Part of my Thanksgiving celebrations this year was going to see Christian comedian Jeff Allen perform live in person. It was a night of funny, powerful and clean humor. A few months ago I discovered Jeff and have been watching all the clip ups of his I could find. So I was excited when he came out with a book, Are We There Yet?: My Journey from a Messed Up to Meaningful Life. Having finished it i have to say that this book is a must read.
“Are We There Yet?” Explained
Are We There Yet? opens up with the two stories from Jeff Allen’s marriage. Both the stories happened in an airport baggage claim. The first was how Jeff proposed to his wife. Jeff was quite the Romantic, so he asked his wife if she wanted to get married, and he had to clarify that he meant get married to him. Jeff described her response as, “‘Yeah, I guess, if that’s what you want.’ That’s what she said. Direct quote. And she said it so matter-of-factly, as if I had asked her if she wanted to eat breakfast at McDonald’s. That’s how excited she was at the prospect of spending the rest of her life with me.” He went on to explain that his wife had no idea how much baggage she was picking up.
However, the second story was far less happy. This time Jeff was picking up his wife after he discovered that she was having an affair. He wanted to be angry at her but every time he tried to be angrt at her for cheating on him, he remembered an instance of his own failing as husband. Though he was not yet a Christian, he now credits this to the work of the Holy Spirit in his life.
He follows up this story with a poignant analysis of how we often go through life. This is where he explains what “are we there yet?” means:
“Truthfully, if I thought at all about my future, it was only in terms of something that I would get to later. I always assumed that as I got older, I’d figure things out—that life would just sort of come together and the answers to the deep questions about meaning and purpose would somehow magically materialize for me. All of it was supposed to arrive someday. But it seemed like someday kept getting stuck in traffic or something, because I found myself constantly looking around and asking, Why am I not there yet?”
Jeff Allen, Are We There Yet?
How often do we go through life with an are we there yet attitude? Trying to achieve happiness and success in life, but never taking the time to figure out what happiness and success actually looks like. Living like a hamster in a wheel, running and running, but going nowhere. The truth is this is what a life focused on ourselves, and a life without Jesus results in. This is what Jeff Allen eventually figured out.
Life is Meaningless Apart from Jesus
In his show, Jeff Allen joked that after you get past the early chapters of the book, it is quite an uplifting book. Jeff does not hide anything from his own past, he opens up about his drug and alcohol addictions, his anger problems, and his own abusive behaviors. Through AA, and counseling he managed to work through these issues. Yet, his still life was meaningless, and the feeling of “are we there yet?” still remained.
Then a friend gave him some sermon tapes and he listened to one on Ecclesiasties 1, where Solomon talks about life being meaningless. This was his reaction to it:
“Unbelievable. Solomon really got it, and this was what—three thousand years ago? “What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?” Nothing, I thought. The eyes never get enough of seeing, the ears enough of hearing. I was staring at our video library of movies and our shelf full of music CDs—hundreds of visual and audio distractions—and thinking, How did he know this? Nelson continued through the first chapter as it asked why generations pass without anyone noticing, why people forget you after you die, why we labor yet lack any real feeling of accomplishment. It was just like Mark Twain said: ‘At your funeral, people will lament you for an hour, and then forget you for a lifetime.’ It’s all meaningless! I wanted to scream. Yes!”
Jeff Allen, Are We there Yet?
Is this not how we often approach The Bible, even as Christians? We forget that His word gives us life (Psalm 119:93), they are not burdensome (1 John 5:3). Our expectation is that The Bible will not speak to our lives, and are shocked when it does. From there, Jeff Allen started eating up everything he could get his hands on about Christianity and became a Christian himself. Life was no longer meaningless.
A Highly Recommended Read
Overall, I highly recommend Are We there Yet?. It is funny, heartbreaking, in parts appalling, and ultimately a testimony to the power of God to change lives. As I talked about in my last post how Christian Athletes Should Encourage Us, this book is another strong example of a public figure using his platform for The Kingdom. For more, read his book or watch his interview with Glenn Beck, which I have included bellow. Also, here is one of my favorite clips of him explaining how teenagers are God’s revenge on mankind.
