Really...quite a random blog

Kendra and I still aren’t in our house, although we’re definitely closer to closing than we’ve been yet. This is a crazy long process. It’s cool though, because what has caused so much frustration and stress God is using to re-teach me a lot of really good truths about myself in Himself and life.

It’s like I’m slowly learning how to be me again. A big old friend to come back along is the fact that my mistakes as well as successes have a purpose. They’re much less fun, but learning is important and I can dig that. Embrace your failure by learning and not repeating those mistakes. It is easier said than done…this flesh is weak. So it is by the Spirit that we gotta be livin.

Now for a new thought.

I have been thinking about my emotions in reference to God a lot lately, because I used to really cry out to God often and I haven’t really let go like that in a while, which can’t be an altogether good thing. I am a very passionate person and somehow, I seem numbed to a lot of really moving things in life of late. For example, the grace of God in the life of my amazing wife and son, how I’m allowed to stay in their lives even when I screw up, how my niece and nephew both recently decided they want to be baptized, and how God protected my parents on their travels through the Blue Ridge Mountains and North Carolina playing mountain disc golf (My mom didn’t even fall down once! If you know her, you know that’s an accomplishment. (Love you mom!!!))

I think this lack of emotion towards God that I’ve been living has a whole lot to do with the solitary nature of our life right now. Kendra, Dean, Audrey, and I don’t really see anyone but Quincy and Liz and my parents. Outside of that we spend virtually no time with anyone, which is fine to an extent, but after so long it gets to feel like we’re isolated and alone in our little tiny world. It is no mystery why we’re struggling. We see only the same aspects of God in Christ’s body that are reflected in our itty bitty little circle of people that we see, and for whatever reason, we’ve not delved farther into the internet communities of Jesus loving people yet. I know these are remediable problems, and God’s grace is sufficient for us in all of these areas.

This blog seems to be really wild and going everywhere today, so…how about a tongue twister…Say it loud and fast 10 times:

Entering, Injury, Energy

FUN!!!!!!!!!

Happy day all!

Hope. You read this?

So...as life rolls on we have found ourselves in the process of buying a house.

If all goes well, the next blog I write may well be written in our new (old) home. It's an interesting feeling signing papers that commit you to buying something that will likely take you until you're a senior citizen to pay for. It's a big deal.

If this all goes through, Kendra and I are laying down roots here that are alot deeper than we anticipated ever wanting to lay down in Evansville, IN. It all feels kinda crazy, but we believe it is what's best and right for Dean.

The whole process of making this decision has been another revelation of God's grace to us, and if this house deal falls through, we know it wasn't the right time or house for us. Although it is really hard to imagine that, because this is the house we've dreamed of one day living in and never thought possible to own. Throughout this process God keeps reminding us that our hope must be in Him and Him alone. This is a truth we learned together early in our marriage: Misplaced hope will often lead to anxiety, which can lead to a whole lot of other bad situations relationally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Christ alone can be our hope. If we place our hope in a job, house, friendship, or any person other than Christ, we are setting ourselves up for trouble.

The word hope in the New Testament is actually translated as "a confident expectancy", which varies greatly from most of it's modern day uses like, "I hope to see you this weekend", or "I sure hope you know what you're doing". The way hope is used nowadays could usually be translated as, "maybe so, maybe not". This is a far cry from the hope mentioned in reference to Christ. When we place our hope, desire, and expectations in anything other Christ, we leave ourselves open to being let down and many people then feel like God let them down. Instead of letting them down, God is there guarding and ordering their path. When we allow ourselves to get so emotionally invested in an idea or desire that we get anxious, hurt, angry, or upset when it doesn’t happen like we’d have liked, we have misplaced our hope.

Hope belongs only in Christ. It’s easy to get excited about some new possibility and mistakenly place our hope elsewhere, but it is wiser to guard your heart when exciting possibilities come your way by always keeping your joy and peace in Christ and Him alone. Obviously I don’t mean to not be excited about things, however, be excited in Christ. Let not the things be the point. Let Christ be the point and everything else is a bonus. I will leave you with this…which is the section of Bible people that know me most associate with me.

Philippians 4:6-8

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

In the words of hippies, Christians, and Jews alike…Peace

As the picture of this handsome boy shows...Easter 2011 has come and gone. Time is whooshing past so rapidly nowadays and there are so many things I want to be doing, but don't have time or resources for. I very much want to spend more time at home with my family, start a disc golf business, write a book, read a book, play more disc golf, and then there are my growing desires to paint and compose new songs. Not to get too poetic and whiny about it, but I often feel trapped in a speeding life that’s filled with untapped potential and unfulfilled dreams…not a good feeling.

Also, we've been enduring the most unrelenting stormy weather I've ever experienced these past few weeks. Severe thunderstorm after severe thunderstorm, flooding, tornado watches and warnings are much, much more common than sunshine. This of course limits our time spent outdoors on weekends, which is bothersome to say the least, since it was a really long cold winter for southern Indiana.

So, after rereading the above I'm reminded that Paul instructed the Philippians to do everything without complaining, an instruction which I am clearly doing really well with. (Please note my sarcasm… which is almost like complaining about complaining)

This train of thought, however, takes me to Jesus’ words about the sparrow, which is always really encouraging to me. He said that not even a sparrow falls from the sky apart from God the Father. Therefore, even the littlest details of my life don’t go unnoticed, which means that all the little things that I don’t like and complain about, God not only allows, He can and use them to my eternal good and is actively doing so now.

Thank God for Jesus! He is risen and, in Him, so are we by grace through faith.

In spite of my honest intentions of writing more often, I have fallen short yet again.

Now here I am, it's April of 2011, and Dean is already 17 months old, walking, babbling, and constantly testing the limits of his freedom. He understands quite a lot, but he listens only a little... Actually, sounds kinda like me. By the grace of God, I've managed to learn so much truth and yet, in this whirlwind of life, I live that truth so little.

I've often referred to a follower of Jesus' lack of living in Him as mindlessness. It functionally feels like we simply got busy with the cares of life and forgot to mindfully live in the Truth we believe. We have the best of intentions, but our actions just don't back our words or ideals. The reality is that when we aren't living mindful of the fact that we're in Christ, we're not just absent minded. Instead we're living in ourselves, in Adam. In Adam, sin and death entered. In Christ, life entered.

Instead of just simply trying to remind ourselves to think and live a certain way, I believe we should place more value on our thoughts and mentality knowing that it's really a choice of life and death. It's not a little thing.

If I allow my emotions to drive, I will be the angry, frustrated, mean, jerk that I'm really good at being. I easily discount these flaws because "its just how I am", which is true. That is exactly how I am when I am not consumed with Christ, proactively living and interacting in Him. Of course, this is only possible because of the grace of God working on our behalf in and through us through faith, which comes from God revealing himself to us through Christ.

So really... I have everything I need to live the way I believe I ought to as one who loves Jesus Christ. I don't lack anything, because of Christ. My little boy can and will grow up in a love and grace driven environment. He can know what it is to live free in Christ. Dean can live free to enjoy life without allowing conditions or emotions to sway his mindset.

So let's begin again the conversation about important things...Life and Death things. All the while I want to take more delight in God's provision, whether it be friends, family, an excellently crafted beer, a job, a vehicle, or our amazing perfect healthy child. Thank God for grace!

Life is happening...I'm in.

10 days ago

10 days ago I posted about Dean falling. It’s amazing how he has already dramatically grown in his ability to stay balanced! He’s almost constantly standing up on his two legs, and holding onto whatever support he can find around.

He fearlessly attempts to walk and climb, and is learning his current limitations pretty rapidly, one fall at a time.

Dean has also learned to fall with a bit more grace than he did a week ago, which results in less pain for him, and a much more expedient return to his previous position to try again.

I see all of this and I immediately think of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians about being in Christ. He said that ‘if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.’

This is what new creations do…they learn rapidly, grow rapidly, growth is constant, sometimes painful, but each failure leads to a faster restoration and more learning and growth. They have spurts where they grow more than others, but they don’t stop growing.

Although the theme seems to be a reoccurring one on here, I really suck. Not in a woe is me or self deprecating way, but in reality it is a fact that, apart from Christ, I really, really suck. I complain, I whine, I forget the historical fact that I’ve been placed into Christ by grace.

Of course, even in my suckage God has given grace. I’ve grown through it all. But when reading Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthians, there was a key verse before that new creation verse that really jumped at me when reading it… Paul said, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh” This includes ourselves. My perspective about people around me, the Church, atheists, agnostics, and “Christians” has to change. This is a crucial part of being a new creation in Christ….it’s obvious, but it’s new and real to me right now. So by God's grace, through faith, my mind is changing about people.


“2 Cor. 5:16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

New creations don’t stop growing.

So Dean fell down today.

He's been pulling up on everything he can get to and he's so brave, but with little balance to go with it. This leads to your typical tumbles and spills that come along with a little human learning to be a biped. Although, it's likely the first of many, today we couldn't catch him when he fell head first onto a plastic block on the floor.

For a few seconds everything stopped. Time, life, everything! It was Awful!

This suspension of time and life, paired with the loving fear I experienced made me realize a few things about God that I never understood so well until right then.

1: God experiences pain when I fall because I tried to walk on my own.

2: After 30 years of life, I still suck relentlessly and I need Jesus' life in me more now than ever, because I'm doomed to fall without it.

These aren't revolutionary new ideas. They may be old hat for many people, but they became more true and real to me today than ever before.

Now for bedtime with the fam.

Priorities.

With determination to write something today and so little time left to write this, I think of what matters most.

Christ.

He is the only reality I should be consumed with. Not bills that are past due...not my flesh...not my failures or past mistakes.

Just Jesus.

I in Him and He in me. That's my reality. All sins are forgiven and forward I go in Him. Reality.

Sometimes, when simply living life, it's easy to forget to remember what's real and really important. My opinions, feelings, and preferences aren't really important.

Truth is, and Jesus Christ is that Truth.