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I must confess, in this ugly, mess of an existence we call life, I find it difficult to see where God is in all of it.  I find myself oddly insulated from the outside world.  The inner sanctum of the church copy room is a fitting metaphor for my life at this point.  I don’t see the world as it is from my desk with no view, but worse than not seeing is acting like its not there, or that it’s easy to understand or dismiss.  The world is all around me, but i walk through it as a ghost, not interacting, not really caring all that much.  Then a night like tonight wakes me from my delusion.  The world is not to be ignored.  I find myself suddenly aligned with the athiests, the agnostics, and the godless heathens in the wonder that there could possibly be a god in the midst of this turbulent and hopeless world.  What could God have possibly to do with affairs or loveless marraiges or sexual immorality?  Where is God when people lie or selfishly and intentionally hurt each other.  What has God to do with exclusion, belittling, destructive words, or hatred?  Is God there in the bedroom of the unwed, or in the delivery room of the single mother, or in the abortion clinic?  Is God with the addict, the junkie, or the boozer trying just to escape it all?  Where is God these days?  How does one even come to find God in the midst of a messed up situation like this?  Sadly, people turn to a Church full of sanctimonious stuff-shirts who care more about  the look of a person and their political affiliation than their eternal salvation; a Church that claims to worship the Almighty God, but who stand expressionless and somber when claiming to do so; a Church whose mission is to make disciples, but only drives people away with messages about anything but the Gospel.  This Church cannot be the Church in which God abides.  Surely such a place would be vibrant, welcoming, loving, and above all genuine.  And here I stand on the inside.  If the gate is truly narrow that leads to salvation, I often wonder whether the gate will be open to me.  For too long I have, with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, denied this simple truth: we are imperfect people, just like everyone else.  Somehow we grow accustomed to the culture of church, and we forget that real life doesn’t happen when we come to church and put on our happy faces and act like everything is going well.  Life is just as difficult and messy on the inside as it is out there.  So what’s the difference?  Inside this institution, inside the walls of the Church, we can find comfort.  We find a way to set aside all the difficulty, all the failure, all the disappointment, disaster, and hardship.  It is a simple message that we all to easily forget: Jesus loves me, this I know.  This truth is universal…  In a world of contorted and complex truthiness, we can take solace in this: that despite how the world has treated us, God is still in heaven, and he has already sent his one and only, beloved over all creation, everlasting, genuinely loving son to show us the way to live apart from that.  And that’s where I find God in all that goes on, in all the craziness of life…  The simplicity that when I call on Jesus, he hears me and cares about my situation.  Though no one else may listen, Jesus is there to hear my crying.  Though no one else may care, Jesus is there to empathize with my situation.  And though no one else may know what I’m facing, what I’m dealing with in the hole i’ve dug myself that I call my life, Jesus has already been there.  He’s seen the world as it is: grimy, dirty, messy, and destroyed; and he has faced the worst life has to offer: he’s been called an illegitimate son of a woman scorned by society, he has been called a heretic and a friend to sinners, he’s been shunned by the religious institution, called a liar, hunted as a rebel, betrayed by those closest to him, was falesly accused, abandoned, beaten, crucified, died, and put in a grave.  And where, you ask, is God in all of this?  Where he always is, on his throne, ruling the heavens and the earth.  Not as a puppet master, controlling everything on a whim, but as a God deeply hurt when he sees the sad state into which his creation has transformed itself.  He was moved to action when he sent his son, and he is moved to action by the desperate cries of those who seek him.  He knows and understands the depth of our pain and would help us if we would but reach out our hand in humility and seek his.  And though it may not seem like the answer we look for, grace is freely given by a God who truly loves us, whether to change our situation, or to help us through the mire of the life in which we find ourselves enmeshed.  He calls to us, that we might not lose hope, saying, “my child, i’ve been there, and i promise I’ve got something better for you, if you’ll just follow me.”  Sadly, so many choose not to follow.  They see a God who has been either impotent or unwilling to help to this point, and truly believe the better way is to change their own life.  They may have even gotten this idea at a church, in the self-help gospel that seems now popular.  But this is not the gospel.  The only solace comes from living a life truly committed to following God’s way for us.  The narrow path is no cake-walk, no easy ride.  We are still walking through the grime and gruesomeness of the world around us.  But when we follow God, we travel on safe roads through the danger to find the reward that greets us in the end:  “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” -Revelation 21:4  This is my experience.  When it seems God is farthest away, i find him by simply looking for him.  In spite of all that would draw me away and take the heart of me, I find the face of Christ looking me straight in the eyes, beckoning me to come away from all this to a place he has prepared for me.

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Usually summer for me is more time with students and less time in the office, but this summer has turned out completely different. There is so much going on that it has been next to impossible for me to hang out. Hopefully that will change this week.

Next week, I am headed to Orlando with my wife and three other females. I am pumped for the break form business as usual. I am also excited to spend the week with some great people. Being in Orlando will put the icing on the cake. Look out Disney.

I am sad that the Magic lost last night. I knew that it was just a matter of time before the Lakers won, but I didn’t want to believe it. I am not really a Magic fan, but I really like Dwight Howard.

I saw two movies last week, Star Trek and Land of the Lost. I enjoyed both of them. I am not a huge Will Ferrell fan, but this time he did a great job. Star Trek was surprisingly awesome. I never really understood the hype, but enjoyed the movie none the less.

Book I’m Reading: I am still on The Godbearing Life

Music I’m Listening to: ESPN Radio. Sad but true

Funniest Thing From Last Week: I watched a teen girl attempt to swat a bug away from her face, but wound up slapping herself.  

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I was reminded of this verse when in conversation this evening about things that disturb me about the Church. Understand that I don’t mean the church that I attend, although we have our moments, but the CHURCH of all Christian believers across the globe.

When I first looked this verse up, I thought it wasn’t the one I was thinking of. Abolish means to “do away with”, according the “Dictionaire” on my iPhone. I thought, “no, that’s exactly what Jesus came to do. He came so that we would love each other into relationships with Chist, not legalize each other into an unhealthy fear of God.”

I love commentaries. Mine states my thinking exactly…who knew I was a Bible scholar (ha). It says, “God’s…laws were given to help people love God with all their hearts and minds. Throughout…history, however, these laws had been often misquoted and misapplied. By Jesus’ time, religious leaders had turned the laws into a confusing mass of rules.” (Life Application Study Bible)

This circles back to the conversation that I was having this evening and my point. We have, all too often, judged someone’s spiritual credibility, relationship with Christ and message from the Holy Spirit based on appearances. Piercings, blue jeans and untucked shirts, funky-colored hair, age, grammar usage, education, the place one chooses to sit in the sactuary, the name of the sanctuary, the name of the song, the volume of music, the instrument, the age of the person playing the instrument and on and on. These seem to be the things I hear on a regular basis. Things that are “just not right” or that “keep me from worshiping”. These are the “laws” we have confused, misquoted and misapplied in church.

Back to that word abolish. My thought was that Jesus came to “do away with” all those laws. BUT NO!! He came so that the laws God had set up for us would be brought to their true purpose and restored. He came so he could live those laws out the RIGHT way and reveal God’s character.

Wow! So here I am thinking about Jesus’ words and thinking about those people who burn me up. The ones who call themselves religous leaders and have “misquoted, misapplied and confused” a mass of rules. I am humbled too. I know I have done this. I know I have uncessarily judged and said things like “I can’t worship when the lights are so dark or the music is so loud or…”

“God forgive me. Help me to abolish the law and reveal your TRUE character.”

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Things like watching the lightening and thunder roll just beyond the golf course, then standing in the rain while wrapped in my favorite sweatshirt. Hamburgers off the grill with good friends followed by a game that requires stories told and many laughs. Sweet barbeque ribs and brisket – the kind of BBQ that’s finger-lickin good. Riding around with the windows rolled down and my hair blowing through the warm breeze. Long walks with the dog and my hubby while we chat about life.

I was reminded of the joys that noticing the little things can bring. I encourage my friends to notice the little things this week.

“A pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life” Proverbs 13:7

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i don’t just love the taste.   i know it’s good for me, and it’s what i should be drinking all the time, but more often than not, i find myself drinking soda.  see, i know it’s bad for me, but it tastes so good.  so good, in fact, that when i drink water, even the memory of drinking soda makes the water unpalatable.

my soda drinking habit not only corrupts the taste of water, but it somehow corrupts my reasoning: see, i know i should drink water at restaurants, because water is free, but for some reason i feel like i need to drink soda and pay out the wazoo for it.  and yet i know that the soda will only fill me up with air, possibly causing me not to enjoy the food i came to eat in the first place.  i have a much easier time ordering water if all my cohorts at the table order water, but the minute someone at the table orders soda, i feel the sugar sweats coming on…  the temptation to indulge myself in the sweet, fizzy, syrupy nectar.

then i remember the times when i worked outside on hot days.  walking for miles each day under the scorching sun, nearly reaching the breaking point, my body would cry out for respite.  and what, you ask, does one’s body yearn for in these harsh and unrelenting conditions?  water.  only water.  not soda, not gatorade, not tea or even lemonade.  not anything but pure, clear, cool water will quench the thirst of a truly parched man.  all others only serve as temporary and less than adequate substitutes.  i need water.

it comes as no surprise that God is like water.  i know that his ways are good for me, but i admit it’s difficult to follow.  i find myself following other things: selfish things, worldly things, temporary fixes, things that feel good in the moment, but things i know will never fill me or satisfy the deeper yearnings of my heart.  but they feel so good.  so good, in fact, that the thought of following God’s will seems unpalatable.

but i seem to lose my reasoning.  i know God’s ways are better ways, but living my own way seems so much easier and immediately satisfying.  and that’s where church comes in:  i need others around me at the table who are following God.  see, without other people, i am nearly powerless against the lure of my selfish desires.  others not only keep me accountable, but they have the same struggles with which to contend, and they make it easier to choose God’s way by choosing God’s way themselves.  without others, temptation is almost irresistable.

and at the end of the day, though i may have been a lifetime follower of  my own way, when life really gets though and it seems i’ve got no way out, the only thing my heart yearns for is God.  though all the other things in life seem to fill me up every other day, on days like these: these hot, dry, difficult days, all i can think about is God.  it’s Him i turn to in the trials.  and it is then i realize how empty and unsatisfying all the other things in life really are.  sure, they feel good in the moment, but they are only temporary and less than adequate substitutes.  i need God.

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So it was great to have a relaxing Saturday. We had one of those Saturdays where you have to find stuff to keep you busy. It was awesome to get bored of doing nothing. A rare phenomenon for me. Sunday was an awesome day. I enjoyed church, in which I had the privilege of baptizing one of our teens. Its always awesome to see a testimony of God’s transforming grace.

I finished the night off with K-Groups and a deep cleaning of the house since the grandparents are coiming in today. Grandpa will no doubt be dissapointed in my lawn care abilities since my front yard looks like the Amazon, but at least he will have a clean bed.

Book I’m Reading: The Godbearing Life

Music I’m Listening To: I’m on a bringing back the 90′s music kick. Green Day rocks!

Funniest Thing From Last Week: My lovely wife chasing the dog around the house b/c he was chewing on the wii remote.  

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