God showed up

Every Thursday at 6:30 we have a men's Bible study. Stephen usually leads this group, but this week he was in Savannah so he asked me to fill in. Not too hard of a job, but still one that takes some effort and study. I prepared a basic outline, did some Greek study, read through a commentary, and came up with a page of notes and open ended questions to fuel the discussion. Well last night I didn't get much sleep, and I got to the place where we meet early with the anticipation that no one was going to show up. Safe to say I was in a bit of a bad mood.
6:30 rolls around then 6:35 and I was telling myself, "Two more minutes then I'm going up to the church to take a nap then get to work." I take a couple sips of coffee and in walks Taylor. Taylor has been going to the group longer than I have but even still I have not connected with him or gotten to know him. So I made it a point to just try and get to know him from the other end of the table.
We talked the entire hour about marriage, growth in Christ, and everything in between. I really got to know Taylor, and he got to know me. After an hour had passed he offered to buy me breakfast, and if you know me I never turn down a free meal. So at breakfast we continued our talk and we discussed my fund raising. By the end of the meal he had told me that he was going to talk to his wife about what they can contribute to me.
It went from a morning where I was tired and grouchy about no one showing up to Bible study, to me making a connection with someone and building a relationship. It's just amazing how the small things that happen show how active God is in our lives. Taylor had said he didn't even set his alarm because he didn't want to come today, but he still just popped awake at just the right time.

Longings vs. Failures

Throughout my life I have always considered myself an optimist. My mother always commented on that and I genuinely believed that the proverbial glass was half full. I started to take refuge in that and "everything's cool." That's just how I roll and always have.
So I started going through one of the text books that I breezed through without much thought. I don't even remember the class, and I just remembered the name of the professor that taught it (I'm on the 5th chapter). This book is supposed to be used for small groups but it also is a pretty good self devotional book, titled Holy Conversation by Richard Peace. Just for a brief overview, the book is set up to facilitate conversations with believers and non-believers about... well God (sounds cliche).
Well Mr. Peace has brought up a small amount of inner turmoil for me. As I stated earlier I am on Chapter 5 which is entitled "Talking about Need." I read a small passage talking about a guy who had everything going right in his life. Then the discussion questions are designed to for us to probe inward at what makes us tick to see how to talk to other people about what makes them tick. These discussion questions started talking about the longings and desires that we feel, and asked how God used these or fulfilled these. The page and a half talked about how we can easily talk about our hopes, aspirations, longings, and desires rather than our fears and failures. It states clearly, "The bottom line. Wheras it is often difficult to talk about our faults an failings, it is much easier to discuss our hopes and aspirations. These longings come from God and direct us back to God."
I wrote a side-note. "Why do I feel opposite???"
So thought... and I prayed.... and I thought some more. Am I not a true optimist? I'm feeling pretty negative right now. I feel like my half glass of water has evaporated and I just have the white crust at the bottom.
As I sit here writing this I am just constantly looking at the word feel two lines up. "I feel" "I'm feeling" I'm getting off this emotional roller coaster. I choose to see my cup as Psalm 23 says it to be. Sorry if I disappointed you and you wanted to have a pitty party with me.

Rough Morning

Yesterday morning I was recruited for one of the many crazy tasks around this house, loading and transporting an extremely heavy entertainment center to a consignment shop. My sister-in-law's fiance and I were the two logical choices because we are two handsome strapping young men, if I do say so myself. We had two supervisors, Sherri and her Dad. Everything went smoothly, until we had to carry it into the shop. I had to duck down 2 inches to get it through the door, and that's when it happened; I have once again hurt my back.
2 inches.
Seems like everything that happens to me on the negative end of the spectrum happens because of a small margin. Either I didn't act quick enough or hard enough, or I acted too quickly and too aggressively. I need some balance in my life, but I think that would probably take a strong back... I'm going to the chiropractor.

Psalm 22

Psalm 22

I have really tried to get more into the scriptures more everyday. I hate to say it but actually reading and being in God’s word has always been a struggle for me. I have always really approached it as a last resort. “Okay God you aren’t talking to me through a burning bush… so I guess I’ll go read the Bible or something,” has pretty much always been my thought. This morning in my preparation of scripture memory verses (which I also shamefully admit that I am not disciplined enough to do) I came across the last words of Jesus on the cross from the book of Matthew, “Eloi, Eloi lama sabachthani?” -which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46 NIV) After reading it I can remember every professor who ever discussed this verse saying that it was a quote from the 22nd Psalm, and in coming across it this morning I realized that I don’t think I had ever read the 22nd Psalm in that context, if ever. So I turned back a couple hundred pages in the Bible and read it.

I was stunned. I have been feeling like God really owes me a break lately. Fund raising is going terribly, I am stuck in my in-laws basement, we can’t get traction financially, and it’s really starting to get to me. But as I read through this psalm I felt comforted. In Jesus quoting this text from the cross, we are often confused about why Jesus was saying that God had abandoned him and how He could even do that because Jesus was in fact God incarnate. Well if we read down to verse 19 “But you, O Lord, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.” It all starts to make sense. This is not Jesus whining to Daddy about not helping but instead a proclamation of full reliance on God the Father. Bam, I feel like a whiny red-headed stepchild at the family picnic (an oh so wise idiom picked up from my mother). Maybe this situation is not God just trying to get a rise out of me but rather it is a call back to him. I’m not trying to claim understanding of God’s ways, but this thought is setting my spirit at ease. None of the things that have been bothering me can compare to what the David was writing about or what was clearly experienced by Jesus. I am weak, and I think that’s the lesson to be learned here. I lean on my own understanding and care too much about the things in my life.

Maybe this epiphany will help kick my butt into getting into the Bible more, I think it will.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm%2022&version=TNIV