"Cause You're Smart!"
A couple of weeks ago i was sitting in my living room watching my three year old playing, trying to keep up with her older sisters and mostly just trying to get a laugh out of us all. As a Dad, it is so fulfilling during those moments to just see your kids playing, having fun, enjoying "being"... So much of life, we are judged and loved conditionally, "what have you done for me lately"... but with our kids, especially when they are little like my Abby, 3 years old, there is nothing that she could possibly do to make me love her more. She's too cute :)
Anyways, I am an affectionate person and enjoy giving and receiving lots of hugs and kisses in our little family. As Abby danced her way around our living room i told her to come over and give Daddy a "big hug". She always asks when we are done, "was that big enough?" Most of the time I say, "no, I need a bigger one", and she will proceed to try and squeeze the air out of my neck if it was possible.
On this occasion, after she hugged me, i said "Abby how do you know that Daddy loves you"... I expected her to say because you tell me, or because you give me big hugs... something like that. Instead she said "Cause you're smart!" :-) Lori was sitting in the room when this happened and we both just laughed and laughed. Of course since she got the laugh, any time I ask her now - "how do you know daddy loves you" she repeats that phrase, "cause you're smart".
Well, as they say... "from the mouth of babes.."
I wanted to write this down for two reasons. One, because these little cute sayings are easy to enjoy, and quickly forgotten. I wish I had written down these kinds of statements from each child. They literally are statements rich with insight and wisdom that can be gained for life.
Secondly, I am deeply concerned about something in the church today. Unity of the brotherhood. Love. They will know we are Christians by our love... Do we understand? The wisdom of a simple statement by my Abby - in essence - Dad, you love me cause it is smart to love me. So simple. So why don't we understand that in the body of Christ, we should love each other because it is a smart thing to do? I mean, what is smart about carrying a grudge? What is smart about packing our closets full of baggage containing the hurts of the past. Bitterness, unforgiveness, pain...
The truth is, the more wisdom we gain, the more of life we experience, the more we realize the truth of Ecclesiastes 1:18 - "in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." And so we start to think that the "smart" thing to do is to withdraw, to pack it away, to push it into the back of the closet where we can't see it any more. But rare is the person who lives their whole life in the same house. Eventually, we are forced to clean out our closest. And if we don't, you know what happens after we die, those who are left behind have to clean out our closets for us. I've seen it happen at funerals, in my counseling office years after someone has passed away - unresolved relationships. How smart is that?
"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!. It is like precious oil upon the head... It is like the dew of Hermon... For there the Lord commanded the blessing - life forever." Psalm 133
That last phrase speaks to me - "life forever". For those of us in the body of Christ, we are going to live together forever. So when do we want to resolve our differences - now in this lifetime, on this planet where we get to choose? Or do we want to wait until we get to heaven and have to wait for Jesus to bring peace. Seriously, why wait?
Why should we love each other? Why should we let go? Why should we forgive? Why should we unpack our closets, empty our old suitcases... because it is smart.
www.simpleworship.net
Check it out. As I continue to wait on God to show me his long term plans for my family and me, it became very clear that I needed to create a platform from which to share ministry, ideas and experiences with those that I have ministry relationship with. Having promoted other people my whole life/career, I have spent very, very little time promoting to others the music and ideas that God gives to me. I have felt very clearly led to do that at this time, regardless of what some people might think... what might some think? That I am arrogant or prideful in promoting myself. But that would be a judgement of motive, and that is not what God wants us to do to one another - so I will just listen to God's voice and try and ignore the voices of discouragement - and believe me, there have been many in the past 10 years of my life.
I do not have any grandiose dreams or big visions of what I am trying to do here. So what am I trying to do? Be faithful. God has given me some level of gifting, if I don't use it, he is going to bless someone else - why not me? I may never have a song recorded or distributed widely - but that's not the point, the point is being faithful. So I have dusted off the old songs, started working on the new ones, and started to raise money to pay for the first of what I hope is several recording projects over the next few years. No more waiting 6 years between recordings.
To move forward I am working to create a variety of web-sites that will promote the traveling ministry, the music itself and a web-based teaching ministry. The teaching and traveling ministry is: www.simpleworship.net, for now, the music and fundraising site is: http://www.indieheaven.com/artist_main.php?id=76779 (just copy and paste that whole line and it will take you straight to my site)
So celebrate God's goodness with me - surely he has been good, he has made the path clear, at least for this step. (proverbs 3:5-6)
Well,
It's been one year since I started this blog thing. And like all new habits, after a couple of weeks they fall by the wayside. In this case, a year has gone by, however, as bleak as that seems, I did throw up a few posts back then, which really, truly is better than nothing.
So I here I am, marking time one year later, 5 lbs lighter (hey, it's better than 5 lbs heavier :) and I am setting off into new career directions, jobs and ministry opportunities?
SAY WHAT!?
Yup, time was up at DGBC on Feb 25th. Marked one of the most signficant periods of ministry in my life. Five years of personal and corporate spiritual growth. Growth in my family as our third baby was born. Personal growth as I was stretched spiritually, had many weaknesses exposed, and generally had to come to grips with my shortcomings as a member of the human race. Professional growth as I preached about a dozen messages, conducted my first funerals, weddings... the list of firsts is too long. I thought I might be here 20+ years, but God has different plans for us. Not completely sure what those are yet, we didn't leave exactly when and how I had planned to, but God is quickly opening all kinds of doors as fast as I can pray. Actually, we have been praying about this off and on since the late fall of 2005, but everytime I would think God wanted us to leave, I could not see what the next step was - so, as someone once told me, "if in doubt, don't". So we didn't, until late this winter when things just became very clear that God was finished with us here.
You would think that having "left the nest" without knowing where we were going twice before, we would be old hands at this particular approach to life, work and ministry. Not so. Still, incredibly stressfull. Not really sure why, God has NEVER let us down. Not even close. He doesn't even give me time to consider that as even a possibility. We are so blessed.
But in that blessing is great pain. Pain in leaving great friends. Pain in leaving behind dreams for someone else to champion. Pain in leaving a comfort zone.
So I really don't know what is next. But R U KIDDING ME? It's going to be GREAT :) !!
Don't know if I will start blogging again regularly or not. So for the record, I ran about 4 5 k's last year. The final race time was down to about 28mn. Hoping to get under 27 this summer.
