, or even terribly disciplined in my approach to the Christian life. So this is by no means a systematic how-to guide.

This is just me, an unimpressive sinner-saint (can you believe God calls a fool like me a saint?) with an ADHD brain trying to pass along what little insight I have, by the grace given to me, to other weary pilgrims, in hope that some of you might actually read it, and perhaps even receive small comfort.

It really all seems to come down to these: First, may your only comfort in life and in death be that you belong body and soul, in life and in death, your Faithful Savior, Jesus Christ (Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1).

Second, in view of the Lord’s mercies [which are new every morning, Lamentations 3:21-22] present your [ordinary] bodies to Him as a living sacrifice [doing the dishes, baking the casseroles, returning the shopping cart], holy and acceptable to God [because you’re doing them in Christ, and He makes you and your ordinary, imperfect works acceptable to God] which is your reasonable service [everyday worship] (Romans 12:1).

Third: remember that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control are the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of you (Galatians 5:22-23). Pray for them, and trust the Holy Spirit to grow and mature them in you.

And finally, in all of that, be content to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands (1 Thessalonians 4:11).

It many not be as sexy as riding the unicycle, but it’s gotten uncountable numbers of saints to glory. And on their way there, they did quietly change the world in tangible ways, while not neglecting the dishes.