BENJI.ZIMMER.MN


Did you know I moved? Well I did. VISIT BENJI.ZIMMER.MN to stay in touch with Read more

Happy 1st Birthday Alexis Grace


Milestones define most of our lives: The moment I met Ashley. The day we got married. The day she walked into my work to surprise Read more

Lent Recap


By a show of hands, how many of you knew that Lent was 47 days? Okay you can put your hand down now & Read more

When It's Your Turn


A few weeks ago I posted about: what is the hardest thing you have endured? A few days later we watched and prayed Read more

Be encouraged.


In Paul's first letter to the church in Thessaloniki , he offers some closing words in chapter 5. "For God chose to save us Read more

Creating Doubt


Lately I have been thinking a lot about . . . DOUBT. Do you think it is healthy for churches, pastors or Christians in Read more

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Spiritual

Lent Recap

Posted on 04/25/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Honesty, Personal, Spiritual | Leave a comment

By a show of hands, how many of you knew that Lent was 47 days?

Okay you can put your hand down now & that goes for me too!

After about 30 days of participating in a Lenten fast, I started to do some math and realized I would be about a week short of Easter if I only fasted from sugar for 40 days. I was confused. I thought Lent was 40 days? Well as it turns out Lent is 40 days, but during a 47 day period in which you are supposed to “rest” on the sabbath. That means if you are fasting from something you can eat it every Sunday! I had no idea! I had been fasting including the Sundays for the first 30+ days. Just goes to show you how much I paid attention during certain Bible classes in college. In light of the new information I decided to fast for the full 47 days rather than change part way through.

THE PRACTICAL:

In 47 days I consumed 1,283 grams of sugar or 2.82 pounds of natural and artificial sugar. I am sure that my calculations are off slightly for each day, so it would be safe to assume that I consumed under 1350 grams of sugar or just short of 3 pounds of sugar. In the 6 days prior to Lent I consumed just over 1,200 grams of sugar! I went from terribly unhealthy to healthy & balanced. I was able to scale back from 200 grams of sugar a day to just 27.3!

The obvious side effect of my change in diet was a result in significant weight loss. I weighed 199.9 on the first day of Lent. I weighed 186.4 on the last morning. The total weight lost 13.5 pounds. With about 2 weeks to go my weight was actually 183.7 for a total of 16.2 pounds lost, but the last two weeks have been such whirlwind that I have not been able to workout and have been eating my stress.

THE PLAN:

The plan was to eat sugars differently. The goal was to find time to read 45 minutes per day. With better levels of energy and a depth to my reading, my personal hope was that I would develop my relationships and cultivate friendships around me in light of the newness of what God had done in my life.

THE RESULTS:

I succeeded in eating sugar differently and it made me feel a lot more energetic. As a result of the change in diet (the first few days were rough) my attitude improved as well as my outlook on life. I felt a passion and restlessness for the great things of life like I hadn’t felt in a long time. Things were looking up and was excited to see what God would do in my life during Lent.

I was able to finish two books, Love Wins by Rob Bell & Soulprint by Mark Batterson and I am most of the way through three other books: Running the Spiritual Path, Wooden, & King’s Cross. I have really enjoyed getting back to reading and devouring books like I did before Alexis was born.  Through the first 35 days I was right on target with reading 45 minutes a day during Lent.

THE CHANGE:

Lent was an amazing and encouraging journey until the last 12 days. I was drawing closer to God, my wife and my friends and enjoying the plan I had laid out; but our plans are not always God’s plans. On April 13, Sean Drozd, Ashley’s brother passed away and life took a different path. The sugar fast became harder to concentrate on and the reading plan fell off the to do list all together. Around the same time Alexis started teething and caught a cold. Sleep eluded me, diet didn’t matter anymore and surviving the ups and downs of each day became the only priority.

THE RECAP:

Lent started with a couple goals and I feel great that I was able to accomplish some of those goals by reading more, eating healthier and finding more positive energy. However, when Lent started one of the last things on my mind was what God sacrificed when He sent His son to the cross to die for our sin. I knew that was what Lent was about, but it was far from my goal to reflect upon. “Maybe around Easter I will think about that.” I said to myself.

Yet, at the end of Lent God’s sacrifice is the only thing I can think about. Jesus death was illuminated by the loss of Ashley’s brother. Putting myself in Ashley’s shoes or her parent’s role was a difficult and emotional task. What would happen if I lost my brother? What would happen if I lost my child? How would I react? What emotions would I experience? I can’t even imagine if I was asked to sacrifice my only child: I couldn’t do it.

Yet God did. For you. For me. For everyone.

Lent has been an emotional journey with extreme highs and tremendous lows but when it drew to a close on Resurrection Day I was flooded with emotion. God’s sacrifice trumps all the pain and heartache, all the sin and suffering, all the ups and downs. God gave so that we could live. I am so thankful for the sacrifice and although I know that there will be plenty of hard days to come I can walk confidently into the future knowing that God loves me so much that he makes all things new!

Be encouraged.

Posted on 04/03/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | Leave a comment

In Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessaloniki , he offers some closing words in chapter 5.

“For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”

AMAZING.

God chose to save us because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God has done the work. Jesus has paid the price. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. God loves us no matter what we have done, where we have been and how we have lived. God has chosen us. That is simply amazing!

WORDS.

The amazing of what God did for us should result in action. The words? Words of encouragement and building others up. The amazing news of what God did should spur you to action. Not just on Sunday, but everyday. We can not do anything to earn a place with God, but because of what God has done we should be encouraging others and building them up.

ACTION.

Now go and do it. Who do you know that needs to be encouraged? Whatever it takes, be an encouragement to someone today!

Creating Doubt

Posted on 03/30/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Honesty, Personal, Spiritual | 2 Comments

Lately I have been thinking a lot about . . . DOUBT.

Do you think it is healthy for churches, pastors or Christians in general to engage in conversations that create doubt? I think that this whole hullabaloo about Rob Bell‘s book Love Wins, will cause some who read it to doubt things that they have been taught about the Christian faith or its traditions. I believe that at times during Bell’s book he creates a doubt in the mind of the reader, at least he did for me. Is this irresponsible of him? Or is it okay to engage people in conversations that create doubt?

It has often been said to me and to others that “God is bigger than all of your doubts and questions.” If that is really true, then is it unhealthy to create a conversation of doubt about a certain part of the Christian faith or Christian traditions? Is any level of doubt healthy?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Lent – Day 20

Posted on 03/29/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | Leave a comment

Well, we are halfway. 20 days in and 20 days to go. How has your fast for Lent been doing?

I last wrote on Day 8, but things have turned the corner dramatically over the last twelve days. I am so grateful that I actually wrote out some of the goals I wanted to accomplish because I really feel a sense of accountability to the things I am trying to see happen over the 40 days of Lent. It really helps me to have measurable goals.

One of my goals was to read 45 minutes a day for Lent. When I last posted, I was struggling to find time to read, well I am happy to say that has changed a lot! After 20 days I should have 900 minutes reading under my belt.  Through the first 8 days I was already running behind. As of Day 20 I have just over 930 minutes of reading time in! I have finished one book, and I am almost finished with another one I have been working on from Mark Batterson. I have also been working through our new small group study, The Gospel in Life by Tim Keller that has challenged me to read more of my Bible as well. I am very excited with how things have gone at the halfway point and I am excited to finish a few more books over the next 20 days.

Secondly I was trying to cut back the amount sugar I was consuming. I am happy to say that I have really trimmed down! Not only have I lost 11 pounds in weight, I am feeling better and the crankiness is really starting to subside (my wife might say otherwise). Here is a chart of the first 20 days:

The three days with * are the days that I took longer bike rides and took an energy packet of food that contained 24 grams of sugar, so those days my numbers are inflated due to the workouts. After 20 days I am averaging 27.55 grams of sugar per day (the goal is 37.5 or less!). The longer this experience goes on the better I feel about the things I am eating and the results I am seeing in my overall health!

Lent has been an incredible journey so far and I am so grateful with how much my relationship with God has grown and deepened. I am excited to see how the next 20 days go! How about you, how is your journey through Lent going?

Lent – Day 8

Posted on 03/16/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | 3 Comments

If you were to ask my wife about how my first week of Lent went, she would respond with just one word:

CRANKY.

Last week Wednesday when Lent started I posted that I had a specific plan to cut back the amount of sugar I was consuming to the recommended daily amount for adult males (37.5 grams) from an average of over 200 grams I had been consuming blindly. What I have come to realize is that there are all kinds of websites that say all kinds of different things about sugars. I have read that 37.5 grams should include both natural and added sugars. I have also read where it says you can eat as much natural sugars as you would like but to avoid the added sugars at all costs with the maximum daily intake of 37.5 grams. After a week I am not sure I have the definitive number of exactly how much of which type of sugars I should have, but after a week of tracking here is a chart of my first week of sugar consumption:

After one week of tracking my sugar consumption I am averaging 22.6 grams of natural sugar per day and 15.4 grams of added sugar per day. Giving me an average of 38 grams of sugar per day. Just .5 grams more than I should be averaging!!! After 1 week I am so close to being back on target. On day 2 and day 4 I went on 30 mile bike rides where I consumed some natural sugar based energy shots that contributed 24 grams of sugar each time (took one on each ride) so my average without those 2 energy shots would be 31.5 grams per day. I would consider this a huge success after just one week!

The point of Lent and a fast from sugar consumption was not for a diet, but to help draw me closer to God and empathize with the sacrifice God made through Jesus. Lets be honest for a few minutes. This exercise of cutting sugar consumption started out pretty rough. I was cranky, tired and hungry most days. I wanted snacks! I wanted dessert! Most of all I just wanted to be left alone. For the first few days I know that I treated my wife poorly and I was living in a place where I needed some extra grace. After 8 days though I can finally feel my emotions and my body balancing back out and I am really starting to feel good again.

The second part of my Lenten plan was to read 45 minutes a day everyday for 40 days. Honestly, this hasn’t gone so well. I was so tired and cranky the first few days I found it nearly impossible to find time to read between all the other daily tasks. I wasn’t intentionally setting aside time and whatever time I did set aside I spent bike riding instead of reading. However slowly as the week progressed I started to make more and more time for reading amongst my daily routine so by weeks end I had read two hours and fifteen minutes total. Although not anywhere close to the goal of five hours and fifteen minutes for a week, it is a start and I am excited to get back into reading this week.

I don’t like how the week started but I am grateful how it finished. I am excited to continue on this journey and see what unfolds in the next week. How about you, how was your first week of Lent? Did you accomplish your goal everyday? Do you feel closer to God because of the fast during Lent?

Stay the same?

Posted on 03/10/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | 4 Comments

A friend of mine once made the statement: “How you get saved is how you stay saved.” More accurately what he really meant was “whatever experience you have when you become a Christian is how you will continue to live your Christian life.” Here are a few examples of what he meant:

  • If you come to know Jesus Christ through a charismatic event, you will continue to live out a charismatic Christian life.
  • If you come to know Jesus Christ because of knowledge and apologetics, you will continue to live your life defending the Christian faith.
  • If you come to know Jesus Christ in an event connected to social injustice you will continue to fight for causes that relate to social injustice.

Those are just a few examples. For me personally I found out the depths of what Jesus Christ had done for me through a mission trip to Jamaica. When I look back at my life since that day I have been on 15 mission trips, I have a degree in Intercultural studies and I continually support causes that fight social injustice.

I tend to agree with the statement, but I am wondering what your thoughts are and what the holes are in this statement, “whatever experience you have when you become a Christian is how you will continue to live your Christian life?” Do we really stay the same way or do we change?

Lent – Day 1

Posted on 03/09/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | 1 Comment

Every year when the season of Lent comes around I promise myself that I am going to do something awesome to spend time with God and give up something that will really draw me closer to God. But then every year I get started and I don’t finish. Maybe I am trying to hard or dreaming to big or maybe I am missing the point of Lent all together. Regardless of what has happened in the past, here we are again, the beginning of Lent.

A tradition that started sometime in the 5th or 6th century, Lent is the period of forty days leading up to Easter Sunday. Today, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of the forty days of fasting, prayer, repentance and sacrifice in preparation for the celebration of what Jesus did when he died on the cross for the sin of all mankind. Jesus, the son of God, forfeited His own life for the sin of all the world. Traditionally during the season of Lent we give up something to remind ourselves of the sacrifice that Jesus made when He died for us.

In short, Lent is a season to forgo something as a reminder of the sacrifice Jesus made for us. What are you going to give up? What is something so dear to you that you can not give it up without it being a sacrifice?

Diet Coke.

Just kidding. But society has taken Lent and turned it into something to skip for the sake of our waist lines. Lent is not about ditching chips, or soda or any other simple food item because of an excuse to diet, but Lent is as season to spend time without  something to remind us of what Jesus did on the cross in replacement for my sins.  I will ask the question again: what is something so dear to you that you can not give it up without it being a sacrifice?

Sugar.

This time I am serious. I am addicted to sugar. I have read that an average adult male should only consume 37.5 grams of sugar per day. I am guessing I have that much sugar in my system by the time I finish my breakfast and morning coffee. I tracked my sugar in take for one week, I was average 220 grams per day. The sugars I was consuming were not healthy ones from fruits either! I decided that for Lent I should give up sugar. I am going to try to cut back to the point where I am consuming what the average adult male should consume (this would mean roughly a 500% decrease from my current average that sounds like more than a sacrifice to me, it almost sounds impossible). I will keep track daily and see how it goes. Every Wednesday I plan on posting how my progress is going.

How does giving up sugar draw me closer to God? Honestly, it doesn’t. However, sugar has been stealing time from my family, my friends, my work and most importantly from God. The side effects from sugar consumption are too numerous to list here, but I am convinced that the sugar that I intake makes me more lethargic which causes my body to imbalanced chemically which in turn causes me to be imbalanced emotionally. When I am imbalanced nutritionally and emotionally I have a hard time connecting with other people and spending time with God. I believe, and I am going to test during Lent this year, that when I cut back on sugar it will help me feel more balance and in turn I will want to spend more time being active with my family and spend more time reading and talking with God. I also plan on intentionally setting aside 45 minutes everyday to read, something I have not done for a couple years.

What about you? What are you sacrificing for Lent? What are you doing to remind you of the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf? What is your action plan for the next 40 days?

 

Flame

Posted on 02/16/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | Leave a comment

I thought since it was Valentine’s week it would be a good idea to bring Nooma #2, also known as “Flame” to small group this week. If you haven’t seen this video from Rob Bell, then I would suggest you check it out. Basically Rob outlines the Hebrew words for love. In English we have one word for love. In Hebrew, the primary language of the Old Testament of the Bible, their were three words for love:

  1. Raya – translated as brotherly love or friendship
  2. Ahava – translated as commitment love or a willingness to go beyond a friendship and be committed to another
  3. Dod – translated as erotic love

These three strands of love are the ideal and perfect presentation of love. To be completely and fully in love with someone you need all three. If you do only one of them you are short changing the depth of love you have for the person you are with. An affair, for example is not all three, it is just the Dod. Bell makes the statement that he loves his wife and he loves tacos. The emphasis of loving tacos would be tied to Raya. Bell uses another example of a couple that has been married a long time and are still in Ahava with each other but they share no Raya or Dod. Relationships take work and at the core of any relationship should be love. Three types of love woven together create the perfect love with one another.

Think about your own relationships. What area of the three are you lacking? What area takes the most work for you? I know in my relationship with my wife there are different seasons when I struggle with each one. I would even go as far to say that my wife and I were not experiencing all three with each other when we first got married. However, as our relationship has grown and our love has deepened, we have come to a place where all three of these areas are deeper and more richly fulfilled in our life.

Friendship. Commitment. Sex.

Three simple words that create an amazing plan for love in your relationships. The problem is that culture (and advertising) often leave out two of the words and it leads to a lot of pain and heartache. My prayer for all of you today is that you would find and cultivate relationships and especially marriages that cultivate all three types of the Hebrew love so that you may experience the depth of Raya, Ahava and Dod that many amazing marriages do.

Are you a grace dispenser?

Posted on 02/09/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | 2 Comments

In 2006 I took a year off from Christianity. As bizarre as it might sound I turned my back on a God I knew was real and a faith that had given me hope for my whole life. I was tired of Christians and church people. I spent the year wandering, snowboarding and trying to control  my life. I went from an employee at big ministry to a bum in a ski town. It was a dramatic transition.

During my year away from the church one thing that changed in me dramatically was the way I treated people. When I was church going Christian I was quick to judge, fast to label and very  intolerant of different opinions and belief systems. I had become the very thing I was turning my back on: a judgmental Christian. Christian churches and the people that attend them can do a very convincing job of training you to act, behave and believe a certain way. After a lifetime in the church and being around church people I had become numb to the attitudes and tendencies that protruded in all the aspects of my life.

Spending a year outside of the regular routine of church and church people opened my eyes to how narrow my scope had become. I am so grateful for the time I spent with people of different backgrounds, beliefs and value systems. I like to think that during that year it helped me to really understand what I believe and why I consider it important. When I finally found my way back to church I was welcomed with open arms into the community of grace I still call my church family.

If I had not stepped away from the church I don’t know where I might have ended up or who I would have wounded in the process. But I am so glad God had a different road for me. I believe that we, the people, are the church. I believe it is our job to be dispensers of grace not just judges of character and conduct. Yes we need to do both, but I have found that far to many people spend more time on the judging of character than the dispensing of grace. When I typed this yesterday I said we need both judge and give grace, but we should spend a lot more time on the grace side. That is not what I really meant. I meant to say that we need to give grace, but we also need to help hold each other accountable, be there for people when they are hurting and stand beside them through all of life’s ups and downs. But unfortunately it didn’t come out that way, so I thought I would stop back by and clarify.

Who do you need to dispense some grace to today?

Luggage

Posted on 01/26/2011 by Benji Zimmerman Posted in Spiritual | Leave a comment

In one form or another all of us have been wounded:

Some wounds cut shallow and some wounds cut very very deep.

Some wounds we inflict upon ourselves and others are ripped into our lives by those closest to us.

Some wounds are just words and some wounds are abuse.

But no matter who we are or where we live we will be wounded by someone or something.

Last night in small group I was reminded about this fact: wounds affect us all. But the key to the woundedness we all live with, is how we deal with the wounds and how we respond the next time around. For all of us the wounds we incur will ultimately shape the way we live. It becomes our choice if we are going to deal with the wounds and reach a place of not only forgiveness but also the ability to wish our oppressor well. Sounds difficult right? Because it is. It requires more than we are capable of giving on our own. That is what makes Jesus so important. The very fact that God sent his only son to die on a cross for our forgiveness of sins shows that God is willing to give to us through an incredibly sacrificial circumstance. God’s gift of forgiveness empowers us to do the same for all of those who wrong us along the road of life.

There is an alternative. Instead of letting our wounds heal with the forgiveness and grace available to us through Jesus, we can let our wounds fester, puss and rot. The wounds will turn into bitterness, envy and revenge. We will start to carry our wounds around in suitcases and backpacks unwilling to let go of the past. The longer we carry these trunks of troubles or backpacks of burdens the longer we will have to start plotting  evil on others and create a cycle of woundedness in their lives.

The choice is ours: forgiveness or revenge.

We will all be wounded in this life. What choice will you make?

When we choose forgiveness it is as if God takes our wounds and heals them. Our wounds become scars of honor to God. Our wounds become a reflection of the great things that God has done in our lives. The cheesy idea that chicks dig scars needs to be traded in for God digs scars. They are His badges of honor. Scars show that we have been through the crap that life has to offer and we have chosen the high road, the road of forgiveness. Wounds may come this week, next month or ten years from now, but no matter who we are we can not escape them but rather we must learn to grow through them.

Is it time for you to trade in your luggage?

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